IITF - 32 years - at the crossroads

As a visitor of the trade fair from its 3rd edition till now i have seen the same grow from one populated with state pavilions, then the SAARC nations and more recently the chinese invasion - it has been one of great anticipation every year.

As school kids we would roam the 2 days of the weekend and generally hang around the book stores and hope that on the last day - the owners would sell us some books at deeply discounted rates as books weigh a lot to ship back!!

Those were the times when terorrism was somthing in Punjab and Kashmir and rest of India was a different state. The cops on duty would allow us school students in for free!! BUt something happened post liberalisation in '91 - the liberalised cops became overnight money makers!! Anyways i digress, the main theme of this note is to comment on the IITF itself.

The IITF has now become a major marketing extravaganza in the Indian calendar and as such the denizens of Delhi NCR look forward to a fortnight of shoping frenzy. This is India's own shopping festival to rival the one of Dubai. And herein lies the oppotunity lost.

It is beyond one's thinking as to why the concept of a global village (as in Dubai) and its shopping festival have still not been imported here by the IITF?

The state pavilions are closed the year round except for these 14days and maybe the odd day or two in the year when the respective state governmenets have some state events/ functions. These pavilions can be used as the global village options during the rest of the year and for one week of the IIFT the same can be part of the exhibitors and open to only business visitors. This would also stagger the crowds throughout the year and also make delhi a more pleasurable destination for the tourists who otherwise have a forced diet of "death mounuments" starting with gandhi, indira, rajiv, etc etc and also their homes which are now "museums" (a subtle land grab of sorts?).

The trade fair if it does not reinvent itself sooner rather than later - it may soon be consigned to the back benchers in international trade fairs and it may just remain as a marketing show for local demestic retail customers (as i fear it has already become the past 4-5years).

Politics of subsidies and vote banks of the poor

All subsidies are scams. They only transfer the potential exploitation of the poor by the rich in a local area to exploitation of consolidated poor as a VOTE BANK by the politician at the cost of the poor and the rich through INFLATION.

The only way has been as in the past - the truly poor(read those who dont have the wherewithal for even one meal a day) - they are taken care of by local bigwigs and in return they provide some odd service - this is the only way there is some direct quid pro quo between the subsidiser and the beneficiary - the socio economic benefits of this (and the one con of possible exploitation) are too numerous to be ignored for the sake of the one con against. BUT polititcans benefit by interfering here as they have a so called "blank cheque" which only ends up stoking inflation which kills everybody (even the abv e mentioned donor) in the long term making him fearful of the future due to rising prices and hence REDUCE his donor activities!

Subsides are acceptable only in education (NOT RESERVATIONS - JUST SUBSIDY), and this should be a fixed amount and will be given to certain schools directly - ergo anybody who studies in these schools will get the benefit - no individual transfers etc etc. HOW to go about selecting these schools - very simple those which have fixed a fee of less than INR300 per month to get 100% subsidy and those less than 1000 to get 10% and those above 1000 - nil and so on. if a rich man wants to send his child for some free education - he is most welcome to do so!! :-)

This kind of investment subsidy will enable a whole generation to educate itself and hence maybe over 2 generations provide a platform for the next level of growth.

what have subsidies provided by the govt achieved till date?
1. Each and every subsidy scheme has created a scam without exception
2. the cost of administration of retail subsidy is by itself 10% of the cost of the service / product provided
3. large Mafia's have been created which kills IPS/ IAS / Politicians with impunity etc etc
4. Inflation is rampant due to the printing of money to finance these "subsidies" resulting in the rich becoming poor and the middle class becoming poor and the poor forever being dependent on this largesse of the politician with no real "growth" doomed to a lifetime of being served the fish (instead of learning to catch their own fish) and binding themselves willingly to a life of servitude to the party in power!

only wish will live to see the day of TRUE empowerment of the people - the day they reject the party which promises things for free and elects a party which promises only work and no freebies!!

On whats wrong with the "system"

The following is a comment by an airline pilot to the news item of UA losing a ten year old unaccompanied minor!! the sheer lack of leadership is what caused the termites to start eating at the system. nothing exemplifies this more than the observation of the article

"This is the key moment in the story, note that in her role as a United employee, this woman would not help Perry and Annie. It was only when Perry asked her if she was a mother and how she would feel that she was able to shed her deeply ingrained United indifference -- the lack of felt accountability that pervades the system. Yes, there are design problems, there are operations problems, but the to me the core lesson is this is a system packed with people who don't feel responsible for doing the right thing.  We can argue over who is to blame and how much -- management is at the top of the list in my book, but I won't let any of individual employees off the hook"  - the entire article can be read here at

 http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/08/united-airlines-lost-my-friends-10-year-old-daughter-and-didnt-care.html

Comment by the airline pilot:

"This story, and these comments, are appalling. I know, and I live this story every day, because I am a United Airlines Captain. I have been with UAL for over 25 years (which means that I was hired AFTER the bitter 1985 strike). As an employee, it is very hard for me to watch the boarding videos that many of our frequent flyers also wince at. Yes, Mr. Smisek certainly says all the right words; teamwork, satisfied employees, professional service, fair, rewarding, leadership. Then he talks about how we now have "professional management", and how that improves the lives of everyone that "professional management" touches. Yes, he says the words.

Then, there is the experience. The employees you are all discussing here have had the following experiences in the past twenty years.

1. Bought the company with six years and nine months of sacrificed pay.

1a. Watched the company run into a bankruptcy where all that stock was voided. United is still here, all the operations continue, just new owners and very well paid lawyers. Bankruptcy to nine BILLION dollars in cash in just a few years. We all watched while State Street Bank "protected" us, hanging on to the stock from over $120/sh to $.78/sh. Over two billion dollars was taken from the employees before "professional management" tanked the company. For a reference point, go see what Mr. Arpey had to say about his Board of Directors taking AA into bankruptcy with Bain Capital as their $14 million a MONTH advisors.

2. My pay is half what I made 14 years ago, about equal to my pay in 1994.

3. I had to fight to keep my children on my medical insurance after United lost the paperwork they started to "verify" that, after ten years, my children were still my children.

4. Could not access my Flexible Spending Account due to United vendors changing software on the cheap.

5. Pass privileges? Please, it's a painful memory.

6. Pension, oh yes, taken in bankruptcy.

7. Payroll accounting-Only United could screw up a peoplesoft product implementation, payroll functioned without one single error for decades, "professional management" can't fix problems they created six months ago.

8. Passenger Service-I had the gall to apologize to my 150 passengers for a shares delay of 45 minutes one day. I was asked to write a letter of apology TO MANAGEMENT for mentioning the problem. (I think the videos also say something about being truthful and taking responsibility).

An army of people who used to WORK at United are gone now, replaced by an army of people who carry clipboards and watches and take notes. They have no idea how to do the work at hand, but by God they are going to make it better, faster, and cheaper. Meanwhile, the folk who actually know the work the best, the ones who DO it, well; tell you what, you just fly the airplane, and we'll run the company.

Great Job Guys.

When the employees owned this company, and it was a cooperative effort by a company-wide team of dedicated, committed, engaged, respected (for real, not the words), and supported employees who would tell you how they LOVED United, it was run like a swiss watch. As the article above describes so well, there are companies run this way, by a LEADERSHIP team. At United, we have "professional management" instead. I think you can make your own judgement about the effectiveness of the two.

Kind of makes you yearn for the days when Airlines (and other companies) were run by folk who loved the business, built it, owned it (I mean EARNED it), and were it it for the long haul. To build a successful business was an honorable thing, today; it's a quarterly earnings thing, and then off to the next "professional" temporary duty. There were guys like Robert Six, Pat Patterson, C.R. Smith, even Bob Crandall. You didn't have to love labor to build a service company, you had to love the company and respect the folk who toiled for you. That's all.

I used to be the Captain who ran downstairs to make sure the jetway air conditioning was cold and properly hooked up. Who helped the mechanic with the cowling and held the flashlight for him. I used to write notes to MY guests, and thank them for their business. I wrote reports, hundreds of reports, on everything from bad coffee to more efficient taxi techniques.

No more. I have been told to do my job, and I do my job. My love for aviation has been ground into dust. After 15 years of being lied to, deceived, ignored, blamed falsely; and watching the same mistakes being made over and over again by a "professional management" that never seems to learn from the copious reports of our new "watchers", I give.

It's not an easy thing to do. I am an Eagle Scout, an entrepreneur, and a retired Air Force Officer with over 22 years of service. Those twelve points of the Scout law still mean something to me, especially the first three. I have been in great units and not so great units, and the difference ALWAYS came down to LEADERSHIP. Most (and I will be the first to admit not all) of the employees that you all have been talking about here are desperate. They would give anything to find a LEADER, with a VISION, and a sense of HONOR to lead this company.

Though I never knew him, I know that Pat Patterson is somewhere crying, perhaps sobbing, as he watches the wonderful company he BUILT OVER DECADES dismantled by a crew of Harvard and Yale trained lawyers. I know I am.

Please forgive me, I did try to be brief........"