Gandhi's Teachings

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony” 

“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest”

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world”

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history”

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever”

“It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity”

“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory”

“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it”

“It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err”

“Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession”

“A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble”

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”

“Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy”

“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act”

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems”

“Action expresses priorities”

Leadership

Hi Friend,

Here are the words of Field Marshal S H F J 'Sam' Manekshaw, independent India's greatest military commander, about Leadership.

“The youngsters want an answer. So, Ladies and Gentlemen, I thought I should give you the answer”.

“The problem with us is the lack of leadership”

On whether leaders are born or made?

There is a school of thought that thinks that leaders are born.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a population of 960 million people and we procreate at the rate of 17 million equaling the total population of Australia-each year, and yet there is a dearth of leadership.

So, those of you who still contribute to the fact that leaders are born, may I suggest you throw away your family planning, throw away the pill, throw away any inhibiting factor and make it free for all. Then perhaps someday a leader may be born.

So, if leaders are not born, can leaders be made? My answer is yes. Give me a man or a woman with a common sense and decency, and I can make a leader out of him or her. That is the subject which I am going to discuss with you this morning.

What are the attributes of leadership?

1. Professional knowledge and Professional competence:

The first, the primary, indeed the cardinal attribute of leadership is professional knowledge and professional competence.

Now you will agree with me that you cannot be born with professional knowledge and professional competence even if you are a child of Prime Minister, or the son of an industrialist, or the progeny of a Field Marshal.

Professional knowledge and professional competence have to be acquired by hard work and by constant study. In this fast- moving technologically developing world, you can never acquire sufficient professional knowledge. You have to keep at it, and at it, and at it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, professional knowledge and professional competence are a sine qua non of leadership.

Unless you know what you are talking about, unless you understand your profession, you can never be a leader.

Now some of you must be wondering why the Field Marshal is saying this, every time you go round somewhere, you see one of our leaders walking around, roads being blocked, transport being provided for them. Those, ladies and gentlemen, are not leaders. They are just men and women going about disguised as leaders – and they ought to be ashamed of themselves!

2. Ability to take a decision:

What is the next thing you need for leadership? It is the ability to make up your mind to make a decision and accept full responsibility for that decision.

Have you ever wondered why people do not make a decision? The answer is quite simple. It is because they lack professional competence, or they are worried that their decision may be wrong and they will have to carry the can.

Ladies and Gentlemen, according to the law of averages, if you take ten decisions, five ought to be right. If you have professional knowledge and professional competence, nine will be right, and the one that might not be correct will probably be put right by a subordinate officer or a colleague.

But if you do not take a decision, you are doing something wrong. An act of omission is much worse than an act of commission. An act of commission can be put right. An act of omission cannot.

‘If you must be a bloody fool – be one quickly’. So remember that you are the ones who are going to be the future senior staff officers, the future commanders. Make a decision and having made it, accept full responsibility for it. Do not pass it on to a colleague or subordinate.

3. Honesty, Fairness and Justice when dealing with people:

So, what comes next for leadership? Absolute Honesty, fairness and justice – we are dealing with people. Those of us who have had the good fortune of commanding hundreds and thousands of men know this.

No man likes to be punished, and yet a man will accept punishment stoically if he knows that the punishment meted out to him will be identical to the punishment meted out to another person who has some Godfather somewhere. This is very, very important.

No man likes to be superseded, and yet men will accept supercession if they know that they are being superseded, under the rules, by somebody who is better then they are but not just somebody who happens to be related to the Commandant of the staff college or to a Cabinet Minister or by the Field Marshal’s wife’s current boyfriend. This is extremely important, Ladies and Gentlemen.

4. Ability to Handle Pressures:

We in India have tremendous pressures- pressures from the Government, pressures from superior officers, pressures from families, pressures from wives, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews and girlfriends, and we lack the courage to withstand those pressures.

5. Moral Courage:

When I am talking to young officers and young soldiers, I should place emphasis on physical courage. But since I am talking to this gathering, I will lay emphasis on Moral Courage.

What is moral courage? Moral courage is the ability to distinguish right from wrong and having done so, say so when asked, irrespective of what your superiors might think or what your colleagues or your subordinates might want. A ‘yes man’ is a dangerous man.

He may rise very high, he might even become the Managing Director of a company. He may do anything but he can never make a leader because he will be used by his superiors, disliked by his colleagues and despised by his subordinates. So shallow– the ‘yes man’.

(Giving an example of moral courage and its importance from his own life)

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is a very thin line between becoming a Field Marshal and being dismissed. In 1971, a very angry Prime Minister read out messages from Chief Ministers of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura, all of them saying that hundreds of thousands of refugees had poured into their states and they did not know what to do.

So the Prime Minister turned round to me and said: “I want you to do something”.

I said, “What do you want me to do?”

She said, “I want you to enter East Pakistan”.

I said, “Do you know that that means War?”

She said, “I do not mind if it is war”.

I, in my usual stupid way said, Are you ready for a war? Let me tell you –“it’s 28th April, the Himalayan passes are opening now, and if the Chinese gave us an ultimatum, I will have to fight on two fronts”.

Sardar Swaran Singh turned round and in his Punjabi English said, “Will China give ultimatum?” I said, “You are the Foreign Minister. You tell me”.

Then I turned to the Prime Minister and said, “Prime Minister, last year you wanted elections in West Bengal and you did not want the communists to win, so you asked me to deploy my soldiers in penny pockets in every village, in every little township in West Bengal. I have two divisions thus deployed in sections and platoons without their heavy weapons. It will take me at least a month to get them back to their units and to their formations.

Further, I have a division in the Assam area, another division in Andhra Pradesh and the Armoured Division in the Jhansi-Babina area. It will take me at least a month to get them back and put them in their correct positions.

I will require every road, every railway train, every  truck, every wagon to move them. We are harvesting in the Punjab, and we are harvesting in Haryana; we are also harvesting in Uttar Pradesh. And you will not be able to move your harvest. I turned to the Agriculture Minister, Mr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, “If there is a famine in the country afterwards, it will be you to blame, not me.”

Then I said, “My Armoured Division has only got thirteen tanks which are functioning.” The Finance Minister, Mr. Chawan, a friend of mine, said, “Sam, why only thirteen?” “Because you are the Finance Minister. I have been asking for money for the last year and a half, and you keep saying there is no money. That is why.”

Then I turned to the Prime Minister and said, “Prime Minister, it is the end of April. By the time I am ready to operate, the monsoon will have broken in that East Pakistan area. When it rains, it does not just rain, it pours. Rivers become like oceans. If you stand on one bank, you cannot see the other and the whole countryside is flooded. My movement will be confined to roads, the Air Force will not be able to support me, and, if you wish me to enter East Pakistan, I guarantee you a hundred percent defeat.”

“You are the Government”, I said turning to the PrimeMinister, “Now will you give me your orders?”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have seldom seen a woman so angry, and I am including my wife in that. She was red in the face and I said, “Let us see what happens”. She turned round and said, “The cabinet will meet four o’clock in the evening”. Everyone walked out. I being the junior most man was the last to leave.

As I was leaving, she said, “Chief, please will you stay behind?” I looked at her.

I said, “Prime Minister, before you open your mouth, would you like me to send in my resignation on grounds of health, mental or physical?”

“No, sit down, Sam. Was everything you told me the truth?” 

“Yes, it is my job to tell you the truth. It is my job to fight and win, not to lose.”

She smiled at me and said, “All right, Sam. You know what I want. When will you be ready?”           

“I cannot tell you now, Prime Minister”, I said, but let me guarantee you this that if you leave me alone, allow me to plan, make my arrangements, and fix a date, I guarantee you a hundred percent victory”.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, as I told you, there is a very thin line between becoming a Field Marshal and being dismissed. Just an example of moral courage.

Now, those of you who remembered what happened in 1962, when the Chinese occupied the Thag-la ridge and Mr. Nehru, the Prime Minister, sent for the Army Chief, in the month of December and said, “I want you to throw the Chinese out”.

That Army Chief did not have the Moral courage to stand up to him and say, “I am not ready, my troops are not acclimatized, I haven’t the ammunition, or indeed anything”. But he accepted the Prime Minister’s instructions, with the result that the Army was beaten and the country humiliated.

Remember, moral courage. You, the future senior staff officers and commanders will be faced with many problems. People will want all sorts of things. You have got to have the moral courage to stand up and tell them the facts. Again, as I told you before, a ‘yes man’ is a despicable man.

6. Physical courage:

Fear, like hunger and sex, is a natural phenomenon. Any man who says he is not frightened is a liar or a Gorkha. It is one thing to be frightened. It is quite another to show fear.

If you once show fear in front of your men, you will never be able to command. It is when your teeth are chattering, your knees are knocking and you are about to make your own geography- that is when the true leader comes out!

Finally, for leadership; men and women like their leader to be a man, with all the manly qualities or virtues. The man who says, “I do not smoke, I do not drink, I do not (No, I will not say it)’, does not make a leader.

7. Discipline:

So much, Ladies and Gentlemen, for leadership, but no amount of leadership will do this country much good. Yes, it will improve things, but what this country needs is discipline.

We are the most ill-disciplined people in the world.

You see what is happening- you go down the road, and you see people relieving themselves by the roadside.

You go into town, and people are walking up and down the highway, while vehicles are discharging all sorts of muck.

Every time you pick up a newspaper, you read of a scam or you read of some other silly thing. As we are the most ill-disciplined people in the world, we must do something about discipline.

What is discipline? Please, when I talk of discipline, do not think of military discipline. That is quite different. Discipline can be defined as conduct and behavior for living decently with one another in society.

8. Character:

Having talked about leadership, having talked about discipline, I want to mention something about Character.

We Indians also lack character. Do not misunderstand me, when I talk of character. I don’t mean just being honest, truthful, and religious, I mean something more- Knowing yourself, knowing your own faults, knowing your own weaknesses and what little character that we have, our friends, our fans, the ‘yes-men’ around us and the sycophants, help us reduce that character as well.

You may please check the complete article at the following link, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw on Leadership

Source: Indian Defence Review, from www.rediff.com

Happy Investing,

The Master (Mr.Buffet) says invest in Businesses, will you ?

Hi Friend,

Here are some excerpts from the upcoming Mr.Buffet’s annual news letter, a part of which is published in the Fortune. 

He takes his real estate investments as examples to explain why one should invest in equity through Mutual Funds. Please read on,

• You don't need to be an expert in order to achieve satisfactory investment returns. But if you aren't, you must recognize your limitations and follow a course certain to work reasonably well. 

• Keep things simple and don't swing for the fences. When promised quick profits, respond with a quick "no".

• Focus on the future productivity of the asset you are considering. If you don't feel comfortable making a rough estimate of the asset's future earnings, just forget it and move on. 

• No one has the ability to evaluate every investment possibility. But omniscience isn't necessary; you only need to understand the actions you undertake.

• If you instead focus on the prospective price change of a contemplated purchase, you are speculating. There is nothing improper about that. I know, however, that I am unable to speculate successfully, and I am skeptical of those who claim sustained success at doing so.

• Games are won by players who focus on the playing field -- not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard. If you can enjoy Saturdays and Sundays without looking at stock prices, give it a try on weekdays.

• Forming macro opinions or listening to the macro or market predictions of others is a waste of time. Indeed, it is dangerous because it may blur your vision of the facts that are truly important. (When I hear TV commentators glibly opine on what the market will do next, I am reminded of Mickey Mantle's scathing comment: "You don't know how easy this game is until you get into that broadcasting booth").

• There is one major difference between my two small investments (Real estate) and an investment in stocks. Stocks provide you minute-to-minute valuations for your holdings, whereas I have yet to see a quotation for either my farm or the New York real estate.

• Owners of stocks, however, too often let the capricious and irrational behavior of their fellow owners causes them to behave irrationally as well. Because there is so much chatter about markets, the economy, interest rates, price behavior of stocks, etc., some investors believe it is important to listen to pundits -- and, worse yet, important to consider acting upon their comments.

• Those people who can sit quietly for decades when they own a farm or apartment house too often become frenetic when they are exposed to a stream of stock quotations and accompanying commentators delivering an implied message of "Don't just sit there -- do something." For these investors, liquidity is transformed from the unqualified benefit it should be to a curse.

• Indeed, tumbling markets can be helpful to the true investor if he has cash available when prices get far out of line with values. A climate of fear is your friend when investing; a euphoric world is your enemy.

• And if I had owned 100% of a solid business with good long-term prospects, it would have been foolish for me to even consider dumping it. So why would I have sold my stocks that were small participations in wonderful businesses? True, any one of them might eventually disappoint, but as a group they were certain to do well. Could anyone really believe the earth was going to swallow up the incredible productive assets and unlimited human ingenuity.

• Most investors, of course, have not made the study of business prospects a priority in their lives. If wise, they will conclude that they do not know enough about specific businesses to predict their future earning power.

• The goal of the nonprofessional should not be to pick winners -- neither he nor his "helpers" can do that -- but should rather be to own a cross section of businesses (by this he means Mutual Funds) that in aggregate are bound to do well.

• My money, I should add, is where my mouth is.

• And now back to Ben Graham. I learned most of the thoughts in this investment discussion from Ben's book The Intelligent Investor, which I bought in 1949. My financial life changed with that purchase.

• I can't remember what I paid for that first copy of The Intelligent Investor. Whatever the cost, it would underscore the truth of Ben's adage: Price is what you pay; value is what you get. Of all the investments I ever made, buying Ben's book was the best.

Please read the complete article at the following link,

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/24/warren-buffett-berkshire-letter/

Happy  investing.

Focus

​​​​Hi Friend,

The differentiating factor in success and failure in any sphere of life is "focus​ or the lack of it".

Here are some wonderful quotes on "Focus".

"It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?" - Henry David Thoreau 

"Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days" - Zig Ziglar

"To be everywhere is to be nowhere" - Seneca 

"One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular​" - Tony Robbins

"That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains" - Steve Jobs

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus" - Alexander Graham Bell

"If you want to be truly successful invest in yourself to get the knowledge you need to find your unique factor. When you find it and focus on it and persevere your success will blossom" - Sydney Madwed ​

"When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance" - Joel Osteen 

Happy investing.

Why the Rich buy Health Insurance?

Hi Friend,

To be rich we have to think like the rich and we have to understand money like the rich do. Here is what one of the richest ever has to say about growing wealth.

“Rule No.1: Never lose money, Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1” -- Warren Buffett

Because rich people understand the above principle better than most of us, they give it due importance and try to plug the possible sources of losing money.

A higher number of relatively well off people buying health insurance than the people who need it the most (not so well off people) need to be seen in this context.

Cost of not buying Health Insurance:

Let us assume that the life expectancy of a person is 75 years. If a person who is 30 years of age and just started his / her financial planning had to lose Rs.3,00,000/- due to some unexpected medical expenditure, he / she will be losing that money and possible returns on it for the remaining financial planning period i.e. 45 years( 75 - 30). 

Had the money been not lost and had it been invested at 17 % (which is the approximate compounded return of SENSEX since its inception) it would have grown in to Rs.35, 11, 43, 823/-, Shocking isn’t it? 

You may make use of the following link to do the calculation,

http://www.moneycontrol.com/planning_desk/planning_magic.php#

But, is there any guarantee that such medical expenditure won’t repeat in future? 

The more the number of such uncovered health care costs, the farther we will be from having financial security and from our dream to be rich. 

We need to buy health insurance precisely to plug such huge financial leakages. 

The government too understands this fact (i.e. health care costs could cripple a vast majority of Indian populace given their low income status) and hence the tax benefits it gives us to encourage buying health insurance.

The need to buy our own Health Policy Vs Company Group Health Cover:

Given the current stressful lives it is likely that we may develop a health condition even before we cross 40 years of age. 

No insurance company would like to take on a certain risk and hence it is highly unlikely that they will issue a quality health cover if we develop a health condition.

It is always advisable to buy health insurance when we are young and healthy as a policy once issued will be continued even if we develop a health condition.

Company health covers are too fickle (could vary in quantum and quality depending on a lot of factors that are not in our control) to be assigned with the all important responsibility of safe guarding our financial plan. 

Consider this, if a person gets hospitalized due to an accident or due to some other serious health issue and exhausts all his leaves, how long will he be continued in the job? If there is no job will there be a group health cover? 

How likely is that any health insurance company will be willing to issue a fresh policy in such a scenario?

The purpose of Insurance is to cover the extreme impact events and a group cover may not serve purpose in such scenarios.

Considering the above it is better to buy our own health policy (we know what we get in these policies and are sure that the benefits given will be continued as long as we pay the premium).

Happy Investing.

Artha Kranti - No Income Tax and No corruption - Check how

Hi Friend,

If less corruption means more growth of Equity / Business then what happens if corruption is almost completely eliminated?

Here is the Idea of Mr. Anil Bokil to eliminate corruption.

Abolition: 

Withdrawal of all Direct and Indirect Taxes (except customs and import duties).

Single tax on transactions:

• Every transaction routed through a bank will attract certain deduction in appropriate percentage as Transaction Tax i.e. Single-Point Tax deducted at source.

• This deduction is to be effected on receiving / credit account only.

• This deducted amount could be credited to different Government levels like  central, State and Local and Transacting Bank (as commission)

Currency compression: 
In a given time frame, currency notes of denomination higher than Rs.50/- could be abolished from circulation. The highest denomination thereafter will be Rs.50/-

Cash regulation:

• Cash transactions will not attract any transaction tax.

• Cash transactions above a certain limit, say, Rs.2000 will be deemed illegal. This also implies that cash transactions below this limit will be tax-free and legal.

Control and verification systems: 

• Every bank account must be linked to a unique identification number like P.A.N. It must be binding by law on all banks in the system to carry out Transaction Audits of all accounts in each branch and submit them periodically to the Govt., duly certified by the CAs.

One might argue, “We don’t have PAN for all the people in India?” yes, but we have Aadhaar for half the people in the country and in about a year’s time we will have Aadhaar for all of them. Wouldn't this idea be practicable then? I have a lingering doubt that Aadhaar was brought in keeping this “Artha kranti” in mind, don’t you think so?

So, how long will it take for the country to be corruption free? My guess is about 10 -15 years from now. That is the time frame required to rollout bank accounts for all the people in India and make the system transparent. Do we have to worry about the growth of our equity investments then?

You may check the following videos on how “Artha Kranti” proposals have the potential to change our lives to the better, 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVfmUmB0bpM

http://www.arthakranti.org/downloads/videos

Jai Hind and Happy Investing.