This weeks' thoughts

I was driving by yesterday and listening to npr as usual, but this time to an interview by Ben Kingsley ( who acted as Gandhi). His birth name is Krishna Banji! He was born and raised in England. When he went to his initial audition as Krishna Banji, he was rejected. A week later his dad suggested him to change his name to an Anglical sounding one. He went to a theatre 30 kms from last week as Ben Kingsley and he got it!
He mentioned that what an Irony? Krishna Banji has to become Ben Kingsley to act as Gandhi!

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Ben%20Kingsley

My next one is the cover story of this weeks' businessweek which confirms that my ideas of the third phase of globalization is taking roots. In the next few decades, it wouldn't matter where one live or work, the globe will share a lifestyle!
You could read them in www.businessweek.com

Interesting thoughts & links

I don't read Fortune that much, but this one is good. If this trend grows then it would blow a death toll to America's leadership role.
Disrespect of Education in US - a growing alarming trend

I keep reading book reviews of business books, nothing came up that interesting. But this book looks like a good one and I would like to read it. If any of you read about it, you could let me know
Upside - The 7 strategies for Turning Big Threats into Growth Breakthroughs

Jack & Suzy welch on Entreprenuership

Qualities - Not for a leader

In my last posting I wrote about the qualities a leader should have. Now, after the SunTV, Dinakaran, DMK, I couldn't resist writing about qualities a leader should not have.
1. Supporting & Justifying violence - A leader can not do this even in his / her mind. The moment you start understanding the reasons behind a violence, your mind would start justifying (rationalizing) it. Human mind is so powerful, it can justify anything.
2. Inferiority complex - A leader can feel inferior of himself only to improve in any specific area. However he / she can not have an inferiority complex.

In the criminal activities that went on in Madurai recently, three innocent lives were lost. When asked to the chief minister about when would police arrest the prime suspect (in this case his own son), he was angry and said it is you who committed the crime and do you have any proof to that aspect.

If a father could feel so much angry to arrest his son, won't he know how much angry the parents of the three innocent persons who lost their lives feel? This is just one example where he justifies violence. He has a history of supporting violence not only if it is done against his opponents or by his own supporters but also towards veerappan, naxalites and we can go on to quote instances.

Coming to the second quality, when a reporter asked him why Raja was recommended for a cabinet minister, he said because he belonged to the Scheduled caste! Did Raja convert to Schedule caste just now? Wasn't he belong to schedule caste since his birth? So why didn't he recommend Raja three years back. Because at that time he had his own family member to take care of and he recommended Dayanidhi! Now there is no family member available (Kanimozhi will be available only after getting elected to Rajya Sabha), so scheduled caste came to picture. This is not just one occasion but Whenever somebody berates him and he got no valid answer he would resort to this. Thus for whatsoever reason, even though he is so successfull in life (from nowhere to the CM and a sea of wealth) there is an underlying anxiety for him that he doesn't belong to the higher caste! This reminds of Gandhi in his days in South Africa he mentioned "Nobody can berate you unless you berate yourself".

Unless Karunanidhi overcomes these two he is a leader unfit for the job.