In conversation with Mukul Deva: India’s first military thriller writer!

An alumnus of La Martiniere College, Lucknow, the National Defence Academy, Pune and the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, Mukul Deva was commissioned in December 1981 into the Sikh Light Infantry of the Indian Army. He took early retirement from the army after fifteen years of service, including a decade of combat operations in India and overseas. He is now an entrepreneur and motivational speaker, leadership, business and executive coach, and consultant.

He is the author of ‘Time After Time..It all Happened‘, ‘S.T.R.I.P.T.E.A.S.E: The Art of Corporate Warfare‘, ‘M.O.D.E.L: The Return of the Employee‘, the recently released ‘The Dust Will Never Settle‘ and four bestselling books in the ‘Lashkar series: ‘Lashkar‘, ‘Salim Must Die‘, ‘Blowback‘ and ‘Tanzeem‘.

Aseem: An army man writing books. Now that’s something new at least in India. How has your experience been?
Mukul: Yes I guess it’s how most people perceive army men. And how army men view themselves. Most of the ones I know are very articulate and have great stories to tell. I simply decided to tell them, without thinking too much about it. In any case I have always believed that I can do anything if I wish to do it since it is seldom capability, but belief in our capability that matters. As for the journey – it’s been incredible. And continues to be so… I find I am full of ideas and the words don’t seem to stop flowing… ‘Tis as though of (literary) Viagra I have drunk…:)

Book Review – The Dust Will Never Settle

Mukul Deva has lived, breathed and slept the ‘Lashkar’ series for the last couple of years. Whether it was ‘Lashkar’, ‘Salim Must Die’, ‘Blowback’ or ‘Tanzeem’, Mukul put his heart and soul into ensuring that these books were loved by his audiences. So what next after this?

‘The Dust Will Never Settle’ is his first book after the Lashkar series ended. In this pacy fusion of fact and fiction, he unravels the private tragedy of the Gill family against the high-stakes backdrop of international politics and deadly intrigue.

The blurb goes like this:

When terror strikes Jerusalem again, the international community persuades the Israelis and the Palestinians to resume their long-stalled peace talks. A dozen negotiators converge on Delhi to try and wrest peace for a land torn apart by centuries of strife and mistrust.

Lashkar-e-Toiba, struggling to fill the leadership void created by the killing of Osama bin Laden, will not allow these talks to proceed. Enter Ruby Gill, an MI6 agent manipulated by the Lashkar and the Qassam Bridgades to disrupt the Summit.

Caught in the crossfire is her father Ravinder Singh Gill, head of the Indian Anti – Terrorist Task Force, who is in charge of securing the Peace Summit. His work is immensely complicated by the Commonwealth Games being hosted simultaneously in Delhi.

Ravinder’s past and Ruby’s destiny are set to collide in unforeseen ways..

Will peace finally find these strife – torn countries? Or will the dust never settle in the Promised Land?

Rewind 2010: A brilliant year for Indian sports!

Indian sports has long been dominated by cricket all the time. Though it was an important factor in considering India’s performance in sports this year, it wasn’t the only sport where we excelled. Saina Nehwal at badminton, India’s performance at the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games and also some good stuff from the hockey team ensured one of the best years for Indian sports in a long time.

Saina Nehwal is not very muscular. Neither does she have the backing of any godfather. Nor has she won tournaments by fluke. This 20 yr old sensation has made such giant strides this year in a sport which the Chinese have traditionally excelled in that even the Chinese seem shocked seeing her. With her sharp returns, excellent focus and concentration and nimble – footed movements on court, she has thrashed opponents left, right and center reaching the number 2 ranking.

Have you ever heard of Ashish Kumar, Krishna Poonia, Virdhawal Khade? These were some of the relatively unknown faces who made us proud by winning medals in sports as diverse as athletics, wrestling, boxing, swimming, gymnastics to name a few. The first reaction to this was “I didn’t know we had gymnasts, let alone take part in the Commonwealth Games!” Meanwhile our archers, shooters and wrestlers had a year to remember winning medals across the Asian and Commonwealth Games along with winning medals at other championships. The fact that we managed to come 2nd on the CWG medals tally and achieve our best performance at the Asian Games was something none of us must’ve even imagined. The most interesting part of the whole event was that half of the medallists were from Haryana – a state which has given special importance to promoting sports from the grassroots level. A Lakshmi Mittal supported Champions Trust has also been set up to support and nurture the best athletes of the country.

Somdev Varman came into his own by winning us the Davis Cup clash with Brazil and also winning medals at the CWG and Asian Games. A tennis star and that too in singles seemed to have risen from nowhere!

The Indian Hockey Team jointly won the Azlan Shah Cup as well as came 3rd in the Commonwealth Games. The fact that this was achieved when the public expectations were low after their 8th place finish in the WC held in India was a miracle in itself. Though one should give credit to them where its due. During the matches against Pakistan throughout the year as well as against England in CWG, India played some of the most fantastic hockey seen in a long time supported by a partisan crowd at the Dhyan Chand stadium in Delhi.

There were also other achievers like Mary Kom – The boxing queen of the world who won her 5th consecutive boxing championship. As in her words “She was born to do only one thing – BOXING!”

Obviously a lot more can be done to improve sports and the infrastructure at the basic level. But Haryana has shown the way to the other states. Will they follow? Do we care about the other sports even now after the Asian Games and CWG have ended? These are some of the basic questions which need to be answered!

Before you guys kill me! Obviously an important development was India’s no 1 test ranking in cricket which prompted our BCCI to schedule more test matches than what India normally plays. Dhoni equalled Azhar’s record of India’s 2nd most successful captain.

PARTING SHOT!

The “Indian Express” – Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi coming together for the Australian Open 2011! Now can there be anything better than this?

Top 10 Indian News-Makers of 2010!

This is the first post from among my 80 blog posts at Trakin I am uploading here! And that’s because this post captures the essence of India in 2010!!!
URL – http://trak.in/tags/business/2010/12/20/top-10-newsmakers-2010-review/#comment-77905

2011 is right around the corner – all of us become nostalgic about the entire year and what all we did. For some it’s the time to reflect on what good / bad or useful / wasteful work they did while for others it is the time to enjoy the New Year holidays.

And for me it was about penning down the 10 most important news items / happenings in India. Mind you, this is my list of 10 most important Newsmakers and probably readers may differ from it.

Commonwealth Games

From Kalmadi to Shiela Dixit to Emaar MGF, everyone was in the news for the biggest sporting event in India in more than 25 years. If you are wondering what about the athletes, sadly they weren’t anywhere in the news until the events happened and after that.

From Ashish Kumar in Gymnastics to Krishna Poonia in discus throw our athletes shined like [^] never before with a 2nd place finish. After all the controversies related to the poor organization, disastrous management and corruption, India managed to pull of the games much to the admiration of everyone around
2G Scam

A Raja

A. Raja wins the title of the scam creator of the year hands down. Reams and reams have been written about it. By giving licences to newer telecom companies like Uninor, Etisalat, S–Tel and many more at very low prices, he managed to create the biggest scam of the year (Note: The 2G scam is currently under investigation and A Raja remains not-guilty till allegations are proved ).

Nira Radia Ki Kahani

From Barkha Dutt to Vir Sanghvi – many well known faces were implicated in a scandal which finally proved what the media really does in today’s world – LOBBYING! It brought the true face of the media finally onto the national [^] consciousness – that of working with famous corporate lobbyists like Nira Radia to decide positions in the government.

Interestingly, Radia works for Ambanis and Tata’s. The Tata’s image as a value driven organization has been tainted in recent days. This story is becoming really interesting now!

Saina replaces Sania

Sania Mirza thankfully got married to Shoaib Malik after a lot of nonsense controversies regarding Malik’s previous wife. And I say thankfully because anyway she wasn’t really doing great on the court so it was better that she moved on to the court of marriage.

Saina Nehwal with her amazing brand of smashes and strokes swept aside Sania and others as the emerging star of Indian sport. In a sport like badminton which is dominated by the Chinese, she showed amazing grit to win the Gold in CWG and also reach the world no 2 position. It’s only a matter of time before she reaches the 1st position

Recession? What’s that?

India seems to have come out of the recession in a fantastic manner. With FII inflows crossing record levels, the stocks rising till 20k and the economy growing at around 8.5%, who would say that we ever had something called recession?

In a recent report, India has been survey to be one of the top 5 best places on the planet for jobs in 2011. Now that is something to look forward to

Indian Telecom Sector

Who would think that brands like Micromax, Karbonn, Spice etc would become famous some day? But that’s what’s happened this year. With Nokia losing around 15-20% market share this year due to its poor attempt at getting a smart phone, many Indian brands have gone ahead and made a name for them.

With new features like insect repellents for rural areas, smart phones starting at Rs 3000 and many other new things, the Indian brands have managed to get a market share of around 10-15%.

The 3G services and MNP service were finally launched this year after a number of delays

Logjam in parliament

More than 114 hours in the first 11 days of the winter session were lost in the parliament due to a wide variety of issues from the scam tainted environment to the indecisiveness of the government. This could be the largest loss of time in history. But I am not surprised, are you?

Not a “Nano” disaster

Nano was billed as the cheapest car in the world at Rs 1 lac. First there was the farmers and Mamta’s agitation and Singur which made Tata’s change its location to Sanand. Then the fires due to manufacturing defects, poor finance, its look as a toy car have caused a disastrous drop in its sales from 9000 units in June to 500 last November. And that is lesser than Mercedes in November.

Indian industry comes off age

It all started with JLR and Land Rover by Tata and then came Ssang Yong by Mahindra and many others. Indian industry seems to have well and truly come on the international map in 2010 with acquisitions and take over’s by the dozen.

There have also been more than 200 IPOs this year probably the largest in the last 5 years or so.

Peepli Live

An interesting satire on the farmer deaths in the country was India’s entry to the Oscars. Doesn’t it make you think of Slumdog Millionare being awarded not because it was a great movie but because of some other reason? (I am sure you know what I mean)

Would love to hear your Newsmakers of the year – Also, did I miss out on any other important event of the year?

SCAMS – Shameless Callous Astonishing Manipulative Shocking

Scams are part and parcel of everyday life in India. I am sure scams happen everywhere around the world. But lets keep the article centric to India because I personally understand scams here in a better manner. SCAM tainted individuals have become so common in our society that its become the name of the game. No day goes by, without a scam being unearthed.

Satyam Scam, The Commonwealth Games Scam, Adarsh Housing Society Scam, 2G scam, Corporate Loan Bribery Scam – From ministers, to the army to corporates to even private players like Emaar – MGF, no one seems to be clean. And does anyone care? Not at all. Its all about “What’s the big deal? This happens in India every day” There are some common traits people involved in these scams possess -

Shameless – Be it Suresh Kalmadi, Ashok Chavan, Raja, Ramalinga Raju none of these individuals even care the harm to the nation, families and everyone else their acts have brought about. They are completely shameless and are just intent on doing one thing – USING THEIR POWER TO DO WHAT EVER WRONG THEY CAN WHICH THEY THINK IS ALWAYS RIGHT!

Callous – All of the individuals who have been involved in these scams are completely callous to their families, friends, companies, nation everyone. If they did care about anyone or for that matter even the nation’s pride, they wouldn’t do such a thing.

Astonishing – Astonishingly horrible in the acts they do. Be it Ramalinga Raju, Raja or Kalmadi all of them have played in billions of rupees. They must be saying “We play in billions and not thousands“.

Manipulative – All these individuals despite all the defense they mount are very scheming and manipulative. Take the example of Ramalinga Raju who was cheating everyone in his own company for more than a decade. This was the same company he gave birth to. He didn’t care about anything other than just making sure that he got the money wherever he wanted.

Shocking – The acts of these few individuals have always and will continue to bring shock and sadness to all the people related and unrelated to them along with the entire country. This is because things like what Raju, Raja, Kalmadi etc. did didn’t only affect the company or a few individuals but directly / indirectly affected millions of individuals.

Such SCAMsters need to be stopped in their tracks and such things are possible only if unique moves like starting an anti – corruption helpline start taking place (http://trak.in/tags/business/2010/11/29/anti-corruption-helpline-iim-students/).

Until then the shameless callous astonishing-ly manipulative shocking acts will keep going on.

19th Commonwealth Games – 68 days to disaster!

The 19th Commonwealth Games is going to be held from 3rd October – 14th October in Delhi. It’s the second time that these games will be held in the Asia (after Kuala Lumpur in 1998). There were two bids for these games – one from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and the other from Delhi, India. Delhi won the bid (46-22) on the premise that it would provide US$100,000 to each participating country along with boarding, lodging and support. The fact that India had conducted a successful 2003 Afro – Asian Games was also responsible for them getting the nod.

But since then the preparation has been beset by problems galore. In 2005, the Indian Olympic association vice – chairman expressed concern that the preparations for the games wasn’t up to the mark. In 2009, a government of India report showed that 2/3rds of the venues weren’t ready. And this six years after winning the bid. Off late when the Commonwealth Secretary, Mike Fennel expressed concern at the delay, our dear Indian Olympic Association, Mr Suresh Kalmadi engaged in a war of words with him. Finally it seemed like he just wanted to win the battle of words and didn’t bother a bit about the Games.

A large number of roads, stadiums, lanes, highways, expansion of the airport etc had been planned. But till date that is even today, 68 days before the Games, most of the things haven’t been completed. An MOU has been signed to make this the first Green Games ever. But instead thousands and hundreds of trees are being cut in the name of construction. Entire roads have been dug up across Delhi in the name of the Games. Terror threats and such a shoddy Games preparation has scared of many top athletes like Usain Bolt etc. Workers have been exploited with poor wages, accidents, improper safety, shoddy working conditions etc. The most interesting aspect recently was the collapse of a couple of stadiums because of few minutes of rains. How amazingly we have built the venues. This rain caused blockades of hours around Delhi. You may ask why? Because of it being entirely dug up. All the politicians involved are bothered more about their publicity rather than India’s ability to hold a successful games. It’s all become a game.

I really don’t care whether Suresh Kalmadi. Shiela Dixit or Achantha Sharath Kamal (India’s best table tennis player – Ranked 76 in the world) say that the Games will be the best ever. The way we have horrendously prepared for these games, we don’t deserve to hold such sporting events ever. The only thing we can and will always hold is the Cricket World Cup, Indian Premier League, Champions League and all things related to cricket.

TODAY I AM ASHAMED TO SAY THAT INDIA IS ORGANIZING THESE GAMES!