The team of doctors that operated on Prime Minister of India, Dr.Manmohan Singh on 24th January 2000 was led by Dr. Ramakant Panda, a man whose name comes up very high on any list of the world’s top heart surgeons who perform high-risk surgeries. He is amazingly committed surgeon renowned as the man with the safest hands in the world and a specialist in beating heart surgery. We were fascinated with Dr.Panda’s amazing story when we interviewed him for our Pathbreakers series in MoneyLIFE Magazine and his labour of love – the Asian Heart Institute in Mumbai.
Here is an excerpt from that interview… you can read the full interview in Pathbreakers 2 which will be released by G V Ramakrishna, former Member of the Planning Commission on 15th February at YASHADA, Pune. If you would like to attend the launch, do write to me.

“The future of healthcare is not in nice interiors but in higher standards of patient care”: Dr.Ramakant Panda”

(more…)

The Satyam scandal has triggered its share of black humour.
Here is a parody of Johnny Johnny, Yes papa

Ramalinga Raju
Yes baba
Cheating shareholders
No baba
Fooling employees
No baba
Telling Lies
No baba
Open the balance sheet
HA HA HA

Have you also noticed that SEBI Chairman C B Bhave says that he as “requested” B Ramalinga Raju to appear before SEBI by 4 pm tomorrow. Not summoned — only requested. If this isn’t kid glove treatment what is?

The Securities and Exchange Board of India will send a 9 member team headed by Sunil Kumar its Divisional Chief from Chennai to probe the Satyam scam. The entire effort will be supervised by SEBI’s Executive Director Mr. Nagpal.

SEBI, which had earlier found nothing wrong with the governance practices of Satyam and went to the extraordinary length of giving it a clean chit, has now woken up to the need to examine every aspect of the activities of the Satyam promoters and management. But frankly, when the Satyam Chairman has already confessed to extensive wrong doing, all that SEBI can only check if there is more dirt than disclosed and that is an academic exercise.

At this time, the regulator would be doing more for all the stakeholders if it had called an emergency meeting to check if some value can be salvaged out of Satyam on the strength of its contracts and staff. But here is the irony. While naive Satyam employees are busy giving sound bites to the effect that the company will be taken over, most of corporate India as well as leading regulators seem to think that the government will allow the company to die through sheer neglect. Frankly, this is one of those times when most of us would be happy if we were proved wrong.
For once, we would like the government to surprise us by helping to find a buyer for Satyam in the next three days, instead of putting out press releases to say how many different agencies are probing what is already a clear case of fraud.

Ramalinga Raju’s shocking confession to a fraud of over Rs 7000 crore however answers one question that had puzzled corporate watchers — why d

(more…)

I finally registered for an email alert to The Secret Journal of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala instead of depending on erratic Google Alerts to tell me the next hilarious post. You don’t even need to know who Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is – it will still have you rolling in the aisles. And the visuals! There is clearly a lot of work that goes into the visuals – here is one example – borrowed without his permission.

I have long ago given up trying to figure out who writes the blog – Is it indeed a market wallah? Or is it someone from advertising with a crack team of visualisers, photoshoppers and copywriters? Or is he from the film industry? Doesn’t matter – whoever it is, thank you for the sharp and rib tickling commentary.
Thanks also to the real Rakesh Jhunjhunwala for not complaining – is he smart enough to figure out that the blog only enhances the real Rakesh’s reputation?