Passport application at Bangalore

Let me recollect my pleasant experience in geeting a passport renewed via normal (non Tatkal scheme) at the Bangalore Passport Office.

Summary: Indian government offices are way advanced and have worked hard to improve the End User Experience. Hats off to the Government of India. JAI HIND.

Process:

• Everything is automated. All activities can be completed online at rpobangalore.gov.in
• You need to first download the adobe PDF writeable document at http://passportindia.gov.in/AppOnlineProject/online/downloadEFormStatic
• Create a user ID
• Fill the downloaded e-form and upload the same.
• Schedule an appintment at your nearest branch. Satellite seva kendras are available which makes it more convinient.
• Schedule an appointment at time of choice. This will be a bit tricky and will need multiple iterations before your master. They generally open the appointment 2 days in advance (i.e 3rd appointments will be opened on 1st and 4th appointments will be opened on 2nd).
• Print out the completed application e-form as well as take a photocopy of the required documents.
• Walk in on day of appoitment at approx 15 min in advance.
• There is NO Need to walk in much in advance like the old time walk ins of 4-5 hours
• As long as you have the required documentary proof, the processing will be very smooth and fast
• step 1 is a person who will check whether you have the relevant documents.
• Step 2 is a person who snaps your photo, scans each of the document that you have submitted and also collects the payment. Note: Only cash was accepted and photo was taken on the spot.
• Step 3 is a visit with one of the passport officers who validates the documents.
• The surprising part was that the visit was very cordial and cozy as though visiting one of the privilege banking counter of  a overseas investment bank
• The cream of the cream was that the passport was dispatched in 3 days time and we received it within a day of dispatch. Information was to the point here was well. SMS and E-Mail was sent immediately on dispatch so that we could be at home to receive.

Overall, I am pleasantly surprised and will pray god that each service offered by my government becomes as good as this.

Schools in Bangalore

Schools in Marathahalli/ Whitefield (with my thoughts) - ONLY schools less with fees than 100 K per annum.

• Vinbgyor High - ICSE. 70 K per annum. Student numbers are growing very fast. Not sure whether quality can be sustained. Very new to Bangalore to comment. Has a history of activity based education with strong emphasis on extra curricular activities.
• Gopalan National - CBSE. 30 K per annum. Was very good originally. But, recent comments are not so encouraging
• Gopalan International - ICSE. 100 K per annum. Just started. Fees is very high and does not have any historical benefits to justify. All benefits explained are on paper.
• Deens Academy - CBSE. 45 K per annum - Looks good at the outside. New school. But, has lots of good review for education based focus.
• Ryan International - CBSE. 30 K per annum. Looks like turning out to be a mass factory. Heard that it has nearly 30 sections with each section having 50 students.
• Vagdevi vilas - CBSE. 30 K per annum. Huge campus. Did not visit to get details.

Return to India - 100 Days

100 Days review (Apr 1 to July 10)

Status / base of my comments:

• Home to office - 3 KM
• Home to kids school - 2 KM
• type of residence: luxury apartment complex of 1200 apartment
• location of residence: Bangalore suburbs
• Social life for Family - abundant
• Car - yes
• Maid - yes

All positives with NO regrets

• Job has been funtastic, more dynamic, more challenging and lot more satisfying.
• Lots of interaction with relatives. Atleast 80 of past 100 days should have had atleast one relative at home.
• Lots of new friends
• Satisfaction to read a local newspaper with all local content and spicy bits
• Lots of local topics can be discussed and debated
• Since apartment complex takes care of all "initial connections" and "bill payments", I am not forced to spend much time running for other issues.

Small negative thoughts:

• Roads are really bad with speed breakers that are really bone breakers
• Traffic jam makes you think twice
• Expenses - You will never imagine how expensive your monthly expenses can be. Even for the money spent, you are not sure whether is it really worth it.

Return to India

01.04.2009

Finally, took the plunge to return to India.

It was a long pending dilema where we were evaluating a 100 reasons to return to India and another 100 reasons to Not to return to India.

Few Positives (as I saw) in India:

• Closer to Indian culture and everything Indian
• Closer to relatives. Family bonding improves.
• Participate in all family events/ festivals
• Be closer and try to contribute back to Indian society

Few Negatives (as I saw) in India:

• Bangalore specific: roads are bad, traffic is pathetic, public transport is non-existent and neighbourhood community life does not exist. Your family cannot step out without you driving around.
• Outside life does not exist in India for family. Of course, this can be overcome by staying in a self sustained apartment complex
• Things do not happen as seamless as abroad. 100% of time is spent between office work and personal life. In India, we spend a lot of additional time to push things (EB, phone...)
• Schools - Mid term Admission is a pain. Fees is exorbitant and quality is not guaranteed. U need to start in the same place from LKG to get into good schools.

Factors that helped me overcome/Ignore the negatives:

• Bangalore specific - Stay close to office (whitefield in my case), have a car for family and drive them around even for nearby shops.
• Schools - Pay the exorbitant fees and be satisfied with what you get
• Stay in an apartment complex where there are people to take care of anything and everything for which you normally will be spending lots of time shuttling to government agencies. Your family also will have lots of people to interact with.

Bangalore Schools - Categorization

Found the below mentioned useful categorization at a r2iclubforums link. Very good and useful.

School Categorization:
1) Govt. and public schools - govt. schools, Army schools, central schools

• Fee - Free or very nominal?
• Donation/Bldg fee/Admission fee - none

2) Neigborhood and private schools - Ryan, DPS, NPS, Josephs, Cottons, Freedom Intl, Frank Anthony's etc., etc. Tons of schools in this category.

• Patronized by the Indian middleclass, upper middleclass, NRIs etc.
• Fee - INR 30k to 50k
• Donation/Bldg fee/Admission fee - Some require yrly donations

3) Academy's and wannabe intl schools - Gear, Greenwood, VIBGYOR, Inventure, Vidyashilp, NAFL, etc.

• Patronized by the Indian upper middleclass, NRIs, etc.
• Fee - INR 60k to 100k (a new school like VIBGYOR are exceptions)
• Donation/Bldg fee/Admission fee - Most don't take yrly donations and bldg fees. They do take admission fee and some refund part or whole.

4) Intl school - TISB, Canadian, BLR Intl, Sarla Birla, JIRS, Deccan, Valley(?), et all

• Patronized by expats, NRIs and the wealthy
• Fee - Over 1 lakh
• Donation/Bldg fee/Admission fee - Most don't take yrly donations and bldg fees. They do take admission fee and some refund part or whole.

Methodology: Most schools under category 3 and 4 seem to follow the western style of teaching up to grade 5 (i.e smaller class sizes, smaller units within a classroom, no tests and exams(?), one does not even prescribe homework. Each school seems to follow its own methodology. There doesn't appear to be any standard or benchmark.

Kannada exposure (at least as a third language) is a must for all schools (except Central/Army schools)? And that 3rd lang. requirement starts 6th std. onwards?

• In most category 1 - Severe Kannada "pain" for sure
• Category 2 - mild to moderate - Can be substituted w/ Hindi or Sanskrit pain
• Category 3 - mild
• Category 4 - Students can opt for Spanish or French pain instead?

Security?

• Category 2 - usually boasts of an old man in blue uniform sitting by the gate.
• Category 3 - could have restricted entry and an younger guy in full (shoes and all) blue uniform. (Some like Gear is very strict - Prospective parents are not even allowed inside to inquire, prior to admitting their ward. They are strict and I'm sure they have their reason for it...)
• Category 4 - Security rivals that of any large multinational S/W firm since they are residential schools as well.

Kids presence for admission:

• Kids presence and admission tests are dependent of school policies. Most require a test for higher grades.
• In the lower grades, one could get a child admitted w/o making the trip -we did.

Bangalore Schools

So, you want to admit your kids to schools in Bangalore and are searching for information on good schools within Bangalore.

Please do refer to my other thread on categories of Schools in Bangalore.
Please do also refer to the below mentioned links which has got an ocean of information on Schools in Bangalore.

• http://bangaloreschools.net/
• http://www.r2iclubforums.com/forums/f30/mt-schools-bangalore-259/
• http://www.r2iclubforums.com/forums/f30/housing-where-stay-how-close-school-work-please-advise-2773/
• http://www.indusladies.com/forums/bangalore-schools/?daysprune=-1&order=desc&sort=replycount

Singapore Primary Education

Few crisp words

competitive

activity based

Excellent

• Stressful (not fully caused by school. partly caused by school and majority caused by anxious kiasu parents)
• Starts slow from P1 to P3 when kids get accustomed and zooms fast through P4 to P6 when kids are put to real stress test

Positives:

• Amazing is the ONE word that I have got for the Singapore Primary Education.
• Focuses to create well rounded individuals and not mere academic bookworms.
• We pay 10 SGD. The government spends nearly 1 K per kid per month.
• School infrastructure is excellent and is always being upgraded.
• The entire curriculum is activity based and is improved every few years. The kids live through it, enjoy it, cherish it and learn it.
• Kids who are open and can speak will shine. Of course, it is difficult for average kids and kids who are introvert.
• The kids have an opportunity to excel as an individual.
• Kids are encouraged to speak out, to present topics, to lead classes, to play, to experiment.

Negatives:

• Yes. it is stressful since the kids have to face streaming at very young age
• Yes. Kids who do not start at very young age gets lost and it becomes very difficult to catch up later. this also leads to parents imposing more stress on the kids and the vicious cycle continues.

Singapore Primary school admissions

Primary school admissions is Singapore is very simple and transparent (find the category under which you are going to get admitted, find the distance between your house and school and roughly you will have an idea). It is also very tough to get into top schools. It is always good to apply for schools within 1 KM of your house. The government also encourages schools to be closer to home.

All details required for primary admissions is available on the government website at:

• http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/primary/
• http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/admissions/primary-one-registration/

Even though, I would say that all primary schools in Singapore are good, there is some differences that leads to some excellent schools and some "not so excelling schools". The government is used to award the top schools in various categories and the ratings can be found at http://app.sis.moe.gov.sg/schinfo/ (School achievements)
There are a few private websites as well like http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/singapores-top-primary-schools

Further Learning avenues..........HAPPY LEARNING

I list below a few non-SAP topics that I recently came across and that I feel will be a good value addition to our coporate career, to our deliverables and also useful when we engage our customers:

1. PMP (project Management Professional): www.pmi.org. This is mandatory as long as we pursue our career within field operations. PMI is an American Institute. UK has its own version called PRINCE2. Singapore also has its own version. SAP's ASAP methodology is based on this
2. ITIL (IT Infrastruture Library): http://www.itil-officialsite.com/home/home.asp. This will be a good value addition for people who are engaged in supporting Operations (Incident management, service desk management, issue resolution, change request management,) and goes much beyond. SAP's RUNSAP methodology is based on this.
3. CISA (Certified Information systems auditor): http://isaca.org/. This is an certification for audit of Information Systems. The audits that we deliver are similar to this, but this certification goes much beyond.
4. CGEIT (Certified in Governence of Enterprise IT): http://isaca.org/.

If any of the topics are of interst to you and you would like to get more information, please do contact me.

Help required to clarify my MBA related questions

Dear Visitor,


I post my profile at the end. I need all of your thoughts to answer my questions:

• I am interested to work for a few years in US post MBA. Hence, I have a strong preference for US schools. But, I understand that most US schools have average experience for incoming students as between 3 to 6 years. Will 13 years be considered too old for the schools.
• Will there be any difference between my GMAT score of 680 and 7XX. Should I retake my GMAT and move to 7XX before applying.
• On a broad range, what schools should I target? Top 10, 10-20 or below 20.
• I intend to apply to a max of 7 schools (2 with safe chances, 3 within exact reach and 2 with exceed reach).
• Schools short listed by me(based on leadership/ General Management with technology flavor) are as below: Any comments on my choice
  • US - MIT Sloan, Haas, UCLA, Darden, Tepper and Mccombs
  • UK - Oxford, Cambridge, Cranfield
  • Canada - Rotman, Ontario, Queens
• I understand that I belong to the WIDEst pool of applicants (Indian/ Male/ IT) with additional drawback of age. Any pointers on how I should look to differentiate myself to stand out from the crowd.
• Any specific schools that comes to your mind to be good for Leadership/ General Management that will be a good fit for me.
• I am given to understand that H1B is becoming a major issue for graduating MBA students. Any idea whether that should discourage me to shift my focus to schools in Canada or UK.

My PROFILE:

• Male, Indian, 34 years, Engineer
• 70% in Engineering - Anna University
• GMAT-680 (Q-48, V-35, AWA-5.0)
• 12 years total experience of which at least 3/4th is international
• 3 years in project procurement/ planning in Heavy Engineering Industry
• 9 years in SAP consulting on technology side.
  • Industries - media, defense, aerospace, utilities, leasing, pension fund
  • Roles: consultant, team lead, development manager, project manager
  • Have lead a team of 10+
• Reason for change
  • Extremely satisfied with what I am today. This is to "sharpen the saw" before my plunge into management roles.
• Social activities: normal
  • Educating 3 girls for the past few years sponsoring all of their expenses (fees, dress, books,…)
  • Contributions for college alumni
• Preferred MBA specializations
  • General Management / Leadership
• Short term career plan
  • Management/ Leadership roles within same IT industry moving up the ladder into strategic roles
• Long term plan
  • Career - Non profit organizations/ service industries
  • Passion - Want to do something back to society

Thanks for your time/ efforts to clarify

Completed my GMAT - 680

I have just completed my GMAT. Got a dismal 680 (Q-48 and V-35). I was expecting it to be in the range of 700 to 730. I was consistently getting in the 7XX range in all my practice exams.

Questions that I have:

• Should I retake my GMAT to achieve a 7XX score or use the time to create a powerful resume & essay.
• What are the colleges that I should target. My target location is US or Canada.
• Will my age of 34 (My one line profile will be 34 Yrs, Indian Male, Consulting, 9 years in ERP) be an asset or disadvantage for US schools. I find most US schools to have young student profile aged between 25 to 30 years.
• I am targeting schools with specialization in General Management or Leadership
  

Auto Driver menace

I am saddened to know that one more initiative (late but at least late) has failed.

Any idea why has it failed. I have few ideas which might be a few major contributing factor

• Chennai Auto drivers have used to the fact of returning back to their base auto stand. This is the prime factor. In Mumbai, Bangalore and in other places, we do not have such "base auto stand" concept. Auto drivers just keep driving on and on and on... till their shift closure hours.
• Chennai Auto drivers are used to the concept of "work less earn more". They want to just be in the stand, talk, chit chat with like minded friends and want to earn their days earning from the one of two passengers who get caught.
• These "base auto stand" concept not only corrupts their auto drivers, but also prevents other auto drivers from adhering to law. The drivers in "base auto stand" do not allow other line autos to park in them. So, those auto drivers who want to just ride on and on as per passenger request will find it difficult to park there for passenger. Hence, over a period of time, those honest drivers are also forced to fall back to the policy of the notorious majority and amalgamate into the auto mafia.

We all have left side driving. Assume an NRI comes back to India from US and says that he wants to drive on the right hand side. Will it be possible. Will it not create chaos and spell disaster. If that is breaking law. What is it that the auto drivers are doing when they do not follow the rates specified by the government.

Government will only establish and frame rules. It is only left to the public to follow it and ensure that others follow it. The final fault lies only with the public for not being able to come together and voice out against this.

Least that can be done:

• Eliminate base auto stand concept.
• Any auto driver can park his vehicle in auto stand
• Passenger should have the right to sit inside the auto tell the destination and auto driver is expected to only turn on the vehicle, turn on the meter and transfer the passenger.
  

Road space eaten away by parked vehicles

The traffic congestion has made the city to limp. But, is the growing vehicle population the only cause. NO. I do not think so.

What else is the root cause of the problem:
The bigger cause is the shrinking road space on account of parkings on both sides of the road.
For Eg: A few years back, Bus # 1 from Thiruvanmiyur to Thiruvottiyur used to take 20 to 30 minutes from Thiruvanmiyur to Mount road during peak hours. The bus used to be like a bullet train with no intermediate places to board (boarding/ alighting when the bus slows down) other than bus stops. Now, it is a limping dog as the entire stretch has got more vehicles and the roads have shrunk.

Who is responsible. Each and every one of us. Our present society seems to think that road space is for parking vehicles.
Let me illustrate with an example from my life. We are used to park our car in a car park within our house. The entire neighborhood looks as though we are idiots and some have even recommended us to convert the car parking into a commercial establishment and to park our car on the streets. They are of course recommending us in "good faith" so that we can make some money.
If this thought process continues, we are heading for a dangerous breakdown.

Who else is responsible:
Some bad elements within the enforcement is collecting bribes to allow this to happen. Looks like that they are collecting rental for public roads.
Have we not seen policemen (not all) walking from shop to shop in their neighborhood collecting Mamool. Their collection is very similar to a landlord collecting rent or a mafia don collecting hafta. Either way, the few corrupt policemen want the pubic roads to be used for parking so that they can get their rental. The other policemen who are good are unable to stop this as the law does not give them the tools to fight.

What are the options possible:

• Bottoms-up approach - Convince the residents that streets and roads are for driving vehicles and walking public. Will we accept, if our room is blocked with a big wall. We will not. But, we are allowing our houses to be blocked by these illegal parking and happily we also park and contribute to it.
• Tops-Down approach - Make ALL roads "NO PARKING ZONE" during peak hours "7 AM to 10 AM" and from "5 PM to 8 PM". Temporary exceptions can be given if the residents/ people who will benefit approach the government and pay rental. This too is only on exceptional cases and that too for limited time frame.
  

Is encumbrance certificate sufficient to ensure property title?

Is encumbrance certificate sufficient to ensure property title?

Courtesty: The Hindu dt Jan 05 2008 http://www.hindu.com/pp/2008/01/05/stories/2008010550070500.htm

The encumbrance certificate contains all the transactions registered relating to a particular property for a period (as required), writes C.H. Gopinatha Rao

— Photo: Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar

Useful: An encumbrance certificate will help arrive at proper entitlement of the property. Encumbrance is a legal term for anything that affects or limits the title of a property, such as mortgages, leases, easements, and liens. In regards to property transaction encumbrance certificate is a document issued by the Registrar’s office. The encumbrance certificate contains all the transactions registered relating to a particular property for a period (as required). It is advisable to get encumbrance certificate before effecting any transactions. This will als o help in arriving at proper entitlement of the property.

The non-testamentary documents relating to immovable properties are registered under BOOK 1 and preserved permanently which only will reflect in the encumbrance certificate. The documents registered under BOOK 1 include the deeds of sale, gift, settlement, partition, release, mortgage, rectification, consent, exchange discharge, security cancellation, mortgage assignment and agreements of lease and sale. It also includes any documents for consideration or supplemental documents to the documents executed for consideration with the description of immovable property. Book No 2: records reasons for refusal to register the documents. Book No. 3: Register of Wills and authorities to adopt. Book No 4: Miscellaneous Register. Book No 5: Register of deposit of Wills.

Unregistered mortgages

The encumbrance certificate issued by the Registrar’s office will not reveal some items which include unregistered mortgages, arrears in taxes to be paid to statutory authorities, status of tenancy, suits pending before the court acquisition proceedings. The Registrar is not liable to be sued, for any claim or demand for reason of anything done or not done in good faith in his official capacity.

The EC will not reveal documents that are executed but not registered within the time allowed by the Registration Act. The effect of registration is only to make the title absolute and unquestionable. A document may not be valid as long as it remains unregistered if no transaction has taken place during the period for which the application is made for EC.

Any order of attachment by the court will be communicated to the Registering officer within the local limits of whose jurisdiction the whole or any part of the immovable property is situated and the same will be reflected in the encumbrance certificate. Anybody can apply for encumbrance certificate except in case of Will. In case of Will, the legatee can apply after the demise of the testator with the death certificate and the document can be obtained only by the parties to the dead.

Documents pending registration but already presented in the Registrar’s office (due to deficient stamp duty paid and pending for decision ) will not be reflected in the Encumbrance certificate.

GMAT Preparation Materials

Must have materials:

1. Official Guide - This is the bible
2. powerprep test preparation software
3. gmatprep test preparation software
4. 1000s from scoretop.com
   

Nice to have materials:

1. Kaplan Premier Program or Kaplan 800 - This will really stretch you in Quants
2. Princeton verbal workout or OG11 verbal workout
   

GMAT Challenges

It is difficult to study, if you are taking a competitive exam like GMAT for the first time and that you have not taken any serious exams in the past 13 years.

It is difficult to study. Very difficult, if you have a wife and two kids, each of them eagerly looking for each and every moment of your spare time to be with you, talk with you and shower you with affection.

It is difficult to study, if you have a demanding job that requires you to always be on the edge and perform lots of travel.


Well, I have all the above reasons that wanted to discourage me from preparing for GMAT. But, luckily for me, I was able to squeeze in 2 to 3 hours a day on regular basis for the past 6 months to prepare for my GMAT. It took 6 months for me to crack the GMAT. I would have spent at least 50% of the 6 months for actual study. The rest was consumed by my official deliverables and travel. My study hours was early morning 3 AM to 6 AM whenever I was at home.

Why study now

I need an MBA.

I believe that MBA is all about networking and sharing. I believe that a full time MBA allows members to indulge together, share experiences, learn together, struggle together and ultimately excel together.

Reason I: Sharpen the saw. I definitely believe in one of the principles of Stephen R Covey, which focuses on "Sharpen the saw". I did my Engineering and a few courses (related to my field of work) which has taken me to where I am today.

I am considered to be an expert in my field of work. I deliver based on my skill. I have handled small teams so far and I have seen myself to be excelling in building up of teams, motivating and retaining my teams, developing a sense of belonging to my team and have enjoyed all the wonderful feelings associated with grooming a team and an individual.

I firmly believe in the philosophy that "To Grow", you need others to work for you. It does not mean that you should not do anything. It means that, you should move away from operational deliveries into strategic deliveries that allow you to build teams and allow the teams to deliver. I should move up and away from operations and move into strategies.

To take me forward for the next 10/ 15 years in my foray into management/ strategic planning, I need a different skill. I need the skills that make a leader. I need formal management skills to supplement my instinct leadership skills.

Reason II: Slowing career growth curve:- My career growth has followed the typical inverted bell. I invested in my engineering education which has paid me rich dividends in bringing me to where I am today. But, the growth rate has slowed down and I could feel that I miss something that is slowing down my rapid movement into management. I believe that I am near the top part of an inverted bell. From here onwards, my growth will slow down and if I do not reinvent myself, the grown rate will soon stall and will even tail down.


Reason III: Change career:- My career has always been into consulting. I do some small amount of charity with the money that I earn. I sponsor the education of a few kids. But, I have been groping in the dark on how to perform first hand contribution to the society - like public administration and/ or join UN organizations which do real service. Here, I envy my mom and brother, both doctors, who are able to do service to poor at the blink of an eye. I want a career change that allows me to illuminate the lives of people.

About Me

About me:

I am proud to be an Indian. I am 33 years old male. I have been lucky to have the best wife that anyone could ever have got and two sweet devilish kids (a six year old girl who talks, talks and talks and a two year old boy who runs, runs and runs). I believe in god and thank him for what I am today.

I am a Mechanical Engineer by education. I have 3 years project Engineer in Heavy Engineering Industry + 9 years as consultant in SAP (ERP). Most of my experience has been in consulting domain and is in India (3 years) and Singapore (6 years).


I am passionate about reading. Some of the books that recently impressed/ influenced me are "7 habits of highly effective people", "rich dad poor dad", "who moved my cheese" and "the magic of thinking big"