Philosophy and Culture

Avoiding a Financial Collapse, Indian-Style

One of the most outrageous example of lax U.S. lending practices was someone making $14,000 a year approved for a $720,000 mortgage with no down payment!NYTimes.com
“In India, we never had anything close to the subprime loan,” said Chandra Kochhar, the chief financial officer of India’s largest private bank, Icici. (A few days after I spoke [...]


A World Led By India And China

Forbes.com
As many have observed, the global order that is emerging has a distinct Asian tilt because of the rise of China and India as geopolitical forces. The two countries’ growing power may stimulate an “Eastphalian” order that challenges the Western-led approaches that dominated the Age of Imperialism, the Cold War and the post-Cold War period.
The [...]


Cultural similarities: India and Latin America – Indirect communication

One other similarity in cultural style across India and LatAm is indirect communication – not being totally straight with people. People tell you what they think you expect to hear. This can translate into a difficulty saying no or delivering bad news. Because relationships are important, people sometimes go all out to avoid hurting feelings.
Face-saving [...]


Pensamientos para el Día

Primero te ignoran, después se ríen de ti, luego te atacan, entonces ganas.
La diferencia entre lo que podemos hacer y lo que hacemos supondria un cambio en el mundo.
- Gandhi


The Indian Diaspora

Esquire
From Silicon Valley to Citigroup, the new face of success is increasingly of a rich caramel-brown color. Vikram Pandit has led the charge to rescue banking behemoth Citi, and Bobby Jindal, the whiz-kid Indian-American governor of Louisiana, could find himself with a new job in a McCain administration . In Washington lobbying circles, Indians are [...]


Cultural similarities: India and Latin America – High power distance

In a previous post, I’d outlined a list of culturally similar values that exist across India and Latin America. One of these is high power distance. Power distance is how cultures deal with status differences among people and the access to power that comes with those differences. In other words, how cultures or societies view [...]


India, shy of donor tag, wins US praise

The Economic Times
India and China were not meant to have been active participants in the 3rd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, which was called by the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the group representing the world’s richest donor nations.
But the two Asian nations were forced to step out [...]


Los jueces y la justicia

Hana Fischer – Libertad Digital
La función de los jueces consiste en aplicar el Derecho a casos concretos, pero a menudo se habla del Poder Judicial como “la justicia”. Esa confusión en las palabras conduce a extravío en las ideas. Uno de los mayores peligros estriba en que los jueces confundan su labor y lleguen a [...]


‘Frugal engineering is India’s strength’

Business-The Times of India
In an interview to the TOI, the current poster boy of the global car industry, Renault’s CEO Carlos Ghosn and M&M’s charismatic managing director Anand Mahindra exuded an optimism that may well set the future for joint ventures in India’s fast growing automobile business.
And the no-nonsense, tough speaking Ghosn who has worked [...]


Cultural Differences – Silence in Conversations

Today I was speaking to an Argentine business associate and he shared with me some frustrations. He was telling me how he communicates via email with potential Indian clients(government and company officials) and then does not get a response for long periods of time or not at all.  I told him there could be various [...]