Shastra Knowledge: use free money to buy personal goods. Padma for 40,000 crores. College admission for Rs 350 crores. When it is not your money, no amount is too much.
College admission Masterclass
TCS agreed to a massive $35 million (approx. ₹231 crore) gift to Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). This was noted as the largest corporate donation in CMU history and went toward building a 40,000-square-foot facility called the TCS Hall for cutting-edge cognitive systems and autonomous vehicle research, alongside funding Presidential Scholarships.
In return some kids were given admission. Now it is not that anything out of the way was being done. Finally the IITs and IIMs are worthless institutions whose only contribution was to produce serious competition for Chandrasekhar. Besides there was nothing to gain from doing anything in a IIT.
Padma competition Masterclass
The Padma medals are a great recognition. In general the award is not given to government servants or corporate executives. It goes to philanthropists, artists, industrialists, intellectuals, academicians and social workers.
It is really hard for corporate executives to get a Padma. So he did a “Chandra”. Chandra is no longer a name. It is now a verb. You “do a Chandra” – no one ever becomes one. Like Rajnikant there is no second.
So what Chandra did is to agree to every demand of the govt. Air India had no buyers so Chandra became one. Semiconductor plant in Dholera with 70,000 cr subsidy had no takers – so he became one.
Apple iPhone was the best. Rs 600 per phone is the assembly cost. Subsidy is Rs 8000. Profit is Rs 1400 per phone. Net net apple iPhone is a subsidy game. The business looses Rs 6600 per phone. The amount for which a mid market smartphone can be made. The rs 8000 subsidy gives u a profit of Rs 1400 on a phone that looses Rs 6600.
So Tata agreed to all kinds of loss making businesses. In some subsidy covered the loss. In others they lost their shirt and pants. Rs 40,000 cr pa loss was traded for a Rs 40,000 medal called a Padma Bhushan. The medal came to him – the loss went to Tatas
Focus on what you get.
Let the Tatas look after themselves.
But then Tata outsmarted him. The Rs 67,000 iPhone business is actually a Rs 4000 crore contract mfg business. The same is booked at mrp to get the subsidy which is a percentage of list price. The subsidy is the only profit for the Tatas.
Otherwise iPhone mfg is a CSR business. There is no profit in it.
Tata did a master stroke. He is proposing to merge this business into Tata Sons to claim they do rs 67,000 crore operations.
No technology. No component manufacturing. No design. No IPR. A combination of subsidy and revenue recognition policy tweaking makes it look like apples turnover is their own. It is not. They just get to keep the subsidy on the business. Otherwise it is a subsidised business.
Zero viability
Maximum noise
And now an instrument to check mate RBI.