Traditionally, in India, the books of accounts would close on the close of the Vikram calendar year, typically a no-moon (night) day. Opening of the new books of accounts would be carried out with an elaborate adoration ritual. With the English rule, the limited companies started following the end of March as the financial year end, so as to synchronize reporting of their profits and loss with the Income Tax Act accounting year.
Therefore, over the years, fiscal year end on 31st March has acquired an aura of its own. People differently connected with that event have developed their own routine drills. We look at some of such representative activities from a cartoonist’s perspective.
Binay Sinha captures the mood so vividly.
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One of the first possible activities is making sure that financial targets are met – the gods, too, included.
Obviously, those connected with the operations also have to brace up for meeting targets –
Last minute tax saving investments have a risk of end up going into unsuitable avenues. Preeti Motiani does advise to avoid taking a last minute calls.
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Frank and Ernest represent people who seem to realize that trying to meet the end meet when you reach one end, essentially, works out to be a futile exercise. The efforts better be judiciously spread all round.
Frank and Ernest by Bob Thaves Tom Thaves (2007-10-26) Image #19154
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Be it budget numbers or the results number, there is never a dearth of people who doubt the accuracy of the numbers. Trust Dilbert to have The solution!
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There would, perhaps, be universal agreement that the financial numbers make quite dreaded reading.
Do not be surprised if you listen to these types of dialogues around you –
One solution is this –
But when all efforts to make the numbers present a decent enough picture, one tends to lean to the option of ‘creative accounting. Well, if you do not know the how to, there are classes being run to train you up!
But, do take to time to share your viewpoint, preferably from a cartoonist’s point of view…whether you have been enjoying your toil for the March-end pile pf activities or, would like to laugh off the stress……
The standard, in its most common form, is defined as norm, convention, requirements. In essence, these are mutually agreed way(s) of doing something. As such, the standards would cover any activity under the sun, provided the concerned interested parties agree to a way of doing that thing.
The standards can be categorized into 4 major types:
Fundamental standards – which concern terminology, conventions, signs and symbols, etc.;
Test methods and analysis standards – which measure characteristics such as temperature and chemical composition;
Specification standards – which define characteristics of a product (product standards), or a service (service activities standards) and their performance thresholds such as fitness for use, interface and interoperability, health and safety, environmental protection, etc.;
Organization standards – which describe the functions and relationships of a company, as well as elements such as quality management and assurance, maintenance, value analysis, logistics, project or system management, production management, etc.
For the subject of today’s article, we have confined our discussions to the technical standards, in general, and Management System Certification (MSC) standards published by ISO, in particular. We have also consciously stayed away from explaining the subject specific terminology, since we intend to address the article to non-ISO–MSC- standards practicing people as well.
The trigger for compiling the cartoons on ISO MSC is the World Standards Day – Each year on 14 October, the members of the IEC, ISO and ITU celebrate World Standards Day, which is a means of paying tribute to the collaborative efforts of thousands of experts worldwide who develop the voluntary technical agreements that are published as International Standards.
Every year a very relevant theme is selected around which the celebrations of Day are planned. The theme for World Standards Day 2019 is Video standards create a global stage – The video compression algorithms standardized in collaboration by IEC, ISO and ITU have been honored with two Primetime Emmy Awards, recognizing that these standards are central to industry’s ability to meet rising demand for video, one of the most bandwidth-intensive applications running over global networks.
International Standards meet industry demand for powerful compression capabilities. They also enable smooth transitions to the next generation of video compression technology, helping industry to maximize return on each wave of investment.
Having standards recognized and respected all over the world means that video encoded on one device can be decoded by another, regardless of the device being used. This introduces economies of scale that help to grow the market, giving innovators the confidence to invest in new video applications and services.
To create the innovations of today and tomorrow we have to work together, but first we need to understand each other. To exchange knowledge, to make things compatible, ISO standards are the solid base, the common language that humanity can rely on. (EN, ES, FR, DA subtitles)[1]
ISO has published around 22812 International Standards on wide ranging industries and subjects.
With so much of the background information, we will now gradually switch over to our core topic.
Cartoon, being a medium to communicate in a humorously graphical art form, this tool is now very systematically and highly professionally is used to promote and popularize ISO standards .
One of the cartoonists who do such graphics for ISO, Cartoonist Alexane. Rosa, tells: “With a little imagination and humour, the human dimension of technical standards can usually be communicated through cartoons and colourful graphics.”
The cartoon graphics are also very effectively used as training aids for easily explaining the contents of the standard as well as an aid-de-memory for maintain that understanding for a longer time.
These graphical curation-oriented tools are also used to convey the practical benefits of implementing the ISO standards in the organization.
The following graphic is used to covey the concept – “New standards become new ideas”. It graphically conveys what is textually conveyed as “Once we have found new ways of doing things, we incorporate them in our Quality Systems. ISO 9001 was the foundation, now we start to build the house.’
And now we take up the cartons that inherently have a satire embedded into the message it conveys. The message may be a soft satire or a pithy punch, but in the ultimate analysis, it tells ISO-MSC practicing professionals what to-do and, generally, what not-to-do.
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Here a famous fable of an elephant and five blind man is used as a metaphor. This picture is used to convey that different people will look at the standard in their own -subjective-way. It is also used convey that different people in an organization will have different perceptions of risks and opportunities that organization needs to address at any given time.
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As is the general prevailing practice, every country has its own standard, and some times several industries, and several organizations in an industry will have their own standards.
This is the genesis of ISO coming into existence, to act as a central, international confederation that builds and publishes common, universally applicable, international, standards.
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Many professionals (mistakenly, of course) treat the standard as a gospel!
One major intent of the way the international standards are written is to present the content of the standard in as easy as possible manner to understand, leave the minimum possible room for too many possible alternative interpretations. But, by the time that gets explained and / or and implemented by The Experts, it becomes more and more garbled.
The most telling satirist commentary comes from the Dilbert (which incidentally is a subject that can be taken up for an independent, full-scale, discussion). The following strips are self-explained punches:
As the years of implementation of the standard build on, the practice of application of the core principals of the standard become more cliched, which then (so unfortunately) gets demonstrated as the ‘Philosophy of BIG corporations’.
The organizations associated with practice of implementing, auditing or certifying the management system standards must keep questioning about the outcomes of application of management systems – . “Is certification benefiting the operation of business operators?” “Isn’t certification processes obstructing the real ISO mission? …In other words, unless it is a system to improve and create sustained success for your business, management system is worthless.
This positive attitude, performance oriented and people centric guideline sparked the revised design of new structure of the ISO standards to come up for revision or being published first time after 2012. The new High Level Structure now seeks to make the standards proactive, responsive and wider-eyed than was the case of the standards designed before.
As we reach the celebrations of Deepawali, I take this opportunity to wish a bon voyage to the ISO MSC fraternity in their search for the sustained success of the organization by implementing the standards in their true spirit….
[1] Dare to dream BIG: Standards empower innovators
In our young hey days, one of the biggest attraction to visit our local Library (M J Library, Ahmedabad) was to have look the latest issue of LIFE. Here is one issue that is still fresh in the deep recesses of my memory –
I now take unplanned, random, search for websites that would be primarily focusing on photographs as the subject. In a recent search, there were a few photographs that interested me. Presently, I would like to share these photographs here:
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Portrait photography has been accorded a valuable space in the field of photographic art.
Travel photography spans the interests of amateurs as well commercial and art photography professionals.
Volcán de Fuego, Guatemala: Close to 4,000 people were evacuated from their homes in November when Guatemala’s Fuego volcano erupted, spewing ash and lava.
Photographs of objects from cosmos can also have value as an object of art, apart from its inherent value as a scientific data !
The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is an emission nebula located 8 000 light-years away. This stunning new image was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to celebrate its 26th year in space.
The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is an emission nebula located 8 000 light-years away. This stunning new image was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to celebrate its 26th year in space.
Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team ║Top 100 Images – Hubble Space Telescope
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Silhouette photography is no more a simple outlined object which appears dark, normally black, against a bright, normally a strong source of light, background.
The presence of mind of photographer, coupled with his immaculate technical expertise, can turn a moment in to an iconic shot.
Photojournalist Richard Drew’s iconic image remains that of a man falling from the World Trade Center towers after the September 11 attacks. Known as The Falling Man, the image provides a powerful commentary on the attack-
These are the findings of just a few, random, not-so-deep dives in the big ocean of photography. Does it give me an idea to make such visits more regular and systematic in 2019! Not inclined to make New Year resolution at this stage, but, certainly, to me at least this is worth its while, so would like to be more frequent, to begin with.
Disclaimer: This is to unequivocally acknowledge the copy rights of the respective original creator for the photographs presented here, with no commercial interest whatsoever.. Thank you all.
Arun Khopkar’s Teevra Madhyam (1974)Naseerudin Shah and Smita Patil in a screen test for Richard Attenborough’s GandhiIn Shyam Benegal’s Bhumika (1977), a film bloosely based on Hansa Wadkar’s autobiography Sangtye AikaMrinal Sen’s Akaler Shandhaney (1980)Ketan Mehta’s Bhavni Bhavai (1980)G Aravindan’s Chidambaram (1985). Photo by Peter ChappellWith Naseeruddin Shah in Sagar Sarhadi’s Bazaar (1982)Shyam Benegal’s Manthan (1976)
All photos courtesy Anita Patil Deshmukh unless otherwise indicated.
[I have been following the photo stories of Umesh Solanki for quite some time. Essentially, his stories have deep social perspectives. I will now keep revisiting his archives and re-blog some of the photo stories that I like.]
During its four-decade run, from the late 1930s to early 1970s, as one of the world’s premier weekly magazines, LIFE covered an utterly dizzying array of people and events. Best-known, of course, for its photographs and articles on World War II, the Space Race, the Vietnam War, Camelot, pop-culture icons like Marilyn Monroe and Sinatra and other major issues and world figures, from the very first LIFE also opened its pages to coverage of science and technology.
Staff photographers like Fritz Goro, Andreas Feininger, Yale Joel, J.R. Eyerman and others were justly celebrated for finding new and creative ways to illustrate the often-esoteric breakthroughs — and the scientists and engineers — transforming the world in the middle part of the last century. Often the magazine’s treatment of these issues and people was unreservedly admiring; at other times, LIFE cast a more skeptical eye on new developments, inventions and areas of research. But no matter how wry or laudatory its voice, the magazine’s ability to bring seemingly “unphotographable” concepts to light always helped to further the conversation around everything from space travel and atomic energy to the minuscule workings of human cells.
Here, LIFE.com presents a selection of photographs by some of history’s most innovative photographers — pictures that encompass the bizarre, heady and often beautiful worlds of science and technology as seen in the pages of LIFE.
November 2013 marks the half century of one of the most epochal event of the last century – Assassination of President John F Kennedy. Here are some more stories on JFK in LIFE.
Every year a very relevant theme is selected around which the celebrations of Day are planned. The theme for World Standards Day 2019 is Video standards create a global stage – The video compression algorithms standardized in collaboration by IEC, ISO and ITU have been honored with two Primetime Emmy Awards, recognizing that these standards are central to industry’s ability to meet rising demand for video, one of the most bandwidth-intensive applications running over global networks.
To create the innovations of today and tomorrow we have to work together, but first we need to understand each other. To exchange knowledge, to make things compatible, ISO standards are the solid base, the common language that humanity can rely on. (EN, ES, FR, DA subtitles)
The world is too small? or Is it? 