CA Mahesh Ramanujam

FCA, DISA

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

@news7tamil He seems to be daydreaming. 😄

Defeating Stalin once was an electoral fluke, not proof of a permanent political base.

Just give him another election. The numbers will remind him of his actual position.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

CPM has raised one genuinely important question: Are governments managing officers, or are officers managing governments?

Looking at how decisions are often made and implemented, it increasingly feels like the latter.

The elected government is supposed to set the direction, priorities and accountability. The bureaucracy is supposed to execute them.

When that relationship gets reversed, the government risks becoming merely the front end, while the real machinery of governance runs from behind the scenes.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

This is the real problem—and it is getting bigger every year.

The government can tackle the economy, borders, fuel prices and the currency. But 8.7 crore young people doing nothing points to a much deeper structural problem.

A country cannot afford to have its largest youth population sitting outside productive economic activity. This should be treated as a national emergency, not just another statistic

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

This is the real problem—and it is getting bigger every year.

The government can tackle the economy, borders, fuel prices and the currency. But 8.7 crore young people doing nothing points to a much deeper structural problem.

A country cannot afford to have its largest youth population sitting outside productive economic activity. This should be treated as a national emergency, not just another statistic.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

DMK's political roots run deep. Its history, organisation and voter base cannot be wished away overnight.

What it may need is not a funeral, but new blood — fresh leadership, fresh ideas and a serious generational reset.

Political fortunes can change. But an established banyan tree doesn't disappear because a few new saplings have arrived.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

@PttvNewsX New bees should be cautious. They may enjoy the political honey today, but they don't know when their luck will run out.

The DMK is a banyan tree — deeply rooted, widely spread and not something you uproot just because you have a good season.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

@svembu Study Lee Kuan Yew. Don't imitate Lee Kuan Yew. Extract what worked, test it against Indian realities, and build an Indian model of clean and competent governance.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

Singapore and India are apples and oranges. We should not compare them as though one model can simply be transplanted into the other.

But there is nothing wrong with adopting the best practices that work.

Death penalties or higher compensation alone will not solve corruption or the drug problem.

India first needs clean leadership, efficient institutions, swift and credible enforcement, transparent processes and accountability at the top.

Then we need to identify what actually suits India’s scale, democracy, federal structure and culture—and build our own model around those principles.

We should learn from Singapore, not try to become Singapore.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

Funny world we live in — we often discover how great a person was only after reading their obituary.
Perhaps we should learn to appreciate people while they are still around to hear it.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

The fight may not really be between two CAs.

It is between two egos arguing over whose opinion matters more.

Professional differences are inevitable. But when the need to be right becomes more important than the dignity of the profession, everyone loses.

The real mark of a senior professional is not having the last word — it is knowing when to let go.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

Stop Learning AI. Start Managing AI.

Prompt engineering got automated in two years. What's replacing it isn't a cleverer prompt — it's the ability to manage what AI produces: giving clear direction, catching a wrong answer before it goes out under your name, and owning the final call.

In the latest PromptedGrad piece, I walk through the five skills that actually survive this shift, with a real workplace example of what "managing AI" looks like on the job — not just talking about it.

Read it here → https://t.co/TPryQE846h

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

The Leader of the Opposition had to sit for over six hours outside a police station before an FIR was registered for a student's alleged pellet injuries.

That is not a victory for Rahul Gandhi.

It is an indictment of the system.

If a citizen with a serious injury cannot get an FIR registered without the country's principal Opposition leader physically sitting at the police station, something is fundamentally wrong with the functioning of the system.

And if the Leader of the Opposition has to personally intervene in individual FIRs, it raises an equally uncomfortable question:

Who is watching the larger machinery of government?

Opposition politics should not become a collection of individual interventions.

Its real job is to scrutinise the government, expose systemic failures, demand institutional accountability and offer an alternative.

When the system needs a politician to make an FIR happen, the problem is bigger than one FIR.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

“Anger is a brief madness.” — Seneca

More than 2,000 years later, we still haven't learned the lesson.

If the reported account from Maharashtra is accurate, a dispute over an iPhone EMI escalated into a tragedy that claimed the lives of a young man and both his parents.

An iPhone can be replaced.
Money can be borrowed.
An EMI can be renegotiated.
Life cannot.
Perhaps this is what real education should teach us:

Not merely how to earn more, but how to value less.

Not every possession deserves our peace.
Not every argument deserves our anger.
Not every material desire deserves to be fulfilled.

We teach mathematics, science and technology.

Perhaps we should also teach our children the ancient wisdom of Māyā — the understanding that material things are temporary, and that mistaking them for life's true worth can make us lose sight of what actually matters.
That lesson deserves a place in the syllabus too.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

Has an iPhone become more precious than life?

A phone can be replaced.
An EMI can be paid, delayed, renegotiated or written off.
A life cannot.

If the reports from Maharashtra are accurate, this tragedy is a chilling reminder of what happens when a material possession becomes emotionally bigger than the people who bought it.

We need to teach our children an uncomfortable lesson:

Never let the price of a possession become greater than the value of a life.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

If ₹0.01 is enough to win a government jewellery tender, imagine the next bidding revolution:

Liquor supplier: “₹0.10 per bottle, sir!” 🍾😂

Government: “Congratulations! You are L1.”

Supplier: “Thank you. Where do I sign?”

Government treasury: “Wait… where did our revenue go?” 💸

Maybe not every government tender should be judged by who can quote the lowest number. Sometimes the price you save on the tender is the revenue you lose elsewhere.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

Look at India's spectrum story.

When mobile spectrum was first licensed, nobody knew how explosively mobile usage would grow. The government couldn't price tomorrow's telecom revolution with today's knowledge.

Later auctions captured enormous value as competition revealed what bidders were willing to pay.

That's the real challenge in public procurement too:

Are we merely accepting the lowest price today—or structuring the tender so the government captures the wider value of what it is giving away?

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

The bids get funnier at the bottom.

Joyalukkas: ₹0.01 per gram
GRT: ₹410.97
…
Saravana Stores: ₹15,356.27 per gram
Perhaps Saravana read the tender as “quote the cost of 1 gram of gold”, while Joyalukkas read it as “how little can you quote and still win?” 😂
Government tenders: where even the interpretation of “additional charge” can become competitive.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

If ₹0.01 for making a gold ring can win a government contract, what’s next?

₹0.10 making charge for hospital beds.
₹1 for supplying high-end medical equipment.
₹10 for constructing public infrastructure.
Do it at a token price, secure the government contract, get nationwide publicity—and let the branding pay for the bid.
One tender may be an exception. But if this becomes the bidding logic, every future government tender could become a race to see who can afford to bid the lowest for the biggest publicity.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

If ₹0.01 for making a gold ring can win a government contract, what’s next?

₹0.10 making charge for hospital beds.
₹1 for supplying high-end medical equipment.
₹10 for constructing public infrastructure.
Do it at a token price, secure the government contract, get nationwide publicity—and let the branding pay for the bid.
One tender may be an exception. But if this becomes the bidding logic, every future government tender could become a race to see who can afford to bid the lowest for the biggest publicity.

[CA Mahesh Ramanujam @tej_mah]

If this logic works, it could become a template for future government tenders: bid at ₹0.01—or even do it for free—to secure the contract, then recover the value through the branding, visibility and credibility that comes with being a government supplier.

One tender may be an exception. But if this becomes a strategy, it could fundamentally change how government contracts are bid for.