11: 20 PM

Reese Witherspoon comes to present the Best Director Award. And guess who won the award ? It is Danny Boyle from Slumdog Millionaire. What a guy! In his speech he showed humility and apologized for not having given credit to his choreographer but gave his tribute to Mumbai and truly deservedly so.

Danny Boyle we love you.

11:27 PM

Halle Berry and Co comes on stage to present the Oscar for the Best Leading Lady. Anna Hathaway, Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie

Kate cries while she gets praised.

Meryl Streep got nominated for the fifteenth time. And Angelina Jolie was a stunner …But the Oscar went to Kate Winslet…She recollects her shampoo bottle from her bathroom when she was eight years old. Madhavan just told me that her acting in “The Reader” was stupendous.

And now comes the next best category of awards

11:37 PM

Sir Ben Kingsley, Michael Douglas, Robert DeNeiro, Anthony Hopkins and Anthony Roda to award the best Actor’s award.

Richard Jenkins, Sean Penn, Frank Langella, Brad Pitt and Mickey Rourke gets nominated for the best actor’s award.

The Oscar Award for the Best Actor goes to Sean Penn. There was a standing ovation from the crowd. Sean Penn says “ You don’t know how difficult it is appreciate myself”. The words that followed after that was very impressive – a great speech. His humility was seen when he appreciated Mickey Rourke- the comeback kid.

11: 47 PM

Steven Spielberg comes on stage to present The Best Picture.

Frost/ Nixon, The Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Reader are the ones nominated in the Best Picture category.

And the Oscar Award for The Best Picture goes to Slumdog Millionaire. The Producer Christian Colson, along with the entourage reached the stage to collect the award.

What a moment for Slumdog Millionaire, Mumbai and India !

12:00 AM on 23rd Feb’09– Off to sleep. Good night, have to wake up early for office, tomorrow. Have a great week, everyone!

Jai Ho! Jai Ho!

Image Credit: MasterOrz

Popularity: 19%

Time is 9:46 PM

I am back to my seat and three guys come to announce the best live action award. The category doesn’t sound familiar, but sounds important. Whatever !

The Oscar award for the best live action short film goes to will tell you later.

By the way, did I tell you – Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire are tied at two awards each. Lets see who wins the battle of the Oscars. My heart goes for Slumdog Millionaire but my brain for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I hope my heart wins.

9:52 PM

Hugh Jackman is back and is busy talking of “Change That Has Come”…..He is talking of Mamma Miah and the musical. He is now singing, dancing live “Mariah….” from Mamma Miah…along with guess who – Beyonce Knowles!.

Oh My God!

This is the first time I am seeing him on stage and Hugh Jackman is phenomenal.

A Musical Oscars indeed. All the performers from Mamma Miah look so beautiful including Beyonce Knowles

Time is 9:59 – Time for a break and some grub – Salads, bread crumbs, light mayonnaise and lots of water. Not so spicy, right ? So uncommon for an Indian like me. Isn’t it ?..anyways, time to move on

Five actors including Cuba Gooding Jr. comes onto present the Best Supporting Actor.

The Oscar goes to the Late Heath Ledger for The Dark Night and the family (his mom,  dad and sister) came to receive the Oscars. All three of them spoke and accepts the award. An emotional moment, indeed. May his soul Rest In Peace

Who will win the Best Actor award ? – Mickey Rourke ? Wait for some more time and you will get to know that…

10:13 PM -

The best documentary award goes to James Marsh, Simon Chinn for Men On Wire. The winner shows some magic on stage. Very creative!

10:17 PM

The best Oscar for the small documentary short film goes to Megan Mylan for Smile Pinki – Another Indian film. Wow! This probably is the best year for Indian cinema at the Oscars for a long, long time to come. Hey, this is Icing On Cake!

Popularity: 33%

The Oscar fever has caught on and for the first time, I am blogging live watching the Oscars, from the comforts of my home. Nothing can beat this experience. Seeing it live, munching my favourite triscuit, watching my two kids screaming louder than the Oscar host and blogging as Slumdog Millionaire is about to win Oscars – At this point, I don’t know how many, though!

The expectations are high among Indians that music maestro AR Rahman, who has bagged three nominations for “Slumdog Millionaire”, will bring home the coveted trophy. What a moment that will be!

Other two Indian films vying for the glory are “Smile Pinki” and “The Final Inch”.

The time is 8.30 PM EST.

Ok, the Oscar Awards has begun and so is this live blogging.

The time is 8:33 PM

Singer, Dancer, Actor Hugh Jackman enters the show with startling display of his talent. He starts of with the song on Slumdog Millionaire, moves onto Benjamin Button – what a startling display, picks up Anne Hathaway for an impromptu dance. Jackman performs about the other movies – The Reader, The Wrestler and Nixon. What a Live Performance that was!

The time is 8:40 PM

Hugh Jackman introduces all the nominees including Mickey Rourke, the couple – Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie, the guy who played Nixon, Demi Moore.

The time is 8:45 PM

5 yesteryear Oscar actress winners including Whoopi Goldberg introduces Penelope Cruz, Marisa Tomei, Demi Moore et al.

Penelope Cruz wins Oscar for the best actress. She goes to the stage and thinks she would faint…but doesn’t. She gave an emotional speech saying it is art which unites the universe. You are too good and beautiful. Penelope – Congratulations !

The time is 8:54 PM

Some type pad clicks. Few sentences and sounds of a typewriter. I don’t know what is happening.

Enter Steve Martin and Tina Fei. They starts joking around, as usual and soon picks up the mike for announcing the best screenplay. Now I understand why there were those type sounds.

The best screenplay award goes to Dustin Lance Black for Milk. Dustin, on the stage, emotionally talks of “Hope” for Gays and Lesbians across America.

Next comes the award for the best adopted screenplay…and the award goes to Simon Beaufoy, the writer for Slumdog Millionaire.

Oscar # 1 for Slumdog Millionaire. Wondering why Vikas Swarup for Original Screenplay. But yes, he thanked Vikas Swarup and the other two musketeers and his love for India.

I am so excited now. My friend, Madhavan, who wrote Will Slumdog Millionaire Win the Oscar Awards, pings me on Gmail. We exchange congratulations for the first in the kitty and many to go.

The time is 9:03.

Enters Kungfu Panda and his star friends…I am talking of Jack Black and Jennifer Aniston. He is hilarious.

The best animated feature film goes to Wall-E. Oscar is taken by Andrew Stanton. He thanks everyone..nothing extraordinary of a speech. The show goes on

The best animated short film goes to La Maison En Petites. Kunio Kato collects the award and “Sanks” everyone!…Sankooo..meaning Thank You.

Time for a break!

Popularity: 36%

It’s back to basics – so it seems. The ” good old days” – days when firms would simply throw money to retain people, Compensation Managers were given marching orders to “do what it takes” to retain talent and in the bargain delivered top dollar increases and fancy variable pays, when counter offers was the need of the hour and kept compensation managers on their toes -

This all seems to be a passe!

With global recession tightening it’s grip around us and with nightmares like the 50B US$ fund run by Bernaud Madoff coming to light, analysts say this is the tip of the iceberg!

I wish it isn’t because what we have been through over the last few months has been more than what we can take. Unfortunately, my wish isnt going to come trough and this will last a few more months – the damage, unraveling like a ravaging hurricane, the magnitude of which will be know only when the storm passes!

While we duck for cover and realize that umbrellas are not enough to weather this storm, compensation managers are going through a pretty different and unique year end / compensation planning process. Quite a few firms that I know, both big and small have said they don’t plan to do merit raises this year – some of the other players are even taking a call on doing away with variable pay plans, not to mention the scary issue of headcount reduction.

So what does the employee feel?

Well – at least some of my experiences tell me that the real world is living in an ivory tower. I’ve had a few folks walk by to me and say, “Can you tell me how much increase I am going to get ? “, “I want to know the “exact” percentage of my bonus!” and I am stumped for words!!!!

It’s sad that a majority of the work force thinks that this is a passing cloud. I can’t blame their ignorance because they probably don’t understand the magnitude of what we are contending with today. But as someone who reasonably understands the situation, I can tell you one thing – the good old days are gone forever and will never ever return.

Hold on! I’m not a pessimist. I am an eternal optimist!!! I’m not predicting doomsday for a second. The point that I am trying to make is that corporates are learning lessons and learning them hard and fast – mistakes teach us a lot and this one is no different.

This too shall pass say some – Yes!.. This too will, because we can’t expect to see things never improve. They will and they better.. Just that the new world order has arrived and when things get back to normal – it’s back to the days of our parents, days when value propositions will be driven by learning and growth opportunities, loyalty to firms having some value and of course, compensation being at the bottom of the stack..

Good bye good old days, welcome to the new world order!!! – if your firms want to survive!

Image Credit: Luismi1985

Popularity: 22%

I often wonder when I read about the bailout packages dished out by Governments all around the world to aid banks and other financial institutions that are on the verge of bankruptcy especially the amount of money spent in bailouts in last couple of months is staggering. I am even surprised that there was not a single protest from anywhere and these financial criminals go unpunished. It is the common man who is going to bear the burden of additional tax and increased debt.

Why should tax payer’s money be used for bailing out greedy banks and corporations that have done business only with profit as motive and no concern for morals or ethics and absolutely no concern for the consequences for their acts. Putting public money in corporate coffers is just not acceptable. Financial crisis that has happened is a man made crisis done through substandard policies, deregulation and greed. I can understand putting in public money for natural disasters like earthquakes or folds. Governments all over the world have spent trillions of dollars on bailouts already

This kind of bailout is ABSURD!

We must collectively protest this .This is real money, my money, your money, our money which is hard earned paid in the form of tax.

Why should banks and financial institutions which never cared about the creditworthiness of people who lined up for loans or the soundness of derivatives business be rewarded. We should not allow government to write checks on tax payers’ account. This measure will increase the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recovering the amount and not holding anyone accountable for the misdeeds they have done.

What is the signal you are sending to the corporate world and investors through these bail outs? Do your businesses as you like and we will reward you for the blind errors you might commit. Is this the right way?

As far as I am concerned, there should be a thorough probe into the events that have led to this disaster and every CEO, Executive or Government who were part of this financial carnage should be jailed, their assets sold and put in a bailout fund.

It is time to wake up and realize that greed is the basis for all the financial disasters and find a way, may be strict disclosure norms, increasing the transparency in strategic decision making, making one responsible for his actions and

Few weeks back Finance Ministers of several Asian, Europe and Americas countries met and decided to act rapidly on the financial crisis

And now stock markets are being artificially manipulated by bailouts by governments.

When corporations see that the demand is coming down , it is natural for the stock to take a beating. But every other day we see CRR, SLR rate cuts which means our money is loaned back to us and the market stages a rally of any significance. FIIs and Badla traders slowly and routinely remove their money from our markets to invest elsewhere leaving the retail investor in a fix.

It is certainly not a good thing for a responsible, saving, taxpaying citizen, with no defaulted loans or credit card debt to compensate for the that Wall Street gamblers will go bust on their stupid and greedy bets, over-leveraged and poorly managed businesses with huge losses.

Let me tell you some interesting fact. Lehman has set aside $2.5 billion as bonus for their employees even as they went bankrupt for the great performance they showed in pushing the bank to bankruptcy.

What do you call this?

Popularity: 33%