It was a Sunday afternoon, after a three hour long and exhaustive exam I came back home ate a candy bar and lied down. Then I decided to chill by watching a movie. The pick was the 2004 flick "The Butterfly Effect". Let me first tell you about the movie as quick as possible then I will try to explain what I liked about the movie.
Movie starts with a note from 'Chaos Theory', stating that even a flap of butterfly has the power to cause tornado halfway around the world ( sounds very ridiculous, I know). The movie dwells over some key incidents in the life of the protagonist, Evan, and how he tries to achieve all by fixing or manipulating his past. Evan stays with his mom as his dad is admitted to a mental institution. Evan's friend circle consists of three folks viz. Kaylee ( his love interest), Tommy ( Kaylee's bro, one of the antagonists. Kaylee and Tommy's father being the other, as the Paedophile) and Lenny. Since his childhood, Evan suffers from periodic blackouts, these blackouts are very strange as during such times he is totally normal but devoid of any memory for that particular period. Evan has a habit of maintaining his daily journals and apparently after every blackout he scribbles his feelings in his journal.
Evan's childhood and teenage had very few sweet memories. Incidents like him and Kayley being sexually molested, killing of his pet Crockett by Tommy and an accident in which Evan and his friends get their neighbour and child killed, are some of the most important and defining moments of his life. I guess, the only good thing that happened in his life is his friend Kaylee. But circumstances grew bad and eventually Evan and his mom had to move to another city to make a new life. Few years later, Evan ends up as an A grade student in his college and is happy with his calm life. But not Kaylee, who now works as a waiter in a suburban restaurant. Evan wants to fix this, he wants a better life for Kaylee and for himself. The movie takes turn when Evan discovers that he has the ability to go back to the past, exactly to the time of one of his blackouts. The journals plays critical role in this case as he uses them as time tags. Not only he can time travel back but also can take decisions which can change the course of his, his family's and friend's life, just by taking better course of action during the blackout moments. With his new found ability he now tries to fix everything. As he fixes one wrongdoing something else bad emerges, he repeats his quest many a times to fix everything in his life and his surroundings. But never manages to get all of them right. So how does the movie ends?
This movies has got more than one versions with different ending, the one which I watched ended a bit optimistically. It ends like this: going back to his fifth birth day party, Evan manages to scare Kaylee away by threatening her and her family. The climax shows Evan happy with his friend Lenny but without his love Kaylee, not sure what happened to his mom. ( To know more about the movie click here, trust me it's not spam or viral, it's wiki)
What's interesting in this movie? Well it is the 'chaos theory', it sounds very stupid but I find some sense in it. May be because I don't believe in destiny; what I believe in is the power of present, power of you being in control of present. I think, like Evan all of us wish to undo or change something in and/or around our life. What most of us will wish for, is a life which is better than the current one; but the fallacy in such yearning is that we the human being can't be satiated. If we are blessed with good we will ask for better and if we get something better we will yearn for more and eventually die doing so. Many of us would even dream to have the ability to go back to past, like Evan, and get things changed. Even I would love to do that to check out the chaos theory, but I also understand that won't guaranty that things will turn out for better, it might be worse. Sometimes, we need to carry on with our mistakes or carry somebody else's mistakes as an inseparable burden. We can't get everything totally under our control. Just imagine of getting rid of the worst part of your life, will that make everything else remain same or go better? Well I don't think so, all our actions will have some effect, however small, on us and our surrounding which eventually have significant implications. And our life being full of such actions and reactions, mistakes and mishaps are bound to happen. Even if you try to make sure everything goes right, may be I or somebody else will do something which inadvertently, may be advertently too, will effect you negatively. Moreover, life without mistakes and unwanted situations would be like eating a black forest day in and day out. You will eventually get cloyed by the goodness of life.
The wise tortoise ( quote from the movie Kung Fu Panda) said "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present". So go ahead, learn from history, crack the mystery and voila ... you got your present, the present of your life.
Merry Christmas!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Race is all about RACE
2008 Beijing Olympics is over and was full of record breaking moments, most noted among them were in swimming and athletics events. I remember the discussion which I had with my friend last weekend regarding the correlation between race and medal winning. I opined that people of African origin has got many innate qualities which gives them an edge over athletes of other race. My friend didn't accepted this conjecture straight away, probably because he is a hardcore egalitarian and simply doesn't believes in counting race as a factor in any argument, he believes in "equality". As this Beijing fever is over now, now I have the chance to support my opinion with some data. If we have a look into the medal standings' athletics section we would find that 90% of the track events', which only deals with proving ones running capabilities, gold medalist's are of African origin, either a native or diasporic African. Look into the USA's case, it topped this particular section and all of the gold medalists were black(I am not a racist but I guess referring people of African origin as Black is not offensive). Leave aside the count of golds secured by nations like Jamaica, Ethiopia or Kenya, even the lone gold winner from Great Britain in women's track events is black. Look into the history of running and you will find this turf ruled by many great black sprinters, some deified and some humiliated after doping scandals. Michale Johnson, Carl Lewis, Marion Jones are few names from the past which comes to my mind because I grew along with their records and controversies. No doubt, the rise of African-Americans from slavery to the status minority group and then contributing to the nation as Olympians is attributed to the pluralistic society of USA but there must be some other factor which helps this minority group to emerge as creme de la creme athletics.
Having put forward all these pieces of information and opinion, I am not trying to make you interpret that race is the deciding factor in all sports but it is, and it must be, one of the factors which makes a champion. Race determines ones genetic, sociological and metabolic factors and all these are as important as training and socio-political support to any sport. Lets have an analogy here. Even if you put in your best Labrador against my Grey hound for a sprint, I am not going to be worried at all. But yes, when your hound is pitted against mine, I get worried. If we have a look into the finalists of men's 100m event you can't help but notice that almost all of them are blacks. It's not that the selection system of countries like USA and Britain deliberately picks black athletes due to their ethnic lineage but because of the fact that blacks are naturally gifted or rather are evolved to perform better and hence they emerge as gold winners. Probably, it is time for us, read India, to capitalise on our diversity, and the greater responsibility now lies on the hands of state governments. But what should be the course? A systematic and diligent approach, like China, should be the key to reach a respectable position in the Olympic medal tally. Of course, Punjab should focus more on boxing, wrestling, weightlifting and others which demands more from sports person's strength and power. Needless to say that folks from north-eastern states can also prove to be Olympic winners in many events, especially women. These are just some examples. All states can contribute to India's success only if they act wise and prudent and for that the important thing which we all have to do is discover our potentials, of course based on race, and focus on that.
What so ever may be the extent of belief of egalitarian folks and proponents of the so called equality, denial of the fact that nature has moulded us differently, depending on myriad factors, will be tantamount to fallacy. To me it's a great paradox. On one hand, we have millions being poured to check on doping and on the other we have the nature, the perpetrator in this case, who has already doped a few. Expecting an all-black race in the men's 100m final event in London Olympics will not be racism but truism. While thinking about the future of Olympics one wonders, how it would be 50 years down the line? Will it really hold any value? What will happen if mankind moves ahead with the implementation if genetic engineering. Won't nations use genetic engineering to produce men and women with hyper abilities, which might undermine the crux of any sports event. Probably I would stay alive to see it myself, but as of now all I can say is that the world is not all about being equal and running the race, it about knowing that there are differences, and the privileged few may have both overt and covert edge, and one has to put in more effort to reach the summit.
Having put forward all these pieces of information and opinion, I am not trying to make you interpret that race is the deciding factor in all sports but it is, and it must be, one of the factors which makes a champion. Race determines ones genetic, sociological and metabolic factors and all these are as important as training and socio-political support to any sport. Lets have an analogy here. Even if you put in your best Labrador against my Grey hound for a sprint, I am not going to be worried at all. But yes, when your hound is pitted against mine, I get worried. If we have a look into the finalists of men's 100m event you can't help but notice that almost all of them are blacks. It's not that the selection system of countries like USA and Britain deliberately picks black athletes due to their ethnic lineage but because of the fact that blacks are naturally gifted or rather are evolved to perform better and hence they emerge as gold winners. Probably, it is time for us, read India, to capitalise on our diversity, and the greater responsibility now lies on the hands of state governments. But what should be the course? A systematic and diligent approach, like China, should be the key to reach a respectable position in the Olympic medal tally. Of course, Punjab should focus more on boxing, wrestling, weightlifting and others which demands more from sports person's strength and power. Needless to say that folks from north-eastern states can also prove to be Olympic winners in many events, especially women. These are just some examples. All states can contribute to India's success only if they act wise and prudent and for that the important thing which we all have to do is discover our potentials, of course based on race, and focus on that.
What so ever may be the extent of belief of egalitarian folks and proponents of the so called equality, denial of the fact that nature has moulded us differently, depending on myriad factors, will be tantamount to fallacy. To me it's a great paradox. On one hand, we have millions being poured to check on doping and on the other we have the nature, the perpetrator in this case, who has already doped a few. Expecting an all-black race in the men's 100m final event in London Olympics will not be racism but truism. While thinking about the future of Olympics one wonders, how it would be 50 years down the line? Will it really hold any value? What will happen if mankind moves ahead with the implementation if genetic engineering. Won't nations use genetic engineering to produce men and women with hyper abilities, which might undermine the crux of any sports event. Probably I would stay alive to see it myself, but as of now all I can say is that the world is not all about being equal and running the race, it about knowing that there are differences, and the privileged few may have both overt and covert edge, and one has to put in more effort to reach the summit.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Get more Golds
What it takes to be a super Olympian like Michael Phelps? It seemed to be an elusive combination for us Indians, until Abhinav Bindra gave us few clues. One clue which we I take from this ribbon cutting gold medal is that to be a successful sportsperson one must have high emotional intelligence. It won't be too difficult to imagine the surge of emotions in a shooter while taking the final shot or in a swimmer who is about to plunge for a 100m freestyle. It must be tremendous, tremendous enough to un-nerve a normal person. But fine sportsperson must know how to control these emotions, and use this as a tool for the best outcome. Lets have a look into the case of Bindra, one wonders, how being an Indian Abhinav managed to be such a fine shooter and grab a Gold from Beijing! Abhinav seems to be a blended incarnation of Arjuna and Yudhistira, a perfect combo of skills and calmness. But there must be something more than that to be the best. As we all know, by now, that Abhinav is not an ordinary Indian, he son of a millionaire business tycoon, spending millions in trainings and equipments. Instead of government's apathy towards sports, cricket being an exception, this man managed to get all the supplements which were very crucial and arguably of utmost importance.
On the other hand, if we look into the case of Michael Phelps, we get very different cues. Phelps was born to swim. In his early childhood, he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) which meant he had tremendous amount of surplus energy to be spent. And this surplus was channelized properly; he started using all of his extra energy kicking and slapping water since a tender age of five. Look at his structure and you will probably know why he is breaking all the records. His arm span is disproportionally wide and so is his feet size, moreover his body produces lower amount of lactic acid compared to other athletes, which means his muscles will get tired later and also recover quicker when compared to others. Hence we can say that the case of Phelps is a fine example of identifying the talent and moulding it to a world champ.( This guy is so abnormal that I have started to believe in a conspiracy theory, conjectured by myself. This theory suggests that Phelps is a prototype of USA's genetic engineering project to produce men with higher physical qualities... :-D )
The most influential factor, with which most of you will agree, i believe, is the nations system. Until and unless a country's system doesn't promotes and provides support in a right way, it will not be able to produce world champions, irrespective of the vastness of its talent pool. The antipathy of our political and social system is the main reason of failure of sports in our country, cricket being an exception. Definitely much more is expected from a humongous and quickly developing countries like ours. As i write this blog, I can still find India's position lower than other third world countries like Zimbabwe, Mongolia and many more. First of all, we seriously need to validate the capabilities of those who are going to determine the future course of India's sports, the neta's. We need to get right people over there before we begin our quest to find a few more Bindras and few Indian Phelps. Otherwise one won't be surprised to find advertisements coming in newspaper daily's which may read:
WANTED! Tall and slim children, preferably suffering from ADHD, for Indian Sports association. Age no bar. Son of millionaires are more welcome. Selected candidates will be given ration for whole life along with a stipend of Rs 1000 per month. HURRY!
P.S: This ad has been written keeping in mind the creativity and ingenuity of our bureaucrats.
On the other hand, if we look into the case of Michael Phelps, we get very different cues. Phelps was born to swim. In his early childhood, he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) which meant he had tremendous amount of surplus energy to be spent. And this surplus was channelized properly; he started using all of his extra energy kicking and slapping water since a tender age of five. Look at his structure and you will probably know why he is breaking all the records. His arm span is disproportionally wide and so is his feet size, moreover his body produces lower amount of lactic acid compared to other athletes, which means his muscles will get tired later and also recover quicker when compared to others. Hence we can say that the case of Phelps is a fine example of identifying the talent and moulding it to a world champ.( This guy is so abnormal that I have started to believe in a conspiracy theory, conjectured by myself. This theory suggests that Phelps is a prototype of USA's genetic engineering project to produce men with higher physical qualities... :-D )
The most influential factor, with which most of you will agree, i believe, is the nations system. Until and unless a country's system doesn't promotes and provides support in a right way, it will not be able to produce world champions, irrespective of the vastness of its talent pool. The antipathy of our political and social system is the main reason of failure of sports in our country, cricket being an exception. Definitely much more is expected from a humongous and quickly developing countries like ours. As i write this blog, I can still find India's position lower than other third world countries like Zimbabwe, Mongolia and many more. First of all, we seriously need to validate the capabilities of those who are going to determine the future course of India's sports, the neta's. We need to get right people over there before we begin our quest to find a few more Bindras and few Indian Phelps. Otherwise one won't be surprised to find advertisements coming in newspaper daily's which may read:
WANTED! Tall and slim children, preferably suffering from ADHD, for Indian Sports association. Age no bar. Son of millionaires are more welcome. Selected candidates will be given ration for whole life along with a stipend of Rs 1000 per month. HURRY!
P.S: This ad has been written keeping in mind the creativity and ingenuity of our bureaucrats.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Decoding ITR code
Let me see how good you are at cracking codes. What can you make out of the number 1431101382? ... I am sure, even if Robert Langdon, along with Madame Sophie Neveu's help, tries his hands on this number, he won't be able to crack it and will not be able to uncover the significance of this number. The reason why I think so is that the number holds a very abstract meaning which only a few enlightened fellows like me can dare to explain( no pun intended). Well folks, this number is nothing but the Income Tax Return (ITR) number which I got from our IT department. Just like a sage, who endures penance to attain nirvana, I along with many others, went through a constitutionalized penance. The penance which I am talking about has nothing to do with the filling and filing of the return, but it is regarding the only question which I had and still have in my mind. The question is: Why am I filing for return of income?
The possible answer to the above question could be many. Probably (a) the ITR form was difficult to comprehend or (b) I was very busy with my office work( which many of friends and colleagues would reject straight away) or may be (c) I owe a huge sum to the government and I do not want to pay that. But folks, the answer is none of the foregoing and let me strike out the above mentioned options one by one. First, the ITR form is really a "Saral" form and filling it is a no brainer when you have your Form-16 in front of you. Moreover, if you have your signature in digitalised version then you don't have to even move your arse, the whole process can be completed via e-filing within an hour( time taken depends on his/her proficiency). Second, I am quite free from work, nowadays, that I can even file returns for others, provided I get reasonable incentives. And to strike out the third option, all I can say is that the balance amount to be refunded or paid was nothing but zero. So, why did i had that question? Well folks the reason for that is nothing but the reason which I gave to strike out the third option. Why to file for return of income even when you have "0" as the balance amount, which means there is nothing to be settled between an individual and government.
Well I know, it is very important to file returns, as ones credit worthiness is updated accordingly. Every time one applies for a loan or credit card from any financial institution, ones credit worthiness is validated before the grant. So, if you wish to get any credit from any bank, make sure that all your returns are duly paid otherwise you will be left wondering why the bank rejected your request. Most of us would be aware of the fact that IT department of our country has made much progress and many of their tasks are handled not on files and registers but on computers. Why shouldn't that be? India being the largest IT exporter is expected to have a robust, smart and reliable system which ought to handle thousands of operations and requests daily. Moreover, it is quite evident from the website of IT department of India, http://incometaxindia.gov.in/, that they do promote the idea of prefixing all the transactions with a small and smart "e". You have options like e-pay taxes, e-file returns et al. which makes me feel happy and proud about. But these feelings gets overshadowed when one is asked to file for returns for zero balance, because this raises a question on the smartness of the system. The only question which, I have noticed, regularly pops up is "Do I have to file returns even when there is no refund due to me?" but rarely did I find somebody asking "Why, why do I have to go through this when there is no refund due to me?". I found something pertinent to my question in the ITD website, which was articulated like this:
Amounts paid as advance tax and withheld in the form of TDS or collected in the form of TCS will take the character of your tax due only on completion of self-assessment of your income. This self-assessment is intimated to the department by way of filing of return. Only then does the government acquire rights over the prepaid taxes as its own revenue. Filing of return is critical for this process and, hence, has been made mandatory. Failure will attract levy of penalty.
This sounds a logical explanation but on second thought one doesn't finds this too convincing. Why isn't the system smart enough to exempt individuals or institutions, who have already paid their taxes to the government, from filing of return. Apparently not. There are millions of salaried individuals, who get their salary after getting the tax deducted at source(TDS). And a major chunk of this class will not have any other source of income. So why not exempt them from filing return of income? Why can't the systems database identify them and grant a green flag to them. This will not only save thousands of non-productive hours but will also make people like me happy, by circumventing the process. By non-productive hours I mean to say the time which one spends in filing the return and the time which IT department needs to validate the provided redundant data. If one doesn't puts any claim over ones TDS amount then government should be taking over that amount by default. If you, the reader, are aware of any possible benefit of filing return of income for no dues do let me know, I would be thankful to you. If not, then let us suggest the move, to abolish zero return filing, to Dr. Manmohan Singh [:D]. This guy's government needs some serious dosage of popularity and I really wish him all the best for coming elections.
P.S: Those who have not filed their return of income, for no dues, please note that you can do so before March 31st 2009. So chill. However, if you owe money then I would say Chilly, be ready to cough out Rs 5000 as penalty and an additional interest of 1% per month.
The possible answer to the above question could be many. Probably (a) the ITR form was difficult to comprehend or (b) I was very busy with my office work( which many of friends and colleagues would reject straight away) or may be (c) I owe a huge sum to the government and I do not want to pay that. But folks, the answer is none of the foregoing and let me strike out the above mentioned options one by one. First, the ITR form is really a "Saral" form and filling it is a no brainer when you have your Form-16 in front of you. Moreover, if you have your signature in digitalised version then you don't have to even move your arse, the whole process can be completed via e-filing within an hour( time taken depends on his/her proficiency). Second, I am quite free from work, nowadays, that I can even file returns for others, provided I get reasonable incentives. And to strike out the third option, all I can say is that the balance amount to be refunded or paid was nothing but zero. So, why did i had that question? Well folks the reason for that is nothing but the reason which I gave to strike out the third option. Why to file for return of income even when you have "0" as the balance amount, which means there is nothing to be settled between an individual and government.
Well I know, it is very important to file returns, as ones credit worthiness is updated accordingly. Every time one applies for a loan or credit card from any financial institution, ones credit worthiness is validated before the grant. So, if you wish to get any credit from any bank, make sure that all your returns are duly paid otherwise you will be left wondering why the bank rejected your request. Most of us would be aware of the fact that IT department of our country has made much progress and many of their tasks are handled not on files and registers but on computers. Why shouldn't that be? India being the largest IT exporter is expected to have a robust, smart and reliable system which ought to handle thousands of operations and requests daily. Moreover, it is quite evident from the website of IT department of India, http://incometaxindia.gov.in/, that they do promote the idea of prefixing all the transactions with a small and smart "e". You have options like e-pay taxes, e-file returns et al. which makes me feel happy and proud about. But these feelings gets overshadowed when one is asked to file for returns for zero balance, because this raises a question on the smartness of the system. The only question which, I have noticed, regularly pops up is "Do I have to file returns even when there is no refund due to me?" but rarely did I find somebody asking "Why, why do I have to go through this when there is no refund due to me?". I found something pertinent to my question in the ITD website, which was articulated like this:
Amounts paid as advance tax and withheld in the form of TDS or collected in the form of TCS will take the character of your tax due only on completion of self-assessment of your income. This self-assessment is intimated to the department by way of filing of return. Only then does the government acquire rights over the prepaid taxes as its own revenue. Filing of return is critical for this process and, hence, has been made mandatory. Failure will attract levy of penalty.
This sounds a logical explanation but on second thought one doesn't finds this too convincing. Why isn't the system smart enough to exempt individuals or institutions, who have already paid their taxes to the government, from filing of return. Apparently not. There are millions of salaried individuals, who get their salary after getting the tax deducted at source(TDS). And a major chunk of this class will not have any other source of income. So why not exempt them from filing return of income? Why can't the systems database identify them and grant a green flag to them. This will not only save thousands of non-productive hours but will also make people like me happy, by circumventing the process. By non-productive hours I mean to say the time which one spends in filing the return and the time which IT department needs to validate the provided redundant data. If one doesn't puts any claim over ones TDS amount then government should be taking over that amount by default. If you, the reader, are aware of any possible benefit of filing return of income for no dues do let me know, I would be thankful to you. If not, then let us suggest the move, to abolish zero return filing, to Dr. Manmohan Singh [:D]. This guy's government needs some serious dosage of popularity and I really wish him all the best for coming elections.
P.S: Those who have not filed their return of income, for no dues, please note that you can do so before March 31st 2009. So chill. However, if you owe money then I would say Chilly, be ready to cough out Rs 5000 as penalty and an additional interest of 1% per month.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
I Attest the following
This is the age of the WEB 2.0. Any youth who doesn't have an account in Facebook, Orkut or its ilk is considered un-savvy as per current social trends. I myself have an account on Orkut and Facebook, but at the same time I avoid invitations coming from many other social networking sites (the most irritating one is the one which reads "XYZ tagged you", what's that, am not cattle). Orkut is the one with which I am most comfortable, because of many reasons, and use it quite frequently. For many of the Orkutter, one of the prestigious things is to have numerous testimonials a.k.a testi's under one's belt. But one thing which I believe that most of the Orkutters, and even common folks, are unaware is the word Testimonial's etymology. The word Testimonial, and others like Testament, Attest and Testify, is derived from the word "testis", a part of male anatomy. Offended? Disgusted? or Appalled? If any of the foregoing, you may cease to read further.
Well, I found it interesting when I learned about this factual trivia from the book "Facts and Trivia" by Sir Isaac Asimov, 6 years back during my college days. Also, my current google-research provides me with some more trivia. Here's one of them, it is stated that under ancient Roman laws, no man can be considered as evidence or witness unless one verifies one's virility, and hence testify in legal matters, and while testifying one has to hold one's "virility"; that reminds me of my school days when we used to swear to prove our point, maa kasam this or maa kasama that. And interestingly, the word “detest” means to dislike intensely, and implicitly, to hate to the bottom of one's ... you know that, right? This shows, how male chauvinistic society it was, legally you couldn't have testified if you were to belong to the fairer sex, which meant women hardly had any legal rights. But now, the world is changing, for the good. One doesn't need that male anatomy to be a witness, neither one has to show one's virility to attest, just a rubber stamp is sufficient. Having said that, whenever, in Orkut, I see a testimonial from a female to her male friend; or when any of my friends asks me write a testi for him/her, my mind just smirks sheepishly. Probably, the smirk is due to some weird imagination. Imagine, had the present been something like the ancient Roman Era, our female friends would have been deprived of the privilege and also for every testimonial from one to ones friend, one might find oneself in a very compromising situation. Too much imagination! OK let's stop it here only.
That's all what I wanted to blog and pass on the trivial fact; I hope you find it informative, but not offensive. I would like to close this blog with a quote from a letter published in the feminist Ms. magazine:
“I protest the use of the word ‘testimony’ when referring to a woman’s statements, because its root is ‘testes’which has nothing to do with being a female. Why not use ‘ovarimony’?”
Well, I found it interesting when I learned about this factual trivia from the book "Facts and Trivia" by Sir Isaac Asimov, 6 years back during my college days. Also, my current google-research provides me with some more trivia. Here's one of them, it is stated that under ancient Roman laws, no man can be considered as evidence or witness unless one verifies one's virility, and hence testify in legal matters, and while testifying one has to hold one's "virility"; that reminds me of my school days when we used to swear to prove our point, maa kasam this or maa kasama that. And interestingly, the word “detest” means to dislike intensely, and implicitly, to hate to the bottom of one's ... you know that, right? This shows, how male chauvinistic society it was, legally you couldn't have testified if you were to belong to the fairer sex, which meant women hardly had any legal rights. But now, the world is changing, for the good. One doesn't need that male anatomy to be a witness, neither one has to show one's virility to attest, just a rubber stamp is sufficient. Having said that, whenever, in Orkut, I see a testimonial from a female to her male friend; or when any of my friends asks me write a testi for him/her, my mind just smirks sheepishly. Probably, the smirk is due to some weird imagination. Imagine, had the present been something like the ancient Roman Era, our female friends would have been deprived of the privilege and also for every testimonial from one to ones friend, one might find oneself in a very compromising situation. Too much imagination! OK let's stop it here only.
That's all what I wanted to blog and pass on the trivial fact; I hope you find it informative, but not offensive. I would like to close this blog with a quote from a letter published in the feminist Ms. magazine:
“I protest the use of the word ‘testimony’ when referring to a woman’s statements, because its root is ‘testes’which has nothing to do with being a female. Why not use ‘ovarimony’?”
Monday, June 30, 2008
The year that wasn't too bad
The present is very happening. There are so many things happening around us, that one is overwhelmed, add to that, the momentum and quantum of such happenings are increasing day by day. It all started way back in the mid of 2007 when Rupee was going too strong versus US dollar and the export industries started panicking. Before long, the repercussions of that were being felt in IT sector also. Cutting down on freebies, demanding more hours per week, these were some of the steps taken by most of the companies. I do not believe in "luck" but hoping that my readers do believe in that, I would say that I was very lucky to be placed where I was and where I am now. While most of my peers were burning extra oil to help their employers save profit margins, I was just continuing as it was without much pressure. I was continuing with the workload, focusing more on Sensex; not only because of its good and quick returns but also because of my burgeoning interest in finance and stock market.
The strengthening of rupee did not worry me much apart from the fact that it was eating up on my IT equities. Very soon, came down the US housing market. At first it was interesting to see financial giants acknowledging their mistakes and at the same time reading articles about de-coupling of Indian market. But that was a naive theory; that was an Ostrich Syndrome - burying its head under sand and feeling safe. As the saying goes "When US sneezed, the world caught cold", that's truer than never before. With the unraveling of the US housing fiasco, the market in India caught not cold but pneumonia.
The concurrent event was the rise in oil price. I clearly remember the discussions with my friend, when the price of crude crossed the all time high and touched $80 a barrel mark. I was a bit more concerned than him as I thought that would result in higher price in petrol, for my bike, which happened quite late but for greater good. But that was just the beginning of crude oil price rise. Soon, it scaled higher marks and it's still doing so. Today the numbers are playing around 143 marks, and it's expected to raise more, probably $200 a barrel by this year end.
All these resulted in higher and higher inflation and lower and lower Sensex. First, all these factors accumulated against our economy and resulted in an inflation figure which is highest in past 13 years; 11.4% for the first week of June '08 . And yes, no body wants high inflation figures, and that too when the growth is less than that. Everything is costlier; starting from your daily usage commodities to sparsely used stuff like Air-travel, everything under the sun is costlier. Second, the Sensex got beaten up very badly; most of the FII's pulling out their money from Indian market, and this is giving nightmares to investors. Everyday a change of 2-3% on downside is expected and the expected happens too. The situation is definitely not very uplifting.
Last week, I got the appraisal letter of the year and all these factors were zooming past my mind as I opened the appraisal letter. The figures in that letter was also not at all satisfactory but at the same time not unexpected too. Despite being lesser than the current inflation figure, the consolation for me was that it was a two digit number. When I consider the current inflation rate and my hike percentage, I found my salary depreciating but when country's GDP growth for the fiscal year 2007-08, which is less than 9%, is considered, I can boast that my salary hike is more than average (pun intended). On a serious note, the only thing I can show and expect, from all those guys like me pondering about their future, is optimism. India has a long way to go and things are going to change for good, hopefully soon. A note to my readers, first to those who always wanted to enter stock market but never made it, the time to enter a bright future market is coming soon; and second to those who are happy to stay away from market, this is time to take control of your future and make it more resilient, keep yourself prepared!
The strengthening of rupee did not worry me much apart from the fact that it was eating up on my IT equities. Very soon, came down the US housing market. At first it was interesting to see financial giants acknowledging their mistakes and at the same time reading articles about de-coupling of Indian market. But that was a naive theory; that was an Ostrich Syndrome - burying its head under sand and feeling safe. As the saying goes "When US sneezed, the world caught cold", that's truer than never before. With the unraveling of the US housing fiasco, the market in India caught not cold but pneumonia.
The concurrent event was the rise in oil price. I clearly remember the discussions with my friend, when the price of crude crossed the all time high and touched $80 a barrel mark. I was a bit more concerned than him as I thought that would result in higher price in petrol, for my bike, which happened quite late but for greater good. But that was just the beginning of crude oil price rise. Soon, it scaled higher marks and it's still doing so. Today the numbers are playing around 143 marks, and it's expected to raise more, probably $200 a barrel by this year end.
All these resulted in higher and higher inflation and lower and lower Sensex. First, all these factors accumulated against our economy and resulted in an inflation figure which is highest in past 13 years; 11.4% for the first week of June '08 . And yes, no body wants high inflation figures, and that too when the growth is less than that. Everything is costlier; starting from your daily usage commodities to sparsely used stuff like Air-travel, everything under the sun is costlier. Second, the Sensex got beaten up very badly; most of the FII's pulling out their money from Indian market, and this is giving nightmares to investors. Everyday a change of 2-3% on downside is expected and the expected happens too. The situation is definitely not very uplifting.
Last week, I got the appraisal letter of the year and all these factors were zooming past my mind as I opened the appraisal letter. The figures in that letter was also not at all satisfactory but at the same time not unexpected too. Despite being lesser than the current inflation figure, the consolation for me was that it was a two digit number. When I consider the current inflation rate and my hike percentage, I found my salary depreciating but when country's GDP growth for the fiscal year 2007-08, which is less than 9%, is considered, I can boast that my salary hike is more than average (pun intended). On a serious note, the only thing I can show and expect, from all those guys like me pondering about their future, is optimism. India has a long way to go and things are going to change for good, hopefully soon. A note to my readers, first to those who always wanted to enter stock market but never made it, the time to enter a bright future market is coming soon; and second to those who are happy to stay away from market, this is time to take control of your future and make it more resilient, keep yourself prepared!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Go Hybrid Go Green
Last week Honda launched the hybrid version of its popular car model Civic. It's priced at around 21.5 lakh. Unless you are an avid climate watcher and have lakhs of surplus money to spill out for this little monster, it hardly makes any sense for you to get this car, when you can get the standard version in less than 12 lakh. Why such a substantial difference in price? That's because of 104% tax which our government levies for any imported items like luxury cars or watches. Because Honda doesn't has any manufacturing unit to produce hybrids here in India, it has to import the completely built units(CBU's) from Japan. I believe that, our government should look again into the taxation policy, specifically for hybrid cars and its ilk.
There should be minimal taxation and more promotion for an eco-friendly option like hybrid automobiles. Currently, India is annually producing 2 million units of automobiles and considering good economic growth in coming years, it can be predicted that the rise in usage of passenger car is going to be quite spiky. It makes a very good sense to promote automobiles which are powered by non-conventional energy or are hybrid. This will be not only a step towards oil-independence but also help reduce the emissions and hope for a better environment for the future generations. It's is a known fact that India's R&D is quite lagging in this kind of field and needs to put in more money; and definitely it's is going to take some time to build a good knowhow. At the same time, India should be promoting greener options like hybrid cars, non-conventional energy technologies etc. Last year government took a very wise and good decision in this line, there was a proposal to subsidise CFL's (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) and make it available in market at a price range of Rs 10-12. The main idea behind this proposal is to replace conventional lamps, which consumes more energy and has bigger carbon footprints, by CFL and currently the plan to roll this put is being chalked out. The amount of energy saved by these CFL's and the benefits from Carbon trading would take care of the subsidised money, which comes from exchequer. Now, the government should look beyond CFL's and carry forward the same zeal in every other possible scenario. Keeping full throttle on non-conventional fuel R&D, government should also provide incentives to those who opt for greener option. Say lesser insurance premium charges for hybrid vehicles insurance, or probably good tax benefits for opting for green. People respond better when they have some fair amount of positive incentives associated with the change. Hence, good incentives will drive people to these newer technologies and which will help uproot the market of conventionals, by cutting down the demand. These type of measures will definitely pull more crowd and hence less carbon emission.
Going for non-conventionals is imperative, if we don't act now oil-cartel will keep on kicking global economy under the belt, even in future. Moreover we won't be providing any healthy environment to our future generations, which is more important and which is more shameful.
There should be minimal taxation and more promotion for an eco-friendly option like hybrid automobiles. Currently, India is annually producing 2 million units of automobiles and considering good economic growth in coming years, it can be predicted that the rise in usage of passenger car is going to be quite spiky. It makes a very good sense to promote automobiles which are powered by non-conventional energy or are hybrid. This will be not only a step towards oil-independence but also help reduce the emissions and hope for a better environment for the future generations. It's is a known fact that India's R&D is quite lagging in this kind of field and needs to put in more money; and definitely it's is going to take some time to build a good knowhow. At the same time, India should be promoting greener options like hybrid cars, non-conventional energy technologies etc. Last year government took a very wise and good decision in this line, there was a proposal to subsidise CFL's (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) and make it available in market at a price range of Rs 10-12. The main idea behind this proposal is to replace conventional lamps, which consumes more energy and has bigger carbon footprints, by CFL and currently the plan to roll this put is being chalked out. The amount of energy saved by these CFL's and the benefits from Carbon trading would take care of the subsidised money, which comes from exchequer. Now, the government should look beyond CFL's and carry forward the same zeal in every other possible scenario. Keeping full throttle on non-conventional fuel R&D, government should also provide incentives to those who opt for greener option. Say lesser insurance premium charges for hybrid vehicles insurance, or probably good tax benefits for opting for green. People respond better when they have some fair amount of positive incentives associated with the change. Hence, good incentives will drive people to these newer technologies and which will help uproot the market of conventionals, by cutting down the demand. These type of measures will definitely pull more crowd and hence less carbon emission.
Going for non-conventionals is imperative, if we don't act now oil-cartel will keep on kicking global economy under the belt, even in future. Moreover we won't be providing any healthy environment to our future generations, which is more important and which is more shameful.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Generally Speaking
Hollywood action flicks are really something. Be it Neo from Matrix or John from Rambo; they are unique in their own aspects and are incredibly potent to knock-out viewers off the couch. But sometimes the action scenes are so much exaggerated that Hollywood directors seems to forget that every action movie is not Matrix. If you are making a movie, whose character's actions are bound by the law (probably expectation) of "generality", unlike the Matix Trilogy, in which Neo is capable of performing anything under the sun. Law of generality is stated as: "Every action which can be conceived in a general sequence under general circumstances is expected to remain general". Sounds Confusing? don't blame yourself. Well, what I want to say is that, action scenes should be more inclined to reality, but sometimes that doesn't happens and we even do not notice due to lack of knowledge. The following might help you to grasp this law further.
If you happen to be an avid Hollywood action flick lover, then chances are high that not before long you have watched Die-Hard 5, Oceans Twelve, Entrapment; and probably you have liked the action sequences too. Each of the three movies have something which is exaggerated and situations over-exploited by directors, but at the same time you must have enjoyed a lot, not your fault. Let's take them one by one:
1. Die-Hard 5: It has a sequence in which our oldie Hunk Bruce Willis, crawls through the air-duct of Air-Conditioning system. Well generally, air ducts are not that large enough to accommodate a full grown man, it's the insulation around the duct which makes it look large.
2. Ocean's Twelve: we see George Clooney, another oldie hunk, maneuvering in the lift shaft. Generally, lift shafts are made for accommodating lifts only and it will not have any surplus of holdings which can help a man maneuver through the shaft. So one would really need a pair of spidey gloves to do so.
3. Entrapment: It has Mrs. Zoro, hottie Zeta Jones, bending and arching through an array of laser beams. Nothing wrong in doing so, in fact that scene was a beauty. The point is, if you use fog or smoke to locate the beams then you actually raise the alarm (otherwise why on earth would anyone install such a system to guard one's treasure).
And am sure that these action scenes are not new contraptions in movies. We must have seen 'n' number of such movies and every time applauded the shrinkability, dexterity, ingenuity and agility of our hunks and hotties. Next time you see such a cliched action movie sequence, don't forget to roll your eyes; not just because of it being morbidly cliched but also because it fails the Law of "generality".
If you happen to be an avid Hollywood action flick lover, then chances are high that not before long you have watched Die-Hard 5, Oceans Twelve, Entrapment; and probably you have liked the action sequences too. Each of the three movies have something which is exaggerated and situations over-exploited by directors, but at the same time you must have enjoyed a lot, not your fault. Let's take them one by one:
1. Die-Hard 5: It has a sequence in which our oldie Hunk Bruce Willis, crawls through the air-duct of Air-Conditioning system. Well generally, air ducts are not that large enough to accommodate a full grown man, it's the insulation around the duct which makes it look large.
2. Ocean's Twelve: we see George Clooney, another oldie hunk, maneuvering in the lift shaft. Generally, lift shafts are made for accommodating lifts only and it will not have any surplus of holdings which can help a man maneuver through the shaft. So one would really need a pair of spidey gloves to do so.
3. Entrapment: It has Mrs. Zoro, hottie Zeta Jones, bending and arching through an array of laser beams. Nothing wrong in doing so, in fact that scene was a beauty. The point is, if you use fog or smoke to locate the beams then you actually raise the alarm (otherwise why on earth would anyone install such a system to guard one's treasure).
And am sure that these action scenes are not new contraptions in movies. We must have seen 'n' number of such movies and every time applauded the shrinkability, dexterity, ingenuity and agility of our hunks and hotties. Next time you see such a cliched action movie sequence, don't forget to roll your eyes; not just because of it being morbidly cliched but also because it fails the Law of "generality".
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Indicom: The Saga Ends
Who will pay you Rs 450 as interest amount on a principal of Rs 500 in a period of six months? The answer is not Grameen Bank or any charity fund, it's Tata-Indicom. Yes guys that's true, surpassing the benevolence of any financial institute till date, Tata-Indicom, a telecom biggie in India, has done this favor to me. I have not calculated the interest rate for this case but that's definitely way above the market standards; especially when the global economy is in under slowdown.
Well, that's the one side of the story, unfortunately, the other side of the story is not that bright. It started last year, Oct '07, when two payment transactions were made against my Tata-Indicom PC wireless data card account - one was from the Electronic Clearance System (ECS) and the other one which I made online, on the due date, to avoid late payment fee. Next month, I had to close down my connection which resulted in a negative balance in favor of me. The connection was disconnected without any issue but the balance was not met. I called up their Customer-Care (CC) and the guy over the phone told me that it is under progress and I will get my money ASAP ( as per the norms, account is balanced within 60 days of closure). I don't know why, I was having an ominous feeling somewhere deep in my heart. I believe, that's because of the impression which Indicom's CC has made during my stint as their customer in last 18 months. To be very precise and honest, my experience with Indicom's CC had been very unsatisfactory, thanks to many horrible sessions which I had to go through. There was no dearth of issues, whether it's billing or connection related and on top of that, the incompetent CC department was never able to solve any issue quickly; and yes how can I forget that irritating piece of promotional audio which would loop through non-stop while you hold on the line to reach your CC exec or the supervisor, the messiah. The CC exec would generally ask for your mobile number, after many failed attempts, and tell you that you will be called up within eight hours and provided with an update on the issue; but rest assured, you will never get any call back. That's their signature for care and that's their USP, Unique Screwing Point.
Coming back to my balance amount, the amount was not a big one but still that's my money, in spite of being sceptical about the Indicom's processes, I somehow assured myself that my money will come back soon, extending my expectation by a month more than their proclaimed 60 days. As expected, time zapped like anything and 60 days were over and I didn't even got a call from my ex-vendor. This had no element of surprise but scare, I was petrified to call up the CC number and hold the line for minutes listening to the same promotional audio, talking to few more not-so-competent CC execs and then again getting through that vicious cycle of call back and no follow-up. Later after few calls with the CC I assured myself that my scare was not justified, as this was just the tip of an ice-berg, just a beginning and I should be capable of handling more of these; I must acclimatise accordingly. Soon, I was following up this issue on a weekly basis and every time the CC exec would tell me that they are working on this issue and the work is in progress, and in every call he/she used to assure me that by next week I shall be receiving my cheque at my doorstep. This continued for months, the issue stated in the month of November and was still lingering till April of next year, isn't that ridiculous. I used to wonder, during this period, Indicom must have calculated its quarterly results twice and hopefully they were accounting my money, a paltry sum, in the liability column of their balance sheet. I felt, all this mess was, probably, just because of some process that's in a dead-loop or some financial guy who was working dead-slow to pass my bill. One day, during my weekly check-up one of the CC exec appalled me, he told me that the cheque was sent to me last week and it got returned from my side, I asked about the courier service provider name, its number and reason for return; he was having answers to none of them, moreover, I also checked my office despatch section( I had given my office address for all communications) and found nothing such, at all; I don't know why this story sounded ominous to me. Was that CC exec trying to sell his malign half-baked story? Was he testing my limits? I didn't had answers to any of these questions but I did had a rancorous feeling. It was more than five months of dilly-dallying and now I was being served with ignominious and foolish acts. Now the idea of suing Tata-Indicom was being seriously mooted, I really meant that, so in this regard I was trying to get some information. One day, I came across this website - www.consumercourt.netfirms.com ( folks please take your time and visit this website, might come handy) and made my mind to go through the legal proceedings; but due to some reasons I procrastinated this step for few days more. But in the meantime, I was calling CC not to reach the execs but supervisors now, almost on all alternate days, probably I wanted to avoid the legal path for few more days, to give a final try to pursue them to get this thing through. During this whole process I learnt that shouting and cursing them is definitely not the way to pursue, in these situations, what works better is mild insults; insult not to them but to the process which they follow, to the unjust thing which was happening due to not-so-responsible acts of them. And guess what, it started showing some positive results, one of the supervisor even kept her promise to call back, that was wonderful, positive and motivating. This persuasion went for few more days and finally on one auspicious day I was enthralled to get a cheque from Indicom. Finally the saga ended.
The whole chapter reminds me of the popular animated series of Dragonballz. It had myriad episodes in which the protagonist, Goku, fights one the antagonist, Freeza, it took around 20 episodes for Goku to kill Freeza, with many twists and turns and Ekta Kapoor's serial like escalating drama. But finally the truth prevails and perseverance pays off. Similarly, in this case, truth and perseverance worked out for me and my Rs 500 was back to me with a good interest.
Well, that's the one side of the story, unfortunately, the other side of the story is not that bright. It started last year, Oct '07, when two payment transactions were made against my Tata-Indicom PC wireless data card account - one was from the Electronic Clearance System (ECS) and the other one which I made online, on the due date, to avoid late payment fee. Next month, I had to close down my connection which resulted in a negative balance in favor of me. The connection was disconnected without any issue but the balance was not met. I called up their Customer-Care (CC) and the guy over the phone told me that it is under progress and I will get my money ASAP ( as per the norms, account is balanced within 60 days of closure). I don't know why, I was having an ominous feeling somewhere deep in my heart. I believe, that's because of the impression which Indicom's CC has made during my stint as their customer in last 18 months. To be very precise and honest, my experience with Indicom's CC had been very unsatisfactory, thanks to many horrible sessions which I had to go through. There was no dearth of issues, whether it's billing or connection related and on top of that, the incompetent CC department was never able to solve any issue quickly; and yes how can I forget that irritating piece of promotional audio which would loop through non-stop while you hold on the line to reach your CC exec or the supervisor, the messiah. The CC exec would generally ask for your mobile number, after many failed attempts, and tell you that you will be called up within eight hours and provided with an update on the issue; but rest assured, you will never get any call back. That's their signature for care and that's their USP, Unique Screwing Point.
Coming back to my balance amount, the amount was not a big one but still that's my money, in spite of being sceptical about the Indicom's processes, I somehow assured myself that my money will come back soon, extending my expectation by a month more than their proclaimed 60 days. As expected, time zapped like anything and 60 days were over and I didn't even got a call from my ex-vendor. This had no element of surprise but scare, I was petrified to call up the CC number and hold the line for minutes listening to the same promotional audio, talking to few more not-so-competent CC execs and then again getting through that vicious cycle of call back and no follow-up. Later after few calls with the CC I assured myself that my scare was not justified, as this was just the tip of an ice-berg, just a beginning and I should be capable of handling more of these; I must acclimatise accordingly. Soon, I was following up this issue on a weekly basis and every time the CC exec would tell me that they are working on this issue and the work is in progress, and in every call he/she used to assure me that by next week I shall be receiving my cheque at my doorstep. This continued for months, the issue stated in the month of November and was still lingering till April of next year, isn't that ridiculous. I used to wonder, during this period, Indicom must have calculated its quarterly results twice and hopefully they were accounting my money, a paltry sum, in the liability column of their balance sheet. I felt, all this mess was, probably, just because of some process that's in a dead-loop or some financial guy who was working dead-slow to pass my bill. One day, during my weekly check-up one of the CC exec appalled me, he told me that the cheque was sent to me last week and it got returned from my side, I asked about the courier service provider name, its number and reason for return; he was having answers to none of them, moreover, I also checked my office despatch section( I had given my office address for all communications) and found nothing such, at all; I don't know why this story sounded ominous to me. Was that CC exec trying to sell his malign half-baked story? Was he testing my limits? I didn't had answers to any of these questions but I did had a rancorous feeling. It was more than five months of dilly-dallying and now I was being served with ignominious and foolish acts. Now the idea of suing Tata-Indicom was being seriously mooted, I really meant that, so in this regard I was trying to get some information. One day, I came across this website - www.consumercourt.netfirms.com ( folks please take your time and visit this website, might come handy) and made my mind to go through the legal proceedings; but due to some reasons I procrastinated this step for few days more. But in the meantime, I was calling CC not to reach the execs but supervisors now, almost on all alternate days, probably I wanted to avoid the legal path for few more days, to give a final try to pursue them to get this thing through. During this whole process I learnt that shouting and cursing them is definitely not the way to pursue, in these situations, what works better is mild insults; insult not to them but to the process which they follow, to the unjust thing which was happening due to not-so-responsible acts of them. And guess what, it started showing some positive results, one of the supervisor even kept her promise to call back, that was wonderful, positive and motivating. This persuasion went for few more days and finally on one auspicious day I was enthralled to get a cheque from Indicom. Finally the saga ended.
The whole chapter reminds me of the popular animated series of Dragonballz. It had myriad episodes in which the protagonist, Goku, fights one the antagonist, Freeza, it took around 20 episodes for Goku to kill Freeza, with many twists and turns and Ekta Kapoor's serial like escalating drama. But finally the truth prevails and perseverance pays off. Similarly, in this case, truth and perseverance worked out for me and my Rs 500 was back to me with a good interest.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
GOD: A marvel of human
Imagine the pathetic situations our prehistoric Neanderthal ancestor must have been through; one day he is running away from the fiery forest fire, trying to save his ass and the other day he is crouching beneath a small cave just to keep himself dry and away from a thunderstorm. His heart pounding hard and his mind wishing a quick end to those unknown natural, supernatural for him, phenomenons. After few such encounters with nature, he must have been overwhelmed by indignation and dying to curse the reason behind such an unjustified situation. But Alas! unlike us, he doesn't have any word or language to use. Probably humankind's first words were meant to curse that unknown reason behind those super-natural activities.
However, human is a die-hard organism, it not only survived the ferocious and looming carnivores and the killing natural phenomenons, it also evolved rapidly. It evolved so much that now it controls the whole world. Probably, the evolution of human mind was more significant than the evolution of its physical traits. Human mind is very self centric and intelligent, as it always tries to keep it self away from any trouble so that the gene pool continues to exist and reproduce. Humankind moved from hunter-gatherer to agricultural mode cutting down on risky activities, guaranteeing better nutrition and minimizing risk. But again, it has to bear the adversaries of nature such as draughts and heavy rainfall. However, human brain got more intelligent, it recognized the power of nature and understood, or rather misunderstood, it as God, hence all the nature's powerful entities like the Sun, the Rain( even animals) were given the status of God. Anything which was more powerful than human and, more importantly, which was not controllable was certified pious( One who knows Hinduism can understand it better, almost all species are listed sacred) . Early civilizations like Mayans, Harappas, Aztecs had the Sun and the phenomenon rain elevated to the status of God, they worshiped, offered sacrifices to please them to ensure their civilization's existence; doing so made them happy and feel secure, it was like creating your own world in which you had all control. As the human society evolved and hence got more complicated, the concept and need of God, to keep it binding, also evolved. This gave rise to different religions and followings. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam , to name a few, are the religions which are thousands of years old and have billions of followers. And, perhaps during this period only our human race saw the most rapid growth - both from sociological and science and technological front. During this period as human being refined its knowledge about nature and its surrounding, it also kept on modifying the definition of religion and God. Few months back Vatican included a new bullet in its list of sinful behaviour: Thou shall not pollute the Earth. This shows the adaptive nature of human mind, adaptations to help its race sustain; adaptation to ensure longevity. Arguably, humankind's belief in God and Religion was one of most important and critical reason for its success and development as an species, without which our society and race must have perished under the its own weight of development and progress; and this will continue. But one ponders how long is it going to continue this way; may be, till the need of god is understood as redundant.
Now after pondering a lot on these things, I have started to believe that considering human being a creation of God is nothing but fallacy; it's other way round. It's human being who created God; it us who unconsciously created religion and god, during the course of evolution, to ensure survivability. Now as time moves on, we are going to tailor this as per our need, as per our requirement. Who knows, after few decades, we might be producing genetically modified children, who can go on without food for days and subsequently prompting Vatican to remove Gluttony from the sins list. It's the theism which is changing but atheism is where it was.
However, human is a die-hard organism, it not only survived the ferocious and looming carnivores and the killing natural phenomenons, it also evolved rapidly. It evolved so much that now it controls the whole world. Probably, the evolution of human mind was more significant than the evolution of its physical traits. Human mind is very self centric and intelligent, as it always tries to keep it self away from any trouble so that the gene pool continues to exist and reproduce. Humankind moved from hunter-gatherer to agricultural mode cutting down on risky activities, guaranteeing better nutrition and minimizing risk. But again, it has to bear the adversaries of nature such as draughts and heavy rainfall. However, human brain got more intelligent, it recognized the power of nature and understood, or rather misunderstood, it as God, hence all the nature's powerful entities like the Sun, the Rain( even animals) were given the status of God. Anything which was more powerful than human and, more importantly, which was not controllable was certified pious( One who knows Hinduism can understand it better, almost all species are listed sacred) . Early civilizations like Mayans, Harappas, Aztecs had the Sun and the phenomenon rain elevated to the status of God, they worshiped, offered sacrifices to please them to ensure their civilization's existence; doing so made them happy and feel secure, it was like creating your own world in which you had all control. As the human society evolved and hence got more complicated, the concept and need of God, to keep it binding, also evolved. This gave rise to different religions and followings. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam , to name a few, are the religions which are thousands of years old and have billions of followers. And, perhaps during this period only our human race saw the most rapid growth - both from sociological and science and technological front. During this period as human being refined its knowledge about nature and its surrounding, it also kept on modifying the definition of religion and God. Few months back Vatican included a new bullet in its list of sinful behaviour: Thou shall not pollute the Earth. This shows the adaptive nature of human mind, adaptations to help its race sustain; adaptation to ensure longevity. Arguably, humankind's belief in God and Religion was one of most important and critical reason for its success and development as an species, without which our society and race must have perished under the its own weight of development and progress; and this will continue. But one ponders how long is it going to continue this way; may be, till the need of god is understood as redundant.
Now after pondering a lot on these things, I have started to believe that considering human being a creation of God is nothing but fallacy; it's other way round. It's human being who created God; it us who unconsciously created religion and god, during the course of evolution, to ensure survivability. Now as time moves on, we are going to tailor this as per our need, as per our requirement. Who knows, after few decades, we might be producing genetically modified children, who can go on without food for days and subsequently prompting Vatican to remove Gluttony from the sins list. It's the theism which is changing but atheism is where it was.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Training Resources or Draining Resources
Investments are made only when returns are expected. I would not plant an apple sapling if I am not going to consume any apple or trade apples in market. Even if I do want to consume or trade, before investing I would like to make sure that I break-even on my investments and start making profit as soon as possible; in case it's not possible then it's pragmatic to look for other means to satisfy my want. I believe, similar thought goes true in case of training resources in any firm, especially for firms whose market is having cut-throat competition, like IT firms.
Apparently, top management of my employer, which happens to be one of the largest IT service provider in India, doesn't thinks so. Recently, there was an initiative driven by our industry lead; the so called "initiative" christened as Know Your Industry, aka 'KYI', desired to imbibe all of the resources with sound knowledge of its domain. These KYI sessions and trainings spanned from basic information, evolution and future of industry, various technologies, frameworks, processes et al related to our industry. The initiative mandated all resources (my estimate is that the total number of resources is not less than four thousand odd people) to go through the trainings and sessions. No doubt all these pieces of information passed on through this initiative were pretty good but at the same time they were redundant and also obsolete in some cases, at least from my perspective. The whole package demanded at least one full day for one average resource to read/attend sessions, understand and assimilate the information. Which means that the investment in terms of man-hour was around 4000X8 units (leave aside the cost of planning and execution from management side); that's a huge figure going down the drains when not more that 5 percent of the total effort is going to bear fruits (I might be having a lot of free time to write a blog or surf around but there are scores of people who do, apart from the regular work, stretch assignments and support their applications). Kindly note that i am not against fruitful trainings; trainings are good and a crucial tool to keep yourself updated with the industry and to learn new stuffs, and trainings should be guided by ones project and personal development needs.
Most of us understand the significance of trainings. We try to relate trainings with the outcome which can be derived from it, so when a resource finds that the management mandated training is nowhere related to his daily work and responsibility and even doesn't falls in line with his/her personal learning's keenness then the resource loses all affinity to that training. This results in failure of the whole purpose- the purpose behind training people. Moreover, knowledge without implementation is of no use; if I know the intricacies of my industry, say Telecoms, but I am unable to leverage that knowledge due to lack of scope, then the knowledge is as good as nothing. Hence the whole KYI seems to be redundant.
Not only did the KYI seems redundant, it was also obsolete in some cases. During one of the session, the instructor was talking about convergence and 3G and its future in Telecoms domain but, I guess, he was least aware that he could have easily skipped those topics. As he went through his slide show one guy was busy with his GPRS enabled phone and another one revving his BMW-Mini in a mobile game.
It's very difficult to believe that I am yet to find a reason pragmatic enough behind this KYI initiative. There must be one, at least!. One reason which must have prompted my top management for such a decision; one justification to take such a step. If you find any possible reason, please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks in advance.
Apparently, top management of my employer, which happens to be one of the largest IT service provider in India, doesn't thinks so. Recently, there was an initiative driven by our industry lead; the so called "initiative" christened as Know Your Industry, aka 'KYI', desired to imbibe all of the resources with sound knowledge of its domain. These KYI sessions and trainings spanned from basic information, evolution and future of industry, various technologies, frameworks, processes et al related to our industry. The initiative mandated all resources (my estimate is that the total number of resources is not less than four thousand odd people) to go through the trainings and sessions. No doubt all these pieces of information passed on through this initiative were pretty good but at the same time they were redundant and also obsolete in some cases, at least from my perspective. The whole package demanded at least one full day for one average resource to read/attend sessions, understand and assimilate the information. Which means that the investment in terms of man-hour was around 4000X8 units (leave aside the cost of planning and execution from management side); that's a huge figure going down the drains when not more that 5 percent of the total effort is going to bear fruits (I might be having a lot of free time to write a blog or surf around but there are scores of people who do, apart from the regular work, stretch assignments and support their applications). Kindly note that i am not against fruitful trainings; trainings are good and a crucial tool to keep yourself updated with the industry and to learn new stuffs, and trainings should be guided by ones project and personal development needs.
Most of us understand the significance of trainings. We try to relate trainings with the outcome which can be derived from it, so when a resource finds that the management mandated training is nowhere related to his daily work and responsibility and even doesn't falls in line with his/her personal learning's keenness then the resource loses all affinity to that training. This results in failure of the whole purpose- the purpose behind training people. Moreover, knowledge without implementation is of no use; if I know the intricacies of my industry, say Telecoms, but I am unable to leverage that knowledge due to lack of scope, then the knowledge is as good as nothing. Hence the whole KYI seems to be redundant.
Not only did the KYI seems redundant, it was also obsolete in some cases. During one of the session, the instructor was talking about convergence and 3G and its future in Telecoms domain but, I guess, he was least aware that he could have easily skipped those topics. As he went through his slide show one guy was busy with his GPRS enabled phone and another one revving his BMW-Mini in a mobile game.
It's very difficult to believe that I am yet to find a reason pragmatic enough behind this KYI initiative. There must be one, at least!. One reason which must have prompted my top management for such a decision; one justification to take such a step. If you find any possible reason, please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks in advance.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Rx: Amnesia Specialist
The recent statements given by Mr. Bush on the contribution of rapidly developing nations, like India , in the current global food crisis has caused a lot of indignation among Indians, especially our trustworthy politicians- no pun intended. I wonder if this emotion shown by our netas (politicians) is intended to save nation's pride and self-respect or its just another gimmick to strengthen the forthcoming election base. One feels that Mr. Bush is not incorrect in assessing the growth of these two economies. Of course when a country, especially like India and China, prospers, it is expected to raise the overall consumption. Not only due to the high population growth rate but also due to the momentous development of these two giants; in India's case millions of families, who were under poverty line decades ago are now making progress and egressing from poverty and malnutrition. Certainly, one would not hesitate to state that our consumption, rice and wheat being staple food, is increasing rapidly. Alleviation of millions of families resulted in such demand and one feels happy about that.
It's a very known fact that US consumes one of the largest chunk of any global resource, not only food; one does not understands why our netas started behaving like a five year old kid, got so emotional about the statements made by Bush and started retaliating with all kinds of data, just to prove that US is the consumes more than India. Bush neither passed any judgement on India's steep consumption growth, he was just stating facts, nor did he denied or distorted any fact. Having said that, one does not mean that that's the end of the matter. The part that came unjust from Mr. Bush's side was that he did not made any other statement; any other statement that was as correct as the one he made. One would definitely like to ask a question to Mr. Bush- does he suffers from amnesia? Why is he trying to sideline those facts which are more profound in causing the global food shortage.
Did Mr. Bush forgot that last year he redirected one-fifth of US corn harvest to produce bio-fuel? Apparently, he does not realize that this step was a major precursor to the crisis of corn in global market, which resulted in unprecedented price hike in all the cereals. Not only the price hike, Mr. Bush also fostered an environment which lead to deforestation of amazon, in Brazil. Yes Mr. Bush, you read it right! As you siphoned out a big chunk of your corn harvest to produce bio-fuel, the demand of corn increased in your domestic market, due to this a lot of your soybean producing farmers stopped soy cultivation and started producing corn, certainly to earn the windfall profit. This is turn reduced the supply of soybean in your domestic market and to fulfill this demand you started importing heavily from Brazil; consequently, Brazilian people started cutting down amazon forest to build new farmlands, in order to meet the additional demand coming from US. FYI, deforestation is not good for global warming. Moreover, world needs next generation bio-fuel technology. The current one, boosted and boasted by your so called bio-fuel revolution, is doing no good to the planet. Research shows that the current technology is not a viable one and is inefficient; it does not helps in anyway to reduce atmospheric pollution. Moreover, the fact that the amount of input required to fill a SUV tank is enough to feed a person for 365 days, hits heavily to your bio-fuel drive. Not to mention the fact that an average American consumes many times more than an Indian, leave alone the downtrodden African nationals; 31% of Americans are obese with a BMI in excess of 30. The middle class of India, whom you branded as the prime reason behind all this food fiasco, will be able to teach you the meaning of frugality, which you desperately need. Once you know that ground reality, you might be interested to have their guidance; we will be more than happy to help you out.
I am pretty much sure that you are aware of all these facts, but the only problem with you is that your forget too early. In the year 2003, you forgot the meaning and significance of sovereignty and international law before striking Iraq and now you not only forget to state the major facts before stating the minor ones but also brazenly point out your fingers to others. You need urgent medical attention Mr. Bush, please do not forget that; if you do, it would be a blasphemy against humankind!
It's a very known fact that US consumes one of the largest chunk of any global resource, not only food; one does not understands why our netas started behaving like a five year old kid, got so emotional about the statements made by Bush and started retaliating with all kinds of data, just to prove that US is the consumes more than India. Bush neither passed any judgement on India's steep consumption growth, he was just stating facts, nor did he denied or distorted any fact. Having said that, one does not mean that that's the end of the matter. The part that came unjust from Mr. Bush's side was that he did not made any other statement; any other statement that was as correct as the one he made. One would definitely like to ask a question to Mr. Bush- does he suffers from amnesia? Why is he trying to sideline those facts which are more profound in causing the global food shortage.
Did Mr. Bush forgot that last year he redirected one-fifth of US corn harvest to produce bio-fuel? Apparently, he does not realize that this step was a major precursor to the crisis of corn in global market, which resulted in unprecedented price hike in all the cereals. Not only the price hike, Mr. Bush also fostered an environment which lead to deforestation of amazon, in Brazil. Yes Mr. Bush, you read it right! As you siphoned out a big chunk of your corn harvest to produce bio-fuel, the demand of corn increased in your domestic market, due to this a lot of your soybean producing farmers stopped soy cultivation and started producing corn, certainly to earn the windfall profit. This is turn reduced the supply of soybean in your domestic market and to fulfill this demand you started importing heavily from Brazil; consequently, Brazilian people started cutting down amazon forest to build new farmlands, in order to meet the additional demand coming from US. FYI, deforestation is not good for global warming. Moreover, world needs next generation bio-fuel technology. The current one, boosted and boasted by your so called bio-fuel revolution, is doing no good to the planet. Research shows that the current technology is not a viable one and is inefficient; it does not helps in anyway to reduce atmospheric pollution. Moreover, the fact that the amount of input required to fill a SUV tank is enough to feed a person for 365 days, hits heavily to your bio-fuel drive. Not to mention the fact that an average American consumes many times more than an Indian, leave alone the downtrodden African nationals; 31% of Americans are obese with a BMI in excess of 30. The middle class of India, whom you branded as the prime reason behind all this food fiasco, will be able to teach you the meaning of frugality, which you desperately need. Once you know that ground reality, you might be interested to have their guidance; we will be more than happy to help you out.
I am pretty much sure that you are aware of all these facts, but the only problem with you is that your forget too early. In the year 2003, you forgot the meaning and significance of sovereignty and international law before striking Iraq and now you not only forget to state the major facts before stating the minor ones but also brazenly point out your fingers to others. You need urgent medical attention Mr. Bush, please do not forget that; if you do, it would be a blasphemy against humankind!
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Wana trade CO2 ?
Miscalculations and over-confidence seems to be the prime reasons behind the ongoing US financial crisis. Chance of committing an error, grave mistakes in the case of US housing crisis, gets compounded when one deals with complex financial instruments and evidently, the price which we all have to pay is too dear. Its definitely going to take few more quarters for US to come out of this slowdown, probably a recession. It's very bewildering to see intellectuals coming up with such complex instruments and regulations which are so difficult to comprehend for a layman like me. One of the recent entry to the list of global financial instruments is Carbon crediting i.e. trading carbon ( actually it is carbon di-oxide, CO2) . Carbon credit as a commodity is a newcomer and its current global market is estimated to be around USD $60 million. Moreover, if all the major economic powers ratifies the Kyoto Protocol, this market is estimated to cross a trillion US dollar mark by the year 2020.
The way carbon trading works is very intriguing - and it's a very laudable and noble way to mitigate global warming and might prove very helpful to humankind to avert a premature doomsday. Carbon trading is based under the premise of 'cap-and-trade' policy. With the ratification of Kyoto protocol, the amount of green house pollutants a firm, and hence a country, can emit is calculated and that sets the 'cap' for the organisation, subsequently for a country too, and it is obliged not to cross the upper limit. Now the question is, how firms or organisations are expected to grow, which is fundamental to any country's growth, without polluting earth's atmosphere further. To answer this questions comes the part of 'trade'; by purchasing carbon credits a firm can keep its net emission level under the predetermined capped level and hence continue emitting more pollutants. A carbon credit is nothing but the point which one earns by not emitting carbon di-oxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Among all the green house gases CO2 is the most abundant one hence the standards are set based on it. So whenever one makes use of any technology and prevents emission of CO2 or helps reducing CO2 level, one earns points. Even if one uses a CFL instead of a conventional bulb, one earns carbon credits. It's another point that the total carbon credits which one will accumulate, with the help of one CFL, might not be significant enough to trade as commodity in actual market. It takes preventing one metric tonne of CO2 from escaping to atmosphere, to earn a Certified Emission Reduction (CER), the unit of one carbon point. It might look like a colossal quantity but it gets dwarfed when emissions of fuel guzzling firms, such as thermal power plant, are taken into consideration. Hence, if a firm wants to pollute more than the capped limit it must purchase carbon credits from other organisations and/or banks. Purchasing carbon credit means that the organisation has supposedly compensated the damage which it is going to inflict, by promoting some other environment preserving process. To me, it seems more like a 'heal-and-hit' policy as one helps in healing the environment before hitting it again - sounds very unethical but it's showing positive results and hopefully it continues to works out well in future.
There are many organisations which collect carbon credits from small firms and sell them to banks. Small firms might earn their points by using technologies as simple as non-conventional energy sources or even by preventing their livestock from belching or farting methane ( seriously! people are using pills on livestock to prevent emission of methane, which is more than 20 times effective green house gas compared to CO2. Also note that, HFC's, used as refrigerant are 3000 times effective and one metric tonne of HFC costs around USD $12000). Currently, in the lower rung, the cost of 1 CER is USD $4 and these CER's are sold at a rate many times higher to investment banks; and finally to firms by these banks at a much higher rate. This created a market in which CER's are traded and its potential is estimated to be huge, hence investment banking giants like JP Morgan Chase, UBS are heavily banking on carbon trading as one of the hedging instrument.
One feels that, carbon trading is not only playing an instrumental role in subduing global warming but also created a new commodity which can be traded in free market. Now there are more than one thing to watch; first, how effective will be to preserve earth's atmosphere and second, how this new commodity unfolds in the future of world economy. One hopes that it won't result to a crisis like the one which housing sector is currently facing.
The way carbon trading works is very intriguing - and it's a very laudable and noble way to mitigate global warming and might prove very helpful to humankind to avert a premature doomsday. Carbon trading is based under the premise of 'cap-and-trade' policy. With the ratification of Kyoto protocol, the amount of green house pollutants a firm, and hence a country, can emit is calculated and that sets the 'cap' for the organisation, subsequently for a country too, and it is obliged not to cross the upper limit. Now the question is, how firms or organisations are expected to grow, which is fundamental to any country's growth, without polluting earth's atmosphere further. To answer this questions comes the part of 'trade'; by purchasing carbon credits a firm can keep its net emission level under the predetermined capped level and hence continue emitting more pollutants. A carbon credit is nothing but the point which one earns by not emitting carbon di-oxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Among all the green house gases CO2 is the most abundant one hence the standards are set based on it. So whenever one makes use of any technology and prevents emission of CO2 or helps reducing CO2 level, one earns points. Even if one uses a CFL instead of a conventional bulb, one earns carbon credits. It's another point that the total carbon credits which one will accumulate, with the help of one CFL, might not be significant enough to trade as commodity in actual market. It takes preventing one metric tonne of CO2 from escaping to atmosphere, to earn a Certified Emission Reduction (CER), the unit of one carbon point. It might look like a colossal quantity but it gets dwarfed when emissions of fuel guzzling firms, such as thermal power plant, are taken into consideration. Hence, if a firm wants to pollute more than the capped limit it must purchase carbon credits from other organisations and/or banks. Purchasing carbon credit means that the organisation has supposedly compensated the damage which it is going to inflict, by promoting some other environment preserving process. To me, it seems more like a 'heal-and-hit' policy as one helps in healing the environment before hitting it again - sounds very unethical but it's showing positive results and hopefully it continues to works out well in future.
There are many organisations which collect carbon credits from small firms and sell them to banks. Small firms might earn their points by using technologies as simple as non-conventional energy sources or even by preventing their livestock from belching or farting methane ( seriously! people are using pills on livestock to prevent emission of methane, which is more than 20 times effective green house gas compared to CO2. Also note that, HFC's, used as refrigerant are 3000 times effective and one metric tonne of HFC costs around USD $12000). Currently, in the lower rung, the cost of 1 CER is USD $4 and these CER's are sold at a rate many times higher to investment banks; and finally to firms by these banks at a much higher rate. This created a market in which CER's are traded and its potential is estimated to be huge, hence investment banking giants like JP Morgan Chase, UBS are heavily banking on carbon trading as one of the hedging instrument.
One feels that, carbon trading is not only playing an instrumental role in subduing global warming but also created a new commodity which can be traded in free market. Now there are more than one thing to watch; first, how effective will be to preserve earth's atmosphere and second, how this new commodity unfolds in the future of world economy. One hopes that it won't result to a crisis like the one which housing sector is currently facing.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
IN for innovation
I am very proud, but not surprised, to see Tata Group and Reliance Industries listed as 6th and 19th respectively in the list of world's 50 most innovative companies, compiled by BusinessWeek(BW) ( April, 28 '08 issue). Both the companies have one thing in common, their aggressive and innovative strategies; no brownies to guess the contribution of NANO to boost up Tata conglomerate's ranking. Not only the technological innovation but also the innovation in assembly and distribution keeps the cost of this 623 cc car as low as $ 2,500 - making it world's least expensive car. Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries, India's largest conglomerate, got listed due to its overwhelming growth - that's what BW stated in its magazine, seems very vague but it's true.
As the famous saying goes "Necessity is the mother of invention", one ponders what statement would go for the term innovation; which soundex invention. As per my experience, innovation seems to be the most iterated but not that fruitful jargon, in today's IT world. The first time I heard this word buzzing around was the summer of 2006, when my employer, launched a contest to kindle the mind of thousands of its employees in order to think in an innovative manner. I gave my shot and surprisingly got selected for the two day-one night residential program in a cool resort, in the outskirts of Bangalore. After the completion of the supposedly innovative, not to mention the fact that it was full of fun, food and booze, program I resumed the mundane work without much innovation. So the million dollar, probably billion, question is - how to make someone think innovative? Well my attempt in this blog is not to answer this question because I know it would be too early even to attempt one, may be I will try once I tackle my own mid-life crisis; I hope I will deal it innovatively ( pun intended). Many a times, in an attempt to fire the i-neuron in its employee's mind, companies overdo; they publish many banners, send loads of e-mails trying to invigorate its employees mind, organize more innovative sessions, and even more frequent usage of the elusive word - innovation. How frequent? well, it's so frequent that it will definitely make you feel pissed-off and one will try to avoid it as much as possible. One will not only get irritated to see this word in a newspaper article but also try not to think in anyway which might remotely or unknowingly create something innovative.
Well, I do not see any exaggeration in the words of amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos- "frugality drives innovation"; that's true, I believe. Frugality encourages one to take the best course; one will find and take the most efficient path, use least possible resources and ultimately one will end up being innovative. I guess, Indians are pretty much good in utilizing limited resources, there is hardly any abundance of resource, to its maximum capacity and in being frugal. It won't be surprising to see more Indians or Indian led companies in the forth-coming compilations of innovative companies. This year its three, third one being Arun Sarin led Vodafone Group, who knows by 2020 ( well 20-20 cricket is quite hot now, hence picked out this year) we will see 50% of the slots being captured by an Indian name. Amen!
As the famous saying goes "Necessity is the mother of invention", one ponders what statement would go for the term innovation; which soundex invention. As per my experience, innovation seems to be the most iterated but not that fruitful jargon, in today's IT world. The first time I heard this word buzzing around was the summer of 2006, when my employer, launched a contest to kindle the mind of thousands of its employees in order to think in an innovative manner. I gave my shot and surprisingly got selected for the two day-one night residential program in a cool resort, in the outskirts of Bangalore. After the completion of the supposedly innovative, not to mention the fact that it was full of fun, food and booze, program I resumed the mundane work without much innovation. So the million dollar, probably billion, question is - how to make someone think innovative? Well my attempt in this blog is not to answer this question because I know it would be too early even to attempt one, may be I will try once I tackle my own mid-life crisis; I hope I will deal it innovatively ( pun intended). Many a times, in an attempt to fire the i-neuron in its employee's mind, companies overdo; they publish many banners, send loads of e-mails trying to invigorate its employees mind, organize more innovative sessions, and even more frequent usage of the elusive word - innovation. How frequent? well, it's so frequent that it will definitely make you feel pissed-off and one will try to avoid it as much as possible. One will not only get irritated to see this word in a newspaper article but also try not to think in anyway which might remotely or unknowingly create something innovative.
Well, I do not see any exaggeration in the words of amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos- "frugality drives innovation"; that's true, I believe. Frugality encourages one to take the best course; one will find and take the most efficient path, use least possible resources and ultimately one will end up being innovative. I guess, Indians are pretty much good in utilizing limited resources, there is hardly any abundance of resource, to its maximum capacity and in being frugal. It won't be surprising to see more Indians or Indian led companies in the forth-coming compilations of innovative companies. This year its three, third one being Arun Sarin led Vodafone Group, who knows by 2020 ( well 20-20 cricket is quite hot now, hence picked out this year) we will see 50% of the slots being captured by an Indian name. Amen!
Friday, April 18, 2008
Re-Genesis
Year 2002: Two agonising semesters had gone by, my college-mates would understand why I used the word agonising, and suddenly my college was looking different from what it used to look earlier, just few months back. I was feeling proud to be senior to a whole batch of new comers, being Knighthood-ed, err but suffixed with 'Sir'. Now instead of using library as my hideout, of-course to avoid my seniors, I was actually trying to use it in a manner it should be. I was browsing through a stack of old issues of magazines, there was no fresh issue so I had no choice but to read those almost stale articles, the cover page of TIME caught my attention; the main article was about the advent of a new chic stuff called BLOGGING. What is it? After going through the article I was elated to learn about this cool stuff. I was happy, when I left the library, to learn something very esoteric. That evening I was bragging in front of my friends about what I learnt, "Have you ever heard of blogging?" I said. I knew that answer will be no but one of my friend gave me a strange look which I intelligently equated to a big question mark. Then I started giving him my own half baked fundaz of blogging; how simple it is yet how powerful and handy it can prove. We can share any piece of information by just penning down in a website and broadcasting the same. The topic can encompass anything under the sun, be it travel, tech, politics, society, sports, music any damn thing! Not only we can share information but also it can be used as a mass awareness media. It can be used as a political force, blah blah blah. What rubbish is he talking about? --- grimaced one of my friend, I could read this line written in fluorescent color on my friend's forehead. Soon we had other topics to discuss and the word blog was no where in our conversation. Why the hell it should be, when we have so many things to do to keep ourselves happy. We had newcomers, always available to give us their introductions, you know what I mean, don't you? (grin) After having a few spells of entertainment laced introduction we retired for the day.
The next day, I don't know why I felt vindicated to learn more about this stuff called blogging. I surfed the Internet for few days and finally decided to have my own blog. To be first among the few people to have his own blog, though I didn't knew how many in my college had any clue about blogging. Internet was mostly used to chat and surf, mostly unnecessary stuffs, and most of the guys would be hooked to yahoo messenger's private chat rooms, even I used to do the same. Finally I created my blog page, now I had my own blog, but I had a big question in my mind. What to write about? Actually I never gave a thought about this question before creating my own blog. For few days I kept on thinking and reflecting on this question but fortunately or unfortunately I never got the answer. Days passed like anything and the word blogging passed away from my mind. That was the end of my first attempt to be among the elite class of blogger.....Probably, ragging was better than blogging, I thought.
Mar, 18th '08: Here I am sitting in my office cubicle ,composing my first blog, having the same question and this time I found another one 'What not to write?'. Having said that, this new question is not an easy one but not that difficult too, and now I feel four and half year old burden almost coming off my shoulder. Many thanks to my namesake Shanu. Hope to continue this .... Sayonara for now.
Mar, 18th '08: Here I am sitting in my office cubicle ,composing my first blog, having the same question and this time I found another one 'What not to write?'. Having said that, this new question is not an easy one but not that difficult too, and now I feel four and half year old burden almost coming off my shoulder. Many thanks to my namesake Shanu. Hope to continue this .... Sayonara for now.
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