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2008-11-29T23:29:00.001-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/opinion/29mehta.html?ex=1385701200&en=51f7ed4932f50f37&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

What is wrong with Rang De Basanti, A Wednesday, Guru

2008-11-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

I did not complete the Indian Idol series but I wanted to post on this for many days. There have been 3 movies which were hits and everyone around me appreciated that Hindi Movie industry is finally making "good movies". Although, I did not like Guru at all, I will touch on that later. But, Rang de and A Wednesday were indeed well made movies. So, is my title wrong? No, I basically do not agree with the message being sent out by these two movies. Rang de sends out a rather dumb message that if you kill the problem creator, you are great. So, I don't understand why India then needs law, courts, judiciary system if any one can decide what is wrong and if it's wrong, what penalty should be given to him or her. So, is it right that if I feel that someone is doing something wrong, I can kill him. Are we moving from democracy to Anarchy or something? "A Wednesday" sends out a similar message that we do not need to take the terrorists to courts and instead directly kill them and a common man decides who is terrorist and what punishment should he or she get. It is absolutely ridiculous. Currently, a very serious attack happened on Mumbai and I am pretty sure that there will be a strong emotion among Indians that this movie act is indeed correct. Instead what India needs is a robust intelligence network. Finally, I thought Guru was a lacklustre movie anyways and that we don't need a Mani Ratnam to direct such a movie. But, more so that he has tried to glorify the wrong acts of the protagonist and it basically shows that you can succeed by committing all bad deeds. I want more films like Yuva to come out which instills a positive vibe among us to do something good rather than the above mentioned movies.

PS: This post has borrowed some thoughts out of: www.sujaiblog.blogspot.com

Sports-Sachin Tendulkar

2008-06-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

Did I forget about Dhyan Chand, Sunil Gavaskar, P.T. Usha et al or am I too biased. The answer is No! Sachin Tendulkar is the biggest sporting icon India has ever produced. For me, he is the Michael Jordan, Michael Schumacher of Cricket for whom you see the sport many times. Millions of Indians want to see him score a century every time he bats. The roar at the stadium when he steps in to the ground speaks for itself. If Michael Jordan played exceedingly well at both Carolina and later at Chicago, this guy scored well for Mumbai, Yorkshire, and for India. He has amassed 42 ODI centuries and 39 Test centuries for which he should be thanked by the Indians. He should be thanked by the people for everything he has done not only for India but for the sport in general. Last season, when Carolina went through the final four, the Tarheels went crazy over Tyler Hansbrough; but when they lost to Kansas in the semis, I found all the fans to be so nice to the team. Everywhere banners were placed thanking the team who put up such a wonderful performance. But in India, I find people criticizing Tendulkar saying he never plays when India needs him. This is a senseless argument to say the least because India has won 30 times in ODI when Tendulkar has scored a century and once there was no result. People don’t have the right to choose when India needs Tendulkar. We need him always, let’s make that clear. You can find a detailed explanation of the 11 times India lost when Tendulkar scored a century at http://www.niharsworld.com/2007/12/17/sachin-tendulkars-41-30-hundreds-are-for-winning-cause/
Another famous allegation is that he plays himself and not for the team. This comes up from the observation that often he slows down when he is in the 90s. But he has full right to do that. He scored 90 runs on his own. No other guy helped him. He knows how to accelerate after 100. So, don’t teach him how to bat at this stage! 2 stunning examples in favor of my argument would be:
· His innings at the deadly WACA in Perth in which he scored 119 which is still considered to be one of the best ever innings to have been played in Australia.
· His resilience after blood was gushing from his nose and scoring 57 on his debut Test which helped India draw the match against a wonderful Pakistani fast bowling attack comprising Imran Khan, Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram etc.
I don’t find anything wrong now in Government waiving the import duty on his Ferrari Car. It is a very small token for such a big sporting genius. Go watch this video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-7jL7o8kYs

Music- A R Rehman

2008-02-29T00:22:00.000-08:00

Why I chose him ahead of so many legendary music directors like R.D Burman, Illayaraja, or singers like Kishore Kumar, Mohd. Rafi and others is primarily because according to me, he has been instrumental in taking the Indian Music to an international level. I have never heard before of any Indian music being directly incorporated into Hollywood movies, and in one case even the language was not changed. This guy has just been revelation to the Indian movie industry. He has found so many new talents and is still continuously on the hunt for more new singers which I guess Illayaraja missed out. I have started to like Rehman's albums now on par with Pink Floyd, and Metallica. I have always thought it is very difficult to come up with songs like Comfortably Numb or Nothing else Matters, but now I feel it is equally challenging to come up with brilliant tunes and to convert them into great hits album after album for over 15 years and that too primarily in two different languages. Although, they say that music has no language bounds but still I feel one must have a proper understanding of the kind of music a particular set of people would like and according to me this differs a whole lot in Hindi and Tamil and this guy leaves me spellbound in both Sivaji and Rang-de-Basanti. Hopefully he will come up with more great music and will venture out into different languages. I still feel numb when I listen to the Bombay tune whether it is in Bombay or it is in Lord of the War.

Indian Idols

2007-11-01T09:50:00.000-07:00

When some % of people of the world are going crazy over the different home country versions of the idol shows (like the American Idol, Australian Idol, Indian Idol, etc.), I thought about really how many great Indians have changed my thinking. I am planning to write a series of blogs on such personalities possible by concentrating on each arena which I feel is important.
So, I begin the series by concentrating on Politics and related fields:

Mahatma Gandhi

The choice is obvious and I dont think many will argue on the choice. It is just that so much has already written and known about this great personality that almost nothing new can be said. When I started writing this blog, I thought instead of a "OR guy" like me writing this article, wouldn't it be great if I can find an article written someone who also has stood out on similar principles as Gandhi. To my joy, I found an interesting article in Time written by Nelson Mandela. Here is the full article:

" India is Gandhi's country of birth; South Africa his country of adoption. He was both an Indian and a South African citizen. Both countries contributed to his intellectual and moral genius, and he shaped the liberatory movements in both colonial theaters.
He is the archetypal anticolonial revolutionary. His strategy of noncooperation, his assertion that we can be dominated only if we cooperate with our dominators, and his nonviolent resistance inspired anticolonial and antiracist movements internationally in our century.
Both Gandhi and I suffered colonial oppression, and both of us mobilized our respective peoples against governments that violated our freedoms.
The Gandhian influence dominated freedom struggles on the African continent right up to the 1960s because of the power it generated and the unity it forged among the apparently powerless. Nonviolence was the official stance of all major African coalitions, and the South African A.N.C. remained implacably opposed to violence for most of its existence.
Gandhi remained committed to nonviolence; I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Unkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle. Even then, we chose sabotage because it did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Militant action became part of the African agenda officially supported by the Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.) following my address to the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) in 1962, in which I stated, "Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence."
Gandhi himself never ruled out violence absolutely and unreservedly. He conceded the necessity of arms in certain situations. He said, "Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor ..."
Violence and nonviolence are not mutually exclusive; it is the predominance of the one or the other that labels a struggle.
Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 at the age of 23. Within a week he collided head on with racism. His immediate response was to flee the country that so degraded people of color, but then his inner resilience overpowered him with a sense of mission, and he stayed to redeem the dignity of the racially exploited, to pave the way for the liberation of the colonized the world over and to develop a blueprint for a new social order.
He left 21 years later, a near maha atma (great soul). There is no doubt in my mind that by the time he was violently removed from our world, he had transited into that state.
No Ordinary Leader — Divinely Inspired
He was no ordinary leader. There are those who believe he was divinely inspired, and it is difficult not to believe with them. He dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the importance of self. In fact, the interdependence of the social and the personal is at the heart of his philosophy. He seeks the simultaneous and interactive development of the moral person and the moral society.

His philosophy of Satyagraha is both a personal and a social struggle to realize the Truth, which he identifies as God, the Absolute Morality. He seeks this Truth, not in isolation, self-centeredly, but with the people. He said, "I want to find God, and because I want to find God, I have to find God along with other people. I don't believe I can find God alone. If I did, I would be running to the Himalayas to find God in some cave there. But since I believe that nobody can find God alone, I have to work with people. I have to take them with me. Alone I can't come to Him."
He sacerises his revolution, balancing the religious and the secular.
Awakening
His awakening came on the hilly terrain of the so-called Bambata Rebellion, where as a passionate British patriot, he led his Indian stretcher-bearer corps to serve the Empire, but British brutality against the Zulus roused his soul against violence as nothing had done before. He determined, on that battlefield, to wrest himself of all material attachments and devote himself completely and totally to eliminating violence and serving humanity. The sight of wounded and whipped Zulus, mercilessly abandoned by their British persecutors, so appalled him that he turned full circle from his admiration for all things British to celebrating the indigenous and ethnic. He resuscitated the culture of the colonized and the fullness of Indian resistance against the British; he revived Indian handicrafts and made these into an economic weapon against the colonizer in his call for swadeshi — the use of one's own and the boycott of the oppressor's products, which deprive the people of their skills and their capital.
A great measure of world poverty today and African poverty in particular is due to the continuing dependence on foreign markets for manufactured goods, which undermines domestic production and dams up domestic skills, apart from piling up unmanageable foreign debts. Gandhi's insistence on self-sufficiency is a basic economic principle that, if followed today, could contribute significantly to alleviating Third World poverty and stimulating development.
Gandhi predated Frantz Fanon and the black-consciousness movements in South Africa and the U.S. by more than a half-century and inspired the resurgence of the indigenous intellect, spirit and industry.
Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality.
He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry. He preaches the gospel of leveling down, of emulating the kisan (peasant), not the zamindar (landlord), for "all can be kisans, but only a few zamindars."
He stepped down from his comfortable life to join the masses on their level to seek equality with them. "I can't hope to bring about economic equality... I have to reduce myself to the level of the poorest of the poor."
From his understanding of wealth and poverty came his understanding of labor and capital, which led him to the solution of trusteeship based on the belief that there is no private ownership of capital; it is given in trust for redistribution and equalization. Similarly, while recognizing differential aptitudes and talents, he holds that these are gifts from God to be used for the collective good.
He seeks an economic order, alternative to the capitalist and communist, and finds this in sarvodaya based on nonviolence (AHIMSA).
He rejects Darwin's survival of the fittest, Adam Smith's laissez-faire and Karl Marx's thesis of a natural antagonism between capital and labor, and focuses on the interdependence between the two.
He believes in the human capacity to change and wages Satyagraha against the oppressor, not to destroy him but to transform him, that he cease his oppression and join the oppressed in the pursuit of Truth.
We in South Africa brought about our new democracy relatively peacefully on the foundations of such thinking, regardless of whether we were directly influenced by Gandhi or not.

Gandhi remains today the only complete critique of advanced industrial society. Others have criticized its totalitarianism but not its productive apparatus. He is not against science and technology, but he places priority on the right to work and opposes mechanization to the extent that it usurps this right. Large-scale machinery, he holds, concentrates wealth in the hands of one man who tyrannizes the rest. He favors the small machine; he seeks to keep the individual in control of his tools, to maintain an interdependent love relation between the two, as a cricketer with his bat or Krishna with his flute. Above all, he seeks to liberate the individual from his alienation to the machine and restore morality to the productive process.
As we find ourselves in jobless economies, societies in which small minorities consume while the masses starve, we find ourselves forced to rethink the rationale of our current globalization and to ponder the Gandhian alternative.
At a time when Freud was liberating sex, Gandhi was reining it in; when Marx was pitting worker against capitalist, Gandhi was reconciling them; when the dominant European thought had dropped God and soul out of the social reckoning, he was centralizing society in God and soul; at a time when the colonized had ceased to think and control, he dared to think and control; and when the ideologies of the colonized had virtually disappeared, he revived them and empowered them with a potency that liberated and redeemed."

Source: Time Magazine (Monday, January 3 2000): Accessed online on November 1 2007.

So here is my little input into it:

Nobel peace prize was not awarded to anyone in 1948 since Mahatma Gandhi had expired and they told "No suitable living candidate". (Reference: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/gandhi/index.html)
He was the runner up in Time "Person of the century", second only to Albert Einstein who in many ways idolized Gandhi's philosophy.

Another nice excerpt:

"Consciously or not, every oppressed people or group with a cause has practiced what Gandhi preached. Sixties kids like me were his disciples when we went South in the Freedom Summer to sit in for civil rights and when we paraded through the streets of America to stop the war in Vietnam. Our passionate commitment, nonviolent activism, willingness to accept punishment for civil disobedience were lessons he taught. Martin Luther King Jr. learned them; so did Nelson Mandela, Lech Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi, the unknown Chinese who defied the tanks in 1989 and the environmental marchers in Seattle a few weeks ago." - by JOHANNA MCGEARY

Source: Time Magazine (Monday, January 3 2000): Accessed online on November 1 2007.

Finally, a link to the "Think Different" campaign made by Apple:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jULUGHJCCj4

INDIA: A Land of realities among hypes

2007-05-04T15:15:00.000-07:00

This country has always amazed me with its differences existing atleast in a big city like Bombay. But, something more has stuck me of late. People in India hype things a lot when some unheard realities are much better to be talked about. Like, the ratio of number of people knowing that India is a contender in developing the fastest supercomputer to the number of people knowing that Abhishek and Aishwarya got married is very less. I understand that in every country, celebrities are given a demi-god status but in India, people fail to recognize celebrities and I remember an instance recently when a policeman in Bihar was warned since he had fined Dhoni for over speeding. We talk about policemen not doing their job, but when they do; we blame them for that. How can Dhoni become a celebrity? Really, what all has he done for the country? As noted in my last post, we hype a lot about our IT services companies without giving due importance to other sectors. We hype a part of India which is booming, completely forgetting the other part. We hype privatization forgetting the debacle of Centaur hotel sale. We hype our culture without understanding other's culture. We brag about our economic growth without knowing economics. I have heard from many of my friends that in India only illiterate people vote. They think getting a degree makes them literate. They often fail to understand the difference between literacy and education. Getting a coveted BTech degree from IIT or MBA degree from IIM doesnt make anyone literate. How many of such guys know which ward do they belong to in a municipal corporation. I haven't seen marking of any ward in any city except Bombay which I have been to. Why dont ever people protest against that? Why the so called very educated people stay away when the auto drivers haggle with them in Chennai? Why are we so illiterate about our rights and laws which we are taught about from our childhood and are very aware about the runs scored by Sachin Tendulkar in each form of cricket?
Next, moving on to movies, we hype movies made my Mani Ratnam, et al without even watching movies like Shwaas(Oscar entry), Dor(Excellent movie regarding women empowerment) etc. These movies don't entertain us because we want beautifully picturized songs or some fight scenes with brilliant camera techniques. We want something other than reality. We always want hype.
Cities: We hype some cities which have an airport size almost equal to my apartment complex here (really!) and label the national capital as "Female molester city" without recognizing the amount of development in terms of infrastructure Delhi has gone through. Go there to believe it.
Finally , how many so called educated Indians know that the best algorithm to determine whether a number is prime has been developed by a Professor and his students at IIT Kanpur?
Kudos to Indian media for keeping Indians in the darkness. NDTV, CNN-IBN and Aaj Tak: kindly go to HELL!!!!

Really nice read: mandatory as well!!!!

2007-04-12T16:26:00.000-07:00

"I visited Jamshedpur over the weekend to see for myself an India that is fast disappearing despite all the wolf-cries of people like Narayanamurthy and his ilk. It is one thing to talk and quite another to do and I am delighted to tell you that Ratan Tata has kept alive the legacy of perhaps India's finest industrialist J.N. Tata. Something that some people doubted when Ratan took over the House of the Tatas but in hindsight, the best thing to have happened to the Tatas is unquestionably Ratan. I was amazed to see the extent of corporate philanthropy and this is no exaggeration.For the breed that talks about corporate social responsibility and talks about the role of corporate India, a visit to Jamshedpur is a must. Go there and see the amount of money they pump into keeping the town going; see the smiling faces of workers in a region known for industrial unrest; see the standard of living in a city that is almost isolated from the mess in the rest of the country.This is not meant to be a puff piece. I have nothing to do with Tata Steel, but I strongly believe the message of hope and the message of goodness that they are spreading is worth sharing. The fact that you do have companies in India which look at workers as human beings and who do not blow their software trumpet of having changed lives. In fact, I asked Mr Muthurman, the managing director, as to why he was so quiet about all they had done and all he could offer in return was a smile wrapped in humility, which said it all. They have done so much more since I last visited Jamshedpur, which was in 1992. The town has obviously got busier but the values thankfully haven't changed. The food is still as amazing as it always was and I gorged, as I would normally do. I visited the plant and the last time I did that was with Rusi Mody.
But the plant this time was gleaming and far from what it used to be.Greener and cleaner and a tribute to environment management. You could have been in the mountains. Such was the quality of air I inhaled! There was no belching smoke; no tired faces and so many more women workers, even on the shop floor. This is true gender equality and not the kind that is often espoused at seminars organised by angry activists. I met so many old friends. Most of them have aged but not grown old. There was a spring in the air which came from a certain calmness which has always been the hallmark of Jamshedpur and something I savoured for a full two days in between receiving messages of how boring and decrepit the Lacklustre Fashion Week was.Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata had created an edifice that is today a robust company and it is not about profits and about valuation. It is not about who becomes a millionaire and who doesn’t. It is about getting the job done with dignity and respect keeping the age-old values intact and this is what I learnt.I jokingly asked someone as to whether they ever thought of joining an Infosys or a Wipro and pat came the reply: "We are not interested in becoming crorepatis but in making others crorepatis."Which is exactly what the Tatas have done for years in and around Jamshedpur. Very few people know that Jamshedpur has been selected as a UN Global Compact City, edging out the other nominee from India, Bangalore.Selected because of the quality of life, because of the conditions of sanitation and roads and welfare. If this is not a tribute to industrial India, then what is? Today, India needs several Jamshedpurs but it also needs this Jamshedpur to be given its fair due, its recognition. I am tired of campus visits being publicised to the Infosys's and the Wipro's of the world. Modern India is being built in Jamshedpur as we speak.
An India built on the strength of core convictions and nothing was more apparent about that than the experiment with truth and reality that Tata Steel is conducting at Pipla.Forty-eight tribal girls (yes, tribal girls who these corrupt and evil politicians only talk about but do nothing for) are being educated through a residential program over nine months. I went to visit them and I spoke to them in a language that they have just learnt: Bengali. Eight weeks ago, they could only speak in Sainthali, their local dialect. But today, they are brimming with a confidence that will bring tears to your eyes. It did to mine.One of them has just been selected to represent Jharkand in the state archery competition. They have their own women’s football team and what’s more they are now fond of education. It is a passion and not a burden.This was possible because I guess people like Ratan Tata and Muthuraman haven’t sold their souls to some business management drivel, which tells us that we must only do business and nothing else. The fact that not one Tata executive has been touched by the Naxalites in that area talks about the social respect that the Tatas have earned.The Tatas do not need this piece to be praised and lauded. My intent is to share the larger picture that we so often miss in the haze of the slime and sleaze that politics imparts. My submission to those who use phrases such as "feel-good" and "India Shining" is first visit Jamshedpur to understand what it all means. See Tata Steel in action to know what companies can do if they wish to. And what corporate India needs to do. Murli Manohar Joshi would be better off seeing what Tata Steel has done by creating the Xavier Institute of Tribal Education rather than by proffering excuses for the imbroglio in the IIMs. This is where the Advanis and Vajpayees need to pay homage, not to all the Sai Babas and the hugging saints that they are so busy with.
India is changing in spite of them and they need to realise that.I couldn't have spent a more humane and wonderful weekend. Jamshedpur is an eye-opener and a role model, which should be made mandatory for replication. I saw corporate India actually participate in basic nation-building, for when these tribal girls go back to their villages, they will return with knowledge that will truly be life-altering. Corporate India can do it but most of the time is willing to shy away.For those corporate leaders who are happier winning awards and being interviewed on their choice of clothes, my advise is visit Tata Steel, spend some days at Jamshedpur and see a nation's transformation. That is true service and true nationalism.Tata Steel will celebrate 100 years of existence in 2007. It won't be just a milestone in this company's history. It will be a milestone, to my mind of corporate transparency and generosity in this country. It is indeed fitting that Ratan Tata today heads a group which has people who are committed to nation-building than just building influence and power.JRD must be smiling wherever he is. And so must Jamshedji Nusserwanji. These people today, have literally climbed every last blue mountain. And continue to do so with vigour and passion. Thank God for the Tatas!"

Source: Asianage

Flight Fights - Sky Wars: India

2007-02-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

During my recent trip to India, a great change which can be said as glaring would be the way the airline companies are collaborating. A great practical exposure would be to visit either Bombay or Delhi's domestic 1-A terminal where Indian Airlines (now Indian), Kingfisher, and Go Air operate or else 1-B terminal where other private airlines operate. Kingfisher and Go Air use the ground services of the Indian and also the security check facilities etc. It is great to see the efficiency of these airlines and the collaborative effort to compete against the other airlines operating. The upcoming few years should foresee an excellent development in the airlines arena as Bombay is building its second international airport and Chennai is probably going to build an extra runway to cater to the ever demanding airline needs.

Crimson Blues

2006-11-29T18:01:00.000-08:00

Probably I don't have much experience (if 1 year does not count) to comment on this issue of firing Shula, but nevertheless; here it goes./ I took some time off to read on this recent controversy of firing Mike Shula, Alabama's Head Coach, and found out that it is really difficult to coach at Tuscaloosa. Really it is, and it will be the same I guess at Notredame and Los Angeles(USC). If you claim 12 national championships under your kitty (11 for USC and Notredame), the fans expect the coach to win a national champinship every year and expect him to be Bear Bryant, which is next to impossible. But Shula should have won against M.S. State, not only because they had not won a SEC game for almost 6 years, but mainly due to the fact that he got the job ahead of Sylvester Croom, the coach of Miss. State and losing against Auburn continuously for 5 years (4 years under him) just cant be accepted here. This is not State College (Penn State), where the same guy can continue coaching according to his whims and fancies, mind you THIS IS ALABAMA FOOTBALL and we are talking about a winning legacy and a coach's position which was previously occupied by the most successful college football coach ever in NCAA's history. Hoping to see a great coach's arrival and 13th national championship..Roll Tide!!!!

Favourites: Dilbert & Calvin Hobbes

2006-09-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

"Bombay" bombed

2006-08-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

Many people might consider this post as a tribute to the people of the city in which I spent 21 years before coming to the States for my masters... But for me it is more of an obligation to pour in my thoughts. I am writing this post so late since I took some time to read many other blogs before commenting on this. Many people appreciated the now internationally famed "Mumbai's Spirit", while some others were bored of this term and wanted an explanantion from their co-bloggers. But the blog which perplexed me the most was the one by a guy who had spent almost 20 years in Chennai and now in the States. I could not understand how can he blog about the attitude of Mumbai' people. It will be like I commenting on some local issues in Hyderabad or Bangalore, which I hardly have any idea of. Whatsoever, I found some of his questions interesting and answerable. Like, have the people of Mumbai ever potested against the government or have they ever thought about their future and if not, its not their spirit but their selfish attitude. Firstly, Mumbai' people are not so amateurs to protest for a 50 paise raise in the bus fare which is so common and a headlines news matter in most of the other bigger cities including the country's capital. I think thats the reason why most of the so called Indian metropolises do not have an efficient public transport system.
Secondly, he tells that helping others in such situations is not a matter of pride but a common phenomenon and infact the duty of people of any city. I totally agree with him, but just want to remind him that Mumbai hardly ever gets any support from the fellow citizens during any of its emergencies but for any other relief fund Mumbai's contribution % is the maximum. Why? A great example would be Tsunami as against the earthquake in Lathur. The number of casualties in both the accidents were almost the same. Probably, many people might not even know about the latter accident, which is so very depressing. The answer to the question why only Mumbai is repeatedly attacked is very simple and that would be Mumbai being the financial capital of India. Only Mumbai, New York, Madrid, and London are attacked and the primary reason being money literally flowing in all these cities and the fact that these cities contol the functioning of their respective countries.
As Vinod Mehta (editor of Outlook) points out, that if Mumbai stops, India stops. V Gangadhar appreciates the Mumbai's spirit in the Hindu by stating that his assistant went home walking for about 40 kms and next morning she reported to work exactly at 9 am with a fresh countenance. Is it that easy? I still remember how most of the college students used to travel to their respective colleges duing curfew period after '93 blasts and almost all the colleges registered regular attendance during this period and also the next day of the current blasts. Imagine this situation: One parallel railway running unaffected during the blasts and the affected railway back on track after 4 hours. Thats Bombay for the world. The best scene in Mumbai would be the way you are invited onto the step board of the train even though there are already three times the designed passengers inside the compartment which is best described by Sukethu Mehta in his pulitzer pize finalist book titled "Maximum City". I just ordered it through Amazon and am waiting to get my hands on that.

Another major observation about Bombay I realized after coming to the states is that it is really a melting pot of many religions and languages. Where else, would you find a parsi (zorastrian) and a chrisitian walking together with a hindu and a muslim....
Mark this: Minority institutions for South Indians, Muslims, Christians, Sindhis and Gujarathis to the best of my knowledge.

Photo Courtesy: The Hindu (Web)

Viva Italia!!!!

2006-07-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

Being the lone supporter of Italy amongst our group here in Tuscaloosa, I felt a bit sad initially that the world's best defensive side doesnt have a second supporter, which is quite opposite to of what I was experiencing in Mumbai, wherein almost all my friends were Azzurri's supporters...Add to that the missing out of Vieri, and then Nesta for most of the WC + their dismal performance against USA and Australia made it easy for my friends here to predict Brazil as the clear emerging winner..Then came the vital setback, during our trip to atlanta of Brazil being knocked out of the tournament by France and once again Zidane's magic had outdone Brazil. Then Italy marched in style into the finals by beating Ukraine 3-0 and Germany 2-0..Then all my friends started feeling Italy are capable of winning the most coveted soccer tournament..I still cannot comprehend why most of the people prefer attacking soccer and cannot appreciate a great defensive step or a great defensive game..Guess, after holding France 1-1, Italy did a great job once again in defense and that too in the absence of their star defender, Alessandro Nesta. Buffon and the captain certainly rose to the occasion and Buffon' save of Zidane's header was really salutable..De Grosso's penalty made me rise out of my couch and scream for Italy had first time beaten France in many years and that too in their jinxed penalty shootout...I realize this blog is too late, but this is my appreciation to my favorite soccer team since '90 WC..stil cannot forget the way schillaci played..hats off to azzurris...Photo courtesy: NDTV..

Del Piero's Magic - Classic Video

2006-06-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

Swades

2006-06-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

Updates

2006-05-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

This post exclusively covers updates to my previous blog(s).. Firstly, the laptop rental concept has been implemented by Agnels...its actually quite different..they have setup two labs which are wireless..one of the labs is equipped with bluetooth, wifi, and all the latest electronic concepts..pics are courtesy agnels... now this is quite a cool concept as i have never seen such a lab in any other indian engg insti...oh ya, this mainly due to the hiring of a stud called Dr.H.K. Kaura as the HOD of comp science dept at vashi..he was the previous head of BARC's computer division and also the inventor of anupam series of supercomputers..a link to one of his interviews:
http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/comcom/inter64.htm

now agnels has many good profs in comp science, i believe..:

Dr.Luis Mesquita (Prof and Head at Agnels Goa: Btech - IIT KGP, Phd- Virginia Tech: Formerly Asst Prof at Univ of Nebraska Lincoln)
Dr.Anil Seth (Prof at Agnels Goa: Phd - Northwestern Univ)
Dr.Adgaonkar (Principal, Agnels Goa: Phd - IIT Kanpur)
Dr.Brian Antao (Prof, Agnels Goa: Phd - Vanderbilt Univ: Formerly with Texas Instruments, Motorola, USA, and Visiting Res Asst Prof : Univ of Illinois, Urbana Champaign: a prof with a patent: http://www.allbookstores.com/book/079239738X/Brian_Antao/Modeling_And_Simulation_Of_Mixed_Analog-Digital_Systems.html
Dr.Bernard Menezes(Formerly Prof and Head: Agnels Bandra: Btech-IIT bombay, Phd - Univ Texas, Austin: Formerly Asst Prof at Univ of Maryland-College Park:Presently Prof at IITB)
Mr.Olavo D'Souza(Lecturer, Agnels Goa: MS- Purdue Univ: Outstanding Performer award at AT&T Bell labs, USA.

I take immense pleasure in telling that the HMT book authored by Dr. M. Thirumaleshwar, Head at my undergrad insti has come out in the market..link:

http://www.pearsoned.co.in/book-details.asp?cat=hed&page=&pagenum=&bookid=2113&topicid=2131&topicname=Heat+Transfer&disciplineid=63&subjectname=Engineering%3A+Mechanical&disciplinename=Engineering%3A+Mechanical

Also, i got to know that Fox channel is now available on i-tunes...guess lotsa updates..adios..

Knowledge Commission

2006-05-22T14:05:00.000-07:00

Heres a nice article by Sam Pitroda which was published in the Economic Times recently:

Photo Courtesy: www.rediff.com

"Describing the hype over the BPO industry in India as exaggerated and unrealistic, National Knowledge Commission chairperson Sam Pitroda has said the industry generated only 300,000 jobs a year against the 10 million required annually to counter unemployment . Speaking to the BBC Hindi service, the man credited with ushering in the telecom revolution in India said the Commission was likely to submit a report next month to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recommending university education reforms to check unemployment and promote research. "India needs to generate 10 million jobs each year to counter growing unemployment and to build a world level skilled work force. However, merely three lakh (300,000) jobs are being created through outsourcing by foreign companies in the IT sector here."BPOs are a recent phenomenon and have been blown out of proportion. The attention given to outsourcing is a bit exaggerated," he told listeners from around the world. "Let us be very clear that the country cannot run on outsourced jobs, we would have to look for serious alternatives. By running after outsourced jobs we are merely solving the problems of others, we should not forget that solutions to our problems would have to be provided by us only." He said India's priority would have to be water, sanitation, energy, construction and health sectors, and outsourcing did not provide the answers to these issues. Asked whether countries like China and the Philippines posed a threat to India in outsourced jobs, Pitroda urged the Indian BPO industry to go into newer areas saying: "Competition is on the rise worldwide, and a global outlook is preferred in all the professions... The BPO industry in India should look for new fields. Our cities became the outsourcing centres of the world, now our cities should make villages as their centres." According to the tech guru, reforms in higher education were required at the earliest to counter unemployment and promote research. He said only six percent of youngsters in the relevant age group were pursuing higher education, and added that the number would have to at least increase threefold. "Presently the Knowledge Commission is conducting a census on this, as we feel that a quantitative as well as qualitative increase in university education throughout the country is compulsory. "We cannot move forward without this and the question is how fast could we do these reforms. By next month we would like to submit a report recommending university reforms," Pitroda said. Asked about the possible sources of funding required, he replied: "We should invite foreign investment, look for collaborations, go in for more private universities, then only would we be able to bring back higher education into focus. "We should not forget that almost half of the country's population is going to be less than 25 years of age, and by good university education we would be preparing a knowledge base for not just our country but for the world. I can say with reasonable surety that in 10 years, India's youth would be important for the world's development". Citing the decrease in research work in the universities as an alarming sign for the country, Pitroda said the interest of the youth would have to be won back. "Unfortunately now the research is being increasingly separated from the universities. No major research work is being done and the research scholars are on a decline. We would have to check this trend by giving more financial incentives and facilities for research."

The Knowledge Commission was constituted by Dr.Manmohan Singh and Sam Pitroda is the head of that.

Amazon v/s Apple

2006-04-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

Anyone even in his/her wildest dream (or should i say nightmare) will never expect any sort of competition between these 2 companies...but reading newsweek, i got an impression that this is going to be one of a few interesting battles to be fought in the upcoming fall..so wat is this that makes Jeff Bezos (Amazon's CEO) feel that he has to be ready for this competition? amazon is the world's largest internet retailer and apple, an innovation genious firm...now amazon is still out of the music/movies business online and everyone is already swinging onto apple's i-tunes...amazon has started feeling the pinch of missing out on a soon-to-be million dollar business and as rumours are floated, it is all set to come up with an online movie/music collection so that the customer can order any artist's track and/or any movie online...the reward for the customer is that he can as well listen to the same track and/or watch the same movie through online streaming..now this will be a great experience for any common user...and this is what i call serious and a stiff tug of war competition and i am all set to watch this one..

now continuing on apple's i-tunes success; Rupert Murdoch (ya the same good ol' entertainment industry moghul) is thinking about getting on his tv shows onto i-tunes as abc and nbc are into it already and this guy doesnt want to miss on the business..some serious business to come up in in this year end..just waiting to catch this action...

just as an end note: UA's journalism prof podcasts(for morons like me, he telecasts on ipod) his class; this is technology applied to academia....

New York v/s Mumbai

2006-01-26T12:24:00.000-08:00

its been over 4 months since my last post...so thought of uploading this blog amidst optimizing an integer programming model...i had gone to detroit to meet my family during my winter holidays..since i hardly did any work there, I almost read through the entire New York Times daily; believe me its quite long...there was a transit strike in new york during the new year week...an article in new york times appreciated the new york transit system which comprises of both the bus and the train service (better known as the Suburban)....the mayor of new york warned the workers to get back to work and also fined them heavily for disrupting the life of the common new yorkers..The New York transit, it seems is matched only by few cities around the world including London, Tokyo, and our very own Mumbai....inspite of living in mumbai for about 21 years;i never realized the importance of public transport system in mumbai till i came to alabama or should i say till the recent strike in new york...the public transport system in mumbai also comprises of the bus (known as BEST) and the suburban train service which further branches out as central and western railway..the central railway also comprises of the harbor railway....now i must give kudos to the administrators who run the entire system.....they really deserve the appreciation from the mumbaiites rather than the usual crib which they get in return to their excellent work...guess the media should also play a constructive role in building the rapport between the common people and the administrators which New York Times does it in the most elegant manner i have ever seen...

many new discoveries

2005-09-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

for the morons like me: here goes some interesting links:

first up is the blogspot of siddharth vardarajan:
http://svaradarajan.blogspot.com/ .deputy editor of hindu..alumnus of lse and columbia.enuf?

heres a map site which all the ppl can use at their respective blogsites:
www.feedback.net

came to knw frm gagan's blogspot tht google has started blog searches...a new thing after gtalk...dunt knw wat all r still in the offering frm google....check this facility urselves......adios

New library techniques

2005-09-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

a new library system I am encountering these days at UA...oh btw i am at alabama for my masters in Industrial engg...one of the libraries here checks out laptop for a max. continuous period usage of 2 hrs..also they give the head phone..I have never previously seen this work nywhr..as this is a wifi enabled structure and laptop, so it works really well..probably with so much of funds even iit b can start doing this..another good system is that they check out digital cameras for a max. period of 3 days..they give the memory card and the charger as well..they have a gr8 R&D lab here at the second floor which has some good apple systems with mac OS..so once the pics r loaded they either write u a CD or send it to ur mail account as per the student's convenience..totally neat system..if the memory card is full in between ur usage time, then they will recharge the same..totall studgiri for a mediocre like me...so these days i am trying to use digicam....