PERESTROIKA

S.M

2009-10-02T19:42:00.003-05:00

Sunil Mittal. I have written about him on my blog before too. His last quote at the end of this interview is very very inspiring. http://www.timesnow.tv/Frankly-Speaking-with-Sunil-Mittal---Part-3/videoshow/4326576.cms

My previous posts on him:
http://pratikbhandari.blogspot.com/2006/03/sunil-mittal.html
http://pratikbhandari.blogspot.com/2006/04/more-on-sunil-mittal.html

Improved DL system.

2009-09-28T19:23:00.000-05:00

I had to take a challenging course this semester called 'Advanced Math Modeling'. I have a programming/modeling phobia. Mainly because I thought I would have to do this for my PhD, when I wanted to pursue something completely different. This morning I was reading a paper on modeling water loss in farms due to evaporation, for a quiz in this class. The paper was very helpful since it gave me an idea on the semester project. At the same time the Champions Trophy India-Australia match was getting washed-out. While folks at Cricinfo were speculating about D-L targets for India, it struck me. Can fuzzy logic inference systems be used for predicting totals in case of a rain affected cricket match? There is loads and loads of data to model the 'fuzzy part' on. Also it can be compared to the Duckworth-Lewis and other algorithms for unaffected full 50 over matches and see which one does a better job.

Words of Atalji in 2002. Introspection.

2009-07-06T22:06:00.006-05:00

As quoted by PTI.
“In a clear disapproval of the recent actions of the so-called practitioners of Hindutva, the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, tonight said it would be better to ‘keep a distance’ from the kind of Hindutva being practised by some now. Speaking at a book release function here, he said when Swami Vivekananda spoke of Hinduism, nobody called him communal. ‘But now, some people have defined Hindutva in such a manner that it is better to keep a distance from it.’ He said Hindutva should not be equated with religion as it was ‘a way of life’. We should keep away from such Hindutva which is stagnant.”

History of Shard Pawar by Kumar Ketkar

2009-06-11T10:51:00.003-05:00

I think Kumar Ketkar is one of the most knowledgeable political journalist in India. Read here, his article in IE about Shard Pawar's political ambition.

Bang on target

2009-06-08T11:58:00.005-05:00

Sudheerendra Kulkarni's editorial in Tehelka. Read Here.

Excerpts.

1. Why did the BJP invite this weakness upon itself? The reason has to do with the widespread ideological confusion within the party over what the BJP’s advocacy of Hindutva actually means. The confusion has persisted for a long time, but it intensified after the defeat of the BJP/NDA in 2004.

2.At a broader level, it is high time the BJP seriously debated and decided what it means by ‘Hindutva’, and also what formulations of ‘Hindutva’ are not acceptable to it. True, the BJP must remain an ideology-driven party. But without clarity on what the BJP’s ideology is, the party cannot win the support of more Hindus, let alone the support of Muslims and Christians. Understood as ‘Cultural Nationalism’ in an inclusive, integrative and noncommunal sense, Hindutva indeed defines the organizing and sustaining principle of the Indian Nation.
v.v.good point

3. Never in the history of the Jana Sangh or the BJP was the party enfeebled by so much disarray at the top.

4.Where does the BJP go from here? The answer depends on how honest and widespread the introspection about the past and the future is within the BJP, and how thorough the corrective action in the near future will be. For this to happen, the party should encourage free debate, based on constructive criticism and self-criticism.

BJP leaders have, in their reaction to this column, already ignored the constructive honest introspection part mentioned in 4.

Racism related attacks on Indians down under.

2009-05-30T18:13:00.004-05:00

In January of 2008, during the test match played at Sydney, Aussies threw a tantrum about Harbhajan's alleged calling Symonds a monkey. Why are the so called righteous men, who claim are intolerant of racism silent now when Indian students in Australia are being attacked by petrol bombs and being stabbed by screwdrivers?

A few months back after similar attacks on Indian students in Australia, authorities there advised Indians against being very exhibitionists and not show off their i-pods and laptops, and hence attract attention. Do only Indian students carry i-pods and laptops and not others in Australia? Even now, authorities in Australia are calling these crime related incidents and not racist. If these are just criminal and not racism related incidents why are only Indians at the receiving end of them? Why are the authorities still in denial?

Anyone who knows about the money gate episode and Australian behavior then, I am sure, would be totally infuriated by this.

My earlier post on this.

Also this is what the Police reportedly did to one of the protesters.

Thoughts on where BJP lost it.....

2009-05-21T22:53:00.004-05:00

A comment on the Friends of BJP blog/website. I agree with all of this. Its like I wanted to say all of this, but couldn't have said it better by myself.

"What is the diffrence between Nationalism and Hindu nationalism? Is there such an entity as hindu nationalism? Nationalism can not be HINDU or any other religeon . I always thought nationalism meant indianism. That is the first mistake …. Nationalism must be about Indianism. Hindutva there fore is not about hinduism as a religeon but about india or hindustan as our ancient land is called due to being land of SINDHU and and Not hindu ( every body by now knows that in persian sindhu is hindu as there is no s defining sound there …… should ask a linguist how this has been derived)So hindus live in land of sindhu and their dharma is hinduism please note dharma not religeon. Kindly define this carefully and do not get confuse the two. follow dharma what ever relgieon you belong to.
Yet do not be soft on enemies of India (hindus included), that means fight with mind and brain and not sword and voilence. Voilence only begets more voilence and hate more hatered. Define your goals and reach them. Define hinduism in a modern way so young can identify. Do not alienate them but include them by change in a modern way. You do need young India with you. remeber Vivekananda suceeded by inclusion of all kinds of people and not by exclusion of large chunks of them. Let us have a reality check.
1. Hindus are a progressive society - they will adopt any thing which is of benefit to the society by weighing it carefully. There are no dictats in Hindu society. You may not believe at all in god and still you can call yourself as a hindu.
2. Westernisation is a reality. Accept it and assimilate it
3. Do not dig the past and glorify it - it will be of no use to any one.It only brings out contradictions in our society. Just be proud of your land and keep all the good things from past reject all baggage.
3. Yes prejudice against BJP is deep seated but take stock whether we have done any thing to remove that at all? Have we taken stock of situation and ground realities in our society? Have we formulated any concrete plans?
4. Yes in politics perception matters as much as reality. It doesn’t matter whether BJP is communal or not, as long as it is perceived to be communal…… i totally agree. But preceptions are also based on some kind of reality. ( Til hai to pahar hai) Define why this preception is following us like a dog. Define how it should be countered - not by arguing but by doing. Show by concrete evidence.Put some work where your mouth is. start a massive rehab program in communally sensitive areas specially where congress has probelms in this sphere. work constructively for upliftment of dalit population and all poor in that area. Generate rural employement by party work and teach people not to be dependant on governmental schemes alone. Reduce dependancy on mai bap sarkar. In other words define your programmes and place them throgh NGOS just like minority communities do.
5. Social change can occur only by changing society in preceptible ways but these are often ill defined factors. Greatness is to understand them and implement agenda in subtle ways. Counter issues like conversions, minority appeasement etc. in correct ways and not by being shrill about them. Do not shout from roof tops regarding these issues, counter them by deeds like reconversion drives, hindu NGO support and propaganda , and not voilence as in kandhmahal. Please realise bad press is indeed very bad.
6. Start some TV chanels that are supported by RSS and BJP and are managed by reporters who are pro BJP. Right now there is no body in any media that supports BJP. having your own network will help but the management should be left to juornos alone. Above all these jurnos must be of good credentials and must be percieved by public as being above board and impartial.
7. DO NOT BE APOLOGETIC. No need for that. Well this is our ideology and we will stick by it … should be our creed. BJP spokepeople on TV are always sounding apologetic. They can not counter the bad press BJP gets. They can not encash the situation as well as their conterparts.
8. Be very vocal and condemn statements from opposition like minorities have the first right to India etc made by Mr. M MM. yesterday in AP so many statements by YSR Reddy were very comunal, but have you even heard a murmur from BJP in state and outside it? Where are you Mr. Venkayya Naidu? Where is your press team ? Does it exist at all?
Enough for now
I have to now run some urgent work …."

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala blog

2009-05-21T12:06:00.004-05:00

Yes here is a blog in Rk's name. I presume it is his blog and not just someone using his name. Authenticity of the blog is trivial. The blog posts are entertaining in a unique way while at the same time they comment on serious issues. Read here. Do read it, you will enjoy.

RK also posts Chaitanya Kunte's post on Barkha Dutt which he removed after NDTV exerted pressure. He challenges NDTV to take him on.

Down with Barkha. Am I in trouble now?

Lok Sabha 2009

2009-05-16T12:49:00.004-05:00

Singh is King again as Congress wins over 200 seats. Not even the congress expected this kind of mandate. Congress allies also did well, especially Trinamool Congress which won the Battle of Bengal against the Left Front. NCP and DMK the other UPA allies did pretty good as well.

BJP did worse than 2004. In 2004 difference between BJP and Congress was about 6 seats. This time around it is 80 due to a much better result for the Congress in Rajasthan, Andhra, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarkhand and most importantly UP.

My 2 cents of analysis on the BJP defeat. It seems that the BJP never did come out of their denial after the 2004 polls. Creating and exploiting short term volatile religious situations in Kandhmal, Amarnath, Pilibhit and Ram Setu did not seem to have gone well with the polity. They really lacked a sincere approach and a clear way forward. They never looked like the party with a differnce as in 1998. As the opposition party their flip-flop on the nuclear deal and their hotch potch stance cost them a lot of credibility in the minds of the people.

So what about multi sector reforms in the new UPA government? Kamal Nath said that he prefers calling it streamlining of issues and not reforms. His ally DMK member Maran said this is not a good time for privatization because of diminished market value. Is this an indication of things to come? Vir Sanghvi said on NDTV that R&S do not believe in the trickle down effect of the growth resulting from market reforms and that this is government is no agent of the CII. Shekhar Gupta seemingly summed it by saying that no government is 100% while giving a Don Bradman analogy. However Dalal street seems to be content with the fact that the verdict is not fractured.

One final comment. It seems Barkha Dutt is getting increasingly annoying on NDTV. One gets a feeling she has become a limelight hogger than a serious journalistic analyzer. She seems to bask in glory when some senior politician calls her Barkhaji. The constant interrupting of guest speakers is something else that needs to be pointed out to her. Perhaps she could learn a thing or two from Prannoy Roy and Vikram Chandra.

Mythical science of predicting elections

2009-05-03T11:00:00.001-05:00

Good article from IE. Read here.

IPL Mania!!

2009-04-29T12:52:00.000-05:00

India's Congress party is reported to be distributing pocket-sized IPL schedules in parts of Gujarat, featuring photographs of the local candidates and the likes of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi in addition to the times of the games. "Generally, people don't read the details in leaflets, but they will love to keep the IPL schedule and will go through the details of the candidates whenever they get time," the Vadodara city president of the party said, overjoyed at the cunning scheme.

A Very Fascinating Talk

2009-02-11T11:22:00.002-06:00

The way, which Elizabeth Gilbert describes, one should live his creative life applies to a general person too. Very similar to what is said in the 'Bhagawad Gita', Karm kiye ja phal ki aapeksha mat kar.

How would Obama do in an Indian office?

2009-01-25T10:43:00.003-06:00

Read here.

Suhel Seth on Narendra Modi

2009-01-03T12:26:00.000-06:00

Read Here.

WTF

2008-11-26T17:44:00.002-06:00

Shivraj Patil what are you doing? When will the indiscriminate killings stop? You are an incompetent man. PLEASE QUIT.

Aussies are Hypocrites....

2008-01-09T15:16:00.000-06:00

"theres no way I grounded the ball"- Ricky Pointing.

Aussies are Hypocrites and Cry Babies.

Jai Hanuman !!

Very true video about India by Amitabh

2007-09-26T15:16:00.000-05:00

Vikram Akula and Micro Finance

2007-07-31T20:09:00.000-05:00

Vikram Akula of SKS Microfinance on NDTV's Walk The Talk. Watch here.

Mumbai Infrastructure

2007-07-09T15:44:00.000-05:00

I found a post on a blog describing some of the infrastructure projects in Mumbai. Truly impressive and a MUST SEE.

Read here.

India's first Communist?

2007-07-05T16:08:00.000-05:00

Ever wondered who was India's first Communist? Or the first leader to be influenced by it and practicing and publicly endorsing it?

The answer surprisingly, is Bhagat Singh.

Bhagat Singh came from a patriotic sikh family. One of his uncles was incarcerated by the British, and another fled to Iran to escape punishment. BS was a huge fan og Gandhiji's non-cooperation movement as a kid, and burnt his school books and boycotted government schools. He later studied at National College in Lahore. Here he was acquainted with Marxist philosophy. Before he was to be hanged in Saunders Murder case, in jail, he used to read books about Lenin.

I absolutely loved the movie 'The Legend of Bhagat Singh' when I first saw it in 2003. Back then I was unaware of these facts. Last week I saw the movie again. This time I knew about his Communist connections, and it was hard to miss out of these indications in the movie.

The movie depicts-

* BS saying "azadi to sirf shuruvat hain, hamein azadi ke baad bhi desh banana hain. Aameer aur aameer hota jaayega aur gareeb aur gareeb". Or something to that effect.

* His joins the party Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), founded by Chandrashekhar Azad. Later, on his suggestion, the name is changed to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA).

* When the police invade their hide out, the movie shows the communist red hammer and sickle logo on their walls. It also shows him reading a book about Lenin before he is hanged.

--Although I had loved the movie before, I thought it would have been fictionalized to certain extend to make it more entertaining. However it is amazingly accurate. Like the thing, BS uses his trial in courts to send his message to the awaam. It did happen in actual.

The CPI(M) acknowledges the fact, about BS being one of India's First communist on their website.

Earlier I hated the communists. But now after talking to few guys who know about the naxalites in India, I think although what they are doing is wrong it is not entirely unjustified. The movie Hazaroon Khwaaishe Aisi, also has a small role in this change. As far as the Left parties are concerned I still think their mindset and policies are completely outdated.

CNBC TV18

2007-07-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

I was waiting for this channel to be available for a long time. It finally can be viewed here.
The evening and night shows (india time) are really very good.

Richest man in the world?

2007-07-03T14:56:00.001-05:00

Q. Who is the richest man in the world?

A. Bill Gates- Wrong
Warren Buffet- Wrong

The right answer is the Mexican, Carlos Slim.
A few months back according to Forbes magazine he had pipped Warren Buffet to be the second richest, but according to some sources he may have now gone past Bill Gates too.

Report from Mint-

Mexico City: Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is the world’s richest man, worth an estimated $67.8 billion, after overtaking Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, according to a respected tracker of Mexican financial wealth on 2 July.
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim
A 27% surge in the share price of America Movil, Latin America’s largest cell phone operator controlled by Slim, from March to June made him close to $8.6 billion wealthier than Gates, said Eduardo Garcia in Sentido Comun, the online financial publication he founded.
Garcia estimated that Gates was worth $59.2 billion.
Forbes magazine reported in April that Slim had overtaken billionaire investor Warren Buffett for the No. 2 spot in the world’s richest stakes but was still behind Gates.
Mexico has a huge rich-poor divide, with a tiny elite holding most of the country’s wealth and around half the population living on less than $5 a day.
Forbes bumped up Slim because gains from his holding company Carso and fixed-line telecom Telmex added to the Mexican’s fortune while shares of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. fell in the same period.
Three months ago, Sentido Comun’s Garcia begged to differ with Forbes and calculated Slim’s wealth as more than Gates’ -- but only by a whisker. Now he says there is no doubt whose fortune is bigger at current share values.
“When I put Slim ahead three months ago Forbes bumped him up to second place (in world rankings) a few days later,” Garcia, also the publication’s editor-in-chief, told Reuters. “Let’s see if the same happens again.”
Spokespeople at Forbes magazine were not immediately available for comment.
Garcia, who uses Forbes’ calculations for US billionaires’ wealth, says the 5.7% increase in Microsoft share prices in the second quarter is no match for the sharp rise in valuations of Slim’s companies.
Shares of Telmex in the second quarter rose 11% and Slim’s bank, Inbursa, saw its stock advance 20%.
Garcia’s Sentido Comun, which translates as “common sense,” reckons Slim and his amily own a fortune equivalent to 8 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product.
For Gates to be worth 8% of the US economy, his fortune would have to grow to more than $13 trillion, 17 times his current wealth, according to Sentido Comun.
Slim, known for his Midas touch in turning around struggling businesses and turning them into profit-making machines, told Reuters in an interview this year he was not in the habit of calculating his fortune on a regular basis.
Slim and his chief spokesman Arturo Elias Ayub were not immediately available for comment.

Indian Railways

2007-07-02T17:04:00.001-05:00

Think of Indian Railways and I am sure all Indians will have a sense of nostalgia. As a kid traveling in trains was fun for me. However think of railway stations and you think of crowded market like places with a lot of filth around. But if things proceed correctly this could change. The Indian Railways is considering upgrading all major railway stations in India, and make them airport like. I hope it happens soon. Read here.

Antilia

2007-06-28T19:39:00.000-05:00

Heard of a building called Antilia being built in Mumbai with six floors of parking, mini theatre, two floors for terrace gardens, a floor with swimming pool and health club, four floors of apartments and three helipads and all that for a single family?
Yeah thats true. Who else but MK could do that. Read here.

2nd GR (part 2)

2007-06-22T20:10:00.000-05:00

In my previous post on GR, some wondered whether the entry of corporates will really better farmers lives and benefit the consumers as well.

Heres what Gurcharan Das says about it in his blog.

The price of potatoes, November 19, 2006

I sometimes wonder why I pay Rs 10 per kilo for potatoes when the farmer receives only Rs 3. My potatoes travel some distance, I realise, from the farm to the mandi to my bania, and each person in the chain must get his cut. Still, the gap of Rs 7 seems excessive, especially when the American farmer receives Rs 4 to 5. This gap varies, of course, depending on the commodity and the season, but studies by agricultural economists show that farmers in the developed countries do get a bigger share of the consumer price because their distribution chain is shorter.

Reliance opened seven supermarkets in Hyderabad last month and my friend bought potatoes there for Rs 10 per kilo compared to Rs 18 at his bania’s shop. Another friend who works with an NGO in rural Andhra reported that farmers, who had supplied potatoes to Reliance, reported receiving higher than the mandi price. How could Reliance pay a higher price to farmers and charge a lower price to consumers? Simple--it had eliminated middlemen in the chain. Thus, we should welcome the entry of large retailers. They will bring logistics efficiencies and competition between them will lower consumer prices and raise farmers’ incomes. We shouldn’t wait too long to open this sector to foreign retailers like Walmart and Tesco lest Reliance become a monopoly.

A typical farmer harvests his crop, loads it on his bullock cart, travels30 km to the mandi, where he is forced to sell often at distress prices. Once at the mandi, he cannot return without disposing his produce. He needs the money and the trader knows it. Had he known the price before he left, he might have waited a few days. Where E chaupals have arrived farmers are happy because they get to know mandi prices via the Internet. The national commodities exchange (NCDEX) is setting up electronic tickers announcing spot and future prices in local languages at mandis and bus stands in some states. Eventually, the mobile phone will be the farmer’s best source of information. All these developments make traders unhappy.

Since his crop is perishable, the farmer needs a warehouse to enhance his staying power. NCDEX is putting up a thousand cold storages with world class grading facilities, but large retailers will also bring air-conditioned warehouses and trucks, and this will save India’s huge post harvest losses, as high as 40% for some crops. Banks ought to lend money to farmers against warehouse receipts, but the Reserve Bank refuses to allow them to hedge against future prices. This is a pity for bank loans would mitigate the farmer’s risk and improve his holding power. In fact, banks should also sell crop insurance. It is amazing that RBI should view futures trading as speculation. If the farmer knows the price of potatoes, he might plant onions instead.

Old habits of the mind die slowly. When you have been a stagnant, peasant agriculture for hundreds of years, it is difficult to grasp how Reliance, commodity exchanges, futures trading, and contract farming will quietly bring a second green revolution and liberate farmers from the clutches of the old mandi system, which is at the heart of rural political patronage. Activists oppose the entry of global retailers like Walmart on ideological grounds. Talk of farmer suicides is cheap. Politician-traders on Agricultural Marketing Committees play on these insecurities. No wonder it takes so long to reform in a democracy.

Bullet trains in India? You Bet !

2007-06-17T22:54:00.001-05:00

Such reports have been coming in the print media for a long time now, so here is one of them. Hoping that it will materialize soon.

Here is report from mint.

"The ambitious high-spe-ed rail project is gaining momentum with several states actively pursuing it.
The response from state governments has given the railway ministry the confidence that there is demand for the project. Punjab, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are some of the states that have written to the ministry expressing interest in the project.
Of these, Punjab and Kerala have already announced plans to set up a high-speed rail system in their states.
Even as the preparatory work for the project is being done, with the railways surveying routes for construction of high-speed corridors, the ministry is understood to have zeroed in on leveraging railway land as well as carbon credits as two streams of revenue that can be earned from the project in order to fund construction and operation of the high-speed network.
Most states also prefer a public-private partnership option as they are unsure whether they would be able to invest in the project.
“The project will definitely require the railways to look at some revenue streams which would help plough some money into the project. One method of raising money that has been looked at is to hand over land to private players and to allow them to develop the property,” said a person close to the project who didn’t want his name used.
The railways has adopted this strategy of leveraging land for many of its recent ventures, including modernizing 20 railway stations recently and building budget hotels. The ministry also plans to earn from carbon credits as high-speed rail is considered a “clean” technology.
In a presentation before the Prime Minister’s Office in April on the high-speed rail project, the railways said the energy consumption per km is 3.5 times lower than private cars and five times lower than aeroplanes. The emission levels would be “4.5 times lower than even green cars” transporting the equivalent number of people, the ministry officials had said in their presentation."

A second Green Revolution in agriculture?

2007-06-10T16:49:00.001-05:00

While our cities and industries have been growing at an unprecedented rate, our agriculture is stagnant. In India 70% of the people are employed by agriculture but they contribute just 20% of GDP. Several reasons like small land holdings, poor knowledge about soil requirements, unavailability of credit, poor logistics are some of the reasons. Even if agriculture grew by 2% higher than what it currently does, sustaining double digit GDP growth will be possible. When companies like Reliance, Wal Mart enter food retail there will be several changes. These companies will provide cold chain facilities (currently more than 50% of produce is wasted in the supply chain), by eliminating the middle trader they will give better price to the farmers and yet offer lower prices to their customers, also they will export a certain fraction which will only give higher returns to farmers. These companies will also make available better technologies to the farmers hence increasing their farm yields, pushing their sourcing costs down and offering even lower prices to the consumers. Everyone is benefited by this improved farm to plate efficiency. Read my previous post on Mukesh Ambani for more information about this retail strategy. Here is a link which gives M.S.Swaminathans views on a second Green Revolution!

I am pretty optimistic about this.

India Unbound

2007-05-31T20:56:00.000-05:00

I recently read a book by Gurcharan Das, called India Unbound. It is a classical textbook for any one wishing to know why the state of the Indian economy is, what it is. The author has very nicely covered the journey from pre-independence days to the year 2001. However much has happened on the scene since.
However the book is not just about matters related to the economy, but several factors which affect it like social, political, and cultural too. A must read.

P.S. He also has a blog- http://gurcharandas.blogspot.com/

50

2007-04-19T13:21:00.000-05:00

Mukesh Ambani's journey with Reliance as he turns 50.

Simply brilliant...

2007-03-16T15:07:00.000-05:00

CSE

2007-03-08T23:12:00.000-06:00

If the Bombay Stock Exchange is too sophisticated for you, and if you are looking to play around in stocks, worry not. For, with the coming of the Cricket World Cup a group of students from IIM and IIT have come up with a unique concept. In their online 'Cricket Stock Exchange' (CSE) people can buy and sell stocks of their favorite cricketer, or if you or too financially erudite, a cricketer who will give you the best returns. The game is played with play chips to avoid controversies and also since this is only invented to enable people to know how a stock market works. So if your interested log on to cricstock.com since the IPO is already over.
Read about this on FE.

Mukesh Ambani's big plans

2007-03-04T17:32:00.000-06:00

Mukesh Ambani talks about his plans for retail, SEZs and education. Really enlightening thoughts, and very fascinating business logic expressed in this.

No Comments

2006-12-13T01:24:00.001-06:00

Some advice for Dr. Singh

2006-11-24T22:52:00.000-06:00

Good editorial in the Indian Express. Read here.

Snow and Ice

2006-11-02T18:34:00.000-06:00

It is that time of the year, when it has snowed and the snow has not gone away. At this point you know that the snow is here for the next six months. Also with daytime saving kicking in (whatever is the logic behind this concept), and when it starts getting dark at 5 PM, the depressing cycle of the year has just begun.
Neways this is a thing which happens only at the begining and the end of winters. During these times, when the temperature swings across the freezing point; the SNOW melts when the temperature goes positive, and when the temperature comes back in the negative, the melted snow freezes back to form ICE. This ICE causes people to slip and skid all the time.
Note, the differnce between these two words, ICE and SNOW. Snow is soft and crystalline, when you put your foot in a pile of snow, it goes right in. On the other hand there does not even exist nething called a pile of ice. Ice is amorphous and slippery.

What prompted me to write this post was that, the two words 'ICE' & 'SNOW' dont even exist in Marathi OR Hindi. There is only one word for it 'barfa' , 'baraf'.
Do these words really dont exist, or I am just not aware of them? Or is it possible that they do exist in Kashmiri perhaps?

PhD comic (pilead higher & deeper)

2006-10-12T19:01:00.000-05:00

Really cool comic strip I came across, based on life of graduate students!

Destiny....

2006-10-11T13:27:00.000-05:00

Everyone today acknowledges Amitabh to be the biggest and greatest flim star in India ever. But little do we know that there is a lot of fate involved in making of this star. A lot of permutations are involved in any one's success.

You can read here, about his initial few years in bollywood. Apparently, after his long line of initial flops he had planned to return to Allahabad if his movie Zanjeer hadn't worked. When in the beginning the movie didn't do well, he went down with a fever, but after the first week when it started doing very well, his fever became even worse, as he couldn't believe that he was finally a superstar.

Also I didn't know the fact that he was at a certain time known as a tall idiot actor!!! Truly amazing.

China will be ready. Will India be?

2006-10-07T13:06:00.000-05:00

Here is an interesting article, I came across. While this only gives the story from just one side, I hope our foreign policy and defense strategists are aware of the possible machinations.

Vande Mataram

2006-09-15T17:39:00.000-05:00

India's national identity is drawn from its culture and symbols of nationhood cannot be completely devoid of cultural overtones.

Quoting from a recent article by Sudheerendra Kulkarni in I.E.; "As for the Leftists’ claim that the “the national ethos” of post-1947 India should be “only civic and territorial in nature”, and that it must have no cultural underpinnings and overtones — because that would make cultural nationalism as the basis of India’s nationhood — its sheer inanity is mind-boggling. By this logic, our Motherland would be reduced to a mere civic entity, cleansed of all its rich cultural-spiritual ecology, and the Republic of India, with its proud legacy of a living civilization that is over 5,000 years old, will have to be replaced by the Municipal Corporation of India."

In the following articles he also with rational arguments explains why singing Vande Mataram shouldn't be a problem to anyone by giving an analogy of Naguib Mahfouz in Egypt, and citing Nehru. There is no need for a disclaimer, if u read the linking articles.

I hope the readers are mature enough to not misinterpret the context.

Part 1. Part 2.

Andaz Apna Apna

2006-08-25T16:36:00.000-05:00

One of the most poular movies in Hindi Cinema has been Andaz Apna Apna. But after watching Dumb And Dumber, I realised that it might have a lot of scenes ripped off from D&D. Like the one in which after Aamir Khan adds some stuff to Salman's food, and then he has to keep visiting the restroom. D&D has the exact same scene.

But a little bit of googling tells me that D&D released on 16th Dec 1994, whereas AAA also released in 1994 (dont know the exact dates) but also that it took five years to make the film, because Aamir and salman didnt get along too well. This probably implies that D&D got the inspiration for the scene from AAA! If they indeed did, I don't know how that was possible because of the short time span between the two releases.

Outsourcing- Beat this!

2006-08-02T23:50:00.000-05:00

While having a conversation with Chris and Adam one friday afternoon about everything from the UN, world economies to US and outsourcing, I distinctly remember Chris saying, "Can we just outsource the war in Iraq to India?"

Looks like it is pretty much happening. You can read it here. Also the big question is What Next?

Mogambo khush hua !

2006-08-01T20:46:00.000-05:00

I came across this article in the Mid Day. Being an admirer of Amrish Puri, I was surprised to come across facts about him which I did not know earlier. His interaction with Spielberg and also the fact that Sanjay Dutt is his nephew was interesting.

Power of Blogging

2006-07-18T19:26:00.000-05:00

In the wake of the recent attacks in Mumbai, the Indian government has blocked ExposingTheLeft .Blogspot.Com. Not going in the nitty gritty of this issue (regarding the ethicalness of it), one thing is clear that bloggers have power which can upset governments.

With the flow information and news lucified by the internet, every individual in the world has access to pretty much all that is to know about the happenings around the globe first hand. Hence no longer can governments and the tradional media fool and misguide masses.

Recently a lot of the people are of the opinion that NDTV and CNN-IBN are biased. Although NDTV has a very capitalistic outlook, they are extremely soft when it comes to reporting on the Left front. Wanna know why? Perhaps not many people are aware that Pronoy Roy’s wife Radhika Roy (she calls the shots in the organization along with Mr. Roy) is sister of Brinda Karat, a senior leader of CPI-M and wife of CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat.

A few years back when the NDA government was in power, Murli Manohar Joshi (who is considered to be BJPs Arjun Singh equivalent), had introduced a change in the fee structure in the IIMs. NDTV had very harsh criticism lined up for him, when not a single soul was protesting on the streets. Recently when the whole of India was outraged about Arjun Singh's policies, surprisingly NDTV didn’t find much too wrong with, if you compare it with the former. Radhika Roy is allegedly close to the Caucasian female.

CNN-IBNs Rajdeep Sardesai has also very serious allegations about being biased.

In a nut shell, what I mean is, people can always read newspapers and listen to news on the television, but they can now also access the situation first hand and come to their own conclusion, and also publicize it (through blogs). Hence they have a new found power which if used ethically can serve for the betterment of the society, and not just believe what the traditional media have to say.

Pope scared of hawking?

2006-07-07T23:47:00.000-05:00

According to this article, Pope John Paul 2, asked scientists at a conference not to study too much about the beginning of the universe since it was the work of God. Probably he might have been gravely concerned about science exposing the theist fallacy.

I really wonder if the religious leaders do know that they are misguiding the common folks. Their whole life is concerned with God, I am sure the rational ones on questioning themselves must have realized how wrong every one is about god. If each one of us had never been told of the concept of God, we would have never imagined it on our own.

But we are so used to this, having been told about this since birth, that we have never questioned this belief, which really amazes me.

Also Stephen hawking is quoted in the article saying, "We are getting closer to answering the age-old questions: Why are we here? Where did we come from?"

How close are we?
This is a question that even Mr. Hawking may not be able to answer. But I hope to know it in my lifetime.

Probably God can answer it. What an irony !

Questions by a fellow atheist

2006-06-22T22:21:00.000-05:00

How do you justify your existence?
I am wondering how many of you out there wonder about your existence? What on earth are you doing here?

I always get amazed when I think about the complexity of the life forms....for instance...all complex life forms have almost perfect design for seeing things around - eyes? similarly for hearing?...for that matter any part of the body......and humans have outclassed other species with...complex network of neurons...which helps them to think ahead in future!!

And more amazing is the fact that all these evolution occured begining with random aggregation of molecules to start with and..life kicked itself into action....the aggregation that survived the hostile environment..what Darwin would say....'survival of fittest'....replicated further....and aggregated further...and continue to evolve.....over millions of years....to what we are today.....and so it continues....the battle of survival...which including humans inherently indulge in every day...as proved by the way humans would try to outclass/compete other peers, find a better mate, etc....

It appears all life forms are survival machines designed to take advantange of different environment/living conditions to do one thing best....survive!....ensure the propagation of their design....which is embedded in the genes!!

So what are we, biological survival machines - biological robots ??
[courtesy: ORKUT]

WHAT I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT.
I have thought about it, and continue to think about it, futilely though, this is the biggest reason why humans thought of the concept of god in the past, currently people are too ignorant to question themselves. probably some day scientists will answer the question. hopefully in my lifetime.

An International airport at Pune?

2006-06-21T16:15:00.000-05:00

Sadly not so soon.

Yet another Rahul in the news

2006-06-21T12:58:00.000-05:00

As if news created by Rahul Mahajan was not enough, Rahul Bajaj decided to jump in the scribes too. Ironically his being in the news has a lot to do with Pramod 'so many skeletons in the closet' Mahajan. The rajya sabha seat vacancy caused by the soap opera like episode, had to be filled, to which Rahul Bajaj was nominated by NCP, and backed by BJP-Shiv Sena. The congress had fielded its own candidate for it.
This caused so much tension between the NCP and the Congress that there were rumors of NCP allying with BJP.

So Bajaj's nomination for the Rajya Sabha post almost split the NCP and the Congress. This is so very ironic. Ironic because the Bajajs over last few generations have known to be congress loyalists. Jamanalal Bajaj was follower of Gandhi, and was sort of adopted by him. He was also very active member of Indian national Congress then. Rahul Bajajs father was treasurer of the Congress party after 47. However Rahul Bajaj is not exactly following their foot steps. In the Walk the Talk interview, he was queried by Shekhar Gupta, if he is more inclined towards the BJP.

Well if the Congress and NCP do split, and the NCP allies with BJP, the Shiv Sena will surely split with the BJP (as they threatened to do in the last lok sabha elections, when there were speculations of Sharad Pawar allying up with BJP). Congress and Shiv Sena can never be allies and Raj Thackeray will never ally with Shiv Sena. Raj Thackeray allying with Congress also does not seem possible. So a Raj/BJP/NCP can indeed be a winning combination.

A lot of Iffs and Buts, but will surely be interesting in the next elections.

Disney Theme Parks in India?

2006-06-19T15:58:00.000-05:00

Yes, soon that could be a reality!

Juggernaut

2006-06-14T00:50:00.000-05:00

Was having a conversation with an Indian guy in my university about Indian words being absorbed into mainstream English. The common ones I knew were verandah, jungle, mantra, pundit, karma and a lot more.

While studying for GRE I as told that, if I go to the US, I shouldn't be supprised if a professor asked me to go out for shay (written as chai, but pronounced shay in the US), as that is nothing but desi tea. I had initially thought that this might be the case in really upmarket places in New York, were investment bankers might be fascinated with the fancy exotic stuff. But was suprised to find shay in my own University Campus!

Neways, I will finally get to writting, what I intended to, in the first place. I had first heard the word Juggernaut, when Navjot Singh Siddhu, had used it for his team, in the fantacy cricket program on ESPN Star Sports. I didn't learn the meaning as, 'irrestible crushing force', untill later. But wasn't aware of the origins of the word even then, which was really really shocking.

Would you believe that the origin of the word, comes from the Jaggannath Yatra in Puri. Read about it on Wikipedia, they will get across the point better than me.

Did ya know about this stuff? If you did, how naive am I?

The Code.

2006-06-12T21:02:00.000-05:00

Saw the Da Vinci Code, a long time back. But two posts on karname of Mr. Arjun Singh, and then an instinctive one on Pune Traffic mean that I couldn't write on it until now.

Previously I had written about the book, that I had liked the facts more than the fiction. The facts about pi were most fascinating. The fiction part (or was it really fictitious?) was very audacious and shocking for me to read initially. But several dozen documentaries on Discovery and The History Channel later, it is all I remember from the book.

The movie is really bold, with Sony Pictures not giving a disclaimer about the stuff being fictitious. Again the ending was a bit modified in the movie. With Sophie mockingly trying to walk on water, and then joking about the wine thing.

Just before the climax, she asks Langdon, whether she should reveal to the world, the truth about Jesus's Bloodline, and hence his mortality. To this Langdon cites, that as a kid he had once fallen in a well. Being raised as a Catholic, he yelled and hoped that he will be rescued by God. Eventually someone helped him and he was rescued.

And thus he implied that, although he thought that God does not exist, the faith is necessary for people. So in a way the makers of the movie almost re-endorsed Jesus's mortality and hence him being non Divine.

I seriously agree with this; if we think rationally, all of us will realize the prophets being not divine. We should accept them as great men, after which great 'Books' were written. The divine force was just an attempt by people to explain non understood phenomenons.

In any case I do wish to visit The Louvre, Church of Saint Sulpice, Templar Church, and Westminster Abbey, the sites mentioned in the book. And that too now, pretty soon, and not when I am fifty and ugly!

This says it all

2006-05-23T17:25:00.000-05:00

Somehow I never wrote about the reservation controversy, but this pic from expressindia.com says it all.

SEZ

2006-05-20T21:20:00.000-05:00

Driving to your job or to your college, I am sure each one of us has been fed up, at some point of time, by the traffic on Indian roads. Crawling ant like vehicles which have developed an intimate understanding of the movements of vehicles around it, find their way through traffic, with amazing efficiency. If you can drive on these Indian roads you can drive anywhere!

But at some point you might of wished for a sparkling tram, which could take you to work, passing through spaced out high rises and cool greenery too.

Looks like this might happen soon near you.

The new mantra for growth in India has been special economic zones (SEZ's). Under these, special zones are identified, they are provided with world class infrastructure, flexible labor laws, and this will be used for export based industries. This is the exact way that China has achieved it's economic growth, and now India is banking on it. Incidently the first SEZ in India was before that of China, but subsequently, we lost the path. There are around 100 applications for SEZ pending before the government.

The biggest SEZ in India is planned near Navi Mumbai, called Maha Mumbai, by Reliance and the Maharashtra government.

(open the linking article, when you really have the inclination to read it, cause it's really long)

Pramod Mahajan

2006-05-04T22:24:00.000-05:00

Such a tragic death to a leader so charismatic. I was thinking of writing a post on him before the event that took place on saturday, and i wish i would have written it. I was a true fan of Pramod Mahajan.

My first recollection of him was when he was made national security advisor to the prime minister, the first time the BJP came to power; he used have his parallel press conferences after India had tested the nuclear weapons in 1999. He was earlier the Defence minister in the 13 day BJP government, when was just 48!

Subsequently whenever I saw him on television I uesd to get the feeling that he will make it big in politics. The last interview I saw of him was not more than three weeks back with Vir Sanghvi. In which when asked whether he saw himself as a future PM, he had replied that in Indian politics only members of gandhi-Nehru family could be sure of becoming a PM some day. With his loss the BJP have lost a crucial gen-next leader.

I still can't believe he is no more. His popularity was reflected from the fact that leaders across party lines came to pay him a tribute. From Sonia Gandhi writting letter to his wife, to Bal Thakare, Chagan Bhujbal, LK Advani, Vajpayee, Somnath Chatterjee, to corporate leaders like Anil Ambani and Rahul Bajaj.

The last regret is that he could have been the first person from Maharashtra to become the prime minister.

May his soul rest in peace.

Brand Name Confusion!

2006-04-24T19:02:00.000-05:00

This is a very fascinating phenomena. Many times for a particular product or service, a brand which is providing it, gets its name associated with it, and that product is recognized by the brand name itself. There are quite a few examples of this in India.

Here are a few I know.

1) Mineral Water:- Packaged drinking water or mineral water. The brand name BISLERY is so popular in India, that 90% of the people refer mineral water as BISLERI. If you were to go to a store to buy some bottled water on a hot day, you would ask for a BISLERI.

2) Photocopyer:- All over the world making copies of your important documents is called photocopying. But in India you call it xeroxing your documents. This is probably because Xerox copyer machines were fist to come in India, and became very popular subsequently.

3) Chocalate Bars:- This is probably because untill recently only Cadbury chocalates were available. Elsewhere it would be called, perhaps a chocalate bar, but in India we just call them just CADBURY.

I have also been told that in villages people refer to toothpastes as COLGATE.

I am sure there are several more such examples. If you know do tell me!

Indian in WWE

2006-04-19T16:44:00.000-05:00

I got this video clipping from a friend. I have been told that the guy in this is an Indian. Well Undertaker Dwarfs most others in WWE. But yet this guy literally toys with the undertaker. This guy is huge!!!

Can watch it here.

Aamir

2006-04-15T16:26:00.000-05:00

Latest news on Aamir Khan is that, he is supporting the Narmada Cause. First thing that came to my mind is that, if he wants, he can join politics and do pretty well in it. Unlike other movie in stars in politics, he has indeed some good views, opinions and ability to do good work for the people. (What is govinda doing in politics? alternate carrier? Also has alleged links with the Underworld)

He, in the past too, had openly voiced his views on Iraq, and Gujrat. I then thought, if he is against the Narmada Dam thing, just because of him being anti Modi, and Modi being a strong supporter of the Narmada Dam? The answer was a simple and obvious NO.

The first thing he said on television during the protest was that, he was not there for any political party nor against any party or individual, and also that he didn't have any intrest in politics and does not want to join it. That answered my first question as well.

Sadly he does not want to join politics. His last film preached about, not waiting for the difference to happen but being the difference. Apparently he considers himself only giving the message and leaving the 'being the difference' thing to others. Nothing wrong with that.

Also according to me he is among the best Actor in India if not the best. If you play all Shahrukh movies back to back, you will probably not realize where one ends and the next begins, cause the character he plays in all of them is pretty much the same. And according to me Salman isn't a actor at all. What were his movies with David Dhawan, in which he uses an American accent for his Hindi, about?

The word they use for Aamir as an actor is Versatile. I guess I will stick to it.(honestly dont know what it means.)

Indian Hypocricy

2006-04-14T12:45:00.000-05:00

I saw a debate on NDTV which dealt with relations between India Pakistan and the United Sates. It had Aamir Khan as one of the guests. (personally my favorite actor, and best of the khans, more on it later)

Pronoy Roy who was hosting the show, made a remark whch completely floored me. What he said is certainly true. He asked Aamir Khan, "What is this hypocracy against the United States in India? Everyone hates America (I don't), and yet they want to go there for higher education. So it is like ' Yankee Go Home But Take Me With You '?"

George Fernandes

2006-04-14T00:30:00.000-05:00

Recently an event occured which probably didn't as much media coverage as it possibly should have. George Fernandes was toppled as part leader of the Janta Dal (U). What the newspaper says about this is that, this is possibly the end of his political ambitions.

My compilation of all that I have know about this person. He was probably todays 'left' equivalent in the NDA government. The essential socialist. Made his way into national politics through trade union politics. In the early 90s (or late 80s), he along with Datta Samant (one who unionised the Mill workers in Bombay, and lead their agitation, which eventually led to the closure of the prosporous textile industry in B'bay) almost crippled Bombay. George Fenandes did that with a Railway strike, and a very long one too.

Ironically he later in his life wnt on to be the Railway Minister. Not the only irony in his life though. He had aspired to be a priest earlier in his life, and as Defence Minster was alleged to be involved in the 'coffin' scam. He was not without his share of controversies. (Have yet to see a non-controversial politician) Also his spat with Mamta Banergee in the earlier NDA regime had led to the collapse of the government then.

Nevertheless from an, another person on the street who went on to become the defence and railways minister, his life has been some journey. Although this may not be the end for him afterall since everything is possible in Indian Politics (Congress and BJP allies?????????). So dont count the person clad in kurta and sandals out.

One thing which I am sure of is that, we may mock them(politicians), we may curse them, but we cant do without them. They are indeed a colourfull tribe.

Sehwag lbw anderson, blame Mehta from NASA

2006-04-07T14:24:00.000-05:00

I wanted to write about this long ago, but somehow never got time, or was too lazy. I guess by now there must be thousands of blogs by cricket junkies on this new phenomenon.

Dr. Mehta is a NASA scientist of Indian origin. Dr. Mehta works in the fluid mechanics lab at Nasa’s Ames Research Centre in California. Dr Mehta has come up with a new kind of swing for fast bowlers and has been helping the English bowling coach Troy Cooley.

Heres how it works-

CONVENTIONAL SWING: The ball is released with the seam angled towards first slip or fine leg, spinning backwards along the seam and with the polished side facing the batsman. The ball will swing in same direction as the seam is pointing

REVERSE SWING: Same release, except with the rough side facing the batsman. The ball swings in the opposite direction to that of the seam

CONTRAST SWING: Controlled by speed. With the seam positioned vertically , the ball swings towards the rough side at lower speeds and towards the smooth side at higher speeds.

So unlike the reverse swing—the movement generated with one side polished well and the other left with the rough edge— here, the drift of the ball doesn’t depend on the seam position or the asymmetry caused by selective polishing. The seam remains upright and the ball moves towards the rough side when delivered in the range of 65-70mph. A little over 70-mph mark, and the ball swings towards the polished side from the same position. Batsmen can never expect to read this swing as it is near impossible to differentiate such minute variation of pace from 22 yards.

Troy Cooley, the current English bowling coach has his new contract with Australia so expect them too, to be in the 'swing' of things.

THE IMRAN CONNECTION- He (DR. Mehta) opened the bowling with Imran Khan for Royal Grammar School, Worcester, in the early 70s. And that’s probably when Dr Rabindra D Mehta got his first clues to what later became contrast swing.

Mehta says he opened the bowling with Imran for the school team in 1972. ‘‘It was from Imran that I first heard of what became known as ‘reverse swing’. He told us about the phenomenon, but it wasn’t until we conducted wind tunnel tests the next year at Imperial College, London, that I fully understood what Imran was talking about,’’ he recalls.

(excerpted from, The Indian Express)

Certainly very fascinating, lets hope the Indians too update themselves with this new theory.

$100 laptops running on human power.

2006-04-07T14:03:00.000-05:00

Read here.

Actresses then and now.....

2006-04-04T13:48:00.000-05:00

I got to see this slide show on rediff.com; it shows older pics of a few actresses along with their recent ones. I had seen ash's pic in it, earlier too, and remember saying that half of their beauty lies in the way they present themselves. Remember Karishma Kapoor in Andaz Apna Apna?

Also if this applies to actors as well, me too can have superstar looks!

You can watch it here.

More on Sunil Mittal

2006-04-03T20:30:00.001-05:00

You can say the e-ink on my blog had not even dried, when I again read yet another an article on him.
Anyways heres more info on him.

Sunil Mittal was born in Haryana.(In no way realted to Laksmi Niwas Mittal, who was born in Rajasthan, and was brought up in Kolkata)

His first business was that of bicycles, in Haryana.

He recently started a food (fresh vegetables and fruit) export business; exporting to Europe, in collaboration with Tesco.

He is currently in talks with Wal Mart and Tesco, for a retail chain in India.(What is with reatil, everyone wants to enter it; will be kinda intresting to watch Reliance and Wal Mart competing against each other)

Sunil Mittal

2006-03-31T23:08:00.001-06:00

For a long time, I was contemplating about writing something on this person.

The first instance was when I saw his interview on NDTV. Sunil Mittal, the Airtel guy.

Sunil Mittal is from a small place from Haryana. After graduating from university he wanted to start his own business, so he moved in to Mumbai, against the advise of his elders.

His first business was a complete failure. Later he moved in the telephone sector. He introduced the 'beetel' telephones, at a time when all you found were the stereotype rotating dial phones. That was before 1991, when he was not allowed to import them. So he had to instead assemble parts imported from Japan.

Later around 1993, mobile was a new thing. He entered the mobile sevice area, and was ridiculed by most since this was a business that required deep pockets. This period from 1993 onwards was filled with all sorts of litigations regarding awarding lisences. He baged the lisence for Chennai, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi around 1999. After a couple of years he introduced the AIRTEL brand. It has been smooth sailing since then.

Bharti enterprise was in the recent fortune 500 list of companies. He truly represents the New Age Indian entrepreneur.

Remeber the first Frienship Cup between India and Pakistan at Toronto, that time there used to be this constant musical jig commercial between overs, which went, "to see your beautifull smile....." that was Bharti Telecom back then.

Hookers

2006-03-27T21:17:00.000-06:00

I couple of days back I got a video clip of Vikram Sathye, in which he had imitated several cricketers. It was aired on SET MAX a long time back. I had in particular like it. I am sure you must have watched it too.

Here is a piece of it which was really good.

He imitates Micheal Holding, who is commentating in a match involving Australia.
Adam Gilchrist hooks the ball.

MH: Adam Gilchrist is a great 'Hooker'
The West Indians of the 70s were a bunch of great 'Hookers'
Adam Gilchrist too, gives people totally their money's worth!!!

To hate all roses.....

2006-03-21T15:16:00.000-06:00

It is Madnesss.....

To hate all roses because you got hurt with one thorn

To give up on your dreams because one didn't come true

To loose faith in prayers because one was not answered

To give up on your efforts because one of them failed

To condemn all friends when one betrayed you

Not to believe in love because someone was unfaithfull

To throw away all your chances to be happy because you did not succeed on the first attempt

As you go on your way don't give in to madness

Remember always another chance may come up

Another friend, A new love with no gaps, A renewed stremgth

Be persistent look for happiness everyday

It is often with failure that future success come up

Keep trying and smiling, god bless you.

Marxist Prime Minister

2006-03-17T14:09:00.000-06:00

If India hada marxist PM. This is how India would be. Too good.

Barmy Media

2006-03-17T12:04:00.000-06:00

The British media drawing inspiration from the Ramayana, for the last test against India at the Wankhede. It's intresting! Read on.

INCREDIBLE !NDIA

2006-03-01T18:38:00.000-06:00

On this snowy wednersday afternoon came home early from school, to study. While watching CNN, which was flashing news about president Bush's visit to India, in the incredibly long commercial break, caught sight of something, which looked....... well, Indian. It was the new 'INCREDIBLE INDIA' campaign of the Ministry of Tourism, to promote India. It is a great time to launch it, when India is hogging the news in the US media for the nuclear deal.
The incredible india promo aired can be found here.

Of Nostalgia and the Economy

2006-03-01T17:17:00.000-06:00

Here is an article from 'The Indian Express'.

PERESTROIKA

2006-02-18T15:50:00.000-06:00

Finally christened my blog.

Reason for 'perestroika':- Being born in the year 1984, the year Mikhail Gorbachev started the Russian Revolution of turning the country in a democratic non-communist nation, my father wanted to name me after it(perestroika). Thanfully (and eternally gratefull for it) my mom had her way, and named me ,what she did.

Need any other reason....ehh?

Life

2006-02-17T13:00:00.000-06:00

Got this as a e-mail forward. Found it really good. So here it is, since I watch sienfeld sometimes in my free time. Not a great fan of this show as much as I am of Friends, but nevertheless.

George Constanza's (the short bald guy in Jerry
Sienfeld) Words of Wisdom, This is what George has to
say about the cycle of life..

"The most unfair thing about life is how it ends. I
mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time.
And what do you get at the end of it ?? A death.
What's that, a bonus ?? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You
should die first, and get it out of the way. Then you go live in an old
age home. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your
pension, and then, when you start work you get a gold watch on your
first day. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your
retirement. You drink alcohol, you party and you get ready for high
school. You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have
no responsibilities. You become a little baby, you go back and spend
your last 9 months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa,
room service on tap. Then finally you finish off as an orgasm !!
Amen."

Sensex @ 10000

2006-02-09T22:28:00.000-06:00

After an anxious couple of days the sensex finally reached the much awaited 10000 mark this week. The road from 1000 in 1991, when the economy was opened to 10000 was quite a journey. With a 6% average growth in the early years the sensex reached 10000 in 2006. So, with the present 8% growth and much touted 10% in the coming years (sounds exciting, ain't it), it is surely gonna reach some height.

My friend, like many other people had pridicted the 10000 figure a couple of years back. Well, they have a bigger grin, every time I see them now. When I was told about the 10000 mark, few years back, the sensex had just collapsed after the congress had formed the government with Left support.That time I almost laughed (my ignorance). They surely must be laughing their way to the bank now.

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, the grand daddy of the Indian investors, in one of the debates on NDTV had pridicted 25,000. I tried to find the time frame for it, but all I was told is that the sensex is bullish in the long run.

Trying to call your broker.........well, I don't blame you for that.

BAD back in India

2006-02-04T23:25:00.000-06:00

Yes, he is back. After a couple of years, Brayan Admas is in India again. Saw his interview on NDTV (his first ever with an Indian channel). He really gets the passion going in his live concerts. He really takes the audiences for a ride at these events. Especially the 'summer of 69'. When asked in the interview what does the Summer of 69 symbolize, he said that it was obvious. Well, elaborating it futher won't be appropriate. Anyways the guys, Jimmy and Jody mentioned in the song were actually members of the band at that time. The drummer Jody is no more(in the band) and Jimmy is still around.

I wonder when am I gonna be at his long elusive concert.

FDI in retail

2006-01-25T18:40:00.000-06:00

Well my last post spoke breifly of retail..........and here it is. The government has decided to allow 51% FDI in retail of single brand. Allthough this probably won't open up the floodgates nevertheless it means that, (if the left doesn't mess up things) we shall very soon see brands like Gucci and Versace in India. Well, more than that the government can gradually open things up and allow FDI in other retail sectors.

No wonder the left is protesting, as they feel that opening up the entire retail sector to FDI can be detrimental to intrests of cornershop owners.

Reliance

2006-01-21T22:08:00.000-06:00

Well, if 2005 was year in which reliance was in the news for all the wrong reasons, 2006 is gonna be vastly different. Both brothers seem to have started to focus on their own businesses.

Anil Ambani it seems is poised to become an entertainment Czar. Adlabs, (51% ADAE owned) which he had acquired from Manmohan Shetty has bagged 26 licenses for FM radio for a whopping 112 crores. Adlabs already owns five multiplexes across the country, and is looking at 140 screens by 2008.

Adlabs Films is looking at investing Rs 50-60 crore every year and has already tied up with Ram Gopal Varma, Prakash Jha, Ramesh Sippy and Vipul Shah. Once Adlabs has a large network of theatres, it will be possible for the group to digitally transmit a movie from one centralised location to all the theatres through Reliance Infocomm's existing fibre optic network.

Reliance Entertainment is also working on it's direct-to-home venture which is being called Reliance Bluemagic for which it is aquiring a total of six transponders on INSAT 4B this year, and also might bid for sporting event rights including cricket.

Apart from that, Reliance Infocomm has also chalked out an agreement with Microsoft to look at IPTV. The company is all set to enter consumer homes with broadband Internet through its fibre optic backbone.

Mukesh Ambani recently successfully bidded for seven acres at the Bandra-Kurla complex in Mumbai for (hold your breath!) 1104 crores. Beating brother Anil in the race, it was the biggest land deal in India. This is reportedly for his next venture 'Reatail'.

His team includding Anand Jain and the Meswani brothers is readying to launch a chain of hypermarkets soon across the country. They are looking at 2500 outlets starting from September 2006 with an investment of 20,000 crores, and will employ around 250,00 people. Their counters will start in cities like Aurangabad, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Banglore, Delhi, Ludhiana, Chandigarh.

With Such a scale it will make other players like Biyani's Pantaloon, Shoppers Stop, and even Waal Mart (if FDI in retail is allowed) look small.

Well trust Reliance to do their business on a grand scale!

ICICI

2006-01-10T11:27:00.000-06:00

According to K.V.Kamath CEO of ICICI, India's second largest bank, and largest private bank, the urban market for them is getting saturated, and so they are looking towards the rural market for growth. Kamath’s hypothesis is that rising urban incomes will also stimulate rural aspirations; and ‘‘as rural aspirations grow, it will be important to meet them by helping to create rural wealth’’.

One of the challenges in doing so is the operating costs. Indian banks, on an average, operate at a tenth the cost of foreign banks, and for rural banking they will have to cut costs by a fourth further.

Creating such a structure meant getting past social and infrastructure bottlenecks such as illiteracy, lack of electricity and telecom connectivity. So a solar-powered ATM, operating on wireless technology which uses biometric identification instead of the standard PIN cards was one of the solutions.

But trust modern day Indian companies to come up with innovative solutions. ICICI Bank is likely to pursue a better and lower cost alternative more aggressively in the form of point-of-sale terminal attached to the local bania store. This involves the same biometric identification, but since the bania uses and deposits cash extensively, it will marry his financing needs with that of the bank customer.

The business potential for this is huge: it is common knowledge that unorganized enterprises and rural folk pay usurious interest rates to money lenders. Also, in the absence of funding, there is large-scale wastage especially in the process of getting agri-produce from farms to markets. (Excerpted from The Indian Express.)

APJ Abdul Kalaam must be happy man if reads this, since he too has a similar vision called the PUARA i.e. providing urban aminites in rural areas, as part of his Vision 2020 for India.

It's Finally Coming!

2006-01-03T11:23:00.000-06:00

The movie based on the Blockbuster Novel 'The DaVinci Code' is releasing on May 19, 2006. So if are not among the 25 million people who have read the book, you still have a couple of months before the flim is out.

What is more exciting is the cast. Tom Hanks for the role of Langdon. Initially they were speculations of Salma Hayek for the role of Sophie, but a Latin American girl, playing a French character didn't seem proper. The producer Don Howard and director Brian Frazer infact were called upon by Jacques Chirac to say bonjour and to make sure all was well with the flim shooting. He recommended his daughter's best friend, a french actress of some acclaim for the role of Sophie but Audrey Tautou ended up getting the job.

The movie is shot in the Louvre, but they have used a duplicate Mona Lisa painting. The movie also includes the other locations in the book like the Temple church in London, and Rosslyn Chapel in scotland where Silas goes finding the holy grail.

If 2005 was not a good year for Hollywood, 2006 promises to be a blast with Superman, Spiderman3, X-men3, sequel to the pirates of the carribean, mission impossible3, and offcourse thr DaVinci code.

Secular or Comunist : The Perpetual Question

2006-01-02T13:44:00.000-06:00

I am a great fan of NDTV 24/7, and well watched it 24/7 too, in India. But it wasn't without the tuffs with my younger bro, who wanted his share of M TV. Anyways, recently Rajdeep Sardesai who had a great role in making NDTV what it is, started his own channel IBN CNN, in collaboration with CNN. I desperately wanted to see this channel, couldn't so instead checked the web site. There I came across a blog by Sagarika Ghose ( Rajdeep's Wife), which had a post on LK Advani, which said that he must be really regretting what he did in 1991, which is why he made the remarks about Jinnah recently.

Here's what I think about it.

I strongly believe that the Congress is a pseudo secularist party. They have indulged in appeasement politics for a long time, ever since independence, which I believe is the root cause of everything. They are continuing what the Britishers did, divide and rule. A majority of the people found this unjust and felt left out.

These appeasement policies are, I believe, the reason for the formation of the BJP, in the 1980's, with the RSS ideology. This Hindu ideology appealed to the people, and the BJP rode on these sentiments.

But I think the BJP then went too far with it. There is nothing wrong if they represent the Hindu people, as a matter of fact they should, but they can do so without indulging in anti Muslim rhetoric. Similarly the Congress can represent the Muslim people openly and not do so by appeasement. In this context the Left front is good, it has a clear pro labor ideology and certain views on it, and they stick to it. That is why they keep getting elected in West Bengal (for about 50 years now).

Sudheerendra Kulkani, who is reckoned to be the mastermind behind Advani's remark, in some way recognized that the BJP can no longer get votes on its Ram Mandir ideology, since the anti appeasement anger was already vented. He tried to change that, and instead got the RSS ire, and it has been one step forward and two steps back since then.

I think votes should be devoid of religion and caste basis, and should be on pure governance issues. If the BJP sheds its communist colors, I will be more than happy to vote for it, as I like their pro-urban policies, and have a slight edge over the congress when it comes to governance. The Congress has some ridicules rural projects, like the employment guarantee schemes. It is ignoring the Urban areas. What people don't understand is that if they don't develop the Urban India how are they gonna get taxes for upliftment of rural India.

Under the california sun

2005-12-30T23:04:00.000-06:00

Well this winter I got an opportunity to visit San Fransisco, california; very gratefull to my friend Amit who more than welcomed me there. This is not a personal type of blog, but i can't resisit from sharing my experiences there.

I was more than happy to get away from the winter in dakota. I was delighted I didn't have to be armed with any coats, jackets and mittens while going out, was a funny kind of freedom. The weather in california is perpetually sunny.

Well I traveled to Disneyland, I could have gone completely crazy if I had gone there as a kid. It is a complete paradise for kids, and given the fact that I would die to sit in the tora-toras in Pune, I would have had more than a blast. In infact I enjoyed the 3-D shows of 'Shrek', and 'A bugs life', and the musical show 'Alaadin' more; they are a must go in Disneyland. Along with disneyland in LA, I also got to visit Universal Studios or Hollywood, and Laguna beach there. I was wishing to see Courtney Cox in Hollywood, but instead had to be content with watching the shooting of the soap opera Desperate Houswives.

You can't go to california and not visit Vegas, the city of brightness. I had to be content with just seeing the lightings and 'more', as I was no good with poker. I just played the slot machines, and made five dollars in it. Things I saw in SF include the golden gate bridge, fisherman's warf, pier's 39.

Best part of the trip was that I got to have a lot of desi food, dosas punjabi and more punjabi food. Also managed to sneak in a hindi movie in the desi theater at SF; 'Bluffmaster' which believe me is damn good.

The return journey was typical of Dakota, flight delayed due to snow! Although I might say a lot of things about Dakota, but it did feel like coming home afterall!

PS: You might want to drop in at my other blog THE MIRAGE to get a glimpse of California and Vegas.

CHINDIA

2005-12-16T14:26:00.000-06:00

Every morning when you open your newspaper and dig deep inside it, I am sure you will find atleast one article on the economies of India and/or China, their comparision, GDP growth rate figures, etc in there. One may wonder what is all this fuss about.

India and China are firstly big countries geographically; India is the worlds seventh largest country and China slightly bigger than it. Secondly India and China together have about three billion (3000 million) people in it. Then consider that the US has just a population around 300 million.

The standard of living in the US has reached a saturation point. People get payed well enough for working in McDonalds and other innumerable fast food chains found in abundance here, or working on other odd jobs. Hence people are satisfied with their lifestyle here and in general, people are not intresting in studying. (It is so ironical, that if you are lucky enough, in some Universities for studying for your masters you get payed for your research work, which is more than what a friend of yours must be making back home, toiling in some software firm.)

The existing population here has all the basic amenities in terms of consumer goods. Also the growth rate of the population here is very less. So in turn, there is very less demand for new goods here and hence small growth rates for companies here.

Now consider that, the people in developing countries have lower standard of living, so a person in India will be willing to do a job at half the amount of his counterpart in US or Europe. Also in this process when people get richer, new demand is created constantly, due to the vast population, mentioned earlier. This is thus a unique chicken and egg phenomenon.

Companies will hence logically shift their manufacturing to developing countries since, due to lower wages their manufacturing costs will be less, and also due to constantly increasing demand for goods and services here. Thus Chindia is the driver of growth for companies worldwide. The growing optimism is not a chimerical thing, when you consider the recent CIA report which says that, by 2030 Chinese economy will be comparable to the present US economy, and by 2050 the world will be tri-polar with China and US as the world leaders with India behind them.

Ratan Tata, recently said that doing business in India has never been so exciting and he wished that he was younger. But all this mushy talk does come with a rider. He in the recent India Empowered series in the India Express said that, the greatest mistake that could be made would be for us to become complacent and to allow our economic momentum to slow down. Our infrastructure is pathetic and something needs to be done about it very soon. The outgoing chief of Daimler Chrisler in India said very recently that, ‘‘India is struggling and it becomes obvious in Pune. If the government and the civic bodies don’t do anything, then India shining and optimism will come to a close" , while refering to the literally crushing infrastructure, in Pune. The story is same in Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, aint it?

I shall end this essay by quoting Thomas Friedman, who said that China is doing really well in the present but they see a bump in the road in the future, where as India is stuggling a bit presently but see a smooth road in the future. Only time will tell if what they see in the future is a mirage or real.

Vivid Images of India

2005-12-08T11:49:00.001-06:00

(click on image to see video)
Truly Nostalgic, vivid images of india, flavour of the REAL INDIA.
Played at the India night Function at UND. Originally created by University of Kansas- Cultural club of India.

Plastics of the Future !

2005-11-23T15:21:00.000-06:00

Year 2005: You go to your neighbourhood grocery store, ask for bread you get it in a polethelene bag. Source of polyethlene: Petroleum. Price: $60/barrel.
You throw the bag away, it stays there in the soil for the next thousand years.

Year 2015: You go to your neighbourhood Wal-Mart in Pune( most likely to happen!!!), buy some bread. You get it wrapped in Bio-polymer!!! Source of polymer: could be anything from corn waste or sugarcane waste to waste water from ag-processing industries!!! Price of crude oil: Considering that it was abt $40 till a few years back you can take a guess.
You throw the bag away in the soil, it decomposes!

My research at UND, is in modifying properties of poly lactic acid so that it can be used for food contacting operations, or soda pop bottles. So what is poly lactic acid? Poly lactic acid is a polymer obtained by polymerization of lactc acid. Lactic acid can be obtained from any bio mass, like corn.

The prospects of polylacticacid have got a lot of people excited throughout the world.
Over the last few decades, the interest in biodegradable and bioresorbable polymers has increased tremendously. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency 11.3 % of nearly 4.5 pounds/person/day of solid waste produced in the US is plastic waste. This translates in to a half pound of plastic waste generated per American per day.

Disposing of petroleum based polymers poses major environmental hazards due to formation of variety of hydrocarbons, and green house gases like CO2. As a result, most non-biodegradable plastics, like polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene end up in landfills and not much is recycled. Alsothese chemicals can slowly leach out, polluting the ground water and causing many health concerns.

Biodegradable polymers, however, can be decomposed in compost heaps, instead of being dumped in landfills. Not only that it is made from 100% renewable resources (made by photosynthesis in plants using sunlight). Also due to increasing costs of crude oil and decresing costs of manufacturing these polymers, they are likely to be much cheaper.

Cargill Dow has already set up a plant manufacturing 1400 tons/year PLA polymer at Blair Nebraska, made from corn growing in adjacent fields. This PLA is used to make food and non food packaging material, disposable cold drink cups, casing for laptops, walkmans, batteries, and also fibres for pillows, mattresses, casual and sports apparel, furnishings and much more.
The National Chemical Laboratories(NCL) in Pune has also developed the technology indigineously, and will be shortly applying for a US Patent.

Hence this is one material truly for the future.

New Theory On Gravity

2005-11-20T00:38:00.000-06:00

Well, I thought for a change I should post something lighthearted on the blog.

I came across a fake news web site called 'The Onion' , which had a article titled "Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory " , which reminded me of Pheobe in Friends, when she tells Ross, that of late she feels that she is being pushed downwards rather than being pulled downwards due to garvity!!!! It is hilarious.

Here is the Link check it out!

Finding you'r passion.

2005-11-09T00:46:00.000-06:00

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 at Stanford's graduation. I read it on a blog, and found it simply great.
It is very important that you follow your passion in life, to be successfull.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.

Here is the link, if you wanna hear the actual speech.
http://vodwins.stanford.edu/sns/0506/jobsau.asx

Amazing Parsees

2005-11-04T15:22:00.000-06:00

I have always been fascinated by Parsi people, their loving demeanor, their lore, of how their ancestors landed on the coast of Gujrat and eventually got asylum here. This was when the arabs invaded Persia. Today people in Iran are considered 'arab' because of their religeon, but actually people of India and Iran, both are of the aryan race, which originated in southwestern steppes of present-day Russia, what was formerly a part of Persia (Iran). Infact people of Iran and northen India are the closest aryan decendants anywhere in the world. Also the pharsi language and other Indian languages are interrealted, as they come from the same family of languages. So when the irani people came to India, it was a sort of a homecoming for them.

Come to think of it Parsee people represent less than 1 % of India's population, yet their acheivments have been phenomenal. The leading corporates in India the Tata's are Parsee, their philantropic history is inspiring. Also Godrej the FMCG company, and Bombay Deing of the Wadias are Parsee owned company. Post Independence most of the cricketers in the 50s and 60s were parsees like Nari Contractor, Poli Umrigar, Farookh Engineer. The Parsis were infact the first Indians to play cricket, and to play it well. They promoted the first cricket clubs in India, and in 1886 and 1888 organised the first-ever cricket tours by Indians overseas. In the next decade, they comprehensively defeated several teams of visiting English cricketers!

Also leading Indian constitution expert Palkiwala and former attorney general of India Soli Sorabjee are parsees. Dadabhai Nawrojee known as the grand old man of India, Madam Cama, Phirojshah Mehta were prominent during the freedom strugle. Rajiv Gandhi, India's youngest prime minister,was half Parsi, also India's first and only field marshall Sam Manekshaw is a Parsi, and so is Zubin Mehta.

Zoroastrians call their God Ahura Mazda. Ahura means "Lord" and Mazda means "Wisdom". Zoroastrians believe that Ahura Mazda is their Friend. And their purpose in this world is to help God make the world a better place to live. Zoroastrianism is based on Good Thoughts, Good Deeds, and Good Words. However today their numbers are dwindling since offsprings of intercaste marraiges are not accepted as parsees, since orthodox priest want to preserve their race.

One Intresting fact about them, Fire temples where they pray, has a flame which consists of fire from 18 different sourse, one of them is a fire started on the earth due a lightning that has been witnessed by at least two parsees!!!

I would end the blog by quoting the bava from the movie munnabhai MBBS, ' carrom ramvanu, mango juice pivanu, majja ni life !!!'.

US Demography

2005-10-26T23:30:00.000-05:00

Well, I always thought that more than 90% of the population in the US was of British origin, since the British themselves had migrated to the 'new world' for a variety of reasons, and then they themselves had a civil war to create an independent country. But it's not quite right. It's much less than that. Well, recently I came to know that in North Dakota, where I am doing my masters, only about 8% people are of British origin, and about 30% are of Norwegian, abt 15% are German, and lots of Irish and other Scandinavian origin.

One more intresting fact I heard, of which I was an ABSOLUTE skeptic when I heard it for the first time, but later got it confirmed, is that when the United States constitution was being framed, while voting for the national language, German was the favourate, but due to some reasons, english was voted to be the national language and german lost by just two votes! Such is the wide demographic distribution of the US. Well can you imagine if that had happened, beacause of the economic domination of the US in todays world, we could have probably been taught german in our schools and not english, and this blog also perhaps would have been written in german!

Spirituality: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

2005-10-16T15:02:00.000-05:00

Recently, while surfing the net, I came across an article on Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, which was simply amazing.
In his words I quote,

Respect:
"Thank those who do not respect you. They have given you freedom. When people respect you, they often take away your freedom. They expect you to smile at them, recognize them and behave in certain way with them. If they do not respect you, you are not obliged to answer their questions and you can drop all formalities. You will be naturally smiling or frowning. Either way you will be complete."When people love and respect you, you are obliged to return their courtesies because you do not want to hurt them. But when they do not respect or love you, they will not be hurt by your actions and words, so they set you free. "When you gain respect, you often do it at the cost of your freedom. Wisdom is to put freedom first and not bother with respect. "True freedom is not an "I don't care" attitude. It is lightness from within, a genuine smile and lack of stiffness. Such freedom will not bring arrogance. True love blossoms only in such freedom. And when there is genuine love, respect simply follows you."
European Ashram, Bad Antogast, GermanyJuly 30, 1997

The World Is Flat

2005-10-15T15:39:00.000-05:00

If you have heard of a person called Thomas Friedman, columist in the , 'The New York Times' , you must be knowing about what i am talking about. Thomas Friendman, is of the most famous columist, dealing with current world affairs. Recently 'The Indian Express' have been printing some of his articles. He also has won two Pultizer Prizes for his coverage of the middle east.
Recently he was also on Shekhar Gupta's show 'Walk The Talk' , for NDTV. He has a theory on globalisation, which is that, no two countries having McDonalds outlets have ever fought war, when he was pointed out about the India Pakistan showdown in kargil , he said that he had upgraded this theory to, no two countries a part of the supply chain will ever fight a war. This is because of globalisation of economies in almost every nation.
His latest book is called 'The World Is Flat', in which he has credited none other than Nandan Nilekani, of Infosys, for the basic idea which the book deals with. What he basically says is, that in the 1980's perhaps if you had a choice of being born in America, China or India, you would have been more than happy with America. But no more. This is because people in India, because of the culture of emphasis on good education, and people in china due to other reasons can now compete with people in America, and perhaps feel confident of beating them. Also companies from developing countries now can compete with thoes in the western countries, implies that the world is becoming a level playing field.

ASHES: The Complete History

2005-10-08T15:51:00.000-05:00

Well, the recently concluded, fiercly competed Ashes Tournament prompted me to write on it's history popularity and charm. Move over thoes guys who say India Pakistan cricket is the most fiercly competed cricket in the world. In the recently concluded Pakistan's tour of India, you could see that the indians were exhausted even before the one dayers started.

Well, England the underdogs before the ashes begun eventually went on to win the fabled urn. Each match was nail bitting and literally went to the last ball. How often do u see such a close test cricket tournament. It was a historic tournament in the fact that England won it after 16 years and also that it was Shane Warne, and Glen McGrath's last ashes.

Ashes: The History:- In October 1861, an English representative cricket team captained by Heathfield Stephenson, set sail from Liverpool in England with the purpose of visiting Australia and engaging the "local" colonial population in a number of cricket matches. On arrival in Australia in March 1862, the English team was amazed by the greeting they received from thousands of people present when the ship berthed in Melbourne. More to their amazement was the fact, the streets of Melbourne were lined by many thousands more people who had come out to greet the visiting team.
Although cricket had already been well established in Australia for many years, the Englishmen could not believe the level of support for the game in Australia. Rather than treated as simple sportsmen, they were accorded a level of status usually reserved for the most important VIP's and royalty. It appeared to the Englishmen, the sport was as popular in Australia as it was in the mother country.
During their tour of Australia, the English team played a total of 14 matches against a variety of teams representing the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales. Australia at this time, was made up of a number of separate colonies and as such, did not have a National team for cricket, therefore at no stage did the Englishmen have the opportunity to take on the best the Aussies could muster. What is very notable about the tour however, is the fact the Englishmen competed against a team in Melbourne, representing The World. From the 14 matches played, it became very evident to the touring team, Australia was not to be taken lightly when it came to the sport of cricket. A total of 5 draws and 3 losses were inflicted upon the tourists, who had at no stage conceived any idea the Australians may be capable of offering any decent competition.
The annual competition between England and Australia continued for several years to come. On 5th March 1877, a touring English team met the Australian team in the very first Test match in Melbourne. This match was a ferociously competitive game with the Australians coming out on top and winning by the margin of 45 runs. The English were not happy with this situation as they had put together the finest team of professional cricketers money could buy at the time. They found it difficult to accept they had been beaten in the very first test match, by a team from the colonies that consisted mainly of part-time cricketers.

The Birth
Great rivalry began to develop between the Australian and English teams, setting the scene for future battles between the two, and attempts by the English to dominate the sport they had developed. They were seriously concerned the sport of gentlemen was being dominated by the convicts from the Antipodes and the thinking of the day became, England must win at all costs.
The greatest cricket competition in history was about to begin. The Ashes were close to being born!

England's Revenge
There was nothing unusual about the Australian tour to England in the summer of 1882, other than the fact, only one Test match was scheduled to be played at The Oval on 28 August. In the lead up to the Test match at The Oval, Australia had won 4 out of the seven matches they had already played, needless to say, the English were looking to atone for these losses and embarrass the Australians by giving them a lesson in cricket they would never forget. England carefully chose the best possible team in order to inflict the "demanded" defeat on the Australians.
At the beginning of the match on the 28th August, Australian captain W Murdoch, having won the toss, decided the Aussies would bat first. The English bowlers decimated the batting line-up and Australia returned the paltry figures of all out for 63 runs. The Englishmen were quite amused by this small first innings total and believed they would more than eclipse such a minor score. The amusement was promptly wiped from their faces by the Australians and even though the English team managed a first innings lead of 38 runs, the total for the innings was only 101 runs.
The Aussies although feeling confident, believed the Englishmen would bounce back in their second innings and as a result, Australia would need to post a very healthy second innings lead to have any real hope of an outright win. Unfortunately luck was not on the side of the Australians, they returned another small score at the end of their second innings when they were all out for 122 runs. This left England needing only 85 runs to take victory in the match, it appeared a foregone conclusion and the Aussies were somewhat dejected with the situation.
By the time England had reached the score of 4 for 65, it appeared there was no hope of an Australian victory, how wrong the thinking was!. At one stage with 5 wickets remaining, England required only 19 runs to take the match. Events were about to overcome everyone who was at The Oval on this day. Fred Spofforth an Australian bowler who had already taken several wickets for the innings was brought back into the bowling attack and subsequently tore the English batsmen to pieces with the assistance of Henry Boyle. The English team collapsed to be all out for 77 runs leaving them short of victory by just 8 runs. The unthinkable had happened, the English had been beaten from an unassailable position, the Australians had triumphed even though the odds were against them.
Everyone at The Oval for the match could not believe what had happened, not only were the crowds in shock at the defeat, many of the players could not believe what had just transpired and were left stunned and speechless. The following day, the British press ferociously savaged the performance of the England team, they called the performance of the team "the worst in living memory". The most notable of the English press at the time, a newspaper called the Sporting Times printed an obituary to cricket which read.
" In Affectionate Remembrance of English Cricket Which Died At The Oval on29th August 1882. Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintancesR.I.P NB: The body will be cremated, and the ashes taken to Australia."
Needless to say, after the debacle that became known as The Ashes test in 1882, the English cricket authorities were adamant that never again would the English team suffer such a humiliating defeat. A tour of Australia was promptly planned for the latter part of 1882, early 1883 and to ensure England had a more than even chance of making amends for their embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Aussies, three tests were scheduled to be played. The English cricket authorities figured they would indeed be able to defeat the opposition in a best of three series.
After a meeting at Lord's of the English cricket authorities, it was decided to appoint the Honorable Francis Bligh as captain for the forthcoming tour. Bligh was ordered by the Lord's members to make sure the Ashes of cricket were returned to their rightful home in England. A team of English cricketers were put together with the aim of regaining the glory of English cricket. They promptly departed England arriving in Australia in November 1882. After many preliminary games against various teams from the colonies, the first test in December 1882 turned out to be a nightmare for the visiting English team. Beaten comprehensively by the Aussies by the winning margin of 9 wickets, it appeared any hope of regaining The Ashes might be an up-hill battle.
Instructions were issued to the English players, they must win at all costs in the second test at Melbourne. With the reputation of English cricket on the line and faced with the embarrassment of having to return home a defeated team, the Englishman rose to the occasion in the second test. Not only did they defeat the Aussies, they won by the huge winning margin of an innings and 27 runs. It appeared after all, the reputation of English cricket could and would be salvaged. With the series now tied, huge crowds were expected for the third and deciding test scheduled for February 1883 in Sydney.

The third test was a ferocious affair, the Aussies threw everything they had at the England team, however they could not manage to win the match, England were victorious by the margin of 69 runs. The Englishmen had won the series 2-1, and in the process re-instated the pride and reputation they had lost at The Oval in 1882, they could now return home the heroes.
The Ashes were to be returned to their "rightful" domain!

Velvet and Ash
The English captain during his stay in Sydney for the third test was billeted at the home of the Fletcher family in the suburb of Woollahra. On his return to the Fletcher home from the after match celebrations, it was suggested by Annie Fletcher she should make a velvet bag in which Bligh could store the "imaginary" Ashes of English cricket, Bligh agreed with Annie's suggestion. Annie promptly made a beautiful brown velvet bag with the year 1883 embroidered on the front in gold thread, she presented this bag to Bligh, who accepted it with great thanks and appreciation of her efforts.
After his departure from Sydney, Bligh traveled to Melbourne where he met a lady named Florence Morphy, and after showing her the bag which he had been presented with in Sydney, Ms Morphy and several friends decided it was not a grand enough trophy for such a celebrated occasion. After purchasing a silver urn, the ladies then burnt a stump or a bail and deposited the ashes into the urn. No-one is quite sure whether it is the ashes of a stump or bail contained in the urn, the actual secret died with Ms Morphy and Bligh, who were later married on one of Bligh's further trips to Australia.
After adding a further test to the Australian tour in 1883, the triumphant English team returned home to a heroes welcome. The Ashes were presented to the English cricket authorities and then promptly presented to the members at Lord's, who later returned them to the possession of Bligh. Bligh took the Ashes with him when he traveled back to Australia and married Florence Morphy. No more was heard of the Ashes until the death of Bligh in 1927, when they were presented to the Marylebone Cricket Club, who put them on permanent display together with a pottery duplicate in a cabinet at Lord's.
Rumour has it, that at some stage during the time the Ashes were in the possession of Bligh in Australia, a servant spilt the contents of the Ashes urn onto the carpet in the home of Bligh and was unable to re-gather them. It is said the servant replaced these Ashes with those of burnt sticks, however this rumour has never been verified and remains just that, a rumour!
The only time the Ashes have left their display cabinet at Lord's was in 1988, when they were flown to Australia as part of the bicentennial celebrations. So treasured are the Ashes, they were flown by RAAF VIP aircraft and escorted to and from Lord's by a police escort.

Bodyline Series
From the original match at The Oval in 1882 that gave birth to the Ashes, the competition and its players has continued to develop over the years and has stood the test of time. Many notable periods, victories and losses could be mentioned regarding the Ashes series, however the most notable moment in Ashes history came with the series known as Bodyline. No single moment or incident in cricket history has been written or talked about as much as this single cricket series. Bodyline to this day, comes into conversation amongst cricket fans, it is argued, debated, and often the cause of spilt blood. It was the single most defining moment in cricket relations with rivalry between England and Australia that went on to further strengthen the determination of an Australian team in winning an Ashes series against England.
Another notable moment in Australia v England cricket history was in 1977, when Australia and England met in the Centenary Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This match was played to celebrate one hundred years of test cricket between the two opponents and just like the very first test match played in 1877, Australia was once again triumphant by the winning margin of 45 runs.
The arrival of the English touring side in Australia for the Ashes series during the summer of 1932-3 was much anticipated by all Australian cricket fans. Unknown to the Australians at the time was the fact, English captain Douglas Jardine was about to write his team into the record and history books for all the wrong reasons. To counter the skill of the great Australian player Donald Bradman, who had devastated the English bowling attack during the 1930 series, Jardine adopted a tactic later to become known as Bodyline.
Bodyline involved the placing of a least five players close in to the batsman and the bowler continually bowling a barrage of short pitched balls aimed on leg stump, these balls would quickly rare up from the pitch placing the batsman in danger of serious injury. To counter these rising deliveries, the batsman would be forced to adopt defensive batting strokes, which would regularly result in catches to the close in fieldsmen.
Donald Bradman, being an exceptionally gifted and attacking batsman was affected by these close in fielders who interfered with his concentration. In the second test held in Melbourne, Bradman was dismissed by English bowler Bill Bowes without scoring. Many Australian players were subsequently injured as a result of the tactic of Bodyline. It was not only the Australian players who were aghast at the despicable tactics of the English, but also the Australian cricket authorities.
The Australian Cricket Board sent an urgent telegram to its counterpart in England demanding they instruct Jardine to discontinue his methods. For the sake of cricket and sportsmanship the Australians pleaded with the English to refrain. Discussions were even held in the Australian Parliament to find a way to stop the Englishmen from devastating and tarnishing the game of cricket.
High-level diplomatic meetings were held between the English and the Australians, eventually Jardine was ordered to refrain from his dangerous tactics. The Englishmen eventually went on to win back the Ashes from Australia, however the tactics of Bodyline had served their purpose. They had contained and restrained the great Donald Bradman.
The Laws of Cricket were eventually changed to ensure the debacle, which was the Bodyline series was never repeated. The spirit of the game had to be protected at all costs.
The tactic of Bodyline bowling, a name coined by the Australian press was referred to as Leg Theory by the English.

Ball of the century: The Ball of the Century, also known as the Gatting Ball or simply That Ball, was a bowled by Shane Warne to Mike Gatting on 4 June 1993, during the first Test match of the 1993 Ashes cricket series, at Old Trafford in Manchester. The leg spin Warne imparted to the ball caused it to swerve in towards Gatting in its flight through the air, and then to deviate sharply away from him on bouncing. This caught Gatting by surprise; the ball hit his wicket and thus got him out bowled, turning the balance of the match in Australia's favour. It was Warne's first ball against England in what would turn into a long and record-breaking career, and was of vast significance in the context of the match and the series.
VIEW THE CLIP

http://media.putfile.com/Warne01/original

Ashes Statistics

Nostalgia

2005-09-03T17:30:00.000-05:00

Few days back I came across a blog on rediff, with this really amazing post; so i quote from it,
" Spring, is when it rains where I live. Not the downpour that one is used to in India. Here it is a disappointing trickle that is over even before it began and yesterday while watching ‘Rain Coat’ I couldn't help but ache to get drenched in such a downpour again. Warm rain pelting down on me furiously. While the roads flood and people hitch their clothes up to wade across the slushy streets. While bicyclists lift their legs in the air as they maneuver a puddle. While autorickaws with flapping plastic sheets pinned across the openings oblige to take you home for nothing less than twice the usual fare. But would I fling the door open and keep the windows shut the whole time someone from my past arrives unannounced. I am afraid this time I will stand behind the shut door and wait for the seasons to change."

Bryan Adams

2005-09-03T15:28:00.000-05:00

Bryan Adams: One of my fav singers

From the mid-'80s to the mid-'90s, Canadian singer/songwriter and guitarist Bryan Adams was one of the most successful recording artists in popular music worldwide. Usually dressed in blue jeans, sneakers, and white T-shirts, the energetic performer stalked stages around the globe, electric guitar in hand, singing his own up-tempo pop/rock songs and ballads before audiences numbering in the tens of thousands. He released a series of multi-platinum albums containing chart-topping singles featured in popular motion pictures. His raspy voice, simple compositions, and straightforward musical approach earned him early critical approbation as a likable if unoriginal rock & roll journeyman, but as he began to become massively popular, reviewers increasingly pointed out the clichés in his lyrics and the derivative nature of his music, especially as he softened his style in the early '90s for his hit movie theme songs.

Adams was born Bryan Guy Adams on November 5, 1959, in Kingston, Ontario. (His middle name referred to Guy Fawkes, the British conspirator executed for an attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605, resulting in the observation of Guy Fawkes Day in England each November 5.) Adams' parents were British émigrés; his father, Conrad J. Adams, was a military diplomat, his mother, Elizabeth Jane Adams, had been a schoolteacher and librarian. His father's occupation caused the family to move extensively during Adams' childhood. They relocated to Ottawa when he was six, then his father began to get overseas postings, first in Vienna and next Portugal, where the family lived from 1967 to 1971. By his early adolescence, Adams had begun to show an interest in music, playing drums before taking up the guitar. From Portugal, the family briefly moved back to Ottawa, and then went to Tel Aviv. Adams had been expected to enroll at Sandhurst, a military academy in England both his father and grandfather had attended, but he refused. In the mid-'70s, his parents separated, and he returned to Ottawa with his mother and younger brother before settling permanently in Vancouver. While attending high school, he increasingly spent his time auditioning for rock bands, gaining greater success when he tried out as a singer rather than as a guitarist. By the age of 16, he was fronting a local band called Shock.

His Hits include summer of 69, 18 till I die, everything I do, Heaven, Here I am, and the latest open road.

The official Bryan Adams site

Technology: India a developed nation.

2005-09-01T15:19:00.000-05:00

I think to become a developed nation, we should develop new technology ourselves. What I mean by technology is not just high tech, sophisticated, expensive gadgets, but simple concepts which can make one a capable entrepreneur, i.e it will help the individual as well the nation as a whole (no matter in how small a way). Our engineering colleges churn out several thousands(optimistic figure) of engineers every year. But engineers who have become engineers buy writing excellent papers, getting good marks, and mugging text books. There is little or no practical application of this knowledge. I think we should include research in our gradute programs also.
In his book vision 2020 APJ Abdul kalam has noted that in India the golden triangle between academics, industry and R&d has not emerged. If this emerges then with funds from industry using facilities of the R&D labs and student labor, we can develop new technologies ourselves.
Also yet another facet of this is that the technology existing in our defence and aerospace labs can be used for commercial and social purposes. An excellent example of this is that, in one aerospace lab in hyderabad superlight but tough titanium alloy used in satellites was used to make crippers for the handicapped.

2005-08-28T14:50:00.000-05:00

Lance Armstrong- Seven times Tour-De-France winner.

skeptics

The Da Vinci Code

2005-08-28T14:07:00.000-05:00

If u have read this new Dan Brown novel, you know what Im saying.Move over Rowling, we have I winner here. First of all I think the facts about PHI ie the number 1.618 mentioned in this book is simply mindblowing.leonardo Da Vinci explained this with his painting The Vitruvian Man.The ratio of lengths of so many parts of our arms and legs is PHI.To show this Leonardo da Vinci actually exhumed dead bodies.Also if you draw a pentacle or a pentagram the lines devide themselves into segments having the ratio PHI other examples of PHI are the quotients of the successive numbers in the fibonacci sequence this number is present everywhere in nature. Also Da Vinci was a maverik , anti church person member of the secret organisation 'The Priory of Sion' comes as a shocker.(all these are actual facts )

If you read on you will be baffled by the part on The Last Supper, in which Jesus Christ's supposed girl friend is shown,and peter(saint Peter for us) is gesturing to kill here.Then is the part on how the holy grail is not the cup in which Jesus drank at his last supper but the facts about his girl friend and mother of his son.(this part is fiction) The facts mentioned in the book are actually more entertaining than the fiction.

Think Big

2005-08-27T23:56:00.000-05:00

27th MARCH: Yesterday I saw Vivek Paul's interview on walk the talk hosted by Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24/7(which by the way i think is a gr8 channel). One point he made about India was that Indian's are content with small things.

Like Indians are satisfied with a7-8 % growth, but the point shekhar gupta made was that who has put a limit on this why just 7-8 % why not more.We just don't dream big enough. Like once upon the time when the silk route trade was flourishing India and china contributed to 25 and 33 % of world trade respectively while today china is confident that one day it will achieve that sattus again where as India will be happy to contribute upto 0.5% of world trade in the next few years.

Geo politic strength in today's world is achieved by economic might. To get our economy going zipping the government has to improve the pathetic infastructure present today manifold. Compare India's economic capital Mumbai with Shangai and you know what I am talking about. Mumbai is the most crowded place in the world, I think. Whenever I visit the city I wonder why does anyone bother to live in such a city.