Am what I never thought would be!!!

Mera Bharath Mahan!!!

2010-08-15T22:13:00.001+05:30

Thank God, none of these Countries are role models for India. I hope and pray that India will never ever become any where close to these Countries.
God bless and Save Indians..

If you cross the " The North Korean " border illegally, you get .....

12 years hard labour in an isolated prison .....

If you cross the " Iranian " border illegally, you get .....

detained indefinitely .....

If you cross the " Afghan " border illegally, you get .....

shot .....

If you cross the " Saudi Arabian " border illegally, you get .....

jailed .....

If you cross the " Chinese " border illegally, you get .....

kidnapped and may be never heard of - again .....

If you cross the " Venezuelan " border illegally, you get .....

branded as a spy and your fate sealed .....

If you cross the " Cuban " border illegally, you get .....

thrown into a political prison to rot .....

If you cross the " British " border illegally, you get .....

arrested, prosecuted, sent to prison and be deported after serving your sentence .....

Now ..... if you were to cross the " Indian " border illegally, you get
.....

1. A ration card

2. A passport ( even more than one - if you please ! )

3. A driver's licence

4. A voter identity card

5. Credit cards

6. A Haj subsidy

7. Job reservation

8. Special privileges for minorities

9. Government housing on subsidized rent

10. Loan to buy a house

11. Free education

12. Free health care

13. A lobbyist in New Delhi, with a bunch of media morons and a bigger bunch of human rights activists promoting your " cause "

14. The right to talk about secularism, which you have not heard about in your own country !

15. And of-course ..... voting rights to elect corrupt politicians who will promote your community for their selfish interest in securing your votes
!!!

Hats off ..... to the .....

A. Corrupt and communal Indian politicians (...the BIGGEST PROBLEM !!!)

B. The inefficient and corrupt Indian police force & Bureaucrats !!!

C. The silly pseudo-secularists in India, who promote traitors staying here

D. The amazingly lenient Indian courts and legal system. That's why people like Afzal Guru are still alive, same will happen
with Kasab.

E. The selfish Indian citizens, who are not bothered about the dangers to their own country.

F. The illogically brainless human-rights activists, who think that terrorists deserve to be dealt with by archaic laws meant for an era, when human beings were human beings.

G. The most tolerant Indian masses who are allowing all this silently...at their own peril and

H. Lastly, the Classy Indians who are educated,happy serving an MNC, no time to vote, all ways busy in self indulgence, timid to question any wrong, perpetuate all the above for a small personal benefit ...

Moved the blog

2010-02-21T10:07:00.001+05:30

Dear all,

This blog is moved to my domain eNamaskar.

Please check out the latest happenings at www.enamaskar.com

Thanks for supporting this blog - all along...

Anil Kurnool

ICICI Online Banking Security Breach...

2009-12-01T12:48:00.002+05:30

Take a look at the image...

Even a novice can say on which AppServer the online banking portal of ICICI is running...

Any perverted geek, who knows any security loop hole in the AppServer (Pramati) can cause the entire portal unsafe....

Seems, we Indians are too technie to leave things as they are...

PS: I blacked out my employer's name... least it causes embarrased moment to them

Beware of Master, the dog is ok...

2009-11-22T22:39:00.002+05:30

Once I had a pet dog (or should I call him a street dog, that used to come to my place for food?).

It was always around in the compound of my place and ran away the moment he saw a visitor.

One day, it happened that a theif tried coming into the house after jumping the gate, during early hours of the day. He (the dog) barked and woke me up. The theif took a stick and hit him, but he (doggie) stood its ground and continued to bark. When I rushed out with a stick in my hand, that the dog ran away - thinking that I too wanted to hit him, but I went with the stick outside only to hit that theif. The fellow ran away the way he came from, by jumping the gate.

The next day when I told my friends about the incident, they promptly put a board saying "Beware of Master, the dog is ok".

Strange are the ways of life...

"Bumper Offer" Telugu Movie :: "Bogus Offer"

2009-10-24T11:12:00.001+05:30

The thing is, our elder have said it correctly – 'Never judge a book by its cover' and similarly today we can amend it to suit the cine-goers – 'Never watch a movie, based on the banner or a hit song'.

In last few days, every radio channel played that "Ravanamma" song ad nasuem. The song is about the plight of jobless software folks due to the recession. Except for that song, there is nothing new in the film.

I watched the movie in Ameerpet's Big Cinema, which was crowded by many software folks – esp there to see the movie. As the banner is "Vaishno Academy", the expectations were very high.

Few minutes after the "Ravanamma" song, the movie becomes a déjà vu. After a while, you can start telling dialogues too, as if you are the writer.

My take:

If you have more money to spend and time to waste, go to that movie. For the serious folks, wait till it is on the TV.

Question to Puri Jagannath:

When can we expect you to give your style of movies at your standards?

Forget the great things – were you drunk when you agreed to produce this movie and when you wrote this dumb story.

Cigarette

2009-10-12T14:23:00.002+05:30

Cigarette: Fire at one end, with fool at the other.

Cigarette: Burns at one end, with bitch at the other.

:-)

AP floods

2009-10-06T23:04:00.001+05:30

In the context of floods in A.P. there are few points that strike our apathy. (Our = Govt. of AP/India or what is generally called the "system").

When CWC executives went to Kurnool collector on Thursday (Oct-1), why did he not act on the information immediately?
When on Friday (2-Oct) 6 choppers were sent to resuce, 4 were grounded in Kurnool - due to lack of adequate fuel!!! Who sent half-baked choppers?
The Sunkesala dam(?) got washed away - what happened to the crores of money spent in "maintenance"?
The iron chains used to lift the dam-doors of Srisailam broke. Again where is the money?
The first rescue worker to reach the locations were - Sai (Baba) Seva Samithi, not any Army/Police/Administrative personnel!
A local MLA who fancies a title Maha-Data (great donar) was no where to be seen/heard. The first one to rush to Jagannatha Katta (a local hillock) for safety.

We (as in "our" defined above) are ill equipped to handle disasters.

"Our" system is built only for happy-day scenarios, no DR sites provided, no proper "testing" done to the system to handle failures, fault tolerance.

Your Truly's notes are based on the accounts of rescue operators and his own experiance of being a volunteer as a help-line operator for the flood victims. (The cries for help still ring in ears.)

The rescue operations are currently in full swing, but it is not enough. Like a candle against Sun light. The workers are less, as the area is unapproachable and can only be approached by air.

The Acron : MUD, not MAD

2009-09-04T08:27:00.001+05:30

http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/2009/08/31/mud-not-mad/

IMHO - we need not worry about any nuclear attacks.... assume one N-warhead would kill one million and Pak drops 100 warheads... we are still left with 90 odd crore hungry stomachs.

Like the Chinese, who gave one rifle to 5 soldiers, during Sino-India war of 1962 - we are way ahead for any gun/bomb to annihilate us.

Even then, our spineless PM would offer "evidence" to Zardari, that the N-bombs are from Pak.

Media conveniently forgot about the Nov-11 attacks and may be they will set up a night-long candle vigil at the border this year on Nov-11.

The curse of IT

2009-08-22T22:26:00.003+05:30

When-ever any powerful bomb explodes, those who die are ordinary citizens or visitors or tourists to those places. Their primary targets are the US citizens visiting that country or US employees working in the consulates.

Any time a journalist is kidnapped and killed, the odds are high that he/she might be an American journalist.

Even when Twin towers fell; it was ordinary, self respecting, tax-paying, simple US citizens who were affected. Neither the Presidents nor their deputies; neither the "secretaries of the state" nor the senators; not even a single congress-member was hurt in any of these incidents.

These deaths were all that of ordinary middle-class US citizens.

Why?

Because the media-hype hungry politicians at the top level made some policies or made statements to the effect that anti-global elements attention was drawn towards US-citizens. They stated to equate any US citizen with that of the politico-types and started to target them.

Similarly, in India, the IT (outsourcing service providers, BPOs et al) created such a Midas-touch kind of hype, that anyone and everyone, who is part of these organizations, are targeted in any form of money-flinching activities.

Be it the vegetable vendor, milk man, police man, garage owner, doctor, cinemas, rents etc. For others, the rates are different, the moment they sense that the customer "might" be an employee of an IT firm, the rates change.

In most cases the services would be worse than the normal, but the rates might be premium.

Why?

Because, the media-hype hungry owners of these firms make obnoxious statements, that world would think that all the folks part of the IT-industry are filthy rich and can be part of the extortion racket.

Agreed – there might be some folks who make such show-offs, but not all.

My message to the anti-global and anti-social elements, please mind your targets. Not all US citizens are bad, not all IT-employees are loaded with money.

“Best Practices” Based East

2009-08-05T21:53:00.003+05:30

There are many consulting firms that I came across, who do not have anything original with them, but make a patch work of everything they can lay their hands on and call it “Best Practices” and an “IP” [Intellectual Property].

Due to this breed of consultants, I started to get cynical views about innovation, best practices etc especially in the area of Enterprise Computing (glorious name for packaged applications).
Let us look at each of the terms from close quarters.

Innovation:
Every I.T. Services company, specifically the ones which have their head quarters in India, go trumpeting about the world that they are having strong “process” orientation for delivery and development etc. How come the maximum numbers of CMM Level – 5 companies are mushroomed in a single city of southern India?
Any sane mind knows that Innovation and Process are antonyms and cannot co-exist in the same plane. How come these companies go about taking the words Innovation and Process in the same breath?

On top of it, the customer who out-sources their work to them, also believe their words or appear to believe their words.

Recently on an assignment, one of my colleagues asked the customer what he meant by a ‘Service’, for which he replied dot on that it was a ‘SOA Service’. With the technical education levels of these (customer) folks being near to zero (if we are lucky), the Indian Software IT firms are milking the cash cows to the glory.

Most of the time, the deliverables, be it code, a model, a document – mostly is a plagiarized. They may not be dot-to-dot copy, but something similar, which ends up confusing the customer.
If there is a sentence like ‘Sun rises in the East’, our good friends will make an entire document (with more than 100 pages in PDF) which may start like, “the space around a person or object is usually said to be 360 degrees. This degree system is called Sexagesimal system – believed to have been invented by Sumerians. Blah… Blah… Blah… After a few pages this way, then talk of Astronomy; touch upon Astrology then upon Archimedes, Pythagoras, Indo-Arabic numerals… Blah… Blah… Blah…

Until one is beaten to death by this technically correct and practically useless information diet the drama goes on. Finally, the client is told somewhere that Sun raises in the EAST. As the customer is totally drained by this time, a good confusion sets in. With orientation lost, the customer now is unable to make out where his “company’s East’ now is. Customer gets into a panic mode and then and would want to buy consulting service for aligning their Company’s East with the Best-Practices-based-East from this consulting company.

Presto – another contract is won; press goes gaga over the multi-million Dollar deal that “Alpha Useless Technologies” has won due to their IP based “East Alignment Process”

Now to “Best Practices”:

All the major Enterprise Software players either have a design that is decades old [SAP, Software AG] or a mash-up of acquired softwares [Oracle].
Any service company which has worked on these tools for a while, would know the tricks, tips and traps of the said software. Company A, when it puts out a list of “Best Practices” (say an arbitrary 10 line items) Company B would put out another list of “Best Practices” (in this case might be the same arbitrary 10 line items with a different order and verbiage).

So – Where is the “Best” of the practice? Essentially, this is a trick that is played by all the players in this field, due to the ignorance or laziness of the CIO/CTO of the client’s company.

Till the time, these CTO/CIO do not educate themselves, hands-on and trust their own team members and stop depending on inputs from these con-artists, this cycle of swindling goes on.

Till then, IT Zindabad!!!

You are a winner and a rebel too....

2009-04-21T19:58:00.002+05:30

The other day someone sent a forward, which said

"You are a winner" - remember that you were the first sperm that reached the egg while you were in your mother's womb.

In the same logic - we can say that

"You are a rebel" - remember you are a direct descendant of the first rebellious monkey that got off the tree - long long ago...

In my deep rooted love for process and innovation, I always want to mention that "The first monkey did not follow the process, so it innovated itself to humans... "

Catbert - in India

2009-04-03T20:35:00.003+05:30

Of late every other IT company in India is firing their over-sized employees (over-sized is not the physical attribute for the employees, but the number of folks working in their company). In last few years, these same folks recruited jonnies, left, right and center; now when the going got tough, the tough (HR) got going…

Catbert – the loved evil-HR-director… is giving tips to Indian IT HR folks…

Here are some stories that are circulating as a word-of-mouth…

In one company, HR called the fellow into their gallows (chamber) and asked the convict to take out a coin and toss it five times. The idea being if he could toss three or more Heads in the five flips, he can stay on.

Somewhere in Bangalore, there was a company, where all the employees were ushered into a wedding hall (around 5000 member size of company). All the employees with odd numbered employee code were asked to raise their left hand. Then the folks who are left handed were asked to lower their hands. Finally, those who were left with their hands raised were fired.

Finally Catbert is having a field day in India… Hope at least this time, the correction stays for good...

As I always - Life is a sinosoidal curve - waves are bound to happen... ;-)

IT in the world of Karl Popper

2008-12-17T07:36:00.003+05:30

We can summarize Karl Poppers critical rationalism in one sentence (my interpretation).

All scientific theories in the world, by default are false or waiting to be falsified.

Let us consider one example – say there is a theory that says "Sun rises in the east". The empirical observation for billions of years would not validate the theory, if for some reason, for just one day, sun raises from South.

The empirical evidence of billions of years would go for toss, with just one proof of counter existence. Or let us say there is no Sun rise at all – in Helio-centric world, there is no Sun rise, as you are on Sun.

Likewise, we can extend this to all other notions in life. Our resumes are all full of the empirical data of our successes, but due to some random cosmic coincidence or conspiracy, there is a chance that one might fail in the next assignment.

Similarly, whenever an IT Architect provides a blue print for a new application, the supporting evidence is always the empirical data from previous projects and the blue print is just waiting for one random event to disprove the "silver bullet" model.

Some past recollections…

1. Robotics was considered to be the next best thing in the world for Automotive industries, till GM spent all their savings and earning for fully automated car manufacturing. (Early 1980s). Till then, 1980, robotics experiments had all empirical data to support that they are cost effective and can never fail.

2. Dotcom bubble (late 1990s) – where pragmatists foretold the disappearance of shopping malls etc and humanity to be pushed into an era of digital life. Once again empirical data cost the investors dearly.

Those of us who understand my blog-process, would have guessed it correctly. I am talking about SOA. Till date we have empirical data to show case that we have our "silver bullet"…

Karl Popper – you may be correct…

Fwd: Ant and a Grasshopper_Indian Version

2008-10-29T20:37:00.001+05:30

..... .Really a class analogy..

An Old Story:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
building its house and

laying up supplies for the winter.
The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs &
dances & plays
the summer away.
Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed.
The Grasshopper has no food or
shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Indian Version:
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
building its house and
laying up supplies for the winter.
The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and laughs &
dances & plays
the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed
while others are cold and starving.
NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper
next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled
with food.
The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor
Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house.
Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that
Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter .
Mayawati states this as `injustice' done on Minorities.
Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Indian Government for
not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.
The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the
Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt
support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance) .
Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for 'Bengal Bandh' in
West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.
CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat
so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and
Grasshoppers.
Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'.
Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the ' Prevention of Terrorism
Against Grasshoppers Act' [POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the
winter.
Arjun Singh makes 'Special Reservation ' for Grasshoppers in Educational
Institutions & in Government Services.
The Ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left
to pay his retroactive taxes, it's home is confiscated by the Government
and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it ' A Triumph of Justice'.

Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice '.

CPM calls it the ' Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden '
Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

Many years later...
The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley,
100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere
in India,
..AND
As a result of loosing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the
grasshoppers,
.
. India is still a developing country…!!!

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Great Indian Competitiveness Advantage is wanning...

2008-10-06T23:39:00.001+05:30

http://www.globalservicesmedia.com/Content/general200709172874.asp

Q. Where did the "great Indian competitiveness go?????"

A. To dogs...

- Read for yourself, how many of the great IT Hubs in India are featured in the article...

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

HDFC Bank - can we bank on it?

2008-09-30T22:49:00.001+05:30

Atanu Dey had had his love-hate relation with HDFC Bank ... Imagine an economist getting a royal $cr*w from them... what about a poor nobody like me...

I recently walked into (on invitation) to the HDFC Bank next door to my office, along with the mandatory documents needed to open a saving account

1. PAN card (with a photocopy)

2. A recent photogragh

3. Proof of address

Everything went fine, till the counter-personnel told me that the address proof I presented cannot be accepted.

The reason: HDFC Credit Card statement cannot be accepted as a proof of address, in spite of you being a loyal credit card user for last four years.

Understand this - they trust me with their money (in form of a credit card) but cant accept my check for depositing my money into their bank. Some crap as reason, about Know Your Customer, yada yada ...

Finally I had to give some other bank's account statement to get the account opened.

After 10 days, I get call from someone from the bank that I have a pre-approved HDFC credit card and when would it be possible for me to fill out some "mandatory" forms to collect my credit card.

Question: Do they really not know - who exactly I was, if I was already an account holder or I am some other jerk, before they issue, rather re-issue a credit card to the exisiting card holder.

No wonder, the world economy is in $H1t shape, with more to come... may be India is also in the queue to get it's due.

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Shameless Indians

2008-09-15T21:35:00.003+05:30

Long time back I wrote this "Shame on me" {Rather sometime in May 2006}

Same drama of shameless Indians and their governing agencies called Govt. of India, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Home Affairs...

Shameless... absolutely shameless....

(In other words - am ashamed to be part of this failed system : Again Shame on Me)

A Sham called Shamshabad Airport

2008-05-03T07:45:00.002+05:30

After a great euphoria over the "International" airport at a place called Shamshabad in Andhra, I was eager to see how the place looks like, when I accidentally ended up there for a transit flight. Knowing the taste of "hype"-loving AP politicians, I was in my true spirits looking forward to some nonsense there. But what disapointed me the most was the names that got mixed in this thing like Singapore Airlines, Malaysian Airport Authority etc.

Considering all International airports in India, Hyderabad was the only place, where pickpockets masqurade as Customs or Immigration officials.

Imagine someone with an Indian passport at the Immigration counter on his return being asked "Where is your visa?". The simple fundamental right of a citizen is "Right of Entry" into his country, unless of course, he/she is "wanted".
Many times on the same evening, while waiting for ur baggage to appear, a guy in White uniform approaches asking "Yaabhai dollar ivvu" (Give me 50 Dollars).

Anyways, there was a huge fanfare, when the airport was inagurated. Some chaos, some uncertainity, what not...

But the point however is, when all the APites give out a list of all the great things about this airport, my question is - do they really understand what an international airport is all about? (The longest runway, biggest airport of Asia, pride of AP, what not... )

May be, these folks need to really make an international trip to Singapore or KL, to get a first hand feel of an international airport, rather than pay INR 700 to enter this place in Hyderabad.

Where are the signs that take you to restrooms (toilets - the best way to judge any public amenity, there are only two in the entire lounge, but where is the display board???)
Why is it that the rest room smells similar to a restroom in Bihar railway station?
Why no coffee counter in the entire lounge? Unless a person goes through the security check area, there is no way he/she can get something to eat or drink, save the useless coke vending machine.
Why no proper accoustics to inform flight arrival or departure? It sounds as if someone is in a deep well and grumbling.
Where are the directions to the internation aminities??? No cybercafe, no wi-fi, no recliner chairs, no currency converters... (See am not talking of security hold area where one hardly spends time. I am talking of the lounge, where one needs to wait in between two flights, if there is a gap of more than three hours. You cannot check in, as it only starts 3 hrs before scheduled departure time, nor you can go out as it is away from city and has miles of wilderness around)
If this insult is the biggest airport, why only six (6) aprons? Even the most worthless International airport of Charles deGuall in Paris has around 50/60 aero-bridges and can handle around 120 flights per hour!
Why are the ground staff ill-informed of everything and always give a response like "we dont know!"

Anyways, it seems media has done a good job of brainwashing all Andhrities into believing that this airport will make a mark on the world map!!!

The truth is

Many people lost out, due to the bubble in the land prices around this airport - mostly the working class.
Many NRIs (the neo-rich, IT types) bought the shares of the GMR consortium - only to lose out. The price per share was INR 260 before the airport was launched, now it is around INR 160.
No one knows, how many kickbacks, how much of cost projected actually went into this airport.

At the end of the day, I know the stock answer - there is lot more to be done, this is just the begining.

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

A decade since…

2008-04-27T19:39:00.002+05:30

It is exactly a decade since I left that place called a college, with a useless degree. As I look back, it was a criminal waste of four (4) years at that place. The worst part of it was, I was not equipped to make it to the IT world. Can you imagine someone to work in the web 1.0 world, without knowing http protocol?

It is something different that in my mandatory subjects had something to do with a subject called “Computer Networks” where we were exposed to all the protocols, without ever taking a practical look at the way systems operated.

Imagine the sorry state of the laboratory – all 286 machines with some 386s sprinkled here and there – meant for the blue cats (those who suck up to the incompetent lecturers).

The bigger mess was not the laboratory, but the useless fellows who masqueraded like lecturers and worse still calling themselves, professors. The entire industry rejects were in the place – as they could have not made it anywhere. The college was also ready to take these jerks, as they were dime a dozen.

However this “decade since” is not about my college (or the school, as they call it in the US) – but about what I did in these 10 years at my disposal.

Read on…

I am uneducated

2008-04-13T10:57:00.006+05:30

Was reading what Atanu Dey was writing about “Reservations in the Indian educational system” in two parts. The question is, I wanted to understand why he was worried about “Reservations” when there is no such called “Indian Education System”.

Wiki defines “System (from Latin systēma, in turn from Greek ' systēma) is a set of entities, real or abstract, comprising a whole where each component interacts with or is related to at least one other component and they all serve a common objective.”

When there is something then it can comprise into something… it is a myth, the people get educated in India!!!!

As per Education – it is something beyond mere literacy. If someone goes to a school/location regularly and gets to know how to read or write few sentences in any language, he/she doesn’t become educated, but he/she is just literate.

For example – when I was in college we had some useless jerks as lecturers. The fellows who were industry rejects, for sake of some peanuts as salary got into academics. What is the end result – blind leading the blind!?! Most part of the Engineering was just Bunkum - as the fellows did not even understand the proper foundations of Mathematics, leave alone teach us the concepts of basic Computation Theory.

What all I needed for my life – I got in my primary school. The A, B, Cs there were good enough!

Hence, I am just literate and totally UNEDUCATED.

Of course, coming back to the topic::

Reservations - in what ever form, are meant to screw the nation even further. It is not a case of sour grape,
that I do not have any reservation etc, but the very concept of reservation
kills the principle of equality.

Deep SHIT

2008-04-04T04:48:00.002+05:30

It was early December of 1998 I was travelling with a friend from Hyderabad to Kurnool, in the grand Govt. bus (called RTC).

As we were discussing things like careers, IT etc... I simply mentioned that I was into deep Shit... to which I was asked by the conservative fellow, not to use "harsh" words...

In some parts of India, it is a taboo to say "Shit" etc.. So I had to give some definition to save my face... so quickly concocted that SHIT stands for

Software
Hardware
Information
Technology

Today as I look back - a cool decade later...

I was RIGHT - DAMN RIGHT....

SHIT and Deeeeep SHIT :-)

Bhutto and Cargo Cult

2008-01-02T08:38:00.001+05:30

Editor of "India Secular" questions about Bhutto-mania and the rationalism (or lack of it) behind all the furore.

Atanu Dey's wonderful post (circa 2004) is quite apt here. Cargo-Cult-Democracy

Modi to Advani is same as Ram-Temple was to Vijpai

2007-12-31T13:53:00.001+05:30

Now that the dust from the celebrations of Modi's win is done, with some crying out in disbelief [The TV anchors etc of some "stay-cooler" channels], some running around for his head [Karan Thapar - suddently remove him], some using the wave to get a ride to power [Pujya Advani ji].

It was sometime in December of early '90s that a political party promised a Ram Temple, made some acrobatics and claimed the trophy of breaking a disputed structure. While in reality, it were volunteers of a great religion, who did not care for their lives - who did the breaking, while the political folks who were mere bystanders, got (rather stole) the credit.

After that, this political party went out of way, with promises of Ram Temple! The gullible folks of the great religion believed those false promises and lymiricks etc and voted them along with their stooges to power. What was the end result?

5-yrs of corruption, fooling the public etc and only when the election day was near they remembered the original promise. They went out of the way to tell all that they were in an "alliance" so could not do much. A common man would ask -

Why the hell did you go to claim power, if you did not have enough majority?

Why did you fool - all of us?

What is your claim this time?

Then, when the common man realized that this party is very much same as other Khandani-cheats, they were shown the door.

Now, the think-tank (if any?) did not know what to do!!!

The second in command, pujya Advani ji, took the next Bus to Lahore and made some desparate attempts to win the vote bank, akin the Khandani-Cheats. Jinnah became So-Cool(er) and "ji" wanted to play the "Stay-Cooler" card.

After a year or so, he found that due to the real men in his party, there were chances of he coming back to power and immideately ran to his past master and asked them to make him PM-in-waiting, least that the real men start making claims.

Modi (a real man among men) came back to power and like the Khandanis our pujya Advani ji is not tiried singing praise to him.

If the said party comes to power, will they deliver what they have been promising?

Will they put our dear neighbours in their place?

Will they solve the problem of infiltrated Banga Bhandus in old city of Hyd?

Only time will tell - if people are willing to be taken for a ride, time and again!!!!!!

huh.. the same old IT job hunt...

2007-12-30T22:21:00.003+05:30

Folks, on a serious note - does IT matter??

Seems yes, for many [sic] who just want to get into IT and then lead a zombic life....

Below is a mail from someone - who just wants to get into an IT Service company....

anyways, God bless these souls...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anil Kurnool
Date: Dec 30, 2007 9:36 PM
Subject: Re: Hi AnilKurnool
To:
Cc:

Hi Vijay,

I am not discouraging him. If he gets a fish today (10K job) when will he learn to do fishing for himself?

My comments about SAP/IT Services etc are in general and I do not want any Indian to waste their energies in IT Services world.

Well, you suggestion is taken on the face value of it. (Don't help but Don't do bad also)

I remember that there was never a bad thing from my side till date - nor I did harm to anyone. Regarding help, I do not want to blow my own trumpet here.

However, thanks for giving me an oppurtunity to spend time in these groups, which today I feel, could have been used for other activities, instead of discouraging folks.

Regards,
Anil Prasad Kurnool
http://www.anilprasad.com/

On 12/30/07, Vijaya Mohan S wrote:

__,_._,___

Hi Anil,

Nice to see your comments.Dheeraj is asking for only 10K job not more than that?? Instead of giving comments it would be nice if we can help him getting a good job so that he can run is life without any problems.we should not hurt anybody on thoughts and achievements.This type of mails will discourage the people.

My Suggestion is Don't help but Don't do bad also???.we shouldn't discourage any one.I saw so many degreee people are also well settled in software fields.DHeeraj is a pg graduate.He can fulfill his dreams.Hardwork and luck can change everyhting in them.

Try to Encourage people.By typing this type of mails you will be not getting anything else dheeraj will loose some confidence.So my Request for you is to Support and Encourage People instead of commenting on them.if not possible try to be silent.

Anil I dont want to Hurt you.

Regards

Vijay

Anil Kurnool wrote:

Hi Dheeraj,
I am not Vijay Mohan - to whom you addressed this mail, but felt I could give you some gyan....
1. It is not your "luck" that is not favoring you - but yourself!!!! From your mail id I can see that you got something to do with Physics; then why did you go and apply for a job in a IT services company?????
2. SAP (ABAP) is not software as many people consider them to be. They are enterprise tools, not for conducting laboratory tests like fibonacii series etc, but to do something really commercial things for an business.
To get into SAP/Enterprise world, first one needs to acquire domain skills then can play around with the Enterprise tools. Just because some Ameerpet Brand training center showcases some non-existant jobs, people rush there, spend their money and join companies... what is the end result...
the day recession starts off, these are the same folks that are thrown out of companies and everyone will start screeming that IT is bad etc... (remember 2000-2 period, when everyone was talking ill of IT)
3. Why are you limiting yourself to 10K per month!!???!! If you realy apply yourself - the money is surplus...
4. why are you asking Vijay Mohan to help you with your job search! Do it yourself, that way you will reach your goals faster and end result is more strong psyche!!
This also applys to others in the group who are just running around with resumes - thinking of getting into some IT services company will solve their problems. This is not true, but it can be begining of new troubles...

On 12/30/07, dheeraj wrote:
Dear
vijay mohan.S

I am Dheeraj ..i have recently received a employee ref of srinivasa
rao of wipro from u ..His response was very nice and gave his ref
also...But my luck didnt favour me..i was shortlisted in written test
and selected for technical interview also..but there i was rejected
because i have no it Skills except SAP ABAP knowledge ...

It was really hurting..But no prob ..life does not end there..can u
show me any job opputunities gor my qualification in any of the
software firms in hyd which can pay me atleast 10k ..so that i can
support myself financially without depending upon my parents ..

once again thank u so much for the support u have given

with best ragards

DHEERAJ MUDUNURI

--
~~~~ http://www.anilprasad.com/

Our problems...

2007-12-23T10:18:00.000+05:30

Most of the problems in this world are similar....

Happy Days - Movie

2007-12-22T11:55:00.001+05:30

There was a kind of furore over the recent film by Kammula Shekar - called "Happy Days". Everyone whom I bumped across asked me, if I had watched that movie. Jeevi gave his review at IdleBrain, which was definitely a shade better than all others movies. (This movie had a 3.5 rating, while other were lingering around 3).

To top it up, a CTO of a telecom product company mentioned that movie was good. Another CEO of a promising startup made a special mention of the movie and asked me to watch it. Of course, this mail is marked to them too :-)

As I stay in places where Telegu movies are shown only for a week or two, I searched for the DVD (pirated, of course) for the same and finally watched it. My take on the movie is here...

1. Why only the "love" angle of collage life was showcased for most part of the movie?
2. The jokes/themes I felt was a bit cliche!
3. Ragging also had a good running time in the movie, but again the cliche ragging... :-(

I also studied in an Engg. college, that too run-of-a-mill, so could relate to the theme - Engg student's college life. But I felt the director was trying to reinforcing the popular beliefs of these Engg. Colleges than showcasing the "other side" of things that happens in colleges.

There are many aspects to college than just flirting, love, seniors, ragging etc.

There is fun - not just chasing chicks, but real fun in decent way.

There are real-teachers whom one can call "Gurus" who give advices worth remembering.

Also there are ar$eh01es who are industry-rejects and join the place and call themselves "Lecturers". (Majority are the second category, while the first breed are very rare and near to extinction.)

There are enterprising students, who strive to achieve things, but are sidelined by the show-off minorities.

All in all, I would give the movie a rating of 1.5 and on the technical side, it looked more like a tele-film rather than a film-film.

Someone may wonder, what was it that was expecting in the movie - then wait for the movie called "T-Bunk!" directed by Kurnool Anil ;-)

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

In the end....

2007-12-06T12:47:00.000+05:30

Ever heard the song "In the end... " by Linkin Park... (lyrics)

I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter

The sentance is of at most importance... What ever you do, how ever hard you try, in the end, It just doesn't matter...

Be it life, be it a game, be it a match... only the results matter... whether you won the match or not... no one ever cares to know, how hard you fought, how tough the situation was... as in the end, it just doesn't matter...

Re: Journey after death

2007-11-30T11:30:00.002+05:30

Disclaimer: Purely my own fiction, not for serious reading.

Once a person dies, his atma will be lingering around this globe with out direction! So his son, does these "karyalu" just to ensure that the old-man's atma understands that he has really died. Else, the dead fellow will remian in this planet itself and will never ever give account of his punya or paapam to his creator.

Then, they give a gow-daanam (Cow is donated) so that the atma can take the tail of the Cow and cross the vitharini - the most polluted river. The significance of this is - dumbos, the pollution you make on this planet effect your safe passage to hell/heaven, so do not pollute this place.

Then, the 13th day celebration - so that the remaining folks can celebrate the departure of the old man. All along this oldie might have created all sorts of troubles to the people, with his useless advices and rules, so the young will celebrate his death... hence it is called "pandaga". The significance is - dumbos, do not cause unnecessary trouble to others while you are alive, least that they celebrate your death.

Masikam - it is like the monthy money-order that needs to be sent to the hell/heaven, so that the old man gets his food at regular intervals.

Samvarsarikam - it is the annual subscription for registering the dead folks at their abode.

Moral: Why worry about after death - give the old fellows their due respect etc while they are alive. There is no use donating a Cow after someone's death, when you did not share a glass of milk with that person when alive. Why do all these kandas, when you did not give one meal a day to your elders.

My take: I am really awerse to the a$$h01es who do these kind of dramas to their "pithru devulus" - but when they were alive did not even care to give good food or residence.

What ever I have written is what I interpret - based on my limited knowledge of rituals. But one thing - think of yourselves and your nearones, when you are alive - not after death. For Death is unknown and also cannot be known.

On 11/30/07, Sunil Kumar Surabhi <...> wrote:

Hi all,

I would like to know the actual meaning behind the various rituals, we normally perform after the death of some one i.e. from the day one of the death to 13th day and monthly rituals (Maasikams) till the first death ceremony (Edudi/Saamvastarikam), sorry if i mis-spelt.

I would also like to know the stages of journey of the soul to heaven, through out these 12 months.

I guess Athreya garu is the fit person to explain this. I request others also to help me in knowing this.

Thanks and regards
Sunil Surabhi.

.

__,_._,___

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Resource Management (part 1)

2007-11-19T20:10:00.000+05:30

Resource management is supposed to handle all the resourcing requests for the project execution. Were you thinking the resources in this context meant resources like money, systems, assets, time etc? You are mistaken; resources here mean “humans” – the same folks who are supposed to be working and generating revenue for the company.

The day people are treated as resources, that needs to be managed, that is the day, which gives a sure shot signal that the company is on its way to rot.

The fellows are humans after all, with lots of passion, emotions, what not.

“Human Resources” – I do not know who invented this word or the new version of it “Human Capital” to be make sure it is soft; but the main intention is to bluff the fellows into being money generating machines, whom the sales guys can pitch in wherever needed. Last month I sold 100 washing machines (or cookers or mouse traps etc) this month I need to sell 120 washing machines. Instead, in the IT world, it might translate into man-hours; last month around 30 person-days was sold to customer X, this month let me sell 35 person-days.

Rats!!!

Here are few stories that can demonstrate the “human apathy” in the name of “human resources”

I met Dr. G after a long time, say six months, at a marriage reception. He was
bit disturbed about his work, and then I prodded him to talk out.

Apparently G’s company sent out mails to all its employees about
the approaching dates when the office would be moved to an “up-market” area and
suggested all its employees to make necessary arrangements to start working out
of that location.

This story is around 6 months old and G told me
the last time when we met. As usual, the cynic in me told him wait till the
office really moves to the new location and then make his moves only after one
month of the new premises.

However, as with everyone, G too was
new to this corporate crap and paid heftily to realtors to get him an apartment
in the near-by area. His new apartment is around 1-km from his company’s new
office, which also made a severe dent in his pocket. Rent was double that of the
old house, due to its up-market label, but the trade off was, he can walk to his
place of work.

G moved to his new apartment and his company never
moved to the new location. Next month, on his enquiry it was mentioned that the
plans were cancelled long back. Now, G is left with a baby in middle of nowhere.

No wonder G is now pissed off… unlike the IT consultants in US, people do not shift houses every quarter in India.

N.K.Ramamurthy joined us with promises of onsite trip then his resume was placed
with many customers for their requirements.

An Australian
sales-person was very happy to get NKR’s profile and we even got his Work-Permit
processed so that he is ready to travel once we get a “go” from customer.
Somehow it never worked out.

Next his resume was given to a
European client, NR attended three rounds of interview and his work-permit was
again processed. Once again, customer never gave a go ahead for the project.

Finally a “happening” customer was eager to get him on-board. Once
again our travel desk got his visa readied. There was customer “go”, this fellow
surrendered his system at the local office, removed his bag and baggage from his
rented apartment, visited his native to meet his parents (seems to have had a
farewell party too) and gave a party to all the local office folks (lost around
15K INR). The next day forex was readied, tickets issued, his roomies and he
started to airport in a cab.

A call from account-manager, that the
project was scrapped due to certain budget constraints.

NKR, next
day walked back into office like a headless chicken.

NKR definitely is pissed off that no-one at least cared to explain what happened. He was just shuttled between office and various consulates and finally between airport and his home, with out any proper explanation.

Here is the case of Ms.D

Ms. D was selected for replacement of another Ms.R at onsite. I was the one
handling the customer at that point of time and I made all the arrangement
readied for her first visit abroad.

For her work, customer made
all the arrangements like, system, user-ids, access controls, KT documents etc.

But in the evening of the previous day, customer called me to his
room and informed me that we wont be needed Ms.D as the work she was supposed to
be doing was postponed for another quarter.

I duly relayed the
information to the offshore resource-manager and thought it was end of my duty.
But next day, I got a call from her, that she was starting to airport and wanted
to just to inform me.

This sent me into action and I called the
resource-manager at offshore to know what the situation was. It seems he was
aware of the fact that her travel has been cancelled, but “forgot” to tell her.
I firmly asked him to inform her of cancelled travel, which I believe he
did not do. Finally I called her just 2-hrs before the flight take off, she was
at airport already (poor thing) to tell her that her travel is cancelled.

Later that day, someone called me from offshore that people were cursing me for the cancelled travel.

Mutual Admiration Club

2007-11-19T18:56:00.001+05:30

We usually come across a band-of-brothers who never ever get tired of praising each other. A praises B, B praises C, C praises A. All in all, these folks A, B, C are supposed to be the "holier than thou" of the company, they are supposed to be direct decendants of Einstein or Kholer or God-knows-who and always make it a point to talk jargon, put down other simple folks, ensure that their nonsense goes down as "intellectual" talk.

Let me give you an old story to help digest the concenpt...

Once in a remote village there was a great Guru, who had an ever greater
student. They were so famous that people from far off places used to come to
meet them, to get some gyan.

As was the case, one day a student who was eager for knowledge came all the
way to their school. Being new to that place, he encountered a strange animal,
which he had never seen before. On meeting with the teacher he asked him what
that animal was.

Teacher gave a learned laugh and said it was a "marjhalam" and moved on to
address other topics. Student tried to ask some more about the same animal, but
teacher avoided.

After the first day, teacher assigned this new fellow to the already
mentioned great student, so that he, the great Guru can concentrate on "bigger"
things.

This guy asked the great student, what that animal was, in all due good
intentions. The great student with all the popuousness answered that it was a
"bidalam". This guy was still curious to know what it was and asked few more
questions, for which the great student flew in rage and banished this new guy
from school as he was unfit for education.

Our new student was dejected and while walking out of the school
campus, met the watchman and again enquired him about the animal. Watchman
mentioned that it was a "pilli".

Bidalam, Marjhalam are other names for Pilli, which in Telugu means a
"common cat".

The story just illustrates the concept of MAC superficially. If one looks more closely around, we all can see these personality-types in every company, organization, schools, colleages etc.

Tell tale signs that you are a member of MAC, if you see any one of the following symptom in you

Only X, who is your friend, knows how to do some Y and all your friends agree to it.
In your friend circle, each one of you mapped to one particular vertical and all of you agree that each one is an expert in their respective area.
Even if someone points out to evidence contrary to your belief that your friend has goofed up, you would not agree to it, nor would consider others argument, but you would go all out to defend it.

The point however is, complecence in corporates is due to these MACs, who stick to the system like parasites.

Is it true?

2007-11-11T19:42:00.002+05:30

I was reading this on an desi-site, where the author refers to a "Princeton University" study, which finds that there is a discrimination towards people, while recruiting.

Of course, I am aware of discrimination of recruitment in Govt. sector jobs, where said "quota" of positions and promotions are based on race/color/caste/creed/political-suckup etc.

But this one talks of discrimination in private sector, which is really stunning. I have not come across any discriminations.

May be, some Atlantists/Yankee types are trying to plant seeds in minds of the growing private sector in India, just to break the economy here.

Comments please...

The Article is here : http://desicritics.org/2007/11/10/103914.php

The said study report is here: http://www.epw.org.in/uploads/articles/11135.pdf

New Stuff

2007-09-09T10:17:00.001+05:30

I have decided to blog more regularly and definitely on few topics, in context if India based IT Companies....

1. Resource Management
2. Thought Leadership
3. Technology Innovation

These posts are real stories, with names of persons/companies masked to protect the identities of the unfortunate souls.

Coffee @ IITM & Snack @ Ascendas

2007-09-09T10:15:00.001+05:30

There are times when we all get a time, when "we do not know what to do". Same was the case with me, recently.

So thought of paying visit to the old haunts of mine, which I did not care to visit in recent past.

The food court of Ascendas, ironically called Planet Yumm [sic] was busy with those useless types, who wanted to be there so that they are "in". Some yuppies also were busy checking mails or chating or God-know-what, but I could find at least 25% of tables were with open laptops. If they were that busy, what the hell are they doing there, instead of being in their office? If they were visitors to the city and they were there, it is understood. But they were the colleage going types or fresh job holders...

The point however was the cost of two scoops of Ice-cream that my daughter and I had. Taste and Quality were so-so, but it did burn a decent hole in my pocket.

Of course, that place had "free" wi-fi, so what!!!

Then went to near-by IITM. Met few old friends there and ended up at the Coffee Day. The day was bit cool, due to sudden burst of rain, so a hot cup of cuppacino would add pep. But when it was served, it was an eeeek! Slightly warmer than ice cube.

The bloke who served us mentioned that the coffee was at 80 degree C - lying through his nose and his rear :-). Took his manager's name and called him. Seems managers are always in traffic when it is a negative feedback.

Alex - Coffee day bloke, should know how to lie or market his useless coffee, instead of giving ridiculous temparature numbers...

Rakesh - learn to take feedback, even if negative. Switch on your mobile/s - 9884489389 and 9940449416.

May be, those are the places for those useless types... should make it a point not to get back there again... even by mistake...

I think we as a nation should learn how to "serve" Indian customers, not just those "phorein" types and those Non - Required - Indians (NRI)...

Kaoboys of R&AW - my take

2007-08-22T20:02:00.001+05:30

Dear All,

Just wanted to comment on the book, Kaoboys of R&AW.

For the starters, the book lives upto the expectations of any self respecting Indian. It also acts as a testimony that not all politicians are money hungry, corrupt politicians. Of course, there were some shady details about the life styles of some of the corrupt officials in the system, but we have lived with it.

Observations

1. It was more biased towards the good deeds of Rajiv and Indira, while skillfully ignoring their gaps. May be, like all humans, they were prudent at some places and foolish else where. However, one gets a feeling if it were a propoganda material, esp. after reading so elaborately about the PSYWAR :-)

2. Wish the editor or proof reader did more of his/her job and ensured that some of the paragraphs were not repeated over and over again.

3. A tangent here. The author did not talk of Sonia angle to deaths of Indira and Rajiv, as our dear Subramaniaswamy did, after his "investigations". Nor anywhere mentions KGB/Gestapo links to Sonia.

4. Apart from the usual suspects for Indian troubles like ISI, CIA, FBI, MI series, Lankans, Chinese, et al, there was a mention of Baptists. Did someone just now shout - Didn't I say so!!!

If R&AW is as good and powerful as it was made out to be, my salutes to them!!!

Regards,
Anil Kurnool

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Who ate my 3.9 Idlies?

2007-07-14T21:45:00.001+05:30

I am back to Blog-o-Sphere after a long time and this time I hope that my stay here will be long enough… unless, aliens again kidnap me.

After I read my P/L statement, i.e. my appraisal letter and revised pay, two questions cropped up in my mind….

1. Why the long cycle?
2. Who ate my 3.9 Idlies?

Let me address each of them

1. Why the long cycle?

When the world is moving towards faster lanes, where an Olympic athlete is measure in fraction of seconds, microprocessors in nanoseconds and fighter planes in Macs; then why we, the coolies, are measured once a calendar year?

IT technology, they say, is obsolete by the time we learn it. Look at the fad-change-rate. In last few years, we have the hypes of SOA, AJAX, EAI, Agile, Lean and Mean, SOX, SOA-Governance, SODA, Whisky, Ice Cubes, Septic Tanks what not….

Every quarter, the poor coolie is asked to learn something he did not know before or worse still asked to unlearn what he had learnt just a quarter ago.

Then why is he measured in one year cycles? Why can’t HR decide his fate every quarter, than make him live through 10 months of slogging and 2 months of suspense?

Well, the standard answer is process? The most dirty word used to say, when you want to avoid something. Process says what you cannot do, but can/will never say, what should be done?

Anyway, I leave this question at that, than getting into another philosophical reasoning, about the very existence of the spices called coolies.

2. Who ate my 3.9 Idlies?

Every employee, whether a coolie or not, always dreams of an inflation immune salary hike. Let us consider an example, so that my question is clear.

In year 2006, one Idly at Murugan Idly shop was priced at Rs. 5 each. (Let us leave the debate of the quality of the goods at Muruguan Idly shop, for a later date and stick to the context.)

So a coolie, when he walks into that shop with Rs. 100 can buy around 20 Idlies.

A year moves on and coolie gets an hike of 30%, moving his salary from Rs 100 to Rs 130, of which 25% is a “variable component”. Here the term “variable component” is the culprit, which is a polished way in which companies con the coolies to think that they are earning more. But in reality, that money is never paid, due to some reason or the other, say Rupee appreciation, Falling Dollar value, Low-Customer Satisfaction (tell me when was any customer ever happy) and Low-Sucking-up-of-manager.

So our coolie, in effects gets a salary of Rs97.50 (Rs.130 – 25%), which is in effect, way less than his inflation adjusted yesteryear’s salary of Rs. 107 (Rs. 100 + 7%). By this time, Murugan blokes have raised the price of Idly from Rs. 5 to Rs. 6.

This time, when our coolie walks into that same shop, he walks out with only 16.1 Idlies. (Rs 97.50 / Rs. 6)

So – who ate my 3.9 Idlies??????

Bottom line – life of our coolie goes on, in his archetypical make-believe world. He is ignorant of the ways, he is conned by everyone, at every mode of life, be it at cinema theaters, at idly shops, on roads, by tax-man, by boss, by customers, by families.

Ultimately, one fine day, when he wakes from his sweet dream, he will understand the truth that was, that the dream was not sweet, but was a nightmare. Till then, IT zindabad.

Update 1: A friend called me after reading this and asked if I was disappointed at my appraisal. The truth is I got 4 on a likert scale of 1-4 and was given out-standing rating by both my level-1 and level-2 supervisors, which resulted in me getting to a coveted fancy designation in my organization.

This rant was on behalf of all the coolies of India.

Scored 28 in VCAT

2006-11-30T14:51:00.000+05:30

Check out what Guy Kawasaki has to say to all aspiring entrants into the VC-funded world.

I scored 28 : Meaning I should send your resume to 2,000 venture capitalists and pray.

Here I am praying... err blogging...

Boston Groups - Top 100 Companies of RDE

2006-06-11T22:55:00.000+05:30

http://www.bcg.com/publications/files/New_Global_Challengers_May06.pdf

Some good pointers from the article....

1. "The Indian Software houses Infosys and Wipro - represent only a
small fraction of larger phenomenon."

2. Bajaj Auto, Bharath Forge, Cipla, Crompton Greaves, Dr. Reddy,
Hindalco, Infosys, L&T, Mahendra & Mahendra, ONGC, Ranbaxy, Reliance,
Satyam, , TCS, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Tea, TVS, Viedocon, VSNL,
Wipro are listed in the top 100 companies.

3. India has only 21% share while China is having 44%

My Question: When will the time bomb (China) explode and take away that
"English" edge over India to clean sweep the IT markets? (3)

My take: Why all the hype about the IT boom in India, when only 4 of the
21 companies are into IT services.... (1) and (2)

Regards,
Anil Kurnool

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Interesting community....

2006-06-09T23:13:00.000+05:30

Hi,

Please check this community in Orkut.... Let me know your reaction....

http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=14314003

Regards,

Anil Prasad

PS: This is not a propoanda/marketing mail. Want you to really take a look.

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Fwd: Re: IMPORTANT -- Please read/circulate ( Apologize for the formatting )

2006-05-31T09:12:00.001+05:30

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: S. Kalyanaraman
Date: May 31, 2006 3:37 AM

Subject: Re: IMPORTANT -- Please read/circulate ( Apologize for the formatting )

To:

Title: water or gold...?

please read this and pass it...when the last tree is cut and when the last glacier(watershed) is destroyedwe will have to drink gold or sulphuric acid......

Please read about this absolute atrocity that is happening in Chile, thatcould eventually happen in your own home, or maybe already is. Andmay this inspire us to say NO MORE and start changing the world we live in!

In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from 2rivers, fed by 2 glaciers. Water is a most precious resource, and wars willbe fought for it. Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they provide the second largest source of income for the area.Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other minerals. To get at these, it would be necessary to break, to destroy the glaciers - something never conceived of in the history of the world - and to make 2 huge holes, each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and one for the mine's rubbish tip.The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick Gold. The operation is planned by a multinational company, one of whose *members is George Bush Senior.*

The Chilean Government has approved the project to start this year, 2006. The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the farmers have got a temporary stay of execution. If they destroy the glaciers, they will not just destroy the source of especially pure water, but they will permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so they will never again be fit for human or animal consumption because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in the extraction process.Every last gram of gold will go abroad to the multinational company and not one will be left with the people whose land it is. They will onlybe left with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses.

The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior. Their only hope now of putting brakes on this project is to get help from international justice.
The world must know what is happening in Chile. The only place to start changing the world is from here.We ask you to circulate this message amongst your friends in the following way.Please copy this text, paste it into a new email adding your signature and send it to everyone in your address book.

Please, will the 100th person to receive and sign the petition, send it to noapascualama@yahoo.ca

to be forwarded

To the Chilean Government.

NO to the Pascua Lama Open Cast Mine in the Andean Corillera on the
Chilean-Argentine frontier.We ask the Chilean Government not to authorize
the
Pascua Lama project to protect the whole of 3 glaciers, the purity of
the water
of the San Felix Valley and El Transito, the quality of the
agricultural land of
the region of Atacama, the quality of life of the
Diaguita people and of the
whole population of the region.

Signature, City, Country

and please google the subject to find out more info for yourself....to find out how else
you can get involved.

Here is one link for you to check out:

http://www.tierramerica.net/2005/0618/iarticulo.shtml

1) Katharine Proudfoot, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

2) Laura Cole, London, UK

3) David Platt, London, UK

4) Diane Platt, Manchester, UK

5) Tanya Corker, Manchester, UK

6) Nicola Hargreaves, UK

7) Nicholas Jones, UK

8) Johann Don-Daniel, Germany

9) Ashley Berger, Germany

10) Sarah Downie, Leeds, UK

11) Paula Delahunty, Bingley, UK

12) John O'Driscoll, Bingley, Uk

13) Jordan-Lee Delahunty, Bingley, UK

14) Claire Mulvey, Bradford, UK

15) Marie Malcolm Bradford, UK

16) Ann Clowes, Halifax UK

17) Jayne McGee, Brighouse UK

18) Jason Barratt Oldham UK

19) Lindsay Torrance, Rochdale UK

20) Maggie Ford, Rochdale, U.K.

21) Barry Cook, Todmorden, U.K.

22) Shelley Burgoyne, Todmorden, U.K.

23) Lisa Stuart, Potes, Spain.

24) Michael Stuart, Potes, Spain.

25) Renee Engl, Byron Bay, Australia

26) Adrian Begg, Brunswick Heads, Australia

27) Riana Begg, Brunswick Heads, Australia

28) Oriel Paterson, Brunswick Heads, Australia

29) Alicia Paterson, Brisbane, Australia

30) Lyneve Robinson, Sydney, Australia

31) Jennifer Moalem, Sydney, Australia

32) Alexandra Pope, Sydney Australia

33) Shushann Movsessian, Sydney Australia

34) Amanda Frost35) Chris Liddell, AUS

36) Jade Deegan, AUS37) Jo Satori, AUS

38) Jennie Gorman, Vic AUS

39) Angelique Queensley, Victoria, Can

40)Chrystyanna Queensley, Victoria, Can

41) Dawna Masters, San Miguel De Allende, Mex.

42) John Gillespie, Canada43. Lynn Askey, Canada

44) Blanche Tanner B.C. Canada

45)Harreson Tanner B.C. Canada

46) peggy johnston B.C. Canada

47)Richard Welmers, Los Angeles, CA

48)Carlos Madrid Mora, Sebastopol, CA.

49) Pamela Schneider, Montreal, QC Canada

50) Jean-Marc Abela, Montreal, Qc, Canada

51) Khrystell E. Burlin, Toronto, ON, Canada

52) Sandy Powlik, Victoria, BC, Canada

53) Chad Unser, San Juan Del Sur, Nicargua

54) Suzanne Kimball, Mexico D.F., Mexico

55) Carol W. Shweder, Chilmark, MA, USA

56) Chitra Raman, Grosse Pointe, MI, USA.

57) S. Kalyanaraman, Chennai, India

58) Anil Kurnool, India

Fwd: Quota row:meritorious students to return medals received for academic excellence

2006-05-29T23:53:00.001+05:30

A novel way to fight quota raj....

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ARYA <mailto:jiski_lathi_uski_bhains@yahoo.co.in>
Date: May 29, 2006 10:00 PM
Subject:Quota row:meritorious students to return medals received for academic excellence
To:

News for group:

Quota row: meritorious students to return medals received for academic excellence:

New Delhi/Bhopal/Kanpur, May 29 (ANI): Medical and engineering students, who have rejected appeals from Prime Minister, to withdraw their fortnight-long agitation against caste-based quota in higher education institutes, threatened self-immolation, if the Central Government failed to withdraw the controversial move.

Some meritorious students also announced to return medals received for academic excellence to the President.

The striking medical students in New Delhi were joined by their counterparts from across the country.

Anand Rai, general secretary of Madhya Pradesh junior doctors association, who was in the city to express solidarity with medical students sitting on hunger strike, said their medals did not hold any value after the government proposed quota.

"By returning the medals, we just want to show that these medals, which are in fact given as an encouragement for meritorious students, are of no use for us. By introducing quota, they are closing our roads for progress, so what is the purpose of our keeping them?" said Rai.

In Bhopal, protesting medicos staged mock public hanging and threatened to turn it real if government went ahead with the move.

"This is only a symbolic hanging, but if the government goes ahead with its decision to implement the proposed move, we'll commit suicide," said Ashutosh Dikshit, a protesting medical student.

Students at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) also went on a hunger strike to protest the government's decision to go ahead with the reservation plans.

Students said reservation, if at all is implemented, should be along economic lines.

"First of all, we are against any kind of reservation that is done on the basis of caste. If any reservation has to be done that should not be on the basis of caste or religion but on economic inequalities. This bill should be taken back," said Chandrashekhar Sharma, a protesting engineering student.

On Sunday, the Cebtral Government had assured the students that adequate facilities would be made available to the educational institutions before implementing the new move but the medicos said that the government was presenting them the same recommendations that they had rejected earlier.

The Central Government has stood firm by its stand to implement the proposed reservation from the next academic year.

Thousand of students across the country are protesting the government move to hike the number of seats for the socially backward classes in higher educational institutions.

The latest government move plans to increase the quota for lower castes by 27 percentage points, which would mean nearly half the places in state-funded medical, engineering and management colleges and Central universities would be set aside for other backward castes or OBCs.

But the general category students complain that they will have to compete more fiercely for the unfairly low portion of remaining seats if the quota move is implemented as expected by June 2007. (ANI)

Informer:

Arya.

Jai Hind!

Akhilesh Mithal - Reg

2006-05-29T10:11:00.000+05:30

http://www.deccan.com/Sunday%20Chronicle/Sunday%20ChronicleDescription.asp

Dear All,

Yesterday's DC carried "Ithihass" by Sri. Akhilesh Mithal. I object to the following in his article. (Can someone provide me his mail-id.)

"The darkest age of Indian history, British Rule, started in 1757. Sirajuddowlah, betrayed by his Diwan Raja Durlabhram Bose-Som lost the Battle of Plassey to Robert Clive. The Raja subverted the loyalty of Mir Bakhshi (Army commander and paymaster) Mir Ja'afar by offering him the gaddi of Murshidabad. Three out of the four divisions of the Nawab's army did not fight the battle of Plassey."

We all know of Mir Jaffer, where did this Raja come from?? (From a pipe dream???)

"Constructive use should be made of the Netaji heritage instead of wasting time, money and effort on whether or not he died on August 18, 1945."

If truth is not out, then why this Govt? If all heros' die unsung and are relegated to legacy, this nation would go to dogs.

Regards,

Anil Prasad

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Fwd: Make India a knowledge economy

2006-05-26T00:25:00.000+05:30

A wonderful insight into the real India.... [Courtesy Krishna]

Making INDIA a Knowledge Economy

It is necessary to first understand the entire "Matrix" in education. Even after 59 years of Independence, the following situation remains as far as the Human Capital Development of our country is concerned:-

Drop-out rate in schools from KG to 10+2 is (including those who never attended school) 90% to 94%.
China has about 1.80 million schools, while we have in India about 0.95 million schools!
The "Governance" in Government run schools is very low. In many cases teachers are absent (15% to 40% absenteeism) from schools in rural and urban schools of India and are paid full wages and perks in spite of this! Studies have shown that even the poorest of the poor rather send their children to un-aided schools where fees have to be paid and not to government run free schools. The quality of schooling of such unaided schools is higher than Government schools although the salary of Government teachers is two to three times higher than the teachers of the un-aided schools.
The existing Indian definition of Literacy (if you can write your name you are literate) needs to be amended to International Standards.
As per the Ministry of HRD the present illiteracy is ONLY 37% or 430 million people, while as per UNICEF and UNDP it is nearly 60% or 650 million people. China has a Literacy rate of about 93% literacy.
The first step of making India a knowledge economy is literacy and needs to be given A1 priority.
The total amount spent on education is about Rs. 81,000 crores per year. 10% by the Central Govt. and 90% by the State Governments The Education Cess will collect another Rs. 7000 crores per year. This is about 3.3% of GDP. The MHRD has calculated that another Rs. 40,000 crores per year would be required only for additional requirements for Primary Education!
We estimate that another Rs. 100,000 crores are required per year just to have reasonable quality of Primary and Secondary education, up to Class 10th., which is where the Central and State Governments should concentrate for the next 10 to 20 years, or till we have at least 95% Literacy and at least 80% of the population who are completing the High School stage or Class 10th.
As per our estimates the total expenditure for education is nearly 8% of GDP, about 3.3% from Government and about 4.7% from private participation . This includes funding of unaided schools and colleges+ bribes and capitation fees + payment for students studying abroad + tuition classes +coaching classes +private I.T. & Software training institutes. Most of this private funding is confined to urban areas where only 30% stay.
About 7% to 8% of the youth who finish the 10+2 stage (pre-university) enter the17, 600 colleges of India . 70% of all graduates are B.A. or Arts graduates. Is this relevant today? Most of these so called graduates are not-employable.
Of all new employment taking place nearly 60% are self employed. About New Employment - 1% is with government, 2% with the private 'organized sector' and 97% with the 'unorganized sector'.
Presently there is little connect between education and employment generation & quality of Life
The employers associations, chambers of commerce and other business organizations are fragmented. There is no "National Common Minimum Program" for "education and training of manpower" in India. In most developed and developing countries the Chambers of Commerce (who represent the employers and business) Lead from the front.
About 29 million people are added every year to the existing education system, which is like adding another Australia + Hong Kong + Singapore & UAE per year!
Presently both the Central Government as well as the State Governments are running in Financial Deficits, of about 9% to 11% of GDP, so the question of additional financing for education will strain not only the existing budgets but also put pressure on other sectors, where funds are being presently allocated.
"Licence Raj" runs all Higher & Technical Education in India. Let us Bench-Mark with USA, Germany and Japan, the three largest economies of the World account for nearly 50% of the world's GDP. Do their governments exert similar controls as we have in India? Can we learn from them? There is fierce competition between the institutions in these countries for excellence!
China has about 900 Universities, while we in India have 372 Universities. Japan has 4000!
In India, the fees of the courses, pay-scales to the teachers, appointment of the head of the Institution and the syllabus, are decided by the 58 or more Central and State-Government Boards of Education. Will this create innovation, excellence and world class students?
The Coaching Business is getting bigger than the Education Business, entrance examinations for the IIT's, IIM's and a few prestigious management schools attract about 600,000 applications (who spend nearly Rs.2.00 lac each for pre-coaching, amounting to Rs.12,000 crores per year, for 6000 seats. These institutions spend hardly Rs.800 to Rs.1,100 crores per year, as their teaching budgets!
While 75% to 85% the youth of the developed and developing world learn a skill or competence or trade between the ages of 14 to 35, by Vocational Education & training , in India it is hardly covers 3% to 5% of the population!
India has about 5000 ITI's (Ministry of Labour) and about 7000 Vocational schools (Ministry of HRD), while China has about 500,000 senior secondary vocational schools !
India has 300 million able bodied between the ages of 18 to 50, but they have no skill sets and therefore not employable! Employers in India are facing a huge shortage of skilled manpower. Wages and salaries in India, of skilled manpower are going up too fast. India will not be able to take advantage of the demographic profile of its population, if the youth do not receive relevant and quality Education & Training.
We have not seen any co-ordination between the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of HRD as far as VET planning on a National level, is concerned
We in India have NOT still appreciated the fact that, world wide, Education is 5 times or 500% bigger than I.T. or software!
India can become an Educational Hub for the world and earn US$ 100 billion per year, after 10 to 20 years! We need to start now, but remove "Licence Raj" first, as was done for business in 1991! India has 7,700 foreign students while Australia has 513,000 foreign students!
Because of the "Licence Raj" in Higher and Technical Education , it is estimated that nearly 70,000 to 90,000 students leave India every year for studying abroad. At any given time these 320,000 students cost the country a foreign exchange out flow of nearly US$9 billion per year or nearly Rs. 40,000 crores per year, enough to build 40 IIM's or 20 IIT's per year.
The present problem of reservation will not solve the needs and aspirations of the youth. India needs a larger number of educational Institutions, seats and higher quality in the area of Higher & Technical education. Rationing, quotas and reservation can never address the actual situation. The Central and State governments are strapped for funds even for Primary and Secondary education. The solution lies in complete decontrol of all forms of Higher & Technical education; the same way as business was delicensed in1991!

If INDIA has to become a Knowledge Economy we need to do the following:

Aim for 95% to 100% Literacy in the next 10 years
Decontrol and involve the management of all primary schools to the local bodies such as Panchayats, Village Groups, Municipalities and local Citizen Groups. Allow the community to manage.
Consider the use and issue of "Education Coupons" for school children, so that they can choose the schools of their choice and funding from the government, which would have been dispersed for the funding of Government run schools in rural and urban India, should be paid out. See www.ccsindia.org
Scrap "Licence Raj" in Higher & Technical Education, after and including class 11^th, to allow innovation, creativity and excellence in Education. See www.epsfi.org
Ensure that 80% to 90% of the population in the age group of 14 years to 50 years goes in for some sort of relevant Vocational Education & Training. See www.wakeupcall.org
Allow starting of Enterprise Skills Education , ESD, from Class 5th to the 12th. This will teach the youth about how the real world works. Only 100 hours per year required. Nearly 60% of the workforce in India is self-employed.
Start Prevocational classes from Class 8th. Have Vocational Counsellors in all Higher Seconadary Schools. Upgrade all Higher Seconadry Schools for Vocational Education & Training.
Have a dynamic interaction between all stake holders, Academia-Industry-Business-R&D-Chambers of Commerce-Student bodies-Parents organizations-Civil society and NGO's. Chambers of Commerce, who represents the employers and business, must lead from the front.
Allow private finance and participation in all sectors of education, till we reach the goals as mentioned under item 8 in section one above.
Allow tax breaks and incentives for private and NRI funding, for the next 20 years or till we achieve bench marks as mentioned under item 8 in section one above.

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Fwd: Relevant Education (100% Literacy ) vs. Reservation

2006-05-24T07:34:00.000+05:30

To,

Dr. A. P. J. Kalam, The President of India,

Dr. Manmohan Singh, The Prime Minister of India,

Shri Arjun Singh, The Minister of Human Resource Development

Shri Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman , Planning commission

Shri Sam Pitroda,Chairman, Natinal Knowledgeable Commission

Dear Sir,

Holistic development of every child by Relevant Education is a vision of all nations. So I have a request to our visionary leaders, Please Try to look problem as a whole and solve it at level of root cause.

We have a final vision of all visions for all Organization.

May all be happy

May all be free from disease

May all be realized what is good

May none be subject to misery

We are waiting for execution of this shared Vision by robust Strategy [Integrated Goals � Targeted actions plans] for archiving the end result.

So Please Ensure: �Relevant Education� to all children. If we solve it, then automatically lots of interconnected problems are automatically solved.

My concern point is: Please Set it: Priority Number 1 = �Relevant Education� under enduring culture of High level of discipline with sound feedback mechanics.

Please give us, some insight in this direction because we can not wait more because IT superpower release his energy If electricity is available & people support system can be improved If judicial system is active & fast.

My point: Reservation - Need a Balance solution � a 3^rd alternative

url: http://o3.indiatimes.com/social_innovation/

Regards & Love ...

Ajay Singh Niranjan

A citizen of Great nation India [Bharat � a nation who spreads Light (Knowledge) ]

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Good one on reservations

2006-05-16T08:38:00.001+05:30

Courtesty : Murli

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/05/15/stories/2006051500791000.htm

The price of reservation

P. V. Indiresan

For every transaction, there has to be entries on both sides of the ledger. A price has to be paid for the gains made by reservation. What is the price the beneficiaries of reservation pay? One price they have paid is lowered quality of education in state-run schools, inferior opportunities to learn; in consequence, endemic poverty too. Is that price worth paying, wonders P. V. INDIRESAN.

WILL QUOTA affect quality? - M. Govarthan

Usually, media memory is short. Most stories are forgotten at the end of the day; few last a week. Unusually, interest in the reservation controversy has not died down even after two months. Evidently, this controversy touches a raw nerve; people cannot get over their hurt easily.

Considering the degree of interest in the topic, there is surprisingly few hard facts known about the issue. IITs have had reservation for students belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes for over 30 years. There is no public information of how the beneficiaries have fared, or how well they have performed in the profession compared to regular students, or compared to SC/ST students from other less prestigious colleges.

Tamil Nadu experience

Tamil Nadu has the longest experience with reservation. With almost 80 per cent admissions and posts reserved, it has the most extensive application of that device. The Tamil Nadu experience can be described both as a success and as a failure. It is a success because backward castes have wrested the leadership - both in the academic and administrative spheres - apart from acquiring total command of the political space. Not only have the backward castes taken command, they have also made Tamil Nadu one of the most successful States.

Reservation in Tamil Nadu can also be declared as a failure on two counts: Even after three-quarters of a century, the backward castes are unwilling to compete openly. There are third, even fourth generation beneficiaries of reservation who are unable to get over their dependence on the handicaps reservation provides for them. It appears, reservation is a crutch, not a remedy.

The success of backward castes in Tamil Nadu appears to be partly due to emigration of upper castes: There are few Brahmins, Mudaliars, Naidus, Pillais or Chettiars to contend with; quite a few have migrated out of the State. There is no analysis how far the loss of so much human capital has hurt (or helped) the State.

Yet, it would be incorrect to conclude that backward castes can never stand up to competition. Once again, we have no hard data to rely on. However, anecdotal evidence points to the view that competent persons among the backward castes never flaunt their caste badge; they want to be known and respected for what they achieve - they stand tall. On the other hand, weaker but ambitious persons make their caste a fetish. They make noise louder and frequently; they get noticed more often.

Consider the visibility of capable students in the job market. They know what they want. They get selected promptly and vanish from the scene after no more than one or two job interviews. The least competitive ones are unsure of where they can succeed. They try again and again only to be rejected. They are noticeable everywhere. Particularly when they wear the caste badge, they will be shortlisted even when not well qualified.

Fooled by noise

With competent students appearing but few times, the less competent ones appearing frequently, the latter appear to be far larger in numbers than they actually are. Logically, the proportion of competent backward castes must be several times higher than what they appear to be in selection committees. That is like the case of a farmer who ruefully remarked after promising to supply a thousand frogs "the noise sure fooled me!"

There is yet another reason why backward students under-perform. As a natural corollary of the Reservation Principle, teaching posts have been reserved on caste basis. That is a cardinal error. What poor students need most are the best teachers available, not the least qualified. Dr Sowell, a distinguished professor from Stanford, was once asked on his visit to Madras (as it was then) whether he would prefer Black teachers to teach Black students (Prof Sowell is Black.) His answer was, "I do not care whether the teacher is White, Black or Blue; I want the best!"

Quality teaching, the key

Unfortunately, this basic principle has been discarded by our policymakers, who have grossly under-estimated the importance of teaching quality. In the process, they have run down state-run schools. In the past fifty years, the population of Chennai has increased almost ten times. Yet, many schools run by the City Corporation have been closed for "want of students". In truth, it cannot be that the students, but the quality of teachers selected that was found wanting.

It is a recorded fact that discipline among school teachers has come down. Across the country, half the time teachers are not attending to class work at all. It is a fact that most students in Delhi's Corporation schools cannot do simple arithmetic - multiply two-digit numbers - even after five years of education. Yet, as one NIIT experiment has shown, given a chance, they can pick up computer skills on their own.

In the prevailing ethos of reservation, a person can get the benefits of reservation without making any payment in return. That contravenes a natural law that is colloquially described as "there is no free lunch". In engineering, such systems are known as "perpetual-motion" machines, machines that run forever without any input. For every transaction, there has to be entries on both sides of the ledger. A price has to be paid for the gains made by reservation. There is no escape from that law. Then, what is the price the beneficiaries of reservation pay for the benefit they get? One price they have paid is lowered quality of education in state-run schools, inferior opportunities to learn; in consequence, endemic poverty too. Is that price worth paying?

As one correspondent has pointed out, reservation is like declaring a boundary scored in a cricket game as a six if hit by a backward caste player. Such artificial boost appears beneficial. It may not be. As one SC student remarked: "I won a degree in the IIT but lost my self-image." How many students would have done better with their lives if they had been exposed to what they can master, instead of being subjected to a difficult drill for which they were not trained, we do not know.

How far has the Reservation Policy has helped the poor, has reduced the rich-poor gap? The average family income of SC students in IIM Ahmedabad is twice that of the others. Is that an exception, or is it true of other institutions too? That is the problem: We have no data on which to base reasoned decisions. Our political masters are unwilling to generate much needed information on this issue, nor or they willing to consider any alternative. At the same time, they have acquired the power to declare as constitutionally illegal any institution that operates on a caste-free basis.

Friend or foe?

Is everyone who promotes reservation a friend of the backward castes? Is everyone who questions reservation at university level an enemy of backward castes?

Who hurts backward castes more: Those who deny good school education or those who want well-run schools?

A proposal to identify and give special education to talented backward caste students has been before the government for over 25 years, and still finds no support. Strange are the ways of our democracy, of government of some people, by some people for themselves.

(The author is a former Director of IIT Madras. Response may be sent to: indiresan@gmail.com)

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Good one about AIT

2006-05-11T08:56:00.001+05:30

Just found this article titled 'A search for our lost cities' by a former minister Jagmohan. So sharing it with you all.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1692583,0035.htm

A search for our lost cities

May 7, 2006

Dear Dr Manmohan Singh-ji,

This pertains to a special project, which I had conceived when I was working as Culture and Tourism Minister. The project, I thought, would have enlarged the dimensions of tourism, provided new insight into the origin of our civilisation, and attracted a number of scholars and
archaeologists to study the unexplored layers of our past. Unfortunately, it has since been given up.

Through this letter, I am approaching you with the request to intervene and ensure that the project is viewed in the right perspective and revived. I give below a brief backdrop of the project and the course that it intended to follow.

From the point of view of culture, the project was named as "A search For Lost Cities, A Lost Civilisation and A Lost River", and from the tourism point of view it was titled, "Travels Around Lost Cities, A Lost Civilisation and a Lost River". The river was Sarasvati and the civilisation was the one known as Harappan/Indus-Sarasvati.

There were five major objectives that the project sought to achieve:

1) To undertake extensive excavations of the Harappan settlements in the basin of the now dried-up Sarasvati, and build archaeological museums at the sites.

2) Set up small tourist-centres nearby.

3) Establish documentation-cum-multidisciplinary research units with attached pavilions, showing 5,000 years of Indian civilisation through large panel-photographs, 3-D models etc.

4) Make the newly created complex attractive for residents of the neighbouring towns and villages.

5) Open at each of the centres, a small window to the visitors.

The significance lay in the attempt to provide clear answers to some crucial questions, which I will answer one by one:

*Was there an Aryan invasion?*

It has been propagated by Western scholars and their Indian disciples that between 1,500 to 1,000 BC, there was an invasion of India by light-skinned nomadic tribes, the Aryans, which gave birth to the Vedic civilisation of India. But this hypothesis has no legs to stand upon.
The study of Colin Renfrew, a noted archaeologist at Cambridge University, not only debunks the theory propounded by Mortimer Wheeler but also points at the similarities between the Aryan Vedic civilisation and the Harappan one. Nor can the theory of invasion/migration provide answers to pertinent questions like: How come the 'Aryans', who showed strong attachment to lands, did not carry with them the memories of their previous homeland and nurse no nostalgia about their past? Is it not clear that the Rig-Vedic expressions like 'sabha', 'samiti', 'samrat', 'ranjan', 'rajaka', which indicate the existence of organised assemblies and rulers of different ranks, are relevant not to the nomadic invaders, but to the advanced urban society of the Vedic Aryans who were indigenous inhabitants of Harappan settlements? Was not the evolution of chariot more likely in the flat lands of North India rather than in the uneven terrain of the Central Asia?

The last nail in the coffin of the invasion/migration theory has been hammered in by the recent genetic studies, conducted by scientists in Calcutta with foreign scientists. They analysed the Y-Chromosomes of 936 men and 77 castes, and referred to the work of the international
research teams that found that the earliest modern human arrived in India from Africa, trudging along the Indian Ocean coast about 60,000 years ago. They concluded:

"Our findings suggest that most modern Indians have genetic affinities to the
earlier settlers and subsequent migrants and not to central Asians or 'Aryans',
as they are called".

*Nature of Civilisation*

When, in 1922, the Harappan civilisation was discovered, only two major settlements — Mohenjo-daro and Harappa — had been excavated and that too partially. On this basis, views were formulated about the origin of these advanced urban civilisations. It was given out that its roots lay in Mesopotamia. Subsequent excavations of more Harappan sites have shown
that these views and assertions were made without adequate evidence.

John Reader, a noted scholar of anthropology and geography, has pointed out that emergence of cities and civilisations in six widely separated places around the world — Mesopotamia, India, Egypt, China, Central America and Peru — was spontaneous and none resulted from contact with one another.

Excavations carried out by a French team, headed by Jean-Francois Jarrige, during the last 15 years, at Mehrgarh, Pakistan, have pin-pointed the beginnings of civilisation in India and shown that Indus-Sarasvati civilisation had no moorings in Mesopotamia or any civilisation outside India.

It has been rightly observed: "The people in Mehrgarh tradition are the people of India today". There are similarities between the social and religious practices of the Harappan people and the people of present-day India. For example, the spiralled bangles of the type found around the
figurine of the Harappan dancing girl can still be seen on the arms of women in Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, etc.

Again, as was the case with Harappan women, 'sindoor' is applied by married women of Hindu families. Some other common features of the two periods are: the practice of worshipping trees, putting of Svastika symbol at the entrance of the houses etc.

*Did Sarasvati exist?*

There is ample evidence that supports the view that river Sarasvati once existed.

Literary: The Rig Veda mentions the Sarasvati about 50 times, describing it as "the best mother, the best river, the best goddess". The famous Nadi-stuti hymn mentions a set of rivers, including Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati and Sutudori (Sutlej) and places Sarasvati between Yamuna and
Sutlej. Its origin is indicated in the hymn that says: "Purest among all rivers and vibrant, the Sarasvati moves on from the mountains to the ocean, manifesting immense riches of the world…" She is also called the seventh "Indus Mother". Ancient literature also talks of when Sarasvati began to decline. The Mahabharata, the Aitareya and the Satapatha Brahamana refer to its disappearance in the desert.

Archaeological: In 1872, C.F. Oldham and R.D. Oldham undertook a detailed survey of the area where the Sarasvati and its tributaries were said to be flowing in earlier times. They concluded that it was once fed by the Sutlej and the Yamuna, and that it disappeared after the westward
movement of the former and eastward movement of the latter.

Geological: A group of scientists led by V.M.K. Puri and B.C. Verma, made a detailed study of the areas from which Sarasvati could have originated. They observed: "This river was in existence during the upper Pleistocene period as it was fed by glaciers that had descended to much
lower limits in Garhwal Himalaya than the present day level due to the influence of Pleistocene Ice Age."

Hydrological: After the Pokhran nuclear explosion on May 11, 1998, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre conducted tests to assess the impact of the explosions on the quality of water in the area around. These tests, interalia, revealed that the water in the area was potable, about 8,000 to 14,000 years old, came from the Himalayan glaciers and was being slowly recharged through acquifers from somewhere in the north. Separately, the Central Ground Water Commission dug a number of wells on and along the dry bed. Out of 24 wells dug, 23 yielded potable water.

If all that I have said is viewed in entirety, this is the picture that will emerge: the period 6,500-3,100 BC saw the growth of pre-Harappan/Indus-Sarasvati civilisation, corresponding broadly to the times when the Rig Veda was composed; that during the period 3,100 to 1,900 BC, the Harappan/Indus-Sarasvati civilisation prevailed and these were the times when the hymns of four Vedas were composed; and that 1,900 to 1,000 BC was the time of the late Harappan/Indus-Sarasvati civilisation which saw the decline and ultimate disappearance of the
surface water of the Sarasvati, forcing the people to move eastward towards the Gangetic plain.

While the puzzles of archaeology and ancient Indian history cannot be resolved with certainty, particularly with regard to Harappa where the script has not so far been deciphered, it could be stated with a fair degree of accuracy that the Harappan/Indus-Sarasvati civilisation was born and brought up on the soil of India and its people and Vedic people were one and the same.

A lot of additional work needs to be done to unravel a number of features of one of the most significant civilisations of the ancient world. Hundreds of sites in the basin of now the submerged Sarasvati need to be excavated. It was this need that the special project intended to meet.

This would also be of huge benefit to the tourism sector. I request you to recommence the special project. I am confident that the project, if implemented in the spirit it was conceived, would show new facets of India's past, new initiatives of her present and new visions for her
future.

Yours sincerely,

Jagmohan

IBM out of touch with ground realities.

2006-05-07T12:42:00.001+05:30

In a story dispatched out of Berlin, Reuters is reporting on a joint IBM-Economist Intelligence Unit report that suggests India and China are closing the digital gap. The report cites the fact that Shanghai and Bangalore have similar connectivity to developed nations as proof of the fact.

Good!!!

But, the author went over board, just after seeing Shanghai, B'lore, Beijing, not the interior places in China or India.

Look at the following facts, which can't meet an average US/European village. (I remember going to a 'village' near Colonge in Germany, where braodband hotspot was free in hotel room.)

Less than 9% of China's citizens have regular access to the Internet.
There is one computer in China for every 20 people.
There is one home computer in China for every 50 people.
Less than 1% of China's population can reach the Internet via a mobile phone.

But reality is different, once you go to second rung cities in India or China....

IBM, wake up from your Ivory tower views of world....

The right time for labour market reform is now

2006-05-03T08:43:00.000+05:30

Wonderful piece from 6 AM Pacific

In my first job out of business school with Hindustan Lever, as Area Sales Manager I had a team of over 20 unionized salesmen. I ran a Voluntary Retirement Scheme in my first year and then again in my third year by which time we were down to half the original team size. Yet we introduced new brands in the market, grew our sales and in general did well as a team.

In my third year I took over a small new business of hot beverage vending for Lipton (at that time a division of HLL). The business was small but growing rapidly as we expanded our city coverage. In Sales, Distribution and Service we had about 50 people. Of this the number of direct Hindustan Lever employees was 2. The rest were all outsourced, contract or distributor's employees.

I then moved to Infosys in the US and over my 11 years there, hired scores of employees onto the company's US payrolls. I also had to let go of some people for performance or other reasons. At all times, I was acutely aware that I myself was an 'At Will' employee. I could be fired with two week's wages without giving a reason. As long as the reason was not discriminatory (race, sex, religion etc.) I could not bring legal action upon the company.

My experience with the vastly different labour environment in both India and the US has driven home a very important lesson - a business exists to make money for its investors, not to provide employment. And that is, paradoxically, the best way to generate employment.

Let's take a look at how India's labour laws distort the business environment and harm employment and employees:

1. It discourages capital investment - particularly in service oriented industries. Investing capital means taking risks. Market risk - the risk that the business may not succeed - is a risk that 'comes with the territory'. In most countries, investors know that if their business fails in the market, they close down the business, sell off the assets at knocked-down prices, book the loss and take the remaining capital to some other investment opportunity. However, in India, failure, or a downturn, in the market also means that you are still saddled with the payroll costs because you can't restructure or layoff anybody. You can't exit the business because employees will lose jobs. That's something investors don't have to deal with in most countries. You look at so many rusting factories in every major city in the country where the factory owner has not been able to layoff employees even when the networth of the company has gone down to zero, and you wonder - what a colossal waste of assets. You also wonder - what do future investors think when they see these rust-buckets? More likely than not it's - 'That could be my investment 10 years from now.'

2. It provides no incentive for raising productivity through automation. Look at all the government offices or offices that have unionized staff like banks. To the last one, they opposed computerization. Why? because it could do the job faster and so it would reduce the number of jobs.

Yes it will and that is a good thing. Doing more work with fewer people raises productivity. Productivity raises incomes. The developed world's prosperity is entirely linked to higher productivity. Also higher productivity creates the surplus (or the profit) that can be invested to create more jobs.

3. If you want to produce a quality product or service it needs carrots AND sticks. With an employee who is not performing, you train, you mentor, you put them on Performance Improvement Plans. But in the end, the employee needs to know that if his performance does not improve he can lose his job. Without this freedom for businesses to manage for performance, it may be possible to compete against companies who are similarly hampered, but it is a clear disadvantage in the global market.

4. It pushes employment generation into the informal sector. In my second stint at Levers I would have loved to hire people directly into the company instead of outsourcing critical functions like Sales. With the Levers brand name as an employer we would have got great talent which would have been better for the company. However, Levers would not do that for a new business that could have failed leaving them with employees they wouldn't know what to do with. So all of the hiring was done by outsourced contract firms. Did these employees get the PF and benefits they would have got at Levers? I doubt that very much. I don't think these contract firms even paid any taxes since they were probably classified as Small Scale.

In summary, the current labour laws in India distort the business environment to where it reduces employment generation by discouraging investment, reduces income growth by discouraging productivity increases, reduces quality by taking away the freedom to manage for performance and pushes employment generation into the informal sector.

Whenever I bring this up with people in industry in India, I am given many reasons why this is not a problem. Someone says 'Only 20% of my workforce is unionized, I just work around them'. Another one will say 'If you really want to fire an employee for performance, it can be done.' But most of all the reason I get is 'But the economy is doing so well why do we need to think about redundancies and labour flexibility?' On the contrary, it is because the economy is doing so well that this is the right time for labour reform.

I believe this is the most important reform that government must now address. However, this is also the most difficult. Dismantling industrial licensing was like a walk in the park compared to this. With the government dependent upon the CPI(M) to stay in power makes it almost impossible to do major reforms. But major one-shot reforms aren't the right answer anyway. There should be a 10 year road map on labour reform. But starting now. Let's begin the discussion.

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Shame on me...

2006-05-01T11:22:00.001+05:30

Everytime someone dies, the same drame is enacted, with no action.

Useless commentories (TV reviews/interview, Letters to editors, Internet Groups) make a furore over the death... People call for action, Govt. promises the same. Some 'compensation' is promised - God knows if it actually reaches the family, some action committe is called for.

Then what.... everyone goes home and starts their lives as if nothing happened.

Afghanisthan is a clear example. During Khandhar plane hijack, a young business man on his honeymoon trip was killed. If you recollect properly, the same drama was enacted. Now once again the same, but artists are different.

Politicians look for more media coverage with their tall claims and sympathysers for their few seconds of fame.

huh... Deja Vu... more Deja Vu....

At times I wonder, if we are all governed by cowards. (This question too was asked by many in recent years, so I am also one among the lot, who make statements. huh, same on me too)

Letter to Mahadevan...

2006-05-01T11:00:00.000+05:30

Dear Mahadevan,

http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/01/stories/2006050112670100.htm

Mr. Mahadevan commented that the latest discovery was very strong evidence that the Neolithic people of Tamil Nadu and the Indus Valley people "shared the same language, which can only be Dravidian and not Indo-Aryan." He added that before this discovery, the southernmost occurrence of the Indus script was at Daimabad, Maharashtra on the Pravara River in the Godavari Valley.

Why is it that it has to be only Dravidian??? Why can't Tamil Nadu guys too be speaking the languages of Indus Valley and then developed their derivative Dravidian????

Please suggest me the logic behind your assertion or comment. (No propoganda statements please)

Isn't Dravidianism another side of the myth called "Aryan Invasion Theory"? If not, please explain.

Thanks and Regards,

Anil Prasad

PS: Reason for mass circulation is because I dont have his mail id. Kindly forward the same to him.

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Hyderabad engineer kidnapped by Taliban

2006-04-29T18:40:00.000+05:30

Hyderabad engineer kidnapped by Taliban

http://www.newkerala.com/news2.php?action=fullnews&id=50844

New Delhi: The Indian Government on Saturday confirmed that Afganistan's rebel Taliban outfit had kidnapped Hyderbad-based engineer A. Suryanarayana.

Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed said that Suryanarayana was working for the Bahraini company 'Al Mayyad'

which is into telecom and construction business in Afghanistan.

He said that the Government is in touch with the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan and the Bahraini company.

Suryanarayana was abducted on Friday evening while traveling from Kalat, the capital of Zabul, to Ghazni.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the abduction, but is yet to make its demands known.The kidnapping of Suryanarayana is the third incident in the last four months wherein an Indian has been targeted in Afghanistan.

The Taliban abducted Maniappan R Kutty, a Border Road Organization jawan and engaged in building of Zaranj-Delaram highway, four months ago. Three days after Kutty's kidnapping, his body was found in Kandahar province.

In February this year, Indian engineer Bharath Kunmar, working with a Turkish firm, was killed in a bomb blast in Farah province.

Indian doctors working in various hospitals in Afghanistan have also received threats from the Taliban, ousted from power in 2002.

New Delhi has taken up the issue of security of all Indians working in Afghanistan with Kabul at the highest level. The matter was also discussed when Afghan President Hamid Karzai when he visited Delhi earlier this month.

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Indian Student dies in Armenia due to Racial Discrimination

2006-04-29T18:39:00.000+05:30

A medical course student from India, Prashant Anchalia Yerevan studying in state medical university in Armenia dies in university campus allegedly due to medical negligence and co-students complain of racial discrimination as well.

While no one knows the facts, the blogosphere coverage of the events clearly show the ham handed attitude of the Armenian academia. In fact if the postings in the blogs covering the events are indeed correct, Indians need to review going there for further studies or doing business with them.

The blog world is taking up the issue quite seriously in a concerted way with posts covering the various protest moves and In fact an Armenian blogger, Onnik Krikorian is taking the lead here. While, I do not know where the events and coverage would progress into, but as I see it, clearly the pressure is building up inside the system to correct things and Blogosphere is playing a very useful & constructive role here.

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Murthy's view on late office workers

2006-04-29T09:38:00.000+05:30

Narayana Murthy's views on staying late in the office

It's half past 8 in the office but the lights are still on... PCs still running, coffee machines still buzzing... and who's at work? Most of them???

Take a closer look... All or most specimens are 20-something male species of the human race... Look closer... again all or most of them are bachelors... and why are they sitting late? Working hard? No way!!!

Any guesses???

Let's ask one of them... Here's what he says... "What's there 2 do after going home... here we get to surf, AC, phone, food, coffee.. thats is why I am working late... importantly no bossssssss!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the scene in most research centres and software companies and other off-shore offices. Bachelors "time-passing" during late hours in the office just bcoz they say they've nothing else to do...

Now what r the consequences... read on... "Working"(for the record only) late hours soon becomes part of the institute or company culture. With bosses more than eager to provide support to those "working" late in the form of taxi vouchers, food vouchers and of course good feedback,(oh, he's a hard worker... goes home only to change..!!).They aren't helping things too... To hell with bosses who don't understand the difference between "sitting" late and "working" late!!!

Very soon, the boss start expecting all employees to put in extra working hours. So, My dear Bachelors let me tell you, life changes when u get married and start having a family... office is no longer a priority, family is... and that's when the problem starts... becoz u start having commitments at home too.

For your boss, the earlier "hardworking" guy suddenly seems to become a "early leaver" even if u leave an hour after regulartime... after doing the same amount of work. People leaving on time after doing their tasks for the day are labeled
as work-shirkers...

Girls who thankfully always (its changing nowadays... though) leave on time are labeled as "not up to it". All the while, the
bachelors pat their own backs and carry on "working" not realizing that they r spoiling the work culture at their own place and never realize that they wuld have to regret at one point of time .

*So what's the moral of the story?? *
* Very clear, LEAVE ON TIME!!! *

- Never put in extra time " *unless really needed
- Don't stay back un-necessarily and spoil your company work culture which will in turn cause inconvenience to you and your
colleagues. There are hundred other things to do in the evening..

- Learn music...
- Learn a foreign language...
- Try a sport... TT, cricket.........
- Importantly Get a girl friend or gal friend, take him/her around town...

And for heaven's sake net cafe rates have dropped to an all-time low (plus, no fire-walls) and try cooking for a change.
Take a tip from the Smirnoff ad:

*"Life's calling,where are you??"*

Please pass on this message to all those colleagues And please do it before leaving time, don't stay back till midnight to
forward this!!!

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Damned if you excel, damned if you dont

2006-04-27T23:21:00.000+05:30

This is the annual appraisal time at our place... The buzz words are "hike", "increment" ..

I pity the positive anticipation on part of Code Coolies.

Carrot and Stick at it's best!!!

At the end, it is only the stick for coolies and carrots for managers.

Why??!!! Culprit "The Bell Curve" of Statistics, where things are 'normalised'

Guess what.... the end of the bell curves are either too low performers or too high performers.

But Mediocrity wins....

If you strive to excel, you are at the end of curve, so no great hike. If you don't, then at the other end.

Damned if you excel , damned if you don't!!!

For further reading check, this, this and this. Seth Godin gives his best.....

PS:: Am a mediocre coolie, so waiting for my carrot.

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem)

2006-04-25T07:56:00.000+05:30

NY Times

-- Can you relate to someone from Google India???

RFID to teach English

2006-04-22T08:39:00.000+05:30

Purdue University students have used RFID for teaching English to non-English speaking children. The computer system has been linked with RFID tags embedded in simple objects such as a plastic banana. When a child would pick up the banana, a computer screen would display 'anana' and ask the child to fill in the missing letter.

The system called Merlin's Magic Castle is being used at the Lafayette Adult Resource Academy. Amicia Elliott and Alexei Czeskis developed this idea and their idea won $8,000 in an entrepreneurial competition.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060420/BUSINESS/604200408/1003

How to Practise Islam in Space - A serious concern.

2006-04-21T19:40:00.001+05:30

Malaysia Conference : Considers How To Practice Islam In Space

Interesting things to note.... now Islam in space, expecting celestial objects to follow Islamic Cosmic Rules.

Malaysian Govt. is spending money to send few Jihadis .... and want the satellite to follow some rules.....

Yummy!!!....

Blogs in 1918

2006-04-20T08:27:00.000+05:30

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/04/blogging_in_1918.html

You may find it interesting.

Foot Mouth and RFID

2006-04-18T17:47:00.000+05:30

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/4/18/nation/13984902&sec=nation

Chinese RFID

2006-04-18T17:35:00.000+05:30

http://www.chinatechnews.com/index.php?action=show&type=news&id=3827

Seems their Govt. is actively taking part in RFID initiatives. Here, in India, we are yet to get some frequencies for RFID use from the age old Telephones department.

Good going India...

Aryan Invasion Theory

2006-04-17T15:07:00.000+05:30

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/scientific-verif-vedas.html

Covers the entire Aryan Invasion Theory, as proposed by Max Muller, till the Archaeological findings disproving the same.

Wonderful Coverage

Ethnic Dress Day, Today

2006-04-07T14:46:00.000+05:30

There is a saying in Telugu "Puli ni choosi Nakka vaathalu pettukundi" meaning, A fox got itself scars to become a Tiger. In other words, mimicking a Tiger doesn't make a Fox a Tiger.

That is what has happened today with me. In last few days there was a thread of mails going around in our center/practice, that today we will observe "Ethnic Dress Day". A self styled club was formed, names ranging from Hungama to eternity were suggested, and people were 'energetic'.

As usual, today I went to a meeting at a different location, in formal cloths (Friday dressing, of course) and then went back all the way to my home, crossing over my office, to change into ethnic cloths.

At home front, my wife was surprised to see me take out my old "marriage" day cloths, get them repressed, try them out etc and promptly commented, "Oh! Getting married again. Good riddance".

Well, landed up in office, when my plight started. Security personnel, administrative helpers etc started to giggle, as I walked toward office, after parking my vehicle. Our Telephone operator wished me with a tinge of smile than usual monastic way.

I can never forget the look on our SBU Chief's face, who was talking on his mobile, at his favorite smoking spot. (A kind of amused, bewilderment)

Upon entering our work floor, to my astonishment, I was the only one, in Ethic cloths. Rest all were in usual Friday dress and I was the only one who was "overly Ethnically dressed".

Imagine a near-quintal fellow like me dressed in White laalchi and silk "pancha" worn in traditional way (tucking in back, after taking the cloth between the legs)

Huh.. so much for the Tigers…. Wonder what happened to those "energetic" types, who are always in the forefront, even for a silly thing like saying a hello to boss??

RFID Malware

2006-04-06T19:02:00.000+05:30

How do we plan to address the threat of Malware, especially when the RFID world is abuzz with the threats?

Today's In-Pharma carries an article co-written by Andrew Tanenbaum himself.

--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Started a new company

2006-04-05T16:31:00.000+05:30

Last weekend, I was reviewing my last year’s financial performance.

The Indian Financial year and Telugu New Year nearly coincided, so could not stop thinking that way, especially when my balance sheet showed me to be having a net worth of Rs. 56.80/-. (Of course, way better than last few years YoY).

Decided to do something to make a good buck and started my Web 2.0 Company, which will work on ALE (Ajax Linking and Embedding).

Name of the company is kuapr.com, synonym for pauper.com, but is it Web 2.0, so needs to end with an “r”. (Incidentally, kuapr is acronym for KUrnool Anil PRasad.) Now am waiting for the cash flow… :-)

Everyone's cashing in on it already, why shouldn’t I? (And you should try it too.) You can be the next Flickr, MySpace, Craigslist, YouTube, or del.icio.us or kuapr

Here's how it is done, in simple and easy steps*:

1. Dream up a Web 2.0 product/service
2. Give it a cool name
3. Add a catchy catchphrase [or a tacky tagline, whichever makes you sound cooler]
4. Sell your company to Yahoo!

[*Disclaimer: Individual results may vary.]

RFID in manholes

2006-03-31T17:16:00.000+05:30

Where all will they take RFID…

From the obvious supply chain, warehouse management, to disaster recovery, then it was road show..

Now, guess what.. it is a manhole… what next..

http://ubiks.net/local/blog/jmt/archives3/005208.html

Pasco, bitcorn, and KDDI Network&Solutions announced that they will together develop a so-called Intelligent Manhole System. RFID tags will be embedded in manhole covers in order to support critical tasks in a disaster situation.

The tagged manhole covers are for example used to provide information about things buried underground like sewer pipes. Since the sytem is linked to a local government's GIS system, rescue workers can use a handheld RFID reader (possibly bluetooth-enabled) and mobile phones/PDAs to display the data stored in the tags as well as the relevant information from the GIS system (e.g., photo maps, scheme drawings of a city's lifeline infrastructure). Such an information system may help repair damaged lifeline infrastructure quicker.

btw, here's a photo collection of Japanese manhole covers.

Panini : Father of Computing

2006-03-21T10:55:00.000+05:30

Due recognition at last....

Computer World

10 Emerging Technologies

2006-03-21T10:53:00.000+05:30

Ten emerging technologies that will make a difference:

Nuclear Reprogramming
Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Comparative Interactomics
Pervasive Wireless
Cognitive Radio
Epigenetics
Stretchable Silicon
Nanobiomechanics
Nanomedicine
Universal Authentication

For details check out the complete article at Genetic Engineering News

Quake and RFID

2006-03-20T18:28:00.000+05:30

I was cynical when RFID was hailed as the next-best-thing after sliced bread. (Even today, I tend to be so.) Nevertheless, Japanese have come up with an innovative way for faster recovery from their earth quakes with the help of RFID.

http://ubiks.net/local/blog/jmt/archives3/005167.html

Leverage

2006-03-20T11:49:00.000+05:30

Well, here is an advice from the great guy himself. Guy Kawasaki. http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/03/the_art_of_suck.html

Dudes never underestimate the power of leverage… Archimedes, in his own days said, “Show me a place to put in my fulcrum, will move the world”. That is the power of leverage and fulcrum.

It not only helps you to have knowledge of the Physics, but also the practical use of it. What benefit does it give you, if you know all the three laws of Newton, if you don’t oil your bike well?

In Telugu they say, “Kanaka, Kaantha laku longani vaadu, Kaaka ku longada”. Roughly translating, it means “He, who doesn’t fall for wealth and women, will fall for flattery”

Hee, heee.. isn’t it cynical

Leaders

2006-03-16T15:37:00.000+05:30

Recently checked this series on CNN. [http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/
fortune/how_i_work/frameset.exclude.html]

Found that most of those who really matter to new age economy, have certain common traits. (No, no, not those 7 effective habits way, something similar)

1) Highly disciplined (They followed a similar daily routine for at least two decades)

2) Wake up early. (Granny’s saying, rise before the Sun if you want to raise in world. Notice there is a rise and a raise in the previous sentence.)

3) Frugal use of email/mobile gadgets. (hmn.. how about throwing out the latest Nokia communicator. All know what a Blackberry is, but don’t use one)

4) Contemplate on Meta-physical thing. (Be it yoga, meditation, prayer or just brooding, they all set aside a portion of 24 hrs for the same.)

5) Take care of their health and exercise regularly.

6) Spend at least one complete day in a week with family. That one day no work related activities.

Al of us have the same 24 hrs and same 7 days a week.

Mobile Mill Stone

2006-03-04T16:28:00.000+05:30

Imagine this. You give a verbose of 10 minutes explaining the situation/idea only to get a simple, careless ‘Shoot a mail’ from the person concerned. You oblige the same, only to get a call when you least expect, from the same chap to ‘discuss’ the situation/idea.

Don’t you think that “mobile computing” is a costly convenience and a necessary evil. One can quote some thousands of benefits of the mobile phones and the laptops, but at times can be felt like personal space intrusion. Generally, basic lack of manners or respect or discipline is the root cause.

IT guys delivered projects in time, some decade’s back, with out the aid of these many “mobile devices”. Any major company in IT, which is more than 10 years old, is the proof. Disciple at both personal and organizational levels was the reason.

I don’t remember any older generation IT guys working late at nights even today. In premier IT companies, veterans still don’t use mobile phones and circulate their mobile number as sweets on a festival day. Simply because they are disciplined and pay attention when it is needed, not when they ‘think’ it is needed.

Even today veterans do not ‘carry-work-home’ (in form of laptops), cause they judiciously use their time in office. Unless, one is always on move, like the techno-marketing personnel or infrastructure support guys, there is no earth shaking reason for a common developer to use laptops (of course, to show off). At times, I wonder is laptop around one’s neck is an anthropological reminder of the “millstones-around-neck” punishment of medieval ages.

May be, we all need to really look at the conveniences of technology for increasing the productivity rather than procrastinating decision making and intruding into others time space.
At the time of this writing, am using a laptop and after the same, plan to disturb my team member for a status update. [Chuckles]

RadioShack

2006-02-27T16:09:00.000+05:30

Recently, CEO of RadioShack Mr. David J. Edmondson was fired because he lied in his resume that he had two degrees when he has none. He joined the company in 1992 with false resume and as a severing package he was given a million dollars. (CNN) The company was having nonprofits for past 2 years and he announced a two-year turn around plan, which the board was not convinced of.

Now the interesting question that comes to our mind is, did the board ignore (or pleasantly over looked) the facts for 14 long years.

Why was the “stretching the truth” or more correctly “almost true” or “a little while lie” over looked in this pre-employment educational background verification? That too, in a country where information is structured and every citizen has an SSN. One phone call to the college where this guy claims to have studied would have given them a clear idea. Right?

Just a passing remark in this context; how many of the software guys, with genuine education credentials got visa refusals at US consulates of Chennai/Mumbai, just because the colleges don’t have OLIVE (OnLIne VErification)?

Are the rules for CEOs and ordinary blokes different?

The answer lies in the two critical factors.

1) Figures
2) Aura

Let me explain further.

Figures: The cash flow in the case of the CEO. If you had read the fine print, the company is facing loss for past two years and board was not interested in his plan for turn around. Hence they needed an excuse to fire him.

As long as the ‘deliverables’ are met, no one is bothered about the credentials.

Aura: Though a loaded term, I prefer to use it. This guy was given a million dollar package, for what? He had that charm (or the aura) to take with him half the company and had the brains (or was it a image projected to the board) to compete with them. Board found it to be prudent to pay him off, so that he doesn’t cause any damage to them.

How to apply it to our careers in our own little sphere of influence?

As mentioned earlier, we too need to take care of the following.

1) Never be under the impression that we are indispose able.

Whether it is CEO or the Managing Director, as long as it is not “your own” company/organization, you are at the mercy of the management. There are cases where even the best CEO was shown the door. Remember Steve Jobs was sent out from his “own” Apple for a while. That is a different story, that he was called back and he Apple to the place where it is now.

So, every three months make a survey of your own marketability and always have a backup option.

Note: When trying to have a backup option, never do that for the home city you are in. Say you are in Chennai and want to have a backup option, then always have an offer ready from Noida or Gurgaon. It has two fold advantages.

i) If you keep on putting all the companies in your home town on hold/backup, you will be left with no other company as choice, say after 3 yrs to join. As you have exhausted all the options locally and have to relocate to some other city.
ii) With an far-off city as an option, you can always give a “genuine” reason to companies in your city to join them, instead of a better package offer from distant land.

2) Build our own figures.

Whether you are a CEO or a code coolie, let the figures talk. (Management likes more of tables and charts, than monologues.)

i) Just always take a note of no. of hours you work, not the mandatory 8 hrs you fill in the time sheets. Have something of your own.
ii) Have something to say like “delivered 3 modules, with 8.7 m LoC, with 110 bugs (no critical bug, of course), delivered with in stipulated 20 man-months.

3) Build our own aura.

Always build an aura around you. There are those who just talk/baffle with technical jargon, with no tangible output, but considered to be technically “sound”. I am not suggesting you to join that bandwagon, but nevertheless, have some aura.

i) Participate in any technical discussion organized at practice or unit level.
ii) Always volunteer to give a “talk” or conduct a “workshop” on your technology/domain of choice.
iii) Contribute something to your “in-house” newsletter or be a part of “that” group that produces “white papers”. (Even if you firmly believe that the technical white paper is worth less the paper printed on, contribute.)

In other words, be “visible”.

4) Be honest about resume.

No harm in telling the truth that you were jobless. It is a known fact. Also if all are employed, how can Naukri/Dice survive?

Even, if you get a lower pay or slow promotion, you need not be under the constant threat of losing job due to the “fakes” you used to get hold of job. Also, that fear can hinder your performance, eventually leading to your ouster.

All the best!!

Noise

2006-02-24T11:39:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered what is that “dot-dash pattern” that you see on the television when ever there is no channel transmition?

Ever wonder what that unique sounds no radio are when you are not tuned to any particular radio station?

It is the gamma or cosmic waves causing that noise. It is said that there is always a static amount of noise in this universe which one can’t avoid and this noise/waves are coming from the end of universe. That is, since Big-Bang, this universe is expanding and it continues to expand, that corner most edge that pushes the vaccum (or what ever) to create space generates some electro-magnetic radiation which is relayed back to us and they are called cosmic waves.

Hmn.. Interesting… isn’t it….

Now, ever wonder, what might be lying there at the edge of universe? Something beyond the expanding universe??

If something is expanding, what is containing it?

As you put out your soapy head out of partially opened bathroom door and call out aloud “Towel please”, imagine putting your head out of the edge of universe and see what is there.

What do you see? (I don’t know the answer)

Hypothetically, if you travel in straight line, straight into the sky and keep on going, for a long, long time, do you know where you end up?

Yes, you will end up at the place where you started.

This is something like, starting from your home and traveling to east in an airplane, for one or two days, you know that you will end up at your home, arriving from west. This is the case with universe also.

All the above is not my idea, but collected arguments put forth by eminent scientists.

What do we gather from the above…

1) There is constant “theta” amount of noise and dust in the universe.
2) You come to the same place where you have started.

Using these two “scientific” reasonings, how should we go forward?

As we have accepted to live with the said amount of dust in our universe, we also need to accept the said amount of dust in our daily lives. If someone makes lots of noise and no practical output, we need to just ignore it.

Don’t you change the channel when you get noise screen on the T.V.?

Same way, just ignore or change the channel.

Some may say, change the T.V itself. Like changing a company, if you don’t like boss or changing the project if you don’t like the client. But, remember the two principles.

Even if you change the T.V. there is no gaurentee that noise will not be reduced, because of Point – 1 and you will be at the same situation again, because of Point – 2.

I don’t say, you live with it, but learn to ignore the noise and take only the pleasant channels for your viewing.

All the best, my dear coolies.

CXO

2006-02-22T11:00:00.000+05:30

It is rather an uncomfortable situation for any IT service guy/gal to come up with a satisfactory answer, for questions like

“Show me the enterprise bus in this integration architecture?”

“Where is the SOA in this proposal?”

Usually we tend to give some explanation that "SOA is not in scope of this particular venture" or say that “This entire scheme is SOA and we can’t show it as a separate component” etc.

Then the client CIO/CEO/CXO starts talking about the SOA models and we realize that it is of no use to put forth our side of story. Some one aptly said, “A fool can ask, what the wisest can’t answer”. How true!!

Theorem: “I.T. Management is always driven by magazines”

Assumptions: None what so ever.

Proof:

A mere look at the IT landscape across all the boundaries of organizations, one comes across a similar trend.

Early 90s where full of open systems while late 90s was full of migration to client-server model with a mass exodus of application to packaged enterprise applications and then came the sweep of n-tier of JAVA/MicroSoft. Not to be left behind these paradigm shifts gave way to some buzz words (and of course revenue) to EAI, SOA, Agile, EDS, blah-blah etc.

Should we think that these mass or near hysterical movements were part of some global-wave-of-thought-pattern? (Just to add some meat for that global-wave-of-thought-pattern concept, Mahavir, Gauthma and Confucius came up with similar tenets for human lives, with no interaction with each other, in different geographical locations, at a close time lines. Couple of hundred years is not such big quantum when we talk of Universe with genesis.)

The answer would definitely be a big NO.

It is highly unlikely that all the CXOs would meet and form a consensus to move their enterprises IT infrastructure into different paradigm. (Here it is worth noting that ‘X’ ranges from A to Z and multiple no. of times. Consider a designation CAISSO which reads out a Chief-Application-Integration-Strategic-Solutions-Officer. To represent the same in true blue blooded IT guy, am using CXO.

C[A..Z][A..Z]*O – Unix Style

{ Ca+O a in α } and α = {A..Z} – Set theory of mathematics.

If am wrong in the representations above, please do correct me.

Then, who drove all these CXOs to make these kinds of paradigm shifts, that too at a rapid pace. Someone can shout aloud that ‘technology’. If at all the rapid innovations of technology from the hidden laboratories of academy or industry have paved way to changes, explain the dodo called eSpeak of HP. (More on eSpeak later, mentioned it now, just to give some sense of suspense.)

Any technologist would vouch his life for the fact that industries don’t accept any technology unless there is a stamp/endorsement from the magazines/journals. (I do not how ever wish to name the same to avoid any legal suites and damage charges, but it is left to the good guess of the reader.) Once the branding is obtained and a technology is baptized, you can find the same hostile industry wooing to embrace it at the earliest.

Example:

eSpeak of HP was not given enough mileage in any magazine so industry never bothered to give it a second look. Now the same eSpeak got baptized as W-e-b-S-e-r-v-i-c-e-s”. Yes you read it right. eSpeak is nothing but WebServices.

Look at the noise and dust surrounding it. Any IT event is abuzz with the words like SOA, Agile, XML, EDA, what-not.

A brief tour of eSpeak: The founder/innovator of eSpeak at HP was Dr. Rajiv Gupta, who went on to start “Confluence Solution” which was taken over by “Oblix” group, which again was got by “Oracle” recently. Where was Oracle all along? It woke up only when magazines give some larger-than-life picture of WebServices.

Thus, proves my theorem that “I.T. Management is always driven by magazine”

Colliery: Coolies need to digest magazine.

Now let us turn our attention to our (Code Coolie’s) livelihood. We coolies get our sustenance for survival only when the “client” comes up with a “unique”, “singular” and “trend-setting” requirement for a “state-of-art” I.T. infrastructure. For providing the same to the client, we work in the technology of clients choice, be it SAP or TIBCO or JAVA or Fancy free Assembly.

The well known axiom is “Coolies need to slog for their wages”. Now, can’t we make some modifications to our own slogging to make it less drudgefull? Yes, we can and we should.

CXO decides on the I.T. spending, be it shelling out or freezing the budget and our theorem above proved that his/her thinking is guided by magazine not by logic. Few good reviews, there is money in it and few bad reviews fizz is lost with job cuts in that arena. So we too need to be abreast of what is being written about our dear technology. It is not the organizations that need agile infrastructure; it is us, who make a living out of it that needs an agile brain.

If client is not convinced about a technology, which we are comfortable with, we should be adaptable enough to jump into the bandwagon of the client and show our prowess. In other words, we need to operate in the artificial demand markets created by the nexus of Industry and its magazines.

I remember a recent case, where I did blasphemy of my cult status Enterprise tool, to win a contract. That night I could not sleep but reason dawned on me the next morning. As a coolie, it is against the very tenet of coolidom, to think in terms of ‘Intellectual’ debate with a CXO.

Here I would like to indicate the novice coolies, who can’t access the magazines. These snooty blokes at the so called research centers think no end of themselves that they have restricted access to their ‘reviews’/’articles’, so that only the gullible janta (read CXO) would read it.

The best barometer is not by spending on them, but to observe the “jobs” section of any daily. Check the trend, if for more than three (3) months there is no requirement vacancy for your current tool/language; then you are on the verge of extinction.

If you feel threatened, follow these steps. (7 effective habits of a efficient coolie)

1 . Check out buzz words in the news papers.
2. Search for any nearest venue for conferences that have these buzz words.
3. Ask you management to nominate you. (Let them pay, if not search for free nominations)
4. Get a good understanding of what they are talking about. (Usually jargon, but try if you can correlate.)
5. Ask dumb questions at the conference. (It is better even if others think you are dumb, than to be a real Dodo.)
6. Rush to nearest training center and enroll or better still do a study yourself.
7. Emerge as the new evangelist of the latest technology.

When I say rush to a training center, I meant a real training center, where the trainer has some dope on what he/she is talking about. If you end up at one of those plethora of useless centers that dot the landscape of Ameerpet in Hyderabad, forgive me if you cant come out a winner. (Incidentally a close friend of mine, marked a copy of this mail, also owns a center in Ameerpet. Never the less, my opinion remains the same.)

Wishing all the coolies, the best of everything!!!

Coffee

2005-12-22T17:15:00.000+05:30

Do you know what differentiates humans from animals, coffee!!!...

Just the other night while I was lazing in bed try to catch few winks I remembered that “sleep” was a symptom of less consumption of coffee. There was a time when I advocated that coffee was a vitamin and took with pride the example of Turks, who way back in early 15th century made it a law, for every woman can divorce her husband when she is not given ample coffee everyday.

Well, the question that ranted my mind all along was – is there coffee after death!!!

Forget having life after death, what is life with out coffee. Was there coffee before life??

Why few centuries ago there was no reason why petroleum existed, same was true to coffee. They were not needed by humans in those days why? There were no geniuses at that time. Petrol for a speeding cars and coffee for intelligent brains, were unknown then.

Now with the world at a click of buttons, we need something that can demarcate between the mere morals with that of the genius.

A song I heard long ago, the singers says – clouds in the cup of coffee, why did she mention coffee. Her feeling of hurt about being jilted by an intelligent man were expressed like “you are so vain, you probably think there are clouds in your coffee cup”

Why coffee?? Because coffee is coffee….

Corruption Zindabad

2005-12-10T17:59:00.001+05:30

We all in India would have played our part in making India so-called ‘corrupt’ and also in some point of our life shouted slogans against it. I remember, as a student, doing a ‘rasta roko’ against all issues haunting India, from Pakistan occupying Kashmir to corruption. Those days, I did it for sake of building an ‘Image’ in front of my dear female classmates.

Never the less, today, I want to support our dear ‘corrupt’ Govt. employees and shout out loud on streets of India “Corruption Zindabad!” I openly want to request to all those whom I may have hurt in past, to forgive me, for my loud mouthed accuses and abuses against their unwanted ‘perks’.

Well, today morning I was in world famous, Changi International Airport, Singapore, to see off my co-code-coolies back to India. There is marketing gimmick used by Singapore Govt. in luring travelers to buy from their over-flooded shopping centers, which often sell technically correct but practically useless electronic goods or over priced ‘branded’ cosmetics or ‘branded’ cloths that can put to shame even an average Indian beggar, by giving out statements like ‘GST Refundable’. The point is the fine print is always hidden being those glittering neon lights.

Every coolie, when he/she goes back to India, always ends up buying all kinds of useless things, either for sake of peer pressure or due to the impression that ‘It is cheaper in Singapore than in India’. (Laptops, phones, Cloths etc are cheaper in India.)

In order to dodge the GST, we coolies always invite our immediate family members to visit Singapore, buy goods in their name, then claim the GST refund. GST is 5% and is levied on any thing, including use of toilets. Refund is for tourist, not for residents, coolies on EP etc.

Yes, we are trying to twist the existing rule by brining in our relatives here and buy goods, but that is no crime, simple arrow that clears two birds, visit of parents/relative and hard earned money back from useless GST.

Well, today Ms.R, who is a part of the battalion that is leaving back to India, was with her mother at the GST reclaim counter. After nearly 15 minutes she was back with the group, with a tinge of anger in her eyes.

‘I hate these fellows’ was the only sentence she said. We all understood what might have happened there.

It is a common knowledge that these up-straight-Govt.-servants of Singapore usually flirt with Indian female travelers at the GST counter, by making awkward passes, uncalled for remarks, unwanted questions etc.

What business does the beautiful smile of an Indian female got to do with the simple stamp on the refund form, which states that the person is leaving by such and such flight?

Why on earth does the jonnies need details like boyfriends etc for giving the clearance?

‘I prefer paying 100 bucks to Indian officer, who doesn’t ogle at me and does his work, rather than standing in front of these jokers answering all the flirtiest questions for sake of 100 dollar refund’ expressed one female colleague of mine, after once such incident.

Finally ‘Corruption Zindabad’ at least our fellows have respect for “Sthree”.

Code Coolie

2005-11-16T10:06:00.001+05:30

Recently I was talking to my old colleague, we both worked for an India based MNC in IT, he onsite and me offshore. After all these years, we accidentally met on this messy maze of internet and obviously our conversation turned to work life.

In general we b!#@hed about how expatriate Indian IT workers are treated. ‘We are treated worse than slaves’, was the common opinion or the conclusion we reached.

I started to analyze why we are in this situation that we are in. Here are some reasons that I could gather.

1) Usually managers are not from IT background.

The general trend is for the MNCs to get guys from marketing or sales background to make them in-charge of the practice. This is done under the impression that the person has good marketing ability and he can do some wonders to the practice.

Yes, it is true. Wonders are happening. A new head will bring with him a fresh approach and fresh lease of life into any practice, new policies, new clients (because he would have sold them the idea that ‘Blah blah can be done by our guys’).

Then the actual reality dawns on the techies, the foot soldiers of the practice. The general has promised the client, some impossible tasks. Some thing that normally takes say X amount of time, this dude has gone ahead and accepted to do it for 0.8X amount of time. The result, long hours, budget over flows, what not, yet things are delivered on-time, if not in-time.

For the manager it is just a sale of 100 washing machines this month, so next month I need to sell 120 washing machines.

Why, because the foot soldiers, like in any war (corporate wars included) are the ones who sacrifice for sake of some notion like national flag (practice pride), which is absolute bullshit. What difference does it make to the person dead, as to what happens to his nation after he is dead, like wise, what difference does it make to the practice, if someone misses out important events in his life, once the project is done and money is transferred to companies account.

What difference does that make to a corporate once the client transfers the currency and the manager’s targets are met, if the techie is in hospital for stress related illness, or happens to miss out his marriage/engagement?

In my own life, I have seen many of my friends fly to India for a week and get married rush back to work, because some manager has not sanctioned his leave for more than 5 days. (Courtesy: approaching deadline). This despite the fact that he would have told his manager about his impending marriage two quarters in advance and the manager/practice leader would have blissfully said, ‘Oh, you are getting married. We all will be expecting treat. Regarding your leave, take a forth night off and go to here-and-there for your honeymoon’.

After the party is thrown at the beginning of the new month and half the salary is blasted off, the remaining salary is spent in calling cards to call his would-be life partner for long hours.

As the d-day fast approaches, this bloke goes and asks for leave, that is when the marketing talk comes into picture. ‘As you see, the project is in critical stage. You are a senior most person in this practice. If you leave, the client will lose confidence in us. Blah.. blah… blah.. You are important and needed for this project to be successful”.

This guy somehow gets married and then one day says to manager that he is not feeling well. The truth was, his newly wed wife might have given a strict warning that if she is not taken to that amusement park, and she will leave for India for good. So he cooks up the story that he is not well. Presto, the ever concerning voice of his manager comes on the curse of 21st century, the cell phone. Once in every hour he calls to find out how he is feeling, much to anguish of the wify material beside him. Every time the call comes, he ducks to a quite corner, least the manager listens to the background noise/music and tells him of his slow progress. That day, this jonnie is lost. Boss is annoyed that he was sick and wife is annoyed that he was physically present but mentally at office.

Some how his life moves on and wife returns to India, pregnant, vowing never to see this fellow again on-site. He makes frequent visits to India to see his new born.

1st visit is for three days duration, 15 days after the kid is born, to name her. Lots of snaps to adorn office table and again half salary is gone in entertaining the team and the manager about the new arrival.

2nd is made after 6 months that too for few days, because his wife threatened to divorce him if doesn’t show up his face.

3rd one is very late, say one year later. As wife is now busy with the kid and stop to think that she way ever married to someone. Once in a while a phone call is all that she needs to do as a wife and our jonnie dear calls her often just to find out if every thing is alright.

4th one happens says after few years and this guy is back. You know why? Now he is almost 35 and no longer can keep working late hours, cant run around, cant do things as fast as he could.

When back home, he sees the ground realities.

a) His daughter doesn’t recognize him in flesh and blood and always shows the snap that is on the wall, when asked to show daddy.
b) She can’t even recognize him, as the snap was taken when he was young, trim as compared to his obese, balding, burping self.
c) His manager is no longer interested in his stroke detected in the mandatory ECG. There are no hourly phone calls, no updates. When he calls to say the same, ‘Hey jonnie boy, am busy now. Call you back later’
d) Practice is not bothered about his ulcers as once it was bothered about his afternoon off due to stomach ache.
e) His bank balance is worse than the bloke next door, who stayed back in India and worked for some non-IT company. (After all those meaning less parties, calling cards no wonder he has deep burnt holes in his pockets)
f) The cost of living is exceptionally high as his relatives and friends think he minted money in IT somewhere abroad so he can afford to do certain things, which he has to do now. At least for their sake.

Now the jonnie boy is wondering, were all these things necessary??

2) Usually the expectations are based on previous expatriate workers

This is another kind of scenario, where IT workers are treated the way their previous colleagues wanted them to be treated. In those days when the millennium doom/boom was not there, scores of our jonnie boys went to other countries for greener pastures. The moment someone has greens in sight, they tend make more of it and set some high expectations to the client. By working long hours, bending too much backwards and all, these guys are real culprits in setting some unreasonable expectations which is still now seen in the way the current generation workers are treated.

The general idea is that an IT laborer from India puts work first above all else. Don’t now get some ideas that work is done in a professional way, but they just slog. May be at times I wonder if the 250 years of colonial rule has changed the genetics of the entire nation. The moment we see some other skinned boss, we simply boot lick them and bend back as much as possible. Or at least they expect the current generation to do.

This kind of expectations result in setting unreachable target dates, where in every one is burnt out.

The trend of having shadow resources back in Indian offices to do some work that cannot be done even if the entire team is putting up 24X7 also causing the unreasonable expectations. What if some chaps are not fortunate enough to have shadow resources back home? Simple, they are doomed.

Conclusions:

This is a straight lift from Boy zone’s song.

No matter what they tell us (You are important to practice)
No matter what they do (Promise you the hike/designation)
No matter what they teach us (You are the brand ambassador for the company, no longer an individual)
What we believe is true (You family first)

No matter what they call us (You are "the" guy for practice)
However they attack (Escalations/poor appraisals)
No matter where they take us (USA/Singapore/China/Pakistan)
We'll find our own way back (to our sweet home)

I can't deny what I believe (Professionalism, dedication)
I can't be what I'm not (bending backwards, boot licking)
I know our love forever (are you listening there in India)
I know, no matter what (I just don’t care if my boss reads this)

Brain Errors

2005-11-15T19:11:00.000+05:30

Never understood why this kind of error is never sent out by human memory.

"Could not reserve enough space for object heap"...

Wish we (humans) too had that kind of error traps, so that we can discard old memories or unwanted memories...

wish... we knew the source code to our lives...

wish.... someday, someone, files anti-trust agains God for hiding the code....

wish....

wish....

What next

2005-07-23T19:50:00.000+05:30

"What next?" is the question that is bugging me all along....

When in Primary School was eager to complete it and go to high school, then from high school to college... then to get some means of livelihood.. then to get married.. then to have kids..

Now am done with all that..

what next???

Wait for my retirement and expect to lead a sedentry life in some remote corner of the world?

Do something more meaningful for the community?? -- This gives another question.. what is the meaning of "meaningful"...

Some how some where am always confused!!

Silence

2005-06-30T11:58:00.000+05:30

My silence can speak volumes.... can any one read that much of junk???

DB on India

2005-06-29T15:15:00.000+05:30

There seems to be more than we know about ourselves....

Take a look at the world as it is... and what Indians are considered about...

http://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD/PROD0000000000188752.pdf

My client, DB, feels that India has more potential than any other country in the globe.

China, our dearest neighbour and friendly rival, is felt to be not so favorable to their growth.

Tsunami Hits

2005-06-28T07:53:00.000+05:30

Srinivas Divi, was one of our good old friends, with an air of conniving look on his face, but was the most mild and timid one among the group. Well, those were my bachelor days and when I say he was “timid”, it obviously refers to the stance that one takes when approaching girls. Yet his sprits were always high and used to say to all of us that some day, some one would definitely be there for him. As life is, we had to move on in our life and our interaction got to a stage of a mail once in a while.

After nearly five years, one day he suddenly called up to inform that he was getting engaged and his marriage date was fixed. My knowledgeable assumption that it was arranged was correct. After that day our interaction became almost daily, may it be chat, mail or call. Every day, he used to tell us as to how he was going ahead with ‘music’ of his life Vani. How she was talking to him etal. I was happy that at last the priest got his Goddess to worship. All the conversation was full of her.

One day, after Tsunami, while I was on my way back from office, my mobile gave its usual buzz. It was Divi, with a heavy voice at the other end. When I asked for the reason, in that Chennai traffic sounds around, he told me that Tsunami has taken away Vani. Not knowing what to say, I told him that I would return his call after I go home. The real reason was, I needed some composure to talk to him.

All along the way I was thinking how this bloke might fare with his life and what will happen to him next. His dreams, his notions.. that was a very cruel joke by nature.

At home, I immediately made a call to Divi,

“Hello, Divi, how are you feeling now?!?, was in traffic so had to cut the conversation. Am really sorry to know what happened? ”

“Yes, I too feel bad, but what can be done, life is like that.”

“Well, don’t spiral into depression or do something to yourself. It is part of file”, said I.

“Yes, Anil, I know it… “ said Divi.

“Well, I understand that after all the preparations and mind set ready for marriage, it is hard to take this kind of shocks. How are your parents reacting?”

“Why will my parents feel bad for that? And why will my marriage stop??!!” said Divi.

Well, got dumbstruck, how can Divi talk like this? How can he be so immune to this grave loss of life? I felt that this shock has set him into a different plane altogether and he is now emotionally blunted to core.

After a few moments of silence, Divi said, “Phani’s parents were in Hyderabad, spoke to them. They are recovering now.”

“Well, Tsunami??..” muttered me.

“What Tsunami??”

“What happened??” I barked not able to contain my emotion at the way he was talking. No correlation to what he was saying. Vani died and he talks of Phani. When asked about Tsunami, he says what Tsunami. He has really gone into delirium. At the same time making plans to go to Hyderabad to meet him in person and take stock of situation.

Then he coolly said, “Well, Phani met with a train accident in Mumbai and his parents were in Hyderabad today. And why are you shouting at me??”

Then it dawned on me that it was Phani – another friend of ours – met with a fatal accident and Divi made a remark about Tsunami and if we were safe.

Moral of the Story:
Listen, not hear. Never make assumptions from bits and piece of information.

A byline – Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring.

Batman Begins

2005-06-22T20:52:00.000+05:30

Wanted a day off in the evening, or was it a sudden surge to leave early, don't know exactly what, left office at 6:34 P.M SGT. For those of you who live on the lighter side of this planet, office life in Singapore starts at 9:00 A.M and goes on till you drop dead in your seat.

Pramod and Ravi gave some "valid" reasons for not joining for the movie, so had to make my movie journey myself.

6:37 P.M. landed up in the crowded local train to City Hall, while all my surroundings looked same, every one with the same dressing style females dark suit, males ditto. The only way you can differentiate a male and female here is with the amount of cloth they use in their dress. Less the cloth, more feminine the gender.

6:43 P.M. out of train, walked in the subway from station to Marina Square, all the way was dotted with shops selling technically correct and pratically useless goods. What is so technically correct, the term "consumer goods". The near naked cloths that these fashion mall - rather called the 'hypermalls' - sell can even put my nation's begger to shame.

Constant shouts in the microphone by some local army Subedar, as a part rehersals of the local nation's 40th 'National Day' celebrations, started another stream of thoughts.

What might be the total size of these fellow's army, hardly 100,00. The total nmber of dudes who are citizens itself ids just over 40 lacs - forget the floating populations and labourers like me, just citizens and permanent residents (green card types). I feel that if all the faction warriors of my native Kurnool out number the entire army of Singapore. (About factionism - some other day)

Yet, look at the amount of noise that this army can do, loud speakers here and there. Flying choppers every few hours, taking a huge flag - made of imported cloth, ofcourse. They dont have anything - except a few square kilometers of place on this planet. Approximately 700 Sq.Km which includes sea waters, small islands or islets and not to forget those pebbels on the shore.

7:05 P.M. took tickets from the counter and walked to my designated chair. To my surprise, the time printed on the ticket was 6:45 P.M but still there was no sign of movie in the theater. All around me I could only see elderly Can-Kens and some romantic couples.

7:15 P.M. movie started, good - atleast at some place they work as per my nations proud IST (Indian Streachable Time)

After the movie, again my thoughts came back to my own nation, my own place. As is the state of Gotham City in that movie, my place too is infested with corruption and darkness. It is high time that we need a Batman to clean up. It is a ficiton, so we can see a hero, single handedly take on the world or his city.

Dont you think that as individuals if we take on the task of cleaning up our own mess, our place can be far better than the promised Heaven after death.

Cant we realise that if as individuals we act and behave in the way it is expected, with integrity and character, our place, our nation, our planet can be better off for many more milliniums to come.

Let there be light - pay your electricity bill regularly and stop using proliferated power.

Bday blues

2005-06-20T08:51:00.000+05:30

As a norm every year, I do something that I have never done before. Yesterday, I realized that I did not do anything "special".

Dashed to Mustafa - the only place where we Indians in Singapore feel comfortable to buy - or is it a mob syndrome - never the less went there, got a "Skateboard" with some protective gears.

Went to West Coast park to try them out. After a relentless three hours of experiments with around a dozen falls (bum shaking) I could manage a distance of 10 meters. Cool isn't it.

I can never forget the "look" that the near-by teenagers gave me, when I was busy with my experiments. Imagine a 29 year old, near quintal weighing, Indian dude trying out a skateboard... he hee.... [chuckles]

One gentleman in his late 60s - Indian - said to me "Good, good... you are at least trying something" when I had a miserable fall on the concrete path in the park.

"Never say, never again" - Tomorrow, am again back in park!!!

Fresh morning

2005-06-13T08:37:00.000+05:30

13-June: Morning

Woke up for a fresh morning, from the window of my 10th storey apartment I could see bright day light welcoming me to work. After a while I found myself walking on the rain cleaned streets of Singapore. The sweet aroma of coffee and Milo from the food courts dotted along the walk to MRT along with the occasional shout of 'koopiaaa' by the coffee servers at these counters, made me swell with joy of another wonderful week at office.

MRT, the same crowd, same faces, with same kind of dress, every one here wears same kind of cloths and has same kind of expression, sombere (or is it moronous, he he...) and the same anouncement "sila hamirpurhatian demik islamathan blah blah... "

Reached office, same desks, same workaholic blokes at the desk, looking seriously busy...

Reached desk... same monitor, same desk pinups... Same Shit, Different Day....

Where did my freshness go... [chuckles]

Adrenaline Rush

2005-06-08T16:43:00.001+05:30

There were times in life when one gets some adrenaline rush to do something that is unimaginable. It was a hot June afternoon in '98, when that kind of surge took place in me. For days together I was depressed that some Ms.J (then she was Ms) was getting married to a stranger, while she had promised to marry me only few weeks ago. It was too much a burden for me, understandably.

My calls were not answered, my attempts to reach her were futile as she refused to speak to me. There seemed no hope of seeing her, nor knowing the reason why she was doing what she was planning to do. Being a very curious person, my curiosity made me kill the cat.I heard a reference of one of her childhood friends, Ms.H, who stayed close by her place, while talking with J few months ago. It occurred to me that she may hold the key which can unravel the mystery as to why J was marrying someone. So that afternoon I got a surge to meet that girl under any cost.

Ravi, my good buddy and a distant relative, accompanied that fact finding mission. We both reached her door step, with a little bit of enquiry here and there. An aging bald chap opened the door and asked us the reason for being there, for which we promptly answered that we were H's classmates and we want to meet her.

With a look of little surprise he invited us inside him home, made us feel comfortable with a breeze of air cooler, which was a refreshing change after those mid-afternoon enquiry sessions under the blazing sun.

We were made to understand that the H was out and was expected in a short while during which we learnt that the gentleman was her father. Soon Tea was served with some biscuits and my hopes of meeting this person and explaining her my situation and then getting the reasons for the sudden change in J's decision were growing.

Suddenly, that gentleman asked me where I was H's classmate, for which I casually said "During our graduation".

There was a glint of smile on H's parents.

Breaking a few moments of silence, her father asked me, "How can you be my daughter's classmate in a woman's college?"

There was nothing more we could do, Ravi and I, promptly got up and started for door.Even amidst the requests of the old couple to sit down, we rushed towards door mumbling something.

After that there was a two hours of silence between Ravi and me as we both were digesting the fatal facts.

Note: All the characters narrated in this incident are real, alive and living somewhere on this planet and while this incident happened they were all in Hyderabad.

Genome in Singapore

2004-12-16T06:25:00.000+05:30

After the storm comes the calm or was it before the storm that there is calm. In any case got some time to pound my keyboard for a while.. Singapura, the way some call it has a unique Singlish (Singapore English ala Hinglish) where every sentence you speak is almost ends with “la”…

“yes, la.. ”, “no, la” etal.. something similar to our own Indian version of “da”, “ra”, “ri”, “ray”, where “da” is mostly used in Tamilsh, “ra” in Telugish, “ri” in Kannadish, “ray” in Hinglish.
The more convent educated, the likes of urban elite who attend missionary schools, end their sentences with a “no” making it sound as if it was “isn’t is so??”

But at times I have come across those who use a dignified pause between sentences with an eager-to-know-if-you-have-got-my-point expression in their eyes.

The point here is, when I met my current client for the first time in Singapura, I was late for meeting by a grand margin of 3 hrs, (never in my life a client was so patient to wait for me) and he reminded of some one whom I know very closely, my brother-in-law.

I was introduced to him warmly by my host, but when I saw him, I even forgot to utter “how do you do!?!” how can some one be so similar to someone back home???

The physical build, height, weight, color complexion, facial features (at least 70%) – that is distinctly delicate with some kind of brightness in eyes. (Hey don’t get me wrong, am not of a woman, but just trying to get my point across)

All the while I was trying to gauge him as to if it was jet lag or was he looking same as that of my bil? When the meeting began and he started to speak it was unbelievable.

His voice, the tone, the style of speech was exactly same !!!!

As mentioned before he too would make a small pause between two logical sequences/steps and gives a quick glance that has a question “got my point?” I noticed this whenever I talked to my bil. If the expression on your face says that it was over head transmission, he immediately goes deep into the subject and take it on from there and sees to it that you understand the whole thing. Both did the same thing. (At times I wonder how they got so much of patience to handle this kind of communication, while I was more like an Aloha protocol, no start, no end, no logic. May this tribe increase. Wish my teachers were as patient as them)

All through the meeting I was concentrating on his talking style, body language, voice, tone, etc than what he was saying. (Of course I was confident that my colleagues were making a note of it, so I can always refer back).

The same question lingered that night in my mind and thought it was due to jet lag and fatigue and next day I would see something else. But my wish was not full filled. He was the same.How can two people be so similar in all the aspects?

Well, I remembered what my grandma told me long ago. Brahma (The God of creation) would create seven people who are similar in all aspects. Was this true? If he has created seven of same type, then the world would have seen seven Hitlers by now. (of course seven Aishwarya Rais too).. but we have seen only one such personality and we are always drilled by our new age Gurus that “You are unique!!” (A by line here is – slogan of tourism Singapore is “Uniquely Singapore”)

If every one was unique, then why am I seeing two people alike – in all aspects? Then it occurred to me that, the greatest developer/programmer of this world The God is under great stress!! Look at the population explosion. So as every programmer worth his salt would do, he “leveraged” the code for human manufacturing. In other words he was doing a cut-paste job up there in heaven and getting paid for it.

The only thing was he was intelligent enough to do some variable substitutions here and there, so that clients feel that the solution was developed especially for them.

Never the less, I solved the mystery of Genome, did I? All those who are doing R & D on genetic engineering may concur with me that there is some common code in all of us, the base class. As the inheritance chain goes on, other attributes keep on adding to it, which makes all the difference.

May be some day, someone would know how to crack this code and ensure that every one is the same and live in harmony. Wishful thinking… .

Both of the above said gentlemen are marked a copy of this mail, so you can feel that you are not alone, there are others who are going through this ordeal of reading my mail, a poetic justice.

Aaaaaaaaaaamen!!!!

Where do you stand

2004-12-15T08:22:00.000+05:30

The recent acquisition of PeopleSoft by Oracle has given a new dimension to the entire thought process for an ordinary software fellow like me … there was a time when we took pride in telling one and all that we belong to a particular creed of products.. we develop some thing on such and such product or software… something like fanatics…

Yes we are and were IT fanatics while the real ones are after some abstract concept called religion etal… we developers (I still call myself a developer ) took pride in saying that we work on open source, work on Java generics… had some kind of contempt for MS and IBM guys..

In real terms there was no need for contempt, but had contempt.. Never understood why.. Nor questioned why… it was cult system…

In the enterprise arena there were groups of fans who vouched their life for a product…. I know many a few who were into hard-core PeopleSoft fans and blissfully ignored other tools that have a better functionality or even better interface… Same was the case with SAP, Seibel, Ariba…

Now the paradigms have changed…

I am hurt… some thing similar to the ordinary soldier who lays down his life for a nation in a war of acquisition only to find that the two countries are joining together to form a greater force… for the top brass it was only a matter of business… for some one down below it was his life…

Once I remember, we suggested a major client to go in for PeopleSoft instead of Oracle Apps 10G … why we did it… cause we were in that idol worship of PeopleSoft.. to blissfully ignore other tools and even generate a report showing PeopleSoft in a better light…

Where do I stand in front of my client if I come across him on street….

I feel betrayed…

May be – in this world of business, one needs to be live in a “as-matter-of-fact” way, where there is no sense of belonging, no sense of pride in the tool we use....

Live the day as it is…

Who is the culprit.. definitely not the business guy… it is you who fell for that mirage!!!!

First post

2003-10-10T22:29:00.000+05:30

Cool cool cool...

time to stop planning and start living... enuf of life and time spent in planning not in living