The Information Jockey

Homo sapiens–nomads?

2010-11-08T19:27:00.001+05:30

It is the dusk of 2010, we as human beings have evolved and traveled a long way. But we somehow still seem to be nomadic in our way of life.

Yeah! Look around oneself, we don’t have a community as such to bank on, to depend. We are pretty much living a secluded life. Whatever happened to the self sustainable communities that we had seen during our “evolving” to the current “progressed” position.

Aren’t we rootless in many ways than one? Families are disconnected-both emotionally and distant wise. Sad state? I don’t know maybe as we are made to believe this might be the price we pay for “development”.

No wonder we look at nature with eyes wide open, whenever we visit our native villages and towns, the frequency of which is coming down drastically-we are not even ready to accept that we need a break from our mundane lives. City dwellers seem to have lost life somewhere during the transition.

What is the solution? What is the problem? Why have lost connect with our roots? Are we aware of what we are trying to achieve?

Love and respect women

2010-04-29T19:59:00.001+05:30

The women in India cannot decide for themselves when they want to have the “family planning surgery”. Simply put, husband has to sign before the surgeon goes ahead with the surgery. What a sad state of affair!

It is said that if the husband has sex with his wife without her consent then it is called as rape in the court of law. It is the mother who has to undergo the pains of bearing the child for nine months, the labor pain, the constant medication, frequent trips to the hospital and God forbid if the child is born with some deformity or ailment the women is scorned at. All the man has to do is you know what. Not just the bearing, women does the majority of the rearing as well, husbands hardly do anything. It’s another story that even if the husbands tried to do it, they would screw up that as well.

And then there are other extremities wherein the in-laws decide for the lady, husband is just the signing authority. Here the women doesn’t even come in the picture.

Amidst all this there is no one to talk to the lady as a friend. More, often than not husbands also fall short of their duty maybe because of their ignorance. And even if the husband were to take care of his wife the society bills him as hen-pecked. And so the taking care is left mainly to the nurses in the hospital or some maid (if the family can afford), or to some elder women folks of the family.

And then, it’s known that Indian families love only the male child, so the above circus continues till the lady gives her in-laws sufficient number of male children.

Wake up people, treat women with love, respect and let her decide what she thinks is best for her.

Anupam Mishra: The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting | Video on TED.com

2010-02-17T22:31:00.000+05:30

A genuine story of not so ancient India. Trust me it's truly Incredible India!
Watch it for the magic, magic because it is truly remarkable!

A beautiful, awe inspiring TED Talk by Anupam Mishra at Mysore, India.

Anupam Mishra: The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting | Video on TED.com

My thoughts after reading “Leonardo Da Vinci’s resume”

2010-02-16T11:22:00.002+05:30

My cousin Shilpa, sent me an email of “Leonardo da Vinci’s resume” you can find it in http://marketing-jobs.theladders.com/career-newsletters/leonardo-da-vinci-resume. After reading Leanardo Da Vinci’s resume Duke did not have any choice than to hire him. The most important thing here is that da Vinci is very confident of his "skill sets", so he has come out with such a wonderful resume/CV/bio data/profile/whatever.
I was impressed to say the least and then some thinking led to these observations:
Wouldn’t History classes be more interesting if similar examples from the past were used? Which would of course make students love the subject than make it a dull and boring session where students are more often than not are caught napping in the last benches or playing book cricket.
The students would learn the art of writing in history class along with what they learnt in English class, or in fact they could consider this as an “Application” or as an example for whatever theory their English teacher would have taught them.
What better than to learn how to write a resume in one’s high school? Maybe, then very few people would go to consultants of the job portals to get their resume “written”.
Help students think of bigger things in life than the next unit test where they had to vomit all those "Dates and Events" and arrange them in Chronological order!
Big thinking would naturally get the better out of students and they would set bigger goals in life than clearing competitive exams by mugging, cramming or going to the coaching centers, we would get better professors, politicians, teachers, lawyers, scientists, engineers, doctors above all better human beings.
Then history could have been taught without a teacher, but really a teacher that is history/life!
Would this have not left an indelible impression on the young minds!

Enlightenment, courtesy: Classifieds

2010-02-10T12:03:00.001+05:30

One afternoon two weeks ago, I was just lazing around, I saw the classifieds page and began reading it. Let me tell you it was an enlightening experience about the present day Indians. You don’t have to read high sounding books or research papers to understand the marriage life of the present generation, just read the classifieds ad.

The Ads did suggest increasing divorce rates. People who were out of marriage in just 6 months had placed Ads. And then there were people who seemed to have made an attempt at weathering the storm had also placed Ads, the USP of these second set of people was “issueless”. Across the board in the Ads by the second set of people the main highlight was “issueless”, that’s why I called it as USP.

And then the Ads by men were just outrageous, they bluntly stated they wanted “fair, beautiful, homely, well educated”. Hey come on guys are you mentioning “Requirement Specifications” of a product? Sorry, I don’t understand any of the adjectives.

At this rate I doubt if we will even have any “functioning” families by the end of this decade?

Good luck to all of us!

Customer care

2010-02-10T12:01:00.001+05:30

Customer care according to me is anticipating customers’ demands and delivering them. The company need not be told the obvious by the customer. I came to this conclusion when I was at a Chaat shop with my friend.

This happened quite sometime ago, my friend and I went to a roadside Chaat shop to have some chatpata snacks. We ordered Bhel Puri and some other specialties of the shop. Anywhere in India in these roadside Chaat shops water is not served first, I don’t know why. But in the Chaat shop that I had been to the owner had appointed a boy to serve water only to people who were eating, I had not come across any Chaat shop like this. That shop was particularly famous for its spicy and chatpata taste, so invariably customers would need water to drink water very soon. This boy would promptly serve the water almost at the same time the customer would need it, thus negating the inconvenience for the customer of having to ask the water and then wait till the waiter came or worse in some shops customers would have to fetch the water for themselves.

The owner knew his cuisine well and also the fact that customers would want water and he need not be told that they be served water, so he had hired person specifically for that! Very smart indeed.

Noughties vs Old times

2010-02-02T20:25:00.001+05:30

Old times to me mean 90s, to some of you it might mean 70s, 80s or still older days. Of late many people including me are being overly nostalgic and romantic about ‘good old times’. I think the main reason might be that in the noughties (2000-09) everything was so on the face right from mobile phones, 24X7 media, movies, ‘modern culture’ name it and people felt it was on the face to an extent that people are nauseated. Having said all of this, I still feel noughties is an important decade in the history of humanity because many good and important events took place and there were sadder events as well.

The penetration of communication into the lives of people living at the bottom of the pyramid, media playing the role of crusader, onslaught of TV channels, many companies coming up with Direct To Home facility, the rise and rise of internet (broadband connectivity (optical fiber cables being laid even in towns and villages where there is no proper electricity available)), projects like the Golden Quadrilateral being done with a fair amount of urgency, International Airports in many cities, setting up of new IITs and IIMs, good solid real estate growth in places like: NCR, Noida, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mangalore, Mysore. Many companies which were otherwise in other industries and also new companies jumped onto the retail industry bandwagon, we have seen chain of stores for: food & grocery items, shoes, mobile phones, clothes, electronic goods, vehicles and the list goes on. These enterprises created a lot of employment in the organized sector itself and then there were many people who found/created opportunities for themselves in the unorganized sector and/or became entrepreneurs. This huge growth in urban areas naturally attracted rural people and they in turn found employment opportunities in cities mainly in the construction & infrastructure business. One observation from all this is people who have braved the competition and stuck it out till the end have benefitted immensely.

The negative aspect of the decade have been the increasing terror attacks across the globe. India also faced the wrath of these attacks. These attacks were an attack on humanity and not any community or any country in particular. Only time will tell an answer as to when these attacks will stop.

It would be better for us in the new decade if we take everything that comes our way with a pinch of salt, use the noughties as a learning experience and improve upon.

Check out Google snubs China with 'Tank Man'

2010-01-13T19:30:00.001+05:30

I want you to take a look at: Google snubs China with 'Tank Man'

33% reservation for women in Parliament.

2009-02-24T09:28:00.002+05:30

Hey women folk of India why are you not taking the 33% reservation bill in Parliament and state legislatures seriously?

I don't understand how can you people even be so negligent and careless to take what you rightly deserve?

Well frankly speaking I don't understand why it is fixed at 33% and called as reservation.... it should in fact be 50% seats for men and 50% seats for women every elections, maybe the constituencies can be changed on a rotation basis.

It did not surprise me when the present UPA government did not table the bill in the ongoing session. Alas! I would like to call it as opportunity which Ms. Sonia Gandhi lost, they(UPA) had done fairly good job all these years and they should have landed a knock out punch by getting this bill passed.
How would they be able to get this bill passed, when the fiercest opponent of this bill Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav, is their most important partner.

This bill was first tabled in parliament Mr. Devegouda was PM, i.e., almost 12 years and that this bill has not yet seen the light of the day, it is still languishing, God knows where.

I think Messrs Sonia Gandhi, Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dikshit, Brinda Karat, Mayawati, Mamta Banerjee, Jayalalita, Vasundhara Raje, unite for the cause of womenkind and see to that this bill gets passed, I feel they should also media for this, and create a mass hysteria and bring pressure on the next government (be it the UPA, the NDA or the Third Front or whoever it is).

This bill needs to be passed urgently because women are facing lots of trouble these days, it has become very unsafe for them to move about in our cities.

And we all know the behavior of the male members of Parliament in the house, it is nothing short of outrageous to our consititution and also to our forefathers who gave us this wonderful gift called democracy, which we are not able to use to the benefit of us, I just hope that the more women in our Parliaments and Legislatures, the more sanity in India and the chances of India becoming a true superpower in the truest sense of the word.

Indian women.

2009-02-16T16:34:00.003+05:30

Disclaimer: This blog is written in sheer admiration and respect towards Indian women.

I was in a hotel this Sunday morning having my breakfast. Two couples walked into the hotel, they seemed to be on the way to attend a marriage because both the ladies were dressed in silk saree, wearing jewellery, it looked like they had taken great trouble in getting themselves ready for the occasion or they might have been to a nearby beauty parlour, whatever it is they were looking absoultely beautiful.

I just hope that mere nazar nahi lagi hain!!!

In contrast their husbands were just so out of sorts.

Hats off to Indian women.

T-shirts

2008-06-13T10:07:00.003+05:30

Come Friday and I eagerly wear a T-shirt to office. T-shirts reveal my tummy albeit a small one, but still an embarrassment. My image of slim and trim professional down the drain in a minute.

Well don't expect me to make public resolution of making meticulous plans to do gyms, workouts, yoga, etc. I won't make such statements in public.

Let me see what I can do with that tummy.

I AM A REBEL

2008-06-13T09:43:00.002+05:30

Hey don't say here comes another one who just talks and talks about being rebellious.

I'm a rebel in more ways than one.........because I obey traffic rules, wear helmet while riding, come to office in time. I live in this half sleepy half enthusiastic district headquarter Belgaum in Karnataka.

This blog is not Belgaum bashing, I shifted from Bangalore to Belgaum because of my job.
Don't open your jaws wide, thinking as to why did I leave a world famous city to this sleepy town Belgaum. I will tell that story some other time.

I landed in this city on January 27th. Since then till May first week, I commuted in the city using the city buses. I got bored of lack of wings and when I had been to Bangalore I got my bike Bajaj Pulsar 150 DTS-i. My dad warned me that beware that city doesn't at all have traffic sense.
I had realized that bitter truth while crossing the roads. But I did not know that this city was this bad when it comes to traffic, I felt the pinch of it only when I found it very hard to ride and wade my way through the traffic and criss-crossing lanes.

People laugh at me when they see me wearing helmet, waiting for a traffic signal to go green, or if I wait for a pedestrian to cross the road.

MONSOON HAS ARRIVED

2008-06-06T10:27:00.003+05:30

Monsoon has arrived here in Belgaum. Yoooooooooooooooooooo Yippppeeeee...... It is indeed a pleasant feeling to get drenched in the rain.

Vow....its actually the onset of monsoon in this bustling district headquarters in the state of Karnataka......

I am looking forward to drive Pulsar 150 DTS-i(my bike... duh), in this rainy season.

I will vote this Saturday

2008-05-07T16:35:00.003+05:30

Bangalore votes this Saturday. I will be exercising my right. I have a responsibility to choose a Member of Legislative Assembly for BTM Layout constituency. This Saturday will be special one in my life, it will be the first me voting after becoming a bread earner.

"Arrogant Ponting must be fired": Peter Roebuck

2008-01-07T19:23:00.000+05:30

Ricky Ponting, captain of Australian cricket team be fired, writes Peter Roebuck in his column in "The Sydney Morning Herald".

He has called spade a spade, thereby only increasing admiration for himself and his writing in India.
He has not at all minced words. He actually writes that he's surprised that the Indian team hasn't yet packed and left the country. He's termed it as the ugliest performance by Australia in 20 years.
He also opines that Ricky Ponting's behavior has caused embarrassment for Australia as a nation.

Here's the Link to the Peter Roebuck's column.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2007

2007-12-10T20:31:00.000+05:30

This is the link to the "The Nobel Lecture given by The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2007, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), represented by R K Pachauri, Chairman
(Oslo, December 10, 2007)"

http://nobelpeaceprize.org/eng_lect_2007b.html

And this link is to the "The Nobel Lecture given by The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2007, Al Gore (Oslo, December 10, 2007)"

http://nobelpeaceprize.org/eng_lect_2007c.html

INDIAN MEDIA

2007-12-10T16:02:00.000+05:30

In a democratic setup like India, media is widely acknowledged as the fourth pillar of the constitution, the three being legislation, executive and judiciary. It is also expected to play a role of a watchdog, if you read between the lines it would mean that even if a situation arises where the three pillars of constitution are corrupt and rotten to the core, media has to don the role of a crusader and take the nation to the safety and protect its citizens.

If media has to play be the sole crusader of the democracy then it needs to distant itself from any ideology(read as political party), which might be easy in theory and hard to practice.

We can easily name the print media organizations and the political parties which are hand in glove,
thus we find the magazines being almost reduced to the role of party newsletter, my question is why has the journalism reached such abysmal lows? One doesn't need to be an avid reader of the magazines or newspapers to conclude my statement, even if s/he picks a random issue/copy of any magazine one can notice a visible tilt towards whatever ideology they subscribe to, in their reporting/ editorial. This ideological tilt is especially very high during the election times.

Now comes the electronic media, where they have made a dirty habit of glorifying violence, carrying out sting operations whenever the ad revenue dips or 'TRP' has fallen below the rival channel. Why do they do this? Yes I agree to the popular view of most editors that they are 'here to make business and not to do some charity', but business at the cost of what? Has the audience ever asked them to show everything, they are currently showing to fill up their airtime.

Who is to be blamed for this ruckus?

Greats and The Not So Greats

2007-12-10T15:50:00.000+05:30

Life is always full of anomalies. There have been greats and the not so greats in various aspects of life, viz. sports, entertainment, commerce, academics or for that matter any field one can think of. Let me warn you before you continue reading this piece, this is not a cynical piece of writing, just a comparison of different personalties of life.

Greats are obviously those people who have always captured people's imagination from the time they would have first set foot on their playing field. Then they go on to become heroes and stars in their domain and always remain kings and queens and invariably they retain their position against all odds. If you look closely at those people you would come across a 'Godfather' who would have been instrumental in getting that person to the position he/she would have attained, before you shout from your rooftop that my argument will not hold good against the 'Self Made Man', let me tell you that there is nobody who can be really called 'Self Made Man', all these who have seen glory, more often than not would have been at the right place at the right time, so now how do you call them as self made. Yes these people might have faced a lot of hardship, but luck does favor them.

And then the not so greats are those people who after making a grand debut, fade away. These prodigies often cannot live upto their own expectations after some time, and slowly these children of God fade away from limelight. This phenomenon of these extremely talented kids(kids because even before they become into full grown adults of their field of work, they are brushed aside) has always remained an enigma to me. The problem with these kids is they showcase all their talent in the first show itself, obviously the fickle minded public expects the same every show, and to deliver that performance day in and out becomes humanly impossible. The public is sometimes so impatient that they call that elusive first performance as 'fluke', well now you people have to define fluke for me, because I cannot agree a person's performance as a mere by chance, because whatever job one does needs some kind of a talent. Unfortunately there will be no Godfather for that person to get him another chance. This is mainly a case of Too much too early.

Dear reader, you would have found this writing very vague, but to keep away from all the uninvited controversies I have not used any names, now do me a favor, think of two people of a same field, who fit into my story and compare their lives, to your surprise you would agree with me.

Rich vs Poor battle in INDIA

2007-11-27T13:36:00.000+05:30

This battle between the rich and the poor has been on since time immemorial, but I feel now is the right time for we urban Indians to do something about it. Its almost the end of the year 2007 and its been more than one-and-half decade since India embraced globalization, there has been no inclusive growth ever since to say the least. I feel its the right time because in the last decade the nation was new to the free market world, now people have got hang of how the stuff works and its come to stage where things have almost begun to run slowly on their own.

I am basically concerned about the growing disparity in the income levels of the two ends of the society. Yes it is an issue to be concerned because the rich are becoming more rich and the poor are struggling even for one square meal a day, this is not fair. The Urban Educated Class are slowly segmenting themselves in the category of rich, by their spending habits(though by plastic money) and the lifestyle they are leading with a car or two, 2-3 two wheelers in their possession.
And on the other hand there is this poor farmer who is not even able to invest money to sow the seeds in his farm land, for which he has to borrow money from the local money lenders with heavy interest rates, there is no guarantee of a good yield because of changing climatic patterns, he has very little to choose from. No wonder the suicide rates of farmer in the Deccan Plateau is increasing at an alarming rate, but hardly has anything been done by the respective governments other than forming "Committee"s to study the problem and announcing "Package"s.

I agree that the Urban Educated Class have struggled to reach the position we are in, one might say we have done that by sheer talent, skills and hard work without any aid from the government.
Well I don't deny that fact. I am more concerned about this because there have been instances of pseudo wars between the well to do and not so well to do, let me cite an example: there have been instances where people have been robbed(modus operandi: stop the vehicle, catch them unaware rob them of any gold, take them to the nearest ATM threaten the victim to withdraw cash, beat him/her up) in both outer ring road and intermediate ring road, the victims are invariably those returning home from their swanky offices located in outskirts of Bangalore. I am afraid of the time when they will call themselves as "modern day Robinhoods" and continue to loot people. This is happening because of the income gap, we might argue that it was their fault for not being educated enough to land them in good jobs, there is equal amount of truth and lie in the argument, because it is always the society that is responsible for its state.

All I am pressing for is Inclusive Growth of the nation, we the people have a great responsibility on our shoulders. We have a big job to do, else I am afraid the cities will burn due to unrest and rising tempers of the people. Wake up fast.