In Pursuit.

Shifted My Blog!

2009-03-25T15:32:00.003+05:30

Hello!
I have shifted my blog to inquickpursuit.wordpress.com.
Wordpress is so much better!
See you there!
Ravi

Hush...the Net has ears...

2009-03-17T18:06:00.004+05:30

An employee fired for calling her job boring. A cop losing a case as he made claims that ran counter to what he had stated in court. Multiple instances of college pics and party photos resulting in candidates loosing interview calls.

They probably deserved it is the general feeling. Except in the above cases, the revelations about the people involved all happened online on social networking sites. They were not overheard or caught in real life. The mentioned people incriminated themselves. Somebody investigated their wall postings and public album collections.

We Homo-sapiens are social creatures. We know how to sweet talk some one discreetly. Spread rumors and appear professional when some one asks us where we see our selves five years from now. We can handle peers and pressure because of two factors. Nature and Nurture. I.e. we have brought up to pick up behavioral cues about people around us or the skills are inborn. Many generations of nurture training fail us when online behavior is considered. We are not able to perceive how far our party picture will go; Our own sphere of influence. In the offline world we would choose to show it to say 7 close friends who we can trust because we directly interact with them. Also the photos are still physically with you.

In the online world. The ability to multiply infinitely the photos causes serious issues. Plus let’s say you trust seven similar people with the photos. Even if one of those seven fail in discretion, you now have the equivalent of infinite photos on the net. Imagine the shock of employees who were fired because their boss found some college snap “not consistent with the corporate philosophy”.

The boss was not on the friends list but still found out. We would continue to see this trend in the future because how counter intuitive the online world really is. Let’s say you want to tell your friend you have a boring job. You would generally check the surroundings, lower your voice and tell him if you trust him. Even if this friend betrays you, we can possibly deny totally what we are accused of. In the Online world, it’s hard to keep track of who is watching you. We forget who is on our friends list and often they might be people we have fallen out with. People generate hundreds of photos every year and it is difficult to keep track of whom you are sharing it with. The internet is simply not intuitive. And the worst part about the internet is that there is always proof left behind. Your not-too- honorable friend we just spoke about now has a screenshot to prove his case.

The non intuitive characteristic of the net also cost many cheerleaders and teachers their jobs in the United States when they were found in what is called "pictures not reflecting expected behavior standards". Ten years back the person involved may have carried on with whatever they were accused of silently. But now it’s broadcast on the net and all it takes is one leak. One person or computer or account to be compromised and often carriers go down. Similarly every tweet, bog post and email is now a permanent record that can be used in mind numbing number of ways to slander people.

It would not be surprising if self censorship steps in soon on a large scale. We might have to worry like celebrities about what we say, had said or dressed like might be used against us somewhere anytime in the future.

Awesome Free Google Service for India

2009-03-12T16:19:00.006+05:30

Google has launched Voice Search for select Indian cities and its awesome!

Say you want to find out the phone number of a restaurant, maybe Corner House.
You have to call up 1-800-41-999-999 and you have to say "Corner House" after the Beep.
The voice recognition system takes what seems like 3 seconds to understand what you said and then repeats the query.
Then it asks for area,i assume if multiple locations are found, and again the system takes 3 seconds.
The system then sends you an sms and also reads out the results.

I tested the system for Hotel empire, Chinmaya Mission Hospital, Vidyarthi Bhavan and for Movie timings at INOX and they were all spot on.
Though for Hotel Empire I got the address and phone number but for others I only got the contact number.

And the best part is that its FREE! It is a toll free number you call. I have often ended up in MG road or Brigade road and have walked around looking for a newspaper to check movie timings.Now I guess that situation wont happen again.

Here is the official site with more details.
Google's aim is to organise the world'ss information. Good work so far!

Google screws up, Again!

2009-03-08T18:37:00.002+05:30

Google seems to be loosing it slowly. First, they marked the entire Internet as spam. Then the great GMail outage happened, and the latest, your private documents in google docs could have been shared and exposed to other people.

Even though this happened to less than " .05% of documents" its a huge setback to Google.I really don't want people to find out my collection of email forwards and 18th century poetry.This is enough to scare me off the Internet cloud promise; Which is supposed to be google's weapon to finish off Microsoft.

When Bill Gates came to India, Pranoy Roy interviewed him. Gates was asked about FireFox and how it was eating into IE's market share. Gates said this " Every few years we hear about a company that's going to finish off Microsoft, and we say the same thing, Not yet!".

Another Indian Election

2009-03-06T18:05:00.005+05:30

This summer, in a poling booth near you watch the biggest democratic drama in the world.

These are the things I remember from the last elections.

1. Large number of Film/ TV stars joining parties at will. It was a really funny spectacle, watching stars and wannabe's lining up.
2. Nobody expected the BJP to loose. It was taken for granted they would walk away with a comfortable win.
3. Sonia Gandhi was expected to loose hands down.
4." The left? Who’s that?" was the attitude of news anchors.
5. It was supposed to be the first "presidential" style election in India. Putting Sonia Gandhi vs. Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Guess is was also the last.

So many sure shot predictions were broken last time. Let’s see how this year’s predictions go.

I will be following some blogs and columnists this time to understand the election. The most important one of them all will be Swapan Dasgupta at the Daily pioneer. His analysis is simple, straight and very funny most of the times.

MK Akbar seems to be a good new find . Not read enough of his columns yet.

Sigh...

2009-03-05T13:30:00.005+05:30

Lyrics from the musical Mary Poppins :

A man has dreams of walking with giants
To carve his niche in the edifice of time
Before the mortar of his zeal
Has a chance to congeal
The cup is dashed from his lips
The flame is snuffed aborning
He's brought to rack and ruin in his prime

Informed Comment

2009-02-26T20:15:00.002+05:30

There are some blogs out there thatreally amaze me. The most impressive one I have recently stumbled upon is Informed Comment written by Juan Cole.When the Israeli army invaded Gaze I barely understood what was happening.

While most news channels choose to just report events during the invasion, I was a bit confused by coverage in the international media including the NYT and The Guardian.Most of these papers organized their coverage around the impact of this event on the other big event. Obama's swearing in.

Then I stumbled on this blog and was quite amazed at the length the author goes to analyse news from a variety of sources and his ability to make reading it relatively simple. And this is the middle east! Its quite complex and he really does help me understand the situation better.
He also vovers Islamic issues and studies. His clarity ensures I can just look up his posts and understand what's happening in that part of the world.

My article in Citizen Matters

2009-02-23T22:05:00.003+05:30

I actually published something! The people at Citizen Matters declare themselves as " a Bangalore focused and citizen-oriented news publication". Well it feels warm and fuzzy to see your words in print...er...pixels.

Here is my article on how i remember Defense colony.

Shame on Barkha Dutt

2009-02-01T22:39:00.003+05:30

Barkha Dutt is doing to this blogger what bullies do to little kids.
This link sums up the events well.

http://retributions.nationalinterest.in/ndtvs-assault-on-free-speech/

English classes in school

2009-01-07T11:36:00.000+05:30

The short story is my favorite type of lit. I've always enjoyed my English classes in school. Except for the weird poems that sounded nothing like the official interpretation provided by the teacher. I remember the lily and the oak.

The Noble Nature
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)

IT is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make Man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night—
It was the plant and flower of Light
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.

Most of us students were not convinced by my teacher's interpretation that the beauty of the lily was better. we thought the oak was doing an unglamorous job as a tree very well!

Preity Zinta!

2008-12-23T16:03:00.004+05:30

I subscribe to Wikipedia article of the day. I received the most diverse set of articles and they are really fascinating. Here are some...

LaRouche criminal trials.
United Nations Parliamentary assembly.
The Equipartition theorem.
Elaine Paige.
yttrium.
Amateur radio in India.
Pulmonary Contusion.
Komodo Dragons.
Delhi.
Metallica.
Phan Xich Long.
Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany etc...

Yesterday's article though was a knowledge packed one on..........................Preity Zinta!

Here's the article.

I can barely imagine a reader in Greenland and another in Peru reading this informative piece!

Wikipedia needs our help!

2008-12-23T15:38:00.001+05:30

Wikipedia, am ambitious project to catalog all human knowledge is one of the six top sites in the world. It needs help. The Wikipedia foundation is a non profit foundation that has consistently resisted putting advertisements on its sites. It relies on voluntary donations by its users.

It has an impressive 11 million articles in 265 languages. More than 275 million people visit the site every month to access information, free of charge and free of advertising.Its a treasure trove and i love the featured article mailing list which sends me the "article of the day".Very fascinating stuff.

Its time to give back a little. Click here to donate.

Face it!

2008-12-17T16:14:00.002+05:30

Sweet new feature in Picasa( Google's pic manager). It now allows you to tag people and it attempts to recognize faces in pictures using face recognition technology!The feature was available for American users only until now. It 's a bit inaccurate. Or that's how technology and I've been watching too many unrealistic spy thrillers!

Arun Shourie's speech

2008-12-12T15:50:00.002+05:30

Arun Shourie's speech in the Rajya Sabha on the Mumbai attack, via offstumped.

The point is that not only, Sir, is the finger of suspicion there, but your intelligence reports, I can say from my personal knowledge, because I have reproduced many of them, say, they record, that actually the ISI is now knitting together Indian insurgence extremist groups even in the North East.

Therefore, things are going to get much worse. So, Sir, what should be done, I will now just come to that and these are in a constructive spirit and I do hope that the Government especially the Prime Minister with his knowledge of what had happened in Punjab, he has the firsthand knowledge of what is happening in the
North East, which is a matter of great concern to him because he represents the North East in the House, and, I hope they will be taken in that spirit.

My first point, Sir, is, please stop running to ‘mummy’. This business of putting faith that somebody else will do our work for us, Nobody will do it for the reasons that I have already outlined to you in the case, for example, of America. The same is the case with China. China is the prop of Pakistan. They have a strategy, they say ‘murder with a borrowed knife’, find a natural enemy of your adversary, arm it, encourage it and it will do your job for it. This is what they have been doing on nuclear proliferation or any other matter.

Second point, Sir, is please stop this miscalled peace process because one of the very unfortunate statements that was agreed to by the Indian Government, in this case by the Prime Minister, was terrorists will not be allowed to come in way to derail the peace process. What did this mean — Pakistan then had both options, go on doing terrorist attacks and the onus of keeping the peace process going would remain on India. That is it. Shed this. You know there is always an argument that is made to us when Musharraf was strong, ‘no, no, he is there, he is strong, you have to make some concessions on Kashmir.” When he was weak, ‘no, no, he is your best bet, you must make some concessions to him, and you strengthen him.’ Now there is so-called democracy, you say, ‘Democracy, therefore, you must strengthen democracy, you must make concessions and you must keep the peace process going even as we are badgered everyday.

Sir, third, shed denial. I will tell you, every time in this House from November 2004 there was a debate on internal security, in December 2005, there was a debate and four days before this terrorist attack in Mumbai, the Home Minister was in total denial, “Fortunately, the number of incidents and casualties that have occurred…” Sir, this business is not UPA versus NDA. “Fortunately, the number of incidents and causalities that have occurred in the last fourand- a-half-years are much less than those that occurred in the four-anda- half-years before the present period.” It is BC versus AC, Before Christ versus After Christ.

What consolation is it?

Yet, the impression created is that terrorism has increased and has not reduced. Please contrast that with what has been said just now. “Even if one incident occurs and one person becomes a casualty it should cause us concern and should make us alert. However, it should not demoralise us and give a wrong impression to the uninformed sections of society.” Sir, what about the informed sections? So, shed denial.

The fourth point is, implement it. You have again read out a set of measures. One, on page 3, you have said Coastal command I will say this with complete sense of responsibility and this is what I quoted four years
ago. Now there is a plan to stage things from unoccupied islands. Now, Sir, in Lakshadweep, there are 36 islands. The Godbole Task Force set up in the wake of Kargil in 2000 reported that for all these 36 islands
Intelligence Operation is only on one island, Kavaratti. There, the entire Intelligence gathering is carried out by one inspector, one sub-inspector, one head constable, three constables. For all the other 35 islands,
Intelligence operations are carried out by one constable/head constable. So, after the Mumbai attacks, I contacted the senior most people in Intelligence. They said, Sir, all these people reported to a person called officer-in-charge in Kavaratti. They said it is still one inspector, one sub-inspector, one head constable, three constables, and one constable/head constable reporting now, not to an officer-in-charge but — because of the grace of Pay Commission — he is the same man now re-designated as Deputy Superintendent of Police and it was recorded then, that unidentified helicopters and turbo planes have been
landing in these islands. Are we serious? Now, you are saying that coast guard etc. will be put under this. The Coast Guard-Navy coordination is not good enough. The Coast Guard should be put under the control of the Navy and accountability fixed is a recommendation seven years back. Sir, my suggestion there is, please implement what you have now resolved to do. This business of setting up a Marine Police Force, as you have in the Andamans, for Lakshadweep this recommendation dates back from December, 1996. I am not mentioning UPA or NDA. You can say should we wait for assaults of this kind to be awakened to the things we have not implemented? So, I greatly compliment you, Sir, for the things you have now resolved to do on page 3 regarding the Coast Guard etc. but for heaven’s sake do them.

Fifthly, prepare for the next form of assault. We are always preparing for the last. In all of Chinese literature, which your National Security Adviser keeps referring, they said they have outmoded this kind
of operation. We must get to the acupuncture points of the other society through integrated networks. What are these? Air traffic control, Railway traffic control, power grids, banking transactions, broadcasting
facilities, all are to be done in two minutes through cyber warfare.

My good friend, Mr. Raja, is sitting here. I am very distressed to report to the hon. Prime Minister that the
initiatives that were started, in collaboration with our Defence Forces for setting up of fire walls on our infrastructure and by the Armed Forces for them, have not helped at all. We remain as vulnerable. I would be very happy to be wrong in this when Mr. Raja will assure us. But the fact of the matter is, those who are supplying such software and the work that was being done in the Ministry and the Defence Forces, I feel that country is as vulnerable to that kind of operation by terrorists and, please remember, how sophisticated they are. In this case, they use not just mobile phones, not just satellite phones and they use voice over Internet protocol. Why did they do it? Sir, because it is then difficult to locate the person I am calling. So, they are far ahead in technology. It is now being said that they use GPS. And, it is now established by the best intelligence sources in the world that within the coming five years terrorists will use non-conventional weapons. They use biological weapons, chemical weapons, sub-nuclear weapons in their miniature form, etc. So, please, instead of waiting for the next statement after one of those attacks, review our preparedness. It is my entreat to you,to the hon. Defence Minister, hon. Prime Minister and everybody, please review our preparedness today for those new forms of attacks which will definitely come.

Sir, the sixth one is: Please stop seeing these incidents, whether in Assam or anywhere else, as single discreet isolated incidents. They are part of a sequence for a war of attrition.

That is my seventh point. It is a war. The one strategic thinker in the Sub-Continent who has succeeded — only one –is Zia-Ul-Haq. He was the man, 35 years ago, who identified proxy war to bleed India and break India. He believed in death by thousand cuts. The fact of the matter is, for 35 years, he has kept India busy and bleeding and That is the success of their strategy. So, it is a war. It is a war to break India. These are not discreet isolated incidents.

Sir, the eighth point is: Please do not go by the Joint Statements that their leaders sign with you and with great satisfaction the Home Secretaries exchange with each other. By Mr. Zardari’s new statement, please look at the nature of Pakistani’ State and society. In the Pakistani State the pervasiveness of the ISI, the power of the Army depends only on hostility with India and with successes against India in
these operations. How will they give it up? As far as the society is concerned, Taliban is not the cause of what is happening. Taliban is the result of the Talibanisation of Pakistani society. I have had an occasion
to quote a comprehensive thick study by Pakistani academics of the Institute for Sustainable Development Policy in Islamabad on the instructions given and the textbooks used not only in Madrasas but in
Government schools of Pakistan. From Kindergarten when the child is just 5 or 6 years old the instructions from the Central School of Secondary Education and Primary School Education says that he shall be judged by the fervour with which he gives speeches on Jihad and Shahadat. This is a 200-page report. Please download it and read it. That is the society which you think that you can deflect it with your sweet words.

My point number 9 is that no war can be won with a strategy of permanent defence. You must make
those who control and orchestrate such a war to pay. If you cannot, make them pay individually. Then, you must make the country realise the cost of doing all this to India.

Ten, please realise — this is a point for the liberals also — whenever we are pushed into such a situation we say that but minimal force. But no war is won with minimal force. It is won by overwhelming the enemy. As it has happened in Mumbai now, and 200 commandos only from the NSG were sent, plus
reinforcement, plus naval commandos. That is the scale at which you have to overwhelm. You can’t do it with minimal force. That is why, Sir, when you look at this figure, Not an eye-for-an-eye, not a tooth-for-a-tooth. That is completely wrong. For an eye, both eyes! For a tooth, the whole jaw! Unless India has that
determination and that clarity, we will continue to bleed like this all the time.
Eleven, the time when large armies could be sent across the borders that time has gone. The time when large bodies of armies could be sent across the borders has gone. There are no training camps to bomb. But Pakistan gives us the clue what we should be doing to make them register a cause, that is, look at the violence in Kashmir in the last year-and-a-half that has gone down because Pakistan has been preoccupied in its own problems. So, keep it preoccupied in its own problems in Baluchistan, in Gilgit Baltistan, in PoK.

Then, Sir, my next point, point No. twelve, is shed all inhibitions for collaborating with armies and intelligence agencies of other countries that have expertise in these matters.
Thirteenth point is a very good point that has been made by the Home Minister just now that you are thinking of a National Investigative Agency and of amending and tightening the laws. The Prime Minister
also said this after the Mumbai blasts. I appeal to all sides that please do not make this a prestige issue because, on the one side, investigative agency it will be misused against us, in this way things that are desperately needed by the country will not get timed. I will tell you the way out. It is very good that the Government is thinking on these lines. But the way out is shown by a Congressman-headed commission’s report, that is, the Moily’s Report of Administrative Reforms Commission of June 2008. He has devoted an entire chapter, that is, chapter 4, on dealing with terrorism. It says that clearly there is a felt need to strengthen the hands of security forces in the fight against terror even as human rights and constitutional values are protected. It lists several provisions that are weak provisions, several judgements that are coming in the way. Friends, you will be shocked to learn, many friends there would have forgotten that in the case involving the assassination of no other person than Shri Rajiv Gandhi, the Supreme Court held that it could not be regarded as a terrorist act. And throughout that whole portion none of those provisions of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act could be applied. There are pages and pages that are quoted.
“Terrorism and low intensity warfare have imposed new challenges on law enforcement that we are yet to accommodate even at the conceptual level.” The Report says this. Then, they give many details. “From these it is evident that most countries have been adopting tough anti-terrorism measures, whereas the provisions of similar laws have been diluted in India over a period of time.” “The existing penal laws in India were not enacted to deal with the situation, and, there is ample evidence to indicate that terrorists have been able to escape the law either by exploiting the loopholes in the ordinary law or by intimidating witnesses to subvert justice. There is, definitely, a need to have stringent provisions to deal with terrorists.” It goes on. Sir, it is really worth reading. And, again they have said this. but the changes that were made by the then Home Minister, Shri Shivraj Patil, in the Unlawful Activities Act, 2005 — have
proved to be toothless. And, this is said by the Administrative Reforms Commission also. So, they reviewed all the provisions and they suggested changes. then, it will make sense. And, we will appeal to all States also not to get frightened. So, a thing which is necessary for the country should not be delayed. Please do
these things together. My friend, Shri Arun Jaitley, was just telling me this. But do you know that under the existing laws his confessional statement is not admissible as evidence in the court of law? You can’t then link it with Pakistan. And, that provision was there, but that is why, that was effective.

MCOCA is not in use. That is the next point. But, the law also would not exist because you are not approving it. “What is the use of having a paper soap?”

The next point is, after you pass these laws, after you set up these agencies, please use them. All this is very necessary. Sir, I am heading towards the conclusion.

The next point is this. Actually speaking, terrorism cannot be fought by NSGs and so on. actually, terrorism is fought by the first responder. The Prime Minister said the other day — I remember his statement; it is an odd word to be used, but he said — we cannot fight it unless the constable is brought in the vortex of our counter-terrorism strategy. Constables deficiency above 20 per cent in the IPS officers. Constables Just see the technology these people used and the training that we are giving to the persons who are to fight them. Please remember that IB also consists of these very fellows. What is their training? Their qualification has now been reduced to eighth class. They are barely literate and they are going to meet high technology challenges! What facilities are they given? About 20 per cent of the police constables in Delhi have not been given family accommodation and are living in illegal slums. And we want them to be motivated to fight terrorism! We want to bring them in the vortex of our counter- terrorism strategy. So, you cannot have first-class antiterrorist operations without first-class policing; you cannot have firstclass policing in metropolitan areas without first-class policing in the hinterland; and you cannot have first-class policing in the coastal areas unless the Bangladesh borders open. So, it has to be a comprehensive solution and at all levels. You cannot have first-class counter-terrorism strategies by the NSG and a third-class court system, in which the 1993 accused for the Mumbai blasts have yet to be convicted and their appeals are still in process. Unless we get that kind of a society, it is all a matter of great distress.

Ultimately prosecute lawyers terrorists defend normal procedure How can you fight terrorism in this way?
Sir I am very distressed to report this. all necessary steps have to be taken to gather about these intelligence business. But your own paragraph shows the condition of the intelligence agencies. And worse than that is, as you know, that the civil war which has broken out in the intelligence agencies is in the
Press. Every single day, some agency is feeding information This shows the condition to which intelligence agencies have been brought. But the fact of the matter is that for a country of 1.2 billion people, facing all these threats and actual executions, do you know the operational strength of IB on the field gathering intelligence? It is 3,500 persons. How can you monitor this? And, Sir, the worst thing is but till today the Government has not been able to explain why they have not acted on the recommendations that were
made by the Girish Chandra Saxena Task Force on Intelligence. Sir, various agencies were set up. The multi-agency centre was set up; the National Intelligence Data base was set up; the joint Task Force on Intelligence was set up under the same IB and they remained on paper.

Sir, seven years after these agencies were set up nominally, as new agencies are going to be set up, they remain, to my personal knowledge, merely ‘paper’ organisations. That is why, Sir, I will conclude with my one appeal.
The entire country is with you when you take effective steps. But there has been gross neglect, there has been gross reversal which is evident in many of the things that have happened; and if you act — Buddha’s phrase was ‘with the urgency of a man whose hair are on fire’. If you act with that clarity about the war, if you act with unrelenting determination, then, Sir, the entire country is with you. If not, — Mr. Chidambaram will remember — if you fail to do that, this time it will not be only share prices which will go down, but the country would have been let down and would have been exposed to even greater danger than it is in now today because of things that have happened.
Thank you very, very much for your patience.

Loyalty

2008-12-11T18:57:00.003+05:30

Loyalty in the modern world is hard to find.Or so say the cynics. After many years of using Bloglines to keep in touch with many articles on many blogs, today i start trying out Google. Bloglines introduced me to the world of blogs and rss. I've never been tempted to sway or consider a path away from her. Alas everybody praises the new girl on the block Google reader and i will consider!

Stupid amerikan kids and intelligent indians ones.

2008-12-09T19:05:00.003+05:30

To be part of the South Indian middle class(sim) involves, among other things, a form of chest thumping i call Amerika down down.
It involves various forms of insults, the most common one among middle aged sims is how they love to point out the superiority of Indian kids, especially south Indian, over Amercikan kids.

This hypothesis is proposed every time a South Indian name flashes on the screen of an Amerikan spelling bee telecast or an Indian wins some Intel or NASA scholarship. This incident is followed by self praise, self kudos and self back patting.

"Indians kids are smart and hard working!", "Look at how we are beating them in their own language!". Krishnamurthy and Swamis make up a big portion of students in the finals of spelling bees.But are AmeriKan kids really dumb and their school system so pathetic as my various self-congratulating friends claim? This belief is so prevalent that a large number of Indian parents return to India during the kids formative years(3rd standard till 10th atleast)!

The main argument on side superiority is our superior brain.Proof? Indians invented the 0!But that's for later. Can a group of people really be mentally more gifted? This idea generally flows from the observation of Afrikan/Afrika-American/Jamaican/Ethiopian athletes winning race after race in the various events of the Olympics. So OBVIOUSLY some traits like physical capability in their case and raw brain power in our case are more present in special groups.

Other than a total lack of proof to support the argument, there are sad repercussions of it. Our tough school system is not analyzed deeply enough thanks to this myth. The inferior Amerikan school system supports sports,extra-curriculursand even sex education! yuck!

"Not for US!" say sims.we don't need all that, a child's physical fitness is not the measure of his well being! his ability to know the capitals and flags of over 60 countries is. Can the ability to know the various types of grasslands thorough out the world compensate the skills learnt from taking up a drama or cooking class??? "YES it can!" again the sims.

The pressure an average Indian kid comes under is not only destructive but the following social stigma that s/he faces is something Indian society should be ashamed of. Most of these kids are the exact versions of Chinese gymnasts who are separated from family when young and then trained to perform in an Olympics or maximum another. Nobody knows the mental effects of such gruelling training on the Chinese children.

As for Sim's children, the mental effects are well documented.They become a sim. They force their children to take violin/vedic-maths/karate/abacus-maths/sloka-chanting and other such nonsense. They bask in the glory of their sons and daughters cracking top exams but rue about how children in their good old days were innocent and nice once the children take to drugs and alcohol under these pressures.

Any "superior" performance that an Indian kid delivers should be attributed to nurture and not nature.The Chinese gymnasts are responding to the nurture of a forced regimen of physical training.American kids are responding to the regimen of a comfortable life with little pressure to deliver academically only. They deliver in sports, in theatre and so many fields.Sim children are responding to the regimen of the Sim family. A regimen where a kid is known by his report card only.

My first post-it

2008-11-24T12:40:00.000+05:30

Just used my first post-it at office.

lets see what the fuss is all about.

Phone Memories

2008-11-12T23:11:00.001+05:30

My phone ran out of memory and I had to delete some contacts to regain space. As I browsed my address list I came across various ppl I will never again contact but who were important to me for brief periods of time. They were fest organizers or rivals or friends or general friendly ppl who were friends for the time the fest lasted or ppl who wanted help or ppl who either became friends on a short bus journey and so on..

names like Aditya BMS, RUdra IIIT, Akash junior, Ananth KIMS, Anirudh Bio, Ankit DC, Ashok Mech, Ashwin IIMb, Bharath Quiz, Divya JNC, Harsha BMS, jayanth IIIT, Mahendra DC, Manish Co-od, Nandini BMS debate, Nazeef RV plays, Nipun RV mech, Preeth Doshi DC, Rahul IIIT, Rishab Debate, RV Chem Ramya, Savitha DC, Sitara Mount Carmel Debate, Vikas Pesit, Abhas Rv debate, Sri ram college Delhi.

Some ppl from Companies who helped out my international debate trips Beena HP, Monica HP, Stic Travels, Sudhaker travels, Anoop Singh, Satish Cognizant, Abraham Cherian HP.

some nameless numbers like Unknown girl!!!, BMS DC, HP, Kp, record??? Think this is someone who took my lab record.

Most of the above have been deleted.

sigh…..

How creativity is being strangled by the law

2008-10-23T17:59:00.001+05:30

Great video on Creativity , the internet and THE law.

Colors of the wind

2008-10-22T19:08:00.001+05:30

Came across this beautiful song. Wildly touching.

Here is the lyrics.

You think I'm an ignorant savage
And you've been so many places
I guess it must be so
But still I cannot see
If the savage one is me
How can there be so much that you don't know?
You don't know ...

You think you own whatever land you land on
The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest
Come taste the sunsweet berries of the Earth
Come roll in all the riches all around you
And for once, never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers
The heron and the otter are my friends
And we are all connected to each other
In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high will the sycamore grow?
If you cut it down, then you'll never know
And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

For whether we are white or copper skinned
We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains
We need to paint with all the colors of the wind

You can own the Earth and still
All you'll own is Earth until
You can paint with all the colors of the wind

Its time for a mobile camera phone

2008-10-15T13:31:00.002+05:30

Have been missing lots of opportunities to take interesting pics everyday due to a lack of a camera in my phone...two such chances were

Crows attacking an eagle nest near Victory grounds. Eagle Parents fought back in vain.

COP messaging on a Blackberry!

Hope the nokia tube is priced well.

Insurance anyone?

2008-10-10T14:11:00.001+05:30

Specialization seems to be the norm there days but this is really a bit too much!

“In satellite launches, the claims are either zero or 100% since the launch is either a success or a failure,” said Kamesh Goyal, country head of German insurer Allianz in India. Allianz's group company Spaceco based in France which specialises in satellite insurance and has participated in many space programs in the past. Insurance of space launches has been gaining importance because of the growing use of satellite communication in most businesses — ranging from stock exchanges, banks, television channels and telecom companies.

This piece from here.

Wonder how the career graph looks like, for a fresher in Spaceco.

Dumb Charade For Dummies

2008-10-08T17:42:00.004+05:30

I spent 4 happy years playing DC in college, did pretty well. As i left DC with a sad note, i decided just as many seniors had helped me out in Debate and DC, i too should help my juniors. So i came up with the idea of a site that combines my superficial http knowledge with my deep and comprehensive knowledge of DC.

http://sites.google.com/site/dumbcharade

It will be useful for players and organizers with various resources put up which i have collected over the years. Hope people find it useful.

Ravi

how to find killer pics for blogs.

2008-10-06T16:09:00.013+05:30

Going through some blogs online and even magazines that we read everyday, I’ve always wondered how they find those amazing photographs..like after every stock market crash it’s the pic of some guy near the stock exchange holding his head in his hands, or when Ganguly hits a century it’s a Bengal tiger among some trees…

Well I think I got how its done…this tool http://compfight.com/ is quite incredible. It lets you search flickr for photos. So if you’r writing a spiritually inclined article then you can easily do a search for “ganga” or “ganga sun” and get some really stunning professional looking photos…

Also for some reason most of see a lot of windmills in a lot of magazines and in indian love songs…windmills with flower fields and windmills with sunsets and so on…a simple search for windmill brings really stunning results…

Here's to team work.

2008-09-25T17:23:00.004+05:30

The citizens of Chelyabinsk , a humble Russian town decided to get their 15 minutes of fame when they formed a smiley on the road. This after calculating when the satellite taking pics for google would pass over them!!!

:-)

Another one bites the dust

2008-09-11T18:37:00.000+05:30

The doubt which pervades a large number of youth today is the nature of earning a living. Is the pursuit of a job an end or is it a means in itself. Most of us do not have the option of making a choice. A job is a living is a mean to an end that is work. Very few people acknowledge the need to work in a calling that is close to your heart.

This idea that a job is never meant to be loved or fun is most prevalent among the generation that traces itself to the post independence era(the entire lot of them down till 90’s perhaps). People of this generation are addicted to the idea that a job is a struggle against the system and something comes out of the struggle. Maybe a stronger you, maybe a deeper understanding of "life".

An excellent caricature of this belief is from Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin's dad insists on making Calvin struggle through camp trips and daily activities with the mission of building character.

A lack of opportunities during their times translates into a failure to reconcile themselves to this era, where jobs may not be an end in themselves.

So what we see today is a phenomenon where a large number of parents are pushing their children into a career in spite of protests from those who should determine the life path in the first place, the children. Paradoxically this resistance seems to vindicate the parent’s belief that all good things come at a cost. Any attempts to point out that all unhappiness is not equal to struggle for a greater good is met with generalized punch lines like "Only change is constant" and "Survival of the fittest".

These turns out to be a self proving beliefs as any change the child did not want, is going to be painful and whether it did you good, will again be defined in the parents point of view. The distinct difference in the vocabulary of children and parents is another significant issue. Most urban children seem to view a career as something you should enjoy and love to do or something that is going to enable you(financially) to enjoy some other activity. Thus the use of words to describe what this dream world of happy work looks like include fun, enjoy, interest and passion.

This creates a simple problem with the parent’s generation, the last time they heard these words was when they read the interview of an upcoming actress. This immediately causes a condescending attitude to set in. Quite rightly (they think), parents have seen then big bad outside world; they have paid for your education and will always act in your interest. This condescending attitude can be observed from parents pressuring their children to take up engineering to IT jobs to even arranged marriages.

An important exercise is to deconstruct this statement and observe its limitations. But that’s for another time. With this condescending attitude of "I know best" parents set out to systematically plan out their children’s life.

The results of this are quite appalling. Some of the most creative people are dumped into scandalously drudge full lines like engineering(YES engineering is not creative).Often, if you read articles in various news papers about why a large number of engineering graduates make it to the IIMs and how these graduates do well in business. This is wrongly attributed to the "analytical skills" developed during engineering. The real reason being engineering has becoming a repository of skilled and talented people in India. More often than not these talents have nothing to do with those expected from engineering students. And the best brains are there because they have no other option.

Anyone who has been to an engineering college cultural fest will vouch for the fact that some students show tremendous abilities and capabilities in a variety of events testing literature, vocabulary, arts, drama etc. This is an expression more of misplaced talent than that of "diverse" skills of engineering student. It is no wonder that engineering students who are just really talented misplaced students do wonderfully well on management or any other education THEY choose once they are out. Thus engineering students do well in spite of and not due to the engineering education thrust on them.

But well engineering is a foundation isn't it, goes the general defensive argument. Well the fact is quite a few people are happy being dumped into engineering and a lot of people are happy having their parents make career choices for them. The flip side is this system burns a lot of people.

A large number of students feel betrayed when they enter engineering. Honest engineering students (who want to be where they are) are shocked by the rote methods of learning and the failure of teachers to impart anything of value. The sailors (people who don’t mind being there and are just in port waiting) are taken aback by how you learn nothing worth taking along with you to the outside world. And the meek (who are there, just there) are shocked into submission by the system. They have to deal with a course they did not want, with inherent weaknesses too. A lot of peers I know would have done wonderfully well in various commerce or art courses, a lot of them simply didn't GET maths and why we did it. And yet they were pushed into a 4 year course dependent on mathematical skills. The meek always comes out the worst.

They are unable to keep up with the curriculum, are stigmatized for being too dumb to complete a course. When placements season opens a large number of the meek just disappear not wanting to be seen and asked where they have been placed because either they haven’t been employed or they have simple got "bad" jobs. These students are paying for a choice they did not make.

The system which the middle class proudly boasts of, our school and higher education system, is hurting people, to put it very very mildly. How Indians even in the US are doing well cause Indian parents put pressure on them to study according to Indian levels is a common get together story in our households. Its almost a bonding ritual in the middle class to point out our “superiority”, how Indians are beating American kids in the spelling bee, how American kids can't point out their own country on the map and overall how we are stealing their jobs. Well someone needs to tell them the Indian education system does create some very intelligent people and spectacular success stories, but the road kill along the way and the social cost is not acceptable. The massive harm being caused to the minds of students will not be offset by a handful of achievements by a handful of students.

These stories will not be covered in the media for fear of rocking the “The rise of India success story”.

Google Humour

2008-09-05T10:48:00.003+05:30

What is it that makes Google so cool...their humour is surely one factor...

Going incognito doesn't affect the behavior of other people, servers, or software. Be wary of:
Websites that collect or share information about you
Internet service providers or employers that track the pages you visit
Malicious software that tracks your keystrokes in exchange for free smileys
Surveillance by secret agents
People standing behind you
:-)

Evernote

2008-09-02T16:36:00.006+05:30

Evernote's a disruptive new technology which is soon going to swallow up a lot of other software's.It is a note taking, bookmarking software. Any web page,typed text or photo can be added to it.Following which it can be accessed on your mobile,PC and net.Thus it keeps its promise of adding another brain. Now its most impressive feature is its indexing technology.

Basically this enables you to search your entire database for keywords.Lets say you loved an article on cricket incidents and you save it in evernote. After sometime you just remember it had an incident in The Oval grounds.You can search for the term "The Oval" and hence find the article with a few snippets of information. The Icing on the cake is that it indexes words in pictures. Here i searched for the word images and here is the result.

The free version allows an upload limit of 40Mb which is more than sufficient for most users.I use it for saving good articles I come across and bookmarking websites.After experimenting with google bookmarks, notebooks and del.icio.us,Evernote turned out to be much more friendly and intuitive.

Letters from Iwo Jima

2008-08-16T22:08:00.003+05:30

Saw a movie on the computer after a looooooooooooong time...picked Letters from Iwo Jima and what a choice it was!

Most war movies take obvious sides and bring in some nationalistic leanings somewhere. Clint Eastwood,the director maintains a neutral stance throughout the movie and at the end of it, you're left with a story in your head and no preachings or "moral of the story".

A Few Good Men

2007-09-29T19:38:00.001+05:30

As we're bombed by stories of atrocities in Myanmar and the next superpower China,i remembered reading many years ago about a brave Soviet Officer who saved the world single handedly. I searched and searched and found him and his stunning achievement well documented in this article.

Read on and realise that there will always be,even in this day and age,A few good men.

24 years on - The man who saved millions of lives

Sat, 22 September 2007

The date is 1 September 1983 and the Cold War between the Soviet Union and USA is in full gear, when from the New York skies Korean Air Lines Flight 007 flies from JFK, destination Seoul, South Korea.

In the middle of the flight, while accidently passing through Soviet air space, Soviet fighter jets appear getting close the aircraft. The Soviets, who didn't know the plane contained civilians, warned the pilot that they will shoot down the aircraft if it doesn't identify itself, and the pilot, for some unknown reason, doesn't respond.

Reports say the pilot never actually received the information, although theories about this are still unclear. An hour passes as the fighter jets still accompany the aircraft, and the orders from Soviet military is to shoot down the aircraft just as the plane was leaving Soviet airspace.

The Soviet fighter jets shot down the plane, with the aircraft plunging 35,000 feet in less than 90 seconds, killing 269 civilians, including a US congressman.

Hell broke loose. As the Soviets tried to defend their 'mistake', US President Ronald Raegan described the Soviets actions as "barbaric" and "a crime against humanity that must never be forgotten".

The tension between the two mega-powers hit an all-time high, and on 15 September 1983 the US administration banned Soviet aircrafts from operating in US airspace. With the political climate in dangerous territory, both US and Soviet government were on high-alert believing an attack was imminent.

It was a cold night at the Serpukhov-15 bunker in Moscow on 26 September 1983 as Strategic Rocket Forces lieutenant colonel Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov resumed his duty, monitoring the skies of the Soviet Union, after taking a shift of someone else who couldn't go to work.

Just past midnight, Petrov received a computer report he'd dreaded all his military career to see, the computer captured a nuclear military missile being launched from the US, destination Moscow.

In the event of such an attack, the Soviet Union’s strategy protocol was to to launch an immediate all-out nuclear weapons counterattack against the United States with nuclear power, and immediately afterwards inform top political and military figures. From there, it would be taken a decision to further the military offensive on America.

Stanislav Petrov

The bunker was in full-alarm, with red lights all over the place as the missile was captured by the Soviet satellites via computers. Petrov wasn't convinced though. He believed that if the US attacked, they would have attacked all-out, not just sending one missile and giving a chance for them (the Soviets) to attack back.

Petrov figured something didn't make sense, as strategically, just one missile from the US would be a strategic disaster. He took some time to think and decided not to give the order a nuclear attack against America, since in his opinion, one missile didn't make sense strategically and it could easily have been a computer error.

But then, seconds later, the situation turned extremely serious. A second missile was spotted by the satellite. The pressure by the officers in the bunker to commence responsive actions against America started growing. A third missile was spotted, followed by a fourth. A couple of seconds later, a fifth one was spotted... everyone in the bunker was agitated as the USSR was under missile attack.

He had two options. Go with his instinct and dismiss the missiles as computer errors, breaking military protocol in the process or take responsive action and commence full-blown nuclear actions against America, potentially killing millions.

He decided it was a computer error, knowing deep down that if he was wrong, missiles would be raining down in Moscow in minutes.

Seconds turned to minutes, and as time passed it was clear Petrov was right, it was a computer error after all. Stanislav Petrov had prevented a worldwide nuclear war, a doomsday scenario that would have annihilated entire cities. He was a hero. Those around him congratulated him for his superb judgment.

Upon further investigation it resulted that the error came from a very rare sunlight alignment, which the computer read as missile.

Of course, top brass in the Kremlin didn't find it so heroic, as he broke military protocol and if he would have been wrong, risked millions of Russian lives. He was sent into early retirement, with a measly $200 a month pension, suffering a nervous breakdown in the process.

Due to military secrecy, nobody knew Petrov's heroic judgment until 1998, when a book written by a Russian officer present at the bunker revealed that World War 3 was closer than people thought, and a nuclear holocaust was avoided by a close shave.

Petrov reminisces what could have been if he didn't get that extra shift that night

Even though the Russian have little sympathy to the man who saved millions of American lives, the United Nations and a number of US agencies honoured the man who could have started a nuclear war, but didn't.

In 2008, a documentary film entitled 'The Man who saved the World' is set to be released, perhaps giving Petrov some financial help, thanking him for the incredible part he had in keeping the US and the USSR out of a full-blown war.

Without knowing on the cold Moscow night back in 1983, a badly paid 44 year old military officer saved the world, and made himself one of the most influential persons of the century in the process, saving more lives than anyone ever did.

Most of today's people don't know it, but today's world as we know it, is like it is because of Stanislav Petrov.

Happy Feet

2007-02-24T23:26:00.000+05:30

An absolute treat for the eyes and a sumptuous banquet for the ears. Happy feet is one of those rare animation movies which strikes the right balance between humour and a story with a message.

The movie is for all ages and from the first scene i knew it was something special. Each character is well defined and stays with you after you have left the movie hall.The choice of songs is amazing and only Lion King and The Road to El Dorado have comparable soundtracks.The graphics/animation is the best i have seen yet. The chase scenes are realistic and dramatic with grand camera angles and locations.

But what's most important is the message the movie tries to deliver.No its not about stopping global warming.Its the refusal to conform yourself to the views and opinions of society around you, a message that finds voice in the classic Dead Poets Society.Dead Poets has a bitter sweet end with the death of a student but opening up of the rest.While this option would not have been available to makers of an animation movie.Mumble the main protagonist is a penguin reject who's inability to sing in a colony of singing penguins makes him an outcast. But his ability to dance and his use of this skill is the movie itself.

A fresh movie which will make you laugh,cry,ponder and Dance!

The Flower

2007-02-16T20:21:00.000+05:30

Another great poem...enjoy!

The Flower

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went
Thro' my garden bower,
And muttering discontent
Cursed me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall
It wore a crown of light,
But thieves from o'er the wall
Stole the seed by night.

Sow'd it far and wide
By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
"Splendid is the flower!"

Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people
Call it but a weed.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Wikipedia Versus Traditional Encyclopedias.

2007-02-12T21:52:00.000+05:30

The debate whether Traditional Encyclopedias like Britannica and the recent Encarta are more professional than the "Giant Killer" Wikipedia has been going on for sometime. Wikipedia occupies a place in the minds of the public very similar to Google. That of a revolutionary product which is going to change mankind's views of the world. Here's Wiki's take on itself . I've been following the Wikipedia growth for the past year including various news articles that appear all over the place and I have a few observations.

While it’s extremely impressive to say that Wikipedia is by the people and not by a couple of experts, that's not the point. What experts of a particular field have been replaced by are arm chair experts whose level of knowledge is from low grade sources like newspapers at worst and from Credible Encyclopedias at best. Thus while Wikipedia is a great source of information, the kind of credibility that is needed to really understand a subject is best left in the hands of experts.

So I'll continue to use Wikipedia because I can't afford any of the other encyclopedias but I've learnt that the majority of the content is "Cut, Copy and Paste" from various sources or in other words, experts. But the biggest edge Wikipedia has is on subjects like the following on Indian Street Cricket! And say a good movie like The Shawshank Redemption.

There are talks of Wiki starting a search engine to oppose the Goggle dominance. Talk about the Clash of Titans!

Extempore!!!

2007-01-18T23:03:00.000+05:30

I've just returned from attending the Christ College fest 'In Bloom 2007' and man what a day it was...we enter Potpourri 25 mins late..that's 5 mins before it ends...and we still miss qualification by 1 point because we misinterpreted a single question. Dam!

With 3 hours to go for our Core Competence of Dumb charades...Nakul, Pradeep and me practiced DC on the wonderfully large Christ ground. And yes there is nothing like acting and playing DC...you have to think on your feet, guess wildly and have a vast knowledge base, basically you have to be Jack of all trades and master of some.

An hour before DC I had my extempore and when I went to participate I got the topic "If I must Die let It be Death By Chocolate" and I decided to walk out as I had no clue how to start...I had only 3 minutes before I had to speak...then suddenly my DC mind went into overdrive I could see images of all forms of ways of dying and famous deaths and so on. I decided to give it my best shot.

All other ways to die are too painful or boring, lets die eating Cadbury's contaminated chocolates.My theme was simple... ... I made death look as funny as I could...

I don't remember much of what I such but I surprise myself with my ability to come up with so much impromptu stuff on the spot.There are few feeling better than leaving a stage with either an ovation or the audience in laughter. I got both today.

Now its off to Saarang '07 to participate in their public speaking competitions...watch this space...I might have some good news...

Even This Shall Pass Away

2006-10-20T12:58:00.000+05:30

I'll confess...
I love to read...anything almost..stories, fables, tales, opinions, blogs, poems etc... But a poem which tells a tale with a thought provoking context in such a simple manner! The following poem made my day...

Even This Shall Pass Away

Once in Persia reigned a king,
Who upon his signet ring
Graved a maxim true and wise,
Which, if held before his eyes,
Gave him counsel at a glance
Fit for every change and chance.
Solemn words, and these are they,
" Even this shall pass away."

Trains of camels through the sand
Brought him gems from Samarcand;
Fleets of galleys through the seas
Brought him pearls to match with these;
But he counted not his gain
Treasures of the mine or main;
" What is wealth?" the king would say;
"Even this shall pass away."

'Mid the revels of his court,
At the zenith of his sport,
When the palms of all his guests
Burned with clapping at his jests,
He, amid his figs and wine,
Cried, "O loving friends of mine;
Pleasures come, but not to stay,
'Even this shall pass away."

Lady, fairest ever seen,
Was the bride he crowned his queen.
Pillowed on his marriage bed,
Softly to his soul he said:
"Though no bridegroom ever pressed
Fairer bosom to his breast,
Mortal flesh must come to clay
Even this shall pass away."

Fighting on a furious field,
Once a javelin pierced his shield;
Soldiers, with a loud lament,
Bore him bleeding to his tent.
Groaning from his tortured side,
" Pain is hard to bear," he cried;
" But with patience, day by day,
Even this shall pass away."

Towering in the public square,
Twenty cubits in the air,
Rose his statue, carved in stone.
Then the king, disguised, unknown,
Stood before his sculptured name,
Musing meekly: "What is fame?
Fame is but a slow decay,
Even this shall pass away."

Struck with palsy, sore and old,
Waiting at the Gates of Gold,
Said he with his dying breath,
" Life is done, but what is Death?"
Then, in answer to the king,
Fell a sunbeam on his ring,
Showing by a heavenly ray,
" Even this shall pass away."

- Theodore Tilton

Phase Shift 06 DC

2006-10-12T17:07:00.000+05:30

Well we believe its one of the largest DC events ever conducted...
93 teams registered out of which around 73 turned up...
The DC software developed by my senior Suresh ensured that the results were permanently on display and no manipulation could occur.
The event started at 11 and the qualification lasted till 2:45!
The number of teams were really overwhelming...
The finals were from 3 till about 5.
My teammates and I took turns on conducting the event.
One team of Doctors from KIMS took part and they went on to win the event!
One team from PESIT bunked their placements and won the second place.
One standard team from my college came third.
Most teams were relieved that we didn't have time inverse in the finals.

And I've really forgotten how to post a blog hence the bullets.

Fest Preparation begins

2006-09-02T19:00:00.000+05:30

What a great start to 5th sem...
My telecommunication department approached my 3rd year class to conduct our own tech fest. Everybody seems to be doing it now days, so why not us?

"Tech Fest " is quite a misleading phrase. I've been to loads of fests, tech and cultural, but tech fests are not what they sound like. The most crowd pulling event is Computer Gaming or Informals like balloon toss! Then probably would come DC. Of the tech events, C programming and paper presentations are the favourites.

After we'd been handed the responsibility of conducting this fest, some inspired people from my class got together and we got into the groove. Cultural events were decided in a jiffy but tech events still elude us!

I'm in the sponsorship committee and we've got quite a job cut out. What does it take for a company to give a college money? What will it take for us to convince a company,anyone for that matter, to part with their money?

Well one thing's on our side. This is the odd sem and there are not many fests we'r competing against us.

We've still not decided on the name of the fest. I hope to learn loads from organising this fest. Already I've spoken to loads of people in my college who've organised their own department fests and its quite a learning experience. Also looking forward to working with my seniors and initiating my juniors into the department.

Will keep posting as the work gathers momentum,do read this great quote on team work.

"No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it."
H.E. Luccock

The first day of 5th sem

2006-08-16T18:41:00.001+05:30

After nearly two months of exams and holidays, I returned to my college MS Ramaiah today for the beginning of the 5Th sem. Normally I expected the first class to be taken by a senior professor who would advice us on the importance of this sem and so on... Imagine to my pleasant surprise a young lecturer turned up who actually put this entire Semester into context by explaining how this sem and its subjects are going to determine our future in the Telecomm field.

We had the first class and soon I found myself walking to the canteen. The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't recognize many faces on the way. And then my friend said it... the super Seniors or those in 4Th year had passed out. I couldn't imagine how this campus would be without them, now reality was filling in for where my imagination left off.

No Sanjay Joshi to egg you onto public speaking and debate, boosting any nervous participant's confidence with a few words of extremely useful advice.

No Santa and Banta or Mahendra, Dilip and Dinesh DC teams who'd competed with us for two years and had defeated us many times until my DC team learnt from them the tricks of the trade resulting in us beating them in the farewell Mechanical fest.

No Nikki to beat me in speaking Tamil without teaching me any Punjabi.

No Vineet to trace back his and my stay in Bihar.

No Gagan to warn us on the many pit falls of having chosen Telecomm.

No Srikanth and Devadatta to look up to as quizzing geniuses.

No Varun to break into random thoughts and speeches or give tips on JAM.

As I look back I often realise that my second year was totally defined by the above people, people who helped me out tremendously in various parts of college life.

As I walked around, my friend started discussing the freshers party that was to be organised for our juniors. It is then that i realise that the wheel had come a full turn.

“Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: You find the present tense and the past perfect”

Bloging related sites

2006-08-15T10:35:00.000+05:30

Was just surfing the net reading up a bit on blogging. Came across this article which pretty much summed up why the whole blogging phenomenon is occurring.

Another great website is problogger. This website contains the A to Z of blogging. Tools, resources, tips so on...

The VTU mobile Ban...

2006-08-06T19:27:00.000+05:30

I'd like to consider the ban imposed on students carrying cellphones in engineering colleges in Bangalore.

The Ban prevents students carrying cell phones anywhere on them even if they are switched off...

Now this is a really backward step justified by the VTU on the basis that it reduces indiscipline .A BLANKET ban sound draconian in this time and age. The VTU should have at least allowed us to carry the cellphones in a switched off state.

Now lets be frank here, the blanket ban has significantly increased discipline in my college. No more do I have near unlimited ability to message people in other rooms or cities with ease, no more do out of station students walk into labs loudly enquiring about the health of their uncles, no more do canteen discussions revolve around who's got the best ring tone.

Now for all the good things the cell phone ban has done its done quite a lot of bad ones also. Loads of students including myself travel cross the city in attend college and more often than not the cell phone provides an important communication link to our homes. When Bangalore nearly drowned in last year's downpour the fact that I had an illegal cellphone on me allowed me and my friends to communicate our whereabouts to our families and also helped us to avoid traffic jams!

Also let us remember that engineering students are part of a professional course, this ban would have been justified in schools but we are students who are going to start earning in 4 years time and this ban has made our ability to make our own decisions for ourselves seem irrelevant.

The VTU should rethink this absolute ban and in turn bring about a limited ban regarding the usage of cell phones during class hours.

Lessons from many a bus ride.

2006-07-30T15:21:00.000+05:30

I've been travelling to my college for the past 2 years on the local city bus, it was a welcome change from cycling to school which was virtually down the road. The city bus as opposed to a college bus is with a difference. The simpler differences are that a seat is not guaranteed, its not always on time and so on...
But it offers significant advantages too. For the first time since i arrived in Bangalore in 1993 i got the ability to interact with the local population for longer periods than i usually used to.

Firstly, i realised how accommodating the Kannadigas are. I've spent a nearly 13 years in Bangalore and till recently i used to be proud that i didn't know much Kannada. Not only do Kannadigas accommodate themselves and have picked up English and my mother tongue Tamil, nowadays considering the large number of north Indians arriving here in search of a dream IT job, the use of Hindi is also on the rise. No more am i proud of my ignorance of the local language. I Now insist on speaking in Kannada to some of my friends in an effort to learn it.

Secondly, English is not only the fastest way to the top in India it seems to come with the added benefit of instant arrogance. Traffic policemen seem to be extremely intimidated by drivers who speak in commanding and aggressive English. This is balanced out by the way they treat English speaking student motorists.

Thirdly,The people of Karnataka are not as politically involved as say Tamil Nadu,State politics does not dominate the general discussions on the bus as much as national politics. But this is on the decline,the death of the Kannada Superstar Rajkumar bought out chauvinistic Kannada groups on the streets as Karnataka has never seen before. Other examples of rising strength of these group are the renaming of local areas such as Ulsoor to the more Kannada sounding Halasuru, renaming of majestic bus stand to Kempa Gowda bus stand and so on...

Fourthly,Bangalore is no Pub city , don't let the news papers fool you, The majority of Bangalore is not pub going bottle swinging people with "Work hard party harder attitude".For those of you who believe Bangalore is defined by that single stretch of MG road should visit all the other places my bus trips have taken me. Shivajinagar,Majestic, Jaynagar and so on...

Fifthly, Bangalore is not a city suited for students at all. I hope to write a longer post regarding this specifically.

Until my next post...

Dumb Charades

2006-07-23T23:36:00.000+05:30

Considering this is the first serious post on my blog...
I thought I'll write on a subject on which I have considerable expertise.
After a lot of thought I've decided to write on Dumb Charades, the Ultimate communication game that's one of the most popular cultural events of any Bangalore College fest, second probably only to Mad Ads...
I'm not going to explain the nuances of the game here, just ponder why its one of the most popular games...

Firstly, people love seeing a young man desperately trying to act out famous pop singers, Oscar winning movies and ridiculously big words to his equally desperate friends within an inhuman time limit...

Secondly, there are few things funnier that acting out Xena warrior princess on a stage in front of an audience of screaming college dudes...

Thirdly, disappointed participants often turn on their own teammates and a lively fight between friends ensues...

Finally, this is probably the only game where the line between the Amateurs and Pro teams is paper thin, thus allowing any group of people to rise up to the challenge...

Truly the game for anybody who wishes to stake a claim to fame...

My first Post

2006-07-23T23:28:00.000+05:30

So this is how it feels to have a blog...

The Expectations are high, apparently the world is watching.

I'll do my best...

Watch this Space...