My Journey

Collectivism

2011-09-26T00:34:00.003+03:00

"But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred"

(Howard Roark courtroom speech in The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand)

The Blue Cafe

2011-09-20T02:49:00.008+03:00

If only any cafe, preferably on the sea side, would be open at this hour of night/morning, then the perfect song would have Chris Rea's The Blue Cafe ! over a cup of coffee

Pity he isn't that popular, same as many others I have written about (Brian McKinight, et al)

May be one day I will have my own Blue Cafe...

Weird day

2011-09-14T21:47:00.005+03:00

Got up in the morning with fever, still had to go to office, then to Tampere for a meeting. The ticket system of Finnish railways won’t work; bought the ticket on train with no reserved seats. Didn’t realize I was sitting on someone else’s seat, yet the old lady didn’t ask me to move. There are always good people around here

While coming back in the evening, missed my train by a minute, the train started to slide just when I was about to open the door. Had to wait for one hour for next train and the ticketing system still would not work. The good ticketing ladies were offering coffee coupons to make up for the inconvenience. Couldn’t care less for a cup of coffee but admired the attitude of saying sorry. In midst of all these didn’t realize that YLE cameras were rolling until now when I get a business mail that ends with btw - so you were at Tampere today – saw you on YLE news. Feeling better – the paracetamol is kicking in. Hopefully the day ends with this, no energy left for replying to any more mails.

The ticketing system was not working even on 24th August. Time for VR to change the system vendor.

Fiscal Unification of Euro

2011-09-14T02:45:00.005+03:00

The concept of Euro bond was never discussed because never was the difference between Monetary union and Fiscal union so amplified. The way Euro zone was created and members were added, this was already waiting to happen. This discussion could have been triggered in the past, but it was waiting for the recession and debt crisis. Good times always discount warnings. Euro Zone consists of economically dissimilar countries. Consider this; In 2010 GDP of Germany was 2.5 trillion USD, while another Euro member Estonia’s GDP was 14 billion. In 2005, GDP growth of Ireland was 5.3%, while Germany’s GDP growth was 0.8%. To think that with such economic disparity - leading to varied fiscal policies - there could still be a ‘Monetary’ union was always a crisis waiting to happen.

Now when this crisis has come to fore, this is the opportune time has to achieve that fiscal union. Euro bond is that Fiscal union. Just like Ireland could not cool its economy by raising the interest rate of Euro because Germany needed growth, similarly Germany, and France can’t turn away from Greece now. That is if Euro zone has to survive in the present form. If there could be a fiscal union, then there will be truly one Euro, with the member states having co-relating economies. Growth in one would help slowdown in other and crises in one member state will have lesser effect on health of Euro.

Today Greece is being blamed for not shoring up its economy. Even after the first bail out capital and tough austerity measure, there hasn’t been much change in the economy, nor is it predicted to be. Euro is also to be blamed for this. Greece can’t become competitive because it can’t devalue Euro! The strongest evidence in support of this argument comes from the situation of another European country that was not part of Euro zone. We should not forget Iceland, which has gone out of news sheet. The reason Iceland could fend for itself and in few years will be back in shape was only because it could devalue its currency. This can’t be said about Ireland which is still languishing or about Greece.

If Greece can’t change Euro, then Euro zone should change itself to accommodate Greece or let Greece go out of this monetary union. I would be pleasantly surprised if we could have any other resolution to the present debt crisis. It is as much a test of political resoluteness now.

The Sequel - 2

2011-09-01T00:23:00.005+03:00

Seven years ago 'Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind' was released. This movie deals with aspects of memory and little sci-fi techniques of erasing memory. I am sure everyone has watched this movie atleast once.

Joel Barish(Jim Carrey) is getting his memory erased and during the process realises some are too precious to be lost. He tries hiding them by going back in his life and shacking his adult memories under childhood times. It doesn't work and they get erased.

(Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind - Line 209 of 'Eloisa to Abelard' by Alexander Pope)

The Sequel - 1

2011-08-31T06:13:00.003+03:00

I come, I come! prepare your roseate bow'rs,
Celestial palms, and ever-blooming flow'rs.
Thither, where sinners may have rest, I go,
Where flames refin'd in breasts seraphic glow:

(from- Eloisa to Abelard - Alexander Pope)

I Wish...

2011-08-18T23:29:00.005+03:00

I wish people to have Integrity

I wish people to say Not Right, when they see things that are not right.

I wish people to rise above allegiance of self interest

I wish people to not trample others for their own self

I wish people to be modest and humble

I wish people to know the difference between someone who always says Yes, to those who can stand up for their conviction even if that means saying NO

The Lives of Others

2011-08-16T21:51:00.009+03:00

‘The Lives of Others’ (Das Leben der Anderen) is a film that from the very beginning promises a powerful description, and betters itself with the progress. I wasn’t sure about this movie and picked it due to my previous experience of ‘Der Untergang’. I think my next German film will also be good. Credit should also go in equal measure to the direction and superb role play by the actors.

The film, in the year 1984, starts with a typical Stasi operation of East Germany but soon transforms from a thriller to a powerful drama. The next two hours are filled with tryst of the characters with their emotions. There is not one but several thread of emotions interlaced to give a fulfilling two hours and few crystallized moments that lingers even after the movie ends. In this movie one can also get a glimpse of difficult life in those communist days and how far were they from the ideals they wanted to propagate.

In between the layers of - an artist’s wish for creativity, a poet’s wish for free expression, ideals abased to servility - lies the central theme of man and the ultimate triumph of his conscience over his training. A Stasi star captain, who loved socialism ideals of GDR, finds the calling of his conscience while listening to wire taps. All the experience, all the training crumbles when conscience decides the action. The Stasi captain who was to monitor a poet and actress couple will end up protecting them. In the process he pays for it with his own career but the gratitude he receives at the end of the movie more than makes up for all his trouble.

Life is too complicated to be lived by thumb rules or to be described in black & white.

The movie is directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and the Stasi captain Wiesler is played by Ulrich Mühe. Further details and story could be found on the linked IMDB site

People Expectations

2011-03-07T03:24:00.003+02:00

One of the things I would absolutely love to do is to spend a day with a film director. I don’t know how many will agree, but a movie director’s job is one of the toughest. He is directing a human being, an asset with no predictability. What makes it bit easier is that such directors can have re-takes. In real life you don’t get second take.

The key then is to realize that this is one thing in world that can’t be controlled. Whatever is done, people at a certain point of time will deviate from the script, may be a little, may be more, but they will. Trying to control this will lead to frustration and hurt. Not everything will go as per one’s wish, one has to accept the asset one has, and this has to be accepted. I guess this is what comes from high degree of Emotional Quotient, to be self aware, to self manage and social awareness.

Never expect from others what you expect from yourself. It leads to nothing but hurt for both. The more one is ambitious, more difficult will life be. With all these epiphanies, still lies the bigger one – it is easier to write here than to practice!

35 Bn Loss

2011-03-01T03:43:00.009+02:00

I could not even imagine in my worst dreams what it would feel to lose a 35 Bn USD deal. That’s what the team at EADS must be feeling now in contrast to the glee at Boeing headquarters. This completes the cycle in a way; both the team has lost and won the same deal once. This does look like a final decision with the tempered reaction from EADS compared to Boeing of last time and few political realities. Read a bit about the last decision here.

Even thought there is always a thought of losing a deal, but EADS would have known it better after its win last time was over tuned. It is all known that none of the B2B deals are based on merits, or the cases are ever so easy to compare against each other. What decides the outcome is everything other than what is on the submitted paper. It’s the backroom machination that gets you the deal. To top all that, this was a defence deal. Sure even last time there would have been few other deciders and this time the odds were clearly visible against EADS. No need to mention the obvious. Alabama’s loss is Kansas’s gain, few careers lost is few careers built at Boeing. Apart from all these the greatest sadness of a loss is to see disappointment for so many, but life goes on. The best on this, in my opinion, came from Atmore’s Mayor Howard Shell - “That’s like a lot of other things sometimes things don’t happen like you would like for them to …”

I don’t think EADS should appeal, it would not win, and I would be happy to be proved wrong.
World is a tough place to be.

Update - So EADS is not going to contest the decision. Congratulations and Good Luck Boeing !

Lisa Gerrard

2010-12-08T00:11:00.004+02:00

Some of the songs of Lisa Gerrard are so soothing
- Sacrifice
- Elysium
-The Wheat

There are several others, and who says you need lyrics for a song to be powerful !

2010-11-22T00:24:00.001+02:00

I have only 4 hours left to get up for a new week. Yet, the only thing I can do at 1 A.M is to listen to John Coltrane. Am I trying to run away from reality?

Opinionated Journalism

2010-11-20T20:43:00.003+02:00

I will start this post with two things: I like the show of Keith Olbermann, I have always enjoyed watching his show on MSNBC, and I respect his journalism. Secondly, this post is not a comment on whether it was fair for MSNBC to suspend Keith for his political donations, or should it be legal to stop your employees from political donations. That would be totally different discussions, and as usual I have strong opinions on that issue. Work contracts are always specific to employers and one is almost always aware of the terms when signing the contract.

My opinion on this issue is on a different level. The question for me is what happens when a journalist of a major media house aligns with a political party, or donates to a candidate’s campaign? Nothing wrong if you see this in isolation; it is different if you see in context of MSNBC and transparency. There are media channels which are unbiased, non-aligned and then there are ones that are opinionated, partisan, or ideological. It will again be a different issue to discuss, which one is better? What matters in context of Keith is transparency. It goes against the public face of objective journalism of NBC. It makes NBC say one thing and do exactly opposite. This is the issue here, and this is what concerns me.

It is totally wrong for any channel to say one thing and do another. A popular media channel has a huge potential to influence opinions and it should be rather transparent in what way it does that. Many times people develop their opinions on the facts presented by media, facts that are already influenced by the ideological bent of that media channel. If the channel had a disclaimer then may be some of us would not take the facts at face value and use our own judgment. I have come across many passionate debates where facts from media channel are cited. It is sad to say the least that the debater putting colored facts think they are objective. This is what Keith Olbermann has to understand and I am sure then he will agree with me on this. I am not siding with NBC, but I am putting transparency above everything.

I am happy to see him back on air, and as usual totally enjoyed his ‘comeback’ show.

Sleepless thoughts

2010-11-09T03:13:00.006+02:00

Someone recently asked me why I don’t like right wing politics? I thought it would be tough to articulate. I did try to answer – Right wing politics always try to negate an individual, it sums up your existence upon your past, it denies the value of your achievement, does not believe in your own destiny, power to create your own order, and respect you deserve for yourself, and not what your forefathers deserved. Now when I think, would my answer would have been same if I was born in an aristocratic family of Britain?

Brings me to my second thought – I am not supporting Christine O’Donell, my view is not different from the majority, but for the first time I liked her interview with Meredith Vieira. She talks about bruised egos for her defeat. I felt pity for her, and I liked the lines she used. Change the context, and the lines would still fit. Excuses they still would be, but I have always craved for formal occasions and formal lines. Check the interview on this link (video)

'Decision Points' seems to be an interesting book from the previews and the excerpts. Bush didn’t seem that erudite in his interview with Matt Lauer. It would still be insightful to read the book.

We all find so easy to accuse someone on the first pretext on the pattern that is evident on the first glance. Easiest things are mostly wrong – be the easiest conclusion, easiest analysis, easiest judgement, and easiest decision. Kanye West found it too easy to accuse Bush, and when he is himself getting accused, he knows how it feels? Some poetic justice.

If only

2010-09-27T04:26:00.003+03:00

My blogging was a therapeutic drug for me. Now when I have lost the habit, I see myself taking crutches of movies and music more and more to get my fix. Rather than writing anything today on my topic, I just wish to recall the year 2000 movie "Bounce". I don't know how many have seen this movie, not sure how popular it was then ? It had couple of themes across the movie and no, the romantic theme is not the reason I like this movie.

Three Articles

2010-08-29T20:24:00.004+03:00

Three best articles I have come across in recent times. Don't have the copyright to publish the articles here, so just putting up the link.

1. How will you measure your life ?

2. Inside the secret world of Trader Joe's

3. Incase of Emergency - what not to do ?
(PR disasters)

J D Salinger - tribute to teenage days

2010-01-30T23:50:00.003+02:00

Like most of us, there would be only few things one would fondly remember about their teenage days “The Catcher in the Rye” is one of them. Now when J D Salinger is no more with us, and if I have to write about him, there is mostly through this book I can relate to him. It is very different if you think of let’s say Hemmingway. May be the reclusive self of Salinger was the way to preserve the glory of this book. This book that has a cult following among teenagers hasn’t lost the charm even today and would be so for generations to come.

I didn’t know how popular the book was before I read it, and from the first page itself I was transfixed. How could Salinger pen the exact emotions? How could he reflect the world as a teenager sees it that accurately? The cocktail of emotions, thought, insecurities, youthfulness, curiousity, rebellion; they could never have been described that perfectly. Every teen can see themselves in Holden Caulfield.

When an adult, no one would like to glorify the teenage days, can speak high of Holden Caulfield, or even recommend this book and that’s the strength of this book. This is what Salinger wanted it to be - the anathema of corrupt adulthood. He wanted all of us to preserve the innocence of not growing up. Though he published four other works, what can we say about a writer who famously said ''There is a marvellous peace in not publishing. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I love to write for myself and my own pleasure”

I don’t know what to feel at his death, the reclusive and loner J D Salinger was never among us even when he was alive, and his alter ego Holden Caulfield will be alive for generations to come. May be this is the ‘phoniness’ of death.

Few days ago, we had already lost one other author, Erich Seagal, and now J D Salinger; already a bad start of this year. May both of them rest in peace.

Question ?

2009-12-29T15:22:00.006+02:00

This morning the guest on Hard Talk (BBC) was Noam Chomsky. Even though I much like this program by Stephen Sackur, I don’t get to watch it often because of its non-prime schedule (in Finland). The biggest convenience of Meet the Press (NBC) was its Sunday broadcast, but I am not regular on it anymore after Tim Russert( nothing against David Gregory)

Coming to this particular episode with Noam, I felt that Stephen never had the upper hand; he could never actually manage to put Noam in a tough spot. Obviously it is impossible for someone like Noam to be loss of words. Quite entertaining and enlightening show, but I am hung on the last question of Stephen.

Noam Chomsky’s parents were Jewish - mother from Belarus, father from Ukraine and they migrated to USA. America, the land of opportunities gave so much to Noam, or else he would have died in one of those concentration camps, as his relatives perished. How can the conscience of Noam allow him to oppose US now? This is one question where I thought Noam didn’t give a straight answer or maybe I was not able to comprehend. It makes me think though. Is it wrong for Noam to oppose US policies or he should still be under the obligation of getting so much from US? Spin this off to any context and then what would be the answer? Does this goes against gratitude or wrongs the act of obligation (if there should be any?)

Stockholm Syndrome

2009-09-18T13:09:00.003+03:00

Going to be in Stockholm till the next mid week. I had written couple of posts, but could not publish them. May be after being back here.

Enjoy your weekend !

September 15 - Lehman going under !

2009-09-15T23:02:00.000+03:00

September could have done without one more dreadful milestone, but there is no way to plan these milestones. 15th September saw carnage of a different kind from the one September has become to be associated with since 2001. It all started Lehman Brothers, the venerable, 150 years organization going bust. This particular day was writing on the wall for global recession. Though it wasn’t the start or immediate cause of the recession, but it was more like an anchor. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were saved just a few days before, days later Merrill Lynch got sold and AIG had to be rescued.

The importance of September 15th lies in the fact that only after Lehman Brothers did everyone got the jolt and accepted the global recession. There were ramblings of recession in US, the housing bubble burst and credit crunch, but it was all thought to be an American thing. In Europe particularly, people didn’t see it coming, and it came much like a Tsunami wave. I don’t think anyone seriously thought of recession in Europe not even by the time they went for their summer vacation. The only small murmurs were of real estate bubbles in UK and Spain, and to a lesser extent of overheating of the economy of the ‘tiger’ economies of Baltic Rim (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). It came fast and hit hard. There was no time to get prepared and everyone got washed away.

Standing at where we are today, it is hard to believe those days. Every morning would have the gloomy news stories of bankruptcies, lost jobs, crumbling stock indexes and shrinking order books. Recession was everywhere and for everyone. There were no more queues for taxis, one could see more people taking metros and commuting by public transport, popularity of private label products in store, etc. I am sure each one of us could still picture those days. They are still not so far in distant memory.

Today most of the big economies are ‘technically’ out of recession, and in the top management of most organizations (C level) the psychological green sprouts are all too visible. This is also the moment to revive the debate if it was wise to let Lehman go bust? I doubt even today if there would be a single answer, but in my personal opinion it served the larger good. Lehman going under spurred the measures to bring the world out of recession. It also cleared any doubt of global recession, or if this recession was only for US and other developed economies. From that perspective, it does feel right to let it go bust. Ofcourse, there is never going to be any good for those who lost their job and investments with Lehman.

It will be few more quarters when all the economies would come out of recession and job losses are stopped. Concerted efforts and personal attention by top politicians and their government have yielded results. Although now there is a risk of politically popular issues getting prominence, which might not have been the main reason for recession, nor might be a great help in bring the world out of it. Personally, I feel there were two main reasons for this recession and they should never be allowed again.
- Housing bubble, and for that matter, no bubble should never be allowed to form
- No country should have huge trade surplus and concomitantly no single country should have be running trade deficit. This situation becomes worse, when there is a single global reserve currency (USD)

Lessons are being learnt from this recession and even though there would be more global recessions, hopefully the reasons would not be the same.

And so it is....

2009-09-08T12:02:00.009+03:00

Today was the perfect morning - not warm, not so cold, autumn lurking behind the leaves, people walking hurriedly for the metro, tram and bus. The refreshing air took away the soreness of going for the early morning meeting. Just when I melted into the crowd, I could hear it, and still not sure where it was playing? The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice, made popular by the movie Closer. Infact you can’t think of the movie without this song and vice versa. The lyric of the song perfectly sums up the movie. After this, it didn’t take long for the movie to get refresh in the time I reached my work.

Strange are the ways in which we get our flashbacks. I wanted to write about this movie in the first instance of free time I got. Not so surprisingly, I found that four years ago, when I saw this movie for the first time, I had written about it. It is indeed one of my favourite movies. That post can be read here.

"And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial"
(The Blower's Daughter - Damien Rice)

Bonuses - of bank or Media?

2009-09-06T00:21:00.002+03:00

There have already been two countries on the seat of EU Presidency after France, but it seems Nicholas Sarkozy still loves playing the part of EU’s most vocal leader. He has plenty of ideas to be put forward and ensure that France always is the EU’s leading light and lone saviour. Fresh from his summer vacation he made his intention clear of leading the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, and quickly crossed the border to Berlin. His idea, the radical one as it was put, was to eliminate the Bank Bonuses. Even before there could be a debate on the idea, this ‘another’ effort of Sarkozy glossed the headlines. The German election scheduled for September made it easier for Sarkozy to get support of Angela Merkel. This idea does find favour with the thousands who are still jobless, the fallout of the recession.

It is easy to see why Sarkozy is championing the idea? This ‘reform’ even if implemented would not mean much for France. Alongwith Germany, France does not have any major financial centers to be affected. This is totally different for London or New York, where this idea if implemented might see the business migrate elsewhere. None the less, in all the countries this idea, whether implemented or not, makes a bold and popular headline.

This recession has been tough and there could have been few things that could have been done differently. Many radical reforms are needed; these reforms should be for eliminating the possibility of any recurrence and not only for media attention. One such example is crushing blow on tax havens. I am still not sure how ‘offshore banking’ contributed to recession, and how its death will help in making sure recession of this kind will not happen again. Was UBS alone affected by recession?

As I write this, the deliberations of G20’s Finance Ministers in London have just ended. Not surprisingly, the proposal on ‘bank bonuses’ failed to generate a consensus. It is a setback for both French and German Finance ministers, but I am sure they saw it coming. No setback for Sarkozy, he achieved what he wanted. It’s time for Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt to take note.

May I suggest French President to reform the ‘EU subsidy on agriculture’ next?

2009-08-29T20:45:00.001+03:00

Ironic that I have to listen to Peter Gabriel "In Your Eyes"

May be this is destiny !

Madonna in Neighbourhood

2009-08-06T18:35:00.006+03:00

This evening Madonna is going to be in the neighborhood for her ‘Sticky & Sweet’ world tour concert. It seems there was no other space in Helsinki for the 85,000 people crowd, so for the first time, it is organized by the sea in the empty space of a port, which was shifted few months ago. This is supposed to the largest such concert in Nordics. When I rented the apartment in this district, the biggest excitement was sea at the doorstep. I didn’t know that there would be much more to come. I wish they had given free tickets to all of us who live next door to the concert. This would be the first and last time for such a gig as this empty area would soon be converted into a new residential block.
All the neighbourhood pubs have decked and spruced their counters, and added few extra dispensers for the rush. It is going to be a big evening for them. With a perfect summer day, it looks like a carnival in this part of Helsinki. The official population of this district is 3400, and today it will be joined by 100, 000 more. I could see the city authorities preparing for this event in the past few days. Even the metro will extend their timing till 0200 hours.
During the day, I saw a huge crowd presence out the Kamp Hotel, where Madonna is staying, trying to catch a glimpse of her.
Big Euro spinning evening for all the businesses, even with a rough estimate the total figure would be 11 to 12 Million Euros, including the sales of the tickets. Don't know how much Madonna earns from one such concert?

Songs of Darkness

2009-07-24T01:37:00.011+03:00

When it is 1 am and it is dark, you can’t say if this is due to clouds or summer is ending. You would want to believe in the clouds, but it's the summer that is ending. And also it is time when you turn to music.

Brian Mcknight is one of my favourite singers. He is one of the greatest, and I am happy if there are people out there who does not know him. He does not have a career like that of Justin Timberlake. But if you know Nat King Cole, you would know Brian Mcknight. The most amazing part is his vocals; when he holds up the note, it sounds so smooth, so natural, mellifluous and all of these with such humility. I can’t listen enough to his “One Last Cry”. The youtube video is not available in Finland, but I could find one copy of on this link. One other song of his with amazing vocals is “Still in Love”, but I feel the lyrics could have been less cheesy. Listen to this song here.

The other singer to listen now in the same theme would be Chris Isaak and his iconic “ Wicked Game”. The video got so famous even when the song is exactly opposite to what it seems on video. Can’t be anything different when you have Helena Christensen in there. The video is here

And lastly “Smile” from Nat King Cole. The song here.

The cloud position at this time, not a speck over any place in Finland.

Chrome OS update on twitter

2009-07-20T23:07:00.005+03:00

The title of this post might seem a weird combination but that’s how you can sum up the last two weeks on technology world. The technology world, that average people like me gets involved for their daily activities.

First it was the launch of Google’s operating system, Chrome OS, another out of the world, free product from Google. Even before people like me could understand what Chrome OS is, almost entire media termed as the real threat to Microsoft Windows. It would not be difficult to even get the data from stock market to see how it affected the stock prices of Google and Microsoft. On a random basis, after every 10 articles boldly promulgating the end of Microsoft dominance; one could see an article saying “not so fast” on this analysis. The new OS was heralded as the latest revolution where a whole OS could be based on browser utilizing cloud services for all the desktop apps, e.g. Word processor and spread sheets. Google had indeed dropped “mother of bombs on Microsoft”

A week later after getting world’s update on Twitter, there was an update about Twitter itself. So the world had update on Twitter’s business model, how it wishes to reach the target of 1 billion users and other assorted strategies. It happened cause someone from Europe hacked into the email account of one of the Twitter employee and got access to all the documents that were kept on the same cloud environment courtesy Google. The anatomy of this operation is minutely detailed on web. One password was all that was required to get into this revolutionary concept, the same concept that is going to be part of Google’s Chrome OS. So much for being threat to Microsoft. It took just one week !

I don’t know which corporate would trust its documents by way of word processor, or spread sheets to be kept on Google’s servers. Extrapolate this to every other document and you get an OS based on Cloud Computing.

Microsoft is not only about technology, it is much more than just a tech giant.

Volvo Ocean Race

2009-07-09T22:47:00.009+03:00

The weather this midsummer in Helsinki wasn't inspiring enough to spend the long weekend in Finland, so I decided to spend the long weekend in Stockholm. Luckily it was also the time for Volvo Ocean race's Stockholm port stopover. This meant that for the first time I could see the yachts from this famous sporting event.

This year the race started from Alicante, Spain eneded on June 27th at St Petersburg, Russia.

Ericsson 4, which was leading the race till the Stockholm leg won the race eventually. The skipper of this boat was Brazilian Torben Grael.

It sure is an unparalled feat to cross the world oceans in nothing but a yacht and one can just imagine the endurance of all those who participated in the race..

Counting Years

2009-05-16T08:04:00.000+03:00

Five years ago, it was around this time when this blog was born. I needed a platform to share my views on the outcome of Indian election and created this blog, about an year after I got introduced to the blogging. It’s again the same election time in India, the voting exercise is over and results would come in few hours from now. Though I was not in India for the better part of the present government, still I would be sad to see it go. Anyway it would be time for my views on Indian elections and democracy again, that is if I get time.
It seems the shelf life of my blog was not even five years. It is practically dead after going through its life cycle. The post below about my India trip has become so old that by now I have made one more India trip and going on another such trip next week. My blogging was a direct corollary of my reading and opinionating and when I am not blogging, I am not even doing these.
Anyhow, right now I am hooked on BBC, they are showing Indian elections result live.

India visit

2008-10-19T18:50:00.002+03:00

I am travelling; would be in India for next 10 days.

Main Street or Wall Street ?

2008-09-30T22:13:00.004+03:00

Almost a day later, things are looking a bit better. The angst and frustrations are bit modified on seeing the ‘greens’. None the less it was unbelievable – a deal which took a week to be accepted by two political parties fell by 12 votes! I can’t seem to understand who stood defeated, the political managers or the bill?

The worst outcome of the whole process is the debate on Main Street and Wall Street. There can’t be an inopportune time to discuss this topic than at this juncture. Why is it a problem of Wall Street? Does not the main street lead to Wall Street or may be Wall Street is on an island?

I agree firms and associated eco-system took a little more than necessary risk, there were maybe little less regulation, lure of lucre, but did these lead to the fall? Let me try to put this in simplest way possible. The Wall Street went down because they had too much confidence on Main Street. After using all of the Financial Engineering, they carved out, bundled few other assortments and created instruments called Credit Default Swaps(CDS). Guess what, these CDS are derivatives, which inherently mean they derive their value from underlying asset, and in this case the asset was those mortgages. Those mortgages, which people from Main Street took, without giving a damn, because they were cheap! Yes, because they were cheap and the government had totally incentivized the whole borrowing process. The CDS went bust because those living on Main Street didn’t pay back their mortgages. Consider an analogy. If all of us have car accidents and the insurance company goes bust, then we will blame insurance company for taking risk. But remember the insurance company is dependent on a fact that not all of us will have car accidents.

Further, this whole thing is not about Wall Street and Main Street. If our neighbor’s big house, which we envied when they bought, faces foreclosure then this whole phenomenon, is also bringing down the price of our own house as well. The credit crisis not only hurt Bear Sterns, or Merrill Lynch but is also hurting the small mom and pop stores. It not only brings down the stock price of Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, but also the value of Microsoft shares, in which many of us have invested for our retirement.

Let’s not make the whole thing trivial by putting this as Wall Street problem or end of capitalism or win for Socialism or vindication of Asian economies. There is a serious problem and everyone should work towards addressing the situation. Admittedly, there have been mistakes, not enough regulations, too many incentives for cheap loans, etc. Let’s debate about how to improve things and invigorate the economy once again.

Water under the bridge

2008-09-23T04:23:00.003+03:00

Seems like a new beginning for this blog. After 4 years of blogging, I am exactly where I started, a clean slate and my blog only to me. Lot of things worth blogging happened in the last four months. To quote the line from the movie we all know – “A lot of water has flown over the dam and under the bridge”. Can’t say I would remember all of them at this morning hour, without my cup of tea, but let me try.

First mention, the loss of one of my favorite TV journalist – the venerable Tim Russert. I still can’t believe that he is no more and I am still living my Sundays. I haven’t watched any episode of ‘Meet the Press’ after him. It is not like Tom Brokaw is any less of a star, but I somehow feel I would be betraying Tim by watching the show without him. It was so ironical to lose him few weeks after that he was put as TIME’s, 100 most influential people with the comment “ the road to white house goes through Tim Russert ” from former NY governor Mario Cuomo. Half the fun of US presidential election has diminished without Tim’s pronounciations. His last being on May 7th just after Indiana and North Carolina primary when he had said this “We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it,” Somehow on my blog, as in my life, I didn’t do the things, I most wanted to – Obituary on Tim Russert, and also a piece on Katie Couric leaving NBC.

A month later, two other notable departures from world scene, Tony Snow, former White House press secretary and Randy Pausch, the CMU professor. Both snatched from the world scene by the cruel destiny.

In another blog-world development, we have now the face behind our favourite Waiter. Steve Dublanica he is, and I always thought he would be bit older. I have been one of his early readers from 2004, when he started to blog on blogger. What a journey for him from blogger to national television. Now our club guy may do a re-thinking of anonymity. And hey, someone do tell me if we have the name behind Fake Steve Jobs yet ?

Last mention for this morning, and I would update this on my blogger profile, I have changed my job role. I have never written about my work on my blog, but after a year of toying with sales, I have moved entirely from consulting to sales. There was lot of thinking behind this move and considering the outcomes of all my calculated, planned and carefully thought moves, I just wish the outcome ain’t the same.

In lesser developments, during my numerous flights I discovered this 2007 movie - The Great Debaters. Though a strange choice for in flight movie, it will get added in my best movies list. Thank you Finnair and wait for my hate post on Lufthansa.

For my best book read during travels it has to be – "Father, Son & Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond"

Just after 7 months of buying Nokia 6110 Navigator, I now have the Nokia E71. A vastly improved navigation and other similar features over 6110, though I have to discover most of the other features- the manuals are only in Finnish & Swedish. Also my new DELL D630 is so ancient compared to the Think Pad I had.

All done, I should be back to my normal blogging.

Insomniac Conundrum

2008-04-27T05:00:00.006+03:00

After a long time a personal post. The start of Finnish summer season is always 3 hours of sleep for me, lasts for a week and is more pronounced on weekends. Yeah, the reason I am writing this is that I could not sleep for more than 3 hours, and don’t want to do anything meaningful when I am up at my computer at 4 am.

It has always been weird for me to have dinner in sunlight or sleep when the sun is shining outside. Both of these meant that I went to sleep at 5 minutes to midnight on a Saturday, when I I worked all day from home. Even though the blinds are down on my bedroom’s huge window, I could see the sun shining at 4am. The archaic elevator in my building should take some blame for breaking my sleep at 3am. For some reason, I have seen every other apartment in Helsinki having those 1920s elevator. The modern ones are only reserved for office buildings. This in the country of ‘Kone’ accentuates the surprise factor. Anyway few riddles are better left unsolved. So the archaic elevator makes kind of rumbling noise, not usually on weekdays at 3am, but on weekends, that’s the time when people come from nightclubs. I am sure there is some rule pasted on the building notice board for usage of elevators at night time but I don’t want that to get invoked -I use it myself on those times on those days. So here I am, sleepless on a Sunday. Even without elevator, it will take a week to get used to get good sleep in summers or may be I would not be here.

So I watched ‘Good Luck Chuck’ once again. I don’t know what I like in it, may be subconsciously, I as well want to get a hex like that. This also makes me think of Ashlee Simpson (you would have figured out the connection, and I know it is Alba who is in the movie) and her engagement. I should not be analyzing her engagement, but I never knew someone would like to get married to an ‘Emo’ guy. I don't think I know much of these new age concepts.

Also, are those two songs of Foreigner – ” I want to know what Love is” and “ I just died in your arms tonight” good to be together, or may be paired with “Stop & Stare” from One Republic? Guess, that’s what is playing on my computer now.

2008 - Top 50 innovative companies

2008-04-18T16:02:00.005+03:00

I think this should be the most watched in times of recession,corporate instabilities and sinking businesses. Business Week is out with the list of 2008 top 50 innovative companies, it determined along with Boston Consulting Group. The description by BW for the list says it all; “Smart ideas for tough times: The 50 companies that make up our annual ranking nurture cultures that value creative people in good times and bad”

The list in itself is not surprising, but few rankings are.There are new names as well, like India’s TATA Group, Reliance Industries and gaming company, Nintendo. The list spans across the industries from Finance, Banking, Telecommunications, Oil companies, Retailers to Car manufacturers.

Apple keeps the topmost position with its iPhone becoming No 3 in smartphone category. Its nearest rival in the segment, Nokia is at number 10, powered by its convergence themed handsets. Google is number 2 in the list, and though not many would think Microsoft as an innovative company, it is very close to Google at No 5.

The first new entrant on the list is India’s TATA group. It has been hogging the global media after its buyout of Corus and most recent acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover. But what made it entry, and gave it No 6, was the 2500 dollars, world’s cheapest car 'Nano'. The second new entrant is Nintendo, powered by gaming that also improves your fitness. Reliance Industries, one more new entrant is at number 19, which has been diversifying in grocery retailing from its traditional petrochemicals.

The hottest social networking site, Facebook, finds itself on number 25 and McDonald's on number 30. It was surprising to see Intel at No 48 and the No 50 lies with American Express.

The recessionary times will separate the grain from chaff, and it is only comforting to see innovative companies across the industry verticals.

Olympics of China

2008-04-08T22:57:00.005+03:00

What a bizarre and surprising Olympic torch run it has been? There was everything in it, except peace, harmony, goodwill and happiness, things that the run symbolizes. The security detail was something that is provided to head of states or may be only to President of US. The most surprising was the scenes played out on the streets of London. One would be forgiven if they thought it was some dictatorial state and not some free democratic country. The glaring part was presence of Chinese security personnel, who were the part of innermost ring of the security bubble, on the streets of London. The Chinese security men were seen beating one of the demonstrators who tried to grab the torch from Konnie Huq, later that person was tackled by police, as with many other demonstrators.

Judging by the comments on several news sites and Youtube, average Chinese citizens have not taken well of these protests. They see it as offending and against their country. May be they don’t know the truth. They have always read, heard and talked what the ruling Communist party wanted? I will not be surprised if those born after 1989 would not know that there was ever a Tiananmen Square incident. I have talked to few of Chinese colleagues, and it so surprising that they don’t even have casual talk among themselves on these issues. I don’t know how many of them know about Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1951. I don’t think any one in China can even read this blog. Till couple of years ago, blogger was blocked in China, may be it still is.

As I write, the scene in San Francisco has yet to unfold. It should not be anything different than that of London or Paris, but news reports say that US has done massive security arrangements. In India, they are barricading the streets for safe run of the torch, but it would be most unfortunate if a single Chinese security person is present on the streets of Delhi. If China can’t trust the local security arrangements, it should not allow its torch to be paraded. Till now the heavy handed security has only refreshed the memories of Tiananmen Square. Perhaps, in place of the Olympic torch, China should have rolled over one of its Tiananmen Tank on the world capitals. It would have been more befitting to Chinese Olympics.

PR Co-incidence

2008-04-04T16:39:00.010+03:00

We have seen lot of strange co-incidences across the world many times. I don’t know how many of us noticed, but there was one such co-incidence this week as well. It was about two big corporate names fighting their PR battle.

First case is of British airways, which is now facing one of the worst PR disasters ever. BA would never have imagined that the much hyped opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow by the Queen of England herself, would land it in such a trouble. There are reports of heaps of 20,000 backlogs of misplaced luggage. One can only imagine the plight and helplessness of the harried BA customers. The prediction of Martin Broughton, BA Chairman that the new terminal would “put some fun back into flying” came totally true. Who can tell more about it than Naomi Campbell herself? The job of BA CEO Willie Walsh seems to be secure as no one other than harried customers have asked him to be sacked. BA might term it as ‘teething problem’ but it has made a huge dent into image of BA How is British Airways fighting its way back to reputation? It is taking use of its website and put a permanent “We’re Sorry” board to apologise to its customers.

(click on the image to expand)

Internet website is being put to use across the Atlantic as well. Two American corporates are fighting an epic PR battle, which is getting interesting with each passing day. The case is 35 Bn USD contract of US Airforce refueling aircraft. Boeing would never have dreamt that it will lose the contract after already supplying refueling aircraft previously. To add insult to injury, the contract was won by joint group of Northrop Grumman and Europe’s EADS (parent of Airbus). Boeing has appealed against the contract and trying to invoke popular sentiment of job loss to the case. It ran full page advertisement in the major US newspapers about the tanker deal, saying “Why It Doesn’t Add Up”.

Northrop Grumman was fully prepared to return the favour. It didn’t use the newspapers but its website. It put a picture of the deal winner plane with the words “It DOES Add Up” This particular deal is a case study who has even a slightest bit of interest in sales strategy and more has to come.

(click on the image to expand)

Two corporates in the same week fighting their PR battle through their website in the same week. It could not get any more interesting.

What Russia wants ?

2008-03-10T22:49:00.008+02:00

Dust has now settled on the Russian presidential elections, and these days the talks are about invitations to Moscow, or invitations for President 'elect' Dmitry Medvedev to other capitals. The recently concluded elections received widespread media attention, lot of editorials and op-ed columns. I don’t think this was surprising to anyone.

After my earlier post about announcement of Mr Dmitry‘s candidature for the top job, several times I tried to write on the recently concluded elections, but couldn’t. I failed to develop a coherent theme, an unequivocal summary of the elections. I can’t say that by now I have developed a coherent theme, but may be writing this piece may help in shaping my thoughts.

I tried to reason through questions, answers and few assumptions. Let me accept in the very beginning, some of these assumptions have exceptions as always.

The first question:

What is best for a country - a stable government providing stability or a government based on highest principles of democracy? Consider example of Cuba, definitely not a democratic government but one that has given stability for the past many decades, and several other benefits like good national health service, employment, etc.

The second question:

Does a pro-western government based on democratic ideals always successful? Now consider Lebanon, where a pro western government under Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was formed in July 2005. But was this government was able to keep Lebanon away from crises or away from the influence of terrorist organization Hezbollah, despite having Hezbollah members in the cabinet. Hezbollah even caused Israel to bomb Lebanon in summer of 2006.

One more, the orange revolution of Ukraine, enshrined in democratic ideals established President Viktor Yushchenko’s government. We all know what happened two years down the line. Only by the end of last year in Dec 2007, the crisis seems to have tapered off.

Now coming to Russia, elections or no elections, Putin undoubtedly is most popular. He brought stability to the country from the days when the news used to be about corruption and falling rouble. Putin harnessed the oil & gas boom and brought some of the lost prominence back to Russia. Ofcourse while doing all this, he did deviate from democratic principles, mostly in the later states of his presidentship. This is when he fell out with western countries. Though the worst fears of western countries, about Putin altering the Constitution and getting another term for presidentship, didn’t come true, but his choice for putting a puppet president didn’t go well with them.

The question which remains unanswered is, what is best for Russia? A pro-western democratic government that might not be able to provide stability or a semi-democratic government that provides stability and brings back the lost power back to Russia. What the world will be better off - a stable Russia with Putin’s form of government or a democratic government with Russia (assuming it won’t be that stable) ?

It is hard to answer this question without having the benefit of retrospective, but this answer alone will judge the legacy of Putin and Dmitry Medvedev.

Indian budget 2008-09 analysis

2008-03-02T20:15:00.000+02:00

On 29th February, Indian Finance Minister Mr P. Chidambaram presented the fifth and the last budget of the present government. It has been a trend in India to give a tone to every budget. On this context, only the first and last budget of this government can be given theme. The last three budget of Chidambram didn’t fit any template. I feel Chidambaram is only one of the two FMs around this time, who really deserved the job. Inspite of this, I disagree with many of his policies. (Moment of truth: It seems my disagreements are more sincere than agreements).

The limitations of coalition government and the imperative of next election very clearly reflect on the policies of these budgets. This budget has been all for spending on social sectors – education, health, employment, etc.

The biggest of the policies was the farm loan waiver of the magnitude never ever made before in India. I don’t think it is going to help Indian growth story in any manner. In the current five year plan, agriculture growth rate is envisaged to be 4.1% but it never ever reached that mark. It has been languishing between 2 to 3%. It needed huge investment for technology, industry participation, processing, etc, but where did the money go ? It went for waiving the debts of the famers. Agreed, suicide of deb-ridden farmers had increased but these are not the farmers who borrow from banks. They borrow from money lenders and their debts are not waived. This generosity of Finance Minister is not going to benefit anyone in long run except encouraging farmers to keep defaulting on loans.

Secondly he increased investment in health, education, employment, social security. I have been reiteration that investment or putting the money is not the problem. The malaise is the corruption that siphons the money even before it reaches for whom it was intended. So some strong policies were needed in the implementation part, in the micro management. Sadly no government ever thinks in this direction. There has been a slight mention in this regard about two states agreeing to use technology but nothing more than that. All the money provisioned for the benefit of common man is never going to reach them.

The changes on taxation front were cleverly timed for this year. Despite the surge in income tax collection there was no major benefit given to tax payers all these years. It was overdue and it is good. On the other hand the short term capital gan tax rate was increased. The majority of those who pay this tax are the stock market community and it is not going to go well with them. Our communist parties see this class as ‘Bourgeoisie’ as such they had to be taxed. Also I don’t understand the cess on tax concept. Provision of cess is like giving extra life to schemes which can’t utlilise the money already apportioned to them. It actually encourages poor micro management. If more money for education is needed, then it could be given from the general spending. Why cess?

The dampner was that nothing was done for the benefit of the export sector. It is currently reeling under the appreciation of Indian currency and yet nothing for them. Likewise, there was no extension of the provision of STPI scheme, which gives tax concessions to the IT companies. Though FM says we still have time to look into it, but I don’t think anything is going to come this way.

To summarise this has been a good political budget, some cheers for middle class, keeping the growth story intact with attempts to limit revenue and fiscal deficit.

Let’s see how the next budget of India would be?

Back in town

2008-02-20T22:55:00.003+02:00

So it is now a month that I returned to finland after a gap of six months. It was as surprising to me to be back here as to others. I guess there is something in my destiny that brings me back to Finland, every time I leave it.

For all I know, I was supposed to move to Hong Kong for indefinite period. Tickets were booked, my bags were packed, but at the last moment I decided not to go. Ofcourse it was not that easy to say no, I had lot of uncomfortable questions to answers later. Had I accepted that offer, I would not have been here today. So it’s destiny. I don’t know how long I would be here this time. Living out of bags is also one integral part of my destiny.

First time I flew directly to Helsinki from India, unlike the stopover at Paris on earlier flights. The flight was good and totally convenient: just 7 hours of travel time. It didn’t feel like intercontinental flight, most flights in India with delays and congestions are almost 4 hours. Just after landing in Helsinki, in two hours, I had to take the flight to Copenhagen and then train to Malmo(Sweden). The bridge over the sea that connects Denmark and Sweden is quite impressive. First time I crossed that bridge. The trains from CPH airport to Malmo are so frequent, every twenty minutes, and takes twenty two minutes to reach Malmo Center. I think the bridge is called Öresund Bridge. It is 16Km long and was opened to rail and road traffic in 2000. Marevellous infrastructure. Well, after the weekend, I had to take return flight and on Monday evening I was in Helsinki and back to my old office.

Here I am, my fourth successive winter in Finland and I am enjoying it.

Tech companies

2008-01-15T01:39:00.000+02:00

Something good about falling US dollar. IBM posted spectacular result with their revenues up by 24% YoY. The fourth quarter figure was $ 28.9bn. The stock closed 5.39% up and also fired up the US stock markets. The results must have put few doubts t to rest till we have one bad result.

These days the results of technology services companies serve as barometer. The more diversified their services, the more they tell about health of the companies they get their business. All the talks of US economy being in recession and sub-prime crises could be put off by a day.

Later in the day when Indian markets open, the Indian technology stocks, which have been shunned by investors and speculators for most part of the last calendar year might have a good run as well. Indian tech stocks have been written off due to depreciating dollar, recently due to recession in US stock market and sub-prime fears. Though a closer look might take sheen off the result, half of the IBM’s earnings is due to more dollar per foreign currency. Still the fears of global economic recession have been subdued.

I still think there is more than falling dollars story for some of the ‘hyped’ and stock market darling tech companies of India. They had a phenomenal rise all these years coupled with huge margins, not ever seen and still not seen by other Indian businesses. All this masked many of the shortcomings in their businesses. Lack of diversification, hedging of risks in business model and undue gloating in publicity don’t go well in trying times, such as of now. The rocks appeared just when the water level of the river started to decrease. Only hope they will do away with the shortcomings that are more obvious than every before. Hobnobbing with media can’t makeup everything.

New Year

2007-12-31T12:58:00.000+02:00

Dear All,

I wish you, your family, your relatives, all your friends, a very happy and prosperous New Year !!

I hope the coming year is eventful, brings you joy, happiness, satisfaction and content !

Democracy - the Indian way !

2007-12-14T15:55:00.000+02:00

I don’t often mention Indian politics on my blog. Not that I am not political, on the contrary, I am strongly political in my views. But when it comes to India, there are so many things to develop upon than politics, that too at the state level.

Much has been said about Indian democracy, said to be one of the world’s biggest and vibrant one. In India, democracy might be what it is defined in dictionaries, but not what it is envisaged as. Some time ago, when Economist termed Indian democracy as patchy, many people didn’t agree. I can’t see why, and the present case in point, one of the Western states of India- Gujarat. It is ruled by the worst person living - leader of the state BJP (a Hindu rightwing party).

Those who don’t know about Narendra Modi or his party BJP would not be able to understand my hatred for him. But he and his party were ruling Gujarat in 2002 - when about 2000 people were massacred.

The immediate reason for writing about him is this excellent article, carried again in Economist. I would just quote the lines from that article

“AS A cheerleader for the emerging India, a giant democracy with—at last—an economy to match, Narendra Modi is a disgrace.”

With the ongoing elections in Gujarat, Modi is again trying to keep his job. I have had only few Gujarati friends, so I don’t exactly understand the Gujarati mindset that elected him with absolute majority in 2002. The Economist article further mentions,

“Its last election, later in 2002, gave Mr Modi a thumping majority, biggest in those districts where the bloodshed was worst.”

The line above totally describes the voting pattern in 2002 elections of Gujarat and the following gives some hint about the average person who casts his/her vote in Gujarat.

“Meanwhile, few commentators have dwelt on the poll's most depressing aspect: Congress's own careful reluctance to mention the 2002 massacre—let alone Mr Modi's alleged part in it. This makes electoral sense. Attacking Mr Modi for failing to protect Muslims might remind Gujaratis why they used to like him so much.”

I don’t trust much the election predictions, not even those made by psephologist. If Narendra Modi gets to keep his job then I guess average voter of Gujarat will have lot of explaining to do.

Few even go so far to suggest that one day this hated person will become the Prime Minister of India. If this happens then the only thing I could do is to give away my Indian citizenship. It would be better than hanging my head in shame for the democracy, which would be India.

The world of politics

2007-12-11T17:11:00.000+02:00

In just over a week’s time, the world has seen two major political outcomes, both of which were unexpected to say the least. Spread across two continents, this new development in both the countries is a pleasant surprise for the majority world opinion.

In Venezuela, the infallible Hugo Chavez ultimately had his defeat at the polls. Not only him, but many across the world were certain that Chavez’s plan are going to be reality in Venezuela. If Chavez respects the referendum then it is certain that he would be president only till the end of his second six year term in 2013. His dreams to rule Venezuela for an indefinite term came to a shattering end. So did his policies to turn Venezuela into a socialistic heaven. Though with just 1.4% of vote, the citizens of Venezuela did tell him loud and clear that they still consider the plural constitution of the country paramount to any person.

The next pleasant surprise came in yesterday from Russia. In an unexpected move, Russian president Putin announced his support for Dmitry Medvedev as the next president. Buoyed by the comprehensive victory of Putin’s party in the recent parliamentary election, it was certain that whomever he chooses will be the next president. The surprise in his choice is that he has chosen a pro-business leader over the other candidates, who were from KGB and security agencies. Among all of them, Medvedev, a law graduate and current Chairman of Gazprom would be most acceptable to the western world. Medvedev would still be someone through which Putin can maintain his hold over Kremlin, but this would have been the case with any of his successor. Atleast, with Medvedev, we can be sure of Russia’s economic progress, which will also augur well for the world in large. Though, he was at the forefront of the Russia’s gas supply controversy with Ukraine on the New Year eve of 2006, he has largely presented himself as the votary of economic liberalization and foreign investment.

Collectively, these two political developments are good news going into holiday season. (Yeah, I do believe in capitalism)

Long break

2007-11-23T13:45:00.000+02:00

I think it has been the longest gap; I have ever taken from my blog. Not that in recent past I was writing regularly but this has been too long a break.

The break is not entirely without reasons, lot of things changed in the meantime. Life is moving real fast, lot of thinking to do, decisions to make and then ruminate over it. Most of the changes as usual happened in my professional life. After more than 4 years, I came back to my parent company. I was looking to change my track from consulting but looks like it will take some more time.

One of the toughest things to do in today’s life is to make decisions. The stress one goes through before making the decision is in sharp contrast to the closure one gets after it. I have found myself quite often in a predicament where I have to make decisions for myself. Retrospectively it is easy to judge decisions but not at the time of deciding. I am well aware that not all of my decisions turned out to be the right one, but I have always tried to live by my decisions. The only highlight of the decision making is that we get wiser by experience.

So lots of thing happening for me right now, and I hope that I would be blogging as before.

60th Year of Independence of India !

2007-08-16T16:42:00.000+03:00

There were times, when these two days – 26th January and 15th August were special to me. As a kid, I used to be happy that we could put the country’s flag on our terrace. That was the time, when common citizens were allowed to put their nation’s flag only on these two days.

Yesterday, it was 60th year of India’s independence. Now any Indian can put up a flag any day of the year after Indian government lost the case against it in the judicial court. I still don’t understand the brouhaha of this day. The line between patriotism and jingoism is very thin and is easily blurred on these occasions. I don’t understand what is there in these celebrations for common citizen?

The whole pomp and glory is displayed on the streets for New Delhi. The important monuments and places, which hold significant amount of Indian history is declared out of bounds for common citizens, weeks in advance. The streets are closed for the political class to move freely creating huge inconveniences for the normal people. On the national day, the President of ‘Republic’ of India holds a party where only elite political class is invited. A common man can’t even think of going anywhere near without the fear of bullets pumped into him.

A nation which is celebrating its 60th year of freedom from colonial rule still has the hangover to have VIP system everywhere from train stations, airports, hospitals, parking, etc.

I believe the sign of maturing of any nation is less jingoism, less symbolism, empowerment and dignity of common citizens. We are not even close to such a condition. So this 60th year of Indian independence is just another day for me.

Interesting tag !

2007-07-30T16:02:00.000+03:00

So, I have been tagged by the ‘SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS’ doctor. I have to mention seven interesting (?) facts about me. Let me see if I can come up with interesting facts.

1. I like reading Hollywood gossips, yeah, it is true. I read them mostly from TMZ.

2. This morning I checked my personal mail and the last mail that I had sent out was on 29th June!!!

3. I love cooking!

4. For some reason I feel that everyone is younger than me. One day, I thought that my mother is younger than me!

5. I can take leave from work to read books. Have done that for Grisham books

6. My desktop keeps getting crowded, so I copy them and keep them in a folder. My current desktop folder has 5 desktop folders inside it.

7. I totally don’t like playing computer games.

Now I have to tag people but these days not many come to my blog. So I tag the following few people

Mowgli
EU
Scipio
Expressions !
Freeze
Dr.TGFI (she has done this I guess)
Neihal

I will put in more names!

Congrats Statcounter !

2007-07-20T15:49:00.000+03:00

(Aodhan Cullen, picture from BusinessWeek)

Statcounter, which is very famous in the blogging world has won the top position in Europe’s Young Entrepreneurs, an annual contest by Business Week. This Dublin, Ireland based company was started by Aodhan Cullen in 1999, at the age of 16 years.

Statcounter is mostly free, ad based, internet site that lets people view the statistics of the hits on their webpages. It also gives added features to track search words, browser information and geographical location of its visitors. This tracking website is most popular among others with bloggers and also with small and mid sized companies, who don’t have big budget.

What started as request for Cullen’s client for web-designing is now attracting attention of giants such as Google, which launched a similar service after buying the web analytics company, Urchin Software. Presently Statcounter gets more hits in US than names such as Adobe, Dell , Wal-Mart, etc. Though he is getting attention from Venture Capitalist, Cullen has decided to go alone for the time being.

Coming just behind Statcounter were companies as Sofia, Bulgaria based JT International, Amsterdam based social networking site Wakoopa, London based Kwiqq and on the 5th position is Amsterdam based Dot Kite Lab.

Congrats Statcounter!

Anonymous fun in corporate world

2007-07-16T17:13:00.000+03:00

The advent of Web 2.0 with platforms such as online discussion forums, blogs, networking sites has started to make even corporate world quite interesting.

I think the first among this(or so I know) is the blog by Fake Steve Jobs (FSJ). This hugely popular blog is being penned by someone who writes as if he is real Steve Jobs. No one knows who Fake Steve Jobs is? Few have guessed him as Leander Kahney (MD of Wired.com) and few thought he might be Steve Jobs himself. Whoever it is, but the blog is a place to read interesting spoofs about Apple, jab on its rivals and news about technology world. Fake Steve Jobs has even been ranked as 41st most influential person in Business by Business 2.0 magazine. The blog is a must read for anyone who wants to be see the interesting side of technology world.

The most recent example is that of the CEO of Whole Food Market, John Mackey. For seven years he has been posting on Yahoo Finance’s bulletin board. Most of 11,000 entries by him were in support of his company and occasionally critical of his competitor ‘Wild Oats Markets’. This fact was disclosed only when Whole Food Market filed court document in the process of buying Wild Oats Markets. Without it, this disclosure might never be known.

Though this incident of John Mackey might have some ethical or may be legal implications, the Fake Steve Jobs seems to be innocent fun. Or not, if he is real Steve Jobs. One might keep arguing about the ramifications of these pseudo posters or bloggers, but the fact that these incidents highlight is “there is always more than what meets the eye in online world”

The personal conflict..

2007-07-11T16:34:00.000+03:00

Sometimes it surprises me no end to see huge principles being super relevant in smaller situations, may be that’s why they are called ‘principles’

Take for example this line from Sun Tzu-

“Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected”

This is as true in battles as in situations in personal life. I have seen it getting repeated with many, but not everyone tackles in it the same way. This situation arises when one is in some sort of conflict with someone , may be at work place or in social circles or some similar setup. The moment the person gets in conflict with one, very soon there will others jumping in to cash in their own ‘backlog’ grudges. When people see someone already in conflict with someone else, they think the person is weak and launch their own attack.

It does take the person in center of all this by surprise, especially if the person is new to conflicts. The most obvious and natural reaction is to fight with every one, and it makes one's position weaker and more susceptible. I feel that’s wrong strategy.

Sun Tzu again opines on this situation

“For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van; should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his right, he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.”

When one starts to fight with whoever takes a attacking stance, the person loses focus on the biggest situation and dilutes the firepower. Moreover, the person might dissociate with everyone, stand totally alienated and would get reverse popular perception. It is not so easy to turn a blind eye to those lesser enemies who don’t have wherewithal to go it alone, but one needs to.

I think we all can identify this in any of our personal situation. Very recently I had seen the case of one Indian politician who created a huge mess and caused himself ir-repairable damage. Only if he had focused on the real fight.

Ten years of East - Asian Financial Crisis

2007-07-02T16:52:00.000+03:00

East Asia is having two contrasting ten year anniversaries. They both occurred on successive days and their effect panned out across continents. One was handing crown colony of Hong Kong to China and other was the East Asian Financial crisis, which surfaced a day later. The infamous East Asian Financial crisis, which started from Thailand very quickly, spread to the so called tiger economies of Asia.

It is ten years since the crisis took the wind out of economic development in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong along with Singapore and South Korea. Much has changed since then, almost all the countries have recovered from the crisis.

This crisis had some very important lessons for the developing or emerging economies and also brought out the inadequacy of financial institutions like IMF in catering to the need of developing economies.

It is highly unlikely, though nothing can be said for sure, that such crisis would strike again. All those countries are more sound and safeguarded to manage such situation. The most striking part of the crisis was the unscathed economy of India and China. India in particular should not take refuge in this fact and let its control down. The most important reason why India was not affected then was it does not have Capital Account Convertibility and has short term investment control. There has been lot of pressure from several quarters to ease off control in both the cases. I had once argued about India not being ready for Capital Account Convertibility in this post here. This does not mean that there should be no capital account convertibility; it does have its own benefits. After all the developed economies have full convertibility. India has huge foreign exchange reserves, inflation figure is low and the banks have small percentage of non-performing assets but there is more to be done.

As the ten year anniversary of the crisis passes by all the affected countries are more confident but by no means should they be complacent.

Paris Hilton

2007-06-28T16:00:00.000+03:00

Yeah, those are the only two words needed to describe her. Those words have become a brand unto themselves. That too a multi million brand.

I don’t have gossip potential as that of TMZ nor the panel of experts as CNN detailing every little aspect of yours but whatever I can perceive of her makes her a fascinating person. I am well aware that I am taking a contrarian view, but I have always tried to look beyond the popular opinion in any context.

Paris Hilton to me is a genius in marketing. Agreed, it all started with the sex tape. But if that is all that is needed to make what Paris is today, then Jenna Jameson would have been as successful and rich as Paris is. That sex tape was just her launching platform, and whatever she did later was her own crafty ways.

The fortune that this high school dropout, has from her grandparents’ hotel empire and real estate business of her parents is enough for her to enjoy the luxuries, which only few of us can imagine. She didn’t stop at that and created her own name that is getting as famous as the original ‘Hilton’ brand. She has done it all, music albums to designer jewellery.

The most recent adversity of spending 23 days in jail has been turned into a gold pot by her. She very well knows that in the game of publicity, any publicity is good publicity. She will reportedly be getting 1 million dollars by NBC for her interview with Meredith Vieira. There was also contest for buying that story as well. Though, her first interview with Larry King wasn’t paid for. People might think she is dumb, she may be or may not be, but at the end, she is the one who is laughing all the way to bank.

GDP growth alone ?

2007-06-14T08:01:00.000+03:00

Amidst all the news about rising inflation, strengthening interest rates, there was a different kind of statistics that made news in India. It surely made few in the government elated. GDP growth rate of India, for the year 2006-2007 (April –March, financial year) was 9.4%, highest in the last 18 years, coming on top of 9% growth of the previous year. It indeed is pretty impressive.

But do we really want such high GDP growth rate when we see things in perspective with our inflation rate? Notwithstanding the method of calculating inflation, it is a serious concern which has subsided a bit by the figure coming close to 5%. This after concerted effort by the government and central bank, the RBI. With such high growth rate, there is risk of over-heating and then hard landing. No country can sustain high levels of inflation and our high GDP growth rate in part is fuelling the inflation figures.

High GDP growth increases the demand and with supply not matching up, things become expensive. It is better for India to have GDP growth between 8 to 9% to avoid over-heated economy. We can’t all the time control inflation by our appreciating currency. But I don’t think anyone will accept slower GDP growth rate, so the only way to have best of both the world is to remove inefficiencies. There are huge losses in the value chain for Indian goods and services. Our deficient infrastructure is as glaring as the high GDP growth rate. Unless and until these inefficiencies are done away with, the GDP growth rate won’t be anything to be cherished while being in quagmire of other economic woes.

The ringing phones

2007-05-29T16:46:00.000+03:00

It is now more than a month in India. As a principle I never write about my work in my blog but today I will mention few generic things related to office environment without being too specific. I have spent three-fourth of my professional life working outside India and now when I have worked for a month continuously, I can see the difference.

First things first, the most annoying thing ever in office here is the constant ringing telephones. Every cube has a desk phone and one or the other phone will keep ringing. Even the cubes which are empty will keep getting calls. This is not only irritating but does not allow you to concentrate on your work. There is no question of waiting out for the call to end; cause immediately after some other phone will start ringing. It seems like I am working out from a telephone exchange. It is due to this reason that many offices abroad don’t allow any desk phone and everyone is supposed to be connected through cell phone. Will that help here?

Almost every cell phone today supports the feature of those funky ring tones, mp3 and what not? It is okay to have a Bollywood song as your ring tone but it is not okay to keep your phone ringing just because you are enjoying it. Everyone might not like those latest ring tones. I don’t understand why people can’t follow the simple courtesy to keep your cell phones in silent mode or may be with soft volume? I don’t think this is a problem in most of the offices, but it certainly it is in this office where I am working. No, this is actually not my office but I have to work from here none the less.

The other thing to notice is how rudely people answer those tele-marketing calls. I agree they are unnecessary, unsolicited phone calls, trying to sell something, which one might not need. Also those calls might come at the most inopportune time, may be when you are in some serious discussion or in a meeting. Still, it does not merit such rude response. There is a person on the other end, who is just doing a job. It could be anyone doing that job. It is not required to buy whatever the other person is selling but a polite reply won’t hurt?

There are many other instances but may be I should end this rant.

The Rising Rupee

2007-05-02T13:11:00.001+03:00

Talking about shocks, one of it is that Indian currency, INR, is at its nine year high level against dollar.

Indian economy right now is going through some kind of overheating. The consumption due to high earning has contributed to increase in prices. Inflation is at 6% whilst the government targeted something around 5%. In a democratic country like India, the 'high' inflation has some political cost as well, so the government surely wants to tame it. The fall out of all this is the appreciation of Indian currency.

Typically the quick measure any government employs to curb inflation is to decrease the amount of currency or soak up the liquidity. This is what Central bank of India (RBI) is trying to do by various means as increasing the Interest rate through CRR hike. There is one added dimension in this story. India is facing record inflow of foreign fund increasing the supply of dollars and making the rupee appreciate. The only way to stop rupee from appreciating is to buy dollars from market, which will release rupee into the market and will increase inflation. Strong rupee also helps in keeping the import cheap, in particular the crude oil cost and decreases inflationary pressures. So for so good, but strong Rupee also hurts exports, so sooner or later the government will have to do something to keep the appreciation of rupee in check.

Feelers are being sent from the government that rupee appreciation will be checked and some steps like allowing the limit for Resident Indians to invest abroad to 100, 000 $ from earlier 50, 000$ is step in that direction. There are also arguments from some quarters that stronger rupee is not going to hurt export much, if other things such as customs duties, etc are reduced. After all, the Rupee which had to be devalued in 1991 has appreciated from Rs 49 to now around Rs 41 per dollar, all this time our exports have increased and so the profit of companies.

In my personal view, government should also look at long term measures to curb inflation by reducing inefficiencies in our economic value chain. There is a lot to be desired in this context. Also, when government has advanced information of supply falling short of demand there is no reason why steps can’t be taken a little earlier? This is true for agricultural commodities like Wheat and Pulses.

None the less, appreciating INR has made my wallet lighter.

Welcome in Bangalore!

2007-04-29T10:22:00.000+03:00

My return to India can never be complete unless I step my foot in Bangalore. Though I had come to Bangaloretwo weeks ago, but I didn’t step outside of airport. Now when I am close to having spent one week in Bangalore, I feel that I am back in India.

As winters are never the best time to move to Finland, same way summer is never the good time to come to India or Bangalore. Last time when I was here for few days, I knew from day one that I am going back so I didn’t realise the feeling of getting back to India. But this time things are different. I don’t want to write all those things, lest it might be construed as disdain for one’s own country. Net to net, the shock was all there, cultural, social, political, economical all kind of shocks.

Bangalore has gone through a sea change in last 3 years; it is now hotter, more crowded, more cluttered and more difficult to live. The worse part is that I am a total stranger in this city. This makes living here quite difficult and so my life for time being is reduced to being in office, even on Sunday, right now. Hope things will get better with time, either this way or that way.

I do miss my life in Finland and everything associated with it. But it was me who decided to be back so I have no one to blame. Though things are not happening as I wanted them to be, but when do things happen as planned.

Good Bye Finland !

2007-04-08T11:10:00.000+03:00

Happy Easter everyone!

So what should have been during last Christmas is happening now – I am making the move from Finland. What was supposed to be short two months assignment became nearly six months, and though it is not yet officially completed, my part is done. So tomorrow I take the early morning Air France flight out of Helsinki.

In couple of hours, all my belongings would fit in two bags and the dumpster, I would book myself a taxi for tomorrow and I am good to go. I won’t even think about what I am feeling now, it is becoming part of my life. Though this time I have several other feelings alongside making the whole process torturous.. I decided to fly only on Wednesday and booked the flight for Monday morning. Now all the intervening days are Easter holiday and I thought I would have ample time to pack and clean the apartment, etc. I didn’t realise it would be so difficult to pass every minute of these days. It is hard to live in the apartment with your bags packed at one corner. I should have booked my flight on Friday morning.

I am not sure what I am going to do next. For now, I have taken two weeks off and after three flights and overnight train journey would reach my parents place. I have no other place to stay in India for now. I desperately need this time to clear my head.

Three's tag

2007-03-25T13:50:00.000+03:00

When I am back to blogging with personal posts, which I shall strive to keep minimum, here is one more. I was tagged by Ipanema girl to do the three's tag and here it is.

Three things that scare me:
1. Hospitals, not when I am there.
2. Having no money
3. Offending some one unintentionally

Three people who make me laugh:
1. When I do something funny and I do them often
2.Conan O’Brien
3.My Niece

Three things I love:
1. Getting to know little details of any incident from history
2. Sea beaches
3. Listening to my favourite music

Three things I hate:
1. Cheesy/Corny statements
2. Servile flattery
3. Credit stealing

Three things I don’t understand:
1. Justifying lies
2. Fake feelings
3. Why I always swear at most inopportune moment !

Three things on my desk (at home)
1. Remote/CDs
2. Shoe brush/Shoe horn
3. Post-it

Three things I’m doing right now:
1. Watching TV
2. Listening to radio
3. Writing this post and thinking…

Three things I want to do before I die:
1. Spend a month in Amazon rain forest
2. Live across countries
3. ------------------------

Three things I can do:
1. Sit idle and think for hours!
2. Give importance to others
3. Go without food or sleep for days

Three things you should listen to:
1. Your intuition
2. Lessons from history
3. Friends

Three things you should never listen to:
1. Flattery
2. Hip-hop
3. ---------------

Three things I’d like to learn:
1. Relearn/Improve my Deustch
2. Ice skating
3. To keep myself detached from things I like

Three favourite foods:
1. Steak with garlic potatoes
2. Khichdi (much like Rissoto)
3. South Indian food

Three beverages I drink regularly:
1. Coffee/Tea
2. Water
3. Red Wine

Three TV shows/Books I watched/read as a kid:
1. Street Hawk (that motorcycle-man episode if I remember correctly, something like J C Mark)
2. Target (same as TGFI)
3. Hardy Boys series

I think most people have done this tag, so I tag anyone who has not done it till now.

Back with the summer time

2007-03-25T12:27:00.000+03:00

Today when Finland and also Europe gets their summer time, I find it most suitable time to come out of my blog hibernation. It would become a cliché to mention why I wasn’t blogging, so I would spare that.

Infact it is not even easy to write this post due to my overwhelming guilt of not blogging for so long. But today when I return to blogging after the brief hiatus, my resolve to continue blogging is stronger than ever before. When you are bereft of something then only you realise its importance. My blog was my source for catharsis and today I need to purge my past three months than ever before.

Infact when I look back at three months it is like traversing my last three years only in fast forward or may I say too fast forward. What does this tells about me? Did I revere my past too much to repeat it or I was too much in my comfort zone to be oblivious of the ruthless realities or I was plain complacent? These questions won’t change anything.

Life is busy, and with every passing day it is going to be busier. This can’t be any excuse for not having sometime everyday to reflect upon what we are doing, or what we should do? If I can’t have two hours for myself everyday then I am sure my hours won’t be good for anything else. Need for those two hours is indestructible, if not apportioned today, they would keep accumulating and become two months later. My logic might seem specious because I can’t explain much now. But this is my catharsis.

In other details, I am still in Finland. The assignment kept on getting extended, a familiar story with assignments, but I would be saying 'bye' to Finland very soon. And I am sure it would be 'adieu' this time, again.

In two months I would be at the third anniversary of my blog and I am sure I would reach that milestone with more vigour, more enthusiasm and of course with more posts.

Also,I am unbelievably gratified to all of you who kept visiting my page and leaving comments for me. I missed all of this, I am dashing to your blogs very soon.

Climate Change ? Very likely

2007-02-02T14:44:00.000+02:00

I am sure almost all would have found the advertisement of Vattenfall, mostly aired on BBC to be hilarious, just because it states something so obvious. It shows a conference of intellectuals and scientists, where one person is forcefully delivering the words about how one should control the negative climate change, etc. Then a voice says that empty words like this only add to carbon dioxide, at Vattenfall they do real effort to curb climate change. Vattenfall is an energy company, operating in Nordic countries, Germany and Poland of mainland Europe. I, as well, buy my electricity from them.

Now, let’s move over to the report released by the IPCC yesterday. IPCC is an intergovernmental panel comprising 113 countries and 600 scientists. In its report published yesterday, which is being hailed as something radical and revolutionary, they have said the reason for the climate change is "very likely" human activity! What news? In their report released in 2001, they had mentioned human activity as "likely" cause of climate change, and five years later with lot of conferences, research and money spent, they found human activity is "very likely" the cause of climate change. Five years later they will publish that human activity are the cause of climate change. Do we need 600 scientists to publish something that a high school dropout can conclude in less time and with less money spent?

It is high time that world recognizes that organizing conferences or having scientists jetting around the world to deliver a lecture is not going to help in the cause of climate change. It is time to do some real ground work, something which translates into activities. Along with the report published by IPCC on climate change, Exxon Mobil released its annual result as well. The oil company broke its own record of highest ever corporate profit in a year, posting a profit of $39.5bn. I don’t mind their profit, I am a staunch capitalist, but their result also mentions their expenses. Most of their expenses have been in exploring new oil reserves and nothing has been spent in R&D activity for alternative and cleaner source of energy such as Solar, Wind power, etc. Companies, who are making such huge profits by selling something which is causing climate change, could spend a bit of it in mitigating the bad effects. May be in another 100 years, IPCC would come with a report that yeah, fossil fuel causes climate change. Till then, let’s have more conferences, lectures, seminars and cocktail parties.

India bans AXN

2007-01-20T13:14:00.000+02:00

These days the Indian political establishment is quite busy watching television. So while our Finance Minister speaks about reality shows, the venerable, honorable ‘Information & Broadcasting’ minister bans the action channel AXN.

I have not seen Indian television for many years now, but what I gathered from media is that our minister was offended by a program aired by AXN, the “World’s Sexiest Commercials”. This proved too much for the taste of our minister and prompt came the order. Honestly, I am less surprised and more disgusted by the attitude of our successive ‘Information & Broadcasting’ ministers.

The minister termed the programs on the channel as “against good taste or decency and are likely to affect public morality”. He thinks it is against the Indian culture to have such shows on our television. If the minister thinks that Indian culture is threatened by so much as a pair of breast, then he should rethink on what he is trying to save? He talks about public morality, the same morality which was in full display when a girl was molested by the crowd in the most ‘public’ place of India, ‘Gateway of India’ in Mumbai. The same public morality, which he must be seeing, everyday, as he drives his car on the streets of Delhi. Crowds gathered across the world to welcome New Year and where no girl was molested; they don’t have public morality, so they can see AXN. The Indians can’t, because we have a hero, a savior of our public morality and culture.

If the minister’s taste is offended then he should switch off the TV and take a hike. Average Indians are not imbecile to be not able to decide what is good or bad for them. We haven’t given this right to our ministers. If the wants to be such a minister, then he can take a plane ride to Afghanistan. Same as his colleague in previous government did, and whose Broadcasting minister he is trying to emulate. Otherwise don’t try to be our moral guardian and cut back on hypocrisy, please!

iPhone - The journey ahead ..

2007-01-10T14:42:00.000+02:00

The sun is finally shining over the skyline of Helsinki after many days. Except, it is not shining in the Helsinki stock exchange for the world’s biggest and popular cell phone manufacturer ‘Nokia’. Its share has slumped by 1.80% (as I write), after losing 1.17% yesterday in the New York Stock Exchange. The story is similar for Motorola and other cell phone manufacturers.

All because of the new, smart, cell phone launched by Apple Inc, called ‘iPhone’. It was show cased yesterday by Steve Jobs, spiking the shares of Apple by 8%. The new phone has lot of innovative features, iPod, camera capability and convergence of many other utilities. There are several questions to be asked. Is the knee jerk reaction in the stock exchanges justified? Is Apple going to hurt the top line of established cell phone manufactures in any significant way?

The ‘smart’ cell phone of Apple is not the one which is driving businesses for Nokia or Motorola. The maximum revenue of Nokia these days comes from developing geographies and not from US. Markets of China, India, and African countries are where the top line of Nokia gets the numbers and Apple is no where going to reach there anytime soon. The customers, who are really defining success of Nokia in China and India, are not the ones who are fascinated by iPod, camera or Google search capability. They are using cell phones due to telecom revolution and not due to gadget revolution. The same can be said about emerging markets in Africa, like Kenya. Will this phone be of any great value for those who don’t use or own iPod(people like me). It will take a long time for them to afford or really appreciate the ‘smart’ phone of Apple. Anyway Apple is going to launch its phone in Europe and Asia only in 2008, at present it is very much for US market.

Secondly, the sale of mobile phones in US is tightly related to the service provider. The cell phone of Apple is tied to Cingular (AT&T). I don’t think Apple has much of experience in this kind of marketing. It would be like iPod and iTune stores belonging to different companies. Moreover, Apple will need to tie up with other content providers as well; so here the only important point is not technology, or ‘coolness’ factor but also dynamic of relationships. Top of all this, as with any other consumer item, the sale of mobile phones in US is not going to drive the business of any mobile phone manufacturer.

The only real competition that Apple phone might give, right now, is to high end phone manufacturers like RIM(Blackberry) or Palm. Nokia or Motorola has a deep line of products, which Apple won’t be able to match anytime soon. The most established and world’s market leader in mobile phone manufacturing, Nokia, has for long being towing the vision of convergence and multimedia. They have been investing in research and development for long and have come out with equally good products. The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, showcased in the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), couple of days ago, is one such product.

The initial hype and optimism is quiet understandable. At this point the biggest threat(so to speak) from this iPhone, to me, is to the iPods. There is a parallel in the history for it, the saga of Microsoft Vs Britannica Encyclopedia. If Apple can attack the value proposition the same ways Microsoft did, I don’t see other mobile phone manufacturers to be much concerned than having just another competitor in the market.

(Post written for academic interest in personal capacity)

Spam Mail, anyone ?

2007-01-08T17:28:00.000+02:00

One of the major irritant of our daily life, these days, is the spam mails. Nothing can’t be more irritating than finding a bunch of them in your inbox, and then being unable to do anything about it. Many countries have made strict laws regarding spam mails, and these countries are the typically the one where most spam mails originate from. The measures have helped but not in any significant manner cause spammers are also evolving with time. What started from selling stuff, giving stock market tips, or lottery have given way to spam mails coming from social networking and viral marketing sites. In my personal opinion, the country with least regulation for spam is India.

The spam problem might not have worsened as much in US or Europe as it has been for India recently. There are reasons for it. Earlier there weren’t many servers for web hosting in India; even India didn’t have a country specific domain name. But now things have changed, there are many servers hosted in India and there is .in domain name as well. This all has resulted in spam mails being generated in huge numbers from India. Traditionally, the spam mails are also tackled by mailing service providers using filters, or the ISPs which constantly monitor the mail volume from the servers it provides access to.

In some cases few web based mails are exploited by these spam generators as well. Mailing service like Gmail, from Google, came up with innovative measures in good intent. In Gmail, one does not need to have the correct mail id, as in the format; for Gmail abcd.1234@gmail.com, is same as abcd1234@gmail.com or a.bcd1234@gmail.com. The charm of Gmail, initially, was to have the mail in a person’s name and spam generators know this well. Just use the common Indian names and you got a list without paying anything. The viral marketing and social networking sites send personalized mails, hence they easily evade the filters and keep landing in our inbox. The lack of prohibitive law means they are doing it fearlessly.

Indian ISPs could still do their bit, but it seems even they are not interested. The ISPs can easily ask those host servers who are generating lot of email traffic to stop generating spam or risk taken offline. But I guess commercial interest gets priority. All these spam mails have the IP address of the server and a simple search will give the host name. If sending spams are made an offence then all these host servers could easily be reported and penalized. I just wish to do something about the job search site that sends me four emails everyday. Alas, any suggestion?

Update - After wading through bunch of proxy IPs, I finally manage to reach the real IP. From that I found the host and it turned out to be a hosting company of US based in Texas. I wrote them a strongly worded email, they got back to me with a promise to take action. Since then those particular spam mails offering me 'fresher' jobs in India, have stopped.

New Year, 2007

2007-01-02T10:56:00.000+02:00

Wish you all a Happy New year. I am sure you all did welcome New Year with lot of expectations, hope, good wishes and of course fond farewell to the past year.

Time flies so fast, before I could even realise, it has been third New Year for me in Finland. Except the weather, there was not much difference in the festivities here. I did feel the fireworks were better this year. I could also feel the crowd to be more cosmopolitan than last year and people more sober.

Christmas is over

2006-12-28T00:31:00.000+02:00

I hope everyone had an excellent Christmas and those lucky ones who are still on holidays are enjoying their vacation. I originally intended to write this post to wish Merry Xmas, but I got late, bit too late and Christmas passed.

Well, the only bad thing about major festive seasons, they get over and you wish you didn’t. It was fairly difficult for me to drag myself to work today after four days of holidays. I have been getting lazy and kind of neglecting my blog, just letting things pass by without bothering to develop on them, or even if I do, I don’t blog it.

Well the last week of any year is one of the most exciting week. Lot of good reports, collection and documentaries are there on every channel, newspapers and magazines. It refreshes all of the last year in almost all the fields. And all this is taking away most of my time. I guess this shall stand as the most pathetic post from me and I will find it easy to better it, may be tomorrow.

Nothing Much

2006-12-14T04:32:00.000+02:00

I feel bad that I am not blogging these days; the worse is that I am not even reading the blogs I used to frequent. I went to many such blogs now and found that I have not one or two but even three unread posts in each of them. I do make an attempt to read them everyday as a part of my online habit. Sometimes I would read them and feel strongly to comment, deciding to do it a bit later. By the time I would come back to the blog, there would be two more new posts.

I would not say that I am keeping busy cause that would be an excuse. I have always maintained in my life that one is never busy for things one want to do. Even now, with huge pinch on my conscience, I would stand by it. I have always seen it that if things are left pending, slowly it will acquire the shape of a vicious circle.

It keeps getting worse and the only way to come out of it is to act now, but even that is not helping now. I keep getting myself in funny situations. It is going to be more than a month and I have yet to register myself in the city. I decided to do it two days ago, just before I going to work. I took the print out of the map to reach the office. To make the story short, when I reached the area, I somehow could not locate myself on the map so it became useless and I had to abort the idea. Yesterday, the restaurant where we had dinner is one bus stop from my apartment. I could have walked but thought of taking the tram to make it fast and I hopped into the correct ‘number’ tram but going in the opposite direction. Probably I had a drink more than I should. I had to spend 15 more minutes to save 5.

This weekend hopefully we will have snowfall, which is unusually delayed this year. The last time I saw sun or a sunny day was when I was in India. But I am happy that unlike most others, the dark period has not messed up my routine. This being my third winter in Finland, I was expecting this dark period but only till November. Yeah it does induce sleep at odd hours, but I have not succumbed to it yet. Everyone on the street have a long face, devoid of any smile and warmth, just happy to get past one more gloomy and depressing day (?). Things will brighten and people will cheer up once snow is here.

06th December

2006-12-06T09:23:00.000+02:00

Happy Independenc day Suomi !

Reparations for slave trade

2006-12-05T23:11:00.000+02:00

Thought it is still few months for bicentenary of the Slave Trade Act in UK, which abolished British participation in trans-Atlantic slave trade until March 25, 1807, Tony Blair has given the start to the debate on the whole issue. After his expression of deep sorrow, which was slammed by some for being short on apology, already there has been demand of reparations. These reparations, which in literal term mean ‘repairing the harm’, are also being sought in practical terms, meaning cash. It may not be cash, but it is yet to see whether Britain does any sort of reparations.

Even after abolition of trans-Atlantic slave trade, which had resulted in riches for many in France, USA, Caribbean Islands and Britain, the condition of Africans haven’t changed much. So if there has to be any sort of reparations, it should be for upliftment Africa and its deprived inhabitants. Dispersing cash in any form, may be to the present generations of those harmed (as suggested in some circles) is not going to help in any way. There are several better and effective ways for these rich countries to help them.

Today Africa is besieged by variety of issues, be it genocide, corrupt dictatorial rules, AIDS, hunger, poverty, corruption etc. We don’t see any active help from any of the government of the rich nations. Yesterday, the outgoing secretary of UN, Kofi Annan accepted on a news channel that there is neither ‘will nor resource’ to stop the mass slaughter in Darfur. As I write this, the news is coming on BBC that a mass grave has been uncovered in Congo of the poor people killed by Congo army. The question is who supports these apathetic governments and who gives them weapons?

Even during the slave trade, Britain, USA or France didn’t capture slaves on their own. It was the savage rulers of Central and Western African kingdoms and chiefdoms who captured them and sold them. In a way they were getting sustained by the same slave trade that encouraged the slave trade further creating a vicious cycle. Just like what could have done then, could still be done now. The world should unite in isolating these selfish, corrupt and cruel rulers and deprive them of money and weapons.

Africa has to have sustainable economic development of its own. Africa does have agricultural produce of its own; for example it has good output of cotton. But African cotton does not stand a chance in international market full of cheap cotton from the subsidized developing countries. Infact if the rich nations agree on reducing subsidy on agriculture, it would give fair play to the African farmers. This is one sort of reparations that can be done.

There are many other ways for undoing and helping the Africans for one of the most unfair treatments of humanity also called African Holocaust. It is so heartening to see few individuals doing their best like the U2’s rock star Bono and entrepreneur Bill Gates. Now it is time for bigger nations to really translate their sorrow in deeds.

Reality - not so obvious ?

2006-11-21T22:55:00.000+02:00

It is often seen that after some incident, the outcome is interpreted too quickly based on popular opinions, emotions or propaganda. Reality surfaces much later, and may be quite different to what was perceived. We have two perfect example of this in context of international politics or better, Middle Eastern politics.

In the latest democratically held election in Palestine, the militant outfit 'Hamas' emerged victorious over the incumbent Fatah party. The militant outfit was/is indeed popular with the local population as demonstrated in the election result. International opinion about denouncing the militant outfit 'Hamas' was perceived in context of Israel’s wish (as with anything in Middle East). Finally Hamas did make the government even though it maintained its stand of not recognizing Israel. I had done an earlier post here.

The reality 10 month later is quite different. Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of the Fatah party, unilaterally offered to step down. He further asked for a unity government to be formed with the opposition Fatah party. This he said would stop alienation of Palestine from the international community, and international aid will flow back to Palestine.

The second and more obvious example comes from neighboring Lebanon. It was the end of armed conflict between terrorists of Hezbollah and Israel. The war started due to Hezbollah, and ended in a ceasefire, removal of Hezbollah terrorists from the northern border of Israel. Hezbollah chief Nasrallah gained immediate popularity in Lebanon and other Islamic countries as some Islamic hero, who stood up against Israel. He was touted as saviour of Islam in the ongoing war against terror, wrongfully dubbed as war against 'Islam' by many.

Now see what ‘Hero’ Nasrallah is doing to Lebanon. He has asked the government, led by Fouad Seniora to step down. He also got 6 Shia ministers to resign from the government, which has not been accepted by Prime Minister Seniora. Nasrallah has threatened to start mass street protest to bring down the government. Nasrallah is using the same purported victory over Israel to take Lebanon down to a civil war. Who is going to be hurt by this? Israel or Lebanon? Is this the victory Lebanese people were celebrating. As I write this post, Lebanon has further plunged into crisis after another anti Syrian politician, industry minister Pierre Gemayel has been assassinated in Beirut and Nasrallah has just now threatened about starting civil war. Had he been stopped or removed during the war with Israel, it is for Lebanese people to see who would have benefited more? The reality is and will always be the same that terrorists are loyal to none save for their selfish cause, and the only way to deal with them is to eliminate them.

Indian tidbits

2006-11-11T10:52:00.000+02:00

I was meaning to write this post, since a month ago. The irony is that this post, in which I wanted to capture my first impression of India after leaving Finland, is being written while I am in Finland. Anyway, I guess, better late than never!

This was the first time I was flying with Lufthansa and despite all the media hype, I didn’t find the inflight experience even close to that of Air France. Oh, the only good thing, they don’t lose your luggage. After somewhat 9 hours of flying, in which I had an Irish lady in her late forties as my neighbour- flying from Dublin, conversation with her was the only best part. Though she was traveling with her two teenage daughters, on her first trip to India, she didn’t get seats alongwith her daughters and ended up seating next to me. Later I realized how emotional this trip is for her, when she said, she is going to visit the grave of her late aunt, who was buried somewhere near Nanital in 1930, and she was named after her that aunt. She had been planning to take this trip for the last ten years and finally managed it. I was happy to answer all her questions about India and she was even more happy and excited about the trip. Too bad, I wasn’t able to tell her a place where she can go and experience Diwali, I just said expect it to be our Christmas.

The flight landed at time at Delhi’s international airport at time. The first happiest moment for me whenever I come back to India, is when I see the sign that says “Only Indian passport holders” That alone makes up for the surly man at the immigration counter or the clumsy lady who takes forever to feed the passport number. Next when I came out, the thing which stood out was lot of visible police personnel at the airport. They were on their regular security duty at the airports. “Time for the reverse cultural shock to begin”, I thought.

Delhi was hot like peak summer of June and not only to me but to other Delhi residents as well. I had heard lot about Delhi Metro and a few days later, I did make the first trip on it. Well it was as good as it was said and seemed totally out of place in Delhi. Only when the train stops and there is a clash between those who are deboarding and those who want to come in, you seem to get the familiar sight of Delhi. The speed of train, I thought, could still be increased a bit to make it more effective. In one of the station, where I had to change lines, I had a brush with the security paranoia during Indian festival season. I had only one minute to make the connection, so as it I usual, I made a dash and within seconds I was surrounded by three police person, who could not make any reason of my trying to dash. It seems no one ever runs in Delhi’s metro stations. Well, I still managed to get that train as those people quickly realized why I was running? I wonder with such highly effective (?) security, why our cities are bombed by terrorist at will?

After some twenty days in hot Delhi, it was my time to go to Bangalore. The weather when I landed at Bangalore brought smile at my face. As soon as I reached airport, the smile turned to frown when it started raining. As I was passing by airport road, I was getting reminded of the old places. Nothing has changed in that road in last two years. I saw my old house, where I had lived for one year. It was the same, except it has got a green canopy at the terrace. The restaurants where I used to eat, the udupis, neighbourhood ATM and the old office building where I used to work were all same. The city buses had changed their colour from deep blue to sky blue. I had very little time to dump by bags and reach office. Thanks to Mowgli, I had his motorcycle and also the description of the location of new office, which he had told me over phone. Though he has not been in Bangalore for quite some time, his location description was still valid. While I was passing the outer ring road, I had to stop 4 times to ask someone if that is indeed outer ring road. That road, which two years ago passed through deserted places had huge gleaming glass buildings on both sides of it. On them the name plates were of the biggest names of the global corporate world. But since it was indeed the outer ring road, I did reach my office. The description was perfect, thanks Mowgli.

On reaching the new office building, I went to the reception desk for getting a temporary access card, as I was sure my old one won’t work. The receptionist asked “new joinee”? After this I had to show her my old ID, which she could not recognize. I just said that once upon a time we had ID cards like this. Just two years had changed everything here. Inside the building, I got a temporary place to work and when I read my mails, I knew that I might have to come back to Finland.

Two days later on my first weekend, I wanted to catch up with everything I had missed out in Bangalore. I went to see the new malls which have come up in Bangalore, Forum, Garuda and their multiplexes. I was amazed at the height of economic activity in Bangalore. The number of jobs these places were creating, right from the security guards, parking attendants to those handling the inventory and ringing up the purchase. Atleast I could see the economic success trickling to all those who wanted to get a share of it. Economics indeed is the blue print of development.

I wanted to see more of these hot beds of economic activity, there were many other things left to explore in Bangalore, including getting to watch a movie in those multiplexes. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any more weekends in Bangalore but when I am going back there very soon, I have a list of things to do.

Time to travel again

2006-11-04T03:13:00.000+02:00

It is as surprising to me as to anyone. Hardly I been in Bangalore for a week or got time to unpack my bags, and I have to travel again. The most surprising bit is that I am travelling to Finland, again. Some urgent assignment came up, which was put on me and I had to take it.

It won't be a long trip this time, and I would be based out of Helsinki this time. Things would have been different if I was knowing that I would be coming again. My flight is tonight so I have got only today to prepare for the travel. This time international flights have started to depart right from Bangalore, so I save one leg of flight. My flight will be Air France's Bangalore - Paris- Helsinki. After my last journey with Lufthansa, I didn't wish to fly with them again.

I was planning couple of posts on my experiences of last one month in India but never got around to actually write it. I guess, I would post them once I get settled(?) again. Life never goes as per our plan. See you all very soon !

Back to Everything

2006-10-28T04:31:00.000+03:00

Finally, I am back to blog world, to Bangalore and though it is bit late to say, back to India! I landed in India on 3rd October and reached Bangalore only two days ago from Delhi and now trying to get in the groove.

My return to India precipitated in so many time engrossing events that I forgot I was coming from Finland, or I was returning to India. In the last 25 days or so I never got time to develop on all this. I did feel few things but they got overpowered by more pressing matters. I did get reverse cultural shock, humidity, dust, heat but they were so miscible with other events that I never did question them. Now when I read my last post , I can’t believe it was me who wrote that or I had made so much drama over something which I didn’t get enough time to think about. In retrospective, I think it was something good to not be able to dwell over things that I can’t control or does not matter.

Few funny things happened when I came to my own office after two years, which has since then shifted to a new building. When I was traveling on one of the roads of Bangalore, I had to stop on the way and ask others if that was the correct road. Well didn’t exactly stop, you stop only when you move and not crawl.

It also feels good to be back in the blog world, though I really don’t know what things I would be able to write. When I was not in India, I had all the news about India. Now being in India, I have no news either of India, or world or even Bangalore! It will take few more days for everything to be as it was before.

I have not checked any of the blogs, not replied to comments or commented anywhere, but trust me all these days I never had so much craving for anything as much as it was for ‘the return to blog world’. I did receive emails from many of our regular bloggers and it was such a great feeling to know that people stop by to check on you. I am happy that I have made friends out of bloggers. Few people in Finland got to know about my return to India from my last post, and it was good to receive good bye mails from them as well.

It will take couple more days for everything to be usual with ‘me & blogs’.

To end this post, I never thought the quote of Napoleon, which I put on the top of my blog, would be so relevant to me.

I will miss 'me'

2006-09-27T23:15:00.000+03:00

I was walking down the street, the dark evening, the cool autumn breeze; the colorful foliage all seemed to have a melancholic hue. I never realized what the last two years was for me, until now. I now understand my relationship with Finland. The time I was here, I always thought I have grown up for feelings, and emotions; while precisely at those moments I was doing the opposite.

Somehow, for the past one week, every day I find myself in a different part of the city. The market square brought to me memories of the day when the city had assembled to see the local team win the ice hockey championship. Soon winter will come, snow will fall, market square will get covered with snow, and the huge and brightly decorated Christmas tree would stand still, opposite the cathedral. Only, I won’t be here.

Today I emptied my desk, segregated the papers to throw and to keep, and came across my address slips. I knew they will be valid no more, and I quietly put them with the papers I had to throw. I saw my two years, lying in that box, ready to be disposed.

I had ceased to feel that I was in a foreign country, the people on the streets would seem to be my own, the clatter of Finnish seemed my language to the subconscious, the silence on the street seemed natural and weather regular. I feel the best part of my life was these two years. I would trade anything I could, only to not leave Finland, Alas ! the world does not go with emotions and we can't take decisions from our heart.

No more everyday walk to the office, no more waving to the pizza guy on the way and the mutual silent 'hi' with the lady who goes to her shop the same time, for the last two years.

I won’t come to office after Friday, won’t drink the coffee from the office pantry, won’t try to read the Finnish newspaper through the pictures and won’t see the park from my window, won’t get to talk to my colleagues aund won’t attend the office parties.

I will no more have colleagues as the closest person in this country. No more phone calls to colleague to help me with translations, while I am standing in the aisle of supermarket. No more cursing the supermarket to make me hurry up before 6pm every saturday.

After two days, I will call the taxi service number, will take my bags outside the door of apartment. I will push the door as I have been doing for the last two years, only this time, I won’t keep the key in my pocket but gently put in the mail box slot. I will climb down the stairs and will turn around to see my ‘home’ for the last time in life and wheels will roll. After that I will present my passport, get my boarding pass and the plane will snatch me far from Finland. My silent desire will be drowned in the power surge of those two jet engines.

I will reach India, will be checked for passport and not visa, and yet I will feel like I am coming to a foreign country. I will once again be alone in a city in what was my own country two years ago.

I will never forget these two years of my life, and I am going with a plan that if I am not able to live away from Finland, I would come back. I know this is not going to happen, life does not go by my desires, but this is my silverlining. I will treasure every moment in Finland, and my colleagues will always remain my best friends.

I have lost a part of 'me' in Finland.

Good bye Finland, I will miss ‘me’.

Any blame for this sappy & incoherent post should lie with 'Twilight Fairy' who made me write this post.

Coup d'état - How you do it ?

2006-09-24T22:18:00.000+03:00

There are few things about which we seem know a lot, there are reports about them in media, books to read and lot of history, still find it hard to imagine it. One such thing for me is military 'Coup d'état'. The recent one in Thailand triggering the thought process again.

I can’t understand how can one government be overthrown by tanks rolling on the street or buildings under siege? What exactly is a government ? Is it some ‘seat’, and whoever occupies the seat is the government. The government, I know, consists of several constituents, and they make the legislative and executive. So how come this system changes by tanks on the street, or soldiers in combat fatigue? How does evrerything become sub-servient to one person in uniform ?

I guess, my deficiency in understanding this lies with my upbringing. Having being brought in India, which incidentally is surrounded by neighbours having military rule umpteen number of times, makes me difficult to understand the whole process. When I think of government, the picture does not come of parliament buliding or the streets of New Delhi. However preposterous might be the thought, but I can imagine democracy in India, even with tanks rolling on streets of New Delhi. Oh, it got wiped off, even the mere thought does not stay for long. I guess this is Indian democracy ingrained in me. I would really find it difficult to ever stay some country where there is authoratarian rule or my right to question/criticise is limited.

Sure democracy does not always give you the government you desire, but even then it does give you the right to criticise. It does tells that it not ‘me’ (a single person) who can decide who is going to rule the country. The thought alone is assuring.

Whenever I get the news of any military coup anywhere, I don’t understand it, but it also brings me a smug on my face – the glow of Indian democracy.

Sweden's election result - chink in the Scandinavian model ?

2006-09-18T23:09:00.000+03:00

The results of Sweden's general election, though revolutionary wasn't much of surprise. In the days leading to election, it was increasingly getting clear that incumbent Social Democrats party will be ousted from government. The party, led by Prime Minister Goran Persson has been in power continuously for past 12 years. It was overthrown yesterday, by the centre-right alliance under the leadership of Fredrik Reinfeldt, who is set to become the new prime minister.

On paper, it is difficult to find out why the government of Prime Minister Goran Persson failed to win? The GDP growth of Sweden is around 5.6%, the highest in Europe, and Sweden is the shining jewel of the Scandinavian model. This Scandinavian model, which is the best example of a welfare state was under attack(milder than 2002) by the opposition party. So are we going to see the collapse of Scandinavian model ?

For the last few years, mainland Europe has always been looking at their northern counterparts with admiration for their high fuelled economy, alongside the best social security that any country could offer. Infact last year, when there was spat between England and France, over the Anglo-Saxon and Franco-German model, this North European model or Scandinavian model, was touted to be the best model to follow. This amount of extensive social security comes at a price; people in this region pay the highest amount of tax. Also the government holds the monopoly in few sectors, making it possible for them to generate revenue to meet the cost of social benefits. Other countries of Europe, like France and Germany, they also have fair amount of social security benefits for its citizens, but they are now getting over burdened with it. The industries in these countries are threatened by those from free market economies of the global world. Among all this, the Scandinavian model was the one every one looked upon for social security as well as prosperity. In fact in Sweden, it was encouraging enough for people to even remain unemployed and get benefits than to be in a regular job.

So the election result of Sweden, which brought to power a party which never approved the high social security coverage, may reduce the charm of Scandinavian model. The PM to be, Mr Fredrik Reinfeldt has announced reduction in social security benefits, lower tax rates and also to end government control of economy in certain ways. Though Mr Reinfeldt is not expected to take any drastic and dramatic change in the model, the trend he starts will be of interest to many other countries. May be, he has just exposed the chink in the Scandinavian model.

It's all in our mind

2006-09-15T03:02:00.000+03:00

Ever been in such condition, when you think about something, and next instant you get the totally opposite feelings. Like something happens and you are happy, the next moment it proves to be the worse thing to happen to you. I guess we all have such moments. Why it happens? May be we assume things rather too quickly or, be happy or sad a bit too early.

In retrospect, this all sounds kind of assuming. Something happens and we mould it or assume it, according to our wish. It turns out to be something different, yet our human nature does not allow accepting it that easily. We try to do something, tweak something here and there, so that the outcome is what we want. Are we successful? No, but the whole affair becomes messy and things get more complex. I guess that’s the time to stop influencing things and let them take their own course. That’s the time to accept the power of destiny and let it rule.

According to me, the best way to keep away from such quagmires is to stop putting feelings. It’s all in our mind and our craving for things to happen in the way we want. Can we not stop doing it? Nothing new, Buddhism and others said it ages ago. The only risk involved is becoming cynic and mechanical in life. May be we should wait before being happy/sad about something or before assuming things are working/not working the way we want.

Sometimes it is also best to do nothing and allow things to take their own course. I guess, I am not making much sense, but it's my time to relax.

Making the move

2006-09-09T20:08:00.000+03:00

After cozy two years, it is time to make the move. As I quietly complete my two years in Finland, I also have to start packing. It is not easy to assemble your two years in two bags, and say 'adieu'. But I have got used to it, and I sort of waited for this day to come. When I came here, I had given myself six months to stay here, which became two years.

There are so many formalities to do before I move, things related to apartment, utilities and few others. May be since I don’t feel like going from here, I am slow to do these things. I still have not booked my tickets, so I don’t know the exact date I will move, or the exact place I will go.

I had the option to live in Finland forever, but I was not sure, I would like to be away from India in permanent terms. I had made few other plans, but none of them materialized. As the quote from Napoleon goes - which is on the top of my blog – I can only make calculations, fate does the rest. The only thing I know for now is that whenever I am gone from here, I am taking a month long vacation.

I was reading my archive, the post, which I did on my first year in Finland; I found it refreshing and satisfying that I have experienced more things in my second year than the first. It is too obvious for me to even think of this - the two years, I have lived here has been the best and most satisfying period of my life in every sense.

It would be false if I say, I won’t be sad while leaving this place. But it was only these two years, which reinforced in me that I can live and survive in any alien place, alien culture or alien climate or among alien people. I won’t be missing all this, because most probably, I would not get to come here again in life. The people I have known here, the friends I made will continue forever. I would always remember Finland.

The only thing certain in life is ‘letting go’.

Insensitivity at its best

2006-09-02T22:47:00.000+03:00

You can trust India to come up with bizarre news too often. The very recent one, which found place in media across the world, was the name of a café in Mumbai. A bright and talented entrepreneur, who is said to be 23 years old, named it as Hitler’s Cross. True to his wishes, his café got instant publicity. Everyone knows that for sake of publicity, any publicity is good publicity and cheap ones are most effective.

Things turned sour for him when the local Jewish community, Israeli and German government raised objection to the name and the Swastika (different from Hindu Swastika). The last news is that the entrepreneur agreed to change the name and the news name is ‘The Cross Café’. Even after everything is settled, there is a lingering question in my mind. What would it take for someone to name a place to dine and socialise on the name of that German dictator, one of the most hated figures of human civilizations? Who would try to glorify Hitler?

This is not a question of Jewish appeasement. As a matter of fact, did Hitler kill only Jews? Hitler killed 11 million people, out of which 6 million were Jews and 5 million others. Even if it was only 6 million Jews, will it be considered atrocity against Jewish population or humanity? Hitler was against mankind, humanity, societal civilization and not only against Jews. How can someone be so insensitive to disregard the slaughter of 11 million people in the cruelest way?

India is a plural society and naming anything after Hitler is perfectly legal. But does this issue fall only under legal ambit or has far broader scope? Does that ‘entrepreneur’ ever read a single book of history? There are justifications like, “there are many other cruel group, sections or governments than Hitler”. True, but does that absolve or lessen the crime of Hitler in anyway?

Imagine people living their life in concentration camps, and later burning in incendiary towers, the ashes falling from the sky much like snow fall? How good the feeling is for a person to name his café after Hitler? Perhaps if he ever gets time from watching cheap Bollywood movies, should see “Schindler’s List”. If he also likes reading then he should read ‘Fateless’ by Nobel prize winner, Hungarian Jew, Imre Kertész who has penned his life in the Nazi concentration camps. Agreeing to rename the café does not change anything. It betrays the mentality of a sick mind.

Is it a mere co-incidence that the café is located in Mumbai, a city lauded for ‘spirit’, which is nothing but euphemism for apathy?

The road trip to Switzerland

2006-08-30T23:47:00.000+03:00

The trip is over and I am back! Seven days is a long time to be away, but everything went as planned. Landed in Finland couple of hours ago, and right now too exhausted to be verbose.

Tour of Switzerland was a fabulous, and considering that fact that I had decided to visit Switzerland only once in my life, it was worth it. . The highway system of mainland Europe is seamlessly integrated between countries. There is the famed ‘Auto-Bahn’ of Germany on which there is no speed limit, and the highways of Switzerland winding across breathtaking views, with so much information that one will never get lost. Swiss highways are criss crossed with tunnels many of them longer than 1 km. I covered almost all of Switzerland, entering it through Basel, sight seeing at its capital Bern. Also went to the French speaking city of Lausanne in west, and ‘Interlaken’ in the folds of Alps. One whole day was spent traveling by mountain train to reach the highest peaks of Europe, and hiking in Snow. At around 4000metre, breathing was difficult and winds were blowing snow from the ice capped peaks, onto the face. Swiss landscapes are filled with verdant sloping hills, cattles grazing on it and the colorful houses. Infact everything in Switzerland is colorful, starting from its currency (CHF), its flag, its highway and the typical houses. Even the name plates of its Police station were colorful.

Two things to take note here. First, I found Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai, all over Switzerland, smiling from thousand of bill boards. She, I got to know, is brand ambassador of Longines. Secondly, there were so many Indian tourists in Interlaken that it seemed to be a colony of India. I had not seen even a tiny proportion of the number of Indian tourist, at other tourist places in Europe or even in other cities of Switzerland.

I also traveled to Luzern in the eastern Switzerland, and from there took the inter-regional train to Zurich. I had always wanted to visit Zurich and it was worth it. The Bahnhof strasse, the most famous commercial center in world lived to its reputation. I was awed by the Rolex watches in display at Bucherer, the Beyer museum, expensive jewelery, fashion displays and the famous names in financial world.All in one street in the third most costliest city of world. Juxtaposed was the old town of Zurich on the bank of river Limmat.

I didn’t always travel on the highways, but also took the state expressways to see the country side and villages of Switzerland. I stopped in the villages, met the people there in the neighborhood cafés, where everyone knew the other, saw the tractors full of hay coming out from barns and cattle grazing in the field.

All these days weather didn’t disappoint me. It was bright and sunny and on one night it rained and made the landscape refreshing and greener. There are so many things to write, I might do detailed post of each day I spent there.

Finally when I reached Germany again, the weather was lousy, it was drizzling for the whole day. I did see around Germany for one day, and found everthing there to be so cheap than in Finland.

After seven days, I started missing my apartment, Finland and everything else here. I had no clue of what’s happening in world, India or in my home. I did get phone calls, and on one occasion, while I was seeing the beauty of Astronomical clock in Bern, one of my bosses called me and it became a half hour discussion.

So I am happy to be back in Finland and in my apartment. Though things are bit intimidating now, so many emails to be read and replied and so many things to catch up with. I have not even downloaded the pictures from the camera. Tomorrow’s work day is going to be hectic one.

Autumn trip

2006-08-24T10:57:00.000+03:00

Okay, it is not autumn yet. The terrific summer we had this year is in no mood to give way. So let's call it onset of 'Autumn'.

I am going on a week long trip to Switzerland. This evening I shall fly to Frankfurt, and from there by a car will be doing road trip across Switzerland. The forecasted weather is not so good, predicts light rain. Anyway will see, forecasts are never accurate and who knows that better than me!

Will be going to Jungfrau (Top of Europe) as well, to have a look at at the magnificent Alps. Again Snow shower predicted for this weekend. The temperature of -6C does not bother me at all. While returning , may spend a day in Frankfurt; haven't visited that city till now.

See you all later !

Computer problems

2006-08-22T21:24:00.000+03:00

For the past few days, my blogging frequency has decreased. Weird problems with my computer were one of the reasons. The thing I most hate is any kind of aberration in my computer, it totally disrupts my routine. Usually any computer problem seems weird and leaves me at my wits end; still I feel I always have the weirdest problems when it comes to ‘my’ computer.

Once I remember, the whole display of my office computer went upside down, a perfect 180 degree. There is no way it can happen with any available settings. The systems people, when they saw it, termed it as the issue of the year and laughed for good amount of time. They later formatted the system and installed the Windows again.

If it is a hardware issue (which itself is an issue to determine), at least the manufacturer warranty covers it. It is that software or operating system issue, which leaves me completely helpless. Thanks to those myriad discussion forums on internet, you can post your issues and someone will help you. But my issues have often proved to be a tough nut to crack, even for them.

The latest issue I had was one of such kind. After booting, things would run fine for just few minutes and after that, there would no sound device, no networking installed or configured and God knows what else! I kept on restarting, for the computer to work fine only for few minutes. Even the IP address would become 0.0.0.0. I perused many discussion forums, posted my querry and did whatever I could. One suggestion I got said the mother board of my laptop has gone corrupt! After using information from many forums, I could at least solve half of the jigsaw puzzle. I found where my sound device suddenly goes after few minutes of restart? The services corresponding to sound, networking and DHCP (?) would stop by itself. When I manually started them, all of these started to work fine. But the question, why they stop automatically or what stops them automatically is still unsolved? I have not restarted my computer since then; I just keep it in ‘stand-by’ or ‘hibernate’ mode. It will again take a full day to find out the answer.

I know people say that Windows is not the best available thing, MAC notebooks are better or Linux is better operating system. But trust me, for a normal computer literate person like me, Windows is the most convenient one. You got to hand it to Gates; it was not his technical skill but his marketing skill which made him the richest man. So even with the deficiencies or loop-holes, Windows has the ease of use. It does give me issues from time to time, but what thing does not?

I hope to find the resolution for the latest issues very soon.

Cola controversy in India

2006-08-16T22:39:00.000+03:00

The fight of cola majors in India is starting to generate lot of heat. This, as we all know, started when one laboratory (in India) claimed to find traces of pesticides, which was above the permissible limit, in the colas. This ultimately led to banning of cola ‘sale and production’ in few Indian states. Cola majors, namely Coca Cola and Pepsi (having 98% of the market share), have launched huge ‘PR’ excerise to counter this adverse publicity. The sales have reportedly been plummeting. One Indian newspaper has reports of US industry association warning of slack in US investments in India. This hasn’t been of much help to the case of the cola majors.

This is not a new or isolated case of adverse publicity in food and beverages industry. There have been several instances of this across world, and also in India. So much so that there are lots of templates case study to handle these situations. I am sure, Coke and PepsiCo have highly qualified brains to frame strategies, but if I think from the point of an Indian consumer, there are customizations required in that template.

In a rising nation, economically and otherwise, sensitivity has to be given special consideration. There has been a full page advertisement in Indian newspapers claiming cola to be safe for Indian consumers and within prescribed limits (I have no first hand information about this). There also have been claims that many other things like milk, water, etc has far higher content of restricted chemicals in them. So far so good, but what will irk an Indian consumer most is ‘double standards’. The report says that cola majors have different standard for India (for those harmful chemicals) and different for developed countries (Europe & USA). This may or may not be true, but media reports definitely suggest this. This straight away hurts the ego of any Indian consumer. Standards may be low for many other things in India, but one can’t say,”Hey this is safe enough for you all, so don’t complain”. They might not complain where they don’t have choice, for rest, they won’t buy your cola.

The more the cola companies attack the laboratory findings, the more it will hurt its case. They should rather come with facts proving that their standards in India are same as anywhere else in world. This is the difference while trying to counter adverse publicity of this form in India. Well, they might already be doing this as I am not aware. I am only saying from the view that if was to not drink cola then it would be only for this reason.

Anyhow all of us are sure that cola is going to be there in India.

Fake Photographs from Middle East

2006-08-09T08:04:00.000+03:00

Reuters after getting busted for a fake photograph of Beirut bombing has since then apologized, and taken off all the 920 pictures by that photographer from its database.

The photographer, Adnan Hajj, a freelance Lebanese photographer used to manipulate and doctor his photographs from the Israeli attack on Hezbollah. His photographs has even appeared on the front page of 'New York Times' along with 'Yahoo'.

The fraud was busted by bloggers at Little Green Football. Read the full description here. He had cloned the smokes and used digital manipulation in his picture of Israeli air strike on buildings in Beirut. Wonder how Reuters could not see such easy perceptible manipulation! Another of the photographer’s image in Reuters, showing an Israeli F-16 dropping flares was manipulated in photoshop to show three flares, instead of one.

Reuters in a statement said, “There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image”.

A series of pictures appearing in New York Times, shows one man buried in debris (Tyre city) with not as much a speck of dust on his body. The photograph is attributed to Taylor Hicks/New York Times. On the Gateway pundit blog, an anonymous commenter further showed other pictures from New York Times, which shows the same man moving around before posing for the ‘dead man in rubbles’. Wonderful modeling assignment in a hot zone!

There are photographs of 'Qana' civilian tragedy being doctored as well, by the same Lebanese photographer appearing at Yahoo News Photo. Yahoo has since then removed those photographs but you can see them in the Little Green Football blog(Scroll down for the picture). What a good way to whip up passion!

Next time you see a picture from Middle East, of a dead man buried in the debris, or a toddler being pulled out of a destroyed building, just remember, they could be fake ones.

(Click on the links for the 'original' news-source)

Reality and Movies

2006-08-07T00:37:00.000+03:00

I remember the discussion I had long time ago, with a guy, after watching the movie Jerry Maguire. He had asked me, “how was the movie?” I said it was good, rather terrific. Then, almost immediately, popped a question from me “Why do those, who struggle in movies, always succeed?” Though that time, the question was drowned in the ensuing laughter, it keeps coming back to me again and again. Does it happen this way in real life? In movies, we have someone struggling against all odds, listening to their conscience, standing by their conviction and ultimately they win.

I mean, wasn’t this the most important thing about that movie. The protagonist is kicked out of his job after his ‘mission statement’, which he conceived during his ‘crise de conscience’. The movie depicts how one can be successful, even after holding firm on the belief of relationships and personal values. So what if the protagonist was not able to succeed? What if he had not got the project or his client didn’t do well at the game. What would the movie conveyed then? May be the movie won’t have been made with this theme. But does this sort of thing happen in real life? Is it that easy to make a phone call, give a presentation, have interesting discussions in the board room and get the project? Well in real life, you do more than this and still lose the project.

So why don’t they make movies like this. Why does not the struggle end in failure? Are we so afraid to face reality? This might also be the reason that makes movie successful. If the movie is able to whip out the something, which everyone wants in their real life, but can’t get/do it , the movie becomes a success. I don’t know, but I would still like to see someone who struggles and then fails. Reality alone is assuring.

The List...

2006-08-02T16:04:00.000+03:00

I got this amazing list from someone's blog (can't put the link without permission). In the list you have to bold things, which you have already done, and put an asterisk after things you want to do.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink (only my group was in the bar, so technically yeah)
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid*
06. Held a tarantula (Yukk!)
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said 'I love you' and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby's diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger *
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 10 provinces (What country is this from?)
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country*
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign * (I so want to do this)
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing *
49. Midnight walk on the beach *
50. Gone sky diving *
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your cds
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Posed nude in front of strangers
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China *
67. Started a business *
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken ( or Travelled to Pluto,may be? bah!)
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days (3 days)
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice(does a Vaporetti count? no point being in a Gondola alone)
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an "expert" *
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Had a one-night stand
89. Gone to Thailand *
90. Bought a house *
91. Been in a combat zone*
92. Buried one of your parents *
93. Been on a cruise ship(4 times :))
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror.
96. Raised children.
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Created and named your own constellation of stars
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over *
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an illness that you shouldn't have survived
105. Wrote article for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Petted a stingray
110. Broken someone's heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states (How many states US has?)
124. Visited all 7 continents *
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days *
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Petted a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes (Yummy!)
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions (Will never go)
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language (huh! so often)
139. Been elected to public office *
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone's life

If you feel like then please copy this list in your journal and do it. Nice way to remember things you have done, or want to do.

P.S - Whenever I do 'italics' the right hand column of the page goes to the bottom. I don't know why it happens this way ? Though in some browsers it appears just fine but not in mine (IE 6.0). Can someone please tell me how to resolve this ?

Can 'sympathy' be selective ?

2006-07-31T22:00:00.000+03:00

As the heart wrenching scene of life less bodies of children being taken out of rubbles of Qana, a village in Lebanon, were beamed by television channels, the whole world was outraged. These graphic pictures were too disturbing, and evoked strong sense of compassion and sympathy for the innocent civilians being killed in Lebanon. The basement of the four storey building, where these civilians were taking shelter becomes the unfortunate target of Israeli air attacks. More than 50 souls, mostly woman and children were the innocent victims. World wide condemnation followed, forcing Israel to announce 48 hours cessation of air attacks. Israel expressed deep sorrow for this tragic incident, but nothing seems to be enough.

Sympathy is an emotion that binds the suffering of one person with the society, country and whole world. The genesis of this cognitive feeling lies in the knowledge of the suffering.

I am not trying to rationalize the killing of children. No logic, religion, ideology or country can rationalize it, so I won’t even attempt. My only question is, Why selective sympathy?

What was the fault of the old lady in Haifa, when a Katyusha rocket hit the coffee cup she was holding and killed her?

Why no sympathy for those 19 year old kids, serving in the border outpost of Israel, who were ambushed and killed by Hezbollah? They were like youngsters anywhere in the world, probably thinking of their studies after their military service. Why no sympathy for those two, still in the captivity of brutal 'Hezbollah'?

Just because no images are beamed, no military analyst is covering the incident, no graphic images are displayed, no minute by minute commentary, are their suffering less?

Thousand of people are forced to live in underground bunkers in Northern Israel to save themselves from the barrage of Katyusha rockets. What is their fault?

Who started this conflict?

Israel has released images taken from aircrafts and infrared cameras, showing rockets fired from neighborhoods, where refugees are sheltered. Hezbollah is using civilians as human shields. Now they should share the blame for this civilian tragedy. Sheikh Nasrallah, the coward he is, can shout at the top of his voice from his secret hiding place. Why do not he and his terrorist brethren engage in proper war and not sacrifice these innocent civilians?

No one likes to see those gory pictures every morning, but no one should forget those innocent who are killed everyday in these terrorist attacks. People who would not even seen a gun in their life have their guts and brain splattered, who just try to make their ends meet have their life snatched away.

I am not speaking for Israel, but for these victims. Israel should not stop till every single of these terrorists are removed from the face of the Earth.

Biggest Brands

2006-07-28T14:29:00.000+03:00

Business Week has published the top 100 brands for this year. There are few big winners, big losers and the usual suspects. I am pretty much sure; it won’t be hard for anyone to guess the topmost brand. Yeah, it is ‘Coca-Cola’. In fact, there is no change from last year’s list till number 6.The top ten brands are as follows:-

Coca-Cola
Microsoft
IBM
GE
Intel
Nokia
Toyota
Disney
McDonald’s
Mercedes Benz

The methodology adopted by Business Week is based on the five year future earnings. So this takes into account the future strategies, innovation, leadership and not simply based on present position in the market.

One of the biggest winners for this year is ‘Google’, which had 46% jump in its brand value and is on 25th position. Good news for them just after a day of 90mn settlement of ‘Click Fraud’ class action lawsuit. In contrast to this, the biggest loser is GAP, having 22% erosion in its brand value.

‘Toyota’ climbed two places up and is mentioned to be fast catching with GM by Business Week. In the same segment, it is reversal of fortunes for ‘Ford’, which is estimated to lose 16% of its brand value. Not good news for the turnaround effort of William Clay Ford Jr, better known as Bill Ford. The analysts do not seem to have faith in his strategies.

‘Microsoft’, having a loss of 5% in its brand value is still comfortably placed, far ahead of its powerful competitors, Google and Apple.

The criteria for qualifying this list includes, each brand must derive about a third of its earnings outside its home country, be recognizable outside of its base of customers, and have publicly available marketing and financial data.

On the hindsight, do the top ten brands tell something about the kind of life, we are leading these days?

Lack of post !

2006-07-26T18:42:00.001+03:00

I seem to be hit by the blogger's block. Or may be it sounds better that way. It is lean season in Finland, with respect to work, which means I have ample time, but still..

I have become severly opinionated, and I don't want a post full of harsh, knee jerk reactions. My choice of topics does not help either.

I will be back very soon.

You all enjoy the summer !
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Why it always happens this way ? This is one time, I didn't take back up of the post (wrote directly on blogger) and blogger crashed. Damnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

Work place - nothing weird there !

2006-07-22T02:23:00.000+03:00

This is the most opportune time for a 'much needed' light post on my blog. I have not done the tag of ‘weirdo at work’ of Ipanema girl, so going to do it now. I have been evasive on this for chiefly two reasons :-

I am not weird(believe me) at all hence didn’t want people to be disappointed with the post

Since I write using my name, so anything sounding 'real' weird might go against me. Who knows, who all reads or might read my blog. I am sorry if candor is missing, but you all understand.

So here goes the list:-

If I am talking on phone, and typing messages at the same time then I sometimes type what I want to speak, and speak what I wanted to type. Have faced some funny moments due to this.

I totally need something to drink while I am thinking or stuck up at work. It is water, if I am stressed, otherwise coffee/tea.

I don’t like those ‘ultra casual or cool’ events at work place. No, I don’t mean office parties or some celebration(Birthdays); I like them. But I mean , things like, ethnic dress week, or 'rose day' or 'Valentine day' or such. Fortunately, my office(even in India) does not have them. I guess these things started from call centers and now few organizations are embracing them. I 'totally' want a degree of formality and seriousness associated with workplace.

I guess that will be all, could not think of anything more even after 30 minutes. Now all of you who reads this post, may please do the tag. Thank you.

Proud to be an Indian

2006-07-18T21:37:00.000+03:00

Mumbai, 11th July 2006, terrorists killed 200 common citizens of India in cold blood. They were murdered in series of seven blasts, while traveling on the commuter trains during the evening rush hour. Many families lost their sole earning member and their loved ones forever. World sympathizes with the grieving Indians. Outraged at this heinous, diabolic, hideous and cowardly attack, the head of the Indian government addresses the nation and promises to take action. Next day all blog websites are blocked in India!

I commend Indian government for taking the strictest possible 'action' for killing its hapless citizens. There was no option left for Indian government, particularly after no terrorist organization came forward to claim responsibility. When there is no one, with whom they could start peace talks ? They did that(peace talk) last time, when Bangladesh attacked Indian border and carried Indian soldiers like dogs, after slaughtering them.

Indian government should further contemplate bringing criminal charges on all those traveling on trains that day, including the dead. It was their fault to be traveling on train and getting killed. After all, suicide is a criminal offense in India.

If one thinks that Indian intelligence agencies are doing nothing then this is absolutely false. In the latest news, Indian intelligence and top security agencies, successfully hunted the crew of Air India after bottles of Scotch Whisky were found missing from the flight of Indian 'Prime Minister'. A flight engineer was booked for stealing them. Indian intelligence is receiving praises from across the world for this highly successful mission.

Amidst all this terrorist attacks, Indian should not lose its focus on economic front. India, being the pioneer of outsourcing industry should lead it from front. They should outsource its defence forces to Maldives. This would provide highly effective for the economy of Maldives, and full credit should go to our first ‘economist’ Prime Minister in decades. The total defence spending of Indian government is around 12.9 billion US dollars more than that of Russia, which spent around 11.4 billion USD (year 2002 figure). This spending by Indian government on defence has increased since then. Even if half of this money goes to Maldives then its economy will hugely benefit. The other half could be used by India for the foreign trips(with extra Scotch bottles) necessary for ‘those’ peace talks. The only strict commitment Maldives would be required to make, is to compulsorily provide soldiers in time, for the parade on the streets of New Delhi on 26th January. In fact, to increase the utilization of tax payer’s money, Indian government should seriously consider having two parades per year instead of usual one. I am sure every tax paying Indian would be highly pleased with the concern of the government for their money.

Proud to be an Indian!

ICICI Bank - What's Customer Service?

2006-07-17T22:06:00.000+03:00

I know, I will have to eat crow on this, still I will write the post. It was not long ago when the Indian community in Finland, were narrating their traumatic experience with regards to India’s largest private sector bank, ICICI Bank Ltd. I was the only person who stood with ICICI bank and spoke in their favour. May be my words reached ICICI, and they set to rectify the aberration. Yeah, today I speak in unison with all those harassed customers of ICICI bank.

Their first interface with the customer, i.e customer care, is actually a farce. The sole purpose of having the call center and all those Shailesh, Madhav, Ranjeeta, Vandana, etc is to keep the customer confused. They are fully trained to churn out millions of excuses (most of the time stupid ones) and ask the customer to call the next day. I once decided to test their patience and kept calling the next day. My patience ran out on 15th day. By now, I know all their excuses (and also told them to use new ones). If you think you had enough, and ask your call to be routed to their supervisor or want to escalate the matter, you will first have to cut their excuses. Finally after reaching the supervisor, you would feel the first executive was better. This time the supervisor not only will confuse, but also fudge the issue. The only time their call center was of any help to me was when I asked them to open a new account, or called them to ask the 'date' today.

All this has become routine with regards to ICICI bank, but what they did to me yesterday was the most exciting one. Yesterday, at midnight I got an email from the bank. The mail mentioned “In compliance with your request, we have dispatched a new trading password to you”. First I thought it was some phising mail, but on careful analysis, it was found to be genuine. The strangest thing is that I never requested them to reset my password and send me a new one! I tried logging in with my old password and it didn’t work. Clearly my password was changed. I was alarmed that someone changed the password and got it on my behalf. I immediately sent an email raising the suspicion of ‘fraud’ and asked them to call back as soon as they read it. As expected, I got no calls and two ‘half hour call’ to their call center during the day was of no use, excepting learning few more names.

It was only when I called the office of their DGM, Ms Satinder Kaur (nodal officer designated by RBI for customer care) thrice, they decided to do something. I got a call from someone in ICICI bank around evening. My first question was, “who asked my password to be changed, and why it was changed?” The guy answered, “We have changed your password as per instructions from government authorities”. I nearly fell off my chair and asked again to be sure, “Did the government ask you to change my password?” The guy told me the whole story. It happened that they had to de-activate my demat account, and they knew no other way to do that, except to change the password to keep me away from logging in. The guy further mentioned that government has asked them to check the accounts for proper identification and my details were missing so they had to de-activate. They chose middle of night, with no prior intimation, and de-activated my demat account.

I remember opening my account in June, 2004. At that time PAN card (Income tax card) was not necessary for opening demat account and it was not even asked. Since I already had one, I had given that along with all other documents and yet my account was de-activated on the pretext of missing PAN number. The person further mentioned to me that my account will not be activated, unless I visit their nearest branch and submit the identification documents. When I said I am in Europe, he asked me to send the documents by post. This whole thing was enough to blow my fuse.

I explained to him that I have salary account, savings account, credit card and almost all sort of accounts and since you don’t have my identification documents so first close all other accounts as well. How come one account will work without identification documents and others don’t? To this question, ICICI personnel lived up to their reputation. He accepted that I had indeed submitted those documents at the time of opening of account, but all of them were washed away in last year’s flood of Mumbai, and now government has become strict in making them keep the proper documents. This statement left me shaking with rage.

I had enough of it and decided to end the story with ICICI bank. I told the guy that if he doesn’t activate my account in next one hour then I am not going to send even a scrap of paper. They can keep my account deactivated for ages. Further, I will close all my other accounts with the bank and will also write a letter to the HR head of my employer asking, “Why they made me open my salary savings account with ICICI bank?”

I don’t know which threat was effective but it worked. In the next 15 minutes, I got three calls and they gave me a new password over phone. I checked the password, it worked, and I am able to operate the account. At the end of the day, my issue was resolved but ICICI bank really rewarded me for thinking good of them. Even if they have some valid reason, they treat their customers in a manner that just displays their utter apathy. This is not the first time but second time in last two months for me. Morever it can happen only in India that a lady(Roopalben Panchal) can have around 6000 demat accounts in her name with forged documents, can commit fraud in stock market and keep doing it. But a simple stock investor like me will have his account deactivated without prior intimation even after submitting all sort of documents.

I apologise to all with whom I disagreed on the quality of customer service of ICICI bank. Please accept this post as a formal apology.

Update - The page of ICICI in Google Finance, where the profile of ICICI and the market information of its ADR( US market) is listed, is now carrying this post in the blogger section. You can read it here. There you go ICICI, time to get your act together or the whole world reads this.

Mumbai terrorist attack

2006-07-11T21:59:00.000+03:00

Mumbai (Bombay) has been struck by terror again. This time it was the evening crowd on the commuter trains. Infact, it is fast becoming a routine in India, for one of its cities to face brutal attack. With ever heinous act, the next one becomes more sophisticated, deadly and comes at quicker interval. October, 2005 it was New Delhi; March brought gory attacks to Varanasi and now it is Mumbai.

The dastardly attack of Mumbai is being covered by the media across the world. It is heart wrecking to see such pitiable sights. Bodies being carried in make shift stretchers, personal items strewn around, and poodles of blood. Also seen are, what remained of train carriages, mangled heaps of metals and destroyed train stations.

It is surprising that no ambulances, no rescue workers, no police presence were shown on television even two hours after the incident. It was fellow citizens, who had taken the task of relief and rescue. Few police constables are shown, loitering and shooing away the onlookers. Wonder where is the government relief and rescue machinery? Or perhaps the death of couple of hundred people doesn’t matter much in a city of 17 million.

The media was no surprise either. One Indian television network(IBN) was too happy, to say it again and again that they were the first to cover the incident, as they had one of their reporters traveling on one of the ill-fated trains. They seemed to lose no opportunity of earning few brownie points over the other news media. Reuters seized the opportunity by suspecting the “militants fighting the rule of New Delhi in disputed Kashmir” to be involved in the blast. It went on to further mention, “Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since shortly after the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947, but both claim it in full”. NBC reports that atleast two Americans are injured in the attack and alluded to possible Al Qaeda link. They mention information from Indian intelligence for this.

As to be not left behind the trend, the Indian media tomorrow, will first of all name this attack as '11/7' or '7/11'. There will be few reports about ‘spirit of Mumbai’ and the ‘indomitable courage of the people’ living there. Does not matter, if it was the ‘spirit’ or the ‘compulsion of life’ for the average people of Mumbai to take the same commuter trains and head to their place of work the very next morning.

May God give strength to all those who lost their loved ones in this cowardly act and all departed souls rest in peace.

Share holder activism

2006-07-09T23:52:00.000+03:00

Global corporate world, in the past few weeks, has seen two major developments. Though both of them are from different industries they have very interesting similarity. In the steel industry, it was culmination of half year long bitter fight between the top two players resulting in Mittal steel’s successful takeover of European giant, Arcelor. Guy Dolle, CEO of Arcelor, used every trick in the book to thwart the takeover. He proposed merger of Arcelor with Russian steel giant ‘Severstal’. This merger, conceivably, would have made it impossible for Mittal to acquire Arcelor. Mittal had already raised its offer for the buyout. What turned the deal towards Mittal, were the shareholders. It was shareholders, who rejected the proposal of Severstal and forced Arcelor board to accept Mittal steel’s takeover.

The second development is from one of world’s biggest automakers, General Motors. The beleaguered company is taking several measures to turn lean and profitable. But the shareholders of GM weren’t amused by the pace of it. The biggest individual share holder of GM, Kirk Kerkorian, who owns 10% of GM’s equity, has proposed a tie up of GM with French ‘Renault’ and Japanese ‘Nissan’. Though, it is in very juvenile stage, the GM board of directors has agreed to explore the possibility. GM executives might not like the idea but it has been forced to explore by its own shareholders. It might have been unthinkable a decade ago for GM to tie up with any other automaker for its own survival.

These two instances have highlighted what economists are increasingly terming as ‘new era capitalism’. The successes of today’s corporate are judged by their share price on the bourses and the market capitalization. Today share holders are much more active than they were ever before. In many case, they are not shy of even having a confrontation with the executives. Though this has increased the pressure on the CEOs, with the results being published every quarter, it does satisfy the most basic tenet of capitalism – ‘to maximize shareholder’s value’.

I am sure, this share holder activism, is not going to be limited to these two instances. There would be many more to come.

Messaging courtesy

2006-07-02T23:35:00.000+03:00

The past few years has seen revolutionary penetration of broadband. Today most of us have high speed internet access. This has brought about radical changes in the way we communicate and is often called the ‘new age’ communication methods. No one would disagree with the above assessment. But there is more to it.

Has this ‘new age’ of communication also changed the basic courtesy involved? To me it hasn’t, others may disagree. I have tried to collate the basic courtesies of communication to this ‘new age’ way. I am not talking about emails but about those online messengers or Instant messengers (IMs) or chat applications. Most of the people these days are courteous on emails but are they on instant messaging (IMs)? I don’t think so.

1. One should not leave the ‘chat’ midway without explicitly telling so. More than anything else it shows ‘contempt’ towards the other person. It does not require much of effort to tell that you have to leave the chat. Well, there could be other unavoidable reasons. The net might disconnect, power switched off, computer crashed, etc. Even then one could pass a message, saying something happened for that abrupt termination after coming online again.

2. It irritates the other person if he/she gets the reply after a long delay, each time. The other person might be waiting and waiting. Thought one should not do ‘multi tasking’ while instant messaging, it is courteous to mention that you are doing some other work alongside, and would be slow in replying. And “my typing speed is less” is a lame excuse.

3. Many times people just leave some important message as offline communication. They unilaterally assume that everyone checks their instant messenger just every day. This is not always the case. Email should be used for important messages.

4. I think it is courteous to ask before chatting whether the person is free to chat? Don’t we do it when we call someone? So why not in IMs? An online status does not always mean ‘free to chat’ status (unless the person is close one). Related to this: one should use those status messages which say ‘busy’ or ‘away’, etc.

5. This is more with those internet instant messengers. Now days almost all have the ‘call’ functionality. However again, one should always ask before calling. The other person might not be in a convenient moment to talk.

6. The modern ‘text message lingo’ or ‘cool English’ (as they say), should be used only if both the parties are comfortable with it.

7. Instant messengers should not be used for playing ‘mind games’.

8. Instant messengers have a limitation in the sense that your body language is not evident. So one should take care, lest messages might be interpreted just the opposite.

9. As with any written communication, chat transcripts are also documents. So take care.

10. If you are messaging someone unknown, then please identify yourself at the onset.

11. If you send an email for asking someone to come online and chat, it would be highly helpful if you mention in a line what will be the agenda of chat?

12. Use the word processing tools available for clarity in communication like bold, italics, etc.

13. It is inherently assumed that there are only two people in an instant messaging session. If there are more than this then please explicitly mention it.

14. Please take care of time zones.

15. Please respect status messages such as 'busy', 'away', 'on call', etc (suggested by Ipanema girl)

I can’t think of any more, if any of you can, then please add in the comments. I will update the post.

Since ‘instant messaging’ is so difficult, so by now it would have been fairly clear that I don’t do it.

Special Economic Zones - whose nightmare ?

2006-06-27T23:04:00.000+03:00

China, India. They are the world’s top two fastest growing economy. Ironically that’s the only similarity to be stated for the two when we talk of their economy. Rest is plethora of contrast. One of this is the opinion that everything happens in China with ‘top down’ approach and in India with ‘bottom up’. The government decides what has to happen and it gets swiftly done in China. In India, the demand comes from the people, who after years or turpitude from governments force them to act.

The ‘bottom up’ approach of India is considered most of the times for delays in accepting any proposal and implementing it. To make it up, they say this model (which can be termed as synergistic combination of ‘red herrings’) has more stability. In India the proponents of red herrings are galore. Political parties, committees, statutory bodies, commissions, newspapers with their own ideological tilt, columnists, members of commissions cum columnists, industrialist(secretly craving for politics), etc they all try to put their own agenda in anything good or bad that is proposed. I really don’t think we can afford all this for stability. Case in the point – ‘Special Economic Zones' (SEZs).

SEZs are any earmarked territory, having privileged set of rules for bureaucracy, customs and taxations. Much like Ayn Rand dream come true. The prevalent rules of country are not applied there. The entities in SEZ are given tax holidays. Obviously they become hotbed of economic activity. The present impetus in creation of SEZs and further relaxation of rules is due to Chinese influence. The huge FDI which China attracts is attributed to its numerous SEZs. India hopes to improve its pathetic FDI with the help of these SEZs.

Now true to Indian model we have opinions of every hues vying for attention. One of them is that creation of SEZs will lead to ‘loss of tax revenue’. This was put forward by a leading financial columnist of India terming it as “nightmare of any Finance Minister”.

I don’t agree to it. This is the classic example of myopic mindset. I agree that business entities in SEZs don’t have to pay tax for significant period but what is the aim of the tax collected by government? To collect tax or to provide benefits from the tax money? If the government is not able to provide infrastructure then what is wrong in allowing the entities in SEZs to provide that and not to pay tax? After all that’s what tax money in the first place is supposed to be used for. But in India where tax payer’s money is used for anything (even to subsidise the travel bill of journalists) but for welfare of tax payers, it was certain to have dissenting opinions. I am sure politicians will join the bandwagon because they have no existence in a free market economy like SEZs

I wonder why no one raises the point of having investments from tax havens like Mauritus, Isle of Man, Luxembourg, British Virgin Islands, etc. Owing to DTAA, all entities registered in those places and doing business in India pays no tax. They don’t bring any benefits which are supposed to come from entities in SEZs. FDI flow is preferable anyday to FII inflow, which most of the times is country’s own money earned by shady means. I don’t mean to say that this arrangement should be stopped but why to target SEZs singularly?

I would rather the learned columnist provided ways and means to increase the direct tax revenue in a country where only 2% population pay taxes. May be collecting tax from tax evaders is difficult, so every year those who pay taxes are made to pay more by all kind of cess.

I hope that atleast people whose views matter, extend their horizon a little bit more, and think of the larger good rather than to drive home their own (hidden) agenda.

World is small

2006-06-24T23:40:00.000+03:00

Midsummer Day in Finland. Everything is closed except a pizza place. Inside it two guys working for the same firm waiting for their pizzas.

Hey what is your base branch in India?

Umm, Bangalore.

Mine as well. Where is your office there?

I don’t know now. What about you?

Me neither.

Which part of India are you from?

I am from ‘XYZ’ state. Where you from?

Me from the same state and what city did you tell in that state?

My hometown was ‘Abc’ city and I was there a long time for my studies.

What school you were in?

‘This’ school.

No way! I studied in the same school till class 6th, then dad got transferred and I had to move out.

They both start remembering the streets and neighborhoods of that city.

Hey where was your home then?

It was the yellow house on the street which was across the statue of Bhagat Singh.

And is your father a doctor?

Yeah he was! How do you know?

I know. I lived in the house next to your backyard.

The house next to Mr. Kumar?

Exactly!

They both are agape.

And you know your dad operated on my sister when was 2 years old and had cut her forehead. We still talk about your father. It is a family anecdote. My mother was good friends with your mother. That was 1983.

We moved from that place in 1984.

Yeah we also moved from that neighborhood very soon. I don’t remember your face but only remember you were three siblings.

So it means we are meeting after 22 years and that too in a different country.

Yeah we are. I was seven years old then. …………..
---------------------------------------------------------------------

That was my sister.

World is indeed small.

Courteous Cities

2006-06-20T23:42:00.000+03:00

The result of Reader’s Digest survey of most courteous cities is out. The result I am sure will not be surprising for anyone. New York tops the list being the most courteous city, and Mumbai the lowest – the rudest city in world.

Reader’s Digest had its own undercover reporters doing the survey; testing on factors like holding the door open, saying ‘thank you’ to shoppers and helping someone pick up their stuff.

Stockholm according to them was ‘second’ best in shopping experience and from my personal experience I can say that is quite correct. I would give Stockholm high marks in other areas like experience of dining in restaurants. I always relish eating out in Stockholm and the servers are so courteous. That when there is no tipping like in New York.

Helsinki got rather low - 22nd position. I don’t think Helsinki is that discourteous? I have heard people not thanking you if hold the door open but not that no one holds the door open. In Hameenlinna that is not the case. Here people hold the door open and also say thank you. May be Helsinki scored low on picking up someone’s paper after they fell down on streets.

Amsterdam was two ranks above Helsinki. I have not found Amsterdam that co-operative for example - I had great difficulty in buying tickets from their automatic machines which had only Dutch interface. If you buy from counters you have to pay more and all tourist end up buying from there. I don’t think it takes much to have English interface in the automatic machines. Oh well, this is true even for Finland, they can put English interface in their ATMs as well.

Mumbai was lowest at 36th, bit unlucky that Delhi was not surveyed. It won’t have been lowest then. In Mumbai the Reader’s Digest reporter found that, let alone picking the fallen papers from a person, people walked on those papers in a super store. And a retailer even tried to justify his rude behavior! Good that they didn’t have any traffic related test or Indian cities would have made a hole in the bottom to find their place.

I hope this survey has some constructive effect.

Update 1 :- This post has generated the expected controversy. Mumbai mirror has picked it up in their blogger park. And Raj your comment is there. Read it here

Update 2 It seems that this is getting intersting. Even Indiatimes have picked up this post. You can see it here (scroll down on right side and see under communities.

Summer - the season of Paradise

2006-06-18T22:42:00.000+03:00

Yeah, I totally mean the title. One can find the real value of summer in Finland. Over the past two weeks we are having perfect summer. All the bloggers of Finland like Sami and Heather have done the customary post on summer.

For a change the morning starts with the sound of lawn mowers and not snow plow. The Sun greets you, the cool breeze sweeps you away and smile can be found in everyone’s face along with the designer sunglasses. Everything looks so beautiful, flowers are blossoming and trees are all green.

It is so difficult to sit at your desk and just look at the panorama outside. Last year around this time I cribbed about people taking month long holidays in summer. This year I wish I also could take that vacation now. But I am glad that save for one weekend, I have enjoyed every other. Everyday I manage to find at least one hour during the day to walk around the city, either sit in the park or take a walk alongside the lake.

Everywhere people around are either tanning their skin, eating ice creams, enjoying coffee at the numerous side walk café, getting chilled with the beer or just letting the spirit of summer permeate the soul. All the other countries are full of tourist and backpacks have become ubiquitous. Finland seems like paradise now. Though I am sure the summer will last only one more month. So enjoy it till it is here.

Does these happens to you ?

2006-06-11T19:34:00.000+03:00

Have you ever noticed that there are few things which always create a scene with you in the centre, for no fault of yours?

One of my favourite in that segment is the ‘access gates’. They never seem to behave properly when I am about to cross them. I have had this happen enough to me on several occasions, at different places, to rule out the co-incidence explanation. Always when I will swipe my access card, ticket, or any tag it will never be accepted in the first attempt. Either the door will not open or light will turn red or worse, it will start howling. All of it will happen in the public place so as to create a scene. The latest to happen was couple of weeks back. I had gone to a nearby city to the Spa. After a nice relaxed couple of hours, I was coming out of the spa area to reach the counter to clear my bills. I saw the gates and knew that something interesting will happen. I showed the RFID tag and true to me, the light turned red and started beeping. Now there is no reason for that to happen when someone is coming out. In my frustration I could only say “God, why this always happens to me?” This whole incident totally amused the women at the counter who was seeing this scene. I could see her barely managing to conceal her laughter when I was paying my bills. I wanted to say that don’t be hard on yourself, laugh as much as you want. There are numerous incidents like this but I don’t want to remember them now.

The other such thing is ‘static electricity’. Yeah it happens a lot in Finland and they are not minor shock. They can be of high intensity and just when you least expect it. In winter I know that happens due to layers of clothing which we wear. But why in summer? This weekend, I was in the supermarket doing the regular grocery shopping. After finishing the job and carrying the heavy grocery bag, I reached the exit. No, this is not access kind of door but with sensor so that it opens by itself. The door was opening, the frames parting, I don’t know what happened to me and I touched the metallic centre lock. I got a huge static electricity shock. I jumped backward and squeaked rather loudly “Jesus Christ, damn you static electricity”. Just then I realized I was in a public place and I turned back. I saw a girl behind me. I didn’t even stop to see whether she was laughing but scurried from there. I have got lot of static electricity shocks, but first time I managed to get myself so embarrassed.

One more thing happens to me often. But I have excused it on seeing that others also face same predicament. This is slipping on the snow. I have slipped on almost all the streets in Hameenlinna. But most of the streets, most of the time are deserted so I always managed to escape without any scene. On one weekend last December, when I was in Stockholm, I saw one lady also slip on the snow. And the street was pretty crowded. No one laughed and a gentleman helped her getting up. So now I know that this happens to others as well. Hence I don’t mind slipping on the snow anymore.

If I know that the other two things, which I mentioned, also happens to others then I will be greatly relieved. So please do tell. Thanks in advance.

Deja Vu

2006-06-06T23:21:00.000+03:00

I might not have a better deja vu than this. May be cause this time I have it documented. Past couple of days, few thoughts are crossing my mind with not so 'usual' frequency. When I thought more about it, I felt that I have written a post about it. I searched my blog and finally got the post. I had written this last September. I will reproduce the post below.

Life
-----

We all are at some point in our life; the question is, how many of us thought we would be, what we are today? Looking back few years or even two year, did we all think we would be having life like this? I mean all the facets, our personal life, professional life, the friends we have or friends we don’t have?

I would never believe my life as-of-now, if I go back couple of years from now. For example, what I wanted to do in this world may be totally different from what I am today. I don’t remember what exactly I wanted to be when I was child, but I know what I thought I would be doing when I was in my undergrad. Still..

In fact any aspect of my life was not what I thought it would be couple of years back, but I guess this is life. Your plans don’t materialize as they should, or they were impractical or unrealistic or the stark reality of this world put so many limitations on you or you put trust on something/someone you should not. I mean there can be thousands of reasons for any plan to go awry, the strange thing is that we all get so used to the grind that we hardly think, is this what I dreamt? Is this what I wanted to achieve? Is the present parameters of success were the one I had in my mind ? Is this how I want to be known after death ?

All these things are coming in my mind cause I was thinking what different I am doing? There are 6 billions people on this planet, each of them takes birth, then studies, does something for a living, might or might not start a family and then dies.

I don’t have any answer, don’t know where this life is leading onto, but one thing I can be sure, it won’t be as I plan it to be.

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

Now since this is documented, I can say that I have had put some amount of my time thinking about this. Why could I not accept what I said and closed the issue. Why the issue is still afresh ?

Opinionated in India

2006-06-01T20:20:00.000+03:00

There can be several measurements of maturity of a society. One of them is opinion or ideas or thoughts and subsequent dissemination of them. But presence of “opinion” alone is not correct or sufficient indicator. According to me the maturity of a society vis-à-vis opinion is reflected in the diversity of opinions or alternative ideas, no matter they are popular opinion or not.

I will take two examples from Finland, an egalitarian country, which has been proved to be a mature society by variety of parameters. After the great depression of 1990, the prosperity of Finland is much attributed to its joining the European Union in 1995 which helped transform the country. The person who led Finland to European Union was Esko Aho, then Prime Minister and leader of the conservative government. Considering much of Finland has immensely benefited from his effort to get EU membership, it is expected that everyone would think highly of him. But this is not the case. For each individual praising him you will find a critic. Next take the example of rock band ‘Lordi’ which won the Eurovision for the first time for Finland. Largest ever crowd of people came onto the street to felicitate them. Apparently all of the country would be singing paeans for it. Again it not the case, not all thinks same of the band.

Now I come to India. The thing which baffles me there is the similarity of opinion. Whether it is sports, politics or general state of affairs, whole country it seems to have the same opinion. It is the same person who is the best , same one who is the worst, the same proposal which is best, the same course of action which has greatest benefit potential, so on and so forth. Why it is so? What is the difference in being opinionated in India and elsewhere? Suppose we bring a person from some other planet to Earth for just one day. In that one day he/she is given a tour of India and asked about the country? I am sure the answer will be anything except that “India is an egalitarian society”. Then how come India is so ‘egalitarian’ when it comes to opinions?

The only plausible explanation which comes to my mind is that ‘Indian intelligentsia’ largely consists of only one section of the society. Had it been representative of all sections of society, we would have seen similar diversity in opinions as the society.

There can be several reasons for the distorted representation. May be other sections don’t have means to disseminate the opinion, or the entire bandwidth has been hogged by one particular section or may be others don’t have luxury to opine. What ever the reason may be, the visible opinion there can’t be taken as opinion of all country, but merely a lop-sided one. A particular opinion might have more visibility, more visible representation and more calls for support but that does not make it the voice of the majority of Indians.

Euphemism, Positive spin, etc.

2006-05-30T20:08:00.000+03:00

Euphemism, positive spin, etc - I don’t know what others think about them but to me the mean only one thing. They serve the exact opposite purpose of what they are intended in the first place. In some cases ‘euphemism’ serves as euphemism of hypocrisy, which always will be despicable.

Last year I saw one movie (In Good Company), and this issue was also highlighted in that. In that moving the term of sacking employees was “letting go”. I don’t understand how the term “fired” or “letting go” means any different for whom it is used? Worse to me, the term “letting go” will add insult to injury. (God forbid it though)

‘Positive spin’ is no less offending. For example – if your internet service provider (ISP) doubles the charge and also increased by the speed even by 10%, will address the letter to you as “Congratulations, your internet speed has been increased”. Only later in the letter will be mentioned that price has been increased as well! It does not matter that your previous speed of 1Mbps was more than sufficient for you and you don’t need any faster than it.

One of the worst kinds of ‘euphemism’ I got from my Bank. I think it was last year. I received a letter from them saying that “they will lower the interest rate from 0.40% percent to 0.15% from next quarter”. The letter mentioned that if you don’t agree to this then please fill the attached feedback form and mail in the “postage pre-paid envelop”. I thought it was good for them to ask for feedback. Also I was happy that the letter was in English for me. I proceeded to the feedback form and then I saw the later half of the page. It said that when we receive this feedback form we will close your account!
Was that a feedback form? That was simply notice of discontinuation of account. Who will term it as feedback form? I guess, I will have to hand the award for the best positive spin to my dear bank. I should have sent a letter to them saying “Thanks, I never knew you were paying any interest to me”.

This is not limited to official communications and diplomacy. You will find this euphemism and positive spin even in personal relationships. It is more hurting in this domain. I don’t know why people do it? Do they think the intended recipient will not get the real meaning? I bet, everyone gets and it is result is severe than if stated in simple and straight terms. Everyone in this world appreciates honesty, however blunt it might be. Euphemism, positive spin, etc might save an awkward moment or two for the time being, but it will have more serious consequences than otherwise. In fact in impersonal matters, the usage of euphemism or positive spin can lead to personal animosity. In personal matters it might one more derogatory adjective to the persona of the user.

So cut back on euphemism. I love blunt honesty anyday.