Undoubtedly Glocal

Jumbo Challenge.....

2009-05-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

Tribute to the legend for taking Royal Challengers to the finals!

“I am disappointed but never regretted the fact that I was never given the opportunity to lead the Indian side. You can only be as good as the opportunities you get.”
- Anil Kumble

Probably this is the only way LEGENDS know to live.
Isn't the battle won already?

They knew everything about Raju mama...

2009-02-14T02:27:00.000-08:00

Little wonder that government did not do any mistake in assigning the top man from HDFC to fix the infamous Satyam, Sharam, Scandalam. Government quickly realized that Mota Bhai already knew about Muddu Bidda having lots of money. They just connected this video and the episode!!
Just a cheeky coincidence....have a hearty laugh!!

Chuddi Vs Sari...

2009-02-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

My 2 cents to Pink brigade and SRS...

2008 - Year that was!

2008-12-28T09:20:00.000-08:00

This post is pending for few days now.

Beginning of 2008 I had listed set of people, things and events that was poised to make news. Some of them were picked up from JWT list for 2008 from yahoo.com and then I add few to the list. A quick review of the list:

Beijing 2008 - Hats off to China for putting a spectacular show but did not go off without its share of controversial issues, be it Olympic flame sabotage or under-age participants!
Facebook suicides – Ah! So much interweaving of web 2.0 technologies with our lives, rightly they had predicted that one of the effects of emotional distress would be in the virtual world. Heard few friends randomly telling that they would drop off from orkut but did not really see any suicides personally!
Google's Android – The much awaited product in 08, just one phone launched till date. I hope I am correct. Should see more of android effect actually in 2009.
Deepika Padukone – The only Asian to make it to the JWT list. The Bangalore dream girl won all the accolades for OSO from 2007 but did not see much of her on the screen in 2008 however you rock Deepika!!
U.S.election 08 – Probably this one will make to the list of top 10 events of the century. The land of opportunity for the first time elected a black President – Barack Obama. Socially it has lot of unwritten connotation but truly spectacular event. He has come in the midst of huge financial turmoil and war legacy left by Bush, can he meet people expectation across the globe? Big ticket item for global debate in 2009.
Weak dollar/strong euro/rupee/yaun – This hasn’t worked for India. Thanks for all the financial turmoil, emerging markets took the beating. Rupee dropped from a high of 39/dollar to 50/dollar.Exporters must be making a merry!
Tata 1L car – The black episode of 2008 in the India Corporate story, probably in the India Growth story as well. Mamata didi re-iterated how illogical politics can stop growth & development and nobody can do anything about it except watch helplessly. Kudos to Mr.Modi for bagging the project. Need to wait for a while longer to see the Nano on the roads.
Gary Kristen Impact - ah!! what a win! Indian cricket came back with all the form and spirit. Kristen coupled with Dhoni is rocking the Indian Cricket. Keep it going boys!
Reliance Blue Magic – Except for scoring some brownie points on Airtel ads really did not make the expected impact.
Karnataka elections – As predicted BJP won absolute near majority creating first-to-form-BJP-government-in-south India. The win did not go without all the drama. However Operation Lotus went overboard I guess.
Pakistan – Least said the better. From bad stage at Benzir’s assassination went to worse with Mariott bombing and 26/11. It appears one army general has taken over from another. The only difference is that this time there is a bunch of puppets to execute what army wants.
Climate sightseeing – Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and the time-lapse photography were not lost on a number of people. And increasingly, people are wanting to see these sights of the world before they change shape or change form however did not hear much in the media. Probably fears of recession in US and Europe ate away this phenomenon.
Couch Surfing – Innovative concept linking travel and social networking. Not heard much in India, should work well in India, isn’t one of our cultural ingredient - “Athithi Devo Bhava”?
Bengaloru International Airport – Finally my city has an international airport after 17 years of starting the project. Airport opened amongst drama from all quarters – Political, Corporate, taxi services etc. Ride to airport has not been that bad, personally had few national and international trips this year, got to see domestic and international wing. Sad part remains, Albert Brunner has decided not to renew his contract. Hats off to the man for holding the fort together!
SEZ – No full blown official policy, offcourse government did not get anytime to think about SEZ apart from Nuclear deal. To add, wanted time to think and plan to pay huge insurance premiums for 2009 General Elections such as 60K crore loan waiver and 6th pay commission.
Teleco Spectrum – Too much drama. Drama had all the elements of political accusations, corporate blame game, typical interest group lobbies and scent of kick backs. Continue to remain shady deal of the year.
Vickram Pandit – The man who took over the toughest job on the planet at the start of 08. Fortune ran a 5-8 page story in Q108 with a very positive tone of Mr. Pandit, not all is well coz problems for Citi appears never ending but Mr. Pandit still holds the fort and will clear the exam with distinction.

Following add to the list that marked 2008.
India Nuclear deal – First country to get NSG waiver without signing NPT or CTBT.
Olympics – India’s first individual gold medal, thank you Abhinav Bindra.
Global Financial Tsunami – Most devastating financial crisis that has challenged the idea of free markets.
MNS – Raj Thakrey’s attempt to score brownie points challenging the “Idea of India”
26/11 – 9/11 of the east.

Hope 2009 will be a year of rejuvenation, triumph and success of man kind more than ever.

Boat se Vote tak via Ramu

2008-12-01T11:56:00.000-08:00

An interesting quote that a colleague shared today…

“I am not worried about the men who come thru BOATS

I am scared of the men who come thru VOTES”

Very ironical and true, not sure if this originated from despair or creativity.

Thinking of creativity, on a different note, I guess all the media bashing on RGV for accompanying Maharastra CM to Taj on Monday was uncalled for.

Common, give RGV some credit for creatively thinking about nexus between underworld and terrorist forces in his last movie – CONTRACT.

Now, please don’t argue that his movie provided the plot to do the same in real life. At least, Ramu was creative in predicting such incidents if not in similar fashion.

At times to draw up huge predictive, preventive and pre-cautionary measures and mechanisms not only intelligentsia is required but also creativity.

Deaths have not woken up our governments; hope some of Ramu’s creativity can make our representatives think adding to the futile list of attempts to wake the duds.

Yo, long live the Buffalo.....

2008-11-30T11:17:00.000-08:00

Back from a very long blogging vacation!!

Its a very sad, despair and anguish week, its not easy to digest the fact that my country is and was at WAR.

First and foremost, deep condolences to all those who lost life in 26/11 - Mumbai Terror. Hats off to security forces and the officers who laid down their lives for us. They are the heroes of the day and lets treat them that way for ever.

Btw, I am not a mumbaikar but cannot stand the fact that life can come to an end in such a disastrous manner in this beautiful and democratic to-be superpower.

Lot of thoughts run thru my mind and heart but couple of them are too disturbing. One, time & again we are struck and son of a gun who takes my taxes uses only for his security and leaves common man like me stranded. Two, its scary, living in Bengalooru and at this rate, that day is not far when my lovely city will be turned into another war zone. It sounds emotional outburst because its not about right or wrong, left or liberal but its a matter of being ALIVE.

I know some politicians may argue that its happened in an urban arena hence so much attention and call for an action but there are lot of people who are suffering and dying in the rural arena. I would call that line of argument absurd for two reasons, one the bloody political class has failed to do something positive for rural arena and urban arena as well. They have failed in both.

Two, DEATH by TERRORISM according to me is worse, heinous and highest form of ego, pride & self-respect being hurt in a free country like India.

To start, its a situation of "Aa bale mujhe maar". Starting with 1993 mumbai blasts to till date, numerous blasts & terrorist incidents have happened and our government machinery & political class have just not learnt any lessons. They have failed to value human life for years, 15 years since 1993 is a enough time to change the system, process and more important ATTITUDE. They have not changed and we have allowed them to be that way.

In the corporate world we live with the line "You do a mistake once you will be forgiven and repeat it you will be forgotten". We need to extend this line to measure the performance of the government at least limiting to Terrorism issues in the near and short term.

We need to absolutely learn from Kiori Singh Bainsla,the Gujjar leader who brought NCR to halt for the cause of identity, right or wrong is debatable but can we bring the nation to a halt for the cause of being ALIVE until our politicians and governments act.

All causes branch from two roots - VOTE BANK POLITICS and CHALTA HAI attitude especially latter one which has dwindled us into such a pity situation where we have become soft targets.

I hate the term soft target, this is a country which has seen birth and rise of warriors such as Chatrapathi Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Tippu Sultan and now we cannot save our people and come across as a weak & helpless country. I wonder if the political class has any pride living in this country and being an Indian.

As somebody mentioned on the TV today, MIGHT is RIGHT. Its not sufficient we show our might as a reactive process, it needs to remain in our DNA and ATTITUDE of legislature which will automatically reflect in our laws, judiciary and all executive machinery. Fanatics will think 100 times before entering our soil to cause harm.

* Can we learn from Israel and Operation wrath of god, every Black September conspirator was killed within 2 years of the deadly Munich incident?

Had we done this after 1993 carnage, today the same conspirator would not have masterminded / supported this deadly war today.

* What did we do when our Prime Minister, the charismatic Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by external forces, absolutely nothing. I am no INC fan but a successful external attack on the Prime Minister is the deepest insult on this country. Lack of will of our governments to bring the conspirator to justice and all associated exposes the vulnerability of our lives.

Its this sick attitude shouts out to the world "Aa bale mujhe maar", if Prime Minister's assassins are left to scout free, rest of the citizens and respective lives will be wiped out.

* Least, can we learn from animals, the famous Battle of Kruger (www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM). The video shows the FIGHT

BACK of buffalos against lions defying the order and logic of food chain. In comparison, it appears that we have lost our instinct and its the worse harm we can inflict upon ourselves. Are our politicians' intelligentsia and attitudes worse than buffalo?

Problem is not entirely about neighbors, religious radicalism, processes and systems but our governments' ATTITUDE and just ATTITUDE. Set the WILL and ATTITUDE into appropriate mode, all our neighbors will mind their business.

Finally, I am forced to remember my text books from school thru which I learnt about Netaji, probably we need Netaji today more than ever.

I know all of this is easy to blog by punching few keys, I have not done anything so far but I will start searching for avenues and opportunities where I can contribute to make CHANGE in this regard.

Rabindranath Tagore

2007-08-14T07:25:00.001-07:00

Listen to this master piece. Courtesy: Airtel, thank you folks

In Pursuit of Globalization

2007-02-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

Few months back I was in pursuit of a reason of my existence but after few words and advices from my best buddies and friends I understood a bit and have actually put that in a parking lot for sometime now. My sub-conscious will always search for this one until I find an answer.

To move on, few days back an interesting thought stuck to my mind when I was discussing about our new project with my boss. Two months back we put a new solution to support a business process in Australia, we used the same solution and replicated it in UK now. After we presented solution to our business partners, I told my boss, "Sitting in India we are convincing someone in UK as to what is the right way of managing the process based on something we put in for Australia, is this globalization?"
This is not something new to me or my boss, we have been doing it for 4+ years now but for some reason this question of mine tickled our brains for rest of the day. That day I decided I need to know what’s the true meaning of "Globalization", some are against it and some are for it in this world. I belong to the second category based on the understanding that Globalization is what responsible for providing me the job I have.

One question intrigues me, is this all Globalization about or am I missing something? I know I am at a potion of miniscule to question this but not to find an answer.

Another interesting fact my boss introduced me to, NRNs response when asked about what Globalization meant to him on the day Infy was listed on NASDAQ, in his words "Sourcing capital from markets where it is easily available, building products in markets which is most efficient and

selling in markets which is highly profitable". Brilliant definition I have ever heard.

There is an argument against this, the second piece of NRNs definition is more around cost efficiency that is prevalent in India and it leads to one funda "Labour Arbitrage". So, is phenomena around us end once we are done with "Labour Arbitrage”? all the numerous articles I have read in various journals say "no".

This being the case I should not be worried about anything as said by few of my friends but still I am not convinced about the meaning of Globalization I have learnt or known. Nevertheless, I am going to try finding an answer but for now I am going end this here and forget about the globe and catch up with my favourite local telugu movie.

The new Reservation

2006-11-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

I am sorry I am back to blogging about this topic: RESERVATION. There are 2 reasons behind this, one, I am not able to completely sleep over the fact that this country is going to have a legislation based on caste system and two, bug of optimism in me.

I was really hoping that SC is going to come up with something to stop this reservation system but looks like madcaps (more symbolic) based out of the semi-circle building up there have again made things their way.

If you scroll down this page, you will find my pleading letter that I actually sent it to
Mr. PM with a hope!!

Let’s make a deal. Its quite simple. Anyways reservations will be a reality in no time, so lets "adjust maadi" (Bengalooru's home grown concept) with the new legislation. By this I am not favoring a win-loose situation.

Since 33% reservation will be done in phased manner, let’s have a equal representation in the government for the educated in a phased manner.

Starting this year, lets government earmark of the 543 seats in parliament 10% can be contested only by educated citizens of this country, out of this 10%, 4% should be at least PGs, 2% should be from IITs, IIMs and other top institutes like BITS etc and 2% should be at least PHDs and remaining 2% should be from professions like Medicine, Law etc.

Lets hike this percentage as we move ahead and in next 5-10 years it should be 33%. This should be applicable to state assemblies as well. I would like to name it as "Education based reservation system". The optimism bug in me is crying out loud saying 'this could happen, something better than nothing'

The argument against this is that, by allowing a caste based reservation system, meritocracy will be compromised and quality of incoming students to some of the prestigious institutions will go down and the output will be bad and this lot will make it to parliament and state assemblies under the "Education based reservation system”. Basically this ends up with GIGO.

My bug of optimism is knocking again, I strongly believe that the country's premier institutions have in them to churn any GI (Garbage In) into world class productive individuals.

Not sure if this arrangement can work in this country but if it works we have won third of the battle!

But now remains the big question: Mr. PM, Are you game for this?

VIRTUAL PERSONAL BLACK BOX

2006-10-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

Sometime back..actually few years back and to be almost precise, beginning of this millennium I was surfing the web and read some of the trends and technologies predicted by futurists. I guess I read it on BBC website. One that caught my attention was "Personal Black Box".
I was zapped about the stuff I read. The article spoke about a gadget that would record everything you do from morning to night and consistently day after day. Article did not list out any advantages or disadvantages of this but just a prediction as to how future technologies will evolve.
I do not remember the entire article but remember the concept because it just zapped me, imagine there is a record of everything you do. I am sure this sounds crazy and one would wonder what to do with it.
Anyways, as the time passed by I had totally forgotten about it until I read a blog about Orkut. Check it out....http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/001504.html
I always thought this black box would be in the form of gizmo or a gadget but its virtual today. In the backdrop of afore mentioned blog, we are embodied with a VIRTUAL PERSONAL BLACK BOX.
Tons of personal information is shared on orkut. Birthdates, place of birth, friends, hobbies, interests, professional life, photos. You name it, people share it on Orkut.
As the blog mentions, imagine Orkut completely becomes integral part of Google, thinking about it?
Most of us infact use gmail accounts extensively and good amount of personal data is shared thru emails as well. This being the case, someone at Google "exactly" know who you are, what you do, what are the ups and downs happening in your life, how you look and what you are up to in this world.
Sounds interesting, sounds frightening?
That futurists predicted right, future is here, the only difference is it’s a virtual personal black box with unprecedented reach.
By this I am not anti-google, I do not belive that google will ever misuse this "powerful" personal information but definitely will make huge commercial gains from this information.
Personally, I love google for creating some of the best technologies in the recent past. Some of the products under google labs are amazing. Most of the google products are designed to use online, as you move along you will put more and more personal information into the google servers knowingly or unknowingly.

If you are privacy conscious, get off orkut and gmail immediately. YOU ARE BEING WATCHED!!!

Treasure Hunt....(Reservation to Money)

2006-06-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

Wanna get rich....find the treasure at MM Hills.
It cannot get worse than this.....One page article about the late Veerappan on economist.
Surprised? I was searching some info about India on economist.com, ended up finding about Veerappan.
For those who do not know about Veerappan, check out the link :
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3329040
Veerappan.....Karnataka's most famous creation before IT!!!
My temper is rising....state paid 200 million rupees to get Rajkumar....best spend of my tax money and now god damn it...its in the plastic bags under trees in the MM hills (as per article).
I know its not a good idea but worth the try if I can get back some money out of the hidden bags.....remember its my tax money.
Well, it could be also possible that people might have already found something and pocketed it.
Anyways, any joiners for the treasure hunt?

Now or Never

2006-05-28T03:02:00.000-07:00

Mr PM,

You are responsible for creating an important piece in Indian history after our independence. Your LIBERALISATION agenda in 1991 was a life line for then dying country. I had huge respect over the last 10 years for you. Its you who inspired me to pursue a career in economics and do something for this country. But now with this RESERVATION system I feel disgusted and have lost all the respect for you. Your fellow men in the government are pushing the country into the dark and you don't seem to give a damn about it.
Its a irony that my fellow men & woman in this country fight to belong to backward class and you as the most educated & knowledgeable PM that this country has ever is bringing a legislation to support it with open arms. Remember this will be one step towards end of India story and you will be responsible for screwing up dreams and aspirations of millions of youth in this country.
You said a important thing in your speech at India Today Conclave on Feb 25 2005, New Delhi, I will remind you "If there is an “idea of India” by which India should be defined, it is the idea of an inclusive, open, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual society. I believe that this is the dominant trend of political evolution of all societies in the 21st century. Therefore, we have an obligation to history and mankind to show that pluralism works". By making one caste superior than other thru a legislation I am sure pluralism will just remain on paper and in your speeches.
I am sure there are more poor Hindus who cannot afford education than OBCs. Have a reservation system based on economic conditions and not
on castes. There is no dearth of money in this country when comes to a good cause, we saw that after Tsunami incident.
If there is any dearth its in EXECUTION and IMPLEMENTATION. Raise money and use it for the upliftment of the economically backward people.
At the end of the day we all know reservation will be misused by the rich and influential political friends of yours.
INDIA IS A INTELLECTUAL COUNTRY. LETS FIGHT AND COMPETE ON A INTELLECTUAL LEVEL PLAYING FIELD. DO NOT MAKE PEOPLE FIGHT TO BELONG TO BACKWARD CLASS.
Its not too late, you as the LEADER stand-up and beat the hell out of your friends in the government and do not push this country into dark.
REMEMBER YOU CREATED AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF HISTORY IN THIS COUNTRY AND FOR GOD SAKE DO NOT SCREW IT UP.

- Concerned Citizen

Do not read this if you need peace of mind..

2006-05-02T02:27:00.000-07:00