A Writer's Plethora

Smartphone Lawsuit !

2010-07-11T04:06:00.003+05:30

Ever heard about NTP? It’s a patent holding company best known for prying a settlement of more than $600 million from the maker of BlackBerry.

What about Apple, Google, Microsoft, HTC, LG and Motorola? Kidding.

NTP is now suing these big shots! These suits which were filed in a federal court in Richmond charge that the cell phone email systems of these companies are illegally using NTP's patented technology.

The round of litigation against leaders in the smartphone hardware and software market is the latest step by NTP to assert that its intellectual property is the foundation of modern wireless e-mail systems and that major corporations are infringing with impunity. Its critics have said that NTP has consistently inflated the importance of its innovations and that it is the very model of a patent troll, a company that produces no product or service other than licensing demands and lawsuits.

Legal experts say that the potential payday for NTP in the current litigation could be as much as several hundred million dollars but it is uncertain. It could also be far less because technology and product designs change quickly and recent smartphone e-mail systems may well have been designed with an eye towards avoiding NTP's patents.

The companies named as defendants in the suits declined to comment. But whatever the outcome in the latest suits, NTP has already altered the patent economy.

Amazing B/W logos !

2010-07-04T02:32:00.003+05:30

Decontrolling oil prices

2010-02-12T07:03:00.003+05:30

The recent discussions towards reaching a consensus on the decontrolling of oil prices is the best possible solution in hand at the moment. People have argued that it may not be wise to expose oil, a a critical commodity for the nation, to market fluctuations. However, the same people had also put forth the same arguments for steel way back in 1985 !!

What happened was, although it was a major blow to the country's economy,it nevertheless learnt to sustain it. The same would happen in the case of oil as well. It is common knowledge that a major proportion of the taxpayer's money goes into indemnifying the losses incurred by the Indian Govt. while providing subsidies to the Indian people. Try imagining a situation where the same amount of money could be used for infrastructure, health care and education for the masses.

Needless to say, this imagination could only be incarnated if the our political parties can get over trifling issues and reach a common understanding where they can all feel the urgent need to decontrol oil prices.

Innovating for a Sustainable World

2010-02-04T23:58:00.000+05:30

Interior garden perpetuated by worms, live chicken farm, multidimensional composting system, solar panels and wood burning stove – somewhat like your “eco-home”? Could be your “eco-car”!
“The Permibus” – the world’s first environmentally sustainable tour bus visited renewable fuels company ‘Innovation Fuels’ on Thursday, October 22, 2009 and received a free tank worth or 60 gallons of 100% pure biodiesel – after travelling over 11,000 miles on renewable energy as part of a national tour dedicated to showcasing sustainable living. The Permibus is a travelling road show of education and resources to those interested in cultivating revolutionary ways of living in their communities, or in other words, INNOVATION.

We live in a world where each one of us invariably engage ourselves in the introspection of the morality of our profits or so as to say the profitability of our morals?
The one universal and driving factor (as for all business decisions) is to protect and if possible, increase profits. This desire by businesses to maximise profits is a basic assumption of economics and although there is a clear variation in their ability to do so it lies at the heart of any business decision.

Innovation processes today have to deal with an extended and rapidly advancing scientific frontier, fragmented markets across the globe, political uncertainties, regulatory instabilities, and competitors who are increasingly coming from unexpected directions. Thus, innovation networks are becoming increasingly important in order to make use of a wide set of knowledge signals needed for effective management of innovation. There is a dire need today to design market pull instruments to maximise the energy, economic and environmental benefits from greater innovation in eco-efficient characteristics of the products.

For businesses, usually the decision to commercialise is at least as important as decisions on how to invest in R&D. Businesses are frequently aware of many innovations which they could introduce into their product ranges, but they choose not to develop all of these into commercial products – as they do not see profits arising from inclusion of those characteristics.

It is thus evident that the most significant problem hindering innovation is the 'chicken or egg' trap. It’s a trap that prevents investment: manufacturers wait until there is a demonstrated demand before they develop and commercialise technologies, but buyers wait to see the product on the market before they demonstrate they will buy it. The innovation may well have been developed as a prototype, but reaches a pinch-point at the decision to commercialise, which blocks its development. This problem arises because companies usually decide to invest in innovation by making a comparison of their likely benefits against the risks of their investment.

The Chinese market for household appliances is now one of the largest and fastest growing in the world. In 2006 China accounted for about 70% of global production of air-conditioners, air conditioner compressors and microwaves. By 2004 the EU had became China's main trading partner, while for the EU China is the second largest. However, the Chinese export of appliances to the EU fell in 2005 and 2006. This was the repercussion of the introduction of various standards and regulations, e.g. WEEE, RoHS, and energy labelling in the EU, which the Chinese products faced problems in fulfilling.

China is now in the process of promoting environmentally friendly white goods through a range of instruments: energy efficient standards, energy labelling, and government procurement. The aim of the Chinese reaction has been twofold: to reduce environmental impact but at the same time to increase Chinese manufacturer's global competitiveness.

It is thus, clear from the aforesaid reasons that programmes to promote innovation, including eco-innovation, should contain demand-side measures. Of particular significance are: The Lead Market Initiative (LMI), launched in 2006 to give industries the opportunity to develop niche markets into export products or services in new high-growth markets; and an “innovation procurement” policy to encourage public procurers to share the risk (and reward) of developing and commercialising innovations which fit their needs – this will solve our “chicken and egg” problem.

Procurement designed to support innovation, can take many forms. It can: initiate, escalate, or consolidate markets. The majority of procurement policy already in place – including green public procurement – focuses on purchase of commercially available products, which escalates (expands commercial niche markets) or consolidates markets, in addition to its direct public benefits.

However, what we need are exercises intended to procure innovations which are not yet commercialised! We need procurement to initiate markets!

Noteworthy approaches could be a direct procurement where the public procurement body purchases the innovation for its own needs – defence-related innovations or the acquisition of public transport technologies, e.g. high-speed trains; co-operative procurement involving joint buying with private purchasers to develop a new market for the technology they will both use; catalytic procurement which is a public sector action to catalyse the development of a technology, although the innovation will be exclusively used by private end-users.

Today, the need for businesses to champion the seventh, eighth and ninth principles of the United Nations Global Compact is a global concern. However the much awaited Copenhagen summit with a promise to revolutionise the entire world, left business in a state of ambiguity! With no agreement on emissions cuts it has failed to deliver the certainty required to stimulate the level of investment we need to see in low carbon solutions (which I would like to call as innovation).

This is not the clear direction that business hoped for.

What's more, business leaders were unhappy at being excluded from the negotiations. Lest we forget, it is private sector investment that will provide a significant proportion of the investment needed to drive us to a low-carbon, sustainable economy. The accord states that developing countries will receive $100 billion by 2020 but while it does not provide any detail on how, it does reference a wide variety of sources including the private sector.

If business is expected to take significant action, make considerable investment and move us towards the solutions to tackling dangerous climate change then they need to be given greater inclusion!

We talk about reforms all the time. In the present scenario, reforms are needed to make public policy and regulatory frameworks more conducive to innovation in a range of policy areas from the general business environment - especially in the services, particularly in the network industries - to international trade and international investment, financial markets, labour markets, and education.

Both sustainability and growth require increased cooperation between the areas of innovation and environmental policy. Policies should target value chains and networks, especially to involve SMEs. A choice should be made between quick results and large results. Policy instruments (such as internationalisation of R&D) should be used in a coordinated manner to achieve the best effect.

The complex dynamic environment which surrounds innovation has already been discussed; so has been the need to design effective market-pull instruments. But what should be qualities of these demand pull instruments to be most effective in promoting innovation? How can these qualities meet ethical demands in the most effective way?

Besides targeting a long-term horizon, the ultimate purpose of the mechanism needs to be clear to all those concerned– purchasers and manufacturers. This should ensure that any innovation is directed correctly. Similarly, the extent to which the manufacturers and their suppliers are aware of policy that is likely to change future demand is particularly significant to its potential to change innovation. Communication of the policy is particularly important for SMEs, who may be very innovative, but are much less likely to be aware of policy development than large companies.

Mechanisms should ideally have a built-in incentive to continually strive for best performance. This calls for a dynamic scheme, for instance an A to G energy label where the A level moves up in line with the current "best in class" on an annual basis.

Mechanisms, at the same time will also benefit if an approach towards industry involvement is followed. These include ensuring that any targets are not beyond some technically impossible barriers, that the methodology is technologically neutral to ensure no favouritism, and that the timings (for example for any future upgrading) are in line with industry development cycles and typical speeds.

The market pull mechanism needs to be fair, with the same rules applying for all manufacturers and no obvious bias in favour of one company, for example, a technology which is only used by one manufacturer. This also means that national interpretation of a given instrument has to be as consistent as possible. This quality is of relevance to innovation as without it the market pull mechanism could be accused of "picking a winner" which brings with it the risk of cutting off or becoming a disincentive to research into other potential approaches.

Innovation is the core of creating a sustainable human society. As a society, we will not succeed in creating a sustainable world if we focus merely on doing more efficiently what we currently do. We live in a time when the speed of innovation has increased exponentially and the technological landscape is changing very rapidly. As Bill Gates once said, “Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time!”

Legal but Unethical Profit

2010-02-04T22:08:00.001+05:30

It is dismal to see that a course on management ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) – qualities and values which are ASSUMED to be innate in ‘human beings’; principles and behavior which we imbibe from a course on social studies in the 3^rd and 4^th grade – are today being crammed into the heads of the so-called “managers”. The very characteristics that make us humans are today being executed in our brains like a computer program written in C++.

The morality of profits is often questioned, but the profitability of morals is seldom put to test. While managers do have the obligation to generate profits for the organizations they are working for, they also have the onus of upholding the interests of the society they are doing their businesses in.

Risky mortgages were bundled into securities and sold on Wall Street. Big funds, frenzied for a higher rate of return, ignored the risks – all resulting in the creation of a “perfect storm.” Followed up by lack of oversight by the Federal Reserve, this is what has ushered us into the recession of 2008. No infringement of legality, but a gruesome violation of ethics. Is this how we want to generate profits? The answer is NO.

Is an MBA degree really essential to become an effective manager ??

2010-02-04T22:05:00.000+05:30

What to do, when to do, how to do and why to do – these are the ONLY questions which a MANAGER needs to address. The credibility of an MBA degree most certainly cannot be questioned. But I often fall prey to pondering as to why one’s mother, one’s aunt, one’s grandmother and the like are extremely good managers without an MHA (Masters in Household Administration) degree?

What matters is not spending hours and hours solving case studies during a two year journey from a “non-manager” to a “manager” (as goes the popular opinion). What really counts is BEING PRESENT where the case was actually being given birth to be studied.

With an over-burdening of theory, if there is no provision to vent the same into the world of practice, the value of 31,536,000 seconds (2 years) is merely reduced to a redundant degree.

Does an automobile engineer start working on an automobile the day he is given his job letter? Why is training given to engineers (I call them “engineers” because they have the “degree”) after they are placed? It’s only because theory, books and concepts can never match the true essence of practice and experience...

Management - an art or science ??

2010-02-04T22:03:00.001+05:30

For many well-intentioned gardeners, the secret to successful gardening is a mystery known only to those lucky souls blessed with “green thumbs”. Many people see management in the same vein – a black art only practiced successfully by those possessing that certain something (that certain je ne sais quoi). So what is this secret talent? Is it experience? Is it possession of a methodology? Is it possession of tools? Or is it possession of a bag of techniques and templates? As with the struggling gardener, the answer does not lie within any of these. Successful managers will have all of these elements in their possession – elements that address the scientific aspect of management – as well as that certain je ne sais quoi.

So what is this je ne sais quoi? This is the ability of managers to manage the most critical of elements – human relationships, an ability that can be learnt to some degree, but, at the end of the day, relies on the manager’s natural discernment to inter relate and work with people. Simultaneously, managers have to work upwards to the business, sideways to stakeholders and downwards to project team members.

Management is the oldest of arts and the youngest of science, because it is of a dynamic nature. Mere knowledge of applied and time-tested concepts does not always suffice. Understanding human behavior, tactfulness, pragmatism, creativity, compassion towards staff, team spirit is all needed by a successful manager for effective and efficient management. Thus science and art are not mutually exclusive but complementary to each other. Therefore management is both a science and an art.

Power of Thought - by Swami Vivekananda

2010-01-29T23:40:00.000+05:30

1. Doing is very good, but that comes from thinking. Little manifestations of energy through the muscles are called work. But where there is no thought, there will be no work. Fill the brain, therefore, with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work.

2. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life—think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.

3. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library.

4. It is thought which us the propelling force in us. Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear them day after day, and think them month after month. Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be without them? It would not be worth having if it were not struggles.

5. The only remedy for bad habits is counter habits; all the bad habits that have left their impressions are to be controlled by good habits. Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously; that is the only way to suppress base impressions.

6. Always remember that each word, thought, and deed lays up a store for you and that as the bad thoughts and bad works are ready to spring upon you like tigers, so also there is the inspiring hope that the good thoughts and good deeds are ready with the power of a hundred thousand angels to defend you always and for ever.

7. Let positive, strong, helpful thought enter into their (children’s) brains from very childhood.

8. Evil thoughts, looked at materially, are the disease bacilli.

9. The body is made by the thought that lies behind it. The body politic is thus the expression of national thought.

10. If we make ourselves pure and the instruments of good thoughts, these will enter us. The good soul will not be receptive to evil thoughts. evil thoughts find the best field in evil people; they are like microbes which germinate and increase only when they find a suitable soil.

11. Those who are always down-hearted and dispirited in this life can do no work.

The Social Impact of Climate Change

2010-01-12T03:58:00.004+05:30

The biggest social impact of climate change today is the underpinning of the existing gap between the rich and the poor.

The observation is indeed very ironical - Although the carbon footprint of the poorest billion people is the least of the world’s total footprint, they are the ones who would suffer the most.
Heat waves such as those which occurred in Europe in 2003, which caused up to 70,000 “excess” deaths, will unquestionably occur again. Under the consequent circumstances, while the rich will be cooling themselves in their air conditioned rooms, millions of poverty stricken bodies will be incinerating on the footpaths.

Try imagining a situation of acute water and food shortage (due to climate change I must mention) leading to war and mass migration. Who do you think would be the nomads !? You ? Me ? Any of us reading this article on our laptops or PC’s ?? I choose not to answer the question...

In the next Century, climate change would reduce the staple crop yields in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and would have a crippling effect on the stability and quantity of food supply and purchasing power of the agricultural population (in other words, the “not-so-rich” population).

Poor people are the most vulnerable to natural disasters, the most reliant on harvests coming at the right time, and the least able to adapt or move away from dangerous places.

That’s why climate change hits poor people hardest.

Churu and Hanumangarh are two districts in the state of Rajasthan. The people living in these areas have to face 8 hours of power cut everyday. Blaming ourselves for their plight and distress, we, a few students of BITS Pilani decided to embark on a “mission” to “tackle” the problem of climate change.

From provision of fresh water and drought-resistant seeds to training workshops on the most effective ways to adapt to the impacts of climate change, we tried to bring a practical and spiritual transformation to the people who need it most.

And while we burn inequitable amounts of fossil fuels, many poor people have no access to sustainable fuels at all. Providing them with clean, renewable energy technology gave communities here new opportunities to develop without further contributing to climate change.

For instance, a solar-powered light enabled children and young people to study at home in the evenings. Using renewable fuels instead of firewood saved the time spent collecting wood every day which was used for paid work. This in turn meant more income for better food and for children’s school fees. Alternative fuels also helped reduce potentially life-threatening smoke pollution from home wood-burners.

All these efforts helped poor communities respond quickly and effectively to the challenges of climate change. With the right help, these communities can finally “ADAPT” to cope with the harsh effects of climate change (if we ASSUME that the problems associated with climate change cannot be mitigated, let alone eradication)...

5 Innovative Environmental Business Ideas

2010-01-10T01:46:00.001+05:30

I thought it might be interesting to pick out a handful of existing businesses/ideas that you may or may not have heard of and highlight their environmental benefit. These ideas are creating markets of their own and opportunities for young go getters like ourselves to grab a share while they’re still in their early stages.

Recycled container housing

This environmentally conscious alternative has become quite the trend. Shipping containers that would normally be used to transport goods from overseas, are stripped down, cleared out, and stacked much like Legos to create a unique grid of housing or retail stores. These containers were and are used for many years in the Eastern world and by the military, but are only now becoming a cost-effective mobile condo.

Bicycle vending machines

A Dutch company called Springtime, has created the green version of Zipcar. Many cities pose quite a risk when locking your bike up outside. By creating vending machines for bikes, you’re enabled to rent one for a short or lengthy commute and return it to another machine near your destination. With zero emissions and the cost of pennies compared to a car, this initiative is much needed in many parts of the world.

Reusing instead of recycling packaging

TerraCycle is a truly innovative company. Their products, fertilizers, are packaged in cleansed pop bottles that each of us use every day. By providing a Pepsi bottle or whatnot, you receive $0.06 along with an ever important contribution to the already 1,098,440 bottles collected to date. This model could be applied to hundreds and thousands of different liquid based products that we use and eliminate the entire process of having to crush, melt, and re-form new bottles.

Designer shopping bags

We wrote about the trend of designer shopping bags back in July. The idea is that retailers offer a fashionable or classy version of a bag that replaces the disposable plastic ones we would normally receive at the checkout. These stylish woven ones can be used hundreds of times and serve as an accessory, especially for the female crowd. Would still be nice to see dozens of lines and variations of these bags be offered by the major chains across the world. Until then, the hilarious UK version you see above will be effective at grabbing attention.

Generating energy through our actions

The idea of being a hamster on a wheel doesn’t sound too bad when applied to our normal actions throughout the day across all our environments. Energy generating speedbumps are already in the works, as are treadmills that convert the rotation of the belt into electricity. While the small amount of power generated from these devices may seem minimalistic at this time, once a cost-effective way is developed to enable us to convert motion to energy, this could change the hydro industry altogether.

Robotic Arm - I manufactured it !!

2010-01-02T03:39:00.007+05:30

Mechanical engineer !! That's what I'm supposed to be in about a year's time. Anyway, what's more important is what "I manufactured" before becoming one. Have a look at the pics.

Getting up early in the morning was the worst part. Nevertheless, I still had to go to the workshop every wednesday for 4 months. This thankfully turned out to be fruitful. My team successfully managed to manufacture the robotic arm (look at me in the picture below :P)

For those willing to view the entire report, here's the link :

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B87jlbwQocCgY2EzMDIzYzYtZDYxNi00M2Q5LTkwM2UtNzg0NjkzZTliMmVk&hl=en

From Kushal to Pizzoca...

2009-07-15T05:35:00.011+05:30

I'll start with sex...I mean my sex and Pizzoca's sex. I OF COURSE am a male and Pizzoca OF COURSE was meant to be a female...

So my first major role in a semester play in college was that of a woman; an imposing and dominating Goan maid . Anyway...when rachit and DJ offered me this role, I asked them if there was any other role I could be suitable for. But they made me realize, I still don't know how, my feminine side (perverts...don't even think about it)...eventually, the task ahead was to get into the character. Trust me, it is helluva lot difficult. I mean imagine yourself (guys only) getting waxed, threaded, your sidelocks shaved, going for manicure and pedicure and what not! It's insane. To top it, changing your voice, mannerisms, sexual orientation ( BRIEFLY and to the SMALLEST extent), walking style everything! Being a woman is the most difficult thing on earth and I sincerely respect every single one now...

The worst part, I ended up being Pizzoca in group discussions in classes, on the road, in the bathroom, bedroom, cafetaria, and devastatingly in subsequent plays. A perfect object of mockery. You can never empathize...

But nevertheless, it was truly once-in-a-lifetime experience which I would cherish throughout the remaining existence of my manhood. I give all credits to rachit and DJ, the diros, for bringing out the character. Hindi Drama Club without them wouldn't have been the same...

night outs !

2009-07-15T04:56:00.006+05:30

It's 5 in the morning and I'm just not sleepy...anyway, I guess I haven't really slept much in the past few days. All thanks to powani. Apparently, his dad had gone to Bangladesh for about a week and there was no one at home except of course for him and his maid (no comments).

So this guy suddenly calls up one day and asks me to join him for a night over. I had one of the most difficult time driving alone on the road at midnight. It was pouring hard and just to add to it, I lost my way. I was running out of balance and there were police check posts all along the way. I was carrying bottles of beer (for Karan ! not me...) and was almost about to get caught but somehow escaped.

Anyway, it was damned nice to see old pals from school once again - Tehlani, Attalani, Prateek, Abhay, Arpit, Sharma and gualewala - all completely absorbed in countering hookah. We all joked and laughed till about 5 in the morning, recollecting old pranks of school days...ma'am pandey and fevicol, FEPS (foreign exchange program for sex), Tehlani and P.E. (:D) and of course bitching.

I realized my life had been incomplete all this while without powani, me and our coin toss. I owe him a tonne for all these get-togethers...you rock \m/ !

It's Vivan's 2nd Birthday !

2009-06-29T18:04:00.005+05:30

After hours and hours of hard work in photoshop, after innumerable suggestions from my mom and my sis, after redesigning the whole card for about 3 times after getting all of them printed, finally the card was approved (sigh) - birthday invitation card for my nephew Vivan. Take a look at it and tell me how you find it.

And yes ! You can hire me to make cards for you too provided you are ready to pay (conditions apply) ;) .

My first Internship !

2009-06-29T16:40:00.004+05:30

First I walk have to walk -then I have to take the metro from Esplanade to Dum Dum - then I have to struggle my way through inside the local train compartment - next is a rickshaw -finally after a kilometer walk, I reach one of the largest rail wagon manufacturing companies of India - TEXMACO.

This is where I am doing my internship this summer. It's part of the curriculum which BITS, Pilani offers its students after the end of the second year. Its called Practice School I (PS I). Although there is a lot to learn in this company, Calcutta's weather simply makes it impossible to do so. It's too painful to walk out of the air condiitoned offices everytime one is called to the factory for some work.

Nevertheless, it's certainly not a waste of time contrary to my beleif initially. And its really great that I've made good friends here - there are a total of 11 interns - 8 from the Pilani campus and 3 from Goa. Waitng to bunk a day at office and hang out together someday :D .

Rotaract...its Jinxed !

2009-06-29T15:26:00.005+05:30

Next semester something really needs to be done about rotaract. Everytime we sit down to make some plan or the other, everything goes fine in the beginning. But there's always something cropping up at the last moment - Abhimanyu and Vipul have a football match; Karuna has some CEL meeting ; Amandeep has to host some cheap tambola in GYM-G. There's something seriously wrong somewhere ! I guess the problem is that we all want to go to the second floor without going through the first. Guys...I think we should start doing simpler things first before dealing with more complex ones...

Obvious Illusions

2009-06-29T08:17:00.001+05:30

Nowhere to go, never seem to wait
Over the mind, thoughts random vibrate

Running though the soul, with joy they dance
Need no rhythm, they’re in their own trance

Thoughts meaningful, thoughts meaningless, thoughts of here and there
I don’t need them, I don’t call them, they come, I’m unaware

They span the space, every corner they touch
All handicapped, all without a crutch

It’s now more of a routine
Never do they forget to intervene

Dripping in the waters, they stand nude on the shore
You might call it spectacular, but they’re from times of yore

They come on occasions uninvited, all with empty hands
Questions of local quality, answers of superior brands

So fertile the land, but everything devastated
Buried deep in abyss, but no one’s excavated

They arrive blazing, touch and they turn ice
They erode the rocks, no bank seems to suffice

They send me for trials, they prosecute without evidence
In the witness box forever, no dirt to cleanse

Random as they are, random they’ve made me
Paths I tread, but destinations I cannot see

Destinations I cannot see, enclosed within a cyst
Paths I tread, but paths do not exist…

Armaan...finally the NGO got christened !

2009-06-16T01:17:00.006+05:30

The most difficult part during the establishment of my NGO was the part concerned with it's name. All the names, and I repeat, all the common names had already been registered and there were not many choices for us. All we were left with was our innovation and creativity...

But we all turned out to be hopeless. Finally I had to resort to my mom who came up with the name which all of us readily happened to agree upon - ARMAAN.

But nevertheless, all's well that ends well. But we do have a correction here. It's not the end...it's only the beginning !

5 days 100 slaps

2009-05-22T01:27:00.012+05:30

I had assumed wrongly (as always), that Vivan would be nice to me this time. After living as a villager for 5 months in BITS, Pilani, I was more than over confident that my nephew, 1 year 10 months old, would finally have some sympathy for me. But he did not...

Nevertheless, I was still armed with all the toy trains and cars and candies in the world to bribe him whenever he would revolt against me. I was always ready to be singled out in the crowd of people always very eager to entice him by ANY means.

And eventually I did succeed. I was always singled out ! Yes ! The only person to be slapped and yelled at was always me. But I do face stiff competition from strangers. And although the occasion is rare, the thought is comforting.

Anyway, I did have a really nice time in Bangkok carrying all the shopping bags and baby food and surprisingly (really ?) not shopping much for myself yet spending heavily. But I was desperate for a trip outside. One whole semester of imprisonment in my college was becoming more and more intolerable. I know my friends out there will empathize.

We shall now announce that the Emperor is naked !

2009-04-26T03:22:00.005+05:30

Yes! The emperor is naked. She can see she is walking without clothes. But she is too dumb to act. Or is just that she is too powerless to take action? Whatever the situation be. That’s not a botheration (or is it?).

There were times when she used to be over-flooded with pride. There were times when her clothes were adorned by people the world over. There were times when her clothes were considered equivalent to heaven! What else could she have asked for? But no. She could not escape treachery. She was made a fool of. If there were an entry in the Guiness Book of Records for the nation that has been fooled the largest number of times by another, without doubt India will be unbeatable. Thanks to Nehruvian diplomacy, which believes that because India is a greater and more tolerant nation than Pakistan, India should 'give first and more', the Kashmir issue has remained unsolved for the past 61 years. The final bouquet went to the 'Iron Lady of India', the 'only man in the Cabinet' who threw away all her cards in Simla in July 1972 for an unwritten secret agreement with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

This is brings us to a lot of details. Frankly and very honestly, these details are dissolved in the blood of one and all. Just that we don’t like talking about it too often. Consequently, what we should be doing is going back to the same old story “The Emperor’s New Clothes”…I hope that does ring a bell. I feel like talking about the scoundrels. I completely agree that it is a very sensitive issue but my sensibility is simply not restrained by the sensitivity of the situation. Pakistan finds solace in denial. It keeps on denying not because it is innocent but it knows very well that the accuser is very weak.

Today Pakistan is in an enviable position. It is both a culprit and a victim. It clearly knows that being a culprit and at the same time being a victim is more suitable than being culprit alone. You can eternally deny any charges against you sighting that you are a victim yourself. You pretend to fight terrorism in the west and practice the opposite in the east. Pakistan is good at fooling others. Within Pakistan its leaders are even better at fooling their own citizens. So there is a sequence to it. People of Pakistan fool themselves; their leaders fool their people, and then the country as a whole fools everyone around. And so has Pakistan fooled India time and again. It has greatly succeeded in making us believe that we are the eternal proud possessors of Kashmir while gradually taking it away from us day by day. But we cannot leave the parade midway. We have to finish off the parade. Now come on. The entire world is watching and clapping at how efficiently (really?) we have managed to keep our clothes on. We can’t publicly accept that we are stupid and incompetent – even if it is at the cost of displaying our nakedness on the world stage.

But hey! I suddenly feel like changing the metaphor. How about this – let the scoundrels be terrorist, the emperor remains the same but the clothes change. Our security system? I guess it’ll fit into the story just too well. And you know what I’m talking about. Mumbai! One terrorist attack is more than enough to expose all our body organs and inform other people that they can now attack on us, make fun of us and fool us again and again and again.
However, we are not the only fools. There is yet another larger emperor who needs to be talked about in a little greater detail. Find it out yourself…

Habit, if not resisted soon becomes a necessity. We are so used to succumbing to the easy way out ; so used to submit ourselves to an authority (which we consider to be higher) that we have come to a stage where all of us, I do repeat, all of us, call her the EMPEROR. I have decided. I have decided to be the child, the innocent, oblivious child and announce that the ‘Emperor is naked’.

To start with, the basic question I want to ask is, why do we consider her to be the emperor ?
Well, if you don’t know the answer, I shall help. It’s because we like being among the mob and receive gold coins whenever she is out on charity. We like making no efforts towards overpowering this dictatorship and put in place a democracy – we don’t want power in our hands. We are weak, we are timid, and we are powerless. We are too incapable to control. We like to be controlled. We like to get caught and eaten – we like baits. Baits, which ‘divide’ all of us. We are madly in love with and too scared of our fisherman – Divided Baits of America…oops! Correction – The United States of America.

Habits. Kindly allow me the liberty to talk on it. Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of. They are like chains that are too light to feel until they are too heavy to carry. All of us have got habituated to take baits offered to us by the United States. We are habituated to live a life given to us as a mercy. We are habituated to not see that the oxygen we are breathing is actually their carbon dioxide. We are habituated to see her as an ugly, naked emperor every day, yet not dare to open our mouths in the fear of persecution.
We are just too dependent on her for our imports and exports. We cannot even think about directing a movie without aiming for an Oscar. A signature of the USA is indispensible for our energy needs. Her support is too attractive to do without while fighting any country for our own rights. If our students do not study in America, their education is a farce. If we do not know English, we are forbidden to speak.

First we form habits, then they form us. We have to conquer our habits before they eventually conquer us.
Actually, truth often passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted. This process occurs when a new truth is revealed that contradicts current superstition. It’s time that we tell ‘our’ emperor about her nakedness. It’s time that we join the shout of the little child who shouts out “The emperor is naked!”.
Yes, violence and oppression exist all over the world, and the United States is not the only country that has done wrong and made mistakes. But, it is the only one imperialistic empire that has been so deeply linked to so many dictatorships, oppressive regimes and corporate exploitations. What is most astonishing is the fact that the emperor is completely unaware (or chooses not to believe so) that she is naked! She is completely unaware of the many atrocities she has committed and has been committing! The policy makers are just too good as scoundrels. Appreciation cannot be denied.

Unfathomable death tolls are the only facet that will be unearthed once we start the process of excavation. At this point of time, I implore you to imagine. I plead you to imagine stadiums filled with Korean children dying from napalm before your eyes. Visualize the mothers of Iraq digging up corpses of their children. Picture children in Vietnam who were born without legs or arms because of residual effects of Agent Orange. Envision tens of thousands of Japanese civilians being wiped out by atomic bombs before they even knew what hit them. Think about children in Nicarcagua crying on the street, seeking their mothers, not knowing they had been killed by US – created contras. See the atrocities through the eyes of the countless loving parents in El Salvador who were forced to watch their infant children beat to death against rocks.

Why go so far? Why not plunge into the so called very prestigious, honoured and glorified finance ministry of the Emperor? Why should we forget and forgive those US regulators; those top class managers of Harvard and Yale; those economists who devastated the balance of economics of the entire world! Those scoundrels who fooled the emperor who subsequently fooled us all. Why should they be forgiven? Yes, am talking about regulators whom the entire world trusted and praised blindly; regulators who designed newer and newer clothes for the emperor – clothes of various brands and styles using golden threads of securitization, CDO’s, credit default swaps, hedge funds – which the emperor displayed pompously in the parade, which were supposed to be looked at by us, the mob and praised without reason.
All of us are dolls. We are impotent nincompoops who stood there in the parade and clapped at the grandeur of the fake finance boom, glory of the invisible economic bubble specially designed for the emperor, knowing that it wasn’t actually there. None of us were courageous and brave enough to face dire consequences by blurting out the truth ! None of us, not even a single one. On the contrary, we were all full of praises for something we knew never existed…

Like they say in Matsya nyaya (Mahabaratha) big fish eats small fish. And even though our emperor here has no clothes, she is just another princess born to our Mother Earth, the real queen. It is ironic that while in the "The Emperor’s new clothes ", the coveted gold threaded clothes were actually invisible, The earth's invisible clothes are coveted. Yes, this is with regard to our Ozone layer. Depletion of ozone layer is surely hazardous to environment. But to what extent? Imagine God was a physicist. While calculating area covered by water on the earth, if there was an error of 2% extra, millions of life will be lost. Yet we choose to ignore the menacing "antarctic hole" which melts the ice caps or the carcinogenic UV rays, which could in any possible angle only be perilous. And the abrasive part is, we know CFCs, etc are responsible. We are educated sufficiently at schools and colleges on preventive measures, and the result? Vomit the details in examinations and with absolutely no regret open your refrigerator. Ever so complacent, ever so ignorant, it pains me to see these vanilla men and women who in reality are mentally blind. If our only glimmer of hope is that UV-B radiations alter our DNA and mutate us into environmental friendly and scientifically and morally superior creatures, I stand vindicated.
And since our emperor is naked, the pleasant earthlings have decided to clothe her. Only with even more special clothes. At a severe loss for words, and great remorse, this joke ends with the answer, "greenhouse gases". Global warming is obviously a crisis .Everyone knows about greenhouse gases and their effects. Enough research has been done on how to prevent them. So why can’t we appeal to our conscience and resolve these issues of global threat.

The answer brings us to our final interpretation of this rather eye opening topic. This essay's writers are in every way hypocritic. We don’t practice what we preach. Thousands of articles and hundreds of hours of discussion and still no results simply because, we refuse to be drawn into doing the dirty work. Contributing a few hours of hard work towards environment does not provide any materialistic benefits to us or so we believe. The bigger picture? The pack of lays on your table is a better proposition right now.

The concept of ethics is now a 'concept'. It is imperative to understand this. "ETHICAL VALUES" is a course offered by several institutions of very high regard. And they teach you to say "thank you". SOMETHING THAT IS TO BE ASSUMED LIKE BEING KIND AND POLITE, ETC IS BEING TAUGHT? A wise man once said, “When someone loses someone gains.” Unfortunately, people have misunderstood the chronological order. A great man has claimed that we have the resources the science technology and the man power to overcome global warming. However it is the attitude of people that is hindering development. A long process like this provides no instant fruit and thus, the insecurities of narrow minded earthlings are evident. His claim though is that if we muster enough will and courage to solve the green house issues, we will be ready to take on any problem in the future.

There are two ways in which we can solve these issues. One is by totally scientific where we must hope to overcome our restricted mental state with high grade technology. The other is a mixture of attitude development and science. If the first is a long process, the second is even longer. Patience is of great essence here. So like the story goes, it was a small straight forward kid who without any complexities announced the emperor naked. In a very similar manner, it is important that each one of us open our hearts and appeal to our conscience and make the most straight forward decision. If it still means a selfish attitude, then God save the queen.

Uncertainly Certain

2009-04-24T23:22:00.005+05:30

Explosion of memories in the mind

The heart is summoned, it comes to find

Glimpses of past flash across the eyes

Paradise I see, perhaps, abyss in disguise ??

The mind feels like travelling a long distance

Wants to celebrate some future occurrence

Time cannot stop demanding I cannot pay the rent

Oh why can’t I live the future, in my present ??

As always I have been, I am uncertain

On the stage of providence, I feel like drawing the curtain

I feel vanquished all attempts in vain

Can’t I not get any room for a little bargain ?

On the canvas of love its been an inelegant stroke

The paint of blood my brush has failed to soak

Her love is expensive my heart ain’t wealthy

It can mortgage no more ; it can afford no more rivalry

Togetherness seems a distant vision, distance makes the vision blurred

Distance is what my steps can’t cover, my only vehicle is my word

It travels day and night it asks for no fuel

Always astray, it never reaches destination…oh ! intentions so cruel

Dissolve into oblivion my words in their own fumes

Helplessly I stand, my belief all consumed.

We are "The Stimulators"

2009-04-24T13:44:00.004+05:30

The Stimulators...this is what we came up with when we were asked to give a name to our team. So far so good, the real task was yet to come.

Next day we were on our bicycles (borrowed of course) to Jherli. Never heard before ? Empathy...it's a small village near our college campus - this is exactly the place which gives birth to all those old women who come outside our mess everyday to collect old newspapers which they later sell for a mere rupee per kilo.

So Jherli was just like the impoverished village we see when we go to our multiplexes. Nevertheless, no matter in what condition the place was (rather is), we had to do what we had come for...

After discussing and sharing their problems, we taught them the techniques of newspaper bag making. It's easy to guess now. We were thinking of a start up...

As of now, we have the support and cooperation of all the women who believe in our vision of women empowerment. But, it's not as easy as it sounds.
This was an initiative which we basically had taken as a requirement of a project in our curriculum wanting to see us as change makers for a day. However, we have developed our own passion for its completion anyway.

I have uploaded these pics for you to better visualize this campaign. Do post your comments and if you're interested in our cause, don't hesitate. It'll be our pleasure...

There's a video of our mini campaign uploaded on http://vimeo.com/4311658 . Check that out as well.