UFO Religion !

We the human beings are physically one of the weakest life forms ever walked on this planet. However by understanding and adjusting to external situations, we learnt to adapt and survive under most of the circumstances. No matter how trivial this fact might appear, but we always tend to forget this trivia in order to reassure the prowess of our 0.5 kg grey matters sitting right on top of all of us. We all want to identify the purpose of our lives, the sole purpose for which the matter of this planet is transferred from elements to us.

Let me share with you one true, historically important story, which I just made up ! Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, One fine day, a wise man sitting alone, idle (yes, that's what wise man have been doing ever since!) near a lake, saw something in the sky. It was windy that day and some swirling dust particles floating in the distance took some mesmerizing form. With moon in the background and ever twinkling stars added hallucinating aura to the whole scene. A thunder bolt, a streak of lightning pierced the sky and the 1000s of bulbs lit-up. The wise was hit upon by a marvelous business plan of all time. Rest we know is history. Yes, you got it right. That was the day, wise man discovered God !

Somewhere else, on some other part of the planet, few hundreds and thousands of years later, Deja-Vu. By now, the wise-men has created and accumulated enough wealth, health and prosperity for himself and his entire clan. So he no-longer was interested in wandering outdoors in harsh environment. So this time, a common man with mango face was sitting near the lake, wondering about purpose of his life ! The common man has learnt from the wise men that God has created everything and though he resides in everybody's heart, its imperative for the common man, to regularly pay some fee as token of appreciation to wise men, so that wise men can connect the mango faced men with the God. So, after witnessing the scene almost similar to what wise men saw thousands of years ago, the common man, logically concluded that whatever he saw, experienced and perceived cant be God. So he coined a new acronym for that as  Universally Foolable Objects, UFOs, the flying saucer.

Lets do some math. Everyday lighting strikes close to 100000 times, somewhere and everyday some kind of cyclone or hurricane or whirlpool appears in another 96378 locations, according to some leaked calculations from extremely reliable sources. So all in all if we add just these 2 events, 196378 life threatening things are happening all around us.Multiply this number by 365 and then multiply this by 5 billion, so close to 30000 trillion life threatening events have taken place on our plant, ever since the big bang. Scary, isn't it! Of-course we can relate to only few hundreds of such artificial incidences happening everyday around us. So to cut the long story short, the probability that you are reading this blog is less then 1 / (Zillion Zillion), and yet you are !

So, now I hope you can calculate the the probability of what happened to our us and our planet, something similar will/might happen to some other planet, at some place far away from us in the same sequence ! 

Whatever non-sense I have jotted out so far, you might be wonder what is this post all about ?

So as some legends might put it, lets try to connect the .......(dots) ! We know that its highly improbable that life exist in similar shape and size as it is on earth, anywhere else in the universe, yet we want to believe in UFOs sometimes also referred as God. We know that if we were not as lucky as we are, we would not have been where we are and still we don't want to believe in our luck and instead happily, readily give credit to the wise men and his creation, the God. Perhaps some unlucky mango person, in order to get lucky created the first recorded, publicly available proof of the UFOs.

Everything written about God became religion. Each and every religious story, commandments, rules or regulations were written by some lucky individuals like us, who happened to be born few thousand years before us. Perhaps they wrote all those sacred texts out of innocence, guided by their personal encounters, perceptions with the Nature, the UFOs and the people (I hope we can call aliens as people !) sitting in or on those UFOs. I am sure even those lucky people would have never imagined, that we will stick to their stories so ardently, with zeal and passion so much that we will make their stories ours, we will live our life as per their beliefs, so as to make everyone around us happy, perhaps except us !

Some of us might argue that UFOs and the entire Science is nothing but act of God while some other might say that discovery of God is a simple case of mistaken identity because God is actually the first alien ever visited us on his (or her?) UFO !


Life possibly exists in different shapes and sizes within our solar system and if we are to believe the man in Black, they are out there, in our neighbourhood, living peacefully. A planet full of aliens all whom visited our planet at different points in time in past 4.5 Billion years, might be thriving right on our planet in a parallel universe. Each of their visits might have given rise to a specific event, which was decoded either by part of science, religion or fiction !

So where is this post heading now. Simple linear deductions, yeah that's it. To summarize we are just made of all those tiny, non brainy things ! Our planet is an insanely lucky planet to have survived so far. Thanks to this intra-celestial conspiracy, we the mortal human beings today are busy shopping, posting pictures taken through iPhone sharing instantly on Facebook. While most of us are still busy perpetuating our perception of what is written in those sacred texts.

Imagine this. Out of trillions of accidents happened to our planet, just change one and The Purpose of Life, The God and even my entire Blog Post will no longer be relevant !  

Million ways to Happiness, Life and Death !

My recent trip to Borders and Virgin Book Store revealed something startling, fascinating and amusing to certain extent. I came across a set of confident looking, smartly pictured Life and career Coaches who were inviting me in the Book shelf to discuss the matters most close to my heart, my fears, my worries and concerns. Most of them claimed to have solution to all my problems, which could be solved in few minutes or days. That's what I have been searching for all these years. In fact I created few additional and peculiar problems, so that I can Stumble upon some non-conventional paths to wisdom and perpetual happiness. This is what I craved for all those years and so here they were in my face, with an awesome money back guarantee.

Back in front of my personal computer, aka Laptop, I smartly searched for 'How to Live Happily' and in a fraction of second (0.27 seconds to be precise), I found 48.6 million pieces of advice in the form of text, videos, vivid images, powerful, earth moving presentations. My secret wanderlust desires prompted me to excavate more truths to Nirvana from my comfortable desk using my Quad-core ( has four time musing capabilities !) machine. So within few seconds of finding a million ways to happiness and life, I embarked upon the journey to the other pole. Backed my binary logical upbringing and limited imagination, I promptly searched for 'How to Die Happily'. This time it took a tad longer, about 0.32 seconds, but EUreKa, I found 1.76 Billion ways !

After this discovery, my wanderlust desires made me travel back in time...err place ! And I was taken for a surprise once again. I couldn't fine a single book which can tell me how to achieve a happy death. So does it mean that more people in the virtual, Online world are keen to explore the path to happy death and much less in the real world ?  Is it one thing to Live Happily and Another to Die ? Why not many books have been written about perfect Death ! Is it possible to live a happy life and die unhappily ? Is it possible to live a not so perfect life yet die perfectly ?

No matter how much we try to sort things out,we always land up in a trouble !  No matter how many books we read, understand and appreciate, we are still not sure which one is perfect or to close to it, for us. Sometimes we know it, but we don't want to pursue, what we preach or read. Perhaps the search itself is futile ! A million ways have been discovered towards happiness, life and death and many more are still waiting to be discovered !

We all at some point in time Knows, what is right and what is not. We know, at least to certain extent, what can make us happy. We have all these wonderfully smart books, blogs, e-papers and what not at our disposal to 'Know' the ultimate truth, literally at the blink of eye. 'Knowing' isn't everything. 'Knowing' alone cant bring the change we all have been craving for eons. However 'Knowing' is right beginning in the right direction.We need to take small step from Knowing to Doing towards Happy Life and perhaps Death !

Jugaad Inc. !!

Hai kya koi Jugaad ?

Arrey yaar tum to bade jugaadu nikaley !

Are daro mat, mere pass bahut jugaad hai !!

Jugaad is everywhere, on Wikis, Harvard Business, Wall Street Journals and ofcourse in the hearts and souls of every Indian. What exactly is Jugaad - a solution to overcome a problem, somehow, anyhow, in the fastest possible manner, by spending least amount of time and energy ! Sounds some heavenly insane stuff, isn't it !

Is Jugaad our biggest asset or the liability ? Have we reached so far because of jugaad or we havent reached where could have because of jugaad. Is jugaad a solution or a full blown problem in itself...

The Birth of Jugaad -due to lack of time or resources or both or due to lack of understanding of the situation at hand, sometimes due to simple arrogance and sometimes out of innocence We the Indians have developed the concept of Jugad (ad-hoc arrangement). We dont want to face the problems today or at least now or we don't want to think about the solution because it might be too expensive today or we might have to work bit hard to resolve the real issue, so in order to save time, money, energy, resources 'today' we think of Jugaad.

The Jugaad usually delivers immediate results, makes the person who carried out the Jugaad a real cool dood in front of his rest of the fellow men, everybody appreciates him/her for presence of mind and for solving the problem instantly without much kharcha (expenditure)  and sardard (headache i.e. hardwork). Slowly the Jugaadu ( the ad-hoc problem solver) becomes the talk of the town and every kid in the town, wants to be like him.

Over a period of time, several centers of Jugaad crops up in every town. Sadhu-baba (holy man) becomes the main Jugaad (back door entry in this case) to the highest court of law. A seemingly innocent Panwala, Chaiwala, popular Bhaiya ji, a not so popular defeated politician, bus-conductor a TC/TT in the great Indian train becomes synonymous to Jugaad. From your first to last ritual the Pandits will recommend some jugaad for everything depending on your convenience and budget. Likewise from getting a birth certificate to import machinery without paying duties, the Babus are well verse of the jugaad to get things done. Looking at the current heads (2 Ps) of our democratically elected government, one can realize how high one can reach with Jugaad and bit of luck, even sky is within reach !

Foreign media, several renown business journals etc have openly endorsed the great India Jugaad. No matter what the government in the center wants us to believe, but the facts are we are world's largest democracy but we are not most successful one, we may become top 3 economy by 2025, but I dont think even by 2100 (yes, you read is correctly, 88 years from hence) we will be in top 30 nations in the world on the basis of Per capita GDP. We tend to believe that we are super kool in mathematics, accounting and economics but our koolness is mostly confined to calculating aXb or tallying the accounts the fastest, unfortunately not much beyond that. We are no doubt one of the most hardworking people in the world, but certainly not the most creative of the lot. We are great at cooking the books of a company to raise money form the market but we are yet to create companies which can change the rules of the market. 

Lets talk about world's most innovative companies, most rapidly growing companies, most respected universities in the field of arts, science, technology or business and we are almost sure of not finding any Indian entity. The reason is simple, we are still searching for the appropriate Jugaaad to make it and to break it into the league :) !

If not for the business Jugaad of Outsourcing, how else could American and European corporations would have made so much more money despite recession ! The value proposition in this Outsourcing jugaad is so much that it managed to survive 2 decades, thankfully.

I tend to believe that God has not created this Earth and its all some great cosmological accident, a.k.a the Big Bang after which it all began. But then I wonder if not for God, how else this massive, beautiful country of ours has survived all these years. Now that's what I call the ultimate Jugaad, Bhagwaan Bharose !!

Bhaktjan - Hey Prabhu is baar kuch jugaad lagwa de, agli baar se dhyaan rakhoonga !

Bhagwan - Oh no, Not Again !!

Information Pollution !

Sometimes we tend to believe that by reading everything, by writing whatever we want to and sharing whatever we like, we are exercising our fundamental right to free will which is also reinstated by the founding fathers of our nation via document publicly known as constitution.

You and me, i.e We, want to take unbiased decisions out of our own free will. We want to process all the information available to us and then would like to decide, what is right and what is wrong for us, them and everybody else around us. No matter how much powerful we think our brain is, at least the conscious brain has some severe limitations. It can only process X amount of information at a time and only a total of Y amount of information every day and after analyzing and processing all that information, it needs Z amount of rest.

Today anybody randomly can generate Data by touch of a button. And randomly we keep feeding, harping and sometimes even critically analyzing those pieces of irrelevant information.

What happens next! Fatigue, tiredness, sore eyes, loss of appetite, headaches, cramps, never seen/heard/ experienced before cravings, liquor as we gain weight on our way to Consumption Nirvana !

I am not against consumption, don't get me wrong. Infact I think that's the purpose of our lives. This post is only about the by-product of Consumption Revolution, i.e Information Pollution.

Marketers, Media and a very less know, but perhaps world's best know marketers knows about this Information Pollution very well. Infact they are sitting at the helm, with desire and power to worsen this pollution, create a hazy cloud of information always in front and even behind our eyes, so that we see what they want us to see, dont act and always react, so that they can make hay even when the sun is set. Yes, I am talking about our age old friends, our so called representatives, who are here to serve us, so that their interests are served to the maximum, our friendly, but not living in neighbourhood anymore Politicians!

Those of us who can, in order to save time, are busy buying gadgets and later on updating and upgrading them simply because we need them inside our toilets, cars and offices and bed-rooms. We are spending this saved time or whatever time left with us, in consuming more things and in the process generating more and more data about what we consumed today, who's the biggest consumer among us, what our friends must consume and what they should not etc.

We try to analyze all the advertisements, test, taste free samples and buy the most appropriate Cream or Mobile phone for us. We tend to believe that we have made a rational decision by buying the best product. I think actually we are simply buying the best marketer. All the shampoos and toothpaste available in the market claim to solve all your problems, yet none of them does solve anything. Perhaps we know it as well, yet we buy, consume something, because we have to. So is this A battle of creating most luring pieces of information (by the ways of advertisements, paid reviews, social media campaign, save the world campaigns, videos, news paper ads etc) only ?

Call it Irony or Travesty, but we don't realize Our mind works on the same basic principles on which a computer works. Yes, its widely know as GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out. No matter how much we try to be a Free Thinker,  we become what we consume !

They (the marketers,the media and our cute politicians) also know about an almost forgotten principle in an era of Quad-core processors, FIFO- First In, first Out!

That's why our cute politicians tend to chillax, make money day and night for the first four years of their tenure and announce some populist policies, attend marriages, opening and closing ceremonies and feed us with whatever possible, in the last year of their tenure, so that we recall them after we enter the Ballot Box. They know that Elections will happen on a hot, sunny day. Their will be a huge ocean of people behind each of us, and our GIGO mind will FIFO the candidates, confused by the plethora of information bombarded by several sources (including the neighbourhood uncle-ji, brother-in-law from Patna and Boss's sister's husband from Rai-Bareily) muddled with intrinsic desire to consume something as soon as we get back home, will take only few seconds to decide, push the button or put the stamp to handover our future in safe hands.

So next time, whenever you are thinking, think before thinking whether your free willy thoughts, your assumptions and even your seemingly innate desires to Consume and Act Freely are actually influenced and literally governed by this Information Pollution!!

Why Women Liberation Can Take Off Only in India !

The instance of misbehavior, heinous crimes against women in India are among the highest in the world, yet there are few things which makes me feel positive.

A lot of confusion is spread on the web and in the minds of educated Indian men and women about the orthodox, way of life which I hope will clear out slowly. Majority of confusions are about Traditions and Religion. Driven by consumerism and desire to make quick buck, gain quick fame or pleasures local traditional or global festivals are getting reduced to occasional superficial lip-service, pompous celebrations. 

While a lot of traditions are good, many are bad, illogical and with passage of time such traditions have bee dying natural death. Traditions are usually regional phenomena which evolved either in response to an external situation such as geography or climate or out of one odd instances. Parda Pratha for example started in northern parts of India to safeguard the women from the eyes of soldiers and fighters from Central Asia who frequently invaded India for over 1000 years. Parda Pratha is not part of any religion of India origin. Similarly traditions such as Sati though abolished and extinct now developed due to one odd incidence. Modern educated Indian women might find traditions of Karva Chauth or Rakhi as discriminating or demeaning but once again these are not propagated by any Religion. In-fact if some time and efforts are made to learn the stories and anecdotes behind each of these rituals everybody can learn precious lessons.

Religion according to me is the biggest influence on the Indian psyche. And I believe that the premise of almost all religions originated from India is fairly neutral to positive towards women. Blind procrastination might be fashionable but not very logical and beneficial thing to do in long run. So careful study and assessment of Indian religion can help in liberating India women, contrary to popular beliefs.

Jijabai played instrumental role in developing political acumen of Shivaji. Kiran Bedi, Sushma Swaraj or Medha Patkar have been playing significant role in active and social politics for quiet some time now. Rani Padamini and Laxmi Bai (Jhansi ke Rani) have done something beyond bravery, backed by their deep political acumen and support from all corners of then totally male dominated society. No where in the world, Women have been politically active since time immoral, except in India. Even now the most powerful and important positions in Indian Politics are up for grabs for the intelligent,  educated, liberal and politically astute Women of India. Ironical the fierce competition is from not so educated segment though, which further reaffirms that the Indian masses are welcoming towards women ready to lead.

GDP of India is under estimated, because the contribution of almost 25% of India population, i.e Housewives working at their own will, out of happiness, compassion and sometimes even forcefully is not properly accounted for. Indian housewives have mastered the art of running a big family with a small budget. Thanks to the housewives, the wastage of food, energy or any resources are minimal and the cost of living is one of the lowest in the world. This peer to peer training has equipped Indian housewives with some of remarkable lessons about balancing budget deficit, arts, handicraft, running business in spare time to managing large family spread all over India. Unfortunately we the Thankless males have never appreciated the enormous, free of cost services which Indian women have been rendering to our society and country for eons. But now with changing times, in the age of information explosion and easing communication, Indian housewives are leveraging lessons learnt while running home to successfully run several Small Medium businesses, home grown businesses escalating right upto the top of the pyramid.

The influx of information has temporarily confused the Indian women and men about the essence of being India. But now, more then men, the Indian women are adapting local traditions and values. They are busy weaving the net which will safeguard the uniqueness of being an Indian women without any hesitation to borrow and adapt ideas from other cultures.

Where lies the need for Change - A bit in the Attitude of the modern, educated women towards rituals, customs and towards the voice of uneducated, home ridden women. A bigger need of the hour is to change, educate the males of this country. Both the sections need to revisit our value systems, understand our identity and appreciate that rapes, oppression, eve-teasing and several such heinous crimes are not attributed to Indian-ness. We have to appreciate that Being India is confusing in itself, so being and remaining an Indian Women is a daunting task which only Indian women have been blessed to undertake. Though its important to improve the Law & Order conditions to ensure the safety and security of girls and women, but if we, the Indian males can change our mindset a little bit, miracles can happen overnight.

The democratic chaos, the religious equality, the traditions and deep rooted family support are some of the critical and unique aspects which will put the Indian women in the driver's seat, in the Years ahead. We will see many more successful Women working cohesively with the entire society to shape the future, which world will look upon to.

3rd Front in 2014 !

Or before ?

Celebrations are going on. The elections in 5 states represent the biggest election of this year. But neither BJP nor Congress is able to enjoy these celebrations. While we the people are not embracing the reincarnated extended Gandhi family,  the perennial opposition is not able to put up a strong case either. Leadership crisis is evident across all the parties and everybody seems to be cautious, trying to remain politically correct, not to offend anybody. The Political stalwarts are eagerly waiting for the results and will be willing to form alliance with old time foes. Politics has always been a leveler especially in India, where everything and anything is compromised so as to gain power. Nobody leaves any opportunity to malign everybody and anybody and yet post polls, nobody minds anything and everything that has been said during the run to the polls.

With regional parties gaining more and more power, relevance and seats, the national parties i.e the BJP and the Congress despite all their efforts in state polls in past decade are still forced/required to support a local party in most of the states, especially in the recently conducted state polls which are also termed as Semifinal for 2014!

Unless the two national parties do some real good work in the field, over and above spending millions of $ during the election campaign, I guess we are heading for a hung parliament or perhaps a Third front government   led by TMC, NCP or SP in near future! Though there has always been significant difference in the dynamics of Politics during State and Central elections but for sure both BJP & Congress secretly dream and hoped for miracle to happen till yesterday.

But Today has once again taught us the simple lesson that Yesterday, the history, might not repeat itself tomorrow and nobody can foretell what might happen day after.

Democracy & Capitalism- Its Time to Adapt !

I wrote a post in March last year hoping that 2011 will be remembered as an year of Democracy. Things changed significantly since then. Though nothing concrete has been achieved yet, but we have taken a giant leap in its truest sense. Call it a coincidence, but somehow then I felt that the winds of change which began blowing from the deserts of Middle East can sweep the globe and can potentially bring change, for the good!

Below is the brief excerpt of the article written year ago -

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2011 will be remembered as the year of democratic reforms, reforms by the people, for the people, as it was meant to be. 2011 will also be remembered for the pace at which these reforms/ uprising/ revolutions have materialized. Let us leave the task of categorizing these events as people's reforms/ uprising/ revolution to historians, but what is more important is the fact that Arab nations which were never associated with ( in popular media, stereotypes) a place where free will, free speech prevails can embrace democracy. So whatever was considered impossible, is actually possible !

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As we are venturing into 2012, we feel more optimistic then we were couple of years before. Greed and lust for power and money bred anger and hopelessness. In 2011 we saw a controlled outburst of this anger caused by acute state of hopelessness, which slowly gave us the much needed hope and belief in ourselves ! We saw what  a common man in Syria and India can achieve.

Post World War II, Democracy and Capitalism have stopped evolving and past 2 years have highlighted significant flaws in both the systems. We always thought that these systems are perfect but slowly we ourselves discovered the severe shortcomings in both. What started on Wall Street ended up in ballot boxes of Middle East and soon it will be extended to ballot boxes in US and India.

In past few years, Democracy and Capitalism have learnt a lessons from each other.

We all are aware of the founding principles of Democracy - by the people, of the people and for the people. Easier said, wrote, discussed then executed. Democracy which was supposed to be all inclusive, equally beneficial to all has been grossly misused by a handful of people in almost any country of the world post second World War. Though we are living in a Era of Information, but still we cast our votes, select our rulers, government based on our age old instincts.

The premise of Capitalism lies on maximizing the benefits of the all the stakeholders in proportion of their stakes. Capitalism appreciates merits, pays for hard work. If Democracy (i.e We the People) truly starts appreciating the hard-work, fire the unworthy, identify and reward based on merit and not on birth, color or sex, things can change significantly over next few decades. A lot of problems about governance and corruption which democracy bred, knowingly or unknowingly can be solved if Democracy borrows few ideologies from Capitalism.

Capitalism though promotes merit, has remained highly selective and restrictive at times. Lot of people worked hard for generations, but remained poor, lost their voice. Capitalism enthroned 'selected few' on the other end of the spectrum. The 'selected few' grew rich, powerful, untouchable and even mightier than the democratic governments.

The gap between those sitting at Zenith and Nadir in both the systems, Democracy and Capitalism has increased exponentially in past few decades.

ultimately took a nose-dive off from the peak tasting dust. If Capitalism can be more inclusive and participatory, open and accountable as Democracy is, lot of problems of greed, financial crimes and corruption can be solved in a jiffy.

Quiet surprisingly, more than 15% of the people in the world do not seems to care about either. Lets see for how long !!

I am sure in years ahead will be bit more Democratic and a bit less Capitalistic!

At last First !!

After a log hiatus, I came first !

Back in school days, when everybody clamored to grab the top spot, I was happy with top 5 and sometimes even top 10.  I had my own reasons then.Only later I realized that grades, marks and rankings do matter and it hurts the most, when you have everything else except those which matters.

Some wise man wrote this long ago- Success is Counted sweetest by those who never succeed !!

Definitely applicable to me. No lies, have never achieved anything exceptional, never came first but this time it was different. It was bound to happen someday and so it happened today, as if it was a part of a great plan. Whatever happens, happen for good, that's how my parents would console me, whenever I was not first. And so over years, I started feeling pity, not for me, but for them, those at the help of things, for their loneliness.

Things were about change. Something happened which never happened before and so finally I kissed the moment of glory. I made sure that I enjoy my loneliness to the full. Soon I realized what all I was missing by dismissing the desire and thus the situation of being at the top. When you reach the top, even in your own world , suddenly the people in that world start seeing and treating you differently. But the  fun does not last long. Either I had to do anything under the Sun to retain my lone spot or someone else will do something and soon my charm and karishma will vanish.

A rush of blood, dilapidating pupils and my moments of joy and glory were snatched away from me. I was helpless, I could have done few things, but I could sense the outcome, so I decided to save my energy. Once again I became the ordinary me, which I always deserved to be.

Damm it, I was last and so he denied the admission because it was overflowing with homo-sapiens. I was left with no other choice but to wait for the next Bus. Within fraction of seconds tens and almost hundreds of people started queuing behind me from nowhere.
   

India's Castles in the Air !!

We the people of India and the sate of India has managed to sail through the 2007-09 recession. However I am slightly skeptical that it happened because of fool proof planning of the Central government or just by chance. Whatever may be the case, the Central government has not left any opportunity to pat its own back in public time and again. I hope they will maintain their stance and will take all the credit for economic, financial crisis which I tend to believe is imminent now, unfortunately though.

Interest rates have been going up, inflation, real estate prices have been going up as well. In past 5-7 years governments have announced several plans to boost infrastructure but except few malls and housing complexes here and there, randomly out of nowhere, not much has been achieved. Corruption has crippled the pace of growth and has eaten away a huge chunk of funds spent on infrastructure projects.

We, the hardworking  people of India have been toiling hard, day and night, working despite all odds, lack of resources and sometimes despite lack of opportunities.

The western economies, be it US, Canada, UK or Italy do not appear to be recovering from the recession anytime soon. To save the face and then government, almost all the political parties and governments have been recklessly approving bailout packages on after the other. Only couple of people have been symbolically caught to give the message to the masses, that its not Wall Street but White House who's In-charge of the situation. But ironically neither of them want to take the blame for what happened.

The Indian IT industry which heavily relied in Outsourcing work has seen decline in top-line and bottom-line, slowly and steadily. Weak currency, which traditionally have been good news for the IT and outsourcing industry is becoming a bad news, slowly and steadily. Importers are already feeling the pinch and if go by analysts, the currency will remain under pressure for next couple of quarters, which means the pinch will hurt bad this time around.

The Indian stock markets have not done well in 2011 and bond yields are on rise. The corruption is on rise as well and almost all the incumbent governments at state and center are not able to give away their chair, their stone aged politics under the current circumstances.

New year is around the corner and its better we start preparing for unforeseeable circumstances. Couple of more larger then life scams or cracking real estate market will be sufficient enough to bring down the Castles in the Air made out of pack of cards !

So lets cheer up for a while. Enjoy the Christmas Sunday, keep our brick and mortar ready and be prepared to go out in the sun and the rain to mend our house which we have built with so much of love, passion and hard-work over the years.

From Wall Street to Ballot Box in Middle East AND Back !

The innocent looking, mathematics and business wizards, who were slogged in for 12 hours a day 5 days a week and partied for 24 hours on the weekends, who stood on their feet high, self made, a bit greedy at times for all the right reasons mostly never would have imagined how their shorting of all the traded asset classes, will affect the life of people sitting 5000 miles away in the middle of a desert.

At macro level when I think I am surprised to discover that by first half of 20th century imperialistic powers were thrown out and democracy was established in several third world countries, but many second world countries were and are still controlled by their own home grown imperialistic regimes who have allowed a selective or should I say restrictive freedom !

Interestingly the recent upsurges which swindled the thrones of hitherto venerated and often celebrated flamboyant, reasonably autocratic rulers such as Qaddafi, Mubarak and Ben Ali, have not impacted the GCC countries, despite their close political, cultural and religious ties. Instead the GCC countries have maintained the precious golden silence about all these surges, movements and have neither supported nor opposed any of the sides vehemently. Even more interestingly elections at various levels were organized within 3-4 months across these GCC countries.

The power in GCC countries is concentrated with very very few members of the royal family and almost anybody who has spent reasonable time in GCC knows this. The Kings and the Queens of these countries have used all their power and money to wield even more power and earn more money for themselves and for their people. All the royal families of GCC nations are popular amongst local nationals, are western educated and reasonably liberal too. So despite their old friendship with the likes of Gaddafi, they were wise enough to judge the changing times. Before their peace loving national could find spare time from shopping in the newly built swanky malls and artificially created islands, elections were declared, candidates were nominated, electoral lists were prepared and elections were organized peacefully and efficiently. While people were busy watching Al Jazeera and CNN to find the truth of what actually happened in Middle East, showcase reforms were conducted in a sweeping manner at the speed of light in this mighty oil rich part of Middle East now called as GCC. The local media and newspapers went all Gung-ho about these lip-service elections, but despite all the attempts to create buzz, voter turn out remained low (20%-40%). The voter list was prepared a bit arbitrarily though and not all the members of the family were allowed to vote. To impress the west and the rest, some women candidates were made to contest elections, but not many women were allowed to vote. The low voter turnout indicates the interest, perhaps necessity and efficacy of such elections.

In the increasingly connected world, the information is already being democratized at a much rapid rate and the consequences have been beyond what anybody could have ever imagined. The otherwise orderly GCC nations witnessed for the first time the chaos which was accompanied by movements/uprisings/struggle for freedom and democracy. At present the GCC nationals does not seems to be too much bothered about the idea of democracy. The generous government spending will ensure a high disposable income in the smaller of the GCC nations. However the not so oil rich and not so small nations are already facing the heat of dissent and public anger. The seemingly never ending supply of the Black Gold and its near all time high prices will ensure a constant source of revenue and hence prosperity for these nations. But for how long and how far, is the question which nobody wants to face right now. When all the developed socio-economic-cultural powerhouses of the world are busy in saving their today, these GCC nations can very easily afford to forget the distant future, which is very very difficult to predict in any case.

Tunisia and microscopically speaking the recession which was born and bred in the Wall Streets of the first world has catalyzed the process of democratic transformation in the second world but surprisingly most of the third world seems to be reasonably insulated. GCC nations have white washed their countries, the other Middle Eastern nations are celebrating their success, are busy pondering about their respective futures. Because of the autocratic regimes which lasted for decades, a political and leadership vacuum got created without anybody noticing it. So the new generation revolutionaries who knows how to Tweet on Facebook and fire AK 47 are digging mud to bury their past and fill up the vacuum.

The bizarre world we live in is getting more wired and weird every day. We are back to where we started this post, Full Circle as they call it. The snapshots are the same but the faces on both sides of the table are bit different this time. The flashy, egocentric, tyrants are being replaced by the suave, educated, liberal, capitalists, who are interested only in minding their own business. Infact they too would have never imagined, that such a day would come within their lifetime. As of now, they seems to be committing the same mistake which their counterparts from the Middle East committed, denial! Before they will realize things can become more ugly and violent.Will it end the same way?

 .Chaos the only Order.

Salman Khan - Changing Education Delivery Paradigm

Now this is absolutely amazing. The non-linear growth can and will lead us to uncharted territories any time soon. Soon we will test unheard waters, much before anyone of us could have ever imagined. I serendipitously came across the real life hero Salman Khan and couldn't resist immediately sharing his views and amazing work virtually....

His simple, useful website provides free real online video tutorials . This model can actually and will infact change the way Education is delivered in our classrooms. Its free, its intuitive, it worked for me so I am sure it will work for you as well. No more do now need to feel shy about not knowing some fundamentals of biology or finance. I watched couple of sessions and really enjoyed and learned from it. Hopefully you too learn about the topic of your interest.

In the small town, I grew up, even good books were not available those days. Any by the way I am not talking about a situation few decades ago. So what the issues were more fundamental those days, such as what to read and what to learn. Thankfully situation has changed a lot in past one decade and I suddenly feel much old, such has been the pace of change in past decade.

During my short stint teaching kids in my neighbourhood as a part of Tech India campaign,  I realized that the Education for All, is not a very difficult issue. Just a very small amount of thinking and execution related issues needs to be addressed. The kids and their families I met were highly motivated, charged and wanted to learn, even on weekends, unlike me. As a kid I always was looking forward to Saturday and Sunday and under rarest of rare circumstances I used to open my books. So, these kids and their families were even getting decent scholarships and aids from the local government bodies to buy books, school fees etc. The school building though was very basic but it existed. So what was the problem ? The  biggest problem was they hardly had 2 teachers ! So for no faults of theirs, these kids were deprived of their future.

While innovative campaigns such as Teach India and Teach for India, provides opportunities for working professionals to make a difference, the solution developed by Khan Academy can nicely complement the efforts of Teach India and several such non profits. As Salman aptly states in his speech - the beauty of all these lessons is- timelessness. They are available forever, at virtually zero cost !! So will this solution make real teachers, redundant. No, I dont think so ! Technology is and will remain a powerful enabler (until the armies of AI induced robots conquer us all !!). These video tutorials, will compliment the Teachers, will help them improve their own efficacy and will make sure that more and more pupil in the classroom actually learn.

Salman Khan academy can address the problem of good quality teachers available in remote areas of India and elsewhere to a good extent.This simple concept is definitely a game changer in far many ways then you and I can even dream of tonight.

Fortunately our beloved GOI has declared the Right to Education, but they have no clues and it seems no intentions either to think about how to turn this yet another political gimmick into something meaningful. Anyways, enough said. Please watch this video and if possible share and celebrate the joy of learning !

Will remain Hungry & Foolish !

The world will always remain a bit hungrier for your ideas and foolish because it wont get all those wonderful things anymore, which only you could have created.

Steve Jobs is unarguably most loved and passionate technological evangelist, artist, anthropologist, inventor, investor and businessman of our times. Neither he was an astute geek nor an impractical artist. He was a firm believer of the human ability. Though I have never worked for Apple or bought any Apple product for several reasons at different points in time of my life but like many others Apple/Jobs fan, I read and heard him. His passion was and will remain always infectious, no matter what you do, no matter where you are. Whenever I read or hear him speak, I for few moments am transcended into another world, I start believing myself a bit more. Change is possible and change is the only constant thing as they say and change is what he always believed in. Most of his successful products created a new market for Apple and quiet surprisingly for his competitors as well. Sometimes I think he never believed in Playing Game by the rules or Changing the Rules of the Game. He created his own new games every time and his own set of rules. And that's what sets him apart. In addition to the phenomenal OS that he and his team created, he used simple concepts in User Interface, Design and Aesthetics and created a parallel world of his own. In his world he was competing with nobody but himself. 


He took consumerism to an all new level. I have seen people passionately waiting for the new iPhone release or buying the latest pads, tunes and whatever possible from Apple. I think I was very close to buying an Apple product twice but somehow circumstances never allowed me to do so. But I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by Apple buffs. One of my friend even bought the rarest and perhaps widely unknown Apple product - Apple TV. He took the Jobs advice to Think Differently, seriously and never purchased the other popular Apple gadgets. 


Sometimes I wonder whether he intentionally created products for classes, but then  I tend to believe that he was not like some high profile, fashion designers who sell a kerchief for fortune. He did what he liked and he liked what he did. In his own words “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” 


The most pragmatic advice I have ever come across, something very simple, something which tells you that you dont have to jump an airplane to be kool or travel to Himalayas to understand the ultimate goal of your life - “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” 


We all try to search for salvation. Every country and every religion has identified, preached and propagated their own ways of attaining the ultimate. The Road to Salvation I think ultimately depends on individual. A 21st century spiritual techie, this one from Steve Jobs is something very similar to what Gandhi ji said half a century ago in totally different context though -“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Thank You Steve Jobs. Rest in Peace !

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Image source- Google (various)

Soft Bomb !

All of us in some way or the other played part in this explosion! This time around the noise is and will be played on demand, inside our minds, without causing any damage to the ears. The eyes, sometimes hands and the wallets all the times will be playing the instrumental role in making these explosions happen one after the other, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad but most importantly at will. This bomb has the ability to influence far more people in ways beyond imagination of the creator, the diffuser and the consumer. Yes, you read it correctly, there exist consumers who are more willing then ever to consume this explosion, so that they can create their own.

At any given point, so many people are working on their bombs and so many explosions are taking place that, some bombs despite potential, fail to create the craters or sometimes the moment you and me decide to make an explosion of our own, create our craters and enjoy our own Popcorn Happiness somebody else will create a bigger, wider or deeper crater with different shades. And so the people who were planning to fall into your and mine craters will instead be lured to the newly created friendly neighbourhood crater and after a while, your soft bomb and crater will be forgotten as if it never existed. But dont worry, every explosion no matter how small or insignificant it ever was, it will will always exist, forever before you yourself or the guy on who's land you made that explosion chooses to fill it up with sand and stones.


Some wise man will plant saplings out of explosion. These saplings will quickly grow into fruit bearing trees. Fruits for you and me to consume and enjoy, but once again this time around, things wont be same as before. The tree will indeed bear fruits, but unlimited number of people will be able to eat and enjoy these fruits for as long as they want.

The interesting aspect is the same bomb which created crater in my mind can give birth to a sapling in your mind !!

What have you created today ?


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Image source- Google.

Moore's Law and the Big Battle

30 years ago, nobody ever imagined any company can ever touch IBM. 15 ago nobody ever dreamt any internet technology company can ever bypass Microsoft. Bill Gates still is the richest man in the world. All sorts of conspiracy theories popped up how Microsoft was acquiring companies, breaching privacy and doing anything under the sun to kill the competition.

Microsoft changed the way we interacted with the machine. What was used for only cutting edge research slowly started gaining popularity and entered into offices and homes from the Windows.

For a short while,

Yahoo posed threat to Microsoft, but it never became a serious contender and always remained at nu

mber 2 or 3 position in Email and Search market. Towards the turn of the century two computer scientists launched a company which survived the Y2K (remember !!), the boom and the burst and went on to become the most

indispensable thing on earth we know today as Google !!

And so for a major part of the first decade of 21st century we saw a battle between 2 heros (and sometimes 2-3 side kicks), which immensely benefited the consumers in the process.

What analysts used to predict, fear, loath, love but still write about IBM->t;Microsoft

(sometimes Yahoo) now turned their focus on the seemingly invincible Google.

While Google kept on acquiring 100s of companies a year, a few critical ones in the list were Picasa, Android, Blogger and Youtube but in the process went on to be perceived this ->

Google empowered individuals with information, about anything, everything, anytime and anywhere. It turned my tiny 1 MB mailbox into literally unlimited sized. Rest as we know is history..

So, everyone thought this is it! Google know everything about everybody and nothing, absolutely nothing can beat Google. But as always, nobody can stop an Idea who's time has come !

Perhaps its time for Google to run a Google search to search for new ideas !

To cut the long story short, we saw some new players emerging out of nowhere, once again surprising everybody and proving analysts wrong. This time around not one but 2 new kids on the block took the world by storm.

The story was and still being rewritten. The information is not just about journals or articles, now the information is about us, in flesh. What we Like, whom we went school with, our family, kids, birthdays and trips. Now the media has become a tool to remain connected with our loved ones. Now, no matter where we are, we need not worry about being lonely. We need not cross the road to say hello to our friends, now we can get a close view of whats happening in the lives of those who matter to us without even having a word with them for a whole year. Our life's story is being re-created, not just by us but by others who know, like or hate us. We like it or not but its happening and it has once again changed the way we interact, look at things, situations, think and even our acts, knowingly or unknowingly. One can remain connected and informed without spending loads of money with the help of fancy mobile handsets first or second hand.

This new found power has already toppled few governments and few others are on the verge of falling down. The power which you and me never had, the power of information and the power of influencing anything and everything.

Every time the Challengers have won, every time the challengers were outrightly ridiculed and outrightly rejected by media, competitors and the masses. Most interestingly the timelines have started shrinking IBM enjoyed the numero uno crown for almost 30 years, while Microsoft ruled the market for almost 15 years, Google had its time for nearly 7-8 years before Facebook stole the hot seat recently. Interestingly the timelines are reducing to almost half. Every time an Apprentice takes on a Sorcerer, the toddler apprentice wins hands down.

As predicted by Moore's Law the computing power doubles in every two years and so the creators, the developers gets a lot more space and speed to play with. So can we expect something big in next 1 year now? A great idea can change the we perceive ourselves and everything around us, but how many times in our lifetime and precisely when the next time. We can feel about it but can never predict how and when the next time.

Chaos perhaps is the only order!

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Image source- Google.

How much our MP's' earn, REVEALED !!

Grammar Disclaimer: The As's' above was meant for the members and not the parliament!

PS: This post is not intended to ridicule the parliamentarian. I fully agree with GB Shaw on this one - Democracy is a device that ensures that we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

I sincerely hope after reading this analysis many more of us will be genuinely encouraged to join the politics as a full time career.

All the below data is available on Sarkari website . Though some numbers can be discussed, while some might think I over estimated, others might feel I underestimated, so I tried to remain reasonably conservative as much possible. In the analysis below, we are not even considering the indirect expenditures and benefits which MPs get such as security for self and family, subsidized grocery and almost everything else required to live a good healthy life from government canteens inside the parliament and other government canteens. We are also not analyzing the in kind benefits which our MPs tend to get during the festive seasons in the name of personal or party accounts, which causes their assets to grow 5-10 times within few years of coming into power. Such articles published in 2008, 2009 and 2011 can be read at leisure, to analyze the exponential rise in the total assets of those ruling us.

So from the table above as we can see, the conservative CTC (Cost to the Country) of an MP is close to Rs.35 Lakhs ($70k), excluding the cost of maintaining security guards, the cost of life long pension, insurance, sarkari vehicle etc. On an average 190 sessions of Parliament takes place in a year, so I have assumed that MPs in order to claim their Daily Allowance will attend all the sessions. Similarly the constituency allowance and the office allowance (which is meant to buy office stationery etc) will also be going invariably into the pocket. Pen, Mobile phones, grocery items, admissions to the local good schools and colleges, free gifts on all the festivals celebrated by any religion, in addition to birthday, marriage anniversary gifts etc are some vanila perks which are not even considered illegal by most of the laws in India, which MPs can enjoy.

So while government wants BMC to go on a strike to implement 6th Pay Commission on one hand, on the other hand they want to lower the line so as to reduce the number of people below poverty line (and thus reduce the funds/schemes for them) on another, on third hand (if it exists) they want 42 years to pass a Lokpal bill, but when it comes to their own salaries, the bill was created and passed by themselves quiet easily without much discussions.

They already earn highest of the monies, still I would suggest let's give them another 100% hike every 5 years based on performance, so that they make more money than any other member of parliamenterain in the world can ever imagine, so that the best of the breeds and the best of the talents would want to enter the politics not just for public service but for their own personal, short term, immediate gains and focus time and energies on things which they are supposed to be doing, so that we can proudly agree to GB Shaw.

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Image source - Google

Vacuum and Race for the top job in New Delhi !!

Heros Required ! Urgent !

4 years after, the position is still vacant, open almost pleading to be filled. The recent world cup victory and the Anna Hazare movement did gave platform to some hardworking and committed individuals to give us, the mortal countrymen some sense of direction.

I strongly felt and still thinks the same that its time our honest and learned PM should step down now.

Well then the question remains if not Dr.Singh than who else ?

Is it lack of my knowledge or a truth, but if its a truth, even if partial one, how it can be partially true even? We are talking about 1.2 billion, i.e 1200000000 people ! Ok, you might argue, with the same number of people, we barely managed 1 Gold in Olympics in past 50 years (remember the guy !?), but lets park that thought aside for the time being and focus on the VACUUM for the TOP JOB !

What qualities are we looking for? Track record of performance, integrity, national appeal (which is a combination of various factors), ability to take strong/necessary/timely decisions despite differences, ambiguity. Are we asking for too much?

We are and will remain proud of our cultural diversity, but is this vacuum caused by nurturing too much of diversity without much unity for far too long ! Are we mistaking ego for proud and cultural idiosyncrasy as the only way to promote our identity?

Some say - Politics is the art of compromise ! But how much is too much? For how long ca

n we allow a leader hide his inabilities behind the compromise called as coalition ? And by the way who decides how much of the compromise is sufficient? And we think we are a democracy !!

Its a no brainer that Congress failed miserably to rediscover itself outside the shadow of Gandhi family. I really doubt how much Jairam Ramesh or Manishankar Aiyyar really appreciate the crown prince, but like Pranab Mukherji or Sharad Pawar, they know that they dont fair well on the criteria we discussed above and will not be considered seriously for the top job. So they are left with no option but praise, persuade, defend and promote the desi royal family.

The opposition has shown equal bankruptcy of ideas. They have not been able to gather momentum on their own in past 7 years and how can they hope to without trying, without doing significant ever. No matter what they say and speak but we the people can read the real intentions behind the 3 day Air conditioned glamorous fast using our own money. Even the proposed Rath Yatra is irrelevant, out of context, desperate attempt to gain some short l

ived publicity so as to get some banners which they can enamor for rest of their lives.

The Entertainment field (which includes media, sports and arts) has been a

better performing section comparatively. We have had several internationally recognized icons, who are good at heart and has also gained mass appeal especially in past 20 years. Unlike west, Indian Entertainment industry is still in its infancy. We might have to wait for some more years before we get our own versions of Rupert Murdoch or Donald Trump. Not that I adore everything West does, but a mature entertainment industry will increase the options for us and we like options ain't it.

Coming to my favorite segment, the Industry. Here we have lot more to look upon to. Real hardworking, self made people, who created empires out of nothing, not just generating employment and revenue but nurturing lot of ideas, hope, aspirations, and dreams. Leaders from industry has been playing decisive role in policy making of not just India but any nation which ever existed anywhere. I believe Business is the next most important thing after gravity for a life form called as the humans !

The failures (partial or total) of the three above gave birth to a fourth section. The sector which represents Mangomen. Surprisingly it existed for quiet a long time now, but we Indians took 60 years to realize the significance and power of this section, i.e the Civil society. Please don't think for an iota of second that the picture below represents the Civil society completely. For that matter none of the pictures used in this article represents that section exclusively. Coming back to the Civil Society, The first half of 20th century the world got busy in testing the power it got from the advancement of science and technology. After World War II, we gained independence and we the civil society got busy in recreating

all that was destroyed. In the process we became consumers, unintentionally self obsessed and indifferent towards anything which was not affecting us that particular day. Some of us however chose to rebel and fought with the governments we elected and quiet surprisingly for us. Ironical isn't it ! We heard them speaking but never cared to listen attentively. Anyways, better late than never. Some of these commoners went on to achieve uncommon feats, shook our conscious, faced hardships but kept on working for our benefit, relentlessly. These are not common people any more. They gained the respect and most importantly our time and attention which they always deserved. All of us the 'Argumentative Indians' had opinions about the other 3 sections discussed above, but somehow our opinions rarely mannered. But now this newly emerged forth section, empowered by technology, armed with information and public support can very well become our bridge to the rest. Once again I am not even suggesting that we should stop thinking and acting altogether but we need to unite, we need to channelize so as to make sure that things happen for us, the way we like, the day we want.

So, while the race is on but the vacuum is clearly visible. My short list for the top job would be Dr.Jayprakash Narayan, Rahul Gandhi, Arun Jaitley, Dr.Narayan Murthy. What's yours?

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Image sources - via Google. Collages -thyself !

Water Bulb !

An amazing idea, which can light up millions of houses across the world. Something very simple and very basic but powerful and innovative.

I have seen houses (including my own rented house in early childhood) where some kind of light is required even in the day time. Its because Either the House is not constructed properly (my case) or too much of congestion in the neighbourhood preventing the sunlight to enter. To make matter worse especially for the Urban poor living in slums, the electricity connection is either not available at all or its kind of illegal, hence unreliable and unsafe.

During our childhood, I used to read Hindi Comics in which if somebody gets some really crack-nut kind of idea, it was depicted by a Bulb. And yes, the bulb it is, this time in real life !

A Water Bulb !

An amazing concept to harness the energy using two of the most powerful elements in nature - Water and Sun. The idea is so simple that sometimes I wonder how come nobody thought it before in past 2000 years! But as they say, better late than never. So as you can see for yourself in the video below how it works -

Pretty simple, isnt it !

These water bulbs can be used only during the day light. Unlike Solar cells, the Water bulbs cant store and reuse energy at some other time and place. Some of us might not like these water bulbs from aesthetic point of view but I think its a least cause of concern. If not fitted properly these water bulbs can cause water leakages during the rainy season. But since these Water Bulbs are easy to install, maintain and practically of zero cost, the advantages far outweighs the minor disadvantages and limitations.

This bulb was originally developed by some students at MIT has been successfully implemented in Philippines by eco-Entrepreneur IIlac Diaz under the aptly named project - A Liter of Light !

The Hidden Advantages - lack of proper lighting inside the house has far reaching affects not only on the ambiance but psychology of those living in lowly illuminated houses. Absence of light encourages rodents and mosquitoes and other insects, which we might consider a trivial issues. But the mere presence and sounds made by all these Life forms (who by the way also have equal right to live) can be haunting and depressing at times. The darkness inside the houses can also lead to random accidents thus adding to agony and pain.

By implementing this solution at a large scale, government and private operators engaged in Transmission & Distribution of electricity can save a lot, thus directly adding to their bottomline. A zero carbon foot print ensure that no further damage is caused to environment unlike all other sources of electricity.

Sometimes the solutions to most challenging problems lies in thinking simple and that what Water Bulb is all about. Incredible, Innovative, Impelling !

Free Willy Criticism !!

In my previous post, I tried to address some of the queries of those opposing Lokpal. I dont oppose the idea of opposing somebody, opposing some philosophy, discussing things out, criticizing someone to death, but we should be fair, we should be logical and should not commit the same mistakes for which we are accusing the other person. So here I am trying to address some more concerns primarily about romance and philosophy.

Highway or My Way- A popular misconception amongst the elite freewill thinkers who strongly believe that team IAC proposed Lokpal bill as per their dreams, whims and fancies and so they are killing the free will. I am not sure if they are aware of public consultations, debates, online referendums, meetings organized by team IAC across India between Nov 2010 and Apr 2011. I am not sure if they have analyzed it or not but the draft of Janlokpal bill as prepared by team IAC changed a lot between Nov 2010 to Apr 2011 and again between Apr 2011 to Aug 2011 as per suggestions made by several sections of the society, including government committee on Lokpal bill.

Before romanticizing with words such as free will and independent choices, we must understand that if there are problems with laws, provisions in constitution (none of which are sacrosanct by the way), they can be rectified, overcome by amending the laws, constitution.

Team IAC Against Political Class- I think we also need to distinguish between Cause and Effects.Team IAC was never against Politicians or government of the day. I am not sure whether you read about several letters and requests made by team IAC to government, including opposition parties before Ape 2011 to come meet, discuss about the Lokpal. After 16th of August the situation become Lokpal versus Politicians because of the actions and deeds of the ruling party, which nobody thought of/imagined before.

There was a clear lack of Political will, which made sure that Lokpal bill is never passed for 40 years and also made sure that the draft of Lokpal be made so weak that even after negotiations Lokpal will still be reasonably weak. And it is these acts which made the movement against Politicians (in addition to everybody's individual experiences with Politicians at personal, professional, theoretical levels)

Nothing/Everything will Happen- Those who are supporting Lokpal cause it will eradicate all corruption are simplifying the issues and so are those who are opposing stating that it will not achieve anything at all.

I think most of those opposing Lokpal bill are either opposing Anna as a person, or methods or team Anna or the recklessness of the crowd which was present in all the rallies, but which they are confusingly projecting as opposing Lokpal. In addition to imminent and obvious possible positive effects of Lokpal, we discussed about other indirect, long term and equally important benefits of Lokpal earlier in this post.

Yet Another Army of Bureaucrats- Yes, I agree that we need to simply the way we are governed and the way decisions are taken on our behalf. But we need to understand that India is a very unique country, a very unique democracy. I dont want to repeat the rhetoric about our cultural diversity here either, because all of us are well aware of it. So while, we need to simplify things, but we also need proper systems and agencies at all the levels (Panchayats, Block, Ward, City, Constituency, District, State, Nation). People are confusing this complicated political structure with structure of Lokpal. Infact the structure as proposed by team IAC is fairly simple and without much confusing hierarchies and conflict of roles and hay-wired responsibilities. As of now all these agencies working at various level are governed by different laws, most of them are left at sole discretion of politicians and hence are abused time and again. So they use this confusion to complicate the facts and make sure to sabotage investigations and hide truth.

So it is all the more important to have an agency which investigates and monitors all these agencies uniformly to avoid any confusion and give people many more chances to create confusion and get away easily after committing crimes.

Draconian Lokpal- Instead of worrying about draconian crimes and corruption, people are worried about the Lokpal before it started functioning fearing that the Lokpal will be a draconian agency which will rule this country with stick and nobody will be able to do anything about it. Perhaps the solution as provided by team IAC version of Lokpal will make the body a bit too large and with greater power and hierarchies comes bureaucracy and corruption slowly, silently from the back door.

However we have seen how swiftly our politicians resign taking responsibility for x,y,z go on holidays for a year and pop up again in some other state, some other bit obscure role. Sometimes or infact most of the times an issue has chains from the district, state to central government level,everybody from MP, MLA, SP, CM to Cabinet Ministers, everybody is involved. SO while on one hand decentralization of power is required, on another hand provisions must be made, so that the highes and the mighties cant easily dupe the laws, the Lokpals.

So, we must review the fine print, understand the bigger picture before unleashing our freewilly criticism before opening up a third, fourth or fifth front so as to appear different, grab attention and thus intentionally or unintentionally weaken this movement of the people, by the people and for the people so that the sanctity remains, the democracy remains and the fruits of progress and development can reach down the pyramid.