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Friday, April 30, 2010

our govt. creates more terrorism on humanity rather "Maoists"



In Chattisgarh, more crpf jawans get killed by mosquito bites than by Maoists! Yes, that’s the ironic piece of research my friends ..
Thanks to the Maoist attack recently, which left 75 dead, the government suddenly is feeling concerned about the jawans’ lives! However, before this incident, in the last two years over a hundred of them had died of malaria, which was more than the numbers killed on duty. But previously, of course, the government was not concerned about the lives of jawans because malarial deaths obviously don’t happen in a dramatic newsworthy manner.

Is it not ironic that our paramilitary forces die more of curable diseases than of bullets? Well, that’s the crux of India's problems. That more CRPF jawans are today scared to die of malaria than of Maoist bullets tells just one side of the story. The other side of the story is the story of India's reality today. The story of how we neglect about 60 percent of our population and condemn them to die of hunger, curable diseases and mosquito bites. That’s roughly about 650 million Indians who live below the internationally accepted standard of poverty line of 1.25 dollars per day. While India and Indian media celebrate the rise of its billionaires in the Forbes lists, the poor die penniless out of hunger – unknown and unheard.

And unlike the perception that the government wants to create of Maoists as terrorists, the truth is that Maoists are from these very poor families who are marginalised and left to die of hunger. Worldwide, when leaders have kept such huge sections of masses marginalized, there have been revolutions. You ignore human beings and condemn them to die, they will one day believe that picking up arms is a better option than to die without a fight. History is full of heroes who have killed. Those who kill for a cause are celebrated and those who kill without a cause are called murderers. And the cause is also determined by history. Not by today’s media and their judgment.

While the government might be hell-bent on calling the Maoists murderers, the fact is that our governments over the years have been full of murderers. Not just in terms of the cases against most of our politicians but in terms of the way they murder their people by depriving them of food, health and employment – the three basic things a government was supposed to be judged by. Our governments kill about 40% of our masses before they reach the age of 45. These people would have gone on to live till 75 had they got access to food and health. Our governments, over the years, have killed millions through their unpatriotic acts of selfish politics – that of enriching themselves and a handful of business houses while allowing massive poverty to exist all around. And that is why in the eyes of many – from Medha Patkar to Maheshwata Devi – Maoists are not terrorists or murderers but those poor people who have taken to arms and kill for a cause. They want food. They want masses to rise out of rampant poverty. They want health and freedom from destitution and freedom from an assured death sentence that the government has given them by not providing them the right to live and a life of dignity. Men thrown to die will always try to fight back. Such men have the support of the masses where they fight.

If the government wants to really end the Maoist problem, it needs to look beyond. It needs to begin by finding its heart first... a heart that beats for the poorest. And then do real good work for the poorest of the poor. Poor have no reason to pick up arms. They need food. They need employment. They need health, education and dignity. Give them these and they would not take to arms. Condemn them to die young, hungry and penniless, and they will take to Maoism. The slogan mongering and name calling utilized by the government against the Maoists would not absolve the government of its terrorism on humanity. Real work for the poor in the Naxal infested belts will save the government of all the stress of how to deal with internal security. Otherwise, it would not just be every Maoist killed who would give birth to more such Maoists, but even the many children of the jawans dying of mosquito bites who could one day take to spraying bullets on the malaria-spreading ruling parasites of this country.., And history, I repeat, might not call them terrorists...

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A newly productive India??



In the mid-1990s, Japan funded and provided technology for a new bridge across the Yamuna in Delhi. At that time even minor repairs on the old Yamuna bridges would carry on for decades (seriously). Therefore it came as a shock to us Delhi-wallahs when we saw this bridge being built in a matter of months, sometimes even at night under spotlights, with every worker wearing a bright yellow hardhat. It was the talk of the town. Somehow the pace of road/bridge/flyover/metro construction in Delhi was never the same again. Today, our city's public works proceed almost at the pace at which they do elsewhere in the world.

A few years later, in the early 2000s, I noticed the local FM radio stations taking up specific local issues and demanding accountability from the government. For example, they would talk about a big pothole on such and such road and then report back a few days later that it had been filled. (I immediately invested in the Indian stockmarket, with good results!) That activism on radio appears to have subsided but it left its mark. Delhi's roads are by and large of better quality than, say, Boston's.

Yesterday I had another experience that appears significant. I had to get my Delhi driving license renewed and went to the Regional Transport Office at Surajmal Vihar. Though the place was moderately crowded, the experience was smoother than that at most private sector institutions.

The man at the Enquiry counter directed me to Counter #4 ("Renewals"). I stood in the queue and got to the counter in a few minutes. The guy looked at my papers, smiled and said, "We don't need so many documents for residence proof, just one will do. Just get it verified from Counter #11."

The Counter #11 guy spent just about 30 seconds on my document and signed the copy. He directed me back to Counter #4.

The #4 guy now entered my data into the computer. There were two computer screens, one facing him and one facing me. He asked me to verify the details when he was done. Then he stamped my paperwork, asked me to sign and said, "Pay the fees". Used to Indian government offices, I thought the cashier would be sitting somewhere far away behind a wire grill, acting like some demi-god. I was pleasantly surprised to find instead that the cashier was the Counter #3, which was essentially three feet to the left of where I stood and looked identical to every other counter.

A few minutes in the queue later, I was in front of the Counter #3 guy. He glanced at my documents; "Rs 300".

While I counted out the money, he pulled up my case on the computer and at once my receipt began to print out in front of the guy next to him. He asked me to step in front of this other guy, who motioned me to sit on a stool I had not noticed till then, clicked a photograph via webcam, asked me to step up and sign an electronic pad and then offer my index finger for a fingerprint. All in a minute.

And then it was done. "The license will be couriered to you." I could not believe it - the entire process had taken just ten or fifteen minutes and had been pleasant. Every RTO employee was fully occupied and productive. In the US it typically takes much longer and even the productivity appears to be lower.

This automation of processes in government departments yields fewer opportunities for bribery. A friend noted yesterday that some folks who work there try to squeeze out some money by being slow to return the change when you give them a currency note and hoping that you will just walk away. Bad, true, but a big improvement!

Kudos to the Delhi transport minister for running such a smooth operation. If such cleansing spreads outwards from Delhi and the metros, it will be a big reason to be bullish on India...
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Thursday, April 29, 2010

AN INDIA WE HAVE TO ADRESS....



what is the best brand of india??
guess????
colgate ...hahahha its on papers..just read till the end u wil come to know!

I realize that I have already used two consecutive installments of this blog on "A midsummer nightmare" and I wondered if I should risk a third on a similar theme. This is, after all, a blog on a business school website.

But as things turned out, I came across an intense essay by a young friend who is of Indian origin but was born in the US and has lived there all her life. Her name is Meesha and she is a second year science undergrad. She visited India when she was 16, and wrote this essay when she was 19 for an English class. I was compelled by its elegant sadness to put it up here.

It talks of things about India that we all know but have to gloss over in order to stay sane. And it describes them through the innocent eyes of the very young who have never lived here.

It's worth reading, even as I look out of my Gurgaon window and see an entire horizon of skyscrapers twinkling with lights.

So here goes - an essay on a trip to the Taj Mahal.

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What constitutes the title “wonder of the world?” Is it a wall constructed perfectly to keep the enemy out, is it an ancient city on a mountain, is it a colossal theater, or is it a beautifully designed tomb for someone's long lost love? Furthermore, once titled, should everything surrounding the “wonder” be shrouded in a mask of majesty; can nothing other than the facade of it's name be perceived? Well, if that was the intent, I am witness to failure.

The Taj Mahal itself is the most impressive structure I have ever witnessed. As I crossed the threshold from the blindness of being behind the surrounding walls to a panoramic view of the Taj Mahal, the sheer size of the building and it's surroundings caught the breath short in my chest (opulence seems to have been one of Mumtaz's specialties). The reflection pool laid in front of the Taj is analogous to a red carpet; setting one up for the extravagance to come. While walking up the the steps, the sun reflecting off the marble and into my retinas provided the next transition of scenery: the inside. The tomb is embellished from top to bottom causing one's eye to dart frantically trying to absorb all of the information. Essentially, the ceiling is the inside of a giant onion dome that begs the question of how such a large structure remains suspended. After surveying the inside in it's entirety I left with a memory that will be forever have engraved in my mind.

With all this said, one may ask where the failure component occurred. The reason I suggest that I felt disappointed is not because of the experience of seeing the Taj Mahal itself, but rather the journey to get to it. When I think back on my experience, rather than feeling fond, I am immediately flooded with despair. The things that I witnessed on a five hour car ride changed my life forever.

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As I get into the car I hear my mother outside talking to her brother. She mutters in Hindi, “I don't know if I can handle this.” He reassures her and she gets into the vehicle. We start the journey in our air conditioned SUV that sticks out like a sore thumb on the winding dirt roads. As per usual we witness the occasional beggar or child selling corn on the side of the road. As the heat of the noon starts beating down on our metal case the air condition struggles to maintain equilibrium. We crack open a can of coke and drink it greedily. As the hours pass the scenery changes from the tranquil India I know to a very different world. I see nothing but shacks. Tiny “home” contraptions made of old car parts and scrap metal. People line the roads by the hundreds, so much so that we are not driving any longer, but rather, crawling.

The people are a whole new world too. Due to the lack of shelter their skin appears to be charred by the sun like burgers left on a grill too long. Their corneas and teeth are the same shade of unhealthy yellow. Their hair is matted to their head like a dog that hasn't been brushed in years. Actually, the longer I look at them the more they remind me of stray animals rather than people. The things they do start to strike me as beast-like. A naked man crudely blows his nose into his hand. A mother carries her child on her back while looking through a garbage heap with her hands. The air is thick with melancholy.

Then I see the most graphic image I have ever witnessed in my life. It is burned into my memory; vivid and brutally honest. When I close my eyes and think about this car ride I see a child wearing only a dirty loin cloth squatting on the roadside defecating exactly like my dog does in the back yard. I can see the discomfort of his severe diarrhea in his eyes. I can see him being reduced to less than a beast. He has been stripped of all humanity, he has lost what it means to be a homosapien; he is merely a mass. This is the brush that colored my world with an entirely different palate than I had ever imagined. Suddenly a stark reality set in that the world around me sucks.

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After this point the rest of the trip was cast in shadows. The trip that I had been looking forward to with a naïve sense of optimism, was now tainted with truth. Ever since this fated moment, whenever I see a homeless person, or someone being petty and materialistic, the image of that boy pops into my head and drapes me in a sheet of sorrow.

The reason that this trip had such a profound effect on me is largely because of the context I come from. I come from the world of middle-class America. Where I have privileges that only a fraction of the world has the luxury of enjoying. One such privilege is watching the trials of the world on the silver screen in the safety of an overly air-conditioned movie theater. I did just that when I saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire. I felt the same way the day I watched that movie that I did at the moment I witnessed that boy. I could not speak afterwards, and the rest of the day was cast in those same shadows.

I feel that I will revisit that boy many times in my life. Although, it hurts me, I am glad that I have him. He keeps me grounded. He reminds me of how incredibly blessed I am. He also drives me to help; to help him and everyone around him. Finally, I learned from him. I learned that India is a beautiful country rich with culture, but it is also a broken spirit. There are far too many little boys out there who don't know what it feels like to be comfortable and well. When I think of the Taj Mahal I taste a bittersweetness in my mouth. The structure itself is beautiful, but the journey to get to it is morbid. I find this to be a metaphor for all of India; the potential is there, but you need to go through a lot of hardships to reach perfection.

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"""" Structuring work intelligently...!!!!!!"""



today after a long time i got the chance and a good post to update the blo..guys thanks for ur suport..and feedbacks all the time..hope u like this one!

If I were to list the top three teachable skills that are most important in the Indian workplace, being able to structure work intelligently would figure on that list.

What do I mean by structuring work? I mean being able to break down a job intelligently into its sub-tasks, so that when you think you are done, you are really done! And you have done well!

Let me give an example. Let us say my boss asked me to find a good location for a new office that is being planned. I could take up this job in several ways.

THE BAD WAYS

1. The "Stunned-into-silence" way: I go away and am not heard from again, almost. Each time the boss asks me the status, I make some noises to the effect that I am working on it. I want to finish it all before I show her anything but I don't really know what to do! Then as more time passes, I start to feel I'll have to show her even more stuff. Now I get terribly uncomfortable. Finally when she pings me yet again, I make some more noises and show her some tidbits of work. She gets fed up, understands that the job is too much for me, and gives it to someone else.

2. The "Please-wipe-my-nose-for-me" way: I come back two days later and ask my boss, "Should I look up some real estate brokers?" When she says yes because she is busy and can't pay full attention to my question, I go away, only to come back a few days later. "Ma'am, I have got the phone numbers of three real estate brokers. Should I try to get some more?" "Yes!" she exclaims, deep in some work. Then I come back again a few days later and say, "Ma'am, I now have the contacts of six brokers. What should I do next?" And so on. It takes ten times as long as it needed to and the boss starts to feel that she might have just as well done it all herself. Also because she is answering many stupid one-off questions when she's not paying full attention, the process is bad and the task gets done badly.

3. The "First-idea-that-comes-to-mind" way: I come back in an hour and say, "Ma'am, there is an office available at xyz address, should we book it? The color of the walls is very good!"

Do these examples look too bad to be true? We see such examples every single week!


THE GOOD WAY

Some thinking and planning goes a long way. Think of it as a project.

What are the criteria for a good decision, i.e. what are we trying to achieve? These could be hard constraints - e.g. the office must be at least 10,000 square feet - or these could be objectives - e.g. distance from public transport. Write the criteria down! When you think you are done, brainstorm for some more ideas. One could also assign weightages for these criteria such as critical, important, good to have, etc. Weightages can of course alse be numerical.

Next, what are the alternatives? I can divide the town into various zones and look at the alternatives at that level. And I can later list all the alternatives under each zone.

As I proceed, I need to make sure I am tapping all the sources of information. This is not just information regarding the alternatives (e.g. real estate brokers, etc.) but also regarding the criteria (e.g. HR can tell me how many people live in each zone, etc.) If I forget to tap a source of information, the lapse will probably come back to bite me.

Only when I have set this entire framework in place should I proceed to evaluate each of my alternatives against my criteria. I'd ideally do it in a spreadsheet.

The evaluation will lead me to the decision, or at least take me close enough. Once the choices have been narrowed down, the final decision is often a little subjective and the boss might want to make it.*

Anyway, if I structure my thinking and my work in this way, my boss will probably be quite impressed with my thoroughness and abilities. I'll go far in the company.

It's easy, right? Yes! But you'll be surprised how few people actually act this way.

So watch out for the "Stunned-into-silence", "Please-wipe-my-nose-for-me" and "First-idea-that-comes-to-mind" modes of project failure. Practise structuring your work intelligently, so that when the time comes and you are given the responsibility of a big project, you'll do a good job....

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