Thursday, December 30, 2004

Tsunami and Earth Quake

If you want to understand, what happened on 26th December 2004 and why, then, here is the geek stuff. USGS has its preminalary report published on the web at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2004/usslav/.

It has tried to explain in a simpler language. Read up.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Tsunami and New year

New Year is just round the corner and a major Tsunami has hit the humanity in South-South East Asia. Plenty of people don't have shelter, food, water and medicine. There are bodies everywhere.

How do we celebrate new year in this scenario.

If everyeone in the world decides to cancel festivities or simplify it, and send the saved money for the affected, it will help.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Feeling Happy

Just met a student of mine, Hemant Bhanusali from 98-99 days. He works for same client as I work for. Just thru a different vendor. It is such a nice feeling meeting someone after 6 years... and seeing how the world has changed and has still remained same.


Monday, December 20, 2004

One hour in 23 degrees Fahrenheit

Today, I wanted to go to Social Security office. I planned to catch a bus, which goes that way. I missed the first busstop sign and ended up walking to second one. Just when I was about to reach to the second one, the bus went past me. So I missed the bus.

I did not have the timetable, so was not sure when the bus would turn up next. I was expecting the bus in 30 minutes. But this being past morning peak traffic, next bus was after 1 hour, something that I was not aware of. And I kept on waiting.

There was no shade on the busstop, no chairs or bench either. The temperature was about 23 degrees fahrenheit, which I did not realize. I could feel cold, but could not believe that it was that cold.

And I started thinking about all those people, who have to travel by bus and have to stand like this, without knowning when the next bus would come.

I think if United States wants to reduce price of oil, it should reduce consumption of oil. And for that they have to make people use public transport. And for that, they have to make public transport easier, safer and more frequent and make it a real alternative to using own car.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Lufthansa

Well, the trip started with a flight in Indian Airlines and then two in Lufthansa. Indian airlines delayed the trip by 30 minutes, 3 hours of checking time was spent in security check in and other stuffs.

Thing that I forgot to do was, to order Veggie Meal. First Lufthansa flight from India to Germany was no problem, as they were loaded with lot of veggie food. We had some issues from Germany to US segment, as they had limited veggies.

Flight was good. But I still missed Personal Video Screen that you see in Air France or Singapore Airlines. May be Lufthansa should think about it.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

USA, Here I come

Well, During this week, I finally moved my base to United States of America. So called country of Opportunities. Will keep posting my updates from here.

First Day in Atlanta

Used a porter as could not handle the baggage because of fatigue. 10 bucks tip.
Took a trip from Airport to Hotel in a Shuttle. 50 bucks. 5 bucks tip.
checked into hotel. Sierra Suites. not too bad. Just too secluded. but It was okay, as it is very near the office. Had some food, met raju and gang, and went to sleep.

Monday, November 01, 2004

More to Iron Ore Exports

Was just wondering who all will be benefited by Export of Iron Ore to other Countries.

Let's see. If the Iron Ore is exported at High Rate, obviously the exporters like NMDC, Tata Steel etc.

But, If Iron Ore is exported at Low Rate, then it means, that someone apart from exporter is making money. It could be the client, or the agency who is the middleman for the deal. I wonder why would an exporter want to export at Low rate and incur less profit? None of the professional company will do that. Only one to do so would be the PSUs.

Who gave right to PSUs to sell resources belonging to country to be sold to foreigners at such low rate? It is probably most unpatriotic thing to do.

Monday, October 18, 2004

Iron Ore, Steel and Machinary

Recently there was a debat in Economic Times (ET). (Well, It was hardly a debate, as Economic Times did not publish other view of the story..)...

As per ET, India's Balance of Payment (BoP) with China is favourable to India, because of High Iron Ore export to China. And ET Editor is against reduction in Iron Ore Export or any restriction against it.

Now this baffles me completely.

Let's try to understand it. In time of British rule, The Britishers exported raw material from India to UK, and then processed it, and then imported finished goods. This policy of british made Indian artisans poorer and made raw material very costly. It also made Indians buy costlier foreign-made finished goods. (This is where Khadi Movement started.....)

What we are seeing is something very similar now. India exports Iron Ore to Japan and China (largest consumers of Indian Iron Ore), they make steet and machinary using Iron Ore. India imports steel and machinary from them. In effect we lose out by exporting cheap Iron Ore and importing costly machines.

No doubt, that we need better technology from developed nations. But that has to stop at a certain level and we should start making local technology. If we keep exporting Cheap Iron Ore (and there by making Iron Ore costly for Indian Steel Manufacturers and thereby making steel costly in India), and importing Costly Steels, when will we generate jobs for Indians by setting up steel plants and machine plants?

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Naxalites and People

I think it is good that PW and other naxal movement members will be coming to public. It will actually be a reality check for them to know how much support they command in people. It will be for them as well as others to see actually.

PW was founded to support oppressed lot of society. .... may be some reading on this direction would help. This link has some write-up on the legend Charu Mazumdar. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mazumdar/. It was an Armed reaction to non-responsive administration...... and THAT was the ROOT CAUSE...

Even now, the administration is not poor friendly.. and till it is not.. may be armed struggle would continue... I hope someone from Government of India (obviously someone influential enough) reads this.

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Once incident in last week

During last week, I was traveling by a city bus to my office. On the way, bus stopped at a location. Two persons, who were looking like masons (workers from a construction site), boarded the bus and asked the bus conductor to issue them a ticket to a location (Shapurnagar). The bus conductor handed them two tickets and told them that bus will not go upto their destination (and will go upto balanagar, which is on way to shapurnagar).

My Observations:
1. Both Passengers were illiterate, and they could not read the bus board. As a result, they boarded a wrong bus.
2. The conductor did not give them a chance to get down at next stop, and take the correct bus, which would have taken them to their destination. Instead, He was probably interested only in getting them to buy tickets.
3. Both passengers were not aware of their basic rights. They took it as if it was their fate, did not ask to be allowed to get down at next stop, instead paid the fare, and probably would have taken another bus from last stop and obviously paid some more amount as bus fare.

If they would have got some education, what would have happened:
1. They would have been able to read the bus board, and would have boarded the right bus.
2. If they would have got some value education (on their rights), even if they would have boarded a bus wrongly, they would have been in position to ask the bus conductor to let them get down at the next stop so that they can catch correct bus.

Education may not make entire the population software professionals, but it should help people make right choices, avoid exploitation, and make them aware of their basic rights.

Education may not create revolutionaries, but will help create small change in society we live in. These small change will lead to a change in mindset, which itself will be probably a revolution......

Monday, October 11, 2004

What is the root cause of....

What is the root cause of no development in villages or interior parts of country?
What is the root cause of exploitation?
What is the root cause of unemployment?

I think it is lack of right education.

Friday, October 08, 2004

Robbery in DayLight

I have a pre-paid connection with AirTel AP Circle. on 2nd October, 2004, I got a msg saying that I had been enrolled in their SMS1 Plan automatically that will allow me to send local SMS with just 30 paise, by charging me 1 Rupee per day. I had never subscribed to such service. The SMS also gave me an option to unsubscribe from the service by sending sms to a number. I had immidiately send the cancellation request for SMS1 plan. I got a reply saying it will take 48 hours to process my request and it was processed on 3rd. But by this time, I was already charged 2 rupee for two days of SMS1 which I never opted for.

To think of it, if a mobile company had 4 lac users, who were forced to (automatically enrolled) and charged 1 rupee. It will create 4 Lac rupee revenue per day for the Mobile Company. Isn't this a daylight robbery?

Old Notes

Well,

I am going to include some old notes.. into blog as well to centralize all thoughts

gee... there will be lot of junk thoughts then..

Naxalites.. how they succeed

Do people still think naxalites work for people?

it is like a loop...

naxalites block development in their region. they even block road development, and make government and private enterprises move out..

people remain underdeveloped

underdeveloped people remain loyal to naxalites.

it is like a system feeding itself.. if there will be development.. then people will not need naxalites..

but if there will be naxalites, then there will not be any development...

my head is spinning now...

Gandhi Medical College and Engineering Students

a group of students can do so much, when they come together, and similarly group of doctors can do so much when they come together. Just that direction they took is utterly wrong.

What we see is,
1. an educated mass of people (engineers) losing faith in democratic society and taking up rule in their own hand.
2. another educated mass of people (doctors) losing faith in democratic society and denying services to patients... which may have lead to some people spending more money to get their treatment, and worse.. such as injuries and death..

Does show of streangth mean everything in life? I wonder...

What I think of This World

Hi,

Just thought that All that I think of This world, may be I can share with someone. so Here I am with my blog on what I think of this world.