Mumbai Terror attack

Mumbai is in chaos now. Its very sad so see such events happeneing in India. I shudder to think what's going on in the mind of thousands of people who are out on the streets. Its events like these that tug at your heart and kill any hope that you have of going back to your country.

I was just discussing this with one of my collgues and I was like, ist impossible to do anthing in big cities like Mumbai, NY etc. The only difference is in the intelligence. India needs to invest in security and Intelligence.

Nowadays, I am reading a book by Gurucharan Das - India unbound. Each page in the books has so much information about the history of India - it amaze me. I was reading through the chapter where "The Green Revolution" is described and therefore i thought it was apt to blog about it.

1950s: Famine in India, a common occurrence.
1961: India on the brink of mass famine.
1980: India is one the of world's largest exporter of rice. Famine has not occurred since.

A number of events transpired between the 1950s to 1980's that made India self sufficient in food. It all began with the untimely death of Nehru, appointment of Lal Bahadur Shastri (creator the slogan of "Jai Jawan Jai Kisan and also the promoter of the "White Revolution") as Prime minister. Shastri was a modest man - he was home grown ( unlike idealists like Nehru/Gandhi) and feeding India was his first priority. He appointed a scientist, Swaminathan, as the Minister of Agriculture. Now, Swaminathan was a very learned man and he came across an invention of a Mexican variety of Wheat by Norman Borlaug that produced 5 times of a normal wheat crop. India imported 150 million of this variety of wheat (by chartering flights) and experimented with it in norther west regions like Punjab, Haryana etc where water and fertilizer was in abundance( a prerequisite for the crop). To the amazement of everyone, the same results as in Mexico was achieved in India and eventually, India was self sufficient in being able to feed its rapidly growing population.

Swaminathan's efforts are commendable especially since he had to loop through a number of bureaucratic hurdles to ensure the success of this project.
There was this line in the book that struck me "Indian democracy is not used to bold actions by its leaders". But Swaminathan was adamant. He also put forward a proposal, amid criticism, to raise the price of wheat. the reason he gave for this move was, " the farmers need some incentive to move from the normal wheat to the high yeilding variety. The policies have to be changed in conjuction to the change in technology". How right he was, especially in those days of socialism.


Moment of Zen:
Has it occurred to anyone of the irony that, when education was a privilege, many learned men and women would get into politics (Like Nehru, Gandhi) and be so effective in sharing their ideologies. But now, when education is a no more a privilege ( in the urban areas), mostly uneducated people get into politics?

Ambani brother's handshake spurs rally in market

Just yesterday, the headlines of TimesofIndia.com was how Advani had mediated the Ambani brothers to shake hands. My thoughts on reading the article was, WHAT? Why does that have to be a damn HEADLINE in a newspaper? Family feud,Family reunion are a common fact of life. Newspaperps should do a better job at reporting (maybe about how farmers in Nagpur, or anythign else that's important). Anyways, Today morning I was proved wrong (once again!!) The handshake by the Ambani brother's led to a rally in the stock market with the market gaining 464 points. WHOA!!! Lesson to be learnt, N is that the ambani's are not just another family. Together, their net worth is 6.10 billion $. So anything that they do , is IMPORTANT. For e.g, if they sneeze, an epedemic may occur. If they brush their teeth with "Oral B Sonic" , the sales of teh brush will multiply.So at the end of the day, N. Never doubt the ambani brothers.


Today's Moment of Zen:
Money is the source of all evils. This has happened in the past..(Ambani Brothers) Its very sad but it has happened in my family and if the past is a precendent, it will continue to happen always.

This and That....

Democrats ask Automakers to prepare a plan in 12 days that describes how they will spend the aid money and what steps they will take to take the auto industry out of this mess.
My view: I think that the auto industry needs to be saved. The entire detroit and michigan area depends on them and everyone will be bankrupt. By providing aid to the industry, the govt is not only saving these companies but also its employees and hence the small businesses and the people

On another note: the rate at which the stock market is spirallying down is really scaring me now. My portfolio is at 50% loss. Though I am not much bothered about teh portfolio( well, it will get back to green, in maybe 5 years??) , i am concerned about the panic it is creating in the market. There are layoffs everywhere. The job market has practically frozen (esp in the tri state area) and teh jobless claims is at a 16 year high. Citi has announced layoffs of 53000 people. Freaking 50000. How will they run that mammoth of a company? JPMorgan is about to layoff 10% of its IB division. There is mayhem everywhere.

And in these moments, a feeble mind turns towards solace. Listen to this and I promise you it will bring a smile on your lips.Interview With God


My Moment of Zen today :
Today I went to a popular Thai restaurent, Village for lunch. Usually the place is crowded and has a minimum 30 mins waiting period. Today, the place was empty. We were the only ones in teh restaurent , that too at 12:30 which is when all the employees from the sveral corporate buildings go out for lunch. The reason is obvious. Most of these buildings are running at 50% (or less?) capacity nowdays and many have started packing there lunch from home ( the refrigerator on my floor is full). This is what is called as the trickle effect. When the "greedy" corporates go bust, its not only the employees who suffer but all the several small business owners who depend on them. And that is why I think the 700$+ billion bailout is neccessary - because its not only bailing out the corporates but all the people in turn.
Update: The senate has just passed a "extened" jobless benefit bill that will benefit those who have been jobless for more than 7 weeks. I wonder how much the US treasary is worth :D

Will Obama take away my job?

I have been an Obama supporter from Day 1. He has the poise, the charisma and the grace to be a president and turn America around. May be not necessarily in a single term but I forecast that Obama is going to be the president for many more terms to come.

Anyways, the question for this blog is will Obama take my job away? I am an IT worker from India who works on projects of US MNCs. Talk to anyone in India and they will tell you how much of a hype the media has created on Obama's words that he will bring back jobs to America.

My analysis tells me mny things
1) Obama has not said anything like he is going to ban outsourcing. What Obama has said that he is going to stop "subsidizing" outsourcing. They claim that right now the govt subsidizes anythign that has bbeen outsourced and therefor ethey are going to get rid of those "tax-breaks" . So outsourcing will be taxed like any other American labour is taxed. If such incentives do exist and are repealed, then there may be some slowdown in outsourcing so instead of 30% growth, there will be 15% growth.
2) Obama has also mentioned that he is not against globalization or putting up walls around america and that it is very difficult to bring back the jobs that have already been outsourced. So he says that the governemnt has to create more jobs like buil dmore schools, improve the infrastructure and build bridges etc. More students need to take up maths, science etc.
3) In my opinion, big companies will see more value proposition in outsourcing and therefore will go ahead with it, inspite of the tax breaks. However, small comapnies like RiteAid will need to evalute a lot of cost/saving and growth forecats before they think outscouring will be profitable.

Obama Campaign's paramedic LIVES IN OUR APARTMENT COMPLEX

On entering my apartment complex mail room I see this guy bending over one of the mailboxes. Since his mailbox was just below my mailbox, I patiently wait for him to finish.  So the conversation goes like this

He: Is your mailbox on this side too?
Moi: Yes.
He: I am sorry, there are so many letters in my mailbox. (Truly enough, his box was full of letters)
Moi: That's okay. Take your time, I will wait.

(After 30 secs)
Moi: Were you out on vacation? This is A LOT of mails.
He: No No. I was out on work for a month. You see, I am a paramedic. I was out on Obama's campaign ...
Moi: Wow...That's so cool. (Excited) Did you get to meet Obama?
He: Oh yes. But, its done. I am done. Finally home after a month.
Moi: (Still grinning) Nice. Welcome back.

After he left, I was excited. Imagine. A paramedic from Obama's campaign lives IN OUR APARTMENT. On top of that, we are neighbours (Yes, I followed him ). HOW COOL IS THAT?

There are so many professions out in the world. So many important ones. Its a pity that children in India are exposed to so few professions. When I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be an engineer. Not because I wanted to , but because my father wanted me to. And I didn't want to disappoint him. Don't get my point wrong. I love being a computer engineer. I love using technology to solve complex problems. Technology didn't fail to amaze me then and it never fails to amaze me now. But just being out in this world and hearing about what so many people do, simply amazes me. There has been times when I have heard about what people do and I say - There are people who actually do that?  One our trip to Hawaii this January, we were talking to one of the Deck Hands on one of the cruises and he was telling A and I about how he reached Hawaii (By travelling as a deckhand on one the commercial ships) and how life is difficult for him here in Hawaii. The instant thought was - complete you education man. Life will be easy. But will it be? Tell this to thousands of job less people now.

Anyways, talking about interesting jobs - did you know there is an internship program for the White House. The profile for the job is "In addition to normal office duties, interns attend weekly lectures, volunteer at special events, participate in tours, and contribute to a community service project in the Washington, D.C. area. White House Internships are unpaid positions and participants are responsible for arranging their own transportation and housing. Approximately 100 interns are chosen each spring, summer, and fall to participate in this highly competitive program."  And guess what, getting into this program is more competitive than getting into a Harvard MBA program. Guess this is what it takes to nurture future leaders. Wish there was something like this in India where youngsters would get to have a look at the Rashtrapati Bhavan/ Prime Minister's Office more closely and maybe, develop some interest for politics.

Chandrayaan - India foray into the space race

Oct 22nd was a landmark in the space history of India. Chandrayaan, an unmanned lunar exploration spacecraft, was launched with 5+6 payloads to study the moon's surface. Over the next 2 years, the remote sensing satellite intends to study the lunar surface for visible, infrared and xray frequencies to produce a complete 3 d map topography of the moon.

China's first manned mission in 2003 triggered the second international space race (the first one was between USSR and USA during the cold war). China, having completed the space walk and now planning to launch a space station has become the third space superpower. It is in response to the chinese program that India has prepared and launched its maiden space mission to put an object (beyon the gravity of earth) to orbit the moon.

This step can be seen a India's first step into the global league of space faring nations.
Benefits
1) Shows off the strategic capability as an emerging economic and military power on the world stage
2) Morale-boosting social benefits
3) Commercial use of statellite launching technology.
4) potential military applications.

Cons:
Most people do not see the benefit of diverty rs 200 crores to a space mission when the country has high levels of poverty. I feel that though India has high levels of poverty, though the scientific benefits and the knowledge and expertise gained from this mission will not be immediately apparent, the returns will eventually be more and aimed at improving people's lives. In fact, when India' first planned to put satellites to orbit the earth, there were similar questions. But that operation immensely helped India as India is now oen of the largest operators of remote sensing satellites and also places satelites into orbit at a very low cost as compared to other nations. So there is a huge commercial benefit.

The commerical statelltie launch business estimated to be arnd $2billion and this will enable India to get a larger share of this pie. Last year, India put an Italian satellite on space for a fee of 11 million dollars.

Mission
The satellite is currently orbitting the earth in an elliptical orbit. On saturday november 8th, additional velocity will be given to the spacecraft to enter the lunar orbit. Once this is done, the spacecraft will be slowed down so as to enable the gravity of the moon to capture it into an elliptical orbit. It also carries a Moon Impact probe that will be sent to the surface of the moon. This is done to qualify technologies required for future landing and to prove that an object can be sent to the pre selected location of the moon.

MNS and the anti bhaiya campaign

I left Bihar and moved to Chennai and then NOIDA and then Pune and Mumbai. I could move freely between these states because I am an Indian and its my constitutional and fundamental right to move anywhere in India. This is because I am an Indian first and a Bihari next.

This whole MNS issue threatens to challenge our national itnegrity and unity.

Well, if Raj Thackeray is bothered about people coming into your city and making it deplorable, there are many things that you can do about it other than abusing or terrorizing north Indians. Beating some defenceless students from Bihar or taking aways the livelihood of a poor taxiwalah does not reflect the pride that maharashtra stands for. My husband is a maharahstrian and I know and belive that maharashtrians are very calm and are an intellect community.

Since this topic has been coming up in almost all the states like Tamil Nadu, Assam Maharashtra, Karnataka I guess it is high time something is done for it.

1) Making Marathi compulsary as a third language: I think its a non issue. Even though i think people should have a right to choose what they learn (like I had), in order to give credit to the issue of "giving the local culture credit", they can make an attempt at learning the language. Its not going to make anyone less mharashtrian or less Indian or less bihari.
2) Displaying Marathi signboards. All corporations should have an option to display thier signboards in english or any language that they choose. However, to give credit to local people, they can display the name in the regional language in small letters.
3) Movement of people: There is nothing that can be done without hurting caliber. People of india are allowed to go anyhwere and set up buisness or jobs as long as these jobs are willing to take them. If you want local people to get jobs, educate them and train them and make them competitive.
4) Mumbai is what it is because of contributing of not only the local but also from outside the city. Instead of abusing them ,appreciate their contribution to the economics of the city and make them appreciative of the culture. Show them your culture and they will appreciate it. How many of the non maharashtrians don't participate in ganapti? My uncle is a bihari but celebrates all 10 days of ganapati.
i) Promote ad financially support Marathi literature and poetry.
ii) Hold festivals like Delli Haat and showcase the regional culture
5) Crime Rate: Has it been proven by any independent, objective study that the currently high crime rates are linked to immigrants and which immigrants?
6) Mumbai is not maharashtra. Why don't you put your attention and finances at work in the rest of the state to support those farmers.
7) Why don't you crate employment generation schemes in a small town so people don't have to migrate.

US India Nuclear Deal - what's in it for anybody?

India's Energy needs
India with its double digit growth pace needs more and more renewable energy alternatives to meed its growth demands. However, India does not have natual energy mediums like fossil fuels so it has to rely on imports and natural eneregy to do so.
The current energy sources allocations are
Thermal Power 66%
Hydel Power 26%
Solar & Wind Power 5%
Nuclear Power 3%


After the above has been stated, lets discuss NTP.
NTP stands for Nuclear Non Poliferation Treaty. The basic spirit of NTP is that all nuclear weapon contries keep the nuclear weapons to themselves and provide civiliean nuclear technology to other countries in exchange of their refusal to produce nuclear weapons. 5 countires have nuclear weapons: UK,US, France, Russia and China. NTP proposes non poliferation, disarmament and using nuclear tech for peaceful purposes.

Ideally, India along with Israel, Pakistan and North Korea have not signed the treaty. NK had signed the treaty, violated it and then withdrew. Isreal is belived to have nuclear weapons but has a policy of opacity. India and Pakistan both have nuclear bombs.

Why wouldn't these countries join?: the 5 counties did what ever they wanted and then developed the NTP to prevent others from doing the same. India does not want to sign the treay as China has nuclear weapons and India and China have border disputes.
A few countries like N Korea as well as Libya have found to violate trety inspite of having signed it.

US Nuclear Deal (123 aGREEMENT)
About the deal
According to this deal, US will supply technology and material to India to develop nuclear energy for civilian purposes and in return India will allow the UN's nuclear watchdog group access for inspection to its 14 out of the current 22 and all future civilian nuclear power stations. However,India has the right to decide which reactors are civilian and which are military.

What's in it for US and other countries
1) Lead to better relations between India and USA and establish close relation ship for future.
1) US,France and Russian companies will be allowed to build nuclear reactors in India. Canada can supply Uranium.
2) US is looking for ways to offset China's groing dominance in Asia and India with its nuclear energy will be ableto support the groing economy and therefore chanllenge China's growth.

What's in it for India
1) Alternative sources of nuclear energy to support its growth
2) It demonstrates that US is ready to build a long and enduring relationship with India.

Pros from the world's point of view
1) Since the NTP has failed to force India to allow inspection of its nuclear facilities, atleast this open will allow some of it to be reviewed for the international commitee, The piece cites proponents of the deal who argue that some international oversight over India's nuclear program is better than none.
2) Benied denied access to nuclear fuel was working against India developing as an emerging power. So this agreement is taken very favourably by India and seens more as a symbolism of the relationship between India and America.
3) Recognizes India's history of volutanry safeguards and strict control over its nuclear technology.

Cons from the world's point of view
1) Lead to arms race in India as Pakistan has already opened a new reactor in 1998 to develop weapons grade plutonium.
2) By giving access to India inspite of it not signing the NTP, US itself has undermined the treaty itself so when they present the case to other countires to sign, it will have no effect. Esp with North Korea.
3) Pakistan claims that it has the same behaviour as India and it too should deserve the same perks. But Pakistan had a history of poliferation esp with a general selling some nuclear technology to Iran.

How did the pact get signed when there are so many political consequences
Each country is going to reap huge profits by sellign nuclear material/technology to India. So as the Marx would say "Follow the Money"