What Am I

What does it take to grow up the career? Is it hardwork, passion to excel, smartness or what else? From what I have seen, I guess, it is liaison and PR that are going to be the major players in deciding the destiny of different people. It seems liaison has become an imperative part of the whole society and it cannot run and live without it. The interesting part is, Is this included in the amount of money supply that happens in the society. The other day I was havign a discussion with one of my friends, who said that black money to a greater extent is a boon to the economy, because of the increased pace of transactions that take place. But, why isn't corruption considered in deciding the total volume of the economy. Or is it already taken into consideration? Because GDP is calculated based on the total value of the finished goods, and these finished goods already include the corruption and the black money that is expended on them, so corruption is already included in the economy...S...

Can any one please tell me how much is the price of oil? My common sense tells me that my costs + profit should equal my selling price... But in case of oil this equation is not valid at all... In fact I guess any trading of commodities goes against this equation...But, just for our udnerstanding, how much does it really cost to tap the oil reservers, extract them, refine them? Let us first try and see, what is the total supply and demand of oil as on date, so that if there is a huge mistmatch between them, then we may understand that companies are trying to take advantage of the supply shock and hence hte prices are high... Demand for oil is: 86 million barrels per day World oil production growth trends, in the short term, have been flat over the last 18 months. Global production averaged 85.24 mbbl/d in 2006, up 0.76 mbbl/d (0.9%), from 84.48 mbbl/d in 2005.[32] Production in Q3 2007 was 85.08 mbbl/d, down 0.62 mbbl/d (0.7%), from the same period a year earlier. So the average produc...

On the eve of the new UN summit on global warming, I thought of having a look at the world's most poullted areas...Got the information from msnbc..some of the photos are really heart touching... The list of all these 10 worst poullted places is realeased in Mid September by Experts from Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, MIT, Mount Sinai Hospital and other groups devising the listing criteria, which focused on pollution's impact on human health — especially that of children. Sumgayit, Azerbaijan Linfen, China Tianying, China Sukinda, India Vapi, India La Oroya, Peru Dzerzhinsk, Russia Norilsk, Russia Chernobyl, Ukraine Kabwe, Zambia. Below are some of the images of these places...

The other day I was reading a book, gifted to me by an IITian. The book is written by an english professor who was vry attached to prepositions and articles. He proposed that any one caught missing these articles should be hanged to death. I read this book during the times when I was not a part of IIT and wasn't affected so much by the usage of an article. Now that Iam in IIT, my expectations about the proper usage of articles has increased tremendously. Being a part of the elite crowd, I was under the impression that people had good acquaintance with articles. But so far the experience proved disastrous. The existence of "an" seems to be void from the famous lingo of an IITian. No where could I see such an ill use of "an". A typical sentence from an IITian would be: "Can you give me a analysis of a application in a ambient condition of a atmospheric pressure of 1 bar and provide me a information about a apparent shift in a output?" The autho...

AC has become a necessity in urban India. With scorching heat and increasing closed room work environment, AC has become an indispensable commodity. The purpose of an AC is to ensure the following: 1) Ambient air conditions are maintained 2) Supply of oxygen is maintained 3) Moisture balance 4) Temperate maintenance But I guess most of us always related it only to the temperature aspect. We are so obsessed about living under sub normal temperatures, that we even boast about our abilities to bear those temperatures. Even when the normal temperatures can be around 22-25 degrees many of us somehow want to live in temperatures less than 18 degrees. This approach, I guess, has got something to do with the misconception that acquaintance with sub normal temperatures show cases one's wealth and affluence. And the ever increasing attitude of Indians to showcase their wealth has made them reduce the temperatures in their living rooms. This in turn leads to an increasing the hot air coming o...

Somehow, I was always inclined towards writing stuff, which non-MBAs find interesting, but today I have an article which MBAs might like :) In the news paper MINT, yesterday's headlines were: India will not curb the capital inflows...This meant that, more money flows into India in terms of Dollars, which would mean that rupee would appreciate, imagine what would be the status of Indian exports and especially IT companies. But with India becoming a lucrative destination for investment one cannot stop money pouring in. With the declining exports I thought Government would have given lot of thought. Look at the IMF suggestion of not to put any curbs on the capital inflow. IMF new managing director Dominique Strauss-Khan told reporters, pointing out that the capital inflows have an unavoidable impact on the value of rupee, the IMF chief said "nevertheless it reflects the fundamentals and you don't want to do anything which in one way or another undermines this good look or app...

There is a similarity between the location of India and US, I guess looking at the title you might have gogt a hint, yes, both these countries are surrounded by seas, but India, is surrounded by another set of sea i.e. sea of sorrows!! This article for once is not intended at the sorrows within the country, infact, if I compare the situation of India with its neighbouring states, we should consider ourselves to be in heaven. Just to give you a glimpse of what is goign around, Pakistan is under emergency rule. Burma is under military rule. Nepal is under the grip of Maoists rule. Srilanka is relling udner the fight between LTTE and government. Nature thought that equal amoutn has to be besotted upon another nieghbouring country of ours, Bangladesh, and hence it unfurled its fury last week in terms of cyclone, Sidr... UN estimates that more than 50% of bangladesh is affected because of this cyclone. offical death of toll of 3000, which everyone knows is the scaled down figure, speaks for...

Power grid corporation of India is investing around 50000 crores in expanding the power transmission lines in India.... I got very happy hearing this news...I am also going to pursue my summer internship in a company dealing with power transmission lines... With all the plans to increase the power generation, I thought it is certainly viable to work in power transmission as well, and this is going to be the next sun rise setor in India... But, MIT has spilled water on my euphoria...by MIT, I meant Masachussets institute of Technology, because of hteir latest invention...Thanks to my friend, Srinivas Reddy, I came to know about this... MIT experimentally demonstrates wireless power transfer A team from MIT's Department of Physics, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN) has experimentally demonstrated an important step toward accomplishing this vision of the future. The team members are Andre Kurs, Aristeidis Kara...

For all those perveted minds, imagine how great it would be to rape a girl, and instead of gettig punished, get the Victim an imprisonment in the court of law, for getting you involved in the rape. This is exactly what happens in the land which many of the people from my state AP, India aspire to go in search of money and jobs; Saudi Arabia. The land where MANners are defined only by a man, where a woman has no place for dignity. A weird incident happened, long ago, but which caught my eye recently. The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. Though the culprits are also given the punishment, recently the punishment is doubled both for the culprits and victims. It is doubled for the victim, because she tried to make her point through media, and the court felt that the victim shouldn't have highlighted through media and hence is sentenced for six months in prison and 200 la...

We had a presentation on Bhopal gas tragedy today, and these are the excerpts of the meeting. THough I did not mention the details properly, people should certainly google the details...The presenation was by one of the survivors and an NGo activtist...Below are the details: They are taken into Union carbide There are bodies in tanks, fields etc. 16th Dec Bhopal is emptied, whereas the leakage happened on 2nd Dec All the colonies are left with no people. We spent our lives on alms....Either the parents are gone or the children are gone forever... This is all what Union carbide could give us... All those [ep[;e who are alive are leading life on deadly terms, Many children are uneducated, unemployed. Dow chemicals should own the responsibility of the status of Bhopal. It wants to spread its fangs across multiple cities... For the past 23 years, 25-30000 people have been suffering becuase all the localities are poisoned. Their water, air, and every aspect of those localities in those vill...

I think it is already made!! Iam speaking about the first flight of AIrbus A380 that traversed from Singapore to Sydney. It would have been such a great relief to the A380 officials and the SIngapore airport officials... Having been to Singapore and the airport to couple of times, I can understand the pride that Changi airport officials have in their airport and the care that they take to ensure that the airport and its service are in the best of their shapes. THe delay of nearly 18 months in the delivery of the AIrbus A380 was costing a lot to the airliens as well, but the pressure was heavy on Airbus to ensure the delivery. $1.2 million was received through the auction for the first journey in A380... But I gues the journey would have been worth every penny. Imagine the feeling that you are travelling in the first flight of A380 :)...I guess people who are only interested in flights and have been closely following the making of A380 and the troubles that it has ben going through can ...

I was waiting to get a glimpse of the sparkle in the eyes of everyone in our class and fortunately today I could find in couple of eyes. Today for the first time, I was able to talk to the class about the concept of determinism. The occasion being the Communciations assignment where, every one has to speak about a topic of their choice for 3 minutes. Of all the topics I chose this topic than the Why marriage or Why children, because I dint want to make it very controversial, but of late I faced occasions where I felt people needed to udnerstand the importance of appreciating others. I will not again speak about my perceptions on everyone, but the class itself was very interesting, infact quite amazing. The best being a small speech by a Phd guy on how an arranged marriage is initiated. Every one of us liked that topic. But the presentation gibven by one of our team members on evolution was amazing. I think he entered the presentation as an udnerdog, but guess what he is the one who has...

This is an article, which I thought of writing long ago, nevertheless it took me so long to shed my laziness. I was watching this documentary, which was about the ill effects of castism in India. THough the religious aspect of that is the one that I wouldn't appreciate, the things about the barbaric acts against different castes makes you wonder if the system is really worth it. A lady is raped and her husband killed because she stood and won the elections against an opponent who belongs to upper caste. Children who are around 5-10 years of age are taught about castes and the thoughts are inculcated into their minds. Those innocent minds aren't even aware that they are following an act which may lead them nowhere. They are aware of one thing, that, people of lower caste carry need to be shed off. During the Q & A session, I gave the example of the differential treatment between the castes, not between the lower and upper castes but among upper castes, and this is being impl...

25 years of my life have passed by...But 25 is just another birthday like the earlier 24 years...but somehow Iam fascinated by numbers and 25 does occupy some special position;) and hence a special occasion!! As per the movie padosan, until 25 years a guy has to be a brahmachari and then he is ready for marriage at 25...ha ha.. But I have decided to extend that limit to atleast 50 more years, and if I manage to live that long the postponement would continue...Bad luck girls :-p!! I want to write something on this special occastion though. But, what to write...Hmm.. About Schooling, college, and then office.. thodi masti, thodi sharaarat, thoda gum, thodi khushi aur thode dost . I owe these 25 years to so many people...Ofcourse Iam not goint to say it the Oscar way of thanks to a, b, c etc...But things have happened the way they have because they are supposed to have happened that way.. and hence I met all these people because they are supposed to be present there to show me thi...

Iam writing this article before Iam going to take my exam.. Our term examinations are beginning today...Big deal!! Feels different taking the exams after 4 years...I cant express how am I going through right now, but then the exhaustive studies that happened yesterday and the day before reminded me of the days that we used to write the B.Tech exams... Its that "LOST" expression that most of us have had just two days ago... and here is everyone trying to gear upto to take the exam. Atleast for me, Iam not that well prepared, but somehow B.Tech and my career have ruined my drive to excel in examinations like these...Iam taking the exams as they come to me without a great passion. THe reason may be because everyone expects you to write down something from the text book...I know that there is hardly a method where the student can't be grilled based on his exams... But wouldn't it have been fine to examine the student based on what he is and what he is capable of, atleast ...

Why aren't emotions considered important for managers. We keep complaining about our bosses that they somehow can't understand the problems of his sub-ordinates. Boss is always wrong and we feel that we would have done this and that if we were to be in that position. But will we ever be able to do things properly when we are in that position. Forget about being in that position, even wold-be managers i.e. students pursuing MBA, can they behave the way which is humane. Though being humane is a strong adjective to be used for so called petty things like hurting some one, playing with some one's emotions, I'd still consider that inhumane. I would not want to compare it with the inhuman conditions prevailing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia which cannot be expressed in words. Iam speaking about a very simple matter of fact "hurting emotions". Iam writing this because of sequence of events that happened in the last couple of weeks, not with me as the subject though. ...

Was just reading this article on Khan abdur gaffar khan and his struggle...For that matter every freedom fighter struggle to achieve the success. But ironically, many of the freedom fighters didn't intend to go for the freedom struggle in the first place. Everyone was busy or engaged in their own front. Few incidents brought them into the foray of the big league - Indian National Congress. Even if one considers jhansi lakshmi Bai, she wasn't fighting for the independence of the country. All that she was fighting for, was the accession of crown to her son but not to the British. Agreed that she is the one who has fought bravely against the British, and in fact I am one of the most inspired by her stints with the war, but the motive was altogther different. Mahatma Gandhi whom I consider as my role model in many aspects wasn't thinking about the freedom struggle. All that brought him into lime light were his demonstrations of courage and his willingness to help people in Sout...

If one was following my blog, for a long time I just kept the topic "Energy crisis" as one of the upcoming articles. May be this is the time I start doing some preparation regarding the same. Today I attended this session by an international journalist on the topic "Will Ganga Die". He has written a book on the same and has done exhaustive analysis on the origin, flow and different aspects of Ganga. Ganga is a part of the energy supply of India. Infact it forms one of the major sources of energy in terms of water and electricity. (There is another form of intangible energy also that it supplies i.e. faith :) ). Ganga has been one of the major sources or to say reasons for the near about self sufficiency that we have acheived in terms of good grain production. Most of the Northern part of India which forms the largest chunk of population and population growth in India survives on Ganga. No wonder Ganga is treated as a goddess!!for without Ganga India would be reeling...

What a weird topic, it feel at the first glance. But these are the captions of the biggies in India. Both the companies have given the best value to the stake holders. They have brought millions of middle class people to a place where their dreams can be fulfilled. The first one is the motto of Reliance Industries Limited and the second one of Infosys. Let me first speak about 'Growth is Life". I am able to associate this with Reliance for sure in the aggressive mood in which they are expandint themselves into the horizons. Their growth is both vertical and horizontal. Every step that they take seem to go inline with the caption. They are providing stupendous growth to the stake holders. They are providing great growth oppurtunities for the employees. Their vision to grow in every sector is also quite evident. But, for the split that the Ambani brothers had, everything was inline with their strategy to grow, grow and grow further... Now, if I think of "Think Flat" Ia...

The eqn for the cost of oil is: Cost per barrel x no. of barrels consumed per day x 365 India's oil consumption: 4 million barrels per day Cost per barrel: $60 Total oil cost per day: $240 million = $0.24 billion per day Total cost per year: $87.6 billion If we assume the no. of barrels to be constant then, cost per barrel is the only variant in the above equation and that would decide the total cost. So a $1 increase in the barrel price would mean an additional 4 million x 365 = $1460 million = $1.46 billion dollars Similary a $10 increase would mean an additional $14.6 billion dollars of burden on our GDP. India's GDP = ~30,00,000 crores of rupees = ~30,000 billion rupees = ~$700 billion Percentage share of oil consumption in GDP = 87.6/700 = ~12.5% That means if we were to import all the oil that we are consuming, we'd be spending around 12.5% of our income on oil expenses alone. But, since we are importing "only" 70% of our oil requirements we are spending...

While I was coming on the bike just a weird thought flashed my mind that why are there such huge differences around us. Necessity is the mother of invention! Nature will always find its way... We have all these sayings which seem to reflect the general way of happenings. But, why is it that people have things which are not required for them. Even one of the mathematical laws nurturing the nature says that when things start going bad, they really go bad. It is always exponential changes that nature seems to be associated with. I observed the following contrasting things around. 1) People who are happy seem to be unite well with their family members. But people who have problems, cannot cope up with things. 2) People who are rich, in terms of money, are very calculative in their expenses. But people who are running short of money seem to always encounter things which asks for shelling out loads of money. 3) People who think a lot tend to get things which do not need brains. ...

Every one is probably associated with the term E-commerce. It is the business done online in any form. From an Indian perspective E-commerce has come long way from a revenue of around some millions of dollars to near around billion dollars. But the one that Iam going to discuss in this article is not that E-commerce, but it is the other e-commerce which every one is dreaming about i.e. "ecology" commerce. What.. ecology.. and commerce? Isn't ecology destroyed by booming business and commerce, and hence any increase in business will lead to ecological damage...So how is there e-commerce. We know about Global warming which is happening because of the increased pollutants into the air by industries. Now these emissions, called as carbon emissions, have to be reduced in order to reduce the rate of increase of global warming. So, a concept called as carbon trading has been introduced near around a decade ago. Here, industries are allocated certain share in the amount of CO2 th...

The raison d'être of this blog was that, whenever I come across with any stupid or weird thought I can simply put it down. But, so far I've been only posting my thoughts but not any of my stupid ideas:). SO, let me begin with one of them that just splashed across. What if we have a monitor which displays different things depending on the person who is watching it. Say in an organization I have a very wide screen on the top of the wall, and say, I have some goggles kind of stuff, or I have some sensors detecting the light rays coming from say X person. The moment these light rays are detected, the display is only of the things pertaining to that person. Similarly for persons y and z as well. Imagine a single wall and every one staring at the wall and working.:).. It can be extended to many folds. Even for bill boards if the technology is intelligent enough to identify the age group/sex or whatever criterion that can be configured of the person who is watching the bill board, it ...

Nowadays isn't everything about globalization? Or is it only talk and not action? Are people really interested in globalization? What does globalization stand for...? No physical barriers.. or is it like worlwideweb, where everyone has firewalls to allow people with permissions i.e. the boundaries become virtual. History dates long back.. and the one that reminds us of what big walls are built is obviously the so called "Great" wall of china. But, the trend is going the other way round. Every one though that the break down of the Berlin Wall was a hallmark in the history of globalization, but things went topsy-turvy. It was the beginning of construction of lot bigger barriers...the behemoth of all the walls being constructed is the Isreal Palestine dividing wall.. It stretches for around 800 kms nearly. Next is the proposed wall between US and Mexico... US wants to protect its boundaries from the illegal immigrants of Mexico... India is also constructing a barbed wired wa...

Is marriage a license to satisfy bodily desires? Is marriage a provision to acquire a partner for lifetime? Does marriage really act like an agreement between two mutually adjustible parties? Or is it that one of the members comprimises and is forced to comply? Our religious scriptures say that marriage is an activity for the culmination of two bodies eventually to give birth to children. The clause is raising children. As I mentioned earlier, this explanation itself was enough to justify the marriage system. Earlier People had patience and belief in the system. Every one would abide by the existing practices in the society. Yester years have gone by and every one knows the ground reality, and we are still planning to marry. And marriage has become synonymous for one to be assumed as sane. ( Has it? ). On a more personal front... I believe I owe everything to parents, coz, my existence itself is because of them. So to take care of them is my duty. When I have a very broad vision or a p...

Has any one thought about why should some one have children after marriage. Why should people be so desperate to bring a concrete shape to their sperms and eggs? With such huge burgeoning population and its related problems ( At least within the scope of this article Iam not going to consider that huge population is a boon ) should people be still looking forward to having children? What purpose do children serve? Iam not a critic of the existing activities/practices in our society and Iam assured that there are more underlying reasons than the ones that are being projected behind many things. But some of the activities presented in our religious scriptures, as is understood by the general sections of the society, may be outdated or to put it correctly may be misunderstood and misinterpreted. For example having children...Earlier with very less human population and a very high rate of fatal diseases it was nothing but obvious to have as many children as possible. Added to that were the...

This article is the result of an introspection done yesterday. Yesterday, there was a celebration and a DJ night in the office campus, owing to some sports celebrations. There was a band which played some songs and after the initial inertia everybody started dancing. Even I wanted to join the dance floor, and approached there with the other colleagus of mine (Male :) )... But, I felt as if something was stopping me from dancing...Even when I was dancing I knew I was dancing because Iam trying to grab attention rather than dancing for the sake of it. Something was stopping me badly from so called freeing up myself. I felt really out of place. Looking at the people who were dancing, I wondered if they were really enjoying the dance. Even when I was in US or Malaysia most of the times I'd never dance because it freed up my mind or because it relieved me from stress. I've been always this reserved person when trying to do things for myself. I cannot feel myself out of the world whe...

"walk the talk".. I think this summarizes what is being truthful. But are we really doing the walk the talk? History itself remember the winners. For it, ends are important than the means. Would Gandhi have been so famous if Indian did not win the independence? His fame grew only because his means produced the results. But, what if I follow means and did not end up in results. Would that make any sense to any one? Being truthful is one of the best habits. But, if I am the only person to be truthful, I might actually end up doing nothing because the means may not give me the results atleast in this nether world. Many a people get huge pay checks or benefits because for them means may not be important, but people will speak only about those people who have acheived the results. In the present circumstances if I want to make some change across the society, I need power in some means or the other, and nowadays power is not obtained just by being truthful. I can probably implement...

Today blasts occurred in Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad. Though I've never been to that Masjid or towards those areas, all that I know for sure is, it is the epitome of sanctity for muslims in Hyderabad. Imagine the title that would have been given to these blasts, if they were to be showcased by major media channels across the world. CNN or any US major media network would write it as: Terror strikes at the heart of the city. Terrorists have targetted a major and the most coveted spots in the biggest city of southern part of the Indian sub continent. The blasts have been meticulously planned to occur at the time of Namaj, the time in which all the muslims gather in a Masjid and pray. The timing of the blasts is perfect in the way, they occurred on the same day in which the culprits of the Mumbai blasts, that occurred in 1991, have been sentenced to imprisonment. President Bush has condemned the attacks. He said that we should be prepared to deal with these attacks and insisted that ter...

Nike - Horror Movie

If blogging was available for Howard Roark, would he ever blog? I doubt if he'd ever. Before I go ahead, let me introduce Mr. Howard Roark ( Would Roark bother to be introduced :) . Howard Roark is the main character, in the novel The Fountain Head by And Ryan. He led life in his own terms. Though I have read the novel only once, and that too I found the novel interesting only during the midst of the course, rather than from the beginning itself, Iam putting forth my opinion on Roark based on what I understood.. Blogging is an activity that caught up with me, though not with full fervor but atleast at a medium pace, and Iam trying to see about this activity from Roark's perspective, who gave a damn about what others thought or what others would perceive about him. But blogging in itself is an activity which speaks about sharing one's thoughts. Hmm...am I correct in this definition. Blogging is an activity in which people try to share one's thoughts in order to convince ...

"Too much of anything is good for nothing.” isn't it? So, are we excess in population or can India still support the burgeoning population growth? If we are in excess, then as per the above saying, it should be a bane rather than a boon. But, nowadays, why are we boasting about it? Because, everyone is speaking about the demographic constitution of our population. As of today, around 30-40% of our population is around the 30 years of age which happens to be the best for any working group. And if the same growth trend continues the same demography is going to become 50%, i.e. 50% of our population would around the age of 25-30. Imagine the numbers!! By 2050, if the same growth trend continues, the population would certainly reach the figure of around 2 billion. And hence there will be around 1 billion people ready to jump upon the work. Everyone understands the benefits of it, as India is poised to become the biggest market with huge opportunities onboard. At the same time, wit...

Guess the number of people the Indian IT services companies are going to recruit in this fiscal...I DONT KNOW :)... Actually they are going to recruit around 50,000 to 100,000 people in this fiscal year. And if one looks at the profits of this sector... mind blowing would be a word undermining their performance. A quarter on quarter icnrease of around 45 % even for the companies whose revenues have already crossed the 1 billion $ mark. So, what should stop me from saying that the sector is growing. But, should growth be only short liven or should be a sustained one. Though the growth rate has to be maintained at every step, I understand that the short term growth rate can be compromised, but never the long run growth rate. But, is our industry implementing the same principle. Are all the new companies that are budding, the ones which can make a change in the whole product range, or they only add more to the existing lineup. History itself shows that only people/companies which have imp...

Hey...This blog is not about today's topple of Sheila Deekshit in New Delhi, and the power crisis of Congress. Nor is it about the lack of power of chappell to enforce things( whatever be those things!!). This friends, Iam speaking about, is about the real "power" crisis. Now, do not ask me... define power, but in layman i.e. in my terms it is what all of us need to survive nowadays. Days may not be far away, when indirect sources of energy may substitute the food consumption...( What a brilliant idea!! :)... Nevertheless the reality bites the dust. AP, my own state is reiling under power crisis, not that the u\other states are faring better. IN fact AP is the better of the worse. Just have a look at the survey done by differnt organizations across the country... http://powermin.nic.in/JSP_SERVLETS/internal.jsp Our locality in Hyderabad, already faces 4 hours of power cut. And, this is going to increase to 6 hours. This, inspite of one of the best years of Monsoon. But, a...