india – Page 3 – gcmouli.com

The Depressing State of Affairs

This is a rant post. If you are not interested in my rant/opinions, please hit your back button now 🙂

Everytime I read the paper these days, I am so depressed with the current state of affairs in our country. It so happens that every piece of news is about corruption and how the nation’s so-called leaders are making so much of a mockery of governing the country. Be it coal blocks. Be it the commonwealth games. Be it the race for the president. Be it the Tatra trucks deal.

I just read today about the military “forgetting” to order helmets for the troops. How ridiculous can that be. Apparently bullet proof vests were ordered but not helmets. The Indian Express mentions that, a soldier who suffers from a chest wound can still some times recover, but a solder with a wound in the head is almost certain to die. Apparently 40% of the fatalities last year were because of wounds in the head. This just irritates me beyond words.

There is almost no leadership in the government. We cannot hear our PM say anything without “consulting” his Italian mentor. The UPA government makes policies that are almost everytime withdrawn the next day. Someone in the coalition threatens to pull out. Be it Mamta, or DMK. Ridiculous.

And there is our dear friend Kapil Sibal, who has not even left the prestigious educational institutions alone – the IITs. Looks like he was not satisfied with the amount of confusion he caused with the abolition of the Xth boards, grading systems, and the subjective evaluation system of kids. Ask any parent, and all I hear is hatred for this system.

Then I hear about the perks that all these so-called Ministers of Parliament get, and what they use it for. You can recall the IPADs and the porn-gate incident at the parliament. After all this, a week later, there was a small announcement in the newspapers that the Lok Sabha is going to have wifi. Wow. Now is that not convenient.

Sure, we can blame the Congress for all this. The frustration does not end there. Is there an alternative ? The amount of in-fighting that is happening within the BJP is even worse. I am pretty disillusioned with them as well. If dear leader Mr. Modi cannot tolerate someone within the party (Mr. Joshi), how can he tolerate someone from the administration, an opposition party, or perhaps a coalition member.

We pride ourselves as a nation which has woken up to the mobile world. True. The proliferation of mobiles has increased like nothing else. I read somewhere that there are more mobile phones in India than there are toilets. But look at the other side. Folks like Raja made the money in allocation of the spectrum. One cannot put a number to the amount looted. I fail to even succeed at counting the number of zeroes in that number. But hey, Raja is out.

Then there is the Air India pilot strike. If the state of the country’s International carrier is in such a shape, one can but wonder. The Maharaja has never had a good reputation, and this does not do it any good. I flew to the US once in Air India in 2001, and I vowed never to ride in one again. Such was the apathy to the passenger. And this was when the airline was in fine shape. Now the pilots are staging protests like a factory union. I personally believe this is all the Government’s fault. One, to have let this situation fester so bad. And two, now not being able to control and bring the situation back in control. You see the same news every day in the paper that Ajeet Singh has said, he is ‘considering’ what to do with the striking pilots. And in the middle of all this, the first A380 dreamliner lands with a water cannon salute. Sure, it is now securely parked in a hangar (for which I am not sure if AI has the money to pay rent for) – because there are no trained pilots to fly the damn plane.

And ofcourse, amidst all this, our dear president Ms. Patil (and her small entourage of about 60 family members) tour the world at the country’s cost. There are “Parliamentary Sub-Committees” of ministers and aides, who tour the US and Europe to “study” such things as the effect of rainfall on drought hit areas. Defenitely worth a study.

T20 was a sham. Gym equiment worth lakhs of Rupees were accounted for multiple crores of Rupees in the Commonwealth games. Kalmadi is out, and even saying he may apply for election. Maybe he will get elected. He now has the minimum qualification of having gone to jail. During all this, sad news such as the Olympic Weight lifting team being put up in a Tin shanty in Delhi also comes out. Sad. The only guys who earn us a few medals are the ones who are treated this way.

The sad part is that, this is starting getting to get noticed. Guys like S&P are giving warning signals. We got some bad press from BRIC as being one of the lower rung countries. The UN recently said that India is the most unsafe country for ladies in the world.

There are no good roads. There still is not enough water in most parts of the country — states constantly bickering about why they should not be releasing water to the nearby state. No electricity — wind farms and new plants marred by protests. Unemployment persists — with the government of some states giving a free tv, Rs. 1 rice, and subsidized alcohol, why is this not so surprising.

I know that this article reads very depressing and pessimistic, but I cannot help it. I poured it all out. And I am not too sure if I feel better after pouring it out either. If the situation improves, it would be no short of a miracle. Until then, I will do the Bangaloreans have taught me — “Simply Adjust Maad Sir”.

Update: As reader rakamath states below, its not the dreamliner, but 787. And the first one is still yet to arrive. I guess I got confused a bit seeing a file photograph of the water cannon and new aircraft in a newspaper photograph.

India losing its sheen

It is very unfortunate, but I find myself agreeing to a lot of what this Economist article has to say. Read the excerpt:

INDIA is a land of large numbers: a place of over a billion people, a million mutinies and a thousand different tongues. But it is not too much of a stretch to say that since independence in 1947 there have only been two kinds of Indian economy.

The first produced slothful growth, mind-bending red tape and suffocating bureaucracy. The second revved up gradually after liberalisation in the 1990s, so that by the mid-2000s India was a land of surging optimism—open and full of entrepreneurs who overcame a retreating but still cranky public sector. The country seemed destined to enjoy a long spurt of turbocharged growth, thanks to its favourable demography, fired-up firms, gradual reforms and willingness to save and invest.

But lately, like a Bollywood villain who just refuses to die, the old India has made a terrifying reappearance (see article). The main reason is the country’s desperate politics.

Read the full article here.

Tree Hugger – Jadav “Molai” Payeng

This is just amazing. Read this exerpt:

A little over 30 years ago, a teenager named Jadav “Molai” Payeng began burying seeds along a barren sandbar near his birthplace in northern India’s Assam region to grow a refuge for wildlife. Not long after, he decided to dedicate his life to this endeavor, so he moved to the site where he could work full-time creating a lush new forest ecosystem. Incredibly, the spot today hosts a sprawling 1,360 acre of jungle that Payeng planted single-handedly.

Wow. Talk about perseverence, and a love for nature. I can imagine how happy he would have been through the 30 years to see his “forest” grow. Some of us are not even successful in keeping our tulsi healthy.

(via)

I dream of an India …

I dream of an India where …

the streets are clean
the Police is respected, responsive, and is the common man’s friend
there is no corruption
the public transportation is awesome (enough, on-time, and clean)
civic bodies work together and have non-intrusive infrastructure (no more digging up of the roads by one body after the other)
Government offices work per clock-work (if the appropriate paper work is there, your work will get done)
there is fair competition in the industry
education is first-class, and world-oriented
industrial infrastructure is world-class
there is no pollution
there is no hypocricy
there are no reservations
there is equal educational opportunity for all to succeed in any endeavour

*Sigh* I can dream, can’t I ? Yet, I am confident some of this (and maybe even all) will happen.

Delhi Metro in the NYTimes

An awesome article about the Delhi Metro in the NYTimes. And yes, I was quite surprised (pleasantly, ofcourse), when I saw the above photograph. Wow. people standing in line to board the train.

It talks in depth about the challenges faced, and the key man behind the Delhi Metro – Shreedharan. And talks about how the Metro has monitors (most of them volunteers), who make sure, no one sits down on the floor of the metro cars, makes sure no one spits etc. It also talks about some new age management fundas – giving the employees a copy of the Bhagavath Gita, and explaining how it is one of the oldest management manuals.

Ok, now ends the good part, and I am going to start the ranting. The article goes on to rile the other cities of the country, and deride Gandhi’s vision etc – which it has no business to do. Ok, I am going to stop ranting, for the sake of keeping this article, family friendly. I am just going to quote the one paragraph which riddled me, and let you read through it, and allow you to seethe, and vent frustration by yourself.

India’s romance with the village, which Mahatma Gandhi believed was the most suitable environment for human development, is partly to blame for the decrepitude of Indian cities.

Uniformly, India’s cities are a mess. Bangalore, India’s high-tech hub, is strangled daily by traffic that has already eroded its image. Mumbai, the commercial capital, is riddled with overcrowded slums.

New Delhi, as the capital, is alone among India’s largest cities in having control over its own money and destiny. The Metro is the most visible example of that advantage.

How is that? I wonder why the foreign press has this fancy for New Delhi and no other city. Oh well, its good that they missed out some of the southern cities. We are better off, now being well known, I guess. We will just continue being the not-so-popular Detroit of India (Chennai), and IT Captial of the world (Bangalore).

Read the full article here.

Update: I was talking to an office-colleague, and he says, the last time he went to Delhi, he wanted to see the metro, and down he went to the Connaught Place station. The station and the trains was apparently extremely crowded, and there was no sign of any order in the place (quite contrary to the nice photograph above). He also said, that there were so many people boarding the trains, that a guard had to shove people inside the coach, and force close the doors, each time the train left the station. I am now beginning to think, the Times article is a paid article 🙂

Walmart in India

Yes. I know there was a lot of talk about Walmart coming to India, and then the Government blocked them. Farmers and small business owners compained and made a huge cry about their future being destroyed etc. But do you know what happened after that? We also heard something about Walmart tying up with Bharti (yes, the Airtel guy). But then what?

I just read an article on NDTV.com about how Walmart is already in, and a lot of us do not even know about this. They are laying the foundations, so to speak. Walmart has made an entry into the wholesale vegetable and food products industry. What does this mean? They establish contacts with a large number of farmers, help them get the best crop, procure them, and then sell them as a whole sale dealer to smaller retailers.

By helping the farmers, with the latest innovations, doing research with them, to achieve high yields with minimal cost etc, Walmart has established a good rapport with these farmers. One other thing that they do, which has made Walmart have a huge fan following, is the fact, that Walmart comes, and collects the produce from the farmers, instead of the farmer having to lug it there. Payments are made in time. What have we here? Walmart is a hero in these parts.

Here in Haider Nagar, in India’s bread basket state of Punjab, farmers who supply vegetables to Wal-Mart say they like working with the company. It typically pays them 5 percent to 7 percent more than they earn from local wholesale markets, they said. And they don’t have to spend money transporting produce because Wal-Mart picks it up from their fields.
Abdul Majid, who sells cucumbers to Wal-Mart, says his yields have risen about 25 percent since he started following farming advice about when to apply fertilizers and which kinds – more zinc, less potash – from the company and its partner, Bayer CropScience.

Walmart is trying to push other goods as well through its whole sale market, such as clothes etc, but it has recognized that the largest commodity that is traded and needed in India, is food.

Ofcourse, not everyone likes the idea of Walmart in India. Activists are protesting that, they will wipe out the small traders. But what can Walmart do new, that Big Bazaar has not done already. I am of the firm belief that, Capitalism does not kill anyone. Capitalism makes people reinvent what they are, and adapt to what they are smart at. So if someone was a smart farmer, he would adapt to selling to walmart. If he was not a smart farmer, he would reinvent himself, he would either move to the city and become a driver or something else, where he would showcase his smartness. That is life. But is moving everyone to the city a good thing? Well, that is another topic for another day….

Read the full article here.

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Cuppa chai and handwarming on a roadside fire …

OFFBEAT WEATHER (Image courtesy: The Hindu Images)

“It was 2003, and I can still remember as it was yesterday. I can still smell the charcoal fire….”

Ok, I will stop with the Titanic dialogue. But yeah, today morning’s heavy fog in Bangalore, brought back memories of Delhi. It was December 2003, the winter before I defended my Phd in the US and returned back. I had come to the VLSI conference in Delhi, Bangalore (with a bag full of resumes! :-)). The conference was over in 3 days, and I had 2 more days. I wanted to see the Taj ; and someone in the family had recommended Panicker Travels – which was apparently the default travel agent for any tamil guy in Delhi, because some of the drivers spoke Tamil, stopped in Veg joints etc. So I called them up, and booked myself a one-full-day guided trip of Taj-Mathura-Vrindavan. It so happened that, Mr. Panicker did not have that many takers in that chilly weather, and so I was consigned to join another similar tour from some other travel operator (all transparently arranged ofcourse), but that is another story.

Now coming to the highlight of this post (and the subject line ofcourse). Once in every 3-4 hours, the bus would stop at a highway food joint for some tea/snacks/food/whatever; and ofcourse, the men went on to add free fertilizer to the fields behind the dhaba. In one of these joints, I spotted a road side fire, with a few guys sitting down (hmm .. how to describe this pose .. ah .. in a way, one would sit down on an Indian toilet!) around the fire, and warming their hands. I had always wanted to do this — and there it was, right in front of me. I jumped at the opportunity — Let me tell you — there are few other pleasures in the world, which can match this. The temperature was around 5 deg Cel, smoke came from your nose and mouth, even without a cigarette, and you toast your hands and body sitting in this unholy pose around the fire. I tell you again, there is no other equalled pleasure. Hmmmm.

PS: There is one distinct after-effect though. Once you get back to the bus, you realize that your whole body smells of charcoal, and the smell does not go that easily !

Bombay attacks shocks the world!

(image from the web)

The Bombay attacks evoke two very strong emotions in me – empathy for the people of Bombay (who are facing this for the second time in recent years) and extreme irritation at the current government (for being so inept).

My heart goes out to those in Bombay, who have been affected by this tragedy and shock.

I still cannot figure out how the current government is still suriving, after being so inept. In my opinion, this shows the effective fall of democracy – this government does not seem to be doing anything for the people. Terrorism has been flowing freely in this country ever since the current Congress government has come to power. People used to talk vehemently about Hindutva bias etc when the BJP government was there — but tell me, did anything like this happen? I usually dont indulge in politics talk — but I still cannot believe how inept this government has been. I do not recall any big infrastructure projects that got done, or any strategic political alliance with neighbours, or any financial policies that came out of this government.

This government will be remembered for the innumerable bomb blasts and lives lost only.

It is sad, very sad.

Go Chandrayaan !

Now that the Chandrayaan satellite is also safely parked on the moon. India is one of 4 nations, who have their flag on the moon. Yes, I say that, with my chest swelling with pride. I got a chain mail recently with some pictures of the launch. And I thought I should share them here for you. I have lived in Florida for about 5 years earlier, and I have seen quite a few launches from Cape Canaveral (NASA), and also been there for the customary desi-tour etc. But it is when you see the below pictures, that you see, “Oh yeah, we have those too in India.”

Intel Xeon 7400 – Made in India !

The song by Alisha Chinai – Made in India – has been my cell phone ringtone for quite some time now. And now, this tune resounds even better – when I read the EE times article, proclaiming the Intel Xeon 7400 processor to have been completely designed in India. For those not in the know, this is a BIG deal. Processor design is not trivial. Find quotes from the article below:

Intel’s India design team handled all design activities, including front-end design, pre-silicon logic validation and back-end design for the Intel Xeon 7400 series processor aimed at high-end servers and code-named Dunnington.

Along with being Intel India’s first complete microprocessor design, Praveen Vishakantaiah, president of Intel Technology India Pvt. Ltd., said the design ramp-up took just six years. “This is also the first complete 45-nanometer design outside the U.S,” Vishakantaiah added.

Boy, am I feeling proud or what !

[link to the original EETimes article]