Mandela...Mandela

One of the very few heroes I believed in has passed away... Its strange for many that people this far and wide from his country, his race get lump in their throats and tears in their eyes on this day but that is what great heroes and great ideas are all about.

RIP Nelson Madela!!

An Appeal to help Flash Flood victims from Dharchula area in Uttarakhand

My home state Uttarakhand has been in news recently for wrong reasons. Flash floods have devastated a large parts of Uttarakhand. Kedarnath and other Dhams have been focus of national media attention and rightly so, given the fact that almost every state in our country was connected to this tragedy.

Around the same time my native area of Dharchula which is located at Indo-Nepal and Indo-China border of Uttarakhand state also fell victim to flash floods caused by cloud bursts in the higher mountains of Darma valley. Swollen rivers  Dhauli and Kali decimated smaller habitats, roads and bridges along along the way. At the moment 22 deaths have been reported and 366 homes have been lost. 100s have been stranded at summer migration villages at the moment with little or no supplies as road links are beyond repair still.

My community "Rung" ( pronounced as english word rung) resides along these rivers Dhauli and Kali in this region and many of our habitats have been affected in this tragedy.

Our community organization, Rung Kalyan Sanstha (RKS) had established a relief fund for such calamities post the tragic incident of Malipa in 1998 ( which is also mostly known to our nation for the tragic death of Protima Bedi) which also had left its tragic imprints on our community. This fund has been named "Rung Rahat Kosh" and post Malipa relief we had continued operation of funds to help community members who fall pray to illness, accidents and natural calamities. We are not able to compensate for the huge loss which families have incurred but a token monetary assistance from this fund helps the victims in the hour of need.

We are collecting contributions from our community members to help victims of the recent flash floods. Apart from personal contributions, each of our members is also  requesting their personal and professional network also for contributions.

I would also like to request all the friends here to come forward and help us make meaningful contributions in the lives of victims as they try to recover from this tragedy and rebuild their lives again.

You Can send contributions to following account :

Rung Kalyan Sanstha, Dehradun 

A/C NO. 3712000100207247 INR , 

Punjab National Bank, Ajabpur kalan Branch ,Dehradun

IFSC - PUNB0371200 (5th chracter is zero)

Please send us an email also to krautela@gmail.com after effecting your deposit or bank transfers ( Name/City/Amount/Mode).

Note :

• Contributions to RKS are not eligible for tax exemptions at the moment.
• RKS can not take any foreign donations as we don't have FCRA clearance.

if anyone wants more information or follow up on this we have setup a facebook group : Dharchula : We shall overcome this also !  

Thanking you all for taking time out to read this message.

Orkut,Facebook, Twitter ... Google+

I seem to have become addicted to "new".....and height is that even Facebook also doesn't seem to do it for me anymore. So much so that today I glanced at my long forgotten social network Orkut!!

Looking at Orkut a few things about Facebook's social success became very obvious. Facebook understood human social behaviour better than Orkut did...and it went about including the web in more open ways than Orkut. Ubiquitous "like" button we take for granted today is the bedrock of Facebook's success. It filled that gap of not having to write but also showing appreciation, solidarity .. plain and simple like!! It made the ways/tools available to websites and users for "Liking" effortlessly.  Orkut was good as technology and thats why it became so popular in India, until Facebook arrived.

Google+ had so much promise and it still has potential to create a different sort of network... not social.. but more private social sort of. Lets see how Google evolves this eco-system  it has created. Google has assorted tools with which it is trying to build the social network whereas Facebook already has social mastered and is trying to add tools in it.

Twitter has been fascinating in the meantime ... it is source of breaking news for me ... lets say it is my social news network.

Nothing else seems path breaking on the horizon at the moment.... all new startups are trying to create tools to tap the power of Facebook & Twitter whereas Google has been left to do its own spadework. 

Another interesting thing is the way these successful tech companies have slowly  started owning alphabets and symbols..."B", "W", "G", "f", "t" .... race is on !

How do we value farmer's sweat and blood?

In last 3 years I have come across many papers on development and woes of our villages. To use the broad statistics from different sources, 2/3 of our population is engaged in agriculture/rural sector and the share of this sector in GDP is around 17-18%!!

It makes me wonder as to how do we value the blood and sweat of farmers. What makes agriculture products to be valued so low that output of 60%+ amounts to meager 17% of the economy?

Beautiful Game

Despite all the drama and fuss of refereeing woes, constant din of vuvuzelas and unpredictable flight of jabulanis, this world cup has gone on predicted lines. Fight between European and South American football, peppered with African and Asian mix here and there.
African teams have shown promise except for Nigeria which really had a poor show. SA, Ivory Coast & Ghana have made themselves count. Asians also have done whatever they can do at this stage.

For Africa and Asia it is still a distant dream to find the best mix of flair and strategy. Africans have plenty of flair but they have lacked quality long term coaches. Asian teams are yet to produce an international star in football which goes to show the flair deficit to a large extent.

Quarterfinal games have shown that in big games execution of strategy and flair bot are needed to seal the games. Brazil faltered on account of strategy against Netherlands and same was the fate of Argentina against Germany.

Germany look like the only team with perfect blend at the moment. Some of the goals against Argentina reminded me of scoring moves in field hockey. The way they took the ball from the flanks to inside of the box without trying to put in high crosses is just a like field hockey move designed to score or atleast create penalty corners. Argentina was not able to close the gaping hole on their right flank through out the game and paid the price with 4 goals.

With the semi final line up of Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Urguay, an all European final is very much on the cards. Germany vs. Netherlands final would be worth watching!!

Class Wars

This morning while driving to office, heard BBC program on Thai Red Shirt protests. The biggest refrain from this protest was about common man's perception of the government and class systems. Be it democracy or monarchy, class system dictates the systems of governance. Even communism has not been spared, its just that tables get turned and oppressed becomes the oppressor.

I couldn't help but draw parallels to Maoism movements of India, Nepal and early Chinese people's revolution. In all cases common man, the poor staged the uprising against the ruling elites of their nations. If you see there is always a very uneasy and tense balance between the elite and commoners and in all this middle class normally sides with elite barring a few exceptions here and there.

I cant say that I have a solution to all this but just the realization of this class war reality can help us look for the solutions. Be it NREGA or any other measures ( which elite immediately pounce on as populist policy) show that it doesn't take much to keep the common man happy... or may I say quiet. In the same BBC program their was a mention of how Takshin Sinawatra also produced his own brand of populist scheme by giving 1 million Baht fund to villages for creating easy loans to poor. I must say, not such a bad scheme. More than the money it is the decision making power which has been given in the hands for those poor people. But going beyond that one needs to look at creating opportunities for common people and equitable justice system to make "everyone" happy and give a lasting solution.

It is interesting to know that poor countries, hotbed of such class wars, stand out with their flawed judicial systems. Judicial systems which come down heavily on poor people.

We can learn a lot from Americans also as to how they have been able to do with their democracy.

Who can bring this change?... I think it would take all of us .. not just the poor common people...!!

Are we nation of blind followers?

This latest tamasha in Mumbai is an example of how our countrymen love to follow a leader blindly...!! So much so that simple act of exercising your democratic right becomes act of bravery!!

If Shivsainiks really set aside their blind devotion to supreme leader and try and reason out this latest Fatwa against Shahrukh Khan .. they would realize that how immature this whole thing looks to reasonable people.

Is it the sign of desperation from top leadership of Shiv Sena. In recent past this would be second time they have left themselves looking like fools. When simple act of Rahul travelling in Mumbai was made an issue by them .. they were left with egg on their face and now this movie release has further eroded their reputation.

These small victories may be counter productive for the future of Mumbai as now Sena(s) might get desperate and turn to more violent means to regain their power over people. Lets just hope that Shiv Sainiks realize the futility of following wishes of other people and take their destinies in their own hands by working hard and making productive use of their time.

Living in a world full of batteries..

Was just wondering if batteries were the most influential invention on our lives!!

five point someone's 70%

Seriously last evening's media overdose has spoilt all the fun of 3 idiots..!! It is such a good package for indian middle classes and could have done without role playing by the people behind the scenes ( victim : CB villain: VVC)
I find it ridiculous that CB is playing victim in this whole thing and playing %age game :) Is he looking for 70% returns from the movie? I guess no.. He is looking for the credits in big bold letters at the beginning of the movie!! but then if he is basing  his claim on so called feedback from his fans, some off the record comments from critics and his family members... arriving at magic figure of 70%... it sounds hollow after having watched the movie myself. I might give benefit of doubt to CB as it has been long time since I read the book. It was enjoyable read back then but I haven't felt like picking up another CB book thereafter.  ( He is no Murakami )

Movie has gags and characters which weren't there in the book ( if my memory serves me right and  if book was that memorable ). Movie hits home a few points better than the book specially for the middle class indians. It brings certain amount of drama ( which incidentally a friend of mine finds disgusting ) which a movie like this needed ... raju hirani and amir combination made sure that there was lot of message in the movie.

It was over the top in few places and some scenes seemed a bit silly ( delivering of baby on TT table scene) but the way it was finally finished with right amount of emotion and comedy made the initial build up bearable. It isnt Rang De Basanti or Taare Zameen Par but it still stays with you much longer than Singh is King or some similar stuff we have been getting out of Bollywood.

I believe CB maybe a victim in all this  ... more because of his own doings :

• if he was fussy about credit, he should have covered it hammer and tong in the contract
• if he is miffed about not getting same proportions of returns from the project like the makers and the stars then he should blame his business manager or whoever did the deal for him ( 10 lakhs sound paltry for such a successful book )

Caught this article by Vir Sanghvi on the same issue ..

Your cellphone or music player or gaming device is your primary computer ...

Hmmm ... we seem to be on the same wavelength :

The trends are pretty clear. All the exciting new applications are running in the browser, with application code in the cloud and the cell phone as the platform. Your cell phone will become your primary computer. I think in the near future there will be docking stations everywhere with a screen and a keyboard. You simply pull out your phone, plug it into the docking station, and instantly all your applications and data are available to you. The key is you get to decide which applications and data to keep resident on your phone, and which to keep in the cloud.

This is what Don Dodge  said in an interview and thats what I was thinking a day before. Only difference being he works at Google ( and comes from Microsoft) ...


My contention goes a bit beyond cell phones ... one needs to include the portable gaming devices and music players in this category of primary computer. It is just a factor of human-device engagement minutes. I see people maintaining at least two of these devices at any point of time. I am not too sure if convergence would really work that well in next 2 years so as to completely eliminate music player and gaming device out of the human device engagement realm. 

Google Chrome - finally my default browser

It took long time for Google to add extensions and fix up the glitches on display of pdf files. Finally it has done all that and now it looks likely to stay my default browser.

What made me move to Chrome was frequent crashing of Firefox and my heartfelt dislike for IE. Why I dont like IE? well that stems from their policy of upgrade to IE7 & 8.

Firefox is a good browser but as it kept crashing on me ... I was forced to look for alternatives. Though I am still loyal to mozilla with trusty Thunderbird.

Long live open source :)

Google wave .. not even ripples as yet

I had so much expectations from Google wave ... but almost 2 months down the line, it hasnt taken off as yet. I think despite all the claims from wave team .. this connectivity tool has failed big time.

It forgets that there is universe beyond Wave !!!

I think any product today would have to be really very ground breaking to force people into using its own universe for connectivity. So Google .. if you are listening... time to take quick action before Wave dies on the shore..

When would this stop in Uttarakhand

Ever since I came back to Uttarakhand there have been frustrating experiences. Be it small things like the lack of traffic rules enforcement or BJP's internal fighting and hamlet of the CM stalling all the works in the state. After recent change at the helm of affairs in BJP and the subsequent actions like raids on government offices by CM etc., one hoped that now there would be atleast some activity against corruption etc.

But recent incidents involving a not so cleam minister, his chelas in departments and a secretary in secratariat have left me completely baffled. Secretary recommends action against HOD of one department after completion of departmental investigation. Minister instead of approving action against HOD, gives him clean chit instead. Now HOD starts to ask for action against Secretary for harrassing him!!!

Now important thing is, do ministers have right to give clean chit to anyone just like that? If so then why there is no report from minister giving justification or why there has been no investigation committee constituted to refute finding of the earlier investigation? This action has now put departmental discipline in complete dissarray as chain of command is completely broken.

This has now led to another even more embarrassing incident 2 days back when another department involving same minister and same secretary made mockery of departmental descipline. It seems that secretary wanted a particular file for investigation of earlier irregularity in recruitment. He sends his subordinates from secretariat to get the file. HOD of the department refuses to give the file!! Secretary decides to go the office of the department himself, all officials inclduding HOD flee the scene of action!! Can you believe it!! HOD and his staff leave the office just like that. Drama ensues as secretary summons police to look for the HOD !! He waits till late into the night and finally locks the office and gets it sealed!!

Next day's drama is even more embarrassing... Minister and HOD publicly ask for action against the Secretary!! CM and CS also seem to be not happy with the situation but still no statement from CM about the core of the issue ... CORRUPTION!!

So how long will this go on...!! Fight against corruption would be just an eye wash? If ministers are clean why cant they take action or atleast balance their act. I think seeds sown in earlier CM's reign are now sprouting ... total break down of the state's administrative machinery isnt too far...!!

Maa | Mother

Other day while listening to Taare Zameen Par's "Maa" I was suddenly reminded of "Mother" by Pink Floyd. Though both are written in different context, one from a young boy and one as a grown man looking back but these 2 songs definitely help us understand the cultural differences of east and west.

I think most of us Indians or people from subcontinent would immediately identify wouth "Maa". "Mother" is a powerful song in itself and sometimes as a grown man I do relate to it somehow.

Just to bring home the contrast.. here are these two songs







Lyrics

"Mother" : Pink Floyd

Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Mother, do you think they'll like this song?
Mother, do you think they'll try to break my balls?
Mother, should I build the wall?
Mother, should I run for President?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Is it just a waste of time?

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true
Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you
Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing
Momma's will keep Baby cozy and warm
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, of course Momma's gonna help build the wall

Mother, do you think she's good enough
For me?
Mother, do you think she's dangerous
To me?
Mother will she tear your little boy apart?
Mother, will she break my heart?

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna check out all your girlfriends for you
Momma won't let anyone dirty get through
Momma's gonna wait up until you get in
Momma will always find out where you've been
Momma's gonna keep Baby healthy and clean
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, you'll always be Baby to me

Mother, did it need to be so high?


"Maa" : Taare Zameen Par
Lyrics Courtsey : http://www.taarezameenpar.com/

Super Citizens!!

After every election we witness this phenomena. Ex MPs, MLAs Ministers not rushing to vacate their official residences and perks etc.

Uttarakhand though is witnessing a slightly different version of it these days. As a result of BJP's internal politics last CM had to resign. He did this but only after installing his own nominee to the same post. It has been almost a month since the new CM has taken over but still he is not able to move into the official CM residence. The pretext is that a suitable accommodation has not been found by the state government for the ex CM.

It maybe a courtesy extended by the new CM but I think it stinks of a very unethical practice of our politicians who consider themselves super citizens. As ex CM is now only an MLA, he should set some example of ethics and honesty( which he and his supporters keep repeating as his virtues) by moving out of the CM residence atleast.

Just hope that this doesnt create a new precedent for future CMs!!

The bigger question is, in democracy should there be a room for creating such super citizens for whom state government has to provide all these facilities? Ex CMs, Ministers, MLAs already amass enough wealth through corruption and on top of it taxpayers have to give them retirement benefits? Rewards for poor governance?!!

Do we need windows or any other big bloated OSs??

Announcement of Google about Chrome OS actually opens a new debate altogether. Do we need Windows? Windows today is essentially base of Microsoft’s PC dominance. We actually need windows so that we can run other applications on top of it. That leads us to question as to why such this entire software universe is so resource hungry?

Lets Just compare Google Docs with MS Office suite. MS Office Suite needs not only its own bulk of a software but also below that we need entire Windows OS which would need a certain set of PC hardware setup.

Google Docs may not give us a full array of document editing facilities like MS Office but it works out of a browser, can be remote hosted and then it can work out of minimal of the hardware setup.

Now when we see the announcement in the light of this comparison, it suddenly means that there is now a killer app possibility here for low end PCs and Notebooks. Just imagine what if Google would release local version of its “Google Apps” service, that too free of cost!!?

Finally old PCs and laptops may come out of the closet :)

But then .. aren't we creating another Microsoft out of Google? What if they pull the plug on us someday ?

हिंदी !!

I discovered this nice tool from google which extends their transliteration services to other websites as well.
It is really exciting for multilingual people like me ... and immediately I tried it on Facebook and it worked quite well!!

Where this falls short at the moment is on CMS based website editing ... or even Blogger itself. Here I could type only title in Hindi and on the main content this tool is not operational.

I hope google's Indic Transliteration team can solve this and then atleast half a billion people would have new reason to get on to the net !!

Link for the tool : http://t13n.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/blet/docs/help_hi.html

This works for other indian languages as well

• Bookmarklet for Arabic.
• Bookmarklet for Bengali.
• Bookmarklet for Gujarati.
• Bookmarklet for Hindi.
• Bookmarklet for Kannada.
• Bookmarklet for Malayalam.
• Bookmarklet for Marathi.
• Bookmarklet for Nepali.
• Bookmarklet for Tamil.
• Bookmarklet for Telugu.

Taliban, Maoists ... same things but different names

Driving and thinking is not advisable but this morning while BBC was going on and on about how America now suddenly views Pakistan as a problem, this thought crossed my mind. If we all look at the fundamental level Talibanism, Maoism or any other "ism" comes from dissatisfaction with the ruling regimes.

All these movements start as small pebbles thrown in the water and as the size of the pebble becomes bigger ripples become disconcerting waves crashing on the shores. Slowly the nuisance turns into nemesis. The mere power in the hands of dissatisfied lot becomes a justification for their survival, ideology then becomes unimportant and safeguarding power becomes paramount.

Noble Islam gets turned into Talibanism, fight for justice for the poor becomes Maoism ... and if we as citizens keep ignoring the welfare for fellow citizens then we should brace ourselves for the next ism in our neighbourhood.

Bye Bye Freebies... Closing of free services!!

In last one week I have come across atleast 2 bits of news about web 2.0 services closing down. This made me wake up to a possible reality that jus might hit us soon!! what about free services like blogger, picasa etc. are forced to stop !!!

It just might happen soon... for sure there is no bail out plan out there for these web 2.0 services.

So I have decided to make a list of services closing down or bought over (closed anyway).. and hope against the hope that my favourite services dont end up in this list.. ( so far so good!)

1. Pownce : This was once upon a time twitter rival, co-founded by Digg Founder, now it is bought up by anither company and so service stops!!
2. Stikkit : A post it type of service. I havent used it so cant tell you how bad this is for the users for the service
3. ??
   

Moral Responsbility

Congress final got rid of its biggest liability, in the name of moral responsbility, Mr. Shivraj Patil. I hope this brings some sensible changes in government's approach and people's approach.

Opposition's approach though doesnt seem to change as much after what all we have witnessed. Mr. Rudy comments as spokesperson of BJP couldnt have been any less opportunistic at a time like this. He seems to think that asking government to resign is more important than trying to create a collaborative effort to set things right in our internal security system.

I think all the MPs should resign and take pledge to not fight elections if they really want accountability debate in the country!! Mr. Rudy included.