Travel to London - Part II

As I entered the flight, the attendant guided me to my seat. I unpacked some of the technical handbooks from my cabin bag and comforted myself in the one of the allotted aisle seats. Flight was pushed backed from it's original position. Although it was moving, it felt as if it was being dragged by some small vehicle, as yet the engines were silent. It felt that it was being lead to the start of the runway. Suddenly, there was a pause of about 2 minutes, I was completely lost. Didn't knew, what the pilots were up to. We were strictly instructed to be seated and tighten our seat belts.

Instantly, engines started roaring, and the bird thumped-off the runaway. I couldn't take my eyes off the faraway window on my left. Machine gradually gathered speed and took-off. Objects on the land started becoming smaller and smaller and soon we were in air. All that was visible was sky and clouds. Flight attendants and airhostess were off, serving beverages and juices. As I was not well, I preferred some piping hot tea for myself.

Being alone on a maiden flight and that too when you are not well, becomes a boredom. Soon luncheons were served. Being a veggie I preferred veg. meal pack. It was pretty good then heard of.

As London approached, the altitude was being reduced at an enormous rate. A severe pain kicked-off in my ears. It felt like my ear drums would soon blow-off. Pain was intolerable and I had to immediately call one of the flight attendant. Upon explaining the problem, he instantly pointed it to be the result of the cold that I was suffering from. He asked me to take deep breaths and exhale while trying to yawn, similar to the way we do while waking up in the morning. Asked me to nibble a chocolate. Remedy surely brought some relief. As the aircraft touched ground, pain was almost off. That was a bizarre experience that I would always remember.

My check-out took only 45 mins. As I was not carrying any coins or calling cards, I used my India credit card to ring up my room mate in London. He guided me to reach Canary Wharf and agreed to pick me up from station. Started-off experiencing London tube train with a change at Piccadilly Circus reached Canary Wharf in half an hour. He was there to pick me up and there I was, at my new, but temporary address in London.

The apartment was cosy and comfortable. It has all the required amenities and is well above expectation. I helped myself with some hot dinner and got inside the bed for a good night sleep.

Travel to London - Part I

Travel to the city of London happened at a blink of an eye. At a short notice of 4 days, I was conveyed about my overseas trip. On a lovely Friday afternoon in Bombay when we were preparing for my sister's night-flight to US, my cell buzz zed and it was none other than my senior, who intimated me of the urgent travel requirement to UK, for next Wednesday.

I was stunned at the news, even though I had a very faint idea about the subject. This being my first overseas travel, I had to start from the tail-end of purchasing my baggage, as well. There was an overhead of purchasing new suits, ties, blazers, etc. as they form mandatory part of the attire, while working at HQ office. Within 2 days I completed my priority shopping, and rest of the list was left with my parents.

Monday morning I had to travel back to Pune to collect tickets and other relevant data and documents. These helter-skelter made me fall sick, as I hardly slept or ate anything. By the time I reached Pune, I was engraved in perfect cold and fever. Things in Pune were not easy. Completing long travel formalities, segregating and packaging my luggage and data clean-up from my PC, made life worse. There was an added UK airport requirement of chest x-ray too. Most of my time and energy was consumed, and by the time I reached Mumbai (Home), it was already 11pm, Tuesday night.

On the way, back to Bombay, I text messaged my news of travel, to all near and dears. Some called back, while some messaged back and some even made to my home by 11:30 pm. I was supposed to take a 'British Airways' flight scheduled to take-off at 1:00 pm next day, on Wednesday. As I was deadly tired and was suffering from high cold and fever, I decided to take some rest before getting onto final packaging and set my alarm to 3:30 am.

Starting at 3:30 in the morning got everything together. Packing went for 4 long hours which included arranging clothes, spices, initial food, etc. As usual weight of the luggage exceeded the permitted 23 kgs. This lead to packing and unpacking, most of the time, reaching trade-offs. My parents accompanied me to the airport. When leaving home it was dry and sunny, but soon the rains took over. Though, airport is at a 30 minutes drive from my home, it took us 1.5 hrs to reach. Finally, finding my way through the morning traffic and rains, checked-in at the airport at 10:30 am. Parents waited until security check was completed.

Rest of the experience will be continued in Part II.

Mumbai BLASTS back

On 11th July, 2006, after a gap of 13 years, Mumbai was again struck by the serial bomb blast. This time Mumbai suburban trains fell victim to the catastrophe.

Last 2 weeks kept Mumbai terrified, first by the torrential rains, followed by bandh called by Shiv sena activists and now the serial blasts. Inspite, of these events the ever-resilient Mumbai showed all the courage to return back to normalcy.

In the normal situation people of Mumbai are least bothered about each other. But, in the event of calamities Mumbai ensures to minimize loses by generously helping those, affected. After yesterday's bomb blasts and closure of Mumbai's lifeline,(suburban trains) many social communities came forward and worked all night to ease the situation. Locals were seen distributing free biscuits, tea and coffee. While some were seen helping Mumbaites get back to home. This allowed Mumbai to get back to business almost instantly.

This resilient nature is Mumbai's answer to those, who want to strand it. If you try disturbing Mumbai, it blasts back with all the vigour. Come what may, Mumbai will never stop breathing.

Do you really need college degrees to be successful?

When you look at the world's most successful men, you find most of them are college dropouts and don't have a college degree. The likes are Bill Gates, Azim Premji, Dhirubhai Ambani, et cetra. Does this mean to be successful in today's business world, college degrees are not a necessary ingredient? Then why do corporates stress on employees possessing a valid college degree ?

Bob Rosner from ABC news writes :

My undergraduate years were a valuable time for me. I learned how to do my own laundry, how to drink Jell-O shots, how to use a cafeteria tray as a sleigh, how to kiss with one leg on the floor, how to cram all night for a test and how to forget everything the moment that the test was over — all helpful skills to possess, sort of.

Just last week I talked to a woman who had run an office for two U.S. senators, been a successful entrepreneur and is currently thriving in an entirely new career. She accomplished all of this without a college degree. Yet, there are many jobs that she cannot apply for.

That does leave us with a problem. If we are going to level the playing field in terms of those with, and those without a college education, how will we decide who are the better people to hire? We'll have to look at each person and not use a convenient, and often inappropriate, yardstick.

A few considerations: What has the person accomplished at work? How do the people they've worked with feel about his or her contributions? Has the person traveled abroad? Has the person done volunteer work? Does he speak another language? Does she know what's going on in the world? Does the person understand your industry and its competitors? I would argue that all these are more reliable measures of what a person can contribute to your organization than a tired, old piece of sheepskin.

Click here to see Bob Rosner in an exclusive interview with ABC news.

Wake up America - India rising

Check out this video- Makes you feel proud, for India.

Click here!

True Lies

Lie for the sake of lie. Lying frequently is a habit that could ruin the life of others as well as yours. If there is an issue, it should be openly communicated and if lied upon, could translate into a bigger issue. If true picture of the problem is known, a way could be found out to solve it. But if, the problem itself is not clear, then it becomes difficult to find a solution and it is quite possible that you could end up finding a solution that could be irrelevant.

Some people become so used to lying that they are not even aware that they are lying. It becomes their inherent habit and in the process they keep creating problems over problems. Though in Bhagvad-gita, lying has found support from Lord Krishna. He proclaims, "Lie spoken for the benefit of mankind is not a lie and is equivalent to 100 truths". Liars always stick to those lines to justify, when caught. This way they invite more problems.

What we can conclude from here is "Lying makes a man imperfect". Though truth is bitter, you should have the courage to face it. Running away from reality won't solve the problem, but would inflate it unnecessarily. Face it to solve it and get rid of it as soon as possible.

"Use" or "Utilisation"

I have often seen the word "use" being frequently used by managers in the corporate world. E.g. "We can use Mr. X for support and use Mr. Y for coding". I am against using such words, which amounts to the insult of the person in whose context it is being used. The correct word, which sounds better, is "Utilisation". After all, organisations utilises your skills for performing certain tasks or activities that you might be expert in.

The word "Utilisation" shows respect for that person's skill set. It also makes you feel that you will be paid or rewarded as per your skill sets whereas word "Use" makes you feel exploited. It makes you feel that they just want your skills without paying you appropriately.

The word "Utilisation" expresses two-way give and take relationship, while "Use” specifies only one way flow - from employee to employer. Though, employee anyway continues doing the work, that he is assigned, the use of words shows up it's difference in his quality of work.

Different words send different vibrations among employees, even though managers might not have intended what the receiver interprets. Thus, managers should be extremely careful in this regard as different words with almost same meaning, create different meanings for different people.

Rule 49 (O)

Here, I got a very interesting e-mail from a friend regarding exercising Rule 49 (O). It says :

In a particular constituency, if a voter has dislikes all of the candidates competing there, then he can show his dislike to all of them by registering for 49 (O).

Steps for doing this :
1. While registering the name at the time of voting, convey the booth officials that, you want to go for Rule 49 (O).
2. Register your signature in the 49 (O) form available there.

Done.
Now, if the number of 49 (O) count is larger than that of the winning candidates total vote count, then a re-election is called there.

More than all, the shameful fact is,
This 49 (O) is available ever since 1960, but it is in no way conveyed to the people. Neither the government communicate this, nor did the election commission.

As long as the people are unaware of this one, the political parties are enjoying by winning the election and ditching our country. To stop this disaster to continue further, we don't need to take a sword and fight against the government. Just help every citizen to know that they have such a powerful weapon which can be used for ensuring their welfare.

None of the media will be ready to publish this 49 (O). Let us do this by ourselves. Communicate this information with all your family, friends, neighbors as much as you can and let them know their right. Please send this mail to everyone you know and request them to spread it across to everyone.

Convey this information to as many people you know. Not only, we get a satisfaction that we have done a good service for our country's welfare.

This is very well equal to what our patriots have done for the independence of our country.

Very less time left before the next election drama. Before that lets make sure that everyone speaks about this word "49 (O)".

Need v/s Greed

There is a very thin line between man's need and his greed. Say, if a man earns Rs. 10,000 and is able to satisfy his basic wants with Rs. 6,000, he will be a satisfied individual. He will feel happy. But, when his income increases, his wants too increase proportionately. In economic terms this is called 'Marginal propensity to consume'. This increase in expense then turns into greed. We will always find such individuals running for more money to satisfy their "unlimited demands of life". That's how we find most of the people in this world, unsatisfied.

His want for more money never ceases and he enters a rat race of living life with more and more lavishness. Thus, never allowing him to do something big, that he had wanted to do in life. A self-controlled and disciplined man keeps his wants stable, even when he has a raise. This allows him to do things that he had always wanted to do. He is not afraid of failure and becomes a successful individual in society.

We can see this from various examples. One of it is, Infosys head and founder Narayan Murthy. He still lives a common man's life, washing his own clothes and utensils. He has not employed any servant at his residence, even though Infosys employs more than 20,000 IT professionals.

This shows that living life simple will leave you with more money, allow you to be more satisfied and do things that you had always wanted to do, as money is no more a concern.

Secrets of Management

A man flying in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. Reducing altitude, he spotted a man on the ground and descended to shouting range. "Excuse me," he shouted. "Can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him a half hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below responded: "Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees North Latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees West Longitude."

"You must be an engineer," responded the balloonist.

"I am," the man replied. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost."

Whereupon the man on the ground responded, "You must be a manager."

"That I am" replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were before we met, but now it is somehow my fault."

Oil companies - Making losses or PROFITS

Regularly, we hear the hue and cry from oil companies making losses and their demand to increase petrol/diesel prices. Especially, oil PSUs take front stage in this rally to increase prices of petro products. Making losses is a very ugly reason to raise prices in a competitive business. When private players can afford to make huge profits without raising prices, it's a matter of shame for the PSUs to beg for their alterations.

The issue lies not in prices but unnecessary operating expenses lavished by careless government officials. It's not the prices but the system and culture prevalent in these companies that requires change. Our largest refining and marketing company IOC, controlling 50% of the country's diesel market and 45% of the petrol market reported a loss in the third quarter. For the first nine months of FY06, net profit stood at Rs. 890 crore against a net profit of Rs. 3,998 crore for the same period in FY05. Company's director marketing, NG Kannan said,

"Indian Oil will lose Rs 5,000 crore on the sale of petroleum products, even
after taking into account government subsidies, oil bonds and cross-subsidy
payments by upstream oil companies."

Private players like Reliance, spearheaded by Ambanis have shown impressive growth in the same period eating into IOC's market share. Despite of constant pressure being put on the Govt. for price raise, I have never seen any negative figures in their balance sheets. Is this cry only fictitious to make more internal profits for the babus to enjoy? If it is real, then Govt. should insist on them following efficient, sound and proven practices to cut-cost, while learning lessons from private companies.

Budgeting the Future

What does Budget 2006 holds for a common man? We saw FM P. Chidambaram delivering his budget on 28th Feb 2006. Nothing more than, "increase in service tax from 10% to 12%" was talk of the town among majority of the individuals. What went unnoticeable was the reduction in excise duty on small cars, which could badly impact the lower middle class and below, in the near future. This reduction would spruce up the demand for small cars, increasing the demand for fuel. Last year we saw fuel prices increasing as faster as Indian Stock Markets. Fuel prices are the key and important deciding factor for pricing necessary commodities.

E.g. Increase in diesel prices, push's up the transportation cost and thereby increasing the prices of commodities being transported. Though FM has made an attempt on reducing the excise duty on processed food, it anyway won't affect the lower middle class. Since, they form the least population who buy processed food. FM should seriously think about it and come up with a policy that would protect them from being dejected or left out from the budget.

Real estate greenfield - Pune

Over the years Pune has outgrown as a hot IT destination. Given the mount-top salaries enjoyed by young software professionals, it has zoomed the property prices. A place costing Rs.1500 in area like Kalyani Nagar now quotes at around Rs. 2700 - Rs.3000 per sq. feet. That's almost a 100% appreciation in a year's time. Kharadi is an fast upcoming area, which looks good from the investment perspective. I guess this area would fully develop in a span of 4-5 years. Only disadvantage that it has is, it is 9-10 kms away from the station. But, folks who do not have much to do with plying to station area frequently can seriously consider this option.

To me Alandi road area near RTO also looks good. It has Golf Course in it's vicinity. Pune station is just 5 kms away while Shivajinagar, Deccan and Kalyani nagar are almost at 3 kms distance. If you are planning to drive down to Mumbai, it has a more convenient route to follow to the expressway. And last but not the least, even the rates are not too high, given the openess and the location that it enjoys. Military establishment called ‘Bombay Sappers’ surrounds this area. This won't allow much of a construction activity while retaining it's natural aesthetics. People from Mumbai can definitely consider this for investment.

A job or a career?

Pankaj Bhargava from TNN, for Economic Times wrote :

Even today, in most homes, the emphasis is still on being educated enough to get a primary qualification, like engineering or medicine.When I hear such discussions, I remember a story I read many moons ago. In short, it was about two lads in a village.

One went on to complete his education, got a job in a government organisation and was well regarded. His job, however, never excited him and he would drag himself to work everyday, coming to life only when he reached home. By his mid-forties he looked as if he were in his fifties. The second lad did not complete his education, and went on to work with a mechanic. He was not well regarded in his village.

But, he enjoyed what he did. He keenly observed all that happened in the shop, interacted closely with customers and understood their issues. He also learnt to identify defects and find ingenious solutions to them. His reputation as an ace mechanic grew. He managed to set up on his own and soon collected a large clientele. Whenever anyone met him, he would be extremely cheerful, enjoying every moment of his time. In his mid-forties, he still looked thirty.

So, is education about learning in the formal system or is it about learning continuously from life?

This is very true, atleast for a developing country like India where formal education is still considered a top most priority without giving a second thought to something more than that.

What is RSS ?

Tim O'Reilly writes :

RSS is the most significant advance in the fundamental architecture of the web since early hackers realized that CGI could be used to create database-backed websites. RSS allows someone to link not just to a page, but to subscribe to it, with notification every time that page changes. Skrenta calls this "the incremental web." Others call it the "live web".

Now, of course, "dynamic websites" (i.e., database-backed sites with dynamically generated content) replaced static web pages well over ten years ago. What's dynamic about the live web are not just the pages, but the links. A link to a weblog is expected to point to a perennially changing page, with "permalinks" for any individual entry, and notification for each change. An RSS feed is thus a much stronger link than, say a bookmark or a link to a single page.

RSS also means that the web browser is not the only means of viewing a web page. While some RSS aggregators, such as Bloglines, are web-based, others are desktop clients, and still others allow users of portable devices to subscribe to constantly updated content.

RSS is now being used to push not just notices of new blog entries, but also all kinds of data updates, including stock quotes, weather data, and photo availability. This use is actually a return to one of its roots: RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's "Really Simple Syndication" technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's "Rich Site Summary", which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows. Netscape lost interest, and the technology was carried forward by blogging pioneer Userland, Winer's company. In the current crop of applications, we see, though, the heritage of both parents.