Saturday, December 6, 2008

Protests against Mumbai attack all over the country.

My inbox is flooded with emails from angry citizens over Mumbai attack. One of such emails was from a very dear friend and the email was to thank the soldiers we sacrificed in the combat. Again it took its toll on me and I exploded. My reply was.....
I wish that we do much more than just saluting. Psychology behind this saluting is to encourage others to join the slaughter houses named defense forces, police, NSG etc. Such a pathetic use of humans to safeguard the interest of perpetrators and criminals must be avoided.
Humanity has witnessed so many wars and so much of bloodshed just because of ego of some ambitious and crazy ruler. There is enough on this earth to meet our needs. We must identify the misuse of human lives by these politicians to upkeep their ongoing power thirst.
We as a nation must ensure that each of our brothers and sisters enjoys as much and as good sleep as we enjoy. While our countrymen is J&K and North East are living a life of uncertainties, we should not and must not live a life of luxuries unless the peace dwells there.
I am shocked to see the different attitude of media, industrialists and politicians. When Mumbai witnessed just few months ago series of blasts in the local trains, no one demanded resignations from home minister or chief minister of Maharashtra. No media did a show as passionate as they are doing today. No bollywood actor or actress came forward to hold a dharana. No one organized a candle march. Today such events are organized in all metros. And the reason behind is very obvious that this time the attack was on the elitist. And all actors, actresses, the famous and ill-famous were startled when Taj hotel was attacked because they could see themselves dying in this attack. I am not saying that they are wrong in doing what they are doing today. After all everyone has a right to worry for his/her life. I am only saying that the poor who died in the train blast deserved the same treatment. CM of Maharashtra used it as an excuse of not resigning and paving the way for someone better.

This attack strangely did a wonder. It could successfully unmask the politicians across the parties. CPM through its CM of Kerala, BJP through its leader Mr. Naqvi and Congress through its CM Deshmukh and Patil went unmasked. People of India witnessed the ugly most faces hiding behind white clad politicians. It was a shock to see the CM of ill-fated state giggling on camera while answering questions of media on the attack. They have so thick-skinned that they don’t hesitate in driving mileage out of innocent’s death.

I don’t understand what will a Candle march do. May be candles are no longer in use and candles manufacturer might have some vested interest in this marches.

What will a dharana or shouting slogans do? We need people who are willing to put at stake their luxurious lives and contest elections. Unless we have clean people, people who can think unbiased, at the helm of the affairs of the ruling nothing will help.

Fortunately new generation has collapsed the old and does not have its roots anywhere but unfortunately it’s a very dangerous situation wherein they may catch hold of path of destruction.

Today’s youth has witnessed no WAR and hence perfect for spreading the message of brotherhood across the world.
But they do need some to lead them and unfortunately I find no one to play the role of that someone.

Time is ripe, I invite you to think over it and if you feel that you are that someone, please write to me and I believe that we together can and will make a difference.

India-Europe And outsourcing: A Win-Win Game?

IIT Delhi Seminar Hall witnessed another important discussion on a topic too relevant to the present times in the view of the financial crisis of which no country could remain unaffected, few worst and rest worse. As the customary duty I was again put to the task of proposing the vote of thanks. The discussion was well attended by people from various institutes in addition to IIT alumni, its students and faculty members. Panelists were Mr. Ashish Gupta( COO, Evalueserve), Mr. Jean Joseph Boillot(Economist-India & China, Co-founder, EIEBG-Paris), Mr. Laveesh Bhandari (Economist & Director, Indicus Analytics) and Mr. Joy from Sodexo Food. The discussion was moderated by Ms. Mythili Bhusnurmath (Consulting Editor, Economics Times).
Other than the usual thanks giving statements the vote of thanks consisted of the following.
.............Today’s topic for the discussion “India-Europe Outsourcing-A win-win game for both” is too apt for today’s time when the world is facing financial crisis and huge uproar in job insecurities. Thanks to Internet, world today seems as one big platform, available to everyone to be used for the betterment of oneself and humanity. Boundaries dividing the nations seem to be facing a virtual collapse. Internet is a big threat to selfish politicians because it is really a boon in uniting the world and thus defeating the purpose of the politicians to keep humanity divided and separate from each other. Today’s problems, humanity is facing, have outgrown the capacity of any one nation and hence world must seek solutions of large scale problems united. I must say that in the new world economy, boundaries today or tomorrow will vanish in their original sense and each person would be a world citizen. India has attracted the whole world to herself, owing to the huge talent pool she enjoys. I am sure that today’s discussion has succeeded in bringing India and Europe together to solve the problems both civilizations are facing. And discussion stirred today in this hall of IIT Delhi will go a long way. Discussion held here will definitely prove to be fruitful in bringing the two civilizations closer and making them work together in almost all the areas including KPO.
Leveraging the talent pool available in India has been top most priority of all companies in developed countries. Indians by the virtue of having a rich spiritual heritage (though they are unaware of it) are the most contented and best people to partner with. No wonder, the world is looking forward to patner with India and its people.
I agree with Mr. Boillot that possible benefits of bringing the talent pool spread worldover within the accessible reach of everyone and anyone are tremendous.
I agree with laveesh that this is the era of specialization and that's what should be the driving force for the upcoming economics. Unfortunately, Indian economy is woven around services, serving the world, assisting the companies world wide in customer support and we are yet to come out something original and too significant other than the excellent talent pool India possesses.
I would disagree with Ashish for his concept behind cost cutting to be the only reason for the world to turn to India for its work. Cost saving is indeed a prime reason for European or US companies to outsource their work to India but that is not the only reason. In addition to cost saving, companies are able to leverage the excellent Indian minds for a cost 1/10th of what they would have paid elsewhere.................................

Friday, December 5, 2008

Why did American economy collapse?

A friend shared with me an interesting video which is apprently funny but says a lot about the present economy crisis the world is witnessing.....

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Mumbai Attack: A black spot and proof of political delinquency

I had decided to contain my feelings triggered by Mumbai Attack so that it seeps in my being to form an explosion but then it is an era of Internet and I received from a friend a request for an online compaign. Can it be easier than sitting in a cosy drawing room having tea and then clicking on a link to sign in a compaign???
I do appreciate the sentiments behind such a signature campaign but by no stretch of imagination I think that it would serve any purpose. The country lacks in political will and since pre-independence main political party has an appeasement policy towards one section of society. Such a policy has sent wrong signals to the people worldwide and in particular to the neighboring countries. Please don’t misconstrue this and think that I am of the opinion that that section comprises of terrorist or bad elements. In fact that section has been disrespected in a true sense by the mainstream political party by getting defended all the time when there is no such requirement. Terrorists have no religion as much as a politician has no caste.
You must realize that no political party has come out and said even a single statement against what is going on in Mumbai. Amar Singh, Raj Thackery, Mayawati, Lalu, Mulayam, Uma Bharti, Congress leaders they all seem to have been sucked in some black hole. I wish that some of them would have been in one of the seized hotels.
They think that by criticizing they will lose their political base amongst that section of the society which if analyzed correctly means that these politicians link the terrorists to be from that section which is not only shameful but disrespectful too to that section of society. When will we see the naked truth? Probably we don’t want to see the naked truth.

In the name of democracy we have got jokers as our leaders. These are coward people, corrupt so much so that they can sell their mother and daughters to brothels if that gets them the post of prime minister. A political leader belongs to no one but the lust to power.

The way they are after IIT shows their illiteracy. They are incapacitated from thinking for betterment in a true sense.

The country is suffering from the scarcity of good leaders, leaders who can keep the interest of country on the top of their pity interests.

Unfortunately I don’t see that our countrymen enjoy the sense of discrimination while opting to vote and hence they are equally responsible for this sad state of affairs in this country.

The only terrorist attack (which in many experts view was a concocted one by the Bush Govt for ulterior motives) USA witnessed was 9/11 and here in India we are witnessing a 9/11 every month. What’s going on?

Fake sense of India being a spiritual country contributes to this in a very big way. Mushrooming of fake gurus all around, conmen in name of politicians and false sense of pride are some of the diseases the country is suffering from which must be weeded out ASAP.

In the name of economy growth India has been mushroomed with customer support work where people with high end degrees in the greed of a high salary are getting sucked in. Such qualified people are basically put to clerical usage and thus will be useless for the vocation they were trained for.

We need revolutionaries who have no interest but to fix problems but where are they? Within 2 hours of the first attack in Mumbai, I sent an invitation to 250+ who’s who of the country to form a group to brain storm the issue of moral degradation of the country and then form policies with strict monitoring to the action plan on the findings of the group but so far I have received support from 3 people only. Are we really sick of these jokers? Do we want change?

We are having PanIIT in 3 weeks from now to discuss education, infrastructure etc. In my opinion, the first priority should go to cleansing Indian politics because education, infrastructure etc lies on the periphery of good governance.

A month ago I visited Nagar Nigam of a state capital for the appointment of standing counsel. I was told that my services and approach to the problems/legal issues are brilliant but that’s not enough to get appointed as standing counsel. I need to give the chairman of Nagar Nigam 15% commission of the fees I will charge and 10% to party fund to the ruling party. This is the state of affairs. It is easy for anyone to carry bombs in any major place in that city. No one is safe anytime anywhere. We are all sitting on bombs.

The way western culture is being followed blindly in the name of raising the standard of living in this country is one of the major though not looked at reasons for the rampant corruption amongst govt officials and political leaders. They have no option but to sell their conscience to send their children abroad for foreign education.

Shiela Dixit govt spent 150+ crores to make BRT and BJP wants to collapse it if they come to power. They will spend 10-20 crores in collapsing it. This 170-200 crores is tax payers money but who bothers.

There can’t be a better time than this to attack Pakistan full-fledged without worrying about any nation including USA but I don’t think this Govt has courage to do this. USA attacked Afghanistan within no time and no one dared to say a word against them.

I see Govt officials, bureaucrats , leaders and businessmen day in day out but hardly you will come across one still carrying a spine.

Sonia Gandhi is reviewing and monitoring the situation in this country and Rahul Gandhi is the prime ministerial candidate. What education does empower Sonia Gandhi with a vision to review and monitor security and economy situation in this country? A country of so rich a heritage, full of intellectuals and sages would have Rahul as its prime minister. Can there be a bigger joke?

For society to respect you, you need to have your house in order and headed by a strong person, a person of deep understanding of problems and deep insight. World must feel in awe by the leader country is headed by. We all know who is heading the country these days!!!

To bring rule of righteousness back to this country and save it from any further degradation, a high level committee of intellectuals, sages, industrialists, Scientists from across the sectors/streams must be put in place ASAP. And they should be empowered with law making/amending/withdrawing power without consulting anyone. Truly speaking, democracy is poisonous for this country and it needs military rule for at least a decade.

It is a shame for all of us that 12-13 people from a foreign land took the country to ransom for 72 hours!!!

If not now, we will never wake up!!!

Sunday, November 23, 2008

IIT Brand- Measures to sustain it

IIT Delhi Alumni Association jointly with IIT Kharagpur Alumni Association organized a Panel Discussionon on `IIT BRAND -Measures to sustain it' on 22nd November 2008 (Saturday), at 5.30 P.M., Seminar Hall, IIT Delhi where PANELISTS were Dr. Shashi Gulhati, Ex- Professor, IIT Delhi, Prof. P.V. Indiresan, Ex - Director, IIT Chennai, Mr. Manoj Mitta, Senior Editor, Times of India, Dr. Y.P. Singh, Ex - Professor IIT Kharagpur and Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, Cyber Media (India) Limited. As a customary duty ascribed to Secretary, IITDAA I had to propose vote of thanks towards the conclusion of the event. Following is part of my talk which I think may be of some interest to concerned people.
............First come first, thanks to Prof. Indiresan who solved a long pending puzzle going on in my mind by sharing the fact that vice chancellors are paid seats. Sometime back I met VC of a reputed university and felt that there has been a heinous wrong in appointing this person as VC of this reputed university and I believed somewhere deep that some wrong is going on somewhere and today I got my answer. Today evening we witnessed a truly enlightening discussion and I must say that discussion held here should and will influence the authorities concerned whenever they deal with topics such as IIT Brand. It was truly a discussion straight from the heart. I don’t know how but there must be a way, may be through stake holders group as suggested by PG and Dr. Gulhati, to tell and convince people in power to give a patient hearing to the unbiased discussion which took place today in this hall. Such a discussion can be expected only from fearless people. I think that people in power, people who decide don’t really know the repercussions of what they decide and they are unaware of ground realities. I don’t think that any well wisher of the country and humanity at large would decide to open more IITs when there is scarcity of resources to meet the demands of the present IITs. Today, all problems are everybody’s problems. World look up to institutions like IITs to solve the large scale problems as cited by Mr. Saluja in his inaugural address the humanity is facing today. An institution which is so important should not be touched unless it is absolutely warranted. I received an email from Mr. Chetan, an alumnus of IIT Delhi saying that how many IITians have really restricted their area of work to what they studied at IIT and then gave a list of IITians who have excelled in non-technology areas. I would like to tell Mr. Chetan with your due permission that institutions of excellence like IITs help its students outgrow the education it provides and help them become solution providers be it through technology or otherwise. Guru is the one under whom the students learns not only the subjects but learns the very art of learning and that’s what happens at IIT and I have witnessed it. Thanks to Mr. Manoj Mitta, Senior Editor, Times of India who brought before us the ongoing anomalies in cut off system of JEE and I am sure that IIT is listening and soon will come out with a proposal on how to address the concerns raised.
Thanks to Dr. Y. P. Singh for sharing with us the brain-drain joke and sir, it is true across the sectors including the Bharat Ratna award. Apparently it does seem that unless you are drained, you are not a brain i.e. only a drain brain is a brain and others are not. In my experience, I am yet to come across an incident where someone living in this country without having any affiliation with any political party has been honored with a prestigious award.
Dr. Gulhati, even though Govt may not have a direct say in the IIT system but the game Govt is playing is much deeper than our eyes can penetrate to. The Govt by enacting mechanisms with ulterior motives is weakening the system and then they will instill their people through whom the politicians will do proxy ruling over IIT system. I do see a parallel of this in Kashmir problem. Pakistan by force and other illegal means has been successful in implanting its people in the valley and now is advocating the mechanism of self-determining system to decide the fate of valley. It is Pakistan’s people and hence they will definitely opt for to be in Pakistan............................... ....

Monday, October 27, 2008

Raj and His Divisive politics

It has been quite sometime that I wrote for the blog last. Today I received from a dear friend an article written by the spice lady of yesteryears, Ms. Sobha De which I am reproducing as it is. This prompted me to write my understanding of the problem and a larger problem of which I draw analogy from Raj event.

Me, Marathi
written by Shobha De

Correct me if I am wrong, Raj... but I consider myself an assal Marathi manoos. Born in Maharashtra to Maharashtrian parents etc. Proud to be Marathi (even though my language skills in my mother tongue are embarrassingly dodgy). I don't know how to make the perfect puran poli but I do love aamti.. This is clearly not enough anymore. Going by the checklist, I could be disqualified on several scores. I am married to a Bong, who has lived and worked in Mumbai for over 30 years (but alas, has not been appointed ambassador to the state of West Bengal yet!). He attends Durga Puja regularly and prefers maacher jhol to vangi bhaat.

Fortunately, we don't have a daughter-in-law to name a college after, either in Kolkata or Mumbai.... And our children (like yours) did not attend Marathi-medium schools.. We employ people based on their competence, not caste or region. And I have never asked the vegetable vendor, breadwalla, taxi driver, dhobi, sweeper, elevator attendant, security guard, pizza delivery boy or any of the other people who make my life easier, which part of India they come from.

This is Mumbai, meri jaan! Who cares where anyone comes from? Dhanda is all that matters.. Mumbai is India 's most powerful magnet. Once you get here, you never leave. Don't believe me? Ask those innocent bhajjiwallas and doodhwallas who were beaten up and stoned by your men last week. Even with blood-soaked bandages around their heads, and broken hearts, they are staying put. As they should.

Aaah, the natak of your dramatised 'arrest' was not lost on anybody.
Had Rakhi Sawant's slapping stunt not grabbed those eyeballs on Valentine's Day, viewers would still be stuck with the image of a nattily dressed you (mmmm...loved the styling), clambering in and out of the police van. If Rakhi cleverly stage-managed the incident, what should one say about your brilliant coup? Overnight, Raj Thackeray was elevated from being the discarded Thackeray to a national figure.
In one well-orchestrated move, you went from being a neglected nephew of an ageing tiger, to a sharp-clawed, teeth-baring cub with an independent act of his own. The circus acquired a brand new star attraction — you!

It was never easy being a Thackeray. Ask Balasaheb. If he targeted south Indians in the '60s, you smartly headed north. Same agenda, diametrically different directions. By questioning the bona fides of those who have made Maharashtra their home, both of you tapped into the vulnerabilities of the average Marathi manoos. It is worth asking the very people whose interests you are protecting, whether they really want to do the dirty work currently being handled by the northies.

Will the Marathi manoos agree to put in 18 hours a day plying taxis, selling veggies, washing clothes and so on? Who's stopping them from turning into vendors of milk, food grains, and other commodities?
Perhaps, the Marathi manoos considers such occupations demeaning? The truth is, these jobs have always gone abegging, and there have been any number of hungry, unemployed people from other states ready and willing to grab them. Kick the 'outsiders' out at your own peril, and see what happens...

Why do farmers commit suicide in such numbers only in Maharashtra ?
The answer, dear Raj, may surprise you.

In your defence, let me say you received the worst press — biased at best, and shrill to boot. Most of the semi-hysterical reporters from prestigious news channels were embarrassingly ill-informed as they blabbered incoherently each time a leaf moved outside the magistrate's court!

Surely, you are not complaining? Everything seems to be going according to the master plan. You have 'made it' in one swift move.
And women are finding you kinda cute in that sleeveless baby blue pullover. Great copy, great photo ops. What more does a neta want? To keep Mayawati and Lalu out of Maharashtra ? Now, that's a tall order!


My Reply to the whole event:

Good one!!! But Raj Thakery is doing something which may be immoral
but not illegal. The Maharastra state law promises to provide
reservation upto 80% to Maharastrians in the local jobs. And clearly
states each hoarding/board to be Marathi. He is only exploiting a
provision provided in the state law.

And if you permit me to draw an analogy, what Raj is doing to
northies, Christians in america are doing to Asians. Boundary of any
sort, national or state, need to be dropped in such a time when
problems like hunger, health and education no longer belong to one
country but to entire humanity and unless the world fights such
problems unitedly, no country is equipped to solve all its problems on
its own. Like India needs business from US to cure its poverty and US
needs spirituality from India to fix its disoriented people and
drug-addicts.
Humanity needs no boundary because problems humanity is
facing today has outgrown the capacity of a single country. The
divisive politics the world is into must be dropped. The world can't
sustain the looming threat of a world war. The nuclear and destructive
weapons the world has amassed can wipe out this world 1000 times but
the world unfortunately has yet not stopped accumulating such weapons.
Everybody is not Jesus Christ that a resurrection would happen.

I know that Raj is doing a gruesome wrong but then so is George Bush,
Manmohan Singh and all world leaders. Restricting my scope to India,
Raj should be tried for sedition, disruption of public harmony etc.
but who has the guts to arrest and try him in court for such offenses
because no party and no politicians would like to be noticed by locals
for opposing their interests which Raj, at least in their eyes, seems
to have taken up.

Politicians' problems can still be understood but
what about Amitabh Bachhan who went to the extent of apologizing Raj
for his wife having spoken in favor of Hindi in Mumbai. In addition to
the larger-than-life Amitabh enjoys on his own, he also enjoys the
friendship of top most Industrialists like Anil Ambani and of top
ranked politicians like Amar Singh. if someone of his stature and
contacts had to apologize for no fault of his or his wife, what
message he is passing on to the people of India and to the world. He
failed to stand against the injustice while he had the support of law,
muscle power and money power. People look upto him as an ideal and he
did such a cowardice act for which he must not be forgiven.

Indian politics is probably at the lowest rung and what more down it can go to now. But my understanding which I wrote above, politics doesn't bother for right or wrong. Raj wants to project himself as a leader of national importance and he succeeded. It is the politicians and their lust for power which throughout the history has been responsible for gruesome massacres of billions of people. The very nature of politics and politicians is that and expecting them to
behave for betterment of human beings is same as expecting sea-waves to be peaceful. But our problem is that we are not trained to think of a world without politicians and hence we have been and will be made victims of their ambitions.

If peace at all is warranted in the world, it must be made devoid of
politicians!!! We just need administrators to administer various
functions of a good governance and NOT politicians.
We must reach the very source of the problem and not just keep curing
the symptoms.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

IIT-JEE: Existing Pattern and what lies ahead

A couple of days ago I was approached by a journalist for my comment on existing IIT-JEE standard and whether it is enough to gauge the standard of an IIT-JEE aspirant to get him a seat at the prestigious IITs. And I came up with the following to form the basis of my comment which figured later during a program at their channel.

Genesis of the problem lies in the menace of commercialization of every aspect of life and there is nothing today which can't be weighed against the money. Of course there are things and people which/who are beyond the realm of money but then such things/people are beyond the reach of common people as well. Education industry and that too in India has not been able to keep the pace with other industries. And while other industries have redesigned their financial struture to attract the best of the minds, Education Industry has miserably failed to lure intelligent minds to take up teaching as a career option. Usually it is the left overs from other industries who decide to take up teaching as a career and this has led to decline in the standard of education across the relevant sections and throughout the country. The yardstick to measure the quality of education itself is on a steep decline.
Any change in the quality of education can have two consequences. Decline in the quality of education being imparted has resulted in sub-standard students, sub-standard at least from the view-point of the standard required for IIT-JEE . Government instead of taking corrective measures to stop the decline in the standard of school education and further improve upon it to make it meet the standard required for JEE, opted for the easy way-out i.e. lower the standard of IIT-JEE to meet the standard of sub-standard products of the present school system. And thus the original JEE was replaced by 2-tier examination which in quality was definitely lower than the original JEE.
Coaching institutes are meant to fill in the gap between the requisite standard of IIT-JEE and the sub-standard students the schools are producing. This they were supposed to do by raising the standard of students qualitatively but they also opted for the shortcut and devised ways and means to make students just somehow make it to IIT.
All such institutes are totally commercial in nature and hardly bother about any qualitative improvement in the enrolled students. Their only concern is to beat others in numbers. The kind of process students are made to go through in learning the tricks of cracking of JEE papers are such that though they end up in cracking the JEE papers but they do so without learning the know -how of the subjects. Many of the professors at IIT Delhi have confirmed the above observation by saying that they no longer meet quality students.
Coaching institutes are proof of the sub-standard education being imparted at schools. Instead of lowering JEE standard the Goverment needs to form policies in order to improve upon the quality of school education so that the students get equipped with proper learning at school itself to clear IIT-JEE.
In the time to come, where will the mindless policies of the govt. take the country to is not tough to predict!!!

Saturday, June 28, 2008

To miss a thing is to own it!!!

Couple of months ago, a friend brought a picture and asked me to have a look at it. I looked at it as asked and communicated to him my finding which was nothing but a huge field of grass. Then he asked me to look at it deeper and with concentration and I followed his advise. I held myself in awe when I found a beautiful painting hidden in the obscure looking picture. Later I found out that such a picture is called 3D Stereogram Image and also known as 3D optical illusions.

Believe me the statement "To miss a thing is to own it!!!" is just like a 3D optical illusion.

Human nature is a mystery to the science and in spite of putting in best of its efforts science has failed miserably to understand human nature and the fabric it is made up of.

I know that we are living in the age of science but of what use it has been to us is worth our time and effort to ask, understand and assimilate the findings in our lives.

You may be of belief that to understand a thing is to own it for easy access and the freedom to work upon it in the way one prefers. But just like 3D optical illusion picture, I would advise you to delve deeper and then try to decipher the fallacy in this approach. This delving deep wont come easy if you have never done it before. It's an art from which we are deliberately kept away so that we do not become a threat to the society (I will touch upon this topic some other time at length).

To make it easy for you, I will take up an example. Recall the time when for the first time you come across something of which you had no clue. Say a rose flower, before you came to know that its a rose flower, you were restless in finding what it is, you inquired about this from fellow beings, tried searching encyclopedia and when you came to know that it is called rose, you felt relieved. But interestingly nothing substantial has changed from what was the original situation. Just by attaching a tag to the flower, you have not come to know much of it rather in the belief that by attaching the name "rose" to the flower you have known the flower, you will stop further exploration to know more, to delve deeper into the being of the flower. The very quest to know more about the flower seems to have extinguished by attaching a tag "Rose" to the flower of which even the flower is unaware.

The strange part of human nature is that the thing from which it maintains a distance in order to avoid the unavoidable contains the very bridge to bridge the gap between the question and the answer. The unavoidable which today or tomorrow will surface and re-surface unless gets tackled with complete awareness, the unease feel will keep on existing there.

Time and again, I am being reminded by my well-wishers (at least they feel so and they do suggest me what they feel best for me) about the societal trends and one must give in to get accustomed to these societal trends to become happy. Strangely it is the same people who do not stop complaining about the so-called sources of pleasure and how measurably they have failed to extract any joy out of them.

In my experience, the moment a feel of security creeps in the person about anything be it living or non-living, the very possibility of knowing it in a real sense dies. It is only the insecurity which has the key of knowing a thing in a real sense. Security kills the very seed which could have evolved and helped the human consciousness in delving deeper and ascending the unprecedented heights. Unfortunately we have been understanding every aspect so superficially that day by day we are getting away from our own selves so much so that we don't even remember our real home. The one who is secured deep down does not keep ensuring the visible and tangible outside security.

We feel that to be secured of a thing is to own it and though it does seem to be the way to be secured but in reality it turns out to be opposite. The moment you own something you miss the very possibility of understanding it, knowing it. Owning a thing ensures the superficial security about it and security kills the very seed which could have fructified in bringing the inside of the thing, in opening up the deep secrets lying in the heart of the thing. This security in turn ensures that you miss the thing in a real sense.

Almost everyday I come across someone or the other who seemed to be in real love, prior to the marriage, with the woman who is now his wife and now the same woman has been accused of being the source of his pain and problems.

What converted an angel to a wicked lady is the security!!! What brought this security is the marriage!!! I am not accusing the marriage per se but in my view by marriage people mean an institution in which they are free to impose on the other undue burdens and uninvited problems.
I will not comment on marriage more here. Marriage brought a feel of owning the other partner and thus missed the whole possibility of knowing the other in a real sense.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Renaming of a file in windows

Recently I came across a strange situation wherein I had to rename a file to a name starting with a dot and however hard I tried I could not succeed. Later I came to know that windows by design will not permit such a naming of a file. Then I took the shelter of command prompt and the command "ren" could do what I could not in last 2 hours.

Sex: The most misunderstood act

Neither by supression(prevalent in India) nor by excessive expression (prevalent in America), sex can be understood and enjoyed and made a ladder upwards, it is only by awareness, sex can be made useful to achieve/ascend the ladder of super consciousness. Both the societies suffer from the same deficiencies and the underlying disease does not differ in essence even by an iota, both have the same disease though manifested differently. There is no way or religion or dogma or tantra or management and quick skill which can take someone beyond the pleasure of sex except awareness and the only route to awareness is self-realization i.e. through meditation. Someone who meditates goes beyond the realm of Maya and its not that s/he keeps herself/himself aloof from the worldy /material pleasures i.e. such people do not practice a forceful abstinence but the win over such pleasures by the awareness and use them at their pleasure i.e. they governs the mastery over pleasures of any kind rather than getting governed by it. Unfortunately, both the societies keep the art of this mastery of pleasure away from the reach of the common man so that they remain available at the mercy of consipirators i.e. the priestly class of any religion/any country. And the interesting part of this phenomena is that even the priestly class or for that matter any one else with the same intent as those of the priestly class has been doing it in complete unawareness i.e. they themselves are the victims and it's proven a fact that victoms love victimizing others and that too in complete ignorance.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Using the Gmail Mobile App with Google Apps accounts

Update: Google have now released a version of the Gmail Mobile App for Google Apps accounts on devices other Blackberries, so the information in this article is largely out of date. Visit http://m.google.com/a from your phone to download it.

Google Apps is a lovely way to get your email, combining the loveliness of the normal Gmail interface with the ability to use your own domain names properly, without any of this Outlook "poorhouse@company.com on behalf of poorhouse123@gmail.com" nonsense. And it's free! They also recently upgraded the email storage you get for free to that of a normal Gmail account, currently 3805 MB.

But there is one super-useful feature missing from the Google Apps product that you do get with standard Gmail - support for the Gmail Mobile App, a much nicer way to interact with your email from your (Java-enabled) phone or PDA than the standard web interface. Sadly it doesn't support Google Apps mail - but with a little trickery, it can.

To be fair there is an official Google Apps client for the Blackberry, but any of us non-BB owning phone people are left out. There seems no technical reason why this should be, so it has caused speculation of an insider deal with Blackberry and other conspiratorial, and quite possibly true, allegations. It's also angered people to the point of creating a petition.

However, thanks to Mulefire, a commenter at Lifehacker, there is now a way of making the non-Apps client work with Apps. Yay! Tested and working by the Poorhouse on a Windows Mobile 5 phone, and success on others is reported elsewhere.

Here's how:

* From your phone, go and web-browse http://gmail.com/app/v1.0.0/en/gmail-g.jar to download old-skool version 1 of the Gmail client. Install it however you would normally install Java apps on your phone - in the case of the Poorhouse's Windows Mobile phone, the Java midlet manager started up and installed it automatically.
* If asked, make sure to say yes to allowing it to use data connections.
* Run it, and enter your log-in information - using your full Google Apps email address for the username (e.g. xxx@company.com) and your normal Google Apps password for the password. If it seems that it won't let you type into the boxes to enter this information, be sure to press Enter (or select, or whatever your phone has) before typing in to bring up a text entry screen. Then let it try and log in.
* It will report failure, a 404 error in the case of the Poorhouse's experience. Fear not, just quit the application.
* Now download an update - version 1.1.1 from http://gmail.com/app/v1.1.1/L1/gmail-g.jar. When installing make sure to allow it access to data connections and to "Keep existing data".
* Open up the new Gmail app, and...wonder of wonders...there's your Google Apps inbox ready for use. Hurrah!

Make sure that you don't upgrade it to their 1.5 release because this wont work with that.

courtesy: http://thepoorhouse.org.uk/using_the_gmail_mobile_app_with_google_apps_accounts