5 Cities in 5 Months - Is it so easy to bomb a city in India?

Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat and now Delhi, five months and five different cities. One thing which is common in all the blasts is the ease of execution. People just come on bicycle, scooter, bikes, cars, etc. They park it somewhere and it simply explodes. After months and years of beating around the bush our intelligence machinery and police department comes with interesting inputs about how the scooter/car was stolen from ABC place, how the cycle was bought from ABC shop and what was the explosive used (which is predominantly RDX). I remember that the investigation report of Mumbai serial blast contained a detailed report on the pressure cookers as the bombs were sealed in the pressure cookers and were kept in the train compartments. Police traced the make of the pressure cooker, the distributor and then they were wondering that out of the 8 pressure cooker purchased, only 7 exploded and they have no details about the eighth one. (May be the guy who was given the responsibility to plant the last one might have threw the bomb in the sewer and decided to run away with the pressure cooker. What a steal. On being quizzed about the suspects, the police was double sure that they have crossed the border. In Ahmedabad police was actually looking for the old cycle sellers because the bombs were left on the carriers of the bicycles.

Well, nothing much happened in Jaipur blast case, Bangalore blasts didn’t hurt many people so no body took it seriously and then Ahmedabad happened. There is something special about Gujrat these days. Camera and press follows Narendra Modi like they are waiting for him to err so that they can simply pounce on him but somehow this leader never fails to inspire. Suddenly bombs starting popping out of every gutter and sewerage of Surat. They were found hanging like guavas on trees and a possible disaster was averted due to the alertness of police. As usual they traced the stolen car, the various number plates and even made some arrests. And when everybody thought that “okay bad times are over and let’s start enjoying the shopping malls again” suddenly the terrorists decided to jolt the capital.

Great feeling it gives. Our honourable Prime minister tabled his statement against Mr Advani in lok sabha during the recent debate and was seen flashing the sign of victory in front of camera (so uncommon of him but anyways). One of the sentence was “How can a country forgive a home minister who was sleeping when terrorist was knocking at the doors of Lok Sabha?” I guess he should do some introspection now. I don’t know another era in Indian history when so many bombs exploded in so little time. How come he or his home minister will be forgiven by the people of the country? 

It seems that terrorists are striking at their will. I sometime wonder that how easy it has become to terrify people and how easy it has become to pacify them by making a statement like “We all need to stay united at this hour of need”. People forget easily and this Delhi blast will also be forgotten. Not much water has gone under the bridge since Ahmedabad blast but then it seems that terrorist are not afraid of the law and order, they aren’t even afraid of the police machinery and well why not? Government is afraid of taking a decision on Afzal’s hanging because of some political reasons, they are against POTA or any law parallel to that and some of the stake holders in the government even support organizations like SIMI.

It seems that there are people who think they are capable of doing anything, anywhere and anytime. They don't even spare a holy month of Ramadan. The failure of our machinery and lack of commitment to fight terrorism is acting as a booster to that will. Well, as the bomb blasts are slowly becoming a part of our subconscious (aaj yanha fata kal wanha fatega) I guess soon the security people stationed in front of important buildings will get back to their regular routing of chatting with each other while the metal detector keeps beeping. Nobody cares if somebody comes with a bag full of explosives and decides to explode some place in any city. If the big cities are not safe then imagine about the small towns. Perhaps terrorist are not targetting small towns because it looks less glamorous.

Image is copied from the http://www.bbc.co.uk .

I am Back.. Finally..

Before leaving for Hyderabad (for my job) I speculated "if I would be allowed to blog @ my new job?" Well, I am not. So that's one reason for the delay. Another reason being the new schedule. In a way I am allowed to blog but only on the company's own website (moderation issues and all that) so I choose to rather wait and wait and wait.

So I am finally in Hyderabad, settled in my new house (a rented one) and am happy that now I can blog courtesy my Reliance Broadnet conncetion (however slow it is, it is still good enough to post blogs). I was promised an unlimited 300 Kbps however it comes out that it's not Kilo Byte Per Second but rather Kilo Bits Per Second and the difference is it's 8 times slower than the promised connection. Reliance is good at making money and see they even fooled a guy having computer engineering background. Well, initially the sales person promised full download speed but the maximum I got was around 30 Kbps so finally I asked about my plan. He simply told me to divide the maximum speed by 8. On futher enquiry he told me that "Sir, this is the way, you always divide the maximum speed by 8". His emphasis was on the number 8 and then finally it clicked that okay so it' s the difference between bits and bytes.

Anyways, I am not in mood to change connection because first, it's really difficult to get one and secondly Airtel and Sify are equally non-reliable so it's fine. I'll stick to it for some more time. It seems that lots of things demands my attention and I am failing miserably in time management. Will be back soon this time.

Why Charu?

The news came out yesterday that Charu Sharma was sacked by the Bangalore Franchisee from the CEO post of the Royal Challenger team. I am not sure whose decision it was to make him the CEO? Had it been Vijay Mallya then going by his records (tastes) Mandira Bedi should have been put ahead of Charu. So you see, sacking Charu is not a mistake but a correction.

Rumours are there that Katrina Kaif has to shoulder the extra responsibility for the time being as Mandira Bedi is busy with her anchoring commitments. Meanwhile the franchisee is also thinking about tying the compensation of cheer leaders to the number of boundaries hit and wickets taken by the Bangalore team. It's largely being felt that they are being paid for nothing till now. Well, the cheer girls have been spotted in one of the famous temple last day praying for the team. In these dire circumstances thankfully Bangalore has someone to pray for them because the fans are better off wasting money on Royal Challenge rather than wasting time and money on Royal Challengers. At-least it saves the time.

Updates...

One reason for my prolonged absence from blogging scene was the lack of internet access at my home and the scorching summer heat killed the will to walk to the nearest cyber cafe. To top it off, I got a bad form of corn in my foot where the corn caps proved to be useless (they are useless anyway). So I got operated on 8th of April and it was so bad that even after one month there is a hint of limping in my walk.

My Job - I am joining as Associate Consultant in the Enterprise Solution (ES) unit of Infosys at Hyderabad on 12th May. There will be a 2 months training program after which I will be relocated to my base location. (A lot of traveling indeed) I don't know whether Infy allows me to blog about my life at Infosys but hopefully I will try to keep the flame alive.

Have a lot of posts due and I am dying to write one on my experience with the Indian Railways. Will pen down it soon.

Thanks readers..

A big thank you to all of you who have responded to my earlier post on the plight of the migrant workers in Maharashtra. Thanks for the comments and mails. The issue is growing out of proportion and even the Maharashtra government is not doing anything because this "son of the soil" is such a sensitive topic that nobody dares to speak against it. The saddening thing is that Maharashtra is not new to this kind of hate politics. The senior Thakrey started all this in 70s against the South Indians and now the junior Thakrey who is the self proclaimed successor of the Thakrey legacy is targeting north Indians now.

Anyways the good thing is that even after the extended hate campaign of 70s South Indians still continue to flourish in Maharashtra so the same thing will happen this time. Another good thing is that the government in Bihar and Bengal are rising to the challenge. Traveling across Bihar I witnessed some change. Though it still has a long way to go but these baby steps will definitely add together to become the giant leap. I saw roads being repaired, new roads being built, Bhojpuri film industry flourishing (well this thing really has a long way to go before they get wider group of audience, they are still very vulgar) and education sector being liberalized. Fitting it all together, there will be increased job creation and opportunities for the students of Bihar (among the most talented in India) to study in their home state. A rough estimate shows that the state looses around 8000 crores every year that the Bihari students spends outside. Add this with the fees revenue going out to substandard educational institutes in states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi and you see what kind of opportunity is there.

Well, the hate campaign is likely to continue till the elections and if the Thakrey looses it then it might escalate also with addition of some more states. The will to fight is lacking in the government and they have to pay the price in one form or another. No wonder big corporates might come into picture sooner or later.

Love them or Hate them: But You need Them..

A migrant worker (img courtesy BBC)

When management guru C. K. Prahlad wrote the famous book “Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid” he had the millions of poor living across the world in his mind. This came almost at the time when India was waking up to the opportunities available around the world and the benefits of having a large population hungry for success. Soon we saw India becoming the back office of the world. Remittances from middle-east and other countries doubled and tripled in no time. Increasing number of call centers, IT offices, H1B visas and increase in remittances sent to India created demand for consumer goods, services, luxury goods and all these factors combined, propelled our economy into a higher growth orbit.

Before this period what was the identity of India across the world? In 1980s some of our doctors and engineers were considered just good enough to taxi in New York. All across Canada and US you could have found Indians working in grocery stores at gas stations, as lorry drivers and in all other menial jobs that you can imagine. They faced abuse, harassment and all other dirty things but still they kept their feet and head grounded and the only reason was that they have to send money back home. Every-one of them had dependent parents, unmarried sisters, siblings studying in colleges and they knew that if they rebel against the inhuman conditions, that will be like murdering the dreams of the people whom they loved and cared for. So they kept on ticking, and kept pushing themselves in the hope that things will change.

Things changed in the 90s. Our government woke up and liberalized certain policies. The money pumped back into the country created engineers, doctors, and managers who could redefine the word India and Indians. India was believed to be the land of snake charmers. The “hungry India poor India” image was beefed up with all those shots of people living in extreme poverty and the backward image was reinforced with news of riots, caste clashes and mob violence. People had an image in their mind but the question is that “Was the whole India poor or backward or illiterate at that time?” Weren’t there enough rich, civilized and intellectual people out there at the same time? Myself being an Indian know the answer to these questions and I actually laugh at those innocent remarks.

The point I want to drive is that the old image of India in the world is now of Bihar (and some parts of UP) in India. The question remains the same, are all the Biharis dirty, poor or illiterate? Add one more allegation “threat to a civilized culture” to it and it becomes a political agenda. Fifteen years ago India was the base of the world’s economic pyramid where it positioned itself as the cheap labour supplier and now it is the duty of states like UP and Bihar to supply labour to all the major industries. Will it be possible for Surat’s diamond industry to survive without migrant workers? I don’t think that Punjab will produce even half of the wheat that it produces now without the workers from Bihar and eastern UP. The same will happen to rice producing regions of Haryana. Who will work as the temporary workers in the construction sector (which is on boom now) for cheap? Without the cheap supply of labour would the balance sheet of these construction companies would look even half lucrative? Who will sell vegetables and fruits on the streets of Mumbai? Who will work as motor mechanics, tailors, coolies, carpenters, cycle rickshaw pullers, security guards and in many other unthinkable jobs without which our lives won’t look half as comfortable as of now?

Forget the menial jobs, how the numerous private engineering, medical and management institutions would survive in the absence of students from these states. Do a random survey and you’ll find that an average Bihari middle class family spends maximum part of it’s earnings on the education (an investment which will change everything) . In the absence of educational institutions in the state, where is this money going? The answer is: it’s going to cities like Pune, Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai etc. Can our society do away with Bihar and UP? Well some people can still afford to say yes but not before they make sure that all the minerals and other resources are loaded away.

It’s unfortunate that the past governments in Bihar and UP have not done enough for the people in those states but does that give us the moral right to humiliate those poor people and deprive them of their basic fundamental right to earn a living at a place of their choice? Why do we forget that 25% of our population resides in these 2 states and it’s the generosity of state like Bihar that all our industries are flourishing now (about 60% of all the mineral deposits were in Bihar and Jharkhand) add to it the human resource available and then you will see that these 3 states combined form the rock solid base of our economical eco system. Migrant workers from Bihar and UP have changed the colours of islands like Mauritius and Fiji.

It’s easy to target these poor people to gain political mileage because everybody knows that they can not struggle. Anybody whose main struggle is to manage the next meal, how come they could struggle against organized mob violence? Time never stands still. 15 years ago nobody gave India a chance but it happened. Today nobody gives Bihar and UP a chance but I know it will happen again. With 25% of population in their fold, they are capable of doing amazing things only if the government wake up and take positive steps to create an environment of growth. They just need to recognize their potential and we should not forget that they have the capability to slow the whole economy down or to speed it up. They form the base of our ecological system and if the base shaken you can just imagine what will happen to the edifice. It's just a matter of time.

Is your brand RED-e?

More and more brands are turning red these days by choice (luckily stock markets can't be held culprit for this).

Chennai is a colourful city and much of it is due to the tall and broad hoardings which runs on the sides of all the roads however wide or narrow they may be. These giant structures (or strictures) does not differentiate between roads and locality and are omnipresent across the city. However recently on a ride across one of the busiest roads (which is also blessed with lots of hoardings) I noticed an interesting pattern among the various brands which have come across the last one year. More and more brands are turning to colour Red. And to substantiate the statement, it all started with the Aditya Birla promoted brand of departmental stores 'MORE'. And when I started noticing, the whole gamut of brands appeared to have something red in them (it's another thing that most of them are also seeing red in stock market).

After the More stores, again what caught my attention is the posters of Arvind Mills promoted discount stores MegaMart which promises a 365 days sale. The posters covered like 2 kms stretch of the road near Guindy and announced the opening of the first big store in Chennai. It was again all Red.

Then I stumbled upon the Reliance Fresh outlets and noticed that how everything is designed on a Red theme. The boards, the refrigeration units, interiors and even the lighting casts a spell of red all around. I think Mukesh Ambani has a fascination with red colour because Vimal suitings which was re-launched last year had got a new look with Red colour all around. The new logo has a vibrant Red colour as the background. Walk down the road and there you'll get Subhiksha mobile stores teasing you with a prominent Red and little Blue on the display boards. It immediately reminds me of one of their competitors "The Mobile Store" which again has a red theme around their logo. Well, if you want to shop around then take some money out first. Walk into the Axis Bank ATM next door which again has a pleasingly Red (though looks more on the maroon side but will still qualify as close to Red) display board welcoming you to use the facility. Want to get a recharge coupon for your mobile? thousands of outlets are lined up one after another offering top up but well, Vodafone is also Red and to add to the agony, the colour Red also has to play a big part in their competitor's logo: Airtel.

I like red colour but what surprises me is that most of the brands that I noticed have come up in the past 12-18 months and they all have chosen Red as the base colour (or atleast one of the prominent colour) to design their brand themes. MegaMart, The Mobile Store, Subhiksha, Axis Bank, Reliance Fresh, Vimal and More are all new brands which have decided to take the Red Route. My engineering logic tells me that as the colour Red has the largest wavelength, it can be seen from a farther distance so most of the brands prefer to have some element of Red in it. It's not only the new brands old big wigs like HSBC, AirTel, Punjab National Bank has some elements of Red in their logo. But my intuition tells me that the choice of red has something more then mere engineering logic. May be the Red displays are cheaper than others or may be some astrologer or colour consultant out there is making lots of money. "Going Red by choice seems to be the new Mantra".

Have time to kill online?

Then read on....

Only last week I realized that I am a member of contests2win.com when they sent me a reminder that I haven't participated in any of their contests since long. I don't even remember becoming a member because there were too many sites of that genre which offers you little brownie points to do things that they want you to do. Yeah it's something similar to our mothers telling us to get grocery from the next store for the promise of a chocolate. So there was bargain for both of us. Mother has the convenience of not getting out of home and we are getting the chocolates. I am not very surprised to see that the same thing has become business model. There is just a little difference and this little difference was hyped to be a revolutionary concept. Though our parents use to reward us for fetching grocery or doing other chores (like getting a hair cut, completing home work, cleaning room etc) they never paid us to play video games or for that matter any other game. After all, ours is a society which is built on the principles of "पढोगे लीखोगे बनोगे नवाब, खेलोगे कूदोगे बनोगे खराब" (Simple translation is "just keep yourself immersed in books, you dare go out of home to play).

Our English administrators were really successful in driving the point home and boy-oh-boy, look how successful they were actually. Though the 1 billion population is not good enough to get even a single Olympic gold medal, every other day a son of soil starting an IT services company (back offices are easy to setup and start). The older generations can feel happy that what they sowed all these years, is bearing fruits now. Well, to come back to the point, for people like us who were emotionally attached to sports and whose teachers and tutors made it sure that they don't waste their time on useless things had no other resort than to turn to virtual world. I may not be right but what else can explain the cricket craziness of 1 billion people? Why is that every average Indian can advise Rahul Dravid as to how to hold the bat or how to hit Bret Lee over the top or for that matter how to rotate strike in one dayers? Most importantly it's the feeling of guilt in most of us that we lost some of our precious time reading books rather than getting dirty in the field.

Well, coming back to the business plan, we have seen some good websites coming up during the last couple of year like Zapak.com, contests2win.com etc etc. Their business model "we pay you to play games online or we pay you to have fun on the web". And a nation where sports grounds are best used for grazing cattle or hosting big fat weddings the only resort of the young, literate and computer savvy people like us is to indulge in computer gaming and as internet was becoming a hype so by the rule of association internet gaming became the buzzword. Was it a new concept before zapak or contests to win came on the scene? My answer is an emphatic 'No'. Yahoo had Yahoo gaming and Indiatimes use to give brownie points for even reading news on Times of India (well otherwise who will read Times of India online?). Well, Indian startups have made it an habit of picking up an idea existing in US or other markets and then repackaging and re branding it for Indian masses (not a bad idea in itself because I have also plans for doing this only). So online gaming came to India with a bang. Anil Ambani bought Zapak.com and there you go (comeon! if Anil Ambani believes in online gaming then you know this must have some potential).

What's in there for us?

Games like Sudoku is simply boring and are better to do offline. Other small games are simply time waste and have no real fun. Contests to win goes a step further and asks you simple questions (which any idiot can answer and if he/she doesn't then it's a warning signal that their IQ is less than 40 and their parents should take them to a doctor) which any one can easily google. The business model is based on the number of participants because the more people will participate, the more money the website will make and the less chances you have to win contests. I don't know what fun is there in answering questions like "Who married Aishwary Bachhan"? or "Who is the director of movie Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag"?. Well, I know the answers are not simple and many people will mistake Amitabh for Abhishek but who cares, I will get those 5 points on offer.

And how many points you need to redeem a 256 MB pen drive? A staggering 10000 points for a 100 Rs। thumb drive? Isn't it a cool reward? Well, ofcourse it's cool but not for a person like me who has to spend around 6 hours online attempting for all those stupid questions or games to get points (that too over an entire month) and have to pay the broadband bill at the end of the month. It's other thing if my father pays for it. So guess who is making money out of our stupidity. But well there are no brownie points for answering that question. So contests to win staff! be assured I understand your tricks. Now will you please stop spamming me?

Update about HDFC Bank fraud attempt..

The bank didn't even bother to reply me. May be they never thought that it was a serious attempt of fraud. Or the most likely scenario could be they didn't read my mail also. Great going and it feels so good to think that even in a responsible position, you can afford to be lazy.

Hariot Balmers of the world, are you reading this blog??

Read my post on net banking security threat

What goes up, it comes down..

This is the share price graph of a company named Krishna Filaments for the period 3rd Dec to 3rd March. Looks like a perfect normal curve and is an example of the sweet poetic justice of stock market.

In the past few months, some of the companies have got soaring valuations but then our Finance minister is making sure that no any investor earns money (only the speculators can). Well, I was keeping a watch on this company. The stock price was simply going off the roof and though I was trying daily to buy this stock since it was Rs. 7, I never got a chance as it use to get locked in the circuit the moment it opened. Within 6 weeks it went on to hit Rs 60 (multi bagger) and I decided not to buy as it seems overpriced. And then suddenly without any rhyme or reason it started coming down. I doubt that whether anybody was able to sell it because on the ride down, it was hitting lower circuits daily and normally you can't sell that time.

Well, that is about stock but it also confirms an age old fact that "What goes up, it comes down". You just have to wait for the right time and when it comes, it feels like a sweet poetic justice.