Its just a coincidence that Google and God both have the same starting letters - but sometimes for computer illiterate users of the Web, it is as much a fact. Millions of people in the world do not know about the Web before Google. For them Google is not just a search engine but the window to the web - to permit some exaggeration - the web itself. (Doesn't that remind you of Krsna's quote from the Gita - I am the world ..) So some such people were a couple of days back trying to log on to Facebook. Their modus operandi was search "facebook login" in Google, click the first link available. Even my father - who comes into the category of users who learnt surfing only AFTER Google - used to reach my blog. (If you thought this was incredulous, you are either a geek or a old-timer on the web who still relies on remembering URL's of sites you visit to reach them) With my father, this had once lead to an amusing situation when he was not able to locate my blog as it had

The thought of death sparks a slew of emotions in one’s mind – grief, anxiety and sometimes anger - with me it also sparks a reflective mood. The thought of death makes you humble. Everyday we keep running to build our lives – achieve professional success, set up a home, innovate, change the world – Chasing Daylight. But death reminds you that none of this matters at the final hour – not the money you’ve earned or the number of people who know you (who would mourn you), or even what you leave the world as! Once you are gone – its all over, in one quick shot, its gone! Its too early for me to contemplate what one will be looking at when the final hour nears. All I can contemplate today is what if the final hour was to arrive now? Would I be happy? May be not. Would I be satisfied – may be ... yes. A book that I read a couple of days back – Chasing Daylight – made me realize even more that in our daily rigmarole to build our lives, its important to stop and take stock. The book was writ

Recently Sam Pitroda recently mentioned that - "too much focus on engineering and medical education has created a situation in India where liberal arts really did not get the kind of attention it deserved." He said: "A good liberal arts education is important to produce leaders. India has now begun to recognizse that we need not only world class engineering education, we also need world-class liberal arts education. And, we agree that the model we have in (University of) Chicago or Harvard is a model that we need to look at , but it needs to be Indianised - it has to be of a local context." Clearly, Pitroda is talking about the skewed model of having competitive exams for professional courses only which has created a void in liberal arts education in India. Unlike US system, Indian universities do not have a uniform SAT for admission across disciplines – so while for entry to professional courses like engineering and medicine we rely on AIEEE/SEEE and PMT/CPMT’s bu

I was reading this GigaOm piece on augmented reality when I realized that we may be very near towards making the Zipcode (or Pincode as we know it in India) completely redundant in the next 10-15 years. The article talks about how location aware application - Layar delivers ATM locations, restaurant information and available jobs on the phone’s screen as users point the camera at their surroundings. This innovation is a combination of 3 technologies coming together - GPS (location awareness), persistent connection (ability to extract information on the move) and image recognition (point the camera and the phone knows where you are). The latter is probably a complicated and expensive technology to build everywhere, but the former two are now almost ubiquitous. As I have written earlier , mapping services are improving every day in India - already maps to smallest detail are available for most Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities in India. With ISRO's project Bhuvan , imaging information should

I have previously written about Prof. Prasad and his initiatives to promote student entrepreneruship through his National Center for student Entrepreneurship (NCSE) in the NITIE campus. He is courting students nowadays for his Hamara Dhandha initative. Prodded by him to come and 'lecture' the students on the idea of student entrepreneurship - I went to NITIE on July 4th - the audience was thin because committee interviews were going on. So not sure if Prof Prasad will get many volunteers ... I explained the guys the need for looking our of the NITIE universe - the PMG's and Placecoms - to work in stuff like Hamara Dhandha. The philosophy doing rounds in most B-school campuses (as it had been through our times as well) is that stuff like events, industry lectures, internal committees, paper presentations etc - are the major contributors towards a heavier CV which ultimately helps during placement. However, what this philosophy fails to notice is how the landscape in Busin

A scoop from Millennials as Entrepreneurs: Time to Grow Up Everyone is quick to point out the shortcomings and idiosyncrasies of millennials, but I prefer other research which reveals some positive attributes from a business perspective, including the following: Confidence Goal and achievement oriented Multi-cultural Civic minded On the other side of the coin, there are some worrisome millennial attributes relative to the role of entrepreneur: Need to be scheduled Not ready for the “wild west.” Consensus driven Earlier post on being a Millennial

Image Credit phishpot from FlickR It's a beautiful sight - a lit up marketplace, cars driving through the lane in the middle with their own lights on, the slow speed making drivers push their breaks and hence a lot of red lights as well and rain falling from the above. I like night time - ever since my school days when we used to practice for our annual function at night in school. I used to love seeing the school building lit up. At night all the imperfections in buildings are hidden, the lights then highlight the best parts and shapes accentuating the looks. I loved roaming around my school campus at night, and the habit continued in college. Life at NITIE took my liking for night times to a completely new level - night time was for committee meetings, parties and chatting with friends - it was THE time. Night life is one of the hallmarks of the modern era; in the ancient times night was associated with darkness and hence fear of the wild, in the medieval it was the time of cri

Seriously - national television is too bankrupt of good reporting - as I type this they are debating on IBN 7 whether or not Ajmal Kasab has a right to use a toothpaste and deodorant while in Jail!  However, reporting standards of national TV apart - I have had a lot of my friends and colleagues believing that there is no point waiting for a trial for Ajmal Kasab , leave alone granting him a lawyer - he should simply be convicted of his crimes.  Their argument is that everyone has seen Kasab - on CCTV's - more so he has been caught on the spot and so there is nothing left to prove in a court of law, nothing left to defend for the lawyer - so why the lawyer and why the trial? Simply execute him of the charges!! The recent debate on his age too is incomprehensible to most - how does it matter if he was 17 or 18 - he is guilty, he should be executed. Well I am not a lawyer - but a student of logic and I believe that we are all making the mistake of assuming that a court is need

Those of you who have not seen this video   from a popular reality show in the UK - "Britian's Got Talent" should watch it. This video in a short span has become the second most watched YouTube video of all time with 100 million hits already over a weekend, and will soon become number 1 when it crosses 118 million mark. And don't watch it completely at one go - first watch the first minute of the video; pause it and contemplate what the rest of it is going to be; and then watch the rest! Done it!! (No? Then watch it first ... don't read the rest of this post) I bet you can't say you knew this would happen! In the first one minute, no one would expect that Susan Boyle would sing like a canary in the next 5 minutes.  It goes on miles to say about how much our appearances affect our perception of people. This is what Malcom Gladwell has argued in his book blink that we often base our decisions on 'perceptions' - which is why you are more likely to find a

The three of them had met after 3 years; reminiscing the days when they used to stay together. It used to be exciting - newly found jobs, a new city to struggle through/survive in and new stuff to learn at the workplace. Bachelor’s life had been exciting. Sitting there in the restaurant, sipping on their drinks they all were brooding at the starter in front of them; forks and spoons in their hands playing with the vegetables. Sheon was thinking about the strife his life had become, torn between the girl he loved and his parents who would not agree to their relationship. Samit was lost in thoughts of saving his job endangered by the recession, his two year old marriage and how he would retain the comfort and balance of his life in these turbulent times. Naveen was pondering over his failed startup, contemplating on what he would do next to get out of his 9-5 routine job. In 2 years since they had gone separate ways, life had presented different set of challenges to each of them and ea

After I bought my car, one of the first things which was fixed in the interior of my car as a decorative was a Ganesh Idol - that was gifted to me by my dealer itself. The next thing which I wanted to buy was the Indian flag - I finally bought it when we visited the Wagah border. After I had put up the flag in my car, I started noticing the interiors of other cars on the road, and found that almost 80% of cars had similar Indian flags in their cars. Then yesterday (which was Republic Day), I found that even auto-rickshaws had flags pinned up inside. This led me into thinking as to whether this "flag thing" indicates that we Indians are a patriotic lot and whether after 60 years of independence, we have shrugged our apathy towards the nation and started taking pride in being Indians. Well ... I really can't say. To the skeptic, this could as well be because car accessory stores have flags as a decorative or say hawkers coax you into buying these at traffic signals, and fin

Written Circa June, 2003 - inspired by a chapter in Alvin Toffler' s ' The Third Wave '  In the past permanence was ideal. Whether in handcrafting a pair of Boots or in constructing a cathedral all man’s creative and productive energies went towards maximizing the durability of the product. Man built to last. He had to. As long as the society around him was relatively unchanging each object had clearly defined functions and the economic logic dictated the policy of permanence. Even if they had to be repaired now and then, the boots that costed $50.00 and lasted ten years were less expensive than those that cost $10.00 and lasted only a year. As the general rate of change in society accelerates, however, the economics of permanence are - and must be - replaced by economics of transience. First, advancing technology tends to lower the costs of manufacture much more rapidly than the costs of repair work. The one is automated the other remains largely handcrafted operation. Thi

Written circa January 2003 Wars for long have been thought to be as bad omen. And every time somebody mentions War, pictures of mass destruction hover in front of our eyes. But history tells us that wars have traditionally been the powerhouse of technological revolution. The recent most world war, that is the Second World War, is the most flamboyant example of the above fact. Robert B. Young at the Stanford research institute studied the span of time between the first commercial appearance of a new electrical appliance and at the time the industry manufacturing it reaches a peak production of the item. Young found that for a group appliances introduced in the United States before 1920, including the vacuum cleaner, the electric range and the refrigerator, the average Span between introduction and peak production was 34 years.  But for the group that appeared in 1939-59 period, including the electric frying pan, television and washer and dryer combination, the Span was only eight year

As I have said earlier , writing is an old hobby of mine, much older than this blog. So a couple of days back as I was cleaning my old documents I discovered texts which I wrote during my engineering days when I did not have a PC, leave alone having this blog space to publish them. I thought why not post them here on my blog now. I am starting with those which are already typed and ready (other which are handwritten will need more time). Here's the first write up in that series: Future shock [written circa 2002-2003 at Age-21] In his book Future Shock , Alvin Toffler talks to accelerated pace of change and describes how men/women, youth, children and even animals are being or will enter paroxysms or orgies of withdrawal from the society due to future shock. He paints a horrible, dangerous and frightening picture of the seemingly insane society of tomorrow. He goes on giving instances to prove that the rate of rate of change is on the unending increase and how biologically and psych

Here’s what I have been doing since August this year (and expected to do till Dec): 8-Aug Received Car delivery 9-Aug Went to Pune on first drive itself 15-Aug Getting used to driving to office everyday 22-Aug Work on new version of www.arbitmba.com 29-Aug Went to Lonavala with friends; came back and worked on remaining pieces of ArbitMBA new version 3-Sep 5-Sep Ganesh Chaturthi - went to Madh Island; after the gruelling weekend in Lonavla Release of www.arbitmba.com 12-Sep Went home for Ganesh Visarjan 19-Sep 26-Sep 3-Oct 10-Oct 17-Oct Mad race at work - with multiple assignment's on head, working Saturday's and Sunday's But also stole visits to - (Not Just) Jazz By the Bay, Bandra Reclamation, St. Mary's Church on weekends 24-Oct Went home for Diwali 31-Oct @ home post Diwali 7-Nov 14-Nov Rush to complete current project@work - working Saturday's, Visits to Inorbit over weekend 21-Nov Tentative plan to visit Khetan's marriage 28-Nov Might go to Pune if Mom'

The news of an Indian origin financial advisor committing suicide after killing his entire family hit the headlines within hours of the event. I wonder if it had been an Indian farmer instead of a financial advisor, whether the news would have taken the same position on the newspapers. However, the stark similarity in context of the suicide with that of the Indian farmers prodded me to think which one of them was worse - the Financial Advisor's or the Farmer's. The farmer in India lives on the bottom edge of the economic ladder, is uneducated and enjoys little socio-economic security. However, the financial advisor was an affluent citizen (having made a fortune of $1.2mn once), had a social security number and was well educated. His committing suicide indicates a complete failure of the much touted "social security" which the west claims to be its achievement. However, look at it from another perspective. The financial advisor works on estimates and projections of se

I've recently bought a car (more on that in my next post) ... and have been driving around Mumbai - especially along the narrow traffic in front of IIT main gate.  Driving a new car on Mumbai roads is quite traumatic - because you are often driving barely inches away from the rickshaw or goods carrier which might be swaying from left to right (thanks to the potholes and uneven terrain of Mumbai's roads)  - and every moment you run a risk of kissing the bruised exterior of the next vehicle - and as a result getting a nice scratch on yours. Image Credit :  Guy Kawasaki Often when I drive, I also look around for other small cars and their sides. Almost 90% of them have scratches itched on them at some place; about 50% also have a dent or two somewhere. I suppose drivers in Mumbai have to resign themselves to the fact that their car will get scratches and dents sometime or the other - sooner than later. Trying to save yourself of this can only be stressful while you drive. I dare s

Note (Click to expand) This is an old blog post, I first wrote typed in 2005. 3 years later while cleaning my old Hard disk, I found it. Blogging was still a fairly new pursuit to me then and I was not sure if this post would be well received, hence did not post it. I know better now, that it is better to post than shove it away, so here it is. The question is not whether we will live or die - the question is whether we will be free or not - Subhash Chandra Bose I have been debating with myself whether to make this post or not for the past 15-20 days and finally decided in its favour. If it offends anyone in any way, I apologise beforehand. Think of all the activities that give you emotional or physical pleasures - love, food, sex, self-praise, anger and above all physical inactivity ( आलस ). Of course all of us would differ in the level of pleasure these activities give us, nevertheless it cannot be denied that all the above do give us pleasure to some extent. Notice the similarity

Shubham strikes again - he has tagged me with this topic this time ... well to be frank all that I want to do in my life is still unfinished, so this list could as well run into 100s, but let me try to hand-pick the top 5: 5. Startup Needs no explanation - I try to keep innovating even in my job; but starting up my own enterprise could be an ecstatic milestone. Lot's of ideas keep coming to one, but as yet nothing has come to mind which can make me quit my cosy job. 4. Become a columnist As I have written earlier as well, writing is an old hobby with me. I grew up writing for my diary, then the school magazine, also becoming its editor, then kept writing in private, till I started on this blog. However, my childhood dream is to become a columnist in a newspaper. Perhaps, I have achieved that dream by becoming a Long Tail columnist (on this blog), but it would indeed be a satisfying achievement to become a 'real' columnist. 3. Drive a Social organization Well, may be an N

Many of you must have read about the famous 'The Man in the Arena' speech by Theodore Roosevelt. The passage from the speech which has made the speech memorable and is oft quoted is: It is not the critic who counts;The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. However, I was reading the rest of the speech when I found another paragraph which was as thoughtful the first one ... here it goes: War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity. But it is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is a war. The choice must ever be in favour of righteousness, and this is whether the alternative be peace or whether the alternative be war. The question must n