Recently we were awakened by the rude shock of terrorism and how vulnerable the common man is to the anti social groups in our country. This also was proof enough for everyone to understand how proactive and careless our security measures are. How helpless our police or security personals are and so on. But then as more and more came out of the blasts and bombs scare still going on in Surat, I have started to ignore the fact that it is any anti terrorist groups work to do so.
In Bangalore, it was a low intensity explosions because the explosives were probably those that were used in the stone mining in the nearby areas, used for blasting in quarries. In Ahemadabad probably it was serious and in surat it’s a joke. They have uncovered some 20 un-exploded explosives and defused them in a span of probably 2 days I guess.
But if someone want to cause the damage, why would he just plant an explosive and stay watching the news about how they were defused? He could just explode it anytime he wants, once he knows that his explosives are being found.?
Why would he wait for it to be on news?
Why would he give a message by now exploding the unit and why would he plant some 20 non explosives to send a message?
Why would he plant a bomb on top of a tree?
Why on a ad hoarding which is atleast 20 feet above the gournd? Is the so called terrorist a moron? Is he trying to kill the birds?
Has the act of terrorism come down to this level?
Or the very question that whether the packets unearthed were really explosives?
I doubt it. It’s just the administration getting the people to panic mode and to get diversions I believe. Theoretically those packets were not planted by smoothly placing it in those places. They were thrown in to those places by some one standing below. And that’s what I believe. If this is not true, get one unit of the same contents and show it exploding so that I can believe that those were real explosives.
Hyderabad or Bangalore… or any other city in India for that matter… traffic sense is kind of not easily found among any one living there. Personally I have experience in these 2 cities and I can comment on these only. But as such its almost the same situations in all the IT hubs for sure. At least I guess so.
Recently I was in B’lore for a weekend and so decided to meet some friends of mine on Sunday evening. All was fine as long as I kept myself away from the heart of the city. But evening I ended up in residency road corner house. Now that’s where all things began. As usual it rained for about 15 mins a li’l heavily though but then I had to face the reality of B’lore. My car was stuck in a traffic jam that took some 30 mins to clear.
Question here is:
Why the traffic is a chaos when it rains?
What happens to the people and their senses when it rains there?
Can’t they just stay home or in office when it rains?
And a lot more…….
So then I started driving back to the majestic area by making a huge circle from Residency to Richmond and then towards corporation and then via KG road to majestic. At least this was my plan initially. Then when I reached corporation I realized its not a easy drive to go through majestic. Took a immediate turn towards Lalbagh and to Chamrajpet. This was quite easy compared to the other roads till then. So in Chamrajpet, I was stuck in between a bunch of stupid drivers. This included autos, two wheelers and private cars. They don’t understand the fact that if vehicles from other side is not allowed to go then there is no way out of the road as its not divided by a median. And I think this understanding still lacks. So I was stuck again for more than 45mins there. Felt myself to be an idiot then. But that’s the reality anyway. Nobody cares and no easy solution for this.
But realized one thing. Its no the number of vehicles or the infrastructure that is lacking in the city. It’s the peoples common sense that is missing in the city which ones had boasted of some of the best known intellectuals in the country. Anyway past is past and future is bleak.
Now its not far from this experience in Hyderabad. I prefer to walk to office and so I have not yet bought a vehicle for myself. But will be son as I realized, walking can kill. Literally…. At least in this city.
One thing I have to face in this city is the fact that the city administration is not friendly to those who want to walk. So if you want to walk be ready for the consequences. I have seen very less roads with pavements and pedestrian ways here. And the shops doors open to the road here. And if some sick driver loses control, he will definitely be inside the shop, hotel or even your home if you are lucky. The foot paths I have seens are on the roads inside the jubilee hills area and other residential areas where people hardly walk and where people walk has none of the so called foot paths. Example the Madhapur road, Hi-tech city road, you name it. And these are the roads where thousands of people walk and most of them engineers who are feeding these cities with their fortune and pride.
Just have to understand that if you are an engineer, if you are gone, there is someone to replace you immediately on the road, in the office or anywhere else. But what about home?
So now I have a question. As a software engineer, I guess we spend most of our hard earned money and time on these cities. I am no John F. Kennady who once said “ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. “
I do expect something in return. And this is not in terms of money or any other unethical means. I am just asking our ‘reformers ‘(so called) to give me some time to spend for myself and my family. Most of the engineers in Bangalore I believe leave for work in the morning like at 7.00AM or 7.30AM and there are some who leave at 6.00AM to catch the company bus to the office. They start their work at 8.00AM or latest by 9.00AM and try to leave by 4.30PM to 6.00PM time frame. But as the situation is, they reach their home by 6.30PM ideally and have most of the times seen sitting in the office buses even after 8.30PM.
Now every day a engineer is wasting say 4-5hrs on travel from office to home and back. So in a week the poor fellow is wasting a full day doing nothing but dreaming about being at home and spend sometime with his kids, wife, parents..etc.., but unfortunately he is on the road still dreaming. In a month he has already wasted a week travelling for no reason and in a year he has wasted more than a quarter of a year travelling within the city. Atleast he could afford a foreign vacation of a week if he had worked for this time and took a weeks off for vacation. That’s extreme but it’s real. Most of them will earn a lakh easily in 3 months and it doesn’t take much to visit places like Singapore or Malaysia these days. Think about it.!!!
Added to that is the fuel costs of driving the bike, car or a bus for more than the time it was required to. Say a 30kms distance can be covered in 1hr 30mins in normal conditions through the city and if it takes more than this, then its waste of time, fuel and a sign of the economy reaching the dooms day by wasting the resources. But none cares. Only thing the administration cares is about their privileges of free fuel, free medical aid, free living, ultimately being a burden on the common tax payer who just finished filing all his taxes for the reason that he was threatened by these blood sucking, useful for nothing slugs. Every time we see the telephone bills in lakhs, electricity bills in thousands, fuel charges in lakhs of these administrators, who are supposedly elected to make some reforms and save all these costs. Anyway, everything that is said about change and handling the change is so far not true. Democracy is a huge failure in this sense, in all sense. Its non sense in India for sure.
Percentage – the most amazing comparison tool we have. Of late this has been seen in use in every representation of numbers.
Recently everybody not so inclined to percentage calculations were forced to understand this thru the economic slow down all over the world or simply put inflation. Every other country whether developed or not so developed, are gripped by the fact called inflation. This is the truth of global economy. You cannot ignore it even if u want to. Result of this is obviously public unrest and may end up in war. Example of this extreme is Zimbabwe, where the inflation figures are over 150,000%.
Any way, the subject I wanted to talk about percentages here are the ones which our so called leaders are bother about. The reservations , or the so called Quota. Recently the politics won over the judiciary and management of the institutions by making sure that 26% of the seats are reserved to the OBCs. I am not against it and not in favor of it either. I do not want to talk about the origin of this so called OBCs and the reservations they are enjoying under the constitution of india.
The constitution of india by itself is a brain child of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar, who gave independent india an extended set of steps and goals to achieve the true status of an independent nation. But our leaders were always exploiting as they were form before independence to the date and the fact is that the very basic constitution was amended by the powers of the people with vested interests in such a way that there is no more looking back. It cannot be set right any more, but to be rewritten.
But then instead of reducing the number belonging to this divide, the system kept on increasing the boundaries of this constitutional fact and was exploited to an extent that it can never be corrected.
SC(15%as per GOI) **
ST(7.5%as per GOI)**
OBC(27%as per GOI**
Now coming to the percentages, we all now know that the OBCs were not really included in the reservations provided by the constitution of India in its purest form. Rather there was no definition of OBCs as such. Reservations for OBCs is definitely not. This was included as an amendment to the constitution by so called caste politicians. So amendment of the very constitution in this case is an offence and disrespect done to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar whose dream of unified India will for ever be a dream.
Anyway, coming to the percentage math of this so called reservations, 27% is reserved for the OBCs as per the recent decisions by the Govt and the judiciary in acceptance with the caste politicians of our country. But will this percentage method be applied in every sense of the math is what is interesting.
Coming to the involved percentages, 27% is the reserved pie to the OBCs in educational institutions of India. Now if 100% is the maximum anybody can achieve in his performance, how will the criteria for deciding the minimum percentage for the reservations be decided?
Now as we know the cut off for these categories to be eligible for the competitive institutions are less than that required by a general category candidate. So if we can relate the reservation percentage to the eligibility criterion, then the person belonging to the reserver category should have a minimum percentage of x%, which is the Max scorred percentage – 50% mark. (Assuming 50% of the MAX is the reservation eligibility cut off).
Again, the best part of the reservations as in the current political stand point if a general category person has scorred 90% in a competitive exam, then the person in reservations category needs to score only 50% in the same exam to be eligible for whatever the general category person is eligible for. The fun part is what is the general category people all score only 50% or less..??? Reservations is obsolete…!!!!
Now since US and the European union are the global decision makers, they tend to do some blah blah blah also… :) Now they are sure good at it, trust me on this as more than 60-70% Americans doesn’t know what the global issues are, and the rest of the 30-40% doesn’t care.
Now coming to the actual point of discussion here.. Sometime back Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had a commenton the global food crisis and the price rise. Now since the comment was made there is an uproar in India about the same blaming US to look into their own dinner table than peeking into others table to smell their menu… :). There is also some articles pointing out that Ms. Rice admitted the UN report on theglobal food crisis, which reasoned it to the bio-fuel program of the US. Considering all these facts from the UN, still we can say US is going to attack Asian countries for food shortage. Since they cannot wage a war against the Asian countries, they take the blah… blah… blah… way though…war of words... Also the self proclaimed dictator of the world Mr. Bush of the US also followed his Secretary of state to blameIndia and China for raising food prices and the global food crisis. As far as his comment is concerned, none should really care as his comments and decisions are baseless and mindless. But still since the comment was made without reading the morning news paper while having his morning tea I guess, someone will obviously respond. The UN report straight away says it is because of the Bio-fuel programs of the US and the European Union the world is facing the crisis. You can read the report in the UN news centre.
As I see it, this is going to take an ugly turn, which already is evident by that fact that US has stepped up its blame game. By diverting the attention of the world, on India and china, for raising fuel prices. The crude prices touched $120 today and its expected to reach $150 and may cross $200 mark soon by the end of the year, analysts say. This blame if everyone believes will have a major effect on the emerging economies as environmental impact also comes with the consumption of petroleum products. Since reducing the consumption of petroleum will reduce the green house gases which in turn reduce the climate change over the years. But this reduction are to be done by the largest consumers of these fuels than by the low consuming countries. The whole world knows the fact that middle eastern countries are always under war because of the largest consumers of the petroleum being greedy to get the bigger part of the pie.
Last year it was found that US is in total opposition to the G8 climate proposals as per the BBC. Greanpeace activists leaked out a document which was altered by the US before th G8 meet between June 6-8, 2007 in Heiligendamm, Germany. This largely exposes how interested is the US to control the climate changes by reducing the petroleum consumption and to help earth survive. Basically the US wants to still drive their lioving rooms (SUVs) which give a mileage of 3-9mpg and blame the Asian countries who drive cars which gives nearly 35-45mpg.
The number is just an average and not the exact statistics as it involves actually calculating the number based on population and certain facts like the availability of public transport in each country. US largely is known to have very less interest in public transportation as they are used to driving their own cars and having 2-3 cars per home is a very common scene in the US. Whereas considering the countries like india and china, having a single car is by itself considered to be a luxuary and 2-3 is insane.:).. so Mr. President, just doing blah.. blah.. without the exact numbers do not make sense. Please ask your office to do the required home work and help you to frame your speeches and bloopers sensibly.
So last Saturday… that’s 3rd of May… I was just at home doing nothing but watching my favorite pass time..TV it is… hehe…. Outside temperature was at 40’C and had no plans to get out of home.. but at around 1.PM the power went off and I could not sit at home… So planned to come to office as the AC is on here. On the way I came to know the reason for the power shut down. Saw a construction site truck entangled to a power line cabe near my office. Unfortunately I could not capture the truck in my frames. Later after reaching the office I realized that strangest things that I failed to notice. Then I was lucky that except for the truck all situation is still the same. 2 concrete electric poles still hanging on the lines above. Its the lines holding the poles now rather than the other way round. Some of them are captured below. The 2 poles pulled down by the truck
The broken electric pole
Now the close up of the broken poles reveals the thing I missed out to notice in my first seeing. Now below is the real close up of the broken portion of one of the poles. If you notice, there are no standard gauge steel rods inside the poles. This flashed to me because I had not seen any electric poles earlier which had broken in this manner. They are made to resist impacts even more powerful than getting pulled by this truck which may be moving at around 10-15kmph on this road. So basically as far as I understand the poles were not built to specs from the standards organization. Anyway so donno how many are still on the roads like this holding high power lines and waiting for a great fall still.
Close up of the broken part (No steel reinforcement)
The second pole
The crashed pole Now who is to be blamed none know as they have not cleared it yet. Hope some one will clean up this mess as the poles and the lines are hanging dangerously over head to so many users of the road.
Everyone knows about the ecosystem we live in… from the beginning to the end the system has evolved, improved… but am not talking about this kind of a natural ecosystem. Its more modern and the one we have made.
An ecosystem of politicians, actors or engineers, doctors, teachers, students…etc.., for that matter.
Ecosystem by definition is “An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment.” as in wikipedia.
The system I am talking about doesn’t fit this definition. As each system functions independently without knowing the link between each other. Examples as I see…
1.Political ecoSystem: This is the most talked about ecology in the whole world. We can identify all kinds of organisms in this system. One politically talented organism against every other to show off the ego and sometimes to prove it, even going against the needs of the people who elected them with no other choice (helpless and hopeless).
Funny it may seem, these are the people elected by the so called people who are eligible to elect. A system built on another system. None of the systems are going for any improvements. So there will be no improvement in this ecosystem for sure.
2.Engineers ecoSystem: Now this in a country like India is majorly identified as software engineers community. These are the organisms spoilt by the false sense of plenty. They don’t have much of common sense and they don’t care about the facts of life.. J. These people are driven by brands, style and conscious about their life style. Cant blame them for this as this is what the above political community want. Keep these so called intelligent people busy, and they will not involve themselves in others ecosystem. Like most of these engineers don’t vote or make a political statement anytime. There are examples for that matter. As anyone can consider the fate of Bangalore or Hyderabad or any other IT hub.
This community pays the heftiest of the taxes for all reasons as these are those who earn a lot and everyone else has the right to exploit their talent. Talent to spend and talent to stay ignorant of the facts. Like in all the IT sectors the rickshaws, taxis, tax-men, eat outs, etc., etc., etc., all exploit these poor engineers who sometimes hardly see the light of day, and still they don’t complain.
In cities like Bangalore, these engineers sometimes spend more time in traffic than in their own office. Still they don’t blame any for this. They just say it’s a part of their life. J so nice of these guys. Some 60 – 70% work in BPOs and they have the infamous cabs to ferry them from home and office. They don’t comment on the driving skills of the cabby or their behavior. They just take it straight in and enjoy the ride. But these will be the people who crib about people not following lane discipline or traffic rules when they are driving their own vehicle. They are the ones who enjoy their drivers honking skills while in their cabs and crib about the honking of others when they are in the driver’s seats. When I say honking, Hyderabad is one hell of a place. Here you can see all kinds of sexy wheels. The ones you want to just touch and feel at least in your dreams. But the people driving them.. Oh! shit..!!. They honk sitting in a BWMs and Mercs, oh what the hell... Even in Bentley, Rolls Royce..;). Anyway.. People never change or at least improve.
3. Teachers ecoSystem; This is one respected community anytime in India. But the way things are going, I don’t think they can catch up now. This community is the ones who form the basis for any system. But then if they don’t take interests in the basics of a system, then there is no hope for any to improvement. There are some individual and fundamental needs of every person, student or a child which are to be addressed and those can be addressed by this community. But they are not proactive to do it or they are not allowed to do it. Either way the system is a failure. ;) The so called our culture, and our nation built on the centuries of teaching abilities of our great old teachers.
This takes me to a discussion of culture that is to be taught in during the very schools. Our nation is a religious nation with more religions and sub-religions than any other. And I don’t have to say that most of the educational institutions re built of religious backgrounds giving preference to the religion and not the children themselves. This actually has already ruined the very definition of our so called Indian culture, and the very understanding of the difference between the culture and religion. As in my view, the whole of India is built on Hindu culture which is more Indian than the religion. This is the difference in the teachings in all the educational institutions built on religious values than the cultural values. No wonder the modern student is inclined to foreign culture than his own as he is never taught about his culture. No point in blaming him/her for this as it is easy to pick up things than to be taught. I appreciate china and many other countries for keeping their culture intact with their system. And they grow stronger each day while we are going weak.
Now the right move by one small group in Bangalore to explore the true meaning of Democracy. This link from NDTV shows how a small group of people are ready to change the system and take control. Something all should know and try to understand. Hope this works.
Enough now on the system as its not going to end. Its boring rather.. :)
Tght I’ll blog for a while… just to see how it is?... Fact is I get bored very easily… so am not here to stay…I am doing it to get a feel of the blog… had been a reader of blogs for a while now… sometimes its fun.. n sometimes, its ridiculous… but either way its a informative…
