Intelligence failure

It has been a shocking weekend. It is the first time that Bangaloreans had to face a Bomb Blast situation. Just when we were getting a false security feeling, these terrorists have planned and conducted this heinous crime against humanity. But the resilient Bangaloreans have not given up in the face of this disaster. Although this is a good sign, it also shows how we are almost getting used to the fact of terror strikes in our homeland. People are not shocked anymore. It is no where close to the panic during the 1993 Mumbai blasts. A lot has changed from that fateful day. Almost all the big cities has faced the wrath of the terrorists. And the terrorists have greatly succeeded in their goals, creating fear in the minds of innocent people, creating political, social, communal divides and tensions. But one thing that hasn't changed is our Intelligence Agencies.

We have 2 Intelligence agencies at the Center level, the CBI and IB. And every state has its own intelligence agency, which is just another department in the police force of the state. I have some facts about these agencies:

• The GC Saxena committee probing the Kargil fiasco had recommended setting up a multi-agency centre and a joint task force on intelligence. However, nothing much seems to have followed the report.
• The agencies don’t even have a proper database of terror groups, finger printing or even photographs.
• There is no centralized database. So a culprit in one state is a free citizen in another state's record books!
• The Saxena committee also recommended recruitment of 3000 more IB agents but of the 3000 agents required eight years ago, 1400 have been hired, 700 of them just last year. The current requirement is arround 8000.
• There is no Federal Agency like the FBI in USA or the MI-5 in the UK. The opposition leader Mr L.K.Advani has ruled out a Federal Investigation Agency though, noting that the Indian Constitution doesn't permit it. "Moreover, there is no agreement among the state governments to create such an agency." What the heck, we create new laws for all kinds of stuff, why not for this?
  
• India has got only a single satellite for the purpose of tracking and assisting these agencies. That too, this satellite is a low level one, with no capability of recording live pictures. I heard that even Sri Lanka has one such satellite, to track the LTTE! and that country is smaller that Karnataka!
• There is no special law to deal with the terrorists. So a person who commits murder is treated as an equal to a terrorist! What kind of democracy is this? When there were laws like POTA, it was scraped as soon as governments changed.
• India's Defence Budget for 2008 was Rs 72,000Cr. The budget allocated to the agencies is a fraction of this. When will India realize that WE ARE AT WAR. But this is not the kind of war where two countries fight for no apparent reason, it is a war currently fought by all the nations against one force - terrorists. So there is not point in bolstering our Air Force buying F-18's, when we can't use them. Even if we enter a conventional war, if we are right, we will have the international support.
• After the 2001 strike on the twin towers, there has not been a single terror attack on the US, even though they have been in war with two Middle Eastern nations (one of them again for no apparent reason). It is not because terrorists are sympathetic to US, its just that they know it is near impossible to strike again on US soil. It is because they have Agencies which are ages ahead of ours, and they have tougher laws and intend to implement those.
  

I would like to conclude this topic by stating that currently we are a soft, weak and a vulnerable target to the terrorists. Unless and until we can find a way to PREEMPT these attacks, we will be in for more such shocking news. At this point, I think, IT IS BETTER TO HAVE A STRONG AND GOOD DICTATORSHIP RATHER THAN A WEAK DEMOCRACY.
My consolation to all those who have directly or indirectly suffered from the blasts.

Power Shortage!

Being an Indian, I have accepted that it is our destiny to face power shortages. But this year is going to be the worst till date. With the ever increasing need for power, our reliance on Hydro-electric power, the evasive monsoons and dwindling rivers, only means that the demand is going up and supply is coming down. This as everyone can understand is a very very bad sign. We can become a developed country only when we can generate uninterrupted power supply at low costs.
I am part of the majority of Indians who have not understood the Indo-US Nuclear deal (one of the reasons why I have restrained from giving my opinion on this). The country is, I would say split on this issue. There are lot of people, who are thinkers, and well wishers for Indians, who have vehemently opposed this bill. But seeing the current situation, where farmers are going without water for their crops, because of 18 hours a day load shedding, industries having to face a 40 hours load shedding in a week, there is no excuse what so ever to not get the Nuclear power into this country. We may pay for it by losing a bit of our sovereignty, but at least the poorest of the poor can breathe easy.

Coming back to Bangalore power shortage, there is no excuse that the IT companies can give. They have the money power, so they think it is just another commodity that they can buy, and use to their will. They are wrong. I have seen empty cubicles being lit up, all the walkways completely lit up (as though there is going to be a photo session there), and thousands of machines left running, when there is no need for them to be up! I saw a statement made today by a prominent CEO of a IT company asking the government to give them a separate quota of Diesel, so that they can continue to waste power where there is a power cut. This has inturn led to shortage of Diesel in our city. People in power must really know how to use it.

My Favorite English bands

Below is the listing of my favorite bands, singers, composers, and of course my all time favorite english songs.

1. Favorite Band:
There is a tie in here. I'm split between Corrs and Eagles. Both are amazing.
Eagles:
Formed in the 70's, they took the center stage immediately with their album 'Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971–1975', being the best selling album ever till date. They play rock, soft rock and country rock. Band members include Glenn Frey on the vocals, Don Henley on the drums, Don Fedler on the guitars. Their song Hotel California is rated 37th in the Rolling Stones list, and is my favorite song of this band. Other great songs include Desparado, Doolin Dalton, Life in the fast lane, New kid in town, Tequila Sunrise...

Corrs:
They are a family of 3 sisters and a brother, from Ireland. They became famous with their '96 Summer Olympics performance. Playing Celtic Folk Rock music/pop, they have formed a unique band, with a identiry of their own. With violin and tin whistle, they have given a great new dimension to the pop music industry. The eldest, Jim Corr plays guitar and keyboard (also provides supporting vocals). Sharon, the eldest among girls plays the violin (also backing vocals), Caroline plays the drums (and many other percussion instruments), and the youngest Andrea is the lead vocal (also plays the tin whistle). All the girls are drop dead gorgeous. They have performed with various other stars like Celine Dion, Bono etc. on charity tours. My favorite song of theirs is I Never Loved You Anyway. Other good songs include Ruby Tuesday, Forgiven Not Forgotten, Breathless, Goodbye, Radio, Dreams, Closer... Their 'all instruments' songs like Toss of Feathers are excellent.

2. Favorite Singer/Composer:
My all time favorite singer/composer is Bob Dylan. Considered as one of the greatest of all time, he is a inspiration to a lot of upcoming bands. His songs have been anthems in the anti-war and civil rights movements. His genre includes Folk, Rock, soft Rock, Blues. His records have earned Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards, and he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, Dylan was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture". I, for a fact know that, he is the most followed singer of his generation. Not surprisingly my all time favorite song happens to be his composition Blowin' In The Wind. His other compositions that I love are Knocking on heavens doors, Like A Rolling Stone, Joker Man, Brown eyed girl, The Times They Are A-Changin'....... in short, anything that this man has sung is sweetness to my ears! Apart from vocals, he plays guitar, mouth organ(harmonica) and the keyboards. He is also a screen-writer and a poet.

Making Web reading quicker!

While I was answering a Reading Comprehension question in a Mock CAT, my mind started drifting, while reading the paragraph. I noticed that, I could read a article in a newspaper better than a paragraph in RC section. It could have been something to do with the complexity or the vagueness of the subject in the paragraph. But I sensed it was neither. Then I came across another paragraph in another test, which I was able to answer quicker and better. I felt I had more concentration while reading it. So I concluded it had nothing to do with the paragraph as such, but the way the paragraph is printed!

So back to the topic. SPEED READING. I heard about this after my experience in the tests. Have you ever wondered why the newspapers print in multiple columns? It is definitely not to save space (in fact this will consume more space). It is to make reading easier, quicker, and more importantly a better experience. This is because of human anatomy. The way that our eyes scan the text and send it for processing. When we have a long sentence our eye has to make two kinds of movements - Horizontal + Vertical. But when the print is in (multiple)columns, then the eye has to make only Vertical movements. Shorter line lengths not only make the material easier to read, but also easier to retain (this explains the RC paragraphs ;) ).
Please read this article to understand this concept better.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5366/is_200702/ai_n21283148

Now how to implement this study on Web articles(where we can get more information than in newspapers)? No need to sweat. There are lots of solutions.

1. Anyone familiar with JavaScripts will know about GreaseMonkey. It is a add-on to firefox. If you have not used it till now, no need to worry. GreaseMonkey Download. Click on Add to firefox, and Install this add-on.

2. Next step is to add a JavaScript to this plugin. You can find thousands of GreaseMonkey scripts on http://userscripts.org

3. But the one that we are interested right now is Wikipedia Automatic MultiColumn & Cleaner Display. Once you install this script, you can read all your favorite Wikipedia articles in multi-column format.

Happy Wiki reading!

My view on Network Marketing / Mulit-level Marketing

First of all, i'll try to give a impartial view on this hugely successful topic. I have never been a member of this, nor heard any promotional talks on these. Next I'll quote some doucments/blogs that deal with this subject. So what makes me think and write on this topic? It's a simple answer : A logical mind will want to investigate into something that is, lets say "controversial". I'll not quote any company names directly, nor will I take this on a personal front. So you can expect an unemotional document here!

What is Mulit-level Marketing (hereafter referred to as MLM) ?

It is a business distribution model that allows a parent multi-level marketing company to market their products directly to consumers by means of relationship referral and direct selling. Business organisations have long relied on direct marketing to target customers without spending a lot of money on retail distribution. However the Network (Multilevel) Marketers have taken the direct model one step further, i.e. not only they do the sales, but recruit and train new distributors i.e., independent sales persons who are members in the network marketing company.

The big draw card in network marketing is the commission paid not only for direct sales made by
the salesperson , but also from the sales made by the recruits made by him.


Is this a legal business?

Network marketing is absolutely legal, and is governed by strict regulations in most countries. There are some countries where this is banned, due to heavy influx of money that these companies generate.

What is the difference between network marketing and pyramid selling?

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish legal and reputable MLMs from illegal pyramid or Ponzi schemes (Please go through these two business models before continuing). Both of which are highly illegal in almost all countries. It is considered as fraud and money laundering to have a business in pyramid scheme.

In a 2004 FTC Staff Advisory letter to the Direct Selling Association it was stated that - "The amount of personal consumption in any multi-level compensation business does not determine whether or not the FTC will consider the plan a pyramid scheme. The critical question for the FTC is whether the revenues that primarily support the commissions paid to all participants are generated from the purchase of goods and services that are not simply incidental to the purchase of the right to participate in a money making venture."

Is network marketing ethical?

I have a firm opinion on this. According to me it is highly unethical. It is immoral to make money out of trust in relations viz friends, relatives, family, colleague. A lot of studies have been conducted on this regard, and many have come to a conclusion that, it exploits the basic nature of a relation for a gain. People join the network marketing mainly because of persuasion by friends and relatives.Marketers should be aware of the fact that network marketing foundation lies with relationships.
It is up to the channel members to decide at what cost relationship may be selected, maintained
and nourished. It should be a win–win situation with no exploitation of relationships whatsoever
for it to be enduring.

There is another way of looking at this :
Conventional business is very much a tiered system. The chairman or president at the head of a company makes a lot of money, and those beneath him (or her) make proportionately less depending on their level of expertise and responsibility. This seems superficially like MLM.
Some people have registered with NM opportunities and behaved in a non-ethical manner, but this is not at all a criticism of the industry - just on those particular individuals. Plenty of people abuse their privileges in jobs. We don't boycott the entire medical profession because of the occasional rare example where a doctor has abused their position for personal gain. We don't call for a ban on baseball bats because they are occasionally used by thugs! A business should be judged on its own merits, not on the qualities of some of its ambassadors.
But I dont tag along with this kind of reasoning, purely because, you are sure in this kind of scheme, the lower lying people never get anything. Where as in conventional business there is something that everyone gets for their work.

Do I believe in MLM ?

I have thought about this for sometime now. And I feel that there is no business which deals in material products (not human emotions and services like say the film industry/entertainment) result in a PROFIT for all. No business can be a win-win for all. This according to me is a basic economical concept. For someone to make a profit, someone else should bear the loss. Sometimes this 'someone else' can be non-human, like the earth, trees etc.
So the answer to the question is, Yes and No. Yes, I do believe that no business can be profit for all, but No, I do not believe in MLM because it is prejudiced and people directly and knowingly make profit of lower lying member's loss. This is unacceptable.

Is this brainwashing?

Yes, every time you watch a TV commercial, read the news paper or speak to any of your opinionated friends. Your opinions on pretty much everything are the result of brainwashing, some of which is accurate and some is not.
But this brainwashing is for the personal interest of the "brainwasher"! There is little concept of a organization, as "LIVE ALONE, DIE TOGETHER", cut-throat, back stabbing, is common here. In typical business, the organization makes the profit, and there is a perfect sharing scheme.

Is this a 'get rich quick' scheme?

Absolutely! MLM is no different from crime or gambling where you are in search of 'quick money'. And as in those cases, you have a good chance of getting caught/losing! But, the only difference is that, you are doing this legally! The thing is, although this involves hard work to get the quick money, it hardly takes a brilliant person to make this money. So there is no difference between a intelligent/educated person, and a thug! In this business, everyone starts from a equal playing field, regardless of his current financial status.

Will these businesses saturate/end?
I don't think so. People have come up with theories like : "What if all the people who really intend to buy, are already members?". This has not happened in past 50 years, and is not about to happen in the next 50 years is it? Because, there is always that one person, who craves for the extra quick money. And also, every day thousands of people are born!

Some Links to ponder over:
http://kishan-livinglifetothefullest.blogspot.com/2008/06/beware-of-pit-called-quest.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multi-level_marketing_companies

I sincerely hope that I have presented an unbiased opinion here. If I have unknowingly hurt someone, my apologies.

28 and going strong!

My parents celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary today. A truly remarkable achievement. But its not only the milestone that im so happy/proud of. Its the journey that they have taken to reach this point. It makes me feel proud to be their son. They are the happiest couple that I have ever come across. It does not mean that they do not have difference of opinions on certain subjects, but its how they handle it together. I'll consider myself to be the luckiest man in the entire world, if I eventually find a partner, with whom I can be half as happy, as my parents are right now. Congratulations to appa and amma.

Review of Jaane Tu....ya jaane na Songs

First things first... Yet another amazing album by the musical genius AR Rahman! Easily the best of 2008 till date. Only album after Taare Zameen Par that i feel like listening in the repeat mode! The credit must also go to Aamir Khan for picking the right music directors for both films (rumor goes that Himesh was to compose for JTYJN).

Before going to the reviews of each song, I would like to make a couple of general comments on the album itself. It has 8 songs, packaged along with a remix. One cannot tell that it is the same music director when comparing this album to his last release (Jodha Akbar). The general tune of the album is modern, with lot of experimentation done. Some songs really catch you off guard the first time you hear because of their completely new style of composition. Apart from Sukhwinder Singh, all the other vocal leads are either completely new or relatively new(unheard). This is not the first time that ARR is introducing new talent, but 14 new comers in the same album was a bold and risky move, but fortunately for him, and luckily for us it pays off big time. Its great to hear refreshing voices (bored of same Sonu and Shreya duets - although both are amazing singers).

First up we have to smooth, yet foot tapping Kabhi Kabhi Aditi. This song catches the attention right at the very beginning with its catchy acoustic guitar and low-down beats. This lyrics is pretty good as well. But the main attraction about this song is the introduction of Rashid Ali. He brings around the freshness in the song and makes an awesome debut, and gives a song which will be in the Top 10 list of 2008. Definitely a singer to lookout for in the future.

Anupama, Benny Dayal, Blazee, Tanvi, Darshana, Satish Subramanium and Aslam come together to sing a peppy number Pappu can't dance. Another set of non-famous singers, who sing about a rich boy called 'pappu' who can't dance. The lyrics of this song is quite disappointing. Although the video song make a nice appeal, it is easily the worst song of the album. The song also comes with a remix version which is slightly better than the original (only because of the better use beats).

Then comes the male and female version of Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. The female version is titled Aditi(female protagonist) and the male version Jai(male protagonist). These two compositions are mind blowing. These songs might cater to a particular brand of listeners (like me ;) ) who love sombre theme. The female version is more modern in the use of instruments. New comer Runa Rizvi renders the vocals to the more upbeat version of the two. While Sukhwinder lends the vocals to the male version, which uses more traditional Indian instruments for both the strings as well as percussion.

Nazrein Milaana Nazrein Churanaa gets the mood of the album back to funky and hip hop, which the entire album tries to portray. This will be an instant hit with the "youth". It has the typical guitar strumming throught out the song(ARR might have been inspired by the Eagles music here)

The album becomes even better with the title track of the movie. Surprisingly it is titled Tu Bole Main Boloon! The tune is exquisitely composed with the use of typical classical jazz instruments including the trumpet. The lyrics is also excellent, and again appealing to the youth due to its playful tone. This song is crooned by the master himself. Even after all these years, and all the soul music he is now famous for, he eases into this song, and gives us the best song the the album. Kudos Rahman!

The final track of the album is a beautiful melody Kahin To Hogi Ho! It is so simple, yet so elegant, that you will be at a loss of words to describe the elegance of the song. The song, thanks to the lyrics is so touching that it makes one get goose bumps. It is definitely a song for all seasons. Yet again, Rashid Ali proves his worth, and is a wonderful prospect to forward to. Vasundhara Das provides some support in the middle.

All in all, it will have atleast 3-4 songs in the Top 10 list of the year, and lot of deserving awards for Rahman. He just keeps getting better and better.

Stop publishing in RSS

People who generate syndication feeds have a choice of feed formats. The major candidates are Atom1.0 , RSS2.0, RSS1.0.The RSS 2.0 specification is copyrighted by Harvard University and is frozen. No significant changes can be made (although the specification is under a Creative Commons license) and it is intended that future work be done under a different name; Atom is one example of such work.Atom 1.0 is specified in RFC 4287 (HTML Version); it represents the consensus of the Atompub Working Group within the IETF, as reviewed and approved by the IETF community and the Internet Engineering Steering Group. The specification is structured in such a way that the IETF could conceivably issue further versions or revisions of this specification without breaking existing deployments. Its high time that everyone in the Feeds community get together and decide to leave their differences in the past, and create one standard format. As for me, I have worked on both Atom and RSS, and personally feel that the Atom community is far more stable, better accepted, has more support, and more developers working on that. So, I strongly feel that RSS format should be scraped.

The actual problem with multiple formats is that, different readers (like bloglines) consume different formats(in some cases the consume more than one format). So all the sites/ blog platforms that support Atom are publishing multiple feeds in the autodiscovery section of the blog. So when a user goes to subscribe to the blog the browser presents a completely confusing choice of multiple feeds to subscribe to. That choice is meaningless to blog readers and just causes unnecessary anxiety. Even blogger advertises both RSS and Atom :( . Ironically, many of the RSS links are published through Feedburner which has some automatic feed rewriting that ends up serving Atom anyway.

Although RSS was the first format, it lost its way/value somewhere in the middle. It was a great idea which was started in Netscape. But clearly Atom is way more matured compared to RSS. Its time for RSS to be retired.

An epic battle!

What everyone witnessed yesterday was not just another tennis match, but a battle between two supreme athletes. The winning glory went to the fiery Spaniard RAFA, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this was the best match that I had witnessed in 15 years of tennis viewing. I have without doubt seen some great matches (Pete vs Borris, Aggasi vs Pete, Lendle vs Edberg etc..), but what these two warriors displayed yesterday in the gloomy evening of London, was a bright light for the game of tennis. I have been a strong supporter of RF, more because of his type of play (I have always liked the elegant players like Pete, Borris, Edberg, RF), but I was actually happy yesterday that RAFA won the match. It was a truly deserved victory. I could not help but feel that the mantle had been passed on by RF. I am sure he will come back stronger than ever, but I won't be surprised if he quits by the end of season. It was Borg vs McEnroe all over again! RF has lost his edge, the killing instinct(he had converted 1 out of 13 break points!!) when he plays against RAFA. Although he claims the humiliating defeat in Paris was all in the past, I could not help but speculate that, that defeat was haunting him. And it will continue to haunt him. RAFA has now a firm grip over RF. And with the advent of Djokovic, it will be a 3 way battle for the #1 spot. Truely amazing sport!