New year

Supposed to be happy and prosperous..(atleast thts wht evrbd keeps sayin to me these last few days)....



we ll see

The batmobile

Course, koi nahi

Song from the King

I want to break free...
I want to be free...
i want to be a freak...
i want this feeling to be real...
i want to be this way....
any other way is like no way..

i want to break free..
i want to sing...
i want to sing in tune..
i want to be free..

i want the best..
the best that i am...
the best that i could be..
the best that i could be not...

HT Coloumns

I have always thought of Pankaj Vohra as a congress stooge, so i dont think he intended it so, but his coloumn in HT starts as "The Cabinet reshuffle shows that the PM was influenced by the Congress high command". Guess the only way you can be in the 'High command' in congress is by being in the Gandhi family.

Another funny column is that of Mr Sanghvi berating middle class for hypocrisy

Heavy replacing tough

As its wont to say in times of introinspections..

When the going gets heavy...the heavy....start...to think...of ....going

Peadntic semantics

Recentl i have been to a lot of forums and some blogs( referring to comments section) , and i hate people who instead of refuting the logic or idea, focus on some mistakes (language, Grammar etc) and jump to the obvious ( in their eyes) that the poster is dumb so obviously the given opinion doesnt matters.

Its internet, a whole world out there, so unless its a forum on grammatical or spelling mistakes, please avoid the mistakes...just to make me happy if you find no other reason.

P.S- Sorry for all the grammatical, spelling mistakes and the typos :)

Advertisements with Subliminal messages

Just saw the Khadim Shoes ad on TV. and as they teach you in B schools, a good ad sends subliminal messages to the viewers which create favourable impression of the good. While the ad sucks, the subliminal message that they send ( they havent spent much money -leading to such an ill thought ad) makes the product seem like good value for money

Unfortunate Accident

Normally when the Prime Minister of a country says that he strayed into Politics by an accident, you will think - what a great man, so much quality etc...but in case of Manmohan singh, all i could think was 'It shows'

Trivial Pursuit

When people think about something very important for you, is for someone else a trivial pursuit. (Of course as an economist you can justify it as 'you cant compare inter personal utility.yadi yada yada)..so considering tht u r intelligent and/ or not an economist you should feel something amiss.. when something important to u like the well being of India seem totally irrelevant to others...( the argument goes something like in another 50 years the individualism will be so strong that the concept of nation state may not be as relevant as you currently think. So as i see it there is actually enough diversity in the thought process ecosystem to warrant somebody's mission being called a trivial pursuit by someone else.

Maybe the economists are right in this regard..inter personal utility comparison is not only difficult but may be wrong and /or counterproductive.

Decoupling

Apropos the post by Roubini on RGE Monitor , How will the recession (if it happens) influence the world economy, and particularly the Indian one. ie Will i see some reduction in say US cos. spend on IT. How will that effect the Indian or India Based companies (i.e Will US cos become too costly moving traffic to India or that has already happened and Indian companies will have reduced estimated incomes) and how will that effect the increment of a friend or two currently working in IT sector.

Again there could be a definite downside for Indian exporters if US slow downs its exports but i suppose still the overall effect should be marginal.

But for me the Indian effect will be unprecedently albeit marginally effected from US slowdown provided ofcourse the rest of the world does not manages to decouple from the slowing US economy.

Blog Survey

some say the blog is more of a personal diary...my contention is that shudnt it be so...afterall it is not that i am being paid here tht i hv to keep in mind the snesitivites of general public in mind..(ofcourse as long as its not overtly offensive--it is a semi public platform)...so only junta intersted in wht i say come here...so wht i say is upto me..i mean the more the readers the more generic my ritin will be...but as it stands..i am the only reader..(shud it be proof reading-no idea abt these journalistic things)..its more of a diary..again not exactly a personal diary as ofcourswe it s semi public.

More on History

My last post seems to hav created a lot of stir among history lovers and a few history baiters..maybe fukuyama will agree to the contention that history doesnt matters..but probably he was not indoctrinated in a madrassa somewhere in afghanistan...

For me the only historical force left as of now apart from post modernist democracy is the Islamist Resurgence (Al Qaida version)where they seem to suggest that they can subserve the world....i still believe that there are many more moderate muslims so the movement itself is not gonna take place...let alone the conflict with western world and India and China.....its not gonna happpen...

a solution against terror( the most non conflicting one i can find) could be Technological replacement of Oil as the energy source....tht i believe funds most of the virulent version of islam indoctrination....once the petro dollars start to shrink...i believe the money for these things will go away..thus leading the halting of the consolidation of these virulent version of islam...

Once the consolidation is done away with..i am very sure the moderate society in the muslim world will overwhelm these forces...

Otherwise...You have to have the American Situation...Identify states like Pak, SUdan etc and then put pressure..military or otherwise..but it doesnt seems to be working..
plus i dont think the americans are very smart..the squeeze should happen in Pakistan and the middle east rather than anywhere else.....

Time to put another month in the antiquated dustbin of History

Why is history so inportant....i have no idea..... why is even the question important...actually the questions are never important..its the answers that matter...but again isnt the question somewhat responsible for the answers it begets..

well probably thts y its in the realms of pop psychology

Experiments

The world wudnt be the same....lets start another phase of experimentation

TO balance or Not to Balance

How do you know that the pendulum has swung too far ..eg take the example of dada or the reservation thing....Surely strike by doctors is a wrong thing..but a logic is ..the extreme step is there to counter th extreme foolishness of the govt...but suppose the govt gives up..ok sorry to jump to another example..but this one is the best..take the nepal cvhaos example....people protested..and the politicians and the Maoists..came together (Very anti each other in normal times)...now all the steps were extremes...and logically rightly so..cos the king really was very inept....but the $64k question is ...how much is enough...

suppose the politicians have a better strategy for future (cud be vice versa)...when should the politicians part their ways with the Maoists...tht is the danger is that in the wake of euphoric bonhomie..maybe the politicians give in too much to the maoists..(which by previous assumption is harmful)....to come back to the dada example...mayb ppl r takin extreme positions to counter each other arguments while they may internally recognise that mebbe chappell is not the anti christ or the best ting ever...

the contention is ofcourse that while applyin counterforce..we may fail to recognise when to stop..otherwise..wither we are on the right or left side of the equillibrium and more seriously...ne victory by taking extreme positions is in itself an harbionger of further disbalance..

so the best way as per methinking is that in passive sese always be centrist(assumin optimal)...others will reach there or in active sense..u may start with extreme positions but be ready to reevaluate ot thinking and options as per changed circumstances

The Ash Flak

Why the hell is everybody so damned ready to slag off the lady at the slightest pretext..conceded she may not have the best taste in men ...ahem ahem..but she is such a beautiful lady..people should be dying to get in her good books...Maybe because many have tried already and are now behaving like sore loosers....and Ms. Rai does gives some food by acting in such movies but still she is the only one who is trying to make something of her career....She may not be smart enough to portrtay herself as an ultra chic character but atleast she is smart enough to do whats best for her...so stop slagging her and find someone else ( since i recognise the basic human need to put some1 down)....How about Dhoni...that guy is flying high...

A case against senile ministers

With MM joshi you thought maybe he has some issues...But then came natwar singh..Why did he act in such an imprudent manner..and now Arjun Singh..You can find a number of references where and why they went wrong...my guess is that they are so out of touch and so old ..A heady combo...that they can take a gamble for creating history(not applies for Natwar singh-tho he did take a gamble) without much chance of loosing anything... Afterall they are old..what will you do..make them retire??
Plus since they are old...how much work they can do...if you want to take advantage of their experience...make them head a think tank or two...
What such ineffective ministers also do is to hand excessive freedom to bureaucrats who for all their intelligence will never entertain a solution which diminishes govt.'s role..this dimnishes the solution to the problem itself....
so i say bar anyone over 70 from an executive post

Viewer count

Managed to increase it by 1

~Eihh

Blogosphere

Recently i have been very active in the blogosphere, i have read some pretty decent posts ....from amit varma's india uncut ( the format and links are pretty good but not much contri in its own)...to gaurav sabnis's ...ofcourse dilbert's blog is also quite good..but there is some tendency of adams to be too smart by half....neway so the crux of the matter is that the indian blogs which have become sort of famous have sort of created a virtuus cycle where one will link to the other so that if u visit india uncut or vantage point or jabberwock...u can just link to all the things that they all want to say..

Time Zones

Ne idea y the concept of time zones was evolevd

i mean it makes sense and all but how did thew concept started or evolved..eg givin elecrons the + sign and proton the negative charge makes more sense but since we already had decided otherwise so we continued with the earlier system...then y the concept of time zones...i dont see the usefulness of timezones before the 20th century...so it must hv evolved recently...ne1 with some googling skills

I am

I remember this joke...

Once descartes went to a restaurant..the waiter asked him...whether he would like some coffee...Desacrtes replied 'I think Not' and disappeared.

I think

Sachin should come back into the team, I think we should give this guy Suresh raina a chance too...but i will pick sreeasanth over patel...lets see how it goes

Being Rishav

I think I have reached my mid life crisis....i mean all previous notions about existensialism ..lifestyle...beliefs...slowly but surely i am throwing all of them out of the window...... i dont have amswers to many of the questions and dont have the will to look for something radical....lets see.... but the way things are...i hav to change or circumstances will do that for me..

Booing sachin et al..

While most will explain it as Sambit bal has done 'sachin joins mortals' albeit less eloquently..i feel the booing is somewhat more than mere disappointment at Sachins performance...or that he is so loved that he is held to higher standards....the booing is more in protest of sambit's conjecture...My feeling is that the Bombay public dont really want sachin to fall into the category of mere mortals..altho its a distant possibility...they dont want 'dada' treatment for sachin...so the booing episode for me is nothing but a request to sachin to call it a day and not to fall in the mortals category.

For me however Sachin is still 32 and can still bat better than most of his ilk.....Sachin can do it once again and will do it....surely i wont want to replace sachin with Kaif or Laxman at this stage...

For a wonderful person called you

This is the title of a book by james cox....its for everybody who feels one time or the other alone or insignificant in this big world....the crux was that while you think u r alone...thr are several others in ur proximal circle who feel the same way and besically the information uncertainty...means the optimal situation is not reached...

Rest day

Back to cricket..I sincerely hope that the funada of rest day in test matches to be reintroduced..the benefits cud be..

1. The players have too much workload....especially the fast bowlers...a bowler like shoaib, harmison seem flat on 4th innings ..one day rest in between will help revi ve their energy levels...which will increase the quality of cricket..

2. Ofcourse in the evnt of rains..it cud be utilised to play a session or two...

3. Give me one more day of reading the match analysis on cricinfo..

4. The pitches on 5th day will be better...so less scope of a non genuine spinner taking loads of wickets...

What else but valentine

its a sad occasion....for me of course

Time management

Time management has been one of the underlying themes in my MBA days....the basic stance was that while what may be taught in the hallowed IIMC maybe copied adhoc by other b schools but the mix offered is unique and time management is the one skill that you must have to get the best use of things...and i do believe tht without much trying one does get to manage time in the colllege simply becos u dont want to do so many things asked of u.....but the same concept of time management does not seems so useful in professional life...the biggest differential is of course the residential nature of the colllege...so in C...evevry time i chose not to do something...my choice revealed that i dont want to do somethin....however in professional life...i have the restriction of working only 8 hour per day...so the assumption is that whatever u do has to be done in those 8 hours....so if i relax that assumption and am willing to work on home and on saturdays...the pressure of work is really not what is generally assumed......so time management afterall is not that big a skill set that you could have...atleast at the lower end of the pyramid.

Life as we want to know it

What does one do when you dont really live uo to your own expectations....how to remain sincere...a big question

I quit

lets begin a chain post