BhaskarTripathi.com

Nuturing your creativity...

2012-05-26T14:18:00.003-07:00

Nuturing your creativity...
Very often I have seen people doing some inspirational, creative work which by sheer force of their inspiration, shakes the earth under your feet and make your mind run like hell to do something similar.

So many times their creative genuis misguides you about yourself and you tend to think yourself in the same league as them and try to pull off the same creativity which is often sparked by their viral genius. However when you start doing something like them, more often than not you endup dumping it before it ends.

Technically, doing something creative in a time bound or result oriented bound fashion is like putting too much responsibility on your fragile human physche. Its like asking someobdy to swallow the sun.Creativity does not work in a time bound or result oriented boundation.Creativity is free from the boundary wall of constraints.

Where does creativity come from ?

Worker ideas come through un-indentified sources. Sometimes they come at awkward times like when I am driving or sleeping. Sometimes they come at a busy work schedule or in a high packed Delhi traffic jam and that's when I have to look up at the sky and ask the almighty "Excuse Me GOD! Don't you know that I am driving or don't you know that you are still keeping me awake at 2am in the midnight. Can't you bloody flow these creative juices in my body at a more opportune moment ? WTF my lord ? I can't even sleep (its 2.30am) and you are constantly firing the bullets of creative juices at me in this haunting midnight".

"Go bother somebody else today, please go and bother some creative fellow like Chetan Bhagat, Amir Khan or Ajay Rathee or may be my singer friend Bharat Gambhir".

That's how I release the pressure of that so called genius(or rather stupidity) within me that was creating all the trouble at an awkward time and managed to send it back to a place where it came from.

So how does creativity work in your brain ?

Creativity is a process where 50% of you and 50% of the universal matter work in conjunction.

While writing something creative, I go to a dressing table or a chair and tell him that "listen dude I am done with my bit and now its your job. I will keep writing.I am already doing the best that I have. Now making it more creative you must do your 50%.

The above exercise helps me when I start writing something creative and nothing comes to my mind and I would landup writing an absurd piece of article. The worst one ever written by a human :)

How do you experience creativity ?

Creativity is divinity, when you are involved in something so deeply that even the time stops for you.Not just time but also your existense becomes insignificant, only the act holds the significance.In short it is a glimpse of God within you.
When it strikes for that ephemeral moment, you experience the zero within you and ordinary people are marveled with your thrust. Words like Bravo !, Beauty !, Wonderful !, Awesome... follow. When this happens frequently with you, don't stop to call yourself a creative chap. Thats how creativity works ! You just can't word it accurately. Let me know how you find my first piece of crap at creative writing :)

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

How to find out where a picture was taken? कैसा पता लगाएँ फोटो कहाँ खीची गयी ?

2012-05-19T13:16:00.003-07:00

Say you are exploring interesting places on the Internet and come across a beautiful destination that you would like to visit sometime in future. The only problem is that the web photograph carries no text caption and you therefore have no clue of the location where that picture was possible taken.
Google will do that for you and actually tell you the location of the image where it was shot !
Ain't it simply superb ?
If the photograph is some popular destination, google will display the "possible location".
Goto : Images.google.com, Simply drag an image from your desktop or another web page to the search box.

- Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men !"

Want to invest in Argentina ?

2012-03-31T01:18:00.001-07:00

Cra argentinaWant to invest in Argentina ? In the current cut throat competitive business environment, no organization can afford to enter an emerging market without evaluating the business environment holistically from a long term standpoint. Here we evaluate risks in investing in Argentina from different tilts. Following is the country Risk analysis for Argentina.

Income tax slab 2011-2012

2012-02-28T09:13:00.001-08:00

This is Tax filing season and lot of you would be curious to know about the latest income tax slab rates for Year 2011-2012. Following income tax table will help you to refer the latest income tax slab for calculating your income tax for year 2011-12.

Income Tax Filing

Quick highlights for Tax payers

Base slab for general tax payers increased to 1.8 lakh from original 1.6 lakh.
Senior citizen age is reduced to 60 years from last years 65 years.
Senior citizens now include people between 60 and 80 years.
Also increased the base slab for senior citizen to 2.5 lakh from previous years 2.4 lakh
A new category called "Very Senior citizen" added for people above 80 years.

Income tax slabs 2011-2012 for General tax payers

Income tax slab (in Rs.)	Tax
0 to 1,80,000	No tax
1,80,001 to 5,00,000	10%
5,00,001 to 8,00,000	20%
Above 8,00,000	30%

Income tax slabs 2011-2012 for Women

Income tax slab (in Rs.)	Tax
0 to 1,90,000	No tax
1,90,001 to 5,00,000	10%
5,00,001 to 8,00,000	20%
Above 8,00,000	30%

Income tax slabs 2011-2012 for Senior citizen
(Aged 60 years but less than 80 years)

Income tax slab (in Rs.)	Tax
0 to 2,50,000	No tax
2,50,001 to 5,00,000	10%
5,00,001 to 8,00,000	20%
Above 8,00,000	30%

Income tax slabs 2011-2012 for Very Senior citizen
(Above 80 years)

Income tax slab (in Rs.)	Tax
0 to 5,00,000	0%
5,00,001 to 8,00,000	20%
Above 8,00,000	30%

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ! Agneepath ! Agneepath ! Agneepath !

2012-01-29T11:06:00.000-08:00

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men !"

How Kolaveri and Google struck Gold ? कोलावेरी और गूगल को सोने क खजाना कैसे मिला?

2012-01-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

Kolaveri - A new entry the Dictionary
People often discuss how to get a song or a movie in the line of sight of the audience. It is all about analysing the consumer preferences and offering the value proposition.The sucess of Kolaveri which crossed 10 Million mark, has invited various case studies from students and faculty of IIMs and other prestigious B-Schools.

Dhanush & Team

However, it seems almost everyone missed out one important subject of discussion in there analysis.

What got missed out ?
The most important part of course is Google !! Yes ! Google owns you-tube. Google is trying to take away traffic the from TV industry, Cable industry, Movie industry. In short, Google is trying to push entertainment away from the standard mediums to your cell phone, to your iPhone,to your android phones. You might have noticed that everytime you upload your own content to youtube and do a google search, google supports it in its search and it is right there on the top.
The group of companies and products (blogger,youtube etc) that google owns are always a hit in SEO and go viral easily. It can be said that Kolaveri sucess is more of a Social Marketing/ Social engineering phenomenan than viral marketing. Marketing meritocracy alone cannot justify such a grand sucess of any product.

People must recognize that Kolaveri is not a viral marketing phenomenan at all. It is an acquitted case of Social engineering which will set game changing trends in viral marketing.

The Youtube Revolution

Behind the Scene Mechanics and the root cause :
1. There had been lot of videos across the internet which had gone viral but none of the scale of Kolaveri. All previously hit videos had excellent online marketing strategy but none was so sucessful. It amuses me !

2. These days a song or any other entertainment keyword is searched on google, invariably a youtube video is displayed on the first 2-3 search results.

Shruti Hassan - One of the Kolaveri's

3. Going by the current popularity - youtube might become a game changer in the future of entertainment industry which is becoming more and more internet driven.

4. Sony Music Corp is an early adapter of new technology which also reflects in its marketing powerful process.The corporation wants to become a leader in the uprising internet entertainment industry.

5. Sony Music Corp and Google might have a mutually beneficial tradeoff. If Sony Music & Google have a agreement to make Kolaveri viral, then it will be a win-win for both Google and SonyMusic in the early days of internet entertainment industry and get an early advantage/edge over the few existing competitors.

6. Tradeoff benefits :
Google :

Google will get the data for consumer preference to improve its already intelligent search capability.
Promotion of Youtube as an alternative to traditional entertainment media is another benefit.

Sony Music Corporation :

Online marketing requires lower cost as compared to conventional marketing. Sony Music corp will get a cost advantage in both marketing and advertizing.
Kolaveri is a movie song which is release before the movie. Sony corp can potentially devire revenue benefits from the movie by piggybacking on the success of the song.

I hope, I have been able to beat the shit out of the mystery of Kolaveri's sucess. If you like this article, share it on your facebook / retweet using the below toolbar.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

Crowdsourcing - The common man's real power !

2011-11-06T01:35:00.000-07:00

What is Crowd-sourcing ?
Crowd-sourcing fundamentally means to utilize social media as a people tool and give power to people to witness, record and share the latest tidings happening around their sphere.

The concept of crowd-sourcing news items is not a newfangled one. It started back in 2004-05 when bloggers began blogging the daily news in the content driven websites by revealing very different and genuine news items backed by the "actual" on-ground factual information which was mis-informed by the official statements of regimes and government driven media.

How people have used themselves as citizen journalists to chouse the oppressive governments ?

The world has witnessed the true power of social media which has gone to a completely new level by illuminating a journalist in the common man. The recent unrest in the Arabian countries like Bahrain,Syria,Egypt and Tunisia is a striking example of successful regime changes by the common man by utilizing the power of social media as reporting tools.

Usage in India
In India too, crowd-sourcing campaigns run by individuals on facebook,twitter and youtube played the igniting effect behind the Anna Hazare. The common man can hold government and police more accountable who have developed a habit of refuting factual information by mis-interpretation.

Inspiring video :
TED speaker and citizen Journalist, Paul Lewis talks about the crowdsourcing. One of the most striking vidoes and fabolous I watched this week.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

What's wrong in bribing ?

2011-09-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

Corruption and bribery are hot topics these days. Aren't they ? After the first phase of Anna Hazare's movement, lot of people seem to be raising their voice against corruption. However very few people involved directly or indirectly in the movement would actually think about the root cause of corruption and bribery.

So what's wrong in bribing ?
Doesn't it mean "give something in exchange of some favour" ?
Isn't bribe like a barter system or a mutual exchange. A mutual interaction between the receiver and the donor which is beneficial for both parties ?

The problem is that a bribe involves compulsion.In the beneficiary's opinion this is the only way of taking care of a matter and getting the work done.

"Remember, the bribe givers and potential bribe takers have very similar features". I figured out a few reasons why Indians support corruption (of course they do !!). Don't give me this temporary Anna story. Most of you do it !!

Top 8 reasons - Why Indians trade Bribes ?

Money : Desire to gain quick money, to become richer.
Administration : Badly functioning, inefficient administration - One of the most prominent reasons why Indians bribe. People need a good service no matter what is the mode. Hook-or-Crook is a nice game to play and bribe the incompetent authorities.
Gift Money : Gift is an expression of gratitude. However, "Demanded" gifts are the most common on our part of the world. Recall "Mayawati","JayaLalitha","Gandhis" and very recently our spiritual gurus(Satya sai).
Low Salaries : Bribes are a nourishing supplement to low salaries.
Only cash : A very effective Mantra to hide taxes from the govt.
Moderate acceptance : Indians are okay with a weak or moderate acceptance of bribe. Hence the result.
Good service : A guarantee of better, more reliable performance of duties by the bribe taker.
Legislation : Excessive quantity of unclear legislation.

The Government Standpoint on corruption :

Independent India – colonial practices. Kill meritocracy and promote preconceptions by "Arakshan". Mr Singh or BJP.There is nothing much to differentiate.

How is the economy still surviving?

The Indian State today subsidizes bribery worth billions of dollars. So how come we are still a survinving economy ?

No economist can give an absolute answer to this question. We are the second most growing economy in the world despite all the above inefficiencies. Credit to the Indian social strength !!

Bribery is a way of life for Indians

Basically, 90% of us are a sheep population having a heard mentality.In awless words, our "Cattle Class" is an innocent population which can be easily duped. Bribery was ingrained in India and in her innocent "Cattle Class" by the British as a part of the social disintegration policy in the early 1930s which still runs in our veins. (Social disintegration Policy Started by Lord Macaulay) Except for the Anna movement, we have done little against this Social disintegration Policy.

-Bhaskar Tripathi

"It is our wits that make us men !"

Login into Gmail using multiple accounts

2011-06-12T03:29:00.000-07:00

The much awaited feature of Google's multiple sign-in from the same machine is finally on ! Try experiencing it immediately in a quick 4 step hack.

You can have multiple Gmail accounts and login into anyone of them. It works on most Google Applications sucessfully.

Multiple Gmail logins from one machine

Here is a very quick way of enabling this feature.

Go to the multiple sign-in settings page.
Sign in to your account.
Select On to enable the multiple sign-in feature and select the check-boxes to confirm that you understand how to use multiple sign-in.
Click Save changes.

Multiple Sign-in

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

4 tips for striking balance between work and life

2011-04-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

The Problems :

Everyday we observe the examples of classic corporate warriors : Eating too much,drinking too much,working too hard and neglecting the family.

Everybody needs balance. The easiest way to balance work and life is don't work at all !!. Not a very useful proposition to have especially when the money runs out..:)

I have spent huge time in isolation from work to deduce four very obvious but neglected observations:

If society is to make any progress on this issue we need an honest debate.
The problem is that so many people talk so much rubbish over this issue. Be it flexi time,dress down fridays or paternity leave or any other crap which is meant for be-fooling people.Some jobs are fundamentally incompatible to the nature of life some people want.
Every day 1000s and 1000s of people keep screaming about their jobs and keep slogging for hours on day to day basis just to buy the daily grocery and to impress the people they don't like.
The important issue is that governmet and corporations are not going to solve this issue for us.
So stop looking outside.It is up to us as individuals to take control over the type of life we want to live.

The Corporate DNA :

If you don't design your life, someone else would design it for you.They just not like your idea of balance. It is particularly important that you never put the quality of your life in the hands of a commercial corporation.Now I am not just talking about the bad companies, but I am talking about all companies.Because commercial companies are designed to get as much out of you as they can get away with. It's in their nature, its in their DNA, its what they do. Even the good, well intentioned companies.

You & your company

On one hand putting child care facilites in office is wonderful, but on the other hand spending your nights in the bloody office is a nightmare.
We have to be responsible for setting the boundaries in our life.
We need to be careful about the time frame that we choose for our work.
Don't fool yourself that you will have a life when you retire.You won't be having any modes of interest in life by then when you health is ailing,your wife gets old, your kids are busy and you look out for all the things that you missed out.

The Solution:
"The solution is that we need to approach balance in a balanced way !"

Life primarily has 4 aspects which need to be balanced.

Physical
Emotional
Intellectual
Spiritual

Balancing your life means : Don't let your Intellectual aspect dominate the Physical or Emotional aspect or vice-versa. Striking the right balance is imperative.

Physical - Join a gym or run or play a sport everyday to balance the Physical aspect,
Emotional - Spend qulity time for your parents,wife,girl friend. Play with your pets.
Intellectual - Think about things other than work. Give solutions to different problems not associated with daily work.
Spiritual - Medidate.Yoga.Know yourself.

Balance these four aspects and get back to my post with your comments. Thanks for spending your precious five minutes.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men!"

Open fraud by IRCTC - Indian Railways

2011-02-20T06:53:00.000-08:00

Booking railway tickets and getting them easily when needed is one of the most coarse problems for the Indians.If we speak about Delhi, it is even more difficult to manage a railway reservation on time.

It is an open secret for Delhites that when the railway reservations are closed at the counters, people book it through travel agents by shelling more than double the amount of "Tatkal tickets".

The open Fraud
1) Tatkal reservations begin at 8.00AM every morning.
2) Since the demand is too high,considering our huge population, the tickets get exhausted in almost half an hour.
3) The first 30 minutes from 8.00 AM to 8.30 AM are the most crucial for the common man to secure a tatkal railway reservation.

4) However, out of the first 30 minutes, IRCTC website is down for the first crucial 25 minutes everyday . The website goes down partially or fully on daily basis during this time. IRCTC ensures that no reservations are possible during this time.

5) You may open the website and try booking a tatkal ticket yourself. IRCTC will not allow you to book any ticket during this time and suddenly the website starts working after this time.

6) The remaining 2-3% of the tickets are then open for public booking for the last 5 minutes.If you are lucky enough, you may get a tatkal ticket.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

Now login to your Yahoo by using Gmail and Facebook

2011-02-05T23:15:00.000-08:00

A few days back, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) circulated the ordinance for Full number portability (NP) across all mobile providers in India. On a similar trend, Web 2.0 emailing seems to be moving to common email login system.

I anticipate, the day is not far when all major email service providers will have a common login.
Yahoo! Inc, has already taken the first step to bridge the existing gap of multiple logins for multiple emails. Now you can login to your yahoo mail by using either your existing yahoo id or your increasingly popular Facebook or Gmail account.

The step by Yahoo may be seen as a user retention policy by the company once known as the "King of emails"! In the past 5 years Yahoo has witnessed nearly 50% of its email and instant messaging users migrating to Google products like gmail and gtalk.

Yahoo is already finding it very difficult to compete and retain business against google and facebook in one of the fastest changing industries in the world.

Check it out yourself by logging into your : Yahoomail !

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

Apple’s Secret iPod Formula

2011-01-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

Anyone knows who created this image so I can credit them? Originally received it via Twitter.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men !"

Senseless Feudalism within democracy...

2011-01-30T04:14:00.000-08:00

We were taught that Democracy is a form of government in which the supreme power is held completely by the people under a free electoral system.The first principle was that all members of the society have equal access to power and the second that all members enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties.

On the contrary, In a Kingdom, Everything, EVERYTHING, belongs to the ruler.
AND it's his (HIS) responsibility to make sure his subjects are protected and well cared for.In exchange, we obey his laws and give him the respect he is due.

While we boast of being a successful democracy, ours is a mindset still full of feudal thoughts not far from being called an absolute monarchy. Have a look at the recent tweet of Ms Sushma Swaraj and know yourself how these so called leaders are spreading the virus of elitism in the society.

Very recently, our Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Ms Sushma Swaraj tweeted on 28th Jan : "Today a former Prime Minister is Padma Vibhushan awardee - so his Secretary".

Sushma Swaraj

Lets understand the intention of her statement first :
For Ms Swaraj, there were two real issues:
One : Mr Vajpayee did not get his well deserved Bharat Ratna.
Two : Prime minister's secretary (Brajesh Mishra) also received the same national award as his boss.

To her second point, may we ask her, Why can't the secretary of a former prime minister get an award which his superior gets.
Is it a law of land in India , that a junior cannot give more contribution to the nation, than his curate?

Forget the contribution and meritocracy. Her intent in plain abrasive words just says, "F**k the meritocracy, screw the contribution and effort towards a goal; A secretary being a secretary is just not eligible to get an equal or higher accolade than the boss in this Feudal Indian society merely because he does not belong to that elite group".

Down with you Ms Swaraj !! (I am again irked to know your view point).

I do not have any thing personal against Ms Swaraj. Rather I have been a good supporter of Vajpayee govt.He deserves the award or not is a different issue and out of scope in the current discussion.What we are talking here is the elitism involved in her staments.

Our Feudal society

The problem is not just with Ms Sushma Swaraj's feudal and elitist outlook, but the problem extends to the entire Indian society. Knowingly or un-knowingly we are promoting elitisism on our own ways.This feudal thinking gets extended in magnitude in the govt offices and even more in the ministries, to the extent that it is considered as an insult for a PM, that if a good performing secretary is rewarded at the same level, then there should be some more laurel given to his boss to maintain the gap between a secretary and a minister.

Unlike the Americans, we are not a performance oriented society, and we do not support the perform-or-perish culture. This is the root cause that we have created so many non-performer politicians.

Once again, Down with your thoughts Ms Swaraj !
You are no different than your Congress peers who call the common man as "Cattle Class".

Please realize that in Democracy politicians are mere service providers to public and not the rulers.
I am neither a political analyst nor a politician myself, but just a common man who keenly observes the happenings on this large nation on a day-to-day basis. I am posting this article, on my till date "non-political" blog in reply to your tweet full of feudal mentations, which irks each and every young blood in this country.

We all know the relevance of Padma awards and how they are given, and also the non-meritocracy involved in the distributions is an open secret. It would not be surprising if you secure one for yourself even after being outside the power circle of Delhi.

However, please also note that, your image as rest of your peers is no different from the below symbolization.

They are our so called VIPs and Elitist political honchos

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men ! "

How Facebook earns revenue?

2010-12-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

Ever wondered how facebook earns money from social-networking?
Read-on....

What does Peepli Live teach you ?

2010-08-21T06:47:00.000-07:00

Amir Khan - The real Artist

Unlike other Bollywood artists, Aamir Khan has time and again proved that in terms of intellect he is the most "Ameer" among the Khan's or his other coevals. When Aamir is involved in any capacity with a movie, people are already prepared for the unpredictable.There are surprises, there are emotions, there is a message, there is mouthful of comedy and there is entertainment. What more would you expect from movies?

One more commonplace about Aamir movies is that they force you to contemplate.
Be it TZP,Rang De Basanti,3-idiots or Peepli live, when you come out of the theatre,you are compelled to think about the issues and the messages given by the movie.They hit your deep visceral senses and your takeaway is not just entertainment.

All-in-all I had 5 major takeaways from the movie :

1) Not for pure entertainment.
2) Self-interested and TRP based Media
3) The sorry state of Farmers
4) Emotions and Comedy
5) The great Indian Politicians

Nattha & Family

So let me share my takeaways from Peepli Live.
1) First thing first - The movie is not for those who are looking pure entertainment or nonsense bollywood bottled shit.

2) The Media - We all know that the news channels depict 90% of the non-news as the "Breaking-news". Highlighting the trivial issues and ignoring the real issues like "farmer suicides" is their daily job. The movie throws light on the varied people who exploit the situation to their advantage, right from the politicians to the bureaucrats to the television reporters to the local people. The plight of a farmer (like Nattha) is hidden in a tiny corner of a huge country.

The best part about the movie is that it exposes the real truth behind the media.At no point does the media gets preachy or starts offering solutions to the grave issue. It's a mere tool that the news makers have used to discuss bureaucracy, the rural and urban divide and lack of concern of the administration.

One TV journalist, in a desperate search for a new angle, tries to examine Natha's faeces to determine his emotional state. Nobody seems to care how Natha really feels.

I am personally frustrated by the height of irresponsibility of Media.The local village reported who tried to show some concern died a tragic death.It was really sad to swallow that scene.

(Media and Politics) - All about TRP & Votes

3) Farmer - The sorry Story- Peepli Live aims at sensitising the urban people towards the issue of farmer suicides.It may help people know about the problems farmers face.If you think that the world is full of infinite possibilities, then it might just be possible that some NGOs/Rural entrepreneurs might get sensitized and setup some organizations to deal with the farmer problems in our country's huge rural area.

I hope it does happen whenever it is intended.

The poor Indian farmers

4) Emotions and Comedy:
The common man's language has a deep impact on the film. The Sas-Bahu 'nok-jhok' are far better than Ekta Kapoor's boring KSBKBT soaps.Those looking for entertainment are not totally disappointed. I like the scene when Nattha stole the eggs from the local politician's chaupal.
Nattha's young son urging his dad to go through with suicide so that he can use the money to become a policeman was a mouthful comedy among many others.

The comedy is tragic but a brilliant satire.

Useless Gits of Propaganda

6) The great Indian Politicians:

Much has already been said and written all over the internet about politicians.It seems that becoming corrupt,Lacking in integrity and intemperance is becoming more of a fashion in our country. Politicians are the ideal role models for teaching these unerect traits to young Indian kids.

What are your takeaways in one word? I am waiting for your comments....

Is Infosys a ‘chop shop’?

2010-08-09T04:10:00.000-07:00

While discussing an immigration bill on the U.S. Senate floor, New York Democrat Charles Schumer likened Indian tech giant Infosys Technologies to a “chop shop.”
He further said :
“The emergency border funds will be paid for by assessing fees on foreign companies known as chop shops that outsource good, high-paying American technology jobs to lower wage, temporary immigrant workers from other countries. These are companies such as Infosys. But it will not affect the high-tech companies such as Intel or Microsoft that play by the rules and recruit workers in America.”

As we all know, within Information Technology , there are primarily two sectors :

Pure Outsourcing shops(e.g: Infy,TCS,Wipro etc) .
High-tech companies which create technology through R&D (e.g : Intel,MS,Google etc).

Mr Schumer seems to be keen on comparing an Intel-with-Infy or a Google-with-a-Wipro, conspiciouly forgetting that IT services companies have an entirely different Line of Business than the high-tech companies.

What was the Democratic Senator trying to say?

A chop shop is a place where stolen cars are dismantled so their parts can be resold.It is clear that his statement is a misguided one.India’s high-tech outsourcing and software business generates more than $60bn in export revenues a year obviously cannot be a chop-shop.

The only answer that would justify this statement would be "The pressure on American politicians at a time of economic decline and a shrinking job market that they are lashing out indiscriminately."

So with the proposed bill ,
"Who" is getting protected against "whom"?

Quite clearly, it is the US IT service industry (rather than that High-tech giants) that is getting hit by a healthy competition from the $US 60 billion Indian IT industry. The US IT service companies (IBM,Accenture etc) even after having a huge base in India are being left behind by the more efficient Indian group of Infy, TCS, Wipro etc.

What does this imply?
The short term implication will be that the Indian companies in US will have to recruit more local labour (Americans) at a higher cost which means the cost of their services will go up.

Is it a US Swadeshi andalon ?
Yes. Sort of ! But we have had it in India too. Haven't we?
There have been lot of swadeshi andolans in India since independence to boycott foriegn goods, but we still love to flaunt foriegn made items ! Don't we ?

In case of US, the reason is different. Culturally, they have been a population of misers. They love cost saving at all costs. So the bill won't have a long effect.No business can run without cost saving, especially if it is run be misers :)

What does it mean to India?
It means we are making an impact on the world map.We have started popping the cork off their heads ! So much so that the US IT service industry has been almost rendered as "useless" and needs a govt bailout and save themselves from the competition provided by the world.
LOL (I can't stop laughing !) Now, pat your back for being an Indian.

Is it an insult being called a "chop shop" ?
I would say that it just reflects the intellect of US senators. I can bracket Mr Obama's senators with Ms Mayawati. Both seem to be in the same league of non-performance.

What is the future of the bill?
Nothing ! Even if it is passed, it will have to be reverted/altered after sometime. Simply, because it does not make any business sense. It will not be able to justify free-trade and more importantly the cost advantage of outsourcing.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

Indian rupee symbol - Social Aspects

2010-07-27T12:53:00.001-07:00

I stumbled across this excellent presentation about the social aspects of the Indian Rupee Symbol by D.Udaya Kumar, IITB.
This small presentation gives an insight on how the Rupee symbol will be used in futurity.

Indian rupee symbol

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men !"

3 ways of dealing with the Pakistani's

2010-07-25T03:15:00.000-07:00

What does the world think about Pakistan ?

The world opinion about Pakistan is : "Pakistan is the only country in the world that negotiates with a gun to its own head. The argument goes something like this: If you don't give them what they need, the government will collapse and this might result in anarchy, and a takeover by Islamic militants."

Over the past two weeks, I have been following the recent so called Indo Pak "Peace talks" which are covering the headlines of almost all the newspapers in India.

Recently, One of our well known and respected "3-Idiots" author suggested a few ways to deal with a BRAT called Pakistan. I liked the way Chetan Bhagat's post called Pakistan a "Brat".

Before reading any further, I would suggesst you to go to Chetan Bhagat's website and read his article atleast partly. If you cannot spend more than 5 minutes on reading his article, just readon and post your views.

What do young Indians think about India ?
The young Indian's these days are majorly obsessed with their economic growth and competing the world ,while their Pakistani counterparts who have been deprived growth by their Military regim and weak govts are still obsessed with Hate India crusade of the 1950s to 1980s.

On Chetans's article, I had 3 major points which only echo the public view.

Most Indian's feel that WAR with Pakistan is not a solution to its problems. It will cost India dearly. Pakistan already has nothing and depends on IMF from for its survival.
India should infact stop all peace talks right away and open a war level diplomatic offensive campaign to alienate Pakistan from the world. Pakistan should stripped from Economic loans,Weapons, even basic medical aid and should recieve a diplomatic,economic and Cultural bashing from the entire world.Not just India. India needs to launch a very strong war level offensive campaign of this type.
Things like depriving Pakistan of hosting Cricket World Cup have been steps in the right direction.
Pakistan's one and only strength in the late 90s and early 2000's has been its Nuclear weapons. The issue for world leaders should be whether an "international migraine" and "suicidal" tate should be allowed to possess nuclear weapons or WMDs. India and the world should work on stripping off Pakistan from its Nuclear state status.

Pakistan's track record is one of waving the red flag and screaming SOS to assert its rights as a sovereign country.Sovereignty, is not merely a bestower of rights but also comes with certain responsibilities towards one's own people and to other sovereign countries.

A more economically weak Pakistan would not be good for India though.So the Indian aim should be to create a world governance around Pakistan’s behaviour, if it adheres to the governance it should get ecomonic help else it should be ready to face different cultural, Economic and regulatory sanctions.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

Now Add Images to your Gmail Signatures

2010-07-11T03:19:00.000-07:00

Gmail has comeup with the much needed feature of adding images in the signatures.

Now you can flaunt your company/personal logos in your signatures and add a more elegant and professional looking signature to your outgoing email messages in Gmail (and Google Apps) directly without requiring any complicated hacks.

Apart from images, you can also add formatted hyperlinks like links pointing to your blog or your various social profiles. You just have to hit the Settings Tab in Gmail and use the built-in rich text editor to create your own personal signature.

There’s one minor limitation -- you can only include pictures and icons in the signature that are already hosted on the web and there’s no option to upload images from the computer straight into the signature.

It should however not be an issue because you can always use a site like Flickr or Google’s own Picasa to permanently host your images on the web for use in your Gmail signatures.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men !"

4 tips that will change your mediocre life...

2010-06-21T23:22:00.000-07:00

ये वर्ल्ड है ना वर्ल्ड, इसमे दो तरह के लोग होते हैं... ....

पहले वो जो...:

I have seen lots of people around me who spend their lives thinking "I'll be happy when …" (I finish school, get my degree, get a job/promotion, get married, own a house, kids leave home, retire, have grandchildren etc). They spend their lives in anticipation of the next stage, never really enjoying the process or the journey. These people actually do achieve a lot in life but never really know what they have done.

दूसरे वो जो.....

Then there is another category of people (who..ok! enjoy life !) are always wanting to do something but never really gather the energy to do it.

My grandfather often used to repeat himself by saying:
"Beware of your thoughts for they become your words, beware of your words because they become your actions, beware of your actions for they become your habits, beware of your habits because they seal your fate".

Your thought process

Lot of people including my close friends think about :

How much your friends of friends of friend is earning.
Worry about their history, their background, their education, their financial status, their accent, where they live, how much money they have...etc

I would suggest that instead of worrying about any of those factors that are not going to change, simply change your thoughts.

How do you do that?

Walk !! take a walk.

Just walk down the street and notice how many random thoughts fly through your mind. Notice the thoughts that come to your mind.

"I can't do this. This is too tough!!" OR "I am not good enough for this" OR "I hate this..."
OR "I don’t have a girl friend..." OR "I want to travel the world but I don’t have money..." OR "I want to do this/that but waiting for the right time..."

Aren't those some of the thoughts that come to mind???
There may be some more like when you are in a moment of stress :

I can't deal with the situation.
I don't have that much stamina.. (mostly for girls)
Or simply "God Dammit!!"

Why would you like God to damn anything in your life?
Think about that for a second...Why won't you rather ask God to bless you with something instead of "GodDamn it"!

Now how do you target these issues?
Just sit down and notice your thoughts..If you think deeply then you will feel that your consciousness is actually getting hit by these thoughts and they reflect in your actions:

4 tips to solve your problems :

Sit straight and take deep breaths.
Notice what your mind does. Notice your random thoughts. Don’t get carried along. Simply notice them.
Do the above two steps for 3 days. Observe the pattern in your thoughts.
Now replace the thoughts that have even the slightest intentions to hold you back.They are the negative thoughts which are powerful enough to stop you from positive actions.

You will observe that the same types of thoughts often come to your mind. Notice the repeating thoughts.Now observe their pattern.
You will realise that you can annihilate this existent pattern by murdering all present thoughts with your new powerful thoughts.

You will then very soon see yourself becoming rich,driving your girlfriend in a Lombard, traveling the world, tackling complex analytical problems or whatever you want to do.

P.S: The last few lines are the crux of the entire article. You may want to go back and read the 4 tips again to take the complete value out of this post. I wish you tons of success in changing your life.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men!"

Why being number one is so important ?

2010-06-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

If you type on Google my full name, "Bhaskar Tripathi", you can find my site listed on number one, even above the numerous Bhaskar's on the web, and in company of some historically very important Bhaskars(recall the first Indian satellite).

My posts have influenced the best search engine in the world to show me among 10 most important Bhaskars of all time. What a huge honor that is, but is it well deserved? If you take Google as the largest and most complete reference library in the world, the significance of my success is even greater.

Granted, Bhaskar is not the most searched term on the Internet today, and other than personal satisfaction I have little other benefit from that. But what if you could do this for a product or information that is in large demand. What if you could put your site up there for a term like 'buy tv' or 'cheap travel' and you happen to be selling those products or services?

Why Search is so important?

I have a feeling that the days when a website design could do miracles for a company or a product are long gone behind us. The numbers of sites made in Flash are degrading every day, as Flash is not indexable by search engines. In today's online world it is not the presentation that matters anymore, but presence.

The latest Trend
As if it's not important anymore what you have to show, but to show it to the greatest number of people possible. And more and more companies are becoming aware of this. Let's face it, many of them do not have even websites to match today's standards, let alone serious online presence. But they started realizing that in order to stay competitive, they need to start spending money for online marketing.

The Future

The massive amount of Internet users will only continue to grow and the online market will slowly replace everyday markets as we know today. This may kill some fun for a few, but then again business stopped being fun a long ago.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

Google's false propoganda against China

2010-05-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

First thing first : I am a big fan of google and absolutely mesmerized by the way they have taken internet and its users to the next level.

Now this doesn't mean that I do not have anything against the internet god.Google has erred and taken a personal stew with Chinese govt at a point where lot of internet users would suffer from this futile conflict.

What led to the fight between Google and Chinese govt?

Chinese govt,as google says employed some professional hackers to hack into google's gmail account.
Google took up the issue with govt.China denied all allegations and instead asked google to filter its search according to the Chinese norms.
Google protested once again.This time Chinese government blocked some of their searches on its own.However, Chinese government did not make any official announcement about the blocks.
Google threatened to exit China and in response re-directed its search to Google hong-kong.(Hong kong is culturally China only.So it is like presenting another domain name for a website).
China however has still not banned google. But Google hong-kong provides an unfiltered search.

The Catch :

Try to open Google China website : http://www.google.cn/ . Google will redirect you to http://www.google.com.hk/ .

Quite Clearly, The Chinese govt is no fan of google.A week after Google started redirecting Chinese search users to its Hong Kong site in order to avoid having to censor results, many search queries from within China are getting the Great Firewall treatment.

The Past :

Today, the entire west is supporting google in its so called "Free internet information for all" campaign.

However, from an investor view, Google’s decision is surprising because China offers the largest potential of any e-commerce market in the world.Chinese government, unlike Indian politicians is arrogant and even audacious, which is somewhat understandable given that no country expects its laws to be challenged by a guest.

I am no Chinese fan either.But, history tells us that Chinese youth were drug abused by the British and the result was that China culturally became much of a british-china than a Chinese-China. China sees it as history repeating itself , this time only to be American-China.

On the contrary,Google is trying to act a morality teacher and create a false propoganda about the free flow of information.

How information flows ?

Rationally thinking, the "information supplied to us" can reach us in four possible ways :

The country/state I live in decides what I can and cannot see, and that's OK.
The big companies I rely on (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Rediff etc) get to select what I see, and that's OK.
I want to be free to see anything I like. Uncensored news from everywhere, all of world literature, manifestoes of every party and movement, jihadist propaganda, bomb-making instructions, intimate details of other people's private lives, child pornography - all should be freely available. Then it's up to me to decide what I'll look at.

Clearly, Google is supporting the third viewpoint stringently.

In this world, "Nothing works without rules".

An organization has certain information security framework and blocks certain websites from being accessed by employees, as an individual you may not want to disclose all your personal information in public. The reasoning is very simple - Information should not be free flowing.It should have certain filters which are governed by some logical rules.

So why cannot a country impose rules on the internet?
Why should information flowing over the internet have free access?

The word "free" in itself means no rules.

Nothing is free from rules in this world. Everything works within a certain framework governed by rules. Google will soon learn a lesson that "ego-mechanism" does not operates business especially while dealing by the world's largest market. It will have to stop its false propoganda against the Chinese.
We will see it sooner than later or google will have to be ready to pack up its bag and give an early lead advantage to Microsoft and Yahoo.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

How to get fitness like a teenager

2010-05-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

I define a physically "fit" person as someone who would be able to walk upto 10kms on a stretch without necessitating for water or someone who can play a T20 cricket match in Indian summers without water. I say without water, because being "fit" essentially means being able to perform well in a wide variety of physical exerting circumstances.

Urban India is mostly a physically indispose population.

The kickoff
As an exception, I had always been a sports man and arguably among the fittest guys on the planet right from my childhood days.
During my childhood days in Kasauli hills (Himachal Pradesh,India), I used to rush to my school with my sister and ran 5km straight upto the hills from my home to be on time during the morning assembly.Ditto while running back to home. 10Kms a day and that too on hills was cake walk.I had proudly preserved this habit till the next 15+ years.

The decline
However, during the past few days and some unvanquishable change in my lifestlye, I lost all this hard earned fitness. During this period my weight increased from 65Kg to 75Kg. At my height (5'10'') I feel that I have ceased to be a fitness whiz anymore.My body doesn't feel the same. I realize that I no longer jump the corridor fences like a teenager (which is more of a fitness habit than exuberance).

The Lesson learnt
Being fit is a lifestlye. Keep a fit lifestlye and it reflects on your body. The only tip I give out here is to change your lifestlye and exuberence for life to what it was when you are 19 or 20 (minus any alcoholic habits).
Think about it for a minute and recall all the things which you did at 20.I have practiced this for the last 10 days and it had reflected on my weight. Now I am a happy 70kg.(A perfect weight at my height).

The Techniques:

Buy a Kamachi Ab 1000 . 7-10 days of its regular usage along with normal pushups and dumbells will help you to reduce your weight and get flat abs without too much effort.
Practice Yoga for 10mins a day. Belief me it is not that un-cool.Do the basic Kapal Bharti, Bhramri and Anulom Vilom pranayam mudras.The more yoga the better.
Run minimum 2 kms a day atleast thrice a week.

Spend 30 minutes daily for the above three tasks for the next 10 days and then reply back to this post, if it helps.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"

Auto update - A Killer technology

2010-04-26T05:31:00.000-07:00

There's a huge amount of new technology pouring out into the world these days - lots of it focussed around the web and consumers and the key term that keeps being talked about it ubiquity. Flash brought video to the web because it was ubiquitous, HTML5 will kill flash once it's ubiquitous, mobile web access is becoming ubiquitous etc. The most striking thing in all of this is just how quickly these new technologies are actually finding their way into real world usage.

The path to ubiquity is suddenly an awful lot shorter than it ever has been. Take for example the rate of upgrades from IE 6 to IE 7, compared with IE 7 to IE 8. Flash support for Apple - QuickTime - Technology H.264 is comparatively new but it's now ubiquitous. Anyone supporting FireFox 1.0 anymore? What about 2.0? The upgrade cycle is so fast that the range of older tech needing to be supported has shrunk dramatically in the past few years.

How has all this happened? Auto-update became standard.

The best example of this that I know of is actually .Net framework.In most cases, you don't even know that the .Net framework service pack has been auto updated via network administrators/windows default settings.

The thing is, this rate of upgrading is only going to increase. iPhone software for example is updated incredibly rapidly because it all comes through the App Store and the more users see upgrades happening smoothly and successfully, the more they trust it to happen so the more frequently they'll do it. Not to mention the more they'll be willing to accept software that just silently updates itself.

For developers, this changes the way to view the world. It's actually viable in many cases to target just the latest version of many new technologies because it's easier for users to upgrade and more likely they'll do it either now or at least very soon. It also means that things like the Flash vs HTML5 debate change quite significantly - the time required for the HTML5 tech to become ubiquitous enough is probably shorter than most people expect, much of it is already there. So the argument that Flash will have moved on by the time HTML5 catches up is a lot weaker than history would make it seem.

Look out a bit further than today and start thinking of the power that this auto-update brings. Imagine the world in say 5 years time - it's likely that by then IE 6 market share will be small enough to be ignored by most or all people. So everyone would have upgraded to a browser of today's standard or better - significantly, with a solid auto-update program. How likely do you think it will be that there's significant market-share for anything but the latest and maybe second latest major release of a browser? That would mean that new web technologies would be rolled out to effective ubiquity within one or two years. Potentially much quicker if they're released in a minor update which is also increasingly common.

The same thing is being outside outside of web technologies as well - in roughly everything except desktop OS's. The bottom line is that developers have never had it better and can leverage newer and better platforms sooner to deliver more features, more easily. All thanks to the unnoticed workhorse that is auto-update.

-Bhaskar Tripathi
"It is our wits that make us men"