Anupamtimes

She

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 16:00:00 +0000

Note: The story has nothing to do with Mathai's unpublished chapter 'She'. It's a completely different short story, a fiction. Enjoy!

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A story of my colleague, nothing unusual, almost same as of every working woman in a metro, but what stuck to me was her self-liberation with consumed awareness, “It’s a man’s world where every woman has to fight extra to make it her own.” I asked, “Why? Why do you say so?”

She was a strong woman. Born in a middle class family of Gwalior, she did her MBA in 2005, and now, a Senior Manager in an MNC; she achieved everything at her own. “What made her to say that?” I wondered!

“It is a perception made over the years. I know it hurts. But, that’s the way it is!” She never gave any straight answer to it. I could understand it only after years of my attachment with her.

Yes, it was a day in her life.

Ohh, shit! ‘It’s 1.45PM,’ Rita called her hubby Rishabh, ‘It is lunch time dear, you better have some food first.’ ‘Just leaving in a moment darling, what about you?’ nodded her hubby. ‘Me too going,’ she dialed her son who was out for a football match; couldn’t get his voice on the other end, and finally left a reminder.

Her colleague patted, ‘let’s have lunch.’ ‘Wow! Pakauriyaan…Rita ne layi pakauriyan chaar….abki baar….’

‘Just shut up Akanchha, you know I hate politics,’ Rita fretted.

6.30PM.

She shut down the PC, ‘Bye everybody!’

‘Bye Rita….!’

35 and counting. She was still sexy, gorgeous and eloquent. As soon as she reached into the elevator, she put her bag in a way to hide her curves. Earlier, she wasn’t that much alert within the office premise, but the recent series of incidents, especially the Tarun’s, Shakti mill, Nirbhaya case made her alert enough to do so. She found a boy, eleven years old with a bundle of paper cups and a tea bottle, staring at her.

Ignored.

She usually didn't mind when office staff called her sexy, but outsiders? 'Dare not say anything.' Coming out of the lift, extra alert, Rickshawwala to bus, she counted her options; finally took a Rikshaw to the station.

Being a bibliophile, she didn't waste her time, started reading ‘The great lost minds.’ Page no. 231.

“They were arguing round and round, “Not many fields are challenging. Not many actually do understand their challenges. Not many of them are up for the challenges. Even if they are exposed to, they try to pass it in silence. They don’t cry. They don’t react. It doesn’t suit them, but they fear of failure...they are afraid of making mistakes.”

Stopped …reading, it haunted her….. ‘We are the heroes of our own lives. We will write the story of our own.’

Standing in long queue at Rajiv Chowk metro, as the train arrived, somebody just pushed her hard to get into the train. She fell down, could not figure out, ‘Who the hell, the guy was?’ ‘Deserves a slap,’ somebody just uttered, ‘you should report to the police.’

She was a Delhite, not feared, but angry. Even before she could react, her eyes went on to the digital clock. ‘Ohh! It’s already 7.15PM. Forgetting rest, she just got into the next train.

At the dinner table, she listened to Shinu – how he saved the game point for his team; Rishabh – why is he not happy with his boss. But, she forgot to share her own….no, not forgotten, it was intentional indeed. Even after Rishabh insisted she could just utter, ‘everything fine, nothing new,’ with a candid smile.

She remembered, last year, during an argument, how her hubby threw her, smashing against the wall and door frame. She had some serious injuries then. Later, she forgave him; after all, he was her hubby. And yes, he felt sorry for that.

While Rishabh and Shinu, both were watching IPL, she found herself busy with washing utensils. She felt angry at the cockroaches. Arghhh! She must make some time to deep-clean the entire kitchen.

At 10.30PM, Going to bed, she opened the book, ‘The Great Lost Minds,’ Page no. 233.

"You are not your mind…..can’t be a perception but an old saying revived by Eckhart tolle, a spiritual Guru (In his book, The power of Now).

We are not our minds...how often it happens we wanna sleep but our mind doesn't let it happen (Our wish is not the same as of mind; it's something different..... sometimes sync). We can't control our mind but mind can control us. Our body being physical believes in realism so try to set realistic goals only which it can achieve. It's like a motor without driver. But the strong mind knows well that real and virtual are just like those postulates on the basis of which we set the goals. When Rene Descartes said "I think therefore I'm" he was satisfied with the thought and didn't try to look beyond which he thought as only realism. Realism is a matter to believe i.e. as much you believe you make it real, which other may think as virtual.”

…….Arghh! Her mind hardly grasped what was written. But, yes she has had moments when she wasn’t herself! In fact, in majority she wasn’t herself. Before getting married, she wanted to taste everything in her own way; she couldn’t. She wanted to fall madly in love; she wanted him to have that much bank balance, that for the rest of his life, he could spend only for her…she wanted to have her home in Paris….'no not in Paris, God knows so many Casinos are there, he might get distracted. London, yep London, less crowded than Delhi.'

She wanted all of this, for the rest of her life. While she was thinking, drinking in the tones of her thought, her physical became dominant for the moment. After watching the IPL, as Rishabh comes to bed, she wanted to reach out his hand in the darkness and touch him with the sensitive tips of her fingers upon the face or the lips. She wanted to draw close to him and whisper against his cheek—she did not care what she thought, but yes, above all she found herself lucky, he was lovable, inoffensive and brat.

5.30AM.

The alarm was ringing, ‘Good morning, good morning, good, goooood…gooooooood morrr…’Rishabh shut off the alarm, patted her, reminding it’s her time to wake. Gently, she wakes up.

After getting fresh and serving tea to everyone, she rushed to the kitchen; prepared everyone’s tiffin. It’s her high time; no robot could match the speed. Done the schedule, she left for the office.
Rushed to common coach of the metro and not the ladies’ one, for most of the men inside, she was the only fresh air; doesn’t matter how she feels. For the moment, her hand went inside the bag holding tightly the pepper spray with face kind enough to deal with the situation diligently.

One of the kind men offered her, his own seat which she calmly refused, disapproving James Brown 1966 classic playing in someone’s mobile, “This is a man’s world, this is a man’s world, but it would be nothing… nothing ….without a women or a girl.” After all, she didn’t want to live as some precious object in a man’s world. She wanted to live her own.

Akanchha called, ‘Hi Sweetie!’

‘Hiii…. U so early Akankchha? What’s wrong with u, dude?’ astonished Rita. Nothing….you know na, it’s Friday, We will do masti today…you’re coming with us? Right! Now, don’t say no..no. Common, it’s been three years, you have never been with us in any party. Pls, pls, pls Rita, for me…you can have mocktail na!’

Rita tried to avoid, ‘okay, we will see,’

‘What see, you’re coming…no ifs and buts, ‘for one day, Rishabh can take care of himself and Shinu. I’ll inform him.’

‘Okay….ok, baba. I shall, happy??’ nodded Rita.

She was wondering…hell, how could she get trapped, what she was avoiding so far. It was her mind perhaps, not herself. While correcting the quotes, as guided by her boss, she could remember, how madly she was in love with Martini, a secret, she never told her husband, how in her girls’ hostel, she with her besties spent whole night watching porn, smoking Cigar, drinking her favourite Martini simply with crispy. Gosh! Crazy nights never gonna come. Her boyfriend, Karan, a painter ….everyone wondered how could she fall in love with that gawky Karan who never speaks of his mind…only she knew it’s his painting which speaks the truth. In spite of all the differences, all the spats they had, in that short period of relationship, she liked his drinking taste, she liked his approach towards life. However, she called her ‘loser, coward….blah blah.’

Happy now, she still had a secret liking for him in a corner of her heart. Now she knew, it was him who controlled her flow of mind; otherwise, it could have been self-destructive. He never returned to her life after she messaged him post the last spat, ‘I am done with you.’ Nobody knew where he was, but he too had a limited patience, she got to know much later.

Ahh! Where was Ria, her bestie…. divorced from her husband, Ria didn’t call her once, since then.

6PM.

‘Akanchha, you go, I won’t be able to join you Yaar! See, have loads of work to finish. You know na, today it has to go to the press!’

‘Ugh, back to the same logic? Huh, you will never ….’ Akanchha left.

She, sitting in office waited until they, the party people sit in the car. She, like every other metro girls has small secrets which she didn’t want to share with her colleagues not even Akanchha, her new unmarried bestie, who shared everything with her.

In the lift, a colleague stares, as if her’ is a matter to showcase. She puts her bag on the front; a mobile rings, ‘it’s a man’s world.’

…Perhaps it didn’t need her approval.

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Image Courtesy: dvdflm

Singers welcome Dhinchak Pooja Act, 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 06:35:00 +0000

After listening to #Dhinchak Pooja's songs, at the stroke of the midnight yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for an urgent Joint session of the Parliament and the Government of India readily agreed to the Indian Association of Singers' plea to enact a bill, limiting the freedom of singing in Public spaces to authorized singers only. For obvious reasons, the enacted bill is called Dhinchak Pooja Act, 2017.

According to the Act, unauthorized persons found singing at public spaces like Youtube , myspace, Vimeo etc would be sent to jail for a minimum seven years.

Singers like Shaan, Shankar Mahadevan, Shreya Ghoshal welcomed the move, meanwhile Sonu Nigam was quite happy with the development and announced his comeback on twitter. On the Newshour tonight, Arnab said, "Ms. Dhinchak, never ever, ever, ever....sing a song to defame my country, otherwise I assure you, in addition to the latest Dhinchak Act, you will be charged with sedition too." The panelists clapped in response.

See Mr. Modi's response on the Daily Social below.

The Curious Case of Aadhaar

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 12:40:00 +0000

Ever wondered, if the concerned issues pertaining to an Act are not addressed properly, what would be the possible aftereffects? Uh.huh! Obamacare is here to tell you the long story cut short. Aadhaar, the world’s biggest biometric ID programme ever, if conveys the story of successful implementation of a scheme in the world’s largest democracy, it also questions the efficacy and sincerity of the Indian government, amid the lack of law of privacy and data protection.

Learning the Unlearned Way

Among the most debated news at primetime slots in both the countries, almost at the same time, Affordable Care Act, 2010, USA and The National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010, India, have finally met the same fate. Of course, there are differences. The Affordable Care Act, famously called Obamacare was enacted by the 111^th US Congress and signed into law by the then US president Barack Obama. The NIAI bill, however, could never see the light of the day and finally withdrawn from Parliament.

Having said that in spite of the outright rejection by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, headed by Yashwant Sinha-Former Finance Minister of India, the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) continued its business of distributing Aadhaar Card based on voluntary basis. It was never made mandatory until Aadhaar Act, 2016 came into picture. Obamacare failed to address Republicans’ as well as experts’ concerns at large, in its lifetime and hence was finally repealed by Trump’s administration. However, on the stake are 24 million lives who subscribed to Obamacare.

Similar to NIAI bill which failed to address the then opposition, BJP’s concerns, the new Aadhaar Act has not only bypassed the opposition's concerns, but also the legal windows by making its day as money bill. The Supreme Court is yet to constitute the 7-members judges’ bench hear the year old standing plea. On the stake, are 118 crore people’s data.

What is Aadhar? What exactly it aims to achieve?

Soon after the 15^th LokSabha election results, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, partially inspired from the then Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani’s book ‘Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation’, asked Nilekani to envision and implement Multipurpose National Identity Card – a 12-digit Aadhaar number – for every Indian. The aim was quite clear: efficient delivery of welfare services. Since this Unique Identity card would be biometric, the huge challenge against Nilekani, the chairperson of UIDAI, was creating a failsafe electronic government data base of the entire population of India. Nilekani recalled it – the biggest social project on the planet.

Well, what do you mean by the efficient delivery of welfare services?

Among the welfare schemes are: LPG at subsidized rate, mid-day meal to kids attending public schools, rice-wheat distribution at subsidized rate to people living below poverty level (BPL) and so on. And, as per the Planning Commission reports, every year, almost Rs50,000 crore went in vain, as it never reached to the beneficiary owing to the duplicate identity cards and dealers and agencies involved in between the government and beneficiaries. With Aadhaar card being biometric in nature, making duplicate cards under the same identity is theoretically impossible.

If Aadhaar Card is all about the genuine benefits to the people, then why so hullabaloo?

The Aadhaar card detail is not limited to the biometric, but it has got the entire personal details that include: Name, Father’s Name, DoB, Mobile No. and Address too. The data is sensitive, as Aadhaar is going to be a single window gateway to all your details, your banks’ accounts, Tax details and so on. Responding to Quartz, Nilekani averred, “Each device is individually encrypted and registered with the UID system. So you cannot fake all this.” However, it has been widely reported that how Aadhaar data of 130 million people were compromised; how Jharkhand Govt. has accidentally leaked more than 1 million Aadhaar records of pensioners. Also, how various Common Service Centres across the country were involved in leaking the information, right from the collection to storage, accuracy and use of Aadhaar data!

Some people are aware of trade-offs between privacy and convenience while using Microsoft OS, Google search engines or Apple iCloud. However, providing services for more than a decade, there have been no intentional leaks of the collected data to third parties, by the above mentioned companies. This is not the case with Aadhaar. The recent leaks and Aadhaar data accessibility through simple google searches also questions the governments’ capability of handling data at large scale. This doesn’t stop here. Despite the 27 Do’s and 9 Don’ts guidelines released by the central government, section 8, of Aadhaar Act, is drastically different from that of NIAI bill, 2010. While the NIAI bill allowed the authentication limited to the biometric match only with Yes/No option. The Aadhaar Act allows the requesting agency/person to ask for other information too, pertaining to the person’s identity.

Legal Glitches

As notified earlier, the Act has been passed under Money Bill. However, according to the Article 110 of the constitution, a bill can be classified as Money Bill, only if
It imposes, alters, abolishes, or regulates any tax;
Regulates borrowing or alters the financial obligations of the government; and
Affects the custody of the consolidated fund of Indiaor appropriates payments, withdrawals and expenditures from the fund and matters incidental to all these actions.

Under the same Article 110 (3), the constitution has given the Speaker of the lower House, LokSabha, the final authority to decide whether a Bill is a Money Bill or not. Responding to queries, whether Aadhaar falls under Money Bill or not, Dr. Anup Surendranath, Professor, Constitutional Law-National Law University, Delhi averred, “Introducing and passing the Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill amounts to a gross illegality because there is no manner in which the contents of the Act can be justified under the terms of Article 110(1). Many commentators have rightly pointed out that the use of the word “only” in Article 110(1) prevents the Aadhaar Act from falling under its scope.”

While 98% of the countrymen are being reported to have the Aadhaar identification as of now, in spite of successive petitions at the Supreme Court, the successive CJI’s have failed to constitute a seven membered bench to hear the hear the constitutional irregularity (not procedural) under the Article 212.

The legal window is wide open. The petition was filed by Former Union Minister, Jairam Ramesh. The Aadhaar Act can meet any of the following three fates:
1. Mohd Saeed Siddiqui case, (State of UP) and Yogendra Kumar Jaiswal (State of Bihar) are two landmark decisions of the Supreme Court where SC held that the decision of the Speaker of the corresponding State Legislative Assembly, in determining a bill to be a money bill could not be judicially reviewed and that the procedure adopted by the State Legislature was beyond judicial review by virtue of Article 212(1). Hence, the case would fall null and void.
2. The Supreme Court brings the Jairam Ramesh case under 212(1) purview citing gross constitutional irregularity. This might bring the government of the day under huge pressure to address take back the Act.
3. Congress which is totally against the Bill getting passed as Money Bill, might take it back, once it comes in the government.

How does the Aadhaar Act affect professionals?

Once linked with PAN card, the Aadhaar card would be a single source for ID checks, ITR details, Police records, and even employment history too. Every agent who is in the business of verifying e-KYC forms (Know your Customers) will end up knowing more than they should, as the procedure would allow them to access the customer’s Aadhaar Id. And, interestingly, the new Aadhaar Act allows them to do so. Devangshu Datta, Contributing Editor-Business Standard opined, “Given excellent facial recognition programmes and off-the-shelf image converters, a digital photo can be instantly converted and compared to databases of base-64 images.” He, thus, suspected, “Then such an agency will be able to trawl public pictures downloaded from wherever, and recognise random people and tie mugshots to Aadhaar data.” This way, the enrolling agencies will have much more information linking to an Aadhaar no. than even the UIDAI data base can ever have.

Such agencies which are found often trading data base for professional uses such as sales pitching etc. might misuse the same for a large range of activities. Hence the question is: passed under Money Bill, where will it land up in the absence of basic laws pertaining to people’s privacy and data protection?

On the other hand, the government never showed even an iota of sincerity while dealing such grave concerns. The Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said, “The arguments on so-called privacy and bodily intrusion are bogus."

What is the way forward?

If Aadhaar is the face identification no. of a person, every other information linked to the particular Aadhaar must have layered encryption where each layered data must have a higher/different secured encryption, and should be immune to agencies accessing Aadhaar info.

This will not only separate and failsafe each and every layer from the other, but would also address the privacy concerns. On the other side, one must not amplify the privacy concerns, just for making some buzz in news space. For e.g., if we study in a foreign university, the institution collects every bit of data, right from the biometric data to Passport Id, Domicile, References, PAN and Police Records. We don’t mind sharing the information because of the trust we usually have over these institutions or even private companies like Apple, Google or Microsoft, Dropbox and so on. However, given the massive Aadhaar leaks intentionally done by the CSCs across, it’s hard to believe whatever the Gazette of India depicts under Aadhaar Act, 2016, at a time, when the Supreme Court is yet to decide the legality glitch of the Act.

The ‘Design’ Way of Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Sun, 11 Jun 2017 10:58:00 +0000

Dezeen Web-Author Richard van der Laken, in his article “Design is more than perfume, aesthetics and trends” explained how design thinking could have played a crucial role in addressing the current growing refugee crisis. This took the methodology of design thinking to a whole new level, beyond the business of Google, Apple or GE, or the educational architecture of Stanford University and other institutions.

Perceiving the ‘Design’ Way

An amalgamation of both visual and scientific, design thinking is precisely a closed loop process that keeps evolving with users’ feedback, an ideal workflow-architecture enabling and enforcing designers and innovators to come up with better solutions every time. As shown in the figure, the methodology of design thinking is usually conceived through the below closed loop steps:

Once limited to the syllabi of engineering/design engineering, gradually, it became an inherent part of work-flow in business, education and other areas too. This is important, as disruptive innovations and designs are more-often driven by user experience. Todd Olson, an innovator, designer and columnist, while discussing the design genius of Apple and Google averred, “design innovation — not technological innovation — disrupts businesses and industries.” There was a time when Apple invested a major chunk of its capital on design thinking only, more than the profit, the company made.

Design thinking not only helps in bringing the best possible solutions to the table, but the methodology also helps redefine the marketing strategy. In one of my previous columns, I had explained the design thinking in Apple’s brand building.

Before releasing the first iPhone, Steve had some 15 amazing models from which the actual iPhone was selected. Though Apple had applied all those designs for patents for the sake of just what their designers did, but unlike other companies, they did not bring all the models into the market. Quoting Jobs, "We don't give you the alternatives, we give you the best." It's because of this value Apple evoked an irresistible admiration and attention in the global market. Values are not created by product but by the way company moves forward. When new updated version of Mac computers was launched, there were more than 1200 old mac computers lying inside company's store. An HBS pass out lady, the then CFO decided to bring it at cheaper rates almost equal to the manufacturing cost which later also got the support of Board of Directors, but when came to Steve for his consent, he refused to sign....."It's not the way we work", commented Steve.” This explains how you re-emphasize the solutions post testing and implementation phase.

In Design Thinking, if there is any loop open, you might miss the parallel narrative of the entire architecture.

While we all are aware of the design saga of Google, GE, IBM, Apple, and other companies, let’s take an Einstein’s case, the genius and his mistake while processing design thinking.

Einstein emphasized the Universe, Newton’s gravitational law, and black holes, defined them through various laws, then ideated and presented the most famous theory – general theory of relativity.

In 1915, Albert Einstein published geometric theory of gravitation i.e. general theory of relativity, arguing that if two particles with some given constant velocities start moving towards the pole, the particles would meet irrespective of the distance in between. The argument was plain and simple that defied Newton’s law of motion, an observation and a basis for general theory of relativity. The entire theory was part and parcel of Einstein’s ‘way of thinking’ which Peter Rowe coined as ‘Design Thinking’ later. Einstein re-emphasized Newton’s laws of motion; defined its cones it at various situations, and since the laws failed at various situations, he introduced ‘General Theory of Relativity’. However, when his own theory suggested that the universe is expanding; he couldn’t test the same, and hence introduced a parameter, later lifted by Hawking.

Testing and Implementation helped Hawking emphasize and re-define the theory of relativity which Einstein couldn’t, in his lifetime.

Let’s take another case, Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre developed world’s first ever mouse, yet the organisation was unable to present the same, as a solution to the society. Steve Jobs, a champion of design thinking used the prototype to build and present world’s first PC with GUI enabled OS. What Xerox couldn’t, Steve, a college dropout did was filling the bridge of ideation in design thinking.

In a nutshell, each every step of design thinking is closely interlinked, and doesn’t work in isolation.

The NDTV Saga, and Indian Journalism

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 13:27:00 +0000

In a world where simply the CBI raids label you a fraud man/org, I do subscribe to Arun Shourie’s perspective: “If you have done nothing wrong, take CBI and NIA raids as the rare opportunity to help authorities attest your honesty. Yes, I’m the only person so far, who has earned the certificate of ‘honesty’ from the CBI.” Having stated the same in their press releases, NDTV's promoters must extend their full co-operation to CBI, NIA & ED, and come clean, as there’s no alternative.

However, the recent CBI statements have enough loopholes. The Hoot Journo, Sevanti Ninan, therefore, justly deduced, “It seems odd for a government agency to be exercised about a $7.45-million loss from a private bank to NDTV."

CBI in its statement, dated June 5, 2017 said, “The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case against two Promotors/Directors of a private company based at Delhi; said private company; other New Delhi based TV Company; unknown officials of ICICI Bank and unknown others u/s 120 B and 420 of IPC r/w 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of PC Act, 1988 on a complaint for causing an alleged loss of Rs.48 crore to ICICI Bank.”

The criminal complaint very much talked about the alleged loss of Rs48 crore to ICICI bank. Responding to the same, NDTV uploaded a scanned copy of ICICI bank’s receipt, dated August 7, 2009 stating, “The entire amount due and payable has been paid in full.” NDTV also averred that the complaint has never held in courts and the person Sanjay Suri, a former consultant at NDTV has not been able to obtain a single order from any court.

The very next day, CBI came up with another statement and clarified “The searches have been carried out at the premises of the promoters and their offices based on search warrants issued by the Competent Court.”

If so, where are the docs regarding search warrants issued by Courts? The submission doesn’t have any. CBI has neither given the details of the Court’s judgement nor the dates on which it was issued.

Further, the CBI’s press release also clarified, “The allegations under investigation are not regarding the default in loan repayment; but relate to the wrongful gain of Rs 48 crore to the promoters – Dr. Prannoy Roy, Smt Radhika Roy, M/s RRPR Holdings Pvt Ltd and a corresponding wrongful loss to the ICICI bank arising from their collusion and criminal conspiracy.”

This contradicts the very first copy of FIR, where subject 1 established an alleged loss of Rs48Cr. The press release shifted the focus to subject 2 of the FIR, “ICICI bank allegedly conniving, committing fraud and entering into a conspiracy with promoters od NDTV in facilitating transfer of ownership of a news Broadcasting co. (Licensed by MIB) to a khoka/Shell Company. All these acts committed being in violation of Banking Regulation Act, SEBI Act, MIB Regulations and MHA National Security Norms.”

Strangely, if that is the case, then why Reliance Ventures Limited, Shinano Retail Pvt Ltd and Vishwapradhan Commercial Pvt Ltd have not been chargesheeted for getting wrongful access to the ownership of a media company by extending Zero Coupon optionally convertible loan of worth Rs403.85Cr?

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When was the last time you saw some hard-hitting journalism practiced by any Indian Media org at large? It's rare, in bits and pieces.

The day, Trump's counselor Kellyanne Conway coined the term alternate truth...Nytimes had its tagline ready -- Truth. It has no alternative. The Washington Post came up with -- Democracy dies in darkness. While Trump is their current president, Megyn Kelly, an American Journo-NBC goes to Saint Petersburg, Russia asks Putin, "We believe you've evidences against our President."

Nobody questions the journalist's nationalism, but reacts over the response. Imagine, an Indian journalist asking the same question to Pakistan's PM! How would we react? What space have we given to our Journalists to let them pursue what they believe in, without tagging them?

According to Press Freedom Index, we are as free as dead, and so are journalists. India's Journalism died, or say, withered up long ago, owing to a) the unavailability of the means of white money essential to keep pumping up some blood in their veins, and b) the government acting like the big brother.

What we're left with narrations/versions, with little access to the minutes of the events -- even if, they are --- living under the new unknown 'HIVE-Grant Ward's effect' people happily refuse to believe so, as if, they have lost the ability to filter facts from a bunch of narrations. No wonder, a large no. of people still believe that it was Arnab who broke 2G/3G/CWG scams.

I don't see any late hard-hitting journalism happening compared to Arun Shourie's works against Reliance/Rajeev gov @IndianExpress and @ChitraSubramanium works on Bofors The Hindu.

The few, still playing to the gallery of reportage are not the MSMs, but webdailies -- Newslaundry, TheNewsMinute, The Hoot, TheWire.in and so on.

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One of my friend complained back, "They write anti-gov, anti-army articles too."
Huh. Why do you want to be a fan boy, when you can be a free thinker and a patriot, simultaneously?

As per the Constitution, People of India/India come first, the Army and Government come later.

This is important, as we, as public go GaGa over a Jawan's death at the border, but remain silent over the farmers' suicide, their strike showing their parents' skull hanging on their bare chests, telling stories of generations. Be it, Army or Farmers both need our support, but the question is who need most?

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Secrets for Successful Couple-preneurs

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Mon, 01 May 2017 10:02:00 +0000

Running a successful business with your soulmate has always been idyllic and intriguing for me. I always used to wonder how couples strike a balance between their personal and professional lives, especially when they are together all the time. In fact, working together helps determine your mutual career destinies, instead of spending many hours apart, working for someone else. This inspired me to speak to some wonderful couples across India, who planned to be partners in crime in everything, and decided to build a meaningful life together by co-creating something that brings them joy and fulfillment. However, this interaction about their journeys brought some key takeaways for me.

Be on the same page

Keen alignment and shared vision are the keys to success for any business. Though couples share a level of intimacy and friendship, it is important that they are aligned on their career vision and their life goals too. Because only then will both of them be able to do justice with the enterprise.

Define your roles and responsibilities

Since with couple-preneurs, the line between personal and business gets very blurred, it is very important to sit down, critically analyse each others area of interest, their forte and accordingly define their roles and responsibilities. If one of them is managing operations, then the better half would manage marketing. This not only avoids day to day conflicts, but also empowers both of their decision-making power. This usually brought out the best in them, and also saved them from stepping into the other’s shoes. Having said that, though both of them can discuss the intricacies of their responsibilities but the other person should not question the final decision of the owner to keep the productivity flowing.

However, as the business grows and phases in both personal and professional life change, it is indeed a good practice to revisit each others’ roles, because here both of their lives are closely knitted, any change anywhere can have larger impact. It is a popular saying that “competition and resentment are the most common between the people who are close to each other, for rest we usually don’t care much.

Maintain work-life (and love) balance

It is very important to keep a check on how your business decisions are impacting your personal life. Either it can do wonders, or wreck everything. It is important to keep experimenting to see what works well for you as a couple, and how a decision can reinforce your love for each other, because something that has worked for one, needn’t work for everyone. Since as a couple, onus lies on individuals, their circumstances, best way is to figure the ways that works well amongst you. One way could be e.g.- Keep a weekly review meeting where-in both of you can brainstorm your ideas, startup strategies etc. However, do keep in mind, never ever discuss work over dinner table or carry work to home. It is more important to finish of the tasks in office rather than bringing them home.

Keep changing roles

Both at home or workplace, pretend as if you are not working together or vice-versa Eg- While he/she is home, pretend the way you have been, if he/she has come back from work, asking their regular routine in nut shell etc. And while they are in office, pretend they are your colleagues, and behave in the same manner.

Be kind, understanding and respectful.

Marriage is one relationship, which calls for lot of trust, understanding and mutual respect. Absence of any of these, the whole institution falls flat. It is very important to make sure that both of you respect each other. Since here lives are way too inter-wined, conflicts are bound to happen. It is important to handle them respectfully and keeping each other’s priorities in mind and supporting it as well.

Celebrate!

Do not miss to celebrate the milestones of your unique life journeys together. Make sure you sneak out time to celebrate even smallest success of your enterprise amongst yourselves and make each other realize that they have been instrumental in this success.

For me, it is more like being married to your work, and at the same time getting the chance to spend quality time with your spouse. This unique partnership, lets you explore the other side of your spouse, which would not have been possible in the absence of this plunge. This journey is always special and bring lot of perks with itself, as they say “No risk, No gain”.

- Prachi Garg

Prachi Garg is the author of ‘Superwomen’, a collection of journeys from 20 women entrepreneurs and Supercouples. She is also a serial entrepreneur, after failing miserably in her first start-up "Managing Minds", she started "Ghoomophiro.com", which is a pioneer in organising corporate travel and have recently extended to solo women travel.

Random Thoughts: Studying History

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 19:27:00 +0000

Studying history is as difficult, discrete, vague and confusing as writing it. Difficult, because crosschecking each and every event/narrative through independent sources ain't easy. Discrete, as there's no way to find each and every event up the timeline and hence the very nature of discreteness of data available is an irremediable timeline bug. Vague, mostly because historians sketch past characters based on their info and bias. Seeking the truth is often so demanding and confusing that many scholars and students of history do end up concluding “History as a myth, a work of fiction”. This is unfortunate. To me, an electronics engineer once, this is like my prof rubbing an entire Root-Locus derivation cum graph in z/s –plane just because I forgot to use spirule, irrespective of what ȥ, ɷ_n, T, and Ƙ values I got.

Yes, studying history is prop. to good citizenship!

Next time, before you start getting offended by the scripts of Sanjay Leela Bhansali or Ashutosh Gowarikar, better remember the fact that a historical period drama or a period narration that you tend to watch is a myth, seeking its background from history. History is usually defined by the factual narration of events along the timeline. However, recording events as per the timeline is a hell of work seldom done. For instance, time and again, partition has widely been the focal point of study for every South Asian historian. Nehru, Jinnah, Britishers have been largely blamed for the entire fiasco, while the role of Liaquat Ali khan, his Hindu-hate campaigns @AMU, Savarakar's open hate speeches and Ambedkar's support to distribute land based on caste, creed and religion (to some extent) that led Jinnah and Congress perceive two-nation theory as happening were kept behind the curtain in most of their research books. The birth of Muslim league, Hindu Mahasabha later and hate speeches by their prominent leaders actually set the tone of partition and provided apt context to Nehru, Mountbatten and Jinnah to fall for it. That's true, contexts/situations equally matter as decisions do. Separating both does not tame history but unleash author's bias towards the topic/person. Here, it's also worth noting that narratives are not meant to offend but compel others to present counter view.

Yes, hisory is close to an open diary of records than opening a closed book

History is certainly not about writing some concluding remarks but bringing all the contexts together that lead an event occur. This is extremely important as narrating an event is not always the same as it should be. Author Julian Barnes argues: “History isn’t an exact narration of events that one witnessed, but the narration one ended up remembering.” There comes the aberration, and today's columnists, historians and scholars take this liberty to explore the aberration further, confusing students by drawing the macro figure while conveniently neglecting/ignoring minute details that often help understand context.”

Disparaging someone’s entire work owing to some counter facts that says otherwise indicates the lack of right approach, a reader must have while studying history. Questioning is the only way to study history. Yet, belittling one's the entire content without getting it crosschecked from other verified source is simply not the right way of questioning. In case, we don’t have ample of independent sources to verify the events occurred in a particular timeline. We must keep it open. That’s one way to study and the right way too.

And yes, I don’t go by the narrations that are written just to fill the missing part of history; I better enjoy reading them like I did Mira & Mahatma.

How Trumpophobia is Killing Media!

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Sat, 11 Feb 2017 07:28:00 +0000

Is Journalism about narrating a fact or ‘actuating’ a narration? Is a Journalist supposed to be bellicose and heuristic when comes to fighting against the establishment? To simplify the mantra, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, one of the most acclaimed journalists had once opined, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”

The adamant equation between Donald J. Trump, its administration and media at large is no secret affair but is obnoxious to the limit of unleashing chaos among people. The hate mongering tweets and articles from both the ends have instilled a world of ‘alternative’ facts in almost everyone’s mind. This didn’t start from the inauguration but had its roots sowed much earlier.

@JacoH: @CNN @realDonaldTrump I can't believe how low CNN can go. Obviously a bunch of Killary fans." @CNN only says negative-bad reporters
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2015

And, recently

Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017

The failing @nytimes was forced to apologize to its subscribers for the poor reporting it did on my election win. Now they are worse!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 7, 2017

Talking about the crowd size during Trump’s inauguration, in a series of false and tall claims Trump said, “It was a highest ever gathering (inauguration)”. On the other hand, disparaging the moments of maximum gathering during the hours long event, MSMs showed the crowd size of Trump’s inauguration taken at 11.04AM or some other time. However, the event noted its maximum footfall only by 12.09PM.

Image Courtesy: Vox

Comparing the crowds at Donald Trump’s and Barack Obama’s inaugurations https://t.co/U4dIVzCKbH pic.twitter.com/zf8hxVDMpO
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 20, 2017

New York Times' clarification that both images were taken 45 minutes before the Oath ceremony is misleading and can’t reciprocate the actual crowd size in either case. An esteemed newspaper is not supposed to do a ‘Jon Stewart’ by publishing/highlighting only parts of the story.

To be precise, crowd ‘size’ comparison holds true for the largest of both the timelines, Trump’s as well as Obama’s oath events. The science of the scientific comparison had its ifs and buts.Being contumacious media is undoubtedly a courageous act. However, at a point when people’s faith in media is at all time low the need-of-the-hour is to bring forth factually correct information.

Once empowered with the ultimate presidency powers, Trump left no time in exercising it and soon passed a bundle of executive orders. Travel ban was one of them. The very next day, The New York Times editorial read ‘Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban Is Cowardly and Dangerous’. Similar were the headlines and approach of MSMs across the world. Trump’s executive order barred entry into US from seven countries — Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Calling it a Muslim ban is bizarre and illogical as there are over 40 countries in the world where Muslims live predominantly. Technically, the executive order affects 200 million Muslims which constitute only 11.4% of the entire Muslim population. Not only that, media failed to see beyond the Muslims, the problems of minorities living there — knowing the fact that minorities have no voice in democracy.

Joseph Pulitzer once said, “The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.” However, if such is the journalism standard, media is in no position to complain, better or worse.

The point is — irrespective of how insidious Trump is — media must keep its facts checked!
Read here

Pakistan: The Making of a Rogue Nation

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Wed, 05 Oct 2016 16:07:00 +0000

Published in Swarajya.

Read the word – ‘Pakistan’ – what pops up in your mind? To me, it is ‘a rogue nation’.

Recently, taking a note of the Kashmir unrest, Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan nominated his 22 parliamentarians as special envoys to visit major countries across the world and rake up Indian atrocities and human rights abuses in Kashmir. ‘An attempt to appease the disgruntled parliamentarians by sending them on a world tour’ couldn’t hide behind the Kashmir curtain, but became a laughing stock as the parliamentarians when asked about Mehbooba Mufti, Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, State's ethnicity and map on a live show were mum asking, “Who is Mehbooba?” The Prime Minister in fact went on to address the United Nations General Assembly 2016 with Kashmir as their main agenda, another attempt to divert the immediate public attention from core issues, such as water and energy crisis, and most importantly, the Panama leaks, Sharif’s latest dilemma.

Home to the world’s most wanted terrorists, Pakistan is one of the biggest victims of terrorism too. According to an Amnesty International report, Pakistan is one of the world's five worst countries witnessing the highest number of human rights violations. However, Pakistan, on international platforms, continues to be garrulous on Kashmir, but boorish towards Baloch, Gilgit and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir issues. The country is hopping on its endless animosity with India; compels me to raise the point – what’s wrong with the nation?

Besides sponsoring terrorism since 1947, as part of its foreign policy, Pakistan is obstinate, keeping public affairs, unresolved and unaddressed and leaving its origin – vague, weak, gloomy and tense that otherwise could have played a crucial role in pushing the nation forward.

The Genesis of Pakistan

Stability comes from the identity – who you are? The tragedy of Pakistan is the more one reads about the country, the more confused he/she becomes. This is precisely because of the blatant lies, spoken in media and purposely written in their textbooks. The story of the genesis of Pakistan in the state textbooks is no different.

The 36 years of direct military rule not only weakened the very existence of the civic society but in its quest to define the ideology of Pakistan and justify the genesis for a greater cause, Pakistan Army-led curriculum has gone to the extent of writing a fiction with some facts hanging here and there, and later declared the text as the ‘History of Pakistan’. ‘Pathological liars’ as the eminent political scientist and a Professor at Center for Peace and Security Studies, within Georgetown University Christine Fair prefers to call, Pakistan didn’t stop here, but blended the content with Islam and Arabic culture while omitted their real past -- their Indian origin -- snubbing the fact that the world is watching them.

Precisely, like their strategic failures at wars, this too damaged the country’s image all around.

Eminent Pakistani Historian & a Professor at Tufts University, Ayesha Jalal recalls, “During Musharraf’s regime, there were some sincere efforts of reforms. It took five years to revise and rewrite the entire history books for class 5-9. And, when the books were sent to me for review purposes, clearly the confusion was very much present there. The very first line was, “We want to teach our students analytical history and make our students good Muslims.”

Having understood the recursive mindset, she disassociated herself from the project, “The point is if you want to teach history, teach history, not Islam.” Her intent was pretty clear. “Don’t bring religion into it.”

Hasan Nisar, Pakistan’s leading anthropologist and Journalist said, “One of the most blatant lies propagated in Pakistan is the very idea of Pakistan. The books don’t discuss the glorious civilisations of Mohenjodaro and the Indus Valley, their social system in which KPK and Sindh played prominent roles.”

According to their textbooks, History of Pakistan begins with 871AD, as the Islam enters Indian subcontinent. Irony is, they have used the word ‘Pakistan’s Kingdom’ instead of Mugal’s. The books are so confusing that many of the countrymen call themselves as descendants of infamous barbarians Ahmed Shah Abdali, Bin Qasim, Mughals and Taymor Lung. The books make them believe that they have ruled India, Bangladesh and other countries for 1000 years. And, they are here to rule.

“Islam which should have been the sociological reality became an abstraction”, said Jalal.

Nisar in his talk show averred, “The truth is, we are Aryans like most of the Indians, and that’s a fact. We are nowhere associated with the Arabs. We have nothing in common.”

Pakistan, once a cradle of civilization became a buffoon of pseudo-nationalists.

The troublesome fiasco of partition could have been avoided, had Jinnah followed Maulana Madani and not Allama Iqbal! Though, Iqbal never clearly asked for a separate nation for Muslims but separate provinces under the federal governance. This was his idea of Pakistan.

Ayesha in her book ‘The struggle for Pakistan: a Muslim homeland and global politics’ observed, “The fact that two-nation theory was anything but far from solving the minority issues. The issues have in fact aggravated it.”

In many books, it is said that Pakistan was born because Muslims and Hindus never wanted to live together. The statement was actually made by various leaders of All India Muslim League and some Indian National Congress Leaders to make way for the partition. Nisid Hajari author of Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition elucidated, “Islam or religion was never the reason behind the two nation theory, but a medium infused later, to achieve the goals of various parties/personalities. The partition was, in fact, a part and parcel of the thin skins of Nehru and Jinnah.” Venkat Dhulipala, Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and Visiting Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, too supported the claim, “Muhammad Ali Jinnah, an atheist used Islam as a mere bargaining chip, keeping the idea of Pakistan vague. A major part of the Muslim community had, in fact, disagreed with the idea, but lacked a separate voice as top leaders were in prison following the Quit India movement.”

This was nowhere a ‘victory’, as described in Pakistan but just a bitter truth, untold in Pakistani books. Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad who later became the first Education Minister of Independent India had rejected factual myths circling around the ‘two nation theory' in 1946, "Jinnah was an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. Till 1937, he did not favour the demand to partition India. In his message to various student bodies, he stressed the need to work for Hindu-Muslim unity. But he felt aggrieved when the Congress formed governments in seven states and ignored the Muslim League. In 1940 he decided to pursue the partition demand to check Muslim political decline. In short, the demand for Pakistan is his response to his own political experiences. As a politician, he has worked overtime to fortify Muslim communalism and the demand for Pakistan. Now it has become a matter of prestige for him and he will not give it up at any cost.”

Narendra Singh Sarila, in his book Shadow of the great game: the untold story of partition, however, pointed out, “As early as March 1945, Churchill and British staff decided that the partition was necessary for strategic reasons. They deliberately set out to create Pakistan because Jinnah had promised to provide military facilities and Nehru had refused to do so. This is key to understanding why Pakistan is so dysfunctional. It’s an artificial political entity. The British put together five ethnic groups that never before coexisted. The Bengalis were biggest. They outnumbered all the other four combined – the Punjabis, the Pashtuns, the Sindhis and the Baloch.”

Pakistan got the freedom by paying little. The Bengalis who paid the maximum cost were kept at bay when it came to the participation in federal governance. There was no ideology left for the nation. The self-proclaimed Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah himself advocated for a secular nation but didn’t take any step to set up any drafting committee to write/frame the constitution. The 1935 British rule was very much followed till 1956. As soon as, the constitution came into existence, the State declared itself as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The minorities which were 23% of the population began to decline and today, they constitute less than 4% of the entire population.

A major chunk of animosity with India is derived from history and media reports. This can be set aloof by simply correcting history books and reports, narrating facts from both the sides. This includes the positives of the other side too. For e.g. People of Pakistan are not aware of the fact that It was Gandhi who entitled Jinnah by Quaid-e-Azam. Ayesha in her interview with Rawal TV also dissertated that Gandhi was killed because of the fact that he extended his support (Went on a fast to force the Indian government to give Rs55Crore to Pakistan) to the Pakistani people, just as another human being.

Lies of the ‘Wars’ and the ‘Insecurity’

The Pakistan Army and so their federal government has been continuously selling the idea of ‘Insecurity from India' among their voters, giving the defense the top most priority while education and health like critical issues, last. Blending the same with nationalism, they have continuously fooled the people for the last 70 years.

Christine Fair, in her book ‘Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War’ stated, “Pakistan is locked in an enduring rivalry with India since 1947, ostensibly over Kashmir. Started and failed three wars over Kashmir -1947-48, 1965 and 1999; having lost more than half of its territory to India in 1971 war, the strategy of coercion through Islamist terrorist proxies since 1947 failed and backfired since – 2002.” Who should be more insecure – India or Pakistan? India has not only been attacked by Pakistan four times, but by China too. As far as, India is concerned, it doesn’t only nurture its neighbours like Bangladesh, Nepal or Bhutan, but in the case of LTTE terrorism in Sri Lanka, India had deployed its own army – four divisions nearly 80,000 men with one mountain and three Infantry Divisions at Sri Lankan ground.

Thus, the idea of ‘Insecurity from India’ falls flat. Back in 1999, when Kargil war happened, such was the pseudo-nationalism of Pakistan’s army that they didn’t even come forward to claim the dead bodies of their soldiers. Captain Sher Khan, one of their soldiers fought so bravely that an Indian army officer wrote to their State admin asking to award the captain posthumously. He was later awarded by Nishan-e-Haider Pakistan. However, hundreds of Pakistani soldiers didn’t meet the same fate.

Pakistan till date continues to blame India for their 1971 defeat, the State never took notice of the brutality of Pakistan Army, which killed over 15-30 lacs Bengalis, raped almost 20 lacs women there. Figures vary but it doesn’t deter the fact of the matter that widespread genocide took place. No commission, rapists walked out free; no one was ever tried for the war crimes. Courts were not allowed to revisit the basic question that led to the birth of Bangladesh – why Sheikh Mujibur Rahman -- who later became the first PM of Bangladesh -- despite having the majority wasn’t allowed to form the government in 1970? This led to the partition of Pakistan in 1971. However, in Pakistani textbooks, there is hardly any mention of the brutal murders and rapes. In contrast, the books claim it was India provoked, and because of the Hindu-Muslim divide. The books don’t mention the fact it was Pakistani Air Force that launched a pre-emptive strike on eleven airfields in north-western India, first.

Pakistan ‘state’ has been continuously and successfully perpetuating the lies among their media and books. First, they either won all the wars against India or were on the verge of winning when India went to the UN begging for the ceasefire. For e.g. On 16 December 1971, Lieutenant General A. K. Niazi, Commander of Pakistani forces along with his 93000 men surrendered to Indian Army, the very next day, Dawn, Pakistan’s national newspaper front page headline was ‘War Till Victory’; similar was the headline of other newspapers. They were never told about the defeat, not in 1948, 1965 or 1971. People were never told the fact that it was Pakistan who attacked first, in all the wars.

The Kashmir Impasse

The South Asian region could have been the new EU, has Pakistan overcome the Kashmir impasse! After researching for decades in Pakistan, Christine in her book, ‘Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War’ set the score once and for all, “Pakistan has no legal ground over Kashmir.”

“I don’t understand their hypocrisy. Today, every Pakistani calls Kashmir, a UN subject matter, but it was Pakistan then, in 1948 which refused to accept the resolution. The very first step of the resolution is that Pakistan has to remove its military from PoK.”

Jammu & Kashmir was a free state till 1947, as it did not accept to merge with either Pakistan or India. However, on October 22, 1947, Pakistan attacked J&K, calling the same as an unofficial tribal invasion. Dr Shabir Choudhry, Director-Institute of Kashmir Affairs, London writes in his book ‘Tribal Invasion and Kashmir: Pakistani attempts to capture Kashmir’, “The tribal invasion was a contentious and significant action, because of its serious consequences; and because it clearly violated the standstill agreement concluded between Pakistan and Raja Hari Singh, the King of J&K. Furthermore, it resulted in death and destruction of thousands of people.” Owing to the attack, Raja Hari Singh agreed to the accession of J&K to India. However, Pakistani army never left the land they won which later termed as Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir. This was the reason that India went the UN.

Shabir who belongs to Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir wrote, “The Tribal invasion was the beginning of the animosity, divisions and other problems between India and Pakistan.”

However, common people in Pakistan have an understanding that Kashmir was either a Pakistani state or on the verge of becoming one, but in 1947 it was India which attacked and took over the land.

The Baloch Crisis

Historically, Baluchistan is a region shared and surrounded by Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. 1666 onwards, the state Baluchistan was either independent or semi-independent. In fact, on August 14, 1947, after having a series of meetings among Pakistan’s Governor-General Jinnah, Baluch/Kalat’s Khan and the British Viceroy Mountbatten, Jinnah stated, “The Government of Pakistan recognizes Kalat as an independent sovereign state in treaty relations with the British Government with a status different from that of Indian States. b. Legal opinion will be sought as to whether or not agreements of leases will be inherited by the Pakistan Government. c. Meanwhile, a Standstill Agreement has been made between Pakistan and Kalat. d. Discussions will take place between Pakistan and Kalat at Karachi at an early date with a view to reaching decisions on Defence, External Affairs and Communications.”

However, the state got vanished from the map of earth on April 1, 1948, owing to the rising threat from Pakistan; Khan of Kalat agreed to merge his state with Pakistan. This was again the violation of the 1947 India-partition Act, as the Baluchistan assembly had rejected the idea of merging with Pakistan. It is said that signature of Khan was taken under the gunpoint. Since then, there came the Baloch insurgency or also known as the Independent revolution of Baluchistan that was at its peak during 1973-1977, when 45,000 Baloch tribesmen fought against the 70,000 men of Pakistani Army. Over 15,000 people have been either killed or made disappeared. Zohra Yusuf, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), accused, “Balochistan has been made a fertile place for armed religious extremists under a plan and as a result about 300,000 Shias, Zikris, and Hindus have migrated to other areas of the country.”

Pakistan’s textbooks don’t mention the ethnic history of Baluchistan, nor the forceful merger. In contrast, it has been accusing Indian intelligence Wing RAW’s involvement in the rising insurgency. Former American Af-Pak envoy Richard Holbrooke clarified, “while Pakistan had repeatedly shared its allegations with Washington, it had failed to provide any evidence to the United States that India was involved in separatist movements in Balochistan.” Pakistan’s recent Kulbhushan Yadav six minutes’ video clip as evidence against India’s involvement was found doctored with sound bites cut and edited 208 times.

‘A Nuclear Threat’

Pakistan is the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. And, for many reasons, it is widely perceived as the cockpit of terrorism. Bruce O. Riedel, a former CIA officer and one of America's leading experts on U.S. security, South Asia, and counter-terrorism explained ‘the Pak’s Nuke threat’ while speaking to the press, “July 4, 1999, there was a decisive meeting between President Clinton and Nawaz Sharif. Earlier, during the president’s daily brief – the CIA had informed the president that Pakistan was arming its nuclear weapon against India. It was one of the seminal moments of his presidency. There was a very real possibility that if he could not persuade now Nawaz Sharif to back down, India might escalate the war and Pakistan would respond with a nuclear blast. We were very close to a nuclear war.”

On Mumbai attack, Veteran Pakistani Journalist and Editor-in-chief of The Friday Times Najam Sethi, in his TV Talk Show Aapas Ki Baat revealed, “The attacks happened because President Zardari that time wanted to be at peace with India, but in the process he didn’t take the army generals in confidence. Pakistani Army wanted to sabotage.” However, the justification given to the Jihadis is that Islam is in danger; a justification once was given to the Islamic states to help develop the tactical nuke weapons.

Once a quaint nation for US, Pakistan is now home to the Taliban terrorists/Haqqani Networks and hence has lost its relevance for many, including US. As taught in Pakistan’s military textbooks, ‘Jihad is a holy way of bringing revolution.’ The Pakistan Army which usually decides the age of democratic governance in Islamabad has given nukes a preference over conventional war. Former Army General and President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf said, “If ever our existence comes under threat, do we have nukes saved to be used on Shab-e-Baraat?”

Civic Revolution Ahead?

Pakistan is very often compared with India. On the same page on 1947, both the states headed in quite different directions. While Indians, to their credit had one of the most powerful constitutions in the world, Pakistan confused with its identity, never actually got its freedom because of the military coups and dynasties domination. India too, had Nehru-Gandhi dynasty power at the centre, however, it could never dictate the democracy. Indira Gandhi who enforced infamous ‘emergency' in 1977, got defeated the very next year. Indian civic society is inexplicit, yet sophisticated enough to allow all kinds of spaces to develop -- left, right or centre. This was the scene in 1947, so is today. For every delinquency be it, ‘Akhlaq’, cow-slaughtering or sins by cow protectors or Indian Army, the civic society retaliates and forces the government to take a stance unlike the Pakistan’s whose majority of scholars reside outside the country either by choice or by exile.

As I am writing this, on TV, I could see the protests being led by PoK Journalist, Shabir Choudhry, against the bloodshed happening in PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan. The latest Amnesty International report 2016 is out; clearly, Pakistan once again scored as one of the top 10 countries witnessing the most human rights violations. Amnesty reported, “As executions resumed, Pakistan displayed a gross disregard for civilian lives, forcing thousands to flee. Religious minorities continued to face discrimination, persecution and targeted attacks; Human rights activists experienced harassment and abuse.”

The report also noted that Pakistan has remained one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists as targeted attacks, including killings, by armed groups.

However, for a country like Pakistan where the army has a State, these symptoms are manageable, as they don’t matter to the army. A nuclear paradox, Pakistan is swinging between democracy and military autocracy. Stephen Cohen, American political scientist & Professor of security studies, University of Illinois said while speaking on ‘Securities in South Asia’, “Pakistan is a paranoid state, and a paranoid society at large.” More or less, this reflects the western opinion. In a country where, right from history to the hysteria of religion, the decision maker at the helm made a mess at every hook and corner, Gustav Ranis, a Frank Altschul Professor of Emeritus International Economics-Yale University prefers to call “Pakistan, a failed state; Regardless of who takes over, Pakistan continues to teeter on non-governability.”

Isolated from all around, the country that needed some serious introspection is still going by the same-old escape route by adopting blame-game. The ‘excessive lies’ have weakened the state’s civic society and have made the NRPs, hostile.

A State that is manipulative to the state of self-suicidal; only a ‘civic’ revolution will lead to a fresh start.

-----

Refs

Madani-Iqbal debate over pluralism

The struggle for Pakistan: a Muslim homeland and global politics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: By Ayesha Jalal

The struggle for Pakistan: a Muslim homeland and global politics: By Ayesha Jalal

Avoiding Armageddon: America, India and Pakistan to the Brink and Back: by Bruce Riedel

Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War: By Christine Fair

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: The Man Who Knew The Future Of Pakistan Before Its Creation

Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition: By Nisid Hajari

Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India: By Venkat Dhulipala

Kashmir and Partition of India: Dr. Shabir Choudhry

Tribal Invasion and Kashmir: Pakistani attempts to capture Kashmir in 1947: Dr. Shabir Choudhry

The Baloch and Balochistan: A historical account from the Beginning to the fall of the State: By Naseer Dashti

How Balochistan became a part of Pakistan – a historical perspective?

The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalism: By Frédéric Grare

She Walks, She Leads

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 15:17:00 +0000

Book: She Walks, She Leads

Published By: Penguin Random House India

Author: Gunjan Jain

ISBN: 978-0670088850

Genre: Non-Fiction

NR Narayana Murthy is counted as one of the 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time (Ref. Forbes); Mukesh Ambani, undeniably is the richest person in the country, but how many of us are aware of the achievements of Sudha Murty and Nita Ambani? Sudha Murty is not only one of the most successful and accomplished authors but also the woman behind the genesis of Infosys. Nita Ambani is handling a number of portfolios successfully, but often gets discredited. Chanda Kochhar, Kiran Mazumdar, Anamika Khanna, Anu Aga, Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Saina Nehwal are some of the stars who have set new standards in their respective fields, be it business growth, corporate governance, fashion designing, acting/entertainment and sports. Written by debutant author Gunjan Jain, 'She Walks, She Leads' offers brief glimpses of the lives of 24 extraordinary Indian/NRI women, set to inspire its readers. The book has covered almost all their aspects—relationship, leadership, philanthropy, parenthood, childhood, marriage, dark clouds and more; thanks to the author, reading them is like entering the persons' portion of lives and taking a part of it.

Starting with Nita Dalal, a Bharatnatyam dancer in her childhood, the author has successfully delineated the making of Nita Ambani, an educationist, philanthropist, environmentalist and sporting woman. Interestingly, her unknown love life, Mukesh’s proposal in the middle of a traffic jam on Bombay's Arterial Peddar road. Hardly does anyone know, Nita has planted over 3.4 million trees over the 2500 acres area; she chairs DAIS, an international school that provides quality education to over 15000 children. To her credit, there is much more...

Included in their topsy-turvy memoirs are some titillating stories that will surely help you understand and decode their success. For e.g. during Sudha Murty's wedding, the bride and groom split the cost which was Rs. 800. An IISc Alumnus, Sudha went on to write to JRD Tata against Tata's policy 'to hire male engineers only'. Tata not only changed their policy but hired her for a Researcher profile.

It was Sudha's savings that became the capital of Infosys, then.

I am 5ft 4in tall. I come from a lower-middle-class family. I can never be rich. You are beautiful and intelligent. You can get anyone you want. But will you marry me?

- NR Murthy to Sudha

To me, the most interesting and inspiring was reading Kiran Mazumdar Shaw who earned her master’s degree in Malting and Brewing from University of Melbourne, Australia. “But, back in India, the greatest challenge that Kiran faced in the brewing industry of the 70s was that no employer was ready to hire a woman for a job that involved running the brewery, handling labour unions and late nights at the plant. Kiran even approached Vittal Mallya, Vijay’s father-Chairman of UB. He told her, “It’s difficult to give you a job; this is a man’s work.”

“I had to take on the challenge.” Kiran was up against many barriers, as she started going about setting up the business in the garage of her rented house in Bangalore with a seed capital of Rs10,000; a 3000sqft shed nearby served a factory.

The book has many moments to trigger its readers, delving into the lives of Shabana Azmi, Mary Kom, Indu Jain, Shobhana Bhartia, Ritu Kumar, Anamika Khanna and many Sheros, as SRK calls them. Some are hilarious, some are comic. Yes, 'Aishwarya Rai' was one name that I missed.

In Conversation With Gunjan Jain

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 15:11:00 +0000

Gunjan Jain, Author-She Walks, She Leads

Delving deep into the lives of India's most successful women, including Nita Ambani, Sudha Murty, Indu Jain, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Yasmeen Premji, Sania Mirza, Priyanka Chopra, Mary Kom, Chanda Kochar and Mira Nair and more, Gunjan Jain, the author of 'She Walks, She Leads' brings forth the stories of achievement to trigger both the younger and older audience. "While the specifics of every achiever will always be different, the overall lessons we learn are bound by common values", says Gunjan in an email interview. Excerpts...

This is your debut novel and what a grand launch it had! How does it feel?

It feels very special for me! I have been consumed by this book for the last three years. First, of course by the whole writing process and then last few months it was all about the launch. I wanted everything to be perfect and it was even better, so yes I am enjoying the afterglow.

There are a number of books on women biz entrepreneurs, market leaders, sportswomen ...but when it comes to connecting all, from different verticals, I can’t recall any single Indian book. What inspired you to write this book?

Precisely what you just said…the fact that there was nothing like it that had already been written. The way I look at it, successful people do have some common traits or values. Yes, the approach needs to be tweaked depending on the demands of the field one is in, but there are many traits that remain the same. For instance, Anamika Khanna does not have a formal fashion degree but today, she is one of the top names in fashion. Similarly, Anu Aga does not have a business degree, but when the times demanded it, she was able to successfully steer Thermax towards the position of strength it is at today. One did it because it was her passion; the other did it because it was the need of the day. Different fields, different ages, different backgrounds…the common thread is the self-belief.

How long did it take to write the book? Did you have/set any time frame for writing this book?

From the time I first conceptualized the book to the day, it was published took about three years. Three years of 20-hours long working days! No, I had not really set any deadline or timeframe purely because this was my first book. I was learning as I went along but yes there was something inside me that was constantly pushing me to drive in the 5th gear.

Deciding the present format/style...

I let my instincts guide me as much as possible in terms of deciding on the style. It was a conscious decision to keep the style across all profiles. As mentioned earlier, there is no common thread binding the women in terms of age, profession, background, etc so the common format ensures cohesiveness across the narratives.

Challenges that you faced while researching their lives…

The biggest challenge, of course, was to unearth something new about these women because they are already so popular and there is so much information about them out there. This was largely achieved by talking to their near and dear ones as they brought in a lesser known perspective to the stories.

Then, of course managing the research was a gargantuan task. I accumulated piles and piles of it which I had to sift through, and decide what to retain and what to leave out. That was heartbreaking!

Best piece(s) of advice for writers trying to break in?

Write every day.

Don’t give up because it feels tough.

Get your coffee source in place before you start.

Any plan to write vol. II?

Much as I admire the achievements of these women and so many others who are breaking boundaries every day, I don’t see a sequel of She Walks, She Leads on the horizon. I have not written this book to eulogise these 24 women, the idea is to glean inspiration through their lives. While the specifics of every achiever will always be different, the overall lessons we learn are bound by common values.

What’s next? Would you like to step into the fictional writing?

I have started the ground work on my next book and will talk about that in due time.

At this point, I don’t have any plans on writing fiction. I think I will always be a non-fiction writer; it’s also always been my preferred genre for reading. I feel that my sensibilities are geared towards non-fiction. But, you know what they say- never say, never!

Favorites – Book, movie, place, hobby and sport.

Book – Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg; Movie – Shawshank Redemption; Hobby – Travelling and Yoga; Place – London; Sport - Tennis and Swimming

The Sense of an Ending

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 12:51:00 +0000

Reviews are mostly done immediately after the product's use/consumption; however, in the case of books (fiction), I usually do after three months of the read, only if it keeps popping up somewhere in a corner of my mind. Written by Julian Barnes, winner of the Man Booker Prize 2011, The Sense of an Ending is one such, a bit boring, but worth to your attention.

To keep its complexity as simple as possible, Julian has made Tony Webster, a common man in his sixties who has never done anything wrong to anyone (this is what he thinks), a protagonist; Adrian his friend, a hero in the background story and Tony's ex-girlfriend Veronica who later turns to be the wife of Adrian, an equally strong character in the book. They have common friends – Alex and Colin.

Let's stop beating around the bush, the book is not about its characters, but its prose, written masochistically. With a punchline in the starting paragraph, “[Thinking about some incident] This is not something that you actually saw, but what you end up remembering, and that isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.” The style, logic and message seem to be the whole and soul of the book, not the messengers. So, my advice; don’t go for the characters and their connectivity with the story. After all, who will be obsessed about a letter addressed to Webster even after 40 years? I found it bizarre. The plot was so weak that I too had a feeling, “Am I just wasting my time?”

On page no. 32, Tony: “If you want to make people pay attention to what you’re saying, you don’t want to raise your voice but lower it: this is what really commands attention.” Alas! The approach has almost killed the messenger in order to pay attention to the logic. Tony, the protagonist himself is so dull and vague that as a reader I could nowhere found myself eager to delve into his philosophies of life and beyond.

However, the question that keeps you engrossed is, “what is the sense of ending?” Forget euthanasia, the entire human society/media has always perceived a person fragile and weak who commits suicide, what if it’s not, what if s/he does because of the “sense of an ending” where s/he has nothing left to explore?

In a conversation with noted Indian author Ashwin Sanghi, he questioned the authenticity of history, “The very first book on Chanakya was actually written 900 yrs after his death.” Julian clarifies, “We need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.” And, defines, “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”

And, then redefines,

History is not about the lies of victors, but the memories of survivors.

Adrian, the most logical and profound character commits suicide while Tony survives to tell the tale which he didn’t know. Later, he came to know that Adrian had written a letter to him unfolding, “The sense of ending.” Tony who was feeling nostalgic owing to the powerful recollection of strong emotions – and regret that such feelings were no longer present in his life – then pleads himself guilty, ever read that letter?

What was written in the letter? Does it make you read the entire book?

Scales of Injustice

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 06:59:00 +0000

Mused with #whataboutery fact-sheets, I wonder -- why do media hype only few cases viz. Aylan Kurdi, Nirbhya, Akhlaq and some others, particularly when the world witnesses such cases almost everyday. Hypocrisy?

Remember the case of Thangjam Manorama? How many prime time slots were attributed to the poor lady's case? How many arrests and award returns (except one Padma Shree by Binodini Devi) were made in that case? Take Kerala's recent one. You won't see any prime time debate. However, almost all the prime time slots covered Nirbhaya case weeks after weeks. These weren't political.

Disparities in the news coverage on the basis of regions and religions aren't new, but now so obvious that we choose it to ignore. Thousands in Syria and neighbouring countries have lost their lives due to ISIS attacks. However, it was Alan Kurdi's case that helped end Kobanî attacks in August 2015.

Disparities are undeniably because of 1) the TRP estimates that further result into ROI 2) the absence of good reporters in the less happening cities/states and some other concurrent issues. Having said that in a world where everything, be it emotional sentiment or else is to be measured in 140 characters only, people go for adjectives. And, when it comes to the scale of injustice, words seldom suffice the emotional requirements.

This is where, come the Nirbhaya, Aylan Kurdi and Akhlaq, new standards to measure one's pain, suffering or calamity... similar to the other systems of measurement -- MKS, FPS, CGS and SI.

Eventually, you get to know -- how to express the pain and anguish in 140 or fewer characters -- @k^^n: Kerala suffers a Nirbhaya

Strings...

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Sat, 21 May 2016 06:03:00 +0000

'Don't confuse peace with quiet!' There is a big difference. Quiet has strings and so has the killings! The strings that have been haunting the countrymen since independence...

*****

There have been some BJP/RSS supporters killings in Bihar and Kerala. In some other states, it's the other way around. The scenario is getting more local, ruled by the local mob. 'Kamlesh Tiwari' and 'Akhlaq' cases simply suggest that caste and religion are just part of the strings. The recent 20 deaths in Haryana too, were part of the mob injustice.

The PAT-RIOT takes it to another level. This also questions SC's monitoring capabilities.

Let's not deny, there is a growing dogmatism.

Unverified Pamphlets and letters that should have been brought in the notice to Dean and VCs are now being read in Parliament.

Biased coverage from both the sections of media helped real hooligans hide behind Nationalism.

*****

As far as Afzal Guru is concerned, people must realise that Afzal Guru's conviction is just one of the lakhs of jurisdictions. The strong judgement was strictly in line with the nationalism and in spite of all the differences, we must stand by the last judgement.

We must avoid any situation that could fuel any community to do something done to Neelkanth Ganjoo. This will weaken and damage our Judicial system.

Eight Threats to Freedom of Expression

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 06:18:00 +0000

3 Idiots

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 17:24:00 +0000

There are similarities among the Dabangg, Salman Khan, the Arnab and the one & only the PM. With the big fan following, all bhakt types, the trio literally endorse, "Ek baar jo maine commitment kar di, to fir main apne aap ki bhi nhi sunta."

While it was Dabangg khan who brought this sane idea into the public domain, the holy & supreme judge Arnab has been practising the same for quite a long time now. Once he takes a stand at +The Newshour Debate, no matter how strong the other argument is, one can't help change the stand.

And...so is the curious case of ~~Benjamin~~, the Government of India, elected by us, the Countrymen. Be it, selecting a bunch of jokers like Rajyavardhan Rathore, Smriti, Arun, Mahesh etc, or tackling issues like #FTII row, Kalaam's home 2 Mahesh and so on, once it takes a decision, it doesn't listen to any countrymen.

Suffering from the musings of political-constipation, while ~~writing~~ typing the sermons & easing out in the washroom, Linkin Park had to appear to my ipod...

I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time
All I know
Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away

It's so unreal
Didn't look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Trying to hold on, but you didn't even know
I wasted it all just to watch you go
I kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me
Will eventually be a memory of a time when

I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter

--------

The TWITTERaj

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 18:37:00 +0000

Twitter has changed India like never before! While full-time supporters are hired nowadays to sway elite Indian minds who may otherwise argue about the ground realities, twitter on an average consumes 15-20% of the operational time of all active people who are or can be decisive in the country’s development in longer run.

Twitter-Gandhis: Being slapped roz, yet alive!

Rajdeep Sardesai, among the ‘senior-twitter’ journalists tweets on ‘unfair’ Modi; gets fair trolls from bhakts led by non-other than the ‘no-bhakt’ Mediacrooks and ends up saying ‘fair enough’.
Dharna Guru Kejriwal doesn’t do dharnas anymore but does make sure to have fair trends on twitter; makes an impact among the followers and non-followers. Bhakts never let it go; do make sure their tags ranks higher…..However, Kejriwal was never interested in being a twitter-Gandhi, but a twitter-ambedkar who didn't sign any PACT.

The Alexander, Modi

He has a far bigger army on twitter than the Alexander could even think of. His hashtags trend at the top, worldwide. The true Alexander of todays' twitter world, Modi might surpass Obama soon.

The Rajya, Raja & Praja

While twitter takes care of the rules & regulations letting Raja say what he says without much resistance, the elite praja too feels their freedom of expression with every tweet. Whenever a farmer suicides, a tweet/more depending on the fan following is dedicated in the memory of the poor farmer.
Beloved Modiji says, “Twitter has turned everyone a reporter.” He is right, however I will make it more accurate – Twitter is the ‘only’ happening place – all the targets are now shown achieved only on twitter so that the educated Indians could retweet without knowing is it a fact or simply photo-shopped.
Recently, an IIT Chairman says, “we also teach engineering”, bhakts tweet – IITs will now be specialised in Tablavadan, Indian Classical Music …and Sanskara -- Surya Namaskaram. Education Minister Smritiji, yes she handles that as she has a hell of good communication skills, tweets, “We have achieved 100% target in Clean India.” Another minister: “Make In India has made it easy to invest in India like never before.” PM Narendra Modi thanks Sania Mirza on twitter for winning the Wimbledon; Congrats her for getting the Khel Ratna…blah blah.
FTII students having protested for over 100 days get their judgement on twitter, a union minister tweeted, “students are not allowed to interfere with the government’s job. They should pay attention to their own work.”

I am not sure if twitter has any correlation with East India company!

Windows 10: The Good & The Bad

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 09:17:00 +0000

'Good Job'

Following the Apple Way?

Undoing the damage done by Ballmer, Satya Nadella has shifted the MS focus back to the development that was once the core strength of the company. While Ballmer -- more interested in marketing strategies -- earlier overlooked the undervalued products, Satya, along with Gates undid the mistakes, be it Nokia's acquisition or display advertising features.

Moved towards a more coherent brand; when comes to introducing Windows 10 to its end consumers, Microsoft does an Apple.

Windows 10: The best windows ever :)
Iphone 5: The best iPhone ever

Learning from the success saga of Google Play and iTunes, the MS Store has been paid more attention than ever. Independent software installations are being discouraged but prompted through the MS store. However, the same attentions must be sought from developers too.

It will be interesting to see how does it stand out against its rivals -- Apple app store/iTunes or Google Play. Will it land up to be another 'Surface effort' by Microsoft? What do you think?

Back with Windows 7 features

The evolution of windows has been quite like a sinusoidal wave.

Let's take a look (Ref:Windowsitpro):

(Windows 1.0 released in 1985 was a success because it was the first iteration, used by many early computer enthusiasts.

Windows 2.0 released in 1987 was a success. The public was excited to see such a quick update and a multi-windowed environment.

Windows 3.0 released in 1990 was a flop, even though it was the first version to introduce backward compatibility and protected/enhanced mode, it took a 3.00a released in 1991 to make it stable.

Windows 3.1 released in 1992 was a flop due to severe bugs.

Windows 3.11 released in 1993 was a success, and introduced the first major OS to integrate networking features.

Windows NT released in 1993 and was a success due to being widely used as a server operating system, though many IT Pros used it as a workstation OS.

Windows 95 released in 1995 and was a success on many, many levels. Better multi-tasking, multi-media, the introduction of the Start menu, the Rolling Stones "Start Me Up" campaign – I could go on…

Windows 98 released in 1998 (second edition released in 1999) and could be the only product in the line that breaks the chain. Microsoft was set to end support in 2004 but had to extend that to 2006.

Windows 2000 was a success. Though labeled 2000, actually hit RTM in December of 1999.

Windows ME released in 2000 and was a flop. Windows ME seemed like an update just for update's sake.

Windows XP released in 2001 and was a success. Even today, after the end of support in April 2014, some users defiantly keep using it.

Windows Vista released in 2006 and was a flop, primarily due to bugs obtrusive new security features, and software and hardware compatibility problems.

Windows 7 released in 2009 and was a success, primarily because it was a better Windows XP (which was also a success) and, today, because it's NOT Windows 8.

Windows 8 released in 2012 and is a flop. There are many that would argue this, but the adoption numbers don't lie. Windows 8 has been ill received and Windows 7 continues to usurp its market authority.)

Windows 10 is aimed to bring the '7' charm back. The OS being more user-friendly is getting fair critical acclaim in the short span.

Touch-friendly

Rejecting most of the Windows 8 interface settings, Terry brings new touch-friendly interfaces, be it the new media player, settings, the all new notification, the Cortana incorporation into the PC OS or separate settings for Tab.

Must say,Terry Myerson, along with his team has done a great job!

Dynamic Task View

Pinned to the taskbar, the dynamic task view (windows+tab) gets better with the every edition.

This actually makes you watch multiple videos simultaneously...

Microsoft Edge, new browser incorporated

With the browser, Microsoft has actually enabled the users to enjoy mobile-benefits while browsing. It is faster, better and gives a number of new tools that chrome doesn't.

What looks relatively bad?

'Built-in Keylogger'

Windows 10 collects your online data; monitors your computing behaviour.

Though I haven't gone through the 'Terms & Conditions' and Privacy Policy, by the time I wrote the headline I got the below image as pop-up.

According to Windows Insiders, the data collection program is aimed to make it more user-friendly and optimise the OS for better performance. Choice is yours!

Slow Booting & Restarting

If anything was good about Windows 8 that was its fast booting. So far, it appears very slow, takes almost a minute or longer to start.

Self-Deception

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Wed, 17 Dec 2014 12:17:00 +0000

India's China Policies Origins, Premises, Lessons

When Arun Shourie writes a book, there are three kinds of reactions. The Congress doesn’t speak, the communists denigrate the book and the nationalist becomes sad on reading the book. All three reactions are wholly justified as they are true. The fact of the matter is that the book, true to Shourie’s style, contains detailed analysis, in-depth and incisive evidences to back the analysis and then in the end, the way forward from the current situation.

And, as usual, the way forward is coolly forgotten by the country that continues to live in utopian dreams.

The subject of this book is also on similar lines – Indian nationalism, India’s foreign policy, how the leaders let the country down and what needs to be done to take it forward from the then current abyss. In this book, the leader that has let the country down is, hold your breath, Pandit Nehru. Yes, of all people, how Panditji screwed India’s foreign policy and the aftereffects of that carefully cultivated folly called ‘NAM – Non Aligned Movement’ and the case of mis-placed self-promotion that cost the country dear.

No, this is not an anti-Congress book from a BJP writer. For practical purposes, after Vajpayee started to recede from politics due to health reasons, Shourie has never played any role in the BJP. However, his forthrightness and fortitude are all the same.

It begins with Panditji’s lofty ‘ideals’ at the time of independence in 1947, goes on to explain the lies that he imagined to be true and the imaginary position that he commanded in world affairs and therefore chose to ignore the obvious evil, China and its communist upsurge.

Panditji is warned, with great foresight, by Rajendra Prasad, the then President of the Nation, Sardar Patel, the then Home Minister on China’s evil designs. He is repeatedly sent long lists of evidences from different officers of the Indian Government from Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Tibet, Beijing ( then Peking ). Panditji chooses to ignore each and every one of these evidences and letters. In fact, he admonishes the writers of these letters.

It becomes a habit for Panditji to putdown the very officers of the government who choose to do their duties. Officer after officer presents Panditji with the situation on the ground in Tibet, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Aksai Chin and Lhasa. And every time each of these officers are admonished by Panditji. He puts them down either for their usage of the term ‘communist’ or for the term ‘McMahon Line’. Or otherwise he chides them for some language usage. With these he wishes his hand away from the main problem of China.

The officers repeatedly talk about the issue of China issuing maps that show large parts of Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet as their territory. First he rubbishes them that those were old maps. Later he says the Chinese government doesn’t have time to issue new maps and hence ignore that. And these are exactly the lines spoken by Chou-en-lai, the then Premier of China. And what ever Chou-en-lai says, Panditji repeats.

When opportunity presents itself for Panditji to discuss these issues with Cho-en-lai, he prevaricates. Instead he speaks about Cuba, Algeris, Korean war, the US-Britain imperialism etc.

These, Shourie presents from Panditji’s own letters o his Ambssadors to China, Letters to the Chief Ministers and hid various press conferences. And what we see is that first Pandithi refutes and puts down the questioner, then after some years seems to slightly agree but hide under the garb of ‘socialist thought’ and later only when China attacks in 1962, does he acknowledge the Chinese threat.

And the issue of the Chinese communist threat to India has been there from 1950 onwards.

We also get to know the great debates and questions that happen in Lok Sabha when Panditji is questioned by Prof.N.G.Ranga, Acharya Kripalani and Atal Bijari Vajpayee. Yes, Vajpayee is relentless in his questioning of Panditji on China.

Towards the later part of the book, we get a glimpse of China’s growing hegemony in the world – oil diplomacy, funding diplomacy and later military diplomacy, the way countries in Latin America that are not eligible for IMF loans are provided loans in return for oil favours, the way deep water ports are constructed in Gwadar Pakistan, Sri Lanka almost free of cost with the only condition that China would have first rights for oil transport through these ports, the way oil pipelines have been laid from Burma deep into China, the way Tibetan rivers are diverted to provide water to Central China – all these are explained in great detail with evidence.

And the Chinese way of usurping territory – ignore complaints, silently encroach and set up base and later claim that they had never had any contention in the area under question. The other tactic is ‘murder with borrowed knife’ – arm the enemy’s enemy. And China excels in that.

And what is also explained is the complete policy paralysis in India right from the days of Panditji to the current regime when inaction is eulogized as policy and strategy, ignorance is camouflaged as wisdom and policy paralysis has become the norm.

And towards the end of the book, we get the complete but abysmal picture of the current state of affairs especially with respect to foreign policy ( better that we don’t discuss about the other fronts like Finance, Education etc ).

The book leaves you with a deep sense of shattered national pride.

Courtesy: Amaruvi Devanathan

Arun Shourie on Geopolitics

Business Planning

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 17:18:00 +0000

Making a goal is something that fixes our target; makes us unable to look beyond and so inhibits achieving beyond. Most of the experienced marketing people do achieve 60-80% of the target, and rest of the leads they keep safe for their next month's target. Who can forget Steve jobs, who was more interested in 'best in quality' and less in targets.

What does that mean here?

'Best In Quality' is the way, he used to set and achieve his targets, in other words, he never had alternatives to achieve the same target. Apple with $600 bn market cap can't be put under the exception. Before releasing the first iPhone, Steve had some 15 amazing models from which the actual iPhone was selected. Though Apple has applied all those designs for patents for the sake of just what they did, but unlike other companies, they did not bring all the models into the market. Quoting Jobs "We don't give you the alternatives, we give you the best". It's because of this value 'Apple' evoked an irresistible admiration and attention in the global market. Values are not created by product but by the way company moves forward. When new updated version of Mac computers was launched, there were more than 1200 old mac computers lying inside company's store. An HBS pass out lady, the then CFO decided to bring it at cheaper rates almost equal to the manufacturing cost which later also got the support of Board of Directors, but when came to Steve for his consent, he refused to sign....."It's not the way we work", commented Steve.

Business planning is based on contingency, having said that it doesn't deny the other possibilities...

****

Book Bond – Meet & Greet

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 17:37:00 +0000

There are too many aspiring authors...too many in self-publishing ...but very few of them are bestselling!

Anil Dharker and Ashwin Sanghi

Organised by Tata Group, the recent enthralling knowledge-driven Panel Discussion, "Book Bond – Meet & Greet" in the run-up to the 5th edition of Tata Literature Live at Taj Vivanta, Cuffe Parade – decoded the Dos and Don'ts.

Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest to commence on October 30, with over 125 authors and artistes from across the country and globe at NCPA (Nariman Point) and Prithvi Theatre and The Easel, in Juhu, is again set to showcase exemplary works and discussions by world-class authors and performers.

While the talks between the Festival Director, Anil Dharker and the bestselling author, Ashwin Sanghi unfolded the myths of modern Indian writing, it also discussed the re-telling of Indian mythology, the modern Indian writer and the challenges of being published in India. Having found himself on both sides of the coin, Ashwin Sanghi, author of Chanakya’s Chant and The Rozabal Line did elaborate on the pros and cons of self-publishing in detail: “The idea of self-publishing fulfills your desire to get published, but in the present scenario where thousands of self-published books haven't been read even once or twice, the real challenge is how to make your content, readable and saleable.” He also responded to the various questions raised in the discussion.

God & Religion

“The more I read about, the lesser I get to know; hence not a right person to enlighten you on this, but can entertain you.

Questioning History

"History is something that doesn't exist. It's more often thought-woven. It's not absolute but a relative subject that must be questioned. You see, there are about 200 Ramayanas' books written which contradict each other. While doing my research on Chanakya, I came to know that the very first book on Chanakya was actually written 900 yrs after his death. This can give you the fair idea of the extent of an authenticity of the history that you read, may vary.

Indian Authors, Publishers and Readers

"Contradicting our population, book readers are less and discrete, and a majority of them are still looking for specific genres. This leaves a very limited choice for authors. We will have to change the scenario.

The consumers' time is limited. With so many books coming out daily, it is a difficult task to compete with each other in every sort of space. That is the harsh reality which we need to accept. We must prepare ourselves accordingly."

Encapsulating the evening, Author Ashwin Sanghi said, “Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest is undoubtedly and objectively the best literature festival in the country. The country has become more receptive to literature driven by the fundamental change which is not so much the writer, as it is the reader. It was heartening to witness the crowds at last year’s Tata Literature Live! and I only see this platform growing bigger with time.”

On the occasion, Anil Dharker also announced the shortlists for three coveted Book Awards – Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year (Fiction & Non-fiction), Tata Literature Live! First Book Award (Fiction & Non-fiction) and Tata Literature Live! Business Book Award Shortlist Details). The highlight of the evening was the handing-out of autographed copies by Ashwin Sanghi of his book with James Patterson ‘Private India’.

WordUp!

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 09:03:00 +0000

For the past few years, there have been the sprouting of many blog junctions (like mushrooms), but undoubtedly #indiblogger remains the harbinger, with its most creative ideas executed at its best.

At its best, this is the one and only interface merging a virtual world of blogs that you might think never exist with the real faces behind. Thanks to my journo profession, I have got the opportunity of meeting new bloggers at almost all the metro cities (across the country) and discussing some innovative ideas as TP:)

Coming to #WordUp the meet or better say a blogging lesson for all bloggers - a step further - you think therefore you blog.... to turn your blog/thinking into an attractive rather say selling format. To me, an old blogger and avid reader since the birth of perhaps world's first blog Instapundit and then at the ugly bloglines.com, it's more like a venting platform where you put what you think not necessarily thinking what others may think or react to this. So, not everyone writes to get ads; not everyone writes to get money; not everyone wants everyone to read his/er blog......blogs are not websites ... certainly not meant for everyone but for like minded.

At #WordUp? Wait........... there was something for everyone -- from why to blog; how to blog to how to make the most googled blog -- it was up to you what you took. While I missed Arunabh Kumar, the Qutiyapa guy, Lakshmi's "No Chai with Sunit", Sherry shroff's self-making video story, master storyteller Snigddha, Krishna Chhepuri, Vinit and Bhavish's comedy gladdened the moments except Varun's, a bit pakaau one. The good thing was you could easily empathise with their approaches.

Sharing the video, that Magisto sent me that night! Enjoy:)

The Art of Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 09:02:00 +0000

When I go to teach a class today there are, largely speaking, two types of responses which I get. The first one is when there is no response, where the student has already decided that Mathematics is not for him/her & s/he has switched off. The second is where the question is asked before my sentence is over and a complete answer is expected.

When I was doing my PhD at Columbia University in New York, one of the top Statisticians in the world, Prof. David Siegmund was taking my class on Probability. Despite my best efforts, I was not able to understand what he was teaching. After about a month, I went to his chamber & told him about my predicament. He just pushed me out saying- "You are doing fine Kiran". But that did not satisfy me. I felt that if I could not understand such a fundamental course, I was not fit to do a PhD. I, therefore, started taking courses in the Columbia University Business School. However, in one semester all what Prof. Siegmund had taught started falling in place like a jigsaw puzzle & I ran back to my PhD. Whatever little I know about the subject is because of the fact that Prof Siegmund didn't come down to my level but helped me rise to his.

I came back to India and wanted to learn Dhrupad from Ustad Nasir Aminuddin Dagar in Kolkata. I requested him & he agreed to have me with him during my holidays. Excitedly I went, but was very disappointed. He would tune the tanpura and ask me to sing 'Sa' over and over again for many hours at a stretch. He would not even sit with me. It seemed as though he was not interested in teaching me and many a time I had this desire to return home. But something kept me back. After the month was over & I returned to Delhi, I felt that I had just wasted my time in Kolkata.

However, over a period, I realised what a 'khazana' of wisdom had been passed on to me. The realization of the depth of thought contained in some of his utterances dawned on me very slowly but surely-

"Ek sade, sab saade, sab sade sab jaaye;

Tumhe 'Re' pe jaane ki ijaazat tab hai jab tumhe 'Sa' ka darshan ho jaaye ".

Both Prof. Siegmund and Ustad Nasir Aminuddin Dagar showed me the way of touching the alpha-zone, the experience of which is something beyond description.

From my above mentioned Gurus, I learnt the method of fathoming the depths of any great thought process.

I bow my head in reverence.

- Padma Shri Kiran Seth, Prof. @IITD, Founder-SPICMACAY

Conversations with Waheeda Rehman

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 03:59:00 +0000

Do you remember the song -- Vakht ne kiya…kya hassin sitam….tum rahe na tum …hum rhe na hum?

Written by Kaifi Azmi (from Kagaz ke Phul), the song portrays Waheeda & Guru dutt on celluloid -- two souls meeting, physically. They stop – a feeling that they must not go further remained throughout. The camera and the light focused at the centre, the souls; could not have portrayed any deeper than this.

Her' was like painting a character on celluloid

Her eloquence in Guide, the timeless beauty in Chaudavin Ka Chand, stellar performance in Pyaasa and graceful Shanti in Kaagaz ke Phool, made sure that she personifies the golden era of Indian Cinema where beauty could better be painted in black and white, when songs were better viewed as a medium of compelling narrative, passing the deepest of the emotion which simply words were incapable of conveying.

The Saturday evening immortalised Waheeda Rehman’s acting career, through the book titled

“Conversations with Waheeda Rehman” authored by Nasreen Munni Kabir. Hosted by Sofitel Mumbai BKC in association with Literature Live, Bollywood industry veteran and Padmabhushan recipient Ms Waheeda Rehman at a glittering ceremony, with conversational anecdotes and a panel discussion, at the spectacular Jyran Dining and Tandoor venue revived the memories of Bollywood's golden era.

Looking forward to the goodread!

Done With Men!

noreply@blogger.com (Anupam Karn) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 05:18:00 +0000

Shuchi Kalra

"I have made mistakes—mighty big ones at that. Not the kind that would cause a national fiscal deficit a-la Manmohan Singh or ruin some unassuming person’s life, but the kind that makes you go into facepalm mode and want to die every time you are reminded of them."

With her book, 'Done With Men' scheduled to release on Valentine's day, the award-winning writer/journo, Shuchi Kalra has turned into a romance novelist/author, "so many women (me included) have gone through that post-breakup phase when we say 'I’m done with men' only to go falling in love all over again," says Shuchi explaining the background.
Excerpts...

Knowing that Batman too was dumped by his GF; Do you think that Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams? How do you see it?

Harsh – yes. Dreadful – no. I am not a hopeless romantic but I am not a cynic either. But I know how much it sucks to dump someone (or be dumped) because I’ve been on both sides of the playing field. I’m just grateful that I’ve finally found my Mr Right after all the frog-kissing.

Why 'Done with Men'? Where did the idea for 'Done with Men' come from?

A friend of mine was telling me about her sister who had gone on a vacation after a breakup and had landed up in the hospital injured – that’s how the seeds of this story were planted in my mind. As for the title, I saw a random tweet by someone who wrote “I’m so done with men” and I realised that so many women (me included) have gone through that post-breakup phase when we say “I’m done with men” only to go falling in love all over again. It is not merely a phrase, but a feeling that most women actually experience at some point in their lives. Since it encapsulated the essence of my story so well, I decided to weave it into the narrative and use it as the title too.
Story-line...

Going by the initial reviews, I think readers have loved the characters and the situations that they keep getting themselves into. Each member of the cast is quirky and idiosyncratic in his/her own way and very relatable – you probably have someone like Kanjoos Kapil, Bindaas Baani and Confused Kay around you. DWM is mostly about romance and friendships – the failed love scores just form the backdrop of the story.

It's your first book, how much time did it take to finish?

DWM is my first published book but it is not the first one I have written. I do have a pile of unfinished manuscripts lying around on my hard disc. I finished writing this one in two months but the editing process took longer.

Done With Men

What’s the next project you are working on?

I am mulling over a couple of other manuscripts, which are in a very fragmented stage right now.

Hopefully, I should be out with another book soon.

Do you think that promotion has become a prominent part of an author’s life? Is it more time consuming than writing a novel? What are your plans for it?

Yes, it definitely has and it is more time consuming than I’d like it to be. I’ve realised that writing the book is the easiest of all things an author is expected to do. With so many new titles coming out each day, marketing and promotion become more of a necessity than an option. Even the biggies can’t escape it!

Since Done With Men is releasing in digital format (with a POD version), the promotion campaign is all-digital too. There are going to be exciting giveaways, blog tours, contests, Twitter interviews and more.

How do you see the current Indian authors’ recognition in International market?

I think international readers are very open to reading books by Indian authors because of the novelty factor – a new and unfamiliar cultural setting or perspective is always a refreshing change. I have been interacting with several author friends from the world over and I learned that they only thing that keeps them from exploring popular Indian fiction is the quality of writing that is coming out these days. A large chunk of books are so poorly edited and the quality of writing can barely qualify as“mediocre”. Indireads is trying to bridge the gap by offering good quality fiction which is accessible to the global audience in the form of ebooks. High-quality books by Indian authors are already making a mark in the international market.

Done With Men: Excerpts....

Just what I was afraid of—now I was his pet clown girl…you don’t date clown girls and you definitely don’t

Done With Men

fall in love with them. Clown girls are like the caricatures in a Bollywood movie—I’ll never be his leading lady.

***

The trick to a satisfying relationship is the same as the one for satisfying sex—thrust, hold, withdraw, pause. Repeat. Too fast or too much invariably spoils the fun.

***

Not just Ricky, all my past relationships with men had been a spate of pesky diseases—each more formidable than the other. It was almost as if I had run a ‘sucky boyfriends marathon’ or something, and won.

***

“Noooooooo!” I rubbed my hand against the sheet till the skin turned red and sore.But all the rubbing and scrubbing wouldn’t make it go away. It was permanent, that tattoo. The tattoo that said ‘Done With Men’. And it hurt! What on earth was I thinking? My habit of thinking out loud was bad enough, but tattooing my thoughts onto myself? This wasn’t happening to me.