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2024 - Books that I read

2024-12-28T19:03:00.000-08:00

Here are the list of books that I read in 2024...

The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
1st to Die by James Patterson
The Morning and Evening by Ken Follett
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
The Pillars of Earth by Ken Follett
Traitors Gate by Jeffrey Archer

Not only the list is unimpressive, I see the number of books that I read are going down significantly.

Also I dont have a Tamil book in the list which I should improve next year.

Going back to the list,

The Glass Palace is the historical novel by Amitav Ghosh. The novel spans a century from Third Anglo-Burmese war to Second World War in 20th Century. It briefly touches how some of the laborers immigrated to Burma from Madras presidency. I have mentioned already that Historical novels are my favorite and Glass Palace was interesting to learn about Burma's history about the fall of the last emperor.

I have been reading more historical fictions recently. Hence I thought I will try a new author and chose 1st to Die by James Patterson. It is about how 4 woman team up their skills to crack one of the toughest murder case in San Fransisco. It was easy to read and definitely look for the next book in the Women's Murder club series.

The Evening and The Morning is a prequel to The pillars of earth. I have read few pages of Pillars of earth already. Hence I thought of finishing the prequel first. The story happens from 997 to 1007 after the Viking raids. The book expans on the foundation of fictional town Kingsbridge. A young boat builder Edgar is the main character who escapes the city of Combe after the viking raid and get settled in a place called Dreng's ferry with his family. A young Norman woman named Ragna travels from France to England to marry Wilwulf of Shiring. The story talks about how the life of Edgar and Ragna intervine in the backdrop of how a city of Kingsbridge gets erected by Aldred, a young monk.

I understood how the Monarch and Christianity effectively controlled England for several centuries. I will write more separately in another post.

The psychology of money is the only non-fiction that I read this year. I will give some of the valuable quotes that helped me from this book.

“The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend money pays.”

“Long tails – the farthest ends of a distribution of outcomes – have tremendous influence in finance, where a small number of events can account for the majority of outcomes.”

“A plan is only useful if it can survive reality. And a future filled with unknowns is everyone’s reality”

“Getting money requires taking risks, being optimistic, and putting yourself out there. But keeping money requires the opposite of taking risk. It requires humility, and fear that what you’ve made can be taken away from you just as fast. It requires frugality and an acceptance that at least some of what you’ve made is attributable to luck, so past success can’t be relied upon to repeat indefinitely.”

“As I write this Warren Buffet’s net worth is $84.5 billion. Of that, $84.2 billion was accumulated after his 50th birthday. $81.5 billion came after he qualified for Social Security, in his mid-60s.”

“There is no reason to risk what you have and need for what you don’t have and don’t need. – Warren Buffet

“But more important is that as much as we recognize the role of luck in success, the role of risk means we should forgive ourselves and leave room for understanding when judging failures.”

“The challenge for us is that no amount of studying or open-mindedness can genuinely recreate the power of fear and uncertainty.”

The next book in the list is Pillars of earth. Set in 12th century the story talks about the condition of England during that time. The white ship was a vessel that carried many nobels including the heir to the English throne sank in the English channel near Normandy coast in 1120.

There are some similarities to the prequel. Jack is the step son of Tom Builder. He becomes the architect and skilled stonemason. Aliena is a daughter of Bartholomew the original Earl of Shiring. Prior Philip is a monk who wants to make Kingsbridge to rise a cathedral. The story ends around 1174 where Waleran and William try to plot and assasinate Thomas Becket and how William gets punished for his crime.

Finally the Traitors gate by Jeffrey Archer is part of the William Warwick's series. It is about how Miles try to steal crown's jewel and how William and Ross stops it. To me this novel is just another ordinary work by the author. Gone are the days of Kane and Abel series days.

I am currently reading a book by Vairamuthu and sequel to Pillars of Earth. I will write more next year.

Oahu

2023-06-15T07:02:00.001-07:00

Again its been a while from my previous post. This has been long due.

This goes back to my middle school days. We had a lesson in English about Hawaii. The author had written an essay about Hawaii. It was described as a paradise in earth. I envisioned this place based on the written travelogue. This was on my bucket list for many decades now. Finally I got an opportunity to visit this beautiful place. I will write about some of the places that we visited in one of Hawaiin islands (Oahu)

We booked the travel package through Costco and we stayed in one of the resorts of Hilton.

Our first stop was Byodo-In temple. It is a buddhist monastery located approximately 30 minutes from Honolulu. It was fascinating to see that the huge bell located in the entrance of the temple was shipped from India.

https://goo.gl/maps/Cgp9aPXin8w5PdyGA

We then visited Kualoa Ranch located in Kaneohe, HI. (We were wondering why most of the street and city names start in letter K in Hawaii). This is a privately owned ranch that is famous for their Jurassic Park tours. Apparently some of the scenes from the movie were shot here in this ranch. We took a bus tour that showed some of the caves that were used by the USA military during the world war as bunkers. During the world war the entire ranch was taken by US military to fight against Japan. The location of the ranch is well suited as it is on the other side of mountain with almost no visibility to Japanese aircrafts. They still retain some of the sets created for Skull island movie.

The history of the ranch was also interesting. One of the doctor who took care of the chief of the native Hawaiin was gifted with a small parcel of land. Eventually he acquired more land (approx 1000 acres) and it is one of the biggest ranches in the island.

https://goo.gl/maps/zExbSmo4UaySu1fK9

The next day we explored the other side of the island. There was blowhole that still has some volcanic activity under it which results in water gushing through the hole after every few minutes. We visited a sea life water park. As we went in February it was raining on that day. It had one of the birds Aviary where the kids enjoyed feeding the birds themselves.

https://www.sealifeparkhawaii.com/plan-your-visit/things-to-do/habitats---exhibits

We stopped for lunch in Ganesh Dosa. We were expecting to see Indian chefs but was surprised to see couple of Americans running the restaurant. The owner who attended one of the Yoga programs fell in love with Dosas and started this restaurant. The kids loved the cheese dosa and we started preparing them at home after trying it here.

Our next stop was Dole plantation one of the largest Pineapple plantation. The rides were cancelled due to bad weather but we still enjoyed the pineapple ice cream. After buying some souvenirs we drove to the tip of the northern island as we drive across the entire island.

The next day was a relaxing day in the morning. Suba and kids attended a class to make flower garlands in the resort, then chilled in the lagoon available in the resort. We had a reservation to take the Diamond head hike that afternoon. After having a good lunch in an Indian restaurant, we headed to the diamond head. The hike was just 1 mile length but it gains a huge altitude at the end. I was little hesitant if the kids will cover it as they were 4 and 8 years old.

Interestingly the 4 year old was energetic and he lead us all the way to the top of the trailhead. It offers a beautiful view of the ocean and also Honolulu.

The walk down the trailhead was much easier and the weather was perfect with no rain thankfully.

We headed back to our resort.

We then went to the Pearl Harbor museums the next day. We booked a package of three tours. The first one was USS Arizona Memorial.

https://www.pearlharbortours.com

The USS Arizona ship was sunk by Japanese aircrafts. A museum is built on top of the ship. Some of the parts of the Ship is still visible from the museum. A boat tour takes us to the museum. The museum remembers hundreds of victims who died when the ship was sunk.

The second tour was Battleship Missouri. They have renovated the ship that was used during World War II. There is a famous surrender deck where the actual Japanese admirals surrendered to USA and allies thereby ending the World War II. It was a different experience to stand in the same place where the historic agreement was written. We can tour around the battleship visiting the section of the battleship.

There is also a submarine museum where we can walk down to the submarine and visit.

We spend the remaining time swimming in the Lagoon and Pacific

It is always a great feeling to strike down an item in bucket list but this was long due.

Cheers.

See you in my next post.

Sunshine State - Travelogue

2022-02-26T08:31:00.005-08:00

It's been a while from the previous trip. We chose to go Florida this time. This is my second trip to Florida. We had already covered Disney, Seaworld & Universal studios in the first trip.

The Pandemic had delayed our vacation for a long time. We flew from Sacramento to Orlando, Florida. There was a connection in between. COVID had completely changed our travel experience. One of the person refused to comply to the Mask mandate. The air hostess tried to convince him for 3-4 times. He was very adamant and finally got deplaned. It caused a delay for an hour.

It seemed that everyone wanted to badly travel. Both our flights were full with no empty seats.

We chose to stay in a resort this time.After picking from car rentals we checked in the resort very late in the night.

Day 1

We woke up very late and had a good Indian food delivered through Grubhub. Our first destination was Clear water beach in Tampa. It is just couple of hours drive from Orlando to Tampa. One of the main differences that we saw between California and Florida was there were no COVID protocols. California is Democratic and Florida is Republican. Nobody bothered to wear a mask or maintain social distancing. It took some time to get used to it.

Clearwater is one of the best beaches that I have visited. The Atlantic water was pretty cold, but Gautham and Siddhu had ton of fun. One of the highlights is the sand which is completely white and water's clear visibility.

We saw Clearwater much developed than our first time. It looked pretty much like a Santa Monica beach.

We spent few hours in the beach and turned back to the resort.

Day 2

Our next stop was Kennedy Space Center. I have watched few rocket launches on TV, but its been a desire to visit the Space center for a long time. KSC is couple of hours drive from Orlando. They have a visitor complex with a museum. The day we went was a weekday and couple of schools had brought the kids for excursion. It was a good experience to mingle among the kids.

They have a bus tour which takes us across the big building where they assemble the launch. The bus tour takes us to Apollo/Saturn V (ASV center). The center has the entire Apollo history. They explain how the mission started due to a competition from Soviet. There were videos by Neil Armstrong, Allan Shepperd and they were all really motivating for young kids. One of the Armstrong's statement was nothing is impossible after he landed on the moon is inspiration for kids which I hope they don't forget in the life.

We also got to know some of NASA's future missions that they have planned for 2025. They bring back the history that happened some 50 years ago.

We drove back to the resort and took rest.

Day 3

We went to Seaworld Orlando. Siddhu loved the Dolphin experience show. The Orca encounter featuring the deadly sea whale was a flop as the whales refused to splash the water as they were not in good mood. There were good aquariums to see Sharks, Turtles, etc., The Sea lion and Otter show was fun. There was a food festival that was going on and most of the European countries had a stall. Being a vegetarian I could not enjoy much of it.

Day 4

Crayola Experience. This was our last day and wanted to keep it light. This is an indoor kid's activity/play center. We got to learn some history about the company, kids had ton of fun with the colorful crayons.

We returned back to the resort and spent the remaining day enjoying the pool.

We had our return flight the next day and took rest. COVID had changed priorities in life. I really hope to have more travel experiences which I missed for last two years. I will write more of them.

Cheers,

Giri

Happy New Year 2022

2022-01-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

A very happy new year to all my readers. As usual, I am publishing the books that I read last year 2021.

102

2021

January

Timeline

Michael Crichton

Fiction

English

103

2021

January

Nights in Rodanthe

Nicholas Sparks

Fiction

English

104

2021

January

The Great Train Robbery

Michael Crichton

Fiction

English

105

2021

February

A walk to Remember

Nicholas Sparks

Fiction

English

106

2021

February

The Sands of Time

Sidney Sheldon

Fiction

English

107

2021

February

Winners take all

Anand Giridhardas

Non-Fiction

English

108

2021

February

Hidden in Plan Sight

Jeffrey Archer

Fiction

English

109

2021

March

Outliers

Malcolm Gladwell

Non-Fiction

English

110

2021

March

Memories of Midnight

Sidney Sheldon

Fiction

English

111

2021

April

Talking to Strangers

Malcolm Gladwell

Non-Fiction

English

112

2021

May

Every Breathe

Nicholas Sparks

Fiction

English

113

2021

May

Prey

Michael Crichton

Fiction

English

114

2021

July

Fall of Giants

Ken Follet

Fiction

English

115

2021

July

Morning, Noon And Night

Sidney Sheldon

Fiction

English

116

2021

September

Winter of the world

Ken Follet

Fiction

English

117

2021

October

Lost World

Michael Crichton

Fiction

English

118

2021

November

Atomic Habits

James Clear

Non-Fiction

English

As you can see, I read 4 books by Michael Crichton. He became one of my favorite authors after I read Jurrasic world. Both A Great Train Robbery and Lost world were awesome. The former is about an attempt to steel a gold bullion on a train that travels from London. The later is a continuation of Jurrasic world.

There were 3 Sidney Sheldon books. My wife started reading fictions along with me. I was checking these books for her and I were re-reading some of them.

One interesting discovery for me is Ken Follet. Fall of Giants, Winter of the world is historic fiction set in Britain, Germany, Russia, US. It follows 5 families from 1900's all the way to 1990's. The author describes the important political events that happened through this time, along with the two world wars, Russian march, etc.,

These were on the fictional side. For Non-Fictions I read three books. Outliers is about people who had succeeded in Life. It was interesting about slicing and dicing success and how people achieves it. The second book is about Talking to strangers. It explains about different events that took place and how the words that we communicate have a profound impact.

The final book is Atomic Habits. It is about how to build good new habits and break bad habits. I have written a separate post on this book.

Overall it was a great year where I read few good books.

Cheers.

Atomic Habits

2021-11-06T22:13:00.002-07:00

The last couple of posts have been about the books that I read. This one is also about another excellent book that I finished today. The book is ATOMIC HABITS by JAMES CLEAR.

There has been several instances where I genuinely wanted to build good habits, but eventually dropped them after a certain point due to boredom etc.,

The author in this book details about the tiny changes that we can make in our life that can produce remarkable results.

Atomic - an extremely small amount of a thing; the single irreducible unit of a larger system

Habit - a routine or practice performed regularly; an automatic response to a specific situation

He starts with how small habits make a big difference.

How improving 1% each day can make a huge improvement by illustrating this famous example.

1% worse every day for one year 0.99^365 = 00.03

1% better every day for one year 1.01^365 = 37.78

The effect of compounding can work for us or against us. The positive compounding includes productivity, knowledge and relationships.

The negative compounding includes stress, negative thoughts, outrage etc.,

The science of how habits work.

Cue -> Craving -> Response -> Reward

(Problem Phase) (Solution Phase)

The 1st Law (Cue) MAKE IT OBVIOUS

The 2nd law (Craving) MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE

The 3rd law(Response) MAKE IT EASY

The 4th law (Reward) MAKE IT SATISFYING

Cue's

There are two ways to start with a new habit.

I will [BEHAVIOUR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]

Create a habit stack, specify which habit will follow another habit

The Cues for habits comes from the environment. Design your environment in such a way to build more good habits and reduce bad habits.

Also fill out the habits scorecard. Write down the habits so that you are aware about it.

Reduce exposure to cues for bad habits

Craving

Use the temptation bundling to make habits make more attractive.

The social relationship makes more impact on our habits.

Imitating

the close
the many
the powerful

Join a culture where desired behavior is the normal behavior

Create a motivation ritual. Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit

Reframe your mind-set. Highlight the benefits of avoiding bad habits

Response

Reduce the friction. Decrease the number of steps between you and habits

Prime the environment. Prepare your environment to make future actions easy

Master the decisive moment. Optimize the small choices that deliver outsized impact.

Use the two-minute rule. Downscale your habits until they can be done in two minutes or less

Automate your habits. Invest in technology and onetime purchaces that lock in future behaviour.

Increase friction for bad habits. Increase the number of steps.

Use a commitment device. Restrict your future choices to the ones that benefit you.

Reward

What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided - Cardinal rule of behaviour

Benefit #1 : Habit tracking is obvious

Benefit #2 : Habit tracking is attractive

Benefit #3 : Habit tracking is satisfying

Use reinforcement. Give immediate reward when you complete your habit.

Make doing nothing enjoyable. When avoiding a bad habit, design a way to see benefits

Use a habit tracker. Keep track of your habit streak. Dont break the train

Never miss twice. When you forget a habit, make sure to get back immediately.

Create an accountability partner.

Create a habit contract. Make the costs of bad habits public and painful.

Goldilocks rule states that human experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on th edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right

Stay focused when you get bored working on your goals

Continously review the habits make adjustments.

Annual Review

What went well this year

What didnt go so well this year

What did I learn

Integrity Report

What are the core values that drive my life and work

How am I living and working with integrity right now

How can I set a higher standard in the future

Men are born soft and supple;

dead, they are stiff and hard.

Plants are born tender and pliant;

dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible

is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding

is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken

The soft and supple will prevail.

- LAO TZU

I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Cheers.

Historical Fiction - Ken Follett

2021-09-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

I just recently completed two of the three book series of Century Triology by Ken Follett.

I was always fascinated by the historical fictions right Kalki's Ponniyin Selvan. After Kalki Sandilyan was my favorite writer.

I have not read more historical fictions in English. Fall of Giants and Winter of the World are the two books that I recently completed. I thought I would share few words and inspire others to read those books.

These two books follow fates of 5 different families American, Russian, German, English and Welsh.

The first book travels through the First World War, Russian Revolution and woman's rights to vote in elections.

The second book travels through rise of Third Reich, political economic turmoil in Europe, World War II and explosions in Pearl Harbor and Atomic bombs in Japan.

The 10 year period from 1938 to 1948 saw major events and I would highlight a few that was touched in Winter of world.

Spanish Civil War
Hitler Capturing Poland
German Attack on France
Jews
British support to France
Hitler's treaty with Stalin
Eastern march against the Treaty
Killing of disabled and mentally retarded children
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor
America's revenge
Battle of Normandy
Nuclear Bomb creation in New Mexico
Hiroshima and Nagasaki droppings
Russia's jealousy and test of their bombs
Creation of Berlin wall after German surrender.

I sometimes used to question the need for united European Union. However after reading the historical events that happened during the last century, a divided Europe will take the humanity to its Peril.

Notes:

Ken Follett - Wikipedia

Outliers

2021-04-04T11:41:00.003-07:00

I just finished the "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. The list of my favorite non fiction writers keeps increasing.

The entire book is about the story of success. He slice and dice different successful people lives and helps us to understand that there are lot factors that play in success.

He starts with a quick analysis of successful people of Canadian hockey team. A quick analysis shows that most of the players from winning teams were born during the Jan - Mar time period of the year. The reason was the eligibility cut off for the hockey team is January 1st. The same applies for education as well. For example if the cut off date for school admission is September, kids born in that month will dominate other kids. A study by economists who evaluated the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) whos tat kids born near the cut off date score in the eightieth percentile vs kids who are born on the other end of the cut off date who score 68th percentile.

In the second chapter he explains the 10,000 hour rule. Most of you would have already heard about this rule which says that if you practice a thing over 10,000 hours you would master it. He gives 3 examples, Bill Gates, Bill Joy and Beatles.

Bill Joy attended the University of Michigan in 1971. It was the year, the university got a enormous mainframe computer that filled the entire room. It became his life. He undertook the task of rewriting UNIX which was developed by AT&T for mainframe computers. Some of his code still exist in operating systems. He wrote much of the software to access internet. He went on to cofound Sun Microsystems

Similarly Bill Gates was very knowledgeable when he was young. His parents noticed it and moved him to a private school (Lakeside). It looks like there was a Mother's club in that school that collects money and purchases few items every year for the school. One year, they collected around 3000$ and purchased a computer terminal (remember this was happening in 1960's). Gates got hooked to this computer. He started spending most of his time in the computer lab. He used to complete his other courses early so that he gets more time. There was an appointment system through which he has to reserve the computer time as there was only one terminal in that computer. Later he finds another university campus that leases computer terminals (multi terminal). He gets an opportunity to fix a software code issue for payroll company. He happily grabs it when he was at high school pursuing his teachers.

The next example is the story of Beatles. The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr came to United States in 1964 invading the Music Scene. Lennon and McCartney first started playing together in 1957. In 1960 they were still a strugling high school rock band and they were invited to play in Hamburg, Germany. Hamburg was famous for its strip clubs. A local club owner Bruno had an idea where rock groups will play in various clubs hour after hour. And the bands would play all the time to catch the passing traffic. Beatles used to play 7 nights a week. Initially they used to play till 12:30, eventually the crowd loved them and they had to play till 2 AM. In the 7 year period, they would end up playing 10,000 hours.

The next two chapters discusses the Trouble with Geniuses. It is not necessary that if you are born at a right time or practiced 10,000 hours you would be successful. There needs to be an internal push by the parents, friends and neighbours. The author explains lives of two People Chris Langan and Oppenheimer. The former was born in a poor family while the later in a wealthiest family. Both had extraordinary IQ. The Author explains Concerted Cultivation which means foster and assess a child's talents, opinions and skills. Poor parents tend to follow, by contrast a strategy of accomplishment of natural growth.

Oppenheimer's parents considered him as genius. He used to do lab experiments in 3rd grade, studied Physics and Chemistry by 5th grade and while he was nine, asked his cousins to ask a question in Latin and he will answer in Greek. He went to Harvard and then Cambridge.

Similarly Chris was considered a genius by his parents. However his Father moved out early in the life so Chris was brought up by a single Mom. He was not given opportunities similar to Oppenheimer and ended up as an ordinary man.

In the next chapter "The three lessons of Joe Flom" discusses about the successful law firm in New York City. The author traces the successful lawers to their immigrant grand parents. He give an example of a person who immigrated to USA without a penny with his wife. He borrowed some money and purchased cloths which was stitched as an apron by his wife throughout the night. The next day, he was able to sell everything. They repeated this process several days ended up having 10-20 employees of their own. The immigrants who arrived in 1930's turned their family in 3 generations. A tailor's son/daughter became a garment maker. Their children went to become a lawyer/doctor. No wonder America is called land of opportunity.

Chapter Seven discusses the ethnic story of plane crashes. Plane crashes rarely happen in real life. It is said that there must be atleast 7 mistakes for the plane to crash. If there are just one or two mistakes, the flight is designed in such a way that it can handle itself. He gives couple of examples, Korean air and a flight from Columbia to New york.The author explains a Hofstede's dimensions is uncertainity avoidance. How well does culture tolerate ambiguity. There are certain cultures where it is least tolerated like Greece, Portugal, Guatemala etc.,. The Bottom five are Hong Kong, Sweeden, Denmark, Jamaica and Singapore. He also describes Power Distance Index. It is concerned with attitudes towards hierarchy. In low PDI's people in authority tend to downplay their power.In hign PDI's people expect their bosses to make their decisions. There is no collective decision making. People tend to let their boss to make important decisions.

Chapter Eight Rice Paddies and Math tests "No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year, fails to make his family rich". The author explains the difference between east and west by the farming.Rice has been cultivated in China for thousands of years.Year in year out they are engaged in the same relentless intracate pattern of agriculture. These are built and not opened up as wheat field is. The rice paddy has to be irrigated by complex systems. They consider Rice is Life. They expend enormous amount of time to cultivate rice. The dialects of the asian countries also helps. Karen Fuson claims Asian system is very transparent. It is explained with an example 37 + 22. An Asian child will count it as 3 tens 7 + 2 tens 2 which will be 5 tens and 9. The more I think, this is the same system in my mother tongue Tamil. 37 will be read as Muppathi Ezhu + Irupathi Irandu. Asian system can perform basic arithmetic easily.

Rice paddy is tiny. However wheat paddies are vast. A 450 acre land of rice paddy can feed 1500 people which can be split by multiple families. However this 450 acres will be typical family farm in west. Throughout history the people who grow rice have always worked harder than any other kinds of farmer. He explains about a TIMSS exam which has a huge questionnaire. Anyone who completes the questionnaire fully eventually always scored well in Maths.

Chapter Nine Marita's Bargain. All my firends are now from Kipp (Knowledge is Power Program). A study found that large summer vacation impacts the student's knowledge which showed in their test scores. The KIPP school has a longer duration comparted to traditional school. The school hours are extended. They start early around 7 and go till 5. However the traditional schools start around 8 and end by 3.

Finally Outliers say that Success follows a predictable course. It is not the brightest who succeed. They were gifted with opportunities as well. You need to be born at the right time, right parents and ethnicity which allowed them to practice.

Finally I enjoyed one of the line. Those three things, Autonomy, Complexity and a connection between effort and reward are the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.

Settling in USA vs India

2021-01-30T16:26:00.002-08:00

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”

Settling in USA vs India? This is one of the question that comes to Indians who settle in USA at least once. Even though 99% of them choose to settle in USA due to various benefits, this blog post is an attempt to analyze the pros and cons.

Before we analyze, let us take a look at the life here. For most of us it starts with a college admission or a job offer here in USA. The initial few years are definitely blissful. We come here as a bachelor and the life is completely different from what we used to live in India. We pick an apartment and share it with 1 or 2 friends. We tend to save a lot of money due to the expense sharing even though we earn very less. Most of the Friday evenings will be in Cinemas or a Mall. Almost all weekends would have a local trip planned. The long weekends start very early by Friday afternoon. If we live in a good place, we had lot of things to cover during the long weekends. I remember the days in Arizona, where we used to drive to Grand Canyon, Las Vegas once in probably every two months.

It used to be a ritual to take the new team mates who join to either Grand Canyon or other attractions. Most of our friends were bachelors with one or two family friends. Weekends will be full of hikes, pot lucks, tennis or volley ball games.

We tend to go to India once every year. Since we had to pay only for us, never bothered much about the travel expenses.

As we settle down, we notice our school & college mates, getting married one by one. There is some yearning for Marriage and Family life. Eventually one gets married and bring their spouse.

This phase of life again looks wonderful. We tend to spend most of the time with spouse (which I am not sure is possible back in India). We would end up visiting all the attractions and places again with spouse. The first one or two years fly by very quickly. As we see some rise in our paychecks, we also see a major increase in our expenses. We end up saving little less than what we did earlier.

Most of the friends nearby would have been recently married with no kids. Fridays go by get togethers in friends place with Poker, Uno and other games. The family trips continue with occasional long trips.

The frequency of travel to India cut by half due to the increased expenses. Every time we go for a vacation to India, we tend to miss the family and relatives. It gradually becomes ok after few weeks.

Then comes another phase which is fun but takes a significant toll. The first child is a learning experience. We suddenly tend to act with more responsibility. We alternate parents and in-laws to baby sit. If possible visit the attractions with them again. Another year or two flies with check ups, pediatricians etc.,

Everyone will remember the first experience of taking the child in flight to India for their life. When we travelled, the lady who sat next to us humanely asked if we carried any Tylenol to stop Gautham from crying.

As the first one grows big enough to start the preschool, comes the next one. Parents and in-laws tend to grow older physically and psychologically. They feel satisfied by looking at the children via skype and whatsapp. Indian baby sitters were looked for and it itself has become a huge market. We ended up with a Punjabi baby sitter who was very nice.

The Indian trips reduce further. The elder one starts to attend the public school, which stops the pre-school payments which will resume shortly for the younger one.

There occurs a birthday party to attend every month, dropping the kid to school, picking up, dropping them for special classes like piano, language, gymnastics, Kumon (the schedule becomes difficult to manage and had to install a family calendar app) along with the frequent doctor visits (Pediatric vaccinations etc.,)

Life becomes so burdened, monotonous as we enter 40. Most of them would have purchased a house and just settled.

Writing this post so far is the most easiest. As most of my friends are in the same age group and from my past experience or theirs. The question to settle in USA or India still lingers. It is very difficult to predict life in future. It would be nice if we can simulate our life in different models and which will help us to make wise decisions.

Life in USA definitely carry lot of advantages.

Personalized family life revolving around me and immediate family
Professional life with 9-5 work and career growth with less politics
Stable investment opportunities with good social security benefits
Some quality time to spend with immediate family and good me time.
Free school education after 5 years for kids

There may be other advantages but I will move to disadvantages.

High taxes at federal, state, social security and medicare taxes
Very high college tuition fees
Retirement age is 67 years. We had to work up to 67 atleast for the sake of healthcare. I personally worked on Individual family health plans available in the california market and cannot stop wondering how people buy individual plans outside in the market.
Lost touch with relatives and friends (This carries more score, with not just us but our children as well)
High labor costs results in us taking care of all household chores

If we take each of the disadvantages and compare against India, it all turns advantageous to India.

Obviously we will have a good relationship with relatives, friends and we dont have to end up working till 67. We can choose to retire early provided we had saved well for future. However the drawback will be its insane work culture where we end up working for 10-12 hours a day.

If we stare at the next 27 or 30 years from now, it looks gigantic and makes me puzzled how the following years will be. Since individual priorities differ, and each of us will be in different social economic levels the decision to stay or go back requires lots of conviction.

For people who stay here without thinking about India are good and they dont need any advise. However for those in a dilemma, here are some suggestions.

It is difficult to settle in USA with a Indian conservative mindset. The culture in west is completely different to east. East is more family oriented, traditional. West is highly individualized with lack of family support. This may change in the next few years. Set your expectations on kids accordingly
Don't get too materialistic. USA was once a highly materialistic country. I think it is wise to learn from millennials to keep it light and be ready to go up and running wherever possible.
Build a good bucket list, create some passions to make the life interesting. This will help kick some of redundancies out
Do charity back in India by helping with kids educations or old people
Listen to your Intuition. It is always right than your brain.

It is up to us how we raise our child wherever they are. But go back to the quote that I had in the first line of the post. Don't complain that you had not been warned.

Cheers.

Happy New Year 2021

2020-12-31T20:48:00.002-08:00

As I have always posted the books that I read each year, here is the list for this year.

I started this year with Bourne Identity. It was one of my favorite movie series. I always watch the movie atleast once every two years if possible. For some reason I found little hard to keep up with Robert Ludlum. But it was one of the electrifying spy story that I ever read.

The next book is "Manuscript found in Accra" by Paulo Coelho. He was one of my favorite writers and his books were all well praised by Obama and others. Though this looked like a similar book to his Alchemists, It was not on par. May be I need to read this again.

The next two where "Heads you win" and "Nothing Ventured" by Archer. I had already mentioned Sheldon and Archer were my favorite authors. They kind of pulled me to English novels. I have almost read all the books by Archer. This is a part of Clifton Chronicles.

Kalki's sirukathaigal was next on the list. If it is Sheldon and Archer for English books, Kalki dragged me to Tamil novels. I had read his Ponniyin selvan when I was young and for some reason his small stories did not stick with me due to the writing style.

The world until yesterday by Jared diamond was the first non fiction this year. I had already mentioned that Jared and Yuval Noah Harari are my top non fiction writers. This book is on my favorite subject History. It has some fascinating concepts on societies. I highly recommend all Diamond's books.

The next story is Vanchimanagaram by Na. Paarthasarathi. Na. Pa was one of the important writers in Tamil nadu. He classifies Tamil fictions as Social vs Historical. After reading Ponniyin Selvan reading this book was just very casual with an ordinary story.

Nickel and Dimed is a non fiction by Barbara. This potrays an unseen USA. When we think about USA we always think about New York, Chicago and Sillicon Valley. Here the author disguises herself and start living by doing menial jobs (blue collar). She pictures the life style, habits, etc of poor people across three different states. This is definitely an eye opener.

Crazy Rich Asians revolve around couple of richest familes in HK and Singapore. The way the author teases Americans by comparing the richness of Singapore vs USA was real fun.

Robert Greene's the 48 laws of Power was the next non fiction. His thought process is extraordinary and he is one of the most influential thinkers of last couple of decades. I need to read his remaining books for sure.

Meanwhile I also read three novels of Sidney Sheldon, Best laid plans, the stars shine down and Doomsday conspiracy.

I read the biography of Isaac Asimov. Reading biographies may be dry but Isaac makes it very interesting.

While I showed the movie Jurassic Park to Gautham(It was one of the movies that I watched in Satyam in mid nineties, thanks to my uncle) I got curious about the novel. It is completely different to watch a movie after reading a novel to see how the screenplay is written. To go back to a novel after watching the movie several times, where the writer Michael Crichton scores. I would say the opening helicopter scene that we see in the movie is after at least 75-80 pages in the book. He mixes, Philosophy, Science, Maths and what not and spins a beautiful story. I thoroughly loved reading his books and I personally feel his books are natural progression towards next level.

His other novel that I just finished today is The Terminal man. The novel is about a story of an operation performed on a human being by implanting the electrodes to control his brain seizures. The electric shock from the brain pacemakers become so pleaurable to him so he started getting frequent kicks. The computer implanted in his body get a feedback loop and move him to seizures to every second making him violent. The sequence of events happen in 2-3 days and he explains computers, brain (reptilian vs human brain), mind control etc in this short novel.

Finally the other two non fictions that I read are Third chimpanzee by Diamond and 21 lessons by Yuval Noah Harari. Diamond is an expert in writing about History and Yuval is a master in writing about future. He teaches some important lessons that the world must learn to have a meaningful life for atleast some more years.

I hope this list will be helpful to you and motivates you towards these books. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Wish you and family a happy new year.

Stay healthy.

Cheers

~ Giri

Random Thoughts 06/14/2020

2020-06-14T14:43:00.001-07:00

Some of my friends are masters in investment. This post is definitely not for them.

This post is on how to safeguard family's future for anyone who has not thought about the future for the family.

Here are some of the ideas that I have been giving to my friends and thought it will be useful for others as well.

Good Insurance Policy

Some of my friends had invested in lots of different LIC policies. I had always been skeptical about LIC and I don't treat their policies as investment options. I had couple of bad experiences with them already and I would stay away from them in the future.

My recommendation is we must not mix up insurance and investments. These two are two separate entities.

I don't strongly believe some of the children and education policies of LIC. I am not sure if the agents themselves understand the policy returns thoroughly. Some may say LIC is government owned and has its backup. I do not believe LIC as such is dependent on LIC. Instead our government is dependent on LIC.

My advice would be to go for a Term Insurance that has a lower premium. The difference between Term insurance and regular insurance that LIC offers is the premium amount paid every year is low. However the coverage amount is higher. For a 1 crore coverage, we would end up paying premium of around 15,000 rupees per year.

However we would not receive anything after the coverage end year if we are still alive.

There are lot of good options for Term insurance and I personally chose HDFC as they have a good payout ratio.

National Pension Scheme (NPS)

People who work abroad will have a good pension plan option to enroll. Our previous generation was lucky as both the government and private companies used to provide a good pension after retirement. However all those pension plans are cancelled now and even the government employees will not get any pension.

Though I was not completely satisfied with MMS UPA1 and UPA2 government, the more I see current crisis in India, I just think MMS is a visionary.

He opened Pension scheme to all Indian Citizens in 2009.

It is regulated by PFRDA, and there are 7 pension fund managers.

The number of pension fund managers (PFM) has increased to seven in NPS:

SBI Pension Funds
LIC Pension Fund
UTI Retirement Solutions
HDFC Pension Fund
ICICI Prudential Pension Fund
Kotak Pension Fund
Birla Sun Life Pension Management Ltd

I personally prefer SBI as it is one of the safest banks in India. It has almost around 61,000 crores in AUM.

We can invest a small amount every month and it gets invested in Indian Equities. The amount we contribute is tax exempted and the return corpus is also tax exempted.

If you have not opened the Pension Scheme, I would urge you to do that.

Mutual Funds

My third investment choice will be mutual funds. There is a huge misconception about investment in Stock Markets.

I have a feeling that the regulatory boards in India is not protective of small investors. There are lot of fake Gurus in the market and we need to be extra cautious.

I had made some bad investment choices and incurred some huge losses. But I will still recommend Mutual funds as a safest option.

At a high level, there are two options. Equity and Bonds.

I will write separate posts to explain about these in detail. Companies are always in need of capital. They have two options. They can issue a security bond and collect funds from Banks, investors etc., for a fixed percentage of interest. The interests are fixed and is always around 6-10% depending upon the type of activities the funds are utilized. These bonds are more secured and it is pretty much guaranteed for returns.

The second option is they can raise capital by issuing equities. These equities are traded in stock exchanges. These companies are classified as Large Cap, Mid Cap and Small Cap depending upon the market capitalization.

Large cap stocks are secure and they don't fluctuate highly. However small caps are riskier and they fluctuate highly.

Mutual funds gather funds from several investors and they help with diversification by investing across multiple sectors and companies.

Another similar option is an index fund. There are two stock exchanges in India, NSE (NIFTY) and BSE (SENSEX). NIFTY has 50 companies in its index and SENSEX has 30 companies. The idea is a snapshot from different sectors will help investors to gauge the market.

INDEX funds allows investors to invest in all the companies in an index. These funds closely track the index gains and losses in each day. The fee charged to invest in an index fund is relatively low when compared to mutual funds.

We need a DEMAT account to invest in Equities, Bonds & Mutual Funds. Ping me if you have any questions.

Cheers.

Random Thoughts - 5/18/2020

2020-05-18T21:59:00.001-07:00

Power Grabbing

All my twitter feed is full of tweets about the new Arokya Sethu App. I am not sure how true they are but I am hearing rumors that it has been made mandatory for public offices, private offices, Airports etc.,

It's not just in India but all over the world, the Government has been grabbing powers during this Pandemic.

We have a very little say and just have to live as we are instructed to do. Life may not return to Normal for another few months may be years. We just have to get used to the Virus and learn to live along with it.

I really hope all the lockdown restrictions have saved few lives across the world.

There are definitely some valuable lessons that Humanity can learn from the crisis. All our priorities were changed altogether. Everybody moved to a survival mode, and some appreciated the things that we got in our life.

We take too many things for granted for sure. I really wish Humanity grows with little maturity by protecting itself. It looks like Nature knows how to protect itself and we don't have to worry too much about it.

The politicians appear to be clueless and there is a huge disconnect between them and reality.

They no longer understand the struggle of common man.

I have been listening to the recent announcements by the Indian Finance Minister. It looks like the Government is using Corona as a scapegoat and had implemented lot of policy based decisions.

Some of their decisions like allowing FDI in Defense, allowing anybody to invest start private enterprises in all public enterprises must have been discussed in Parliament.

I completely agree that lot of public enterprises must be revamped, but I guess it would be a bad decision to scrap them completely.

I agree with some of the industrialists that Government must put cash on the hands of Migrants and poor and that is the top priority as of now.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/view-the-interests-of-workers-businesses-are-deeply-aligned-especially-in-these-times-of-crisis/articleshow/75765702.cms

Everything else can wait.

Random Thoughts - 5/7/2020

2020-05-07T22:49:00.001-07:00

Wall St vs Main St

I was reading the recent Economist magazine. The cover picture depicts the clear gap between wall street and main street.

It was a wild swing in the last few weeks. Obviously some of the rise is due to people who were staying away from the Market for a long time waiting for a recession.

However it does not explain the steep rise to the market. The only reason between the Financial crisis 2008 and 2020 is the pumping done by the Federal Reserve.

Here is a quick chart of the assets that Federal reserve bought in the recent years.

US Federal reserve is purchasing the Corporate bonds and it is increasing the confidence of the investors. Everybody knows that the 90% of the world is shut down and it is going to take lot of time for the normalcy to return. But it is crazy for the market to behave in a crisis time.

The next few years is going to be interesting.

Pharmacy of the world

There is so much hype recently that India is projected to be Pharmacy of the world. I saw a recent tweet that said India exported approx to 100 countries during the Pandemic.

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/india-can-become-the-pharmacy-of-the-world/article31516558.ece

We have exported around 18$ billion dollars worth of Drugs. It helps people by providing employment. We can become pharmacy of the world, but at what cost.

Do we have proper controls in place to properly dispose the chemical wastes. If we properly dispose, will we ever make profits.

It is deeply saddening to see the recent accident in Andhra Pradesh.

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-india-52569636

The future will definitely answer.

5G and Satellites.

FCC recently approved SpaceX to plug ~ 1 million antennas in USA to speed up the roll out of 5G. The company is planning to launch ~12,000 satellites that will beam the 5G internet from space. These mini satellites are called starlinks.

We already have seen enough issues by the radiation towers. I am deeply concerned by what is happening, I strongly hope all these are tested out thoroughly.

What are your thoughts. Are you ready for 5G?

... Cheers.

Atlantic Charter - 1941

2020-05-06T22:53:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote a post about the Declaration of Independence and the basic rights that it entails.

It is a charter that is signed between UK and USA in 1941 around the world war. I urge my readers to go through these points.

The eight principal points of the Charter were:

no territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom;
territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned;
all people had a right to self-determination;
trade barriers were to be lowered;
there was to be global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare;
the participants would work for a world free of want and fear;
the participants would work for freedom of the seas;
there was to be disarmament of aggressor nations, and a common disarmament after the war.

Even though Churchill agreed to sign the charter, he made sure that the 3rd clause "Self-determination" is applicable for only countries under Germany. It did not apply for British empire including India.

This is what Gandhi had to write back to Churchill.

"I venture to think that the Allied declaration that the Allies are fighting to make the world safe for the freedom of the individual and for democracy sounds hollow so long as India and for that matter Africa are exploited by Great Britain..."

Let us teach these points to our kids.

… Cheers.

The rise of Right

2020-05-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

When the Corona Virus Crisis begun, Bernie Sanders who was a top runner from Democratic party in last election dropped out of the race for 2020.

It was not a huge surprise as we follow the trend closely across the world. The left wing parties are losing the ground and right wing parties are winning all over the world.

The same happened in United Kingdom.The much expected Left leader Jeremy Corbyn lost the election to BoJo. I was closely monitoring the Election manifesto of the labor party and a copy of it can be found here.

https://labour.org.uk/manifesto-2019/

As you can see here, the left is promising for heavens in earth. There is absolutely lack of unity in Left. There is a lack of Trust among the people of the Government.

I see politicians are becoming more greedier and they wanted to grab more and more absolute power.

When I look at the Bernie's campaign I see some of it has been lifted from the Labor manifesto. These looks great on paper, but it is too good to believe.

I just took few pointers from his campaign and these can be used by any Left wing party across the world.

I strongly believe more and more people will move towards Anti Government and Anti Globalization.

More may become apolitical and the world needs a middle ground between Capitalism and Socialism.

Guarantee tuition and debt-free public colleges, universities, HBCUs, Minority Serving Institutions and trade-schools to all.
Cancel all student loan debt for the some 45 million Americans who owe about $1.6 trillion and place a cap on student loan interest rates going forward at 1.88 percent.
Invest $1.3 billion every year in private, non-profit historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions
End equity gaps in higher education attainment. And ensure students are able to cover non-tuition costs of attending school by: expanding Pell Grants to cover non-tuition and fee costs, tripling funding for the Work-Study Program, and more.

Double union membership within Bernie’s first term.
Establish federal protections against the firing of workers for any reason other than “just cause.”
Provide unions the ability to organize through a majority sign up process and enact “first contract” provisions to ensure companies cannot prevent a union from forming by denying a first contract.
Deny federal contracts to companies that pay poverty wages, outsource jobs overseas, engage in union busting, deny good benefits, and pay CEOs outrageous compensation packages
Eliminate “Right to Work for Less” laws and guarantees the right to unionize for workers historically excluded from labor protections, like farm workers and domestic workers.

Expand Social Security benefits for all recipients and protect pensions.
Guarantee home and community based long-term care services.
Protect our most vulnerable seniors by quadrupling funding for the Older Americans Act and expanding other programs seniors rely on.
Expand and train the direct care workforce we need.

End the housing crisis by investing $2.5 trillion to build nearly 10 million permanently affordable housing units.
Protect tenants by implementing a national rent control standard, a “just-cause” requirement for evictions, and ensuring the right to counsel in housing disputes.
Make rent affordable by making Section 8 vouchers available to all eligible families without a waitlist and strengthening the Fair Housing Act.
Combat gentrification, exclusionary zoning, segregation, and speculation.
End homelessness and ensure fair housing for all
Revitalize public housing by investing $70 billion to repair, decarbonize, and build new public housing.

Eliminate all of the $81 billion in past-due medical debt held by 79 million Americans —one in every six Americans.
Reform bankruptcy laws to use the existing bankruptcy court system to provide relief for those with burdensome medical debt.
Create a secure public credit registry to replace for-profit credit reporting agencies.

End for-profit greed in our criminal justice system, top to bottom by: by banning for-profit prisons and detention centers, ending cash bail, and making prison and jail communications, re-entry, diversion and treatment programs fee-free.
Ensure due process and right to counsel by vastly increasing funding for public defenders and creating a federal formula to ensure populations have a minimum number of public defenders to meet their needs.
Cut the national prison population in half and end mass incarceration by abolishing the death penalty, three strikes laws, and mandatory minimum sentences, as well as expanding the use of alternatives to detention
Transform the way we police communities by end the War on Drugs by legalizing marijuana and expunging past convictions, treating children who interact with the justice system as children, reversing the criminalization of addiction, and ending the reliance on police forces to handle mental health emergencies, homelessness, maintenance violations, and other low-level situations.
Reform our decrepit prison system, guarantee a “Prisoners Bill of Rights,” and ensure a just transition for incarcerated individuals upon their release.
Reverse the criminalization of communities, end cycles of violence, provide support to survivors of crime, and invest in our communities.
Ensure law enforcement accountability and robust oversight, including banning the use of facial recognition software for policing.

Random Thoughts - 5/4/2020

2020-05-04T22:44:00.002-07:00

Martin Luther King

I was taking Gautham to his Pre-school around the Martin Luther King day. While I was telling him that we had an extra day off, he was explaining me about Martin Luther King. He asked a question why were Colored people were not allowed to be seated in the front of the bus.

I had to explain him what people thought in those days. I also explained him how MLK fought for CIVIL rights.

Later I asked him if he wanted to become a leader so that he can serve and do good to people. His response was that he wanted to become an assistant to a president. I questioned him why he did not want to be a president but instead just an assistant. He responded that he does not want to be shot dead.

I had to search for who killed MLK. (It is James Ray). I wondered that he not only killed a great leader with a bullet, but at least a dozen aspiring unknown leaders.

Berkshire Hathaway Meeting - 2020

I just watched the recent annual meeting on 5/3. I had already attended the annual meeting in 2015 and have written a post about it.

https://gridsview.blogspot.com/2015/05/struck-down-one-of-item-on-my-bucket.html

The entire meeting was for 4-4:30 hours and Buffett covered a short history about the wealth of USA.

He argued that the United states is still a very young country (~230 years). He roughly estimates the wealth of a nation at 1790 to be USD 1 billion. As of 2020, the Federal reserve estimates the total wealth of USA to be 100 trillion dollars.

I guess no other country would have or will achieve this in future.

The first census taken in 1790 shows approx. 3 million people and approx. 15% of the population is slaves.

It took 131 years until women were guaranteed the right to vote for country's leaders.

It took 61 more years for a woman to join 8 males in supreme court as a judge.

His final slide stated that

WE STILL HAVE A LONG WAY TO GOIN CREATING AN EVEN WEALTHIER AND EQUITABLE SOCIETY

There are lot of uncertainty and from what he talked it appears that the world is not going to be same anymore after this lockdown is over. There are some businesses that will face a tough time ahead (esp airlines). I watched a recent survey that states the total passengers who flew this weekend is approx. 200,000. It used to be at least 2 million last year.

Good Hearted Girl

Since I started the post with Gautham, I would like to end it with him. I was driving him for his piano lessons. He used to continuously chat while driving. For some reason I told him that he must study well. He immediately picked from where I left. "Appa, I will study well so that I can get into Harvard and read college books like Collapse, Homo Sapiens" (these were the books that I was reading back then. He seriously thinks those were college books and I still study in college).

To encourage him, I said he was correct. Once he gets into a good college, he can get a good job and earn more money. He fired right away stating "Yes, I can get a good hearted girl whom I will marry and I can do a baby shower for her (He just attended a friend's baby shower function).

I did not wanted to stop the conversation. I asked him why he wanted a good hearted girl. He replied "Appa, shouldn't the bad hearted girls go and visit the doctors?"

Kids...

...Cheers.

Random Thoughts - 5/3/2020

2020-05-03T23:14:00.000-07:00

CORONA CRISIS

I am deeply saddened by the lives lost for Corona Virus. It's more frustrating to see how our Government treats the Migrant workers. I am hearing in news that the workers were asked to pay for the Train fare. The Indian railways donated 150 crores to the PM CARES fund recently.

https://www.deccanherald.com/national/indian-railways-to-donate-rs-151-crore-to-pm-cares-fund-piyush-goyal-818862.html

Why can't the funds from the PM CARES be utilized for their transportation. The Congress is right in asking for transparency of the fund.

https://metrosaga.com/lack-of-transparency-pm-cares-funds-runs-itself-into-controversy/

At least the opposition party is showing some courtesy to the migrant workers.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/coronavirus-lockdown-sonia-gandhi-attacks-government-over-train-fare-for-migrants-says-state-congress-units-shall-bear-travel-cost-of-every-labourer-2222732?pfrom=home-topscroll

Meanwhile our Government is spending its money differently.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/here-is-how-indian-armed-forces-will-honour-covid-19-warriors-today/articleshow/75513944.cms?

https://www.businesstoday.in/sectors/aviation/new-boeing-wide-body-planes-for-modi-kovind-naidu-likely-to-cost-rs-8458-crore/story/395385.html

A simple tweet turns to headlines

I was recently watching the twitter feed where one asked about the registration number of Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief ministers new Range Rover car. Within few hours of information gathering became a headline.

https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/05/03/exclusive-is-tn-deputy-cm-o-panneerselvams-range-rover-tip-of-a-conflict-of-interest-iceberg.html

The entire tweet thread can be found by searching for @srirammadras

It is amazing to see how data gathering at the right level establishes checks and balances.

I know for our sure how our judiciary will react if this is taken to the courts. But I am glad that some sense prevails in the social media where the Main Stream Media is keeping their mouth shut.

-- Cheers

Agara - TN Elections 1996 - 2016

2020-05-02T22:12:00.002-07:00

As I posted some updates to the Agara website earlier, this is another one completed recently.

There is lot of boredom during the Lockdown, and I was going through the election commission results of Tamil Nadu.

I tried to compile the results from 1991 and I added it to the Agara website.

http://agara.in/tamil_nadu_elections.php

Here is an quick chart for the results.

I am not an expert in Tamil Nadu Politics but when I look at the data, I see some interesting trends.

I see AIADMK has been consistently winning more seats throughout this period except 1996 after the huge corruption scandal.
That is the only period DMK was able to win considerable number of seats.
I have been under the impression that Congress party is no more relevant to Tamil Nadu. But they have been winning considerable number of seats throughout. Without their support, it may be difficult for DMK to get the majority
TMC played a major role in 1996 and 2001 election and I am not sure if it will create a dent again.
When comparing the Communist parties, CPM tends to be winning more seats than CPI (I don't understand the reasoning)
There are some seats that AIADMK is winning continuously (21 seats that they have won 4 times 2001,2006, 2011 & 2016 and another 29 seats that they won 3 times 2006, 2011 & 2016).
DMK does not appear to have such a strong fort across anywhere.

The next election will be more interesting to watch. What are your thoughts?

Cheers.

Labor Day - 2020

2020-05-01T23:11:00.001-07:00

I was recently watching the National treasure movie again. I had already mentioned earlier that History is one of my favorite subject. The movie revolves around the United States Declaration of Independence and a secret code hidden for a treasure.

I always loved the Declaration of Independence text and you could find it here.

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

I always admired the fact how the importance is given to individual person. In a traditional Indian society an individual is always kept lower in the pyramid. Religion, Creed and Caste takes more precedence than an individual.

I was looking for a similar declaration of independence in India. I found a good draft written by M.N Roy.

https://www.constitutionofindia.net/historical_constitutions/constitution_of_free_india___a_draft__m_n__roy__1944__1st%20January%201944

I urge my readers to go through this, at least once a year during May 1st. I see lot of wishes around the Labor day. What does an individual labor earned in the last 73 years of independence?

The Declaration Of Rights And Fundamental Principles

CFI.1

Article I. This Constitution is promulgated with the purpose of establishing the following rights, and enforcing the following fundamental principles of democratic freedom.

(a) The supreme sovereignty belongs to the entire people, and shall be exercised directly through the control of the executive as well as the legislative functions of the State, by elected representatives of the people.

(b) The people have the inalienable right to alter and modify the political organisation of society.

(c) The right of revolt against tyranny and oppression is sacred.

(d) Autonomous Indian Provinces, formed as far as possible on the basis of linguistic and cultural homogeneity and freely agreeing to unite in a federation, shall form the Federal Union of India.

(e) All territorial units in India, including those that remain out of the Federal Union, shall have a uniformly democratic Constitution.

(f) The State being the political organisation of society, it shall in all cases be identical with the entire people.

(g) The land as well as the underground riches are collective property of the people.

(h) Promotion of the productivity of labour through the introduction of modern mechanical means of production, is a responsibility of the State.

(i) Basic industries and the credit system shall be subject to State control.

(j) The State shall start large-scale industries under collective ownership.

(k)Cultivators are entitled to hold land, without any disability, subject to the payment of a unitary land tax to be fixed by law.

(l) The Government shall promote large-scale cooperative agriculture through the supply of modern machinery and cheap credit

(m) An irreducible standard of living for all laboring in fields, factories, mines, transport, offices and schools; shall be guaranteed by minimum wages fixed by law.

(n) Adequately remunerative employment or relief is a right of citizenship.

(o) Nobody shall labour for more than eight hours a day, for six days a week, and every worker shall be entitled to one month's leave with full pay every year, and women workers to three months maternity leave with full pay.

(p) There shall be statutory provision of social security for the old, sick and incapacitated.

(q) Education for all children up to the age of fourteen shall be free, compulsory and secular.

(r) The promotion of public health and sanitation shall be a charge on public revenue.

(s) The freedom of press and speech is guaranteed to all but the enemies of the people.

(t) The right of association for the purpose of safeguarding and amelioration of economic conditions and the political status of workers, employees and peasants shall be guaranteed.

(u) All citizens of the Federal Union of India are guaranteed inviolability of the person. No person shall be placed under arrest except on order by legally constituted Court.

(v) The inviolability of the homes of citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by law.

(w) Individual citizens will have full freedom of worship.

(x) There shall be identical rights and responsibilities of citizenship for men and women.

(y) The rights of minorities shall be protected by proportional representation through separate electorates on all elected public bodies.

Agara Updates - April 2020 - Part 1

2020-04-25T23:09:00.001-07:00

Dear Friends.

Its been a while from my previous updates on Agara.

I created this website whenever I had some time. Due to this lockdown, I am able to spend additional time on the website.

I added two new features.

Tamil Nadu Towns

I wanted to list down the districts, towns in Tamil Nadu after translating them into Tamil. I am not sure if this feature is available in other websites, but my idea was to expose the list as a JSON object that can be consumed by other applications. I just posted the towns in the following url and in the process of creating the JSON objects.

http://agara.in/tamiltowns.php

Tamil Unicode

I already created a Transilerator in the following url.

http://agara.in/tamiltransilerator.php

Along with it, I also wanted to list down the Unicode characters of the Tamil Fonts. Here is a new page added to the website.

http://agara.in/tamilunicode.php

Please share it with your friends.

Cheers.

The World Until Yesterday - Jared Diamond

2020-04-16T22:08:00.003-07:00

The World Until Yesterday - Jared Diamond

There are two modern writers that I admire the most. Jared Diamond and Yuval Noah Harari.

These two have a capability to weave a masterpiece by pulling information across multiple areas of specialization. I do not understand how they can study such a vast fields and condense them in few pages. I already read Diamond's Collapse, Guns Germs and Steel, Upheaval. I recently finished another one "The world until yesterday".

In this book, he compares Traditional societies vs Modern societies across different dimensions of life. Just to provide few examples, like Peace & War, Bringing up Children, Treatment of old people, Dangers and Constructive paranoia, Religion, Language, Food.

He outlays lots of good things that we as a modern society can learn from traditional society.

How did a modern society arise?

He explains through four different stages.

1. Bands & Tribes (~ 5000 BC)

2. Rising Chiefdoms and states (~5000 BC to 1BC)

3. European religious states (AD 1600)

4. Modern secular states (Today)

I just want to pause here for a second. Though this in general will apply for any western country, I see India as an exception. It swiftly moved from Chief-doms and states to secular state (post independence) and then now started moving towards a religious state. I can sense why academicians and intelligentsia does not like this trend. This topic needs to wait for a separate post.

He summarizes all the learning from 450 pages in 3 pages at the last. I learnt some useful lessons and wanted to share it with my readers.

When we talk about the Homo Sapiens, they arose between 60,000 to 100,000 years.

Agriculture evolved around 11,000 years ago in Fertile crescent. State governments were established around 5400 years ago.

He compares the traditional world with WEIRD (Western, educated, industrial, rich and democratic countries).

Even though there are some good things that we can learn from traditional societies, there are some that needs to be avoided, like Chronic warfare, infanticide, and abandoning the elderly (Though it is very difficult to understand these without studying the traditional lifestyle)

There are some easier things that we can adopt. None of the traditional world people would die of Diabetes, heart disease, stroke. They do not consume sugar and salt as much we do. We cannot change our food habits, but atleast implement three enjoyable habits. 1. Exercising, 2. eating slowly and 3. talking with friends or spouse while eating.

Diamond explains how our genes our wired. In traditional world food is not abundant. They had to struggle to get food everyday. So when they have access to it, they eat as much they could so that it could be burnt when food is not available. This habit does not have to continue in the modern world where food is abundant and easily accessible. I personally started fasting at least once a week to reduce the intake. (He again compares that we in modern society craves for sex (not for food), however in traditional societies sex is abundantly available and they crave for food)

Most of the traditional society are bi-lingual or multilingual. This is something that we can implement by allowing our kids to study more than one language. Science is proving that bi-lingual or multilingual delays the Alzheimer disease. Apart from the language: a period of on-demand nursing, late weaning, physical contact with the kids (in the same bed), transporting infants vertically and facing forwards, allo-parenting (this was a new word to me. allo-parenting is allowing our children to mingle with friends and relatives), responding quickly to child's crying, avoiding physical punishment, giving your children freedom to explore, multi-age playgroups and helping kids learn to entertain themselves rather than toys. (He explains how the kids from traditional societies do role playing, I remember my olden days where we used to pretend like doctors, teachers etc.,) I don't see that in today's kids. When I tried with my kid, he always wanted to be a cop and never a bad guy.

The opposite spectrum is how we treat our elders. In western countries, especially the elders are left in the retirement homes or with hospice care. They were never given opportunity to mingle with their grand kids. These can definitely be changed by learning from the traditional societies.

The next controversial topic that he evaluates is religion. Many of us go through difficult periods of life and in those times we must re-assess our religious beliefs. Our choice of religion is a broader and complex matter than adopting metaphysical beliefs. The role of religion includes, search for satisfying explanations of ultimate questions about the physical life, dealing with anxiety and stressful situations, making sense of the death of a loved one, of the prospect of own death and other painful events, justifying one's moral principles of behavior, and ones obedience and disobedience to authority, and identifying oneself as a member of a group whose ideals one shares.

Again a valuable book to treasure.

Cheers.

COVID - 19

2020-04-11T14:57:00.002-07:00

It's been a while from my previous post. Time flies real fast. It is already three months.

I am writing this in an unusual situation. Almost 3 billion people are in lockdown one way or another. I am hoping you and family are doing fine.

I see there is a constant fear and panic everywhere. Approximately 100,000 people died and several thousands are infected by the virus.We would not have imagined this situation some 30 days back. It is interesting to see how the world reacts to this Pandemic.

I don not want to criticize or comment on anything at this point of time. Life is precious to each one of us and it is insane to throw it out without exercising caution.

At the same time, are we reacting too much to this virus. As I write this, most companies had implemented a work from home policy. Public schools are closed. Parks, Malls, Cinema halls, Libraries are all closed. The streets are deserted. People do not walk outside unless it is essential. Most grocery stores are open and except few items like Toilet papers, sanitizers and hand soaps, we can order or purchase. Day cares are open but only kids of emergency workers attend.

Each government had established a task force and they provide briefings each day. Governments had set aside huge relief packages to people, small businesses and some corporations.

People are making generous donations to governments wherever possible. I received a Youtube feed with a speech by Bill Gates. Here is the link.

It is surprising that he warned us some 5 years before.

Once the dust settles,I believe each one of us and countries must re-look at their disaster recovery mechanisms in Detail.

I am not following each country in detail. But I understood how India and USA reacted to this situation providing different outcomes.

There are positives and negatives to both sides, and the steps taken will have a profound impact to most of their citizens.

It is deeply saddening that US lost many lives and similarly the poor in India is going through a economic pain for days. It was saddening to see hundreds of people who marched across country when the lockdown

There are some facts that are discussed everywhere and I wanted to re-iterate them here.

The virus impacts people who are more than 65 years.

People who already had a morbid situation like Heart disease, Cancer, Diabetes die due to the virus.

Both the above situations are not unusual. I was going through the Center for Disease control's forecast each year for last 10 years.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2010-2011.html

I would recommend to limit the hours spent on Television news and Social media to reduce the anxiety and stay humane.

Also it is interesting to see that the series of pandemics hit the world every century.

This infographic explains the history.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/

Cheers.

Lessons that we can learn from Norway

2020-01-24T05:26:00.001-08:00

While reading the Annual reports of companies, I have come across the name Global Pension fund. I initially thought that this is more like an index fund invested globally.

Later I came to know that this is a sovereign fund held by Norway. As of today, this is one of the largest fund that is held by a country. How did Norway achieved this. Let us analyze.

Many may not know that Norway is one of the largest oil producer in the world.

Even though it is 15th largest producer, it is the 5th largest exporter in the world and 3rd largest gas exporter. 40% of the countries total exports is Oil.

Though oil was found during the 70's in the Norwegian sea, it was successfully nationalized without any hurdle. The north western hemisphere allowed the country. This may not have been possible by Iraq or Venezuela. I will write more about those in future posts.

The country was earning so much of exports revenue so it wanted to diversify the revenue. It setup a Sovereign Wealth Fund in 1995 named "Government Pension Fund - Global" or simply called as Oil fund. Most of the revenue from exports, taxes were invested across the world in different buckets. Equities, Bonds & Real Estate.

What started as a small fund with around 28 Billion dollars in 1990's has grown significantly larger now with around 1 Trillion dollars. That is a staggering $200,000 per capita.

The Government does not touch the fund except a small percentage that is spent on Citizens. Also they are spending the money crazily. They still tax their citizens on almost everything.

Along with that they were able to provide a quality of life to its Citizens. The country leads in most of the parameters globally.

Education and Health care is provided either free or at a lower cost.

What does our countries save except the debt for future?

2010 Decade - Part 1

2019-12-31T22:40:00.002-08:00

As we complete the last year in this decade, the internet is still arguing when does a decade actually start.

It is very difficult to summarize the decade in a post, but let me take a stab.

Natural Disasters

The decade kind of started with a natural disaster in Haiti. A 7.0 quake resulted in hundreds of thousands of death and impacted lives of millions. It was followed by a Tsunami in Japan.

Though Japan recovered from it very quickly as expected, the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Personally I was a huge fan of Nuclear reactors that were installed in Kudunkulam in Tamil Nadu India. However after this disaster, I will say a big no to Nuclear power plants. Let us move towards renewable energy sources.

There were floods all over and I will personally remember the Chennai floods in 2015. I have never seen such a large flood in my life and Chennai would end up having a huge scarcity in couple of years.

California had its worst forest fires and Hawai volcano erupted in 2018.

Some of the disasters were man made like the one by BP oil spill in 2010.

Protests

The decade was flooded with Protests. It started with Occupy wall street movement in New York. It was a protest against the 1% wealthy people. The protest began on Sep 17, 2011.

It resulted in similar protests across the world in various format. The most famous one is Arab Spring. Though it started in Tunisia, it eventually spread across other nations like Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain quickly.

India witnessed a peaceful protest in Tamil Nadu supporting Jalli kattu in 2017 where millions of apolitical youngsters participated.

I am not sure if these protests would have been possible without the social media.

Happy New Year 2020. I will see you on the other side of the decade tomorrow.

List of Books - 2019

2019-12-23T22:41:00.002-08:00

I published my reading list in a previous post, earlier this year.

https://gridsview.blogspot.com/2019/01/list-of-books-that-i-read.html

I had a target that I set to myself for this year. Here are the books that I read this year.

The year started with a Thriller, "The Silence of the lambs". I have already seen the movie earlier. It was one of the best thrillers that I have seen. The Novel was slightly different from the movie, but it gave a different chilling experience altogether.

The next two books are by my favorite writers Mu.Va & Na. Paa. I always consider 60's,70's and 80's are the golden period of Tamil Novels. Akal Vilakku is about two friends whose life moves in opposite directions. A smart kid whose life is destroyed due to bad habits and an average kid who shines in life forever. Kurinchi Malar is one of the best love stories that I have ever read.

The fourth book is "Irandam Idam". I read an Wikipedia article about the Malayalam original version. I had my father to get this Tamil Translation in 2019 Book Fair. This is one book that I had lots of expectations and it did not fail. The book is the story of Mahabharatha from Bheema's perspective. The author takes religion and God completely from the epic and the result is bitter sweet. I have always been a fan of Arjuna, but Bheema wins our heart.

"Urukul oru puratchi" is a novel by Samuthiram about Casteism. The author depicts the casteism as it happens in a typical village. The more I think about castes, the more I started to hate the concept of religion.

Next I read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. JD and Yuval Noah Harari are my favorite non-fictional authors. I never get bored reading volumes of their work. The book is about how Civilizations disappeared from the face of earth. It is in one way opposite to his other book "Guns, Germs and Steel". The later might possibly be one of the best books written in history. I also got hold of JD's recent book "Upheaval" about what problems could occur to a country and how it impacts the directions of the country.

I already read YNH's Homo Deus last year. I got hold of "Homo Sapiens" this year. This is another non fiction work about History. The writer is a genius providing tons of facts, touches history, biology, physics, economics and what not. I wish I had a professor like him in my college.

I also read couple of books by Saavi, Vadam Pidika vaanga Japanuku and Washingtanil thirumanam. Both are casual reads, with nothing much to think about. Both were humorous to some extent.

I had a feeling that I was reading of too much of non fictions this year. Hence I pick one of the award winning fiction "Tina Seski's One Step too far". The book revolves around a woman who runs away from her Family due to a tragic accident.

Another unforgettable book that I read was on Thirumandiram. It is one of the classical treatise on Tamil Saivism. The book is the recordings of a speech by Thiru. Sathyavel Muruganar. It explains the immense Tamil knowledge potrayed by the Author and he might be second only to Thiru. Kirubananda Vaariyar swamikal.

I am ending this year by a book by Jeyakanthan. The title is "Sinthanayil Ayirangal". One of my friend gave the book when I was in India. It shows the lifestyle of the controversial writer. It also shows his immense national interest next to no other. It was exciting to see the number of Tamil writers and magazines that existed in last few decades.

So far I read 15 books this year and 9 are in my mother tongue "Tamil". I am grateful that I got this opportunity to read.

I will share more books next year.

- Cheers.

Indian Unicorns - 2019

2019-12-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

I published a post last year about the Unicorns in India. These are private companies that are valued $1 billion or more.

Here is the link from last year.

https://gridsview.blogspot.com/2019/01/unicorns-in-2018.html

So let us look at 2019.

There are 5 companies added to the list and making the total count as 18.

Here is the count, year wise.

Where does India stands with other countries. As usual US and China occupies the first two positions. India is 4th by number of Unicorns. But by valuation of all unicorns, it is in 3rd place.

Here is the category wise breakdown.

And if you are interested, here is the list of Unicorns as of 2019.

The equity market in India has become weak in my perspective. There are no organization that will protect a small to medium investors. Most of the companies provide fudged reports and only handful of companies are trustworthy.

I hope these valuations for the private companies, even though most of them do not churn a profit are close to accurate.

- Cheers.