SHANDE

The 'Triple J' Rajasthan trip

2010-01-12T00:38:00.009+05:30

Triple-J or JJJ stands for Jaipur, Jaisalmer and Jodhpur - the three major tourist destination in the state of Rajasthan. In world of tourism, the cities are synonymous with the tags Pink City, Golden City and Blue City respectively. This is first post in the travelogue series of this trip. I am starting with a summary post regarding places visit we places visited, accommodation etc and in subsequent posts will share experiences in detail.

Jaipur

Places we saw: City Palace, Jantar Mantar, Jaigarh Fort, Nargarh Fort, Amber Fort, Gator ki Chatriyan, Jal Mahal, Chokidhani(5 star village resort). All of the places I liked City Palace and Nargarh Fort, former because novelty factor and the latter because its calm atmosphere.
Accomodation: Stayed at two places. Day-1 at Sureli Haveli in Banipark and Day-2,3 at Hotel Residency Inn which affiliate of YHAI.
Moving Around: All credits to Raju and his auto. Right from pick up from the railway station to drop back Raju took the responsibility of our intra-city travel. We were very much relieved of catching an auto, negotiating the fare, later on negotiating the compensation for waiting time and so on.
Food: Had traditional Rajasthani food Dal-Bati-Churma at different restaurants. Also tea and kachories at Raju's shop used to be perfect start for the day.
Shopping: Bought a few kurtas, saree and dress material which were uniquely printed with vegetable colors. But I was irritated with excess marketing of "100 gm quilt" at all the handicraft shops which I visited or forced to visit. On top that if you stay for long term in places where temperature hardly goes down below 10 degree celcius, excess marketing increases you irritation levels exponentially as there will no need of such warm stuffs.

Jaisalmer

Places we saw: Khuri Sand Dunes, Sam Sand Dunes, Jaisalmer Fort, Gadi Sagar Lake. Sand Dunes are the place to be evening.
Major activities: Camel ride on Khuri Sand Dunes, Walking on Dunes at Sam which we liked more than normal Camel ride.
Accommodation: Day-1 at Badal House(Khuri) which is a lonely planet recommendation and Day-2 at 'Hotel Payal' which is affiliated to YHAI.
Food: Bajre ki Roti and Dokhla at Badal House. Also nice to have was "Pakwaan", a big papad with masala toppings available in a tela near Jaisalmer bus stop.
Moving around: Local Bus, Auto and Bike. Renting a bike is good option considering cost and convenience. Never dared go for taxis and jeeps, as there was very high chances of getting ripped off.

Jodhpur

Places we saw: Mehrangarh Fort, Jaswant ka Thada, Umaid Bhavan Palace. Other than these, not many places of interest were there in the city.
Accommodation : Stayed at "Hotel Nirvana" which is 1 km from the railway station.
Moving around: we tried to emulate Raju type of auto experience with a local autowallah but ended paying a bomb. So better go for a seperate autos. But traveling in Jodhpur's auto with mega leg-room was an amusing experience,
Food: Masala Cheese Omelette at "Omelette Shop" in the market around clock tower. We also had lassis at a nearby shops which was perfect complement to the omelette.
Shopping: National Handloom shop is a good place to buy souvenirs, designer wallets-n-purses.

Planning

Faced with series of drop outs I had to entire planning on my own.
My major online references were wikitravel and Arun's indiatravelblog. I also bought Hapercollins Rajasthan Travel guide and it was a handy reference for the entire trip. The strategy was to see less places with more dedication rather than being a normal vacation tourist i.e. visiting places for formality sake.
Some part of the travel plan was so foolproof that even if I miss a train, there will be another itinerary as plan-B. Even though I ended up paying 20 INR to irctc per cancelled transaction of plan-B tickets, the less load on the mind with a back up option was good to have.

Restropect

With this trip, we contributed around 6000 INR per head (excluding to-n-fro train tickets to Jaipur) to GDP of India.
Badal Singh Guest House at Khuri is a must visit place. Hats offs to his simplicity and down to earth personality.
We got saturated with sightseeing, especially forts and temples in last leg of the trip. So our initial decision to travel less and see more was right. Looking forward to cover other parts of Rajasthan in subsequent trips.
Timing of our trip i.e two weeks before Chrismas was perfect, we experienced decent weather throughout, a must while traveling in Rajasthan and completely avoided crowds of holiday season.

Thanks to

Raju aka Raj Kumar Lakhiwal : for his auto service in Jaipur.
Arun Bhat: for his indiatravelblog rajasthan series.
Naveen aka Ande: accompanying me for this trip. Traveling alone in a week long trip drains you off.
Arun VM: for cancelling my back up Railway tickets.

3 idiots: movie and the controversy

2010-01-02T23:23:00.013+05:30

This post is my views on the actual movie and also the credit controversy we have been seeing and hearing for the last 2-3 days.

Well I have not written a post on a movie for long time. But after seeing this movie twice, once in a multiplex and other time in a single screen, I could not resist putting down my thoughts here.

The movie even though based on a best-seller has it's own charm. The experience was different altogether. There are sufficient twists to keep the audience at the edge of the seat, even if they have read the novel.
While watching the movie for the second time I didn't even get bored in a single frame.
Protagonists have gone into the skin of the character, especially Aamir Khan right from eye ball movements to the walking style
Apart from the director and the screenplay writer, the major credit should go to the make up man, who has made Aamir look half his original age !
Other than the protagonists Boman Irani has also done his job to perfection in his usual style. But the character who steals the show is Chatur Ramalingam, taking credits for the best scene of the movie - his (in)famous speech for the Teacher's day function.
The narrative is very gripping as the major part of the story is in flash back. Not so important detailing have been covered with backdrop voice of Farhan Qureshi (R. Madhavan).

Other Views abt the movie:

Sagarika Ghose - From Three Idiots to a Nation Of Idiots
Rajeev Masand - 3 Idiots, satisfying not best.

The Idiotic Controversy
It all began with Chetan Bhagat being disappointed by his name not being mentioned in initial Credits. It was followed by Aamir making a statement that Chetan is doing this for publicity. Then came the yesterday's dramatic press conference in which the producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra(VVC) lost his cool. The controversy entered into headlines with all major journos posting their view in social networking space.

Starting from Vir Sanghvi

I am on the side of Chetan Bhagat in the 3 Idiots controversy. Authors deserve prominent credit if their books are sources. Contrast how Danny Boyle treated Vikas Swarup even though Slumdog was quite different from the book with how Bhagat is being treated. Simon Beaufoy won Best Adapted Screenplay and said without Swarup there would be no movie and no awards.

Then Rajdeep Sardesai

Hirani should say film was inspired by chetan's book, chetan must accept that the screenplay is a raju-joshi creation.

Today when director Rajkumar Hirani in press conference discussed the clauses of the contract signed in 2005, the things became more clear. The final full stop (i hope so) is from Chetan's side by recommending a solution to the situation.

I chose to remain neutral when this credit controversy saga was going on. But the way things have built up from Chetan Bhagat's side I have lost sort of respect towards him. By the look of things I feel he's not able to handle the celebrity status properly.

First of all being a product of India's two premier institutes how can he blindly claim that 70% of the movie is based on his novel, just because one of his fan said so? I agree he's emotional because the story is close to his heart, but still. Now he's changing tracks by mentioning in his blog that "We don’t have to get into percentages".
Also he's sort of begging from the makers of the movie to put his name under storyline credits atleast in official records and DVD/Sattelite TV version.
Last but not the least the following tweet from him -

Understand team 3i is in Indore for presscon today. Maybe they think Indore will be milder to them - but Indore is CB town! ppl there know

.. CB town ?? painting the city with his name .. what's rationale for this .. an appaulause for a speech. Come on Chetan ..

Also in read in detail Veer Saghvi's take on 3i controversy.

Also read Five Point Similarities, 3 Identical Things

HNY MMX !

2010-01-01T14:19:00.012+05:30

Happy New Year to all, if you are still wondering what's MMX in the title, it's just Roman numeral equivalent of the number 2010 !

The celebrations this year were not as adventurous like previous year's Skandagiri peak episode, however we had a get together and did some kind of celebration away from Bangalore. The celebration started at Ankur's home where we decorated the house like celebrating a birthday with balloons and color paper tapes. After having dinner, we went to epicenter of Bangalore celebrations i.e. Brigade Road, MG Road area.

Then we made our entry into Vijay Mallya's UB City and expected the atmosphere to be electricity in the complex. But in contrast the environment inside was calm. There was some party going on inside Shiro Lounge Bar but the 7K price was beyond our budget. The year switch celebration was more or less mute in the place. There were some group of ladies enthusiastically wishing their dearest ones over phone and discussing about going towards airport. With their looks and context of their talk one could have easily made out that they were air-hostesses of the airline owned by Mallya.

After the year-switch we went to Coffee Day 24/7 outlet at Maddur which 65 kms from the city. The drive was bit exhaustive for Hemanth, as he was the lone driver in the group. The unpainted speed breakers made things more irritating. It was a big relief at when we saw red-n-white glow-sign boards on the right side of the highway around 2 AM. Surprisingly the place was still brimming with people, and many were still in celebration mode either yelling out wishes in air or dancing to the tunes played thru their car audio system. We became the part of the crowd with our formal celebration with cake cutting and having a cup of favorite coffee respectively.

At 3 AM, we decided to get back to Bangalore, to conclude our celebrations. While returning we chose to get back by NICE road which was literally nice too, as we could avoid notorious speed breakers on the Mysore Road.

That's the celebration this year, will definitely do something different next time. Share your celebration experiences too.

Looking Back 2009:

The year which was back to student life for me. The best time was Exchange Program where I made many International friends.
In traveling front the exchange program gave me a chance travel in Germany and Switzerland. Being at Jungfrau - top of Europe was the ultimate experience.
The major trip in India was one week at Rajasthan. Due to time constraints I could cover important locations in North and North-West Rajasthan. Upcoming posts will be experiences on this trip.
Never thought that my one year old SLR will be utilized so heavily in 365 days. I am yet to review and post process GBs of snaps.

Looking Forward 2010:

I want to travel beyond either Atlantic or Pacific Ocean and also to Southern Hemisphere. Let's see how this wish materializes.
In India also I want to cover places in the state which I have never been before.
In Photography department I am looking capture more awesome snaps and learn more tricks of the trade.
There are many professional and personal goals. Looking forward to fulfill them in time.

Need a flagship train b/w Mumbai and Bangalore

2009-12-23T18:59:00.005+05:30

There's a need for a super-fast train service between Mumbai and Bangalore for the segment who cannot afford air travel every-fine-day and will definitely pay a premium for fast and convenient train service. The present so called flagship train connection two cities is Udyan Express and it covers the distance of 1153 kms in 25 hrs! A very poor speed when compared to other inter city trains. For example Jaipur-Mumbai superfast express completes distance of 1159 kms in 17h 40m. Mamta Aunty are you listening ? There's no need to think out-of-the-box for this problem, just introducing a Garib-Rath service should be sufficient.

My opinion on this appeared in 'letters to editors' section of Deccan Herald on Monday, 21st Dec 2009.

Post # 200: Imagining India - Breadthwise and Depthwise

2009-12-04T15:49:00.012+05:30

It's 200th post on naanushande.com and the what better topic it can be, my views on the book "Imagining India" by Nandan Nilekani, at present chairman of Unique Identfication Authority of India(UIDAI). What really differentiates the book from other business books on India is that breadth and depth of subjects. Be it discussion on India's infrastructure, or Education or Energy Self-sufficiency or Social Security. A must read book every person who's planning to design a strategic road-map for a business in India.

I had posted a few months back about the book in discussion about India's transportation sector. At that time I had read some random chapters from the copy borrowed from institute's library. In the same period Nandan Nilekani was appointed as chairman of UIDAI and all of a sudden the book became a hot-cake in the library and it became difficult for a individual keep it issued for long time. So I opted to buy a personal copy from flipkart.com, at 15% discount and free shipping!

Overall a very good narrative, got to appreciate the way the author has integrated all the information on India available in silos in a coherent way. But the flipside of the book is that it is too bulky, not very convenient to read while traveling, a time at which such genre of books will be nice to read.

Some strong points have been discussed in the book on various topics. The following list may not be pretty comprehensive, these are just a few points which really caught my attention.

Infrastructure:

The books discusses in depth about the root cause for current state and why government had ignored development of infrastructure in India. The top down approach of the government had led to ignorance in one of the lifeline of an economy i.e. Transportation.
Things have changed in recent times when infrastructure became politically fashionable, the entire focus from Roti, Kapada aur Makaan shifted to Bijli, Sadak aur Pani.

Higher Education:

Right from the establishment of three universities(Bombay, Calcutta & Madras) the author discusses about the ups and downs of Indian education system.
The establishment of IITs one of signature decision the government but unlike institutes in US it missed public funding for research work and instead the funds were tunneled only to central laboratories like CSIR, DRDO, NAL, BARC.
Our public debate on institutes have focused on two issues, privatization and reservation.
The weak regulatory environment has encouraged private investment mainly from people looking to make a fast buck rather than provide effective education.
Steps should be taken to end the scarcity of institions othewise hyper-Darwinian selection process has encouraged 'Kota-mindset' of cramming and creating coaching industry.

School Education:

Due to regional divides across the country - single, coherent education system is impossible.
Our educational policies have funded school, not schooling.
Some people say "In terms of education, we will have to reach the twentieth century before we think about the twenty-first".
In rural area, landlords protest school reforms with a straight face that effective schooling will create unreasonable expectations among backward castes for jobs are entertainment.
Private schools have not improved the situation. As indicated by British researcher James Tooley in his landmark paper there have been mushrooming for 'mom-and-pop schools', one room enterprises with ambitious names 'Oxford School'.
Nowadays education like infrastructure has also become politically fashionable. It started with the launch of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA) by Vajpayee Government. But unfortunately, SSA has only enabled the pumping of more money down a very leaky pipe.

Unique Citizen ID

There's a need for more strict tracking. Number of BPL ration cards circulating in Karnataka is more than state's entire population.
For Single ID major databases have to be integrated. PAN covers all tax payers, voter IDs all registered citizens above eighteen, birth certificates all new borns and BPL cards the poor.
The national smart ID system would be transformational and can function as a mobile, non transferable passbook, considering the fact that 80 percent of Indians today do not have a bank account!
Linking smart cards to bank accounts will introduce possibility of offering direction services from pension to benefit payments.
There will be transformation in politics, as with national ID system there will be paradigm shift from subsidies to direct benefits.

Land Disputes:

Land never has been an easy issue. Over 30 per cent of pending court cases concerned with land.
Unlike many countries, India has not recognized the 'right to property' as fundamental one since 1978.
Land boundaries are very complicated within cities also. To file an FIR in India one has to experience complications in police station limits. There's a massive confusion where one station's authority ends and the other begins.

Healthcare:

Our malnutrition numbers place us among the world's weakest countries, while our diabetes rates vaults us over the United States.
India did not have a health policy till 1982, and the funds the government earmarked for healthcare have budget leftovers. The sector has been drastically under-funded.
Due to dubious public healthcare system, 85% of patients are choosing private health care, even the poorest. Because of this healthcare is the second largest reason that people in rural India are in debt.

Social Security:

Government and citizens have long agreed on the idea that services and care for the aged 'should be a responsibility of the children'.
There have been efforts for implementing universal social security policy. National Pension Scheme (NPS) and National Commision for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector(NCEUS).
To reduce burden on the exchequer, the schemes should be 'defined contribution mechanism', unlike 'defined benefits' method approach of US and Europe.
'Defined benefits' schemes like generous pensions, unemployment insurance and health benefits can have unintended consequences, like people retiring early, taking longer breaks between jobs and focusing too little on preventive healthcare.
Savings and social security has to provide solutions not just for middle class but also for the large of poor. With the implementation for national ID system government would be able to manage the individual account of people who live hand to mouth.

Pension Funds:

Currently EPFO funds which are stuck in low-yield securities, some part of it should be brought into India's stock market. This should avoid swings in markets due to sudden inflow and outflow of FII funds.
Pension funds of other counties make up almost 13 percent of FII in India. Around 150 global pension funds have all invested in Indian stocks.

Environmental Challenges:

Development versus Environment is perennial debate - Once Rajiv Gandhi said "Development which destroys the environment destroys development itself".
Some accuse western world shifting their dirtiest industries abroad, first through colonization and later through globalization.
Tropical areas like India have highly complex ecosystems, and are very difficult to recover once destroyed, compared to the temperature of the West.
Coal industry is badly regulated. The industry waste is discarded into open land, creating large areas of barren wasteland. The environment destruction from coal mining has fanned anger around the mine fields in Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand West Bengal and aidded rise of Naxalite movement.
80% of carbon emissions come from sectors in energy and heavy industry whose investments cannot be easily replaced.

Energy Sector:

Free electricity is the policy cornerstone of every populist politician.
Fossil fuel led industrialization has been replicated around the world. But the further development should continue with renewable sources.
Government subsidies should be more directed towards solar and alternated energy sources to make them more attractive w.r.t price.
Big investments in energy investment are yet to happen, there are emerging possibilities for distributed green power and for IT-enabled grid intelligence we can create a whole new paradigm of energy generation, distribution and consumption.

Jungfrau: top of Europe

2009-12-03T09:52:00.007+05:30

The major highlight of our Switzerland trip was the visit to the top of Europe i.e. Jungfrau. It's amazing to witnessed how the place has been developed for tourism. Definitely a must visit place. The place out of our visit-list because of indecently high ticket price. But the improper navigation system turned out to be blessing in disguise, we gave our car a rest and decided to utilize the day effectively.

Lauterbrunnen Train Station: the place from where we started our train ride on Jungfraubahn to top of Europe. Tickets could be bought at the station itself. The total price including entry to the top was 111 EUR/head

Cogwheel Railway: A special mechanism for the trains traveling on an incline > 15 degree.

At Kleine Scheidegg: here we had to change from Non-AC train to AC train for continuing our uphill journey.

Mt. Schreckhorn: as seen from Eismeer viewpoint, one of the stations at which Jungfraubahn halts for 10 minutes while ascending.

At Ice palace: very rare group photo, thanks to a family from Chennai.

Plateau: Place to experience sub zero temperature and slipperiness of the snow.

Bollywood restaurant closed for off season. Scheduled to re-open in April 2010.

Observatory at Sphinx.

Photo spot at Sphinx: Top of Europe at 11,782 feet.

Goodbye sign in six languages German, French, English, Italian, Spanish and Japanese.

More information at Wikipedia: Jungfraubahn.

Switzerland: a small heaven on earth

2009-12-01T18:20:00.029+05:30

Switzerland, a must visit place in Europe especially for people staying in South Germany. The place with which every Bollywood fan can associate himself/herself as it’s been glamorized by filmmakers for several decades. Above all, a blissful place to be for avid travelers.

Retrospect

Jungfrau is must visit.
Equate Jungfrau's ticket price with amount of money and time investment required for making to trip to Himalayas.
Carry sufficient warm clothes to beat the cold at high altitude.
While renting a car, do a double check for proper navigation system.
Food is very expensive in Switzerland. Prefer carrying some basic bakery items and fruits.

Driving Route:
Reutlingen-> Schaffhausen(Rhine Falls)-> Zurich-> Luzern-> Lauterbrunnen.

The Planning:
Staying in Reutlingen, i.e. in south Germany we had a plan of having a full-fledged trip spread over two days. And the obvious choice turned out to be Switzerland as it’s not so far away from play we were staying. First we thought of traveling by train, but later we decided to look for other options since traveling by train was not efficient and there was not much advantage w.r.t cost.

Then we thought of renting a car for travel, but the process of renting was not that smooth. Our first attempt was at EuropeCar, nearest car rental to our dorm Kolpinghaus, but they refused to give a car stating the reason that none of us have an international license. Then, Sivaram did some research on internet and got the info that with valid Indian driving license one can drive in Europe for first 6 months of his/her stay. So we enquired the same clause at other car rentals and ended up getting Volkswagen Turon from Sixt car-rental.

One of the motto of the trip was to save money on food. As soon as we got the car from Sixt on Friday evening(September 18th), we went to Penny Markt near university to load the boot-space with food items like bread, fruits etc which would be sufficient enough to fill our stomach while traveling.

The Beginning:
We started early on Saturday morning. As part of planning for the trip we had taken printouts of various routes from google maps. But practically it was not that helpful, as it was difficult to read the from paper for making decision when the speed of vehicle is greater than 100 kmph, so for convenience we followed orders of car navigation system.

From Reutlingen, we traveled towards Tubingen and then to Rottenberg. After Rottenberg we joined an Autobahn which was destined to German-Swiss border. In that stretch we had maiden experience of traveling in German Autobahns. It was an amazing experience to witness people just zipping beyond 200 kmph in no speed limit zone, especially people on Audis and BMWs. Within no time we crossed Germany borders and it was time to start our Swiss sightseeing. The first place on the visit-list was Rhine falls.

Rhine Falls:
The major problem traveling on our own vehicle is that there’s probability of missing the right diversion. Even after doing sufficient homework and taking print outs we failed to take the right diversion for Rhine Falls. Sivaram and Sameer, the driver+navigator pair realized it just one second late. Unfortunately, it was too late when we were moving at a speed greater than 80 kmph, so no chance of backtracking!

After missing the diversion, we somehow managed to reach Rhine Falls by Indian style of routing i.e. asking people. Fortunately we found a person at a gas station to help us with directions.

At Rhine falls, after parking our VW at dedicate place we proceeded towards the falls. One has to walk downhill, walk across the railway bridge in upstream of the falls and reach the front viewpoint of the falls. From the viewpoint one can take a boat-ride to island in actual falls area.

Amazing thing was while when we were walking across the bridge a train passed right next to us, it happened twice and very first time we were taken aback by sudden surprise zip of the engine. The boat ride to island(for 6.5 CHF) was also nice … and also climbing upto bird’s nest region of the falls. On the boat a phrase was written in several languages and in hindi it was written as – एक छोटा सा स्वर्ग.

While traveling on the boat, we met an Indian family of Husband-Wife, Father-Mother. The guy was staying somewhere in North Germany. The family were on one week Switzerland trip and were in the last leg of the trip. After realizing that we are planning skip Jungfrau in order to see more places, they suggested us to make a visit to Interlaken atleast, if not Jungfrau. Then after getting back to parking-lot we consumed our food items bread, jam, peanut butter, boiled egg and fruits.
Non-navigable Zurich
Next destination in our visit-list was Zurich. After reaching Zurich we realized that our car’s navigation system is not configured for intra city travel in Switzerland. The system just took us to the center of the city and from there on we had to be on our own. A helpless situation indeed, especially in a big city. Also, we faced a lot of trouble while parking our car. For understanding system of parking meter itself, we spent half an hour.

Then, we thought of making an attempt to fix the navigation system by calling customer center of Sixt car rental. Since the call charges through mobile was very expensive, we walked all the way to the HauptBahnnof(central station) for tourist information center to find out Sixt outlet in Zurich and also to make a phone call. The customer executive said that our car navigation system was configured only for streets in Germany, and only way it can fixed by taking the car back to Reutlingen! Our helplessness continued, the whole comfort of taking a car was partially annulled.

While walking to our car, we decided to head towards Luzern straightway as there was nothing much interesting to see in Zurich and to see some marginally good places also we had to opt for public transport which was indecently expensive for short term. The drive to Luzern was a different experience altogether. In one of the stretch of ride there was a railway track and a stream running parallel to the road adding more colors to the ride.

At Luzern:
In Luzern also we faced the problem as Zurich without proper navigation system. And as expected, we couldn’t find the way to Tourist information center and also to our accommodation. Then, we parked our car at some random place and with the help of directions from a backpacker we walked upto the HauptBahnhof. There we found the tourist information center next to the station complex and enquired there about the places to see around Luzern and also location of our accommodation. But again it was looking very complex to roam around in a car without a proper navigation system.

Then we walked back to the place where we had parked our car and started the search for youth hostel where we had booked accommodation for overnight stay . We came back to HauptBahnof by car, by retracing the route. We walked on foot and then proceeded ahead in the old town as per directions we got from the tourist information center. Finally with some amount of de-touring and stopping-n-asking process we managed to reach the youth hostel.

Day-2 planning:
At the accommodation after freshening up and making our beds, we started brainstorm for next day’s agenda. The place which we had eliminated because of price in prelims of trip planning i.e. Jungfrau came back to table of discussion. My proposition was even if we save time by visiting Pilatus or Titlis, we won’t be able to visit other places as it’s almost impossible to move inside a city without a proper navigation system. With cent percent consensus, we sketched out Jungfrau plan to utilize full day effectively. First we thought of leaving very early for getting "Good Morning Ticket" with 20% discount. Later we dropped the idea, on discovering that in "Good morning" scheme we have to leave from top on or before 12.30 pm. It was not really worthed, that to skipping free complimentary breakfast at Youth Hostel !

Dinner and Wooden Bridge:
Later in the night we headed to downtown for having night dinner. As a vegetarian I was not very enthusiastic, being conscious whether I will get something to eat or not at an affordable price. Surprisingly unlike Germany, there was an option of vegetarian burger in Burger king and as well as in McDonalds, may be the influence of veggie Indian tourist to the Swiss land. After the dinner we stepped our foot on famous wooden bridge of Luzern and witnessed beautiful 17th century placed in series along the pathway.

Drive to Lauterbrunnen:
After having the morning breakfast we started our drive towards Lauterbrunnen from the place where we had to board cog wheel train to Jungfrauouch. Again faced minor hiccupus without navigation system and got to the expressway with difficulty. The drive towards Lauterbrunnen and Interlaken was just superb. The signature tune of DDLJ was lingering in our minds while seeing breathtaking landscapes on both sides of the highway. At one place, Sivaram could not resist and made an abrupt half a location besides the lake "Lungerer See', which was one of the fishing spots. Experiencing the calm and clean water of the lake and simultaneously having a photo session flushed all the concerns of improper navigation system. [Recently while seeing DDLJ I realized that the same spot was picturised in one of the sequences of Tujhe Dekha song].

Getting to Jungfrau:
At 9.50 am we reached Lauterbrunnnen and parked our car in a huge multi-storey parking lot next to the station. At the ticket counters we bought tickets to Jungfrau for 111 EUR per head (which included entry fee to the top). The train to Jungfrauouch departed at 10.30 am and in between Kleine Scheidegg we had to change the train which took us to the higher altitude. Before getting to the top, the train halted at two stations Eigerwand and Eismeer.

On top of Europe:
At 12.30 pm we were on top of Europe-Jungfrauouch. First we visited ice palace, then to the open air plateau. There we got proper feel of the low temperature of high altitude and slipperiness of the snow. We moved towards food court section of the Jungfrauouch as were looking to have nice meal at Bollywood restaurant. But unfortunately the restaurant was closed for off-season, is scheduled to open at April 2010. Then we ended up having boiled eggs and chips which we had carried in our bagpacks as a backup. After having snacky lunch we went to Sphinx and the observatory deck experience more cold winds. I was literally shivering and without gloves it was difficult even to operate the camera. Sivaram took up the photography task voluntarily as he was well protected with gloves on and definitely in condition to operate the camera.

After spending some time at Sphinx we came back to the station for catching 3 pm train. The teen-patti saga of Sankar continued and that too in a train at top of Europe. We were back to LauterBrunnen at 5 pm and before leaving we had leftover foodstuffs to keep our stomach in right condition. We drove back to Luzern, shopped for souvenirs (famous DDLJ cowbell) at Kiosk, a convenience store near HaupBahnhof (the store was open on Sunday too).

Before saying goodbye to Switzerland, we roamed again in Luzern for a while, and again were enquired by some tourists for direction of a provision store. Don’t know if it’s because of our body-language, it happened four times in a span of 24 hours, tourists traveling in a car or walking on the road enquired for direction from us. Then finally saying Auf Wiedersehen to Switzerland we started the ride back to Reutlingen. And Sameer did major part of driving, with some zip-zaps in the Autobahn stretch making Sankar to keep heart in his mouth. And I had no option just to crib for not knowing how to drive a car, definitely missed a golden opportunity.

To conclude the trip was very exciting and memorable as we were able visit dream locations of Bollywood filmmakers. We saved a lot on food and also for transportation(40 EUR/head). The total trip expenses were around 180 EUR/head which included 111 EUR/head Jungfrau ticket. Pretty decent, if we compare the amount of time and money we have to invest for traveling to Himalayas in India.

Important Locations placemarked on Google Map:

View Switzerland in a larger map

More Photopraphs:

Strasbourg trip

2009-11-30T18:47:00.016+05:30

Strasbourg(France) is a city virtually sandwiched between Germany and France and historically has been a violently disputed piece of land between two countries. The major significance of the city is that Gutenberg created the first printing press at the same place. The city is a seat to major European institutions such as European Parliament, Council of Europe.

Booking tickets:
The process of booking tickets was sort of a mini saga. We were constantly visitng Deutsche Bahn(DB) site for one week to check whether there are any discount offers. Till 2-3 days before the traveling day there wasn’t any breakthrough. Only option available in the site was tickets for 80 Euros per head. We were about to call off the trip, but Sachin and Sivaram didn’t lose hopes and gave a try at DB reservation office at Reutlingen Hbf(central station). They got tickets at the price of 53 EUR for 5 people, a real breakthrough indeed. The ticket was combination of Baddem-Wüttemburg pass and two way ticket from border of Germany to Strasbourg, the option which was not listed in DB site.

Important points

- Buy Strasbourg-Pass for 11.90 EUR. Breakeven can be easily attained in one day.
- People from Germany can travel upto last station of Germany by Baddem-Wüttemburg pass or Happy Weekend pass.
- Take the boat ride first, it's free with Strasbourg-Pass.

Onward Journey:
We took very early morning train at 5:47 am to Stuttgart and there at Stuttgart Hbf we had breakfast Brezel + Milch Coffee at 'Yormas' for 2 Euros. Really a cheap and effective option for the breakfast. From Stuttgart we took a train to Freudenstadt Hbf and changed over to another train to reach Strasbourg at 10:34 am. Nearly five hour one-way journey, well you have to sacrifice on time to save money. To be frank the journey was boring should have carried some books or playing cards for better utilization of time. However, Sachin and Sameer kept us entertained by narrating a few dramatic incidences from their life.

Tourist Information Center:
After getting down at the station, we straight away went to the Tourist Information Center in the station premises itself and enquired there about the places which can be covered in a single day. We bought Strasbourg-pass booklet for 11.90 EUR/head. The pass is actually is valid for 3 days and it had many vouchers from which one can avail discount or free entry at many sites in the city. And also for exploring on our own, we bought a city-map for 1 EUR! The first site on our list was Strasbourg Cathedral. We had initial plans of renting bicycle for moving around so we didn’t opt for tram pass immediately. On the way to the cathedral we realized that it’s a sort of headache for a person fresh to the city to roam around using a map even on foot. So we cancelled the plan of hiring bicycle and instead opted for the tram pass(8 EUR for 3 people).

Cathedral and the Astronomical Clock:
After witnessing 12 noon ceremony at the Cathedral we moved to Astronomical clock section. It’s a huge perpetual clock displaying time, positions sun and moon, solar and lunar eclipses. The major significance of the clock is that at 12.30 pm, twelve life size statues of Apostles walk in front of Christ's statue. There was a very big crowd waiting for 12.30 pm to happen and there was no place to sit. Suddenly, an old man in the crowd in a very bad medical state lost his balance, as he was not able to withstand the strain. The man was from England accompanied by his wife and German family friend. Immediately after witnessing the incidence, Sameer called up the emergency number 911 for an ambulance. He was unsuccessful in first attempt as the person on the other side was not speaking in English and in the second attempt he gave the phone to a French lady to request for an ambulance. Within five minutes the emergency team was there on the spot. Kudos to the medical-team and ofcourse to Sameer for showing presence of mind.

Cathedral top and Lunch:
After seeing the astronomical clock, we came outside to ascend the cathedral tower. There’s entry fee for getting to the top, but it was waived off for people with Strasbourg pass. The ticket issuer took out corresponding entry voucher from the pass booklet. The ascent by 500+ steps of spiral staircase was very tiresome. Somehow we managed to reach the top of the structure which was world's tallest building from 1647 to 1874[source wikipedia]. From the top, we witnessed almost homogeneous architecture of the city, took some general snaps and descended with dedicated staircase for going down. After descending from the tower we realized it was time for lunch. The cafes around the Münsterplatz(Cathedral area) were very expensive. We were able find a decent shop with affordable rates, there I had french fries for 2.40 EUR and others opted for cheese sandwich etc.

Euro Parliament and Rhineboat(Naviscope):
After so called lunch we took a tram from nearest station to Euro parliament. On the map the place looked very far off, but we reached the place within 10-15 minutes. Just to exaggerate one can say the map of Strasbourg is larger than the city! After reaching we just had photo sessions in front of the building and did some timepass by trying to identify flags of Euro member nations.

Next we visited Rhine boathouse(Naviscope). It was on other side of the city and also far from the nearest tram station. We did a big mistake getting to the place, apart from being far there was nothing exciting about the boat. It was just small boat with a namesake museum inside it. We didn’t even took a chance by entering inside as the entry fee had only 25% discount with Strasbourg-pass.

Boatride:
We came back to Münsterplatz(Cathedral area) and decided to take the boat ride which was free with Strasbourg-pass. The commentary on board was very informative. But we were so much tired because of early morning wake up and afternoon roam-around that we were dozing most of times. Should have taken the ride in early part of the trip. One of amusing feature of the boat ride was that there were two levels in the stream. To move the boat from downstream to upstream and vice versa there was a gate shutter mechanism which used to change the water level, in order to elevate the boat from one level to other.

Return Journey:
After the boat-ride we roamed randomly for sometime and came to Station to take the 20:22 train. We were at the station one hour before the scheduled departure and had some bakery items for dinner at Paul’s. Coming early to the station paid off since we managed to get seats in the small train and people who stepped in last had to stand literally for entire journey. The return route was Strasbourg -> Appenweier –> Karlsruhe –> Stuttgart –> Reutlingen. Totally four trains ! Major highlight of the trip was 'teen-patti' of Sankar, can't rule it out as coincidence as it happened twice in the return journey. Other highlight of return journey was our tickets were checked for first time in the day. Some sort of satisfaction of traveling with tickets, which were booked with lot of efforts.

Restropect:

Overall, a good one day trip.
Should have taken boat ride in initial part of the trip, in order to be aware of stories about the city.
Avoid Rhineboat(Naviscope), it's total waste of time and instead we should have visited museums in Münsterplatz area.
It's better to carry own food items. Bakery items should be sufficient.

More photographs:

Students' Exchange Handpost

2009-11-29T21:47:00.014+05:30

This post is for future Exchange students to ESB(Reutlingen) from SPJIMR. The basic idea is to keep essential information documented on a single platter.

Visa Processing:
It's the first stepping stone for the exchange program. While working in a company all processing headache will be taken care by travel-desk, but as a student we have to do everything on our own. Find visa application details at Mumbai Consulate - Schengen Visa. Applying for Schengen visa as a student one need not furnish all documents as in case of business visa.

The must-have documents are:

Passport: [It's obvious :)]
Filled VISA form
Covering letter from SPJIMR: signed by program co-ordinator.
Invitation letter from ESB.
Demand Draft for Visa Fee: The amount given in embassy's website will be in EUR, so confirm the exact amount in INR by calling up Embassy.
Photographs: Make sure to submit with exact requirement, slight deviation here and there will result in rejection of the application.
Medical Insurance Certificate.
Flight tickets.

Documents which are good to have. Usually furnished with a business visa application

Bank statements: last 6 months, just to provide some sort of proof that you can bare expenses on your own.
Form 16 and IT return.

Air tickets:

Of all options we chose Emirates for cost, convenience and experience. We got return tickets at 33K INR per head, whereas the price for other major airlines was more than 60K.
The most important plus point is that Emirates allows 30 kg of check-in luggage by default for Economy class! A huge cushion especially if you are planning to carry food items from India. Cheaper options like Gulf-Air and Kuwait-Air allow only 20-23 kgs depending on the flight occupancy.

Accommodation:

We stayed at Kolpinghaus, a private dorm in downtown of Reutlingen. It was booked in advance by our university coordinator Heike Trost.
The rates are very affordable price especially as per European standards. It was 200 EUR per month for triple sharing and 250 EUR per month for double sharing.
However, due to some miscommunication we ended up paying extra amount 2.4 EUR per day for breakfast. Since we were used to having complimentary breakfast while staying aboard, so we assumed that breakfast at Kolpinghaus is also complementary.
Better option is to have fresh bread, corn flakes and milk bought from grocery stores and it will definitely work out cheaper.
Other point is to keep in mind for people who have already stayed abroad is that the stay won't be as convenient as your biz-trip accommodations, as the facilities such as toilets, kitchens will be shared like any other general dormitory.

Going to university:

The best and the only means to travel to University is city-bus. Going for the first time from Kolpinghauz is quite challenging for a person who is new to the city. Luckily for us, Jonathan (one of the staff of Kolpinghaus) accompanied us for the first day.
From Kolpinghauz one has to walk upto Bismarkstr stop in front of Unal bakery. From there take either Bus #8 or #11 to Stadtmitte(central bus stand) and from Stadtmitte to the university by bus to the destination 'Houbuch'. There’s no number for this bus, it's code is ‘H’, not sure what exactly ‘H’ stand for.

Naldo Pass:

It's a student transport pass for entire semester which can be bought at a convenience store in Stadtmitte for 53.7 EUR.
Definitely a must have pass to avoid paying for tickets everyday. If you make frequent visits to university the break-even can be easily attained. The same pass can also be used to travel by trains (RB or RE) to nearby cities Metzingen or Tübingen.

Grocery stores:

The places where we bought grocery items were Asian Stores at Stadmitte, Penny Markt near University, Unal near Bismarkstr and Aldi Süd. Unal was convenient w.r.t distance but was expensive.
The major commodity which we used to buy was rice ( Basmati rice to be pricise). It was 2.49 EUR/kg at Unal, 2.2 EUR/kg Asian stores and at Penny Markt it was 1.79/kg. Though the brands were different but saving a few cents per kg mean a lot.
The route to Aldi stores was bit complicated. We visited there once before leaving just to buy chocolates. Artem(friend from Ukraine) helped us in finding the route.

Mobile connection:

A must-have utility for comfortable stay especially while traveling. Life without it is virtually being like a handicap.
We opted for T-mobile connection, 15 EUR for new a connection with 10 EUR free-talktime. Call rates were 0.05 EUR/min within T-mobile network. So make sure that everyone in your group opt for the same connection.

These are just a few important things, for any other queries do post comments.

A few important locations, including retail stores are pin-pointed in the embedded google map.

View Reutlingen in a larger map

'2 states' by Chetan Bhagat

2009-11-22T10:28:00.014+05:30

India's author for masses Chetan Bhagat is back with his new book "2 states: the story of my marriage" a fairy-tale about bonding between two individuals whose lineage are from diametrically opposite cultures. I managed to get a copy of the book from flipkart.com at a discount price of Rs. 65 only.

The protagonist of the story Krish(a Punjabi, an IIT alum) and during his stint at IIM-A falls in love at first sight with his batch-mate Ananya Swaminathan(a Tamilian, an economics graduate). The relationship progresses from just friends to live-in and many more things. But they face difficulty in carrying it forward beyond IIM-A endeavor due to resistance from their parents.

Krish tries all possible methods in books and out-of-books to nurse the impression with his to-be-in-laws whether it was giving tuitions to his Ananya's brother or helping Ananya's father for an office presentation or helping Ananya's mother fulfilling her ambition(live stage performance in Chennai).
As in his previous books, the author is spot on in his characterization and especially in this book highlighting stereotypical opinions of people from one side of India on people other side of India.

According to me best parts of the story are
- First day interaction with Ananya at IIM-A mess and describing her as an outlier by IIM-A standards.
- Krish's mission-impossible at Chennai where he undergoes plain culture-shock.

Amusing moments are his encounter with (in)famous Chennai Autowallahs and his first impression about Ananya's home mentioning embarrassing moments such as getting orders from his to-be-father-in-law to keep the footwear outside and later on treating him as a non-existent entity by getting engrossed in editorial of Hindu!

Grab a copy of the book to read many such amusing moments. Overall, a good read especially for the folks who like to read the stuffs which have DNA of Bollywood. Regular reader of literature can skip this.

Other reviews:
Fingers to Keyboard - Chetan Bhagat: 2 states

ps: The major feature of the book is that it is semi-autobiographical and author's real life love-story has been fictionalized. Read more at When Punjabi Harry met Madrasi Sally.

Telecom Sector in India

2009-11-21T23:35:00.000+05:30

Following is the presentation we made on Telecom Sector in India as part of Business Environment Domain Study.

Telecom Sector in India

View more presentations from naanushande.

As part of domain study, it was amusing to follow industry updates on the sector on which is very dynamic. Having worked in previously in telecom domain, I was comfortable with jargons associated with the news-items. The learnings in the PGPM course very helpful to make business sense of new technologies. The presentation was done on 20th Nov 2009, already in one day there many new significant updates in the industry which are not part of above presentation.

A comprehensive report on the sector was also made part of domain study. The report was made 3 months back and I had uploaded it to scribd. The latest stats of the report says "6,383 Reads | 2,330 Downloads" and the document is in the 'scribd hotlist' for longtime.

Telecom Sector in India

Students' Exchange experience

2009-11-01T20:30:00.006+05:30

Last week we made a presentation to the faculties at our institute for sharing about students' exchange experience at European School of Business(ESB), Reutlingen. In order to make presentation for interactive we chose majority of experience thru video.

The first video covers the experience from academic point of view, highlighting the diverse environment.

In the second video we presented the fun part of the exchange program, highlighting trip-n-tours we had in 6 weeks.

Regarding detailed account on trips-n-tours, I have published about Lake Konstanz so far, pending posts are about City Tour of Reutlingen and Tübingen, Strasbourg, Switzerland, Munich and Heidelberg.

Lake Constance(Konstanz) - Bondensee

2009-10-16T10:41:00.011+05:30

First weekend in Reutlingen, we(5S) were about to start off our very first brainstorming about places to visit, an obvious thing for a group of people staying in Europe, many options parceled with constraints. But the process was killed prematurely when the international office came up with a conducted tour to Lake Constance(Konstanz), locally known in Germany as Bodensee. The major significance of the lake is that it's more than 500 sq km and borders with Germany, Switzerland and Austria, also source of drinking water to nearby regions.

For the trip, the meeting point for students was Pestalozzistr in front of the university at 8 am, a very inconvenient place and time people who are staying in downtown dorms, especially on Saturdays when frequency of city-buses are very less.
We got up pretty early on that day(5-Sep-2009) which is unusual in a weekend ( I mean weekend for the real world, not as per SP-Jain standards). And took the 7:07am bus from Bismarkstr to Stadtmitte. At Stadtmitte we skipped 7:15 am in order to have breakfast Keim, as the next bus was at 7:30 am. Later, we realized that the decision to have breakfast at Stadtmitte itself was pretty wise one, as there was damn breakfast available in/near the University.

At the meeting point, we were twenty minutes before time, very unusual for typical Indians and waited for other international students staying in dormitories around the campus to join us. The journey started on dot at 8.00 am, in lines with typical Germany punctuality. The bus journey was sufficiently comfortable to overcome our sleep deficit. One of our German language teacher was giving commentary at regular intervals in mixed German-English. Her explanation revolved around how the typical german landscape, how the typical village looks like with a big church at the center and also she was pinpointing some landmarks here and there, one of them was Liechestine Castle which was on top of a hill next to the road in which we were traveling.

We reached our first destination Pfahlbaumuseum around 10.30 am. After getting down from the bus, from the parking lot we walked for 10 minutes to get to the museum. There was an initial briefing in English for 5-10 mintues, about the place, its significance. The major and the only highlight of the place was group of houses on stilt. Other than that, there was not much see at the place, especially from perspective of Indians. The mini museums inside houses were are not appealing to us, as we have seen several such places in India. For example there was one man enacting like a BC era human, which not very exiciting to us.

After finishing the museum visit, we explored the place for food. There were many small continental restaurants offering expensive food. Our search stopped at Turkish kebap corner which offered a nice Kebap for 3 EUR. It so filling that I didn’t feel hungry for very long time.

The next in line was ferrying on Lake Constance to reach Constance(Konstanz) town. It was really amusing travel in such a large body of fresh, clean water and experiencing cool but heavy breeze. After reaching banks of the town, we were again in the exploration mode. Artem from Ukraine who was one of photography enthusiast among international students, accompanied us in the exploration. First along with Artem I tried out some street photography. The town had typical feel of tourist destination, lots of people walking around in a casual mode, doing window shopping at shops on stree side shops. There was a street musician playing, who asked us to pay when we took his photo. After paying the musician, we continued our street photography, taking snaps market place, distinct buildings etc. Artem was very much particular about unique signs and logos on buildings.

Moving randomly here and there we reached banks of the lake next to Imperia statue. At first glance, we get an impression that it is some ordinary statue. But, the statue depicts a prostitute who is holding Pope is one hand and king other hand. It has lot significance w.r.t history of the Constance(Konstanz tone). Read more at Wikipedia-Imperia Statue.

Our last destination in town exploration was the Cathedral. We climbed by steps to top of tower and witnessed breathing taking of the town, the lake and blurry alps mountain at a distance. Decent weather, blue sky with patches of white clothes made the view even more exciting and of courses from photography perspective.

After spending some time on top of the tower we came to bus parking lot at 5 pm as per instruction. While returning to Reutlingen, myself and Artem( who was incidentally sitting in front of my seat), chose discuss about photography. Since Artem was looking forward to own an SLR, most part of discussion was fueled by him and his desire for ownership got multiplied after he witnessed the power of 50 mm lens.

The trip concluded, when bus dropped us back to Pestalozzistr. Kudos to the staff of International office for well organized trip, which had an investment of just 10 Euros per head!

Have look at more photographs in slideshow below.

Learning German Language at ESB

2009-09-18T18:42:00.006+05:30

The very first course of the exchange program i.e. German Language course at ESB has been an amusing experience and very different regular MBA courses. Unfortunately, the course came to an end today, wish it was there for a longer time ! Anyways, the memories of the course, will be cherished by us for lifelong.

Initially, we were a bit apprehensive to take up the course and then our ESB co-ordinators made it mandatory to attend it. The course started with a surprise test on german language skills, which was used to partition candidates among expertise. The bouncer on the first day further dampened our low-enthusiasm to learn the language.

But, the equations changed when the actual classes started. The main factor was nice innovative pedagogies used by our faculty Toni Stoiber. She started from basics of what's your name, where are you from etc ... and then changed gears and taught us a German song, the emphasis was given on learning by feeling. The fun part of the sessions were Thomas and Juta sequences. Have a look at the video in which my bactchmate Sachin(as Thomas) is delivering german dialogues to Yunyu(as Juta)!

Today, the last class of the course, was concluded with a "Oktober fest" song Alles Gute.

In order to develop vocabulary of the language, Toni conducted many interesting games which were essentially like musical chair. For example one, two, three in German got embedded in our brain in a giffy.

The other distinct feature of the course was the diversity.

Myself, Sachin & Sameer from India.
Ling, Yunyu & Xi from China
Luke and Tom from U.K.
Ilya, Natasha and Egor from Russia.
Yosuke from Japan
Chelsea from Korea.

It was not only language course there were several other activities.

Bodonsee(Lake Constance) Excursion.
Black Forest Excursion.
Reutlingen Treasure Hunt.
Reutlingen City Tour
Tübingen City Tour and Boat Ride.
Liechestien Castle Trip
Intercultural Training.

Due to some other priorities I could take part in some acitivities, but blog post on the rest next time !

At ESB Reutlingen !

2009-09-11T00:30:00.006+05:30

Update after a long time ... at present I am at ESB Reutlingen(Germany) for students exchange program and also for an academic project with the team 5S - Sandeep, Sameer, Sachin, Sivaram and Sankar.

Getting to Reutlingen:
Traveling aboard as a student is a different experience altogether, especially for people who have traveled abroad by business trips. Everything has to be done on your own, right from visa application & air-tickets bookings to insurance and forex. Thankfully we got a good deal in Emirates which has kept our expenses under control so far ! The air travel was good, but getting to Reutlingen from Frankfurt was sort of a pain, even though we covered major part of journey through ICE. We had carry to carry our big baggages in the train which are meant for Regional travel.

German Language and Culture Course:
It's the very first course of the exchange program. After the initial bouncer of surprise test the german language skills, the course has been amusing so far. Our faculty is using nice pedagogy to teach. She has already taught us a German song and some sessions she is asking us to enact a situation in a pair. A very good way for internalizing a language.

Reutlingen Treasure Hunt.
One of the activity in German language course was Reutlingen treasure hunt. 120 students were divided into teams, ensuring that each team has members of varying level of german language expertise. The teams were given a treasure hunt questionnaire( in German) and which was supposed to be filled by exploring landmarks of Reutligen downtown. Being a beginner in the language, I could not really contribute to the group initially. Amazing part of the activity was the team-diversity in the team an Indian, an Russian, an American, Mexicans, a Irish !

There have been several activities in the course. Last Saturday(5th-Sep) we had one-day excursion to Lake Constance and on Monday(7-Sep) there was guided Reutlingen City Tour.

Celebrating Birthday Overseas.
Last but not the least, I celebrated my first birthday being outside India. First of all there was a confusion whether celebrate at 12 midnight IST or 12 midnight German time. And the signature moment was getting wishes in German in the language course class. Our faculty taught the class german happy birthday song.

Zum Gebunstag viel Gluck.
Zum Gebunstag viel Gluck.
Zum Gebunstag alles Gute.
Zum Gebunstag viel Gluck.

Sameer and Sachin demonstrated the wild way of wishing birthday in India. She also showed us the decent way of wishing birthday in Germany.

That's all as of now, more to come in next posts.

Jurong Bird Park

2009-08-29T09:34:00.006+05:30

One of the must visit place for photography enthusiasts. The park has collection of birds from all geographies. The not-to-miss places are aviaries in which birds are kept natural habitat like enclosures. Other features of the park are birds-of-prey show, parrot paradise, highest man-made-waterfall etc.

Carribbean Flamingoes

Birds-of-Prey Show

Pelican

Yellow Billed Stork

Artificial Waterfall

Lorry Loft @ Aviary

Parrot Paradise

Singapore stopover trip

2009-08-25T11:42:00.013+05:30

This is a trackback post on four day stopover trip in Singapore, while coming back from Seoul. The trip materialized because of generous hospitality of my high-school friend Ajay Bargur, who was staying at Singapore. This posting has been pending for a long time and have managed to post in this pre-ALP break.

Applying for the Visa: Unlike many SEA countries, Singapore doesn't provide visa-on-arrival to Indians. So, I had to apply for Visa in Seoul itself, at Singapore consulate(Seoul Financial Center). The process was pretty smooth. One of the important item to be furnished is contact address of your acquaintance staying at Singapore. For further details refer the link of Singapore Consulate - Seoul.

Places Visited

Jurong Bird Park.
Night Safari.
Singapore Zoo.
Sentosa Island.
Marina bay, Esplande
Little India, Mustafa

For Convenience Buy

EZ Link Card for 15 SGD
Mobile SIM for 10 SGD.

Thursday Dec-18th, 2008: Onward Journey from Seoul
[ People who are looking for info related to Singapore only, can skip this para ]
It was time to say good-bye to Seoul, the biz-trip which was supposed to be for a month, (un)fortunately got extended to full visa validity duration. I chose to travel by evening flight as it would be convenient for Ajay to receive me when I land at Singapore in night. The check-in process took a lot of time, due to a long holiday queue. My luggage weight was just below 25 kg and there were no complaints from check-in staff. Then after exchanging Forex, I moved towards the security check. At the entrace, a lady stopped me and asked me to weigh my trolley suitcase. It was 13 kg ! The lady didn't allow me to proceed even after considering that my bag had a laptop and some text-books. She asked me to get an approval from the airlines. I immediately went to manager of check-in process and she asked her subordinate to weigh the bag. After looking at the weight of the bag which I had already checked-in and the lady responded that I have to pay fine, 14100 KRW per kg ! Well, I had no choice just to tell some stories that I had stayed in Seoul for 90 days, my luggage is full of winter clothes and also I was carrying some text-books. The conversation went on for five minutes, since the time was running out for boarding, the check-in counter staff after listening to my stories, printed a baggage tag and wrapped around handle of my suitcase and said it's check-in baggage now! After sigh of relief, I boarded the flight by carrying laptop in my hand. For major part of the journey, I was sleeping and was awake just to have genuine Indian Vegetarian food thousand miles above China Sea. Thumbs up to Singapore Airlines !

Arrival at Singapore:
The plane landed safely at Changi Airport and immigration process was smooth. Ajay was already present at arrival terminal to receive me. We took a taxi to his shared apartment at Chou Chu Kang. On the way we requested the taxi to stop at a 7-11 store. Since we took some time extra for buying fast-food items, the driver got frustated and started shouting on us. Suddenly I realised I am no longer in Korea, the behavior of driver was very contrast to polite taxi-drivers of Korea. We somehow managed to convince him and made him to wait for some more time. After reaching apartment, before going to sleep I had brief chat with Ajay's friends who were staying with him.

Day-1: Friday 19th Dec: Bird Park, Little India
I got up late after having a deep sleep, by that time Ajay and his friends were ready to leave to their respective offices. Ajay gave me some suggestions about places I can explore in his absense. Firstly, I started my (re)search on Singapore. Found some good blog-links and later on noted down important points from wikipedia and wikitravel. Short-listed a few places and got some info about transport in Singapore , which was really helpful as I had to start exploring on my own.

I chose to visit Jurong Bird Park first. From Ajay's apartment I walked to Chou Chu Kang MRT station. Bought a EZ-link card for 15 SGD and took MRT to Boonlay with a changeover at Jurong East and from there I took Bus#194 to reach Jurong Bird park. For entry I took combo ticket 'bird park+zoo+night safari' for 40 SGD. The bird park turned out to be perfect place for photography. There are so many varieties of birds from different geographies. The major features of the park were Kite-show, Parrot paradise, Aviaries. More about the bird-park in a dedicated post.

Then after coming back to Boonlay station I bought a Singel SIM for 10 SGD, in order to have hassle-free communication. [It really made things easy for next three days]. Then I came back to Ajay's home at 7.00 pm and within half an hour he was also back from work. After taking a brief break we headed to Mustafa street in Little India by taxi to have genuine Indian food. Of all the hotels, we decided to have food at Sarvana Idly shop. Yummy Idlies and Dosas after a break of 3 months, priceless !

Later, we explored Mustafa shopping center. The market was essentially like National Market of Bangalore, fully congested and very less breathing space. Not sure how come such a shop is able to run legally in Singapore ? Some people say that the owner of the complex is very close friend of Prime Minister.

After doing a brief window shopping at Mustafa we decided to go Orchard Road to witness Christmas decoration. All the malls and shops were decorated with one common thing .. i.e. with a Christmas tree. The time was way past midnight and we decided to head back hom and took a Night Rider Bus which provides the glimpse of various prominent locations of Singapore. The major part of the ride I was dozing but Ajay used to wake me when some important stuff used to pass by.

Day-2: Saturday: Marina Bay, Night Safari
We got up late to recover from late night visit to Orchard Road. First went to have brunch at Food Court of Chou Chu Kang MRT mall. Surprisingly not even a single decent vegetarian dish available there. For a moment I felt Korea was far better than Singapore. It might be an "exceptional fallacy" as the Chou Chu Kang is mostly populated with people of Chinese origin. we started sightseeing with a visit to Esplande. After having photo session at terrace of Esplande we headed to signature of Singapore i.e. Merlion Statue. Next to statue there were a few tall building of financial district and also Hotel Fergusson, oldest hotel of Singapore which is wanna-stay place for many top-notch people. Then we had a Coffee break at Starbucks outlet near the statue. While having coffee Ajay showed me that the buildings under construction on other side of the bay are Casinos which are going to be functional by next-year. Truly tourism department of the country is trying all means to woo people.

When the day reached the twilight phase, we decided to head towards Zoo for Night Safari and to be in time for night animals show. We took a MRT to Avai Kia Station from there to the zoo by Bus#138. First we witnessed night animal show which didn't like much (personally). It might be very entertaining for children. Then we took a tram ride for the Night Safari. I had to pay additional 10 SGD on top of my combo ticket for the ride. The safari ride was pretty decent but frustrating for people who prefer to take photographs as there won't be sufficient light to shoot. After night safari activities we had dinner at Indian Tandoor in the foodcourt. I had vegetable biriyani for 17 SGD, though expensive it was good enough to annul my afternoon's disappointment at food court of Chou-Chu-Kang Station.

Day-3: Sunday: NUS, Sentosa Island
Ajay was occupied with some preparation for his work next day. I had no choice but to explore on my own and decided to meet my other friends and colleagues. First I met Yashas, my engineering classmate who was doing MS at NUS. He asked me to come to Clementi station. The temporary Singtel connection was a big boon to have seamless communication. We had lunch at some south-India Hotel near station. Then, Yashas took me to his PG room and from there to his university campus. After a brief photo session at the campus, I decided to move on and meet my colleague Sampath, who was in Singapore for biz-trip. From NUS campus, I took Bus#95 to Boono-Vista station. I took MRT to City Hall station and walked for 5 minutes to Carlton Hotel, the place where Sampath was staying.

I forced Sampath to pre-empt his issue reproducing work and join me to visit Sentosa Island. Before leaving to Sentosa we made a brief visit to Sun-tech City Mall and took photographs here and there. For getting to Sentosa we took MRT to Marina Bay. The exit of the station directly took us into Vivo City Mall. We explored the mall, took some photographs in front of huge Christmas tree in terrace area of the mall. We bought some stuffs at 2$ shop. In the mean time, we really forgot that we were there at the place for visiting Sentosa ! Later we looked at options of getting to Senotosa from Vivo-mall. Of all the options we chose Sentosa Express, the ride is free with entry ticket of 3 SGD. In the same counter we bought tickets for 8.30 pm 'Song of the Sea' show for 8 SGD per head( 7.30 pm tickets were sold out !). Song the sea show was just awesome, brilliantly choreographed with usage of latest technologies. Later, after taking a few photographs in the park, we decided to get back to hotel. At City-Hall MRT station, we roamed around looking for a place to have food. Unfortunately none of the places we found proper vegetarian food. Then finally we decided to have some food at 24/7 McDonald. Even there was no option for vegetarian food. I ordered for a customized burger without meat. It wasn't stomach filling but was sufficient to keep me alive :).

Day-4: Monday: Singapore Zoo
After staying overnight at Sampath's place, I left very early in morning to be in time before Ajay leaves to his office. After taking keys from Ajay, I started last leg of trip by visiting Singapore Zoo. I was not really keen visiting zoo again, since I had seen many animals in Night safari itself. But for utilizing my combo-ticket and take a few photographs of animals, I decided to carry on with the plan. There was a direct bus to the Zoo from Chou-Chu-Kang bus terminus itself. I explored the zoo in detail, read description of name plates and of course took photographs. The highlight of the visit was Orang-Utan feeding session, which happens everyday at 11 am. I had lunch at yet another food court, and had biriyani again and the price was around 8 SGD ( almost half of Night Safari food-court).

After Zoo visit, I thought of visiting some other place, but since I had to catch evening flight to Bangalore, so decided to terminate my sight-seeing and got back to Ajay's home. After packing things, I took a taxi to Airport. On the way I requested the taxi driver to go in front of Ajay's office, so that I can handover apartment-keys to him. The Taxi bill was 26 SGD, which included peak hour charges. The check-in process at the airport was smooth, thanks to co-operative Singapore Airline staff, who helped me to distribute my luggage weight properly, as airport officials were allowing only 8 kgs in the carry case. After doing some window shopping at duty-free shops, I boarded the flight, bringing curtains to short and sweet Singapore trip.

Thanks:

Ajay for his hospitality and initial guidance.

Sampath for agreeing to carry my excess luggage, I managed to avoid hiccups while flying from Singapore airport. Actually the stuffs were of someone else who had requested me to carry from Seoul to Bangalore.

Visit to Bangalore TMC

2009-08-22T22:23:00.012+05:30

It's 11.30 am, and a hot sunny day in Bangalore. A middle-aged lady is rushing towards a marriage hall in an auto. She was looking forward to be in time for signature moment of the marriage i.e. Muhuratham. Unfortunately her ride gets delayed by five minutes .. thanks to ethical and obedient auto-driver, who comes to screeching halt at one of the busy signals en-route to destination, and refuses to jump the signal !

Frustrated lady asks the driver - ಯಾಕೆ ಸಿಗ್ನಲ್ ಜಂಪ್ ಮಾಡಲಿಲ್ಲ ? ನನಗೆ ಲೇಟ್ ಆಗ್ತಿದೆ [ Why didn't you jump the signal ? I am getting late ]
Driver replies - ಮೇಡಂ ... ಟ್ರಾಫಿಕ್ ಪೋಲಿಸ್ ಅವರು ಎಲ್ಲ ಕಡೆ ಕ್ಯಾಮೆರಾ ಹಾಕಿಧಾರೆ. ಜಂಪ್ ಮಾಡಧರೆ ರೆಕಾರ್ಡ್ ಆಗ್ ಬಿಡತ್ತೆ, ನಾಳೆ ಫೈನ್ ಚಿಟಿ ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಗೆ ಬರತ್ತೆ [ Traffic police have put cameras everywhere. If I jump the signal, it will recorded and tomorrow fine receipt will be mailed to my home]

Surprisingly, the auto-wallah is telling plain truth ! This was confirmed, when I visited Bangalore's Traffic Management Center(TMC) at AshokNagar. The visit was conducted by members of Praja community - a citizen networking platform of Bangalore.

The upgraded TMC has all latest technologies to manage notorious traffic of the city.
- First is the traffic monitoring screen. It receives feeds through dedicated 4 Mbps lines from around 100 surveillance cameras placed at various junctions in the city. To zoom level of cameras is very efficient enough to read even number plates of vehicles. The registration number of vehicles standing beyond the stop line is noted by people at TMC and the notice is sent to the owners immediately. The feeds of the cameras are archieved upto 20 days and stored in 24 TB memory.
- Other salient features in center is usage of mobile density to make an rough estimate about traffic density. Next to it was a fault monitoring console, which provides real status about surveillance devices. In case of any fault, the automated system sends a SMS to concerned area manager.
- Enforcement cameras: There are five such cameras at critical locations, to capture most common traffic violation i.e. jumping the red signal. The cameras are sophisticated enough to freeze the motion, even at night time.
- The next section in the center is Traffic control system. Vehicle actuation system is main part of this system. On major junctions there's a magnetic loop plate placed below the road surface. The system runs with 4 second timer, when there's no activity, a notification is sent to system which appears on the dash of the control system. If the allocated quota of signal time is very high compared to used time, the controller can change the duration of the signal. The enhanced version of this system will based on video analytics, which will decide the signal duration by automatically counting number vehicles piled up.
- Signal Progression system: This is used to implement synchronized signals in series. The system has already been implemented at Devanahalli Airport Road Corridor and J.C. Road. A green signal at one junction means, green at every junction in the route. If timer at one junction updated based on vehicle actuation system, then the real time update is done at subsequent signals.
- Area Traffic Controller: It's a graphical tool developed jointly by Microsoft and BEL. The tool which is still in alpha-beta mode can be used to remotely monitor full traffic controls of junction. Signals can be switched off or can be put on blink mode etc.

Indeed a nice set of initiatives by authorities. All these solutions are implemented under consultancy of a multi-national firm. In fact the person who gave us the presentation was the consultant from the same company who had worked on implementation of the project. [ he had requested not to quote his name and the company].

Now, the question is this system sufficient to manage 24 lakhs vehciles ? Well, it's a good beginning and efficient+consistent monitoring and reporting by authorities will inject self-discipline into citizens to follow some basic traffic rules and thereby making life of other people comfortable.

[Photographs are taken Vinod Shankar's mobile camera]
More at:
Praja-Bangalore: TMC visit thread.
Bangalore City Traffic Police: Traffic Management Center

Story of Japanese Fresh Fish

2009-08-08T23:13:00.007+05:30

Are B-school faculties running short of examples ? Not sure .. some examples keep on repeating in every other subject. For ex: Customization = Dell, JIT = Toyota, Globalization=McDonald, Innovation=Apple or new addition is Tata Nano and so on. The same is applicable to students too, we also keep on repeating same examples.

Yesterday the saga turned to be too much .. in afternoon our prof of IT-Strategy concluded the session with a small story. It was about how Japanese used the concept of 'Continuous improvement' to keep their favorite delicacy i.e. fish 'fresh'. Then we had an evening session on IT-in-Banking by some external faculty from XYZ bank. Guess what ? He started the session with same story of 'Japanese Fresh Fish'. What a coincidence? I had to literally control my laughter while listening to the story second time in a span of 1 hour :)

Here is the story. Copied it from a link. [ Slightly buzzy+lazy to write on my own ]

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever.

The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh.
The Japanese did not like the taste.

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats.

They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish.

The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish.

So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan? If you were consulting the fish industry, what would you recommend?

How Japanese Fish Stay Fresh:

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged.

Have you realized that some of us are also living in a pond but most of the time tired & dull, so we need a Shark in our life to keep us awake and moving? Basically in our lives Sharks are new challenges to keep us active and taste better...

Hariharapura visit

2009-07-18T12:57:00.009+05:30

A year ago Sudhir a.k.a Ski had commented to my "Travelogues are boring?" post that .. How about making a audio-video presentation. That's exactly I have done for my recent trip to Hariharapura(my native place). Snaps are composed into a video embedded below.

Some highlights of the trip

Getting to Hariharapura was equivalent to a mini-adventure. Normally it's just an overnight journey, atmost 10 hrs. But the day I traveled was an exception. By the time I was supposed to be in Harihurapura, I witnessed my Bus moving here and there in Balehonnur finding a way to Sringeri. Due to incessant rains on one of the routes(via Koppa) the bridge was completely submerged in water and the other route(via Jayapura) was blocked by a fallen tree. So we were forced to halt at the bus-stand for 6 hours! Guess what I did for 6 hours ? I just slept in the bus to annul the sleep deficit I had accumulated for last one week !

When things were getting back to normal (by afternoon), our Nishmita Motors driver was missing and busy taking a nap at his relative's place. So instead of waiting for him, I along with other co-passengers decided to take the first TCS bus to Koppa(via Melpaalu). Well, TCS means Transport Co-operative Society not the software firm based in Mumbai :). And from Koppa I took another bus to reach Hariharapura.

My on-the-spot companion for this brief journey was Umesh, an employee of Syndicate Bank(Belgaum). He had recently completed training in Bangalore and was getting back to his duty at Belgaum. He taken a day break to meet his parents near Koppa and was too worried about wasting his precious 6 hours at Balehonnur. Enroute to Koppa (via Melpalu) Umesh showed me schools in which he studied and also showed me Tea estates owned by big industrialists and tea factories adjacent to the estates.

In evening along with Harsha I visited some prominent locations of Hariharapura to witness the havoc created by heavy rains. The water level was so high that Asvata Katte in front of Sri-Matha was completely submerged and the level was just 4-5 feet below Tunga Setuve(hanging bridge).

Second day I visited Hacharu house, Someshwara temple and Sri-Matha. To be on safer side I left Hariharapura early at 6 pm by taking a bus to Sringeri. There after completing darshana at Sharadambha Temple I boarded a night bus to Bangalore.

Related news items:
- Rain disrupts normal life.

Transportation Sector in India

2009-07-15T12:40:00.006+05:30

View more presentations from naanushande.

The presentation made for Transportation Sector India as part of Business Environment course.

Following is the introduction video we used to start off the presentation.

Jist of Presentation Script

1. History:

British India Era: infrastructure focused on colonial requirements.
Independent India: India’s infrastructure vision was top down and govt got carried away with trying to prove to the world what India was capable of. The urgency to turn a desperately poor country into a gleaming industrial power had promted the state to emphasize higher education over primary power plants, steel factories and massive dams over rural roads, and building new cities over reforming older urban pestholes.
For most governments, investment were anyway a lose-lose option. With govt so unstable, it was likely that the next government would take credit for what you did.

2. Comprehending Transport

Sometimes difficult to fully comprehend the significance of transport to the economy
When there are problems in the power or water sectors its immediately visible
Lights go off or taps run dry –the public immediately knows –medical analogy is a heart attack
Transport sector grinds to a halt slowly –like lung disease –slowly crippling the body
Public comes to accept poor transport as a way of life –the economy runs slow, quality of life bad, people die in accidents –media must enlighten, focus attention

3. Road

Network of 66,590 km of National Highways, of which 200 km are classified as expressways.
Umbrella project: 7-phase NHDP

4. Railways

18 million passenger daily.
Tariff policies: overcharge freight to subsidize passenger travel

5. Intra City

New initiatives, low floor A/C buses, Bus rapid transit(BRT).
Delhi Metro. under construction in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai

6. Water and Sea

12 major ports and about 180 minor and intermediate ports in India.
Underutilized water way: 0.1% of the total inland traffic in India, compared to the 21% figure for the United States.

7. Aviation

System untapped. 90 million passenger annually. Railways do that in 5 days!
Upgradation of existing airports. Greenfield airports.

8. Investment

Investment requirements $492 billion in the next five years
Of this, $147 billion to come from private investment
Share of private investment in total to rise from 17% to 30% by 2012.Investment to touch $1.48 trillion by 2017
Role of IIFCL: It's a SPV to provide long term finance to infrastructure projects
Overriding priority to PPP projects, Finance projects in sectors like roads, airports, ports, power, urban infrastructure etc

9. Challenges.

India’s roads are congested and of poor quality.
Rural areas have poor access.
The railways are facing severe capacity constraints.
Urban centres are severely congested.
Ports are congested and inefficient.
Airport infrastructure is strained.

10. Way forward

Expanding Construction Capacity
Improving Contract Management
Report cards on delivery of services by PWDs
New programs/projects public consultations
Performance statistics, e.g. road accidents by public transport buses (DTC example)
Regular columns responding to citizens queries about transport

11. References

Imagining India - Nandan Nilekani
Planning Commision Website.
World Bank Report
Asia Development Bank Report.

iBizSim Xperience

2009-07-03T15:05:00.011+05:30

iBizSim is a business simulation game which reflects many real world situations. A good way of internalizing how exactly a firm does business . One of the best subjects we had in General Management Module, we got a holistic view of tit-bits we had learnt previously. After the sessions, seeing my status in Gtalk, my friend Raveesh asked me to explain about the simulation and share its experience in brief through text chat, here are a few excerpts from it.

-We had iBizSim sessions for 5 days conducted by Prof. Prem Chandrani.
- The class in divided into companies and industries
- It's a nice experience, to get a holistic view how a company works
- Actually, it's tough manage when numbers are in millions
- Gut feelings can't be applied always !

- In the business, you produce and sell goods, before that you should have estimate the demand
- Depending on the estimated demand you plan production.
- For production you should have raw materials, which should be ordered in advance
- After producing you have sell goods in different regions
- You have to check how the economy is performing in that country depending on that you have to book spot xchange rate or hedge it to future.
- A small fraction makes a lot of difference.
- There was an exception i.e. compulsary vacation for workers for 3 weeks in a quarter.
- For that you have plan before 2 quarters in advance and decide whether to do overtime or extra shifts.
- To have sufficient inventory levels in vacation phase to meet demand.
- There's one more option instead of producing you can buy finished good from outside. this can be if your manufacturing costs are very high.
- After all this u have to make profit and capture market share consistently.

3 years !!

2009-06-25T09:00:00.006+05:30

naanushande.com is 3 years old now.

Following are popular posts for last one year

Favorites:-
-Going to office by BMTC: Experiences of commuting by BMTC. Sharing some amusing moments.
-Skiing at Bearstown resort: Maiden Skiing experience at Bearstown's resort in South Korea.
-Skandagiri Expedition: Welcoming new year atop Skandagiri betta.
-Harsha Bhogle - Career in these times: An inspiring speech from India's top cricket commentator.

Top contents statistically:-
-Rottikallu Homestay: A weekend getaway near Sakleshpur. Several adventurous activities like trekking, river-walk are conducted.
-Brand Equity Quiz - Finals: Experiences of the quiz show hosted by Derek O'Brien at Leela Kempinski, Mumbai.

Contents of previous blogging years which are still popular:-
-Photography Workshop - Kalyan Varma: Whenever Kalyan announces dates of his next workshop, this post sure to get a few hits.
-Kudremukh Homestay: Two and half year old post still getting sufficient hits.
-Sitanadi Rafting: A trip with Ctrl-Esc group.

Imagining India - Transportation Sector

2009-06-18T10:11:00.010+05:30

Currently I am reading Nandan Nilekani's Imagining India - Ideas for the new century. In the book the author takes the reader through various events in Indian history which has led to globally competitive Indian economy. We are not yet there but are on the way. The nice thing about the book is that the author has put together many known and unknown tit-bits in a structured manner.

I referred the book for an academic presentation on 'Transportation Sector in India'. Other than transportation Nandan discusses about various unique characteristics of India. How governments plan to introduce Hindi as an official language was resisted by some southern states. And we continued with usage of English for official purposes. It was a blessing in disguise for the nation in general.

Following some solid excerpts from the book regarding history of Transportation Sector and Infrastructure sector in general.

India now presents us with a bewildering landscape – of vibrant, private enterprise choking up as it meets crumbling public infrastructure.

Yashwant Sinha, the finance minister under NDA government, has remarked that all centuries coexist in India.

For British India, infrastructure meant building roads and rail that focused on colonial requirements, rather than responses to popular demand.

After 1857 revolt, security became British India’s core obsession. Triggered massive expansion of rail infrastructure. Rail connectivity grew from zero trains in 1850 to a network spanning close to 10,500 kilometer by 1875.

View of roads and railways as an investment towards safety – to move people and goods in and out quickly, and avoid being concerned by enemies – has plenty of precedent.The Romans built Britain’s major road systems when they had occupied the restive island, and many of these still exist. Another parallel was the Eisenhower-era expansion of roads in the United States during the Cold war, to ensure the rapid rollout of the army in case of an attack at home.

Indians road Congress, 1930. development of rural road. First road plan released in 1943. Ambitious agenda for roads was meant to be carried our over 2 years. Enthusiastic plans, soon gathered dust.

Between 1950 and 1970 – while passengers and goods traffic increased more than thirty fold, road length went up only five times.

Rail network increased – 0.5 percent in 1950s, falling to a barely detectable growth of 0.2 percent in 1960s, 70s.

First major railway project since British Left India, the 750-kilometre Konkan railway on India western coast, came up only in 90s.

India’s infrastructure vision was top down and govt got carried away with trying to prove to the world what India was capable of. The urgency to turn a desperately poor country into a gleaming industrial power had promted the state to emphasize higher education over primary power plants, steel factories and massive dams over rural roads, and building new cities over reforming older urban pestholes.

Short-horizon Indian governments have favored short horizon initiatives, expanding subsidy policies and freebies that have an immediate, big bang in PR, even if the real effect in a whimper. For most governments, investment were anyway a lose-lose option. With govt so unstable, it was likely that the next government would take credit for what you did.

From 1980s India has remained in ‘perpetual election mode, as every one or more major states face the voters’.

Indira Gandhi – Ramped up subsidies – food, fuel, electricity which elbowed out investments in more universal public goods such a hospitals, roads, railways.

Subsidies – always tempting – guarantee instant pay-offs for government.

Incredibly low user charges for road transport and railways – more the state built more it lost.

Vinayak Chaterjee – heads consultancy Feedback Ventures Ltd: ‘When you talk about building highways, canals and rails in a country like India, you come up against a big constraint – land’.

N. Sheshagiri describes politics of infrastructure in India – ‘ ten quarreling men holding each other’s bit of hair, and no one is willing to either pull or let go’.

After 1991 reforms: There was no clean break ideology when it came to India’s infrastructure sector. Infrastructure actually touched a new low in the post reform period. The focus during these years was on rapidly expanding the role of private enterprise, including an infrastructure – it was a thirst long denied and it had to be slaked. In 1992-96 the government drastically cut back its own investments, leaving the glass half empty in the hope that private funds would pour in.

Infrastructure investment has been a roller coaster of policy in most countries, as when British nationalized its utilties in 1940s, but later reversed it and introduced private but regulated systems in the 1970s and 1980s.

Markets do not work well in infrastructure, and this springs from the nature of public goods – which are ‘expensive, durable and immobile’. This makes private infrastructure vulnerable- after all a company cannot recall a road if it proves to be a loss. And because of this, governments may be tempted to break promises with companies by reneging on the terms of public-private partnership or forcing them to lower tariffs.

Infrastructure boost: NDA, Vajpayee, had a penchant for announcing infrastructure projects with poetic flourishes at Independence Day events. 'Vajpayee made infrastructure politically fashionable, something that it had never been before'. says Vinayak.

Another key innovation of the NDA government was the highway cess consumers paid on all fuel to fund the national highways. This created a seperate revenue stream for NHAI to build roads. UPA government used a similar strategy when it levied a cess on air travel to support airport development.

Both the NDA amd UPA governments have also attempted to address the delicate issue of land for infrastructure with bills to amend the 100-year-old land acqusition act to ease up land purchases.

Praful patel: air reforms - permission to buy airplanes for private aircrafts. 50 airports to 80 airports.

Sudhir Kumar, secretary to the railways minister, notes that the sector which was written of as 'a debt trap in the terminal stages' in 2001, had nearly doubled its operating margin by 2007 and had profits of Rs 250 billion in 2007-08.

Towards better infrastructure in a demand-driven, ‘grow-first, build later’ model, in direct contrast to China’s slickly top-down, supply driven approach.

DuckTales Wohoooo !

2009-06-14T23:59:00.002+05:30

Remembering those childhood days ... when we used to watch back to back cartoon series Ducktales and Talespin on DD-1.