Like any other Indian I was devastated at what happened in Mumbai on 26th Nov 2008. Watching Television over the last 4 days it was a mixed feeling of Anger, Scare, Sorry & Disappointment. I pray for the departed souls to rest in peace and for almighty to give strength to the families that lost their loved ones and for the injured for speedy recovery. 

Since lot has been reported about the incident around the world, I was not sure whether I too should be writing about this. Then I decided that every Indian has to raise his/her voice against this atrocity, so here is what I feel on this:

• Indian Political establishment, the government & the intelligence machinery have failed spectacularly once more. There is no point in blaming the present Central or State Government for this, this is a failure of government at all levels over the last two decades - ever since the fall of "Cold War" and the raise of "Global Terrorism"
• Over the decades, time and again Indian Government and Indian Civil Service have shown by their non-action that they don't value the loss of a life especially of a ordinary Citizen. For them only the lives of Political Party Chiefs, Ministers and their immediate family members lives have any value
• I just can't come to terms on how easy it was for the Terrorists to come into India without being stopped and how easy it was for them to smuggle huge arms and ammunitions. Does India have any coastal guards and navy worth mentioning?
• I am glad that there was no negotiation or surrender were made. Unlike previous incidents were our government was ready to bend backwards rightaway in the Indian Airlines - Khandagar incident in 1999 or in the Rubaiya (daughter of then India's Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed) incident in 1989. In the Mumbai Incident now, it appears that the security forces were given a free hand to do their job, which they have done
• Though I felt the operation by security forces was very slow, we should commend them for handling it skillfully with no civilian lives lost due to their firing, for not using disproportionate gun power and for capturing one terrorist alive
• I am at loss on why our security forces don't seem to be taking advantage of technology. For two days they kept saying they don't know the number of terrorists and where they are inside the buildings. Why didn't they use any Infra-Red Scanners, Motion Detectors, Satellite Sensors and the other modern fighting gadgets we see the American Armed Forces using skillfully in Iraq?. Does Indian Armed Forces have any of these or just like everything else in Indian Government was the budgets allocated for these swindled by Corruption?
• Without these modern gadgets how does Indian Armed Forces dream about fighting even a conventional battle - with the changing world order wars are fought nowadays in Cities and not in deserts. Are these gadgets too expensive for India to buy, I don't think so especially when treasury can spent US$14 Billion (INR 70,000 Crores) on the famous farm waivers and for issuing government bonds for subsidizing "Fuel" - both of which yielded Political capital
• Though it is purely symbolic I still welcome the resignation of Central Home Minister Mr.Shivraj Patel
• Though I don't agree with American & George Bush policies on their International Policies and Iraq War. Still due credit should be given to them for protecting their country (USA) in the last 8 years. After the devastating 9/11 there have been no major Terror Attacks with in the United States. In a sense they skillfully moved the battlefield of the Global war on Terror from being within USA borders to outside USA
• As an Indian, I feel ashamed that we still don't have any Crisis Management Infrastructure in India as Mr.Ratan Tata rightfully pointed out. We don't even have the basics like a US "911" helpline in India. I am not sure how many people who got stuck inside the hotels knew who to call for help - I certainly don't know
• India needs all the help it can get especially from US, Israel and other countries with huge expertise on fighting terror. Now is not the time to trumpet how great Indian Scientist are, or on how great our technology is, or being self-reliant, etc. But I am afraid our civil service will ensure this opportunity is missed to work with the world to our advantage by their outdated bureaucracy. A fine example of this happened today when the FBI was detained for hours in Mumbai Airport 

One of my friends sent me a nice email summarizing on what he feels will happen from here which is worth reproducing here on his own words: "I really don't want any more cries of "Indian resilience", peace and harmony. Indian resilience is nothing but casual indifference if not directly affected. We'll go back to watching our stupid soaps and reality shows once the real-life "reality show" of the terror attacks are over. A few discussions over dinner and drinks and we're done. We're mostly peaceful and harmonious people - but the ones massacring us aren't. So these kind of displays don't really do anything. What we need now is a strong government with a strong anti-terror law. One that can have the guts to take out terrorists wherever and whoever they are...Till then, I will remain cynical and angry"

Having said all this I am still an optimist at heart and that is the reason I have a photograph of the NSG team on the start of this post. Finally, I salute the brave men and women from Mumbai Police, National Security Guards & Army who lost their lives in the battle.

Bookmarks:

1. Video - NDTV's Randeep Nandl explaining what an alleged terror suspect may be telling Indian authorities about the planning of the Mumbai attacks
2. Attack in India - Summary by NewsWeek, Summary by New York Times
3. We're all Bombayites today by Vir Sanghvi
4. BigB on the anger of the ordinary citizen and on complete loss in faith in the system and in the governance

பொதுவாக எனக்கு கதைப் புத்தகங்கள் நாவல்கள் படிக்கும் பழக்கமில்லை. அவ்வப்போழுது ஆனந்த விகடன், குமுதம் போன்றப் பத்திரிகைகளில் தொடர்களாக வந்தால் படித்ததுண்டு. மறைந்த எழுத்தாளர் சுஜாதாவை நான் சில முறை அவரின் ஆரம்பக்கால தமிழ் இணையத்தள முயற்சிகளுக்காக சந்தித்திருந்தாலும், அவரின் நூல்களைப் தொடர்களாக தான் படித்துள்ளேன். அப்படி தான் அவரின் 'என் இனிய இயந்திரா' ஆனந்தவிகடன் பத்திரிகையில் தொடர்கதையாக வெளிவந்தபோது அவ்வப்போது படித்ததாக நினைவு. அதன் தொடர்ச்சியான 'மீண்டும் ஜீனோ'வைப் இதுவரைப் படித்ததில்லை.

சமீபத்தில் நண்பர் ஒருவர் புண்ணியத்தால் “மீண்டும் ஜீனோ”வை மின் புத்தகமாகப் படிக்கும் வாய்ப்புக் கிடைத்தது. அமெரிக்காவின் சான் ஃபிரான்சிஸ்கோவில் விமானத்தில் ஏறியச் சிறிது நேரத்தில் படிக்க அரம்பித்து ஹாங்க்-காங்க் சென்றடையும் நீண்டப் பயணம் முடிவதற்குள் நேரம் போவதே தெரியாமால் படித்து முடித்தேன்.  அவ்வளவு சுவாரஸ்யம். விஞ்ஞான சமுக-அறிவியல் அடிப்படையில் நடக்க முடியாத கதை, ஆனாலும் அருமையான கற்பனை, வளமான எளிமையான எழுத்து நடை.

இந்த வாரம் திங்கட்கிழமை அன்று கலைஞர் டிவியில் காலை எட்டு மணிக்கு எனதுப் பேட்டி ஒளிபரப்பானது. போன வெள்ளியன்று விஜிபி கடற்கரை தங்கும் விடுதியில் திரு. ரமேஷ் பிரபா அவர்கள் கேள்விக் கேட்க நான் பதிலளித்தேன். கீழேயுள்ள இந்த ஒளிப்பதிவைப் பார்த்துவிட்டு உங்கள் கருத்தைச் சொல்லவும். திரு. ரமேஷ் பிரபா அவர்களுக்கு என்னை அறிமுகம் செய்த நண்பர் திரு.ஆண்டோ பீட்டர் அவர்களுக்கு என் நன்றி.

இந்தப் பேட்டியில் நான் என்னப் பேசினேன் என்று நான் இங்கே எழுதுவதை விட நண்பர் மறைமலை இலக்குவனார் எனக்கு அனுப்பிள்ள ஒரு மின்-அஞ்சலில் மிக அழகாக  சொல்லியுள்ளார். ஆகவே அதன் சுருக்கத்தை இங்கே கொடுத்துள்ளேன்.

“இணையத்தில் தமிழ் பெற்றுள்ள ஏற்றம், எழுத்துருவைச் சீரமைப்பதில் ஏற்பட்ட பல்வேறு கருத்துக்குழுக்கள், இன்று யூனிக்கோடு எவ்வகையில் உதவுகிறது என்பது குறித்த விவரம்,விசைப்பலகை என்றால் என்ன, விசைப்பலகைகள் மாறுபட்டு அமைந்தது ஏன், ஆங்கிலத்தில் விசைப்பலகையின் ஒருசீர்மை, தமிழில் அத்தகைய ஒருசீர்மைக்கு யூனிக்கோடு எங்ஙனம் உதவுகிறது என்பது பற்றிய ஆய்வு, இன்றைய இளைஞர்கள் கணினித்துறையில் எதிர்கொள்ளும் சிக்கல்கள், இணையத்தில் நிகழும் பல்வேறு மோசடிகள், அவற்றைச் சமாளிக்கும் விதம், டிஜிட்டல் கையொப்பம் என்றால் என்ன, பணவரவு செலவில் அதன் பயன்பாடு யாது, இணைய வானொலி, இணையத் தொலைக்காட்சி ஆகியவை பெற்றுள்ள தனிச்சிறப்புகள், எதிர்காலத்தில் இணையம் பெறப்போகும் வளர்ச்சிவலைப்பூக்களில் தமிழ் பெற்றுள்ள சிறப்பிடம் என்று அடுக்கிக் கொண்டே போனீர்கள்.

கணிப்பொறியாளர்கள் கைகட்டிச்சேவகம் செய்யவேண்டியதில்லை என்பதற்குத் தாங்களும் தங்களுக்கு முன்னரும் பின்னரும் வந்த தொழில் முனைவோர்கள் எடுத்துக்காட்டாக விளங்குவதைச் சுட்டிக்காட்டினீர்கள். ஒபாமாவின் வருகையால் நமக்கு எவ்வித அச்சமும் இல்லை என்பதைச்சுட்டி அமெரிக்காவைப் பூச்சாண்டி காட்டிவருவோரின் அழிம்புக்கு முற்றுப்புள்ளி வைத்தீர்கள்.தமிழக அரசு இதுவரை அளித்துவந்த ஒத்துழைப்புக்கு உத்தமத்தின் சார்பில் நன்றி தெரிவித்தீர்கள். இந்த அல்லது அடுத்த ஆண்டில் இணையமாநாடு நடத்தவேண்டிய சூழலை எடுத்துரைக்கத்தவறவில்லை.

உத்தமம் பற்றிய முறையான அறிமுகத்தை அளித்தபின்னர் தான் உங்கள் உரையைத் தொடங்கினீர்கள்.

எடுப்பான தோற்றம், எழுச்சி வாய்ந்த குரல், சிறப்பான கருத்துகள் என்னும் மூன்றும் ஒருங்கிணைந்து உங்கள் நேர்காணலைச் சுவையுடன் விளங்கச் செய்தது.நன்றி.வாழ்க”

One of the advantages of Direct To Home (Satellite / DTH ) TV is the promise of uninterrupted service and being free from cable cuts, etc. Unfortunately DTH too doesn't guarantee reception at all times as I realized today. In my house I have a Tata Sky DTH service in one room and Sun Direct DTH in another room.

It has been raining Cats & Dogs for the last two days in Chennai City due to Cyclone Nisha. There has been very little mobility within the city as most of the areas have been inundated. For me, I managed to return home in the evening now in my car with several feet of water in many places in T.Nagar, West Mambalam & Kodambakkam. After coming home I switched on TV wanting to catch what's happening with the horrific Mumbai Terror attacks in Taj & Trident Hotels. Due to heavy rains and the thick clouds in the sky above Chennai, both Tata Sky and Sun Direct had reception problems - both at various times kept breaking due to no signal. Though both services kept breaking, Sun Direct seems to be the most affected - even when it got signal, the pictures kept getting corrupted and the set-top box rebooting often. Though on normal days there was little problem with either of the services.

Early this month I travelled to Hong Kong while returning from USA. When I converted my money to Hong Kong Dollars to spend locally, I noticed they had a difference. Unlike currency notes of other countries say India, US or UK which are issued by Central Banks of those countries, the Hong Kong currency notes seems to be issued by authorized private banks like Standard Chartered, Bank of China, HSBC and others. All these are legal tenders in Hong Kong.

Today Prof.A.G. Ramakrishnan from IISc, Bangalore posted an announcement in INFITT discussion group announcing openings for BE Graduates for Research Positions at Mile Lab, IISc, Bangalore. This caught my eye as the project described was exciting one involving software applications for visually challenged.  I am giving a link in this post to the announcement for the benefit of graduates inclined towards research who will find this position interesting.

MILE Laboratory at Indian Institute of Science is actively involved in developing an automated book reader for the visually challenged. This research involves image mosaicing, page layout analysis, script recognition, speech synthesis and natural language processing. You can read the announcement from the IISc page here or in PDF format here

Like everyone else I get unsolicited unsolicited calls on my mobile phone. What is more irritating is when you are already a customer with the bank that is calling - they don't even check whether someone is their customer or not, instead they randomly call numbers. To communicate our displeasure with this, if we decide to switch banks, it is not so easy to do. And almost all private banks and insurance companies in India seems to be doing this, so you will not be able to find a company that doesn't. I bank mostly with Public Sector banks but for some convenience like Web Banking, Credit Cards and ATM I bank with a private bank. As consumers we need a remedy to this problem.

About a year or so back, TRAI introduced the National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC Registry). Telemarketers are needed by law to check with the NDNC database before making a call or face a penalty. You can register in NDNC by sending a SMS with text "START DND" to 1909 or register in your Mobile Service Provider's website (for me it will be Vodafone). Apart from TRAI's NDNC Registry, RBI recommended about 3 years for all Banks under it to have an individual DNC registry with them, you can register in each of them by going to their respective websites. I have registered myself in all of these sites, after registering the number of calls I get have certainly come down. If you still get calls you can complain to the callers that they are violating law by calling a DNC number.

Last week on a single day I got two marketing calls from ICICI Bank and one call from ABN Amro. Irritated I was looking for a remedy, I found a page in ICICI website to complain if you keep getting calls even after registering. I emailed to the id donotcall at icicibank.com that was in the page quoting the time, my mobile number and the phone numbers from which I got the call. I added in the email that if I continued to get calls I will seek remedy by lodging a complaint to RBI Ombudsman and TRAI consumer cell. I was not hopeful of any reply, but I was pleasantly surprised to get a reply within 2 days from ICICI stating that they have taken note of my complaint, apologized and assured that I will not get any further calls. I was certainly impressed by this service from ICICI and I hope other banks will follow this good practice.

Apart from Marina beach, the popular hangouts in Chennai are Spencer's Mall and Chennai Citi Centre. I am a regular visitor to these malls with my family few times every month. This Thursday when I went to Spencer's around 6PM in the evening, I was told in the parking that due to TNEB power cuts - the ACs and Escalators will not work. We still decided to get in and brave it out. It turned out to be a complete wash-out. Many of the shops including Westside, Music world were closed down and remaining once like Landmark were nearly deserted. Since the interiors of these malls were made for an Air Conditioned environment, they have no natural air or light inlets - so it was unbearable to spend more than few minutes there.

I enquired with the check-out assistants in the shop and they confirmed that the power-cut is on all days including weekends. I purchased few books hurriedly and rushed out of the shop. We went to our favourite Fastfood snack shop in Second floor or Phase 2, it was also deserted.  This left me thinking on the impact of the power cut on the livelihood of the people in these shops. The bigger shops like Landmark and Westside will slash their staffs or their compensation. Apart from them, Spencer's has lot of small shops (like our favourite fast food  shop) owned by individuals whose only livelihood is the daily sales, which is severely being affected due to the falling footfalls.

When globally the world is suffering from a slow-down or recession, power-cut in Tamilnadu is adding an extra unbearable burden to businesses. And to think of it this could have been easily avoided by proper planning by authorities over the last few years. One of the main reasons for power shortage in India has been reluctance of all state governments to privatise power generation and power distribution which is strongly controlled by state owned power boards. Due to this, there is heavy inefficiency in both generation and distribution, with some reports claiming the power theft to be over several tens of percentages.

I read in today's Economic Times paper's Corporate Dossier supplement "Smartest subordinates toe the line between being proactive and being over-zealous". I liked the article, especially the conversation style in which it was written. It subtly puts across on how important being pro-active is for career progress. I have seen many people you wait for their managers to tell them before they do something, while it is important not to overstep on decisions, doing just what you are told will never expose your talents to your manager. Check out the article.

Necessity is the mother of invention they say. How true is this statement!. When you thought the Music Industry is doomed because of piracy from free MP3 downloads, someone out there comes with a new model. 

In the above chart from Economist you can see that the falling sales of physical (Audio CD) media is not being compensated by the rise in Digital sales. The Digital sales comes predominantly from iTunes (and other similar pay per download services) and from subscription services (like Rhapsody) which offer a flat fee per month for unlimited songs. Both the models have produced mixed results and are expected to continue with no clear winner as the choice depends on individual preferences. One clear trend that emerged in the last one year was the death of "DRM" with Apple leading the way and Amazon following it. As Nicholas Negroponte wrote in his classic book "Being Digital", you can never categorize an individual "bit" (Binary 1 or 0) to be of a particular character (Porn, Politics, News, Sports and so on), so policing the Internet for Piracy can never be fool-proof. I believe policing is certainly not the fix for increasing music revenues, instead a new business model that ensures ubiquitous DRM free music to listeners world over and fair-price/compensation to content producers will assure more success. World over many models are being experimented including Ad funding - which I feel will be of limited success, will not be a failure but also not a block-buster. In this connection, a new business model tried out by Nokia in its "Comes with Music" (CWM) looks very promising. 

CWM simply reverses the economics of Music Industry. Instead of paying for each song or track, your music cost is loaded on to the listening device. You buy the Nokia handset for around $230 and you get unlimited songs for one year, after which you can buy a subscription or buy a new device. Of course, Nokia wants you to buy a new device every year and that's the attraction for them to try this model. This bundling of content cost on to the device is in a way similar to TV License fee in UK, where a tax that is collected to watch TV in UK helps government to subsidize BBC content production costs. This is the reason why many of the content in BBC websites are restricted by IP to permit UK viewers only. 

For me, I hope someone in India (may be Reliance Big or Hungama or Airtel or Times) brings out this model for India. Unfortunately, till date there is no comprehensive subscription based sites in India offering Indian Film and Classical music. You are left with buying physical media then ripping it yourself (which is what I do) or paying blatantly expensive price for each track to legal sites or simply pirate.

Yesterday was a proud moment for all Indians.It was the placing of Indian tricolour on the Moon’s surface on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday.  The Indian flag was painted on the sides of Moon Impact Probe (seen above), one of the 11 payloads of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, that successfully hit the lunar surface today at 20:31 hrs (8:31 pm) IST. This is the first Indian built object to reach the surface of the moon. The modern Indian space programme was initiated in 1962 when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister of India.

I have been reading in some sections of media where critics are arguing against spending for space programs in a country like India, when much has to be done here for Poverty eradication, Healthcare and Literacy. I don't see merit in this argument. If you say that space can be explored only when everything is completed in ground then no country can qualify for doing it - ever. I am against arms race and space wars, but scientific space programs are must for a developing nation like India. It has several benefits including Employment, Challenge, Ambition for youngsters without which literacy or poverty eradication becomes meaningless.

What do you think, please post your comments.

Few weeks back while at my US trip I read this book "Notes from a Big Country" by Bill Bryson. Like his other books, Bryson's humour is unmistakable in this book as well. Like others have said in the Amazon's book comments you will find yourself laughing loud in many places.

The book is a collection of a weekly column in Mail on Sundays Night and Day magazine in UK. So this book has been written more for an international audience who will find things different in USA from their country. Having visited USA many times I can say I was baffled too at many of similar scenes observed by Bryson. So in many places of the book I could relate to his experience and enjoy the scene. Commenting on common American living habits, you might be mistaken like some Americans (who have commented in Amazon) that Byrson is making "fun" of Americans at large.  This being my fourth book written by Bryson, I can say that he has nothing against America, this is his style -  It is the same when he writes about UK, Europe or even Shakespeare, so nothing different here. More than the scenes described, what I really liked is Bryson's extraction of Humour from all the weird situations like the once I have mentioned below:

• Picture ID to be shown in US Airports (Bryson calls this as Permissible Visual Cognitive Imaging)
• Junk Food Heaven - "We don't usually clean our fridge - we just box it up every four or five years and send it off to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta with a note to help themselves to anything that looks scientifically promising"
• The countless forms used by American Immigration - "You can spend days repeatedly dialling a phone number that is forever engaged, only to be told when you finally do get through that you must call another number, which the person tells you once in a mumble and you don't quite catch before you are cut off"
• Commercials - "The new Dodge Backfire. Rated number one against the Chrysler Inert for Handling. Rated number one against the Plymouth Repellant for mileage"
• Cupholder Revolution - "But our computers don't come with cupholders"
• Why no one walks - "Not long after we moved here we had the people next door round for dinner and - I swear this is true - they drove"
• The great indoors and the obsession for living always in a climate controlled environment - "Skywalks - enclosed pedestrian flyovers"
• Abundance of choice in American super markets - "Thirty five varieties of Crest Toothpaste"
• Spinning the truth - how the "special offer" advertisements exasperates the truth

If you have visited USA and felt things are different from your country then this book is a must read for you.

I saw this movie, Will Smith's Hancock in my return flight from US in Cathay Pacific. Comparing to his other movies, this is relatively a easy role to be played by Will Smith and he has done it without any disappointment. The movie is about John Hancock (Will Smith) a drunkard with superhuman powers, including supersonic flight, immortality, and super-strength. Though he uses his powers to stop criminals in his residence of Los Angeles, his activities cause millions of dollars in property damage due.

This is an average movie, can be seen if you are a Will Smith fan or a Special Effects fan, other than those two there is nothing worth mentioning.

I came across an advertisement about a product that can charge your mobile on your bicycle during a 15 minutes travel. I thought it was a cool innovative idea that will serve well the millions of rural people in India and China. I was disappointed when I visited the company's website as it carried no information about the product. Doing a web search revealed this was a concept showcased by Motorola in January 2007 itself. Anyways this is definitely an useful innovation for millions.

And if you are DIY type, doing this should not be very difficult or expensive. It can be done with an ordinary cycle-light dynamo and some circuitry to match and stabilize the output voltage.

While doing my morning walking today (after a long time) in my neighbourhood, I saw these Public Safety Message boards kept by Chennai City Police at various places. These are aimed to educate people with simple lines along with an image on importance of common safety messages. A good initiative by the police and we should congratulate the sponsors who helped for this campaign.

(Click the above image for the entire album in full resolution)

The last view days I am staying in Cupertino, CA - One of the cities in Silicon Valley which includes San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Fremont, Milpitas, Sunnyvale and others where you find the largest number of Computer Software & Hardware companies. What was interesting to me when I drove around to find few of the well known one's are headquartered in Cupertino alone. The list includes Apple, Symantec, SugarCRM.