Friday, December 17, 2010

Modern Akshaya Patra- feeding the needy.

Hi friends, the exact period of Vedas, Upanishad, Ramayana, or Mahabharata may still be a matter of debate, but no body can deny the fact that during all these periods feeding a hungry person was treated as a greatest service to man kind. “Anna daanam mahaa daanam” is a very popular Sanskrit verse which has motivated millions of Indians to perform this divine act and in ancient India in most of the temple premises there were annadana centers. But, things have changed drastically and now we can see very few temple premises which run annadanam schemes. Healthy rural Indian economy has become sick as British rulers tightened their grips on administration and in 1947 when they left India for ever their policies have forced millions of villagers to hold begging bowl in their hands.


I am a regular viewer of spirituality centered television channels like Astha and Samskar and I never miss any opportunity to listen speeches of Late Rajiv Dixit of Bharath Swabhimaan which are aired regularly on these channels. He traveled excessively from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Kutch to Bhuvanaeshwar many times and gathered information about socio economical conditions of rural India during different periods. In his speeches, Rajiv Dixit virtually takes us to rural India and explains how rural economy was growing with the mutual cooperation of all villagers irrespective of their cast, creed and economic status. Trades were carried out mainly with exchange of goods and as many as 2000 products were exchanged including cultivated and crafted. But, milk and butter milk were never traded in rural India and they were exchanged freely, those who have excess milk used to distribute it to neighbors or needy villagers. As whole rural economy was carried with goods exchange including goods for service, every household was self sufficient with respect to food and shelter. Till first half of 19th century, healthy rural economy has managed the wealth distribution efficiently so that no body was deprived of basic necessities. Every village was having a Gurukul where all children were given education, health centre to treat sick villagers, panchayat where all disputes were settled amicably. But with the emergence of British rule things started changing and Dixit’s eyes became wet when he explained the present condition of rural Indians. His dream was to bring back the glory of rural India by making them self sufficient as they were 15o years back.

Some people might have shown sympathy towards the pathetic condition of poverty ridden Indians in rural areas as well as in urban slums and given some temporary relief but very few people think of long lasting solutions to such social diseases. When Sri. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada saw a group of children, who were trying to over power street dogs and snatch food packet from their mouth, took a unique decision of feeding hungry people within 10 miles radius of his ashram. After seeing the success of this move, Swamiji and his followers decide to spread it to other parts of India in a systematic manner and thus The Akshaya Patra foundation came in to existence. Like any other organization it has also framed a vision which says: “No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger.” The mid day meal program started by Akshaya Patra for 1500 school going children in 5 schools few years back has grown beyond expectations of its well wishers and today in excess of 12 lakhs children across India are happily enjoying mid day meals distributed by selfless volunteers of Akshaya Patra trust.

India can regain its lost glory only if our younger generation can live with dignity and I feel it can be done only through education. But a hungry stomach in a body will not allow its mind to concentrate on anything else unless its demand is fulfilled. So I appeal all my fellow Indian Blogger to donate liberally to implement this noble activity all over India so that nobody remains hungry and uneducated. Visit “Akshaya Patra” to know more about its activities and be part of this great unit by donating your hard earned money which may bring smile on our underprivileged children. You can donate your contribution by just clicking the link http://www.akshayapatra.org/individual-donors.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

WCM concepts.......!

Hi friends, this post is continuation of my previous post. Thank you.

Initially, printed materials were made available to workmen on local language and banners were displayed all over the plant about 5 ‘S’ and its benefits along with lectures by both external as well as internal trainers. Since success of 5 ‘S’ concept depends entirely on team spirit, various teams were formed at different levels involving both staff and workmen. As teams started meetings, large quantities of unwanted materials, non value adding activities and underutilized spaces were identified and eliminated. As per the concept “place for everything and everything in its place” places were fixed to equipments, labeled with necessary information and one point lesson to handle it. With the elimination of all types of waste, work places in each and every department became well organized which resulted in reduction in breakdowns and accidents. Elimination of non value adding process created opportunity to reduce workmen and staff positions. Teams were encouraged to come out with kaizens(small improvements) some of which resulted in substantial financial savings. Financial benefits derived from all the above activities were spent for atomization which again paved the way for further man hour reduction.

In the mean time, minor issues related to quality were addressed without much effort because of the new culture and concepts like “cleaning is inspection”, “first time right every time right” etc. Dynamic work environment helped us to improve product quality where as ‘why why” analysis of a problem took us to the root cause of the problem. With regular brain storming by WCM teams, chemical consumptions were optimized which ended with financial benefit and improved process parameters. Ultimate goal of WCM is to delight the customer and he will be delighted only if we supply him defect free, best quality product at lowest possible price. Successful implementation of WCM and making it as our way of life has strengthened all aspects of our business and I hope with little bit extra effort we can be our customer’s first choice.
Some of the most common methods of mounting a bathtub faucet are tub or bathroom wall mounted , deck mounted, and freestanding supply. The method you decide on can depend upon the faucet drilling orientation of your bathtub. 

Monday, December 13, 2010

Japanese World Class Manufacturing concepts- not new to Indians

Hi friends, as mentioned in my blog profile I am serving in Aditya Birla Group which is already in the Fortune 500 companies list and aiming to be in the list of 150. Our unit has adopted World Class Manufacturing concepts which were originated from Japan and harvested its benefits to a great extent. I feel any borrowed concept or tool aimed at increasing the performance of systems need not be copied as such, they can be modified as per prevailing situations. I have observed that many of the concepts included in the Japanese WCM system are being followed in Indian house holds since centuries and the sad part is that we blindly follow and imitate others. In this context, I remember an age old Kannada proverb “hittala gida maddalla” which means the plant grown in the backyard is not medicine. Any way I am publishing the following article which I have submitted for an in house essay competition aimed at promoting the so called WCM culture among employees.

Our achievements after adopting 5 ‘S’ concepts by P Kamath

There was a time when our business was operating on seller’s market but slowly we slipped from that advantageous position because of various factors like adoption of liberalized trade policies by government and entry of new players in to VSF manufacturing. In addition to this, expectations of the stake holders of our business including customers, employees and society has gone up considerably which not only resulted in reduced profit margin but also compelled us to think about producing product with better quality. So with an aim to achieve excellence in all walks of industrial activities, our management decided to adopt and implement WCM concept and I feel that was the best step taken at a right time which yielded multifold benefits. I am working in this organization since 30 years and happily associated with every development activity in my work place connected to WCM and observing the positive changes took place throughout the plant at large. It is proved beyond doubt that 5 ‘S’ is one of the main pillars of WCM and unless you follow all the 5 steps holistically, reaching the standards of world class may remain a dream for ever.

I would like to memorize those successful steps taken at GRD by which today we could be counted among World class manufacturing units and as a testimony to our claim of attaining rare position of manufacturing excellence, we have been awarded with Chairman’s Platinum Award. I would like to thank our management for not sparing any effort to make our journey to excellence a smoother one by furnishing necessary infrastructure and moral support. As “old habits die hard”, it was a Luke warm response to WCM in the initial days but with wide spread education on the benefits of 5 ‘S’ in the work place and beyond, employees started practicing it slowly.


Friends, remaining part of the essay will be continued as next blog post.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

First ever artificial ice technology used in India!

Hi friends, I am dedicating this blog post to Late Rajiv Dixit who left this world for ever. He has kept National interest above all and till his last breath traveled length and breadth of India to educate people about the importance of Nationalism. He is a proud son of Mother India and she lost one of her brave soldiers. Today evening I was watching a recorded speech of Late Rajiv Dixit in an Indian TV Channel Samsakar and am surprised to hear what he was telling. He was listing out the contributions of Indians in the field of science and technology. He told, the first ever artificial ice was produced way back in 6th century in India, contrary to the belief that it was produced in 18th century in Europe.


Though plenty of ice is available in nature, technology to prepare ice was not known for many years. Chakravarty samrat Harshavardhan who ruled India in 6th century AD was basically a scientist and his specialization was chemistry. One day his son became ill due to very high fever and nobody could find any remedy to bring down the fever. The Doctor who was treating the patient requested Harshavardhana to arrange some cold material so that body temperature of the child could be brought down. Since natural ice was not available in that area, Harshavardhana used his scientific skill and prepared the first artificial ice pieces by human being and saved his son’s life. The scientist turned ruler knew the exact combination of temperature and pressure to convert water to ice. Historical biography of King Harsha in Sanskrit,Sri. Hars ha Charitra by Banabhatta is a source of information to justify this historical fact.

This post is a humble tribute to that departed soul who was always trying to make us feel proud about our mother land by highlighting its positive aspects with facts and figures.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Remembering the departed soul in Vedic way!

Hi friends, Indian civilization is the oldest one and it has produced many precious gifts to man kind. Vedas are the oldest Sanskrit literature in which one can have the deep knowledge of Indian way of life. Vedas are compiled over a period of time and till today most of our day to day rituals are having connection to any of the four Vedas, especially Yajurveda. From birth to death during various occasions specific rituals are performed and a trained priest will be engaged if the ritual is complicated. After the death of parents, death anniversary (shradda) will be performed by their children either on the day of the death as per Hindu calendar or during mahalaya period. In our house at my native place, every year we perform our parent’s death ceremony and under the guidance of our family priest all rituals are carried out. My knowledge about Veda is almost zero but I believe if every ritual explained in these sacred books if performed systematically, then it is going to produced enormous amount of positive energy. During the rituals I used to follow the instructions of the priest mechanically but my mind remembers my parents and good things they have done towards us. I feel this ritual for a common believer like me is an opportunity to remember parents and express my gratitude in the form of offering. I heard that there are many complicated rituals like perjanya yagna from which we can make it rain at any time. Rituals explained in Vedas are for the betterment of man kind and they replace the negative energy created by our inhuman activities with Divine energy.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Lessons learnt by a student in the process of becoming independent

Hi friends, I am continuing my previous post on education system in ancient India. I know it is not proper to compare systems which exist on different eras but by counting the positive aspect one system, we can bring changes to the present system. I am happy to read the matured comment for my post “Education at Gurukul in ancient India” by my blogger friend Always happy from United kingdom and according to her “Ancient gurukul system was good, modern education system isn’t bad either, it is up to individual student and parents how they use it. It has its pros and cons.” Any way as promised, I am listing out the lessons learnt by a modern student on his way to become independent. I am not sure whether these lessons are own experiences or copied from any other source but my source is SJCE college magazine published on the year 2002 and the student who wrote the article is Ann Jacob. Thank you Ann.

It takes courage to be yourself
Everybody will not like you and it doesn’t matter as long as you like yourself
You can be lonely amidst gazillion friends if there is no empathy.
Something that doesn’t kill you will ultimately make you stronger
Standing up for what you believe in won’t win you friends, but the peace you feel within beats all.
The best way to overcome fear is to face it.
Be kind for everyone you come across is fighting a harder battle
Truly loving another is letting go of all expectations
The best friends are always gained through trail in life
Never stoop to avenge yourself
Merit doesn’t count every time
Better looking people often get luckier and that shouldn’t demoralize you
Never compromise on personal standards
Prayer can work wonders
Things often won’t work out the way we plan it
You can make mistakes as long as you learn from them
No friendship has a forever guarantee
The most considerate thing we can do is to simply listen
People you love the most may hurt you the most
Things are not what they seen
Betrayal is a common thing but not betraying a betrayer is a decent thing to do
The most cheerful persons have the greatest sorrows buried within
Everyday has its lessons; it is for us to seek them

Education at Gurukul in ancient India

Hi friends, I never miss a chance to read stories of Indian epics or mythologies. I was brought up in a healthy cultural environment where my mom was my first Guru or teacher who used to tell us stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata which are counted among very few great epics of the world. The respective heroes of these epics, Lord Sriram and Lord Srikrishna are described as incarnation of the supreme power who is the creator of the entire universe and still they are worshiped throughout India. As I learnt from these books, education system followed in ancient India was unique in many ways including the process of handing over the student from the first Guru (mother) to master at Gurukul, the ancient from of residential schools. The concept of Gurukul it self very holistic in nature where students will be staying with their master’s residence away from their homes for many years till the master is satisfied with the performance of his student. Master used to treat his student as his family member and all his requirements were taken care off by master and his family members. The parents who send their children to Gurukul were not worried about their children’s activities and safety as they were under the homely care of Gurukul master. At the end of the many years of vigorous training, parents were asked to take their children back and what ever material given as fees towards the education were accepted by the teacher as guru dakshina. It is said that both Lord Rama and Krishna were sent to gurukuls where they underwent training on all aspects of education. But, the modern form of education in India has shrugged off all its cultural values and it has become a means to make huge profit from minimum investment. Now we send our children to far away cities for higher education where they will be staying in hostels for boarding and lodging. As long as children stay in the hostel, parents spend sleepless nights because there is no enough control over the students both within the campus and in Hostels. Even students want to be away from home during their studies to enjoy the student life to its full extent. But at the end of the student life they will realize what is gained and what is lost. Today I was turning the pages College magazine of SJCE, Mysore where my son has done his Bachelor of Engineering and found an article with a heading “Lessons” written by a student. He began his article saying he was thrilled to be away from home to find him and be independent. He says he learnt many things but paid heavy price for them. I thought it will be useful to my readers if I make a blog post out of it. The billeted list of his learning is quite lengthy, so I think it is better to continue in another post tomorrow. I think modern education system is keeping both parents and students sleepless but for different reasons.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Benefits of cycling

Hi friends, continuing discussion on reduction of carbon footprints through change in life style, I want to count the benefits of cycling in all angles. It is a known fact that the concept of cycling is green and it is no less greener then any other environmental friendly activities. Using cycle as a mode of travel in place of vehicle run on fossil fuel will no doubt reduce carbon load on the environment. Benefits of peddling a cycle regularly with respect to personal health are many. Because of our modern life style as well as nature of job, many of us especially younger generation are confined to tables which denies them enough physical activities and lack of physical work retards the calorie conversion in our system. According to Baba Ramdev, who is a well-known Yoga Guru, as long as blood circulates without any hindrance, digestive organs burns all the calories taken inside and mind is free from any worries, then you will keep yours self away from any diseases. He teaches Yoga and other physical exercises along with meditation which can keep a person physically, mentally and socially healthy. Baba says, rhythmic cycling to a long distance will keep us physically and mentally fit mainly because of proper digestion of food. Un burnt calorie will accumulate as fat in different parts of our body and becomes a cause for health upset. As a developing nation with second highest human population in the world, oil consumption in India is always a matter of worry for economists and environmentalist and replacement of motorcycle with a bicycle for daily use can make a huge difference for exchequer and to our environment. I heard that in European counties people prefer to pedal cycles for smaller distance with an aim to save environment and remain healthy. But unfortunately in India, our craze for motorbike is increasing and in spite of increasing fuel price this trend is still continuing. Modern India tries to imitate western culture very happily, then why not adopt their cycling concept?

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Reducing Carbon footprints through change in life style: Setting an example

Hi friends, as an upcoming blogger I always keep my eyes and ears wide open as far as grabbing blog post topics are concerned and today got some good stuff to write. As I already mentioned in my earlier posts, I am serving in an Indian blue chip company and I am lucky to have a friendly boss with whom I have a good rapport. In spite of this, we hardly discuss personal matters because of our tight schedule but never forget to share our children’s achievements at least for a brief moment. Today in the evening when I was about to leave office, my boss called me inside his cabin and happily shown a news story about his son Mr. Mayank Rungta which was published on Bangalore edition of e-paper DNA (Daily news & analysis) on his PC. Like all Indian parents who are always willing to be part of their Children’s success he was also very happy and exited to share it with me.

The title of the news story is “Make way for pedal pushers” and this about those determined people who use cycle to travel within the city of Bangalore. Instead of using his bike, Mayank pedals his cycle every day to go to his office which is about 11 kilometers from his residence. According to Mayank, riding a cycle is having many benefits both personal as well as environmental. He says, apart from saving money one can save valuable time, remain stress free, stay healthy and reduce our carbon foot prints by regular cycling. He is a proud member of Ride a cycle foundation, Bangalore and enjoys his association with this NGO group As I have mentioned in my earlier posts about carbon footprint reduction, need of the hour is to minimize fossil fuel burning. Voluntary change of life style is essential to achieve this and Mayank’s foot steps can be followed. Once upon a time Bangalore city was known for its greenery and cleaner environment but now day by day it is losing its originality mainly because of our inevitable modern activities and changeable life style.

I want to discuss the benefits of cycling in detail so thinking of stopping here for the time being and continue hopefully tomorrow.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Am I disappointed with the result? No … not at all

Hi friends, my blogging journey started under the expert guidance of Badri way back on 27th of July 2008 and since then I have never turned back. Day by day my blogging skills got sharpened including writing skill. My Google page rank rose to 4 and received 90/100 website grade from website grader. I joined Indiblogger, a network of Indian blogger and here also my site got 84/100, a respectable rank. I placed all these rank badges on a prime location of my blog and used to watch them proudly every time when I enter my page. As days passed, I started to believe that I have become a matured blogger. I myself gave a respectful position to my blog.

My association with Indiblogger network is not very long and I did not put enough efforts to make more friends within this network. During the initial days of my blogging journey most of my visitors and blogging friends were from abroad. I happened to know about this network when I visited Priyanka Prabhu’s blog and without any second thought I registered my site and that was the first when I felt homely in the world of Blog. I am really proud of some of Indiblogger members who maintain a world class blog. When “Tata Docomo 3G life” contest was announced on Indiblogger, I have decided to take up the challenge and that was my first participation in any contest as a blogger. Without putting much thought and without any preparation I just wrote an article and posted it on Indiblogger. Even I did not make a sincere effort to read posts by other participants some of whom are well reputed blogger. I thought whatever I have posted is enough to win the contest. I have completely forgotten that I am a frog inside a well and unaware of the developments taking place out side the well.Now the results are out and my honest opinion about the winning posts is that out of two posts, one definitely deserves a top position in the list OF submitted posts. I have congratulated both the winners and shared both posts to my face book dash board. Now time has come to address my shortcomings as blogger and need to do serious blogging. I need to change my blogging strategy from visiting more number of sites to reading more posts having valuable contents. I feel this failure is a blessing in disguise for me because it gives a chance for the frog to come out from the well.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Be part of a largest wireless community carrier (Wi-Fi) and save money

Hi friends, cost of my mobile communication has gone up considerably compared to earlier days and the main reason is I make international calls more often and travel from one place to another. So in order to reduce my expenditure towards mobile communication I have decided to join http://www.tribair.com/ which is going to be the largest wireless community carrier. As a member of this Wi-Fi community, I am entitled to get various benefits from which I can save good amount of money. I can down load the mobile application to my smart phone and start using Wi-Fi connection.

Some of Attractive features associated with tribair community are as below:

 Free calls, free messages and video chat between community members
 Lower call rates to other networks from Wi-Fi connection
 Lower international calls and no roaming charge between members
 Connection available in more than 50 countries.
 Own tribe can be created and connected with the community where Wi-Fi connection is not available and enjoy 20% revenue generated via your tribe.

Benefits of Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) in Mutual Funds

Hi friends, as a blogger my sincere effort should be to give value addable information or enjoyable moments to my site visitors. Blogger who posts on a particular subject cannot survive for a longer period unless he is a master in that subject. But in my case, I have got too many options at my command. My published posts on my blog can be categorized as “mixed bag” and I am happy about it. I can be choosy about the subject for my next post where as blogger who runs a blog on food category can’t be. One of my friends advised me to try some posts on financial matters which may drive additional traffic to my site.

We Indians believe that it is not wise to stretch legs beyond bed which means “don’t spend beyond earning capacity”. I think, by following this age old concept (taught by Indian moms) we remained financially fit when the whole world was struggling to survive. Even during the peak of economic recession, majority of Government owned Banks functioned normally simply because banking industry followed all basic rules of banking while sanctioning loans. Happy news is that most of the economies including US have freed themselves from the clutches of recession and I feel the time has come to increase our financial activities.

During the successful visit of American president Mr. Obama, various deals were finalized between corporate giants of USA and India and it is believed that their out come will be a win-win situation to all concerned. It is generally expected that Indian stock markets may boom after the announcement of $10 billion deal but as usual Indian investor’s response was Luke warm. Individual investors who have got burnt their fingers like me are not in a position to take further chances in this most volatile financial market and I want to give an example to justify it. A dream deal of $2.2 billion is announced between Indian based Reliance Power ltd and US based General Electric. In spite of the announcement of such a huge deal, R. power share price did not move up substantially which is still below its IPO price. What it shows? Majority of individual investors in India invest cautiously and their contribution is negligible in the stock market performance compared to Indian mutual funds, FII and hedge funds. I feel, only because of the participation of foreign institutional investors and hedge funds we could see sensex crossing 20k again and again.

Systematic investment plan (SIP) was practiced in Indian households since centuries. Indian moms used to collect some portion of food grains and money separately to meet emergency requirements if any. For an Indian investor who wants be part of share trading activities but with minimum risk, investing in mutual fund through a SIP is a good option. Since there is a stiff competition between major mutual fund players like Birla Sunlife, SBI, UTI, Tata, Kotak Mahindra, LIC, Franklin Templeton, Morgan Stanley etc. we can expect better service and returns to the customers. A small investment for a longer period may become a huge fund which may take care of future requirements like higher education for children or their marriage. Indian middle class always play safe in all aspects and I feel SIP in few companies will increase the value of their portfolios, keep them free of stock market tension. Browsing the internet to know the past track record of companies and NAV levels of different funds before selecting a fund will end up with a good selection. I am investing through monthly SIP in two different funds of Birla Sunlife Mutual fund and already received handsome dividends which are quite higher than Bank interest.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Indian lemon pickle for my Malaysian blogger friend

Hi friends, every society has got its own culture or way of life and specific food habits are followed in different societies. A particular food habit practiced in one part of the world may not be liked in another part. For example, I cannot even imagine myself eating Chinese non vegetarian items (leave lone eating) and this may be the case with many other people around the world. But things are changing rapidly with easy access to internet. Food blog plays an important role as far as popularizing food culture from one part of the world to other. Now I can prepare a tasty “cauliflower, leek and blue cheese soup” which is famous in America or a French recipe “Seared halibut with vegetable crisps and potatoes” without much difficulty by browsing food blog. As an active blogger I have many friends in different parts of the world and I am fortunate enough to interact with them via our blog. I feel proud of Miss. Seri, who is a blogger from Malaysia and I feel her blogging activities should be a guiding factor for a blogger especially newcomers. Recently she requested me to send preparation method for Indian lime pickle through my Gmail Id. But I thought it is better to be through my blog, so I am linking an Indian food site “Indian Food rocks” from where she can get details of the pickle preparation.

For Seri:

Hi Seri, thanks for giving me an opportunity to share my county’s recipes with you. Hope you can prepare it very easily and all your family members may like it. I feel language barrier can be overcome with Google translator. Waiting for your tasty feed back!

My dear Obama- how you could win the heart of majority of Indians?

Hi friends, though I am not much interested in world politics I keep a watch on the important political developments taking place around me. In India we have received heads of various countries in a big way but only visits of American Presidents arouse curiosity in even common Indians where as dignitaries from other countries failed to make much impression. Even I too have a special attraction towards America and I admire Americans for my own reasons and this may be true with majority of Indians. Mr. Obam’s visit has become a talk of the town well before his arrival and the entire 3 days concentration of the whole Nation was on him. I think he could win the heart of Indian people and made a permanent impression by his simple and straight forward approach. From the first day of his visit where he landed at Mumbai to his historic speech on the floor of Indian Parliament House his fan following went on increasing and I think today he is the most popular international figure in India. His deep knowledge about India and its cultural heritage, references of Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar in his address has brought him nearer to Indians. His statement “I am directly speaking to one billion Indians through this platform” has become an added advantage for his popularity. I liked his style of pronouncing Namaste and Jai hind and I am sure millions of Indians felt so. Whatever may be the out come of his visit on political and economical grounds, it has boosted the spirit of our business community. I feel, the tie up between two countries will result in increased income opportunities in both countries. Whatever good thing happened during 3 days of his visit is because of the combination of US policy and the personal interest of President Obama. I feel proud of this gentle man who acts tough when ever situation demands not only in the interest of his country but the whole world. I think America and American’s are lucky to have him as their leader. Mr. Obama, all of us want to see you in active politics for many more years for the betterment of the world. Bro, wish you all the best

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Mr. President - is it a Big bang visit?


Hi friends, much awaited and much debated visit of Mr. Barack Obama to my country is over and in many ways it is considered as different from visits of earlier American presidents to India. Unlike other Presidents, he has attracted the attention of whole nation during his stay in India. I have watched his live actions in our Parliament house where he addressed members of both houses. I salute him for his oratory skill and it was a treat to watch him speaking on various topics beneficial for both India and America. I felt he was speaking from the bottom of his heart and I am impressed by his pleasing personality and positive body language. All the dignitaries listening to his proposals were applauding voluntarily including Mr. L K Advani, who is one of the tallest leaders of India. I don’t want to go into details of the proposals and assurances given in his speech but I can say they are beneficial to our country also. I feel proud that my country is slowly becoming a economic power and President of mighty America is giving us business proposal on equal grounds. His assurance of support for a permanent membership in UN Security Council may taste very sweet for us but it may take more than 2 decades before it takes place.

It is believed that the whole universe was formed because of an event called Big Bang and shall I call Mr. Obama’s visit a Big bang visit, which may give birth to many positive developments for the betterment of the word? He deserves a second term as President of USA and hope American’s will rightly give him another term to rule and improve their country.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Welcome to India Mr. Obama


Hi friends, wish you all happy Deepavali and prosperous New Year. Deepavali, the festival of lights is already on and my observation is that people are showing better enthusiasm than last year in its involvements. The only reason for this observed behavioral change is nothing but secured financial condition. In spite of being a most disciplined economy, we also felt the heat of turbulence in the world economy and tightened our belts on personal level as well as organizational. Moreover the contradictory predictions by different economists created doubts in the minds of Indians which made them to think twice before spending. But, now the derailed world economy is slowly and steadily rolling on the right track and that is why we are loosening our belts little bit. Indian stock markets are booming again and as usual corporate is bettering its results. American President Mr. Barack Osama is going to visit India shortly and Indian economy is welcoming him with a record stock market jump. But I think we cannot relax too much because some experts are expecting few more bubbles to burst in near future. Any way I wish better sense prevail on us not to repeat the earlier economic blunders which led to the collapse of world economy.



Thursday, November 4, 2010

3G – launching pad for a successful journey


Hi friends, I am 53 years old, serving in an Indian blue chip company where my job descriptions are mainly connected to production activities. In spite of my different nature of job and ordinary educational qualifications, I used to update my computer knowledge on my own capacity as and when it was required for my organization as well as to fulfill my personal ambitions. My computer literacy is adequate enough to be part of ongoing developments taking place in this field and I am enjoying its benefit to my personal satisfaction. Still I remember those memorable days of learning and enjoy working on MSDOS, Word star, Lotus123, Foxpro, Qpro and thrilling video games. I never thought using computer would be so easy till the arrival of MS windows package. Now I am living in an amazing world called internet, I own my own website there, under it I run my blog where I can show my talent to my online friends who are not only from my country but from other parts of the world too. I use various types of social networks like orkut, face book, twitter to communicate with my online friends. My website is becoming a means for generating online income and it is improving slowly but steadily. Apart from blogging, I engage myself in online share trading also. So, keeping in mind all my online activities I whole heartedly activated GPRS on my mobile hand set, but disappointed with the slowness associated with it. I heard the benefits of 3G from my online friends who are from USA and I never thought my turn will come so early to have 3G on my hand set.Tata is a house hold name in India and they recognize themselves with both rural as well as modern India. Tata DOCOMO is a joint venture between Tata group and NTT docomo, Japan and thanks to Tata Docomo, modern India is going to enjoy benefits of 3G network. As a citizen of a developing country, I feel proud that we are at par with developed countries like America as far as telecom service is concerned and as a blogger I count the benefits of having a 3G on my hand set. I have already confirmed that my present hand is compatible with 3G and waiting to continue my journey of passion (blogging) with Tata Docomo 3G life. With Tata Docomo 3G, I am sure to make my blogging activity more fruitful and can connect with my online friends face to face where ever they live. 3G speed will help me to down load my share trading software and trade in real time. For people who are fond of particular programs on TV channels including cricketer matches, 3G is a boon for them. In this era of video conferences, hand sets equipped with 3G can save time and energy for low profile companies. Blogging is my passion and I am happy that I am going to be on line all the time with all my friends and I am sure that all my dreams connected to this field is going to be realized very soon. I use this opportunity to wish Tata Docomo a great success and rule the network world for many more years

Friday, October 29, 2010

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints (using technology): Pat-6


Hi friends, according to law of thermodynamics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed and it can only change forms. We are living in an era where demand for energy is increasing with increase in human population. To meet this ever increasing demand, fossil fuel resource hidden beneath the Earth is being exploited and it may not last longer. Now it is time to look at “Pancha Bhoota” or 5 elements for fulfilling our need of energy. Our universe including our body is made of these five elements - earth, water, wind, fire and space. All these elements are rich source of energies and more over they are renewable. For example, heat energy from Sun will be always there and nobody knows how many billion years it may take before Sun stops emitting heat and light to us. So we already on the process of taping light energy from Sun and using it for heating purpose. Similarly wind energy is converted in to electrical energy using large windmills and as per theoretical calculation the entire global electrical power demand can be met by wind energy. Since the initial cost of setting up a windmill is very huge, it is yet to become common man’s choice. In India, private players are investing in this filled looking at the potential for making profit in the future. If we set up more windmills wherever there is scope for rotation of windmill wheels, it will result in reduction of global carbon foot print.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

CNN Hero of the Year Award


Hi friends, in India we believe that offering food is the best gift among all and if this gift is offered to a needy person who is not in a position to earn it then the significance of this offering becomes multifold. To justify the importance of food offering in Hinduism, I will quote an ancient Sanskrit verse – “Anna daanam maha daanam” which means food offering is the greatest offer. In spite of world wide economic progress and development in all spheres, still there are some backward areas in different parts of the world including my own country, where some people are lacking food and shelter. When it comes to poverty, hunger and malnutrition we talk about only Ethiopia and pretending as if our country is free from these entire social issues. In this back ground, I would like to mention the selfless service of Mr.Narayana Krishnan who has been short listed for the prestigious “CNN Hero of the year” award. He is the only Indian among short listed 10 heroes from all over the world and through a public online voting system “CNN Hero of the year” will be selected in which anybody can vote through internet.Before writing this article I have already voted for Krishnan. Mr. Krishnan hails from Tamil Naadu a South Indian State and when I read his life story in an e-mail received from my friend, I have decided to write a blog post appealing people to vote for him. arayana Krishnan is from a middle class family and after completing his preliminary studies, he was about to proceed to Switzerland for higher studies which could have changed his life entirely. But, during one of his visits to Madurai Meenakshi Temple about ten years back he happened to saw an old helpless, homeless person eating his own human waste and decided to spend his life to feed hungry people. He could have become a rich NRI like many of his co country men who settled in western counties but thought of perusing a unique service to mankind in the form of hot meals supply to hungry people. Presently he is employed as chef in a luxurious hotel and along with he is carrying out his mission without any break. He wakes up at four in the morning, cooks meals to about 400 people every day, travels about 200 kilometers to feed them along with his team members who are sympathetic to this great cause. In the mean time they have established a trust called Akshaya and till date they have distributed hot meals to about 1.2 million hungry people in a span of about eight years. Apart from this, Akshaya trust carres out other free service like hair cut who need it. They are having ambitious plan like providing permanent shelter to these people but mobilizing necessary fund is a major constrain and I think the ongoing poll is a God send opportunity not only to Krishnan but rest of us because a huge sum of cash award is waiting to enter the bank account of the winner. If our vote makes him to win, then he will receive $100,000 apart from $25,000 which he entitled to get for being short listed which will be entirely utilized to fulfill the vision of his mission. I request all my friends from blogging community to visit the site http://heroes.cnn.com/vote.aspx and vote for Narayana Krishnan. The voting lines are open till November 18.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

My videos are online

Hi friends, I am a proud owner of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50 digital camera which was presented to me by my son on my 25th marriage anniversary and I make use of this user-friendly camera occasionally with my limited knowledge about its functions. Though it is having many features to get high quality output, I use only automatic setting for both video and snaps. Also, I own a Nokia Express music 5800 mobile phone with a built in 3.2 mega pixel camera and I love to take snaps and videos from it also. I need not mention that this phone is also a gift from my son. My videos and photos collection is very huge which is consuming 49GB of my PC’s hard disk memory. I used to browse for my favorite video songs especially old Hindi movie songs in You Tube whenever I get free time and I was wondering how those video clips are made and published. Today I joined YouTube to know about its functions including uploading and publishing of video files from PC. Thanks to Google and its associated sites, I could upload and publish as many as four video clippings without much difficulty. To edit a large video clipping of my son’s marriage function I downloaded free software Videopad Video Editor Software and with its help I made a small clipping from a big video file. Even happily I went one step ahead and linked all those YouTube clippings to my orkut and Facebook profiles where I have got many friends. I am eagerly waiting to here my friend’s feed back.

Looking at the deteriorating environmental condition some times I feel technology and modernization are curse to man kind or Mother Nature but while harvesting its benefits I get confused. We have reached a stage from where we cannot go back as far as using technology and development is concerned but choosing a path of sustainable development may minimize the harm on various compartments of our environment.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

How to earn free credit and use it for blog advertising?

Hi friends, as a blogger I want to see more and more number of visitors to my site and my blogging activity becomes dull when my blog audience number decreases. I cannot survive and grow without oxygen supply to my body, similarly my blog cannot have a respectable place in internet search engines lists unless I don’t attract visitors and my blog does not have enough network partners. I started my blog two years back and used to spend hours together to boost my blog visitors. After joining Entrecard which is a free blogging network, not only visitors to my site increased but my online activity became effortless. Bloggers who become members of Entrecard network need to place a small widget on their blog and this arrangement is a win- win situation for everybody who is part of this network. You will earn free credits for dropping your card which can be accumulated and spent for displaying your site’s advertisement on other sites. Members are offered free credits to participate in various Entrecard online contests and by taking part in the latest Entrecard contest every participant can win as many as 5,000 credits which can be used to promote his blog.

I feel, this is an opportunity for low profile blogger like me to boost site traffic by using the Entrecard credits earned without any effort.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Happy Dasara

Hi friends, Happy Dasara to all.

Each and every festival which is celebrated around our globe may be having many more significances apart from spiritual (religious) one. There may be many stories attached to different festivals and our present generation may not be interested to digg them may be because of lack of interest, busy time schedule or may be because of the inevitable mind set change arising out of cultural pollution or dilution. Moral tags are associated with these stories which tell us what is right and wrong with respect to ethics. But, irrespective their lack of understanding about all these moral stories it is heartening to see active participation of younger generation in all festivals. I always believe that main purpose of festival celebration is for entertainment and other things are secondary. Spiritual part of any festival may be for inner happiness which is difficult to understand but in a given day anybody can enjoy participating in a festival with family and friends. India is a great country carrying the richest cultural heritage of the world and under the fold of Hinduism which is a way of life; more than a billion people from different faiths are celebrating different festivals in their own way. Vijaya dasami the last day of navaratri festival which is popularly called as dasara (Dussehra) is one of India’s major festivals and people from different parts of the world are attracted towards it. Wheather it is Mysore dasara in Karnatak(South India) where Goddess Chamundeshwari is worshipped or Dussehra in West Bengal where Goddess Durga is worshipped or Ramleela in Northern India, people from different faiths are participating for enjoyment. World famous Mysore Dasra is celebrated in a most traditional way and millions of people gather on the streets of Mysore on Dasara day to see and enjoy the most colorful Elephant procession (Jamboo Savari). In India, most of our festivals are based on stories in which evil forces were defeated by God and apart from mere enjoyment we can adopt the moral of the stories for the betterment of society as a whole. On this auspicious day I wish the evil force of international terrorists may be destroyed for ever by combined effort of rest of us. Today if any body watches the act of evil forces without supporting the victim as a mute spectator, then tomorrow may be his turn where he will be at the receiving end from terrorists. In the Mahabharata battle field Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that in Dharma Yuddha (war for right and wrong), one cannot remain neutral and everybody should take one side or the other.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints: Pat-5

Encourage Green Business:

Since the so called “green business” encourages sustainable development without producing any negative effect on environment, we need to support it with our full might One of the best descriptions of green business is that “the business which tries to meet the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of coming generations to meet their needs”. As I have already mentioned in my earlier blog posts, our present generation is only the custodians of resources of the Nature and we cannot exploit them lavishly. The best way to preserve the natural resources for the coming generations is to support green business by using green products and green services. Since green business involves usage of renewable energies such as solar and wind, recycling of products, reducing waste, usage of organic products, the resultant generation of green house gases are very less compared to traditional business activities. For example, a restaurant run with green concept may not produce as much negative effect on the environment as in case of a regular one. In most of the cases green products and services are cheaper than conventional products. I feel, use of renewable energies in green business only can make it more environmental friendly because use of non renewable energy source at any stage of the production activity is bound to produce negative impact on our environment.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints: Pat-4

Reduce taking hard copies

The positive aspects of computerization in our day today life are many and some of these aspects are very significant as far as environment protection is concerned. With the introduction of the concept of soft copy, it is observed that there is a considerable reduction in paper consumption and some organizations are holistically practicing the concept of “paper less office” which is beneficial for nature as well as to the organization. It was estimated that annual world paper production was in the range of about 300 million tons which means that more than 600 million tons of wood or trees were uprooted every year. But looking at the increasing popularity and world wide voluntary usage of soft copy in place of paper, one can say that there is some reduction in wood consumption. Various types of memory devices like laptop, pen drives with high memory are supplementing this revolutionary change which finally ends up with environmental protection. It is nice to see school going children using pen drives containing study materials instead of bulky printed books. Introduction of e- news paper, e- ticket are some welcome moves as far as preservation of natural resources are concerned.

I feel, introduction of the concept of digital photography is a blessing for our environment for various reasons. Apart from putting brake to printing of photos for which wood is one of the raw materials, digital photography puts an end to usage of hazardous chemicals which are part and parcel of photo film manufacturing process. Thanks to the healthy competition prevailing in the electronic manufacturing industries, digital cameras are becoming cheaper in one hand and computers with high memory hard disks are available in affordable ranges on the other and these things are encouraging people to save soft copies of snaps instead of taking its prints. This is a good example of use of technology for sustainable development.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints: Pat-3

Minimizing the usage of polythene bags:

Hi friends, disposal of used polythene bags has become a matter of grave concern for authorities because it is neither biodegradable easily nor it can be burnt in the air. Depending upon the density of polythene, it may take many years to centuries to get degraded. As I have mentioned in my earlier blog post, even if we use a polythene carry bag we can reuse it until it becomes useless and finally dispose in a scientific way. More than 80 million metric tons of polythene is being produced every year all over the world and major portion of this huge quantity goes to the production of shopping bags of different qualities and sizes. Since shopping bags are made of low density polythene, they are not strong enough for reuse and thrown unscientifically to dust bins. There are many hazards associated with these bags when mixed with soil such as it arrests or block the entry of rain water below the earth, its toxicity can damage the plants, water as well as soil. Entry of polythene to soil will result in reduction of agricultural yield and reduction in ground water level. In the year 2005, the city of Mumbai was virtually waterlogged due to heavy rain and it was found that choking of drains and sewage by plastic bags was the main reason. As I have mentioned in one of my blog post, I am a disciple of Rishi Prabhakar, founder of Sidha Samadhi Yoga(SSY) and in our daily class we were advised not to use plastic bags for carrying purpose and cloth bags made of old dress were provided to students.

I remember a tragic incident associated with over use of polythene bags which took place few years ago in Kerala state of southern India. One fine morning, one of the temple elephants (owned by the temple for the purpose of temple ceremonies) has become ill and finally died. Unable to find the exact reason for its sudden death, the body was subjected to postmortem and for every bodies surprise there were large number of plastic bags in side its stomach. Pilgrimages who were ignorant about the danger of consuming polythene used to feed fruits and other edible items to elephants along with the plastic bags which ended up with this tragic incident. We are hearing news of banning plastic carry bags by authorities from different parts of the world. In India, Philibit is the first district where use of plastic is banned totally and the credit goes to the then Member of Parliament Smt. Maneka Gandhi, lady who dedicated her life to environmental and animal protection.

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints: Pat-2

Reuse:

Hi friends, continuing my discussion on tips for reduction of carbon foot prints which is nothing but generation of green house gases due to our day today activities, I feel reuse of some of the day today materials should make considerable difference in its generation. Reuse should be a subject which can be debated wherever possible and the need of the hour is to make re use as way of our life. There are many items such as plastic bags, plastic utensils, tinfoil, paper which is used or typed on one side where other side is in a usable condition, using cloths as long as you want and giving them to needy people if you are really fed up with them wearing etc. If you know the gravity of situation with respect to deteriorating environmental health, you should not hesitate to buy second hand materials from the market in spite of your capacity to buy brand new items which are directly made of precious natural resources such as wood. Loss of a tree always results in the reduction of nature’s conversion capacity from carbon dioxide to oxygen. I heard that Japanese adopted the concept of waste to wealth long back which can be adopted by all of us with a multiple view of improving the environmental health as well as our personal financial health. Here I want to mention a website http://ethicalaffiliate.ning.com,which aims at nature protection. I am also a member of this site but my contribution to their cause is very negligible. The members of the site themselves created different groups and one such group I would like to mention here is “CO2….. Cut it out” and the related website is http://magneticfuelsaver.co.uk/.

Friends, if there is a will there is always a way and lot of websites are maintained with a sole purpose of saving our planet from environmental disaster and we can get valuable information from then as far as everything related to environment condition and its protection is concerned. The concept of reuse may not be liked by business community which is directly affected by this movement but to save our planet we must make our self tough.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

It can’t be a better birthday gift to Mahatma Gandhi!

Hi friends, to day is the birthday of Late Mahatama Gandhi and many people call him as father of our great Nation (but I have got strong reservation about it) and I think all Indians have given a most precious birthday gift to the messenger of truth and non violence. His soul will be the happiest one in the heaven among all and the simple reason is every Indian followed his path of non violence on the crucial day of Ayodhya verdict on 30th of September. Proving all the all predictions of violence wrong, Indians shown highest level of maturity and all sections of society shown the world that we Indians are also ready to be part of a civilized Global Village. India as an oldest civilization went though some ugly phases in the recent past on the religious ground and I believe Ayodhya verdict provided us an opportunity to count our positive aspects as human beings. Just like a pat on the shoulder of a school boy as an appreciation for his good work, we also got a gentle pat on our shoulder and we want to show more qualities of a civilized society to the rest of the world who were expecting a civil war and blood bath in India. I believe we Indians born on this soil are very lucky to be a part of a very old civilization and our positive aspects are bound to come out one day or the other in spite of many odds in our society. Now it is the moral responsibility of all our leaders both religious and political to encash the good will created in favor of a stronger India where real secularism is practiced. If we proceed in this direction and succeed to devote all our energy to rebuild our Nation which is free from violence, intolerance and above all free from corruption, then it will be a touching tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and a great service to Mother land which comes first and every thing next. The speed at which our population is increasing, we need to concentrate on multi fronts including infrastructure, job creation but we cannot forget the importance of an education system which will make our citizens proud of our country and its heritage but we are still banking on Lord Macaulay’s education system which is aimed at division of Indian minds. Let us prepare now it self to give a better tribute to Mahatama Gandhi on his next birthday.

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints: Pat-1

Hi friends, blogging is my passion and I love to blog about environmental protection related subjects. I strongly believe that, with small changes in life style we can bring positive changes in our biosphere. We need to remember that the present generation is only the custodians of the precious natural resources available in the Nature and it is our moral responsibility to hand over it in good condition to coming generation which includes our own kith and kilns. We cannot afford any further exploitation of Nature and its resources and I am going to discuss some tips in my blog posts which may reduce our carbon foot prints if adopted in our day to day life. Some of the points are known to all of us but it is the need of the hour to adopt them without any delay otherwise it will be difficult to repair the damage. Some of the points which are going to be discussed in my posts may look very insignificant but in totality they will also make huge difference to carbon foot print or green house gas generation. Use of solar energy, wind energy and reforestation are some major steps towards restoration of a healthy environment but small scale effort from individuals can accelerate it.

It is only the beginning of October month and the effect of rising mercury is unbearable in my area. I have written a post observation of a lay man in which mentioned the capacity of Nature to take corrective action during critical climatic changes and hope to see Nature use its hidden power.

 
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