Well done India !!!

Here is a case where a 'leader' makes himself a butt of a joke.

First he calls Ram is a big lie, he never existed.
Then he also goes on to say Ram was a drunkard!!

http://www.cnnibn.com/news/karuna-calls-lord-ram-a-drunkard-advani-fumes/49009-3.html

It’s interesting which school of logic could prove this oxymoron to be true.

Well I feel he is extremely lucky to be born in India, else where, even his grave would have been sent in exile!! BUT, WHAT ARE WE DOING?

In Dependence Day

Dawn of a vibrant senior citizen

Scandals, daily a dirty-dozen

Corruption, an expanse of an ocean

Crime, a minute to minute occasion

Government, a fusion of confusion

Life, a daily routine of commotion

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Dependence: Dependence on various political parties and unworthy
personalities, International Financial Agencies and Super powers

Fusion : Chaotic combination of non coherent political parties.

Jai Hind, anyway

-Krishna Vaasudev

Carefree software development

As the software industry evolved (and continues to), it has devised several processes to formalize the software development life cycle. Some popular methodologies meticulously define every step to be followed in the software development lifecycle, failing which, the resulting output is non process compliant and is supposed to be of lesser quality. Clearly, (IMHO) it is an overhead. Of course, there are bigot organizations who invest huge amounts of time, energy and money on this. On the other hand, there are those who are blithely banging away their keyboards and 'puking' code, day-in and day-out. Do not be surprised, if some of the big brands are working this way, full time. This is what I call "Carefree Software Development". So here are a couple of contrived examples, but nevertheless they are close to real-life.

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Read the full article here.

Heartfelt blasphemy

A senior Central Minister said yesterday that anybody who does not feel compassionate towards Sanjay Dutt should check up with a cardiologist to find out if he has a heart. This prompts me to suggest to this hearty Minister to order the Sonia Gandhi installed President of the Republic of India to promulgate an Ordinance to make it compulsory for every citizen to check up with her or his nearest cardiologist for this great national purpose.

My sincere suggestion to the Minister that he/she should aim to become the Chief Justice, so that every jailbird shall breathe easy, every criminal shall not have to worry for any hideouts, but the only problem is, where will the conscientious citizens go? May be they need to undergo some sort of "rehabilitation" (pun intended) so that they too will start feeling for every such law-abiding [read avoiding] individual!!

- Krishna Vaasudev

Performance Based Evaluation - A Review

It is an increasingly competitive world. And, competition knows only one direction - Northwards.

Global business is a crowded place. With companies vying to gain a bigger share of the pie, they are definitely feeling the heat. "Innovate or die" is the new mantra. It demands that the companies have to perform better and constantly improve. This heat has nowhere to go, but upon its (hapless) workforce - till the grass roots of the corporate "food chain".
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Team vs Individual
An interesting, but conflicting thoughts, are at work, constantly. While the organizations understand that gone are the days of individual brilliance. "Team Work" is the mantra. However, at the same time, the individual contributions could not be condoned. It is indeed a tight rope walk - a delicate balancing act that many organizations falter upon.
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Forcing your own Talent Landscape
Many organizations have a some sort of performance evaluation process in place, which is revised and "upgraded" every few years. It is more likely that they copied it from other successful companies or from one of those management books. Invariably, people are rated on a scale of, say, 1 - 5 or
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Read the full article here.

Taj Mahal - A Beautiful Scar ?

Recently, people all over the world voted for the New 7 wonders of the modern world. Amidst much glamour (read as clamour), it was unveiled in Portugal. It is no surprise that our very own Taj Mahal featured in the list of nominations.

Understandably, people (especially the youth) of this country went gung ho about this - millions would have cast their vote, zillions of bits were exchanged (avalanche of SMS messages, flurry of emails). All this paid off - Taj came 4th on the list of new 7 wonders!!.

No doubt, they were expressing their "Nationalism". As it happens with cricket, this too assumed patriotic proportions - soon it became a matter of national pride. Taj is indeed beautiful, no doubt - A marvel that has attracted people for centuries. But, what does the Taj stand for? Going by popular belief, it stands out to be the epitome of love, as expressed by the Moghul emperor towards his wife.

However, if some historians are to be believed, this love story is simply not so romantic. Perhaps, it is all made up!. Even if it was true, that is not all, there is more to it. Some people even claim that the workers who built this majestic structure were treated inhumanely and their hands were cut off after the monument was complete (to ensure that nobody else would employ them and build another similar structure). If this is to be believed, it is unfortunate that the such cruelty lies alongside this wonder, overshadowed. Ironically, Taj is one of the heritage sites recognized by UNESCO.

Is Taj Mahal a wonder or a blunder? Could it possibly be "A Beautiful Scar"?

A Prayer

ನೆರಳಾದರು ಕೆಲವೊಮ್ಮೆ ಎನ್ನನ್ನು ಹಿಂಬಾಲಿಸದಿರಬಹುದು,
ಆದರೆ ಅಹಂಕಾರವೆಂಬುದು ಸದಾ ಕತ್ತಲಿನಲ್ಲೂ ಬಿಡದೆ ಬೆಂಬೆತ್ತಿಹುದು

ಸ್ವಾರ್ಥ ಅಸೂಯೆಗಳನ್ನು ಜೊತೆಜೊತೆಯಲ್ಲೇ ಕರೆತರುತಿಹುದು

ಕಾಮ ಕ್ರೋಧ ಲೋಭ ಮೋಹಗಳನ್ನು ಕೊಂಕಳಲ್ಲೆ ಹೊತ್ತಿಹುದು

ಪರಮಾತ್ಮನನ್ನು ನೂರು ಯೋಜನಗಳಿಗಿಂತ ದೂರ ಇಟ್ಟಿಹುದು

ಸುಳಿವೆನಗೆ ಸಿಗುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡು ರಾಘವೇದ್ರ, ಶ್ರೀ ಹರಿಯ

ಸುಳಿವೆನಗೆ ಸಿಗುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡು, ಸಂಸಾರದ

ಸುಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಲುಕಿಹೆ ನಾ

ಅಳಿಯುವ ಈ ದೇಹವೆ ಶಾಶ್ವತವೆಂದು,

ಬಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಹೆಂಡತಿ ಮಕ್ಕಳು ನಿತ್ಯಾನಂದವೆಂದು,

ಶ್ರೀ ಹರಿಯೆ ಹರಿಯನೆಂಬರಿವು ಅಡಿಹಡಿಗೆನಗೆ ತೋರಲಿ ಗುರುರಾಜ

- Krishna Vaasudev

Cricket & God

(These are just my thoughts. Hopefully my near future convictions also)

Our imagination has no bounds, but our mental space has. The mental space of every individual is a fixed quantity, for it is based on Time and not the boundless Ether. Hence, it is a determinable factor. Here, time means our allocated total life span and mission / purpose. The word 'Cricket' is symbolically used. It could be baseball, movies, betting or any other source of earthly pleasure or entertainment that will 'help' us to keep ourselves away from God. It is some sort of cleverly cultivated habit to spend most of our free time, so that we will have lesser and lesser time to spend with Him. Many times it so happens that we allow these 'habits' to totally control us, rather than we control them.

I begin to feel that yielding to such habits is an escape route, that we constantly use, to stay away from God or reality.

I do not mean that man should not have even healthy recreations. Anything that refreshes the human mind and increases hunger for God is fine.

- Krishna Vaasudev

Re-Orient-ation

Hi Sumanth!

Here is a small reminder: when using the word 'orient' in the sense of 'The Eastern,' it always ought to be capitalized. So also the words west or east, when they refer to regions or peoples, rather than mere direction.
So the blog would have to be 'The confused Orient,' or even better, 'The Confused Orient,' to write it in Title Case.
I'd request you to give us an introduction as to the purport of this blog, and the significance of its title. Why this particular theme--any strong reason?

The Indian Media--Hype and News

Something to think about...

By the time you read this, Major Manish Pitambare, who was shot dead at Anantnag, would have been cremated with full military honors.

On Tuesday [a few weeks ago], this news swept across all the news channels: 'Sanjay Dutt Relieved by Court'. 'Sirf Munna not a bhai'; '13 saal ka vanvaas khatam'; 'Although found guilty for possession of armory, Sanjay can breathe a sigh of relief as all the TADA charges against him are withdrawn.' Then many personalities like Salman Khan said: 'He is a good person. We knew he will come out clean.' Mr. Big B said "Dutt's family and ours have relations for years; he's a good kid. He is like elder brother to Abhishek."...

In other news, the Parliament was mad at Indian team for performing bad; Greg Chappell said something; Shah Rukh Khan replaced Amitabh in KBC, and other such stuff. But most of the emphasis was on Sanjay Dutt's "phoenix like" comeback from the ashes of terrorist charges. Surfing through the channels, one news on BBC startled me. It read "Hisbul Mujahidin's most wanted terrorist Sohel Faisal killed in Anantnag. An Indian Major leading the operation lost his life in the process. Four others are injured."

It was past midnight. I started visiting the Indian channels, but Sanjay was still ruling. They were telling how he pleaded to the court saying 'I'm the sole bread earner for my family, I have a daughter who is studying in US' and so on. Then they showed how he was not wearing his lucky blue shirt while hearing the verdict and also how he went to every temple and prayed during the last few months. A suspect in Mumbai bomb blasts, convicted under armory act, was being transformed into a hero.

Sure Sanjay Dutt has a daughter; sure he did not do any terrorist activity. Possessing an AK47 is considered too elementary in the terrorist community and also one has a right to possess a pistol, so that again is not such a big crime. Sure Sanjay went to all the temples; sure he did a lot of Gandhigiri but then...
Major Manish H Pitambare got the information from his sources about the terrorists' whereabouts. Wasting no time he attacked the camp, killed the Hisbul Mujahidin's supremo and in the process sacrificed his life to the bullets fired from an AK47. And just like Sanjay he is survived by a wife, and daughter just 18 months old.

Major Manish never said, 'I have a daughter' before he took the decision to take on the terrorists in the darkest of nights. He never thought about having a family and he being the bread earner.
But no news channel covered this since they were too busy hyping a former drug addict, a suspect who's linked to bomb blasts which killed hundreds. Their aim was to show how he defied the TADA charges and they were so successful that his conviction in possession of armory had no meaning. They also concluded that his parents in heaven must be happy and proud of him.

Parents of Major Manish are still living and they have to live rest of their lives without their beloved son. His daughter won't ever see her daddy again.
It is a shame for us that news was given by a foreign TV channel--where they understand Patriotism.

- R Sathya Murthy [Edited by Vishwa]