INDIA and US

First of all, congratulations to USA for completing 10 years without any further attack after the terror attack on 9/11 of 2001. You have shown what are the measures to be taken against terrorism in order to curb it. People and politicians didn't call it just another "Black Tuesday". Politicians didn't give statements on televisions saying they condemn this attack strongly. What the then President, George Bush, said was this:

The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. 

I appreciate so very much the members of Congress who have joined me in strongly condemning these attacks. And on behalf of the American people, I thank the many world leaders who have called to offer their condolences and assistance.

This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.

At the same time, In India, we hear such statements as "We strongly condemn this cowardly act", "Government is announcing Rs. 2 lakhs each for the killed", "We will find the culprits soon and take strong actions against them" from the responsible people in the top. Also, we find the ministers telling "No terrorist group has claimed the responsibility of the attacks". Arrey morons! Why do you wait for them to come and surrender? Can't you put all your intelligence agencies and police forces on full swing and find them? 

And we hear the opposition parties blaming the government telling "This government is useless". Aren't you the part of the Parliament which is responsible to make laws? Is it not your responsibility to make   sure that the government does what is in the best interest of the people? Opposition party leaders, open your your eyes.. Don't confuse "watch-dog of Constitution", the explanation of the Opposition party, as "barking-dogs".

The list of terror attacks that have taken place itself is frightening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_India

Shame on the Indian government for having given these many opportunities to the terrorist organisations to attack Indian places time and again. During the recent movement against corruption, all politicians unanimously said Parliament was supreme. But, isn't it a disgrace to leave the person responsible for the attacks on the Parliament for almost 10 years without capital punishment? The US hunted down Osama bin Laden around the Earth and killed him. India is feeding that moron Afzal Guru on public's money. And shame on us, the people of India, for getting used to such conditions. If two or three persons are killed in some attacks, we call it minor attack. 

Ask anyone in US when was the terror attack, and he will tell it was 9/11. But ask the same question to anyone in India and you won't get any day. We can't list out 12/3, 25/8, 11/7, 13/12, 26/11, 13/2, 29/10, 7/9 and so on. And we don't remember most of them. We are used to it. We call the attack days as Black Friday, Black Wednesday etc.  In fact, we have all days blacked out! We have Black Sundays to Black Saturdays.

I can just hope that we, the people of India, awake and be aware of what should be done instead of just playing the blame-game. The future of the country is in the government's hands, and the future of the government is in our hands.

Serial Bomb Blasts in Bangalore?

Bangalore was considered to be a safe place so far. But with the serial bomb blasts in Madiwala and surrounding places, I doubt it can continue to be so. News is spreading and details are not known.

Google introduces Hindi translation

It has was a long wait, but well deserved. So far we were not able to dynamically translate text to any Indian language. Google has finally done it by introducing translation for Hindi. You can now translate any text or web page from English to Hindi or from Hindi to English. We can expect translation to and from other Indian languages also soon.

Although it is not perfect, I'm sure it will improve quickly. Be sure to improve the translation if you find a better word/sentence when you are using it!

Earlier introduced transliteration tool, which supported dynamic transliteration to Indian languages like Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, which reduced the popularity of software based transliteration tools like Baraha.

I hope to see the translation expanded to include other languages also.

A formidable process: Indian Postal Service

Last week, as a part of our general training, we were being introduced to Software Engineering, wherein we came across the three most important things which render a project successful. They are: people, process and technology. The instructor gave an example of how a formidable process can make the entire organization superior. He took an example of the Indian Postal Service (officially known as India Post), which, in spite of a lot of difficulties, has been giving a promising service for over 150 years. I think that example is extremely thought provoking, and that is the reason I'm jotting down this article.

Let us quickly review the conditions under which the Indian Postal Service is working:

• Letters can be sent to any place in India, from Ladakh to Kanyakumari, from East to West, from metros to remote villages and delivery is ensured.
  
• With 20+ official languages and 24 languages being spoken by more than a million people, the diversity itself is a serious problem for India Post. But there is no rule that instructs people to write address in a particular language; you can write a letter to Uttar Pradesh writing address in Kannada, and still it reaches.
• Address in any part of India (excepting a few regions) is messed up, with "near" and "Opp." taking most of the address lines and sometimes only name and city is mentioned (Yes, it's hard to believe, but I am not exaggerating. It happened with my father, in which only the surname and city was mentioned in the address). As against this, for the postal services of other countries, door number/street is compulsory.
  
• Most people sending letters will not know the PIN (Postal Index Number) of the destination or they won't write it. Even worse, they sometimes write wrong PINs, but the people in the Post Offices are generous enough to correct the PINs and send it to the correct recipient. Contracting this, postal services in many other countries require PIN or ZIP codes specified, or the post will not be delivered.
  

Had we ever thought about all these? This is not a era when someone discusses why a postal card or an inland letter is not reaching properly. With telephones and mobile phones becoming a necessity and the Internet being the medium of fast communication, no one bothers about the snail mail. Also, when it comes to the public services, India is considered to be a close competitor for the last position. But, as I said, the example of the Indian Postal Service instantly changed my mindset and made me think and rethink.

Apart from all those constraints mentioned before, the number of posts undelivered is just about 5 per million. Very close to Six Sigma quality. And all this happens with no written rule. Such a quality service is possible only due to a formidable process and equally eminent people working in India Post who adhere to this process. There are a very few other such systems in the world, which always provide their 100%, yet remain unnoticed... Shouldn't we be proud of such systems?

Wonder at the Wanderers!!!

First things first. Congratulations India for winning the first ever Twenty-20 Cricket World Cup. Congratulation Pakistan, for posing a spectacular final at the Wanderers stadium, Johannesburg.

It had all the ingredients to be a tooth-and-nail fight, a treat to watch out for anyone, even remotely connected with cricket, in and around the Subcontinent - a dream contest between the traditional rivals.

Let's set aside the result for a while and look how it fired up every one in the contending countries, especially in India. Even the fussiest roads were cool and calm as country-yards, even the money minded IT companies, which want its workers to work on Saturdays too, had allowed its officials to call it a day a bit early. And, everyone, no matter interested in cricket or not, watched at least a part of the match. After all, that's how it works in a country where cricket is a religion!

Now to the result of the match. Who in this world has imagined that the team India would win? A team which had no veterans playing, which had no regular coach, which had just got a new captain to lead the team and which had a bunch of novel players half of which hadn't played even a single international T20 game. What a wonder! But that's cricket for you! Anything can happen until the last ball is bowled. India somehow clinched the cup, but the real winner was the game, as Sunil Gavaskar told after the match.

The aftermath? Celebrations in India at least for a week, a warm and grand welcome and pouring cash prizes from each corner of the country for the players forgetting the past performances, and what not? The players can sigh a breathe of relief after what happened in the World Cup earlier this year.

Foot ball to start with, then hockey and now Cricket!! Can this be a CHAK DE INDIA magic?!

A final punch: Forget cricket, former President APJ Abdul Kalam's dream has come true. India has become a strong power in 2020!

Nehru Family Tree - Trait of Secularism

Ever wondered why India is the largest secular country? It is sheltering people of all religions including Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and so on. How do you think this is possible? What motivated India to become house of all these religions? The picture below might help you get the answer for all such questions.

Nehru Family Tree

If you observe the above picture which shows Nehru family tree, you are sure

• to get an idea of the reasons for India being so secular, or
• to know about how vast Nehru family tree is, or
  
• to get confused!!
  

Honestly, I was confused. Just watch it and move on!

Makara Jyothi

As usual, it happened again. The famous Makara Jyothi was observed on the day of Makara Sankranti. There are many legends as to why this light appears and there are many arguments telling that it is a hoax. Whatever it may be, but the light was seen on the eastern hills of Sabarimala (Kerala). It is truly amazing to see the light at the exact moment on that place.

The Makara Jyothi

Also it is interesting to know that a vulture flies over the sky, when the procession takes place

The vulture that flies over the procession

HAPPY MAKARA SANKRANTI

Road Destruction

It was hard to see good roads in India a few years ago. Thanks to the development, we can see them in many areas now. But there is a problem. There is a road destruction board, which digs the roads within a few days after they are constructed. No one takes the responsibility of repairing them or reconstructing them for the next 15-20 years. That board can be named Bharateeya Sadak Nirnam Limited (BSNL).

Yes, I am talking about that same governement company, Bharath Sanchar Nigam Limited, which provides telecommunication services throughout India. It has been undertaking this work (of digging roads) from quite a few years now, right from the moment when the cables were replaced with Optical Fibre Cables (OFC). But the annoying thing is that they put the OFCs only after the construction of a new road, never before it. They dug the National Highway 4 (the famous PB Road) after 2 weeks after construction. They dug the cement road in Harihar just after 2 days. I can't guess whether it is intentional or they get the idea of putting OFC only after the road is constructed or whether there is any aggression between the BSNL and the PWD (Public Works Department).

We have to just wait and see when there will be a co-ordination between these two government bodies and when India would shine!

India Shining ?

There is going to be Viraat Hindu Samaajotsava in Harihar on 8th Jan 2007. Literally it means a huge Hindu community fest. I don't know about the purpose of this event, but I guess it can cause enough commotion. Hope this doesn't turn out to be a havoc...

It is said that it is going to be a fest for all Indians, with the tag-line "When you are born in India, why do you hesitate to say you are an Indian?". Well, of course, it is a good theme in hand. But is it really necessary? As we are seeing it now, there is nothing going to change by such events. If it all if anything needs to be changed it should be done by politics. Instead of conducting such events, if the same amount is invested for the development, India would really shine... What do you say?