Thoughts

Politics / Thoughts — 5 Comments
15
Aug 10

Yes, I am proud of my country, but….

It’s 15th of August, it’s India’s Independence day. Exactly 63 years back British left the country and our country got independence. From that date, till today we have a lot of achievements. (Check #63ReasonsToBeProud on twitter for listening to people)

Let’s s look at the other face of our 63 years of Independence. Should we use this day to only celebrate our achievements or also to look at the areas where we have failed? Looks like the former is what everyone agrees to. No one cares about the latter. Don’t you learn from your mistakes?

Let me showcase a few areas where we have failed miserably and tend to avoid. I am not against my country, but please don’t turn a blind eye to the problems. If I was not passionate about my country, I would never spend so much time thinking about the problems too

Poverty

Looks like we are better in campaigning than actually acting. All “Garibi Hatao” did was getting a seat secured for Indira Gandhi. It’s  39 years since that campaign and we still have the more poor people in 8 states combined than 26 poorest African nations. Poor are dying, food grains prices are rising and guess what? Food grains are rotting in open.

Illiteracy

The literacy rate in India is only at 66%. No! 66% is not a decent figure! Look from the other angle — One-third of the population is not educated. The people who can actually exploit this 1/3rd is politicians.

It’s easier to sway illiterate people by emotions. I started believing more in this theory when some 10 years back, Lalu used to command a great section of illiterates in Bihar. Any rally used to pull a huge amount of crowd and people from my city used to  fill trains heading to Patna. At stations I have heard them saying(in local dialect) that “Lalu is our saviour. I am feeling excited since he might announce something for us to end my family’s poverty“. Poor brainwashed people! Probably they never knew that Lalu wants to keep them poor and illiterate so that they can keep on believing in him. Bonus points for guessing why Literacy rate in Bihar took a dip when Lalu took over the CM post.

Caste

I don’t get the much difference between Religion politics and Caste politics. At the lower level, they must be different, but from upper view, it does the same thing - Divide people. Only India can have hypocrites like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mayawati who call themselves secular and play caste politics. It’s like one hand doesn’t know about the other.

Now forget the politicians. Lets look amongst ourselves. Do you ask other’s caste? Why? Is that necessary? I am not looking at the Internet savvy crowd, but everyone in general. Goto towns, villages, many places caste-spirit runs in the blood of people. Have a look at some

Probably the list wont end and I can jot down one incidence of violence in every state.

Do you know that Hindu temples are dominated by priests who think that by worshiping god they are bringing peace all over the society. Ironically, the word “all” should be changed to “a restricted section”. It is a known fact that temples are pretty much conservative when it comes to let people enter. I always find Gurudwaras to be more open and tolerant. My experience says that people from all castes are allowed to enter and you will be treated same everywhere.

Do you know about these events?

I have given temple examples, since it represents a classic case of how a small section of people have hijacked religion and faith.

Reservations

Finally we are onto the most controversial topic and so called magical-solution to the downtrodden sections of the society. Proponents think that reservation is the only way to bring up the oppressed people. Let’s now look at the outcome of reservations

There are a few families who are taking advantage of quota for their generation and people in genuine need for it are getting starved. There should be a rule that only a person and their next generation can take the advantage of reservation. If they need the help of reservation for generations and generation then either “The quota system in broken” or “They are incompetent”. In both cases they should be starved of the benefit.

It has been half a century years since reservation was introduced and the society still needs it. Either we are useless or the Quota system is broken.

Another thing which irks me is that the quota system in caste based instead of financial status based. Quota system are meant for oppressed section of the society. Even forward caste people can be poor and lower caste people can be pretty rich. Still, the current system fails to address this problem. Politicians are more interested in caste based politics.

Conclusion

I have stopped only on 4 topics. This doesn’t mean we have only four problems in India. Look around and you will get a more like rising crime rate, corruption etc.

Disclaimer

I don’t care if something in this article hurts you. Getting offended is the easiest thing to do and requires no thinking. If you get offended by this article, I will get offended that you got offended by my article.

Please post polite comments. Any rude/harsh or personally insulting comments will be deleted ASAP.  Please don’t bring emotions in the picture, but counter the claims by facts and proof. Emotions is a sure-shot way to kill logic.

Education / Thoughts — 12 Comments
25
Jun 10

IIT Craze

When I was young and still in class 8. I would warned by everyone - “If you don’t study well, then you won’t get good marks in Class 10. So you won’t be able to study in good +2 schools and won’t be able to get in a good college (read IIT) and then won’t be able to do an MBA in an elite institute”. In short I was warned that one failure is  cascading and can spoil your life.

Fine, you can say I sensationalized the whole scenario, but I bet every other kid out in the town must have heard some part or the other of the above statement. The catch is that if you don’t study in an elite institute your career is dark. No one ever cared to realize that success depends mostly on the person itself and the institution just provides a common meeting point for like-minded people.

Now after finishing my education, I do look back. I do look back some 10 years when I entered class 8. My initial reaction is “What rubbish were we taught about career those days?”. I never studies in any super elite institutional. I never got any salute from my fellow countrymen for studying in an elite school/college. I don’t the salute for my status, but for my capabilities (if any).

IIT Coaching

Love it or hate it, IIT Coaching is an industry. An industry whose Input is vastly high than it’s output. Keep walking down a lane anywhere in N. India and you would be overwhelmed by the *spam* of IIT Coaching Classes Hoardings. Every pole, wall, tree  or entity under the sun is covered by these “foo coaching classes students set a record. 8/10 top students studies at our center”. No wonder, the first rank is claimed by coaching institutes all over the country even though the student never took any coaching in the first place.

IIT Coaching Centers are nothing less of organized loot. Those who burnt their money in this gamble would surely understand that no coaching center can guarantee you a seat in IIT (unless some scams). It is the student who clears the exam and not the coaching institute. You go there to learn some new concepts, solve doubts. The real study has to be done by *you*.

Mania

IIT has become such a sensitive topic that if a child fails to qualify, it is the parents who feel millions of times more offended than the student. The student is scared, not sad. He fears what will he say to his parents who set their expectations so high that is looks unrealistic for him throughout his preparation. I have seen people dropping years and years in a hope that one fine day they will crack the elite exam. Some are even ready to take any course for the sake of IIT tag even though they have no clue of what course they are taking.

When I took the admission of the college of my choice, the branch of my choice and looked back 2 years, the whole setup looked like a mess. Parents and students have unrealistic high expectations. Unrealistic for the capabilities a student has. Who is the winner in this whole game? The parents? The student? NO - it is the coaching institutes who have their ever expanding bank balance.

Class 12

Now look at class 12 exams. It is the third-grade citizen. Since it does not carry any weight in most exams, it is neglected. In short it increases the load of the students even more since they need to pass with 60% marks to be eligible for IITs. Apart from that it is hardly of any use. The whole setup is so stressful.

Sacrifice

I have even seen parents asking their students to disconnect their TV sets, give up playing XBOX etc since the sacrifice is a good thing.

One logic I hear getting proposed is that “You need to sacrifice something to achieve your goal”. If you can achieve your goal without sacrifice, but you still do sacrifice, are you still a hero? Not for me, I’ll call you  a fool. Humans should always try to be more comfortable as possible and turn to sacrifice when there is no options left. I never respect sacrifice. If you do it intentionally, then you are a fool, if you do because you had no option, then you have to do it, nothing break-through.

Recommendation by Damodar Acharya

When I read this recommendation by Damodar Acharya IIT  KGP Director, my eyes lit up.

Firstly it might reduce the importance of IIT Coaching centers. That open loot can be controlled. Now head down to read the knee-jerk reactions. All you will hear is that “This undermines the prestige of our institutions”. Now one cares to explain how? Some say “IIT will be destroyed”. Again now proof. Some say that “Increasing the value of class 12 exams will destroy the prestige of the institutes”. Again how? how? how?

Looks like there is more importance on keeping the brand value and status of the institution intact rather than improving the pathetic situation of millions of students appearing for IIT. It’s like a Monarch where people are dying of hunger, but the king is more worried about maintaining of the Palace because the quality of the Palace is a  status symbol.  Again you can bring in the logic of sacrifice for candidate students, but as I explained above, sacrifice is nothing short of stupidity. It’s like “What’s the problem is being harassed? Weren’t you harassed for last 10 years?”

If you really want to oppose this recommendation, sit back and think deeply and come up with real opposition points rather than “IT WILL SPOIL THE IITS. THIS IS BAD. NO THEY ARE ALL STUPID”. Sigh.

Education / Technical / Thoughts — 2 Comments
28
May 10

Applications for your sanity on windows

Even though I work on the OS of my choice, this choice is not always available at my workplace. I am required to use Windows  to develop applications for my employer. I do miss a lot of *nix stuff and the command line awesomeness.  I have striven hard to find replacements for them. Here I present a list of  applications which a non-geeky person should look at after installing Windows. Some of the geeky part is left out.

Firefox

Do I need to explain this? I think unless you are using Internet for Orkut and Gmail, you must have surely heard about it. Do get some awesome addons like Adblock Plus, Sxipper, XMarks, DownThemAll, Firebug etc

Google Chrome

If you want even more speed, then get Google’s browser. Googlers are crazy when it comes to speed. I recommend keeping a second browser as IE doesn’t qualify as  a browser.

Console

You ever tried opening cmd.exe only to say “How stupid ugly it looks”. Even tried looking at terminal emulators of Linux? You’ll start abusing MS. Get Console.

Launchy

Don’t move your hand away from the keyboard. You can launch any application using this Launcher

Notepad++

The TextMate for windows. We hardly need it for Linux. We have Vim/Emacs

Paint.NET / Pinta

Even wanted to do any image manipulation and you were forced to open Photoshop/GIMP?  These two come to rescue.

Pidgin

The multi-account instant messenger. Works like a charm on majority of the OSs available

pidgin-facebook

Add facebook buddies on Pidgin. No need to chat from inside the browser window

Thunderbird

The mail client which I really admire (after Outlook 2007). It’s cross-platform

Inkscape

Vector drawing tool. Cross-platform. Works great. It’s not an Illustrator replacement.

7Zip

Stop there. Don’t install Winzip or Winrar and then get annoying messages to register to continue using it. 7zip gives you peace of mind.

PdfCreator

Even want to convert any document to PDF? Use Pdfcreator which adds a virtual printer to your system.

Foxit Reader

Please! For God’s sake, don’t install Adobe Reader and save the mankind. You’ll never use 95% of the features provided in that bloatware.

Process Explorer

The Process Tab of Task Manager isn’t so great. Try this application and have more control over what applications are running.

uTorrent

The first and last torrent client you will ever need for windows

You know, 12/15 applications I suggested are open-source ones. (Including Paint.NET)

Religion / Thoughts — No Comments
22
May 10

The agents of God

Scene: Regional Transport Office

Just imagine a story. You went to Regional Transport Office (RTO) to apply for your driving license. You are an honest citizen who wants to abide by law. You even took a leave from your work so that you can get a license and drive a two-wheeler daily from home to office. It is 10 in the morning and RTO hasn’t opened. You wait till 11 when all the employees of RTO enter the building. They are shocked to see you waiting outside the office (you know why). You are asked to wait in a small waiting room in a hot summer day which doesn’t have provision for water and then ceiling fan is nearly dead.

You wait for an hour before someone calls you. It’s your turn to apply for license. You produce the documents as proof only to hear “This won’t work”. Before you can say anything, even your photo is rejected the reason which is not known to anyone. After arguing for 10 minutes you leave.

You come next day with all the proper documents, this time with more proofs in hand. To your utter surprise, they again made some weird reasons and rejected your application. You are broken and leave for your office from RTO. During lunch you tell one of your colleague what you faced for last two days and even add “How did you get your license in 1 working day?”.  The answer you get shocks you badly - “Dude! You don’t know the corruption in RTO? Looks like you never dealt with this office? Unless you get your application filed from the agent, it won’t get accepted through ever. This is because a part of agent commission even goes to the person who is dealing with your license. Since, you went directly, the person rejected your application using weird reasons since he wanted you to apply via agent”

Scene: Deogarh

When I was in class 9, my parents took me to Deogarh which is known for it’s world famous temple Baba Baidyanath Temple. Our relatives used to live in Deograh, so it was a dual purpose visit. It was ages since my parents gave to visit to the temple. We reached the place in afternoon and headed to our relative’s house to take rest for the day.

Next day morning, me, my younger brother, father and mother headed to the temple in a 2 rickshaws ( the most famous means of transport in Deograh). As we reached near the temple, the experience was something different from what I experienced in Puri or any other famous temple. All of a sudden priests (pandas) came flying out of nowhere running behind the rickshaws asking us if we need their help for visiting the temple. My father kept on saying “No” time and again. Just imagine how you feel when you are attacked by a colony of honeybees? As we neared towards the temple, the pandas standing near the temple were even more surprised. How on earth  did we manage to break their strong fort and come so close inside all alone?

When I saw the honeybee attack, my first reaction was “Is it situation in some dense forest area or a cave that we need a guide/priest to go all the way upto the shrine?“. When the rickshaw stopped all I could see was a temple in midst of a big market. We paid the rickshaw driver, took off our shoes and headed inside the temple. As we entered there was another attack of honeybees, this time with all rates and slabs. It sounded like “Bribe the God with Rs x and you will get salvation from your sins” or “All you send to spend is some xK and leave the rest to us, God will forgive your sins“. The offers and donation plans were more exhaustive and elaborate than even a Nokia product showcase with various models of all shapes, sizes and price. It sounded like, if you take this donation scheme your sins would be washed away in n days and if you take even a costlier scheme your sins would be washed away in just n/2 days.

Pushing away all pressures, we somehow managed to get near the shrine and suddenly one of the priest lost his temper and started shouting at us. Why? Since we came on our own and didn’t take any agent to pay a visit to God. My father, who knows how to deal with the world told us “Leave him, ignore him”. It sounded like “Look front or you’ll be trolled hard“. We went inside the shrine, came out unharmed.

Implications

Noticed something? The similarity between the two scenes? In the first case, we crib against the corruption and have to take the services of the agents. In the second case it isn’t considered even a corruption. The priests who are considered to be pure and supposed to be away from materialistic world are in a mad rush for money. That too, to such an extent that they start shouting at you if you don’t take their services. Atleast in the first case, they didn’t openly say so. Any lesson learnt? Everything is fair when it comes to religion.  God is hostage, even though we say “God is everywhere”

Even though am more of an agnostic, my parents do believe in God. The have no issues since everyone has a right to lead their life the way they want. One thing I admire is that they still didn’t paid the pandas the bribe to get the Almighty’s blessing.

News / Thoughts — No Comments
6
May 10

Kasab on death row

Finally Kasab has been shown where his future lies. After coming to know that his hardcore terrorist started sobbing when the verdict was given takes me by surprise. He didn’t feel that when he gunned down hundreds of innocent people?

The plea of Pawar, who while admitting that his client was “blinded by religion” sought leniency for the terrorist given his young age, failed to convince the judge.

This statement should have made the case against Kasab even more stronger. Religion is always misused for personal gains. If he was “blinded by religion”, then also it is his mistake.

What next? As I said in a reply to Mehul, I am just waiting for Human Rights activists to  stage a protest that Kasab has a right to live and law doesn’t have power to take away his life. Ironically, such people only appear from hiding when justice is announced. When policemen die,  they open their mouth. They would go to attend funerals of terrorists but not of martyrs. It’s their old hypocritical practice to oppose death penalty ignoring the current situation of law and order.

Thoughts — 7 Comments
16
Jan 10

Views on God and Religion

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to hurt any religious feelings. It is written from a neutral perspective.
  1. God loves you. He loves the world. Even if you do a thousand sins, he won’t demolish the earth. Any speculation of doomsday and apocalypse due to his anger is pure bullshit. No one wants to destroy what they built. If any disaster happens on this planet, it is because such a disaster can happen. Murphy rules them all.
  2. God loves you. You don’t need to fear him. Remember the religious books? — God forgives. Now stop fearing God and live your life peacefully.
  3. You think that you committed some grave sin and God will forgive you. Now since you know God will forgive you, so you go on committing more sins. See what you have done? Created a chicken-egg problem. You idiot!
  4. If you goto God only when in times of need, you better need to introspect yourself. You love God just because you need something from him. Is this what religion is meant for?
  5. When God sent you on this planet, he expected some minimum output from you. This output actually includes living you life, crying like a baby to make others say “choo chweet”, becoming a good human being, making love, raising your children, doing humanitarian services and all those good things taught in Moral Science books. No where did he say to give up the normal life and worship him day and night. Get up and serve the society. God would be more pleased.
  6. Going to place of worship won’t make God as happy as much as you think. He would be more happy if you spread peace and humanity all around. Hey! Leave God for a while. Doing these would even make you happy.
  7. Who on this planet can ever think that offering sacrifice to Gods makes them happy? I mean sacrifices like Animal Sacrifice or even Human Sacrifice. Urgghh! You are committing a ghastly crime right front of his eyes. You really need to rot in hell. He never likes to see his creations butchered by narrow-minded people like you.
Personal / Thoughts — 4 Comments
8
Oct 09

Indian Telecom Revolution : Fixed Line Phones

Remember the good old days when having a fixed-line phone was considered a status symbol? This was also called a basic-phone or a land-line or a PNT. I still have the image of those old-age phones in my memory.

The trusty ol' onesThe first time I saw those phones were when my grandmother applied for a connection. That phone was a big rock like device where you had to revolve the dialler till the end to dial someone’s number. If I compare them with the present generation basic phones, they look quite cumbersome. Inspite of looking ridiculous in this age, they did their job well as per the technology limitations. Probably after 10 years the present generation basic phones would look like a silly device.

Call Rates

There was a time when calling someone over 1500kms (or 2000kms) costed Rs 24! No, that is not a typo. I still remember the tariff rates to some extent.  Local calls were Rs 1.20 for 3 mins and STD went upto Rs24. Suddenly one fine day in January - (January 14th to be precise) I saw a big advertisement from BSNL. Tariffs have been slashed. The upmost limit was just some Rs8 (approx). The advert had big letters saying - Upto 66.67% tarrif slash. It is a gift from BSNL on occasion of Makar Sankranti.

Previous and Present Situation

If you hear from most of the people these days, mobile is the most preferred form of phone. It’s portable and there are a lot of private players. You have a choice to choose between the options and most important of them - No running from pillar to pillar getting a line repaired. Attribute it a bit to BSNL Linemen too. If your phone died (no ring tone), then you probably need to take a leave from work, goto BSNL office, stand in an infinitely long queue and submit the complaint. They might take their own time and move the complaint at a snail’s pace. Till the time your phone is back again, you would have given up the hope. I admit, the experiences may be different in different parts of the country, but hardly anyone had a pleasant one.

Private Players

There have been a few private players in fixed-line phone market for personal use, but none of them have made much news. Two of the most famous are Tata Indicom and Reliance. I have used the Reliance one only to find that is is actually wireless and uses an antenna to communicate with the closest station. Obviously Reliance wanted to avoid the hassles of laying down cables all of the country when they knew that the real money is in consumer mobiles and not home fixed-line phones. I do have a BSNL fixed-line phone at my home-town which is used for Internet connection and for emergency incoming calls.

Conclusion

The mobile market is the biggest, fastest growing part of the Telecom industry. In my family we have a BSNL fixed-line phone. My mother and father have BSNL Excel pre-paid (which they took long back), my brother has Airtel and I have Idea and Aircel. I had never ever imagined that there would once be a time when we 4 ppl together would be having 6 phone numbers!!

Internship / Thoughts — 1 Comment
19
Sep 09

Expectations from an Employee

If you are a fresher who just graduated from college and started working, you are bound to face problems. Some of them may be due to new environment, social environment etc which are not related directly to your work. There are another kind of problem which you can face due to the project you are put into.

You can run into these various troubles right from the start date of your employment and even during your project period when you are basically kept under a mentor. I thought about it for the last week. Lemme summerize them:

1) Requirements keep changing everyday (bad)

Horrible! Today you are told to use in-memory XML parser and the next day you are told to use SAX. Probably it can again change the very next day.

2) New requirements are added as last moment surprises (worse)

If changing requirements were not enough, addition of requirements right in middle of project or at the end can upset your whole planning or even career.

3) Incomplete requirement specification (pity)

The person who is in charge of the project doesn’t give you the full specs of the project and makes demands to add functionality right in between the development process (check pt 2)

4) Team Lead has attitude problems (happens sometimes)

This happens if your team lead thinks that your knowledge is nothing in front of him. Or if he is oversmart!

5) You are looked down if you are not working overtime (shocks)

It is very common in India to work overtime without a pay. If your lead/manager takes it for granted, then you are in deep trouble.

6) The person who looks over the project shouts and screams regularly

This can surely make you sick.

7) Your team lead says “later” when you are stuck up

Nothing new. They might even shout at you if they belong to people like pt 4

Final Word

  • Just think if you ever faced all of these problems at once. I pray to god that you are still sane. As my cousins working in different companies give me the feedback, I can conclude that these are true. They have faced atleast one of these problem.
  • If you are thinking it is a rant, then lemme make it clear — It isn’t so. My present employer(esp my team) is very good when it comes to work environment. I havn’t faced a single problem till now. My Project mentor,Technical mentor and Team Lead are a gem of a person. They are multi-talented. They have never ever been angry on me, nor ever made a frowning face even though I have made a lot of mistakes.
  • Now if you are thinking that I am ranting against my previous employer, you are still wrong.

Finally you can be kicked out that you did not perform as per their expectations even though you faced all the problems.

Comedy / Thoughts — 10 Comments
9
Sep 09

Why non-vegetarians are a boon to the society

Today during lunch some of my friends said that they are vegetarians because they don’t want to kill animals for their food. We, the non-vegetarians defended themselves with this logic:

Maintaing the ecological balanceecocycle2

Maintaing the ecological balance

Education / Technical / Thoughts — 4 Comments
2
Sep 09

The education we missed at college

For the past few days I just wondered why our education system fails to give the real experience whether it be related to Electronics, Computer or any other field. Being a Computer Engineer, I can only say that the education given in college is far from reality and the industry requirement is really far what we have ever thought to be.

I would stop this stupid rant and give some scenarios where it can be improved.

Database Design and Management

I am really unable to understand why they had to teach us PL/SQL when it is specific to Oracle and not a standard like SQL. SQL was part of curriculum, but what just too less for what is exactly required. No one had even a faint idea of Database Security and Authorization concepts. Books had that chapter but was not a part of course material. It isn’t rocket science, but infact one of the easiest topic I have ever seen. The only DB concept which was stressed a lot was Transactions which was really helpful. The hands on experience on SQL was negligible, using the usual legendary “SELECT * FROM customer” query all over the book.

Linux

We had Operating System in fifth semester out of which *nix was only taught in Lab. The book which we were told to refer hardly had any *nix concepts or any other operating system as a sample. It was full theory, theory and more shitloads of theory which sometimes was no more than a torture. 600 pages of pure theory with no real life example is a PAIN!

We had three labs session of OS where we were supposed to use Linux to learn the commands. Whoa! Don’t be so excited. We were asked to use a windows 98 machine and connect to a Red Hat server via telnet. What was the final result? Everyone complained that Linux is just too hard and they can’t use it in day to day life. Linux has no GUI and it was meant for geeks and nerds who spend their life in basement coding all the day(and night). They had no f**king idea that there even exists something called GNOME and KDE. KDE4 can give Windows UI a tough competition. Special thanks to the lab instructor for helping to spread the FUD due to his frog in the well mentality.

This is not enough! Once I asked my lab in-charge that I wanted to take my programs and I do have a flash-drive with me right now. He said -” Fine, take it from your machine“. I was dumbstruck! Even if by some magic, it was really possible, how can I make this flash-drive to work on that stupid Windows98? After a few minutes of dumb explanations he allowed me to use the server, but said that flash-drive doesn’t work on Linux. Eh really? Yes, really! They were using such an old kernel(oldest of 2.4.*) that hardly anything would be working that time. Wait! Was flash-drive in market when that kernel version was released?

VIM

If connecting via telnet wasn’t enough, then vim was at the door knocking. vi/vim is the programmer’s best friend is he/she knows how to use it. Putting in other words someone has to tell that it doesn’t work like nano or a NOTEPAD! People had no idea of vim modes or how to efficiently use it. All they knew was <Esc> :q and <Esc> :wq They didn’t know why sometimes they were able to enter text and sometimes the cursor keeps on moving from one end to another and suddenly the text starts showing on the screen. There had been situations where people had to close the telnet client to exit the editor. Thanks God, atleast they were in a better situation than this guy.

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