दोस्ती --तमाम खूबसूरत रिश्तों में से एक रिश्ता........

दोस्त जीवन भर की उपलब्धि होता है ,जिस पर गुरुर किया जाता है. जिस रिश्ते के साथ जी भर कर मिलना होता हो और उसके जाने पर जी न भरे उस रिश्ते को हम दोस्ती कहते है . इसी वजह से दुनिया के तमाम रिश्तों में से एक खूबसूरत रिश्ता दोस्ती का होता है . "दोस्त तो स्ट्रीट लाइट कि तरह होते है ,वे रास्ते को छोटा नहीं बनाते ,लेकिन राह में वह रौशनी भर देते है . जिससे आपका सफ़र तय करना सहज हो जाता है . "
दोस्त बनना या बनाना हमारी व्यक्तिगत भावनाए होती है जिससे कोई अजनबी इन्सान हमारा अच्छा साथी साबित होता है . कोई हम उम्रर इन्सान हमारे साथ काम करता हो , पढ़ या खेल रहा हो वो दोस्त बन जाये वो मार्गदर्शक तो हो सकता है लेकिन जरुरी नहीं कि एक अच्छा दोस्त बने . दोस्ती के लिए समय चाहिए जिससे एक दुसरे को समझा जा सकें . हममें से ज्यादा तर लोग यह सोचते हैं कि जो इन्सान हमारी पहचान का समर्थन या सहयोग करते है वो ही हमारे सच्चे दोस्त है बल्कि मेरे हिसाब से ऐसी बातें आत्म मोह वाली होती है .जब वक्त गुजर जाता है तब पता चलता है कि हमने दोस्त बनाने में क्या गलती कि थी . आत्म मोह वाली बातों का ध्यान रखना जरुरी होता है खास कर जब दो मेल -फीमेल दोस्त हो . एक सही दोस्त आपकी जिंदगी को बदलने में महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभा सकता है
दोस्त बनाने के लिए हमको को न तो धर्म ,जाति देखने होते हैऔर न ही रुतबा . दोस्ती करने में सबसे बड़ी बात तो यह भी होती कि जन्म कुंडली मिलाने का कोई झन्झट नहीं है .इस खूबसूरत रिश्ते में सबसे खास बात यह भी होती कि लड़ाई हो जाने पर जब बिना बातचीत के नहीं रहा जाता तो बस हमको यह कहना होता है कि क्या बे ज्यादा दिमाग ख़राब है सॉरी बोल तो रहा हूँ देख आज तेरी वाली बड़ी अच्छी लग रही चल देख कर आते है और कुछ ऐसा ही लड़किओं कि तरफ भी होता है! ......फिर से दोस्ती का रंग शुरू हो जाता है ...
एक खूबसूरत कथन है," ईश्वर जब हमे अपने अनुकूल परिवार नहीं दे पाते तो वे दोस्तों को हमारी जिंदगी में भेजर हमसे माफ़ी मांग लेते है "

मन कि बात----दोस्त नाराज हो जाये तो उसे सौं बार मनाएं क्योंकि अच्छे दोस्त ढूंढे नहीं मिलते . एक वो ही इन्सान होता है जो स्वार्थ को दर किनार करके आपसे जुड़ता है . आप दुखी होते तो दोस्त को दुःख होता है ,जब आप हंस रहे होते तो तो वो भी आपके साथ हँस रहा होता है .

Who Killed Bhagat Singh?

and Rajguru, Sukhdev, or Azaad, Bose and others for that matter.

23rd March, 1931, a 24 year old Bhagat Singh was hanged for his principles, for an independent nation, for people like you and me. Do we even remember that? Remember him?

Today Bhagat Singh has become a fashionable memory, to be remembered only on the 15th of August and 26th of January and one or two national holiday. 23rd of March is celebrated as Martyr's day with a few articles and davp advertisements in newspapers. Patriotic Indians play songs from movies composed on his life, hang his pictures in school staff rooms and on one or two prominent walls in government offices.

What is the need to remember our freedom struggle anyway? And its consequent martyrs? India is developing rapidly, by 2020 we'll be the superpower that every one will respect and not only in Twenty 20 cricket. Our purchasing power has grown rapidly, today we've the best of the brands in our homes, on our skins and exotic fruits and vegetables on our plates. Its a new, prosperous India we are talking about. Why should we look back on that period of gloom, despair and struggle against the world's mightiest empire? Why should we look back to Bhagat Singh?

Don't we just kill him again and again every year?

Black and White

This took place on a BA (British Airways) flight between Johannesburg and London. A white woman, about 50 years old, was seated next to a black man. Obviously disturbed by this, she called the air Hostess.

"Madam, what is the matter," the hostess asked.

"You obviously do not see it then?" she responded. "You placed me next to a black man. I do not agree to sit next to someone from such a repugnant group. Give me an alternative seat."

"Be calm please," the hostess replied. "Almost all the places on this flight are taken. I will go to see if another place is available."

The Hostess went away and then came back a few minutes later. "Madam, just as I thought, there are no other available seats in the Economy class. I spoke to the captain and he informed me that there is also no seat in the business class. All the same, we still have one place in the first class."

Before the woman could say anything,the hostess continued:

"It is not usual for our company to permit someone from the economy class to sit in the first class. However, given the circumstances, the captain feels that it would be scandalous to make someone sit next to someone so disgusting."

She turned to the black man, and said,"Therefore, Sir, if you would like to, please collect your hand luggage, a seat awaits you in first class."

At that moment, the other passengers who were shocked by what they had just witnessed stood up and applauded.

IN Economic Times

from http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Software/India n-technoholics-give-the-world-a-new-high/articlesh ow/5736905.cms

Quote:

Over two-and-a-half million people worldwide, half of them in the US, are using word processors, creating slide-shows and doing their sums with the help from an online suite of software products built by Chennai-based technology start-up Zoho.

Quote:

Zoho’s revenues of $50 million come from selling its suite of software that offers 21 applications to customers on the net. “We will have 20 million users over the next few years as online application suites overtake and become more powerful than desktop-based applications,” said Sridhar Vembu, founder & chief executive officer of Zoho, which competes with Microsoft and Google.

Quote:

On the ground, the momentum is gathering pace. Zoho is adding 1 lakh users every month and growing faster by the day.

found the other product companies from India interesting too

InMobi, Bangalore - Mobile advtising
FusionCharts (Infosoft Global), Kolkata - graphic data visualisation tool
Perfint Healthcare, Chennai - image guided tools that help radiologists use minimal invasive procedures for cancer detection and treatment
MiMobiTV, Apalya Technologies - streams live television to mobile phones
3D Solid Compression - three-dimensional visualisation tools that can also be used on mobile phones, esp Nokia
SMSGupShup, Webaroo Technologies - Twitter-like closed group messaging product for cellphone subscribers
Mango Technologies, incubated at the NSRCEL centre in IIM, Bangalore - proprietary telecom solutions (two of which have been sold to Qualcomm)
Zeus Numerix - working with European aerospace company EADS on technology to reduce noise from aircraft wings
Adam, Notion Ink - tablet comp

My Lucknow

वो हजरतगंज का समां, वो चौक की चाट,
वो मिनी महल की Ice Cream , वह उसमे थी कुछ बात,
वो राम आसरे की मिठाई, वो मधुर मिलन का दोसा,
वो Marksmen की पावभाजी और शर्मा का समोसा,
वो रिक्शा का सफर, वो नींबू पार्क की हवा,
वो बुद्धा पार्क की रौनक और दिलकुशा का समां,
वो January की कड़ाके की सर्दी, वो बारिशों के महीने,
वो गर्मी की छुट्टियाँ, जब छुटते थे पसीने,
वो होली की मस्ती, वो दोस्तों की टोली,
वो जनपथ का माहोल, वो गोमती की लहरें,
वो बोटक्लब का नज़ारा, वह उसके क्या कहने,
वो अमीनाबाद की गलियां, वो IT की लड़कियां,
वो नोवेल्टी की बालकनी और वो वाजपेयी की पूरियां,
वो Aryan का Chinese,वो Roverse का स्टाइल,
वो school की लाइफ, और वो कॉलेज की ज़िन्दगी,
वो Studyhall का रास्ता और वो कैंटीन की patties,
वो भूतनाथ की मार्केट, वो highway के ढाबे,
वो पुरनिया चौराहा, वो चारबाग स्टेशन………
इतना सब कह दिया पर दिल कहता है और भी कुछ कहूं,
ये शहर हैं मेरा अपना, जिसका नाम है.........




L U C K N O W

It's a topic that has been oft debated - that India's tech industry is a lot like the Chinese manufacturing phenomenon - Low cost, reasonable quality, minimal innovation. I was an employee of a huge IT company in India and have, in the two years in their employ, developed certain opinions and concerns about the direction of India's IT revolution.

Here's how Indian IT companies operate (Infy, TCS, wipro and the second string such as mastek, satyam, patni etc). Hire engineers in bulk, never mind that they are not computer scientists or electrical engineers - if they can write a few lines of code in C/C++ and are academically decent, they're hired . After all, they dont need brilliant engineers - just people who will do as they are told and reasonably intelligent enough to get the client's work done, and bullshit their way out of it if they don't. They'll rarely make CAD software for Electrical engineering or mechanical engineering. Instead they will develop "end to end solutions" for banking, finance, inventory management, website development, etc. By develop I mean code, not design - there is a huge difference between the two, something which I will touch upon shortly. One important thing to note is that the HR in most IT companies dont give a damn about individual interests. They will put you wherever they need someone to slog for them. I've had one HR person tells me that they will put me in a project where they get maximum money, regardless if I am interested or not. And they wonder why so many people leave!!!

What is the nature of the work? At least 70% of the international projects in most indian IT companies is maintenence - i.e someone else has already developed an application. All you need to do is add more features/change behaviour as per client's request . Then there's production support, which is worse. It is almost call-center work - ensure that the application runs normally and if it fails, get it up and running ASAP. Take calls from the client, update on the status. In a sense, like a car mechanic - I didnt get an engineering degree to be a car mechanic - I got it to design the car! Finally, if you are lucky you get development - write code. But then, writing code is easy - it is like manufacturing a car. What is not, is designing a system that works efficiently. Typically, foreign clients get the design done by the likes of Accenture, IBM, etc. The designs are then sent to desi companies, who actually do the coding at a cost much cheaper than IBM or accenture. Thus, all we do is donkey work. It is not technology - it is programming. Technology is a new idea, paradigm or design - programming is implementing that design. Thus, most of the people in IT waste their engineering degrees, doing mundane programming, until they are made project managers - after which they spend their lives approving timesheets, conducting appraisals and sucking up to the client . Wait a second - shouldnt an experienced IT professional be doing advanced stuff and leave the bullshitting to MBAs?

Why is it so hard for desi companies to do design? The've not tried hard enough (yet) to get into this space. They just dont have the competence to get the job done. Desi companies are amazing at procedure oriented projects - if there is a procedure in place telling us what to do, we can do it. They dont have the experience (and therefore the brand equity) to attract IT consulting projects. Consulting is largely a reputation driven business. In order to build such a reputation, desi companies need to hire high-flying consulants - they dont come cheap. Even after all this, there is no guarantee of results! (Lately, Infy is trying to get into this space, I'm told, so good luck to them. I dont think TCS is though :-)) How many software products come out of Indian cos? IFlex is the only company to have a product successful worldwide. Making products is expensive and again, there is no guarantee of success - why risk it when services give me an assured income?

Why do we need to get into high end IT - consulting and products? Simply because the algorithm of low cost, low margin services will run it's course in the future. As payscales rise in india and the rupee appreciating with the dollar, margins become more and more slim. In time, India may not be as competitive as say Brasil or Russia - the American cos will take their projects out there! U can see trends in the manufacturing sector - earlier Taiwan was the manufacturing base for American cos, then SouthKorea and then these days, China For too long have we been stuck in the procedure oriented IT services. It is time to invest in consulting and products, and take Indian IT to the next level, or else I fear we will remain stuck in this low end nonsense.
. Indian companies thus have 2 choices - identify and set shop in countries where the low cost, low margin algorithm can be applied (TCS seems to be taking this route) or enter into high end IT, which is independent of geography (Which Infy is trying). I believe the latter is the better route - it is a high margin business and reasonably high tech. What is even better, is coming up with technology - like Java, efficient databases, advanced operating systems (Like Sun, Oracle or Microsoft). That is real tech. It's not that we can't do it. It's just that we dont want to risk it. But, nothing venture, nothing have! Desi companies’ dont even do proper R&D!


Finally, a true story. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) was huge in the chip manufacturing industry, making almost 60% profit. They could have got into chip design, and potentially, designed low cost chips. However, design is a risky business - what if the chip bombs? TSMC chose to stick to it's core competence - fabrication. In time, TSMC's profits have declined to 20% or so... they're still number one, but don’t make as much money as they used to... Are we learning yet?

US mortgage crisis: A subprimer

Subprime Crisis: Nice explanation

Q: What is a sub-prime loan?
A: In the US, borrowers are rated either as 'prime' - indicating that they have a good credit rating based on their track record - or as 'sub-prime', meaning their track record in repaying loans has been below par. Loans given to sub-prime borrowers, something banks would normally be reluctant to do, are categorized as sub-prime loans. Typically, it is the poor and the young who form the bulk of sub-prime borrowers.

Q: Why loans were given?
A: In roughly five years leading up to 2007, many banks started giving loans to sub-prime borrowers, typically through subsidiaries. They did so because they believed that the real estate boom, which had more than doubled home prices in the US since 1997, would allow even people with dodgy credit backgrounds to repay on the loans they were taking to buy or build homes. Government also encouraged lenders to lend to sub-prime borrowers, arguing that this would help even the poor and young to buy houses.
With stock markets booming and the system flush with liquidity, many big fund investors like hedge funds and mutual funds saw sub-prime loan portfolios as attractive investment opportunities. Hence, they bought such portfolios from the original lenders. This in turn meant the lenders had fresh funds to lend. The subprime loan market thus became a fast growing segment.

Q: What was the interest rate on sub-prime loans?
A: Since the risk of default on such loans was higher, the interest rate charged on sub-prime loans was typically about two percentage points higher than the interest on prime loans. This, of course, only added to the risk of sub-prime borrowers defaulting. The repayment capacity of sub-prime borrowers was in any case doubtful. The higher interest rate additionally meant substantially higher EMIs than for prime borrowers, further raising the risk of default. Further, lenders devised new instruments to reach out to more sub-prime borrowers. Being flush with funds they were willing to compromise on prudential norms. In one of the instruments they devised, they asked the borrowers to pay only the interest portion to begin with. The repayment of the principal portion was to start after two years.

Q: How did this turn into a crisis? A: The housing boom in the US started petering out in 2007. One major reason was that the boom had led to a massive increase in the supply of housing. Thus house prices started falling. This increased the default rate among subprime borrowers, many of whom were no longer able or willing to pay through their nose to buy a house that was declining in value. Since in home loans in the US, the collateral is typically the home being bought, this increased the supply of houses for sale while lowering the demand, thereby lowering prices even further and setting off a vicious cycle. That this coincided with a slowdown in the US economy only made matters worse. Estimates are that US housing prices have dropped by almost 50% from their peak in 2006 in some cases. The declining value of the collateral means that lenders are left with less than the value of their loans and hence have to book losses.

Q: How did this become a systemic crisis?
A: One major reason is that the original lenders had further sold their portfolios to other players in the market. There were also complex derivatives developed based on the loan portfolios, which were also sold to other players, some of whom then sold it on further and so on.
As a result, nobody is absolutely sure what the size of the losses will be when the dust ultimately settles down. Nobody is also very sure exactly who will take how much of a hit. It is also important to realise that the crisis has not affected only reckless lenders. For instance, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which owned or guaranteed more than half of the roughly $12 trillion outstanding in home mortgages in the US, were widely perceived as being more prudent than most in their lending practices. However, the housing bust meant that they too had to suffer losses — $14 billion combined in the last four quarters - because of declining prices for their collateral and increased default rates.
The forced retreat of these two mortgage giants from the market, of course, only adds to every other player's woes.

Q: What has been the impact of the crisis?
A: Global banks and brokerages have had to write off an estimated $512 billion in sub-prime losses so far, with the largest hits taken by Citigroup ($55.1 bn) and Merrill Lynch ($52.2 bn). A little more than half of these losses, or $260 bn, have been suffered by US-based firms, $227 billion by European firms and a relatively modest $24 bn by Asian ones. Despite efforts by the US Federal Reserve to offer some financial assistance to the beleaguered financial sector, it has led to the collapse of Bear Sterns, one of the world's largest investment banks and securities trading firm. Bear Sterns was bought out by JP Morgan Chase with some help from the Fed.
The crisis has also seen Lehman Brothers - the fourth largest investment bank in the US - file for bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch has been bought out by Bank of America. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have effectively been nationalized to prevent them from going under.
Reports suggest that insurance major AIG (American Insurance Group) is also under severe pressure and has asked for a $40 bn bridge loan to tide over the crisis. If AIG also collapses, that would really test the entire financial sector.

Q: How is the rest of the world affected?
A: Apart from the fact that banks based in other parts of the world also suffered losses from the subprime market, there are two major ways in which the effect is felt across the globe. First, the US is the biggest borrower in the world since most countries hold their foreign exchange reserves in dollars and invest them in US securities.
Thus, any crisis in the US has a direct bearing on other countries, particularly those with large reserves like Japan, China and - to a lesser extent - India. Also, since global equity markets are closely interlinked through institutional investors, any crisis affecting these investors sees a contagion effect throughout the world.