General Elections are approaching in India, and I am very curious about it. Have always been. I started taking interest in politics since I was about 15, and when Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the PM for the first time in 1996. My family has been a supporter of BJP (Supporter in the sense that they wanted to see a change after so long of congress rule) . I remember my father asked the hawker specially to drop all the newspapers at our home when Mr Vajpayee took oath. And then Govt fell after 13 days, and I was disappointed, that was the very moment in my life when I started taking interest in politics and started following it closely being a BJP supporter.

  Of late I’m not that ardent follower of politics, the reason probably is that I don’t have faith in any of the political parties.But still, lok sabha elections and the counting of votes will surely be my biggest attraction on the print and electronic media in the coming days.

The biggest question is that who will be our next PM this time, let’s take a look at the contenders

1) Dr Manmohan Singh: (Current Prime Minister of India)

He is my favourite to be the next PM and lead us again. He is an educated, experienced and most importantly honest person. I admired him when he put his government at stake for Indo US Nuclear deal, when as a finance minister he started the process of economic reforms. He is a decent, soft-spoken and nice being and  deserve the top job more than anyone else. But I would like him to come out of the shadow of Sonia Gandhi

2) L K Advani: (Current leader of opposition and former Union Home minister) 

He is my second choice for the top job for having vast political experience, having been MP,home minister and deputy prime minister of India.He is well educated and i believe he  has the knack to lead the country from the front. He has a reputation of being a tough and dynamic administrator. And of late he has been trying to get rid of his image as a communal leader, which i would like him to do.

Above two are the prime ministerial candidates of the two leading national parties/coalitions and have all chance to grab the top job.Following are some other contenders whose names are doing rounds in the media.

3) Mayawati: (Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh state of India)

I don’t think she has any real chance to become PM and more importantly she doesn’t deserve to be PM. Her wrong points are her opportunism, her aggression, corruption charges, lack of experience in central politics and lack of decency and sophistication among many more. Yes, she has some strong points as well like she is a tough administrator, she has risen to this level on her own and the fact that she can not be driven by others. If she becomes PM, she will certainly not be a “weak” PM.

 4) Sharad Pawar: (Current Union agriculture Minister)

His name too is coming up and I don’t understand why. There is nothing wrong with him as a contender, he is experienced politician, has been a good MP and minister, has got good administratrive experience too being central minister. But if it comes to the number game, he doesn’t stand any chance

 5) Narendra Modi: (Current Chief Minister of Gujarat State of India)

 If I am right, his name was thrown by some industrialists as an option for Prime ministership. Certainly his industry friendly approach has done good for Gujarat state of India. On personal level he can surely be an effective PM, having enough administrative/political experience, being a strong and capable chief minister and being development oriented.
But, BJP has to win 271 seats for him to become prime minister,  that’s because of his image as an anti Muslim politician and the role of his government during notorious Gujarat riots.

Out of the above, My personal choice is  Dr Manmohan Singh, but something in me wants to see a change, so I wont be disappointed if Mr Advani take the charge of our country this time.

There is every possibility that none of them gets the chance and something unexpected happens, that’s why the outcome of these elections is going to be very interesting.

Let us see what happens, the countdown has already begun…

Recently this has been a big issue, and I saw no post on the subject in the blogs I visit, so decided to write something about it. It’s a common knowledge that Sri Lankan government is on the way of eliminating the LTTE, a notorious terrorist organization of Sri Lanka who have been engaged in conducting heinous crimes against the humanity including assassination of  former prime minister of India,  Rajeev Gandhi and several top Sri Lankan politicians.

The aim of LTTE is to create a separate Tamil country in the northern and eastern parts of the island nation.LTTE are notorious for suicide bombings and here they outnumber even the Islamic terror groups. They have trained huge number of children to become suicide bombers who always carry cyanide capsules with them.Nowadays the government of Sri Lanka is running a massive campaign to eliminate LTTE and reportedly many civil Tamilians are too being victims of the same. This is an abhorable act by the government in Sri Lanka if some civilians too are suffering as a result of their drive against the militant outfit.

 Obviously India and other democratic countries in the world should condemn this act and request the government of Sri Lanka to protect the rights of the civilian people. I believe the reaction of India in this particular case should be same as it’s reaction in the case of Israel’s drive in Gaza which is again inhuman.But i dont think India can go out of the way and and force the Sri Lankan government to act in any particular manner.  

But what’s happening here in India is something different. The government of Tamilnadu state in India is forcing the Government of India to send very senior envoys to Sri Lanka and force them to stop their action against LTTE. Recently there have been lots of disruptions and Bandhs in Tamilnadu and even the colleges were to be closed. In Tamilnadu, there have been more bandhs for Srilankan Tamils than Indian Tamils, forget about other Indians:)  Even the political parties of tamilnadu are known to have links with LTTE.

This is what I find not appropriate, why India should go out of the way in the internal matter of Sri Lanka.I am all for the rights of civilians in Sri Lanka and for that matter any other country on the planet but have my reservations about Indian government interfering everywhere in the world and direct the respective governments to act. Can India go to Israel and make them stop their inhuman acts in Philistine, I don’t think so.World’s most influential country USA could do something but certainly not India.   

I must say I am surprised by this move by the government of Tamilnadu. Apparently they are doing so because LTTE and Sri Lankan Tamils also speak Tamil and are of same ethnic origin as them. But, so what? Even in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Pakistan one can find people of same ethnic origin as Indians, so can India take the responsibility to protect their rights rather than the governments of the respective countries. It is the responsibility of the government of a country to protect the rights of its citizens and not that of a foreign country.

The idea of so called same race and ethnic origin is costing our country dearly nowadays. In Indian state of maharashtra, people belonging to other parts of the country have been killed by the local political parties in hope to get votes. In Karnataka state of India, people of Maharashtra are being treated badly and in return buses entering from Karnata were burnt in maharashtra.Also there were incidents of people of Karnataka and Tamilnadu beating each other. Regionalism, along with terrorism has become a roadblock in the progress of our country. And in rest of India (Northern India, Gujarat, West Bengal, Orissa, AP, etc) people fight on the names of caste and religion, if not region.

I am sorry to say; still we humans are deeply divided and there is no point in growing up and being educated if we are going to hate other people who we think are not like “us”.

PS- Recently Sri Lankan Army released photographs of Indian tamil leader Vaiko with LTTE chief Phabhakaran in the LTTE uniform. Later Vaiko said that he is proud on the photos and his LTTE links. Vaiko is a prominant Tamil politician and is known to have links with LTTE.

I don’t know whether anyone has thought about it or not but at least I have not read or heard anyone talking about it; this thought has always been doing rounds inside me, and that is, our obsession with full digits. All of us have a tendency to jump to the nearest full digits at the slightest opportunity. But I don’t think anyone has ever estimated the loss do we humans suffer to due to our obsession with full digits.

Following are some examples which come to my mind instantly

Suppose a deal is going to be settled logically at 99.5 lakh, then there is all probability that they will settle it in100 lakhs. Now why on earth should one party bear a loss of 50 thousand?

An investment Guru is giving 10 best stocks to invest in.

Suppose there are only 9 stocks fulfilling the criteria of the investment Guru, but to make it 10, he might have included one stock not worth inclusion. Or may be he might have a total 12 stocks fulfilling his criteria, but he gave us only 10, in that case too, he has deprived us of some information due to obsession with full digits.

My teacher wanted to know how muchtime i would require to solve a problem

I thought 5 mins would be too less and 10 mins would be too much, but still I ended up saying either 5 or 10 mins, though what I wanted to say was “7 mins”. I was deprived of giving correct assessment of time required by me.

One has to start a new project conceived on Friday afternoon, and even with six working days in a week (ie Saturday working), it’s decided to start the job from the coming Monday. Who is now responsible for this time loss?

The reasons for this obsession is psychological for sure, and I don’t want to go into further details of it. Here I have raised a question, the question is not that why are we obsessed with full digits, but, why do we suffer losses for this and why no one has not yet estimated the extent of it.

I’m on an official tour since last 20 odd days, very busy out here, hence not able to blog. Am extremely sorry for not being able to leave a message before going. Shall be very busy till almost mid Jan, will not be able to write here or read other blogs.

Some bad news of dirty terror attacks in our beloved Mumbai came in between, which has hurt all of us. Donno what’s the solution, nothing canbe done without political will. Hope new central Govt to be elected next year will bring some results.

Dear Mumbaikars, show to the terrorists that they can not stop Mumbai/India with their monstrous acts.We are all with you.  

Regards and Happy new year in advance

Yours

vivek

Recently a British genetics expert, Steve Jones stated that humans in developed world have stopped evolving, because people there in western countries need not struggle for there survival and the famous theory of Darvin “survival for the fittest” doesn’t come into picture. And he didn’t miss saying that the evolution hasn’t stopped in the developing world, because people there have to struggle for survival.

I am no expert in the evolution theory of genetics, nor have I studied biology beyond matriculation, nor I want to challenge the British expert because I am not qualified enough, but I cant suppress something in me which tend to disagree.

This seems to be a loose statement and I differ and would like to raise some points

He says that humans in developing countries stopped evolving because they need to struggle for survival. Well, I feel this is a very sweeping statement, as not all people in developing countries struggle to survive, many of the people live as lavish life as people in developed countries. So does that mean that in developing countries too some people have stopped evolving? Evolution takes a vast time frame, even for a minor change thousands of years pass. And I don’t think it takes anything more than a century for backward countries to develop, so as per the theory of Mr Steve, nowadays peole of developing countries are subject to evolution and after hundred years they will again stop evolving? It seems Mr Steve has assumed that all backward countries will remain backward in next thousand years.

Or can anyone say it for sure that all people in developed countries need not struggle for survival.

Even if I view it from another point of view, and forget about developed and backward countries as mentioned by Mr Steve, can it be assumed that anyone irrespective of country he lives in, if lives in extreme poverty, then his further generations would also live in extreme poverty so that evolution could take place?

I think evolution theory is not same for humans and animals, as animals can not change their life at their will, they will live in jungle, struggle for survival and in the process, will evolve. But in case of humans, as they have got the ability of change their life due to highly developed mind, their process of evolution should be different. Suppose someone lives in extreme poverty and need to struggle for survival, so is his next generation, so next to next generation, but it’s not guaranteed that his 100 generations will live for sure in extreme conditions for evolution to come into picture. In fact it’s very likey that his next generations live in much better conditions.  

One more fault (at least I think so) in Mr Steve’s theory is that he has assumed that if conditions so come, people in developed world will not evolve, and also there wont be any crisis which would call for further evolution of humans.

Evolution takes place in a very vast time frame, but nature has made it sure that even in a very short time frame further generations of living beings may be born with somewhat better profile, by making two sexes in almost all of living beings.

All the species happen to have a tendency to extend their population and two sexes can help the newborn inheriting better of two. This is a natural refinement process of the living beings, but unfortunately we humans waste it because in our civilization marriage is supposed to happen only between equals.

There is a song in Hindi film “Lagaan”, rendering worship to the God by a group of poor villagers

The song goes like that

“O Palanhare, Nirgun aur Nyare, tumhre bin hamra koi nahin”

The above song sounds nice as a prayer by villagers to the God to save them in the cricket match against the English, for which their future was at stake.

Everything in this song is fine but the word “Nirgun”.

The Hindi/Sanskrit word “Nirgun” means one who has not any particular appearance or particular identity. The words “Nirgun” and “Nirakar” in Hindi are used mainly to define the Gods in Islam or Christianity, where God is assumed in not any particular shape or appearance. In these religions “Murti Puja” (worshipping the idols of God) is not done, they don’t believe in multiple Gods and believe only in one almighty God without assuming any appearance.

But in Hinduism God is not “Nirgun”. We have assumed Gods and their apperance, we make idols of Gods put it in front and worship. 

Hinduism is perhaps only religion in the world, which has no founder, which was never founded, and practice of Hinduism is mainly in India and Nepal. It developed and flourished by itself. The practices of the religion like festivals or rituals are not firm and vary with the regions in India. But,the “Murti Puja”  remains common everywhere, in any part of India, Nepal or world. I firmly believe that “Murti Puja” is the most distinguishing feature of Hinduism. Our Gods are “Sagun” and not “Nirgun”.

 I have high regards for lyricist and writer Javed Akhtar, one of the finest writers in Bollywood, but am slightly surprised by this blunder mistake in one of his songs. Also interestingly I have never heard anyone objecting to this. I object to this because this is misrepresentation of the very concept of Hinduism.

Few days back I watched a show on discovery channel which tried to establish a link between dinosaurs and birds, it said that possibly birds evolved from dinosaurs. It showcased many reasons for the same. Mainly the similarity between the skeletons of the birds and dinosaurs was too convincing, such similarity to the dinosaurs is not scene in any other living creature on earth.Also dinosaurs are believed to have respiratory systems similar to modern birds.

 As the dinosaurs are said to be reptiles ( As they had no fur, laid eggs, their skin had scales, and many of their species were cold blodded )  after watching that show, I started wondering whether birds are close to reptiles, though birds are not technically reptiles as they are warm blooded as opposed to reptiles which are cold blooded. But there are many similarities, which are following

• Birds and reptiles both lay eggs
• Birds and reptiles show some skeletal similarities
• Birds have feathers, which are said to be modified scales
• Birds feet have scales 

Even whether dinosaurs were reptiles, is too debatable, as it’s still not sure whether they were warm blooded or cold blooded. Till the mid 20^th century it was believed that dinosaurs were cold blooded, slow moving creatures, but later research has found that they were very active animals and could have been warm blooded. This issue is still debatable.  Also one dissimilarity between dinosaurs and reptiles is that the legs of dinosaurs were directly below their hips, like in mammals and unlike in lizards.

So, the conclusion of the above is that there are similarities between both birds and reptiles and dinosaurs and reptiles, so scientists established a theory that both birds and reptiles had a common ancestor in dinosaurs. But there are many who even believe that birds are not evolved from dinosaurs but birds are dinosaurs.

Many may think that why I’m discussing such a topic, or how does it matter if birds are close to reptiles. But it matters to me because I used to like birds and used to not like reptiles. In fact I hate reptiles, I become restless if I spot a lizard on the walls and cant live in such a place. So, now after watching that show on discovery and analyzing similarities between birds and reptiles, I didn’t really enjoy this fact.

Recently there was a buzz in the media when reportedly Sonia Gandhi came for the Rescue of Bachchan family when some antisocial elements dragged them into a controversy and tried to ban their films illegally. The buzz was about thawing the ice between the relations of the two families. But what’s so special between the two families that media is so obsessed with?

It’s well known that once Bachchans and Gandhis were as close as a family. The two families are among the most respected in India, and both belong to Allahabad city, it was where their relationship started. Harivansh Rai Bachchan is regarded as one of the greatest writers of Hindi Literature and was the professor of English at Allahabad University, also he was the first Indian to pursue doctorate in English literature from Cambridge University.His son Amitabh Bachchan is among the greatest actors of Indian cinema and is regarded as the biggest superstar of all time.Whereas Gandhis are the most influential political family in India and have given three Prime Ministers to the country so far, and have traditionally lead Congress, the biggest political party of India.

The relations between the two families started with Dr Harivansh Rai Bahchan working in India’s foreign ministry as a Hindi Officer, where he joined after quitting from the university. Nehru was very impressed with him, and respected him for his literary genius. Also, while living in Allahabad, the families of Nehru and Harivansh came close.Harivansh’s wife Teji became close friend of Nehru’s daughter Indira.  Later when Bahchans moved to Delhi, Teji Bahchan, got fame as a social activist, and her friendship with  Indira Gandhi became deeper, their friendship remained very close till Indira’s assassination in 1984.Their relationship continued in the succeeding generations too, Amitabh and Rajiv Gandhi were childhood friends.When Sonia came to India in 1968 as Rajiv’s fiancée, she was put up  at Bachchan’s residence and Teji acted as Sonia’s god mother and made her accustomed to Indian culture. Also during marriage of Rajiv and sonia, as the bride is not supposed to live with the in laws before marriage, Sonia used to live at Bachchan residence in New Delhi.Teji  was like mother to Sonia Gandhi, and did  “Kanya Dan” of sonia in her marriage with Rajiv. 

But what happened that now that when Taji Bachchan passed away few months ago, Sonia didn’t even attend the funeral. The relations between the two families are sour and it all started with Amitabh joining politice in 1984, mainly to support Rajiv Gandhi.That time congress desperately wanted the Allahabad constituency and wanted to defeat H N Bahuguna, which seemed impossible.

Rajiv Gandhi convinced Amitabh to contest. Amitabh contested and won the election with record margin (he got more than 68% votes) in the history of independent India.But Amitabh quit politics and resigned after three years when a newspaper reported his involvement in Bofors scam, this was the beginning of soaring of relations between the two families, though later Amitabh was declared clean by the supreme court. The relationship between the two families worsened after Rajiv Gandhi’s assessation in 1991, when Gandhis felt, Bachchans left them alone in distress, and when they relied on bachchans for taking every decision after Rajiv’s assassination. Also it’s said that Sonia didn’t take it kindly when Amitabh consistently advised her not to join politics.

Whereas Bahchans have point that Gandhis brought them in politics and left midway in trouble and also didn’t help them during the financial crisis after collapse of his company ABCL. And this was the time when Bachchans came close to Amar Singh, of Samajvadi Party. It’s not that Bachchan was not acquainted with Amar Singh before. In fact Amar singh was a very old friend of Bachchan , but when he helped Amitabh during financial crisis, the two became very close and later Jaya Bachchan was nominated to Rajya Sabha as a Samajvadi party member. As congress used to be rival (it has changed very recently) of Samajvadi party in Uttar Pradesh, the relations between the two families were bound to worsen.

In 2004 Jaya Bachchan remarked about Gandhi family not helping them during crisis and left them midway after bringing them into politics. She even said that  Gandhis betrayed bachchans. Then Rahul  Gandhi replied to Jaya’s remarks and said his family didn’t deceive any one, and termed Jaya’s remarks as bundle of lies.Finally Amitabh came to control the situation and said the the relations between the two familes stood on strong emotional ground and struck deep roots from the time of Nehru and Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and when  neither Jaya nor Rahul nor Paryanka were around and hence they don’t understand it. Amitabh said he could neither forget those relationships nor tolerate any comment on them.Those relationships were between the two families. He said, he has nothing but respect and goodwill for the Gandhis.

Above is the all I could write about the subject. I don’t think there is going to be any change between the relations of the two families now, and of course it doesn’t matter to any of us general public other than writing a post about it I wish all of them good luck in their future endeavours.

Audit is a routine activity in any organization, while last month I was taking the audit on behalf of my department, just casually the head of the audit team asked me that what I think about audits, and are they necessarily required, I replied to him, but at the same time it spurred lots of thoughts in me, and I wrote something about it, and thought I could even publish it here

In the dictionary the term “audit” means inspection or examination. It’s a practice of various institutions and organizations to conduct audits within their structure. A culture of conducting audits boosts the efficiency of an organization as it’s human tendency to become attentive in the sight of an inspection or examination, though in professional world, audits doesn’t necessarily mean like said above, but undeniably they inspire the audit receiving team to enhance their standards of performance.  

Audits are important in any industry, be it manufacturing, IT, media, banking or construction. But I believe in industries like banking and construction, they serve the most important purpose.Banking is all about finance of hefty and astronomical sums.While giving loans or issuing credit cards banks have to be very careful, and that’s mainly because of quality of their agents. The agents themselves don’t bother to follow the rules fixed by the bank; I receive many phone calls and am assured a new credit card, even without address verification and other formalities. Even the staff of the bank in their eagerness to sanction loans, become very soft towards the guidelines of their bank.  Then in an industry like construction where a large workforce of unskilled and less educated workmen is involved in constructing the product, I feel it must be very hard to maintain quality standards. If audits are not performed timely in these industries, then for sure things will go out of control.

Audits may be internal or external, and both are equally important and effective. Frequency of the audits in the form of a calendar should be fixed and followed religiously to maintain the effectiveness of the same. The selection of the auditors is also a key point and only very experienced professionals who understand the gravity or triviality of all micro and macro level activities and processes, should be assigned the job. 

There comes a feeling that audit’s are not required as everybody in an organization knows his or her responsibility and people are mature and sincere enough to perform their responsibility flawlessly. But looking at the other side of coin, though people in any organization are capable enough but there are lots of micro level activities, which may not be executed up to the mark. A systematic schedule of audits ensures that all micro level activities like timely updation of all the records, all the documentation, etc are performed in the best possible way and also all the standards followed by the organization are met up.  

The audits can be made more successful if the Auditees take it as an opportunity to enhance their quality of work and not as an inspection imposed on them. The most important part of the whole audit process is the corrective action being taken by the audit receiving team. If a team receives an audit in true spirits and is enthusiastic about implementing the corrective actions, then only the very purpose behind conducting audits can be deemed accomplished.

The nuclear deal between India and the US has been finalized, finally. The other day I saw news that, Pakistan is also willing to have a similar deal with the US, but the US denied it (So far at least ). US secretary of state Ms Condoleeza Rice said that India’s case was unique, and that’s because of  India’s history.

So, what’s about India’s history that Ms Rice is talking about, I guess it’s about India’s record as a non aggressive state, rather a soft state. No one can imagine India attacking another country for any purpose. Even during the Kargil war of 1999, when Pakistani troops invaded India; in the process of fighting with them, Indian armed forces had a clear-cut instruction not to cross the LOC. So India avoided crossing borderline even for self-defense.

Second thing is that India is a successful democracy; the democratic values have been firmly embedded in the culture of our country. There has never been any fuss in the power exchange after the elections. The armed forces and intelligence are under very much control of the union government, and them taking any step without Government orders is beyond imagination.  

Only time when I felt exception was in 1998 when India conducted nuclear tests despite international pressure. And before that in 1975 when Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India announced emergency in the country following a judgment by Allahabad High court banning her from contesting any election for next 6 years. But, she called off the emergency in 1977, and announced fresh elections and that election of 1977 was the biggest defeat of her party (Congress) in the history of independent India. Democracy was in India to stay, and all that was the result of  the democratic traditions and values, which were entrenched in the political culture of India and which is the legacy of Indira Gandhi’s father and india’s first Prime minister Pt Jawhar Lal Nehru. Nehru in his tenure of 17 years as first prime minister of India made it sure that India is always going to follow the path of a responsible democracy.   

Everything about India being non-aggressive, and democratic country is fine, but many feel that India is a very soft state, which means just too non aggressive, which sometimes is not good for the country.

We have faced terrorism sponsored by nearby countries for a long time and still it continues. Kashmir, once known as heaven on earth is today among the most insecure places in the world, India’s Punjab state has faced terrorism for over a decade, and today terrorism is spreading in many major metros of India but still there is lack of any aggression on part of India to do something about terror camps flourishing in our neighbor country. Then there has been incidence of Kandhar plane hijack where we very calmly released the terrorist as per the demand of the hijackers. Also there was an incidence of our soldiers being humiliated by Bangladesh and there was no strong reaction from India.These are just some of the examples which come to my mind, and i’m sure there are many other such incidences.

It seems, on international level, India has developed an image of a very soft state, a state that can never become aggressive. It has it’s benefits and losses both, but I wonder whether benefits more or losses??