Education - importance and relevance ..

How does an unlearned, unsophisticated youngster become mature, learned and informed ? The only way a youngster could attain knowledge, maturity and be informed of many aspects of this Universe and earth is through education.

What is Education ?

1. Understanding ourselves : Education as we understand, is not just memorising some numbers and facts, getting information, verifying certain truths, proposing certain facts, writing some exams and getting some grades or experimenting with nature, it is much more.  It helps to understand ourselves better.

2. Knowing oneself and one's inequities : It involves calibrating oneself with nature, understanding where an individual has erred, what can be done to get it working again and wishing good and positivity for all living and non-living things on earth.

3. Conducting research : Education is more than collecting and understanding facts and verifying truths by research, it reflects on how human beings interact with fellow humans on planet earth.  

4. Wisdom and understanding : education gives us the wisdom and understanding to rationalise the reason for our existence on Earth.  

5. Reverberating with the rhythm of the Universe : It gives us the insight to place humanity in the vastness of the Universe, to rationalise our existence here and how each one of us has a definite positive role to play in reverberating with the universal rhythm and flow of events.

6. Exposure to the infiniteness of the Universe : Education exposes us to the infiniteness of the Universe and at the same time synchronises with the subtle realities of our everyday life on planet earth and the exciting new challenges and problems it exposes. 

7. Reasoning life's existence : Education helps us to understand the reason for life's existence (all flora and fauna) on planet earth and synchronises with the eternal rhythm of the unknown and uncalibrated dimensions in space and time.

8. Understanding the reality : Education gives us better understanding and synchronises our knowledge of the present reality and past truths with future revelations.  

9. Quells fear of unknown and infinite : Education quells our fear of the unknown and infinite, it energises and empowers our voyage to identify the truth.  

10. Reverberate with vibes of Universe : Education gives the peace of mind to help reverberate our living soul with the eternal vibes of the Universe and its creator.

11. Linking with eternal truth of life : education helps us to identify the reason for our existence on earth, it helps us to continue our effort to relate ourselves with the eternal truth of life.

An investment one makes in education is no waste at any point of time, as education with the appropriate efforts from the individual put in, always pays back multiple times.  

george..

Celebrate your uniqueness with peace and understanding ..

Humans are unique from the rest of the flora and fauna on planet earth, remotely close only to dolphins and elephants, both of which have higher levels of intelligence in the animal world. (click here for the traits that make humans unique, from BBC and some other traits that make humans unique from livescience).

Leaving that aside, not vacillating on celebrating that uniqueness and superiority with other living beings on planet earth, we find even among the human fraternity, each of us is very unique and capable. The following passage is a clear illustration of our uniqueness and how we could use it to our advantage than to our detriment.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Jomo Kenyatta wrote this some years ago..

"I was jogging this morning and I noticed a person about half a kilometer ahead. I could tell he was running a little slower than me and I thought, good, I shall try to catch him. I had about a kilometer before I needed to turn off. So I started running faster and faster. 

Every block, I was gaining on him just a little bit. After just a few minutes I was only about 100 meters behind him, so I really picked up the pace and pushed myself. You would have thought I was running in the last leg of an Olympic competition. I was determined to catch up with him. 

Finally, I did it! I caught and passed him. On the inside, I felt so good. "I beat him." Of course, he didn't even know we were racing! 

After I passed him, I realized I had been so focused on competing against him that I had missed my turn! I had gone nearly six blocks past my turn and I had to turn and go back. 

Isn't that what happens in life when we focus on competing with co-workers, neighbors, friends, family, trying to outdo them or trying to prove that we are more successful or more important? 

We spend our time and energy running after them and we miss out on our own paths to our God-given destinies!

The problem with unhealthy competition is that it's a never ending cycle!

There will always be somebody ahead of you, someone with a better job, nicer car, more money in the bank, more education, a prettier wife, a more handsome husband, better behaved children, etc. 

But realize that "You can be the best that you can be, when you are not competing with anyone."

Some people are insecure because they pay too much attention to what others are, where others are going, wearing and driving.... 

Take what God has given you: your height, weight and personality.

Dress well and wear it proudly: you'll be blessed by it!

Stay focused and live a healthy life. There is no competition in Destiny. Run your own race and wish others well. 

(Anonymous from the Internet).

Each one of us is so unique, that's how we were made. Challenges, trials and hardships as they come in life are each so hand-picked. They are not meant to weaken us, on the other hand, it embellishes us and makes us stronger and confident with each passing day.. Take it in the stride ..

Let's respect and celebrate our uniqueness by positive thinking and daily positive kind actions. 🙏👍

george..

How to improve the Agri supply chain ..

Quote : According to the Guardian, approximately 45% of all fruits and vegetables, 35% of fish and seafood, 30% of cereals, and 20% of meat and dairy products are wasted by suppliers, retailers, and consumers every year. : Unquote

The food waste that happens in US ..

Will we earthlings have enough food by 2050 AD to support the 9.8 billion population on planet Earth from the present 7.6 billion ??

How can we ensure food security for the masses ? What proactive steps can be taken up to ensure we all have enough food to eat by 2050 AD ?

Organised retail it was thought would reduce food waste. But actually has it done anything to ameliorate this black scar on humanity. In the western world, organised retailing has picked up. In UK, 87% of sale of grocery happens through organised retail through seven retail chains. The developing world is struggling as not more than 10% grocery sale happens through organised retail as late as 2016.

What a waste ..

From $ 641 billion in 2016, Indian retail is supposed to grow by 10% CAGR to $1.6 trillion by 2026. As of 2016, there are almost 8500 supermarkets in India. Retail contributes 10% of Indian GDP and employs 8% of population. Online retail in India as of 2016, is a $60 billion market.

Report of Indian retail industry by India Brand Equity Foundation is here..

https://www.ibef.org/industry/retail-india.aspx

In India's growing phase of retail industry, here are a couple of points on how to improve the agricultural supply chain. 

Past practices tend to dominate Indian mindsets. We need to think out of the box and innovate. Here are some points.

1. Have better inventory control practices in the supply chain - use of GPS based transportation in trucks in the agri-supply chain can help practice of more accurate and sound inventory control practices with less of variability

2. Partner with farmer to reduce waste in supply chain - in US farmers waste on an average 7% of produce on the farm, with the numbers less for developing countries. Selective harvesting is an option for farmers to avoid food dumping in the markets and the resultant profit wipeouts

3. Modify or eliminate traditional store practices that increase waste - First Come First Serve (FCFS) practices should be widely used. 

4. Bring more solar energy based refrigerators - that can cool during daytime and maintain the temperatures during the night, can bring down the expenses of storing expensive food items.

5. Team up with consumers - understanding the pattern of customer demand can moderate the harvesting from the field to a selective basis and the subsequent storage and withdrawal from warehouses.

Click here for 14 ways to reduce food waste at home..

george ..

References : 

1. Yasemin Kor et al, How large food retailers can help solve the food waste crisis, HBR, Dec '17

2. IBEF, (2017), https://www.ibef.org/industry/retail-india.aspx

Live for others .. In the long run, we are all the same ..

Very often we lead our lives thinking of ourselves, what we will do, what we will wear, what will I get in return and what will happen to me and my family etc.. Have we ever thought how others would be affected with my living ?

Am I doing something to make others' lives any better ? 

I found this anonymous message from the Internet quite striking.. makes one think deeply .. In the long run, if we do good, those are the only good thoughts that will be with us. Because in the long run, we are all the same .. The message exposes the futility of running after wealth, health, education, money, position, power, affluence etc.. 

Quote :

● At age of 40 years, "highly educated" and  "less educated" are the same. (Less educated people may even earn more money)  

● At 50 years, "beauty" and "ugly" are the same. (No matter how pretty you are, at this age, wrinkles, dark spots, etc. can no more be hidden.) 

● At 60 years, "high position" and "low position" are the same. (After retirement, even a peon will avoid looking at his boss) 

● At 70 years, "big house" and "small house" are the same. (Joints degenerate, hard to move, only require a little space to sit) 

● At 80 years, "have money" and "no money" are the same. (Even when you want to spend money, you don't know where to spend) 

● At 90 years, "Sleeping" and "waking up" are the same. (After you wake up, you still don't know what to do) 

- Unquote.

This passage is not to mean that there is no value in education and good health, but it helps us to understand that in the long run, whatever we earn, legitimately or illegitimately, whatever we get to know from different sources, whatever we do for ourselves will be of no use to us. Whatever we have earned legitimately, our children will make good use of it and whatever we have earned illegitimately by cheating others, by concealing income and not paying the tax due to the state etc., will bring us more harm than good. It is the best way to see that our children get spoiled and their lives go waste. Money not hard-earned, is just waste.

Do a life of giving and service.

Take life easy, there are no mysteries to be solved.  

In the long run, we'll all be the same. 

ge..

16 Psyche, one of the largest and richest asteroids ..

What does this asteroid, 16 Psyche, 200 km diameter, 450 million miles away (3x distance between Earth and Sun) in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, one of the top largest asteroids, moving at speed of 25 kms per second, have in making it so very important and attractive to the world ?

Precious metals worth GBP 8000 quadrillion or $10,500 trillion ..

 https://globalnews.ca/news/3175097/nasa-plans-mission-to-a-metal-rich-asteroid-worth-quadrillions/

It would crash the world economy which had a GDP of about $75 trillion in 2016 ..

Psyche is composed of metal made up almost entirely of iron, nickel and (presumably) a number of other rare metals like gold, platinum, copper, cobalt, iridium and rhenium. There’s nothing else like it in our galactic backyard.

Can NASA in it's $450 million project Psyche, manage to bring even a portion of this asteroid to earth ?

Really exciting !!

George..

How to avoid Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's Disease is a progressive disease that destroys memory and other important mental functions.

Common Facts : (Source Apollo Hospitals, India)

Contrasting a healthy brain and an Alzheimer Diseased (AD) brain.

• More than 1 million cases per year (India)
• Treatment can help, but this condition can't be cured
• Requires a medical diagnosis
• Lab tests or imaging not required
• Chronic: can last for years or be lifelong
• Brain cell connections and the cells themselves degenerate and die, eventually destroying memory and other important mental functions.
• Memory loss and confusion are the main symptoms.
• No cure exists, but medication and management strategies may temporarily improve symptoms.

Ages affected

0-2	Never
3-5	Never
6-13	Never
14-18	Never
19-40	Very rare
41-60	Rare
60+	Very common

Consult a doctor for medical advice

How can one take precautions to prevent onset of AD..

-----------------------------------------

Alzheimer's disease is a great monster, but it is not hard to do the proposed exercises and prevent it.

Alzheimer's can be prevented, by new technique to improve concentration, develop creativity and intelligence, by performing these simple exercises of Neurobics.

"Neuroscience" reveals that the brain has an extraordinary ability to grow and change the pattern of its connections.

The authors of this discovery, Lawrence Katz and Manning Rubin (2000), reveal that Neurobics, or "aerobic neurons" is a new form of brain exercise, designed to keep the brain agile and healthy, creating new and different patterns of behavior, and of the activities of the neurons in your brain.

About 80% of our day to day tasks are done on AUTO MODE (i.e. we do them without exercising our brain.) which despite having the advantage of reducing intellectual effort, hide a perverse effect: they limit and atrophy the brain, not allowing the renewal and growth of their neurons.

To counteract this tendency, it is necessary to practice some "brain exercises", which make the person think only about what they are doing, concentrating on that task. It is doing everything contrary to the routine, forcing the brain to an additional job

.

Some of the exercises .

• Use the watch on the pulse opposite to the one that normally uses it.
• Brush the teeth with the opposite hand.
• Walk around the house, backward (in China, this routine is practiced in the parks).
• Dress with your eyes closed.
• Stimulate the palate with things of different flavors.
• See the photos, head down (or the photos, or you).
• Look at the time, in the mirror.
• Change the routine path to go and return home.

The idea is, to do some different things, so that you exercise the other side of your brain (the right one),

Well worth trying!

What if you start practicing right now, using your cell phone, with your left hand..... 

(From the Internet)

Do you really want to own a car ?

Buying a car v/s Uber: A superb analysis (Common sense, but really brilliant !!)

In these days when car companies like Ola and Uber are competing to offer the quickest, cheapest ride, with great  comfort and satisfaction to the customer, should the customer really need to keep a private car at home ? When the whole scientific world is crying of environmental pollution, carbon footprints, global warming and unsustainable lifestyles, educated patriotic citizens would want to keep their carbon emissions low and help the society, community and environment..

Unless be it for prestige and better status in society, it does not make any sense to get a new car technically in the financial sense, if you do not spend more than a fixed sum every month. Let us see how it is reasoned out...

Any car  in India costs at least	Rs. 600,000/-
Scrap value after six year	Rs. 100,000/-
Net amount which goes in effective life of six year	Rs. 500,000/-
Nos of days of six years	2200 days
a. Depreciation per day in six years	Rs. 230/day
b. Yearly insurance premium of Rs 15,000	Rs. 41/day
c. Daily petrol, minimum	Rs. 100/day
d. After every 3 yr tyre & Battery change charge, Rs 25,000  i.e.	Rs. 23/day
e. Yearly maintenance of car Rs 9000 i.e	Rs. 25/day
f. If driver is employed, because Uber comes with a driver	Rs. 300/day
g. Interest loss on Car buying amount @8% on Rs 6,00,000	Rs. 131/day
Total daily expense after buying new car	Rs. 850 / day

                                         

So friends until you pay Rs 850 daily to hire a cab, you are effectively in gain travelling in Uber or Ola.

If u agree, share for the benefits of all. This is called financial planning. 

( Thanks to the anonymous author of this very realistic document )

What NASA and Kepler Space Telescope will tell us on 14 Dec 2017 ??

Kepler Space Telescope, launched in 2009 by NASA to study exoplanets

NASA'a important mission to analyse planets revolving around the solar system, Kepler Space Telescope, was launched in 2009 and after a three year period its mission was extended to study planets revolving other stars outside our solar system, exoplanets.

Till date, 8 years after its launch, Kepler Space Telescope has studied more than 150,000 stars and on Thursday Dec14, 2017 NASA is bound to make a very startling revelation / discovery. Google Machine Learning AI algorithm has played a major role in this discovery as claimed by NASA. We will get to know the finer details later.  

Is it discovery of evidence of life on an exoplanet outside our solar system or presence of a civilization or discovery of life on many exoplanets, we have to patiently wait till Thursday.  

The whole world, especially the spiritual world is eagerly awaiting the discovery as the presence of dead ancestors or humans of another civilization on an exoplanet can greatly damage the roots of spirituality on earth namely through concepts like existence of heaven, hell, rebirth etc. can be put to question.

Till Thursday, the suspense continues ..

Click here for Guardian details on Kepler 438A, the exoplanet 475 light years away in th constellation Lyra, said to be 12% more thaan the size of earth, receiving 40% more energy from the star with an orbital period of 35 days, has a 70% chance of being rocky.. 

george..

   

What happened at the Taj Hotel Mumbai on 26 Nov 2008 ?

It gave me immense pride and satisfaction while narrating this event that happened in Taj Palace Hotel, Mumbai at the last session of Service Operations Management class for second year MBA students at Alliance University in Bangalore. While discussing a TED video by Prof. Rohit Deshpande speaking at a TEDx conference of what happened on the fateful night of 26 November 2008, the whole class felt there was something unique in how Taj Hotel Mumbai employees took care of their guests on those eventful three days.

At 9 PM on 26 November 2008, a group of ten heavily armed terrorists attacked the port city of Mumbai and for the next four days they released a reign of terror in Mumbai. The heroic acts of the Taj employees who resisted four of those terrorists and helped herd guests to safety became a matter of discussion and appreciation the world over. 

The Iconic 105 year old Taj Mahal Hotel in South Mumbai

Click here for the video ..

There were almost 500 guests attending a banquet at the time, another 600 guests having dinner in the 12 restaurants in the hotel and 600 plus staff in the iconic 105 year old Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in South Mumbai that evening. A senior management team from Unilever were also having a send-off dinner to the outgoing CEO and welcoming the new one.

In the mayhem that continued for almost three nights and two days, Taj Mahal Palace Hotel lost totally about thirty four guests and employees. The staff in the hotel calmed the almost one thousand plus guests and helped rescue them to safety. Totally 164 were dead in the city of Mumbai and 308 wounded from the terrorist attacks in Mumbai released by the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba on that fateful night starting at the CST Railway station in South Mumbai.

On the fateful night and ensuing day of November 26, 2008 ..

How did the staff at the Taj Hotel behave calmly and exhibit great presence of mind and confidence even risking their own lives for the safety of the guests when there were no clear instructions or Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) on how to handle a terror attack like this ? Nobody goaded them into behaving in a particular fashion. 

Even the then Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata and Board of Directors were at loss of words on what motivated the Taj Hotel employees to behave and act in a specific style which was the epitome of customer-centric style of functioning, even risking one's own life. It is something which has baffled even psychologists and academics from all parts of the world. This is an excellent case study for HR professionals and professionals from the hospitality industry  from all around the world.

  

The main points as highlighted by Prof. Rohit Deshpande of Harvard Business School who wrote a case on this incident are basically three.

1. Employee orientation and value set - Tata Sons recruits its employees not from top cities but from towns across the country side. CanThey recruit their employees not for their grades but for their attitude.

2. Being brand ambassadors to the outside world and of the customers - Taj Hotel employees have been brand ambassadors of Tata Sons and the Taj Hotel group for the customers / guests who come to the hotel. In fact this is a unique trait one gets to see in almost all of the 3.5 lakh employees of Tata Sons across the world.

3. Immediate recognition of a good deed - Taj hotel has a culture of  rewarding its employees with recognition whenever they get a positive feedback from the customer. Than with monetary rewards this happens within 48 hours of the feat accomplishment. Though monetary compensation for employees is not great, just above industry average, the recognition they get from the Taj Hotel management is something employees value very much..

Tata Sons in the 149 years of it's existence, since 1868, though Jamshedji and his father came to Saurashtra coast in 1838 from North Iran, have been able to reaffirm and help

1. build a customer centric work and organisation culture

2  constantly rethink the relationship contract between the employer and the employee

3. transform a symbol of terror over the years into a symbol of hope for the world.

No wonder Tata Sons, the $103 billion conglomerate from India remains the most respected industrial group globally and will continue to remain so ..

If you are planning for a year plant corn, if you are planning for thirty years plant trees, if you are planning for a hundred years, plant men - Jamshedji Tata

George .. (photograph courtesy Taj Group Hotels, Indian Express Newspapers.)

 Ref : 

        1. TEDx talk by Prof. Rohit Deshpande, HBS 
        2. Rohit Deshpande and Anjali Raina, The Ordinary heroes of the Taj Hotel - HBS, Dec 2011

        2. Wikipedia link 
        3. Blog - Most honest global brand, Tata Sons 
        4. Blog - Will Chandra reverse Tata's fortunes ? 

Coronal Mass Ejection (Solar flares ) - what it means to us ..

Global scientists are speaking of a solar flare which is likely to happen in the very near future. The solar flare could damage electrical networls and electrical distribution lines, telecommunication lines, satellite signals and the GPS system, including stalling the Internet.

By having a copper protection device in space at a distance of about 205,000 miles, costing about 100 billion dollars which will deflect the damaging radiations from the solar flare is an idea being put forward by scientists around the world. The solar flare has the potential to create a massive damage of almost a trillion (a thousand billion) dollars.

The solar flare travelling at great speeds and large enough to consume earth in its path can bring great damage to human life on earth. To the side facing the sun at that particular point, it can also mean a wipe out of all life forms, humans, plants, animals, birds, reptiles, fishes etc. To the side not facing the sun it could be just a safe escape from the flare. 

The massive damage it can cause cannot be ruled out as we have just one recorded solar flare in history in 1859 AD (Carrington Event) and another one discovered by Japanese scientists based on Carbon 14 dating techniques back to 774 AD (Charlemagne Event). 

Some interesting questions humanity would love to get answers to - 

1. Is it possible to delay the onset of the next solar flare by a thousand years ? 

2. How can we do it ? 

3. Can we limit the damage done by a solar flare ?  

4. Can we deflect the solar flare at the surface of the sun itself, preventing it from coming in the direction of earth and avoiding building huge infrastructure in space ?
5, Is there any possibility of tapping the massive amounts of energy these waves would carry without causing any damage to human, plant, animal, birds, reptiles and fishes on planet earth ? 

It is the radiations within the visible spectrum that causes fire and extreme heat while maximum of the radiations may not even be visible to humans but can knock off communication networks and infrastructure across the world.

Hope humanity is able to create enough awareness and take enough precautions so that our generation and the future ones will be well prepared in case something like a solar flare comes hitting us any time soon.

ge,,

Plant Layout design - links and definitions ..

An interesting document to refer is here ..

In manufacturing engineering, a product layout refers to a production system where the work stations and equipment are located along the line of production, as with assembly lines. Usually, work units are moved along a line (not necessarily a geometric line, but a set of interconnected work stations) by a conveyor.

In manufacturing engineering or in service industry, process layout is a design for the floor plan of a plant which aims to improve efficiency by arranging equipment according to its function. The line should ideally be designed to eliminate waste in material flows, inventory handling and management.

Importance of facility layout and design -  Inc document ..

Warehouse facility layout design principles ..

Warehouse layout designs are explained here well ..

george..

Cyber security breaches getting more deadly..

Every time we log into an online service be it email service or banks or an ecommerce site planning to purchase something, even checking our Aadhaar card, we are exposing ourselves to the vast challenges of cyber security. We are exposing ourselves to cyber criminals who are waiting to pounce on us and steal our online credentials to hold us cyber prisoners to make a quick buck or damage our reputation.

So what is the best solution to prevent cyber crimes ? Shut down all your online accounts and accesses and start living in a very physical world .. Looks like an Utopia, we cannot spend a day without checking our professional and personal emails, we cannot spend an hour without checking our online social media accounts. At least once in two days we check our online bank accounts, and not frequently our e-commerce and rail booking , bus ticket booking sites etc.

As  per an article in the Harvard Business Review of Dec 2017, on an average a US citizen has 191 online accounts and more frequently he uses the same password across multiple sites. Globally the picture may not be that grim as online activity is restricted by access and reach for the popularity and convenience of an online life.  It is also found that in case of a security breach, on an average, the cyber criminal would be able to hack into 10% of your online accounts, that's a clean 20 online accounts that are compromised. Scary !!

As humanity gets more advanced and sophisticated, our onliner presence is only going to increase and the number of passwords we need to remember keeps on increasing. 

The first and biggest risk of online presence is that most of us are averse to using many passwords and having to remember all of them. Instead we use convenient, short passwords repeated across sites or with minor modifications. Having access to online convenience thus brings us and exposes us to manifold problems and challenges.

So, what is an effective solution to prevent cyber criminals from unauthorisedly accessing our accounts and causing harm, reputation-wise and monetary-wise ?

Having a two tier security access to sites would be the best solution to this predicament.  Google has recently started practicing this across sites. If Google observes multiple access from different sites and server geographies, it asks to use an OTP sent to our mobile phones to gain access.

Even if one accesses Google mail from a different computer or a public terminal, Google would immediately ask for an OTP to be entered which will be sent to your mobile phone. This prevents unauthorised access to Gmail most of the time. Thanks to Google's innovative and smart security system, our online data storage, email, blogs, YouTube account are very safe. Imagine the havoc it would create globally if Google becomes a bit lax with it's security like Yahoo compromised it's user security some years back and is busy presently settling expensive customer litigations.

What other methods can Internet utility and ecommerce websites deploy to increase web security and data privacy ? It is a perennial question that bogs down all products and service offering to customers cutting across regions, languages, geographies, beliefs and values. Out there in the cyber world, it is a constant battle for supremacy between the web crackers and cyber security specialists as no solution is long-lived, barely two years on an average, before a newer cyber crime format  crops up and brings great havoc ..

This is the great price we have to pay for online convenience !!

Click here for a download of this case ..

George ..

How the Indian telecom industry is leading the world ..

The Voice and Data Revolution in India, leading the world

When Mukesh Ambani decided to introduce Reliance Jio telecom in the country, the already flooded telecom Industry was in for a major change for the better. Indian telecom has since evolved and is at its very best now. Indians have leapfrogged over the rest of the world in telecom revolution .. Almost all of the major telecom players in the country are giving voice calls across the country totally free and charging only for data, with monthly free voice and 1 GB/day data packages going for as low as $2.5 a month ...

A typical home in Bangalore would have from 2-5 GB of data transfer capability at speeds of between 5-10 Mbps. And in addition Indians, in a truly independent India, also get to use free versions of Internet telephony apps like whatsapp, FB, Duo, Skype etc for audio and video calls (unlike in the Middle East where usage of such Internet telephony sites are banned for security or other reasons..) !! The telecom industry has been evolving innovatively for the benefit of the common man adding value in more ways than one. 

A farmer using mobile phone  .. courtesy rediff.com

As  already mentioned while voice communication across the country is freely offered by all major telecom players, data communication costs just Rs 5/- per GB of 4G (approx 8 cents) .. Is it possible to get such a unique combination of voice and data at such dirt cheao rates and best technology anywhere in the world ? These fast and rapid developments over the past one and a half years since the introduction of Reliance Jio telecom brings more apprehensions, raises more doubts and questions than answers .. The earlier telecom players had invested heavily in getting telecom licenses from Govt of India in the public auctions and were in a haste to recover their investments in bandwidth. But the rapid pace at which Internet telephony was developing across the world toppled the applecart for these major global telecom players. and it is feared the global telecom scene will still evolve for many more years and make high speed Internet based telephony cheap and affordable across the world.

A few questions of what these development will bring to India and how it can help transform India ..

1. What does this mean for the Indian common man ?
2. What percentage of Indians have access to this telecom / Data revolution ?
3. How is this paving the way for the revolution in communication happening across the world ?
4. How is it that Indians have leapfrogged over the rest of the world in offering free telecom services across the country whereas in the rest of the world, terrestrial telecommunication is still charged and costly too ?
5. What does it hold for the future of India ?
6. How is this going to affect India's future growth ?
7. How will this impact telecom growth in other parts of the world ?
8. Will the overriding influence of the private sector in Indian telecom growth be a lesson for the rest of the world

I wish to come up with answers to these questions and see that the rapid telecom development in India does not actually cripple us while on the other hand, it helps us to surge ahead and ensure uniform technological, social, economic growth and development across the nation and the world.

George Easaw