The World is Indeed Flat..

The World is Flat ... - Thomas Friedman, Penguin Books, 2006

Thomas Friedman

This is the title of a fantastic book which I happened to read some days back while undergoing ayurvedic treatment at Sahyadri Ayurvedic Hospital at Pothupara near to MBC CET . As the title suggests, it talks of how the world has got flat ( a term coined after the author Friedman's interview with Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys) with the globalisation of the past ten fifteen years.

Thomas Friedman of the NY Times, has illustrated with great clarity and understanding with lot of cases of how the different companies in different countries are collaborating with each other in today's world and benefiting out of the process financially, socially ( offering employment and an upward shift in the standard of living of the middle class in the developing and the new age economies of China and India).

The breaking down of the Berlin Wall, the release of the WWW browser Mosaic from NCSA and Netscape Navigator by Mark Andresseen, the open source / free software revolution, with the example of how the Apache web server (which runs on seventy percent of web servers in the world) was developed, how Bill Gates though clandestinely from the Macintosh machine popularised the windows GUI, the outsourcing, off shoring etc happening in the world have been some of the ten flatteners of the world. ( as illustrated in the book)

He also talks of how people are striving in the developed countries to remain untouchables ( in the modern digital world, if your work cannot be digitised you are an untouchable..!!) eg. dentists, journalists, doctors, drivers, sweepers and so on. Accountants, software engineers, design engineers (excepting the site engineers), radiologists are the touchables !!

,The book is aptly titled " The history of the globalised world of the twenty first century." - dealing with contemporary political, social and economic issues of the developing and developed world..

A must read for everybody wishing to be upward mobile in this globalised world and to have an impartial view of the merits and demerits of globalisation. Even Joseph Steglitz' book on globalisation does not give such a "developed, developing and less developed world" positive perspective of globalisation.

The discussion of the Walmart and Dell supply chains in the book was very interesting !!

george..

Who says a Celeron 466 is obsolete ?

Just two days back I got my Celeron 466 motherboard problem solved after getting it repaired from Mumbai through a computer hardware geek in Ponda, Gireesh Nabhar, 9822480710. Damages to my pocket was Rs. 1.2 K.

The windooze partition is retrieved and the Redhat 8 Linux partition too is working fine.

Last night I got a D-Link network interface card (rs 400/-) installed through Gireesh, it was working fine on Windooze. Later on I tried configuring BSNL Broadband on Redhat 8.0. While booting itself it configured the network card and asked whether I want to set up networking and asked the IP address of the machine, netmask, Primary DNS and lo.. , after booting when I clicked on Mozilla, it went perfectly to google.com !!

Look how easy was the configuration of Broadband on Redhat 8. Earlier I had a tough time configuring my Suse 10 for boradband.

Thanks to Edgar, Diabolic Preacher and Vidhyadhar Gadgil of Ilug-Goa for their postings and help!!

george..

Trek to Tambdi Surla waterfalls .. 29 July 06.

This is a brief report of the trek of the Nature Club of GEC to Tambdi Surla on 29 July 06.

Are you aware that there is a beautiful waterfall near to Tambdi Surla ?

It was 29 th of July, 2006. Nature Club of Goa Engg College decided to make it to Tambdi Surla this time. Trekking to the nearest waterfall which is at it's best during the monsoon.

The group of 40 nature lovers, Dutta on the wheels, were off at 8.30 am from GEC. On the way at the Farmagudi and Ponda new bus stand we collected more nature lovers. Aditya and gang, the organisers of the trek also got the food from mausi. The ex-BEs about 10 in number added lot of charm to the trek. Total 65 !

When we reached Tambdi Surla at 10.30 am, we made a quick visit to the temple, completed the formalities of ringing etc and came out. There was an arrow on the main road which pointed the way. One of the locals helped us by getting us to the first nallah. He bade bye and we were left to ourselves to find the way to the falls and back ! Oops !!.

The arrows marked in white paint by an earlier trekking group gave us the confidence to go ahead. The climb was a not so steep one, with enough of exictement on the way, LEECHES !! Clinging to the legs, pants, shoes, slippers etc.. Thank God it did not climb higher !

We could hear the roar of the waterfall from a distance but we could never see the majesty of it's fall till we got near. We saw some birds on the way. Being the monsoon, everything waas quiet, except for water dripping from the leaves of the trees. The famed British nature photographer Ray Wilson has setup this site. This link may give some idea to what this place is like in summer. http://www.raywilsonbirdphotography.co.uk/Foreign%20Trips/Goa/Goa10.html

At 12 noon we were truly taken aback to see one of the best sights in our lives, the water descending with foam and spray on the rocks and forcing it's way through the rocks downhill. The wind was very strong near the falls, the spray of water got us drenched. There was no stopping the boys and girls. All got into the water, a little far from the base. Spent almost an hour and a half at the base. Some were taking snaps, but one common pasttime for everyone, was fooling around the place !

It was getting to be 2 PM and hunger set in. Seeing that it was not safe to let anyone be alone near the falls, we climbed back to a safe place. With the waterfalls as company under the drenching rain, all of us had lunch of pulav and chana curry. Mausi gives good and neat food everytime. Very tasty too.

It was time to say bye and we did not want to enter the water again. By 2.30 we started the descent. Quietly we started walking. By 3.30 all had reached got bacl to the base, Tambdi Surla temple. One more visit to the temple and some snaps later we were all seated in the bus. The bus started slowly and inched it's way through the forests before it came to Dharbandora, Tiska, Khandepar and Ponda. The leeches which were caught inside the bus clinging to the bodies gave us enough company on the return journey.

At the bus stand lot many of us trekkers got down to go to Pamjim and margao and the rest in the college.

Each trek is getting better than the earlier ones, one thing we can say for sure is that Goa has many many beautiful places we need to see. The Tambdi Surla waterfalls was a gorgeous sight which we shall remember all our lives. The sheer force of the water falling on the rocks, the spray and sound it created was terrific.

An experience which I would like to relive again ! Hope so with everybody else !

Thanks to all ex-BEs and our present engico friends, you made this trek, the first of the acad year 2006-07, a success.

Long live GEC Nature Club and long live the Engico spirit !

Georeg Easaw, a nature fan !

Shifting to Kuttikanam, Peermade, Idukki, Kerala ..

Eventhough I wanted to make some postings the past couple of weeks, it did not happen. The reason was our family has shifted to Kerala. I thought I was moving in a no-internet country, Kuttikanam.but it is not so .. Kuttikanam, Idukki is not a totally no-internet land. View this link for lots of info ..

http://www.govantravelsindia.com/tours/peermade.asp

Peermade, the final resting place of the Sufi hermit Peer Mohammed who came to this place with the Moplah traders centuries back, is the best hill station of Kerala after Munnar which is just a hundred kms away. Peermade was earlier the summer retreat of the Maharaja of Travancore.

It is the new place which I am going to after a couple of months. Going to live in royal opulence !!

Known for it's excellent educational facilities, Kuttikanam has the Marian College offering MBA. MCA and other allied courses. It is a very reputed institute run by Roman Catholic priests. The state govt run Institue of Human Resources Development, IHRD has a number of computer courses to offer. The state govt syllabus Mariagiri high school and the St Pius X ICSE school with 11 and 12 th stds are run by Roman Catholic sisters. The Mar Baselios College of Engg at Kuttikanam, (Pothuppara to be exact.., 5 kms from Kuttikanam), in a sprawling 77 acre campus in the midst of tea gardens, is an engg college which has come up in the self financed sector and five years old run by the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. It is the only fully residential engg college in the state of Kerala, with three big hostels for the students and the only one to offer faculty accomodation. Presently only govt engg colleges offer this facility in the state.

There are five branches of engg there, ETC, Comp, Applied Electronics and Instrumentation, Electrical and Electronics and Mechanical Engg with a total intake of almost 1000 students.. I am joining there as Professor in Mechanical Engineering by end September '06. The present HOD Mechanical and Principal is Prof E V Mathew, retired Professor from TKM Engg College, Quilon.

Anila is very thrilled to be near to her hometown of Kottayam. Me too. It is indeed a great feeling to be back in the land where your forefathers have breathed and walked, to be back in the land where your childhood days bring fond memories of jackfruit, mangoes, tender coconuts, walking between rubber trees, cashew nut trees etc..

Jobin has joined 9 th std and Chinnu in the 2 nd std in St. Pius ICSE School situated at the Kuttikanam junction. Chinnu has to learn Hindi and Malayalam , while Jobin does not have to study Malayalam. The syllabus is a bit tough, and the kids are okay to it. Anila and kids are presently staying in the campus in B3 quarters.

Kuttikanam is a cool place. Anila loves this place very much. We need to be careful about leeches which are plenty in this area. They silently take away blood from your body and neutralise that chemical in the blood which promotes blood clotting. The result is that for a few minutes you will suffer loss of a smal quantity of blood. A bloody socks, inside of shoes etc can result.

The nearest town is Elappara 4 kms towards Kattapana and Pambanar 8 kms towards Kumily. There is a good mix of Tamil cuisine, culture and language in this area. Peermade town, 4 kms away towards Kumily, has a small govt dispensary, the only medical facility nearby. That could be a negative point. But the other side of life in Kuttikanam is that one can never fall ill. The place is such healthy !! Elappara has a branch of SBT. The ATM of this bank is in Kuttikanam and that is a great blessing !!! Anybody going to Thekkady, the elephant reserve from Kottayam has to pass through Kuttikanam.

Munnar, the world famous hill resort is just one hundred kms away, lying north of Kuttikanam. Kuttikanam is also 1000 m above sea level. The nearest important town with shopping facility is Mundakkayam in Kottayam. One can go to Ernakulam vis Kanjirapally, Pala, Mulanthuruthy and Piravom, it takes approximately four and a half hours to reach Ernakulam from Kuttikanam. Travelling through this route is so lovely , especially during rains. The roads are lined with ruber trees on both sides for almost three quarters of the journey. No wonder this part of Kerala is the largest producer of rubber in Kerala and the people are equally hardworking.

Transport is one thing one need not worry at Kuttikanam as there are buses plying through the picturesque mountains to Kottayam and Changanassery every fifteen minutes along this route. Buses come from Kattapana or Kumily. St Josephs Engg College at Pala and Amal Jyoti Engg college at Kanjirapally are the other two reputed Engineering colleges run by Catholic priests in this area.

Kuttikanam has a gracious cover of mist in the mornings.

In a lot of ways Goa and Kuttikanam are similar. The only differing point is in the temperature. There is greenery everywhere in Goa just like in Kuttikanam. While summers are hot in Goa it is very pleasant in Kuttikanam. I will continue in Goa for another two months before packing off to Kuttikanam.

The place is very healthy, with no pollution at all, no dust and allergy free !!

There is cable TV beaming almost 30 channels. The BSNL telephone link is quite weak, but it is compensated by a very strong presence of Airtel (GSM ) and Reliance (CDMA). We have an Airtel connection at home 0999-500-5945.

We hope the stay there to be pleasant and trouble free.

So till my next post, Bye,
George..

Apollo Hospitals in a soup over Rahul Mahajan !!

Apollo Hospitals Delhi has got themselves caught in a worst
case of destroying critical evidence and colluding with
influential persons to hush up a drug abuse case involving
sons of political figures.

In what was televised to the whole nation, it was very
clearly evident how doctors from Apollo hospital Delhi
tried to hush up drug allegations in the case of Rahul
Mahajan and Vivek Moitra and how in the ensuing days they
admitted how their analysis was partial and never looked at
the drug abuse angle and so on.

What is frightening is the prospect of NDPS act (Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act) being
slammed against the doctors and Apollo Hospital on grounds
of trying to delete evidence of drug abuse in the case
which could bring imprisonment of upto 20 years for Pratap
Reddy and his team of so called expert doctors.

This could be a good 'warning' for the many private
hospitals which have come up across the country in the name
of providing medical health to the people and working for
fattening the purses of doctors and industrialists most of
whom have paid lakhs in capitation fees to get their
medical education financed.

It is painful to note how these commercial minded
capitation fee doctors have brought such disrepute and
violated the Hippocrates oath (some of them may never know
what it means !!) in their urge to quickly recover the
capital invested in their medical education and to exploit
further on.

george..

VS Achuthananthan works for the indigenous people .. Good !!

The actions of the Kerala CM to give title deeds to the
original owners of the land, the tribals in Wayanad and to
withdraw the cases charged aganst them by the police,
except in the Muttanga case involving deaths of a tribal
and a policeman, is indeed a welcome step.

The Kerala govt has shown that a society cannot develop by
suppressing some sections, the weak and iliterate original
owners of the land, the tribals. They have equal rights to
their homeland and livelihood like we educated have to
ours, which has been grabbed from them!

The Kerala govt has taught the whiteman the much needed
lesson, if only he is willing to listen !. When the white
man colonized North America, South Africa and Australia,
New Zealand, India etc.., he was fighting the natives with
advanced weapons. Some of the peoples of these lands like
from India fought back and drove out the white men, but
others had to accept defeat and move inward.

World history is replete with such incidents.

By immigrating en masse to these lands, eventhough it
brings us temporary prosperity and affluence to flaunt
around and an air of intellectual suepriority to boast of,
we Indians are giving a helping hand to these colonizers to
suppress the original owners of the land and continue their
vice like grip on the poor natives who are crying to get
back their homeland and livelihood..

Lt us be more sensible .. either stop immigrating or stop
reading such mails which are painful, the prick of the
conscience is too hard to bear !!

http://www.hindu.com/2006/06/13/stories/2006061312690100.htm

Sakhave, we are behind you ..

We are supporting your move to empower the original owners
of the land !!

george..

Prof G Raghuram, IIMA on the Jumbo that can tango ..

Here is a writing from Prof Raghuram, IIMA, of May 2006.
Take some time off to go thru the text.

Reduced wagonturnaround time from seven to five days, improved train
loading from 3200 tonnes to 4000 tonnes, permitting private
players to run container services, allowing 24 hour loading
unloading of wagons, increasing number of coaches,
occupancy and speed, reducing catering expenses and parcel
losses are some of the steps taken by him to boost the
bottomline of IR.

Improved signals, optimum utilisation of tracks, moving
signals from tracks to locomotives, safety, optimal port freight
handling and information processing enabling fast decision
making are some of the areas where attention is being
focused. That is why GE is abegging at the doors of IR for
a slice of the pie of signalling.

http://www.dnaindia.com/sunreport.asp?Newsid=1031735

Reproducing the text ..

The great Indian Railway story: This jumbo can tango

Saturday, May 27, 2006  22:22 IST

G Raghuram

I have been observing the Indian Railways (IR) for over
three decades now, but the initiatives of the Railway
ministry in the past two years have been of particular
interest.

In 2001, this behemoth was on the verge of collapse.

The main problem was that the decision-making process at
the top management level was not in line with efficient
utilisation of costs. It resulted in insufficient returns
and financial productivity was extremely low.

But 2004 saw the dawn of a new set of initiatives, led by
Railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. Gradually, the
organisation’s operational and projected finances began to
look impressive, and I started studying the movements in
the IR closely.

It became apparent that Lalu’s initiatives were making a
difference. He started 24-hour loading-unloading of goods
wagons, legalised hitherto illegal ‘extra loading’ of
wagons, and introduced competitive bidding for movement of
goods in containers.

As the IR understood that demand will fluctuate according
to changes in price, it stopped taking its clientele for
granted and imbibed better customer orientation, especially
in its freight traffic services.

I feel that bringing in kulhads (earthen cups for tea) was
a populist move, which attracted more flak than
appreciation, but Lalu was not deterred. It illustrates
what defined the turnaround — determination to implement
despite criticism.

The biggest hurdle for the IR all these years was not the
lack of innovative ideas, but the lack of willingness to
implement them. When Lalu took over, he was in a political
hole.

The Railway ministry seemed like the last opportunity for
him to retain his popularity. Driven by a keen
understanding of the problems at the grassroots level, the
rustic leader was also a clear thinker, knew how to use his
political clout, and was motivated enough to take risks.

But the overall success cannot be credited to Lalu alone.
He was influenced by his team, and convinced by numerous
officers over a long period of time. But a special mention
needs to be made of officer on special duty to the Railway
minister, Sudhir Kumar (IAS).

Kumar had a sound understanding of the Railways’
operations. He recognised the minister’s ambitions and
translated them into opportunities by giving the minister
productive ideas.

Even today, the IR has more challenges than it can handle.
Given the rapidly changing environment, the IR needs to
learn to respond to change swiftly. I feel sustainability
is a question mark.

Safety is still the biggest challenge that the IR needs to
address. Optimisation of track utilisation is also
required. Signals could be moved from tracks to
locomotives.

The greatest opportunity for the IR today is ports. As much
as 25 per cent of the IR’s total traffic comes from ports,
and it should improve port connectivity by acquiring
advance information systems for handling port traffic, and
invite public-private partnership for key port areas.

The IR can function as an umbrella, promoting private stake
in appropriate areas. That’s the way to growth. It should
start niche services like luxury trains, which would be
good revenue generators. Speed being a requirement, the IR
needs to streamline traffic movement, and introduce
flyovers or a bypass when two tracks merge.

With an ambitious railway minister at the helm, and a slew
of bold initiatives, the mammoth has saved itself from
extinction, for now. But the giant needs to become nimble
to be able to sustain the turnaround.

(The writer is professor, public systems group, IIM,
Ahmedabad. He was a member of the Rakesh Mohan Experts’
Committee on Indian Railways, 2001.)

The news report that appeared in redif.com

http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/may/04iim.htm

george..