Decade Cycle

Last quarter of decade is one month old almost. How has been this decade: the 00 s. Started with Y2k unknown (predictions were enormous) nothing happened but helped india create a core competance. Dotcom bust was the main fallout of 00;s Bad start. Then 9/11 something which was never seen by anyone zoomed on to TV at homes. Then started afgan war, iraq war, anthrax scare, SARS, Bird flu calamities galore. Things went back to normal by 05. Then started outsourcing boom /manufacturing boom for india/china: a second wave again to fall flat with greatest recession, swine flu scare. Almost a wheel has turned a whole cycle....
whats in store for decade of 10...? Noone knows. Recovery is predicted... lets see...
For India, now our economy being connected globally, almost had same cycle economically. But to an extent our economy has fared well. Some basic fundamentals were correct.
But we had problems galore: Terrorism parlament attackes, 11/26, mumbai train blasts, various blasts in cities like delhi, ahmedabad, banaglore, so on.... Naxalism has grown rampant. Flood 26 july, bihar, famines, earthquakes, tsunami. some positive developments as well like chandrayaan, RTI, economical benefits to needy, Good network of roads. Political space marked demise of NDA and rise and rise of UPA.
Decade of Bollywood was marked by Star wars of khans with aamir doing out of box while shahrukh cannot break free of mould, Big B coming back and staying at top, Multiplex film phenomenon and some new faces tried to create out of formula succcesses. But economics got skewed and complex with many media options.
On cricket, we built a new team under ganguly for great achievements. Then all was lost by chappell with WC disaster. Rise and Rise of Dhoni, T20 and IPL.... But still we remain at 2nd or 3rd position.
In IT: after .com bust, model has to revamp around end to end solutions and cover BPO. Web 2.0 came in with social networking focus. net penetration in india, Mobile penetration in India reached scales. SaaS and Clouds will be rule breakers. ERP companies evolved onto those models. Consolidation happened in Industry. Recession impacted badly since 07. Indian story lost zing due to cost models getting offset by rising cost of people, real estate etc. So there was talk about value creation. H1b and outsourcing created bad publicity for india during US elections. Google was out and out winner through web ad models. Web is ever growing. Microsoft is still catching up after vista debacle. Open source predictions did not match the bullish trends.
Culture has changed drastically atleast here in india. new generations have taken over.. seems like our time ended last decade of 90s with toll of Y2k. Time for my daugther to take over.... No but her decade will start on 1st jan 2020. Vision twenty twenty.... So now all those born since 90 to take over.

election day

today is election day. there is a directive from govt to let all offices close and those who will not will suffer penal action. This is ridiculous. even 2 hr break is enough for voting. why a days off? its a loss of man hrs for private as well public institutions. this year they say because of this people will have no option to go to malls, theatres etc. people will stay indoors if they do not want to vote.
people have very less options. there are rebel candidates, 6-7 major parties with or without allinaces. idea is to chose lesser of evils....
we need to revamp the system. but we cannot shun voting. catch22 situation. what to do . i am as confused as anyone else....

whats wrong with Indian Team?

another major event, another buildup, another dissappointment.
Since that glorious june evening at lords in 83, i have really started my cricketultraloyalfanhood (a new word). Its been always the case of ending up disappointed : 87 thanks to gooch and some idiotic batting in semis, 92 was no hope, 96 due to turning eden gardens, 99 again no hope, 03 atleast in finals but a great innings from ponting, 07 was disasater. even in champion trophy thanks to dada's team, we went till finals twice but best we could do was to share. 04 and 06 we were out before semis.
With inaugural T20, i thought my curse has ended with a lucky, down to earth and dynamic leader in dhoni just like kapil. add to that were dream run from australia, srilanka, england, NZ, not to mention IPL. There were few blips likes tests in lanka and asia cup final where we were mesmerized by mendis. But we were on track.
Now after second t20 disasater, comes CT disappointment.
What can be reasons
1. Backup strength is negligible with sehwag, zaheer, yuvraj out.
2. Over reliance of SRT. (have just studied that SRT had a role in each of above victories since ICCT20 in 07 except maybe in lanka08)
3. inability to handle pressure
4. pathetic fielding
5. Inconsistent Bowling.
6. vague tactics (sending virat ahead of himself against pak. loss against pak hurts)
bowling weakness hurts us most. also we have seen IPL performances mean nothing for justifying selection. there is class apart.
i think we need to plan world cup11 carefully. no scheduling of meaning less matches so all team can be fit. bowling selection needs overhaul. put great work on fielding.
but still i am putting my fingers cross for WC11

Urgent Action for Future

Read somewhere that Monsoon patterns are changing and in next 15 years we wont have monsoons. Scary. One delayed month created so much of panic. time to really act now.
Politicians dont care anyways, but we should
Irrigation system to be reviewed and planning should be done based on 15-20% deficient successive years of rainfall
Rain water harvesting is must
pipeline wastage is about 30%. that should be priority to save this asap.
Ground water survey should be done and data to be handy for contigency plans
also read about an effective desalination process cost 5 ps or less /litre.
agriclutural innovation for crops as done by israel in arid zones.

if we dont do this what are we going to handover to new generation?

gautam

Soil Sport

I had an opportunity to connect with soil. Never in my life which spans more than three decades, I had this opportunity to be connected to soil. I had lived for four years at semi rural town but there we were cocooned in a campus which was modern. I had gone to various treks in western ghats or himalayas , visited villages , understood people and lives but had never been connected to soil.
Here i had a chance to be a farmer. we planted potatoes. I ran a plough ('hal') on bullock pairs. we picked tomoatoes, rajma, coriandar, banana fields. we had special farm food. took tractor ride. later we played kabbadi on ploughed fields with locals.
It was fun and i really felt connected with soil.
Its some different experience. I recommend surely.

We did it

last weekend , our table donated money to Nerlekar school. nerlekar school is located behind NDA at a remote place. Started by one man with vision from personal funds in 1985 in a cowshed, it now hosts around 600 children from around 10 remote villages. Hardships were enormous, local resistance to send the kids, local politics and corruption etc. still school has done wonderful job.
i visited school in 06 when i was going for monsoon drive on a sunday. based on that motivation to help school i joined round table india. Its been a great experience on personal as well as social side. Finally after a good years work on fundraising, coordination etc we managed to help this cause. Hope this is just a start...

Power of 9

9-9-09, fancy date is approaching. China had fancy of 8, so they launched Olympics at 8:08 pm on 8-8-08. For me its 9 which fascinate me somehow. I dont believe in Numerology (with that my lucky sign should be 6th being born on that date).
9 has various meanings for me: 1 short of best. 10/10. Our CPA was based on scale of 10. we judge many things on this scale. 10/10 is superhuman or lucky (with divine intervention). That last mark lost is reality of human limitation. I feel its the best we get. Even top rankers in IIT are called 9 pointers. Its human to err. Idea is to minimize error and that has a limit. anything above is matter of chance or superhuman accuracy. sometimes in maths i used to get cent percent as maths is only objective subject rest all subjects have subjectivity. Does that mean if things are objective then you can score 100% in life. whenever there is subjectivity we are bound to lose atleast a mark? another philosophical question but yes very relevant. so in scheme of things which are to be judged subjectively (so is life a matter of subjective judgement) perfect 10 is impossible. Even perfect characters have blemishes: be it mythalogical or historical. No one can be 100% perfect. people do get close to perfection with tremendous hard work. But one has to be realistic about limit of 9 or you can call curse of 9 for all.
Leave aside philosophical value of 9, i have sentimental factor attached to every yer ending with 9. it marked paradigm shift in 89, it marked a complete status change professionally and personally in 99, what does 2009 has done, will it stand to test will be known in these few months starting with 9th month. my father celebrated landmark b'day in 09. he got married in 69, I did a feat in 79 (childrens year) which was noted by A B Vajpayee who was foreign minister in Janata govt .
Wish you a very happy 9-9-09. a near perfect date.

Valley Of Flowers

Rains are now paving way for October heat. This is the best time to wander around hills near Pune. few sundays back we had inspiration and straightaway headed towards a destination very popularly known as maharshtra's valley of flowers. This Place is called Kas near satara. around 125km from Pune. My family shares my wanderlust so they jumped onto it. We had an inauspicious start with one of my tyres having six punctures. Thanks to tubeless technology we did not have to dirty our hands. Its been ages since i am hands on in every sense. I only manage... just joking as still i do prefer doing things hands on professionally. sorry for deviating.
it was sunny morning , but as we crossed shirval, it started raining and we could see clouds hanging around hills on the west. we knew we were destined for a monsoon drive...
after doing a bit search around for way in satara city, we reached the famous tunnel leading to sajjangad. we took right to the road climbing the hill . after turns and twists, we saw the greandeur of kas plateu. Its a flat hilltop plateau not very wide. On both sides you have valleys with big lakes. The weather was great with drizzle and clouds. Gentle but cool breeze to refresh. The flowers have just started blooming of various colors. we just lazed around. what more you need in life with such weather, great location, loved ones around, good music, good food packed, ....
we then started drive towrds kas lake. the road is great with thick forest, winding turns, ups and downs, small villages. We started climbing and entering thick fog. At one point it was almost zero visibility. There were very few vehicles operating with full lights on upper. We reached lake amidst fog. we could only see 6ft water ahead. and then suddenly it all changed. within 2 mins the entire clouds evaporated (if i can use this word). and we could see lovely landscape, lake, forests all around and few other people also enjoying this show. We then drove to bamnoli on koyna backwaters . the road is amidst thick jungle and turns scary at a point. But wonderful. weather added to the moment.
we returned back after enjoying numerous stream, waterfalls aside the road. we had lunch at satara (guy took almost hr to prepare very good food).
Suddenly we had a brainwave to go to mahabaleshwar as we were out of stock of honey we use daily. They a call from mahabaleshwar never can be avoided. we followed satara mahabaleshwar route. its another great journey. ghat is very winding and narrow at some point. thankfully road is good. (only problem with stray dogs, hens, cows to be avoided).
Mahabi was great as usual with rains. its rains something there. crowd was sparse thanks to swine flu.
after refreshments and shopping at Mapro we reached back by twilight. one highlight or return journey was a semicircluar rainbow we saw. i have never seen such panorama before. as we left rainy satara district and entered sunny pune, we saw this. the colors the range , the size etc and the backdrop was awesome...
hopefully you will like my first and maybe last attempt to pen travellogue. I myself find it bit cliche but when i comeup with original i will attempt again. They say picture says thousand words in prose. i have attempted prose. but i am against sharing snaps on open forums. so if you want to see snaps to comment, i can send you link. they are great snaps esp the rainbow one.