Play and donate

On FREE Rice you can donate rice by playing vocabulary quiz. I came to know about it from Sandesh's blog. It's an interesting initiative and the web page is very simple and effective.

It's a UN initiative to let people play vocabulary based quiz and for every correct answer 10 grains of rice are donated. Donations go to UN World Food Program .

It also informs that approximately 3.8 billion grains have been donated since its launch on 07-Oct. I donated too and would suggest others to spend 5 minutes out of a few hours of monitoring cricket scores on the net or while chatting with your friends.

Deviating a little from the main topic and looking at the two aspects of the
website.

Vocabulary:

I don't think such a quick quiz can improve one's vocabulary substantially. It
takes time for an individual to assimilate new words and such time does not exist in this case. But, it could still be used as a refreshment from busy schedule or to gauge your vocabulary levels. If you try taking away just 2 words a day then some lingual gains could be made as well.

Donation:

UN being the most respected organization when it comes to world development, I cannot challenge the effectiveness of this initiative. But, I have doubts about how much rice registered on the servers actually translates to real rice? And then we all know about the rest of the delivery chain and how much will reach the end! Going by the 3.8 billion figure, it translates into approximately 3,80,000 KG of rice, assuming 10 grains would weigh 1 gram. Per capita consumption of rice in Indian urban areas is around 4.7 Kg per month. Considering higher consumption in other countries, in less than 3 months this program should have donated rice to feed 70 to 80 thousand people for 1 month. I doubt so many people would have been freed from hunger. But it is worth spending a few minutes every day for a fraction of that.

So go ahead and spend a few minutes.

Kashmir. Behind the Vale - Book Review

Author: M J Akbar
Publications: Roli

You might have read and heard a lot about the Kashmir issue, so have I. But, I know most of us have formed opinions, views and images based upon what we were told or we heard. This book could help many a people who ever had any interest in knowing more about Kashmir.

M J Akbar takes you through centuries of history of Kashmir from the times of Kingdoms in early ADs to 1990. Yes, only till 1990! He shed’s light on all aspects of Kashmir from its kings to people, from religion to regions etc.

It makes for a good read if you have some kind of connection with the state of probably have visited it sometime.

Few lines from passage about how Islam came into existence in Kashmir - After a very unstable period of 12th century where the change of kings was more frequent than change in weather came a king in 13th century, popularly known as 'Bud Shah'. After stabilizing the state he wanted to change from Buddhism to Public's religion, which at that time was Hinduism. Since Hindu pandits could not decide which of the 4 castes the King should join he was not granted the permission to become a Hindu. He then decided to become a Muslim and he did. Over the next 50 years of his prosperous rule he did everything right a king should do. He built mosques and temples with equal devotion. But, then people followed him and so followed Islam in Kashmir.

How history is formed !

But, then one book on a subject as wide as that may not be enough.

Future of the forgotten redboxes

Indian postboxes are all set to get new and refreshing looks. Yes, the picture on the left is the future. Designed by IIT Mumbai this is how they will look like. I think it is an an ambitious project from department of post.

Now the question of-course is how important is it to change the looks of postboxes nationwide. Each postbox would cost around Rs 10,000 and approximately 3 lakh such boxes would be rolled out all over the next 3 years read more.

In my opinion it really was not so critical to change the looks but the existing postboxes were really old, dirty and if I ever had to drop a letter in the post box which, I do only when I fill some forms for entrance examinations, I always had a feeling - would this be ever picked up?

But if things go as planned then they would come into place on a BOT (build, operate & transfer) format. They would be used for advertising resulting into additional revenue stream and other benefits like rust free steel, common lock for all post boxes etc. would definitely reduce operational costs for India post which is a good step forward for the extincting behemoth.

But, who writes letters these days? Well many do but invisible to us living in urban areas who prefer typing over writing. But, how could the postal department revive its usage in the urban areas?

One suggestion from my side would be to insist all primary and secondary school teachers to insist their students to actually write letters to their parents, friends or teachers when they are taught letter writing in class 5th to 8th or so. Looking at the number of students in those classes in the urban areas definitely could make a good contribution to postal revenues.

Otherwise we would see kids collecting letters in addition to stamps as a hobby because they would be as rare as stamps itself and letters hung in museum with tag line "this is Indian letter".

Broken News

This Tuesday I was on Delhi airport for almost 8 hours waiting for my connecting flight, which fortunately was only 1 hour late.

Delhi airport being many times better than Bangalore airport, I got a seat easily in comparison to the struggle for standing space on Bangalore airport. The plasma TV in front was airing IBN7 (Hindi news channel from IBN and network 18) and here is a short extract from one of its breaking news.

My assumption that every alternate news is tagged as breaking news was proven incorrect as the red flash for breaking news never disappeared for the next 8 hours. Yes, every news was breaking news!

One of the news goes like this:

delhi hawai adde pe hua hungama

Indian airlines ki flight pe hua hungama

Flight 102D pe hua hungama

Already 5 minutes into the news there is no reason explained for the so-called "humgama". Each line of news flashing as a headline. The news report continues with red flashing light stating “BREAKING NEWS”.

yatri subah 5:30 se airport par

Flight ka samay 8 baje

yatriyon ne plane par chadne se kiya inkaar

Plane par 104 yatri sawar

Plane ki der se yatri naraz

These pieces of headlines flashed more than 5 times each. How much was the delay, what made the travelers unhappy etc. - no information. May be the news channel did not find such things important enough. This was followed by the next breaking news about some guy buried alive etc.

Now that being breaking news I think IBN7 will soon have brothers and sisters like IBN8, 9, 10 etc. because there are so many flights getting late everyday on so many airports in India, there would be surplus content.

This poor quality news is not unusual neither are people like me writing about it!

Sad part of the story is, "hindi' news channels are miles ahead of English news channels in this with STAR news and AAJ TAK miles ahead of their competition too. Hindi seems to have become a language only for 'masala' and 'gossip'. In fact growing number of Hindi news channels- there are already around 9 each having short slots for national news and rest all booked for such breaking news and about 4 English news cahnnels further emphasizes that there is definitely a lot of market demand for such content which is not a great news in itself.

People who may still want to watch news in Hindi would depart too as there is hardly any news and probably we would soon get to hear parents telling their kids "beta hindi news channel mat lagana, achhe bachhe aisa nahin karte".

Yahoo can do but Google cannot!

Nice post on digital inspiration which lists some of the the things Yahoo search can do but Google cannot.

Projecting performance.

Recently a friend of mine was unhappy with his appraisal as he thinks he deserved more because of good amount of hard work he had put in. Well that probably is a case with most of the employees these days especially in IT companies because of the inflating salaries causing huge expectations.

My suggestion to him was "it could be possible that your boss does not know how exactly you are putting in a lot of effort and you must focus not only on the effort but also on the visualization of that effort to the concerned person(boss)". This in other words means projecting the work done is as important as doing the work.

Here is one good example.

"The Taj Group of Hotels once faced a peculiar business problem. The mirror in the hotels’ bathrooms became misty after a hot shower and people invariably used a towel to wipe off the mist to see their face. So, Taj put a heat source behind the mirrors, which prevented the mist from forming. But when customers were asked what they felt about the change in the mirrors, they hadn’t even noticed it. Then Taj came up with the idea of putting the heat source only on a square portion of the mirrors, which showed the face of people. Mist was allowed to settle on the remaining parts of the mirror. The customers found this really innovative"

Found this example on agencyfaqs as a part of Harish Bijoor article. I think it is an excellent example of what is done may not be noticed as long as it is not planned accordingly. This stands equally true @ work as well.

It is not that your supervisor wants you to chase them all day to serve them in sycophancy but then you are not the only one whom he supervises and just as you don't know what all he does in those 9-12 hours he is at work, he may not know about you either. Though you not knowing enough about his efforts does not matter but vice versa will impact you. So keep this in mind when you go in for an appraisal next time.

Anyways no matter what your supervisor gives you, it will not be sufficient for long enough! isn't it ?

Movie insurance

How often does it happen that you start watching a movie and with in the first 15 minutes you realize that it would be a waste of time and stress on your brain? And what if that happens in case you went to watch a movie like that in a cinema hall paying more than Rs. 200 because you were mesmerized by the glitzy promotions.

I think cinema halls should have some kind of an insurance where if you walk out the theater within first 15 minutes then 50% to 75% of the ticket price would be returned.

Prohibited or not?

Looking at this I do not understand whether smoking is exactly prohibited or not inside a plane toilet. If smoking is prohibited then why an ashtray next to it. This to me is equivalent to someone saying - murder is a crime but in case you happen to do one please do not let the blood spill here and there. Clean the knife and floor.

I, We and Leadership

Since more often than not, I do not have much to do so I speak to people around me on leadership etc.

Often my argument is when leaders speak(exclusive of personal interviews) they should prefer to use 'we' over 'I' as much as possible. Because, though it is they who stand on the podium, it is they who will take big decisions, it is they who will sign the deals but to make people feel they are a part of the organisations, leaders must use 'we'.

Last sunday I was travelling from Bangalore to Guwahati. I had to change 2 flights. Would like to share an observation.

Kingfisher airlines. The inflight magazine contains an address from Mr. Vijay Mallya who is currently acting as the Chairman and Chief Executive for the airlines. In his address to the passengers he uses 'I' 4 times and 'we' 2 times.

Spicejet. The inflight magazine contains Mr. Siddhanta Sharma's Address to passengers. Mr. Sharma is the CEO for Spicejet. He uses 'we' 6 times and 'I' only once.

If you were given a choice to work in the team of one of the leaders above which one would you choose?(keeping apart the grand charisma and magnanimous reputation of Mr. Mallya).

Durga Pooja

Durga Pooja pictures and videos from Guwahati, Assam. Without the unnecessary chattering of news channels.
Videos are at the bottom(Video quality is not very good though).

Camera : Sont Cybershot DSC T10.