Why should we ban ‘live’ reporting of anti-terrorist & Hostage rescue missions ?

“Several foreign nationals are trapped in the Taj Hotel Mahal”
“The top management of a multinational corporation was meeting…”
“Terrorists are suspected to be on the 9th floor…”
“NSG troops are about to have arrived in Mumbai…”
“NSG commandos have entered the Hotel…”

Some of the information telecast live by all news channels on terror attack on Bombay last few days.

News channels have an objective—to fetch the latest news and share them with viewers, much before a competitor channel does that. But I feel this habit of indiscriminate live reporting, while a combat operation is in progress, can be catastrophic for the success of the military operations against terror.

Let us just think for a while. Do we really need to know everything on a ‘as soon as it happens’ basis? I feel not. Whether NSG commandos have just arrived at airport, or have entered the hotel or are on the first floor or second at this moment, is not necessary to be revealed to the general public on a realtime basis.

Showing such news live, will be immensely useful only to terrorists and their supporters outside.
Consider this. The commandos only know that the militants are somewhere inside the hotel, but the militants know everything about the movements and positions of their pursuers through TV.
Like:

# Who is on their trail (Army/ NSG/ local police, etc)
# What is their ETA (estimated time of arrival), which tells them, how much time they have before a gun battle would begin)
# Where they are right now, at the main entrance/ just entered their floor
# How is the world responding? Is there pressure mounting on the government to succumb to the demands of terrorists to get the hostages freed (so that they can act tough during negotiation)?
# How many of their friends are alive or dead (so that they can assess their strength)?
# What has been the impact of their strike-how many police and civilian dead, the current morale of police, who all as been detained/suspected?
# Live visuals of the street-to assess a possible escape strategy
# What information about them the outside world has (which floor they are in, their head count etc. And much more…

In my view, all this information, while useful to viewers and relatives of victims, also helps the terrorists/ militants to consolidate their position and pose a greater challenge to commandos trying to hunt them down and/ or rescue the hostages.

Why is our media helping them by airing live all the sensitive information about the anti terror operations?

The common man does not need to know them on a live basis.

Can’t the information & broadcasting ministry think of banning live reporting during a hostage crisis? Let the channels air the news with a delay of few hours, so that the police and security agencies will have a lead time of few hours, wherein terrorists would be as equally uninformed as they are.

Please note that I am not advocating censorship. I am all for free speech and expression. What I am proposing, is that security agencies should have the power to impose a delay of say three to six hours w.r.t live reporting of anti terror operations.

Let the TV channels record whatever they want, but they should be aired only after a gap of few hours. I do not think anyone loses anything with this.

The movie A Wednesday also shares same opinion. I feel the good old days of oncein a day news bulletin was far better.

What do you think?

(This post is dedicated to all the brave police officials and innocent civilians who lost their lives in yesterday’s terror attack in Bombay)

Union Home minister Shivraj patil resigns - Breaking news

Breaking News! Under fire from several quarters for his "inability" to prevent the rising terror attacks in India, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil resigned, owning moral responsibility for the loss of lives and properties in Mumbai due to the recent terror attacks. The terror attack in Mumbai was the immediate cause for his resignation.

Shivraj Patil's own partymen from Congress and other UPA partners were gunning for his head. The BJP, Left and other political parties have been demanding for Shivraj Patil's resignation for a long time. The UPA government did not want to take any chance over Shivraj Patil in the wake of rising anger and emotion in the public after the terror attacks in Mumbai. Pranab Mukherjee is tipped to be the next Home Minister of India.

Where is thackery now ?? after mumbai mayhem, Raj and his pseudo feelings

Raj and his pseudo feelings. Where is Raj Thackeray & his ‘brave’ sena? Forget about he supporting the country, he didn’t even come to save his own state/city. Over 200 NSG from all parts of the country including Bihar and no Marathi Manoos, have been fighting to take terrorists out of Mumbai. Isn’t it ironic that when we required him and his ’sena’ the most, he was no where to be seen? Hitting on gullible poor Indians, this is the true face of his politics. Use ’solvable’ NON-issues to politicize his career.

Poor Raj

Where is his face now in the midst of all the chaos the mumbai has been under the last 4 days ?? What will he say now?? when the National Security Guard (NSG) with all its commandos came in to rescue the Hotels. They hardly cared about their lives as they fought not just for their countrymen but also for the foreigners saving the country some pride from this adverse situation...

Now it seems hez blaming the NCP Govt. for sending the Mumbaikar - Kakre, vijay and all for sending them to rescue foreigners from the Islamist terrorists The article in zeenews

How easily would his ’sena’ would come and bash people for buying greeting cards on Valentine’s day, his men would bash outsiders for ‘working’ in Maharashtra and now when his own people were brutally murdered, he has no qualms and watches TV in the comfort of his luxury home.

Now as i wrote this article im hearing the news about the resignation of the home minister Shivraj Patil facing the intelligence lapse in mumbai. I seriously think that its time the UPA led govt. had to tighten its belt to curb the violence and peaking violence reaching newer highs everytime it strikes.

Wonderful story...read till the end (Kindly dont avoid)

An wonderful story i got through the chain of mails... I think we all have something to learn form this....

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

Monica married Hitesh this day. At the end of the wedding party,

Monica's mother gave her a newly opened bank saving passbook.

With Rs.1000 deposit amount.

Mother: 'Monica, take this passbook. Keep it as a record of your marriage

life. When there's something happy and memorable happened in your new

life, put some money in. Write down what it's about next to the line. The

more memorable the event is, the more money you can put in. I've done the

first one for you today. Do the others with Hitesh.When you look back

after years, you can know how much happiness you've had.'

Monica shared this with Hitesh when getting home. They both thought it

was a great idea and were anxious to know when the second deposit can be

made.

This was what they did after certain time:

- 7 Feb: Rs.100, first birthday celebration for Hitesh after marriage

- 1 Mar: Rs.300, salary raise for Monica

- 20 Mar: Rs.200, vacation trip to Bali

- 15 Apr: Rs.2000, Monica got pregnant

- 1 Jun: Rs.1000, Hitesh got promoted

..... and so on...

However, after years, they started fighting and arguing for trivial

things.They didn't talk much. They regretted that they had married the

most nasty people in the world.... no more love...Kind of typical

nowadays, huh?

One day Monica talked to her Mother:

'Mom, we can't stand it anymore. We agree to divorce. I can't imagine how

I decided to marry this guy!!!'

Mother: 'Sure, girl, that's no big deal. Just do whatever you want if you

really can't stand it. But before that, do one thing first. Remember the

saving passbook I gave you on your wedding day? Take out all money and

spend it first. You shouldn't keep any record of such a poor marriage.'

Monica thought it was true. So she went to the bank, waiting at the queue

and planning to cancel the account.

While she was waiting, she took a look at the passbook record. She looked,

and looked, and looked. Then the memory of all the previous joy and

happiness just came up her mind. Her eyes were then filled with tears. She

left and went home.

When she was home, she handed the passbook to Hitesh, asked him to spend

the money before getting divorce.

The next day, Hitesh gave the passbook back to Monica. She found a new

deposit of Rs.5000. And a line next to the record: 'This is the day I

notice how much I've loved you thru out all these years. How much happiness

you've brought me.'

They hugged and cried, putting the passbook back to the safe.

Do you know how much money they had saved when they retired? I did not

ask.I believe the money did not matter any more after they had gone thru

all the good years in their life.

"When you fall, in any way,

Don't see the place where you fell, Instead see the place from where you

slipped.

Life is about correcting mistakes!"

Taare Zameen Par DVD: A treat for film fans

One of the most important things about acting is that you should not act." Advice, among the very first in Aamir Khan's first lecture to the 60 or so children of The New Era High School (the boarding school in Panchgani) who gave up their winter break to appear in Taare Zameen Par (2007). I'd been looking forward to the Taare Zameen Par DVD set because after the Lagaan DVD set (which I absolutely loved, as discussed here), it was the second collector's edition offering by the actor/singer/director/producer. The T-Series release (notes here) is all that's available and only in India -- a friend was kind to send it my way (there's more on the DVD format/release below). And was it worth looking forward to or what?!

The case is shaped like a textbook. Its durability in the long term warrants some concern, but that's minor when its contents are considered. This is how the discs are packaged:

A booklet introduces the characters. Full marks to whoever designed the cover for reminding us of our notebooks and how we were required to present them. It's very nicely presented from the inside too, here (right) is a sample page (click on image to enlarge):

There's Ishaan's flipbook, which I'll stay away from for fear of playing spoiler to those who haven't yet seen the film. And this is perhaps the only still image of the Taare Zameen Par pencil on the internet, which could mean one of two things: 1) Bollywood-themed pencils just aren't very popular; or 2) I need to get a life :o)

There are replicas of two beautiful paintings (I'd estimate they're about 8.25 x 10.5 in) by 'eminent watercolourist Samir Mondal made especially for the film'. If you've seen the film, you know how beautifully they were used. (If you are a fan of paintings, samirmondal.com has some fine examples of the artist's work.) Here's a sample:

Disc 1: The film, and director's commentary

The commentary lasts the length of the film, and is in English! Aamir makes it clear at the outset it has to do not with describing the scenes, but in sharing the challenges faced in the filmmaking process -- what they liked, what they disliked and edited out, and what they disliked but kept (and why). It's a gift for fans of film -- and it's amazing to learn even bits of the detail that went into every little shot. To learn that the background score was often played live by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy on the sets. Or that Aamir sought help from the Maharashtra Dyslexia Association throughout the project. Or that it took eight evenings to shoot a five minute long sequence in twilight. Or that the song Kholo Kholo Darwaaze was almost edited out (no!). Or that the final scene had over 1200 children. There are countless such examples. There is even an interesting story behind Darsheel Safary (Ishaan Awasthi), Sheru and Johnny!

What was great about the commentary was that there was no hesitation to identify flaws and accept mistakes. It's not the typical fluff we find elsewhere. Think of Aamir's criticism as almost a lessons learned session for him and his crew, and an eye-opener for some of us who know very little (if anything) about filmmaking. The commentary also includes references to his past works and what he learned from them that he incorporated in his work ethic as director, which is a real treat if you've seen the films he mentions.

Aside: About the only thing he did not discuss were the posters/pictures of two sports icons -- Sachin Tendulkar and Roger Federer -- in the kids' room (click the image to enlarge). If you've been reading his blog, you'll know he has dedicated posts to each of his favorites (on Sachin, on Federer)! Should have been brought up :o)

Disc 2: Making, Deleted Scenes, Panel Discussion, Stills, Trailers

a. The making is fascinating. You can watch it (at these links: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3) thanks to fellow Aamirian SkorpionChik! It was amusing to hear Lalitha Lajmi (Guru Dutt's sister, her role in the film mentioned in this post) say, "I became like a teenager when I saw him."

They didn't mention this in the making, but this sequence, not related to the film, was hilarious. I'd bet the dance steps by Tanay Chheda (right, he played Rajan Damodaran) here are adapted from Rangeela (1996). Hilarious!

This bit reminded me of Aamir in the song Hosh Waalon Ko Khabar Kya in Sarfarosh (1999 -- reviewed here) and Mangal Pandey (2005 -- reviewed here).

Just like they did with the Lagaan DVD, they have footage here from the narration of the script. Here are Aamir and his wife Kiran responding to "Tom and Jerry ka baap kaun?"

b. The seven deleted scenes are a treat too. Hosted by Aamir (sporting his Ghajini look this time, complete with the haircut and following the workout routine for the film). Much better than the deleted scenes in Lagaan, I'll admit. Some of them were rather short (even less than a minute long), enough to question them being edited out. There was even a scene with a qawwali! This is also where the original title of the film is shared -- it was to be in English, and had nothing to do with 'stars'. If you cannot wait to know, I wouldn't mind giving it away.

c. The stills gallery was a welcome surprise. It has scores of images from the sets, with some really good captions (reminded me of Bollyviewer!). Sample this:

d. Aamir moderates a discussion (in Hindi/Urdu) on dyslexia, its symptoms, approaches to combating it, where to go for help, and some generic parenting advice, with a panel comprising: Medha Lotlekar, Educator; Vrajesh Udani, Child Neurologist; Masarrat Khan, leader of the Maharashtra Dyslexia Association; and Dr. Harish Shetty, Clinical Psychologist. The discussion is much more direct in raising awareness of dyslexia and other conditions. It is very welcome (especially for teachers and parents in India -- the issues aren't often discussed head-on), because it is the source of inspiration for the film. The best advice for parents might just be to encourage children to foster a culture of inclusion, and to not be disillusioned by the stress of competition -- move forward, but take others along.

It is here that Aamir shares his views on the ineptitude of academia in India to deal with learning disabilities. Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and their differences, are discussed in fair detail. So are autism, down syndrome, and other mental challenges. And it is here that the film's tagline -- Every Child is Special -- is applied using even more real medical and academic frameworks.


Disc 3: Background Score
As noted in this post, I'd written to Aamir the day after I saw the film, requesting a background score release. Maybe several thousand did, or maybe it was intended all along. Whatever the case, it's great that they released it, because the score is brilliant, and carries a narrative of its own. In that, it is to me as good as the soundtrack. If you haven't seen the film and get your hands on it, maybe you could try listening to the score first to see if you can guess the progress of Ishaan's many moods through the film?! That'd be a fun exercise. Nikumbh Ishaan Montage is by far my favorite track. It's very, very well done, and the harmonica, guitar, piano and drums are all beautifully combined.

In Disc 2 (part 'a' above), Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy discussed how cool it was to play live on the sets. Must've been fun, and very challenging. Here's Mr. Loy:

A note on the DVD formats
If you do not have a region-free DVD player or cannot connect your computer to your television set, I suggest you wait for the U.S. release (the first ever of an Indian film by Walt Disney) which should make it by the end of the year. The Disney DVD release calendar doesn't yet have the information. I've always wanted to sound like an official correspondent, so I can finally say that a Disney Films representative who was contacted for more information declined to comment (read: never replied to my e-mail :P). A search for 'Taare Zameen Par' on the website returned no results as of 10/11/2008.


And finally
I'll hope to have more information on the U.S. release as we move forward. This T-Series release in India is, as the U.S. release will be, a welcome addition to any film collection. The special features and director's commentary make the set well, well worth experiencing. For its primary audience, the Indian market, it is perfectly compiled, and we can only hope that our local release will have as many goodies. Thank you for the treat, Aamir bhai!


Set Rating: 4.75/5 (Excellent!)
I cannot stop singing praises for it :)

Abhiyum Naanum (2008) - Trisha, Prakash Raj

Banner: Duet Movies, MoserbaerCast: Trisha, Aishwarya, Prakash RajDirection:

RadhamohanProduction: Prakash RajMusic: Vidhyasagar

Track List
Azhagiya Azhagiya - S.P. Balasubramaniam
Chinnamma Kalyanam - Kailash Kher
Moongil Vittu - Madhu Balakrishnan
Ore Oru Oorile - Kailash Kher
Pachai Katre - Sadhana Sargam
Sher Punjabi - Rehan Khan
Vaa Vaa Yen - Madhu Balakrishnan
Ore Oru Oorile - Instrumental
Vaa Vaa Yen - Instrumental
Pachai Kaatre - Instrumental
Azhagiya Azhagiya - Instrumental

Megaupload Link
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EYPBBJJ7

Rapidshare Link
http://rapidshare.com/files/149051342/Abhiyum_Naanum_Tamilterminal.Net.rar.html

Kind-of Quotes

If you can dream and not make dreams your master....
If you can Think and not make those Thoughts your Aim...
If you can meet with Triumph & Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same
If you can fill the unforgetting minute
with 60 seconds of distance travelled
Yours is Earth and everything in it...
and whats more.. ??
You'll be a MAN my son, You'll be a man

dont worry about the people in your past;
There is a reason they didn't make it TO YOUR FUTURE

i was born genius but education ruined me

It breaks your heart to see one you love is happy with some else, but its more painful to know the one you love is more unhappier with you.

you cant stop what is coming

imperfection is beauty; madness is genius; its better to be absolutely riduculous than to be absolutely stupid

Im a NUT but i can SCREW well

Im so good at being bad

life isn't about finding yourself; life is about creating yourself

Jurassic Park Creator Michael Crichton Is Dead

He had truly led us into his world of imagination through his fiction works that were fascinating and are usually told out of time.... like they say he is a prognosticator who knew where these Technologies would lead us to and had lot of imaginative intuitions on the implications of the technological advancements..... its really a worrysome news for all readers and his followers like me and is indeed hard to digest his sudden demise even as we were expecting his next Fiction work....

So sad to agnise that after his NEXT, its nothing.. we miss u crichton.....

Chuppandi AKA Subbu

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jurassic Park Creator Michael Crichton Is Dead
Swapnil Bhartiya, EFY News Network (Thursday, November 06, 2008 11:13:26 AM)

The magician who brought alive dinosaurs has died at the age of 66.

Thursday, November 06, 2008: Michael Crichton, the author of the phenomenon Jurassic Park, died Tuesday at the age of 66. He was suffering from cancer. Crichton was a multi-talented person. Regarded as the father of techno-thriller, he was also a film producer, film director, medical doctor and television producer. His books have sold over 150 million copies worldwide. His works were usually based on the action genre and heavily featured technology and tried to peep into the consequences of misuse of technology.

"Michael's talent out-scaled even his own dinosaurs of Jurassic Park," says Steven Spielberg, the director of 1993's Jurassic Park. "He was the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts, which is what gave credibility to dinosaurs again walking the earth. In the early days, Michael had just sold the Andromeda Strain to Robert Wise at Universal, and I had recently signed on as a contract TV director there. My first assignment was to show Michael Crichton around the Universal lot. We became friends and professionally Jurassic park, ER and Twister followed. Michael was a gentle soul who reserved his flamboyant side for his novels. There is no one in the wings that will ever take his place."

There is a very interesting anecdote. During his undergraduate study at Harvard University, Crichton copy-pasted an essay by George Orwell and submitted it as his own. But the essay of Orwell was marked as 'B' grade. The experiment of Crichton worked, and he learned that the mediocre people just cannot appreciate the quality work.

Chaos was one of the focus areas of Crichton's works. Most of his plots portrayed technological developments going out of control and thus leading to chaos. Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, Airframe or Westworld – they all have the same focus, technological advancements going awry.

Expressing his grief at the unfortunate demise of Crichton, Arvind Mishra, secretary, Indian Science Fiction Writers' Association, said, "If anyone is to be given a sole credit to popularise science fiction in India and take this genre to even gullible masses through his epoch-making writing -- Jurrasic Park, it it no one else than Michael Crichton."

The author who wrote the famous lines in Jurassic Park, "Life breaks Free...But life finds a way" has finally gone to an eternal sleep from where he will never wake up, leaving us behind with a lot to learn. And remember his warning, "Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves."
-- Swapnil Bhartiya

Bhuvan, ISRO's new eye in the sky - ISRO's take on Google

AHMEDABAD : Imagine if you could count the lions in Gir or fishermen find concentration of fish in the sea, just by dragging a mouse on a computer screen. Space Applications Centre of ISRO has just made that possible by an innovation called Bhuvan.

Bhuvan, meaning earth, is the addition to the numerous scientific innovations by SAC and is a satellite mapping tool, just like Google Earth or Wikimapia, but allows you to zoom far closer than the aerial view from a chopper. If Google Earth shows details upto 200 metres distance and Wikimapia upto 50 metres, Bhuvan will show images upto 10 metres, which means you can easily see details upto a three floor high building and also add information.

Announcing this at the Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA) International Congress here on Tuesday ISRO chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair said, "Bhuvan will use the data recorded by the Indian satellites only. The prototype of Bhuvan will be ready by the end of November and ISRO is hoping to officially launch the service by March next".

He added that while other mapping sites take four years to update, Bhuvan will be upgraded every year. "This will be able to give you an image from only 10 meters away", he said to the excited gathering.

Unlike the other two webmaps, Bhuvan will focus only on the Indian sub-continent.

"With Bhuvan we will be able to produce very local information which will be specific to only to our own country. This information available from this mapping system will be useful in addressing very local problems like floods, famines, infrastructure development, education and much more," Nair said.

"The information on Bhuvan will be layer wise and the options of viewing filtered information will be available. Inputs from a lot of local players, like farmers, fishermen and likes who know the local area in and out, will also being integrated in Bhuvan. This is for the primary reason to make it of more use to the general public," he said.

WHAT BHUVAN MEANS

Google Earth Bhuvan

Zoom levels up to 200 mt Zoom levels up to 10 mt

Single layer information Multi-layer information

Images upgraded every 4 years Images upgraded every year

No alternate viewing options Options of viewing on different dates

Uses international satellites Uses Indian satellites

Feel Like Working ???

If you feel like doing some work, sit down and….

Wait until that feeling goes away.

How to build your inhouse magazine.

An excellant slide presenation

View Upload your own

Indian Video Vaults like youtube for Desi Janta

as manishxing reports
After the huge success of youtube and being aquired by google for 2.4Billion dollar, lots of indian startups are coming on same domain to make it big like youtube. Not sure if any one can become as big as youtube but definately some of the companies would give birth to focused content for desi junta .

I have compiled a list youtube clones for desi content with there alexa ranking..

rajshri.com : 8,407
videodubba.com : 62,078
apnatube.com : 67,576
meravideo.com : 77,517
aapkavideo.com : 93,864
konkan.tv : 108,342
tumtube.com : 167,170
punjabitube.com : 210,495
toad.in : 332,292
infeedia.com : 411,612
canaravideo.com : 434,736
4indian.tv : 471,324
sixer.tv : 476,685
crictv.com : 537,556
connectfilms.com : 568,903
merovideo.com : 918,255
tubedesi.com : 952,068
motionflicks.com : 1,110,983
layfile.com : 1,696,130
nautanki.tv : 2,297,228
desiscreen.com : 3470,560

IIT IIM Grads introduce in mouse to bell the CAT

I stumbled upon this cool free portal for CAT guys http://www.catindiaonline.com/. The site offers online mock CAT tests. This site s very different and has many more features than what one may think of. I must say catindiaonline.com impressed me from the word go! Their test framework is quite cool and analysis part is something that I bet that you can’t find anywhere else. Their best part is their in-depth analysis that gives gory details of one’s performance - topic wise, difficulty wise, time requirements wise, comparative analysis of performance etc… etc… The analysis really blew me off and very precisely pointed out the issues with my preparation. In the end, I found there is something call recommendations which was recommending me how you should have taken the test to maximize your score…they didn’t ask much to register and everything seems really cool…Go and check out its fun to try it irrespective of CAT aspirants.

How to build Google like team

1. Teams size should be less than 5.

2. All leaders no followers.

3. Don’t hire spotless people, Look for spots in the people which matters the most.

4. Punish mediocre success and reward excellent failures.

5. Don’t award TOP 1% and create 99% people unhappy. Award TOP 99% and Fire rest 1%, create 100% happy employees.

6. Freedom to loose = Celebrate failures = Team which looses most wins on creativity.

7. Kill “Lick my ass” kinda managers.

8. Kill project meetings instead go for drink parties and fight over your creative opinion.

9. Don’t work on a project instead own project.

10. Bring design and creativity in all aspect of work.

11. Don’t work when your energies are low as your work requires the best times of the day.

12. Fire managers and buy Leaders.

13. Creativity is driven by stomach so don’t work with empty stomach instead eat best food you love.

14. Don’t earn money earn reputation.

15. First build the product than collect the requirement than do project planning than test it and if it sucks.

Repeat the above cycle.

Aravind Adiga - Profoundly Indian - UMA MAHADEVAN-DASGUPTA

An excellent article in Frontline about the Indias new celebrity - Aravind Adiga... Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize-winning debut novel, “The White Tiger”, is the story of India’s underclass and its life.

IN June 2006, in an essay titled “My Lost World” published in Time magazine, Aravind Adiga wrote about a personal search he made in the Indian city where he grew up. That city was Mangalore, nestled alongside the Western Ghats on the Karnataka coast. Born in Madras (now Chennai) in pre-liberalisation India, Adiga spent his early childhood years in that city before moving with his family to Mangalore, where his father worked as a doctor.

In Mangalore, Adiga first attended Canara High School and then St. Aloysius High School. Despite the loss of his mother to cancer shortly before his secondary school leaving certificate examinations, he reportedly stood first in the State. He knew the importance of education. “When I was growing up,” he wrote in the Time essay, “young men of all religions were united by shared values of hard work, enterprise and a desire to get out of Mangalore as quickly as possible. My brother left when he was 18. I left when I was 16. Many of those who got out never returned. There was no need to go back because the place never seemed to change.”

Adiga left Mangalore in 1991 when his father moved to Australia. Returning to the city 15 years later as a journalist with Time, he found it vastly changed. The population had doubled. Shopping malls and high-rise apartment buildings had reshaped the skyline. There were now five medical colleges, four dental colleges, 14 physiotherapy colleges and 350 schools, colleges and polytechnics.

The new affluence seemed to have come at a price, however, as Adiga wrote: “I met neighbours, relatives and classmates, and each had done well in some way – one had his own house, another a car. But each also had some sorrow we could hardly have imagined. A Catholic friend’s daughter had married a Hindu, and her family no longer spoke to her. A Hindu friend’s daughter had been divorced by her husband. Divorce, extramarital affairs, interreligious marriages, homosexual flings – the doors of experience had swung open in Mangalore. The small city had grown up.”

Looking around the transformed city, he also noticed “a group of drifters and homeless men, some carrying rolled-up mattresses” – part of the underclass who seemed to have been left out of the story of India’s growth. Adiga was curious and troubled by the sight, and during his travels in India as a journalist, he wanted to find out more. The White Tiger, Adiga’s Man Booker Prize-winning debut novel, is the story of this underclass and its life – begging for food, sleeping under concrete flyovers, defecating on the roadsides, shivering in the cold, struggling, in the 21st century, for its freedom. The White Tiger gives this underclass a voice: one that is intelligent, savagely funny and quite unforgettable. It is a voice that seeks out and understands the power of beauty: “If you taught every poor boy how to paint, that would be the end of the rich in India.” But it is also a voice of anger and protest, and it is almost completely unsentimental. “I did my job with near total dishonesty, lack of dedication, and insincerity – and so the tea shop was a profoundly enriching experience.”

The novel is structured as a series of letters written to the Chinese Premier by a former car driver from Bihar. Why the Chinese Premier? “Because,” the narrator Balram Halwai, now based in the city of Bangalore, writes, “the future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, mobile phone usage and drug abuse.”

Balram explains, further, why he is writing in the language of the “erstwhile master”: “Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.” Things like Balram’s story of “entrepreneurship”. The Premier of “the Freedom-Loving Nation of China” is apparently interested in the story of Indian entrepreneurship; Balram, the narrator of the novel, is an entrepreneur based in the city of start-ups. His story, he assures his addressee, will not be found in the white-washed version or the cellophane-wrapped pirated copies of business bestsellers that are sold at traffic signals: “Don’t waste your money on those American books. They’re so yesterday,” he writes. “I am tomorrow.”

He is, furthermore, “The White Tiger” of the title: “A Thinking Man/And an entrepreneur/Living in the world’s centre of technology and outsourcing Electronics City Phase 1 (just off Hosur Main Road), Bangalore, India.” The India of that address is actually two countries in the novel: one of “Light” with access to education, health care, good roads, electricity, running water, as well as hope and justice; and the other of “Darkness”, where there is only deprivation and injustice. Balram’s story is about how he clawed his way out of the Darkness into the Light.

Balram, or Munna as he was named by his parents in the Darkness where he was born, is the younger son of a rickshaw-puller, “a human beast of burden”, in Laxmangarh, a tiny village in Gaya on the banks of the river Ganga. One of Munna’s first lessons in growing up comes when he follows his family members on his mother’s funeral procession. “My mother’s body had been wrapped from head to toe in a saffron silk cloth, which was covered in rose petals and jasmine garlands. I don’t think she had ever had such a fine thing to wear in her life. (Her death was so grand that I knew, all at once, that her life must have been miserable. My family was guilty about something.)”

Refusing to call him “Munna” because that is not a name at all, the teacher at the local primary school gives him a new name. But Balram is not destined to remain in school for very long: there is a wedding in the family, they have the girl, and therefore, as Balram writes, they are “screwed”. The family has taken a loan to pay for the wedding and the dowry, and they must now work for the moneylender to pay off the loan. So Kishan, Munna’s brother, takes him out of school and to the tea shop where they will spend their future working as “human spiders”, mopping the dirty floors or smashing chunks of coal against a brick.

Years later, while telling his story, the narrator reflects on this part of his life: “Me, and thousands of others in this country like me, are half-baked, because we were never allowed to complete our schooling. Open our skulls, look in with a penlight, and you’ll find an odd museum of ideas: sentences of history or mathematics remembered from school textbooks (no boy remembers his schooling like one who was taken out of school, let me assure you), sentences about politics read in a newspaper while waiting for someone to come to an office, triangles and pyramids seen on the torn pages of the old geometry textbooks which every tea shop in this country uses to wrap its snacks in, bits of All India Radio news bulletins, things that drop into your mind, like lizards from the ceiling, in the half hour before falling asleep – all these ideas, half formed and half digested and half correct, mix up with other half-cooked ideas in your head, and I guess these half-formed ideas bugger one another, and make more half-formed ideas, and this is what you act on and live with.”

If we see the physicality of poverty (“My father’s spine was a knotted rope… cuts and nicks and scars, like little whip marks in his flesh, ran down his chest and waist…. The story of a poor man’s life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.”), we also see the carefully protected lifestyle of the ultra-rich: security guards, Alsatian dogs and, literally, bags of money.

The two worlds intersect within the strict bounds of the master-servant relationship. In Laxmangarh, the rich landlords are a pack of animals – stork, buffalo, wild boar and raven – who feed on the village until there is nothing left for anyone else, and the rest are forced to climb onto the packed buses that lead to the world outside – Dhanbad, Calcutta (Kolkata), Delhi – to find work.

In Delhi, the rich are driven around in air-conditioned cars, protected from the pollution that takes years off a man’s life. But Balram, as he drives the rich around in their cars, will always be a member of the world outside – a member of the servant class. The servant who washes his master’s legs in a bucket of dirty water and massages them; the servant who pours out the drinks while keeping one hand on the steering wheel and an eye on the road; the servant who can be smilingly cajoled into taking the rap when his employer, in a drunken haze in the middle of the night, drives the car over a small, dark ragged shape that might have been some sort of small animal but actually turns out to be someone’s child.

SHAUN CURRY/AFP

Aravind Adiga with the 2008 Booker Prize, in London on October 14.

Even Balram’s God is a master who demands gratitude for the scraps he gives him, as we read in one unforgettable scene. Once, returning to his village, Balram climbs to the top of a hill, to the black fort, and looks down at the view below him. “Up in the blue skies, God spreads His palm over the plains below, showing this little man Laxmangarh, its little tributary of the Ganga, and all that lies beyond: a million such villages, a billion such people. And God asks this little man: Isn’t it all wonderful? Isn’t it all grand? Aren’t you grateful to be my servant?”

Born in Chennai, brought up in Mangalore, writing about Delhi, and living in Mumbai, Adiga loves Tamil, speaks Kannada and writes in English. And in this language of the “erstwhile master”, without exoticism and without sentimentality, he has written a profoundly Indian story. It is not as if other writers have not written about the other, forgotten side of India.

For example, Amitav Ghosh, whose novel Sea of Poppies also appeared on the Man Booker shortlist for this year, has written memorably, with rich detail, compassion and wisdom, about those on the margins of history and geography as has Kiran Desai, in her Man Booker Prize-winning second novel, The Inheritance of Loss. Adiga’s prose is not quite so elegant, but the force of his writing comes from its savage humour and its strength of feeling.

The pages of the 34-year-old Adiga’s novel, however, are different, in their dark humour.

They are also incandescent with anger at the injustice, the futility, the sheer wrongness of a life such as the one from where a bright little boy called Munna, who was later called Balram Halwai in his school records, and then called the White Tiger of the jungle because of his good performance during a school inspection, was pulled out of school and told to smash coal for a tea shop. Where private armies roam about the fields, men and women live sad and stunted lives, and dreams are cut short even before they are fully formed.

Uma Mahadevan-Dasgupta is in the Indian Administrative Service. The views expressed in
this article are personal.

Indians fear Adiga's Revelation - Telegraph Reports

Indians fear Aravind Adiga's 'The White Tiger' says too much about them - Telegraph reports

Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger was praised for highlighting the injustices and poverty present in the rapidly changing India when it won the Man Booker Prize, but now many Indian critics have expressed outrage at the judges' decision.

Many Indians feel that Aravind Adiga's Booker Prize winning novel - The White Tiger - presents their country in a poor light Photo: EPA

For some, Adiga's savage indictment of the way the rich treat the servant class panders to western prejudices.

"I felt the book took us back three decades," said folk art expert Ritu Sethi. "It had every stereotype going in it. The BBC used to show nothing but cows on the roads for years. We're back to that with this book."

Others criticised the novel for being dull and demeaning. Author and playwright Manjula Padmanabhan dismissed it as "a tedious, unfunny slog".

She agreed that much of the recent hype about India as an emerging superpower was dishonest and complacent but asked: "Is this schoolboyish sneering the best that we can do?"

Having bought the book, affluent Indians may shift uncomfortably in their seats. The daily inhumanity shown by the rich towards their domestic staff in The White Tiger is something of which many will realise they too are guilty.

The fearful crime which the protagonist Balram Halwai commits will send a frisson of fear up their spines.

Adiga says the Indian middle class is paranoid about servants and their "laziness", "greed" and "thieving" tendencies but expresses amazement that, given the huge disparities of wealth, so few actually commit any crime.

"Look at the intimate access that servants have to their masters in their homes, and yet there are very few murders or attacks. But that doesn't reassure the middle class. It is becoming more insecure than before because it is richer now and has more to lose," says Adiga.

The White Tiger marks a new departure in India by portraying the emotions, sorrows, and aspirations of the hitherto invisible poor. For Adiga, his achievement is capturing "something new" in India, a stirring, a glimmer of a refusal by the poor to accept the fate ordained for them by their masters.

But this flicker of an "awakening" does not mean the end of the current social order where the poor slave 24/7 as cooks, cleaners, drivers, nannies and maids so that the well off can feel comfortable.

"The system is beginning to deteriorate but it remains. It will remain, but with higher levels of crime and lower levels of security," says Adiga.

The author looks at India with the perspective both of an insider, having grown up in India, and as outsider, having emigrated for years and then returned.

"As an immigrant in the US and England, I was an outsider. I spent a lot of time being confused, trying to figure things out. That was how I understood how Indian villagers feel when they move to the big cities for work," Adiga says.

William Green, former Time Asia Edior understands why the book has raised Indian hackles. "It is an unsettling novel, it touches very raw nerves, but I think he captures the complexity and subtlety of India in fiction in a way that you don't see in journalism," he says.

For some Indians, The White Tiger is an appalling regression. Just when they thought they had finally shed the old image of India as a land of poverty, cows and snakecharmers and started being respected as a hi-tech, prosperous nation, along comes Adiga to, as it were, rub their noses in the dirt again.

"I used to hate Naipaul for talking contemptuously about India, about how cleaners mop the floor in restaurants by crouching and moving like crabs and all that talk about Indians defecating in the open," said a freelance editor, Anjali Kapoor. "Adiga is the same, focussing on everything that is bad and disgusting."

Cross Roads, Poem by Robert Frost and Self-contemplation... Musings

How many times in our life we remember the poem by Robert Frost we first read in school.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Today is one such day again in my life. I was offered a permanent position with one of a company that has its HQ's in England. The place in question being Scotland - Dunde. I've never been there earlier (never been anywhere for that matter) So strange that this reminds me only of the cross-roads the Robert Frost's words....

Ofcourse i've negated myself against the temptation i had to grab the offer (u blame it on my lethargy or my inability). Everytime i put myself through the through question while self-contemplating, the answer is evident. I cannot move my ass from here...

May be im getting institutionalized... heading-off for the same job guess not much has changed, the same life and same routines. Maybe I'll be alone here as well. Everyday I will hear someone say "Yaar yahan life bekar hai" (Buddy ,life in India is no good)

Everyday I'll see social networking profiles of Indians with Pics with the background of Opera house,Eiffel Tower,Statue of Liberty and Niagra Falls with the caption " Me Chilling @ .....".

But for some reason that I can't put to words I say No not even to the thought of it. Maybe I love things as they are, maybe I love being here, may me im not adept enough, Maybe the Economy is booming.. Maybe the India is the best place to be at this moment..

Sourav Ganguly: Victim of a revenge cult - cricketnext.com

Unjustified criticism is a popular media pastime in most parts of the world. Knock over the hero image and belittle his or her achievements by humiliating their performances.

The more public it is the better for those would-be assassins who, for the sake of stirring controversy have the comfort of their offices or studios in which to sit and fire sniper-like vitriol at the intended victim.

It was in early December 2004 during the Kanpur Test that involved South Africa when NDTV asked me to become involved in a discussion on Sourav Ganguly, his perceived lack of form as well as leadership skills.

The way questions were posed brought the realisation that on the other side was a hit squad with an obvious grudge against Ganguly. It also made me wonder why I had been asked to take part in this show and in the firing line of Raj Singh Dungarpur, who came across as someone who didn't enjoy the Ganguly style at all.

Maybe because articles I had written much earlier, as well as those during the 2003-04 Australia tour for the Indian Express, had praised Dada and the way he had not backed off from a challenge against the Australians on that tour.

It has rarely ceased to surprise me that in the past fifty years or more, how players who have performed well for their country have been ridiculed by those who have not played a club game let alone a Ranji Trophy match or in a Test. Yet they sit and pontificate as though they have scored over 6,000 Test runs and taken more than 100 wickets.

There was also an awful feeling earlier this year in Sri Lanka that there were those media types who wanted Ganguly to fail. Want to point fingers and loudly say, "We told you... We told you... He is finished. Good... Good. Get rid of him now; forever."

Yet this was in a three-match Test series where most batsmen, not only Ganguly, fudged their lines against mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan.

In Port Elizabeth, before the start of the fractious second Test of India's 2001 tour of South Africa, and following the defeat in Bloemfontein after centuries by Sachin Tendulkar and that on debut by Virender Sehwag, I asked Ganguly about the enraged reaction in India to that particular defeat.

He was precise in his comments by saying he did not worry what his critics felt, or would say, or likely to say as they would not change their criticism even if India had won that first Test.

As with the NDTV episode with Dungapur, you felt they want him to fail, so that they could get out their rusty sabres and use his back as their personal dart board.

Forgotten is how months earlier he had defied a rampant Australian attack by scoring 144 in the first Test in Brisbane: walking out to bat with the top-order a mess at 62-3, Tendulkar lbw to Jason Gillespie for a duck, and later 127-4. But India still managed a first innings lead because of his century.

Also forgotten is how he led India to a World Cup final in South Africa when there are those on the subcontinent who wanted India to win but Ganguly to fail. The poison from that defeat in the final, it seems, still flows as swiftly as the Hooghly River.

What has been amusing in this latest Ganguly episode is how newspapers run interviews on half-baked supposed comments and offer them as being genuine. Anyone who stooped to this level to sell papers should be asked to account for his honesty. In another country, his job might be on the line.

All Dada can do here is refute the allegations that he made such comments while the reporter now has a credibility problem. What is known is that he has long been the fall guy when it comes to India's middle-order failures and you don't need the former captain to tell you that. It has been a known fact for a long time.

Now joining those snipers is some typically bad-mouthing Aussie who is doing his own ludicrous pantomime act.

To suggest that Ganguly had indulged in time wasting is an excuse for ignorance of the laws. The Channel Nine loud mouth overlooked that there were no overs lost, despite the interruptions. So why the fuss?

That the target was an impossible one is overlooked by such media bullies who snarl and snap when they can't get their way and attempt caricature humour to make a non-valid point.
How many Aussies in the past have also been involved in such a tactic to prevent defeat? Memories of a Perth Test against New Zealand in December 2001 resurface. Apart from several appalling umpiring decisions, they were calling for gloves and pads and other time-wasting tactic they could conjure.

The Kiwis didn't grumble, but you knew they weren't too happy either. There was Aussie criticism of Steven Fleming's plus 300-minute long century; no praise either for Daniel Vettori and his six wickets in the first innings that helped the Kiwis a good first innings lead. No honesty among thieves.

What needs to be appreciated here is that there is far, far more to Ganguly's style of play than statistical jargon and metaphorical branding.

He needs neither a register of meaningless allegories nor statistical lists that categorise who he is and from where he comes.

Yet for some peculiar reason, universally the Indian media, always seeking new cult heroes outside the outlandish tinsel confines of Bollywood, have this arcane obsession to indulge in such inane metaphors and clichés when discussing a man whose individual stylish left-hand batsmanship as well as leadership showed that Indians can take on the bullies from Down Under and elsewhere.

Those so fond of rehashing the meaningless 'Lord Snooty' as a way to unjustly caricature and pillory the man, or Prince of Calcutta to explain his elegant strokeplay, fail to understand his innate competitive drive.

There have been times when watching him place a cover drive suggests the soft growl of a Bengal tiger on the prowl. Here there is the impression of his sensing the mood of the bowler and by scoring a boundary in such a way it evokes an instinctive habit of his stalking of the bowler, seeking to hunt down the next ball as well.

There is a finesse about the Ganguly cover drive that hints how its execution is unique; it has nothing to do with textbook technique but his style of adventurism. He has had that trendy manner since before he was selected 16 years ago and sent to Australia.

Yet as he is about to say adieu to a Test career, Ganguly deserves fresh descriptions and a new landscape as a tribute to his skills and leadership: not old clichés or tired metaphors that have long failed to describe his style of game or intense personality.

There was agony in Australia in 1991-92 where he was largely misunderstood by a self-indulgent team management system; then a heroic debut century at Lord's a little more than four years later. These are all part of the often haphazard journey.

It is one though that deserves a far better epithet than it is receiving from a malevolent sniping media.

She addressed a UN Meeting on issue of environment

How much is your time worth? Go ahead, calculate

Should you spend extra money on petrol for your car and get home faster or should you stick to public transport which is cheaper, but which means you get home an hour later? Given a choice, which job would you opt for- a high stress job that offers a bigger pay check, or a lower paying job that allows you to balance work and life? Would you put in overtime at work to impress your boss and bag a promotion, or would you rather sacrifice the opportunity to help your child pre pare for an important exam? Which is more important to you, time or money? On a second thought, have you ever thought about how much your time is worth?

Each day we find ourselves being pulled in different directions, with conflicting needs and wants crying for our attention. Work priorities, life commitments, personal needs and desires, friends and family- all need our time and consideration, but with only a limited amount of time to spare, how do you ensure that you are able to prioritise, do justice to all those requirements, and to yourself too?

A simple computing of how much your time is worth can help you understand the value of it, showing how you can be more productive, more efficient, manage your time better and get more value for it. Here is how to go about it.

Start with the total gross income you have earned from your job for the past year. From this, subtract taxes straight away. Then deduct additional expenditure incurred by you on account of the job. This can include rent, living expenses (if you have relocated to be closer to the job), childcare, work related expenses and bills, petrol and vehicle maintenance, office supplies, even the amount spent on your work wardrobe and doctor’s expenses if the job is stressful. This gives you the actual income you get from your job.

Calculate the number of hours you work each year. This not only includes the number of hours you devote to actual work, but also the time you spend commuting to work, meeting clients, speaking on the telephone and other job related activities.

If you don’t have an exact estimate of the time, log the time you spend on each activity for a week and multiply that figure by 52 to arrive at the yearly total.

Divide your net annual income by the actual amount of time you have devoted to the job. This is what each hour of your time is worth. The figure can come as a shock for most people, but it has a way of putting things in perspective.

This simple computing helps you to work out whether or not it is worth to do a task yourself, delegate it, or simply not do it at all. If you spend a lot of time doing low-yield jobs, then you can streamline and manage your time better by employing an assistant or giving it up altogether.

When spelt out in black and white monetary terms, it is easier to rationalise a lot of otherwise confusing decisions. If, for example, your job is making you good money, wouldn’t you rather you spent an hour working, than frittering it way chatting or checking your email? If on the other hand, your job makes you miserable, then perhaps you may wonder if you would be better off trading it for something that pays less, but leaves you feeling healthier, happier and more satisfied. You can even use this figure as a benchmark to compare against when accepting an offer. When the value of our time is converted into measurable monetary terms, we tend to respect it more, and are more careful about how we use it.

There are only 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. And you still need to spend a fair amount of time eating, sleeping and taking care of your basic living needs. After all this, you will be left with very little productive time, and it is important that you put it to maximum use. Time and tide, as they say, wait for none.