No Excuses for Gurgaon Metallica Stage Riot

Whatever might be the reason 

• Poor Management
• No Security
• No Proper Arrangement for Food & Water
• Waiting for 2 hours in Queues
• Travelling from other places,

We, as Indians, have no right to damage other's property. Hope the police uses the Youtube evidences (1, 2, etc.) to nap the culprits. 

P.S: By the way, it is BS to point this as a mistake of Delhities. 

My Secret Sauce to Office Popularity

Want to know my secret sauce of knowing answers to colleague's difficulties ranging from designing the right chart for a set of data points to setting up a collegue's outlook account.  My Simple Solution is "Google".

Google Search Result Page

I even figure out how much googling does a person know in an interview. :) And I believe knowing the right words to google is one of the key skill required for a modern day working professional. 

If you are not using Google to find answers to your work issues, please start now. Who knows? It might even win you a 1 Million US Dollars.

Steve Jobs - The Master of Presentations

We have all heard that Steve Jobs as the master of Presentation. See the video below to know why. Nancy Duarte makes a case for why Steve Jobs, the Great Presenter can even rival Steve Jobs, the Great Innovator. 

Jobs Sparkline Resonate Workshop from Duarte Design on Vimeo.

In a short summary, Steve Jobs regularly did four things

1. Passionate about what his company makes
2. Get a physical response from the audience e.g. Laughs or Claps
3. Share repeatable sound bites
4. Use memorable dramatizations

Though I had written an earlier post about Steve Jobs - A Man Who Inspired a Billion, I learnt a lot about public presentations through this video. 

P.S: Seeing the iphone launch video, it makes you understand on the mobile revolution brought by iPhone. Thank You Steve!

Social Networks Has arrived in India

I was surprised today to find out that the recently elected Chennai Mayor has a facebook profile(https://www.facebook.com/saidaiduraisamy) and updates it regularly. But the real surprise was that he also has a Google Plus Profile - https://plus.google.com/101033117702722643248

You will know that social networks are in the advanced technology cycle when a TN politician started using the social network. I believe Facebook has entered to "Late Majority" in Technology Adoption Life cycle. Be sure to see soon all the politicians being using one or the other social network. 

Technology Adoption Lifecycle

Paying more for pizzas than for the maid

Pizzas

In the recent article on New York Times - "Why I left India?" by Sumedh Mungee, he made a interesting point on how he paid more for Pizzas rather than his maid. And all of us are used to the same. In today's India, we pay for our meals than we pay to our maids for their monthly labor. 

Thanks to the cheap workforce, we never even give a second thought to these inequalities. In my opinion, Domestic Helps & Maids are a sheer waste of human potential and a drain on the Indian economy. Until India frees this unproductive workforce from domestic duties and convert them to productive workforce, India will never become a economic superpower. Hope the situations change soon in India. 

P.S: Though i can understand Sumedh viewpoints on disagreeing to the compromised life in India, I agree with more with Navin Kabra's answer

Photo Image: Courtesy Seth W. 

LinkedIn's Classmates Rocks

We all like to know what our yesteryear classmates are currently doing? - Especially to understand whether we are doing better or worse than them. Personally, I was looking for answers to these questions

1. Where does IIM Indore students actually settle?
2. How many actually went to a finance role?
3. Which is the company that has most of IIM Indore Alumni?

Thanks to the new linkedIn Feature - Classmates, it is possible to know the answers to these questions with a single click of the mouse. Please find below a few details about IIM Indore Alumni. Though Cognizant was not a surprise, it was a surprise to see Business Development being the dominant roles of most of the alumni. 

Screenshot of My LinkedIn Classmate Page

Can read a detailed article about the feature @ http://blog.linkedin.com/2011/10/19/linkedin-classmates/

When will India taste true secularism?

Recent Delhi University Controversy over the inclusion of AK Ramanujan's Ramayana is a proof that we, the Indian people are pseudo-secularists. 


Though we pride ourself that we are a secular nation, we allow

1. Indians to be banned and driven out of nation because of their expressed opinions in a book in a supposedly free country.
2. Artists/Painters to be driven out because of their work that supposedly offended a particular religion
3. Schools to use the stories from their religious holy book as a part of their "x minute moral hour"
4. We never raise an issue when religions & religious rituals are a part of "secular" governments, "secular" firms, "secular" colleges and "secular" schools

Makes me to doubt that I will ever see a truly secular India in my lifetime.

Indian Flag

P.S: Secularism in my mind means absence of religions or religious rituals rather than presence of all possible religions and religious rituals. 

IIM Indore's Baffling Move to Undergraduate Segment

Disclaimer: I am an IIM Indore '08 Alumni. 

When IIM Indore decided to offer a five year Integrated Program in Management (BBA+MBA equivalent), I was baffled

1. 5 Year Integrated Program will never attract the best talent. Without the best talent, placement numbers are never going to be good
2. Handling & Managing a 17 or 18 year old kid out of the school is a skill in itself. And IIM Indore (a post graduate institute) currently does not have this skill. 
3. Not sure whether IIM Indore's currently faculty bandwidth would allow it. 

So it was no surprise to read Times of India article on undergraduate students (who were offered a seat for 5 year Integrated Program in Management @ IIM Indore) being baffled by IIM Indore notice to pursue a distance program on the side.

The story underlines that IIMs are not empowered to give degrees to academic institution. As an alumni, this was not a surprise to me. That is why the programs are not called MBAs but rather PGPs.

But suggesting the candidates to pursue a three year distance education program is taking it a little too far. Sad to see IIM Indore going the IIPM way.. :(

Who is Bodhidharman? The Tamil Story Behind Shaolin Monks

Unlike Hollywood movies, generally Indian history movies generally deal with the known Indian historic heroes rather than the unknown and unheard heroes. So it was surprised when i saw "7aum Arivu" trailer. For the first time in my life, I came to know a great historic Tamil Personality - Bodhidharman.

Who is Bodhidharman?

Wikipedia says,

Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma was a Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th/6th century and is traditionally credited as the leading patriarch and transmitter of Zen to China. According to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the Shaolin monks that led to the creation of Shaolinquan. Scholars believe that Bodhidharma was a Tamil born in Kanchipuram, Tamil nadu

Yes you are reading it right. China got its world-famous Shaolin Monks from Tamilnadu. 

So the next time, you see a kung-fu action movie, remember that Tamil culture has its unique impact in it.

Shutter Island - Book Review

Recently, I have started reading a lot of fiction & non-fiction that were converted to popular movies - e.g. The Lincoln Lawyer, The Blind Side and  Stardust. 

Shutter Island

In that tradition, the recent novel i picked up was "Shutter Island". Extremely well written book that really surprises you at the end. One of the problems with reading a story after seeing a movie is that - you always see the characters shown by the director rather than the character created by the author while writing the book. e.g.  I always see Daniel Radcliffe while reading Harry Potter Series.  This book was an exception to that case - which is a testament of the thought-out characterization by the author. (I saw only the early few minutes and not the entire movie)

Though this is not a page-turner, it still keeps you interested enough to mull over and come back to the book. But the surprising climax is the highlight of the book. 

Rating: 3.5/5

My Comment: Good book to read a little bit everyday. But might not be the right book to pick for a flight trip.

Photo Source: hcplebranch

Meaningless or Meaningful Lives???

There are some stories that raises questions that are tough to answer. Today's TOI Story on  "Satisfied with Life, Couple ends life in Goa" is one of them. In the suicide note, the couple wrote

"We have lived a very eventful and happy life together. We've travelled the world, lived in different countries, made more money than we ever thought possible, and enjoyed spending as much of it as we could on things that brought us joy and satisfaction. We believe in the philosophy that our life belongs to us and only us, and we have the right to choose to die as much as we have the right to live."

On the close heels of an IIM-Bangalore student committing, It shocked me to see people living "meaningless" lives or a life without purpose. Life "for many Indians" today has become just about earning money and spending it in material things - which they believe - is the only source of joy and satisfaction. They fail to understand there is more to life that just material things that supposedly bring joy and satisfaction. 

Personally, for me - my purpose is largely derived from my Christian beliefs. It is easier to believe your life has a purpose [:)] when you don't believe that you are created because of a random chance. 

P.S: Know this is more an one-off event. But still i fear this may not be the end of these suicides of people who supposedly have "everything" in life.. 

Dynamic Views in Blogger Rocks

It was five years back, I set up my first blogger account. I had been just selected to IIM Indore. And all my new classmates were sending their blog details to yahoo groups (Most of them with just 1-5 posts. And that point of time, I did not understand the ulterior motive behind it.. :)). Inspired by them, I started this blog - Titled then as "Tirunelveli--> Chennai-->Indore-->???". Basically to communicate that I don't have any idea whether the heck this is leading me to. Then the blog metamorphed as "A Blog to Express and not to impress" and then as India-centricity. In the meantime, I amassed a good number of page views and my first 100 USD through Google Adsense. 

But I had always regretted the decision for choosing blogspot over other blogging platforms - wordpress. Only the fact that I can't enable adsense account in wordpress kept me in the blogger platform. And I was forced to live with the ugly-looking standard templates of blogger. 

So it was surprising today, when i accidentally found the existence of newly created templates called "Dynamic Views". And I have to say "DYNAMIC VIEWS ROCKS". You can read more about Dynamic Views @ http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/09/dynamic-views-seven-new-ways-to-share.html

Today, I am proud of my choice of "Blogger Platform". :)

Hope you also like it. 

The Man Who Inspired a billion

It was a shock to hear about the death of Steve Jobs - just a day after the launch of iPhone 4S. Personally I have never owned an Apple product - mostly because they were out of my budget - most of the time. But I have admired this man - for never stopping to push the boundaries of what is possible and for creating the most valuable company in the world from a company that was on its deathbed. 

Though he passed away yesterday, his legacy will live on and will continue to inspire countless others.. 

Steve Jobs,

Even Though I have never used any one of its products, your efforts have given rise to great copy-cats - that have made an enormous difference in life.  For that, A BIG THANK YOU. 

-Robin

Other Things you must read & see

1. One More Thing - MG Siegler, Techcrunch
2. Hear Steve Jobs Speech @ Standford -

Apple disappointed me! :(

After a long time, I was really, really looking forward to the new iPhone Release.. (This is important because I am an Android Fan). Main reason for the sudden interest in iPhone was my plan to buy a iPhone for my parents. (In my opinion, Android is still too complex for my parents). And thanks to the persistent rumours of a cheap iPhone (

A 15k iPhone would have really blown away the competition and would have established iOS as the leading mobile operating system in the world. And nobody else other than Apple have the capabilities (supply chain) to launch a good sub-15k smart phone in the next two years. But sadly, Apple choose not to do so. Rather they chose to release an iPhone which just nullifies Android's differentiators. A big fail from Apple - which is always expected to push the envelope w.r.t iPods, iPhones and iPads. 

With the speed in which Google iterates on its Android OS, Apple would be forced to a do a lot more catch-up when the next iPhone is launched.  

State Education Minister Appears for Class X Exam

Times of India reports about Puducherry education minister sitting for Class X Exams. When i read this, the questions that come up are

1. First of all, how did they let a person who has not passed even X Standard to become a education minister. It shows badly how our political situation is screwed.
2. Even if he has done poorly, will anybody fail the minister?

Yes. It happens only in India.