Archive for the ‘My views on India’ Category
December 3, 2008
Titan Industries Ltd has unveiled Braille watches designed for the visually impaired, branded Titan Braille. These watches crafted with a protective liftable top cover and raised patterns on the dial make a great aid for visually impaired people to have time on their fingertips. The Titan Braille watch has been designed in-house by the Titan Design Studio and is manufactured at the company’s manufacturing plant in Hosur. The watches come with a special instruction manual in Braille, which has been developed in consultation with the National Association for the Blind. Designed in round and rectangular stainless steel cases, these watches use a quartz movement. The stainless steel cases make it sturdier and reliable. Priced at Rs. 995, the watches come with a warranty and battery life of two years. (as per their Press Release of Dec 2, 200
It is an interesting development; it demonstrates one more commitment of the Tata group to address larger societal issues.
Personally I feel touched that Indian designers are getting busy with addressing India’s problems (India is home to the largest number of blind people in the world)
One hope this trend becomes the “in thing” and our scientists & technologists focus more and more on solving India’s problems, that too pressing problems.
Tags:Braille watch, Tata Titan
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November 5, 2008
Dr France Cordova, an accomplished Astrophysics Professor (Stanford and CalTech educated, and earlier served in UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara as well as NASA)) and President of the renowned Purdue University (one of the largest Engineering Schools in USA) is in India for 10 days.
As an Alumnus I had the privilege of meeting her and talking to her today. Dressed in an Indian dress, it took a second for me to recognize her (We all had seen her picture on the Web page).
She was articulate and graceful. We were particularly happy as Americans were celebrating their election result and Senator Obama taking a historic win.
For a State University in the conservative mid-west State of Indiana that too set in a rural setting (the City of West Lafayette has just a population of 50,000!), it is indeed heartening that Purdue University chose a woman as President of the University.
I do hope the able leader will take the University to greater heights.
Tags:France Cordova, Purdue University President visits India
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October 11, 2008
Along with quarterly results, Infosys also cut a huge cake marking the crossing of 100,000 employees strength on October 10, 2008!
It is a proud moment for Infosys; proud day for Indians at large
It is indeed creditable that six people with imagination, commitment and courage (and with just Rs 20,000 cash) could create an organization in India that could scale to 100,000 employees in just 27 years!
One hopes that Infosys will grow 200,000 srong in the next 5-10 years
Tags:000 employees, 100, Infosys
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October 8, 2008
Chief Minister Narendra Modi who has been battered by the media for all these years has done proud to Gujratis by swiftly swinging into action. Ratan Tata formally announced his decision to move Nano to Gujarat; after the unfortunate incident of self-serving politicians forcing Tata’s dream car (Nano) project to move out of West Bengal.
According to Rata Tata Gujarat government moved real fast to have things ready for Tats to locate their factory into the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
It is re-assuring that there are still some Statesmen left in the country. There are Chief Ministers who care for their State! Let their tribe multiply. Finally, it is a proud day for India (following a sad Friday last week)
Tags:car project, Gujara, Narendra Modi, Tata Nano, Tatas
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October 3, 2008
With Tatas saying “tata” (good bye) to Singur, it is not just West Bengal that lost; all right thinking Indians lost to self-serving politicians for whom rhetoric and posturing are important, than service the people.
It is a sad day because of good political leaders (there are still some left) decided to keep silent; the only hope of West Bengal (Chief Minister & Governor) were ignored. Law of the land was not allowed to have its course. The media did not add to their glory as well (by portraying the right “vibes” they could have got the right-thinking people to fight an unjust movement led by self-serving leaders)
Communists, by killing systematically any forum for dissent (by use of force) had silenced the “true voice” over the four decades.
One only hopes that some one will speak for the real farmers (several thousands of them) who would have benefited through education, healthcare, jobs and prosperity that the Nano project would have provided and what communists have systematically denied to the rural farmers in West Bengal for decades.
Bengal could have re-gained its lost glory by hosting Nano - a project, not just a pride for India, but a path-breaking move for the not-so-rich people of the world. Alas a golden opportunity is lost!
Tags:Nano project, Singur, West Bengal
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June 23, 2008
Reviving a 600+ year old tradition, the authorities of the famous Balaji temple in Tirupati Tirumala, namely TTD, had arranged for a Kalyanotsavam of the divine couple in the Palace Grounds on June 22, 2008 (Sunday). It was an exciting event. The pandal was large enough to hold as many as 3,00,000 people. All the devotees had free darsan. The lighting arrangement was superb; they had very large (up to 10 feet) screens for those sitting far away. The audio was excellent. They had re-created Tirumala temple in many aspects. The flower arrangement was fantastic. Prior to the Kalynotasavam starting at 6:10 PM, there was excellent music; Mandolin from Srinivas and Annamacharya kirtanas by one of the famous artiste, with a gifted voice. The temple priests did a great job; the devotion, festivity and the spirit of positive energy was palpable. The crowd was managed well, through a system of volunteers (though the VIP crowd gave them a tough time). The authorities brought 1,75,000 laddus all the way from Tirumala; distributed it along with food and water in 75 counters!
In all it was a great effort; hopefully the Lord will bring some relief to the battered government headed by Mr. Yeddyurappa, Hon’ble Chief Minister (who was present with his colleagues) and good progress for Karnataka in general and Bangalore in particular. His Excellency Mr. Rameshwar Thakur the Governor was present throughout. Only divine intervention can help the sagging spirit of Karnataka and Bangalore, bruised for long by people who let the slide continue for 40 months.
Tags:Bangalore, Kalyanotsavam, TTD
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June 12, 2008
“Japanese drug firm Daiichi Sankyo announced the acquisition of a majority stake of more than 50 per cent in Ranbaxy for over Rs 15,000 crore” according to Economic Times.
It represents an interesting development;
- First, Indian firms could get such high valuation internationally, proving he arrival of the truly India-born MNC’s.
- Second, promoters are ready to accept reality than get bogged down by emotion.
- Third, globalization has made the full circle in India; Tata acquiring Corus steel, India-born Lakshmi Mittal emerging as the largest global steel company thru Arcelor- Mittal; and, Ranbaxy being acquired by a Japanese company.
Interesting times indeed.
Tags:Daiichi Sankyo, Indian companies being acquired by global corporations, Japanese, Ranbaxy
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June 8, 2008
In her concession speech to a packed crowd on June 7, 2008 in Washington DC, Democratic Party Senator and Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was at her best. There was no rancor; she must have been sad that she was bowing out, but there was no sign of sadness in her face. She was full of grace, in her face, her words, in her expression and in her mood. I was touched by the grace; it was an education for anyone to see some one going out of the race; some one who fought so fiercely could go down with so much grace.
She started thanking everyone and repeatedly expressed how grateful she was for all that her supporters did; the crowds cheerfully acknowledged that. She talked of “democratic party as the family” that unites every one. She was gracious in her references to Barack Obama and repeatedly (almost like Pallavi in Indian musical compositions!) talked of “that is why we need to help elect Barack Obama as our next President”.
She also scored a point for Democrats. She talked of “in my forty years of political life there were 10 Presidents; only three times we could send a Democratic President to the White House. The man who occupied the “oval office” two times out of the three terms is very much here (reference to Bill Clinton who was present in the audience). You know the prosperity of the country during those two terms. How prosperous America would have been if we had Democratic candidates in all the ten terms?”. She went on to say “that is why we need to help elect Barack Obama as our next President”.
It was an enjoyable experience; I fondly wish that our politicians take a leaf out of her concession address and leave the contests gracefully in the interest of the nation.
Tags:Concession talk, Hillary Clinton, Indian politicians, US Election
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June 1, 2008
On May 31, 2008 more than 1,000 computer scientists gathered in UC Berkeley to pay homage to Jim Gray, an astonishing computer scientist.
Rarely there was a person who was respected by so many.
Undoubtedly, he is the father of transaction processing; but for his seminal work that brought speed and efficiency (cost reduction of 100+ times), e-commerce would not have been possible today. He also played a key role in the design of Non-Stop SQL for Tandem computers. He is a Turing Award winner.
Till 2007, he was with Microsoft Research; the “world telescope” project was his brainchild where he combined his mastery of managing very large databases with the enormous data generated by giant telescopes.
In an unfortunate accident, he was “missing” from his sailboat journey in January 2007; in a rare display of cooperation across communities, there was a massive effort to search him using a variety of techniques & technologies, though in vain.
UC Berkeley has such illustrious alumni
I had the fortune of spending time with him when I was in Microsoft HQ in 2003 & 2005.
Tags:Jim Gray, Computer Scientist
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May 25, 2008
May 25, 2008 is an important day in the democratic history of India.
BJP with 110 seats, Congress with 80 seats, JDS with 28 seats and others with 6 seats ensures that BJP will form the next government. All the small parties (BSP, JDU) drew a blank.
One hopes BJP delivers good governance in the next 5 years.
Tags:BJP victory, Karnataka Elections 2008
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