Thought Leadership

Artificial Intelligence in Shrimp Farming

 

My Brother - A Braveheart Doctor Who Saved His Own Heart

Yesterday being Doctor’s Day, I had wished all the doctors in my family a happy and healthy life so that they can take care of millions lives in their life time including my family and me.  I, being 3000

Kms away from them, still believe strongly on telemedicine suggested by them.  While I wished them happy doctor’s day, I could not resist recalling the horror incident we all went through six month ago.

My elder brother, who is a doctor and works with Indian Railways hospital at Katihar, has quite a hectic working hours in day, at night, and as a specialist physician be on call throughout for consultation 24x7. The preceding week was unusually pathetic with heavy workloads including night outs with heavy hearts because of the loss of a dear doctor friend due to the heart attack.

On 28^th Dec. 2016, he woke-up early in the morning with an emergency situation because my mother had a fall in the bath and she fractured her left long bone near the hip joint.  Mother was in pain and so as a doctor son, my brother started contacting fellow orthopedic doctors and planning to shift her in the hospital for the treatment. As planned, he wanted to conclude his usual morning rounds with the patients and then shift mother to the hospital. While he could complete half of his visits to the patients he felt uneasiness in his chest. His own clinical sense suggested that something was not right with his heart and the symptoms calls for an instant check-up.

At around 10.30 A.M he left rest of his patient round and summoned the duty nurses and technician to a cabin and asked them to take an ECG . On the way, he caught hold of one of his junior doctors to assist him too. Instantly the ECG was taken and he himself read the report. He understood that his heart was in trouble and he knew that he had not much time to consult other fellow doctors. He summoned nurses and his junior doctor and instructed them to administer drugs and IV injections to clear the blocks.  He went on monitoring his own treatment until he fell unconscious. Fortunately, he sensed the trouble much early and could tell his junior doctor to do what best is possible in that situation.  To his luck and to our seer luck, drugs acted well on time and started showing result.

Meanwhile the news flashed in town like a wild fire and fellow doctors who could assist him made an attempt to reach to him as quickly as possible. But the traffic jam on the over bridge which connects one part of the town to another part delayed them longer. Few had taken pedestrian route to the hospital, yet the substantial amount of time was lost. Had my brother waited for their assistance, he would have risked his life. Even on the half conscious state he could understand the overdose of medicine administered to him and he asked to reduce the dosage. The critical time of suspense to get his heart functioning normal was swinging in wait. At 5 P.M in the evening, he came to his full conscious state and was stabilized. But, he was not out of danger until 48 hours had passed.

Perhaps those were the hours; most of us needed god’s blessing in spite of marvels of healthcare that has improved the landscape of our lives. Perhaps those were the hours, we felt helpless when we had nothing to do except to wait and watch. Perhaps those were the most defining hours in any doctor’s life who would treat his heart as he has been treating other patients. However, my brother could have not been able to take the treatments, had he not been on rounds with patients in the hospital.  He was instrumental in procuring drugs for the heart ailment in that hospital and he alone was the treating physician who has patients waiting for hours to see him. Perhaps he is the last hope in the town for anybody’s heart ailments. All his hard work for his patients came handy to save his own heart.

The battle of life with your own treatment and with your own clinical judgment by a doctor has rarely been heard. This is a rarest of rare case, where the will of a doctor has led him think consciously without panicking in danger.  And this had been a bench mark story for the doctors in town and the hospital where my brother had gone for angioplasty. Though, now all looks as a story, but  may god bless that none of the doctors should be into such kind of a test where they had to take their decision of life themselves.

Thinking of the situation that passed by, it still get shivers in the spine.  True to the fact that not all can do what my brother did and at the same not all can be as lucky as he was.  In some corner of his heart he had pain for other’s heart and those hearts prayed for him when he battled. Perhaps a doctor’s life is not alone of his own but shared by his patients whom he treats day and night without caring for his own comfort.

Yet, some advices for the doctors could be to first care for their own health and then care for patient’s health.  Do not neglect minor signals that can be fatal in putting your life in danger, especially learn to listen to your heart.  

Finally, live with big heart and open mind – Life is beautiful!

लहरों से डर कर नौका पार नहीं होती, कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती – Shri Sohan Lal Dwivedi

लहरों से डर कर नौका पार नहीं होती,

कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती ।

नन्हीं चींटी जब दाना लेकर चलती है,
चढ़ती दीवारों पर, सौ बार फिसलती है ।

मन का विश्वास रगों में साहस भरता है,
चढ़कर गिरना, गिरकर चढ़ना न अखरता है ।

आख़िर उसकी मेहनत बेकार नहीं होती,
कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती ।

डुबकियां सिंधु में गोताखोर लगाता है,
जा जा कर खाली हाथ लौटकर आता है ।

मिलते नहीं सहज ही मोती गहरे पानी में,
बढ़ता दुगना उत्साह इसी हैरानी में ।

मुट्ठी उसकी खाली हर बार नहीं होती,
कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती ।

असफलता एक चुनौती है, इसे स्वीकार करो,
क्या कमी रह गई, देखो और सुधार करो ।

जब तक न सफल हो, नींद चैन को त्यागो तुम,
संघर्ष का मैदान छोड़ कर मत भागो तुम ।

कुछ किये बिना ही जय जय कार नहीं होती,
कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती ।

The Green Mind

Monsoon had still not set its foot in Bangalore and I wasn’t carrying umbrella what I usually do in the rainy season. However, you never know when the rain god starts his showers of blessing in Bangalore. The time and dates are never expected. Being rainy season the showers of blessing of rain god is frequently expected. If you want the blessing in multitude, be there in the middle of the rain drenching yourself. But most of the time this blessing turns out to be dearer one. So, it is always advisable that save yourself from the showers of blessing in multitude from the rain god. I was literally running towards home so that I could avoid the blessings. Yet, sometimes the wishful thinking does not happen to you.

Before I could reach home I was caught in the rain and to avoid getting drenched I took shelter in the vegetable and fruit store run by Hopcoms. The freshly blossom jasmines fragrance was quite refreshing which was emanating from the flower basket kept next to me. The florist lady was selling Jasmines besides the store. For her, selling flowers was to earn her living and she did not discriminate human beings from gods or gods from human beings.

Well, the rain had really caught its pace and started pouring heavily. Amidst there came a mother and a child both holding umbrella trying to save themselves getting drenched from the rain. But splashes of rain drops from different directions were fighting to defeat their efforts. Anyways, the duo came to the florist shop and the mother asked for a small length of jasmine string perhaps to tie in her bread. Looking at the beaming smile and recognition of the florist towards the mother, it was fairly understandable that she was a regular customer. When the florist lady measured the Jasmine string and offered that to give her in the cheaper plastic bag, the mother casually smiled and offered her own bag to put in the flower.

Oh gosh! It was a paper bag, which was made out of old newspapers, nicely folded, side pasted with colored paper and cloth string attach to it to hang on the shoulder. Florist lady knew that she always carry such bag and refuses to take plastic bag. Florist was hesitant, yet today being the rainy day and it was pouring heavily, she offered her to carry flowers in the plastic bags. But the conversation ended in refusal note, the mother denying florist’s goodwill gesture and carrying flower string in her newspaper bag. I made an eye contact with the florist lady, she didn’t know what to say, but I could understand the goal behind saying ‘no’ to plastic bag. The mother knew, she would have to struggle in this heavy downpour yet the commitment to stand by the resolution was so strong that even the downpour could not shake it. And I was just reminded once again that a small act of ours can make a lot of difference. I could not stop appreciating the mother with paper bag denying the plastic bag.

The act, showed by example and not by words truly was on display in front of my eyes. Not being individual trend setter, I immediately felt at least fortunate to be the part of the organization which endorses such small acts towards improving our environment. Never mind, this was a consolation at that point of time. Yes! I joined Hewlett Packard, widely known as HP, which cares about the nature and the environment and believes in the philosophy of doing ‘small changes which can make a world of difference’. It has mandate to support the green environment, clean environment and a better world to live in. It uses recycled paper in its work environment, discourages the use of plastic, and encourages the activity, which can help change our environment from bad to good.

During the World Environment Day we were given the green stickers to paste on the computer keys to remind us that when we are done with our days work, switch off the computer and monitor to save the power. Utilize it better when you are at work place. It does remind me to switch off my system before I go home after the days work. Not that I am reckless and not bothered about the power consumption even if my computer is not in use. But looking at the green sticker on my keyboards on (Ctrl+Alt+Del) always gives me a call to stand by what I have decided to. I am sure it is helping all of HP workforce, when we think of our green environment and strive to make world a better living place. Not only this, there are many more things such as recycling electronic wastes are ongoing activity of HP office throughout the globe.

I would not shy to say that I have not yet done anything which can be milestone for anyone to follow my footstep towards green environment. But surely these incidents have made a hole in my mind where I have started realizing the ill effects and reckless use of unwanted materials polluting our environment. When I see the drain getting clogged by the plastic bags, I remember the mother and feel we could do the same thing what she did; saying ‘no’ to plastics and we could have avoided such things happening. But, no, we are slaves of our own acquired habits.

Nobody carries the habits from mother’s womb. All of us learn and copy traits when we grow over the period of time. We tend to imitate things what we see in our parents at the first sight. Therefore, unknowingly we carry the genetic traits of our parents and knowingly in subconscious mind we follow the characters and traits we see in them. We also pick some of the common habits and practices from our peer, colleagues, and friends. We tend to say ‘yes’ to everything which can give us momentarily help and relief. But, we need character to say ‘no’ to things which are harmful in the long run.

The green environment definitely is the framework of green mind, what the mother with newspaper bag showed. It’s the character what HP has decided to adopt to make small change towards green world. The impact is obvious, definitely in me, may be in you too. Now, whenever I see plastic bag, I could see the scene of newspaper bag mother coming in front my eyes again and again. I am realizing a persistent effort of change in my mind to avoid plastic. Slowly, as these witnesses are changing my mind turn into green, I believe this is going to turn even yours. I am sure we would not need the Greenpeace people to be savior of our green world, but our green mind can do it better.

(This blog post was published on June 24, 2009 in “My Space on ConnectIn”, internal portal of HP India. This blog post also won “First Runner-up” in the Green Blogger contest organized by HP India during the World Environment Day. )

Supreme Court Ruled for Muslim's Right to Adopt

The Supreme Court of India in a landmark order indirectly pushing for the Constitution-suggested Uniform Civil Code, on Wednesday ruled that personal law prohibition against adoption would not bar a Muslim from adopting a child if he chose the secular Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act route. By this ruling the minority community can take care and protection of children as adoptive parents and not as a guardian as was earlier.

Giving the judgment on a PIL filed by Shabnam Hashmi  nine years ago, a bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and S K Singh said the JJ Act was a secular law which gave prospective parents the option to adopt a child. "A Muslim was always free to exercise his option either to adhere to the personal law prohibition against adoption or choose JJ Act route to take a child into his/her family," the bench said, adding "To us, the Act is a small step in reaching the goal enshrined by Article 44 of the Constitution." 

Article 44 of the Constitution says, "The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a Uniform Civil Code throughout the territory of India." The bench said, "The vision contemplated in Article 44 of the Constitution, that is a Uniform Civil Code, is a goal yet to be fully reached." 

However, the Muslim Personal Law Board had opposed Hashmi's plea for a uniform adoption law that would prevail over all religious prohibitions. The board gave their elaborate arguments against permitting Muslims to adopt children.

The board had said that Islam did not recognize an adopted child to be treated on a par with a biological child. The Islamic law professes 'kafla' system under which the child is placed under 'kafil' who provides for the well-being of the child, including financial support, and this is legally allowed to take care of the child though the child remains the descendant of his biological parents and not of the 'adoptive' parents.

The muslim board attempted to give legal recognition to its religious 'kafla' system by informing the court that even United Nation's Convention of the Rights of Child recognized it as an alternative to child care contemplated under the JJ Act. The court, however, refused to restrain a Muslim if he/she chose to take JJ Act route to adopt a child on the grounds that the faith did not permit it.

Justice Gogoi said, "An optional legislation (JJ Act) that does not contain an unavoidable imperative cannot be stultified by principles of personal law which, however, would always continue to govern any person who chooses to so submit himself until such time that the vision of Uniform Civil Code is achieved. The same can only happen by the collective decision of the generation(s) to come to sink conflicting faiths and beliefs that are still active today.

"The conflict in thinking fuelled by dictates of religions was also the reason why the court felt the time was not ripe to lift the statutory right to adopt to the level of a fundamental right. It said, "Conflicting viewpoints prevailing between different communities as on date on the subject makes the vision contemplated in Article 44 of the Constitution, that is a Uniform Civil Code, a goal yet to be fully reached and the court is reminded of the anxiety expressed by it earlier with regard to the necessity to maintain restraint. All these impel us to take the view that the present is not an appropriate time and stage where the right to adopt and the right to be adopted can be raised to the status of a fundamental right and/or to understand such a right to be encompassed by Article 21 of the Constitution," the court said.

Why Geniuses are different.....

Human life is a journey of interaction with different kinds of people, all of whom we can not retain in our memory all the time. But there are some people whom we can not forget, how hard we try. Why does this happen? Perhaps these guys are different from others. These are not normal people yet they are among the normal people. They behave differently and some times they act strangely. In fact interaction with these guys may happen through their genius prowess which translates their pain and agony, joy and happiness into the form of poetry, music, painting, story or novel, and films. They may be the genius who makes great strides in Science, Technology and Mathematics.

However, it is very difficult to define what a genius is. Even geniuses of the highest order such as Albert Einstein, WolfGang MoZart, D.H.Lawrence, Henry Moore, and many others found it difficult to answer the question of the self, and perhaps the observation of themselves in search of these answers have led them to the achievements.

According to Puzant Kevork Thomajan, "True genius sees with the eyes of a child and thinks with the brain of genie”. But, it is for definite that a genius breaks the boundaries of common thought to take our sensibility or technology to new mindscapes, resulting in a giant leap of the mankind as a whole.

The problem actually occurs when a whole community of ‘commons’ find it hard to understand, relate and communicate to these special people. Scientists have been striving to correlate mental illness with eminent creative individuals, who have a much higher rate of manic depression, or bipolar disorder, than does the general population.

They found artists to be more similar in personality to individuals with manic depression than to healthy people using personality and temperament tests. The results have been ground breaking, as the thinking and reaction patterns of genuinely creative people and the depressive maniacs were almost similar, while it differed from the healthy people in all accounts.

The life history of John Nash, the schizophrenic mathematician who won Nobel Prize for his revolutionary studies in game theory, is a perfect example of the off track characteristics often depicted by a genius written in his biography “The beautiful mind”. The kind of seclusion they face is revealed by the inner stories from the Nobel committee, which had delayed his recognition for the sole reason that he was mentally unfit. There are instances by shocked classmates saying that they had totally kept away from the "The Ghost of Fine Hall” as he was called those days, and were only able to understand his passionate language of numbers and equations many years later.

There are umpteen number of stories written about several geniuses and have become the part of the human history, yet common human is unable to understand and regard these special people in the society. It is only when these people gets recognize we rise above our commonness to show our gratitude towards these special people. We do not know how many geniuses in our society among ourselves without recognition face dejection when they are not able to communicate like one of the commoners. Society always treats these superlative geniuses as an odd and sub human beings.

But in fact, this is what they are. Even if they try hard they can not behave as the normal human being as the society more often expects them to be. It is for the society to understand them and treat them equal in their early life. Else many more geniuses will have to see the disgrace.

Meanwhile Science is striving to decode these minds that keep on creating miracles. It is time the society should learn this new language to accept the super brains and adapt to the incomprehensible and ever changing world ruled by them.

Suicide Tourism: Is it tourism anyway?

The act of seeking death in another country by the help of physician or non physician helper is termed as suicide tourism in today’s world. However, this is stated to be different from mercy death called Euthanasia. Euthanasia is till not acceptable as yet but the assisted death is termed legal in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Oregon State of USA. Its perhaps an act of buying death in legal terms where the existing law of the land permits to do so. The Swiss law that allows anyone to help patients die, as long as there are no ulterior motives, dates back to 1942.

Article 115 of the Swiss penal code considers assisting suicide a crime if and only if the motive is selfish. It condones assisting suicide for altruistic reasons. In most cases the permissibility of altruistic assisted suicide cannot be overridden by a duty to save life. Article 115 does not require the involvement of a physician nor that the patient be terminally ill. It only requires that the motive be unselfish. This reliance on a base motive rather than on the intent to kill to define a crime is foreign to Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, but it can be pivotal in continental Europe.

Swiss law does not consider suicide a crime or assisting suicide as complicity in a crime. It views suicide as possibly rational. In 1918, a comment by the Swiss federal government on the first federal penal code stated: "In modern penal law, suicide is not a crime . . . Aiding and abetting suicide can themselves be inspired by altruistic motives. This is why the project incriminates them only if the author has been moved by selfish reasons." At the time, the attitudes of the Swiss public were shaped by suicides motivated by honour and romance, which were considered to be valid motives. Motives related to health were not an important concern, and the involvement of a physician was not needed. Euthanasia for terminally ill patients, although intensely discussed in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1900s, seems not to have been debated in 1918 in Switzerland.

Swiss law does not recognise the concept of euthanasia. "Murder upon request by the victim" (article 114 of the Swiss penal code) is considered less severely than murder without the victim's request, but it remains illegal. Following a proposal to the Swiss parliament to decriminalise euthanasia, in 1997 the federal government commissioned a working group which included specialists in law, medicine, and ethics to examine the issue. This group recommended that euthanasia remain illegal. Despite this report, parliament voted not to go ahead with the proposed legislation, and a change is unlikely in the near future. The Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics is debating these issues. Its position cannot be predicted.

Assisted suicide is a controversial topic in Switzerland, but data on public attitudes towards assisted suicide and euthanasia are scarce. According to one survey, half of 2411 army conscripts were willing to "shorten the life of a family member who suffered too much and who asked for euthanasia." In a 1999 survey of the Swiss public, 82% of 1000 respondents agreed that "a person suffering from an incurable disease and who is in intolerable physical and psychological suffering has the right to ask for death and to obtain help for this purpose." Of these, 68% considered that physicians should provide this help; 37% considered that the family, 22% that right to die societies, 9% that nurses, and 7% that religious representatives should be able to fulfil such requests. Legislation to allow euthanasia was favoured by 71% of all respondents. No data are available on how well people believe the existing system is working in practice, even though this is one of the key points in the controversy.

No validated statistics exist for assisted suicides in Switzerland. These deaths are not differentiated from unassisted suicides in official records. According to the president of one of the Swiss right to die societies, around 1800 requests for assisted suicides are made each year. Two thirds are rejected after screening. Half of the remaining people die of other causes, leaving about 300 suicides assisted by these societies annually. This constitutes around 0.45% of deaths in Switzerland (J Sobel, personal communication, 2002). Individuals outside these societies may assist additional suicides. In comparison, reported assisted suicide in Oregon represents 0.09% of deaths, and other US data showed a rate of assisted suicide and euthanasia of 0.4% among terminally ill patients. The rate of assisted suicide in the Netherlands is 0.3%, lower than the estimate for Switzerland.

Nevertheless Suicide tourism is making headlines in Switzerland whether it is for wrong reason or right reason. A 2003 study published in the Lancet showed 0.36 per cent of deaths in German-speaking Switzerland were assisted suicides, compared with 0.21 per cent in the Netherlands and 0.01 per cent in Belgium. Since then, the rate in German-speaking Switzerland has risen to 0.5 per cent. The assisted suicide rate in Oregon was 0.12 per cent last year, according to the state's Department of Human Services.

Dignitas split from Exit Deutsche Schweiz, the biggest right-to-die association in Switzerland, in 1998 and had more than 4000 members at the end of 2004, according to its website. Exit, founded in 1982, has about 50,000 members. It doesn't take clients from abroad because the distance makes it difficult to assess their judgment and motivation.

Dignitas uses letters and phone conversations to establish a relationship with foreign clients. It is much more difficult to establish that a patient has a consistent wish to die and is under no external pressure if the patient is far away, in a different legal, cultural and health-care environment, and possibly speaking a different language.

Dignitas helps patients to obtain a prescription for a lethal dose of the barbiturate natrium-pentobarbital, but the patient must ingest it himself, said founder and Chief Executive Ludwig Minelli on the group's website. Natrium-pentobarbital isn't available in Germany.

Death Dignitas members pay 100 Swiss francs ($80) to join and an annual fee of 50 francs. Germans are required to join Dignitate-Deutschland, a group headed by Minelli that is lobbying for the right to assist suicides in Germany, for €95 ($190) plus €16 a month. Dignitas charges 2000 francs to help with a suicide.

With comments received from legal, medial and other civil society group, The Swiss government decided to look into the law freshly but the Swiss Cabinet sees no need to tighten restrictions on assisted suicide, despite the fact that the country has become a favourite destination for "death tourism", and that Switzerland's leading euthanasia doctor has pledged to open a chain of for-profit killing facilities.

Therefore, the debate around the world still continues whether this suicide tourism is right or wrong, the intended people keep coming to these destinations for assisted suicide. But in human life, suicide is a most difficult act and should not be justified as joyful event. People world over should stand against it and oppose strong to ban it wherever it is taking place. Let us make the world full of living tourism and not of death.

Rape: Who are the culprits?

The gang rape and death of a 23-year-old-physiotherapy student has sparked an outpouring of national grief and outrage and posed many questions such as, - “Are women safe in the largest democracy of the world?”, “What is the status of the women in the Indian society?”, “Why is that rape cases are increasing every year?”, “Do rape victims treated importantly by the Indian Police?”, “Are there any stringent law which can serve as deterrent for preventing rapes?”, and most important now, “Will this tragedy promptly change law and attitudes toward women?”.

India has more unreported cases of rapes and deaths than cases lodged in the police complaint books. According to an estimated there are about 100000 rape cases pending in the different courts of India. The unreported cases could be somewhat ten times more than this. Most of the unreported cases do not come into the light because of the shame and social stigma created by the male dominated society at large. The victims or the kin of the victims do not really approach media or the police for such cases. Among the brutal cases when the victims life is in danger it is brought to the attention of the police and police instead of helping the victims poses thousands of negative questions to discourage them to lodge the case. Most of the rapes cases are lodged by the police only when media is sensitize and show some activity, otherwise victims keep hanging in police stations and their cases never get registered.

The reason being Indian police are well aware about the crime and they are well tipped by the criminals in advance not to register these cases. Somehow if the cases are registered, the criminals influence the court and buy the witnesses. Don’t forget, among the people who are involved in the rapes, are mostly spoiled brats of rich and powerful persons of the society. The cases such as the recent one is an example of corrupt police administration which allows anything and everything to happen under their nose by the hooligans, goons, and lecherous individuals who understand that they can get away by paying bribe to the police even if they are caught. Indian Police is more known to free criminals than to punish them. What matters for them is the bribe. Even to registered rape cases they collect bribe from the victims.

Look at the other dimensions, in an outrage when people came out of their home protesting against the most heinous crime of gang raping and murdering the victims, the people who are in the power capital does tongue slinging and passing undeserving remarks to the protesting women. This was none other than son of the first citizen of the country and president of India and a responsible citizen in the form of Member of Parliament. This was not only the remark but the thought and attitude of male in the Indian society. There are various other politicians who have been reiterating against the women time and again irrespective of understanding that they too have women in their life and they need respect them. So, when they do not respect their own women, how can they respect other women in the society?

The rape and torture of the women in the society is the outcome of the perceived mindset of the male protagonist who plays brutal and oppressive role against women. The women have to listen to the dictates of this male dominated society. All morale and values are for women and men can do anything.

The recent rape case brought into the public eye a threat to women's security that is at odds with India's image of itself as a modernizing nation that is striving to provide equal opportunity to all its citizens. Even after the news spreading in media throughout the country about this case, there is yet another reported case of rape came into the light and who knows there could be many cases not known to us. India is the largest democracy.

India is a democracy but some are more equals than the other, that’s why laws will not be made such stiff which can affect so called more equals. The law makers will not make it harsh which serve as deterrent. We, in fact, send our representative in parliament to make our society better but they see everything through their own lenses.

These six men who have been nabbed for the crime would be punished, they may get capital punishment too, but will the Indian mindset change towards women is the bigger question.

Around three decades back due brother and sister, Sanjay Chopra and Geeta Chopra, were murdered by then DTC bus driver and conductor in another evening. While finding them lonely in the bus, the driver and conductor tried to molest and rape the sister but the brother fought valiantly. The culprits, Ranga and Billa, were caught and hanged till death. People thought that will serve as deterrent for the rapist. But the statistics have shown so far the different pictures only.

If as a society we are to avoid such cases we need to respect our women and change attitude towards them. We can make kind of society we want. But if the present mindset continues we all will find culprits among ourselves who sees women as commodity to use and throw.

Slave Delivery Model

My affair with corporate world is not very old but in a small time period it has taught me brilliant lessons of corporate philosophy and its practices in reality. The great new world of job opportunity emerged in software companies, which have made millions of Indians realize their dream of holding a job and at least earning a decent living. At one end the happiness of being employed is very overwhelming but at the same time the rigours and pain of conflicts and its repercussions make you feel disgusted and dejected at times. Such incidences are more often expected in the software companies where body shopping is the working and revenue models. In their terminology, this is called the onsite opportunity to work in some other company’s premises being on the payroll of the parent company.

You work on the client’s premises as a contract employee whereas your parent company calls you a consultant. While getting the tag of a consultant you feel overwhelm thinking that your carry superior skills and knowledge what even the hiring companies people might not have. Your judgment of yourself is quite right, nevertheless for client you are just one of the human tools what they don’t want to hire into their fold rather get you on the contract to complete a particular task. You might be smart, knowledgeable, and efficient, whatever adjective you use for yourself but you are just a plug-in to fit and get the things work. The rule of the game is different. It’s the game of few chickens who rule the herd of pigs for their accomplishments. The client company is interested in your work and not in you. For them you are just a commodity to be bought for a particular period of time. For your parent company you are a saleable commodity. The day you stop having your sale value, you are no more required in the companies. This is the part of life in the software companies.

Mismatch is a very sober, sophisticated, direct, and clear word being used now these days in the corporate environment. Being contract employee demands you to keep lower profile than the employees of the client’s company. At times you might be knowing more than what they know or you might be able to solve the problems they are facing but you need to keep yourself contained to your job and should not come forward to help them out. The reason being, they will make you do the work and take the credit themselves. Forget about giving credit to you, if they are threatened with your longer presence they would seek a replacement of you stating that you are mismatch for the job and in spite of giving so many chances you have failed to do what is expected out of you. Some times if you are able to perform better and getting expertise in the particular area of work, the co-workers of the client company would work behind you to see your back.

By the time you come back to your parent company, they will make you go once again to different other companies for the interviews and again at the client’s place and the mismatch saga continues. This is the service delivery model of software services companies. But we dare not call it body shopping because it’s the civilized world’s most popular business model which degrade human in front of other human and teaches you the art of slavery to survive. If you have worked in any of the software services company you would know that they hire corporate trainer to teach you how to speak in the interview and how to answer the question in pleasing manner to the interviewer. May the interviewer be a muff; you need to please him by your answer. You need to answer the question the way he wants not the way you can better explain it. The ego and pride are the supreme quality these hirers have than the hunger for knowledge to progress further.

We know why we bend to the tunes of these buffoons, because our parent company wants us to do so. If we miss to get through, our company would not get the contract and we wouldn’t get our salary, promotion, and appraisals. We dare not do that also because we need job and no other industry in India offers such opportunity. We are more than a billion people country and software services industry provides more number of jobs than any other industry. So what! If the service delivery model is slave delivery model.

Who should be blamed?

Bangalore is happening city because of IT boom. Not long ago, the city used to be called pensioner’s paradise and garden city of India. Gardens are no longer green. Felling of trees to accommodate increasing human population and garbage littered around tells the sordid story of death of green city of Bangalore. Solitary houses are converting into multi-storey buildings. Marshy and outskirts open areas are turning into concrete jungles. Towering apartments and flats just like pigeon holes are for the human inhabitation. People blame the government, government blames the corporate, corporate blame the system, and this blame game is continuing. Everyone is part of this blame game yet no one takes the onus.

This is the not the story of Bangalore alone. Almost all the metros of India passed through the same phase and experienced the same situation. One should be happy Bangalore caught it late and that too the industry which is pollution free, waste free and employs millions to earn their livelihood. The city turned out to be the silicon city of India. It was fortunate that westerner found Bangalore to be the ideal place for them to set up their software IT park mainly because of the weather which suited them. Nevertheless, even the manpower required for the budding industry was concentrated in southern India and Bangalore became the hub of the industry.

Rising price, increasing population, unmanaged city’s infrastructure is obvious when you look at the traffic on the road. Ever increasing number of cars, busses, motorbikes and heavy vehicles are putting more pressure on the city. Software industry might not be polluting the environment but the snarling traffic smoke definitely does that. Anyone would feel pity looking at the traffic police manning the cross road junctions. Prolonged hours of work and pittance payment can not compensate what they are losing everyday masking their mouth and nose to avoid dust and smoke of the passing vehicles. Yet tomorrow is another day.

Everyone is stressed, everyone has problem, everyone is irritated, but nobody thinks how we can solve the problem. Naturally everyone feels solving city’s problem is government’s job. As ideal citizen we feel that we pay the tax to the government and it is responsibility of the government to provide us clean air, clean water, wider roads and so many other things. And as an ideal citizen we just want to utilize all the facility as me only. We are not bothered about others, about our neighbouirs, and about our fellow human beings. Its always me only. Every one talks in terms of I and me only and expects government to take care of all the I’s and me’s.

Be on the road, everyone wants to run past very fast as soon as possible breaking all the traffic norms, signals, dashing another vehicle, and dozing pedestrian. End of the day we all talk about bad traffic system and poor management. We never sit to look our own faults, if only we follow the rules, the system runs, otherwise system breaks. Who is to be blamed?

Like many cities, Bangalore too gets cauvery river water drawn through massive pipelines, yet we lavishly use and waste water without thinking that if one day water is not available what will happen to our life. Do we really think of rationing the water for ourselves? The answer is no. It is government’s job to mitigate the water scarcity.

Garbage disposal and waste management is one of the crucial challenges of the city. City resides on the higher altitude of the land mass. There is no nearing sea or river system to drain out waste. The government is tackling the problem by clearing the garbage and waste and dumping it in a place to decompose it.

The great joke is everyone blames other about littering their place. The fact is any open place is a garbage and waste disposal place for everyone irrespective of it being private property or government property. Elite classes have their pet kept in their house but take them to crap in front of another person’s house. Yet they are the one who complains more about everything.

If we really take a little step to look into our small problems to solve ourselves and let the government solve the bigger problem, we would definitely be improving our life style, conserving our environment and saving for the future. Instead of looking outside, its time to look inside and ask whom should we blame for our plight.

Who is Alkabir?

Never heard the name before, don’t know much about him, in fact who is he. The genuine question springs up in mind before taking Alkabir’s tales as one of those to be taken seriously as point of pondering or as rubbish garbage to be thrown in the bin after the use.

Alkabir is a pseudo name, an anonymity, a stranger, an onlooker, and a common Indian, who feels happy in good times, sad in hardship, challenged in adverse situation, and want to be a champion at all times. He fathoms the dark side of life and appreciates the bright side of it. His wits and comments are not palatable by all. Though he is not an alchemist who could make everyone rich but wishes that if everyone has everything, life would be much easier and happy. He is obsessed seeing happy faces around himself. But, life is not a dream and the reality what he sees through his eyes pains him and makes him express his outburst.

Not that he is all critical about everything. He sees life beyond the rigor of hardship and hopeful about the changes. Alkabir believes in discipline, moral values, societal norms, and in changing times he really feels depressed when someone for their lustful nature violates the old age laid down principles on the name of change. According to him change is not ideal unless it is good for everyone. Change should bring some values; some benefit, and maintain the dignity of human kind.

He is caught in between the cross fire of degrading value systems, moral abuses, and human exploitation by fellow human being. It is here Alkabir tries to examine what hurts him and wants to share that through the internet world. Call it blog, story, narration or his personal feeling towards all the vices with which he is bonded with and that is even part of his own life.