Wars…..Wars: We Want Wars

Before you even think about judging me, I’m a peace loving person, although not a follower of Gandhi, but still I do shun violence. So you must be thinking why am I supporting Wars?

Well parallel to all the Wars we all know (Mostly involving US) there has been another kind of violence going on, mostly silently, sometimes roaring. It stays hidden for most of the time, never makes for front page headlines or for that matter to Prime time Debates on 24 hour News. But these Wars are something who as much influential as all the other Wars you’ve been thinking about. But one thing about them is after the War is over winner is you the reader.

Ok enough suspense, let me raise the curtain and show the magic (no magic actually that just sounded good). I’m talking about Wars such as Cola Wars 80’s, Browser Wars of the 90’s and more recently Cell Phone OS war.

So let’s start with the Cola Wars. I was fortunate enough to read a case study about Cola Wars in my first year of MBA, but I can swear on Gita, Kuran or Bible that I hardly remember a thing. All I can gather is that the War left has us with beautiful commercials, lovely jingles and a handful of products, the taste of which we are still savouring. Not to mention it also gave us lot of MBA material to study and lots of strategies also and one big case to do with. Although I know the last part won’t make many happy especially my esteemed classmates who are dreadful and weary of reading 20+ pages of a Case. I shall not say more about that, because I know I’m riding on a very thin rope and I’m yet to complete my second year. Nevertheless the Cola Wars gave us a lot of things which till date we remember and so much was its influence that it went to the outer space as well.

The second war and one I’m more close to is Browser Wars. We all love to open up Google Chrome or FireFox or even Internet Explorer (You lazy idiots stop using this crap and download a worthwhile browser) but few of us might be familiar about something called Mosaic. It was the first known web browser, which later gave birth to Netscape Navigator, which later was the reason for development of Internet Explorer, which later….ok that’s enough, go figure it out yourself. It was also one of the reasons of now famous Microsoft’s antitrust litigation. Although the rest didn’t go too sweet for Netscape, but see what has that left us. It gave numerous web browsers, made a couple of Nerds millionaires (as if I give a damn, they didn’t give a dime to me). And it also played a big role in the massive Dot com bubble.

Recently though we saw another such War among Mobile Phones OS, precisely between Android and iOS. And I have to say I love all the cartoons these people make. They also love to take a dig at each other once in a while. And then we do have the Joker also in Steve Balmer who has a habit of giving us reasons to mock him. Saying that this War is nothing in proportion to the earlier ones will be an understatement. But still if you think so, just go and search the amount of lawsuits they have on each other.

As I draw to a close, I would like to point out to another War in making, a war which can have an even bigger impact. It’s the Tablets people. The thing we all want to own and because we can’t (apparently because of money) we say it’s useless and crap and full of shit and blahhh….

As you can see even in these Wars, the biggest participant has been the US. So therefore I urge the US Department of Defence and also President Obama to increase their budget, so that they can speed up more on such Wars and give us something to cheer about.

Find your Singur-An Open letter to Mr. Rahul Gandhi

, cFirst of all congratulations Mr. Gandhi for the victories Congress garnered in the recent assembly elections across different states. A special mention of Mamata Banerjee who has proved that True Grit, Resilience with Patience can help achieve anything, may people take lessons from her struggle and implement them in other places.

Now let’s come back to you. A few days ago you were making headlines for something. Something you did in villages near Greater Noida. You were there supporting the farmers agitation against the state government for the way it acquired land. Well at least that’s what the media was telling me. Now Mr. Gandhi let me familiarize you with one of the cruellest yet most useful word of today. It’s called RESULTS.

You can ask any school going child, or an investor how big is that word’s importance today. So let’s have a look at the results you generated from your so called agitation.

1. Gained a lot of Political mileages and newspaper coverage

2. Checked another point from the To-do list (Going to jail)

Did anything else happen that made significance?

Now those were the results you gave. Let’s have a look at what could also have been achieved. If the land was really acquired illegally or at lower prices, you could have continued your agitation and deliver something like what Mamata did in Singur. You could have done a lot more, that would show up on your report card, telling people that you are serious about things.

Uttar Pradesh is a state which has literally slept through the last two decades of India’s growth. It has always been seen as a drag on the nation, pulling back the growth shown by other states. It has been notoriously famous for its population, having one of the lowest literacy rates in the country. You were the one who termed it as you “Karambhoomi”. Mr. Gandhi it’s not words that matter, it’s the actions, remember.

With UP assembly elections not too far away and then the next General elections in 2014, all eyes will be on you and the results you are capable to produce. Mr. Gandhi “Find your Singur” and make it clear you mean business or we won’t take too long to forget you.

Today you are not only talking to the Aam admi, you are talking to the Common man as well. And common man lives in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs etc. Common man makes an effort to look beyond the obvious, search and not just believe what he is shown. Mr Gandhi common man is not just educated, he is enlightened also. He can see what India is capable of and where it is lying because of the leaders who are in charge of the ship.

Mr Gandhi, common man puts a price tag on his vote and that vote is not for sale. You will have to earn our votes to get them. You will have to prove, that you are worthy of being considered as a leader, who can lead us in the future. Mr. Gandhi you will have to rise above things like petty politics, easy political mileage and show us some real results. I know it will be a very difficult War, but then Wars are not won in a day. Wars are decided on the fate of small Battles. Battles like Mamata Banerjee fought in Singur, in Nandigram and ultimately won the thirty plus year long War against left. And as caution my dear friend once said; you cannot win every Battle, you’ll have to pick your Battles to win. Pick your Battles today and leave behind petty skirmishes and the big War is coming soon, but its fate is already being built upon. And if you fail to take notice of all these things, that cruel word RESULTS will not be a happy reading for you.

Android killed my Laptop

My roomie won’t be too happy reading this post as he’s an Apple fan bigtime, who worships Steve Jobs. And he is sitting beside me when I’m writing this, probably thinking about coding some rival application. But that’s how the world is today. It’s no longer Mac vs. Windows or Linux. It’s the cell phones that have taken the world by storm now. I could hardly remember the day when I started becoming so heavily dependent on cell phones. Was it when I got my hands on N-series or iPhone?

Back in 2005 when in school, it started using Linux mostly openSUSE and the Ubuntu. And with my geeky friends who all are now engineers used to argue Mac or Linux, yeah Windows was never in discussion. Fast forward to 2011, I landed in Bangalore sharing a room with another geek working for an IT company and for the past one week all we have been discussing has been Android, MeeGo, Symbian or iOS. And as I love arguing, the debate is still on.

But it’s not that PC OS are out of our debates. It’s out from daily chores as well, starting from checking my email, Facebook, Twitter and many other things. I actually prefer using my Cell phone to complete these tasks, and of course for music, although that is shared by my iPod also. And beyond these usual suspects, I read News, play Solitaire (love the game), of course Angry birds and so many more things. Those who know me know what those so many things mean.

So one would ask the obvious question why Android, all these things were even accomplished by cell phones that came before it. Well I say the same reason, they (Nokia...coughs) are not selling and Droids are. But as my Boss says “Nothing is obvious in life”, so let’s dig a little more.

I bought my current droid (x10i) last year and now I’m planning to buy Galaxy SII (Let those bucks once). The reason I would say it was Android and not even Apple, is because even my friend from school who once asked how to unmute his laptop (yes he did) is posting updates on Facebook underneath which is written via Facebook for Android. It came to masses and with a UI that was simple with apps which were too many and free.

With features such as the Swype keyboard and some real fancy pyrotechnics (No I am not wrong I used that word intentionally) they give it gives me a rich and a way better experience than my Crap (Windows) loaded laptop. That’s the reason I would say “Android killed my laptop”

I do use my laptop sometimes and although I agree it will never cease to exist, but nowadays it’s more like Sourav Ganguly in there, can deliver a lot and useful sometimes but who requires it all the time.

P.S- I posted this from my phone. And special thanks to my friend @kachuaChap from twitter who tweeted the title I used.

Will the same brand of justice ever be served in India?

I just couldn’t ignore the coincidence. In US, Rajaratnam was held guilty on all 14 counts of insider trading and back here in India we got the free for all access to Amar Prem Katha. And for the icing on top, I read a lot more about Niira Radia too. So as Rajaratnam is staring at 20 years in a federal prison, my question is will the same kind of justice ever be served in India?

Rajaratnam was no ordinary person, no. 236 on Forbes list of wealthiest people in US, richest Sri Lankan alive he rubbed shoulders with who’s who of Wall Street. He hired a team of one of the most expensive attorneys but contrary to what his peers in the hedge fund industry thought, he couldn’t escape conviction.

Back to India, how many big Corporates have we indicted? How many seen the inside of a jail and remained there? None expect for Raju (R another strange coincidence, Holy crap my name also begins with R) as far as I can remember. But what about other big shots who have been known to committing corporate crimes like Anil Ambani, Praful Patel etc.

The Niira Radia and Amar Singh tapes clearly reveals the nexus that is going on between corporate, politicians and even media now. These low life people are destroying and killing the Indian Dream when it is still in its infancy. All I have been seeing throughout the day has been mockery and cheap humour of both these tapes. But I am yet to see any action. I know many more like me think we can rise up the others and get noticed, but with tapes like this coming out don’t be ashamed of the route these people might take.

The last ray of hope we had was a unbiased media and a honest judiciary which has been literally stripped and is laughing back at us make me feel like a fool, a donkey. We dream of catching up with the West and all I can say is we are living in a fool’s paradise. We are bound to stay behind and will always be looked upon as the underprivileged, downtrodden ones unless we stand up, take notice, leave IPL for a moment and do something. I don’t know what that something can be or will be, but we will have to or let’s kill our dreams right now. I just ask one thing.

Will there ever be same justice irrespective of Caste, Creed, Domicile, Wealth or Political connections?

Sadness

Hadn’t it been for the sadness in the world, we wouldn’t have had some beautiful poetry. We wouldn’t have Shakespeare’s tragedies, Homer’s Iliad, Vikram Seth’s A Doctor's Journal Entry. Hadn’t it been for the sadness in the world, we wouldn’t have Happiness...................