The Best of 2010 ;) !

          Everyone is posting the best of 2009. So I am sure everyone is going to know everything anyways. So this is my blog post that I would love to publish on 31^st December 2010 ;).

World :

India has successfully turned all the nuclear guns of Pakistan towards Nepal. (Why Nepal ?.. well.hhmm... who cares ;)) and Pakistan has finally ceased to exist in spite of all the money given by US and is no more officially recognized as a country.

Obama has finally said – ‘Yes we did’ instead of a perpetual ‘Yes we can’. (BTW: shouldn’t new year day be named as Obama day – it’s a day where everyone hopes for the best ahead and who else can show better ‘hope’ than him.)

Copens and Hagens**  have finally shook their hands on the heroic climate deal. Climate is not going to end humanity anymore – war may though ;)

India :

Mumbai police have finally started torturing Kasab publically… and we are loving it ;).

Chandrayaan 2 has successfully planted the first mango tree on the moon and is using the detected H2O to successfully water it. ;)

In a miraculous case of self realization, Raj and MNS have resorted to peaceful satyagraha.

Swine Flu immunization reaches India and perpetually no deaths due to H1N1 in full 2010. J

Sensex closed 45 points higher today at 35,452 pts.

Gossip :

Rakhi Sawnt’s sequel reality show – ‘Rakhi ka Honeymoon’ has gone on to become the most popular reality show in the world.

Woah ! Saif was bi and had Shahid tattooed on his lower back !

We have finally found 100 waitresses who have not slept with Woods ;).

Entertainment :

AR Rehman gets Oscar for 2^nd year in a row.

Aamir Khan had delivered a mind blower that makes 3 idiots look mediocre (now that would be something ;)).

Business/Technology :

Tata has obliged to the PM’s request to reduce emissions and has launched – Tata Pico – worlds cheapest bike for Rs 1k.

Google has successfully launched Google Life – It is an application that is going to scan through all the data on your laptop, your personal diaries, bank accounts, photos, video chats with your girlfriend, your search queries, the songs that you sing while bathing and pass it through the google black box to give out relevant Ads of what you should buy in order to lead a better life.

Facebook’s population that exceeded that of Chinas.

Windows 7 consistently sucks less than Vista.

Completely ‘working’ GPS active in the whole of India.

Sports :

Commonwealth Games 2010 were the best commonwealth Games hosted – ever. J(well atleast grant me a wish to be able to publish – Woah – nothing actually went wrong in the Commonwealth Games 2010 in Delhi ;) )

Sachin Completes 21 years and sets the record for the highest number of records anyone has broken and set in any sport.

India retains No. 1 in Tests and also in ODI’s.

Cheers !

Rahul

31 dec 2010. ;)

Also – check out this cool site to be used for the new year – http://www.futureme.org/. It lets you email to a future you ;). May seem a bit silly, but actually pretty cool to email a 30 or 40 year old you asking – hey man –  did you finally get the Ferrari ;).

Oh and ya – feel free to list down something that you feel would be great to have in news on 31^st dec 2010. HAPPY NEW YEAR ;) !

[**- Click here if the Copen and Hagen point confused you a bit ;).]

Only Businesses that THRILL win in the long term!

Only Businesses that THRILL win in the long term!
Around 80% of startups close down within their first year of operation. While some of these go down simply because of part time involvement of the founders, lack of persistence and fizzling out of passion, a large percentage go down during their transition from a Startup(Micro) phase to a Small Business phase.................

De-Branding of The Tiger ! ;)

               It would be an understatement to say that Tiger Woods is screwed. Accenture ended their contract with him and are no longer going to endorse him. The superfast and, thanks to the media, thrilling debacle of the tiger is actually an inspiring story for someone who wants to re-brand or de-brand himself.

                  Wiki defines a brand as a distinguishing name or symbol that determines your product or service. But brand is definitely much more than a flashy logo, a jazzy company name and a million dollar Ad campaign. For a company, its basically ‘who’ the company is. If its about a business, you are getting branded every minute – pick up the phone with a frown and a grumpy hello – you are branded, work harder to deliver on time – you are branded, default on loans – you are branded, don’t pay salaries on time – you are branded, communicate fair and honestly – you are branded, roll out a bad batch of products – you are branded, don’t do what you said you will – you are branded, have an untidy, unclean office/shop – you are branded, smile at your customer – you are branded, laugh behind his back – you are branded. So your brand is basically ‘who’ you are.

             Its clear that Tiger Woods had lost his brand value. But the funny thing is, he is still what he is – he is still the bloody best golf player in the world. That’s what has made him what he is. That’s what Accenture signed him up for. I hope they didn’t sign him for “Not sleeping with wrong women”.

              So you can have a flashy logo, jazzy name and be the best in the business – ‘screw’ up and you are screwed ;). And when God decides to set a freaky sensuous babe called destiny to screw you – all you have to do is just knock at the backyard of your own home, with your own car, having your own family in it, to unravel the deep secrets hidden in the hearts of god knows how many mistresses to the entire world.

    So the big lesson to be learned is :
Go to Bed – and you are branded ;).

When Copen met Hagen !! ;)

         This is a story about 2 brothers – Copen and Hagen. Copen is 21 and thus has a relatively ‘developed’ persona and Hagen is 15, but smart and ‘developing’ fast.


One morning, Copen and Hagen decide to go a cafe and have a chat-

Copen : Hey Hagen, how many times have I told you to stop smoking. You are too young to do that.

Hagen : Oh yeah !! but you started when you were just 12 !

Copen : And that was a mistake. And I don’t want you to repeat the same mistakes that I made.

Hagen : Aah ha ! Well I don’t listen to people who make mistakes.

Copen : Listen, I am elder to you and thus smarter and more self dependent. So I have the right to advice you.

Hagen : oh really, then why don’t you give me some more money to buy a ‘hukkah’ ! It would be less injurious you know.

Copen : Buy one?? why don’t you make one just like I have done.

Hagen : Haah, then atleast teach me how to make it or share the technology how I am supposed to make it.

Copen : Oh I will, but you have to promise you will smoke less.

Hagen : Oh yeah ! And what happened to the promise you made to mom (Mrs kyoto) few years back ?

Copen : That was an old thing. Besides, this is between you and me. Don’t get mom in between. Forget about that thing. Besides it not my fault that she didn’t make you promise that time. Who knew you were going to grow up so fast !

Hagen : Forget Mom !! You can default on your promise to her and you want me to make a promise to you !! I am walking out !!!

And thus Copen and Hagen fought happily ever after.

           Climate thus remains limited to some lame essay talk given by some 13 year old that gets shared a million times and tones of people, who I hope, know what they are protesting for.

                 Australia is coming out to be a champion amongst the copens as they are giving in their best shot at scraping their promise to mom Kyoto and Africa is being termed as the champion amongst the Hagens as they are willing to stand tall and refuse to be dominated. Well, Ironic to a summit that should have champions termed on the basis of the vision and valor shown by a nation towards taking initiative for fixing the environment. Copens are worried that it will hamper their capitalist economies – well apparently you taught the world that capitalism is powerful and flexible – isn’t it powerful and flexible enough to accommodate the environment ???

               We have reached such a point that even if some minister from some country comes up with some innovative way and decides to lead by an example, the pride and political ego of his nation will be so badly hurt, that implementing something would anyways be just a dream for him. Handling the protestors will be on agenda for a few months then. The opposition in that country would be celebrating though.;)

Pretty funny we all cannot agree on the underlining necessities for our own survival ! ;)

In a 'STATE' of Break Up !!

2 FEBRUARY, 1835
AN EXCERPT FROM LORD MACAULAY'S ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT

"I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation."


Now this is a heavily debated article which has its supporters and skeptics, and though i personally accept Macaulay as a hero who got English Education to India,  lets just consider the part of ideology of the british to 'Divide and Rule'. Divide the country by regions, by religions, by classes and every possible way to rule rule 'efficiently' over the people.

11th DECEMBER 2009
AN EXCERPT FROM LORDESS MAYAWATI'S ADDRESS TO THE INDIAN PARLIAMENT (PRIME MINISTER) :

"I have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to give us clearance for creating independent states of Budelkhand and Harit Pradesh out of a giant-sized and unmanageable Uttar Pradesh.I was always in favour of smaller states as they are much simpler to govern"

Mayawati for trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh
IANS 11 December 2009, 06:15pm IST
The Times of India 

12 DECEMBER 2009
TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao : The 'Fast-ing Hero' of the telangana midnight statehood says there is no turning back and does not even want to share Hyderabad with AP as capital.

No turning back on Telangana statehood: TRS chief
PTI 12 December 2009, 02:44pm IST
The Times of India

Ideology : Divide and Rule. 
Its better this way you know. Mayawati can now get to control 3 states instead of 1. 3 times the number of statues.;) Mr Rao has successfully fasted his way to get his state for his 'underprivilaged' men. Too good now they have their own space to be a non discriminated state. Well, if everyone is unfortunate, who will u discriminate against ;). So good for them.

Long long time ago, some white men thought of breaking the country to rule 'BETTER'. Thankfully we did have some brave people to stand up for our independence. And today, long long time after independence, some smart people again propose to do the same to be able to rule 'BETTER'. Who is going tostand up and for what ;)

And if some other people pick up the agenda, dont think its too far when you have to start paying inter state toll for travelling from Pune to Mumbai ;)

The Indian TEDdy

              Last Month TED had their India Conference at the Infosys Campus at Mysore. As the videos are being published one by one, analyzing the highlights of the conference may give us some idea as to where we are going –


Pranav Mistry : This guy is mad. He is out to get rid of the laptop/desktop/iphone that you are using to read this right now, and put it on you. So your computer is going to be ON you like a parasite wherever you go. ;). On a serious note, a true genius. A true face of innovative India that I feel was lost during foreign rule and pre liberation period. Not surprisingly, he does all his research at the MIT labs. What we need to look forward is that, when we start computing in this way or may be start embedding chips in our bodies, will our educational reforms take us to a position where the pranav mistrys of tomorrow do their research in India. Not that we would not take all the credit of his inventions even if they are done elsewhere ;). Click here for his talk.

Hans Rosling : The king of data and information statistics. He predicts that if the ‘conditions’of the past 2 decades remain constant, India will be at par with the US and UK in terms of economy, health and standard of living by 2048 ! Now the skeptics disagree saying that this is non-sense and that Hans Rosling’s own findings suggest that there are discrepancies due to conditions like war, famines and stuff – but being a true Indian at heart – I like to believe that this is all true. Wow, it would be such an awesome day ! Hopefully the rupee is so strong that it pains much more to pay Rs 25 for a hair cut in India than paying $25 plus tip in the US ;).Our PM bloody has the power to go and poke his nose in any part of the world. Technology being outsourced from India to the west ;).So much power to just crush Pakistan like a fly. Speaking of Pakistan, I have always wondered why no one considers Pakistan in such surveys – oh ya, most probably, they would have ceased to exist by 2048 ;). Click here for the talk.

Mallika Sarabhai : Well here we have an activist, politician and artist dishing out something that was hard core “arty”. I am not too fascinated by slow, puzzling art films dishing out indirect messages to, many a times, very few people, who always look down at people like me who say that they didn’t really understand anything. She focused on including arts along with all the economic, social and political development and that any true development would not be possible without including the development of art. Though her performance is rated as obnoxious and unconvincing at TED, what really came out from it was how the super upper class looks at the social issues. It gave a feel of how showing to do something social is ‘cool’ for what can be called – the page 3 type people. Click here for her talk.


Sunitha Krishnan : Activist working against human trafficking and sex slavery.
I think this short, confident and humble woman represents the true face of the strong upcoming Indian woman – who is courageous, inspiring and fearless. Her talk agenda is very close to what Mallika Sarabhai speaks, but it is straightforward, no non sense and it touches your heart. It takes something for a female to come upto the stage and explain her condition on being gang raped by 8 men when she was 15 and overcoming all that anger to bloom into a super woman who has rescued more than 3200 girls who had been trafficked for sexual reasons. She rightly points out that the society is the major issue that builds walls against accepting rehabilitated women and things are going to change when we just change our outlook even within our small social circle. Well, if this is the face of the Indian woman tomorrow, we are getting there much earlier than 2048 ;) Click here for her talk.

Anupam Mishra : Look at him once and you see a true Gandhian at appearance, speech and attitude. And hell he is. He pointed out an interesting thing – of how traditional methods, in application in draught prone regions of Indian from something like 800years ago, are still working perfectly and how the million rupee projects of the government have fallen flat on their face. Well, we all know for a fact that long long time back, we had fascinating technology, architecture and probably the best standard of living – where we intend to go back again by 2048 ;). He has stressed on how we can still use these traditional and age old technologies even today and it is sheer ignorance of the government that we are not doing that in other parts of India. Now this brings us to an interesting point – if we are going ahead to become a super power, are we going to get there by being true to our roots and becoming an easternized eastern super power or are we going to adopt the west and follow their ways to become a westernized eastern super power. Click here for the talk.

Devdutt Pattanaik : Following the east vs west question above, he speaks about how east is east and the west is west and how our different history and culture have influenced our behavior and how this applies to how business is done differently in India and in the west. Eventually leads to the all important question that almost all businesses in India come across – should we put things in a process or will that hamper the innovative* quotient of the company. *Well, innovation in the Indian way can be defined as finding your way through the traffic and making it to the front, in spite of having 50 cars and bikes packed in front of you at the red light ;). Of how the best Indian companies cannot be driven by institutional demands but by individual instincts. While time will only tell how we adopt or clash when we start influencing the world more and more, I think its time to include ‘jugaad’ as an official management funda and’ jugaadu’ as an official profession.bcoz i think 'jugaading' is the second best thing invented by India ; First is the number zero.;). Click here for his talk.

Shashi Tharoor : I just love to see people like him come up the Indian political scene. He has spoken about the soft power of a country. A power that a country develops as a result of its culture, people, policies and also a sixth sense subjective matter that every country has about itself. You know, like the US portrays capitalism, rich, technology, credit ;). India - rich culture, yoga, technology , population , Australia - beaches, laid back lifestyle, nature . China – cheap quality, small eyes, eating lizards. Pakistan – terrorism. So will India, empowered by all the technology, communication, entertainment, democracy and its powerful growing economy merge these benefits with its ancient culture to come across as a consolidated super country and use all these powers, not to overpower the world, but to overpower its own problems first? May be if more and more guys like Tharoor start coming up instead of the Behnjis, and we start making use of them for their intelligence rather than concentrating on their tweets ;). Click here for his talk.

Just taking an outline from the published talks, do have to say that the Indian TEDDY is looking pretty pink and healthy and laughing all the way ;)

The Truth of the Gatecrashers ! ;)

           The US has apparently termed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to US as historic. Seems there has been some good “strategic discussion” about ‘allied efforts’ that shall lead to ‘long term co operation’. But none of the news channels bothered to have proper debates or any sort of discussions that would help us know what was exactly discussed.

              So we sent our No. 1 reporter – Kunachand Dozy (KD)– to interview some people who were actually inside the White House that time – Tareq Salahi(TS) and Michelle Salahi(MS) – or more infamously known as the ‘gatecrashers’ ;). KD sneaked on one night into their bedroom and since he was carrying expensive wine and champagne with him, they let him stay. Bottles open up –

Drink 1

KD: Hello sir, ….hey baby !!

TS: Hey Indian fella, what brings you here ?

KD: No reply- just staring at MS…

TS: Hey uuuu .. !..

KD: yes, sir , I was hoping to get a first hand information about what happened that night when you gatecra..

TS: We did not Gatecrash…!!!.. we were invited..

KD: Oh ya. Sorry, when you were invited to the White House.

MS: Oh it was an amazing night, we got all these snaps with everyone and look at us.. we are celebrities now..(looks really happy)

TS: Ahem..!

MS: Oh and ya…(super sad expressions) our lives are destroyed now . We were really invited.

Drink 2:

TS : You bloody media people, you misinterpret everything.!! you don’t have any moral sense and just blow up things for no reason..

KD: But what you did was not right na sir..

MS: Not right .. and what about what you guys do.. waste millions of hours of media time on air, critical news spaces and god knows how much money to report 2 people walking into the white house..

TS: Especially when your entire nation and US or for that matter most of the parts of the world should have been airing predictions and debates and information about the discussions going on.

KD: uh.. aah.. hhmm..

Drink 3:

MS: And look at us.. we are worldwide celebrities now.. and your PM’s visit, just got overshadowed by my one ramp walk down the white house.. haah !!

KD(may be thinking of doing some ethical journalism ;)) Actually, I have come to get a first hand feel about what talks took place inside, what were the discussions about.. was it about Pakistan ??

TS: haha.. why are you asking this to me..!! Kids in India would know that elite Pakistani institutions support the Taliban- something that the CIA is apparently discovering for years and reporting. Obama administration are still judging the reports results and devising strategy for the Af Pak mission. I don’t understand why you have to judge the reports of a country that is a synonym for failure.

MS: And I am sure even after everything , they will continue the ‘non-military’ aid to Pakistan and tell them’ “take this and don’t use it against India” ;)

Drink 4:

KD: (needless to say.. feeling really good as any Indian would feel after hearing words of wisdom about their neighbor ;))Wow.. how do you know so much about India, pak and stuff

TS: Because we don’t rely on or watch hopeless news channels which have crap aired by worthless reporters like you..

MS: Yeah, we directly crash in and see LIVE ! ;)

Drink 5 :

KD: Hhmm. And did they mention any allies stuff..

TS: Well you know, if I was responsible, I would have announced a big Indo-US ally and asked Pakistan to choose – Indo-US anti-terrorist ally or the Al Qaeda- Taliban ally. At least that would have made the visit ‘historic’ in the eyes of the world as well. And hopefully, no one would have had the time to lay their eyes on us ;). Nothing but just an announcement – something like the nuclear thing in the 2005 visit, would have created all the masala that you news guys need. Fir dekhte kaise pakistan ki phatti thi !

KD: Wow, you speak hindi !

TS: After 5 drinks, I speak hybrid of Hebrew and zulu as well !

Drink 6:

Wow.. but how was the dinner anyways..

MS: You will never learn will you.. you worthless reporter.. you should learn something from the Pakistani press, see how they must have shown your PM and the president shaking hands with the headlines “How our neighbor enemy is shaking hands with the democratic secular west(enemy 2) ”.. and how we need to get together and stop what they are going to do to the world. They wouldn’t even think of showing some gatecrashers walking in.. learn something.. !!

Drink 7:

KD passed out and doesn’t remember anything else.

Before coming back, KD also met another hot ‘news item’ of the week – Tiger Woods. Poor fellow. The media is slowly bringing up and tearing apart his personal life every single day. Being used the way it is.. Journalism isn’t turning out to be a too bad tool to turn villains into celebrities(Salahis) and celebrities into villains(Woods). At this pace, who knows, there might be a war going on in some part of the world and we would still be seeing some Richard - Shilpa kiss episode ;)

When Dubai Thanked the World !!

       All I have been to Dubai is the Dubai Airport. Its amazing. It glitters and in no time you just forget that you are on an airport and if you are a girl- you also start shopping in no time. Its truly a dream welcome to the ‘land of dreams’, or at least what it was considered until a few days back, just until the Dubai said a big Thank You to all its money lenders on the eve of thanksgiving - thanking them graciously for all the money and also for hopefully understanding that - well- we dont have any to give you back ! I think we would have to rate it as the biggest Thank You of this year ;).


               As all the people are wondering why the Big Thank You came, millions of others are left furious, some for losing millions and some not having made millions to lose them. Its being predicted that some 20000 migrants from India who had been coaxed by agents with the beautiful ‘Living the Dream’ dream, are coming back home this month – or rather are being kicked out of the emirates this month. Its like if you have no work out there, you have some 30 days to get your ass out of the country, or city or emirate or whatever ;). So all these people are going to come back to mommy after having ‘lived their dreams’ and going to be greeted by money lenders to pay back the money they had borrowed to pay the agents. Wonder if they can say the Thank You as well – too bad we don’t have the thanksgiving in India – Imagine how many people would be thanking each other ;)

             I did read in some places, “why don’t they pay themselves with all the oil they have.” How can they ??, they don’t have any oil. All the oil is with Abu Dhabi. They can surely bail out Dubai World, but I guess they have been reading Paul Krugman lately and getting smarter. Hopefully at least someone is coming to know that bail outs are for socially productive companies backed by the government- may be something like a national post and not for companies riding in borrowed Ferraris and building artificial islands that no one has the money to go and stay in – well at least right now.

             Some $600bn projects have come to a standstill in Dubai. Bankers, lawyers, architects and not to mention - laborers –have been axed, in some cases, by SMS- and I was thinking they do this only in China ;). People are selling cars to cover up for their loans, as in Dubai, if you default on loan payment or if your cheque bounces, you go to Jail. Dubai World or Nakheel would have to say another thank you now that the same rule does not stand with their lenders too ;)

         And then as usual, we have all the criticism from the west about future trust issues and all that – Veteran Bollywood over-Actor Rajkumar(Acting as Dubai World this time) has a message for all of you
:(Chinay Seth = money lending banks;) )


Hehe ;) You started it buggers. Now don’t point at others. I am sorta glad that the Sheikhs of Abu Dhabi have turned their backs, why should their people suffer for it, might as well make the brit banks absorb the hiccups ;). After all, they are the ones who had all the money, tones and tones of money to build islands, but none to get some sane advice.

            Shashi Tharoor in his lecture at TED India this week spoke about the ‘Soft Power’ of any country. The power that a country develops as a result of its government, technology, culture, policies and most importantly, its people. The power that attracts the world to that country. Dubai attracted millions with one common philosophy – ‘All that glitters is going to be Gold’ and one prime human tendency – ‘Greed’ and one common globally accepted apparently faulty solution to it – ‘Credit’ ;)