Marrying e-governance intiatives and IT bench-warmers

A report on Orissa government's e-governance initiative, in the form of a developing portal for applying driving licences online set me thinking (Yeah, not many things happening around me "set me thinking")

The top 6 Indian software services companies - SWITCH - Satyam, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, CTS, HCL (no pun intended with the acronym) - have around 10-20% of their workforce warming up benches at any point in time. What if these companies pool together their "benched" resources and offered them to the government free of cost to code the e-governance initiatives? The government can set up a company to manage these resources and pay just the project managers (or even they can be loaned from these companies if they happen to be on bench).

It's an easy win-win. This would drastically reduce the bill that the government has to foot to develop their software and manage it. From the companies' standpoint, this reduces the bickering by the benched employees, not to mention the satisfaction they get working "for their countrymen" towards a larger cause.

How to offend your users?

A picture speaketh a thousand words!

Ego measurement

Shahrukh Khan said that he is the most sellable property in IPL. That is some measurement for a man's ego. However, I came across a more accurate one when I was browsing through cricinfo. What say?

Aloo (f)or Brains (?)

This is the wickedest article I have come across. Noble as it may sound at the first read that it  informs users about a certain infected website (which, by the way, I may have never visited on my own in my lifetime), I cannot help satisfy myself with a reason as to why the person who wrote this chose to provide a link to the infected site. 

I am left to wonder if this is the web version of disaster tourism. Remember Vilasrao Deshmukh, Ram Gopal Varma, The Taj, and the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai? 

Played out

I feel a bit ashamed to say that, in my 29 years of existence, I watched my first play today (better late than never). I watched “Chaos Theory” by Rahul De Cunha.  I realised two things as I watched the play. I liked the play; I love performing arts. The very concept of seeing the actors performing live, so close to you, was something totally different.

I think the surreal world of a stage play is more realistic than that of a movie. Coined in a different way, a play is less surrealistic than a movie. (Depending on your point of view, the above two statements could be profound or pointless). Imagine. For once it was not the retaken, edited, mixed versions of the best, filtered performances of artists that were presented to me in a sequence of scenes called a movie, but things as they were played out (literally and figuratively) right before my eyes. What a dumb modern-day consumer of canned, recorded performances I have been so far! How different, exhilarating, and cathartic is this experience of consuming something as it is being delivered - Fresh! (Yeah. It is such a simple extension of freshly-made food tasting better, silly).

Though I am stating the blatantly obvious, performing arts need much more skill than movies just because of the fact that you do not have the backup of another "take". You face your audience directly. It is like an author penning down a thought-out story in a big book that everybody can read, as he writes it. Isn't it a bit shameful that writers cannot write live as actors act on stage? The actors practice before, yes but they perform in front of the audience. An author too thinks out the theme in solitude, but he cannot perform publicly. Actors should feel proud of their profession.

The Aussie way

I loved the way The Sydney Morning Herald concluded their article yesterday:

Australian captain Ricky Ponting admitted India outplayed them in the one-day finals. A more graceful captain would also have admitted that India had out-behaved Australia all summer.

Succinct punch indeed. It brings out several pertinent things such as:

1. The Aussies were outplayed (duh)
2. Ponting could be "more" graceful (though I agree that there might be slight disagreements over the extent of improvement possible - on a logarithmic scale, that is)
3. Ponting could have admitted something more (bracketed text from (2) to be repeated here)
4. India behaved much better than the Aussies

On a slightly tangential note, I have a nagging feeling that Hayden just didn't finish his sentence when talking to the radio station. May be had they asked him after the finals, he'dda said: (addtional quote italicized)

They are losing every game they are playing. Look at us. Since the year last, we decided that we only lose finals.

How ignorant!

CEO Talk

It is after a long time that I gave out a hearty laugh reading a serious post. This is to do with the recent axing of employees in the Yahoo! Bangalore office. Now, if a diplomat is one who makes you look forward to a trip to hell, I think CEOs are much more hideous on the "usher-to-hell" scale. Read this:

CEO Jerry Yang had mentioned a 1000 Targeted job cuts in an investors earnings call last month, and a strategic workforce realignment by mid-February, aimed at eliminating redundancies in bureaucracy and redeploying talent. (emphases by me)

Wow. Such clarity! I can bet my ESOP (It tells more about the ESOPs than my confidence. But never mind) that the release was written with one main objective and one side(y) objective. Main: Convey no useful information that investors do not know. Side(y): Confound the common man to the maximum extent possible through a 3-line press release. A normal person just doesn't comprehend anything out of these statements. If you are smart enough to comprehend what is exactly happening, well you wouldn't be listening to the bullcrap that CEOs spew out in the press meets. You just know. Period.

I think all CEOs must be made to have a few drinks before press conferences. May be then the stock market woud be an entirely different ball game:

Well. We are not doing so well these days and you know what's happening. So we thought we'd fire a few to keep the boat afloat.

Just imagine how much of print real estate, ink, hard disk space, technical analysis, internet bandwidth, and tape could have been saved if he had made that more concise and to-the-point statement. Few IBankers would lose their jobs, but then who cares?

Sigh. Straight talk and management never meet eye-to-eye. Bring on the lagers, somebody.

Nano car. Mega problems?

Even as Ratan Tata was getting down from his Nano for the first time before the eyes of the media, we could hear shouts of dissent and despair. The modern-day Indian Cassandras predicted doomsday for the average Indian. “Ban the Nano”, was their clamour. Clogged roads, traffic snarls, high pollution levels... list was long, believable, and intimidating to the half-asleep, coffee-in-the-hand-morning-paper-reading average Indian. Malthusian mindsets? One is left to wonder.

The argument put forward is pretty simple. "The price (of the Nano) would make ‘a lot’ of people buy the car and so would lead to congestion in our roads". Sounds…believable, ay? Try this then. "Providing universal education is dangerous since we'll have to contend with too many eligible kids fighting for a job". How about this? “Making too many people earn money would mean that we have ‘a lot’ of people empowered to buy things and will lead to supply shortages”. Same line of thought, ain't it? Accordingly then, we must remain an uneducated, poor nation, for any change from equilibrium is chaotic.

I think we still have remnants of the licence raj within us. We shun change. We shun free markets. We shun innovation. Well. Why is it that these naysayers do not think that there is a functioning government (though many think that it is an oxymoron) in India which ideally should rise up to providing the ecosystem for the industry to prosper? If that means constructing more roads for the people to get from point A to B faster, easier, safer, so be it. You can tax the car and fund the projects. That way each man contributes. The more the merrier. Why is it that people refuse to be taught from history – that necessity is the mother of all innovations? Tata found a necessity (demand) and created the Nano. If this creates the demand for more infrastructure, the government will have to yield to it. The point is not whether the government will react, but when.

Simple lessons. Complex mindsets?

Switch

ReadWriteWeb, in one of its articles, abbreviated the pack of Indian services companies as SWITCH (Satyam, Wipro, Infy, TCS, CTS, HCL).

RWW has got too many erstwhile coders in their teams? ;) Looks too good to be coincidental otherwise!

The Angolan Shooting

It's been "some" time sice I blogged and there are quite a number of good reasons for it, beyond my increasing sloth and decreasing time availability (may be these two have a causal relationship), that is. However, this news piece made me break my silence:

Angolan actors 'killed by police'

Certainly, one of "Man bites dog" genre. I do not know if it is the actors who have to be posthumously honoured for 'acting naturally' (talk about Oxymorons) or the police which had to be 'winked at' for this state of excessive alertness. If only our Mumbai police department had been this vigilant, the entire race of villian-turned-heroes would have now been six feet under terra firma. Nevertheless, it is a case of human tragedy - lives lost unnecessarily. Too high a price to be paid for, well doing your job exceedingly well.

Should I feel patriotic?

Looks like the Indian crowd is certainly making its presence felt in the netscape. Google Blogoscoped reports the 20 "top" search words in Google that lead to Reddit and one can easily see the Indian imprint. Here it goes:

1.reddit
2.sexycollegegirl
3.nude bollywood
4.nude bollywood actress
5.bollywood nude
6.nude actress
7.nude indian actress
8.sexy
9.reddit.com
10.redditt
11.buy viagra
12.aishwarya nude
13.bollywood nude actress
14.nude aishwarya
15.bollywood actress nude
16.oy kullanma (I have reasons to believe that this is a misspelt Tam swear-word)
17.nude indian actresses
18.couples having sex
19.actress nude
20.google

Wonder how "all" these searches lead to reddit. While this piece of news left me wondering about the "potential" of the Indians, this other piece from Amit verma's blog proved beyond any reasonable doubt we aren't the most accomplished beings on earth when it comes to libido.

By the way, If you are thinking why I preferred pasting the entire list instead of providing a hyperlink to the page, understand that I would definitely not mind a splurge in desi traffic to my blog. "Brain and digits" may not exactly be an aphrodisiac for the "needy" desi, but then, WTH? I have all the "Top 20 searches". One should see the counter racing slightly more frantically than the tampered Chennai-auto meter if reddit (and Google’s crawler) ought to be believed.

Delving Deep

Increasingly, I am lead to believe that the easiest way to enter the headlines and get famous in our country is to get yourself into a narrow pit. Deeper the pit, better the coverage. From municipal drainages to farmland bore-wells, the choice is wide. Just remember to have someone who will wake the police, call the media and find out the municipal authorities and you will have all the limelight (literally) on you. Wow! Time to "jump-in", I say.

Indian Railways

WTH? Isn't this a free country? Who are they to tell me what I can do with my machine? Grrr.

Noida mein Naukri

It's the first time I am on the other side of Vindhyas and it has been an experience of sorts. A few reasons:

1. Barbers prefer the pavement over a street-side shop to render their services,
2. Bus drivers are generous to take their vehicles to the pavement and not just restrict them to roads
3. AC restaurants run the AC in "fan" mode even when the outside temperature is a balmy 43 degrees
4. Cycle rickshaws (hitherto believed extinct in S.India) outnumber autos 100:1.
5. Bullock carts (and sometimes Bullocks) move on the fast lane in the highways.
6. You can announce a ransom of Rs 1000 to anybody who spots public transport and rest assured that it'll be eons before he comes back to you for the claim
7. You find little difference between the terrorists portrayed Hindi films and mid-noon scooter drivers as far as appearance is concerned

I think I'll be constantly appending to the list in the coming days. I sign-off with this excellent license agreement from Wordweb:

Welcome to the WordWeb dictionary-thesaurus.

All users may use WordWeb for 30 days for evaluation purposes. After 30 days it may freely be used only if you personally:

• Take at most 4 flights (2 return flights) in any 12 month period
• AND do not own an SUV (sports utility vehicle).

Home

It has been 3 weeks since I left ISB and I can see a lot of changes within me. My sleep cycle has gone back to the normal mode (In other words, I sleep), I talk gibberish most of the times I am awake, remain glued to the Internet for no good reason, read essays of Francis Bacon, and ponder over the meaning of life. The general consequences of these activities range from a few raised eyebrows to a shout of, “Arrant nonsense! My son has lost it” (or its equivalent in Tamil) from my mom.

Surely, a couple of things worth mention in this post. First is the weather. It’s still early days of summer and by Chennai standards it has rather been mild, what with the rain gods sending in an occasional shower or two. However, the motley bunch that arrived from Bangalore earlier this week lost no sweat (literally) in denouncing Chennai as an uninhabitable geography. For once I stood exposed to the fact that Chennai (or at least the part of the city they sampled) was devoid of proper air conditioners, road sense, satellite channels, and decent people not to mention the weather that would make pigs sweat! Hmm. Certainly something to take note of. (Beware of visitors from Bangalore)

The second thing is food. For three weeks straight, I have been treated with an assortment of south Indian delicacies. Famished, as I was with burnt rotis, half-cooked rice and never-looking-different dhals of ISB, I am verily delighted at this welcome change. I can go as far as saying that my mom is God’s gift to gastric juices (next to Anatole), even if it is with a burp and the associated emotion. This undoubtedly has been one of the main reasons I enjoy my stay home. It’s a couple of more weeks roughly before I assume my new responsibilities in Delhi and until then I have no complaints that daily, it is rice… thrice.

Short Story

Students in "Creativity, Innovation & Design" course have been asked to do a 55-word write-up. I have not taken the course, but here is my stab at it:

The fragile lady thanked the applauding crowd. The occasion - a felicitation for the courage and compassion she showed in donating her dying son's eyes and kidneys to help two people lead lives which they otherwise would not have. It was a deeply emotional moment and everybody’s eyes were in tears – even her son’s own! (54 words)

New look

Tweaked my blog with blogger beta that allows me to work with a cool WYSIWYG editor. Should see some subtle changes here, though nothing sweeping.

The vendor

The Charminar express was running below the average speed of a super-fast train and I grew slightly bored. I had read every article of the morning paper which now lay crumpled in my hands. The enthused kid sitting next to me on the window seat announced that a station is approaching and started in earnest to read the letters that bore out the name as the train approached to a stop. After a small influx and efflux of passengers, a vendor got in. He was conspicuous by his dressing - a ritual black that symbolises the cult of people who embark on a particular pilgrimage.

This pilgrimage starts with around 40 days of fastidious rituals aimed at purging one of all the "worldly" sins before preparing one for the climax - a journey of around a day or two (depending on where you start) culminated by a bare-footed trek on an unfriendly terrain to keep your appointment with the Almighty. These pilgrims, during the 40 days are expected not to wear foot wears, eat frugal vegetarian food, abstain from drinks, maintain chastity, and not lie. They essentially live out those 40 days being personifications of an ideal Indian devotee - and in return command great respect from the society.

The vendor pressed himself into business right away. He pulled out a big cover of CDs and DVDs and started showing sample titles to fellow passengers. He showed me a couple of titles, "Sir, all new releases, first-class prints - 10 Rs each". He jutted out his thin hand with a couple of CDs in a cheap, gaudy package. I faintly negated the offer. The kid presently finished reading the name of the station. The train moved.

Orkut & The Six Degrees of Separation

Recently, I was spending some time with this networking site called Orkut. (Somebody told me that MBA is all about networking).

Indian software engineers warming the benches of their respective companies need no introduction to the site. For the benefit of others, Orkut allows one to search for profiles of people based on names or a dozen other attributes which you wouldn't even have cared about in your friends (Fashion outlook, turn-ons, body art - to name a few). Once you click on a profile, the site pops-up the person's photo (which invariably turns out to be a movie star's or another nice looking guy's/gal's) and along with it neatly shows up a series of breadcrumbs to indicate how you are networked to the selected person. For want of better usage of time, I selected some 30 random profiles from the site (Did somebody say ISB keeps you busy?) and found that none of the network chains that linked me to the people had more than 6 breadcrumbs! Mmm..May be the theory of six degrees of separation which has been so bitterly protested has a grain of truth in it.

I should, however admit that it was quite surprising and a lot disturbing as well to note that I was not very far from all those phony characters lurking around in the site.

How much can you hate your VC?

I came across this profile in Orkut:

http://www.orkut.com/ProfileP.aspx?uid=1993659154902823800

I was ROTFL for 30 minutes.

Frankly, do not know whether to pity the VTU students or the VC!