Reflections

The location was not a place where you expect to learn a life lesson – it was the SILC Center in Pune, at the Learning & Development Rendezvous, an event of the L&D Global Pune Chapter, on the 8 th of October; on the menu was an eclectic mix of a Power Negotiation Panel Discussion and a Leadership Masterclass; these are not things that lead to such esoteric things as Life Lessons – nonetheless, the surprise item floored me, and touched my heart… The Meeting With the founder of Snehvan A SOFTWARE ENGINEER ON A DIFFERENT PATH What do you do when you are a software engineer? Especially if you are from village? You go to the rarified environs of a Software company, and earn money and create a better material future for yourself and your family; even going abroad in a few cases, perhaps leaving India for good in some cases. These are stories you have read ad-nauseum in the news; you have read of the CEOs of American companies who left India, plastered all over the m...

A stunning news on a news daily, relating to an App Interface of a very popular service brand, caught my attention : Uber may have been secretly recording your iPhone screen, even when the app is closed. Will Strafach, a New York-based security researcher, discovered that the taxi hailing app had received a special permission from Apple to access the screen-recording feature. The company, however, rejected the security breach fears, stating the code was installed to improve the experience on Apple Watch version of the app . = Now this is frankly stupidity on a colossal scale; accessing a user's screen even when the app is closed ... where are we going as an industry? By what stretch of imagination, strategy, morality or intelligence is this an advance? How far are we going to allow apps, internet and computers into our lives? This has now lead me to question the entire Smartphone aspect : I think there is a need for users to take their personal lives off the Smartpho...

As the current dispensation reaches near midway in its 4 th year at New Delhi, questions – hard questions – are beginning to emerge on its overall performance till date. The heartening thing in this is the surprising development of the main point at centerstage in the current public discourse, which is turning out to be the economic performance so far. Even some of its own party members and allies have come out against its policies or performance. For once, I can only say that it is nice that we are actually having a national dialogue around The Economy, which is very welcome. THE NPA PROBLEM There are several parameters of the Economy that we can discuss; here, I concern myself, in this article, around only one : The NPA problem that Indian Banks are facing. I would like to refer interested readers to the annotated article link in the Bibliography section, which is a report carried on the RBI Website wherein all the technicals are mentioned with data. My main driving concern ...

A BOOK LONG OVERDUE India’s Most Fearless is a book that has been long overdue – a book dealing with the stories of some of India’s decorated Armed Forces Personnel. We are a nation that for some reason lacks the literary habit of documenting the exploits of the heroes who defend our borders and our people; not only that, we lack a habit of covering the stories of these heroes, these brave soldiers once the immediate relevancy of the situation fades, and the passage of time brings fresh memories to the fore. Therefore, it is great to see a rising tendency of documenting these heroes; the current book is the second book in that genre, with the first being The Brave -Paramvir Chakra Stories , the story of our Paramvir Chakra vijetas. THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY The other great part of this book is the equal prominence it gives to the three arms of the Forces : The Army, The Air Force, and The Navy. It is this which makes this book a must read, and not just for aficionado...

THE BEES COME TO ME… I count myself lucky that I had a massive beehive right outside my living room window, on the window concrete sun-shade slab. For several months, the two of us- the harmful and dangerous human being, and those harmless gentle honey bees – co-existed without any trouble to each other. They didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother them. But this period have me insights both into Honeybees as well as human behavioral aspects, insights that I shall carry with me my entire life. The images of this honey-beehive are given below, which can highlight its closeness to my habitat. I first noticed them when a few came inside from the open window; I was at a loss as to what to do, till I figured out they were attracted by the light. Only then did I spot the Beehive, and nearly panicked & spoke to the society incharge for immediate redressal of this “grave” threat to my habitat and existence. The bees – they didn’t care too much for me, ignoring me as irrelevant, unimp...

Ravinder Singh Gill is back; and he is back with a bang! I, of course, refer to the character Ravinder Singh Gill from the Mukul Deva stable of fiction – the latest book under review is Assassins, a Ravinder Singh Gill Novel authored by the king of action thrillers himself – Mukul Deva. And, though I am frankly tired of saying so now, yet again – the novel is c.o.m.p.l.e.t.e.l.y different from the others; each novel of Mr Deva is different unique – and this is no exception. The story, the plot, the flow and the narrative are different yet again; only the pace is the same – again, a Mukul Deva signature. THE PLOT, The plot essentially carries on from its predecessor – “ The Dust Will Never Settle ” { Reviewed on my blog here }. The main protagonist – Ravinder Singh Gill has now retired, and is in effect convalescing after the personally shattering events of that mission. Unfortunately, intelligence is received on a forthcoming attack on the Pakistani ex-dictator as well ...

India – Priorities For The Future is a book that can be best described as being at the cross-roads of politics and Economics, which makes it quite unique. It is a very thought provoking and deep analysis of this intersection of these two vital aspects of our nation, concerning itself with the Economy of the country, its performance through the years in numbers as well as Macro Factors; and the political aspects of this, that is – the decisions, involved decision makers, systemic weaknesses and plus points as they exist and what needs to be done. As can be seen from the short preamble above, this is quite wide a scope, and seems daunting. The best part is that the entire scope has been dealt with remarkable aplomb and sufficient depth, while at the same time not exceeding too many pages. This is a very short, {well – relatively short anyways, considering the topic and the scope – 180-odd pages} book, and all the arguments are presented in a superbly logical and yet delightfu...