New Market Mantra - Its Maama time!

‘You have got a great Mom’ – wanna ask for more?
‘Then ask for a great Maama’ – pat comes the reply.

MURDER, ZEHER, ASHIQ BANAYA.., AKSAR, and GANGSTER and ‘Maama’ word will never remain same! Mahesh Bhatt & Imraan Haashmi have created a niche in the industry for their merged entity. On one hand Imraan brings his core-competence of mindless serial kissing and his excessive comfort with his near-nude co-stars; while on the other Mahesh brings a huge experience of mindless copying of Hollywood films, scene by scene! The complete finesse of generating clones of Hollywood flicks with local ‘hashmi’ kissing flavour has got whole India awestruck. From the sources, we found that the duo settled for 70:30 merger with hashmi settling for 30 on the condition that in each movie he will keep at least one close scene with the struggler/debutant actresses. The merged entity is yet to be listed on the bourses but investors are watching it with close interest.

We have talked about the ‘maama-Bhanja’ so much, here comes the brand ambassador of the ‘Nasal-thumping Caps’! yes, we are talking about Mr. Himesh Reshamiya. This is genuine singer of its own kind, as he brings his three senses into singing – throat, ears and Nose. He simply move passed everybody from Sonu to Shaan; and has his songs topping the music charts as well as advertisements now use his songs rather than jingles.

Since last note, the three Tom dick and harry – sorry Mahesh, Imraan and Himesh have been producing some real good ventures. Watch this space, soon we might find an original from Bhatt productions called –
“Mein Imraan hashmi Banna chahta hoon’!

Votes, Notes, Minister-Posts & Reservation

Reservations for the OBCs, STs, SCs, Women, Religious minorities, and so on and so forth. There are no limits to it. And add to that the arenas in which these can be asked for – Primary education, Higher education, Govt Jobs, Private jobs…and so on. This policy of reservation can turn into a menace if it’s not being understood and implemented correctly.

So before we go all guns firing about the usefulness of this R-word, let’s first see whether we understand it. So what is reservation? A discount being given to a few castes and gender where government of this country feel that they have lagged behind because of socially unequal face of globalizing India. But why based on the origins of a person does he get reservation? Why not a major caste person living under poverty line in deplorable conditions gets the same right of reservation? He is equally downtrodden and unable to generate funds to equal the ‘background’ of the ‘qualified’ ones?

The answer is one word – POLITICS. Reservations, the kind of based on caste/creed/gender are the necessary catalyst for vote-bank politics. It’s rather a sad fact, that the sentiments generated on the basis of such ingredients are so huge that people can kill each other, leave the votes aside. And Politicians are the smartest creatures on this earth to master this art of raging such sentiments again and again for ‘Kursi’. If they are really interested in upliftment of people and providing equal opportunities, let’s classify people as HAVE and HAVE-NOTS and then take steps about the equalization, which we will talk about later cannot be achieved by Reservations. So it’s ultimately, ‘its all about money, honey’.

As pointed out in a brilliant analysis by a former IIM student that even reservation candidates will lose if it is being applied without thinking as the govt is hell-bent on. What I want to say is, if not reservation then what is the answer –

PRIMARY EDUCATION – This is where the focus should be. Why doesn’t the govt think of putting reservation regime in primary education? (It doesn’t give them votes…but why? It’s the IIMs which are hogging the limelight for mammoth salaries, not the primary schools J and it directly relates to the mind of the voters J got it..the same ‘mind space funda’). People should be divided amongst HAVEs and HAVE-NOTs and half the problem will be solved. Not Muslim, not SC/ST/OBC…we had enough for last 56 years, it only created more separation than cohesion. Thereafter, each school private or public should be forced to give admission to HAVE-NOTs for at least 30-40% of the seats.

SOFT-SKILL ENABLING – In most of the cases that I have seen, it’s on the soft skills front that most of the people from deprived sections (as they say) lag. In order to tackle this, centers should be opened which will be state-funded and have quality grooming for only such candidates. IIM-K’ s Centre for excellence projects is a case in point where they taught graduates from only such sections and the results are inspiring. Now, such centers will give them a serious chance of competing in all such higher studies competitions and get into IITs and IIMs. Here is that story

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE – I am sure that there are large number of deserving candidates from the ‘labeled castes’ and can achieve their dreams by joining premier institutions on merit with financial assistance from the Govt and scholarships from corporate world. “Believe you me”, a seat won on credentials is more satisfying than the one being given as a token of backwardness.

REALLY LATE – When a person is given reservations in higher education, and not when his foundation was laid in the primary standards, it’s too late. It’s not very easy to perform in IITs and IIMs against the so called – ‘qualified general’ class when cut-throat competition is pervading corporate India. And when comes the word PLACEMENTS, the ship is lost. Until and unless you have been trained at the lowest level and your foundation is in correct place, just getting into the playing eleven doesn’t mean that you will win the game. And to add one more analogy, in the world where teams are piling up 400+ scores and losing it out, how can you expect to win if you don’t fire your guns in the first fifteen. Same goes here!


So, If our politicians can think ahead of votes…they can get much better solutions to solve this problem rather than the Reservation. But the problem is…..WHO wants to solve the problem? Its all about votes, notes and minister-posts!!

~ Nitin

Freedom to Sting... Emerging face of Indian journalism

I remember reading about 'Sting journalism' some time back. And how sting operations have transformed from parallel journalism to 'mainstream'. How sting journalism is evolving to be a new career path and how the new aspiring journalists are zealous to work on nothing else than 'sting operations'. This also I believe is a form of freedom.

Are they really keen on discovering the truth and unravelling the hidden ulterior motives of the 'so-called' saints of the day? Is it really the push to uncover the inappropriate demeanor behind those godly appearances that drives the youth journalist of the day? Is it the journalists ethical urge to present the true picture (or video in many cases) to the people of the country. Or is it simply the short path to success and glory that is a puller?
That is a question for them to answer and ponder on.

However as long as we have people interested to 'sting' and as long as we have media companies to support them, we can be sure that not any countrymen would be dismayed by the absence of honest reporting on the mistakes made by our politicians. As long as we have people who seek the truth and are courageous enough to present it, I believe our country is on the right path, the path to success.

As always, greater competition has proved to be healthy. In their quest to capture more audience todays Indian news channels are whole-heartedly promoting 'sting operations'. Who benefits: TV channel? Yes. The viewers (read fellow countrymen)? Yes. And the country? Definitely!!!

Next step: The next step should be the liberation of the press. The print media sky still shows signs of being overcast by the political influence.

Till then... Hail journalist Bees!!!

An insight on Reservations in IITs & IIMs

This is a very good article i gathered from net. It really puts down everything on the issue -

Reservation quota: Who gains? Who loses?
- Saurabh Agarwal, Former IIM Student.


I graduated from IIM Bangalore last year and am now currently working
with HSBC, Investment Banking in London. I read about the possible 49.5%
reservation in the central universities (including IIMs and IITs) on your
website and will like to share my views on it.


I believe the best way to arrive at any conclusion is to do a
'stakeholders analysis' of the decision to reserve 49.5% seats in the central
universities. The analysis is based on my personal experience at IIM
Bangalore, hampered by the limited knowledge of other institutes, most
of my analysis is based on the educational pattern in an IIM hopefully this
will be relevant to other universities as well. In my view the key
stakeholders of this decision should be:
1. Central Government, 2. The institutions, 3. Prospective candidates
(further broken down in general and backward classes, for the sake of
analysis), and 4. Society in general (primarily compromising of
corporates recruiting at these universities).

Here is what these stakeholders gain or lose from the proposed policy:

The losers:
- Prospective candidates (backward classes): The institutes of higher
education, like IITs and IIMs, are centres of excellence in India,
primarily because of the quality of students joining them. With the
amount of time that a candidate spends in these places (around 1.5 years in
academic studies in an IIM) it is impossible to change the fundamental
knowledge level of a student. These institutions rely more on the
initial knowledge base of the students and build up on that by a open atmosphere
for discussion among peers and quick inputs of theory by the high
quality faculty. If a candidate has not received proper education and/or, does
not have a initial knowledge base to build on, he will find himself
completely out of the place. It is next to impossible for these institutes to
change the candidate completely at the later stage of his life, which would
eventually lead to a total loss for those candidates, who didn't had a
proper education beforehand. Besides, the ultimate aim of a candidate is to find a good job offer
after their university education. The reservation may help these candidates in
getting admission in the universities, but if the companies are not
convinced with the quality, they would rather go empty handed than
recruiting them- which once again leads to waste of some crucial time
for these candidates.

- Prospective candidates (general class): Every seat given to less
deserving candidate because of the politics of reservation, implies a
deserving candidate from the general background is being penalised for
being born in a particular caste- something which is out of his control!

- The universities: As already mentioned the methodology employed by the
institutes like, IIMs and IITs, is to build up on the already high
knowledge base of the candidates (This commitment to quality of input is
so severe that IIMs are at times criticised as just being a screening point
rather than an educational institute). A significant amount of learning
in these institutes is through peer to peer interaction in and outside the
classroom. A compromise on the quality of students would imply a total
loss of the component of learning from peers. Taking the liberty to use an
example from the operations management, the limiting factor (the process
having least capacity) determines the throughput rate of the entire
system. The knowledge gained through group work/ projects etc. will diminish if
people are not at similar level of knowledge base. This will have a
major impact on the overall quality of education being imparted by these
institutes- both inside and outside the classroom.
Also, a major factor in determining the ranking and reputation of these
institutes is the placement after the programme. If merit is not the
only criteria in admissions, the placement figures are bound to go down
having adverse impact on the reputation of these institutes.

- Society (particularly corporates recruiting from these institutes):
With the Indian economy growing at a fantastic rate, India Inc needs an ever
growing supply of competent management and technical grads from the top
quality institutes in this country. Compromising on meritocracy means
restricting the supply of competent grads for the Indian companies.

The sole winner (?):
- Government: The UPA government will have a short term benefit in terms
of gaining the vote bank of the SC/STs and OBCs. But even in the long term
they will lose out due to the adverse impact of the policy.

Conclusion: A policy which has adverse impact on all the major
stakeholders, being forced through to gain some votes by the our central
government. On this auspicious occasion of Ram navmi, I just hope that
Ishwar provides some intelligence to our political leaders!
Alternative suggestion: If the development of the backward class is the
real agenda of the government, which in my view is a legitimate concern,
I suggest starting a new program for them. It can be say, 1 year pre
program training for them or, may be a different program of longer length than
the normal one. But all of these will be short term measures, the real need
is to tackle the problem from where it originates, right at the primary
educational level, i.e. ensuring that all the children of this nation
irrespective of caste or religion getting high quality education from
their childhood!

Star Wars in India

India has been taken by various wars since its inception. Earlier in history, there were kings of all sorts invaiding india and raging various wars. Then, it was time of East Indian Company which took the baton ahead till 1947. Thereafter, it was turn of neighbour's love that india had to go through Indo-Pak and Indo-China wars.

Then there are these different kind of wars - wars for and against religion, caste, employement, verdicts, laws...and the list continues. All these making un-erasable marks on the indian heritage, history and psyche.

Some recent kind of wars that have emerged these days are called 'Star Wars'. And where they are fought - in the minds and on the roads. Vandalism, destruction, time killing, valuable resource's loss are some of the key consequences. And what raged them?

Salman Khan, Dr. Rajkumar, Khushboo, Hrithik Roshan are some of the names, who list in the reasons of such star wars. And, in the case of legendary Rajkumar, it was his natural death that lead to such a war; strange? That's India for you.

Idolism leading to Vandalism; that's another evidence behind the sentimental psyche of we, indians. We are so much sentimental about celebrities that we just cant accept that our very own salman Khan is playing 'Kaidi No. 210' in a jodhpur jail in real life.

Why cant a sachin tendulkar, hrithik roshan or a khushboo for that matter can speak their mind out in public. Being a human being they can be right or wrong and commit a crime. So why just we cant accept it, that ultimately celebrities are also humans and not GODs. And even in the case of Dr Rajkumar, he simply played GODly life in reel as well as real life; and even then we burnt buses, broke cars, thrown stones..... Why? When will we grow up?

EK NAI SHURUAAT

Freedom!

That’s the foundation of this blog. Freedom in every sense, be it running wild thoughts in your mind or running wild un-enervated fingers of two software engineers on the huge canvas of MS word. Freedom of thought in its purest un-edited form with the genuine smell of originality and innovativeness – is the resolve.

Let me introduce the two liberated pen-bearers of this blog ~ Nitin & Sudhanya. Both are currently working in an IT company in India. The reason of this blog’s inception is the common passion of writing that the two pen-bearers share.

This blog is created with an intent of writing all kind of thoughts under the sun with a common purpose to enjoy writing and above all writing for own-self in the very original-ness in which the idea knocked the door of our minds.

You must have noticed the use of so many words stressing ‘genuineness’ in this inaugural pen-stone (new word for milestone). Well, the point to be driven home is that we are so much clogged with artificial-ness that we have lost the purpose behind humans – Emotions & Creativity. The very non-programmed mind with which a child starts something called life at the age of 0.01 becomes a furnace of cooked-up and ready-to-sell pre-programmed views ( or should I say ‘solutions’) ;that even creator questions the sort of mutations this virus is going into. And the scientists will agree with the kind of difficulties they come across to find a vaccine for such mutant of a killing virus (Bird flu H5N1 virus seems cake-walk).

So the message is loud and clear out of this pen-stone, that get those ideas out of the iron cage of artificialness/conventionalism in which those ideas die down gradually banging their heads. Free them, give them wings and see what they are capable of.

Hope to bring something out of this blog! ‘BREAK FREE & LET THOSE IDEAS ROCK’.

~Nitin