How much forest does a man need

If you flew over Delhi around june 2010, one thing would be kinda clear. That you couldn't see anything clearly at all from the window. Well, part of it could have been because most of the city was dug up for Commonwealth games, but there was a major part ascribed to plain dust in the air. Maybe it was due to scorching summer and lack of humidity in the air too.

But then the question comes, if there was so much dust in the atmosphere, wouldn't everyone be inhaling it? And with lax industry laws, there of course are many pollutants in the air too! And all of them simply, pretty much forcibly just get into your lungs!


The next question is why are people not doing anything about it? Well, I think that's because people, mostly, are not empowered to do anything beyond their own backyard. And the people who are empowered, are either so dumb to not see the issue, or plain and simple ignorant, or just too busy minting money to see that this effects everyone! including the PM and the President. Well, only when they are out in the open...

So then how do we actually see how bad the picture is? For one, every one could take a flight in to Delhi, which, for obvious reasons isn't the most economical way of conducting a study. So I thought I should do the next best thing. Take pictures from high above and paste them here.

Thanks to google maps and jing technologies, I was able to put these pics here:

Lucknow, India

Hyderabad suburbs, India

Nerul, Navi Mumbai, India

Noida, India

Schaumburg, US

Nice, France

Tooting, London, UK

I tried to compare apples to apples by keeping the resolution level the same. I also tried to consider only what I thought were suburbs, since they seem to have a better control over land and hence tree cover.

What is clearly visible is that number of trees in the captured area are faar less for Indian cities, no matter where they are, when compared to, suburbs in US or Europe.

This is not a research study, so I am sure the sample data I am looking at would be flawed after a point. But I definitely wanted to put up some comparison between what Indian cities are doing, vs the 'better'  cities of US/Europe. Also, since these are suburbs, in both cases (India or others) they were settled down into, rather recently.

We all have known that tree cover is said to be beneficial for MANY things, including water table restoration, reduction in free dust just flying around in the air, reducing average temperature of the areas, and keeping the land healthier in general.

Given this, I wanted to hit at at least one problem. That of awareness in people in India about the shoddy state of their green cover. Only 12% of land mass in India is covered with forests, as compared to 33% in the US, 30% over the world, 34% in Canada, 22% in China and so on.

I think the green cover is especially more important in city areas given the concentration of pollutants in general.

Maybe we should start from where we do have control. Our backyard. And then move up from there. Otherwise the average life expectancy in our cities will continue to be low and maybe drop lower with new industrialization and growth happening...

Why should India try to be a sporting nation?

Here is a video from NDTV about sporting culture in India.



These guys were discussing why isn't India a sporting nation. The arguments I heard were like:

1. lack of infrastructure
2. cricket cricket cricket
3. risk of failure, which in absence of govt support can leave you hungry and poor
4. there is simply not enough money in the country to support sportsmen
5. culture(something like shaastra was mentioned in the video) doesn't give sports any place in our lives 

etc etc. While I think these are the tangible reasons why Sports don't flourish in India, but these by themselves aren't the problem. I think all these guys sort of missed the main point. Sports is a tremendous character builder. It teaches one to accept defeat but not be a loser or have a defeatist attitude.

Another thing, on a very basic level, was also missed was that sports keep us much healthier and hence increase the happiness in people! lesser instances of diseases in people, better lifestyle choices etc all come in to make a country healthy, happy and eventually prosperous.

I think most of our leaders were unlucky enough to not see this perspective, which all developed countries( and societies) follow so well! I live in the US and I see people running at any time during the day! they are MUCH more healthier than most of the affluent Indians I know!

It's not about playing sports for the professional value of it, its about playing sports whatever your profession is, so that you are healthy enough to make most of what your body has to offer.

On a different note. The debate by itself was so much of an opinion-based discussion. If experts were called in, why weren't empirical data based examples given? why can't a sound argument be made to support what they say?

In addition to the sporting culture, we also need a good debating culture :)

An interesting and very quick baked fish recipe

I have been trying a new baked fish recipe recently, courtesy Anjali. It's very easy to make and tastes awesome! As for the name, lets call it "Fraud Mallu Fish"

So here are the ingredients you need:

fish: We use Salmon fillets
Thyme: around 2 tbsp
Basil: 2 tbsp
garlic powder
Try Maggi Masala powder: half of the packet
Olive Oil
Balsamic vinegar
cooking red wine

Steps:

1. Pre heat oven to 400 degrees
2. get a piece of whole fish fillet. You can cut it into smaller pieces if you want, we make it as one piece. If you are using the fish as a whole, poke it with a fork to create holes through which oil etc will seep in.
3. sprinkle the Thyme, Garlic powder and Basil on the top of the fish, use enough quantity to cover the entire fish well
4. mix Balsamic vinegar, cooking red wine and Olive oil in a small cup and pour evenly over the fish. The herbs and spices used in step 3 will help hold the liquid on top of the fish
5. bake the fish for about 15-20 mins, testing for whether it has cooked or not 
6. Once cooked, sprinkle maggi masala on top of it and enjoy

This is healthy, and tasty and takes only 25 odd mins to make!

Commonwealth games: My reaction

I know I am a little frustrated... well ok, a lot frustrated at this colossal failure of CWG, but here is a letter I wanted to write to Manmohan Singh...

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Thank you.

I think these commonwealth games were a blessing in disguise for us. And thank you for making sure that they have shown such a miserable face of India. I think this is going to help all of us to march ahead on the path of development.

Much like the historic Chicago fire, these commonwealth games have been able to redevelop delhi from scratch. There could not have been any other excuse to dig up the whole of the city. So much so that one cannot even see the city under the dust cloud from a flight.

Thank you for allowing your officials to effectively admit that Indians are unclean. Not that it was a secret, but at least now people might wake up and think about cleanliness around them. In addition, for Indians living abroad, this will embrace them to be mentally strong when they hear racist catcall about you 'filthy Indians' etc. Mental strength is very much needed for progress.

I also want to thank you for approving the material for fallen bridge. You see, bridges/buildings (another building recently just fell somewhere) fall rather often in India. It was just that bureaucracy didn't care about fellow Indians. And since foreign lives matter much more to the top govt officials and ministers, at least we will have ONE bridge built right, where people can travel without fearing for their life.

Also, thank you for the overall shoddy quality of everything made from falling roof tiles, to wires submerged in water. Indian companies will now have to try extra hard to win international clients'
trust. This will help them focus much more on their PR, needing extra expenditure. And we needed money flow in the markets right? Seems like an awesome master plan to increase public spending.

Oh and above and beyond, thanks for clearing this for me personally. I always was confused whether an authoritative China minus-the-supposed-political-freedom was better or India with its fledgling democracy. After all, most of the human development indices seem to be better off in China than India.
Next time I meet a Chinese here in the US, I will humbly submit to the superior race/country.

One less problem to deal with...

Oh, here is a link for pics from the CWG: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/commonwealth_games/delhi_2010/9025907.stm

Perfect fit

Scores of things came, and scores went on

But this one seems to be walking with me, maybe she'll hang around

She covers my steps, every tiny bit

She seems like a dress with a perfect fit

Like an after-rain breeze that swirls around

or maybe like a pillar that holds its ground

She quells my fears, every tiny bit

She seems like a dress with a perfect fit

When I feel trodden, dead and dust

when everything around me has all gone bust

She weeps my tears, every tiny bit

She seems like a dress with a perfect fit

All that I own, and all that I call mine

 no matter how earthly, no matter how divine

She shares my world, every tiny bit

She feels like a dress with perfect fit

An idea a day keeps the doctor away

I think I am obsessed with the idea of creating new ideas. Since my undergrad days, when a mere look at a stepper motor interface made me think of the numerous possibilities there were to make something cool with it, I have been fantasizing about the next cool thing I could make with the basic building blocks I have at hand.

Only with time, my building blocks evolved and became a mix of technology pieces, business concepts and social issues. Thats a great concoction though! But with more information in my head, I guess my idle time goes into thinking about new things to make, new companies to start and a new world to live in...

Most of the times I get out of my day dreaming and move on with my life... but the idea sticks on as a 'Could have been the next revolution' Sometimes I have actually realized that someone made a killing out of it :)

here is a small list of a few of those ideas.. These are in no particular order DO NOT judge me on this!

1. Automatic pet fish feeding system
2. SaaS based Supply Chain Management system (Patented by IBM I think)
3. An earth based car positioning, and guiding system which I proposed to Reva the electric car company. (they shot it down)
4. An advertising system based on ring back tones on mobile phones ( too late on this one  )
5. A virtual of Chai ki Dukaan (Road side tea shop) where people get together and gossip, discuss new ideas or understand the world, Office politics, course curriculum, or their love life.. This is still a very potent idea, if the Chai ki Dukaan ambience is successfully implemented.
6. A local area customer - vendor handshake platform for services. So you can get a local plumber/carpenter/nanny without having to hunt for one.
7. A concept similar to batchmates.com but much before batchmates.com came about
8. Setting up a Sabji Mandi in US to promote healthy food
9. Opening recharge stations for electric cars in India.
10. Opening a p2p shop rating system, which is accessible through mobile phones.
11. And a fresh one.. A doctor rating system!! 

Well the list is longer... but you get the gist.. and yes you are free to implement any of these.. it's open source now :)

Yoga to fight greedy capitalism

I was watching 'Capitalism A Love Story' yesterday. Well, call it a totally senseless conclusion, but after watching it, I decided I need to start doing Yoga. And here are the dots connecting the movie to Yoga :)

The movie propounded that in a place like the US, people always spoke very vehemently and passionately about Capitalism, Free-markets... A place where enterprises were always easy to open, where competition was fair, and where everyone was prospering because of this healthy atmosphere for people to follow their dreams and live out their american lives...

and then the economic crisis happened.... something, which according to Micheal Moore, was calibrated and executed very well by people in the US govt, colluding with people from Wall St. The movie is made with enough emotional sequences to floor you before driving home the point that when someone else is making decisions and telling you to do something, or invest in something etc etc, he has his foremost capitalistic (read profit making) intensions in his mind.

So much so, that in some places children were unjustly kept in juvenile homes when they never needed to, at the behest of a judge colluding with a private juvenile home operator. Similarly, other examples were given to show ( or rather prove) that capitalism in its current form cannot be trusted, coz everything from money markets, food markets (meaning what is sold in your next door grocery store and what's not... have you thought about why there is just soooooo much more orange juice than any other?)

When you let someone else choose for you, through the means of consulting, agents etc, you let them decide for you. Maybe we are trained to do that. To let the specialist do his job, coz we know much less than him! and also that it is NOT our job to know as much as the specialist does....

Think about healthcare. Primarily in US. I have been to docs enough number of times here to see that most of the times, I get the answer, 'I don't know what this is!' so please get a test done, and then get an X Ray, etc etc... For my carpal tunnel syndrome tests (which they didn't even prove in the end) they got me to do an MRI, an EMG (which another doc then said that it was a useless test), 4 X rays. 2 blood tests for everything in the body and 5 visits to the doc. And in the end, I was at the same place as I was before. I even solved the problem myself by getting a new keyboard!

Now. I would have always let the doc do his job. But this, and other cases which stunk of money mindedness in the medical profession, made me rethink...

If you put capitalism and your complete submission of yourself to someone else, you are giving him the power to take you for a ride as he wants to. And in the process, possibly defer your speed of getting healthy again.. same applied to the housing loans with sharks out there to shave that extra bit of profit from you. etc etc.

So I thought, I must take charge of my own life much more than I do right now. Instead of 'take me there' approach of current service oriented industry, I want to move to a Do it Yourself. A familiar term, but not really implemented anywhere beyond building/fixing home/cars etc

And to begin with, let me start with reducing my dependence on external medicine.. and a possible way of that is to start doing Yoga...

the new and improved The Hindu

I just saw a news article on The Hindu and realized that it is turning itself into a great knowledge repository for people to use for their own research...

The Hindu now makes available downloadable resources for people.. something very different from what other news sites like ibnlive or ndtv offer. this is a good differentiator for them I think...

have a look at this link... you will see the link for resources on the right side:

The Hindu: Obama welcomes Indian offer

I think eventually The Hindu will turn into somewhat of a 'place to go' to find good articles to read up on matters and get materials one can use as references...

Why don't Indian companies take their web presence seriously?

My friend Gaurav Sharma (name changed for privacy) asked this question. He is the CEO of a leading Indian web solutions company, so his question has got to have a good mix of bewilderment, frustration, anxiety and most worryingly, facts behind it...

This is an interesting question, and when I began exploring it, it unravelled into a many folds of Indian society, and economics which I think we all see, but maybe overlook. I come from a unique (remember everyone is unique? :) ) background of Anthropologist father, Zoologist mother, Bachelors in Engineering and MsBA in Technology Management.  So I tend to have diff perspectives (which more often than not, confuse me more than anyone else) on issues close to my heart. This one sure is: after all, it is things like these that make India look technologically inferior, and not up with the rest of the world etc etc.

So back to the question. I will try and put out my reasons for the question in separate posts: to save you from information (read opinion) overload, but I hope it makes an interesting read.

Perspective 1:


Lets begin with an example.

Any person who grew up in South Delhi would know of Lodhi Sports. This is a shop we respected as one of the few 'up market' sports showrooms in Delhi. In the early 90's it was rare to see exercise equipment in many shuttered shops. This one was all glass and had a wide range of exercise equipment. 20 years later, Lodhi Sports has expanded to many shops around Delhi, in big shopping malls etc. Now look at their current site: http://www.lodhisports.in . It doesn't even open currently.

Now, its target market very much overlaps the active internet users category in Delhi, so I think it does make sense to at least have a functioning site! That leaves us with two options, either the provider is off the track of the consumer doesn't want it. As in most cases, I think its the chicken and egg problem.

Reason 1: Coming of age of Indian consumer.. A little more distance to go...


Generally this is what I think other people call as maturing of a market, and I agree. Indian consumers have only recently begun taking a computer for granted in their living rooms, and fewer of them, between 3-8 crores have begun accessing the net actively. The definition of active here is using the internet at least once a month. It is pointless to say that if a person is only 'accessing' the net once in a month, he/she is definitely not comfortable looking at it as a utility. It seems more like a picnic; once a month, to try out something 'new'.  Hence, it seems, that an average Indian internet user is still not getting on to the net to use it for transactions, and information gathering for purchases. That, will take time. Maybe something similar to plastic money and time taken for its traction in India.


Perspective 2:


But then I think internet and cell phones came up almost at the same time in India. And there is no points guessing who won the race. So whats the deal there? The utility of cell phones, and initial investment for cell phones is much clearer to people. And hence, the reception to cell phones is like a raging forest fire. And people indeed are benefiting from it! Whether Internet provides the same amount of value to Indian people is something I cannot comment on. I think it does, given the kind of stuff people in other parts of the world have done from it, but then one can disagree very well on this.

So then why nature chose cell phones over Internet? I think first because every thing about cell phone was very well modularized and tangibly managed. prepaid cards made it easy, compact, hassle free, and decoupled from any kind of red tape, for people to start making calls cheap. Internet revenues on the other hand still depend on credit card swiping. The infrastructure needed for cell phone companies to work on was revolutionized into the 'Indian model' now so widely studied across the globe. Internet however, could not come up with its own India strategy. Maybe all the smart brains were still busy making money from the cell phone market. Then the content delivered on cell phones was inherently local, unless of course you call an international 'talk to me' lines. Here too, Internet lagged much farther behind, because of its 'broadcasting' model vs. the peer to peer nature of phone calls.

Reason 2: Lack of macro-environment support and luck?

2 technologies, equally promising, but ultimately having very different paths...

Ultimately, while cell phones transformed themselves into the Indian context very well by providing cheap calls to lower costs, lightening speed information on prices for farmers, cheap way of keeping in touch for long distance relationship lovers, for moms to check up on their 'in school and not bunking' kids, and free sms etc etc, Internet couldn't really strike the same chord in the daily lives of Indians. It could not go much beyond educated, and computer literate people to the non english speaking housewives, moms, lalajis, and Gangu Bai for the betterment of their daily lives.

Does it mean Internet is irrelevant to India? Absolutely not; it just needs to wear colors of India over it, and ultimately go beyond rediff and naukri. The sites like Saleraja.com, mouthshut.com are getting into different spheres of our lives, beyond the traditional demographic which was being served...


To be continued :)

Would you like to pay for your surf?

A normal professional's work day today begins in the morning clamoring to get to work. Once there, there is this cooling off period, although varying, but there for sure to begin to look at news, sports, email etc. A lot of websites are 'favorites' and browsers like chrome do put them up for your easy retrieval on a new tab. 

A basic assumption there is that most of this material is free. Yes there are those ads, but either we don't care about them, or we just install a browser plugin to remove all the ads from a page. And of course Google makes its billions from all the ad revenue you can think of.

And then recently New York Times announced that it will begin charging for its online content. Wall Street already has a subscription model around its online content, and we've been hearing all the stuff about  SaaS business models where everyone charges for everything they sell.

So is this the beginning of the end of free stuff? Is the advertising model kinda running out of steam? 

I think this is the next wave of evolution on the internet. This appears to be the common ground that the e-world would have to come to with the traditional world. A world where you get what you pay for. A world where money has to be earned. 

I don't have anything against the advertising model. I think it is great for a certain types of the websites, where the content is pretty much commoditized, and a subset of the internet population comes there.  But if a service is differentiated and there is a demand for it, the company now seems to be in a position to charge premium for it. 

A major reason for this is the huge growth in internet users from across the globe, and their increasingly varying needs from the internet. Going forward, Internet will begin to resemble our own real world. where some things are free, and some you gotta pay for. 

So I think its time for us to get ready to make that choice. Do you want to pay for your surf or get what you don't want to pay for? I'd say, brace yourself. The internet is evolving into a new more self aware beast, and there is no more free lunch...

Nice guys finish last

That's not true. Its not the nice guys, but the guys who thought they were nice, but realized mid way that they kinda caught the wrong train.

Now, catching train is something entirely dependent on you. You bought the tickets, you looked up the train name on the display, you misread the platform number, and you didn't check if it was finally the right train to have caught.

Now all this while you thought you could never catch the wrong train, and you were soo damn proud of it. Call it the law of mortality catching up with you. So now, even when you never had the intention of catching the wrong train, you pretty much laid your own trap. by doing the things you did.

Like Monica says in friends: "What were you thinking!!!" and I agree. What was the nice-guy-who-never-caught-the-wrong-train thinking when he actually himself caught the wrong train!?? There is no answer I think. I guess, he should have known better.

So even if he didn't want to, even if he never thought all along the way that this is what he is doing, he still did it! and the only person responsible for him landing up in the wrong train is him!!!

So whats the end result? he had to catch another train back, buy a new ticket, and return to the platform, and this time, at least try to catch the right train. And in the process, he finishes last.

Q.E.D.

Saamna: Another loong back written poem

पिछले कुछ दिनों से, नाजाने मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

जब से पतझड़ का नाग मेरे सूखे पत्तों को डसने लगा है

तब से शायद मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

यह शीश मेरा, जो पहले नादानी में सदा ही ऊंचा रहता था,

अब ना जाने क्यों उसके सामने झुकने लगा है..

हाँ... शायद मुझे कुछ होने लगा है..

वो सुबह के सूरज की लाली

वो रात के चाँद की चांदनी 

वो सागर के गहरे, नीले, विशाल रंग के बजाय

अब धरती का फीका भूरा रंग मुझको दिखने लगा है...

ज़रूर मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

वो कागज़, जिसपर पहले सपनों के महल बना करते थे,

अब उसी कागज़ पे - कभी लाल, तो कभी पीली स्याही से

मेरे दिल का हाल बयान होने लगा है..

क्यूँ ऐसा मुझे होने लगा है?

लेकिन जब खेलने लगता हूँ इन्ही ख्यालों को गोद में लेकर,

तब समझ में आता है कि और कुछ नहीं, 

बस ज़िन्दगी से मेरा सामना होने लगा है...

हाँ... बस यही तो मुझे होने लगा है.