Value of life

What is the most important loss of the current Mumbai Bomb blast?Is it the death of 200 people, the modus of operandi or the loss of 500 billion? To me, it is the loss of 200 people. Any tragedy which Causes loss of more people will be bigger tragedy than this.

But I seem to be in minority. Stampedes at temple kill almost 100s Of people and media and others forget about it in 2-3 days. Recent Bihar flood killed 1000s of people and more than 20 million people are affected. Odisha flood have similar devastation effect. More farmers suicide in Andhrapradesh/Maharastra because they are unable to repay the loan. There are more deaths in tribal areas in Odisha because of Malaria. Do we care about the same?

As I am from Odisha, let me put some facts from Odisha. 2008 flood was of greater magnitude than pat couple of years and took more than 1000s lives. 20 Million People were affected by the flood. Though not In this magnitude, flood is a regular phenomenon in Odisha. I have not heard any year when there were no death because of flood. And no government tried to eradicate the same. Let us discuss the action taken by the state and central government. State government is busy in blaming central government. It is unable to distribute the little help it gets from others. There are tones of food grains and other relief material laying down in national highways of Odisha. What is the central government doing? Being opposite party to the ruling state government, it ensures that people of Odisha does not get the basic amenities, which will cause anti incumbency and hence more vote for the party. Honourable prime minister declared a help of Rs 200 crores but send only 5 crores. Honourable ex-home minister said there is no such provision like declaring it as a national calamity, thus stopped international aid, where as the same government has declared Bihar flood a national calamity. There are millions of people who don’t have food and shelter.

Now let us look at the number of deaths in malaria in Odisha. It is unaccounted, as media/Government does not bother much about it. The tribal areas don’t get the basic education or medical help from state. It is either Ekal Vidyalaya from Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram
or some missionary provide medical help to the tribals. State hospitals does not reach all the people, and in the hospital, the doctor is not equipped with medicines. And one can not guarantee
that the medicine present is not duplicate or expired. So the locals live at the mercy of expire/duplicate medicine and may be god.

So there are higher number of deaths of common people and common people lack basic amenities. Why are the media/Governemnt not speaking about the common people? Is the life of a villager who stays in a tribal village of Odisha less than a millionare who has visited Taj Mumbai? I think life is life, irrespective of who the person is. But our government and media think otherwise. Life of a Mumbaikar is higher than a farmer or tribal.

Old wine in new bottle

Recent Mumbai attack has shaken the Indian political leadership. It has forced the
ruling party to change the home minister both at the centre and Maharastra. What
will happen next? Will the there be a paradigm shift towards terrorism? Is
government of India serious towards fighting terrorism? My answer is a skeptical NO.


The current hue and cry is something similar to what happened after every terror
attack. And will die a natural death after 2 to 3 months. Prime minister has not called
a special session of the parliament. He is not interested in setting up central federal
agency, though congress spoke about it, and BJP said it will support it. Probable it
will become a poll issue and Congress will ask vote for Central federal agency.

Police modernization is a long pending issue. Police is ill equipped and can only
harass common people. How do we expect ATS with a service revolver and bullet-
proof jacket which is not bullet proof to fight terrorism? There is no difference among
political parties regarding police modernization, still it is taking long time to implement.



Mumbai blast is not the first terrorist attack. If we look at the previous terror attacks,
India has not got any substantial evidence in any terrorists attack other than last
Gujurat attack. Either intelligence does not gather information or the authority does
Not act based on the intelligence reports. We need better coordination between police
and intelligence agency.


Probable government has done its best by sacking the home minister. Now media
is speaking more about home minister and possible changes in Maharastra
government. What government needs to do have taken a back seat. After a couple of
week, Bombey terror attack will be history and media will speak about election
results and new plethora of permissions and combinations of coalition along
with election analysis.

There will be a new parliament and may be a new government. But a little
action taken. It will be the old wine in the new bottle.

Why Balbir Punj is MP from Orissa?

Balbir Punj is the official BJP Candidate for Rajya Sabha from Orissa.Looking at the numbers he will be elected to the Rajya Sabha. SurelyBJP will get its own man nominated. But what will Orissa get out of it?Will Mr Punj spend the his MP-lad money for the development of Orissa?What is his plan for the money? He does not know anything about Orissaand more interested about his state Punjab. So MP-lad goes to Punjab. Orissa is neglected by Central government starting from planningfrom an IISc to Railway budget. Punj will be at an influential positionif NDA will be on power, Will he influence some of the decisions toOrissa's favor? Looking at the history, it does not look so. S. R Bomaia former Karnataka CM was a Rajya Sabha MP from Orissa. When he gotcabinet minister, he did not do anything for Orissa. Why will Mr Punj be loyal to Orissa? Neither the People of Orissanor the leaders of Orissa selected him. Rather his loyalty to theleaders like Advani fetched his the Rajya sabha seat. So he will beloyal to high command than to Orissa. Mr Punj's selection is an indication that Orissa does not have any ableleaders from BJP, thus BJP selected Punj ahead of other Odiyas. So Orissa lost out the MP-lad fund. And there will be 30 people inParliament who will represent Orissa in stead of 31. And it will weakenBJP at the state level.

Why should I pay tax?

You may complain government is not doing enough to solve our problem.Traffic is a problem. IT professionals are getting harassed byeverybody starting from vegetable vendors to auto-walahs. But not payingtax is not the solution. A mistake does not solve another mistake.

Is the tax so high? I don't think so. In India we don't pay tax till1,50,000.Some part of HRA is exempted from tax. Savings till 1,00,000 is exemptedfrom tax.Tax is lower at lower income group and increases after a certain income.So somebody whoearns around 6,00,000 pays an tax of 1,00,000, which is around 16%? Thisis much bellow than thatof USA. So the employees don't pay much tax.

Who is getting benifited from the tax? Lot of us studied in subsidizedschool/college or private school or college which is build on subsidized land.Government has paid for us, and it should be our duty to return back.

Today lots of IT professionals own their own car. It increases thetraffic problem.Thus government needs to build fly-over. Spend to manage the trafficproblem. So government does spend because of us.

Why should I pay tax?

A working professional pays income tax before he gets her salary. And probable one of the honest community which pays proper amount of tax on time. Many of my friends complain about undue tax rate and how we as working professional pay more tax and get nothing from the government. Come to any office in Jan/Feb, you will hear about tax talk. How much is to be taxed, what is the legal/illegal way of reducing the tax.

Many people complain about paying tax, but mostly what they complain is not to pay any tax at all, but to pay reasonable tax and get return of it. Are they over taxed? Are they not getting the return of the tax? What is the government doing with th tax?

Intelligence failure and Maoist attack

Maoist attck is both intellegence failure, and incapability of police.

Intelligence Failure:
1) A local newspaper reported about possibile attack 2 days ago and police ignored the report.
2)Dasapalla inspector send a message to the SP about some suspect people moving towards nayagarh. SP send some constable to check the fact, but unable to identify.
3) Maoist killed the shopkeeper who owns the tire shop as he opposed maoists taking tires forcefully. Police was not alerted from the incident
4) Maoist ate at Trinath hotel and have not paid the bill and asked the hotel to shut down in the evening.
5) Maoists did not pay after fueling petrol.

Police did not take any action to organize against Maoist. It is common failure of Maoist.

Incapability of Police:
1) Police was asking about the bullets and don't know how to fire
2) Trained police with proper weapon could have caused more casuality among Maoists if police was strategically positioned. But police was living in fear and casuality of Maoists is not being reported.
3) Maoists knew aboit weapons worth crores coming to Police training school where as whole department was unaware about this.
4) Most of the student in police training student were deputed to Bhuaneswar on the same day.

Microsoft refuses to boost its Yahoo bid

When Yahoo did not agree on the bid from Microsoft, MSFT has options
1) sweeten the bid
2) Go hostile to buy it from the share holder
3) Spend money to change the board of director
4) Forget about the take over now

Microsoft denied to go in the 1st way to increase the bid. I believe, 4th option is out of choice and Microsooft won't go back from here. So it will either do a hostile take over or try to change the board of director. 3rd choice seems more appropriate for Microsft, and expecting Google to move ahead further than both YAHOO and MSFT when they are concentrating on take-over or no take-over.

AIDS Malaria and NGOs in Orissa

What is the name of the disease where NGOs spend highest amount of money? The answer is AIDS. They hardly help any victim and definitely don’t do any research in AIDS. All the money goes in advertisement and creating awareness (easiest way to prepare report without spending any??). At the end of the day, what is the level of awareness among the common people? It is way bellow the expectation. People don’t touch an AIDS patient expecting it is epidemic.

What is the name of disease which caused the highest number of casualties and deaths? It is Malaria. There are certain areas where if somebody goes to hospital for fever, doctor starts treatment for malaria before doing the blood test. Government or NGOs need not spend millions for advertisement/awareness. People know the problem. No research is required for medicine, we already have the medicines. NGOs and government need to work on it so that the number of causality because of malaria is lower and gradually eradicated.

Interestingly the number NGOs those who show interest in eradicating Malaria are far less than those who show interest in AIDS. Probable money generation is the motive behind starting a NGO and not helping the poor.

Maoist Attack in Nayagarh

Maoists claimed they are working for people and against the Police and do not want to harm common people. Are they friend of common people? Hell no!! Why did they kill the shop owner who is selling tires? They wanted to rub the armoury and killed whoever opposed it.

Maoist attacked Nayagarh to loot the armoury. It is an intelligence failure of the State and centre and a plan well executed by Maoists. Police was helpless in front of the Maoists. It is a challenge for the cheif minister Naveen Patnayak to crub the maoists.

Maoists are not only looted the armoury but also able to put the citizen in fear and can keep their work going. Maoists now can get their work done both by the name of poor and fear. Do this or we will kill you your loved ones etc. Government need to remove the fear. Government need to ensure that the state is run by state government and not maoists.

Naveen has shown he is an able cheif minister by handling Kandhamal tension. I hope he will handle it and show he is still the best. Let government work for the people, so that maoists will loose the ground in Orissa. Wish the state government good luck.

Will YAHOO become another NETSCAPE?

Microsoft bids take over of yahoo to compete with Google in online advertisement. The sole purpose to buy Yahoo is to increase Microsoft'sshare in online ad? What is yahoo doing? Is it an online ad company? Itd oes much more than online advertisement. For me yahoo is a content provider than a search engine. It reminds me a similar instance, Netscape takeover by AOL. AOL bought Netscape because it did not want to pay licence fees for internet explorer and want to have its own browser. It did right by buying the best browser company Netscape.But once Netscape become an AOL Company, innovations at NETSCAPE has slowly died. Netscape no longer provided next generation web Technologies, rather it become a browser only company. Application Server, Web server, directory server etc has been sold out/out sourcedby AOL. May be people will forget Netscape as BRAND and will rememberNetscape as a browser. Will same thing happen to Yahoo? Hope it won't. Yahoo will keep itsinnovation. And it will be more than ad company.

Time to give back to the society

I don't buy most of the ideas of my friend what I posted in my previous blog. However I do agree, one need to think about society and fellow members other than herself. And society will prosper if there are more people who give to the society than those who take from the society. So we need to think of what can we do for the society?

I was talking with a college senior couple of days ago. we were discussing when one should start doing social work. One of the argument is one should enjoy the moments now, do the duty for family and oneself which resembles to grahastya and after retirement one should do social service (but not quite banaprastha! huh) may be by some NGO.

Otherside of the talk is to have the social service along with the normanl work. Social service includes to respond someone when he is in trouble, and we are already doing it. Social service is not neccessarily pumping money but providing what the society what it needs.

What will happen after 70 years in India: This is not my view..

These are not my school of thoughts. I don't agree with most of the arguments, however I found the argument interesting and the person who put forth even more interesting.

There will be in foghts that is lead by farmers and there will be a bloodshed and India will be born after 70-80 years. India was a country that is concived in 20th century by aurobindo Ghosh later supported by Tilak and British left the country because India was no more profitable to them. Since then we are exploiting and trying to get my share out of the country, never bothered about others. Look at the traffic, loook at the market, everywhere its "I" that preceeds over everything else. Farmers are suiciding across the country. Today's children are more concerned about themseleves and their ego. They have more knowledge on What is best univ in USA than who Mahatma Gandhi was. So once the "I" continues the powerful will get their share and the poor will starve which will lead to another revolution.

The revolution will be lead by firmers and will take another 70-80 years and bloodshed will happen and it will be end of Kaliyug.

Yahoo rejects Microsoft's take over offer

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080211/microsoft_yahoo.html?.v=22

Should Microsoft buy Yahoo?

Microsoft has put a proposal of 44.2 billion dollars to buy yahoo. Should it buy Yahoo? How will it impact the market? My perspective is the merger will be 21st century Time Warner, AOL take over. It will be an altra failure. MSFT and Yahoo have little in common other than rivalary with Google. Investors have reacted negatively to the bid by MSFT and shares have goe down. Yahoo has not responded positively yet. If everything goes well, then antitrust might come in the way of MSFT-Yahoo merger.

Cash rich MSFT will take debt to buy Yahoo. It needs to sort out burocratic issues such as merger, removing the duplicate work, anti trust et al. By the time it will be ready to compete with Google, Google will be a few step ahead than MSFT-Yahoo combined.

So I am skeptical if the merger will ever succeed.