Suffering from Poor Time Management Skills?
Here is something that might help you a bit.
http://www.domoreinless.blogspot.com
Here is something that might help you a bit.
http://www.domoreinless.blogspot.com
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Friday, February 12, 2010
NRI is a NRI
Newly Returning Indian is a Not Required Indian.
Indians are employed in some of the best IT companies of the world and they have been involved in some of the major successful projects undertaken by various countries. The cream of the most renowned researchers, doctors and engineers in the world are Indians. Then why is that Apple, Microsoft and Google did not originate in India?
Indians are hailed as the smartest minds today, but why are we a third world company?
Numerous reasons, as everyone knows. But, one reason is that the most brilliant minds of the nation studied here, gained knowledge here and then deserted the country for fatter pay-packages abroad. The lure and lust for money and better lifestyle was more tempting than the virtue of patriotism and responsiblilty towards the nation.
However, thanks to the economic crisis in the West and unemployment rates in the US at an all time high of 9% (expected to rise further), the great Indian diaspora shows signs of coming full circle, with tens of thousands of immigrants flocking back to the motherland. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but as of last year, more than 120,000 US returnees signed up for an Overseas Citizen of India card. It is hard to tell how many of these will move back, but a Harvard University study estimates that 100,000 Non Resident Indians will make the backward journey home. The resurgent Indian economy now holds great promise for them, something that might not quite have been possible a couple of decades ago.
And thanks to this recession, there is now increased competition between the NRIs and the natives of the Western nations. There are lesser jobs and more people vying for them. This is one of the primary reasons as to why the Indians abroad are being subjected to even greater hostility and racism, Australia being the greatest example.
Sensing an opportunity to make use of their talent, experience and global exposure, many companies in India are welcoming them with open arms. Many corporates and multinational companies in India are wooing Indians in USA with jobs in India by enticing them with excellent rewards and benefits like salaries on par with what they are receiving in the US, company accommodation, a very comfortable lifestyle in known and familiar surroundings, and a fully paid relocation allowance for the family. This is something they cannot easily ignore especially given their bleak job prospects in the US and other European nations.
Even our Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh has paved way for a red carpet welcome for the RNRIs(Returning Non Resident Indians). On his recent visit to the US (made infamous by the Salahis’ gate-crashing a party), Dr. Manmohan Singh hailed the Indian American community for helping improve Indo-US relations and said that the booming Indian economy would welcome them with open arms.
Thus, today we are seeing a reverse trend – ‘The Brain Gain’ as quoted by our Prime Minister. NRIs are flocking to return to their motherland and many placement companies are being set up to find suitable jobs for them.
But is it really the right thing? True, our economy stands to gain a lot by these RNRIs and their talent and experience, but can we and should we trust them?
When our country had not much to offer them, they fled from the country in search of greener pastures abroad. And today, when those green pastures are no more, they are returning to India. When they could have helped build the nation with their greater skill and capabilities, they went abroad searching for money. And today, when the US cannot offer them the same anymore and the Indian economy is promising, they are returning. If instead of India, some other nation had offered greater promise, they would have flocked there. So how can we trust these fair-weather friends? Tomorrow, if our economy undergoes a crisis, they will once again abandon the country leaving it in dire straits.
So, the question is whether we should accept these NRIs back into our fold or not. They seem to be Indians in name only. Do we really need these people to come back to our country when its on an uprise? Do we invite them back so that they can take up the jobs that the native Indians deserve - those people who struggled with the country and have helped it reach a position of economic strength today? Today, should those Indians who stayed put with the country in its bad times not be given the fruit when India is flourishing?
Is the Newly Returning Indian a Not Required Indian?
-Varnit Banthia
Friday, December 4, 2009
Common Wealth Games 2010 - Boon or Bane?
When unexpected guests arrived at the Sharma household for dinner, Mrs. Sharma was in a fix as she had prepared food enough only for her family of four. As the guests sat with the Sharma family for dinner, Mrs. Sharma nudged Chintu quiet for asking for a second helping of rajma and pinched Bunty under the table when he wanted more rice.
This is what happens, doesn’t it when you have to provide more than you can? In such a situation one is left with only two options – either provide the newcomers with less than what they want, or you yourself consume less to let the guests have their fill. But in India, keeping with the tradition of “Atithi Devo Bhava”(Guest is God), it’s the latter that generally happens.
Such is the condition of New Delhi around 8 months before the Opening Ceremony of the Common Wealth Games, 2010. India, a third world company was so obsessed with portraying New Delhi as a ‘world class city’ with ‘international standards’ that it forgot to take into account the other more pressing needs of the economy.
True, India is looking to emerge a superpower and needs to assert its abilities onto the keenly watching world. But at what cost? Twisted values are all that are on show when one advertises the upcoming five-star hotels in the newspaper along with reports of famine like conditions in other regions of the world.
History tells us that hosting such mega events may be more of a burden than an honour, especially for developing countries. All recent Summer Games with the sole exception of the 1984 Los Angeles Games have lost money. The citizens of Munich continue to pay a special tax to this day, to pay off debt incurred in the 1976 Games. This is very often not revealed to the public by using smart accounting techniques that do not include a lot of the costs incurred under direct games expenditure. After the $200 million profit that L.A. made on the games in ’84, they have been increasingly looked upon as extremely profitable, though LA’s performance is yet to be replicated.
The Delhi Metro, flyovers and the renovated Airport are no doubt the better things to come out of the preparation for the Games. But bureaucracy and lack of initiative ensure that many of the ‘world class facilities’ (like the new stadiums, Games Village being built) are underutilized or inefficiently used. One doesn’t have to look far for an example – 3 new stadiums built for the Asian Games held in Delhi in 1982 have never been utilized to their full potential even once after the Games, serving as a hub more for Bollywood events and political rallies than sporting events. The commendable Games Village built for the Asian Games was later taken over by the government officials for their own housing purposes. As for the Metro and other facilities, they too would have been built even without the Games in sight. Maybe not at such a rapid pace but they would have been built all the same. The recently opened Metro stretch to Noida has come in for more criticism than praise because of various technical snags that keep occurring. It just goes on to show the demerits of trying to hustle through things that require more time.
Though the Asian Games of 1982 brought about great development in Delhi, one could see more drawbacks in the greatly awaited mega event. The huge exodus of labourers from rural villages to Delhi(about 10 lakh people) for the construction of various infrastructure were never given any future means of income after the Games were over. They continued to live in shanties they had been given to live in when construction for the games was still in process, till they were finally driven away by the Government. Till date, they continue to further increase the already swelling slums of Delhi.
A lot has changed since 1982, and yet a lot remains the same. It was just 2 years before the Asian Games that the Indian government woke up to the amount of work that was required to be done before the Games commenced and Rajiv Gandhi made it his personal mission to ensure that the games were carried out successfully. Though, he managed to do a commendable job, many planning and precautionary measures were ignored in order to be ready before the deadline.
The Player’s building was never completed, nor was the roof of the Talkatora swimming pool. The retracting roof of the Indira Gandhi indoor stadium hailed as a technological feat never worked effectively and even after numerous repairs, the roof still leaks. An international Badminton competition in the 1990’s was disrupted due to water leaking in. The main stadium, built on the banks of the Yamuna is actually tilting on one side. The Delhi High Court also sealed the main portion of the stadium, as it does not fulfil fire safety norms (Venugopal, A. 2005). The adjoining Yamuna Velodrome is in a pathetic state with the velodrome full of cracks and bumps, and more often visited by snakes and rats than humans. The Nehru Stadium too is crumbling and bad maintenance means that even though new tracks were laid recently, they are already in disrepair.
Similar are the conditions this time round. In fact, a year before the Games, the Common Wealth Federation was seriously considering taking the Games out of New Delhi due the lackluster improvements that were being made. As is the work tradition in India that no one works until they have a deadline hanging over their necks like a sword, similar is the case with the work in preparation of the Games. Though the city may be made out to be ready in time for the Games in 2010, the work done behind the scenes will be shoddy and make-shift, which will be of no use to the economy once the Games are over.
India is once again vastly unprepared in the wake of the Games. Almost every sector under construction, be it transport, hospitality, sporting facilities, power generation, all are struggling to meet the deadline for the Games. Various delays, time lags and unplanned synchronization are the reasons that India nearly lost the Common Wealth Games and is still under the risk of not managing to host the third largest multi-sport event efficiently.
One can only hope that the city will be benefitted by the Games which will set the foundation for future developments that will one day make New Delhi truly a ‘world class city’. And, we will not be plagued by the after affects as was the case with the Asian Games nearly 3 decades back and another 10 lakh would not be added to the perennially increasing slums of Delhi.
Source:
1982. Turnout for Games Lags, New Delhi Paper Says. The New York Times. November 26.
Baviskar, A. 2005. A lifeline … under siege. The Hindu, November 06.
Gibson, H. J. 1998. Sport Tourism: A Critical Analysis of Research. Sport Management Review, 1998, 1, 45–76
Roy, S. 2006. See you in Delhi….No, not yet. The Indian Express, April 02.
This is what happens, doesn’t it when you have to provide more than you can? In such a situation one is left with only two options – either provide the newcomers with less than what they want, or you yourself consume less to let the guests have their fill. But in India, keeping with the tradition of “Atithi Devo Bhava”(Guest is God), it’s the latter that generally happens.
Such is the condition of New Delhi around 8 months before the Opening Ceremony of the Common Wealth Games, 2010. India, a third world company was so obsessed with portraying New Delhi as a ‘world class city’ with ‘international standards’ that it forgot to take into account the other more pressing needs of the economy.
True, India is looking to emerge a superpower and needs to assert its abilities onto the keenly watching world. But at what cost? Twisted values are all that are on show when one advertises the upcoming five-star hotels in the newspaper along with reports of famine like conditions in other regions of the world.
History tells us that hosting such mega events may be more of a burden than an honour, especially for developing countries. All recent Summer Games with the sole exception of the 1984 Los Angeles Games have lost money. The citizens of Munich continue to pay a special tax to this day, to pay off debt incurred in the 1976 Games. This is very often not revealed to the public by using smart accounting techniques that do not include a lot of the costs incurred under direct games expenditure. After the $200 million profit that L.A. made on the games in ’84, they have been increasingly looked upon as extremely profitable, though LA’s performance is yet to be replicated.
The Delhi Metro, flyovers and the renovated Airport are no doubt the better things to come out of the preparation for the Games. But bureaucracy and lack of initiative ensure that many of the ‘world class facilities’ (like the new stadiums, Games Village being built) are underutilized or inefficiently used. One doesn’t have to look far for an example – 3 new stadiums built for the Asian Games held in Delhi in 1982 have never been utilized to their full potential even once after the Games, serving as a hub more for Bollywood events and political rallies than sporting events. The commendable Games Village built for the Asian Games was later taken over by the government officials for their own housing purposes. As for the Metro and other facilities, they too would have been built even without the Games in sight. Maybe not at such a rapid pace but they would have been built all the same. The recently opened Metro stretch to Noida has come in for more criticism than praise because of various technical snags that keep occurring. It just goes on to show the demerits of trying to hustle through things that require more time.
Though the Asian Games of 1982 brought about great development in Delhi, one could see more drawbacks in the greatly awaited mega event. The huge exodus of labourers from rural villages to Delhi(about 10 lakh people) for the construction of various infrastructure were never given any future means of income after the Games were over. They continued to live in shanties they had been given to live in when construction for the games was still in process, till they were finally driven away by the Government. Till date, they continue to further increase the already swelling slums of Delhi.
A lot has changed since 1982, and yet a lot remains the same. It was just 2 years before the Asian Games that the Indian government woke up to the amount of work that was required to be done before the Games commenced and Rajiv Gandhi made it his personal mission to ensure that the games were carried out successfully. Though, he managed to do a commendable job, many planning and precautionary measures were ignored in order to be ready before the deadline.
The Player’s building was never completed, nor was the roof of the Talkatora swimming pool. The retracting roof of the Indira Gandhi indoor stadium hailed as a technological feat never worked effectively and even after numerous repairs, the roof still leaks. An international Badminton competition in the 1990’s was disrupted due to water leaking in. The main stadium, built on the banks of the Yamuna is actually tilting on one side. The Delhi High Court also sealed the main portion of the stadium, as it does not fulfil fire safety norms (Venugopal, A. 2005). The adjoining Yamuna Velodrome is in a pathetic state with the velodrome full of cracks and bumps, and more often visited by snakes and rats than humans. The Nehru Stadium too is crumbling and bad maintenance means that even though new tracks were laid recently, they are already in disrepair.
Similar are the conditions this time round. In fact, a year before the Games, the Common Wealth Federation was seriously considering taking the Games out of New Delhi due the lackluster improvements that were being made. As is the work tradition in India that no one works until they have a deadline hanging over their necks like a sword, similar is the case with the work in preparation of the Games. Though the city may be made out to be ready in time for the Games in 2010, the work done behind the scenes will be shoddy and make-shift, which will be of no use to the economy once the Games are over.
India is once again vastly unprepared in the wake of the Games. Almost every sector under construction, be it transport, hospitality, sporting facilities, power generation, all are struggling to meet the deadline for the Games. Various delays, time lags and unplanned synchronization are the reasons that India nearly lost the Common Wealth Games and is still under the risk of not managing to host the third largest multi-sport event efficiently.
One can only hope that the city will be benefitted by the Games which will set the foundation for future developments that will one day make New Delhi truly a ‘world class city’. And, we will not be plagued by the after affects as was the case with the Asian Games nearly 3 decades back and another 10 lakh would not be added to the perennially increasing slums of Delhi.
Source:
1982. Turnout for Games Lags, New Delhi Paper Says. The New York Times. November 26.
Baviskar, A. 2005. A lifeline … under siege. The Hindu, November 06.
Gibson, H. J. 1998. Sport Tourism: A Critical Analysis of Research. Sport Management Review, 1998, 1, 45–76
Roy, S. 2006. See you in Delhi….No, not yet. The Indian Express, April 02.
My Mother Always
My mother always is the best cook,
She knows by heart every recipe book
From six in the morn to ten in the night
She will be in the kitchen putting things right.
Pasta, pizza or a burger
She knows how to blow away my hunger.
Before breakfast, after supper or way past my bedtime,
She will always make a snack for me anytime.
One fine morning, I heard a shout,
My mother had her hand on her mouth.
A small rat had jumped into the pot of boiling soup.
It writhed and shrieked before dying in the coup.
The image of the dead rat stayed always in my mother’s mind
I never again saw her cook a thing right;
My mother always was the best cook,
She used to know by heart every recipe book.
- Varnit Banthia
She knows by heart every recipe book
From six in the morn to ten in the night
She will be in the kitchen putting things right.
Pasta, pizza or a burger
She knows how to blow away my hunger.
Before breakfast, after supper or way past my bedtime,
She will always make a snack for me anytime.
One fine morning, I heard a shout,
My mother had her hand on her mouth.
A small rat had jumped into the pot of boiling soup.
It writhed and shrieked before dying in the coup.
The image of the dead rat stayed always in my mother’s mind
I never again saw her cook a thing right;
My mother always was the best cook,
She used to know by heart every recipe book.
- Varnit Banthia
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Uncast Caste
Centuries ago, even before the great battle of Mahabharat had been fought on the dusty plains of Kurukshetra, there lived, deep inside the jungles of India, an old hermit. This hermit had renounced worldly pleasures and now taught young Brahmins how to use the bow and arrow. Such a great teacher he was, that kings and maharajas would send their sons to learn the skills of archery from the hermit. But the hermit hated kshatriyas and refused to teach any of the princes who came seeking him from far off lands.
One day, a bright young Brahmin came to him and asked the hermit to teach him the skills of using the bow and arrow. Charmed by the polite and respectful manners of the Brahmin boy, the old hermit took him into his fold and taught him all that he knew. The boy proved to be an eager and intelligent student and soon became the hermit’s favourite.
Few years later, one day when the boy’s education was almost completed, the hermit, tired after taking a walk in the afternoon sun, put his head on the boy’s lap and slept. Suddenly, from nowhere a scorpion came and struck at the boy’s leg with its poisonous tail. The pain was excruciating but the boy did not cry out in pain or move, lest his guru wake up. He merely flicked the scorpion away with his hand and sat still even though blood was flowing profusely from where the scorpion had stung him. The hermit woke up in some time and saw the blood flowing from his disciple’s leg. He asked what had happened and the boy told him about the scorpion. Instead of being happy that his student had borne so much pain silently so that his he could sleep peacefully, he started seething with rage. “You are not a Brahmin. No Brahmin could have suffered so much pain silently. Tell me who are you? ”, shouted the hermit.
“I am a kshatriya sire. I had lied to you so that you would teach me”, the boy replied.
“Since you have lied to learn from me, I curse you that when you need your knowledge the most, it will desert you”, screamed the furious teacher.
As you might have already guessed, the kshatriya pretending to be a Brahmin was Karna, the eldest son of Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas and the old hermit was Parshuram. And true to Parshuram’s word, when Karna need his knowledge during the battle of Kurukshetra, it deserted him and he was struck down by Arjuna.
Though a great sage and teacher, Parshuram had one failing – he judged a person by his birth not by his deeds. And this, unfortunately, is also a failing in many of us today. We claim to be a global village, yet we still judge people on the basis of their race, caste and creed. You will cheer Harbhajan Singh when he takes a wicket, yet crack a joke on sardars the very next minute. You were very happy when A. R. Rahman won the Oscar, but you were also very quick to scold your daughter for talking to that Muslim boy who lived down the street. You were very happy when Laxmi Mittal took over Corus, but were also the first to snidely remark that your classmate will treat you to dinner in a cheap restaurant on his birthday as he is a kanjoos Marwari. Isnt all this quite natural for many of us? Why are we such hypocrites? And why do we still cling to that stone age old thought that a man’s character is determined by the family that he was born in?
True, a man’s religion and family upbringing does have an impact on his personality, but we cant just stereotype a person because he is a Bengali, Gujrati, Marathi or Tamilian. Each newborn is like a blank canvas. His family, religion, friends and his own ideologies are the colours that paint the picture of his life. It is what a person does after his birth that determines his character not where or how he was born.
So, therefore, it is my humble request to all you readers that the next time you are prejudiced against a person because of his caste or religion, get to know him better first and who knows, you may be surprised at how wrong your earlier judgements were. And you may finally realise:
Men are equal; its not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
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