Retaliation or Mercy

I just watched the execution of Saddam Hussain that was telecast on BBC. You could not have missed it…it was all over the television.

A man was being killed before your eyes: Execution brought to your living rooms!!!

This was no entertainment gentlemen, this was real. Saddam is now a hero – for the quiet and brave fashion in which he accepted his fate.

Fortunately for those of us with some humanity and compassion left in us, these “very considerate” news channels blocked off the final fall.

I condemn all forms of violence…and Death Penalty is the ultimate form of violence.

I have no particular love for Saddam. But I condemn his execution.

Retributive justice has no place in modern times such as these…we should inculcate the system of restorative justice.

If we were to enforce lex talionis (an eye for an eye) the whole world would turn blind.

India Faces Shortage Of Designers

Y2K problem and what it could do to computer data was the most common subject for discussion among techies and pretenders in the mid 90’s. It is at this point that the West first started to look at the Indian software engineers – both cheap and efficient - to fill up the enormous number of human hours required to correct this problem.

The Indians have come a long way since this unexpected windfall, carving a niche for themselves in the world software industry.

Success filled the Indian techies with a new confidence and an all important “can do attitude”.

Indian economy in general resonated this confidence and attitude, evident in the consistent growth rate and the new spate of acquisitions of companies outside India by Indian Industries.

Unfortunately, India is now falling victim to its own success.

Lack of infrastructure required to support the booming economy is a well documented fact.

And now, the competitive advantage India had with the high number of technically educated workforce will also fade out in the coming years if they fail to plan and act urgently.

According to a report in Business Standard New Delhi Edition Mr Darlie Koshy, executive director, National Institute of Design (NID), has warned that India faces an acute shortage of 8,000-10,000 designers every year in over 200 industry segments. While there are 17,973 institutes in the country there are only a dozen-odd institutes that produce over 500 designers per annum, whereas the demand is for 8,000-10,000 designers. As the country is evolving from a knowledge-based economy to a creative economy, design, creativity and innovation is one of the pillars of the economy just like science and technology is. While there are 800,000 technologists in the country today there are hardly 1,000-1,200 designers in the country.

Say Cheese !!!

Wonderful Logos And The Logic Behind Them

I recently received the following via email from my very dear friend Aji...I take the liberty to post this.

Thank you Aji for sending this very interesting insight...

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I am not sure how many of you have noticed a hidden symbol in the Federal Express logo:



Yeah, I am talking about the 'arrow' that you can see between the E and the x in this logo. The arrow was introduced to underscore speed and precision, which are part of the positioning of the company.
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The SUN Microsystems logo is a wonderful example of symmetry and order. It was a brilliant observation that the letters u and n while arranged adjacent to each other look a lot like the letter S in a perpendicular direction. Spectacular.
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The above logo is for an editing studio. I like the way the logo attempts to convey what they do.
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The above are two magazines from the Readers Digest stable. Again, the attempt to communicate what it is about quite figuratively through the logo catches my attention.
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I liked this logo of a hair stylist for the cheeky humour it brings to the (dressing) table.
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This was a logo created for a puzzle game called Cluenatic. This game involves unravelling four clues. The logo has the letters C, L, U and E arranged as a maze. and from a distance, the logo looks like a key.
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This logo is too good. For the name Eight, they have used a font in which each letter is a minor adaptation of the number 8.

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Eighty-20 is a small consulting company which does sophisticated financial modeling, as well as some solid database work. All their work is highly quantitative and relies on some serious computational power, and the logo is meant to convey it.

People first guess that 20% of the squares are darkened, but that turns out to be false after counting them. The trick is to view the dark squares as 1's and the light squares as 0's. Then the top line reads 1010000 and the bottom line reads 0010100, which represent 80 and 20 in binary.

Kinda like the surreal green screen of The Matrix, they want us to read stuff in binary
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This was a logo designed in-house for some internal event at IBM. I like that they are quite relaxed about the logo, unlike certain other companies who do not like the logo to be tampered with in any way even for internal promotions.
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You might think the arrow does nothing here. But it says that amazon.com has everything from a to z and it also represents the smile brought to the customer's face. Wow, that is quite deep.

Discrimination

Letters to editor column of 7Days is littered with interesting thoughts on racial discrimination at work place in Dubai.

We are constantly subjected to discrimination almost on a daily basis in one way or the other….it may be a job advertisement, an interview, entry to a club, a look, a gesture; why, even a seemingly kind patronising is discrimination in disguise and can be the unkindest cut of all.

It is easy to understand this phenomenon when you are at the receiving end….For a white man/woman it would not be very apparent unless the act of discrimination is very pronounced, which do not normally surface in a politically correct environment where people live with enforced civility!!!

Unfortunately, discrimination is present everywhere and take many forms…, I think it is only human; and often the result of conditioning that exist in our sub-consious minds.

1. Gender Discrimination
2. Religious Discrimination
3. Racial Discrimination
4. Regional Discrimination (this is the strangest…have you witnessed the discrimination meted out to South Indians – otherwise known as Madrasis – by North Indians in Bombay – oops Mumbai !!!)
5. Linguistic Discrimination
6. Discrimination on the grounds of Nationality
7. Discrimination based on appearance / physique / height
8. Lifestyle Discrimination

The only difference is that in Dubai, where there is no real law against discrimination, this is practiced without any fear of retribution.

What has often surprised me is the discrimination between an Indian Boss and his Indian Office Boy. The request for tea is almost always “Eh...bring tea”.

On the other hand a European Manager always asks for a tea with a please!!!

One can live with all the other forms of discrimination. Sure it hurts, but, it really doesn’t matter if you are denied entry into a club or if you are given an unfriendly / indifferent treatment in an upper class shopping mall.

Unfortunately, you are hit the most when discrimination manifests as a huge disparity in earnings, even worse, when one is denied the opportunity to earn a livelihood!!!

Endosulfan

Thank you Maneesha, for your comments….and YES, you brought to focus the indiscriminate use of insecticides, Endosulfan in particular, and the need for organic farming.

Endosulfan is a pesticide that is banned in most parts of the world and yet in some third world countries like India it is widely used even today.


The effects of Endosulfan surfaced in 2001 when a story about the mysterious illnesses in villages in the district of Kasargode were reported.

Unfortunately, in these parts of the world, where poor people are a disposable liability, their voices against political and industry heavyweights (the pesticide industry in India is estimated to be worth around 1 Billion USD) are often muffled.

To Be or Not To Be ….. a VEGETARIAN

What do Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstien, Thomas Edison and even Adolf Hitler have in common with Dustin Hoffman, Martina Navratilova, Amitabh Bachan, Aishwarya Rai and Angela Besset…?

They were/are all VEGETARIANS…

Albert Einstein maintains that Vegetarianism is the result of evolutionary process. If one was to equate that in terms of evolutionary time scale of ape to man, consuming meat may be equated to being ape and vegetarianism to man.

According to China Health Report, 80 - 90% of all lifestyle deseases (eg., cancers, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes) can be prevented if we would stick to quality plant based foods; and as much as $120 billion per year might be saved from the healthcare costs in the US alone.

Apart from the numerous heath benefits associated with being vegetarian – apparently the reason for Adolf Hitler to have turned into one – there are also spiritual benefits; definitely not the motivation behind Adolf Hitler’s vegetarian experiment!

Pythagoras, famous for his contributions to geometry and mathematics, said, "Oh, my fellow men, do not defile your bodies with sinful foods. We have corn, we have apples bending down the branches with their weight, and grapes swelling on the vines. There are sweet-flavored herbs, and vegetables which can be cooked and softened over the fire, nor are you denied mild or thyme-scented honey. The earth affords a lavish supply of riches of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter, only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh, and not even all of those, because horses, cattle, and sheep live on grass."

"I do not like eating meat because I have seen lambs and pigs killed. I saw and felt their pain. They felt the approaching death. I could not bear it. I cried like a child. I ran up a hill and could not breathe. I felt that I was choking. I felt the death of the lamb". --Vaslav Nijinsky (dancer and choreographer)

Coca Cola And Mentos - Not a nice Combination

These are a set of pictures that I received from a friend.

These pictures indicate an experiment done by mixing Coca-Cola with Mentos...apparently an unfriendly combination.

I am not sure if this is true; but no harm in being a bit careful...So don't drink Coca-Cola with Mentos.

Answer is Non-Polluting Fuel – Not Compromising Life Style

Just what will it take to make us ditch big cars? Asks “ A Mum” in the letters to editor column of 7 Days of November 1, 2006. One can easily tell “Mum” is furious with all those who are driving around in their 5 Litre cars. She is even “stunned” to see the number of “British etc” people choosing five litre cars in Dubai and wonders if they “had the same education as I did”

Dear “Mum” – I have the same concerns that you have regarding our environment and as indicated in my earlier post, I am a conscientious greenie… I drive a relatively smaller car ( I am not in the 5 litre league yet), but a gas-guzzler nonetheless. Yes I could do with a 1.6 litre Honda City, but alas, it doesn’t suit my self-image”.

“Mum”, People choose to own things that suit their self image.

If we start counting the things we do in excess there is no end to it; and all these excesses damage the environment in one way or the other. Gold is one of the most polluting commodity produced - not because Gold is poisonous - because it takes large quantity of poisonous chemicals like mercury to refine gold. Like wise, aluminium, glass etc..that are increasingly used in modern buildings are Energy Guzzlers…Honestly, these are things man can live without!!!

Why, the paper that printed your “voice” is more damaging to the environment than the 5 litre gas guzzler of your “British” neighbour.

In an ideal world, we should all be living according to the Gandhian tenets of “living from nature and living by nature”.

But reality is different. The human race is uniquely blessed with this urge that we call ambition.

Because of this urge, we are inclined to build bigger, live bigger and think bigger….Man got to where he is today because of his ambition to become greater and better. In our quest to be unique, we invariably damage the environment a little every day.

But the indulgence in bigger and expensive “toys” and its ostentatious display is not unique to individuals. The ambition of some modern societies to become greater and more powerful than the rest has caused much larger damage to the world than larger cars !!!

Cutting down on the size of car may be a start. But as I said before, the real answer to the problem lies not in compromising life style but in developing alternative fuel that is replenishable, efficient and clean. I believe, in the collective wisdom of the world scientific community, the know-how exists.

What is lacking is the political and economic will!!!

How to Avoid Stress When Trapped in Traffic

Driving is always stressful in Dubai. In the endless traffic jams, there is nothing one can do, but tail the car in front of you…The more adventurous ones zig-zag between lanes, only to advance a few cars in front of the otherwise boring “tailers”…This is hardly worth the risks you see!

If you can look around and use the time constructively, the cars and people offer plenty of entertainment, provided you are one of those who find amusement in observing people and their behaviour….If you are not already, please read on for some tips on the subject.

The young and young at heart can coyly eye the beautiful girl in the car behind you …or admire the beautifully made up eyes that fill the rear view mirror of the car in front of you. This requires certain amount of prowess, something that you can acquire with relative ease.

The other exercise is to use the time for observing number plates. When people spend enormous amount of money in buying fancy number plates, it would be a sheer waste if you do not notice them.

If you see a number plate with a three digit number like A123, or C 999, or D789, which can set you back by a cool $ 250,000 – something I will take many years to earn if at all – you can safely assume that he/she is very rich and probably well connected; I suggest you put your middle finger to better use, even if he switches lanes without signalling. If it is a two digit number, keep your distance and a bit more, just to be sure.

Depending on the number, you may engage in imagining and even stipulating what your friendly neighbourhood driver would be doing for his livelihood.

For those endowed with more than normal IQ, the otherwise normal and boring numbers can be just as fun, if you can decode the number to a more “meaningful” sequence. Please recall the story of how Ramanujan – the famous mathematician – revealed the beauty of the number 1729.

For the lesser mortals like me, I would suggest they stick to the first exercise. Attempting to become Ramanujan may produce less than desirable side effects.

The time spent in traffic is also an excellent opportunity to catch up with friends and your ‘love on the side’…I wouldn’t recommend that you call your wife/husband as this can also cause undesirable stress. If you must stay in touch with your spouse, use the safer option of SMS. If you don’t have a casual affair already, I suggest that you seriously look for one for the sake of your own sanity.

The covers that adorn the spare wheels of the numerous off-road vehicles that ply on-road can also be an excellent source for amusement. The off-roader I was tailing this morning had a rather plain looking spare-wheel cover with a thought provoking phrase - “relax like a spare wheel”- advertising the Radisson SAS hotel.

Whatever the source of amusement, for those who have succeeded in mastering this art of staying amused in a traffic jam, the rewards are enormous. This whole exercise is sure to keep you from getting frustrated and stressed. No small feat when you learn that Stress is the numero uno cause for deaths in the world today. Yes Sir, STRESS is a major cause for coronary deceases, insomnia, hypertension, diabetes and even cancer.

Wasting time when trapped in traffic jam is better than wasting life!!! That bloody traffic jam is not within your circle of influence.

The best you can do is to train yourself to accept it!!!

Prenuptial Essential

“But love is blind and lovers cannot see,
The pretty follies that themselves commit”... (Shakespeare)

In love, Sir Paul McCartney committed quite some follies….none of them quite pretty though!

Actually he committed grievous errors - errors of everestine magnitude.

1. He married…

2. He married Heather Mills

3. He married Heather Mills without a prenuptial agreement.


According to many, Ms.Mills could potentially walk away with a whopping 200 million pounds - (380 million USD)

That is $ 95 million USD for every year of marriage!!! A sound business model indeed!!!

Wonder if they teach this investment model at Harvard.

Story of a Hero

Two news items that appeared on opposite pages of Gulf News on October 28, 2006 is worth mentioning.

One report talks about the sorry state of Kuldip Singh, a bus driver with Delhi Transport Corporation who on this day last year courageously disposed off a ticking time bomb from his bus saving the lives of all of the 71 passengers on board; but in the process was grievously injured and suffered from complete loss of his eye sight.

Kuldip Singh and his family survive on a meagre income of 100 dollars per month. The fact that he is not getting any help from the government does not surprise me…!

I wonder what the 71 passengers - happily alive today thanks to Singh – are doing to help their saviour??? Have they grown as cold and thankless as their government..???

The other report talks about the arrest of two militants who were planning to blow up the Karnataka Legislative assembly building in Bangalore. The police have traced their satellite phone numbers and calls to Kashmir and Pakistan. Last year gunmen had attacked the prestigious Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore killing one scientist…

I wish the perpetrators of terrorism would put the money that they are spending to destabilise India to better use in their own country!!!

What noble cause can be served by violence, death and destruction…???

Indians Make Best Husbands

Indians have already proven their mettle in the IT arena…And now, they are being prized as the best foreign husband a Russian woman can get…!!!

According to an article published in Indian Express, Maria Arbatova, the controversial Russian feminist and poetess, feels that Indian men make the best husbands for Russian women.

Twice married Maria is now living with an Indian.

After the Techies, perhaps India should now look at exporting Hubbies !!! Any Takers...????

The World Needs an alternative fuel …NOW

I drive a Mitsubishi Pajero and I love it. It has a 3000 cc, 6 cylinder engine which delivers a cool 185 bhp power, and has enough room for my entire family and the occasional friends.



I love the feeling of power, the size and the look of the vehicle. But I feel extremely guilty for my thoughtless indulgence in this gas guzzler, because, as much as I love big cars, I am also a conscientious greenie.

I could probably do just as well with a 1300 cc car which would only burn a third of the fuel as my SUV would and emit a third of the green house gases and toxic stuff...

But can you blame me and the scores of other SUV owners for owning the things we love and doing the things we love...?

Answer to the woes – both environmental and economic - lies not in driving people to shift to smaller cars but in pushing the scientific community to develop not just cheaper, but more importantly, cleaner and renewable fuel.

While I appreciate the push for cleaner and more efficient cars, serious efforts are needed in developing alternative clean fuel which will considerably reduce the dependence on gasoline.

Although there are many alternatives to Gasoline as vehicle fuel - Electricity, Ethanol, Methanol, Methane (Natural Gas), Propane and re-formulated gasoline - Ethanol is the most promising alternative to Gasoline.

Ethanol (grain alcohol) is the primary automotive fuel in Brazil and ethanol-gasoline blends (known as gasohol) have been used in US for many years. Pure Ethanol fuel offers excellent performance combined with low hydrocarbon and toxic emission. Ethanol can be produced from corn, sugar cane, as well as from cellulosic material such as wood or paper waste.

Ethanol accounts for 20% of the transport fuel in Brazil whereas the use of alternative fuel in the rest of the world is a scanty 1%. That is a 20% reduction in dependence of fossil fuel and toxic emission from burning of gasoline as compared to the rest of the world!!!

I am looking forward to the day when I can drive my SUV without feeling guilty about it...!!!

Veil Issue : From Egypt to England

Debate is raging if veil is indeed an Islamic tradition stipulated by the Holy Quran or just a tribal tradition that came to be associated with Islam.

Veil has increasingly started appearing on the streets from Egypt to England and from India to Indonesia.

In the more moderate Muslim majority countries like Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, veiled women are now a prominent sight where as it was rare a decade ago.

Is this the assertion of the new and emerging face of a radical islamic identity or a veiled protest against the mainstream society…?

The US and allied forces’ reaction to 9/11 – the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq – has undoubtedly driven moderate Muslims to embrace a more radical form of Islamic identity.

The irony in the case of Aishah Azmi, the veiled teaching assistant in England and that of Iman Ahmad, the 21-year old University of Halwan student who was banished from residence halls of the university, is that these women have embraced the veil (known as niqab) on their own free will…!!!

The vast majority of Muslim women in the arab world do not wear the full face cover, but opt instead to wear only the headscarf known as the Hijab

"I don't agree that the veil should be compulsory, and I don't like it," says Soad Saleh, a professor of Islamic law and former dean of the women's faculty of Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University, which is more than a thousand years old.

According to her “Quran does not say that women have to cover up their face – it is an old Bedouin tradition”.

Whatever one may say about the veil – pro or anti – the veil row is here to stay for a while.

As per press report in Egypt, a 63 year old Egyptian grandmother divorced her husband of more than 40 years because her ophthalmologist husband does not favour her wearing the veil!!!

Is God Alive..?

The idea here is not to negate the existence of God. If anything, I am a habitual believer… One who is a believer by habit, more than out of conviction.

God is the most simplistic explanation for the life forces that modern science can not explain…

What keeps the sun and moon in their place..? Ask a physicist and he would answer gravity….

What is gravity…? It is the force exerted by two bodies, he would answer…

What is force…? Force is THAT which changes or tends to change the state of rest or motion of a body…

What is THAT...??? hmm !!!!

Almost habitually, I am inclined to call it God…the life force behind everything living and non-living.

The big question here is - IS God worth killing for or dying for…?

If God is the giver of life, how can one appease Him by taking a life…. Whether it is the ritualistic animal sacrifice or the expansionist crusades or the insane inter-faith killings and the murderous sectarian violence…

If God created man and man created religion, why can’t religion bring compassion and love..?

More has been killed in the name of God than the two world wars put together…

If religion can not promote peaceful co-existance, why do we need religion…???

I look at the conflicts around the world and wonder – Is god really alive..???

I look at the misery of people in Darfur and Ethiopia and wonder if God is really alive today…

What have these people done to deserve such appalling misery…? Hundreds of thousands are dying of sectarianism in the name of religion and politics. In Africa and other regions in Asia millions are starving to their death…

Why would God allow this if he were alive…?

Introspection

I sit still…
In the apparent safety of my car’s interior…
The cool air gushing from the grills of its air-conditioner
With a dampened hiss, perhaps of protest
Comforting me with an obligation…

The tinted glasses hugging my eyes
Filtering off ‘unwanted’ rays from the scorching sun
Oblivious to myself,
And the numerous cars raging past (as if there is no tomorrow)
I sit still, in the car
Taking me to my destiny!

From the depths of my mind
A voice awakens me...
Of concern and inquisition
Echoing in the emptiness of my ears
“What makes you YOU…?”

Mind dilates with the urge to decipher
Wide eyes searching with greed to behold
Ears listening anxiously to absorb…
The clues that may give away...
The answer to my quest…

Thoughts swirl inwards,
Extending, expanding, wandering and searching…
Through the alleys I have walked
Through moments I have breathed
Through the days that I have lived
Through the scenes I have seen, and
The sounds I have heard
And the wisdom my senses has accumulated

As my mind heaves
In the labor of this intercourse
Of mind and thought
Of time and space…
Cold realization precipitates
Heavy beads of contempt

Sighing deeply
As if to revitalize..
Shaking my head
As if to dispel the ill thoughts
Blinking to contain bewilderment

In sheer disbelief..
Do I utter this to myself

I know not…
What makes me ME....!!!