Today, the 26th of January, is celebrated as the Republic Day in India. My social network streams are flooded with posts that involve patriotism and love for the nation, TV channels broadcast the parade live from Rajpath followed by movies and programmes based on the same theme, children on the road have a tiny national […]
Layoffs and Unionization Threat
In the last few days, those in India’s technology industry would have come across reports of a massive layoff in India’s largest IT services company, namely, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). While several of these reports were unconfirmed and unverified, many in the field have already expressed their support for the “victims” of this layoff. Interestingly, […]
Compulsory Voting – Democracy at its Atrocious Worst
An ardent supporter as I am of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and strong as my faith is that his government can take India to greater heights, I must, in most emphatic terms, record my disagreement with the Gujarat Local Authorities Laws (Amendment) Bill of 2009 that was first introduced and passed in Gujarat assembly during […]
Getting Out of a Problem
I left office a little early today, and took one of the two main routes I can take to reach home – the one that had to cross an intersection of 5 roads into a small circle. As happens at times, I got caught in a traffic tangle at this junction and had to put […]
Hacking By Social Engineering – A Target’s Dilemma
Yesterday night marked the beginning of a series of interesting events that gives us an opportunity for reflection (or avalokanam, as we call it). My wife received a few text messages on her phone number that has been her for only a couple of weeks. These messages were from Facebook, and had a code and […]
Gender, Values and Crime
A more controversial one among the many uncommon views that I hold has to do with gender, gender-difference, gender-specific values and roles, and the so called “gender equality”. Having realized that my take on the subject has the potential to hurt the sentiments of many who hold this subject close to their heart (as opposed […]
Traits Children Acquire – A Parenting Lesson Learnt
Many parents often wonder how their children acquire certain habits and traits, and hold on to them in spite of repeated efforts at correction. I recently attended a management training in which the trainer narrated an interesting story that throws some light on this subject, which I paraphrase below. There was once a boy who […]
Time – the Agent of Change
One of the most intuitive and (thus) inexplicable concepts that we have got too used to to wonder about, is time. We ask for the time, ask for more time, manage time, and even kill time! But to define time in all its complexity and depth is much more challenging, if not impossible. Two related […]
First of April – Fool’s Day Special
As a child, April was a much awaited time of the year. Annual exams would be over and we’d be into the honeymoon period in the next class. New textbooks, optimism of a fresh beginning, determination to correct mistakes of the past and to do better than ever before, all of these made us all […]
Perpetration of Blame
We live in an age when people become popular by highlighting the failings of others rather than through their own achievements. We have heads of elected governments who care less about governance and more about blaming other leaders of corruption and other crimes. An ordinary person who takes a casual look at the newspaper is […]