Businesses world-wide have the effect of not just boosting the economy of nations, but also teaching people how to live-with, cope-with and solve problems, at the same time keeping the billions rolling.
This article on cnnmoney.com was interesting.
Best-kept secrets of the world's best companies
Another article on most common blunders in services companies.. was on Entrepreneur.com
Biggest Customer Service Blunders of All Time
That should be a nice read for finishing the day.
This is a collection of leave letters and applications written by people in various places of India...
1. An employee applied for leave as follows:
Since I have to go to my village to sell my land along with my wife, please sanction me one-week leave.
2. >From an employee who was performing the "mundan" ceremony of his 10 year old son:
"as I want to shave my son's head, please leave me for two days.."
3. Leave-letter from an employee who was arranging his daughter's wedding:
"as I am marrying my daughter, please grant a week's leave.."
4.
"As my mother-in-law has expired and I am only one responsible for it,! please grant me 10 days leave."
5. Another employee applied for half day leave as follows:
"Since I've to go to the cremation ground at 10 o-clock and I may not return , please grant me half day casual leave"
6. An incident of a leave letter:
"I am suffering from fever, please declare one day holiday."
7. A leave letter to the headmaster:
"As I am studying in this school I am suffering from headache. I request you to leave me today"
8. Another leave letter written to the headmaster:
"As my headache! is paining, please grant me leave for the day."
9. Covering note:
"I am enclosed herewith..."
10. Another one:
"Dear Sir: with reference to the above, please refer to my below..."
11. Actual letter written for application of leave:
"My wife is suffering from sickness and as I am her only husband at home I may be granted leave".
12. Letter writing: -
"I am in well here and hope you are also in the same well."
13. A candidate's job application:
"This has reference to your advertisement calling for a ' Typist and an Accountant - Male or Female'...As I am both(!! )for the past several years and I can handle both with good experience, I am applying for the post.
This post is about the movie I just saw.. "CRASH"
Firstly... my usual justification.
Everybody writes about movies in blogs..I wanted to be different and thought I will never write one.. but you can't beat the fact that more than any other media and Television, movies make a bigger effect on how people see things.
Indians are now accepting love marriages more than the one in million it used to be..(now its one in 100).. Thanks to a roller coaster decade of romantic movies in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu..everywhere.
Indians are now changing..and feel more disturbed about the sanitation of their country..(atleast in the cities)..some people really have stopped tolerating bad behaviour, spitting, shouting and all such stuff. .. even the police today is looking at acts like spitting as criminal (which was earlier considered 'Manly').. Thanks to again a roller coaster decade of aggresive patriotism in movies like Yuva, Anniyan, Muthalvan, Ramana.. etc.,
Justification done... and aside.
This movie CRASH
The movie CRASH... won an oscar (or did it win more than 1, i dont remember)... it gives a clear idea of the internal black-white racial discrimination issues of America. The cold war kind of reactions and thoughts the whites have seeing blacks, and vice-versa.
The film takes a case-study approach and shows the discrimination that happens, and the follow-up solutions that happen to make people understand each other better.
Why did it feel Indian?
The film's bottom-line reminded me of 'Anbe Sivam' where the movie declares through love and patient understanding, we could help avoid wrong perceptions and mis-conceptions about group of people or their community.
The film's screenplay and direction reminded me of 'Yuva' and many more Indian movies, which also have the approach of taking two or more cases independently happening in different parts of society and how they link together finally, or how the issues with the cases get solved.
Don cheadle - is getting closer to an oscar.
Don cheadle, the actor who made a long-lasting impression on me in the film 'Hotel Rwanda' .. is also in this movie (as one of 6 cases, so not much of his show here).. After 'Hotel Rwanda' & after the oscar winning 'CRASH', he is become a known face in Hollywood for sure.
Links:
CRASH -the movie
Hotel Rwanda -the movie
Don Cheadle's cool official website
I knew this only today...
that India is going to HOST the COMMON WEALTH GAMES 2010 [So much ill-informed I was, since the selection it seems was made in November 2003]
I know it was in talks.. but definitely didn't know that we are almost taking up the last 30 mins of the closing ceremony today of CWG 2006 presenting INDIA with all the colors and the fun..
We had the kind of fare in that 30 mins, with fantastic promotion ADs promoting Delhi & India for the 2010 games, and with some pinch of bollywood faces.
After the Fabulous games Australia has hosted till today, (they even put a globe upside down in the closing ceremony, symbolically saying that they see Australia as top-most continent in the world)
I can only ask: .. when is 2010 coming.
Twenty Ten as its now catching up, will also be the Twentieth common wealth games.
And.. Samaresh Jung of India, with 5 Gold, one Silver, and one Bronze medal, in shooting... was adjudged best athlete in CommonWealth 2006. But Samaresh seemingly excited over his performance had already left for Delhi before the award was conferred :o), it was handed over to someone else on behalf.
Links:
Melbourne2006.com.au
Peotry is an Art, sometimes abstract (so you don't understand), sometimes modern (so you derive your meanings & mark it research),
sometimes simple (as I would like it), sometimes humourous.. rhythmic, glamourous.. and all that.
They say, it has to be written by people who can convey a thing or two.. in a word or two. They say, it has to flow like a river or a waterfall, beautiful and themed with the context.
Uh!...Poetry is good, and honestly, I am not able to write too many motivating and encouraging sentences, to make you read my poem.. the one below that I wrote up now.
People call me nuts,
for I always saw things different, me and my guts,
They still say you wouldn't change the world,
but for me the world already looks different,
thanks to people who said things like 'Future is already there but in pieces',
so that their thoughts help me out of my recess,
people tell me, the world is big, go travel,
and then they say, its so small, sending an email is a marvel,
people tell me, take life as it comes,
and when i fail, it seems i didn't plan, and so their drums,
some more tell me, history repeats,
i heard india won the 1983 cricket world cup... it beats,
more keep telling me, eating pizza gives bad health,
after all these days, should i still eat rice for all my wealth,
a few more people tell me, Sir, do you want a personal loan, its cheap,
if i get irritated, i say, 'please leave your message after the beep',
some more people, aah..
they keep coming, they keep telling,
i knew this birth will be like this, i would have born a chicken, but they are now culling,
if chicken gets disease, they keep culling -to protect the rest of the herd, but,
when people get it they legalize it, and spread it for ages, calling it 'telling'.
- Harish's poem this,... why are you yelling.
Source of inspiration for the poem: A friend (Thanks JP) sent me a mail with this Einstein's essay, it was more like reading poem of philosophy than an Essay by a scientist, and had advice to look at world differently (yes, one more document where Einstein motivates)...
The thing is I read the Essay Poem at 1AM IST with half-eyes, and kind of got the required poetic hang-over for this post. Now read the poem again, and you will feel the hang-over part of the script in it.
All of a sudden I thought I have to read on China..
I don't know why I felt it, but I feel kind of attracted towards China because I believe they(chinese) are right in the middle of the days where they are changing their country into a developed nation.. and once they complete the project 'China awakening'... I somewhat feel insecure and jealous that China will be better than India with skills and people.
I sure feel, chinese are already better than indians. And yes, every other country is better than india. Probably like somebody said, "it always looks green the other side, while your side looks dry"... that's how we perceive things. If you didn't like the proverb kind of stuff I just quoted, its because of my bad translation of the tamil proverb into english.. in tamil it is: "Ikkaraiku akkara pacchai"
Like me, I wonder whether some chinese also feels insecure about India's growth into a bigger economy. But, truth is, (I have always experienced this everywhere I have worked).. "as long as you look at the competition or the neighbour and compare your work, you always set small targets and never achieve a greater position... or most often you get worried and feel insecure. The day you focus on only your work and don't compare it with anything else except for quality purposes, you will come out Thumping success in everything.."
For now! What did I read about china?
Read it for yourself.. I pulled some interesting chinese blogs, and websites.
China's English newspapers: (Caught this practise from a friend Sudarshan, at a previous employment. he used to always read other country's newspapers more than India's ..:p)
China Daily.com.cn Xinhua News
Blogs:
Leylop's blog* John Biesnecker* China challenges China photos
- The * marked ones go to my favorites list.
A man from the West, decided to write a book about holy places around the World. He started by flying to various holy places. Going to a very large place in USA, he began taking photographs and making notes. He spotted a golden telephone on the wall and was intrigued with a sign which read "$1000 a minute". Seeking out to a religious Guru he asked about the phone. The Guru answered that this golden phone was, in-fact, a direct line to Heaven and if he paid the price he could talk directly to God.
The man thanked the guru and continued on his way. As he continued to visit the holy places in Egypt, Israel, Iran, USA, Europe, Nepal, Japan, Australia and all around the world, he found more phones, with the same sign and price, and got the same answer from each Guru.
Finally, he arrived in Kerala. Upon entering a temple, behold, He saw the usual golden Telephone. But this time, the sign read "Calls: 1.26 Rupees/Minute" (which is less than 3 Cents). Fascinated, he asked the Guru. "Guru Ji, I have been to Places all across the World, and in each Place I have found this golden telephone and have been told it was a direct line to Heaven and that I could talk to God, but, in the other temples the cost was $1000 a minute. Your sign reads 1.26 Rupees/Minute. Why?
The Guru, smiling, replied, "Son, you're in Kerala now. This is God's Own country... and it's a local call"
Source: As sp(read) from Venkatarangan's blog
Links:
Kerala - God's own country
I was watching the news... as usual and as weird like everyday, I heard a politician making a, what would anybody call a mis-statement, or "mis-quote".
Below is the one that provoked this post of many other misquotes I remembered reading and could search back from the web.
Most recent: Uttarpradesh, India
The finals of the Ranji Trophy match between UttarPradesh team and Railways team was to be held at a Lucknow ground in UttarPradesh giving the home team advantage.
But, interestingly, at the last minute the match is rescheduled to be held in Wankede stadium, Mumbai. Politics at the center, they say played a role to remove the Uttarpradesh teams advantage and help the Railways team.
When asked, the UttarPradesh sports minister says,
"The match had the permission. But the Regional Sports Officer cancelled it. For the last two days I am searching for this sports officer," said RK Chowdhry, UP Sports Minister.
When Bill Clinton was president of America:
Clinton: "I can spend your money better than you can."
In a post-State of the Union speech in Buffalo, NY on January 20, 1999, Bill Clinton was asked why not a tax cut if we have a surplus. Clinton's response:
"We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right... But ... if you don't spend it right, here's what's going to happen. In 2013 -- that's just 14 years away -- taxes people pay on their payroll for Social Security will no longer cover the monthly checks... I want every parent here to look at the young people here, and ask yourself, 'Do you really want to run the risk of squandering this surplus?' "
Source: Washington Times, January 21, 1999
Al Gore's turn:
At an event in Las Vegas on a Monday, Gore declared potential breast cancer victims faced "a long waiting line before they could get a biopsy or, uh, or a uh, another kind of, what am I looking for, a sonogram or...." People in the crowd shouted "mammogram."
(Source: Fox News 09/18/00; MSNBC 09/21/00 - The News with Brian Williams)
US Republican politician Dan Quayle:
"I have made good judgements in the Past. I have made good judgements in the Future." -Dan Quayle
"I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix." - Dan Quayle
Dan Quayle is very popular with mis-quotes..more..
Our very own George.W.Bush:
"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country". -George W.Bush
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." -George W. Bush
Also read: The Education of the President: Bush On Pakistan (Bush, though we all think he likes Pakistan a lot, ... seems like knows not much on Pakistan!!
Most interesting of all: And actually good quotes, not mis-quotes
During his period as president, a lot of people wondered, 'How dare an actor have the audacity to run for this job,'
Ronald Reagan told the Chicago Sun-Times in 1990. "There were times when I wondered how you could do this job without having been an actor."
An old Russian woman had asked Mikhail Gorbachev whether communism had been invented by a scientist or a politician. Gorbachev said he thought it was a politician. "That explains it," said the woman. "A scientist would have tried it on mice first."
Last two 'interesting' quotes: As sp(read) from Venkat's blog
Do you want to go to the ***76th International Motor Show Geneva***.. which ended just on 12th March 06,
You could... just click the image below.
And while you are seeing the show, why not also learn about the new technologies that cars are willing to bring in... in the short future. Something like,
"Lexus for example, has equipped one of its models with stereo cameras and radar to detect upcoming obstacles. It can also see what is creeping up on you from behind.
And if all the coddling means your attention wanders, there is a camera checking the driver's eyes are on the road.
In the event that there is an obstacle in front of the car and the driver is at the same time looking at the side of the road, the system will sound a warning to alert the driver."
... that reminds me of a system which I heard of long back on some TV, about a car that can detect whether the driver is sleepy and slow-down while alerting the driver.. It could do the detection based on a heart-beat rate and the eyes.
Read more of this report that BBC's ">Click" programme played live today.
Recenlty, I had discussed in an earlier post about a mobile phone tracking service which is available in the west...which uses the GPS technology.
I saw it on the BBC's programme ">Click", and today the programme reported a few comments they received from their viewers on that programme. The ineresting comments were,
1. "Did you also know that its possible to remotely activate the microphone on a mobile phone without the phone owner knowing it.. Its also possbile to remotely activate the camera of the mobile phone. So its possible to not just track, but also see and hear what the person is doing."
- For goodness's sake, the person didn't say how... and I only hope its atleast difficult to do.
2. "They can track where-all the person is going by tracking his phone.. so easily, then why can't they track my stolen mobile phone?"
- The BBC presenter said, "I really don't know the answer for that question".
I don't regret using 'idiots' in the title of this post ... people who send SPAM regularly don't deserve any credibility to even live on earth. These are people who are like terrorists on the internet. Technology gets open and free to help improve methods of doing things... but there are crazy nuts who misuse this openness of technology to make money, and sometimes even to make fun. They are all NUTS .. $%^&#%^%.
Ok. I will stop swearing them for what they are doing... and better write this post for nice readers who sometimes get caught unexpectedly with such 'Technology Terrorists'.
SPAM, is not an acronym.. though its most often written all caps. Its more like an english slang for referring to unsolicited email. Its not a unique name either....a search on a website like www.acronymfinder.com would throw up a list of things that are referred by 'Spam' other than unsolicited email.
Spam or unsolicited email is also referred as bulk email...or junk email.... bottomline is; its useless email, that you didn't expect to have receive, and you don't know the sender of the email in any manner.
If you have an email account you definitely would be receiving Spam. The worse thing is... It doesn't stop with emails....
If you have a blog, you might be receiving comment spam. If you have a webpage with a form, you might have spam form submissions.... and so on.
Why & Who:
People spam for simply taking benefit of the spare time you might have when you read spam... and sometimes innocently click on the links mentioned in the spam or buy products advertized through the spam. The logic with spammers is, "Out of 1000 or 3000 people who I spam, atleast 40 will respond, and atleast 2 or 3 of them will buy my product".
Sounds weird, considering the percentage of success if we were to think of spam as a marketing tool. Its still popular, because spamming doesn't cost anything, and with computers and the networks that one can use free on the internet, its easy to send millions of spam in a single day.
I don't know what is 'phentermine'... I hope neither you know, but both of us have received emails asking us to buy phentermine or similar medical products for cheap.. correct? We never bothered...since we knew that its just spam marketing. But there are people who buy the products... that 1 in 1000 person ... mostly out of curiosity to enhance his manhood spirits believing whatever junk the email says.
First result which spammers achieve is 'traffic'. Internet traffic to their website or the marketing link increases because people try clicking on links in spam messages.... sometimes because of a good marketing text that encourages to respond.
Second result which spammers achieve is '$$money$$'. It could be by way of affiliate commissions through sales of some company's products, or by selling his/her own stuff.... ....and after a project of Google called 'adSense', people spam to make more people visit their webpages and click on google generated Ads, for which Google pays a cost-per-click to the user.
How do they spam & What are the effects:
Setting up spamming on computers is not anybody's play. But there are more and more spammers because some stupid software companies out there, make cheap spamming software, for the $money$.
There are quite a few easy programs on the internet for spamming... hearing the very functions of them drove me crazy.
I too bought a book on spamming:
I went crazy ahead, spent some spare money I had, 50$ of it in buying a book that a spammer idiot had written, to understand what the hell these guys are doing.
His book, he claims, will help people make money through blogs... around 500$ of it in 20 days and stuff like that. No, I didn't buy it for that...honestly.. i have always read such claims on websites for years, and even some blog friends tell me they are making huge money, which I wanted to know how...and what unethical way they are using. As a technology person, my curiosity got over me, and I bought the book.
Here's the stupid guy's website ..where he sells this book.
Here's the book's pdf link...to download (without buying).
This is what I read from the stupid book:
> There's a software called voodoo blogger which can create 1000's of blogs on sites like blogger.com, post an article to all of them, and add a google ADsense ad to all the starting pages of the blogs.
......And there are these search engines that are programs which sometimes misunderstand these blogs as effective blogs, and link them to search results.
.......The idea is you get a top rank in search engine listings, and many people who searched for something landed up on your webpage unintentionally, and may be even clicked on your google AD for which you get paid.
> There are softwares which can search the search engines and list a set of keywords for which there are not many search-engine results, so that, you could make blogs or write junk comments with the keywords put many times in it.
.......Again, search engines, misunderstand this as valid content for the keyword and link your blog or comment to the search listing.
Imaging that, drives me crazy... those are methods to junk the valuable information gateway, called the Internet.
With all this, in 5 to 10 years down the line, I wonder will Internet information be discarded as totally junk??. Even today, there are lot many occassions where we start searching on the internet thinking we will find information in 2 minutes, and end-up spending 2 hrs with not much useful information.... or sometimes we get into something else and read that information, rather than what we were searching for.
In next page:
> How is spam tackled?
> Where are we heading?
John works in a supermarket. A man came in and asked John for half a
kilogram of butter. The boy told him they only sold 1 kg packets of butter, but the man was persistent. The boy said he'd go ask his manager what to do.
John walked into the back room and said, "There's a bloody fellow out there who wants to buy only half a kilo of butter." As he finished saying this, he turned around to find the man standing right behind him, so he added, "And this gentleman wants to buy the other half."
The manager finished the deal and later said to John, "You almost got
yourself in a lot of trouble earlier, but I must say I was impressed with the way you got yourself out of it. You think on your feet, and I like it a lot. Which place are you from?"
John replied, "I'm from Mexico, Sir."
"Oh, really? Why did you leave Mexico?" asked the manager.
John replied, "They're all just prostitutes and soccer players up there."
"My wife is from Mexico," the manager said.
John replied, "Which team did she play for?"
Moral:
Think faaaaast!!!
I am not for sad stories / stories that portray a whole community in bad light... But there is the reality about life in some places you can't hide... and so exists a painful reality of women harrassment in India.
March 8th is celebrated women's day. And in India there are people (mostly men) who argue that we don't need such days because India is the only country where women are "respected" the "most". I wonder what here means "respected" and further what is "most respected".
If you had a few female friends at college, or even at office, people say "Lucky guy yaar.. ", "kush kismati ho"... I used to think this was a joke, never understood the internals of why they said so.
There always is a never-ending argument on why women are harrassed in a society... men would say (even i have felt so sometimes) that its women who are to blame for their dress-sense..for their weakness in fighting harrassment.... while women would say, "you want us to dress the way you would feel comfortable looking... rather than what we feel good about our dress, and why would you ask whether we are weak, how many guys should we fight through every day for our space".
If everyone in India is agreeing on one thing... that can only be this... "India has a rich culture.. and women are treated well". ... A BOLD FAT LIE that is.
Born a woman in India?
Welcome to the world of adjustment, tolreance & patience...for the rest of your life,
you will understand how to dress-up such that no guy teases you,
you will learn how to put your head down and walk so conscious about people around you,
you will learn how to avoid certain roads at odd timings,
you will learn how to select the bus in which you can travel without anybody hurting you,
you will learn how to avoid people following you,
...
...
And sometimes, women will unfortunately, sadly, even have to learn how to take little sexual harrassement, forget it the very next second and laugh it off... as if you are not hurt.
Read what Annie has to say on the shocks and adjustments she had to overcome to live through bombay.
Chennai or any other place is no better.. but if you are a man, it will take you one or two female friends, or sisters if you have, to tell you a painful experience like Annie's article to know the truths about people around...and how they treat women.
I found Annie's blog name 'Known Turf' (for known playfield or known strategies), say it all, rather than the article in her blog.
Unfortunately, people who behave like that with women won't be advanced enough to read this or any blog...
Image courtesty: http://www.amnesty-volunteer.org
No, its not about writing love letters... that's proprietary art only lovers understand.
This is about how a couple in their 50's feel reading the letters after years of writing. I loved this short story in 'The Hindu', especially the story's flow.
We'll bury our past: publised in 'The Hindu' 5-mar-2006 Magazine supplementary.
I am a short story fan.. especially because I can't wait the time and effort to know the full story for days reading a thick book. So this was one of the very few, short & sweet.
As part of Bush's visit to India, an Economic forum was held in Hyderabad in which many of India's notable CEO's met a CEO delegation who travelled to India with Bush. Also present was the indian Finance Minister.
The Finance minister P.chidambaram said, "India is biggest untapped market in the world. Hardly 10% of India's population is insured. There's a lot that foreign markets can reach. I invite foreign investment in the sector, and assure that the parliament can be convinced if any policy changes or amendments in laws are required"
This is a very ridiculous invitation.
Insurance is the most easiest way for a company to make money... you only need to sell it, money can be locked up until there is an insurance claim, and even accrued amounts in endowment plans need to be paid back only after many years. The money that goes into insurance is not recoverable as and when needed...people cannot close the account and rollback.. that's the whole idea.
Allowing international insurance companies to set-up wholly owned business here is Foreign Investment only for the first few years, after that its a lot of your money going out of the country as insurance premiums paid to foreign companies...that too for nothing, not even a cup of coffee, just nothing until they pay-back date comes or a claim occurs.
Already there are many insurance companies in India which enter the market in a partnership mode where they get to own upto 70% of the company with the indian partner... such companies are ING-Vysya (Vysya is indian), Tata-AIG (Tata is indian, AIG if foreign partner), Bajaj-Allianz .. etc.,
Also, to my knowledge, many of these companies showed respectable results in 2004 and 2005. Historically, the Indian government reserved the insurance sector for public goernment-owned companies for a very long time until only recent few years where these companies have been marketing hard. Now inviting foreign companies is good for may be the government but not for people who are already finding big confusing differences with policies of existing large number of players.
Only things possible with international competition in insurance sector, are probably,
> Could make insurance cost lesser (but international companies don't enter a market to cost cheaper for customers..so they won't go too cheap to trigger an big drop)
> Could bring many more kinds of insurance... and lot of things that indian companies don't do like insuring computers against viruses could become possible..
But, money paid to insurance companies is like 'lost money', which becomes 'lost-n-found' only when the insured dies... or, if it is some kind of endowment plan or pension plan, 'lost-n-found' on maturity which will be many years away for all plans. Its easy money into pockets of insurance companies which need to do only marketing much of the time.
Its more of 'Investment by India into foreign companies', than 'Foreign Investment into India'. Is Mr.Chidambaram crazy?
India has probably moved into the Limelight of developing nations.. There are a lot of foreign governments interested in India today.
> French president visited recently and signed agreements on trade links and bilateral co-operation.
> US president is in the country for discussions on Nuclear proliferation, trade links and bilateral co-operation.
> Australian Prime Minister is coming on March 6th, for renewing and taking bilateral and trade links to a higher level.
Also,
The President of India and Prime Minister of India have been visiting countries more often these days,
> recently APJ Abdul kalam visited Phillipines, Singapore and Republic of Korea,
> while Manmohan Singh visited KaulaLumpur, Malaysia.
Trade links and co-operation between India and many other countries seem to become overwhelming.
Similarly Educational co-operation has also started gaining more importance, thanks to the President Abdul Kalam's efforts..he always talks on educational links.
> recently we heard of more exchange programmes like teacher exchange, student exchange numbers increasing.
> Singapore invited IIM to propose on setting up a institute there, for which IIM is trying to convince the governments stand of firstly developing education levels internally. Argument is, if singapore allows us establish there why not use it, take home some money for paying development costs here.
All this point to two things...
One obvious thing.. India is becoming hot, and value of Indian skills are gaining recognition, thanks to software market for proving us smart.
The other important reason... India's foreign policy change probably has did magic.
We internally argue in India about voting against Iran for IAEA, trying listening to the US on bringing changes in handling of our Nuclear facilities, and all that, but... change in stance is what has worked magic and got many countries interested in seeing India as partner in growth.
Probably, foreign minds had the following worries about India that,
We are a self-sustaining and hence may not be co-operative,
We build our own technology, be it satellites, or nuclear power, and probably we might not have enough mindset to work with others, and the likes.
Probably, our new foreign policies are working good to answer these worries and so the magic.
Related Websites:
Ministry of External Affairs, India
Embassy of India, Washington DC
Learnings:
> Probably when we over-used 'Made in India', or said 'Indigenously developed car in India or Wholly Indian Car', someone at a foreign office thought Indians are conservative, they don't like working with others on technology co-operation.
> Also, in recent times, we have stopped the fuss about being 'Swadeshi', using all Indian products.
> When we protest foreign products in the country calling it outright sale of India by politicians, and saying that its blocking growth of indian companies and all that, we are limiting India's capacity because of fears of competition.
> Allowing foreign products and investment in India, helps us understand how to get their class in our businesses and products, as we see them doing it in our country with our marketing and business problems.
> There are definitely times when you see a problem that all Indian companies had with a market, being solved by a foreign competitor, and all indian companies soon following the same solutions.
Today, George. W.Bush, is visiting India.
There is news that there will be protests on his visit, and people are raising that question: Should Bush be welcomed to India or not?
I don't like that question on a person like the American president.
There was this article: Bush in India: Just Not Welcome -which was also republished yesterday in Indian newspapers.
Obivously I also don't like the way Mr.Bush worked America's way into Afganisthan, and then Iraq, in the name of wiping global terrorism. Its a fact that when you destroy a terrorist voilently, actually you are creating 4 new terrorists.
I don't approve of bush's or blair's decisions which has undoubtedly killed more innocents and only a small percentage of their actual targets. War doesn't differentiate targets from innocents for obvious reasons.
Yes, there could be some understanding of how terrible a feeling it would have been for Bush and others on September 12, 13, 14... and the NewYork after that.
We all in the Asia only know how it felt on September 11...that too as seen on TV.
Anyways, all that being there...
If he is coming to my country, I would look at him as a person who has
taken many more decisions than the decisions on Iraq and afganisthan.
You would only unwelcome a person if he is unruly, cruel, bad and makes decisions based on selfish intentions.
I would better find from people who know Mr.Bush better when it comes to deciding whether he is that bad, and his intentions are that cruel. And, who knows him better than the Americans.
The very fact that more than 50% of Americans voted him to power again after Afganisthan and Iraq, means to me that Mr.Bush is not a person like he is shown to be ...
Whether I dislike Bush or don't approve of the Americans electing him for a second term.. depends on the question... 'With what information would you dislike him... based on Critics and blogs?'
I also didn't find it interesting to see Hamas win palestine elections.. but doesn't mean People of palestine are wrong... they know better about Hamas.. and sure everybody has reasons for the decisions they make.
I welcome Bush on his India visit...
Does that mean.. I don't respect my own people in my country. .. and I look at Americans as better than Indians.
Why would I feel so.. I definitely respect the views of my country people to protest Bush's visit.
I see it like this..
Bush is welcome ..
he is visiting..
come on guys, why not?
At the same time, Indian people want to protest his visit highlighting the cost of bad decisions made on Iraq and Afganisthan.. Fine. I only believe the protests take the idea of highlighting Bush's bad decisions rather than just showing placards with 'Go away Bush' in it.
By the way, I just have a question I ask myself.. Why weren't there any visible protests in India when British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited few months back.. Do people really think Mr.Blair was not reponsible for innocent killings in Iraq and Afganisthan?
---------Update: After India, Bush visited pakistan..
One interesting blog entry on Bush's statement in Pakistan.
