These days environment is the most talked about topic. Everyone wants to do something good about Environment or at least pretend to do good(Hollywood stars driving Prius!!). It’s the coolest thing you can do. Corporates are now regulated to act Green. My company has pro-actively taken several initiatives in this regard. There is a Green Policy as well. Plastic (Polyethylene) bags are banned within the company premises. We are required to shut down the monitor, so on and so forth. So many policies that joke of employees not finding toilet rolls are doing rounds. I pray that does not happen.
So, with so much happening what can YOU do? Change the incandescent bulbs in your home to CFL. Yes, that is a good idea. Plant a sapling. Yeah, but that requires a lot of work and dude it is such a pain to find place to do that. I have a better one. Don’t BATHE one day in a week. Yes you read it right. Don’t BATHE! Before you start che..che ing me, let me justify my idea.
On an average we use 150 litres of water to bathe. (Don’t ask me how I arrived at that figure; you will then miss the point.) India has a population of more than a billion. Since I am poor in maths let us consider it to be billion. Every Indian not bathing for a day i.e 150 billion litres of water saved! Isn’t that an easier way to save water by jus not doing something! It is so easy; I wonder why no one thought of this before.
Now for the che che ing part. You may say it is un-hygienic to not bathe a day. I would like to ask, have you ever heard/read someone falling sick because he/she didn’t bathe for one day. In fact you would probably have not bathed when you were sick or admitted to the hospital. If bathing would help you avoid falling sick, shouldn’t you bath more frequently when you are sick? And be honest, how many days did you go without bathing during you hostel days?
Girls I have something to say to you. Not bathing is one field where each of you will contribute more than any boy. Yes you will beat all the boys by not doing something.
I conclude by asking you to put some environment friendly acts like this in the comments, where you don’t have to do anything to go GREEN; “NO flushing” is ruled out :)
Go Green.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
As world shrinks…
These days Indians are travelling all over the world more than ever, either as professionals or for studies and then continue to work there. Half of my friends on facebook/orkut (social networking sites) are overseas. I, myself have travelled to 3 continents in my five years of career - London, Melbourne and now in Washington DC.
When I pick up Indian magazines every weekend I read about attacks on Indians in foreign land. It is very disheartening to read about the incidents and unfortunate that Indians are finding themselves in the news for wrong reasons. My friend asked me to blog about my experience in Melbourne. Lately majority of the attacks are happening in the land of Oz. so here is my take.
There could be several reasons why such attacks may be happening.
Job insecurity: Well this happens in India as well. People in Maharashtra protesting about migration of people from other states. Look at our own bengaluru. It is so cosmopolitan that one need not know Kannada to find his/her way around. Even the chaiwaala can converse in hindi/English. Infact there is a good chance he may be from another state.
Media: for all the unwanted hype. NRN once rightly pointed the way Indian media works. Any bad news makes the front page and constructive news is mentioned in a snippet at a corner. Even the Australian delegates pointed the same. Indian media is filled with many round the clock news channels. Bad quality video footage of attacks on Indians flash on the screen countless times a day. Remember the way H1N1 news created paranoia. Even I was worried when in India for a month at that time. Later constructive ads started appearing and the panic died down even though H1N1 still continued its death toll.
Australia is very outgoing country. Aussies are passionate and proud about their country. One of the least populated places on earth. If I were to make a point on their behalf, they would be quite taken aback with all the migration of other nationalities. But one question bothers me. Why are Indians being targeted? They are not even on the top of immigration ladder. Maybe aussies are afraid to test Asians martial arts skills or maybe the fact that India outperforms Australia in cricket.
Random attacks happen every night in Melbourne. If Indian media were not to hype about such attacks maybe the attacks will continue to remain random, instead of developing a pattern of bashing Indians alone. Many Indians who complain about these attacks also choose to be citizens of the same country. So why create a hoopla. No place is heaven in this age.
What should be done about the whole issue? Well my opinion is that there is no single/straightforward answer. Australian police has to get more vigilant, Indians should try and avoid being at the wrong place at even good times, and Indian media learn not to make a big fuss of it. Foreign nationals are raped and abused in India as well. No one complains about that or goes to their support. Things won't sort out in a jiffy. It will take its time. Let us learn to live harmoniously till there is oneness in reality. Peace :)
When I pick up Indian magazines every weekend I read about attacks on Indians in foreign land. It is very disheartening to read about the incidents and unfortunate that Indians are finding themselves in the news for wrong reasons. My friend asked me to blog about my experience in Melbourne. Lately majority of the attacks are happening in the land of Oz. so here is my take.
There could be several reasons why such attacks may be happening.
Job insecurity: Well this happens in India as well. People in Maharashtra protesting about migration of people from other states. Look at our own bengaluru. It is so cosmopolitan that one need not know Kannada to find his/her way around. Even the chaiwaala can converse in hindi/English. Infact there is a good chance he may be from another state.
Media: for all the unwanted hype. NRN once rightly pointed the way Indian media works. Any bad news makes the front page and constructive news is mentioned in a snippet at a corner. Even the Australian delegates pointed the same. Indian media is filled with many round the clock news channels. Bad quality video footage of attacks on Indians flash on the screen countless times a day. Remember the way H1N1 news created paranoia. Even I was worried when in India for a month at that time. Later constructive ads started appearing and the panic died down even though H1N1 still continued its death toll.
Australia is very outgoing country. Aussies are passionate and proud about their country. One of the least populated places on earth. If I were to make a point on their behalf, they would be quite taken aback with all the migration of other nationalities. But one question bothers me. Why are Indians being targeted? They are not even on the top of immigration ladder. Maybe aussies are afraid to test Asians martial arts skills or maybe the fact that India outperforms Australia in cricket.
Random attacks happen every night in Melbourne. If Indian media were not to hype about such attacks maybe the attacks will continue to remain random, instead of developing a pattern of bashing Indians alone. Many Indians who complain about these attacks also choose to be citizens of the same country. So why create a hoopla. No place is heaven in this age.
What should be done about the whole issue? Well my opinion is that there is no single/straightforward answer. Australian police has to get more vigilant, Indians should try and avoid being at the wrong place at even good times, and Indian media learn not to make a big fuss of it. Foreign nationals are raped and abused in India as well. No one complains about that or goes to their support. Things won't sort out in a jiffy. It will take its time. Let us learn to live harmoniously till there is oneness in reality. Peace :)
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The world is flat!!
I am pretty sure many of you may have heard of this book written by Thomas L Friedman. It is book that talks about globalization to great depths, talking about the way business is done by big companies like ebay,walmart,Dell,HP,UPS,Google,Microsoft. It also studies the way many Indian based IT companies like Infosys,Wipro,Mindtree and even small firms like Jadoo works thrive in the flat world. No wonder the book is 570 pages fat excluding the appendix. The size of the book and given the fact that it is a business book may make one think it would be a dull read. But let me tell you with utmost urge that it is not. Friedman has managed to collect facts and present it in the most interesting and gripping manner.
So after couching myself on the sofa for many nights (I am a very slow reader) would I agree whether the world is really flat!! YES it is and I am sure many of my friends would second me without even having to read the book.
Let me explain you how by taking my own life as example. I was born in a small town in Karnataka, India named Chitradurga. I was bought up in Bhadravathi a small steel town in the same state. Studied in a convent school till my tenth. Then moved to the district headquarters to do my pre university in science. Then I was lucky to get a seat in the famous National institute of enginnering, Mysore. This is the same college where co-founder and chief mentor of Infosys, N R Narayanmurthy graduated. Well definitely the WORLD was not flat for me till then.
But then before I entered the final year of my graduation in IT I was recruited by Infosys. That is when I began to see the world. I was trained and later given the confidence to use my engineering skills to build and support applications for clients I had never heard of. The clients were fortune 500 companies and their profits let alone revenues was in billions of dollars.
As my experience grew I was given more responsibilites and the chance to travel to London for one such assignment. Now as many know that British ruled India for more than a century. Many Indians fought and lost lives to make the country free. They looted India of its valuable resources and used bipartisanship as a key approach to rule India. But when it went to extremes India united and fought against the british empire and got the nation free on aug 15, 1947. One thing India benefited by the ruling was the language that the britishers bought. It is the very language I use to exchange my ideas and opinions with clients around the world. Now, here I was using my technical skills doing business with people who treated us like slaves just over 50 years ago.
But in this flat world nobody is your enemy. Everyone is a potential collobarator as the book clearly states time and again. In my current assignment at Melbourne, Australia I am working in a truly multi cultural and geologically diverse team. My team comprises of myself, an Armenian, a Vietnamese and many Australians. I have been deputed/seconded from an Indian based company Infosys technologies Ltd to its subsidiary Infosys Australia. We all work together for supporting business in South Africa. The client is of a british based company. I see the world being flat day in and out. People dial in from cape town,Singapore and Melbourne on every call. We all collaborate with our different accents and sometimes make fun of each others culture at lunch. But we are all players in our own sense in this huge flat world.
The book many a times warns the Americans to wake up before the developing countries like India and China dominate them. One funny quote I would like to pick from the book. Earlier American parents told their kids to finish up the dishes as many kids starve for the same food in India. Now they urge their kids to do the homework else some Indian kid will take his/her job. Indian companies have been able to make profits and grown in huge stature by tagging along with the American companies. Now it is time to move the wheel by a notch. In fact many companies have already started doing that. We have to think ahead into the future. The flat world has given everyone the same opportunity. Notable tool being Internet. We have to make use of this and change the way things happen. We have to start making use of right imaginative brain more and in tandem with our left logical brain. As many famous thinkers have said when a company starts thinking of its memories instead of dreaming it ceases to grow. So instead of being happy and contended with what we have phenomenally achieved we should dream the next big thing and strive to make it a reality. So listen to the famous Aerosmith song “Dream On” on the American [designed in America but made in china] ipod and use your Indian brains to achieve it.
So after couching myself on the sofa for many nights (I am a very slow reader) would I agree whether the world is really flat!! YES it is and I am sure many of my friends would second me without even having to read the book.
Let me explain you how by taking my own life as example. I was born in a small town in Karnataka, India named Chitradurga. I was bought up in Bhadravathi a small steel town in the same state. Studied in a convent school till my tenth. Then moved to the district headquarters to do my pre university in science. Then I was lucky to get a seat in the famous National institute of enginnering, Mysore. This is the same college where co-founder and chief mentor of Infosys, N R Narayanmurthy graduated. Well definitely the WORLD was not flat for me till then.
But then before I entered the final year of my graduation in IT I was recruited by Infosys. That is when I began to see the world. I was trained and later given the confidence to use my engineering skills to build and support applications for clients I had never heard of. The clients were fortune 500 companies and their profits let alone revenues was in billions of dollars.
As my experience grew I was given more responsibilites and the chance to travel to London for one such assignment. Now as many know that British ruled India for more than a century. Many Indians fought and lost lives to make the country free. They looted India of its valuable resources and used bipartisanship as a key approach to rule India. But when it went to extremes India united and fought against the british empire and got the nation free on aug 15, 1947. One thing India benefited by the ruling was the language that the britishers bought. It is the very language I use to exchange my ideas and opinions with clients around the world. Now, here I was using my technical skills doing business with people who treated us like slaves just over 50 years ago.
But in this flat world nobody is your enemy. Everyone is a potential collobarator as the book clearly states time and again. In my current assignment at Melbourne, Australia I am working in a truly multi cultural and geologically diverse team. My team comprises of myself, an Armenian, a Vietnamese and many Australians. I have been deputed/seconded from an Indian based company Infosys technologies Ltd to its subsidiary Infosys Australia. We all work together for supporting business in South Africa. The client is of a british based company. I see the world being flat day in and out. People dial in from cape town,Singapore and Melbourne on every call. We all collaborate with our different accents and sometimes make fun of each others culture at lunch. But we are all players in our own sense in this huge flat world.
The book many a times warns the Americans to wake up before the developing countries like India and China dominate them. One funny quote I would like to pick from the book. Earlier American parents told their kids to finish up the dishes as many kids starve for the same food in India. Now they urge their kids to do the homework else some Indian kid will take his/her job. Indian companies have been able to make profits and grown in huge stature by tagging along with the American companies. Now it is time to move the wheel by a notch. In fact many companies have already started doing that. We have to think ahead into the future. The flat world has given everyone the same opportunity. Notable tool being Internet. We have to make use of this and change the way things happen. We have to start making use of right imaginative brain more and in tandem with our left logical brain. As many famous thinkers have said when a company starts thinking of its memories instead of dreaming it ceases to grow. So instead of being happy and contended with what we have phenomenally achieved we should dream the next big thing and strive to make it a reality. So listen to the famous Aerosmith song “Dream On” on the American [designed in America but made in china] ipod and use your Indian brains to achieve it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
