Change must come from within.................

26th of November was yet another day which was of no use to myself or this world. As the day was drawing near the end, I was trying to do something useful for the day by attempting to read Stephen Hawking's "A Briefer history of Time". My room mate was surfing the TV when he saw the militant attacks at Mumbai coming as flash news, though he got excited, I dismissed it as another series of bomb blasts which our country had learned to live with and tried to bury myself in the book. As the clock ticked towards midnight we could figure out that this is not a bomb blast but an extremely well planned operation which is going to cause a major outrage in the world. We went to sleep around 1.00 clock still unsure of what was exactly unfolding in Mumbai.

In the morning when we switched our TV sets we saw that it had been a sleepless night for thousands of people. The whole world was watching as terror unfolded its clutches across the Mumbai, there was little anybody can do. The army was pressed into action and even their seasoned NSG commandos were finding it tough to flush the militants and save the hostages, it has been almost 48 hours since everything began but still the battle to save people is going on. 

Yesterday (Nov 27th), it was raining cats and dogs here at Chennai, our house at Velacherry had had more odds of going under water. The previous night we had a small warning with the water reaching our veranda and bathroom at the back. The fear of water flooding into our house and the terrible situation in Mumbai had me in an awful state of mind and I decided to take the day off. I was alternating between Times now and NDTV to track what is happening in Mumbai till 11, but I got pissed off with some of their predictions and decided to watch a movie instead. These days our media houses are all about reporting and TRP ratings, it is really rare to see good journalism, seems with quantity has traded for quality. 

I was browsing through my room mate Pannai's collection of movies and picked Batman Begins to watch, the recent admiration of Christopher Nolan's Dark Night made me to watch the movie though I had watched it earlier. I found myself enjoying the movie which I didn't when I saw it almost about two years ago, seems laziness and prejudice has slowly crept inside me in every walk of life. As I was going through the movie I felt what Bruce Wayne had felt in Batman, the grudge against the people who are responsible for the chaos prevalent in our society. I wished there would be a person for our country, the world to save it just like Batman did it for Gotham, though it was not pragmatic, I slept off with such a dream. 

The situation was still pale at Mumbai when I woke up, but it was turning worse in my room with water slowly starting to seep in through the back door. Myself and my room mate had an intuition that this was going to worsen, hence we just shoved all the things lying around (usually too many in a bachelors room) into shelves and prepared a backpack to go somewhere. The waters level rose at alarming rate and as we left more the level was more than a feet. Wishing the situation would turn around quickly I left for my uncle's house at Beasant Nagar.

The travel was horrendous with my share auto severing along the breadth of road which had sank under water without a trace. The journey from Velacherry to Thiruvanmayur under normal circumstances takes about 20 minutes, but it was not a normal day. When we had finished three quarters of the distance, the auto came to a virtual stand still just before the Taramani junction. I waited for about 10 minutes inside the auto and thought trotting on the foot was a better alternative to reach quickly. As I came to the T junction of Velachery road and Perungidi link road there was a deadlock which any Operating system teacher would have pretty much liked to use as an example. A section of traffic was trying to take a right towards SRP tools, whereas the traffic from SRP had blocked the entire road. Worse still there was another set of vehicles trying to take a right towards the Perungudi road.

And all the vehicle drives were not just hoping but working hard to clear the traffic with persistent honking of their horns which amused me a lot. Though vice (we will discuss later what is the vice) has spread across the length and breadth of our country there are many persons who have not been still attacked by the same, maybe our population is too huge even for a vice or disease to spread. 3 persons unaffected by these vices were trying to do something for the traffic, buoyed by their spirit I also jumped in to lend my effort as far as possible. And after a struggle for about 15 minutes we were able to regulate it a bit. The worst part was we had to persuade, plead, shout at people to ease the traffice,  everybody sounded that it is urgent for them to reach home and to them it didn't matter what happened to others. 

In other words everybody was trying to follow Adam Smith's philosophy of "In a group best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself". Little did they realize that what John Nash had corrected it as "In a group best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself and the group". (Courtesy: A beautiful mind).

After half an hour of effort, I realized it is time to leave or else it will be too late to reach my uncle's house. As I walked my way to the next bus stop more than a kilometre away I was thinking about the vices which has engulfed our society. The first and foremost one is materialism, which has spread its tentacles across the length and the breadth of our society. Everybody wants to become rich, build homes, buy ornaments, cars, etc. There is nothing wrong in being materialistic but the way in which we attain materialistic is extremely vital in determining the health of a nation. I think our understanding of God is also one of the reasons why we are like this blaming everything on God and asking him for a solution instead of trying to find out one.

Call it fate or irony the fact is, the land in which Gandhi was born, people no longer have regard for the philosophy of means and ends which he adhered till his death.  If we had indeed followed that principle of Gandhi, this country would have been a better place to live. Still it is not late, we could see a turn around in the lives of each and everyone of us, but it will take some time to see the effect. Alas, the present day Indian lives in an era of instant coffee and soap operas where he has become devoid of something called patience. 

I believe the second most important thing which is proving to be a nemesis is patience. We are not even patient enough to wait for a traffic jam to clear, instead we just jump over the yellow line and take the wrong side of the road to reach our destination  which ultimately will create a deadlock or an accident and in fact worsens the problem for everyone of us. It is not just traffic, we do it everywhere in every phase of our life from paying our bills in a shop counter to taking coffee in our offices, wherever it is possible. 

The third reason is lack of social responsibility. The definition of Social responsibility has got narrowed down, by corporate India, to the helping of orphans, old age homes and destitute children. There is also another definition of Social Responsibility used by our media, it is about people coming out to help during natural catastrophes, terrorism etc. Do these things alone constitute Social Responsibility?  I believe the above said acts are due to empathy and constitute only a part of Social Responsibility. 

During the past two days I noticed lot of people blaming the Government for its inability to tackle terror, inadequacy to tackle floods. The only question I would like to ask each one of them is, "Who is the government?". If you are blaming the government it means you are blaming yourself not someone else. 

The problems faced by our country is not due to the politicians or the administration, it due to each and everyone of us. We cannot become a developed country unless each one of us change, unless each one of us bring in control the demons in us. 

I have come across many people who talk about the problems in our system and are ready to work for the change, but they want to see the change immediately. Change in a country with such a big population will not come quickly, it might take years, even centuries. For that to occur we must start now, lets strive our best to leave this world a better place for the generations to come.

For that the Change must come from within.................

Is bailout really neccessary, no I don't think so.

Few days back, I wrote a post stressing the need for bailout. I came across an article which which pointed out that how the bail out is going to make life worse for the common man me explain how it is going to be worse.

Say Mr.X has taken a loan of $200,000 from a mortgage firm for buying a house. The mortgage company in order securitize the loan, converts the it a bond and sells the bond in the open market. The bond is bought by an investment bank or a mutual fund or a pension fund since it offers good returns. In order to securitize their investment, the entity which bought the bond insures it with an Insurer. when Mr.X defaults, then it sets off a chain reaction which affects all those involved in the chain of events, i.e. the mortgage company, investment bank & insurance company.

The guys with with fat pay checks in Wall street never cared about the fact that this vicious chain may crash. All that mattered to them were profits, never the means to achieve it. Wall street being the brainchild of capitalism came up with a master plan to save their skin from this economic breakdown. The US government $700 billion bailout save only the financial companies from bankruptcy and leaves Mr.X in total disarray.

The bailout has put a double burden on the common man, first $700 billion has been made raised from the tax payers money which includes Mr.X's contribution also. We need to remember Mr.X has been shown door from his house has he has defaulted his payments. His house would be auctioned off now and say it is sold for $50,000. Mr.X still has a liability of $150,000 to his mortgage company. In other words he needs to pay for the house he doesn't have and also he has to pay for preventing the financial institutions from crashing, the very same institutions which has left him in lurch. These guys do have a lot of brains.

Had this bailout not happened the entire world economy would have collapsed and a new world system might have been formed. Of course we would have faced many problems, but I sincerely believe it might have cut off the wings of Capitalistic Imperialism. The bankers have made sure that this didn't happen and Capitalism continues to thrive so that they can reap it's benefits.

Friedman points to Gandhian ways for recovery

Today in New York Times, Friedman has written a nice article, Why How Matters, in which he points out that it is not the goal alone which matters, but also how we achieve the it.

Gandhi had always argued same, it is called the Means and the Ends concept. i.e. it is not enough that we must have a very high goal, but the means we employ to achieve the goal is equally important. Though I am not a great fan of Gandhi, I greatly admire him for this particular trait. I believe at this hour when one of the biggest ever economy crisis of post World war II era is slowly catapulting, this concept of integrity is very important to improve not just the economy but the living standard of the entire world.

Bailout is neccessary

I came upon this article by Scott A.Kjar . Though his argument theoretically seem correct, I believe the bail out is necessary without which lot of banks would collapse and the one to be most affected would be the common man. The bailout might be helping the banks whose policies were managed by the greedy and dumb guys, who failed to foresee the catastrophe, but I don't find this reason to be strong enough for people who had invested in these institutions also to suffer.

The increasing liberation policies and complex instruments make the functioning of banks and economics incomprehensible to an ordinary man and is really tough to expect him to analyze this situations beforehand, when seasoned economists themselves have been left confused. The bailout in turn must be followed by stricter regulations of the market and trail of those responsible.

Be a bit slow, Mr. Chidambaram

Prakash Karat has lambasted P.C for his aggressive stance to deregulate India's financial market.,d despite the fact that the entire world economy is plunging into crisis. At a time when economists all over the world agree that there must be a rethink on the current strategies, worldover it is really worrying to see some of the bills that are being discussed in Indian parliament. The most sensitive one is the Pension Regulatory Development Authority (PRDA) bill which seeks to allow the pension funds in capital markets. With the entire financial world running on speculation, I think it is not a good idea to allow pension funds to invest in financial markets, especially derivatives, futures and stocks.

I believe a detailed discussion must take place before any action is taken, let's hope Chidambaram doesn't act in haste. One thing which worries me a lot is the fact that BJP are also neo-liberal and this could prove a boon for P.C. It is upto each and everyone of us (Indians) to make sure that we follow the progress of Pension Regulatory Development Authority Bill, Banking Regulation Amendment Bill and the Insurance Amendment Bill.

This was how A.I.G. went down

I came across an article in NY times by Morgenson regarding how the insurance giant A.I.G went down.

The article gives an immaculate picture of how Joseph J. Cassano and his 376 member AIG financial group, stationed at London, bought about the demise of the parent company via Collateral Debt Obligations(CDO).

I am still unsure whether the $85 billion bail out by Fed is enough to sustain AIG, because with the number of home mortage defaulters increasing, the CDO liablity of AIG to its clients is bound to increase.

From latter part of the 20th century, the way economy is running has become incomprehensible to a common man. I believe if we want to improve this world, knowing economy is one of the most important things. Time to buckle up and do some reading.

NSG's approval, a step foward

The past few months have been a roller coaster ride for Manmohan singh and his cabinet collegaues. Manmohan Singh's persistence towards signing the nuclear deal had almost robbed him of his prime ministerial post. His hard work has paid off with the unconditional waiver by Nuclear Suppliers Group at Vienna on 6th of September.

Nulear Suppliers Group (NSG) has agreed to waive the restrictions for the supply of Nuclear fuel, reprocessing for India without any restrictions on our Nuclear Arms programs. Any ban or revoking of fuel supply, reprocessing techniques, in case of India restarting Nuclear arms programme, be based on the consensus of 45 member NSG. Consensus is highly unlikely since India can bank on some nations like Russia, France for help.

The unconditional waiver by NSG is certainly a significant achievement for India as a nation. Let's not forgot the fact that NSG formed as a response to the Nuclear tests conducted by India, at Pokhran, in 1974. Also one of the primary motives of Warsaw plenary of NSG in 1992 in adopting the full safeguards agreement was to deprive India of nuclear fuel. The diplomacy and negotitations carried by Foreign Secretary Shiva Sankar Menon, Chairman of Atomic energy commission Anil Kakodkar and his team has been comendable.

NSG waiver doesn't no mean that we are going to have a cake walk, instead it is actually a path treaded with lot of landmines like Berman.

What irks me is the blatant criticism from all quarters that the waiver surrenders India's sovereignty. For those who pose a question like that, please answer the below questions,

1. Did the atom bombs possessed by us in any way deter the Terrorists attacked Indian parliament on December 11, 2001. We didn't even retaliate by destorying the terrorist camps in POK and the fact which has to remembered was that BJP was in power then.

2. Has our nuclear arsenal made China to withdraw from the Indian territories occupied during the 1963 Indo-China war? Or has it made China recognize Nagaland as a state of India?

3. Has our nuclear arsenal helped to solve the internal problems like Maoists, ULFA & Naxals? (I will not criticize these groups, will discuss about them in a separate post).

4. Or has the principles of left made West Bengal one of the prosperous states in India? I am not against the principles of a socialism, I am indeed one of the most ardent socialists. The fact is I believe the CPI(M) is not a proper representatives of the socialists.

One thing which the so called communists tend to forget is that the NSG waiver is an absolute neccessity to procure fuel from any country, including Russia.

In our country millions of people are living without proper food, water and shelter. At this time, do we really need to test more nuclear devices and announce to world that we are a nuclear power house? Just ask yourself..

Girl who slapped the entire mankind on face

Severn Suzuki, at the age of nine, along with a group of children founded the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO), which was dedicated to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. In 1992, at the age of 12, Cullis-Suzuki raised money with members of ECO, to attend the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and gave this speech which is a Slap in the face for the entire mankind. Simply superb, it is not enough that we watch it, but we must think about it also.

The transcript of her speech is below,

Hello, I'm Severn Suzuki speaking for E.C.O. - The Environmental Children's Organisation.

We are a group of twelve and thirteen-year-olds from Canada trying to make a difference:
Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler, Michelle Quigg and me. We raised all the money ourselves to come six thousand miles to tell you adults you must change your ways. Coming here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future.

Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market. I am here to speak for all generations to come.

I am here to speak on behalf of the starving children around the world whose cries go unheard.

I am here to speak for the countless animals dying across this planet because they have nowhere left to go. We cannot afford to be not heard.

I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in the ozone. I am afraid to breathe the air because I don't know what chemicals are in it.

I used to go fishing in Vancouver with my dad until just a few years ago we found the fish full of cancers. And now we hear about animals and plants going exinct every day -- vanishing forever.

In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterfilies, but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.

Did you have to worry about these little things when you were my age?

All this is happening before our eyes and yet we act as if we have all the time we want and all the solutions. I'm only a child and I don't have all the solutions, but I want you to realise, neither do you!

• You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
• You don't know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream.
• You don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct.
• And you can't bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert.

If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!

Here, you may be delegates of your governments, business people, organisers, reporters or poiticians - but really you are mothers and fathers, brothers and sister, aunts and uncles - and all of you are somebody's child.

I'm only a child yet I know we are all part of a family, five billion strong, in fact, 30 million species strong and we all share the same air, water and soil -- borders and governments will never change that.

I'm only a child yet I know we are all in this together and should act as one single world towards one single goal.

In my anger, I am not blind, and in my fear, I am not afraid to tell the world how I feel.

In my country, we make so much waste, we buy and throw away, buy and throw away, and yet northern countries will not share with the needy. Even when we have more than enough, we are afraid to lose some of our wealth, afraid to share.

In Canada, we live the privileged life, with plenty of food, water and shelter -- we have watches, bicycles, computers and television sets.

Two days ago here in Brazil, we were shocked when we spent some time with some children living on the streets. And this is what one child told us: "I wish I was rich and if I were, I would give all the street children food, clothes, medicine, shelter and love and affection."

If a child on the street who has nothing, is willing to share, why are we who have everyting still so greedy?

I can't stop thinking that these children are my age, that it makes a tremendous difference where you are born, that I could be one of those children living in the Favellas of Rio; I could be a child starving in Somalia; a victim of war in the Middle East or a beggar in India.

I'm only a child yet I know if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers, what a wonderful place this earth would be!

At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us to behave in the world. You teach us:

• not to fight with others,
• to work things out,
• to respect others,
• to clean up our mess,
• not to hurt other creatures
• to share - not be greedy.

Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do?

Do not forget why you're attending these conferences, who you're doing this for -- we are your own children. You are deciding what kind of world we will grow up in. Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying "everyting's going to be alright" , "we're doing the best we can" and "it's not the end of the world".

But I don't think you can say that to us anymore. Are we even on your list of priorities? My father always says "You are what you do, not what you say."

Well, what you do makes me cry at night. You grown ups say you love us. I challenge you, please make your actions reflect your words. Thank you for listening

Rs.200 can change the life of this guy....

Last week, I met a boy named Soundrapandian in a village called Elanthugudi, near Mayiladuthurai. My friend’s dad who is a school headmaster bought Soundrapandian to my notice.

Soundrapandian finished his MCA with First Class in 2005. So, what is so special about him? He might have passed the exams, but still has got many difficulties which need to be addressed. This guy is crippled with Polio to an extent where he cannot walk even with crutches. Worse still is his parents who were taking care of him are no more. He was under the care of his elder brother who also passed a few years ago. He has got a younger brother who also is crippled with Polio. Though his younger brother can walk, he cannot climb stairs, not even board a bus. Being the eldest son in the family, Soundrapandian needs to look after his younger brother, his brother’s wife and children.

So, what to do? He had enrolled himself in Tamil Nadu Government’s employment exchange which gave recommendations to some IT companies for enrollment. But multinational companies rejected citing they don’t need work force at the moment (Good joke indeed).

During his college years Soundrapandian worked part time in a computer center called Tamil Nadu Software College in Mayiladuthurai. After completing his MCA, he had worked full time also. But now, there is no one to take him to the institute, which is ready to offer a job at a decent salary.

So, what can we do?

A tricycle for the disabled costs Rs.3, 800 (Three thousand eight hundred rupees), if 19 of us can shell out Rs.200 each, we can get him a tricycle. You see this amount which is not very large can change the life of the family. If you are willing to contribute Rs.200, kindly please mail me at sathishmayil@gmail.com

Click here to view his certificates

Do remember the Chinese proverb “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Though i am in a NGO I cannot help via it, since it serves only education.

Please don’t forward this mail and make it a mail chain.