Happy (??!!) Independence Day


15th August is Independence Day in our India. In addition to an old event report Made In India, let me share two nice photos. 

One is about a Rangoli at Forum Value mall, Whitefield, Bangalore. Happy Independence Day 2011. The Rangoli is prepared by Mr. Arun Sagar, an art director.



Now look at this, a typical Indian house-maker is preparing food for dinner. This photo was captured without flash on 15th August 2011 between 8 to 9 PM. Electricity was there. Lights were switched off to support anti-corruption movement. To support Anna Hajare's Jan Lokpal Bill. To oppose SARAKAARI Lokpal Bill. 

 

This is just a single photo, but there are many such women, house makers, families, shop keepers who switched off the light.

Satyam Param Dhimahi (Let Truth, Divinity and Knowledge shine through me),
it will move into '*Satyam eva Jayathe*' (Truth alone shall prevail).



Ref: 
Appeal to all Indians
Anna Hazare @ IIMB

Made in India


This is a kind of filler article. To keep the blog continue. This is an event report of a book release named "Made in India."  in April 2005. Enjoy MAADI !!

What will come to your mind, when you hear “Made in India ”? A voice of Alisha Chinoy’s “Made in India ……” from her popular musical album! Right?
 
But here I am talking about a symposium on emerging Indian competitiveness. Mr. Subir Roy has written an interesting book “Made in India – A Story of Emerging Competitiveness” I attended its book opening ceremony with my friend on pleasant Saturday evening 9th April 2005 at CrossWord, Bangalore . Interested? Then keep on reading.
 
Let me first introduced the distinguished member of the panel. They were representatives of all major sectors.
 
  • Mr. G. Gurucharn - IAS officer from policy making.
  • Mr. Subroto Bagchi from MindTree and Mr. Nadan Nilekani from Infosys – IT sector. Mr Prakash Gurbaxani, from Transworks – ITES sector. 
  • Mr. Harish Bijoor from Harish Bijoor Consultants – Service sector.
  • Mr. Ravi Uppal from ABB India – manufacturing sector and
  • off course, the author Mr. Subir Roy. :)
 
The discussion was really interesting. All these members vocally and dynamically presented their view about India and its competitiveness. Subir Roy was taking notes, through out the discussion.
 
Nadan Nilekani emphasized on human capital. “All CEOs are quality conscious and very confident for global competitiveness…” He also mentioned importance of VAT (Value Added Tax).
 
Prakas Gurbaxani made a short speech. He mainly emphasized opportunity in food processing and garment export. He reminded that our Bangalore is also important for garment exports.
 
Ravi Uppal mentioned that we are forgetting importance of secondary sector -manufacturing while we stress too much on services.
 
G. Gurucharan IAS officer, he was a bit pessimistic. “Whenever we talk about India ’s competitiveness, we all remember only about economic reform started 15 years back in 1991. Bangalore – IT hub and other industrial areas are like islands of excellence…”  (We all know, Strategy guru Dr. C. K. Prahald introduced this word “islands of Excellence”) G. Gurucharan reminded audience about states like Bihar and Zarkhand. “Central government as well as state government both have to do so many things. Combined efforts by Industry and Government will be more effective. Here, at India , government policy makes one step forward and two steps backward. Our industries need to become first nationally competitive in the unified national market, before being globally competitive. …”
 
Subrota Bagchi informed that the author himself has nagging sense about this book may become obsolete very soon. “Till now, we have always studied India in flashback. We talked about Naheru, Gandhi, cultural heritage etc. First time, this book is written about real time. Even, the changes are so fast that real time is also not sufficient; we need book in fast forward mode …
 
“There is a major demographic shift in the whole world. We will have 4.5 to 6 billion teenagers in next 15 years in India and Pakistan together. So many unusual things will happen in business and corporate world…
 
“There was a time, when a senior executive of Sun Micro System, told me, he do not know where is India ? Sajan Jindal was reluctant to put seal of  ‘Made in India ’ on steal. Then slowly he unwillingly agreed. Today, Jindal industry is getting premium price with ‘Made in India ’ seal. The foreigners think that if Indians can write good quality software then to produce good quality steal is not a major deal for them…
 
“Suppose, without this IT booms, if I was at US, then maximum I would be a taxi driver there. Today, situation is such that, at US if any taxi driver is Indian, then people thinks that he must be a software engineer also!
 
“Maharshi Aurbindo mentioned that independent of India ’s independence, the country has its own destiny too. This book talks about this destiny.”
 
Harish Bijoor delivered a nice presentation with Power Point slides. He started his speech with Nadan’s comments to him, “Power corrupts people and Power Point corrupts everything in presentation if it does not work. :)
 
“This symposium panel members represents all major sectors like: IT, ITES, Manufacturing, Policy making. Biotech is missing. India is a brand since 1995. He always searches for Indian products at Indian stores in abroad. He mentioned some statistics. In 1970 46% contribution in GDP was from agriculture, in 2004 21% and in 2011 it will be 6%. His major concern was agriculture sector. Poor agriculture is like only one big black hole in Indian economy. As per him, we have two Indias . The Real India is 643000 villages where 70% of population stays. Other one is virtual India . Rural India is again divided in Developed India with 32 % of rural India and 43 million homes. Developing rural India has 90 million homes. If we want to increase per capita income from Rs. 480 in 2001 to Rs. 2000, then we must need to focus on agriculture…”
 
At last, he wished best of luck to the author that his book will have sales figure as good as OR better than, Alisha Chinoy’s Made in India album’s sales figure.
 
Then we had an interactive round of Question – Answer session.
 
Subir Roy replied that the primary focus of the book is Indian reader. Nadan Nilekeni shared his views about vision comes first, or vision developed as we proceed.
 
Someone asked about panel’s view on China v/s India .  Ravi Uppal describes that China do not have competitiveness in service sector. They are competitive in mass production and batch production. India is also moving for mass production. E.g. two-wheelers. India is much more competitive in software development and IT sector. China trains its people for global education and English. We have stable policy, supportive government, and disciplined people. Subroto Bagchi mentioned social aspects. In addition to IT and ITES, we need competitiveness in other sector also. Today BPO has very high turnover rate. In his days, civil engineering was at boom. So all parents were pushing their son/daughter to civil stream. Today parents have same craze for IT. Particularly in Andhra Pradesh, software engineer with H1B visa has very high value in marriage market. Nadan Nilekeni mentioned that we can apply IT for agriculture also. We developed software for supply chain optimization. Developing software is not difficult. We need a framework and competitive market. Our retails chain should demand such software. Supply chain optimization software should be pulled by market, instead of pushed by us. China is lacking in soft infrastructure. China does not have neither legal framework nor financial framework nor democracy. It is always easy to build road for India compare to build democracy for china.
 
At last one lady from the audience informed that, it is not only Alisha Chinoy. Recently, Intel also acknowledged the contribution of Indians in its progress. Patel inside and Intel Outside!!! Harish Bijoor agreed with her. He also mentioned that yes we are competitive; the issue is how to market that Patel. He explained his experiment with late Devang Mehta (NASSCOM) They purchased best cleaning broom and packed its nicely. It costs them Rs. 95 They could sale them at Rs. 1600 in US. They found broom very useful for cleaning. They also exported Gujarati BAANDHANIs.(a type of SARIs)
 
At last, Harish made an excellent summary. He compiled all the relevant points from all the speakers. Subir requested all to unwrap the book and just hold it for the benefits of photographers. We saw the books. It contains interesting cases, statically data with graphs about India . It costs Rs. 350 after special discount only for that occasion. Each copy had author’s autograph. Someone requested to Subroto for the autograph on the book. He politely denied that, only author can give autograph on the book.

Appeal to All Indians


My dear friend,


It is more than evident that our Government and all the political parties are unwilling to enact a strong law against corruption. Because if they did so, many of them would face imprisonment. There is a serious conflict of interest. None of the large scams like the Adarsh Housing scam, the Commonwealth Games scam, the Reddy brothers scam, Fodder scam, Health mission scam of UP, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha scam, Cash for vote scam are covered by government.s Lokpal. What use is such a Lokpal Bill? It is weak and ineffective. It has a very narrow jurisdiction. None of the corruption faced by a common man is covered under it either. Please refer to my recent article http://news.indiaagainstcorruption.org/?p=3129 on this issue for more specifics on why we think the government draft is not serious about tackling corruption.

Anna.s fast from 16th August is our last hope. We can.t afford to fail this time. For if we fail, we may never get another chance. Its now or never.


A number of people across the country are planning various protest activities. You can organize your own or or you can participate in any manner possible.


1st August to 9th August: Many people across the country are forming small teams and undertaking short and long padyatras. They would talk to people on their way, hold meetings, distribute pamphlets (download pamphlet from http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/downloads.html) and show Jan Lokpal film. Would you like to plan a Yatra with your friends?


From 9th August: Mass burning/tearing of government.s Bill as a mark of non-violent protest. Anna will start it most likely from Delhi or Mumbai.


From 9th August to 15th August: People in villages, towns and mohallas will form teams and go for prabhat pheri in mornings singing patriotic songs and educating people about corruption and Jan Lokpal Bill. In the evening, there would be candle light and mashal marches.


15th August: Switch off lights from 8 pm to 9 pm on independence day as a mark of support for the anti-corruption movement.


Fast starts from 16th August: Government says they would crush Anna.s fast the way they crushed Baba Ramdev.s movement. We are ready for that. We will offer ourselves for arrest if the government decides to arrest us. We are ready to face their batons and bullets. But we will not move from there. We will not retaliate. It will be a completely non-violent movement.


But if the people take a week off from their work from 16th August and take to the streets- in front of their house, on the crossings, in parks, everywhere . with a tricolor in their hands, raise slogans against corruption - Government can crush one Anna, but it won.t be able to crush 120 crore Annas. Government could impose section 144 on one Jantar mantar. But will it impose curfew on the whole country?


If the whole country takes to streets for a week from 16th August, WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, can force the government to enact a strong Jan Lokpal Bill.


Will you be there? Can we count on your support and active participation?


Jai Hind!


Arvind Kejriwal

India Against Corruption (IAC)
http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org
Interactive voice response: 0-92-12-12-32-12
Give missed call at 022-61550789 to stay connected
To learn more about Lokpal please see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=c8zUo9np1b8

Ad-Hoc Amplifier


As you know, I started innovation series sometime back at our blog. "What an idea Sir-ji " I defined the outline for upcoming articles on innovation, application of simple innovative idea to make our day to day life easy. Today its first article on ad-hoc amplifier.

Innovation name: Ad-hoc Amplifier.

Intent: Make an amplifier with available household electronic items.

Context: Amplified voice through speaker system is always effective. The audience can listen to even in the presence of ambient noise. At Art of Living course, it is easier to explain Ujjai breath with help of amplifier. Many times, it may difficult to arrange amplifier for small gathering, in short notice.

Applicability: To address a group of people. To arrange music, singing any entertaining programme. 

Accessories

*  A microphone with 3.5 mm audio jack. If it has 5.5 mm or 2.5 mm jack, then suitable adapter to convert it to 3.5 mm jack. 
*  A laptop, easily available with IT people. OR Desktop PC. Windows, Linux any OS is OK. 
*  An FM Transmitter. 
*  An FM Radio, and/or two-in-one, and/or any GSM/CDMA mobile handset with built-in FM radio. extra speakers or even TV speakers can be utilized.
 
Implementation

*  Connect the microphone to audio in jack of laptop/desktop computer. Many laptop has built-in microphone, that one can use. 

*  Make sure, the audio is not mute in laptop/desktop computer

*  Connect FM transmitter to audio out of laptop/desktop computer. So its speaker will be automatically muted. 
*  Switch on the transmitter.

*  Now tune any FM radio, two-in-one, mobile handset to the frequency of FM transmitter.
*  Mobile phone with extra speakers: Connect extra portable speakers, that might come along with mobile. Connect Computer speaker with mobile. If mobile has 2.5mm out audio socket, then you may need to use 3.5mm (for computer speaker) to 2.5mm (for mobile socket) convertor. 
*  Mobile phone with TV: Connect mobile phone and TV with TV out or HDMI out feature of mobile. If mobile handset has just audio out socket then use a cable with one end 3.5mm jack and other end two RC pins.Red color RC pin for right channel and white one for left channel. Insert the cable pins as per their colors matching with colors of RC sockets at TV. Even Few TV models has built-in FM radio.

*  In the absence of any kind of extra speakers, play FM radio in mobile with its speaker. Request audience to use their mobile as FM radio tuned at transmitted frequency. More number of mobile will add volume. 
*  Even people can use their hands-free earphone to listen to and avoid ambient noise if any,
 
Known Uses
*  The FM transmitter is very useful to avoid physical cabling at any party, programme or even at home to connect TV or MP3 player or iPod or laptop to remote audio system. One can play same music with multiple FM radios in different rooms.
*  Any can enjoy his favorite TV programme, without disturbing others (particularly  night sleep) with his FM radio in mobile + hands-free earphone and FM transmitter connected to TV. No need of cabled earphone from TV.

*  FM transmitter can have many other uses like setup a spy device to capture audio conversation. 
*  Use FM transmitter to connect your iPod, Music player or mobile handset to Car audio system. Generally all car audio systems have built-in FM Radio.  Such arrangement can also be possible by

With cascading multiple such FM transmitter tuned to different frequency, one can establish a communication channel across a distance. 
 
Limitations
*  FM transmitter has short range. However it is sufficient inside car and inside home, small hall.
*  The Usage of FM transmitter (particularly high power one) may be legally prohibited. 
*  If FM transmitter is not set at unused frequency then it jams genuine FM radio channel for public.
 
Future Scope: One can further explore use of other technologies for home networking like
1.  Bluetooth. Usage of bluetooth speakers and bluetooth dongle. 
2.  WiFi. DLNA standard protocol over home WiFi network. 
3.  Femtocell. In future femtocell may also be capable to connect audio devices.

4.  AM Transmitter should be cheaper. However, FM radio prevails in most of mobile handset.
 
Related solutions: Cordless microphone are popular since long. Even small battery powered amplifiers availble in the market. Car audio system has 3.5 mm audio Auxiliary (AUX) socket. So travelers can connect their mobile / iPod with an audio cable with 3.5 mm jack at both ends. Nowadays car audio systems are also bluetooth ready.

However, FM Transmitter seems a low cost solution to avoid audio cables and arrange for an ad-hoc amplifier. It goes well with many mobile model having FM Radios.

So friends, we explored ad-hoc amplifier. Next article in this innovation series will be about a simple technique of audio multicast. So our friends at remote places across the globe can enjoy live audio of any speech, or music or any event. Stay tune to your own blog : "Express YourSelf !"

GuruPurnima


Today, is GuruPurnima. Let's enjoy these beautiful CHOPAIs by saint Tulsidas from "Ram Charit Manas"


"Bandau Guru Pad Padum Paraga.Suruchi Suvas Saras Anuraga.
Amiya Murimaya Churan Charu.Sakal Suman Hara Ruja Parivaru.(Quart-1)"

"Sukriti Sambhu Tan Bimal Bibhuti.Manjul Mangal Moda Prasuti.
Jan Man Manju Mukura Man Harani.Kiye Tilak Gun Gan ...Bas Karani.(Quart-2)"

These two Chaupais (Quartets) are the first two quartets of the Guru Vandana in the 'Bala Kaanda' of Sri Ramcharit Manas by Goswami Tulsidas composed in Avadhi language during the 15/16th century.

The meaning is as follows:-

"I worship the Lotus feet of my Guru,who is full of (is the abode of)the sweet nectar of Divine Love.He is like the Churna of the Sanjivani (Amar Mool)which cures all types of ailments that can afflict oneself in this world."(Q-1)

"He (Tulsidas says about his Guru) is like the Divine Vibhuti (ash) on Lord Shiva's body which cleans the Mind of a Devotee & enables him/her to reflect the Divinity like a mirror reflects light & which when applied on the forehead (Tilak) enables one to conquer all the Gunas through which this creation works."

This translation is as given in the Ramcharit Manas translation published by the Gita Press,Gorakhpur (UP).