HP (in association with Buzz Corps)is promoting its latest 20.1″ notebook i.e. The HP HDX Entertainment Notebook using a contest called “The 31 Days of Dragon”. Before I proceed further note that this contest is open to everyone from any part of the world.

Contest Info: There are 31 participating web sites, with the sponsorship of HP where HP is working with them to offer 31 prize packages – one a day for 31 days during a period from 09 May through 08 June 2008. Here are the details of the price package (which btw is worth well over USD 5000 in retail value):

• Display: 20.1″ diagonal WUXGA High-Definition HP Ultra Brightview Widescreen (1920×1200)
• Operating system: Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)
• Processor: Intel Core2 Extreme Processor X9000 (2.80GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
• Memory: 4GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• Graphics Card: 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS
• Personalization: HP Imprint Finish (Dragon) + Fingerprint Reader + Webcam + Microphone
• Networking: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection and Bluetooth(TM)
• Hard Drive: 500GB 5400RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (250GB x 2)
• Optical: Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
• TV & Entertainment Experience: Integrated HP HDTV Hybrid TV Tuner and 4 Altec Lansing speakers + the HP Triple Bass Reflex subwoofer
• Primary Battery: 9 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• Productivity Applications: Microsoft Office 2007, Corel PaintShop Pro Photo X2, Corel Painter 4, Ulead VideoStudio 11.5 Plus
• Games: Viva Pinata, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Microsoft Flight Simulator X Acceleration Expansion Pack, Gear of War
• Blu-Ray movies: The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy – The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End.

And here is a list of websites that are running/will run a seven day contest between the following dates (begin – end):

08 May – 15 May www.the-gadgeteer.com
09 May – 16 May www.thedigitallifestyle.com
10 May – 17 May www.digitalhomethoughts.com
11 May – 18 May www.windows-now.com
12 May – 19 May www.windowsconnected.com
13 May – 20 May www.geekstogo.com
14 May – 21 May bink.nu
15 May – 22 May www.mediablab.com
16 May – 23 May www.last100.com
17 May – 24 May www.labnol.org
18 May – 25 May www.notebooks.com
19 May – 26 May www.slashdotreview.com
20 May – 27 May www.neowin.net
21 May – 28 May www.geek.com
22 May – 29 Mau www.lockergnome.com
23 May – 30 May www.planetx64.com
24 May – 31 May www.thegreenbutton.com
25 May – 01 Jun www.istartedsomething.com
26 May – 02 Jun www.bleepingcomputer.com
27 May – 03 Jun www.hardwaregeeks.com
28 May – 04 Jun www.geeknewscentral.com
29 May – 05 Jun www.geekzone.co.nz
30 May – 06 Jun www.thetabletpc.net
31 May – 07 Jun www.gearlive.com
01 Jun – 08 Jun www.gottabemobile.com

Some of the website site where the winners have already been declared are:

02 May – 09 May www.absolutevista.com
03 May – 10 May www.arstechnica.com
04 May – 11 May www.osnn.net
05 May – 12 May www.jkontherun.com
06 May – 13 May digitalmediaphile.wordpress.com
07 May – 14 May www.bostonpocketpc.com

So I suggest you to head over to these website and track them to win the super prize package. For details about the contest please visit here. There is an RSS link and an OPML available so that you can track these sites conveniently.

In addition, most of these site have very good articles which techies and computer enthusiasts will definitely like. So go now and start participating, I am also competing

It has been well over a year since I posted something new on my blog. However, now I shall try to be more active than ‘usual’. Frankly, another article describing my experiences or rather whereabouts (during 2007) should have come after my last post on world politics which was way back in December of 2006. Writing about 2007 will take a lot of time and commitment. However, I will write about it once I have enough time and back date that post so that it falls between this post and my previous post (that’s the advantage of maintaining a diary on the internet ) 

I am also happy to inform you that I have bought my first piece of online real estate by booking http://www.viveksanghi.com/ and have set the URL to point to this blog. For readers of my tech blog, I cannot promise any thing until the end of June 2008 as I have been too busy to research technical stuff and write articles.

I have also noticed that this blog displays incorrectly in Internet Explorer but works fine in Mozilla Firefox. Therefore, I request my readers to view this blog in Firefox until I can fix this problem.

I have been closely following the U.S. war on terrorism and how it has remained an under achiever till now. I try to think very neutrally about the war but I still see this Christianity versus Islam concept in it.

After reading some excerpts from world history I learnt that this is not new. Confrontation of Christianity and Islam had plunged the Europe into a dark age. Crusades have been the bloodiest of battles ever fought for religion and lasted across centuries.

Then after many centuries, there was the abolition of Caliphate of Islam (in turkey after WW1) by the Allied forces. This had also led to a popular uprising in India in the form of Khilafat Movement (started by the brothers Shaukat Ali and Mohammed Ali, this movement marks an era of unprecedented cooperation between Muslims and Hindus in India)

Then there was the partition of India in which the same Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims massacred each other to pieces and raped each other to shame. Millions died in the name of religion.

Then we had the “USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan” episode which saw U.S. side with the Mujahedeen and forced Russia to turn back. I have learnt, that after this war U.S. should have gone back home as well but I guess they didn’t. The Muslim world (or Arabs) understood that on the pretext of helping them fight USSR, the American have gained a back door entry/solution to what the Russian as well as the Americans wanted:

A military presence in the Gulf Region

Irked by this, the soldiers who fought the Red Army used what U.S. has taught them, against the teacher: planning and executing highly sophisticated and coordinated strikes with reconnaissance and surveillance.

And today I stand here a couple of years into the war observing a series of events i.e. cartoons by a Danish artist that shook the world, statements by pope, Bush expecting a religious revolution in America and strong/retaliatory Muslim reactions to each of these event. Alright that’s my piece of mind regarding what I have been observing/reading. Now here is what I would suggest (again based on what I am reading/watching):

America and Allies

1. Pull out of Iraq and Middle East

2. Go home and strengthen your economy. The world cannot afford to have you guys fall apart.

3. Revamp your education. Do not depend completely on immigrants for your supply of engineers and let the wheel of innovation continue turning smoothly. You have been driving it well and you need to continue with the same or better still, enhanced vigor.

4. Set and example for the world. Switch to green and renewable sources of energy. You will automatically stab terrorism in the heart if you do this. (based on Thomas Friedman’s column in NY times)

Arab world

1. Kings must give way to the people and establish Republican democracy.

2. Oil has been a boon for you and it has raised your standards of living overnight but it has also been a bane. Know why?

- With the incredible revenue surpluses coming from oil sales, your kings banned taxation. This made life too easy for you and you stopped working hard. This is particularly important for you.

Why did you have to call Americans to extinguish oil well fires during the Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf war?
Why didn’t you have the technology?
Why are you dependent on others?
Why is the number of technological innovations and patent filings from Arab world abysmally low?
Where are the like of Algebar-Wal-Mukabalai (father of Algerba)?

3. Build more engineering colleges and schools and encourage your children to learn more. You must have your own supply of engineers, scientists, doctors, techies etc

4. Promote you women and never discourage them. Now don’t misunderstand this. I am only asking you to reduce male domination and eliminate atrocities against women. Get them to study engineering/medicine and encourage entrepreneurship amongst them. Women can be really smart if you let them be.

5. Stop mixing religion with studies (does not mean stop religious studies). Keep religious studies different from school studies. Don’t’ mix them up and confuse you child.

6. Preach toleration (for those who don’t) and preach what you are.

That’s my piece of mind. Not that I am an advisor or an expert to tell all this. This is just what I feel.

Hinduism and a few more religions are popular for the practice of social evils like dowry and discouragement of girl child. The latter happens to such an extent that many families kill a girl as soon as it is born. People continue to kill the female babies until a male is born. There have been numerous reports of such incidents especially from the Northern parts of India like Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi etc. In certain cases, they go on giving birth to children until a male child is born. And once that happens, they have so many children that they are even unable to afford education for all their children.

Please have a look at this sex ratio data that I found on the Census of India Website (exact link needed). Please click on the images to make them more legible:

In the data that I have posted here, Sex Ratio is the number of Females per thousand males. It is paramount that there is a good balance between the number of males and females and neither side is too heavy or too light. As the world sex ratio has been such that the number of females per 1000 males is always less, in my opinion a good ratio for any country would be 980 or more females per thousand males. However, once it is below that 980 figure, the ratio start to become exponentially dangerous in intensity in response to a unit decrease in the number of females per thousand males.

Considering the present trend, if it continues, soon the sex ratio will reach a tipping point and there will be a population implosion in the Hindu society. It will become very difficult for aspiring bridegrooms to find a bride and there might be a situation where a particular set of men will go unmarried because they just couldn’t find a bride.

Now all this may sound crazy but this is simple correlation and the causation is self-evident. Let me tell you about the correlation.

Sex ratio is the number of women per thousand men. If the number of women per thousand men is alarmingly low (as in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab etc) then, when the overall number of men and women (in the region whose sex ratio is in question) is considered the difference in their number turns out to be appalling. Because the majority of Indians are under the age of Twenty-five (and this trend will remain at least until 2020), the given correlation is not affected by the argument that majority of the men in question might already be married (also note another counter argument to this that a majority of the women might also already be married ). So with such a difference in the number of men and women, where will the extra men (a fairly large number) get their brides (assuming that they would like to marry only within their caste/religion)? From another region/state? Not possible, because it’s the same grim scenario almost every where.

This will inevitably result in the decline of the Hindu population as a percentage of the overall population. And just for numbers’ sake: lack of awareness or refusal to use contraceptives and birth control techniques in other communities coupled with factors like polygamy will continue to fuel their population growth.

Dowry system is one of the biggest reasons for such a widespread backlash against the girl child. In my opinion dowry is not an evil until the bridegroom’s side does not demand anything form the Bride’s side and are happy/content or indifferent to whatever the Bride’s side has to offer. However, existence of such a system seems silly sometimes. Hindus can learn some good lessons here, from Islam. From some Muslim friends, I have learnt that there is no system like dowry in Islam. The bride’s and the bridegroom’s side agree to share the cost of the marriage equally which itself is pretty low unlike an average Hindu marriage. In my previous company an American colleague of mine was explaining to me that in American (or Christian) marriages there is nothing like dowry. He said that when a person gets married, his/her friends pool in some money and buy them stuff that could be essential for them to start their married life. When I heard that (apologies if I sound harsh but that’s what I felt), I could imagine Indian Hindu marriages as an auction scene where a boy’s parents award the party (Bride’s side) that gives them the best price for their child )

More results through sex-ratio correlation

With reference to my conclusions drawn on the sex ratio issue, I have another correlation to be presented. From the sex-ratio issue we learnt that the unmarried men will greatly outnumber the unmarried women and there will be a scarcity of unmarried women in particular (and women in general). In other words, there will be an abundance of men. This will lead to an increase in the number of Homosexuals. Suppose (I don’t know what the exact numbers are) today one out of every two hundred men is a Homosexual. So the number of Homosexuals is total number of men divided by 200. In the future when there will be more men (due to a deteriorating sex ratio), the number of Homosexuals will increase.

With the continuing deterioration of sex ratio (and low availability of life-partners from the opposite sex) this number will rise. Many men may have no option left but homosexuality. It is known that some men who work in military etc and are away from their partner (female) for a long time (and have never experienced sexual attraction toward the same sex) may exhibit bi-sexual and later on homosexual orientation/behavior.

While I do not think that Homosexuality is bad or incorrect, and have no issues with the number of Homosexuals going up, I do think that the number will go up for a bad reason i.e. imbalance in sex ratio.

Also, it is know fact that India is a hotbed for all kinds of crimes and atrocities committed against women. With the deterioration or sex ratio, this sort crime is going to go up.
Reversal or even decline of trends in demography take a very long time (from a couple of decades to centuries) and even if all the people stop killing the girl child from today (which can only be a miracle), it will easily be a couple of decades before the sex ratio becomes normal.

It’s been just a few hours since I gave my Common Admission Test (CAT) 2006. This year’s paper carried a good potential to be a shocker for many. Noticeable changes in this year’s CAT paper are:

1. Number of questions reduced to 75 from previous years 90.
2. Elimination of differential marks allotment within a section i.e. no half-markers, one-markers and two-markers. All questions carried equal marks.
3. Number of available options to choose from increased to 5 (compared to 4 of last year).
4. Maximum marks possible increased to 300.
5. Marks awarded for every correct answer increased to 4 (compared to 1 of previous years) and negative marking for a wrong answer increased to 1 (compared to ¼ of marks allotted, in the previous years), which means that the overall equation of one-fourth marking still holds good
6. Good space for rough-work with questions being printed only on the right-hand side in the test booklet and the left-hand side was left blank for rough work.

Section specific outlook

1. Quantitative ability the last section in set 222 was perhaps the easiest in the last few years. Students from commerce background (who are scared of math) could have also scored reasonably in this section

2. Data interpretation had five set of questions that contained no graphs-based sets. Data sufficiency as usual was left out (it did not figure in the Quant section as well). There was a question based on a network diagram and one on shares which seemed like a newer model but were “solvable”.

3. Verbal ability was the biggest shocker (if I can call it that). There were five questions based on a new model where one has to identify if a particular statement is a fact, inference or judgment. There were no Para-jumbles and grammar corrections. All the three reading-comprehension passages (comprising of five questions each) were tough and inference-based in nature. There were five questions on paragraph-completion which had very close answer choices (that could have made life difficult for candidates).

Conclusion

IIMs have done a better job this time by breaking the stereo-types and giving a new life to the “surprise” element in the CATs. It will be interesting to see how various coaching institutes modify their syllabus coverage and coaching techniques in response (if they choose to respond) to this new pattern.

For estimated cut-offs, answer-key and solutions, I recommend checking out websites of reputed coaching institutes like Career Launcher, IMS, TIME etc (not in order of priority).

No part of this article may be used for commercial purposes or publications anywhere without prior permission from the author.

Update:

Dear Readers, I will be unable to honor any more of your e-mail requests. Please DO NOT request me to send the CAT 2006 paper by e-mail.

you can down the entire paper along with detailed solutions (in pdf format) from this link. Please note that to download, you should register on the site and get administrator approval. All the best.

Tagline: A process of ongoing improvement.

The Goal was not on my reading list. However, it was lying around in the house and I decided to go ahead with it. The size of this book was very uninviting and from all the text on the covers and in the intro pages, I thought that I’d be better off reading this book during or after my MBA even though it seemed like a best-seller. However, once I started to read I realized that this whole “Theory of constraints” thing is actually presented in the form of a story which is very easy to grasp.

About the Author

Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt is an internationally recognized leader in the development of new business management concepts and systems, and acts as an educator to many of the world’s corporations. He is the originator of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and his ideas have revolutionized the way companies work.

In addition to his pioneering work in manufacturing management, he holds patents in other areas, ranging from medical devices to temperature sensors. Other books from Goldratt, on this topic, are It’s Not Luck, Critical Chain and Necessary But Not Sufficient.

The Goal

Plainly speaking The Goal is a book on Theory of Constraints. However along with the message, another important side to this book is the method the author has adopted to deliver the message. The Goal is actually the story (probably fictitious) of a plant manager by name Alex Rogo who manages a plant that is unable to ship any of its orders on time and is also loosing money for its division. In addition, Alex has a messed-up personal life due to frequent fights with his wife.

Alex is given a deadline to make the plant profitable (failing which it will be closed). He desperately wants to save his plant and in the process he meets his university professor and acquaintance (from college days), Jonah (which I think is characterizing Goldratt because both have a degree in Physics from Israel). Alex’s interactions with Jonah show him the right path. Jonah is a kind of teacher who encourages his students to discover answers on their own and he does that same with Alex (regarding the problem with his plant). Through Alex’s process of discovery the author explains the theory of constraints is a very simple manner. I was particularly impressed by the use of simple yet powerful example of boys marching in a line. The author through Alex’s discussions with his co-workers also highlights the short comings of cost-accounting where inventory is viewed as an asset on the balance sheet and the blind emphasis of management to cut costs wherever possible (which many times leads to death of sick business units that could have been turned around).

Conclusion

Services have become the fad of today and it is amazing to think about the application of TOC to the Services scenario (though I need to grow-up a little more to think about it in detail). With the advent of Globalization 3.0 (in terms of Thomas Friedman) and the ability of a business to break up a process, digitize it and outsource it to various parts of the world where they can be done (for cheapest price and best quality) simultaneously and delivered back in one piece to the HQ control, the relevance of this theory is questionable. However, I am sure that it still has a lot of implications on supply chains where constraints or bottlenecks may exist (again I need to learn a lot more to think in detail).

In one of the management fests I had participated in during my college days, I had taken part in a production game where there was a production line with different work centers. The performance of the participants was measured in terms of their ability to meet customer demands and have least inventories and turn-around times at the end of the game. Had I read this book back then, before that event, I am sure I would have done much better than the third spot out of fifth that I had got in that event.

Tagline: How little things can make a big difference

I was looking forward to reading books by Malcolm Gladwell and finally got my hands on The Tipping Point. It is not a very big book and I managed to finish it in three days, reading only in my free time. Most of you might be aware that The Tipping Point is popular bestseller and a highly appreciated book. I am glad I was able to take time off to read this one.

About the Author

Malcolm Gladwell covered business, science and medicine for the Washington Post before becoming the New York City bureau chief. Currently he is a staff writer for the New Yorker.

The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point is a book in which the author tries to explain why certain things happen the way they do. In the numerous examples that he explores, he shows that for a big-time change to occur, very minor change (involving the right set of numbers) tends to be the cause. For example, Fashion changes regularly and lots of trends become a craze with the masses which the author calls social epidemics. This book analyses such fashion trends and how they came out of nowhere to become a social epidemic. In addition, it gives a general basis for why and how such things occur and the key players in the process.

The author incorporates data from a number of research reports by various professionals to provide a solid basis for his analysis model and with seemingly flawless knack for generalization uses the same model over and over to analyze a wide variety of problems like the rise and fall of crime in the New York city, the problems of corporate management and governance, trends in suicides and effect of celebrity suicides, truth about addiction to smoking.

This book clearly provides a scientific basis for the kind of solutions that we might discover by trial and error and convert it to conventional wisdom. The author shows how making seemingly unnecessary changes in the way information is presented can make it more useful and productive by leaps and bounds.

One thing particularly fascinating about this book is the huge number of sources from which the author draws out raw information, converts it into simple language and puts it in front of his readers. The number of examples, varying from individuals to corporations, is very good and well placed.

While reading the chapter on suicides, I was able to think of similar situations that had happened in India in the not so distant past. Once there was a case of a child committing suicide because he was frustrated with academics and felt overwhelmed by studies during his examinations. Once the news of the suicide and the reason for it came in, a number of similar cases from all over the country started to appear in the print media and television. People were suddenly worried about the increasing load of education on teenagers and I observed that they started dealing with them very cautiously. For example, in my Junior College (that’s last two years just before start of bachelor courses), lecturers stopped roughing up students for not completing their home-works or scoring low in weekly exams because the teachers’ committee was too scared to even imagine some guy from their college committing suicide for study-related reasons.

In all, The Tipping Point is a book that I recommend everyone should read at least once.

Tagline: The Globalized world in the Twenty-First century

Hanging around for almost a month with The World is Flat, I finally completed it despite all the time constraints I was under. I have never read such a thick book back-to-back in my life until this one and this book is very special not just in that sense. I could have completed it within a short span but the sheer density of information and ideas in this book forced me to read it slowly and in parts.
So I used to read a couple of pages and then sit back and ponder about them in my free time in order to assimilate the information well.

After reading the first few pages of this book I understood how important and dense this book was and to beat the density which posed such a challenge, I actually used a pencil to underline important points as I read this book. Why? This isn’t just a book to be read and kept in the cupboard to gather dust; it can serve as a great reference book for a variety of purposes.

About the Author

Thomas L. Friedman works for The New York Times and is one of the world’s most respected journalists, renowned for his expertise on international affairs and economic issues. He has won the Pulitzer Prize three times and is the author of international best sellers like “From Beirut to Jerusalem”, “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” and “Longitudes and Attitudes”.

The World is Flat

In this book the author has charted the technologies that have affected our lives most profoundly and made the world a much smaller place (or Flat) by breaking the barriers to communication and cultural exchange. This book is a dense store house of information which covers stuff from 11/9 when the Berlin wall came down to 9/11 when the tragic WTC attacks took place and beyond. It tells us why the world shrunk and what technologies and players are responsible for this.

In the next set of chapters the author discusses the affects of the Flattening of the world on America with clear emphasis and the out-sourcing phenomenon and moving of jobs from America to Asia. The author is rightly concerned about the falling number of fresh American engineers and rising average age of the existing group of engineers. He emphasizes on the need for America to revamp their education system at the school level so that it continues to drive the world into new frontiers of innovation and technology. The author talks about the kind of jobs that can be outsourced or automated and the people (which he calls The Untouchables) that cannot be affected by this out-sourcing phenomenon as they always stay one step ahead of it.

Then there is a chapter about developing countries in the Flat World. The author highlights some of the short comings of various developing countries bring to forefront the lack-luster performance of the respective governments in certain cases.

The author also discusses about the people who have not been able to take advantage of the Flat world i.e. poverty stricken people in various developing and under-developed countries and people living in closed societies which have made themselves impervious to external influences. He has also written at length about certain obvious and not so obvious forces that hamper the flattening process of the world and also talked about how terrorists are using the Flat World platform to their advantage.

In the chapters pertaining to the affect of Flat world on America and the Developing Countries of the World, the author has mentioned many points which are very unique and innovative in my opinion. What he has mentioned seem to me like the characteristics or the directive principles to any country to become a superpower in this world. Another very good point in my opinion is the idea of America moving to alternative sources of energy and reducing its dependence on Oil imports which will help cut down on pollution, Global Warming, exhaustion of non-renewable energy sources and also shut the income sources of certain dangerous state and non-state players which are a threat to World Peace. I think this is not just for America but can be extended to many countries like India and China which are contributing massively to Global Air Pollution levels.

I have spent almost a month with this book and analyzed the length, breadth and depth of ideas mentioned in here. The author has traveled to many countries, spoken to many people and learnt many new thing while writing this book. Tremendous efforts have gone into the development of this book and no wonder this book is so dense with ideas. I was glad to learn about the early nineties era of technology which I knew about only in fragments because I sprang up on the I.T scene only around mid 1998 after seeing a computer game called Shadow Warrior at a Friend’s house

Immediately after completing this book, I had felt that if some one in Year 3K will look back at the beginning of the Millennium and try to study the history of technology and its influence on the world, one of the books they might like to refer to will be this one. I have not read any book from this author before but after reading this one, I am convinced that I got to read his previous works as well.

P.S. If you have a flare for I.T. and Business quizzing, this can be a good book to lookup the names of major I.T. companies, their founders and CEOs.

With the recent nuclear tests by North Korea and America’s ire over Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, the international scenario has reached a potential dew point. Fuelling this is the widespread outcry (in U.S and U.K.) against the Iraq war, the recent Israel – Lebanon crisis, the statements about religious revolution in America (by Mr. Bush) and Pope’s accusations against Islam (for which he apologized later, after the damage had already been done). So we have the superpowers riled up in the war act which has weakened them and various events which point to a further deterioration of world order.

But who stands to gain amidst all this? M.J. Akbar points to China. It is a new view to the world foreign-relations scenario for me. Interested? Read on…

M.J. Akbar says:

“It is foolish to think that North Korea was acting, or could have acted, alone. North Korea is a helpless non-entity without China’s support. China has been brilliant in the pursuit of its geopolitical interests while Bush rushed into Mission Self-Destruct (obviously pointing to the Iraq War). Look at the map of Asia. The two nations that can challenge China’s hegemony in Asia are Japan and India. China’s formal relations with both are worth of a place in the United Nations statute book (perhaps referring to Japan’s invasion of China during WW2, India-China war in the mid-1960s and their continuing strained relations). It talks trade and peace with India, raising border problems only when it seems that a problem-free relationship is too artificial a construct. Similarly, it talks trade and peace with Japan, dusting out memories of World War II only when it seems that a problem-free relationship is ahistorical.

China has simply outsourced the military confrontation with India and Japan to Pakistan and North Korea. Both are low-cost operations for China, with huge collateral benefits in terms of tying down India and Japan. Pakistan’s nuclear programme in any case had to mirror India, for reasons that China did not instigate. Neither Pakistan’s nuclear capability nor North Korea’s is a threat to anyone but China’s competitors, or past and potential adversaries. With North Korea aiming nuclear weapons at Japan’s head, the pieces on China’s chess set are in superb place.”

His views on America’s situation:

“The shadow of Iraq has travelled a long way while America is helplessly immobile.”

“The price of departure (i.e. if U.S. & U.K. plan to withdraw) will be much, much higher than the cost of arrival. What the Iraqis have suffered because of Bush and Blair’s malign war is already in the realms of the unbelievable.”

This was a thought-provoking article which had me thinking for long. Where are we headed? What should our foreign policy be to ensure survival if not prosperity in the long term? I am too tame in thought to suggest answers for these questions. However, foreign policy and diplomacy has always been an area of interest for me. I need to learn much in this subject. For now, I will leave you with these words that my professor had once spoken in a Culture & History session:

“In international relations there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies.”

Note: The bracketed text in the quotes has been added by me for clarity purpose. If you like this article, please find the full text of this article in the October 15^th, 2006 issue of Deccan Chronicle.

I am not aware of any copyright issues but would like to declare in this post that unless otherwise stated, no works of poetry published on this blog belong to me and I shall make every effort to mention the name of the poet clearly for each poem I post here.

About the Poet

(Short summary based on this Wikipedia article)

To India – My native land is a poem by Henry Louis Vivian Derozio. Derozio lived during the early 19th century. He was a teacher, a scholar, a poet and an academician of Eurasian and Portuguese descent. He considered himself to be an Indian and encouraged free thinking among his students. He oversaw the publication of a journal in which his student wrote against the British rule in India, orthodox Hindu practices and favored emancipation of women. The journal was banned and Derozio lost his job due to his unorthodox views.

His opposition to the British and the orthodox Hindu practices alienated him from both the society as well as the government. He spent his last days in penury, starvation and died of cholera at the age of 22.

It’s sad to know such a great thinker and poet had a sad end. Derozio was one of the few people who used to think much ahead of their times and is remembered as an intellectual anarchists of his times.

To India – My Native land

My country! In thy day of glory past

A beauteous halo circled round thy brow,

And worshipped as a deity thou wast.

Where is that glory, where that reverence now?

Thy eagle pinion is chained down at last,

And groveling in the lowly dust art thou:

Thy minstrel hath no wreath to weave for thee

Save the sad story of thy misery!

Well – let me dive into the depths of time,

And bring from out the ages that have rolled

A few small fragments of those wrecks sublime,

Which human eyes may never more behold;

And let the guerdon of my labour be

My fallen country! One kind wish from thee!

- Henry Louis Vivian Derozio

Brief explanation

In this poem, Derozio personifies India and talks to her in a monologue. Derozio talks about the glorious past of India, is evidently unhappy with the British rule in India and refers to the same in the line “The eagle pinion is chained down at last”, where eagle refers to India (It is said that in early days of British rule foreigners referred to India as the Golden Eagle or Golden bird as it was very rich and one of the largest producer of gold and diamonds). Derozio wishes to bring back the glorious past of India by “diving into the depths of time” and bringing back “small fragments of those wrecks sublime”.