Cyclone Phailin and why it was good in many ways !!

Just wanted to break through the gloom we have been living in lately, by noticing a little ray of hope we witnessed over this past weekend. Cyclone Phailin was extremely well covered by Media channels of all stripes and languages. So much so that i may not be wrong in saying they made a Windfall in way of ad revenues, as the events happened before... and after the actual Landfall.

But this is not the point. Phailin also proved that if we have the will, the vision and such highly orchestrated effort between the state and central government, we can make a huge difference. Not to forget the role of our newly created disaster management agencies post Tsunami and earlier Orissa Super Cyclone experience of 1999 (when around 10,000 people died), such as the NDRF, NDRM and our proverbial helping hand which is the Army, Air-force and Navy including the coast guards....every single one of them came together. Some were needed this time, others stood only as a back-up.

But our readiness, nearly a Million people evacuated in preceding 3 days after one of the most consistent IMD predictions over the last few years, were all working in failure-proof manner. Having had the first hand experience in Uttarakhand couple of months ago, seeing how badly our country needed Army not only to protect us on borders, but also when we have disasters of this magnitude. Having said this it was heartening to see this time we had other agencies too on which we can now depend on, and the certain will power of our elected politicians was on full display specially in Orissa, who saved the day for us. I hope we see co-ordination to continue over the next few weeks when flood like situation emerges, as Phailin leaves behind depression and consistent rainfalls in many of the surrounding states.

Just thought i will put this very satisfying development in words, which i am sure many like me see as an optimistic one, even though it is now being diluted a bit with claims between center and state. As they say success has many father's but Failure is still an orphan. But we really don't mind such a drama being created later on, as long as they learn to come together when we need them the most, which was certainly the case this time.

Will the Resistance Pay-Off !

Well, the headline is more for personal reasons than anything else. I have just gotten an invite to join Google+ from a friend working with Google, and i was busy updating the profile most part of the day as and when i got a chance. Now the connect with the headline is that i have so far resisted the temptation to create a Facebook ID (yes you all heard me right), a Facebook ID.......FB account is an obvious thing these days for anybody. But for some reason, reason beyond any mindful personal animosity with FB or Mr. Zuckerberg i had never bothered much about creating one account for myself all these years, though it seems the site will be touching a Billion users before year end....wow !!

I was one of the early adopters on Orkut, and continued to be a believer in Google to do something good with it or make a comeback of some sorts....i seriously did not want to invest much of the time and energy creating or maintaining the stuff....big reason why i resisted from going to FB for so long. But glad after the less appreciated effort such as with Buzz and Wave (which some thought was ahead of its time), finally Google+ has received all good reviews so far. Well again i am not a good judge describing whats new or interesting in it....as i don't know much of the features of something like a Facebook anyways. But with the looks and simplicity of it, seems Google has a winner on its hands, and for me a chance to redeem my guilt, if any, to latch on something what 750 million others had an early experience with, for some of the stuff here. But what's the point, assuming if Google+ becomes a success, and odds are high given every social trend has its peak and downfall, end of which a new thing catches on...may be its Google+ this time.....so folks who wasted time and energy for too long, will find themselves doing it all over again....at least i would have wasted half of that time....don't mind being a laggard here at all....so just wish Google continues to innovate with this new baby and attract people towards it.

Trying to make a comeback - Dada also tried..

I can term myself as fairly consistent with being inconsistent in maintaining my blog. But the good part is i haven't started a new yet, am struggling to maintain this one ;) Just back from two fantastic recent trips from Udaipur and my hometown Bikaner, looking forward to write more frequently than i have in the past.

I just wanted to write few words here around the retirement announcement of Sourav Chandidas Ganguly which he made early this week. Indeed it is unfortunate and shameful that despite having made a comeback in the team after being thrown out, and performing better than most of his peers in last 2 years, he was still handled or i should say mishandled. It is the sheer thankslessness of our Cricket Board consisting of few powerful individuals backed by their personal rivalry that they didn't see this. Dada as he is known to speak his mind have pointed fingers not only at few players who have scored more number of haircuts than they have runs in last year, and also questioning few individual selectors is right in doing so. Inspite of failure of all senior players in the last Sri Lankan tour, selectors found only Ganguly as a scape goat and he has been humiliated time and again in recent years. Ganguly is by far the most successful Indian captain and one gutsy at that, who inspired his team and made them a bunch of achievers. His fans stood by him, not just in Bengal but across the country in all atrocities and will do so post this announcement. It is high time that the decision makers realize how stupid they were in harrassing a player of his stature as if he has just started his cricketing career, i hope they don't repeat this with some other true servant of Indian cricket. This may well be another form of bureaucracy still prevailing in our country. Sure Ganguly didn't have anything left to prove, his stats do that for him. Wishing the God of OFF-Side a great life post his on-field cricketing career which have given much joy to cricket fans like me around the world. Will surely miss his presence on the field.

Tele Shopping Network's - Caution Required

Hi all,

I just managed enough time and motivation few days ago to see one of these complete teleshopping commercials which usually run for few minutes. This ad was for one of the memory boosting programs, although i had seen it before in installments, but had never tried to analyze it then. You usually find firangs/foreigners promoting these products and ads, in this case it was no different and the gentleman happened to be the founder of the product as well. After watching the ad and all the gala things being said about it, i became curious to find something more. Probably this motivation came out since i had no better things to do then ;) but am glad i did that. I immediately googled about this product and the founder, and after digging in for few minutes i was astonished by what i had came across....

This product and some of the other products coming out of the stable of his company had been banned in US for some years now and he has been further litigated and sued by FDA (food authority of america). If this wasn't enough, he had been jailed for two years in early nineties for a credit card fraud in USA, this was before he became multimillionaire through this company. The FDA did not approve of the products discovered by him and are still completely banned in US. So can't we in emerging countries do without consuming all these products which are banned, unhealthy and damaging in the west or may be even in our own country. Ofcourse we can, but what we need is stricter guidelines and validation checks done by the government, local authorities, media and most importantly from we the consumers. It is ultimately us, who will suffer. So i just want all the readers here to be just cautious with anything that you buy after watching this sort of promotional gimmicks. I do not say that all of them are fraud but most of them well might be.

Regards,
Hemant Chandak

Finally completed reading a business book...

Although am yet trying to convince myself that i have started a blog and hence it becomes my moral obligation to not block an internet blog address for somebody else with my name, if am not going to use it. So here i am again.

Just finished reading this book by Ethan Rasiel, 'The Mckinsey Way'. Had heard about it few times and always wanted to read it, but somehow my reputation for handling books keeps coming in the way. I mean i do consider myself a well read person and i find it interesting to read on current affairs topics across all categories but fail to complete a book once i have started it. This has been my experience with many of the books that i have read or atleast had tried to. I somehow don't find the motivation to continue after i have understood the jist of the story. But let me not expose myself at this very early stage of my blogging career ;)

Coming back to this book i was talking about. Indeed a good read and explains a lot about how consulting industry works in general and few good insights. I specially liked few one liners in it, although not many and i dont even recollect some of those i liked, but surely enjoyed them at that moment. So anybody curious to know about this industry or looking to expand his/her knowledge base on this, can start with it. I am in middle of reading another book by the name 'Bend in the Ganges' by an Indian author. The story is based soon after India got its independence, and is hovering around its main protagonist named Gian Talwar. So have already done with 60 percent of it, i am hopeful of completing it in next two weeks....

Regards.

Just the beginning

Hi all..

This is my first entry to any blog site so far. I have been thinking for as long as i remember, to have a personal blog page of my own, but, don't know what was stopping me. But am glad i did that now. So nothing much as of now, its late night and have just got over watching a crucial semifinal match of T20 world cup. Will got to sleep and lets see how well i can gather my thoughts over next few days to keep writing here, or may be its going to be a continous process...as of now logging off.