Manmohan's team

The events unfolding in Delhi are very assuring. There is a lot of positivity emanating from this new government at the centre.

The biggest complaint that the Indian citizen had against national politics was that illiterate and corrupt people rule the roost whereas educated, honest and talented individuals are always biased against. The new cabinet, for starters, dispels this myth. I think there is a significantly high percentage of well educated ministers handling important portfolios. Let's have a quick look:

1. Manmohan Singh - The Man!

The highest educated PM of India ever. He has been the Finance Minister and Governor of RBI. He, along with Montek Singh (unfortunately missed out the Finance portfolio) is the one who initiated the '91 reforms under PVNR .

He holds a PhD from Oxford Univ, and is one of the most respected economists around the world.

2. P Chidambaram - Home. Harvard MBA.

3. Jairam Ramesh - MoEF. IIT Bombay Mech Engg, Carnegie Mellon, MIT.

4. S M Krishna - External Affairs, George Washington Univ, Fulbright Scholar.

5. Shashi Tharoor - MoS, EXt. Affairs. St. Stephen's, PhD from Tufts Univ.

Shatajit points out that he completed his PhD at the age of 22. It was unprecedented - a Fletcher record. He was also UN under-secretary general in 2002.

(Look at us, at 22.. struggling to get a B.Tech :-P )

6. Sachin Pilot - MoS, IT/Commn. Wharton MBA.

7. Jyotiraditya Scindia - MoS, Commerce/Industry. Stanford MBA.

8. Agatha Sangma - MoS, Rural Dev, Nottingham Univ MA. She's only 26!!!

I am sure this list is not exhaustive. The IITs could have done with a little more representation though.

Aside, Indian politicians on twitter: Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor), Rahul Gandhi (@RGAmethi) and SM Krishna (@SMKrishnaCong)

I am liking this!

PS: I would have loved to write a more detailed post on this topic, but am heavily cramped for time. Will try and post a more insightful and worthy article sometime soon.

PS2: Do let me know if I missed any more big names or any other folks on twitter.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/vikas_shenoy

Happy to lose to _my_ CBSE topper!

For once in my life, I am conceding defeat with a grin from ear-to-ear.

Beginning today, I handover the tag of the 'smartest kid in the family' to my worthy opponent and fierce competitor, my sister for her amazing feat in CBSE class X. She has gone miles ahead of me by scoring a mammoth 94.2 % in her tenth.

My (paltry) 86 % is now put to shame - my days of glory are over :P

(And she seems to have better friends than I do. Most of her friends seem to be 90+, with one particular girl scoring a holy-cow 98.8 % aggregate.)

So, all my efforts (let me take some credit!) are worth it.

Here's to my sis: Take a bow honey! I am so so proud of you.

PS: Her Social studies score at 96 brings me to tears. How on this earth can someone get 96 in SSt!!

The new whiz-kid on the block! ISC Topper:

"City boy tops ISC with 99.25 %" screams a TOI article. It turns out the city is Kolkata.

Disclaimer: You may stop liking me if you are one of those people who don't think evil people should exist on this planet. On the other hand, if you are one of my ex-es or their friends, you anyway don't like me, this post will give you one more reason.

Excerpts from the post:

Subhajit had succeeded in beating over 50,000 students to the top spot. With cent per cent marks in maths and computer science, the St Joseph's College student notched up 99 in physics, 94 in chemistry and 97 in environmental studies. He scored 98% in English and 92% in Bengali.

Surprisingly, the first look at the marks he obtained don't suggest they'll result in 99.25%. Indeed, (100 +100+99+94+97+98+92)*100/700 = 97.14 %.

Now, I wonder what's wrong. Am I missing something? Is there another subject in which Subhajit scored 114 out of 100 (which probably is not a feat considered worthy of a mention by TOI) so that the percentage makes sense? OR is it another of those TOI articles where they fabricate details/title to sensationalise the article? If it is latter, TOI needs to fire their chief sensationaliser. Notwithstanding that fact, 97.14 (or 99.25 as the case may be) is an amazing feat.

Subhajit Ghosh isn't the average nerdish topper. "He paid a lot of attention to what he studied, rather than how much. He spent time on solving question papers and also went through the study material other than his prescribed books. He only took tuitions in English and Bengali, the rest he prepared by himself," said father Subhashis.

OK, let me be mean. (Yes, you are welcome to leave those anonymous comments! :-P ) No one would come on national newspaper and accept that he is a nerdish topper. I was not, and I am sure neither were you! AND we all paid a lot of attention to what we studied, rather than how much. We all spent time on solving question papers and also went through the study material other than our prescribed books.

Tuitions! HAH. I did not take any tuitions, not even for English and definitely not for Bangla. Did you?

But here is the clincher:

The Kolkata boy is now looking forward to testing his academic mettle at the finest engineering institutes in the country. "I am looking at either studying aerospace engineering at IIT-Kanpur or mechanical engineering at BITS, Pilani. I've given the competitive entrance exams and I'm expecting to rank between 500-600 in the IIT-JEE," said Subhajit confidently.

This, IMHO, is the cue when we should all pray "Bhagwan iss ladke ko satbuddhi dena." If some dude (with a 99.25 TOI %) is getting a rank between 500-600 in the JEE, WHY, in this whole white world would he take Aerospace engg. There are no god-damn jobs in that department. And no Subhajit, you will not be working on Airplanes and satellites and shit like that. You won't even be recruited by Boeing or Airbus. I know you want to join NASA and emulate Rakesh Sharma but I doubt even if ISRO trusts an Aero engineer from an IIT. Next, Mechanical engineering from BITS Pilani? - IMNSHO - It will be a disaster dear topper. I am told their dream job is with John Deere. I'll leave the smart readers to figure out the rest.

And I almost missed this point: How can he so confidently suggest that he is getting a rank between 500-600 in the JEE. I am sure the JEE chairman himself may not be in a position to make such comments. Anyone who has written JEE can vouch for this fact. I think this is a result of all the fake ranks that the FIITJEEs and likes dole out on their website. But then, this guy is a whiz-kid, with a 99.25 TOI %.

Here's the wicked part of my post: (skip it to spare yourself the BP rise. If you are a faculty member in the anti-ragging department of IITM, you are prohibited.)

Here's my wish: I hope this dude comes out with flying colors and joins IITM and he gets Alak and he is in 357, (which will be empty next semester; I'll stay in 358) so that I can send him to Minar at 1.30 in the night to fetch Egg Biriyani! And r@g him till he breaks down.
MUHAHAHAHA. Worst case, if he joins IITK, I'll hunt him down in December during the inter-IIT and send him to their Minar!

[I used r@g because I don't want to end up in jail 'chakki-peesing' for ragging. What if the goons at MHRD have a Google alert for 'rag'?]

A letter to Shashi Tharoor (updated with his reply)

SUB: Hearty congratulations Dr. Tharoor, kindly spare a few moments

Dear Dr. Tharoor,

Heartiest congratulations on being elected from Thiruvananthapuram. This is truly a remarkable moment in the history of India.

I am an undergraduate student from IIT Madras. I would like to just take a few minutes of your time and voice my thoughts to you, for I believe that you truly represent the changing times that I am part of. I realise you'd be very busy and will try to keep it to the point.

The amazing run of the sensex today is a true testimony of the country's expectations from this new government. After decades of coalition politics, which takes one step forward and two back, we finally seem to have broken the shackles. For an uber-optimistic youngster like me, this is a moment of reckoning. I have always, in the past 22 years of my life, believed that Indian policymakers have the capacity to deliver good corruption-free governance and a poverty-free society. But, somehow somewhere we seem to get lost on this path.

But Dr. Tharoor, you represent the new dawn. You and your being elected as an MP is the tipping point of our nation's growth. It seems surreal that someone of your calibre, charisma and capability is 'elected ' in India. But I have firm belief after Saturday's result that this surreality is the new reality in India. My knowledge about you is purely through popular literature and you are one of the finest that India has to offer. You give me a hope that you will finally get India to realise its true potential. While you may not be able to make significant impacts on the lives of the countrymen, but please trust me if I tell you today that the youngsters of the country look upto people like you. Your case gives us hope and lights a fire in us to join the otherwise-cynical and forgotten case of nation-building.

Sir, kindly do not misunderstand my letter to you. A 22-year-old college kid is no comparison to your stature and achievements. BUT, treat me like a young Indian citizen who has finally found a representative who truly represents him and to whom he can dare to pen his thoughts down. Sir, you have an enormous responsibility towards the youth of the country. You are our last straw of hope as a change-maker. If you too falter and follow the scores who've been in your position earlier, India will never ever be able to recoup. Please remember every moment that 40 crore of us are looking upto you as a role model to emulate.

That said, I wish you a very enjoyable time over the next five years. Hearty hearty congratulations again.

Thanks for reading through the long mail, I thank you for your time.

With warm regards,
Vikas Shenoy


Shashi Tharoor's reply (on 21st May):

Thank you for your support. I am truly humbled by the extraordinary level of trust the voters of Thiruvananthapuram have placed in me, and I am conscious that now is when the real work begins...

With gratitude for your good wishes and support, and hoping it will continue to sustain me over the next five years!

Shashi Tharoor

PS: I had mailed Dr. Tharoor on Monday, the 18th of May and he replied in three days time. That is pretty good response, considering the fact that his inbox would be at the peak of its activity now.

While I am elated that he chose to reply, I am disappointed by the standard copy-paste reply. But nonetheless, one step at a time - our MPs are now accessible. That's a first.

PS2: I am not personally in favour of publicising a conversation between two individuals, but I thought posting his reply would just let the readers know of the changing reality. Cheers to a new India.

Love Thy Neighbour

Why is India called a peninsula? (2 marks)

Remember that question from your Class VIII Geography textbook?

Ignoring the obvious answer, I was thinking on other lines. India is also unique in its being covered by problems on three sides problems and well.. no-problems* on one side.

Think of it:

West/North-West:
Pakistan (By the way, NY Times has called Pakistan "arguably the most dangerous country on earth")

North/North East:
China - Inspite of being a huge huge country, they still want parts of Arunachal Pradesh. Sigh.

East:
Bangladesh, which is making every effort to emulate Pakistan.
Nepal - I mean what's with all the political instability - you have no Mayawati/Devegowda there!

(Sri Lanka is a spoiler though - If it was not for the LTTE , our waters would have atleast been trouble-free!)

And they say, Love thy neighbour.

I think I am in love..

.. with her. Again. Hopelessly.

... when you bump into the engineer within you...

Strange things happen when you are enrolled for an engineering degree. Especially when you are neither particularly delighted about the field nor are you bestowed with the skills of Niccola Tesla.

Following is a Gtalk conversation with a friend of mine who is a complex function of engineering skills, innocence, intellect and disinterest. The background is this: he is supposed to stay back in Summer [yes, the mention of 'Summer' was warranted because its the Chennai summer that is being referred to] and finish his project which involves setting up two modems and making them 'talk' to each other.

No, he is not a technician at Devraj Computers. He is a pre-final year student in the Electrical Engineering Department at IIT Madras. Getting back to the project, he has to use two postpaid sim cards and insert them in those modems and make them work (if not in reality, atleast in his report). Among the other things that were a pain in his ass was the fact that his prof. forgets to get his ID card everyday AND/OR forgets to get photographs to obtain the sim cards. BUT, lets leave that there.

I knew that he was not particularly enjoying the work, so as a good friend I asked him about the progress of the project. Here's the excerpt :

me: dude, how is the project going?
him: pain
me: why what happened?
him: modem dude
one of them broken and other not working
me: ohh ok
him: with the working one, i actually called my cell :D
it was aawesome
me: he he.. first time felt like an elec engineer enh?
him: yeah dude
it was like magic!
no kidding
me: ha ha ha ha ha ha
ok ok.. :D :D
fack! magic it seems
him: yeah
me: trippy man.. trippy
him: anyway, if the modem gets repared i will be done with saarathi for good.
me: i will blog this!

This leads me to quote by Robert Heinlein, a famous Sci-fi writer. He said:

"One man's magic is another man's engineering."

There are indeed those times when we feel engineering is mythical and magical - those are the rare occasions when we - I am referring to the people in my boat alone - bump into the engineer within.

The first time I can recall it happened to me was when I first saw my name dancing and turning and twisting in rainbow colours in the screen saver on the 15" CRT of my first computer. (Yes, we've all done it! ) Ofcourse, this has got nothing to do with engineering!

The last time it happened at IITM was when a Latex code (non-pervert perspective at this juncture is appreciated) worked on my computer and did NOT work on my Prof's computer at the time of submission.

"Magic Sir", I should have said then, "Pure Magic!"

PS: If you bothered to click the Tesla wiki link and read about him OR you are one of those kids my mom talks about who knows everything about everything, including Tesla - and are even fractionally (?) turned on, then check this Bad Ass article about Tesla out.

Post Number 100

Food for a week

The plight of the under-developed nations in comparison with the developed nations is best illustrated by the couple of pics that follow.

Food for a week - Darfur refugees, Chad:

Food for a week, Germany:

I am sure the economic recession has no bearing on the people in Darfur, for they would not even know what a booming economy means.

Sourc: Peter Menzel, 2005.

Nano's the new Mega

I am elated to see the Tato Nano making waves. That it found a mention in the NY Times blog was itself surprising. 

They have received more than 200,000 orders within two weeks and what's more - only 20% pf the bookings are for the famous '$2000 car'! The Indian consumer now seems to exercise a lot of choices. And it is a sure sign of the new India.

The NYT article mentions that about 50% bookings are for the 'high-end' $3300 model. BUT here's the cherry:

The number of bookings is more than double what Tata is capable of building in the car’s initial production run. The first 100,000 owners will be selected through a lottery. Tata expected to start delivery of the Nano in July.

People's car. Indeed. 

It is so heartening to see such a market response in India. On the one hand, you have the Chrysler - rather, had the Chrysler -bankrupt and left with their wounds to lick. And on the other you have the Tata Nano, unable to match production with demand.

The lessons from this are three-fold:

• India has an amazing consumer base, hungry for innovations and willing to spend that extra buck for value-add. In the economists' words, the 'consumer confidence' is high.
• In spite of the worldwide hit to the Manufacturing industry, India could be the least hit because there still is such a big void to fill. Our automotive industry is still in its nascent stages of growth. Here's the take-home: Indian auto industry is still a virgin industry whereas in the west, it is a replacement market. 
• On a slightly tangential note, politicians (read Mamta Bannerjee and the likes) can - howsoever hard they try -only hinder growth, but not stop it. And this perhaps is the beauty of a democracy - what West Bengal lost, Gujarat (and perhaps rest of India) gained. I doubt if this could have been possible in China. 

Cheers to Nano, the new Mega. 

What's with all the carbon talk?

I have been reading a few articles and reports about the concept of Clean Development Mechanism - the use of financial instruments to reduce carbon emissions. A brilliant story, quoted to forewarn the stakeholders about the vested interests of the Wall Street is as follows:

For aficionados of offbeat road races, there are few events that top the Tour de Donut, a 30-mile bicycle race held every July in tiny Staunton, Illinois. In this belly-busting race, competitors stop twice during the course at break stations where they are offered glazed donuts. For every donut that competitors consume, five minutes are deducted from their scores. Thus, for even mediocre riders who also are really good donut eaters, the ride offers an offset structure that makes them champions. In recent years, with top competitors downing over 20 donuts each, winners have actually posted negative times, finishing their races—on the books at least– before they began.

The full article can be accessed here. The article goes on to mention why the CDM will be a failure and how the US government is playing into the hands of the rich and powerful at the Wall Street. According to them, Wall Street is trying to create a huge financial market which trades carbon-reductions as a commodity. Since the volumes will be low, the market will not actually possess all the reductions being traded - it will be hedged and re-packaged in futures and swaps. This could well be the foundation for another financial meltdown!

Reading the article and learning about the possibility of carbon-based futures/contracts and swaps reminds me of Enron - how the company used to hedge natural gas and oil and make money and finally ceased to exist. The carbon finance space seems exciting and should throw up a lot of controversies over the next decade. 

Political debates and GRE/GMAT preparation go hand-in-hand

Yesterday, I had a chance to be part of a 'TV debate' as part of the audience. It was a Doordarshan program called Janvani. Eminent personalities and VIPs were invited.

The underlined part was not mentioned in their invitation letter - so we happily made our way to the program. The 'eminent personalities and VIPs' part also needs an explanation. There were 8 people on the dias - ALL Tamil policians.. and I could recognise only one of them. I had not a clue who the others were and why they were there. DMK, AIADMK, BJP, Congress, CPI, CPI(M), BSP and umm...  one more party. So, that's that.

Let me tell you why you should (NOT) be part of such debates if you are planning to write GMAT/GRE/CAT in the near future:

argumentum ad hominem:

In the GMAT, 'ad hominem' attacks tend to weaken an argument, hence considered as a fallacy of arguments. [ad hominem attacks a person's character and not his/her opinions]. All through out the TV debate, the members on the dias kept digging old stories - 'They are ones who put Vaiko in jail and now are talking about blah blah...'  ' You are the ones who give out free TVs' and many many more.

Use of articles:

A, an, the. There was a BSP chap who was perhaps the most correct English speaker but for his use of articles. Examples "The China is not a threat to India." ... ".. a Sri Lanka..." and so on...

Wrong choice of words:

One of the speakers seemed to use the wrong word from the P-list of Barrons.. While she meant, 'it is the prerogative of the public schools', she ended up saying 'it is the prority of the public schools'

This is ignoring the obvious and blatant violation of rules of grammar, including - Parallelism, Verb-tense matching, consistent use of pronouns etc.

Other commonly found GMAT-errors:

• Inability to differentiate between causaton and corelation. ["Terrorism increased after Congress came to power. Hence, Congress is soft on terror."]
• Shifting the burden of proof. [To imply that a position is true merely because no one else has disproved it]

A few other things I could note:

Congress chap: The budget allotment to primary education in 2003 was 8000 blah crores... but we increased to 10,000 blah crores in 2005. That is an achievement.

BJP: You have not accounted for inflation in the increase!

(If you don't get this one, I seriously advise you on taking the course HS 109: Principles of Economics.)

***

The person second from left resembled our Chief Security Officer, who had fined me for 500 bucks for driving a bike inside the campus. So, I already had a bias against him. 

***

The CPI fellow kept dozing off and would wake up suddenly and make out-of-the-blue statements like 'China is not at all affected by the US recession' and ' India started the process of liberalisation way before China (??!!!)' and go back to sleep.

***

The CPI (M) fellow would just shout in the mike to make his point. His lungs may not serve him well if he continues the same, considering that age is not on his side.

***

The BJP chap is not part of any alliance in the state - and hence not in the centrestage of TN politics but he would always catch attention by saying "The BJP would like to respond to that question.."  OR "BJP can do it better..."

In essence, Indian politics, in it's present form is no more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. They hardly seem to care for the voter and the politicians are way off understanding the pulse of the common man. 

BUT, that is not the point of the post. My sincere advice would be this: If you are planning to take the GRE/GMAT/CAT anytime soon.. please do watch all the political debates on national channels... they are perhaps the best example of what-not-to-do in your verbal section. Also, it is a quick revision of 'commonly found errors in [Insert your test name here]'

Do thank me if this post helps you ace the test. And yes, DO VOTE.