Sunday 30 November, 2008

"India the Super Power ... oh really?"

Below is the mail I received from one of my closed friend Prof. Mrs A. A. Pandit who is working as a Assistant Professor in Veermata Jeejabai Technological Institute Mumbai. I am sharing her thoughts here because I believes that these are the views of a Mumbaikar as she is born and broughtup in Mumbai and working there since so long. I also had the same feelings but had some questions whose answers I seek from the Govt and we the people of the country.

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The past 3 days have been some of the most horrible that mumbai has experienced..that humanity has experienced.The terrorist attacks that took place on Wednesday,26th nov 2008 have shown that humans can be inhuman.14 terrorists that were said to be involved held a city of millions at bay for 60 gruelling hours. Fear instilled in every person whether they were near or away from the terrorists activity site.Each household sat,praying,watching the news with bated breath in the hope that no one they knew,loved or cared about was hurt.Yet not every prayer was answered.Not everyone was saved.Some were hurt,some died,some are so traumatized that they are as good as dead. The entire city has been stunned. The atrocities of these people are unbelievable. Still today we have moved on.The trains are once again stuffed with people travelling to work. The roads are jam-packed with traffic. "there's just too much that time cannot erase"- yes these incidents ARE somthing that time cannot erase.They never will be erased but we will move on. When ,after such incidents the city comes back to normal life,people point at us and say we are indifferent to to all the terrible things that have happened.I beg to differ.I think that the city returns to normal becuse we have the courage to move on..to let go of the past without really letting go. Anyone who lost someone to these crimes will never forget them but that doesnt mean that they will only sit and mourn for their loss and ignore their lives altogether .They will rebuild their shattered lifes weaving within them the memories of those departed. I salute these people. Their courage is awe-inspiring.I was one of the fortunate ones who did not lose anybody i knew or cared about.*touchwood*. Someone asked me,"why the Taj? Its a heritage! how can people not appreciate such beauty?" To this i simply replied,:a person who cannot value human life, who can put a bullet through a 5yr old kid's head without hesitatin...what will he appreciate architectural beauty?"
Coming back to these attacks, a really close friend of mine who narrowly escaped told me that at that point he acted responsible because he thought of us and what we would have gone through if anything would have happened to him. I thanked him for doing that! If only these terrorists thought, just for a single moment, what others go through because of their acts maybe things would have turned out differently.Maybe today everyone would not be looking at everyone else with suspicion. Maybe families would have still been together. Maybe,just maybe, there would have been peace...
Eutopia is only a concept. But that doesnt mean it can never be made into a reality. It need not be a perfect world but if everyday we all thought about someone else's feelings even for half the time we spent thinking about ourselves we'de be very close to it.Very close indeed..

To quote Nickelback,


"If everyone cared and nobody cried,

If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died..."

RIP all those who lost their lives because of these acts of terror.And HAIL all the brave men who laid down their lives to ensure our safety.

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The attacked happened at 10:15 PM and our PM addresses the nation at 03:30 PM the next day. This shows that to address the nation he needed 17 hrs. You might be remebering that after Sept 11, 2001 attack on New York their president has addressed the nation immediately after 20 minutes. This comparison shows how quick is our leaders reaction to the terror attack. I would like to remind you of an incidence when during terror attacks on Delhi recently our Union home minister was busy in changing the dresses perhaps that was the most important activity he could do that time. If we are going to have such leaders to lead the country then surely we are far from being a super power. When somebody or some report claims that India is going to be a super power by 2025 i really laughs at them. As in the words of Vivekananda,

"We need, the muscles of steel and the bones of the Iron to lead the modern India".

Fortunately we have such commandows of NSG (national security guard) who without giving a second thought has put their lives in danger to save us.

Unless and untill our so called political leaders stop their vote bank politics the condition is not going to improve. We should first punish those dirty politicians who raises the question on the activities of ATS (Anti Terrorist Squads) like Butla House Encounter. That hopeless politician instead of paying tribute to Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma was questioning his encounter. For the votes of the minority community he was morally supporting the terrorist families. All these dirty politicians are the culprit they would have realised the pain of terrorism if they or their loved ones would have been kept as hostages by the terrorists.

Solution ?

To deal with the terrorism we should have special forces like NSG and most importantly their apponitments, promotions and transfers should be independent of the wills of these dirty politicians. We should used our Intelligence to keep track of terrorists plans and activities and not to keep track of the activities of their political rivals. Any one who supports the terrorists by any means or gives political support to their families should be punish first and those who found to be guilty should not be allowed to stand in any election or accept any political posts.


I really wonder if this attack would have happened in some city of USA or UK how they would have reacted?


I am pretty sure they would not have just kept quiet after strongly codemning the attacks. Instead they would have given the ultimatum to the country which has supported these attacks. Although we have the proofs with our govt still our so called leaders does not has those guts to keep the record straight with the neighbouring country. If they would have those guts then perhaps they would not have just requested the help of the ISI (Inter Service Intelligence) of Pakistan but would have given them the deadline that look if you are not going to give us those terrorists and our most wanted under world don like Dawood then we are going to destroy all their terrorist training camps (our intelligence has that information with them) like what US is doing with them against the talibani and Al-qaeda terrorists. But it needs a strong political will for not to waste such a golden opportunity when International Community will also not oppose your acts because they have seen pain we the people of India are going through since last three days.

How long we would keep sacrificing the life of innocent people and our brave soldiers like Hemant Karkare, Sandeep Unnikrishnan, and Kamte and many more?. I don't find any happiness in saluting these martyrs aren't they have lost their lives beacuse of the mistake of the govt and mistake of we the common man of the society who are not giving the serious thought to these attacks and not putting the pressure on the Govt to change the policies against terrorism.

If their sacrifice serves as a wake up call for us and the govt then that will be the real tribute and salute to these great and brave martyrs.







Saturday 22 November, 2008

"वादळ"

वादळ फार वादळी असत यार,
वादळाचि भीती असते फार,
तरी पण वादळ येउनंच जात्,
त्याला हवं ते तो घेउनच जातो,

ज्याना वाद्ळाची धास्ती वाटते फार,
त्यांनी फार तर वाद्ळां पासूंन चार हात दूर राहाव
आणि असेल चार हात करण्याची तयारी,
तर स्वतः स्वयम्भू वादळ व्हाव
तर स्वतः स्वयम्भू वादळ व्हाव .................

Friday 26 September, 2008

Who is the Real hero?


It has been a very long time since I express my thoughts on this platform. But today I couldn't restrict myself from writing this. Some time back the capital of country was derailed by the terrorists and in after investigations and catching the suspects one of the officer of Delhi Police, Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma has died while fighting with them. But before he lost his life he shot dead the two culprits. This Inspector Sharma was around 42 years old and he was serving for Delhi police for more than 18 years. During his service he shot dead more than 20 criminals and encountered the same number of terrorists. The figure is not important here. The important fact is several times he has put his life in danger to catch the terrorists and save millions of life. As a token of appreciation he was being awarded with the several medals which includes President's medal as well. After his death the Government has given his family 5 lacs INR.


Now I want to remind you the prize money received by a shooter for winning Gold Medal in Beijing Olympics. You must be remembering that Abhinav Bindra is that shooter who has given all Indians a pride by becoming the first Indian to win gold medal in any Olympics. I know it is also a very big achievement as we got that medal after a waiting period of 112 years. The Indian Govt and several state governments has announced a prize money as a token of appreciation for his unique endeavor. The amount comes around 3 crores INR. Also I would like to remind you of one more such event when the Indian Cricketer Yuvraj Singh smashed six sixes in a single over he was awarded with 1 crore INR. Also lot of money is given as a salary to the present MP's and as a pension to the retired MP's for their so called National Service.
Now my question is who has served the nation in real manner, is that those who seats in AC's and move with the hell lot of security or by those who achieves a excellency certain sports and gives nation a pride or those who fights with the terrorists and militants to secure the life of common man and to keep peace in the country?. It is good that some sportsmen gets a cash reward for giving excellent performance on International Platform. I am not against that because these awards serves as a motivation and inspiration to the young generation and aspiring sportsmen. My concerned is, "Is loosing your life while fighting with terrorists or fighting with the culprits of the society is cheaper than winning a medal at International stage?". I hope by now you might have got my point. The Govt and we common man of the society needs to give serious thought over this. I mean when a soldier or a police man is serving most of the time in dangerous situations he has to think about his family. Because we care for our family the most. If we give awards to such soldiers with the enough money to support their family even after their death then I think these people will get motivated and inspired than they were before and can serve the nation without any personal or family worries.
Let me clear here itself that this is my personal opinion and it is absolutely fine even if you didn't like it. But if you have good points to suggest then please do not hesitate to keep your comments here.

Tuesday 20 May, 2008

"आयुष्य"

"आयुष्य"



बोलण्याच्या ओघात लोक
मोठ - मोठी आश्वासन देतात
आणी स्वताहासोबत आपल्या
वचनानाही बगल देतात


कधीतरी केंव्हातरी कुठेतरी
अस वाचाल होत की,
जग हे फार "प्रक्टिकल" असत

पण तुज्या शब्दामुळे
तेंव्हा अस वाटाय्च की,
खर्च के हे सुंदर जग
एवढ ्विचित्र असत ?

पण तुला बदललेल पाहून ,
न्टंस्म्राटांच्या ही शब्दाम्धल मर्मृ कळत की,
शेवटी एकच ँअंतीम सत्य उरत की,
"कुणीही कुणाच नसतं"

कुणीही कुणाच नसल तरी,
मी मात्र तुझाच आहे,
तू सोडून गेलेल्या व्ळणाव्रती,
वाट बघत उभा आहे


तुला जस वाटेल तस,
मनसोक्त आयुष्य जगत रहा,
पण जतानां, "तू इथे चुकला होतास",
एवढं मात्र सांगुन जा....

"नीरज" ....


Friday 16 May, 2008

स्वप्न

स्वप्नांत तुझ्या जरूर येईन, पण

कधीच स्वप्नं दाखवणार नाही

तुला घेऊन भरारी घेईन, याहून

अधीक पंख फाकवणार नाही


चंद्र, तारे चरणी वाहीन, असं

कधीच वचन देणार नाही

अशक्यातलं "अ" काढलं म्हणून

अशक्य शक्य होणार नाही


अंथ्रुना बाहेर जातील असं

पायांना पसरवणार नाही

शेवटी मध्यमवर्गीय आहे

हे कधीच विसरणार नाही


समाधानाच्या पुढे कधीच

इच्छेची गती ठेवणार नाही

चारबाय आठच्या खोलीत

राजवाड्याचा दरवाजा मावणार नाही


माझ्यापाशी प्रेम व काळजी

ह्या गोष्टींची कोणतीच सीमा नाही

अगणित हृदय शोधून बघ

इतकं प्रमाण कुठेच जमा नाही


हे सारं तुला मान्य असेल, तर

आहे त्या स्थितीत स्विकार कर

फक्तं माझचं स्वप्न पाहीलं असशील

तर, निसंकोच ते साकार कर ......

Tuesday 8 April, 2008

Giving back to the society..


It has been a long time since I used my keyboard for this blog. Anyway I am writing today for a very good initiative started by my classmates here. I am really feeling very happy to be with like minded people. My batch will be graduating in July 2008, so some top brains of the class has come up with an idea of starting some initiative for the help of under privileged section of the society, in short, "Giving back to the society" as they called it. We are thinking on some way by which we can contribute to the society and in some sense to the development of the country. During this period we had a discussion with each other and we are thinking of some way by which we can serve our noble cause. Some people has come up with the idea of Forming some Trust to which only Computer Science and Engineering Department's student will contribute and the account will be managed by the First year students who themselves will decide on how to spend the money for the social uplifting of the under privileged. Some has come up with the idea of sponsoring some child's education through already formed NGO's. Some has suggested for contributing to the fund of some society's which does social work.
My thoughts:: I belongs to one of the most backward district of Maharashtra, the main problem in my areas are kid's education and farmer suicide's. As far as I remember, when I was admitted to first standard in my village in a school run by Zilha Parishad, there were 76 students. By the time I reached 5Th std only 60 of them were with me. After 7th std there was not a school that time so some of them has taken admissions to nearby village schools. After 10th we were 8. The embarrassing fact is only 3 of us has completed our graduation. So there is very high percentage of drop out from schools. Today when I look back to that time I think not only the students but there parents were also equally responsible for such a large drop out. Who knows given an adequate chance there would have been a people just like us (I mean the writer and reader's of this article). In villages the main occupation is farming and parents insists their kids to work in farm rather than attending schools again there are two reasons the one thing is they are not aware and the other and most important is they are aware but they are poor hence can't afford to have some other workers to work in their farms and hence they sacrifice their child's education in short sacrifice their bright future. We need some solution to tackle this issue.
Another problem is farmer suicide's, all political parties raises this issue every time election comes and not surprisingly forgets when come to power. In most of the cases of farmer suicide, the reason is that the farmer's financial condition is not good hence he takes some loan thinking that , he will return it back after having a good crop. But as we know nature is very uncertain these days, hence his dreams crashes with the drought of water. Later for the next year bank refuses to give him the loan because he didn't clear the earlier loans. Then this small farmer takes the loan from private money lenders with 10% monthly interest and can't pay back the same year after year although for the rs 10 he took he paid rs 100 still the loan doesn't clears. I think to solve this problem we need some concrete solution which may include Employment generation through small scale industries or some private banks which can give crop loans without any security like Micro loans of Dr Muhammad Yunus or on the larger scale we can construct some dams in nearby places so that people will not depend on nature largely for their farming.
Let me stop here itself today, will add some more to this once I have a good collection of thoughts by which I can convince myself and can overcome the mentality that "Every one wants a Bhagat Singh to be born, But in neighboring house".

Thursday 27 March, 2008

"तू एकदा परत ये..."

"तू एकदा परत ये..."

तू एकदा परत ये,
आणि संग पाहिलेल्या स्वप्नाना मुठ्माती देऊन जा..

परत कधी आली नाहीस तरी चालेल,
पण जाण्यापुर्वी माझ्यां ह्रुद्यातील,
तुझ्या पाउंलखुणा मीट्वुण जा


आपल्या स्वप्नांची झालेली राख्ररान्र्गोली पहायला,
तू एकदा परत ये,
आणि प्रत्येक क्षणागंणिक
तुझ्या मधेच अडकलेल माझ मन सोड्वुण दे,

भिऊ नकोस मी अस म्हनणार नाही की,
माझ्या हातात हात घालून बस एकदा
कारण आता हे कळून चुकल आहे की सर्व काही संपल आहे
त्यामुळे उगाच कोरड्या भावनांचा काय फायदा

तू जरी बदललिस तरी,
माझी मात्र एकच इच्छा
की जगातील सर्व सूखे
तुझ्या पायाशी लोळावित
ह्याच माझ्या सदिच्छा..

"निरज"

Wednesday 20 February, 2008

"पाउस......"

"पाउस......"

काल धो - धो पडनारा पाउस पाहून
मनात विचार तरळला
माझ तर ठिक आहे
पण हा कुणासाठी रडला.?


सग्ळ्याना दीसतो तो फक्त ढ्गांचा गडगडाट
पण प्रत्येक गड्ग्डागाणीँक,
त्याला झालेल्या वेदना,
ह्या कुणालाच कळत नाहीत..
कदाचीत त्यामुळेच
नंतर ती विज कडाडत असेल
की तीच्या लखल्खटात,
त्याच उद्वीगण मन कुणालाच समजत नसेल॥


पावसां मार्फत डोळ्यातल,
सगळ पाणी संपून जात
पण आठवणी मात्र मनात
तशाच जीवंत राहतात..
आणीं म्ह्णुंन्च थोड़ थांबुन,
परत पावसाच्या सरी येतात॥

स्र्वाँना खुश ठेवत बीचारा ,
आपल दुःख लपवत असेल
आणीं त्यामुळेच परत्येक पावसाच्या सरीगणींक,
थांबुन थांबुन हुंद्के देत असेल ...........


"नीरज"

"किसी के इतने पास न जा..:

किसी के इतने पास न जा
के दूर जाना खौफ़ बन जाये

एक कदम पीछे देखने पर
सीधा रास्ता भी खाई नज़र आये

किसी को इतना अपना न बना
कि उसे खोने का डर लगा रहे
इसी डर के बीच एक दिन ऐसा न आये
तु पल पल खुद को ही खोने लगे

किसी के इतने सपने न देख
के काली रात भी रन्गीली लगे
आन्ख खुले तो बर्दाश्त न हो
जब सपना टूट टूट कर बिखरने लगे

किसी को इतना प्यार न कर
के बैठे बैठे आन्ख नम हो जाये
उसे गर मिले एक दर्द
इधर जिन्दगी के दो पल कम हो जाये

किसी के बारे मे इतना न सोच
कि सोच का मतलब ही वो बन जाये
भीड के बीच भी
लगे तन्हाई से जकडे गये

किसी को इतना याद न कर
कि जहा देखो वोही नज़र आये
राह देख देख कर कही ऐसा न हो
जिन्दगी पीछे छूट जाये........

....

My comments on Attending Conferences

Recently it happened that my guide for Matser's Thesis has asked me to give my comments on a non-technical talk on Prof. Raja's paper(IEEE Computers 2008) On "Attending Conferences", below are some of my comments in which I have taken a freedom of expressing my own thoughts.
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  • Most of the teachers in Institutes other than IIT's and some renowned research institutes of the country are not exposed to the research. My voice may seems as if I am complaining about the system, but it is fact that
    1. Most of the Teachers in other colleges are just BE/BTechs, some of them are ME/MTechs
    1. I agree to the fact that for research the qualification does-not matter because if we are exposed to the new open problems then we may come up with some new idea which no one would thought of earlier
    1. But the problem is that As per AICTE(All India Council of Technical Education) these teachers are expected to do teaching for 18 Hrs in a week, apart from this they have to check the assignments, papers of students, keep the attendance record ready at every point of time, and also you don't have a freedom to teach courses of your choice, you are forced to follow the result oriented approach and teach the contents as decided by the University. So they hardly gets any time to pursue some idea or research of their interest.
  • Conference/Technical Talks should be organized for such teachers but at the same time the participants must be ensured by the speakers that if they are interested then they can discuss their ideas with them by taking prior appointments with them. This can really help to someone who is interested in some research area but he do not have somebody with whom he can discuss his research ideas. Who knows by this we may find a very good researcher.

  • About sleeping in the class, I agree with the author that it's a pretty natural and speaker should not feel offended and participant should not feel guilty. At the same time, attendee should try to listen to the speaker carefully and if he has some questions during the lecture he should ask that at that instance only so that he can follow what next the speaker is going to talk about. If he is shy then at-least after the lecture he should get his doubts clear by discussing it off-line.

  • The student participants in a conference must be well-informed about the topic and references so that they can clear the basics of that area. If some reasearch scholars who had worked for 2 or more years can give the talks on basics, the students can follow what researcher is going to say in later talks.

  • Listening is the most important skill while attending conferences, because listening only decides how much we can benefit from the talks in the conferences and it requires lot of patience to listen something, here the difference between hearing and listening comes.

  • I think the success of any conference also depends on the participant-speaker interaction, hence speaker should be available after the talk for sometime around so that if some participant wants to ask something or suggest something then he can do that.

  • For exposure to the current research and intellectual growth of an individual conferences should be organized and participants should participate pro-actively.

These are some thoughts I wanted to share with you. I think rather than expressing the comments on the talk, I have taken the freedom of expressing my own thoughts on the subject.