Some Random Thoughts

India and the new great game Posted using ShareThis

Namaskar Mandali, Just wanted you all to know that going forward all blogs will shift from my Blogspot blog site to My own website http://www.pushkarbhat.com/blogs . I am sure you will keep visiting this new site. Regards, Pushkar

The Left-front in the UPA has been claiming that the Nuclear deal is a reason to have more strategic tie-up with the US, and so the opposition. The real question that the Left-Front needs to ask itself is, "Is this deal in the best national interest?" It's interesting to note that basis the instructions from its handlers in Middle East the Samajwadi party has suddenly dropped its opposition to the deal. Part of the opposition may have also gone away as a possible compromise on the cases against Sahara. The Left has been careful is saying that it opposes the deal because it is pro-US; its opposition is not because it is not in National Interest. The past convergence of the strand of National interest and the Anti-US ideologies has long disappeared. India today cannot afford to have a domestic and/or foreign policy based on ideologies. Its policies should be and are more and more based on only one Ideology and that is one of National Interest. The Jholawala's reasoning ...

I think its time that the Prime Minister gather the resolve to sign the Nuclear Deal. Frankly I don't think he has much to loose. The monsoons are expected to be normal, the Oil price is going to continue to remain in the above $130 range until the US Elections are through, and Manmohan Singh is not likely to serve another term as PM. On the other hand the communist are most likely to loose in far greater measure then they can imagine. The time to call the bluff has come. If however, the Cong-I cannot gather enough courage to make a stand then I think Manmohan should just hang his gloves. I think he is too good a man represent a party which lacks courage of conviction to do the right thing.

  Tibet is back in news and this time not for Beijing-Lhasa Train project, but for the pro-autonomy and Anti-Chinese demonstrations. The current wave of violence happens at a time when China can least afford it and is a renewed wave that takes place after a gap of nearly 20 years. In 2008 Beijing will host the Olympics and the current demonstrations don't augur well with its plan to emerge on the world space as a super power in a otherwise uni-polar world dominated by the US. The Chinese build up for the Olympics has meant that most of the development and investments have been focused on Beijing and a couple of large cities. This development has been at the cost of Rural China. The situation has reached a point where the Communist Party leaders from the provinces surrounding Beijing have started complaining about the water shortage . A case in point being the province of Hebei which has been suffering from a severe drought but has to make arrangements to supply a additional 3...

Last couple of days a critical and important piece of news that has been doing the rounds of the newspapers is the future of the Pune Power Model. MERC or the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission recently passed a judgment stating that the MSEDL or the Power Distributor needs to suspend the Pune Power Model. Ok so how does this make any difference? Well to understand this in greater detail lets first understand the Pune Power Model. The Pune Power Model is a scenario where some 80 odd major power consumers in Pune decided that they would generate their own Power and the difference between the cost of captive power generation and the grid based power cost will be borne by the Power consumers in Pune. In return for bearing this additional cost the consumer will not face any power cuts. This model has been working smoothly for the past 2 years. However, it needs to be remembered that as a city Pune has been experiencing a growth that far surpasses Mumbai. This inevitably has lead...

Managing access to business critical information has long been a challenge faced by CXO's across the world more so because the leakage of business critical information can lead to major ramification for organizations. To help overcome this precise challenge Microsoft Office 2007 provides a comprehensive and cost effective platform for ensure that the right information is made available to right people in a secure manner. The key benefit of Information Rights Management (IRM) is that it is far more secure than passwords as long as the security of the digital certificates is not compromised. Further the system also supports Document Life cycle management. Information Rights Management (IRM) allows individuals and administrators to specify access permissions to documents, workbooks, and presentations across their life cycle. This helps prevent sensitive information from being printed, forwarded, or copied by unauthorized people. After permission for a file has been restricted by using...

Blogging has been a long term hobby of mine and so I keep looking out for ways to make my experience as simple as possible. In fact for a long time I had been looking for means of blogging straight from my word processor (the default usually was MS Word). Previous to the Office 2007 this could be accomplished using third party add-ins to MS Word but with Office 2007 Word the process becomes more or less seamless. This blog entry provides a short summary of the How-to for Blogging using Office 2007 Word. A more detailed article is available from the Microsoft website and can be accessed by clicking HERE . Before you start blogging you need to setup a blog account. You can host your blog either on the internet or the intranet depending upon the content and the audience. For external blogs you could use providers like Live.com (the mother portal of the Hotmail Service) or TypePad. Usually the easiest way to setup your blog is to go to http://spaces.live.com and login using your hotmail u...

After a long tenure of nearly 7 years at the niche BI and Analytics player SAS Institute I will be moving on to a new role with one of the three IT giants. This blog will announce my new location in the next few days. I think SAS was a excellent place for me to formalize a lot of ideas and the new opportunity will allow me to put these into practice on a much larger canvas.

I have just installed the Prism Beta version on my laptop to check it how.. Seems Ok to me as of now but really can't make out the real difference between the browser based and Prism based platforms.. Well the developers may consider this to be a good sign but for me it still does not show me a killer app potential. Still need to be convinced on this application platform let see how it evolves. BTW if you are interested in the Project then do visit the official Prism page at the hyper linked words that follow: Mozilla Labs Blog » Blog Archive » Prism Cheers till then.

I have been spending the last couple of days recuperating from a emergency operation for the a severe nerve root compression. In fact its been a period which has given me time to catch-up with some serious reading. That means on a average 2 books a week and that will need to go on for another couple of weeks basis the Doctor's Order. A topic I have been reading and researching a lot over the last couple of years has been the nexus between politicians, business, bureaucrats and the common man. It sort of explains a lot of things happening in todays India and put the dynamics behind the things into perspective. Two very interesting books that I read were the Ambani Saga "Storm in the Sea Wind" and a political commentary on the Russia of Today very aptly titled "Inside Putin's Russia". Both these books are a must read for any student of Politics and Business in todays world. While the former book will provide you insights into the Art of Policy Formation in Ind...

I guess this is a good idea. Will give us the best of both MS innovation and Open Source Freedom. The people who want a beefed up Wordpad can go in for STAR OFFICE/ OPEN OFFICE. For the power users there will be Microsoft Office.. France suggests merging OOXML into ODF : "and fireworks, and what a show it has been. If this weren't such a hard fought battle of fairness and competition against greed and monopoly for the future of record keeping in governments and businesses, it would be a comedy. But, because this is serious, it's more like watching the tragedy of a massive train wreck in slow motion. One is both horrified and fascinated. That said, here's the latest news, such as it's reported so far. Hungary decided to revote due to 'irregularities', although that bland term doesn't even begin to describe the intensely contentious meetings that reportedly led up to Hungary's first vote. Due to its seeming inability to reach anything resembling con...

Hi All, The purpose of this blogpost is to test if the firefox button works. Install firefox upgrade yourself..

This is a very balanced article in weather testing is required or not. Worth a read. IndianExpress.com :: Test of a nation

The CPI is meeting today to finalise the next course of action IF the government continues with Operationalisation of the 123 Agreement. Frankly the people of India should care a damn about the same. I think MMS needs to hold fast and keep the momentum. The possiblity of the Coomis calling the bluff is pretty remote. Lets analyse the reasons for the same: The recent Nandigram Tragedy has put the commi's onto a weak foot in their own home territory of West Bengal. Their own position in Kerala is also not worth writing home about. The Coomis will be making common cause with the NDA. That will expose their true nature, so the possibility of they doing so is remote. If the NDA and the Commis can't make common cause the congress can continue in Power till the next General Election even though it will be a minority Government. The NDA with a fractured leadership is not and does not want a mid term election. Consequently all one can say is that "LET THE HEADLESS CHICKENS RUN AROU...

Lets have a Web campaign just like the Youth for Equality did for the OBC reservation legislation For a change lets use the web to support the government.. Any thought are welcome Powered by ScribeFire .

Hold tight mate... Well thats my message to the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers. This Nuclear Agreement has to be operationalized and these is no going back on that. My guess is that the Chinese will announce a similar deal with Pakistan in the coming 2-3 weeks and then the dust will settle down. The only difference will be that the Chinese move will not have the blessings of the IAEA and the NSG and will further isolate Pakistan in the global diplomatic circles. If that was to happen then I guess we should send all of our Communist Brothers across the border. The reason will be as follows: Well if the Sino-PAK agreement was to take place, Pakistan will get further isolated and will be forced to give up its sovereignty in the TRUEST SENSE. Our commi brothers will then have a legitimate cause to fight for. The Chinese will require a whole bunch of Politburo members to run the place called Pakistan. Where else other then India will they get indiginised and loyal communist...

This evening the government announced that they will setup a panel to discuss the agreement with the Commi's. I say lets stop talking to a bunch of people who lack maturity, a sense of balance and purpose. I completely agree with one of the negotiators when he said that the agreement cannot be changed for a bunch of politicians who lack personal self esteem and further lack confidence that the people who negotiated the agreement are well wishers of the country. In my opinion the government carry out the following activities: Make available the test of the agreement to the people. Explain the agreement to the common folks in simple language. Tell them the process that needs to be completed before the agreement come to force. Tell the people the benefits that this agreement will bring to the country in the long run and explain How and why this is critical to us. List out the alternatives that are being proposed by the Commi's and tell people why they are irrational. Share with th...

Lets all accept a few facts: All of the Key Civilian Indian Nuclear Reactors are running at less then their rated capacity. The main reason for this is lack of quality fuel. We got some emergency shipments from Russia last year but those stocks will not last for ever. WE DON'T HAVE TOO MANY CHOICES. Read the 123 agreement carefully along with the Henry Hyde Act. While there is a provision for termination of the agreement this requires a determination by the President of USA that the suspension/termination will not harm the interests of the USA. The stakes for both India and US are substantially raised in the event of the termination of the agreement. The Agreement has been created basis the explicit acceptance by the USA that India is a responsible Nuclear Power. Testing for the sake of testing is not-responsible. If testing of a nuclear device has to be carried out by India in the present geopolitical scenerio that would happen only of China was to take a offensive posture. N...

I have been looking back over the last 5 years trying to recollect what has changes in all of this time. Has india moved forward or has it recessed into some thing thats difficult to describe.. At the end of all the thought process there are even more questions then there are answers. Yet there are some conclusions that once can reach: Inequality in India has increased for sure. The Rich are becoming super rich. The Poor become super poor. The middle class end up paying for every one i.e. the Super Rich and the Super Poor. The triad of the Politicians, the Bureaucrats and the Businessmen is out to sell this country to the highest bidder. Corruption if at all is becoming more and more rampant. Okey some folks will claim that corruption has decreased but one needs to put things in perspective. One of the most vibrant sectors of the economy is real estate development, and if one was to look around we find that the lobby of Bureaucrats, Builders and Politicians typically bend all rule...