@rgumental @dvisor

Imagine a place where people are happy about everything.. No big complexities in life.. You work from 10 to 4:30 / 5 PM on weekdays..Everything in city is closed from Saturdays 1 PM .. Most of the natives party on Saturday & Sunday evenings on beaches... That's Seychelles. A quickly planned trip over an extended weekend. We flew in EK 705 from Dubai. 4 1/2 hours flight.. A quick tip for all flying to Seychelles - Always take the window seat and make sure that you land there in the morning. The runway in Mahe Island runs parallel to the coast line..The view that you see while you land is one of the best experiences that you get in the trip. Snippets from the trip..  Long time back when I used to collect stamps & coins, it was very difficult to get a few stamps / coins of small nations like Seychelles. I'm no longer into those hobbies. But somehow, didn't want to forego this chance.. Central post office in Victoria, the capital city has a philatelic cent...

Someone asked me a few days back about whats happening over the Eurozone crisis. It took a while for me to explain. However, i've been thinking about the correct way to explain it in a simpler language. Here it goes Imagine a big joint family ( i.e, European Union), whose members are practicing different professions . Each has their own pet concerns, but supports each others in times of need .Suppose a profligate member of the family starts spending beyond his means. To meet his expenses, he starts approaching money lenders or banks. The lenders, because of the fact that he's from a reputed family initially starts lending to him at lower interest rates or without guarantees. This puts additional fillip to the spending person and his income expenditure gap widens. Gradually, lenders tend to doubt his capacity for repayment and reduces loans to the all members of the family. This creates difficulties even for the well performing members of the family . The knee-jerk reaction ...

Seventy Eight years ago, two nations (lets say A & B) were distressed with inflation , corruption & unemployment. A person in country A ( a hero, already by then by his clean background ), blessed with extra-ordinary oratory & crowd pulling skills  , proposed an 'Enabling Act' .  It was supposed to be the 'Law to remedy the distress of people', which gave him sweeping powers..  He didn't have the necessary majority to pass the bill in parliament. By a carefully crafted campaign of mass public hysteria, he appeared to have the backing of masses,especially middle class . Parliament was burned on one day. Shortly after that, the Enabling Act came into place. The immediate economic impact was enormous. The corruption level was minimized, economy was galvanized, the nation dramatically pulled itself out of the great depression .. and much more...Masses hailed him as the hero who replaced a non-functioning system (Parliament) and brought efficiency in all sp...

One of the most mis-informed notions about democracy is the term 'participatory' . Much of the literature that you would see on politics / democratic society uses this term to say that citizens / electorate should have a say in every decision that Government takes. And, to this basis, many Governments / media / someone else often calls for referendums to decide on a crucial decision. The Lokpal referendums happening in India is a classic example..The main problem with this referendum process is that often, the electorate is mis-informed / does not think about the real implications while exercising their votes. For eg:, If you do a referendum in India on whether income tax should be abolished or not, you are quite likely to get a 95% + vote on the affirmative side.. Similarly, if someone floats a referendum on whether India should attack Pakistan, the answer is likely to be on the affirmative side more often... But the point is that, such decisions have quite a lot of other i...

Whisky & Buttermilk are individually great.. But most sane people won't make a cocktail mixing two.. And you won't drink buttermilk by pouring it in a whisky glass...  And I think this Google plus is like a platform where they have attempted to bring two different social needs together. Fundamentally, facebook is about connecting to people whom you know.. Engaging in conversations where you expect people whom you know to reply..  On the other hand, twitter is aspirational to the core. You tend to follow celebrities, politicians, sports-persons etc..  What google plus has attempted to do is to bring these two fundamentally different social needs together... In a way, your public circle in google plus is equivalent to your twitter network.. And the other circles that you make are more or less your facebook networks. The tweets that you make are likely to be much different in nature from your facebook status message updates.. And vice versa as well..  ...

" If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience. "   - George Bernard Shaw So, again it happened.. One more round of blasts in Mumbai..  As I'm abroad now, I'm somewhat away from the 24 hour sensational / breaking news culture of Indian news channels. Yes, the Government should put in better counter terror mechanisms in place, better intelligence or whatsoever.. But I don't think they can eliminate this scourge altogether.. If some stupid wants to blast some area, there is very little that a Government can do about it..  even a well funded & efficient organization like Mossad has not been able to eliminate terror completely..   Eliminating these, if at all possible, is a political & societal solution rather than a military or intelligence one. And I think I buy some of the comments made by police officers quoted in media.. You may prevent a lot of these ..But one fault , entire wor...

There's a joke that's going round here in Kuwait ( Yep.. I'm in Middle East again for a 2 month consulting assignment ).. Whoever who sits with their heads up in a discussion room / gathering is a Nokia phone holder.. whoever who sits by looking down is an iPhone owner ..because they will be fiddling around with the gadget in a perpetual manner :) .. I'm surprised at the level of popularity that this device has achieved over here.. iPhone & iPad are said to be perpetually running out of stock.. I checked couple of stores.. they keep only the latest version ( which is often exorbitantly priced ).. For eg: There is a huge price difference between iPad 2 with just wifi support & iPad 2 with wifi & 3G support.. And all the shops have only this wifi + 3G option available.. Smart sales strategy Unlike the Western markets, the 'App-Culture' has not quite caught up here. But no matter, people keep playing on with this device for whatever reason.. And peopl...