WikiLeaks...does it have any impact?

I appreciate that Wikileaks is the best that could have happened to international Journalism, but at the same time is it worth the scoop?

I believe 'No' and wouldn't mind if you disagree with me.....

To Support my belief, I would have to introduce you to a very important concept in strategy - the Nash equilibrium, named after John Nash, is a set of strategies, one for each player, such that no player has incentive to unilaterally change his/her action. Players are in equilibrium if a change in strategies by any one of them would lead that player to earn less than if he/she remained with his/her current strategy. For games in which players randomize (mixed strategies), the expected or average payoff must be at least as large as that obtainable by any other strategy.

Did I confuse you?

If yes, to put it in a nut shell, what I mean is the secrets that have been leaked out by wikileaks are nothing but information, which is of no use now or in future.

It could be exciting to hear that 'Australia thinks China as a big Problem for world peace, even though when Australia has good economic ties with China' or ' When Rahul gandhi says that he is concerned more about Hindu terrorism rather than any other form of terrorism'; but honestly this set of information holds no value.

Because, secrets are good as long as it is kept a secret and as long as it has value. So, information flushed out by Wiki leaks is niether a secret nor has any value, so it is nothing more than exciting information.

I know you might say, that wikileaks did bring out the American side of the Iraq or Afghanistan war which is very dirty and not acceptable to any human standards. But how does that change things, it happened in Vietnam war and it has hapened again.

So let us take it this way, every country has its own secret strategy to play which we can call as Plan A and als has more than 2 back up Plans called B and C up its sleeves to take care for events like wikileaks!

So, now I bring you to the most important concept in Strategy, which even mother nature agrees to - "Survival of the fittest".........

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Refer to the following link for more info on Nash equilibirium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

I turned 30!.......

As I was returning from my office, in evening, I was observing the city lights pass by the window in the train .....and could not stop myself from recollecting, how fast these last 30 years have been for me....all the people I met, I worked with, interacted with, My family members, friends, My teachers, My juniors, the amazing life changing moments.....just awesome, how everyone and each moment has a played a part in my life... Honestly, if I pause today and try to remember each one of them, it would be a hard task for me to get all their names....and I sincerely apologize for that..never the less, I thought why not try to get the list of such people and events....

1. My family: I believe my family has been a source of inspiration since my childhood, the way my parents toiled hard, so that we got the best education and resource. Their patience, honesty and the fighting spirit is something that I look forward to. My sisters have been my guiding angel throughout, without them, I might have wandered off.....

2. My experience in NDA SSB: It was in 1998, that I first came out of Raurkela, Orissa to appear for my SSB process in Bhopal. I came across 50 other guys from different parts of India, and I could see so much confidence in those guys, so much to learn, so many things on which I can get better.....I think that event made me more rational in my thought process, a very humbling experience.

3. My engineering college days: Well, I cannot write down a novel as Chetan Bhagat did, but I believe that most of us love our college days and wouldn’t mind in branding those days as "The golden days". It was a total life changing experience for me. I was able to make friends for a life time, it gave me the confidence of performing in front of a filled auditorium, it taught me stand up and fight for a good cause and the most important I met my soul mate there!

4. My Professors / Teachers: "Thank you "....is the only thing that we could convey to them, nothing makes you so much indebted as them. They come hold your hand take you from an ignorant world to an enlightened and go away....So selfless!! and all through that, we keep cribbing not understanding what a wonderful and amazing thing they are doing for us....until we are done with our classroom days..."Thank You Sir/ Mam"

5. My Soul mate - Ohh! I think that's one of the best things and most beautiful thing that has happened with me, She is an amazing person....I was fortunate to have her in my life and she indeed has been an amazing partner in this journey till now...and with her I would love to go another 30!...thanks Dear.

6. Professional World- Managers: I came across some inspiring and amazing managers; they were so caring yet pushed across their point so easily. There were people for whom you would like to come over and work and help even if it was a weekend...they were so damn convincing, honest and smart!

7. Friends / seniors / Juniors: hey...that’s another group of people who will push you over the mountain and then jump along with you and glide through the air with you and then land with you again...I cycled with them to the school, I danced with them, I drank with them till the morning sun, I cried with them, I bunked classes with them....you all are an amazing bunch folks....keep the fun running!!

I am sure there are many more....and I shall keep adding them....but looking at this list, I feel I am blessed, fortunate and Indebted.....!!

589 kms....to be precise!

We started from Hyderabad on the morning of 11th July, 2010. It had rained heavily throughout the night and the morning was colder. Me and my family had planned to travel down to Bangalore and experience our first long drive on our vehicle which is a Maruti Alto - The 'lets Go' car!
....From Hyderabad to our House at Bangalore its around 600Kms....The highway for most of its part is very good...except for some small diversions (60-70 kms stretch). We started at 7 in the morning and reached our home in Bangalore by 6:30 PM.......it took us 1:30 hrs to wade through Bangalore traffic! ...
The travel through the highway i.e NH7, was an amazing experience. Recent monsoon showers had opened up in front of us lush green mountains, with picturesque green farmlands and it seemed so tranquil away from the city noise....Remember this was the sceneray that we saw while driving at 90-110 Kms/hr!
After reaching Bangalore...we all took some rest...and went for dinner in night at 9:00 in one of the Bengali speciality restaurants in Kormangala.
So at this point you might think that my narration of the whole episode should end, but there was more masala (spice) to it.....
While returning, one of the front tyres got punctured around 100 mtrs from our house at around 11 in the night (fortunate that it was near our house)...so me and my brother-in-law changed the tyre and then we bought the car to our apartment ...it was 11:45 by then...but that wasn't how the ordeal ended....the final cherry was put when we locked the key inside the car, the duplicate key resting peacefully in Hyderabad at my in laws home....though we had the option of going to bed and forget about it till next morning, but unfortunately we had kept the stereo and lights on, which would have drained the battery overnight and would have added to our woes in the morning....it was 12:00 in the night!
We tried what ever we could,...and then a bright idea came to me..I called up the Maruti roadside service and to my surprise they came within 25 minutes...and everything came to an end by 12:45 in the night...fortunately my wife served us with hot tea and then we watched the FIFA worldcup final till 2:30 in the morning.....!!
So the saying goes.....the journey matters and at times its exciting till the very end.........

The last one year - 2009-10

I must agree that this blog should have been published at least 2 months back....but somehow, couldn't complete it till now. Well, better late than never.....

The journey started some where during the fag end of summer in 2008...the world had just woken up to the shocking demise of Lehman brothers and the good story was slowly turning sour...My work life had started showing signs of the same and it was getting dull day after day. This is when I thought that I should give a shot to my dream of doing a MBA from a reputed college.....in India off-course, wanted to be at close proximity with my family. Though everyone of us wants the best, but somehow God has his/her (not sure of the gender!) own ways to decided who gets what, and so I was given a chance to get my B-degree from XLRI, jamshedpur.

Talking about XLRI, it's one of the oldest colleges started in India in the year 1949 and has consistently been rated among the top most B schools in India. I was selected for a 1 year business program where the group size was 97 with average work exp of 7+ years. We had a diverse group of people in our batch coming from backgrounds like medicine, Army, Airforce, Architecture, Banking, Sales, Core engineering and off course the omni-present IT!
We started off with a three day preparatory program, which did give us a flavour of the subjects and the days to come ahead.....and believe me it wasn't a rosy one!

The next one month we started off with subjects like MAN(i)AC , QTMD (Quite Torture Mental Disaster) , MCN (ahh!) etc which were an eye opener for most of us....and we started gearing up for more sleepless nights and sleepy classes ahead....then in July we did get a break from the classes in the form of Village trip and the TSAF (Adventure Trip). The village trip was an amazing and humble experience, where we met village folks near a place called Jamadoba in Jharkhand and saw some amazing entrepreneurial spirit amongst them, in spite of the difficulties. Seeing them I realised how fortunate we are to get such opportunities...after that we had an exciting adventure journey with TSAF, where each one of us irrespective of their age and gender did all kinds of adventure tasks, starting from mountaineering, rappelling, boating..and what not.....I believe by the end of the 3 day adventure trip we all must have lost at-least 3-5 kilos and grown darker by a shade or two!

Soon, the first semester came tumbling our way and by the time we finished up with the gruelling 7 days of exams , the 2nd term started without any break...and then came even more tough subjects.....soon we were done with the second term (the fastest and the most gruelling term) and were getting ready for the international Immersion...By this time the whole batch was trimmed and grounded....people who were flying high the first day where grounded, people who were speaking in a low voice were debating like they have been doing this all their life....The placecom was elected and the brochure team was racing against time to get them out and send it through the various corporates......We had our part to play by posing for the photo shoot for the brochure and trying to give out the best look we had. By end of October we were off to different destinations across the world for our international immersion. Some went to US, some to Germany, few went to France and I accompanied the team which went to Manila, Philippines. International immersion was a great experience for everyone, specially for people for whom these was the first experience abroad. They not only experienced world class universities and professors but also world class cities, industries and other experiences !! . As soon as we were back, we were gripped by the placecom fever....there were debates , debates and yet more debates.....Placecom guys were trying to make both ends meet. On one hand they were trying to woe the companies and on the other hand answer the questions of the students. People gave advises and went ahead to help the place com. Also, there were others who gave advises and went ahead to their rooms....By the end of Feb most of us had their concentration on the placements rather than studies, professors gave in their best to rope in companies through their contacts. In these hard times we did experience some very good subjects (electives) and professors, and my personal experience was that if given some more time, I would have loved to take a few more electives!(though some of my batch mates might disagree with me.) Some of the students amongst us were instrumental in Strengthening the ties between us and the students of other flagship courses in the college, between the batch and the professors. In these hard times we saw some amazing leadership capabilities from some of batch mates and their true colours were inspiring...In the fourth term we went ahead to Mumbai, bangalore for placement week and we were fortunate enough to place most of our batch mates by the last day of our 4th term exam (April 25th)....and by the day of our Convocation (mid may)we had almost everybody placed or in line.. this was one of the greatest achievement for the placecom, for the batch, for the faculty and for the college....The convocation was presided over by the MD of Tata Steel, Mr. HM Nerurkar ..... we ended in a happy note... after all that is what matters, isn't it?
After 2 months, of that journey, as I write today, I strongly feel that the last one year was worth the investment and it wouldn't have been possible to go on that journey alone; fortunately we all got the support of our family, friends, fellow GMPians and Faculty.....and today we all remain highly indebted to them and have to prove that their effort and sacrifice didn't going vain....So all the best to the batch of 2009-10 GMP.....Go conquer the world.....!!

How to Go ahead? ...After a Failure...

After listening to the apology speech of Tiger woods, I was wondering as to what are the different ways people try to mend their ways after a failure (Self inflicted or otherwise). I could find only three ways:

1. Fight Back and turn your story into a success story;a story which would inspire.

Roger federer is one of them - he lost to Nadal when people thought him to be the invincible. He cried, licked his wounds and came back with a bang.

2. Get frustrated and depressed; get lost into the pages of history. Just fade

Paul Gascoigne: Just one missed penalty shot in the finals of 1998 world cup, turned his career. Drinking has taken heavy toll on him and he would eventually fade out....Sad, people say he is a player who had the potential to bring home the world cup for england!

3. Go about life as usual, with a feeling "who doesn't make mistakes? " or " show me a person who has never failed?".

Politicians: What better example then these group of people. We have innumerable of them.

So, thinking from neutral point of view, I strongly believe and suggest that one must keep fighting...Because you just don't wan't to fade out or die dirty!

The IPL fever...Back in India- 2010!

I was going through the advertisements of IPL 2010. The underlying theme that comes out clearly is - "Last time it was in South Africa and this time its in India, So expect a bigger and better show".

Its true that , last time players might have missed on the Indian playing conditions, teams have missed on the Indian cricket frenzy crowd - or should we call them 'The audience', management missed out on the opportunity to mint more money and the Cricket lovers of this sub-continent missed out on the excitement.

Things have started rolling on a positive note this year, except for the fiasco between IPl and Players from Pakistan. The IPL ads that have come up this year have been conceived by JWT and features all the team captains with the punch line " We missed you" - i.e. we missed the excitement of playing in India. One exception being KKR where, "dada" (Saurav Ganguly) says "Dada ne bhi aapko miss kiya" rather than saying " Humne (we) aapko miss kiya"...So you see example of a strong leader overshadowing a team!

Anyways what ever the situation may be I am looking forward for the excitement and My best wished with 'Dada'..... oops! KKR!

Links to the IP ads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQYE72TLCoY