Accidents …..Do they happen by chance?

Accidents happen all over the world frequently.
Are these by chance or a quirk of fate like we think or is it due to any other reason.

Lately we have been reading Train mishaps and the Railway authorities institute enquiry commissions to get into its root cause.

There has been an accident in Mumbai last week.
A Local Train passing by had its Door Panel flying off and hitting passengers on another upcountry train.
A child has suffered injuries to the hand and another lady has her arms below the elbow severed off.
Who would have thought that a door panel from an opposite train would fly off and hurt the passengers on another train?
It is so unusual, that it defeats all our imagination.

Accidents are caused due to two main reasons.
Unsafe Act.
Unsafe condition.

Unsafe Act: In this case the child had its hand jutting out of the window and the lady was sitting on the door landing due to lack of space and both got injured. Yes both are attributed to unsafe acts as generally one needs to be inside the train so that nothing would hurt us.

Unsafe Condition: The Door panel should not have got dislocated from an opposite train and fly off.
Isn’t it absurd that this has happened.
The Door cannot just wrench itself off due to the speed of the train.
It indicates that the door panel has not been fitted properly and or it would have become loose due to frequent usage.
But then preventive maintenance of trains should have been carried out at periodical intervals and the hinges etc should have been checked in order to prevent the door falling off.
In this accident the Unsafe condition is the one which has posed a far serious danger to the people than the Unsafe act.

Reducing Unsafe Condition by Good Design:
In our developing world unsafe acts are to be prevented as much as possible by good design of the equipments.
For instance let’s take a toaster in our house ,its design ought to be such that nobody can insert a finger into the hot area,only a bread slice should go in and not the finger.

In order to reduce accidents all unsafe acts should be avoided whereas it is humanly impossible to do just that so the onus of preventing accidents is on reducing the unsafe condition.

Internet and its usage

We all have got used to the Internet and its usefulness.

Gone are the days when people needed to communicate to each other thro long letters sent by the Postal route. The letters took time to reach but people still communicated to each other.
Now it is the age of internet and mobile telephony.
E mails have become an essential means of communication and corresponding to everybody has become easy and fast.

In the past people tended to write long letters, now the e mails are to the point and often crisp and short.
The mobile telephony has taken the communication to the next level thro sms and faster connectivity.

In the past we in India had to book long distance calls thro the local telephone authorities and it used to cost a lot.
Now talking to your friends/folks abroad has become easy and cheap. No more booking calls and wasting precious time in awaiting the connection.
Talking to somebody in USA is as fast as talking to somebody in Mumbai.
The SMS has further made the texting messages shorter. The language is taking its toll, and now the people write to each other in a manner that new English language has been invented!

The advent of internet has brought in its wake manifold advantages.
One can browse sites, learn new things sitting at home, and get to know the news across the world in an instant.

The usage of internet is spreading fast.
India has a huge population of 1.2 billion and the internet awareness is spreading fast. Over 80% of the Indian population lives in Villages. The Internet has given them an opportunity to know about the world.
The internet usage in India is estimated to be 121 million increasing steadily year by year when it was only 53 million in 2008.It has seen an increase of 100% in three years. It can only grow exponentially in the years to come.

Compare this with Mobile telephone which has a figure of 700 million in India indicating the reach of this facility to a wider audience. Of course the mobiles are different because now every household of say 4 people, it would be with every member of the household unlike internet connectivity which generally would be one per household. It should be understood that possessing a computer is far more expensive so the reach is restricted.

The Indian government has recently launched a cheap alternative to the tablet and with this the reach would increase many times in the next few years. The mobiles are now equipped with internet facility so the reach of internet to the rural folks can be made easy as mobiles have reached the common man on the street.

It is very interesting to note that in Sweden the statistics show that even three year old children now access internet.

Internet is indeed a great boon to our civilization since the invention of written language.

India has done it……F1 Racing.

Was it a miracle or was it just good luck, but we did it as a nation.
Poor Past:
All of us had our apprehension about F1 race in India.
We cannot forget the fiasco in commonwealth Games held a few months back in New Delhi.
The Arrangements were inadequate and so sloppy that as a country we got a bad name.
The International committee threatened to stop the games but somehow the situation was saved by the Indian Government.
The Government has since then initiated cases against Suresh Kalmadi and others for misusing the funds.
With this background as a nation we were very nervous about F1 event, but the arrangements were really world class and the track a beauty.
The Buddh International Circuit:
The circuit is 5.14 Kms long and it has been designed by the famous circuit designer Hermann Tilke.
It has an interesting feature that cars can reach a maximum speed of 320 kmph making it the second fastest circuit after Monza in Milan, Italy.
The expected lap time around is 1 minute 27 seconds approximately and the race would have 60 laps.
Whatever we could see on the TV it really looked great and the International Committee of Car Racing has appreciated the arrangement.
Of course there was a stray dog menace just a day before the event and the same was reported in the press, which was really embarrassing as such intrusion of the dog on a race day would have caused serious accidents.
Car racing is a dangerous sport which leads to serious accidents and sometimes deaths on the track, which we have witnessed in the best of venues. We as a country have inadequate resources to cater to the injured and such accidents would have added to our woes.
The security was strong and well deployed after the fiasco of Metallica which was cancelled due to poor security arrangements.
Tickets:
The tickets were priced from Rs 2500 with 6500 seats to Rs 35000 for 20156 seats, the median being Rs 6500 for 36838 seats. The weighted average cost per ticket works out to be Rs 13062 per seat.
It is a big price to pay for an event but it is worthwhile as such events have never ever been held in India before.
The Race: 30.10.11
What a race it was, once again Sebastian Wettel of Red Bull won the race.
He was always in the lead and did not allow the second driver Jenson Button of McLaren to overtake him.
He finished the race in 1Hr: 30Min: 35.002Seconds. With Jenson doing it in 1Hr: 30Min: 43.435Seconds.
As you see it was close which is the case with F1 racing.
This was Sebastian’s eleventh victory in 17 races this season.
The third place was won by Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.
Indian Driver Narain Karthikeyan was participating and he did proud to India.
Mr. Adrian Sutil finishing 9Th for Sahara Force India and Karthikeyan finishing 17Th for Hispania.
Crash:
The crash of Felipe Massa of Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton of McLaren was unfortunate and Hamilton finished at the seventh place. He really made up for the time lost due to the crash.
Felipe Massa could not even complete the race.
Audience:
The crowd was 90000 plus and to manage this huge crowd would have been tough for the UP police.
Kudos to the authorities for managing the event without any untoward incident.
The race itself was like any other F1 race and it evoked huge clientele thro TV and other medium.
The reporters from all over the world were there to cover the event.
Celebrities:
There were many celebrities who witnessed this epoch making event.
Shahrukh Khan, SachinTendulkar, Arjun Rampal,Priety Zinta,Rowan Atkinson many other HNI’s graced the event.
Sachin had the great task of waving the chequered flag at the end of the race.
Image of India:
India now would be on the Tourist map more so because the F1 would have brought in many foreign guests and they would have savored our cuisine and our hospitality.
There would be no looking back now; India can only go ahead with such great events in future.
The Authorities need to keep the venue spick and span and good maintenance over the years is a must to ensure world class facility.
Kudos to Ms Mayavati the chief minister of UP and the Jaypee group which constructed the stadium and organized the event at Greater Noida.
Here is wishing India all The Best to manage such events in future.
We are proud to be Indians.
Mera Bharat Mahan.

What makes Steve Jobs so Special ?

It is very rare that we come across individuals who have contributed so much to the world.
Steve Jobs has done that and even more.

Humble Beginning:
Steve Jobs started Apple Computer along with Steve Wozniak in 1976 in a Silicon Valley garage and went to make it a world’s most innovative company.
Apple1 computer was launched in 1976.

Going Public:
Then came Apple II, this became a huge success and it culminated into his company going public.
The invention of Apple II was much before (4 years to be precise) the advent of PC’s by IBM.
Then in 1984 came The Macintosh from Apple. This brought the concept of Point & Click to the masses.

Steve’s Exit from Apple:
Things soured in Apple and Steve Jobs was fired in 1985.

New Venture:
Steve Jobs was not to relent and he founded “NEXT the computer company”.
When he was away from Apple in 1985, he bought a Computer Animation Film Company from George Lucas and named it Pixar, which initially did not do well but after the release of Toy Story it went to make history in animation films production.
Later in 2006, Pixar was bought over by Disney’s.

Steve’s homecoming to Apple:
In 1997, Apple purchased NEXT the computer company and Steve Jobs was back in Apple.
In 1998, Apple introduced the iMac the first computer which had the Monitor & the computer into a single unit. By 2007 iMac became the main revenue earner of apple amounting to 47% of its total revenue.
He became the CEO in 2000.

Forays into Music:
During his second innings with Apple he was instrumental in creating iPod, iPhone & iPad.
The advent of iPod in 2001 is a good competitor in digital music and it has revolutionized the concept of music. It has done away with CD’s and CD Players and downloading of iTunes became legal.

Smart Phone:
The invention of iPhone in 2007, made him very popular in technological developments. iPhone though a late entrant in the mobile telephony has already grabbed about 19% market share. It is an iPod for music, a revolutionary mobile phone and an internet communications device. This is the smart phone.

Tablet:
Apple has made the present day computer look dull. With the advent of iPad in 2010 the concept of a computer has been re written, probably one could call this a new era in computers.
This has led other computer manufacturers to relook at their products.
This has now catapulted Apple to a place far ahead of Intel & Microsoft put together.
Apple is today no more a mere computer company, it sells everything from a computer to a mobile phone.
The company has changed its identity from Apple Computers Inc to Apple Inc in 2007.

What is the mantra of Apple?

Steve Jobs knew that technological innovations alone can make his company a leader.
Months before the introduction of iMac he said that People often did not know what they want until you showed it to them.
Steve knew what people wanted before even they do themselves.
Steve said in 1993:
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me, Going to bed at night saying we have done something wonderful…that’s what matters to me.

What makes Steve Jobs so special?

He was
Innovative
Creative
A Great Leader
Created new markets.

Obit:

Google’s Eric Schmidt has said:
He uniquely combined an artist’s touch and an engineer’s vision to build an extraordinary company, one of the greatest American leaders in history.

President Obama has said:
Steve was brave enough to think differently,
Bold enough to believe he could change the world,
And talented enough to do it.


Steve Jobs: A Great Innovator who changed the world. 24TH February 1955 -5Th October-2011.

We miss you Steve Jobs.

How Written Communication has changed.

A few years back people communicated to each other using Letters.
Post Offices developed throughout the world helping people send letters.
The Letters used to take one week to reach Europe and USA.
People waited patiently to receive replies from their near and dear ones.
We used to await the arrival of the Postman to our homes as we were eagerly waiting for letters.
Pen friends were developed across continents thro letters exchanged thro the postal service.
The postal work is considerably reduced as the need to write letters is no more there.

Everything has changed now.

Today is the age of Face book, Twitters, and e mail.
Mobiles have reduced the need to write e mails as well, as sms and chat over the mobiles have surpassed the use of e mails and chat on the PC’s.

The development of e mails was an interesting one.

1971: A computer engineer Mr. Ray Tomlinson used the @ sign to separate the name from the terminal he was using.

1980: AOL developed instant chat.

1989: The World Wide Web is born. Mr. Tim Berners-Lee wrote the Hyper Text Protocol (HTTP)
A language that enabled the computers to communicate hypertext documents over the internet.

1996: Mr. Sabeer Bhatia & Jack Smith launched the first E mail service and called it “Hot Mail”
Derived from HTML.
This is one of the biggest e Mail service providers today.
Later Microsoft acquired this company in 1997.

1997: Yahoo launches its E Mail service.

2004: Google is a late entrant to this facility and it is next to Hot Mail & Yahoo in users.

2004: Harvard Sophomore and Mark Zuckerberg launch the social networking site Face book which has revolutionized the concept of writing.
E mail has taken back seat and people write thro Face book.
As we see in 8 years since Hotmail was launched the e mail has become staid and social networking has taken over.

2011 Google Plus has entered the social networking site.

The invention of newer forms of communication is so fast that today we cannot write anymore but only tweet.

Crusade Against Corruption

The story of Modern David and Goliath.
We live in a country where great souls were born.
To name a few: Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and Sir Ramanujam.
These were the people who excelled in their work and did India proud.
Mahatma Gandhi gave us the Freedom from the British Empire, but he is not alive to see the state of affairs in this country now.
It is a sad state of affairs that in this country we live amongst corrupt politicians, Police Officers, Government Officials and of course the corporate world.
The scams of recent times like Common Wealth Games, and the 2G scam are the ones which have brought disrepute to our country.
The 2G scam is mind boggling and one cannot understand the serious impact on our country’s wealth.
Why has this happened?
The people of this country are poor and do not understand the huge loss to the exchequer because of these scams.
The corruption is so rampant that all of us would have faced this in our day to day life and we just cannot circumvent this hazard.
We have learnt to live and accept this as a way of life.
What a shame that we live with this malady and do nothing about it.
Then comes this small statured man Anna Hazare who leads a campaign against corruption and goes on fast.
Today is the 12Th day and the people of this country are behind him.
This gives strength to his movement and for the cause.
Isn’t it strange that the Government is not seeing the writing on the wall and relenting, its time they accept the demands (sorry it cannot be called a demand but it’s a need of the people) and try to resolve the issue?
It’s strange that the Government is arguing about Parliamentary systems and following the constitution and saying that Anna cannot blackmail them to accept his demands.
If they were following the constitution to the core then why was there no transparency in running a Government as envisaged in our constitution?
We can understand their predicament, how would our politicians accept this Lok Pal Bill when they would be subjected to the scrutiny of the Lok Pal in future about any misdeeds committed by them.
It’s sad that even after 64 years of Independence that we do not have a corporate governance act in Government and they have dilly dallied for over 42 years on this bill as reported in the newspapers.
What Anna could do with his hunger strike, nobody could imagine, it’s a snowballing effect and people are frustrated and fed up with the existing rotten political system.
They say that Politics is a place where there would be strange bedfellows.
There is a complete breakdown of governance and every politician in this country has ensured that their kith and kin need not work for their lifetimes for the the next few generations and have also ensured that their sons daughters get a place in the political system and make their lives even better.
Anna is a savior and has taken cudgels against the government and he is fighting valiantly and I am sure that he would get more support from the general public.
Anna Keep fighting, we are with you.
Many thanks to Anna for enlightening us and bring some semblance of dignity and uprightness in our political system.

01.09.11
PS: Anna has ended his fast and the Government has conceded to take up the three vital issues raised by him.Thank God wisdom prevailed on our authorities and people's will prevailed.
It's a true victory of democracy.
It's been an unique non violent movement since Independence and it was well managede by the people of the country.
India has shown the world once again after Gandhi that we are peace loving and believe in non violent satyagraha.
It's a good lesson to our youngsters who constitute a vast majority of our population today.

India shines in Quarter finals.

What a match it was yesterday 24Th March 2011.

India played against the invincible Australia, champions in four world cups.
Ricky Ponting the captain who has lead his team successfully on three occasions in the past.
It was nerve racking and a tough game for the Indian team to surpass the mighty Australians.
Australia batted reasonably well with Ricky Ponting scoring 104 runs, a really good captain’s innings. True leaders are the ones who lead from the front and motivate their team, and Ponting did just that.
He showed grit, good and firm attitude and a determination to win.
Australia scored 260 for 6 wickets in 50 overs.

This was followed by India, the going was good until the first wicket fell at 44 that of Virendra Sehwag.
There was a hush in the stands, and India recoiled back with Gautam Gambhir coming in at 2 nd position.
The going was good between Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir, and Sachin lost his wicket at 94 runs on the score board. He had played well scoring 53 runs and completed 18000 runs in One Day Cricket , and this was his 94Th Half Century.

The trouble for India started with wickets falling in regular intervals, and in 93 runs India had already lost 3 more wickets. India was at 187 for 5 wickets.
The Australians are known for their intimidationary tactics on the field and they never give up easily.
There were times when we thought that India would not make it as the run rate had dropped and Yuvraj Singh was at crease with Suresh Raina.
For Suresh Raina it was a first ever experience against the mighty Australians in the World cup. The pressure could be seen on his face as he faced the onslaught of the Aussie bowlers.
He kept his calm and gave support to Yuvaraj.

Yuvi had the grit, calmness and determination to play a very sensible cricket which kept India going though slowly but firmly.
Australia had tried everything but could not break the formidable partnership of Raina and Yuvaraj.
It was a crucial game and Yuvaraj had the nerve to remain there till the end and maintain the run rate and eventually helped India win with five wickets in hand and wound up the game in 47.4 overs.

The Indian side owes its victory to Yuvaraj who bowled well with 2 for 44 and scoring 57 not out. He has completed 10000 Runs in One Day Cricket.
India enters into the semi finals, would be facing the fiery Pakistan and let’s hope India does it once again.