Dear 2017

Dear 2017
   I write to you now as i have been putting this task off for a long time now and so that by the time you are done reading this you are over too.
   I must say that you have been kind with me the earlier ones weren't that way though; however do not be gratified, you have your share of grievances to listen to also.
   So, staring with the complaints rather to leave a sweeter aftertaste would be better i believe hence here it goes:
   It seems you had plans to make me move quite a lot this year approximating it to about 25000 km and about moving 3000 kg of stuff. I feel like a freight train than a human.
   Changing homes is difficult and i do believe you did get the brief about it from 2005, 2007, 2011, 2012 & 2014? I give you a rather low grade on this one.
   Since I prefer not to blame myself, i choose to blame you for all money lost in all the misadventures.
   I believe i am done with my grudges. Pass on the note to 2018 to get some people at the back a little to back out. Tired of the stabs this year. Though i should not wish bad for them, but come on a little screw over didn't hurt anyone right?(However the good old Fuck You i always gratifying ;))
   Thank you:

• For all the new experiences. 
• For all the new friends. 
• For the clarity on some masqueraders.
• What i must change.
• The friends who stayed beside.
• My new hobbies.
• A different ride.
• The newer places.
• For all the good news all who i care about.
• The new responsibilities.
• The things i did for the first time.
• The appreciation that came my way.
• The new skills (Come on, baking a roti is a huge skill to me to say the least).
• The new purchases (Though i spent on them, still the timing matters too).

   Meeting up of friends long lost and some days at old places still too take the cake. 

   Taking that there must be high and lows, 2017 take a bow. 

   You have been good.

[No emails please for the rest of the day]

The Perils of a welfare projection by state

Our country by its very nature is a welfare state where the state has been providing to the people. However, the same has gradually changed and more so, after the shifting economic policy of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation post 1991.

Education has been one of such areas. And the focus for this post being higher education.

The founders of the nation with their vision wanted to create a system of learning which would churn out professionals who in turn would go on to serve the nation in a manner mostly deemed fit by the government. In other words, a candidate going into a professional or technical course had a very high probability of getting placed within the government system.

However the times change and so do the jobs and what they offer.

Hence, the citizens have an onus to lookout for what they choose and what they might get as their need after they have been trained would be very different for the system or not needed at all.

In the present scenario of professional courses, candidates initially get to choose by a system of counselling of what they would be studying and have an option to opt out of it if it does not suit their aspirations. 

Secondly it also is an onus on the candidate to ascertain the viability of the course they are taking up and how does the same align with the aspirations and needs of the people, who in the real sense are the government. Also, the prospects of the profession.

Why am I posting this? The time for the choice is fast approaching for the newer batch of youngsters and believe me, the government has very limited options to offer and to top it up all policies of the government is also judged by other nations too and not only the citizenry which affects everything. You’ve got to assume that there is no offer and you are out on your own, even when the government is paying a part of your fee and sponsoring your institution. 

Be smart, be aspirational and good luck.

Disclaimer: I work for the government. But then, I had to sit for an exam to be chosen, with the odds being 1500:1. It’s tough out there and nothing served on a platter.

The Kashmir conundrum and Major Gogoi

I am a staunch supporter of the Army and the defence forces in general due to the highest level of integrity and discipline that they demonstrate regardless of what the situation may be.

The Indian Army deployed in Kashmir grabs the highest eyeballs of probably all defence personnel all over India with daily updates of border operations, counter insurgency and other activities that are being done.

India being a democracy, elections are one of the key pillars of the democratic movement without which the existence of the same would be challenged.

In the same spirit Kashmir too held elections, the organisation of which is protested by a section of the population in Kashmir and the protest of what can be made of the news reports goes quite deadly. This results in security personnel being on their toes to do their duty while remaining in the targets of the protesters where use of stones, Molotov cocktails and other projectiles are quite common.

In comes Major Gogoi, actually he responded, a company of SSB personnel guarding a polling booth were surrounded and attacked by a mob and they called for help as they were outnumbered and saw great risk to their lives. Major Gogoi rushed to the spot only to find the situation quite grim.

And so Farooq Dar, Stone pelter/voter/mourner/wedding invitee/ weaver ( I do not know which, hence all of them) was accorded a ride n the front of the convoy's jeep  to escort out the security personnel of the soup they were in.

The immediate effect was no one pelted any more stones and almost everyone lived to tell the tale.

This solution by Major Gogoi is probably the first instance of any such unconventional steps taken to minimise disturbance and causalities in the area; the people from Assam aren't simply called Awesomese for a reason and personally, this move deserves all the praise.

However, there is a small issue to be addressed not about what transpired what what after this, public memory is frail and we usually tend to forget things in this age of breaking news (refer to earlier blog) but legal precedence is a dangerous thing, it never forgets. I shall describe why I speak of it.

My dear reader, I am not saying at all that what has been done is wrong, just that this should be a one off event and not a common occurrence like the earlier trends of ink and shoe throwing.

The description is as such, imagine any riot or clash that you remember where defence personnel/ police were attacked in a manner that is unimaginable; now, hold that thought.

Since you are holding onto the thought, now imagine the ones attacked upon tying up one of the protesters on their car and driving away and saying out to the courts and the media the same words Major Gogoi had used and even citing him, but in reality they just chose an easy way out to blame the crowd or take it a notch further to hurt the person taken and blame the crowd. These probabilities are what that concern me and should be taken care of.

So my suggestion would be to stop all debate of what has happened and let it go.

you may let go of the thought now...have a great time...

Death et al

Many a times, we have wished a pain in our rear ends to be dead. Sometimes, as is said in our native languages, we do ask someone to die figuratively.

For many awaiting death row, this is the closure of their lives; the sentence's full stop.

Euthanasia is another area which is debated high and low and i do stand for it wherein the person should be let go.

People die of old age, and sometimes for the infirm we do wish them to attain release form their bodies when they are helpless.

The reason i am back to this page after more than a year, is my cousin.

A beautiful lass in her teens is suffering from Wilson's disease. She lives a little far away from where i stay and i hadn't met her in years.The other day we received news of her health deteriorating and went down to see her.

When you see a otherwise normal and healthy person bed ridden with their body gone stiff nothing pierces more than that and when they can see you feel your presence and try to give out the smile they haven't smiled in years just for you, you are just rooted.

I felt guilt tripped, sad; sad when she craned her eyes towards me and smiled, it isn't a graceful smile you will expect of a lass but the beauty and joy in that smile no one has ever put in that much of it all at once to smile at me, i was blessed.

Why did i speak of death at the initial part of it? For somewhere in me i wish her gone. The manner she is living now, bound to her bed, dependant. This thought when comes to me, sends a shiver down my spine, i remain in limbo...

To be compassionate or not

office musings

The moral dilemma on a dead cow

India is a country which holds its cows in high esteem; the irony being that we are (or should it be were?) one of the largest exporters of beef in the world. The recent ban on beef in Maharashtra did bring in a lot of comments for and against of the decision but one question that truly remained unanswered was the upkeep of he cows when they are not productive enough or when it is financially not viable to keep them.

A solution that was put forward was by some organisations(cow caring ones i suppose) was to make retirement homes for the bovine and all of their brethren and take them in with crowd-funding( i am pretty sure the funding does have a lot of influences into them) and see them off till death creeps in. 

But this topic is not about them, this one has a lot of discourse that i am not willing to get into right now.

I, personally do not want to interfere as what another persons beliefs or eating habits are and hence shall not go into that discourse.

Now, a fortnight back i happened to take a winger (Derived from the Tata Winger and called thus) on a highway that is flanked by the railway track on one side and Tea estates on the other. A pretty scene here in Assam that any person shall truly appreciate. The usual speed on the highway here remains at about 70km/hr for vehicles of these kinds. The drivers on them are usually employees of the vehicle owner and hence remain cautious of damaging the vehicle, cosmetically at least, their driving habits are questionable too.

As we were progressing from West to East, a train was on its track in the opposite direction. As it happened, a herd was grazing right alongside the tracks where there was a little grass, and some were on the tracks itself. The pilot on the train honked out loud to alert the cows; and scared they were. The cows suddenly jumped onto the road and the driver of the winger did not have time to react to this sudden movement. As it happened, the winder hit one of the cows in the head. The driver, scared as he was, did not stop the vehicle fearing a backlash and drove away.

I can surely say he was pretty much shocked. When he drove for about two kilometres, he stopped to assess the damage to his vehicle which included a damaged bumper and a broken headlamp assembly.

So the question now that remains is; who is responsible; putting down my three suspects, hope you give a solution,

1. The train pilot, as had he not sounded the horn, the cows were dead anyway.
2. The winger driver, who did not get a chance to react to it.
3. The person(s) who own the responsibility for the cow, for its upkeep, survival and harvesting(of milk mostly) as a stake on the cow might have saved it had there been a pasture to feed in.

The missile theory

Some days back, one of my followers in twitter happened to ask the question regarding missiles and how a cruise missile differentiates to a ballistic missile. Being the repository of some grains of the desert of knowledge (i feel knowledge is barren, application makes it fertile) and my undying attitude to reply any question, i went on send up a Wikipedia link (those guys did have a good article), however all troubles began when the article had too much jargon to confuse at times and the plea fell again to bring out in a simple laymen terms. So, here i am to do that bidding:: 

Disclaimer: potential terrorists please note that the following information shall not be of any use to you unless you are planning to buy some or trying to expand your horizons of knowledge. 

First things first; a missile in the present day world is described of such thrown objects which propel on their own i.e. they carry their own fuel and are unlike rockets where they are propelled by the power of the launcher.

Ballistic missile: I hope you reader knows Newton's third law of motion "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" Ballistic missiles work on that principle to the word where their thrust produced mark their course, with the difference being, if you would manage to launch them like rockets too their path will be approximately the same. So in a usual day a ballistic missile shall have a parabolic path of motion, however they do have variable thrusters which help them change their course by some degrees. The easiest example being the fireworks that are used in celebrations.

Cruise missiles: Cruise missiles in the earlier days were nothing but planes on a suicide mission( usually unmanned, see they too had these UAVs then) but then the problem lies in the fact that these usually are subsonic in nature i.e they may not travel faster than 330 metres per second some of the well known of them being the Tomahawk and the Javelin. However, India and Russia in a joint venture managed to make hypersonic cruise missiles which travel at around 1650 metres per second, the BrahMos. Cruise missiles can be 'driven' it means they are preferred for targets in motion as you may alter its course as and when needed till either you hit the target or your fuel runs out. These usually are short range missiles and hence are quite small in size.

However both missiles being very different in their application and systems of delivery, making a comparison shall be unfair.

So that will be a short primer until then "try not to get struck

you mayfind me on twitter @prakashray