Frustrations frustrations!!

Everyone seems to be so frustrated.. Some one is frustrated because of the house owner, someone because of his team lead, some one because of her boy friend's behavior, other because of not getting good appraisal.. Someone is frustrated because of not getting through some interview and others who show off (I really don't know whether they care for the country actually) patriotism are frustrated because of politics/mismanagement..

But I really hate the ones who get frustrated because of their friends working at a higher package than them. They never give a bloody damn shit to the fact that till yesterday they were working at a handsome salary as compared to their friends and today that guy has switched job and so has got a hike and has moved ahead in some or the other terms..

I am really out of this game because of whatsoever reason you say!!

MK Gandhi

2^nd Oct was Gandhi Jayanti and all channels were showing some or the other movie involving Gandhi ji or patriotism. I was watching Gandhi movie directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. I must admit that I was flattened and thoroughly impressed by the way Ben has presented the character. Man, no Indian artist could have done that much justice to Gandhi ji’s character as was done by him. His way of talking walking, everything was just superb.

I had never given thought to Gandhi’s character in Indian history. But after watching that movie, without missing a single shot, I was really impressed by that person’s leadership qualities. I work in a team and I know the importance of a leader. But are people really able to live life as a leader is my question. You are made a leader because of the experience, but are you a leader in real sense. Would people walk miles altogether just for you? Are people passionate about what you say, command or do?

According to me, the parameters of being a leader have changed in today’s world. You can’t expect people to follow you blindly. People are much more learned and they are educated about the world around them and so they make decisions by logic and not just by enthusiasm or feelings. I bet there can’t be a person born in today’s world of a stature like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. But still hats off to Gandhi, his philosophy of living life and his ideologies….

Water water every where but not a drop to drink

“Water water every where but not a drop to drink”, is a line from a poem that was taught to us in childhood. Today I feel it to be a reality.

Nasdaq running at low, London stock exchange is pessimistic, asian markets are down, Indian market running at a scale of somewhere in 2006. What does all this mean? Till couple of months back, inflation was something we were worried about, but today is the scenario wherein people are not feeling secure. They go to office every morning, and they are not sure that they will be employed with the same organization till end of day. This is agonizing. What I don’t understand about recession is that where is all the money gone? Till sometime back everything seem to be working fine and then suddenly everything starts collapsing. And I could have digested the recession concept if it would have been in any particular field but it is happening everywhere. Gold is touching its peak value, airline industry is firing employees and if not firing then retaining them with 90%, mind you 90% salary cut. The same scenario is prevailing in software industry too. Renowned and ages old financial institutes like Lehman Brothers going bankrupt worked out like a nail in the coffin.

Software industry is most prone to recession and goodwill game. If something goes well in any industry, they come to software guys to write softwares and that’s how there is growth in industry, but if there is a recession in any industry, software industry always participates in lay offs. Gosh and I am again a Software labor and so am concerned.

Still we closely knit our lives around hope and I hope to see good and healthy economies in near future.

I am back

Okay,

At last I have an internet connection at my place. Rather I have shifted to share accommodation with one of my friend who already had an internet connection.

At the time of starting the blog, I had promised the readers that I would be writing on a daily basis, which I was somehow not able to stick to, the primary reason being chaos all around. But now I am feeling somewhat relaxed, (you never know) and so thought of getting back on track..

Cheers

Inflation

I always wanted to write about inflation.. This is the topic for last couple of months and everyone seems to be knowing about it as everyone in some or the other way is a consumer and so is affected. But all my words won't be worth in front of this cartoon strip that I received as a forward mail..

I'll be back

To all dear readers of my comments,
I am running pretty busy because of commitments, liabilities and assignments. This include my personal as well as professional life.. And I hope to be free of all this stuff very soon.. Till then bear with me..

I'll be back (very soon)..

Hindi vs English News Channels

Do you really think the language of communication determines interests of people/community? I don’t think any news channel would like showing news which doesn’t interest its audience and would voluntarily decrease their TRP. But does that mean that the hindi news channel audience is so much interested in news like someone murdered in some XYZ sector of Noida and they want the journalists to follow the investigation day in and day out! Or may it be a rape case and how does the victim feel or breaking news like the IPS officer gets his absconding pet back.

Dude grow up! There are lots of other constructive things to be shown. Are the news channel just about some or the other “BREAKING NEWS” which I never found to be that much breaking anyhow and showing crime documentaries after 22:00hrs? I respect the English news channels till the moment I am writing this blog because of the content they show. May be my view differs from other audience because of the content which affects me and bothers me might be different from what matters for other people. But don’t the news channels have a social responsibility towards the nation too. I remember a month back they were blindly behind “THE GREAT KHALI” and the news these days is none other than a girl murdered in Noida. Are they not bothered anyhow about the Presidential election in US or what happened to the NASA’s Phoenix, or the inflation rate and how to fight back?

But this is not just about the news providers fault. They will furnish the news which people find interesting and to my sheer astonishment people are really interested in crap things. So just a plea to all you to please leave the victims in isolation as they are already so much agonized and you don’t feel pity on their plight rather you just watch that and talk about it on snacks and lunch tables. Be constructive, you won’t anyhow get benefited from all such news..

Everyone is blogging

Blogging seems to be the name of the game these days. You can find hell lots of stars writing blogs these days, may it be or .. Yesterday I was watching a entertainment channel which claims that even Salman Khan is about to start blogging.

I have also started blogging couple of weeks back only and so was trying to think of the purpose of writing blog. and defines blog more or less similarly as “an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page”. But is blogging limited to just maintaining a personal web diary or a stack of thoughts and comments on events in life? No I don’t think so. The origin of blog was to suffice as a personal record which you can share with your circle, but blogging has evolved into something far more than that. And with concepts like Adsense into play, blogging has emerged as a source of income. Television channels claim that Big B was paid as handsome an amount as 100 crores Rs just to write blogs on bigadda by Reliance group. Aamir Khan recently used his blog to remark Shahrukh as ugly and licking his feet so as to draw Aamir’s attention (and then mentioning a disclaimer that by Shahrukh he was referring to his dog). So is blogging about getting into controversies too?

Anyways will tell you my reason of starting to blog. I started blogging so as to express my views on topics that interest me and my blog I hope will remain a crux of the events that happen in and around me. But yeah I was very much motivated by the blogs that I regularly read and one of them is off course .

So friends keep reading . if you want to check out how the world looks like from a software engineer’s (who is a normal person) point of view..

Similarity between Onion & Petrol

Which will affect you more, a 5 Rs raise in per kg onion or a 5Rs raise in per liter gasoline?

I sometimes really feel pity about the plight of this country. Off course I am an Indian and am patriotic about the country but feel like agonized and frustrated. During the NDA government tenure, the then honorable Prime Minister had to mention about the steep rise in price of onions in and more or less similar event happened yesterday evening, Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh addressed nation to explain the crisis situation and why it was necessary to encourage such a steep hike in petroleum products. I respect Mr. Manmohan Singh and his ideology. He has always been a legitimate gentleman throughout his career as a politician. None of the government in power would like to negatively affect people when the elections are nearing, but if the market conditions are so stringent then there is no other way for the government other than levying these rates on common man. Lots of good things happened yesterday, after a long time I got to hear an intelligent debate from bureaucrats as well as big industrialists on news channels. Otherwise these days after the IPL is over, the prime time news was nothing more than a murder in Noida, why the investigation has been given away to CBI, some heroine doing an item song in a movie, some cricketer caught with drugs.

Okay!! How has this price hike affected me? Now my bike will take me only 1.09 KMs for every rupee I spend, earlier it was 1.2KMs (affects me by only .11KM for every rupee I spend). I developed a perspective about the term COMMON MAN. Every news channel was bothered about common man and his expenses. Some of the questions I have about this term,

# Is there no existence of the term COMMON WOMAN? Grow up people, women are sharing each and every tough ground with men today.
# How do you define the term COMMAN MAN? Is it a subjective definition with lots of case statements or is it objective like the person below poverty line or the person earning XYZ Rs per month.
# Am I a COMMON MAN? If yes fine, if not then which category do I belong to?

Another term which I learnt yesterday was hybrid vehicles. Do you know about them and their working? If not do visit or .

Anyways all these discussions apart, I am really frightened about the after effects of this price hike in petroleum products. They will affect me everywhere. Every commodity that I buy will be now at a premium rate because of this rise but man I can’t do anything. Only power that I have is of voting and with this huge population, I doubt how my vote matters?

Traditional vs New Courses

Last week I received call from my younger cousin brother. He was happy but was still lost. CBSE board declared X class results and he scored quite well in that (for those of you who don't know CBSE, it stands for Central Board of Secondary Education. It is the biggest authority for education in India at school level). So he was happy. But still was confused about his future. He asked me that can I assure him a good job, fat paycheck and ample onsite opportunity if he get into Bachelors of Engineering course in computer science stream and obviously clears that with good marks. Whoops boy no one in this world can guarantee that and neither did I.

He was again lost. He called up with the expectations that I would be able to mentor and guide him for a bright and fruitful career. His mind was just jumping between taking up traditional courses and opting for the new courses that lots of institutions have to offer. There was a time (may be in 20th century) when being an engineer/doctor/lawyer was something very prestigious and rewarding. But the world is not the same today, today education is just a criterion which can take you to a level and can give thrust to your profile but what matters is your grip and know how of what domain you are working in. There are hell lots of courses available today which you might not have even heard of. And they are all specialize ones. Have you ever heard of IITs providing specialization in nanoscience, biomedical sciences, applied economics, environmental science and engineering, earth sciences, polymer science, pulp and paper technology or Pune University providing P.G. Diploma in Geo-environmental appraisal and Management?

These seem to be pretty specialized courses and there are industries and institutions working in these niche areas which can give you ample opportunities. So what is holding you back? Get onto www and search for something which interests you and around which you can weave a remarkable, rewarding and self satisfying career.

Future of Indian Software industry

As my profile says I am a "Soft Proff", so today I thought of writing about something that concerns me and people earning their livelihood from Indian software industry and trying to make their foot prints hard to vanish. I am quite optimistic about the growth prospects, but I doubt till when?

Indian software industry ever since its inception has been more or less US based until in recent years they have very well learnt lessons and have accordingly modified their business strategies and revenue concentration. They are now banking on opportunities available in Middle East, South East Asia, Europe, South America etc. For this biggies like , and have done real big acquisitions like .

I respect the foresight of the Indian IT leaders and the hard work they have put in to make this dream of a flourished Indian IT industry come true. But how far will it go from here. You all will very well agree with me that near about 70-80% of the work done from India is more or less service based. We make softwares for renowned banks abroad, for shopping malls, automobile industry and they are all successful softwares. But boy we are still not into whole and sole product industry. Why? Do we lack innovativeness, or we don't have that kind of foresight regarding what would be successful and what the market will need in coming days? Or we fear that we won't be able to market the products? The major reason I feel we are not into product industry is because India doesn't have a domestic software market. Off course it is growing but still the appetite is quite low. Once the domestic market develops a good appetite then there would be need based product development which will obviously flourish eventually down the line. And this will decrease the dependency on dollar or euro.

What about the service based industry? There would be one point in time when every transaction in this world would have been automated and there would be a code to do that and store that. Will the organizations afford to rewrite the code then? Even if there is a new technology, will there be a code base migration? I don't think so. New technologies which are much more efficient are already in market but still mainframes are used in hell lot of businesses. So what will happen to service based industry then? There will be service based industry, but there will be only maintenance and sustenance jobs and no core development jobs. But when will this happen? Has anybody predicted this or am I getting too pessimistic? Anyways I am no more in service industry so am not that much bothered.

But still I am a part of the almighty software community. So long live software industry!!

Thanks!! Appreciation!! Recognition!!

I appreciate that, the organization recognizes the hard work you have put in to make this project a success, we thank you for the extra zeal and commitment you have demonstrated to make this event success.

A employee never just works for money. Off course money is a defacto factor in a job, but there is much more to it. When one puts in hard effort day in and day out, then they have a right to and they always expect a word of thanks or appreciation from seniors.

I doubt how many of you are aware that there exist a entity which defines "Employee Recognition' as the application of a scientifically confirmed behavioral psychology principle that employee performance and retention are strongly linked to consistent, appropriate positive reinforcement of behaviors that promote the organization’s goals". Leaving this quite scientific definition apart, don't you feel appreciation plays a major role in how an individual performs his/her duties? Being motivated increases throughput of an individual which cumulatively improve the performance of an organization too..

But on the other hand, if there is an employee who have never received any words of thanks would make him obnoxious, detached and he/she may start loosing commitment which may be hazardous for everyone around if such feeling starts pilling up..

Appreciation, thanks, recognition are not synonyms but they work more or less in similar way in real life.. When you are satisfied with any xyzee's role/commitment you may say thanks, may appreciate him/her in front of all and then recognize him/her by giving awards, bonuses, promotions, monitory raise, stocks...

Punch line is that recognition matters, and people do love getting recognized and they are always ready to work hard for it. So organizations, why not appreciate employees, thank them and recognize their efforts and grow cumulatively. Remember to never demotivate an individual as it could be fatal and at times procrastinating appreciation too could be. :)

Status Messages!!

Yeah I am talking about instant messengers only.



I had deployed a job and in the meantime was looking at the IMs I use, YM, GTalk and MOC to be specific. And I enjoyed reading the status messages of my contacts once again.

• To err is human and to blame it on a computer is even more so
• We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of time: Premature optimization is the root of all evil
• Positive self talk
• One of the reasons why people hold on to memories so tight is because memories are the only thing that doesn’t change when everything else does!!!
• In organizations, real power is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacity to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles and positions..
• We don’t know what we don’t know.
• Well behaved people never made a history

• If you win, you need not explain but if you loose you should not be there to explain
• Beautiful weather in beautiful Netherlands
• It doesn’t matter how often a married man changes his job, he still ends with the same boss
• Of all the words in English, worst three are “Could have been…”
• Get busy living or get busy dying
• Not life but good life is to be chiefly valued
• Stay hungry stay foolish
• Ek ajnabi jhoke ne kal poocha mere gum ka sabab, sehera ki bhigi ret mei meine likha awargi
• Life is simple not easy, don’t try to understand life just live it
• Chand sa mukhada – Ali Haider
• Smile is a curve that makes everything straight
• There is no sincere love than love for food J
• The more mariners I have around me, the much more safer I feel

Interesting huh..

The reason I feel people don’t keep status messages in MOC (for those who don’t know what MOC means – it stands for Microsoft Office Communicator), is because they use it for official purpose but YM, GTalk, Rediff Bol, AOL messenger are all mostly used personally only.. So we may find dumb and non catchy status of people on MOC like Online, Busy, Do Not Disturb and Away. Man grow up people do have emotions also and not just availability.

I really respect the innovativeness of the guy who must have come up with this idea of status messages in messengers. Being human is all about having emotions, feelings, opinions, availability and lot more..

Moa status message says “all paid jobs absorb and degrade mind”. What is yours for the day??

Firefox Rock!!

Are you techie... Do you use shortcuts while working on your machine..? Do you lay back in front of your machine for hours browsing through www... That means you are internet freak.. And still you don't use firefox. Don't tell me that.. The kind of power and flexiblitiy today firefox provides is I doubt can be compared to any other browsers present in market. They are the leaders in browser market space. Mozilla have got real big plans for firefox browser's power. They have add ons for web developers, different skins for a normal internet user and lot more.

Checkout

And to add lot more to the features of firefox, mozilla is coming up with firefox version 3. They plan to have a big bang download day .. So enjoy the world wide web and use firefox upto its fullest!!

IT slabs for financial year 2008-09

Today I was just busy entering my declarations for this financial year. The 3rd party vendor which provides the payroll processing for our organization knows the domain and their tasks very well. They have actually provided a wizard where in you just need to enter your declarations under different sections and the tax payable gets calculated momentarily.

I found this tool to be too convenient for an individual to handle their budget and expenses. You can make changes any no. of times in a day throughout the year and your latest declaration till particular date of a month would be considered for tax calculation for that month.

Still to keep the readers of this blog aware of the slabs for this financial year, I am mentioning below the slabs for financial year 2008-09,


Taxable income slab (Rs.) Rate (%)
Up to 1,50,000 NIL
Up to 1,80,000 (for women) NIL
Up to 2,25,000 (for resident individual of 65 years or above) NIL
1,50,001 – 3,00,000 10
3,00,001 – 5,00,000 20
5,000,001 upwards 30*

*A surcharge of 10 per cent of the total tax liability is applicable where the total income exceeds Rs 1,000,000.
Education cess is applicable @ 3 per cent on income tax, inclusive of surcharge if there is any.

Now how about the HRA exemption calculation. I feel pitty about the people who don't understand such a simple calculation and have been paying tax for years. For all those dear friends of mine here is how the HRA exemption from tax is calculated,

If you happen to be a salaried employee claiming House Rent Allowance (HRA) from your employer, you are eligible for an Income Tax exemption under Section 10(13A) of the Income Tax Act.

Find the minimum of the following three options:

1. Actual house rent allowance received from your employer
2. Actual house rent paid by you minus 10% of your basic salary
3. 50% of your basic salary if you live in a metro or 40% of your basic salary if you live in a non-metro
This minimum figure is the allowed income tax exemption on house rent allowance.

I think it is prudent to work this HRA exemption factor out so that you can structure the other components of your variable pay better.

So guyz keep rocking and save as much tax as you can!!

Life

Howz life treating you..? How has been your life at xyz organization..?

These questions seem to be very easy to answer momentarily. But I really want to again start the discussion WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT.. Today the world is moving at such a fast pace and so is life.. I am a software professional, I have worked on what people screemingly claim to be complex softwares and have found bugs which were real interesting.. But I never got to find any bug in life...

The above question is answered differently by different people. If you ask any person with biology as a major in college, he will define life in terms of molecules, hydrogen and oxygen, different kinds of species that exist no earth and the speculations that they exist on other planets too.Thats the science perspective to it.. But I feel that there are things and parameters which cann't be measured by any metric system and I feel that is what defines life.

Life is not just about living.. This seems to be a very vast topic to me. I would like to mention here whatever I have seen, observed and learnt in my 24 years of age. It seems to be a kind of vicious circle to me. Where to start from. Okay first of all I will jot down personality traits of some people around me.. First of all madam K. I haven't seen anyone so much content from life. She seems to be satisfied and happy with whatever she had, has and will have in future. She doesn't have any dreams, aspirations and expectations from life, she lives life in present without thinking about future and with very less thought about past. One friend of mine Mr B.. He is happy with life, but as it happens with any young guy, he has got lots of aspiratioins in life and then I feel his life gets affected by people around him. He seems to be pretty much satisfied with life as far as there is no development at his friend's front. Then comes Mr K. Actually I know couple of Mr Ks. But I mention about the "K" who is close to me. Mr K has always been on the back seat as far as living life is concerned. I feel life cann't be lived fully without your anticipation. But he is a great believer of hindu mythology which states, your destiny is defined and so you are not craftsman for it. You are just here to spend that tenure, no matter how you feel, what you do to fight back or how you enjoy it. I have also encountered people who are so much bothered about what others around them are doing and then there are guys who are least concerned about their surroundings.

I heard someone someday saying no one learns in mother's womb, its the experience and your learning apetite which makes you successfull. And I am trying to learn the world and live life king size no matter what circumstances I encounter...