The Mumbai terrorist drama has just ended. This episode has left the people of India with a lot of anguish, anger and fear. The threshold of tolerance has been breached this time. There is a feeling of helplessness and people are desperate for some proper action.

Some heads have already rolled. The Union Home Minister, The Chief Minister and his deputy. The sacking of ministers is no way concerned with to the cause of the attack or preventing what happened. I say this because all politicians in India are nearly the same. A different person in that position would not have made much of a difference. Until and unless the bureaucrats are given power outside of the government, only then some serious work can be executed. The sacking of the ministers seems to be a face saving move by the Central Govt.Bringing in a replacement is no solution to the crisis situation. What we need is certain systems in place that stands the test of time.

The root cause still point to the Intelligence failure. Our Intelligence Bureau is supposed to be the oldest one and after the Indo-Sino failure, the IB is mostly responsible for Internal Security. Some things went badly for the IB. The IB supposedly got tricked by the snippets of information received. The IB made a face saving claim that it had sent various warnings to the Govt about supposed attacks, but it is not enough if the IB issues advisories; there has to be a follow-up and if found that the State Govt is not taking required action, the IB can contact the Prime Minister directly to make sure there is action taken.

It is amazing to know that there is such an easy entry into Mumbai, the financial hub of the country. Few people hijack a boat and coming sailing into the city. Sounds like movie stuff. But Mumbai being the city it is ; is prone to underworld mafia, smuggling and what not. In such a scenario, Mumbai is expected to half the best Coastal Guards and increased scrutiny on the coast line, especially during night times. The recent attacks is an indicator to the failure of the Naval forces, not only because they didn't detect the entry of more than 2 dozen terrorists armed with heavy artillery; but because such a planned execution needs planning and resources. As per reports, huge number(nearly 800) boat licences have been issued to Bangladeshi nationals during the past 2 months alone. Such an increased rate of activity was ignored.

The 26th Nov attack not only exposes serious security issues plaguing us, but also our inefficient Disaster Management system (if it exists). Firstly the state Govt took more than 2 hrs to call in the NSG. After the NSG had been notified, a no so fast aircraft was summoned to carry them. That aircraft was at Chandigarh and need to be re-fuelled. Some more precious hours wasted. After reaching Mumbai, the commandoes were transported in public buses instead of sir-lifting them. All these crucial moments led to the high death toll. Most of the casualties in the 26th Nov attacks were the ones that occured before the NSG commandos arrived. The terrorists were on a killing spree for hours before they were caused any actual disturbance. By this time, they were holed up in strategic positions in the hotel.

But at a tactical level, it took almost three days to get a handful of terrorists out of three or four buildings. It wasn't a shining moment. The Indian security forces bravely did their job. But in terms of their effectiveness, there were some pretty serious shortcomings. The commandos had absolutely no ground plan chalked out when they arrived.

All said and done, it is time that we take strong measures to prevent any such further attack and also have certain planned measures to be taken when such a situation occurs. The setting up of a Federal Agency is one such crucial measure. It was proposed in 2002 during Vajpayee Govt and till date the proposal stays on paper. The reason for this is that it has been persistently declined by the State Govts including Maharashtra. This is because if the Federal Agency comes into being, the State Govt (Police) will have reduced authority /power over information and will have a lesser say.
It is sad to note that we had to have so many casualties, trauma and suffering before any measure could be implemented.

Another point to be noted during the recent attacks was that unlike the previous attacks, the upper class of the society was the most affected. On the previous occasions, for a week or so the anger would be there and everything died down after a month or couple. But this time around, there is a much stronger retaliation by the public against the happenings. Everyone has been affected. The entire public needs some action. Never has the situation been more feasible than this to turn around the situation. It is the time to change and change for better. It is the time for the Indian Awakening.

On an average i used to receive around 10 spam mails a day.

For a week now i have been observing that this number has greatly decreased. Its just 1 or 2 per day.

Wondering what's the reason for this decline?

Here it is.

It has been some years that i had gone through the Apollonius' problem. I happened to come across it while browsing through Wikipedia. So here it is :

The problem states that : "Given three objects in the plane, each of which may be a circle C, a point P (a degenerate circle), or a line L (part of a circle with infinite radius), find another circle that is tangent to (just touches) each of the three".

There are ten combinations possible through combinations of point, line and circle. The most difficult case, to find a tangent circle to any three other circles. The resultant solution is here.

These circles are known as Apollonius' Circles. A combination of 8 solutions.

If you observe carefully, the circles in the solution are generated in pairs and are conjugate to one another. Hence forming a symmetry. 

Carrying forward this problem, if the 3 circles in the problem are mutually tangential to one another, then the 8 circles of the solution collapse into 2, as seen here

These circles are known as Soddy Circles.

Today was Guru's last day at office. Had known that he would be changing over to another department, but never realised that the day had eventually come.

Gururaja N is my Project Manager, guide, ideal n so forth. Guru was the first person whom i met at RBEI after my recruitment. When i joined last August, there were a lot of new projects coming in and we had to be directly put into projects. Without having much automotive system knowledge, we had to code a module that would actually sit in the car.... Just can't forget the amazing support and mentoring he provided us. We freshers literally slogged during those days... studying for half the time and working during the other half... staying hours after people left... But Guru was always there to see we got our concepts right.

Guru was not just A CAN(Controller Area Network) expert, but he was THE CAN Expert... 

Previously the CAN layers were got from third-party. He was parental in developing the CAN Protocol Stack in-house and now most of the customers(nearly 90%...thats huge) use our CAN layers..

Also during the problems with Audi.... after successive nights that Guru and the Audi team worked and successfully uncovered the Phantom interrupt problem, he was an indispensable champion... He always somehow knew where the problem existed...

As Ganesh rightly said, "He was never bossy. We never ever felt that way.... It was like a family. Everyone so committed and enthusiatic that one never felt the stress/hardships. Always calm and composed...". He was always there to listen. No matter what silly thing issue you took, he would hear it out and calmly provide the solution to it. We have never seen Guru lose his cool... not matter how critical the situation was. and always protective and supportive of the team..

The number of people who attended the farewell party was clearly indicative of the love and respect he commands. Not just from our team or our department, but people from all other departments at Bmh were present. People queuing to write out their wishes for him on the huge greeting we had got...in the end there was not an inch of space left on it... When we gifted him the beLLi kamba(silver lamp stands), he became so engulfed with emotions that someone, mostly Naga had to crack a joke to make the atmosphere light.

Some memorable moments:

1. My first feedback meeting and goal setting (will always be remembered)

2. His appreciation and surprise after my IDEA suggestion was proposed

3. His encouragement for Paper presentations and patents.

4. His enery/power saving initiatives.

5. His sweets,biscuits and other kharram-khurram edibles during late stays.

6. The team meetings we all had.(those discussions,CAR meetings,his analysis)

7. SRS review meetings (can't forget Warning lamp review)

8. His appreciation after the most gruelling module till date...Fault Management..

9. Last but not the least... The newly married meet :) His advice and expert tips were just too good :))

From tomorrow he will be moving over to EDI(Driver Information and Navigation systems) as an Architect. That is a wonderful department to work for. Wishing him all the happiness and success. 9+ years was a long time and he wanted to move on... seeking something greater...

The famous trio of Guru,Naga and Girish will no longer be the same....

This is the lovely ಆಕಾಶಬುಟ್ಟಿ at my place with a magical halo accompanying it....

Light is the incarnation of prosperity... of wisdom... of wealth...

The festival of lights brings with it a renewed hope for a better day...a better life...

May this Deepavali usher in success & prosperity to all the seekers in all that they seek for....

vidyArthee labhatay vidyaam .. dhanArthee labhatay dhanam

putrArthee labhatay pautram .. mokshArthee labhatay gathim..

Today i was watching a reality show on TV . My God! So much of emotions involved..... Excessive jubilation on success and extreme suffering on failure...not failure, but unsuccessful....
Its like they have conquered the world when they taste victory and as if the there is nothing left worth living when they are unsuccessful...

In today's telecast, mostly people who succeeded were shown. And as they say that happiness is infectious, i too felt happy at their victory. At that moment a thought struck me.... " Have i ever been as jubilant or as expressive during victory/when i tasted success? "

I cannot come up with one occassion when i have celebrated victory with so much of joy and emotions ,etc....
Now there are 2 questions to help answer the above situation....
1. Have i not had enough moments of victory in my life?
2. Have i not celebrated my wins with all d pomp and show?

After some thinking i have come to believe that it is mostly reason 2 and a little of reason 1 too.....
Lets look at reason 2...
Through the years, we experience that the appreciation of victory is less inversely proportional to the criticisms during failures.. But as we grow old, we realise that success and failures are more personal entities which primarily affect us . The appreciations and criticisms from others are external factors and are secondary which can differ relatively . For example, a mediocre achievement to me may seem to be a highly commendable one to the other person's eye.

Also i recently realised that i have been practising the saying "Success is a journey and not a destination" without my knowledge. I will be badly wanting something to happen and taken lots of steps to see that the goal is achieved. But once it is achieved, there is happiness and satisfaction but not a jubilant celebration... The focus quickly shifts to the next level of achievement (Does all this give a picture that i have achieved great things ??;) Factually have achieved nothing... All the events i'm talking about are miniscule events/things)

Now coming back to reason 1..
If i look back, i feel that there are very few victories that are worth celebrating. Few things i have dreamt of/wanted have not materialised with lots of disappointments in the journey. But learnt a lot of things.
Feels like a really long time since a really joyful / event worth a celebration happened.


But all these failures are not going to hamper my goals and i've decided to enjoy every bit of this journey .... because i have the power of choice.. to choose what i take from the past and use them to build the future.. my future...

So agenda for now is to create more opportunities to celebrate.... and actually reward myself for the good work done when such a thing happens :)

Today i was watching the concert "An Evening in London" conducted by Sonu Nigam with the orchestral excellence of CBSO (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) at the London Coliseum, for his album " Rafi Resurrected". It was a tribute to the great singer Mohd. Rafi. It was a feast to the ears! Amongst them, Sonu happened to sing one of my favourites... Dil ke Jharoke Mein.. from the movie "Brahmachari" What a song indeed!
Great music by Shankar Jaikishan and excellent, meaningful and heart wrenching lyrics of Hasrat Jaipuri and ofcourse the melodious golden voice of Rafi..

This song is a strong one with lot of emotions- romance, anger, pain, sacrifice but still has some kind of solace in it..... Soulful lyrics! Do check it out-


Dil ke jharoke mein tujhko bitha kar
Yaadon ko teri main dulhan bana kar
Rakhunga Main dil ke paas
Mat ho meri jaan udaas...

Kal tere jalwe paraaye bhi honge
lekin jhalak mere khawabon mein hogi
phoolon ki doli mein hogi tu rukhsat
lekin mahek meri saanson mein hogi.....Dil Ke Jharoke mein....

ab bhi tere surkh honton ke pyaale
mere tasavur mein saakhi bane hain
ab bhi tere zulf ke mast saaye
birha ki dhoop mein saathi bane hain....Dil ke Jharoke Mein

meri mohabbat ko thukrade chahe
main koyi tujhse na shivka karunga
aankhon mein rehti hai tasveer teri
saari umar teri pooja karun...............Dil ke Jharoke mein...

The song can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZdQKc6DXa8

During the last week , i had been eagerly waiting for Saturday to come. Firstly it was supposed to be my first experience with an NGO through the "Teach India" campaign and secondly we were supposed to be deciding about our upcoming trip !!

Come Saturday, my friend and myself set off in the quest of the centre allotted to us(Both had been allotted to the same centre) with great excitement and anticipation of something new and something new we did find indeed! We reached the area but there were so many cross roads that we just couldn't find the centre. Narrow roads, very densely populated and noisy... in this disorder how were we to find our destination?! As we were proceeding through the cross roads, all we could see were people in white kurtha and pyjama with a white cap. They were all over the place. When we were passing through a particular street, everyone around stopped what they were doing and staring at us as if we were from another planet and indeed we too felt as aliens in a foreign land! A kind of unease set around us and we had no idea as to how to find our way...

We spent almost 45 min in our search without any positive results...At one point of time, i saw a huge guy pulling 2 cows. It is a common scenario to find cows in streets here. But still i felt something different at the sight of this...but couldn't realise what. After a while, it struck me that he was actually pulling them to butcher!! There was a numbness in me... all the frustration, anger, pity became a huge ocean of emotions. Wanted to get out of there at that very moment..!
But it was not to be so. We finally found it aften umpteen calls to the co-ordinator.

When we reached the community centre, the other volunteers were already into discussion and we could not get the head and tail of it. When finally it was our chance to interact with the co-ordinator( we were the last ), we were told to choose from 5 modules that were available. After furnishing all required details, the co-ordinator suggested us to take part in the ongoing medical camp to get the touch n feel of the surroundings. Though we were not sure as to what to do, we had no other go but to attend since all the earlier volunteers had already left for it.

Our friends doing medicine had told us huge stories of these medical camps that they had been to and hence we were not very keen on going. But the co-ordinator was bent upon taking us. As if our experiences were not enough to shake us, he started sharing his experiences about working with gangsters, criminals, etc.And then we finally came near the mediacl camp.
That was one sight i will never forget ever. Those were one of the worst living conditions i have ever seen! There was literally no road. Just some space for one person to keep one foot!!Houses so tiny but completely crowded.. Open drains on both sides and people sitting and chatting next to it! Kids playing around. As we were treading along the path, a lady came grabbed my hand suddenly and i totally went bersek by this!! She had seen the doctors and was curious to know where they had come from. When she saw us, she assumed that i was one of them!! I then told her that we have come from so and so hospital and then she let us go...

When we finally arrived at the camp, it was jampacked with people and no way we could get in. So we thought it would be best to return back and with some saboob to the co-ordinator, we headed back home!!

It was a great realisation indeed. All these days i had concentrated my thoughts upon the work, i.e teaching children in this case, and not given a thought to the working conditions and the environment around which most of the work would be needed. But the reality of the situation that it is these people who need most of the help struck me. What better way to help these people than Education!.. and Teach India has really been a great initiative towards this regard!

BMW.... Does that name ring a bell somewhere?!! Offlate it has been talked about a lot in the Indian media ..... First being the judgement of the BMW hit and run case of '99. Then again in the past week it was in news for all the wrong reasons .... another hit n run case eventually resulting in casualty. If you thought that that was it, then you are wrong... Another accident involving BMW.

But what i cant understand is that in India there are thousands of accidents occuring day in and day out... I have no idea how many Marutis , Hyundais, Hondas , etc etc are involved in similar incidents and maybe even casualties in some cases. But these are not heard off on National Television.

Then how come these BMW incidents have made it to the Headlines / Breaking News category??? I have no idea. But the possibilities that i can think of can be :

1. Since these incidents are in quick succession with the high profile BMW hit n run case judgement , the media is trying to cash upon the issue since it is still very fresh in the viewer's memory.
2. Since a car like BMW is generally owned by the elite class of the society, all this publicity may be a means to bring them under the hands of law.
3. ..... Not finding any other sane enough reason .....U've got any??

Its high time media houses start reporting something more important, responsible, credible and liable instead of such issues to gain more viewership in this cut-throat competitive field of business!

This has been pending for a long time now.....The ‘Bhagawatha’ is a derivative of the Mahabharata. There is a saying that after Vyasa completed Mahabharatha, he felt very unsatisfied with himself. When Narada Maharshi came to know about this, he suggested Vyasa to write Bhagawatha. That is when Vyasa was fully satisfied with himself.Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the transcendental science not only for knowing the ultimate source of everything but also for knowing our relation with Him and our duty toward perfection of the human society on the basis of this perfect knowledge.
There is also another ‘Bhagawatha’ written in 1755 AD in Halegannada by Ramannaiah of Holalkere village, which is now in Chitradurga District of Karnataka. This ancient scripture had been in the dark all along and was recently discovered by his great great great great grandsons(4th order of grandson).One amongst them was Prof.H.R.Chandrasekhar working as the Chair of the Dept of Physics at the University of Missouri. He studied these scripts over a period of 16 years with various scientific studies and discussions. All his hardwork culminated into a 2 volume book containing nearly 13000 poems.
This book series was presented to the public in Bangalore on 6 July,2008 at Dr.H.N.Kalakshetra, National College,Jayanagar,Bangalore and was presided over by Prof.G.Venkatasubbaiah, who is a renowned Kannada lexicographer.The releasing of the book was done by Sri.A.R. Sethuramarao.There was also Gamakavaachana of some poems by Sri. M.R. Sathyanarayana.

Some of the videos of the book release function can be found below :
1.Book release at Bangalore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzac3FcNqXY
2.Gamakavaachana
M.R.Sathyanarayana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRdOdKcelCI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMDggOhw0pw
Sukanya Prabhakar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_WPoOIDuKQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB1mlrRdJQI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjhp4Law77A
3.Some articles in Press
http://www.cscsarchive.org/MediaArchive/clippings.nsf/(docid)/BF8ED82803B5CAF46525694200313CE6
http://www.deccanherald.com/CONTENT/Jul222008/spectrum2008072180107.asp
4.H.R.Chandrasekhar's home page
http://web.missouri.edu/~chandrasekharh/vita.html
P.S : Chandra is my Great Uncle (Grandfather's brother)

For a long time now, we were subscribing to "The Hindu" newspaper. Even by spending hours in a day, we were unable to complete all its content. The Times Of India had just started to become a rage amongst the public. Later on, people around used to discuss it and i was tempted to try it out. We got it for a few days and it seemed to be more user friendly with lots of pictures for info etc.Then i fought with my dad and started subscribing to TOI instead of Hindu.Nowadays i wonder it was indeed a wise enough decision!
Coming to the reasons that are making me question myself, i dont think TOI is really concerned for the issues of the general public / major population of India. Nowadays all that you see in the paper are large photographs of celebrities, glamour, gossip, bitching, entertainment,etc. Also the headlines are made of slangs and funky sentences that are understood by only a small percentage of people and will leave majority of the population wondering what it actually meant?!! To provide a few instances,
The supplement Bangalore times, is an utter waste of resources. For a month now, BT publishes huge columns pertaining to Govt's decision to close discotheques by 11pm. This seems ridiculous to me! What percentage of people do actually go to these discos n pubs ?? Not even 5-10% of the entire population. In such a condition, why should this issue be made a major one when actually there are so many issues plaguing the Bangalore Society?! There are serious issues like infrastructure, garbage disposal, education, health,pollution, etc and all we see is huge columns with pics on why fashion and pubs are important! Is that what a National Newspaper is encouraging the youth of the country to do and look up to?
The young minds are easily influenced and i dont think a developing nation like India should be encouraging its youth in this manner. The easy fame and buck, glamour will lure any growing mind.A recent Microsoft srvey on the youth of India has come up with a report stating that major percentage of the youth in India are inclined towards fashion, glamour, quick money . Amongst those who are inclined towards studies, majority of them are satisfied getting a job which pays them well with work much below their mental capacity! What a shame !!
With TOI being the largest selliing daily, it should take more moral responsibility and work towards influencing people so as to bring about betterment in the society rather than just gossip and follow celebrities! There are better things to be aped from the West!

Yesterday i had a rare experience.... It was raining heavily and the roads were completely jammed. I

took an auto to get back home.Something caught my eye suddenly........ There was a nice clean holder and a huge label on it saying "Newspaper Only for You....... English... Kannada....."
What!! Newspaper in an auto??!! I thought let me have a look inside and took out a paper ....It indeed held that day's newspaper..Wow!!Even though it was dark and i was hardly able to read a sentence, i still went through pages just in the excitement...
I wondered what made this auto driver to do this..In a signal i asked him and he said proudly that it was his own concept....He said,"Many people travel during the day .It takes up a lot of time to travel to their destinations because of huge traffic. So that the commuters can utilise time,i have introduced this concept".In the city where auto drivers are dreaded for their uncooperative attitude and fighting for even a single penny, this auto driver showed up with an example of change....

Bangalore is indeed changing!!