Is Rape offence pardonable ?

NO.....For many years now I have been reading news papers and coming across innumerous columns about "Rape" cases, many including elderly men taking advantage of girls who dont even know what is being done to them.Whenever I read about these kind of news I am ashamed to be categorized with these individuals as humans and I conclude they are not humans.

We were having a discussion on this topic at office and one thing I realized all of us agreed that these cases should be dealt at the earliest and the only sentence for such an act should be death sentence. Even the death sentence is not going to provide any relief to the victim who had to go through an ordeal which I as a "man" will never be able to comprehend.

But atleast it will send out the right message to these "animals" that if you are found guilty, no pardons, no appeals, straight death sentence.

Many Human Rights people may not agree with me but honestly I dont care. To me Rapists are nothing more than pests and as we do with all pests, terminate them before they mulitply.

The Age of Notworking...oops..Networking.

Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Hi5 are just few of the names that come immediately to my mind when I think about networking. Its amazing how with the advent of mobile phones and all these amazing sites people are always hooked and connected. Networking takes priority over many f daily needs or rather we push our daily need till a point we cant have a control just to continue our networking.

Today when I look at kids in 7th-10th grade or even college, I just am unable to figure out if I had more fun or they are having more fun. I guess the answer is not straight-forward.
Today there are times when I have observed that individuals who are busy networking don't get time to network at home. While they "Net"work the only thing they do for their families and themselves is "Not"work.

Well Am I saying its a bad thing? Absolutely Not !! Right from being a kid I have learnt "All good things in measured quantity". I am too addicted to networking cause I like to know what my family &friends are doing once in a while, see their pics and also share mine with them, also vent out my frustration in my statuses.

But today looking around myself I kind of get the feeling we are reaching the "age of networking" and "notworking".

Kotchi Kotchi Karte ho..Tharoor koi baat hai...

Ok..So Tharoor resigned.. Sweat stakes were returned..blah blah....I guess that was the intention behind revealing the names of stakeholders on Twitter....

Round 1 - Lalit Modi

Now that the tip of iceberg has been just seen more will be follow and to do that the IT sleuths may have to do as was said in the movie "All the Presidents Men" ....just "Follow the money"

From the whole incident one thing is for sure...while the men in the middle "sweat it out or fight it out" the men behind the scenes "milk it out"

Are we Satyam in our dealings?

Recently Satyam (Satyam by the way means True, Truth) has got itself a sure spot in all newspapers, online news lines due to the recent confession by the ex-CEO Raju. The dirty laundry is coming out quick and heavy and has become point of conversation for almost every house whether or not they are directly affected. Everyday we hear SEBI statements and how all auditors who could not ( or probably chose to not) prevent the scam to reach such proportions are coming under the scanner.
Even in my home my brother and me have had numerous discussions around this and other issues which are hitting the IT industry, probably because both of us hail from the same industry.

But what Raju had done on a big level I have in my 8 years experience seen employees, colleagues, friends ,senior management and even sometimes parents doing at smaller levels? For example, I remember when I was relocating the guy from movers and packers asking me "Sir, kitne ka bill doon? " I was surprised and told him to give me the bill according to what I was suppose to pay him for the services. Then he explained that professionals like me used to ask him to give the bills close to their maximum limit provided by company and they would give him and extra 1000 Rs more than the actual charges for doing so.

Every IT professional as a part of growing up understands the importance of honesty and integrity and infact from time to time it is professed by their companies but yet for a mere 10-15 K or even less they let their ethics go for a toss. And these individuals are like a virus because they soon start rubbing this onto other individuals who are still considering if this kind of practice is ethical or not. And one of the most convincing theories that I have heard at all levels in industry is "Company makes so much profit on us and gives us peanuts". Individuals convince themselves that actually what they are doing is justified and does not fall in the purview of ethics.

Once this happens these things start happening regularly. It is sad and deplorable what Raju and few of his associate have done but one thing you have to give to Raju that he had the courage to tell the truth. Maybe he was forced by his situations, but yet he did. Many in such situations would have taken the extreme path especially in the Indian way of thinking. But my question is do we as individuals every think on our dealings. How we have progressed as individuals, living a lavish life style and yet not 100% honest in our dealings.

In early days the money was less, the struggle was more but the ethics were stronger. Today as the educated youth embarks on his/her journey to gain popularity, wealth and admiration from near and dear ones, they start losing their moral self. Not all but most according to my 8 years experience. Its high time we start looking into ourselves and start treating all our personal and professing dealings ethically because if we don't, today when we are just software engineers we can convince ourselves that our unethical wrong doing are justified and tomorrow when we turn out to be leaders of organization and families, we will impart the same unethical practices justifying them as ethical. And one day when it reaches the peak and we are exposed and embarrassed in front of the entire world and then we will sit at some corner hidden from the world questioning ourselves

"Was I Satyam in my dealings?

Australia won at Sydney...with 14 players !!

The headlines does not tell you that it was the expected result but it was a decided result by the match umpires and referees. It was interesting to see Michael Slater saying that the Indians should move on. Let me tell you simply, had the number of atrocious decision that went against India, gone againts the Oz, they would have shown their true colors, that would include all the "be brave" former players and also the media.

In my memory never have so many decision gone against a single team. This is one of the most forgetful matches for the simple reason it was not won by a team, or lost by another but it was ruined by the 3 jokers. Its high time the umpires are fined and suspended if they alter the outcome of a match so badly. Mr Bucknor, who with a straight face maintains an internal grudge with Indian team, please go ahead and retire. Mr Benson, please go back to umpiring for school matches till you understand that the referral is taken from the fellow umpire and then the third umpire, and certainly not with Mr Ponting and Mr Clarke who will not walk even if the ball goes to the first slip.

The BCCI should get into the act and get some action against the referees, because its too taxing for the cricket lovers to witness a good game being spoilt by bad umpiring.

As for the Indian team good going guys. I believe this was a great match which the entire team played against the 14 players on the field. Tendulkar, congratulations on your century and Kumble, you are true fighter.

Bhajji, Australian team at times are sore losers, so if they cannot get you out, they play mind games. They instigate you and then put some rubbish claims. I have seen Mcgrath and Shane Warne saying worse things and getting scot free.

All in all, an interesting test match, but an un-even match as 11 players of Indian team had to battle it with the 14 of Australian team.

The Google effect

I read this article on MSNBC which talked about Yahoo CEO Semel stepping down and I thought for a moment what Google effect is doing to big corporations. Lets see who gets the axe next as a part of this effect.

Dhanda hai par ..Ganda hai yeh !!!

Check out the latest NDTV expose on the BMW case. First politicians, cricketers, actors and then lawyers.

DemocraCy or DemocraZy

Its been known for a while that we have very huge list of criminals in UP, India who are MLAs or MPs. But this particular incident where Anand Sen Yadav was given bail so that he can be sworn as minister just makes me believe the democracy in Uttar pradesh is nothing but democrazy. You can read the complete story here.

Australia win...yawn

One of the most boring episodes of Cricket world cup came to a conclusion yesterday. The interesting part is, most of us knew Australia would win the cup and more than that they deserved to win the cup, but everyone hoped otherwise.

While this world cup will be something which Australia will remember because of the hat-trick of the world cups and Glenn Mcgrath's retirement from one day stage, there are whole bunch of other reasons for which I will remember this world cup , like the empty stands in key matches, Bob Woolmer's sad death, India and Pakistan's early exit, Lara and Inzamam's retirement, Flintoff flipping of the boat, but for me something which will remain etched is how a bunch of five experience cricket officials could not get the rules clear and made Sri Lanka come and play the three overs again in the Final of the world cup.

For now I am going to sit back and hope for 2011, when India once again will try to stake claim for the prestigious cup (....hopefully).

Quota system...Khotta system !!

The Indian politics largely revolves around issues which instead of getting the country developing gets it one step behind. Out of many such issues which affect the youth directly is the illogical quota system in education. The various categories of SC, OBC and many others are just ways for people to misuse the system. All that the Quota system does it, denies a harworking merit based student to miss out on an oppurtunity of pursuing his childhood dream. What it also does is stops some people to try their achieve something. I have some friends who belong from well to do families, but at the same time fall in the quota or the reservation. These are brilliant students too but what they aim is 70% and not 95% ....why?...because the system allows them to think low.

What the Indian Government needs to do is to develop infrastructure to support students financially at the base level. Also if they want to keep the reservations, they should keep it till 7th grade or max 10th grade, beyond that it should be totally merit based. I know there are more than million of students, parents in the country who share this emotion that I do but at the same time they know, the politics of this country will only increase the reservations.

While this happens many people will pursue dreams before harsh realities will come and face them and many will die out of depression or rather lets say "the reservation oppression".

This is something which I faced after my 12th grade and it changed my career, it changed my dreams and it was not because of lack of merit but it was due to lack of having a lower caste certificate...

Is it worth the wait ? Is it worth 500 $..I think so ;)

Rediff..you can do better

This is what is "news" for Rediff.

The way it is covering the Abhishek & Aishwarya wedding is just hilarious.

I just can't wait till the headlines say "Abhishek just entered his bedroom"

Come on Rediff you can do better than this. There is more happening in India which effects the common man. So please just dont look for number of hits to your website but start giving some more qualitative news.

Value of life

The Virginia tech shootout that happened today is a sad reminder of how the value of life has diminished in the modern day world. I am still coming to grip with the shootout. Over the days the reason for the shooting will be evident but what remains a sad fact is the easy accessibility of guns in the modern day US. There has to be a better effort on the part of the authorities to make the accessibility of arms limited and also monitored.

May the soul of each student who lost his life in this tragic incident rest in peace and God gives their near ones the strength to get over this horrific and tragic incident.

West Indies Cricket - RIP

An event like world cup cricket having mediocre turn-out in key matches is just the indication of how the cricket is on decline in West Indies. This world cup has disappointed lot many people with formats, the results , the sad death of Woolmer and performances from teams and the crowd turnover.

The authorities in West Indies, who could have made a lot of money and promoted the cricket fever and the country missed some few tricks.

For now the West Indies cricket can just Rest in Peace...