The farce of Global Warming

The only thing which surprises me about this global warming debate is how come this hoax is running for so long.

Are we polluting and over using our Environment?
Yes, we are. No doubt about that. Anyone who has stayed anywhere for a period of around 20 years or so will say that there is something wrong with the way things are changing. More cars, more factories, less trees. Surely, there are a lot of people who will also claim that the climate is getting increasingly uneasy. From the polluted Ganges, for which the government has extended the time required to 2020 when it will be able to clean it, to the famous ozone layer depletion, to the depleting forests across the world, to the rising pollution levels in cities across the world we see proofs all around us that rapid industrialization does cause harm to environment with known effects ranging from reduction in average health, to destruction of species, to contamination of water and air and so on.
It needs very basic science and tests to prove that over populated cities put a stress on their surroundings and cause a lot of damage to the delicate ecological balance.

Can this have global impact:
No. At least, even if it did so, there is no known technology as of now to gauge the climate of the whole world and suggest such a thing which allows for miniscule variations over a long period of time. The Ozone hole drama was a  hoax and has been established beyond doubt. The scientist who first noted this, based his thesis on the premise that Arctic and Antarctic areas had different ozone readings. The fact is that these values fluctuate by over 50% within a single year.  Moreover, depletion of ozone layer, as previously attributed to global warming, causes lesser heating of the stratosphere. In other terms , depletion of ozone should be causing cooling. This was conveniently omitted from the articles of global warming Jihadis during the time the hoax had not been caught.  Another 2012 kind of prediction was by IPCC (Inter Govt. Panel on Climate Change). In 2007, in its Fourth Report, it stated that the Himalayan glaciers which feed the Ganges, were at risk of melting by 2035. The source of this information was something written without any scientific basis by some rookie scholar and picked up as a threat by IPCC to the government around the world. R.K. Pachauri got Nobel Peace prize for toeing the line (we shall get to it in a while if this intrigues you).  Till 1974, magazine as reputed as 'Time' was insisting that we are going to enter into an ice age.  Quite interesting that in the science of global warming which is 'complex' and hence simplified by U.N. doesn't mention anything about cleaning water bodies, planting more trees, checking the massive communication towers mushrooming in cities. There is only one thing it stresses: Greenhouse gases. Why?
Ever wondered why scientists are not able to prove this as hoax? Or is this a collusion of scientists with someone, masquerading something else as global warming? There are leaks which point to it. Some honest voices do get raised, but are neither answered, nor published by media. In fact the data regarding how much the Earth has already warmed is nothing but result of rudimentary scientific calculations based little on pursuit of truth than realpolitik. (Realpolitik?, yeah, we shall come to it as well in a while).  There is no scientific evidence, whatsoever, that global warming is taking place comparing the average temperature or Earth today with previous times. The number of cities recording their hottest summers is almost equal to the number of cities recording their coldest winters.  The winters have been conveniently brushed aside as El-Nino effect.  More than 150 countries meet almost every year over beer and discuss this 'grave danger to humanity'. What do they discuss? The answer answers all the unanswered questions above.


What is being discussed in global climate summits:
Kyoto Protocol was the first serious attempt to create world consensus on battling global climate issue. Target was for all signatories to cut their greenhouse gas emissions (read industries) by 5% compared to 1990 levels. When it was to enter in force in 2005, the biggest polluter country in the world jumped out of this ship in 2002. So what is really going on?
Simple. With all the wars and banks and army and power and U.N at it's disposal, the U.S is having an economy growing at 2%. Greece defaulted on sovereign loan followed by Ireland, with the result that talks of the whole E.U currency defaulting are making rounds. U.S + Europe + Australia + Japan = what we usually consider as developed countries.
Then we have the third world countries ,inter-alia, China, India, Brazil who are growing their GDP at around 9-12%. China keeps swallowing every pound of steel getting produced, while India show a formal one year caution while bank after bank in U.S. collapsed. Now those who studied simple and compound interest more seriously than my younger brother will realize that though this value of growth sounds less, if you take the difference 12-3 = 9% which is the difference in the growth of some third world economies and the developed countries, if this is sustained over a period of say 40-60 years, and understand that it is compounded, the whole balance of development will be tilted against developed countries. 

Most of the developed countries gained their wealth devouring the wealth of third world countries in last three centuries, most which since ancient times, were very rich. Now it is obvious that these third world countries are slowly stabilizing and on path to development. Development needs industries. Which will emit Co2. So they will be forced to pay for emitting these gases. Compared to 1990 levels (which most likely is going to be changed to something like 2010), most of the developed countries don't need much accelerated industrialization as they already have established industries. So a nice principle of 'I am done building my home and now you pay me every time you put a brick for yours.'


Guess what developing countries are asking for. Three simple things: Money for the loss of GDP which they will have to bear, technology for clean fuel use, greater share for developed countries in reducing pollution as it is they who have polluted over past three centuries. With U.S. and co. showing a nice middle finger to the developed world on this, the impasse continues. To put pressure we have people like Pachauri given Nobel peace prize just like Liu Xiaobo was given, while Assange is lodged in Jail with host after host getting DOS'd by 'unknown' hackers whenever wikileaks is hosted.


In fact, it will be a disaster, the day the talks succeed, without appropriate safeguards for the developing countries. They will be paying for every industry they create, the global fund to be created for disbursement to them under the control of U.S, ( sorry I mean IMF or something), with international agency (read U.S. agency) to monitor and fine the countries for lapses. It will kill the chance the developing countries have for redemption after three centuries of exploitation, resulting in never ending clutches getting created for them and any chance of change in global dominance for them moving to the mercy or Uncle S. Overall, it is an attempt to keep the world round.


Don't be surprised if four out of next six Nobel peace prize go to some Global warming crausader, with the fifth one reserved for the son U.S. president right after he passes graduation and the sixth one going to some dissenter in China, N.K, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq or Russia. Take a mug of hot coffee and enjoy the Sun.


And yeah, plant a tree for every ten years you live.

Barkhagate: The fourth pillar crumbles

The character I liked the most in Fountainhead was Elsworth Toohey. There is a long speech he gives once, that shows how the dangerous people in society work. The method is so sly and so cunning that you will end up thinking they are your only chance of survival. But they are hand in glove with the wolves whose single aim is to devour you piece by piece.
Welcome Barkha Dutt. Ever wondered, why the wiki doesn't mention her marital status. It doesn't mention she is married, it doesn't mention she is not married. In latest lingo this is called information blackout. Over past few years there has been a rising trend of bloggers, tweeters, facebookers and the like, who read the internet from their dingy rooms, write things which are so well researched that mainstream media is forced to call them internet Hindus. These people are not under a single banner, un-organized, without a leadership, totally unrelated to politics, and almost none of them votes. These people felt that there was something wrong. Numerous theories floated on the net, names were called, they were baying for blood. There was just one thing that was common to them: Indian media, headed by self appointed captains like Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghosh sucks. And it sucks big time.

But these power honchos are not like the thieves who enter your house at night and carry equal chances of being caught. They are more like the Toohey's of the modern times. When Supreme court repriminded the central government that it is shameful that people in this country are dying of hunger and thousands of tonnes of grain is rotting in FCI godowns, the gullible middle class felt (was made to feel) that these were the only people who could save the country as they regularly fight for the poor, the downtrodden. But these bloggers and tweeterers felt that uneasy question in their mind: "When Mumbai attacks happen, the clamour is 'this is not the time for politics' ", when Kandahar happens, the clamour is "the government bent to the terrorists".  Anything against them was construed (by them) as against 'freedom of press'.  On the eve of Ayodhya verdict, perhaps the most repeated term by Rajdeep Sardesai was "what if one community resorts to violence", "what if there is blood spilling", but no one could utter anything more than little indignation to them. I felt like they wanted riots, which could help them scale their TRPs.  They almost brought to life what Arun Shourie wrote probably in 90s, "repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth". Truth it became for a lot of people, but there were some netizens exposing frequently. Some of them were silenced in the most shameless, arrogant way. Some of them simply couldn't be. While any talk of regulating the media gets them bay for the blood of the person suggesting this, people like Barkha Dutt air programs on the need to 'regulate bloggers'. The fools don't even understand that this is simply not possible. The net is open, it is wild, it cuts across religious and caste lines and only a gradual, certain and mostly truthful thing gets viral. But if the common man is so gullible that he elects again and again the same people who find people like this for president , it is a little too tough for them to believe that the same journalists who (fake) fighting for them could be on the wrong side.

It needed a climax, and climax it got. These self appointed shenanigans are in fact the pimps of the ruling power (the con party). They masquerade as the fourth pillar but are in fact hand in glove with the ruling elite. They got exposed then the Nira Radia tapes were released. The thing which moved them into hall of shame is the way the news was blacked out.  For first 3-4 days no one covered it. It just didn't exist for the Indian mainstream media. The 'pepli live' folks who in the age of 24x7 news are available to catch every sneeze of the family scion, just didnt report the news item, which even after being blacked out was
 "#barkhagate has been trending as number one topic on Twitter in India for more than 6 days, since the breakout of the news". "
Here is the list of the shameless media houses who are hand in glove with the powers that be who tried to blackout the news:
Hindustan Times ( which has one crook Vir Sanghvi on the payrolls)
NDTV ( of Barkha Dutt Fame)
Times of India: (The world's number 1 Eng daily)
Indian Express ( which has fired Arun Shourie probably 3 or 4 times)
And almost the whole of media.

Chor chor mausere bhai.

Among others, three groups stood out as examples of honesty and courage. Even if it be for TRPs(I don't know) but it needs guts to release things like this. Guts mean courage ( or balls!!) which people of the ilk of Rajdeep Sardesai cannot fathom.
Open Magazine
Outlook India
DNA India (It had sounded an early warning, after netizens, but before the chor (thief) Indian media.

The denials issued by Barkha, Rajdeep, Vir Sanghvi, Nira Radia will put even people like Lalu yadav, Mayavati and Mulayam Singh to shame: simplified almost all of them read " ye opposition ki chaal hai, main hamesha junta ki sewa karta hun aur ise kharij karta hun" (this is a ploy of the opposition, I am a servant of people and reject these allegations). The tapes expose even to the hitherto gullible indian that these media folks played a big role in alloting Telecommunication ministry to A.Raja who looted 1.76 Lakh Crore (176000000000000 rupees.. well I am tired, you ) of the taxpayers money within two years of taking office. That if distributed to the people below poverty line would have solved at least hunger deaths and farmer suicides forever in this country, will hardly melt these scoundrels who otherwise, portray themselves Buddha incarnate.
Legislature was created so that Executive could be in control, Judiciary was created to keep above two in control. Media appointed itself the task of making sure that above three work properly. It didn't know that faceboook, twitter and internet have put so much power in the hands of common people that they can force a news down the throat of even the most shameless and corrupt media houses and force them to publish things which they, otherwise, never would. As of today, Sagarika Ghosh, wife of Rajdeep Sardesai, one of the accused, aired a talk show trying her best to defend the tainted journalists, but making sure to follow the golden rule of the mafia, which Singhvi put so succintly in one of the tapped conversations "can't seem too slanted".  Many more newspapers have started printing, showing the news. Twitter users are almost baying for the blood of Barkha Dutt, who is only replying to her bootlickers ( must have learnt the tip from her Majesty while collecting Padmashree).

Kudos to the rising fifth pillar of India democracy, the people, the netizens. The most damning thing that I read about the whole spectrum and media scam was one which said that the so much money was looted, the worst thing is not that the government is not even ready for a JPC probe, the worst thing is not that the PM's office was a mute spectator, the worst thing is not that thousands of tonnes of food rot in our godowns while farmers commit suicide, the worst thing is not that A. Raja is still sitting in some A.C. room, the worst thing is that almost everyone is certain that he will never be brought to justice and that the loot will never be recovered.

Though I fully agree with above, an infinitesimally small, very very small doubt (hope!!) that this might just not exactly be the case, is the greatest relief.

The Maoist insurgency in India - II

A search on Dantewada throws up only the headlines "Maoist attack so and so...". But there were a lot of unknown webpages devoted to this hitherto unknown district before the infamous attack on CRPF by Maoist which killed 72 of them. It was related to the same problems mentioned in previous post. It was just a matter of time that it was to explode. And it did. See this desperate plea to the world about the dangerous situation it was turning into. Being poor creates a kind of helplessness in this country which only those who stand in those shoes can understand. But this was much more. It was not just an incident of Police atrocity. It was the whole of state machinery engaged in uprooting the residents of an area which they occupied for thousands of years. See how the SP of the area is evading responsibility. Most important thing to notice here is the date. All these are pre-May 10 dates, when the gory killings of CRPF by Maoists had not taken place. If we just go through these and various other links, the massacre is not an incident, but natural chain in a serious events denoting breakdown the of the constitutional machinery. The proponents of development consider the action against tribals necessary but forget that it is our constitution ensures protection for tribal lands by the government. Our founding fathers probably saw the probability of injustice against tribals 60 years ago and decided to keep such a thing in the constitution.

So how exactly it happened? What led the state to commit the atrocity it did and how did it end up being a loser. While the current situation is complicated, it was not so when the MOUs were signed. To understand it also requires a little understanding of law. Not the basic ones like the police should be just and protect the citizens.... those ones we forgot since time immemorial. But the ones which shape the policy of the governments and are designed intrinsically to ensure the over fabric of the nation is sustained and lack of which may result in situations like the one we are witnessing now.
First the the acquiring of land. The law states that the government can acquire any land for "public use". This is often used in places where the government wants to construct railways, roads, etc. MOU is a memorandum of understanding between the government and a private party that underlines an overview of any sort of activity of considerably large scale going to take place in a state. Fifth schedule of the constitution deals with SCs and STs and recognizes the tribals as the owners of the forests which they are inhabiting and calls upon the government to be extra cautious while dealing with them.

P Chidambaram is an economist who is well suited for the role of Finance Ministry.. How come he is the Home Minister?

Now here is a bit of truth. Almost all the MOUs between the government and the private companies are secrets. Public is not allowed to view them. These are basically just a new technique invented by the big private companies to acquire land. No matter how rich they may be, it is tough to convince people to give up their land. So they get an MOU with the government and, inter alia, invariable most of them try to ensure that the government will acquire land for them. One it ensure 'legal sanctity' to the whole atrocious process and next, it is easier for the state with the security system at its disposal to acquire the land. What happens to the 'public good' part of the law is anybody's guess. And the commitment of the government for the development of the people and their claim that there is no money taken by them from these companies, well the less said about it the better. The amount of money involved can be guess by the limit to which the atrocities have been allowed to grow. Almost 600-900 villages have been completely razed in Chhattisgarh alone. A huge army of policemen has been created out of another set of tribals who are paid and given arms to remove village after village, so that the minerals can be taken away. Remember the Reddy brothers? It is claimed that 1 lacs truckload of minerals from Bellary was shipped out of country within 3-4 years and the administration didn't know of it. When it came to know and the Lokayukt started investigation, he was so frustrated that he resigned as he was simply helpless. The whole state apparatus was against him. Roughly 2 lac crore is estimated worth of the Reddy brothers and people on the ground claim that in 1998-99 elections, they used to campaign for Sushma Swaraj on bikes!!
The forest lands are extremely rich in minerals. If you take a map of India with dots on it denoting the mineral rich regions and transpose it over the map of India having dots representing Moist infestation, you will be able to match dot to dot. So what does this mean? As simple as that.
There are no Maoist. At least they are not the 'biggest internal security threat'. The who strife is about the minerals. And yeah, the tribals consider forests their home and the mountains their Gods. Reminds me of Gandhiji's words "Nature has enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed". But he suits more in unveiling statues of and garlanding on some days. Need of the hour is "country is anyway going down the drain, loot as much as possible and make sure to grab enough of your share".
There is one thing which was not taken into account. That the tribals are very adamant about their homeland. More than one can imagine. They put up a very strong but hopeless fight against the state for this injustice. The result is the implosion of the situation, resulting in human right violation at unimaginable level, the Supreme Court ordering disbanding of Salwa Judum (armed militia enjoying state patronage which calls them mass uprising against Maoist) and NHRC severely indicting the state government. That this is one issue in which the Cong and BJP were united is another indicator of what level of collective conscience can stoop and also of how much money is available for distribution. The largest number of instances of  use of the draconian POTA was in Chhattisgarh and the world came to know of Binayak Sen, the social worker, who was in illegal custody of CG police for two years while international organizations around the world including amnesty internation, American society of doctors , UN requested for his release.

So why does P Chidambaram call it "Biggest Internal threat" facing the country? When Kashmir is burning, Bhopal gas victims got to see 12 months of sentence for people who killed 3000 on a single night and then got bail immediately, when billions have been wasted on CWG, when price rise, aha his area of expertise, is burning hole in the pockets of common man?
Not to difficult to understand when you know that he was in the board of directors of Vedanta, one of the groups involved in Mining operations in India, before he joined the cabinet. Not to difficult to understand that Anil Aggrawall, the majority share holder, was recently the second richest Indian in the world from being an "Anil who??" a few years back. Not too difficult to understand that when he gave this statement, the share price of companies like Vedanta rose the most. It is same Vedanta which was severely indicted by the Environment ministry of India for severe environment law violation in Niyamagiri hills in Orissa, which too witnessed similar situation to acquire the land by the government and hand it over to Vedanta for 'public use'.

It was only natural for the Maoist to use this situation as an advantage. And they are now demi-gods for the tribals who were not only systematically wronged and denied their human rights, but for  a long time their wails and pleas ran on deaf years. The media was too busy covering the marriage of Sania Mirza and the growing of the Prince. The situation right now is no less volatile, with CRPF engaged in flushing out Maoists (read tribals). It is going to turn into the typical degradation of situation, army , AFSPA, bombings, custody deaths, rapes, terror from both sides. It is sad to see our own people being treated like enemy by the government. And the almost dead Maoist movement has got the support and self justification it had lost a quarter century back. I shudder to think what the greed of man can get him to do to his fellow human beings. The greed!!

The Maoist insurgency in India - I

“Mark my words, the day is not far when they(Maoists) will rule a grand majority of India. These 200 districts will become 400 in no time, and inch towards more. No government in India will be able to stop their growth through police, Salva Judums or army” Arindam Chaudhary
While this extreme statement is the hallmark of ‘Management Gurus’ to ensure being noticed and quoted more, this nonetheless is possible. Being another of the middle class indifferent Indian, I hardly cared or noticed any news about the Maoists, but the massacre in dantewada which shook the nation recently, got me interested into what was going on. That my family is staying quite close to the ground zero of April 2010 massacre, can be another idle reason.  Adolf Hitler has written in his autobiography about how the media of Germany at the time was not showing the correct picture of  Deutsland of the time to the common public and how it was in the control of a few. And this is India we are talking about. The extent to which the rules, laws, judiciary, elections, media and perception here can be subverted can be understood only after a long time spent in the country. If during this time, you are only following the internet items like the Governer’s story, or the extent to which our netas care about our ‘people’, the qualification of our PM, the Industrial growth story of the country, you will be amused. In case you have the typical Indian quality of following the news in a little details, you will be frustrated like most of the rediff.com commentators are. In case you had the divine opportunity to work closely with the government system in the country, it would be more hilarious than ‘Yes Minister”, more scandalous than Princess Diana, more juicy than Rakhi Sawant news and more heart wrenching than the persecuting of the Jews by Nazis.

But what if you are living in a forest, having no electricity, symbol of education, totally cut off from the mainstream economic strides of the democratic giants, whose boundaries you don’t know. What if, all you know is the few square kilometers of forest around you which you worship as a God and which is the source of livelihood for you. What if you don’t know that education is your fundamental right and what if the only understanding of government or ‘India’ that you came to know of was the visit by the forest guards who come and collect money from you or some trucks you might have seen passing by, collecting the woods of trees, which is home for you. What if you suddenly see that the number of trucks coming closer and closer to your small, unknown village is increasing by the day and what if you come to know that 600 villages have been burnt down by some people and your turn might come any time. What if some strangers come to your village with arms and introduce themselves as “Salwa Judum” and ask you to leave your forest, your home, your village, and move to camps created by the government somewhere unknown. What if a slight protest may cause some of your village members to be killed or beaten mercilessly?  Would you get violent?  If yes, the rest of the content is useless for you, if not, read on.
What if this whole practice is institutionalized? As in, this is not some stray incident, but a regular phenomenon happenning over a course of days and then months and then years. And the pollution from the city is reaching the forests now, the dust, the ores being mined in near by areas. What if some of your village member recites to you the destruction and apathy the ecology of the near by areas are facing. What if next night, once more a group of people come to your village  with arms. But this time instead of asking you to move to camp or beating a group of people to coerce the whole village into fear of the inevitable, in case they chose not to obey the dictat of the 'government', they tell you that they are here to help you. They tell you that they have arms and that their 'motive' is to empower the poor and the helpless. They give you confidency that you can fight the police force, that now you also have guns at your disposal apart from the regular hunting arms like bows and arrows. What if you are told by these people that you actually have a right to live and that you. That right to life is something even the government cannot take away from you even if it wanted to because it was an international obligation for every government which was signatory to Geneva convention. Then you start wondering , is this really true?  Then how come, your village folks are getting killed and tortured like animals for years and nothing is happening to the offenders, how come even the police are refusing to take up your complaint. By this time, amidst all the  mylee, you have heard one word which is dreaded now even more than the government, police and the forest ranger. This one word has been reverberating across all the groups of people who have even visited the village, or you have come into contact with, to try and find out the reason for this mindless violence - Company. You have heard through various people that there is something called 'company' that wants to take away everything from you, your land , your forest gods, the mountains. The place where your forefathers have lived for many thousands of years is not going to belong to your children now. It is going to belong to 'Company'. What does the company want to do with it. No one was bothered for last 6000 years or so. Well, people from the village who have travelled to the 'cities' inform you that they want to dig the mountains, clear the forests. Would your head now be spinning, thinking are these people mad?? Why would someone want to defile the Mountain and forest 'God' like this. Why would anyone want to kill the very same thing which provides us food, shelter, house and everything that we need. And the answer you get is Ores. There is something in the land which is very costly for them.  So now, the little logic that you have developed in the forests, tells you that only reason all this mayhem is going on is because of this thing called 'Ore' which is present under the land. So all this burning of villages and killings in mid night, the torture of men women and children and in your village, uprooting of 600 villages over last three years, is because they want to take away 'your' land and give it to 'company' which is going to bring down all the trees and dig all the mountains, and take this thing called Ore. Would this be enough to get you violent against the people who are coming to enforce this? Would you be ready to take help of the people with guns who offered you help against the people wearing same uniforms with guns who are going to come to kill you.

(To be Continued...)

What motivates employees to work : Is it money?

Nope, it is not money and that is what this blog is all about. Again no, it is not my personal thought, it is a well researched output of a lot of experiments and confirmed by independent experiments!!

I was surprised to see the RSA video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc. Two things out of it stuck outstandingly which I kept pondering over for a couple of lazy weekends:

1. Why do a lot of people work for this thing called open source. For the novices, open source is a movement/community of independent computer programmers who work for free. The job doesn't involve facebooking, twittering or watching the latest funny video in circulation. It involves intense high end work requiring a lot of effort.

2. Why is added money incentive not an incentive? All the people starting from students to employees to company jumpers have only one motivation. The IIMs, IITs, glitzy software companies sell only one good thing   they have to offer: money.

Reading inter-relationship of the above two, we cannot but accept what the research pointed out. "Money is a factor as long as it is required to meet a daily need, not beyond that" Simple enough!! Search for "Money is not a motivating factor" , you get one meaningful research mentioned here. Lest you have to go to this link and read the whole thing to understand,I summarized it as "almost always the de-motivating factor for different places is different, and money is one of them somewhere down in the list". Something as path breaking as this should have deserved more research and attention than the sad few results I got online.

More so in the context of my discussion with a friend who is trying to start a company on his own. His single biggest problem has been trying to retain the employees. The reason most of them are quitting is because they are getting higher salary from his competitors. He told me that he didn't mind raising the salary, but there is no end to it, you raise it from X to 1.3X and the competitor will raise it too.

Takeaways:
1. There are a group of people like college hires, people under a lot of loan and all for whom salary is Pri0 for taking up the employment.
2. Progressively the importance of money decreases as people gain experience and learn more about the industry and realize that the experience you gain is more valueable.
3. For the most dedicated/honest employees who are working real hard, the independence/acknowledgement of their work is single most important thing for them. This explains why there are thousands and thousands of programmers around the world working for open source.
4. Above understanding leads us to the presence of a lot of untapped talent pool working here and there to be heard/counted in the vast internet creating applications/marketing videos and working open source. No wonder when I chanced upon the people behind Google Chrome, I saw that there was an open source group working on it and google is trying more and more to be see as open source friendly "come, work independently and take your share of credit".

I am happy to learn that I am not the only one thinking this way :)

Why the smokers can’t (read don't) quit

“10 years later, you will still be smoking. Or the least ,you will see someone smoking and feel something missing in your life”. A friend of mine had quipped while I was in my Engineering College. 4 of those 10 years
have passed and I am still smoking. A recent blog by another friend who was a Bengali, led me into thinking, why is it that we smokers are never able to quit. For the novices, Bongs are the biggest smokers. I remember that in our college, the BSA (Bengal Students Association) at least of our batch had just one person who was a non-smoker. They are the most addicted ones. A non-smoker in a Bengali college would be almost an outcast.

As a general practice, I googled the title of this blog(I do that for every blog that I write). Google quickly realized that I have now moved from Hyderabad to Seattle so amid the Seattle specific advertisement

suggestions, it led me to this link. The page has a doctor on the left side and some medical terms splattered on the right mentioning how nicotine enters our body and how we try to maintain it and how we experience “mental and physical withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms can include irritability, anger, depression, tiredness, inability to sleep or to concentrate, restlessness, headaches, and increased appetite.”.

All I could think of was “My *ss”.

Here are the main reasons it is tough to quit, readers (the 1-2 of you who do visit this blog) are
welcome to submit your suggestions.

1.      We don’t know:
Yeah! Really. It is tough to comprehend this. But we really don’t know why it is tough to quit smoking. Not every cigarette we smoke is to get the kwan to avoid depression. Most of the times we are smoking is just for the sake of it. Nothing to do, so smoke. Or lets take a break from the work I was doing and smoke. But why smoke? Why not ….. what?? There is no replacement for smoking. I guess it is the subconscious movement of hands which goes to that packet, pulls out that ‘grate, lights it and puff. So I don’t really know why I am smoking. Who cares!!

2. Relax: It does relax the mind. For a moment forget, what else it is doing to the cell vacuoles in your lungs and heard and kidney and brain and joints and what not, the fact is that it relaxes the mind. In today’s world of constant work pressure, peer pressure, pee pressure J and all other kinds of pressure we live in, smoking has its own way of relaxing the mind. Medical journals ascribe this to addition of nicotine in the blood which gives a (false) feeling that the mind is relaxing. In reality it is
not. Well, who cares!!!

3.      Kills Appetite: The primary reason the smokers have a craving for smoking is appetite. Smoking kills appetite. You are feeling very hungry and not able to find some food, smoking suppresses the appetite for some time. This describes one of the primary reason for some people smoking alone and once in a while. While it is very very harmful for health in the long (and short) term , who cares!!

4.     Craving:There is  a natural craving for smoking within 24-72 hours after one stops smoking. This is best understood by smokers who board the flight from any India airport to some long distance international destination. The irony is that the European security checks allow a lighter to be carried, the Indian ones don’t . So the poor Indian fellow is at the mercy of his other country counterparts to lend him one for a few seconds while waiting in another airport. Medical journals again ascribe to nicotine, this craving for cigarette. Who cares!!

5.      Company:This is another primary reason for continues/increased smoking if not starting or craving for it. Just for the sake of ‘giving company’. Many times it happens that the smoker friend comes and wants you to join him for few minutes smoking. Now you can’t stand there and watch him smoke. You just join in. If not with a full cigarette, at least a few puffs from the one he has lighted. This adds a
count to the overall average of mine. But , who cares!!

Why we don’t care about our health: There have been many commercials, sky rocketing taxes, banners, posters, requests, curbs, suggestions, warnings, altercations in the life of every smoker. Alas! He still continues to smoke. Smoking is supposedly main reason for cancer, TB, malaria, measles, high and low blood pressure, sugar, anameia and a myriad other diseases that you can think of. Unfortunately , my B.Tech. degree wasted playing age of Empires only allows me to name only these few gathered from the repeated reading/writing for email-forwards. But it doesn’t deter the smoker.
Why? I don’t know. We just don’t care. It is not as if we are scared of all these diseases and not able to
control our urge for smoking. We just don’t care. We know there are health hazards, but when we are smoking, it is not with trembling hands, rather, we are enjoying. Who would give a damn about the x% increase in possibility of cancer, when you could be killed crossing a road in Bangalore and not a dog would bark. It just doesn’t make sense creating advertisements telling how it is putting our life at risk. Our life is at risk almost everytime in India.  Of course, if it really happens to someone you
know, it will scare the shit out of you.

A few months back I came to know the story of a friend of a friend of a friend. He went to AIIMS for some check-up. The doc asked him “Are you a smoker”. He answered in affirmative. He was told to go to a particular section where only the smokers were treated. There he was again asked “Do you smoke Will(the favorite of Engineering College students due to its high freakonomic value)”. He again answered in affirmative. He was told that within the smoking section there were two different sections for people who smoke other cigarettes and those who smoke Wills. Man!! This scared hell out of me. Ever since, I dread he wills cigarette. I switched to Wills Classic while I was in India and in U.S. I have been smoking a brand which I cannot reveal until I settle the case with a friend who claims that this brand is only for girls. Smoking, though, continues.

I am quitting: After constant suggestions by a lot of people, seeing that life is given a lot of value in U.S. and realizing that here , you have more chances of getting killed due to smoking than due to being hit by a half drunk lorry driver driving an over loaded truck, and constant nagging by my better half, I have decided to quit over next one month. In case I am successful, I will write another post, cheering myself. In case I fail, this will be a reminder of my failure, at least the title.

Robbie Bach quits Microsoft

Robbie was the president of the Entertainment and Devices division. He was overseeing the development of Xbox and other devices Microsoft is developing to enter into the consumer market.

The goodbye mail from Robbie makes for a wonderful reading. Microsoft did a great work by posting it online: http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2010/05/26/if-you-want-to-change-the-world-with-technology.aspx