Incongruity over Kasab

Sometimes, there are certain instances in your life when your heart and your mind speak different dialects and you find yourself confounded and hence indecisive. Kasab’s case is one such case where my mind says that he should get a lawyer and my heart says that he shouldn’t. Let’s try to be fair to both of them one by one.

India is a country which is known for its infallible democracy. It has always been fair to every one as long as he is a “human” being. Consider the case of Satwant Singh, who was a Sikh militant involved in Indira Gandhi’s assassination. He was given a fair trial even though there was no dearth of evidences against him. He was later sentenced to death in Tihar Jail, Delhi in1989. Same was the case with the assassins of Rajiv Gandhi who were given an unprejudiced trial and convicted in 1998 by our Indian courts. These cases prove that we should have faith in the Indian Judicial System and let the lawyers handle the case of Kasab. He will be definitely prosecuted. There is no use of dragging the “issue” for so long. The acts of factions like Shiv Sena, who attacked Anjali Waghmare, few days back for agreeing to take up the case of Kasab, will only delay the legal proceedings. This is what my mind says.

However, on the other side, my heart says that Kasab doesn’t deserve a lawyer in the first place. As Mr. Rahul Narvekar, Shiv Sena’s legal advisor, pointed out yesterday on CNN-IBN that “A fair trial is deserved by a person who actually deserves it..”
Atleast Kasab doesn’t deserve it. He has allegedly taken the lives of various innocent people. Not only this, consider the moral, psychological and economic loss which he and his accomplices have done to India (esp. to the tourism sector). His accomplices have got the punishment. So should he but not at the pace of Indian Judicial system. After divulging out all the “needed” information from him, he should be hanged as early as possible in the prison if not in front of the people otherwise he may also get away with the capital punishment in line with various other culprits in the past. Remember what happened in 1998 when a TADA court in Chennai gave death sentences to all the 26 culprits found guilty of involvement in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. However, because of the protests by the various political parties and fingering by the human rights groups, only 4 out of 26 paid the “ultimate” price. Rest all were let to live. What a democracy!

And what a snafu! Again befuddled, I am. I don’t know what’s right and what’s not, but if finally asked to choose from one, I would perhaps prefer to go with the latter. Perhaps..

The soul refuses to grow: Childhood-philia!! or just a Fantasy??

(Disclaimer: This post is not for light-hearted people. All the characters in this story are real and belongs to my childhood.. Any relation with the reader is purely co-incidental)

Today, my soul cries.. It refuses to maturate.. It hankers for a time machine that will take it close to the words like Innocent, Innocuous, Pure, Virtuous, Naïve, Sober. These are the words I have not visited anywhere for a long time now. These words epitomize my childhood. Yes, I want to go back to my childhood. The precociousness has mired me into this materialistic world. But I want to get out of it. I am tired of my maturity. I am losing my patience. I am frayed by the responsibilities. It is not that I am a chicken-hearted, pusillanimous being but it is just that a few hours back, I saw the frail images of the sheer bliss which has been missing in my life for some time now.

Perhaps, nostalgia has wounded me once again. Yes, last night, the beautiful memories of my childhood once again instigated my heart. They made me realize that how stale this hard-mass has become.

I want to go back to “my era”. The era in which, I used to get more attention; attention of my parents; of my relatives; of my neighbors (and of their daughters!!). Also, in school, I was the favorite of almost all gorgeous teachers whose faces, I still remember and my first crush, a 17 year old English teacher from Mumbai, is the tenderest example of it. She really loved me when I was in class ---^th and she once said these beautiful (now seducing) lines:

 “Rahul, you are my favorite student, I will not leave you!!” (Though, she perhaps meant to say that she would not leave me if I would not do my homework!)

I am not flaunting here but believe me I was almost as popular as a teddy bear among the fairer sex in school! They liked to play with me but tended to forget me as we collectively grew old!

I really don’t want to grow old.

I just wish for a time machine that would drop me back to the intriguing era of the fantasies…where I would deal with the talismanic tales of Vikram Betaal and Alif Laila (I never got to see Laila though!) and the beautiful fable of Chandrakanta (Ahh, I loved her so much!!). And how can I forget, the “chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai walaa” boy, Mowgli in Jungle Book; baah! his wonderful Tarzan acts and his friendship with Bageera. This was a semi-decade when Sunday used to wake me up with the ever-refreshing songs of Rangoli and put me down with then countdown of Superhit Muqabala! And the best part was that Ekta Kapoor was still in her nascent stage and there were no saas-bahu soaps to cook our bheja fries!! Most of the serials were comedies which eventually addicted most of the people, including me. Dekh Bhai Dekh,  Shrimaan Shrimati, Zabaan Sambhal Ke, Flop Show, All the Best and lately, Small Wonder were a few of them. Apart from these, a few thrillers like Byomkesh Bakshi and Aahat were also successful in making me glued to their chronicles. What a fun that used to be.

This fun was not restricted to the TV serials only. In fact, the volcanic eruptions of Saabu in the comic Cha Cha Chowdhury, the birbal like acts of Baankelal and the beautiful stories of Champak were also some of the fables which I really enjoyed to navigate through. More or less, each of the stories used to exemplify what I had read in the panchtantra stories of the victory of good over evil at my school. My mind was drilled there with these “values” with the courtesy of various books and TV serials like Ramayana. Indeed, the sense of “achievement” and “gratification” that used to come in at that time whenever Arun Govil killed one of the evils was inexplicable. It was much more pronounced than whatever of IT would come when I would solve a (dictated) error while coding!! But now that satisfaction and the energy is perhaps dispersed in the prism of “material”.

The amount of energy in that era was at its peak. It is perhaps comparable to the energy which releases when a space shuttle takes off from the Earth. I used to see myself in place of big-time discoverers! Even Newton would have blushed after discerning the number of experiments I performed at home. I unassembled my black and white TV while I was in class 5^th (though never bothered to reassemble it!). I made one IVRS at home for conversing between different rooms of my small house. I even recorded numerous audio cassettes as a radio jockey (Now you get a fair idea why the name of this blog is NjoyTV!!). My family still plays those “memories” sometimes whenever they feel so. And indigenously, I made one mini-dish antenna also at home to “catch” the cable from the nearest cable-line!!

All this and still used to get away with my parents' admonitions just because of my “good” results at studies! Securing an excellent rank of 4 (out of 30-35) in the class used to sound like an “abuse” to me and my parents! The sense of competition in me to succeed was more than what Dhoni boys have in them now. I can easily recall one incident when I secured 77 marks in Sanskrit and then also I was scolded by my parents as the “other” child had scored 90 in that. (Though, they were again happy when in the final exam, I again secured 77 but this time the “other” child scored less than me, what a consistency!!)

And if you have done well in your exams then who stops you from playing your sport? Most of the times I used to play cricket only until I was dragged into the really virtual world of the video games. I remember that I started off my journey with the dragon stages of Mario!! A feeling of strolling on a different planet would come while moving the jockey of the video game. Apart from this, cycling used to be my favourite past-time where I gave tough competition to almost all my friends. That too especially in the rainy seasons of  yeh Dilli hai mere yaar, among the whistles of cool breeze called monsoon winds, under the darkness of cumulonimbus clouds, in the deafening sound of thunder storms:

ZZBhuuuuuuuuuddooooooooooooooommmm ZZBhuuuuuuuuuddooooooooooooooommmm Zuuuuuuddoooooooommmm Zuuuuuuddoooooooommmm

…

…

Rahuuuuuuuuuuul….o… Rahuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuul….Please get up. Office nahi jaana kya..

 And suddenly this sinfully blatant sound pierced through my subconscious sense and broke apart my sleep-sealed eyes. I looked at the clock that showed thirty past seven. Oh… no… the f**** Monday has come yet again..Got to get up from bed now… That means the culprit was my soul, my subconscious sense that was (desirably) playing the beautiful images of my past somewhere on a little screen in the intricate alleys of my brain!! but what about the cycling which I was going to do in the wet air….Alas! the bicycle has been replaced by a car and the monsoon winds are now replaced by the ersatz air of my car’s A.C…Abe yaar..

Anyways..time to be practical now..Hope I have not made you too nostalgic with the narration of my “fantasy”. But believe me, I thought to put it in the way I saw it. Now, leaving you with the memories ..this is me, signing off.

 (After almost all the fact-based topics, this is my first attempt at writing on an abstract topic.. Please ignore the structural and grammatical mistakes, if any. Suggestions for improvement are always welcome)

Earth Hour-A promising initiative but not good enough

Today, I received a mail from the “environment division” of my company to support and vote for the Earth Hour. Earth Hour is an initiative by the WWF which began in Sydney in 2007 when more than 2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008, the tally of green people increased to almost 50 million. The target this year is to include more than 1 billion people into this campaign, which is slated for Saturday, Mar-28-2009, 8:30pm local time, so as to reduce the energy loads by more than 5% which will supposedly reduce the carbon emission and hence global warming.

I read some tips on their site (http://www.earthhour.org/) on how to spend the Earth hour and reduce our carbon footprint. Switching off all the lights, going for a night picnic, enjoying candle light dinner with your sweetheart (can’t help if you don’t have any!), etc were also among them.

I cogitated on it for sometime and I found out that though being a good initiative, it may achieve far less than what is expected out of it. One, suppose thousands of people in Delhi spend that hour in green restaurants for a candle-light dinner, imagine the amount of carbon-dioxide and black-carbon smoke particles that will pollute the air. Has anyone calculated the emissions from those thousands of candles that will lit across the country? Perhaps, no one.

Second, consider the various companies, factories, etc shutting down for one hour. It may take more than one hour worth of extra energy to restart their production lines and other facilities again.

Third (and the most apprehensive one), I am really concerned what may happen at the end of that hour when thousands of people will again switch on their lights, computers, A.C.s and other appliances simultaneously. Well, only the DISCOMs may know about this!

However, contrary to my own views on it, I shall still support this initiative for its awareness aspect. It has the potential of spreading the tremendous pubic awareness like never before. People are now talking about it. They have actually started thinking seriously about their un-intentional contribution to the global warming and the related effects on our helpless mother. I am also one of them.

I second the WWF’s opinion that no one else, only we can relieve the “doleful soul of our mother and allay its pain”. But this can not be done in just one hour. Lets all pledge to always switch off all the equipments whenever they are not in use. Lets all use the environment friendly products like CFLs in place of usual bulbs, Laptops in place of desktops, LCDs in place of CRT monitors. Here, I would like to point out one thing that no one bothers to shut down one’s desktop, esp. in an IT industry while leaving the office in the evening which leads to unimaginably huge energy losses. I was also one of them but only till yesterday. That’s for sure.

At the same time, I also believe that government has a much bigger role to play than people like creating public awareness, giving large amount of subsidies on environment friendly products so that people are encouraged to buy them. But that is far from being seen. Elections are just round the corner and no single party has included the "Green Earth" agenda in their manifestos. That is also perhaps one of the reasons why India fared poorly on latest the Human Development Index list. The only encouraging act is that Delhi and Mumbai are also taking part in the 371 cities initiative which is lead by Amir Khan in India. Satellite Earth Hours will also be observed in Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Amritsar.

Anyways, let’s see how much success this initiative achieves…only time will tell this... and we have very little time left.

An Emotional Journey to the planet Pluto

“Space and Universe” is a field that has always magnetized me (I would not say right from the birth, but surely after some months from the birth or may be some days!)। I don’t know why stars have always appeared to be more effulgent to me than to anyone else. Is it because of the fact that Rakesh Sharma, went to Space in 1984, the year of my birth? The reason may be anything but the fact is that the word Solar system (henceforth referred to as SS) has always seemed more romantic to me than a SRK-Kajol flick! Until 2006, the first thing that used to come to my mind for the word SS was the Sun and the nine planets. And of all the planets and their moon, Pluto has always been my favorite one.

fig.1: An artist's impression of Pluto from its largest moon, Charon

One reason of this may be that Pluto is always depicted by the color blue due to its extraordinary cool temperatures (of the order of -240 degrees) and blue is my favorite color. I have dreamt of roaming on it because it was probably the farthest discovered planet in the SS till that time. Though it may sound strange but just the very remote probability of surviving on it due to its hostile conditions has always attracted me towards it. I even dreamt of buying a few kms land on the 2500 Km long planet!

I developed interest in the planet as early as in my school. Here I can easily recall one line which was taught to me in school to remember the complete list of nine planets (including Pluto) in the order in which they orbit around the Sun:; "My very educated mother just showed us nine planets". In fact that’s how most of us might have learned them. But I had never thought, even in my wildest dreams, at that time that Pluto will, one day, cease to be a planet and the same line will be reduced to, say, "My very educated mother just showed us nothing". I used "nothing" because I feel that the list of planets is incomplete without Pluto which has been robbed off its planetary status by the controversial decision of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Aug, 2006. But why did they do so? Why is Pluto not a planet anymore? What sin has it done? Why is it demoted? Yes, this is one of the most heart-breaking questions, I have ever faced. Here lies the real story behind the scenes:-

Pluto was discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh in 1930 when he was just 22. Since then, astronomers have been continuously turning up with larger and larger objects in the Kuiper belt (the belt in which Pluto lies, see fig.2 below).

fig.2: Depiction of Kuiper belt objects behind the orbit of Neptune

One such object was Eris which was discovered in 2005 by Mike Brown. Its mass was approximately 25% more than that of the Pluto. Similarly there were 3 more such objects that were discovered with the help of mighty Hubble Space Telescope. In the end in Aug, 2006, the members from IAU voted for the new definition of planets. According to them, for an object to be a planet, it needs to meet these three requirements:

• It needs to be in orbit around the Sun - Pluto qualifies this one!
• It needs to have enough gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape – still unsure for Pluto but may be yes, it qualifies!
• It needs to have "cleared the neighborhood*" of its orbit – (Lo kallo baat!) Here's the rule breaker. According to this, Pluto is not a planet.
  

The meaning of the phrase “cleared its neighborhood” is that as planets form, they become the dominant gravitational body in their orbit in the SS. As they interact with other, smaller objects, they either consume them, or blow them away with their gravity. Pluto is only 0.07 times the mass of the other objects in its orbit. The Earth, in comparison, has 1.7 million times the mass of the other objects in its orbit.

And hence Pluto is now considered as a dwarf planet. If you ask for my comment on this, I shall say that it is really hard to find anyone who thinks this is necessary and useful on the part of IAU. Instead, people across the globe wounded black bands around their telescopes to commemorate the heinous decision of IAU. And they still have those bands in place! In fact, Mar-13-2009 was "Pluto Day" in Illinois. Some people believe that this is an “insult” to the discovery of Clyde Tombaugh. Though the union tried to calm down the hysteria by declaring another class of objects called Plutoids in June, 2008 which would contain Pluto, Eris and Sedna but the people still have sore throat for taking it in.

Some IAU scientists say that it’s just a matter of time that Pluto was discovered before other planets. My question to these people is that if tomorrow they discover a galaxy which is many times bigger than our Milky Way galaxy, then will they also demote Milky Way galaxy’s status to a dwarf galaxy? Discoveries and inventions never stop. Nor do they tamper with existing legacy of the objects. They just better them.

However, there are people who have accepted IAU’s decision but with a pinch of salt. They say that even though Pluto is now just a dwarf planet, it is still a fascinating target to study. And that’s why NASA has sent its NEW HORIZONS space-craft, ironically in 2006 itself, to study the surface and demography of Pluto and it will reach there in 2015. Let it be.

In the end, I would also agree that it really doesn’t matter that what is the status of Pluto by IAU. It will always remain as fascinating to me as it was ever before.

The height of Lawlessness in U.P.

I took this photo while going to office in the morning at U.P. border (near Ghazipur red light) on NH-24. The election campaigning has taken its toll over the common sense of our politicians in U.P. (Unpropitious for People!!)

Instead of worrying about the deteriorating condition of law and order in the state and rectifying it, they are making it worse.

I don't think I need to add anything more. The photo says it all.

-Copyright, NjoyTV Correspondent.

The acts of Ravan Sena-Valentine Day Special

Today I was not flabbergasted like others to read the news on a website that "Ram Sene abandons V-Day protest in Karnataka". I knew this is going to happen. And I must say that this is not because they are jolted by their conscience but because they fear that the group may face a ban following the growing demur all over the country and more importantly among the various government parties against their acts of violence and repugnance. I would say "repugnance" because anyone who is opposed to celebrating the "DAY OF LOVE" should be seen as a "HINSA KA PUJARI"..And why not. Their acts corroborate this fact.

It always spoils my mood whenever I recall that incident when this group (of around 40 cowards) of the Sri Ram Sene(or should I say Ravan Sena) barged into the pub Amnesia - The Lounge, in Mangalore and bashed up a group of young women and men, claiming the women were violating "traditional Indian values"(TIVs).

I would urge these poltroons to do some research first on Indian culture and its tradtions. India is the country where Kamasutra,originally, was written. Indian epics show that our gods have been in to polygamy and smoking grass. Aren't these "samaaj sudharaks" talking about those TIVs?(or are they?) This conservative attitude of keeping restrictions on women's rights was brought in by the muslim rulers who invaded India. This culture was nowhere promulgated in India before. And these hooligans like Ram Sene are trying to enforce these traditional islamic values on our society in the name of Hinduism.

And even if I suppose that they are really acting in "Indian" interests then also does that mean that under the name of these "TIVs", they have the right to spread violence against the women?? Are they acting as substitutes for the father of constitution? It can't be a bigger irony than this that in this "Mahila Pradhan" country, whose top office is held by a woman, they want to restrict women's right to freedom? I want to ask them that will they be unmoved if their sisters are beaten like this?

I know that these types of factions are not unique to India. Recently, I read in an American newspaper that these types of groups exist in US also. However, government there is very dynamic in acting against these elements. Instead, look at what government is doing here. Not Soon after the incident, Ram Sene chief, Pramod Muthalik was arrested and just after 3 days, was released on conditional bail. And audaciously, after a week or so, the group again warned young couples and hotels/bars against celebrating V-Day. The Karnataka Chief minister, BS Yeddyurappa termed the event as a "minor event" and forget about National commision of Women(NCW) who blamed the pub for lack of security and the girls for wearing "nude clothes"!!(I wonder what the term implies!)

I hope that government of India will learn to blink early and will counterforce the talibanisation of India by such factions of (im)moral police in future.

By the way, Happy Valentine's Day (more precisely, get well soon) to SRS, NCW, Bajrangdal, Shivsena and all other (im)moral police of India.

The Cupidity that triggered the Subprime Crisis

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed".

The maxim has come true stridently as far as the SUBPRIME CRISIS is concerned. This post is an attempt to look at the basic reasons of the onset of the exigency and how it can be forefended in future.

2002: The Root Cause
In previous decades, most mortgages were backed by the Federal Housing Administration and government-authorized companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which bought mortgages and bundled them into high-grade securities that were then sold to investors in the form of bonds(thru invesment banks like Lehman Brothers). Investors shared rights to homeowners' principal and interest payments.
But from 2002 through 2006 the market changed and a growing portion of mortgages were issued by firms not backed by Fannie, Freddie and the FHA -- and not bound by the same legal requirements to deal only in investment-grade loans and securities.
Wall Street had taken over the role of packaging the mortgages into marketable securities!!

2002-2006: The Honeymoon Period for all

Lenders offered subprime loans to people who could not qualify for ordinary prime loans because of poor credit or inadequate income. To help them qualify, lenders offered low teaser rates -- sometimes only 3 or 4% -- to produce a low monthly payment.However, If prevailing rates went up, the rate charged on the loan might jump over the years from 4% to 8%, perhaps even higher. Monthly payments could more than double.

Also, Underwriting standards hit bottom in 2006. Many lenders required no down payment at all, no longer demanded proof of an applicant's income and offered very low teaser rates.The flood of easy money gave borrowers more to spend.
In 2004 through 2006, home prices rose by more than 20% in much of the country, and by more than 25% in California, Florida and some other hot markets. This was due to the low interest rates charged by the lenders.
It seemed like an elegant, market-based solution that served everyone. People got mortgages. Mortgage originators and Wall Street firms earned high fees. Investors got top-rated securities. Builders sold more homes and home prices soared.

The avariciousness disseminates
Although the growing risks were clear to people who understood the mortgage and housing markets, lenders kept lending because they could earn big up-front fees. They were not terribly concerned if homeowners defaulted later because the loans were converted into securities that passed the risks on to investors.
All of this was abetted by investors' growing appetite for mortgage-backed securities, which offered higher yields than safe investments like U.S. Treasuries. The Federal Reserve had been helping the economy recover from the dot-com collapse by driving rates down, with the fed funds rate falling to a mere 1% in June 2003.
"In the extremely low interest rate environment of 2002, 2003 and 2004, people got very hungry for yields," says Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel. "They were saying, 'Oh, I don't want to accept 1% or 2%, I want to get it a little bit higher".

The bubble bursts-2007
Then, in 2007, it came apart. Growing numbers of homeowners facing their first rate resets found their monthly payments jumping by 25% or 50%, sometimes more. Since incomes were only inching up, many found they could not afford the higher payments. Lenders started to tighten up on underwriting standards, making less mortgage money available.
While many subprime borrowers had expected to refinance to less-expensive fixed-rate mortgages after their payments went up, they now could not because their homes were not valuable enough to serve as collateral on new loans.
Foreclosures rose from less than 200,000 in the third quarter of 2006 to more than 600,000 in the first quarter of 2008. Rising default and foreclosure rates drove down the prices of mortgage-backed securities, since investors worried they would not get the principal and interest payments they had been promised।

No faith on each other
Big financial firms became wary of doing business with one another for fear that the other parties, if hit with unexpected losses, would not make good on deals. No one had a map of the minefield, and the markets were locked in a credit crunch -- a universal unwillingness to lend.
The foreclosures were dumping homes onto the market in huge numbers at fire-sale prices, driving down values for neighbors who are merely innocent bystanders and threatening to throw the economy into a deep recession.

The Way out

Underwriting standards should be made stringent.

Many of the newer types of mortgage securities were highly customized and difficult to trade, so computer models were used to determine prices. That turned out to be a poor substitute for supply and demand,notes the Wharton professor, Wachter. She believes mortgage securities need to be standardized to encourage lively trading that would set prices more accurately. Mortgage securities would thus be something like the standardized contracts for corn, oil and other commodities that trade on futures exchanges. "Without standardization, there is no trading," she says.

In another area, some experts say the ratings agencies need reform। Red-faced after their AAA-rated securities collapsed, they are working to improve their process. But some experts suggest ratings should be paid for by the buyers of rated securities rather than the sellers.

Also, the compensation system on Wall Street has come in for criticism for emphasizing short-term results over long-term ones. In research with her colleague Andrey Pavlov, Wachter found that that the banking crisis that has undermined the Japanese economy over the past 20 years was largely driven by excessive focus on fee-making in the short-term. "The same problem seems to have occurred in the subprime crises", she says.

**With help from- knowledge Wharton site, Wikipedia, CFA magazine, and ofcourse, the Google