Victims of Democracy

Democracy 

Democracy is the most proven and accepted method of government, yet is it the absolute best? I beg to differ. For "Democracy is the Government of the majority, for the majority and by the majority". For more on how our affirmative action programme works (or doesnt for some of us) visit my post

http://thombrem.blogspot.in/2013/10/tyranny-of-majority.html

Land

Any form of modern development requires the use of land. Be it construction of Dams, Roads,Nuclear or other power stations Educational Institutes etc. This is the major stumbling block in any large infrastructure project and is often the cause of large delays and litigation.

Why should it be so? The land is acquired by the Government at a pittance of its real value from farmers or land owners. This is a rule the lawmakers have created in order to be the mediators in land transactions and benefit without being the real owners. (touts) Foreign investment is welcomed in India but foreign companies have no clue how to go about land acquisition, in come the local law makers who play touts in the transaction often pocketing large sums of money from the buyers and passing on a meagre amount to the original inhabitants. India passed a historic "Whoever tills the land owns the land" law after independence. This law itself caused many large farmers to lose many million acres of land to their landless labourers not a long time ago. This largesse was at great cost to the original owners and a big benefit to the labourers who were (registered voters) in large numbers. Again the clever lawmakers transferred assets from A to B pocketing votes in the process for a long time to come.

Reform 

Reform is a must to these archaic land laws! For example:

1. Land must be transferred from farmer directly to the project executioner/Foreign firm without Government being a mediator. The farmer may request Govt mediation if he/she so desires or feels pressured. There must be a reserve price either ways.

2. Land use must be audited. Typically factories and industries acquire much more land than they ever require. Partly because land acquisition is a pain and is best done once and for all.

3. The victims of development(farmers) must be made partners in the project and recieve preference shares in the project undertaken, not "Watchmen" jobs

4. In case the height of Dams is to be raised (this immerses thousands of acres of land in the backwater) the families who are displaced must be given benefits received by Nomadic Tribes, in addition to the compensation they recieve as shareholders in the project. Also, the height must be raised in phases each subsequent phase must proceed if and only if the families displaced by the earlier operation are satisfactorily compensated.

Fair play

Unless we learn to play fair and not become successful at the cost of other people's misfortune, development will cease to be a good word in this (or any)country. And The Jungle Rule of Law(makers) will continue forever. For now we may turn our backs and say "This does not affect me". But ignore this now and sooner or later the government will be at your door asking for the keys.

Thanks for reading!

Milind Thombre

Losing the Plot

Brain Drain

In the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s India made no significant investment in electronics (namely microchip manufacturing) technology. They made a half hearted attempt forming a company called Semiconductor Complex India which died out in the early 90’s. For a nation to be successful with technology it requires a sustained investment in constantly improving and challenging technical programs. The government simply refuses to see value in making these investments in technology in India.  At the same time the Govt saw value in privatising Engineering Education, a move that created a generation of several hundred thousand engineers. These folks naturally had no jobs as there was no significant Electronics industry in India. For want of jobs and a livelihood in India these bright minds went abroad (mainly in USA) seeking greener pastures. They went on to create great companies and products (e.g. Pentium) for their employers there. The government of India was indeed jealous of this success and went about (frustratedly) talking about “Brain Drain”.  But did not realise that Brain Drain was better than “Brains down the Drain”

Body shops

Some of these early successful folks wanted to return home after a stint and went on to form some “Offshore Services” firms in India. Euphemism for Body Shopping firms those days. Due to the exchange rates of the rupee and dollar as well as the wage disparity between India (land of supply) and USA (land of demand), they reaped huge profits. However, Success breeds greater Ambition and the early movers now want to create technology from the ground up. This will simply no happen in my opinion. As i said earlier, the United States is not about to give up its core technical assets as well as knowledge easily. This remains top notch Electronics and Telecom as well as core Internet technologies, of which India is merely a consumer.

   

Example in Failure

In 2009, a close friend and I decided that we would build a Social Networking Platform for Doctors in India and worldwide. We successfully built upon the idea and deployed it. However, we realised that the keys to our success were with the United States. From the start our platform was targeted first by Chinese and later American spammers. Our users quickly lost interest in the site and moved to other greener pastures like Facebook. Security is a key technology for the internet platform and the US again controls major Key distribution facilities.

What the Indian Engineers are destined for is a lifetime of following and servitude. The core technology is destined to be controlled by the US and other western Powers that be. During the Kargil war, Indian fighter jets initially dropped iron (unguided) bombs on the peaks occupied by the Pakistanis, a strategy which was completely non-effective. Thanks to last minute Israeli technical help, and a few dedicated and ingenious Indian engineers the Mirage fighter jets were fitted with laser guided bomb pods. These guided bombs made all the difference in the war and saved many thousand Indian soldiers.

Greedy algorithms

The government of India continues to work with the greedy Algorithms that it pursues. (Greedy algorithms assume that what is right locally will be right Globally) There seems to be no comprehensive strategy and (Knapsack problem) the country is left at the mercy of these babbling leaders and babus.  Manufacturing, Electronics and technology, Automation and Robotics, Life Sciences are not on the GoI radar. Instead we are focussed on a patent pending “Inclusive Growth” algorithm which is hithero unproven to this world!  I feel we have to learn to accept that if someone is on top, it logically follows that someone else will be at the bottom! The entire Indian Pyramid needs to move upwards a mile if everyone needs Roti Kapda and makaan (food clothing and shelter). Otherwise the government is simply taxing the rich, and doling the poor for votes. There can be no real progress if we stick to these losing Socialist Algorithms.

Boss’s Day out, Whistle Blowers Party

Its “that” time of the year in India and some of us (Still!) have bosses to deal with at the end of the day. Personally I have never had a smooth relationship with most of my (mostly Indian) bosses in my 19 year work history. I find myself at the receiving end most of the time of the year.  So i decided to document just what is it about THEM that bothers ME......for a change. Lets start with The boss’s

Algorithms of the trade

Take credit  

In one of my past jobs a boss would routinely ask me to do his presentations, documents, budget sheets, customer development plans and so on. He would insist that he needs to review these. He would then detach these, make necessary ‘changes’ like editing the author name ;) and send it along to the CEO/Client etc.  What struck me was that he would not keep me in CC/Bcc while he shamelessly touted the work as his own. On one occasion a customer actually noticed and asked me if i had written the proposal! The customer then proceeded to forward the proposal to me and lo and behold, it was my work verbatim but without any credit given to me by the boss in question! I worked for this guy for many years before we had a showdown one day (finally!). It was an end to a long suffering. On another occasion I was hurriedly invited to a Presentation that was given by a sales guy to the CEO and again, Lo and behold it was something i was asked to create 2 weeks prior. Needless to say the Sales guys name appeared on the Powerpoint.  On this occasion the CEO asked me if i agreed with the presentation. To which i said “I agree with  95% of it” The CEO then proceeded to ask me what 5% do i not agree with and yours truly blew the whistle on the author name field. On this occasion the salesperson (mind you he called himself the Customer Relationship Owner) simply vanished from the company after the 2 week notice. Not before angrily calling me up to lecture me on (his definition of ) Teamwork J

Morale: You win some you lose some.

Shoot the messenger

Another trick up a bosses sleeve was to outsource the firing of unwanted people, for whatsoever reason to me.  The blood was on my hands. It’s not that i regret firing several of these folks. However the folks rarely saw the hand behind the hand and would blurt out bad stuff about me in their exit interviews. I like to call this the shoot the messenger Phenomenon. Needless to say my bosses were aware of this phenomenon and though I was too, I was mostly in no position to retaliate. 

At the same time this boss would insist on doing the final round of interviews for senior folks especially even my reportees. I would wonder why initially. But the logic was simple. People often even “Reward the messenger” of good news and look up to him as a Messiah. So if the final go ahead for a hire (formality) was done by the boss the candidate would see him as the figure of authority and look up to him during their tenure in the company.

Blame

      This is an "Extremely" huge topic and i will post one incident only as “Blame” can become a separate blog by itself. Taking it on the chin without falling apart is the hallmark of a good mid-manager and yours truly has been there done that!. On one occasion a manager would routinely call me at the end of an appraisal cycle and tell me in a booming voice (with his cabin door wide open) “This year the appraisals have not been done well!” The fact of the matter was that though I would do the appraisals as diligently as possible, this guy would go into the normalization meetings without even knowing all the folks names on the teams. During my last year in this company I decided to give him back a taste of his own medicine and told him in a booming voice in the hallway that “Though the appraisals were done well this year the normalization was substandard” Needless to say, I left soon after, Phew!

Explaining Existence 

I have wondered how some of my bosses explained their TIME and EXISTENCE to Their bosses! Wonder no more. They Explain their time as being spent on YOUR development! LOL!

Lastly if many of the bosses reportees figure out all  his algorithms then.........

ITS RE-ORG TIME!!!!!!!!

I have several more Algos that i can think of

Do you have a "Bossy Algorithm" to share? Do comment... Lets give power back to the real knowledge workers!

Regards

Milind Thombre

Full of Shit

Folks, This is about the Devyani Khobragade incident and my views on this Diplomatic episode

Class

Folks in my obsevation the very lowest and the very highest classes behave in a completely similar fashion. They have scant respect for the law of the land, Other people's rights and a devil-may-care attitude. Take for example the case of the IFS officer who paid lower than min wage and purportedly exploited a poor (Catholic) "Maid in Manhattan" by making her work 19 hours/day and paying her INR 30,000/month and got an inappropriate visa for her. Apparently she also is very moneyed and influential (daughter of a Retd. IAS officer)  in India and owns land in 3 Indian States. Being rich is not a crime, however denying other people their rights certainly is.  Respect for the Law has become something you should expect from the Middle Classes (AAM Admi) only. Sangeeta Richard (maid) whose husband works in the US consulate in India also does not seem to be the "innocent and exploited" maid she claims to be. The facts are rarely ever black and white. While the entire Indian Govt. and masses erupted in a "How dare they"! The indian thinking middle class is merely watching the Tamasha that ensues. Meanwhile people from the absolutely lowest classes went about breaking things at Pizza Huts and McDonalds in Mumbai. They are ready to commit crimes for people who dont give a rats ass for their welfare.This is a battle between the lowest and the highest classes and has promise to be a well evened out fight. Meanwhile IMHO Devyani's career as a Diplomat is as good as finished. Its time to join Politics, or better still Bollywood!

  

Full of Shit

In terms of misuse of Authority the Indian Babus of the IAS/IFS  are probably unparalleled in the world. Devyani pulled all the strings she could to rein Sangeeta Richard in. However Sangeeta did exactly the same, pulling strings in the US consulate to screw the hand that fed her. In comes Preet Bharara, why should he be left out in the list of authority abusers? He and possibly Kerry knew about the whole incident from the start. A visa fraud is hardly a crime which requires a Cavity Search, but Preet Bharara thinks otherwise. I hope he found what he was looking for! The message from the USA is very clear: "How dare you break even the pettiest of US laws while on our soil?" Especially when concerned with a Catholic US embassy drivers wife? This has class war written all over it! If the US wants to get a hold of ALL visa fraudsters, they should consider cavity searching several Indian and American Software Moguls alike! Meanwhile the US which prides itself in controlling its borders with a strict visa regime and did not bat an eyelid while granting visas to Sangeeta Richard's family. Breaking their own law. Is this not a case of Visa Fraud as well? I hope they search their (Ass) "Souls" themselves. 

"Race" to the Bottom

Racism is a popular topic in Indian circles in the USA. In fact there is a complete denial that it exists amongst many NRIs (Not Really Indian) and a vitriolic protest that it does amongst many NRI's (Never Relinquished India). The Indian Classes and the Indian Masses treat the white Americans in peculiar ways. Worshipping and Hating them alternately. Foreign tourists are generally soft targets for fraudsters and rapists (Atithi Devo Bhava). However, note that Indias saving grace is its middle class which treats Tourists indifferently not wanting their dollars or enamoured by the colour of their skin. The incident also makes me wonder if the Americans would have dared to perform cavity searches on a Chinese Diplomat or a Russian! I leave you to think where our spineless Foreign Ministry has led the enitre Indian Nation as well as our Race.

While Diplomats and foreign officers of these truly "great" countries continue to play "Dabba Eye Spies" the middle Classes continue to watch this Saga with complete Disgust.

Thats all for now folks!

Regards

Milind Thombre

(A Concerned Friend of USA, and a concerned citizen of India)

Comments Welcome!

Tyranny of the Majority

Folks today i will express my views about socio-political  issues in India. I want to begin with an ancient prayer of India before we begin our search for knowledge and truth:

Om Asato Maa Sad-Gamaya |
Tamaso Maa Jyotir-Gamaya |
Mrtyor-Maa Amrtam Gamaya |
Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

Meaning:
1: Om, Lead us from Unreality (of Transitory Existence) to the Reality (of Self),
2: Lead us from the Darkness (of Ignorance) to the Light (of Spiritual Knowledge),
3: Lead us from the Fear of Death to the Knowledge of Immortality.
4: Om Peace, Peace, Peace.

In my opinion Character is the single most important thing to pursue as a civilization. Capability without character is not worthy of appreciation, in fact this should be actively demoted. Otherwise you are likely to be led at a very fast pace in the wrong direction!

Politicians and business leaders today rely on metrics to decide what to say to a group of people. What will bring most applause, what will touch a raw nerve, what will infuriate. A politician who does this is not a leader but a mere prostitute. Someone who does what other people want of him/her. Someone with no Character.

A true leader expresses his/her own opinions and stands by them, and people begin to follow him/her. Or they can shape the opinion of the people in new ways for the better. We are yet to see such a leader emerge from the present political systems of India! What are the direct consequences of the current crop of leaders on the public? Many feel that this does not affect them much or there is nothing they can do about this. I urge you to think and ponder on some of these issues.

A flawed affirmative action policy can affect the educational outcomes of your children, nay this has already begun. (The curtailing of the Special School like Jyana Prabodhini School is a case in point)

A bad training program will leave you with half baked skills in the job market.

More importantly a bad education will leave you with a poor set of values and weak moral character.
Bad foreign policy will lead to unnecessary wars.
Bad governance/law and order will lead to anarchy. (india is fast becoming the rape capital of the world)
Flawed welfare schemes will make people want everything for free and make them behave like parasites.

Please stop and think! If the current crop of leaders is allowed to continue unabated it will lead to decay and eventual death of our once-great civilization.

It is rewarding to spread hatred amongst our diverse communities once the elections arrive. e.g. Brahmin-bashing is a popular sport in Indian politics. Brahmins form an extremely small but highly thought-progressive group in India. Historically Brahmins were one of the poorest communities and made a living in the knowledge industry by teaching, researching diverse issues and begging for food.(Om Bhawati Bhikshanna Deyi) The Brahmin bashing politicians will tell you that it was the Brahmins who oppressed other communities since they were at the top of the social order. It is indeed true that Indian civilization, for the longest time revered learning and knowledge, bastions of the Brahmins. But did the Brahmins indeed opress other people? Nothing can be farther from the truth!

Let us sit back and ask some logical questions... Would a person with no means of livelihood be in a position of power to "oppress" someone else? Or would someone who is an autocratic ruler do so? Would someone with wealth oppress someone who is poor or would it be the other way around ?

"But, I keep hearing these stories again and again" one might argue.  to them I say...A lie repeated 100 times does not become the truth. Only someone who is an enemy of our great civilization will spread such stories. In the past such stories were planted by Christian Missionaries to spread disillusion with Hinduism.

 To the lousy politicians of India I have this to say: Do not underestimate the intelligence of the people of India. Their intelligence is your true enemy!

You can fool some people some times
You can fool some people all the time
But you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Thats all for now folks! Have a thought provoked week ahead!

Regards
Milind Thombre
(Comments Welcome)

Another Programming Puzzle

There is a unisex bathroom with a capacity of 3 people. Either men or women can use it, but not both at the same time. Write a simple program that enforces these constraints.

Milind Thombre

Mutual Exclusion Problems in Programming

A Mutual Exclusion Problem (for Programmers) 

I am reading Allen B Downey's Excellent book (The Little Book of Semaphores) on Semaphores and found this seemingly simple yet intricately complicated problem!

For example, imagine that you and Bob operate a nuclear reactor that you monitor from remote stations. Most of the time, both of you are watching for warning lights, but you are both allowed to take a break for lunch. It doesn’t matter who eats lunch first, but it is very important that you don’t eat lunch at the same time, leaving the reactor unwatched!

Puzzle: Figure out a system of message passing (phone calls) that enforces these restraints. Assume there are no clocks, and you cannot predict when lunch will start or how long it will last. What is the minimum number of messages that is required?

Regards 

Milind Thombre

Solutions Welcome!

Executive Shamelessness

Executive Shamelessness

So you have a Masters degree or a PhD perhaps. Suddenly you have become God's gift to this world of cretins with Bachelors degree 'workers'. With your Superior intellect or perhaps even by virtue of your birth in a certain fold you have achieved the pinnacle of Education and success is bound to follow.... or be assigned to you. Better still, someone died and made you an Executive! And here you come: looking smart, smelling good and feeling like a number one! Its time to extract your pound of flesh (benefits) now! Woohoo! Lets make a check-list least you forget to ask for something from your Employer:

• Fat Pay check
• Stock Options
• Big Corner Office
• Club memberships
• Holiday Abroad
• Insurance for you and your extended family (dog included)
• Reimburse your personal bills
• Did I miss something? Do add to this list as you see fit!

Operations Versus Sales:

The Indian industry has long stopped rewarding 'mundane' ops folks and focuses on rewarding 'new business' (Sales) folks. These Executives are in charge of 'Growth'. Many a times Growth simply happens as a function of the lower price (Arbitrage between $ and Rupee) the engineers are offered at in India. So little is needed to be done. So these execs spend their time Window dressing sales figures, providing ops metrics to clueless customers or doing SWOT analysis of their customers. I am yet to see any concrete growth come out of these silly efforts. Yet the Executive survives and thrives, often the modus operandi is to "Partner" with  the customers and bully the offshore teams who do the actual work. The Myth that in general growth is a function of the Executive has long been propagated and sustained in order to justify higher Exec compensation.

Widening Disparity

Starting annual salary of a bright, out of college engineer is Rupees 300,000 or less in the Indian IT sector. Executive  Salaries are typically 10,000,000(35X)  as much plus stock options andf other benefits listed above. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is this gap so huge. (e.g. $60K vs $300K in USA works out to 5X).  This disparity is further widened by the fact that the Executive makes several paid trips abroad in order to 'ensure' growth or 'accelerate' it all at company expense. (needless to say this expense comes from the sweat of the poor s/w engineers. Stock options further rub salt into the wounds of the poor Engineers.

Advocates of Austerity

There was a COO i knew who would drive around in a SUV's with subsidized diesel which too was reimbursed by the company. He launched the "Green initiative" to save fuel and electricity costs for the company. How Noble! He would urge (in one instance a pregnant woman) to use the stairs instead of the elevators to save money and stay fit. Another austerity advocate drove a Mercedes convertible in India and would fire people at every possible turn in their careers.

Naturally a healthy level of hypocrisy is required to maintain a certain set of Rules of Executives and another (exclusive) set for the Cretins. This has a effect on the mental state of the human being. (Yes Execs are human too) Guilt begins to creep in. Deep down they know they are just as good as everyone else or maybe even worse. In comes CSR(Corporate Social Responsibility). Again it is the execs who lead this initiative and not the Cretins, who feel no guilt as they are the ones being cheated.

The Great Indian Rat Race

I have only one piece of advice for those who are Execs or about to become an Exec in the Indian Industry

"Even if you win you still will be a RAT!."

Do you have an executive Hypocrisy Story to share? Do comment.

Regards

Milind K Thombre

BIG Mistake

Dear Readers,

Today's blog is about Information Technology, namely about Big Data and what I think of several Big Data projects that are running out there.

Data the real Asset

In an earlier Blog you read about my views on why many software projects are a liability, if you want to jog your memory go to http://thombrem.blogspot.in/2012/11/software-asset-or-liability.html 

So if I think software is a liability you may ask, what is an asset on your project? Undoubtedly it is the DATA. Data is used to make decisions such as 

• Where to go next (new products and services) 
• What processes within your organization need automation or change
• Who's slacking
• What data is NOT being captured
• Why your business is sucking. etc.

These decisions are key to success of your enterprise or government or any other goal oriented outfit. Organizations who want to build assets should take technology with a gain of salt. They should ask tough questions like:

• What data will be generated by a project?
• Will it be analyzed?
• Will the information extracted from it be useful and actionable?
• OR Is a process going to be automated by this application?

In other words, will Life be easier and more fun after this project? ;) 

So your IT consultant may tell you that Scala or Ruby is better than Java or C++. DO NOT get carried away by these fallacies. Keep the focus on Data and Analysis of Data. Everything else is a fools paradise in IT. And as you will learn constantly: Anything that does not make sense goes away eventually! Good riddance!

Brains Vs Big Data

So now that you know you need to focus on Data. Perhaps you will start a Big Data project. Analyse all your customer buying patterns, Study their social media behaviour and unleash cloud computing to compute their changing behaviour and tastes. Will you become a successful enterprise? Maybe not! but you will surely end up spending many million dollars on your IT before you get this Epiphany. 

Data is useful but ALL data may not be useful. Big data aims at collecting ALL data available blindly unleashing Analytics on it and producing 'intelligence'. I am not doubting that a correctly implemented BIG data project will succeed. BUT, here again I must ask you to stop and think! 

Can the same or near-same results be produced by other means? 

YES! 

Can it be done at a fraction of the cost? 

YES!

How?

Sampling

Representative sampling is one method that immediately comes to mind. I am sure there are many more ways to find out the very same intelligence without Analysis of Absolutely ALL the Data. 

e.g. the Sampling Theorem (by Nyquist-Shannon) states that if the frequency of ANY waveform is B hertz, this waveform can be reconstructed by sampling at 2B hertz! Bloody brilliant! Now applying this to your data (time series) and figure out how many sample points you will need to construct a perfect model. This is the beauty of theory and brains Vs Brawn.

Pattern Novelty

Many times you find patterns that are repeating over time, over and over again. (No change). This is likely to happen in your BIG data projects as well. e.g. Everybody already knows Christmas season is big sales or that the next tropical storm will trigger panic buying. Unless there is likely to be Pattern Novelty in your Domain, I feel you should not be spending hard earned cash on Big data projects. In other words, The Big data project should have lasting value.

Conclusion

Smart organizations harness brains and new ideas not Brawn (Big Data). If you start a big data project with a long lasting goal in mind you will probably succeed. But if you jump into Big Data because "Everyone else is doing it" you will be going with the Flow. And as I like to say..."If you go with the flow you will end up down the drain"

+Milind K Thombre

(comments Welcome)

Fall of the Talibarbarians

Dear readers,

Today I have coined the term "Talibarbarians" to refer to people who believe in the use of force to achieve their ends. As you know these traits are not culture specific and such elements exist in each and every civilization throughout the world today.

Success of a culture

In my analysis, any culture eventually acquires attributes that it reveres most. This happens by Darwin's principle of natural selection. Each successive generation goes closer to the goal as they mate with partners with the 'desired' characteristics. Different cultures emerged due to isolation in ancient times. For example, the Chinese revered wisdom and industriousness, Jewish civilization revered Cleverness and Business Acumen, Hindus revered Intellect and Europeans revered Power.

Ancient Hindus realised that success as a civilization will only be guaranteed by honing ALL of the following attributes:

• Intellect
• Military Might
• Material Wealth
• Skill and operational excellence.

No attributes were less important than others. (e.g. a Civilization that is wise, intelligent, skilled and rich will fall to another if it is not defended) The Hindus created the caste system to differentiate, specialize and hone these distinct traits and became a largely successful civilization for a long time. Marriage was strictly allowed within a caste itself. (This endogamous practice continues in Modern day India, though looked down upon by the West) Though the caste system exists to this day there were several notable exceptions to it even in ancient India. (DhanaNanda the sweeper king or the Peshwas who were Brahmin rulers in India to name a couple)

The rise of Intelligence

With the passage of time intellect became more and more important and continues its march forward as perhaps the most important attribute towards human evolution. Hence people with intellect were and are still revered in modern society. Civilizations that promote military might (violence as a means to achieve ends) or rampant materialism without intellect or skills without any of the above are headed for failure in my opinion. Many attributes became obsolete in the industrial age due to the introduction of technology e.g. Physical strength which was an important attribute is now rendered obsolete by modern weapons. Materialism has stood the test of time so far, but excessive greed by a few will create social discord. The "Occupy wall street" movement is an excellent example in modern times. Skills with no application of intelligence will create a country of clerks. Afterall a large section of the software community in India are nothing but code coolies.

Mediocrity

Why should one man not pursue all of the above? You may but then you will be a "Jack of all trades". Someone who lacks greatness in anything, a truly mediocre person. This is the epidemic that plagues the West today. Most of the West has given up the caste system and embraced 'equality', become truly mediocre. America realised the fallacy later and began importing the best minds from every culture into its country. However many of those elected in power continue to remain representatives of a (largely) mediocre culture that promotes shameless materialism and use of military force to achieve ends. However, there is still hope there as more of those who are 'imported' (H1) become voting citizens and vote wisely in future elections. After all only a baboon would use a gun instead of a vote or a blog. (pen)

Joke

I will take your leave with this joke that I thought up today. Back when the world was created the good lord decided to divvy up the goodies amongst different peoples.

The Chinese went first and asked for wisdom and industriousness, Granted said the lord.
The Arabs asked for Oil and guns to guard the oil. Granted said the lord.
The Europeans asked for Technology and money. Granted said the lord
The Jews asked for cleverness and Gold, Granted said the lord
The Hindus came last and they said Lord give us your brain and we will store it in our DNA. Granted said the lord.

Ever since the Chinese are working hard for the Europeans. The Europeans and Arabs are busy killing each other for oil. The jews are collecting all the gold, God has gone silent and and the Hindus are showing the rest of the world just who God is!

That's all for now folks!

Regards
+Milind Thombre

(comments welcome)