ThInK BeFoRe YoU OpInE

Most of the people have the tendency to find the defects in any work or any performance and stick to criticizing the fault. They cannot ignore the defect and find something positive in any work or performance. I do not hesitate to start the lines in a negative tone but it is the fact. I have been in such situations many times where I myself found the work unworthy.But when situations keep on improving people still cannot improve their silly habit of criticizing. This behaiviour is not only restricted to human beings but also holds good for media.Let me support my opinion with two real life experiences.

One morning I switched on the television and was listening to a news program where I came to know of Shane Warne's adieu to international cricket. The news reader inlieu of admiring his greatness as a spin wizard criticized of his personal life. We know that Shane Warne had been in controversial situations for a number of times, which were completely personal and nothing to do with cricket. But he was always respected as a hero of Australian cricket. The media criticized Shane Warne very much of his personal life. It was such a cheap outlook of the media that on his farewell day the newsreader did not speak of his deadly leg breaks which sounded as a death to the batsmen or of his outstanding feat of 700 wickets in Test Cricket.Really as the country leaps to new heights of progress , the media should change its outlook. This is one instance.

Let me speak of another instance.I watched the bollywood movie 'Heroes' and told one of my friends to watch it.His response was that had it been a good movie , it would have been a hit. He mocked at Sunny Deol's performance. Is that all? I wondered how he could comment on something without having a look at it. He just agreed to what his friends or Newspapers or the famous critics said. Instead the movie showed some really emotional and touching situations of the life of a soldier. It is easy to ignore and forget such pains which a soldier's family faces but nobody takes into account of the adversities that the family's faces and people forget the herioc deed of the brave martyr. The movie showed reality, few can only face reality and for the rest it becomes an easy job to form a flawed opinion.

We should not be deaf to reality and accept opinions blindly everytime. Let us put your own thoughts and I believe we can definitely extract the positive out of everything. It will broaden out outlook.

Want to know who Kim Peek is. Read it

I do not know how many of us have come across this wonderful person personally or through internet,books,TV programmes and newspapers etc. I came across this person in Wikipedia, my friend in idle time.The article on this person bewildered me and I wondered that how it could be possible. I did not give a thought to check the authenticity of the information for I trusted my friend,Wikipedia. Kim Peek is probably the world most famous savant.Mentally retarded at birth he got the enormous support from his father and by dint of which he developed unmatched memorable skills. It is said that he reads a book at a phenomenal pace and can remember 98% of what he has swallowed,memorizing vast amount of information in different subject areas like geography,music,sports,numbers,dates etc. He can recall 12000 books from memory.He reads the left page with th left eye and the right page with the right eye.It is said that his neurons make some connections which results in an increased memory capacity. The movie Rain Man is based on his life.

I have not covered more details of Kim Peek in this blog. I have just keyed down some lines to make the readers aware of Kim Peek who have not heard his name.More details can be read in wikipedia or just make use of the following url
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/kimpeek.html.

Really God's creation is strange. A disable person with some rare abilities. Please go through links which I have mentioned in my blog. I am sure you will be thrilled.

Follow the standard short forms

"Send me the documents ASAP"."PF the mail". "MS will be a better option"."A COM degree will propel your career growth".Can a novice make out what are 'ASAP','PF','MS','COM' and many others? Or can we decode some of the short forms that are used frequently in the office? I faced some of these small problems in my career.I dug into the meaning of the sentences and applied hit and trial method to undestand the real meaning. It took some time initially but now I am used to it. Whatever be the case don't the short forms really create confusion which are not the standard ones? 'ASAP' means as soon as possible. 'PF' stands for please forward. But what does 'MS' mean if you analyse the statement written above? Is it Microsoft or Master of Science? What is a 'COM'? Does the sentence mean commercedegree or computer degree? I leave it to the speaker.

Why do people use such short forms while mailing? Are they really in a hurry to frame an email in seconds or are they impatient? Standard short forms like UNO,WHO,ASEAN etc are known to all. We don't have to waste time to decode the meaning. But I feel that usage of 'PF','ASAP','MS' and 'COM' etc doesn't contribute to good written communication skills. What will happen if one uses such short forms in an email sent to an important person who is unaware ofof the actual meaning? The conversation consumes time to meet the objective. I believe the usage of the full forms does not kill time but it makes a written statement more meaningful.In contrast, the usage of these short formsdoes not prove one's smartness but the habit enables one to create confusions. Stick to the standards and makeothers feel comfortable.

Traffic rules - Are we really conscious of it?

Every day a question frustrates me. "When will this end? Is it nearby or there is no end to it?". The question relates to Bangalore traffic.My first visit to the Silicon City of India was in 2003. I came here to undergo Industrial Training as a part of my sixth semester engineering curriculum. I found it a very pleasant place due to its weather. Indeed it is. Now I have been settled in Bangalore for the last 46 months.I find the city changing day by day. The best part is the IT boom.The sad part is the drastic weather change and the worst part is the spiraling traffic.Traffic is increasing day by day. It adds to road congestion.People travel hours in buses and personal vehicles to reach office. A colleague once said that if this traffic mystery continues then he would have to spend half of his life in buses.

Even though new highways and roads are constructed, road congestion seems to be a burning problem.People break the traffic rules and take short cuts to reach office in a hurry which doesn't solve one's problem but poses more problems for others.Even though we complain about traffic jam, do we ever question ourselves that how difficult it is follow the rules? I guess that it doesn't take much pain to be disciplined. On one Sunday evening I read an article in Times Of India where the writer pointed out the similarity among New York, London and Bangalore. The lanes of these foreign cities are narrower than that of Bangalore.The number of vehicles are almost the same. But the difference lies in the sense of road discipline.In the same edition Kiran Majumdar Shaw, CEO of Biocon, expressed her discontent over the road indiscipline that we practise everyday.If we take the proper left and right turns we can allow others to be comfortable and thereby we can help to reduce the intensity of the problem.

Road accident is a common news in every newspaper in Bangalore. A little carelessness ends a life. People have enough sense to sort out this congestion problem. To realise it we just have to be disciplined , a lesson we learnt in school. We only have carry out the experiment in our daily life.

Poverty - Is the end to this evil nearby or still a far cry ?

The economic developments in India has lowered the percentage of population living below the poverty line.As per the estimation of the planning commission ,27.5% of the population lived below the poverty line in 2004–2005 down from 51.3% in 1977–1978 and 36% in 1993-1994.It is a good news that India has made substantial progress at reducing poverty.The US poverty rate has increased to 17% in 2007 as compared to 14% in 1979.It's a bad news for the US.I don't intend to make a comparison between India's success at poverty reduction and the failure of the US government to reduce poverty. Inspite of all the economic developments in the 21st century a significant proportion of the global population still suffers from poverty.

Following are some of the facts about poverty which I have taken the information from Anup Shah's site http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Poverty.asp.

1) Half of the world population live on less than two dollars a day.

2) The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.

3) The illiteracy figure stands close to a billion.

4) 1 billion children live in dire poverty among which 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5.

In the era of globalization why do we have such sad figures? Is the government responsible or the people themselves are to be blamed for their plight? The interconnectedness caused by globalization are making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Only a few benefit from this globalization. From the external influence of any developed nation the government of the poor nation are often left powerless. As a result a few become wealthy and a majority struggle.

Why don't the developed nations and the developing nations come together to sort out this issue at a fast pace which has been a cancer since the dawn of modern civilization? Why don't the influential leaders and MNCs design a plan to eradicate the causes of poverty and create opportunities for all the poor to earn their livelihood? Now with the advancement of science and technologies why aren't the causes of poverty reduced to a greater extent, if not eliminated completely as this initiative will take a long time? Even in the 21st century when we see such sad figures ,it is hard to accept that we are making major progress to make the earth a better place to live in.