Thursday, April 20, 2006

Creative Students

Please click on the images below, enlarge and read them. These are scanned copies of essays written by two cute (wierd) kids. God bless these kids for the numerous times I have had a hearty laugh reading their essays. Do read the teacher's comments also.

  1. Looking outside my window - Describe sigths, sounds and activities


2. What would I like to see in my aged parents/grandparents


Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Wandering thoughts

There are a few uncorrelated thoughts that keep running in my mind. Here I present a few of them:

Translated literature in India -
Once in my "Literature in Translation" class, Cubba said that Translated Indian Literature is actually "Socially relevant, necessarily serious literature in translation". His statement was not very well supported then, but it is indeed true in my opinion. Most Indian transalators belong to the group of "so-called" intellectuals and they indeed consider it to be their moral responsibility to contribute to social revolution, social change, social awareness, social blah blah .... all that just by transalating serious socially relevant literature. They thought that this is the call of the hour. Not too wrong for 1920, I guess. Pre-independence and till a little later, most of Indian intellectuals were fighting for social causes. People like Gandhi, Raja Rammohan Roy, etc. used to write essays on such issues. Lot of good regional language writers also were writing on social relevant issue(Bashir...). Due to this, the western anthropologists converted their study of Indian society into accounts of social oppression and backwardness. Anthropology became the study of brown men's religion by white man as against its dictionary definition.

But times have changed. Social revolution is still a priority in India, but I guess the urge is not as strong as it was then. The economic growth has triggered the social change. Demographies are changing rapidly and so are customs and tradition. Indian Culture is much more than the catalysts that brought about the current socio-economic distribution where there are glaring gaps. Thus our culture cannot be held responsible for the state of the poor, dalits and minorities. The ones responsible for that are our rulers. We can concentrate on the positive aspects of our culture. Our folklore has much more to give then stories of dalits oppressed by brahamins. Its time we realize that our folklore has a sea of humour and feel-good stories. Ever heard a grim story from your grandparents? Whatever they narrate will mostly make you laugh until you fall off the bed. Plus there are these beautiful local couplets and poetry that is soon going to be lost if we do not record them. These funny poems always have a morale, humour and rhyme. The day we realize this, probably we will see some of good Indian humour being translated. For beginners who want to translate I can give a few pointers - pick up any stuff from Hari Shankar Parsai, Makhan Lal Chaturvedi and many more. You would really want to translate it once you read it. Also look for the Urdu humour in India. It is great. Ever get your hands on the book - "Shrestya Hasya Kathayein" compiled by......i can't remember.'

Men have a birth right to humour -
In a world where women are steeling the baton from men everywhere, it can observed that most of legendary humourist still are men. You didn't see a single lady in Laughter Challenge or a Mahila Hasya Kaviyatri. It is all dominated by men. It is not so because women do not have a taste for humour. They do. But men have had the privilege to speak for centuries and it will take still some time for the human-female to walk into this window. They have always learned to keep stuff to themselves, especially, the one like humour, that asks for attention. Women have mostly been shy of attention(once again I am talking about the average, no offense to the extroverts). Plus a large part of humour also comes from vulgar language or double meaning phrases. Women have kept themselves away from this. With the women revolution happening both these factors are soon dissolving and I guess soon we will see the women on stage as much as men. Beware Sunil Pal.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Reservoir Dogs-2 (WE don't want any more Lollipop)


After reading enormous amount of material in newspapers, listening to discussions in hostel... all on the reservation controversy, I write another blog on the same. First of all I congratulate Shri Shri Shri Arjun Singhji as he has succeeded in getting all the publicity that he would have wished for. I guess publicity was his aim (Social welfare was not his target we all know) and he achieved it.

Normalize Reservation: Do not compromise on quality
Yesterday I was talking to my friend Debo about this issue and he said that reservation has to be brought in allowable limits. Moves to bring about social welfare and equality should not discourage meritocracy. The IITs and IIMs should be allowed to decide the percentage relaxation in marks that the reservation category get. Amongst the ones who achieve it, we give admits to as many as alloted by a quota which is definitely not a freaking 50%. This takes care of a scenario where general category cut-off is 50/100 and reservation category cut-off is 20/100. The doctors who get into med-schools with these 20/100 with the aid of reservation are no better than my grandma in medicine.

Gap at bottom: Currently, reservation is a necessity to bring social equality because backward classes do not have access to good schooling and thus can not get into professional colleges on grounds of performance alone. What they really need is good schooling. The government should harness its resources and fight hard to provide them with quality primary and secondary education. By not doing so they have created a gap at bottom. By not fighting for lower caste school going kids, they have created a huge gap in knowledge and capabilities of lower and upper castes kids. Reservation is just a way to cover up for their lack of efforts in this regard by compromising on meritocracy.

Stories of our revolution: Stories of Indian lollipops
Very often we have got our acts of revolution wrong. The policy makers have often found incentives (like reservation) to bring about changes which do not address the root cause of the problem instead aggravate it. Thus those incentives are no more than giving lollipops to sick kids to keep them quite; they need medicine. Examples follow:
When we actually needed to aid our farmers with proper infrastructure of electricity and water, we gave them subsidies which created deficit prone budgets. We called it the green revolution. It was a revolution only in a few places where the agricultural infrastructure was good, not the ones with subsidies. We realized this only when the World Bank became stiff on us. Subsidies on fertilizer can not be substitutes of water and electricity. The government is indirectly responsible for the deaths of the numerous farmers who committed suicides due to various reasons.

When we needed to eradicate the "License Raj" so that our traders and entrepreneurs feel encouraged to grow, struggle and still survive in market, we opted to protect them from global firms. In the process we made them incompetent. Look at the fate of numerous PSUs that got enough corporate protection. Only PSUs that faced competition did well. We were always scared that our firms will never be able to sustain competion from MNCs. With the current growth and advance of Indian firms everywhere we can assume that Indian businessmen are no less competitive. Instead, we should have let them go out and let others come in (in short liberalize and globalise), so that they could learn to sustain competition. Eliminating competition is no way to guarantee learning and growth, struggle in tough conditions is.

There are many examples of similar apathy of policy makers towards grievous problems. The comman thread running is - irrespective of the government, leader and coalition formations, our politicians have always tried to look for lollipops instead of real solutions.

Reservation - The lollipop for backward classes.
Reservation is one way of dividing people. I explain. If you have ever been to a college, you would realize how much discomfort the talk of reservation can bring to a heterogeneous group. The way reservation is implemented right now, the backward classes gaining admission are not particularly as proud of their achievement. Due to the way it is implemented right now, a lot of stupid general category entrants regard themselves as superior when they actually aren't. Had the backward classes been given equal opportunities for schooling and then be allowed to enter colleges through the same tests as general category, they would have been equals. Reservation has not brought equal status to backward classes. They are rudely classified as the incompetent among the qualified. Root cause of misery of backward classes is a big question in India. Their population is large and the human resource in them in still untapped. Constructive moves to uplift their social and economic status have to be taken. All reservation does is to give them a false promise meanwhile bring down the only credible intitutions India has like IITs and IIMs.

We are looking for people who can give us medcines, not lollipos. Any volunteers?

Sunday, April 16, 2006

We don't like the Villains, but what do the villains like?



I was wondering about how much we hate some people. Like I hate these religious fundamentalists in India (RSS, VHP...). I hate Dawood and lot of other people.

Among the hundreds of people we don't like, there are a few proclaimed as public villains. Dislike towards them is not due to personal agenda, but because they are the filth of the society and are publically despised.

Writers and movie-makers capitalise on this hatred of ours and make movies where the hero beats up the villain. We clap with every blow that the villain gets because we model him as the one who needs a thrashing. We start patronising the on-screen heroes in real life. In short - Common man wants a filmstar's company because he has beaten up the bad guy.

What kind of movies do these villains of real life likes? I think even Dawood Ibrahim watches bollywood movies where the villains are beaten up. I know that these Mumbai Dons patronise film-stars and like their company. Why do these bad guys want their company. They cannot have the same reasons as of the common man stated above. What goes on in their mind? Did the "Chambal ke Daku" also like Ramlila depicting the win of good against evil? I have read something about Verrappan making a risky move of going to a cinema hall once to see a movie. He got trapped by police inside but still managed to escape. Real life villains do like movies.

A thousand such questions but no answer. Will have to meet one of these guys to clear my doubts. These bad guys really are wierd people. You can't reason their acts.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Reservoir Dogs


I never saw the movie Reservoir Dogs as it has too much action (I can only guess as I never saw it). But I am about to see a equally action filled movie with quiet similar name in India. The photo given above is of a college student who self-immolated himself in protest of implementation of the Mandal Commission's report in 1990. The report had triggered wide-spread violence and riots and saw months of academic activity diluted into the prolonged agitation.

This blog is concerning the central govt.'s proposed legilation which would give another 27 percent reservation to OBCs(Other Backward Classes) in central govt. administered universities. The total reserved quota in IITs would rise to as high as 49 freaking percentage.

Question no. 1 to be raised is - why more reservation?
The probable answer is that the really deprived sections are never able to avail the advantages of reservation. Good news is that our scholarly Arjun Singhji realised that if the current quota is not enough to support the poor then increase the quota. What the hell? Where's his brain?

Ones campaigning for increased reservation quotas have often quoted - "Since it is difficult to classify the really needy people who need reservation, and since the benefits are not reaching the really deprived ones currently; increasing quotas is the only way to help them." Plain enough, you increase the room for reservation and it will be able to accommodate the real needy.

Somebody has to realise what is happeneing to reservation scene these days. Being a beauracrat's son, I have seen officers coming from reserved cateogaries, becoming IAS, IPS. These officers are rich enough to get coaching for their kids who are the ones who end up using reservation quota. There is real pressure on a few reservation cateogary kids, the ones with IAS fathers, to perform well. Given that they have all the money that the general catrogary (supposedly) have and added to that they have the reservation advantage, their fathers expect them to do well. Poor in the reservation cateogary only have reservation, no money for cocahing. Poor in general cateogary-----hmmm... God help them.

Looking into the roots of reservation we should see how the picking for cateogaries goes. The socially and economically backward classes of medival times were rewarded for the ages of toil and domination in terms of reservation. The UPPER castes (not today's, i mean upper castes of medival times) were punished for ill-treating these lads, no reservation for you all, now eat your lolipop.

The social scenario has completely changed and I don't know how many will call the enormous number of IAS and IPS from reservation cateogary as oppressed. Also that the upper caste of medival times are no less in any misery. In present India, you would have to be a buddha in one life to be lucky enough to be born in reserved cateogary house with money in the next life. There are plenty of poor in reserved catogary but they will never be able to push the rich in the reserved cateogary to get into the reservation room.

But the above system of picking the needy ones for reservation is absolutely stupid. If we can identify the poor by having TAX limits and we can have tax slabs, why not so in reservation? Why not have a need base allocation of advantage. Why should the sons CATEOGARY IAS keep becoming IAS as if it is their patriarchial blessing? The poor in cateogary won't get anything even if we reserve the whole 100%. Increasing reservation quota means that even the dumbest sons of reservation cateogary IAS fathers will get to IITs and IIMs with a little cocahing. The logic is definitely missing in this whole act.

NKC(National knowledge commission) convener, Mr. Mehta, is opposed to this move. He has opposed reservation going all the upto the proposed 49% in IITs and IIMs. Read from the links given below:
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/1910.html
Some miss Jayanthi from Delhi University has opposed his agitation. Once again logic is amiss here. She is from DU and is one of the cotributors to its majestic downfall. Read the link below.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/1968.html
She is advising how IITs and IIMs should be run! Is she nuts? When did humans start learning toilet habits from dogs who pee in garden? When should people from IITs be taught by DU people on how to manage their affairs?

Final Verdict: Reservation should not happen on caste lines as that is trying to improve a social scenario that does not exist any more. Reservation should happen on a need base established on a credible income surveys. The data could be shared with IT department, they need it desperately.

Somebody do something or a Reservoir Dogs-II will be shot soon on Indian roads.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Theory of Evolution is crap, we have something new

The ideas published in this blog are not mine alone and might be mentioned in other blogs too.

Me and gandy(Gandharva Bakshi, my big small friend) were once discussing that there is lot in the world that is not understood. Particluarly the evolution is not well understood and proposed theories have a million loop holes. So here are a few alternate theories which propose - "We did not evolve at all."

Theory 1: The BTP theory
Possible mentions of this part might be in Gandy's blog.

Me and gandy were wondering if Matrix, the movie, is an explaination to this. To begin, I will just explain how BTP(B.Tech. Projects) are done in IIT. The BTP is a 6 credit course kinda thing in which we have to publish a report, make a presentation, face the viva, meanwhile making the profs believe that we do not know what plagiarism is? If at all they do mention plagiarism, we try to get away by looking dumb and throwing all the blame onto our poor vocab. "We don't know what it is!"

Typical cases of BTP include ones where there is a new faculty involved. Such profs, mostly want their first few students to get throught with their vivas without hassel. So last year one of the profs actually gave two students his Ph.D thesis and asked them to take "INSPIRATION" from it. What the hell!! But there are others like me who are serious about it. There are others who aren't serious, but their experimental results are serious. Such a wonder can be achieved by intelligently modelling(false reporting) your data. Results please the viva commitee and mostly they award the fake readings a centum, meanwhile feeling sorry for the BoyWonder who will have to leave IIT and will not be able to continue his breathtaking discovery.

Coming back to the point, me and gandy thought - "What if all of us are BTPs. I mean the studd ones are a BTP simulation of some good student under god(i choose to give the generic name to the super guide of all BTPs). Others like me are BTPs of ones who are struggling to make through with good enough results in time. There are these imposter people on earth who are the BTPs that are the falsely-reported-data-made-to-look-good-kinds. The BTP simulations run until GOD takes a look at the code and evaluates it. After that the simulations are terminated, a process equivalent to death on the simulated earth. Hence forth the BTP codes are thrown into either of the two junk databases - Heaven or Hell.

Saddam was a BTP of some chemical engineer who was trying to build WMDs. Bad news is that Bush is the BTP of some crytography student who hacked into Saddam's makers research and punished his BTP. What the hell is up with those guys? They do something over there and the stick runs up our ass. Now see, Saddam's maker can always make a new BTP even if his old BTP was rejected up there and destroyed. But what about the BTP of innocent students whose BTPs had nothing objectionable but their BTPs got punished along with the rejected BTP, Saddam. A million people killed in the simulated world.

God has to sort out the adminstrative issues up there in his college. Some crude laws of his college cause a lot of havoc in this simulated college of mine. He wants a gaussian distribution of the quality of BTPs. Resultantly a thousand of simulated BTP people, the ones close to y=0 line on his graph, end up living in inferiority complex. Non engineers will hate this comment of mine.



Theory 2: The Big BOX theory (Bye
Bye Big Bang Theory)

My zambian friend Zambie from Zambia proposed this one.

Zambie says - Imagine a box. A black box. Very big, as big as the universe. I guess he meant that universe is a box. So.... ya... Inside the biiiig black box there are lot of marbles. On each marble there is a lot of dirt. That dirt particles are actually tinier(tiny compared to diemensions of 1st box and the marbles) black box which again have several marbles full of dirt and so on. Keep going down into the system recursively and we are at one level of complexity in such a system. The dynamics of this system can be explained as follows - There is GOD. I know you are frustrated to read that in my scientific publication, but then non-evolution centric universe dynamics need some GOD like thing for completeness. GOD has kids and one of those kids has this biggest black box as a toy. So he plays with it, sleeps with it. He Takes it into light(call that a day), puts it in a dark closet(call this a night). He throws it in anger(earthquake), puts it in real sun(remember our sun is just marble in the box) (call it global warming). Everything can be explained.

Better than evolution theory.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

The story of Indian Chicken


Debo sent me the following link a few days back.
http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/30/stories/2006033008942200.htm

It talks about the apathy that sports is subjected to, in India. A few very good points raised. One of the points was that India did a helluva lot to show off in the closing ceremony of the recenlty concluded Commonwealth games. They did so only to keep people optimistic about the arrangements that they would be making in 2010 CW games in New Delhi. So, they flew a bunch of Indian celebrities over there and made them perform or just show their faces. Aishwarya Rai was there to represent Indian Sport just like she is there to represent India everywhere irrespective of the context. I guess if Indian PMs were relaxed with the protocol issues they would be sending her to represent them even to places like SAARC and UN as their own proxy. Anyway how much do politicians otherwise know about policy decisions. Its beauracrats who do all the work other than signing it. So my bet is that send Aishwarya Rai to these diplomatic missions also. This way we might be using some external means of convincing people. I mean beauty is more compelling than a thousand words. On the same note I am reminded that in middle of the placement season one of our juniors asked me once - "Nalla, which is the most sought after company in IIT ?" I said plainly - "Girls".

Coming back to the point the people representing India over there were Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Aishwarya(ofcourse)..... Well what were gavaskar and Kapil doing there is also something to wonder. Since when was cricket even half a complete sport to be represented in CW games? CW games is a real sport event, and none of this kind ever cared to include cricket. Just because CW is all about old British terriotories Aus, Ind, Pak, WI, Eng, etc. they included cricket in 2002 on a trial basis and soon did away with it in the next game.

I couldn't get my hands on to the list of celebs representing India there, but I guess Dhanraj Pillay was not mentioned in any news paper even if he was there. Pillay i think will never be a sport icon unlike SG or SRT or Kapil. Where, in most places, the stature of sportsmen is decided by their contribution at a competitive international level event, it is not so in India. Cricket is played by 12 odd countries and which includes Zimbabwe and likes, which better not be mentioned. Pillay has performed miracles on field against the best in world; among 180 odd countries playing hockey. Also that becaue he fought with KPS Gill, there is a small chance that they will ever let him do anything with hockey ever again. Goodbye pillay.

So when I think of people like Dhanraj Pillay and Anju bobby George, who were "hockey-chickens and long jump-chickens" among "cricket-turkeys", I can say just one thing - "In a bird flu era, Chicken Istreeling ho ya pulling, sabki ho CULLING."

Saturday, April 01, 2006

My guide sent me this one

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever.

The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste. To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer.

However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish.

So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem?
How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state.

The fish are challenged.

As soon as you reach your goals, such as earning good money, getting a good position, starting a successful company, paying off your debts or whatever, you might lose your passion. You don't need to work so hard so you relax.

Like the Japanese fish problem, the best solution is simple. It was observed by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1950's. "Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment."

The Benefits of a Challenge

The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a good problem. If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you are happy. You think of your challenges and get energized. You are excited to try new solutions. You have fun. You are alive!

Recommendations :

Instead of avoiding challenges, jump into them. Beat the heck out of them.

Enjoy the game. If your challenges are too large or too numerous, do not give up. Failing makes you tired. Instead, reorganize. Find more determination, more knowledge, more help.

Don't create success and lie in it. You have resources, skills and abilities to make a difference. Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!

Objective Journalism? huh!!!

Objective Journalism??? huh...


Before I begin on the "huh" part, I congratulate the current press and media for the positive changes they have brought. Press was a means to spread "IDEAS" when the likes of Tilak used to write. They exposed the fallacies and brutality of British government for social awareness. These days, there is a scam exposed everyday by every news channel. Everyday, they perform sting operations and uncover the filth of a police constable, a desperate neta and likes... All these brings the plight of common man to light.

But, I believe that this change is largely fuelled by competition in performing sting operations to get new stories and pressed by commercial interests. Therefore stories are reported but with filtering so as to satisfy the masala readers or without proper background. I present the analysis of the coverage of a few events in near past.

IISc attack: While everybody knows that a bunch of people came in a car (Ambassador got some publicity, as the name of the car never went amiss) and shot a few people. The press further followed with reporting the investigation in terrorist networks. So, we know that Mr.X, son of Mr.Y, father of master Z...was arrested as an suspect. A very complex picture of these terrorist networks was given. Information poured about the terror networks was more than people could digest, a flurry of names, they looked like copies of FIR. What was never reported was what happened immediately after the attack. What route of exit did the terrorist adopt on the IISc map. Did they encounter guards, if not then why? Although there might have been security lapses, common people will keep wondering, how they escaped so easily in broad daylight in such a populated area. Well, the news would reach someday, but I guess in the form of a over-dramatized representation like that of the D-company party on Star News.

Subscribing to various news feeds, it was disheartening to notice that foreign press reported the Japanese Encephalitis more than the Indian Press, which merely mentioned the close to 2000 deaths as another statistical figure.

A few cared to report about the 7000 odd poor people in slums who became homeless due to a Supreme Court Order, while others were busy reporting the definition of "Big-Fish" in supreme court order asking MCD to demolish the encroachments made by the wealthy lot. In, early nineties while most news papers were busy reporting the burned finger of Kapil Dev, none cared to notice the hardworking boy in a Muslim home bowling to pillars, later only to become India's hat-trick taker against Pakistan - Pathan. Thats acceptable, hero worship in this land dates back to Ramayan. But most missed to count the burns that the bus driver sustained while saving numerous people in the recent Delhi bomblast in Govindpuri. Even fewer noticed that while the problem among poor was illiteracy and health, the local leaders were able to illude them into believeing that names of their districts, villages and town were more important than their existence. Thus Bombay became Mumbai, Calutta became Kolkata... Very few realised that the solution to problems of Phalodi, a town in Jodhpur district, is not changing its name or making it a seperate district, but driving out corruption. The poor were once again made to fight for the wrong cause by local leaders.

Magazines proudly present Sex surveys, making them seem like the popular electoral mandate. In a land where talking to your life partner about sex is a taboo, these surveys are only represented by a very small lot. Yet they satisfy the readers who feel excited by the mere name of sex because its talk is kept away from them all their life. While press should be working to do away such taboos, it plays on the minds of ones who are engulfed by it.

Well thats Objective Journalism - fulfills all commercial objectives.

Why advertising sucks in India these days

If you have had a chance to see a few ads on TV these days, you will be enjoying this article. It is written by an ad-Man himself, from Ogilvy & Mather (the people who make hutch and Bajaj Pulsar's-"definitely male" ads).

Its about the lack of creativity used in advertisement, a field which calls for creativity in the first place.

Have look if this interests you.

Link:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1432313.cms

Literature does not have to happen in books

Have a look at the following links. Real good stuff to read.

1. On the US terror for terror policy
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060116&fname=Column+Prem+%28F%29&sid=1

2. Real heroes
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060109&fname=H2Lead+essay+%28F%29&sid=1


3. An article not on dogs, not specifically for dog lovers, leaves you surprised
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060109&fname=H8Uncle+Vijay+%28F%29&sid=1

4. Rare article bringing some staggering facts out
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1350187.cms

5. A Jug Surraiya Classic
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1353847.cms

6. A rarity from Shoba De - Anything good from her is rare
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1363140.cms

7. BBC's rare WW2 archives: amazing articles

History and opinion:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/

Rare Momoirs:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/C54817

Miscellenous:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2005/ww2_sixty_years_on/default.stm#startcontent

8. The Amul Story:
http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/sep/23spec.htm

9. A must read collector's edition of outlook - each article
is a gem
http://www.outlookindia.com/archivecontents.asp?fnt=20051017