How can one person change the world?

This is a question almost 99% of the people ask when they face some critical or ethical issues or rather dilemmas. To be brutally honest, they are right. I don't deny. But what if one person doesn't even try that?

Consider a scenario. A man takes his two children to school everyday morning. He jumps traffic and foul-mouth other people who may cause some troubles. The children will definitely learn that it's 'cool' to do all these. Right? So, unknowingly, being irresponsible, one person is imbibing such values in his "two" children. Anyone can think of even more scenarios like this. And the math is simple here. It'll just multiply like anything.

When one behaves like this, it's instinctive. But, being such role models, we are so much pushing the next generation also to behave and act in the same manner we behave and act. And we say that one person can't change the world!

So, I believe it's not a great thing to achieve; to change the world. It's just something extra-ordinary that will slowly happen if one does things, I mean Right things, as an ordinary person. You may see the results only in future. But it will be worth the wait! Sure!

3 Idiots - Making of the movie at IIM Bangalore

A bit sad that I was not here last year!

Pure bliss! What a score!

The Gap

When Telugu Desam Party went into the assembly elections in 2004, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu was a hero. He was the only CM who could bring an American President to visit his state, or may be just the state capital with extra preparations. He was hailed in the media as a future leader from whom the rest of India could take cues and industrialists loved him for his policies. Everyone expected him to be back in action after the 2004 polls. But, the results was a surprise. Some couldn't even believe it. People in media scratched their heads to find where their analyses went wrong. Nobody had any clue. But things were pretty clear that Mr. Chandrababu Naidu represented a very few sections of the society which catered interests of only 1-2% of the voting population. That's the GAP that one can easily observe in India.

When the newspapers and channels and internet portals in India screamed yesterday that 15 more dollar billionaires were added to the growing list, everyone had a reason to feel proud. But we can take a different look at these numbers. Our current population is 1.15 billion people. According to the Forbes report, the richest 100 Indians are worth $276 billion, which accounts for one-fourth of Indian GDP. You can do the math. 77% of Indian population still can't afford to spend even a meager (supposed to be!) Rs. 20 per day for their expenses. According to Global Hunger Index, India is at 65 in a list of 84 nations and according to Human Development Report 2009, India stands at 134 in a list of 182 countries. Again, the GAP is alarming! It's simply ridiculous.

The in-lands of Bellary in Karnataka is now controlled wholly by the famous (or infamous?) Reddy brothers who almost brought down the Karnataka assembly by simply bargaining with their money and muscle power. The example of Madhu Koda is another one. The background of all these issues have ordinary people in these regions, who are becoming poorer day by day. Their livelihood is lost; water is polluted, there is no work, no food, they are displaced and misplaced and they can't just live.

When governments talk about development, they just talk about the increase in industrial production and increase in revenue. But no one cared about the development of people. The people would have loved to sort these problems out peacefully. But nobody heard their voices for such a long time. So can anyone blame them for taking up weapons? When one's child dies of hunger, who can sit down, talk and discuss? So violence may be a way to garner attention although it won't solve any of these issues. When our Home minister says that Naxalism will be fought tooth and nail, he misses the whole point that it is a problem that is created by the ever greedy industrialists and politicians with heavy support from our own governments, including the one he is a part of.

So, when we boast of our supposed-to-be economic growth (I still don't know what does this mean! I can't comprehend it!) of 6-7-8-9% and dreams of India as the third largest economy in 2050 and as a future global leader, we are losing out hell lot of things. We are ignoring a great part of the invaluable human resources wealth of our nation, who can very well become our own burden if we continue like now.

I don't feel at all proud about this kind of growth and I actually feel ashamed to talk or even mention about our growing number of billionaires. I'm not against them; we want industries, we want growth, but I feel that such stark inequalities will definitely cause bad as a society in the long run. We still do have time to slow down a bit and change and make the process more inclusive. Or not? I don't know. But I know that the GAP is widening and we have to do something about it!

Malayali Penne......Love the song!

I'm seeing this video for the first time. It's so good to see a video celebrating women without camera focusing on their bodies. Really refreshing!

Pranav Mistry - When the Physical world meets the Digital!

Hats off for making it open source!

Too trivial to notice....

When any new releases of any new model or variant of car, bike and even hand held devices like cellphones happen, the caption under photographs reads like this.

"Managing Editor, XXXXX and Senior Vice President, XXXXX along with a model releases the new variant of YYYY at New Delhi, yesterday"

Why don't they mention at least the female model's name? Doesn't she hold any significance? I don't know.

Am I pondering too much? May be.