What current startups & tech companies can learn from the Dotcom Era
Feels like an eternity since the 2000 Dotcom Era! Especially given that everyone’s now talking about the present global financial crisis.
We all have short memories, and the present crisis often times leads us to forget other crises from the past. And yet, I still see many tech companies and startups (especially here in India) repeat those same mistakes from 1999-2000, a decade later. There are many people who have talked about this topic, and I still feel that some points are not being adequately covered.
As someone who lived through this entire crazy era, I wanted to add my views on this. Here are 21 lessons that I would like to highlight.
1. ‘Dreaming & Envisioning’ = Good. ‘Day Dreaming’ = Not Good.
2. Revenues and operating profits are extremely important! Be conservative in ways in which you invest cash.
3. Control costs at all levels. If your office starts resembling a kitchen pantry or a stationery supply room, then there’s something wrong!
4. Travel – only when you absolutely have to! There are enough technology enablers to reduce travel substantially. Leverage them to their fullest.
5. Do not think about ‘VC Funding’ or even ‘Angel Funding’ from day-1. On the same note, don’t focus on valuations, unless and until you are actually raising external funding!
6. While it’s important for a startup to be ‘passionate’ about their business, their idea – make sure that this ‘passion’ is pointed in the right direction. ‘Passion without direction’ can be more dangerous than a slow steady calculated approach.
7. Remember, not every crazy idea that a new startup thinks of, is genuinely novel and path-breaking. Chances are high that many of these so called ‘master-strokes’ are ideas that were rejected by more mature companies after an objective analysis.
8. Advertising alone is not a sufficient revenue channel for internet based business models.
9. You should be able to explain your idea in clear and simple terms; without using any ‘buzz words’.
10. Pure-play B2C Services online models seldom succeed. Often times, a strong offline component is also essential.
11. Software quality is very important – scalability, reliability, and end-user experience are extremely crucial metrics.
12. Focus on your core domain - don’t chase each and every hot new opportunity area.
13. Remember, technology is simply a means to an end, and not and end by itself. Focus on the problem to be solved, and not the ‘cool technology’!
14. B2B models cannot rule and control the value-chain! They are merely facilitators.
15. B2B models offering ‘SaaS’ services should focus on the business value of that service, and not simply ‘fancy software and deployment architectures’.
16. Don’t overdo perks such as freebies, parties, gimmicks, etc in order to ‘motivate’ and ‘retain’ employees. Ultimately, more mundane things like the founder’s vision and personal leadership skills are more important. Cash and stock ownership are important as well!
17. Take the ‘experts and analysts predictions’ of new and emerging technology and market areas with a pinch of salt. Do your own research.
18. Do not listen to those media experts who proclaim- ‘This time, its different!’ It usually isn’t. The fundamental laws of business (like the fundamental laws of science) don’t change!
19. Unless you are sitting on some path-breaking algorithm or something like that, don’t be over-secretive about your idea. Remember, it’s your execution that is going to count more than your idea. Being over-secretive is counter-productive from the point of view of getting good upfront validation and feedback.
20. Remember, sales & delivery go hand-in-hand. Ignoring one side, while excelling at the other one doesn’t help you succeed.
21. First, validate your new breakthrough ideas with your existing customers - before going to the market.
Issues With America’s HealthCare System – A Patient’s Perspective
I had the misfortune of suffering from an extended illness in America and experienced firsthand the many problems and issues with the American HealthCare system. In this brief article, I will try to list some of the major ones that I can recollect from my personal experience (See list below – points are in no particular order).
Please note that I still believe that the American HealthCare system is amongst the best in the world; especially when it comes to treating really tough medical conditions, and performing complicated surgical procedures and emergency medical services. It still retains some of the best doctors and other medical talent in the world.
My issues are more systemic and process related. In the end, one would expect a little more from world’s most advanced and expensive healthcare industry! Note these are my personal observations – whether some of these points can be generalized further needs more data points from other patients and consumers of this healthcare system.
1. Cost of HealthCare Insurance – The cost of healthcare has undergone a major increase over the last decade. The increasing insurance premiums have forced many private sector companies (that offer health insurance to their employees) to increasingly pass on a bigger chunk of these costs to the employee. This increase has been significantly more than the rate of inflation, and has resulted in no perceptible change in the service quality.
2. High costs for the un-insured, and the under-insured – This issue is extremely critical and has already been discussed ad nauseum in every media outlet, by numerous experts.
3. Insurance Claims Processing – Even for patients that have some of the best insurance coverage, the process of settling claims is far from perfect. Discrepancies and errors are common. In certain cases, interpretation of ‘what’s covered vs. what’s not’ is not clear. The 3-way communication across, Doctor’s Office – Insurance Company – Patient, further adds to the process complexity and mismatches. I personally had to deal with many of these claims related issues. To resolve these, often times you end up spending hours on the phone with the insurance company.
4. Impact of ‘medico-legal issues related complications’ on behavior? – I am not a legal expert and cannot pass explicit judgments here, but sometimes one gets a feeling that the entire medical staff’s (not just the Doctors, but also the Nurses and other support personnel) interactions with a patient are biased by a ’medico-legal’ angle. Most answers are very generic, vague and filled with ‘disclaimers’. I understand that this is a big issue, but it is a bad trend if it affects the medical staff and patient communication. This communication channel needs to be one of those most ‘open’ ones!
5. Accessibility of a doctor – Most doctors work during the regular office hours and are not available on evenings and weekends. Hence seeing a doctor often times results in a forced half-day vacation during weekdays for many patients. Evenings and weekends are out of bounds and if you are in urgent need to see a doctor, in most cases an Emergency Room is your only option.
6. Difficulty in getting to a specialist – Often times it’s very difficult to schedule an appointment with a specialist. Many are booked out weeks into the future. And if you can’t see them right away, and are in some serious trouble, the standard answer that you might get is ‘Go to an Emergency Room!’
7. Difficulty in asking any simple follow-up questions to a doctor – If you have the most mundane follow-up question, it is still very difficult to directly ask your doctor. Even if you call during office hours, your call is routed to a nurse who often has no background about your particular case (except for some case-papers). Typically, the nurse is very busy and answers a simple – ‘I will get back to you’. If you call outside office hours, then your best bet is an answering service! I agree that many times it is not feasible for a busy doctor to directly talk to the patient. But some intermediate solution needs to be worked out. After all, I think that the most expensive healthcare system in the world should have at least some ‘personal touch’.
8. Information Technology in Healthcare – I get the impression that the Healthcare industry hasn’t leveraged IT to the fullest extent as compared to many other industry sectors. This can be seen in hospitals as well as in doctor clinics. From basic things like Electronic Medical Records (also referred to as Electronic Health Records), to a better integrated hospital management system (across billing, insurance, clinics and service providers) a lot of improvement is needed. Even today, there’s hardly any electronic data interchange of a patients reports, health records and doctor’s notes across practices and hospitals.
I have had to fill in volumes of paperwork every time I went to see a new doctor. Why can’t there be some automation of a patient’s insurance records and medical history? Why does a new patient have to arrive at a new doctor ’15 min early’ to fill out reams of paperwork, many times when he is not in a mental/physical condition to be dealing with this? A patient has to maintain an increasingly heavier load of files, and paper documents, and make it accessible to any new doctor that he might be seeing.
9. Difficulty in Scheduling Simple Procedures – Even simple diagnostic procedures (e.g. Ultra-Sound, Endscopy, etc.) can sometimes take days or even weeks to schedule. I don’t really know why this happens. Is this merely a scheduling problem or a supply scarcity of resources?
10. Newer patented drugs are regularly being introduced and are prescribed in many cases. Not sure if the incremental benefit that some of these provide over the existing older (and still under patent) or off patent/generic drugs can be weighed against their exorbitant costs. I am not an expert and cannot make this judgment, but do think that this is something that needs to be researched further. Again – since the US consumer is supposedly the ‘richest in the world’ he has to pay the highest (in most cases) for the patented drugs compared to other developed countries. This is another issue that has been a big point of contention, with lot of discussions in the media.
An Indian Road Trip in the 1980s – We sure have come a long way!
I recently made a long road trip from Pune to Goa, a distance of nearly 500 km (320 miles) in around 7 hours. The scenic route has a combination of nice 4 laned highways and beautiful winding mountain roads that descend down to the sea coast. The average highway speeds were comparable with the US average 60mph. I was driving a nice car - with ABS, multiple airbags, climate control, powerful engine, and great suspension & handling.
So what’s so great and special about this? Young readers in India, as well as the readers in the US will not understand my sheer joy in driving in these conditions with these ‘basic’ features! You folks have been taking the roads and the car features for guaranteed, for way to long. To appreciate my experience, you will have to step back to India in the early 1980s. (A rough analogy might the pre-freeways US roads in the 1950s…).
To bring you upto speed, let me sketch a typical driving trip in India, a quarter century back. Sit back and enjoy the ride…if you can 
Our family’s car of choice (not that there was any choice during those days…only Fiats and Ambassadors were available. The new phenomenon ‘Maruti’ was just around the corner) was the Fiat 1100, sporting a ‘powerful’ 47 HP engine with a 4 speed (non-synchromesh) gearbox. It was made by Premier Automobiles; but was rarely referred to by its official name, ‘Premier Padmini’. Visitors might still see a few of these cars upon landing at Mumbai Airport – some of these vehicles still serve as the ‘yellow & black’ taxis.
In those days, a Fiat was the standard car…the Ambassador, a big ‘luxury’ car! Note – any ‘car’ in general was not for the masses, and there was no talk about a Nano. The real ‘people’s car’ was the bicycle! Even a 2 wheeler in those days was expensive and tough to buy. (Some people might remember those times when it took 10 years to get a Bajaj Scooter..).
A road trip was an ‘event’…an adventure. Someone has said ‘It is the journey that is more important than the destination’. How true! I will not bore with you all the details; rather let me just highlight the ‘high-points’ of a typical road trip from that ‘era’. In my preferred style, I will highlight 10 points:
1. Before you set-off, there were a series of ‘checks’ that may have rivalled a ‘pre-flight’ checklist of an aircraft. There was the car radiator that needed constant filling up. Same with the car batteries water level. And the engine oil level check. Infact, opening the front hood was an extremely common occurence.
2. Talking about car batteries – they were as reliable as the cars in those days…needless to say ‘Dhakka Start’ (people pushing the car to get it started) was common.
3. Refueling in the city was a must – there were no guarantees about any highway side fuel stops.
Once you were off, the only positive thing compared to the present, was the traffic – It was orders of magnitude lower than you would encounter today.
4. 6 people would be comfortably seated in the car: 3 in the front, and 3 in the back. Yes, this car had ‘bench’ seats in the front. The carrier on the roof of the car was packed with all kinds of stuff. (I vividly remember a Kokan trip where we had sets of those ‘old style’ Mango Crates tied down on the top..!)
5. Flat tires were extremely common…cannot remember a single long trip where we didn’t have a tire ‘puncture’. We all were quite adept at changing the spare tire (‘stepney’ as it was called in those days..). This was followed by a stop at a small town ‘tire-walla’ to get the tire fixed. Oh..in those days, tires had tubes in them. (I am assuming that the reader knows that majority of the cars today have tubeless tires…if you are not one of them, then ignore this para all together )
6. Frequent mechanical breakdowns were common as well…and these too for ‘new’ and ‘well maintained’ cars. You were lucky if it was a case of a simple over-heating … in this case you simply poured more water into the radiator, let it ‘blow some steam and cool down’, and then drive on. If it was more serious, then the only option in most cases was to hitch a ride with a passing-by truck/bus to the nearest town…find a mechanic, and bring him back to the car. The saving grace was that these cars were ‘easy’ to repair and after a few hours - you could move on! Oh..and the only ‘phone’ we knew those days was that big black box like device with a round dial on top of it, that made an irritating ringing sound (when it used to work). Today’s cellphone would have looked straight out of Star Trek in those days.
7. Ofcourse the cars were luxurious…well relatively speaking Airconditioning was unheard off. The standard cooling solution consisted of those innovative ‘triangular split’ windows that diverted wind into the passenger cabin. And there was no music-system either. Music (if any) was (as they say in the web 2.0 world today) ‘user-generated’. The background score was typically provided by the cacophony of the engine and suspension rattling.
Did I mention that the Fiat 1100 had no power steering, no power-brakes? But driving with all those aids is for wimps… right
8. The lack of airconditioning created interesting problems during rainy weather. The front wind shield glass used to get fogged rightaway, with the condensate. The only option to get rid of that moisture was to have the ‘co-pilot’ constantly and skillfully wipe-off the wind shield, without distracting the driver.
9. There were no highway side McDonalds or Food Malls in those days. There were some good restaurants or more appropriately ‘food shacks’ (Tapris) along the way. Some people will vividly remember that Khopoli favorite on the old Mumbai-Pune Highway, ‘Ramakant’ – famous for their ‘Batata Vadas’.
10. If you were driving off the highway on the country roads, the experience used to be even more interesting. A car was a rare sight in rural India in those days. We felt ‘important’ Like a VIP motorcade driving by! Proper tar roads were often times non-existent. The car used to leave a huge storm of dust..literally throwing it into the onlookers’ eyes. I am sure those villagers must have been cursing us ‘city folks’.
After all this adventure when you finally made it to your destination, there was this immense satisfaction about a ‘big achievement’. The driver used to really earn his ‘stripes’ those days…and so did the car… Since for all its short comings and problems it was a great way to travel!
The Greatest Technological Achievement Of The 20th Century – The Apollo 11 Mission To Moon
The Apollo Program, which reached its zenith with that memorable line from Neil Armstrong, was in my humble view – the greatest technological achievement of the 20th Century. July 20th, 1969 was not only NASA’s finest hour; it was mankind’s finest hour. If technology & technology driven progress are the cornerstones of the past century, no other success represents it better!
Today, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of this historic event. It’s an opportunity to pause and admire. It’s an opportunity to wonder and think back in awe. It’s an opportunity to understand. It’s an opportunity to learn. As a student of science and technology, the Apollo Program fascinates me no end, even today. In this blog, I will make an attempt to recollect the incredible facts and stories about this program. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. The sheer circumstances under which these successes were achieved are mind boggling and simple factoids won’t do justice.
Readers, please note: If you are interested in getting a quick preview of some of these fascinating numbers and factoids, take a look at my post from July 16 (40th anniversary of the launch): 10 Fascinating Factoids About The Apollo Program’s Saturn V Rocket
How it all began
Its one thing to set impossible goals, and its another to actually achieve those…and achieve them, they did… With a year to spare!
It all started with that John F. Kennedy speech to the Congress in the 1961 (And followed by the famous ‘We choose to go the moon…’ speech at Rice University). Or maybe the moon race started a little before that – following the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union. Post World War II, America and Soviet Union entered into a massive space race, armed with some important spoils from Nazi Germany. The German rocket program was quite extensive, and it had successfully built and deployed the V1 and V2 rockets. Much bigger plans were on the anvil, but the course of the war prevented them from being materialized. Apparently, in 1945 the Germans had devised designs for a rocket (specifically, a ballistic missile) that could reach the American shores.
The Russians captured the German rocket base at Peenemünde, but the lead scientist Wernher von Braun escaped and surrendered to the Americans, along with a small team of scientists.
Allow me a slight digression here, but I cannot help but draw an interesting parallel to the Indian mythological epic, ‘The Mahabharat’. Before the Kaurav – Pandav war, Arjun and Duryodhan approached Krishna for his support. Turns out that Duryodhan (Kauravs) got Krishna’s entire army and infrastructure; and Arjun (Pandavs) got lord Krishna himself; unarmed.
Coming back to Von Braun, the reason why I am mentioning him here is because he went onto to become the lead for the massive Saturn series rockets program.
But Saturn V and Apollo 11 didn’t happen overnight. There were many other stepping stones, which started with America’s first space launch in 1958 of the satellite Explorer I…., first manned launch in 1961 (John Sheppard was the first to make a sub-orbital flight, and John Glenn (who later on went to become a senator, and also the oldest man to travel in space in the space shuttle in 1998, at the age of 77) did the first full orbit around the earth.…and through a series of Gemini series missions. The Apollo program was conceived back in 1961 towards achieving Kennedy’s goal.
Before we take a look at the Apollo Program, let’s briefly understand the overall components of the Saturn V rocket and the Apollo spacecraft.
Saturn V rocket and the Apollo spacecraft
The Saturn V was a multi-stage (3 stage) rocket with the Apollo Spacecraft payload on the top. Some of the earlier Apollo missions were based on the Saturn 1B rocket, which essentially was a smaller version of the Saturn V. The Saturn V was designed to deliver a the spacecraft payload consisting of: Command Module (Columbia), Service Module and Lunar Module (Eagle) – into the lunar orbit.
The 1st stage stood 138 ft tall and was powered by Kerosene and Liquid Oxygen. The 1st stage reached a height of nearly 45 miles, and achieved a speed of nearly 2 km/sec. The 2nd stage stood 81.7 ft tall and was powered by Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen. The 2nd stage reached a height of 110 miles, and achieved a speed of nearly 7 km/sec. The 3rd stage stood 58.7 ft tall and was powered by Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen. The 3rd stage got the Apollo Spacecraft into an earth orbit. It was also fired again (to reach 11 km/sec – the escape velocity of earth) to push the Spacecraft out of the earth orbit, into a course towards the moon.
The Command Module, ‘Columbia’ orbited was the ‘mother ship’ of the Apollo Spacecraft. Armstrong and Aldrin transferred over to the Lunar Module ‘Eagle’, while Collins stayed in the lunar orbit. The Service Module was attached to the Command Module and contained support systems and propulsion systems for the return journey to the earth. The Lunar Module, ‘Eagle’ descended towards the moon, with rocket thrusters to slowdown and control the approach.
From the tragedy of Apollo 1 to great success of Apollo 10
The Apollo Program started with a disaster. Apollo 1 capsule caught fire during a test on the launch pad and the three astronauts burned to death. Amongst them was Edward White, the first American to do a Space-Walk. This was the first loss of life suffered by the American Space Program, and was a huge blow. It resulted in a lot of rethinking and introspection by NASA.
There were some major revisions in the plan, and the program went on. The earlier Apollo missions completed a series of tests of the different components and the sub-systems. These included the earlier generation Saturn 1 and Saturn 1B rockets, the Saturn V rocket, the Command Module, the Service Module and the Lunar Module (NOTE – I will not go into details of the complete design…readers who are interested can…). The initial series of launches (Apollo 2 – Apollo 6) were unmanned missions.
Apollo 7 lifted off on Oct 11, 1967 and was a confidence building mission. The 3 man crew went into a low earth orbit and tested various systems of the lunar and the command modules. Testing of the maneuverability of the Lunar Module in the weightlessness of space was very important.
Apollo 8 was the first flight to head to the vicinity of the moon. It was also the first manned flight of the awe-inspiring Saturn V rocket. The crew of Apollo 8 included command module pilot Jim Lowell, who was later the commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13. Apollo 8 provided the first views of the other side of the moon.
Apollo 9 carried out first lunar orbit and manned testing of the lunar module Apollo 10 carried out the lunar module descent to within 50,000 feet from the surface of the moon. The stage was now set for Apollo 11.
Apollo 11 – ‘The Eagle Has Landed’
Apollo 11 blasted off in space on July 16, 1969. After 4 days, on July 20, 1969, the Lunar Module started its descent onto the surface of the moon.
‘Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle Has Landed’. Land successfully, it did! But it was over 4 km off-course. It was running low on fuel and had only 30 sec of spare fuel left to land.
It took the Armstrong and Aldrin a few hours to check and secure all the systems, until Armstrong could set foot on the moon.
The Apollo 11 astronauts setup various instruments and the American flag on the moon. Various lunar rock samples were collected. Future Apollo missions also carried a motorized rover that could take the astronauts over a longer distance to explore the moon surface.
During liftoff, the landing stage of the Eagle (with its empty fuel tank) was left on the moon, to save weight. The ascent engine powered Eagle back into the lunar orbit and docked it back again with the command module. Armstrong and Aldrin got back into the Command Module, and then jettisoned the lunar module. The Command-Service Module (CSM) then fired its return engine to set them back on a trajectory towards earth.
On July 24th, the Command Module Capsule splashed down in the Pacific mission to mark the completion of this most historic mission.
Why was it such a great achievement?
As I write this, I look at the progress that has happened in the space program since the last Apollo nearly 40 years ago. Just this past week, NASA was struggling to launch the Space Shuttle in midst of some weather problems. Agreed that there were major budget cuts in the American Space Program post Apollo, but still the achievements of the past 4 decades leave a lot to desire, in comparison to the Gold Standards set in the 1960s. Note – I am not taking anything away from the 100 + Space Shuttle missions and International Space Station.
Can you imagine running the entire Apollo 11 flight computer on something less powerful than your cell phone’s chip? Well, ran they did! Today, the gadgets all around us are equipped with microprocessors – from a music system, to a washing machine. From a camera, to a car. But remember, Intel’s first microprocessor, the 4 bit 4004 didn’t make its debut until 1971! So just think of this – such a complex space mission was executed with electronic components that was less powerful than your microwave oven!
Think of the gargantuan Saturn V rocket that moved from concept to design to manufacture to successful prototyping and execution, in under a decade! The first American and Soviet rockets that went into space in the late 1950s were tiny (barely 50 ft, with a capacity to put a 50 kg satellite in earth orbit) and extremely unsophisticated compared to the Saturn V (standing 363 ft tall, could put payloads in excess of 100 Tons in earth orbit) that first flew in 1968.
Rockets Comparison - From V2 to Saturn V
Realize that a rocket is a very a complex system and contains hundreds of sub-systems and millions of parts. There’s propulsion, guidance, communication, telemetry, navigation – just to name a few major ones. And there are backups…backups for almost every system. And backups for backups!
Let’s take a few examples. Telemetry deals with streaming hundreds of data parameters from the spacecraft back to Mission Control in Houston, 200,000 miles away. This data had to be interpreted, analyzed (through a combination of automated and manual processes) and acted on, around the clock.
Propulsion system of the rocket engines provides the necessary thrust. The Saturn V’s 1st stage had 5 F1 Engines generating the kind of power, most probably not generated in any machine since then! I will not bore you with many numbers, but here’s a simple comparison. The main engines of Saturn V generated enough power, equivalent to about 150 Giga Watts. That is about the entire installed electric power generation capacity of India! Or about 2.5 times the power generated in Texas, USA. Or about 80 times the power generated by one of the largest hydro-electric plants in North America – The Hoover Dam. Just the fuel pumps of these engines consumed power equivalent to that needed by the City of Pune!
To get a sense of the complexity of internals of the command module and the lunar modules, I would just recommend watching that Hollywood classic – Apollo 13 (Which incidentally happens to be my most favorite movie). A typical automobile has a few thousand parts. The Apollo command, service and lunar modules had over a million.
Navigation and Guidance are extremely challenging tasks for any space mission. Extremely small errors can take the rocket on a wrong trajectory which could mean completely missing the target (The Moon) or come crashing down and burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere on the return.
I will go back to the Apollo 13 mission for a minute. Sometimes failures highlight the successes of a project more than anything else. Imagine doing near real-time analysis, diagnosis, generating remote workarounds and implementing repair 200,000 miles in space! But the Apollo Program was designed to handle these scenarios. Coming back to Apollo 13, one NASA personnel put it quite nicely – ‘It (Apollo 13) was NASA’s most successful failure!’
And I haven’t discussed the manufacturing and assembly challenges at all. Building a 3000 Ton machine is no easy job. Building one that will fly at speeds of 2 km/sec is another. Note – the final stage of Saturn V, which powered the Apollo Spacecraft towards the moon, did eventually approach the earth escape velocity of 11 km /sec.
Massive fuel tanks had to be designed that could withstand extreme pressures and temperatures, and fabricated in pieces and then assembled. Just to highlight one example here, consider the scale of the fuel consumption of the Saturn V main engines. To generate the kind of power mentioned earlier, you need lot of fuel! The first stage of Saturn V consumed Kerosene (as the propellant) and Liquid Oxygen. It gobbled up around 15 Tons of Kerosene / sec! Just think of the complex high-power pumps and piping needed to feed this kind of fuel into the engines, to generate that massive power!
The Lunar Module was the most complex of the machines and was assembled in a special plant. Specialized Heat Shields that can withstand temperatures over 3000 F on reentry had to be tested and built.
Lastly, I would like to highlight the program management aspects of this effort. We routinely see major engineering projects dragging for years. Here was a project of this startling magnitude, moving from conception to execution stage in less than 10 years!
There were so many historic firsts in this project…in the areas of size, scale, complexity and ingenuity. But ultimately these facts don’t tell the whole story. I guess the ultimate greatness of Apollo 11 was how it captivated an entire generation!
Interesting Links & Resources
2. Footage of launch of Apollo 11 with a highspeed camera
3. Footage of launch at normal speed
References
1. The official NASA website: www.nasa.gov
2. Wikipedia Pages for Apollo Program, Apollo 11, Saturn V Rocket
3. HBO Documentary ‘From Earth To The Moon’, presented by Tom Hanks. (IMDB Link)
4. Ron Howard’s ‘Apollo 13’ (IMDB Link)
5. Johnson Space Center, Houston - Space Center Houston
Is the paranoia around H1N1 in Pune / India justified? – A look at some factoids & information resources
Honestly, I don’t have the exact answer. Only time will tell whether we, the citizens of Pune (and India) over-reacted, or should have done a lot more. All we have right now are statistics, data-points, examples from other regions of the world, and expert advisories to look at and learn from.
In this article, I am listing out the various relevant factoids, observations and information resources that I have stumbled upon over the past few days. I will let the readers draw their own conclusions.
What is painfully clear though is that we don’t have enough data, and we often don’t rely on credible sources of information. In absence of data and facts, the common population is always swayed by ‘headlines’ and ‘sound bites’ – Sadly, this is true even in the 21st century. Thanks to the latest technology, data can be accessed easily; yet this same technology can also help in spreading rumors a lot faster as well.
Here are some factoids and observations:
1. According to WHO and other estimates, there are nearly 1 Billion cases of normal flu (influenza) each year. Around 3-5 Million of these are severe and 300,000 – 500,000 of these result in deaths.
Statistically speaking (based on a simple extrapolation that India’s population is apprx 1/5 of World Population) that translates to 200 M cases, 600,000 – 1 M severe cases, and 60,000 – 100,000 deaths.
For a city of Pune, that translates to 500 deaths/year or 10 deaths/week.
All these are huge numbers. And yet, until a few weeks back, we hardly even thought about ‘influenza’ as something serious!
2. On a related topic – Pollution levels in Pune and in all major Indian cities are at very dangerous levels. Yet very few perceived the need to wear masks over all these years. Do we know the statistics of upper respiratory problems in major Indian cities?
3. According to WHO (World Health Organization), the recommended mask to protect against H1N1 infections is the one that meets the N95 standard. Yet, these constitute a miniscule amount of the ones being worn around in Pune. The others don’t really offer any significant help. For a complete list of Do’s and Don’ts regarding masks – please refer to the next section.
4. Commonsense tells us that it is better to wear masks in crowded places; but they are not very critical when walking or driving on uncrowded, open roads. Yet, what we are seeing around in Pune is quite the opposite. It is also amazing to see so many people wearing masks that are covering their mouths, but not their noses?!
5. Last year, over 200 riders lost their lives in 2-Wheeler Accidents in Pune – many of these deaths could have been prevented had the riders been wearing helmets. Yet I see so many people on Pune roads today wearing masks but not helmets!
6. According to what I have read thus far, the H1N1 strain is not significantly more virulent than the traditional influenza virus. The prescribed treatments are also very similar to normal flu.
7. Most individuals who get infected with H1N1 will get back to normal in a few days (similar to the normal flu). This is not a virus like HIV that an individual will carry with him / her for the rest of their lives!
8. Apparently, a vast percentage (by some accounts, up to 90%) of the Indian population tests +ve on the skin test for TB (Tuberculosis). Majority of these tests yield a –ve result on a follow-up (and more reliable) X-Ray test. Disease causing germs (viruses and bacteria) are present everywhere – in most of the cases, the immune system should be able to take care of them! It is only when the immune system becomes weak (in case of old age, young children, patients suffering from certain chronic ailments, etc.) do these germs present any significant danger.
Here are some useful information sources:
1. Flu related statistics (from Roche Laboratories – makers of Tamiflu) http://www.flufacts.com/impact/statistics.aspx
2. Comprehensive Flue Related Information from US Dept of Health & Human Services and CDC (Center for Disease Control) www.flu.gov http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/
3. Comprehensive Flue Related Information from WHO (World Health Organization) http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/
4. A map based depiction of Flu cases across the globe http://www.healthmap.org/en
5. WHO – FAQ about H1N1 http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/what/en/index.html
6. WHO – Document regarding use of masks http://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/swineflu/masks_community/en/index.html
7. WHO – Document regarding cleaning hands as a key preventive measure http://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/swineflu/AH1N1_clean_hands/en/index.html
Driving In Europe – How It’s Different From U.S.
Autobahn
There are many more differences than just seeing cars cruise-by at 250 km/hr!
On continental Europe, they drive on the same side of the road as the United States. But the similarities really taper off from there! Recently, I had my first opportunity to drive in Europe, and it was a great experience. In this blog, I will highlight the contrasts between the two systems that are separated by much more than the Atlantic Ocean.
Readers who have extensive driving experience on both sides of the pond are welcome to add their own insights. For readers who haven’t driven in Europe, this article will be (hopefully!) an interesting guide, and an invitation to checkout this experience on your next trip. Note – my experiences are based on driving in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.
Unless you are lucky enough to get a ‘company car’ in Europe – renting a car might be your best (and only) option. Car renting in Europe is quite expensive. But you can always look for bargains. Like in the U.S., renting a car in a suburb or a small town is significantly cheaper than renting at an Airport or in city center (‘zentrum’ or ‘centrum’ – as they call ‘downtown’). A manual transmission car is much cheaper than an automatic. A US driving license and a credit-card is typically all you need to rent, but many rental companies will also ask for your Passport as an ID Proof.
1. Where are the Pickup Trucks and SUVs?
The first thing you might notice is the near complete absence of pickup trucks! The SUVs are also significantly fewer in number. You will find a lot of station wagons. Clearly, the ‘drive’ towards reducing demand for oil, starts with vehicle ’size’!
2. Better Driving Discipline – Fewer crazy drivers!
At first impression, the driving discipline definitely feels like it’s a notch higher than that in the U.S. Drivers seem to be more considerate when allowing lane changes, merge-ins, etc. Similarly, the fast lane is strictly used only for passing.
3. Smaller cars
You feel like the entire class of automobiles got shrunk down by 1 or 2 sizes. The American compact car is a standard in Europe, an American medium sized car is a large car, and so on. Some of the cars are outright tiny – and smaller in size than the recently launched ‘Tata Nano’. On a related note (and quite interestingly, I may add..) – Toyota Prius was more common on European Roads than other iconic Toyota cars.
4. Better maintained cars
In general the cars seemed better maintained than in the US. Not sure if this is driven by necessity (wintery weather conditions, etc.) or by stricter enforcement (regular certification requirements).
5. Manual Transmission & Diesel Engines
These are again novelties to most American drivers. Both are quite popular given that they deliver better efficiencies (ultimately expressed as a lower cost per km) than the automatic transmission and gasoline counterparts.
6. Sheer variety of cars
My belief of U.S. being the global leader in variety of cars got corrected. The sheer variety of cars in Europe is huge! And the number of configurations available for a given model is also extensive. E.g. – Manual/Automatic, Gasoline (Benzin) / Diesel, etc. In addition to all the major global brands you commonly see in the U.S., there are quite a few other brands as well.
7. Speed limits
Contrary to prevailing belief amongst many – they do have strict speed limits on European highways. Even in Germany – 120 kmph (roughly equal-to 75 mph) is common on most highways, but they change to 100 kmph, 80 kmph, etc. based on road/traffic conditions. Many speed limits are ‘dynamic’ – they are indicated by electronic signs and change depending on the external conditions and time of the day. The adherence to the speed limits is fairly decent. There are only certain sections of Autobahns (away from urban centers) in Germany that have no speed limits.
8. Where are the cops?
In my 4 days of extensive driving, I swear I just saw one police car on the highway! That too was at a site of an accident. And yet, the speed limits enforcement and compliance is quite high. I guess they use cameras and technology a lot more in Europe, for traffic rules enforcement. If you are caught speeding, the ticket is mailed to you – complete with your picture driving the car, as proof.
9. 18 Wheelers
The 18 Wheelers are similar to what you would see in the US. Though, you see significantly fewer on the road. I guess there could be two primary reasons: 1. Europeans consume less stuff. Less stuff = Less Volume & Weight to ship! 2. They use a lot of rail transportation.
10. ‘Seamless Borders’
Crossing from one country to the other in the Schengen Region is as seamless as crossing state boundaries in the U.S. or in India. Typically, there are just 1 or 2 signs welcoming you to that country and some changes in speed limits. That’s pretty much it – Plus the roads signs change from one language you cannot understand to a different one that you cannot understand either But the graphical signs are self-explanatory.
11. Round-Abouts/Yield
When driving on city roads - a ’round-about’ circle is something that might confuse an American driver! It’s a different system of yielding – instead of a 4 way stop-sign.
12. Various kinds of ‘entities’ on the city roads
I can understand why Americans sometime dread driving in European cities! In addition to the tiny roads – you have bicycles, pedestrians and trams to deal with! Amsterdam also has a few human powered bicycle taxis (And I thought Kolkatta was the only big city in the world to have them!).
For me personally (and others who regularly drive on Indian roads) I guess this ‘diverse traffic’ is not that bad
13. Bicycles lanes
Bicycles are omnipresent in Holland. They are also quite popular in other countries as well. On most city roads, bicycles have separate dedicated lanes. It’s quite interesting to see a few folks ‘bike’ from their home to a rail station – ‘fold’ their bikes (yes, some bikes literally fold in half – and can be stowed away easily..) board the train to the city, disembark and again ride to their office building!
Motorcycles are also more common, and they ‘optimize’ lane usage at traffic lights or in traffic jams by moving forward by the side of stuck 4 wheelers (the way they always do in India ) . Initially I thought they were breaking the rules – but then it seemed like it was a ‘standard’ procedure.
14. Gas Stations
The first time you pull into a Gas Station – be prepared for a sticker shock! Gasoline is currently priced around 1.40 Euros/liter. At the present exchange rate, that roughly translates to USD 7.60/Gallon. Diesel is a little cheaper at around 1.05 Euros/liter (USD 5.80/Gallon). Add to this the price of a comparable car is approximately twice as much in the U.S. – and you will understand why driving is so expensive in Europe!
At Gas Stations in Europe you can literally fill ‘Gas’ ..LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas), that is . Note in Germany and the Netherlands, they refer to Gasoline as ‘Benzin’. Instead of 3 varieties of gasoline and 1 variety of diesel – at European filling stations, you will typically find 2 varieties of gasoline, 2 varieties of diesel and LPG. Initially, I was confused to note the significantly higher octane rating numbers in Europe. However, that is apparently because of slightly different standards. (For more information, checkout: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating )
Reliance on Diesel and LPG is part of the drive towards reducing cost / km. LPG is significantly cheaper than Gasoline. Diesel typically yields a much better fuel efficieny in terms of km / liter.
15. Use of GPS and other electronic gadgets
The use of GPS based navigation has increased significantly over the past few years (as it has, in the U.S.) and old fashioned ‘paper’ map based navigation is a dying art. I however had to use this ‘old’ and tried and tested art form – since my cheap rental didn’t have a GPS.
Similarly, I understand that hands-free mobiles are mandatory – hence most cars have an integrated Bluetooth mobile integration with the car’s sound system.
In general, I also observed that for a similar model – an European car would typically have many other smaller gizmos – tire pressure monitoring, range calculators, etc.
Helpful links
Description of Autobahns from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahns
A good site with lot of information (speed-limits, restrictions, etc.) about various Autobahns http://www.autobahnatlas-online.de/index_e.html
(Image credits: Wikipedia)
Doolally – Cheers To Pune’s First Micro-Brewery
Doolally - Pune's first micro-brewery
Over the past few years, Pune has seen the opening of an array of fine new hotels, restaurants, casual dining options, bars and fast-food joints. These include iconic international chains like the Hard Rock Cafe. Fine dining restaurants like Stone Water Grill (which also has a fabulous lounge bar). A historic heritage hotel – Fort Jadhavgadh. There are the usual international fast food favorites in McDonalds, Subway, etc. And then there are my personal favorites in my local Deccan Gymkhana neighborhood like the Deccan Rendezvous.
But an important piece was missing…a micro-brewery. Why a micro-brewery in this list? And what is a micro-brewery…you might ask!
A micro-brewery is a place where beer is brewed the old fashioned way. The way it is supposed to be brewed. The way it’s supposed to taste – Fresh, free of synthetic additives, and flavorful. In a micro-brewery, beer is brewed onsite in small batch quantities, unlike large commercial breweries. Micro-breweries are quite popular in the U.S. and Europe. Successful pioneering micro-breweries like Gordon Biersch started in Palo Alto, California 20 years back and now have multiple locations all over the U.S. But this concept is virtually unheard of in India.
Four years back, two ex-IIM entrepreneurs Suketu and Prateek decided to change that. They are well on their way towards creating something special. Their first creation is ‘Doolally’ – Pune’s first micro-brewery (as well one of India’s pioneers in this area), which opened earlier this month. Along this long and interesting entrepreneurial journey, they were also joined by Oliver, a German ‘Brew-Meister’ (The Beer Specialist). Incidentally, Suketu is originally from Nashik (a city about 200 km north of Pune), which is also home to one of India’s premier wineries – Sula Wines. Maybe there’s something in the waters of Godavari there that creates and nurtures these entrepreneurs like Suketu and Rajiv Samant!
Weird name – ‘Doolally’, you might think… but I guess it’s very apt. Doolally is derived from the name ‘Deolali’ – a small army cantonment near Nashik that dates back to the British Raj. It literally means ‘going insane’! British soldiers used to be stationed in Deolali (often for months) as a staging point before returning back to England. Here they didn’t have any active tasks and some used to go crazy of boredom and the summer heat. Well…coincidently, Doolally is located fairly close to the Pune Cantonment Area. From the point of view of those early 20th century British soldiers – I guess wrong cantonment and wrong century!
Doolally is located in the fabulous new Corinthian Boutique Hotel near NIBM Road, Kondhwa. They have done a great job on the decor. The lighting, the bar stools and the wood panels/floors set the perfect ambience. As you enter you see the huge stainless steel vats where the beer is made. You are greeted by the bar upfront with huge taps serving the different varieties of fresh brew. Presently they are brewing Premium Lager, Dark, Wheat, Rye and a Cider (not technically a beer (tastes more like aerated wine) - but on tap for the occasional rare non beer drinker amongst the patrons). They plan to add more varieties in future. My favorite is the Dark – which has a hint of bitter malt/chocolate like flavor. The Wheat is great as well. But don’t take my word for it – you need to find out which one’s your favorite! You can try out the different samples before deciding on your order. Pints and Pitchers are available.
Doolally - Handcrafted Beer On Tap
The food menu is a little limited and primarily consists of snacks such as wraps and sandwiches. We understand that plans are afoot to extend this menu and introduce more conventional bar snacks such as Chicken Wings, Nachos, Chips, etc. On a side note – the Greek & Mediterranean restaurant ‘Salsa’ located right besides Doolally serves an excellent multi-cuisine menu. The Greek food we had there was probably the best in Pune. The Corinthian Hotel & Club complex presents a great location on top of a small hillock. The outdoor sitting of Doolally is also nice and Pune’s perfect weather, especially at this time of the year, is an added bonus.
My only initial reluctance in going to Doolally was the distance. Yes, in the minds of many Punekars, Kondhwa/NIBM Road area is virtually a different city, tucked away in the remote South-East corner. I myself ventured there for the first time in over a decade. However, now I realize that it is not that bad. At a distance of about 14 km from Deccan Gymkhana and only 7 km from M.G. Road – it will take you anywhere between 30 min – 1 hour, depending on traffic. Aundh, Baner residents have a slightly longer drive, but I am sure it will be worth it.
Doolally also plans to have live music on certain weekends. Check with them regarding the exact dates and artists. While Doolally is a perfect place to hangout with friends, it can also be a nice place for entertaining corporate guests, and for team events. One important note – do check if there’s a ‘Dry Day’, before you head over there – else you might be disappointed.
Some closing comments – Drink responsibly and enjoy! Don’t drink and drive. Have a designated driver.
‘Cheers’!
General Information
Web: http://www.doolally.in/home.html
Address: Doolally, Corinthians Boutique Hotel, NIBM Road, Kondhwa, Pune
Phone: 020-2695 2226
Map (courtesy Sadakmap.com): http://www.sadakmap.com/p/Doolally-Micro-Brewery/
Timings: 7:30pm onwards
Toyota Fortuner – First Impressions
Toyota Fortuner (Image Credit: Wikipedia)
This morning, I was at the Toyota Dealership for my car servicing. The prospect of a boring wait lay ahead. I picked up a brochure of the new Fortuner and casually enquired about the possibility of a Test-Drive, fully knowing that the SUV may not even be available at this location. Ever since the much anticipated launch in 2009, the Fortuner is in great demand and even the waiting lists have been closed down. Toyota is sitting pretty on a big backlog.
To my surprise, the SUV was available and the dealer representative promptly arranged for a Test Drive. Note that Pune City Traffic is pretty bad for any Test Drive! Nevertheless, I was able to drive the SUV around for 20 min, and did manage to find a brief stretch of open road. Note, in a strict sense I won’t call this blog a true Test Drive Report. As the title suggests, these are first impressions.
The first thing that strikes you about the Fortuner is the huge ground clearance. The Toyota representative quickly highlighted that it was 220 mm. This is ideal for rough off-road/rural road driving conditions. The 17 inch wheels are also a welcome feature. The exterior shape looks a little bit like the Lexus RX 300 SUV (though the Fortuner is smaller), and is pretty nice. Unfortunately, the similarities between the Lexus SUV end quickly! From the inside, the Fortuner looks quite simple, with little hint of any luxury. In fact, the interiors are very close to that of the top-end Innova (that costs almost half…). The cabin space, consisting of 3 rows of seats, is at best comparable with that of the Innova. The features list of the Fortuner also runs very close: 2 Airbags, Climate Control being the primary highlights.
However, the similarities between the Innova start fading away as you start the Fortuner. The 3.0L Turbocharged Diesel Engine is bigger and significantly more powerful. It delivers 126 KW (171 PS) of Power @ 3600 RPM, with a Max Torque of 343 Nm (1400 – 3400 rpm). The 5-Speed Manual Transmission drives the full-time 4WD system. It also has special gear for driving in extreme high gradients (often referred to as the ‘Jump’ gear in the old Land Rovers and Jongas…).
The Fortuner definitely has enough power at hand – However, a noticeable turbo-charger delay is felt when accelerating. Having recently test driven the 2.0 Liter Diesel Skoda Laura, I felt that the Fortuner delay was longer and more pronounced.
One area where Toyota excels the most in my opinion is the suspension and the comfort of the ride. The Fortuner doesn’t disappoint here at all. The comfort for the driver and passenger is great, and will be a big plus on the rough roads in India.
On the downside, I still think that Toyota Diesel Engines are not as smooth and refined as that of their German Counterparts. Agreed, fuel economy is a big factor, but a Petrol Fortuner would not be a bad idea at some point in the future. The Toyota Petrol Engines are truly great.
Maybe it was the specific SUV that I was driving (The representative mentioned that this one had been out on long Test Drives for a few weeks…), but I felt that the braking could have been a bit better. Note, the Fortuner has front disc and rear drum brakes.
Overall I thought that Fortuner is a good vehicle; simply not a great one. At the price point of Rs 20 – 22 Lakhs, I would have expected a bit more refinements and features on the interiors. Hope Toyota considers a Petrol Engine variant (or does some serious improvements to the Diesel Engine). Also at the +20 Lakhs price range, an Automatic Transmission Option should be made available.
Sri Lanka Trip – 10 Interesting Memories
We recently made a short 3 day trip to Sri Lanka. Thoroughly enjoyed the visit. Great Nature, Nice People, Good Food and Cost-Effective! Yes…with the current exchange rates - the prevailing prices for hotels, food, transportation, etc. seemed to be a lot cheaper than in India.
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- Colombo Sea Promenade View
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- Kandy Palace
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- Nuwara Eliya – Grand Hotel
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- Nuwara Eliya – St. Andrews Hotel
). This place is quite popular with tourists as well as locals. . Maybe we were there during the peak wedding season…wedding celebrations were everywhere. Our hotel had 3-4 wedding related events everyday. Got a chance to understand a bit about their unique wedding customs that differ by religion/ethnicity/etc. Though irrespective of these differences, the weddings were grand parties in general!
The Disappointing State Of Shaniwar Wada
Shaniwar Wada (Image Credit: Wikipedia)
The historic Shaniwar Wada fort is not just Pune’s pride; it is the pride of Maharashtra and India. It was the citadel of power of the great Maratha Empire of the 18th Century. At its zenith, the Maratha Empire controlled an area over half of present day India and rivaled the size of the Mughal Empire that preceded it. The Peshwe were amongst the last major powers to surrender to British in 1818. Small and modest in comparison to the Mughal Forts like the Lal Kila in Delhi, the Shaniwar Wada had its own charm, and was witness to some very important history of the Indian sub-continent in the 18th century.
For more information on Shaniwar Wada, please click here.
A massive fire in 1828 destroyed most of the buildings inside the fort. Only the foundations, the periphery walls, and the main entrance survived. The exact cause of this fire is not known. Post this fire, the British had no interest in rebuilding this symbol of Maratha Power. The fort deteriorated over the coming decades. Post independence, Shaniwar Wada saw some restoration work and development.
I recently visited Shaniwar Wada after nearly 25 years. Being a big enthusiast of Pune History, I was eagerly looking forward to seeing the sites of the historic buildings, and the beautiful water fountains.
I was extremely disappointed. The condition of the fort is disturbing. Apparently, some restoration work is going on, but that’s no excuse for the current state! And the person at the ticket window (they charge Rs 5 entrance fee; Rs 100 for foreign visitors) confirmed that this state has been there for a while.
Nearly half of the sign-boards inside the fort, that describe various buildings and structures, are missing. Partial restoration work/construction can be seen at multiple sites, and construction material is dumped haphazardly at various places. Pieces of trash can be seen lying everywhere. Lawns are not maintained properly. The periphery outside the main walls of the fort has a small iron fence, creating a 10-20 feet buffer zone between the fort and the streets. This fence is broken at a few points. The grass here gives an impression that no one has tended to it in years! And it has become a mini-garbage dump.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.
Most public gardens in Pune are maintained so much better than this historic monument. And they don’t even charge an entry fee. Question is who is responsible for maintaining this fort? Is it the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI)? I understand that the ASI does a nice job in maintaining historical monuments like the Lal Kila, Ajantha, etc. (This is what I have heard from friends who have recently visited there… I haven’t been there in a long time).
Then what is the problem with Shaniwar Wada? Funding? Priority? What Else?
What can be done to get the attention of the right authorities? Is a ‘Public-Private Partnership Model’ an option? What can Punekars do the restore the pride and glory of this great monument? Looking for your suggestions and inputs.
Sachin Tendulkar For Bharat Ratna
- Sachin Tendulkar (image credit: wikipedia)
I have been thinking about this for the past few months; especially after Sachin Tendulkar completed 20 years of his amazing international career in November 2009.
The Bharat Ratna is India’s highest civilian award. The past 41 awardees represent an august group. This award has had lot fewer controversies around it, as compared to the ‘Padma-’ awards. What better candidate this year than Sachin Tendulkar! And I think he could be the youngest ever (by a wide-margin) to get this honor. In this brief blog post, I will discuss my thoughts on why Tendulkar richly deserves this award.
At The Absolute Pinnacle Of His Discipline
Recent Bharat Ratna awardees include Lata Mangeshkar and Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. I have tremendous respect for both and have been a big fan of their music. They (along with other past awardees like Bismillah Khan, Pandit Ravi Shankar and Satyajit Ray) represent the absolute best of their discipline. Their glorious careers have spanned over many decades.
I would like to include Sachin Tendulkar in this list. He is the undisputed world leader in his field…and he has been at this level for many years. All his records and his amazing 21 year old career speak for themselves. But numbers alone don’t do justice to his skill and talent! Just as the great music maestros have enthralled their fans over all these years, so has Sachin. In fact rarely does one see a sports icon who has literally billions of fans, all over the globe. His contributions in making international cricket what it is today, are huge.
Pune, a global automotive leader – List of major players
Pune is the leading center for the automotive sector in India; as well as one of the top automotive centers globally. In the past year alone, 3 massive new plants from General Motors, Volkswagen and Mahindra & Mahindra were inagurated here. The Chakan-Talegaon Belt is becoming one of the most dense automotive clusters in the world. In this brief blog, I am compiling a list of major automotive companies in Pune and some brief information about them. Please add your feedback (additions/details, etc.) and I will update the blog post.
Tata Nano (Image Credits: Wikipedia)
Tata Motors
Tata Motors www.tatamotors.com is the biggest automotive manufacturer in Pune, and the biggest one in India. The huge Pune campus consists of their corporate HQ, R&D Center and Manufacturing facility for their cars and trucks.
Land-Rover
Land-Rover has recently started assembling some models near the Tata Motors Pimpri-Chinchwad facility.
Bajaj Auto
Bajaj Auto was one of the early automotive players in Pune. They have big base in Akurdi, Pune (R&D, Corporate and Manufacturing). A large new plant has been recently opened at Chakan. www.bajajauto.com
Force Motors (Formerly Bajaj Tempo)
Manufacturers of 3 Wheelers, Tractors, LCVs and Large Trucks. www.forcemotors.com
Mahindra Two-Wheelers (Formerly Kinectic Motors)
Manufacturers of Scooters, Mopeds and Bikes. www.mahindra2wheelers.com Kinetic Motors has been an important player in the Mopeds and Gearless 2 Wheeler space in India. Their famous models include the ‘Luna’ and ‘Kinetic Honda’.
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedez-Benz entered the Indian Market in the 1990s, initially with a partnership with the Tatas. Later on, they setup an independent venture, Mercedez-Benz India. The Pune facility manufacturers and assembles a range of their well known luxury cars. www.mercedes-benz.co.in
General Motors
General Motors entered the Indian market in the past decade. The Talegaon Plant is a massive facility that recently started production. Cars manufactured here include the new Chevy Beat. www.gm.co.in
JCB
JCB manufacturers construction, earth moving and other industrial equipment. Their Talegaon plant and design center opened in 2006. http://www.jcb.com/india/homepage.aspx
Volkswagen
Volkswagen opened a massive new plant in Chakan Pune a few months back. Read more about this plant here: The First Polo Rolls-Off The Volkswagen Pune Plant This facility is presently geared towards manufacturing high-volume cars like the VW Polo and Skoda Fabia. www.volkswagen.co.in
Mahindra & Mahindra
M&M inaguarated a huge plant this past week at Chakan. Spread over 700 acres and built with an investment of nearly Rs 5,000 Crores (1 Billion Dollars), this plant will manufacture various models of SUVs and Commercial Vehicles. Mahindra is also planning to manufacture new models from Sssanyong Motors. www.mahindra.com
Cummins Engines
Cummins, the world leader in Diesel Engines opened its Pune facility in the 1960s, in a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group. Later on, they decided to go solo. The Pune facility manufacturers a wide range of Diesel Engines and Generators, and also has a big design center. www.cumminsindia.com
Kirloskar Oil Engines
Kirloskar Oil Engines, part of the Kirloskar Group were one of the earliest auto-players in Pune. Presently they manufacture a wide range of Oil Engines for various applications. www.kirloskar.com
Premier Motors
Makers of that famous Indian car of ‘The Premier Padmini’. Current models manufactured include Diesel Pickup Trucks and Vans. www.premier.co.in
Fiat
The new upcoming Fiat Ranjangaon Plant will manufactures the various models like Punto and Linea. www.fiat-india.com
Bridgestone
Bridgestone is setting up a big new plant in Chakan Pune with a total investment of around Rs 2,600 Cr. http://www.bridgestone.co.in
Hyundai Construction Equipments
Hyundai Construction Equipments is located on Talegaon-Chakan Belt
Research Institutes, Suppliers & Infrastructure Players
ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India) www.araiindia.com
ARAI is a the premier research and certification institution for the automotive industry in India. It has a beautiful campus on top of a hill in central Pune (near ‘Vetal Tekdi’).
In addition to the Auto OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), Pune has a wide range of Tier-1 Tier-2 and infrastructure suppliers. Prominent Industry Players include:
Bharat Forge
Bharat Forge is one of the top forging companies in the world. They manufacture a wide range of forged auto components. Their Pune facility includes their HQ, Design Center and Manufacturing Facility. www.bharatforge.com
Sandvik
Sandvik is a world leader in cutting tools. Their Pune facility has been around for nearly 50 years. www.sandvik.com
PARI Robotics & Automation
PARI is one of the leading industrial automation companies and have setup factory automation systems at many global manufacturing facilities. www.parirobotics.com
Software & Information Technology
Software and IT are increasingly playing an important role cars and automotive manufacturing. Many leading global CAD/CAM/CAE Software Leaders are based in Pune. These include: Siemens (formerly UGS), PTC, Ansys. Important IT Outsourcing Players in this space in Pune include Geometric and KPIT Cummins.
Pune – A Global Leader In Green/Alternative Energy R&D – List Of Key Players
Solar Thermal (Image Credit: Wikipedia)
Wind Turbine (Image Credit: Wikipedia)
Various options are being under development for a few decades but still all of these put together constitute a small percentage (in most countries – single digit) of total energy consumption. These options include: Wind, Bio-Fuels, Solar Photo-Voltaics, Solar-Thermal, Geo-Thermal, Tidal Power, etc. The only renewable energy form that has been used effectively(in non-trivial amounts) is hydel power.
In this brief blog, I am attempting to capture a list of interesting companies and R&D organizations in Pune that are involved in these fields. Would appreciate any inputs (and details) on companies/organizations that you are aware of, and that are not listed in here. Please add them as comments, and I will consolidate them into this blog post.
Praj Industries www.praj.net
Praj is a global leader in bio-ethanol, bio-diesel, etc. Their R&D work is focused on improving the chemical processes for synthesizing these fuels. Here is a brief write-up by PuneTech’s Navin Kabra about a visit to the Praj R&D Center: Praj Matrix – world class bio/chem/engineering research facility in Pune
Thermax www.thermaxindia.com
Thermax has been an important Indian (as well as global) player in Thermal Engineering for many decades. Their focus includes Solar Thermal, Geo-Thermal, Waste-Heat Recycling and related areas.
Suzlon Energy www.suzlon.com
Suzlon Energy is amongst the top wind power companies in the world. Headquartered and founded here in Pune, it has a global presence in Europe, North America, Australia and in many other countries.
National Chemical Laboratory www.ncl-india.org
National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) is the premier research institution in India (and one of the top ones globally), involved in R&D in chemistry and chemical engineering. Their work includes research on bio-fuels, associated enzymes, etc.
BAIF www.baif.org.in
BAIF, based in Urali Kanchan near Pune has been at the forefront of sustainable rural development for many decades. Here is a list of their research areas: http://www.baif.org.in/aspx_pages/progress_at_a_glance.pdf
High Definition Television (HDTV) Overview / HDTV in India
HD vs. Standard Resolution Comparison (image credit: Wikipedia)
(NOTE – To see a better impact of the comparison above, please go to the higher resolution image:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/HD_vs_SD_resolutions.png)
Modern day High Definition Television (HDTV) began in Japan in the 1980s and in US/Europe in 1990s, but didn’t really get traction there and globally until the beginning of decade. As recently as 2002, there were only 3-4 ‘HD’ channels available in U.S. and even those had fairly limited HD Programming. I was one of the early adopters of HD (HD Ready TV and Set-Top Box Service Provider) in US in 2003. American Football (NFL) was one of the first sports to start airing some games in High Definition. Fast forward to present, and dozens (if not 100s) of HD channels are now available in the US. The old analog over-air broadcast technology has been long out of favor, compared to digital broadcasts through cable and satellite providers.
HDTV has to be seen to be believed! Quantitatively it has over 5 times the resolution of normal TV. Qualitatively, its amazing! Today in India, HDTV coverage is still in a very nascent stage and in this blog post, I will make an attempt to provide an overview of the core technology, HD Ready TVs & Production/Distribution Equipment (hardware), and last, but not the least TV Programming (content).
Transitioning from regular TV to HDTV is almost like the quantum jump felt by people in India when we transitioned from Black & White to Color Television in the 1980s! Myopics can understand this analogy the best: Remember when you get a new pair of glasses that corrects the power of you vision by 1-2 - how things look exceedingly crisp and clear for the first few days! You suddenly realize the vision sharpness you were missing. Well… watching HDTV for the first time is that kind of experience. Suddenly you realize that green patch on the ground that you are seeing on the TV has distinct blades of grass..with dew drops. That huge stadium filled with blurry crowds are distinct faces…. That color complexion on a face is actually a freckle…that there is actually some small text written on that bottle in the kitchen.. that you couldn’t read before… I can go on and on with the examples..but I think you get the point!
Unlike great progress made in areas like mobile phones, etc… India has been lagging the developed world in High Def TV. But there are some good signs of hope on the horizon.
What is HDTV?
HDTV stands for ‘High Definition TV’. TV resolution is usually measured in ‘lines’ (only recently did the notion of ‘pixel’ arrive…). Over the past 8 decades, TV images have been ‘created’ by scanning an electron beam onto a phosphorus-like material coated screen, to create lines at a fast rate to create a ‘picture’. These traditional TVs are also referred to as ‘CRTs’ (Cathode Ray Tube). Note that the human eye has an ‘inertia’ for image processing and if an image projected on the screen (principle used in motion picture) or scanned lines on a TV screen, change with a frequency of greater than 0.1 sec, then we ‘see’ a ’moving’ image. Traditional TV standards consist of pictures between 400-600 lines (Different Color Systems globally are a bit different: PAL that is used in India and in many EU countries uses 540 lines. NTSC used in North America uses 480 lines, etc.). Also note that in the 1930s, given the limitation of analog bandwidth and technology, a decision was made (that has stuck over all these years!) to go for a picture aspect ratio of 4:3. This was much ‘squarer’ than the 35 mm film aspect ratio in those days.
HDTV changed the aspect ratio back to a more wide-angle movie like format to 16:9. The HDTV format has 1080 interspersed lines. (I will get into the 1080i vs 1080p discussion a bit later). With double the lines and greater ‘aspect ratio’ – the resolution of HDTV becomes much better than that of the conventional 480i(NTSC)/540i(PAL) 4:3 TV. In fact newer advances in HD (1080p, etc.) are realizing the dream of having motion picture level image quality on a TV Screen.
What is 480i/540i/720p/1080i/1080p?
Before I discuss the technology details, let me just say that its a sad sight to see all these HD Ready LCD TVs in Indian Stores/Homes with no HD Content! Think of Color TV Sets (actually this did happen in parts of India in the 1980s..) with Black & White Programming?! I also get the same feeling seeing the fancy 6 cylinder BMWs/Audis/Mercs being driven on Indian Roads at 20kmph..but then thats a topic of a separate blog post
As discussed earlier, in the old CRT TV set technology (540i for PAL, 480i for NTSC), lines were scanned by the electron beam. To reduce the bandwith requirement, a decision (again..many decades back) was made to scan the lines in an ‘interlaced’ fashion – in one pass only alternate lines are scanned 1-3-5…-537-539 and in the other pass 2-4-6…-538-540. This happens so fast that the viewer sees the full picture. But the resolution of this picture is approximately 1/2 of what it would have been if all the 540 lines were scanned simultaneously. The HD standard of 1080i lines implies that the twice the number of lines are scanned in an interlaced manner. A new scanning approach that evolved with HDTV was that of ‘Progressive Scanning’. Here, all the lines are scanned in the same pass. Thus roughly speaking, a 540p scanned image is analogous to a 1080i image. (In actual practice, 720p image looks quite close to a 1080i image – and hence true HD is defined as 720p/1080i or higher).
The first HDTVs were CRTs with a 1080i format (progressive scanning is quite tough in a CRT approach…but much easier in a flat screen where pixels are being used instead of an electron beam). Early LCD and Plasma TVs (until a few years back) didn’t have the necessary pixel count (manufacturing complexities, etc.) to to have 1080 lines vertically. Hence they settled on the 720p HD standard. However in the past few years, 1080p TVs have become common.
HD TV Sets
HD or non-HD TV Set? A few years back, this was a choice. Today (even in India) – there’s no choice! Almost all LCD/LED/Plasma/Projection/DLP TVs are HD Ready. Major companies have stopped making non-HD TVs (except in the sub 24inch CRT space…eventually these too would go away). In this section, I will provide a quick overview of the different HD TV Sets.
CRT: The oldest technology format was used for HD in the 1990s and early 2000s. With a rear projection approach, the first big screen HD (and non-HD) TVs became a reality. However these are now virtually extinct.
Plasma: Plasma TVs were the first big screen flat TVs to become popular 10 years back. Back then LCDs were not available in big sizes and also refreshed slowly. Plasmas had issues of burn-ins (static image getting burned in permanently onto the screen) and were very heavy (even though they were flat). While Plasma TVs have addressed these issues, they are getting replaced by LCDs.
LCD: LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) TVs are today the most popular format for HDTVs. They have been able to address their earlier limitations of screen sizes and fast refresh rates, and contrast ratios. Now 1080p is quite common resolution available (1920X1080 pixels).
LED: LED TVs represent the new exciting developments on top of LCD TVs – offering even brighter displays and contrast rations. With LED TVs – I doubt if there’s any rom left for Plasma TVs.
DLP: The DLP technology and projection TV technology was developed by Texas Instruments earlier last decade. However, the rear projection screens are not flat and have lost out to LCDs/Plasmas. However DLP is still an excellent technology for HD Projection on big movie screens. In fact all digital motion pictures are being shown in some of the new Digital Theaters around the world using DLP Technology (No Film!).
HD DVD Players
Just to complete the picture, almost all the modern DVD players are ‘progressive scan’. This means that they deliver an output of 480p or 540p - much better than the 480i/540i standard broadcasts.
What is HD Content? Why is it not available
Like any new technology, the primary constraints now are economic. Just as when the switch happened from Black & White to Color, the TV Cameras, the Processing, Transmission and Receivers and TV Sets had to change..the same applies for HDTV.
Creating HD Content needs different higher resolution cameras and transmission equipment. Luckily for us in India, just as non-HD TVs increasingly getting rare, same applies to the Cameras and Studio Equipment as well.
A big standards battle was being waged for many years in the HD DVD segment. Toshiba led HD-DVD and Sony led Blu-Ray standards went to head to head. This race brought the memories of the VHS vs. BetaMax standards race for the Video-Tape in the 1980s. Eventually Sony Blu-Ray won and is now the established standard for High Def DVDs.
As I had mentioned earlier, 35mm Motion Picture resolution is close to (in fact a bit higher) than HD as well..so in that sense, every movie is HD Ready Content. It just needs to be converted into a DVD Format.
HDTV in India
As explained earlier, just having a HD TV Set doesn’t buy you anything (well..maybe a little better picture clarity than non-HD TVs..but no where near the 5-10x improvement). Like any new technology, many satellite TV players were ‘planning’ HD Content in India for the past few years. As an HD enthusiast, I was following this with keen excitement. However it turns out that none of the big players – DishTV, TataSky, Airtel, etc. actually launched HD Content. SunTV became the first one to debut it recently.
From the point of satellite / cable providers there are two implications. 1. They need to get HD Content (Chicken-And-Egg problem in India..HDTV not available, hence no good HD Content..). A good workaround option is to go with good international HD Channels that are already available: DiscoveryHD, National Geographic HD, etc. 2. They need to upgrade their processing equipment, satellite feeds and set-top boxes to support HDTV.
Sun DTH (Direct-To-Home Satellite Provider) provides DiscoveryHD, National Geographic HD and a few other Indian HD Channels (Note – the Indian HD Channels still don’t have a lot of good HD Content..but atleast the vehicle is now there). The big catalyst for HDTV in India, in my view happened earlier this week when SunDTH announced that IPL Games will be available in HD! I believe with the popularity of Cricket in India – this can be the watershed event for HDTV in India. I think there’s no looking back. The big players of satellite TV will now have to scramble and get their plans in order..and fast!
I think with the latest TV equipment (cameras,etc.) being used for coverage of IPL – they were anyways producing the content in HD. The HD feeds were available for international markets (US/EU/ec.) through local tie-ups. They just had to (I guess..) partner with a local player willing to have the set-top boxes to stream this content to India.
As a big fan of HDTV, I would definitely thank the IPL and SunDTH for being the pioneers in finally getting HDTV to India!
Useful Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television
http://www.howstuffworks.com/hdtv.htm
HD broadcast is now available in India through Sun DTH: http://SunDirect.in/HD
Research Institutions in Pune
Pune is well-known in India and internationally for being a hub of education and research. It has a wide range of academic & research institutions spanning various domains in science, technology, medicine, agriculture, arts, humanities, law, finance, etc. This blog article is an attempt to list out these various institutions. If you find any missing, please add a comment.
Science & Technology
University of Pune www.unipune.ac.in
One of the top universities in the country, established in 1948.
College Of Engineering Pune (COEP) www.coep.org.in
One of the top engineering colleges in the country. Also, the second oldest engg college in India (Established: 1853).
National Chemical Laboratory http://www.ncl-india.org/
The top research organization in India that is focused on Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) http://www.araiindia.com/
A collaborative effort between the Government and Industry, focused on testing and validation of various automotive related technologies.
Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana (Bhaskaracharya Institute of Mathematics) http://www.bprim.org/
Educational and Research Institute in Mathematics
Inter University Center For Astronomy & Astro-Physics (IUCAA) http://www.iucaa.ernet.in/Home.html
Focused on academics research in astronomy and astro-physics.
National Center For Radio Astro-Physics ((NCRA – TIFR) http://ncra.tifr.res.in/
A division of TIFR, focused on research in Astro-physics. (Also involved with the GMRT (Giant Meter Wave Radio Telescope) Project near Naranygaon.
Central Institute Of Road Transport (CIRT) http://www.cirtindia.com
Research on roads and transportation.
Indian Mathematical Society http://www.indianmathsociety.org.in/
Indian Mathematical Society (IMS) is the oldest and the largest Mathematical Society of the Countrywith more than 1600 Life Members. The objects of the Society is the promotion of Mathematical Study and Research. Its central activity is to inspire and encourage researchers, educationists, students and all the mathematics loving persons .
Tata Research Development & Design Center (TRDDC) http://www.tcs-trddc.com
Part of the Tata Group – focused on research in various engineering and computer science related areas.
Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) http://www.crlindia.com/
CRL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Ltd. The company is into the R&D and business of High Performance Computing (HPC) services and solutions.
Center For Development In Advanced Computing (CDAC) http://www.cdac.in/
Focused on advanced computing related research. Renowned for developing India’s first supercomputer ‘Param’.
Systems Research Institute (SRI) http://www.sripune.org/
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research IISER http://www.iiserpune.ac.in/
Research and post-graduate academics in Sciences
Indian Meteorological Department http://www.imd.gov.in/
Weather forecasting and analysis
Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology IITM http://www.tropmet.res.in/
Weather forecasting and analysis
Central Water & Power Research CWPRS http://cwprs.gov.in/
Agharkar Research Institute http://www.aripune.org/
Bio-sciences, agriculture research
BAIF Development Research Foundation http://www.baif.org.in/aspx_pages/index.asp
Research in rural sustainable development – agriculture, animal sciences and bio-energy.
Vasantdada Sugar Institute http://www.vsisugar.com
Sugarcane and sugar research and process development
Agriculture College http://mpkv.mah.nic.in/PUNECOL.HTM
One of the first Agricultural Research Institutions, established over 100 years ago. Research in various types of crops, cultivation, seeds, etc.
National Center For Research In Grapes http://nrcgrapes.nic.in/
Institute of Bio-Informatics & Bio-Technology (IBB) http://www.unipune.ac.in/snc/institute_of_bioinformatics_and_biotechnology/default.htm
Research in advanced bio-informatics and bio-technology.
BJ Medical College http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Medical_College,_Pune Academics & Research in the field of Medicine.
Academics and research in medicine.
National Institute of Virology (NIV) http://www.niv.co.in/
Research in virology. WHO Collaborating Center for arboviruses reference and hemorrhagic fever reference and research. National Monitoring Center for Influenza, Japanese encephalitis, Rota , Measles and Hepatitis.
National AIDS Research Center http://www.nari-icmr.res.in/
Various aspects of research on HIV and AIDS through infra-structural development, capacity building & research programs.
National Center for Cell Science http://www.nccs.res.in/
National Center For Research In Onion & Garlic http://nrcog.mah.nic.in/
Arts, Humanities, Management & Law
University of Pune www.unipune.ac.in
Deccan College http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_College_(Pune)
Film & Television Institute Of India (FTII) www.ftiindia.com
National Film Archives http://nfaipune.nic.in/
ILS Law College www.ilslaw.edu One of the top Law Colleges in India
Gokhale Institute http://www.gipe.ernet.in/
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute http://www.bori.ac.in/
Bharat Itihaas Sanshodhak Mandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Itihas_Sanshodhak_Mandal
Max Mueller Bhuvan http://www.goethe.de/ins/in/poo/enindex.htm
National Institute of Banking Management http://www.nibmindia.org/
Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA) http://www.yashada.org/
National Insurance Academy http://www.niapune.com/
International center of excellence in insurance training, education and research
Defense Related
DRDO (ARDE, ERDL, HEMR, others) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Research_and_Development_Organisation
Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) http://afmc.nic.in
National Defense Academy (NDA) http://www.nda.nic.in/
Defense Institute Of Armament Technology (Previously: Institute of Armament Technology )http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Institute_of_Advanced_Technology
College of Military Engineering (CME) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Military_Engineering,_Pune,_India
America’s Top Prescription Drugs
Wondering what the top prescription drugs are in America/Globally? Cholesterol lowering drugs? Antibiotics? Blood Pressure Medications? Anti-Depressants? Pain-Killers?
The Forbes Magazine recently published an interesting article America’s Most Popular Drugs that lists the top 15 most prescribed drugs in America. While many from my expected list showed up, I thought that there were a few surprises (inclusions and omissions). For example, was surprised to not find a single anti-depressant in the top 15 list. Maybe because there are many different anti-depressants out there. I am sure that as a category, they will show up quite a high.
The top drug in the list is the pain-killer Vicodin. Cholesterol reducing drugs, blood pressure medications show up in a large number in the top 15 list. So do a few of common antibiotics.
In a sense, this list gives an indirect overview of the types of common ailments, as well as the state of the health of the population. I wonder what such a list would look like in India/other countries. I think, in India more antibiotics might show up in the top drugs list.
‘What do you do for living?’ – A psychiatrist’s personal viewpoint
Healthcare & Medicine are topics of interest for me, and I occasionally blog about these topics. Recently, my friend Dr. Bhooshan Shukla, who is a Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist here in Pune, started a new blog: http://docbhooshan.wordpress.com/ His first article is quite interesting: “What do you do for living?”. I am reproducing it here on my blog. You can also visit Dr. Bhooshan’s blog for his other upcoming articles.
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What do you do for living?
by Dr. Bhooshan Shukla
It has become my favorite past time to watch peoples’ reactions to my answer to the question – “what do you do?” I am a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and most people react to this fact in an interesting way -
1.“ you mean kids go crazy and require a psychiatrist? That must happen in western countries with drugs and broken families and all that stuff! Do you actually finds work in India?”
2.“ we read about student suicides all the time. If parents behaved properly and nicely with their kids, professionals like you would not be needed at all”
3.“ oh, so you are the doctor looking after genetically deformed, retarded kids!”
There are many other reactions but these three are most representative. It just goes on to show that we as a society are still quite naive about concept of mental health and illness.
Adult psychiatry has just started emerging from the closet in India and depression/ anxiety/ phobias have become “okay” illnesses. Still more severe mental health issues like schizophrenia and addictions are struggling for the attention and acceptance they deserve. It is a long way, but at least we have started.
Child psychiatry is a funny thing. We see adverts selling foods and games that claim to make your child smarter, faster, etc. There are parenting discussions in media involving famous personalities, gurus, teachers,etc. So we are aware of importance of a good, healthy childhood and are willing to put our money where our child is….but are we really aware about mental health issues in childhood?
Some people ask me what kind of kids are my patients? Now that is a question that I can answer. More than 90% of my child patients are brought by their parents for just one of two complaints – poor academic performance and discipline/behavior problems.
There are hundreds of reasons why school performance or behavior deteriorates, but most important thing is that unless one of these parameters takes a hit, there is no acknowledgement of a problem that needs professional help.
Children are like the ozone layer around the earth or tigers in our jungles. Their happiness is a sensitive indicator of society’s attitude towards life ! Following is an easy to understand classification of why things go wrong with children -
1.Problems related to brain development and physical health – like attention and concentration problems, reading and writing difficulties ( dyslexia made famous by “Taare Zameen Par”), speech and language difficulties, etc.
2.Problems perceived due to misunderstanding of normal development – certain things appear in development of a child like bedwetting, restlessness, fear of staying alone or dark places, food fads, defiance, etc. If parents are unaware of this “ normal phase” they may try to find solution to a problem that is going to go away anyway.
3.Problems in relationships – Children’s relations with family members, schools, or even friends may sometime become strained and reflect in behavior or academics or emerge as discipline issues.
4.Problems with social expectations transmitted to child by parents and school system.
5.Problematic emotions like anger, sadness, fear, excess competitiveness, etc.
All of the above issues can be assessed and helped by mental health professionals with the help of family and if necessary, schools.
One more commonly asked question is how to identify a child needing help -
there are some clear indicators –
disturbance in usual sleep, eating, interaction pattern lasting for more than one to two weeks.
Sudden and severe change in emotions like – sadness, anger, fear.
Unpredictable and rapidly changing mood.
Return of habits of younger age like- clinging to parents, excessive fear, babytalk.
Sudden change or unstable pattern of friendships.
If you suspect anything, do check -
http://www.youthinmind.co.uk/sdqonline/Parent/StartParent.php
Most importantly – most problems can be solved with the help of family counseling, child counseling and some help from school ! Medications ( from any ‘-pathy’) are very rarely needed.
Dr. Bhooshan Shukla
MD, DNB, MRCPsych
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal – A Great Institution Of Maharashtra & India History
Bharat Itihaas Sanshodhak Mandal
Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal (Devnagari: भारत इतिहास संशोधक मंडळ ), Pune is one of the great institutions of Maharashtra and Indian History. It was founded this day, 100 years ago by the great historian Rajwade.
As the institute celebrates 100 years, it is important to note the historical information treasures that it maintains. These include historical documents (some dating back over 700 years), coins (some as old as 200 B.C.) , artifacts, maps, paintings, rare books and early Marathi newspapers. Some of the institution collection is open for public viewing, while the rest is made available to research scholars. The Mandal (institution) organizes special exhibitions from time to time, where a lot of the collection is on display. This collection has helped many history scholars and researchers over the past 100 years in their research. The Mandal also organizes many training workshops around old launguages/scripts (e.g. the old Modi ‘मोडी’ script).
Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal is located in Sadashiv Peth Pune (next to Bharat Natya Mandir). It houses:
Rajwade and Potdar Halls.
Painting Gallery – Collection of over 1500 paintings (130 on display), including a good collection from the Peshwa Era.
Khare Museum – Collection of various artifacts across different dynasties: Furniture, Weapons, Canon Balls, etc.
Library & Archives – These contain a collection of over 800.000 documents in Sanskrit, Marathi, Kannada, Persian and other languages.
The Mandal has multiple plans in place to expand and better preserve its great collection and is looking for support. For more information, you can contact the Mandal directly at their Pune Office: 1321 Sadashiv Peth, Pune 411 030. Phone: 020-2447 2581
References:
1. Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal Centenary Year Brochure
2. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Itihas_Sanshodhak_Mandal
Christopher Benninger On Pune, The Peshwe Era And Lessons In Urban Planning
—-added July 25, 2010 —
Here is a link and excerpt to Christopher Benninger’s latest article in the series “Death And Life Of A Great Indian City” in July 25 2010 edition of Pune Mirror .
Benninger discusses how Pune evolved after the end of the Peshwe era in 1818. How the city witnessed a big decline over the next few decades. How the British reshaped the city with the creation of new areas such as the Pune Cantonment.
“With the demise of Peshwa rule and the coming of the British, Pune changed dramatically, in terms of its urban plan and in mindset. However, the spirit of the people lives on, surging towards the future”
—-original post dated July 11, 2010 —
The famous, award-winning architect and urban planner Christopher Benninger has written a nice piece ‘The Great City Builders’ about urban planning lessons from the Peshwa Era in Pune, in today’s Pune Mirror.
Excerpt: “Pune reached its greatest heights of civility during the Peshwa period, with urban management being a clear, transparent system rather than the haphazard mix of politics and need for power it has become today”
He discusses the various developments from that period – New ‘Peths’, Aqua-Ducts, Roads, Mixed-Use Neighborhoods, ‘Wadas’, etc. He also highlights how the emphasis was less on iconic, grand monuments as compared to the other famous capital cities. Here is one more excerpt:
“The image of every city revolves around some iconic, manmade structures and grand boulevards; not so in Peshwa Pune! While Pune was the capital of an empire, it worked for the empowerment and facilitation of a new nation, not for its subjugation and plunder! “
To read the full article, click here: ‘The Great City Builders’
Also take a look at a couple of previous articles by Christopher Benninger on Pune, in Pune Mirror
Excerpt: “The time has come to rediscover and reinvent Pune, lest modern Maharashtra and all of us who live here, crumble before the forces that dehumanise life. We need to resurrect the city of our dreams”
Pune to become the 4th largest city in India by 2030? – Will our infrastructure be ready for it??
A recent McKinsey Report on India’s Urbanization examines the trends around the growth in urban population centers. It presents a comparison across the 2008 population numbers with the 2030 forecasts.
Here are some interesting findings in the report:
- By 2030, the number of Indian Cities with a population of 1 Million or more will grow from 42 to 68
- By 2030, 5 states will have more than 50% population living in urban areas.
- From 1971-2008 India’s urban population grew nearly 230 million. The next 250 million in urban India will be added in half the time.
For more insights and data points, do take a look at: India’s urbanization: a closer look (report, interactive graphic and audio commentary).
The interesting observation in this report, from a Pune perspective is that it will be one of the fastest growing cities over the next 2 decades, nearly doubling its population to 11.3 million. In the process, it will likely overtake Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore to take up the #4 spot (behind Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata).
While the population of Pune doubles, the rest of the urban infrastructure load factors (land, water, power, vehicles, etc.) will grow at a much faster rate. (4 times,5 times…even 10 times). This raises a long list of serious questions about infrastructure planning.
In this blog post, I have attempted to highlight a few questions/discussion items that come to mind. I will try to expand on some of these topics in further detail in future blog posts.
Residential/Business Land
What will be the new residential/industrial areas of Pune in 2030? Where will the growth happen?
Like Mumbai, would heavy/manufacturing industry shift out of the city?
How would the existing land redevelopment happen?
What would the city’s economy look like? Services vs. Manufacturing Split?
Let’s take one example of the city’s borders… will Pirangut be a part of 2030 Pune City?
Will the Mumbai-Pune Expressway essentially become one big urban highway?
Water
Pune’s water supply comes from the Panshet-Varasgaon-Temghar-Khadakwasla Dams. For a long time Pune has been blessed with a surplus water supply, but the first signs of trouble are already evident (as we have been seeing in the month of July in recent years…). According to a rough estimate the present storage capacity of these dams is more than 2 times that of Pune’s requirement (that is assuming all water is used only for Pune City).
Pune’s water needs in 2030 will be much more than 2 times the present requirement. Where is the remaining water going to come from?
Some might come from Pavana dam? Maybe?
Will any water from Mulshi Dam (presently used for power generation and downstream Kokan requirements) be diverted for Pune?
Any other dams nearby that can supply water to Pune?
Note – any extra water for Pune is going to come at an expense to crop irrigation. This will be a very tough issue to resolve.
What water management projects (e.g. rain water harvesting, sewage recycling) will be implemented?
Power
Maharashtra is already reeling under power deficit. The power requirements will grow non-linearly (much more than 2 times).
I feel (maybe I am completely wrong!) that the power situation might be relatively less difficult to tackle than the other infrastructure issues? More power plants need to be built!
What types of power plants? (Nuclear/Gas-based/Thermal)
Will alternative energy play any meaningful role by 2030 to meet Pune’s needs?
Surface Transportation
A lot of discussion/debate is already in progress around the Pune Metro and other mass transit systems. I will not add to that here in this blog post. But suffice to say, that this will be a very critical issue. By 2030, will Pune have:
An underground (at least in some densely populated parts) metro?
Truly dedicated pedestrian and bicycle zones?
A good ring road to divert highway traffic out of the city?
High-Speed (greater than 200 kmph) train links to Mumbai and other cities?
Airport
A city of 11 M in 2030 needs a good 2 runway international airport.
If the current Chakan site is not feasible, what are the alternatives?
Will the proposed New Mumbai airport near Panvel be able to meet some of Pune’s air transportation requirements?
Are multiple smaller regional airports one possible solution?
Green Spaces
What kind of quality of life will the Punekars have in 2030?
How does the city scale up while maintaining its green spaces?
What kind of FSIs would we be looking at?
What pollution/smog levels will Pune face in 2030?
Switzerland: A Heaven On Earth
We recently visited the beautiful country of Switzerland. Enough adjectives have already been used to describe this heaven on earth. Instead of adding to that list, I will just provide a simple comparison – Here’s a place that combines the Best of the Best – German Engineering, French Finecrafts, English/American Banking & Finance and on top of all this, spectacular nature! During our one week trip, we visited Interlaken, Lucerne, Zurich and Davos. Many people had recommended that trains are the best way to see Switzerland. I concur. However, driving around is also great fun. We settled for a hybrid approach. Decided to the travel by train on the Zurich-Interlaken-Lucerne sectors, and rented a car for the remainder.
Switzerland
In this two part article, I will describe my observations from the trip.
Interlaken
Interlaken is situated at the foothills of the majestic Jungfrau Mountain (more on this later). We took a train from Zurich airport to Interlaken (with a changeover at Berne, the Swiss Capital). Interlaken is a small town with one main street (Höheweg) and 2 stations Interlaken West and Interlaken Ost (East). Most tourist hotels are located on this main street and are within walking distance from the stations. The Höheweg at times resembles an airport terminal with many tourists dragging their large suitcases. The street has many good souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes. We stayed at a nice, small family run hotel: Hotel Splendid. It was originally built in 1908 and served as military hospital during World War II (during WW II, Interlaken was an important center for the Swiss Army). A building across the street from our hotel was one of the oldest buildings in Interlaken(over 500 years old).
Interlaken reminded me of two distinct places in US – Yosemite Park and Madison, Wisconsin. Interlaken is surrounded by many tall cliffs and is situated in between two spectacular lakes: Lake Brienz and Lake Thun (hence the name ‘Inter’ Laken…). When we reached Interlaken, we saw literally dozens of para-gliders gliding down from these cliffs and landing in a park in the town center (something to try for sure … maybe on the next trip! ). The Jungfrau peak and surrounding Alpine mountain ranges are visible from the town on a clear day.
I had been warned that Interlaken might be a bit ‘too touristy’ but was pleasantly surprised. Maybe this was a good season to be there, and it was not very crowded. Noticed a lot fewer Indian tourists (I guess peak season is May/June) than many earlier visitors had reported…but couldn’t help notice a few prominent Indian restaurants. Amongst the non-EU tourists, I think that Indians represent the second largest group, after the Americans. I am sure the Swiss Tourism Industry is thankful to Bollywood
Majority of people in Switzerland speak German (the locals will point out that its ‘Swiss-German’…). Though given the tourist influx, English is reasonably well understood, compared to other European countries. The people we met were quite helpful and friendly.
One big realization (and probably the only negative one…) that hits you on your first day in Switzerland is that this place is ‘really’ expensive! I have a simple, unscientific cost of living indicator that I use across countries. It simply entails comparing the prices across popular restaurant chains (McDonalds, Starbucks, Burger Kings, etc.). Prices in Germany, Netherlands tend to be about 1.5 times of US, while those in Switzerland are two times as expensive (A basic Starbucks Coffee costs more than $4).
Jungfrau
On our second day in Interlaken, we headed for the Jungfrau excursion.
Jungfrau is the tallest peak in Switzerland and amongst the tallest in the Alps. An amazing piece of engineering over 100 years ago – the Jungfraubahn (Railway), opened up this great mountain range to Alpine tourism. The Jungfrau Railway uses a cogwheel track for better traction on these steep gradients (max gradient is 25%).
To reach Jungfrau Hoch station (at around 11,000 feet), you need to change trains at 2 intermediate stops. There are two alternate routes, both with breathtaking scenery (strongly recommend trying both routes – one for going up, and the other one for coming down). You start at Interlaken Ost at around 1900 feet and ascend up over 9000 feet in 2.5 hours. The changes in the landscape are quite interesting as you gain altitude. From trees and green meadows, you start seeing snow at higher altitudes, and eventually are surrounded by glaciers. The last stretch from Kleine Sheidegg to Jungfrau Hoch passes through many tunnels, but with nice viewing galleries (windows) cutout through the tunnels at certain spots. The view of the glaciers is great…unfortunately we were there on a foggy day, with limited visibility. Jungfrau Hoch has been developed as a big tourist destination with multiple attractions and restaurants. A lift takes you few hundred feet up from the station, to a great open-air viewing gallery.
On our way up, we took the Interlaken Ost – Grindelwald – Kleine Sheidegg route. On the return, we took the Kleine Sheidegg – Lauterbrunnen – Interlaken Ost route. Train changes are required at Grindelwald, Kleine Sheidegg and Lauterbrunnen. The onward connections are synchronized (within 5-10 minutes), but I would recommend skipping a connection and spending 30 min – 1 hour at each of these picturesque stations on the way. Lauterbrunnen is also the starting point for a cable car ride up to Mt. Shilthorn (also referred to as the James Bond Mountain).
On our 3rd day in Interlaken, we boarded the train to Lucerne – The Golden Pass Panoramic Express. In the second blog post on Switzerland, I will write more about this wonderful train journey, and our stay in Lucerne, Davos and Zurich.
[Note: Thanks to my wife for taking all these wonderful photographs...many more coming up in the 2nd blog post]
Ganpati Festival 2010 – Visarjan Procession
Yesterday evening, I went to the Ganpati Visarjan Procession in Pune. This was after a long gap of over 20 years. As expected, quite a few things have changed; and yet some things remain the same. In this brief post, I will list some of my observations and briefly discuss the Ganpati festival history in Pune. The Ganpati Visarjan Procession is Pune’s biggest festival for over 100 years.
Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati (image credits: Wikipedia)
How it began
Historically, the Ganpati festival that starts on Ganesh Chaturthi and ends on Anant Chaturdashi, had been a private celebration. ‘Puja’ was done at the home. Ganpati festival was celebrated with a lot of pomp by Peshwes in Shaniwar Wada. They accorded it much prominence during their reign. This prominence was lost post 1817, after the defeat of the Maratha Empire by the British.
Lokmanya Tilak saw an opportunity to use the Ganpati Festival for social and political change in British ruled India, and took the initiative to popularize public festivities in Pune. Few other notable people were also involved, along with Lokmanya Tilak to get the public Ganpati Festival (Ganeshotsav) started. These include Nanasaheb Khasgiwale, Shri Ghotawdekar and Shri Bhau Rangari. (these three are credited with starting the first three Ganpati Mandals(groups) in Pune). Bhau Rangari Mandal is the oldest Ganpati Mandal today, celebrating the Ganpati Festival since 1892. Today, this Ganpati Mandal Procession precedes that of the two most famous Pune Ganpati Mandals – Dagdusheth Halwai and Mandai.
In addition to these three, the first five Ganpati Mandals in the Procession are also allotted a special (“Manache”) status and are called as “Manache Ganpati”. These are: Kasba Ganpati, Tambdi Jogeshwari, Guruji Talim, Tulshibag and Kesri Wada.
Ganpati Visarjan – Some things that have changed…
Lighting and displays – Technology and lighting have come a long way in the past two-three decades. Hence it was not surprising to notice major changes in the decorating lighting and displays on the procession trucks. I am sure the decoration budgets have also increased substantially.
All the Ganpati processions were illuminated with very bright flood lights – like the ones you would see in studios and sporting arenas. Also noticed lasers being used for special effects by one Ganpati Mandal. Each Ganpati Procession Truck convoy had a truck with a big power generator to power all the lighting. Gone are the days of the Gas-Lamps, which were a common sight in the 1970s.
Live coverage on TV – Many local channels now carry a live broadcast of the procession, with cameras at various points along the route. This is very convenient for those who want to see the procession festivities without getting near the crowds… having said that, technology still has a long way to go to create that real excitement and experience.
Multiple routes – Over the past few years, with the increase in the number of Ganpati Mandals and the crowds, multiple procession routes are used. Some of them still converge near Lakdi Pul for the Visarjan.
Better organization – In spite of the big increase in crowds and Ganpati Mandals, I thought the procession (especially the crowd management) was better than that from the 1980s. Food stalls and other support services (first-aid, police helpdesks, etc.) were located at regular intervals along the route.
Gulal – Probably the biggest change I noticed from two decades back to present was the marked reduction (virtual absence in many Mandals…) of ‘Gulal’. This pink-red colored powder was the signature of any Ganpati Procession for years, but concerns about pollution and toxicity have put a welcome curb on its use.
Music – Bollywood and other pop music continues to be prominent during the procession. (I expected to hear the latest Bollywood hit, but was still a bit surprised when one Mandal was playing ‘Waka Waka’!). Still, I got the impression that ‘Dhol-Tasha’ (traditional Indian drums) are regaining some importance back. Many Mandals had pure traditional music and Dhol-Tasha drums. This is another welcome change. We have enough venues where pop music is played… keeping it out of Ganpati Procession will be a great trend!
Sumitra Elephant - Sumitra Hatti (Elephant) from Peshwe Park was a star feature of Ganpati Visarjan for many years, leading the first ‘Manacha’ Kasba Ganpati Procession. Unfortunately the elephant died a few years back and since then this tradition was broken. A few Ganpati Mandals have created the elephant’s replicas as part of the procession displays.
And some things remain the same…
The sea of humanity – The Ganpati Visarjan Procession has always represented a huge gathering of people. That hasn’t changed one bit. In fact, as the population and the number of Mandals have increased, the crowd has gone up if anything.
Crowd excitement – The crowd excitement, enthusiasm and participation is still amazing. This is what makes the Ganpati Visarjan Procession a great event! Many regulars are lined up along the routes, occupying strategic spots by the road side or in the houses/offices along the way. They stay there for hours..all the way through early morning. ‘Ganpati Bappa Morya’ is heard everywhere.
Multi-cultural event - The Ganpati Festival continues to be a big multi-cultural event with people from various parts of India (and the world) participating in the festivities.
The Dhol drumbeats – The signature Dhol-Tasha drum beats are omnipresent. They gives that unique feel and atmosphere to the Ganpati festival in general and the Visarjan Procession is particular!
Performances by local schools – Local schools still prominently feature in the processions.
Harsha Bhogle’s Talk at IIM Ahmedabad
One of the best talks I have heard recently – Harsha Bhogle’s presentation at his alma mater Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (delivered in 2005). I came across a video link of this talk on this blog.
Harsha discusses why attitude matters more than talent. He narrates many interesting examples from his personal life as well as from other famous personalities. Do watch this 40 minute video (divided in two parts). The talk is simple, clear, practical and devoid of any management buzz words.
Part 1
Part 2
‘Lokmanya Tilak – A Biography’ by A.K. Bhagwat and G.P. Pradhan
Lokmanya Tilak
Just completed reading a good book ‘Lokmanya Tilak – A Biography’ by A.K. Bhagwat and G.P. Pradhan. This book was written in 1956, to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of Tilak. The book’s foreword is written by Dr. S Radhakrishnan. This biography presents an in-depth, detailed discussion of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s life. It provides the reader with a very good insight into the life of the great man.
The book starts with Tilak’s early life and formative years in Pune, and delves into a discussion around how his ideals and thought process were getting crystallized in College. The book covers at great length his friendship and differences of opinions with Agarkar. The first few chapters of this book provide mini-biographies of Agarkar and Justice Ranade. This is followed by a description of formation of Deccan Education Society, Fergusson College and establishment of Kesari and Maratha newspapers.
The subsequent chapters get into Tilak’s political life as he became the key figure in the Indian freedom struggle for the next three decades. Tilak’s prominent role in the early days of the Indian National Congress is very well described. The difference of opinion between the moderates and nationalists, that led to the ‘split’ at the Surat session is well highlighted and discussed.
That Tilak was an excellent lawyer is well known; but it was still great reading through the details of his legal arguments, especially the famous 1908 trial in Bombay High Court. His life at Mandalay and his struggle with diabetes are also discussed. Was interesting to note how he studied German, French and Pali, while in prison…his desire for knowledge was strong as ever in his late 50s.
This book also enables the reader to get a better picture of the surroundings in Pune and in other parts of India in that period. These surroundings, along with the global situation in the late 19th century/early 20th century had an important influence on Tilak. It was quite interesting to read how Tilak closely followed the various global geo-political developments in Europe, Russia, America, China and Japan.
The book offers good insights into the thought process of Lokmanya Tilak and his personality. His conviction, his forthrightness, his courage, his intellect and his other qualities are presented with plenty of examples. The book is very well researched with detailed references and sources provided for various points. Many extracts from Tilak’s own writings in Kesari are also presented. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Indian History.
NOTE – Another excellent source of information about Lokmanya Tilak is the Tilak Museum at Kesari Wada in Pune.
Commemorating 250 years of the Battle of Panipat
3rd Battle Of Panipat (image credit: wikipedia)
January 14, 1761 – the fateful day that forever will live in the infamy of Pune, Maharashtra and India history. This was the day that coined a new word in the Marathi lexicon: ‘Panipat’ (literally means ‘a disaster’ in Marathi).
This was the day when Sadashivrao Bhau’s armies were defeated in a bloody battle against Ahmedshah Abdalli on the plains of Panipat, 100km north of Delhi, in one of the biggest battles witnessed in India in the 18th century. The causalities and destruction on both sides were very high; even the victor couldn’t consolidate his position significantly.
This was the day where a culmination of many strategic and tactical mistakes finally caught up with the Marathas. This was the day when the Maratha Empire took a big step down from its absolute peak. This was the day from whose shock Nanasaheb Peshwe never recovered – and eventually died later in the same year.
[The fact that the Maratha Empire was able to rise back to a respectable level again owes a lot to the great Madhavrao Peshwe, who inherited a shocked and weakened post-Panipat empire at a young age of 16. In a short span of 12 years, before he fell to tuberculosis, he brought about a huge turnaround. British historian Grant Duff summarizes this quite well: "...the plains of Panipat were not more fatal to the Maratha Empire than the early end of this excellent prince"]
Maratha Empire in 1760 (image credit: wikipedia)
This was the day where many great instances of individual bravery and heroism were witnessed. This was the day that quite possibly changed the course of Indian history. The British who had just won their first major victory in India at Plassey in 1757 got an opening.
Today, we solemnly commemorate the 250th anniversary of 3rd battle of Panipat. This is the time to remember the heroism; and also to learn from the mistakes. Today we remember Sadashivrao Bhau, Vishwasrao, Dattaji Shinde, Ibrahim Gardi and countless other brave soldiers who fell in that fateful battle, 250 years ago. All over Maharashtra and India, many functions have been organized to remember this day, including some at Panipat.
Numerous books and research works have been published on this topic. To get an overview, I would recommend the reader start with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Panipat_(1761)
——Update on Feb 7, 2011—–
Vishwas Patil has written one of the most popular books about the Battle of Panipat. Originally written in Marathi nearly 20 years back, it has had many new editions/reprints and has been translated into other languages as well. Here is a nice indepth interview of Vishwas Patil (4 parts):
‘Indonesia Indah’ – Beautiful Indonesia
Indonesia is the biggest country in South East Asia – with over 17,000 islands, stretching from 100 km south of Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, to near Darwin Australia. It has over three time zones, thirtythree provinces and hundreds of languages and dialects. It is also the fourth most populous country in the world.
‘Indonesia Indah’ – roughly translates to ‘Beautiful Indonesia’. I recently got a chance to visit this interesting country – a country rich in history, culture and nature. In this blog post, I will discuss some of the highlights from my trip. (Please do read this nice blog post by my friend: http://arsh-else.blogspot.com/2010/10/guest-blog-about-indonesia-by.html for an interesting perspective.)
I would highly recommend visiting Indonesia. (Unfortunately, at present there are no direct flights from India to Jakarta – Hope that they do commence direct flights soon! For now, connections through Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok are quite convenient). Tourists from many countries may be eligible for visa on arrival. Combining Jakarta, Bandung and Bali in your itinerary would require a week (at minimum). Given our time constraints, we decided to leave Bali out for our next trip.
Arjuna Wijaya chariot statue (image credit: wikipedia)
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital (as well as the commercial capital) of Indonesia. It is a large, vibrant, cosmopolitan metropolis with over 14 million people. Like many large developing world cities, it exhibits quite a few contrasts – from first world like road infrastructure, downtown area, malls – to shanty towns and slums. Situated by the sea, 6 degrees south of the equator, it has tropical weather all year around. However, the humidity is definitely a shade lower than what we typically experience in Mumbai.
Jakarta Pictures (image credit: Wikipedia)
Friendly and courteous people
The Indonesian people are friendly, courteous and patient. One example of this is evident in the crazy traffic jams – hardly heard any honking! English is not that well understood by the common man; so communication can be a bit of a challenge. Given the breadth and diversity of the country, many different cultures and languages exist. Jakarta itself is quite cosmopolitan. On the topic of language – the Bahasa Indonesian spoken by the majority of the population has many words with Sanskrit origin. It is an interesting blend of East-West, given that the script is Roman.
Remnants of Dutch Era
Indonesia was a Dutch colony for over 3 centuries. But in comparison with cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, and Delhi – you don’t see as many colonial structures/infuence in Jakarta. Maybe the Dutch didn’t invest as much in infrastructure as the British. There are a few old buildings around the old port area and railway station – but nothing grand like the Fort Area or the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai. One prominent Dutch era remnant is the canal network in Jakarta. Though not very well maintained, they remind you of the typical Amsterdam canals. If there is any prominent western influence today, it is that of the American Culture – malls, fast-food, popular entertainment, etc.
Ramayan & Mahabharat
It was interesting to observe how Ramayan and Mahabharat occupy an important place in Indonesian culture. Jakarta’s central business district, features a prominent 50 feet long statue of Krishna and Arjun in a 13 horse chariot. Wooden puppets depicting scenes from these epics are quite popular.
Mahabharat – Pandawas (image credit: Wikipedia)
Nasi Goreng
Nasi Goreng (literally means ‘Fried Rice’) is one of the most popular dishes in Indonesia. It is a spicy fried rice preparation with various additions such as Chicken, Seafood, Shrimp, Beef, Eggs, Vegetables, etc. It is available everywhere – from street-food corners to good restaurants.
Nasi Goreng (image credit: Wikipedia)
Traffic
Traffic in Jakarta is crazy; but definitely better disciplined than in India. The city has over 2.5 Million Cars and over 7 Million Two-Wheelers. You will often get stuck in kilometers long traffic jams. Petrol is quite cheap (until recently, Indonesia was a net-exporter of petroleum) and public transportation is not very good. This adds to the traffic load.
The highway infrastructure though is quite world class. Jakarta has quite a few expressways inside the city. The ride on the Jakarta – Bandung Expressway was also quite good.
One interesting thing I saw was the concept of ‘tipping’ while yielding in traffic. In these crazy traffic jams, it is often impossible to make a turn in busy traffic. However an ingenious solution (doubt if it will work in India!) is often used to address this problem. A group of volunteers act as traffic cops, stop the oncoming traffic and let you pass. You simply tip this volunteer group! It is a commonly accepted practice…the oncoming vehicles doesn’t seem to protest!
Toyotas (and Daihatsus) are by far the most popular. The Toyota Innova (known as ‘Kijang’) and Toyota Avanza are the top models. These 3 passenger row vehicles are ideally suited for the large Indonesian families.
The ‘Bajaj’
The iconic Bajaj Auto-Rickshaw made an entry in the Indonesian market in the 1970s. Though their popularity has gone down a bit since the 1990s, they are still omnipresent in Jakarta. Like in many Indian cities, they are popular commuting options. Interestingly, they are not called Rickshaws or Autos, but ‘Bajajs’! (Bajaj pronounced ‘Baa-j—aah’). One strange quirk though – the backseat appears to be at a substantial slant angle, compared to what we see here in India.
[On a related note - I reminded my friends that two popular things in Indonesia have a Pune connection! One being the 'Bajaj' and other even popular one being the extremely popular game of Badminton. Badminton (originally known as 'Poona') originated out of the British Army Cantonment in Pune in the 19th century]
Bajaj (image credit: Wikipedia)
Malls
We visited a few malls in Jakarta. Some of them were quite large and impressive – comparable with some of the good malls in U.S. Indonesia is definitely an attractive shopping destination; especially for apparel. Do make sure you visit the many traditional ‘Batik’ showrooms.
Bandung
Bandung is the 3rd largest city in Indonesia and also the educational and textile capital. It is located around 160 km from Jakarta, at a height of over 800 meters. The weather is quite pleasant. Bandung is also a must-visit shopping destination for apparel. Many factory outlet stores have great merchandize selections and huge discounts.
Tangkuban Perahu
Located close to Bandung, ‘Tangkuban Perahu’ is a dormant volcano. It is a popular tourist destination. Tourists can do a short hike to one of the craters (Kawah Domas). This crater has a few active hot springs.
Tangkuban Perahu Crater (image credit: Wikipedia)
Taman Mini Indonesia
Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (translated as “Beautiful Indonesia Miniature Park”) is an excellent tourist destination in Jakarta. This theme park provides a showcase of all the major provinces of Indonesia. It is a bit similar in concept to Epcot Center (Orlando, Florida). One interesting attraction is a lake with a series of well manicured islands – that are miniature replicas of the major Indonesian islands – Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, etc.)
Even though we didn’t visit Bali on this trip, we got a brief glimpse of the temples, architecture and culture at the park.
Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (image credit: Wikipedia)
Biodiversity
Indonesia is the 2nd most bio-diverse country in the world (1st is Brazil). Given its vast expanse and tropical climate, a wide variety of plant and animal species thrive here. Dense forests, rice fields, cash crops plantations (palm, rubber, coffee, tea, etc.) fill up the landscape. Many different kinds of fruits grow here. Do recommend trying the pineapples here (they were great!), as well as fresh coconut water (available everwhere!).
Helpful Links:
Pune Warriors India
The Pune Warriors India are off to a great start, leading the points table after the first week. It’s early days in the IPL-4 season yet, but the Pune team has looked quite dominant. Geoff Marsh and co have put together a good balanced team.
Here is a list of the players:
Yuvraj Singh (Captain), Graeme Smith, Jesse Ryder, Robin Uthappa, Ashish Nehra, Angelo Mathews, Wayne Parnell, Alfonso Thomas, Jerome Taylor, Nathan McCullum, Murali Kartik, Monish Mishra, Mithun Manhas, Shrikant Wagh, Rahul Sharma, Callum Ferguson, Tim Paine, Mitchell Marsh, Harshad Khadiwale, Manish Pande, Shrikant Mundhe, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Kamran Khan, Ganesh Gaikwad, Harpreet Singh, Eklavya Dvivedi, Imtiaz Ahmed, Dheeraj Jadhav, Sachin Rana.
Coach: Geoff Marsh, Assistant Coaches: Dermot Reeve, Pravin Amre
Official website of the Pune Warriors: http://punewarriorsindia.com
Official twitter account: http://twitter.com/punewarriorsipl
Twitter list tracking various Pune Warriors Players, Blogs, Fan Clubs, etc. https://twitter.com/home#/list/aparanjape/pune-warriors-ipl
Ticketing partner – Kyazoonga.Com: http://www.kyazoonga.com/Cricket/Pune_Warriors_India/56/2
Home stadium: IPL-4 season will be played at D.Y. Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. Starting next year, the Warriors will move to their new Pune home (Gahunje, near Talegaon): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune_International_Cricket_Centre … Here’s a link I found that shows a simulated view of the proposed design: http://www.hopkins.co.uk/projects/_3,135/
My old blog post about the Sahara Pune Warriors: http://aparanjape.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/welcoming-punes-ipl-team-sahara-pune-warriors/
‘Vasant Vyakhyanmala’ – Spring Lecture Series: A great 137 year old tradition
Vasant Vyakhyanmala 2011
In recent years, TED and TEDx events are getting quite popular. They do a great job of presenting ideas from various experts and thought leaders. The first TED India event was very well received and many TEDx events have been held in various cities in India over the past year.
But did you know that an event similar in concept, but covering a broader range of topics, has been going on in Pune for 136 years! The great tradition of the ‘Vasant Vyakhyanmala’ (translation: ‘Spring Lecture Series’) was started by Justice M.G. Ranade in 1875. The idea was to present a variety of lectures, across various topics to the people. In those days, newspapers were in their infancy (Kesari had not yet started) and live lectures were the most effective medium for knowledge transfer.
Since the 18th century Peshwa era, Pune has always been a center of knowledge and education. Post the fall of the Maratha Empire in 1818, Pune city witnessed a tough period lasting for a few decades. The city’s economy was in shambles. Many scholars and learned experts left the city. Things started to improve towards the later half of the 19th century, under visionary leaders such as Justice Ranade (and later on Lokmanya Tilak).
Ranade, Tilak and other leaders of that period clearly saw the value of ‘Information’. The citizens had to be educated and informed. The Vasant Vyankhyanmala initiative was born out of the need to disseminate information and create awareness. Justice Ranade delivered the first lecture in 1875 in English. Over the years though, most lectures have been delivered in Marathi. Through its rich 137 year history, there have been very rare occasions, where the series had to be cancelled. For many years, the Vasant Vyankhyanmala was held at Hirabag and Belbag. It has been held at its present venue – Tilak Smarak Mandir, for many decades. Today, this series covers wide ranging topics such as Culture, Arts, Economics, Science, Health, Governance, History, etc.
This year’s series started on Friday April 22, with an inaugural lecture by Vijay Kelkar. (Note – Vijay Kelkar was awarded the Padma Vibhushan earlier this year by the President of India). Kelkar talked about India’s Growth Story. Ajit Ranade presented a very interesting topic on Saturday on Democracy and Electoral Reforms. The 2011 Vasant Vyakhyanmala will run through May 15. Here is a link to the full schedule from Harshad Oak’s blog — http://www.harshadoak.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Program-Guide-pg2-3.jpg . This year Vasant Vyakhyanmala has a presence on facebook and twitter. Do follow the links and updates on these social media websites, if you cannot attend the lectures.
While I have followed this lecture series over the years through media coverage, this was my first year attending it. As I said earlier the first two lectures were excellent. The event format and the organization was very good. The only negative in my view was the number of attendees (probably less than 500). In the pre-independence era, 1000s attended these lectures. Today, there are many other media sources for getting information, but an informative and thought-provoking live lecture is still a very powerful source. If you are in Pune, you should definitely try and attend at least some of these lectures, over the next 3 weeks. The lectures are virtually free to attend (Single lecture ticket costs Rs 5 and the season ticket is Rs 100).
There is a need to get the word out regarding Vasant Vyakhyanmala. More media publicity and social media presence will definitely help. I do hope that in the next few years, this great tradition that started in 1875 will continue to thrive, and reach much bigger audiences.
‘Bal Gandharva’ – A Nice Tribute To The Legend
The ‘Bal Gandharva’ movie opened this week. I was eagerly waiting for its release, and managed to catch this afternoon’s show. I normally don’t blog about cinema; unless I am really impressed (or extremely disappointed) with a specific movie. ‘Bal Gandharva’ clearly falls in the former category…hence this brief blog post.
This movie provides a great snapshot into the life of the legendary Marathi Theater artist and singer Narayan Shripad Rajhans (popularly known as ‘Bal Gandharva’).
[Do read this great speech by Pu La Deshpande (from 1988) describing the greatness of Bal Gandharva. I will quote a few of lines: “महाराष्ट्राने तीन व्यक्तींवर जिवापाड प्रेम केलेलं आहे. ही महाराष्ट्राची सांस्कृतिक दैवतं आहेत असं म्हटलं तरी चालेल. पहिले म्हणजे छत्रपती शिवाजी महाराज, दुसरे लोकमान्य बाळ गंगाधर टिळक आणि तिसरे बालगंधर्व.”
Roughly translates as: “Maharashtra has given undying love to three great individuals. These three can be referred to as the cultural/historical gods of Maharashtra. First one is Shivaji Maharaj, second Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak and third Bal Gandharva.”]
Coming back to the movie, Subodh Bhave in the lead role of Bal Gandharva is terrific. The screen-play, the sets, the direction are all excellent. At times, the movie has a slight documentary like feel and the viewer is transported to Maharashtra in the early part of the 20th century – an era that represented the golden age of Marathi Theater. The movie is thoroughly entertaining and engrossing. Music is an integral part of the movie and Anand Bhate has does an amazing job of singing the original Bal Gandharva classics.
‘Bal Gandharva’ presents many of the key events and periods in the life of Bal Gandharva, in a balanced manner, often leaving the interpretation to the viewer. His early years with the Kirloskar Natak Company…His amazing potrayal of female roles… Setting up his own Gandharva Natak Mandali… Struggles with his personal family life… His constant desire to leave no stone unturned to create a grand production for the audience, at any cost… His utter mismanagement of finances and resulting huge debts… The waning years of his career when theater audiences started defecting to the new medium of cinema… and through all this, his total perseverance and steadfast devotion to his primary love – Theater.
From a historical perspective, this movie shows many important characters and events. Lokmanya Tilak listening to a young Narayan (aged 10) and referring him as ‘Bal Gandharva’ for the first time, Anant Kanhere shooting Collector Jackson at a theater in Nashik, Ram Ganesh Gadkari at his death bed, Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur, Maharaja of Baroda, a young V Shantaram convincing Bal Gandharva to switch to this new medium called ‘Cinema’,…and many more. I personally like historical movies and Bal Gandharva scores really well in this area as well.
Do watch ’Bal Gandharva’ if you are a fan of theater, history or music. The movie has English sub-titles.
I will close with this line (by Ga Di Madgulkar?): “”असा बालगंधर्व आता न होणे!”
STS135: Final Space Shuttle Mission – End of an Era
Space Shuttle Lift-off (image credit: wikipedia)
Just watched the launch of STS135; the lift-off of shuttle Atlantis on the last space shuttle mission. Two weeks from now, Atlantis will touch down one last time and bring an end to 30 years of Space Shuttle Flights. An end of an era.
I must have watched dozens of shuttle launches live on TV, but regret not having had the opportunity of watching one in-person, in Florida. All of them were great to watch (especially the ones I saw on NASA TV). The complexity of the machine, the mission control center interactions, the sheer magnitude of engine power, the grandeur of lift-off… fascinating!
Overall, the shuttle program has been quite successful, apart from the two tragedies of Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003. Most of the other missions went through without any major issues – to the point that these missions were felt as really ‘routine’.
Like was the case with the Apollo Program nearly 40 years back, budget cuts have played their part in ending the shuttle program. The debate between cost-benefits of manned space flights will continue. Travelling to Mars is a possible long-term goal, but definitely not in the near future. In the medium term, some alternatives have been proposed, which aim to address some of the limitations of the space shuttle. Still, no firm plan exists today.
Leaves me wondering when the United States / NASA will return back to manned spaceflights. For now, the International Space Station will be served by Russian spacecrafts. Feels a bit odd that half a century since John Glenn’s historic flight – the United States doesn’t have a firm manned spaceflight roadmap. At least they should have planned for a few more shuttle launches, until the medium strategy was ready and set for deployment!
–Note added July 22, 2011 — STS-135 completed its mission yesterday and the space shuttle landed for the last time. Here’s a great video tribute to the space shuttle program, compiled by Nature that showcases all the missions over the past 30 years: http://youtu.be/II7QBLt36xo
12 July 1961 – Panshet: A day that changed Pune
12 July 1961 – this fateful day will remain forever etched in Pune’s history. A day that changed the history and geography of this great city. Call it a bad coincidence – but two events that happened almost exactly 200 years apart have played a critical role in Pune’s history – to the extent that they have been added to the local Marathi lexicon. The first one was the 3rd Battle of Panipat in 1761 and the second one: the Panshet flood. “पानिपत झालं” (Panipat zala) and “पानशेत झालं” (Panshet zala) are commonly used terms today to refer to a big disaster.
Half a century ago, the new under-construction Panshet dam had started developing some problems, even before it was complete. Against some recommendations, the dam was being filled up during the 1961 monsoon season. Cracks started developing and yet there was lot of debate on whether the dam was in real imminent danger. Read this technical article for a good engineering summary of what went wrong at Panshet: http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/IIT-MADRAS/Hydraulics/pdfs/Unit41/41_2.pdf
A valiant last-ditch effort by the Army Jawans managed to delay the inevitable by a few hours. These few hours helped a lot. If not for this great effort, where thousands of sand bags were deployed, the dam would have burst in the middle of the night, creating havoc for the sleeping residents of Pune. The few hours delay meant that the burst happened early morning and the wall of flood waters reached Pune later in the morning. The deluge of flood waters of Panshet also broke the smaller Khadakwasla dam, further downstream.
Residents started getting some warnings early in the morning and the authorities started moving out the residents living near the riverside. Many residents fled to higher grounds, some all the way to the Parvati Hill. Apparently, All India Radio did not broadcast any warnings, and was playing a regular scheduled music program when the floods struck. The low lying areas of the old city were almost completely submerged. Except for the Bund Garden Bridge, all the bridges were under water as well. Water rushed into the old ‘Peths’ and along Karve Road, Deccan Gymkhana areas. For many hours, the high water levels persisted. Roughly speaking Panshet water reservoir stores enough water for all of Pune’s city needs today (today’s needs are probably 5-10 times more than the 1960s requirements). Imagine all that water being drained out in just a few hours! To give you an idea of the level of the water, just visualize the first floor of Abasaheb Garware College (MES) on Karve Road, nearly completely submerged! Some people and rescue workers were trying navigate Deccan Gymkhana, FC/JM Road areas in small boats.
The water levels finally started falling by late night. The floods completely cutoff the electric and water supply. July 12th was a dark, rainy night in Pune – with rumors still doing the rounds. Some of them pointed to more floods on the way… (even though the dams had been drained empty by then..). When the flood-waters receded, they left behind a trail of destruction and a muddy mess. The cleanup and rebuilding took many months. The old riverside city landscape changed forever. New localities (such as Lokmanya Nagar, Gokhale Nagar, etc.) were setup to resettle some of the flood affected citizens. Most of the bridges were damaged and needed fixing and in some cases complete rebuilding. With Khadakwasla and Panshet dams completely drained, there was no water supply for the city. The Peshwa era Katraj water aqueduct was used to meet some water requirements. Wells were another source. Wadas that had wells had to prominently list ‘Well’ on their main door – so that, the water source could be be made available.
I have found a series of good articles about the Panshet flood disaster, including many firsthand accounts. Some of these links are listed below. I will continue to add more links here. If you come across any good articles, do let me know. Also if you have personal memories from your own experiences, or from your friends & families, please share them here in the comments section.
http://blog.khapre.org/2008/07/blog-post_4677.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panshet_Dam
http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/IIT-MADRAS/Hydraulics/pdfs/Unit41/41_2.pdf
http://www.sakaaltimes.com/sakaaltimesbeta/20100711/5533988237134629489.htm
http://www.esakal.com/esakal/20100712/5620114474477528349.htm
http://www.sakaaltimes.com/SakaalTimesBeta/20100711/4801146537723084952.htm
http://www.esakal.com/esakal/20110711/5513754521977459281.htm
http://www.esakal.com/esakal/20110712/4755075539072260072.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtNITRk_TzA
Indian Express Headline: July 12, 1961 http://twitpic.com/5owvo0
पानशेत प्रलय आणी मी – मधुकर हेबळे (‘Panshet Pralay Ani Mi’ – Madhukar Heble)
10 Ways In Which Restaurants Need to Improve!
How often do you experience this? You walk into a fancy restaurant for the first time. It is located at a premier address. You notice the distinct grandeur – the lighting, the water-fountains, the expensive art, the music, the fine wine bottles nicely showcased on the wall rack…. You are greeted and taken to your table, and given a menu. You are enjoying the nice ambience, when suddenly you realize that the menu card is torn, soiled and worse(!) – has some food stains on it!
Numerous fancy restaurants have sprung up in Pune and indeed in all major Indian cities, over the past few years. These restaurants spend a lot of money on real-estate and decor, but often times pay scant attention to minor details. Of course, food quality and taste is of paramount importance. But the supporting setting really separates the extraordinary from the ordinary. These supporting items become all the more important when the customer is paying many times over for the same dish, as compared to an ordinary restaurant.
In this article, I am trying to highlight some of these basic things that go a long way in improving customer satisfaction.
1. Menu cards: It’s amazing to note how a restaurant will spend millions on decor and yet completely ignore what is possibly their key interface point with their guest! I don’t care if guests ‘spoil’ the menu cards….print new ones!
2. Service Presentation: These are the basics! Greet the customer, lead them to the table. Offer choice of sitting, make sure they are comfortable, etc. Sounds very simple, right? Many top places don’t do a good job at this.
And I think its a good idea for the Head Chef to once in a while step out of the kitchen and meet some guests. This is the best way to receive feedback, first hand.
3. Service: Communication is key. The lead steward needs to be crisp and clear in welcoming the guests. Neither too aggressive and over-bearing, nor too shy. Being indifferent is even worse. For the lead steward, as well as rest of the serving staff – please make sure that their English is up to mark (especially, if they insist in speaking in English). I have no issues communicating with them in Marathi/Hindi – but some ‘fancy’ places insist that their waiters use English! And please learn the correct pronunciations – the ‘j’ in ‘Fajita’ is pronounced ‘h’! I think overall, staff training is critical. Top restaurants spend months on staff training even before the opening. Hence they rate much better on the service. Training is not just limited to basics like serving style and ordering communications…but also into the more subtle aspects of customer psychology.
4. Service – Issues Management: Pune Restaurants are quite bad when it comes to ‘Issues Management’. By ‘Issues Management’ I refer to way in which a customer complaint/issue is handled. If a customer doesn’t like a dish/its preparation – don’t spend time arguing and justifying it! First offer to redo it and/or substitute it with something else. After all attempts, if the customer is still not satisfied, provide some discount on the bill. Often times, this is a small price to pay, but good restaurants are not very keen to do this.
5. Seating comfort: I absolutely hate it when real fancy and expensive restaurants offer horrible seating. Sometimes, its in the name of ‘aesthetics’ and sometimes, it just negligence. For those restaurants who think of creating an uncomfortable ‘rural feel’ in their restaurants – just stop and think – did you do away with air-conditioning? Or purified water? Then why create these horrible bench or floor seats??
6. Ambience level: It is very important to get the right ambience level. Not too bright and overbearing, and not too plain. In fact, a little subtle is better. Many restaurants in Pune go overboard with a ‘jazzy look’. Also see my comment on music. Lighting needs to be at the right levels. Most places either err on one side (too bright, or too dim). In general I would prefer bright over dim – I want to see what I am eating
7. Feedback Process: Getting the right feedback is often times one of the most important ways to drive continuous improvement and course corrections. Yet many restaurants simply boil it down to one feedback form given with the bill! It is important for the manager to regularly (and discretely) check with the customers. However, don’t overdo it. If the customer complains, offer to change it, but don’t explain things (Here we make it this way..etc…).
8. Loyalty: Many restaurants do a bad job of maintaining customer loyality. Some do it quite well. If I visit a place regularly, its a good thing to be greeted by your name. Even better if they know your favorite order. Rewarding loyalty is very important. And its not as simple as giving away free dishes/dinners. Its much more – like getting me a reservation, when its all booked. Or getting me an off-the-menu item.
9. Right staffing levels: This is another common problem. In most cases staffing levels are not adjusted to account for the surge traffic. I understand this means extra investment..but this is key for top restaurants.
10. Music: Most Pune restaurants have the music turned on too loud. Music should be soft and preferably instrumental.
11. Let me add a 11th point, before I end this blogpost. The all important ‘Hygiene’ – Pay attention to small things such as – Stains, Dirt in corners, Plates, Cutlery, glasses. Uniforms of the waiting staff. Common areas, etc.
NOTE – Here I am specifically referring to med to high-priced restaurants. Don’t expect compliance on all these 11 points, at lower priced restaurants – still these are good yardsticks for them to evaluate themselves.
Fascinating story of how Lipitor almost didn’t make it; but eventually became world’s biggest blockbuster drug
Lipitor has been the biggest blockbuster drug till date with sales of over $120 Billion over the past 14 years. It recently came off patent.
I came across this great article by Linda A. Johnson in Associated Press – “Against odds, Lipitor became world’s top seller”, that chronicles the story of how this drug almost didn’t make it. It was not the first statin on the market. However, early trials showed results that were significantly better than the existing peers. The article also discusses the extensive use of marketing (targeted to the consumers and doctors). To quote a line from the article: “The Lipitor promotion team set new standards for a marketing campaign.”
One wonders if the pharma industry would ever again see such a massive success. Do read the full article, click here.
Germany pays twice, and builds twice as many cars as U.S. – An interesting tale of two systems
I have always wondered about the divergence in the direction and fate of the U.S. and German car industry over the past few decades, and especially in the past decade. The U.S. industry is still in a big crisis, though showing some signs of slowly coming out – while the German industry seems to be doing reasonably well – inspite of the global slowdown. What factors contribute to this difference? It is better labor productivity, better products, innovation, or something else. I came across a great article that tries to explain this quite well: http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/tale-two-systems
The ‘Touch’ vs. ‘Tactile’ Debate For Computers & Mobile Handsets
There is a lot of discussion out there about how the ‘Touch’ display keypads are going to increasingly take over from the conventional ‘Tactile’ ones. The rise of iPhone, iPad and other Tablets, Touch Smart Phones are making touch interfaces more and more prominent.
In fact some people have already started writing the obituaries of the good old fashioned tactile keyboard. But not so fast.
Tatya Tope – Operation Red Lotus
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My Twitter Updates: twitter.com/aparanjape
- RT @mid_day So, the State of Maharashtra has decided to spend Rs 48 crore on voting machines to make a few netas happy: http://t.co/mrf3B2de|2 hours ago
- RIP Prabhat Road.. the end has been near for a while..you had a great run from 1930s to 90s. #Pune|4 hours ago
- #Pune A large new fashion store has opened on Prabhat Road - Finally Prabhat Road is sharing the misery of Bhandarkar Road :(|4 hours ago
- The Battle of Koregaon (banks of Bhima) in 1818 was the last major battle between Marathas and British (happened after the battle of Khadki)|6 hours ago
- Poona Horse Regiment also honours their war veterans from 1965 and 1971 campaigns at this memorial http://t.co/9SfMgn9K .. well maintained|6 hours ago
- British (Poona Horse) memorial near Bhima river commemorating victory against Marathas in 1818, at Battle of Koregaon. http://t.co/H45HfR0N|6 hours ago
- Have you seen any Water Tanker that DOES NOT leak water? | BTW - Water Tankers on the road this early, is a bad sign :( #Pune|6 hours ago
- #Pune Going on thru tomorrow RT @sjoshi At Wild Reflections, biodiversity photo exhibition at Garware College, must watch for nature lovers|6 hours ago
- #Pune #PMCelections Sitting coproators likely to be axed to accommodate cronies, relatives http://t.co/KY1PL6SL|7 hours ago
- RT @SrBachchan Sun temple at Modera, Gujarat built t 1026 BC because Tropic of Cancer passes through that position ! How did they find out..|7 hours ago
- #Pune #Mumbai E-way median has 26 gaps, each one is a huge risk http://t.co/ABFLDkvg|7 hours ago
- What? Apparently, there is a 'World Spice Congress'?! | World spice congress to open in Pune on Feb. 9 http://t.co/aICkcGIB|20 hours ago
- Next Gen Land Rover Defender to roll out from Tata Motors #Pune Plant http://t.co/UCdGPsjc | @punetech|20 hours ago
- Lot of responses/questions on my Subway tweet...The Phoenix mall #Pune loc was out of softdrinks, juices and had cabbage instead of lettuce!|20 hours ago
- Good points.. RT @LalitKModi Just been seeing whats happening with Indian Cricket. See my Blog on it at http://t.co/BBdILGbn|21 hours ago
- Another representation of poor #publichealth in India? | #Pune rampage victims at Sassoon find CT machine not working http://t.co/JlvZ1m3t|21 hours ago
- #Pune bus rampage: Lawyers refuse to represent killer driver http://t.co/3LLnAleq|21 hours ago
- "Premium economy" is the fastest growing offering from airlines..good compromise between 'cattle' and 'business' class? http://t.co/vpKfsZJf|21 hours ago
- Utterly ridiculous! :( RT @siddhud I really fail to understand,why Indian news TV channels need so loud background music,is it drama movie?|21 hours ago
- #Pune Sat 11am RT @SudharDotIn Right To Information (RTI) Workshop – Save the environment using RTI http://t.co/n8nunQDb|21 hours ago
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