Friday, December 12, 2008

Israel - some other blasting title required?

When Jews were tortured in an affluent corner of this planet, they looked for a place to rehabitat. And they headed towards middle east since there were Jewish colonies in Palestine already. There was a rapid shift of Jewish population from the Christian extremism (if i may say so) to the centre of most insendiary Muslim epicentre.

They were accepted to some extent but with time tensions started to creep in. With the intervention of UN, two states were created out of Palestine. Ever since (the independence of Israel in 1948), it has kept itself engaged for various conflicts with almost all the Muslim countries.

India can not even imagine, the way Israel works or thinks, being so small, trapped amongst umpteen muslim countries (surrounded by Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan) and still fighting all the time. With a population of less than 8million, Israel is one of the highest spending country in terms of intelligence and security.


Many a times, US intervenes and get treaties signed or ceasefires agreed upon in between Arab coutries and Israel. But history is evident, Israel keeps no resolution for long and attacks one of those countries, captures its land and shows the middle finger to all the Arabs and the treaty makers from US, UK and the lame elephant UN.


The reason for the States not taking harsh actions against Israel is that there are myriad of Jews at prominent positions and with enormous wealth in US (Steve Ballmer, Sergey Brin, Larry Elison, Michael Dell and many many more). And also many politicians..


http://knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/List_of_Famous_Jews/


And guess what - Harrison Ford, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Sandra Bullock, Milton Friedman, Woody Allen, Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley, Kirk Douglas, Goldie Hawn, Levis Strauss, Ralph Lauren, Henry Kissinger, Mark Spitz, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks are all Jewish.

So, in one way or the other Jews are damn influential when it comes to deciding the policies for US (read UN also). They have enough of green notes, grey cells (ofcourse in brain) and leadership enzymes embedded in themselves. So, world better watch out coz they are looking out for their small community to place bookmarks (they are a lot into literature also) in each and every corner of this world.






Thursday, December 11, 2008

Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi (2nd Oct 1869 to 30th Jan 1948)- Much is already known, said and written about this frail saint. A man with whom you might agree or disagree but can't avoid. A stern follower of his home made policies, medicines, philosophies and attire.

If you have to choose one man for the good or bad or whatever India faced - it has to be Gandhi. He was not liked by most of the Britishers for obvious reasons but many Indians (not necessarily extremists) also disliked him. Anything you might feel about Gandhi, but one thing is for sure, he was a man of immense will power.

After reading 'My experiments with Truth' (i would love to call it-'I, ME, MY, MINE by Gandhi' - yes yes i know it was his AUTObiography), you get to know how an underconfident man lifts himself with self proclaimed ups and downs. He faced immense humiliation at the hands of Whites, Hindus, Muslims, and loads of leaders, but life goes on for this kind of guy. For him no praise was small and no humiliation big enough.

He not only had ardent admirers and followers like Mountbatten, Nehru, Patel but also had Jinnah, S.Bose, Churchill and many extremists (Godse, Savarkar to name the influential) on the other side of his spinning wheel.

One can never undermine his achievements, but also can't forget his distinctive personality traits, i would like to elaborate some of them here:

1. His campaigns to raise awareness about sanitary cleanliness in houses is unimaginable. He rushed from vilas to houses to even huts, only because of his willingness to see Indians live a cleaner, healthier life.
2. It is said that no one can ridicule you without your consent. Gandhi is the best example. He just made a note of every disrespect in his mind but never actually felt humiliated.
3. His unbound love for the motherland, mothertongue and culture.
4. His Vegetarianism.
5. His belief in earth and water techniques (and other self experimented remedies).
6. Vocational training to others, so they can live a respectful life.
And above all, his never failing brahmastra- Fasting and that too till death (many a times) proved an aid in making him Mahatma.

Me and most people like me neither have rights nor hold any feasible reason to justify the stands of Gandhi in various struggles of his life, but one thing is for sure - He was a stern being with a lot of guts, will power, dominance streak, truthfulness and leadership skills. Somewhere in his heart he might have a will to be MAHATMA - but as i said i can't and i should not comment on that.
But, someone like Osho certainly can - "If a threat to kill another person is wrong , how can the threat to kill oneself be right? If it is wrong for me to make you accept what i say by pointing gun at you, how can it be right if i make you accept the same thing by pointing gun at myself?"

Thursday, November 6, 2008

World War-1

I have always loved reading and knowing the intricacies of Wars. I have always liked to know what must have been the reasons involved that could lead to humongous wars on the face of this planet. And a war as huge as World War would certainly fascinate any one.
And i would like to share the knowledge i have acquired over the period of time about those times of blood, toil, tears and sweat. This article is about World War-1.

By the year 1913, tensions had been building up in various affluent countries of Europe over myriads of issues like:

-Huge spendings on the warfare.
-UK having large colonies across the globe (Imperialism), made Germany jealous (yes right word).
-France's resentment over its large territories acquired by Germany.
-Many smaller European colonies no longer wanted to be part of their larger counterparts (like Bosnia and Herzegovina no longer wanted to be a part of Austria-Hungary but instead be part of Serbia.)

But one incident that triggered this sleeping Dragon (read war) - The assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (heir to the Austrian Empire) at Sarajevo (capital of Bosnia). A member of Black Hand Gang (which wanted to rid Bosnia of Austrian rule) shot Franz and his wife. This agitated Austria. Austria suspected Serbia becuase of its closeness to Bosnia and sensing the selfish motive of Serbia taking over Bosnia. This lead to Austria attacking Serbia.

But Serbia was an ally of Russia and hence Russia jumped in to rescue Serbia. Serbia alone could have been an easy prey for Austria but now that Russia was also involved - Germany was called for help. Germany entering war made France angry but Germany was willing to help because of something more dangerous cooking up in its closet. This was the Schlieffen Plan.

Schlieffen being a senior German army officer felt that German army was better than any other army in Europe. But it would be tough for it to fight both France and Russia on the warfronts. However, he felt that the large Russian army would require at least 6weeks to mobilize and this time was enough for diminishing the French front. Hence, after finishing off France, the advanced railway network of Germany would take the army towards east and deal with the Russians.

So, the Schleffen plan was carried out to attack France via Belgium. But Belgium was supported by Britain and hence Britain came into the picture. Later on Italy also jumped in to aid Germany-Austria.
Now there were two clear fronts:

The Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria, Italy) and
The Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia)

All these alliances were solely based on selfish motives. For instance, France aided Britain for the want of the huge fleet of British navy and Britain due to France's modern army. Only aiding each other, they could stand against the mighty Germany - which had the most modern warfare both on land and sea.

Later on almost all the European countries and their colonies got involved in the bloodshed. This all lead to uncountable strategies and alliances all around the globe. But one major event turned out to be very major setback for Germany.

US was unwilling to join the war as an ally to the Britain and party. There were tensions with regards to Germany bombing passenger ships carrying Americans. But, a message decoded by Britain that was sent by Germany to Mexico urged US to roar. Actually, Germany wanted Mexico (with the aid of Japan) to attack US, provided it jumps into the war. In return, Germany would help Mexico get the US acquired states like New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.

This stirred up America and hence it actively got involved in the war as an Associated Ally in the year 1917. By then, things had already started getting rough for the Triple Alliance. Russia under smart leadership of Lenin was gaining force. France and Britain aided by their colonies all around were fighting hard. Germany, Japan, Austria started losing the sheen.

By the end of the year 1918 - time for treaties was round the corner. Germany agreed on armistice with the allied powers on 11th of November. And the war completely ceased with Treaty of Versailles (called "Versai") in the mid of 1919. The whole of Europe was redefined as a consequence of war. Central Powers lost a lot of territories and new nations were formulated.
And this also lead to the creation of League of Nations which failed in the years to follow. More about that and WW-2 in some future blog.
I feel good i compiled this :)

Friday, October 24, 2008

Lehmann down, y?

I solely feel the reason behind the sad demise of Lehman Brothers is over-smartness of the policy makers, not only in Lehman but also other such banks.

Let me first of all brief you about the kind of work investment banks do. They basically invest the money deposited by the customers-big (companies) or small (individuals). In return they pay them some interest to them. This is a sound business. Since, you get a lot of money to play with. And with highly intellectual strategists (no sarcasm!!), they devise newer plans everyday.

And everything worked out well for them (read Lehman and alike companies). But we all know something hit them real hard. And this something was- Sub prime crisis. Now, what is sub-prime crisis?

Every bank has a set of customers to whom it is going to give loan or provide a particular set of services. Technically, these customers are called Prime customers. So, the banks were giving away loans to them and everything was going their way. But these banks had a lot of money and fewer and fewer prime customers. So, they started looking for Sub-Prime customers. These were the customers to whom the bank was unwilling to pay loans earlier. But now, they were also considered 4 loans.

Even now the ball was rolling well. These customers were paying their installments and the cycle was good. But now comes the twist. The customers (majorly sub-prime) loaned money for buying properties and making profit. The property rates as a consequence were reaching sky. And people found it an easy way to make money. Let's take a scenario to understand the whole stuff.

A customer (name him Sam) took a loan of 10,000 USD to buy a property (with sole purpose of making profit by later on selling it at higher rates.)
He was paying the installments faithfully and things were good. But, the real estate prices have a limit. The real estate prices started plummeting due to certain factors pertaining to global reasons.


So, what happened to customers like Sam? They did not know what to do because their real estate costed less than the amount they had invested. Suppose, Sam's property now costs 6000USD, so what would smart Sam do? He would leave the papers with the bank and would stop paying INSTALLMENTS. Smart Sam as i said!!

Now, bank finds out that Sam is unwilling to pay his installments-So, the bank goes into the market to sell the property and guess what, it finds out that the property against which it had availed a loan of 10,000USD now costs 4500USD. Leave the interest, its principal amount can't be recovered even. So, the bank gets screwed up. And there was not one Sam. There were Sam’s all around. Becoming defaulters and making banks poorer and poorer.

So, why on the first hand banks did this? They could have kept the extra money with themselves instead of risking it with the Sub-primers. But banks never do so. They are always willing to loan it for INTEREST. And if one bank does that, others unwillingly also have to follow the trend in order to stay in the market. And hence, the complete cycle of the downfall of not only Lehman but all the other biggies.

Friday, August 29, 2008

india shud rule

Tradition is something we put forward whenever we don’t try or don’t intend to try our best. Sometimes in life, the protecting shield moreover becomes a burden and not only a burden but also a hindrance in our ventures. And this is what Tradition is doing to us.

We knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally use it as armour against our own prosperity.

Most of us can end up firing a panegyric instead of an argument against our so called tradition.
One can avoid anything but CHANGE.But we Indians have been doing this ever since.
Moghuls reigned, English ruled and who ever came to devour us was welcomed.
That golden bird was butchered many times and was praised as an easy prey by the predators.
And guess what—at the bottom of our hearts we took it as an encomium.
We admired being praised. As we are not Germans. Ok, I would leave that for a later thought.
The English admired Indians being arduous and not archaic.
Our most noble people sang songs in praise of our new self made rulers. (Jan Gan Man by Tagore- a classic example).
Neither I nor anyone on this planet can demean the Queen’s people because it is the human tendency to conquer, to expand their territory.
But it should also be a human tendency to defend your territory. You don’t attack its ok but you don’t defend yourself, your people; you don’t erect a bulwark to safeguard your traditions; you are defying the first and foremost rule of the planet. You are serving yourself in the plates of the predators and when they have devoured the delicacy, you go out lamenting and shouting that the British robbed us. No they did not. Instead we robbed ourselves. We robbed ourselves of our values, of our courage, of our basic human insignia.
We did not spare a single thought about the outcome of all this and now here we are.

Now let me come back to where I started that is CHANGE.
We don’t accept changes. We have become as stagnant as a pond. And that pond is covered too, so no sunlight no fresh air but only smell of our own sweat. So however hard we toil our soil, we still would require fresh air, sunlight and if I may say so global exposure to flourish our lands.

And what is wrong in that. This is the era of globalization. Even the stiff and stern Chinese are changing as according to the need of the hour. They are learning from the States like no one else has ever before yet they don't let anyone interfere in their political matters. It is upto you to erect boundaries or limits.
Leaving tradition apart, consider India as a teen who has just acquired enough maturity to understand tactics of this cruel and harsh world. Now at this time it has to learn as much as possible from the giants around. It has to embellish itself with the smartness of the smart.
This is like garnishing our own pizza with toppings from around the world.
And guess what, we can select the kind of toppings....like:

Sophistication of the French,
Killer instinct/Engineering of the Germans,
Innovativeness of the Japanese,
Market-understanding of the Chinese,
Arduousness of the Koreans,
Diplomacy of the British,
Farsightedness of the Americas,

And whatnot…

So, who would not like this customized pizza? The pizza with our staple and toppings peculiarly selected from around the world as never done before in the history of mankind.
There may be an argument here - why should we learn from them. I say why we should not.
History is full of precedents where pupils have outsmarted their cicerone.
All we need to have is a victory over our narrow-mindedness. As known our bigotry smartly acts as bottleneck for any of our future endeavors.

So, I come to being a rebel. Show rebelliousness against our straw-like mindset.
Osho has very rightly quoted:
विद्रोह नही तो जवानी कैसी!!

Speak out against injustice, malpractice, black-marketing, and chauvinism.
Say your word. Discuss nation instead of discussing mundane sitcom or silly page-3. Our nation needs us more than a cancer patient needs chemo.
And the time is right; if we still delay this cancer would be incurable. So, act before it is too late. Act, don’t think don’t talk.
We Indians have a basic tendency of analyzing things instead of acting upon them. And hence in the process, many times we put our human instinct on bay. And after a thorough analysis which way do we opt—Ahh the safer one, the less tedious one.
We don’t invest in R & D- because America is doing it.
We don’t look after our education system properly, because politics is more important here.
Our politicians are ruined because we’re more ruined and stale.
Think about this, how many times you went for a safer side instead of listening to what your instinct told you to.
In the words of Jonathan Spencer- We never ask ourselves a simple question before foregoing our initial instinct-
"What would you do if you were not afraid?"

We never think that way- We rationalize things like no one else on this planet.
We never risk things, never risk luxury, never risk comfort and as an outcome have to RISK LIVES.
I once read these beautiful words (sorry I don’t remember where?)

Fight the tendency to quit while you are left behind.
When we trail in a race-we sit back and start enjoying the race. We have been very good admirers which is certainly admired but wont you prefer to be a participant. A watcher does enjoy a game but do you have any idea of the gratification, the gusto of the player actually involved.
So, why not be that player। Make India that player that virtuoso who not only enjoys his game but also keeps in mind that future would come apace than imagined.

Don't compare our state, our problems with the likes of US or any other nation. We have to forget the trembling past and plan for a swift and smooth future. We have to be forgetful of our own people and our own mistakes..
With these beautiful words(again don't remember where i read) i would like to finish my work for a while::::
क्षमा शोभती उस भुजंग को, जिसके पास गरल हो
उसका क्या जो विषरहित, विनीत और सरल हो