Veganism !

I am writing this post in order to shed some light on veganism for all the people I am connected with socially or personally.

According to Wikipedia; "Veganism is both the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, particularly in diet, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A follower of either the diet or the philosophy is known as a vegan".

Another definition according to VeganSociety ; "A philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

There are numerous other definitions of Veganism and all are emphasizing on one common and most important point which is simply not to eat/drink animal products of any form.

I have been watching a lot of videos and have been reading about research done on veganism. I have been discussing with my wife as well (who happens to be homoeopath) to know more health related details of following veganism. It was not very difficult for me to understand veganism. The outcome of all my understanding and realization made me follow veganism straightaway. I had been following a vegetarian diet for many years before becoming a vegan. First of all, I wanted to know the difference between vegetarian and a vegan diet which was easy to find. Afterwards, I wanted to understand why drinking milk or eating eggs is considered unethical in veganism. This was something not difficult to understand; when I found out how cruel it is to drink milk & eat eggs of animals that have been kept in horrific cages all their life just so that consumers (non-vegans) feel they would become healthy. This is a great misconception (yes it is!) created by business groups in the dairy-poultry industry.

The whole point of vegan diet from my understanding so far is to be considerate & sensible towards what you eat/drink, in order to cause least harm to other species and our environment. I have been happily following vegan diet since more than 6 months.  For me it was not difficult at all to get rid of my habitual diet, simply being sensible enough helped me to leave it permanently! The more I know about veganism and vegan diet, the more I feel like doing something to spread this noble concept, to as many people as I can, through any means possible. Veganism is really great philosophy; it’s not just about diet it’s about the whole lifestyle. The crux of it from my view, is being commonsensical and responsible enough as a superior living being for a healthy nature of the mother earth!

Take out the dirt from your mind about Marathis!

Marathi is language said to be spoken by Marathi Manus, but who is this Marathi Manus the (true) Marathi Manus is a genuine and patriotic Indian first, akin all other Indians in all other regions and states of India. The Marathi Manus communicates in his mother tongue (Marathi) in his home and outside the home with his relatives, friends, and colleagues at work place (unless it is not barred to speak in marathi at work place, but at work place the most important thing is to focus on work instead of enquiring about who speaks in what language!) as is the case in other states also when personnel communicate in their respective regional languages, (again unless the regional language is not barred for communication at work place). So here there is nothing dreadful if Marathi Manus speaks in his mother tongue in his native place, isn’t it? 

 But in fact this was not the state of affair or at present also to some extent inhabitants of Maharashtra are feeling inferiority complex to communicate in their mother tongue with contemporaries and started using English as the medium of communication not only at the work place (which is pertinent!) but also with friends (and with some not so close relatives) to illustrate superiority complex by giving an impression that they are habitual to speak in this (third) language even the first language of communication in Maharashtra is our beautiful language Marathi. What transpired due to this, people in Maharashtra specifically those in remote and village side areas started considering Marathi as a trivial language for communication since, the well educated and highly qualified inhabitants estranged themselves from less qualified and unlearned inhabitants, giving an impression that they no longer consider Marathi as a suitable language for communication, consequently Marathi became trivial and frivolous, so the culture and traditions which were followed since the ages. Western culture started dominating the indigenous culture.

Just one and half decades back when globalization and privatization started to boost Indian economy and India started becoming popular as global outsourcing hub in particular cities like Bombay now Mumbai, Bangalore now Benguluru, Madras now Chennai, Calcutta now Kolkata (I still don’t understand what difference is made by these changed names of these cities!) and Delhi as companies had started hiring inhabitants from different states, but the major bulk of them were recruited from companies located in Maharashtra (Majorly in Mumbai) and the result is burst of population and that’s why it is said to be the city where people from almost every religion dwell, which also means people from almost all the states of India speaking there native languages (so be it Bengali, Malayalam, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Marwari, Punjabi, Kannada) settled in this city becoming popular by the name ‘city of dreams’, subsequently populace preferred English as the common language of communication but not just the language English people’s culture also preferred over indigenous culture, which gave birth to materialistic brain wave of superiority complex and inferiority complex among marathis and non-marathis.

The motive of the movement, which is going on in Maharashtra, (should be) to thwart westernization of indigenous cultures (all over India!) and make Marathi non-trivial yet again which is contemporarily deprived in its own state from where it originated and inherited its name, previously known as Maharshtri and then Marhatti/Mahratti. But the political parties across Maharashtra specifically in Mumbai have taken a wicked path of violence, using abusive speeches and beating political leaders publically to enforce them to respect Marathi and Maharashtra and in the corollary (for all non-marathi as well as for non-maharashtrians) marathi and maharashtrians became odium and maharashtrians (Marathi) communicating in marathi are seen with contempt and considered to be supporting these political parties but the fact is not the same in most of the cases as there are people who still love to communicate in marathi simply because they feel expression of emotions is so fluent in marathi as compared to other languages (which is very obvious if one is born and brought up in Maharashtra!) in spite of having great command over English or Hindi or any foreign language for that matter and I don’t see any reason why they should not do so, in their own native place……….

Talking about other states in India, say for example Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Manipur, Orissa, West Bengal, Sikkim, and Assam you have to know and understand at least routinely spoken words and sentences in these respective states, which furnish great help while commuting, shopping, and collecting information (about anything and almost everything), same is the logic in Maharashtra also! People out here don’t expect non-Marathis to speak in Marathi exactly the way they speak but they expect people from outside Maharashtra State to at least understand Marathi and not to consider them inferior or mediocre if they communicate in their native language, as is the case with most of the states in India concerning about respective native languages.

Now a robot that reads your intention !

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I have been always spellbound by the idea of robots and the leeway of the activities they can perform to mimic humans to act as our counterpart and not (just) as servants or slaves, I am referring robots as a counterpart to mention some of the amazing features or should I say aptitude; these new generation of robots will have, well it is being said that they will be able to observe the behavior, map it against the task and quickly learn to anticipate (partner actions) or spot errors when the partner does not follow the correct or expected procedure. Ultimately a robot will be able to anticipate/predict the actions and intentions of a human partner as they work collaboratively on a task.

The crux of this (more advanced the more human like) robot will be its pseudo “mirror neurons” which are found in human brain, which resonate as if they were mimicking the activity the brain learns about an activity by effectively copying what is going on. So what will be the upshot of it on us, well I have this hypothetical thought; For engineers specially programmers these robots will be competitors, as they will have this pseudo thinking power guided by the designers of the computer program or the designers of the whole system they will be working for. These robots can be better alternatives for MANAGERS having the ability to discuss and explore possibilities, assess their companion’s ideas and anticipate what their partners might do next! (That is what the project is aiming for) and for Doctors, well I guess we will not need them at all as these intelligent bots (or soon to be called Docs!) will have the access to the best possible elucidation/prescription for the patients, supported by the most advanced the healthcare software (which will be developed by them only) through internet or should I say CLOUD!

Infosys says none of 700000 engineers in India are competent enough for their Engeering science prize !

India churns out around 700000 engineers every year. And yet our very own Infosys Technologies reportedly failed to find a worthy candidate for its Infosys Engineering Science Prize 2009.

The company has decided not to give the prize in this category to anyone this year. Infosys' Chief Operating Officer (COO), SD Shibulal, told that there were 34 nominees for the engineering and computer science prize but even after relaxing the age limit to 55 years, the jury could not find anyone who met all the criteria of the Infosys Prize. So, the jury took the unanimous decision to not award the prize for the engineering sciences discipline this year.

I guess all these 700000 engineers (Including me!) will surely say (what the heck) this means Infosys thinks all the IITs and NITs in the country are not educating/have not educated these 700000 engineers well enough so that they could (or atleast one of them) become the winner of the so called "Infosys Engineering Science Prize."

What i think here is that the decision made by Infosys was based on only a small amount engineers participated in competition (this seems quite obvious) and they should have relaxed the age limit to 2 more years i.e., 57 years so that atleast their very own man Mr. Nandan Nilekani (IIT mumbai graduate) could have won the prize!!!

Information Security Managment System

In India and across the globe there are a lot of start-ups and SMEs entering the IT domain which are using IT resources in the ad-hoc manner for their business processes which is quite vulnerable for the whole industry in terms of globalization. ISO27001 is increasingly seen as the single global standard for Information Security governance, management and compliance, this is the baseline for every IT company aspiring to be known globally, henceforth to get compliant with international standards like these and serve these companies with latest technologies, (for instance the new buzz-word in the computer world;Cloud computing) we as an IT professionals or the so called Techno-Managers are indeed having great opportunities in this niche market to sharpen our skills. (am talking about job opportunities currently around 5 lakhs  ;-)