The empire on which the sun never sets

The history of last century was all European domination till the “Second World War”, with all the show stealing done by “The Great English Empire”. Then came Uncle Sam and changed the rule of the game which they are still playing on their own terms as “East India Company” use to do in their time.

I was going through a course offering of Liberal Arts Program Webpage at Texas A&M University at Qatar and the course outline is pretty interesting with English, History and Political Sciences to support the engineering programs. This is what is offered in history and political sciences subjects:

HISTORY
HIST 105. History of the United States. (3-0). Credit 3. I, II, S
Colonial heritage; revolution; adoption of constitution; growth of nationalism and sectionalism; civil war and reconstruction

HIST 106. History of the United States. (3-0). Credit 3. I, II, S
Since reconstruction; new social and industrial problems; rise of progressivism; U.S. emergence as world power; World War I; reaction and New Deal; World War II; contemporary America.

HIST 301. Blacks in the United States after 1877. (3-0). Credit 3. I, II, S
Blacks in the United States from the end of reconstruction to the present; the ideologies of black leaders, disfranchisement, lynching and the quest for equality in the 1950s and 1960s.

POLITICAL SCIENCES
POLS 206. American National Government. (3-0). Credit 3. I, II, S
Survey of American national government, politics, and constitutional development

POLS 207. State and Local Government. (3-0). Credit 3. I, II, S
Survey of state and local government and politics with special reference to the constitution and politics of Texas

POLS 324. Politics of Global Inequality
This course is an “Examination of the causes and consequences of economic inequality between rich and poor states; evaluation of competing explanations for poverty of less-developed countries; development strategies employed by poor states; and structure of global economic relations”.

POLS 331. Introduction to World Politics
Offered to meet the social science requirements: Courses in Comparative Politics or International Relations are offered at the Qatar Campus to meet the University Core Curriculum in both Social Science and international and cultural diversity

Qatar was a British protectorate from 1916 to 1971 and with new found oil wealth in the gulf region they have turned their inclination towards far west, their American friends. If one has travelled to United States and comes to these oil rich emirates they can feel at home with somehow similar basic infrastructure, driving side, traffic rules, sports facilities, etc. May be this is the reason why an American university based in Qatar is teaching American history and politics rather than local history and politics, as most of their history and politics was dominated by British. It doesn’t surprise me a lot as each and every country of South Asia and Middle East is under great influence of western cultural domination.

Similar, is the case with India, up till now we read British history, adopted their schooling system, still part of the “Common Wealth” (British abused Indian national resources and discriminated with the natives for two hundred years and Common Wealth is still part of their bloody domination. If one has doubts then go to UK and see the discrimination Asian people have to go through in their daily life.), we prefer to speak in English rather than our native languages, our movies are in Hindi but the poster is in English, we got freedom from their physical presence but it’s very hard to get freedom from their ghosts. British made Mughals a villain and themselves as mere force who came and liberated Indians from these Muslim bandits. Mughals united India; they brought peace to this vast country by integrating all the religions and cultures of this land. No doubt there were many odds in them as well, but it cannot be compared to what British did to this great country. They sold our country, parted our lands, degraded us and made us one of the most backward, poor, deprived nation when they left us. Thanks God that India got some great leaders who looked beyond their religion and culture, who had a vision to make India a Super Power.

We can see similar impressions of the British Raj in most of the independent South Asian and Arab countries. People should understand that the physical presence of English Empire might have vanished but the sun still never sets in the remains of its empire. Now, its time for another blood thirsty empire to correct its history before it goes too wrong.

Someone truly said: “The sun never set on the British Empire because the sun sets in the West and the British Empire was in the East.”

Sources:

The Sun Never Set on the British Empire, “Dominion over palm and pine”. – Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D

Liberal Arts Program Webpage at Texas A&M University at Qatar

Wikipedia:

The Empire on which the sun never sets

British Empire

The East India Company

Protectorate

The United States of America

State of Qatar

Emirate

The Commonwealth of Nations

Competition – Waging war

This post is part of the series of “Art of War”.

Sun Tzu said: In the operations of war, where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots, as many heavy chariots and a hundered thousand mail-clad soldiers, with provisions enough to carry them a thousand miles………….sums spent on chariots and armour, will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver per day. Such is the cost of raising an army of 100,000 men.

When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, the men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardour will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength……………….There is no instance of a country having been benefited from prolonged warfare.

Competition in business world can be classified into many categories from actual and potential rival offerings and substitutes that a buyer might consider:

BRAND COMPETITION – PEPSI and Coca Cola (or any other equivalent brand as PEPSI will not compete with Tang or Starbucks).

INDUSTRY COMPETITION – PEPSI will compete with all other soft drink manufacturers.

FORM COMPETITION – PEPSI will compete with all other companies manufacturing products that supply same service like Bisleri, Tang, Starbucks, etc.

GENERIC COMPETITION – PEPSI sees its competitors as all companies that compete for the same consumer currency like hospitality, food products and entertainment.

Source:

The Art of War – Sum Tzu

Marketing Management – Philip Kotler

Afghanistan writing cricket history

Today, Afghanistan will make news across all media channels, but this time not for any wrong reasons. Three decades of war has left no scope for any kind of sports or extracurricular activities back in Afghanistan, but as they say “where there is a will, there is a way”. Afghan boys from refugee camps learned cricket on their own, bare footed without knowing the future, except their passion for the game. Afghanistan National Cricket Team created history when they qualified for “Twenty 20 World Cup – 2010” and today they are going to face India in their very first T20 World Cup Match.

Cricket is becoming a powerful sport, reaching across the globe with its open arms to wipe out sorrows and tears of a war-torn nation like Afghanistan. The game of classes has transformed into the game of masses with a vast reach and soon to be seen at Olympics as well.

PS: The next cricket team to watch out in this decade – China.

Sources:

Afghanistan’s extraordinary journey (ESPN cricinfo)

Cricket gets Olympic approval (ESPN cricinfo)

Wikipedia:

China national cricket team

Strategy – Laying Plans

This post is part of the series of “Art of War”.

Sun Tzu said that “The Art of War” is of vital importance to the state. The art of war is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one’s deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.

These are: the Moral Law, Heaven, Earth, the Commander and the Method & Discipline.

Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.

Earth comprises distances, great and small, danger and security, open ground and narrow passes, the chances of life and death.

Seven Searching Questions and its relevance in the modern corporate world by few examples:

1. Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the moral law? Intel or AMD
2. Which of two generals has most ability? Steve Jobs or Steve Ballmer
3. With whom lie the advantages derived from heaven and earth? Toyota or GM
4. On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced? Goldman Sachs or Bank of America
5. Which army is the stronger? Amul or Kwality Walls
6. On which side are officers and men most highly trained? Emirates Airlines or British Airways
7. In which army is there the greater constancy both in reward and punishment? Infosys or Satyam

PS: Do check Steve Jobs link.

Think and grow rich

If you are rich what you can do:

• Start an NGO.
• Have your own team in IPL.
• Open an international school.
• Own your island in Dubai.
• Posses a diversified investment portfolio.
• Become a member of an elite club of your town.
• Take a world class vacation with your family twice a year.
• Earn a free VIP parking and family pass for all key events in your city.
• Ferrari, Rolls, Porsche, whatever you want.
• Private plane.
• Become an active member of a political party.
• Personal trainer, yoga instructor, astrologer, preacher, doctor, security, n number of helpers.

And at last the most common thing among rich people is that nowadays most of them have their own blog and website.

White Mughals

In the third of the series of lectures at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar (VCUQ)

William Dalrymple in Doha

on arts and architecture of the East, eminent historian and travel writer William Dalrymple gave a well-attended presentation on March 30, 2010 on the subject of his best-selling book White Mughals, published in 2003.

The book is based of British subjects who started living and behaving like Mughals and Native Indians for a long time till the first war of independence. The “white mughals” ceased to exist after 1857, said Dalrymple, but theirs was a period of interchange of ideas, mutual tolerance and interracial understanding which the Victorians blotted out of history.

http://www.williamdalrymple.uk.com/Pages/Books.html

desert wings

desert wings, originally uploaded by crazylenz.

Air show in Al Khor, near Doha.

a sea shell

a sea shell, originally uploaded by crazylenz.

This is a sea shell which I clicked on a Doha beach.
For thousands for years these sea line desert countries survived by collecting shells like these for pearls. They must be selling these raw pearls to sailors and merchants of Indian Subcontinent and Persia to be used in finished ornaments.

Idiot box and other better things

Seth Godin, one of the best marketing gurus of our time has identified few better things in his post (But it’s better than TV) which are worth doing rather watching TV.

Like, Run a little store on eBay, Write a daily blog, Write a novel, Start an online community about your favorite passion, Go to meetups in your town, Volunteer to tutor a kid in person or online, Learn a new language verbal or programming, Write hand written thank you notes each evening to people who helped you out or did a good job, Produce small films and publish them online, Read a book or two every evening, Play a game of Scrabble with your family, etc.

None of them are perfect. Each of them are better than TV.

To go through the complete post do read his blog.

Right Time

How important is it to reach office on time?

Participate in this poll so that we all can know the myth of right time.

Also try to share your thoughts as comments which you might not share in your office regarding this timing thing.

See what the world is searching for

I am an admirer of Google products except few like Orkut, Buzz, Shopping, etc. But these doldrums are nothing in-front of Google’s out of the box tools.

Insight for Search is the one of the outstanding ideas from the number one Internet search company. As the tag line says “See what the world is searching for”, is self explanatory that if you care to know the ongoing trend of searches in various categories globally.

Now you know that your search will never go in wane and at least it’ll contribute to the global trend.

Happy Googling!

Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani

On my recent visit to India my fiancée gifted me a thick book by Nandan Nilekani, an accidental entrepreneur as it is said in the book by the author himself. The book is about India and the title of the book is itself self explanatory ‘Imagining India’.

It’s quite surprising having a book on India from an ex-CEO of Infosys, one of the best IT companies in the world. He has taken up very interesting points in this book about growing India, role of youth and expectations. I am still reading this book and recommend you to go and grab your copy soon.

Few lines which I liked from the introductory chapter are as follows:

The immense challenges India faces more than two decades after reform trigger a range of emotions in me, as they do among many of my fellow citizens-puzzlement and frustration at the modest pace at which we are bringing about change, and sadness at the persistent inequity that is visible across India. There is a growing sense that these problems are now coming to a head-that our inequalities are making people angry and also limiting our ability to take advantage of the huge opportunity India has today.

Twitter a new PR tool?

The future is not ahead of us. It has already happened. Unfortunately, it is unequally distributed among companies, industries and nations.

Philip Kotler on Marketing

Public Relations (PR) involves a variety of programs designed to promote or protect a company’s image or its individual products.

They perform the following five functions:

1. Press relations
2. Product publicity
3. Corporate communication
4. Lobbying
5. Counselling

Internet is one of the best medium for PR activities these days and Twitter is proving to be an easy accessible tool for Marketing Public Relations (MPR). Basically, in simple terms, to promote or “hype” a product, service, idea, place, person, or organization and beyond.

Twitter as a PR tool by Corinne Weisgerber

History repeats itself……

Around 40% to 50% of Indian Population comes under “depressed class”, “deprived community” or Other Backward Class (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST). Vishwanath Pratap Singh, the 8^th Prime Minister of the Republic of India implemented the recommendations of the Mandal Commission which suggested that a fixed quota of all jobs in the public sector be reserved for members of the historically disadvantaged so-called Other BackwardClasses. This decision led to widespread protests among the youth in urban areas in North India. This was way back in 1990, couple of years after Babri Masjid was demolished by 150,000 activists, comprising of various organizations, during a planned ceremony on December 6, 1992 despite a commitment to the Indian Supreme Court that the mosque would not be harmed. This incident was followed by riots all over India and Bombay Bomb Blasts in which several thousands innocents lost their life. Communal riots were not new to India, it used to happen in Mughal and British era too, but blasts were something new at that time.

44 years before this incident, another great tragedy occurred when the champion of non-violence Mahatma Gandhi, was shot three times at close range with a Beretta semi-automatic pistol, he died on the spot at the age of 78. Next year he had plans to travel to Pakistan which was divided from India a year ago at the time of Independence from British Empire. Pakistan’s founder Mohd. Ali Jinnah walked away with his piece of cake creating a whole new chapter of variance in the Indian Sub-Continent. In undivided India, Muslim strength laid about 100 million. Partition split up the Muslim people, confining them to the three isolated regions. After Partition, Muslims numbered 25 million in Western Pakistan (Pakistan), 35 million to 40 million in India, and the rest in Eastern Pakistan (Bangladesh). A single undivided community has been broken into three fragments, each faced with its own problems. Aftermaths of partition are well known; more than 10 million people were displaced in this pre-independence dispute between Indian National Congress and Muslim League or in a larger term the Hindu-Muslim conflict.

The conflict can be traced back to more than 1000 years ago when 17-year-old Arab chieftain named Muhammad bin Qasim in his third expedition defeated Raja Dahir, the last Hindu ruler of Sindh and parts of Punjab in modern day Pakistan. The conquest of Sindh and Punjab began the Islamic era in South Asia and today Muslim population is more in this region in comparison to Arab states. This was the part of Muslim conquests (632–732) also referred to as the Islamic conquests, Jihad, or Arab conquests, began after the death of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). Umayyad Caliphates saw a century of rapid expansion of Muslim power well beyond the Arabian Peninsula in the form of a vast Muslim Empire with an area of influence that stretched from northwest India, across central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula, to the Pyrenees. This was followed by Crusades and hundreds of years of rivalry between Muslims, Jews and Christians, which continues till date.

The modern era saw the rise of three powerful Muslim empires: the Ottoman Empire of the Middle East and Europe, the Safavid Empire of Persia and Central Asia, and the Mughal Empire of India; along with their contest and fall to the rise of the colonial powers of Europe. The Mughal Empire declined in 1707 after the death of Aurangzeb and was officially abolished by the British after the First war of Indian Independence in 1857. The Safavid Empire ended with the death of its last ruler Ismail III in 1760. The last surviving Muslim empire, the Ottoman Empire, collapsed in 1918 in the aftermath of World War I. On March 3, 1924, the institution of the Caliphate was constitutionally abolished by the then Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as part of his reforms.

The fate of Muslim domination of more than 1000 years was somehow similar to the Roman Empire at the time of rise of the Church. Like Greek Empire, established by Alexander the Great, vanished in 300 years, which was conquered by him in just 13 years. Akin to British Empire, at its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. At the peak of its power, it was often said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire” because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories.

If we want to fight for what went wrong in history then there will be no end to the conflict. We have to remember it was a ‘Jungle Law’ at that time, who uses to win, wrote the history. Now, we are living in a much free and civilized world. We cannot afford to get accustomed to historical errors; we have to learn lessons from previous mistakes.

In Lebanon, a Christian Orthodox goes to a doctor of his own cast, a Sunni Muslim searches for a lawyer from his community, a Shia Muslim votes for a candidate of his sect. Women in Saudi Arabia cannot participate in sports activities, drive car and go for shopping alone. Before, entering in Iran every woman has to wear a head scarf. Israel forgets Holocaust when they massacre Palestinians, Taliban is showing its cruelty on Muslims and other minorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Russians slaughtered Chechens, China is tormenting Tibetans and considers Nobel Prize winner Dalai Lama a national threat. In Zimbabwe, Black majority is hostile towards their white countrymen, Western Nations are banning the use of veil by Muslim women and turban for Sikhs, America and Britain are making stringent laws as they don’t want any more immigrants, Indian Students are facing racial problems in Australia.

Why an American or a British citizen gets a Visa on arrival in Middle East and other nationalities have to apply for a visa? Why only Asians are frisked at European and American Airports? Why a Muslim boy cannot keep beard and a Muslim girl cannot wear a veil in school? How long we’ll follow the policy of discrimination against weaker section of the society?

Coming back to India, one of the greatest Emperors, Ashoka the Great (304 BC – 232 BC) converted to Buddhism after the scene of carnage he witnessed in Kalinga war and gave the message of peace and harmony in Central Asia. As a King, he was a pioneer of propagating Ahimsa – the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain philosophy of revering all life and refraining from harm to any living thing. The founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama or Buddha (563 BC to 483 BC) himself a born Hindu Brahmin, questioned caste system and containment of spiritual knowledge to upper caste only. This revolutionary thought took more than 2500 years before equal opportunity was given to all in the form of democracy to Indians.

The country cannot be appreciated only on economic growth; social development is part of the overall development. Indian society is part of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jews, etc. India is a secular democracy with a promise of religious freedom in our constitution and we cannot impose identity of the majority section of the society on others. If we take out veil of a Muslim girl today then tomorrow they will ask for a Sikh’s turban, a Jain’s beliefs, a Nun’s veil, a Parsi’s wish for Tower of Silence, a Hindu’s rituals, a Man’s Moustache, a girl’s Dupatta, a brother’s Rakhi, a worshiper’s faith and an honest man’s honesty. We don’t want India to be like China, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Russia, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Australia, etc. and make anyone deprived of their social and religious rights.

India is a land of peace, harmony, freedom, knowledge and spirituality. Collectively, we have to work together for social development of the deprived classes. Our main enemy is poverty, corruption, terrorism, illiteracy, unemployment, child labour, dowry, etc. We should not forget that still half of our population is below the poverty line.

As they say that History repeats itself. Do we really want History to repeat itself once again?

“Delusion arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls down when reasoning is destroyed.” – Bhagwad Gita

Source:
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple
The Wonder That was India – Volume II by S.A.A. Rizvi

Memorandum submitted by Muslim leaders of India to UN Representative: 14 August 1951
Sachar Committee report
SC/ST Population
Article in Time Magazine – Today’s Nun Has A Veil–And A Blog
The Greek Empire
CIA – The World Fact Book
World Population Estimate

Wikipedia: Reservation in India, Gautama Buddha, Ashoka the Great, British Empire, Muslim conquests, Crusades, Muhammad bin Qasim, Raja Dahir, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Babri Mosque and Tower of Silence.

India celebrates 62 years of freedom

“India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most astrictive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only!” — Mark Twain.

Heartiest wishes on 62^nd Indian Independence Day to all the citizens of a free nation. Long live independence!

India got its independence at the dawn of 15^th August 1947 from the British Empire and became a republic on 26^th January 1950 by adopting its own constitution.

Yes, the cost of this independence is a lot more, which cannot be estimated in monetary terms. Our independence came after millions were martyred, heritage and culture was wrecked, country was divided and hatred was implanted. Collectively, more than 10 million people crossed the borders, from a newly born Pakistan (including Bangladesh, at that time it was East Pakistan) to India and vice versa. British played their last card of dividing a great nation forever and putting a whole region into a never ending conflict. Their plans were similar to what French did to Lebanon, Russians did to Afghanistan, Japan did to Korea and Spain did to South American nations.

We are still facing problems which I don’t want to discuss today and would like to focus more on the achievement part. Fortunately, our somehow regulated financial system is still trying to save us from the claws of the ongoing economic crisis. We are still expecting a positive growth rate of 6% and aiming towards a revival of 9% growth rate. We are a full fledge nuclear nation and a Super Power in our own right, although we still have a huge chunk of population struggling to earn their daily bread. Oops!

We have right to education act, women’s bill, guaranteed employment scheme, huge infrastructure plans, new airports, we are focused on energy saving, IT is our strength, we are going to host Common Wealth Games next year, IPL was hosted in South Africa this year, Metro is expanding in Gurgaon and Nodia, our children are getting pure milk, we hardly have H1N1, inflation is in control, Sensex is showing a V shaped recovery, we have an Indian Formula 1 team (only drivers are foreigners), our new cricket coach was a great batsman, Sania got engaged, SRK came back from South Africa during IPL to cast his vote, Reality TV is a new trend, Lalu Prasad is quite these days, corruption is a matter of give and take, Abhishek had a hair cut (his ads are doing better than his movies), sting operations are taken seriously and finally we can see some Tata Nanos on road.

Let’s not forget the sacrifice of our freedom fighters and work together towards the growth and prosperity of this great nation.

Jai Hind!

Image: Mahatma Gandhi as ‘Man of the year’ on the covers of Time Magazine.  Year 1931

Indian Budget 2009-10 – an outline

Milestones set by Congress led Indian Government for 2009-10 are to lead economy to GDP growth rate of 9 per cent per annum, to deepen and broaden the agenda for inclusive development, to improve delivery mechanisms of the government.

The actual growth rate of GDP dipped from 9 per cent to 6.7 per cent during 2008-09; whole sale price rose to nearly 13 per cent last year and had an equally sharp fall to zero per cent in March, 2009. The structure of India’s economy changed over the last ten years with contribution of services sector to GDP at well over 50 per cent.

To revive the Indian economy, Government is injecting fiscal stimulus packages in the forms of tax relaxation, monetary easing and liquidity enhancing measures. Major emphasis is on infrastructure and agriculture with National Highways and Debt Relief for farmers respectively. National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is continued and allocation is increased by 144 per cent, in the first stage 115 pilot districts selected for convergence with schemes relating to agriculture, forests, water resources, land resources, rural roads initiated.

I wonder how under National Food Security Act our Government will distribute rice or wheat for Rs. 3 per kilo to every family living below poverty line. The National Rural Livelihood Mission aims on eradicating poverty from India by 2014 – 2015 and to provide interest subsidy to poor households for loans up to Rs. 1 lakh from banks.

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), led by ex- Infosys mentor Mr. Nandan Nilekani to provide enrolment and verification services across country. Rs. 500 crore has been allocated for rehabilitation of displaced persons and reconstruction of the northern and eastern areas of Sri Lanka.

Exemption limit in personal income tax for senior citizens is up to Rs. 2.40 lakh per annum, Rs. 1.90 lakh for women tax payers and Rs. 1.60 lakh for all categories. Fringe Benefit Tax on the value of certain fringe benefits provided by employers to their employees to be abolished. Tax holiday in commercial production or refining of mineral oil is to be extended to natural gas. Set Top Box, LCD TV, Mobile phones will be cheaper due to exemption of 5 – 10 percent custom duty while it will be increased on Gold bars. Full exemption of custom duty on still luxury sports for Indians like rafting, skiing, surfing and other water sports equipments.

Some calculations:

Total Expenditure Rs. 10,20,838 crore

Subsidies Rs. 1,11,276 crore

Defence Budget Rs. 1,41,703 crore

This budget promises a lot for poor, under privilege, women and children but we’ll see with the course of time the true face of democracy where promises are made during elections and easily forgotten later.

That is it….

Suddenly we realize again that we all are mortals by witnessing this sudden demise of “King of Pop” Michael Jackson at the age of 50 (1958 – 2009).

Most of us have grown up to his tunes and he was an icon of “M TV” culture throughout the music world. His breakthrough music videos with out of the box ideas, giving a positive message to the underdogs, feeling of freedom, hope, integrity and a can do attitude.

Everyone has a dark side in life and so does he; but he’ll be always remembered for his music, songs, performance and off course that famous “moon walk”.

Goodbye to one of the greatest performers of our times.

Beat it!

not allowed

not allowed, originally uploaded by crazytabish.

Yesterday I clicked some interesting photographs near Doha’s corniche area. This sign says no cycling, no swimming and below these were no fishing and no cooking signs.

You can vote for this photograph @ http://wdyl.jafar.com/ and also see some more interesting snaps @ my photo blog http://www.flickr.com/photos/murtazahusaini/

Reality – Bites

Switch on to any channel on the television, you are sure to find a ‘Reality’ show.
What is this sudden fixation?? What is that Reality Shows show that the whole country is fixated to the television screens?? From where did this trend catch up??

In short “What is the reality behind Reality Shows”

Reality shows have intrigued, captured a nations imagination. The Reality shows back to the forties when shows like Candid Camera captured the funny moments in people’s lives.

BUT now the trends have changed, the times have changed. Reality shows apart from bringing out the reality has turned the television industry into a giant corporate enterprize. An enterprize who along with telecom companies have found a way to slowly but surely pull money out of the wallets of the viewers.

Can you imagine the kind of revenue generated from reality shows for the telecom companies? The figures are mind boggling. For Example: Lets say a reality show runs for 20 weeks, with 10 contestants in it. Lets say that the average voting for each contestant every week is 3 lakhs. Sooo that makes 30 lacs votes coming in every week. Now multiply the count of votes with the number of weeks(30,00,000 * 20 = 6,00,000,00). Now the current tarrif for sending a message is Re.1 for normal messages, and for special messages is Rs 3. Most of the messages sent for the voting in this reality shows are special one. Now just calculate. The figure you’ll reach is a whooping ‘Rs.18,00,000,00. Yes 18 crs.

I’m not against these reality shows but do the contestants who are really the favourites really win, or is it all falacy.

I would like to bring in a new angle to the current onslaught of these shows.

“Do these reality shows promote regionalism and religionism in the country”
Would love to hear from all of you on this. Please do keep me posted.

Author of this post can be contacted at saurabhsharda2003@gmail.com and do visit his blog for some more interesting posts http://saurabhsharda2003.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/reality-bites/

Career Guidance Series – Real scenario from Real people

“Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.” – Buddha

These noble words Buddha said thousands of years ago which are still relevant in this modern world. With these thoughts we at Management Guruz are going to start a new series for our young brigade. We at management guruz will try to highlight some questions for which we were never answered before we landed up in a career by chance or by our own will. Here people will share their experience from all across the globe, from different industries, from different backgrounds and try to give a real time picture of that particular career path. In the following weeks we’ll try to bridge the gap between “Myth and Realty” of various industries.

We are sure our readers and friends will participate, contribute and spread awareness of this particular series to our young brigade. We hope by this joint effort we can empower our young sisters, brothers, daughters and sons to follow their own path.

Our motto at Management Guruz is education and employment for all.