Rahulwebzone's Blog

The Power of One…

rahulwebzone — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:42:11 +0000

The history is littered with the power of one individual who changed the course of an entire nation or the society . They managed to shape the world by bringing about the change and thus empowering the masses.
Be it Gandhi or Mandela , they managed to mobilize the mass movement and brought the revolution a midst all the hurdles.
Every day we all suffer through so many problems due to inactivity by the government or rampant corruption and yet do nothing about it except blaming the system. The system may be wrong but question what you have done to change it. Patience is the biggest curse of the common mass . Patience to tolerate the injustice only empowers the rogue elements in the society.
The last few months in our country have been very eventful in all aspects. The government seems to be have been caught wrong footed by the civil society movement against corruption. Again the power of one has come to the fore after long periods of silence in the face of Anna Hazare. Today’s generation have not been part of any such revolution as the last such large scale public uprising was J.P. movement way back in the times of emergency.
The persona of Anna Hazare has caught the imagination of today’s youth and the use of technology has helped to strengthen the movement. The road to the promised land is still very rough as government is not willing to buckle down so easily. They have tried hard to convince that his techniques are nothing but short of blackmail and tried to corner the by saying that their views are not the voice of entire nation.
The nation feared that Government may again escape after the Ramdev Baba episode and seemed that one golden chance to corner the government may have been lost. Thankfully though Anna movement has managed to remain on track and maintained sustained pressure on Govt.
Strong Lokpall bill will be milestone in the history of India just as RTI act and though the battle is yet to be won , Anna and the nation is willing to carry on the struggle.
Come August 16 and the power of One will again come to fore

World cup :AS IT HAPPENED

rahulwebzone — Mon, 16 May 2011 20:00:24 +0000

Winning the world cup after long wait of 28 years was a momentous occasion and the whole nation got gripped in the euphorbia . the immediate scenes were of people coming out in streets and partying all night. even those who are die not fans didnt mind getting trapped in the traffic that night. no one in the country seemed stranger as everyone greeted each other with “badhai ho ” and slogans of ” jai hind” was in the air. i remember myself dancing on the road on the beats of drums and shouting among total strangers. the feeling was of sense of accomplishing something due for long and satisfaction of achieving the true status in the cricketing world. this feeling i am sure ran through all indians. people were overwhelmed and had every reason to be. the game of cricket is not simplest but every indian understands it as if the game is in our gene. the game connects to the masses and hence so much emotion attached to the game. Cricket is to Indians what football is to Brazilians. the game is the bloodline of the nation and the staple diet of the nation .

The time now to salute those brave gladiators who gave this special gift to the nation.The men in blue went from strength to strength as tournament went. the team being the best ever fielded by the nation in the world cup is debatable but this was by far the most confident team without a shadow of the doubt, The core of the team had remain the same for last 3 years and showed their never die attitude several times in the past. Dhony’s boys most importantly know how to win from difficult position. The game against england just when everyone thought strauss has done enough to seal the fate, zaheer came with spell that turned the tide other way . India didnt played to best of the abilities throughout the world cup but still was good enough for rest.

we all wanted india to win world cup obviously for ourselves but also for one legend ” Sachin Tendulkar” nicknamed “God” . it was as if the whole nation owed to him for all the pleasures he had provided and this could be the best farewell gift to the ” special one”.

Yes we are lucky as we have someone at the helm who epitomizes courage, boldness and luck. the captain with the “Midas” touch who just sweeps everything in front , it was befitting that his best came right in the final with the superlative innings in final and six in the end to win the cup. The script just cant be written in better way.
Several unsung heroes not to be forgotten be it Zaheer who single handed raised the bar of indian bowling and provided much joy with his skills with old ball or Yuvraj with heroics both with bat and bowl or munaf patel being stable or raina who raised fielding standards along with crafty innings at the down the order or ashwin for impressing all or gambhir and kohli splendid partnership when chips were down with two early wickets in the final.

Certainly as i say worth ” Reliving those moments” again and cherished for lifelong.

Jai Ho.

The fianl frontier…

rahulwebzone — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:50:56 +0000

The much talked about Ind-Sa cricket series has been termed as ” The final frontier” by the indian coach Gary Kirsten . India’s performance in south africa is dismay to say the least. India have won only one test match in south africa out of total of 18 test matches . We have traditionally been very poor outside the subcontinent but things have certainly changed for better in the last decade. It all started under the leadership of enigmatic former captain Saurav Ganguly who was greeted by the influx of new blood in the team with the likes of Yuvraj Singh , Virendra Sehwag , Harbhajan singh , Zaheer Khan . These young brigade brought with them the spirit of fearlessness and found perfect blosming phase under the leadership of Ganguly who himself believed in aggressive brand of cricket and was more than willing to fall on the wrong side of ICC for the sake of the team members. The trio of “Master Blaster “Sachin Tendulkar , the ” Wall” Rahul Dravid , The ” Very Very Special” Laxman provided the quality in the middle order that made all the teams “envy” of indian team. The fast bowling has never been the strength of india considerd as the land of Bedi, Chandrahekar and prasaana with the likes of Kapil Dev being an odd “exception” . well here again the winds of change though not very strong and consistent but surely has been blowing for some time now. The likes of Javagal Srinath ,Zaheer Khan , Ashish Nehra , Ajit Agarkar , Irfan Pathan, R.P.singh, S. Sresshanth and Ishant Sharma have all come with match winning spells abroad and have managed to bring the spotlight and attention of the general public and youngsters who now look up to them as the role models traditionally reserved for the batsmen.
The spin department was superbly led by the “Jumbo” Anil Kumble for more than a decade who was true fighter and competitor to the core and proved that it doesnot matter how much degress your turn, what matters is that it should turn just enough to take the edge . he brought
” discipline” , ” consistence” and ” Big heart ” to the vocabulary of spin bowling besides art and skills . As they say bowlers work in partnerships and in “Terminator” Harbhajan singh found a lion heartred sardar who will over the years himself rise to the status of the “Legends of the Game”.
The Team India has given us several golden memories over the last decade be it ” T-20″ world cup , Perth Test win and hereby being the first team to beat australia in australia, test series win in england, west indies , new zealand .
India’s next destination to “rainbow nation” is apt to be considered as the ” final frontier ” . The billing of No.1 against No. 2 , the plethora of talents in both the ranks , the tussle of marundering Sehwag aginst the lightning Steyn , the mastery of the” Great one” Sachin who as old wine tastes “Great” , the battle of doggyness between the “Wall” and the kallis , and test of “street smart” Dhoni against the williness of Smith…All this mouth watering prospect bring only one thing to the mind ….MAY THE SHOW BEGIN

Silent Revolution

rahulwebzone — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:06:26 +0000

The nation just witnessed one of the most remarkable result in the history of modern Indian politics where a ruling government completely wiped out the opposition by securing whooping 206 seats as opposed to 22 by once formidable opposition. Yes the win was expected but once again the “aam aadmi” surprised the elites by delivering such a thumping victory ever to the ruling party . the message is clear and loud and the verdict is of “vikas” over “caste”. It’s as if caste and religion was never an issue in Bihar , in fact such is the magnitude of turnaround that there exists no precedence in Indian politics. The state which was doomed and became the synonym for all the bad things over the course of “jungle raj” has suddenly became the “model” state for the entire nation registering the second highest GDP over the period of last years and looks set to win the race comfortably in the future.
Yeah it all looks like fairy tale and as if some magical broom from Harry porter movie have wiped out all the problems. The question is who is the bihar’s “ Harry porter” and the lead actor is the bihar’s chief minister “Nitish Kumar”. Some have called him “obama of india”, some “ amol patekar of Indian politics”. I choose “harry porter”:). He is 32nd chief minister of bihar. Nicknamed as “ Munna” this illustrious bihari is Electric Engineer from NIT,Patna. Guess engineering needed this boost:) to retain the charm. So while the movie “ harry porter” is reaching its climax , the bihar chapter is just starting out.
In his first edition Nitish used his magical broom to start new brand of “SSS” of politics-Sadak,Shiksha,Suraksha.
The roads are called the lifeline and his government focused on building thousands of kilometres of roads and several bridges. Lalu once famously promised to make Bihar’s road as “smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks” and nitish as if took it literally .
Shiksha(education) , the second ‘S’ of his mantra got tremendous boost . his government elected 100,000 school teachers and started one of the famous campaigns of his first term-bicycle program where girl child from poor families were given bicycles and money to buy uniforms and books. The move which was suspected have now became the most talked about program and model for other states. Surprisingly huge number of girl children enrolled through this program and in this era of money looting “private schools” have saved education from being the monopoly of rich.
The third of ‘S’ of mantra focussed on suraksha, the security . not long before during “jungle raj” days of bihar, the only industry that flourished was “kidnapping” . it became the highest revenue generating government mechanism during those days. Come 2010 and sight of women freely moving out in streets returning from work during late night hours is a sight to behold .He initiated fast courts to punish the criminals, E-shakti Nregs program.
Like in the harry porter series, the grand success of first edition has led to its sequel with the election for the second time for bihari babu. Like in harry movies the problems and challenges keep becoming tougher and tougher and add to that rising audience expectation. So question lies will nitish keep “brooming away” all problems and challenges and curb the notorious villains of past who have been subdued but still not totally extinct. In his recent interview he certainly disclosed some of his trump cards of him for the next term where he talks about revolutionary “Right to service” Act for civil servants which puts deadline for activity and finally which he will get penalised , Vasudha kendras in every panchayat, shakti-biometric cards.
Its safe to say the man has lot of arsenals in his kitty to be unleashed in the second term . and if this saga continues and completes even half as many as releases as the movie”harry porter series”, the joy and fun it will bring to the masses will last a lifetime.
And so i say “ Silent Revoloution” has begun.

Beautiful Thoughts

rahulwebzone — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:45:19 +0000

“A man is literally what he thinks.” – James Allen

“We have to go for what we think we’re fully capable of, not limit ourselves by what we’ve been in the past.” – Vivek Paul
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” – Anais Nin
“Great acts are made up of small deeds.” – Lao Tzu

“A “No” uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a “Yes” merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.” – Gandhi

“All great achievements require time.” – Maya Angelou
“Strength is a matter of a made up mind.” – John Beecher
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein
“Playing it safe is the riskiest choice we can ever make.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach
“Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.” – Jonathan Kozol
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle
“If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“All glory comes from daring to begin.” – William Shakespeare
“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy that makes happiness.” – Charles Sprugeon
“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey.” – Babs Hoffman
“Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level.” – Peter Drucker
“While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity.” – Publilius Syrus
“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” – George Washington Carver
“We make our own fortunes and call them fate.” – Benjamin Disraeli

Life@hostel

rahulwebzone — Wed, 19 May 2010 00:51:46 +0000

Well..following to my blog on mba@asb.. this blog touches another aspect of life in mba which is very close to my heart and i am sure to you all and that is why i am devoting entire section to this heart-warming topic.

Life @ Hostel

The hostel was not just a dwelling place …during the stay there it was my home away from home . it carries special meaning to each one of us and specially to all those who were from far away places as they end up spending most of their time of the last two years.

The hostel in amrita offered exclusivity literally with separate rooms and at the same time the balcony as if the gateway to bond. It was a place which offered you ultimate peace which allowed you to clock countless and countless hours of deep slumber . the afternoon slumber used to be so rejuvenating and freshening . the time between 2-5 if no classes were there time spent by the intellectuals – the “ To be Managers” to dream while sleeping with peaceful silence prevailing. This silence was then paused with the clock ticking 5’o clock . the whole place would start to hustle and bustle again and we all left our rooms and assembled downstairs where it was time to get tea which becomes the official drink during college . we had tea in the morning, tea in class breaks, tea in the evening and tea after the dinner . obviously the proportionate mix of water and milk varied J depending the place and timing of the tea.

The hostel world is a separate world with its own rules and here the most active time is the time after 9 pm and it gets real hectic then. Its the time to exchange the movies which have been so painfully downloaded during the day time with few brave souls putting it all to the risk and their contribution towards making other lives colourful needs to be applauded. The genre of movies i watched during stay range from – bollywood, Hollywood, tamil , telegu , Malayalam and even Koreans ( thanks to the subtitles).

Its not only the movies that is shared , the other the much in demand product has to be that great product of Nestle… “ Maggi “. its safe to call Maggi as the staple food during college days as this is being consumed with a high degree of consistency . Maggi is being consumed around 12-1 in the night when you have just finished watching a movie and thinking of providing you with sufficient energy to watch the next movie. Let this gr8 product keep fulfilling the appetite of hostellers for years and years.

Endless discussion on varied topics ranging from cricket, movies, politics, food, rules , India , World and some more interesting topics which literally sprung in anybody’s mind were discussed, debated, analyzed for hours. The passion and intensity while discussion could put any debate shows on the tv to shame. We not always agreed and the discussion seemingly moved from here to something totally different such as some funny incident from the past . its funny how the whole tiredness vanished while discussion was on . these discussions were the lifeline and here i would liketo thank all my mates in top floor specially namely ravi, punit, Kelvin, Ramawtar, tripathi, dada, prabhas and others niraj, abhinav, dheeraj, soma, daga, kd, anshuman,kartik,Deepak, bohra, bhairav, navin, farid n all others….who made my stay at “ Gautama Bhavanam” so fulfilling and satisfactory.

MBA@asb journey

rahulwebzone — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:45:48 +0000

MBA@asb JOURNEY
WELCOME You friends to this journey of mine where i will take you along to the ride of my life over the last two years. What makes it an exciting reading i hope is that the ride has been quite an eventful ride and mixed with all kind of feelings. There have been moments and collection of all the moments sums to complete the whole picture.
I propose to take you through the major events which will be deep imprint in my memory for rest of my life and at the same time try to give you a feel of small aspects of life at amrita which is vital to feel the real impulse of life here.
Events

Events are the way of life in mba and its also the celebration time . every b-school have their own functions where other B-schools participate . the whole atmosphere during these event days are filled with lots of excitements with lots of games being held simultaneously. the main events of our college happened to be”Utsav” and pragati. while utsav is an intra-college event with lots of sports activities among students who are divided into various groups . it’s an ideal platform for the upcoming big event “Pragati” the B-fest event of our college held around feb-march. the preparation that goes behind this is humongous to say the least. it starts 3-4 months earlier than the main event with selections of different forums each representing different streams and hosts of different committees with one Core Committee which is responsible for smooth functioning of all forums and different communities. it’s a generally body of 7-8 people . forums are the face of pragati with each forums designing 2 games for the event. i was fortunate to be part of “Fortune” forum , which is finance forum bit ironical with my marketing tag. similarly we had marketing,Hr, operations, systems and jagriti – the fun zone. Each forums cooperate and compete to come up with best games .

Groups and teams
The next think that comes to my mind when i look back over the last two years is that the life in mba more so in first year revolves around your groups . the concept of free time is time out of the classes but nothing like just chit-chatting but discussing with your group members over how to go about completing the assignment before the dreaded “due date”.
The beauty of group selection is that sometimes you don’t have control over who is going to be your members. As every thing in the life the random group formations have both sides of the coins. The head part is that you mingle with different people and no longer just be confined to select few. You get to chance to interact with persons who you probably have wished but hesitated so far.
Above all the best part is that you end up having more close friends then you would have probably made otherwise .the trouble side is that you can land in group with people who are pure lazy, or irritating or complaining and worst if he/she posses more than one of those attributes. They can make your life till the assignment is over a whole nightmarish event and you crazy to the hell. You then curse this social way of life in mba with no way out. You pray to the god to pardon for all past sins.
Therefore it is nor wrong to say that that the quality of life in your mba is directly proportional to the quality of your groups. A quality group is fun, entertaining, educative and one which will provide you much greater joy than any other activity in mba and fills you with wonderful memories which will be the fodder for the rest of your life.

Assignments
The assignments become an integral part of your life and no matter how many assignments you been through there is always “next” waiting to be adopted. You think what the hell the people ahead of you been doing all this while as it seems you are responsible to solve all kinds of problems in the society, organization and then why the hell they earn so much if they cant solve the problem. The answer to the question have not been found till this date and you resign to the fate and try to change the world and think you are going to find solutions and make world better .
The diversity and range of issues an mba grad goes through is probably comparable only to the prime minister. We have legal issues, financial issues, human resource issues, operational hurdles and the biggest one sales and marketing issues. Ideally you are expected to be jack of all trades and expert of one in the field of your specialization. The question is why not instead focus only on making experts as anyway your views on other areas will be superseded by the so called ”expert” . the other opinion is you end up being” The Complete person” by being exposed to practically everything. Probably thats why mba valued more than any other professional in the corporate world and we are not complaining about being “most wanted” for once.
CASES AND CASES
the most common form of assignments is reading cases and first “creating” the problem and then “solving “. harvard cases are revered as holy books and which even if most don’t read it ,its still considered “ holy” and do find a very prominent place on your desk. professors have recommemded these cases so many time that they pose to being masters and still expecting solutions .
PRESENTATIONS
The next to case reading comes the most glamorous part of mba life…and they are called “ presentations”. you for once becomes the focal point and this is oppurtunity to become the synosure of all eyes or the laughing stock. either way being on other side of GAME is interesting as you are sure of being entertained with diversity in styles.For some its the much awaited oppurtunity to get the much sought limelight while for some it is a dreaded wait to get butchered infront of everyone. You like it or not , life in mba and after mba is full of presentations and so the only guru mantra: “ Better develop passion for presentations”.
SUMMERS
Summers is the first introduction to the corporate world for many in the batch and so obviously most prominent in the minds of new entrants. The importance of projects goes well above the normal grades and lies in first exposure to the real life problems at the organization level. Summer trainees cannot be expected to bring in the much change or solve any significant problem but it still win-win proposition for both as companies look for some cheap new insight and trainee get the feel of work from very close perspective. Either you are convinced that this is the kind of life you wanna pursue further or vice versa.
The period of two months are truly challenging as you try to please your bosses who are more than willing to extract maximum from you.you are expected to be calm even in situations of extreme provocation and urge to shout back ( “hey i am not your employee!! “)
Summers sometimes very rewarding literally in terms of money as some lucky ones do get the chance to live a very luxurious life more than ever so far in life but for the most it is sheer labour.
The quality of life during summers is hell lot depended on the mentor who controls every movement of yours. He / she naturally expects you to behave according to their personal behaviour and try to project themselves upon you. Naturally if he has flair for more things outside the job you too gonna have more exciting time. My mentor was an workaholic and guess you all can understand my situation up there. But i consider myself lucky as i was getting prepared for tough corporate life and understand professionalism from practice and for that i am truly thankful to my mentor(who screwed me to hell…but i survived)
Hyderabad was the place of my summer internship and it was my first visit to the city. Hyderabad at that of the year really clocked high degrees and mercury climbed during afternoon.
The summers proved to be a gr8 exercise in role play as for two months i moved around whole city as being the man from” Philips “ as i was asked by my mentor. However it had its share of problems as i was expected to answer some questions which i had no clue and expected to solve them immediately.
One speciality of this gr8 city is “ Hyderabad biryani” . You are not going to have such delicious biryani anywhere else and you are bound to fall in love with that. The famous joints include Baawarchi known for mouth-watering chicken biryanis. The different kind and type of biryani is mind boggling and seems whole city runs on it. The other thing which i really liked was the slang of Hyderabadi Hindi which is so unique. Obviously urdu has enriched hindi and helped developed a whole new flavour of hindi.
Placement Season
the last few months the only thing which is important is placement and become matter of great concern in these times when india is just coming out of slump. The new mantra seems to be to hire “Just-in-time” so the scne ended in companies hiring in really small numbers to the extent of one person . naturally that meant we were up in long battle .

Group Discussion
yes the thing which is more unpredictable than even the share markets . you dont know about the topic, so just try any prediction theory that make sense . the trick is to get to know what happening around you but thats not all..the real thing is being able to make your point in the gd . and that while sounds simple is the difficult as influenced by the external factors depending the kind of people in the group which is decidedly randomly. as the stakes are quite high you can feel tension, anxiety, nervousness . people who have been laid back for most of the time during mba will be found talking most and with time being luxury generally the quantity overrides the quality of the point , thats for me is the folly.

personal interview
the final round is PI where wise men sit and introspect you . all the eyes gazing on you checking you out . i needed only one pi and it turned out to be successful, nice experience…u get lucky if the talk revolves around your choice . it started with expected one” tell abt yourself’ moving on to resume based queries , talk abt summers and projects and coming up with new ideas to specific situations. obviously every one will have their own intersting stories .

Well its difficult to put your experiences to word but i have just tried.

IPL 2010

rahulwebzone — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:53:44 +0000

IPL 2010 has been marred by absence of lot of international players . some of the players are missing due to injuries and some of the players are busy with national duty with series between australia vs newzealand and also west indies playing bangladesh. besides this pakistan players are being surely missed.

Of the indian players , RAVINDRA JADEJA is one who have been given very rough treatment as there was case of inflicting fine instead of inflicting total ban. ipl chairman lalit modi high headness could have serious repurcursions on india’s preparation for the 20-20 world cup starting shortly after IPL as he is very important cog in the indian team wheel.

Sadly Gautam Gambhir also pulled muscle during fielding and the effect is clearly seen in the deteriorating fortunes of daredevils even though sehwag and kartik have come with some fine knocks. Delhi’s bowling looks thin without Vettori.

Dhoni has also injured himself for few matches and however mathew hadden has suddenly recoverd the touch with his mangoos bat which he used for devastating effects against daredevils.

Both royal challengers and mumbai indians have been the two best teams so far and kallis being the man of the tournament so far as he is yet to get out.

Even maestro sachin have also looked in ominous touch .

hockey world cup

rahulwebzone — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:43:59 +0000

The hockey world cup has thrown some real surprises . the first match set the tone with india thrashing pakistan 4 goals to one and gave a tremendous boost to the tournament as the win has captured the imaginations of the people. its true hockey is not very widely followed in india but world cup certainly draws attention from all corners . now that india have won the first match against arch rivals pakistan so convincingly the expectations have certainly increased and in that context todays match against australia holds so much importance . the win against the Aussies who are the second ranked team in the world and pre-tournamnet favourites will bring crowd , media and the whole nation behind the team and provide the momentum required to win the coveted world cup.

We have been the hockey powerhouse once winning eight olympics gold medal but have not been so successful in the world cup and only time we won was in year 1975 beating pakistan 2-1 in the finals. india is not certainly the best team but they have young talents and new coach and most importantly the home support which if all things fall in place could do some magic. all the controversies before the start of the world cup has stopped after india’s splendid performance against pakistan and if they produce another such performance tonight, world will know india still commands respect. obviously india can probably miss the services of striker shivender singh who is a real live wire upfront and together with prabhjot singh. indian midfield and defence was equally sound and coach barsa tactics of using players for short durations of fifteen minutes meant energy was present throughout the entire match.

lets hope india come up with another such eye-catching performance this time around also.

SRK vs Thakeray’s

rahulwebzone — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:14:08 +0000

Recent few days the only news that has hogged the limelight is the news of threat of shiv sena to SRK on his comments on the non-inclusion of PAK players in the IPL. its a true that lots of cricket lovers wanted to say pakistan players participate in the Ipl and is angry over the politics that being played around the game . SRK believed in the democracy of the country and expressed his views on the issue when asked by the media. frankly it was an honest opinion from a man but he then realized why being celebrity is not good everytime as next day the shiv sena – the so called custodians of our culture started burning effigies and declared that srk will not be entertained in mumbai…the screening stopped…and yesterdays posters boy suddenly is alone in mumbai…and all this happening even when shiv sena is not in power…wheres the congress government…lost all credibility…a shameless government practicing the most down trodden kind of politics…why not union govt at centre forces state govt to put all those violaiting all lows of land behind bars..what they are waiting for..sometimes it seems all are there to harress common people…common people has lost the voice…media is the only the last hope..lets hope this all comes to an end…and every indian be free to express views without any fear, move anywhere without fear.