blog@Yantrajaal

While hanging the rapist or castrating him may cause smug justification to society at large, it is of little value to the victim and the immense anguish that she has to suffer. Here is an idea that uses the technology that almost every woman has in her hands to help prevent rapes in the first place. It is based on a mobile app that can be used with a phone equipped with GPS, a data connection and camera -- things that are not too difficult to find on modern smart phones. The app -- Save Your Sister (SYS) -- has three major functions, namely (a) to identify the users current position, (b) to alert others  of where she if she is in danger and (c) to take and transmit photographs of the attacker should an assault actually happen -- and it could work like this. In the "dormant" state when the woman is under no apparent threat, the SYSapp simply keeps a record of the current position of the phone ( and the woman carrying it) and makes sure that both GPS and data transfer is...

The current national outrage about the absolutely heinous and brutal rape in a Delhi bus is understandable but in our anger and frustration we are missing the wood for the trees. Well meaning ( and good looking ) participants in TV channels are asking for anything ranging from castration to capital punishment and criticising everyone from the police to the judiciary  ... but hardly anyone is interested in identifying that elusive "deeper" cause ! image from GovernanceInnovation Because if one were to pause and think, it will become clear that this rape is a symptom and not the disease. When you get a high fever, the fever is not the disease -- it is merely a symptom of malaria or dengue or something worse. Trying to cure the fever by throwing ice water would not work -- you need to drugs to kill the bacteria. And for that you need to find the cause. In fact, that cause is quite well known. From the personal rape to the nationwide CWG / 2G / Coalgate scam to localis...

Distance learning is a very seductive idea. If we go back to the era of the Mahabharata, we learn about Ekalavya, the tribal boy, who on being denied access to Dronacharya's classes on warfare on account of his caste, taught himself archery simply by observing the teacher from a distance ! The tragic consequences of his effort are well known and should perhaps serve as a warning to societies in general and teachers in particular. In a more realistic timeframe, approximately a hundred  years ago, correspondence courses appeared and over a period of time these courses became an integral part of various Open Universities. Unfortunately degree granting programs based on correspondence courses never acquired the popularity or employer acceptability of their classroom counterparts for a variety of reasons. With the advent of computing technology, computer based training (CBT) programs appeared and while these never quite made it to the level of university courses, a lot of voc...

Here the pictures of our visit to Khajuraho.

scanned from Anandabazar Patrika

Renu Villa, 51 Jatin Das Road, built by my grandfather Prabhat Nath Mukerjee in 1929 and lived in by the whole family till 2010.

I need holidays and so does everyone else but do organisations need holidays ? Do the railways shut down for the holidays ? Do electricity companies, hospitals or essential services shut down for the holidays ? Do steel plants shut down for holidays ? Do BPO companies shut down for holidays ? Of course not. Very basic planning and scheduling processes -- in use for ages across all these businesses -- ensure that employees get their full quota of leave and vacations and yet the businesses and organisations run 365 days a year. Nobody thinks that this is very strange ! Image Credit So why can the same principle not be extended to other service organisations like courts and government offices ? Agreed that government employees do not wish to view themselves as a part of a service organisation -- a government job is meant to be a passport to luxurious idleness -- but if anybody in any position of authority has even an iota of interest in improving, however slightly, the work eth...

Subhrendu Mukerjee "Never Born, Never Died. Stopped by the World between 1927 and 1992" The dark fortnight before Durga Puja, ending on the new moon of Mahalaya is when people in India formally remember their ancestors and acknowledge their presence with offerings of food, water and black sesame seeds ("teel"). From now till the day of Mahalaya, we are expected to perform the tarpan ritual every morning. In this digital age, I thought of creating this simple scrolling mechanism that will spell out what I would be saying in memory of my ancestors. ভরদ্বাজ গোত্রস্য পিতা শ্রীশুভ্রেন্দু দেবশর্মা ত্রিপ্যতামেতত সতিলোদকং তস্মৈ স্বধা। ভরদ্বাজ গোত্রস্য পিতা শ্রীশুভ্রেন্দু দেবশর্মা ত্রিপ্যতামেতত সতিলোদকং তস্মৈ স্বধা। ভরদ্বাজ গোত্রস্য পিতা শ্রীশুভ্রেন্দু দেবশর্মা ত্রিপ্যতামেতত সতিলোদকং তস্মৈ স্বধা। ................................................... ভরদ্বাজ গোত্রস্য পিতামহ শ্রী প্রভাতনাথ দেবশর্মা ত্রিপ্যতামেতত সতিলোদকং তস্মৈ স্বধা। ভরদ্বাজ গোত্রস্য পি...

Click on the image to see it in full !

An excellent evening of folk music.

The B-School business is in a bit of a crisis ! Globally, MBA applications are falling [ WSJ ] and in India many B-Schools, especially those run by slightly shady operators, are shutting down [ ToI ]. An obvious reason for this state of affairs is that, at least in India, the AICTE has created an environment where only shady people with little interest in education but with bags of money are allowed to build and operate B-Schools. Given the current state of political leadership in the country it is futile to expect any kind of policy support and so it is up to the B-School community to figure a way out of this rut. Should we revamp the curriculum ? To make it more relevant ? Datar in Rethinking the MBA   has identified that MBA programs should focus on leadership skills, creative and critical thinking. In an earlier post I have explored the possibility of replacing the functional approach in the MBA program [ Marketing / Finance / Operations / HR ] with a more ho...

Goa. Sep 7 - 8 2012

"No army can stop an idea whose time has come." This quotation from Victor Hugo  has often been used in defence of many new but unpopular ideas and I will invoke it here to justify the usage of distance learning techniques, particularly in business schools that lead up to an MBA degree. Image "borrowed" from http://smude.edu.in/blog/tags/distance-education Whether we like it or not, many global trends are first set in the United States and then the rest of the world joins in and distance learning is one of them. Respected and well known schools like Stanford, Harvard and others are offering a large number of undergraduate and postgraduate programs that are based on a calibrated mixture of on-line and on-campus pedagogy. Despite criticisms of being less effective than face-to-face teaching, distance learning is here to stay and grow because of compelling economic reasons -- many students are simply not able to pay the kind of fees that big US schools charge...

image : getcareerkhabar.in Distance learning is a concept whose importance is growing by leaps and bounds everyday. We all know that there is nothing that can beat the physical presence of a teacher in the class but the exigencies of delivering educational services at an affordable price point is forcing everyone -- both students and teachers -- to accept the reality of this technology. In fact it boils down to the ROI, the return on investment : we all know that it would have been far better to have been at London and watch opening ceremony of the Olympics but the cost of the travel and tickets forced all of us to watch it on TV and I am sure that the Organising Committee earned more from TV rights than what they could have got through ticket sales. So it was a win-win for all to have the show broadcast in a virtual medium even though the experience was sort of degraded by the small screen. So is the case with distance learning. Most distance learning platforms use a combinat...

On 18th August 1945, three days after Japan's offer to surrender in the Pacific sector of WWII, a light bomber took off from the Matsuyama airport in Taihoku, Formosa, carrying Subhas Bose -- the Head of the Provisional Government of Free India, his young ADC, Habib-Ur-Rahman and a number of senior Japanese military officers. The aircraft was on its way to Tokyo but unfortunately a mechanical failure caused it to crash within minutes of takeoff. Most of the passengers, including Habib-ur-Rahman survived but Subhas Bose and another senior Japanese officer died of burns. Thus ended the illustrious life of one of the most charismatic figures of the Indian independence movement. The accident and the death was announced by the Japanese government on 23rd August 1945. This is the story that a post Independence generation of Indians have grown up with and it has been corroborated by Government of India on the basis of two different commissions of enquiry led by (a) Shah Nawaz Khan, a...

An article written in 1984 on the eve of leaving Azad Hall of Residence, IIT Kharagpur

On the occasion of Janmashtami, when India celebrates the birth of the Divine Soldier-Statesman who stands at the confluence of history and myth and still moves the hearts and minds of many of us, I present what I believe to be is the horoscope of Lord Krishna. for my earlier blog on the historicity of the Mahabharata War, please read this post.

Tamluk is one of the oldest known habitats in the history of North India.  Situated on the right bank of what is now known as the Rupnarayan River, Tamluk, or Tamralipta, is mentioned in many historical records as a port of great economic significance in the Eastern sea coast of India. Today, the river has shifted away from the town and the port has moved downstream, beyond the confluence of the Rupnarayan and the Hooghly, to Haldia, but the town retains its quaint charms. The most important landmark of Tamluk today is the Bargabhima Temple that is considered to be one of the 51 Shakti Peethas of the Divine Mother. Here are some pictures of this famous temple. The current temple is not very old. It has evidently been rebuilt after the iconoclastic Islamic occupation of Bengal in the middle ages but myths and legends about the antiquity of this temple -- one of the most famous temples of South Bengal -- place it in the hearts and minds of those who revere and ado...

The roof of the central hall. A policeman tried to stop me from taking this picture until I pointed out that a foreign tourist was merrily taking pictures right in front of him! Saheb cchobi toolley kono apatti nei aar Bangalir belaye joto aparaadh? Fellow kept quiet after that.

By clamouring for a Lok Pal, the anti-corruption campaign is barking up the wrong tree. We have laws against corruption for citizens. We have police and the other government agencies to enforce these laws but they are corrupt as well. So we have higher agencies like the CBI and CVC but they are corrupt as well. Now we want another layer, the Lok Pal, but by recursive extension there is nothing to stop the Lok Pal from being corrupt. We can go higher and higher, Parliamentary Sub Committee, President of India …  but even if we involve the Divine Lord Krishna himself, the nation will surely find a way to make him corrupt as well! So let us look at another model -- that of the notorious American gangster, Al Capone. and read the story of how he was caught and brought to justice, not by some muscular policeman but by some very nerdy, if not wimpish, men from the IRS -- the US equivalent of our Income Tax Department. Mr Capone was too smart to be caught out on his main crimes, namely...