blog@Yantrajaal

We come across, and frequently use, the phrase red tape and we know that it refers to the delay that is endemic to the bureaucratic process - but have you ever wondered why is that bureaucrats are so slow in doing things ? Anybody who has visited a government office in India would of course attribute this delay to competence or corruption. More often than not, a little bit of speed money -- the chaipani -- has a magical effect and most red tape disappears. On the other hand, we do know that the best and brightest in the land are hesitant to join the government and so there does exist a certain lack of competence in administrative matters. But let us be charitable for a while and assume that our bureaucrats are indeed competent and NOT corrupt : in that case should red tape not disappear from our lexicon ? But it does not and will not .. and here is why ! You ask a sarkari babu to buy a computer for his office and he ( or she ) will get tied up in knots ! Committees will be formed, spe...

While I do appreciate abstract art -- particularly shapes and colours that please the eye -- I do not always agree with the statement that "if you are looking for meaning in art, then you are barking up the wrong tree". Shapes, patterns and colours are nice but they are even nicer if they can communicate something that you recognise and can identify with. I came across these paintings by Devajyoti Ray at the website of Galerie ArtEterne and was very impressed by both the form and the content.

source : Gartner Report Every new technology ( or idea for that matter ) that appears in the human psyche goes through the phases shown above [ see chart ] if they survive adolescence and enter maturity. Virtual Worlds, Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing are three ideas that keep churning through my thoughts and I was pleasantly surprised to find the three of them being addressed in the Gartner report on technology hypes. Being an early enthusiast of and evangelist for Second Life -- the 3D Virtual World where I had first set up my first Kali Temple and virtual Praxis B-school -- I had been resigned to the fact that low penetration of personal broadband lines will hamper the growth of this wonderful technology. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Second Life has posted a 94% QoQ growth and now has nearly US$ 50m of user to user transactions every month . Also the availability of Wireless Broadband from the CDMA players will accelerate acceptance and finally pull it out of the ...