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Showing posts from 2014

Moneylife published an open letter to MR

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Former Managing Director of Konkan Railway and pioneer of the Skybus Rajaram Bojji, popularly known as B Rajaram wrote an open letter to new Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu with practical suggestions and possibilities for drastically improving the Indian Railways Rajaram Bojji or B Rajaram, inventor of the indigenous & cost-effective anti-collision device (ACD) technology and former managing director, Konkan Railway has written an open letter to Suresh Prabhu, the new Minister for Railways. In the letter, Mr Bojji has provided practical suggestion to improve the Indian Railways. To, Shri Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Railways, New Delhi Dear Shri Prabhu, “ I am personally very happy that a person like you, with balance in thought and speech will head the tough Railway Ministry. Many will rush to advise you, but the very size of the system could overwhelm anyone, with the Railway Board making life miserable by dumping you with day to day operational problems

My passing thoughts about another committee to improve railway!

I was fortunate to work with Shri Prakash Narain as CRB, when I used to be Secretary ,Central Board of Railway Research . Yes Madhav Rao Scindia was truly a different Minister, and even as mere young Joint Director , I was made comfortable for direct presentations to Minister in the presence of all Board members and DG RDSO. Well, on the spot orders MR gave for Rs 100 cr test track for High Speed testing and fatigue testing loops as presented by me ---imagine that was in those years! Even Restructuring RDSO report made by me was accepted and RDSO became a Scientific Institution with enhance powers for DG. Sri Prakash Narain took tremendous interest to listen to youngster like me and with MR like Scindia , it was truly a transforming period.  But Railway is not lucky. Mostly our own officers are scary to exercise powers! Fact is most of our officers want to have old cushy life with club privileges and hold staff responsible by making such rules of working.  Technology and resea

Tatwa Jnana Sri Madhwacharya

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Tatwa Jnana from Sri Madhwacharya, is the most rational one I feel which does not demand blind following. It urges constant study, understand, question, experience , try hard to really reach the truth with Vedas and Brahmasutras as the foundation with guidance Only if when one personally experiences,  the respect and bhakti comes naturally.  Not because one gets some chocolate like favours of getting over some personal problem. A true madhwa accepts problems in life as well as joys with the same spirit as an observer , as these are mere karma phala of this and earlier janmas. That account currently does not matter. Live in present and do current karma not for self,  but for the wellbeing of all humanity, living beings and nature because that is the beautiful creation of the great Lord Narayana , the one and only God but present all round us, within us and within every thing that has any kind of beauty or ugliness too!  A true Madhwa can never hate or get angry with any on

Being rich is not sin.But to be sinfully rich is.

@rbojji: @BillGates Any capitalist economy necessarily has conundrum : private gain at public expense. Inequality rises. Jean Tirole relevant. My tweet above summarizes our story of economic development . The result is clear to see. Top 1% own 50% of world wealth while 50% of population own 1% of total wealth on this planet. But at the same time rich just own the assets but are forced to pit it to use which provides livelyhood  to others who don't own assets. Ultimately rich man too ends up eating his roti and diabetic insulin managing the asset. More important for me is to ensure sanitation, human living conditions and roof over head, protection from natural calamities, equal opportunities for education and be able to support oneself reasonably well to pursue own interests . Not all interests culminate in making money only. Some may pursue that but others can have own literary or social service or philosophical pursuit or just seek knowledge enjoying the journey! St

My understanding of purpose of life...a brief outline!

Let me state what little I learned in recent years from listening to lectures by acharyas with 20 to 30 years of study in Sanskrit . They spoke in Kannada . Else those web links would help you. We go to beginning of one cycle. Every cycle is 31,104,000 CR solar years. Or 3110400 b yrs. That corresponds to 100 Brhma years. One second in Satya lokam of Brahma is equivalent to 100,000 solar years. Entire Universe at this beginning of cycle is I'm form of sub atomic particle ocean called pralaya samudram. It is not water . just a huge infinite size subatomic particles waiting to to be transformed Only Sri Narayana is present in a state of yoga nidra ...better not to try to imagine form by our limited physical minds ! But infinite sized , infinite energy form. No beginning nor end ! The only other Akshara Purusha, that is the one which does not get perished in pralayam , is Sri Durga ( Sri Lakshmi swarupa) in that dark night of pralaya night . One day of 12 hrs of Brahma is 4

Railway & PPP: FDI & Learning Chinese?

Look at DMRC Airport link expt with Reliance. Unless private party gets 30%pre tax profits no one interested to put money. And if capital has to come from private funds, the capital cost of project increases by 20 to 30% automatically. To assure the requisite revenue flows to service debt and ensure profits, recovering capital is an impossible task because our econony does not allow such fare structures to be born by users. FDI initially looks attractive because interest rate could be lower.  But after factoring in FE risk, unlikely to be any cheaper. I find only sovereign funds from China or similar arrangement with Japan can afford to invest with own national interest agenda. There is no free lunch in the world. India has collective genius to dump own intellectual capital and revels in copy cat brhaviour. Probably China or Japan will take over Mumbai Ahmedabad Bullet train. More likely China. Interesting time! Elite in Mumbai will start learning Chinese! http://ww

What you see or hear is not what you get in modern world as Truth!

About three years ago I read a detailed novel how the new breed of perception management companies in USA , make many simple respectable persons useful idiots in a sophisticated manner, to serve a public cause , swinging public opinion , inn favour of a targeted individual to be elected in a democracy. Media, journalists, all get involved knowingly , unknowingly. Quite a large number actually work voluntarily believing in the cause. The ground preparation starts innocuously one to one and half years early. Standard pattern is no company by name is identifiable. Suddenly so!e dynamics young corporate or business persons enter and form a group and attract like minded persons. Very careful personality surveys are done and good respectable persons in each field and sector identified. Apparently independently a number of groups become actively promoting the idea ands offer opinions in !media, schools, colleges well distributed. When suddenly Kanchan Gupta started Niti Central

Super computer can be confused to be a human?

Amusing one way, recent experiment , where a super computer passed the Turin test, to be beieved as if it was a 13 year old boy. Humans to think something is true while it is not , is at the foundation of this experiment. If you look at the world around using latest digital media tools humans for a price do that to make innocent multitudes niece as truth , while it is not so. Also without being aware our own cognitive and thinking skills are also getting fundamentally modified from generations , because if intensive interaction with thinking machines. The word thinking is gaining different connotation. The word feeling is what we need to watch out. Can machine fool us that it feels?  I believe , it is possible to simulate this behaviour too for unsuspecting tester. Memory, database, retrieval , cogent logical checks, certainly make machine compete with a fallible, forgetful human, who tends to cloud his judgement with emotional filters. Come to think of it, I do

Why we should not get angry with those who hurt us!

Each jeeva with million births earlier and with infinite origin in time, since coming out of Sri Narayana's udaram, already has accumulated karmas good, bad the consequences of which he has to enjoy, good or bad! Lord Narayana in his infinite compassion, does not load one with full bad karma consequences . Life just becomes unbearable. A mix of good and bad karma consequences allocated to suffer /enjoy in a given life. Then inter relationships amongst humans hence get established based on this mix. Every one who lives will necessarily make some one happy or unhappy by their actions. While acting they follow drive by own karma as well as the recipient of that action too enjoys the consequence as part of own karma in earlier lives. Where is the free will? While being under compulsion to act under burden of past lives' karma , still a discerning mind and capacity to know what is right and what is wrong too granted.  But even this discerning voice is under the control

Arvind Kejriwal is not the problem! We are!

Why India gets leaders who can effectively deceive us for own benefit! Even anti corruption is merely a plank , to gain for self! That includes  Arvind Kejriwal . He refuses to  take first step of empowering us to allow feed back on govt file before issue of order. Their party produces false lists of membership which includes Jawahar Lal Nehru. , MK Gandhi Etc. So better enjoy this story shared by a friend : problem is not with Arvind Kejriwal .We are the problem. It happened at a New York Airport. This is hilarious. The guts of this girl, and there are so many like her, hats off to confident women that refuse to put up with nonsense and focus on doing the right thing. An award should go to the United Airlines gate agent in New York for being smart and funny, while making her point, when confronted with a passenger who probably deserved to fly as cargo. For all of you out there who have had to deal with an irate disrespectful customer, this one is for you. A crowded United Air

Religion & Governance

A thought crossed my mind. Let me share with all of you. Saintly humane persons occurred on the planet irrespective of religious backgrounds. Similarly cruel, dominating , intolerant leaders too occurred irrespective of religious belief to which they belonged. Then more than religion, is it the inner nature of the human, his aspirations, greed or nobility , need to dominate and control all around made them use all tools at command including religion to serve own purpose? Even in vedic age some groups try to prevail on others to adopt their way of life of adharma, quick pleasures, stealing women from others like cows arw stolen as symbols of prized possession, discouraging satwic living, promoting darkness of ignorance, unrestricted pleasurable Iiving habits! So periodically a powerful ruler or leader arose from the turmoil to bring back order and peaceful life where knowledge seekers got back their rightful place. As time passes, again the tamasic forces build up strength