Indian Nationalism -> Profits

We Indians tend to think of ourselves as really patriotic and nationalistic in general. This feeling has been instilled in us since we were little. Whether or not we really are any bit more patriotic than are western counterparts is a story for another day as we do not hesitate a lot when it comes to taking another country's passport if it provides better visa prospects. I am not making any judgements on whether or not it is the right thing to do. I am just stating a fact that taking another passport comes with the binding that if there is a war between India and the current nation of which the person is holding the new passport of, the said person's allegiance will side with the new country and not with India. Not very patriotic but then again, does it matter so much?

Coming to the matter of the topic, there is a growing trend of making money out of this nationalism because of the large middle class population of India. The trend had already caught on with Youtube where a large number of channels put "India" in the title and along with comes millions of views from India. 

Large number of channels are reaction videos to Indian movies or songs or ads or just about everything. They make a lot of money out of it. Again, not passing judgements here. It's the wise thing for them to do. One shouldn't pass on opportunities. It's one basic rule. 

Similar thing goes on with businesses like Amazon, Google and what not where the CEOs or upper management regularly use "21st century is India's century" when they come to India to entice their audience and one can tell by the look at the audience's faces that the speechwriter is getting a raise soon. 

Jeff Bezos to Indian audience

Indians too do the same. Companies like Micromaxx, Trell, etc have utilised this psychological resource to their advantage and rightfully so, have gained a lot from this endeavour. 

I guess everyone should move towards this new way of making money. India's digital audience is growing stronger by the minute. Internet prices are going down day by day and the youth has more time than ever which only got exacerbated by Coronavirus job cuts. 

Well, my reason for writing this post is simple. 

A request to all fellow Indians around the world. 

"Maybe it is time to accept the reality that we are no better than other people across the world who look for their own benefits. And there is nothing wrong in it. Give up the idea of ultra-nationalism. We all love our country as much as any foreigner loves their's. Let's focus on making our lives happier and better."

Are IITs really worth it?

Millions of people aspire to join these prestigious institutions IITs in India. We all have slaved and slogged long hours to get into these dreamlands which have made every uncle and aunty its ardent devotees. But, was it all really worth it?

I am writing a post on my personal blog after what seems like a lifetime. I have been busy with other chores, course curriculum and personal and professional commitments. It is as if I almost stopped listening to the voice inside whenever it spoke about life's "general stuff". Too immersed in the competitive dogma of the institute, we often forget that we are independent and free people and can choose to live without following the doctrines of this false process of life.

Not more than a couple of months ago when I started building my Resume, a thought struck me. It has never left me since and I am pretty sure it is taking up an even larger and well defined form as we leave days behind. I read a lot, both on books and on web. I have got a varied variety of friends ranging from Army-men to journalists, from producers to lawyers. Everyone has their own set of stories as different individual but when you put them all together, you would find out that life isn't as difficult and harsh as it is portrayed here. Resume is heavily hyped and so is placements. Placement is merely a rendition of institute organized job opportunities which is not "it". There are tons of other stuff that a person can do and can hope for. Life doesn't end at IIT and neither does it begin here. It is a phase and it will go someday. One should make good use of this place for their learning curve but that's it. If someone tries to extract everything thrown at him from the institute, he is only doing what he is being asked to. That is not independence. One should be wise enough to properly think about the stuff that he wants to do and not regret later. I hate to say this but there is a lot of negativity in this place. Wherever you see, there is a false premise of highly increased expectations and a fixed set of jobs that a person can do and has to do. There is no getting out of this. But, this is where it gets tricky. They try to conform you into its set of rules that vanish once you are out of this place. Is there a way out of this without feeling left out?

My prime concern deals with the amounting tension and pressure around the work. Does improvement and advancement mean that we work longer hours, give up holidays and have life only on weekends filled with pressure due to work? Isn't life supposed to be full of merrymaking and living it on our own terms? What if I follow the same path, tried-and-tested over generations, only to find out it was wrong? What if I look back at this day and find out that my apprehensions about my future path were right and that I should have figured out my own way? Well, I think no one can answer these questions perfectly but on some or the other levels, we all know what's best for us. We are just not ready to listen to that inner voice called instinct.

IITs do teach us a lot and prepare us to earn a lot of money without a doubt. But the way things happen here and the way you are "supposed" to move in your life is worrisome. Are Finance-consultancy, IT-coding and core jobs the only set of jobs available? Are Masters, IAS and MBA the only set of directions one can move if he wants to do something other than a job at the moment? Is it really that difficult for us to get a job in this country or anywhere in the world? C'mon, we more than anyone else know we will definitely get hired by someone. We just need to know where to look for. If you don't want to try at all, you can always go for a coaching firm which pays a handsome salary with no burdens. If only this thought was made available to those people who have commited suicide! People feel that if they can't score well, they can't get placements and without it, there is nothing. No one goes around "duniya kya sochegi" concept anymore. We are way past it or so I would like to believe out of my experience. The issue here is that people don't know the right places to look for. World shouldn't be that difficult. IITs are very harsh at times and they keep making one's life revolve around itself since they first joined IIT coaching when they ought to be exploring themselves. Their whole universe surrounds around this place. So, when they find that they could not make it big here, they lose all hope and want to end their lives. Was it justified even a bit?

I think a job is only as good as the amount of satisfaction it provides. A person can earn well at a PSU and can learn even there. We should keep learning throughout our lives and not just at an institution. IITs create this innate feeling inside its residents that if it is not a job in a private firm, it is not a job and this is completely absurd. I am not debating good and bad between private and public but the very prejudice that people keep in their minds during their stay and beyond is nonsensical. I would reiterate, a job is only as good as the amount of satisfaction it provides. So, even if you work at a multinational as a fresher and earn a package of 12LPA, you wouldn't really be contributing anything huge. You will be asked to fill excel sheets and to make PPTs. And on top of that, you will be asked to complete these in very short times if you want that "promotion" or foreign trip to a newly opened branch. YOU CAN GET THOSE THINGS AT PSUs WITH VERY LESS PRESSURE. One just needs to have their priorities right and he can go well in their life. LIfe isn't really as difficult as it portrays itself to be. We just need to be on the lookout for what is right for us and we'll be fine.

IIT Exam Entertainments

All the non-IITians, please refer to this link for some of the IITB lingo used in this post. Trust me. You'll need 'em. 

Oh boy! We are beating all the trends and stereotypes of IITians all through. We enjoy examinations like midsems and endsems with all our hearts. Not the examination to be specific, but for the very essence of being part of the R.G. There is one or the other confession pages that pop up receiving the highest data inflow, Facebook ever witnessed till then. Some of the other forms of midsem-masti (read midsem luhkkha) involves changing the profile pictures into favourite Pokemons or cartoons. They never fail to impress and entertain me and the entire IIT fraternity in the way of innovation.This Midsems (2014-Spring) too has been a part of innovation with students changing their profile names into famous celebrities with appropriate profile pictures and cover photos. The status updates from these profile are based on the normal people perception of these guys trending on social media for a long time now. There is an Alok Nath now who won't stop blessing people and would look for every possible chance for a Kanyadan. There is a Sachin Tendulkar who has made an announcement of returning to International Cricket. Then we have a bunch of other cricketers like Ishant Sharma, Aashish Nehra, etc. We have Arnab Goswami who keeps on asking questions to people claiming the question to be posed by the nation accompanying a tagline "The Nation Wants to Know". Then there are parody accounts of Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev, Bapu, a dozen of Anu Malik's, Kapil Sibal, Rajiv Gandhi, Narendra Modi and what not. On top of these, there is a parody account of Rahul Gand..., well Pappu, who whenever opens his mouth, talks about women empowerment, RTI and shit.

Pranav Mistry in TechFest

Hell yeah! We got Pranav Mistry in IIT-B for an interactive session. It was pleasant on the eyes to witness a man of that formidable skills and vision. He started by saying how he was standing in a line outside of the Convocation Hall 10 years ago to listen to one of the lecture series of TechFest and now he is on that part of the Convo. He is currently the head of Think Tank Team and Director of Research of Samsung. 

He talked about his approach for the various products he has designed. He then displayed one of them to us for real. He took out his android phone, opened his YouTube app and searched for TechFest, opened the video and did some gesture on the screen with his hand and put the device away. Now, he took his android tablet and made another similar gesture on this device and the same YouTube video started to play here. We were all amazed. He joked that his fingers were like his pen-drive and that he transferred the link and similar sorts. Later, he revealed that it was actually the mixed effort of camera and cloud storage. Camera detects face and as per the gesture, it sends the YouTube link to the person's cloud storage and later retrieves it back. 

He told about his other achievements, his IIT-B days and how he spent a good time with A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the then President of India, and how he managed to develop stuff right from scratch. It was all amazing to hear to him out. Thank You TechFest.

The day I met Lucky Ali

So, I moved from Kolkata to Vijayawada. My life has been a mixture of two immiscible liquids where the first half was before I was sent to a Boarding School in Vijayawada and the later half is post that. I call it, sort of a, turning point of my life. It would be difficult for anyone to digest that I faintly remember my likes and dislikes of the first half of my life now. And the feeling which I get when I face some of my favorites of the past is both amazing and awkward at the same time. I will be talking about one such experience in this post.
I had been a fan of the singer Lucky Ali since I was 5. I used to religiously listen to his songs everyday. On cassettes, TV and radio. I always had the name "Lucky Ali" on my mouth whenever I needed to compliment someone with a gifted voice. Nowadays, it was like I was in the mid of the trend. I was just following what others needed to hear. I followed all new songs, especially from famous bands from the US. What I didn't know that I already had a great collection of songs back home in the first half of my life.
Day before yesterday, a friend invited me to come for a show by Lucky Ali who was supposed to have an interactive session with the students of IIT-Bombay, the next day. I was paused for a little while and thought to myself, "Why the hell did I not listen to his songs all these years when I have a super fast internet facility?" . I definitely agreed to join my friend for that. We went there and after 15-20 minutes of him talking about his life, someone rose up and requested him to sing. He began and there I was, mesmerized. The feeling was the same that I used to have long ago. I got caught into the song till it stopped. Now here is the best part. When we got outside, we saw him standing outside with a couple of campus representatives, probably waiting for his car. I approached him. I said that I had been a great fan of him since I was 5 and whether we could have a pic with him. He agreed and both me and my friend had pics clicked with him. This made my day and I am thankful to that friend as I wouldn't have known about him, coming to the institute. After that, I had been listening to my old favorites on YouTube and I am in love with them again.

FRIENDS

It is no alien to anyone that all of us have many friends but good friends, very few. When these good friends move away from our life and are not that easily accessible as they used to be, we tend to get bulged with sorrow. It is just that most of us are not that good at handling the separation from social binds. I would call it INERTIA of society which often accepts an intrusion of an outsider but never wants to let any member escape. I have seen many of them in my lifetime till now and I must admit that I am very bad at handling them. I spent most of my childhood in Kolkata and had great friends there.Then I moved from Kolkata to Vijayawada(A.P.) and made many good friends there too. Then I moved from there as well and came to Mumbai. These transitions have been very difficult for me as I knew I won't be seeing many of those friends anymore soon. It has taken a while for me to adjust in Mumbai and I am again in the same condition. 

After having spent almost 2 and  a half years in IIT, I suddenly realized yesterday that some of my friends in the final year are nearing their end in IIT and will be here for merely 5-6 months. I am trying to avoid this fact but I seem to have gotten into the thought. It's getting very difficult for me to take away my mind from this. I know that we can't be permanent anywhere but it is the beauty of bonding that makes us believe that friends are permanent. I wonder how troubled I would feel once I am in my final year and all of us would move out of the campus. 

Friends are like the most vital part of life in the institute. We discuss everything from Politics, Studies, TV Series, Movies, Bollywood, Hollywood and "Comedy Nights with Kapil". We fight with one another, yet hold each other's back. We crack joke on a friend and then follows the epic one liner "Babaji ka thullu". The importance of a friend is realized in almost every thing we do here like proxy, gaming and TREAT. The random chit chats at room, Counter Strike, night whatsapp-ing, morning "gm" messages, Gmail texts and fb messenger are an important part of us. Mann, we know how to make use of all the gadgets and techies we are surrounded by as long as we have the backing of the strong godfather NETMON. We share a look when a hot girl passes in front of us and the short discussion that follows is what charges us. We all have that friend who studies everything for the quiz beforehand but when asked about the syllabus, he contracts his eyebrows and exclaims "Kal quiz hai??". We are never gonna get this kind of fraternity anywhere else and as life goes on, we get incorporated in our own worlds and gradually all of these are just available in our sweet memories to cherish. I don't know how to end this post so, I would go with the trial and tested method, a quote.

A person who truly believes that copying in an exam is wrong and yet agrees to show his answers to a friend, is a true friend. :P

- HARSH ANKUR

Indian Defence Power and Missile Systems

Some mind-blowing facts about Indian army :-

• Indian Army is the 3rd biggest military contingent in the World next to USA and China.
• India's indigenous nuclear-capable ICBM(Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile) AGNI-V puts India into the Elite Club consisting of USA, China, France and Russia.
• The famous missile series AGNI's first missile AGNI I failed in its first two tests and was made fun off by other countries like USA, UK, Pakistan, etc.
• It was successful in the third try but USA claimed that the project head A.P.J. Abdul Kalam( who happened to have visited Long Island, USA for some other work) had learnt the technology from their missiles. Now AGNI is one of the best missile systems in the world.
• Agni and Prithvi both are Nuclear capable basaltic  and are most accurate in the world in their respective categories. Prithvi will always hit within 50m of target coordinates thus making it devastating with even smaller payloads(explosives)
• India claims AGNI-V to have a reach of 5,000 kms to which Chinese and Australian delegates and experts suspect to have a range of 8,000 kms. and that India is hiding these facts just to avoid any concern from foreign countries.
• AGNI-VI(being built) will have a range of 10000 kms. which would give India the power to strike in any part of the world barring South America and very small parts of North America.
• India is also alleged to be secretly devloping Surya class missiles based on ISRO's PSLV model. Surya I and Surya II will have ranges around 10,000 and 20,000 Kms.
• India's cruise missile (being tested) NIRBHAY is a cruise nuclear-warhead missile which when blasted,moves in stealth mode and when the target is in nearby range, attacks it with a random procedure thus eliminating the probability of it getting stopped by any anti-missile system as its process is itself not defined. In other words-unstoppable.
• In the hilly terrains, it gives an advantage as the missile goes from the side of the mountains and attacks the target from the rear side.
• The missile BrahMos-2 (built in collaboration with Russia)(under development)(Brahmaputra+Moscow) is the fastest hypersonic missile in the world travelling at a speed of Mach-7 (7 times the speed of sound in air).
• BrahMos I is already devloped with 13 variants (ex air to ground, ground to ground, ground to sea, sea to sea etc) It is already in service of the Army, Navy and Air force. It is one of its kind because generally cruise misiles are Sea to Sea or Sea to Land.
  
  
  
  
  Coming to Navy-based missile systems
• India's INS-Vikrant(bought from UK) was the first aircraft carrier of India.
• The HMS Harriers(airplanes on INS VIRAAT) are one of its kind which has the ability of vertical landing and take-off.
  
  Shown below is INS VIRAAT
  
  
  
• India's statistics for aircraft carriers is like this
  Active:
  • INS Viraat: Centaur class carrier (ex-HMS Hermes) in service since 1987.
  • INS Vikramaditya : Modified Kiev class carrier (ex-Admiral Gorshkov) due in service October 2013.
  Under construction:
  • INS Vikrant: 40,000 ton Vikrant class carrier. It is being built at Cochin Shipyard and is expected to enter service in 2017.
  Planned
  • INS Vishal: 65,000 ton Vikrant-class carrier. Expected to enter service in 2022.
  Retired:
  • INS Vikrant : Majestic-class carrier, (ex-HMS Hercules), in service from 1961 to 1997 and currently a museum ship docked at Mumbai.
• The image below shows the countries which currently operates aircraft carriers in blue and the historic operators in light blue.
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  India's INS-ARIHANT is the first indeginious(built completely in India, by India) nuclear powered submarine in India. It has a capability to shoot missiles with nuclear war-heads even after being at half-a-kilometer beneath the water-level.
  
  
  Coming to the Air Based Power
• The Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Dassault Mirage 2000,  and MiG-29 serve in the Indian Air Force and are also seen as a means to deliver nuclear weapons.
  
  Shown below is Sukhoi Su-30MKI
  
• In addition India maintains SEPECAT Jaguar and MiG-27M which can be used to drop gravity bombs.
• Shown below is the mid-air refueling of two Mirage 2000 aircrafts.
  
  
  
• The new in queue for the indigenous aircraft  of India is HAL-Tejas
• It integrates technologies such as relaxed static stability, fly-by-wire flight control system, multi-mode radar, integrated digital avionics system, composite material structures, and a flat ratedengine.
• It is a tailless, compound delta-wing design powered by a single engine.
  
  
  Shown below is HAL Tejas
  
  
  
  The entire list of the known missile types possessed by Indian Armed Forces can be found here
• India is also developing a fiftth generation stealth air superiority plane, that is it will not be seen on radar giving it an absolute advantage BVR(Beyond Visual Range) fights and bombing deep in to enemy territory.
• Below is an image of the plane... currently under trails
  
  
  List of missiles by country
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  Will update more information later.