The New World I Live In

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Election Commission of India, Indian Railways, WhatsApp

Let’s face it, I am no chicken. At 64, I find myself scanning news to see what might interest Senior Citizens, obviously looking for schemes which benefit people like me. There have been generous schemes, especially in the Indian Railways which offer considerable benefit to travelling senior citizens. Women aged 58 and above get 50 % concession while men aged 60 and above get 40 % concession on the regular fares. 

It Pays To Be Optimistic

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optimism, psychology, Science Daily, University of Illinois

The moment you speak of psychology, in which subject, by the way, I have a deep interest, people will say, “Yeah, we know, the glass half full or half empty stuff!” We often speak of friends and relatives being either optimists or pessimists. Over time optimists have been described as being people who see the positive side of things, people and situations. They are the ones likely to see the glass being half full.

There’s More To Google Than Search

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features from Google, Google, search engines

Google has entered into our everyday vocabulary thanks to its search engine. “Just ‘google’ it” is what we are told most often if we ask someone for any information. Yes, the Google search engine is awesome. Statistics from Netmarketshare indicate that 58 % of users all over the world seem to use Google as their search engine.

Innovation At Work

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Amazon.com, bio bus, robots, treated gas

Amazon.com has this huge challenge ahead of them. To ship orders expected to be more than the 36.8 million items shipped the same time last year for the Monday following Thanksgiving. Amazon ships from as many as 109 shipping centres around the globe.

Toughest Job Interview Questions

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Amazon, creativity, Google, interview questions, knowledge economy, Microsoft

Our country is in a paradoxical position. On the one hand, we have a huge reservoir of youth, perhaps more than anywhere else in the world. They say 65 % of India’s population is below the age of 35 and almost 50 % below 25 years. They have aspirations like never before mainly because of greater exposure thanks to TV and the media.

Trends in the Corporate World

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Best Companies To Work For, CFO-CHRO collaboration, Google, HR trends in India

Interested as I am in keeping an eye on trends in the corporate world, here are a few published items which caught my attention:-

1. Increased collaboration between the CFO and the CHRO is a must for organisations to succeed in present times. Rising costs of labour and the scarcity of talent are but two of the reasons why this has become crucial. This piece from EY gives fresh insight.
2. Satisfied employees make a huge difference to the bottom lines of organisations. What makes companies like Google feature year after year in the list of organisations which are most sought after. Here is why Google is named “India’s Best Company To Work For” in 2013.
3. Sharad Verma, Senior HR Director at SunGard Global Technology submits his assessment of the trends for HR in 2014 in SHRM.

As the world around us becomes increasingly competitive, the only way to survive is to learn from the best. A study of the trends mentioned above could help keep us on track to stay abreast.

 

Have you tried Wattpad?

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books and reading, ebooks, Wattpad

If you haven’t yet heard of Wattpad, you might find these figures quite startling. There are 40 million stories to read and 25 million Wattpadders and growing. It describes itself as “the world’s largest community of readers and writers.” Wattpad says it ” is a place to discover and share stories: a social platform that connects people through words. It is a community that spans borders, interests, languages. With Wattpad, anyone can read or write on any device: phone, tablet, or computer.”

Take Care Of Your Eyes: They Are Precious.

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computer vision syndrome, exercises for the eyes, eye care, vision

Most of us spend long periods of time looking at computer screens or at the many gadgets that have become an integral part of our lives, like the indispensable all-purpose cell phone. Doctors report that increasingly people are being afflicted with computer vision syndrome and other such issues with our eyes. The computer vision syndrome is a condition which comes out of focusing our eyes on a computer display for long periods of time.

Why The AAP Has Disappointed Me

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AAP, Arvind Kejriwal

Usually I don’t blog about politics but I am making an exception today as for the last month or so, the AAP ( Aam Aadmi Party) has been the centre of attraction in India after their most praise worthy performance in the Assembly elections in Delhi.  As the name suggests the Aam Aadmi Party (as I understand it) seeks to represent the common man and largely came out of the phenomenal anti-corruption movement that caught India’s imagination under the leadership of Anna Hazare.

Some members of the erstwhile “Team Anna” went into active politics like Arvind Kejriwal and they formed the AAP. I must mention here that during the agitation led by Anna Hazare, I admired Kejriwal for his ability to connect with people and bring greater vigour to the movement. Shouldn’t I then be rejoicing that the AAP has formed a Government in prestigious Delhi? Here are the reasons for my disappointment:

1. I expected new standards of political conduct from AAP when they said they would do things differently. It was shocking to see them form the Government in Delhi when they accepted the outside support from the party they abused the most as being corrupt, the Congress party. I don’t think their explanation that the people of Delhi asked them to  form a Government is a good one. On the contrary, it sets a dangerous precedent because in real life important decisions cannot be taken only because a large number of people support it by sending SMS. What was the alternative? If they were as principled as they claimed to be, and I expected them to be, they should have opted for a re-election. I believe they may actually have got more than 28 seats if they had adopted this course. Anyway, they didn’t and what followed disappointed me even more.

2. Their political decision as regards water and electricity smack of short-term expediency. To say they exempted a section of people from paying bills because they had not done so at their behest is most dangerous as a trend.

3. I am disappointed that their whole anti-corruption plank stands exposed as till date they have not taken steps to initiate any action against those like former Chief Minister Shiela Dixit who was roundly abused by them day in and day out. At one time Kejriwal said he had 300 + pages of proof of her corruption, now they are asking the BJP to provide evidence. Their website Pol Khol also no longer has mention of Shiela Dixit’s corruption.

4. Lakhs of people are said to have joined the AAP. Here’s where it becomes essential for them to have made a framework of their national policies on a variety of important issues such as defence, economics, internal security , health, education etc. They have been in power for less than a month, but they became a party formally over a year ago. This gap had led to controversies with Prashant Bhushan’s stand on nuclear power and referendum in Jammu & Kashmir.

5. While more eminent people like Meera Sanyal, Capt. Gopinath and Mallika Sarabhai have joined the party, this raises the question of who is an aam aadmi? These are very well off, to put it mildly and hardly qualify for being the typical aam aadmi in a literal sense. If you go by the earlier understanding that the aam aadmi was someone who was not the big bad, corrupt morally weak politician, this no longer holds true as they have joined a political party and have become politicians themselves. It is now emerging to be a left of centre party.

6. Controversies regarding U turns in decision-making , be it about  Kejriwal’s accommodation or about Janata Durbars are not exactly adding to my confidence of the maturity of its leaders. I believe they tend to oversimplify things. Kejriwal said there was not much difference between the number of rooms in his current apartment and the new one he planned to take up. He forgot to take location into account, there being a world of difference between his current location in Ghaziabad and the apartment in question in a posh area of Delhi.

The next few months will be very crucial for the AAP. They have made it clear that the Congress is not a factor in the General Elections in 2014. How they will perform is anybody’s guess. They may shine, they may fall but as of today, these are some reasons why they haven’t got me on board the AAP band wagon.

Exciting New Test For Writers & Readers

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Arnon Grunberg, effective writing

The best part of writing is that you try to express your thoughts and feelings through the medium of words. As experts in communication have pointed out since long, what you write does not necessarily come across to the reader in the way you meant it to. Rather, it ‘s the reader who decides how she will interpret what you have written. A hallmark of excellent writing is when the writer can get the reader to be in sync, as it were, with his thoughts and feelings even if he writes about a character in a novel.