Photos page

Recently got a Nikon D50 and I am super excited about it. And as luck would have it, Google introduced Pages - a place to create your own web pages. So, combining the two, here I introduce, my photos page:

http://photosbydeena.googlepages.com/home

Btw, the photos present there are not actually uploaded right on googlepages, but linked to the image files stored on Flickr, a service provided by Yahoo.

AID Jeevansaathi Balaji Sampath - 2005 MIT Global Indus Technovator award.

http://publications.aidindia.org/content/view/182/56/

Other winners: http://technovators.mit.edu/winner05.php

How To Do What You Love

In the spirit of Valentine's day and in honour of my first love - work, here is an excellent article on how to go about getting to do what we love and helping kids to really understand about work and fun and the relationship between the two.
http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

Corruption and work environment.

Following yesterday's AID meeting, I learnt an important lesson - when criticizing something, don't just criticize, offer an alternate.

In the context of my previous post on RDB, here is what I think on fixing the problem of corruption. Corruption is not just taking bribes. It includes doing a shoddy job, not doing what is supposed to be done, cheating at work, etc. I don't think corruption can be eliminated by eliminating or punishing corrupt people. As long as the environment is ripe for corruption, someone or other will fill in. Rather I think it can be fixed by changing the circumstances that lead to corruption. When I say circumstances, I am referring to the work environment in general. Someone who is very proud of his work is unlikely to be corrupt at work. Someone who enjoys his work, takes pride in his work, his work place and colleagues will not do anything that demeans his office. He will be motivated to work and be responsible, feel obligated towards discharging his duties. I am not just taking about better compensation for the employees. Its only part of the solution. Work conditions, facilities, leadership, recognition, flexibility, independence, availability of information, etc all play a vital role in making ones job a pleasant experience.

What makes me think like this, which some might call naive? Studies have shown that a better work culture leads to better employee morale, better productivity, and a happier organization with excellent employee, customer and shareholder satisfaction. The direct correlation between a companies standing in the best places to work list and their innovation and earnings stream is a testimony to this. Isn't that our aim, in one way, in eliminating corruption?

How does this translate into the circumstances for a minister in the government to work in? For starters, may be we should stop automatically categorizing all politicians as corrupt, learn to recognize good politicians and appreciate what they are doing. Also, start understanding the long term impact of decisions they take for the country's people rather than look for quick fixes from the ministers and convert that understanding into appreciation at the time of election. Ofcourse, this cannot stand on its own. I am looking at a cultural shift at vaious levels, something not easily done.

So, may be, one approach to the problem of corruption is revamping the work environment in places of high corruption. Provide better recognition, instill a sense of pride, understand the strengths and weaknesses and provide leadership accordingly. Remember leaders also need leadership and leadership doesn't have to come just from above.

Rang de Basanti

Oh no. This is not yet another review of the movie. There are a zillion reviews out there slicing and dicing it. In fact, the following would make sense only after you have seen the movie. So it is not a review to help you decide if the movie is worth watching. Anyway, in case you haven't seen the movie, spoilers ahead.

This is a take at how those guys took some drastic decisions. In a very stupid manner. The characters are shown to be pretty irresponsible. The way they were drinking standing at the edge of a wall, driving the bike and jeep, etc etc were testimony to the fact that they were not thinking too much about the consequences of what they were doing. And then, their close friend dies and they want to do something about it. Why? Because the friend's fiancee, who is also their friend, wants them to. She just lost her life partner. Her dreams are shattered. Obviously she would like someone to pay for it. And that someone was there in flesh and blood. She seeks revenge. Given the insensibility of the characters, they decide to act for her, and themselves.

Nothing surprising. They are shown irresponsible and they act irresponsibly, deciding on the spur of a moment, under duress. The defense is, they are not mature enough. Heck if they are not mature enough, they should not be taking responsibility to avenge for the death of their friend. They should not take on the responsibility of attempting to solve problems beyond their capacity. Jumping to solve something before understanding the problem is outrageous. Any math teacher would cringe at the thought of it. I am pretty sure they sat through some math classes in school and they would have been told a million times "understand the problem first".

The worst part is, while they are kind of shown to be repenting for what they did and acknowledge that what they did was not a good solution, they are not really shown paying a price for their actions. Yes they get killed mercilessly at the end. But that dint come out as a consequence of their decisions. It came out as a consequence of the evils of the society. The fact that they died at the end does not mean they paid a price. To me, it means they were also victims to the evils they were trying to fix, albeit in a stupid manner. How does that become a punishment in any manner?

And these characters are shown as being inspirations to college students all over the country. Excuse me, when did such immature irresponsible people become inspirations for out youth? The hero of Swades is a good inspiration. Someone who understood the problem, and proposed and implemented a solution working along with people who were directly affected by the problem. Thats maturity and responsibility.

My point is this. I don't care for the decisions they took. I do care for the way they took it. It was a very bad decision making process. That should not be glorified or shown in good light. They are not shown paying a price for it. They are shown becoming victims. It doesn't matter that they repent for their actions. I would be equally pissed if they had decided at a moments notice to do something that might be completely ok - like investigate the nexus in the deals. That would still have been a very thoughtless decision, albeit a not so stupid one. They are not shown repenting for how hasty their decisions were.