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Narendra Modi : An Idea Whose Time Has Come

So Narendra Modi does it again – winning on development plank for the 3 rd consecutive time. There were apprehensions among certain sections that he may repeat a Chandrababu Naidu – who bit the dust despite huge media hype on the contrary. But it was Modi all the way (to Delhi?).   Of course, the usual suspects were interpreting this as depletion of his mass-appeal (one seat less than last elections).  Nonetheless a victory capturing 2/3 of the seats permits only one interpretation – the people of Gujarat have reposed their faith in Modi. Period! Narendra Modi in a curious fashion represents the antithesis of Nehru and Nehruvian-establishment nurtured leadership. Nehru’s Idea of India Given the carefully calibrated image of Jawaharlal Nehru, many Indians worship him as the paragon of democracy & liberty. Unfortunately, with media & academic centres infiltrated by Socialists/Communists, we are deprived of learning the alternative perspectives. Nehru i

Public Speaking : Tips for Business Presentations

Public speaking is one of my interests and I like to observe and study the speakers’ style. Based on my experiences, I have noted some pertinent points that constitute a good performance. Clarity: Some feel that using corporate jargon creates a strong impression. But words like “innovation”, “transformation”, “management” etc have been done to death and no longer register an impact. Use of simple words helps people concentrate directly on your point instead of waving through the jargon to understand your point. Language is a tool to communicate your thoughts – it is not the end-product by itself. In writing, the reader can go through the content over and again till he gets the point. In speech you have no such luxury; you must reach your audience right in the first time. And if a listener fails to grasp you more than twice or thrice, you have positively lost his attention for the rest of speech. Brevity: Blame it on our s

The Rise & Fall of British Empire in India

It’s high time we revisit the British rule of India and particularly question the assumption that Gandhiji led India to freedom. This is important as we seem to be deriving lessons based on the same. This in turn influences our historical understanding that serves as the basis for making future decisions. Indians believe that one fine day British were finally guilt-trapped by Gandhiji’s non-violent movement and set India free without a murmur to ease their conscience. This version appears to be the received wisdom now and may contain the certain footnotes of assumptions too like inherent British superiority in arms, Indian meekness, and centuries of Hindu-Muslim amity with the sole redeeming feature being the spiritual strength that remained intact. Why did India succumb to a much smaller British? Were Indians savages with no access to modern weaponry that hordes of Western powers could come and plunder at their will? For that we begin with what started it all - the pol

How Linguistic States strengthened Indian Unity

“ Be like a garland maker, O king; not like a charcoal burner. ” --Mahabharata [It asks the king to preserve and protect diversity, in a coherent way. The metaphor used is that of a garland, in which flowers of many colors and forms are strung together for a pleasing effect. The contrast is given against charcoal, which is the result of burning all kinds of wood and reducing diversity to homogeneous dead matter. The charcoal burner is reductionist and destroys diversity, whereas the garland maker celebrates diversity.] Unification of Germany and Italy populated by similar people was achieved by huge armies spanning across decades. In sharp contrast, India under Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel managed to unite a much larger area divided by culture & languages within few years. The European experience where new nations were carved over little differences in identity, made the Indian experiment appear poised for a breakup sooner than later. Yet, India managed to stay

Three Metamorphoses – Nietzsche’s philosophy of progress

Writing this as I am reminded that I named this blog “Inner Metamorphosis” as a tribute to Nietzsche’s concept of “three metamorphoses”. According to Nietzsche there are three stages of progress for man to transform into overman. I feel this holds true for progress in any discipline and of life itself (we shall not probe Nietzsche’s specific context here). Three Metamorphoses Every student of an art/ discipline has to go through these stages: Camel, Lion & Child. Initially, one is a beast of burden ( camel ) – one must intake as much information as possible from as many sources available. At this stage, one must not desire freedom – they should relentlessly pursue their ambition, get rid of their ego, work under capable men to get experience and learn the “craft” and do whatever it takes to achieve greater finesse in their chosen field. Next, its time you express your “art” (vision, philosophy, ideas) boldly like a lion , through the craf

Life is Beautiful ( Telugu Movie) : Musings

Truth & beauty: these comprise the goal of art. Few works of art do justice to either. Rarer still do justice to both. Sekhar Kammula is one among the finest directors in Telugu with the penchant for weaving ordinary incidents in middle-class people’s life with extraordinary finesse and sensibility – combining truth & beauty. He is the directorial equivalent of R.K. Narayan. Telugu movies by and large do not trust audiences’ intelligence. Experimenting is a taboo and the advertised novelty is confined to bringing in freshness to the routine formula stories. It is in this context, Kammula stands apart from the rest in truthfully portraying the middle-class sentiments and life and sketching them in detail. The underlying theme of Kammula’s movies has always been – Life is Beautiful – despite the problems, failures, disappointments, rejections, humiliations etc. “Life is Beautiful” (LIB) is a nostalgic tour down the memory lane and will surely evoke the beautiful memories

Reason Behind IT Success Story of India

I often used to wonder how Indians with little prior access to computers became a global player in IT industry within a short span. There were multiple forces – the combined effect of which led to the explosion of IT market in India. Here I approach this from a different perspective based on my understanding of Indian culture. Artificial Language Computers run on artificial (i.e. fully man-made) languages developed from scratch. There is a mathematical certainty about them – they’re supposed to be used in particular ways though there’s scope of creativity within the framework. One may notice that beyond the root terminologies, there is nothing arbitrary in the grammar of artificial languages. On the contrary, in English we’re given to understand many arbitrary assumptions which shouldn’t be probed further. Pronunciation often varies widely with written word. So in the history of mankind, we always had natural languages that evolved over a period of time with certain ar

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