Hilarious Leave Applications

I received this mail from my good friend. I couldn’t stop laughing so want to share with you all.

See How people write leave Applications. It’s murder of English language. But Too Funny. Just Read It. The Leave Applications; )

· Infosys, Bangalore: An employee applied for leave as follows:

“Since I have to go to my village to sell my land along with my wife, please sanction me one-week leave.”

· This is from Oracle Bangalore: >From an employee who was performing the “mundan” ceremony of his 10 year old son:

“as I want to shave my son’s head, please leave me for two days..”

· Another gem from CDAC. Leave-letter from an employee who was performing his daughter’s wedding:

“as I am marrying my daughter, please grant a week’s leave..”

· From H.A.L. Administration Dept:

“As my mother-in-law has expired and I am only one responsible for it, please grant me 10 days leave.”

· Another employee applied for half day leave as follows:

“Since I’ve to go to the cremation ground at 10 o-clock and I may not return, please grant me half day casual leave”

· An incident of a leave letter:

“I am suffering from fever, please declare one-day holiday.”

· A leave letter to the headmaster:

“As I am studying in this school I am suffering from headache. I request you to leave me today”

· Another leave letter written to the headmaster:

“As my headache is paining, please grant me leave for the day.”

· Covering note:

“I am enclosed herewith…”

· Another one: really good one……………

“Dear Sir: with reference to the above, please refer to my below…”

· Actual letter written for application of leave:

“My wife is suffering from sickness and as I am her only husband at home I may be granted leave”.

· Letter writing:-

“I am well here and hope you are also in the same well.”

· A candidate’s job application:

“This has reference to your advertisement calling for a ‘ Typist and an Accountant – Male or Female’… As I am both(!! )for the past several years and I can handle both with good experience, I am applying for the post. “

Computerization of SAC Elections

It has been a long time since I blogged, I had been really busy with developing websites & web-applications for my institute to pay back a little with my knowledge & skills.

When I was in second year I had a plan to computerize our Student Activity Centre (SAC) elections. For those of you who dont know what is SAC, SAC is a place where student activities are carried out, it is the hub managed by the students for the students. SAC is divided into four societies: Technical, Cultural, Games & Sports and Film & Music. Each of these societies are headed by student elected representatives. The election process till now was manual process involving paper and tedious counting. I had suggested our Director in my second year to computerize it but he didn’t give much heed to it but all of the sudden in the end of my final year, I got a call from one of his sub-ordinates to work on the computerization process just two weeks before the scheduled SAC elections. I took the task even though he asked it to be specifically be built in ASP.NET and I am not much familiar with it but taking it as a challenge, I accepted it, thinking that there were many guys proficient in ASP.NET and they would be happy to help but I didn’t take into the equation that these people were not idle but working, and infact these people were not working they were working too hard 2-3 projects per person with deadlines of just weeks. So assembling the team became a huge issue, to overcome it I tried to convince them to at least help, Shrinivas was contacted and he immediately agreed to help, I took a second year guy Yashvir Rana who knew little ASP.NET but had no experience so with Shrinivas’s support and guidance we were able to code the system. The only thing I contributed to the team was the System Design & Database. All the hectic coding was done by these people. Bala Krishna helped us make the web-application look attractive. The web-application took around 10-15 sleepless days & nights and the site was complete just 12 hours before the elections. We without taking a break deployed it on the server and looked into the security measures so as it couldn’t be hacked and tampered by students. All was doubly verified before we took a sigh of relief. We took the rest for the first time in two weeks and it felt really good. We woke the next day, The “SAC Election Day”, this was the most important day for us as it would determine what our time spent was worth. The election day went fine, students came and voted with a minor incident where we had to call on for re-voting of 10 voters because of incorrect candidate list being uploaded by the authority. The elections in all went fine and the process was shortened from 18 man-power & 28 man-hours to just 10 man-power (just volunteers & security to manage & register students) & 7 man-hours. Our Director congratulated us on the great job done and called it a success. This I would say is the final project as a B.Tech student. Though I had many more ideas to change how things work around me but lets leave it to others to do.  I have already told director about them to the director and my vision. Anyone interested can contact me or Director sir.

Till when will reservation go on?

Till when will reservation go on? Shouldn’t it have an expiry date?

I have been living in this country for almost 21 years since my birth, when I was a kid I didn’t know the meaning of the word “reservation” & “caste” (since I was born in a family which never considered any bias and treated all souls as children of divine god & religions as faiths that binds us to the supreme). I had many friends not knowing what their surnames meant we made fun of each other and played together with opportunities provided by the school based on our capabilities. We were treated equally by our school and I thought we were on equal grounds so I could compete with them. But I was wrong; I wasn’t on an equal ground with them rather some of us were privileged members of the society while others were under-privileged. This division came to my knowledge when we all gave AIEEE(All India Engineering Entrance Examination)and I found they could get a seat in the top NIT without much competition as they had a certificate proving they belong to a Scheduled Caste/Tribe etc and hence they were entitled to be given a preference. This is all because, according to the Government all of us are supposed to pay the under-privileged members “reservation” as retribution. I don’t know how I atleast was more privileged then them, WE all had the same schooling, WE were living in the same society, WE all played the same games and celebrated festivals together as family, then how on earth was I more privileged than them. Lets leave this caste reservation and go over the next kind, “Women reservation”.

I don’t know why women empowerment & reservation is atleast an issue in the urban population, why are there seats in buses with the tag “Ladies only” does this in anyway bring equality to the status of women to men. It in no way empowers women on the other hand it dilutes the achievements some women have gained through their hard work, as a man who sees this word “Ladies only” will never consider that the woman has excelled and achieved everything through her hard work. I have seen multiple times in buses that people much older in age standing while a girl/lady sitting on a “Ladies only” seat. Is she more entitled to sit on a seat than a older man/woman who is weak and may be medically ill just boarding a bus due to financial/time constraints. I am just pointing to one example so as to bring readers attention to the fact. There are various other scenarios where urban women have been receiving exalted status. I don’t think that in any way serves the goal of equality of gender.

I think shouldn’t the entitlements of reservation in jobs & other services go to those who really need them rather than those who just got entitled due to a flaw in the system. Is it really hard to find a patch that really fixes the problem? Till now believe since independence, our Governments have been giving sugar tablets rather than curing the actual disease. “To bring equality by creating inequality” that’s a great notion. Equality is something that needs to nurture through schooling and reformation rather than reservation. I don’t think when I was in school there was any kind of reservation on passing percentage should that have been the case there would be no unity among us as children and friendship as strong as I have now would not be possible). Thanks atleast these words came into my knowledge when I couldn’t let go of my friends because they belonged to so-called reserved category.

Through this post I think I have made my perspective clear that reservation is not uniting us but dividing us. Even if reservation is necessary it shouldn’t be enforced in the way it has been done over the years since independence. It should have an expiry date. Instead of continuing reservation indefinitely,  making education free and compulsory can be a possible solution to bring equality. This solution though costly is more efficient in solving the issue in hand (if “equality” is the concern of the leaders of our country and not the short-term elections that can be won if the card of reservation is played). Rather than handing free pass to the affected groups, they should me made to earn it. These people should be given the path not the product of that path. Reservation in its present form as far as I believe is not helping those who really need it but still those who it already has helped.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (Must Read)

The Last Lecture

Yesterday I had a chance to read the book “The Last Lecture” By Randy Pausch. When I bought the book on a friend’s recommendation, I had no idea what was it about and the word “lecture” made me wary of it not being a prank by him to just make me read a dull novel and also if it wasn’t a prank how is it of any relevance to my life but on his persistent requests I finally read the book. Reading the book I found it very practical and in some way teaching me what was wrong in my life. It gave a lot of advice on how to lead life and I will surely try to incorporate them. The various instances from his childhood to adulthood mentioned helped me connect with the life of the author and understand better on how to implement his wisdom in my professional life as he did. The quote “It’s not how hard you hit but how hard you get hit … and still move forward” has become one of my favorites. It has also made me rethink the importance of the various childhood dreams that I had forgotten with passage of time or thought them to be irrelevant, to be a very important part of life that needed to be fulfilled.

The book was in itself a head-fake, it in teaching me how to lead a life also taught me how important the role the Professors play in shaping our lives and in a way asked me to respect their authority.

Thanks a lot Prof. Randy Pausch. I am very grateful to you for sharing your treasure.

I would recommend all to read this book.

MISMANAGEMENT BY IIMs

A Reason for failure

IIMs are the top institute for Management in the country and recognized worldwide for producing Masters in Business Administration.

In our country, it is very difficult to get into these institutions. There is a single joint competitive examination called CAT (Common Aptitude Test) held every year. This year the organization planned to scrap the OMR based paper test and have a complete online test. The contract for the job was given to Prometric. The tests were planned in some selected cities and applicants were given an option to book a preferential slot in the available testing dates. The aspirants from all around the country booked their slots and made their train reservations (These have to be made three months prior to journey date to secure a berth). On their allotted slot time, the applicants sat in the examination centre for two hours and gave their exams but some unlucky ones couldn’t  give their exam because either the connection was slow / not working, their was a virus problem or the applicants didn’t follow the instructions well (as quoted by Prometric’s CEO & IIM-Ahmedabad Director). Throughout the duration they were ordered to sit and not given any possible reason. This went on throughout the testing period at many centers. Many applicants were unable to give in their exams due this reason. Seeing the failure of the newly adopted testing system (which was tested as the organizers say), the IIM management & Prometric called on a joint press conference, here the Director of IIM-Ahmedabad, who is on board as Independent Director of many eminent companies in our country, point-blankly said that the applicants would be given a specific date for their exam and everything now is in GOD’s GRACE. The blame was being tried to put on the applicants for the failure saying that they didn’t know how to use the computer.

Listening to these responses, I couldn’t stop wondering that these are the people who will teach us management and make us a responsible manager. If God’s GRACE is the solution they can offer for this failure and play blame game to shove-off responsibility from their shoulders. Then I think it’s better if I let go of my dream of joining an IIM and think on something more productive.
Coming back to the issue of failure of this new testing system, I think it would be a good Case-Study that I would like to take-up when I join a good management institute (That actually practices what it teaches). Also I think if these people have little integrity and morality left, they should accept their responsibility and provide suitable compensation to the applicants affected due to their mismanagement.

Should RTI act be expanded to cover Private Businesses also?

It’s been a long going debate on “should the private enterprises be made liable to answering public queries?” Many countrymen support it stating that they have a right to know and claim the simple reason that these enterprises are based on our soil, but thinking rationally is it morally right to interfere in the matters of a corporate as they have earned everything they own righteously and through fair practices under the close vigil of law. They provided us services for which we paid them and we were never forced to use to their products (as we are forced to pay taxes to the Government for just providing a civil framework by providing services like police, ambulance etc though we may hire our security agency & private medical assistance in case of emergency). So do we earn the right to question them and seek information with authority? We hold no such right until and unless we are an investor or part of the organization. The right of disclosing information should totally reside with the enterprise as the consumer is in no way being compelled to buy their product and in a regulated economy where enterprises are already subjected to various conditions, guidelines and inspections, our right to further questioning is too invasive.

In no way I endorse the idea that RTI act should be subjected to private enterprises but this doesn’t mean that I am totally against the notion. From my perspective some enterprises involved in various key commodities/services need to be opened up for public questioning like the medical sector consisting of pharmaceutical industries, hospitals and private clinics so as the patients may know about the various pharmaceutical companies that their doctor is receiving favors of, so they may be in a position to judge if any malpractice is in subject.  Since application of RTI act on a sector can solve problems of a section of social needs, hence by bringing all the enterprises under this law, complete transparency can be maintained in the private sector as well.

RTI act has empowered the countrymen and got the evil corruption out of many public offices. It has instilled morality among the bureaucrats as they now are vulnerable to public questions with a liability to answer. In a very short span it has worked wonders and its extension to Private businesses will be a good idea to experiment on.

The story of E-Cell@Nitr and my experiences

The story starts with the founder of this cell, Mr. Debashish Mohapatra- a Mining Engineering undergraduate with appreciable managerial skills. He brought together a bunch of friends and started an initiative to inculcate entrepreneurship in students. The first task they planned was Arthayan, a business event held in Confluence-2k8. They had planned everything and promoted it well. The students who worked on the brochure and promotion- Nishank Kanungo, Rashmi Ranjan Nayak, Shakti Swarup Sahu- were promised membership of e-cell (but were never inducted or recognized). But on the D-day the organizers were contemplating the cancellation of the event as the organization which Mr. Debashish & Co. had handpicked for providing them the required software had swindled them and the organizers had fallen short of funds. This resulted in the postponement of the event and a search for an alternative. The reputation was at stake, after all. It was at this stage that I was called in and handed a challenging task of preparing the software within 24 hours. I had accepted the challenge and remember working non-stop to complete the task in 18 hours. The events in the itinerary went well and were the biggest hits; I was congratulated by a lot of people and was inducted into e-cell. I started working with them despite being the only second year amongst the lot. I loved sharing some of my business ideas with my club mates, but later I realized that they were using my ideas and taking credit for the work, so I stopped working.
In the session 2007-08, e-cell had managed a single event; Arthayan and a small guest talk. So, we planned to change things- yoke together more enthusiastic people and form a larger community. The group was inducted but the majority was the product of nepotism. As is obvious the planning of year round events by the group yielded nothing but another Arthayan to be held in the Conflence-2k9- and this time there was no preparation/sponsorship. I was the convener of the technical society in those days and the organizing body of Confluence-2k9; we tried to help them saying that the technical society would provide accommodation to the Arthayan guests and other required resources, although no financial aid would be given. Initially they agreed on this but on the very last day they tried to press-gang me to provide funds as they had been unsuccessful in managing sponsors. However, I couldn’t heed to their ‘requests’ as major events had already been planned and approved and only minor changes in the budgets were permissible. So these people- who were supposed to have all the managerial skills in the world- went to the authorities and started a crusade against the technical society. Being the head of society and a member of the e-cell, I was in a dilemma so I called a meeting of the organizing body to see if anything could be done. Despite my efforts, there was nothing substantial that could be done. I had to explain my predicament to Mr. Debashish & Co., so they went to the Director with their woes and complaints. The Director asked me to look into the matter and help them in any way I could. I tried my best and did all I could to get Arthayan bailed out. But after the Technical festival was over I was never invited to any meetings and later not even recognized as a member.
And what is disheartening is that none of the founders of the club, now alumni, have pledged financial aid to the promotion of the club.

If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.

Who owns the fish… Puzzle supposedly from Einstein

Supposedly, this riddle was created by Albert Einstein and, on
average, only 2% of solvers will be successful. Are there any logic
puzzle experts out there who can verify the source of this riddle? If
so, they can add a comment here.

Neighbors

Five people of different nationality live in a row of five houses of
different color. Each person prefers a different beverage, smokes a
different brand of cigar and keeps a different kind of animal. Can you
figure out who owns the fish?
The Brit lives in the Red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The Green house is on the left of the White house.
The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the center house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blends lives next to the man who keeps cats.
The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the Blue house.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
Who owns the fish?

I really doubt If Einstein really built this puzzle or the statement
that only 2% people were able to solve it

But As far as my reasoning goes.. the solution is German owns the fish.

Nexus 2009: An Event by IIT Bombay

Nexus as the name suggests is an event with series of connections. A truly National Event with its preliminary rounds being held in five zones namely north, east, central, west, south in collaboration with the eminent institutes of the location. The final round will be conducted by the epicenter IIT Bombay itself.

Nexus is an initiative taken up by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay for encouraging robotics at the grass root level in India. The event being organised under the Nexus in all the zones is CommQuest. CommQuest is conceptualized around Wireless Communication between Robots. The problem statement for the event is simple, i.e. Make an autonomous machine which traverses a grid to reach the destination which is communicated to it wirelessly by a computer. And the prize money for this is Rs. 10,000. Visit the link for details, hints & tips.

http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/nexus/commquest/

The event along with a competition is also hosting a workshop for students conceptualized around Wireless Communication between Robots. The participants will learn about emerging technologies like Wireless Communication, Swarm Robotics and Microcontroller Programming in this workshop. Attending this workshop will drive your instinct to deliver in the domain of robotics and wireless communication.

National Institute of Technology, Rourkela (NIT Rourkela) has been chosen to host the Nexus event for the East Zone. The schedule has been published on the event website. http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/nexus. The students should actively take part as it is a unique opportunity to display their skills with home advantage and win some accolades.

Important Links

Nexus Website: http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/nexus/

CommQuest: http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/nexus/commquest/

Workshop Link: http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/nexus/workshop/

The Terawatt Challenge

Richard E. Smalley, the 1996 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Rice University has shown his energy concerns and the solution the world community should follow to curb the crisis of energy.

This is the summary of the information I read in the article containing the edited transcript based on the Symposium X- Frontiers of Materials Research presentation given by Richard E. Smalley on December 2, 2004, at Material Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston.

The top ten Problems faced by the world are:

1. Energy
2. Water
3. Food
4. Environment
5. Poverty
6. Terrorism & war
7. Disease
8. Education
9. Democracy
10. Population

The major problem is Energy and finding its solution can easily help us solve  the other problems as well. For example, The second problem Water, the drinking water is the major issue for large population of the world and the resources to fulfill are limited. Hence we need to purify the existing vast mass of sea-water to solve this issue and to reduce the salt and purify the sea water we need cheaper energy for an acceptable solution. Hence energy is a solution to most of the problems on the top-10 list of problems.

The world population is expected to go around a maximum of 10 billion in our lifetime, hence we need to plan our resources so as to cater to these 10 billion people distributed throughout the globe. The total energy requirement to give all the 10 billion people on this planet the level of energy prosperity the developed world enjoy would be around 60 terawatts. If we rely on oil, which is our major source of energy it will take 900 million barrels of oil per day.

In 2004, the consumption of oil per day was 220 million barrels of oil per day to run the world, or 14.5 terawatts. The vast majority of this energy was from oil, gas and coal. Fission and biomass were also significant players. The biomass was the energy source for the bottom half of the global economic ladder, approximately three billion people. Quite a bit of this 14.5 terawatts was the hydro-power and an incredible small amount of energy about 0.5% was solar, wind, and geothermal with geothermal composing the largest part.

To solve  the energy challenge, we will have to find a way to produce, everyday twice as much we produce now. Since resources like Hydropower have been tapped to their potential and oil and coal wont last long.

To provide the technology for accomplishing our energy goals, what we need to do is to find the “new oil”.  Searching for the enormous amounts of energy that could accomplish this goal, the biggest resources are in the areas where we generate hardly any energy at all right now-solar,wind, and geothermal.

The solution to the current & future global energy crisis lies in the big hydrogen fusion reactor up in the sky , the sun. 165,000 terawatts of power hits the earth’s disk every moment of every day from Sun and it has been going over 4 billion years and will continue for yet other billions of years.

Nate Lewis of California Institute of Technology demonstrates that we could cleanly meet the world’s entire energy needs, 2 kilowatts per person for 10 billion people, by applying the following elegant solution shown below.

Solar Power Map

On a global map, identify six rectangular spaces located in areas of high solar radiation, create 10% efficiency, then collect the power, which would be about 20 terawatts of electrical power, the equivalent of 60 terawatts total energy power at a 30% energy conversion. Since at the time the technology to develop it at a few pennies per kilowatt-hour is not available. It can be done at 20-50 cents a kilowatt-hour currently but that is too expensive. Hence there is requirement of scientist to develop more efficient systems to contain this solar energy. The next issue is the distribution of energy to all the places in the world. This can be solved again with the aid of science & technology by development of Local Energy Storage Units, equivalent to an uninterrupted power supply  for home computers, to provide a backup of 12-24 hours of full operation. This can only be done with the help of nano-technology & advents of science. These units should be small and cheap. This local energy storage would get us past the problem and give us an extremely robust, terrorist-resistant, delocalized electrical energy system. In addition to the local system, one other innovation is needed on the grid to make it work i.e the capability to transport electrical power in hundreds of gigawatts over thousand of miles. The High-voltage transmission lines would be very efficient for the purpose as they already carry electricity for 1500 miles with fairly low losses but they carry only about 1 gigawatt of energy we need innovation & new technology to solve this.

The solution of using solar energy is an efficient solution as it solves the problem of global warming as no CO2 emission takes place in this process and moreover no fossil fuels are used.