~~Memories: kochi days~~

When I was browsing my mail box came across this picture , the picture was taken during my good old days in Cochin. It was yet another weekend we went a country club some 30 kms outside the city. The swimming pool was the best part of the club as we can order hot pakodas and bhajis while we were swimming in the water. We spent more time eating than swimming.

I think we had to jump many times to perfect this shot either we weren't synchronised in our jump or the photographer was late or early in taking the picture but it was worth the tries to get the final outcome.

~~want to apply for this job~~

I was looking through few job sites , I came across this gem anybody want to apply ?

We don’t care about that accounting or biology class you took! We care about YOUR TRAVEL EXPERIENCE AND CREATIVITY! Tell us what makes YOU deserve this experience of a lifetime?

In your cover letter, please make sure to answer following questions:
1) What is one country you have always wanted to travel to and why?
2) Where in the world have you traveled to, what exciting/ enriching activities did you do there? For example, a school trip to or being a part of a study abroad program and learning about the business culture and history of the country.
3) Why should we select you to be the Ultimate Triptrotter?
4) Do you consider yourself to be a global citizen? How do you fare in reacting with people of different cultures? Remember, the most original answers will get the most brownie points!
5) How many countries have you traveled to? How many languages do you speak?
6) How many countries have you been to?
7) What is your favorite country?
8) What type of traveler are you: active/luxury/backpacker?

- Submit a "travel resume" to us in the form of a cover letter, a resume, or best of all, a video answering the questions above and more!

Remember, this is your travel resume so feel free to be creative in expressing why you deserve to be the ultimate triptrotter! 

~~things lost~~

    Its was one such day I had a presentation I had to hurry up to the college. One small thing I forgot to zipup the front pouch of my back pack. I saw that it was wide open only after I reached my college. Normally I dont keep much stuffs in there but there were two things in there. One was my mouse which I can live without it, other was my guest tickets for graduation :(

Edit:
I normally used to keep the camera in the front pouch but fortunately I forgot to take it to the class but I was sad I couldn't take any pictures. My Korean bro just sent me a mail with the pic below, I never knew he took pics :)

~~Visit to top of the Rock~~

  I m not a big fan of climbing to empire state or rockefeller because I have seen better views of the city and its not really worth the money you pay. But when you have people visiting the city climbing one of the building would be in the to do list. So of the two I would prefer rockefeller b use it would be less crowded.

So when mama and gang came we went to the top of the rock but alas it was raining so we couldn't get the money's worth . When it started to get cloudy it was awesome to see the building hiding behind the cloud. We even rescheduled the ticket the next day for a better view but couldn't make it.

~~food cart or fast food~~

In NYC road side carts (kaiyendi bhavans) are famous , most of them will be open around the clock , so when ever we are roaming around late in night these shops come in handy. Yesterday my uncle and gang went to Rockefeller center after roaming around we thought of stopping for dinner. I took them to the usual cart but mami said its not hygienic to get food from there, she also told me we cant goto good dine ins as we are running short of time, eventually we went to KFC and I had to be contented eating bland potato wedges!

coming to NYC not eating cart is going to tirupathi not eating laddu :)

~~Poem I liked~~

From my friend's facebook wall!


How many mountains I have to conquer before I can go home?

How many corners I have to turn before I can meet my other half?


How many failures I have to face up to before I can become that so called black swan?


How many woes I have to encounter before I can rest in peace?


Alas, life is uneasy if you feel uneasy,


While life is also easy if you feel easy!

~~risk mitigation:Samosa~~

 Today our classmates planned to have a picnic at central park. It was a potluck day and we were supposed to cook some ethinic dishes and take it for lunch. Since I dont know much about cooking I ordered samosas from my cook to be delivered. Everything went fine but today morning it started raining heavily and we had to cancel our trip due to bad weather. So today I had 40 samosas delivered by my cook. So had to think ways of disposing them

My room mate he will take 1/3rd since he having a party with his friends. I told my Pakistani friend my cook makes great samosas he took 1/2  of the remaining. Rest is for my uncle and gang who is visiting the city tomorrow,so kind of me to buy samosas for them prior to their arrival :)

~~Fact I read~~

I am doing a project regarding the economy of Hungary and I learned that the highest inflation was reached in that country in 1946 much higher than Zimbabwe.(below from wikipedia)



The worse case of hyperinflation belongs to Hungary On 18 August 1946, 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 4×1029
 The Zim Dollars became so worthless and useless that people began to use it as toilet paper. That is how bad the inflation was during that time. For example a bottle of beer would cost a 100 billions of Zim Dollars to buy.

~~Pic for the day~~

guess who :)

~~countdown~~

 Its last 10 days of my college and its getting busy as it can ,I have many assignments to do, projects to complete ,jobs to apply for and at the same time spend every free minute with my friends. So finding little time for blogging but will try to squeeze in some thing when I have time to breath.

~~Development -can be done?~~

 Today there was  a panel discussion on post conflict situation on Sri Lanka organised by one of my class mates. So after war what could be done there. There was an UN representative , a journalist invited to the panel who started the discussion about the civil war happened during the last 4 years and implications of the same.

Then my class mate presented a research paper how development will be the key for progress. We are working on a project to build fish farms in east of Sri Lanka which would employ the people living there. For a rough estimate the money sent by the Sri Lankan diaspora is being spent by the people to buy the basic necessities ,so suggestions were given to channel this money to development. There were questions raised about the feasibility of the project but in the end of the day something should be done. The conference ended with good Indian snacks like bhajji samosa and cutlet. More than that its food for thought :)

~~Video link~~

Speech by Andres Velasco on global imbalances!

~~Corruption in India~~

(my assignment for next week)

            On April 8^th 2011 Government of India was under intense pressure from the millions of people who were protesting in the street in support for the hunger strike led by a person named Anna Hazare[1]. His demand was that the government of India should pass Lok Pal bill (Ombudsman bill) as soon as possible. It is an anti corruption bill which will give rights to an independent body with the powers to prosecute politicians and bureaucrats without prior government permission. The government didn’t expect that the people would turn out in huge number had to cave in eventually to the demands of Anna Hazare and assured the bill would be passed. As of now Aug 15^th 2011 is been set as the target date to pass the bill. If this bill get passed successfully I think this might be the second big thing happened in the country after independence.

            India tops the list for black money in the entire world with almost US$1.456 trillion in Swiss banks in the form of black money[2]. According to the data provided by the Swiss Banking Association Report (2006), India has more black money than the rest of the world combined[3]. India is known for institutionalizing corruption, there is saying for an Indian citizen from the day he is born till his death he has to endure corruption at various stages in his life by paying money starting for his birth certificate and eventually  for his death certificate. Though India and Indonesia has same levels of corruption the economic performance is much better in Indonesia than in India because in Indonesia corruption is more centralized and thus more predictable. But in India corruption has been decentralized at every level of the government organizations. As Bardhan points out in his paper this decentralization leads to more fragmented often anarchic system of bribery. Thus decentralization leads to inefficiency in the system and delays the way things get done in the country which there by hinders the economic development of the country.

            Corruption not only reduces the efficiency of the system but affects the investment the country can attract. When public resources are diverted to benefit private individuals the first thing which gets compromised is the country’s growth. Transparency International estimates that truckers in India pay annually US$5 billion in bribes, there are some projects which are riddled with inefficiencies of the government such that the roads which are supposed to last for minimum 5 years lasts only till the next rainy season, power projects which are required to be completed within the scheduled are delayed such that the country could never produce enough electricity to satisfy the ever increasing demand. Paolo Mauro (1995) finds that there is a negative correlation between corruption index and investment rate, a one standard deviation improvement in corruption is estimated to be associated with an increase in investment by about 3% of GDP.

In Asian countries gift exchange is a major social norm in business transactions and allegiance to kinship based or clan based loyalties often take precedence over public duties even for salaried public officials. Public opinions polls indicate that corruption is at the top of the problems cited by respondents but most of the people do not hesitate at all in abusing public resources when it comes to helping out people belonging to their own kinship network. Jean Tirole(1996) has mentioned one shot reduction in corruption may have no lasting effect. It may take minimum number of periods without corruption to return to a path leading to the low corruption steady state.

There are some policy issues which the country could take to reduce corruption. Klitdaard(1988) notes that when Hong Kong legalized off track betting police corruption fell significantly, when Singapore allowed duty free products corruption in customs vanished. The regulations in the system are the ones necessary to protect the citizens but in most cases it is designed to patronage dispensing power of politicians and bureaucrats. When a scarce food item is subsidized so that poor people can have access to it, the ration officials are prone to be corrupt. As long as these officials are able to sell the rationed products in black market[4] less than the market price consumers will prefer to get food from corrupt system rather from the market. Since social objectives take precedence getting rid of corrupt public distribution systems has been politically unpopular.  In most of the developing countries anti corruption initiatives are targeted at small fry and mostly big fishes are exempted. So there is need to institutionalize various kinds of accountability mechanisms like having an independent public auditing system. Ombudsman ( Lok Pal) law when passed would create an independent authority which checks for accountability in political and bureaucratic sections

Few studies have suggested that the incentive based pay structure is an effective way to weed out corruption. Robert Clive in British India mentioned, “It is absurd to give power to officials  and expect them to live in penury”. Singapore and Hong Kong have shown the way by rewarding public officials with a great deal of success. In fact in Singapore wages are higher than that of private sectors. One should keep in mind that today’s rich countries had beaten the worst corruption in their history to be where they are now and the basic policy they adopted was their civil servants were substantially paid and incentives were there to be corruption free.

 Judiciary system of the country is also a major factor in determining the amount of corruption which happens in the country. Daniel Treisman has found that common law countries have lower rate of corruption. But in India I think one of the major causes for corruption is due to the outdated judiciary system the country has with huge backlogs. For instance, the Delhi High Court has a backlog of 466 years according to its chief justice[5], it takes on an average more than 10 years to file a charge against a person and most of the time the politicians and bureaucrats who knows in and out of the system escapes free when the judgment is finally given. Corruption is rampant in the judicial system of India. According to Transparency International, judicial corruption in India is attributable to factors such as "delays in the disposal of cases, shortage of judges and complex procedures, all of which are exacerbated by a preponderance of new laws". In Bihar fast track courts were initiated by the Chief Minister in 2006[6], altogether 46,836 persons have been convicted by courts by way of speedy trials. For many year people had lost hope about the future of this state but the law and order situation has improved a lot and the state has started growing back in track. Judiciary has a major role to play in these developments. If this model can be replicated to other states in India the corruption can be reduced.

It is easy to suggest few policies which can be good for the country which eliminates corruption but implementing those would take lots of courage and skills. There would be pressure from political and bureaucratic authorities to make sure any such reforms don’t pass through. So a country needs strong policy makers who are diligent enough to make sure these reforms get passed through the system and implemented effectively. India needs such statesman who has overcomes these obstacles and design policies which helps in transforming the country into a developed nation.

                                                                                                                           

---

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/08/india-campaign-corruption-anna-hazare?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

[2] http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/2010/08/13/stories/2010081350370900.htm

[3] http://ibnlive.in.com/news/govt-to-reveal-stand-on-black-money-on-jan-25/141423-3.html

[4] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-12-11/india/28265185_1_indo-nepal-foodgrains-indo-bangladesh

[5] http://india-briefing.com/indias-legal-system-need-overhaul

[6] http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=328248&catid=36

~~Earned Gift~~

    Few people's stomach started burning seeing that I get OC stuffs where ever I go. So I thought let me do something worthwhile and earn something. One of my classmates was having issue with her computer and came to me to rectify it. It took few minutes to solve that problem and make her PC work again perfectly. Since she thought I had spent my precious time she said she will get me something in return.

Its all the way from Mendoza,Argentina :)

~~Meeting a finance minister~~

    During the workshop I had the opportunity to meet Andrés Velasco ,the former finance minister of Chile. Our director introduced him to us as the person who implemented policies what others just learn. In the year 2007 Chile economy was booming due to export of copper and had a budget surplus. Workers and students wanted him to spend that money for the people but he strongly refused and kept those as reserves. There were huge protests against him but he refused to bog down. And when the financial crisis struck in 2008 copper prices crashed and exports came to standstill. Now he used to reserve to aid the market preventing it from a collapse. In 2010 Chile became the first developing country in South America to join the OECD countries and considered in the leagues of developed countries.

 He was so casual and simple in his approach and had a good sense of humor. There were lots of lessons learned  from him on that day.

~~Ramblings~~

When I was in 11th standard I wanted to take French but my mum didnt allow me to take than and instead forced me to study sanskrit which was pretty useless as it was an exam were we can write everything in english.

I feel that was a bad decision and today when I was hanging out with group French girls I felt handicapped!
what to do is it worth to learn French from the scratch ?

~~Workshop~~

  I attended a workshop conducted by Bank of England for two days. The topic is about inflation targeting. Its a concept used by around 27 countries across the world where the central bank's major aim is to keep the inflation at the target. UK is one of the earliest adapters of this policy and have been implementing it for the past 20 years.So if they miss the target they have to give an explanation to the government writing on open letter on why they have missed it.

 Why it is important? my director often quotes that corruption or bad governance never impact the people directly but inflation will increase the price rise and it has an adverse effect on the people and will lead to downfall of the government. He often quotes the USSR example that people never bothered to fight the inefficiency of the system for 40 years but when the inflation rose during late 80s people revolted which led to the breakdown of Soviet Union.

All in all the two days was fun and really informative! 

~~Pic for the day~~

நாங்க சிங்கம்ல !

~~OC stuffs(cont)~~

  Last four nights have been crazy and I came back to my room only after 12. Three of the four nights have been in Times Square a place one will lose track of the time.Wednesday was spent with Swetha ,Thurday night was with Sheila and co where the dinner was sponsored by Sundu , Friday night went out with my classmates and one of my classmates said the dinner bill.Saturday night my friend Raj was in the city to get stuffs for me. After hanging out with him in Times sq in the night, we went for a walk in the river then to shopping. He was putting stuffs in the cart as long it got filled. Finally he asked me what else I need, I told him even though I get OC stuffs when I meet people I had to pay and travel in metro,so he recharged my metro card such that I can use it for next few months.

Moral of the story: Good things happen to great people :)

~~Sleep test~~

  One of my professor told this quote "While going to bed think what you are doing now and if you were satisfied with it and were able to sleep properly you are doing the right job". Before going to bed tonight I m planning to try this test but I m already sleepy now!

~~OC show~~

  I have written sometime before "Being a student has its own advantages you only have to worry about assignments and exams, for rest of the things there are always friends and relatives.When they come to visit me ,I needn't play the host card as they sponsor me for everything when roaming around. " Swetha is the latest entry to the list and she beat all my friends and relatives. She had come to New York city as a part of her school trip and I met her today evening at Times Square.

First she introduced to her teachers who then invited me to have dinner at an Irish hotel named O'Lunneys, We had salad, bread and pasta for main course and ended with a cheese cake for dessert. After chit chatting with her for sometime I walked with her to the broadway theater.After saying bye to her I thought let me walk as long as I can to burn what I eat instead of taking the metro.Within 5 minutes I got a call from Swetha that they have an extra ticket for the broad way show and asked whether I could join.Who would say no,as I walked right back to the theater.Swetha's teacher helped in getting seats together and we watched the show, Memphis. The story was an usual romantic story between a white guy and a black woman happening in Memphis around 1950 it went good and we enjoyed it though we didn't understand the way it ended. Anyways no complains for a free a show.

Moral of the story: You have to be at the right place,right time!

~~Video link~~

Well taken!

~~Cricket Pictures~~

I found these pictures quite interesting

1)Boston globe: wonderful pictures showing the passion for cricket in sub continent

2)World cup winning moments- Lots of pictures from 2011 and beyond

~~Congrats Team India~~

 What a match it was. I came to Philly to see the match and it worth to get up early in the morning @ 5 to see the match and see India win. I was tweeting regularly after a long time for this match and one of the tweet was "Indian politicians please look at Dhoni! This is how you have to lead a nation".

I have been waiting for this moment all my years! The team made our nation proud!Proud to be an INDIAN!!!