Whats next

My most sombre and sober new year celebrations as far as I can remember. Toned down. Some hopes towards a more peaceful year ahead.

2006, I spent the last few nights in the midst of jungles. After successfully survived whitewater rafting in the river Kali, near Dandeli there were some tribals of African origin who provided some entertainment. An African dance on local songs that was.  Yeah, they are descendants of slaves which the English, Portuguese picked from Africa who survived ship wrecks and escaped slavery to swim to safety to the jungles of south-western India. With bonfire, sipping rum we checked on what would be our fate 365 days later..well more precisely how would we wish our life would be a year later. With some hope I said, "Back to school in a year". The other pitched in to tell their part. Back to academics, get a foothold at work and some said, hopefully we'll marry.

2007, wishes of all the four come true. This time, the same four of us, in their terrace-barbeque party hosted by V's dad. An Army family is truly liberal. Drinks poured in plus the yummy chicken followed by song and dance. Same question again: what next..I mean, where would be a year from now. Half-way through studies, working on a book and some said "I dont know" as alcohol had numbed their brain cells. 

2008, some wishes come true. Mood is so sombre and scaled down. Met a friend over Java and Jamaican coffee and middle-eastern sandwiches. More friends at a party in a pub nearby. Sneaked in without paying cover charges. Hugs and embraces, quick wishes and out again. Not surprised to see so many cops around with barricades and naka-bandi. Everything was to close down by half past midnight. Was home by 11:45pm only to hook onto my laptop. Dad was working on his. Mom sleepy pleading me to have my dinner while my bro watched Pirates on Star Movies. Some more wishes and greetings at the stroke of midnight and everybody continue to do what we were doing before.

As I write this post, am still thinking where will I be a year from now. Am still not sure. Hope to continue to be a student for more grad studies. Hope to be out of Singapore. Hope not to be India. Hope to still stick on to my flat. Hope that 300 pages of my better half's book is out. On a serious note, with so much of uncertainity over the economy, job market and how much will be available in my bank account not sure where things will head. 

One thing I surely need to work on is my problem with inertia. It takes so much of time to start getting into action. It takes tons of BHP to make me move. And if I am on the move, takes significant effort to take it easy and calm down. Need to be less lethargic as well, save time, study harder and reduce some unwanted conversations at tea. With so many Chinese friends/lab mates around I need to pick their art of being so focused at work. If these can be dealt with, I guess the rest of the hopes will be taken care of. 

Well its 2am, already the first day of the new year. Good morning and have great year ahead.

Present-tense and future-tense

My Phd plans are abonded for the moment. Looking forward to completing my Masters project to end the course in a good shape. My savings are depleting and probably will have to get back to earning mode before I attempt to join a PhD course soon.  If only I didn't have to get myself entangled in mortgage web. With the economic scene looking quite bleak I am not even sure if I can get a decent job post studies. Which means, it makes sense to still apply for PhD position somewhere. Atleast there will be some source of income albeit of a small measure. I am not sure where this will get me. In the bigger scheme of things, I dont know how much all these things really matter.

My sup wasn't too bothered about the changes in plans. Have to find a project with boundaries and scope drawn. I am now familiar with sensor networks and with the 120+ node testbed coming up, we can cook up some work to do but still nothing concrete is there. There is someone working on performance improvement in TCP to support bandwidth greedy applications. Might hitch a ride with him on his work to completion. Whats left is the implementation aspects and carry out some measurements. This should take probably around 6 months or so beginning Jan.

For now, I am off to B'lore tomorrow night. For some reasons, I am not too excited. Not sure why. Hope it will be a nice pleasant 3-week ahead. 

Stuff to read during the vacation:

1. Papers (most of it related to TCP/networks)

2. Algorithms (CLR)

Hope to wind this book by the time I return. Guess its too optimistic. Lets see.

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And for some good news. Rash has started writing her book finally. Still a lot of research pending though, but after some good inputs and a lot of encouragement (after seeing her snippets of writings) she is all gung-ho about this project. The workshop she attended recently was conducted by some literary agents. All were in awe with her work and hoped she would complete it. They have no doubt in her talent but since its a very ambitious, complex and time-consuming project its difficult to predict when this project can be wound up. Hopefully in 18 months time, it should be ready.

Nation Building in Troubled Waters - II

Inspite of the odds, towards the end of first year of the reconstruction program, some wildly programs were quite successful. The 'Back-To-School' program funded by UNICEF, USAID and other numerous NGOs saw millions of Afghan children picking up books. This was by Mar 2002.

In 1974, 54% of boys and under 2% of girls had some schooling. After the Taliban rising post 1974, girls were forbiddened to go to schools and the entire education system was decimated. So now in 2002, when around 4.5 thousand schools were setup (some temporarily in tents) the excitement brewing amongs the locals was understandably enormous. NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) provided help w.r.t security and construction of buildings/tents as schools.

Some 8 million text books and supplies to 52000 teachers all across Afghanistan even in the remotest regions were provided by the ISAF. Eric Laroche from UNICEF said "It  is the largest educational program in UNICEF history and for the first time we have started nation wide primary education." Around 1.8 million were expected but 3.0 millinon tured out. 45% of the attendees in Kabul schools were girls. These included the Hazara children from the poverty-stricken areas of south-west Kabul. The numbers registered increased to 6500 from 2000 in a single school. So much that the headmaster was puzzled about how to handle things. They operated in shifts with a mere 118 teachers. By 2005 5.2 million children were attending school from grades 1 to 12.  This became the new-age Afghan symbol. A symbol of a progressive nation.

This literacy program became the largest ever program in a Muslim country. 

Another success story is that of the resurgence in Media..newspapers, television and magazines.

Within a matter of 2-3 years, there were 8 TV channels which operated, 350 publications and 42 radio stations operated in the country. Tolo TV, a popular channel aired everything from exposing corruption to warlordism to Afghan versions of Candid Camera and American Idol. Several media persons were killed but that did not stop the enthusiasm of the news hungry Afghanis. 

Nation Building in Troubled Waters - I

Marshall plan is synonymous to successful nation building after a war. Patronized by Uncle Sam many times..over and over again..Germany after WWII, Japan after Hiroshima and in the recent years in the Balkans, Fiji and other relatively unknown places. I wish the non-existent god came in Bush's dreams to remind him to also focus on nation building post Afghan and Iraq invasion.

I dont understand why Clinton was impeached and Bush, Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Co. are not being considered. What Bill did was quite natural..what most people in the world do..he didnt screw an entire nation..just another person who happened to not be his wife and he was pulled to the court...and the other team did so much damage to their own country and screwed their people's happiness (apart from people in other countries), they ought be tried and prisoned..perhaps at Guantanamo hehehe before they close it down. How would you feel if foreign soldiers are patrolling your streets, sometimes killing innocent people and not dont care a shit of setting things right ? I am of course all for the war on terror and appreciate what NATO and US intentions..but if they ignore the fact that its their responsibility of setting things right..what the fuck..I dont simply get it.

This is Deja Vu..really..towards the end of the cold war and after the Soviets pulled out of Afghan, US simple pulled out ignoring they had to set things right there. They paid tons of money(literally) to anybody who would fight against USSR...thus came Taliban. After the war they simply packed bags and went off leaving the troubled nation in rags. A total vacuum. Somebody had to fill in. Yes, you guessed it..it was Taliban. Of course there are factions within the Afghan province (Pashtun, Hazara, Tajiks, Uzbeks etc.) that each faction controlled by its own warlord had a cooked up a perfect recipe of disaster. Dont forget, now enters the other important characters..ISI, Pak army which covertly and sometimes overtly nurtured these extremist groups with the strategic interests of using them when time comes. They are the real kingmakers. Hats off to them for that.

Circa 2003, we see a repeat. Some people dont want to learn from past mistakes. Rumsfeld had one main aim in his life..Al-Qaeda...and leave nation building to the other insignificant groups. Time and again the hopeful Afghan ruling faction (Hamid Karzai) would plead Washington to do something, but they would give a deaf ear. While Musharaff took them for a ride, they did nothing.

// more to come later..

P.S Of course things are a little different now. Will talk about it towards the later editions.

am back again

am deleting my new blog memyselfandobelix. I dont know why I created it..

no real reason lah.. so sticking back to chota chetan.

time to write more posts before I take a break after a year...

waaaaaaaaahhhhhh its been one long year... time to smell my own 'red earth and pouring rain'

new blog address

My new blogsite:   http://memyselfandobelix.blogspot.com

Its not very cryptic, to break it up the name is actually simple: me, myself and obelix . blogspot . com  :)

Thinking of using the new one for further posts and will subsequently purge the old one.

On a lighter vein

My Persian flatmates have their youngest sibling planning to study in India from Jan. Apparently their country's news papers didnt carry much about the blasts, they were virtually unaware of things happening there. This explains why they never mentioned or talked about this since the past few days. Guess they will have to postpone their sightseeing tour to Rajasthan for some more time now.

With Condi aunty visiting India tomorrow to placate people here, things will be more clear in a week or two.

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Before I could finish this post someone sent me this link ...hilarious to the core...

The gentleman with the red hat calls the recent blasts as a conspiracy hatched by the Americans, Indians and Israelis.... and what does he mean by western zionists and hindu zionists.. lol....

and 9/11 was staged by US folks.... haha nice try..but has gone kaput.. Sounds more like a bunch of housewives bickering about their neighbors