Even at the best of times the UNFCCC process is a challenge for business and civil society. After all, it is an intergovernmental negotiation and there is no formal role for anybody else other than governments. But we all head to the negotiations anyway, in part to try and follow the process but also to talk to the various participants. The UN oversees all this and on a regular basis, this time being no exception, the UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer encourages non-government parties at the conference to “contribute to the process” or “explain what is needed” or even “offer negotiating text”. Of course it isn’t just business trying to get thinking across, there are also a vast array of environmental, political, religious and civil society representatives there all trying to share their perspectives with the delegations. But the process itself isn’t really designed for such interaction.
At each UNFCCC meeting one or two major business organisations are given an opportunity to address the plenary and on every occasion this seems to get reduced to one or two minutes as the time approaches – so the carefully worded business statement that didn’t say a whole lot anyway suddenly gets trimmed from a couple of pages to a few bullet points and that is it. But the process roles on and through painstaking repetition and endless hallway discussions the messages on levels of investment needed to achieve the needed emission goals, the capital flows, technology, intellectual property, competitiveness, carbon markets and so on sink in. We all know that many people aren’t happy with even this level of influence in the process, but the reality is that business is an important part of the way our economies function and that any new constraints placed on the economy, such as emissions limitations, need to be able to work and deliver within the system that we have.
The new reality, at least for this week, is that this is a now closed shop. Whereas last week anybody that turned up with accreditation could enter the Bella Centre, on Tuesday just 7000 non-government people were allowed in. By Friday it will be literally a handful of NGOs allowed in the centre as over 100 heads of government and many more ministers arrive for the final showdown. After many years of participating in this process it’s a pity to miss the last hurrah, but given how it is all going, there will be plenty more opportunity in 2010 (and beyond I suspect). So it is time to leave Copenhagen to the government and media and watch it all on CNN at home .
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Copenhagen, a Political Drama!
As the world turns its attention to Copenhagen, the most asked question is “What do you think will be agreed?”. The reality is nobody knows what will happen but given the political announcements of recent weeks expectations are dropping. We have all been told that a “legally binding” agreement will not be completed in Copenhagen, but rather to expect a major step forward or a “political agreement”.
When all is said and done, Copenhagen will almost certainly represent a landmark in the progressive shift to a global low carbon economy. Whether the final agreement is reached there or 6-12 months later is of little consequence, provided clear direction comes in December. We shouldn’t forget that the signing of the Kyoto Protocol led to many years of discussion and that the agreement itself was not finally ratified until 2005, some eight years later. Although we cannot wait eight years this time around, a delay into 2010 to allow a more substantive agreement to be reached is acceptable, perhaps even desirable given the current state of deliberations in the US Senate on the cap-and-trade bill.
But much still needs to be achieved in Copenhagen.
First, the delegations must reach agreement on overall structure. This is really an essential part of the process, but gets very little coverage in the media. The Kyoto Protocol has no formal end so the discussion regarding future commitment periods continues to roll on, but of course without the USA. In parallel, the AWG-LCA (Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action) is negotiating a text which could be adopted as a new international agreement – but what of the Kyoto Protocol if that were to happen. Many developing countries have reacted negatively to its demise, but equally it is unsustainable in its current form given the small number of countries with specific targets. This may have seemed appropriate when discussions commenced in 1992, but it is not an appropriate fit for the reality of today.
But the Kyoto Protocol shouldn’t just be discarded. The key elements that lay the foundation for a market based approach need to be extracted and adopted into the new structure. Without this infrastructure the broader premise that carbon markets will be a key component of a future agreement will have no foundation. Nor is it likely that these will be recast from scratch – it will just take too long.
By the end of the Copenhagen meeting we may well have some sort of announcement regarding international action, but if it doesn’t include something about the Kyoto Protocol, it’s future and the framework within which a new agreement will sit, it is hard to see how that new agreement will emerge at future meetings. Hard though it may be, Copenhagen is the time and place to deal with this issue.
Second, there must be clear recognition that the end-game requires all parties to adopt absolute targets, which means the focus must be on the transition for developing countries from their current status to a future one bound by emissions limits. For some countries such a move can come in the near future, for others it could be some decades away. Transitionary financial and capacity building measures will be critical.
Finally, an emissions reduction pathway must be agreed and devolved to national / regional level. Today there seems to be broad agreement that a two degree target is where the world is going, but this isn’t a compliance based target. At best it is a loose guideline for domestic action, but it is wide open to interpretation. Like it or not, the only thing we can control is the amount we emit and nothing else. With that done comes an adpatation strategy. So an agreement that confirms the two degrees but does little to translate it into a global emissions pathway is of limited value.
The reality is that we know what has to be done, we know the timeline we have to do it in and although there remains much room for innovation we also know we have the necessary technology base to deliver the required reductions.
There is no impediment remaining other than self interest and nationalism. These will have to be set to one side in Copenhagen and beyond.
When all is said and done, Copenhagen will almost certainly represent a landmark in the progressive shift to a global low carbon economy. Whether the final agreement is reached there or 6-12 months later is of little consequence, provided clear direction comes in December. We shouldn’t forget that the signing of the Kyoto Protocol led to many years of discussion and that the agreement itself was not finally ratified until 2005, some eight years later. Although we cannot wait eight years this time around, a delay into 2010 to allow a more substantive agreement to be reached is acceptable, perhaps even desirable given the current state of deliberations in the US Senate on the cap-and-trade bill.
But much still needs to be achieved in Copenhagen.
First, the delegations must reach agreement on overall structure. This is really an essential part of the process, but gets very little coverage in the media. The Kyoto Protocol has no formal end so the discussion regarding future commitment periods continues to roll on, but of course without the USA. In parallel, the AWG-LCA (Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action) is negotiating a text which could be adopted as a new international agreement – but what of the Kyoto Protocol if that were to happen. Many developing countries have reacted negatively to its demise, but equally it is unsustainable in its current form given the small number of countries with specific targets. This may have seemed appropriate when discussions commenced in 1992, but it is not an appropriate fit for the reality of today.
But the Kyoto Protocol shouldn’t just be discarded. The key elements that lay the foundation for a market based approach need to be extracted and adopted into the new structure. Without this infrastructure the broader premise that carbon markets will be a key component of a future agreement will have no foundation. Nor is it likely that these will be recast from scratch – it will just take too long.
By the end of the Copenhagen meeting we may well have some sort of announcement regarding international action, but if it doesn’t include something about the Kyoto Protocol, it’s future and the framework within which a new agreement will sit, it is hard to see how that new agreement will emerge at future meetings. Hard though it may be, Copenhagen is the time and place to deal with this issue.
Second, there must be clear recognition that the end-game requires all parties to adopt absolute targets, which means the focus must be on the transition for developing countries from their current status to a future one bound by emissions limits. For some countries such a move can come in the near future, for others it could be some decades away. Transitionary financial and capacity building measures will be critical.
Finally, an emissions reduction pathway must be agreed and devolved to national / regional level. Today there seems to be broad agreement that a two degree target is where the world is going, but this isn’t a compliance based target. At best it is a loose guideline for domestic action, but it is wide open to interpretation. Like it or not, the only thing we can control is the amount we emit and nothing else. With that done comes an adpatation strategy. So an agreement that confirms the two degrees but does little to translate it into a global emissions pathway is of limited value.
The reality is that we know what has to be done, we know the timeline we have to do it in and although there remains much room for innovation we also know we have the necessary technology base to deliver the required reductions.
There is no impediment remaining other than self interest and nationalism. These will have to be set to one side in Copenhagen and beyond.
Test your basic skills in economics
Greg Mankiew is one of the best economist world has ever produced. Here are three teasers from his blog.
# 1:
Only one firm produces and sells soccer balls in the country of Wiknam, and as the story begins, international trade in soccer balls is prohibited. The following equations describe the monopolist’s demand, marginal revenue, total cost, and marginal cost:
Demand: P = 10 – Q
Marginal Revenue: MR = 10 – 2Q
Total Cost: TC = 3 + Q + 0.5 Q^2
Marginal Cost: MC = 1 + Q
where Q is quantity and P is the price measured in Wiknamian dollars.
a. How many soccer balls does the monopolist produce? At what price are they sold? What is the monopolist’s profit?
b. One day, the King of Wiknam decrees that henceforth there will be free trade—either imports or exports— of soccer balls at the world price of $6. The firm is now a price taker. What happens to domestic production of soccer balls? To domestic consumption? Does Wiknam export or import soccer balls?
c. In our analysis of international trade in Chapter 9, a country becomes an exporter when the price without trade is below the world price and an importer when the price without trade is above the world price. Does that conclusion hold in your answers to parts (a) and (b)? Explain.
d. Suppose that the world price was not $6 but, instead, happened to be exactly the same as the domestic price without trade as determined in part (a). Would anything have changed when trade was permitted? Explain.
#2.
The town of Wiknam has 5 residents whose only activity is producing and consuming fish. They produce fish in two ways. Each person who works on a fish farm raises 2 fish per day. Each person who goes fishing in the town lake catches X fish per day. X depends on N, the number of residents fishing in the lake. In particular,
X = 6 – N.
Each resident is attracted to the job that pays more fish.
a. Why do you suppose that X, the productivity of each fisherman, falls as N, the number of fishermen, rises? What economic term would you use to describe the fish in the town lake? Would the same description apply to the fish from the farms? Explain.
b. The town’s Freedom Party thinks every individual should have the right to choose between fishing in the lake and farming without government interference. Under its policy, how many of the residents would fish in the lake and how many would work on fish farms? How many fish are produced?
c. The town’s Efficiency Party thinks Wiknam should produce as many fish as it can. To achieve this goal, how many of the residents should fish in the lake and how many should work on the farms? (Hint: Create a table that shows the number of fish produced—on farms, from the lake, and in total—for each N from 0 to 5.)
d. The Efficiency Party proposes achieving its goal by taxing each person fishing in the lake by an amount equal to T fish per day and distributing the proceeds equally among all Wiknam residents. Calculate the value of T that would yield the outcome you derived in part (c).
e. Compared with the Freedom Party’s hands-off policy, who benefits and who loses from the imposition of the Efficiency Party’s fishing tax?
#3.
# 1:
Only one firm produces and sells soccer balls in the country of Wiknam, and as the story begins, international trade in soccer balls is prohibited. The following equations describe the monopolist’s demand, marginal revenue, total cost, and marginal cost:
Demand: P = 10 – Q
Marginal Revenue: MR = 10 – 2Q
Total Cost: TC = 3 + Q + 0.5 Q^2
Marginal Cost: MC = 1 + Q
where Q is quantity and P is the price measured in Wiknamian dollars.
a. How many soccer balls does the monopolist produce? At what price are they sold? What is the monopolist’s profit?
b. One day, the King of Wiknam decrees that henceforth there will be free trade—either imports or exports— of soccer balls at the world price of $6. The firm is now a price taker. What happens to domestic production of soccer balls? To domestic consumption? Does Wiknam export or import soccer balls?
c. In our analysis of international trade in Chapter 9, a country becomes an exporter when the price without trade is below the world price and an importer when the price without trade is above the world price. Does that conclusion hold in your answers to parts (a) and (b)? Explain.
d. Suppose that the world price was not $6 but, instead, happened to be exactly the same as the domestic price without trade as determined in part (a). Would anything have changed when trade was permitted? Explain.
#2.
The town of Wiknam has 5 residents whose only activity is producing and consuming fish. They produce fish in two ways. Each person who works on a fish farm raises 2 fish per day. Each person who goes fishing in the town lake catches X fish per day. X depends on N, the number of residents fishing in the lake. In particular,
X = 6 – N.
Each resident is attracted to the job that pays more fish.
a. Why do you suppose that X, the productivity of each fisherman, falls as N, the number of fishermen, rises? What economic term would you use to describe the fish in the town lake? Would the same description apply to the fish from the farms? Explain.
b. The town’s Freedom Party thinks every individual should have the right to choose between fishing in the lake and farming without government interference. Under its policy, how many of the residents would fish in the lake and how many would work on fish farms? How many fish are produced?
c. The town’s Efficiency Party thinks Wiknam should produce as many fish as it can. To achieve this goal, how many of the residents should fish in the lake and how many should work on the farms? (Hint: Create a table that shows the number of fish produced—on farms, from the lake, and in total—for each N from 0 to 5.)
d. The Efficiency Party proposes achieving its goal by taxing each person fishing in the lake by an amount equal to T fish per day and distributing the proceeds equally among all Wiknam residents. Calculate the value of T that would yield the outcome you derived in part (c).
e. Compared with the Freedom Party’s hands-off policy, who benefits and who loses from the imposition of the Efficiency Party’s fishing tax?
#3.
A group of athletes are competing in a multi-day triathlon. They have a running race on day one, a swimming race on day two, and a biking race on day three. You know the order in which the eligible contestants finish each of the three components. From this information, you are asked to rank them in the overall competition. You are given the following conditions:
- The ordering of athletes should be transitive: If athlete A is ranked above athlete B, and athlete B is ranked above athlete C, then athlete A must rank above athlete C.
- If athlete A beats athlete B in all three races, athlete A should rank higher than athlete B.
- The rank ordering of any two athletes should not depend on whether a third athlete drops out of the competition just before the final ranking.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
In Bombay
I have been living in Bombay for last three weeks. I will share some of my observations during my short stay.
1. In the hustle and bustle of the city I found a gentleman wearing a tee shirt, reading, "R.K. , great place to learn and ... live." He was in his mid 30's.
2. This is the amount of Chetan Bhagat my Nokia 5300's lens could see:
3. It rains for 30 seconds at an interval of 10 minutes for a month or two.
I am in IIT, Bombay. In IIT, I have observed:
1. Mess food can be good.
2. I would like to call this place jungle. Trees are so big and heavy that those can save you from rain (only fr 20 seconds).
3. Inter hostel rivalries are very less.
4. IITs can have beautiful girls.
5. "Bombay is costly place" is myth.
6. People attend more than 80% classes. ( I wonder how and why!!)
1. In the hustle and bustle of the city I found a gentleman wearing a tee shirt, reading, "R.K. , great place to learn and ... live." He was in his mid 30's.
2. This is the amount of Chetan Bhagat my Nokia 5300's lens could see:
3. It rains for 30 seconds at an interval of 10 minutes for a month or two.I am in IIT, Bombay. In IIT, I have observed:
1. Mess food can be good.
2. I would like to call this place jungle. Trees are so big and heavy that those can save you from rain (only fr 20 seconds).
3. Inter hostel rivalries are very less.
4. IITs can have beautiful girls.
5. "Bombay is costly place" is myth.
6. People attend more than 80% classes. ( I wonder how and why!!)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Airtel's Marketing Strategy
Recently I have had a funny experience with Airtel. It was related to their Hello Tunes service. I used to use Another Brick in the Wall of Pink Floyd as my hello tune and it was so pathetic that in post of the phones it sounded horribly weired. So, I decided to drop the service by calling their customer care helpline number 121. Here goes the conversastion:
Airtel: Welcome to Airtel, my name is Reshmi. How can I help you?
Myself: Hi Reshmi, I want to discontinue the Hello Tunes service in my phone. Could you please tell me how can I do that?
Reshmi: May I know, sir, why do you want to discontinue it?
Myself: It's becoming too costly for me. 30 Rs. per month is no cheap for me.
Reshni: Sir, we can give you an offer. I will make you unsubscribed and subscribed to the same service and you will get the service for six months at a meagre cost of Rs 15.
Myself: Thank you for the offer, but currently I am unable to bear the cost.
Reshmi: Sir, for last three months you have been paying more than 600 Rs per month and 15 Rs is too low compared to that.
Myself: Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land.
Reshmi: I am sorry ?!#%$
Myself: Nothing. The tring tring sounds better to me than the Another Brick.
Reshmi: We have wide range of songs, sir.
Myself(rudely): I, simply, don't want that service.
Reshmi: OK Sir. Please type STOP and send it to 121.
Myself: Thank you.
I recalled my interview days. But her voice was sweeter than the people who interviewed me.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Why "Slumdog Millionaire", why not "Taare Zameen Par"
Why Slumdog Millionaire can win the oscar but Taare Zameen Par couldn't?
A. Slumdog's story is better and more inspiring.
B. It's a fluke.
C. Slumdog is not a bollywood movie.
D. The Slumdogs have successfully crossed the cultural barrier.
I cried after watching both the movies. I suggested people to watch both the movies. And I tag both the movies with "The movie you should watch before you die". I find both the stories larger than life.
And it's not alone I who was mesmerized by the performance of the casts, the directors and mostly the editors of both the movies. I say "editors" as you can't find a single moment in those movies when you find yourself bored. It is not only the stories which have to be good or outstanding for a movie to survive in the heart of the audience, but everything staring from actinng, costume, cinematography, music, sound, direction, editing have to be perfect, rather 'picture perfect'.
There is a trend for the academy award winners. Historically they have been inspiring movies. The first and foremost criteria (not official though) of a movie to win the Oscar is that it has to have a happy ending. The judges of the academy awards clearly defy the line from Shelly's poem, "sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought". Though there are exceptions. But here exceptions do not prove the rule.
Slumdog Millionaire, the film tells the story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on 'KaunBanega Crorepati?' But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show’s questions. Intrigued by Jamal’s story, the jaded Police Inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is really doing on this game show?When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out…
To me it is more of a thriller and adventure film than a romantic film. Different people will find different chemistry in this film. There have been only a few directors of bollywood who dared to show the killing of Innocent Muslims by the Hindu fundamentalists in India. Danny didn't have any problem to show that.
The real chemistry of the film, to me, was the English dialogs. People question the logic behind the accented dialogues from a slum dweller. Having had Hindi dialogues the film could not target the global audience. The director had to keep the English dialogues to make it reached to the maximum audience. Directed by an Englishman, funded by Europe, lead by a Hindi spoken Indian and the ending lying on an answer of a question based on a french novel is truly international in nature. The film crossed all the cultural barrier to reach the people of the world, not only the people of India. To me, this is the key to success of the film.
"Bizarrely Plausible!"
I can expect different line of thinking from the bollywood directors now onwards. This film is an eyeopener for them.
D. The Slumdogs have successfully crossed the cultural barrier.
Friday, October 3, 2008
The story so far
5th March 2028
Change is not the only constant. Choice is. It is choice that leads to action; it is action that causes change.
Day in and day out, choice is everywhere - the choice to be what we want to be, the choice to do what we want to do. Good and evil, light and darkness, wealth and penury, love and hate, happiness and sadness, are all nothing but the result of the choices we make. When we choose not to choose, we’ve made a choice. Life thus is nothing but a series of choices.
And we have to choose for ourselves, no one else does it for us. It is the ultimate freedom bestowed to a living organism, the freedom to choose, and no one can take that from him. Choice thus is supreme, it is all powerful.
No person believed in the power of choice more than Srijan. He was an ordinary young man, the kind we see all around. ‘Typical boy next door’, they called him. But he wanted more, he wanted it all. He had realized the power of choice. He chose to get what he wanted, and he did. Money, power, fame, love, all kissed his feet. Only, he lacked respect. And now, as the corporate tycoon lay tied up in the corner of the dilapidated warehouse, hungry, dirty and in pain, he looked back at the choices he had made, aware of the fact that he would have to make one of the most important ones of his life, very soon.
... for more info, please visit, www.ourownbook.com
Change is not the only constant. Choice is. It is choice that leads to action; it is action that causes change.
Day in and day out, choice is everywhere - the choice to be what we want to be, the choice to do what we want to do. Good and evil, light and darkness, wealth and penury, love and hate, happiness and sadness, are all nothing but the result of the choices we make. When we choose not to choose, we’ve made a choice. Life thus is nothing but a series of choices.
And we have to choose for ourselves, no one else does it for us. It is the ultimate freedom bestowed to a living organism, the freedom to choose, and no one can take that from him. Choice thus is supreme, it is all powerful.
No person believed in the power of choice more than Srijan. He was an ordinary young man, the kind we see all around. ‘Typical boy next door’, they called him. But he wanted more, he wanted it all. He had realized the power of choice. He chose to get what he wanted, and he did. Money, power, fame, love, all kissed his feet. Only, he lacked respect. And now, as the corporate tycoon lay tied up in the corner of the dilapidated warehouse, hungry, dirty and in pain, he looked back at the choices he had made, aware of the fact that he would have to make one of the most important ones of his life, very soon.
... for more info, please visit, www.ourownbook.com
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Who the hell invented the following phrases!!!
What are the meaning of the following words?
open secret
larger half
clearly confused
act naturally
alone together
Hell's Angels
found missing
liquid gas
civil engineer
deafening silence
seriously funny
living dead
Microsoft Works ( The best one !!)
military intelligence
jumbo shrimp
Advanced BASIC
tragic comedy
unbiased opinion
virtual reality
definite maybe
original copies
pretty ugly
same difference
plastic glasses
almost exactly
constant variable
even odds
minor crisis
extinct life
genuine imitation
exact estimate
only choice
freezer burn
free love
working holiday
rolling stop
The best of the lot
Great Depression
free trade
peacekeeper missile
sweet tart
crash landing
now then
butt head
sweet sorrow
student teacher
silent scream
taped live
alone together
good grief
tight slacks
living dead
near miss
light tanks
old news
hot chilli
criminal justice
peace force
open secret
larger half
clearly confused
act naturally
alone together
Hell's Angels
found missing
liquid gas
civil engineer
deafening silence
seriously funny
living dead
Microsoft Works ( The best one !!)
military intelligence
jumbo shrimp
Advanced BASIC
tragic comedy
unbiased opinion
virtual reality
definite maybe
original copies
pretty ugly
same difference
plastic glasses
almost exactly
constant variable
even odds
minor crisis
extinct life
genuine imitation
exact estimate
only choice
freezer burn
free love
working holiday
rolling stop
The best of the lot
Great Depression
free trade
peacekeeper missile
sweet tart
crash landing
now then
butt head
sweet sorrow
student teacher
silent scream
taped live
alone together
good grief
tight slacks
living dead
near miss
light tanks
old news
hot chilli
criminal justice
peace force
Monday, July 7, 2008
The gift of the magi
What do you gift in your friend's marriage? Necklace, ring, dresses, watch, greetings cards? Or more useful ones like Walkman, books, a pack of condom(believe me, these days people practice it!). Whatever you give they will perish over the flow of time. Whatever gift you give they can not be compared with the Taj Mahal neither they be compared to those given by the Magi, some two thousands years ago. By heart, we all are materialistic. Given an option, I bet, your heart will go for a diamond ring over myrrh. Men cares less about the gifts. They count money, no doubt.
This time, I had an opportunity to taste this human behavior. The subjects were my friends including myself.
There are several types of men in this world. There are various factors which make them different from the other. These factors include family background, education, financial condition etc. Since my subjects were from the families belonging to the same class of people(financially), other factors became predominant than this one. The combination of the factors can create several types of men, e.g. sober and extravagant. One can clearly see that these two characters are two different (and extreme) values of a particular parameter, it is not necessarily always true that a sober person is more educated, mentally stable, financially stout(and hence mentally) etc. but general trend follows this rule. In contrast, an extravagant can be depicted very easily. None of my subjects was of that extreme, I wish they would.
The second kind is more materialistic than the first one. This is just my observation. I don't want to draw any conclusion only from this observation as the sample space is too low to make any generalized rule. But I have come to conclude the following facts which have originated from my life long experience. I have been observing men, from a different perspective, right from my childhood.
Man is born greedy. A child wants to get a better toy than its brother or sister, a boy wants a willow bat as soon as he sees that with his friend, an adolescent boy wants a better girlfriend than anyone ever had, a grown up man wants a better car than his office colleague, an old man wants a bigger tomb over his graveyard than his ancestors ( Egypt's pyramids are the biggest examples) so on and on. These wish lists vary from the person to person with his soberness ( it is just a value of the above said parameter, one should not assume its literal meaning). Education, family back ground and the philosophy play a major role in this part. Since our childhood we have been taught to renounce than to take, we have been taught to help others but to oneself. As we grow up, surroundings warn us not to follow them, they say they are better to be at the books. As we become an adult, we circumspect and learn many more things. As we we grow older and older, the learning from our experience contradicts what we dreamt of in our early childhood. We become more and more selfish. So one must admit that education, surroundings and one's own observation play a major role in this part.
As we become more selfish, we become more materialistic. We develop a habit of taking than sacrificing. Hence we like our gifts to be more precious.
Some of us are blessed, not having too much disturbed by the surroundings and follow the ideologies developed by our ancestors. They still follow the values learnt at their childhood. They still believe that giving brings more happiness than to taking. They expect the gift to be more valuable that its 'value'.
The Magi were the wisest persons and hence were their gifts. But they don't exist today.
This time, I had an opportunity to taste this human behavior. The subjects were my friends including myself.
There are several types of men in this world. There are various factors which make them different from the other. These factors include family background, education, financial condition etc. Since my subjects were from the families belonging to the same class of people(financially), other factors became predominant than this one. The combination of the factors can create several types of men, e.g. sober and extravagant. One can clearly see that these two characters are two different (and extreme) values of a particular parameter, it is not necessarily always true that a sober person is more educated, mentally stable, financially stout(and hence mentally) etc. but general trend follows this rule. In contrast, an extravagant can be depicted very easily. None of my subjects was of that extreme, I wish they would.
The second kind is more materialistic than the first one. This is just my observation. I don't want to draw any conclusion only from this observation as the sample space is too low to make any generalized rule. But I have come to conclude the following facts which have originated from my life long experience. I have been observing men, from a different perspective, right from my childhood.
Man is born greedy. A child wants to get a better toy than its brother or sister, a boy wants a willow bat as soon as he sees that with his friend, an adolescent boy wants a better girlfriend than anyone ever had, a grown up man wants a better car than his office colleague, an old man wants a bigger tomb over his graveyard than his ancestors ( Egypt's pyramids are the biggest examples) so on and on. These wish lists vary from the person to person with his soberness ( it is just a value of the above said parameter, one should not assume its literal meaning). Education, family back ground and the philosophy play a major role in this part. Since our childhood we have been taught to renounce than to take, we have been taught to help others but to oneself. As we grow up, surroundings warn us not to follow them, they say they are better to be at the books. As we become an adult, we circumspect and learn many more things. As we we grow older and older, the learning from our experience contradicts what we dreamt of in our early childhood. We become more and more selfish. So one must admit that education, surroundings and one's own observation play a major role in this part.
As we become more selfish, we become more materialistic. We develop a habit of taking than sacrificing. Hence we like our gifts to be more precious.
Some of us are blessed, not having too much disturbed by the surroundings and follow the ideologies developed by our ancestors. They still follow the values learnt at their childhood. They still believe that giving brings more happiness than to taking. They expect the gift to be more valuable that its 'value'.
The Magi were the wisest persons and hence were their gifts. But they don't exist today.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
My little effort
When I was in my final year of post-graduation, I faced a hell lot of problem to prepare myself for the job interviews. It was my sheer luck that I could clear my very first interview to get a job, may be they were not in search of more qualified person than what I was.
Before the interview of this company, my CV was rejected by couple of others, partly because of the lack of my persistent academic career and partly because of my CV making incapability.
One summer has passed after that time, another is coming soon. Now when I retrospect those days, I feel, was there a CV-making-software, it would do much of my job, perhaps I could land up in a better job. I feel that there are thousands of people who not only need assistance in making a mere resume, but also need other aid to prepare themselves for getting a job or at least to face an interview. They need to develop their aptitude skill, enhance their skill to use correct words in correct sentences, need to practise some questionnaire.
I am willing to help them out. With my limited knowledge of web-development, I have started building a website, which will serve these needs, at least up to some extent.
The name of the site is JobGool. There one can practise aptitude test, vocabulary test, puzzles, sample interview questionnaire and last but not least making one's resume. Even they can discuss subjective matters with their peers and recruiters. There is also a forum called JobGool Zone , powered by SMF. It is a forum powered by
This site is not a job-search site.
The effort is still in the developing phase. This blog will be incomplete without thanking Rishabh. He is working along with me to bring my dream come true.
---
Anirban
JobGool Site
JobGool Zone
Before the interview of this company, my CV was rejected by couple of others, partly because of the lack of my persistent academic career and partly because of my CV making incapability.
One summer has passed after that time, another is coming soon. Now when I retrospect those days, I feel, was there a CV-making-software, it would do much of my job, perhaps I could land up in a better job. I feel that there are thousands of people who not only need assistance in making a mere resume, but also need other aid to prepare themselves for getting a job or at least to face an interview. They need to develop their aptitude skill, enhance their skill to use correct words in correct sentences, need to practise some questionnaire.
I am willing to help them out. With my limited knowledge of web-development, I have started building a website, which will serve these needs, at least up to some extent.
The name of the site is JobGool. There one can practise aptitude test, vocabulary test, puzzles, sample interview questionnaire and last but not least making one's resume. Even they can discuss subjective matters with their peers and recruiters. There is also a forum called JobGool Zone , powered by SMF. It is a forum powered by
This site is not a job-search site.
The effort is still in the developing phase. This blog will be incomplete without thanking Rishabh. He is working along with me to bring my dream come true.
---
Anirban
JobGool Site
JobGool Zone
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