Whatever's LEFT

With the election results coming in, democratic resentment to corruption and lack of development seem to have reached a new high. The results of the two states, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where the opposition romped home by massive margins can be summed up in Oscar Wilde's words: "Moderation is a fatal thing, nothing succeeds like excess."

A change in the government doesn't necessarily mean better governance. Corruption is systematic and almost shares a symbiotic relationship with anything to do with administration and governance in India. Its difficult not to be corrupt. What can be hoped for is a best-effort development model without wasting too much time on changing the system of corruption. It is a culture and we share a love-hate relationship with it.

If you have fudged your tax returns or bribed 5 bucks to get your certificates done faster, you too are part of it. Quoting from one of Vivek Wadhwa's posts - "Once you start compromising your values for short-term gains, there is no turning back." So lets be complacent, tweet about problems facing us, hold some candles and wait for someone to clean up our mess.

As if Rebecca Black wasn't enough of funfunfunfun, some people decided to leave their mark on Bangalore, literally. I just happened to pass by Church Street in Bangalore and got the below captures yesterday but now its back to an ideal street, thanks probably to some Ugly Indians.

Don't know what's Left of them now

The longest standing democratically elected communist government does sound hysterical but now it is history. Never really lived under socialism, but reading from history it seems like an excess dose of it is not too good. China is a good example of practicing capitalists, ideological socialists. Ideology is only good for speeches and as long as you don't practice what you preach.

The Joker is back

What a grin! I bet its the Joker who along with Batman made a lot of Box office money.

A Naxalite or is she just being human?

I don't really know how it feels living in a Naxal area. Some say they are oppressed and just fighting for their freedom. Their violence is wrong but probably they just can't be complacent with the government we elect. Lets hope the left get it right and everyone is happy. Whoever did the street art stencil, good job! But alas, democracy still triumphs even if it makes a lot of people unhappy. Some advice -Drop your weapon, attend an anger management course and find a the root of your problem (or a better job).

A victim and a hero

Binayak Sen, a doctor by profession operating a non-profit to provide healthcare in rural areas, some of which also happen to be naxal infected (Infection is not a very nice word here, but even Love is infectious, so !) was arrested on charges of sedition by the government some time back. Country wide protests, support from international bodies like Amnesty and the UN made the Supreme court release him on bail. A mark of protest remains dormant now.

Loo Grafitti

Every wall is not a Berlin wall, yet has its own story. Wonder what this one would have to say if one were to write its autobiography.

Its amazing how a city has a life in places you wouldn't really care to look. So if you are bored to death, just try discovering life in nooks and corners of your house. You can expect to get Bangalored.

Danke Schön

Heute ist mein letzter Tag hier in Augsburg, ich möchte all jenen danken, die dazu beigetragen, dass dieses eines der besten Erfahrung, die ich je hatte.
(You guessed it right, two months here and all German I know is .......... this much!)

Kinder

Kidos

I met all kinds of them here; the big, the small, the naughty, the budhas, the mowglis, cindrellas, all disney characters.... The best part was having a kindergarten right next to where I live and be defeated while playing football with them. :P

Universitat Augsburg

University lake

I spent most of my time here in amazing company of people at the software engineering department working on my organic computing project and learning plenty new stuff which I can broadly classify into layman keywords like robots, simulations, traffic, manufacturing systems, touch screen computing (Microsoft Surfaces), safety and everything else that you can connect with them. I would thank Prof Reif (Even though he had been all over the world and I met him like 2-3 times only , that was adequate) and the DAAD for the opportunity and of course Mr. Khaldy and his team for the Berlin 'towel' trip.

University lakeside 2

The university did provide a lot of glimpses into European culture as the above picture does not illustrate. I added Mexico and Turkey to the places i would go to and met people from Central Asia (China,Japan, Kazakhastan, Afghanistan,Pakistan, Iran,Palestine, Iraq, Turkey,...), Eastern Europe (Hungary, Romania, Russia,...), Africa, North America (Canada and U.S ob), North pole (Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Eskimoes,.. ) , Australia, Honululu and of course my favorite being South America (Mexico :P and maybe venezuela, Brazil, ...). Apart from the numerous Barbeque parties, the picnics, hikes and trips I learned a lot of history from all the discussions and deliberations with Mathhias, Frank, Jan-Philip, Nina, Hella, Flo, Simon, Kurt, Alwin, Andrea & Andreas, Michael,... and yeah thank you all for the amazing company!

And my interest in all kinds of Flora and Fauna, animals and birds helped me gather knowledge like which animal is responsible for the maximum number of deaths in Germany.

Rhinos!

Nein, it wasn't that mean looking creature, but rather the cute looking Hippo!

The very efficient and exorbitant transport system constituting the trams, S-bahns( Surface trains) and U-bahns (Underground metros), buses that are long enough to be mistaken for trains and the Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Volkswagen, Volvo (which the entire world knows about and they come from here!), Toyotas and Suzuki's and people being impressed by the Nano and yet guzzling gears on their sedans on the AutoBahn @240km/hr with ease. The bicycle friendly roads with streets and signals especially meant for riding bicycles and the routes along the rapids which are used for the Kayaking World Championships constructed during the Munich Olympics 1972.

Trams in Augsburg

The Food which I still am not able to name but was amazingly delicious, the desserts and chocolates and icecreams and the Turkish food I discovered just recently and not to forget the Italian Pizza's which were cheaper than bananas and water made sure I got my daily bread and butter: milch brot and chocolate cream to be precise. I also had my fair share of cooking and burning my taste buds with the chilli powder and garam masala added to camouflage the taste of the food.(Mayonnaise and Sauce too helped :P)

There are too many things here to thank, the friends on gtalk, facebook and orkut who stood by me in all those times of 'imboredandineedyoutoentertainmesomehow!'.India is famous and for plenty of reasons as you can see from the city gallery shop above.However what came as a bigger surprise is below:



Well i had met people who had been to Goa and loved it and rest who were curious about its beaches and spirituality (!?). Well I love Goa for my own reasons but nevertheless I had people who shared common objectives here too. That's some globalization!

..and yeah not to forget the costliest smses I had to send for both silly and sweet reasons.Thanks :)

So Danke Schön, Auf Wiedersehen.

Chao

See you in Goa :)

Pratik Mandrekar

Power Politics

After spending two months at BARC ,amid all the hooplah over the nuclear deal and watching uncommon ground where Dr. Pachauri and Mukesh Ambani expressed themselves I think I am in a better position to comment on India's Energy future more than 60% of the MP's during that vote of confidence motion(I still liked the way Omar Abdullah,Pranab Mukherjee and even Laloo Prasad Yadav and L K Advani spoke :P).

First the Nuclear Deal:I read the IAEA draft and the following were my observations-

1)The draft at any point does not speak about our military establishments but only those reactors that would be used for civilian purposes.

2)USA has a right to invoke the Hyde Act which would lead to the deal being withdrawn but,

i)When a nuclear reactor is built,the entire supply of nuclear fuel is stored with the reactor which means that even if the deal is off, our reactors for civilian purposes are safe and productive and the NSG can still supply us fuel for future reactors if they want to(..but maybe they won't fearing the US)

ii)The Hyde Act is a domestic act made to ensure the sovereignity and internal US security and any action that will be taken against India has to follow International procedures and India can have its own version of the Hyde Act which clearly proves that India will at no point be dependent on the USA or the NSG or that there would not be a Pokhran III.

3)China has already made a similar deal with the USA..the text is almost similar..except for the line where it says that both US and China would mutually agree to cut off the deal if the need arises to say so.India is lobbying for a similar clause even though we have a less explicit line in the IAEA draft for the 123.

4)Even though the nuclear energy produced would contribute only 5-6% of our requirements in 2050..that amount is huge enough to offset the current type of load shedding happening in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh and considering Inflation and depleting crude it seems an Intelligent choice.

5)Politics is a game in which politicians never lose.


So in the end, What do you think about it?


Secondly India's and the world's Energy future:

Being at the undergraduate level I couldn't exactly do anything much about my ideas to build a graphene based solar device or graphene transistors(Graphene is the one dimensional allotrope of Carbon) or even work on microalgae that I can get from my neighbourhood beach and build a photobioreactor(Well it basically uses algae to produce biodiesel) but I could surely write on it.When Dr. Pachauri and Mukesh Ambani spoke, it was clear that alternative energy is soon (10-20 years!) going to become mainstream energy.How?

Consider the market side of it: Reliance Investing in Solar RnD and starting production in Maharashtra,Tulsi Tanti's Suzlon making billions out of air(wind!),Bio Diesel(Both the good one and the bad one) playing a significant role in Inflation due to food shortage and wasteland development respectively and the Carbon credits.Doesn't it look like an energy Rennaissance in the making?

Now the politics part of it:Rich countries already have polluted and developed...now when its time for the not so developed ones, they need to pay us not to pollute(Proof: The Kyoto Protocol,the recent Bali meet and even the deadlocked WTO talks),the Tata nano boon-bane story is all about connecting the policy making people directly with the 'Aam aadmi'.


All the above Information overload will surely consume a significant portion of your energy needs but just to sum it all up for an enginner, its a new interesting emerging vocation and for the person right now reading this blog with the AC on (despite the monsoons outside ur window) and the monitor at full brightness, just close your comp and sleep for a better sleep 20 years later :P