Symbols/Icons - Then and Now!

Symbolism has come a full circle! All of us are aware that human beings started communicating with each other through symbols, apart from non-verbal communications. These symbolic representation of the objects, views etc are the first scripts. All the caves and places where the early human being lived have those symbols. These were in the form of carvings or lines or shapes drawn. These symbols were the first basis of communication for the human beings with others. Later, as the civilisation progressed language was invented and communication through languages took prominence. The prominence is such that languages overtook the symbols in such a way that thousands of languages took birth across the globe and continents. Even though languages took prominent seat for communication, symbols were not dumped altogether. Symbols continue to be part of the human communications. A symbol has become equivalent to thousand words. If one has to represent a country or civilisation, race or tribe, place or position, symbols continue to be part of communication. Several art forms (drawing, painting, drama, movie etc) too had symbols at their core depiction of the reality or surreality they were representing. Symbols played a prominent role in science and its development, by absorbing several greek and latin letters to depict some function of the science. For example, Pi, Alpha, beta etc… But all said and done these external symbols were restricted to literate and elite sections of the society. When the concept of organisation or a group of individuals working together for a common objective/mission took shape, the need for a common agreed symbol to tell others what the group is all about was strongly felt. Then organisations started having a symbol in the form of a logo. Nowadays organisations pay huge money to designt their logo. Some organisations pay huge royalty to use another organisation’s logo. When the modern gadgets such as computers were invented, text used to be driving force for programming language software such as COBOL, Fortran, Pascal etc though backed up by binary digital system. But the introduction of graphic user interface (GUI) and What you see is what you get (WYSIWIG) changed the interface with the computers. Operating system software such as Mac OS and Windows changed the way we use the computer software. For different computer functions different icons/symbols were designed and made part of the software. Through different input hardware such as mouse, joystick etc, the user need to click on the symbol/logo/icon to perform the computer operation that it is designed for. This made the computer usage very easy thing to do. So the software applications proliferated on these operating system platforms. The much famous MS Office software also has several icons. Most of the software manufacturers have more or less standardised though there were some deviations from the standardisation. The much recent electonic gadgets such as mobile phone initially used to have only text as the interface. Slowly mobile phone also became an arena where symbols have high visibility as well as high utility. It is not at all surprising to note that most of the modern day electronic gadgets have navigation paths facilitated by symbols and icons. This is against the general mis-conception that symbols and icons are only for illiterate. In these gadgets the symbols are not alone and they may also appear along with the text. The famous novel, later made into a movie, Davinci Code is also about symbols of old times. Thus it can be confidently said that symbols or icons continue to dominate human communication and action even though they are highly civilised and technical wizards.

Upheaval vs News Vs Upheaval

It is quite a known fact/trend that upheavals in economy or politics or social structures cause news. It is a modern trend that news cause upheavals in economy or politics or social structures. What could be the reasons that news cause such an upheaval? Experts cite reasons such as inter-linked economy/society. They also attribute to wide spread presence and growth of news based media of all sorts. As a person who is curious and obsessed about words and their possible influence on human beings, I first came to know about this word through Alvin Toffler, who is more than a writer, vide his writings/works. He used this word in the context of information and knowledge. When I read his works in the 90s, I never realised the importance of the context and relevance. He rather predicted/envisaged that there will be widespread media and plethora of options for the consumer. During 90s the office I used to work had only a Telex facility. They never had a fax facility. There was only one email node and to access that we had to go through many procedures. Only landline phones, with STD and trunk call facility. The information and knowledge sources were TV- only one channel, radio- only govt controlled one, newspapers, magazines, books and journals. So at that time I really wondered how can upheavals in news be there at all! Now with the ubiquitous presence of news sources such as mobile/smart phone/phablet, now I understand and realise how continuous supply of news backed up by solid demand, not necessarily subscribed/paid for by the user, mostly/may be paid up by a vested interest, may influence the mind of the news user. Sometimes it can have a devastating as well as a positive effect/influence. The emergence of social media has only further fuelled it. The expansion of TV into multiple and HD type channels just added thrust to the same. Mobile and internet convergence has reshaped the availability of the news across multiple nodes enabling the readers to access from any source. Anybody with an access to internet or related sources can access any information and knowledge in the public domain. Worldwide there were many incidences where the social media and news sources have fuelled social movements/upsurges. If the recent upheavals in Delhi rape case, Anti corruption movement are any indication, they proved that India is not immune to news creating upheavals. Thus news in an interlinked economy has potential to cause upheavals. But mostly these are viral in nature. Lately we have also realised that virality is not leading to long lasting results. But the situation in future would/may/likely to be much more dynamic, vibrant , chaotic and upsetting!

NACO advertisements- my view

The latest ads by National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) aimed at youth- to motivate them to get tested at the ICTCs - are slightly better than previous versions as the ads are snazzy! But the frequency/repetition of appearance in the Telugu channels at this point of calendar year is too much! May be they are looking at the winter season as a potential messaging time. But India is really a vast country! Paratha with butter may be related to only by selected youth population of South India- if the food item has any significance in the message! I am not being too cynical! They can introduce variations to suit South Indian youth audience, if their time and budget permits! On the whole there is quite an improvement in the way the message is being presented. Really appreciable!

on a marathon translation

On a massive marathon of translating a huge questionnaire from English to Telugu. Huge because the no of pages could be more than 200 pages! Now I understand my difficulty with my native/mother tongue as well as professional tongue! Luckily Google Translate is coming to my aid for word to word translation if not sentence to sentence translation! Mumbling the - Hum honge Kaamyab- silently and to the extent I remember. The song was later part of the first movie of N Chandra and Nana Patekar- "Ankush"- if I am not wrong! Reminded of the reciting of the same by most/many of our IRMA batch mates in the lawns of the campus- may be just after the convocation! Repenting why I did not sing properly at that time itself! The above mentioned huge questionnaire is part of an intensive research project of about 10 months implemented by University of Berkely, World Bank, Innovations for Poverty Actions, BMGF, Westat, DRS etc for SERP/IKP.

Vishwaroopam- my view and review

Vishwaroopam- where the North do nat necessarily meet the South! Yesterday I saw the movie Vishwaroopam in a movieplex in Hyderabad. The price I paid was Rs 30 towards the ticket and Rs 10 towards the parking charges. The movie was worth the viewing for the money I spent on the movie. But what about the people who spent Rs 100 and above?. First let us reflect on the reviews. The North Indian and Bollywood critics written the movie off. It got the ratings of 2 and odd out of 5. In the southern circuit it has got decent reviews/ratings of 3 and odd out of 5. One thing that I could notice is that the bollywood film circuit did not grow on Southern heroes such as Kamalahassan, Rajanikant like the southern circuit. During my days of youth and partly later I enjoyed watching Kamal for his versatility and experimentation with roles, that too with so much of ease. There are many admirers for him in the south. Having said that Kama needs to be faulted for his too much of experimentation. Vishwaroopam was made on a lavish scale and with huge budget and reasonably good technical values. For the story he might have depended on some original incidents, write-ups and related things. So far so good. Though Kamal has not been very well educated, he developed good understanding of modern science without loosing the sight of basic and simple science. Since the story unfolded in different situations & regions and at different timelines and as the pace is racy, we may not be able to identify the loopholes in the story very easily. But screenplay or the story can be ripped apart quite easily. At the end of the story I was quite clueless about the pigeon/ dove part. What exactly happened to stop the menace? There are many such loose ends in the story like that. Another example is that how he could come back to India from Afghanistan and moved to USA without the knowledge of FBI and other agencies? The final bomb in the climax is too silly to be dreaded with inverted test tubes and some sort of wires. Using the Farady grid (that too with electric oven) was too simplistic. He did the same for Dasavatharam- using the common/sea salt to curb the virus menace!. It may be his way of telling that simple solutions exist for complicated subjects/ problems. No doubt he has taken dramatic/ story telling/situation liberty to tell the story in the process hurting some people's sentiments. Kamal also should accept that people have their liberty to use the legal angle. He can no longer afford to have grudge against any of them. If he is financially hurt, the other communities might have sentimentally hurt. One can not wish away the scope of being hurt by both sides. While it is true that he made his money based on his his talent, histrionics- he can not deny that common people of all hues and cries paid for him through visits to the theater or watching on TV/DVD etc. It was their money which is legally in his kitty. In this movie the actor in Kamal Hassan is subdued and the director in could be seen more. One more saving grace this is not a song and dance drama. He raised so many questions than he answered. What is the final fate of Afghans that he left behind? But among the Indian movies shot in Afghanistan, that I have seen- Khuda Gawa, Kabul Express and this- this movie is definitely better- if not the best. The movie is worth seeing for Kamal fans like me! The critic in me is quite uneasy. My advice to kamal hassan would be to reduce the make-up and avoid multiple roles in any movie and rather focus on the drama, emotions and expressions. He may try the make up part only occasionally. This is one of the movies where the North may not necessarily meet the South!

The present political situation in AP

The present political situation in AP: From the trends so far available - surveys done by media agencies as well as political leaders- the scales are tilted towards YSR Congress Poverty to win the elections in 2014 -both for assembly as well as Parliament- with huge leads- the numbers are astonishing to say that YSRCP to get 194 assembly seats and 33 MP seats. We can't tell whether these predictions are true or not till 2014. But, as per the grapevine, Congress would not like to decide on Telangana as well as it is in not in a hurry. If things go from worse to worst they would again like to continue to procrastinate. If required, Congress would like to dissolve the assembly- in the case of many MLAs switch over to the Jagan camp/YSRCP party- and impose President' rule. And face 2014 elections! In the process people of Telangana are restless! Also Andhra people in Telangana are restless at the assaulting words hurled by some/selected Telangana leaders/ people! As somebody remarked some time back, God alone can save AP people from its murkier politics!

J/Yesudas- a singer par excellence - birthday wishes!

The first time I heard J/Yesudas was while watching the Hindi movie Chitchor in my native place. Then came the song "Devude Ichadu veedhi okati" from the Telugu movie Anthuleni Kadha. Somehow the mellifluous voice of Jesudas kept on lingering in my mind. His rendition of Telugu songs has always been soft as well as subtle. Many time it appears that he alone can sing sorrowful songs in Telugu so well. The HMV (His Masters' Voice) collection of Jesudas's Hindi songs in tape form almost made me slave of his his singing for about two decades. While his forte is sorrow and serious songs in Telugu, he rendered the romantic songs very well when backed up by lilting music. When it came to Telugu songs, language, its nuances, variations never bothered him and he appeared to have sung them effortlessly. One really wonders how a non-Telugu singer render Telugu songs with such a clarity, diction and softness! Devotional songs as well as atheist songs were equally well sung by him through out decades. There are many who try to sing in his way which shows his influence on Telugu songs! Many happy returns of the day to him and hope he continues to sing Telugu songs for many more years for many fans like me!

Mother tongue, professional tongue and tongue twisters!

Many times we are at loss with/for words- it could be with our mother tongue and/or professional tongue(English)! The morale from this article is to look for neighborhood tongues. The neighbours in this case could be located across oceans/continents also! It is already an established fact that English draws some of its words from other languages across the globe! Having said this, now the words mentioned in this article mostly are tongue twisters- so even if we understand the meaning, it is quite difficult to pronounce and use the same! Now we know how English, survives, thrives and thus spreads! Here, selected from the blog So Bad So Good, are some of my favorites: Age-otori (Japanese): To look worse after a haircut Arigata-meiwaku (Japanese): An act someone does for you that you didn't want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favor, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end social conventions required you to express gratitude Backpfeifengesicht (German): A face badly in need of a fist Forelsket (Norwegian): The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love Gigil (pronounced Gheegle; Filipino): The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute Litost (Czech): A state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery Manja (Malay): "To pamper," it describes gooey, childlike, and coquettish behavior by women designed to elicit sympathy or pampering by men Pena ajena (Mexican Spanish): The embarrassment you feel watching someone else's humiliation Sgriob (Gaelic): The itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whisky Tatemae and Honne (Japanese): What you pretend to believe and what you actually believe, respectively Tingo (Pascuense language of Easter Island): To borrow objects one by one from a neighbor's house until there is nothing left Waldeinsamkeit (German): The feeling of being alone in the woods

Dairying and dairy industry: my on and off involvement in its practice, the profession, politics and policy

I realise that my association with dairying is almost 4 decades old. It started during my childhood. During my childhood we used to have both buffaloes and cows. As elder one of my brothers and sisters, I used to take care of the cattle with the help of an attendant. This used to involve taking the cattle to the nearby canal for washing, feeding them grass as well as powder brawn with water, going to our farm field to cut green grass, milking them, taking care of the calves and occasional visit for the breeding services provider. We used to have an attendant who did the daily chores. My responsibility included overseeing his work and when he was absent my tasks were to do his duty. My mother and myself used to share some of the work. Using the cattle dung, me and my mother used to prepare dung cakes which involves pressing and softening the dung through mixing water and dancing/stamping on the pile of dung. Later these were prepared into cakes and pasted on the wall for drying. After these cakes are dried, we used to use them for heating water for bathing and preparing food etc. There were some gobar gas units in the village but we never tried as we never had more than 2 to 3 cattle. Providing drinking water to the cattle involved taking water from the well through buckets by using a rope on a rotating metal/wooden wheel. In summer, drawing such huge quantities of water is really hard work. Among the cattle we even had one jersey cow. As we grew, we found it difficult to maintain the cattle and got rid of them. one of the reasons is the difficulty in getting an attendant. While attending to these duties, I also gave importance to my studies where I used to get decent percentage and there was not much to complain. I never realised this childhood tasks would give me strong bonding with the Dairy industry at later stages of my life. After my Intermediate in my native village (Vuyyuru), I moved to Kurnool for my Degree(3 years 1981-84), then to Hyderabad for my DCA (1 year- 1984-85), then to Anand for study at IRMA(PGDRM- 1985-87). My association with dairying and dairy industry re-started with my admission into IRMA. Before the course started itself, we were taken to Amul dairy facotory/plant, the village milk collection cooperatives, the cattlefeed factory in Kanjari along with big silos etc. Appeared to be good. Then as part of the classroom sessions there were several case studies (typical management education pattern), concept notes, quzzes, statistical calculations, strategic exercises etc involving all sorts of management theory and practice such as HR, finance, strategy, production/operations, quantitative techniques, micro/macro economics etc. Then as part of one of the three project works, I have chosen to work with Amul along with one of my classmates with whom/whose organisation, I am associated (even)now. The topic was to look at the possibility of decentralising Kapadwanj and other chilling centres under the Amul fold. We chose to do the project for Amul for a different reason which is not relevant now. This is the last project of the three projects we are supposed to carry out as part of the curriculum. Though my contribution to the project was less, we could complete the report within time. Then the time came for campus recruitment. Only Amul gave me an offer of appointment though my preference was not exactly Amul. Since I had to start somehwere and I cant be jobless, took the offer and joined amul in April 1987. My work with Amul involved working with basically Production (Milk products) department or Factory, Cattlefeed factory, Societies division and to a little extent Quality Control division and Technical Services division. Since I wanted to do computer related work in the organisation, I was doing all sorts of number crunching in different divisions of Amul. In production division it was mostly related to analysis of milk arrived at the factory using Lotus 123 and dBase. I was also looking at the quality aspects some of the products such as butter, ghee etc. Then I was placed in Kanjari Cattlefeed factory, 20 kms away from Anand. I was staying in the Quarters and analysing the usage of raw material from the linear programming and OR point of view. The smell of cattlefeed factory premises is such that it always remained in my mind for long time. Then I worked in Societies division again looking at the number crunching aspects using computer software Lotus 123 and dbase III+ for a variety of needs such as to understand the sourage of milk, apportioning the scarce cattlefeed to the socities based on their milk procurement so on and so forth. Sometime in 1989 I left Amul in a hurry. After an year or so I joined Tata Consultancy Services first in Chennai and then moved to Hyderabad. During the 5 years I was with TCS I did not do anything related to dairy Industry. But I saw the world changing during this period. Liberalisation was initiated. In the process the Union government introduced Milk and Milk Products Order. This was vehemently opposed by the gods and goddesses of milk cooperatives. One prominent statement from the God was- "Tatas can not set up a dairy". In Apr/June 1995 the Government of Andhra Pradesh enacted a liberal cooperative law called MACS Act. In Dec 1995 I joined the organisation, Cooperative Development Foundation which drafted the MACS Act for the AP government and my responsibility to propagate and popularise the law within AP among several stakeholders. After an year or so the dairy cooperative promoters started showing in the legislation and its adoption- basically conversion from the old 1964 platform to the new MACS act platform. Thus I started getting involved in the dairy industry. In the process I attended the General Body, board, core task group meetings of Sangam dairy (Gunturu). Krishna dairy and Vizag dairy for preparing the resolutions, bye-laws, providing clarifications etc. The heads of these three unions were leaders of the Telugu Desam party. Thus got involved with local level politicians and some amount of local politicking too! After that, CDF also started showing interest in promoting women dairy cooperatives under MACS legislation in Karimnagar district to start with. I was involved in the initial potential survey to some extent. After 1999, again now in 2012-13, I got an opportunity to take part in the National Dairy Plan through DRS. This involves local field survey in rural areas especially with dairy farmers to understand their production patterns, constraints, whether enabling environment exists for cattle rearing, grazing, fodder, animal health and husbandry, breeding, milk procurement and collection etc. It is almost a kind of full circle. I dont know whether it is due to my childhood familiarity or my formal rural management qualification, dairy continues to touchbase with me whether intended or intended. But finally I cant resist myself from comparing myself with the situation of the lead character in Herman Hesse's work "Siddhartha" where he comes across the persons and places, even after passing of several years.

Genetics and genetically modified- Right vs wrong?

Volte-face, turnabout, changing tracks, going back on one's words- so several words to describe the vouching for GMOs. It is plain common sense -from the food production, hunger etc perspective GMO definitely make sense! From the input and production cost and proprietary ownership point of view GM may not make sense to the farmers! Ultimately we, the educated and having knowledge, are confusing the farmers on several fronts for so long! I am sure the debate will continue for generations to come- and every one concerned would be proved right and wrong only partially! If you fear genetically modified food, you may have Mark Lynas to thank. By his own reckoning, British environmentalist helped spur the anti-GMO movement in the mid-‘90s, arguing as recently at 2008 that big corporations’ selfish greed would threaten the health of both people and the Earth. Thanks to the efforts of Lynas and people like him, governments around the world—especially in Western Europe, Asia, and Africa—have hobbled GM research, and NGOs like Greenpeace have spurned donations of genetically modified foods. But Lynas has changed his mind—and he’s not being quiet about it. On Thursday at the Oxford Farming Conference, Lynas delivered a blunt address: He got GMOs wrong. According to the version of his remarks posted online (as yet, there’s no video or transcript of the actual delivery), he opened with a bang: I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment. As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely. So I guess you’ll be wondering—what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? Well, the answer is fairly simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist. His honest assessment of his heretofore poor understanding of the issue continues for almost 5,000 words—and it’s a must-read for anyone who has ever hesitated over conventional produce. To vilify GMOs is to be as anti-science as climate-change deniers, he says. To feed a growing world population (with an exploding middle class demanding more and better-quality food), we must take advantage of all the technology available to us, including GMOs. To insist on “natural” agriculture and livestock is to doom people to starvation, and there’s no logical reason to prefer the old ways, either. Moreover, the reason why big companies dominate the industry is that anti-GMO activists and policymakers have made it too difficult for small startups to enter the field.

Annoying words?

Annoying and irritating words? Words do have power! Words do have connotations too! They can have good and bad connotation! As words gain significance and popularity, they get added to the dictionaries. As products and organizations have life cycles, words too may have life cycles. After initial euphoria and novelty, with the introduction of new alternative words and phrases, some old words get outshined and outlived. With regard to negative connotation, some words get negative connotation and prove to be annoying and irritating! Today’s Telugu (again a Telugu one) newspaper reported that the Britishers/UK citizens got bored of some words and their meaning found them irritating and annoying! Some of those annoying and irritating English words for 2012 are: Fiscal Cliff Guru Spoiler alert Kick the can down the road Double down Job creator/ creation Bucket list Trending Super food Boneless wings And the ultimate acronym YOLO “You Only Live Once” I am sure that Indians will definitely agree with their counterparts in UK about the word “YOLO”, as we in India always believe in re-birth as well as reincarnations! On the contrary, Indians may be quite upset about the negative feeling about “Guru” as expressed by the Britishers ! Basically I don’t know meaning of some of the above words! I am quite annoyed about myself about this poor word power on my part!

New year greetings and greetings beyond 2013

Lets make the best of our rest of the life! New year greetings for 2013!