Lost Gardens of my City

I was born and brought up in a small city, which was sparsely populated, where just a few houses had the third floor. The common trait of my city was that most of the homes used to have a garden or a lawn, which were needed to be crossed while entering the homes. The guests and neighbors were welcomed with colorful flowers, lush dewy grass, dense green shrubs, shady tall trees along with the symphony of cock-a-doodle-doo and chatter of birds nestling around. With the increasing population, the demand and cost of land accelerated making the home gardens less important.  The gardens and lawns are rare in urban India now. However, there are still some astute people who have preserved their green havens.


During my wonder years, I used to play with my siblings and friends in the garden. There was a sexagenarian gardener whom we call Hemuda appointed to take care of plants. On his daily visits to our gardens, he repeatedly cautions us against damaging any plants. During his leisure time, he was fond of narrating stories and fables in which plants were either the protagonist or the most integral part. He has wast experience on plant care and gives various tips in vernacular dialect for better gardening to nature lovers.


He used to reveal a lively garden should have numerous kinds of health plans consist of grass, herbs, shrubs, bushes, and trees. One needs to be very prudent and well-informed while selecting plants for his garden. It is very important to consider the quality of soil, climatic condition of the city, type of fertilizers used, water availability, rainfall, worms and bugs, besides various other factors before setting up a garden. To cultivate a garden, one may start with plants that are easy to grow and maintain. One can grow the plants either from seeds or from seedlings.


Various types of plants need a specific supply of water. Some need more and some less. Any variation can hamper the quality and life of the plant. Check the moisture of the soil and humidity level of the garden. If there is enough moisture available and there is no summer season then you could just give a sprinkle; otherwise, watering plants regularly, at least once a day, is mandatory.  Make sure that the soil of the garden is not soggy for longer periods that could make it dry between watering sessions. The dawn, time just before the sunrise, is the optimum condition for plants to photosynthesize and the best time to water the plants. 


For the plants to remain healthy, grown fruits or flowers and retain their texture, sunlight plays a pivotal role. Plants need at least six hours of direct sunlight in a day. Ensure that all the plants get direct sunlight available during the daytime.


Get a soil test for your garden to know its quantum of fertility and to ascertain its physical composition and nature. Test, if the soil is acidic, basic or neutral and if any additional fertilizers are needed.  Most garden plants need to be fertilized once a month. Just like humans, plants too need a balanced diet of potassium, phosphorous, nitrogen, or any well-decomposed organic fertilizer. For brightness and leafy shine, weekly spraying of soil fertilizer or organic liquid is advised.


Pruning weeds is necessary to remove unwanted diseased and non-reproducing plants from the garden, especially during the flowering season. Pruning must be done systematically to maintain the aesthetic value of the garden.   Remove the dead or yellowing leaves from the plant. Cut off the wild, thorny, out-of-shape branches and weeds at least twice a month.

Book Review - Walking the Himalayas by Levison Wood

After the grand success of his début adventure travelogue: Walking the Nile, followed by Walking in the Amazon; Levison Wood has penned his third adventure expedition: Walking the Himalayas (ISBN: 9781473626249).  The book was published on 14 Jan 2016 and has 304 pages written in impeccable British English.  A personal account of his excursion of walking 1700 miles, starting from Afghanistan, tracking mountainous tracks through Pakistan, India, Nepal up to Bhutan covering the entire Himalayan range. In his breakthrough journey, accompanied by his local guides, he met several aboriginal people: farmers, porters, peasants, shepherds, soldiers, smugglers and so on. He discovered several secrete stories, concepts and practices that were not hitherto known to the modern world. Crossing numerous valleys, hillocks, snow-clad peaks, palisades and rivers, he uncovered obscured history of the Himalayas, interprets the geographical contributions of the region and its effects on the surrounding climate and topography.

Traveling on foot, following the path of the great explorers of the ancient silk route, he got a glimpse of the local customs, traditions and their inherited legacy from their ancestors who have migrated centuries ago to those places from the far-off lands. He stayed with natives in their homes and huts, dined with them, tasted various dishes cooked using indigenous ingredients. Showing the world how adventurous and audacious life is, in the remote and isolated part of our lonely planet.

Walking the Himalayas is a marvelous travelogue. Reading it gives a feeling of being part of Levison’s voyage. His words have sound as if you are listening to the voice of birds, the noise of the jungle, the rhythm of a river, and the silence of the snow.  A must-read for explorers, mountaineers, backpackers, globetrotters and anyone who loves adventure and travel. 

4G Launch in India and its impacts

For most of the internet users, speed has been a major concern in India. It might be due to diverse reasons like shortage of bandwidth, quality of lines, the absence of fiber optics, the location of the user, and so on.  Soon India will have the next generation of internet, known as fourth generation (4G).  Two companies, Airtel and Reliance Jio, have separately launched their pilot 4G projects in several cities across the nation. It will be an improved version, where Internet speed goes five times faster than the current (3G) version, offering stronger internet connection with uniformed speed throughout the browsing session.


The major reason why 4G will be faster because it works on OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) a superior technology than TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) used presently by 3G. The impact of 4G in our life will be amazing. It will drastically change the way we use the net and open various unexplored avenues which were henceforth not even imagined.  


Business & E-commerce: 4G technology is set to reinvent innovative business strategies for all commercial setups by adopting Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks in their organizations, especially E-commerce companies.  4G will eliminate most of the issues faced by business, such as slow Internet speeds, frequent disconnection, network congestion and most important payments timing out. It will make surfing experience more pleasant and transactions more secure. The new technology will also make the staff more productive due to faster exaction and timely administration. More companies will adopt the concept of work-from-home and many other mobile working policies for their employees, ceasing the hassles of commuting. It will also augment job creation for the people of diverse qualifications, who are residing at places where employment opportunities are limited.


Government and civic services: 4G would enable government and civil authorities to share and distribute useful information about policies and services among targeted audience more rapidly, at lower costs, to the large population spread across the vast geographical regions of the country. It will also be easier and faster for the federal and central departments and ministries to collect the required data in order to form and implement innumerable programs. Due to the speed and transparency, 4G would check inefficiency and corruption prevalent in the system.


Economy and Market: 4G technology will fuel India’s GDP and enhance her share in international business by interconnecting to an advanced global infrastructure. It would benefit the nation’s economy by being at par with developed countries of the world, which have already migrated to the 4G technology. Indian financial markets will function more efficiently with the faster availability of data and information of diverse international indices, resulting in more long-term investments from FIIs, FPI, foreign banks and investment funds. 


For Citizens: People will get lightning downloading speed and high-speed browsing even in the remote regions of the country. They will be able to do high data transfer in lesser time, can watch big movies and tubes without buffering. Majority of people will switch to smartphones and tablets, making basic phone obsolete as landlines. Families who have their sons, daughters, relatives and friends in foreign countries will be able to do high-definition video conferencing and video calling, using VoIP from their mobiles and which will be free from any call-drop, compromised audio quality or blurred images. Citizens will have a better quality of life with improved 24x7connectivity. The cost of data will be reduced making it more affordable for price-sensitive markets like India. 

E-learning apps for education in India

From residing in gurukuls under the supervision of gurus; to Macaulay’s colonial schooling system, to using ICT (information and communication technology), the Indian education and learning system has been transformed in a great way. With the advancement of technology, various new techniques of learning are being developed.

E-learning apps are one such innovation; where anyone can access the required knowledge, and information using portable platforms like a smartphone, a tablet etc. These learning applications are boon for the modern generation who are unable to go to the regular classes due to the paucity of time or be in front of their computers on a specific schedule. It eliminates the need for fixed time, to attain classes; learned teachers who are punctual or labour of carrying voluminous books and journals. 

In fact, the advancement of E-learning apps, with more effective use of technologies, has transformed the pedagogy from the teacher-centric classrooms, lessening all its physical, social and economic limitations, to a more pragmatic and integrated level of learning in the most favorable environment.

For a geographically vast, linguistically diverse and economically developing nation like India, E-learning apps are very beneficial to enhance learning and teaching. Indian education system is marred by lack and absenteeism of qualified teachers. By using an E-learning application a substantial number of pupils can be educated simultaneously. So a single E-learning app. can fulfill the need of hundreds of teachers and scores of classrooms.

E-learning apps simplify the need for expensive study material, manuals and books to be provided to each student individually. Any student can access the learning material via a handy device and can surf all the desired information available at that point in time. The communicative E-learning offers Interactive education and promotes quality studies for students.

However, every new technology has demerits too. Use of E-Learning apps will reduce employment for regular teachers. Students might feel disinterested or get confused due to lack of motivation or human interaction. Poor technical infrastructure and high internet cost can limit its acceptability among some sections of the society.

Investment Strategy

The most common paradox we often come across is: money does not bring happiness. Then why, since time immemorial, people from different civilizations, continents, customs and religions desire to be affluent, prosperous and wealthy? Money is not everything in the world! Definitely, there are many things, much more important than money, like our health, family and people we love and respect. Even then, money is and had been, the vital factor in all the ages to manage most of our wants, needs and desires.

People who say the money could never buy happiness are those who either don’t have the money or are those who have it but do not know how to properly utilize it. The best utilization of money is to invest. Investment is important for an opulent present and well-maintained future life, free from financial worries.

For the success of every mission, a strategy is required. To get the economic freedom and to be self-sufficient, one has to adopt prudent investment strategy. The strategy mirrors various internal and external factors such as present income, the type of work and industry, age, education, mindset, risk tolerance and so on. There are various avenues of investments: art, antiques, business, property, equity and so on.

However, historically proven, investment in equity yields higher returns provided we have judiciously planned our portfolio. Equity investment means buying shares of a specific company with the expectation of generating wealth through dividends, capital gains and appreciation in the price of shares. The role of the investor is to provide the requisite funds to the company, with the assurance of receiving a proportionate percentage of profit.

The investment strategy is associated with various risks. We should properly understand several kinds and forms of risks before investing. The most widespread risk is speculation and emotions. Speculation means investing in equities and/or derivatives on the tips from friends, relatives, guests on business channels, etc. expecting a quick windfall profit. Understand, that even the most visionary and experienced investment guru like Marc Faber acknowledges that timing the market is the most difficult task and requires lots of experience, expertise and data. Every investment decisions should be based on proper research conducted by competent analysts. Once should take their advice and ask as many questions in order to clear any doubts whatsoever.

The most successful investment strategy, adopted by Berkshire Hathaway's chairman Mr. Warren Buffett is value investing. Try to accumulate shares of companies that are available at tangible book value, are traded at lower than their book value, have low PE (price to earnings) ratio, with high dividend yields. Value stocks outperform the market in a long run, provided we do not let our emotions play any role in our investments decisions. No greedy buying, no panic selling, no speculations, not following herd mentality i.e. buying or selling because one of our acquaintances is doing so. 

We should always diversify our portfolio backed by solid research conducted by proficient professionals of a qualified fund house offering PMS services with a good track record. Never forget to periodically monitor and evaluate the returns of the portfolio. Check, if it is going steady with the market and the benchmark index and your investment goals.

Always keep in mind that our money should work as hard as we do and if the portfolio is not keeping pace with the expectation, do not shy to reshuffle the investments. Remember, at the end of the day, we are fully responsible for the profit or loss, so be shrewd and prudent. Get rich soon.

Anglophobia

Hindi Divas is celebrated in India on 14 September every year. On this day,  Hindi (Devanagari script) was adopted as the official language of the Republic of India by the Constituent Assembly. Since that day most of the Hindi newspaper dislike English as a language of communication amongst (elite) citizens of our country.

Just like some of us do not know good English, we criticize it on the pretext that this is the language of imperial power that enslaved and partitioned our country. Please come out of history and live in the present world.

You believe it or not, today, English is used in business, economics, politics, scientific discoveries, technological innovations and so on and in spite of its regarded unscientific by Hindi scholars, it is one of the richest languages with more than 600,000+ (as per the Oxford Dictionary) excluding medical, engineering, technical and other scientific terms.

It is good that you advocate Hindi and want it to be a national language of India, along with several vernacular languages spoken in various states. However, just like Gujarati, Marathi or Tamil, English is also state language of Nagaland. In 1967, the state Assembly of Nagaland had proclaimed English as their official language; and you must be aware that Nagaland is an integral part of India.

The contrast between English and our vernacular dialects is our failure to assimilate the foreign words in our vocabulary or coining relevant words for enriching our own language, making it more relevant to modern inventions and discoveries. We don’t want to shun our historic purity of conversation; anything alien is bad for us.

May I ask, the medium of your children's education?

Nuclear Liability in India

Irrespective of the circumstances, directly or indirectly in their control, the suppliers and operators of nuclear plants could not shun the responsibilities for any destruction caused to human life, property or environment in the course of their operation in India.

Risk mitigating is always preferred by any intelligent investors; however, it comes with a premium: but here the scenario is altogether different. The risk-reward ratio seems acutely tilted. Almost all of the US nuclear operator and suppliers group are stanch advocates of this bill; while other NSG [Nuclear Suppliers Group] members (mainly Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, USSR, UK) are watching the development, with crossed figures, expecting a favorable outcome.

The history of nuclear mis-happenings can be traced back since the invention of nuclear technology. With the growing concern for environment and better life conditions, the public pressure has compelled the companies and government of the advance countries to spend huge amount of money, time and resources in inventing safer and environment friendly technologies to replace the obsolete one.

In order to get rid of the obsolete technologies with outdated equipment and apparatus, the developed countries are notorious to export it to the poor nations, just like the ‘stock clearance sale.’ The receiver countries mainly comprise of nations where human development index is low (as India). Due to apathy, ignorance, lack of awareness and absence of public participation in policy-making these deals are hardly come into the limelight, until media or any NGO cry foul. The outdated technology is one of the biggest causes of nuclear accidents.

The main reason for such export, as quoted by the rich nations, is that developing countries could not afford the price of the latest know-how. Whereas, the developed countries artificially keep the price of the specific technology so high, that it becomes commercially nonviable in the third world nations.

All inventions or innovations cost a lot of time and money and involve a great risk of failure, so the inventor should have a right to decide the price for his innovative end product as an incentive to encourage entrepreneurship. I deeply abide by this notion. My point is: You want to maximize the profits and assets, but want a cap on the liabilities? Can you practice such economics in advance countries like the US or in Europe?

In the US, with the population density of 32.08 people per square km., the liability is Rs. 46,000 crore ($10 billion); in India, with the population density of 358.485 people per square km., NSG wants a cap of just Rs. 500 crore, (the rest is borne by Indian Government, through taxpayers’ money.) By this calculation the cost of India life or one square kilometer of land is Rs. 1.4; however, the cost of American’s life or one square kilometer of US land is Rs.1437.5. For Indian government, a US citizen is 1030.5 times more valuable than the life of an Indian citizen.   

Visit to Pushkar

On the last weekend we, the content team of the company, planned to visit a secluded spot. The aim was to recharge the mind, body and soul, which were exhausted after being engaged in repetitive tasks of creating blogs, web reviews, descriptions, and articles writing. Various travel websites were browsed and newspapers were searched in order to decide the destination. After several rounds of internal dialogue and negotiations, the team decided to go to Pushkar, a tranquil tiny town, settled in a valley of Aravali range in Ajmer district of Rajasthan. The Aravali range is considered as one of the oldest fold of mountains that run from Punjab to Gujrat, crossing Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and even spreads to (Sindh and Punjab province of) Pakistan.

The nearest operational airport is about 140 km (in Jaipur) so we preferred to travel via rail as we felt it to be more convenient and economical. We boarded Ajmer Satabdi that departed from New Delhi railway station at 06:05 am. This is the fastest train we could find that took us to Ajmer in just 6.40 hours. Though there are several other train, most of the regular trains took about 9 hours in the journey except Ajmer Rajdhani and Chetak. However, Chetak would drop us in Ajmer at 2 am, and we have to wait for sunrise to get transportation to go to Pukar. The private taxis do go to Pushkar during the night but it is a risky affair which we tried to avoid.

It is always preferable to reach any unknown destination during the daytime, as we might be alien to that place and could find difficulty in getting boarding and lodging facilities or assistance during the night hours. In the due course of getting acquainted with our destination, we came to know that Pushkar is also called Tirthraj or the Param Tirathstan, as no pilgrimage is complete unless one bath in the lake at Puskar. This place has several references to various Hindu scriptures like Mahabharata and Puranas.

We reached Pushkar at about 3 pm and we were amazed to see the colorful rural atmosphere of the place. We hired rooms in an ancient haveli that was converted into a hotel. The ambiance was clean and calm though the place was quite spacious. One will find all type of hotels, guest houses and lodges as per the respective budget. Food severed in various Indian kitchens can be found in several restaurants and snack stalls on the streets. Our groups decided to take launch and some rest; however, most of us were enthusiast to see the lake.


In the evening, we came out into the city and saw lots of foreign tourist who visit Puskar all the year round (with a little decrease during the months of April to July.) Most of them are from Europe, US, and Israel. I saw various signboards in Hebrew and easy availability of vegetarian Jewish food. The consumption of alcohol and meat is forbidden in Pushkar in line with Hindu religion and there are no shops selling them either.

The lake was not clean and the water looked muddy. It might be because of bathing plus rituals that took place all over the day. There are 52 ghats, each devoted to a deity, circumference around the holy lake. This town is the Gayatri dham, the home of ‘Gayatri Mantra’, the supreme spirituality. After cremation, the ashes of Hindus are immersed in this lake to give moksha, the eternal bliss and salvation of the deceased soul. The Panda (the man who performed Puja at the shore of the lake) informed us that there are about 500 temples of diverse sizes built over several centuries, by various kings, zamindars, royals, rulers, barons, businessmen (seths), sieges, saints, communities with varied architectural and sculptural styles in accordance with their respective era.

There is much more to see and write about this fascinating place; however, we have to leave to continue our journey back home. With acute nostalgia, we return to our native place with a resolution to revisit Pushkar during its annual cattle fair.