Trust Deficit

A new phrase - Trust Deficit - coined by Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, the ex Foreign Minister of Pakistan, can go onto become one of the most important words used in relationships.

Whats Trust?

It has several meanings. I would choose - to believe, to have confidence

Whats Deficit?

Once again - as with all English words - it has several meanings. I would choose - a lack or shortage

A Trust Deficit is nothing but a lack of confidence or a shortage of belief!!

On the sidelines of the meeting between the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and the Pakistani Prime Minister Mr. Yousuf Gilani, this is what Mr. Kasuri had to say :

The biggest problem between Pakistan and India currently is the absence of trust. Anything that addresses this trust deficit is, therefore, helpful.

Read more here.

Addressing this "Trust Deficit" would need significant amount of effort from both India and Pakistan if both of them are interested in the peaceful resolution of the bilateral thorny issues. I just hope that we would succeed!!

Hakimullah Mehsud - Dead or Alive?

Know one knows this better than Mehsud himself.

Makes you wonder why?

Hakimullah is[ or was] the commander of the Pakistan Taliban.

More than 2 months back, around 10th Feb 2010, certain news reports claimed that Mehsud was killed in a drone strike.

His death was considered as a significant blow to the Taliban - and was supposed to increase the chances of the Taliban being wiped out from Pakistan.

The newspapers quoted something like below:

Pakistan confirmed yesterday that the Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud has died of wounds sustained in a US drone strike last month. 

The death of Pakistan's most feared militant commander with close links to Al-Qaeda is a serious blow to the Pakistani Taliban and has led to an intense battle over who will succeed him. 

However, news reports floating over the last couple of days indicate that he is very much alive.

To quote the newspapers again:

The Taliban leader in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, survived an American drone strike in January and is alive and well, a senior official with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency told the Guardian today.

Today the senior intelligence official said he had seen video footage of the missile attack on Mehsud but other intelligence had since confirmed the insurgent leader survived. He declined to elaborate further.

"He is alive," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He had some wounds but he is basically OK."

What next?

In a world of changing media reports, failed intelligence reports, it is very difficult to assess whether the guy is really dead or alive?

This blog has an interesting perspective on the resurrection of Mehsud. 

One line says it all - Miracles do happen!!

Parenthesis

Parenthesis has stopped being a punctuation mark!!

You can vouch for this when you read the conversation in the later part of the blog.

The dictionary gives several meanings to this word.

But two of them which I'm thinking about now are

a) a qualifying, explanatory, or appositive word, phrase, clause, or sentence that interrupts a syntactic construction without otherwise affecting it.

b) an interval.

Can someone be an interval, a break, in someone's life??

Yes, if you check out the scene below from the 2009 hit movie - Up In The Air

The conversation (on the cell phone) has Ryan (George Clooney) and Alex (Vera Farmiga) talking about their relationship.  

Ryan was in a casual relationship with Alex, meeting her at various airports across the US. 

Ryan had thought Alex was his special lady and had gone to her home on a surprise visit. It was he who got a surprise - when he saw that Alex was already married and had kids too.

Alex calls him up the next day and tells him that her family life should be unaffected, and that her husband and kids were part of her "real" life.

And this is how the conversation proceeded.

Ryan Bingham: I thought I was a part of your life.

Alex Goran: I thought we signed up for the same thing... I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. You are an escape. You're a break from our normal lives. You're a parenthesis.

Ryan Bingham: I'm a parenthesis? 

This makes me wonder whether affairs, and extra-marital affairs, would be labeled as "Parenthesis" in the near future!!

Air Pocket

I had heard about air planes flying through turbulent skies.This usually happens when the aircraft is going through a dense cloud or rain. The pilots generally advise the passengers to be seated with their seat belts on while flying through such turbulent skies.

But, What's an Air Pocket?

Air Pocket, I think is a slightly more dangerous version of such turbulent skies. 

The dictionary defines it as a downward air current that causes an aircraft to lose altitude abruptly.

At around 10.30 AM today, up above the skies of India, more than 360 odd people must have faced some of the most anxious moments of their lives. And the most luckiest!!

The incident? Well, an Emirates flight from Dubai to the south Indian city of Kochi suffered a drop of 200 feet (or 15000 feet?) while cruising over Goa.

The cause? The plane hit an air pocket and dropped an altitude of 15000 feet(if the article below is to be believed).

It is a real disaster situation if a flight cruising at 20000 feet loses 15000 feet in the air. The force of gravity in such situations must be very extreme. And people on board must have thought that they are having a free fall without any control.

Check out this article for more information on this incident. 

And some words from a guy who was on that very flight.

"Some of the passengers were shouting and crying for help. And for three minutes no one knew what was happening. Many were thrown out of their seats; some had their heads hitting the roof of the aircraft. A child was thrown out of the seat. We felt that everything was coming to an end," a relieved Elsy told reporters here. 

This just summarizes the panic situation on board when this must have happened.

I just wonder what would have gone through the minds of the flight crew when this incident must have happened. Usually before the flight is nearing its destination, the cabin crew walk through the craft - collecting the head phones, blankets etc. 

They must have had some really tense moments. Unless they were seated with their seat belts on, some of them must have been definitely thrown around, and some of them might have got injured too.

But two people, who can take credit for rescuing these people from certain deaths, are the pilots. 

These guys must have kept cool in those extreme moments, and tried to focus on the task of getting the plane back to normal flying in the best possible manner. This is where their entire training, their skills must have come to use. I think these guys must be awarded generously for their exemplary performance in trying conditions.

But one thing is for sure. This incident would make air travelers nervous and pilots extremely cautious.

Woman on Top

Well, does that get you thinking about Penelope Cruz, the Spanish actress who starred in a movie with the same name?

Well, you got me wrong.

I'm talking about women who have reached the top - the pinnacle - of the respective areas their of expertise!!

Guess, what got me thinking about them?

It was Sunanda Pushkar's statement today expressing her views about the IPL fiasco - which started with the "free sweat equity" being granted to her in the Kochi IPL franchisee.

This resulted in the resignation of "Junior" Minister for External Affairs in India, Shashi Tharoor, and a nationwide investigation into the franchisees of the IPL!! Sunanda claimed that the equity was rightfully hers, and she had earned it with her skill and expertise. She claimed to be a management and branding expert with years of experience.

But this is what the media thought about her - in her own words:

Sunanda said, "I have always been proud that I have made it alone — on my own terms — in a man's world. And here, in one minute, without bothering to find out any facts the media just turned me into a sl**, into some kind of brainless eye candy! I don't know why people find it so hard to understand this."

If Sunanda has expressed these thoughts from her heart without any falsified facts, then people might consider her to be a talented lady - whom the media got all wrong.

Well, she can draw some inspiration from the US Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. 

People considered her to be a dumb bimbette when she said that Africa is a country. But now she is going so strong in the US political space that some people consider her to Obama's strongest competitor in the 2012 Presidential elections!!

Another lady who comes to my mind is Carly Fiorina.

Fiorina was the CEO of Hewlett-Packard for about 6 years. This earned her the distinction of being the first woman CEO of a Fortune 20 company - a historical achievement in itself!!

Sharing space with these ladies is J K Rowling, the creator of the all famous Harry Potter. 

She has written the exciting series of the Harry Potter, becoming one of the most read and most famous authors of recent times. And her net worth is close to 1 Billion US $.

If these new age women have earned a space on the pedestal with their skills, Royal Ladies have been on the top - literally - for ages, just because of their lineage. Queen Elizabeth 2 has "ruled" Britain for many decades. 

But the face of royalty is also changing. 

You have HM Queen Rania of Jordan. She is involved in a host of social causes and is making the best use of her Royal Status for the benefit of the people.

Next come our Sports Stars. Maria Sharapova comes to my mind.

She is a super star tennis player. And a super model. And a brand ambassador. And a face that has launched many a products. And she is all of 23 years.

Last but not the least is Megan Fox. Megan is just a year older than Maria but she is equally famous.

Her claim to fame? It was Transformers.

It seems all these gals, ladies and women have excelled in their domains. And they could easily give any guy a run for their money.

Generation Alpha

It's being some time since all of us had heard something about Generation X, or Generation Y or Gen Next and so on.

Reading an article about Generation Y made me think what these Generations are all about.

Checked up the ever reliable Wikipedia, which gave some interest definitions on these generations - including the ones from the past and the present.

Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the baby boom ended, with earliest birth dates used by researchers ranging from 1961 to the latest 1981. 

Next came Generation Y.

Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Next or Net Generation, describes the generation following Gen X. Commonly they are considered to be people born between the mid 1970s to the early 2000s.

Generation Z arrived after Gen Y.

Generation Z is one of the names used for the First World people born between the mid-1990s and the late 2000s.

And what do our innovative people do - when they see that Z is the last alphabet in English??

They come up with Generation Alpha - the set of people born in 2010 and beyond!!

MultiTasking

Multitasking is the ability to handle and complete multiple tasks at the same time.

All of us - in our daily life - are being asked to multi task. While some of us manage to this well, others are not comfortable with juggling more than one task at a time.

This ability to multi task is after all decided by the capability of our brains.

As per this news article, our brain is capable of handling only 2 tasks at the same time.

A new study has found the mind may easily deal with two separate tasks at the same time as it can channel them into the two separate parts of the front of the brain; but when a third activity is introduced, the mind gets overloaded. Not only the accuracy declines but people are much less able to carry out tasks, the scientists say. 

"This finding suggests that the human frontal function is limited to accurately driving the pursuit of two concurrent goals at a time. This capacity limit places severe constraint bearing upon human higher cognition and may clarify several limitations in human decision making and reasoning abilities."  

Well, we can learn one thing here. If given more than two tasks, attempt to multi task only two of them at the same time. If this article is true, it would give you better results - without putting undue pressure on your brains.

Misleading People

What would you think if someone told you that extra-marital sex leads to earthquakes? Or a "pact with the devil" leads to an earthquake?

Any sane person would tell that such statements are misleading people!!

But as with all news, this news makes it to the headlines - for all the wrong reasons!! And they gain attention - when they shouldn't.

As you all know - earthquakes are commonly caused by physical movements of fault lines, or volcanoes, or mine explosions, or nuclear explosions and so on.

But this one particular cleric in Iran has some silly ideas on the cause of earthquakes.

This is what he had to say during Friday's prayers on 16th April 2010.

"Many women who dress inappropriately ... cause youths to go astray, taint their chastity and incite extramarital sex in society, which increases earthquakes," Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi told worshippers at Tehran on Friday prayer.

It's high time guys like these stopped misleading people. I just wonder how local people reacted to this preaching!!

And if you think he is the only one setting up these crazy theories, have a look at this theory from Pat Robertson.

This is what Mr. Robertson  - an American Christian Televangelist - had to say after the devastating earthquake in Haiti this year.

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about," Robertson said.

"They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'Ok it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another," Robertson said.

I strongly hope that people are intelligent enough to look through such such silly misleading statements!!

IPL Bidding Fiasco

Well, It was a week where some people from the sidelines made it to the center stage.

I'm talking about the IPL (Indian Premier League) bidding fiasco starring Shashi Tharoor, Lalit Modi and Sunanda Pushkar.  

The plot was cast a few days back when a completely unknown consortium - calling itself Rendezvous Sports - won the bid for the Kochi IPL team.

The name itself sounded fishy to me. And considering that they had paid almost 350 Million $ for a team in the South Indian state of Kerala (which has sent just one cricketer to the Indian national team) did raise my eyebrows - if not many more across the country!!

Shashi Tharoor claimed that he had mentored the group to bring IPL to Kochi - and that is where the trouble began.

What makes me say this?

Well, In India, a politician helping someone - without expecting something in return is a rarity. And considering that Tharoor has an ability to put his own foot in his mouth, something exceptional was bound to happen.

With all this attention around Tharoor, some enterprising journalist digged up some facts on Tharoor's personal life. News was that he was married twice and going onto the third!!

The third lady in Tharoor's life was identified as Sunanda Pushkar. 

A week back you would have asked - Sunanda Who?

The news claimed that she was a Kashmiri beautician!! Made me think what made Tharoor take interest in her. A diplomat and a beautician do make an weird couple!!

I thought this was just a tidbit on his personal life and would die soon. How wrong I was.

A few days later - the IPL commissioner - Lalit Modi decided to express some facts he was privy to on Twitter. 

He revealed that Sunanda Pushkar was a equity stake holder in the Kochi consortium. What made things complex was the revelation that she was given free equity!!

Suspecting people thought this was an indirect benefit to Tharoor. Politician's called for his resignation - though nothing was proven. Tax authorities started raids on the IPL offices putting Modi under tremendous strain.

All of this for the free "sweat equity" given to Sunanda. Overnight she went from being a beautician to a branding and a management expert.

The poor lady was in a bind  - between holding on to the equity  or causing trouble for her love.

Love they say is stronger than money - and looks like this is what made her give up the sweat equity today evening.

For the last seven days, these 3 people made headlines of all the national newspapers. Making me realize how ordinary people who are better placed on the sidelines make it to the center stage.

Hope Cricket takes over in the next week. After all, it's the last week of IPL3!!

Volcano in Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland

One thing thats made news all of last week is the volcano in Eyjafjallajokull (I never managed to spell it - but it's something like this - ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl).

This volcano in the southern Iceland has sent a large cloud of volcanic ash in the sky. The cloud is traveling across Europe sending flight schedules for a complete toss!! 

Needless to say, this will make the visibility poor for any flights traveling through it. And supposedly, it's not good for those mega plane engines.

These pictures of the volcano caught my attention!!

The first one is from someone on the ground.

The second one from someone when he was high up in the air!!

And if you want to have a look at how it is impacting Europe, check the map with the ash cloud below.

And last but not the least, this eerie looking picture which bears a close resemblance to a skeleton!!

Last but not the least, are you interested in knowing where the volcano ash cloud is at the moment? Or do you want to have an overview of the volcanic ash cloud map?

Courtesy the UK Met Office, get the required information at the links below

1. Iceland Volcano Press Office Release

2. 5 day volcano ash map projection. 

This is live data. It will help you plan your travel, in case you are a bit apprehensive of the volcanic ash.

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Panorama

A Panoramic view of some of the biggest cities in the world!!

This is Sao Paulo in Brazil !!

And Mumbai in India!!

And Moscow in Russia!! 

And Bangkok in Thailand!!

Such Panorama pictures make us realize the magnanimity of these cities!!

Freedom of Expression

Certain incidents - two of them detailed below - make me wonder whether does it really exist!! 

The first is a case from India itself. On 3rd April 2010, Indian minister Jairam Ramesh termed wearing a gown during the convocation ceremony as a barbaric colonial practice.

"The practice of wearing a traditional colored gown during a convocation ceremony at any university is a barbaric colonial practice. Why can't we wear simple dress instead of these gowns," Ramesh said at the seventh convocation ceremony of the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) at Bhopal Friday. 

What happens next?

A religious group demanded an apology from Mr. Ramesh for his opinion. 

This is what they have to say.

"The minister spoke with utter irresponsibility and with lack of respect for the Pope and with a display of incredible cynicism towards the church and millions of people around the world." 

I fail to realize how not wearing a robe and respecting the Pope are connected.

The next incident - from Dubai - shows how "greetings" between two individuals can draw the ire of the police.

As per some news articles, two people were sentenced to jail for a month. Their offense - Kissing in Public!!

A British couple accused of kissing in public will spend a month behind bars as Dubai's appeals court today upheld their sentence, days after two Indians were sentenced to jail for exchanging steamy text messages here.

The pair - identified in British press as 24-old-year marketing executive Ayman Najafi and 25-year-old tourist Charlotte Adams - were convicted in January and sentenced to one month in jail followed by deportation, and fined $270 for consuming alcohol, the National newspaper reported. 

Makes me realize how laws are misused. If you wonder why, check the picture below.

This is English football star John Terry with his wife. Now is he and his wife doing something different from what the other two people are accused of?

HIV AIDS, The Church and Contraception

It was almost 12 years ago, back in school, when teachers first told us about HIV AIDS - and how it threatens to be a disease which will cause a great numbers of deaths in the coming years.

Africa was said to be the continent which had maximum numbers of people affected by AIDS. And even today, that is the case.

The chart below shows that more than 65% of people living with HIV AIDS stay in Africa.

What caused HIV AIDS to be prevalent in Africa? 

I vaguely remember reading an article somewhere, really long time back, which said that lack of usage of contraception was one of the major cause of AIDS in Africa.

And what caused this scarcity? As I recollect, the scarcity was artificial. The actual cause - the Church did not promote the usage of contraceptives.

Rather, "Did not promote" would be a wrong word - actually it was "Did not encourage"!!

For years, I wondered what made the Church not encourage a means which would prevent such a deadly disease.

Well, things became clear on Sunday 4th April 2010, when I read this news article.

The reasons stunned me!! They are quoted below

The Church opposes contraception, because it believes it interferes with the creation of life.

Any form of birth control that might interfere with conception, such as condoms or the Pill, is regarded as sinful by the Catholic Church. 

The Church also argues that, in any case, all children should be welcomed as a gift from God. 

Will it be too harsh for me to say that the Church believed in not interfering with the creation of life, thereby interfering in the prevention of a deadly disease?

Terror Attacks in Moscow, Russia

On 29th March, 2010, two terror attacks struck the veins of Moscow - the Moscow Metro!! :-(

Two suicide bombers carried out these deadly bombings inside the Metro cars at the Lubyanka and Park Kultury metro stations, killing 39 people!!

It was about 10.15 AM IST on the 29th, when a friend came to my desk to convey this sad news!! Working for a Russian Client, my thoughts immediately went towards the people who must have been traveling on those trains!!

Moscow Metro is one of the largest and most used subway system in the world!!

Approximately 6 million people use the Metro daily!! It is the cheapest and the most convenient rapid transit system in Moscow, which is a very large city, to say the least!!

I have been a regular traveler on the Moscow Metro (having stayed in Moscow for almost 9 months). And believe me, it is very very crowded during the morning rush hours, with hardly a place to stand in the carriage!!

And with the bombings being carried out during the morning rush hour, I thought the scale of disaster and devastation might be much higher!!

What made me all the more sad is that the second bombing took place at the Park Kultury Metro. This was the place where I got down and boarded the train, with my workplace just 5 minutes away from the Metro!!

Check this news article to read and see the horrific events on this day!!

These comments show the deep fear in the mind's of the people on that day -

"How horrible it is when you hear a blast behind your back. I was at Park Kultury at the moment of the blast. Thank God, I managed to enter the walkway tunnel between stations and I was not affected. There was lots of smoke and I could not figure out what was going on. Many people were lying in blood."

And this comment by one commuter highlights how such similar events have had a deep impact on his psyche!!

“I’ve seen loads of explosions in my time, and this was nothing. I’m fine. It was just a ‘pop’ like the kind if fire crackers we might let off at New Year.” He added that the reaction to the explosion was very calm.

Having a look at the videos, the reaction might have been calm for him - but certainly not for others!!

Check this YouTube Video link about the Moscow Metro!!

It highlights the sheer complexity and wide usage of this metro system!!

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Pictures can Mislead

If you think otherwise, have a look at the pictures below!!

This is Carla Bruni!!

And this too is Carla Bruni!!

Now which is the real Carla Bruni?? We can only guess!!