Do we have what it takes?

We, being children of the 'Pearl of the Indian Ocean' are descendants of a proud heritage which was able to construct engineering marvels, export grain to other countries and have highly civilized societies when the Western world was still evolving.

But, where are we now? Since we got independence in 1948, what was the direction we headed to as a country? How could Lee Kuan Yew once look at our country and say "I am going to bring Singapore to this level", and to see that now Singapore is thousands of miles ahead of us? Being a country with so much of natural resources and low probability for acts of God, why have we encouraged a mentality geared towards aids and free rations? Why do we always tend to overlook the integrity of the country and have the nerve to complain about everything that happens in the country which has an inconvenience for us? Why do we consider Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Nehru to be true heroes and yet ignore the valiant efforts taken by our own people to bring peace and integrity to the country?

We have claimed pristine independence after a 30 year old terrorist crisis, and are in a position to take our country from the 3^rd world to the 1^st world. No one can argue that despite the war, world economic crisis and food crisis we pulled through as a nation without much of a hassle. Now is the chance for us to take our country to where it really should be. But are we ready for that? Has each and every Sri Lankan understood that each one of them has a role to play other than futile commentary?

The answers to all of these, lie within what Dr. Abdul Kalam has stated in a speech he has made in Hyderabad. I think we all must read it with a Sri Lankan abstraction over it and realize the relevance it has to re-condition our nationalistic attitudes.

Here goes…

“Why is the media here so negative?
Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?

We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.

Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters. I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign T. Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.

Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India. For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation. Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.

Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.

YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don’t work, the railways are a joke, The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore .. Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best.

In Singapore you don’t throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity… In Singapore you don’t say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn’t dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds ( Rs.650) a month to, ’see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.’YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, ‘Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so’s son. Take your two bucks and get lost.’ YOU wouldn’t chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand .

Why don’t YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo ? Why don’t YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ??? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India ?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Mumbai , Mr. Tinaikar, had a point to make. ‘Rich people’s dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,’ he said. ‘And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?

In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan .. Will the Indian citizen do that here?’ He’s right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public.

When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? ‘It’s the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons’ rights to a dowry.’ So who’s going to change the system? What does a system consist of ? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England . When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one’s conscience too…. I am echoing J. F. Kennedy’s words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians - ‘Ask what we can do for India and do what has to be done to make India what America and other Western countries are today’

Now tell me how the essence of this speech is not applicable to Sri Lanka!

( On a related note, if we look around more attentively, visionaries with such patriotism can be found within our country too )

A ‘kitty’ Saturday

Friday night is a welcome night for most of us since we have the liberty of having a rather long sleep. Whether you wake up at 7 a.m., 8 a.m. or 10.00 a.m. it won’t make a huge difference since it is Saturday, and that is a holiday! This is the default rule for me as well. But, just imagine, you wake up on a Saturday morning to see new born kittens in your room! Especially when you don’t have any cats at home! Jeez! That’d be a shock! That’s what exactly happened to me today. Anyway, what started as a shock ended as a very touching experience and I thought I’d type it in.

Unfolding…

As some of you know, I am staying in a temporary place in Mt.Lavinia. I am on the top floor of a house and my room opens to the balcony. Over the last few days, I was noticing a white cat with few black spots lurking around the house. However, I did not think it was a big deal since there were anyway few cats around this place. But, I noticed that it was trying to get in to my room from time to time. Apart from that, whenever I open the bathroom door (which is across the balcony), it used to race in from wherever it was, and try to get in there. I thought it was a spoilt kitty and just made sure that it stays away from me (coz I don’t like cats :) ). Once I caught it in my room as well, and chased away. I was little annoyed coz no matter what I did, it was very reluctant to leave. This was like 2 days ago.

The morning shock…

Yesterday, like many Friday nights I snuggled in to my bed hoping to have a long night’s sleep. Everything went on fine, and I woke up around 9.45 a.m. Yes, I know. I am not proud of waking up that late :).

I was just booting up my systems, when I suddenly noticed a fluffy thing move over the far end of the bed. Aha! It was that cat again!!! It had come in through the window which I keep open at night. I was in such a rage and jumped off the bed. But, instantly I realized something. The cat looked rather skinny. Then things started to fit in like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

I realized this cat has actually been a pregnant cat, and the reason why it was trying to get in to confined spaces was to find a safe place to give birth to the kittens. With that deduction, the next thing that came to my mind was, “Oh lord!!! Did she lay the kittens in my room?!!”. But, things were rather quiet, and I thought maybe she just came in to find some food or something. However I saw that she was continuously mewing looking at me and was not going away for more than few feet away from my door.

Anyway, I thought “whatever!” and finished my morning chores and got back to my room. Just when I opened up my laptop and started to read some news, I started hearing a faint squealing from under the bed. It was the moment of truth! There were new born kittens in my room!!! A number of questions started to run through my head. “How many freaking kittens are there?”, “where exactly are they?”, “Gosh! Have they dirtied the place?” etc.

Compassion in action…

With all kinds of weird things whirling in my mind, I started clearing out things under the bed, expecting the worst. I pulled out things under my bed one by one and I constantly kept following the squealing to figure out where they have really ‘settled down’. There was one tall box on its side, in which my fan came. And there they were! I tried to see inside the box through the opening on the side, and mommy kitty was in the far end of that box.

Anyway my room is like 10’x15’ and living with a kitty family inside this is not going to work for me. So, I gently pulled the box out and pushed it over to the balcony, hoping to let them have that as their shelter. I put my stuff back under the bed and was waiting to see mamma kitty’s next move. Anyway she came out of the box in a while, and seemed to be looking for something. At one point it came up to me and started mewing looking at my face (like I understand ‘cat’ :P) . Probably since it did not get the answer from me, it ran off down the steps. Being inquisitive, I peeked in to the box to see how many kittens there are. Aha! There was one tiny little kitten like mouse which hadn’t even opened its eyes.

In a while mommy kitty came running up the steps. And guess what she was carrying in her mouth! Another kitten! Now the kitten count went up to 2. After settling them down in there, the mommy came out again and started saying gibberish to me. And it was very keen to get in to my room. So, I thought maybe it has another kitten and is trying to find it. And of course I knew that it would definitely find one if one was left in my room. So, it came in, went in to all corners of the room, but seemed to find nothing. Then with lost hope it went out again.

At this point I was rather touched since the mommy kitty was cleaning the kittens, making them warm and cozy and feeding them. Anyway now that they have a home, I left my place to do some things I had planned to do.

When I came back in the evening the first thing I did was to peek inside the box and see how they were doing. Just as I expected the kitty mommy was there while the two kittens were cuddling to her. Since night was coming and this is going to be the first night for the kittens, I pushed in an old piece of cloth I was having for them to use to keep warm. Prepared some milk and gave mommy kitty as well.

All’s well that ends well…

It was a weird start for a weekend. But, it was a pleasant change and it was nice to see the motherly love in the animal world. However, I must make sure all theses good treatments would not backfire, by the entire feline family trying to start treating me as their master. I have captured some moments of the experience and you can have a look at the photos ( and the video which I will be posting soon ).

Ah, before wrapping up I must say that one truth still holds despite what happened - I still hate cats! :)

Rise of Netbooks and Ubuntu Netbook Remix

My initial idea was to do a little blog on UNR. However, the more I put off publishing it, it seemed to drift out to other related areas and get lengthier. So, before this blows out of proportion here I go... :)

The proliferation of netbooks and associated technologies

With Web2.0, person to web based application interaction has become richer and easier. In addition, due to concepts of Green Computing, organizations are trying to go for systems like Cloud Computing, virtualization and more centralized processing thus bringing the total number of processing entities to a minimum which would result in a smaller carbon footprint and significant cost savings. Therefore, the current trend is headed towards us going back to the area where processing happens in a ‘cloud’ of which we do not know much other that how to get the service. Loosely speaking, we are going back to the days of the good old main frames and dumb terminals with of course many differences in terms of performance, user experience, richness and complexity of operations and services.

Due to all of the above reasons, notebook manufacturers started coming up with low power, low cost devices which were coined as ‘netbooks’ by shrinking localized performance and improving connectivity, robustness and user interfaces. Ideally these devices had screen sizes of 5”-9” inches, 1GB RAM, Few GBs of Solid State Disk space and an Intel Atom processor. Furthermore, it is easy to use slight variants of the Oss we currently have, since these too are based more on the x86 architecture.

The Asus Eee PC was the first commercial success for Netbooks and the different netbook brands and models of that followed have become more compact and better in performance. Personally speaking, based on the configurations and features currently available in netbooks like the Eee PC, I would feel happier to start using one of those for my day-to-day computing needs.

The Wikipedia article about netbooks has a pretty comprehensive explanation worth checking out by any enthusiast.

UNR at a glance

Ubuntu has been talking for ‘remix’ versions of their products for a while, and now we have such a ‘remix’ up for grabs. Remixes are specials editions that have been created targeted at a specific purpose. Therefore, Ubuntu Netbook Remix(UNR) is an optimized variant of Ubuntu which is targeted to run on low power low cost devices like netbooks and other low power laptops.

Below is a couple of screens from the UNR I tried out.

Features of UNR

Being pretty aggressive when it comes to modernization, Ubuntu took steps to come up with a respun verison of Ubuntu geared towards these kind of devices. This is pretty similar to the approach taken by Xandros Linux which is a customized Linux OS that was shipped with the Eee PC. The Easy-Peasy OS is also similar to this.

Underneath UNR can have Ubuntu 8.04 or higher, but the UI is optimized to run on smaller screens. I took hold of the 9.10 version of it, which was released about 2 weeks ago, and tried out on a virtual PC on my Virtual Box instance, and it was pretty striking in the first go.

When the UNR initiative kicked off, it was few packages that made this all happen. You can simply get hold of the special packages that give life to UNR and install them on top of your existing Ubuntu instance. So, basically it was more of a UI related optimization that had been done in contrast to a whole new optimization done in the kernel level to achieve performance and efficient resource utilization on low end devices.

Windows7 boasts of its heavily efficient resource usage and ability to track energy hogging applications and although Fedora has managed to keep the energy meter at a lower level, Ubuntu has had some issue when it comes to retaining battery power. PowerTop can be used to track the energy utilization of your Linux system. However, guys at Canonical are working hard on that collaborating with the Mobilin project which aims at forming a resource efficient OS and application stack for mobile internet devices. This is essential since resource efficiency would be a key factor when Ubuntu or UNR is to be a mainstream OS on low power devices (Canonical is taking steps to ship UNR preinstalled on most netbooks). Xandros Linux which comes with Eee PC claims to be pretty efficient on power consumption, but I did not find any statistical evidence for that (I didn’t search much J ). Anyway it is cruel to ask for too much from UNR since it is a ‘remix’ and not a ‘netbook edition’ as such.

However, when it comes to UNR 9.10, the there seems to have been a significant leap. The packages that used to power previous UNR version are deprecated, and it has been built from ground up to take the best of the speed and power features of the chipset.

Minimum Hardware Requirements:

• Processor: Intel® Atom™ processor

• RAM: 512 MB

• Storage: 4 GB Flash disk (SSD) or hard disk

Let me summarize some features of UNR I came across. Some features are present in the Ubuntu 9.10 standard edition too.

• A vertical left nav menu based user interface: This is an optimal way of producing output in small screens. The ordinary desktop is replaced with a set of tabs on the left and the context content appearing in the remaining space. The applications are categorized in to these tabs based on the utility.

• ‘Ubuntu One’ access : This is an awesome option which gives the user access to his personal cloud with 2GB capacity for free (capacity can be increased if you are willing to pay for it). With this, backing up, synchronizing and sharing data becomes ever so easy.

• Empathy IM : Pidgin has been replaced by Empathy IM which additionally has better audio/video support as well as built in SIP support.

• OpenOffice 3.1 : The good old open office that all of us know of.

• Rhythmbox : A simple yet fully fledged player inspired by Apple iTnes which has comprehensive support for a gamoot of audio formats, sync capabilities with devices, rip and burn capabilities and support for Internet Radio and podcasts.

• And many more…

Looking forward to get hold of a netbook and join the hype ASAP!!!

Reporting from Chennai...

After being within the oceanic boundaries of my dear motherland Sri Lanka, I finally got a chance to travel abroad since I had be part of a two man team to work onsite on a client engagement of Virtusa. Anyway, this was not far away. It was just Chennai, India which is so close to us, geographically speaking and the 4th largest city in India. By the time I type this is, it has been 11 days since we got here and there a loads of interesting stuff to talk about despite the fact that Chennai does not have many tourist attraction compared to most of the other main cities in India.

First of all, I must say that the stereotypical view of Chennai as a very dirty city is not totally true now. There have been some serious development projects that have taken place over the years and they seem to have really paid off. You can see gigantic buildings coming up in huge vacant lands in the city as well as in suburban areas. The development in the IT sector has happened big time here. Apart from the many BPO companies in the city (including Virtusa :) ), Chennai has also reserved a 25km stretch along one of their trunk roads as a complete IT park. Our client (Standard Chartered Software Solutions) is also located in this park, and this area has thousands of acres of free land and the sight is simply amazing!

However, Chennai is more famous for its automobile and mechanical industry. It is known as the ‘Detroit of Asia’ and produced 30% of India’s automobiles. Although we were expecting to see Ambassador, Maruti and Tata cars, about 50% of the vehicles comprised Chevrolette, Ford, Hyundai and Toyota vehicles. These are all produced in Indian plants.

Apart from that, Chennai has an impressive outlook towards public infrastructure. After landing on the 21^st September when we headed to the city, the first thing we came across was the giant butterfly flyover. This is an amazing piece of engineering and it gives a warm welcome to anyone who enters the country through the Chennai airport. This is known as the Kathipara flyover and earlier it has been just a huge roundabout which had been a major reason for the traffic build-up.

See how the old junction looked and how it looks now!

One more thing that overwhelmed me was the size of the city and the amount of free space they have in suburban areas even after doing mega constructions! The place is huge!!! No wonder India can house so many organizations and manufacturing plants.

Anyway, after I got to Chennai I started respecting the drivers in Sri Lanka. These guys here drive like insane!!! The traffic lights barely manage to keep them from messgin up the junctions. Even if two cars brush past each other, they would just yell “Ei!!!” and move on. Most cars do not have side mirrors, and even the cars that do have side mirrors have retracted them. On every commodity vehicle you can find the wording “sound horn” written on the rear of the vehicle. The simple interpretation for this is, “I will not give any signals, I will drive as I want. If you need to overtake me just blare the horn!”.

One great memory I am going to carry home is the scrumptiousness of the South Indian food. Still the food keeps surprising me daily and I am really enjoying the authentic biryani, parota, puri, chapathi and the list can go on! (Yummy!).

The people I met so far in Virtusa Chennai ATC, Standard Chartered and in the places where we stayed were very hospitable. It made my life very easy to move around with the little amount of Tamil I knew J

With all this said, I still cannot resist saying, “I love Sri Lanka and I miss it sooooo much!!!”

'Chicken Ala Carte' - A bitter truth!

It is not something new to hear that millions of people in the world find it extremely hard to find a slice of bread or drop of water to survive. Here are some statistics to emphasis the extent of the issue.

• 963 million people across the world are hungry. [ref]

• Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. i.e one child every five seconds! [ref]

• Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. [ref]
  
  
• In 2005, almost 1.4 billion people lived below the international poverty line, earning less than $1.25 per day. [ref]

Statistics can go on for pages. But, until you see something like what is shown below, you would never actually feel what it is like.

This is a short film which was directed by Ferdinand Dimadura, that won the Short film Competition of the 56th Berlin International Film Festival. Once you watch it, you'll realize if this could not win, what will.

Quoting a synopsis about short movie, "this film is about the hunger and poverty brought about by Globalization. There are 10,000 people dying everyday due to hunger and malnutrition. This short film shows a forgotten portion of the society. The people who live on the refuse of men to survive. What is inspiring is the hope and spirituality that never left this people."

I'd generally say "enjoy" when sharing a video with anyone. But, with this I'd say, "try not to end up with a tear in your eye". I'd rather not comment on any content in the video since you should see it for yourself. This is the most touching video production I saw in the recent past.

Google Wave – The next revolution on the web!

When you hear the word Google, it has probably become yet another WWW with its amazingly broad range of web based product stack. What started off as a highly versatile search engine has turned out to be a multi million dollar company. Google search was its first hit. Then it was continued by other initiative like GMail, Google Apps, Google Chrome etc. The next big thing from Google is just around the corner – GoogleWave!

What is Google Wave? Simply put it is the next generation real time communication and collaboration solution from Google. With everything moving to the web space, real time, high quality collaboration was increasing becoming a crucial requirement. There have been many initiatives which were focused on enabling collaboration for more focused aspects. However, with Google Wave, it seems to be a total solution which combines an amalgam of collaboration mechanisms spanning from email through IM, web chat, wiki, social networking to project management. This is a brainchild of the brothers Jens & Lars Rasmussen, the creators of another magical app - Google Maps. Their initial step for Google Wave was a project codenamed 'walkabout' which aimed at eliminating the boundaries between different types of communication methods.

The most interesting features of Google Wave include real-time operation, embeddability, playback functionality, extensibility and obviously being open source. Now you might be thinking what the word ‘wave’ means. Is it just a catchy word for marketing? Well, not really. A wave is the highest level of abstraction in this platform. Along with the term ‘wave’ there is a small jargon which contain some other terms as well. Let me put them very briefly as I understood. Starting with a ‘wave’, a wave is one threaded conversation which can be of any form like a multi-person chat, a collaborative whiteboard etc. A wave is made up of ‘wavelets’ which are also threaded conversations like waves, but they form a subset of a wave only. The next level of granularity is a ‘blip’, which is a single message. This would be like one line in a chat. Next comes the term ‘document’. This is what bundles in all the content of a blip. Next, there are ‘extensions’ which work within a wave, which are accessible for the participants operating in the wave. Extensions are twofold – ‘gadgets’ and ‘robots’. Gadgets are applications like Facebook apps, and robots are autonomous participants within a wave. Finally, although it may be obvious ‘Embed wave’ is the action of embedding a wave to your own web application.

Learan more about Gadgets and Robots.

The Google Wave Federation Protocol is the underlying protocol which makes the concept works.

This video taken from Google I/O explains what it is all about.

When it comes to Google, they have really played their cards well. Just think for a moment the work they did. First they conquered the web space. Then took the desktop apps to the web, through Google Docs, Google Calendar etc. Now that they have the communication channels as well as the tools that need to be collaborated, basically, it’s matter of consolidating them and enabling real time communication between them. However, with Google Wave, they have really taken it to the limit and all the stuff sounds really interesting. This is said to be opened for public access by the end of the year, and I am soooo looking forward to it. I’m pretty sure these ‘waves’ are going to make a tsunami in cyber space!!!