Race to the TOP !!!

The following email was rotated in our office and I couldn' t agree more with the view of the writer.

Brilliantly said ....

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Interesting Article from a three times Pulitzer Prize winner and the foreign affairs columnist of the New York Times.

A Race to the Top By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Bangalore, India

It was extremely revealing traveling from Europe to India as French voters (and now Dutch ones) were rejecting the E.U. constitution - in one giant snub to President Jacques Chirac, European integration, immigration, Turkish membership in the E.U. and all the forces of globalization eating away at Europe's welfare states. It is interesting because French voters are trying to preserve a 35-hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day. Good luck.Voters in "old Europe" - France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy - seem to be saying to their leaders: stop the world, we want to get off; while voters in India have been telling their leaders: stop the world and build us a stepstool, we want to get on.

I feel sorry for Western European blue collar workers. A world of benefits they have known for 50 years is coming apart, and their governments don't seem to have a strategy for coping.One reason French voters turned down the E.U. constitution was rampant fears of "Polish plumbers." Rumors that low-cost immigrant plumbers from Poland were taking over the French plumbing trade became a rallying symbol for anti-E.U. constitution forces. A few weeks ago Franz Müntefering, chairman of Germany's Social Democratic Party, compared private equity firms - which buy up failing businesses, downsize them and then sell them - to a "swarm of locusts."The fact that a top German politician has resorted to attacking capitalism to win votes tells you just how explosive the next decade in Western Europe could be, as some of these aging, inflexible economies - which have grown used to six-week vacations and unemployment insurance that is almost as good as having a job - become more intimately integrated with Eastern Europe, India and China in a flattening world.

To appreciate just how explosive, come to Bangalore, India, the outsourcing capital of the world. The dirty little secret is that India is taking work from Europe or America not simply because of low wages. It is also because Indians are ready to work harder and can do anything from answering your phone to designing your next airplane or car. They are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top.Indeed, there is a huge famine breaking out all over India today, an incredible hunger. But it is not for food. It is a hunger for opportunity that has been pent up like volcanic lava under four decades of socialism, and it's now just bursting out with India's young generation."India is the oldest civilization, the largest democracy and the youngest population - almost 70 percent is below age 35 and almost 50 percent is 25 and under," said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express. Next to India, Western Europe looks like an assisted-living facility with Turkish nurses.Sure, a huge portion of India still lives in wretched slums or villages, but more and more of the young cohort are grasping for something better. A grass-roots movement is now spreading, demanding that English be taught in state schools - where 85 percent of children go - beginning in first grade, not fourth grade. "What's new is where this movement is coming from," said the Indian commentator Krishna Prasad. "It's coming from the farmers and the Dalits, the lowest groups in society." Even the poor have been to the cities enough to know that English is now the key to a tech-sector job, and they want their kids to have those opportunities.The Indian state of West Bengal has the oldest elected Communist government left in the world today. Some global technology firms recently were looking at outsourcing there, but told the Communists they could not do so because of the possibility of worker strikes that might disrupt the business processes of the companies they work for. No problem. The Communist government declared information technology work an "essential service," making it illegal for those workers to strike. Have a nice day."This is not about wages at all - the whole wage differential thing is going to reduce very quickly," said Rajesh Rao, who heads the innovative Indian game company, Dhruva. It is about people who have been starving "finally seeing the ability to realize their dreams." Both Infosys and Wipro, India's leading technology firms, received more than one million applications last year for a little more than 10,000 job openings.Yes, this is a bad time for France and friends to lose their appetite for hard work - just when India, China and Poland are rediscovering theirs.

Blogging on the Indian highway !!

Oberoi Hotels - Cecil An Oberoi Resort Shimla

Hi this post is special . I am posting it from my car on Delhi - Shimla Highway . I am using Reliance R Connect connection with my laptop .

The net speed is good enough and it enables blogging too !!!

I will reach Shimla in some 4 hours from now . The best part of the trip is , I am staying at my favorite hotel there - Oberoi Cecil

Will keep posting pics from Shimla .

Cutting the 25th Bday cake for the 3rd time !!

monty's b'day monty bubly ( masala art )
Originally uploaded by subirallaround.

Yeah yeah yeah...I am turning old . Turned 25 on 28th May and my family was gracious and celebrated enough - to have me cut 3 cakes !! ( At midnite , in the morning breakfast and at dinner )

I guess they wanted me to realise deep down to grow more mature / responsible / less anxious and whatever that comes with growing older .

Anyways this is the pic of me cutting the cake at my Birthday Dinner with my close family and some freinds.

Dudek does magic ....Liverpool pulls off a miracle ...AC Milan gets f**** !!!

Saw this simply brilliant soccer match - after a long long time . Consider this .....

Liverpool are 3-0 down in the 1st half.

AC Milan are a definite winners at half time.

Within 6.5 minutes , Liverpool scores 3 goals .

Pressure for the next 40 odd minutes is on AC Milan .

In extra time ,in the last 3 minutes Liverpool 's Goalkeeper Dudek does a double save ( even on the rebound)

In the penalty shoot out , AC milan don't score in their first 2 shootouts !!!

Game ...Match ...Final ...Trophy ...to Liverpool !!!

UEFA Champions League 2005 winner in a glorious manner are Liverpool

Yahoo! Messenger Beta 7 Vs SKYPE !!!!

The new Yahoo! Messenger beta 7 certainly rocks !!

Just tried a couple of calls with it to my online buddies and the voice clarity is amazing ( may I sau as good as SKYPE ).

The new version also has some cool integration with MS Outlook adress book and imports your contacts and /or invites them to use Yahoo! msgr .

Also check out the integrated search , bug free launchcast radio !!

Plus , they also have an Indian version already , which will feature cricket , Indian stocks rates etc .

Where is MSN in all this ???? hmmm..they still need some more avatars to work !!!

Do I look cool or wot ??

Do I look cool or wot ??
Originally uploaded by mohitinhere.

Well...was just scanning through some old pics on my comp , when I got hold of this one . This is me partying with some school freinds on a Saturday nite last year . I had short ..very short..hair then !!!

Ok now back to cricket once again !!! This is me with the winning team of the Inter-Office cricket match !!! ( P.S : I hold the stumps after the win - in cricketing tradition - it means I was the best player of the match !!! ;-) ( ....how i wish )

STAR WARS EPISODE III - Revenge of the Sith ( *****) : This is a great movie !!!! Fantastic ...Awesome ..Brilliant. The movie more then lives upto its expectations as the grand finale for the Star Wars Saga . The movie stiches all the details in combining the 2 trilogies and does a fantastic job of it too . I saw this movie today ( the first day of its worldwide release ) and must say ...this was definately worth the wait . The only complain...( hmmm..I guess nothing is perfect) - I did'nt like the Natalie portman crying sequence in the end ..It kinda looked funny , bollywoodish ( infact a lot many portions of the movie look Bollywoodish ) . Lucan could have done a better direction of that crying sequence. The emotion from a the actors ( Natalie mainly) didn't come across . Although I must add the BEST SEQUENCE of the movie for me ( definately not the obvious for me- it was neither the Skywalker - Kanobi fight nor was it the Darth Vader birth and breath sequence . ) . THE BEST SEQUENCE for me was the Yoda - Sith Lord fight in the Gallactic Parliament . Both of them actually were throwing chairs at each other ( even though they were BIG chairs and don't fit in the category of chair chair !!) . But anyhow the sequence reminded me of what happened a couple of years ago in the our own UP Assembly in India. MLAs throwing chairs at each other !!!!! Democracy !!! Lucas is definately inspired from India in this movie - BELIEVE IT OR NOT ????

Me batting in low light !!! Umpire where are you ???

Me batting in low light !!! Umpire where are you ???
Originally uploaded by mohitinhere.

We had a cricket match organized at our office. The match was played in the evening but still it was too hot .
However we batted second and I got to bat in low lighting . Also the situation demanded some big hitting . I got out for a DUCK on the second ball !!!!

Mallika seen here at Cannes with Jackie Chan . Some quick facts about her :

• The first and fastest Indian actress to do a full fledged Hollywood movie as a leading lady ( Asihwarya is not a leading lady yet !! )
• She has only 2-3 Bollywood movies to her credit ( though they are jam packed with bolly-porn ..but thats another matter) .
• Experts feel she has what it takes to be a TOP HOLLYWOOD Actress ( has - includes all unique and exclusive talents)
• She was somehow acquainted ( in her struggling days ) to my freind