tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60862472012-01-08T21:35:38.904+05:30the incomplete thoughts of Prithwis MukerjeePrithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.comBlogger2141100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-18595706859880968972012-01-07T23:22:00.002+05:302012-01-08T20:57:45.054+05:30

In 1947 when the India became a modern political nation state, the icons that it chose to represent itself were were adopted from the symbols found in the Great Stupa of Sanchi -- built by Emperor Ashoka in the second half the 3rd Century B.C. History records Ashoka as the first political ruler of a nation state that nearly covered the entire geographic spread of the current, modern nation state

Prithwis Mukerjeenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-62648763851683316852011-12-30T00:49:00.000+05:302012-01-08T20:54:23.929+05:30

On the hill of Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh stands a series of craggy sandstone formations in the form of tall and massive rock shelters. These are the painted rock-shelters that constitute the largest repository of pre-historic art in India. These 10,000  year old wall paintings have been inscribed in the World Heritage List and give us peek into the dawn of history when human beings had just

Prithwis Mukerjeenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-69957499842419203462011-12-28T07:32:00.001+05:302011-12-28T20:13:56.368+05:30

Modern nation states and governments have evolved from robbers and dacoits who extorted money, now known as taxes, from terrorised medieval populations and this behavioural pattern is encoded in the DNA of modern administrative structures. This is true even though they claim to be representative or even democratic. This tendency to extort money has been a common feature in India, and perhaps the

Prithwis Mukerjeenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-83466079056789882172011-11-14T14:53:00.005+05:302011-11-14T16:14:36.287+05:30

Traffic jams are an integral part of roads in India -- it does not matter if you are at Dalhousie Square in the heart of Calcutta or you are at Panagarh on the Grand Trunk Road -- and when you are stuck you have a lot of time to think on your hands. You begin with cursing people around about their lack of civic sense and road etiquette but eventually you resign yourself to the situation and

Prithwis Mukerjeenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-70538478910664020942011-11-10T09:25:00.000+05:302011-11-10T09:25:22.433+05:30

At 20,050 feet above MSL, Tunganath is the highest Shiva Temple in the world.  On our way to Gangotri, we stopped at Guptakashi and made a detour to Tunganath. This is where we saw the first snow capped peaks. Our trek started out from a tiny hamlet called Chopta, which is as far as our car could go. From here it is a 3 km, 3500 feet climb to Tunganath.  We walked

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-16740084610979235902011-11-08T10:02:00.000+05:302011-11-08T14:55:18.162+05:30

Gangotri is the mythical fountainhead of the Ganga and the Gangetic civilisation around which the social, reliegios and cultural life of India has evolved. We visited Gangotri on Dipannita ( also known as Deepawali ) on 26th October and took a dip in the icy waters of the Bhagirathi, as the Ganga is known at its source. Here are the pictures. We set our sights on the distant peaks and start

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com6National Highway 108, Uttarakhand, India31.00023488323445 78.9157819747924830.998533383234452 78.91331447479249 31.00193638323445 78.91824947479247tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-5648210854282896212011-11-01T21:30:00.000+05:302011-11-01T21:30:23.590+05:30

What is Formula One ? It is a superb combination of man and machine, style and speed, glitz and glory, power and precision that sends a tremor through the heart and shiver up your spine. For the past 40 years, I have been watching this incredible spectacle on television, as these crazy drivers and their fantastic cars raced against each other on circuits at exotic locations like Monaco and

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-4610914967916543802011-10-18T16:47:00.000+05:302011-10-18T16:48:25.210+05:30

I had stumbled across Devajyoti Ray when I was looking for images that could be converted into stereograms -- apparently jumbled images that contain within them, other hidden images that get revealed "suddenly" when one stares at for some time. Usually these hidden images are common household objects but I was trying to use, and conceal, realistic photographs of human beings and the difficulty

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-56052789025172260922011-10-10T17:50:00.000+05:302011-10-10T17:50:41.632+05:30

Zoho Corporation has recognised our usage of their Cloud Computing products in their corporate blog post. 

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-26599763227055797382011-10-05T23:27:00.000+05:302011-10-05T23:28:38.175+05:30

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-42756588966676620792011-08-23T07:48:00.001+05:302011-08-23T07:50:21.413+05:30

  All these applications were built using Zoho Creator, the amazing environment for building your own Applications in the Cloud.

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-45465241982353244212011-07-16T21:37:00.000+05:302011-07-16T21:37:16.088+05:30

Saleem Shahzad's book ("Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban", Pluto Press, 260 pages, available at Flipkart) is a must read for anyone who is concerned about Islamist terrorism and an eye opener for the student of the murky politics beyond our western border. Going beyond the wealth of information that it presents, what is most remarkable about the book is the frank, no-holds-barred candour with

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-24874963242186884522011-06-29T08:35:00.001+05:302011-06-29T08:45:02.820+05:30

The new minister for  higher education in West Bengal is exploring new ways in which this sector could be improved. Here are some ideas. image of Class XII girls borrowed from Indian PatrikaThere could be many ways to improve the quality of higher education in Bengal. Curriculum can be redesigned, faculty can be trained or the administrative structure of universities and colleges can be

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-73411164983883250972011-06-22T08:58:00.002+05:302011-06-22T09:10:25.629+05:30

Given the current confrontational mood between industry and agriculture in the matter of acquisition of scarce land for industrial development it is imperative that we look at totally new or untried models. But before we do so let us first define some boundary conditions -- the Lakshman Rekha -- that cannot be transgressed. No land must be taken by force even by invoking the principle of Eminent

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1West Bengal, India22.512557182112385 88.3081050937499919.668825182112386 86.27418159374999 25.356289182112384 90.34202859374999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-25731268937703261952011-05-26T19:47:00.000+05:302011-05-26T19:47:23.093+05:30

A decade and a half ago, in the early days of outsourcing of software development, when clients in the US were sceptical about the feasibility of teams working across vast distances we had coined a term : Geography is History. What we meant to say was with the rapid advances in communication and collaboration technology, the geographic location of members of dispersed teams did not matter any

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-77359808127566981322011-05-23T10:24:00.000+05:302011-05-23T10:24:29.008+05:30

Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing the Pirates of the Caribbean : On Stranger Tides along with my son and was really impressed with the quality of the 3D technology. Not only was the spectacles that we used lighter but what was more important was that even with the 3D spectacles on, I did not have any difficulty in seeing the non 3D parts of the various movie trailers as well as the other

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-10473421375531245122011-05-14T06:43:00.003+05:302011-05-14T08:15:24.241+05:30

When Kalyani Chaudhuri, the retired IAS officer from West Bengal started to write a book on the death of bureaucracy and governance, she thought that the Left Front Government would rule the state till the end of eternity. Her book -- When the Pendulum Stops -- recounts the depths of depravity to which a state can sink when it is ruled by one political party for a very long time. We are aware of

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-51796876475580007132011-04-24T07:16:00.000+05:302011-04-24T07:16:27.990+05:30

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-17164093789595264732011-04-03T09:38:00.002+05:302011-04-03T09:41:16.817+05:30

Today, when Dhoni and his band of merry men are the toast of the town after their brilliant win against the Sri Lanka, it is impossible for me to not recollect an equally brilliant win pulled of by Kapil's Devils at Lords in 1983. I have recorded my feelings of that incredible day on the silver jubilee celebration of that historic win in another post and I do not wish to repeat it once again here

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-3653987945006759542011-04-03T08:41:00.000+05:302011-04-03T08:41:02.314+05:30

 THE CALM: Not a single visual of chest-beating or wild grief. Sorrow itself has been elevated. THE DIGNITY: Disciplined queues for water and groceries. Not a rough word or a crude gesture. THE ABILITY: The incredible architects, for instance. Buildings swayed but didn’t fall. THE GRACE: People bought only what they needed for the present, so everybody could get something. THE ORDER: No

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-70857514166951133412011-03-26T14:03:00.002+05:302011-03-27T10:59:47.051+05:30

Science fiction writers and movie makers have long talked about robots evolving to the point of dominating the world and human society. Fortunately this has not yet happened and the possibility of it happening in the near future is quite low. On the other hand, machine generated mass mail -- spam -- has increased to a point where they constitute 98% of the total email ecosystem and can dominate

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-22219730266691960292011-03-22T21:05:00.000+05:302011-03-22T21:05:15.110+05:30

Baul's are an integral part of the landscape of Birbhum and their haunting music lends enchantment to any evening. On the occasion of Dol Yatra ( or Holi -- for non Bengalis ) we had the pleasure of listening to Gautam Baul as he held forth with his mellifluous tunes under a full moon. What was even more remarkable was that the full moon on this date -- 19th March 2011 -- was also a supermoon,

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-73530576248331123052011-03-22T14:20:00.000+05:302011-03-22T14:20:23.322+05:30

In the little town of Dubrajpur, near Shantiniketan, Birbhum, West Bengal, there is an area called the "Mama Bhagne Pahar" that is scattered with a large number of huge boulders. Obviously, these are very old rocks, most likely to be remnants of a basaltic pipe that would have pushed through some cracks on the surface of the earth many many years ago. Since then the ravages of time and weather

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-82204297281958222702011-03-16T23:30:00.000+05:302011-03-16T23:30:01.258+05:30

Like the fifth postulate of Euclid, the twelfth chapter of this book has been a source of discomfort both for me as well as for some of my friends and readers. The need to introduce the Divine to plug a loophole in my logic – an inevitable loophole, given the limitations of the Gödel’s Theorem of Incompleteness – was rather irritating and yet it seemed that there is nothing I could do about it.

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-74931012563322245672011-02-27T18:24:00.003+05:302011-02-28T14:52:17.673+05:30

Thanks to 50+ batches of B.Tech engineers who have passed out through its portals -- and have subsequently percolated into every kind of business on the planet -- IIT Kharagpur is a fairly well known name in the literate parts of the world. Riding on the back of this illustrious tenant, the sleepy railway junction of Kharagpur has emerged from the obscurity of being another town in Midnapore and

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-21085107564665757312011-02-17T07:01:00.001+05:302011-02-19T07:25:39.131+05:30

Just 20 kms from IIT Kharagpur, on the banks of the Kangshabati River ( aka Kansai, Cossye ) are the 300 year old ruins of some beautiful terracotta temples that were built by Bidyananda Ghoshal, the revenue collector of Ratnachowk Pargana appointed by Alivardi Khan, one of the notorious Nawabs of Bengal [ The Telegraph ] People have known about the ruins for quite some time and they do get a

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-30602552509376839432011-02-14T08:11:00.000+05:302011-02-14T08:11:18.717+05:30

Ever since I have had a chance to read the series of books on the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov I have had a great curiosity about and fascination for the imaginary science of psychohistory. But is psychohistory really imaginary ? Can we not use statistical simulation tools to model the behaviour of large human populations. Having toyed with this idea for a while, I thought of publishing it

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-59041849000890125242011-02-13T19:00:00.000+05:302011-12-27T09:14:18.302+05:30

Distance learning is a topic that excites all but remains a model that is yet to be cracked with any great degree of success. Mr Deepak Parekh, in his inaugural address at the CSI National Convention states that this market will be worth Rs 11 billion in 2012 but as of today will any company actually hire someone who has an MBA degree from an online program ? It is true that we have had

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-79375521561768273762011-02-10T16:44:00.004+05:302011-02-10T17:14:47.517+05:30

In an earlier post I had spoken about the nexus between college rankings and placement records and why this is not desirable but unfortunately inevitable. Here is a video where I reiterate the same.

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-36571785031529739012011-02-08T11:22:00.000+05:302011-02-08T11:22:38.342+05:30

The Kurumbhera Fort in West Midnapur, West Bengal -- that we had 'discovered' in my previous post -- holds interesting possibilities for the economic and cultural life of South Bengal. We are aware of the dance festivals at Konarak and Khajuraho so why can we not conceive of a similar cultural festival at Keshiary with the Kurumbhera Fort as the venue ? Located on almost one acre of enclosed

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-32377976709537449482011-02-06T22:07:00.003+05:302011-02-08T14:26:10.471+05:30

If you are not a student then the campus of IIT Kharagpur is a rather boring place on weekends. To pass the time and find something worthwhile to do, Indira googled for places of interest in the neighbourhood and located the page for tourist places in West Midnapore . This pointed us to Kurumbhera Durgo ( or Fort Kurumbhera ) located near Keshiary, a little town located 22 km to the south of the

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-54122049837656589122011-01-22T10:56:00.001+05:302011-01-22T11:02:24.112+05:30

I know that I am not the first one to say so but the fact remains that the future of the world wide web is -- literally -- in your hands. In your mobile handset that is ! And the faster you get  your hands wrapped around this new technology the better for you. But why this sudden realisation on my part ? Let me backtrack a little bit. Many years ago, I had the opportunity to design a computer

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-89848521795551276422011-01-21T12:37:00.000+05:302011-01-21T12:37:28.991+05:30

image courtesy  Metin Bereketli 1. If my side of the road has a traffic jam, then I can start driving on the wrong side of the road, and all incoming cars will be rerouted via Meerut . 2. The Queue Nahin Rule: If there is a queue of many people, no one will notice me sneaking into the front as long as I am looking the other way. 3. The Mind Over Matter Law: If a traffic light is not

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-34421815741077557422010-12-01T20:40:00.000+05:302010-12-01T20:40:39.406+05:30

The Basic Philosophy The solution to any real life problem consists of two components -- a hard technology component and a soft human component. While speeds of trains can of course be increased with more powerful engines, lighter materials, better aerodynamics and intelligent signalling, what we also need is a way to ensure that everyone in the railway system has a vested interest in ensuring

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-72054046452026964282010-11-21T09:24:00.000+05:302010-11-21T09:24:29.030+05:30

Traditional MIS courses in Business Schools very often tend to focus on programming and systems analysis but the needs of the corporate world seem to be moving away from such "hard" technology. Today, it is all about the rich interactivity of Web 2.0 and the ability to "mashup" a whole slew of occassionally half baked ( or still baking ) technological ideas and deliver value to the business. In

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-51372614461507285762010-11-21T09:02:00.000+05:302010-11-21T09:02:01.126+05:30

 When will people realise that there is a world beyond the corrupt antics that goes by the name of Cricket Image scanned from EyE / Indian Express

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-83305984744695494162010-11-19T08:25:00.000+05:302010-11-19T08:25:22.824+05:30

As a concept, Cloud Computing is neither new nor anything unique -- in fact the business proposition  around this model of system architecture is so compelling, that one wonders -- as I have explained in the Economic Times --  why people do not see it as an inevitability ! Of late the idea seems to have exploded into the public psyche with the unstoppable force of an idea whose time has come and

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-16618555709965022052010-11-11T21:53:00.002+05:302011-02-07T11:49:23.679+05:30

The Sandy Bay Hotel : Excellent place to stay when you are here. We booked our rooms here through Unicorn Travels in Calcutta. Morning 5th November 2010

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-87753629242283006422010-10-26T13:19:00.001+05:302010-10-26T13:20:50.603+05:30

This snake decided to pay us a visit, much to the annoyance if not terror of the inhabitants. If anyone can identify the species please add a comment.

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-11387869169754031252010-10-24T10:24:00.001+05:302011-02-07T11:51:23.248+05:30

Ten years ago I had the opportunity to participate in a discussion on the impact of technology on creativity and innovation at one of the Seagull book stores in Bhawanipur. This had been organised by one of the Bengali "little magazines" that Calcutta is famous for and on arriving at the venue my initial thought was that my invitation had been a mistake -- because almost everybody else was either

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-31993816853000176772010-08-26T21:33:00.001+05:302011-02-07T11:51:45.571+05:30

Every year, corporates have to spend a significant amount of money and management time to visit engineering and business schools and select candidates for recruitment. Competition for talent is intense at the few, well-known and popular schools and corporates are not sure of being able to attract the good students. On the other hand, good candidates are available at a large number of

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-63550579050548439252010-08-10T17:34:00.001+05:302010-08-10T17:37:45.595+05:30

People should go to college for education, to learn,  but the unfortunate fact is that they do so for getting jobs. The net result of this situation is that colleges and universities in general and b-schools in particular continue to be obsessed with placements. Potential students, and those who 'honestly' advise them, and this includes the media, both print and digital, have a religious faith

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-33558195705482146952010-08-08T21:33:00.002+05:302010-08-10T14:32:15.607+05:30

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM) by Robert M Pirsig is an iconic book on philosophy that has developed a cult following since its publication in the late 1970s. It talks about a man who travels across North America with his son ( see picture above ) on a motorcyle and the description of his journey is interspersed with his discourse on philosophy. I was in high school at that

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-63923552880880056142010-07-19T08:36:00.001+05:302011-02-07T11:52:16.732+05:30

Print on demand is a publishing process that allows an author to publish a book in paperback and then have a very small number of copies -- even a single copy, if necessary -- printed whenever required at a price point that is comparable to traditional offset printing. I had first come across this technology when I had published, The Road to pSingularity, and had explained this new publishing

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-78789906668551316342010-07-04T15:22:00.000+05:302010-07-04T15:22:18.950+05:30

The Doors of Perception is an iconic book by Aldous Huxley where, while exploring  the hallucinogenic properties of certain shrubs and herbs, he came to the unusual conclusion that any cognitive sentient has instant and automatic access to all possible knowledge in the universe. However the neural faculties that are expected to process this information and render them useful in a socio-cognitive

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-69042151312015344802010-07-02T07:02:00.000+05:302010-07-02T07:02:33.133+05:30

Affordability and Quality Students located in remote and economically backward regions of the world are in critical need of good education and yet they are precisely the ones who cannot afford it. Since direct aid is both inefficient and inadequate, Shikshajaal:21 blends cutting edge technology and modern management techniques to  address this challenging goal. Shikshajaal:21 believes that

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-14216408012629350942010-06-24T08:58:00.005+05:302011-02-07T11:49:45.804+05:30

Dzhongs are a unique and integral part of life in Bhutan, the Land of the Thunder Dragon that we had the pleasure of visiting this summer. A dzhong is an architectural structure -- somewhat like a fort -- that brings together the civil and religious administration of the country under a single roof. Most dzhongs have their origin in the military requirements of the local feudal lords but today

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-90234657376307610172010-06-04T17:39:00.000+05:302010-06-04T17:39:35.223+05:30

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The pioneering PPP project gets off the ground in the Indian education sector with the ground breaking for the new IIT Kharagpur, VGSOM hostel by the Director, Prof Damodar Acharya today.

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-62194599878168799232010-05-25T16:10:00.002+05:302011-02-07T11:52:48.990+05:30

Indira and her band Nayontara presented "Udasi Haoa" an eclectic collection of Tagore songs at the Halo Heritage Art Gallery, Calcutta on 23 May 2010 This div will be replaced var s1 = new SWFObject('http://www.youtubereloaded.com/embed/player.swf','ply','470','470','9','#'); s1.addParam('allowfullscreen','true'); s1.addParam('allowscriptaccess','always'); s1.addParam('wmode','opaque'); s1.

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What is expected of an MBA graduate ? An MBA graduate should have the ability to handle uncertainty ! As a manager that is what you are paid for : for the routine stuff, companies have "other ranks" ! So when an MBA graduate walks into an interview the most important arrow in his quiver should be the ability to make sense of an uncertain situation and rapidly formulate a response that is

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-40994619699666025372010-05-03T22:54:00.006+05:302010-05-07T08:48:15.665+05:30

When I was in school, my knowledge about World War II was built up by reading war comics -- or Commando Comics, as they were called in the 1960-70s. This had led me to believe that the British soldiers were all smart and brave whereas the Germans were either fools or cowards and could only shout "Achtung ! Achtung !!" before they were all killed ! It was only much later, when I had come across an

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-11248111121970047162010-04-23T10:18:00.002+05:302010-04-23T16:14:48.748+05:30

In an earlier post on de-stressing higher education, I had argued about the irrelevance of the JEE / AIEEE as instruments of selection for entrance to higher education and the Damodar Acharya committee has recommended that the JEE should be scrapped. This is good. But the proposal to replace the same with a SAT style aptitude test is not a good solution either. These aptitude tests -- earlier

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-69685140560496047062010-04-14T16:57:00.002+05:302010-04-15T13:39:25.364+05:30

Some people look at the world around them and wonder why - Creative folks look around and wonder why NOT ? We have had corrossion resistant steel and pest resistant Bt-cotton, so why can we not have institutional systems that are corruption resistant by design ? In my youth and childhood, when I was a consultant in an earlier professional avatar, I have had the opportunity to work with Indian

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-76703453094807639202010-03-26T10:51:00.000+05:302010-03-26T10:51:48.063+05:30

 from Merely Online to Viral with a Vengeance Print media is fast losing out to its online cousin -- at least that is the story in the more developed societies. Actually the word developed has a rather embarrassing connotation to the extent that it implies that we in the non-developed world are somehow barbaric, but if we can swallow our pride on this then it is a fact there is a gulf of

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"You can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink" In the context of enhancing the delivery capabilities of the education system, we should perhaps rephrase the statement as "You should lead a horse to the water, but desist from spoon feeding it" As it is, those who manage to get into IIT -- either at the UG or the PG level -- have their originality and creativity ironed out of

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-75519930503573925462010-03-09T18:46:00.001+05:302011-02-07T11:53:18.753+05:30

Have you ever wondered what "they" are talking about "out" there in the social media ? What are they talking about more ? Google ? Microsoft ? or IBM ?   Now you can have all the answers from Omgili.com with charts like these .. or coming back to India who is more popular in the network Katrina Kaif ? or Priyanka Chopra ? or Shilpa Shetty ? Check it out, it is fun.

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-82210411273546748242010-02-28T19:27:00.000+05:302010-02-28T19:27:37.779+05:30

I am a power-user of the Internet and have been evangelising its usage in almost every field of activity but the funny thing is that despite this deep attachment to the digital media, I never, ever give up a chance to grab a magazine and curl up with it on a sofa ! Why is this ? Because it is simply so much more comfortable to do so. Does that mean that I do not read stuff off the web ? Not at

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-7917961894286078552010-02-21T09:57:00.001+05:302010-02-21T09:58:05.684+05:30

A rare poster image of Ritwik Ghatak's 1958 movie Ajantrik. I like this image because it shows the intimate and essential interaction between man and machine which I believe is inevitable in the future.

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-26976988855183574772010-02-15T10:23:00.001+05:302010-02-16T10:49:09.052+05:30

Why do universities exist ? At the most abstract level, academic institutions are supported because it is believed that new thoughts and ideas that emerge from them will lead to better standards of life and living in the the civil society that funds the creation and sustenance of these institutions. These thoughts and ideas are in the form of new knowledge that is both created and disseminated in

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This image represents a cloud of ideas, or rather words, that appear in my book, The Road to pSingularity. Click on the image to get a bigger view and understand how you can also build images of your own

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James Cameron's blockbuster movie, Avatar, about which I have written about in an earlier post, might have unconsciously sparked off a flurry of interest in the Hindu concept of Avatar, which can be loosely translated as a manifestation of -- usually -- the Divine in human form. But the term Avatar first entered the modern, techno-savvy, non-Hindu lexicon through its usage in Massively

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Hey, Prithwis sent you a video mail and a short note: "recorded and sent directly through www.tokbox.com idea learnt from Gagandeep Sapra's article Tech2.0 in the Indian Express" To watch it, simply click on the link below or copy and paste it in to your browser http://www.tokbox.com/vm/h3yna07gckp5 You can make video calls and send

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James Cameron's Avatar is old wine in a brand new and spectacularly brilliant bottle. There is nothing new in the plot -- especially for those of us in India who have been following land acquisition battles in the tribal belt -- that pits the indigenous people as the underdogs who are battling to save their forest-based way of life from the clutches of a global ( universal ?) megacorp. Latched on

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-37395373579842491132009-12-01T15:09:00.000+05:302009-12-01T15:09:53.204+05:30

With the debacle of the CAT getting out of the bag and the rubbish of it being attacked by a virus being bandied around by semi-literate experts, I thought of digging deep into the innards of my laptop and locating a very simple tool that I had built a long time ago to automate the evaluation of examination scripts. Despite all the progress made in telecom, internet connectivity remains a

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-83957798396478908452009-11-28T18:16:00.003+05:302011-02-07T11:53:54.609+05:30

Many professionals in the corporate sector, who enjoy handsome take home salaries today dream of early retirement. The thought of being free from client and performance pressures and the lure of chasing down all those hobbies that one had to sacrifice at the alter of the corporate employer is extremely seductive. But an early retirement would mean that one should have a corpus of money that

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-46037734073501626182009-11-17T09:04:00.009+05:302009-11-17T13:48:31.923+05:30

Now that I have grabbed your attention with a couple of big and high sounding words let me justify their use in the title of this post.In any discussion of the Indian State, the first image that pops into our mind is that of the parade with which our armed forces salute the State -- through the person of the President -- on Republic Day. The spectacular nature of this parade, the precision with

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-79646262835339681932009-10-26T10:38:00.007+05:302009-10-27T08:55:51.526+05:30

With an obsession with placements, Business schools in India -- IIMs not excluded -- have degenerated into thinly disguised placement agencies or at best glorified vocational schools. The compartmentalisation of B-school curriculum into the four principal management functions, namely Finance, Marketing, Human Resources and Systems and Operations reflects this mindset. These are the four

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-60544748920530264782009-10-17T20:26:00.004+05:302009-10-19T20:30:51.895+05:30

Why do students queue up to get into B-Schools, especially the more well known ones ? And why are some B-Schools more well known than the others ? Both questions are in fact two sides of a more fundamental question - what value does a B-School bring to the table ? and the answer to both questions can be found in the placement history of B-Schools in general and specific schools in

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-47025796308545511932009-09-27T08:52:00.007+05:302011-02-07T11:54:56.734+05:30

Sandhi puja is perhaps the most significant event in the entire sequence of rituals that constitute the autumnal adoration of the Goddess -- the Durga Puja, but not too many are aware of the legends that have invested this event with the aura of extreme sanctity. Sandhi means junction and in this case it is the junction between the eighth and ninth lunar day after the first new moon that occurs

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-389221028159451092009-09-26T16:24:00.003+05:302009-09-26T18:26:04.676+05:30

Maureen Dowd in her op-ed article -- Blue is the new Black -- published in the New York Times has referred to a survey that, if really true, should force us to seriously rethink the outcome of the War of Civilisations.But first what is this survey all about ? "According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-36496457462512558912009-09-26T10:22:00.000+05:302009-09-26T10:28:12.299+05:30

The evening of Mahasaptami at Sonartoree, Prantik, Birbhum

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-10890774897670688152009-09-24T15:41:00.003+05:302009-09-24T16:08:04.531+05:30

Kankalitala is one of the 51 Shakti Pithas in the Indian sub-continent and is a place of pilgrimage and tourism for those who visit Shantiniketan. While most visitors are happy to visit the tiny shrine of the divine mother, not too many take the trouble to walk another 100 metres to the shrine of the Pitha Bhairab -- the consort of Shakti -- who is referred to here as Ruru Bhairav. But those who

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-86732966368500003882009-09-21T09:25:00.001+05:302009-09-21T09:27:34.978+05:30

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-67288891433053702542009-09-19T18:06:00.004+05:302009-09-19T18:23:05.242+05:30

I have been teaching Quantitative Techniques [ or more simply Statistics and Probability, for those who have given a miss to B-schools ! ] and as a part of my course I have taken the liberty to "borrow" heavily from the work of other teachers and professors who teach similar things in other parts of the globe. With all the talk of digital rights management and ownership of IP I feel rather guilty

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Mahalaya -- celebrated on the day of the last new moon before Durga Puja -- is when many of us in India perform tarpan : a solemn act of remembrance of our ancestors. Those who have the inclination and the time perform this on the banks of Ganga, the Hooghly or any other river that they consider sacred.In view of the pressures of time, many of us prefer to remember our ancestors in the privacy of

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-76357155707122486722009-09-02T14:07:00.002+05:302009-09-02T14:18:36.118+05:30

I was trying to create a presentation on the importance of Social Media in Marketing but realised that there is no way that I can improve on these two ... Since discretion is the better part of valour I know when to step aside and let the master speak.What The F**K is Social Media?View more documents from Marta Kagan..................What the F**K is Social Media: One Year LaterView more

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We come across, and frequently use, the phrase red tape and we know that it refers to the delay that is endemic to the bureaucratic process - but have you ever wondered why is that bureaucrats are so slow in doing things ?Anybody who has visited a government office in India would of course attribute this delay to competence or corruption. More often than not, a little bit of speed money -- the

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-27870586764385402502009-08-23T09:47:00.002+05:302009-08-23T09:57:33.891+05:30

While I do appreciate abstract art -- particularly shapes and colours that please the eye -- I do not always agree with the statement that "if you are looking for meaning in art, then you are barking up the wrong tree". Shapes, patterns and colours are nice but they are even nicer if they can communicate something that you recognise and can identify with.I came across these paintings by

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-10149723402296090972009-08-21T10:54:00.007+05:302009-08-22T07:23:21.965+05:30

source : Gartner ReportEvery new technology ( or idea for that matter ) that appears in the human psyche goes through the phases shown above [ see chart ] if they survive adolescence and enter maturity. Virtual Worlds, Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing are three ideas that keep churning through my thoughts and I was pleasantly surprised to find the three of them being addressed in the Gartner report on

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-65008663204194783742009-07-11T05:56:00.003+05:302009-07-11T10:20:14.075+05:30

Onward Software Soldiers, marching as to war,With a Chrome-on-Linux going on before,Google, the loyal Master, leads against the foe;Forward into battle, hear its trumpets blow.Predictions are hazardous and emphatic ones even more so -- for the credibility and reputation of the predictor -- but let me stick my neck out anyway and state that Google Chrome might just as well drive a stake through

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-13751366642754710432009-06-30T08:25:00.003+05:302009-06-30T08:34:33.646+05:30

An open letter to ...Mr Kapil Sibal,Minister for Human Resources DevelopmentGovernment of IndiaDear Sir, Mr SibalYour thoughts on the abolition of Class X examinations and the introduction of a single nationwide Class XII examination are like the winds of change that should blow away the cobwebs from the stultifying and claustrophobic classrooms to which we in India have condemned our children.

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-47181406487249055362009-06-25T11:17:00.003+05:302009-06-25T11:28:18.571+05:30

A slightly modified version of this interview has appeared in today's edition of the Economic Times.What is Cloud Computing ?Cloud Computing is less about any particular technology and more about how we use technology to reduce costs and improve efficiency. In Cloud Computing you move your data - and the programs that operate on this data - from private machines - desktop PCs or corporate

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-52030987345052348382009-06-23T13:49:00.005+05:302009-06-23T15:49:21.029+05:30

Web 2.0 in general and social networks, like Orkut and Facebook in particular, have emerged as very powerful models of social interaction ... so much so that Iran is trying to quell its election related insurrection by trying to block Facebook and the US Government convinced Twitter to defer its scheduled downtime so as to allow Iranian thought processes to play out to their full potential !!

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-65891154055036870102009-06-17T11:42:00.000+05:302009-06-17T11:44:26.781+05:30

Refugees have traditionally been associated with political upheavals. We have had Jews seeking refuge from Nazi Germany, dissidents seeking refuge from Russia, China and other totalitarian communist nations and closer home we have had Bengalis seeking refuge from the murderous regime in erstwhile East Pakistan. Then we had economic refugees who sought to flee their homeland not because of

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-50246188770306472752009-06-08T10:59:00.003+05:302009-06-08T11:06:31.735+05:30

Pratap Bhanu Mehta's article in the Indian Express on the devil being in the detail of educational reforms is very interesting. It makes us look around for successful models and one that strikes the eye is obviously the Stock Exchange mechanism -- that is perhaps one of the most successful model that has emerged from Indian reform process. To see if this model can be used as a reference, let us

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-43656987372436677212009-05-28T07:28:00.004+05:302009-05-28T07:39:23.917+05:30

The IIT system, that was born in the early, optimistic years of the young Indian state, was truly one of kind. It articulated the scientific and technological aspirations of a nation, that had just found its feet in the global community, and exemplified -- what Thomas Friedman would later refer to as -- the process of "drilling for talent" : the search for the best and finest minds in the country

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-34463144091886715622009-05-20T08:14:00.004+05:302009-05-20T08:45:15.251+05:30

Text books define history in terms of events and individuals. Hari Sheldon -- the epicentre of thought in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series -- posits an alternate perspective where the ebb and tide of the human saga is independent of both events and individuals and follows what others call the flow of destiny -- the inevitable. But what sets Asimov's interpretation stand apart from those of others

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-6971132118451297922009-05-17T08:38:00.002+05:302009-05-17T08:43:23.184+05:30

Mamata Banerjee should send a big bouquet of red roses to Komrade Karat because it is to him and his arrogant intransigence that she owes the 19+ Lok Sabha seats that she has won yesterday.The Communist Party of Bengal ( and Kerala and Tripura, if you please ) came to power in 1977 and has since been stuck leach-like to this state. While its intial entry was on the basis of certain ideologies,

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-27721183648701874392009-05-12T16:00:00.004+05:302009-05-12T16:29:40.143+05:30

In an earlier post on I had tried to explain why in the study of astrology it makes more sense to observe, track and validate correlations between events in the celestial sphere and that in personal life. An analysis of correlations is a standard tool or technique in statistics and so it makes sense to apply this technique in astrology as well. However, there are certain challenges in this

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-36631432932610902272009-05-08T12:04:00.003+05:302009-05-08T12:50:15.814+05:30

In general I do not follow the antics on the cricket field but since the IPL is good tamasha and KKR is ostensibly based out of Calcutta ( or god forbid, Kolkata !) I have been wondering why they are putting on such a uniformly bad show. The chatterati have come out with two streams of thought to which let me add my own ...First, SRK after his nationwide success with Chak De India, has come to

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-4642145462551124282009-05-05T11:59:00.003+05:302009-05-05T12:08:58.481+05:30

I have been using Zoho at the Praxis Business School, Calcutta and have written about it in my blog posts Zoho : Amazing Web Based Applications and Zoho : The Continuing Saga but is great to know that the University of California at Berkeley has also woken up to the enchantment of this wonderful platform. Please see the presentation below.

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-18779196391452033132009-04-16T21:08:00.006+05:302009-04-16T21:22:37.119+05:30

A man is known no more only by his name, address and phone number -- an email address is mandatory on a visiting card that one presents as a part of the process of getting acquainted with a stranger. But the email is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg that represents a person in the emerging, expanding and evolving world of digital relationships.The Internet is a network of computers and

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-17794540671543763022009-03-21T09:13:00.007+05:302009-06-05T11:42:41.783+05:30

A widely held perception about astrology states that astronomical bodies influence events in human life and this influence can be benefic or malefic. This CAUSALITY is extremely difficult to justify in scientific or rational terms and has led to vague and vacuous explanations in terms of mysterious "rays" that emanate from planets -- and can be focused by gems and jewels -- or in terms of as yet

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-69563918944627546552009-03-14T08:33:00.005+05:302009-12-21T09:07:58.901+05:30

Massively multi-user on-line role playing games (MMORPGs) may, in India today, be restricted to teenagers who have access to broadband but there are two powerful reasons why this is about to change : first – broadband is becoming ubiquitous, more so with 3G and WiMAX on the horizon and second – the teenagers themselves are becoming adults and hence significant ! But the advent of MMORPGs like

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-70270824946441687362009-03-10T09:46:00.004+05:302009-03-10T11:28:25.761+05:30

With Pakistan succumbing to the Taliban and the US blindly stumbling around in an economic graveyard, we in India must start looking out for ways to defend our way of life from the misery that is engulfing the neighbourhood -- but the question is what and how ? No political activist in any party -- whether the Congress, the BJP or any of the satraps now jostling for an opportunity to loot the

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-73401061991596886732009-03-07T08:37:00.004+05:302009-03-07T20:44:26.316+05:30

The use of Mr Vijay Mallya's wealth -- that has been generated by selling liquor in India -- to recover the relics belonging to MK Gandhi -- one of India's most ardent anti-liquor prohibitionists -- reveals the hypocrisy that is endemic to the Indian psyche.But first let us thank Mr Mallya who has made us proud for (a) being rich enough to have told the NRI crowd that we in India do not need

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-18136478133839971772009-03-05T08:12:00.006+05:302009-03-25T08:24:23.591+05:30

Trust the Government of India to come out with the most ham-handed response to the Islamist attack on Cricket : the youngest and most widespread religion in South Asia. The stupidity of the proposal to defer the IPL is on par with thoughts of asking Tata Steel to shut down the blast furnaces for a week at Jamshedpur, or ONGC to stop pumping oil from Bombay High for some time because of the

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-55976821670525241532009-01-17T09:16:00.003+05:302009-03-14T17:19:31.292+05:30

I had the pleasure and privilege of speaking at INFOCOMM0809 Conferance organised by Ananda Bazar and Business World at the ITC Sonar @ CalcuttaImagineering - Virtual WorldsView SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: virtual worlds)

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-4352156951254453982008-12-25T17:16:00.003+05:302009-03-14T17:18:07.839+05:30

When we talk of India under seige, who do we usually think of as our beseigers ? The obvious culprit are the various terrorist outfits operating out of Pakistan, next in line is the Peoples Liberation Army in Tibet and then you have the various terrorist outfits operating from Myanmar, Bangladesh and of course the LTTE in Sri Lanka -- who were the first to create a maniacal cadre of suicide

Prithwis Mukerjeehttps://profiles.google.com/117162736611182328720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6086247.post-17728051462330285962008-12-23T08:30:00.003+05:302008-12-23T08:36:36.535+05:30

While we wait for Mr Ratan Tata to come out and present us with the Nano here comes news of a real nano-car that has been built -- but is not quite on sale as yet.These cars, created by Prof James Tour, Professor of Chemistry at Rice University, Houston, USA are approximately four nanometers across and includes a chassis with an engine, a pivoting suspension and rotating axles attached to rolling

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