New age five star hospital

Off late many new age five star type hospitals have started opening all over the place. I have always wondered whether the quality of healthcare delivered by these hospital is also in line with the shiny interiors and well dressed receptionists. My own experiences in Wockhardt hospital in Bangalore have not really been great. But since there is little most of us understand about medicine, one assumes that may be we are unduly worried. Here is someody's experience from Wockhardt which kinds of points in the same direction. Please make your own conclusions. I have just received this email through friends that I can not vouch for the accuracy of events or assumptions.

Rashmi's Story

My name is Rashmi B.T. I am 35 years old, married to an air force officer, Vivek, and have a four year old son, Dhruv, delivered by emergency Caeserean section in 2004. On March 4th, 2009, my life was changed unalterably. I lost a baby that I had carried inside me, completely healthy, for a full 41 weeks.

I understand that doctors are human, that mistakes happen. However, I have come to believe that what happened to me could have been prevented if the doctor and the hospital had provided the most basic level of care and expertise. What's worse, they refuse to take steps to prevent someone else going through the same nightmare, simply because they want to protect
themselves from the possibility of litigation - something I am not interested in unless it is the only way to force them to change their protocols.

The Beginning

In June 2008, Vivek and I learnt that we were expecting our second child. The pregnancy was uneventful. I was healthy and fit. Every prenatal visit and test showed that the baby was healthy and developing well. During my 35th week, I decided to consult Dr. Latha Venkataraman at The Nest, Wockhardt's Bannerghatta Road maternity facility to see me through the rest of my pregnancy.

Despite the fact that I had already undergone a C-section, she urged me to opt for a V-BAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean Section) or in layman's terms, a normal delivery. She brushed aside my concerns, telling me that a second C-section would be six times more risky and assuring me that a V-BAC would be less risky and almost pain-free.

My due date was estimated as 26 Feb 2009. I visited Dr. Latha on 28 Feb. She wrote on my record: "delivery will be attended by Dr. Latha/Dr. Prabha." Since I had neither met, heard of, nor been examined by Dr. Prabha before, I was concerned. Dr. Latha explained that Dr. Prabha Ramakrishna is another consultant at Wockhardt, and that it was a hospital requirement for her to write both their names down as possible attending doctors for my labor/delivery. However, she assured me that it was just a formality, and that she would be the one to attend to me when I went into labor.

On 3 March, I visited Dr. Latha again. Since I was so far past my due date, I requested that a scan be done to check on the baby.

When I called her to read out the results of the report, she did not want to know anything other than the liquor content, though I specifically asked her if there was any other information she would require from the scan. She told me I could either wait for labor to start or choose a day to come in and have my labor induced.

The Nightmare Begins
I went into labor at 2am on 4 March, and got admitted to the hospital at 5.15am.

By 7.45 am, I was experiencing contractions less than a minute apart. Dr. Latha came and did a quick examination. I was shifted to the labor ward at 8am where I remained until 1.50p.m., under the sole care of nurse Savitha. Dr. Latha was not present at all.

A junior doctor, Dr. Shirley, was available intermittently. She spent most of the time on her cell phone, talking to her husband. She was keen to see him before he left on an 11-day vacation. A Dr. Chetna substituted for her while when she went to see her husband off.

There was no other doctor present. Dr. Prabha was called each time the fetal heart rate fell (this happened a couple of times). She was seeing outpatients and attending two other deliveries simultaneously, so she was only able to come to the labor ward to see me four times, for less than 5 minutes each time.

At 10am, I was given Syntocinon, a drug used to enhance labor; the dosage was increased at 10.45am. At 12.30, there was vaginal bleeding, and the nurse phoned Dr. Prabha, who advised her to "keep a watch". The bleeding reduced, but I began to feel pain of increasing intensity during contractions. Dr. Shirley reappeared at 1.00 p.m., examined me vaginally and announced that I was almost fully dilated and would deliver by 1.30pm. I complained several times of excruciating pain but was told that it was
normal. At 1.30pm, Dr. Prabha came in and was told by Dr. Shirley that I was fully dilated and would deliver any minute. Despite that, Dr. Prabha breezed off to visit another patient in the OPD.

I felt no urge whatsoever to push, yet was asked to do so. The stirrup on the delivery table kept breaking off - I was told that this is a recurring problem that "needed attention". At 1.50 pm, the fetal heart rate dropped to 80 beats per minute. Dr. Prabha was called again. She checked the fetal heart rate on the CTG, explained that this was normal when the baby
was passing through the birth canal, and asked me to hold my breath and push hard. I felt no sensation in my cervical area, but felt intense pain tearing my stomach apart. I felt like my baby had rolled into my stomach and could see its body pushing up against my ribcage. I was screaming, pointing at my stomach, and telling them that my stomach was hurting, and there was no urge to push. But she told me to "push, push harder". I then heard Dr. Prabha saying "Get the OT ready". She told my husband that she was going to attempt to deliver by forceps - if that was unsuccessful, she'd have to do a Caesarian.

The OT wasn't on standby, wasn't ready. I was numb with pain. They wanted me to get up and move to the operation table. I couldn't move. They eventually slid something under my back and I pushed myself on to the OT table, as there was no transfer stretcher available. I complained of severe shoulder and chest pain. No one paid me any attention; everyone was busy
preparing the OT, and the anesthetist was attempting to top up my epidural.
The fetal heart rate was never monitored in the OT. Dr.. Prabha unsuccessfully attempted a forceps delivery at 2.20 p.m., and then cut me open. I heard a deafening sucking sound, after which I must have passed out.

Later, I learnt that my uterus had ruptured along the scar of my previous Caeserian section. My baby was found floating in my abdomen. He had no heartbeat and he wasn't breathing. He had been deprived of oxygen for a long time - 43 minutes. They "resuscitated" my son and put him on a ventilator.

When I opened my eyes I saw Dr. Latha leave, followed by Dr. Prabha. Dr. Shirley was suturing me while laughing and talking with another nurse. I felt reassured that my baby was okay, even though I had neither seen nor
heard him. "Don't Worry, You Can Conceive Again"

At 3.30pm, a nurse struggled to take my BP reading; the BP apparatus wasn't working and had to be replaced. Dr. Latha met Vivek at the NICU and told him that the baby was doing fine and had to be kept under observation.
She also told him that my scar had ruptured, but said that I was okay. At 4.30 pm, my husband repeatedly begged the nurses to give me pain relief. I was then shifted to the ward.

At 9.30 pm the neonatologist told Vivek that the baby had been deprived of oxygen for over 40 minutes, possibly resulting in "some extent" of brain damage. This was the first inkling we had that something had gone wrong.

The next morning, I was given a sponge bath at 6am. I then lay unattended until 2.30 p.m., when Dr. Prabha, Dr. Latha, and Dr. Prakash (the neonatologist) saw me for the first time after the operation. Dr. Latha unceremoniously ripped the dressing off my wound without using any gel or spirit, and pronounced the wound clean.

We were told that our baby would be kept under observation for another 24 hours. Later that night Dr. Latha came in at 9.50pm. Her only words to me: "Don't worry, you can conceive again. Your uterus is intact." "Do Japa and Tapa To Get Better""
None of the consultants saw me on 6 March. That night, my milk came in, and my breasts became swollen and painful. I asked in vain for assistance. After repeatedly begging for help, I sent Dr. Latha a text message at noon on 7 March. At 4pm, a nurse told me that the doctor had instructed them to use a breast pump to relieve my pain - however, since the hospital didn't have one, I would have to go and buy one.

Dr. Latha finally visited me at 7.30 pm. She confessed that she was unaware that there had been a 43 minute delay in performing my C-section. She also admitted that instructions delivered over the phone could never substitute for personal supervision. She said, and again I quote, "Do some pranayama, japa, and tapa to help you get better."

Throughout my stay, nurses didn't know what medication I had been prescribed. They kept asking me what medication I was to be given. They had to be repeatedly reminded to give me medication.

For the next 13 days, Arnav was in the NICU on a ventilator. Throughout that time, he was completely reliant on ventilator support, his eyes were dilated and non-responsive to light, and there was no sign of movement. After a week, the neonatologist asked me to express milk and said they would feed the baby with a pipe inserted from his nose to the stomach. I did this for the next six days.

On 16 March, we decided to let Arnav go. We requested that he be removed from life support.

"We Would Do Exactly The Same For The Next Patient Who Walks In"
Vivek and I wanted to learn what had gone wrong with such a healthy pregnancy. Basic reading indicated that scar rupture is a well-known risk when you attempt to deliver vaginally after a first C-section, and must therefore be monitored very closely by a doctor if attempted at all.

We met with the hospital administration and the doctors. All we wanted was an explanation. To hear the words, "I made an error in judgment". Instead, we were met with a wall of defensiveness. Dr. Latha said that despite knowing the outcome, she would take exactly the same steps with the next patient who walked through her door.

I decided to get a second opinion. And then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. Three of Bangalore's best-known gynaecologists (and other doctors too) categorically stated that given my age (35), the estimated weight of the baby (> 4 kilos), and the duration of gestation (>40 weeks), a vaginal birth should never have been attempted, and scar rupture was a logical, obvious outcome.

All reading I have done has backed this up. Even a layperson's book like "What to expect when you are expecting" (pages 363-364) says that abdominal pain during a V-BAC indicates a scar rupture and outlines the procedure for safe delivery of the baby. Given that I was complaining of excruciating abdominal pain, shoulder pain and chest pain, the doctor should have known my scar was rupturing. I should never have been asked to push; it exacerbated the rupture. Nor should I have been given a drug that intensified my contractions. By Dr. Prabha's own admission, she did not know about the rupture until she opened me up.

Several doctors have also told us that keeping Arnav on the ventilator for 13 days was an exercise in futility from the first. At no point were we told that he would never survive if taken off the ventilator - had we known that, we would never have subjected him, or ourselves to two weeks of anguish. All we were told was that he "might be" brain damaged to "some extent" but they couldn't predict how bad it would be.

A Brick Wall of Defensiveness; Discrepancies Galore

When I attempted to engage with the hospital to ask them to change their protocol of treatment based on an unbiased review conducted with the inputs of external gynecologists, I was met with a brick wall of defensiveness. They refused to conduct a fair, transparent investigation, claiming that their internal investigation showed that they had done everything right and that losing the baby was "my destiny". Dr. Latha went so far as to say that since I am educated, I should have been better informed about the procedure.

I don't want to sue them for money. I just want them to change their policies and protocols so that this doesn't happen to someone else. I have been hitting a brick wall for two months, and feel that the only way to make them pay attention is to tell my story to people.

There are many discrepancies and attempts to cover up the hospital's inefficiency (to name a few: baby's weight recorded as 3Kg despite the fact that he was never weighed; post-facto note of fetal heart rate as 180bpm despite the fact that the heart rate was never monitored in the OT; discharge summary says "live term baby extracted" even though Arnav had no heartbeat or respiration at birth; half-hour discrepancy between CTG trace and labor room clock). I asked questions to which I was given ludicrous answers (Eg: Our pediatrician is very experienced, so he can guess the weight of any baby just by looking at it).

We were charged approximately Rs. 2,20,000 by Wockhardt. Of this, we found over Rs. 7000 billed for things that had never been done (spinal anesthetic, an extra day of room rent, food not consumed). We subsequently found more extraneous charges, amongst them an amount billed for tests that were performed on 18 March, two days after Arnav's death.

My Story Has Just Begun...
My uterus is still healing. My back still hurts from the trauma. And my heart aches for Arnav, the baby I will never hold.

More than that, I am filled with the fear that this will happen again. After all, Dr. Latha says she would "do exactly the same again" even though she knows the outcome. And the hospital agrees that she - and they - did everything right.

Wockhardt delivers approximately 80 babies each month. With BP machines that don't work, a delivery room stirrup that's falling off and that has "needed to be fixed for a while", nurses who don't know what medication they are supposed to administer, and one (yes ONE) OT dedicated to emergency deliveries. That OT wasn't ready when I needed it. What guarantee do you have that it will be ready when you need it? Sure, they claim to have nine other OTs in the hospital - but if they are all as woefully unprepared as the one I was in, my story could be yours.

I want them to change their policies, and I won't give up until they do.

Thank you for reading.

Restaurant Review : Taste of India, MP Nagar, Bhopal

On my trip to Bhopal recently, I ended up visiting this restaurant called Taste of India. Looked like a decent place, not really posh but good and cost effective food. Service was good and quick. We ended up having soup, paneer handi and dal tadka. After really long time, I ate good dal tadka in a restaurant. I am really amazed at number of times I have seen restaurants messing up something as simple as dal tadka.
Paneer was good, really spicy. Breads were also good. All in all a really good food that finally costed Rs. 197/- for two people.

Indian Election Results

Finally there seems to be a clear trend at 11AM that UPA (Congress+) seems to be headed to form the next government and Dr. Man Mohan Singh seems poised to form the next government. There seem to be some clear plus points that have come out from these elections.

• Left parties are out, I think apart from their negative politics in respective states, they might have been better served by taking credit for good things happening in the last five years.


• I believe it was a good thing for congress to go alone in UP, atleast they provided an alternative to people


• Nobody believed LKA when he said that there is nothing to give credit to congress for.

I think this would be a good election result for this country.

Varun Gandhi

As I am watching in mumbai airport and listening to the news, it seems Varun Gandhi is in making waves again. He wants to bring back forced sterilization and compulsory military service.
We all know the futility of the first one but the second point is bizzare. If he felt so strongly about that, why did he now bother to join military. He is not too old, he could have joined military before this fulfilling political career.
But then politicians never were known to do sane things.

Indian political parties -- they will say anything to make you happy

It is election time in India and during these times, the political parties would say anything that makes their constituencies happy. Some would even say things that sound outright illogical.
Here is a political party that has declared in their manifesto that they are against computers and English.
So I tried to analyse if these guys really get elected and have their prime minister installed what would be the scene of India at the end of five years. Please add your things in comments if it comes to your mind.

• We will be booking train reservations the good old way. No e-ticketing, no computerized ticket. It the good old large sized register in your city station. What would be real impact of all this? Quotas based on per station basis. You can not book through tickets, you have to bribe the TTE to pretty much every booking and many other things.


• Mobile networks and all the CDOT revolution would be yanked out, you will be back to the manual exchange era where a person would be connecting your telephone lines.


• No income tax filing electronically.


• No online banking, No ATMs, No NEFT and RTGS. Everything will be rolled back. You will be back to an ear when transferring Rs. 100/- from Delhi to Mumbai took 15 days.


• Stock exchanges will be closed down. No equity, only debt would be allowed to run the companies.


• Different governments in India will be communicating in their own languages, for example a government in Delhi will write a letter to Tamil Nadu government in Hindi which will be translated in Tamil on the way. You can replace your favorite state with Tamil Nadu here.


• Half of the TV channels will have to shut down because they broadcast in English. Poor Mr. Pronoy Roy and Sardesai will be out of job.


• Malls will have to be shut down

Reading all this, I am wondering why do we blame Taliban in Pakistan. Many of these things sound so much like what they are doing there. Better still why don't they just take us back enough so that we don't have to worry about complex things like currency systems, we can just live off barter system.

I can only hope that better sense prevails in the states from where these morons derive their base of power and people just kick these guys out.

Nothing logical or scientific about Economics or Economists

I am really fed-up with economics and economists. They just can't seem to be able to make up their mind on what is the right thing to do. They almost sound like an old-boys-club for rich people. Take following as examples

• When Government of India declares loan waiver scheme in 2007-08 for farmers a majority of whom can't repay their loans because of failure of crops and other reasons, everybody is up in arms. Everybody starts talking about how it is the worst thing to do. When President Obama talks about trillions of dollars in bailing out US banks who are essentially private enterprises and they are in trouble because of their own mistakes all of a sudden it becomes a prudent economics. So somehow it seems that bailing out really poor private citizens is bad while bailing out private enterprise is good.


• When GoI talks providing stimulus to economy, S&P and their friends worry about fiscal deficit while when same things is done by US government it seems to al right.

May be nobody just has a clue and they just keep on propounding their favorite theories till the time these are debunked.

India's horrible neighborhood

As I watch this news update by the NDTV and The Times of India, I come to know that Sri Lankan cricket team has been attacked with guns (probably grenades etc. as well). This again brings out the fact that we live in extremely dangerous neighborhood. Our neighbor have just descended into anarchy. If the country's security apparatus can not guard a cricket team which, everybody knows, is under threat, then one can only assume that there is not control in the hands of police/military.

I have always believed that societies would have to pay for ignoring troublesome elements in their midst. I think it is about time that societies that harbor dangerous elements are asked, they either need to get rid of these elements or they have to pay the price for letting these elements exist.

Hopefully the world will realize, what India has veen saying for all these days and do something about it. But I know that everybody is looking after their short term gains and unless this problem becomes their problem, nobody is bothered.

More signs of recession

Lately as you move around, you see more and more signs of recession and when a top MNC can't afford to pay even for signages, you know that cost cutting is in full force.



Just so that people don't think I am making this up, here is the photo with more context.

Aero India 2009

I went to Aero India 2009 airshow. Following is a set of pictures from there. I would say it was really amazing.

Aero India Slide Show

My really old comb

I blogged about my geyser that blew up, since it really did not do much damage except the fact that there is smoke everywhere, I would not have bothered too much about it. But what is really sad that it destroyed my 15 years old comb. I know it is just a comb but I had it for 15 years. :-)

My geyser blew up

Six years ago I bought geysers with plastic casing. I was sold that as a high end product because it is more safe and works longer.

Today when I turned it on, it just blew up. Now geysers can blow up for many reasons and I don't think that itself is a huge issue (apart from the fact that it can hurt somebody, which it did not in my case), the geyser body caught fire.

The plastic started burning and very soon whole bathroom and bedroom was full of smoke.

I am sure there was some short-circuit but the power went off within a minute of me powering on the geyser so the there was no chance of persistent sparks that might have aggravated the fire. What is really surprising to me is the ease with which the geyser was burning.
Now I am thinking that may be the old style metal body geysers are better, atleast they would not catch fire and become an inferno in themselves.
Some more photos down below.

What is modi upto

Gujarat chief minister has a strong fan following among some of the Indian who seem to see him as the savior against everything. But I don't seem to understand what does modi want to achieve by his utterances on Mumbai terror attack. First he went on to say that Pakistan position on terrorists is justified.
Pak capitalises on Modi's 'Kasab' jibe
Then he goes on to say that there might have been people in India who are involved in these attacks.

26/11 wouldn't have taken place without internal help

Now I can allow for the fact that both these assertions may be true but at a time when the government of country (whether one likes it or now) is trying to force pakistan in acting against terrorists, what is the point of contradicting the line of government. Talk about working on narrow political gain.

Ideology and Political Parties

I sincerely believe that in democracies, ideologies of political parties has not role to play. I would like a party to rule that just believes in ruling and that is its only ideology. Only such a political party would be scared of the voters. Anytime it does something that majority of people don't like, they can let it be known that they would vote against the party because of that issue and it is very likely that the government would not take that action.

Take for example a party that has a ideology, if they really believe in that ideology, they would take actions that match that ideology and even be willing to sacrifice the government. Now as we know, in most of the democracies, the government is hardly voted with more than 50% voters, there is a very good chance, after coming to power they would do things that most of the voters don't agree with. I think that is non-democratic.

So, If you ask me, vote for a party that has no ideology.

Mainstream media goes nuts again

Today prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had a bypass surgery, the media was out trying to make a story of it, unfortunately there was not much of a story.

First Aajtak started with elections and how he will not be able to campaign. Then Headlines Today got to who has the nuclear button, then others went on with who will take decisions. Some channels started succession battle in UPA.
The best character was in the press conference where he asked a question that as per his information the surgery should have taken 5 hours why did it take so long, something must have gone wrong?
Finally in the evening when doctors said that PM can do some of his work in two weeks and most of his work in four weeks, one of the channels was showing a ticker saying, PM can do some of his work in four weeks.
God bless PM that these media idiots were not involved in medical decisions otherwise we would be in real trouble.

Entrepreneurial Indian

From 2008_12_28

See the entrepreneurial Indian. At the height of over 11000ft near the Ski resort in Auli, here is one guy running a multi-product venture. See for yourself, the assortment of products available. Click on the photo to get the real point where the picture was taken.

Height of innocense

So India's Parvathy came in second in the miss world title. But she is saying that the jury was unfair.

I have performed better than others in the personality and question-answer round. This is not just that. All those who watched it yesterday felt like that. I feel the jury's decision was unfair

I had confidence. I could do well. The question-round did not come as a challenge to me considering my background in literature

Now, my problem is this. Here is a contest which basically awards you on how you looks and I am sure people who are in the business of beauty also know that beauty lies in the eyes of beholder so probably the jury just did not like how she looks.

For people who will come back and say that the contest is about talent and literature etc., I don't buy that argument because I have never seen a really ugly but extremely talented women win this title. So it is about showing your skin off in a way better than others.

I don't know why I waste my time on such frivolous things.

Recession is here

Recession is finally here. How does one realize that recession is finally here. When cash rich MNCs go on cost cutting spree, you can conclude that recession is here. Now, travel bans, downgrade to economy etc is already done and no scope to save cost there. So companies are finding new avenues to save cost.
See the picture above, this technology MNC has found a novel way of saving cost. They started cutting on number of cleaning staff to man the cafeteria. Now with less staff the cafeteria started stinking. So the photo shows the novel solution to the problem. They just ask the cleaning staff to put half of the cafeteria chairs on the table, so that people will sit only on half the tables and less cleaning required.
That is imagineering.

CPM goes crazy again

It was peace on the communist party front for quite some time. First they lost the cushy PoPwR (Position of Power without Responsibility) and then all the stuff about Nano. They kept quite for some time except occasional references to dogs. But in the parliament debate they again opened their mouth and garbage came out. Read for yourself.

"What brought the terrorist outfits to our shores? With the Indo-US nuclear deal you are seen as an ally of the US, a strategic partner. There seems to be a total lack of appreciation of this thought from the government's side," CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

What does he have in his mind when he says that. Should government of India run its foreign policy after approval from taliban, AQ & LeT.

I am not really sure why nice people in West Bengal vote for these idiots. I can understand no politician is great but atleast most of them try to atleast speak right things. Anyway, I give up. Most probably these guys will never be voted out and they will continue destroying this country.Technorati Tags: CPM, Communists, Politics

Professor's strategy to fight terror

I generally don't like most of the articles that are written on Pakistan's role in mumbai terror strikes and how we should deal with them. Here are two articles written by Prof. R. Vaidyanathan of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore which I like. These seem to be practical steps that we can take.

• 12 steps to shock-and-awe Pakistan's economy


• 8 things India Inc, govt must do against Pakistan

I like these articles because they don't try to hide the fact that Pakistan is responsible for all these, no not the non-state actors but Pakistan establishment. I don't think we should really oblivious to the fact that non-state actors exist within a state because a state lets them exist and so it has to take full responsibility for it.
Anyway, if you are looking for some bright ideas on how to fight terror using instrument of business, I would suggest go ahead and read these articles.

Really crowded Bhopal railway station

Few days after Diwali, I was on Bhopal railway station. It was really crowded. See for yourself.

Hayden explains himself

So hayden first says something and then explains itself.

One of the things I love the most about India, is that you walk around the back of the hotel, and there's a man who's selling peanuts on the street for one cent a month, and he holds his head so high, and is so proud, as if he was making $2 million a month

So what he meant to say when he made his famous remark

Often we find ourselves waiting with hands on hips for someone to face up or someone on the sight board to move away or some of those little frustrations happening with third world countries

He was only talking about frustration that he gets out of eating peanuts that he buys from a proud peanut seller who makes one cent a month.
What is wrong with this guy, one cent a month, that is like 50 paise. Who will sell peanuts for a months if he was making 50 paise a month. I don't really get these people.

Media losing grip again

Here is an interesting news article. Everybody agrees that it is next to impossible to guess whether a movie will be successful or not. Here the media just proclaims that the movie will be a bigger success then another successful movie.

Aamir Khan's â??Ghajiniâ?? is expected to set a record of sorts. While the promotion of the film kick-started during Diwali, the Indian distributors have decided to go that extra mile and ensure that the biggies rakes in big moolah when it opens during the Christmas week.

They claim that this is because of the fact that the movie is being released with a very large number of prints. If that were to be true, why doesn't everybody just release a very large number of prints.

While â??Singh Is Kingâ?? was released with 1,050 prints [physical and digital] in India,â??Ghajiniâ?? will have close to 1,200 prints in circulation in India alone.

Another technology MNC

Every time I visit a technology company, I have high hopes from them in the way they would be doing things smartly and probably setting an example on how to use technology. Here is another example of how wrong I am about that assumption.

Now this really crappy mousetrap is lying in the company's cafeteria for some weeks and I have not seen any mouse pay a visit to that. It seems mice are smarter then the company staff.

No accountability in this country

Here is a sad news.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday expressed grief and shock at the killing of a Bihari examinee, who died in the violence unleashed allegedly by MNS activists on North Indian candidates, and announced an ex-gratia of Rs 1.5 lakh for his family.

Now if I am correct a person being beaten to death should be counted as a murder and if it is a murder somebody should go to jail for it. It is the government's job to find out who really did it.
But everybody is just talking.

Iceland is all but bankrupt

So the financial crisis 2008 has finally taken its toll on iceland. The country seems to have gone bankrupt.

"Iceland is bankrupt," said Arsaell Valfells, a professor at the University of Iceland. "The Icelandic krona is history. The IMF has to come and rescue us."

The world is getting scarier day by day.

Types of drivers

I have been driving four wheelers for around 10 years and I have observed multiple type of behaviours from other drivers on traffic signals. Here I am listing down multiple types of drivers that I have seen.

• The most common variety of drivers that I have seen is the group of people who never stop at a traffic signal. The only way these people stop on signal if the car infront of them stops otherwise they will never been seen first at a red light.


• The second variety is which will always stop at a signal (irrespective of it being red or green). They stop for a random amount of pre-defined time and drive on. They don't care what is the colour of light. They think they have done their duty if they stopped for some time.


• The third variety of the people who will never stop on their own and they will even honk if they are stuck behind somebody who "unfortunately" follows traffic rules.


• An then their are auto drivers..

Terrorism, a football for intellectuals

We all agree that terrorism is bad and fighting it is extremely difficult. How does one save himself from somebody who is willing to die to kill you. Police are not really very credible in India but still they are the only defense that we have and to a large extent we will have to trust them.

SO here I read this article. Now the article concludes following.

A fact finding team which visited Jamia Nagar where the Delhi [Images] police killed two alleged terrorists linked to the Delhi serial blasts has stated that there is clear evidence to show that the bullets fired on Sajid's head were from point blank range. The photographs after autopsy of Sajid, 17, show that there were seven gun shots to his head and it was from point blank range.

Here is the composition of the team.

The fact finding team comprised teachers, students, civil rights activists and intellectuals. The team comprised 14 persons which included, Professor Siddique Hassan, deputy amir, Jamat-e-Islami Hind, SAR Geelani, reader, Zakir Hussain College, Delhi University, Dr Karen Gabriel, reader, St. Stephens, Banojyotsna Lahiri (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Vanessa Chisti (JNU) and Sumati Panikkar (independent researcher) among others.

Please note that none of these guys are criminologists or experts in forensics. Shouldn't these guys mind their own business. What is the purpose of doing such acts. If they don't trust what is happening, they can approach courts and courts would order proper forensic analysis of what has happened.

If one sees the list of people in the so called committee of intellectuals, one of them is SAR Geelani, who was acquitted in parliament attack case. But the supreme court had this to say about him.

Geelani's conduct at the time when Parliament was being attacked on December 13, 2001 was  'disturbing' to note and gave rise to 'serious suspicion' about him, the bench said. It also took note of the 'untruthful pleas raised by Geelani about his contacts with Shaukat and Afzal.'

Though it raised a finger of suspicion at the lecturer, the court was quick to add that suspicion alone, howsoever grave it might be, could not be the ground for the conviction of anyone.

I think these JNU types should just shut up. They are not aiding in fighting terrorism. They don't speakup when an act of terror happens. What is their point of speaking now. May be if Delhi police is really on the right side of law, they should sue these people for character assasination.

Another modest sportsperson

Somehow modesty seems to be in such short supply now-a-days. See this from Hamilton.

"I have had a talent since I was very young and it was just a case of taking that talent and grabbing it with both hands and nurturing it and trying to do the very best job I can."

Anyway, I don't really like him. He may be a good racer but not a very good "hero".

Spoon counters strike again

Some time back I blogged about spoon counters.. They seem to be hard at work. Not only they have not stopped counting, they have still not learnt how to count it right.

Stupid mainstream media (again)

See this news item here which showed up in Indian Express just after Large Hadron Collider. Just to get a juicy headline, the news paper claims "prove rumours wrong". Now, I don't believe that the LHC experiment is going to end the world but the time has not come to say that rumours have been proven wrong. Today the beam was only shot in clockwise direction, then it would have to be fired anti-clockwise and only after that beams will be fired in both the directions for collision.
Only when collision happens, we can conclude that rumours have been proven wrong. Why don't the news papers just stick to reporting, rather than making up news. 

We are like that only

Some people never learn. Here is an interesting news story that I saw in today's news paper.

The CCTV footage showed how Bhatia manoeuvred to steal the wallet, trying to make sure that no one around noticed him while carrying out the act, official said."First he waited for Mehta to proceed ahead. Then he looked around pretending to be browsing for a particular item in the shop. After a few minutes, he pulled out his own wallet and kept it above Mehta's, only to pull them both into his bag immediately," said a police official. "I had given up all hopes of getting the purse. The incident proves that thieves do roam about in suit and tie," Mehta said.

Yes, thieves do roam about in suit and tie.

NSG Waiver for India

Finally the NSG approved the waiver for India for civilian nuclear cooperation and the reactions have been usual. Now I can go an try to analyse if it was good for India or not but I thought let's look at the reactions and probably that would give the indication on whether it was good or bad for India.
Worldwide most of the countries have welcomed the deal. There have been some countries like Austria and some other countries that have been less enthusiastic about the deal but that probably has more to do with ideology of not supplying the fuel to not NPT countries.
Most notable country that at the last moment was against the deal was China. I would not be surprised at that reaction of China. They have lot to lose with India being able to buy fuel from market. I read somewhere that the price of nuclear fuel has gone up few fold since the year 2000, India joining that club of buyers would put further pressure in that market. Also I always believed that China just doesn't like India.
Who else is against the deal, not surprisingly BJP and Communists. Now if you look at the groups that area gainst the deal for non idelogical reasons, it is BJP, Communists and China and ofcourse pakistan. I don't really know what is the common interest there.

Snake on an Air India plane

Here is an interesting story. An airbus from Air India had an unlikely passenger on board. A snake was having fun in plane below one of the seats. The best part is the interesting statement from Air India spokesman.

"There was commotion which scared the snake and it went further inside," an airport official quoted.

Reports that the snake was a venomous cobra were denied by an Air India spokesman.

"The aircraft was parked at Delhi airport for maintenance purposes. There was a snake but not a cobra," he told.

"We have no details of what kind of a snake it was, or where it is now. We have taken up this matter with Delhi airport authorities."

The interesting part is that Air India denies that the snake was a cobra but then claims that they have no idea which snake was it. Really funny if you are reading about it but must be bizarre for passengers.

Russian PM Putin saves TV crew from Siberian tiger

Here is an interesting story, Vladimir Putin actually tranquilized a tiger who charged at a TV crew.

Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran towards a nearby camera crew, the country's main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun.

Interesting notices

Recently on my visit to one top technology MNC in Bangalore, I came across following notice board in cafeteria.


I find two things funny with this notice.

1. This is a technology MNC and is counting spoons. I am sure the cost of the spoon is not really much and if they think it is a big issues, just tell the employees to get their own spoons.
2. If you really decide to count the spoons, atleast count them right.

I suppose nobody cares.

Excuses, excuses

So, our cricket captain has come up with another gem. No I am not talking about the good innings that he played in the last match against Sri Lanka. I am talking about his new excuse on why we are dropping catches. See here. He claims it is because of the crowd's wardrobe.

Since Sri Lanka had a colourful crowd it becomes difficult to spot the ball in the night specially after it (ball) becomes a bit dirty,

Other teams, are you listening. Just request your fans to wear colorful clothes to defeat India. Indian fans, please wear all black attire for day-night matches and all white attire for day matches.

iPhone magic fails in India

Finally the iPhone was launched in India and it seems it pretty much failed to impress users.

The stage was set for a grand launch, complete with confetti and cheerleaders, but at the stroke of midnight, there were just 10 people who actually bought the high-end device.

At a Vodafone store in Connaught Place, Central Delhi, journalists outnumbered customers by a huge margin. Only about 15 customers turned up to buy the phone. The Airtel retail store nearby wore a deserted look on Friday afternoon, with not a single customer buying the iPhone.

May be things will look as time passes by but I would really be surprised if it is really a block buster. It is priced same as an N96 and is no comparison to the features that it offers.

Tata Teleservices behaving like ICICI Bank

It seems like the disease is spreading. First it was ICICI bank and now Tata Teleservices who have started threatening their customers.

Later, the company announced a change of plan which did not suit Nandwani, so he asked for the connection to be cancelled. Instead, he received a bill amounting to Rs 2,000 and his outgoing calls were suddenly barred. When he complained against this, he started receiving threatening calls from people claiming to be advocates and recovery agents of the company. He also filed police complaints. The companyâ??s plea that on surrender of the handset the customer was required to pay Rs 2,000, did not find favour with the commission.

One more company black listed. But I am really running out of decent service providers right from banking to telephony.

Akhil Kumar loses quarter finals in olympics

I finally watched the Olympic boxing 54 Kg match between Indian Akhil Kumar and Moldovan Gojan Veaceslav. I have to say that I don't understand boxing much but it seemed like that Moldovan just went with a strategy of all out defense with precision attack. I think almost everytime Gojan went for attack, he scored the point while Akhil was relentless in his attack but just did not find the righ spot where he gets the point. The only option that he had was to go for a knock out but he could not do that.
I always believed that boxing is a game of raw power, but I think I was wrong. It was as much about strategy and tactics as much it is about power and Akhil lost the game in strategy part.
If only bouts were decided on the basis of "energy" in the court, Akhil must have won. Looking forward to other two guys..Technorati Tags: Olympic, India, Sports

Interesting essay

Here is an interesting essay. It just is not interesting enough in english, so I am re-producing it in Hindi.

ए� �र�ब �म�र ल��� �� स्��ल म�� �र�ब परिवार पर निब�ध लि�न� �� �हा �या। �सन� निब�ध �ु� �स तरह स� लि�ा।

ए� �र�ब परिवार था। पिता �र�ब, माता �र�ब, ब�्�� �र�ब। परिवार म�� �ार न��र थ�, वह भ� �र�ब थ�। ए� �ार थ� वह भ� ���� हु� �ा�ा स�ार� थ�। �न�ा �र�ब ड्रा�वर ब�्��� �� ���� �ार म�� स्��ल ��� �र �ता था। ब�्��� �� पास भ� पुरान� N-95 म�बा�ल फ�न थ�। �र म�� सिर्� �ार स����ड-ह��ड एस� थ�। सारा परिवार ब�� मुश्�िल स� ऐश �र रहा था।

Let me take a stab at translating this one, just not as interesting as the hindi version.

The teacher asked a rich girl to write an essay on "A poor family". Here is how she went.

Once upon a time there was a poor family. The father was poor, mother was poor and children were also poor. The family had four servants and all of them were poor. The car was a old broken Tata Safari. Their driver used to drive the children to school in the old safari. Children also had old N-95 phones. The house had only four second hand ACs. The whole family was finding very hard to enjoy life.

Shabana goes ballestic again

Shabana Azmi is a strange character. Every now and then she will come out with a statement that completely does not make sense. When she talks about some discrimination against muslims she will blame the state but she will either not talk about discrimination against "other groups" or be unwilling to place the blame on muslims.

I think Indian state does not discriminate against anybody. The laws are very clear. Groups and individuals may be discriminating against and that is definitely bad but one can not blame Indian State for it. Everywhere a community which has a significant presence, discriminates against other, in Kashmir muslims are doing it, in other places other groups are doing it. Both the discriminated and discriminator are responsible for it. Why take a holier than thou approach and only blame government.

Sania and self promotion

Sania Mirza just got out of olympics and to make sure that she remains in the media, she just had to say something.

I think it is a good idea if such an opportunity comes my way to go and play in Pakistan

I seriously believe she gets too much press for the accomplishment that she has to show for it. But then may be I should just stop reading about her.

Crazy people in this world

So here is the news that I saw. Now this guy seems to be a self help guru but his dad is talking about being the youngest to own a benz. Clearly his deciples need to get a grip. Strange is the world that we live in.

His catch-line 'Unleash Your Hidden Potential' also sounds so close to Robbins â?? 'Unleash the Power Within'. Says his father, Kamlesh Desai, "When Sneh was just 15 years old, I shut down my business due to heavy losses. Since then, Sneh took charge of the household."

Communists again

I don't know what it is between me and communists but somehow I always find something in the press that I find interesting about them. May be I just like them too much, Nah...

Here is an interesting piece of news. Basically a communist trade union leader M. K. Pandhe(who probably is instrumental in destroying economies of couple of states single handedly) thinks that if Samajavadi Party supports nuclear deal then it will lose the support of muslims.

Mulayam will have to think twice before supporting the deal as an overwhelming majority of Muslims are not in favour of the deal. Mulayam's support is much more among Muslim masses,

I fail to understand the point of Mr. Pandhe, after India announced the deal, even pakistan wanted it from US. If pakistan signs, will it not offend muslims. What muslims have got to do with the nuclear energy. I just don't get these communists.

Oil and protests

So every political party that can claim to be not in government is protesting the oil price hike. At times it is resulting in comedy. Here is an hilarious story.

chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and his cabinet decided to go to work on bicycles in the afternoon.
But the CM's rally soon fizzled out with most ministers being either pushed by their bodyguards or giving up in favour of their official cars.

At 3.30pm, Chauhan and his ministers were on their way. The initial half kilometre was perfect. Soon water resources minister Anup Mishra could not keep up. More than 20kg overweight, he preferred being pushed on his bicycle by his bodyguards till the rally reached the road to Raj Bhavan , which is basically a steep climb. Here, most ministers gave up, including Mishra.

What can I say, Ha Ha..

Mystry of Oil in India

I don't understand much about oil business so I am not able to understand when different parties come up with different logic on why the price of petrol should be raised and why it should not be raised. After googling, here is some data that I found.

	Barrel	Gallons	Litres	Percentage of products	Cost per litre
Crude	1.00	44.60	168.83		30.80
Gasoline		19.40	73.44	43.50%	13.40
Diesel		7.80	29.53	17.49%	5.39
Heating Oil		2.70	10.22	6.05%	1.86
Heavy Fuel Oil		1.70	6.44	3.81%	1.17
Jet Fuel		4.10	15.52	9.19%	2.83
LPG		1.50	5.68	3.36%	1.04
Other Products		7.40	28.01	16.59%	5.11
Processing Gain		2.60	9.84	5.83%	1.80

So it seems every barrel (42 gallons) of crude produces different quantities of actual products like petrol and diesel. Now taking following numbers as indicative.

Barrel	42	Gallons
Gallon	3.78541178	Litre
USD	40	INR
Price	130	USD/Barrel

If one looks at numbers, for producing one liter of petrol, the raw material component only costs Rs. 13.40 at the current crude prices.

Now assuming that other components have only marginally increased and the primary factor in the increase of petrol is the price of crude, the current prices just don't make sense. Because the even if the price of crude has trebled, it is still capped at Rs. 13.40.

I am trying to get other data like the refining cost, marketing cost, taxes etc to make sense of Rs. 50+ of petrol price but the data is not very readily available.

If anybody has the data, give me and I will further do number crunching

Mother of all suck ups

So finally blogs outed the patent number 20080122796 filed by Apple which looks like a patent that encapsulates many things that are part of iPhone. The patent itself did not really surprise me, what really surprise me was the list of inventors that are part of this patent. The patent consisted of 20 inventors right upto steve jobs as the first inventor.

Now my mind thinks that this is just an example of of the biggest suck up in the history of patenting. Some (may be a couple of) engineer(s) invented something and then just to schmooze their boss, added his name and he added his bosses name and then it just traveled right up to CEO. It would be interesting to look at apple organization structure and see how are all these inventors arranged.

Or it could be just the places that I have worked and I could be completely wrong.

The third dimension

So this is really a story out of sci-fi story books. Almost unbelievable. When a wife went to file a complaint against her "in-laws", she realized that she has already divorced her husband 10 years back. Almost sounds like one of those movies where one can go back in time and change the present as one knows it. It would have been great if that was true, in reality it is again the corruption at work.

Virender Verma and Meena got the shock of their lives when a local court recently stated that the happily-together couple got a 'divorce' 10 years ago.

Married in 1989 and parents of two children, the two came to know about their separation on May 26. The couple accused Virender's advocate brother for forging their divorce documents.

Apparently all this happened because the wife filed the complain under domestic violence act so they just proved that this is not domestic violence because she was not even married anymore for last 10 years.

You can't help idiots

Many horrible things that happen in India are blamed on illiteracy prevailing. But sometime one feels that that these happen because some people are just idiots. See this news item. Here is a couple who is doing these bizarre things.

A British couple, who travelled to India for fertility treatment, abandoned their twin babies in the UK because they wanted a male child.

The mother aged 59 and father, 72, conceived in India with fertility treatment and dumped their twin babies in a British hospital after finding out they were girls.

Now somebody please tell me, what will you blame this on. To top it off they want to do it again.

The report said the husband also wanted to know how soon it would be before his wife was fit enough to fly out again for further IVF in the hope of getting a boy to continue the family name.

Why do they want to continue the family name that they themselves are actively working to destroy.

India's Oil Crisis

Every country in the world is facing oil crisis. In India is is particular severe because it is has become unnecessary political tool in the hands of communists. I think the problem can be solved and it is really not as severe as it has been made out to be. I did some calculation and I believe there is a small group of "poor" people that probably need to be subsidized while others are unnecessarily reaping the benefit of this subsidy.

Diesel is subsidized more than petrol in India while all the Mercedes and many other brands of luxury cars run on diesel. I think this needs to be stopped right away. Also anybody who can afford a luxury car or a luxury taxi needs to pay for real fuel charges and in case of luxury taxi services these charges need to be passed on to end customers.

So here is my plan. The fuel prices should be set at realistically market price levels and specific mechanisms should be designed to provide subsidy to needy sections. For example, farmers running tractors (not the guy using tractor to pull equipment on airport) can have a set quota of diesel that is subsidized on a daily basis. Similarly assuming that auto rickshaws may be used by poorer sections of society, direct subsidy can be given to these. This can be administered through automated systems like credit/debit cards.

Better still, everybody who wants discounted fuel should be asked to get a PAN card (this seems to be most systematic identification system that we seem to have today) irrespective of them filing returns. Once you use subsidized fuel, you should not be allowed to purchase a car. The logic being that if you can afford the car, you better afford the fuel.

If the so called middle class wants to vote the government out of power, so be it. They have to pay for what they use. Currently, just because this section is capable of making more noise, they are heard about many sections of society which are more needy. I did not hear so much noise even when thousands of farmers were committing sucides.

Karnataka Elections and role of BSP

So the election results for Karnataka assembly were kind of as predicted as well as surprising. BJP finally got almost a majority and they probably would peacefully run a government for next five years. But most of the analysts on TV were (without looking at the data) saying that congress lost because of BSP. So I thought that let me see if the data supports that fact. Here is a table of constituencies where congress's loss margin was less than the vote that BSP got. For simplicity I am assuming that if BSP was not the spoilsport and all the vote would have gone to congress they would have won. Here is the data

S No.	Constituency No	Constituency Name	Votes to Congress	Votes polled to BSP	Votes of Winner	Victory Margin
1	32	Indi	28885	7840	29456	571
2	35	Jevargi	46461	2266	46531	70
3	46	Aland	36689	14405	42473	5784
4	71	Dharwad	34694	1302	35417	723
5	78	Kumta	30772	1819	30792	20
6	81	Yellapur	36624	3278	39109	2485
7	98	Challakere	42302	3938	42591	289
8	109	Channagiri	38533	1372	39526	993
9	121	Kapu	44994	1109	45961	967
10	123	Sringeri	41396	4758	43646	2250
11	124	Mudigere	26084	11724	34579	8495
12	129	Tiptur	39168	8021	46034	6866
13	138	Madhugiri	51408	769	51971	563
14	153	Yeshvanthapura	56561	1331	57643	1082
15	206	Puttur	45180	2553	46605	1425

So there seems to be some merit to the logic that there is a significant number of seats that could have gone the congress way if all the vote that BSP got would have got transferred to congress. But this is only half the story. So I collected the same data for BJP and here are the results.

S No.	Constituency No	Constituency Name	Votes to BJP	Votes polled to BSP	Votes of Winner	Victory Margin
1	5	Kudachi	28715	1910	29481	766
2	18	Ramdurg	48862	1187	49246	384
3	26	Muddebihal	21662	14286	24065	2403
4	49	Bidar South	30783	21907	32054	1271
5	50	Bidar	20561	30627	33557	12996
6	53	Raichur Rural	29097	8499	34432	5335
7	75	Kalghatgi	38091	14992	49733	11642
8	78	Kumta	30201	1819	30792	591
9	103	Jagalur	35873	6482	38664	2791
10	205	Bantval	60309	1396	61560	1251
11	214	Nanjangud	42159	4513	42867	708
12	222	Kollegal	25586	25505	37384	11798
13	223	Chamarajanagar	39405	8866	42017	2612
14	224	Gundlupet	62621	7677	64824	2203

And the result and the damage is very similar, Now one can not really make a call on whom does BSP vote go to if the BSP was not contesting the election and I would think that it is more likely to get transferred in the ratio of the votes that were otherwise polled to each of the parties. A similar analysis for JDS also shows following

S No.	Constituency No	Constituency Name	Votes to BJP	Votes polled to BSP	Votes of Winner	Victory Margin
1	26	Muddebihal	14739	14286	24065	9326
2	53	Raichur Rural	32555	8499	34432	1877
3	112	Bhadravati	52770	2532	53257	487
4	127	Kadur	36000	4078	39411	3411
5	143	Chintamani	56857	1419	58103	1246
6	192	Krishnarajpet	45500	10218	48556	3056
7	210	Piriyapatna	37574	7814	38453	879
8	222	Kollegal	25286	25505	37384	12098

Another eight such constituencies. Now in each of these datasets the party in question (i.e. Congress, BJP, BSP) is not necessarily the second party, in some cases it may be third.

One thing is certain, BSP got significant percentage of votes in certain seats and definitely impacted the result of election but I would not really believe that it has impacted one party more than the other.

Banks and killing machine (again)

Back in 2007 I blogged about how banks have turned themselves into killing machines. It seems they have not really learnt. See here. This is what courts have to say.

We deem it appropriate to remind the banks and other financial institutions that we live in a civilised country and are governed by the rule of law," a bench comprising Justices Tarun Chatterjee and Dalveer Bhandari said.

Maybe they really need to be punished before they will learn, just the threats of punishment are not enough.

Manohar Dairy, Bhopal

After a gap of around 5 years I went back to Manohar Dairy restaurant in Bhopal. The place has been spruced up and the food quality is still as impeccable as before.

The restaurant is near Bhopal Railway station and I have always found North Indian snacks really good there. Things like Chole Bhature, Samosa, Alu Tikki etc. are really good. After reaching there after such a long time I realized that one does not really need a thousand rupees to have a decent meal.

त� सुबह सुबह म�� ��व� पर समा�ार द�� रहा ह�� �र ए� २४ ���� पर समा�ार प�श �रन� वाल� ��नल पर यह मु�्य समा�ार प�श ह�ता ह�

�मिष�� �र एश्वर्या ब�ल�वुड �� सबस� ह�� �पल बन �य� ह��।

�ब म�र� समझ म�� यह नह�� �त ह� �ि यह ��व� समा�ार वाल� �्या थर्माम��र ल� �र ��म रह� थ� �्या।

The dumb mainstream media again

So I am watching the television and one of the 24hrs news channel announces

Abhishek and aishwarya have become bollywood's hottest couple

No I don't understand who measured the temperature of this couple?

China mounts cyber attacks on Indian sites

So china is doing cyber attacks on Indian sites. Now a days almost every country is doing that. That seems to be part of their geo political strategy.

According to senior government officials, these attacks are not isolated incidents of something so generic or basic as "hacking" â?? they are far more sophisticated and complete â?? and there is a method behind the madness.

Publicly, senior government officials, when questioned, take refuge under the argument that "hacking" is a routine activity and happens from many areas around the world. But privately, they acknowledge that the cyber warfare threat from China is more real than from other countries.

The core of the assault is that the Chinese are constantly scanning and mapping Indiaâ??s official networks. This gives them a very good idea of not only the content but also of how to disable the networks or distract them during a conflict.

This, officials say, is Chinaâ??s way of gaining "an asymmetrical advantage" over a potential adversary.

Now It is very hard to stop hacking but it is not difficult to make sure that no damage is done and at the same time it is also not hard to mis-guide hackers into believing that they have been successful. I am sure there is enough skill within India to be able to do that. I only hope that government is leveraging every tool and resource at its option to achieve that.