In the beginning Woman was the Sun- Happy Women's Day 2014

Supervisor:    Where were you during lunch break?

Vijaya         : I was outside office premises to visit my 5 month old baby

Supervisor:  Who gave you the permission to step outside office    premises? Who will compensate for hours outside office during lunch?

Vijaya        : I come back within an hour during lunch break. I will apply earned leaves for uncompensated hours.

Supervisor: Who gave you the permission of applying leaves? Do you think this is school to come and go whenever you want?

Vijaya     : OK I will compensate by staying back every day extra

        Its Jan 19th 2012, Vijaya, An engineer working for an automotive MNC is all set to get back to work after her 5 month long maternity break . She informed her manager about her joining couple of days earlier who reluctantly nods for her decision. But within days of joining she confronts such words from her supervisor which makes her very upset.

       Being career oriented, she is unwilling to compromise on her job and yet strikes a balance to carry out her motherly duties. She puts her complete focus on work during the time in office and gets her job done every day. She quickly masters the skills required for the new project she is put in. She never thinks about the discouraging boss she has. All she has in mind is to give her job her best and be there for her baby. Within couple of months, her immediate colleagues recognize her potential. She gets a customer appreciation and an award for outstanding performance in her team soon. She proves her technical expertise by filing a patent in the male dominated automotive domain proving the engineer in her.

     As we unfold the year 2014 for another woman's day celebration, it is important to realize that we don’t celebrate womanhood by just a day dedicated for woman and have some activities stereotypically considered feminine. There are thousands of Vijayas out there struggling to raise the bar, break the glass ceiling to prove themselves in spite of odds and balancing to meet their bonds with the family.

    Mary Barra, the highest ranking female executive in the automotive industry leading a hundred year old pioneer proves that women have come a long way. Yahoo's Marissa Mayer, IBM's Virginia Rometty are all leading a tech savvy industry with their innovations for the next generation. With multitasking abilities, empathy for team, good consumer insights, Women form a creative work force challenging others who look down upon them for biological reasons.

Going back to philosophical roots,

'Ahalya, Draupadi, Sita, Tara and Mandodari tatha

Panchakanya smaranityam mahapataka nashakam'.

 

Meaning

Ahalya, Draupadi, Sita, Tara and Mandodari

One should forever remember the panchakanya who are the destroyers of great sin even those God cannot forgive

    They are the panchakanya's of Hindu mythology with utmost personal tragedies yet never lose their inner light, achieve self-actualization in their own terms, represent the epitome of feminism and change the course of history.

     As Nature has created male and female to be complimenting with both these forces present in all creatures in varying ratios, it is only disappointing to see the latter being subdued by the former.

    Since time immemorial as a daughter, wife, mother -> woman has shown path for generations with their thirst for knowledge, quest for better quality of life, compassion and human values. With Inner and external beauty, Woman form the epicenter of mankind.

Let me reemphasize in the words of a famous actress Deepika Padukone:

"Feminism isn't about being aggressive; it's about reaching the top yet being soft. It's about being YOU — FEMININE, STRONG and FULL OF WILL POWER.”

A Coach To Save Fuel - Going Green

Recently I came across an App which when installed in one's mobile analyses the driving pattern and provide tips to save fuel.

Just Reminds me of the Fuel Coach Feature in Quester trucks which also does a similar job.

In the Quester’s display the driver gets real-time tips on how to operate the engine for best fuel economy based on many parameters collected from the vehicle and analysing the driving pattern. The display shows the driver when to shift,brake or accelerate for maximum time in the engines optimum fuel-efficient rev range,the so called sweet spot. The system is simple to understand and easy to use. 

I wish such a system features in a two wheelers soon 

which will encourage two wheelers on road and avoid traffic jams especially in Bangalore.

Are the Two Wheeler OEMs listening?

Filmfare's Fair

Come Jan , Feb , we usually get to see Award programmes being telecast across all the TV channels in India. 

It usually starts with Best people from technical arena of film making, People behind the cameras and finally best actors, actress with loads and loads of dance and drama. Although its entertaining to watch, When I think over , the artists are being awarded for doing their job and for being good at it relative to other artists. Also there is life time achievement award meant for very senior artist who would have created a distinction for themselves in the industry.

I wonder why in no other industry is there an award ceremony of such grandeur.

An award for the best engineer, best doctor, best  teacher , best designer, best product, best architect and so on are all bound with in the organizational limits and not the wide industrial limits such as the entertainment. 

May be the fact that entertainment is more revenue generating and artists are here to entertain in the name of award functions also using different medias..

Do write your views..

 

Life Automated!!

As my day today work currently involves running test scripts, analysing NOK test cases, providing feedback reports to correct it,

I can observe the change in status on the testing productivity. Earlier if it was 50 - 60 test cases on an average, it now is 200 - 300 test cases. 

Coming from model based test development background, i could very well appreciate the difference between executable specifications and hand written code. The main intention behind all these developments of technology is making life simpler. In other words, providing intelligence to machines to help it do things for you.

I have become so technologically dependent, that i need a Google search to search something missing at home, need remote to control even switches, Automatize the cutting vegetables and missing spices also.. Although I am very sure it is not very far from such a scenario becoming real, such turn of events do indicate something.

We expect a similar approach when handling our fellow people.

We expect others to understand what we go through rather than we taking a step to understand others starting from home, in a professional setup, in a social gathering everywhere.

Expect parents to automatically understand our job pressures, peer pressures, financial situations rather than we also trying to understand them and fail to take lessons learnt from them.

Expect boss to automatically give us great work and substantial hikes rather than improving our caliber at work.

Expect our subordinates to automatically understand the big picture and work towards it.

In short, expect things in one's favor everywhere.

Are our brains so tuned to machine way of thing that it has forgotten empathy and expect inputs from external environment?

Something to Search Internally....

2013 The Year That Was:

I became a year older at Volvo with the passing of 2013, I would like to look back before curtaining the year that was.

With many colleagues joining InV and bringing their perspectives to the board it was a sign of expanding. But many friends also walked out as their thoughts went out of sync with that of here.

Started off with many onsite plans, project meetings, ideations, strategy goals, SOPs, Advanced engineering discussions; it was a very good learning experience. Although personally I was on parental leave for a couple of months, my friends here didn’t make me realize I was out of this place and coming back was so easy. With constrained budget targets, low on cost requirements, 2014 promises more challenges to look ahead. 

With Automation gearing up speed, I can imagine a scenario controlling all the rigs in lab simultaneously running scripts and doubling the productivity. HaHa  

 

Going forward , Can focus as a new team(Functional Verification) and increase the complexity of work as small teams are more efficient.

2014!!!!!- Unwinding

A must watch video about vehicle precison and control.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zXwOoeGzys

A Patriotic Feeling- The Forsaken Independence

It’s a bright sunny morning. Ram, a 10 year old boy wakes up at 6:00 AM. Takes bath, has breakfast and all set to attend the independence celebrations at his school. As he has already informed his parents about it the previous day, his parents keep ready things for his programmes at school. Ram takes part in March fast and drill. Completes them successfully and brings smiles to his parents.

His parents belong to lower middle class family, with a meager income to manage monthly expenses. Despite their struggle, like all parents, they want to provide good education to their only son and have great dreams about him.

As years go by, Ram graduates with flying colors and he is OFF to USA leaving his ailing parents back home. He marries and settles down in USA. As his wife is also working, he hardly finds time to visit India. Festivals are celebrated by doing Google search and checking that so and so exist. One day he is working late night in office for his counterpart in UK.

Its night 10PM and he is all set to leave home after a tiring day when he sees the date displaying 15th August. He goes back home and tells his son that its independence day. But the son is totally confused.

Seeing the confused look on his son's face,

Ram: Son, what are u thinking?

Son: Have u gone mad, today is not independence day..

Ram: No dear. It’s 15th August. It’s our independence day.

Son: No papa, July 4th is our independence day. It’s written in my text book and my Maam taught me the same. We already celebrated Independence Day in school a month ago.

This situation of a family is very similar to the situation our country is today. Our ancestors shed their youth and blood so that the next generation can enjoy independence.

But as youngsters what are we doing today?

On educational front:

Nehru set up the prestigious Indian Institute of technologies so that there are world class engineers created every year and they can make India a super power technologically. The engineers shall become tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and make a road to innovation and invention of products.

But the scene at campus recruitments of IITs is completely different with every lad aiming for multinational offers. With higher reservation and entry of highly coached students rather than highly intelligent students, IITs are losing their charm year after year.

Its not just IITs.. Its dream of every software engineer to work in MNC, use his brain to make better products for a foreign country. If fortunate settle down in developed country instead of struggling with the problems of infrastructure, corrupt government and so on In India.

On the medical front too, the scenario is not very different. Government hospitals have lost all the trust of good treat with middle class people. So private doctors are more in demand. In the name of scanning, all sorts of unwanted tests are made to make use of the highly priced imported equipment and drill the pocket hole of patients.

The scenario with other fields is still worse where it is a struggle to maintain a decent standard of living with inflation of 8% every year.

Only the fortunate ones are business men who hardly pay taxes and create a virtual demand for their products. These people are hardly caught by the income tax people.

The forgotten part is sports where it is only accessible to fortunate few in cities.

Independent India wakes up with high spirit only during cricket matches. The loss at Olympics and various international sport events will be entertained with “Sab chalta hai” attitude. With few medals, trophies here and there, we easily go in to our comfort zones. Then where is the question of excellence??

On Agricultural front:

It’s been 66 years since independence and we are still not self-sufficient. Come June, July, August- Newspapers will have information about farmers suicide.India shining moment, The Super power India has a grey side of not able to feed its own people. Over to these issues, there is much publicized debate on FDI in retail to help farmers. Are these really helping farmers? Is the monopoly of foreign brands the only solution?

On Social front:

Gone are the days when children of neighborhood play together, fight together.

Celebrations at home are never complete without neighbors visit. But now the scene is completely reverse. Materialistic India is giving rise to a new social phenomenon - the apathy. With the land space price shrinking, real estate price sky rocketing, apartments are the only choice left even for the citizens of upper middle class. The residents in these apartments hardly know each other. Where is the time and energy to celebrate festivals with nuclear families and dual earnings? Forget the celebrations; the residents do not even help each other at the time of emergency.

Couples need the much awaited holiday of 15th august so that they can hang out in always attractive malls, binge on high calorie food.

Is this called a raise in standard of living? Does this signify a good quality of life?

Times are changing as in the family of Ram where the younger generation does not connect to the struggles of older generation in the name of "Freedom" of choice, expression. Ram’s parents certainly would not have thought of the day when Ram leaves them and lives thousands of miles away. Similarly our ancestors would not have dreamt of adulterated young generation in the name of developed independent India...