Vocabulary, spellings and pronunciation were the three areas where I was dreadful at school. But despite of that, I always managed to get average grades thanks to maths and science. This set-up worked perfectly all the way through the high school and the engineering college, but I met with serious trouble when I started preparing for competitive exams which had substantial sections on English and cracking them meant having a good hand at all the aspects of English. It was then that I seriously started thinking about improving my vocabs. Mugging had never being my cup of tea, so found a better way to learn words. The strategy was simple: Learn the words logically or learn how they originated. In short, I decided to be an etymologist, at least an amateurish one. This might sound crazy for the reader(if anybody reads it), but believe me its a real cool way to learn words.
First of all it's amusing to hear the story each word has to tell. A story which may be spanning across decades or even centuries of the history. Let me share some of the interesting ones with you. Synonymously an orthopedician means a doctor who treats ailments related to bones, while entymologically it tells a different story. Orthopedician is made by the combination of 3 Latin words orthos ,paedos and ician. Here orthos means staightening, paedos means children and ician means an expert. Read together, an orthopedician is a expert in straightening kids - oh isn't that the teachers and parents do ? Then we should call them all orthopedicians. Now for the history ! This word was coined in the early sixteenth century when a large number of children was born with spinal cord ailments. These spine ailments were so common that there was a group of people specialising in straightening the spine of these infants. It was these people who were called as child straighteners. But I think these guys ran out of business soon and had to eventually expand their area of expertise to all the ailments related to human bone. But they went on using their old title even after their evolution.
We all talk about addiction. Addiction towards TV, junk food, cigars, booze etc etc etc. Addiction is derived from a Latin word dictus meaning to speak. Addiction etymologically means "unable to say no" and this is exactly what happens with all the addicts, they just cant say "no" to the addiction.
Another interesting story these words had was about the aversion of the people in early period towards left-handers. Words synonymous to left hand like sinister and gauche is synonymous to evil and awkward now( remember gaucherrie) and words which meant "right-hand" means gifted and tactful now(of course adroit). It would have been really painful or even deadly for left -handers in that era.
Have you ever wondered how the symbol of pounds is lb? This is another etymological relationship, the pound lb is actually Libra , do I ring any bells ? Yes, the symbol of the sun sign Libra is also a balance. Libra means weight or pound in Latin which is why it is the representation for a unit of weight.
Hope this one sounded interesting for all of you.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The Power within
This is not about any spiritual stuff as most of u will misunderstand from the title. I was referring to the power within each atom, each nucleus- the nuclear power. I am not going to bore the readers(if there are any) telling u guys about the technology and science behind nuclear power. Instead lets go directly to the talk of the day : Henry J Hyde India US Peaceful Atomic Energy Co operation act of 2006 (PAEC).
The idea of such a co operation was born during the 2005 visit of Bush to India and to remind you all the corporation between India and US on the nuclear front ended with our 1971 Budha smile's test. After that for 35 odd years India was in a nuclear winter, completely isolated from all other nuclear powers.(We cant say complete isolation because our old allie Russia was always with us both in terms of fuel and technology). India with Russia's backing have build up 22 nuclear reactors till the date which are generating electricity and meeting 3% of our power needs. But as we all are aware , we have been growing quite fast for last few years and with our stock markets, our energy needs also have been growing. So it became indespensible for our PM to ask Bush the ticket to return to the nuclear club. I completely accept his logic in that. We all know that we dont have enough thermal resources (potrol or quality coal) to generate power, neither are our depleating hydal resources sufficient to meet the new requirement. So only remaining feasible resource for quatified production is the atom.
Now lets look into the deal that the US have put forward. The plus in this deal is that it opens the doors of IAEA and the nuclear supplier's group and India will be able to buy Uranium for its reactors. In return India will became a full ally of US and help her in preventing proliferation of "nuclear poison" around the world.(and learn to forget that 99% of all the nuclear weapons are with big guys of IAEA). India will also get nuclear fission technology (supposed to be latest.......who knows ??) .
And the negatives: First is that US is not going to give India any enrichment or re processing technologies so we will have to figure out a way ourselves to complete our nuclear cycle. Second is that our credibility of being a good ally will be assessed every year by the US president and he will have the power to suggest to the NSG to discontinue our status as a peaceful nuclear nation. Thirdly we need to get the go ahead of IAEA and NSG before 123 agreement starting real co operation materialises making it trouble some for us to go back to NSG again for any last minute victory in negotiations we make. Another big problem is that we will have to open up our civilian nuclear facilities for US inspectors if the IAEA finds it powerless to send its own inspectors(Guess this will happen often) and finally we wont be able to exportl any of military technologies(expect some low range primitive weapons) or test any more nuclear devices. (This clause is going to adversly effect our plans to export Brahmos)
Although I may appear to be against this deal, its not the real case. I was just being diplomatic and explaining the cons. I believe we should go ahead with this deal because most of these clauses which appear trecherous for us now can be forgotten easily with the changing circumstances of the business. The biggest reason why I am telling this is because this deal is going to open up the very attractive nuclear sector to US businessmen and once they have investments here, they will take care of the senate and congress and even the Presidents. Another reason is that we are in a fit and there is no other way out to retain our competative edge as a investment destination.
The nuclear power market of the world as we know is in crisis. With the majority public opinion aginst it, most of the biggies have withdrawn from this business. An ideal example is the GE which said good bye in early 90's. They cant be blamed, US, Canada , Europe and ofcourse Japan with their memories from the world war 2 hates any more nuclear reactors in their country. So it is the developing guys like India and China were the market exist if at all. No wonder US is succumbing to Indian pressures or are they really ............
The idea of such a co operation was born during the 2005 visit of Bush to India and to remind you all the corporation between India and US on the nuclear front ended with our 1971 Budha smile's test. After that for 35 odd years India was in a nuclear winter, completely isolated from all other nuclear powers.(We cant say complete isolation because our old allie Russia was always with us both in terms of fuel and technology). India with Russia's backing have build up 22 nuclear reactors till the date which are generating electricity and meeting 3% of our power needs. But as we all are aware , we have been growing quite fast for last few years and with our stock markets, our energy needs also have been growing. So it became indespensible for our PM to ask Bush the ticket to return to the nuclear club. I completely accept his logic in that. We all know that we dont have enough thermal resources (potrol or quality coal) to generate power, neither are our depleating hydal resources sufficient to meet the new requirement. So only remaining feasible resource for quatified production is the atom.
Now lets look into the deal that the US have put forward. The plus in this deal is that it opens the doors of IAEA and the nuclear supplier's group and India will be able to buy Uranium for its reactors. In return India will became a full ally of US and help her in preventing proliferation of "nuclear poison" around the world.(and learn to forget that 99% of all the nuclear weapons are with big guys of IAEA). India will also get nuclear fission technology (supposed to be latest.......who knows ??) .
And the negatives: First is that US is not going to give India any enrichment or re processing technologies so we will have to figure out a way ourselves to complete our nuclear cycle. Second is that our credibility of being a good ally will be assessed every year by the US president and he will have the power to suggest to the NSG to discontinue our status as a peaceful nuclear nation. Thirdly we need to get the go ahead of IAEA and NSG before 123 agreement starting real co operation materialises making it trouble some for us to go back to NSG again for any last minute victory in negotiations we make. Another big problem is that we will have to open up our civilian nuclear facilities for US inspectors if the IAEA finds it powerless to send its own inspectors(Guess this will happen often) and finally we wont be able to exportl any of military technologies(expect some low range primitive weapons) or test any more nuclear devices. (This clause is going to adversly effect our plans to export Brahmos)
Although I may appear to be against this deal, its not the real case. I was just being diplomatic and explaining the cons. I believe we should go ahead with this deal because most of these clauses which appear trecherous for us now can be forgotten easily with the changing circumstances of the business. The biggest reason why I am telling this is because this deal is going to open up the very attractive nuclear sector to US businessmen and once they have investments here, they will take care of the senate and congress and even the Presidents. Another reason is that we are in a fit and there is no other way out to retain our competative edge as a investment destination.
The nuclear power market of the world as we know is in crisis. With the majority public opinion aginst it, most of the biggies have withdrawn from this business. An ideal example is the GE which said good bye in early 90's. They cant be blamed, US, Canada , Europe and ofcourse Japan with their memories from the world war 2 hates any more nuclear reactors in their country. So it is the developing guys like India and China were the market exist if at all. No wonder US is succumbing to Indian pressures or are they really ............
Friday, August 04, 2006
IT Gardens
Hi to all those guys who frequented my blog( I know there arent many). Anyway it s good to be back............leaving behind all the crap that I was through for last 6 months.
In this post I will write about my new home the garden city. Yah guys I am at present in Bangalore the IT capital of India. I still remember my 1st visit here in 1994. I was in 4th then and Infosys & Wipro were just glitters in the eyes of Narayan Murthy & Premji. So was Bangalore, then a favorite domestic holiday location(there were no foriegn tourists then in India). Bangalore was famous for its gorgeous climate then, a gift bestowed uniquely to it by the altitude and surprisingly the by the absence of the great nuetralising agent: the sea. But exactly this was its boon too. Absence of sea made bangalore humidity free & pleasent through out the year. So everybody visiting the rich heritage architecture of Mysore visited B'lore for its pleasentness & cheap goods. Once the favoured locations in Bangalore were the Lal Bagh and Tipu's palace but now they are Forum and Garuda malls. The paradigm shift is not shocking the culture of banglore have chaged a lot in last 10 years. No wonder it is no longer the Air conditioned city..........it now the IT city, the beautiful gardens are long gone and have been replaced by dirty streets and concrete grooves.........now people working in busy bangalore go to hill stations nearby in the weekends.What an Irony ???????
In this post I will write about my new home the garden city. Yah guys I am at present in Bangalore the IT capital of India. I still remember my 1st visit here in 1994. I was in 4th then and Infosys & Wipro were just glitters in the eyes of Narayan Murthy & Premji. So was Bangalore, then a favorite domestic holiday location(there were no foriegn tourists then in India). Bangalore was famous for its gorgeous climate then, a gift bestowed uniquely to it by the altitude and surprisingly the by the absence of the great nuetralising agent: the sea. But exactly this was its boon too. Absence of sea made bangalore humidity free & pleasent through out the year. So everybody visiting the rich heritage architecture of Mysore visited B'lore for its pleasentness & cheap goods. Once the favoured locations in Bangalore were the Lal Bagh and Tipu's palace but now they are Forum and Garuda malls. The paradigm shift is not shocking the culture of banglore have chaged a lot in last 10 years. No wonder it is no longer the Air conditioned city..........it now the IT city, the beautiful gardens are long gone and have been replaced by dirty streets and concrete grooves.........now people working in busy bangalore go to hill stations nearby in the weekends.What an Irony ???????
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
The Knowledge Bomb
While doing our final year project, the best reference help we got all through out was internet. The huge amount of knowledge available at ur fingertips was really a marvel. I believe, it is the new blogging culture which has contributed heavily to this terabytes of material about anyhting and everything available on net. But even when making good use of this knowledge, we all conviniently forget that this information is unedited and ametuerish. Mistakes mostly spellings and misjudged uses rule the internet now.
Let me give you an example:
"If you believe the internet is the font of all wisdom, giving free reign to exercise their vocal chords". This sentence now correctly written will look something like this.
"If you believe the internet is the fount of all wisdom, giving free rein to exercise their vocal cords"
Very frequently mis-spelled or misunderstood are words like fount(meaning a source of desirable quality) which occur generally in phrases. Other eg:s are free-rein(meaning letting horse loose) which is substituted with free-reign(pointing to free rule), vocal chords(chords means tones and cords means strings).
Other widely misinterpreted words include sleight(slight) of hand, buck(butt) naked, shoo(shoe) in etc.
A pattern can be clearly seen emerging from these phrases. These mistaken phrases are all old and ones which originated from other languages like Greek. The new generation bloggers and other frequent net users with heard knowledge about these phrases use them with assumed meanings. True! new words are born this way, but the process takes nearly 100 years.
Are we on the onset of a new era where a small percentage of people decide the way a new word is born or restructured? Lets wait & see!
Let me give you an example:
"If you believe the internet is the font of all wisdom, giving free reign to exercise their vocal chords". This sentence now correctly written will look something like this.
"If you believe the internet is the fount of all wisdom, giving free rein to exercise their vocal cords"
Very frequently mis-spelled or misunderstood are words like fount(meaning a source of desirable quality) which occur generally in phrases. Other eg:s are free-rein(meaning letting horse loose) which is substituted with free-reign(pointing to free rule), vocal chords(chords means tones and cords means strings).
Other widely misinterpreted words include sleight(slight) of hand, buck(butt) naked, shoo(shoe) in etc.
A pattern can be clearly seen emerging from these phrases. These mistaken phrases are all old and ones which originated from other languages like Greek. The new generation bloggers and other frequent net users with heard knowledge about these phrases use them with assumed meanings. True! new words are born this way, but the process takes nearly 100 years.
Are we on the onset of a new era where a small percentage of people decide the way a new word is born or restructured? Lets wait & see!
Monday, January 30, 2006
The misunderstood leader 2
After the death of Rajiv Gandhi, when congress returned to power, finding him a successor and the new Indian prime minister was the problem that tormented the whole nation. After a lot of brainstorming, the CWC and the high command came up with a person who was virtually not heard of till then. He was none other than Mr.P V Narasimha Rao ,the person who was going to change India's perspective.
The new PM had a flurry of problems waiting for him, both internal and external. On one side, when the provinces of Kashmir and Punjab were being wrecked havoc by jihadis and sikh rebels, Indian economy altogether was facing major crisis with a high inflation, alarming imports to export ratio, and depleated foriegn exchange. But wilfully for us, the new guy was not one who gave up very soon. As any good manager, he started his work by inducting a new team, first memeber of which was the father of Indian economic reforms : Dr. Manmohan Singh (the then RBI governor was called upon to be the new finance minister). What happened next is history, India under Manmohan and PVN opened doors for FDIs & FIIs trying ard next five years to bring India back to her feet. PM under such circumstances had to be strict & tough, but this resulted in wide spread disgust against him in every possible arena. The supporting parties withdraw support and he had to finally buy an MP to protect his majority.
Narasimha Rao holds a lot of records. He was the person to get elected with the highest ever majority(around 7.5 lac votes), he was the PM who ruled with the lowest ever majority(1 MP in Lok Sabha). He was the PM who laid the base for our new age economic reforms, is believed to be the person who laid the base for Pokran nuclear test, was the only PM to have registered cases against him during his tenure( 3 cases...in all of which he was acquainted later on).Altogether we can call him a real loser, never got the credit for the great work he did. Even his own party deserted him after his tenure, the head office of which he left forever soon after his five year rule, only to be returned for a short respectful display as a cadaver.
The new PM had a flurry of problems waiting for him, both internal and external. On one side, when the provinces of Kashmir and Punjab were being wrecked havoc by jihadis and sikh rebels, Indian economy altogether was facing major crisis with a high inflation, alarming imports to export ratio, and depleated foriegn exchange. But wilfully for us, the new guy was not one who gave up very soon. As any good manager, he started his work by inducting a new team, first memeber of which was the father of Indian economic reforms : Dr. Manmohan Singh (the then RBI governor was called upon to be the new finance minister). What happened next is history, India under Manmohan and PVN opened doors for FDIs & FIIs trying ard next five years to bring India back to her feet. PM under such circumstances had to be strict & tough, but this resulted in wide spread disgust against him in every possible arena. The supporting parties withdraw support and he had to finally buy an MP to protect his majority.
Narasimha Rao holds a lot of records. He was the person to get elected with the highest ever majority(around 7.5 lac votes), he was the PM who ruled with the lowest ever majority(1 MP in Lok Sabha). He was the PM who laid the base for our new age economic reforms, is believed to be the person who laid the base for Pokran nuclear test, was the only PM to have registered cases against him during his tenure( 3 cases...in all of which he was acquainted later on).Altogether we can call him a real loser, never got the credit for the great work he did. Even his own party deserted him after his tenure, the head office of which he left forever soon after his five year rule, only to be returned for a short respectful display as a cadaver.
Friday, January 20, 2006
The misunderstood leader
During one of those heated GD sessions we persued during our CAT coaching, at some point the topic drifted to Rajeev Gandhi. Surprisingly after the session our moderator started talking very emtionally about him. He highlighted the inability on his part to make decisions and held him responsible for 'Ayodhya'. Was it all true. Although Rajeev Gandhi is heavily criticized for his mismangement, I think we are forgetting his achievements. This reluctant politician who was responsible for the breaking up of many sections from congress was also the one resposible for the modernisation of our communication and transportation infrastructure. His techno-savy nature paved way for the entry of mobile phones to India which is an indespensible entity now. The youngest PM of India, the PM who ruled with maximum majority in Lok Sabha, also the PM who took largest world bank loans. We cant really blame him for that, our economy was in such a state. We were adamant about not allowing any FDIs or FIIs and our crude oil and defense import bills(thanks to our neighbour Pakistan) were always well above our meagre exports. So to persue modernisation, he had to go for loans. But its a golden achievement for him that India recorded a record economic growth of 10.5% in the last year of his rule. Needless to say he was efficient and far-sighted, but still couldnt manage India well. Simple answer, you cant expect a piolet to learn the intricacies & fallacies of Indian politics in a day and head a bunch of corrupt, crooked and cunning politicians with the help of an army of lazy, uninterested beaurocrats. Fianlly one of them or many of them under the one big one pulled him down & made a new party whose fragments are creating all sorts of problems in Indian politics now with their caste & religous vote banks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)