SIMS Students, welcome to the real world.

Student life can be fascinating. If you were a real student you should have learnt about various subjects , about yourselves and the world around you, then you are ready for the real world.

The real world is however quite different from student life and more demanding.
People will not always be logical, polite or kind. Unless your parents own the organisation where you will work, most often the rule is that as a fresh joiner and intern you can expected to be treated rather impatiently and often impolitely.

Getting a job these days is not difficult, however whether you will be successful, happy or satisfied is debatable. Even in a recession most employers complain of not being able to get and retain good people. It is your choice whether you want to be recognised as good or just another 'has been'.

Here are some tips that should make your career journey smoother, more meaningful and likely to project you as a winner.

• Perception lasts longer than fact. Your reputation will make or break you. Your reputation will come from your conduct and more important from your ability to deliver results.


• Never argue with others, particularly your boss on basis of opinions. Facts are difficult to dispute where as it is easy to dismiss an opinion.


• I believe in the philosophy “Do not say , show. Do not claim, prove”.


• It is more important to be respected than to be liked.


• When two people agree on everything one of them is useless. When two people disagree on everything then both of them are useless.


• Your education never ends, you must constantly learn, unlearn and relearn. So keep your old books, acquire new ones and stay up to date. Remember a well educated person should know something about most things and everything about something.


• Try to work for and with people with whom you share similar values. It does not mean you will not have disagreements, it just helps you to resolve differences quicker and understand each other.


• If you seek career and personal development and progress, you must win the trust of your colleagues and particularly your boss. Trust comes from trust worthy actions.


• We Indians are the world’s leaders in making excuses for non performance. Success needs no explanation and failure tolerates no excuses. In today’s challenging and competitive world performance talks and failure walks.
  

If you want to have a meaningful career and personal life it might help to look at the story of the pickle bottle and two cups of tea.

The Pickle Bottle.
When things in your life seem, almost too much to handle,
When 24 Hours in a day is not enough,
Remember the pickle bottle and 2 cups of tea.

A professor once stood before his class of students who were about to graduate
When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty pickle bottle and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students, if the bottle was full.
They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the bottle. He shook the bottle lightly.
The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.
He then asked the students again if the bottle was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the bottle.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the bottle was full. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’

The professor then produced two cups of tea from under the table and poured the entire contents into the bottle, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

‘Now,’ said the professor, as the laughter subsided,
‘I want you to recognize that this bottle represents your life.
The golf balls are the important things - family, children, health, Friends, and favourite passions
Things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, Your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, house, and car.
The sand is everything else –The small stuff.

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ He continued, there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

So…

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
‘Take care of the golf balls first - The things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.’

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the tea represented.

The professor smiled. ‘I’m glad you asked’.
It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a cup of tea with a friend.’

This article is written by Gurvinder Singh for the SIMC student website at the request of Mr. Mohan Sinha.

Solving the Naxalites & Maoists problem

Every day we read about some crisis or the other caused by Maoists & Naxalites and how the government is responding with massive force. Yet the situation gets only worse with each passing day.

History always provides interesting lessons, if only we attempt to learn.
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Herman Cortes a young Spaniard, had visions of conquering Mexico for Spain and making himself very rich by plundering the huge stockpile of gold the powerful Aztecs possessed.

In 1518 landing on Mexico's east coast with just 500 men, the 33 year old Cortes set up the town of Veracruz and then began to study his quarry.
The fierce Aztecs had 500,000 warriors. They were ruled by the powerful Moctezuma from his palace at Tenochtitlan, 250 kms west of Veracruz .
Herman Cortes learnt from local tribes and through his spies that Moctezuma ran a highly centralised system with Moctezuma at the very centre. Cortes hatched a daring plan. When Moctezuma granted Cortes an audience in his court, Cortes lunged and killed Moctezuma in front of many of the king's subjects.

The Aztecs thought Cortes to be a powerful God, for he had with great ease decapitated the all powerful Moctezuma. The powerful Aztec army meekly surrendered. Thus Cortes conquered Mexico.
The weakness in the strong kingdom came from its reliance on an individual at the centre. The organisation structure could be called a spider structure.
This is based on the observation that if one were to cut the head of a spider, in spite of its eight legs it will die almost instantaneously .

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In similar fashion the Spanish tried to conquer several of the Indian tribes of what is now the southern part of The United States of America by adopting the same approach that Cortes used with Moctezuma and the Aztecs. Yet for two hundred years they were unable to overpower the seemingly primitive Apache Indians. Why did the Spanish fail in this endeavour in spite of being stronger and more powerful than ever?

At this point, let's look at another type of organisation called the starfish structure.
This is based on a creature called the starfish. If one cuts a starfish into many parts , each part will grow into another starfish.

The Apache Indians unlike the Aztecs or some other Indians times had a highly decentralised existence. They lived in temporary camps and were always on the move. They had a distributed democratic leadership which was shared by all individuals.
What the eldest (called Nant'an) did everyone simply followed. If a Nant'an died in battle or in a hunt a new one would take his place and everyone followed him.

The Spanish found it exceedingly difficult to attack the highly mobile Apaches. Even if the attacked and killed the Nant'an, a new one would rise immedeately. The Apaches frustrated the efforts of the Spanish for over 200 years.

The American settlers eventually conquered and killed off the Apache by giving them cattle. Once they accepted the valuable cattle the Apache settled down at various places. The Apaches got rooted and set up a centralised system to fight and control the scare resources of the cattle. After that they were easy pickings for the kill and therefore soon conquered.

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Let us return to the topic at hand.
If one looks at the parallel from history it is not difficult to see why the Government administration is having so little luck in tackling the Maoists and the Naxalites.

They are using classical war techniques to attack a spider organisation whereas the challenge is a starfish organisation. Therefore all efforts under the present strategy and approach are doomed to fail and that to at great cost to the Indian state and people.

33% of India's land mass is covered by forests. These forests are rich in wildlife, forest products and mineral resources.

Corrupt and crooked politicians often lording over various ministries have the entire government machinery including the law and order aspects at their disposal, treat these lush and lucrative areas as their private fiefdom.

Many of these 'leaders have their own private armies', mercenaries who get a small share in the plunder of the lands and its people.

Many of the 'leaders' are small timers. They lack the capital, technology and the management to exploit the huge mineral resources that lie in the lands belong to locals and tribal people.
Now enter the capitalists who want access to these rich mining areas. They let the politicians use the government machinery do the dirty of work of getting them the mining concession on highly attractive terms and also provide the local infrastructure.

Developing lucrative mining areas is a good idea if the local people benefit from the development. All too often the lands are virtually stolen, toxic waste pollutes ground water and the air and many locals get a very bad deal. They do not even get the pittance that is promised to them and payable by law for seizing and depriving them of their lands.

When the locals attempt to protest, many are beaten up, tortured or even killed. Often trumped up charges are made against innocent people and they are then incarcerated to rot in the jails for a long time.

Locals and oppressed people may get intimidated, but a fire burns within them. This huge tinderbox awaits the arrival of someone to light the fire and start a movement.

Once started no matter how many 'leaders' are killed more people will keep on coming. The government has to realise that they are dealing with a starfish and not a spider organisation. The current efforts are doomed to fail because of a faulty strategy.
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Then what is the solution?
There are no quick fixes and war definitely is not a permanent answer. War only serves to make forces of evil stronger.

Unless inclusive development starting with decent infrastructure, education, health services and job opportunities are provided along with a suitable law and order machinery backed up by a genuine judicial system the Maoists and Naxalites will grow in strength.
Deny the leaders the cause which they claim to champion and their war will end.

Huge amounts of money are now being invested in the so called fight against the so called Maoists or Naxalites, this has set up a huge money spinning opportunity for people to supply equipment, resources, people, and even fake rehabilitation schemes.

Development is the only solution.
It makes great social and economic sense to spend on genuine development which will bring greater and permanent gains as compared to the huge amounts of funds currently being spent and likely to be spent on waging war.
People's representatives and democracy must serve the needs of the people rather than their own. In our present value system and the apathy of the average Indian, no changes are expected to take place any time soon. Again taking a cue from history, things will need to get a lot worse before there is any hope of them getting any better.

We compound our folly with even greater follies. We then top it off with tough and unproductive rhetoric. Alas this is all in vain.
Troubles can bloom all so easily in a divided and unjust home.

It will be impossible to win this war, but it is definitely possible to win the peace.

Let's not turn our back on nuclear energy.

Though it has quietened down now, everyday we were bombarded with inputs on India's nuclear power program and how risky it was to the Indian public.
I listened in on many talk shows where matters are discussed with more heat than light. With about 158 television news channels in the country broadcasters often sacrifice facts at the altar of extreme sensationalism.
I also received a barrage of emails from people asking me to send this or that petition to the Prime Minister of India against adopting nuclear power etc.

Most people live overworked lives. It is easy to be swept by the crowd and follow the seemingly general consensus on matters. I decided to step back and make an unbiased analysis which I share with you.

India is a nation in dynamic growth. It is likely to grow at approximately 8.5% to 9% this year. As a rapidly developing industrial nation India will need to generate huge additional amounts of energy to maintain that growth trajectory.

All is not well in the energy sector. Dominated by state owned enterprises and infrastructure both quantity and quality of electricity is in a sad state.
Electricity shortfall averages about 22% between generation and demand and the gap is widening by the day. India needs to get its power generation and energy requirements satisfactorily met.

Energy can come from a variety of sources, Oil, Coal, Gas, Hydro, Solar, wind, bio gas etc. Each energy source has some advantages and some disadvantages.

The coal based power plants spew out wide range of pollutants and add significantly to green house gasses which leads to global warming. In addition to this coal has small quantities of Mercury in them. By itself the content is small but with the large quantity used in Thermal power plants the contamination to the air, soil and water sources is significant. It is highly carcinogenic and is a highly potent but silent killer.

Oil fired plants have less discharge of suspended particles but generate equal or higher amounts of green house gases. Large amount of oil is imported and works against India's energy security interests. The oil based plants are expensive to operate and compromises India's strategic leverage by making us overly dependent on imported fuel.

These two fossil fuel based thermal power plants generate nearly 71% of India's power output.

Leaving aside the Chernobyl (formerly in the USSR)incident which resulted in 56 direct deaths and a large number of people affected along with flora and fauna there have been no other serious mishaps.

The famous three mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 in Pennsylvania ( USA) caused no loss to humans or animals or to the environment. Nevertheless it led to the nuclear industry being stopped dead in its tracks in the United States.

Paul Slovic an international authority on risk perception wrote in the prestigious journal 'Science' wrote abut how humans frame their assessment of danger. Normally the thought of a nuclear plant blows up creates images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where nuclear weapons were used in warfare. The image is extremely horrifying and saddening.

Yet experts have determined that nuclear power plants are so much safer than everyday acts like driving, riding a motorcycle, drinking alcohol or smoking.
In terms of risk, Nuclear power is even less dangerous than riding a bicycle or walking in the streets of our towns and cities.

Like a train accident or an airplane crash, where large number of people die at one time compared to a handful of people in automobile crashes, nuclear plant failures are perceived incorrectly as extremely dangerous.

Drinking or driving or living close to towers with mobile phone transmitters are something people feel they can control. The public has little understanding or sense of control over nuclear power plants so they see them with great suspicion.

Politicians, the coal and oil lobbies, NGO's etc. all have their own agendas and they may not always be in favour of appropriate development. They have a vested interest in opposing the use of nuclear energy.

France generates 75% of its power from nuclear energy. using second and third generation technology without a serious mishap in the past 55 years. It has one of the lowest cost of power production in Europe and is a net energy exporter, in spite of having no natural energy sources of its own.

Nowadays the use of fourth generation nuclear power plants based on proven technologies like pebble-bed reactors are highly cost effective and extremely safe. The pebble bed reactor uses only 9% Uranium 235 and 91% Uranium 238 , it is impossible to use the fuel for making atomic bombs. In addition pebble-bed reactors are meltdown proof.

Nuclear plants built as per second generation design are comparatively extremely expensive , but fourth generation plants are quite economical. With India's strong engineering capability coupled with its ability to bring down costs to fraction of what it costs in Japan, Europe or America, it is a good and viable option. (An analogy can be drawn from the fact that designing and developing a new car in India costs about a tenth to an eighth of what it costs company in developed economies.)

Nuclear power does not generate green house gases nor other toxic products in large quantities.

Managing disposal of large spent fuel rods in deep underground storage is a nightmare. However fourth generation pebble-bed fuel is encased in thick silicon carbide shells which will be able to prevent leaching or leaking of uranium for more than a million years. Thus making them incomparably much safer than everyday things like driving a car.

It is high time we look at environmental issues, national and strategic issues and take decisions in a rational manner rather than become one in the frenzied crowd.

India should adopt nuclear power to offer a better quality of life.