Time to disappear for 52 days, but then just do it!

RaGa has brought me back to blogging! It pains me to see that over the last few years Congress-I has been going through a roller coaster and nothing is happening. This has to stop, they need some direction. I am tired of waiting for change. So RaGa, if you get to read this, some free suggestions for change. 

1) Start with an end in mind - just declare to the world that change is in motion and once the change is complete, the family ties will be completely severed; this will be shock and awe. Sycophants and Aam Admi will see this as the "seed of change". Give yourself a timeline. Accept the fact you need a full scale change and some solid time for such a change. Go for 2024 not 2019. Please don't call it vision 2024. For Indian democracy to thrive, it needs Congress-I. Just take this plan and modify, you may wish to use it as a straw-man.

2) This is the logic - "In some cases retrofitting is expensive, worthless, start again!" Just do it. 

Take Congress to grass roots, especially there are so many people who want to see a strong opposition and a strong counter-balance. Start again from Principles especially on secularism - say everyone is equal and re-build for long-term; NO to short-termism. Believe me this will work. (Forget the Parliament, let Modi and co do whatever they want - they can't destroy India any more than your party has done in the last 60 years) - This should be the only focus.

3) Create simple Principles that aspires for Centre and Neutral view - never can we bring equilibrium, but that doesn't mean Congress should be left. Today it is aligned with leftist and seen too left. Take it to centre and Centre will come to you!

4) Plan elections of Congress-I leaders from district through to state and National across all the 4 directions. Create Nodes from grass roots and ensure the system promotes people from base node to the higher e.g. a number of village/town leaders vote for blocks and block leaders elect a district leader and a number of district leaders vote for state and the state leaders choose a regional leader (at least 4 per region) and those regional leaders chose central leaders who would choose at least 2 candidates for the top seat.

5) Bring democracy all over the organisation - this will rejuvenate your party, the Nation and more importantly fresh blood and that will be a strong system. Use the facebooks and twitters - needless to say the media is waiting for you - they will hail you as a phenomenon.

6) Call for change - find the sycophants, weed them out - whoever praises you should be fired. Find a small team that can drive this change, don't let any old or new "chamchas" near you.

7) Last and most important - Let everyone know that you would resign after a number of central leaders are in place and cut all family ties - let the structure run the congress. If you truly cared about India, you will attempt something of this sort

Ironically if this is how Parties are supposed to run their inner party elections, just re-create the system and just go for it!

If you don't do this now, it will be never and there will be very few ways to counter BJP or help Indian democracy.

NB1: Start with Karnataka - if this helps you win, the momentum swings to you and your party will not let you resign, you can continue the dynasty ;)

NB2: I started writing this yesterday, but just finished it. But this morning (spooky coincidence), Sashi Tharoor had come out with a similar suggestion in NDTV.

Basking in the glory!

Hurray time for people in India as the news of Nobel peace prize sets in. I will be lying if I said, i knew Kailash - in fact I knew Malala because of recent media coverage. There will be blogs, articles and many write-ups now on Kailash Sathyarthi. Discussions on how India's 28 million kids of age 6-14 are working in India, some will be bashing as usual the man at the centre, some will be debating H-M combination that the Nobel committee mentioned, a few like me will be reflecting tangentially on a related subject. Anyway...

I did something that annoyed a few people around me and I am wondering why? this is what I did, if you are weak-hearted, don't read further:

I have a pet and been nurturing it well. I decided to teach the pet some clever tricks to keep it occupied; some people who came home appreciated the pet and 'me' for 'my efforts' - I felt really pleased about myself. Though the pet was doing those tricks, I was enjoying its new found glory. So I decided to take it a better master and helped it learn/show off those tricks. Obviously the fame multiplied and things started paying off.  However the pet was now tired and got bored of these tricks - however will I let my new-found fame let go?

I was blinded and did not see that I am hurting its mental health, not only that the pet started gaining an ego and it also lost a few good friends in the neighbourhood. Frustration started building up. As far as I am concerned, I am working hard for the pet to learn more tricks and be well known in its circle, whereas the pet was losing its social circle, sometimes delivering those tricks well, sometimes miserably failed and people laughed at me. The vicious cycle went on and on until one day the pet got tired of me and deserted me.

The same people who appreciated me started flipping their tongues other way; started blaming and foul-mouthing me. They said I am such a bad pet-owner that never really cared about the pet, but it was all about boosting my ego and myself than really caring about the cute little pet.

I am wondering what did I do? I loved the pet so much, fed it nicely, dressed it up, spent my time and energy to help the pet learn new tricks, took it around the neighbourhood to show its talents. I was only meaning well to the pet. The same people who clapped, cried and appreciated me are throwing brickbats at me? Many people secretly yearned that they couldn't have a pet like that and chided their pets and nudged them to be like my pet - now they have all left me in a lurch.

I was so depressed that not only I lost my new found glory, but more importantly my loveable pet - what am I going to do? In addition the blue-cross is at my door steps to investigate - I might face a jail too.

I hope this story doesn't reminds you of this recent incident (click here to know) or brings any uncanny resemblance, I am not responsible. Please note the above story is not true but I was reminded when I read how Kailash Satyarthi got a Nobel peace prize for helping recover poor children from labour. By no way, I mean the incident in the link is about child labour, but more importantly is linked to better mental health for kids.

I only wish, that all children grow along their age curve, enjoy their pranks and time - while we talk about work life balance, we also should bring a healthy grow-play-learn balance concept for our young ones. May peace be upon you!

The Newspaper is dead, Long live the 'New' Social-e-Paper

Blog gist: In the technology driven, Information anywhere world, newspapers need to reinvent how they communicate, focus on new concepts, (drop the 'Know your English' mentality) and time is an essence - tell the story real quick - just don't be a Modi basher and learn it from Rajnikanth's Kochadiiyan. psst: who are the two anchors who have resigned/gone on a month unpaid holiday!!

Now over to the full story:
The Hindu newspaper was a precious commodity at our house. The head of the family had his first rights to the paper - After a customary glance through news and other sections, the paper would be neatly folded back and on its place fresh. Then the elder brother ran through the sports pages and back in its fold.

Being the last in pecking order not only for the family but to The Hindu as well. I started reading The Hindu when I was 8 or 9.  Typically the interest started from the reverse sections of the paper - sports pages. Then moved on to 'This day that age', S&T, Tuesday's Know Your English, Friday's Entertainment, Sunday Magazines and I finally grew up to reading the political sections. By the time I started reading the editorial, lead or open column I would have been probably 17.Retaining the fresh look and returning to its folds took me years to learn. I used to be awed by how my father could read it even in a windy bus drive and retain its fold. 

There was a brand to The Hindu, a societal elitist look on you if you were known to be an avid reader. Whereas some of my father's friends read a dusty Indian Express who would frown upon, but still secretly look up to The Hindu reader's for its English panache.

Fast forward 20 years: I am not an avid reader of The Hindu anymore. Profession facilitating travel around the globe led to reading The Washington Post, Financial Times, The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent and recently The Daily Sabah too. But to be honest, I have stopped reading these papers and use technology to bespoke relevant news as a summary.

In addition I have a set of blogs and also Apps that filters and gives me the essence. As if this is not enough, I have my own sources of "grapevine providers" So you can say I am actually a news-junkie and not only that, you can also say I am a new world order- Fast News Junkie.  (like a fast food junkie) and I don't have time!

This morning I decided to take it to the 1990s style and woke up with e-Hindu. I read a good write up from by Shiv Visvanathan. After many years, If anything hasn't changed it is The Hindu. Apart from a short-period of their interesting ads and their bold take on to the TOI plus a few aesthetic bits, nothing has changed fundamentally. Hope my above write-up gives them a dose of what is already happening to the "Media" and what is more to come.

I actually wanted to write a "closed" letter to Mr Shiv Visvanathan. But why not make it a bit more interesting with my own view of The Hindu and use his article as a means. I used a summariser app and the gist provided by an app: 

1. Acting as the vector of a new generation, Mr. Modi decimated the Congress.
2. Watching the rituals of Delhi one senses, first, signs of doubt, about the paucity of new ideas.
3. In this scenario, Mr. Modi as the new Patel rules instead of an adolescent Nehru (Rahul Gandhi) but the categories are not different

In less than a fortnight this gentleman has passed on the verdict. However in order to pass his views, he has used language to his best use. "If one looks at it starkly, India stands between a desiccated left and an inflated right. Yet, one stands at a time when the left and the right as ideologies or problem-solving solutions are outdated. The nature of history has changed and Mr. Modi’s moves look outdated." 

So let me say through the closed letter to Shiv, that this blog is not about Modi or defending his nascent government. It is about highlighting that Shiv's profession may be teaching, but his pastime of writing articles in newspapers is under threat.

"The News Paper is dead, Long Live the social-e-paper!"  If he looks abstemiously in to my above write-up this will be clear.

1. Those days of long winded flowering articles are fading. Like the Cricket Test matches, they may provide a platform to enjoy the technique of writing, but IPL has come to stay - so a new social news order has come to stay.
2. The ideology of left vs. right has been dead with Cold War v1.0 and the v2.0 is about capitalism and naked truth is nothing but that. Even though left had a presence in India, contrary to popular belief India has never (in my opinion) understood either left or right wing politics - Simply because those models have never been described by any statesman or proponent to India and its polity. There were some notable names, but these Models were never explored even as a proof of concept, let alone an actual implementation. 

He then goes on to discuss the problems in a set of 3 triangles - The first triangle (allegedly inspired by French Revolution - which is the need for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity), Second triangle (Industrial - Productivity, growth and efficiency), but instead of projecting the third problem, he says it is the third solution!!! Which is Uniformity, Governance and Security.

So for the above problems or the needs, he outlines three solutions

1. A Social Contract  which brings Nature and Ways of livelihoods
2. Democracy as electoralism must go instead should be seen as plurality
3. Technology blend of culture into a cultic religion: Technocratic-fundamentalism

Unfortunately my summariser app has chosen to omit his above "innovative" thinking altogether.

1. People across the globe largely have moved to left-centre or right-centre. So he has decided to bring new concepts which make little sense to me, if in fact he has really found some new concepts, then he should work hard to share  them much more succinctly.
2. Like the politics, Media is also changing, the news consumption is changing.

I see three problems here and let me explain using Venn diagrams. Even though Shiv talked about three triangles and forgot to mention one, I am going to use Venn's Circles.

So the first set is whether one wishes or not, technology has changed the world and will go on changing it as it did in the Mechanical and Computing Industrial revolutions. The new world order of "social media" has arrived. 

The second circle that cuts into first circle is, the way people consume news, consume information and more importantly the way people will analyse news means the Media outlets have to work hard in bringing out "quality debates" - they have a choice of a) run a 24x7 news channel that has a set of anchors shouting at 9PM every day or b) to bring new world-order news consumption techniques.(grapevine: and as I write this, I hear two lead-anchors have resigned from CNN-IBN nothing to do with their "high pitch debates" - they have apparently gone to a month unpaid holiday)  

Three, sorry unlike Shiv I don't see a third problem Grrr. (Mixing humor, so keeping my reader's attention) Actually the third problem is we don't have time, so make your point very quickly or pitch a point in 1 minute elevator pitch and maybe we will come again tomorrow to read your full story. 

With the above three problems, I see three areas for change.

• The Hindu and Shiv instead of debating about politics, should first think about renewing its communication mechanism,  story-line vs. actual content of article, using pictures or other means to share new topics. Originally The Hindu was just a newspaper, then it introduced Sundays, then Tuesdays, then Fridays, then a supplement every day. In a similar manner, try to change your communication models to the new world order
• As you pitched yourself as a quality paper (as opposed to the likes of TOI), try engaging the audience with quality debates by encouraging new order concepts, keep the language really simple and don't regurgitate words. Know your English era is fading, there are many other ways now people can learn better English. So drop your English panache and focus on real ideas.
• Time is an essence, before publishing try using a summariser app to see if the real message comes through. As highlighted above, Shiv's message only shows his bias about Modi when I ran his article through the summariser. If he was truly trying to engage the audience about new type of politics and nation building then the proof of the pudding is out there - his message has been omitted in algorithimisation (yes I can make up some new words like Shiv - and wake up the techncrati is going to rule the world whether you like it or not) -

So if you don't want them to rule and if "this type of world view was thought to be more dangerous than any secularism that you and your friends might have espoused", then wake up, learn the new tricks to stop them. Hope my write-up makes sense and The Hindu reinvents itself. Also please use http://freesummarizer.com/ to see if my message is conveyed - try to shrink it to 5 sentences and see if the gist conveys my message :)

Finally a joke to finish the order of the day (truly from Facebook). Apparently the media has junked "Kochadiiyan" that the graphics looks like amateurish and the film quality was not to its expectation and cannot match to the Hollywood grandeur and so on and on. This social-media junkie  rips apart and truly reflecting to the new world-order expectations that "We also expect our Indian media and news channels to be like the NY times, the CNNs, the BBCs or the Al-Jazeeras' - but what do we get? Shrill pitched anchors and garbage news! - so are we complaining that we don't get international quality media and news outlets - No! - Just keep quiet and move on!...."

Anyway somehow got Rajini and Deepika's photo to get more coverage to my blog! Vaybara Gaantham-appa... (Business Magnet) - If you have fully read this write-up to the end, then I have succeeded in the new-news world!

Good Morning 'Modi'fied India

Assuming exit polls are true, tomorrow will undoubtedly be a good morning and a dawn to India.  I moved out of India when the previous NDA government was midway in power and hope to go back when they are back in power!

5 key takeaways if the polls results lean towards a majority vote to BJP+

1. EVM cannot be tampered? If it is a hung verdict like 2009, then this scepticism will go up, if not it will vindicate the EVMs

2. It is indeed a Modi wave - After 1984 there has never been a majority. In the new social media age, with so much changed, getting a majority in India is actually a wave but not a clean sweep. Yes a wave gently brushes your foot and removes what's underneath your foot, doesn't sweep you off like a tsunami

3. India's democracy will be going through its fifth major cycle of change. From the Nehruvian to Indira to Rao to Vajpayee to Modi. However as a political cycle it will set foot onto a federal set-up from a central (till Indira) to regional (till MMS).

4. India will it become the 1980s China? Ushering a growth not only for itself but to the wider global-economy?

5. A proper rule of law might finally happen. I am already hearing that many groups in Delhi are facing the unknown and are clueless on their next strategy. They have all along played chamchas and will be uprooted.

In fact Delhi will not be the Capital any more!

All the best India.

Operation 6 year old - Success

I decided to test it on my 6 year old to see if he has got it. My parents should have let me taken this test, but those days we never had these much challenges. So unfortunately I took these tests only in my teenage and not to mention, I failed and still appear to these tests once in a while. A trifle satisfaction is that my wife also appears with me to take these tests and fail 'em but these days very rarely but still continue to appear. That's one advantage of marriage (I don't know why, but we spend money and still take it, with the HOPE that one day we will learn our lessons finally).

But as the next generation starts, I wanted him to take it up early in his life - if he passed it, then life-long it will be a lesson and if he didn't then, we got another one to join us for the next sitting.

This all started when one of our friends suggested this idea. What are friends for? Recently they moved back to UK after a couple of years in India. They were sharing these wonderful stories about India, malls, movies, and pani-puris. Apparently their boys had taken these tests in India and are used to it. Believe me in India, a lot of kids these days go take it, just so much peer-pressure! They talked my boy into it and he was really looking forward to it.

On Sunday they joined us for Lunch and the boys though they knew it from their previous experience, they really didn't know what they were getting into this time. We allowed them to play XBOX and fed 'em with good lunch. Good Parenting you see, no pressure. My 6 year old boy was kind'a excited and was ably joined by other two kids. The rush was setting in.

It was time!

We drove in two separate cars and reached the hall, got the necessary passes. The kids wanted a treat before going into the hall. We as mature adults, didn't budge - It was a clear NO. They will have to go into the hall for 3 hours of tests and may be in between at the break, they can get an ice cream. Poor kids - the phrase Bakra came to my mind.

As usual, we went and sat in the back row. (Ah always back-benchers) and my 2 year old didn't know what was happening, she got scared a bit. Poor thing, she didn't know she will be subjected to such a severe test when she turns 6. Who knows may be early too. My boy kept nagging me. Any one who's been to a test before sure knows that last minute tension and stress. There may be a few minutes to start, but you would better like it just start and get on with it. So, I understood his feelings and was very supportive. After all, with so much pressure on a 6 year old these days.

It was time. The test had just begun. Boys were initially quite happy to take it, but within half-an-hour, they were exhausted. Given that we grown-ups had been taking the tests for 15 years, we were trained to the necessary stamina and resilience levels. But after 45 minutes or so, even we couldn't take it. My friends' wife, who really likes these tests - she herself couldn't take it.

Luckily my boy, he had a brilliant idea to get out. He raised his hand for a wee-wee; I happily took him out. This probably was one of the rarest moments that I had taken him happily to the loo even without the missus pushing me to do it. Wifey was fuming because she couldn't grab the opportunity as she was having the 2 year old who was sleeping like an angel. I mentally noted, sleep my dear little one. One day you will go through this pain and I am sorry. It is for your betterment.

Fortunately we had the break between the tests and all of us rushed out with a deep sigh. My friend and I were discussing strategies for the next half of the tests - the boys were tired, but were looking forward to the ice-creams. Then it started again - My son he couldn't take it. He begged, pleaded - Nope I didn't budge. I decided - he just needed to stay in there till the finish and it will be a lesson fulfilled for his whole life. He was really frustrated. He might have thought I am the worst dad in the whole world. Never mind, one day he will thank me.

Shrewd guy that he is, threw a master strategy back - He said if i just stay in here till the finish, will i pass? I said yes, then he said, give me your phone and let me play a game. I said, Ha but my loan phone (as Nokia & Vodafone have ruined my smart phone) is a basic one. He said never mind, "give me the phone, I will just play a very basic game of popping the bubbles, let the time run out and I will come out fully passed. I swear will never ever come to a Tamil cinema especially this guy Vijay's movies" - Jilla Nee Jeichuttada! (Click here)

Post-Script: We adults have not yet learned the lesson after Sura and such movies - we continue to waste time & money on it. So it was my way of teaching my son a valuable lesson. If you are young and not a teenager, your mind will still be healthy and will reject crap. My 6 year old boy did it. He sat there bravely for three hours and I am sure will never set foot on the movie halls any more.

Mumbai T2: Why do we need to spend lavishly?

My friends in India are quite pleased about the way T2 has been done. Needless to say that Media are
excited about T2.

The Hindu: "The T2 terminal is touted to be larger than Singapore's Changi T3 (3.80 lakh sqm) and London's Heathrow T5 (3.53 lakh sqm)"

Ibnlive: "The four-storey glass marvel, whose design has been inspired by a dancing peacock"

NDTV: "The terminal boasts of tens of thousands of artifacts and paintings, housing arguably one the largest collections in the world at an airport."

Indiatoday: A three kilometer long 'art walk' titled 'Jaya He' has been built inside the T2. It displays Indian art pieces between the 8th century and 19th century

Is it actually worth it for a developing country like India? While we try and throw spanner into Mangalyaan type of space projects, actually these T2 type of wastages should be culled. This a classic example of just copying existing implementations, with no attention to what is actually required today and in future. Actually India has gone beyond aping the western world's model of airport building.Who defines that airports should be built in such a way? If the passengers can get in and out in a queue, receive their bags in time and fly out & in in-time then the purpose is well served.

I read on the net that people on average spend 4-10 hours on airport layovers. I also understand for Airbus a380  needs more landing space, but where is the need for a lavish layover when there is a billion people in the country who would need a lot more space in future.  There is an argument that if you are stuck in delays, then the layovers could be useful to spend your time. Seriously? I don't think this is a sound argument... if you are stuck because of delays, you may be keen to window-shop but would you go visit the art gallery? I think if you did, you might miss another flight and get further delayed.

Why is nobody thinking about alternate designs and building things suited to Indian context? In fact this should be the case for all countries. When the world is reeling in recession and billions are starving, Countries need to plan and build in a sustainable way. As internet and Kinect type of technologies are enabling virtual presence, business related travel might actually start to drop off over the next few years. Leisure and tourism might be the key travel reasons, Even if this is not the so - why overload airport infrastructure for very little returns? The maintenance cost over years is going to mount on the public. Am I the only one who is concerned about such extravagant, no-purpose layovers?

Let me clarify that I am not against building new terminals or expanding infrastructure, I only advocate for minimalistic and effective use of funds, acreage in such infrastructure projects. There is no point in competing with China or West on these projects. There are also additional indirect expenses like electricity utilisation, people and maintenance costs. This money could have pooled for building multiple bus-stands or local train stations.

Above all, not many would know that India's aviation policy under UPA-2, allegedly 200,000 seats a week has been magnanimously given to middle-east sector through Jet-Etihad deal (Ref: https://medium.com/p/ab752d0cf543). If this is the case, how will T2 operate successfully as a Hub?

Literally on a very bad foundation, a multi-story T2 has been built. Even if the above posture of Jet deal is a farce, still it begs the question - why should India lavishly spend on airports in a needless and meaningless race of sprawling airports? 

Mangalyaan - India's Pride, World's Envy; MAVEN - US be accused of extravagance!

Many a views of have been written about India's space mission to Mars. In Astrology this is the planet that symbolises Ambition & Competition and also known to be the God of Wars. India has successfully launched its first mission towards Mars - Everyone knows that it is THE cheapest amongst all Mars missions but I observed that many media outlets haven't highlighted the important subtle fact that an opportunity to launch Mars missions only occur every 2 years. So If India's ISRO had missed this window, it would have had to wait till Jan 2016.

This needs to be seen in  the context, that the project was approved in Aug 2012 (though studies started in 2010), the team had to work hard to a successful launch by 2013 November -  In a record time, the satellite was designed, produced and put to launch, and remember the team need to work out communication aspects etc (for long range comms) in parallel. (for IT folks, I don't need to mention project success rates, especially if it is the first time!) Though India had already done quite a few space missions, this one falls entirely in a different spectrum. Instead of discussing all the pros & cons about India, I look at it in a different perspective.

Undoubtedly the ISRO team should be appreciated, acknowledged and awarded accolades (a lot of 'a's) - Those guys have really aced it. Request not to view it as an Indian mission, but in a non-partisan way, if a team has achieved a success that has got no parallel, in a true sportsmanship spirit, that team needs to be felicitated and they deserve it.

I would like to close my eyes and think for a minute, if life in earth is really endangered- would I/you travel for an year on a space-craft to go to Mars (assuming we set habitable camp in Mars)? I think the answer is Yes of course. Hopefully that situation never arises. But hey with the way things are going one day having a back-up is necessary. A company might be a start-up and/or really short-cashed, but still they would have definitely built a level of redundancy - now I know where I am going with this, but let me park this thought here, as that line of argument has no end to it (as the redundancy requirement is actually hypothetical, unless someone proves Mars can be inhabited)

But this blog is about a different perspective. So I really want to go back to my previous thought - as ISRO team built Mangalyaan, so did NASA build MAVEN in parallel. However Mangalyaan project's cost was 10% of MAVEN's - The ISRO team, sort of a first timer (as far as Mars mission is concerned) built it in 15 months, at 10% cost of a similar project - If you can't call this an achievement, what else would you felicitate? It has been successful up until now and is in its last but second lap towards Mars - Forget poverty and other clichéd arguments  - This team has done something that needs to be commended! So let us set aside those arguments and let us just give them a round of applause. But why do i keep talking about this team's efforts? What is my truly different perspective here?

A lot of articles and blogs have taken different sides on poverty and India's extravagance in building a Mars mission. So I did something different. I compared USA's GDP, Unemployment, Financial spend for NASA in 1950's. The picture looked bleak and comparable to what India is/was. In a way, one could say that India is like the 1960's US. So what US was doing in 1960, India has achieved a similar feat in 2013. Here my base case is the failed Apollo 13 mission (as James Lovell put it - a successful failure), even though Mangalyaan is still successfully continuing its journey. (Fingers crossed)

The flip-side and alternate perspective that I would like to finally present is that recently USA's financial situation has been a lot worse (obviously) but has spent approx $670M on MAVEN - So, shouldn't the media turn its 'guns' (i.e. the criticism) towards US for wasting the money instead of bailing out its economy? In fact one can argue that US has already been successful in its mission, so why not pause it until its deeply troubled economy starts its way up? I think it is a valid poser to US and media should turn the heat on MAVEN's needs. But instead what does the media do? questions India on its Mars mission...

I can now safely say this, even if the mission gets into a muddle after this point, the world will recognise(!) it as a success. In fact I was waiting for Dec 1st and then put my thoughts, because I wanted to make sure the mission successfully kicked off to Mars from earth's orbit.

For a first-timer to jump 200,000 kms and continue to jump a million kms a day, this is extraordinary. I am sure it will fire up many many young growing minds in India and set a new direction akin to the 1980's/1990's IT Industry led growth. It is truly a small step (and may be an unnecessary) as far as the world is concerned, but a GIANT LEAP for India and its fellow nationals. At least that is the feeling I get from my social media interactions.

On a lighter note: Ha, another outsourcing industry and revenue stream for India! May be, Mangalyaan will become the Nano-car in the space travel:)

Alt. Perspective 1: Kudos to the team for its extra-ordinary achievements, you will fire up the imaginations of many as well as set up benchmarks for performance (This is the different perspective) for other space missions across the world. US,EU, China's Space Project Directors, now you have a target! Watch it you will be measured on these criteria from here on. No pressure!

Alt. Perspective 2: US be accused of extravagance on MAVEN.

Good night!