My Daughter’s First Interview

Question: How do you like school?

Answer: I like school very much.

Question: Why do you like school?

Answer: Because I stay in the school for long and I have very nice friends.

Question: What do you like best about school?

Answer: That we have swimming competition coming Monday and I am going to participate.

Question: Who is your best friend and why?

Answer: My best friend(s) are – Anvita & Diya. Because, Diya has been nice to me and Anvita shares her rubber (eraser).

Question: What is your best part of the day?

Answer: When we have Takewando classes.

Question: What do you like best to eat at lunch in school?

Answer: Chana, Chawal & Kheer.

Question: You have such a long day, do you get tired?

Answer: I get tired a little and when I come on the bus it is so hot.

Thank you Sara.

Interview conducted by: Papa

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Personal Development Plan (PDP)

Searching the net for what PDP means, I eye-balled on to some that had great ideas and suggestions to offer.

The PDP, as I now understand it, means having a plan for the future written down in black and white with defined objectives and timeliness and the tools identified to meet these plans. Otherwise, even in the absence of any written plans, we have plans for life and our profession.

The difficulty is when you want your company to contribute to your development. Resources and time can only be allocated if companies know and understand your needs. These have to be codified, understood and implemented. Progress has to be tracked. Failures have to be checked. Because, once you embark on a plan of choice the company resources would be wasted if abandoned.

So, let me know, if you have plans that you made and succeded.

I am a corporate lawyer in his late 30’s. Looking to develop a plan of my own. This will have a short term and medium term objective.

Central Park 2, Gurgaon – A Good Deal – Price is Right, Right Now

Hi,

Bakshi builders seem to have suddenly become energised. Tower 2, where my apartment will be, now seems to be getting taller by the day. The builder has woken up. I last visited the site 2 weeks ago and saw that about 4 floors were done. Each tower will hold 13 floors or so.

My take is that the CP2 property prices will improve with time. The one thing that this property is 52 acres of landmass. I would say the biggest open land to flat ratio for the whole of Gurgaon. Most properties are built in and around an area of 11- 14 acres maximum. This is also because the law provides that a residential complex cannot be built on an area less than 11 acres.

Fast forward to 2010-2011 and imagine the complex. I will be buzzing with life and then the property is going to be hot. Standing tall at the entry point of Sohna Road, connected to both the Sonha Road and NH8 and a sprawling complex.

God help those that do not buy when the time is right. I bought this property at Rs. 3500 on January 2008 (all white). The going price for an all white deal now is around Rs. 3200. The price drop is a result of unexplained delays by the builder, the crash in the property market, and other economy driven factors (rising home loan rates, etc.).

Buy now. Or, regret.

Athens takes the lead from Middle East

By Neil Tunbridge, Special to Gulf News Published: August 11, 2008, 23:22

Like a large proportion of the expats that live in Dubai, I have just spent a few weeks out of the city on holiday. My requirements for enjoying some time off are relatively simple, and typically extend to plenty of reading material, coupled with some peace and quiet, as well as some good, authentic food. Consequently, my recent experience of spending two weeks in Greece with a large group (34 to be precise) of friends and family may seem at odds with what would normally be on my list of requirements.

During the time that I wasn’t teaching my nephew how to walk, or my soon to be nephew-in-law, the finer points of the game of beach cricket, I had time to think about how very different the retail markets of Dubai and this area of Europe are. That was until I stumbled across the two newest malls in Athens. It then occurred to me that although the Middle East is still playing catch up with some global retail markets, it may also now be a showcase for other retail markets.

Athens has a fantastic esoteric past that is steeped in myth, mystery and almost unimaginable architectural wonder and as a result (certainly for me) it was the last place that I expected to see the advancement of large-scale malls. However juxtaposed against the ancient skyline are increasing numbers of malls which are serving an economy and population that is finding its feet in the aftermath of the heady heights that the 2004 Olympics brought with it.

The real surprise for me however was not that the retail scene was prospering as a direct result of these malls but because of the duality that these malls offer, in context with the retail offering that is increasingly present on the many and varied high streets. The result then is that the city (although being geographically quite wide-spread) now has a burgeoning retail sector that appears to be covering all the bases that are essential for maintaining stability in a sector that is currently being hit very hard by the current economic downturn in Europe.

Diversification

The size of the retail market may well be a factor here as typically, Germany France and Italy account for around 80 per cent of the total Euro-Area retail sales. As a consequence, Greece could well be holding its own against this widespread downturn as it’s not being hit as hard as some of the other more dominant markets.

However by offering a strong retail scene – that is, embracing both the modern day mall culture while also maintaining the street and high-street style retailing that typifies this area of Europe – the market is able to avoid stagnating. The lessons that can be learnt in the Middle East from such a model are as transferable our region, as the mall ideas that Athens appears to be embracing there.

As any successful retailers knows the recipe of success lies not in a single dominating platform but in providing the right mixture of products and services, and the same is true of the sector as a whole. Consequently for the Middle East to continue to prosper we will need to continue to build retail space, however diversification of this space and the ability to provide new and interesting destinations will be required if we are to do so.

- The writer is Head of GRMC Retail Services, Dubai.

Bindra wins India’s first individual Olympic gold

Beijing: Abhinav Bindra won India’s first ever individual Olympic gold medal when he claimed the men’s 10m Air Rifle shooting title here on Monday.

 

Athens Games champion Zhu Qinan of China won the silver and Henri Hakkinen of Finland took the bronze at the Beijing Shooting Hall on the outskirts of the Chinese capital.

 

Bindra, the 25-year-old businessman from the northern city of Chandigarh, followed his world championship title two years ago to finally win a landmark gold medal for his country.

 

In one of the most thrilling shooting finals in Olympic history, Bindra overcame a two-point deficit against Hakkinen and one point against Zhu after the qualification rounds to annexe the title.

 

The Indian trumped his rivals with the best finish of 104.5 in the 10-shot final as he went into the last shot level with Hakkinen on 689.7 points.

 

While Bindra secured his best score of 10.8 in the deciding shot, Hakkinen managed only 9.7 to concede the silver to Zhu, whose last shot was 10.5.

 

Bindra finished with a combined tally of 700.5, a fair distance behind Zhu’s Olympic record of 702.7 set in Athens.

 

Zhu came in with 699.7 this time and Hakkinen, a member of Finland’s armed forces who is taking part in his first Olympics, scored 699.4 points.

 

“It can’t get better than this, can it?” said an elated Bindra, a winner of India’s highest sporting award, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (sports jewel), in 2001.

 

“I know India was waiting for this for a long time and so was I. I narrowly missed a medal at Athens so I knew I would be in with a chance if I focussed on the job.”

 

India, winners of eight field hockey gold medals, had never won an individual Olympic title before Bindra’s feat.

 

The previous best was trap shooter Rajyavardhan Rathore’s silver at Athens, while there were bronze medals for wrestler Khasaba Jadhav (1952), tennis star Leander Paes (1996) and woman weightlifter Karnam Malleswari (2000).

 

Zhu, who was expected to retain his Athens title, said he was tired after the qualification rounds.

 

“I don’t know what was going on,” he said. “My mind went blank and I just could not focus on the final as I did in the qualification.”

 

“I had prepared very well. There was no problem with my technique, I just did not catch the opportunity.”

 

“I was very tired. The qualification used up all my energy and I had no time to rest since there was not much gap before the final.”

 

“It was much harder than at Athens. My craving for gold was much more than last time but I could not concentrate enough.”

 

Bindra sympathised with Zhu. “He performed very well. He should be happy he won a medal,” the Indian said.

 

Source: AFP

Zakaria: What Bush Got Right

For the next president, simply reversing this administration’s policies is not the answer.

Compared with the flutters and flurries of the near-daily polls in the presidential race, one set of numbers has stayed fixed for months, even years. President George W. Bush now enters his 23rd consecutive month with an approval rating under 40 percent. (It currently stands at 32 percent.) No matter what he does, or what happens in the world, the public seems to have decided that Bush has been a failure. As a result, both candidates are promising a change from the Bush presidency. Barack Obama, of course, promises a wholly different approach to the world. But even Bush’s fellow Republican, John McCain, has on several issues suggested that he would depart from the administration’s policies. McCain was last seen with the president at a fund-raiser more than two months ago at which no reporters or photographers were allowed.

A broad shift in America’s approach to the world is justified and overdue. Bush’s basic conception of a “global War on Terror,” to take but the most obvious example, has been poorly thought-through, badly implemented, and has produced many unintended costs that will linger for years if not decades. But blanket criticism of Bush misses an important reality. The administration that became the target of so much passion and anger—from Democrats, Republicans, independents, foreigners, Martians, everyone—is not quite the one in place today. The foreign policies that aroused the greatest anger and opposition were mostly pursued in Bush’s first term: the invasion of Iraq, the rejection of treaties, diplomacy and multilateralism. In the past few years, many of these policies have been modified, abandoned or reversed. This has happened without acknowledgment—which is partly what drives critics crazy—and it’s often been done surreptitiously. It doesn’t reflect a change of heart so much as an admission of failure; the old way simply wasn’t working. But for whatever reasons and through whichever path, the foreign policies in place now are more sensible, moderate and mainstream. In many cases the next president should follow rather than reverse them.

Consider as a symbol of this shift Bush’s appointment of the World Bank’s president. His first choice for the job was Paul Wolfowitz, an arch neoconservative with little background in economics. But by the time Wolfowitz was forced to resign and the post opened up again, Bush realized that he needed a less ideological choice, and he picked the highly qualified and respected Robert Zoellick. Where Dick Cheney was once the poster child for the administration, today policy is being run by Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, Stephen Hadley and Hank Paulson—all pragmatists. Change has not extended to all areas, and in many places it’s been too little, too late. But that there has been a shift to the center in many crucial areas of foreign policy is simply undeniable.

The most obvious case is Iraq. For many people—a clear majority of those polled—the decision to go to war is now seen as a mistake. But wherever one stands on that issue, it is overwhelmingly clear that the administration made a series of massive blunders in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. It went in with too few troops, dismantled Iraq’s Army, bureaucracy and state-owned factories, arrested tens of thousands of Iraqis, mistreated and tortured some of them, and used overwhelming military force against all perceived threats. The outcome? Chaos; an angry, dispossessed and armed Sunni community; a sullen and restless Shiite population; an insurgency; a jihadist terrorist movement, and spreading sectarian violence. In addition, foreign forces were destabilizing the country because both the invasion and the occupation were undertaken without first gaining support from neighboring Arab states or winning international legitimacy. The result was a perfect storm in international affairs, a failure that kept getting worse.

For years, even after it was apparent to almost everyone that the Iraq strategy was not working, the administration stuck to its guns. But by 2005, the failure was simply too large to ignore, so some efforts to repair the situation were made—mostly tactical and incremental moves, like searching for a better Shiite leader and trying to slow down the process of de-Baathification. Some U.S. officials in Iraq freelanced—for example, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad began the outreach to Sunni leaders and militants in 2006, even while his bosses in Washington were steadfastly condemning them as terrorists. American generals in Iraq were also learning from their own failures and advocating changes in tactics. (One of them was to support efforts by tribal sheiks in Anbar to take on their Qaeda rivals, which is why the Sunni Awakening actually preceded the surge.) By 2006, Bush told The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes that he was searching for new approaches. But it was only after the 2006 midterm-election debacle that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was fired and a new politico-military strategy was put in place with a commander who understood the need for sweeping change.

It took a long time, but the turnaround in our policy in Iraq has been significant. The United States has made broad overtures to the Sunni community, and now actively supports Sunni fighters it had once jailed. We’ve concentrated on stabilizing Shiite neighborhoods, helping to free them from dependence on militias. We have abandoned dreams of a pure, free market, instead trying to jump-start Iraq’s state-owned enterprises in order to create jobs. And we’ve even been pursuing a more regional approach, trying to get neighboring countries to open embassies in Baghdad and commit to help stabilize Iraq. None of this has changed some of the basic gruesome realities of Iraq—a country from which 2.5 million people have fled (mostly the professional class), thugs and militias rule in too many places, dysfunction and corruption are utterly endemic, and religious theocrats still wield immense power. But given where things were in 2005, the administration has moved firmly in the right direction.

On Afghanistan, there is a more compelling case to be made that the administration mishandled the most important front in the War on Terror. The central critique that Barack Obama makes—that American attention, energy, troops and resources were wrongly diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq—is devastating and hard to dispute. But it’s a criticism of Bush policy in 2003. The policy that the administration is currently pursuing is less vulnerable to easy attacks.

Like Obama, Defense Secretary Gates has talked about sending more troops to the region. But the problem is bigger than a lack of American soldiers. European countries haven’t contributed enough troops to the effort, and have put absurd restrictions on the forces they do have in theater. Afghanistan itself is extremely complex. The country contains vast swaths of mountainous territory that have never been ruled effectively by the central government, where levels of illiteracy and unemployment are stunningly high, and where Pashtun nationalism has got mixed up with Islamic extremism. Many serious scholars and local politicians argue that more troops would not solve the problem—particularly since the Taliban’s back bases are located across the border in Pakistan. And the administration has ramped up spending in the region considerably. Whereas in 2003 it spent $737 million on reconstruction and equipping the Afghan Army, by 2007 it was spending $10 billion.

http://news.uk.msn.com/newsweek.aspx?cp-documentid=9175365

My Development

This one is difficult to write and describe. I want to make plans for the next 5 years of my life.

Let me begin by telling you where I am right now. In fact, let me begin from a little bit in the recent past.

Posted to London, a childhood dream realised. Most Indian’s would give anything for a chance to go – better still – settle abroad – UK, USA, Aussie Land, Dubai, Germany, etc. The charm wore out soon. I had a lot of locals for company but the integration was not complete and I was 2 years away from turning 40. So, I began re-thinking about my plans of settling in London. Anyway the thinking was an ongoing exercise.

Then came the offer to head back to India with one of the most reputable companies in the world. I thought about the options and felt that this would be an opportune time to head back. India was shining – at least to the world. There was a flood of activity and I was an Indian corporate lawyer trained and comfortable on Indian soil. So, I grabbed this opportunity.

Coming back to India was great and the job that I got and still have infused some fresh thought in the way I do things. Recently the management offered me a position in Indonesia. I refused for various reasons mostly personal. The managment also sent me for a “Leadership” workshop. This helped in knowing what other potential leaders of today think and feel.

However, this whole professional journey is barren as I cannot still figure out what I want out of my professional life and where I am heading. What happens after 5 years? How fast or slow should I move? Will others takeover? Will I keep growing? These thoughts cross my mind day after day but to no avail.

I am looking for a fullfilling life. Does anyone have any ideas on how to model my thought for good results and answers?

I am happy where I stand today. But not for long.

Ideas welcome.

My Traffic

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The Clymo Brief: Nokia N96 preview

Rob Clymo is a journalist employed on a freelance basis by Microsoft. The views in this article are those of the author and not of MSN or Microsoft. Microsoft is the publisher and owner of MSN Tech & Gadgets.

So rumour has it Apple’s planning an iPhone nano, huh? Big deal! I’m more preoccupied with the new Nokia N96 I’ve been testing over the past few weeks. There’s no question a slimmed down version of the iPhone would be a trailblazing success if it made it into stores this side of Christmas. But no doubt it would still have a rubbish camera, just like its bigger brother.

 

Admittedly, the Nokia N96 doesn’t have a touch screen like the iPhone and, to be honest, it feels less well built. But there’s not much else here to disappoint. If you’re an everyday digital camera user, this phone really will be a fitting replacement for your compact. By the looks of the results I’ve had from the video camera, you might even be able to do away with one of those too.

 

That’s because the formidable N96 boasts a five megapixel camera complete with Carl Zeiss Tessar lens. Without doubt it’s the feature I’ve been using most. Digital snaps are crisp and clear, and a dual LED flash makes dimly lit photography or video filming a blinding experience. Quite literally.

 

Bumper pics

When you’re done, you can instantly upload to the likes of Flickr or Vox, send to someone via messaging (try doing that on an iPhone!) or print out using Bluetooth connectivity. The N96 is capable of producing bumper sized shots too – up to a resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. And although photography anoraks may snigger at some of the built in effects like Cartoonize or sniff at the rather duff clip art gallery, the pictures themselves are stonking.

The video mode of the camera is top-dollar too. A nifty anti-shake mechanism irons out any major camera wobble as you move and the quality is spot on. A super responsive microphone is so acute it will literally pick up a pin dropping, while playback of captured footage is complemented by the dinky little twin speakers located on each end of the phone.

 

Iceberg tip

But that’s just the tip of an iceberg Nokia frothily describes as a ‘multimedia computer truly optimized for video and TV’. Erm, but this is a phone, right? Well, yes, but amalgamating all sorts of gadgets is the way of the future and there’s not much the N96 doesn’t do, short of the washing up.

It’s the multimedia angle that really captures the imagination. MPEG-4, Windows Media Video and Flash Video are all supported and USB 2.0 connectivity, WLAN and HSDPA support mean file transfer levels are very decent. With 16 gigabytes of internal memory it’ll hold a decent wedge of content – up to 40 hours according to Nokia, and even that is expandable with a microSDHC card that’ll boost total capacity to a bulging 24GB.

 

Live TV

I also love the idea of an integrated DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld) receiver that allows you to view live TV. Unfortunately this is only available in a few countries at the moment and, judging from my blank screen, this doesn’t yet include the UK. This is a bit of a thorny subject with DVB-H being one of three mobile TV formats, but if it’s any consolation, the EU has apparently made DVB-H the ‘preferred technology for terrestrial mobile broadcasting’. We’ll see…

Nevertheless, I did manage to trawl through the Nokia Video Center and also view YouTube Mobile videos via the sprightly internet connection. Watching video is made easier with the fold-out ‘kickstand’ that surrounds the lens on the back of the phone that allows you to prop it up for hands free viewing or for making video calls. Nice.

 

Mobile gaming

Gaming is another aspect of the N96 that impresses. Nokia’s own N-Gage made-for-mobile gaming facility promises much, especially when it comes to the tackling the likes of Fifa 08 or Asphalt 3: Street Rules. The media keys on the stubby side of the dual-case turn your phone into an instant gaming machine.

Having said all that, the first time I took this prototype out of the Jiffy bag it came in (nope, no box on these pre-production models, kids), I was a bit underwhelmed. You see, Nokia sent me an E71 at the same time and although I guess you could say that’s more of a BlackBerry-esque business users phone, I think I actually prefer it. That’s mainly because of the usefulness of the QWERTY keyboard though, and I think I’ll reserve final judgement until I’ve seen a factory-finished version of the N96.

 

As for inevitable comparisons to the iPhone 3G, the Nokia seems to keep up with those on most levels. Of course, Apple’s gadget has that great touch screen – as opposed to the slightly awkward plastic buttons on the N96. Nevertheless, while Nokia spends time beavering away on its proper iPhone rival, this is a fearsome competitor and certainly even better than the N95 it succeeds.

 

Source: http://tech.uk.msn.com/features/article.aspx?cp-documentid=9141699