A PERSONAL OPENION OF A BUSY BODY

I am not a psychologist, neither am I a doctor....I am just another normal person living a very normal life. Experience of living among different communities have taught me a great deal, but there is one subject that really interests me: COMMUNICATION.


To me, a lay person, in order to make a relationship work and successful, the key word here is 'COMMUNICATION'. When two or more people working towards a common objective for the benefit of all concerned, FAIL to relate to each other, the relationship is doomed to fail at one stage or the other. No matter what kind of relationship these people would try to establish, it is going to be difficult, because there is either no or very little communication. To get things done, people need to talk...to relate to each other. And not only just talking.....there are many ways of getting ideas, feelings, disagreement, etc, across.....after all this is the age of technology!


No one can change a person unless he or she wants to be changed. Therefore, it has to start with the person him/herself. For me, perhaps I have been too vocal or too demanding or too suspicious or too gullible, but I will not know this if my working or living partner or anyone does not TELL me about this. TELLING is COMMUNICATING. And the 'silence' or 'playing dumb' syndrome is certainly not helping in building a successful relationship. A student of mine once said to me, " Silence is one way of communicating", and I said, "Yeah....but whatever relationship or friendship you're intent on building is now doomed to fail, because not everyone is a psychic or a mind reader...."


The Almighty gives us the power to communicate.....the ability to relate, so use it (wisely......)
REACH OUT if you need help...SPEAK OUT when you have something to say (right or wrong!)
And don't act dumb if you're not dumb! SILENCE is NOT always 'golden'.


Just a personal opinion of a busy body

How can we attain and experience God

The process of purifying the inner equipment of man in the crucible of single-pointed speech, feeling and activity, directed towards God is called thapas (penance). The inner consciousness will then be rid of all blemishes and defects.  When the inner consciousness has been rendered pure and unsullied, God will reside therein. Finally, he will experience the vision of the Lord Himself, within him.

How should we deal with our senses?

Every sense runs after external objects one after the other, one supporting the other, restlessly and miserably. One must bring under control the mind, the reasoning faculty and the senses which roam aimlessly behind objective pleasures. One must train them to take on the task of concentrating all attention on the glory and majesty of God to follow one systematic course of one-pointed discipline. Bring them all and lead them towards the Higher Path. Their unlicensed behaviour has to be curbed. They must be educated by means of japa (chanting God’s name), dhyana (meditation) or noble deeds, or some other dedicatory and elevating activity that purifies and ennobles.

How to cultivate the vision of unity?

When viewed without the twin distortions of like and dislike, love and hate - all forms, all effects, and all causes are experienced only as Brahman (Divinity). When the vision is affected by love or hate, each form, effect and cause, appears different from the rest.  When feelings are calm and balanced, the many is experienced as the one.  An agitated mind can never have a single vision. It runs along contrary lines, so it experiences the world, nature, and the cosmos as separate from God. Such vision also creates division. Serene vision reveals unity. As is the vision, so is the impression, the view of the world.

How to protect ourselves from various traps that surround us?

You must exercise constant watchfulness over your feelings and reactions. You must keep out selfishness, envy, anger, greed and other such evil tendencies from entering your minds. These are nets which entrap you; these vices overwhelm and subdue your holiness, so that you cannot be influenced any longer. Then you forget yourself and behave like an individual caught in frenzy. You blabber as your tongue dictates without regard to the effect - good or evil and engage in those works which your hands favour. Be aware and keep them in control! If you carefully discriminate, you can be recognised by the good company you keep, the noble works you delight in and the good words you utter.

WHAT TO DO WITH REJECTED GIFTS

Buddha was seated alone one day, and later, some men gathered around him. One among them who did not like his teachings and the effect it had on the people, got up and started a tirade in very vulgar terms against him. Buddha sat smiling listening to all that calumny, without a single gesture of disapproval. The man got frothy in the mouth through rage, his vocabulary was fast getting exhausted, his tongue began to show signs of overwork, but, Buddha only asked him with a smile: "Brother, have you finished?” The man said, "You have no sense of shame: you do not even react when I abuse you. You are thick skinned; you are, a log of wood.” Buddha asked him, "If a person does not accept a gift, what happens to it?" He said, "It remains with the giver.” "Well, keep these gifts of abusive words with you, brother! I do not accept and react.”

IT IS NOT FOR THE OLD

Interview with Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister
 on public information infrastructure and innovations

India had 10 million broadband subscribers in October 2010, as against China’s 113 million. Ten million is only 50 per cent of the target set by the Department of Telecommunications’ Broadband Policy, announced in 2004. Even these subscribers don’t get the committed bandwidth from the operators. India’s broadband penetration, too, is abysmally low at less than 1 per cent. It is a yawning gap compared with other Asian countries such as South Korea, which has 100 per cent penetration. Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister on public information infrastructure and innovations, has a tough task ahead to roll out Mission Broadband. In his second stint to bring a revolution in telecom, Pitroda tells BW’s M. Rajendran why he is in a hurry to finish the job. Excerpts from the interview:

What is the biggest challenge in Mission Broadband?

Mission Broadband is about to begin. One challenge is connecting people on mobile telephones, through WIMAX, 3G and other technologies. But the real big challenge is to provide the backhaul, which is fibre.

Fast Facts

Subscribers: India has 10 million broadband subscribers

Penetration: Broadband penetration in India is less than 1%

Technology: More than 85% broadband subscribers in India use DSL technology

Broadband leaders: China (112.59 million), US (87 million)

We are focused on two major national programmes by the government, besides what the private players will do. One is related to the National Knowledge Commission, headed by R. Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister along with S.V. Raghavan and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) headed by B.K. Girola. They are working to connect 1,500 nodes, with ultimate aim to provide 40 gigabit (GB) bandwidth. To begin with, it would be 2 GB, 10 GB and then 40 GB, to connect all our universities and all our research and development institutions, colleges, and that network will grow.

Wouldn’t such a network need huge investment and time to complete?

Such a network would need an investment of $2 billion. It would be set up over a period of two years. National Knowledge Network’s (NKN) funding of Rs 7,000 crore has been approved by the Cabinet and since we currently use the existing infrastructure, there is no need for additional funding.

How will the existing networks be used?

This will form the backbone of all the existing networks. We will consolidate this network with some of the existing networks like eRNET. We have lots of bits and pieces of networks based on different technologies like the satellite-based networks. All such networks will get added to the backbone.

This would give the government the ability to connect securely 250,000 panchayats to fibre. It can be done; we already have 1 million km of fibre underground, which is under-utilised. We want to use that fibre and add another 200,000-300,000 km of fibre. That’s the last mile fibre, so it doesn’t have to be underground, and we can pull it over the power-line. That would give the network a capacity to connect to the 2,50,000 panchayats, to fibre, that would need huge bandwidth.

The investment required for that would be Rs 15,000 crore and that money is already available in the Universal Service Obligation fund. It is the best way to use that money.

How secure is the network? What about the hardware and software?

This network will also have high levels of security. It will be sanitised properly, so when one enters this pipe, for R&D purposes or any other activity, they will have a better control on it. We will give priority to using our own products (manufactured in India). We are looking at designing routers for such networks in India, so we can have better control.

So it would be a government-owned infrastructure?

It will be a purely government owned and operated infrastructure. We need public information infrastructure that will be a National Knowledge Network (NKN). We have already connected 2,500 municipalities with fibre. If we do it consistently and manage it effectively, we will have robust public information infrastructure.

We also need to create platforms for the Unique Identity project, because it will need a lot of bandwidth. Bandwidth is something that if you have enough, public will know how to use it. Our effort is to democratise information. We need hundreds of megabits at panchayats, not 256 kilobits or 512 kilobits.

In India, the definition of broadband is that we get 2 mbps. That is slow compared to global standards. What should be the definition of broadband?

It should be minimum 10 mbps, and soon 100 mbps. It is achievable in India.

What would one do with such speeds apart from using it for entertainment?

You give it (broadband) to the young and they will figure out what to do with it. Broadband is not for the old. Give the college or university kid 100 megabyte; they will know the applications for that. The customer base is 550 million young people below the age of 25 years. We need to build infrastructure for them and not for today’s government infrastructure.