Trai seeks views on blocking stolen mobiles

 The country's telecom sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has released a consultation paper relating to blocking of IMEI for lost or stolen mobile handsets. It has sought views from service providers and other stakeholders on ways to block lost or stolen mobile phones, to curtail the illegal handset market, discourage handset theft and protect consumer interest. IMEI is a unique serial number which identifies the handset. This number is stored in the equipment identity register (EIR) database of a service provider.



Currently, there is no method to block a mobile phone in case it is lost or stolen. Service providers can only block the SIM card, in case a lost or theft complaint is registered with them. The only other way is that the mobile phone owner has to write the unique identity number or the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of the phone and in the eventuality of it getting lost or stolen can report it to the police for it to track the hand set.



In case of theft of a handset, the service provider can flag its IMEI number and can block the handset in its own network. There are no figures available for the lost or stolen mobile hand sets, but industry experts say the number is alarming. In 2004, Trai had made a similar attempt, which failed as a number of service providers did not have the capability to track mobile handsets.



The consultation papers has sought views on the cost and funding aspects of centralised EIR, the process that should be adopted for blocking the hand set and the unblocking procedure if a lost phone is found. If the EIRs of service providers are shared through a centralised database, the lost or stolen mobile can be prevented from use in all networks.

turning regrets into blessings

Some of the most significant feelings we have that can keep us trapped in our pain include, regret, guilt, and shame. Many of us have an easier time forgiving someone else than we do ourselves. If we don't transform these feelings they easily lead to depression and even serious illnesses.

Sometimes it is helpful to reframe the case you have created justifying your regrets. For example, it is relatively easy to have regrets when looking back in time with more developed insights from the present. However, by honouring that most often you were doing your best, given the perspective you had at that time, you can create a new case--one that allow you to free yourself from the shackles of regret.

At other times, it is helpful to receive the wisdom and gift (that's right--gift) that can come from regret. Regret or guilt is an internal remorse for a choice you have made. The remorse you are feeling is an opportunity to learn something about yourself, and even more importantly it is an opportunity to become more familiar with your essential truth and live from that place of awareness.

Have you ever had the experience of apologizing to someone for something you did or said that had been nagging at you, only to discover that they didn't even remember the event? I did that a few times until I finally realized I was receiving the message that I'm a lot harder on myself than most people. I understood that if they had not taken it personally or had already let it roll off their back, maybe I needed to do the same thing.

There have been other times I was feeling regret and guilt over something and apologized to someone who responded with relief that I realized I had done something hurtful. My sincere apology created space for them to provide me with some insights about how my choice affected them. It also created space for us to connect in greater depth, honesty and compassion about what we were feeling and experiencing.

Regret and guilt have been powerful teachers when I have been willing to embrace the lesson. Whether I was being hard on myself or needing to take responsibility for a choice I made that I knew would hurt another, this question has typically helped me claim my lesson, "Why was I feeling guilt or regret?"

In some way, my choice--what I said or did--wasn't in alignment with my clearer, more awakened self. Regret became a touchstone for greater honesty, calling me to be more present with the truth of each moment, rather than in reaction to my perceptions and assumptions.

Here is an example of that calling. The other day, my husband said something to me in what I interpreted as a rude tone of voice. I responded to him with a crackling, indignant and angry retort. He immediately saw what was happening, and apologized. He was feeling a great deal of stress and it was bubbling up in frustration.

I immediately felt regret for the way I had responded, because I assumed he was being disrespectful. I felt guilty because instead of recognizing his rudeness wasn't about me and choosing to hold space for him to get to the truth of his apparent frustration, I reacted with a greater dose of rudeness.

We could have both just continued to spin around in regret and guilt (like we used to do in relationships), but we didn't. We sat down together and I listened while he talked about what was frustrating him. I listened until I saw peace and awareness settle into his shoulders. We kissed and went on about our day.

Here is what I discovered in the process. I have the equivalent of a masters degree in guilt. Actually, I have several of those kind of masters degrees. For example, I've mastered impatience, knowing everything, being right, and more. Because I intimately know the feelings of guilt and regret, I believe I'm entitled to master other qualities, like compassion, patience, not knowing, and even being wrong. It is very freeing to give myself permission to claim my mastery and move on.

Some very special people helped me gain this mastery. My husband is one of them. He has been there many times when I said or did something I later regretted. He has been my mirror, allowing me to see my own reflection. There have been family members and friends that have also been that mirror for me.

Consciously or subconsciously, they were the ones that were there as I learned about how I really wanted to be in the world, and that included some decisions reflecting how I did not want to be. Now, when the regrets come up, I thank them and bless them. I thank the spirits of the people that have been there for me while I was learning. I thank them for their willingness to help me see myself so that I could discover the beautiful part of me that most wants to express itself in the world.

Plant the Seeds of a New Self

Trying to resolve the pain within us by holding others accountable for it is like looking out at a field we have planted on our own property and wishing, every day, something other than what grows there would take hold and flower. If we wish to have true harmonious relationships with others, then it is we who must change. We must assume responsibility for what our relationships reveal to us about us, and then do the interior work it takes to plant the seeds of a new Self.

Everywhere we look, people are concerned with essentially one thing: getting what they want, when they want it, and as fast as possible. The fires that fuel their appetite for this envisioned success create so much smoke that they lose sight of the fact that all they reap for their insistent sowing are the cold ashes of regret raked out of broken relationships.

If we are ever to realize the integrity and consistent kindness of our True Self, if we long to know something of heaven while we live on earth, then we must sow the seeds that bring that higher life into fruition. One cannot expect to reap what one does not sow; and merely hoping for a higher life is not sowing true spiritual seeds, any more than climbing an imagined mountain is the same as reaching its top.

To sow spiritual seeds means that we do spiritual work. Spiritual work is always interior work first, even if, as a matter of course, this work becomes manifest through exterior action. What is this interior work by which we sow the seeds of the celestial within us?

One way to sow the seeds of a higher relationship with life is to not burden others or ourselves with past regrets, disappointments, or fearful future visions, even as we learn to ask truth for more insight into those unseen aspects of our present nature that are reaping their regrets even as they sow more of the same dark seeds.

It is not our duty to suffer over what will be or won't be -- to live with painful regret or guilt over what was or wasn't. Our soul task is to be responsible for what is -- and to allow this relationship with life to produce what it will. There may or may not be suffering in this order of responsibility but, if there is, it will be transformational as opposed to self-tormenting --which is the negative effect of every act born of assuming some false responsibility.

It is not enough to just sow seeds in this physical life, i.e., to struggle for or make millions, invent the greatest gizmo ever, or become the "who's who" of some social registry; for regardless of how sublime these intentions first seem, and even if their seeds should grow and flourish, they can only grow into forms that pass and fall in time. If our wish is for a life that is whole and loving, one that is filled with new light, then we must sow the eternal seeds of a higher life within ourselves; that is our work.

Set your self to the task of being an inwardly awake person and watch how you begin to reap the awareness that makes all things possible.

What are the challenges that spiritual seekers must overcome? Why?

The farmer, intent on cultivation, ignores even food and sleep, for he is too busy ploughing, levelling, scattering seeds, watering, weeding, guarding and fostering the crop. He knows that his family will have to subsist on the harvest that he brings home and that if he fritters away the precious season in idle pursuits, his family will be confronted with hunger and ill-health. So, he sets aside or postpones other pursuits and focuses all his attention on farming alone. He puts up with difficulties and deprivations, toils day and night, watches over the growing crops and garners the grain. As a consequence, he is able to spend the months ahead, in peace and joy, with his happy family. Students and spiritual seekers have to learn important lessons from the farmer. The stage of youth is the season for mental and intellectual culture. These years should be intensively and intelligently cult ivated irrespective of difficulties and obstacles. The clamour of the senses has to be silenced; hunger and thirst have to be controlled; the urge to sleep and relax has to be curbed.

Why do we struggle very hard some times? How can we get past the tough times?

I am immanent in every being. People forget Me, even though I am within and without them. I am the inner core of every being, but they are not aware of this. So, they are tempted to believe the outside world to be real and true, and pursue objective pleasures, and fall into grief and pain. On the other hand, if they concentrate all attention on Me alone, believing that the Lord has willed everything and everyone, I bless them and reveal to them the truth that they are I and I am they. Thousands have been blessed thus.

It is Time to Stop Managing Down and Start Coaching Up!

    Manager: a person who has control or direction of a business, or of a part, division, or phase of it.

    Coach: a person who gives instruction or advice to elevate the performance of an individual or student.

    Businessmen and women are looking for leaders who demonstrate an enthusiastic and genuine belief in others and who strengthen their will to succeed. Look at the two definitions above and think about which of those people is going to get the results needed in business today. Coaching is all about focusing on the talent of the person, and not so much about the production of the job description given when hired. Yes, businesses hire a manager to control the output of sales in order to control the outcome or production of business. However, if the focus is on enhancing the talents of hired staff, I believe the outcome will be greatly improved. Coaches focus on supplying the means to achieve, not on the fear of employees losing their jobs. It is the title of "coach" that helps to express optimism for the future with a firm walk in life.

    A coach must keep hope alive from within the person. They must always strengthen their players' belief that life's struggles will produce a more promising future. This evolves into an intimate and supportive relationship, a relationship based not on pure authority, but on mutual participation that results in an inner renewal. The coach sees the good in you, and it is his or her job to bring the good out and place you in a position where your talent matches the task so success is almost a given. It is when you put people in positions of your needs that you are thinking like a manager, not a coach. Your job isn't to put people in a position of your need; it is to put them in a position where they will succeed.

    All great coaches find ways to change up the game plan in order to get tried and true results. Different competitions, changing up strategies, having employee input ideas from the field - all these things help to get your team engaged in the company's goals and have some friendly competition to bolster energy for production. A manager without a coaching strategy might simply post the goals of the company for the quarter and give no input as to how to achieve those goals. This kind of manager is relying on the talents of the sales staff, but not enhancing or improving upon past performance. Yes, the coaching up manager is going to have to be creative.

    Business owners should be looking for that quality in a coach for their team. Coaches, study your competition. There are strategies out there that are proven in the marketplace and should be followed, just like the skills to make a three point jumper shot at the buzzer. Perfect practice makes perfect. Follow your team on the road to help them to continue following proven principles your company has set. But by all means, have some fun with some friendly competition.

    During these uncertain and changing times, those who take the title of Coach lead with a positive, confident, can-do approach to life and business, something that is so needed with the people I see each week. The feedback I receive from investing hundreds of hours each year with people is that they want a leader with a coaching focus, not a managing agenda. These people want to believe that we all are part of a journey, and this is not just a job or a task.

    hey seem to gravitate toward people with a can-do attitude, not those who always seem to have a reason why something can't be done. It is when the pressure is on that the title Coach becomes so important. A manager thinks one way and a coach thinks another. A coach says, "I asked you to be on this team because I believe in who you are as a person, not just as a player." The good coach sees what is good on the inside and brings it out. A manager sees what is on the outside and pushes it in.

Contractor, Chaudhuri in race for SBI MD's post

State Bank of India (SBI) Deputy Managing Directors Hemant Contractor and Pratip Chaudhuri have been identified as possible candidates for promotion as the managing director of the country's largest bank. At present, the proposal was pending with the department of personnel and training, sources familiar with the appointment process said.

One of them is likely to be appointed as a replacement for S K Bhattacharya, who superannuated last month. While R Sridharan, the second managing director, is due to retire next year, the government can also expand the number of managing directors to four.

"A few candidates have been interviewed (for the managing director's post). Some of the candidates have been shortlisted," Chairman O P Bhatt said on the sidelines of a press meet today, adding the decision would be announced shortly.

Four Deputy Managing Directors - Hemant Contractor (head of corporate and wholesale banking), K Krishnakumar (head of information technology), Diwakar Gupta (incharge of rural and national banking) and P Chaudhuri (who looks after the international banking business) - are eligible for the managing director's post. To be eligible for the post, a candidate must have two years of residual service left. SBI can have seven deputy managing directors.

Parliament recently approved two more managing directors for the bank. However, the process of appointing additional managing directors was yet to start, Bhatt said. The four DMDs who are eligible for the managing directors' post also become the contender to head the country largest bank when Bhatt retires in March 2011.