Another question Mr Murty has raised is about the research in IITs in comparison to Harvard , MIT etc. Here again he simply ignored two facts. The first is about the endowment and research budget which runs in billion of dollars in such universities. Harvard alone has an endowment of about 30 billion dollar. The eight Ivy league universities including Harvard have an endowment of about 80 billion dollars. Also, MIT and Stanford together have an endowment of 22 billion. The other fact is that all these institutes were established by the Philanthropists - private businessmen. But unfortunately Mr.Murty is not one like them. Most businessmen in India are respected mostly due to the numbers in their balance sheets and Mr.Narayan murty is no exception. Mr Murty has resources and knowledge that can create atleast one such institute dedicated to research or he can give Rs.500 crores every year to one of the IITs or IIS for some dedicated research work.

We are always prone to adopt what is simple and easy. Even in business. Most businesses in India have flourished in vacuums. Let us see IT sector, can we boast of any proprietary operating system like Windows, or Mac or even a search engine like Google, or hardware like Intel or Seagate? Even those who are capable also do not invest in such concepts.

We must ask ourselves why Alfred Noble donated his wealth and created noble prizes what business he had  to motivate people engaged in research when he has already gone, why a medium size business man like Cornell created an Ivy League, why should Bill Gate and Warren buffet bother about Aids in south Africa, or Arun Shourie who is not very
rich by himself  gave most of his MP funds to IIT Kanpur for creating Bioscience department engaged in cancer research. The answer is simple it is embedded in the Indian philosophy of renunciation. But that requires courage to imagine the reality of life or else we are nothing more than argumentative Indians. So Mr Murty please act- time is running out.
R K Gupta   09848114627
Vishakhapatnam
Email: rkgupta6156@gmail.com
imgc@sify.com

There are fundamental differences between two recessions. The quantum of wealth in  2007 is beyond any comparison with the wealth in 1929.The flow of information was virtually on real time basis, and the purchasing power gave boost to local consumption of goods and services in 2007 which was unevenly distributed across the  nations . These are few reasons that, perhaps, let world withstand the shock of economic recession in 2007. Another interesting feature of present day’s recession is that unlike in 1929/39 which was followed by the World War II, we may perhaps calm ourselves to presume that there is no such possibility in the near future. But then it is only a presumption.

Science says that matter can neither be created nor destroyed it can only transform from one form to another form ;however, the same is not true for the wealth.Wealth, though it may be transformed from one form to another form ,it could well be created and destroyed as well.That’s what happened in 1929/39 which was followed by world war, but in present recession we are lucky that chances of world war like thing may not be there which would otherwise destroy the precious wealth however the other part of this statement came as a rescue. The loss of “some” was transformed as the profit for “some” one else. The money moved away from US & Western economy to less presuming countries like Middle East & China, and to some high net worth hedge funds and that money made full circle and is now back in the form of financing US treasury bills, stimulus packages, and last but not the least as QIP’s investments that is now giving hopes to the economies across the globe.

Peace … , even in pieces has wings.

A little determination and it flies.

It flies across boundaries,

across nations, and

across hearts filled with emotions;

just a little determination, just a little determination,

Few lines here & there on the map ,

have kept us away from each other…

However I wonder,

If they could divide the huge sky,

or the wind that passes by ,

or could they stop the daring little river,

carrying my tears for you and yours for me ,

or could they stop the innocence of those twittering birds ,

flying across every tide.

Perhaps telling us that to make it beyond those lines, all we need is,

a little determination, just a little determination.

Peace … , even in pieces has wings,

Just a little determination and it flies

R  K  Gupta

For starters he never lets the people he has invited on the debate speak. His constant interruption is not only insulting to the people taking part in the debate but also difficult for the viewers to follow the debate. Someone please teach him the basics of how a debate is conducted. Now interruption in itself is not bad when required. Many Indian journalists try and follow the line taken by the award winning TV journalists Tim Sebastian of BBC’s Hard Talk while doing so. Unfortunately they take it very far and there is a very crucial difference, which I shall highlight towards the later part of this note.

Moving on, instead on focussing on some real important issues and moderating between the speakers in a debate, Mr. Goswami tends to have his own agenda which is most of the time pointless and he keeps repeating the same throughout the debate.

If there was an award for lose talk journalism, I would probably give it to Mr. Goswami. For example there was something being debated where Ravi Shanker Prasad said that he has several sources of getting something and one of the source is Mr. Goswami himself. Now the ego bloated Mr. Goswami retorts saying that he is not Mr. Prasad’s source and neither wishes to be one. This makes Mr. Prasad go on the defensive and say that the statement was meant to be interpreted in a lighter tone. What Indian journalists generally forget is that they are news reporters who are asking questions to people who are the newsmakers. They tend to wrongly place their own bloated egos above that of the people they are interviewing. Here is what makes them different from Tim Sebastian, who interrupts and poses tough questions but never would one get a hint that he is trying to be bigger than the person he is interviewing.Unfortunately the likes of Karan Thapar, Barkha Dutt also follow Mr. Goswami’s footsteps in this.

There is light however, in this dark arena of Indian journalism. One very polished journalist is Shereen Bhan and maybe even Shekhar Gupta. These are people who truly respect the newsmakers and this clearly shows on television.

I hope god gives the majority of Indian journalists who have gone astray some wisdom.

RG

The Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama gives altogether a new direction to the charter of Alfred D. Nobel and now its custodians have consciously demonstrated the courage, if not in guaranteeing  peace but certainly in trying to engineer the world peace in future. The criticisms that came from  first reactions are not only ugly but at times insulting.  Some headlines have gone to the extent of calling it the “prize for speeches”. The last decade had seen many conflicts  like one in Iraq , which could have been avoided, which were born out of  ego and suspicions and by doing so the world had been made less safer than what it used to be. It further gave enough reasons to misguided terrorist groups to put forth their will more forcefully. This NOBEL PEACE PRIZE is perhaps given for not committing similar mistakes again in Iran and North Korea and one man who can well take it forward in either way is the President of United State of America. The Nobel peace prize committee in a way has asked Mr Obama that as a President of United State of America he should take the world in the right way forward.
Mr Obama has vision and as a president of United States of America, he has power to wield enough influence to make this word more peaceful.
The war in Afghanistan and the fight against Taliban need to be contended and should not spread in the other parts of the world. It is most important that the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea should not take an ugly turn. President Obama should take the lead ,convincing these countries that there are still more pressing issues that need their support than the one which they are pursuing.
As the precedence goes the recipient of the prizes are congratulated but for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, it is the Nobel Peace Prize Committee that deserves the great applause and congratulations because they are the ones who really express their concern for the  future of our world  and have applied conscious wisdom to rest the responsibility on the shoulders of the best man around.
For President Obama it is most humble to say that he didn’t deserve this honor ,but we all know what he  really  can do and for that he deserves all blessings and good wishes.

* R .K. Gupta