holdyourthoughts

I read this book sometime back as part of my journey of understanding food and how it affects the body and mind. In the last two years I have managed to lose about 10kgs of weight and in the process have learnt a fair deal about food, although not enough to talk authoritatively with a nutritionist. Roger Wilson's book deals mainly about how the author lost a significant amount of weight himself after trying his own diet plan. The diet he followed was eating fruits and proteins. His lack of fundamental knowledge of nutrition makes his commentary a suspect from the very beginning. This book is more a chronicle of the authors weight loss journey than a guide to healthy eating. Conclusion: Better to avoid.

Jairam Ramesh, the environment minister and an ex-IIT graduate has rekindled the debate of the effectiveness of the quality of research and faculty at the IITs and IIMs in India. As expected, people have taken a position based on their allegiances. IIT/IIM alumni and faculty have come out vociferously to defend their alma mater. People are amazed that an ex-student whose father was also the head of Civil Engineering department at one of the IITs can break rank and speak out against them! Various reasons are being put forward for the lack of quality research, primary among them is the lack or delay of funds from the government. Interestingly, what is getting sidetracked in all this noise is that fact that Jairam Ramesh is actually right. It is a fact that the quality of students going into these institutes is far better than what other esteemed colleges abroad (MIT, Caltech, HBS etc). I would really like to see one experiment that would prove the mettle of the faculty. Let them swap on...

The future of Bengal took a turn (for better or worse – the debate continues) when the votes were counted on May 13 th , 2011. Trinamool Congress, Mamata Banerji’s thirteen year old party along with its one time parent party, the Congress, swept the Bengal assembly polls. The combine won 227 of the 294 seats and with it ended the 34 year rule of the Left Front – the longest by an elected communist government anywhere in the world. There are two prevalent reactions that I have seen after the elections. Some are saying that Bengal has jumped from the frying pan to the fire. Others are saying that let us give these guys a chance. If they don’t perform, we can always vote them out. I am more inclined towards the second line of thought. My argument is that today Bengal is at the bottom of a “bear-market” (if I may borrow a term from the stock markets). It can’t really get much worse. The fact is that for a lot of people in our generation have never seen a non-Left government in the stat...

First a d isclosure: I work in an IT company and this post reflects my personal opinion and not that of my company. Infosys made the long-awaited and eagerly anticipated event in Indian corporate calendar (nearly as eagerly awaited as the succession-planning event currently on at Tata Sons). The stake here was very high. Infosys is a highly regarded Indian IT giant. It, alongwith a few others, created the IT outsourcing phenomenon that has become part of the standard business model today. The question was can Infosys move to the next generation of leadership. It had been guided all along by NR Narayan Murthy (NRN) and later by the more charismatic Nandan Nilekani. With NRN’s retirement from the Chairman’s position, the top position was open for the first time. Infosys announced that K.V. Kamath would step in as Chairman and S.D. Shibulal would be the new CEO and S. Gopalakrishnan (the current CEO, better known as Kris) would be the Executive Co-Chairman. To me, this announcement...

Elections are coming up in the state of West Bengal (not sure why we keep calling West Bengal, when there is no East Bengal in India, just Bengal would have made more sense), and as per popular media, it seems Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Congress combine is likely to win. Before I start, let me clarify my political inclinations. I typically favour any political formation that can create and sustain economic growth and provide good governance. I do not vote for any party. In that sense, I am what is known as a “floating voter”. I tend to see politics through the eyes of economics and eventually the stock markets. In Bengal, there are two things that are close to the people's heart – sports and politics. After nearly 34 years, the Left Front comprising of the CPIM, CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc are on the verge of losing the possession of the famed Writers Building – the seat of political power in Bengal. In their place, a coalition of TMC and Congress alongwith ...

Nokia's recent announcement of chucking out their Symbian platform and bringing home the Windows Phone 7 is an interesting move by both Nokia and Microsoft. This is marriage of two partners who were once the greats and now are fighting younger, nimbler opponents on their own turf. Apple with its iPhone and later Google's Android platform has made life very difficult for Nokia. Similarly, Microsoft is battling its monopoly on operating systems and office suites on multiple fronts like the Google Chrome OS platform, Google Docs, Facebook, Open Doc movement. What is interesting for me is Nokia's perspective here. They were still the market leaders overall in mobiles. By moving away from their own platform, they have own relegated themselves from a A league to the B league. There is no difference now between a Chinese or Taiwanese mobile assembler and Nokia. They have moved from a high margin business to a commodity oriented low margin business. What prompted them to do this ...

I had made five resolutions last year . It's time to review how I have done with respect to those and take a fresh guard for 2011. Year Resolution Result Remarks 2010 Lose 5 kgs (or more) of weight I have gained a little bit of weight at the fag end of the year, so now I am back to 78 kgs! ·          Continued in 2011. Needs a better detailed plan. ·          2010 did not work out well. ·          Plan to reduce atleast 0.5 kgs per month. 2010 Exercise everyday - walk/exercise for 15-45 mins everyday Did stay on course for this for most part of the year. Walking around 30 mins 3-4 times a week in general. Started playing tennis regularly again after nearly 16 years of break. Now averaging 2 days per week. ·          The walk needs to...