Back after a long break

It has been a long break since my last blog. After having moved to Hyderabad, I some how got lost in the office-home-office routine . Regular trips to Bangalore were my only sought after pastime.
.....the writing bug has again stung me and I intend to keep writing again.

Nostalgia - Inauguration of the IBSB-YiNet

Being a part of a "dream team" executing an almost near perfectly co-ordinated action and sharing its infinite enthusiam, is something I fondly cherish looking back.

Having completed the MBA course (excepting ofcourse the MRP) and now practically left in a sudden vaccum, I was seeing through the events of the Yi Net. What was a distinct cut above the rest, was the Inaugural on 8th Dec 2008.

Actually, the previous day ie., 7th of Dec was when the real action happened. Almost every thing was pending till very late in the evening (excepting the posters which were by then put in the campus). The banners was not in hand, the lunch department was outsourced we had no idea of wht would happen, the seating arrangements were pending, the "lunch area" -- the Final Coup ! was being created from the scratch (we practically hijacked the space from the college Admin and made a real cozy 3-star accomodation behind the board room with pots and sofas manually lifted by a dedicated team of volunteers), the comperes were not seen till late in the evening... well actually nothing could have been counted as being done and ready for the next day.

Then at about 7pm, things slowly stared falling in place. The momentous or rather symbolic banner was put up. We had a round of rehersal with the comperes. AC on Chanakya hall was checked ( but we didnt feel a thing from the vents...but had to assure ourselves that some air was actually coming out).
By then, Rohit Sharma had created two real meaningful videos. Nitin had a well edited interview. Rohit Sethia had done his bit from the morning and later gathered his old Utsaah friends together for the next day. Priyank Daga had a grip on the overall organisation. Sunder was, by evening exahusted from the heavy weight lifting of the pots and sofas. PK was in his regular intellectual capacity, coordinating the speech. Vinay was anxious as ever and a forceful organiser for most of the happenings. Sandeep and Prabhu were coordinating with external requirements. Nikhil was adding to the necessary inside help. Anshul was a "multiplier" and our anytime HR provider ..mainly for escort needs. Sunil was looking into the software and video part with Rohit. Also others came to help the gang ...Sutharia and Tapan were helping us put up the banner... It seemed we had done a lot..and yet a lot was still pending.

We finally called it a day hoping only that tommorow (8th Dec), will begin with the left over matters. At IBS we have a good trining of JIT (just in time techniques.....actually we survive on that) and belived it will work one more time.

Then on 8th December 2008, it was a great success....all happened more than our expectations... We had made it !!!

......I wrote this after I saw the photo I have posted. Anyone who was present that day would have had a simliar flood of images flowing through his/her mind.

Team-work works !

What a team works is left to the team and for others to see.

We are all waiting to see team work and what the team will work when the fresh 2011 batch will be a part of the 2010 team.

I am sure more such memories will be created in the new avatar of IBSB Yi Net.

Disaster Averted at the 'Forum' Mall

Having the learnings of Disaster Management & Mitigation practises fresh in our minds from the Workshop on 20th January, it was a easy to grasp the relevance of such practices in our daily lives. The Forum Mall attracts a huge number of visitors every day. Also for the fire fighting apparatus to reach the Mall from about half a kilometer away from Dairy Cirle, would have been a very hardous task on the busy Hosur Road. What saved the day was the in-house infrastructure that was in place.

• Firstly, they had a good Public Address System.
• Secondly, they had good fire fighting water outlets- from which the fire personnel could draw water from inside the building.

Since the fire started from the AC ventillator, similar precautions by other buildings will be handy in such situations.

New Office Bearers of IBSB-Yi Net for 2009-10

By consensus new office bearers of the IBSB-Yi Net have been elected. All of them have proved their mettle in the previous months and were members of the Yi Net from the very inception. It was indeed a privilege for the outgoing team to hand over the baton to the new office bearers. The year 2009-10 will bring in fresh members and will add momentum and thrust to the already well established IBSB-Yi Net.

The New Office bearers for 2009-10 are:

• General Secretary : Prabhu
• Secretary-Evangelists : Gaurav
• Secretary-Online Collaborators: Nikhil
• Secretary-Next Practice Identifiers : Anshul
• Secretary-Implementers : Ajitha

The out-going team wishes them all the luck !!

Innovation Culture needed

All the talk about innovation is futile unless we set up such a culture at our workplace and our lifestyle. The resistance for change and status quo puts a high premium to innovation and experimentation.
Even in IBSB, the fact remains that even if students want to innovate, it will put a huge pressure on the management- stuck to its own "structured" mode. Many best practices may not be appropriate in all situations. This brings the need to evolve self styled models to improve existing practices for better outcome.
The plans of the Yi Net to start a "Centre for Innovation" should be a good start to such a culture. Needless to say that changes to mindset will take a far greater time to happen. Since the number of students is huge , likeminded people must get together to set an example for others to follow.

Disaster Management Workshop by IBSB-Yi Net..."A Real Disaster Averted" ??

On 20 Jan 2009, IBSB-Yi Net along with the Crisis Management Team IBSB organised a half-a- day "Workshop on Disaster Management".

It had invitees including Maj Gen Naidu (AVSM, VSM) and Col Ravindranath ( Vir Chakra). Getting people was a real issue and luckily for us the General saved the day for us and gave an activity (War Game) that created interest and added value. (...Oh thank God !)

At the end of it a real 'Disaster' was averted.

Time and again the problem at IBSB is showing ....very very difficult to get people to meaningful functions.

The only programmes that succeed in IBS are dancing to music and hanging around the college building !!

LAX SECURITY ENDAGERS LAKHS

“Suraksha, roti, kapda aur makan”

By Gargi Raparia

In the earlier days things used to go in an orderly fashion, even the basic wants of the Indian middle class used take the shape of food, clothing and shelter or as we commonly say roti, kapda aur makan but with the changing times things have changed and have changed rather drastically, security has taken a form of basic, in fact the foremost and the most important basic want and now the saying goes “suraksha (security), roti, kapda aur makan.” In the wake of the recent terror attacks, all guns are pointed towards the Indian security system. The Indian security system has come under scrutiny and the big question arises, is Indian Security system proficient to counter terror attacks of such big proportions like the one witnessed in Mumbai?

 

The answer to this question is certainly intricate, but while I was speculating I came across certain rather disturbing facts. In a recent incident, a resident of Navi Mumbai, Balasaheb Borkar bared the Indian security gaps out in the open. He travelled by train to the station with his licensed .32 revolver. He went in and came out through the metal detectors place at different entry and exit point and not once did the police personnel question him. He then went upto the cops and asked why they were unable to detect the weapon and was shocked to know that the cops didn’t hear the beep of the metal detector.  It is astonishing to see that there is still no lesson learnt from the recent terror attacks.

 

The above revealed situation pertains to post Mumbai attack, now let us throw some light on the terror attacks that took place in Mumbai, what actually went wrong and who is to be held liable. I would again be bickering upon certain facts which would help identify the real villains. Before the Mumbai attack, security experts confirmed that information extracted from a group of Indian and Pakistani men arrested in India earlier this year revealed that some men belonging to Pakistan based group had done a reconnaissance of major landmarks in Mumbai. The agencies had also been picking up militant chatters on attack in the city. Yet the local police and intelligence agencies failed to act on the information. About an hour before the shooting started, villagers on the shore in South Mumbai saw a group of 10 young strangers climbing out of an inflatable raft. The incident was reported to local police, who did nothing. Horrified police officers in Mumbai saw their vehicles hijacked by terrorists who showed intimate knowledge of the city's streets and the layouts of the huge hotels they captured. In contrast, the police displayed no familiarity with the layouts of those buildings. The commandos who flew in from New Delhi had to waste precious time getting hotel staff members to sketch out the layouts of their workplaces. The cops and intelligence agencies are not entirely to be blamed in this regard. The budgets kept aside for the purpose do not even extend to supplying food to police personnel. Bullet proof vests provided to the cops are of inferior quality and the phone interception equipment remains largely rudimentary. India’s commando forces are also not exactly in good shape. Many of the experts argue that many of the commandos are wasted in giving protection to politicians and other VIPs. The country’s best commando force does not have its own aircraft. To this Praveen Swamy, security analyst states that “Commandos have not been trained on multiple location operations of such scale”. Any deficiencies in their training may be explained by the fact that a Mumbai-type attack only happens very rarely. That is why security experts like Ajai Sahni say that the response to the attacks was so poor. After the Mumbai attacks, the local government announced it would set up a state commando force: to begin with, some 500 men would be ready in four months, when the basic training for the NSG commandos takes six months. And Maharashtra, along with other states, has no commando training centers. Painfully slow and lazy bureaucracy means that the modernization of the security forces often take ages. Police in Uttar Pradesh state took four years to buy imported surveillance equipment. By the time it arrived, it had become outdated. With their bureaucratic ways of working, the intelligence agencies are also struggling. There is a dearth of language specialists. There is a frightening lack of strong and decisive political leadership in dealing with this menace. We don't even have an efficient crisis infrastructure in place.

 

If the condition remains unchanged which probably will if some strict aren’t taken quickly Indian will remain one of the softest targets for terror attacks in the world. Mark Tully has suitably described the pit India has fallen into, he says “the morning after the second day of India 9/11 the Indian Express front page carried the headlines OUR NIGHTMARE, OUR WAKE UP CALL, but will India wake up. If the past is anything to go by the answer has to be no. On the very first evening of Mumbai attack police were at sixes and sevens. There appeared to be no order and discipline. Head of anti-terrorist squad who should have been in the control room went to the front line and was shot. Television crews were given freedom to show pictures of police officers which could have provided valuable information to terrorist. It was also clear that there was a serious lack of coordination between the intelligence services and security forces including the police and coast guards.” The Incompetency that surrounds the country and the corruption fused in every aspect of India has made it all the more difficult to feel safe and secure.

 

The Prime Minister has promised that there will be a new federal agency to fight terrorism. The new federal agency may just be the initiative India is seeking. It might help facilitate coordination between intelligence forces and security forces which have been criticized during the Mumbai attacks. This is certainly a move towards ensuring public security but one can’t help but ask oneself, is this enough? It’s certainly a start but we have a long way to go, the journey has just begun. We are an angry young lot and the recent events have done enough to fester the feeling of agony. Don’t let go of this feeling, channelize it, use it to your advantage, don’t just remain mute spectators of such dastardly acts, develop a sense of national character and be instrumental in making a difference. There is a need to develop strong will power within ourselves, time has arrived to come out of the closets and take charge of things and display strong leadership attributes.  

Blood Donation Issues at IBSB

There was a need for O+ve on 8th January. The requirement came from one of our faculty members for someone in his family. Given that O+ve is common and that IBS Bangalore has close to 800 students and also the fact that it was a call from someone our own faculty members .....should have not been a problem at all.
But as unique as my experience has been so far with IBSB, this was another learning experience. Atleast 3-4 students had to go in all directions....contacted as many as they can and finally went person-to-person to get the required number .....25 volunteer/donors.
25 donors would get us transport to Manipal Hospital and save time and effort for everbody. After numerous sms and calls the number was finally 19 by afternoon ( about 3-4 hours of effort)
Yet again the Opinion Board did the trick. An outsider from Majestic saw the notice on the board and offered to donate blood.
It seemed 800 students were less .....we required 'Outsiders'.

Something is really missing in our college.....What is it? Why is it so difficult to get serious things happening? Is it that the majority are inside-looking or is it the overload of academic pressure?
Whatever the reasons some things cannot be excused !!