2023: The Year Gone By

Another calendar year closes out. The world moved on from the Covid19 virus, till at the very end a new wave crept in again. As Professor Moody would say, “Constant Vigilance” – which should ideally be a default setting for everyone. 

Anyways here is the list of some events & non-events to remember (or maybe not) the year 2023 AD by.

1. Word of the Year

In a world where AI generated material is becoming more and more visible, “Authentic” being named the word of they year, is hardly surprising. Kudos to Merriam-Webster for making this choice.

Meanwhile, Oxford decided to name “rizz” as their word of the year. I have absolutely no clue what that is supposed to be!

2. Terminology of the Year

Amongst the many risks a flight traveler faced, there was added the risk of being peed upon by a co-passenger! And our enterprising newspapers headlined the culprit as “Urinator”. Talk about the lack of creativity here!

3. Mystery of the Year

On a beach in Japan, there mysteriously appeared a round metallic object. Speculations on its identity ranged from UFOs to spy satellites to Godzilla eggs. But no clear answer emerged.

Meanwhile, aliens are back in the limelight with “alien corpses” displayed in Mexican Parliament  and claims of CIA retrieving UFOs from crash sites.

4. Much Ado About Nothing

One fine day, the social media lights up with “news” of name being changed from India to Bharat. After much shouting in online echo chambers, pointless debates, lots of server space taken up, it all turned into a case of “Much Ado About Nothing”. After all, how does one change a name to a name which already is there?

5. Work-life balance debate

“Youngsters ought to work 70 hours a week to boost productivity and enhance India's competitiveness” – thus spoke Mr. N R Narayana Murthy and sparked what seems to be a never-ending debate on the (lack of) work-life balance, productivity and compensation. In the process providing ideal material for all the LinkedIn gyaanis. Many of whom seemed to be spending more than 70 hours of their week on this debate.

6. Management Lessons of the Year 

The Men’s ODI World Cup provided a full blown opportunity to generate management lessons/takeaways. Glen Maxwell’s 201* vs Afghanistan, Angelo Mathews being timed out, India faltering at the last step, Australia winning (again), Attendance at venues, Pitches, – everything had a life lesson derived from it!

7. The Armchair Experts Edition

They know everything. Any event which hits the headlines also generates a bunch of social media experts. Geopolitics, economics, commodity prices – these are passe. They also operate in niche zones – e.g., Deep-sea diving (the Titan tragedy), Generative AI (Chat GPT), Lunar geology (Chandrayaan landing), Mercenary armies (Wagner group), Short selling (Adani-Hindenburg), Tunnel rescue(Uttarakhand) .

8. When a Prophecy Actually Came True

#AbkiBaarSauPaar – that was the Broadcasters’ tagline for the Asian Games. Quite an aspirational statement, given that India’s best tally till date had been 70 medals. But at the Hangzhou Games, India reached 107 medals! Now, wondering what projections these oracles at Sony make for Paris Olympics!

9. The Dirtiest Match 

World & Olympic medalists on the streets against the Wrestling Federation. The impasse continued. There had to be a solution to it. Nobody in the powers to be even tried. It was definitely not what anyone wanted to see. And the worst bit, it is still not over. Getting suspended by United World Wrestling, Elections held and the sports ministry suspending the newly elected federation within days. Something is totally rotten here.

10. The Chess Siblings

Praggnanandhaa & Vaishali – the first brother-sister duo to become Chess Grandmasters. Both will be appearing in the respective Candidates tournament next year. What a feel-good story.

So this was a bit of 2023. Wishing all readers a Very Happy 2024!

2023 - TYIL

The more I learn, the more I realise that I know nothing.

As another year draws to a close, its time for making of the lists. So without much of a preamble presenting the list of random, totally trivial, and mostly pointless, but fun (at least for me) stuff that I learnt through another year of trawling though the inter-webs and other such endeavors, and most importantly remembered to jot down,

1. India’s first Christmas Cake was baked by Mambally Bakery in Kerala in 1883. (BBC)
2. Hatsuyme – Japanese term for the first dream you have in the new year, which is said to predict how the rest of the year goes! (Kokoro) 
3. Returning Soldier effect – More boys are born during and after wars (Wikipedia). Given the multiple prolonged wars currently going on, could be another validation of this theory.
4. Samosas are banned in Somalia, apparently because their triangular shape in Christian and it is a western food! (News18) Somalis are missing out on a delicacy.
5. In 1976, Airbus managed to get an order of 3 A300s from Indian Airlines. The deal clincher – their Chief Executive Bernard Lathiere was born in Calcutta and showed a picture of himself when he was 3 years old with Gandhiji to the then Indian Airlines top boss, Air Chief Marshal PC Lal. (Source: Business Wars Podcast)
6. Tennis Sets: 6-0 is bagel, 6-1 is breadstick, conceding 0 points – Golden Set, 1 point – silver & 2 points – Bronze Set (Macmillan Dictionary), (Wikipedia) 
7. In colonial times, the roads were illuminated by gas lights which were lit using kerosene. Hence kerosene became colloquially ghaslet.
8. Skeumorph - a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues (attributes) from structures that were necessary in the original to to make something new feel familiar in an effort to speed understanding and acclimation. E.g. Floppy Disk as Save button, the telephone receiver as phone icons etc. (Wikipedia) 
9. Terminator Line – the line that divides the day & night sides of a planet. Also called twilight zone. (Wikipedia).
10. Jasper & Jinx – that was the original name given to Tom & Jerry, which was actually the name of a drink! (Link) 
11. Batukeshwar Dutt, who alongwith Bhagat Singh, threw bombs in the Assembly, later co-wrote the movie Shaheed, based on Bhagat Singh’s life and received the National Award for Best Screenplay. (Wikipedia) 
12. Einstein Shape – A shape that can be arranged in a tile formations that never repeats! (Guardian) 
13. Jaquar brand is named after the founder’s grandmother Jai Kaur (Wikipedia) 
14. Cappuccino - means little hood and is named after the colour of the hood worn by the monks in Italy (The Coffee Universe) 
15. Emirp - A prime number whose digits when reversed is also a prime number, e.g., 17 & 71, 13 & 31. (Wikipedia) 
16. The term “mugger” comes from magarmachh! One of the collateral effects of colonization! (Merriam-Webster) 
17. Mickey Mouse has a sister – Mrs. Amelia Fieldmouse!
18. Münchausen Numbers - They can be written as the sum of each of its digits raised to the power equivalent to the digit itself, resulting in the same number. e.g., 3^3+4^4+3^3+5^5=3435
19. Capitonyms – Words which change their meaning if the first letter is capitalized. E.g. March & march; Lent & lent etc. (Wikipedia) 
20. The Hollywood Sign was originally “HOLLYWOODLAND” and as an advertisement for new property in the area.
21. Letters to India’s Antarctic Station are routed through Panaji post office. Just who came up with this interesting idea of Goa & Antarctica sharing a pin code!

This as 2023. Hoping to build on in 2024 with some better noting down techniques.

P.S. Lists from 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022.

Road To Paris: Episode 8

Its been a while since the last post in this series. In the interim, there has been major progress as well as quite few heartbreaks in the Indian sporting arena, particularly in terms of qualifying for Paris 2024. Here is a quick summary:

Qualifiers

• Wrestling: Antim Panghal qualifies in 53 KG Women’s category after winning a Bronze medal at the World Championships. This was an event where the Indian contingent played under the World Wrestling flag as the Wresting Federation is currently suspended due to still ongoing shenanigans.
• Boxing: Nikhat Zareen (50 KG), Preeti Pawar (54 KG), Parveen Hooda (57 KG) & Lovlina Borgohain (75 KG) have earned Quotas at the Asian Games.
• Hockey: Men’s Team qualifies for the Olympics by winning the Asian Games Gold medal
• Athletics: Kishore Jena joins Neeraj Chopra in Men’s Javelin Throw
• Shooting: Quite a few Quota places earned at the Asian Shooting Championships - Arjun Babuta (10 m Air Rifle), Sarabjot Singh (10m Air Pistol), Anish Bhanwala (25m Rapid Fire Pistol) in the Men’s section and Tilottama Sen (10m Air Rifle), Manu Bhaker (25m Pistol), Shriyanka Sadangi (50m Rifle 3 Positions) in the Women’s section
• Archery: Dhiraj Bommadevara earned a Individual Quota at the Asian Championships

Now for the Heartbreaks

It has been the end of the qualifying journey for Football, Rugby, Handball India’s Men’s Football Team have failed to qualify after being knocked out in the 1st round of Asian Cup U-23 Qualifiers

Asian Games Perspective

India had their best ever Asian Games performance in terms of the medals, hitting a century. The Indian contingent actually lived up to the Broadcaster's hype of Abki Baar Sau Paar! Overall, a good feel-good factor. However, for a perspective, here is the Indian medals Tally for the Olympics events only.

Discipline	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Archery	0	1	1
Athletics	6	14	9
Badminton	1	0	1
Boxing	0	1	4
Equestrian	1	0	1
Hockey	1	0	1
Golf	0	1	0
Rowing	0	2	3
Sailing	0	0	1
Shooting	2	5	4
Tennis	1	1	0
Wrestling	0	1	5
Total	12	26	30

Qualification Summary for Team India: Sports: 6, Events 22, Entries:29, Athletes: 44

Till next time!

Links: Episode 7

 

BookMarks #116: Freedom at Midnight

Title: Freedom at Midnight

Authors: Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre

Genre: Non-fiction, History

Published: 1975

BookMarks

The book gives a narrative of the last year of the British Raj from the appointment of Lord Mountbatten as Viceroy of India, to Partition and Independence and Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. The book is at times intriguing, at others gossipy and sometimes filled with gruesome passages presenting the story of those turbulent times.

What is obvious is that it is written from a British perspective. They are presented in a kindly light, traders who somehow ended up ruling the country and never as oppressors. All problems are those of the natives, who couldn’t govern themselves! Talk about whitewashing of history.

Hence, it is best read as Mountbatten’s memoirs and perspective rather than as a work of just history.

A few passages and assertions which stood out for me

• Mountbatten’s claim that if he had been aware of Jinnah's poor health, he may have delayed the deadlines for independence and Partition might not have happened.
• The weighing machines at the railway platforms! Those are finally gone.
• Book banned in Pakistan because it referenced Jinnah having bacon with eggs for breakfast!
• 'Trade not territory', the Company's officers never ceased repeating, was their policy. Yet they ended up ruling and exploiting an entire sub-continent!
• 'The difference between what we do and what we could do would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.': Gandhi
• The eccentricities of Indian maharajas - none more than Kapurthala who decided he was reincarnation of Louis XIV and declared French as his court language
• What an arduous task dividing the possessions between countries must have been. Yet, in one aspect there was no debate - Wine cellars always went to Hindu India and Moslem Pakistan received a credit for what they contained.
• The masses from the villages heading towards Delhi on Independence Day - Tributaries of an immense and triumphant stream, they flowed with the dawn towards the centre of their rejoicing capital to celebrate in its streets the end of a colonization most of them had not even known.
• Gandhi's idea of self-contained village ideas vs industrialization. Something of Aatma-nirbhar Bharat was still there.
• After Independence people refused to pay bus fares, assuming they should now be free.
• £2000 – Cyril Radcliffe’s fee for dividing the countries, which he returned!
• Everywhere the many and the strong assaulted the weak and the few - Still holds true!
• Reading the butchery of the trains was just like the dooms scrolling during Covid times. Wanted to but just couldn't stop. What had gotten into the people.
• Khadi wearing politicians - evidence that the man under it reveres at least the memory if not the message of the man who espoused it.
• The tragedy of Buta Singh Overall, a difficult read. 

Many of the passages are eye-openers. Also, in today’s times, it is easy to see how selective reading of events & confirmation bias can just swing the opinion of the masses. Constant vigilance is the need of the hour to prevent the recurrence of the brutality of those times.

Previously on BookMarks: Dream With Your Eyes Open 

Road To Paris - Episode 7

As we celebrate the National Sports Day, the story of Indian sport continues in an all-too-familiar fashion. Every cloud will have a silver lining and every silver lining will have a cloud! On one hand we have our first-ever Athletics World Championships Winner in Neeraj Chopra (the man continues his trail-blazing journey) and on the other the Wrestling Federation is suspended putting on hold many Olympic dreams!

Since the last episode, there have been a substantial increase in the number of Quotas earned by Indian sportspersons.

Qualifiers:

Athletics

• Murali Sreeshankar in Men’s Long Jump crossed the Olympic qualification mark on way to winning a silver at the Asian Athletics Championships
• Avinash Sable in Men’s 3000m Steeplechase crossed the Olympics qualification mark in the Swedish Diamond League event.
• Neeraj Chopra in Men’s Javelin Throw crossed the mark with his first throw in the World Athletics Championships Qualifying. And later on went on to be crowned India’s first ever World Champion in Track & Field.
• Parul Chaudhary reached the World Championships Final in the Women’s 3000m Steeplechase, created a new National Record and booked an Olympics berth for herself while finishing a creditable 11th.

Shooting: 4 Quota places earned at the World Shooting Championships

• Mehuli Ghosh finishes 3rd in the 10m Air Rifle.
• Akhil Sheoran finished 3rd in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions joining Swapnil Kusale at the event.
• Sift Kaur Samra earned a Quota Place in the Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions.
• Rajeshwari Kumari earned a Quota in Women’s Trap Shooting

India currently has Quota places in both Men’s & Women’s 10m Air Rifle, thus likely to get a Mixed Team Berth also. Special mention for Tilottamma Sen who finished 4th in 10 m Air Rifle but could not get a Quota due to new ISSF rules giving only one place per country at one event!

In Other News

• The Indian men’s 4x400m relay was a pleasant shock in the World Championships finishing 2nd in the Semis and 5th in the Finals, creating a new Asian Record and giving a mighty scare to many of the favorites. Although it is disappointing to see the Indian women’s relay team no longer the force they were.
• Neeraj Chopra is a true pioneer. Evidence is compatriots Kishore Jena and DP Manu finishing 5th & 6th respectively in the World Championships Final. What a sight it was to have 3 Indians competing in a single event till the very last stage!
• Hockey – Indian Men’s team comfortably won the Asian Champions Trophy, a good precursor for the upcoming Asian Games which also serves as the Olympic Qualifying event.
• Badminton - HS Prannoy continued the Indian medal winning streak going on since 2011 at the Badminton World Championships with a Bronze.
• Archery – No luck for India’s recurve archers at the Olympics qualifiers, but more chances are coming up.
• Basketball – Men’s pre Olympics Qualifiers – India finished 3rd and missed out on qualifying for the Olympics qualifiers.
• Handball – The Women’s team finished 5th in the Asian Qualification tournament and are out of the running.

Now for the Clouds

• Doping menace continues with Dutee Chand suspended for 4 years for doping violations & Bhwana Jat for 2 years for missing tests.
• Wrestling - The saga keeps getting murkier. Now other wrestlers have jumped into action claiming bias in direct selection of the likes of Bajrang Punia & Vinesh Phogat. Courts getting involved in the selection matters does augur well for anyone. Meanwhile the Wrestling Federation of India got suspended thus jeopardizing the Quota places at the World Championships.

Meanwhile the qualification race is heating up. Till next time. Next post will be after the Asian Games.

Qualification Summary for Team India

Sports: 2, Events 12, Entries:15, Athletes: 15 

Links: Episode 6 

India @ 76

A couple of days back an SMS arrived.

“Har Ghar Tiranga is back. 13-15 Aug bring home & fly Tiranga with pride! Upload selfies on harghartiranga.com”

Yes, its that time of the year, when amongst other things this blog gets a post on all things India. (Here is the 2022 edition) 

Interestingly, I am also halfway through the book, “Freedom at Midnight”. 76 years have gone by, but many of those issues remain continue and can be traced back to those fateful last days of the British Raj. Bipartisan politics, communal violence, hope and worries for the coming days, history finds new own ways to repeat itself!

[An aside - Wouldn't it be the mother of all ironies, if Scotland is separated from the United Kingdom under the watch of  Rishi Sunak and Humza Yusuf?]

Returning to the present.

India has overtaken China as the most populous country in the world. Or maybe not. After all, the Census exercise has not been done since 2011, another collateral victim of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The effects of Climate Change are becoming more and more visible. On one hand, the monsoons are creating havoc on the urban infrastructure, while other parts of the country are reeling in drought. The seasons are becoming increasingly erratic. The hilly regions are even more at risk, as highlighted by the "sinking" of the town of Joshimath. Given the vast population, and its ever-growing energy requirements, drastic action is required on the climate front. While the government has stated ambitions of Net Zero by 2070, it might be a case of too little too late! Tthe discovery of lithium prospects in Jammu could become play an important role in this climate battle.

India has the G20 presidency. That means almost every city has got some G20 event happening across the year. Which also means there are weird (yet also cute looking) G20 banners and posters on every road and street!

The General elections are coming. That unfortunately implies more political mudslinging, further rejigging of alliances, lots of Aya Rams & Gaya Rams and more hatemongering. The race to the bottom in the political discourse will be heightened (or lowered). The political game of thrones will be on full swing till mid next year, till we finally get a government in place!

In the interim, the actual governance may go for a toss, with everyone looking to extract their pound of flesh from every event. Just look at the online battleground that the Manipur issues have become, while actual on-ground issues continue to be unresolved. Similar is the case of the Wrestling saga. In a country, where sporting heroes are still in short supply, seeing the visuals of some of the most decorated sportspersons sitting on dharna and being dragged around by the authorities was disturbing. And for the public opinion, whose side you stand on is defined by your political inclination. Just continuing the trend of everything being politicized and sharply polarized.

Lets hope the individual common sense stays in the heavily politically charged coming months!

There is a big Men’s ODI World Cup coming up and somehow BCCI has bungled up the event scheduling and ticketing. What a fall from the days of Dalmia & Bindra. Although, they also deserve plaudits for starting (finally) the WPL and providing pay parity for international games. Amidst all the chaos, they still are the best-run sporting organization in the country. Speaks more of the incompetence of the other sports bodies, which for some reason or the other keep getting themselves banned by the global federations.

Meanwhile, despite the Hindenburg report, the stock markets continue their bull runs, reaching new highs, and providing a pretty good silver lining amongst the political & environmental crowds. Although it all could be just a bubble waiting to be burst.

Overall, not a rosy picture but to end on a good note. “Naatu Naatu” won an Oscar providing the first truly Indian Oscar winners (earlier ones were all for external projects). It was a pleasant surprise to see this foot-tapping chart-topping song reach such popularity!

On that musical note. Happy Birthday India! Jai Hind!

BookMarks #115: Dream with Your Eyes Open

Title: Dream with Your Eyes Open: An Entrepreneurial Journey

Author: Ronnie Screwvala

Genre: Non-fiction, Memoirs, Entrepreneurship

Published: 2016

BookMarks

“Dream with Your Eyes Open” is not exactly an autobiography but more of a collection of lessons learnt in what goes in making a successful entrepreneur. The book narrates the author’s learnings from his various ventures starting from his childhood, like selling balcony seats at his family home to get a glimpse of the stars at a premiere, starting a theatre group, a toothbrush production company and multiple ventures into the media space! And all along he passes on the learnings he has acquired from his experiences from the struggles, the success and most importantly the failures.

Here are a few nuggets taken from the book about entrepreneurship

• Entrepreneurship is a journey, not an outing.
• Entrepreneurship is about living life on your own terms.
• Dream huge and dream with your eyes open
• Risk means pushing the envelope when others want to take the safe route, and caring more about potential rewards than possible losses.
• As long as you have the hunger to succeed, innate confidence in yourself and in your abilities, the guts and conviction to take sensible risks and a can-do attitude, you will prevail.
• Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone.
• Entrepreneurship in a nutshell: action and reaction; understanding, confronting and transcending fear; working, disrupting and succeeding; trying and failing. And then laughing about it all later, while absorbing lasting life lessons.
• When you start from scratch, you’ve got nothing to lose.
• Deep knowledge comes from doing.
• Authenticity is at the heart of effective communication.
• The importance of acquiring domain knowledge—or at least the ability to ask the right questions if you want to succeed in a new initiative at scale.
• Failure is inevitable. One of the hardest and most enduring lessons everyone in business learns is that not all great ideas succeed. Plan for failure. Embrace failure. But understand that failure is a comma, not a full stop.
• Failure can be a stronger motivator than success.
• Failure is more interesting and instructive than success.
• You’re not answerable to anyone but yourself.
• Level your gaze beyond the horizon. Life is too short to allow others to make you feel inadequate.
• Do what needs doing. Figure out what went wrong and fix it.
• Plan for success and insist on survival. To survive is to give yourself a fighting chance to succeed.
• Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.
• Exits are about creating value and letting go when the need and opportunity arise.
• Focus occurs in the present.
• Most success springs from feeling joyous and confident, believing one can accomplish almost anything—and sporting victories contribute to such euphoria. The day India wins big at the Olympics and becomes a global player in sports, we will already have become an economic superpower.
• It's all possible.

Overall and engaging read. It also helps that the Ronnie Screwvala’s journey has already been in the public eye. So getting to know the background of these ventures makes it more interesting. 

Previously on BookMarks: Endgame 

BookMarks #114: Endgame

Title: Endgame: An Insurgency on Wall Street

Author: Sheelah Kolhatkar

Genre: Non-fiction, Finance, Real events

Published: 2023

BookMarks

Invested money was likely to appreciate much more rapidly than income in the future, which would only increase the gap in wealth between those who already had money and those who didn’t 

- Thomas Piketty (Capital in the Twenty-First Century)

Endgame narrates the events surrounding the short squeeze and unprecedented rise in the share price of Game Stop stock in 2021.

This is a short volume. The subject is interesting, the protagonists are interesting, there is lot of history built up, it is a fight of the underdog against a rigged system. And yet, somehow the book just falls flat. The narrative seems abandoned and hurriedly finished at the same time. While we learn about a few characters, the book seems more like an extended trailer rather than an entire movie!

Previously on BookMarks: Landmark Judgments that Changed India 

BookMarks #113: Landmark Judgments that Changed India

Title: Landmark Judgments that Changed India

Author: Asok K Ganguly

Genre: Non-fiction, Law

Published: 2015

BookMarks

As the title says, the book focusses on some of the key cases which provided landmark precedents and brought the Constitution into its current shape. Over the years, the judiciary through its interpretations has adapted the legal system from its British origins to one more suitable for India.

The major cases discussed in the book include (a) Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, which limits the power of Parliament to amend the Constitution; (b) Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India which defined personal liberty; (c) Golaknath v. State of Punjab, where it was ruled that amendments which infringe upon fundamental rights cannot be passed.

Following are some of the highlights from the book

• Definition of Constitution: The set of the most important rules and common understandings in any given country that regulate[s] the relations among that country’s governing institutions and also the relationship between those governing institutions and the people of that country.
• The Constitution is the autobiography of a nation - it articulates the conscience of the nation in particular and of mankind in general. This voice is most eloquent in the judgments of the constitutional courts.
• The Indian Constitution is based on three fundamentals, which form the core of constitutionalism. They are: (1) A written Constitution, (2) A chapter on fundamental rights, and (3) Limited government
• In all representative democracies that the government is one of laws and not of men.
• The book emphasizes the role of due process and precedence. As it states, the law is uncertain. It does not cover all the situations, where the decision may go either way. Hence the need to follow the due process always.

Overall, an interesting read on how some judgements have played a key role in shaping the Constitution. 

Previously on BookMarks: Learning How to Fly 

Road To Paris – Episode 6

Since Episode 5, there has been some activity but no major progress on the qualifiers front. Here is a brief recap of the past two months.

Football: In the Round 1 of Women’s Asian Qualifiers – India beat Kyrgyzstan 4-nil & 5-nil to qualify for the 2nd Round, whose matches will be held in Oct-Nov ’23. 

Boxing: At the Men’s World Championships: India won 3 Bronze medals, their best-ever performance via Deepak Bhoria (Flyweight), Mohammad Hussamuddin (Featherweight) and Nishant Dev (Light Middlewight). The first two are also in Olympics weight category

Weightlifting: At the Asian Championships, Bindyarani Devi got a Silver medal in the 55 kg category, while Jeremy got a Snatch silver in the 67 kg.

Athletics: There has been a flurry of activity on the track and field with quite a few athletes making an appearance across the globe. Neeraj Chopra (is it a surprise) started his season with a World Lead throw winning the Diamond League opener and became the first ever India athlete to top the IAAF rankings!

And off the track

The Wrestlers vs Wrestling Federation saga continued and got murkier. The agitation continues with neither the wrestlers nor the Brij Bhushan Singh backing off. Careless and casual comments from those in charge are also not helping. This really needs an early resolution.

Meanwhile the qualification race is heating up. Till next time!

Qualification Summary for Team India: Sports: 2, Events 5, Entries:7, Athletes: 7 

Links: Episode 5 

BookMarks #112: Learning How to Fly

Title: Learning How to Fly: Life Lessons for the Youth

Author: APJ Abdul Kalam

Genre: Non-fiction, Memoirs, Compendium

Published: 2016

BookMarks

I am born with wings So, I am not meant for crawling, I have wings, I will fly.

The book is a collection of speeches given by Dr. Kalam in his interactions with students across India and the world. As always, simple but inspirational words. Here are a few bookmarked items from the book.

• The tools for life: have a great aim in life, continuously acquire the knowledge, work hard and persevere to realize the great achievement. Finally, how to manage failures and success in life. And you will definitely succeed in all your missions. It does not matter who you are.
• Knowledge = Creativity + Righteousness + Courage
• Learning gives creativity, Creativity leads to thinking, Thinking provides knowledge, Knowledge makes you great.
• Goal - I realize that aiming small is a crime. If something important is at stake, the human mind gets ignited and the working capacity gets enhanced manifold.
• The culture of excellence is driven by innovation and creativity. A nation’s economic development is powered by competitiveness. Competitiveness is powered by knowledge. Knowledge is powered by technology. Technology is powered by innovation. Technology and innovation are powered by resource investment.
• The important aspect of creativity is seeing the same thing as everybody else but thinking of something different.
• The important elements that constitute a nation are: being disease free; high earning capacity; high productivity; harmonious living and strong defence - Thiruvalluvar. How can all these elements be provided to citizens of every nation?
• We learnt, dreamt, experimented, failed, recovered and succeeded.
• The test of a human being is in accepting the failure and to keep trying until he or she succeeds.
• What worked yesterday, will not work today.
• Leaders must have a vision…a passion to realize the vision…be able to travel into an unexplored path…know how to manage success and failure…have the courage to take decisions…and be transparent in every action. Leaders must work with integrity and succeed with integrity.
• A culture that values wellness and healing will create a flourishing society—productive, creative, healthy and peaceful.
• Excellence happens not by accident. It is a process.
• Science is an eternally evolving enterprise. It is a never-ending journey across generations of committed researchers. Science thrives when it converges to solve pressing challenges of the world and this is the 21st century requirement from engineers.
• Coming into contact with a good book and possessing it, is indeed an everlasting enrichment.
• It says for those who do ill to you, the best punishment is to return good to them.
• Your beliefs become your thoughts Your thoughts become your words Your words become your actions Your actions become your habits Your habits become your values Your values become your destiny.

Simple & actionable words, to be put to use in life.

Previously on BookMarks: Krishna - the Man and His Philosophy  

By Dr. Kalam: My Journey 

BookMarks #111: Krishna – the Man and His Philosophy

Title: Krishna – The Man and His Philosophy

Author: Osho

Genre: Non-fiction, Philosophy, Religion

Published: 1991

BookMarks

The book is compilation of talks given by Osho on Lord Krishna, the Bhagavad Gita and contrasts with Jesus Christ, Gautam Buddha and Mahavira. The narration is in a Question & Answer format and covers the course of a few days as Osho talks to his followers.

Some of the messages are:

On God & the world: God and the world are not two separate entities. They are like body and soul. The visible part of the soul is known as the body, and the invisible part of the body is called the soul.

On war: Confronted with the challenge of war, man's brain begins to function at its highest level and capacity. In times of war man's intelligence takes a great leap forward, one it would ordinarily take centuries to make. All our cooperative efforts and institutions are the products of war. It is called cooperation for conflict.

Individual vs collective: If you want some evil act to be done, you will find it easier through a group than through an individual. The law of evolution doesn't apply on individual it applies on group

All great persons are born ahead of their time, and all insignificant people are born after their time. It is only mediocre people who are born in their time.

We worship those who perplex and defeat our ability to understand them.

If one has wealth, one can have the suffering of his choice

Happiness and suffering are like clouds passing through the sky. They come and go.

Nobody has any difficulty finding in the Gita what he wants to find.

They say that man has only to remember what he has forgotten. has to remember who he really is, who he is right now. He does not have to do a thing except recollect what he has forgotten.

Everyone is unique: Everybody has his own karmas to fulfill, and they will go through them. Everyone is unique and different. God is a creator, not a technician, and he only creates original things, first-hand things. To be oneself is the only virtue and to be another is a sin. Imitation is wrong. It is ironic that we imitate those who never imitated others.

The story of a great person can never be historical, it is always poetic, mythical, mythological. It is so because it is written retrospectively.

To live on this planet problems will always be needed, because it is through our struggle with problems that we grow and mature.

On Work: Work for what? Why does man work? Man works so he can live. And what does living mean? To live means to celebrate life. We work so that we can have a moment of dance in our lives. Really, work is just a means to celebrate life. But the irony is that the way we live there is no leisure left to sing and dance and celebrate life. We turn means into an end; we make work the be-all and end-all of life. And then life is confined between two places, our home and the office. Home to office and back home is all we know of life. (In the WFH environment, even that “to” has gone missing.)

Everyone is mad with running and reaching somewhere. And no man knows where this "somewhere" is.

Entertainment and celebration are never the same. In celebration you are a participant; in entertainment you are only a spectator.

On future: Man is an animal who makes promises. We are captives of the future, we live in future hopes. Man wastes all his todays in the hope of a tomorrow that never came.

The meaning of a word does not, as is usually believed, come from the dictionary.

Life begins where logic ends.

That which attracts you is not your type; it is the opposite of your own nature, because the opposite attracts. Opposites are complementary to each other.

One who clings to his past cannot come to truth, because truth is always now and here, it is in the moment. Truth has nothing to do with the past nor with the future. Truth is really timeless, and one who lives in the past can never be in the present. Truth and time don't walk together."

That which helps life grow, flower and dance ecstatically is religion. And that which impedes life's growth, which distorts and stifles life's flowering, which smothers life's joy and festivity is irreligion.

Some simple explanations and some complex ones. Do not necessarily agree with all of them, but he does present and interesting perspective. No wonder Osho was so wildly followed. 

Previously on BookMarks: The Importance of Being Earnest

Road To Paris: Episode 5

Well, it’s been a while since the last episode of the Road to Paris series. There have been quite a few developments in the journey. Here is a look at the major ones in the past 5 months.

Quota Places

Athletics

• 20 km Walk (M) – Akashdeep Singh breaks the National record to beat the Olympics qualifying standard. He was joined by Vikash Singh & Paramjeet Bisht, making it max qualifiers in a single event for India!
• 20 km Walk (W) – Priyanka Goswami qualifies for the Olympics for the second time in a row.

In other news

Highs

• Boxing: Nitu Ghanghas, Saweety Boora, Nikhat Zareen & Lovlina Borgohain became World Champions, although the field was slightly depleted. Unfortunately, only Nikhat and Lovlina are in Olympics weight categories.
• Weightlifting: Mirabai Chanu lifts the Silver Medal in World Weightlifting Championships.
• Manika Batra’s bronze medal at the Asian TT championships after a disappointing run at the Commonwealth Games – seems to be back on track to success
• The Women’s Hockey Team won the Nations Cup and qualified for the next season of Pro Hockey League. They had finished 3rd last time in the Pro Hockey League, so should not have been sent to the qualifiers in the first place!
• The Badminton team won a Bronze medal at the Mixed Asia Teams Championships, while Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand duo proved that their last year’s run in the All England Championships was no fluke by again reaching the semi-finals this year.
• Tennis: Rohan Bopanna became the oldest man to win an ATP 1000 series event. At 43, he is still going strong but does he have a partner for the Paris Games. Meanwhile Sania Mirza has called time on her glittering career. And there is no successor for her.

Disappointments

Men’s Hockey Team finished 9th in a Home World Cup.

Controversies

The battle between the top wrestlers and the Wrestling Federation. Hopefully a rigorous probe will result in a clearing out this mess!

So as usual, with Indian sports it has been a case of some good, some bad, and some downright ugly! Hopefully we will have better tidings in the next edition.

Till Next Time!

Qualification Summary for Team India: Sports: 2, Events 5, Entries:7, Athletes: 7

Links: Road To Paris: Episode 4 

Learn N Blog #25: The IPCC Report

“Our world needs climate action on all fronts: everything, everywhere, all at once.” - António Guterres, on the release of the 6th IPCC Report.

Mr. Guterres has been known to use cultural references in talks on Climate Change. Remember the “Highway to Hell” reference during COP27!

“There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all….the choices and actions implemented in this decade [i.e., by 2030] will have impacts now and for thousands of years” – This is the key messages from latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). And hence the call from action by Mr. Guterres.

IPCC has been publishing the reports on Climate Change since early 1990s. Following is a brief history of the reports, their findings & imapct.

1st Report (1992)

Finding: predicted a global temperature rise of about 2C by 2025, compared with the period before the industrial revolution that sparked the mass burning of fossil fuels. (In 2023, the rise is 1.4C.)

Impact: Creation of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

2nd Report (1995)

Finding: Climate change is likely to have wide-ranging and mostly adverse impacts on human health, with significant loss of life. 

An Appeal: Where there is a lack of full scientific certainty, [countries] should: ‘take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects’.

3rd Report (2001)

Finding: There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities. 

A Warning: Impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor persons within all countries.

4th Report (2007)

Finding: Delayed emission reductions significantly constrain the opportunities to achieve lower stabilization levels and increase the risk of more severe climate change impacts. The evidence leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of not acting … delay would be dangerous and much more costly. 

Impact: IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. However, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 put the report on its backburner. Hope the same doesn’t hit the 2023 report!

5th Report (2014)

Finding: Human influence on the climate system is clear. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems [and] many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. 

Impact: The report laid the scientific ground for the UN’s Paris agreement in 2015, which for the first time spurred most nations to cut emissions.

Special Report (2018):

Finding: Contrasted the stark difference between 1.5 & 2.5 C temperature difference

6th Report (2023)

Key messages: In the near-term, global warming is more likely than not to reach 1.5C even under a very low emission scenario. And any given future warming level, many climate-related risks are higher than [previously] assessed. “Without a strengthening of policies, global warming of 3.2C is projected by 2100.”

The Three signposts

1. Climate crisis is fundamentally a crisis of injustice: “The 10% of households with the highest per capita emissions contribute 34-45% of global consumption-based emissions, while the bottom 50% contribute 13-15%.” The climate emergency cannot end without addressing the inequalities of income and gender for the simple reason that “social trust” is required for “transformative change”.
2. Any new fossil fuel developments are utterly incompatible with the net zero emissions required. “Projected CO2 emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure without additional abatement would exceed the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C,” the report says. It implies that the oil, gas and coal projects already in operation will lead to rise beyond 1.5C, unless carbon capture technology works at scale (yet unproven).
3. Need for technology and finance: “Feasible, effective, and low-cost options and adaptation are already available.” Solar and wind power, energy efficiency, cuts in methane emissions and halting the destruction of forests are the key ones.

The report acknowledges the daunting task at hand. “The systemic change required to achieve rapid and deep emissions reductions and transformative adaptation to climate change is unprecedented in terms of scale [and] near-term actions involve high up-front investments.” While money is key the report concludes “the costs of climate action are clearly lower than the damages climate chaos will cause.”

Given the dire warnings, as Mr. Guterres says, tackling climate change will require actions (policy, technology, monetary) everything, everywhere, all at once.

Links:

• IPCC Report: IPCC 
• Reports Timeline: The Guardian 

Previously on Learn N Blog: Ozone Depletion & Rejuvenation