A fresh look & feel of my blog...

Kudos to the Google Blogger team who have done an excellent job of providing great tools to do all kinds of customizations to one's blog. It's quite user friendly and also very flexible. I know there are better products than blogger which provides almost all possible customizations, e.g. WordPress, but I guess for bloggers like me who do not have a constant urge to write something :), these tools are good enough and keep you motivated towards the main objective of blogging, which is to express your opinion about blah and do not waste time in learning all the fancy stuff. I strongly encourage everyone to try these new features released by the Blogger, if you haven't already done so.

I hope the Blogger team will keep innovating and will make this product the de facto product in this field.

Let me start fresh...

After a long, seemingly never ending break, I am retrying to rejuvenate my dying blog. From now on, I will be regular in my blog postings to start writing about anything I feel strongly about.

Today, I have decided to write in the favor of establishing more & more IITs in India. Currently, there are fifteen of them, namely, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur (the oldest 5),  Guwahati (1994), Roorkee (2001), and then the very recent additions to the IIT network: Patna, Hyderabad,  Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Mandi (Himachal Pradesh), Jodhpur (Rajasthan), Rupnagar (Punjab) , Gandhinagar (Gujarat).  Given such a large population of India, I feel it makes sense to have more such institutes of national importance available to the people of India. I hope it will definitely give a great percentage of population ample amount of opportunities in the years to come in various fields of engineering and pure sciences.

But all this will be possible only when we also make sure that we aspire to maintain the teaching standards and facilities in all the new IITs. This will help in not letting IIT brand diluted over the years rather making it even stronger with the ever increasing alumni network.

Why I think this is going to be in favor of the growth of India? Just take an example of one of the most developed country in the world, United State of America, they also have lots of great universities with just 1/4 of the population of India and a great number of them are well equipped or even better facilities than available in the top IITs. Same is the case with China. I think every state in India should have their own IIT and the state government, private sectors and central government should strive to make them better & better over the period of time. I know it is easier said than done but just imagine India has more of IIT like institutes producing a great number of smart scientists and engineers in great many fields, wouldn't it help India lead in all those fields?

Some people will argue this is not going to solve the above problem as great number of IITians still leave the country to pursue opportunities elsewhere in the world but I still feel this is just a temporary problem which is going to be resolved in the coming years with the growth of Indian market and slow down in the US/Europe market and when people will start getting comparable or even better opportunities in India.

Excerpt from SV's work

We constantly complain that we have no control over our actions, over our thoughts. But how can we have it? If we can get control over the fine movements, if we can get hold of thought at the root, before it has become thought, before it has become action, then it would be possible for us to control the whole. Now, if there is a method by which we can analyse, investigate, understand, and finally grapple with those finer powers, the finer causes, then alone is it possible to have control over ourselves, and the man who has control over his own mind assuredly will have control over every other mind. That is why purity and morality have been always the object of religion; a pure, moral man has control of himself. And all minds are the same, different parts of one Mind. He who knows one lump of clay has known all the clay in the universe. He who knows and controls his own mind knows the secret of every mind and has power over every mind

A true inspirational story

“At the age of seven, a young boy and his family were forced out of their home. The boy had to work to support his family. At the age of nine, his mother passed away. When he grew up, the young man was keen to go to law school, but had no education.

At 22, he lost his job as a store clerk. At 23, he ran for state legislature and lost. The same year, he went into business. It failed, leaving him with a debt that took him 17 years to repay. At 27, he had a nervous breakdown.

Two years later, he tried for the post of speaker in his state legislature. He lost. At 31, he was defeated in his attempt to become an elector. By 35, he had been defeated twice while running for Congress. Finally, he did manage to secure a brief term in Congress, but at 39 he lost his re-election bid.

At 41, his four-year-old son died. At 42, he was rejected as a prospective land officer. At 45, he ran for the Senate and lost. Two years later, he lost the vice presidential nomination. At 49, he ran for Senate and lost again.

At 51, he was elected the President of the United States of America.

The man in question: Abraham Lincoln.”
— Author Unknown

Last lecture by Randy Pausch

A very inspiring lecture by Prof. Randy Pausch of CMU, nearly 2 hrs long, but strongly recommended to watch through end:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/front_im/pausch_9-18-07.wmv

(will redirect you to Google videos)