Random Quotes #58

• Let us all progress and prosper and reach the zenith and then we all will go downhill to find peace in the basics of life !!

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Random Quotes #57

In this virtual world first we strive hard to befriend people and then the reality of virtual distance strikes and we isolate ourselves !!

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55 Word Fiction - AmbiPur Fresh & Happy

Ambipur IndiBlogger Meet in New Delhi 

Ambipur Fresh and Happy

The day was hot and humid.

Four friends hopped on a long road trip.  

Halfway through, the AC failed.

The mercury hit 40 degrees.

They sweated and smelled badly

One of them was returning from Ambipur Bloggers meet

He remembered winning an AmbiPur Mini Vent Clip

Faces became fresh and happy as they plugged it !!

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What's your Social Media Score ??

Every individual born on this planet must have distinct credentials to secure employment , perform at his work place, earn recognition and his/her livelihood. These could be college degrees to support qualification , skill sets in niche areas to certify competence and certificates of distinction  to provide merit to the profile.

What if i say, in the very near future there will something unique called "Social Media Score" that will be a major deciding factor for recruiting , screening and doing background checks ?

Let me explain what do i mean by the term "Social Media Score".

Barack Obama has a very high Social Media Score

In today's era every individual has an Avatar -A virtual existence that has given birth to alias(es) / parallel existence. These identities are real yet unreal ,unreal yet real !! Confused aren't you ??

There is an interesting article "The Influence of the Avatar on Online Perceptions of Anthropomorphism, Androgyny, Credibility, Homophily, and Attraction" by Kristine L. Nowak & Christian Rauh from the Department of Communication Science ,University of Connecticut. 

Be it professional or social networks everyone wants to portray the better side of him or her on the virtual platforms . These could be Linked In , Monster ,Facebook , Twitter , Digg , Pinterest , MySpace , Tumblr etc. If we analyse our Avatar we find that one side it shows the professional side of ours, and the other is personal when we are among our family and friends . We might be cautiously interacting over professional networks but not necessarily on a social networking site. Our comments , interactions are an activity of leisure that give us fun, happiness and make us feel connected. So activities like pictures showing you drunk , romancing with your lover, booze party , fun at the beach , night outs do give some cues to your personality. If an institution like Google or Facebook decides to integrate our entire web presence and uses Analytics to profile our Avatar what will be the outcome ?? It will be a value , a relative assessment , a number , a classification , a class and possibly a score that will be assigned to each individual which will be called  "Social Media Score"

Since the jobs are already broken down to the last mile of skills , requirements , qualifications and experience our resumes will not be a deciding criteria for selection in the near future. This will be taken for granted that one is suitably qualified but what cannot be assessed in the preliminary findings is your humane side. All the Analytics that will be done on your Avatar in the virtual world will be combined with your real life  persona and presence. Then will emerge out a holistic picture of the individual and his ability to be deployed for a particular job or function. At present this might not be the norm but recruiters are using social media for hiring decisions now.   The recruiters might not dig out your old laundry but they will be certainly interested in What is that you post ? Who all are you connected with ? How do you come across as person ? The legitimacy of such an approach might take few years to come but the day is not far when every individual will wear on his sleeve his 'Social Media Score'. The more you improve on your personality the chances are, it gets better and better . Who knows your prospective girlfriend / boyfriend  starts using this score too ??

BTW What's your Social Media Score ??

Social Media Score Card

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GoAir think tank gone nuts

GoAir opts for femalecrew to save fuel

A humorous piece of news in papers today that says GoAir has decided to recruit only airhostesses from now on instead of the 'heavier' male flight pursers. The idea is to lighten the aircraft to reduce fuel burn because of increased operating costs. I find this idea absurd , unimaginative and too shortsighted and in the post below I will present my case why I consider it so.

Female Air Hostesses rule over male pursers

As per the article here is the logic presented for making such a business case.

“Go Air currently has 330 cabin crew members, 40% of whom are males. Every additional kg on board costs Rs 3 per flight hour. With an airhostess weighing about 15-20kg less than a male flight purser, Go expects to save about Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 3 crore annually. We are reducing the weight on board our aircraft. The size of inflight magazines has been reduced. The potable water tanks are no longer being filled to capacity as only 35% to 40% of that water is actually used. Now the water tanks are filled 60%.

Before I comment on this cost cutting activity let me list out some data points on GoAir that I will use to support my argument against this logic of choosing male pursers over female air hostesses.

• The airline currently operates across 21 destinations, 156 daily flights and approximately 1060 weekly flights. Reference - http://www.goair.in/January2_2012.aspx 
• GoAir has a fleet size of 15 aircrafts all A320 -200 that have a maximum capacity of 180 passengers.
• The Wadia Group-owned airline made a net loss of R133.72 crore in FY 2011-12.

Here is my argument:

1060 flights / week will translate to 55120 flights /year and the total number of male pursers in GoAir is 132 out of a total of 330 cabin crew.  If the staff is evenly distributed on all flights and their rest hours are same, all the male pursers combined will take 22048 flights. If one individual adds 15-20 kgs extra, net additional weight will be 385840 Kgs (taking average weight of 17.5 Kg). With Rs 3 as the incremental cost for every additional 1 kg of weight the total amount will be 1,157,520 (Eleven Lakhs Fifty Seven Thousand Five Hundred and Twenty only).  Where did the figure of 2.5 – 3 Cr Annual Savings come from?? 

With a net loss figure running into 100+ crore you are doing a full fledged research to contain few lakhs (notional) that will seemingly accrue from meaningless measures like these ??

GoAir great minds answer some of my questions here:

• At what occupancy % has the premise been made?
• What is the average weight of passengers on board?
• What is the mix of passengers i.e. men, women and children and is it same for all the sectors?
•  Which all GoAir counters in airports weigh the passengers before boarding?? If that is not done how the total flight weight is calculated?
• When the flights are not running to the full capacity what is the threshold point where any incremental weight does not affect the flying cost?

Dear GoAir !! 

With a market share of 7-8% in the Indian domestic market, that flies handles 70 Million (2011) passengers annually (Source: CAPA – Centre for Aviation & Indian DGCA) I can safely say that you don’t fly more than 5-6 million passengers in a year. If I do the mathematics right your average occupancy/ flight will not exceed 100 odd passengers (Airbus A320-200 has a seating capacity of 180 pax). With this level of occupancy I don’t think even an overweight 100 Kg male purser can make any difference. Even if they can, the figure is too minuscule and absurd to be even thought off as a cost cutting measure. If your think tank has enough time to invest in such measures such as replacing the male pursers I will be give you more such distractions. Do some research on absurd statistics like the average height of female air hostesses, their arm length, their reach to the overhead bins, their strength to lift and arrange heavy hand bags and their efficiency to deal with odd passengers? My bet is you will again come up with some ridiculous observations and put that as a cost cutting measure. If the management gives you enough bandwidth to do such researches no wonder your market share is the lowest in the market.

Till today I thought, increasing fuel prices, intense competition , lower fares, weakness of the rupee were your prime concerns to run a profitable business, but I never knew you weigh your cabin crew to take business decisions.

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Helpline Numbers for Uttarakhand Floods

Following is the list of Uttarakhand control room numbers

DISTRICT	LANDLINE	MOBILE
Almora	05962-237874	09319979850
Bageshwar	05963-220197	09411378137
Chamoli	01372-251437, 251077	09411352136
Champawat	05965-230703	09412347265
Dehradun	0135-2726066 0135-2710334 0135-2710233	09412964935
Haridwar	01334-223999	09837352202
Jaipur	0141-2227296 0141-5110869 0141-2227603
Nainital	05942-231179	09456714092
Pauri Garhwal	01368- 221840	08650922201
Pithoragarh	05964-228050, 226326	09412079945
Rudraprayag	01364-233727	09412914875, 08859504022
Tehri	01376-233433	09412076111
Udham Singh Nagar	05944-250719, 250823	09410376808
Uttarkashi	01374-226461	09675082336, 09410350338

Army Control Room	Dehradun	0135-2716201 0135-2710925
Army Medical Emergency helpline numbers:		18001805558, 18004190282, 8009833388
Railway helpline numbers	Haridwar	09760534054 , 09760534055

ITBP has established helpline and control room for information on Uttrakhand and Himachal Pradesh disaster. The helpline nos are:

Delhi	011- 24362892	9968383478
Dehradun	0135-2710334, 2710335, 2710233
Joshimath, Karnaprayag and Govindghat	01372-253785

Search engine giant Google has launched an application "Person Finder" to offer information on missing people in flood-affected areas in the country, including Uttarakhand.

http://google.org/personfinder/2013-uttrakhand-floods/

Use Google Person Finder to trace flood victims

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Frozen in Time - 55 Word Fiction

55 Word Fiction

She stood frozen in time,

Not leaving her memories behind

Term it pain or pleasure,

They were companions for life

She lived with the hope,

That he comes back to her

Years passed but she never forgot,

The happiness of togetherness

An event erased it all,

She got married , he came back with his bride !!

The Irony of Love

You might also like another 55 Word Fiction  - Fallen Feather lying High

http://viveksheel-blog.blogspot.in/2013/03/fallen-feather-flying-high-55-fiction.html

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Need these Hi -Five on WeChat

"If you could connect with 5 or more people in a WeChat group - who would they be, and why? What would you talk about? The people can be dead, alive or even fictional"

We Chat is the way to go

An interesting idea to blog on , this weekend. Since these five people can be from any space of time my own Avatar should have certain characteristics as well. So for the sake of this post I am an Indian  Business Tycoon who is happily single , lives a life of  'responsible luxury ', loves gadgets and easily connects with people. 

The Wizard of Omaha

The first person on my list of WeChat group has to be definitely Mr. Warren Buffet . The 'Wizard of Omaha' as he is famously called is considered as the most successful investor of the 20th Century. A billionaire, because of his innate ability to save , uncanny ability to choose promising stocks and wisely invest to turn his investments into gold. I would get into Live Chats , Video Chats with Mr. Buffet and learn on a day to day basis his art of 'Value Investing'. We would talk on stocks, economies , investing principles , global markets and money. I am sure his Midas Touch would definitely rub on me via WeChat.

Charlie Chaplin the man with smiles

Charlie Chaplin has to be by choice on my WeChat group contacts. Life has to have its share of humor and fun, and no body else than him embodies it in the best of its form. Chaplin was a perfectionist and got so involved in his work that writing , directing, production and acting was all done by him. Not only he was a great artist , a comedian beyond excellence but he also had great sense of music and he could play piano and violin too. The two of us would exchange videos of his comic acts, stand ups and musical pieces . In turn i would be his best critic pulling his leg often, but mostly applauding his art. 

Barack Obama - The US President

Why leave Mr. Barack Obama sulking in boredom and not get him on We Chat. His philosophy of change and restoring world order has to have an Indian angle to it. I am sure an acquaintance with me will do him more good than any other homo sapiens he choose to get associated with. So let's say he talks of Health Reforms for US citizens , why not do the pilot in India. Anything that can work here will definitely be successful in the rest of the world. We both will chat using WeChat on collaboration in areas like Space programs , Renewable energy , Oil & Gas , Nuclear Programs , Agriculture Research and Information Technology. A joint strategy can be worked out where we would run five-six key programs for both the countries and transfer of technology , know how , assets and people would be planned. The intellectual capital would undoubtedly be ours. 

The Princess of Hearts - Diana

In my opinion no other woman impressed the world with her style , persona and looks more than Princess Diana.I need her on WeChat right now and that too with head over heels for me. The idea of Romance and relationship finds its perfect meaning with someone like her. I cannot reveal the nature of our sweet nothings that we will exchange on WeChat but  Live Chats, Video Chat , Moments would be shared. Jet setting from Paris to Rome , HonoLulu to Hawai , Dancing , Dining and having fun would need to captured and form our sweet memories.

My Mom is Fabulous

Whether it is fiction or real, the most important person off all is, my Mother and she has to be on the top of my list of WeChat contacts. I need her presence , her moral support and guidance for everything big or small. The comfort that she is there to share my concerns, anxieties , failures , successes , happiness is  most satisfying of all. I can start my day with a video call from her giving me blessings , my afternoon with light chat on day to day events and evening with a general chat on everything else. I owe it to the technology that the distances have become a thought of the past and have brought relations more closer.

I have downloaded WeChat on my Blackberry and through this post want to share with my family and friends what all we can do together, using the app. I am seriously excited about the features of Video Call , Moments , Shake , Look Around , Group Chat QR code and Drift Bottle. Though i am yet to try these features on a regular basis but the premise of it looks promising and filled with lots of fun.

WeChat's Youtube channel - Check it Out !!

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Do not ignore warning signs

Very recently there was a health camp at my son's school where they prepared a health card for every kid and gave good suggestions to keep healthy. Though everything in my son's report was normal, what struck out was his dental examination that pointed out cavities and yellow teeth. These two observations on the surface of it did not look ominous but when delved deeper, gave alarming signals. We decided to teach our kid through simple activities, the importance of not neglecting warning signs when it came to oral health . For a five year old any thing that is preaching , sounds like a lecture or has lots of verbosity will fall flat, so the ways and means had to be interestingly chosen.

The following weekend was relatively free and we choose to prepare a list of food items and go shopping. I asked my son what would he like to buy for the week ahead and here is what he had to say. 'I need Juices , Milk , Cereals , Chips , Candies , Ice creams , Soft drinks and Snacks'. Well we would buy all of those but only when you are able to tell us why you like each of them ?? 'Daddy !! I like Orange juice , Milk will make me strong , Ice creams have fruit and nut in them , Candies are sweet and Sprite has bubbles in it'. We were happy that our kid had at least some logic to his liking.

Cookies are not good for teeth

'That's wonderful son ! So can we say you like sweet things the most, isn't it? Is it the sweet taste that lasts in your mouth for long that you like ?' Yes ! pat came our son's reply. 'I see ! Let's go shopping but remember that the long lasting sweetness from foods like candies , cakes , chocolates is because they stick to your teeth longer and decay them.' The first warning sign had been touched upon and we were happy to have impressed the fact upon our kid. 

We reached the shopping complex and as a routine we were subjected to frisking , scanning bags and security check. It struck to me why not ask my kid what he understood from this exercise.'Do you know what these uncles in uniform are doing here ?' Interestingly, he could quickly relate it with the security in his school and his response was pretty straight. 'Daddy they are checking if every baby is holding his Mumma's hands , stands in a line and is carrying his ID card.'

We smiled at his innocence and we all agreed on the fact that guards and gatekeepers were there to check identities and maintain discipline and order. 'So can we say that the gatekeeper has the right to allow or disallow you within the premises?' My son agreed and the importance of gatekeeper's function was illustrated.  The second distinction between permissible and non permissible objects was easily explained.

Healthy Eating for a long life

After we completed our shopping the obvious halt was at the food court and as per my son's liking, before  'Domino's Pizza' . Though we believe in simple eating , less calories intake , minimum of oils but once in a while snacking is not overruled. These choices are predominantly dictated by our son and thanks to eye catching advertisements there is no option to run away. We ordered a large pizza, garlic bread accompanied by coke . I delegated a task to my kid to make him realize what unhealthy eating was. 'Please tear off the ingredients label from coke and pizza box' and our son happily obliged. Trans fats , Cholesterol ,Sugars ,Calories were clearly popping out from Cheese, Extra toppings and aerated drink .

Watch for Nutrition Level on Snacks

Upon reaching home i opened my son's dental check up report and tried drawing a parallel with the day's learning. 'You see the doctor tells us that your teeth have cavities and they are yellowing. Sweet food like candies and cakes are sticking to your teeth and giving germs extra time to harm them and create cavities. The snacks that you ate in the food court has  lots of Trans fats and Sugars that are also bad for teeth. Your mouth is like a gatekeeper that has to choose between healthy and unhealthy food. Even the yellowing of your teeth is due to acids that these germs produce.' .

'So how do i make my teeth healthy again daddy ??' My kids face bore a sad and worried look. I had to have simple answer to his long question. 'Simple ! Brush twice a day, eat less of sugary and fast foods , and rinse your mouth well after every meal'. My suggestions looked simple and do able to my son and he promptly agreed to take these simple steps.

Teaching our kid oral care at an early stage was a necessity and thanks to the warning signs that we decided to take the situation head on. Stories or activities that have simple morals , learning and takeaways are easy to grasp and a corrective action can be taken timely. To read about Colgate's products , articles on complete oral care please visit the blog My Healthy Speak. 

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Transcending Boundaries - Touching Millions of Lives

India has a population of 1 billion plus and more than 70% of its citizens still reside in villages. In numbers this will be around 700 Million or more and what is striking, is the dismal state of healthcare facilities for a majority of this population. There is a huge supply gap in the health care delivery system be shortage of  hospitals , doctors, nurses and  associated medical infrastructure.  According to the Planning Commission, India is short of 600,000 doctors, 1 million nurses and for every 10,000 Indians, there is barely one doctor available. More interestingly the majority of the available healthcare facilities are concentrated in urban areas only.

The problem is quite acute and a silver lining on the horizon is the concept of ‘Telemedicine’. The US Food and Drug Administration defines Telemedicine as “The delivery and provision of healthcare and consultative services to individual patients and the transmission of information related to care, over distance, using telecommunications technologies. Telemedicine incorporates direct clinical, preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic services and treatment; consultative and follow-up services; remote monitoring of patients; rehabilitative services; and patient education.”

Technology and Telemedicine will go a long way

Potential of Telemedicine

According to various research reports, India's Telemedicine market is worth US$ 7-8 million and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of around 20-21 percent over the next 5 years. India will also see a significant rollout of new IT infrastructure during the next five years in both the public and private sectors. In a country where penetration of mobile subscribers is predicted to cross 1 Billion by 2014 there is definitely a hope for the concept of Telemedicine to be adopted. Telemedicine can definitely bridge geographical distances and provide remote consultancy to sites where access to quality healthcare is difficult to reach. The telemedicine platform can be used in a variety of applications like , Second /Special Opinion through Remote Consultation,  Disaster Management , Virtual Patient Visits , Setting up Healthcare Knowledge Base , Administering Tele-mentored Procedure / Surgery and many more. For rural masses in India, this delivery model of health services is more of a necessity than an experiment.

Modern Healthcare Touching Lives

Major players in this sector are; The Apollo Telemedicine Enterprise Ltd. , Narayana Hrudayalaya, Asia Heart foundation and Escorts Heart Institute. Government hospitals also providing similar services are AIIMS Delhi, PGI Chandigarh and SGPGI Lucknow. The primary consultation is being provided in Tele-pathology, Tele-radiology, Tele-ophthalmology, Neurology, Cardiology, and Rheumatology etc.

While searching for information I came across the fact that The Apollo Telemedicine Enterprise Ltd. is the largest telemedicine provider in India in the private sector.  Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation (ATNF), a not-for-profit organization, is a part of the Apollo Hospitals Group. ATNF has emerged as India's single largest turnkey provider in the area of Telemedicine with over 125 peripheral centers including 10 overseas. Apollo Telemedicine has been operational from more than a decade. It has provided about 71 thousand telemedicine consultations in 25 different disciplines, so far. They are even one of the tele-consultation providers for Pan-African e-Network initiatives. Similar cutting edge medical solutions are being provided by Apollo Hospitals group across the breadth of country and even overseas - http://www.apollohospitals.com/cutting-edge.php .

Things to come

Very recently I came across a news article in Economic Times ‘IITian Amit Bhatnagar quits Hollywood to design lab in suitcase’.  Amit has designed a portable biochemistry laboratory, which comes packed in a suitcase and can perform 23 crucial medical tests including for kidney, liver, heart, anaemia, diabetes and arthritis. The lab includes devices like blood analyzer, centrifuge, Micro pipettes, incubator, Laptop with Patient Data Management Software and consumables.

General Electric (GE) has developed low-cost ECG machines in India that are capable of taking digital images that can be emailed to cardiologists. Another example is 3nethra from Bangalore-based Forus Health. 3nethra is a portable, non-invasive device that helps in early detection of eye diseases like cataract, diabetic retina, glaucoma and cornea related issues. The digital information taken by 3nethra can be easily transmitted electronically. On the similar lines we will see enough gadgets available at home to check blood pressure, blood sugar, ECG, oxygen saturation, even ultrasound that can help in early detection of lifestyle diseases like diabetes, cardiac problems and emergencies as well.

The Telemedicine program has its own share of challenges which range from lack of awareness, poor infrastructure, absence of proven business model, shortage of trained manpower, lack of common standards and legal issues etc. In spite of these hurdles the potential of e-health, telemedicine, cloud based health services have an undisputed potential to touch millions of lives.

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