Century Long legacy Lost

When I walked into General Motors head quarters at renaissance center, Detroit Michigan, in 2008 at the time when GM was celebrating its 100 years , I was amazed. After seeing all the models being displayed there along the sides of Detroit river front I just had one word holy cow !!!.

Being an automobile enthusiast, who managed to build a small go cart car during the college days and having spent initial days of work in assembly of Hyundai cars , being at the automotive headquarters was a dream. I have heard numerous times people saying Chennai/Pune is Detroit of India . after seeing that I could just think they were probably saying about the “OLD “Detroit. The comparison would never come if somebody sees the lost legacy of GM , Chysrsler , and Ford in the city of automotive. Most of people still wonder why they should stay in Detroit when they don’t have their jobs anymore.

Even in wildest of my dream I would never imagine a 100 year old company which was # 1 for 77 consecutive years to fail so miserably. A company which was building amazing brands like GMC, Cadillac Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Saab cannot keep its market ? how weird.

So what would have gone wrong ? Rattner's fault ? Obama’s Administration, high oil prices, Toyota, fickle consumers, the recession, or high labor . All that I could feel is everything.

The chapter 11 bankruptcy would be a disaster to the existing crumbling economy. GM will shed its Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Saab brands and cut loose more than 2,000 of its 6,000 U.S. dealerships by next year. That could result in more than 100,000 additional job losses if those dealerships are forced to close. A dozen facilities were identified for closure. Those plants employ most of the more than 20,000 U.S. workers GM intends to cut by the end of next year

Personally I feel that GM loss of focus towards customer was one of the main reasons for failure. Though Japanese and Koreans did post losses but they were not as bad as their American counterparts. After driving Pontiac , Buick, Saturn, Saab, dodge(Chrysler) , Mercury (Ford) I just feel that they are no match for Toyota. For that reason 95 % of immigrants in US buy Japanese or Korean. While GM had too many brands Toyota just concentrated on the customer satisfaction , driveablity , and Fuel efficiency . Whereas most of GM cars where gas gushers for that case Hummer we cannot say miles per gallon rather we can say gallons per mile.

One of the other main reasons was decentralized organization of so many brands . The brands which were created to compete between themselves didn’t realize they will loose their edge when they do not collaborate. will not use commonly things which they could have. Each of the brand where manufacturing their own components which again not a good ideas with current centralized supply chain concepts.

One of the other reason is of course the oil prices even though GM was posting many years of consecutive losses it was still running, But the huge increase in oil prices made even the patriotic American to buy a Toyota.

Leaving all these behind as a person who have admired GM so much along with many, Still believes that GM will emerge even as a stronger company after bankruptcy . According to GM's bankruptcy filing , the company has assets of $82.3 billion, and liabilities of $172.8 billion. The new GM will have only $17 billion in debt, rather than the $54.4 billion it owed as of March 31

Let’s hope to see the new beginning of GM

My Name is Hunger , My daugther is Thirst !!!

"Didi, have you come to make news out of our misery? Want to know our names? Please write down, my name is Hunger and this daughter of mine, who lost her father at 5, is called Thirst", says a woman in her mid 20s carrying a half-naked child in her arms.

This is one of the statements that stuck me when I was reading through the article of Aila victim.

I keep wondering why is devastating aila didn’t get as much as media attention it should have got. Is it because it have happened in much backward area ?, is that the media attention will only be got when blame political occurs ? Is it because the poor can’t break free ? Is it because seeing the condition of people the 32 year old government will be exposed ?

As far as number goes aila left 200,000 homeless. Took 160 lives, and affected 50 lakh people. Environmental disaster is also enormous. sundarbans is believed to have 250 royal Bengal tigers amidst the mangroves . However experts believe that tigers are strong animal, they can swim over a long time to keep themselves safe. Wish the species which is heading towards extinction is safe.

Indian media is wonderful negative minded media, its enjoys attention in putting 10,000 negative points about each thing.100 News channels don’t make enough news to put for 24 hours, They just drill deep and create a framework , directs a story and end the climax when its time for next story. Most of the media obviously spend more time in putting news of Saif – kareena and bipashu - John. Oh far that case sehwag dhoni rift is running for more than week infact more than the Aila news. Aila (marathi slang) what a media.

The aftermath disasters will always follow with dieses spreading through water. Even though everybody is trying to give relief material and move them to safe area , we always feel that it’s not enough and should be better.

Imagine the same occurs in places like Mumbai where the whole world would have been there and every news channel would be making 28 hours live broadcast. Aaj tak would interview 10,000 people to find what was wrong in the relief process again proving how sick is India media. Aila though it’s been shown in various media neither got public attention nor was extensively captured.

But on contradictory victims are tired giving interview to media , they just feel if the media person would have bought, food and water instead of cameras and video tapes.

Aila politics, Aila Media !!!! Aila India !!!

The Half Life of Timofey Berezin

This was one of the movie i was impressed in recent times.

I watched this movie in the name of “ pu-239” . The movie protagonist steels 100 gms of plutonium from the research center after knowing that he has been exposed to 1ooo rems of radiation. Timofey with a local small time gangster Shiv try to find a suitable buyer to sell most unstable element. Both people are trying to make the future better for their loved ones. After a long struggle Timofey realizes that was such a bad idea to steel and sell this weapon grade element just years after collapse of soviet union.

The words which Timofey gives us in just half of his life is worth living millions years . here goes few of them.

Light is a particle and a wave. This is hard to understand how a thing can be two things at once; but a woman is also both a particle and a wave. She's a wave when you see her reach down to pull a shell from the sea, and you feel her beauty pass through you like electrical current. She's a particle when her hair brushes your face, and her hands push into yours. And a child is also a particle and a wave. He is a wave the sound of his pain shoots through and twists you away from yourself. And he is a particle when a doctor hands you a baby; a small mirror. Women, children and light can be two things at once; a particle, a wave. They ricochet off the hard surfaces and illuminate the corners. Without them it would be far darker

An element loses a particle and becomes unstable. A chain reaction is set in motion. Pulsing waves of desperation in every direction. Perhaps the lost part is clarity or hope. In the fallout, the man-made elements appear- isotopes of fear and anger that cannot be handled safely or buried in the ground. They take the shape of a mushroom cloud started above a desert, that circles the globe and shadows us all.

Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium. They came from space; found their way here by comet and meteorite. No child ever wished this from a star. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl. Problems with half-lives forty-thousand years long. Half a life. Time takes half of us away and comes back later for the rest. We are children and then we are parents. We are long division. Slowly we decay into memory

In the end, everything decays to lead, number eighty-two on the periodic table. All of the brilliant things born in the center of stars will have turned cold and gray. Everything is moving in that direction. Toward lead. Impossible to stop

Alas at last its just Human !!!!!

After reading my previous post lot of people came up saying that you don’t not have feeling for thousands of Tamils being killed in srilanka.

As to clarify the fact the previous blog just says about the way LTTE operated and fellow Tamils in tamilnadu support LTTE. At no point I was against saying that Sinhalese are right .

All what matters is that 70,000 people being killed in our neighboring country , From humanitarian part I am deeply disturbed. I defiantly agree that Tamil people were the first to come before the Sinhalese migrated there. Religion is always been a problem any where in the world, I wish the so called different gods speak to their community for peace. Sinhalese hold a strong Buddhism decent with them and they want to carry with them. Unfortunately in this case the migrants are higher in number.

For that reason I don’t support what Tamils did by sending out Muslims Tamils from srilanks, Now again religion comes over that the original struggle for nativity, arising question was the struggle just for nativity or again invoking next struggle

India has already burnt its hand by mishandling the issues through IPKF, Which resulted in 5,000 people dead. We also lost the person who mishandled this particular issues (Rajiv Ghandi) . Though a eminent PM , who did so much to people of India , had to give to life for his decision srilanka Tamil issue

Srilanks government has always behaved like fox when it comes to dealing issues with India and other foreign countries , when IPKF was in action in sriLanka the same govt asked India to pull their forces back and even provided army to LTTE saying we are brothers of srilanka, Now whom should we consider brothers our army who lost lives in the battles in srilanka or the people of srilanka dying. Oh ya everybody in the world was ever people die agreed!!!!!

Past is past for that fact , lets talk about present ok , India has to interfere and stop the merciless killing of humans in srilanks bother Sinhalese and Tamils (Large ) in number. Countries like US, UK and even countries like Norwegian who played an active roles in treat could do much, what can we do.

As we all India has are very neutral foreign policy, What as human being I can expect that peace should prevail in srilanka so that further killing can be stopped.

What will happen to Tamils there ? There is a very powerful country today which has descendent from Germany and uk , which has managed to give a very raw deal to its own country men. No, I don’t say just accept what it been done , Srilankan Tamils should keep faith in democracy see its neibhour where minority people take higher post of President , Prime minister of the country.

Will this solve the communal thing ? the simple answer is no!!!!!, When there are so many religion across the country and world, the communal issues will never get solved.

Lets all pray to GOD that Sikhs getting killed in Punjab for what happens in Vienna , Hindu Muslims clash which happening for half a century, Christians getting killed in Orissa , Tamils getting killed in srilanka, all Rest in peace

Alas at last its just Human why do we separate by nationality ,cast, creed, religion , color etc..

The Tamil Diaspora

I know this is one of the controversial blog I am writing.

I would like to claim to the readers the view expressed here is solely my view as it might not be acceptable to lot of people. Many of them can defiantly argue saying the things mentioned are illogical and also they can provide a wonderful statistics to prove this. Everybody is welcome to put their comments

Being a Tamil and not accepting LTTE way of approach (Not LTTE) most of the time is seen as sin. My friends throw sharp words saying if you don’t know Tamil history just shut your mouth. I would just wonder what should I know Tamil language history? Tamil people history of India ? Tamil people history of Srilanka ?

Being geographically closer to India , Srilanka has been taking part in Indian history numerous occasions. The mighty Cholas, pandiya, pallava everybody has a part to play in Sri lanka . its not the IPKF (India peace keeping force ) has to take their army to the island first but our great hero of epic Ramayana Rama did that centuries ago.

I was reading an interesting blog by a citizen of srilanka , Who had put in a wonderful piece of word saying that fresco can be painted only when there is a wall. How true it seems when LTTE has been fighting for more than 3 decades for the welfare of Tamil people , was it really happening when they forced conscription of child soldier, with more than 60 percent of people in war grounds rather in living happily in their home.

I agree I have never visited Jaffna to know how the development activities were happening in the states which Tamil were demanding separate state, lets assume for a minute that Tamils has been given a separate state , would these so called Tamil Diasporas around the world ensure further development when 32 countries declared LTTE as terrorist organization.

The black July the most citied reason for Tamils to show their anguish and demanding for a separate nation. I agree totally that the government of srilanka which has majority of Sinhalese has not handled the situation or even enjoyed taking pride on what happened on the day. On Contrary I am proud to live in a country where even 100s of Black Friday, Godhras happened and people still live in the same country. Oh ya we even elect our Chief minister on basis of communal things he done during the Gujarat massacre. I agree you might wonder why should I compare my country and other alien country in this regard , Nothing for the reason I just love the strength of democracy my country has and no doubt the most successful democratic country , and no wonder why srilanka has been voted the most failure democratic country,

There are numerous political parties in Tamil Nadu , India which supports Tamils people in Srilanka, We also has to accept that even for that case people of Tamil Nadu, I would be very happy for that reason “We” support them on humanitarian reason and not for the language reason . I always wonder why is the politics of Tamil nadu so integrated with srilanka , is it for the reasons that great MGR was born in srilanka? Or for the reason that there are lot of Tamil speaking people in srilanka. If its been argued for the reason that they were from India origin we still has to insist that even after sending 600000 Tamil people of India origin back to India under Srimavo Shastri Pact. I agree that few countries like Singapore and Malaysia has made Tamil as their national Language.

With nearly 7, 400,000Tamil people around that compared to 3,600,000 in srilanka , let’s gather up against the countries like UK, USA, South Africa to give equal right and demand a separate nation. Oh for that reason we can do that in India also, still we accept the vaetru mozhi hindi as our national language. I know sarcasm can be instigating too many. Again what an illogical thought.

If urdu/hindi speaking people start saying brother to people in different countries why will we have an enemy country called Pakistan . I know this sounds like a stupid logic!!!. If we accuse LeT and Al **** terrorist organization being bought in Pakistan. What would we need to call the similar organization being helped in our soil. How can I say LTTE uses India/TN as LeT does Pakistan. I cannot say because I cannot accept this being a Tamilian, No this time I was not sarcastic.

Being just a 23 member organization in early 1980 to the have army, navy, airforce, battle tanks is a growth of biggest organization ever in this century, probably we should take lesson on how to grow. Yes I know I am just seeing the one side of the story and not covering other side. Both the Sri Lankan government and LTTE has been accused for various human right violations. However, number of notorious atrocities committed by LTTE, including suicide bombing, forced conscription of child soldier and ethnic cleansing of non Tamil cause many countries to classify LTTE as a terrorist organization.

When I am discussing so many illogical thing why should I leave British rule too. The British as expected bravely kept too many Tamil people in the government though they were minority in order to prevent the majority Sinhalese from important government position. When Srilankan government was formed they had to show the power declared Sinhalese as their official language so many Tamil has to loose their job. Yes Tamils have been ill-treated , yes both the language could have there , but how can we decide if everything were so easy in world , Why would be word so complicated. I don’t know if they should have been taken when several treaty come on the way which say both Tamils and Sinhalese can get equal proportion, May be we would have had many mulitharan in Srilankan cricket team . Why was muralitharan not expelled from team even if he was Tamil ? Yes Again illogical sarcasm. May be expectations are not examples.

Ok , why I am trying to link too many things and ending without a conclusion, I am not a person to decide which one is correct , If using terrorism to get want we want is wrong then using armed forces to kill 1000 of innocent people to stop doing that is also wrong. I know gandhigiri doesn’t fit here. Lets god bring peace in world.

With now coming to end Lets hope that our fellow Tamils / brothers by human man kind get what they deserve after 30 years of war.

Few other links which i liked (cant help )

http://srilankareports.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/what-so-far-archived-by-ltte-history-of-ltte/