2020 - Combating Covid19

It has been almost 8 years since i used this platform and i feel this as a personal diary where i have collected my views based on my experience at that point in time of life and it is interesting to see how the world has changed around me, my views and how matured i have become in the last 8 years. Interestingly, i just read my own H1N1 post and really dont remember any special care during that time considering what is happening now during Covid!

B1/B2 Visa Rejection for UK Indians

I had a business visa interview at the usa embassy in London here and i was unable to wait to record my views on this. Yep..the hurry is because my visa is rejected and saying socio-economic ties and blah blah.. I have few questions to ask the USA government and seriously thinking to get it through freedom of information act or whatsoever is available in the USA(is it possible for me as i dont reside in USA)..well anyways..the question is 1) What is the percentage of non-immigrants who apply for a business visa but settle there illegally? 2) What is the specific percentage of non-immigrants from the UK and how many have settled down in USA leaving UK ? 3) What is their background..like are they employed, educated etc., 4) How can a consular officer decide everything in 5minutes without even seeing supporting documents when they are not convinced orally ? 5) Why will this not be allowed to appeal as its not free service but this costs 140$ + personal time off + energy+patience to witness the red tape 6) Those who had illegally settled, were they survived long? Were they not working anywhere ? What will they do for living ? Given the fact that professionals like me are affected both work-wise and mentally humiliated to such bureaucracy, what are the ways this can be taken to the top level ? I respect fellow Americans because they are one country where people live their own lives in their own style and also that there are all talented folks all over the world settled there and do the right thing. I understand why this much red tape has been introduced in this simple visa type but that should not be used as a mere rejection criteria for professionals like me. Its not single experience, but i have seen atleast 5 cases of my own friends having similar situations. Advise to fellow Indians in UK applying for USA B1/B2 Visa: Do not apply 1) if you dont have a permanent residence status 2) if you dont have your own house in UK 3) if you have changed your companies in the last few years 4) if you have an unused previous USA visa So it all comes down finally into a single statement..If you are a Indian on an Indian passport living in the UK..just re-think of applying such a visa :-) this will save your 140$ per application.

world with no investment bank

just thinking to post this now..but its been for a while now i have been thinking of a world without investment bank..err...really tough to understand what it means as everything now is controlled by few big giant investment banks and trillions of money from across the world in share market..tbc

failure of facebook

The title looks bit awkward today but i somehow feel facebook is just getting blown out bigger for what its not going to be the truth..
i think the networking aspect is all good but not the data part of it..if there could be one reason why fb fails..that would be due to data security..somehow i feel fb is exploiting the users data in an inappropriately high way that one day the crime/mistakes/issues due to data stealing rises..another big internet bubble is on the brink and fb will be leading this time..and no wonder it will become a case study again for the management graduates : Rise and Fall of the giant within a decade ?

GOLD downtime

GOLD : SELL ::

Gold has been considered as a safe haven whenever there is an instability in the economy around the world. Why Gold price is on downward trend now ??

What has happened so far?

Provided that the gold producing mines stand still at the same rate, the gold was bought extensively by various institutions as safe haven
1)Due to bubble effect from 2008's sub-prime crisis
2)Slow recovering western economies and doubts raised every now and then on a double dip
3)Extreme media hype on all economic events and reaction by traders to rely on gold
4)War on Iraq,Afghanishtan and lately Libya
5)Economic worries over EU countries bailout

Due to these, all institutions and investors have invested a lot in Gold to supply the growing demands from countries like India. Apparently, Indians think that Gold price can still go high and few keep buying.

What is happening now?
1) War on Iraq,Afghanishtan,Libya are over and its all clear and all Oil producing rigs and countries are returning to sustainable control and production is not challenged or in danger anymore
2) Oil has to be sold and make profit on a daily regular basis
3) Volume of oil trade/returns is more than Gold
4) Economic recovery has now become clear and investors are able to overcome the market sensation that are being made
5) EU treaty on bailout has been finalized without few EU countries which sends clear signal and positive response from governments
6) Basel III agreement to be rolled out by 2019 to rip off gambling business (Investment banks) from Retail/corporate bank
7) Gold volume has been accumulating and time to get returns and invest in higher profitable instruments etc., for eg.,commodities (oil)
8) New GOLD mines are being discovered in Greece adding more supply

What is going to happen?

As a result of the indirect stability felt by experienced investors, the gold rush has stopped now. Liquid cash required to make more money from Oil. Increasing supply and slighly decreasing demand in Gold due to its non-buyable threshold limit and all these factors are now threatening the further profitability of retaining this yellow metal anymore instead of OIL.
As a result, GOLD prices will decrease gradually and can reach back to 12000 per 10grams and furthermore and the hopes on yellow metal yield will ultimately sustain at a normal range.

Lesson Learnt:
As a lesson learnt, Nothing in this world always has an upward trend. All things have their own ups and downs. Now its the down time for Gold.

All investors of GOLD, make the hay while the sun shines.

July - First Year Anniversary

Its been a year since i first started to write my third blogsite :-). To commemorate this, i am dedicating this post about my recent experience on choosing to learn a foreign language.
Yep, I am on track with my Plan-B and it dictates me make myself proficient or atleast a beginner level in learning a new foreign language. It was interesting to first list out the languages that i would wish to learn and then conclude the most appropriate at this point of time.
My final list consisted of Portuguese,Russian, Chinese, German and Spanish. Reading between the lines, you can understand the list partially reflects BRIC lining. Having acquainted with these languages at some part of my life (both academic and professional), i thought it would be a challenging and an interesting task to conclude the most beneficial language in this recession stuck world.
Moving backward from my list, i found Spanish to be the most attractive contender amongst the choices as i have a natural love towards Spanish language and culture. Digging inside my knowledge database, i seem to had the initial acquaintance with this language during my trip to Italy. I had travelled there as a backpacker and was staying in a hostel at Rome city. After splendid tours in and around the city and spectating the roman architecture, paintings etc., i was left with a different version of the word 'beauty'. A normal night at a hostel would provide some local food items and some wine to drink :-). I came to the lobby where fellow backpackers who were mostly students from NA,Mexico,Canada and UK had gathered and having a chat.
Without hesitating any further i introduced myself while grabbing a drink and started to chat with those folks and asking about their whereabouts. It was an interesting night as i got to know multi nationals and their view points on few topics. Being from London at that time, i was considered closer to the UK mates and gradually with all others.
While i was talking with few chaps, i noticed that Americans were able to speak something similar to Italian language and was asking them more about the language. And only then i discovered the fact that Spanish and Italian languages are more closer and sounds similar. So that factor made me to rethink about choosing Spanish language. I somehow felt based on the conversations that i heard those days that spanish language is somewhat sweeter and soothing than any other foreign languages that i have heard. Following my Italy trip, i was googling to know more about Spanish language and its culture and to my wonder, Spanish language was infact a romance language during its primitive times and later had spread and evolved as a full fledged common language. Spanish language is an official language in as much as 22 countries though most of them covers Latin America and few in EU as well. I was really exalted to know about this fact. I believe i wouldnt be wrong if i say that olden Spanish people were very romantic after considering this fact along with another masterpiece from them which is the world famous romantic Salsa dance. So i dare to recommend anyone who wish to be more romantic to explore this part of the world and its culture. After all these considerations, i could only find that an idea to learn Spanish is not apt in this chinese dominant Singapore.
Next in my list,again from backward, is German. Memory digging starts and leads me to my academic life. I had a very good Sanskrit pandit during my higer secondary class and he had informed us once that one who is proficient in Sanskrit can easily pick up German language. Though i have studied Sanskrit for 5years (completed three board certifications), i thought this may not be a good choice now and thought to opt this option out of my list for sometime now.
Somehow, skipping one in my list from backward, i tried to tally points on Russian. Though i like Russians (dont think i am meaning beautiful hazel eyed Russian girls only) for many reasons, say for their creativity, technological innovations and considered as a big challenging power to the USA, i somehow felt this wouldnt be much of importance now and thought to scrap it from my list.
Portuguese is the first in my list, and though obviously i added it because of its emerging economic status, its the same story again as it was for Spanish. There is no proficient school or teachers available here in Singapore to teach this language. Still i remain a loyal customer of Nando's and the hot sauces from their country. Will revisit this option soon once i relocate to Europe.
There comes Chinese from my list. I had always wondered why chinese literals are pictographic or ideographic in nature and that had caused an interest in me for sometime to explore this language. After swaying around my list, i thought Chinese language would be an apt choice at this point of time during my presence here in Singapore as the pointers to learn Chinese were numerous. As i commute daily through MRT & LRT, i keep hearing sounds that couldnt be understood to the core and i always thought from the day one that i should decode these sounds sooner or later before i leave Singapore. After an initial analysis, i found that YMCA is offering such courses at a reasonable rate as opposed to many other institutions which charge quite a substantial amount.
Slowly i came to know few interesting things about chinese language. One amongst those is the literal representation. Literals are now having two forms, traditional and contemporary simplified version. And these literals are based on imaginations or notions of olden people and their notations. For example, a man is considered to be doing always agriculture and the symbol or literal for man surrounds it. Likewise, for every thing, the olden people have customized symbols and pictures to represent a meaning.The simplified version may be a result of the contemporary thinkers who might have felt the traditional notions are difficult to understand as the ideology differs since then. Also there are numerous forms of dialects or styles within Chinese language and somehow there is an established standard Mandarin which seems to be followed by majority of the people in this modern world.
Well all settled, i have now started to learn Chinese language and will come back more with my explorations about this language.
Until then, tsai chien. (good bye= tsai chien)

Centumn after a gap

Today is another interesting day in my life. As i turn back and see, July 20th is phenomenally becoming my auspicious day :-)

I wrote ITIL V3, the left out certification in my bucket somehow due to my tight schedules during last year end has now been banged with a 100% score. Its really good to see a 100% in an external examination after such a long gap in my academic career.

Miles to go :-)

Combatting H1N1

So this has happened now when i am in Singapore. The medical preparedness to combat H1N1 was reasonable due to Singapore's previous lessons learnt during SARS outbreak. Though it was reactive to prevent this current influenza's influence, i could find few things bit inconsistent in this side of world. People from Mexico were seen as terminators and were humiliated in the name of quarantine. People who returned from that place were given special isolation resort packages for a week outside the city, again in the name of quarantine.

I dont know the adequacy of the temperature tests and these isolation packages. I could atleast understand and could tolerate these tests at the airport but i dont understand why these are being done in public places, theatres etc.,

Simple question : If a person feels sick with high temperature, will he/she first move around these public places and roam around for fun or will they have the required energy to do so ?

Wont they have the responsibility to cure themselves and wont they have the desire to live ?

Being reactive is a good thing but meaningless efforts just add up the inconvenience of the public.

i am here in singapore

Having become as a western recession victim, i relocated to the emerging world's corner, Singapore.

Singapore is a fine city. Thats what the berserk people living here can say in one sentence about the city. City or country or whatever it is, Singapore, according to me is a well developed second world experience to me.

I have had a chance to use the secondworld software, in which an avatar is created and the animated creature is indirectly controlled in each and every aspect of life.

Buildings,landscape and everything here is controlled by government and well structured, clean environment(excluding few places).

Though i dont fully criticize the semi-democratic government's public policies, i feel that my independence is being partially plucked due to these restrictions. I have been always living in matured democratic countries where human rights, comfort and lifestyle are the important factors.

Highlights of atrocious policies :

1. Never drink/eat in trains/buses.

2. Stickers/Videos/Audio warnings which even says to tell you how to handwash, how to use toilet and worst part is teasing stickers over the urinals with sentences like ' It is smaller than you thought' , 'It is farer yet than you thought' , 'Shoot at the spot exactly' else ' Shooting lessons available' .

3. Surprised to know that no chewing gums are sold all over the island.

there are few more but let me discover and experience things before i share it.

People here never utter a word to strangers and not friendly at all. I have been here for past 3 months and never talked with any people while i travel in a bus or a train or just when i walk or shop as none smiles or even care to give a friendly look. This is onething i miss from my previous land of stay where people greet others with a smile and at times with a 'you are alright ya ? ' dialogue. I dont know if this strait is due to the communist dominance of chinese people or if there is any spell of racism.

Well, i have still sometime to be around here and will see if i get some good local friends :-)

GMAT Journey

I have been preparing for GMAT for past 4 to 5 months and now it has come to conclusion as i am giving my exam on 20th.

Looking back, i can see that i have travelled an appreciable distance with knowledge around the corners in many stuffs.

As the saying goes, Known is a drop, Unknown is an ocean !!!

I think there are many interesting things about GMAT preparation, application process and interviews.