C S S RAO

Many people have asked me why I chose to study Engineering. Some where the fact of the matter is that I always had some passion for Electrical Engineering and Engineering in general and always feel happy at my stint at the Engineering school and the challenges it posed. I only aspire that the strategic posture of an Engineering institute be more refined and wholesome in some form.

But some where there is a man in the background in my case who served as a motivation for me to study at an engineering school. He is C S S Rao who use to be the Managing director of the Indian Telephone Industries at the time I was studying my pre-university course. Every morning as I set out of my house I chanced to see his limousine fly-past the main road with Mr. Rao firmly perched in the rear with an august appearance sometimes reading a news paper. His stern appearance and countenance witnessed by me almost every day left a lasting impression and I said to myself if this is what an engineering graduate could become well I am very much for it.

Mr C S S Rao was one of the better of the MD's of ITI in my opinion and must have been some kind of an expert at manufacturing. I happenned to see his photograph in the billiards parlour of the ITI officers club much later.

WILLIAM FREDRICK EASTERBROOK (W.F.Easterbrook)

William Fredrick Easterbrook was my first Principal at the Lowry Memorial School. This man somewhere is something special to me. As the principal he used to present himself every morning at the gate of the school shaking hands with students who made entry and I happened to do the same as a boy of hardly five years of age with Mr. Easterbrook. An everlasting impression of his lasts in my mind.

I was on a trail for many years If I could in some way get in touch with him just for the sake of possibly reminiscing bygone days and happenned to even contact very many people on this count with no success and on pursuing certain web sites found his name to my disenchantment in the obituary listing of "Pedlar Funeral Home " in Ontario Canada and presumably this honorable man had passed in 2005. I even happened to communicate with Jim Pedlar the owner of the home if he could give me the contact details of the family of Mr. Easterbrook which met with no success.

From the inscriptions in the obituary column I gathered that after his stint in India Mr. Easterbrook had served in Pakistan as an educational administrator. There is definitely a link between me and a possible considerable number of people in Pakistan - Mr. William Fredrick Easterbrook from Ontario Canada.

Below is a link which has aphotograph of Mr. W F Easterbrook

http://docs.adventistarchives.org/docs/CUM/CUM19640129-V33-03__C.pdf?q=docs/CUM/CUM19640129-V33-03__C.pdf

Relationship Spectrum in Outsourcing and their Relations

Outsourcing is going to be the order of the day especially with the growth of modern day Operations. How is the world of today vastly different from the world of yester-years ? Products and services will largely come from operations as against conventional manufacturing and it is in this context that Out-sourcing gains significance.

Somewhere customer is looking for value and the value exists in higher quality with lesser price and Operations are a better option than manufacturing to ensure lesser price.

In my view any activity of outsourcing goes through a relationship spectrum. Having observed and worked with sourcing situations during my tenure with BPL some of my observations will be worthwhile.

One Time Buyer

One time Buyer is a person who just happened or chanced to buy some product without any pre-disposition or planning. This is a crucial event as it dictates if the buyer would continue with his act of repeated purchases.

Ad-Hoc Buyer 

A one time buyer gradually evolves into a ad-hoc buyer where he purchases off and on and on specific demands. The buyer knows the supplier but is yet to make a full time relationship.

Contract Buyer

The relation progresses into its next phase with an increaseds risk taking through contracts. Here the supplier is given specific contracts to act upon with or without legal supervision.

Vendor

Vendor is a term largely accustomed to many. Here the relationship emerges from short term contracts to a longer term of engagement and the relation becoming sturdier with largrscale supply and largely frequent supplies and is a bench-mark in the graduation process and is a mile stone in the graduation process.

Relationship Buyer

In relationship buying the vendor and his principal are largely moved by an impetus to develop and compliment each other and in this form of buying symbols and symptoms of partnership exist. For example a cheme of larger credit or deferred payments or financial partnership.

Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI)

A more advanced form of Partnering where the vendor on a routine basis using 4th party systems manages requirements of a principal by acting on his behalf and making operations proceed without bottle-necks.

Contract Manufacturing

In such a system which can be classified as vendor development the entire plant ,machinery technology and training is provided by the principal and the execution has to be carried out by the vendor.

Job Work

In job work the materials are supplied by the principal and only the routine work is managed and carried out by the vendor and supplies ensured and job-work is largely governed by governmental laws and regulations.

Bifurcated Strategic Sourcing

In such a system large supply contracts are given to not more than two to three vendors ho handle all the supply requirements.

Dedicated Strategic Sourcing

The ultimo in sourcing relations where all the requirements are sourced for a long period of time from only one vendor.

The Bannerghatta National Park Bangalore

The Bannerughatta National Park as many are well acquainted is tucked in the corner of the Bangalore city largely providing a dedicated green belt of flora and a distinguished spot in its own right merging the modern world with the natural. The terrain of the land in this part of the world is hilly and mountainous being a tributary of the mighty western ghats in some form which jet-sets into the corner of this city. Who and how this place got to be developed to its present pretty shape is unknown but could have been some form of a hunting ground and escapade for people of the past.

Environment is a crucial part of human existence and the Indian Forest Act was passed by the British way back in 1926 shows the effort to protect forest lands by governance. Some of the roads in close proximity to each other to the Bannerughatta road is the Kanakapura Road; the Mysore road and the Hosur road most of these roads running in some form is a close ally of the western ghat mountains and its offshoots.

My earlist experience of having visited this park was in 1990 being attatched  to one of BPL plants of that time at Arakere that falls on the road leading to the National park. On being spurted by a sense of curiosity and adventure one afternoon happenned to embark upon a visit to this park that seemed logical considering it was only a few kilometers from my place of occupation and the visit was memorable for various reasons.

On visiting the various animal enclosures on the right side of the park which was vigorating in many ways was informed about a safari ride about which I had no prior information or inclination . Having paid the requisite fee was boarded into a small bus and with uncertainity of what lay ahead happenned to enter into a region which was truly jungly and forlorn and to ascertain such a place existed in bangalore was difficult at that time to imbibe. Before long and after a journey of about five kilometers or so the vehicle was in the midst of a Tiger Safari which barely meant that the vehicle was face to face with more than a dozen full grown tigers giving an involved and menacing look at we the intruders. That was the fist time I had such close an encounter and acquaintance with this beast and it was to last for more than fifteen minutes with some of them walking very close to the vehicle unhappy with some creatures among them who visit them in regular intervals with an act of infringement. Some of the beasts snarled with some form of disagreement. Thereafter we were led to a lion safari which was in many ways opposite to our earlier experience with the lions nonchantful and serene and largely ignored the vehicle of people who drove by. Tus ended my largely overdue visit to this zoo or park or safari or a wild-life abode what even one may choose to attatch to it.

In the mid 1990's and if not few years earlier the people of Bangalore were driven into melancholy and deep distress by an incident not many would recollect right now. A child being snatched from the hands of its grand-father in an instant act of aggrression by a tiger only to be recovered from the wilderness by the forest officials sans life and what a ghastly event with very little precedence or omen.

The grand-father in an remote act of merriment gesticulated the child in front of the tiger in an act of frolick from within the safari bus and the tiger mistaking it to be its spoilage for the day in an unexpected moment and an act executed at lightning speed whisked the child and bolted into the forest creating bewilderment and chagrin to all in the bus. The whole city stood motion-less for almost many days after the incident with astonishment and awe that such a remote and more than bizzare event should ever occur.

The Bannerughatta National Park of today is quite a serene and more orderly establishment and would take Rs. 250/- to see the zoo and the safari which should be around 05 dollars. The drive through the safari better ordained and maintained. There are three enclosures in the safari each seperate from the other and well cordoned.

The first safari is about herbivores and includes many kinds of deers. This is followed by the bear safari which has about 150 bears in its fold and visitors feel joyous watching many of them play with each other. This is followed by the tiger safari. I am yet to see a considerable number of them at one go but there are a significant many. A white tiger found most of the time in slumber is a quick attraction to any onlooker from the van and note that the route through all these strictures are largely circuitous and winding in their design making it a largely irregular a ride both inviting and interesting. The third section is the Lion safari where quite a few lions can be seen most of the time.

The keepers and curators of this National Park must look for ways and means to even improve and augment the park by adding possibly many other components to the safari like elephant safari and a possible safari with rare birds.

Contact numbers of the park : 080-27828425 ; 080-27828540   International calls:  918027828425

                                               080-27828540 ; 080-27828300   ;080-25597021;080-22352828

9916699803  ;  9845275792 ;9900048192(lunch)

NON CONVENTIONAL EDUCATION AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO GROWTH OF INDIA

Underlying the secret spurt and growth of India of today is a very special phenomenon of the decade between 1990 and 2000 which has beyond any element of doubt cast a spell of transformation and growth in India and let me call it the "era of IT education". When well meaning business propositions synchronizes itself with societal needs further fuelled by a large local population what we have is a miracle .....and India has proved it so beyond doubt.

Large scale penetration of IT and its ability to touch the common man is a recent phenomenon may be about quarter of a century old and not much. Though IT lay camouflaged in the sidewalks of the Indian psyche much earlier it came into a complete frution only during the said period and with the sudden introduction of the Internet in the mid 1990's things came into a full circle.

I beleive that private institutions like NIIT , APTECH and the like have contributed a great deal to national well being and progress which further acted as a prop to the emerging Indian software development sector. These institutes took IT to the nascent and gave him a new avenue and approach in life. Young people in India of that time across the length and breadth of the country found a computer training institute of a branded nature in the vicinity giving instant access to IT education of that time. The prevaining conditions of the time made IT education accessible to all irrespective of the backgrounds from which the populace emerged.

Such approaches and philosophies can be applied as well to any areas of education in a robust way to the benefit and succour of many.

THE PARADOX OF THE LAW

Something that we must thank somewhere is the contribution of the British establishment to India is the introduction of their legal system which we follow to this day . Having attended legal lectures at the National Law School of India university (NLSIU) a keen interest in this sector has emerged in the way legal systems and jurisprudence works; that we have a largely evolved legal system in India partially used and abused augurs well for the growth and stability of our society.

However the English Legal system is not without its own set of ambiguities and would work less effectively if the law is not understood and applied properly by people responsible for the systems of the law. The English legal system derives its fundamentals from the ancient Greeks.

I somewhere quantify legal systems that emerge from two distinct domains namely crimes that are of an unilateral kind and crimes that are of a bilateral kind. This is what I mean by the paradox of the law in essence when unilateral and bilateral crimes lay embedded and not conspicuous. It is not enough to say "You are innocent until proved guilty" but must be "you are relatively innocent to a guilt." Guilt cannot be relative but innocence can be and will always be and if jurisprudence does not look at legal situations in this manner the magnitude of error can be more deviant.

I find a problem in the way law is implemented in that a police station which is the imposer of the law does not have legal support handy which means that the imposers of the law must act not in ignorance of the law and its principles but well within it and if the process does not commence at that focal point many a relatively innocent would be forced to face the unjust part of the juggernaut called law with sparing and long drawn options for relief. Not that they are not doing it --they are.... but there is a finer view of many situations that make a man explicit to a guilt as against being partially implicit and the difference between these two stations may not be too remarkable to be significant. The modern man is characterized by an environment which is highly information enlivened and the possibility of some one inadvertently or through design committing some of fence is increasingly magnified.

Let me expand on what is a Unilateral crime as against a Bilateral crime. May be law encompasses all these concepts in itself in some form or the other but does a person get imminent justice is the question of relevance. Unilateral crime is something some one commits through planning with no aberration of any kind from the victim of the crime. The question of the law is "Was there an initiation in some form however miniscule from the victim of the crime". If there isn't the perpetrator of the crime is "Innocent until proved guilty" and the perpetrator gets minimum relief from the tenets of the law and its various agencies.

The concept of relative innocence emerges when the victim of a crime has in some form committed an aberration which created the crime and dependent on the crime itself the perpetrator of the crime is entitled to the concept of relative innocence. Depending upon the nature of the of fence appropriate dealing must be done and if the offense committed is not largely invasive and pungent with some legal procedures the perpetrator can be let go. It is a crime in itself not to examine relative innocence in the execution of legal systems.

Having said so much the "Paradox of the Law " is the inability of the legal systems to upfront examine relative innocence or also could be called relative guilt depending upon the dimension from which one sees it and the challenge is to treat a bilateral crime from this view point upfront and with imminence.

UNFORGETTABLE DR P S SRINIVASAN

The sixth semester of my study at REC Calicut was something special; A great and natural teacher taught us. His name being Dr. P S Srinivasan. I learnt with dismay that he passed away in 2010. He taught us Induction Machines. I dont regret anything I did during my stay at REC but for one thing...... missing a lecture by Dr. P S Srinivasan owing to some communication error one morning in 1985 when he taught Universal Motors. This I feel is a huge loss and I be-moan this every other day. My comfort levels with Universal motors have never been good and things could have been different had I attended this lecture.

Something about his persona...being dark in complexion and rotund with a spectacle and walked with a faster pace and a sturdy composure. He rarely mixed with many but had administrative skills no doubt and I think for a larger part of his tenure occuppied a larger of the offices on the first floor of the DB and had a doctorate from Russia in hard core electrical engineering. I think there are not many such people left to teach engineering subjects today for some reason or the other and note that this person gave nearly four decades of service to REC CAlicut and was a tamilian domiciled in Kerala.

We used to have his classes at 8:00 am thrice a week and I rarely missed the classes of his. The height of his teaching according to me was deriving the mathematical expression that discloses how a space and time displaced three phase winding produced a rotating magnetic feild. He did it meticulously. The greatness of this man was his ability to simplify a complex subject like Induction Machines. People and students must thank him no end for the silent but formidable services provided to the state and students of Kerala.

It is more than quarter of a century but let me try to reproduce from memory some of the expressions of Induction machine theory;

Slip = (Sync speed - rotor speed) / sync speed

rotor power input = stator power input - (stator iron and copper loss)

Slip x rotor power input = rotor copper loss (there is a similar expression for iron loss)

Rotor power output = Rotor power Input - (rotor copper and iron losses)

May I beseech heavens that many more of such people find a place to teach students at Engineering Institutions and the system creates and engenders many such people.