Month: May 2025

I went to the market to buy some teakwood for making furniture.

“क्या दाम है अच्छे सागवान लकड़े का?”

“साढ़े चार हज़ार रुपये।”

“क्या! इतना महेंगा कैसे???”

“तो क्या भैया, ये झाड़ पे उगता है क्या?”

😀

What is the grand daddy of apps?

If we don’t consider operating systems, then the single software which has its stamp of indispensability imprinted on all commercial organisations is SAP, the ERP software.

Effectively, at its core it is an accounting software. Tally for the big daddies. But with lots of added features and functionalities. Lots of customisation options, ability to add modules, to manage multiple currencies and so on.

Most every big Indian company worth its salt runs its operations on SAP. Even government organisations like Indian Railways, ONGC, NTPC, the oil companies, and even ISRO, use SAP extensively.

The mother of all ironies – our major software companies like Infosys, Wipro etc. run their accounting on SAP.

Why? Pray why?

India’s major banks run their banking operations on software from Infosys and they compete with big banks globally. Why can’t we have equally good offerings from Indian companies in the field of ERP?

Our humble accounting software Tally, generates a revenue of Rs 700 crores for its parent company. Why does it rest on its laurels? Why not set its sights on big brother SAP?

Hoping for Indian-origin state of the art ERP systems in the future.

We boast of a software industry of upwards of USD 250 billion – 80% of which is from export alone.

As compared to this, China exports software worth just USD 50 billion every year.

Then why do we have to rely on foreign-made softwares and apps for seemingly innocuous tasks?

Why do we have to use American made Google Meet or China made Zoom for video conferences?

We don’t have a local mobile scanning app? Like CamScanner of China.

We don’t have a local video app? Like Tiktok of China.

We don’t have a local chat app? Like WeChat of China.

We don’t have a local browser app? Like UC Browser of China.

We don’t have a local file sharing app? Like ShareIt of China.

And of course, China has its own strong ecosystem of search and social and gaming apps. India has none to speak of.

Our own offerings are few and feeble. Not backed by the big players. More like dabblings of startups who face too formidable a challenge in the entrenched international apps.

Our desi startups seem more concerned with making apps to hail taxis or to send you to a restaurant or to deliver groceries to you.

Our big software players seem to be too comfortable in their own cosy cocoons. Each should be given the project to make one or more apps.

So that Indians don’t have to face the mortification of having to use a Chinese app to make a video call.

The recent warlike skirmish between India and Pakistan laid bare the importance of our country being strong in the field of technology.

I once met a high ranking IAS officer in the DGFT office to request a license to import airjet weaving machines from Japan. He inquired – Why don’t we make these machines in India?

I replied that his concern was very valid. However, what was the key factor in being able to produce such high-end machines, capable of moving the yarn a thousand times from one end to the other in one minute, was the expertise in metallurgy.

Even if we take apart the Japanese machine and copy each part and re-assemble it, it would not work to standards. As our metallurgy is nowhere near theirs. Our metal would not be able to stand the stress and strain.

I told that our successful space programs, which would again demand the best of metallurgy for our satellites, showed that we had world class expertise in these areas. Then why is this knowledge not percolating to private industry? The government should exert towards this. Such that knowledge of metallurgy already a part of our space technology is expanded through further research so that we become competent to make the best of commercial machines.

Turkey is far ahead of India in this. That is why we are having to resort to defence equipment from France and Russia to defend against the formidable Turkish weaponry. We have to be better.

The country must gear up for that.

When I graduated from engineering college, my friends were happily joining companies like Wipro and Infosys at salaries good for the time.

They were engaged primarily in tasks like porting current software applications from one system to another, like from Oracle to MS SQL Server. Many were then going on to US to take up projects there as employees of the Indian company. Many then went on to join other companies in US and to even take up US citizenship. Those were rosy times, or so we believed.

And we believed that we had already won the race to become a software superpower. Leaving China et al far behind.

And what was China doing at the time? It was banning Google and many others. Effectively forcing its countrymen to make alternatives to these seemingly indispensable softwares – Google search, Google Maps and many other. China kept on sending its top students to the best Western universities. They came back and continued to increase the country’s tech competence. And we were blissfully ignorant. We were in our own bubble.

China would have coasted along. Were it not for a Sputnik moment, a slap in face, which it faced in 2017 and then even more severely, in 2018.

China’s “Sputnik moment” for AI came in October 2016, when Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, one of the world’s top human Go players — a moment that shocked Chinese leadership and AI researchers. As if this was not enought, this was followed by the 2017 match between AlphaGo and China’s top Go player, Ke Jie, during the Future of Go Summit held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province. AlphaGo won 3 – nil.

Go (known as Weiqi in China) is a game deeply embedded in Chinese culture and history. Witnessing an AI defeat their top player was a profound moment of realization about the rapid advancements in AI technology. The Chinese government recognized the strategic importance of AI and, shortly after, in July 2017, released the “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan,” aiming to make China the world leader in AI by 2030.

Chinese government resolved to pour billions into these initiatives. Its researchers and tech companies joined this effort with enthusiasm and elan.

A word about Go. It is interesting to note that the software Deep Blue from IBM defeated the chess world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997. But it was nowhere near top level competence in Go. Go is a board game with 19×19 = 361 positions. Significantly more than the 64 of chess. There are normally 150-200 legal moves from which a player has to choose. As compared to 30-35 for a chess player. The possible board positions are a stagerring 10 raised to 761! It is vastly bigger than the number of atoms in the entire known universe!

Imagine:
 • You have a supercomputer that can analyze 1 trillion (10¹²) Go positions every second.
 • You run it non-stop for the entire age of the universe (about 13.8 billion years ≈ 10¹⁷ seconds).
That computer would only check:
10¹² × 10¹⁷ = 10²⁹ positions — a speck compared to 10⁷⁶¹ !!!

So we can see that brute force is no way to tackle this game.

And yet AI was able to defeat the world’s top players in Go. A good 19-20 years after asserting its supremacy in chess.

And that is why China was stunned. That is why it was a Sputnik moment for China. Just as it was for US when the USSR-made Sputnik beat it in the race to space.

And today, China is a major power in AI. Multiple Chinese companies have developed AI systems. Like say ERNIE from Baidu, Tongyi Qianwen by Alibaba, surveillance AI by Hikvision and of course, DeepSeek which showed that it could bring comparable results to the table as Western models with just one-tenth the computing power.

Chinese are into specialised areas of AI – like for surveillance, for healthcare, for self-driving cars, for voice AI, military AI etc.

The current Indian govt. has to take this up head on and do the needful so that India advances to best-in-the-world levels in technology and AI.

 

I have been attending classes on Shrimad Bhagawat Gita. We were to have exams on what had been taught so far. Some humour on that :

* Arjuna, “Ok, ok. I will fight. I will fight. But plee..ease no exams!” 

* On top of question paper

    * Each student may select any one path from Gyan, Karma and Bhakti as per one’s innate nature, and answer questions pertaining to that only. Rest of questions may be omitted as ‘option’.

    * As per my estimate, half of you have a slim chance of clearing the exam. The other half have a fat chance.

    * Exam is open-book, not open-person, so phone-a-friend is not allowed.

    * Don’t ask for lifelines. If you fail in this exam, anyway that means you are doomed to take a next birth.

    * Passing this exam doesn’t guarantee mukti, but credits will be carried forward to your next life.

    * If you use ChatGPT for the answers, ChatGPT will get mukti, not you.

    * 

    * You can try your luck with ChatGPT 4. ChatGPT 4 is also taking my classes, along with studying 99 other bhashyas of Bhagavad Gita. There will be no ChatGPT 5, as version 4 will have attained mukti. Om.

Every day brought new observations and new learnings in Japan. Here are a few of them :

* Elevator has buttons on all four walls for ease of operation by anyone inside.

* Elevator has support rod on three sides

* Umbrella stand with locks for guests

* Lockers with 100 yen coin refunded

* WC with auto functions. Dry air. 

* Tray for cashier. two trays. 

* Bowing down. Receiving with two hands with bow. 

* At restaurant, always both dry and wet tissues available.

* Mastery of food dummy models for displayed outside restaurants and kiosks.

* Rounded top and edges of planks of garden bench. 

* Taxi door auto close. 

* Tradition of futon to sleep on

* Hotel bed pillars had hidden wheels for easy movement. 

* Traditional wooden chair had wheels to enable movement in less space. 

* Air purifier in room and taxi. 

* Hotel gives three napkins per person

* Hotel gives night dress

* Hotel gives map of nearby places to visit.

* Tissue is always folded. 

* Hotel quality and whiteness of sheets is exemplary.

* Hotels give thin stiff cushion separately.

* Hotel elevator takes to floor of room on touching card

* Water heater has auto one hour warming. Music on heating done.

* Pedestrian streets coloured cream

* Waste basket has message. Flatten cup before disposal. Mouth of bin accordingly. 

* Fetish for cleanliness. 

* Remote areas of town have same standard. 

* Terraces absolutely clean. 

* WC auto flush on getting up. 

* Lift has calling buttons separately at a lower height for wheelchair friendly lift.

In Sep 2024, I prepared some notes on the Waqf Act. As below :

As per Dr Anand Ranganathan of JNU, Waqf Act is a parallel government being run. It has its own legislature in the form of its board, it has its own executive in the form of its surveyor, and it has its own judiciary in the form of its own tribunal.

He says that Waqf Act is one of the eight reasons why Hindus are eighth class citizens in their own country.

And that If India is to remain a secular country, and not turned into an Islamic country,, this act must be abrogated.

There is no similar act for any other religion. So why this discrimination? There is no such act even in Muslim countries.

 

What are the amendments :

* Mandatory registration of Waqf property at district collector office. Currently no registration is being done.

* Waqf properties can be audited by govt. Currently govt. has no such power.

* District collector has to approve that a govt. land is a Waqf land. But amendment is only for govt. land, not for privately owned land.

* Looking at above, you can see that what is the situation currently before the amendments.

 

Not amended :

* Section 28 – Gives power to Waqf board to order a collector to implement its decision.

* Section 8 – The state has to pay for the surveyor appointed by the Waqf board! This is in direct violation of Article 27 of constitution.

* Section 107 – Statute of limitations does not apply. Thus even a family property since many generations can be claimed by the Waqf.

* Section 101 – Every employee, every officer, every person appointed for any services by the Waqf board, will be deemed to be a public servant, and will be granted privileges accordingly, as per Indian Penal Code.

* Section 4 bestows on the Waqf survey commissioner the authority and power like that of a civil court.

* Section 40 gives the Waqf power to decide if your land is Waqf or not. And if yes, then it is your responsibility to disprove its claim. 

* Section 54 gives the Waqf board the power to declare you an encroacher (in your own house).

* Section 85 and reiterated by Supreme Court in 2019 – A civil court in India has no jurisdiction in matter of a suit pertaining to Waqf property.

* In reality, it is very very tough and long drawn out procedure to fight against the decision of the Tribunal.

* Ashwini Upadhyay filed a petition in the Supreme Court where he showed the Waqf Act to be violative of the constitution. Instead of hearing the petition, the judge at the time threw it out saying that it was ‘abstract’. The gentleman judge is today the Chief Justice of our Supreme Court.

 

What happens if Waqf Board feels that your house or land is of Waqf?

* It appoints a surveyor, who is to be paid by the Indian taxpayer.

* The Waqf board then serves you notice to vacate the land. It very graciously decides to waive the rent for the number of years you have already lived there.

* If you ask for an inquiry, the inquiry is done by the Waqf Board. If you are not happy with the inquiry ->

* If you decide to appeal, you can appeal to the Tribunal. This again consists of employees of Waqf Board. Its decision is of course, final.

 

What is the result of the Waqf Act till now?

* 77% of Delhi is supposed to be on Waqf land.

* Waqf is the third-largest landowner in India, after Defence and Railways. (As per print.in). Currently more than eight lac acres of Indian land.

* Mukesh Ambani’s house is supposedly on Waqf land. Arvind Kejriwal has promised to hand over the house to Waqf once he is in power.

* The Waqf Board claims that Gyanwapi Mosque built atop Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi in on Waqf land.

* Waqf Board declared a piece of land inside Allahabad High Court premises as Waqf property. The high court was helpless. It had to go to Supreme Court. It took 21 years of legal wrangling before the High Court could get back its property.

* Recently Waqf Board gave notice to residents of Govindpur village near Patna to vacate their farm lands within 30 days. These people were registered in govt. survey of 1908. They are currently running from pillar to post for justice.

* Waqf Board claims that the 1500 year old Chandrashekhara Swami temple in Tamil Nadu is on Waqf land. Incidentally the temple is older than Islam.

 

Views of Judiciary :

* Delhi High Court judges have opined that Waqf land is Allah’s and Allah’s alone and that the govt. cannot be the owner of this land.

* Supreme Court in its 1998 judgement told – Once Waqf, always Waqf. The Waqf board liked this line so much, it has made this its motto on its website.

 

Shenanigans of UPA / Congress :

* UPA as a parting gift in 2014, gifted 123 prime Central Delhi properties to Waqf. These properties were owned by the Indian state since Independence.

* Indira Gandhi during the emergency ordered all states that Waqf properties in possession of govt. should be handed to Waqf board. And where not possible, then rent as per market rates should be paid to the Waqf board. And that these properties will be exempt from Rent Control Act. And thus rent may be increased regularly by the board.

* In the final days of UPA in 2014, it tabled a bill The Waqf Properties (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Bill 2014. This bill gave draconian omnipotent powers to the Waqf Estate Officer to demolish any property it deemed to be Waqf. Not just that, it plain and simple barred any Indian court from even entertaining a suit against the decision of the Waqf. This bill could not be passed due to the change of govt. at the centre.

* The Waqf Act itself, is of course, thrust on the country by the Congress. Originally by Jawaharlal Nehru, and made more draconian by successive Congress governments.

First the small fish :

CelebrityNetWorth.com was launched in 2008 by one Mr Brian Warner to provide estimates of celebrities’ net worths, based on publicly available data like real estate transactions, salaries, and news reports. It became a popular source for net worth queries. The company became very profitable. It relied heavily on Google search traffic for ad revenue.

The big fish :

Now in Feb 2016, Google began displaying Featured Snippets for celebrity net worths, pulling data from CelebrityNetWorth’s search-indexed pages. These snippets appeared above organic search results, often without proper attribution to CelebrityNetWorth, and sometimes linked to other sites (e.g., Bankrate.com) that cited CelebrityNetWorth as their source.

What happened? Traffic to and consequently profits of CelebrityNetWorth.com plummeted. The company criticised Google for using its data without permission. Google retaliated by banning its app from the Android Play Store, downgrading its search rankings, and excluding it from Google’s AdMob platform, thus severely affecting ad revenue. It was like being hit by a gorilla and the fledgling company never recovered. It continues to merely limp along.

From USD 14 billion to chump change :

That is Chegg, Inc. for you. Valued at USD 14 billion in Feb 2021. At USD 76 million today. A fall of 99.5 %.

What does it do? It provides textbook rentals, and tutoring and study tools. It provides access to a library of over 135 million questions and answers, offering step-by-step solutions to academic problems across various subjects.

Chegg says it is falling prey to the power of AI. Google’s default AI Overviews directly provides answers to questions as it has already ‘read and memorised’ the database of 135 million questions and answers in Chegg’s database. So students don’t need to pay Chegg and do not even need to visit its website.

Bigger fish :

That is AI and especially ChatGPT. Also Perplexity and Grok and Copilot AI and their ilk including the inbuilt AI in Whatsapp.

Google’s Gemini is not as good. Google blundered into AI by sneaking in woke ideology into it to make their results ‘more inclusive’. Thus getting pictures of a black Hitler and a black Cleopetra. They became a laughing stock of the tech world and have never recovered as a strong competitor to ChatGPT.

And so their search dominance is decreasing as knowledgeable users shift to AI tools.

To tell the truth, they are not being as paranoid as they should be. They are seeing the new bigger gorilla on the block in their rear view mirror, but are ignoring it by seeing that current search numbers are still good. They are in for a shock.

The coming world :

Now AI tools completely remove ads from the equation. So the coming world is very different. Very scary. Everything we know about how the net operated is going to be upended.

Without ads, how will the newsites work, how will search engines work, how will the world wide web work?

There will be fewer and fewer ‘redirections’. Just a wise old man who has read every word on the net, and who is available to answer your questions. All the people generating content will be doing so for his pleasure, for free.

You can ask him to educate you about a new book just published. And he will do so.

How will this model work? I repeat. Very different to anything till now. Very scary.

Amen.

A friend in my school group made an interesting observation:

In this era of GPS and satellite maps/images… How does blackout help?

I asked ChatGPT 4o. It replied :

Fantastic question—it reflects a deep curiosity about the intersection of modern surveillance technologies and traditional military strategies. Let’s unpack this in detail.

 

What does “blackout” mean in this context?

A blackout typically refers to deliberately cutting off or reducing visible lighting in an area:

 • Streetlights turned off

 • Buildings and homes instructed to keep lights out or windows covered

 • No illuminated signs

Historically used to reduce visibility from enemy aircraft, blackouts aimed to prevent bombers from visually identifying targets at night.

But in the era of GPS, satellites, night vision, and infrared imaging, people wonder: Does a blackout still help?

 

How blackouts can still help (despite GPS and satellite imaging)

1. Limiting human-piloted visual targeting

While satellites and GPS guide modern weapons, not all attacks rely solely on electronic navigation.

 • Low-flying aircraft, helicopters, drones, or commandos may still use visible light cues for final approach or confirmation of targets.

 • Even high-tech systems can suffer from GPS jamming or spoofing (intentional interference with navigation signals); in such cases, fallback on visual navigation becomes important.

A blackout removes or reduces visible markers—streets, landmarks, recognizable outlines—that a human operator or optical system might rely on in degraded conditions.

 

2. Protection from non-satellite reconnaissance platforms

While satellites provide imagery, they follow orbital paths and revisit times, meaning continuous real-time overhead imaging is rare for civilian or even some military satellites.

 • Manned or unmanned aircraft, spy planes, balloons, or ground observers might use visible light for real-time surveillance.

 • A blackout reduces what they can immediately see, photograph, or confirm from a distance.

Example: In the Russia-Ukraine war, blackouts were used to make it harder for drone operators and artillery spotters to identify infrastructure at night.

 

3. Reducing light pollution for military night operations

Blackouts also help friendly military forces operating under cover of darkness:

 • Makes night vision goggles more effective (reduces ambient glare)

 • Increases contrast for thermal imaging

 • Reduces silhouette exposure of friendly units against lit backgrounds

So a blackout may support own-force concealment, not just protection from enemy observation.

 

4. Mitigating collateral targeting and confusion

In urban warfare or precision strike environments:

 • If certain locations remain lit while others go dark, it may signal priority targets to the enemy (e.g., a lit military facility amidst a dark city).

 • A complete blackout removes obvious differentiators, forcing adversaries to rely on harder-to-obtain intelligence.

 

5. Psychological and social control

Though less technical, blackouts can also:

 • Foster a sense of caution and preparedness

 • Discourage unauthorized movement at night

 • Support curfews or martial law enforcement under emergency conditions

 

What blackouts can’t do anymore

To be realistic, a blackout won’t stop high-altitude satellite infrared imaging, radar imaging (SAR), or GPS-guided munitions.

 • Modern military satellites can map heat signatures, radar reflections, and even underground features, independent of visible light.

Therefore, blackouts are less effective against strategic satellite-based surveillance or precision strikes that don’t depend on visual spectrum targeting.

 

Summary: Do blackouts still help in the GPS and satellite era?

✅ Helpful for:

 • Preventing real-time visual confirmation by low-level or human-operated systems

 • Disrupting visual navigation if electronic aids fail or are jammed

 • Concealing friendly forces in ground operations

 • Maintaining a uniform nighttime signature to avoid giving away priority sites

 

❌ Less effective for:

 • Defeating satellite infrared, radar, or advanced multispectral imaging

 • Stopping GPS-guided weapons with preloaded coordinates

 

Final opinion:

Blackouts are no longer primary defenses against technologically advanced targeting systems but retain tactical utility in limiting visual detection at local, tactical levels, especially when combined with electronic warfare (like GPS jamming) and decoy strategies.