FedEx crashes Del Potro in Semis – French Open 2009

Exhilarating! Adrenalin rushing high!! Testing and nerve-racking!!! The more synonyms one attach to the match played between World No. 2 Roger Federer & 5^th seeded Del Potro, the less credit one would accrue to the scintillating performances. Yes, I’m talking about the semi-finals played between the two for Roland Garros’ French Open 2009. There was no doubt that Roger was tested all over the court for his skills and acrobatic moves by the young lad from Argentine. Won by Federer, but the contest was a battle of the war-lords fought furiously by the Argentinean. The convincing throttle unleashed by Potro must have sent shocking waves to the Swiss. With scores like 6/3, 6/7, 6/2, 1/6, 4/6 the match was equally combated by the two opponents. Clay not being the winning grounds for Swiss, one could really see him mustering all the strength required to fight it out, and convert his streak of 4 times entering into clay-court finals into a resounding Grand Slam victory this time. Match could have been compared to the wrestling match between Steve Austin & The Rock, with Rock (Roger) showing the greatest tenacity to fight till the last moment and Austin (Potro) knocking him with heavy punches and aces throughout the match.

Starting with the lead over Roger with 6/3 in the first set, one could clearly see the spirits with which Potro was there to fight it out. Having Roger thrown all around the court, Potro literally dictated the terms of tennis on the court. The second set was an equivocal combat between the two with each of them winning their respective points to fight for the final point in the form of a tie-breaker. This was when Federer showed his prowess to take the control of the situation. He led the tie-breaker deciding points with a lead of 5-1. And went on to winning the second set. In the third set, Potro was back again with full energy and enthusiasm and took the lead right from the beginning, leaving Federer trailing behind miserably. This was when it became for sure that tonight Potro was the one who dictated all terms on the ground, with throwing nearly three times aces on average in every set when compared to Federer. The average speed with which the Argentinean served fell in the bracket of 195 to 210 Km/hr which was much thumping and powerful when compared to Roger at 185 to 194 Km/hr. This made Potro clinch the third set with a score of 6/2, blowing Federer all over the court.

Moving towards the fourth set was when Federer was seen to come back in original form with 5^th seeded clearly showing signs of subtle tiredness setting in. but least he was about to give up. But fourth set saw, Roger competing against Potro in long rallies and coming out as clear winner. He made Potro move and fight hard for ball all around the court. With a number of double-faults on service committed by Potro, Federer was able to break his serve a number of times, thereby leading the set with an easy 1/6 win.

With match moving towards the final set, the deciding one, Roger decided to take the lead right from the beginning. In spite of a huge built and good height, Potro just could not perform to his highest levels to make Federer play at back foot from the court line. Roger begin the set with a clean sweep of 2/0 lead, and things started to become clear that Roger was hitting the bulls’ eye now when Argentinean shot back and moved the set towards 3/3 with serving for next game point. With the status-quo between the two at this point of time, it was a do or die situation between both the world-class players. Roger broke the serve of Potro and went on to lead the game with 3/4 score in the final set. Now, roger served and went on to win the point, leading the scores with 3/5. On Potro’s serve, Roger made all his efforts to break his serve and win the match, but the success was not bound to come easy when he had a fighting soldier at the other end of the battleground. The scores were 4/5 with Roger now serving for the match. This was made as easy as possible by Federer who went on to win this point and match with 40/15 intermediate scores and double match winning points.

At the end, a match played for over 3 hours could be a decider between the two, but it was a winning and quite convincing show for the audience, spectators in the court and for the spirit of the came.

Hope this streak of Federer continues and go on to win the French Open 2009 and create a new world record by beating Robin Soderling (the past occasions being Roger beating him 9 on 9 times). ALL THE BEST FEDEx!!!!

Education – The definitive road to success

There is no denying the fact that today, for any country to prosper, the most formidable pillars embodies in education & research foundations of a country. With a technology driven no-border world, every country relies most heavily on the most abundant & developed resources - humans. Higher education supplemented with research certainly earmarks the renaissance to heal the world of atrocities, ignorance, hatred and march towards a robotic productivity and efficiency in every walk of life.

After taking the charge of HRD Ministry, Dr.Kapil Sibal has a lot to do when it comes to bring the higher education at par with top-notch foreign universities’ and provide enough impetus for conducting world-class research in diversified facets of universe. Rather than opening up the avenues for foreign sub-standard and mediocre institutions in Indian contingent, there is a gamut of measures one need to ponder on for higher literacy and improving education.

The point where we need to begin is at primary and secondary education level. The scenario present today gives an image of a pyramid having three layers with maximum students waiting to get elementary education present at the bottom most level and still deprived of the resources and opportunities, the middle level comprising of students at senior secondary level not able to complete their studies due to lack of right enthusiasm and orientation, and the top triangular region comprising of very few students undertaking research with futile facilities accrued to them. The solution lies in re-orienting the pyramid to work out a win-win-win situation for all the three categories of future potentials. This can be explained with the help of the following diagram:

The first diagram shows the number of students in India at three levels and the second diagram shows the extent of facilities & resources made available to them at the respective levels (merging the two would bring in clarity). Mr. Sibal, what is required is not more meaningless facilities at the top but the greatest dedication towards the bottom i.e. the youngest lot. If problems at this level are rooted out, one would not wonder the closing in of the day when reservations in all forms can get siphoned off from the Indian contingent from every sphere of life & work, and convert s small fraction of research students into a vast pool (as shown in diagrams above). What we need to accomplish is the grooming of the bud in form of adequate provision of mid-day meals, Sarva Shiskha Abhiyan, Women & Child protection and empowerment and many more multitude of operations. Girl child needs to get educated and at par with boys with every right accrued to them. Subjects of morality, society and discipline needs to be incorporated in every class of school curriculum till the senior secondary education levels.

At the elementary level, more efforts need to be called for from non-working mothers to help in preparing meals for kids in schools where their wards study. This can be complimented with NREGA in villages and grams. Teachers’ attendance need to be properly supervised by the school authorities and submitted to the board for scrutinizing, sudden checks, and promotions. Awareness campaigns need to be launched on regular intervals at every village and small towns to educate ignorant masses towards keeping a tab on school authorities and their kid’s progress at school. Monetary incentives need to be proliferated on a wider scale to promote girl education.

At the senior secondary level, students need to be shown a more grown-up like attitude and give them the freedom to try out different diversified things. Students should be given real life trainings on different aspects like a day in the life of a traffic cop, drills, tutoring the down-trodden and needy, and certified for the same. Incentives in form of certificates pave a successful mechanism for making the maximum students try out their hand at different activities. To bring in transparency in the work carried out by government officials in different state and central governments’ initiatives, students from this level need to be given the authority to understand and inspect the work in progress and prepare reports. This would not only remove corruption, but also help them work towards the government’s cause which gets declared in form of government certificates.

At the highest level of education, students need to be given the right opportunities in form of monetary aids and all the help from prolific researchers, academicians and scholars in form of recurring events, tours & trips etc. They need to be given international exposure by initiatives to be taken by government in form of research conducting countries’ cruises and see the way researches are carried there. I was once asked by R.B.I(Delhi) Director & Team, what is the reason for such a low no. of hardware engineers in India? Well, I certainly do not agree with the statement, but there’s an underlying truth if we compare hardware professionals with other professions. The low numbers primarily point towards the fallacies in the system beginning at the root levels coupled with inadequate facilities/ opportunities given at the highest levels of education. It is this stage which can pave the success of India from being a service dominant industry to the biggest manufacturing hub of tomorrow.

Living it down-under

Apropos to the events unfolding in Australia, one wonders with awe the atrocities meted out to foreign students. In times when globalization speak for unification of different people, cultures and countries all over, these events come as a serious surprise to every rational being. What happened to Sharvan Kumar, or Sourabh Sharma and couple of other students evident the loop holes still widely prevalent in the so called multi-cultural, multi-ethnic world? But isn’t the hypothesis of calling these events racist too early a conclusion? Or is it pure stupor that India attaches to such events on foreign soil? Well, the answer lays in the future course of action and framework definition to protect the interests of foreign students and workers.

Before one can jump on to any conclusion that could be highly detrimental, one needs to weigh in all the reasons that caused all this to happen. Looking tangentially, I wonder if international cricket and specifically the rivalry between Indian and Australian cricket time resulted into this foray. With high decibel sledging by Australian cricketers ‘down-under’, and an un-equivocal status of BCCI in world cricket, the game between two sides give an impression of battle on the turf. Harbhajan Singh episode with Andrew Symonds in recent past has only proliferated tensions between the two countries. The correlation between sports world, specifically cricket and the social life is derived from the sentiments the sport drive on crazy spectators and game lovers. And that too in both the counties. We might not get to see an Australian beaten-up in Indian subcontinent, but can we really be optimistic about the same happening down-under? Or can we really forget what Indians have also done to foreign tourists in the past, even when they were not remotely connected to the world of cricket? Well, both the answers are right in front of all of us. Infact, Harbhajan singh’s cousin’s son, Utpal Singh also lost his life in Australia in one of those similar attacks.

Racism would set in when one enters into an elite territory, a superior state from a beleaguered or less prosperous one. But that case doesn’t fit for countries like Australia. Australia is first of all no one-culture nation, rather it has always been supportive of different people thronging from different countries all over the world. This country have had a tough past as migrants (Aborigines), one could not rebuke this country for few events which are unwanted. It has been for years that Indian students go for higher studies like hotel management hospitality industry to Australia in addition to a number of Bollywood movies being shot and screened there. So, in a nut shell, racism is uncalled for, but if indeed this evil is the grim reality, then one could only feel sorry for a foreign country like Australia who belied what they stood for.

At micro-level, an inspection would be highly full-filling. For we need to connect what was common amongst all the accidents no matter where they happened. Was it a clear demand of moolah (Australian dollars) by Australian students/ nationals which invigorated them to take such harsh steps? Or was it a personal vendetta or enmity of past? I strongly support the fact that culprits should be brought to book and framework needs to be defined which could help cultivate the on-going relationship between not just our two countries but also all over the world.

Wishing a speedy recovery to all the students/ nationals, and message from the heart of every Indian, ‘take care!!!’

Nurturing a new-born baby

The topic may seem out of place on this blog but surely a right guide for young mothers, for it would certainly help them relinquish few myths & strategies that need to be implemented when it comes to baby care. I’m not a father, but by nurturing my niece, or by taking care of her, I certainly have learnt a lot about children especially the newly born ones. And since I’ve seen the bud up-and-coming, I would certainly like to share my experience in form of few suggestions and advices.

Please do not consider any of these suggestions as the gospel’s truth, as they are entirely personal and just a ray of light to siphon-off perils of darkness for young mothers. Hope they come handy and feel free to reject any of them if not found suitable.

a)  First of all, the most important thing is to remember that the baby’s bones are highly fragile and should not ever be pulled or pushed too hard ever. They would generally take a long duration to develop and grow strong. Try taking care of them like a tender flower waiting to blossom.

b) A 5 month baby asks not just for attention, but also for toys or things that it can grab or hold. It would try clasping your fingers if offered, a small soft toys etc/ So kindly give due attention to babies during this stage so that they feel important and loved. They would not ask, but would give signals like:-

a. A yell would mean a sense of appreciation and enjoyment.

b. Constant or recurring yells would mean the wanting sign of attention needed to play

c. Open arms or trying to extend arms towards you would mean want of mother’s lap.

d. After playing for some time, a gentle cry would mean the time for a meal like milk/ceralac etc.

c)  A baby (my niece) would feel the most comfortable when kept in hand-driven prams (push-car) and taken for a light & gentle stroll. This generally makes them feel sleepy and go into a long slumber.

d) Never push the baby to drink the entire milk, but rather play with it to divert his/her mind so that it enjoys drinking the milk (for a baby of 4 to 5 months). Always use the right temperature for milk to be served and give adequate breaks to baby to have it drunk completely. Mantra would be: Slow and steady wins the race. Try not to rotate the milk bottle when in baby’s mouth, for rotation would only cause the uneven rate of milk flow into mouth and build up unnecessary pressure for baby to make larger gulps.

e)  Babies most often would respond to sounds like hand’s twitching, clapping and they find it a fun when done on recurrent basis.

f)  Please avoid showing babies mirrors to see themselves as I believe it only creates confusion and chaos in a small mind. May be a bit absurd thought but would still suggest avoidance of mirrors.

g)  A one to two month baby when crying feels most relaxed in somebody’s lap with a gentle care. Try giving soothing swings with care, without making them very shaky or vibrant but rather smooth and relaxing. This makes them go into a sleep.

   Please note the views are entirely my personal experience and expressed here. Please use all the logic, rationale and common sense in this world while taking care of your baby and above all, look at every perspective while taking care with love and emotions in your heart for the small stars. All the best!!!

 

A balancing Act

19th May, 2008: for the past one week, there has been no respite from scorching heat in Delhi. One wonder if this marks the peak of summers, or June has more sweltering blaze waiting to be gushed out? There is no denying the fact that as the time progresses the ecological system moves towards a more unstable state, the one with colder winters and hotter summers. Do two negatives make a positive? Well think twice when it comes to instability in weather. With more heat and intense cold, the equation isn’t a balancing one, but definitely the one which has its variables moving away from the state of equilibrium.

How an individual feel relieved from the inferno outside his/her home or working place? By using an air conditioned mode of transportation, or by drinking loads of drinks and juices, or by other means which can provide an easy respite. But are all these measures sustainable or are they really affordable by majority of the individuals on the run for major proportion of the day? The answer is a clear no. So what exactly are the sustainable measures that need to be taken care of?

One must realize that higher temperatures are a global issue and it can only be tackled if every individual understands the gravity of the problems it would result in near future. There would be 100’s of articles available explaining various methods of combating with scorching heat and keeping it cool, I would only like to enumerate the measures that would result in a balanced ecosystem & hence eliminate alternative ways to beat the heat.

a)     The most important task would be to plant as many trees as possible, or if possible, to plant one tree for every tree cut. For majority of us, as citizens of society, this is a long run practical approach concurred by most but rarely implemented by one. One needs to understand how important is afforestation/ reforestation and how important are trees in lowering the rising temperatures. It is evident from the scenario in villages (which also in fact are getting industrialized in today’s times) where lanes of trees provide a soothing touch of cool air just like an air-conditioner. Planting of trees has a multiplier effect. And not only does it result in stabilizing weather, it also result in creating jobs and improving work efficiencies and productivity. Planting more trees would result in preserving our ecological system. It would also help in lowering temperatures and hence more outdoor activities like going to work, undertaking field tasks etc would become easier. This would improve employee efficiency and organization’s productivity. Trees also provide natural home to diverse bird species & animals. Trees also help in preventing soil erosion and hence prevent floods from occurring. In a nut shell, one tree can solve multitude of our problems, think about having as many as possible? Wouldn’t that change the face of the earth and reduce the amount spent on developing alternative sources of energy to balance eco-system.

b)     Make use of car pools is another important measure that needs to be taken on a broader scale. Wisdom not lies in driving the most efficient (on mileage) car single handedly, but rather using any vehicle as a group most efficiently. With ‘nano’ stars waiting to be sparkled across every street and corner of the country, it is highly advisable to make use of each unit to its fullest capacity if possible. People staying in one colony should develop a car pool for to & fro journeys between the place of work and home. This would drastically reduce the fuel consumption and hence quash the ever growing constant demand on conventional sources of energy.

c)     Traffic signals provide an effective mechanism for conserving the limited fuel in each vehicle. Had there been no traffic signals, it would have only resulted in creating chaos on roads and increasing cases of accidents due to high speeds in addition to pollution burden. And high speed results in more fuel consumption, and hence more pollution. An individual should switch off the vehicle when the wait time period is at least 30 seconds. If all vehicles preserve fuel by above step, it would only result in saving up to tones of fuel on monthly basis. Hence increasing the supply, lowering the demand and hence prices.

d)    Make use of Metro trains as & when possible. Not only metro trains’ help in covering far reaches of a place, but they also provide a rather comforting journey at the most competitive prices. So shouldn’t the Metro trains be made use of if the distance to be covered is long enough to walk down?

Would come up with more sustainable measures which are present right in front of us, one just need the vision to make use of!!!

Till then take care and enjoy summer with cool drinks and loads of water….