Musings Own Thoughts

 India in 1989 was a story of despair for the Congress party. More than 400 seats in Parliament on the back of a sympathy wave due to the assasination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi was a dream cum true, yet the leader made crucial errors and lost all opportunities. The Bofors scam and the rebellion of his own colleague V. P Singh led to a defeat in 1989. A coalition government led by Janta Dal a combination of fragments of Janata Party supported from the outside by BJP came to power. The implementation of the Mandal Commission recomendations created unrest and many of the middle class voters like me who saw V P Singh as a great honest hero were extremely disappointed. If merit were to be crushed at the altar of politics then does this nation have a future? The image of the self immolation of a student is still fresh in my memory.  BJP played up the RamJanmabhoomi agitation and claimed that the secular governments were appeasing Muslims. They withdrew support to VP Singh and India saw ...

  I really do not know why I have chosen this topic. I only know one thing, I need to write what I feel to bring clarity to my thoughts. Is my country India or Bharat or Hindustan and should the geographical border that stands today define my nation or the ancient entity engulfing the sub continent including most of our neighbours define India? Well a nation is a notional man made entity and for all practical purposes is almost thought of as one among many. However, if I want to talk about the universe as against a country I can think of two Indians who could think and straddle both entities with ease, Nobel Laureate Rabindrnath Tagore and Aurbindo Ghosh. Many of us may consider Mahatma Gandhi to have a worldwide influence and relevance far beyond his lifetime but the debates between Tagore and Gandhi in letters exchanged makes me think that poet was more inclusive and universal at least in his lifetime than the Mahatma of those times.            ...

   In the Kathaupanishad there is a story of Nachiketa son of a King who at the end of his tenure was ostensibly giving up worldly possessions. His sharp son quickly realised that his father was only giving up old and relatively less useful possessions as he was still not truly free from the lure of worldly treasures. As with most fathers when an upstart son points out his mistake, Nachiketa’s father reacted angrily. The young son a genuine seeker of knowledge was not one to give up easily. So in fit of anger the powerful King uttered “I give up my dearest possession my son Nachiketa to Yama the God of death”. So Nachiketa was sent to the other world to meet Yama the God of death before the ordained time of death. The parable goes on to state that since Yama was not present Nachiketa had to wait three days and nights to meet him. When Yama finally came home he quickly grasped the situation made a plan to bail Nachiketa out. He welcomed the seeker and granted him three boons on...

  Digital Hospitals are they any different from hospitals as we know them? Just like any other experience of service industry can become user friendly and efficient, healthcare can be the same too. The reason healthcare needs to reach that state is that unlike other industry customer interactions, the customer here is usually in a distressed state and at such moments unable to express his needs. The concept of the digital hospital of the future is an utopian state wherein it is linked to wearable devices of users and is constantly monitoring the state of health of it's customer. It ensures medicines are taken on time and dose of medicine is automatically adjusted to the status of the monitored parameters. Preventive maintenance in the form of monitoring vital parameters and measuring levels of all measurable risk factors is done in customized packages. This to me makes Digital hospitals different from hospitals which practice medicine as we know as treating symptoms after they mani...