An idea for major ailments

                Daily I come across a number of patients who are financially not well-off to get treated for various diseases. Though governments across the states do have schemes to provide free treatment including surgeries to these people, I found one practical problem where repeated treatments/drugs are needed. Patients do get help but it is often fragmented in nature.

                As we might have come across, cost of healthcare and drugs has increased keeping some advanced drugs and patented versions out of reach of common people. They are so costly that some of you reading this might also not be in a position to afford if needed frequently. The situation is further aggravated in Left Wing Extremism affected districts where there is lack of economic development compared to other well-off regions, keeping those out of the reach of the needy people. Somehow I feel this problem needs to be solved or addressed by good donors, good people. This idea struck to me today on a Sunday. 

                Let us hope there is a network of people/corporates/trusts who can send drugs across to the needy people for free. Let us also have a mechanism to raise such requirement from the local area either through District hospitals or through NGOs or any other mechanism and such requirement shall be verified by any qualified doctor. The donors download the prescriptions uploaded through the website and they check the prescriptions before sending drugs.  Here prescriptions are also uploaded from time to time to the web and in advance, say 10-15 days. Delivery of such drugs can be directly made to the person concerned and this avoids any chance of misuse.

Hope some of you reading can bring the above change through CSR, some of you come forward to develop such a website.

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Today I was just wondering how should I plan to save the tax I pay. One of the so called experts suggested that you should go for equity tax funds. I was wondering what does they mean. Ok! fine .. lets try was my answer.

There is a lot of technical jargon surrounding those. Some one has suggested you see the name of fund manger in addition to fund name .. some suggested to check the past performance .. which again is a question mark. considering the risk disclosure statement - past performance may not be sustained in future ...

Then I happened to see the full portfolio of what each fund holds. Ironically, I find that most of the funds hold similar stocks.. to be more precise stocks with huge market capitalisation comprise their portfolio. As is self explanatory, some of them are also not growing as expected. For Gods sake,, rumours and speculations rule the roost. India is never devoid of talent and there are many great fund managers in India, some of them are experts at the field of investing.

What lacks is the diversity. There are very few options if we dig deeper into this ELSS business. If any financial intellectual is reading this, I have only one question. Is there any ELSS fund where investor can pick his share of allotment to stocks - large mid small cap and money market.

May be it is time for Indian Industry to come up with a balanced ELSS fund where good share of money is invested in money markets and part of it can be kept as cash/call.

Where is AP heading ??

During the past decade, there is a rise in the number of power centers in AP. and Now another row within Congress ...........

Will AP become another Tamil Nadu, the politics in the later being dominated by the regional parties ... Of course the rise in regional power centers can be attributed to a different cause in AP ....

Where is AP heading ??

The day after FC

I got up like every other day hoping that dreams become realities

Walked out of room to find barely filled places, deserted lounges, locked rooms and empty corridors

Those iron structures started melting, ever for the first time in the history they broke down

thanks to the liveliness of the people in the academy, many of whom left

I felt I am very strong
But in the end I discovered it otherwise and started imitating.......

My heart is so porous and mind u friends your absence is piercing it

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Life is a train
At times it moves, at times it doesn't
When it moves it can be fast or slow
At times it stops at lively places and at times at deserted places
You may be alone or you may have a group
You like people around you or you may not

But you keep missing those who deboarded all along your journey

My status

learning how to cut without a scissors, paste without gum, copy without carbon/xerox

Forbes Top 20 powerful (????????????) women

Today I bumped into forbes list of powerful women. lets see how far it can be accepted. It was claimed that their rankings are a combination of two scores: visibility -- by press mentions -- and the size of the organisation or country these women lead...

Indian women Ms. Kochar, Ms. Sonia and Ms. Nooyi feature in that list.. Ms. Nooyi is ranked far ahead of Ms. Sonia Gandhi. And then people like Hillary, Nancy Pelosi are ranked far below.

The visibility of a sovereign democratic republic India is far greater than that of Pepsi or Icici.. Still I don't understand the funda behind Forbes' rationale.

The size of the country too is enormous, being the 2nd most populous. Organisations like Pepsi or ICICI can never even dream of having 1 crore workers atleast..

Once I started thinking, For a moment, I was shocked... Are these lists believable / reliable ...........
Now its left to your individual judgement..............

My railway budget wishlist

Being a civil servant, I cannot comment on the railway budget but here goes my wish-list. There are a few constraints but again we can't stop thinking citing a few reasons.

First time I travelled to Delhi by train, it's in 2002 and it took 26 hours to reach the destination. Even in the last month same time by the same train. Now I started wondering how fast development is ? Agreed that amenities improved a bit comparatively.

Even I do notice that tracks are generally 2 and are increasing but slowly. Can such a density be handled just by 2. Frequent crossovers interrupt the journey and tend to increase the time. Again time for much quicker implementation.

Still we are in the gauge conversion when many countries are going ahead with bullet trains. Shortly it will be high time we have them.

Mass rapid transit systems are limited to a few cities, what about others fast catching up.............

Compare the basic facilities at Nizamuddin and Secunderabad, the 2nd is far better. With decent effort we can definitely replicate a few across India.

All said and done, there are many positive developments perceivable by us. Scale is both an asset and liability for India, but we need to conquer it with sheer effort.

Mantra would be: more tracks, more routes, more trains, more speeds and more amenities

My evergreen crush

I again fell. It happens to be the same old gold and bold one but evergreen Delhite. Previously I couldn't find what is so nice and why I am being dragged. A small change in the way I approach. Something different. Just cause my mind became totally free and blank, I was able to observe the beauty. Each time I bumped into, the experience is unique and my love for it deepened.


Now lets talk business!!

U might be wondering the ,, its very short sweet,, Try guessing it. Hmm , got bored, here it is "Metro"

The experience was wonderful, Previously I am preoccupied with many things that I could not find the beauty of it: carrying hundreds in a train, thousands in a day, millions a month and many more going forward.

The clean sleek look , neat ambience , the journey are all very much memorable and enjoyable for many.

It is a brilliant example of how technology can do wonders for the common man. A new fast and smart way of transporting people and reducing the urban congestion on the typical Indian cities' roads. It too has another angle i.e. environment. Again a proof that technology can even save the environment, this is too those who are against technology.

All kudos to Sreedharan and we need much more from him and many people like him...

GS for Civils

A few tips go below how to crack GS. Surprisingly I can say proudly that I scored the highest in GS without any coaching. I never attended any institute and it is easily achievable with just commonsense and hardwork. I did refer to a few handouts of a few institutes but there are just add-ons once the basics are in place. In Delhi, you can get the handouts in some xerox shops.. Luckily I found them in Old Rajinder Nagar.

Point-wise

Multidimensional answer

Pick from newspapers,websites

Quote the source of your information if possible

Improve both the content and the speed:

With both,I could write 200 words for 150 and 300 for 250 with full relevancy. Brain should work like a computer so as not to spend much time thinking what to write. Be prepared before-hand itself how you are going to handle a few questions.

If you have interest in a particular area, develop it so as to maximise your score ex.. foreign relations, economics etc

The above will be dealt with deeply in a few days!!!!!!!!!!!

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Now comes I followed for GS. All I did was to maximise the points I could put over there by referring to various sources.

Please excuse me for being a little bit tech-savvy when it comes to GS. But I found some things useful and interesting. Search engines helped me a lot. Thanks to them too!! :))

History : Spectrum, Bipin chandra, scattered books for Indian culture ( pick one)

Geography: Its my optional but I suggest NCERT for others

Polity: Basic-DD Basu, Add on for that -- Vajiram polity or Srirams polity; some current topics from newspapers like cases etc

Social Issues: No preparation but its just commonsense. Its left to u.

Oil/Trade Diplomacy: Internet ( FAQs in a few websites like WTO and other press releases and summaries) + Srirams

Economics: Its my field of interest; New-papers and internet (Minsitry of Commerc, Finanace, Newsitems/Reports of Multilateral organisations (ex: World Investment Report ...) etc) mainly supplemented by Srirams Handout for Economy

International/Foreign Relations: Mostly Ministry of external Affairs for India's Relations with other countries; Newspapers, Civil Services Times Magazine. u can have a glance at websites like World politics Review , bbc (especially the timelines which u can find in it) etc. Again my field of interest but don't ask me why I didn't opt for IFS :D

Statistics: NCERT and I glanced another small book. Sorry could not recollect the name of the author

Science and Technology: TMH by ashok Singh.. Again newspapers are handy and topics like IPTV which are in news last time are covered in some. heard that a few 2 markers are picked from Science Reporter but I missed. Whether u can be exhaustive or not, its left to you.


After quoting so many sources, I understand that it is a tough job to cover each and everything. I suggest you guys to have a quick look and decide according to your priority. Cover all the topics and once you are comfortable with the entire syllabus, develop your strong areas and try to score as much in them. Ex: If you are good at statistics, try to score 30 out of 30 in that. Just remember that each word is valuable in GS.

My own Quotes

Please dont ask for explanations. This is just of a store-house of one-liners I ever imagine.

On your way to success, intelligence may help you a couple of times but hardwork always.

I prayed that the days would last but they went so fast ( just memorising a few :D)

You may be a question bank but I am not all-in-one.