UPA Changed more than 4 decade old Kendiya Vidyalaya logo as it has Lotus (BJP's symbol)

In a move that touches the pit’s bottom, the UPA government has changed the emblem of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan from Lotus and shining Sun to Cross and Crescent. Ironically this symbol was approved when congress was in govt and no body had ever thought that there will be a political party in India having lotus as symbol. And this has been done in the name of “broader reflection of national ethos.”



Please check this on sangathan's website http://kvsangathan.nic.in/


Earlier as we all familiar used to be as below:




The Board of Governors of KVS in its 79th meeting held on 26.6.2008 approved the new logo and a circular was sent to all the offices and schools of the Sangathan on July 17, 2008, to change the emblem in all the publications and communications. Though the chairman of KVS, HRD Minister Arjun Singh did not attend the meeting, the minutes of the meeting stated that the emblem has been approved by the chairman. His deputy Shri Md Ali Ashraf Fatmi, Minister of State, HRD & Deputy Chairman, was also not present at the meeting. The circular issued by the Asst. Commissioner (Acad I), KVS, said “in order to give a broader reflection of national ethos and ought (sic) to be inclusive of challenges, opportunities, rationalistic, scientific and global thinking, advances in science & technology and social changes taking place in the society” (sic) the new emblem has been created.The picture shows a book with blank pages, and apparently two human forms emerging from globe. The crescent (an Islamic symbol) and two crosses and stars (Christian) are obvious (see the 1st picture above - new logo).


Kendriya Vidyalaya, a system of Central government schools for children of employees of India's central government was established in 1965. Initially it was called "Central School" (reason was exactly as mentioned above). The name change from "Central School" to "Kendriya Vidyalaya" was a part of the drive to make it more Indian which we can back with the facts that it also lead to a lot of the syllabus becoming more Sanskrit and pure Hindi based, with options for students to take Social Studies in Hindi or English, which was not during initial years of establishment. The Sanskrit prayers and higher level of Hindi curriculum was a part of the same drive which included the change of names in official titles such as Syndicate becoming Sangathan and so was the names of houses within schools.

So why suddenly HRD ministry lead by Mr. Arun Singh has realized that everything done was wrong.

A UPA government also released coins of Rs 2 denomination with cross on them.



http://www.newstodaynet.com/2007sud/mar07/210307.htm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM4UTMvMz7E
http://www.petitiononline.com/cross2cn/petition.html

Coining term “Hindu Terrorism”- vote politics of Congress+ (UPA) mostly will play boomerang

"We never used the term Muslim Terrorism. Instead we used to call that Jehadi Terrorism. However, some people have coined a new term Hindu Terrorism to appease some people and garner votes during elections" - BJP National spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Remember 2004 diwali, Swami Jayendra Saraswati was arrested while performing puja from Shankara math in Kanchipuram. The secular (silent: pseudo) world (read Congress+) celebrated victory of law and constitutional propriety. When nothing was proved, all the chargesheets turned bunkum. SC gave a verdict favouring the swami’s release on bail, but no one retracted the strong, often abusive words used for the Hindu monk. It was met with silence as if nothing important had happened.

One Krishna Janmashtami night, another ochre-robed reformist monk, Swami Lakshmanananda, was murdered along with an aged Hindu nun, Ma Bhaktimoyee, in his ashram.

Last year too the 2006 Malegaon blasts were blamed on Hindus. Later the agencies proved they were done by SIMI.

This time again Hindus are labelled "Terrorists". Why media forgot 60+ people who were killed by Muslims extremists in Assam and concentrating on Malegaon? Why people suddenly forgot Afjal guru? Why we have no series of debates on Muslaims being involved with terrorism for last 240 blasts (killing thousands) which happened in our country in last decade?


Suppose anyone starts a ’Support Pragya Fund’ how many Hindu saints and ashrams leaders would come with helping hands? Doesn’t she deserve help and support till proved innocent?

Unlike the innocent little Jamia students of the university’s vice chancellor, who were arrested from the area of the Batla House encounter, Pragya was in Surat, giving a religious discourse when the Malegaon blasts occurred in September. Remember, this is same Univ which gets a large amount of Saudi grants, and which thought it appropriate to honour a Muslim painter whose nudes of Hindu gods and goddesses. The same Jaa-Mia's VC, in a display of public affection for those students arrested for treason by a Congress government, declared that he will fund their 'struggle' as they are his 'children' and they would be considered innocent till proved guilty.

The same(hippocrate) secular world applauded his decision as bold and highly moral.

The term 'Hindu terrorism' looks so attractive to secularists. Proof, evidence, and final acquittal may take year. But the articles, front page edits, condemnations, further isolation, and cornering of the saffron side, would help someone. MOST IMPORANT IS THAT "IT IS SELLABLE". SO WHT NOT TO SELL IT!

If we not act now, then who will?

One thing is sure, this will act as boomerang to dear UPA and their vote banks as it happened in after 1992 event.

एकदम अस्पस्ट है शायद इस देश में धर्म - निरपेक्षता नामक जूमला सिर्फ़ अल्पसंख्यको की हिमायत के लिए ही बना है! हिंदू धर्म की भावनाओं पर धार्मिक स्वतंत्रता लागु नहीं होती! एक साध्वी के बयानों पर उसे यातनाएं दी जा -रही हैं, जबकि दिल्ली की जामाँ-मस्जिद से देश के खिलाफ बगावत कराने के फतवा जरी कराने वालों के खिलाफ, क्या आजतक कोई कारवाही ऐसी की गई जैसी की साध्वी के ख़िलाफ़ की गई! शायद हमारे देश में धर्म -निरपेक्षता का यही मायने है! ज्वलंत और प्रेरक प्रतिक्रियाएं दे, अन्यथा हमेशा की तरह जिन्दुओं को कमजोर सोंचा जाएगा! हर हर महादेव !!

Subprime in India: Probability and sustainability

The idea came after reading one blog (and receiving on email from friend).

During late 90s and early 2000, interest rates fell dramatically because of excess liquidity and prices of homes rose sharply which influenced average Americans to unlock this wealth by taking mortgage loans. People took two advantages; obtained liquidity at very high price (of homes) but with relatively lowest interest rate (count bracket for past 20 yrs). This resulted to sharp rise in money flow in market, consumer spending and global growth.

[Problem identified] : Banks didn’t calculated correct inventory cost before offering mortgage loans. US and other countries standard GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) says "Inventories are valued at cost or market, whichever is lower [ARB No. 43, Chapter 4, Para. 8] - http://accountinginfo.com/study/inventory/inventory-150.htm" But banks in greed to earn out of booming market and in hurry did this mistake. Now the property is almost worthless to them.

Something can happen in Indian context also.

Moving further, inflationary pressures led to a gradual hike in interest rates and house prices went down when demand decreased w.r.t. availability and most of them could not provide cover for the mortgage loans. The extra liquidity gradually vanished (to India / China) and above proposal became riskier.

[Problem] Risk analysis; says that return to risk factors should have been considered in better way before offering quick loans. In India too, maximum loans are with either NRIs or IT/ITES employees; all too direct/indirect/outsourced US economy dependent employees. When the global slowdown is prevailing and people are loosing jobs, cost cutting is buzzword every where then who will pay the loan with such inflated interest rated EMIs? Price is drastically decreasing, sometime builders' lobby cushion this to save them selves but no one can deny the 25-30% downfall of price in Bangalore and Navi Mumbai despite current 12% inflation with 12.5% interest rate. So in reality the current real estate price devaluation is of around 50%.

So above factors signals India’s slow move towards sub prime crisis alike US but after 1-2 yrs from now when crisis axis shifts to developing nations like us as ripple effect.

So what should be learning from Sub Prime Crisis for us:-

1. Robust banking practices: One of the root causes of the sub prime mortgage is the unsound credit practices. Housing loan frauds are not exceptions in India and the aggressiveness with which housing loans are being sold by violating sound credit practices cannot be ignored. Personal loans and overdue credit cards are the other areas which the regulators and bankers should handle carefully because they also have the equipotent to plunge the Indian banking sector into a crisis.

2. Limited investment by Indian companies abroad: Do prudent investment abroad, reckless investment in the derivatives market by banks and financial institutions has to be controlled.

In the recent crisis, BNP Paribas of France and Macquarie Bank of Australia got affected because of such overseas investments. Indian banks' exposure to the sub prime crisis of US is minimal (except to ICICI).

I personally feel many Tata (and other India Inc.) M&A deals of yr 2007 can be bracketed in heavy risk zone, at least for short duration i.e. ~ 5 yrs, which if could have been delayed would have yielded better.

3. Controlled Derivatives market: Derivatives are financial instruments, which can spread the default risk attaching to loans. Derivatives lead to such a chain reaction that it will be nearly impossible to quantify the risk of exposure to bad loans and advances subsequently. RBI and GOI should prohibit indiscriminate use of such derivatives if they intend to introduce such products in India.


4. Quality Inward Investment: FDI should be given priority over FIIs as history has shown that flight of capital in case of FDI is low compared to that in respect of FIIs. Due to their stable nature, FDI can help in the growth of the country's infrastructure in much better way.

Is there any Commonwealth (Youth) Games going on in any part of India?

Is there any Commonwealth (Youth) Games going on in any part of India?

If you are asking this, doesn’t mean you are ignorant or you don’t watch TV or read news paper (means to "World-Pune"). But still you cannot be said to be updated about what’s going on in our country. In addition to all these chaotic news of financial crisis, bull becoming bear at Dalal Street there is one good event happening in India. India is hosting 3rd Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune, which are held every four years. This is first Commonwealth Youth Games to be held in Asia. The 3rd Commonwealth Youth Games is scheduled from 12th to 18th October 2008. Over 1,300 athletes and 350 officials from 71 countries will participate in 9 disciplines.

http://cygpune2008.com



But who cares about it. The Union Cabinet approved and made available the release of total funds of Rs.110 crores for the conduct of Commonwealth Youth Games. Few crores were added from State Govt. funds, PMC and MP's funds also.

http://www.skalmadi.org/section/commonwealth_youth_games

So our hard earned cash which is filtered as taxes by govt. is being seldom spend for some noble and global event and we don’t even know about it.

Whom to blame? - Of course our very own media.

Media (esp. Hindi news channels) have time to showcase comedy program like 'hasoge to phasoge', 'rakhi abhishek slap bulletin', frustrating serials which defames astrology, numerology, astrophysics by inviting “dongi babas” and talking on what will happen when Mars crashes with earth on 8:8:8 AM 8/8/08, I guess it was auspicious day when Bejing Olympics started and we in India were waiting for dismissal of our beautiful planet. Another channel’s favorite poster boy is - The Mahabali Khali (the great loser of WWF), undesired weird crime serials like crime reporter, vaardaat and of course 'Sansani'whose anchor himself seems like a criminal! - Chain se sona ha to jaag jao. Phew... abey nautanki! agar main jaagunga to sounga kaise...

Tune into any Hindi news channel any time throughout the day and here you are caught; you will be at the receiving end of the cheapest and sleaziest news reports and they will proudly serve thrashes.

The formula these news networks rely on is pretty simple. Any event or information that promises to break the monotony of real life can be considered” breaking news" as long as it can be presented with a dash of sensationalism.

The standard of the Indian media especially the Hindi and vernacular media is nose-diving at an alarming speed.

Creating sensational and over hyped news items through sting operations, manipulation and even through exaggeration are now passé for the Indian media; the emerging trend in news coverage in India is one of exploiting and cultivating the regressive mindset of a large section of the population. These channels are selling journalism for greed of few TRPs whose core value is to bring truth and justice to common people. Indian Journalism either needs to be redefined or we have to coin a name for these activities so that we don’t lose the meaning of the word “Journalism”.

Recent Global Financial Turmoil and Available Financial Regulations/Complaince/Controls and Future

From the past several months, world is watching financial markets, sharpened concerns about credit quality induced a retrenchment by investors, leading in some cases to significant deterioration in market functioning.

It is the sub-prime crisis. I remember one MBA student narrating how one of his friends reacted when he was asked on "sub prime" in a placement interview.

Interviewer: What is "Sub prime"?
Student: Tells every thing about sub prime crisis. Interviewer was patiently listening all his “gyanbhari batein”.
Interviewer: I asked what is "Sub prime"? Not "Sub prime crisis".
Student: Silent for few secs and suddenly show reflection of brilliant idea coming up and says "It is a form of loan".

Then the interviewer said have you heard any about Sub prime lending?

So it obvious that everyone knows about crisis but not about the origin and what is crisis is for?

We say it “near-prime” “non-prime” or “second chance” lending or anything other than Prime…. huh …. This financial term involves financial institutions providing credit to borrowers deemed "sub prime" or "under-banked”.



The culprit goes here.  Sub-prime might also refer to a security for which a return above the "prime" rate is received, sometime also named as C-paper. Sub-prime lending started with the demand in the marketplace for loans to lesser ideal customers, those with imperfect credit. I don’t know for what greed many companies without proper credit value analysis and market / capital projection of assets, entered the market when the prime interest rate was low, allowing modest sub-prime rates to flourish. Many others entered with the relaxation of usury laws. Here Traditional lenders did right thing which these biggies failed to foresee, by becoming more cautious and historically turning away potential borrowers with impaired or limited credit histories. Around 25% of US population was bucketed into this category. In 1998, the Federal Trade Commission estimated that 10% of new-car financing in the U.S. was provided by sub prime loans, and that $125 billion of $859 billion total mortgage dollars were sub-prime.

But forget it; Institutions were over-optimistic on getting return on these sub-prime loans.

Anyways, here I would like to move further with the question when we were having financial regulations like SOX, Basel II then how come this happened? Sarbanes-Oxley Act, is this really followed and worth full considering current Financial Crisis? Is SOX being followed? Many Financial companies are going bankrupt even after they've implemented "SOX", which is intended to put strict guidelines on financial reporting system. How both this are correct at the same time? Where is the latent gap?

I asked these @ linkedin
http://www.linkedin.com/answers/finance-accounting/financial-regulation/FIN_FRG/340221-23986393?searchIdx=0&sik=1224065697723&goback=.asr_1_1224065697723


SOX which is basically designed to ensure accuracy of financial reporting and disclosures and in the current meltdown when collateralized debt obligations (CDO) were bundled and sold to common investors the underlying assets were correctly valued. However, there was subsequent deterioration in the underlying value of the assets which has resulted into meltdown. The scope of work for SOX is on the risks and related controls over a material misstatement, not over everything

Hence, the current meltdown could not have been detected /prevented due to SOX or compliance to relevant accounting standard. This could have been prevented by more stringent regulatory framework which does not allow non prudent leveraging of the bank asset!

But this is not so straight forward, Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) are an unregulated type of asset-backed security and structured credit product which are constructed from a portfolio of fixed-income assets.

Problem arose when these assets were divided by the ratings firms that assess their value into different trenches: senior trenches (rated AAA) etc with very high value without proper evaluation. Blame it to credit rating Agencies while valuing the product. Few institutions buying CDOs lacked the competency to monitor credit performance and/or estimate expected cash flows. CDO products were held on a mark to market basis later it resulted to the paralysis in the credit markets and the collapse of liquidity in these products. These in line led to substantial write-downs in year 2007. Major loss of confidence occurred in the validity of the process used by ratings agencies to assign credit ratings to CDO trenches and this loss of confidence persists into 2008.

SOX could have never controlled this crisis, but this opens the arena to discuss the fawls in the existing financial regulations and need to either appends some more controls by increasing the scope of SOX or by bringing new regulation / legislation or compliance with checks CDOs, or S&L (Savings and Loan) or SIVs (Structured investment vehicle).

Telecom (Convergence) Testing Model - Part 2

Telecom lifecycle is different from the software lifecycle hence testing strategy should be different and based on requirements to address the issues of converged space first. Existing V or X and other proactive testing models do not address the challenges for end-to-end telecom business solution. Ideal Telecom testing model should fit in multi vendor specific devices in converged space with a common industry acceptance or standards.

The above telecom testing lifecycle is based on the NGOSS telecom lifecycle defined in GB927. Conceptually the NGOSS Lifecycle process is similar to ISO 9001/2 where the standards describe what processes must be in place and what the requirements are on those processes at a high level. However the exact way those processes are realized can vary, provided that they meet the minimum requirements set out in the standard.

NGOSS or "New Generation Operations Systems and Software" is the TeleManagement Forum’s programme to provide ways to help Communication Service Providers to manage their business.

"Any customer request or service development/enhancement can be categorized as a business requirement. The testing lifecycle starts here when the business requirement is analyzed. Once a decision is made on developing the requirement, testing now moves to the system/architecture view where the service developer works on defining a technology neutral method of implementing the requirement. This is followed by the Implementation view where the requirement is implemented. The implementation view in itself would involve certain amount of integration of the component developed in stages. The major view where a telecom based testing pays of is in the deployment view where multiple implementations are integrated during deployment. In a multi service heterogeneous multi vendor environment, the test artifacts and their execution results for the other views serve as input to generation of deployment artifacts that result in providing new service
offerings with a higher degree of flexibility and a shorter time-to-market with minimal or nil failures during operation." - Abstract from "Telecom Testing and Convergence" by Jithesh Sathyan of Infosys Technologies Limited, India.

So what can be test artifacts, it can be anything like test - bed /data/ plan/ case/ tool/ log/ script/ models/ reports for the specific telecom scenarios.




Here we will see the challenges and resolution on two most testing oriented views - Implementation and Deployment.

A. Implementation View

Challenges:

1) Insufficient tools available to test the interfaces between different components.
2) Dependency with third party applications can affect the product functioning.
3) Actual environment and actual traffic unavailable.
4) In legacy systems, there is always some dependency on lower components. Unless lower components are available, you cannot test the higher components independently.
5) Interoperability issues

Resolution:

1) The Implementation view should also look into development of tools to test interfaces for functionality as well as compliancy to standards.
2) Third party tools should have well defined interface description as well as the shared information and data model.
3) Use best available simulators / emulators.
4) Migrate to open standards and products which interoperate well with legacy also.

B. Deployment View

Challenges

1) Standardized telecom testing model covering end-to-end telecom lifecycle is lacking.
2) Non-standardized and proprietary language in defining telecom test related artifacts.
3) No standardization in testing tools for compliance testing of standards and policies.
4) No testing benchmark exists today that can be used for end-to-end lifecycle validation.

Resolution

1) Follow the telecom lifecycle approach in testing which uses NGOSS lifecycle as backbone
2) Standard bodies to work on developing templates and contracts for test artifacts
3) Testing tools should be defined and developed at implementation view to check for compliance to standards, policies and interfaces.


How NGOSS Concept can help?

Step 1) The eTOM (enhanced Telecom Operations Map, pronounced ee-tom) is the NGOSS business process framework.

Step 2) Map telecom process with eTOM and Analyse the resource requirements. Map TAM (telecom application map) on testing specific applications.

Step 3) Define the test artifacts based on shared information and data (SID) and map.

Step 4) Map TMF artifacts for developing test artifacts for specific requirements.

So, when we are done with detailed Mapping of testing to NGOSS concepts of eTOM, TAM, SID and TNA and generation of test artifacts. Analysis can be performed to understand how and if system models and processes align with the NGOSS frameworks.

There are few companies which are working and have products for the same. One of them is Metabula. Metabula have extended their NGOSS conformance solution (with analysis) for SID framework to include cross referencing with eTOM framework.

Sources:
http://www.tmforum.org/browse.aspx
http://www.metabula.com/details/schemaanalysis.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGOSS

Telecom (Convergence) Testing Model - Part 1

In today’s world "Telecom" can be named as one of the very few business verticals which are evolving and growing consistently with convergence as one of the key ingredients. When we talk about convergence we dont imagine to miss IMS, NGN or SIP.

3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standardized Next Generation Network (NGN) architecture which intends to integrate the services provided by the existing IP network with the mobility of portable digital devices like 3G cellular phone. IMS defines a complete architecture and framework that enables the convergence of voice, video, data and mobile network technology over an IP-based infrastructure. It bridges the gap between the two most successful communication paradigms, cellular and Internet technology.

Similarly one cannot imagine shaping any telecom apps to be developed without SIP at all. Combined with the power and simplicity of Java technology in the form of the SIP Servlet API, an application developer can create and deploy new services to users in a fraction of the time it previously took.

Standardizing forums are coming up with strategies in design to cater to the changing telecom needs but it looks like "Testing Methodologies" being used are still relying on legendary models which is not
suited for converged world.

The high degree of complexity associated with the telecom
technology necessitates testing strategies that can create and deploy new service offerings. This intends to be with a higher degree of flexibility and a shorter time-to-market, without loosing the competitive edge in rolling out new, compelling service with improved customer satisfaction.


Need to Evolve Testing Strategy:

Testing strategy are not evolving based on the pace of operator adding new or expanding existing networks to support new technologies and products.

With convergence and multi service, multi vendor and heterogeneous networks arena; testing of interface and components become more difficult and complicated.

We also shouldn't forget that we have seen few important M&A (merger & acquisitions) in telco domains which undoubtly influences the requirement for proper telecom testing. Ease of integration requires a holistic view of telecom testing and can be the key to the success for real interop. These requirements trigger the need for new
strategies in telecom testing.

Existing Model -

Currently we have few popular generic testing model which are legendry and being blindly followed by Telecos for testing.

SDLC models are

1. Waterfall model
2.Prototype Model
3. Spiral Model

TLC Models are

1. Fish Model and
2. V-Model

V-Model is used for tester's where as SDLC we have developers and testers. V-Model is a Testing Life Cycle Model which is entirely different from Software Development Life Cycle.

In V-Model the strategy goes like this

Gathering phase -- User Acceptance Testing.

Analysing phase --- System Testing

Design Phase (HLD andLLD) ---Integration Testing

Coding phase --- Unit Testing

build




Here unit testing is done related to Coding
Integration testing is based on Design phase
System Testing is done related to Requirements (Analysing phase)
User acceptance is done based on Gathering phase.

In Waterfall Model the tester role will take place only in the test phase but in V-Model role will take place in the requirement phase itself. Waterfall model is a fixed process and we can't make any changes in the requirement or in any phase but in V-Model u can make any changes in the requirements. V-model is the simultaneous process but it is not in case of water fall model. Waterfall model used only the requirements are fixed but V-model can be used for the any type of requirement (Uncertain requirement)

Here below table helps us to understand how different SDLC phases are linked with differnet testing activities and available tools.



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In my next blog; I would like to talk about: What is the Telecom testing lifecycle? Why above models are not so efficient? Business/System/Architecture/Implementation/ Deployment View in the Testing Lifecycle. Their challenges and possible resolutions. Best Testing model for Teleco products or Management software.