The Write Angle

 

“In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power”. - Yuval Noah Hariri, Historian. Y es. With the glut of information inundating our space, the old adage, ‘information is power’, needs this refinement.   The problem is accentuated by the pace with which information travels, which is breaching speed limits even on the ‘light’ highway and is currently approaching the speed of thought. In this social media roller coaster ride, irrelevant information, fake news, gossips, planted disinformation and allegations get passed along with genuine stuff like jokes, personal development tips, moving life-lessons and real news. No one appears to have enough time to validate information reaching us, as more and more of them are piling on us relentlessly. Memes with messages purported to be from the likes of Sundar Pitchai on issues like NEET, Sterlite Factory flood WhatsApp, Twitter and other social media confusing the members in the network. More than the confusion they ...

4 :30 pm factory siren, finally.   The nerve-wracking second day’s training on Psycho Cybernetics was coming to a close, with Consultant Dr. Kanakapathy summarizing the day’s take-away points. The 50 trainees were all fresh engineering graduates, appointed as Engineer Trainees (ET) at the behemoth of a public sector company (company), Bharat Power in Trichy, India. These ETs were recruited based on a very competitive pan India recruitment process. The Psycho Cybernetics training was at the prestigious, cosy training room, F1. In the company, in the 1980s, it was two of its kind (other being F2) air-conditioned and fully curtained room.   Aptly named F1, it was the ground zero from where many a checkered career pursuits got flagged and raced off. While a lot got padlocked at the home company, some raved up to national and international circuits. Those stories for another day. “Don’t drink milk. Eat it”, was a clear take-away from Dr. Kanakapathy for Ravi Kumar! This was an ...

A Storm in a Teacup “ I can’t wait until the cows come home ”, thundered Vinay Bhatia, Director of Projects in Apex Consulting Services (ACS). It was during the first quarter project status review meeting at the ACS headquarters in Mumbai. At the receiving end was a naïve Gopal Subbaiyan, the Graduate Trainee from the Project Management department. He wondered what cows have to do with project slippages. Mr. Bhatia threw the project status report back to Gopal and said, “Better to bounce this off to Ajay to iron out the kinks before showing it to me tomorrow” and then dialed Ajay, “Ajay, there is something falling between the cracks in this report from this new kid on the block . Want you to do the fine combing . This greenhorn needs some sharpening”. Gopal’s bewilderment hit the roof, as the terms ‘greenhorn’, ‘bouncing off’, ‘ironing the kinks’, ‘fine combing', etc were out of his language radar. Although these are proper words, Gopal could feel that they had different mean...

The Bald and the Beautiful W hat do you think Jeff Bezos, Anupam Kher, Andre Agassi, Rajinikant and me have in common?   “Well done!” for those who got the ‘bald’ answer and “Well tried!” for those who are still scratching their heads, for being on the right spot! Do you know about the newest classification of men: 'those who are bald' and 'those who want to be?' Want to be? You may be surprised, if you are one of those unfortunate ‘Haves’.   Being a ‘Have-not’, I can explain why. David Harrison, a senior research scientist, from the Genome Research Centre in Geneva, too was sceptical, initially, like you are. F ew months ago, I was at a social gathering with my colleague, Ravi Kumar.   There he introduced me to David Harrison. “Tony, meet Mr. Harrison,” Ravi introduced him to me.  My name is Thanikachalam Subramanian, also known as, 'Tony'. I said, “Hai, Mr. Harrison, nice meeting you. I am Tony,” extending my hand. Mr....

Can you predict the future of print media? T he first print newspaper of India, ‘ Hicky's Bengal Gazette ’ , appeared in 1780 in Calcutta. While the first one from Chennai was ‘ The Madras Courier ’,  which was started in 1785. Since then, 100s of newspapers in many languages have appeared and played huge role in keeping their readers abreast of the happenings in politics, government, commerce, society, sports etc. Along with dailies, periodicals too proliferated.  20 th century can be reckoned as the century of the print media, although in the latter part, Television started encroaching the media space, big time. As newer technologies creep in, the print media has started feeling the heat. I n the early  2000 , online and  digital publishing  in  India took roots. Print newspapers and periodicals launched their own digital versions of their print dailies and magazines like The Hindu, Times of India, Indian Express, India Toda...