Interesting Sights of Bangalore

I am sure you will not find the following

photos in any guide book !!

The gigantic Louis Vuitton briefcase greets passengers at the Bengaluru International Airport. This has been called a 'marvel' by some and an 'eyesore' by some others depending on the point of view.

You must have heard of 'Public-Private Partnership' but

have you ever witnessed 'Public-Public Partnership' ??

'Rest in Peace' - Vehicle graveyard near a Police Station !
हिन्दी इस्तेमाल नही करनी है और अंग्रेज़ी आती नही !
Yet another example of English language being murdered !
Doggies at crossroads ! I am sure Bangalore must be

having the largest number of stray dogs in India.

Security Training News

Guys,

Be prepared to be spoilt for choices as far as training programmes related to Security Management are concerned. Following are some of which I know about :

1. First Security Management Stage I course conducted by ARC Training International Academy for Security Management, UK - 25 Aug to 05 Sep 2008 at Gurgaon.

2. 2nd Security Today Knowledge Summit - 27 to 29 Aug 2008 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

3. Programme for CSOs of Banks by CAB, Pune - First week of Sep 2008 at Kottayam, Kerela.

4. Second Security Management Stage I course by ARC Training - 22 Sep to 03 Oct 2008 at Gurgaon.

5. Disaster Management course for RBI Security Officers at DMI, Bhopal tentatively scheduled for Oct 2008.

6. IISSM 2008 - International Seminar - 12 to 14 Nov 2008 at Hotel Cidade de Goa.

Start managing your bosses so that you get to attend at least one of these courses !!

Terror Trail

On Friday last I got a call from one of my colleagues from the fraternity who wanted information on what explosive material was used in the various bomb blasts that have taken place in the country in the recent past. Well, we do get to read about the type of device used in news reports in the aftermath of such events, but I could not readily give him any useful input. Later on I remembered that the information was available in the 11th August issue of 'India Today' which I am reproducing here.

1. Mumbai – 25 Aug 2003. Two blasts occurred at Zaveri Bazar and Gateway of India. The death toll was 46 and the device used RDX packed in two taxis.

2. Delhi - 29 Oct 2005. Three serial blasts rocked the capital before Diwali at Sarojininagar and a DTC bus. Death toll : 62 and the device used – IEDs in satchels.

3. Varanasi – 07 Mar 2006. Three explosions including one at a famous temple and one at the Railway Station. The death toll was 21 and the device used was IEDs in pressure cookers.

4. Mumbai – 11 July 2006. A series of seven bomb blasts struck six local trains at the peak evening rush hour, The death toll was 209 and the device used was IEDs in pressure cookers.

5. Malegaon – 08 Sep 2006. Two bomb blasts ripped through the town in Nashik district in Maharashtra. The death toll was 40 and device used was IEDs on bicycles.

6. Panipat – 19 Feb 2007. Two IEDs went off on the New Delhi-Wagah Samjahuata Express. The death toll was 66 and the device used was firebombs triggered by timer.

8. Hyderabad – 18 May 2007. Twin blasts at the Mecca Masjid, The death toll was 12 and the device used was a pipe bomb triggered a cell phone.

9. Hyderabad – 25 Aug 2007. Twin bomb blasts at Lumbini park and a popular snack stall. The death toll was 42 and the device used IEDs with timers.

10. Jaipur – 13 May 2008. Nine blasts in a market place. The death toll was 63 and the device used IEDs on bicycles.

12. Bangalore – 25 July 2008. Six low intensity blasts at various places rocked the city. There was one casualty and the device used IEDs.

13. Ahmedabad – 26 July 2008. 22 Blasts at 17 places within the city. The death toll was 53 and the device used –Improvised directional anti-personnel mines and car bombs.

Terrorists have now started using copies of the Claymore anti- personnel mines used by the Army. These copies were even shaped like the real thing packed with a cocktail of explosive materials like Ammonium Nitrate, Gelatin sticks, crude oil and urea and having tightly packed pellets to achieve maximum damage.

PS : The said issue of 'India Today' has a very good cover story as well as other thought provoking articles as to what should be done to contain this menace !!

Remembering Solzhenitsyn

Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn who breathed his last on 03 August 2008 was one of the greatest Russian writers of the 20th century. He was born on 11 December 1918 and died of cardiac arrest aged 89. His books chronicled the horrors of the Russian prison camps – the gulags. He was the first to speak aloud about the inhuman Stalinist regime. He served in the Soviet army as an Artillery officer during the world war and spent eight years in the prison camps shortly after 1945. He was awarded the Nobel prize for Literature in 1970. His first novel ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ was published in 1962 and was based on his own experiences. Though he was better known for books like ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ and ‘The Cancer Ward’ this short novel is also a little known classic and was the only novel to be published in Russia.

I had written a ‘Book Review’ on “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” when my battalion was stationed at Fort William, Calcutta in 1980, which I am reproducing here:

“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is an absorbing portrayal of human depravation perpetrated in Russian concentration camps under the regime of Joseph Stalin. The writer who was an inmate of such prison camps, found and preserved enough authentic material to reveal human suffering and subjugation under a certain political order of the post war era. “One Day…” thus found its way at a proper time as a dramatic and absorbing literary epic forcefully recording the ever changing political acrobatics and its stigma on human behaviour in labour camps.

The book throws light to reveal prison life in its totality, that is, the mode and conduct of its inmates as well as that of their masters husbanding the prison affairs under a despotic rule. It meticulously depicts various backgrounds of the inmates and the staff coming from different strata of both political and social bearings, the type and measure of food and accommodation they receive, the unending volume of labour they have to put in under strict terror-ridden surveillance of a lot of unfeeling robots trained to persecute the inmates to extreme limits.

The book gives a graphic account as to how human potential is gradually decimated and ultimately destroyed in the labour camps. How the prisoners’ faith in God if any, faith in human values, faith in religion and even faith in their own selves is shaken off and their existence reduced to mere nothingness. The governance, the food, living conditions, working conditions and other aspects of life in the prison camps are so minutely depicted by the author in their enormity that the reader does not fail to get a fascinating understanding as to how human life comes to a stage of void and waste that so many like Ivan in these camps have no feelings, emotions, sensations, desires and anxieties whatsoever other than a desire to survive with animal instinct until life is suddenly extinguished.

Ivan’s belief that “The stars keep on falling down, so you have got to have new ones in their place” when he tells the ‘Captain’, his prison mate, about his faith in God (page 119) is a precise epigram of the described prison camps as well as an epitaph of those who have gone into oblivion through the sufferings in such camps. In a nutshell, the book is intellectually educative and may take a long time to become obsolete, if at all.

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No Background Verification ? Employ at your own RISK !!

Background verification is not taken seriously by many employers in India. It is only MNCs and more recently the software industry that do have such checks in place. At other places, I am sure they haven't even heard about the term - and it is in such companies that con artists make hay ! The attached story is about one such gentleman who was successful in pulling wool over his employers' eyes TWICE.