www.drmunnabhai.com

Zee business carried an interesting story today. Some innovative people have started a company called drmunnabhai.com .While vidhu vinod chopra might be crying on copyright grounds, i think all people are generally kicked with this company and their unique concepts.

They make use of revenue yield management concepts to create affordable medical solutions for the junta.

The acedemic definition of Revenue Management states that RM is comprised of "systems & procedures to maximize results from the sale of a product or service in more or less fixed supply whose revenue producing ability diminishes with time."

Its a bit like a restaurant has 24 hrs but people only eat during lunch and dinner times. So you introduce happy hours to create demand in the offpeak hours (read in between dinner and lunch) to utilise the restaurant when its completely free.

Airline earlier would have flat ticket rates .That would maximise average revenue per seat w/o necessarily maximising the revenue obtained per trip. So many auction schemes and multiple ticketing plans were introduced.

This concept is so powerful that an alumni of Xl who also heads the operations department at IIM A even lectured us for an hour and halfon it. Though i must confess its extreme qunatitative orientation left me thoda sa confused.After all my only D Grade was in operations research :-(

Now Dr Munnabhai applies the very same concepts plus many more to hospitals,medical testing equipment etc.

Dr Munnabhai would create order bookings of people interested in using medical facilities like bed, testing equipment and doctors times etc. It would then come with theese same people and offer them the same at non peak hours when the docs, the beds and the test equipment is Wella ( munnabhai speak for FREE)

While it helps the doctors and hospitals etc to make more profitable use of their infrasrtucture and fixed investments , it would i hope also significantly lower down the medical bills and be a great boon to thoose who can't afford the same and have no qualms visiting the fancy hospitals at non peak hours.

And even we can earn additional income by selling healthcare services through 'Munnabhai Prepaid'. Alternately you could place dr munna bhai banner ads in your websites.

Let us now see if this business idea is as big a hit as the movie was.

Colonialism of Geography

While the whole white world was cribbing about the equation of the middle finger with the Americas by a certain iim cal jokar ( She is a corporate superacheiver but i am an xler ;-) )i came across an extremely interesting article in today's Sunday times. Though i couldn't get the same, there is another very similar article which promises to be an interesting read.

Happy Reading

It is easy for us to become trapped in political and ideological propaganda; it seems that no matter which way we turn, the system is always a few steps ahead of us. Having planned for our frustration and search for answers and truth, the system creates many pathways of distraction and confusion. It seems that every foot that we travel on the path of knowledge, the system forces us back at least halfway (and oftentimes much more), introducing confusion and guiding us back onto the road that they have made for us to follow. The system plays this game so well that we, as its victims, do not even realize when we fall into a trap or conditioning that has been set for us. This is what has been happening with the World Map.

Yes, the world map. While it seems so straightforward and free from corruption, this important educational tool has been successfully used to give our children and ourselves an inaccurate picture of the world and our place within it. This tool of socialization and education has been very effective in promoting the Eurocentric ideology that has been the basis of "modern" education worldwide. What most teachers, students, and parents see as a simple educational tool may be, in reality, one of the system's most effective tools of propaganda. Young children are taught geography and history with the almost exclusive aid of maps, and high school and college level educational courses rely heavily on maps as well. In the United States, the most common map used until today is the Mercator projection that was developed in 1569 by Gerhard Kramer, a native German. This map was valued for its navigational accuracy because straight lines on this map are consistent with compass bearings. Yet the Earth is a sphere, and no map can present a sphere perfectly - one must choose which aspect to preserve: size proportions (equivalency) or shape (conformity). The Mercator map preserves shape, thus greatly distorting land area and size - it preserves the shape of continents and countries, but sizes become distorted as you move away from the equator. The equator is placed 2/3 of the way down the map, showing Germany in the center of the world. The Northern hemisphere (the "developed" world) appears disproportionately large, giving Europe and North America an enormous size advantage, while the Southern hemisphere (the "developing" world) appears disproportionately small. Meanwhile, the Peters Map, within the controversy surrounding it, has proven itself to be a very important map as it shows land area just as it is, banishing the advantage the Northern Hemisphere had grown accustomed to with the traditional map. Yet this map is virtually unknown to us and our children, as the Mercator projection (or copies of) remains the map of choice in the United States for school systems, newscasts, and most other purposes.

It is normal that Europe and North America would promote the Mercator map because the faults of the projection benefit Europe and North America. The colonizers of the world are shown in the center of the map, and their landmasses are shown much larger than their actual physical dimensions. Meanwhile, Africa, a Black continent, is shown much smaller than it really is - Greenland appears to be the same size as Africa, but in reality, Africa is fourteen times bigger than Greenland! South America is shown to be smaller than Europe (South America is almost twice the size of Europe) and India is shown to be equivalent in size to Scandinavia (India is three times the size of Scandinavia)! The size and placement advantages of the Mercator map are solely to the advantage of the predominately White areas, while the areas where people of color predominate are at an enormous disadvantage.

Many other map projections have been created, yet we remain unaware of their existence because of the advantages of the Mercator map to the current system. The Peter's Projection, however, has gained worldwide acknowledgement and use, yet many of us in the United States have not even heard of this important map. Introduced by historian Dr. Arno Peters in 1974, this map immediately caused a whirlwind of debate and controversy. The Peters map, unlike the Mercator map, keeps the land size/area true and sacrifices land shape. Thus, Africa, India, and South America are shown in their true proportions to the rest of the world, and the Northern Hemisphere no longer has the false size advantage over the Southern Hemisphere. And for the first time, the misrepresented country sizes of the traditional map were brought to public awareness, changing the way the world was viewed.

Dr. Peters challenged the world, and the European world took that challenge, denouncing the value of his projection. Many of his claims about the map were shot down, and it was called "perverse and wrongheaded" and "mischievous" in miscellaneous articles. It comes as no surprise that the system would do its best to kill this map, for it doesn't succumb to the view of the world that the system is promoting. Instead, it shows how small Europe and the United States (the "White" world) really are in comparison to Africa, South America, the Middle East, and Asia (the "Black" world). The system sees it as dangerous, as it promotes a more realistic view of the world in regard to land size. Those who criticize and devalue the Peters map seem to be those who are benefiting from the faults of the traditional (Mercator) projection. The Peters map has also challenged the way we see the atlas, as an atlas has been made using only the Peters projection. Traditional atlases consist of many maps of different scales, and most give more pages to Europe and North America. For example, the NGS Atlas gives both Africa and the UK three maps, yet Africa is about 20% of the Earth's land area while the UK has a minute .16% of the Earth's land area! Peters, however, uses a uniform scale throughout the atlas, giving the reader a true sense of country and continent sizes in relation to the world. He gives less space to Europe and more space to Africa and China simply because Africa and China occupy a much larger space in the world than does Europe. The Peters Atlas has, of course, also met with much resistance, yet his social agenda for both his map and his atlas stands strong.

Our children are learning about the world in a classroom - a classroom that most likely uses the Mercator map and atlas. Our news reports show "traditional" (Mercator) maps, as does most of the media. It is rare that a student, young or old, uses a globe for his/her learning experience; in fact, most people will tell you that they cannot remember ever using a globe in school more than once or twice! The constant bombardment of the Mercator map on our children (and on us as adults) leads to a false view of the world and our place within it. Subconsciously, we begin to believe that the Northern Hemisphere (the "white" world) is more important than the Southern Hemisphere (the "black" world), giving power to the system and its practice of oppression and domination. The World Map is a very important tool of social conditioning. Peter's social intent in releasing this map was to fight against the Mercator projection as it "overvalues the white man and distorts the picture of the world to the advantage of the colonial masters of the time." It is time we begin to educate ourselves and our children rather than relying on the schools (the system) to do it for us. The Peters Projection World Map is a great place to begin.


-Colianialism through maps by Rachel Naba
http://theearthcenter.com/ffarchivesmap.html

The agreement with abhishek ghosh

Abhishek ghosh , one year my junior in REC jamshedpur has readily agreed to become my guru in improving my ability to think. He recommends a strong dose of puzzles, readings, annagrams and a whole list of other things.

Mr ghosh who is currently a codejock with TCS (albeit one who would fail by purpose to comply to their SEICMM level 5 norms). A good mech engg our man now wishes to give GATE in comp sc to go to IISC.

His first puzzle was a rather old one

A man goes one mile south, then one mile east and then one mile north to reach the same spot where could he be?

I replied north pole.

His retort...no an infinite set of points including north pole.
And then he explained

See the lattitudes of earth increase from 0 (np) to maximum in the equator and then back to decreasing . Imagine a lattitude in the southern hemisphere which is a mile long.Imagine u were a mile above that lattitude.So one mile south takes u to this lattitude with 1 mile circumfrence. The east condition takes u on a trek along this lattitude only to make u reach the same spot. Now one mile north will take u back to from where u started ur moves.

He then asked me to imagine lattitude with half a mile in length or even 1/4 or 1/8. Going one mile east is gonna make u reach the same place again.

He didn't stop there. Bugger asked me to imagine the earth as a cube.
Tells me how about a one mile cube, and then replicating the same problem.I tried. The dead centre of the top face would then correspond to the north pole of our mother earth.

Finally he says my north pole answer rt if there is a condition that u meet a polar bear. Antartica apparently bereft of them.

And i thought i was smart and i was rt.:-(

It sure is hard trying to become smart especially by solving puzzles.

PS

Now my next exercise is solving an anagram HASH GIBE? He's OK
and he says anagram internet solver not going to help so do help

the female oligarch

A long time ago,i was fascinated oligarchs.Modern day Robber barons is how you would best describe them. Theese were individuals who became so immensely rich in the privatization of the assets of the Soviet system that they became konown as the oligarchs. The name implies that they were powerful. They were not the only ones who became rich, but their success put them into a separate class.

Most made money in oil,aluminium,steel and other natural resources that russia was so well endowed in.They controlled the media and helped keep people who helped them retain their seats of power.

And yes they bought football clubs with their spare cash.

Some of theese oligarchs are

Boris Berezovsky
Vladimir Gusinsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Alexander Smolensky
Vladimir Potanin
Vladimir Vinogradov
Mikhail Friedman

I would always wonder why there was no female oligarch amogst them while continuing to read up about how they were robbing the russian government and its people. Were the russian women so nice as to not indulge in corrupt businesses or were russian women never in seats of power in the erstwile soviet system. Why was a reason that always elude me.

And then came the bond flick 'The world is not enough'. Sophie Morceau inspired me to create another script for a bond movie with a female oligarch all out to become the president of russia and sell nuclear arsenal to the axis of evil. After all besides beauty bond had to have a reason to protect the world too. I even created a background for the woman.if the other oligarchs were scientists, mechanics etc this women would be an economist. She would have also had a failed marraige with a politburo members son.Like all bond girls she had to be beautiful. I made her the daughter of a single mother which would make her vunerable to James Bond's charms. My first attempt at script writing took me to 5 pages.But then better sense prevailed and i quit.

Two days back i recieved a presentation about a beautiful female prime minister in Ukraine.Some searches later guess what came out--

Yulia Tymoschenko

Tymoshenko's origins have been the basis of some debate. Some have claimed that her maiden name is Grigyan, and that she is half-Armenian on her father's side. However, her supporters insist that she is ethnically Russian, her maiden name being Telegina. She married Oleksandr Tymoshenko, a son of a mid-level Soviet communist party bureaucrat, in 1979, and began rising through a number of positions under the Soviet system. She graduated from Dnipropetrovs'k State University with a degree in economics in 1984, and went on to gain a candidate degree (the equivalent of a Ph.D.) in economics. She has since authored about 50 papers.

In 1989, she founded a video rental chain which grew to be quite successful. Tymoshenko experienced a rise in power under the Soviet system, but it was after the demise of the Soviet Union that she rose to particular prominence, directing several energy-related companies and acquiring a significant fortune between 1990 and 1998. From 1995 to 1997, Tymoshenko was the president of United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a privately owned company which became the main importer of Russian natural gas in 1996. During that time she was nicknamed "gas princess" in the light of accusations she had sold abroad enormous quantities of stolen Russian gas.

Political career
Tymoshenko made a move into politics in 1996, and was elected as a representative of Kirovohrad oblast, winning a record 92.3% of the vote in her district. She was re-elected in 1998 and 2002. In 1998, she became the Chair of the Budget Committee of the Ukrainian parliament. From 1999 to 2001, Tymoshenko was the deputy prime minister for fuel in the energy sector in the government of Viktor Yushchenko.

Tymoshenko was fired by President Leonid Kuchma in January 2001, on charges of forging customs documents and smuggling Russian natural gas while she was the president of United Energy Systems of Ukraine between 1995 and 1997. She was arrested in February 2001 but was released and cleared of charges several weeks later. According to Tymoshenko, the accusations were fabricated by Kuchma's regime, under the influence of coal industry oligarchs threatened by her efforts to root out corruption and institute market-based reforms.

However, Tymoshenko's critics have suggested that, as a so-called oligarch, her fortune was gained improperly. Some have speculated her familiarity with the illegal conduct of business common in Ukraine uniquely qualifies her to combat corruption. Her former business partner, the former Ukraine Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko is fighting extradition back to Ukraine on allegations of abusing his office for personal gain. He is believed to have sent billions of dollars outside of the country. In addition her husband, Oleksandr, is still in hiding outside of Ukraine facing charges he and his wife describe as unfounded and politically motivated by the former Kuchma administration. Their lawyers are believed to be preparing legal action to dismiss these charges.

- wikipedia.com

A case of real life imitating reel life. Perhaps i should start writing my script again and contact MGM and EON productions :-)