My tryst with India's IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

India's IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently said - "India stands nearly at par with the US and China in the global AI race". He said this on a serious note. I sincerely hope he wasn't joking or smoking something.

It reminded me of my brief encounter with Mr. Vaishnaw which goes back to the year 1994. I was working as the District Informatics Officer (DIO) of National Informatics Center (NIC), an organization affiliated to the Government of India. Apart from the Collector and SP of the district, I was the only one who had an Air Conditioning in my office. (Not that I was some biggie, rather Computers needed AC and as the man in charge of the computer I was entitled to that luxury. It's another matter due to frequent power cuts and malfunction of the AC it required to call AC maintenance folks from Rourkela on regular basis).

At the same time our present IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was posted as an IAS trainee in the district of Sundargarh. Apparently with a lot of free time to spare, he used to come to our office and play Solitaire, a classic popular cards game played on computer and to communicate with his friends using NICNET, a precursor to email in the days the internet was still strictly fantasy. We two used to do a lot of chit chatting and I sensed he was kind of friendly towards me. He got even friendlier when he found out that I had a job offer from the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and was on the verge of quitting my government job. He told me - "You are an Engineer. For an Engineer if you want to live in india better be an IAS Officer. Otherwise settle in the United States of America". I asked him - "Would you have gone to America if you didn't get selected for IAS". His reply was - "I aimed for IAS and IAS only. Any other Civil Services job would have made me go out, particularly US to pursue higher studies". On another occasion he stepped away from his Solitaire session for a moment, exposing his notebook whose pages started to flip on their own propelled by air from the ceiling fan in full swing. One of the few lines he scribbled on the notebook caught my attention - "Don't get too close to the locals. Always maintain a healthy distance from them". Point well taken.

Time rolled by. I developed wings and flew away to America. That was exactly 30 years ago. Early in the Y2K I was visiting India. One fine morning while sipping my cuppa tea I saw Mr. Vaishnaw's photograph while glancing at the vernacular newspaper "Sambad". He was posted as the Collector of Cuttack, a politically sensitive district. He was in news for getting into a fight with local lawyers who acted as goons and ransacked his office. Aswini narrowly escaped from being manhandled. Soon after this incident he got his transfer to center. (The lawyers of Odisha are champion law breakers. The lawyers practicing at the Bhubaneswar sessions court on Lewis Road always make sure to park their vehicles on the roadside in a haphazard manner blocking the traffic with police looking the other way. I once asked a lanky, pot bellied policeman why doesn't he take action against these  recalcitrant brats. His reply was "ARRE BABA, OKILA KA SANGARE KIYE LAGIBA" (Oh my ! It's ain't risk taking action against the lawyers) !

Years after this incidence I saw his picture again in the front of newspaper. This time he was elected as a Rajya Sabha MP from Odisha. Though aged a bit, accumulating more gray hair and chubbier face, he hadn't changed much. Reading his profile out of curiosity, I tried to catch up his whereabouts during this missing time frame of more than a decade and half. After moving on to the center he eventually quit the Civil Services, came to USA for higher studies, joined the American multinational GE (General Electric), left his job again to plunge into politics and become a minister in Modi's Cabinet.

The man had already traveled a long road. It's good to be an optimist, but probably his long, tiring journey has fogged his mind to see India closing gap on USA and China on the race for AI. It's said that a man is known by the books he reads and company he keeps. Not sure about what books he reads, but certainly doesn't keep good company these days. 

Turbulence in Airplane

 An Air India flight from Phuket, Thailand to New Delhi, India gave passengers a frightening few minutes on Tuesday after the aircraft hit sudden mid-air turbulence, injuring several people on board as it plummeted 300 feet midair. One passenger's head made a dent in the ceiling and few were admitted to hospital. 

This is the time for summer holidays and many will be travelling far and wide. Unfortunately it is also the peak time for turbulence due to unstable tropic air clashing with jet stream on multiple fronts. I love winter travels, when the weather is salubrious, the air is still and crispy and unlike summer season, the flights are less prone to turbulences - at least in Northern hemisphere.

Turbulence in airplane scares the hell out of me. I have acropolis, the fear of heights. Once on top of the Sears Tower Chicago when my son jumped on thick glass enjoying the sight of cars plying underneath him looking like matchboxes in motion, I felt dizzy enough to step few feet back to my comfort zone. Now flying for 30 plus years it hasn't gone unnoticed to me that the occurrences of turbulences in air have gone up in recent times. To vindicate my observation, as per a report published in National Geographic magazine, because of climate change due to global warming the extreme weather events that breed turbulence are likely to become more frequent and intense. That means air travel which is already getting costlier and less customer friendly, is going to have the additional baggage of more bumpy rides. This is less pleasing and more scary scenario for all of us.

Nineteen years ago in July, 2007 at peak of the monsoon season in India moments before my flight landed at Bhubaneswar Airport, dark clouds started engulfing the plane. The Alliance Aircraft (ironically related to Air India as its subsidiary) encountered severe turbulence as it was pelted with powerfully packed tropical air currents. Unlike the violent winds outside, inside wafted a calm and composed female voice - "MAUSAM KHARAB HONE KE KARAN AAP APNI KURSI KI PETI BANDH RAKHIYE (Due to bad weather please keep fasten your seat belt). I promptly followed her order.

The plane shook vigorously, shaking my confidence to the hilt. Some slid down their window to take a peek outside, not knowing that turbulence can only be felt, can't be seen, for High School Science says Air is a mixure of invisible gases. There is no debris or dust flying at 35,000 feet to make the air visible. I am sure they must have been disappointed.
As the Aircraft shook violently, for a moment I thought the overhead baggage compartment will break open, spilling the bags on hapless passengers. The shaky roller coaster ride which lasted a few minutes seemed like eternity. It was enough for the agnostic in me to suddenly turn into a believer in God. My agnosticism vanished into thin air as I closed my eyes and started remembering all our 33 crore (330 million) Gods and Goddesses mentioned in Hinduism, including the little Goddess under the Banyan tree near my home whom I conveniently forgot for so long.

Finally the ordeal was over. The flight touched the ground amidst pouring, torrential rain. The passengers rejoiced by clapping and whistling. Soon I could hear murmurs of HEY PRABHU (O Lord) and JAI (Hail) JAGANNATH from the passengers repeatedly touching their foreheads with folded hands, offering their thanks to God Almighty for saving their lives and letting them live another day. As the flight came to complete halt, I was back to my normal self and my belief in agnosticism. The selfish me forgot once again the plethora of Gods and Goddesses I remembered only moments ago.

Flight plans avoid regions in atmosphere known to be prone to severe turbulence, but these regions constantly move. Hence it is difficult to predict exactly where the severe turbulence is going to be. Per Stanford University, USA based NASA Center of Turbulence Research help is on the way. One US airline debuted new turbulence detectors that use special radar to predict the levels and locations of turbulence in the flight path. Yet such prediction isn't 100% accurate as nature always holds the Trump card over us humans. It is going to be a perennialongoing battle between man and nature in the game of upmanship. It is very reassuring to note that , with the improvement in technology it is extremely rare for an Airline to crash due to turbulence.