DesiReflections

I remember my first job interview in the age of  21. I was very nervous. It was November month very pleasant cold weather , but when I entered in the board room, I was profusely sweating, and when the chairman of the board asked me first question, I almost started stammering. The chairman sensed that I am comfortable  and offered a glass of water. It was only after that, I felt composed and faced the remaining part of interview. Thereafter I have faced few other interviews but I always lacked confidence. The reason was very simple. There was no body to guide me to face interview. My grand daughter is 8 year old. She studies in third standard in Seattle and stays in her school at Eagle Club for her before and after care. She shared me a month back that she has a job interview on the coming Friday. I was rather surprised  and little curious to understand what kind of job interview she is going to face. She elaborated , her role will be hand-holding and mentoring nurser...

I attended screening of  three documentaries viz 'In Secular India', 'From the Burning Ambers', 'Whose Country It Is Any Way' produced in eighties followed by the discussion by all woman gang behind the production, which includes Shohini Ghosh ,Ranjani Mazumdar, Shikha Jhingan, Charu Gargi, Sabina Kidvai, Sabina Gadihoke. The members of Mediastorm were in their early twenties in 1985 when they were studying at the newly started AJK Mass Communication Research  Centre (MCRC) at Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi. It was India's first documentary collective. In fact MCRC over the next decades became one of the premiere media institution and the six women invested themselves in film pedagogy, shaping a generation of media practitioners and theorists.They were indeed part of a new movement. In an environment of rising fundamentalism, the desire to organize collectively and counter dominant mass media hysteria with committed inquiry and through diverse cultural ...

Mumbai Film Festival, Mumbai 14.10.2017. Today I saw “Ask the Sexpert” at Mumbai Film Festival on PVR, Lokhandwala, Andheri. The documentary highlights need for sex education and sex awareness, and it is based on Producer-Director Ms.Vaishali Sinha's four and half years painstaking research and series of interviews with 91 years young Dr. Mohinder Watsa. A real good work indeed. Dr. Watsa is best-known sexologist in Mumbai. The genial, no-nonsense nonagenarian runs a column 'Ask the Sexpert' in the 'Mumbai Mirror wherein he answers questions of its readers related to sexual behavior. Dr Watsa started his medical practice as gynaecologist and obstetrician some 65 years ago. He answers questions that range from the routine to the risque, in his column.  Ask the Sexpert reveals the man behind the byline, teasing out details about his domestic routine, his family life, and his stellar service towards demystifying sex in a country that believes in dra...

These days, switch on any news channel, you will find a news-anchor shouting, howling and passing his own judgement on issues as well as non issues amidst peak volume debate where non-experts and experts representing various political dharmas screaming at each other in such a  way that you can hardly  understand their view point. Then there are comedy circus, dance shows, beauty pageants, unending stretchable family sagas. Yes, we have newspapers where you have to find in between the advertisements. So there is hardly any space left for literature and some thought provoking pieces on cinema and  music. Than we have lot of music shows from Indian Idol to Sa Re Ga Ma where the winner is choosen on the basis of imitating new as well as old hits (read bollywood). With such a grim background,  last year  NESCO  point fighting among themselves.And NESCO EVENTS fostered the latent talent of Indian folk music. It's greatest practitioners perfor...

Now an average consumer in India knows about online selling platform Amazon.com as Apni Dukan, it has spread its wings in all geographical locations across the globe. From an online book store only 20 years back to a US$ 480 Billion worth company. It was on May 15, 1997, a money-losing and non descriptive online bookstore went public on the Nasdaq in an IPO that valued it at a modest $438 million. Twenty years later, that little startup have spread wings, diversify into online selling platform, cloud and other tech services provider, gadgets, newspaper, grocery store chain, space research and its appetite to grow is bigger, bigger and bigger. To get there, the Seattle USA-based giant has pumped nearly all of the cash it generates into huge new investment areas, like Amazon Prime, Amazon Web Services and, most recently, the Alexa voice computing platform. With a focus on growth over net income, Jeff Bezos’s baby has penetrated industry after industry at a pace perhaps unmatched ...

Amazon.com is a company which has  tremendous  appetite for growth. Twenty years life cycle is not very long for a corporate entity but it has proved and poised for further growth It was  May 15, 1997,  money-losing online bookstore went public on the Nasdaq in an IPO that valued it at a modest $438 million. Twenty years later, that little startup — called   Amazon.com   — is worth nearly $460 billion. To get there, the Seattle-based giant has pumped nearly all of the cash it generates into huge new investment areas, like Amazon Prime, Amazon Web Services and, most recently, the Alexa voice computing platform. With a focus on growth over net income, Jeff Bezos’s company has penetrated industry after industry at a pace perhaps unmatched in modern history.