Chetan Bhagat - Sparks - Keep it Shining - What about THE ACTION?

Summary: I liked the speech given by Chetan and they way he showed the 4 thunderstorms of disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation trying to thwart you. What I couldn’t notice in his speech was the Umbrella or the Rain Coat to save yourself from these thunderstroms: THE ACTION.

“Sincere ACTION is the Umbrella that can help you brave the thunderstrom!”
-Sachin Uppal, 1st August 2008

I was reading Chetan Bhagat’s speech at the inaugural function of Symbiosis College in Pune, India. He spoke about a simple concept that keeps people kicking and striving to reach higher success. He likes calling it Spark, and urges to keep that Spark Shining. It is nothing but your will power and your passion to achieve something more in life and your continuous drive to reach it.

Download the complete Speech in a PDF format along with comments here.

In my life I have learnt that this spark comes to you if you are passionate about something and that passion is driven from your goals. If you set your goals (short term and long term) you always have a direction and you can measure and strive harder to achieve the same. Some time back I wrote about Goal Setting and how it’s important to achieve and bring a direction to your life.

When I look around I see a lot of talented people and see a lot of them with new ideas but what I fail to see is people taking action to fulfill their dreams. Having a long term and short term goal helps you get focused in your life and you can actually achieve what you have set out to achieve in your dream.

I liked the speech given by Chetan and they way he showed the 4 thunderstorms of disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation trying to thwart you. However, while saying that don’t take life too seriously, instead sincerely, what he missed out was a BIG point: ACTION.

What differentiates people from being Great and not good, is ACTION. Having dreams, living life sincerely and keeping yourself focused towards your goals need ACTION. Not taking life seriously shouldn’t make you complacent and shouldn’t make you lack in Action. Action comes to you from your passion. There are thousands of people out there who like to talk about doing something great, but how many take action to achieve it? These days with the competition increasing at such a fast pace, you are going to face one or more of these 4 thunderstorms.

Have you ever thought what’s going to differentiate you?

To SUM it up in a sentence:

“Sincere ACTION is the Umbrella that can help you brave the thunderstroms!”

For many people reading this the obvious question would be - How do you do that?

- Set up your goals.
- Be realistic or upgrade your self.
- Believe in yourself.
- Follow some dicipline.
- Breakdown your goals in small milestones.
- Congratulate yourself on achieving milestones. (get yourself a pair of new shoes, a tie, a watch, a perfume or whatever you think you like)
- Bring your passion to everything that you DO.
- Let your passion Permeate amongst the people around you.
- Show the world that you are not just about the Talk, but you prove it with your small Actions.
- Small steps go a long way to achieve a goal.
- Influence people in believing your goals.
- Ask for help (don’t feel ashamed).
- Give help - It’s a 2-way road.
- Follow- Ethics and Integrity.
- LIVE your dream and don’t give up. Even at a failure learn and stand up again and give your “passionate best shot“.

Enough of talking. Let’s DO!

Google Killer - www.cuil.com - It’s Raining Search Engines now

www.cuil.com CUIL the New Search Engine

After Scour.com with Social search now there is CUIL.com a completely new search engine. A former Google employee and her husband launched a new search engine this Monday called Cuil (pronounced as “cool”), aiming to topple Google by indexing more Web pages than the search giant.

After the Web 2.0 buzz across the globe, it looks like it’s the time for Search Engines…with news about search engines every day, I feel like I am bathing in a Search Engine rain.

Cuil, situated in Menlo Park, California, is led by Anna Patterson, a former leader of Google’s search index and her husband, Tom Costello, who researched and developed search engines at Stanford University and IBM. The two, president and CEO, respectively, met at Stanford.

Russell Power, the third cofounder of the group, also worked at Google on search indexing, Web rankings and spam detection. He works as vice president of engineering at Cuil.

Cuil, claims it has indexed 120 billion Web pages and can provide results organized by ideas with complete privacy for users. While on the other hand, Google, on Friday claimed it had discovered 1 trillion unique Web pages on the Internet.

Cuil said its search engine goes beyond traditional approaches by analyzing the context of each page and the concepts behind each query so it can provide better rankings by content rather than popularity. Cuil then organizes similar results into groups and sorts them by category. It also offers tabs to clarify subjects, as well as suggestions on how to refine searches.

Cuil and Scour aren’t the first Google rival to launch this year. Wikia Search, a highly anticipated search engine from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, made its official debut in January. Wikia Search hopes to provide better search results by allowing a community of users to index pages by using their Web page rankings and other suggestions, as well as its own indexing of the Web.

Though, seems like the servers of Cuil are already getting heated up (image below), which is good in a way, as they would have wanted a huge traffic to come to them.

Let’s see how cool Cuil is?

Ahmedabad Blasts Update - 16 Blasts, 10 Killed, 100+ Injured

Ahmedabad Blasts Update

According to the sources on NDTV, now its over 16 blasts in the Ahmedabad City which has left 10 killed and over 100+ injured. The scene is really chaotic right now in many parts in Ahmedabad with police trying to shoo away the people with power. This is in favour of the people only as you never know how many blasts have been planned.

Veerappa Moily just now gave a statement that take these blasts as a unified case of blasts and shouldn’t be politicized.

Lal Krishan Advani said political angle is not been considered yet…however, later on the agencies can look at that angle too.

These statements are in the wake of the BJP led governements in the cities where these blasts have occured. Agencies like SIMI etc are under scanner now.

I would again like to re-iterate to keep safe and follow the tips which I suggested.

Ahmedabad Blasts - 16 Blasts, 10 Killed, 100+ Injured

Ahmedabad Blasts Update

According to the sources on NDTV, now its over 16 blasts in the Ahmedabad City which has left 10 killed and over 100+ injured. The scene is really chaotic right now in many parts in Ahmedabad with police trying to shoo away the people with power. This is in favour of the people only as you never know how many blasts have been planned.

Veerappa Moily just now gave a statement that take these blasts as a unified case of blasts and shouldn’t be politicized.

Lal Krishan Advani said political angle is not been considered yet…however, later on the agencies can look at that angle too.

These statements are in the wake of the BJP led governements in the cities where these blasts have occured. Agencies like SIMI etc are under scanner now.

I would again like to re-iterate to keep safe and follow the tips which I suggested.

Sachin Uppal: Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - Update - 9 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured

Sachin Uppal: Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - Update - 7 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured

http://sachinuppal.blogspot.com/2008/07/ahmedabad-blasts-6-blasts-in-30-minutes.html

http://sachinuppal.blogspot.com/2008/07/ahmedabad-bomb-blasts-6-bomb-blasts.html

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - Update - 7 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - Update 2 - 7 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured, as updated on NDTV.

It’s a really disheartening to see how bad the situation is becoming on a daily basis in India. Yesterday, teams were sent from Rajasthan and Delhi to Bangalore to probe the bomb blasts and even the national security guard (NSG) teams were checking the blast sites and trying to find out cues on the sources of the same.

It’s becoming evident now that these are all similar kind of blasts which are low intensity blasts and done to disrupt the local population with their daily activities and instill terror in the country.

The perpetrators of this crime should be brought to justice.

News updates:
HamroPalo.com
A2to.info
theindian.com

Blog Updates:
Danny G Sam
Hindustaniat
Paras Shah
Indian Raksa
Ankit Rawat

More updates to follow…

Ahmedabad Blasts - 6 blasts in 30 minutes

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - 6 blasts in a series within 30 mins. These bombs were allegedly planted in soft targets like Cycles, Tiffin Boxes, Buses - and with evil intentions in crowded areas … more news is awaited.

Places where these bombs were planted - Maninagar, Bapunagar, Isanpur, Narol Circle, Sarkhej, Haksar

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts report: - at around 7.30PM

There are reports of 6 bomb blasts in Ahmedabad - this is as per the news showing in NDTV news channel.

Kindly share if you have any information regarding this.

TIPS to keep safe in a time like this - A public appeal to all Indians:

• Please keep away from crowded places.
• Try to avoid traveling for few of days.
• Inform any suspicious activity to police immediately.
• Keep general vigilance in and around your vicinity.
• Do not spread panic, relax and help others.

Keep safe.

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - 6 Bomb Blasts Reported

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts, 6 Bomb Blasts reported till now

While the IT City of India, Bangalore was just recuperating from the Serial Bomb Blasts yesterday, now Ahmedabad has been rocked by series of 6 bomb blasts.

Just one day after the bomb blast in Bangalore, today, serial Bomb blasts have rocked industrious Ahmedabad city of Gujarat in India. Till now 6 bomb blasts have been reported. The effected areas are Maninagar Chowk , Raipur , Bapunagar , Isanpur , Narol , Naroda , Juhapura.

These bomb blasts have occurred in busy areas like market places, buses etc. There seems to be a lot of chaos already.

Also, refer to Paras Shah’s blog for the same.

Bangalore Blasts – Update 4 - Series of blasts - Terror Strikes Bangalore

Bangalore Blasts – Update 4 - 8th Blast - Series of blasts - First Time Ever in Bangalore

Bangalore has largely been a safe and sound city to stay in. Most of the IT companies find it as the safest haven with the best of talent and mostly stable political situation in the city. Even though the infrastructure of the city has been a area of concern for many organizations, however, with most of the positives these things take a back seat.

25th July’s Serial Bomb Blasts in Bangalore which lead to at least 1 killed and over 6 injured shook the city. These were low intensity blasts, however, this opened the city to the first ever serial blast risk. After Delhi and Mumbai serial blasts, Bangalore has been on high alert however, things were peaceful in the city. But after this series of bomb blast, things are different now. Even though the city is quickly recovering from the shock, the government and police needs to make sure the security is stepped up to the next level and such instances do not occur again!

A recent update seems to point out that there has been one more blast which is the 8th in the series now

Below is the - City News and Blog Update - News and related updates from across the city:

NDTV LIVE video reporting

Economic Times Reporting - Terror strikes Bangalore, Sensex ends lower

Neha Singh – Reuters UPDATE 3-Seven small blasts hit Indian IT city of Bangalore

Yahoo News - Five blasts hit Bangalore

Times of India - 7 blasts rock Bangalore; two killed, 20 wounded

Humsurfer reported - Bangalore Bomb Blast, 6 blasts rock Bangalore, Two killed, 20 injured, Bomb Blast In Bangalore, Bangalore News

DNA India - Serial blasts rock Bangalore, one dead

Blog updates on Bangalore Blasts:

http://justkeepsakes.blogspot.com/2008/07/blast-in-bangalore.html
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/07/25/india-bomb-blasts-in-bangalore/
http://rimahadchiti.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/bomb-blast-in-bangalore-today/
http://zdark.blogspot.com/2008/07/update-3-seven-small-blasts-hit-indian.html
http://sterex.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/bomb-blasts-in-bangalore/
http://amritanshuu.blogspot.com/2008/07/7-blasts-rock-bangalore-two-killed-70.html

Bangalore bomb blasts - Update 3

NEWS : Bangalore Blast : 5 bomb blasts in Bangalore - 1.30 PM 25th July
Update 1: 6 Bomb Blasts in Bangalore 1 killed- NDTV reporting LIVE
Update 2: 7 Bomb Blasts in Bangalore in 5 Locations - City in Chaos

I have just reached home and the area near koramangla and madivala seem to have been deserted. Either the police has cordoned off the entire area or people have just left the area completely. This was surprising as I was expecting the Traffic JAM which was there just 1 hour back…now it was completely calm.

City seems to be coming under control and things are cooling off. I am suspecting in the evening at 5.30 PM and 6.00 PM when many offices will have their off…things might become chaotic again. However, the way police has handled the situation till now, its commendable and I hope things will be fine by tomorrow morning.

A public appeal, if anyone sees anything suspicious please inform the police immediately and take care.