My impressions on reading the New Yorker magazine article about Hinduisation of India and the influence of Narendra Modi

I first came to know about the journalist, Rana Ayyub from a New Yorker magazine article. The article is about a covert visit to Kashmir undertaken by her and a New York Times correspondent, immediately after the repealing of article 370 by Indian government with declaration of Jammu and Kashmir state as two union territories. The interview with her (available on YouTube) details her impressions, generally on the marginalization of the real humanitarian narrative in Kashmir by the largely "pro-Hindutva", "pro-Modi" national media, and how the strict clampdowns on human movement, complete restrictions of freedom of expression, ban on any form of political protests and suppression of the basic human rights were portrayed as necessary evils to fight against separatism and anti national sentiment. The comment section of that YouTube video was full of hate speech against her, and how she is portraying the Kashmir issue with an "anti national" angle to foreign media. 

The comment section criticism is all BS as per me. The motivation of Ms. Ayyub is genuine, she is as true Indian as any one and she is someone out of her life experience of alienation based on religion has taken the path of journalism to fight the issue at the root. I found out that Rana Ayyub is an award winning and exceptionally courageous journalist who grew up in a Muslim family in a largely Hindu dominated locality in Mumbai. Her family experienced religion based discrimination during the Babri Masjid issue related riots in 1992 when Mumbai witnessed one of the most devastating religious riots where thousands of people lost lives. Her life was displaced from a comfortable middle class existence, as the daughter of a journalist living a peaceful life in city, to a shanty suburban town comprised largely of displaced Muslims living in fear and in dire economic conditions, feeling out of place and getting rejected in the face of the evolving story of India as a largely Hindu Rashtra. Ms. Ayyub chose journalism as career of choice (no surprises) and rose to be a star investigative journalist at Tehalka (a once famous weekly, well known for journlistic sting operations), leading their sting operations exposing complicity of Mr. Amit Shah in extra judicial killings (a crime for which he was jailed for 10 months). She also spearheaded another sting operation with quite elaborate planning, where her aim was to expose the complicity of Gujarat state (and indirectly then chief minister Narendra Modi) in abetting the violence against Muslims post the burning of a train in Godhra. 

I agree that religion is a necessary evil as not all people are rational and think altruistically, but it is useful in keeping people finding a purpose in life and achieve success to be a part of a cohesive and functioning society. In this regard, religion should not come in the way of  respecting the differences, forming basic human connections, friendships irrespective of religious background. But religion when used to divide people is a fertile ground for political gains and is a potent poison brew to improve chances of victory in elections. We also note that the related aspects of differences as regionalism, language, caste are all ideas that are milked mostly for election victories and a means to grab power for a ruling class. The ruled class who in the first place were the sounding boards for the divisive ideas of discrimination based on religion, caste, creed, state, language gain almost nothing in return, and loses the sense of security and social harmony that are crucial for them to lead a happy life. Their life will be mired in rancor, ill will against other, closing off mind against other ideas or thoughts, staying in an intellectual and news bubble of information that they like, finally becoming the kind of single minded fanatics as they once thought the 'other' to be. This transformation of a group of perfectly fine people to a group of fanatics, united in the hatred of differences, suppression of free exchange of ideas, debate and easy labeling of dissenting voices to anti nationals or anti cultural brigade, spells misfortune for the functioning of society.

The New Yorker article, in my opinion, faithfully describes the key events that led to the rise of BJP and Hindutva brand of politics in India. The article is not judgmental as for the trajectory of the rise Narendra Modi, but the description of the manner in which the dissenting voices are suppressed, killed or jailed makes one wonder the legitimacy of the whole movement. I come from the state of Kerala, which for historical reasons have enjoyed religious harmony and peace and was never a fertile ground for Hindutva brand of politics. Keralites are known to be well informed about politics and have quite modern mind set and opinions that resonate well with progressives in any modern democracies. Coming from this background and having lived only a few years in Northern India without ever getting in touch with the underbelly of the society, I can only imagine the cultural baggage of Hinduism as a metaphor for Northern Indians that lead them to embrace cow vigilantism, religious vandalism, killings in the name of religion and easy exclusion of a group of people, whom they may have grown together with, for being a Muslim. This shows the Hinduism they profess to follow is not the Hinduism that I follow. 

My experience in getting PMP certification (2019)

I work as a consultant in the Energy sector and had a project management work experience of 6 years at the time I decided to try take the PMP certification. I briefly describe timeline in my successful attempt to get PMP certification. It took me about 25 days of effort and 75 hours of study to clear the PMP exam.

Day 1 - Spoke to my friends and got a general idea of how the PMP certification process works. Went through the PMI website. Registered for an accredited PMP course to get the 35 hours PDU requirement. I selected Joseph Phillips course on Udemy.com. The course is quite fairly well reviewed, comprehensive, and fairly well presented. (Though I now think that the content covered in the course is inadequate in clearing the exam, if one relies solely on this course and its materials. But the course an excellent start to meaningful PMP preparation)

Day 1 to 14 - Completed the PMP course on Udemy.com and downloaded the completion certificate. I would play the course videos at 1.5x speed and used to take notes in “Google Keep” to store it and return to it. I must have spent 30 hours for completing this course over a period of two weeks. I also completed the two diagnostic test at the end of the course and scored 73% and 50% respectively in first attempt (total 5 hours). In the end of chapter exams, my scores were on average 16–19 correct out of 25 questions (first attempt).

Day 14 - I completed my application for PMP exam and submitted to PMI for review. Did no preparation for the next one week as I was waiting for the result of the profile review process from PMI side.

Day 21 - My profile was reviewed (without any audit) and I was allowed to register for the exam. Due to errors in the way my contact number was recorded in my PMI profile, I could schedule the date only after speaking to a customer service agent of PMI to help with the scheduling issue.
Day 23 to 30 - I got an exam slot for 7th Dec and took it. I had borrowed PMP study guide (Kim Heldman 9th edition) from a friend and started going through chapters. The book is not well edited (in my opinion), and I found the language confusing at many places, making reading quite tedious. The end of chapter tests were quite useful. I had earlier noted that (during simulated test), my grasp of project planning and executing process areas were weak. So I read those chapters in the guide. For other sections, I only did the end of chapter test and reviewed the incorrect answers (25 hours).

Day 31 to 34 - I had purchased two sets of practice exams from Udemy.com, one set of Joseph Phillips (Set I - 200 questions) and other of Georgio Dacchache (300 questions) (both purchases were made purely based on user reviews). I attempted the exams and was scoring 68%-75% range in the first attempt. I reviewed all the incorrect answers.

Day 35 (day before exam) - I also accessed the online questions content of Kim Heldman guide from Wiley Online learning (Sybex), where additional 300 questions were available for review. I completed those 300 questions over one day.

Day 34 to 35 - Over the course of two days and morning hours on the exam day, I reviewed all the questions that I had attempted over the course of study and mock exams (PMP course - 400 + 350 end of chapter questions, Exam set I - 200 questions, Georgio Dacchache - 300 questions and Kim Heldman - 500 end of chapter questions and 170 exam questions). I noticed upon review that I tend to forget the answers for the non intuitive questions where knowledge of guide rather than experience is important, so I made sure I imbibe the project management concepts from the notes that I prepared from the online course. I actually never went back to the videos after the completion of the course but was relying on the notes I had prepared based on it.

I reached at the exam venue 45 minutes before the scheduled time (3PM). I wanted to briefly go through the notes and memory sheets (available from the course), but decided against it and promptly went to register for the test. I started my test at 2.45 PM.

The questions in the PMP exam were quite confusing in the choice of answers. The questions were all phrased much better than all of the mock exams I had attempted and was also closer to real work environment situations than the ones I had worked on. Kudos to PMI for preparing a well crafted question set. One could quite easily eliminate two of the answer choices, but the remaining choices both looked to be good answers for the question. This was the major issue that I faced in the exam. This was the case for majority of the confusing questions (which I had marked for review) that I encountered in the real exam.

My work experience also helped me visualize the scenarios of questions and I was thinking of my likely response as a project manager in handling such a situations. Hence, some of my answers were based on my work experience and certainly not based on PMBOK guide based principles. Please avoid this situation. I finished answering 200 questions in 2.35 hours (155 minutes) and reviewed all the answers in next 85 minutes. It was with quite a fearful mind that I clicked on the “Next” button after reviewing the 200th question, knowing that I will be seeing the result at the next page. Luckily for me, I passed. I scored “Above Target” in first three process areas, “On Target” in Monitoring & Controlling process area, and “Below Target” in the Closing process area. Somehow, the ‘Below Target’ score in one of the sections did not jeopardize my overall passing of the exam. I was quite lucky that day.

I had some years of experience writing and doing well in tough competitive exams in India, and that cumulative experience may have helped me clear PMP with minimal but very focused preparation.

Musings on the future of Formula 1

The Formula 1 has been the pinnacle of automobile racing for the last 68 years. The best technology, the best talent, fastest cars, the best race organization and the best entertainment all have came from Formula 1 races for the last 7 decades. Rally enthusiasts may argue that the Group B era rallying in the early 1980s were far more exciting than Formula 1. I tend to agree with this argument. Yes, the most important selling point for Formula 1 is that they are the fastest form of facing in a defined circuit and they attract world class racing talent who recognize Formula 1 as the pinnacle of driving skill examination. In the ensuing period, the races have also considerably evolved in terms of the technology, race rules, strategy and marketing. Needless to say, the best minds behind the control of Formula 1 are seemingly well aware of the changing times and have updated the rules and regulations to make the sport entertaining and relevant. For example, in an era of increased awareness climate change and effects of wanton use of fossil fuel, the Formula 1 decided to change the technology regulations to remove refueling between the races to incentivise teams to improve fuel efficiency and fuel management in the races. The changed rules also resulted in probably the biggest innovation in power trains since the entry of Turbo engined cars, namely the development Hybrid powered engines with KERS. Effective management of energy usage and improvement in KERS technology has see the Formula 1 engines smashing the 50% efficiency barrier in 2016. This is a staggering achievement to think that the best of commercial IC engines manage a thermal efficiency of only 30%. Formula cars are now faster than ever, lapping circuits as Monza, Spa at the fastest ever recorded times. The race calendar has also ballooned to 21 races crisscrossing the world and visiting more countries than ever. This is indeed a good period for the sport as such, but clouds are looming ahead questioning the long term viability of Formula 1. There are issues in the form of dominance of teams in the race, the question of money trumping over technical talent, difficult to overtake circuits and cars, boring races where the race proceeds as a procession with pit strategy often the deciding factor in determining the race winner. The technology shift to EV's are also hard to ignore in the long run, the days are numbered for the glorious sounding F1 oil burning engines to disappear from the tracks. 

The year 2021 is planned to be a water shed moment in the rules and regulations. A number of changes in the rules and regulations are set to come on force from 2021 season. The main thrust of the changes are to make racing more exciting, paving for a more equitable field for manufacturers to compete, making the equation of driver skill more relevant being the main reasons.

Formula 1 engines cannot evolve any better than they are currently now, they will inevitably hit the unsurpassable thermodynamic efficiency barrier of the combined system, estimated to be at a few percents higher than the current best effort. The only way forward is to go fully electric, an eminently possible way given the pace battery storage technology is progressing and commercial electric vehicles are kicking the ass of IC cars on drag strips and race tracks across the world. When a time comes when an electric engine car can outrun a conventional engined Formula 1 car, the Formula 1 in its traditional form will cease to be the  fastest and most technologically advanced form of racing in the world, thus reducing its world wide appeal. Given the fact that electric motor powered cars have inherent advantages in torque, power delivery, power density and reliability, it is a matter of time before the battery storage technology improves so much that a race length of energy can be stored within the limits set by ultra light cars of Formula 1. I will go out on a limb to say that by 2035, with mid race change of batteries permitted, we can finally see Formula E cars lapping a race circuit faster than IC engined cars. 

My thoughts on the latest Tesla

I must confess at the outset that I am not a fan of 'big bad' pickup trucks. For me the bulk of a pickup truck signifies nothing more than wanton waste of precious resources, be it fuel, road space or parking space. Not to mention the high probability that the driver in that truck would be more of an asshole than a nice man or woman. May be it's just the stereotype of a pickup truck driver, but I really cannot fathom the logic behind the sizing of some of the dodge rams and ford f150s trucks on the road that they look as massive as proper load hauling trucks used to transport stones etc. The size of a pickup truck is manifest if those trucks were converted to an SUV using the same platform of manufacturing (as both ford and GM have done), the SUV itself is so huge it almost looks like a nicer version of a 17 seater commercial van minus the ridiculous design.

So when I was made aware of the release of an electric SUV by Tesla motors, I really couldn't think of any expectation of what the product could look like nor would I say I sat waiting for the start of video stream with any amusement. There are few givens in the release of any new Tesla automotive product, insane battery technology, great performance and stunningly simple but beautiful design language, and the simplicity of the interior. So I logged in to the Tesla website with my name and email (are they collecting information of potential customers here, by asking to register to watch a live event?). And voila after a crazy light beam show and some playful banter by Elon Musk, the truck was unveiled in a single swoop as this strangely low slung looking, all metal, ultra modern industrial design of all lines and geometry, large metal panels and minimal design flourishes, of a huge truck came into view in the stage. I must say I was stunned into disbelief first, for how can such an unconventional looking truck is not going to elicit negative responses from potential customers. But as the event went on, I slowly become accustomed to the boldness of the endeavor and how such a sledgehammer of a design backed up by insane capability is something that Tesla needed to try upend most entrenched automobile market segment with its fervency of fandoms and brand loyalty.

The truck rides like a cheetah, albeit built as sturdy and massive as a bison. It is spacious on the inside and the specs promise a range topping electric range of 800 KM. That's an insane amount of range, which I am quite sure will trump the gasoline range of a large pickup truck of the same towing capacity and size. I have a good feeling about the product now, and that it will be a good success in the market. One, the design is highly distinctive and slowly grows onto you. And such pickup truck owners often have the biggest baddest egos and how best to massage their ego by giving this futuristic looking all metal and glass behemoth that looks not out of place in a Terminator movie and runs as fast as a Porsche and able to tow a mountain. Secondly, the pricing is quite well done as per me. They have really benchmarked the price against the most popular variant of Ford F150s of the market. Third and most important, the truck, specially the range topping variant can kick the ass of any good performance car let alone performance truck, out there in the market.

If I have a chance, I am quite sure to put a deposit to buy a Tesla pickup truck,the so called 'Cybertruck'. I realized that my ego needs to have me riding triumphantly and lording over the road in a truck. But my conscience was not allowing me to waste resources. So having a Tesla cybertruck is like having the best of both worlds. After watching a few of Elon Musk interviews, I got the impression that elon Musk has a clear product vision that is articulated by designing products that he would love to own and drive. He spoke about his product eliciting 'customer love' than satisfaction, which would help word of mouth publicity and much better brand loyalty in the long run. These are two fundamentally important things in Elon Musk world, design products that are in his word 'insanely great', and that make customer fall in love with it. I hope Tesla Truck will fit the bill and will be a roaring success.