2009 - The year roundup

It is that time of the year where we reflect upon the year that went by and look forward to the new year. For some reason it felt like this year went by very fast and I am glad it did. I remember at the beginning of the year, I had wished that this year should go by fast because of the recession, job losses and a lot of uncertainty.

This year was dominated by the recession. I felt the effect of the recession when there were layoffs in my company and our company was not doing well. Till that time I did not personally feel the effects of the recession. The economy picked up quite a bit in the last half of the year although the unemployment rate is still high.

Personally it has been a good year for me. My father retired and I was glad to have been able to be with him on his day of retirement. We took a trip to Orlando Florida and it was quite enjoying. On the work front, it has been very satisfying. In the first half of the year, I got an opportunity to learn how to work with the rating engine. I also got an opportunity to work with off shore developers. It is a different experience as you are working with someone on the other side of the world. For the first time I understood why the companies put so much importance on good communication skills.

The second part of the year gave me an opportunity to lead a project and also design a solution. These were my next steps professionally. I wanted to be involved more on the design level and also wanted to groom myself to be a leader. These two projects gave me those opportunities. We will know the results next year how successful I was in these roles.

This was also the year when most of my close friends  became parents. It is like a wave. Three years ago one after another everyone got married. And now everyone is starting the family. On the technology front, the iPhone became an even bigger phenomenon and we saw a lot of smartphones like iPhone coming into the market. Verizon came up with Droid phone. Google released Google Wave, an interactive platform for people to communicate.

Microsoft came up with a rival search engine called Bing. I did not expect it to actually give competition to Google Search engine. Now Microsoft has struck a deal with Yahoo to power Yahoo searches using Bing. Look at the turn of the tables here. An year ago, Microsoft was working on a hostile takeover of the Yahoo search engine. Now they have come up with a product which would run the Yahoo search engine.

In the United States, the healthcare reform bill was in the news. It is one of the promises that Obama made during his campaign. But there was a lot of backlash for the reform because it would increase the deficit and also there was a public option that was supposed to be a competition for the other insurance firms. As of now, the public option is removed and it has passed the senate vote. Looks like it is going to be passed in some shape or form.

China is emerging as a strong force post recession. They have aspirations to be the next super power. Even India has done well post recession. I hear people taking India's name very often  these days. China and India are sometimes talked about in the same breath. It is a big welcome. The climate change got a lot of attention  this year. There were a few big conferences held this year.

Back home there was a tragic death of YSR and before that his massive victory. Until he died, I did not understand the importance of YSR in the Andhra politics. I did not know that he had so much control over the state. It seems he kept the Telangana movement under control and it is only after his demise, the movement got a huge momentum which led to the center's declaration that the new state will be created. After 2 weeks and after so much of resistance from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions against the division of the state, now the center has reversed its stand. This will lead to more violence. The center's endorsement for Telangana has opened a pandora's box for the creation of 7 more states.

Among the movies released this year, I liked 3 Idiots, London Dreams, Dil Bole Hadippa, All the Best, Kick, Hangover. Ranbir Kapoor was the best entertainer for me this year. This year will be remembered for the death of the greatest Pop icon Michael Jackson. It was the most shocking entertainment news of the year.

The things I look forward to next year is my wife's graduation, my parents' visit, my success as a leader and taking steps towards being an architect, more innovations and peace. I wish all of you a very happy new year. See you next year.

United States of India

The breaking news of today is the Government of India has agreed to introduce a bill in the state assembly for the creation of the new state of Telangana. For the supporters of the cause, this is a great news. I had not been in favor of the Telangana state because of the fact that I do not want divisions within the same set of people. The Andhra and Telangana people speak the same language, have same traditions, have same history and legacy and on some level are siblings from the same mother. The people of Telangana feel there is no development in their areas because of Andhra and they feel Andhra people are depriving them of their right to develop. They feel having a state of their own will help them be more prosperous and developed and successful.

This situation is straight out of the "Hum Saath Saath Hain" movie. We had a happy family with the father, mother, three sons and their families living together in a big house. After a while the second son feels he does not have enough independence and privacy and wants to move out. He says he will be visiting the family often and by living on his own he feels he and his family will have an opportunity to grow.

Initially parents do not agree to it and try to convince him that he can have all the independence and privacy in this house. They are doing this because they know once one member of the family moves out, others will follow. But they can only resist to a certain point. If the son is so adamant what can the parents do? They can only hope that they do visit once in a while and still be part of the family.

In the same way I wish that in spite of being in a separate state, Andhra, Telangana and Rayalaseema people do not forget that they are telugu people first of all and they be a part of that family. As with my above analogy, after Telangana, who wants to move out? Will it be Rayalaseema, Vidarbha, Gorkhaland? In every state of our country you will be able to find people who have a unique identity based on the region, linguistics or thru some other measure. Now if you start dividing the country based on each unique identity, then we will end up with hundreds of states. Technically each district can be divided into a state. You will find so much unique in each district. Then we should change our country's name from Republic of India to United States of India. I hope they stay united.