Ballon d’Or : Messi or Ronaldo, Ribery frustrated

The French footballer, Ribery, has expressed his frustration over Ballon d’Or title that Messi and Ronaldo were only two players to have won the award for past seven years. As Manuel Neuer missed out the title for 2014, Ribery has casted doubt on Ballon d’Or title. But the reality is Messi and Ronaldo are better among the best. Those made them get nominated successively.

Gameplay of football has changed. Slow and steady classic form of football has transformed into pace and speed. One who runs with the ball to the penalty area gets the praise. That was the reason Messi and Ronaldo are famous for. Unlike other footballer, Messi and Ronaldo were gifted with great clubs at the start of the career. Both played among the best players and trained with best coaches at the early time of their career.

But for fans who scores for the club is the hero of the day. With Messi and Ronaldo no club would miss scoring the match of that day. Either they will be scoring or assist the team member to score the goal. But somehow they get to the record of cherished moment of the match. This is not happening with defenders and Goalkeepers. They are least attended when it comes to praising for the win. It had for any goalkeeper or central defender to provide spectacular assist as the Ballon d’Or winner. The first shot goal from a punt kick is almost rarity. This has cost Neuer his title for the year 2014.

The hard truth is the voting reflected the change of mindset in the game. All they forgot is the team work. The award truly reflects the amount of goals scored by the nominee. Not the clean sheets or time taken to concede a goal. This was echoed by Ribery. But the frustration has gone too far that Ribery has marked whether it would be worth to attend Ballon d’Or ceremony in future when Messi and Ronaldo get nominated. 

Effective Time Mangement: Simple steps!

In the previous post, we talked about the importance of waking up early in the morning. We learned how to brighten the day when your environment starts turning bright. The essential of time management is not to try too hard. Keep the target simple. But achieve the target. To be short, simple and achievable target is the key to success. Efficient time management from day one will make you weak and tried. It would be wise to add sips of time management tricks day by day. Let’s jump to the other steps involve in efficient time management.

Important & necessary:

Most people find little to complete all the job of a day. Not only those complain, all of us leave behind some part or whole part of the job for another day. To be practical, it is quite common and we can’t help it. So it is good not to worry about your lost day but focus on what was done and how efficient the work was done. Yet, many of us might question, “Hey man! The work which was procrastinated was very important and serious to my business! How come you say it as common?”

The trick used by successful time management is to classify your work. You can tag your work as follows:

·        Important

·        Necessary

Important are “must be done but has some more time to finish it” while Necessary are “well timed work”. Both might be mutually exclusive or inclusive depending upon circumstances of your day. I wish I don’t get too technical here. To keep it simple: “You received telephone bill with 10 days to settle the dues.” It is important but not necessary. “Your boss calls you while doing a work”. Yet the work is far more important, it is necessary to answer your boss. Your work can be done for whole day but your boss will not wait for your answer.

I guess the above examples will help you understand the two tags: important and necessary. While all important work are not necessary but all necessary are important. An imminent work gains necessary status which can’t be subjected to procrastination.

But it is immature to preclude not all important works are not necessary. We find ourselves with “important and necessary” task to do. So, this kind of task gets priority over other tasks ahead. So create priorities for your daily task. At first we may find it time consuming to classify our daily job. But with few days of practice, we will do on-the-fly.

To make it simple further, follow the below mentioned priorities for each task:

1.     Important and necessary

2.     Not important but necessary

3.     Not Necessary but important

4.     Not important and not necessary

The 2^nd & 3^rd priority are interchangeable depending upon the tasks on our hand: “You were handed with telephone bill with 10 days to settle the dues.” It is not important but necessary. If you didn’t find time in that day to pay the bill, it will not hurt you. When it is the last day to settle the bill, it will turn “important and necessary” task. So, it is not the rule of thumb to follow the priorities always. But this will happen very rarely.

You have completed all the work for that day and returned home. All home chores are completed. Now, you will definitely find time to pay the bill (not necessary but important) .Yet it is good to apply simple common sense while scheduling the task. Not all tasks are same.

As the days pass on, we will find ourselves sub-classifying our daily task with in the four priorities.

Time spent on entertainment:

Now it’s party time. How much time you spent on entertainment? Does it really matter! Most people expect an enjoyable life. So entertainment play important role to keep us relax.

Most of us think entertainment is expendable. The time spent on amusement could be invested on productive work on that day. The above assumption will ruin our day further. All must have their own time for amusement. A time spent on your own well-being is not waste of time. So spend some time on other leisure activities when available. A 5 minutes good chats and jokes will relieve you of your stress and tension.

Happiness not only depends upon the amount of money you made in that day. It is good have some time for friends and family. This will not question our time management skill. For being productive, we can’t lose sight on what we try to have at the end of the day. It will always be a happy life. Keep schedule to perform all the tasks on hand but make sure we spent time with our family and friends.

After all, we work for them. We took our job to meet the needs of our family. So to be obsessed with our job will do more harm than good. Our family relationship is lost. Further, we will develop fatigue and sickness. Soon we will feel the work uncomfortable. Thus, loss in productivity. The end result is you will find the available time inadequate.

So, don’t get obsessed with profession. If you prefer to be a loner then you can skip this part. But for people seeking normal life, overcoming obsession will play magic both in personal as well as professional life.

Habit of saying “No”:

The weird strategy to follow is saying “no” to anyone who requests us to work on matter not worthy of our time. Really, most part of life is spent on nothing. 80-20 rule plays vital role. 80% of our life time spent on useless or non-productive work. To be efficient time manager, we have to build the habit of saying “no” for anything which will waste your time.

But we can’t have any hard or soft rule to this habit. When we find ourselves end up with least priorities, you consider saying “yes”. But an imminent task lay ahead it would be wise enough to give a strict “no”.

Some may find this habit and the preceding section as contradicting. But it is not. If we start to follow schedules for our family & friends and profession then it will not conflict with other strategy. Consider, “You have meeting by 8 o clock morning. But your friend calls you for a night party”. An involuntary answer would be “no”. If we play any diplomacy, there will be high probable chance of messing up our business meeting.

We may find ourselves in more awkward situation. When uncertainty looms, better we should answer it with “no”. Playing chances would spoil other day.

Some might feel skeptical about this habit. “Won’t it spoil our relationship with friends & family if we answer in negative? My boss won’t appreciate my negative answer!” Alright, to avoid tussles say no when one sphere encroaches upon another. When we spend time with family, our bosses should be kept at abeyance. Anyhow, our boss will find a way to convey the message when we return to work.

But never say “no” at the time of contingency. For any emergency help or unforeseen accident, respond with immediate effect. As all we know there is no foolproof method for time management.

Think of your goal often:

Actual time management is all about how good we feel about the day when it ends. So if we achieve our goal then we feel the day was really productive and we utilized our time effectively. So the whole time management will feel like a psychological assessment. If we make it, we feel satisfied for the day.

But nothing is achieved in a single day. We have to invest numerous day hours on our goals before we rejoice over the result. The common human tendency is to have reluctance after a few days of vigor. For long-term goals, it is good to split up the targets. Each target must be feasible for that day. Completing day by day target will surprise us. One day we will wonder our long-term goals were achieved with ease.

It is similar to pie by pie approach to eat a big cake. Short term targets and goals keep us motivated. For long term goals, we have to create a short and achievable daily targets. The very big achievement starts with simple steps.

“If you feel you are losing focus on your goal, then write it down in a piece of paper. It will keep you focused on your goal. But I am not sure about it scientifically. But writing it down is good way to keep you motivated and will remind you of your goal”. Sometimes unquestionable stupid things work well. Focusing on the goal will reduce the time spent on unrelated activities. Once such activities are taken out of equation you will find yourself with ample time to muddle with.

Sleep well:

Most hard workers are against the sound sleep. For them who work hard with sleepless night will achieve their goals. We can’t assure that. Not to blame them, that was others thought us from childhood. One who works hard, sacrificing one owns sleep, will succeed in life. But one golden theory was never spoken. They forgot us to educate how to be efficient worker than to be hard worker.

Sleepless night for only meant to night shift workers. The effective to keep a day long is to do all the work in efficient manner. But it need a calm and relax mind. So having a good sound sleep in a day is must for anyone who which to be effective next day.

We can check the effectiveness of the people based on the sleep. How sound your bed time will make you calm and relax. It will improve focus and concentration. Few people get new ideas while they sleep. If you are one of them, then sleep is the best remedy for any creativity block that hogs you.

It doesn’t mean that all those work hard relentlessly are doing it bad. It all about how efficient we might be otherwise. As stated above, obsession with something will create a block on thinking. To overcome such block, a calm and sound sleep is the remedy. The serenity will create new opportunity and new methods to achieve your goals. In present world, only way to get serenity is through sleep where we think of nothing around us. Brain will work on one thing which you sow as goals to achieve.

Having sound 8 hours of sleep will improve our professional productivity. And helps us keep happy. The most desirous life is to live happily. So we have to find the happiness within ourselves than seeking it from other sources.

Naps & breaks:

Do you remember the day one lesson on time management? It was said to wake up early. But the drawback is dizziness throughout the day. Not only the break the dizziness to keep you fresh and energized a short nap is enough. Take a nap for 5 to 15 minutes before the second part of your day. All you will feel energized and motivated.

It is not only limited to naps. How about a chat with co-workers? Discussing funny and weird things happen on work floor day to day. To break monotony, periodic breaks serve as safety value to vent out the boredom.

If it is needed you can try to laugh out loud to relieve stress and moodiness which are resultant of long boring work. Once you overcome the monotony, you are able to get back to work with some vigor compared to the work done without breaks. After all, we are not robots programmed to do a job tirelessly.

Natural tendency of human being is to getting indifferent towards things done repeatedly. We cannot blame anybody. It is how we are created. We are cursed with our brain that it needed heterogeneous acts to keep it focused and concentrated. When you have a break, don’t talk about your work. Talk about something irrelevant to your job. The purpose of breaks is to keep you focused on job. This will improve efficiency. Thus reduce the time consumed on the work completion.

Whatever we might do, the fact that a day consist of 24 hours will not change. So it is up to us to decide how we utilize our day. The above methods are simple and practical methods which will make you work efficiently thus managing your time. Don’t force yourself hard to follow. Try it. It will come out gradually. 

Lu Yong: Chinese Buyers Club

China is prosecuting Lu Yong for importing illegals drugs. But the person was doing to keep his right to live. A leukemia patient was caught for smuggling life-saving drugs illegally into China to keep himself and others alive. A drug when would cost 1000 yuan would cost 100 when bought from India pharma companies. The strict patent regime made the life difficult when it comes to life saving drugs. The medicines are out of reach for majority of the population. The story doesn't ends in China but the ordeal continue in Thailand, Brazil, African countries.

For multinational pharma companies, life saving medicine is just a business but for third world its a matter of life and death. In most cases, the customs department release the seized goods on humanity grounds. But still the strict patent regime continue the ordeal of patients who needed the life saving drugs. While developing countries mulls amending patents law, the MNC pharma companies lobby against the move. For them, Indian pharma companies are high value target to be taken out from the market to get upper hand. Since most buyers club depend on India for generic version of life saving drugs, MNCs started pestering Indian pharma industries with unwanted litigation.

It is good to amend patent law favoring the production of generic medicine. If not then one day medicine would turn to be high cost luxury product. Creating a cure for new disease is commendable and the researchers who spent whole life for the such innovation must be rewarded but with any other lives. The very purpose of invention get a wrong notion when it fails to benefit majority of the human population..

For multi national companies, the drug they produce must fetch profit along with cost incurred in such researches. But such approach when it comes to life saving drugs defeat the very purpose of citizen welfare. We are not still stuck at the old notion of warring state. The Concept is Gross National Happiness is taking precedence over the old Gross Development product. Such notion gains success when citizens are provided with adequate welfare schemes.

The law might stamp him as wrongdoer but the equity discharge him. Lu Yong, not only saved his life, tried to save many others. The charges were that he was trying to smuggle goods illegally. Had he done it for profit the state action is justifiable. When a law which does injustice then such law shall be considered as no law. Hope the the cause of Yu Long might turn the tide in the developing world.

Democracy: Industrial Lobby

Hello there! There is huge uproar that BJP and corporate world has nexus between them. The recent exposure has gone to the threshold as the Delhi faces poll. It is usual for political parties to accuse others of corruption and inaction. But recent debate on nexus between the government and power companies created huge buzz on Social Networks. 

One thing every body forgot is lobbying was in existence even before the present government came to power. Not only India, but huge part of the world has bond between legislators and business people. Example, four out of five legislators in U.S.A do lobbying for industries and business. The reforms of 1991 has emphasized privatization. Hence, it is no surprise that each government favored industrial lobbying. Hence, there is nothing to worry much about the connections. 

The huge voiced raised by other parties against the present government is just a cheap political stunt. If they know about the nexus between the power companies and the legislators then they would have exposed it the moment they get to know about it. But they waiting till the election commission to announce polling date. The present unrest is created just for winning the upcoming Delhi assembly polls. It's high time that the politicians must think for public good rather than fighting against each other. 

Ballon d'Or 2014

Congratulations Cristino Ronaldo! He lifted the Ballon d'Or, 2014. Ronaldo deserves it. He made great difference to his team. Slew of Goals and assists fetched Ballon d'Or for the year 2014. But the trend of awarding Ballon d'Or is quite puzzling. The forward and attacking midfielder find the bright spot when it comes to awarding awards in Association Football.

Football is all about team. No one can relinquish his position on the field. But how come a striker or attacker alone rise to prominence while other are less significant. The German Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer who has good shot at the Ballon d'Or missed it in voting. This has raised uneasy questions. Is football all about scoring? I guess not. It's all about how good the player plays from the position given by the club managers. Neuer was exemplary with his stunning goalkeeping skills. Yet the audience fail to recognize him except for the few.

People all remember who made the team win but not about who helped them making it in field. Especially the stronghold guardian who foils opposition attack. In Football stronghold guardians need team skills than the forwards who can even play lone-wolf at contingency. FIFA is not to be blamed for sidelining Neuer. But it's mentality of the audience. They remember only the player who scores for them who provide spectacular celebrations not the people who stood the test of pressure.

DoT unblocks 32 Websites

The government has ordered Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to unblock 32 websites that had been blocked last month for hosting "jihadi propaganda". The Department of Telecommunication(DoT) has blocked 34 websites originally. But it unblocked four of them on undertaking that they will compile with law (Info: Dot unblocks 4 websites).

Some of the websites blocked were used by software professionals. Pastebin, github are used in collaborative software projects. Blocking them has created a huge online rant against the move. Now, DoT has ordered to unblock all websites blocked previously. The reason cited for the block was those websites propagated ISIS propaganda and they don't need any authentication to post information & share them with the world. 

Recently techie who was arrested in Bangalore for operating ISIS twitter account has made DoT turn aggressive against select popular websites among software professionals. But blocking pastebin and github drew huge public ire. They are used by limited audience who possess technical knowledge as blocking them will serve no purpose. Wrongdoers will always find a way out. The move to unblock websites is welcomed especially among the technical community.

Effective Time Management: Wake Up Early

Now comes the interesting part of effective time management. If you have not read the previous post, read it before going ahead.

Here you will get the same lesson which your parents would have insisted upon you in your childhood. "Get up early in the morning". You feel it rhetoric. Few of you might ask, how waking up early is way to effective time management! Once, you get up early before sunrise, you will have lot more time to work on that particular day.

It might feel weird at start. Lets see. Most of us wake up late and hurry up things. This will make a hectic day. Often, we miss schedules. Skipping breakfast seems to be order of the day. A good day must begin with a healthy breakfast. So if you skip breakfast you skip the entire day. A healthy breakfast improves concentration. A concentrated work helps achieving targets.

So wake up early. And you will find more time to accomplish your usual morning chores. Now, what about people attending night-shift? Not to worry about. Try to have a good sleep before you attend your night schedules. A good sound eight hour sleep will keep your brain calm. A calm brain improves concentration. Thus improve productivity. Keeping ample time to start for work is the way to go. Don't hurry up your preparation. Especially when you have presentation or meeting, wake up atleast three hours before departing to work.

Drawbacks: Getting up early will make you sleepy all day. But don't relent. You biological system must adapt to the change in the biological change that you force on your body. Hence, it need some time to adapt the change.

To fix the drawback: Try to take a five to ten minutes naps after your lunch. It will set your body alright. You will feel rejuvenated. But don't go asleep. It reverse the good done by early wake-up.

Have faith and determination to fix your time. It will increase your productivity. In next post, you will find out how to evaluate yourselves.

Time Management Tips & Skill

Hello there! From poor to wealthy person or whoever it may be. There is a commodity which can't be bought. The high demand commodity is time. Most people find it difficult to manage time. As it the only commodity which even money can't buy you. So managing oneself is nothing but effective time management. How you manage your time decides how effective you are. From schooling kids to top CEO of corporate can't neglect time. Time decides your success. Ineffective time management will result in failures, stress, frustrations.

Time Management is not an exclusive sphere for executives of corporate world. But it equally apply to students, house-maker, workers, freelancer, etc.

This is not about marketing any digital diary, planner or any other online tools and not to confuse you with any other time management products. All the methods provided are feasible to follow. It will work good over time.

Methods provided here are simple yet effective. You will not find an another boring lengthy exercise on time management. In the next post, we will get started with  effective time management

Unnecessary Surgery due to Monetization of Indian Healthcare

Shocking news has been revealed by the media that  44% of the surgery done to the patients are unnecessary. 

"Everything in Indian healthcare is increasingly getting monetized. This is an indicator of that malaise." -Dr Sanjay Nagral, Editorial Board, the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics¹

When a person or his family face any health problem, the first thing done to the ailing person is self medication. Visiting a Hospital for a cure is frowned up when it comes to common ailments. The reason for such self-medication is due to the huge cost involved in the treatment. Our way of socialization of individuals in the society has added huge cost when it comes to healthcare system in India. Where Government is bound to provide health care for every individual in a country, healthcare system in India were delegated to private players. The end result was nothing but monetization of Indian Healthcare system.

Health of an individual is not seen as norms but profit by the present healthcare system. Most affected person is the insurance companies. For people who have mediclaim policies for undergoing any kind of surgical treatment, the insurance companies are going to pay the cost of such unnecessary surgery. Thus leading to undue pressure upon the economy. The report pointed that most of the government scheme which provide insurance cover to poor section of the society are worst hit by these unnecessary surgeries. The taxpayer money being pocketed in the form of insurance claims by the present healthcare institute. A pure drain of state economy.

The report focused prominently on the people who are affected with cardio-vascular diseases. One of dreaded disease in Indian Subcontinent. The faith in the Nobel profession make no person to question the diagnosis of the healthcare professionals. The faith leads to unnecessary surgeries. The second opinion of other healthcare professional is a little relief. The end result for privatizing healthcare system in India was evident in the media report.

While a state-run healthcare system avoid unnecessary surgery on patients, the doctor on private run healthcare recommend surgery for even simple ailments which is profit to those healthcare institutions. The approach of state-run healthcare institution were branded indifferent towards the patients. But the report busted all the myth cast upon the state run healthcare systems.

Source: 1. The report was extracted from the leading news agency, The Times of India.

Myntra End of Reason Sale follow Flipkart Billion Dollar Sale

The online Indian community have not forgot the Flipkart Billion Dollar  sale. The customer who ordered where provided with untold surprises. Mostly with cancelled orders. Delayed service. Yet Myntra one of the leading online retailer failed to take cue from the mistake of predecessor. The end of reason sale shows as follow of Flipkart Billion Dollar Sale fiasco.

The customer who ordered online ranted that their orders are getting cancelled despite deduction were made to the customers. Most of these niche sales are about promotion of the brands and products which were up for the sales. And the prominent strategy for these online retailers are to promote the mobile application.

But the sale was hit by the buggy mobile app. The customer were frustrated with the mobile app. With creating a niche over the sales, they are able to create huge traffic towards the server that might choke them to death. The ultimate results were ending up frustrated customers. The social media started witnessing the fury and ordeals of the customer.

Badminton ace Padma Shri Saina Nehwal denied Padma Bhushan slashes Sports Ministry

Saina Nehwal hit the headlines again but not for winning any badminton title. This time furious Saina Nehwal slashed sports ministry for not recommending her name for Padma Bhushan title. In past, the news were just about who were award the award. Not this time. Saina Nehwal contended that despite her achievements, sport ministry has overlooked her.

"The badminton Association of India forwarded my application for Padma Bhushan to the sports ministry. I am now informed by ministry sources that they have not recommended my name to the home ministry panel.. They have picked Sushil instead. If it is a mere recommendation, why didn't the ministry choose both of us?"  - Saina Nehwal.

Also she bagged home numerous titles in the year 2014. She deserves the respect. But now it is demanded as the sports ministry overlooked her name for Padma Bhushan. The move made by the sport ministry were slashed out as prejudice.

Such kind of disappointment from the government end will hurt the sport industry in India. The industriousness of the sport people high depend up on how they are rewarded in the end. Even if it is not a monetary reward they need recognition that they have done something for the country. Lets hope this row will not affect Saina's morale and sports ministry learns when it comes to recognizing sports personals.

DoT Unblocks four websites

Recently, Department of Telecommunication(DoT) has blocked 32 websites which were used to propagate terror agenda. The move was highly criticized by the tech community in India. As prominent of them are pastebin, github which were widely used by Information Technology professionals.

Planning Commission

TV news channels started flashing changes to the Planning Commission of India. Good to here that they are trying to get rid of these old extra-constitutional body. Yes! the Planning commission was neither part of constitution nor any legislation. And planning commission members were selected arbitrarily. Any one who is good friend of politicians were made members. But such a body wielded high influence on the every five year plans in India. Every plan placed before the National Development Council were scrutinized by the planning commission. The legacy left by the congress were followed by all the subsequent government.