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31
July

The Road Traveled #2

Posted by Hariharan Ragunathan (0) Comment

So continue my narration, from my earlier post, after joining TIME Mumbai things were not showing hope immediately for me. I started to struggle in class, as CAT comprises of three major areas - Verbal Ability and Reasoning , Quantitative Aptitude and Data Interpretation. I must accept I am neither strong or weak in any areas. With an average aptitude in all the areas, the classes were a big learning for me. I understood the effect of  skipping some areas in lower standards at school.
The first of that I struggled was Basic Geometry. Its only in  Tamil Nadu I hope there are four boards for passing your 10th Standard. State Board, Matriculation Board, Anglo Indian Board and the CBSC Board. How far 4 different boards for a high school education with in a state effective is a debatable question. Because of this you cannot judge performance of the students till the high school based on their grades as there is additional parameter required to weigh the grade. State Board - easiest of the lot to study, so of course its more crowded with students who like to boost up their scores. There is always an argument made by the students of CBSC board that their education standard is high and State Board syllabus is no match and of course its like that. I understood this arguments validity in my CAT coaching class. I had sailed through my School education without learning basic concepts of Geometry, and the best part is I scored a 100% in my Mathematics board exam. This was easy because I can leave the complete geometry chapter and still manage a 100 because of the question paper pattern and the content in the chapter.
I had to cope up with this problem, so I revisited the NCERT 8th, 9th and 10th standard mathematics book to understand the basic axioms and theorems. So that was about My Quantitative Struggle to score. The next dreaded area for many and also loved by many is Verbal Section. Here Norman Lewis gave me a little confidence that I too can perform well in this section. With that confidence I followed the sample question booklets to manage the other section. I would suggest people who feel they are very bad in Verbal skills especially with words Norman Lewis is my recommendation to start with.
The TIME mock cat series was like a struggle for me in the initial exams, where every 20 Sunday afternoon I after the test I would think am I in the right place trying for the right thing. I could not find out any pattern in my exam results, sometimes I performed Quantitative section extremely well but the next time I failed to clear my cut offs also. All these were a better learning to show my instability :).
After all the struggle On the D-day, November 18th 2007, when I saw the CAT paper the paper had no surprise in terms of number of questions. But that is the only thing familiar, the quantitative section this time had gone through a big upturn with really teasing questions. The Data Interpretation was full of calculation intensive sets instead of logic based. Verbal section which I though was the easiest and attended the maximum count of 17 questions. I did not know I have entered into the trap myself by attempting these many questions in verbal section. The result was some thing that was totally disastrous for me when it came January 2008.   (To be continued….)
Category : Opinions | Blog
27
July

The Road Traveled #1

Posted by Hariharan Ragunathan (2) Comment

“Profits are a Signal to resources holders where resources are mostly highly values in society”

- Michael R Baye
I think, I was fascinated a lot about Economics before landing here at XL, because of  Tim Harford’s Under Cover Economist. This book was the eye opener for me. And Why I started to say all these, Profits are Signal, we always are in search of becoming a unique from one group and that is a never ending process. When we are in school we would like to go to college which is the best and that gives you an identity, so we would look for “Signals”, like which is the best college to join, based on the “Profits of others”, may be the advantages of the existing students of the college.
Once we reach that college do our search stops. That again starts, we would like to make our self Individualize and would want to look for the best company. And the search continues there on…Now I had two question. Are we looking for excellence and perfection ? If So what is that will end this search?.
From Here on I would give my narration of how I ended up in this institute at Jamshedpur . I still remember the first time I read this name of the city during my Social Science class, when I read about the revolution of Jamshedji Tata and Tata Steel. I never thought I would land up in this city and would spend a couple of years in this place.
Doing an MBA was a major aspiration in my life, but I never had a plan to do it after my Graduation. So I ended up working with TCS for the last two years. As I loved Mumbai a lot after a visit during my college days for a South East Asian Rotaract conference at Daman. The packed train I boarded at Dadar was the biggest attraction for me to spend my initial two years of career in Mumbai. So I landed the same way in Mumbai working for TCS.
Joined a Domestic project of TCS, since technology interests me a lot, the big Implementation project for the domestic client was a Huge learning opportunity for me. I had a good mentor, Arun, who taught me the skills required and that really helped me in delivering my work with a sustained high performance. I made some Friends here at TCS, the list I am giving is not exhaustive so I can name a few, Vivek, Charan, Karthi, Gokulan, Niraj, Ram, Prasanna, Rakesh, Chezhian, Archana, Vidya, Anu, Amol, Pulkit, Ashish & POS Team…and the list does not end there…. it goes on. So when I started to work I was not in any idea of doing my MBA in my near future. I started my preparations for management entrance exam off late in 2006 in December.
As I never researched on this, I did not have any Idea of what all B schools exist. I was aware of only 2 exams one was the CAT and other was GMAT. I was planning of GMAT. The first day I saw the astronomical fee I need to spend stumped me and that was the end of GMAT story. The next Best option was CAT. So I started my preparations aiming at CAT 2007 from December 2006 by joining TIME Mumbai.
(Will be Contd… # 2….)
Category : Opinions | Blog
8
February

Reliance ADA IPO Pvt. Ltd

Posted by Hariharan Ragunathan (0) Comment

This news , Reliance Entertainment plans IPO, really made me feel irritated. Just a week before Reliance Infratel has filed their DRHP, even SEBI has not yet started to review the DRHP this news is hitting the market. I am frustrated with the way they are trying to loot money from the public. It does not looks like capital generation for a company but for an Individual. Reliance Power IPO is still a big question for Reliance Energy Investors. This is the first time SEBI has given approval for a company to raise huge capital for a company with ZERO revenues. Reliance Power is expected to reach the valuations given by promoters by 2016. Stil the name Reliance made investors crazy and that resulted in huge subscription. Only people can answer to these when this IPO is listed. I must honestly say what RNRL valuations at present are upto. This post is a must read for any one, I laughed at it for a long time. A lot more IPOs are expected from the Reliance ADAG IPO Company, I think thats the Business of the company :)

Category : Opinions | Blog
8
February

Maitree - A Helping Hand

Posted by Hariharan Ragunathan (0) Comment

Last Saturday I had a chance to be a part of the Annual Volunteers Meet of TCS Maitree. I must give a true confession here, I am with this Company for the last 21 months but only on this day I had a real picture of this social service wing. Started on Feb 23 2002, in this 6 years, this initiative of Mrs. Mala Ramadorai has gone miles deep in embracing the society in every possible way.

I must list down some of the important initiatives by Maitree for the society and for the associates of the organisation.

  • Women Empowerment Programme at Wazapur to make them self dependent
  • Panvel Village Devlopment Programme
  • Peer Education to protect against HIV AIDS
  • Sion School Initiative to train the hindi medium children in Conversational English
  • Colaba Fishermen community children intiative to groom them
  • Sion Junior College Initiative to train them for Entrance exams for higher studies

Other Initiatives/Clubs for associates are the following. I really don’t know how many associates are aware of this.

  • Music Club
  • Trek Club
  • Adventure Club
  • Quiz Club
  • Toastmasters Club - I have already posted about this a lot.

Overall the Volunteers meet was refreshing for me it reminded me of my Rotaract Days. Surrounded by bubbling volunteers and I felt like I am back in a Rotaract event. The main objective of this annual meeting was to discuss on the various problems faced by these initiatives and to arrive at solutions to those problems. Every associate must try to contribute to Maitree, inturn he contributes for the betterment of Society and Self.

Category : Opinions | Blog
8
December

Lakdikapul to Paradise

Posted by Hariharan Ragunathan (0) Comment

Two weeks before I had a chance to visit Hyderabad for the second time. The last time I went to change train to Mumbai a year and a half back. This time I visited to attend my colleagues marriage. I had a good time mainly because this trip was after a long gap in travelling. I got down at Lakdikapul in Hyderabad and travelled most of the time and ended at Paradise to board my return bus.

I need to tell three things about this travel. If you ever want to visit Hyderabad from Mumbai by Bus, I can recommend you to travel by Kesineni Travels. This is not an advertisement, the Volvo bus they provided was really good. I travelled in the last seat up and down but never felt any of the usual horrors of last seat jerks in bus. Also the convenient Internet booking they provide was good.

Next thing I wanted to say was about the Auto rickshaws of Hyderabad. The auto meter run faster than autos. Its strictly not for weak hearts, the auto meters are at damn good speed to show to end up at some high fare :)

The final thing, Horrible traffic. To move between any important place it takes only in hours even if you travel by a rickshaw. I don’t know the condition if we travel by local mass transport, I did not get the chance.

Overall the trip was good, had a chance to visit only a shopping mall, to finally watch a 3D movie there. If you ever plan to visit Hyderabad please plan for a longer duration because you must travel a lot in the city a lot.

Category : Opinions | Blog
22
June

Finally Google Opens the Door for Group Chats

Posted by Hariharan Ragunathan (0) Comment

For long time I was expecting this from Google.Even my colleague was wrote about this. Finally they have added this in the Google Talk Gadget. You can try that here.

Hope they will soon implement in the Google talk client also :)

Category : Opinions | Blog
4
June

Blog Post on Blogs

Posted by Hariharan Ragunathan (0) Comment

I read lots of feeds, share them, comment them or write about them in this blog. So I decided to write a post on the various blogs I read. I have listed some of my favorite blogs which had fed me with a huge load of information. Its not of any order that I have listed.

The Official Google Blog - For people who admire the Silent Deals and New Release of the Google, this is a feast.

Google Operating System - This gives you everything about Google, even if you are criticizing, praising or ranting, it will be present already here.

TCS Innovations - It does not matter where you are, it’s who you are and what you can. These TCSrs are really proving it. They discuss on latest trends.

Coding Horror - For a Programmer, Code should not be a Horror, reading this will make you understand the nuances, importance of coding. Not only coding, Jeff Atwood talks on everything related to computer.

Feurer Thoughts - Steven Feuerstein is a person who does everything with PL/SQL and does only PL/SQL. But in this blog, he speaks everything other than PL/SQL, and sometimes PL/SQL posts slips here also.

Jonathan Schwarts - He is a man I admire. Being the CEO of SUN, I don’t know how he is getting time to write such a wonderful blog. Its worth reading.

Creating Passionate Users - Kathy Sierra, known among the Java Programming Community, writes this blog in her style like Head first series. But now she has not posted anything after a big controversy which I said earlier.

Raganwald - Reginald Braithwaite writes on passionate programming with very good substantiations on every idea. Don’t miss his delicious feeds.

Scott H Young - To rejuvenate your spirits and to bounce back when you go down, this blog is vital for you. Scott, being an university student writes on topics usually discussed by saints and monks.

The Oracle-Base – Tim Hall, an oracle expert, explains every enhancement in new releases of oracle. You can expect something other than oracle from him in this blog.

TechCrunch – This should be called as Web2.0 News, to get updated on any news about websites follow the posts of Michel Arrington.

Seth Godin - I call him as Internet Guru + Marketing maverick. I love his insights; his eyes are able to grab the power behind every image he sees.

The Corridor - Will writes most of the articles in cricinfo. In this blog he writes very beautiful comments on every cricket match that’s happening in the world.

Worse Than Failure – This is a group blog for Programming. I like their short parables on programming which they frequently post. Don’t miss their CodeSOD, even your dirty code may come in that.

Telecom OSS-BSS – Since I am working in a telecom OSS-BSS system, this blog feeds me with the latest trends in Telecom domain. Every new tool introduces will be reviewed here.

Oracle Scratchpad - Jonathan Lewis can help you how to maximize the use of oracle and how to get the maximum out of a database.

Tom Kyte – Though I write this at the last, this is my all time favorite blog. He is my guru of oracle. I love his flamboyance in writing at the same time noble in presenting.

Category : Opinions | Reviews | Blog
9
May

Where is the Software Monopoly Shifting Now?

Posted by Hariharan Ragunathan (1) Comment

Starting from search to indexing every individuals web history, Google is proliferating at an unimaginable rate. The software giant of the 90’s is trying hard to maintain its monopoly with its live search to Silverlight. Is the giant’s dominance has really fallen down as they have said its dead.

There are people who are really looking ahead and started to think about their career decisions. But this means the software monopoly is something happening always like they have mentioned from IBM , Microsoft took over and now is it not shifting towards the Google. Though there is a lot of hype on Web 2.0 bubble, still lot of successful start up are devoured by the mountain valley giant from photo sharing to video sharing startups. Many consider Google is one of the main reason behind the fall of Microsoft monopoly, but it looks like Google will be the monopoly for the next web based software development. Still the Monopoly will be there, every new startup will be struggle to exist or get sold to any one of the defunct Monopoly giants like IBM , AOL or the ruling giant like Microsoft or Google. This presentation by Seth Godin discuss the success strategy of Google, which made me think on the above lines.

Category : Opinions | Blog
24
April

Who will choose IRB

Posted by Hariharan Ragunathan (0) Comment

When I heard this news that Qualcomm , one of the top wireless telecommunications
communications chooses Intec Convergent billing, I was a bit worried. Its not because that they have not chosen Infinys Rating & Billing(Formerly Geneva), a convergent billing solution by Convergys.

I have been working with Infinys Rating & Billing for the last one year, whenever some big company choose some other convergent billing solution I will have curiosity on why those companies choose those solutions. But this is the latest news, so I just want to post it here this time that I am curious to know the features Qualcomm looked on Intec’s Single e-View.

Category : Opinions | Blog
2
April

Its not a Pipe Dream…

Posted by Hariharan Ragunathan (0) Comment

I always adore Google for whatever they do from, Docs to Reader , or their April fool day hoaxes like Google Romance to Google Tisp ,I love it for their creativity, simplicity and elegance. But Pipes by Yahoo is really wonderful experience.

Last week Vivek & me combined all our blogs to create a single feed using Yahoo pipes. Man! the interface is really rocking! Our mesh looked like this

For subscribing for this Unified Mesh, you can use this feed.

Category : Opinions | Blog
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 HARIHARAN RAGUNATHAN
 Hyderabad, India


This is a place to express my opinions on things which I stumble on in my day to day life. The views which I have expressed are my own opinions and not meant to disparage anything or any one.