The Swift Singh

Friday, 10 May 2013

Health Insurance Articles Published

Tuesday, 7 May 2013

I believe "Its Business"

Corporate world is pure business and nothing else. Succeeding in business requires domain knowledge as well as the skills to take decisions which matter in testing times. The importance of an MBA in that respect also becomes very important. Masters of Business, as its full form is, teaches and orients an individual to take complex manoeuvres under high stress conditions. As a research done by Times of India shows, the majority of CEOs of large multinationals are engineers +MBAs reinforcing the importance of quantitative and technical domain specific knowledge in running a business and which can't be contested even by a layman. If you are into bricks and mortar business, the basics of structural engineering and solid mechanics are always an added advantage. Although a property dealer in a small scale work may disapprove of this by using the same designs everywhere he's making a small house, same can't be said of a big contractor engaging in innovative and first time executed projects. This being said, it can't be generalised that a civil engineer cannot work in a firm other than his domain at a managerial post and its not at all compulsory to have technical knowledge beforehand, otherwise all commerce people will not get any jobs and same with others. But regarding the importance of engineering in general, I believe that to do business it's a very valuable advantage. We have been taught programming which is key to technological aspects almost everywhere whereas others if not specifically inclined or coached tend to have it as their Achilles heel. The numerical analysis ,differential equations, calculus in general, higher mathematics including algebra, eigen values and eigen vectors, optimisation techniques are all applications of mathematics and are of immense utility in a consulting firm. Further the knowledge of languages like Java, C++,Mathcad and my personal affinity to MS Excel are the areas I believe engineering has given me the motivation and zeal to explore. Innovative ness is another area redefining businesses in markets throughout the world. Android came and has virtually wiped out Nokias of yesteryear. Engineering teaches the practical applications of science contrasting with the general science courses which focus on experiments which have weak links with the reality at present, though it may become pathbreaking in future. In this aspect I was encouraged by my transportation engineering prof to make a computer application on finding the orientation of a runway which otherwise manually was a very tedious and time consuming work. This I consider as my achievement till date in my life and my paper on the topic was accepted at the Second International Conference on Civil Engineering at Dubai. Dubai in itself was a marvellous experience. It filled in me the desire to one day work in those skyskrapers and be a part of real cosmopolitan, modern and global city of the world. So this was all about why an MBA after engineering. Now why an MBA altogether is a very good thought. Life has taught me that at the end it's "business". It's been a hard and for good learnt lesson that money is the driver of everything and management of capital is the most important task. Howsoever one may be connected to his school, college or profession, the reason they are existing and there on ground is money and on a larger scale everyone is doing business. Exchanging of work for money is business, of money for goods and goods for money is business, of researching for new products in exchange of grants and producing results or faking them to get more grants is business, of teaching for money and studying for money is business, and so can everything as I see it is one or the other way is business going on day and night. And the success of a person depends on how good he does his business and as I have discussed the importance of theoretical or domain knowledge before working, and MBA becomes necessary if one wants to perform well in this world full of business.

Monday, 6 May 2013

Collection of good puzzle links

http://gurmeet.net/puzzles/
http://www.math.toronto.edu/oz/turgor/archives.php
http://ww2.codechef.com/
https://www.placementexpress.com/puzzles.php
http://pratikpoddarcse.blogspot.in/p/booksstudy-material.html

Reflections

As the dawn of my professional career approached closer, I had started to be poised about the importance of management and which led to my decision of doing an MBA in my life. Before this revelation, MBA was just a means of earning good money and trying to get a greater pie of what is known as success. They were 2 events that changed the way I used to think.

Initially I used to be the geek believing what society said was good, following the hard way by doing really good quantity of labor and was pretty successful in my ordeals of getting the maximum marks in exams and that used to be my only goal. Socially dead, culturally morbid I had become the guy who knew hard work but didn't knew how to do it intelligently. Working for more hours with less output, I used to enjoy keeping the book in front whilst thinking something else and effectively working much less. This technique I had developed on my own as a child, coming from modest background with not so highly educated parents, although I have my deepest regards for them, but they were also righteously of the view that a child should learn on his own. So my father never and even today doesn't share the nuances of his work and has always asked me to make my own ways without an ounce of guiding. How I came into science is also a long story I'll share some other day, which reveals how much less career advice I used to get from him. And so I had to carve out my own ways which in the beginning were in true sense rigid and based on the only goal of becoming self sufficient, getting a job and making a living. As the cream of the class went into science, I also came here with no real clue as to what I want or may become. And since I was that geeky hard working guy, it worked in my favour and I got into a decent Engineering college which was one of the turning point of my life. I was going to leave Delhi and live in a hostel, the first inadvertent step towards self sufficiency and independence. Here I learn to manage my finances, make good relations and observe closely the positives these can reap into which I could never do in the closed rooms of my home I used for studying. Adjusting with the room mate was another virtue I learned of. But the mindset didn't change and I used to work the same way and was pretty successful in my university exams.

With time I realised that I have become too lonely and solitary, and to be really successful, one needs to be successful in life as a whole, and financial success follows suit. The importance of academics on one hand can never be contested, I saw people reaching the zenith becoming by just maintaining interpersonal relations. I begun to change.

The first event that led to this was the event I was part of as a major member, the hostel night of Hostel J. Here I learnt how to work efficiently as a group and make a large scale event a success. Everything was pre planned and it went smoothly. This was the point management came into picture. Even with all other resources remaining same, other hostels could not organise an event satisfying the students, teachers and faculty. It was either their management's error in planning or execution but it was management. Today n number of civil engineering projects are jammed due to gross mismanagement of one of the parties. So this was a life learning experience and was a stepping stone in my decision to do an MBA as I now believe, not only is it needed for career growth, but for personal growth as well, management is of utmost importance.

Another event was when I was part of final year organising a three day path in gurdwaras which also was successful and I have started to play the role of taking the call in these events. By repeatedly doing these events, one learns where one can go wrong from past experience and that I believe not only in management, but in life about practice making a man perfect.

So I am ready for my journey towards an MBA which I don't consider as a destination but a starting point to start with in life.

Saturday, 16 February 2013

Osama in Africa

As I was reading about the latest events in Africa, about the terrorism now shifting bases from Pakistan and Afghanistan to safer havens in Africa, offering a protective tenancy in the jungles and the deserts. This is a mind shattering thought. No one really knows where and when this will end. The solipsism of America that created the buzzard named Osama in 1980s to defeat the USSR hit it back on Sep 11, 2001 causing more harm than the accumulated gains US must have made in the two decades. Two of the America's tallest buildings fell like pack of cards, which used to be the American symbols of pride became the graveyards for many who perished in thin air, those who were in the planes, in the towers as along those on the ground. The human, financial and emotional losses of those events and those perpetrated by US in Afghanistan and Iraq were by no means parallel to the profits at the fall of the Soviet Union. One trillion dollars, it has been estimated by an independent research agency was the cost on economic front the tenacious nation had to make for the aggression. Now with unofficial figures of unemployment in the US touching 10%, the highest in recent times, it is an established fact that the wars took away all the money needed to employ all these people and the amount which could bridge gap which was the economic crisis 2008, the worst since Great Depression, was wasted off in shelling mountains in Afghanistan and meddling in affairs which at a time did'nt qualify to be America's own. Same is the situation with India. Here the problem plaguing economy being the colossal red tape. The cases of 2G spectrum have not ended and a new scandal much more high profile than that has surfaced. Here also, all the money which could have been used to fuel the development projects and the staggering amounts which neither one can eat or carry after his life, is blocked. It can't come out because the leaders fearful of IT will not spend and hence infuse cash in the market, neither can they show it. So the blocked wealth hinders growth of the developing nation.

Coming on to the main thought of an Osama in Africa would no doubt numb the one who has at some stage or ever been a victim from either side. The verdict is clear. The stable individual on ground, be he or she in any country wants a peaceful life and nothing else.

Hope the leaders of the world are listening

Sunday, 14 October 2012

CAT Calling : Part IV

Tenses

There are three types of tenses
1. Present
2. Past and
3. Future

1. Present Tense

Present Indefinite

Rules :

Permanent truths and Habits

The sun rises in the east.

Events that will take place in future but have been planned beforehand

The train leaves at 8 pm in the evening.

In Exclamatory sentences beginning with 'here' and 'there'

Here comes Mr Sharma.

There goes the shuttlecock.

Official Announcements

PM arrives on Sunday.

In Affirmative(Declaring) Sentences with the first and second person, and third person plurals

we use first or basic form of the verb For eg I go to Switzerland during vacations.

But with third person singulars we use s or es with the basic form of verb

He goes to Switzerland during vacations

Negative Sentences : Do not and Does not(third person singular)
Interrogative Sentences : Do + subject + first form of verb

Present Continuous

For actions going on at the time of speaking

Rules

Affirmative: Is, am are + present participle

He is going to the shopping mall

In negative sentences, not is inserted between the auxiliary and main verb

He is not singing the song

Interrogative Sentences

Is, am, are + (not) + first form of verb + ing

Aren't you studying ?

Present Perfect Tense(has/have, just)

For events completed in recent past or whose effect is felt in present

The keyword JUST or its essence is compulsory

I have They have You have

He has We have

Present Perfect Continuous (has been/have been, for/since)

For events that started in past and has continued up until now

I have been They have been You have been

He has been We have been

Past Tense

Past Indefinite

For a completed action in the past

He watched a movie yesterday.

Rules

Affirmative Sentences : Always use first or second form of the verb. It rained heavily throughout the night.
Negative Sentences : Did not + first form of verb. It did not work properly yesterday.
Interrogative Sentences : Did + subject + first form of verb.Did the guard wake you up last night.

Past Continuous Tense (was/were+ present participle)

To denote an action going on some time in the past.

We were roaming around in the mall throughout the evening.

Always follow was/were + present participle

Past Perfect Tense (Before/When,had + past participle)

Can't be complete without mentioning two events and specifying which of them occurred earlier.

1 2

When I got married I had taught English.

So completion of english teaching before an event.

Past Perfect Continuous Tense(had been+ present participle, since/for)

It shows an action that began in the past before a certain point and also has continued up to that

time

I had been writing for 2 years.

Future Tense

Future Indefinite Tense(shall/will)

To express the future as a fact or something expected to happen in the future

I shall be 25 next month.

I think India will win the Samsung Series.

Can is the word of ability.

May is the word of permission.

Future Continuous

For actions taking place at some time in future

I will be playing cricket in the evening.

Will/Shall be + Present participle
Affirmative : I shall be going.
Negative : I shall not be going.
Interrogative : Shall I be going ?

Future Perfect (By, shall/will have)

To show completion of an action by a certain time in future.

By the month end, we shall have completed the process.

Negative : She will not have played. Will she have played ?

Future Perfect Continuous(By Specific date, shall/will have been)

For an action that will be in progress over a period of time and will continue in the future.

By next March, we shall have been studying here for one year.

Tense should remain same throughout the sentence.
Remove otiose words from sentences
Follow Parallelism.

No Action Mean No Tenses

Fact Based - I am a student
Imperative Sentences -

Requests
Wishes God Bless You
Commands Get Out

3. Subjunctive Sentences (Hypothetical)

If I were Barack Obama, I would have spoken.

CAT Calling : Part III

Verbs

Two types of verbs are there :
Transitive Verbs and Intransitive Verbs
Transitive Verbs have subjects or objects that are receivers of action
Intransitive Verbs have none.

These are just some of the freaking definitions one should know but not very helpful while attempting sentence correction.

Verbals is a word form used as some other part of speech. They are of three types :
1. Gerunds : These are verb + ing form used as a noun.
2.Participles : A participle is used as an adjective and can be of two types
Present Participle : Ending in ing
Past Participle : Ends in ed, n, or irregularly.

Regular and Irregular Verbs
Regular Verbs are those that can be conjugated easily to learn the rules
For eg past tense of look id looked

Irregular Verbs have no rules for conjugation
Base Form Past Tense Past Participle
arise arose arisen

and the like everybody mugs up in the primary.

3. Infinitives are another form of verbals which can be used as nouns adjectives and adverbs.
to + verb form

Typical Rules

Subject should not be left without a verb For

For eg He who has suffered most in the cause, let him speak.(wrong)

Let him who has suffered most in the cause speak.(correct)

2. Verb should agree with the subject not the complement as

What is wanted is(not are) not large houses with modern conveniences but small cottages.

3. An infinitive(to + verb - noun, adjective, or an adverb) should be in the present tense unless it
represents action prior to that of governing verb.

I should have liked to go.

He seems to have enjoyed his stay at Delhi.

4. Use of make

Active : She made the boy do whole work.

Passive : The boy was made to do whole work.

So to not used in active voice.

5. Verbs to be used only with gerunds not infinitives.

Wrong Right

to swim swimming

to enjoy enjoying

to postpone postponing

to miss missing

to avoid avoiding

to suggest suggesting

to see seeing

Technique to remember- Code SEPMASS

So the use in sentences would be as follows :

He enjoys swimming (not to swim)

She avoids meeting people (not to meet )

We missed seeing the Prime Minister( not to see)

Abstract verbs do not have an ing form

Abstract Verbs : love, like, hate, reject, accept, hear, doubt, approve

So loving, liking, rejecting, accepting, hearing, doubting, and approving are wrong forms of verbs.