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A private hospital in Ahmedabad, India has announced that it will waive the medical fees involved in childbirth at their hospital if the newborn is a girl. WOW! Great move. Hospital authorities say that they have seen families wait expectantly and rejoice at the birth of a male child, while the birth of a baby girl is met with stoic acceptance. (Common scenario in India). They wanted to encourage people to celebrate the birth of a female child. What better way to do so than give a financial sop for the same. It took a private hospital to come up with such an innovative idea, while the government gives lip service to the cause of female empowerment. Why can't all government owned hospitals across the country do the same? This would be a spur to change the skewed ratio between men and women in most Indian states. Of course, female empowerment is happening by bits and pieces in India. One encouraging step is the doing away of the provision of a father's name in the passport o...

One of the fall-outs of an increasingly uncertain business scenario and 24/7 global connectivity at the workplace is the pressure to overwork on employees, to stretch work hours beyond the normal schedule . Companies are actually guilty of encouraging the culture of overwork, as somewhere along the way, working more has been confused with working well . Executives willingly stretch their workdays and work well into midnight, assuming they are building their careers with the hard work they are putting in. Actually, they are messing up their health and social lives, while putting everything else, except work, on the back-burner. Working long hours damages our health, productivity, and family life . Overwork has been found to be the number one cause for work-related health disorders like stress, fatigue and exhaustion. Lack of sleep and relaxation has led many to develop psychiatric problems like anxiety, depression, sleep disorders as well. At the individual level it causes eno...

Online shopping has become the preferred mode of shopping for most urban folk today. People prefer to shop at various e-sites owing to the convenience and range of products these offer. Most e-tailers like Amazon and Flipkart, who are top of the game, deliver on their promises and provide prompt and efficient service. But what about the lesser known players? They advertise products and service aggressively, but leave a large gap as far as delivery and quality are concerned. One of the main benefits of online shopping is the sense of eagerness, of expectation of receiving the product within a reasonable time. If the time stretches to an inordinate long period, the sense of eagerness is replaced slowly by frustration and disgust. Shoppers tend to lose patience and curse the site for not meeting their expectations. Online shopping sites must keep this in mind while promising the earth to shoppers. On-time prompt delivery is a MUST, and not an optional benefit they offer. Yes, they ...

A child playing with balloons suddenly burst one. Instead of crying or complaining, she simply tied up the balloon into a knot and made a ring from it. She used her creativity to change an unpleasant situation to her advantage. Why is it that children can still be creative and innovative, while as adults we only look for set solutions to problems instead of thinking out of the box? Perhaps it is the years of conditioning and conformation to rules that smother our creativity. Creativity is the mother of all new ideas and innovation. It is that bright spark that leads to development of revolutionary techniques and path-breaking inventions. Breakthroughs in science and technology owe their origins to the creative genius of some people. Just think what would have happened had not Microsoft founder Bill Gates create the popular Windows software? Or what we would have done without the invention of the smart phone or Bluetooth devices? Obviously these devices have originated from t...

The sea at Puri, Orissa, India, has a mind of its own. Attempting to bathe in these waters, specially at high tide, requires a lot of intrepid energy. For one, you go all spruced up to have a good bath in the sea, towel in hand, sunglasses and hat in place, and leggings all curled up. And then gingerly step into the water, testing it, so to speak. And no sooner you are near the waves, a huge one comes all of a sudden and overpowers you with all its fury and might. You don't know where to look, what to hold on to. You are totally, completely overpowered, and thrown out of gear. Out goes your composure and balance! Floundering in the rush of the waves, you clutch on to dear life by somehow grabbing some sand, or whatever solid is near you. The fury of waves is such that you are totally compelled to succumb to its might. Nothing, repeat nothing, prepared you for such an experience. If there is an overwhelming experience then this is it. It is a worthwhile experience, one...

The easiest thing in life is to wallow in self pity and blame fate for all the bad things that happen to us. Because that way we get an escape route from taking responsibility for the way our lives shape up. We can say "Oh it is my fate, just my bad destiny, etc." But if you really want to change your destiny, you must do something about it yourself. Yes, I know that you cannot totally change your destiny, but you can certainly try to better it. Even fate helps those who help themselves. What you can do to improve your luck: Take responsibility for self betterment. Most of our problems are due to the faults in our own personalities, so if we try to make ourselves better, our luck will also look up. Change your attitude or mindset. If we cannot change things we can at least change our way of looking at them. Try to see the positive side of things. Learn from failure. Accept things as they are. You will see the difference it makes to your peace of mind. Try to reach ...

Recently, I was travelling in the AC coach of a train with my family, and had to suffer the whims of my co-passengers. There was a large family of about six adults and six children crammed in a 3 AC coach and they made noise equivalent to 20 -30 people. The children were misbehaving and shrieking and the adults made no attempt to quieten them. At 12 in the night, they were merrily shouting, complaining and feasting, when I had to remind them of the time and of the fact that all of us were trying to get some sleep. On our return journey too, we faced people talking loudly into their mobiles at odd hours and disturbing the peace of the journey. This got me thinking. When will we Indians learn to respect the space of our fellow countrymen? We routinely go ahead enjoying ourselves at the expense of others, often totally ignoring the inconvenience of people around us. It seems they don't exist at all so long as they don't interfere with our idea of fun. Personal space? What...