Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music – May 2014

Welcome to May 2014 edition of Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music.

This month many of our regular blogs that we visit seem to have turned on to film reviews. Well, that provides us a good opportunity to test wider oceans.

Husnlal-Bhagatram – The ‘First’ Composer Duo – pens the narrative of the origin and rise of Husnlal – Bhagatram…. The duo is fond of fast pace, actualized mainly through dholak and employment of atonal drums such as matka or idiophones such as ghunghroo, etc.” …Another aspect of their composing style .. is that “they make a musical statement which consists of successive song-lines with a descending and repetitive tonal contours”, which “appears to resolve the melody into completeness and it seems easier to remember” and “very few notes are used in those lines”. …..

One style feature that makes many of Husnlal-Bhagatram’s fast-paced songs catchy and instantly likeable is their tendency to punctuate the melody lines with very short and catchy orchestral phrases as a trigger for repetition of words or line, or by inserting short pauses at the end of a mukhda or antara before the rhythm moves forward. There are many examples to illustrate this point but… here are two songs that .. can be easily identified as Husnlal-Bhagatram creations.

The first example is Suraiya’s popular ‘tere nainon ne chori kiya’ from ‘Pyar Ki Jeet (1948). The pause after ‘tere nainon ne’ is filled with a brief flute piece that becomes such an integral part of the tune that if you try humming the tune, that flute piece would instantly play in your mind. …………The other example is Lata’s ‘tum dil ko tod doge’ from ‘Farmaaish’ (1953). The prelude itself is enough for one to identify it as their creation, but look at the rest of the composition. The first line is broken right at the middle and filled with a music piece, then at the end of the line comes another music piece before the line is repeated in exactly the same manner. In the antaras, a similar approach is followed, although the musical punctuation is used at the end of each line and a lovely pause is introduced at the end of the cross-line.”

We have A lovely Mohammed Rafi – Suraiya duet from Sanam (1951), composed by Husnlal Bhagatram, Mohammed Rafi singing for Dev Anand and Suraiya singing for herself.

KHURSHEED BANO … Barso re .. Tansen.. A Forgotten song – Kursheed and Suraiya were the two singing actresses of Mumbai Film-world who have shared the honours with the renowned singer K.L. Saigal. This talented and famous actress/singer of the thirties and the forty’s, Khurshid Bano rested in peace on 18th April 2001 in Karachi, at the age of 87 years and thus an era of talent in terms of acting/singing in the film industry finally came to an end.

In Melody Makers of Yesteryears (Unforgettable melodies) – part 1, usha manohartakes up “Chitragupt, Sardar Mallik and Narayan Dutta who were not often approached by any of the top movie makers like Bimal Roy, Nasir Hussain, Guru Dutt , Raj Kapoor or Mehboob Khan, but nonetheless they did make an impact, and once in a while did get a chance to work with some top film makers. Whenever they composed music for any film, they came out with some of the most melodious and meaningful compositions .

In Part 2she takes up Dattaram, G S Kohli and Sapan Jagamohan.

In Part 3, Ajit Merchant, Iqbal Quereshi and Bipin Babul have been covered in details.

Fascinating True Story Of A Lata Mangeshkar Song Born in A Los Angeles Music Shop – narrates a very interesting story of a song which later in the same year (1958) Salil Chwdury composed – a classical Bengali song in Raag Khamaj (Carnatic-Hari Kambhoji) using the lovely Sur Bahar Sitar, David Bernard (of that LA music shop) gifted him in Los Angeles.. Sitar is the only musical instrument that is predominantly heard in the orchestration of this entire private song.. Perhaps this is also the only song in the Indian music history today wherein only Sitar is heard throughout a song..This Bengali song, is “..Naa jeo naa rajani ekhono baki..aaro kichhu dite baki.. bole raatjaaga pakhi..” was sung by the legendary Lata Mangeshkar..and its Hindi version “O Sajana barkhaa bahaar aayee..Ras ki phuhaar laayi.. Akhiyon mein pyar laayi..” (Parakh-1959).

Funny Hindi Songs – 20 Best Old Hindi Comedy Songs – “The other day I was watching the weekend show on Times Now which featured some of the best old Hindi comedy songs of yesteryear. Thus was the birth of this hub. They showed around 9 -11 songs as for the time constraint which every program on TV has. Here on the net, we don’t have any such time constraint, so I went ahead to compile a list of best 20 funny Hindi songs…..All these songs are excellently written and in one form or the other will give you a happy feeling. If the lyrics don’t evoke the laughing gases in you then do watch the video and shake a leg with it.”

We take a pause here in our charting of new waters.

Sickle Songs? Has listed three songs:

Aai Sawan Rut Ai – Mela (9148) – Mukesh, Shamshad Begum – Naushad

Naache Re Dharati Ke Pyaare – Heera Moti (1959) – Lata Mangeshkar, Hemant Kumar – Salil Chudhary [This is the only song composed by Salil Chaudhary, all others were composed by Roshan)

Aaj Meri Man Men Sakhi – Aan (1952) – Lata Mangeshkar and Chorus – Naushad

Does anyone have any more of the songs to add on to this subject?

Multiple Version Songs (16): Rabindra Sangeet and Pankaj Mullickis a very tribute to Gurudev Rabindranath Thakur (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) and Pankaj Mullick (10 May 1905 – 19 February 1978) by guest author N Venkataraman.

SoY has also released one more of Multiple Version Songs post — Multiple Versions Songs (17): Haunting Melodies in Different Moods And Settings — guest written by yours truly.

We have a very interesting two part article by Shrikant Guatam, in his regular weekly (Gujarati) column “RangRaag” in ‘Madhuvan’   supplement of Janmabhoomi Pravasi. The article has listed Exceptional Partnerships – that of a music director and a lyricist – in the world of Hindi Film Music and have provided songs such partnerships have germinated. Since recording each of the song in the article here would entail copying the whole article, I have listed here the Partnership and the film(s) in which they have collaborated:

Hemant Kumar	Sahir Ludhianvi	Girl Friend	1960
	Majrooh Sultanpuri	Ek Hi Rasta	1956
	Gulzar	Khamoshi	1969
S D Burman	Gulzar	Bandini	1963
[just one song – Mora Gora Ang Lai Le – Lata Mangeshkar; beginning the long innings that Gulzar played donning lyricist cap, among several others]
Madan Mohan	Gulzar	Mausam	1975
	Sahir Ludhianvi	Railway Platform	1955
		Ghazal	1964
(jointly with Jai Dev)		Laila Majnu	1976
	Majrooh Sultanpuri	Aakhari Dao	1958
Naushad	Majrooh Sultanpuri	Shajahan	1946
		Andaz	1949
		Saathi	1968
Roshan	Neeraj	Nai Umar Ki Nai Fasl	1965
Laxmikant Pyarelal	Hasrat Jaipuri	Chhaila Babu	1967
Kalyanji Anandji	Sahir Ludhianvi	Nanha Farishta	1969
	Gulzar	Purnima	1965
	Majrooh Sultanpuri	Ishara	1964
	Hasrat Jaipuri	Ghar Ghar Ki Kahani	1970

Both parts of the article, in Gujarati, can be read here and here.

This spurred me to re-look at an article on Shailendra’s filmography. Shailendra’s is a classic 80-20 Pareto Principle case – his great bulk of the work is with Shaker Jaikishan, followed by work with S D Burman and Salil Chaudhary and to fair extent with Roshan. Interestingly he has an equally impressive list of ‘exceptional partnerships’. Here are these gems:

Basant Prakash	Badnaam	1952
Sapan Jagmohan	Begana	1963
Ninu Majumdar	Bhai Saaheb	1954
Robin Banerjee	Massom	1960
Shailesh Mukherjee	Savera	1958
Shivram Narayan	Naya Kadam	1958
Chitragupta	Kal Hamara Hai	1959
R D Burman	Chhote Nawab	1961
Manohar	Chingari	1955
Sudhir Kar	Kaanch Ki Gudiya	1961
Shardul Kwatra	Piple Saheb	1954
	Tees Maar Khaan	1955
Kalyanji Anandji	Satta Bazar	1959
Kishore Kumar	Door Gagan Ki Chhaon Men	1964
	Hum Do Daku	1967
	Door Ka Raahi	1971
Anil Biswas	Sautela Bhai	1962
	Chhoti Chhoti Baaten	1965
C. Ramchandra	Chhatrapati Shivaji	1952
	Anarkali	1953
Ravi	Dilli Ka Thug	1958
	Jawani Ki Hawa	1959
	Nai Raahen	1959
Mukul Roy	Shailab	1956
	Detective	1958
Pandit Ravi Shankar	Anuradha	1960

Our friend Bhagwan Thavrani remembers: Tum Na Aaye Sanam Shama Jalti Rahi – Bhootnath (1963) – Vedpal – Lata mangeshkar – wherein he especially takes note of “Meri Awaz Ko Jaane Kyaa Ho Gaya, Main Baharon Men Gaati Rahi Jogiya.

We now take up regular take on Mohammad Rafi :

• Mohammad Rafi – A documentary

• Mohammad Rafi- A short film on his life and songs – Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3 of film on the songs and life of legendary singer Mohammad Rafi, with inputs of Vinod Viplav, who has written his first biography-Meri Awaz Suno. This short film was produced and aired by CNBC News and Entertainment TV Channel.

• Rare Unreleased Romantic Songs By Mohammed Rafi , composed by Madan Mohan

• Meri Awaaz Suno – Part 1 – Memories of Madan Mohan through his timeless melodies sung by Mohammad Rafi – Features introduction by Madanji, new nostalgic comments by Madanji and tributes by Mala Sinha, Khayyam and Jagjit Singh. It also features snippets of songs from Aakhari Dao (1958), Ghazal (1964), Suhagan (1964), Sharabi (1964), Haqueequat (1964) and Mera Saaya (1966).

Meri Awaaz Suno – Part 2 – Memories of Madan Mohan through his timeless melodies sung by Mohammad Rafi – Features tributes by Lataji, Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, Jaidev, Majrooh Sultanpuri and Jatin-Lalit. It also features snippets of songs from Aap Ki Parchhaiyan (1964), Dulhan Ek Raat Ki (1966), Heer Ranjha (1970), Naunihal (1967), Chirag (1969), Hanste Zakhm (1973), Laila Majnu (1976) and Tere Bagair (2009).

Each of our episodes is able to scratch the surface of all the great work done by a vast number of fans, lovers and knowledgeable people on the web, i.e. leaving out even a greater amount of documentation done on the print media. Let us salute these great work and join in bring up more and more of such work in our reach…….

An end of books – Seth Godin

An end of books

“Books, those bound paper documents, are part of an ecosystem, one that was perfect, and one that is dying, quickly.

“THE BOOKSTORE as we know it is doomed,…..The death of the bookstore is being caused by the migration to ebooks (it won’t take all books to become ‘e’, just enough to tip the scale) as well as the superior alternative of purchase and selection of books online.

Any single change happening in the world of “read-books” may not “kill a venerable information delivery and cultural touchstone like the book. But all of them together? “

“I called this post, “An end” as opposed to “the end.” As always, we’ll reinvent. We still need ideas, and ideas need containers. We’ve developed more and more ways for those ideas to travel and to have impact, and now it’s up to us to figure out how to build an ecosystem around them.”

Re-blogged from: Seth’s Blog.

Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music – June 2013

Welcome to June 2013 edition of Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music.

We open current month’s Carnival by the articles on the songs rendered by Mohammad Rafi –

Vijay Bavdekar has presented Rafi ki Bhakti ras dhara (in Hindi)

In continuation of its unique traditions on Atul’s Song A Day, ‘nahm’ presents Aa jaa aa jaa o jaane waale (Sabak)(1950), Lyrics-D N Madhok, Music Director -A R Qureshi. This is the only Rafi solo song in the film. It is special song in an unassuming way.

‘Inde Bollywood et cie’ has picked up Jo Dil Ki Baat Hoti Hai  – Song Baaz (1953 – O P Nayyar.  Baaz was the First film of Guru Dutt as an actor and director, Baaz is an adventure at sea off the coast of Malabar under Portuguese domination in XVI century.

Sharad Desai has come up with one more unique style for collecting the songs of Mohammad Rafi, in Mohammed Rafi 25 A to Z letters songs actors movies. The article lists 25 different songs, with different letters, with different actors, and different movies, and seeks help to enlist a song starting with letter ‘X’.

‘Let’s talk about Bollywood’ has presented quite a painstaking piece of research in the article, Nutan film posters , in the form cover posters of  records of films featuring Nutan.

We have another brilliantly conceived post, a maiden entry on the Blog Carnival, from Maitri Manthan मैत्री मंथन – RAJ KUMAR, which has portrayed   five actors, who started their acting career in the 1950s, with the screen-name Raj Kumar.

And to make up hat trick of maiden entries on this Carnival, we have picked up  HINDI FILM SINGER – WINE PAIRINGS, An Oenophile’s Primer, which as the title pre-empts pairs classic wines with our playback singers. Even if you have not tasted that wine or have not heard that playback singer, the article provides enough arsenals to whip up the appetite for both.

And it is simply a wonderful celestial coincidence that one of our base team blog, Songs of Yore completes three years. SoY has not only sketched up its journey down the memory lane in this article, it has added thrown in a bonus of a triad of songs, you guessed right, each one rendered by three singers!

The Multiple Versions Songs series contuse to chart its frontiers across multiple languages – Anuradha Warrier whom we know through Conversations Over Chai has penned, in her easy-paced, but highly informative the article, Multiple Version Songs (11): Similar songs in Hindi and Malayalam, and  Arunkumar Deshmukh has, as always with the loads of background information in the backdrop,  presents . Multiple Version Songs (12): Similar songs in Hindi and Kannada.

June was onset of the monsoon in India. Conversations Over Chai is all geared up with umbrellas and raincoats to take a plunge in  My Favourites: Rain Songs and, then followed up that with a huge jump in the time machine to present My Favourites: Rain Songs-2. And whilst on the subject of Rains, it is certainly worth its while to re-visit the article Ten of my favourite monsoon songs by Dusted Off.

We have some excellent articles relating to “individual” player on the Hindi Film Industry scene.

We take up The Legends: Manna Dey first, since the article was written as a sort of get-well message to the one of the last living legends of Golden Era, who was recuperating in the hospital. Till writing of this piece too, all the prayers for his long life seem to have born results.

We have two articles on birthday celebrations – Ten of my favourite Shyama songs by Dusted Of and Happy Birthday, Padmini! by Dances on the Footpath., where you also find another link to a YT channel, Padmini162 aka Dancing Queen Padmini

We end this month’s Blog Carnival edition by taking a note of some great information added on the “comments” to the Dance On The Footpath-article, Azurie which we had covered in our last month’s edition –    viz. Songs Of Yores on Azurie , Anandaswarup Gadde.

Looking forward to meet you through the comments on this edition and /or suggestions for further enriching this series, and most certainly at the next edition…..

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – May 2013

Welcome to May 2013 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We would continue with our practice of putting across the excerpts from the respective post / article without any editorial intervention, so as to get the intent of the article without any dilution.

Let us open the account with some basics –

New Website for The W. Edwards Deming Institute

“Some of my favourite content on the new site include the articles, photos, videos, timeline and short descriptions of some of Dr. Deming’s most famous ideas.”

Having a National Quality Award is Only Part of Sustainable Success

So why aren’t their more repeat winners?  Some theories:

For small businesses – the cost is a barrier though some state programs are starting to overcome this issue.

Changes in leadership – all quality award programs require FULL management support and MBNQA is no exception.  The leader who shepherds the organization to winning the MBNQA often does not stick around for another round.  The question becomes for the new leader, what is the ROI for being an award winner and does it generate significant revenue to continue supporting the program?

Economic Conditions – This theory particularly impact non-profit and governmental winners in that these organizations often are not revenue generators.  Budgetary efficiency is a prime driver and the same management questions above are often asked here as well.

MBNQA as a “bolt-on” – This theory is my pet peeve because we really have not addressed the essence of quality programs.  Quality works best when it involves organizational integration.  Usually, a small group is involved in developing the award packets.  “It’s their job to do MBNQA.”   This leads us down the path of “real” ROI to doing MBNQA and it opens itself up for immediate cuts in poor economic situations.

I would contend that a better guideline for a national quality award should be Deming’s 14 Points rather than the MBNQA criteria.

Quality: Ownership and Getting Better  – @ Tanmay

     Quality you deliver has everything to do with how much you own your work. Your work carries your fingerprints. It tells a story about you.

On a long run, compromising on quality of your work because of the external factors and not growing through your work can be both painful and costly!

A Culture of Quality from ASQ TV

Organizations do not survive on good products and services alone. Brien Palmer, author of Making Change Work, relates the importance of a culture of quality for any organization.

Michelin’s Obsession with Quality – To North American company president, Pete Selleck, manufacturing the ‘Michelin way’ means making quality king.  – Travis Hessman | IndustryWeek

“This is proof that process control in our industry is key,” Selleck said. “We all use the same equipment to make tire, so we know it’s not the equipment that makes the difference. It’s the interface between the equipment, the material and the person—the training and the qualification of the person—that makes the difference.”

“Respect for People” and “The Design of the System” – Larry Miller

Michel Baudin, a fellow blogger and author, posted a video link of a panel discussion that included Jeffrey Liker (The Toyota Way, Toyota Leadership) in which British consultant John Seddon makes the comment that “This respect for people stuff is horse shit.” Seddon argues that, what leads to improvement is the system and not an intervention to respect or deal better with the people.

On Michel’s blog there then followed what I think was an interesting exchange on the subject between Michel, Mark Graban and myself.

You can find the entire 45 minute panel discussion here: http://vimeo.com/42297077. It is a worthwhile discussion about lean, standard work and the nature of the system.

Respect for people is the result, not only of personal patterns of communication, but also the result of the nature of the system.

Here are just a few ways you can design into your organization’s system respect for people.

1. On-Boarding Respect – How you bring people, particularly managers, into your organization can set the pattern for the rest of their career with your company.
2. Leader Standard Work at Gemba – Leaders at every level should spend some time at the front-line, where the work is done.  If, on the other hand, he is scanning the environment for “how can I help them and what can I learn from them?” he is demonstrating respect. Leader standard work should be reviewed at the next level, and the next.
3. Design Decision Making for Respect
4. Encourage Experimentation and Improvement – Most continuous improvement, and it is the intention of the PDCA cycle, is simply to cause people to think and to try some possible improvement. There should be no fear in experimenting and failing. That is inherent in the learning process. If you encourage and reward experimentation, you are demonstrating respect for people.

Committing to a cycle of honest communication – Seth Godin

The inability to say the thing that will make everything better (because of fear of shifting the status quo) is a project killer.

The Best Decision You’ll Make Today: Read This Post –

Peter Drucker studied decision-making closely and wrote a lot about it, breaking down the process into a series of seven steps. They include:

• Determine whether a decision is even necessary.
• Classify the problem. Is it common or unique?
• Define the problem. What is this situation really all about?
• Decide on what is right. That is, make the right kind of compromise.
• Get others to buy the decision.
• Convert the decision into action—that is, make it somebody’s work assignment and responsibility.

When it came to helping people see if they’d made wrong decisions, however, Drucker advocated a quite straightforward approach. It’s embodied in the seventh of his seven steps: Test the decision against actual results.

“Systematic decision review” was Drucker’s term for it.  “Checking the results of a decision against its expectation shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve and where they lack knowledge or information,” Drucker wrote in a 2004 essay for Harvard Business Review. “It shows them their biases.”

How a Manufacturer Improved Communication in Every Department 

How did Nation Pizza and Foods increase efficiency by more than 10%? Take one 190,000 square foot facility, six high-speed lines, over 600 employees and add downtime into the mix, and you have a recipe for improving efficiency. In this free white paper, get the inside story on what this award-winning food products manufacturer did to slice downtime, speed up response time, enhance safety and improve communication in every department — in and outside the plant.  Click here to download.

And, now, a couple of articles on the timeless subject of Qualities of a Leader:

Do You Have a Bad Boss?

The top ten qualities that make a good boss:

1. Communicates with their boss.
2. Prevents problems before they occur.
3. Matches employee skills to the job.
4. Deals with bad employees.
5. Shows respect and values every employee.
6. Focuses on getting the job done and not the time clock.
7. Is consistent, predictable, and tells the truth.
8. Communicates with their employees, often.
9. Coaches and trains others.
10. Praises employees and rewards good work.

Ariens: Seven Skills of a Lean Leader .- Jill Jusko | IndustryWeek
Ariens CEO outlines qualities needed to sustain the lean journey

1. Servant Leader – A coach and a player

2. Relentless Change – “The journey never ends, and we must be learning forever,

      3.  The Disciplined Chaos – the ability to recognize where you want to go and remain focused on that goal without letting chaos throw you off.

      4. The Benevolent Dictator – dictates of benevolence

• Be honest.
• Be fair.
• Keep our commitments.
• Respect the individual.
• Encourage intellectual curiosity.

     5.  Fearless Anxiety –   See challenges as speed bumps

     6.  Cultural Revolution -Ariens described a company’s core values as its “cement.” The revolution is what “goes on above, and the cement allows that to happen.”

     7.  Confident Humility – knowing we will be OK without being complacent

“The journey is the destination. When we realize that, that’s when we know we have arrived.”

On that note, we change tracks to the subject of Continual Improvement:

Not every improvement has to be a breakthrough by JAMIE FLINCHBAUGH

Sometimes the best way to maximize Return on Investment is not to look for the high returns but to look for the low investments. Keep it Simple…well, you know the rest.

Transformational Change vs. Continuous Improvement – Lawrence M. Miller, author of “Getting to Lean – Transformational Change Management”

It may sound like sacrilege to hear someone say that continuous improvement may not always be the right answer. Of course, it is the core process of lean management. But, there are times when more significant and more rapid change is required – sometimes revolution rather than evolution is called for.

 The first thing to understand about transformational change is that the external environment — technology, regulation, competition, the economy — is forcing change upon your organization. Your organization is a sub-system of a larger system, and it must align its systems to the external world. Sometimes that external environment demands rapid change that may be uncomfortable for everyone.

Second thing to know is that every organization is a “whole-system.” Lean management is a whole-system. It is not 5S, teams, or process maps. It is everything from the organizational structure, the information system, the decision-making processes, the human resource systems, etc.

Third thing to know: Sub-systems of the whole must be aligned.

Transformational change is not problem-solving. It is designing the whole-system to meet the needs to customers and the future environment. It is an act of creating something, not fixing something.

Transformational change is a process designed to create significant change in the culture and work processes of an organization and produce significant improvement in performance.

Phil Buckley’s article “Why don’t we do the things we know we should do?” was primarily written for the “leadership” audience, but is equally relevant for our discussion on Continual Improvement.

An excerpt:

My default behaviour is to keep working until tasks are completed, even when my resources are low.

It’s time to make a change. Here is my plan for breaking this unproductive habit:

• Make a list each night of non-work activities I will complete on breaks during the following day (I am a list person)
• Visually display this list beside my priority activities list (visual reminders are powerful)
• Review my progress nightly (and make notes as I do after my runs)
• Ask a friend to check in on my progress (I know I will never have “nothing to report”)
• Reward the desired behaviour (schedule guilt-free play time to spend with family and friends)

And here is our round up of the current edition:

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #192

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #193

Thanks a lot for visiting this carnival… I look forward seeing you when we are here next month.. till then, I keenly look forward to your feedback………..

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs

2012 was the year when I was on the freelance wanderlust on reading on the net. Among several subjects I pursued, one topic which has attracted my attention was Quality Management, in its quite wide spectrum.

If Tanmay Vora’s QAspire or Rajesh Setty’s wide-ranging articles or ASQ came up on the radar early on and have drawn my major (reading and seriously pursuing) attention, my quest for more and more wider ranging blogs /authors has remained quite fruitful.

Come 2013, and I firm up my freelancing reading into following a serious hobby of writing on what I like of what I read.

So here comes Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs, to be published on every third Sunday of the month.

In order to collect a fair number of articles under one roof, I have chosen the format of Carnival.

I have chosen this format because, “blog carnivals are a great way for bloggers to recognize each other’s efforts, organize blog posts around important topics, and improve the overall level of conversation in the blogosphere” (Courtesy: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/p_about.html).

I will be publishing these Carnivals as posts on my Blog – The world is too small? or Is it? Under  — — Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs category.

The focus of articles and blogs here would be relating to the Quality as a Profession and as Way of Life.

So, I look forward to 20^th Jan.,2013, the first-ever  3^rd Sunday when I plan to publish the First edition of this Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

See the fireworks I created by blogging on WordPress.Com – My 2012 annual report.

I am essentially a hobby blogger, blogging primarily to share my personal views on what I read.

I would now take up a few regular activities – an article on blogs that I read on Hindi Film Music, in the format of a carnival; a similar article on Quality Management and an article on Leadership Development Carnival ( primarily hosted by Dan McCarthy. I would begin from January 2013.

In the meanwhile, I thankfully present this report by WordPress on my activities during 2012 on this platform.

See the #fireworks I created by blogging on #WordPressDotCom. My 2012 annual report..

A Message From The Creator

Indeed so striking a message I am not able to resist tempation to reblog

LadyRomp

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.
When care is pressing you down a bit.
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out:
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow –
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out –
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are.
It may be near when it seems so far:
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit
It’s when things seem worst that you must not…

View original post 1 more word

LIFE’s Person of the Year

Every year since 1927, TIME magazine has singled out one newsmaker as its Person of the Year — the headline-grabber who most captured the world’s attention and influenced people, for better or for worse, over the previous 12 months. The title has been bestowed upon adventurers (Charles Lindbergh), heroes (MLK), villains (Hitler), royals (Queen Elizabeth II), U.S. presidents (every one since FDR except Ford), and Internet mavericks (Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg). Now the pick has been made for 2011.”

 

<!– LIFE GALLERY 52661 –>http://www.life.com/embed/index/gallery/id/52661/isHd/0

 

THe LIFE still continues to be so stunningly active and interesting!

The Attack on Pearl Harbor

This 1942 newsreel shows the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and the S.S. Normandie fire at a New York City pier (from the Prelinger Archive, Libary of Congress)

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,1313122074001_2101696,00.html#ixzz1gDCA5Tjw

‘કળશ’ – Divya Bhaskar, Ahmedabad issue of 23rd November, 2011 – Part I

Almost all articles in this supplement of the Ahmedabad edition of the Gujarati daily Divya Bhaskar are excellent in terms of the theme, content and presentation in their respective fields.

In the past, each issue of ‘કળશ’ had some articles that went much beyond the normally high standard of this supplement, but the present issue is unusual for its high proportion of articles of a very high standard. Nearly all columns can also be said to rank among the respective authors’ best.

I am able to visualize to a large degree the kind of constraints you and your editorial team of કળશ would be grappling with in planning each issue by balancing the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the top management’s concern for absolute circulation numbers as well as relative market share, both on a macro level as well as for the daily issue; the supplement’s competitive positioning vis-à-vis other supplements within the unit, group, industry peers as well as other formats of the publishing industry; your team’s and each individual columnist’s urge for defining ever-higher standards of creativity and performance; recognition within the industry as well as at an external  professional level on the basis of an odd individual issue or article as well as on an overall evaluation of its design and content.

It is really creditworthy that કળશ has carved out a distinct identity on all of these parameters and has excelled as far as most readers’ expectations are concerned.

If I have to raise but one concern, it would be this: I really fail to understand the usage of a sprinkling of English words in an otherwise lucid, flowing Gujarati, in a publication of the caliber of ‘કળશ’. This should be avoided even our day-to-day colloquial exchanges, except for those words which are far more easily understood in English rather than its Bhadrambhadra-style / text-bookish / ‘pure’ Gujarati. ‘કળશ’ has already attained a stature where it can easily influence the habits of Gujarati readers, along with other equally popular magazines, such as, say, Chitralekha. These have the requisite mass reach.  Of course, whether your management or your editorial team should or should not take on this altruistic goal of improving the jarring, avoidable use of English words in Gujarati usage is not what has prompted me to share my views. The extremely innovative topics, very well-planned content and use of very lucid language in your supplement are the factors which prompt me to do so, and your editorial team and contributors do deserve compliments for very refreshing Gujarati reading fare, delivered with very high professional journalistic standards, every week.

My views on the individual articles would be a little lengthy, hence I will state them in a following post…