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Mathematics: Tips, Tricks, Brain Twisters

This blog contains topics related to basic maths tricks, puzzles, short-cut techniques like acronyms and mnemonics.

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पिछले कुछ दशकों की तकनीकी प्रगति और सूचना प्रवाह के विस्फोट के बाद, मैं उलझन में था कि यह समग्र रूप से मानव समाज के लिए प्रगतिशील है या नहीं। तब मैंने मानव विकास के बारे में सोचा और निष्कर्ष निकाला कि इसे प्रगतिशील होना चाहिए और इसे उचित रूप से संभालने और देखने की जरूरत है। फिर मैंने मुख्यधारा के मीडिया (समाचार चैनल और समाचार पत्र) और सोशल मीडिया जैसे ट्विटर पोस्ट देखे और पढ़े और पाया कि वे लोगों को करीब लाने से ज्यादा नफरत और पूर्वाग्रह फैला रहे हैं। मेरी टिप्पणियों का झुकाव इस निष्कर्ष की ओर था कि मानव मन इतना भोला और अंतर्निहित पूर्वाग्रहों के प्रति संवेदनशील है, स्थिति और खराब होने की संभावना है। मेरी आगे की जांच और ऐतिहासिक दस्तावेजों को पढ़ने से यह तथ्य सामने आता है कि सत्ता और वर्चस्व के लिए लड़ना मानव समाज का मूल स्वभाव है। After technological advancements of last few decades and explosion of information flow, I was confused if it is progressive to human society as a whole or not. Then I thought of human evolution and concluded it must be progressive and needs to be handled and viewed appropriately. Then I watched and read mainstream media (news channels and news papers) and social media such as Twitter posts and found that they are spreading more hate and biases than bringing the people closer. My observations leaned towards the conclusion that human minds are so gullible and susceptible to inherent biases, the situation is likely to get worsened. My further investigation and reading historical documents lead to the fact that it is basic nature of human societies to fight for power and supremacy.

एक अधिक विद्वान और संपन्न व्यक्ति जरूरी नहीं कि उच्च नैतिक चरित्र, सत्यनिष्ठा और पारदर्शी हो। कुछ प्रमुख व्यवहार विशेषताएँ जो समाज में अधिक प्रचलित होती जा रही हैं, वे हैं पाखंड और अवसरवाद, हालांकि यह हमेशा से रहा है। समाजवाद, देशभक्ति, राष्ट्रवाद, नक्सलवाद, पूंजीवाद, मार्क्सवाद, फासीवाद, नस्लवाद, उदारवाद, वामपंथ, दक्षिणपंथ, नव-उदारवाद... जैसी अवधारणाएं आग में घी का काम कर रही हैं। जब किसी प्रकार के अभूतपूर्व कृत्य यथास्थिति और कुछ समूहों के प्रभुत्व को चुनौती देते हैं तो लोग एक दृढ़ व्यक्ति को अधिक से अधिक सत्तावादी कहते हैं। यह स्वाभाविक है और कुछ भी असामान्य नहीं है जैसा कि पहले कहा गया है, सर्वोच्चता और "व्यक्तिगत शुद्धता" के लिए लड़ना मानव नियति है।A more learned and well-off person may not necessarily be of high moral character, integrity and transparent. Few key behavioural characteristics which are becoming more prevalent in society are hypocrisy and opportunism though it has always been. The concepts like socialism, patriotism, nationism, naxalism, captialism, marxism, fascism, racisim, liberalism, leftism, rightism, neo-liberism... are adding fuel to the fire. People tend to call a firm person more and more authoritarian when some kind of unprecedented acts challenge status quo and dominance of some groups. This is natural and nothing unusual as stated earlier, it is human destiny to fight for supremacy and "individual correctness".

Then what are the causes of this increased divide and increasing polarization of the societies both at the local, cultural, ethnical and global levels? One of the reason I see is the globalization and change in deomegraphy associated with it. The national boundaries have become porous and people movement brings diversity. There are proponents of diversity and the same set of people advocate equality. Practically, equality and diversity are opposite and contradict to each other. In my opinion, the diminishing lines between national boundaries, religious boundaries and economical boundaries help prosperity to a point and then excesses start happening leading to backlashes. Remember the diveristy does not bring equality and may not bring equality ever! Like every human has a personal distance zone, boundaries which he/she would not like other person to come into while talking, interacting... a well-defined boundaries of the nations, economics, religion and ethnicity is a necessity to counter the challenges of rapid changes in demographies.

What do you think?

What are the top-1o challanges India and rest of the world is facing?

Globalization, ethinicity and lost identity: as deomography change, one is continuously faced with his roots and true social identity. The identity like Non-Resident Indian (NRI) is intended towards managing the geo-economical (read tax) liabilities and has nothing to do with citizenship. Here the adjective Indian still refers to an Indian nationality. However, on the other hand the identity Person of Indian Origin (PIO) has neither any citizenship connotations not any social liabilities. Why will a person living few oceans away from India have any socio-cultural affiliation towards India just because his grandfathers were from Bharat. Similarly, the label "Indian American" itself is meaningless - a person can either be Indian or American national (though some countries permit dual citizenship and I label them a confused country). What are the moral resposibilities these "Indian American" citizens have towards the rest of the world and India in particular?

This ease of telling the story has led to people boast how he dropped out of college and become a billionaire by hiring people who continued! I always wonder while watching their shows and talks, why on the Earth they did not hire only deliberate drop-outs. I recently watched "inspirational videos" from the author of the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad" where he has coined a term "Poor, Helpless, Desperate" for professionals with PhD degrees. He also claimed how he grew so rich investing in real estates and hotels. However good have been his intent, this may leave people with poor taste wondering whether those hotels were designed and built by college drop-outs!

Tyranny of Tech Giants

Over the millenia, the religious groups controlled the society through sermons, preachings and teachings. Once the religious and administrative activities were separated by 'secular' concepts, the political establishments and beauracrates wielded unchecked power and privileges. After the industrial revolution the big industry houses colluded with political powers and called the shots from behind the scene.

Then came the print and visual media that shaped the public opinion in favour of the ruling party and industry. The latest payer is the social media who claim to democratize the media and holds true to the large extent. However, they are also run and supported by money-muscle power and hence I do not find anything surprising when Twitter suspended POTUS Donald Trump's account while he was still in power. It requires strong backings from establishments to take such actions!

You cannot fight with Twitter and similar platform from within. The only way is to create alternatives. SM is a media democratized to a large extent. Like short-comings of any democracy, it has its own perils! Create a positive vibe - ultimately this is what people get attracted to and create credibility! Do you agree?

Why Economic Theories are so Flawed? This is a Trillion dollar question - how can we call an entity economic superpower when it hits debt-ceiling every six months? Why cannot that economic superpower survive two years by selling her assets rather than asking for additional loans?

India GDP Growth: Historical Data from the website of World Bank. In summary, the GDP growth of India has never been in double digit as claimed by some elites to demean one government and show the other government in poor light.

Saturating science and no new breakthroughs: what is the latest developments in physics after quantum mechanics?

No body cares for Free Items!

Benchmark of Success - सफलता के आयाम

Bullying of Its Neighbour by China: What Chyna or Chaina is doing today was done by Britishers for almost 300 years before the second trival war of Europe break its spines in 1945.

Followings on Social Media: There are people who follow blindly some social media channels (so called influencers) and get hurt when that same channel posts content against that 'follower'. One may like the content and the content create becuase he is mocking or highlighting weakness of certain thiking process. However, before following a SM channel, one should ask himself or herself: "Shall I still like him or her if he or she speaks against my beliefs or again my icons?". This will help reduce the heart-burn or strong (sometimes abusive) reactions later. Some channels might not speak against the group of people who support them both financially and logistically (like, subscribe and share). However, the moment they turn a bit bigger and start generating money from channel, they may turn against the same set of people who made them famous. The might always be a nascent hatred is that content creator which may surface once he becomes famous and self-reliant. The manifestation of hatred may come in multitude of way: provoking not to support his channel, he does not need you, you cannot take away my freedom of speech...

Pitfalls of wealth inheritance: If we associate ourselves with competence and Karma, why children should inherit 100% of their parents' wealth? What is the selection process for promoter's sons/daughters? Can the government put a limit of 25% for inheritance or the brackets on inherited percentages similar to income tax slabs?

Parenthood- Living one's life through their children. Why do we not teach our children to respect dignity of everybody which we encounter in our daily life. For example, I have heard my own son talking with disrespect to the garbage collector. After lot of counselling and scolding, there seems to be a change in his approach (and hopefully also in his attittutde). अपने बच्चों के माध्यम से अपना जीवन व्यतीत करना। हम अपने बच्चों को हर किसी की गरिमा का सम्मान करने के लिए क्यों नहीं कहते हैं, जिसका हम अपने दैनिक जीवन में सामना करते हैं। उदाहरण के लिए, मैंने अपने ही बेटे को कूड़ा बीनने वाले से अनादर के साथ बात करते सुना है। काफी सलाह-मशविरा और डाँट-फटकार के बाद, उसके दृष्टिकोण में परिवर्तन प्रतीत आया है (और उम्मीद है कि उसके व्यवहार में भी)

Ethics, morality and integrity : are they same or refer to different aspects of our behaviours and social responses? Do learned and well-educated people tend to perform better on ethical and moral grounds?

Myths of Moral Highground: Property Broker vs. Investment Banker vs. Petty (Chirkut) Dalal. A guru or preacher cannot live in a mansion but a priest and pope can. Similarly, a spritual guru cannot do business but Vatican can run on unaccounted sourcce of money!

(Intellectual) Dishonesty of Elites: Most of the elites tend to conveniently chose what suits to him/her. Many corporate executives will praise China for fast decision making but shall never mention the opaque system in place there. Same way, even middle class shall use the narrative of Freedom of Speech in Americ and Europe but shall want someone else to clean their toilets in India. A person of high intellectual calibre may not be a balanced scholar in other field (say history or political science or social science). Just watch the Pakistani scientist Dr. Parvez Hoodboy's interview: he has the opinion that Romilla Thapar is a learned historian whose work can be taken without further investigation, Abul Azad was a scholar, Sanskrit has origin in Syria, approves the onscure "narrative of Hindutva"... Similar observation can be found in the interviews where Dr. Ishtiaq Ahamed has participated.

Similarly, if you hear Pakistani YouTube channels including Syed Muzammil, they will tone down the hatred of public towards India highlighting standing ovation given to Indian team or just some outstanding player once or twice. They will conveniently ignore the stone-pelting in Karachi during 1989-90 ODI series when Pakistan were 28/3. The fact is such sparse incidents do not tell anything about the social fabric of that country. The behaviour of spectators has absolutely no relation with the socio-political actions of the same group of people.

Dual Lives of Top Executives

Why top management of companies, CEOs and individuals take credit of companies growth during good market conditions and blame the governement and policy-makers during bad times? Many of such behaviours are product of deeply ingrained cultural norms where blaming others and society as a whole is wise and respectful behaviour. Such habits get developed as once grow and reach to the level of CEO.

This leads to a behaviour where the C-club executives and board members live dual lives. When things are easy going such as new recruits are willing to join and stay back - it is attributed to the reputation and work culture of the company. On the other hand when there is high attrition - it is blamed to the city, the market conditions, instant gratification of those leaving the copmany, lack of understanding and alignment to company's missions...

Scholars of Religious Studies: It is a irony as old as life of earth where millions and even billions (crores) of dollars are spent among academia and religious institutions to find out truth in the texts written anonymously and psuedonymously. There are hundres of thousands (lakhs) of students and instructors trying to find meaning from the texts written in outdated words and languages. These 'divinely' inspired texts are classified as 'metaphoric' by humans when there is no sane explaination available. What a waste of one's life when one spends entire life to get a certificate of "New Testament Scholars" or "Quranic Scholars". This addition of scholars has almost zero or even negative effect of any agreement on the "disputed texts" they study. Let's take an example of disputed text: "The Earth rotates around the Sun from east to west". This does not convey any meaningful information as "East to West" is not a unique method to denote direction of rotation. Similarly, the discussions and scholarship based on "disputed and vague texts" written more than thousand years ago - anonymously - has produced only "disputed, vague and erroneous" conclusions. For example, any quest for Jusus is futile until the quest for Paul, Mark, Matthew... is completed with unianimous conclusions. As a counter argument, one may say that watching movies and reading (fictional) novels are also waste of time. This is not same as someone who spends his entire life reading novels and watching movies.

Why Vision and Mission Statements are only Gimmick

Every organization spend lot of energy and time to create Visions and Missions and subsequently sharing it with every employee. Is there a way to measure "level of engagement from employees" to the "Vision and Mission Statements"? In my opinion, neither such method exist nor it is worth its effort. One of the critical fallacy I find is that such statements are based on complete annihilation of internal boundaries between different functions of the orgnization such as delivery team, sales team, recruitment function, compensation team... The steps and process implemented in compensation function to align with company's missions and visions may not be aligned to recruitment process. On the other hand, the approach adopted by sales may not be aligned to the constraints on the delivery team. It is nearly impossible to translate and project the vision and missions on workable action points at each levels and functions of the organization.

False Propagand behind Concept of Mintorities

What is the definition of 'minorities'? If it is related to the numbers, why some minorities' are thriving and peaceful and the other group of 'minorities' always play victim card? It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men --- Samuel Adams. For political scientist Andre Liebich, two key elements constituting a minority are inequality and inferiority, not merely numerical but substantial inferiority. In political parlance the word minority means such a weak community which because of both its number and capacity finds itself incapable of protecting itself in relation to a larger and more powerful community. राजनीतिक वैज्ञानिक आंद्रे लाइबिच के लिए, अल्पसंख्यक का गठन करने वाले दो प्रमुख तत्व असमानता और हीनता हैं, न केवल संख्यात्मक बल्कि पर्याप्त हीनता। राजनीतिक समानता में अल्पसंख्यक शब्द का अर्थ है ... ऐसा कमजोर समुदाय, जिसकी संख्या और क्षमता दोनों की वजह से खुद को बड़े और अधिक शक्तिशाली समुदाय के संबंध में खुद को बचाने में असमर्थ पाया जाता है।

Can Honesty come from Prosperity?

Deficiency in Democracy: There are large number of cases where the majority was decided with votes received < 40% (of those who voted and not the total eligible voters) and candidates who have won with narrow gaps (as low as 0.01% of expected total votes). However, in my opinon, the biggest drawback of democracy is that that democratic means can be used to deter and even defeat democratic system.

Deficiency in Online Claims: Why Yoga is not getting popularity among educated people? One reason is the lofty claims - "get cured in minutes", "get rid of disease x in few hours", 99% success rate, "unclog arteries in 14 days", frozen shoulder relief in just 5 minutes...

Patriarchy: How does one define it? What parameters can be attributed to it? Why do you think this is fair or unfair to womens?

Near Death Experience: This is one of the propaganda statment of this century along the lines of "When Mongols Conquered the World", "When Persian Ruled the World" and so on. Why is it a propaganda statement? Because no one cannot experience a death and hence there is no possibility of having near death experience? As once close to the death, he starts getting unconscious and may not remember what have he experienced once he gets to his feet. There is no way to find how a near death situation may have ended in a sure death situation. Same way the other statements related to 'world' does not hold any weight in twenty first century when we know the extent of world. None of the Persians or Mongols knew about what is called South / North America and Australia today. Africa was also known only around Egypt.

Sad End of Extreme Passion: Most of the time if not 100% of the cases, success of one's actions is attributed to the passion he or she hasd towards that goal. However, there are cases of disasters when the passion is taken to the extreme limits. Once such case is the Carnation Auto started in 2008 by Jagadish Khattar, head of Maruti Suzuki. Carnation Auto started off as a multi brand car service chain. Khattar’s business did not do well at all. The company funding of Rs 108 crore from Premji Invest and IFCI Ventures and also received a loan of Rs 170 crore from Punjab National Bank. In 2017, Punjab National Bank filed an insolvency petition against Carnation Auto India under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). So why I am telling this story? This story is about what Khatter believed in. He believed in "after sales services" to be of paramount interest to the car owners. That was not the case.

Why the VIP quota, staff quota, sibling quota, management quota... were introduced (and still widely used) long before caste-based reservation system was implemented? There is already a tacit reservation for few occupations (both religious and low-end like garbage handling).

Why to rating companies publish their findings when it would be more profitable to keep the secrets? What are the vested interests and who they want to serve with their findings? Until six days before Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, the ratings agency Standard & Poor's maintained the firm's investment-grade rating of 'A'. Moody's waited even longer, downgrading Lehman one business day before it collapsed.

Money cannot buy you happiness: This is another propaganda statement which is used by so-called spirituality-oriented people to confuse gullible humans. The fallacy in the statement is hidden in the fact that happiness is assumed something which is tangible and can be traded like any other matter such as food items and cloths. A better statement would be "Money alone cannot lead you to a happier life". Happiness can be short-term, temporary or even long-term. If one is wild-life enthusiast, he needs to travel a lot to keep him happy. Does this not require money and lot of it?

Physics: Solved Examples

Advance Physics

Relativity, Super-conductivity, Quantum Mechanics! […]

Quiz: Aptitute Test

Quantitative Aptitude Test for Banking, SSC

Indian Stock Market and Trade Tiger

Tips and Tricks in Trade Tiger, Outlook and Views on Indian Stock Market

Changing Behavioural Sickness

• Have a written agenda / topic of discussion in the background for participants, moderator and viewers to see and keep in mind?
• Any participant over phone lines should speak only when his / her name is called out by the moderator to do so. This is required to stop simultaneous talking which is so frequent now-a-days.
• Set ground rules, agree on them as well as reward for adherence and punishment for violation.
• Let following declarations by participants be visible in background during the show:
  • Political affiliation and / or orientation. Declare if otherwise.
  • Academic qualification and professional certification
  • Religious beliefs and followings: formal association with any organization
  • Social orientations: Capitalism, Marxism or Socialism
• Moderator should spend some time explaining how the participants were chosen and why they are fit for the debate?
• Make the discussion more qualitative rather than subjective. The participants sharing a fact must declare the reference.
• Occasionally moderator should ask: "what is the question behind the question", "how is this answer related to the question?"
• Sometimes even paticipants should challenge the moderator: "is the question related to the topic and agenda (agreed upon at the beginning of the show)?"
• Both participants and moderator should learn the power of silence: let there be 3-5 seconds gap between one speaker to the other. They should control their emotions while on air.
• Not all questions should be and need to be answered by every participants. Worse, no counterview needs to be presented to every view expressed on the show.

The participants should be briefed before the start of discussion on how to deal with objection. Use of qualifiers like 'always', 'never' aggravates the matter. Some probing questions like "I undetstand your view points ... could you help me what makes you say so?" will keep the discussion focussed and not digress the topic.

Hinduism ≠ Hindutva?

It is always (without any exception) that a source of passive income shall every individual follow the course he wishes to. However, such sources are not easy to put in place or scale in terms of value. Some of such options with associated constraints are tabulated below.

These are some of the examples of hundreds of option available in twenty-first century dominated with information technology and era of fast changing technology. Many of these require lot of energy and time equivalent to full-time job and hence they may not be passive source at all. Either you give work upfront or let your past work earn money for you. Few of anything such as few products, few courses, few ebooks do not make a business of steady source of passive income.

• Science:
• open to interpretation, logic and change of views. The quantum mechanics challenged the classical Newtonian mechanics and it was reviewed, verfied, challenged and accepted to the benfit to all.
• There is no authority in science and all theories and viewpoints are subject to continuous challenge without fear of revenge or reprisal. There is a planned and purposeful review and critique of every work. There are innumerable authors on same topic enriching the subject.
• Any 'smaller' group of researcher or scientist are not given special treatment and decision process tends to be more based on metricracy, mathematics and logic; hardly on hypocrisy.
• Scientific research labs are also open to inspection and audits by competent authority, either to check the compliance to local law for human safety or environment emissions.
• Religion:
• there is no place for alternate interpretation, logic and change of views in religious thinking process and customs. First and foremost there exists a strong authoritative hierarchy with strong (but not corroborated why) dos and don'ts.
• The processes, customs and religion-based belief system are not only too rigid, but also there is strong bias and (tacit) hatred towards other religions.
• The (supposed and self-styled) guargdian of the religions believe in fear-mongering (it sells so easily), complex definitions such as 'minority', intolerance, 'secularism' ... There is hardly any scope for acceptance of an alternate interpretation of the scriptures. Even if it is, it is opaqely controlled by small fraction of people whose selection is equally opaque.
• The decision is mostly imposed and hardly debated or explained in public. The decision process tend to be more based on hypocrisy and emotions, never on logic and meritocracy. For example, there are non-vegetarion elites who promote vegetarion foods in the name of religion, there are intense (again elite and higher in authority pyramid) alchoholics demanding ban on alcholos for normal people citing the reference of religious scriptures.
• Religious places are not open to inspection and audits by competent authority even if there are reports (and preliminary evidences) of illegal and immoral activities.

False Dichotomy of Team Work

  Most of the teams are not able to realize the full potential because the team is not able to maintain the identity of each individual and not able to define and assign the activities as per the strengths and temperament of the members.

Employee Database and Dashboards

In my observations, many organizations fail to implement database management keeping in mind of the dashboard needed for different level of the hierarchy. Many functions create databases which have duplicate entries and opaque. For example, the IT asset management team has database (containing workstation details) which is independent of aministrative databases such as human resource related information (Date of Joining, Highest Qualification...).

Field ID	Category	Access Type	Data Type	Update Tag	Field Designation	Lowest Access Level	Example Value
ED001	HRD	Public	String	Fixed	First Name	All	XYZ
ED002	HRD	Public	String	Fixed	Middle Name	All	Kumar
ED003	HRD	Public	String	Fixed	Last Name	All	Singh
ED003	HRD	Public	String	Fixed	ManagerL1	All	ABC
ED003	HRD	Public	String	Fixed	ManagerL2	All	LMN
ED006	HRD
ED007	ITS	Public	String	Rare	Asset Tag	All	IT22WKS0056
ED008	ITS
ED009	ITS
ED010	ITS
ED011	ITS
ED012	ADM	Public	String	Frequent	Shift	SH	Third
ED013	ADM
ED014	ADM
ED015	PRJ	Public	String	Rare	P-Skill-1	SH	Simulations
ED016	PRJ	Public	String	Rare	P-Skill-2	SH	Meshing
ED017	PRJ	Public	String	Frequent	S-Skill-1	SH	Drafting
ED018	PRJ	Public	String	Rare	T-Skill-1	SH	FLUENT
ED019	PRJ	Public	String	Frequent	T-Skill-1	SH	STAR-CCM+
ED020	PRJ	Public	String	Frequent	T-Skill-1	SH	ANSA

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Freedom of Speech

How would you decided if a statment or speech qualify the benchmarks of "Freedom of Speech"?

• It should not hurt the sentiments, dignity and beliefs of others.
• The personal pronouns (he, she, they, you..) used in statements by the speaker should accept if all of these personal pronous are appropriately replaced by "I, me, my and ours".
• The statements should be based on evidences (large samples and not selected few or recent ones).
• The speaker must understand that "expressing an opinion is not free", it comes at a cost. It has limits and there is a thin line after which is can be construed to spreading of hate.
• Sincerity of the speaker and importance of sounding sincere (claim to have compassion or sympathy) also influence if the speaker comply to freedom of speech or not.

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Productivity definition and drawbacks

Britain's last coal power plants to close by 2025 (www.theguardian.com), Jet Airways leaves 350 pilots high and dry - cuts salary citing lesser workload (economictimes.indiatimes.com), Mario Draghi faces easing dilemma as strong euro sparks concern (www.investing.com). One may ask how these three distinct piece of news headline are related? They are not related indeed, but pointing a distant trouble looming and ballooning in subtle way! We are entering into era of extremely high productivity! And the rewards for inefficiencies will be higher in future than the rewards for higher productivity. There is rush for the countries to keep their currency weaker than others (a sign of low local demand, high efficiency, high productivity but less consuming economy).

Coming back to the topic of productivity, there are reports and articles describing (not explaining) the superiority of certain geographical regions in terms of productivity of human capital. Most of them do not distinguish the working conditions or portray the complete picture. Say, how can a revenue per employee of $2000/hour in European countries be compared to revenue of $500/hour in India? What are the other factors to be considered and in what fraction and weightage? How does salary, level of automation, skill, the price of the prodcuts and local market conditions affect the value "revenue per employee"?

Can the GDP of a country grow while unemployement rate increase? This is a very likely scenario due to following reasons:

• Automation in the industry leading to lesser job opportunities while automation not generating enough alternate employment.
• Increase in growth rate of "employable" population exceeding the job growth rate. This will lead to GDP growth but employment rate will stagnate or reduce.
• Change in nature of job such as migration of work-force from labour intensive market to niche skill market. For example, reduction in textile industry and increase in financial services.
• Effect of currency exchange rate: keeping everything same, if the exchange rate of the currency of a country changes significantly, the GDP value will change depending upon the nature of economy: whetehr it is export oriented or internal consumption driven.
• Increase in retirement age of the working people or business owners. The "replacement opportunities" reduces as people tend to work longer into their life.
• Change in definition of employable population: should everybody above 16 years of age be considered or should it be > 18 years? should the house-wives be considered employable even if they are not willing to?
• Reduction in part time employment opportunities: with increase in social and electronic media, the demand for print media has reduced drastically. The employment related to newspaper distribution decrease in numbers will not same level of increase in number in the new job opportunities.
• How and when the data is generated / gathered? What is the uncertainties in numerator and denominator?
• Employment-to-population ratio (EPR) should be used in conjunction with the employment rate (%) to get a braoder view of the job market.
• Other factors to be taken into account are different caterogies such as (a)% of regular wage/salaried workers without written job contracts, (b)% of regular workers not eligible for social benefits such as EPF, paid leaves, (c) % of casual labourers ...

Should the government be held accountable for failure of privately-held organizations (Jet Airways, Reliance Communications...)?

• Any government and its regulatory / monitoring bodies are 'responsible' for such outcomes. They may or may not be held 'accountable':
• Such failure does not happen overnight. Were the auditors of these companies qualified and truthful?
• If companies were listed, was the financial conditions adequately circulated in a manner easy to understand by normal (retail) investors?
• Did the company fail due to its own inefficiencies or was the industry in general in stress?
• Recently (Nov 2019) watched, read and heard many debates about fear among (industry) leaders to speak against the government for the dire state of the economy (4.5% GDP). I could never get hold of detail description of the punitive action the government can take, though it is a open secret that the governements resort to IT-raids, CBI enquiries and dealy in approval of loans... But if the industrialists are so honest in their dealings, why one should be afraid of? When they talk about fear from government, how open their CEOs and board of directors are towards criticism from their employees? It is a open secret that private companies are as or even more corrupt than public sector - they take loan with intent of never paying back the interest? Paradoxically, when political leaders complain about fear of reprisal from governments, how bold are they to criticise their own leadership of the party (read high-command)?
• If we blame government for the lower growth rate of GDP and weaker economy, are we willing to give the government credit for higher growth rate of GDP and stronger economy? As a matter of fact, in market-driven economy tightly coupled with global macro-economics, it is not easy to find a plausible explanation. When the CEOs of company reason that bad performence is due to poor market conditions, why they take all the credits of good performance during better market conditions?

Engineering Expertize vs. Tool Skill

An interior designer for household application needs to know basic of carpentry. Utimately his designs has to be converted into tangible products using contemporary manufacturing processes and material in a cost effective manner. Does this mean carpentry is a bad profession and interior designing is high-end profession? The anwer is clearly no. Both are specialization in their own essence and complement each other for a better product - the stylish, durable and user-friendly home interiors.

Similar analogy holds true in case of a "CAD modeling engineer" and a "product design engineer" or a "FEA Analyst" and "Structural Integrity Engineer" or a "CFD Analyst" and a "Thermal and Fluid Engieer". CAD Designer is an specialization so is any "FE and CFD analysis" work within their own boundaries. Sometimes we do not want to associate the term 'engineer' or 'engineering' with CAD modeling related stuff. This is required to keep the activities of "product design" and "process of graphical representation of product" distinguishable. While a product design process involves finding answers like "why the dimension and tolerance of the product should have certain value", CAD modeling involves a method to represent the dimensions as per standards and conventions in place.

Similarly, a design engineer may not need to know why and how a FE or CFD simulation is performed, he must know what is needed to carry out such simulations and what outputs from those simulation is needed to ensure his design meets the required specifications. On the same note, an FEA or thermal simulation engineer is not required to know why product is designed the way it is shaped and sized, he must know the key performance parameters which is to be validated to help the design engineer make informed decision.

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SMART Rating

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Example template for SMART target setting:

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Example template for SMART evaluation of a candidate for a particular job role:

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Boundaries between evaluation and feedback: any information that goes into formal performance review tend to put employee on backfoot and make them scary. Beware of transparency trap: transparency in dealings is expected to drive out wasteful practices and promote collaboration and shared learning. However, it may also lead to distortions of the facts and tacit inhibitions. The trick is to find the sweet spot between privacy and transparency. Greater transparency within teams and selective opacities between teams tend to be more effective.

Hawthorne effect: subjects improve simply in response to being studied.

Poor or ineffective communication: I have seen people and HR managers complaining about proper or (in)sufficient communication. But what is communication? It is exchange and spread of information. If e-mails with all necessary details are sent, the information is already shared in written and partly in visual mode. But, there are 3 modes of information exhange: text, audio, visual. The effectiveness of communication mode depends on the personality of the recepients.

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Manager Types

• Empathy - Understand what motivates other people, even those from different backgrounds? Are you sensitive to their needs?
• Influence - Persuade others by engaging them in discussion, appealing to their interests and getting support from key people?
• Developing Others Coach and mentor others with compassion? Do you personally invest time and energy in mentoring and provide feedback that people find helpful for their professional development?

Goal of collaboration is not collaboration but, rather, business results that would be impossible without it. Don’t underestimate collaboration costs. Individuals may resent taking on extra work if they don’t get additional recognition or financial incentives, even when collaboration may deliver expected and immediate benefits to all the parties. It’s a mistake to underestimate the collaboration cost in the hope that it can be mandated or will naturally improve during the course of a project.

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Johari Window

This technique proposes to make the central white box as wide as possible.

Prospective Hindsight (premortem): this technique helps identify potential problems - imagine future failure and then explain the cause. It tempers optimism, encourage a realistic assessment of risk prepare back-up plans and exit strategies. Planning fallacy - a failure to plan is planning for failure!

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Self-Management

बुरा जो देखन मैं चला, बुरा न मिलिया कोय, जो दिल खोजा आपना, मुझसे बुरा न कोय।

अर्थ: जब मैं इस संसार में बुराई खोजने चला तो मुझे कोई बुरा न मिला। जब मैंने अपने मन में झाँक कर देखा तो पाया कि मुझसे बुरा कोई नही!

Bura Jo Dekhan Main Chala, Bura Naa Milya Koye, Jo Munn Khoja Apnaa, To Mujhse Bura Naa Koye!

Translation: I went on the search for the bad person, bad personal I couldn't find. When I searched my mind, no one is nastier then me.

Meaning: This is about observing one's own mind. Kabir says that he searched the world for the bad guy, the real evil person but he couldn't find the evil person no matter where he looked. Then he looked within at his own thinking process, his own mind. He found the real evil person who lived in his mind, unchecked. When we accuse, condemn another, it is our mind that is doing the finger pointing, the other person is probably innocent or the victim of his circumstances.

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कंकर-पत्थर जोरि के मस्जिद लई बनाय। ता चढ़ि मुल्ला बांग दे का बहरा भया खुदाय।।

पाथर पूजें हरि मिलें तो मैं पूजूं पहाड़। घर की चाकी कोऊ ना पूजे जाका पीसा खाए संसार।।

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धीरे-धीरे रे मना, धीरे सब कुछ होय। माली सींचे सौ घड़ा, ॠतु आए फल होय॥

बोली एक अनमोल है, जो कोई बोलै जानि। हिये तराजू तौलि के, तब मुख बाहर आनि।।

निंदक नियरे राखिए, ऑंगन कुटी छवाय। बिन पानी, साबुन बिना, निर्मल करे सुभाय।।

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Save Water

Visit this page to know more about Rain Water Harvesting [RWH] systems.

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Meeting invites and inbox clean-up

The e-mail technology has revolutionalized communication and exchange of information. It has become a tool to provide information and data quicker maintaining history, correctness and authenticity. It has wider (sometimes uncontrolled) reach to audiences / recepients.

However, with changing technology the impact and effect of e-mails need to be periodically reviewed and necessary corrective and preventive actions need to be implemented across the organization. New users as well as existing users need to be re-trained and explained the limiations and forthcoming challenges. One of the key challenge is size of inboxes which need to be pruned by deleting obsolete contents. Some of them are meeting acceptance or decline messages, meeting messages which remain in 'deleted' folder, birth day wishes (birthday wishes for 2018 can be deleted after next birth day in 2019)! A machine learning alogorithm can be developed to identify such obsolete messages, similar to the way spam messages are filtered now-a-days.

With increasing use of carbon copies (CC list), the inbox sometimes get flooded beyond human capability to read and respond. An ever increasing trend to put receipients as optional in meeting invites pose even greater threat to the efficiency and effectiveness of key roles. The calendars remain virtually full and employees of all levels do not show courage or willingness to send the 'decline' responses when they think their presence are not needed. Most of the meeting invites I receive now a days have more number of optional attendees than required attendees.

Following steps are needed to address this problem before it becomes a burden:

• A meeting invitation cannot be generated if the schedule is in conflict with more than 50% of the participants.
• No meeting should be generated or accepted if it does not have a well-defined agenda.
• If you are not able to attend, 'decline'! Organizations need to find out what is preventing people from not responding to the meeting invites?

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Power of Subconscious Mind

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From the book "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind" by Dr. Joseph Murphy

Once you learn the habit of identifying your thought immediately with your aim in life, you cease to become upset with people, conditions, news and events. The statements of others cannot hurt you except through your own thoughts and mental participation.

Thoughts enveloped in the power emotion of fear are realized in the subconscious mind. The fear of failure itself creates the experience of failure, e.g. by way of temporary amnesia.

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Fun World

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Wrong e-mail address: The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally typed wrong e-mail address, and without realizing his error, he sent the e-mail. Meanwhile.....somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. He was a minister of many years who was called home to glory following a sudden heart attack. The widow decided to check her e-mail, expecting messages from relatives and friends.

After reading the first message, she fainted. The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:

> To: My Loving Wife
> Subject: I've arrived
> Date: 16 May 2002

> I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now, and you are allowed to send e-mails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then! Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.

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Salesman in Arab: The disappointed salesman of Coke returns from his Middle East assignment. A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Arabs?"

The salesman explained, "When I got posted in the Middle East, I was very confident that I will make a good sales pitch as Coca Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem I didn't know to speak Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through 3 posters. First poster was of a man crawling through the hot desert sand totally exhausted and panting. Second, the man is drinking our Cola and Third, our man is now totally refreshed. Then these posters were pasted all over the place".

"That should have worked", said the friend."

He replied, "Well, I didn't know Arabic, neither did I realize that Arabs read from right to left."

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Funny responses:

How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it?

• Concrete floors are very hard to crack!

If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?

• No time at all! It is already built.

If you had three apples and four oranges in one hand and four apples and three oranges in the other hand, what would you have?

• Very large hands.

How can you lift an elephant with one hand?

• It is not a problem, since you will never find an elephant with one hand.

How can a man go eight days without sleep?

• He sleeps at night.

If you throw a red stone into the blue sea what it will become?

• It becomes wet.

What looks like half apple?

• The other half.

What happened when wheel was invented?

• It caused a revolution.

Why is it easy to weigh a fish?

• Because it has its own scales!

Why does a bike rest on its leg?

• Because it is too tired!

Bay of Bengal is in which state?

• Liquid

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Synonyms with situation

• छू लो तो - चरण
• अड़ा दो तो - टांग
• धँस जाए तो - पैर
• आगे बढ़ाना हो तो - क़दम
• राह में चिह्न छोड़े तो - पद
• प्रभु के हों तो - पाद
• बाप की हो तो - लात
• गधे की पड़े तो - दुलत्ती
• घुंघरू बाँध दो तो - पग
• खाने के लिए - टंगड़ी
• खेलने के लिए - लंगड़ी

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मजेदार प्रश्नोत्तरी के लिए प्रश्न: बच्चे --- Questions for Fun Quiz: Kids. One need to select question based on the age of the kids.

1. आप जहां भी खड़े हैं, पश्चिम दिशा किस तरफ है? प्रश्नोत्तरी आयोजित करने वाले व्यक्ति को स्थान के आधार पर इसकी जांच करनी चाहिए। Wherever you are standing, which side is the west direction? The person conducting the quiz should check it based on the location.
2. 20 तक की संख्याओं का योग क्या है? What is the sum of numbers up to 20? 20x21/2 = 210. You can ask same question to someone else by asking to sum of numbers up to 40.
3. आपके घर के सबसे नजदीक शॉपिंग मॉल कौन सा है? Which one is the nearest shopping mall to your house? Enquire about the locality if you are new to the place.
4. राष्ट्रीय स्तर पर कुछ राजनीतिक हस्तियों जैसे राष्ट्रपति, उपराष्ट्रपति, भारत के सर्वोच्च न्यायालय के मुख्य न्यायाधीश के बारे में पूछें। Ask about some political figures at national level such as President, Vice-President, Chief Justice of Supreme Court of India.
5. दरियाई घोड़े -Hippopotamus या संविधान - Constitution या ब्रह्मांड - Universe की वर्तनी / उच्चारण के लिए पूछें। Ask for spelling of Hippopotamus or Constitution or Universe.
6. What was the relation between Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka? चंद्रगुप्त मौर्य और अशोक के बीच क्या संबंध था? Ashok was gandson of Chandragupta. अशोक चंद्रगुप्त के पौत्र थे.
7. कर्नाटक के किस पर्वत पर भगवान राम की मुलाकात सुग्रीव से हुई थी? किष्किंधा Which mountain in Karnataka did lord Ram met Sugreev? Answer is Kishkindha.
8. भारत के 3 प्राचीन गणितज्ञों को बताइये। आर्यभट्ट, वराहमिहिर, भास्कराचार्य Tell 3 ancient mathematicians from India. Aryabhatta, Varahmihira, Bhaskaracharya
9. वह भूमि जो अब भारत है के 3 पुराने नाम क्या हैं ? आर्यावर्त, जम्बूद्वीप, भारतवर्ष, हिंदुस्तान - What are the 3 older names of land which is now India? Aryavarta, Jambudweep, Bharat, Hindustan
10. Ask persons name and then enquire about its meaning. व्यक्तियों का नाम पूछें और फिर उसका अर्थ पूछें। It is a bit difficult in case the name is unique.
11. मैं हिंदी में 5 अक्षर का शब्द हूं और अंग्रेजी में 9 अक्षर का विलोमपद, मैं भारत की एक भाषा हूं। मैं क्या हूँ? मलयालम - I am a 5 letter work in Hindi and 9 lettered palindrome in English, I am a language from India. What am I? Malayalam
12. आप हिंदी में कितने विलोमपद बता सकते हैं? सरस, नवजीवन, जहाज, चम्मच, नमन How many palindrome can you find in Hindi or English? deed, peep, wow, noon, civic, level, racecar
13. What is one third of three-fourth of hundred? सौ के तीन-चौथाई का एक तिहाई क्या है? It is 1/3 x 3/4 x 100 = 100/4 = 25. You can tweak it as one-half of one-fifth of 100.
14. बंगलौर शहर की समुद्र तल से लगभग ऊँचाई कितनी है? What is the approximate altitude of city Bangalore from sea level? 1000 [m] You can ask for any other city which you are staying in.
15. A tree grow everyday 2 times that is its height gets double every day. After 10 days it has reach 100 [m]. When was its height 50 [m]? एक पेड़ हर रोज 2 गुना बढ़ता है यानी उसकी ऊंचाई हर दिन दोगुनी हो जाती है। 10 दिनों के बाद यह 100 [मी] तक पहुंच गया है। इसकी ऊंचाई 50 [मी] कब थी?

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Month of Birth and Dominant Personality

Though there is no scientific or statistical proof, I found the following list too good to use it during annual performance appraisals, personality evaluations and feedback sessions :) However, I strogly advise readers to use the traits judiciously and only after collecting sufficient evidences.

JANUARY: Ambitious and serious *Loves to teach and be taught *Always looking at people's flaws and weaknesses *Likes to criticize *Hardworking and productive *Smart, neat and organized *Sensitive and has deep thoughts *Knows how to make others happy *Quiet unless excited or tensed *Rather reserved *Highly attentive *Homely person *Loyal *Needs to improve social abilities *Easily jealous

FEBRUARY: Abstract thoughts *Loves reality and abstract *Intelligent and clever *Changing personality *Temperamental *Quiet, shy and humble *Low self esteem *Honest and loyal *Determined to reach goals *Loves freedom *Rebellious when restricted *Loves aggressiveness *Too sensitive and easily hurt *Showing anger easily *Dislike unnecessary things *Loves making friends but rarely shows it *Daring and stubborn *Ambitious *Realizing dreams and hopes *Loves entertainment and leisure *Superstitious and ludicrous (nonsensical) *Spendthrift *Learns to show emotions

MARCH: Attractive personality *Affectionate *Shy and reserved *Secretive *naturally honest, generous and sympathetic *Loves peace and serenity *Sensitive to others *Loves to serve others *Not easily angered *Trustworthy *Appreciative and returns kindness *Observant and assess others *Revengeful *Loves to dream and fantasize *Loves travelling *Loves attention *Loves home decors *musically talented *Loves special things *Moody

APRIL: Active and dynamic *Decisive and hasteful but tends to regret *Attractive and affectionate to oneself *Strong mentality *Loves attention *Diplomatic *Consoling *Friendly and solves people's problems *Brave and fearless *Adventurous *Loving and caring *Suave and generous *Emotional *Revengeful *Aggressive *Hasty *Good memory *Motivate oneself and the others *easily get too jealous

MAY: Stubborn and hard-hearted *Strong-willed and highly motivated *Sharp thoughts *Easily angered *Attracts others and loves attention *Deep feelings *Beautiful physically and mentally *Firm standpoint *Easily influenced *Needs no motivation *Easily consoled *Systematic (left brain) *Loves to dream *Strong clairvoyance *Understanding *Good imagination *Good debating skills *Good physical *Weak breathing *Loves literature and the arts *Loves travelling *Dislike being at home *Restless *Hardworking *High spirited *Spendthrift

JUNE: Thinks far with vision *Easily influenced by kindness *Polite and soft-spoken *Having lots of ideas *Sensitive *Active mind *Hesitating *Tends to delay *Choosy and always wants the best *Temperamental *Funny and humorous *Loves to joke *Good debating skills *Talkative *Daydreamer *Friendly *Knows how to make friends *Abiding *Able to show character *Easily hurt *Loves to dress up *Easily bored *Fussy *Seldom show emotions *Brand conscious *Executive *Stubborn *Those who loves me are enemies *Those who hates me are friends

JULY: Fun to be with *Secretive *Difficult to fathom and to be understood *Quiet unless excited or tensed *Takes pride in oneself *Easily consoled *Honest *Concern about people's feelings *Tactful *Friendly *Very emotional *Temperamental and unpredictable *Forgiving but never forgets *Dislike nonsensical and unnecessary things *Guides others physically and mentally *Sensitive and forms impressions carefully *Caring and loving *Treats others equally *Strong sense of sympathy *Judge people through observations *Loves to be alone *Always broods about the past and the old friends *Likes to be quiet *Homely person *Never looks for friends *Not aggressive unless provoked *Easily hurt but takes long to recover

AUGUST: Loves to joke *Attractive *Suave and caring *Brave and fearless *Firm and has leadership qualities *Knows how to console others *Too generous and egoistic *Take high pride of oneself *Thirsty for praises *Extraordinary spirit *Easily angered *Angry when provoked *Easily jealous *Observant *Careful and cautious *Thinks quickly *Independent thoughts *Loves to lead and to be led *Loves to dream *Talented in the arts, music and defense *Sensitive but not petty *Learns to relax *Hasty and rushy *Loving and caring *Loves to make friends

SEPTEMBER: Suave and compromising *Careful, cautious and organized *Likes to point out people's mistakes *Likes to criticize *Quiet but able to talk well *Calm and cool *Kind and sympathetic *Concerned and detailed *Trustworthy, loyal and honest *Does work well *Sensitive *Good memory *Clever and knowledgeable *Controls oneself when criticized *Able to motivate oneself *Understanding *Secretive *Loves sports, leisure and travelling *Hardly shows emotions *Tends to bottle up feelings *Systematic

OCTOBER: Loves to chat *Loves those who loves him *Loves to takes things at the centre *Attractive and suave *Inner and physical beauty *Does not lie or pretend *Sympathetic *Treats friends importantly *Always making friends *Easily hurt but recovers easily *Bad tempered *Selfish *Seldom helps unless asked *Daydreamer *Very opinionated *Does not care of what others think *Emotional *Decisive *Soft-spoken, loving and caring *Touchy and easily jealous *Concerned *Just and fair *Spendthrift and easily influenced *Easily lose confidence

NOVEMBER: Has lot of ideas *Difficult to fathom *Thinks forward *Unique and brilliant *Extraordinary ideas *Sharp thinking *Careful and cautious *Dynamic in personality *Secretive *Inquisitive *Knows how to dig secrets *Always thinking *Less talkative but amiable *Brave and generous *Patient *Stubborn and hard-hearted *Determined *Never give up *Hardly become angry unless provoked *Loves to be alone *Thinks differently from others *Sharp-minded *Motivates oneself *Does not appreciates praises *High-spirited *Deep love and emotions *Hardworking *High abilities *Trustworthy *Honest and keeps secrets *Not able to control emotions *Unpredictable

DECEMBER: Loyal and generous *Patriotic *Active in games and interactions *Impatient and hasty *Ambitious *Fun to be with *Loves to socialize *Loves praises *Loves attention *Honest and trustworthy *Not pretending *Short tempered *Changing personality *Not egoistic *Takes high pride in oneself *Hates restrictions *Loves to joke *Good sense of humor *Logical

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Counting in Hindi, Indian system

0	शुन्य	Zero
1	इकाई	Unit
10	दहाई	Tenth
100	सैंकड़ा	Hundred
1000	हज़ार	Thousand
10000	दस हज़ार	Ten Thousand
100000	लाख	Hundred Thousand
106	दस लाख	Million
107	करोड़	Ten Millions
108	दस करोड़	Hundred Millions
109	अरब	Billion
1010	दस अरब	-
1011	खरब	-
1012	दस खरब	Trillion
1013	नील	-
1014	दस नील	-
1015	पद्म	Quadrillion
1016	दस पद्म	-
1017	शंख	-
1018	दस शंख	Quintillion
1019	महाशंख	-

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Words and number of occurrences in Indian Constitution