The Year 2017 for me

2017 turned out to be an interesting year (while looking back), with its share of surprises and unexpected things. The downs that I faced this year, got etched badly in my mind, and I was totally at loss, as I could not comprehend them with rational thinking.

On hindsight, I guess, this made my belief stronger that there are forces beyond us, and they work only for our own good - in a very very long term! - and these perceived bad things are a sort of 'balancing' act by them.

So let me get into it.

• Enjoying the luxury of high-bandwidth Internet in Mobiles through SIM (Cellular connections), Thanks to Jio for 4G LTE 
• Seeing the domain of Crypto applications getting expanded wildly (yes wildly), thanks to applications of Blockchain
• Happy to Conduct Brainstorming Discussions on topics related to Internet
• Joined Professional Societies as a member (IEEE, and ACM)
• Remote Presentation at IEEE ATC Conference
• Wondered (Did some ground work too, may end up as a publication) - how you can prove your financial reputation to some one for obtaining credit. 
• Opportunity to work (research) on DNS 
• Organized an IEEE Conference successfully (understood how much time and efforts are required despite having a team, and funds were not an issue)
• Learnt the value of Backup in a softway (yes soft and not hard :) ) - as I lost data when a pendrive suddenly stopped working, and thankfully I had a backup. 
• Got interested on privacy preserving payments and was exploring them. 
• Promotions - finally happened (after a long wait) in the institution that I am working for. It was almost a miracle on two counts, one it happened after a long hiatus, and then it was ante-dated; and an interesting thing is that it left many unhappy. Unfortunately I too was bitten by it, and the ramblings are there in the beginning of this post.  In this process, also figured out how my seniors rated me in my earlier years (last decade). 
• As usual, taught OOP using Java, Crypto programming, WWW Architecture etc... and gave lectures on Digital Signatures, PKI, Blockchain,  etc... at various prestigious forums. 
• Personal: Watching my kids growing up, Failing health of Mother 
• Places Visited: Guwahati, Delhi, Madurai, Hyderabad, Vijayawada , Bharachukki, Gaganchukki Falls,  Patna 

The Year 2016 - for me

It has become a tradition for me, to start blogging each year with the happenings/learning of the previous year. So here it goes:

Lessons:

• Don't try to infer lessons from everything - time 'may' tell - just keep going!
• People keep repeating the same mistakes in different ways, because either they did not learn the right lessons or forgot them! 
• We might have given our best in difficult situations and even our efforts and rewards might be glaringly visible - but that does not mean that others are going to rate you high! - so just keep going! 

Work:

• A decade and a half got completed in my current workplace. 
• Happy to note that some of the ambitious research problems that we started to work decades ago, and left after 2-3 years of pursuing it, owing to the compulsions of the organization, were still remaining unsolved (meaning they were really challenging!), but seeing good traction in the respective domains. 
• Happy to envision and develop ICT-based social solutions, which did not materialize the way I wanted. But now seeing them created in a different way (much about it later).  
• Overtime owing to the need of the environment, I envisioned to build a portfolio of projects and services catering to the broad domain of Information Security which worked out fantastically within a short span of time. 
• The organization did not have a promotion policy for the last 5+ years. Fortunately close to the end of the year, a policy was introduced, of course with many complexities as usual, and I had to work on reports starting from 2007 to 2016! - an herculean task!
• We were able to know our individual annual ratings of the previous years, as the data was opened up - a nice thing to know, even if you do not like what you see!

• Saw myself working more on standards whether it is Digital Signatures, Internet Protocols, Cloud Security Audits etc... 
• Compiled and brought in more content to the Handbook on Digital Signatures and PKI
• Happy to initiate more activities to promote the development of Internet Protocols in India - one of the dreams visualized years ago.  
• Conducted training on Digital Signatures and PKI at various locations across the country, primarily for the local State Govt. officials. Had really tough time coordinating many of these programs and it was a good experience for me. 
• Happy to see the technical movie that I scripted on Digital Signatures going alive and receiving positive feedback on Youtube. 
• Successfully organized a National Conference on Digital Signatures and PKI exclusively catering to the Banking and Financial Sector at Mumbai.
• Participated in ICANN 57, Hyderabad and also presented the various approaches in DANE (TLSA) in DNSSEC workshop   

General:

• Wondering whether Mobile Handset manufacturers install something to make the phone/device work only for specific period of time! - Fed up with problems of MotoG 1st Gen . 
• Gave up the telephone landline connection in my native - while doing so remembered how much we had struggled (and waited patiently for years) to get it. Technology can bring in pleasant changes. 
• New age library - JustBooks - though not an active subscriber, continued to subscribe, and want them to survive! and ofcourse discover books through serendipity
• My contributions to Quora on the subject of Digital Signatures and PKI made me as one of the top viewed writer. 
• Invited lectures at couple of places made me to learn and develop an over-arching perspective.
• Places Traveled: This year was eventful and visited quite a lot of places and all of them are very memorable and each one has its own unique history. Tripura (Agartala),  Lakshadweep (Kavaratti), Tirupati, Nashik (Shirdi & Anjaneri), Jaipur, Rameshwaram, Ramnad - UttaraKosaMangai temple, Devipatnam - Navagrahas in sea, Tirupullani - Shri Adhi Jagannatha Swamy Temple, Tiruchendur, Panchalangkurichi, Sikkim (Gangtok, Nathula Pass), Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar (Lingaraj temple, Sanchi Stupa, Udayagiri), Puri, Konark Temple, Trichy (Erumbeswarar Temple), Raipur, Pyramid Valley in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata (Dakshineshwar temple), Madurai Meenakshi Temple 

Personal: 

• Got to see lord Venkateshwara (Tirumala) from close quarters, which I never expected. However my mind was restless, as my father was unwell. After finishing the darshan, I learnt that he was admitted to an Intensive Care Unit in Apollo hospital and I was deeply worried. But as a group we went to have darshan of Goddess Padmavathy and immediately started to Bangalore, and things turned fine after a day, and he got discharged the day after, and came to normalcy exactly after a month. - Don't know what to say, except that faith kept things moving. Again went for the usual darshan along with my family, a month later. 
• Later in September, my mother had developed a serious health issue - acute myocardial infraction - heart attack, and a cardiac stent was put up which later lead to several other complications  including kidney, and lungs at a much later stage. I somehow felt that the 'stent' - an external object is actually a slow killer, though it saved life at that moment. The heart attack was very much unexpected for us as her cholesterol levels were always pretty normal, no sugar, no BP etc...  I also realized that stent, cannot improve the functions of the heart and felt that her heart was not functioning up to the mark, which no one was willing to tell me ! (except time) 

The Year 2015 - for me

As usual every year, I am starting my blog post this year with a recap of events I encountered in the previous year. So, here it goes.

Pleasant Learning:

• Pleased with the smooth operations of  a critical infrastructure that I struggled and established few years ago.
• Glad to note that one of the difficult activity of promoting digital signatures to various Government staffs across the nation progressed smoothly in the later part of the year.
• Had an opportunity to give a vent for my creative thinking - Wrote the script and narrative for an animation movie - to teach the concepts of Public Key Infrastructure - and the movie can be found here.
• Creating and Fostering Virtual Communities of Learning: Started a YouTube Channel on my (current) favourite subject - Public Key Infrastructure and slowly built up the community.
• Started to build another Indian technical community - this time focusing on Internet Protocols and Standards - Details can be found here, here, and here .
• Had an opportunity to perform a review of the academic activities of the computer science branch of a prestigious institution
• Knowledge Consolidation - Over the years, I have diversified myself  into many technical areas: Applied AI, Community Informatics, Content Delivery, Contextual Intelligence, Network Security, Usability, Information Security etc..  However this year, I was able to anchor myself under the umbrella of Cryptographic Applications - though I worked on PKI, Internet Standards, and DNS Security
• Personally - bought (more) than a decade old flat !  -  have come a long way from my thinking against the flat system (in my young days) and now realizing the benefits of community living
• Travel (Many places, this year): Mangalore (Visited many temples), Varanasi (Ganga and many temples), Visakhapatnam, Meghalaya (Shillong, Cherapunji), Delhi, Noida, Trichy, Srirangam,Alagar Koil (Madurai), Chandigarh, Arani, Vellore Golden Temple, Tiruvanamalai Temple. 

Tough Learning:

• Discovered how tough to restore a tape backup, when it really matters!
• Realized that how easily you can be taken for a ride, when managing enterprise level systems and infrastructure.
• A Proposal on an effort that started in 2013 is still dragging and no light visible even this year too,with so many back and forth happening and eating my time and efforts
• Patiently waited another whole year for the recognition from the office, which did not come as usual. Expressed them in formal ways, but of no avail.
• Realized what a big folly is to buy a washing machine like Bosch in India. Will blog about it soon.
• Health of my parents was a big concern, and especially my mother had to undergo a surgery. Tough times during that period, but we overcame, thanks to almighty.

The Year 2014 - for me

As usual, this year too, I am starting with my thoughts on the previous year, especially at my personal front.

General Observations - Positive & Neutral

• Realized that our workplace is slowly adopting paper-less practices and an important step of HR records moving online
• Got a first-hand experience in using various crypto-tokens
• Managed to organize 2 big technical events - One on DNS Security; and another on Digital Signatures and PKI
• Realized that to reach people and propagate your message, you should use all mediums. So, Started relying heavily on Social Media (Facebook and Twitter) for promotion of our concepts and efforts
• Finally visited US and UK this year, and had already shared my experiences in this post. 
• Smartphone era finally heralded in our homes, (and relatives) this year
• Wondered what will happen if Google decides to close Blogger one day ?? So, decided to have my blog posts replicated in wordpress too
• Guided around 10+ Interns this year (though some of them were been my interns since last year) Also met several students who visit our campus each year as a ritual 
• Places Visited: Mumbai, Kollam, Shimla, Noida, Los Angeles, London, and New Delhi

General Observations - Disappointments

• Much expected elevation in my career did not happen this year too, despite list of significant achievements to showoff had been increasing!
• Realized the pathetic situation of M.Tech studies in many not-so-popular institutes! One institution withdrew its intern student saying that the problem assigned was too difficult! Another institution's students got the work published in 'paid' conferences due to their academic pressures! However have to admit that, met a few bright students also.
• Did my best as last ditch efforts to increase the use of the system that I had been building for last few years (4 years). Spent significant efforts in the first half year working on it, tried using AI techniques, changing the UI, increasing interaction mechanisms, and had to also have to overcome difficulties in hosting and integrating with social media and also shifting the connectivity.  But despite all these, more barriers were raised, and it dawned that the current approach is no longer going to be feasible
• Quite frustrated with one of our client, who were adamant on a round-about technique for doing an activity, and even that too did not materialize due to several procedural and technical issues. - An absolute time & effort waster! 
• Figured out how a famous  company's (It had a great name of an important celestial object, with out which life is not possible) software product that was offered at very fair prices, when taken over by another, were offered at exorbitantly high prices using a different model, with just a logo change!, while the code and features remained the same! 
• Realized the pains of organizing a event (had a first-hand experience of it), where many people who you know participate and had to be extremely careful such that their egos are not hurt

The Year 2013 - for me

I would like to maintain my style of posting about a recap of events that happened in the last year, as my first post of the year - a sort of autobiography.  So, here it is:

• It's difficult to start learning something new, especially as basic as a skill like driving, and that too when people less than half your age, already have mastered it. Nevertheless, with a firm mind, I started with a two-wheeler, and within a month, mastered it (simply means, you keep driving in chaotic traffic, and try to find way, even within a very narrow space!). Then came the bigger one - Learning to drive a manual transmission car (with gears!), in real traffic and that too in curvy and slope roads, (ofcourse after getting trained from a professional driving school) 
• Had the experience of being pulled into a project and being pushed out of a project purely for non-technical reasons! - Though I had to admit that, I was wishing for it to happen.  
• Met reasonable success in a project that involved overcoming huge administrative challenges, and happy as it brought a sense of satisfaction after a lot frustration and will be a very important milestone in the history of the organization that I am working with. 
• Yet another project of mine, relating to academic networking saw some reasonable success; However all the above projects require continuous follow up to sustain the success!
• Started to do some serious study on DNS, that I had kept in my wish list for a long time. 
• My mentor and boss, for almost a decade, moved to another location of the organization. This lead to series of changes, but at the end, you learn to accept the changes.
• Had a busy time authoring proposals in areas related to Information Security, the domain that I had been involved with for the past few years  
• Got a feel of Hybrid PC or Convertibles - (Laptop with detachable screen, and screen can act as a tab), but soon realized that these products are immature and not going to suit someone who spends considerable time in front of the PC. 
• Had the experience of learning and working with good number of interns this year
• Had the experience of running around the government offices to apply and collect few essential documents!
• Travel: As usual made trips to New Delhi, Tirumala, Madurai, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Chennai

The Year 2012 - for me

It's becoming difficult to blog these days! With Work pressure,  Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter), Professional Networking (LinkedIn) eating up your time,  its difficult to blog unless you have a compelling reason to write.  Let me stop here, otherwise this subject matter would be a blog post by itself. 

So, I start this year, as usual by reflecting about myself in the past year - 2012.  It had it own share of satisfactions and disappointments

• The Academic Networking Portal that we were building picked up a good number of users without any promotions and despite our deliberate underplayed stance. We started the year with less than 100 users and by the end of the year, we had more than 1700+ registered users. 

• Faced lot of heat and pressure (and sleepless nights) on the project related to a DR setup. As this was the first of the kind project being executed by me, and the first of its kind to the entire organization, it was really challenging as there were too lengthy processes and execution of it took its own sweet time.   Spent my full time only on this effort in the last few months of the year, pushing myself hard and taking the extra long steps to see things are getting done. 

• Attended a conference on Disaster Management and was impressed by the speakers from all over the world. Had a paper presentation in the same conference and got the 'Best Paper Award' but felt bad as the organizers never handed over the promised cash prize!

• Disappointed by the way private schools collect money and wondered what great ideals could be imparted to the children by them!

• Got selected for a Training Program (One among the only 2 participants from India) on Information Security Management System - ISO 27000 organized by Asian Productivity Organization and conducted by Korea Productivity Centre at Seoul, Republic of Korea.  Had a very nice, interesting and useful experience. 

• Got Selected for the Internet Society's Next Generation Leadership Program - an E-Learning Course on History and Future of Internet and Governance. Very happy and cherished the learning's and experience I gained through this. Successfully completed the course. 

• Got involved in a project proposal that was very innovative, and will change the digital landscape of   e-governance services - a project related to authentication. However due to prolonging delays and certain other issues, I exited out of it. 

• An Organizational change happened, at an unexpected time, and in a very rapid way, which no one expected it to happen in such  a way. It created lots of doubts, fears etc... though such a change was logical and was bound to happen one day. It shook us. 

• Received my PhD Degree in Convocation

• Internship Guidance: Guided a good number of students/interns. Learnt a lesson that not all students come with open minds and interests in doing Internship - some of them have their own self-interests and will waste your time and energy - So lesson is to be careful and choose only the right students. 

• Some Moments: Wireless Internet Connection,  Conduction of Internal ISO Audit; 

• Travel: Nagercoil, Tirupathi,  Andaman, Seoul and  Hong Kong. So travel in 2012 was exciting!

2011 - The year that was for me!

I had been pushing myself to write this post, as it had become a kind of 'ritual' for me to start an year's blogging with reflections of my past year. Also, I should admit that, after I started 'tweeting', it has become extremely difficult to Blog!  So here, I go...

• My Current project had been driving me - as, I got more passionate about it, as days passed by in 2011, and I believe it will surely be of help to students and the academic community
• My successful completion of PhD in Computer Science - The long awaited final defense examination (viva-voce) happened on a day that's simply unforgetful! - on 11/11/2011, and ofcourse, had a sigh of relief! after the declaration of PhD award
• Attended WWW2011 Conference for the first time, and was very happy to listen to few great people, including Tim Berners-Lee and even managed to have a small discussion with him on Semantic Web, and ofcourse a photograph with him.  
• A lot of learning happened in a very different project, relating to setup of a DR. Though had to encounter and learn too many things that are far from my profession, I was happily taking on the challenges!, and did not have much regrets even when the bosses fired us on our slow pace of work!
• Continued to lead the ISO activities in the office; and managed to organize a Project Management Training for the staff members.
• Managed to coordinate and organize two National-level Symposiums on PKI and Digital Signatures along with my friend and colleague Mr. Misbahuddin.  Though I was only a team member here, I was happy that this effort came to a good end. 
• Started Tweeting! and found to be really interesting and useful (This is ironic, because when twitter started, and when I saw the way people were using it initially, I thought it may not be of much use for me!) - This gave me a lesson - Any tool can be used effectively, and it all depends on the user and their context!
• Travel: Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh (and also visited Dalai Lama's residence), Indore, Kashmir (Beautiful Valley; Visited Srinagar, Gulmarg and Pahalgam), Kanyakumari & ; Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu; and my usual trips to Delhi. A very interesting thing happened was I had to travel from Kanyakumari to Kashmir within a span of a day or two.   

Overall, many things were falling in place, and really got a sense of accomplishment, despite some odd firings from few bosses! 

The year 2010 - for me

Here goes the Personal Highlights of 2010 for me!

• The year started for me, with a much awaited approval to work on a new collaborative project, and even had one review completed successfully in the later part of the year
• Got to work on another interesting but an important proposal, that saw its light at the end of the year
• Registered a domain name, for one of the products that we were working on - a first for me
• Submitted my PhD Thesis Report (I really realized the pain of writing a doctoral thesis!, and how relieving it was, after the submission!)
• Submitted two annual reports at the same time (felt like climbing a mountain!)
• Two members of my team - Dnyanesh Pawar and Vikram Kumar quit, to pursue better careers
• Got interested in writing and deploying an application in Google App Engine
• Got a good number of opportunities to develop my 'emcee' skills! - an area that was absolutely new to me!
• Learnt more about ISO, as I was nominated as the QMS manager! and managed to get through one surveillance audit! Also faced audit of a different kind - for the first time, in the later part of the year!
• Regained my interests in PKI technology as I had to get closely involved in a related project
• Learned and handled certain new courses
• Had to do lot of works that I was not previously familiar or comfortable with
• Had some disappointments too: Efforts relating to get into a specific activity (which would have been a honor), failed and a product deployment did not materialize
• Named our second daughter as Aishwarya
• Got our first daughter admitted to a nearby school
• Traveled to a number of places, thanks to a project & for other personal commitments: Trivandrum, Calicut, Cochin, Alleypey, Delhi, Mysore (Palace, Chamundi Hills, Brindavan gardens, Ranganathaswamy temple, and Tipu sultan fort), Visakhapatnam (also visited Simhachalam) , Planetarium at Bangalore (seeing for the first time in Bangalore, despite being here for a long time!) are the places that I happened to visit this year!.
• Overall, the year was good & memorable, for the important milestones that I happened to pass through, and for taking up opportunities & works that I was not familiar with!
  

The year 2009 - for me

As it had been my convention, let me start this year's blogging by writing about some notable events for me in 2009.

• A long-awaited project in the domain of Web Intelligence materialized in December. More about it later.
• Did spend a good amount of time on research, the result being my research papers accepted for publication in reputed and popular conferences. (Ofcourse faced rejection too, from a most conference)
• Technically feeling and creating the AJAX magic, in web development and mainly involved in improving the Usability of systems.
• Significant progress made towards my PhD; Also decided on the final title of my work;
• A project that I worked passionately for the last few years, got extended for another 3 years, but with riders and change of direction (towards product mode targeting different kind of users).
• Had to put my head into ISO processes, as one of the internal auditors and as a process owner for some time.
• Involved with the process of coordinating a mega module (topic wise), covering Databases and Web in 6 weeks and allocating work to 20+ members! who wanted to participate in the training activity.
• Setting up of VASP (a software for Molecular Simulations) in clusters, for the second time.
• Moved to an apartment with better amenities; started understanding the apartment culture, and was getting the feel and importance of amenities.
• The birth of my second angel/queen
• Took the 'active' decision of giving up the official transport and using the Public transport for commuting to office
• Observing Financial markets from a distance, and wondering whether I could ever understand and explain its behavior.
• Travelled to Tirupathi, Kalahasti, Erode, Kodaikanal, Chennai, Mahabhilipuram, Vellore (Golden Temple), Mangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Pondicherry.
• Overall, the year was satisfying.

The year 2008 - for me

As usual, I start blogging in this year, by reminiscing about the main events of my (both work and personal) life in 2008:

• Privilege to listen and interact with some really great and wonderful people
• Assisting my professor (guide) to setup a HPC Cluster for his new area of research on Computational Nanotechnology
• Publication of research papers in National Conference, International Workshop, and in a Journal
• Invited Talks at a couple of National Symposiums/Conferences and Faculty-Development Programs
• Introduced Multi-Agent Systems in the Advanced Web Module of our courses.
• Being part of an awareness project - to spread awareness about PKI and Digital Signatures
• Building a Unified Interface for a suite of Network Security products
• Understanding ISO and incorporating various Processes - as our organization is moving towards certification
• Project Guidance to MCA Students
• Handling Network and Web Application classes for students of a reputed Management Institute
• Travel - Hyderabad (for the 3rd Meeting of Internet Governance Forum) , Delhi, and Kerala (Trivandrum, Alleppey)
• Learning about: Complexities in Contextual IR, Agent-based Automation systems, Latest technologies in Web Applications, Cryptography and Information Security, E-Markets, Financial Markets and so on ...
• Personally, putting my daughter in a play school, and watching as she grows and learns ...
• Overall the year was full of learning.
  

The year 2007 - for me

As usual, let me start the year, with the significant events that happened to me in last year.

• Part of the team that organized the ISED conference (International Conference on ICT Solutions for Socio-economic Development) event and my first role as an editor for the proceedings of ISED Conference.
• Promotion as a Senior Staff Scientist, at my place of work.
• Some progress in my PhD - Found out, the skills required to do a PhD! - now have to master them.
• My friend Neela moving to Denmark for doing his PhD
• Wrote a couple of proposals, to various funding agencies; - In the process gathered some experience!.
• Travel trips to Delhi
• Had good breaks, from work, at home, owing to chickenpox and Madras eye (Conjuctivitis), and utilized them to rejuvenate myself with new ways of thinking, and looking at things!.
• Overall the year allowed me to reflect back, from absolutely eventful previous years
• Opportunity to learn about Financial Markets and Investments
  

The year 2006 - for me

A New Year - 2007. Another year passed by.

Though, I had a couple of things in my mind to blog, I could not find the time to do it. And the new year has come and almost one month over!.

So, this post is to recollect the events in 2006.

• Birth of my daughter
• Giving my daughter a name, by us
• Got registered for my PhD, after doing good amount of work over the years, and after a long wait!
• Invested in Mutual funds for the first time!
• Two of my colleagues - Kailash and Ponraj - who were working with me, quit in April and December respectively - ofcourse in search of better positions! Another friend and colleague - Mayank also quit.
• Lost my Nokia mobile phone (that my wife gifted!) in a crowded bus - to a thief!
• Purchased Sony Ericsson Mobile Handset, and had a terribly bad experience with it for a couple of months (I already had a bad experience with Sony Ericsson Mobile earlier; but foolishly I trusted the brand again! - Probably 'Fate' played!)
• Trips to Hyderabad & Delhi - for Project work & Conferences; Personal Trips to Madurai, a couple of times
• Got my home PC upgraded to an additional 256 MB RAM and a new 80 GB Hard disk
• Coordinated and lead the Corporate Training Programme in Computer Networking
• Opened an account in Orkut - after ignoring it for some time!
• Handled many sessions for the students of the courses conducted here
• Worked on Project Proposals, Papers and lot of Presentations
• Learned a lot as usual - but more from a Techno - Research perspective (thanks to my PhD, Paper, and Proposal efforts)
• Overall it was another eventful year
  

The year 2005 - for me

Another year passed by. A new year has started. Nothing is special except that another fresh day has started and the earth has completed one more revolution around the sun. But still the grouping of days into weeks, months, years, decades, milleniums ... mean something significant to most of us.

At a personal front, a few significant things have happened for me in 2005.

• My marriage in February
• Obtaining the PMP certification in September
• Travelling abroad for the first time, to Australia for a paper presentation at the IEEE conference in November.
• Guiding a project in ontology based inferences
• Incorporated new sessions like Usability, Essence of Problem Solving, Ontology etc... as part of our courses
• Starting to 'Blog'
• Learnt so many new concepts, dwelled upon some and mastered a few.
• Travelled to Chandigarh, Chennai, Melur, Mumbai, Mysore, Shimla, Suttur and Tanjore within the country, and to Bangkok and Melbourne outside the country.

• Declining an offer to go to Grenada (part of west indies) as an IT expert (sponsored by the government of India) for designing solutions for the hurricane hit country.
• Shifting my house to a location that is 30 kms far off from my office and approximately takes 120-150 minutes of travel, owing to the interests of the family.
• My friend and colleague getting himself a transfer.
• Tried to come with a proper open source license for our software system, but still nothing has been decided
• Started to guide a group of people on generating useful inferences, using the concepts of event coorelation, as they requested me for some innovative project work, but later disappeared without notice.
• Our software localized in Punjabi, and successfully included in the package of Punjabi tools slated for release by the Prime Minister. Unfortunately the launch was postponed twice, and still yet to be released.

Though the last few points look like reflecting the negative aspects, I believe that everything happens for the good. I would like to dwell upon a few of my decisions in the rest of the paragraphs.

Declining the offer to go to grenada was one of the toughest decision for me in the last year. It was made within a short time. At one end, it is a job that will give me a sense of pride, apart from money. At the other end, the project that I was involved for nearly the past two years, seemed to be at a stage of bearing fruit; and I did not want to quit that and go. We have been in the mission of building ICT applications usable by rural people, and we have done a lot of field work too, apart from our technological activities, and I have been in the forefront of these activities right from the day, the project was started. I wanted to experiment, explore and learn further, and ofcourse reach the logical end of our work, before I jump to another. That made me to decline the offer.

On the positive side, the decision to appear for the PMP examination, decision to submit a paper for IEEE conference, decision to guide projects were some major decisions that has paid dividends. Thus 2005 in short was an year of opportunities/challenges, changes, and learning for me.For the reader, here's my philosphical note. There's no place for 'if ... then' in any history. Overall the year was eventful and satisfying.