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Like last three APRICOTs, I would be attending APRICOT 2015 this time. It’s in Japan and it would be fun as always to meet networking community. :)

Buzz me if any of readers here are attending. Would be great to meet & greet!

It has been very interesting as well as very busy times in life. There have been lot of developments at my job end where I am spending almost 14-15hrs a day but at the same time I think I should start blog posting again.  

Starting with a non-technical topic this time…

Why incompetent leaders are dangerous?

A close friend asked me sometime back and I happen to have interesting experiences with those “incompetent leaders”. The context of this question was that my good friend was offered a job in a good company, good salary, interesting work but under a highly incompetent leader. So should he proceed for it or not? My reply to him was immediate no, while my other friends (since it was group discussion) were in favor of it considering it.  

Yesterday I was driving and radio was pretty boring. Next, I connected cell phone to car’s stereo (I use a PT-750 to wirelessly connected my devices to car’s audio system). Next I tuned into Gaana.com app and experience was overall good. The way whole setup was working itself is a wonder - wireless profiles keeping layer 3 link (IP address of device) consistent and handovers happening on layer 1. On top of that a while world of backbone routing across AS9498 backbone the hosting provider’s network of the app. Now an interesting thing in this setup was the IP allocations. I that IP allocated by Airtel was 100.92.215.253.

And I am back with blog post. It has been almost months since I posted last time. Last few months of life went extremely busy but I loved them. A completely new learning curve.   My today’s post is primarily about India’s BBNL. It’s not the first time I am posting about it but since topic is pretty widely in media these days due to Modi’s Digital India plan.  

So what is BBNL?

Well, BBNL stands for Bharat Broadband Network Limited. It has got quite a few names including NOFN (National Optic Fiber Network), and another old name on Mr Rajiv Gandhi. BBNL website is available here. This is a legacy project taken over by recent NDA Govt. Originally it was introduced by Kapil Sibal during UPA regime. The idea is to lay significant amount of dark fiber till Gram Panchayat level. For this an initial fund of 20,000 crore which is around $4 USD has been budgeted.  

I would be presenting in SANOG 24 (Noida) on “BGP Route leaks”. Buzz me if you around. Meet and greet me as well as Citycom/Spectranet team :)    

Update: 18th August 2014 Here’s what I presented :) ` author: “Anurag Bhatia” url: “/2014/07/update/presentation-on-bgp-route-leaks-sanog-24/”

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Today I came across a nicely written article in Business Standard on NOFN. Article’s title was “NOFN: A distant dream”. I must say it is one of good articles I have seen so far on the topic and most of other articles appeared to be factually incorrect and more like Press Releases of UPA.  

Some key points from the Business Standard article:

According to a top official at the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the project was conceptualised without a proper study. “NOFN would connect 2.5 lakh villages from the block level. But, no study was done on the details on optic fibre still the Block level, and how healthy those fibres are. Experts say that the NOFN project does not include service offering. It is just about the laying of optic fibres. For end-to-end services, service providers will have to set up their own infrastructure at the gram panchayat level. While the initial cost was projected at Rs 20,000 crore for the NOFN project, private companies will need to pump in much more than this amount to offer services to end customers.

Today was voting day in many states including Haryana (where I stay) and I just casted vote. This was 2nd time I voted and first time when I voted in a Lok Sabha election (last time being for local Municipal Election). 

Sometimes back I came across a very nice lecture by one of Indian scholar, politician, author and lot more Mr Arun Shourie.  

Some key points of his lecture

• Political situation has degraded significantly and during the time he gave this lecture. Four of politicians including Haryana’s Ex-CM were in jail for some really serious charges. 
• We are not using rights of freedom for the re-construction of society. Media is one of key institutions which has degraded so much. 
• We feel proud to say that we are largest democracy though real bitter truth is that most of that is a complete disarray. 
• No party in current time believes in ideology, idea or ideals. It’s plainly politics to get in power. (I personally disagree to this though). 
• We have got lot’s of media channels and that make us feel very proud of though most just work in same manner. The pattern as well as the news is almost same on each of them. Diversity & plurality is not there. 
• There’s a very organized structure of paid media in form of “rate cards” where certain rates are provided in well defined pattern for giving better news coverage. 
• Indian media is very much into giving excessive coverage to insignificant events while there’s almost no interest in critical issues like state of defence, our position w.r.t. China, our internal security etc. 
• Indian media has gone so much into “manipulation mode” that they use a lot of “So you mean to say….” kind of statement to make things more exciting while loosing the actual value in discussion. 
• There’s almost no coverage in mainstream Indian media on scientific developments. New which has potential to impact our life significantly is not given any importance at all. 
• Elite Indian class considers India to be a “Knowledge Super Power” even though without knowledge, no read and opinion on everything. :) 
• There’s too much of balanced journalism where idea is to show two sides and end every debate with yes & no kind of situation. There’s no analysis or use of mind - it’s all just like showing a balanced, unquestionable picture of everything. While in real life there’s only side, only one side is right and not two sides. 
• (Best advise:) Do not waste time in watching TV when it’s showing useless crap news. Just turn it off and watch TED talk or Authors @ Google videos talk on YouTube. :)
• There’s a false sense that Indian society has become intolerant. Truth is that it’s all about weak state control.
• Lokpal likely won’t help and all we need is three key changes in judiciary - No adjournments at all, Preponderance of probability and punishment not just in form of fine but also a ban from public life. 
• Sad truth is that over time India is becoming weaker and weaker due to extremely poor governance. India is moreover governed by bureaucracy and not really political leadership.

Some personal thoughts… 

I really wish to read his books and infact meet him someday in person. There are lot of things to learn from his experience. As Disinvestment Minister he was one of key persons in VSNL (Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd) disinvestment during Vajpayee’s Govt. This was time when this precious telecommunications infrastructure got investments from Tata Group which later turned it into Tata Communication after merging assets of VSNL, Tyco Global Network and TeleGlobe. 

And my post on 1st April. Don’t take it as April fool post ;)

Multiple times NIXI’s AS24029 has been reported as acting like transit ASN for multiple networks. I have analysed it in past and this is very much because of route leaks by few specific networks. I have explained difference in peering Vs transit routes and their handling previously on my blog.

In short: A network is supposed to re-announce it’s peering and transit routes only to customer and not to any other peer or upstream. Whenever NIXI’s ASN appears in global routing table, its always the case where one or more networks are re-announcing routes learnt via NIXI to their upstream transits. 

And I am back from Malaysia after attending APRICOT 2014. It was a slightly slow event this time as less people came up due to change of location from Thailand to Malaysia. But I kind of enjoy the APRICOT in start of year. :)

It has been quite sometime when I blogged. After getting into Spectranet I got relatively more busy along with bit of travelling to Delhi NCR which has been taking lot of time. I wish to blog more over time. 

Quick update: I will be attending APRICOT 2014 in Malaysia. Excited to attend workshops & conference with the geeky networking community. author: “Anurag Bhatia” url: “/2014/02/update/apricot-2014-malaysia/”

Incase you are around, drop me a message and I would be happy to meet!