PASSPORT

Which country Passport do you carry.  Does it matter?  Yes.  It does matter as you could get easy entry in other countries depending on the Passport that you are holding.  Travel around the world has become so easy and common these days.  I have a friend, in Dubai Mr.Syeeduddin, who has travelled to all the Cricket playing countries and has watched a match in each of these countries.

The technological advancement in the last 20 years has been phenomenal and when the Internet boom happened we thought the travel will come down.  On the contrary over the last 20 years while we have advanced in technology the air travel has increased manifolds.

If we like to travel to different countries and explore, it is important for us to know whether we need a Visa to enter that country and how easy or how difficult it is to get the visa?

For instance out of the 218 country passports, the passport holders of Finland, Sweden and United Kingdom can have easy access and Visa-Free travel to 173 out of the total 217 other countries in the world.  Is that not incredible that you are having a comfortable and easy arrival into so many countries by virtue of holding a passport from one of these three countries.  They do not have to apply for visa in advance and they can just land up in any of those 173 countries and at the port of arrival they will be issued a visa to enter the country.

The second place is occupied by USA, Denmark, Germany and Luxemburg as these passport holders can have hazzle free and visa-free travel to 172 countries in the world.

The third place is occupied by Belgium, Italy and Netherlands as these three passport holders can land up in 171 countries of the world without a visa.

Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, Norway, Portugal and Spain are joint fourth as they can easily travel to 170 countries in the world.

At the fifth place is Austria, New Zealand and Switzerland having easy access to 168 countries in the world.

The list goes on and I was keen to run through the entire list as I was looking for my status as I hold an Indian Passport.  My curiosity was quite high as I wanted to know if I can travel atleast to about 100 countries in the world without having to apply for a visa in advance.  I ended far lower in the list and finally found the name India along with Dominican Republic and Uzbekistan at Rank No.74.

For instance if you have Indian Passport you will have visa-free access to only 52 out of the 217 countries and India is on par with Dominican Republic and Uzbekistan.  Dominican Republic has a population of under 10 million and Uzbekistan has a population of just over 30 million.  In contrast to these two countries India has a population of more than 1.2 billion.

The only consolation for me when I went through the entire list is there are 93 ranks and India is in 74th Rank which is 19 ranks ahead of the last rank.

Whether the visa is applied in advance or on arrival we are not going to reduce our travel and let us enjoy travelling to various countries.  It is good to explore and understand different cultures around the world.

Pack your bags and head out for Summer Vacation.  Enjoy your holidays.

Regards,
T.P.Anand
Dubai, U.A.E.
29th May 2014

FIRST DIGIT LAW - BENFORD'S LAW

The First Digit Law is an old theory which states that the number of times that 1 will be the first digit number in any random selection of numbers will be the highest.  The chances of the first digit being 1 is 30%.  Number 2 would occur on 17% of the cases.  The number of times that 9 will occur as the first digit is said to be only 4.6%.  The most interesting feature of this theory is that the chances of the first digit keeps decreasing from 1 right upto 9. 

Frank Benford stated this in 1938 and thus came to be known as the Benford Law since then.  He tested the theory on 20 different sets of data and came up with the finding that the first digit occurs more with smaller numbers.  However this has been previously propounded by Simon Newcomb in 1881.  Simon Newcomb said the earlier pages of a logarithm table were more worn than the later pages.

The Benford's law can be applied in real life situation for forensic accounting and auditing.  In the USA it is accepted by the Federal Courts when evidence is based on the Benford's Law.  Scrutiny of election results with the Benford's law has helped to find frauds in some countries.  When data is presented to us we can apply the Benford's Law to test if the data is reliable.

This theory can be applied to a wide variety of data like electricity bills; stock prices; national data on births/deaths, etc.  In the present world we are over loaded with data all the time and on many occasions I have wondered if there is a way of quickly checking the authenticity of the data.  The answer lies in the Benford's Law.

Regards,
T.P.Anand
Dubai, U.A.E.
26th May 2014

INSTINCT

Instinct is sometimes natural as in the case of a new born turtle which moves towards the sea.  Instinct is something which is done without any previous experience.    Whether right or wrong and whether we like or not we have a tendency to follow the instinct.

The new born goslings follow the mother wherever she moves.  This is the natural instinct of goslings.
The instinctive behaviour sometimes is also weird and hard to explain.  For instance see this extraordinary video of how the group of bulls are running behind a remote control car:


We are all born with certain inner instinct.  Have you ever tried to bring out those instincts?

In sports, we often hear this phrase "killer instinct", which is used when the aggression required to take control of the game is not found in the player.

We need to create space for ourselves and find the time and concentration to bring out the innate capabilities and innovative thinking which is deep inside our mind.  In the modern world where we are controlled and consumed by digital devices and gadgets, the human mind is diverted and distracted very often.  It is upto us to find the time and move away from the gadgets to think.

I remember a caption that was on the T shirt of a dear friend of mine "When I knew all the answers they went and changed the questions".  You can still find the answers for the changed questions if you have the ability to think and use your natural instincts.

T.P.Anand
Dubai, U.A.E.
22nd May 2014