The Observer

(From Sunday Times of India dt. August 23, 2009)

Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns boost their brain power through meditation and prayer, but even atheists can enjoy the mental benefits that believers derive from faith, according to a popular neuroscience author.

The key, Andrew Newberg argues in his new book ‘How God Changes Your Brain’, lies in the concentrating and calming effects that meditation or intense prayer have inside our heads. Brain scanners show that intense meditation alters our gray matter, strengthening regions that focus the mind and foster compassion while calming those linked to fear and anger.

Whether the meditator believes in the supernatural or is an atheist repeating a mantra, he says, the outcome can be the same — a growth in the compassion that virtually every religion teaches and a decline in negative feelings and emotions. “In essence, when you think about the really big questions in life — be they religious, scientific or psychological — your brain is going to grow,” says Newberg, head of the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian or a Jew, a Muslim or a Hindu, or an agnostic or an atheist,” he writes in the book written with Mark Robert Waldman, a therapist at the Center. In his office at the University of Pennsylvania’s hospital, Newberg told Reuters that “neurotheology” — the study of the brain’s role in religious belief — is starting to shed light on what happens in believers’ heads when they contemplate God.

Science and religion are often seen as opposites, to the point where some in each camp openly reject the other, but this medical doctor and professor of radiology, psychology and religious studies sees no reason not to study them together. “The two most powerful forces in all of human history have been religion and science,” he said.

“These are the two things that help us organise our world and understand it. Why not try to bring them together to address each other and ultimately our world in a more effective way?” Atheists often see scanner images tracking blood flows in brains of meditating monks and nuns lost in prayer as proof that faith is an illusion. Newberg warns against simple conclusions: “If you see a brain scan of a nun who’s perceiving God’s presence in a room, all it tells you is what was happening in her brain when she perceived God’s presence in a room.

“It may be just the brain doing it, but it may be the brain being the receiver of spiritual phenomena,” said Newberg, whose research shows the short prayers most believers say leave little trace on the brain because they are not as intense as meditation. “I’m not trying to say religion is bad or it’s not real,” he added. “I say people are religious and let’s try to understand how it affects them.”

This appeared in the eWorld supplement of The Hindu Business Line on Monday, August 17, 2009
The ‘domain service provider’ mentioned at the end is Sify Domains. The name was removed by the Desk while publishing.

You would have called some customer service set-up at some point of time. Did you come up against an unhelpful person who left you fuming?

Unfortunately, what many don’t realise is that there is no need to get worked up as unsolved complaints can be escalated.

If the ‘service’ rendered is not satisfactory, you can always call the Nodal Officer. The details are available on the Web sites. It is almost certain that the problem will be solved as the Nodal Officers are senior officials with enough powers. If you are still not satisfied, you can escalate it again to the Appellate Officer (or whatever he is called).

How fast the issue is resolved also depends on how you talk to customer care or Nodal Officers. It is no use haranguing them about what you think about them and their service. You will end up irritating them more.

A friendly but firm talk always pays. My experience with Nodal Officers has been excellent. Most issues have been resolved within a day.

But in the first place, why should a problem be allowed to be escalated to the next level?

That’s because the customer service guys deployed by most companies have no say except to note down your request and forward it to the department concerned. What companies don’t realise is that by empowering them a little more, they can grow customer satisfaction.

I realised this after my interaction with a domain service provider (Sify Domains) recently. I wanted to use Google Apps with one of my domain names. There was a huge difference between the instructions provided by Google Apps and the domain management fields of the service provider.

All it took was one phone call. The person handling it asked me to send an e-mail, which I promptly did. The change was made in less than three minutes. I later discovered I had to make two more changes in the domain settings. Again, each change was made within three minutes of my sending the e-mails.

Next time you need to call customer service, just ensure you talk politely and in a friendly manner. If you are not satisfied, remember that you can always escalate the complaint.

R. Dinakaran

Technorati Tags: Sify Domains, Sify, customer service, nodal authority, Airtel, Vodafone, Tata Indicom, The Hindu Business Line, eWorld, The Hindu

At the cost of almost turning this blog into a Tata DoCoMo discussion board, I wish to clarify on the promotional offer.

rachdoshi has posted a comment about the promotional offer. I wonder how I missed clicking through the link. I missed it because it didn’t look like a hyperlink to me. Here it is.

The first three SMSs are charged. After that you get 750 local SMSs free per day. ( I have a doubt here. Do we have to send three paid SMS every day to get the free offer or is it that we just send three SMSs and get 750 free SMSs lifetime?)

STD calls at one paise per second is also a promotional offer.

I have received positive and negative responses to my blog posts (1) and (2) on Tata DoCoMo’s sloppy launch.

After the initial launch hiccups, I have not faced any problems with Tata DoCoMo. The call quality is excellent and I haven’t faced call drops.

I have received comments in my blog from readers whose complaints range from delayed activation to call drops to SMSs not being delivered.

There is also some confusion about free SMSs. A reader from Karnataka says there are free SMSs in the prepaid pack, the Web site says nothing about it.

It’s better Tata DoCoMo clarifies.

I have just installed WordMobi in my E71. I am posting this from WordMobi. This is only a test post.
This is also supposed to post something in Twitter.

Posted by Wordmobi

Yesterday I wrote about Tata DoCoMo’s sloppy launch in Chennai. The problems for Tata DoCoMo doesn’t end with distribution.

I finally managed to get hold of a starter pack, courtesy a dealer friend who took pains to alert me that he had the pack. When I got it, he said there were problems with activation. A couple of people who had bought packs had encountered long delays in activation. He immediately sent a message to Tata DoCoMo and got a confirmation message.

I got the starter pack at around 8 p.m.  I waited till 10 p.m. There was no sign of activation. I tried to ring up Tata DoCoMo but the calls never got through.

I checked in the morning. No activation. I called customer care. This time I got through. The guy at the other end was absolutely clueless. He said there was ’some’ problem and that the line would get activated by evening. I asked him why it was taking so long. He again pleaded helplessness and as a concession, brought down the expected time of activation to afternoon.

When will it get activated? Will it get activated at all?  

The Tata DoCoMo service was launched in Chennai on Saturday. There were full-page advertisements in The Hindu on Friday and Saturday.

But even till evening, the DoCoMo retail packs were not available anywhere in the city except with a handful of retailers.

What is the point in ‘launching’ a service with fanfare if the product is not going to be available at the stores? Shouldn’t have Tata DoCoMo sent out the retail packs to dealers and then advertised?

Moreover, the retail packs are just cards and do not require huge logistics support.

The customer care was not also helpful. I asked if I could get it anywhere in Mount Road. After a minute’s search, the customer care asked me: “Sir is it St. Thomas Mount?”. I said, No, Mount Road. Or try Anna Salai.”  “No sir, any other area?”. Did she want me to go around Chennai looking for retailers?

After five full minutes, I got the names of three retailers. They were small non-descript shops. How do I find them? Does Tata DoCoMO have phone numbers of the retailers so that I can contact them? “No sir. We don’t have it.” Very helpful indeed.

There was a small surprise in store after two hours. I thought I would ask for another area near my house. I rang up customer care and asked, “Any shop in Gopalapuram?” “No, sir. There are a few in Teynampet. There are a couple of them in Anna Salai.” Anna Salai? Just an hour ago, I was told there were none. She gave me two addresses. Again no phone numbers to contact the shops. For those who don’t know much of Chennai, Anna Salai is one of the main arterial roads that stretches for almost 10 km.

I now have to go and hunt for them. Can marketing and customer service get so sloppy?

I recently came across a news item about Nokia’s initiative on e-waste saying the company would take back even non-working mobile phones. If there is something we are least bothered about, it is e-waste. We don’t care about where our printer cartridges go after we discard them. It’s the same with mobile phones, monitors and each and every electronic item we use.

I have a (non-working) monitor, two flatbed scanners (in working condition – one without a driver and another without a cable), a multimedia speaker set (non-working again) and a bill printer (I am still wondering how and why I bought it). I have no idea what to do with them or how to dump them. I have tried all I could but they refuse to get out of my house.

I first rang up a guy who had advertised saying he would take `working and non-working’ computer parts. "Yes, sir, what do you have?" he asked. I listed out the items. "What else do you have?" he asked. "That’s it,’ I said. "No, sir, we can’t take them," he politely said. I could understand why he wouldn’t take the monitor, but the scanners? They were in working condition. "No sir, we can’t do anything with them." I told him there would be someone who would be ready to take the scanners. "No, sir, nobody wants scanners. If you have anything else, please let me know. I will definitely take them," he said.

After several unsuccessful attempts, I asked my computer dealer friend Roshan. "Why don’t you give me the scanner model number? I will find the driver," he said. I told him I had already tried to get the driver, but couldn’t. "No sir. Just tell me the model number. It’s easier to find a driver than to dispose it," he said.

I called my friendly neighbourhood raddiwallah. "No. I don’t know what to do with it," he said, and offered some helpful advice. "Why don’t you call a computer dealer?"

So, I am back to square one. I have decided to wait till I get a proper recycler – despite my wife’s protestations about putting up with "all that junk."

This appeared in the eWorld supplement of The Hindu Business Line dated Monday, June 15, 2009

testing from cellspin