Everything Under The Sun!

Back Again!

2010-11-20T10:53:00.000-08:00

Hello All. Back again to blogging after 2 years...Seriously Missed this world.

The personality development programmes should be more optimistic...

2010-04-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

I had recently attended a personality development programme *accidentally*. Yes accidentally..., because i had stopped attending them after my college days when we had over dosage of too many personality development programmes. And therefore i was even little careless in taking the trainer seriously , and was rather spending my time observing others.

Two people in room, made an interesting case to me. They made me feel that these programs can do more harm to people than do good

There was one man, who when entered the room was very energetic, full of enthusiasm and very social but when the program was about to end, he became very hyperactive, tensed, wanting to prove something and restless. The reason was just one psychometric analysis paper which showed him that his energy levels and self motivation was low and he needs improvement there.
The psychometric paper also showed that he is very honest and sincere...but then went unattended.

There was another lady in the room who sounded very authoritative from the beginning of the class. The trainer had asked each of us, what do u think are the qualities you want to change. I seriously dont' remember what i said :$, ya but this lady said 'i am very short tempered, and i want to change that'.

Sometime in the break i asked that lady if she has attended such personality development programs before. And she said from many many years she has been attending these kind of programs, and her main motive is to reduce her short temperament.

Well...since so many years what didn't happen, will it happen today ??!?! Are these personality programs helped her in anyways.
I think it has done her more harm. These programs have indirectly and silently hypnotised her by making her believe that she is short tempered. And now she is already in love with her short temperament and thinks that's her identity.
No human being, likes to leave his identity, irrespective of its good or bad. And nor will this lady do it.

It would have been great if the program had stressed more on persons strengths and told them how to capitalise on one's strengths instead of thinking so much on weaknesses. Who doesn't have weaknesses? If you are fat, people will say become thin. If you are thin, people will say you were cute when you were fat. If you are dark in complexion, then you need to become fair. if you are fair, then black is beautiful. So there is no end to it.

The best thing would be to fall in love with your strengths and make it your identity, and just be aware of your weaknesses.

(personality img source :http://lifeskills-consultancy.com/db5/00451/lifeskills-consultancy.com/_uimages/personality1.bmp)

Deligation at work ..for prestige or power or responsibility or empowerment?

2008-03-12T10:10:00.000-07:00

As people grow up in career and get into a managerial or leadership postions, its pretty common to see them delegate there work to others. The delegators are given different names at different times; while most of the times they are called leaders ormanagers ...but many a times they are also called as lazy bones, incompetent or beurocratic bosses.

To be a balanced and successful leader or a manager, it becomes very important to know when to delegate and when not to.

In my opinion, delegation is to be done in following situations

Delegate when ur an expert and now its others turn to be.
Delegate when there is someone who needs to know that particular job better than u.
Delegate when you think someone else in the team can do it better than you.
Delegate when u want to empower people and create the next generation of leaders
Delegate when you want to focus on new role, and ur looking for ur replacement

Delegation should not be done for the below reasons

Dont delegate when its ur job, and u as well are learning to do it (Else you will become dumb in due course)
Dont delegate, because u think ur the boss (If u have competent people around u, flat culture works better than bossism)
Dont delegate, because u have to keep others happy (U as well need to be happy)
Dont delegate, because u think thats the right way to show the power (U may totally spoil the job my giving it in wrong hands).
Dont delegate because your boss thinks you should delegate (Use your own brains when its ur job)

dressing like a professional, talking like a professional,sitting like professional...list is endless

2007-10-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

I was doing my shopping to select a T-Shirt for a relative who is in his later teens. And ofcourse the sales person did not know that i was shopping for someone else.

I selected a really cool, bright and sexy T-Shirt with something interesting written on it . The shopkeeper sees that and comes and tells me.."'Ma'm, you better take the other one (selects a pale yellow coloured dim T-shirt). This looks professional Ma'm on Office goers like you. What you have selected suits college goers only".
Grrrr..Well i forgave him because he did not know that i was shopping for someone else.

But that meant that, with or without reason, everyone feels that one needs to look so called 'professional' if he/she is working.

"Professionalism" is a word that refers to the way a person does his job. When we say he/she has done a professional work, it means he/she has worked like an expert in his field unlike a novoice. Other than this simple meaning, i don't think professionalism carries any other meaning.

But the corporate world uses this word so much to refer to everything around it more often, instead of referring to the way a person works.

How often do you hear the statement 'he/she has done a professional job'.?I remember reading this last in the formal appreciation letters that are given on completion of work. Never otherwise!

Now how often do we hear the below statements?
"Hey , that company folks are very professional in the way they talk."
"This lady looks very professional in the way she dresses"
"Hey, don't buy those shoes'they aren't professional looking"
ALMOST EVERYDAY:)

There are so many HR programs that happen on how to look professional. But i rarely see any program that talks on how to do a professional work.

Somehow the word professionalism is now used more to describe the way a person talks ,dresses up etc rather than the way he works:)

On a side note...

I was just searching the Net on "Why do we need dress code" and it took me to this page
http://www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/class/clis724/SpecialLibrariesHandbook/neal.htm#why.

It says "Many people will be turned off by staff members who dress sloppily or wear clothing with potentially offensive images or words. If a coworker proves to be a distraction, the other employees will have a hard time concentrating on their work. "

I agree with the above statement that distractions would exist if there were no dress codes. However i was also wondering how did we manage to complete such tough higher education during our teens , which is considered to be the most distractive period in life, with literally no dress codes.
Hats off to the teens:)

eehhh..does this mean we need more regulations around us as we grow old and grow responsible?

Go to the terrace to see the Moon...Oops i mean go to the Airport

2007-10-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

Few days back there were few talks on one of the powerful Babas giving Vishwa rupa darshan to people at the Moon appearing near the airport .It was said that God/baba will be seen in the Moon, and people need to go to the airport to see the moon.
People as well ran to airport and waited there the whole night watching the moon. But it seems the clouds ditched them by covering the moon, and therefore covering the God as well.
News details here

Now, i don't want to analyse if this is a myth or a belief or a fact or publicty stunt or whatever...
But i am forced to analyse why people had to run to Airport to see the Moon, when moon and Sun can be seen from anywhere from the earth:S:S

Ok Ok..now let me find a reason for people to justify.
Apart from the clouds, I think it's the mistake of the contruction industry and real estate boom. Because these days Sun also struggles to get into my home because of the huge buildings on the eastern side of Home. So i think the Moon and the stars as well are facing the same problem nowadays.
In earlier days we used to go to Terrace to have a full view of Moon, and now we go to Airport. Well...whatever, life's getting crazy.

Blog Addiction Rater

2007-09-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

80%

JustSayHi - Free Online Personals

Review: TrustSource.org for health product reviews.

2007-09-12T04:50:00.000-07:00

I was reviewing the site TrustSource.org. This is a site where people post there reviews of products that they have used. The focus seems to be around healthcare and anti-smoking related products. There are many such sites; however I think this site focuses on specific topics or products rather than allowing people to give random reviews of their own choice.
Currently I can see the home page showing the product reviews of items that help people to stop smoking.

Similarly there is a previous rating of hair loss prevention products like provillus, procerin etc.
The ratings of products are not just based on people ranking them on the website. It considers lots of others factors as well like Sales Data and Rank, Consultations with Health Care Professionals, Consultations with Ex-Smokers and Customer rankings and reviews of popular stop smoking products. They seem to be using some proprietary formula which uses all the above inputs to rank the products.

There are also hair loss prevention and smoking preventions guides as well available there.
What is little confusing in the site is to find the relevant links as the home page always shows only one type of product. And unless I know the links for the others, I am not sure how to reach them. Like now the home page shows the reviews of Smoking related products alone with no direct link to Hair loss product reviews

Note: this is a sponsored post

Times of India - Lead India contest

2007-09-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

Times of India announced a lead india contest. And the last date for applying for this is Sept 7th.

TOI says "'Lead India' initiative to provide a platform for the best and the brightest of Indian youth to come forward and showcase their capability as the Leaders of tomorrow. This is an effort to look for and groom a young leadership which will be bright and modern-minded and can herald this nation from 'India Poised' to India Realized. "

Registration Phase - Aug 14-Sept 7, '07
The 'Lead India' programme has been broadly divided into three phases: The first phase is the registration phase which calls for entries. The same can be done by eligible Indian citizens by sending the registration form to The Times of India from August 14-September 7, 2007.

Interested participants can also log on to www. lead.timesofindia.com or SMS 'lead' to 8888 City

Elimination - October 2007
In the city elimination round, one person each will be shortlisted from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Pune and Hyderabad. The elimination round will comprise of debates, papers, projects, personal interviews and other evaluation techniques as decided by The Times of India.

National Finals - Nov '07-Dec '07
The 8 'Lead India' City winners will participate in the final phase where they will be evaluated through various techniques as decided by The Times Of India and finally one winner will be selected.

The winner gets Rs 50 Lakhs from TOI to help him lead in any of his favorite projects and he would also be given a chance for the Lok sabha elections.

I think it's a good initiative for we young to express themselves and understand the political realities.
So people who are participating to experience it, need not even read my rest if the post and go with a positive thinking. However if you are a true thought leader then you should continue reading!

I registered in this site yesterday to see what it asks for and what's the contest all about.
When i filled the form it just asked me 'Please share your experience of any leadership roles u have played'.

Well i filled this, and i was expecting there will be one more form asking me for some more info about myself. But nothing came up!

So TOI going to select the leaders based a simple textbox that i have filled?

Times of India does not mention anywhere about what process are they going to follow to select there leaders. What qualities are they going to look for? and how would they judge it? It just mentions there would be few essays, debates etc etc.

More than a year back i had predicted that we might land up having a stupid sms voting system to choose our leaders as well, just the way we have for contests like Indian Idol and Fame gurukul. I had blogged on that here. And i am finding this true now.
The lead india contest as well would be SMS votes based!. How crazy!
I don't know if i should feel happy as my predictions have come true, or feel bad about this.

There was a section in the website where one can select his favorite leader from a list of leaders. TOI says they have selected the popular leaders post independence. I don't know on what basis was this selection made.
I checked all the leaders and was looking for few more popular names, but did not find them. Then i thought there would be some space or a textbox where i can add a new leader name. But surprisingly the list was freezed!

Media Censor Board - Need of the time.

2007-08-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

"Abhishek bachan was wearing a white kurta on his wedding ', Salman Khan took Jet Airways to jail', 'Sanjay dutt had 2 rotis, drank water 15 times and ....'

Huhhh..This is the kind of news that gets flashed on the News channels repeatedly. And they repeat it till you get bored and swap the channel. But the sad part is that which ever channel you reach, you happen to read the same thing.

People were tolerant before, but now more and more people are getting frustrated with this. In fact media is one topic of fun and comedy when we do not have anything to discuss to pass the time.

I think we really need a media censor board just like we have films censor board, to filter the crap that they show.

Aaj Tak which was once upon a time one of the best channels however these days i see more of ghost stories like...some ghost killing every villager in a highway, or some child claiming to be the re-incarnation of Kalpana chawla.

Media is sometime so hungry for publicity that they have proved dangerous to people many times. A year back they had motivated a person to self immolate himself for better wages, so that media can get some news to cover . I had blogged on this before here.

The recent one is the case of a teenage boy Adnan who was murdered recently by few people and media is being held responsible for this. It seems Adnan's parents had registered a police complaint and had requested the police not to reveal the information, because they don't want the kidnapper to get annoyed. But media did not keep quite, and kept on flashing the news on the TV. After seeing the media coverage, the scared and confused kidnappers took the extreme step of killing the boy.
Adnan's friends and relatives along with orkut members are going to organise a rally on Sept 9th in Mumbai for justice. Check here

It's high time we get the censor board introduced, just the way we have for films. This will help in ensuring that the media is more responsible towards public and determined towards their work .

Are our Police matured enough to handle POTA or any special rights?

2007-08-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

After the recent blasts in Hyderabad, the oppositions parties have been consistently saying that if POTA would have been there and police would have been given a free hand in handling terrorism and this situation could have been avoided.

To give a brief..., POTA gives special rights to police to arrest suspected people without the requirement of complete evidence. The idea behind POTA was to have all suspects inside the bars even if there is not enough proof so that they cannot cause much harm by being outside.
POTA existed during the BJP rule and then was removed later by Congress.

Now the question is even if POTA is reintroduced, is our Police is matured enough to handle this?
I personally feel they are not at all matured.

I was literally shocked at the video of how a Police man tortured a chain snatcher in Bagalpur in Bihar by dragging him by the vehicle. Check the news here. Check the video here

This is a total violation of Human rights, and the Police have been doing this again and again in many circumstances. Last time during the Mecca Masjid blasts the Police men had brutally killed few innocent for no reason.

This is not meant to say that all Police men are like this Or to say that they aren't doing any good job. But they aren't the best as well!
Why am i being humble by comparing with the best???...[:S]..Well the truth is that they are far far away from the best.

Before the Govt brings any new rules and regulation for Police they need to increase the standard of Knowledge and Education in police. Otherwise Police would just misuse there freedom and go on making arrests based on there whims and fancies under the name of POTA.

It's time we have better educated people in Police. This would also require us to increase there pay scale so that more number of educated people are motivated to join them.

Unless these changes happen, whatever rules and regulations come, be it POTA or anything, we would never have a strong security backbone and never be crime or terror free.

Post Hyderabad Blast - Are the Security measures going in right direction

2007-08-27T11:20:00.000-07:00

I was just getting few random thoughts on the bomb blasts that happened in hyd on Saturday from whatever i was observing around me and in the Television. Here are few and some more will come later.

Need for security-Never consistent
Today morning i was going to the office via the Hyderabad Central, a famous shopping mall in the city, and for the first time i have seen so many security guards actively doing there job. The place that was always filled with unauthorised Auto parking, today there was not a single vehicle that was allowed to park.

I was happy that there is some serious thing happening on the security front at least now...but all my feelings changed when i was returning back home at around 8.00 P.M. Things had come back to normalcy, autos were parked where ever they want. There was lethargic police gossiping with each other. And at some important places no security at all. And all this change in just few hours.

People Reaction: Are we strong Or thick skinned?
I have seen lots of people being interviewed on the TV about how they are feeling after the blasts. And people say 'we are scared but Hyderabadis are very strong and we will not allow it to affect our daily lives etc etc'. I have heard similar statements from people during Mumbai blasts also.

Well...i do understand that life never stops. However, it sounds very crapy to me if people say they can accept anything because they are strong.If a similar answer was given by a relative of a victims then i can agree that we are stronf.
But if we the unaffected are saying this it need not necessarily mean that we are strong. Probably It's just that we have got used to all this or are now no more ready to give time to ourselves to think about all this very seriously.

Because we the people are showing a thick skinned attitude, the Govt as well is thick skinned to this.

Police Security-Ignorant till yesterday, and suddenly Intelligent today ??
I have read in google news that till now police has defused around 15 bombs in Hyderabad. I do not know how much of this number is correct. However it's for sure that they were able to successfully diffuse many bombs saving the lives of many.

If this was so easy for them to diffuse so many bombs in just one day, how come they say they did not have any information about the previous blasts ?
Whatever bomb detectors they are using now why is that they have not used it on Friday itself, when they were getting several Hoax calls?

Are the police in other states sleeping?Is it really the 'South' in red alert?
I keep hearing in the news that "South in red alert". Now South covers lots of other states as well and not just A.P.

What are the other states in India doing to secure there places?

It's a little surpising to me that in Hyderabad they were able to difuse more than 15 bombs in 2 days and no one has so far found even a single bomb in other states.

Does this mean Police is other states is Sleeping? or does it mean that this statement that "South in red alert" is a randomly made statement just to add little spice to life?

Lumbini Park Blast Helpline numbers

2007-08-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Few hours back at around 8.00 P.M today there were two blasts in the Hyderabad City. One at Lumbini park near secretariat and the other at the famous Gokul chat bhandar at Koti.
Around 45 people are reported dead till now , and around 60 injured.

Both these places are a very common venue for people to spend there weekends

If you know of someone who has not returned home or had to planned to visit or pass thru any of these places and not found then below are the help line numbers to confirm.

Help line numbers for victims: 040-23202833, 09440815858, 09440815456
People are being admitted mainly in Osmania Hospital, Medicity and Yashoda hospital

why do some people call some of their managers dumb in the IT industry

2007-08-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

Today i attended a book review and topic of discussion was on leadership and management.
People in the room were trying to relate the things told in the book to some practical scenarios in IT/Technology industry.

One of the things the book was talking was about different levels of managers and the level of details and subject knowledge required at each level. So it said people at senior management level need not know subject details and most focus more on strategies.

In the same context one of the gentlemen raised a topic saying "if the manager doesn't know java, then the java developers reporting to him call him dumb. it's really wrong on the part of the developers because manager need not know it" . People were condemning this and were saying in such situations it's the java developer who is dumb and not the manager himself, because the manager need not know so much of things :)

Well, i actually agree to this to large extent that the manager need not know the details.

However why is someone being called dumb needs a different analysis.

Below is one of the common conversation between managers (the dumb one's) and subordinated

Manager: How much time will it take to develop a application which has feature X from MS Office, feature Y from the Drupal and feature Z from the Amazon e-commerce site.
Developer(hard core): it takes 6 months approx to develop.
Manager: hey come on...I thought it will not take more than 1 week. You have everything already available in MS office, Drupal and Amazon. You just need to look at them and write some java code to integrate the different features.

Developer: (whisper) Now how do i explain this guy that these are three different vendor applications without the source code.
$!^&@??? head bang bang bang...

Now wouldn't the developer call him dumb?

Many times managers do this Or rather any individual does this because he doesn't want people to take him for granted and show that he as well understands and has control of things.

It's like me going to a tailor and telling her ' i know this doesn't take more than 3 days then why are u taking a week to stitch' . Well in reality, i may really not know how much time it takes ;) , and that's just a trial and error strategy to ensure that the tailor doesn't fool me.

Similarly the problem with some of the managers who are considered dumb is that we sometimes try to interfere in areas where we are not comfortable.

And my personal opinion is that if we are in the IT industry and heading a set of technical people, then as a manager either we should have some basic knowledge of what's happening so that things don't go out of our control.
OR
we should respect and trust the words of our subordinates who knows things.

If we don't do this then obviously we would be called dumb.
Otherwise managers are the most important assets in a company:)

Branding Test to know your brand value

2007-08-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

BrandIdentityGuru is a branding company in U.S that helps companies with branding and marketing. They have come up with a Branding Test tool that can measure the brand value of your products or services.
The results are shown in a branding meter in the scale of 1-10 as how good is your brand is.
The tool asks the user a set of 12 questions focusing on products & Services, the target market, messaging, company’s communication client satisfaction, messaging, communication etc,
And based on the user's reply the brand test gives the final result.
You can check the tool at http://www.brandidentityguru.com/popUps/brandtest.html
This is a good one and the questions asked cover the major areas to measure the brand value. However the results are based on user's responses. I feel it would be good if the questions are made more specific than general so that user’s can give more accurate replied with no wavering mind. For example if I am running a company and I am asked to rate my collateral's in the scale of 1-10 or asked how often would my clients come back to know about my products it’s slightly difficult to always decide correctly.
However, the brand test is only the first steps. You can take the next step by sending a mail to sales@brandidentityguru.com or call at 508.238.4347 for a complementary 1 hour personal training. I think this is good offer!

This is a sponsored post of my independent views

Payday loans at PersonalCashAdvance.com

2007-08-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

I had already written on what's a Pay Day loan in one of my earlier posts. Pay day loans are small and short term loans which do not require any credit checks of the consumer.

Think of a situation when you need to make an emergency payment to a hospital and you are short of money in your account. Or say it’s the last date to pay your school/college fees and you are bankrupted for the month because of few other urgent expenses. In such situations if you are asked to go through a long process of checking your credits, bank balance etc just to get a small amount of cash advance then there is nothing more irritating than that. Yes, friends are always the first one’s to approach in such situations but even for them it’s not always possible to arrange things within a day!
In such situations pay day loans comes to our rescue.

Personal Cash Advance.com is one of the companies that provide payday loans.
This company only requires that you are a employed major and you receive at least a monthly payment of $1000 per month. However when you are applying for the loan or when they are providing you with cash advance, no balance is required in your account.
As per the site, you will need to fill up a free online application and within few hours only a representative would call to confirm your details. And within a day you cash is credited into your account. Check the sites FAQ section for more details.

This is a sponsored post with my independent views

Happy Independence Day!

2007-08-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

Image from http://coolclicks.blogspot.com

Happy Independence Day!

Celebrating 60 years of

Freedom, Unity and Democracy.

Payday loans for immediate cash advance even at zero credits

2007-08-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

Pay day loans are small and short term consumer loans which do not require any credit checks of the consumer. Cashadvance-fast.com is a site where people can apply and avail pay day loans or cash advance online from any of the listed vendors on the site. The purpose of the site is to make money available to consumers at the time of emergencies without any hassles.
The loan amount could be something from $100-$1500 approx.

The general pre-requisites for applying for he loans are

Being Employed for at least 3 consecutive months.
Earning at least $1,000 per month in income.
Having a valid checking account open for at least 3 months.

There are mainly 3 steps to applying for this loan online.

Have a pay stub and the bank account information.
Choose an online lender and the most relevant loan scheme from the website
Provide the lender with required information online

And this is all that's required for you to get your loan. However it's important that you are not too much into taking loans or have many loan applications so that the loans don't get rejected.

As per the site most of the online payday loans lenders will electronically deposit the loan amount in the applicant’s checking account overnight itself. And for withdrawals, the the online payday loans lender will electronically withdraw the loan amount plus specified fees on the specified pay date.
However most of the lenders also offer clients the option of extending the loan to the next payday.

This is a sponsered post with my independent views

HerFabLife.com - for women

2007-08-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

I was going through the list of sites that i wanted to review and this site ‘ HerFabLife.com ‘ drew my attention. Well the very reason was that it was a women's site :)

This is a life style site for women and has decent information on fashion, restaurants, malls etc which would be useful and can act as your personal lifestyle guide
What's more interesting is that it also has a community place where we can find freelance women writers or bloggers write their thoughts on new things , fashion, new restaurants discovered , and any other trendy and cool things found.
However, so far i find more users from the west and therefore more information as well about the west.
So that also means that if you are on a trip to the west then this could become your fav lifestyle guide to help you out there. Go, Get a fab Life!

This is a sponsored review with my independent views

CriticsRant.com - a movie review site

2007-08-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

I was going through the site Critics Rant to get the reviews of Rush Hour 3, which would be releasing soon in India.

I was reviewing the site and found it pretty cool to get the first hand movie reviews from the movie freaks. The site has a look, feel and ease of a blog. Apart from movies this site also has tv shows and games that are being reviewed.

The site also sends regular Newsletters to users about the Movies, TV shows and the discounted offers for the DVDs etc . And if you are a movie freak by yourself, or a first day first show guy then giving your critical reviews can even win you few DVDs.

This is a sponsored review of my independent views

Free calorie counter tool

2007-08-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

I was just reviewing a fitness site called MyFitnessPal . It is a free diet and fitness website. In fact there are many sites on the web for this purpose and I keep checking them once in a while to see what my current BMI :). However, i found this site to be slightly different.

It was not just about BMI calculation or a diet suggestion. This site is more about helping people to manage their diet by providing them with a calorie counter tools. This looks like a online food and activities diary to me.

The tools allows us enter the food and the activities details for the day and the site itself calculates the calories lost and also tells us how far OR how close we are from our weight reduction goals.It stores the day -to- day information in the database, and therefore whatever report that we see is always personalized.

When we are on diet, for the first few days we are very strict, but then slowly we stop counting on calories. This is pretty common! And sometimes even if we want to count on calories, we may not know the composition of the food we take.In such cases the free calorie counter will be pretty useful.The site gives good suggestion on food habits with details on there calories.

However i did find some of my favorite asian food items missing(Idlis and Dosas). But there is a provision to enter this missing food information as well. Hope some Asian Dietitians do this for us soon:)

The only sad part is that we need to enter data into the tool manually. Now we are all lazy bones! It would have been nice if there was a tool that could calculate calories with a touch screen ;) Just kidding!

However, I think if we try to ensure to enter this information for initial few days and if the tool also shows positive results, then I am sure we would be motivated to enter in future as well.

This is a sponsered post with my independent views

Review: ePerks - MarketPlace for some good discounts

2007-08-06T11:18:00.000-07:00

ePERKS - Giant Perks is an online market place which focuses mainly on real estate, automotive and home improvement and gives an advantage of good discount to the consumer . Seems like many of top local services in many of the countries focusing on real estate, auto and home appliances also run their business through http://www.eperks.com/. It’s said that the consumer gets huge discounts from the seller if they purchase through this site which can even be up to 50% discount on things like home improvement services etc.

I think this creates competition among the service providers which benefits the customers with better discounts. And as a result there might be more demand from consumers as well, which again helps the businesses in term.

Well... i just logged into the site to check how it work, and i must say the user experience is pretty cool. On the left is one screen shot where the user can view the service provider's complete details based on geography along with the discount prize.

However i found more service providers from areas in and around U.S only. So if you are in U.S and few other states and are looking for any new home or real estate investments or but new auto with some nice discounts then maybe this is one place to check before you take the final call.

This is a sponsered post with my independent views

Website with Latest Supreme Court cases and judgements and central notification

2007-08-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

I was checking my own blog and suddenly came across a google ad on the right side which read 'Indian Legal Database' -Latest supreme court judgements and central notifications'.

I think this is pretty cool. However i could find only 22 latest cases now. Though i can't understand lot of legal terms and meanings, i am sure this will be very useful for law students.

And seems like the main site manupatra.com also gives few analysis reports. Though i did not check in detail it flashed up two reports which i am sure will be interesting for all. One was "Handbook on Real Estate Investment-A legal perspective". it costs around Rs 50. But for anyone having interest in real estate think it makes sense to know about the law.

And seems like this company is also running an Essay writing contest for Indian lawyers. If you are a lawyer you can check here.
And if you are not a lawyer then don't even attempt, because the topics are all bouncers:)

Chris's Blog for Next Generation of Entrepreneurs & the Contest

2007-08-04T02:36:00.000-07:00

The new generation business model (also referred by some as Business 2.0) and Entrepreneurship has become very different from what it had been few years back. With Web 2.0 business model and the popular Internet Assets like AdSense,Traffic calculators, blogs etc have opened up a completely a new set of business opportunities for Entrepreneurs.

Working from home and making money over the web has become a very professional way of running business and i know of many people who earn very well this way (sometimes more than what the legacy entrepreneurs do or even a full time employee earns).

Therefore more and more people have starting adopting the same. This means competition exists not just for companies into Automobile, Electronic or Banking business , but also to our web-entrepreneurs who run websites, blogs and portals.

Chris is one of the new generation entrepreneurs who builds business over the web. One of his first steps is his blog Chris Bloczynski dot Com .
In this blog he gives excellent tips and lessons on Entrepreneurship, especially over the web which are based on either his own experience or from the experience of his mentors. In his lessons of Entrepreneurship he emphasises on ownership, mentorship, attitude and automation. While many of these principles are common for all entrepreneurs irrespective of your business is through web or not, however i found many of his blogs which specifically are for web entrepreneurs. His blogs on branding and
'Branding on the web' are awesome!

Chris is also currently running a contest on his Blog
First prize - $50 cash, paypalled to your account.
Second prize - A copy of “The Four Hour Workweek” by author Tim Ferriss
Third Prize - A $15 iTunes gift card
Check here the details.

I think it's probably high time that even our MBA programmes programmes start including few lessons on successful business and branding over the web and go beyond the popular examples of McDonald's, Essar to few Digg.com's, UTubes, Flickr services and many more...

But till them people like Chris are there for your help!:)

This is a sponsered post with my independent views

Making them immortal...through online Memorials @ Registry of Life

2007-08-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

Any day we open The Daily Newspapers in India, there are definitely two things that never get missed out.
One is about some crime or bomb blast that happened and other is about the obituary of some persons or the other.
The obituary space would have a nice young good looking photo of the person, even if he was very old when he died, and it would definitely have the names of all family members and friends with few wonderful lines on what they feel about the person.

We will find people doing this even years and years after the related person has expired
Now if you are a too practical person then probably you would think what's the point of having this obituary or 'In memory' gesture even after some 8-10 yrs of persons death, when we know there is nothing that's going to change. .....Well, there is no real answer to this.And all that we can say is the pleasure that you get in celebrating and remembering the lives of our loves one's is many times more valuable than the time and money that we spend on it!

Loosing someone near and dear is definitely the most painful thing and only time can erase that pain. But what's beautiful is that the 'time' only erases the pain, but never erases the beautiful memories of the person:) And many times we wish that there was some way that we could express our affection for the person and share it will all those like minded friends and relatively and jointly admire those few moments.

And that's why people build memorials, write books on memories, have an Ad in paper etc.
Similarly we also have 'Online memorials' , where we can share our feelings and life of the person with anyone we want over the web.
Registry of Life is a place where we can create online memorial of our near and dear who are probably no more on this earth, but are yet immortal for us and pay a tribute to them!

Now to talk about the site, first thing I would really appreciate is the concept!Excellent!

Technically speaking the site has a pretty decent User Interface, and it allows us to include photo albums, person's favorites, lifestyle pics of the person at different times etc.
And all this can be shared with our near and dear and people can pay tribute as well.

Now apart from the online memorials, the site also comes with many resources to help people in grief.
It comes with monthly Newsletter from Dr.Dees who answer to people's problem to help them to cope up with grief.
This is definitely a very nice place to have memorials. However i really wish no one really would require Dr.Dees, and there is no grief on earth!

Happy Living!

This is a sponsered post with my independent views

Few More Reasons for people quitting jobs

2007-05-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

I was reading some of the mail forwards and came across Ajit Premjis speech on what can make people Quit. It said people usually leave there jobs because of there immediate boss and less because of reasons like salary etc. It also said that most of the times issues are trivial but mis-management by the company can make them resign.

I completely agree with this..but apart from this i was thinking can there be any more trivial (so called trivial) reasons which can make people quit.

Some of them could be like this...(the list is endless)

Flexible timings: "I can't wake up before 7", " I have to go to Gym everyday", "i have to take care of my child's homework in the evening", " I need to pickup my wife and go home"
People need to take up too many activities these days and are no more restricted to 9-7 job. So if the company's strict working hours are not giving them the flexibility to manage then people get frustrated.

Flexible timings is a must these days and i know of many who refuse to join a company unless it agrees for flexi timings.

Good Internet connectivity: "No Gmail, No yahoo. Life Sucks"
grrr..i would be the first one to quit if i don't have one.

Good Chairs and desks/ergonomics: "Aah This chair is so bad...2 more hrs to 6...1 more for 6, 30 Min's more...5 Min's..aah at last it's time to go home"
If ergonomics is bad people start counting time so that they can get rid of the uneasiness . Ergonomics is something that works subconsciously in people's mind though they try to adjust a lot to it. But physical discomfort slowly shadows the mental patience and it wins at last. It's very sad that HR's still do not think too much on this aspect.

Restrictions to usage of coffee/tea/smoking: Coffee and tea is still OK. but Smokers literally die. However it would be bad on my part to suggest encouraging of smoking. Probably companies should appoint counselors instead.
But usually coffee/tea/smoking are considered to be energy boosters and people feel they need it if they are under work pressure.

Restrictions to taking breaks between work-"Hmm i need to stretch. But will my boss feel bad if i go for a break again"
Many people fear there boss, when they feel the need for a break. But this slowly starts to irritate self and also changes his attitude towards his boss. It's very important that managers ensure that there subordinates don't work with unnecessary fear.

Restriction to talk on phones to near and dear: "My kid wants me to talk to him for few more mins, can't this silly 15 mins break be extended"
I know of a friend who has this reason and ONLY this reason to quit her call centre job.

I know of a colleague who updates his wife at least 6 times in a day....once as soon as he comes to office , once before going to lunch, and once after lunch , once whenever he meets his boss ,once when he starts for home and also once when he doesn't start for home.
Now if this guy is asked not to attend personal calls, he is sure to quit:)

Usually people shy away in expressing these reasons as they might sound a little unprofessional.
But then we all are human beings before being professionals.

Bandh against Supreme Court---best Fools month act!

2007-04-04T11:32:00.000-07:00

I have always read that Supreme Court is the supreme authority to take decisions, and no one can question the Supreme court. Ok..lets relax this statement and say we can question the supreme court also.But Protest against court?!?!..that too fully supported by Governement..this would be one of the most foolish thing to hear..that too in month of April!

The bandh today against the Supreme court decision on stay order for OBC reservation was fully supported by all parties.And probably this would be one of the few things jointly supported by all parties.
And the reason for this is very obvious... because it's by showing the number of reservation that any parties would be able to win their votes.
So it's most practical for them to first join hands with ech other and get the judiciary out of interfering so seriously into all this. And then later they can use there free hand in ditching each other and the people.

But i am sure this would have been a great shock to the political folks because they might have always felt that result will be in their favour. And that's why they never worked hard to prove their point even though Supreme Court has been asking them for all the latest data since long. But the Government acted very passively at that point of time, probably because they felt no supreme court can change this system even if they do not provide correct data.

And second shock to the Governement would be post-bandh because we Indians , i beleive have learnt to adjust to all this bandh's and still continue with the routine life:)
Today morning i was warmed by my dad that i don't go to office as there are no buses and trains..but i still gave a try like any other 'experienced' Indian. And what i find is life was more comfortable today than any other day! Every day i had to either wait for a crowded bus or take a costly auto which would charge me Rs 200 to go..and today what i got is a charted company bus whose driver is making the best advantage of the situation and dropping people at there destination(ofcourse with tip). And surprisingly this got me to spend less paise than I usually do:)

Oh i wish this strike continous for some more days;) Just kidding..but then it just means this strike was a big failure.

There is a nice going on this here http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070329063808AAoP3J0

A excerpt from there...
"It spells doom for the future of the country. The kind of tussle that we witnessed during Indira Gandhi's time, between the judiciary and the Parliament, is going to be seen. Unfortunately, the small time players in the political arena,like DMK, PMK etc are having a big say on national matters. Their rabid social justice agenda is in fact creating a lot of heat in the social system."

Are u asking ur team to be toooo proactive- means u are becoming dumb

2007-02-05T00:39:00.000-08:00

'I want you to more proactive and not wait for me to come'-- this is something that we keep hearing from managers and this is also something that we keep saying to our team members, if you are a manager by yourselves.
While this statement is completely correct and valid, i have observed many times that some managers say this more often than necessary. I recently happened to observe myself as how often i say this to my team and what are the situation that makes me say this. I thought this is the best way to understand a managers mindset i.e by being a manager by yourselves.
I found only two situation that made me say this to anyone. One was when my team member was pathetic at work and i felt that it's better that i do all his work by myselves rather than explaining him and getting things done from him. The other situation was when i felt lazy and had no mood to work:) Hehe. i might sound point blank in saying this. But it seems true that when a manager looses interest in the current work or doesn't have mood to work, he expects his team to be toooo abnormally proactive so that they do his work also and keeps repeating the same thing again and again to them. The reasons for this could be several ranging from job dissatisfaction or no new challenges or personal problems or whatever. But it defenetly means that there is some problem with the manager himself and he needs to be proactive rather.

So if you as a manager are doing this, then it's time that u take necessary action to correct yourselves(maybe change ur job or role. ;)).
And if ur a member who is being bullyed by ur manager by repeated verse of being proactive, then just give him sometime to become normal and u just carry on with ur work as usual ;)

Disclaimer: This is my general observation and has no reference to any individual living or dead:)

How do you stay out of flood and CO trouble?

2006-11-02T11:17:00.000-08:00

In continuation to my previous post , just pasting some of the tips The Hindu daily had given to escape from CO(Corbon Monoxide) trouble.

■ For a start, if you’re stuck in a car when the road is flooding, or in a traffic
jam, keep your windows down — at least a crack. This will let fresh air in,
preventing a high buildup of CO in the cabin.

■ See that your car’s aircon system is set to ’ventilate’ mode, as most car
manuals recommend — this brings in additional fresh
air.

■ Turn the engine off if you can, and if the situation looks difficult, explore the
possibility of parking your car and retrieving it another day.

■ If your car is equipped with power windows and central locking —particularly an aftermarket fitment — see that your windows are kept open. It’s rare, but your car’s
electrical system can short out with rising floodwaters.

Additionally, even if the central locking system functions, you might not be
able to open the doors simply due to the pressure of the water outside.

■ Carry a hammer with a pointed end or an ice pick in the car — if you have to
break a window open, it’s only such a sharp, heavy tool that can attack modern
laminated glass. And if you don’t have one of these about, use the jack handle, if
accessible.

■ Finally, if you feel any of the symptoms of CO poisoning outlined in this
report, take it seriously
—get out, get as much fresh air as possible, and go to a physician.

Irony of Fate!

2006-11-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

I think almost everyday we keep reading about some or the other disasters and deaths in the daily newspaper..some accidents, or some murders, or some suicides, or some natural calamities, or some sudden fire and so many more like this. Though many of these incidents suprise us a lot, we also feel most of the times like 'It could have been avoided, if the victim/govt/public would have acted in a timely manner'

But one of the incidents that happened recently in Chennai during the recent Cyclone was really shocking and very very ironical. It reflects such a helpless situation, because the victims never knew that they needed help!!!

Three software engineers were travelling by a car during the heavy cyclone 2 days back. Because of heavy watter logging and traffic jam the car had to stop on the road for some hours. They were sitting inside the car with the shutters closed and A/C running in recirculate mode. Now obviously anyone would keep the shutters closed to escape from the heavy rain. But then these shutters brought only disaster to them.
Because of some water entering the engine, corbon monoxide was formed in the car (a colorless, odourless and tasteless gas). As th gas was odourless and colorless, they never knew that this is filling the space around them and they never raised any alarm for help :(
Human blood has great affinity to corbon monoxide, and hence sucks all the corbon monoxide around it and thus the blood becomes thick. This leads to instant death either due to brain damage or heart attack. And this is what happened to all the three software engineers too!!

Anyone buys car, so that he can sit in an enclosed place and a safe zone to protect himself and his family from the adverse weather. But then who would have thought what they think is a safe zone is actually a death zone!!

But then this raises an alarm for all cab users, and i think it becomes very important to understand how things function inside a car.
The Hindu had given a checklist of things to consider.
The sad details of this incident and the details can be found here
My sincere condolences to their families and friends!

This reminded me of one of the school time stories of how a snake enters a fruit and goes inside the highly protected and enclosed palace of King Takshak who thinks he is well protected inside, and kills him inside itself. Sometimes fate is too ironical and makes fun of us!

A Cool XBOX -360 video-Must watch

2006-10-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

Bollywood going international

2006-10-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

Kuch Kuch Hota hai by Chinese :)

Govt Petition against an Orkut Community

2006-10-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

I am regular user of Orkut, a great networking site, which is now run by Google(taken over). Orkut allows people to create different communities and have some common discussions among people.

As this is an un-managed commiunity, with time there have been several 'displeasing and 'hurting' communties as well that have formed.
Ofcourse 'displeasing' and 'hurting' are relative terms . What might be displeasing to me, may not be for someone else.

Same is the case of the community 'We hate India' in orkut, which has a group of Pakistanis in it.
The news is that Mumbai Hight court/Maharashtra Govt has issued a notice to google for spreading hatred about India by it's social networking service.
Actually there are several such groups in Orkut which are anti-india, but i am not sure how the Govt pin pointed this group alone.
The main reason could be that this shows a picture of our national flag being burnt.

In general I feel the Govt should not interfere too much in such open communities and stop people from expressing their ideas. At this same time, in this specific scenario i am happy that this happened.
Because the lazy Orkut Administrators needed this shock. The orkut site provides with an option called 'Report as Bogus' where in people can complain against a specific community, if it's hurting sentiments of the people. This is as shown in pic above

And i have seen that there has been many and many discussions among people on this community 'We hate India' and many of us compained as well.
But Orkut did not take any corrective action. If they had taken the right action , at the right time then they could have avoided this court case.
So i think this petition would make the orkut administrators more smarter and act on complaints of the users more quickly.
But what's surprising me is that the specific community still exists now. I expected Google to act immediately and remove it temporarily atleast.

But as far as the Govt is concerned, I think it's better it interferes Only when sites like Orkut do not take any action inspite of people's complaints (like this case) only. Except in such cases, it's better Govt doesn't interfere in things like this and let it be managed by people themselves. The simple reason being there is no limit to screening the internet and Govt will only complicate things.

The funny part here is...the petition says that the government should "appoint a 'controller' under the Information Technology Act-2000 to regulate all such communities being in operation on the internet.
"Hahaha. I just can't imagine the plight of the person who would be doing this crazy job.

Btw...I think our High court. doesn't know one thing. People can join Orkut only on invitation, not by creating an account for themselves like any other site.Now who will invite these 'Controllers' into Orkut ;)

Medical treatments & Fashion

2006-10-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

I was reading a discussion on Orkut on medical sciences and the progress made.

Person A asked : "We used ayurveda(herbal products) , then went to pills and stuff and were coming back to ayurveda, realising its values. Millions of examples are there". So does this mean we are going back to old style of medicines?

And the answer one of the guys gave was very funny
He said :
"2000 B.C. - "Here, eat this root."
1000 B.C. - "That root is heathen, say this prayer."
1850 A.D. - "That prayer is superstitious, drink this potion."
1940 A.D. - "That potion is snake oil, swallow this pill."
1985 A.D. - "That pill is ineffective, take this antibiotic."
2000 A.D. - "That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root!" "

Haha. Seems true sometimes. No medicine is perfect and all have side effects.
So we only change our choice based on time and tolerence levels of the side effects.

Medicines seems more of a fashion these days(may be in olden days also). And they also sell only if their is proper packaging and marketing.

Some years back, Kerela oil treatments were available only in Kerala, and only the diseased used to go there, but these days it has re-christened itself as 'Spa' which is available in every corner in a really posh beauty saloons and targetted at the upper middle class. And this has basically become a life style, and not restricted to diseased alone.

Recently i went to a doctor for some purpose, and he told me ur anemaic etc etc (usual stuff) and asked me about my eating habits. I told him i am currently on fruits and juice diet, as i want to reduce some weight.
He immediatey told me 101 reasons as why i should not be on a fruits and juice diet, but buy his Amway product and eat it.
And you know what more...that Amway product was a powder which i need mix in water and drink just twice a day.
Now i wonder what's the big difference between my fruit juice and his Amway product which is also a liquid:S:S

Yes..but there were two differences. One the Price was high and second there was some money back offer ;)

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's Website

2006-09-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

Venkatarangan blog reminded me of the the President's website today.
Though i had known about this, I visited the site only today.
As an admirer of our president it was a good feeling to see his website.

Apart from that i am also amazed that people in politics have also started exploiting technology in the right way and maintaining personal sites as well:)
More the number of personal sites from people in Govt, more clearer it gets to public as what are they up to. And also in understanding where is all that money that we pay in income tax going ;)

I have also read somewhere that our president does not miss to read a single email sent to him.
India is very lucky to have a person like him.

Do we care for spellings!!

2006-09-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

Someone scolded me 3 days back for one of the spelling mistakes in my previous blog posts. He said 'it’s not Curriculam stupid lady it's Curriculum’. Ha ha

Well...it almost after 5 yrs or so that someone has tried to correct my spelling mistake. I think last time I would have manually taken complete care of spellings was when I wrote my management exams.
After joining the IT industry, written style of interaction has completely changed.
We are usually on messengers or mailboxes to communicate, where typing big mails and checking the grammar takes a back seat. The sole aim of communication in this industry is to ensure that the receiver has understood what you are trying to say. People do not care to see if you have written the spellings correctly or not, as long as the meaning is conveyed properly.

Messengers have changed our style of writing in lot of ways...

Just look at the kind of language we use these days with messengers. Some are used in corporate mails also.

Normal English(underlined) - Messenger English(in italics)
I am laughing aloud on this - LOL (loads of laughter)
I will be right back - BRB (be right back)
Give me just a minute - JAM (just a minute)
That's good news - Coooool (now i don’t know why we use so many 'O's)
I don't know - Donno
You have done a commendable job - U Rock
Through - thro
This need to be decided - TBD (to be decided)
This is for your information -FYI (for your information)
This is for your action - FYA (for your action)
You -U
We -V
Are - R
Your -UR
Going - gng
Oh My God! -OMG
About -abt
From - frm
Take care - TC
Full stop (.) - Smilies (we use more emoticons, in place of punctuations)

And now we have got so much used to this language that we tend to use it everywhere. And we think checking the grammar and punctuations are not so important as long as the message is communicated properly.
But sad part is because of this we are tending to forget some of the simple spellings also. For example, I have started using 'frm' everywhere instead of 'From' for any informal communication. Similarly I have started using ‘ur’ for ‘Your’. And for any formal communications, Grammar check and Spell check tools does most of the job for us. So we don't need to worry about the spellings at all!!!

And I am sure the guy who corrected my mistake for my earlier post is either a college going fresher who is writing his English exams or is purely a Non-IT guy .He is a lucky guy to still have patience to take care of spellings.

But now I think, even I should probably go back to school and behave like a school kid who takes care of everything he writes to get 10/10 from the teacher:)

Indians are considered to have very good English, but if we continue to write this way, we might either kill English or English might kill us :)

And yes, for this post I have not used spell check, I have taken care of the spellings by myself. A good improvement isn't it ;) But i don't know for how long :S
But yes, i wouldn't want to stop using smileys.

Time for us to take atleast little care about this, so that we can atleast teach our children proper spellings when they are in school. Haha.
Now that makes me wonder what would happen if all the school teachers also become IT and chat messenger Savvy :S:S Oh My God!

If that happens then the report card remarks would be like this :
"Dude...ur kid has nt been cmg to scool frm lst month. Donno why. This is FYI and FYA.
Pls TC of him and keep us in loop"

Or

"Ur son rocks in the class and gives very cooool answers. V R planning to give him dbl promotion. But this TBD. This is just FYI"

Has conversion been successfull in true sense?

2006-09-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

I think every religion is beautiful in it's own way and all religions can say only good things.But how a person interprets his own religion changes from individual to individual based on their mindset.
Christianity is also one such good religion. Christianity talks of conversion and says that everyone must try to convert as many people as christians.
Now this specific statement can also be interpreted in many ways.

The way the conversion missionaries interprets this is 'Convert every person on the road to christian'.

But then i personally interpret this in a different way...
If we go back to Jesus times, when Jesus was born it was a time where there was too much of atrocities and dictatorship. And jesus tried to spread love and forgiveness to clean the atrocities . He was responsible for bringing in love to that land of atrocities convert people from bad to good. So in my opinion conversion meant converting people from bad to good (now what's bad and what's good again depends on perceptions) and make them follow jesus's path of love and foregiveness. So converting someone to christian at that time did not mean changing some one's religion. At that time it meant making someone who doesn't have any proper path in life, to follow a good path. .
So i don't think at any time jesus would have asked people to convert from other religions. He only asked people to follow a good path, if they are not already following. So when jesus said 'Be a christian' he only meant to say Be good and be free from Sin'.
He did not mean to say 'Convert all other good religios people'
So then why at all try to convert the good, peace loving Hindus to christians. On what basis is this being done? And why it needs to be done when the person is already good and is peace loving?If they can be successful in converting people terrorists, naxalities and underworld dons' to christians than i would consider conversion and christianity to be a successful religion.
Converting needy, poor, jobless, ill people by giving them some hopes and greed, is not a true conversion.
Whatever the coversion missionaries ae doing is just to increase numbers without any quality of people.This in my opinion is not a symtom of a successful religion , with due applogy to all those who got converted.

More christians..does that mean religion is better than others?
Ok..now let's go by numbers only. Conversion missionaries have been really successful in converting huge number of people. But then have they ever tried to find out why these folks got converted. Christianity is supposed to be a religion that gives people complete freedom to decide before conversion if they want to or they don't want. But then are they really allowed to decide this with free mind? .
'If u become a christian u will get a job, if u become a christian u will get married, if u become a christian....'..These are the things that are directly or indirectly told to the people.
If u give so much of bribe to a person and then ask him 'Do u want to convert or not..' what would he say. Obviously he would give importance to his immediate needs only.
But then this cannot be considered as a successful conversion.

I have seen so many people near my area who follow all religions on need basis. During christmas they come asking for money to light candles in church, and then they also come to collect Ganesh Chaturti donations too.
I do not curse these people, infact i think they are the most practical of the lot who can take best advantage of the situation. They call themselves christians because that gives them monetary advanatge from the church, they go to temples, because that gives them a social advantage. So as a matter of fact they don't belong to any specific religion. They have their own religion.
But i feel bad that the christian missionaries get fooled by these people and consider it to be their own success.

So is conversion being successful in true sense?? A very strong 'No' in my opinion.

Try to convert just one laden, or one just dawood or just one of those budding terrorits and make them follow what jesus said and i would agree that conversion is successful

btw...this is a nice debate by few learned people on conversion. Chk here
http://www.iisc.ernet.in/prasthu/articles/davidfr2.html

Software job market: Would it have influence on the computer curriculum in education institutions and schools?

2006-09-15T00:39:00.000-07:00

First time when i thought about this i felt it would not influence much because i have leart my ABC of computer only during graduation and never knew even to use a mouse before that:D
And when i was ready for a job as a freshers (7 yrs back), the questions that was asked to me was more on my attitude, general S/W enginnering pricipals etc, and nothing was asked specific to any platform. Because i was trained by my company after being hired on the platform required. But things are changing now...The below is my observation on Interview and corporate behaviour in these years and how they can influence educational insitutions as well.

Fresher experience in Interviews 10 yrs back:
The questions asked were on Software engineering general pricipals, team spirit, energy levels etc.
There was nothing asked on any specific platform
And freshers were selected more based on their merit/marks in college and not on their specific technology skills.The reason for this was that the corporates usually used to hire them and then train them in the technology desired.

Experienced Professionals experience 10 yrs back:
But as experienced the only question asked was "Do you have work experience in technology 'XYZ'"
Deeper concepts in a specific platform was asked. No general questions asked.
That was a time when software market was good with excellent and growing talent in the market. Companies could easily get software professionals and hence only thing they expected from them was good experience and knowledge. Ten years back they rarely asked questions like 'what technologies were u taught in school, in college ' etc.

But now things have changed with time. I am a part of the Interview team for my company for the past 2 yrs and i know how the companies are struggling to get the best fit for their requirements. If they look for experienced, then either the competencies do not match or the employee does not give the gaurantee of staying with the company with long(high attrition).
And if they go for feshers, then the cost spent in training becomes high as they have good attitude and energy but lack the specific skills required.

So now the companies are changing their strategy.They are now not looking for really experienced candidates but are trying to sync with educational institutions like NIIT, and colleges to change their curriculam in such a way that the freshers themselves can be the best fit for them.This would reduce the corporates training costs as well.There are already many colleges that have changed their curriculam based on the corporate requirements and supply resources to the corpoartes.

So while the interview for experienced resources remains more or less the same as before now.
Interview experience for freshers has changed a lot :

Freshers Interview experience now and going forward

1. They are asked "Have u learnt XYZ technology/platform in ur college"
And the answer needs to be 'Yes' if u want to get a job.
They are expected to join the company with a good knowledge for their specific requirement.

Seeing this trend, i feel few years later, the corporate penetration would go to school level as well. Schools might also need to change their curriculam based on the market needs rather than any other reason like price of the software, govt policies etc.

So it's more a pull from the market, and not a push from the educational institutions
So probably Govt should get ready for this kind of trend and plan for the future accordingly.

I think the Kerela Govt has missed these facts when taking a decision on migrating schools to use free softwares alone.
Now i am not trying to say what platforms should be taught in school , but i think the decision cannot be based just on th cost factor. The interest of the students, and the market demand forecasts should also be considered.
I think the Kerala Govt. should re-analyse things and then take a decision by considering all the environmental factors (whatever be the decision).

Free Softwares from MS for developers
I try not blog anything on technology here and try to restrict it to my tech blog only...but could not stop myself this time as this talks of free software. Microsoft comes with a series of free Express edition softwares that are absolutely free to download. Try this out if ur a developer

Will students really stop reading about 'Pluto'?

2006-08-27T04:01:00.000-07:00

When the news came out that Pluto is no more a planet of the solar system, and we would have only eight planets now instead of nine, the immediate reaction of one of the school students was
' So now we have one planet less to remember'. :)
And another said “You just got to retain everything you learned and drop Pluto out of your memory"

These kids seems to be too happy that thye doen't need to strain himself to remember all the nine now:)
But will this really happen? I have all doubts. I rather feel Pluto would be remebered more than any other planet.

The lessons in books now would be like this now...

"Untill year 2006, Solar system consisted of 9 planets, namely Mercury, Venus...Jupiter, Neptune Pluto..Mercury was the smallest and Pluto was the farthest.Pluto was the coldest. Pluto was that..Pluto was this..etc etc.'And since 2006 we have only 8 planets namely..Mercury, venus...Neptune'"

And the questions in the exams would be like this...

1. How many planets were there in Solar System before 2006
2. Which was the planet that became a dwarf planet
3. Who invented the planet that was removed from the solar system.

So now instead of forgetting Pluto, students will have to remember it twice :)

I have found similar funny things in our education systems...

I still remember very well struggling to by-heart those Daltons rules (12 or 13 rules.Don't remember) for science exams. And what's funny is that only one rule out of all the 12 rules was proved correct and rest of his rules were proved wrong. But still in the exam we had to write 6 pages of all the 12 Dalton's long long rules, and then 3 pages stating why only one rule is correct and other were wrong :S
I really wondered why i should struggle to remember things that are proved wrong :(

Till 5th class or so i was taught by my teacher that Earth is round, like a ball...like a bangle, like an 'O' and students also registered this in their minds and have written so many exam papers on this stating that 'Earth is Rounnnnd'.
But suddenly from somwhere some teacher comes in 6th class, and tells us 'Earth is Not round, but flat at one pole and bulged at one pole. So now earth like NOT Like a ball, NOT like a bangle, NOT like an 'O' :S

When they always knew that earth was not round why at all do they teach it in the first place:S
I am just wondering, if a person studies only till 5th class and then leaves studies then for whole life he continues to think that earth is round. He would never come to know the truth

It's always that our educational system follows a sequence where one teachers things in the same order in which it was invented. They never comes to point immediately.But then that's the fact, for reasons that atleast i do not know:)

So little school going buddies..Pluto is not going to leave your books at all. You need to live with it, irrespective of where it lives

'Anything for a Pic' says The Journalist!!

2006-08-25T02:01:00.000-07:00

I had been to a horticulture exhibition sometime back and i was taking some snaps of the flowers in the exhibition.In between i could catch a view of a honey bee or a wasp sitting on a Sunflower. I just wanted to capture that snap in my camera at any cost.And i went closer and closer to the flower.The honey bee was trying to move from one flower to other and i was also following it closely without even thinking that it can even sting me. I was so much focussed and adamant about getting that pic captured that i even forgot that it can even sting me if i go too close it it. I only realised it when my friend warned me and asked me to move away.

Aaah..so does that mean for a pic someone can take crazy and silly risks as well!?!!

Probably this is what is happening with the journalists these days. They are going crazy to get some news captured in their vidoes. They have become so target oriented that , if they are not getting any new targets, they are creating it by themselves by using all nasty means.

The recent tragic and disguting incident is that of Manoj Mishra who died because of self emolation and it's said that some media persons have encouraged him to do that. This guy was protesting against his employer for not paying wages.And in the same context went ahead for self immolation and the jouranlists surrounding were just trying to make news out of it without trying even once to save him.

It's said that he never had any idea of self immolation earlier but was encouraged by some journalists to pretend to be doing it as that can help him to get his wages easily. He was given a false promise by the media folks that he only needs to pretend and they would definetly come and save him at the right time.That poor guy believed them only to realise during his fatal end, that all was done for a video.
No one who ever come to rescue him even after he was half burnt. And the journalists were only encouraging him to do it to capture the video and create some spicy story around it.

Shame on these journalists!

They are totally forgetting that they are human beings first, and journalists next. They seem not to be having any emotional attachment towards there people, country or sometimes themselves also.

There was a similar self immolation that happened during the last Anti-Reservation strike. An uneducated coblar or pan shop guy (don't remember) had tried to self immolate himself in the name of anti-reservation strikes. No one could understand why an uneducated guy would ever be worried about Reservations. This also seemed to be an act on either the political parties or one of these crazy journalists.

We keep hearing the news of journalists visiting all the Mafia, DOns, terrorists and keep reporting to us what Osama said, what Dawood said ..... I fail to understand why the police never interogates these journalists to get information about what happened there and how them meet these underworld guys and all.

Probably because it's been a culture since ages that you should never trouble or interrupt a reporter or a messenger. Else the entire mesaging system might get hampered. Fair enough! But then this demands that the reporters and journalists also behave properly and responsibly .Else i don't think they should be given these speacial status or special freedom.

People who have watched the telugu movie 'Pokiri', would have definetly loved Sayaji Shinde’s dialogues against the media and journalists. I think that movie became a hit mainly because of those dialogues :)

'Raamaha..Raamo..Raamaa' - in United States But in a different Style

2006-08-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

I still remember those Sanskrit classes in school . I think they were one of the most refreshing and energising classes. The nice little stories with excellent morals and those Vidur Neetis and Chanakya Neetis were simply superb . But then one thing that always troubled us during the exam time was to by heart those grammers with 'Streeling' ,'Puling' and 'Napunsakling'. It was one of the funniest things as well with really weird phonetics like 'hey rama..hey ramo, hey rama' etc etc. Haha

Though Sanskrit is the base for all Indian languages, it did not pick up for the mainsteam usage and ended up in India only as a 'cool' third language where marks can be scored easily.

Well, but the Indians in US think differently. A group of Sanskrit lovers from the University of Maryland have launched a Sanskrit fan club called UMD Sanskritam. And they are trying to encourage people from learning and using Sanskrit by adding lot of fun to the learning process. They are using the popular Bollywood a lot for this. They recently did a small play where they enacted a scene from Sholay (the Gabbar Singh scene) with all the dialogues in Sanskrit:). They also transalated the song 'Aati Kya Khanadala' in Sanskrit and all these was very well enjoyed and appreciated by Audience. Some of the videos can be found here

Naresh Cuntoor, member of UMD-Sanskritam says, “Our aim is to promote this kind of learning where you don’t emphasize grammar but the conversational aspect of Sanskrit.”.
So learn Sanskrit but without 'Ramaha, Ramo , Rama' ;)

They have launched their new website www.speaksanskrit.org which now has around 600 memebers.

So may be it's time we start speaking sanskrit.

'Kathamapi Kim Bhashye twam bhaashitaha'? LOL

'Sashtyabdipoorti' of India

2006-08-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

India has just entered the 60th year of Independence and next year we will be successfully completing the 60th the year.
In India, in many places people celebrate the completion of the 60th Birthday in a grand way. In south India it's usually called as 'Sashtyabdipoorti' , meaning completion of 60 yrs.

The reason for celebrating 60th Birthday in a grand way relates to the Indian calender that's followed. As per this calender there are 60 yrs with different names having unique characteristics. Each of the sixty years bring different ups and downs in a persons life as they have different characteristics. The names are like Prabhava, Vibhava...etc .
So once all the 60 yrs are completed, then again the cycle of the years restarts.

So a person who has completed 60 yrs of age is considered to be a very matured human being as he would have seen 60 different types of years, and would have experienced all the 60 different phases of life. So, to congratulate him on his successful completion of all the 60 different years this function called 'Sashtyabdipoorti' is celebrated in a grand way.

So this means India has also seen almost 60 different phases now and *supposed* to be a matured country.

Congratulations India!

But don't you think it's high time to move from being 'Developing country' to 'Developed Country' now. Or have we just got used to it!

Happy Friendship day!

2006-08-06T03:40:00.000-07:00

Found this cool thing in this site

Friends v/s Best Friends

Friend: calls your parents by mr. and mrs.
Best friend: calls your parents dad and mom.

Friend: has never seen you cry
Best friend: has always had the best shoulder to cry on

Friend: never asks for anything to eat or drink
Best friend: opens the fridge and makes herself at home

Friend: asks you to write down your number.
Best friend: they ask you for their number
(cuz! they can't remember it)

Friend: borrows your stuff for a few days then gives it back.
Best friend: has a closet full of your stuff

Friend: only knows a few things about you
Best friend: could write a biography on your life story

Friend: will leave you behind if that is what the crowd is doing
Best friend: will always go with you

Friend: would not to suggest their friends to see this page
Best friend: will suggest to must look this page, all of their online buddies

Security is Everyone's business

2006-08-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

I had been in Mumbai few weeks back. Infact a week after the very tragic Mumbai blasts.

Though i had an initial fear of going there immediately after the blasts, later i thought if something has to happen it can happen anywhere and at anytime.
And logically speaking, i also had a feeling that security would have been tightened in mumbai because of the blasts and where there are security checks, there threats are also relatively less . So that made me feel that probably Mumbai would be a safer place now than ever before.

So i just decided to have maximum fun and visited many popular places like Gateway of India, Mahlakshmi temple, Siddhi vinayak temple, Marine Drive, Haji Ali Mosque etc.

Of all these places, i did find some basic security at gateway of india ,extreme security at Siddhi vinayak and mahalakshmi temples.
And very surprisingly no security at Haji Ali mosque. Probably Govt feels that the terrorists will not target a muslim dominated place, which in my opinion is a foolish thought.

Though i was really surprised to see the Govt not providing any security at Haji Ali, where i saw a maximum number of people (from all religions) as compared to other places, i convinced myself that it's a very costly affair for the Govt also to provide security everywhere.

But then i was shocked at the way the security checks were happening at the mahalakshmi temple.
It was like this...
With some metal detectors they first checked me (just the way it happens in airport). Here my bag was not checked.
And after that a lady asks me to come forward so that she can check my bags.
But when i gave my bag..she said in Hindi...' I will not open it u open it urselves'.
I agreed and just started to open the zip of bag...and before i could even open it fully and show her my bag..she peeps into my bag from that small opening (just for name sake) and tells in hindi 'Ok ..u can go'
I really wonder what she checked in my bag without even opening it properly:S
Even if i was carrying a small bomb she can never find it out, from the way she did the check

This clearly proves that Quality of Indian security is very bad. And the reason for this is not the Govt directly , but the people themselves.
When i say people, it's people working for the security deaprtments and at the same time common man as well.
Though Govt is spending so much on increasing security, have the security officials at the grass root level ever realised the need for it and importance of it. Or are they doing their job just for name sake?
The importance of security has not reached the grass root level in the security enforcing orgs, be it indian police, or army, navy or airforce.

CNN IBN Live had recently shown how one of their correspondents crossed the sea with big RDX kind of materials three times and came to india. And none of the times the security and the customs could catch them. They had done this as a case study to see how efficient is our security forces.
The reason for this was that the security guards and the police living in those coastal areas are not really motivated enough to take care of things and they just do it without any passion.
And many times they don't even know what they should do.

This seems to be true everywhere and not just with Govt security officials.
I see similar behaviour in my companies security gaurads also. My security checking lady knows me pretty well, so she has literally stopped checking my bags these days :)
I carry my thumb drive everyday to office which is actually not allowed and no one could find it till now.
But then the problem here is not just with the security gaurd, it's also with me:)
Ideally i should be reporting about it to the seniors, but then if i do that then i cannot carry my thumb drive anymore. So i dont. Haha :D Just kidding
But then this exactly is happening everywhere. People don't feel responsible for securing themselves or things around us. They are more worried about their freedom and they see security checks as something that hampers their freedom. I see many people resisting to security checks and feeling insulted.

People must realise that it's very important to ensure that security formalities are properly done, even if takes away sometime of theirs.
And we should also motivate and make all those security gaurads realise the importance of their job, so that they do it well. Not the way it's done in Mumbai temples.

Some years back there was something called ' Janmabhoomi' programme started in Andhra Pradesh, which means that the common citizen and the govt share the responsibilities of locality upliftments rathen than totally depending on the Govt.
For example, if i want to bring drainage system in my locality, then the localites come together and plan for it and get it done by themselves, and the Govt pays half the expenditure. This way we need not wait for the Govt to monitor and manage eveything which is usually time consuming.

I think similar thing for security should also be done. Responsibility must be shared by all.
Security is everyone's business.

Blogging getting more popular after the temporary ban

2006-08-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

It was pretty quick that the Govt realised that banning blogs doesn't help and they have removed the ban.
But in these few days of ban, blogging has become much more popular than ever before.
The way the TV channels were repeatedly showing how people are protesting against the ban, and the number of blogs and bloggers growing year by year... raised the curiosity of all viewers as what these blogs are and why so much fuss about it.

There were many places ,including my company where i had been talking about blogging and about it's importance and all. But i did not find people showing real interest in knowing what it is.
But after this ban, so many have explicitely stopped my way and have asked me what blogging is all about.

So all for good! :)

Blogspot & other blogs Banned by our Technology illiterate govt

2006-07-18T12:46:00.000-07:00

Our great indian Govt has banned blog sites like blogger, rediff etc from 13th of this month.
They say they have banned this for security reasons and they are linking them to the mumbai blasts (probably). (this article details http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/world/asia/18cnd-india.html)

I really wonder how can blogs cause security threats such as RDX explosion :S

Ok even if we agree that there are some illegal blogs somewhere, then only those blogs should be banned, why should they be banning the entire blogspot site?

The reason for thise is that the people at the Govt are totally ignorant about information technology and also the usefullness of blogs.
They just do no realise that blogs are the main source of information these days and by blocking blogs they are actually amputing knowlegde and information growth across the country.
One good and recent example of this is the blog http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com
which was playing an important service during the Mumbai blasts.

Even if they want to block there is a way of doing it. They cannot just like that go and block all the blogs. It's really crazy.

I am still not able to understand how can blocking all the blogs help in avoiding RDX blasts. To avoid these kind of blasts they should tighten the security at the mumbai sea shore from where most of these things would have been shipped.
And one more thing that the Govt is not realizing is that blocking the blogss can no way prevent the terrorists to stop using the blogs. Internet loopholes and workarounds are also as matured as Internet itself is.
There are lots of ways to bypass these restrictions and continue to blog and view it.
For instance most of us are now migrating blogspot to pkblog.com (i am also using the same).
And it's sad that Govt has not realised that pkblogs.com is a pakistani site.

This looks more like a Govt's show off just to show the innocent public that something great is being done. They will be doing all these crazy things which are of no use, and would let the actual culprits run away. Or may be the Govt has got scared of blogs as this is one place where people can freely ventilate their ideas about the Govt as well and they want to supress it.

Here is the Hindu article where the NASSCOM has called our govt decision as 'Neither desirable nor feasable'
One of the world's top blogger Robert Scoble says 'It sucks' while responding this act by the Govt. read it here

If you are a protester for this you can go and voice your opinion here (http://censorship.wikia.com/wiki/Protests_By_Bloggers )
Thanks to Sudhakar for this pointer

I was just having a glance of one of President Abul Kalaam's book . And one of the page talks about a person who asked the president , "how can u say India is a developing country and not a developed one. At what time can we call ourselves developed and for long we will be devloping only".
I think India will always be called as developing only as long we have such ignorant and foolish people sitting in the govt.

Latest News (after a week of the ban): Ban removed. Democracy wins

Marrying an elder women. Does it make sense?

2006-07-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a tradition in india or rather across the globe (as per my observation) that a marriage usually happens between a younger woman and an elder man.
If we take a historic data of 7-8 decades then we would see that the women's age had been too less than her husband's age in olden days (around 15 yrs gap).And slowly with time the age gap starting decreasing and decreasing further . Now the average age gap of marriage would be 3 yrs with the woman still being younger than the man.

But then there are instances where we would also see some love marriages happening where a women is elder than the man (popular case is sachin tendulkar).
But then society doesn't welcome these marriages at all and people look at them as if it's a big sin created, as if it's a very nasty and a shameless act.

I recently came across two such cases in my close vicinity and have also closely observed how bad the near and dear feel about it. They feel as if the couple have commited an unpardonable sin of marrying an elder women.

But then if you really think seriously on this, i did not find anything very wrong in this.
In fact, if we look back to the aryan times (ramayana, mahabharata etc etc), we will find many couples in the mythology where the wifes were elder than the men.
Good example is Sita who is considered elder than Rama, according to one school of thoughts.
Another example is draupadi who should have been elder than atleast some of of her husbands.
Another example is Radha who was elder than Krishna

The people whom we worship or treat as path finders themselves have done this kind of marriage many years back.

If we talk about later years also, i am not sure how many couples really knew their age when they got married.
Even now i find many people in slums or people with very large families not remembering their children's age or date of birth.
Then how can they be so sure than their daughter is marrying an elder man only or son is marrying an younger women only?

When asked some people why they think a women should be younger than man, the first answer that i get is that 'science insists atleast two years gap be between then man and the women'.
Correct. Agreed. But what's missing here is... science only says that their should be age gap, but it never says if women should be younger by two years or a man can also be younger than two years.

Another good and sensible reason i get for this is ---women start looking old soon, as compared to men. So if a man marries an elderly women, then she starts looking much more older after marriage and that might affect their mutual physical interests.
This does make sense .
But then, is this reason of retaining physical interest much more important than the love between both the couples. I think it's not.

Though i do not specifically encourage these kind of marriages as i do not find any special benefits out of them , but i still do not find anything wrong in it as well.
I think they can be treated just as any other marriage.

I don't think there is anything in these kinds of marriages which needs to be treated as a sin or something very strange.

We should not be playing a double game by praying sita, drupadi or radha as an ideal women on one side, and on the other side curse the modern women for a similar act. Same thing holds good for men also.

After all it's we , the socienty, who are the makers of all kinds of rules and we must not accept any rule blindly unless it makes sense, just because some ancestor told it's a sin.

A touching short love story

2006-06-17T00:19:00.000-07:00

Read this touching story somewhere...

There was a blind girl who hated herself because of being blind. She hated everyone except her boyfriend..
One day the girl said that if she can only see the world she will marry her boyfriend.
One day someone donated eyes to her and then she saw everything including her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend asked her, "now that you can see, will you marry me?".
The girl was shocked when she saw her boyfriend is also blind, and she refused to marry him.

Her boyfriend walks away with tears and said, "Just take care of my eyes dear" ....

He was the one who had donated his eyes to her.

Who needs reservation and where?

2006-06-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

It's almost 1 month that the reservation strikes have been going on, and still there is not enough steps taken by the Govt.

The Govt has proposed the increase of seats but i do not know how can this solve the root problem. Even if the seats are increased the percentage of reservation would still remain the same. So it means having same percent of dumb people in the class.

The Govt needs to ask the following question to itself before coming up with any of it stupid ideas.

Why the idea of reservation
For many years the downtrodden and backward class have been left behind and it's required to give them also a chance to come up in life. This is possible if we reserve a percent of seat for them and ensure that they utilize it.

Who needs reservation
It could be anyone who is down trodden, poor, person with less literacy in the family, women, physically handicapped and may be few more people who have been neglected by the society few years back.
So resevation is not necesariliy for Backward classes. It could be for anyone who is willing to come up in life but has some problem in the same.
There are many so called backward classes who are well to do now, so why should they be given reservation? And there are many forward classes as well, who are called forward just because of their caste but in reality are living a bad life.
So when deciding who needs reservations, the Govt should reconsider it's distinction on the basis of forward and backward caste. It should not be based on the caste, but should be based on the living conditions and poverty line.

Where we must have reservation
This is the most important question that's required to be answered. And this is the question that has given rise to this never ending strike against reservation.

In my personal opinion, NO Higher education or Govt offices must have any time of reservation.
Reservations must be there Only at School level (up to the class of 6th). And i would rather insist on increasing the seats in schools rather than increasing the seats in colleges and competiitve exams. Increasing the seats in schools and having the reservations as well, would help the backward classes to join the school and improve themselves. In this way we would do the right justice to the backward classes and help them come up in life and compete equally with the forward classes .
But once they have crossed the 6th class, i think there should be open competition among everyone, and no reservations.
Having reservations in competitve exams, colleges and offices will reduce the quality of people.
Just imagine a dumb doctor , who is a doctor just because he is a BC doing a major operation! What would be the fate of his patient:S

Where we must not have reservation
No reservation in high schools, colleges, competitve exams, Offices etc!.
No reservation at the cost of quality of people.

Read what the BCs have to say about reservation and how they feel about it. They are tortured and they also do not want reservations!
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1670473,000600010004.htm

If we still have reservation at Higher educations, then how should it be
There are many reasons people give for having reservations at the higher education and offices.
They are
1. Many of the Backward class people do not come forward for higher education, because of monetory status or family constraints. So they need to be encouraged and resrvation is one good way
2. Many women do no come forward to work or go for higher education, again because of the Indian culture and traditions . And also because they need to take care of both family and office.
So reservations are treated as one way to encourage them to come forward.
3. Physically handicaped are not able to perform certain activities at the speed of their peers. Hence do not come forward for higher education with others.

In such cases, we can have reservation for them, but recruitement should again be merit based only! In these cases reservation should be more in terms of reducing their fees or giving them scholorship, giving them flexible working or flexible learning hours etc, and not by just selecting them blindly because of their caste,gender or disability.
Quality must always be the highest priority!

Was it a Rang De Basanti Effect?

2006-05-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

I had watched RDB few weeks back and i must say it's one of the best contemporary movies i have seen.It triggers some of sensitive corners of the heart and mind of today's generation.
And this movie is also proving that Hindi movies can have great impact on Indian citizens in good and in bad ways, both:)

After the release of this movie, people in Delhi have raised there voice against the Jessica Lal murder case exactly in the Rang De basanti style by lighting candle in front of India Gate:)

And seems while acting in this movie even the actors have got energized:). These days we see Aamir and the entire gang raising voice againt the national issues like Naramada case more strongly (though ignorantly)

These are all OK as long as people are picking up the good aspects of the movie and copying it.But...

But yesterday, the police had lathi charged the young doctors who were silently protesting for a cause:S
This lathi charge was also in the Rang De basanti style. Oh boy!:S:S

It's fine if people get influenced by a movie to do heroic acts, but people are following the movie even for villaneous acts:S That's sad

One of the channels had asked people's opinion on the Police behaviour , and few of them had stated that 'We were reminded of Jalianwala Bagh massacre by seeing the police beating the doctors'
Now commmmmmon guys, tell the truth. Were you reminded of Jalianwala bagh of 1919, or Jalianwala bagh of Rang de basanti;)
Atleast i was reminded of the Jalianwala Bagh of RDG only:), where the director compares the General Dyre of those Days and politicians of these days in the same weighing balance.
Oops, that doens't mean i am trying to say Arjun singh is like General Dyre;)

AAh..this movie has silently raised lot of stroms,and is really trying to the awaken the nation.And amidst all this look who is calmly and quietly doing his job: The director of the movie Rakesh Omprakash Mehra;)
He is now preparing silently for his next venture which he says is a comedy

Rakesh Mehar ji, if you continue like this you will become the Mahatma Gandhi of 21st century;) The only difference is he used his khadi rolls and you are using your film rolls. Just kidding:)
But then i think the director is following exactly what he has tried to ultimately convey in his movie
' Change the society, by being a part of the society, not outside it'. Else you would get killed like the RDB heroes'

The Fear factor show on Sony...Sometimes Very Craaaaazy!

2006-05-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

A new show by name 'Fear factor' has been started in Sony channel recently. This is a said to be a ditto copy of the english serial 'The fear factor' in one of the english channels.

The show is pretty good in lot of ways because the stunts performed by people are intersting but what I just HATE about this it makes people to keep crazy things in the mouth and sometimes eat as well.

This includes a big bowl of worms, ostrich eggs, any meat and so many more like this . Yuk Yuk:S:S

I find this sometimes indecent, sometimes unethical, sometimes hurting and all the times crazy.

I donno why Amala and Menaka Gandhi have not resisted this for using animal skin and animal remains for these silly and unnecessary purposes!

In one of the serials i saw a pure vegetarian struggling to take that goat meat in mouth, but still for those 10 Lakhs that they were giving him, he foolishly gave a try and then finally gave up saying ' I am a vegetarian so i can't'
And the host was still consistenly trying to persuade him to try it.
This was totally hurting. Shouldn't the serial be respecting people's basic habits atleast!

In today's serial they have asked people to drink a full mug of ostrich egg yolk. People struggled like anything and i don't think anyone could drink completely.

Fear factor guys claim that they ensure full protection of the particiapants. They can give this protection as long as it's external physical protection, but how can they ensure for internal physical protection. What if by eating all this the person's liver, intestines and their stomach fail? What if something happens to them after eating such weird things?

This is really crazy! Atleast i am finding it unnecesary and crazy.

"I could never find a friend like you in my office" Why so?

2006-04-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

I many times hear many of my college friends saying that they could never find people worth to be called as best friends after the college days. They felt none of their office mates are worth to be called as best friends and hence they have stopped making close friends.

As a matter of fact…even i was feeling the same thing for a long time. I many times wondered why is that i don't find those friend like qualities in the office mates, while it was so easy to get real and close friends till school and college days.

In contrast, i observed that my parents generations had very close office friends. My mom's friends even now visit us quite often, after 10 years of her retirement as well. And my dad's colleagues have settled down with us as our neighbors.

I heard many blaming our generation for this saying that present generation gets very selfish as they grow and hence do not believe in friendship and all:)

But then i realized that this is not at all true. In fact we are more sentimental about friendship and relations. And it's the same sentiments that hold us back from making friends.

When i compared the current generation’s professional life with my parents generations, i found one small difference that has made a huge impact.

That's 'Dynamism'! Dynamism in the way people change jobs, which leads to unpredictability about people around us. This in turn leads to disinterest in making friends, as no one knows where they will be the next day:)

My parents have served a single organization for around 30 years… and during their tenure have rarely thought of change of job or place... And as they were confident that they would be in the same place for long time, they could go forward and make stronger personal relations at the work place. Because they knew these relations can be long lasting.

Whereas today i do not know where i will be tomorrow. How many times in a year would i need to change jobs How many times in a year would i need to see new faces sitting next to me. So with so much of dynamism and unpredictability in life, no one wants to get close to people and then suddenly depart.

So the fact is, people are still worth to be our good friends, but we do not go forward to take them as our friends.
The fear of departure, stops us from getting closer to people.

So now i have started disagreeing that we cannot find friend like qualities in office mates. One needs to be receptive to identify them:)

And if someone says, the present generation is selfish, i totally disagree again. In fact we are more sentimental about relations and hence take care in making them.

If i make my hobby as my profession, i can enjoy work better. Right or Wrong?

2006-04-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

I have heard many people say that if a person's hobby becomes his profession as well, then he would enjoy his work better and would also excel in it.

But i don't feel it's always true.

In fact in most of the cases, i feel a person should let his hobby remain a hobby, and his profession remain his profession.
Because hobby needs a 90 percent heart and 10 percent head..whereas for a profession one needs 90% head and 10% percent heart:)

Is a person enjoying his profession or not, depends not just on the work he is doing, but on so many factors like the environment, the people with whom he is working, the work pressure, the importance of his work and so many more like this.

Whereas when it comes to hobbies, each individual behaves independently while working on his hobbies. There are no environmental constraints or work pressure around him. So this way his hobbies refreshes and rejenuates him and keeps him creative. He is the king when he is with his hobby.

For example, if i have painiting as a hobby , i can scribble or paint anything that comes to my mind and feel happy and refreshed after it (ofcourse with social responsibility).
But then...if I make it my profession because it's my hobby, can i just paint anything that i want to?:). No. I will be driven by the environment, requirements and ofcourse my boss.

So in a hobby, we just have social responsibility, but in a profession, we have social responsibility as well as accountability.
M.F. Hussain aaahh..poor guy is a good example for this, who tried to paint some rubbish(rubbish as per indian tradition) with his whole heart, and then public around him screwed his peace for that:)

So, if you are making your hobbies as your profession...it's better you start making something else as your hobbies. Else life starts to suck...

I am making this post after talking to one on friends sister.
She has just passed out of the college and looking out for a job.
She feels call center would be right profession for her because she loves to talk to her friends for long hours on phone. And it seems most of the times she is doing that only when she is at home:)
Lady hasn't realised yet that 'friends are friends' and 'customers are customers'...and in few days she would definetly want to run away from her phone and monotonous phone calls:)

But ofcourse, exception are alsways their...and those are the luckiest people who could make their hobby as their profession and still feel happy about it.

So be careful when you decide!

He MUST be lacking something to say ' I DON"T WANT DOWRY'- Is this true?

2006-04-15T13:17:00.000-07:00

There is a new matrimonial site that has been started - http://www.idontwantdowry.com/ .
I came to know about this from The Hindu daily.

This site is specifically meant for people ,who care only for having a good life with a good wife and damn care about dowry that she would get with her.

This is an excellent initiative to eradicate the dowry system from India.And good thing is that there are so many people who have already registered in this site:)

But then....is that all???

I remember my long back discussion with some of my friends who were looking out for matches for themselves. And they belonged to families where huge dowries (called katnam in south india) are taken and given as a ritual.

One of them was looking out for a match for his sister as well.
So when I asked him what he thinks about dowry system , he said that he is basically against dowry system and plans not to take dowry. Good:)

And then at a later point i asked him what's happeneing at his sister's marriage front.
He said they have a match of a boy who is good...but they want to do a proper background check first as they are a bit supicious that there could be some problem.
I asked him why they think that way...
He said the boy's family is not taking any dowry..so we have a doubt that they would be having something lacking or deficiant and hence might be sacrificing the dowry:)
Haha..What must i say about this thought process. If someone takes dowry then he is bad...and if he doesn't then something is wrong with him:)

So just starting a matromonial site is not enough, what matters is how much respect would society give the registrants of the site.

They deserve our respect and not an eye of suspicion!

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2006 when...

2006-04-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

Got this from a friend...

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2006 when...
1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.Go on, forward this to your friends you know you want to! You know you are living in 2006!

I am adding number 9. to it which is missing...
9. You search for your neighbours address in 'Google.com' ;)

Unmanaged Power Cuts By the Andhra Pradesh Government:(

2006-04-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

Hyderabad is nearing peak Summer and also the children are nearing their peak final exams.
And summer also brings tough time for the aged people and infants, who are less resistant to the such weather conditions.

Amidst all this, to worsen the situation are the power cuts and low voltages during the night times:(

I wonder why our government lead by Y.S Rajsekhar reddy can't plan the power cuts as it was done earlier during the times of Mr. Chandra Babu Naidu.

I very clearly remember the kind of planning that used to be done for power cuts earlier! Simply superb!
During the exam time, there were no power cuts after 8.00 P.M as the children had to study at night. And power cuts used to be there only in the morning hours and that too in a very planned way. And it was informed to the people much in advance through News papers as which areas will have power cut and at what time.
This way even the power consumption was regulated and at the same time people also did not get affected much.

But now, it's not the same!Everyday after coming back from A/C office, it's like hell at home at night. Children (infants) in my neaighbours house usually spend their whole night crying. And for the aged people, nights bring nightmares.

Dear Mr Y.S Rajsekhar Reddy: I respect you and our government for lot of things Sir, but i would advice you (or anyone in politics for that matter) to accept certain good things done earlier and continue it, even if it's done by your opponent.

Now my UPS is also giving my alarms , so time to stop here...

Hope for better times:)

The Indian Idol on Sony- Who is getting benefitted?

2006-04-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

I recently found my lost blog(this one) , so blogging here again.

I have been consistenly watching the Indian Idol show in Sony TV since last year.
I must appreciate the judges for selecting such good talents and bringing them to the foreground.

But what happens after that is a total mess:(
They take the name of democracy, and ask people to send sms to vote for their preferred ones. And the funniest part is each individual can send any number of SMS's as he can....
Because of this dumb system, last year Rahul Vaidya, an excellent singer was out of the contest.
I don't say Abhijeet Sawant is not good, but i think the best people are loosing their chance to win because of allowing people to vote multiple times.

This year the experience has been even worser...the contest has become regional. People are voting to their own contestent and trying to bring pride to their own state. I don't say it's wrong to feel proud if someone from your state is winning. But what's more important is that the right talent wins. Amey was such a good singer, but still had to get voted out:(

Obviously this would happen, because equal opportunity is not given to every voter to vote for his candidate. Instead people are allowed to vote any number of times based on the pocket weight.

Ultimately who is getting benefitted is neither the people, nor the contestants, nor the film and music industry, and nor Sony...

The only one person getting benefitted is Airtel and Hutch.

I think this sytem of voting thru multiple SMS must be stopped ASAP. This is one way of gambling. Last year even Ms World or Ms Universe (don't remember exactly) was also on this stupid system.

I hope tomorrow we don't have to select our leaders with this type of SMS voting system!
If that's done, then i think It's time to think of a virus program to crash these systems. Just kidding:)

But i really hope people, the media ,Television and the Government realise this bad wave and excersice some control over it.

And ..Inspite of all this mess, i sincerely wish that Karunya wins this time's Idian Idol:).
And this is not because he is from my state, but because he is extremely talented.
An excellent singer indeed!

Ghosts in the Hindi Serials

2005-01-28T04:51:00.000-08:00

These days Ghosts have become a part and parcel of every Hindi serial.
Even the serials that start as detective serials turn to be horror serials. Looks like our directors cannot complete the story without introducing a ghost (atma) in it.

If there is some problem in the serial which the hero or the heroine is not able to resolve, and the director also doesn't undersatnd how to proceed with the problem..simple... he just inroduces a friendly ghost in the serial and the it does some magic and solves it.

I think this is a cost effective way of doing things. All that they need is a normal looking lady, a white saree, and no hair style( left out hair) and a background music.

LOL. This is just on the lighter side.

But on the serious front, I think this is like proving that human beings always need some external power like ghosts to resolve there issues. It really degardes the human brain and mind power.

There is a Hindi Pizza Ad where the director says to a lady having a Pizza "You are my lady Devil"
Was just imagining, people being awarded as 'The Best Female Ghost of the Year'. Haha

The National Anthem!

2005-01-27T01:16:00.000-08:00

Recently one of the critics had asked the Govt to change the National Anthemn , so that some states which are currently not a part of India are removed rom the song and instead Kashmir be be included.

I wonder....do we need to look into such minute things, especially when no one or no country has raised any objection. Today Kashmir would be included...and tomorrow some one will say Chennai...then Assam...then A.P..and then...it goes on... Haha. Then our National Anthemn would be like a Indian geography Book. LOL

On one side when some are trying to improve on the Natonal Anthemn by looking into such minute details, on the otherside we have our politiicans and leaders who don't even remember the National Anthemn. On the occasion of Republic day, some of the press reporters had approached different leaders and asked them to sing..or atleast narrate the National Anthemn...and they trembelled like a school student who is scared of being punished by their teachers.This was telecasted in one of the TV channels (AAJ TAK) and I think it's the joke of the year.

I remember my dad recording my voice in my childhood when I sang the national anthemn...And I think i sang much better then these politicians. And I am sure every child of today would also feel the same.

I hate Britishers!. Why????

2005-01-26T01:00:00.000-08:00

Today's is Jan 26th- India's Republic Day. Happened to talk to one of the 2nd class school girl after she was coming back from her school parade.
Thought of having some fun time with her by listening to her talks.So asked her what did u do in school...what's republic day..what's independence day etc etc. For all the questions she had only one answer- "Britishers snatched away our freedom and then we fought and got back our freedom"
Then she pauses and says " Didi (sis)...my teacher says britishers are very bad. They killed everyone...I hate Foreigers (For her all foreigners were Britishers).

This hatred was not born with the child...but was induced in her by repeatedly giving her a feeling that to be a true indian , we should hate britishers.

I would have been rather better if her teacher would have taught her " Indians did not have unity..and hence were conquered...and then we worked with unity and hence got independence".

It's more than than 55 years of Independence...and many still look at Britishers like villains.
They forget the main essense of all the lessons learnt during the war of independence...and instead still spend time in narating all those stories of violence.

Jesus said "Hate the Sin and not the Sinner"....... But humans are not ideal and hence we can hate the sinner also :) ...but for HOW LONG? :(

If British rule lead to blood shed...it's because of the same rule we have got a robust educational system in India. We talk of jargons like Globalisation, Liberalistion etc etc because of the system imparted to us by the British rule.

So it's high time people start thinking that everything has good and bad..and start realising the good and use it in better way.

There is a new movie Kisna that's got released. Not sure of the story...but I think it's one of the very few movies which has shown a lead lady as a Britishers..A new wave indeed.