Vision!

India's 59th Independence day celebrations are over and a big hooray to democracy, it still survives in some shape and form. After all these years India is still fighting some inside battles. Almost all of us have one complaint or the other from the governing bodies. Strange are the ways of these political demigods and their band of bureaucrats. For e.g. I have a small stretch of road before getting into the layout where I stay. This road got into a bad shape thanks to the trucks going to and from a nearby apartment being built. After almost a year, "authorities" came and asphalted these roads. My happiness was unbound as my car would be spared its regular bumps. This lasted a little over a month and last week "authorities" dug up the road to lay down pipes. Now, we are back to waiting for "authorities" to come fix it!

This points to so little planning and communication on the part of the concerned authorities. Quite ironically I have been closely following a series on National Geographic(TV) called Megastructures. Each and every episode of this series is mind boggling in terms of cost, size, vision, execution and conviction. The one that really impressed me the most was the episode on Palm Jumeirah.



Of course the whole land reclamation, simultaneous construction and managing natures fury was all impressive, but most impressive was the vision of the man who wanted to make this at any cost and on time(2006). The Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, knows all too well that the oil reserves of the middle east and more specifically his country will not last forever. Understanding the urge for the average joe in most developed/developing countries having a penchant for travelling, he decided on banking on tourism to keep his coffers from running dry once the oil ran dry. His first project was the Burj-Al-Arab, the costliest hotel in the world.



He quickly realized that what the tourists love the most about his country was its luxurious lifestyle and the beautiful coastline. But unfortunately Dubai has only some 70kms of coastline. People don't want to be crammed close to one another on the beach! And here started the story of the Palm Island(s). As if the Palm Jumeirah was not tough enough, he has already started work on two more Palm islands! Does this stop the man? Nope! If we have gotten this far, why not have a bunch of islands placed in the middle of the ocean in the form of the world?? Each costing a few millions!




Now, this is vision, conviction and execution at its best!

Categorized As:

• World
• India

Blogger goes beta

Blogger is going beta again and this time for the better. Google bought Pyra Labs, creator of blogger in 2003 and since then has done precious little to make the life of a blogger any better. Now with very many new blogging platforms, google is fighting back. They have some nice features like labels, live updates and drag and drop item selection.

I for sure am gonna wait a little longer before I take the plunge. Any brave souls?

Categorized As:

• Blogging
• Google
• Tech

NRIs in India?

India celebrated its 59th independence day yesterday. Most kids were excited as they had some function in their schools. The adults saw this as a good opportunity to sack out in the middle of the week and showed their patriotism by having a fluttering flag or two in their vehicles. But one thing that was common to most of the employed people was that their offices were closed. Aug 15th is a national holiday, whether you feel patriotic or not. Its more of a chance for you to do something 'if' you feel patriotic, maybe even watch some speeches on television. Though this post underplays the individual significance of this day somewhat, the bottom line is that it is important for every citizen to have the right to express his feelings/thoughts on this day and "office work" should not be a reason for the person not being able to do so.

Now coming to the culprits, the IT Enabled Services sector. Many of the BPOs and Call centers in Bangalore were working yesterday. They apparently put up a bold face and said they celebrated in office and all that baloney, but still the fact that they get to celebrate July 4th or the Memorial day and not their own independence day is down right ridiculous! How can these establishments do this? Does government give them permission to do it? Why can't these businesses stand up to their counterparts around the world and explain the significance of national holidays? Hell, why do they even have to explain anything! "Its a national holiday and we don't work today."

Well.. I guess not everyone felt independent on Independence day!

Categorized As:

• India

Guns go Silent

The war is over! Yup, Israel have stopped their guns, Hezbollah have stopped their guns. People have started moving back to South Lebanon slowly and some may never move back. What does Israel feel on how the war went? What about the Hezbollah? Well.. they both think they won! A nice war ain't it, where both sides have won. I did think it would come to this and probably most people watching it from the outside would have felt the same. In today's world, no single nation can win a war... no way! It has to be a collaborative effort of like minded nations. Hence, if terrorism has to be beaten, like minded nations have to join hands. Enough idealism and all this sounds great... but think of the current situation.

US Likes Israel Hates Palestine Loved by India hated by Pakistan loved by China hated by Taiwan Loved by US hated by Cuba loved by Venezuela hated by.... never gonna end. Well... welcome to "One World {Of Love & Hate}"

Categorized As:

• Currentaffairs

M$ waking up

Micro$oft today released a free download of their blogging tool, Live Writer. They already had a blogging platform(still catching up) and have now tried to appease a larger crowd by giving away an editor for blogging with their platform and also other popular platforms like blogger, wordpress etc.

I am posting this using the editor. I have used the performancing plugin for firefox quite a bit and also tried Qumana. The reason why I still prefer the main blogger publishing interface is because we can have quite a few useful greasemonkey scripts(only firefox) to help in posting(e.g. categories). The Live Writer has also opened its APIs for external plugins and will have to wait and watch for some useful plugins. It is supposed to have support for tagging, but I am yet to figure it out. If I do, then I am gonna use this tool, else its back to blogger.

A useful and decently working tool, nonetheless. :-)

 

Categorized As:

• Tech

Lest we forget...

This weekend has a hue or of patriotism with our Independence day round the corner. In keeping with the mood, yesterday we watched a mallu movie "Kirti Chakra", starring Mohanlal. Its directed by an ex-army man and the movie is good though being amateurish in some places. Coincidentally, I received an email today about "Vijay Diwas", the anniversary of the Kargil War, that was on 26th of July. We all talk about Kargil often and its entrenched in our minds, but how many of us remembered Vijay Diwas? I know I didn't! Here is a reminder...



Kargils Heroes:

Lt.Saurabh Kalia



Grenedier. Yogendra Singh - Param Vir Chakra


RFN Sanjay Kumar - Param Vir Chakra


Major Padmapani Acharya - Maha Vir Chakra (Posthumous)


Lieutenant Balwan Singh - Maha Vir Chakra


Major M Saravanan - VirChakra


Lieutenant Kanad Bhattacharya - Sena Medal (Posthumous)


Captain Saju Cherian - Sena Medal


Lieutenant Keishing Clifford Nangrum - Maha Vir Chakra (Posthumous)


Captain Jerry Prem Raj - Vir Chakra (Posthumous)


Major Sonam Wangchuk - Maha Vir Chakra


Officers & Jawans from the 2nd Rajputana Rifles pray before going into battle, to get back Tololing Top. Behind the jawan in the foreground (with a 5.56mm INSAS rifle) is Captain Vijayant Thapar. His face is partly hidden and is seen sporting a beard. Lieutenant Thapar laid down his life, in the capture of Tololing Top and was awarded the Vir Chakra posthumously for his valour.


Major Padmapani Acharya, 2nd Rajputana Rifles, leads his men into battle after the successful capture of Tololing Top. The 2 Raj. Rifles' next assignment was to capture the Knoll mountain feature in the Black Rock area, which is in the Drass sub-sector. It was here, that Major Acharya laid down his life in the highest traditions of the Indian Army on 29 June 1999. He was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra, posthumously.


Captain (Dr.) Rajshree Gupta, Army Medical Corps (AMC), salutes the tricolour-draped coffin of her husband, Major Vivek Gupta of the 2nd Rajputana Rifles, who died fighting the enemies.


Celebrating the victory:


HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Categorized As:

• India

Indian IT coming of age?

Indian IT has been excelling in the service business for some time now, examples being Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Satyam etc. Then there were the multinational service companies that have found abode in India, examples being IBM, CTS etc. There are also big multinational companies that have housed in India, examples being Motorola, Lucent, Intel etc. There are also a bunch of small product based companies, but rarely do you find homegrown product based companies. Even if you find them, very few have hit the big league.

Over the last couple of years there have been calls for the Indian IT to push itself up the value chain. The IT enabled services, in my opinion are pushing us down the value chain and that has unfortunately been the focus. ITES does give our youngsters a lot of jobs and a good pay, but still the search for the next Elbonia will always be on and that is a permanent fear. I believe growing up the value chain is something Texas Instruments India has managed. They actually deliver products from conception to delivery from India, which is kinda rare. There are quite a few startups I can think of now which are cropping up but I will not detail them in this post. I wanted to concentrate more on companies which have gained a footing for themselves already. One such company whose products I have used before and also written about is Adventnet. What I didn't know was that its a Chennai based company and has been doing pretty well for itself. They seem to have made a quite but nice transition to the web2.0 scheme of things. Imagine making a product like Zoho and taking on Googles Writely and Microsoft Office Suite! Now that takes some guts!!

Heres wishing them the very best and hopefully more companies from India will follow suit.

Categorized As:

• Tech
• Web2.0

SE .. Yawn

This is now getting boring. Another walkman based, candy bar phone from Sony Ericsson, K618.







C'mon SE, we got the point! Walkman branding on phones is good and the phones are also decent. But its about time SE started innovating! All they are doing is adding a button here, removing a button there! Look at the competition... as much as I hate to say this, Nokia N Series is really good! N60 is kinda sucky and slow, but the rest of the phones are impressive! Look at the N9* series, outrageous designs, the N8* series, a slider with a difference and the N73 is the most compact candy bar style feature rich phone I have seen in a while.

I also came across, this "lifestyle" product from sony.



Its basically a gaming + music console with WiFi to connect to the net for emailing. A weird mix of features... but I guess you never know what the people may take fancy to.

Categorized As:

• Gadgets

Who started it?

Just my 2 paise worth on the crisis in the middle-east. This is an excerpt from an email I shared with some friends.

As the original article suggested, there is no way we can say who started it all. Was the kidnapping of 2 soldiers the final straw? Very unlikely. Ever thought that this could be a proxy war the west is waging on Islamic terrorism via Israel ? Does anyone think an attack of this nature on a friendly nation of the US would go on for so long?? For e.g. We(India) have similar grounds to attack LeT hideouts in Pakistan. Would the US sit quite then, even though we would be fighting whom they have deemed as terrorists? Not a single nation in the middle east will listen to the US and their only hope is Israel. Hence Israel will get all the money and support they need, either through US action or US inaction.

Israel will attack anybody in sight who seems remotely hostile. They don't care how many civilians die in the process as long as they hit their intended targets. They are a rogue state in a very hostile region. They are not prone to peaceful negotiations and are trigger happy. Offence can be a good defence, but not all of Israels offences are to defend itself. On the other hand, Hizbollah is a militant organization. They need to be brought under control or killed or whatever. But, Hizbollah will survive no matter how much of an offensive Israel plans, because this is decentralized terrorism and not the will of a nation. Israel wants to finish off Hizbollah, its more than welcome to do so. Any country which has faced any kind of terrorism will be more than happy with the outcome, BUT DON'T USE THE LEBANESE LAND TO SOLVE THIS DISPUTE!

This in my opinion is the crux of the problem and the apathy of the west towards these innocent civilians is appalling. No point turning to The UN, its a joke!

All said and done, it is a sad state of affairs. Once of the recepients of the above mail I sent happened to be a friend of a friend who is an Israeli. He states that if nothing significant happens in the next couple of days, there is going to be a ground assault by Israel. This can only make things worse in the region!

Categorized As:

• Currentaffairs

TV to Comp

We have a small group in office which exchanges movies, either via DVDs, VCDs or more often than not rips. The problem with rips which are usually DivX or XviD, needs specialized DVD players which have the appropriate codecs. The time when I bought my DVD player, only Philips was reasonably priced and had this support. But I went with a Sony anyway and hence can't burn these rips to CDs and play on the DVD player. If I did want to play the rip on my DVD player, I had to do the below:

1. Get the ripped movie, some 700MB.
2. Split into 2, normal file split will not do, we need to have 2 valid video files.
3. Burn these two in VCD format onto 2 CD-RW's. This takes a lot of time, more than an hour.
4. Play the CDs. Sometimes the Audio and Video are out-of-sync and the whole effort will be waste, else you are good to view.

I then got a lappy from office which had S-Video out, which is a common thingy in the latest laptops. So, did some reading and could see many people using S-video to see home videos and photos. I thought this could also be used to see a movie being played on the comp(Many others in the world already knew this, I was just very slow ). All we need is a TV which is capable of either S-Video In or Y/Cb/Cr In. So, got myself a S-Video to 3-RCA cable and started off to test this on my TV. After a few undocumented tweaks on the lappy, I can now see stuff playing on my lappy on the TV screen. This saves me a lot of time considering what I used to do before.

Note: S-Video cannot support audio, so you need to connect the lappys audio out to your home theatre or TV audio in.

Its a good thing I changed my broadband plan to unlimited.

Categorized As:

• Timepass
• Tech

Ad-Sense

After travelling to a few countries in the world and having watched local TV in all of these, I had come to a conclusion that Indian TV Ads (in general) are way more sensible, funny and have more retention power than the Ads in these countries. And then an Ad happens....

I am referring to the monsterindia.com Ad that comes on TV these days. Its about how they can help people get the right job. This Ad has been running for some time now, but I guess a dented car can bring the best(worst) out of you. So anywayz, I see this Ad and suddenly find it totally missing the point, if you think about it hard enough. The Ad shows a guy dressed in cricket gear washing clothes in a dhobi-ghat and then goes on to show a lady in Bharatnatyam attire guiding an aeroplane to a halt off a runway. Here the desired jobs of these individuals being playing cricket and dancing Bharatnatyam.

Can monsterindia.com get a job for a guy who wants to play cricket or a lady who wants to dance Bharatnatyam?? Were there no other examples to cite? Duh!!

Categorized As:

• Timepass
• Currentaffairs

Losing Money... Effortlessly

How to lose money - Idea No:54

1. Get yourself a job in a startup which has no dedicated parking space.
2. Buy yourself a bigger than hatchback but smaller than sedan car.
3. Get to office late enough so that all the decent parking slots are taken.
4. Try to do the right thing by taking the trouble to park the car such that its easier while taking it out in the evening.
5. Have construction happening in the adjoining site to your office.
6. Have a senseless moron who rides a cycle working there.
7. Hope that his pea-brain computes that he can squeeze his cycle through the eye of a needle.

Eureka... you just have managed a dent in your car bad enough to cost you Rs.10000!

p.s: It helps if your name starts with "A".

Categorized As:

• Timepass

The plus tending towards minus

I read a rather interesting article in TOI on Sunday, about why terrorist advocated jihadi fever has not penetrated India as badly as other nations. It is a well known fact that after Indonesia, India has the highest population of Muslims in the world. Its seen in media every other day on how extremist forces in Indonesia have had open rallys promoting jihad. The same holds good for the Arab and African countries. But one thing which most don't notice is how the name of Muslims in India do not appear in any of the terror strikes that have happened in the affected countries(other than India). This is not to say that there are no such organisations in India or that non-muslims don't help these terrorists plan missions. But it is still a fact that, when seeing the bigger picture, Indian muslims have not been swayed by the jihadi ways.

This is both a vindiction of the Indian constitutional setup, which in its form stays adamantly secular and also to the political parties which though for political mileage support the cause of the minority. This has enabled this large Muslim population to see steady governance for a period of almost 60 years, which none of the muslim dominated middle east, african or asian countries can boast of.

Now, while this is true, there are also increasing incidents of locals i.e. Indians supporting the cause of these terrorists. This has come to the fore during the investigations of the recent Mumbai blasts. Many of the locals who were caught said they gained their inspiration from the atrocities that Muslims suffered during the Gujarat riots. We all know what happened in Gujarat and no point dwelling on it any furthur, but the affected people sure have to live with the nightmare they faced and the passionate youth see this as their reason of right to help the terrorists. The politicians who fuel such passions on either religious camp, encourage skewed ideologies which alienates the minority. And as a result, the alienated feel oppressed. A colleague of mine whose father, a Hindu who has lived as a minority, always says, you never know what a Muslim feels in India unless you stay as a minority in a country where the political masters always entice the gullible into questioning the integrity of the minority, day in and day out! We need to resist and even fight this implosion of the secular fabric by people and parties who could care less.

If the mumbai blasts are terrorist acts, they were a result of the riots and more, also terrorist acts!

Categorized As:

• Currentaffairs

Movie Review: Omkara

Shakespeare rocks! I haven't read or don't remember reading any work of Shakespeare's. I just know he was "the dude" of his time and story-craved directors of today use his stories to get themselves a hit. I haven't seen any movie of Vishal Bharadwaj, the director of Omkara and went in to see the movie without knowing the storyline or the ability of the director.

There was a movie in Malayalam called Kaliyattam, for which Suresh Gopi got the national award for best actor, which was also based on "Othello". So, folks who came with me to see Omkara had seen this mallu film and knew what the outcome of the story was to be. I sat there till the very end waiting for the next scene to unveil itself. Lucky me!

The movie is set in UP, where the law of the land is still subdued by the strength of the arm. Omkara(Ajay Devgan) is the right hand man of a powerful politician and a famed goon by his own means. His main lieutenants are Langda Tyagi(Saif Ali Khan) and Keshu Firangi(Viveik Oberoi). The lady love of Omkara, Dolly(Kareena Kapoor) is solved in the first 15 minutes of the movie. She goes against the wishes of her parents and by choice becomes Omkaras gonna be wife. In the meantime, the honour of being the right hand man of the politician is up for grabs as Omkara is looking into entering the public life. Against expectations of most, Omkara chooses Keshu to be the "Bahubali" instead of Tyagi. This sows the seeds of jealously in Tyagis mind and he sets forth on his mission.

Tyagi is in wait for the right time to show Keshu down and don the title of "Bahubali". He uses a family heirloom, a belly chain presented by Omkara to Dolly to be his weapon of mass destruction. Dolly misplaces it to be picked up by Tyagis wife(Konkana Sen). Tyagi then plays the double role of poisoning Omkaras ears about Dolly and Keshu having an affair and at the same time somehow coaxes Keshu to presenting the belly chain to his girl friend Billo (Bipasha Basu). With the stage set, and Omkara getting suspicious on Dolly by the day, Tyagi waits for Omkara to make a move on Keshu. But to his surprise, Omkara expects Tyagi to give him proof of the alleged affair. Tyagi rather easily manages the same using the missing belly chain as his main weapon. Omkara orders Tyagi to kill Keshu and he himself in a fit of rage kills Dolly. With the knowledge that his job is done, Tyagi celebrates. Not having taken his wife into confidence, the beans are spilt on how she got the belly chain. In anger, Tyagis wife kills Tyagi and Omkara in remorse kills himself.

There you go... the whole story. Is it enough to keep somebody glued for the better part of 3 hours? I didnt think so. Was it well made though? Yes, it was. Vishal could have done without a couple of songs and rather spent more time in glorifying the persona of Omkara and probably using a better plot to decide the fate of the movie, rather than a stolen belly chain. There was too much killing towards the end, but thats what shakespeare wrote, so can't blame the director. Ajay Devgan did well but nothing spectacular. A deglamourised Saif was the standout, while Viveik co-stars in another good movie with very little to do(like Yuva). Everybody knows Konkana can act and she did, very few expected Kareena to act and she did, and even few expected Bipasha to do anything and she didnt. All in all a decent movie, with a predictable ending with no twists. I would give it a 7.5/10.

Next movie to look forward to? None actually. I don't fancy the Chopra/Johar/Barjatya type of movies, so KANK is out of question. I am torn between Sentinel and Cars, or maybe RGV's Shiva... . I think I will go with Sentinel as I can trust Dimpy to buy the DVD for Cars.

Categorized As:

• Movie
• Review

Problem of plenty

World Cup is over, but the football fever is very much on. This season, I am going to keep track of the european league and now is transfer-time.

A transfer that made the news a while back was Rudd Van Nistelrooy moving from Manchester United to Read Madrid. This means that once again Real Madrid has too many forwards. With Robinho, Raul, Ronaldo, Antonio Cassano and Julio Baptiste already on the rolls Fabio Capello faces quite a selection problem.

Why not strengthen the midfield instead, get some replacement for Zidane or Figo. What not strengthen the defense, depleted by the retirement of Roberto Carlos? What do these guys with millions in the bank think??

On the lighter side of things, Gay Referee = FUNNY! I happened to see this as a very popular video on google and you can see why! This is one funny referee!!

Categorized As:

• Sports

Divided We Stand!

Bangalore's infrastructure woes are no secret. I have come across many articles around the net, media and also personal discussions which have literally written-off Bangalore. Relatives and friends from other cities, during discussions, come up with terms like "Bangalore is gone"! Lets give them the benefit of doubt that they don't know Bangalore. But what do we tell to people who live and work in Bangalore, but don't have a good thing or two to say about Bangalore? I am not trying to dissuade or discourage peoples freedom to express themselves, but then, just negative opinions and that too all the time? Totally uncalled for and quite unbecoming of "Bangaloreans". To be clear, I am not generalizing any group of people, just talking of "some" people I know. So, here we are, two sets of "Bangaloreans" and yet we stand divided more by our attitude to Bangalore and not necessarily our expectations from Bangalore. This attitude of some among us is disturbing at best, but what really irritates is the attitude of professionals in the other cities competing for the throne of IT capital. Do we have to show Bangalore down in order to show another city in better light? If IT were to collapse in Bangalore, it won't be because of infrastructure and would be because of something which will effect outsourcing in general, other cities included!

Lets look at the bright side for a change, shall we? Anybody in Bangalore can vouch for the infrastructure improving consistently over the last 6 months. The roads are getting better, the long pending flyovers and underpasses are getting completed, The Arkavathy project is gaining momentum, the BMIC (Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor) is fighting its way to completion, the international airport is all but ready, the metro rail project is approved and work has started. This all should count for something, Or have we all becomes cry babies always asking for more no matter how much we already have?

There is no two ways about the fact that when we talk Bangalore, we talk IT. So, writing off Bangalore is writing off IT in Bangalore. But from what I can gather, Bangalore is still rocking and fingers crossed will continue to. Now, what did I gather? I have been trying to recruit people into my company(a startup) for the better part of 2 years now. We have had a tough time of it and continues to be tough. Without going into the challenges posed by a startup, the job market in Bangalore is just too hot! This is the primary reason. The salaries are very high and talent is not less either. We still managed to get enough people to first reach critical mass and then actually grow. I compare this with the experience of a friends friend who have been trying to get some folks join his startup in Hyderabad for the last 6 months and is still unsuccessful. The talent pool here is high and that is not eroding anytime soon. I know many friends of mine who are from Chennai or Hyderabad who are working for companies here, but are in no hurry to relocate back. Its not that they don't plan to, its they don't want to, Why? I can guess the reasons, but I don't want to be that condescending.

A couple fo weeks back, I read an article about the Mumbai blasts and why its important for Mumbai to bounce back. In the same article they mentioned that Bangalore is next most important (not next most likely!) city when it comes to a terrorist attack. This, in very simple and undeniable terms underlines the importance of Bangalore which has grown to represent the modern India, the India that is keeping pace with the rest of the world in terms of information and technology. It cannot rest on its laurels, but please give credit where its due!

Categorized As:

• Bangalore

To: Bloggers cc: Uploaders bcc: Everyone

Some good news for guys who like snapping away with their digital cameras and then share the photos. Zooomr is giving away Zooomr Pro accounts to bloggers. A Zooomr Pro account means we can upload upto 2.5GB of photos! The image in my previous post was hosted at zooomr and I have already got myself a Pro account.

All you need to do is:
1. Get yourself a dummy blog, if you don't already have a real one.
2. Follow the instructions on this link.

Even if you never blog or never upload, it doesn't hurt to have free webspace.

Categorized As:

• Web2.0

I had to...

How many of us are on orkut? The answer would be "most" if not all! Almost every youngling I meet spends a lot of time on the net "orkuting".

I had ignored orkut and continue to, but this kind of following compelled me to do some basic looksie. I started with the wiki and went around some other sites and also the creator, Orkut Büyükkökten's homepage. Some websites carried stats of how much money he would make each time someone joined, someone referred, put up a scrap etc etc. Honestly, I thinks its all imaginary, as at the rate at which the orkut community is growing(though dwarfed by myspace), he is bound to make more money out of it than google itself!!

Also, interesting was how the wiki stats put India as the country where orkut has the 3rd highest penetration! Though this on one side points to how much Indians love to continue the social bonds they formed in school, college, job etc., it also indicates that social networking has arrived in India. The second I say with a hue of fear as the side effects of social networking are ugly.

Talking of google, Google Talk got a face lift last week and so did Yahoo Messenger. The changes by Yahoo are more telling, coz they have set aside their differences with MSN and now, support MSN ids inside yahoo! If my enemy is same as your enemy, then we are friends!

IM-usage Hosted on Zooomr

Google not putting up much of a fight, is it?

Categorized As:

• Tech
• Google