Take a Walk.......

Barclays Premier League Update: Arsenal V Man City

2011-01-13T20:48:00.000Z

Barclays Premier League Update: Arsenal V Man City

iSporter Alekh Agrawal, an ardent Arsenal fan shares his views about the recent clash between Arsenal and Manchester City in the English Premier League and his sentiments for Arsenal. A good read for all Arsenal fans and critics. And definite read for all football fans.

A Brilliant Poem on Arsenal

2010-08-15T11:58:00.002+01:00

iSporter Jigar Mehta has written this brilliant poem on Arsenal

iSport Force India Headgear Competition

2010-08-06T13:57:00.002+01:00

iSport are running a competition and giving away signed Force India merchandise and iSport merchandise to the winners. The competition is called iSport Force India Headgear competition if you are a registered user you can visit the competition page straightaway at http://www.isport.in/isport-competition

England are not good enough to be world champions

2010-06-22T15:13:00.002+01:00

I have written an article on iSport.in on why I believe England are not good enough to be Champions at the FIFA World Cup 2010, Do read and give your comments.

I VOTED!

2010-05-10T14:15:00.005+01:00

It was a funny moment last week, while eating dinner at 10 past 9 in the night we decided that we should vote for the General and Local Council Elections and it wasn't really my idea.

We quickly finished our dinner and were at the polling booth by 9:45 and Voila! There we were, I voted for the first time in my life and I didn't feel anything. Probably I am just too insensitive or maybe just too callous about the significance of big moments in life or maybe not. Maybe it just wasn't a big deal!

Believe me, for whatever I am, I am not ignorant. I have worked with politicians before, canvassed for them, sat at the polling booth, distributed pamphlets, handed out polling cards to people and escorted them to polling stations, but never actually voted. I can have pretty set political views and being a North Indian, I think I am bound to.

After a lot of introspection I think I have found the reason for not voting back home. It's just too complicated! For someone who hasn't stayed in the same house, suburb or city for more than a few years it is just too complicated to get the right documents in place to get a voting or a ration card. Add to that, A Muslim North Indian living in Mumbai who doesn't speak Marathi!

Imagine a real conversation that I have had a few times in Mumbai at some government offices.

I visit the ration card office and I lost, all signs are in Marathi except the name of the officers which is in both Marathi and English. I ask someone who looks very busy as to where should I go for putting my name on the ration card. He looks bewildered since I spoke Hindi, tries to compose himself and says in Marathi that I should look at the boards and walks off.

After 30 mins or so I work my way to an office hereby referred to as officer1. Officer1 most probably is a Kacha wearing cadre or drinks his weekends at the local Sena shakha. Here is the conversation where myself is speaking in Hindi and officer1 in Marathi,

Me: I need to put my name of the ration card.

Officer1: Why? (off course you can't you just spoke in Hindi!)

Me: To get a voter card and just in general.

Officer1: Why didn't you get it done till date? What were you waiting for? (Still speaking Hindi damnit, I already hate you!)

Me: I just moved into local area.

Officer1: Where do you come from, which state?

Me: I have my old Ration Card in UP where I am from.

Officer1 thinking, "Who are you kidding! Bhaiyya wanting Mumbai ration card, my drinking buddies will like this joke"

Officer1: No new names are being put right now, come back a few months later.

I persist and try to argue for a while, forcing the officer1 to reconsider my case and he starts his investigation again.

Officer1: What is your name?

Me: Asif

Officer1: What is your last name? Tell your full name.(Sounds dodgy, let me confirm though)

Me: The surname is Khan.

Officer1 is shaken a bit at what he just heard, "North Indian Muslim wants a ration card in Mumbai so that he can register to vote, Aai Zhavla" and translates it as "Prospective Terrorist wants to settle in Mumbai forever and steal my kids future"

Officer1 to Me: As I told you, no new names can be put on the ration card for the next few months, If you want anything more go to XYZ Saab who is on leave so come some other day.

Officer1 thinking "I just saved my nation, Shivaji will be happy with me. Jai Maharashtra!"

After trying hard to argue for a while, knowing the futility of my mission, I leave dejected and frustrated! I know the easier option is to pay a fat bribe to an agent who will go the same officer and get my work done in a few weeks.

Now contrast this with my experience in the UK. I move into a new house and some friends suggest that I better get my name registered on the electoral roll as it will help for my credit checks. I call up the local council office who post the form to me by speed post. I fill up the form, attach a copy of my passport and send it over. A few days later I receive a letter stating that my name will be added in the next quarterly cycle and it does get added! and iVote :D

To clarify a few points, I am not an Anglophile who hates India and Loves England in fact I know a few such ppl and hate them. But I believe what's fact must be spoken. There are lot of things that piss me off in this country too and there are times when I strongly feel that the bureaucracy that India suffers from is actually inherited from England. There are so many things that are so much simpler to get done in India then in England! More of experiences with such events later.

Why are Indians so negative about their ownselves??

2010-04-18T22:16:00.004+01:00

Why are Indian's so negative about India all the time? Some say India is not ready for F1, some say Indians cannot be good at team sports, some say Indians can't be good coaches, some believe we will never be a developed country, some say Indian's can't make good movies.... Are there any other people in the world, who achieve so much in such a short time after 200 years of servitude and are still so negative about themselves?

Maybe it serves us well, maybe this negativity is good to keep us in check. There are many maybes which could be good for us, but I just wish some of the negativity could be channelized into something more productive.

Sensational Yusuf Pathan

2010-04-07T11:20:00.002+01:00

Check out the article on Yusuf Pathan who plays for the IPL team Rajasthan Royals and is also a part of India T20 Team at isport.in

Sensational Yusuf Pathan

10 Reasons why I began hating Manchester United and still hate them!

2010-03-24T12:08:00.005Z

10 Reasons why I began hating Manchester United and still hate them!

Chelsea fan Suraj Kori, gave 10 reasons for hating Manchester United and it created quite a stir among the United fans. Football fans are not really known to be the best behaved people in the world, some of it comes from the passion and rest their own personality.

Read more about at iSport's Football page.

A Cracker of a Tie Or One Sided Affair?

2010-03-20T14:26:00.002Z

One of the biggest rivalries in the English football will be lived again on the pitch of Old Trafford, will an inform United side brush aside a struggling Liverpool? or Liverpool will gather themselves to register their fourth consecutive win over their fiercest rivals? iSporter Asif Khan previews the big game.
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Read this and more of my football and cricket articles at iSport.in

Infrastructure Scenario Of Indian Football

2010-03-19T14:38:00.007Z

Check out a very informative article on the Infrastructure Scenario of Indian Football by Shaji Prabhakaran

iSporter Shaji Prabhakaran analyses the developments in infrastructure and facilities for the Indian Football community and the efforts by FIFA and AFC to help Indian clubs to develop new training facilities.

To read more click here

Running Microsoft Project files (.mpp) on Ubuntu

2010-01-26T09:24:00.003Z

Project plans give me creeps sometime due to their sheer complexity and at others their stupidity in under or over estimating the required efforts!

Anyway, if you are using Ubuntu or any other Linux system and your project manager didn't bother to supply a PDF version of the plan, then you are stuck!

Unless you wish to install Wine and further buy a license for Microsoft Project and blah blah. There is an easier alternative called OpenProject which lets you open .mpp files.

OpenProj itself isn't the best viewer for project plans and I myself find it difficult to navigate around it at time, but hey it comes for free and does the job.

Easiest way to install on Ubuntu is to download the .deb file from here

http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/files/

Do also visit the http://openproj.org/openproj for more details.

And I forgot to mention, there are installable files for Windows and Mac too.

Installing RAD7 on Ubuntu 8.0.4 / Hardy Heron

2010-01-25T21:00:00.002Z

I have installed RAD7 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron a couple of times, As with many common products which were not originally meant for Ubuntu, its not a simple click and install as it is with Windows.

So, if you are struggling to get RAD7 installed on your kubuntu/ubuntu machine here is the procedure:

1) make /bin/sh point at bash: cd /bin; sudo ln -sf bash sh

2) install RAD7

3) replace the shell in the scripts: sudo perl -p -i -e "s/\/sh$/\/bash/" /opt/IBM/SDP70/runtimes/base_v61/bin/*.sh

4) replace the shell in the script for the profile management: sudo perl -p -i -e "s/\/sh$/\/bash/" /opt/IBM/SDP70/runtimes/base_v61/bin/ProfileManagement/*.sh

5) enable write access to the profile, so that you can develop using your user account: sudo chmod -R a+w /opt/IBM/SDP70/runtimes/base_v61/profiles/AppSrv01

6) restore the original link: cd /bin; sudo ln -sf dash sh

Here is a a tutorial that I originally referred to,

http://alexcozzi.blogspot.com/2007/01/rational-application-developer-7-on.html

I personally skipped the steps 3 to 6 and everything is running hunky dory,

I faced a couple of additional issues

First, where the initial installation screen would display blank. This had to do with the visual effects, which are set to normal by default. This messes with the installation script and causes some AWT exceptions. To fix this,

1) Click on System --> Preferences --> Appearance

2) Click on the Visual Effects tab, select none and close.

Start your install again and it should be ok.

If you are still facing issues like I did, then the library libstdc++.so.5 might be missing or the correct version might not be installed on your system.

run sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

Western worlds growing xenophobia

2009-04-08T11:34:00.002+01:00

I found this very interesting article on the growing Xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments across the western world,

Immigrant Death Spiral

Why Hajj subsidy should be scrapped

2008-11-16T14:55:00.004Z

I have been trying to write articles on different issues for a while, but it seems long periods of inactivity has badly harmed my already not so great writing skills. I find it so difficult to write these days that completing a few sentences becomes an ordeal.

Nevertheless, recently I was doing some research for sending my parents on Hajj pilgrimage. Though it didn't work out this year and they will inshallah perform Hajj in near future, To my surprise every search query on google resulted in at least a result or two on "so called huge Hajj subsidy" offered as what is know as "minority appeasement" of Indian muslims.

It was not the first time I was hearing about the Hajj subsidy issue, after all it is one of the more important grouse of right wing fundamentalist in India. But the fact that struck me was the most of the articles on Hajj Subsidy are from right wing fundamentalist web sites, claiming it as "Hindu Tax Payers Money" spent on "Minority Appeasement" and hardly any articles to counter their claims. The first thought that came to my mind after reading all these articles was that's loads of B*** ***T. On a more civilized note, these are preposterous claims made by uncouth individuals and organizations to spread religious enmity and disharmony in a secular nation.

The very statement "Hindu Tax payers money" is ludicrous. Is there only one community in India that pays taxes? Does the government compile data on how much tax was paid by which community and does it allocate funding for communities based on amounts of money contributed by each community? I know this particular paragraph is not the best form of counter argument against this issue, as I myself don't support these kind of subsidies. But sometimes when you are dealing with fanatics, every rhetoric needs to be answered.

As I have already said how difficult it has become these days to write a few sentences, I will not delve too much in to disproving these claims. But will quote some good articles by Mohib, Nimmy and Kashif.

Some quotes from Mohib's blog on Hajj Subsidy, Anyone?

First, let us analyze what exactly this so-called Haj subsidy entails. An Indian Muslim, who chooses to go to Haj through government run Haj committees, gets a subsidy of around Rs. 20,000 on their Air India ticket of Rs. 32,000. That is it ! The minimum cost of a Haj package through the Haj committees is around Rs. 92,000, of which Rs. 20,000 is paid by the Indian government to Air India as a subsidy on the Hajis ticket. The total Haj airline ticket subsidy was around Rs. 150 crore for the year 2001 and has been enmarked to Rs. 225 crores for the year 2005. It is interesting to note that the normal ticket to Saudi Arabia costs around Rs. 25,000 but Air India charges Rs. 34,000 from the Hajis. So, effectively the government is giving a subsidy of Rs. 12,000 only !

This is a slightly old post, but I am sure not too old to lose relevance. Adding some facts of my own, on an average a Hajj pilgrimage cost more than Rs 100,000. By Mohib's account the government is offering a subsidy of no more than 10-12%. I strongly believe that someone who can afford the so called "subsidized" can very much afford to pay for the rest of the money.

Mohib concludes with,

The bottomline is this, Indian Muslims should reject the subsidized Air India ticket, if not for anything else then for common sense only. Once the Haj market opens and this forced monopoly of Air India goes, I would not be surprised if other airlines start offering discounts to the Hajis. After all, which company wouldn’t want to tap in an yearly market in excess of Rs. 350 crores, and that too, just for the airfare.

Can it be said better then this? Leave it to the market forces dammit and I am sure the cost will go down rather then going up.

Nimmy's post is a more recent one, Why does Government push Hajj subsidy down the throats of Indian muslims?

What’s more, today, there are hundreds of tour operators who offer an all-inclusive Hajj tour package for the same amount without any subsidies whatsoever, and also earn a profit. Hajj Subsidy was given to those traveling through Hajj Committee. Every year Haj Committee sends around 60 to 70 thousand Indians to Hajj. Hajj Committee (by law) is forced to purchase these 60 to 70 thousand air tickets from Air India only.The Hajj subsidy was on these air ticket prices and hence was nothing but a discount on bulk air ticket purchases. But for political reasons it was given a name as a Subsidy and hence was meant to look like a favor on Indian Muslims.

The Hajj committee too needs to be reengineered.. We have lot of cozy fellows eating out poor man’s and government’s money.Maybe a transparent system of selection the committee members could be established..Recall a case against Hajj committee for fraud According to M Yunus, general secretary of the Tanzeem, “A return ticket to Jeddah costs Rs 21,000. But the Civil Aviation ministry, which booked the hajis on Air India charged them Rs 32,606. Of this, Rs 20,606 came from the Haj subsidy, the government provides. The ministry thus made a neat Rs 33 crore on 70,236 tickets it issued last year.’’. According to Rana Siddiqui, the petitioner’s lawyer, the Haj Committee also made Rs 28 crore on the foreign exchange it gives pilgrims.

Ok this says more or less what I have already said based on information from Mohib's blog. But read the complete article and specially the comments

Also check the Press Information Bureau in December 2006, Its difficult to get to the actual source since the PB site is practically useless.

A number of bloggers have mentioned that a Malaysian Organisation manages the affairs of Malaysian Hajj pilgrims with utmost efficiency and accountability, but none of them had actually mentioned any details. Some googling threw up the name Tabung Haji, check Tabung Haji - A Showcase of Modern Management

Their website is in a local language and the link to display the site in English fails, but google provided a direct link to the english section.

Please check the site of Tabung Haji for more information on how the organisation helps Malaysian Muslims in saving, financing and arranging their Hajj Pilgrimage.

http://www.tabunghaji.gov.my
and

Background of Tabung Haji

Last but not the least, how many of the people who actually avail of the subsidy have any idea that their visit is actually being subsidized?? Considering the general ignorance of the India populace, I am sure the figure will be in very low percentages.

Finally, I see a big business opportunities for the banking sector to make money from Hajj Pilgrimage. I will put the Hajj Pilgrims in two categories, the rich who can any day pay for the pilgrimage cost and the not so rich who save money through their life time to pay for their visit.

Considering the fact that big banks are now opening up to the fact of Islamic Banking and offering products customized to needs of people. Some of the banks can launch a savings instrument where savers can deposit small sums over the years, just like a mutual fund SIP. Obviously they will have to promise that the money will be invested in sharia related projects else it cannot be used for Hajj.

IM article

2008-09-13T00:40:00.000+01:00

http://indianmuslims.in/the-angry-hindus-and-the-muslims/

I started the below article in response to the post on IM
but call it lazy me or busy me, whatever, its been ages and I could not complete it, so if you still interested read the first part, the next should follow in another few years

Though many of the points look like rhetoric and ranting, the fact that many of them are plain truth can't be denied. All an Indian Muslim wants is a peaceful life, with equal opportunity and its own space to practice its faith, or at the least that's what he wanted pre-1992 riots. But since then things have changed a lot, both for the good and bad.

While some lost the way and took to extreme measures to retaliate against the injustices against the community, there is a sizable chunk which used the benefits of liberalization and privatization to make subsequenta better life. If only the first set of people would have avoided seeking revenge and joined in the latter half, things could had been much different. Also only if the governments had realized after the 1992-93 riots and subsequent bombings that the Muslim anger has reached the tipling point and will soon boil over real bad, we could have still saved the day.

Alas none of that happened and we stand at the point where the future looks gloomier then ever. On one hand the series of bombings have left the confidence of the country shattered and the community under constant barrage of criticism, ridicule and suspicion. The right wing militant nationalism movement, which is nothing but another form of terrorism, which had taken a beating in the last general election has risen sharply and will gain more popular support adding to the woes of the hardworking middle class Muslims who want to live a normal life.

For all the olks who talk about how Muslims keep complaining and don't provide any solutions to their problems, I will make my effort at it. All we need to do it to assure that we help and grow the size of the second chunk bigger and bigger, the more prosperous the community becomes, the less the inclination towards the nonsense of a community in danger etc. The another important thing that I think is holding back the prosperity of the community is the grip of the mullahs over the community. We need a movement which can educate the common Muslims that the mullahs are nothing special but a group of brainwashed individuals, at least most of them. The fact that we take religion too seriously among all communities in the country, needs to be pushed

State of American Economy

2008-08-05T17:01:00.000+01:00

One of the forwards floating around.

''The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China. If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. If we buy a computer it will go to India. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. I've been doing my part.''

JSP 2.0 (in J2EE 1.4)

2008-08-05T14:28:00.001+01:00

A good presentation on JSP 2.0 on java passion, though some of the information has gone obsolete considering its about 2 years old. The presentation gives a good and detailed explanation of the Tag handling in JSP 2.0

JSP 2.0 (in J2EE 1.4)

Tracing Indian fondness for Italian cuisine

2008-08-02T21:33:00.001+01:00

A good feature on ET about the fondness of Italian cuisine, myself be a fan of Italian food, it was quite an informative short read.

Tracing Indian fondness for Italian cuisine

Meaningful effort

2008-07-23T19:13:00.002+01:00

A meaningful effort by a BRIT, though I am not sure how far is this going to change any thing.

http://osamaloves.channel4.com/

Brit hypocrisy

2008-06-26T12:12:00.002+01:00

I did manage to watch the BBC panorama program on Primark using unethical practices to source its produce from India at low cost, but rather than any kind of an eye opener it was more an example of British Hypocrisy.

The following ET article sums it up quite well

This ET article sums it up quite well A little too laboured

Footballing lessons for Man U.

2008-04-23T20:30:00.003+01:00

I was surely expecting a cake walk for Man United in their semi-final against a struggling and out of form Barcelona side, but there was a hint of doubt that it might turn out to be a repeat of last years semi-final. Whoever watched the match would surely remember how Milan made Man U. chase shadows for the 90 minutes. But the first half has turned out beyond my expectations. Fergusson's team have literally been receiving some footballing lessons from Rijkaard's side. Yeah they haven't scored a goal yet and they might loose too, but the game till now has been an amazing display of footballing skills by the likes of Messi, Iniesta, Toure, Eto and the team.

Thats the reason Barca along with Arsenal are a treat to watch, the free flowing, controlling football that they play is what the beautiful game is all about. One thing missing out of the Barca game and the reason why they haven't scored yet is the speed at which they are playing. Though they have complete control of the ball, they are not playing at the speed which they use to rip apart teams.

So who do I think will win the match?? Well at the start of the match I was sure it will be Man U. but as the match has progress and they have been completely outclassed, I have my doubts. Considering the great English tradition of long ball which Man U. have resorted to at times tonight and at which most English team rely on. Man U can still win the match. For now I have fingers crossed.

I had said a couple of posts back that Chelsea have been lucky this season and might just win the UCL and boy their luck was at its best last night. After being completely outclassed and outplayed at Anfield from start to end, they were lucky to get a Goal, obviously an own goal by Riise, who is obviously at the end of his footballing career at Anfield. Considering Riise was not under too much pressure when he netted the ball, it came down to plain dame luck which got them the crucial away goal. But as I have said before UCL is quite about luck and many not so good teams have won it in the past, so it might be the luck of one such mediocre team to win this season and just if you didn't get it, it was Avram's team last night.

End of days!

2008-04-11T20:47:00.002+01:00

Another night another heartbreak, the sad story of another failed season for the Gunners. Sometimes you might be the best but the things just don't work probably that's what they call luck or is luck just an excuse for not doing well enough. Probably it was the mix of two for the gunners this season, their loss to Liverpool was a quick highlight of the whole season. The brilliant spark which threatened to completely steam roll the opposition, A mistake causes the setback and then another one and all seems lost, then there is a glimmer of hope and some exceptional display, then it seems its won, but just when you think the battle is won, a chink in the armour is exposed and its all over. All that is left is hurt expectations and the feeling of what it could have been. If you haven't watched the match with Liverpool or not followed the Gunners all season you will probably find it difficult to relate to.

So what's next in store for the Gunners? well nothing for this season, though mathematically they can still win the league but that even Liverpool can. All they need to do is to win against Man U this Sunday, the for Chelsea and Man U to draw and then Man U and Chelsea to loose atleast one more match and then ..... and then.... but well but it can happen only in day dreams.

More to come....

Strong comeback by Gunners

2008-03-30T15:56:00.001+01:00

Last few weeks have been a big disappointment for any Gunners fan, so many draws and then a loss against Romans trophy team and the trophy coach almost ended the season for the Gunners and gave the chance to the blues fans to poke fun, anyways every dog has its day. Yesterday the disappointment reached its limit when the gunners went 2-0 down and a man short and I gave up hope, switched off the telly and went for a stroll, only to return after an hour and find the Gunners have won it!!! believe me it was one of the most amazing result of the of probably the season.

So do I think the Gunners will win the title? nope I never thought so, in fact like most other fans I was myself surprised at the ascent of the team to the leadership position where they stayed most of the season. At the start of the season if some asked me who would win, it was a straight forward answer Manchester United or Liverpool, both had spent heavily, had stable managers (off course the Gunners too) and played good football. Liverpool like the previous many seasons fell apart and Manchester United are very much on their way to win the league.

The Gunners always have the quality but what they lacked all season and what actually will kill their season is the lack of depth in their ranks. They have some of the best players in the league, but not enough for each position, so if Kolo Toure or Gallas are out the defense struggles. I know it difficult to replace a player like Fabregas, Flamini or Hleb but you need some experienced players if one of them gets injured. Anyways if Gunners win the CL which will be difficult, considering the first match is against battle hardened Rafa's side, who if everyone remembers have knocked Chelsea out twice very recently, it will be a worthy price for the efforts and the quality of a young team.

The surprise package this season could be Chelsea ;) no they won't win the league but their luck is smiling in the Champions league, they were lucky to get a small team in round of 16 and again when they got the weakest or one of the weakest team of the last 8, lets see how long do they ride their luck.

Gmail lite back on CDS

2008-03-19T16:04:00.003Z

After a long time the CDS gmail lite service is back. The last time I provided the service of accessing gmail on www.careerdiscussions.com our dear subscribers showered enough love to crash the website in few weeks, nothing against them but a poor CDS co. couldn't afford the cost of serving 100's of thousand of pages on a limited bandwith and shared hosting plan. Though I still believed in providing free mail access to all poor souls troubled by their employers, there was no option but to discontinue the service.

So whats changed this time around? well nothing much, just that the hundreds of emails I received requesting the service lying in my mail box keep asking me when is the service starting back and that I can afford to pay more which means I can support another few hundred thousand odd requests per day on my server and in fact if the service catches up like last time I might put in a dedicated box.

visit http://www.careerdiscussions.com/gmail

for any support related issues, drop a mail to asif [at] careerdiscussions [dot] com

Another hit on target!!!

2008-03-04T21:34:00.002Z

Just as earlier post goes online, Adebayor hits another stunning goal for the Gunners. Hail the gunners!!!

As good as it gets for Arsenal!!!

2008-03-04T21:32:00.002Z

Its 5 minutes to full time at the Arsenal v Milan game, after believing all the while that Milan will ease through the young Arsenal side, I can't believe that the gunners are going through!!! Hail the Gunners!!!!

Are H-1B Workers Getting Bilked? its not only them!!!

2008-02-29T15:12:00.005Z

Are H-1B Workers Getting Bilked?

Overseas companies are accused of underpaying foreigners on work visas—and hurting U.S. wages.

I was surprised when I read the news on Businessweek, but I wasn't surprised at the fact the the companies are underpaying foreigners, but surprised that the US media and businesses were not aware of it or at least they are acting as if they were not aware of it. Its such a common practice used not just by the Indian off-shoring companies but even with big US and other western companies which bring their staff for onsite work. The practice is not just prevelant in the US but even in the UK and other countries.

Take the example of HSBC in the UK, the company which has IT development centers in the Indian cities of Pune and Hyderabad get hundreds of techies into the UK every year. When filing the work permit it claims that the company will be paying them in the range of £42K+ but the standard rate that everyone is paid is an allowance of around £30 a day plus accommodation. The total doesn't go above £18K+ a year. I understand that the companies pays taxes etc. Still the amount of money paid to these migrant workers is never even near to what is claimed by the company. It obvious that the companies are making use of some loopholes to get away with their acts.

The employees obviously don't complain for the fear of losing their jobs and also most of them feel at least something is better then nothing. Also considering that they are not well versed with the legal system of the foreign countries its expecting too much from them to fight for their rightful due.

50 inventions that changed the world

2008-02-29T09:46:00.002Z

Abacus- 190 AD:Use of the abacus, with its beads in a rack, was first documented in China in about 190 AD. The Chinese version was the speediest way to do sums for centuries and, in the right hands, can still outpace electronic calculators.

Aspirin- 1899:Little tablets of acetylsalicylic acid have probably cured more minor ills than any other medicine. Hippocrates was the first to realise the healing power of the substance. At the turn-of-the-century, German chemist Felix Hoffman perfected the remedy.

Barbed wire- 1873:The world's most divisive invention was conceived not to keep people in or out, but cows.

Barcode- 1973:Barcodes were conceived as a kind of visual Morse code by a Philadelphia student in 1952. Now, black stripes have appeared on almost everything we buy.

Battery- 1800:In 1780s, Italian physicist Luigi Galvani discovered that a dead frog's leg would twitch when he touched it with two pieces of metal. His friend, professor Alessandro Volta made the first battery which were voltaic cells stacked in a Voltaic pile.

Bicycle- 1861:First devised as a gentleman’s plaything in the 1820s, the push-powered hobby-horse quickly evolved to become the most classless form of transport.

Button- 1235:Ancient Greeks fastened tunics using crude buttons and loops, but it took the buttonhole to popularise the little discs of perforated plastic that adorn our clothes today.

Camera- 1826:Though British polymath William Talbot was the inventor of one of the earliest cameras, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce produced the earliest surviving photograph on a pewter plate in 1826.

Compass- 1190:Sailors in China and Europe independently discovered lodestone - a magnetic mineral that aligned with the North Pole - in the 12th century. By 1190, Italian navigators were using lodestone to magnetise needles floating in bowls water.

Condom- 1640:Egyptians donned them 3,000 years ago and the 16th-century Italian gynaecologist Gabriele Falloppio first advocated their use to prevent the spread of disease.

Fridge- 1834:Jacob Perkins was the first to describe how pipes filled with volatile chemicals whose molecules evaporated very easily could keep food cool.

Gun- 14th century:Gunpowder led to the creation of the cannon in the 13th century. The biggest step that led to the modern gun was Smith and Wesson’s metal-cased cartridge, first fired in 1857.

Internal combustion engine- 1859:Credit for the first working internal combustion engine goes to the Belgian inventor Étienne Lenoir, who converted a steam engine in 1859. It spawned the billions of engines that have been built since.

Laser- 1960:Physicist Theodore Maiman built the first working laser in 1960. His device was based around a ruby crystal that emitted light "brighter than the centre of the sun".

Light bulb- 1848:Joseph Swan in fact developed a bulb before Edison, but the pair later joined forces and today share credit for creating the gadget we perhaps take for granted more than any other.

Locks- 2000 BC:Egyptians were the first to put things under lock and key about 4,000 years ago .

Microchip- 1958:US engineer Jack Kilby built the world's first monolithic integrated circuit, or microchip that changed the world of computing.

Mobile phone- 1947:The first mobile phone service was introduced by Bell Laboratories in Missouri in 1947.

Paper- 105 AD:The Chinese began using bark, bamboo fibres, hemp and flax to mill the first reams almost 2,000 years ago, but it took centuries for paper to envelop the world.

PC- 1977:Steve Jobs, whose Apple II, launched in 1977, was the first consumer PC to resemble the machines that went on to transform our lives.

Printing press- 1454:The Chinese were the world's first printers – they practised block printing as early as 500 AD – but a German goldsmith called Johannes Gutenberg was the first to construct a press.

Radio- 1895:Alexander Popov, a Russian, and the Italian-Irish inventor Guglielmo Marconi, separately sent and received the first radio waves. Marconi sent the first transatlantic radio message (three dots for the letter 'S') in 1901.

Telephone- 1876:Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell raced to make the first working phone in the 1870s, Bell winning in a photo-finish.

Television- 1925:Scotsman John Logie Baird first demonstrated TV to the public in 1925.

The internet- 1969:Conceived by the US Department of Defense in the 1960s, the internet, together with the World Wide Web, invented in 1989 by Brit techie, Tim Berners-Lee, has shrunk the world like no other invention.

The Match- 1826:The Stockholm-based chemist John Walker was the first to discover that when a stick coated in potassium chlorate and antimony sulphide was brushed across stone, it created a flame.

The Pill- 1951:The contraceptive pill was developed by a team headed by Carl Djerassi, a chemist, in 1951, but wasn't marketed in the UK until 1962.

Wheel- 3500 BC:The wheel surely deserves a place near the top of any "greatest inventions" list. The earliest evidence of a wheel – a pictograph from Sumeria (modern day Iraq) – dates back to 3500 BC; the device rolled West soon after that.

Zip- 1913:Credit for the device's invention goes to Gideon Sundback. In 1913, the Swedish engineer made the first modern zip to fasten high boots.

Honourable mentions:

Bow and arrow- 30,000 BC, CD- 1965, Cardiac pacemaker- 1958, Credit card- 1950, Drum- 12,000 BC, Dynamite- 1867, Fish hook- 30,000 BC, GPS- 1978, iPod- 2001, Kettle- 1891, Microscope- 1590, Plough- AD 100, Rubber band- 1845, Sewing machine- 1830, Spectacles- 1451, Syringe- 1844, Telescope- 1608, Umbrell- 2400 BC, Walkman- 1979, Weighing scales- 5000 BC.

P.S: Courtesy Times of India.

ITTS

2008-02-28T12:21:00.002Z

One of the first site to come out of webfect is ITTS, http://www.itts-ltd.co.uk I know the first question will be whats webfect, its something that I had been cooking for a while now but not officially announced here yet.

This links basically to get this site onto google asap :) and also for people who want to take a chance to take pot-shots on the work done :))

Never trust a man who reads only one book

2008-02-27T12:50:00.001Z

Interesting post by Acorn, though it does hit my own religious belief. Never trust a man who reads only one book

One down for Chelsea ;-)

2008-02-24T17:44:00.002Z

I myself often wondered what difference does a coach make if you provide him the best players in the world, any tom, dick and harry can pick up an eleven and win the game. But after watching the Carling cup final today, it was pretty much clear. While a Jose Mourinho would have guided Chelsea through the final with clinical, though often boring, efficiency. An Avam Grant couldn't bring it on in his team when it mattered the most, the football was same boring one, but the efficiency was missing when it mattered the most.

As for Spurs, the journey from the relegation zone at the start of the season to defeating Arsenal and then Chelsea has been phenomenal. The manager is what made the difference, while Martin Jol couldn't get his team win a game, Juande Ramos is doing wonders with almost the same team. It could be start of an special era for Spurs from now on and Ramos could prove to be the next special one.

Planet49 genuine looking fraudsters

2008-02-23T19:44:00.002Z

Everyone who is online know how many tons of fraud emails and links that we keep getting everyday. But there are some which look really genuine and one such instance was when I received the Planet49 link while browsing rediff.com. After a 5 minute search on the internet I was pretty sure its another of the tricks of the innumerable fraudsters out there ready to pounce on unsuspecting souls. Anyways I didn't really want their free Audi A3, but if one of you fancies one you can visit the following fraud site.

Fraud site

One question people ask me often is how do you verify if a service provider on the internet is a fraud or not. These fraudsters can be job companies offering job in western countries for example companies in India offering services to procure a H1B visa or a green card etc.

The simplest trick or the first step that I take for verification is google the name of the company with fraud. So say I want to verify the veracity of planet49 claims, I will type "planet49 fraud" on google and wallah I have hundreds of people ranting on forums what a big fraud this company is, if the word fraud doesn't work use words like cheats etc. I know this whole process sounds pretty simplistic and someone might question if its a effective way of judging the authenticity of the company. But I find it pretty useful, though I suggest you use a little bit of you own judiciousness before actually making a decision.

SVN Ant task

2008-02-22T12:35:00.002Z

Opensource softwares and tools can be pretty powerful and useful, but they can be really frustrating too, due to their complete lack of documentation at times. One such tool I was struggling for the morning was getting SVN Ant to work. Everything seemed to be in place but it was still giving the exception

BUILD FAILED
.....
........
taskdef A class needed by class org.tigris.subvers
ion.svnant.SvnTask cannot be found: org/tigris/subversion/svnclientadapter/SVNCl
ientException

........
.....

Looking at the exceptions it looked somethings missing in the classpath but I had set everything that the plugin site asked me to. The worse part was finding the solution on google too didn't throw up many results. Finally found a couple of articles which were very helpful.

How to Integrate Subversion with Apache Ant

and

http://www.uusikaupunki.fi/~bgt/blog/bgt_mindscape_0703.php

Well done Liverpool!

2008-02-19T23:37:00.003Z

How often do you complain as to why did you agree to a dinner invitation specially when away from home, the prospect of lovely home cooked curry, well you do when you have a Champions League game to watch including Liverpool and Inter Milan. Frankly speaking Liverpool have been really poor in the last two seasons excluding their Champions league final appearance and this was something which has turned me off from watching their games in the recent past. But I had a hint that todays game might be one of those great Anfield nights and recorded the game to watch after dinner and boy Liverpool finally kept up the promise by playing a great game of football against one of the toughest opponents in Europe.

Well done Liverpool hope you give some great performances and help keep Rafa his job, After Mourinho and Wenger he is one of the most interesting manager in the league and it will be sad to see him go.

To add something for the Blues fans, their side as boring as it is got another boring draw. I wonder why Mourinho was fired, he too was doing exactly what Chelsea is doing right now winning 1-0 or getting 0-0 draws. Atleast he provided some great entertainment quite opposite of the Abramovich stooge who is one of the most boring managers in the league.

Arsenal disappoint again

2008-02-16T19:58:00.000Z

To say that it was a disappointing evening will be understatement, having known that Arsenal are playing a side weakened there was some apprehensiveness about how the match will turn up. But a 4-0 defeat came as a much bigger disappointment then the loss to Spurs few weeks back. I was pretty sure that the earlier loss was just a one off event and the gunners will be back in form after that, but having a pub full of Man U. supporters clapping at a great match(for them) makes it much harder to digest the defeat and I had to leave at half time.

One could see in the first 5 minutes itself that Man U. looked to be the better side but I expected the gunners to be in their rhythm soon, but it wasn't to be. Frankly speaking the worry now is that they might blow away the whole season if they have another couple of such games. The Premier League looks pretty much a two horse race and needs consistently good performance rather then depending on a single match and as such look pretty much in grasp of the gunner with todays winners as the only other real contenders. Chelsea fans will fume at this, but they should accept now that they winning the league can happen but only as a miracle.

The Champions league matches starting this are gonna put me in a tough spot as to decide which team support, but I will rather not watch those matches out. I still remember being booed out of a pub for celebrating AC Milan goals against Liverpool in last years final. Milan haven't been in the best of the forms this year, but as they say the class is permanent so can do wonders by winning the cup again. For now I'll my fingers crossed for a busy week ahead.

Businessweek pic

2008-02-06T21:45:00.000Z

Just had a comment with my picture posted on businessweek.com, so trying to make hay of my two minutes of fame :) please check here You will need to scroll down a bit and keep a watch on the right panel :) or else click here http://www.businessweek.com/technology/

Advanced java articles at IBM developerworks

2008-02-02T11:20:00.000Z

Foreword
Don't read the article further if you never have had any interest in programming

I am often surprised by the fact that being a Techie for years how rarely do I talk about technology outside the domain of work, especially when all my colleagues around are so enamored by technologies they work on that even the jokes they crack often related to the current technology that they are working on ;)

So seems this is the first article related to technology in anyway that is going to find a place on my blog. Following are links on some Dennis Sosnoski, the articles though are quite old but they explain the internal working of the java language most of which still holds true.

Classes and class loading -- This article explains the details on how classes are loaded in the JVM. The article will come as a surprise to a naive Java programmer who doesn't understand as yet what happens behind the scenes when he executes a simple Java class. It explains in details how a single class loading produces more then 200 lines of verbose code, which in a nutshell is a human readable output detailing each class which Java will load before loading your simple class.

It further goes on to explain the concepts of class loaders and with an example of the Tomcat class loader it explains the hierarchical execution of the class loaders.

Introducing reflection -- Reflection as a Java programmer will tell you is a mechanism which provides access to information about your Java classes, their methods and properties. The level of information and access that the Reflection mechanism provides you is much more then available through normal Java execution and often breaks certain rules of Java mechanism in providing the said level of access.

The brief description of the article on the site is "Reflection gives your code access to internal information for classes loaded into the JVM and allows you to write code that works with classes selected during execution, not in the source code. This makes reflection a great tool for building flexible applications. But watch out -- if used inappropriately, reflection can be costly. In Part 2 of his series on Java platform internals, software consultant Dennis Sosnoski provides an introduction to using reflection, as well as a look at some of the costs involved. You'll also find out how the Java Reflection API lets you hook into objects at run time."

Of Google and yahoo, with toolbars, search boxes

2008-02-01T22:31:00.000Z

Question: Why would you want to search the web from your word sheet that you are working on in a word processor
Answer: I don't I ever want to do that.

Question: What the hell is the google search bar doing in my Star office?
Answer: Thats the question I am looking for. I am bugged to such an extent with Google and Yahoo! toolbars popping up in so many softwares, especially the Google one that I am one inch away from hating Google forever.

You might ask why only Google, why not Yahoo! who are an equal culprit in the game, frankly speaking I am feeling very sympathetic for Yahoo! since the time I read about them been taken over by Microsoft. I know its just a proposal and the deal has not been through but considering Yahoo! has been lagging so badly in the last few years in every parameters and its bankruptcy in the innovation department it had to happen sooner or later. At least if the Yahoo! guys sell out now they might get a good deal and will provide a great chance to bleed Microsoft to death in the next few years. After is Microsoft going to make anything out of the $44.6 freaking billions that its going to spend on Yahoo! I think it will mess the company further and its a road to disaster. Anyways its not my area of expertise so lets not talk about it too much.

Coming back to the company whose motto was “Don’t Be Evil” and probably still is, doesn't really matter any more. The only thing matters is that its evil tactics are scaring me away from any software that seems to have any association with Google. I freaking want to install FireFox on my lappie and what the hell do I find it comes with a bundled Google toolbar. I don't want to install it but I don't have the option, if I want to install Firefox, which I have to rather then bearing the IE shit, There's no way out but to install the toolbar and then disable it later.

If you think that was shit, I install StarOffice and am working on some document and I see in the top menu the google search box popping up, well if I need to search I'll alternate to the browser window which will provide me the right frame to search why the hell do I need a Google box, I didn't ask for it but its there.

I like many Google applications, they have a good search engine(But these days all search engines anyways return more or less same results), they have many other fantastic applications, most of them just generate the hype but don't generate any real income. But I hate the way they have turned into the evil that they said they are fighting against, A monopolistic, Capitalistic, Evil corporation.

I wonder if some day Google will install a search box in the toilet seat where I will type "toilet paper", bang comes the reply "Look on the side tray dammit!!!"

Sena's housing policy

2008-01-23T11:15:00.000Z

I had smiling start to my wednesday morning when I put on NDTV, There I could see the Udhav Thackeray blurting out his usual party crap. But this one was interesting he was actually talking about providing quotas to Mahrashtrians in high rise buildings. The argument behind the logic was the weirdest I have heard in long time, Since maharashtrians are the sons of the soil and they can't afford such costly apartments they should be alloted quotas in them!!. I couldn't for a moment believe that people can be so irrational in their thinking. But then again the way the quota thing is headed only God knows where it will end. Tomorrow well see Udhav asking for separate rail compartments or quota in suburban trains, quota in buses, quota in public toilets, quota for walking on the road and so many other quotas since Maharashtrians are the sons of soils!!

The worst logic is that the marathi people are a poor lot in Mumbai, I have been in mumbai for years and don't really think they are the poorest people in the city. The other point that I always find it difficult to digest is the logic that they are the sons of the soils. I mean no disrespect to anyone, but Maharashtrians can claim the sons of soil logic on Maharashtra but it doesn't hold true on the city of mumbai. First of all its should had been a union territory and not a part of the state, secondly it wasn't founded by the mainland mahrashtrian people as such and thirdly it the city of the immigrants and it won't survive without them.

Anyways the sena gave another proof of their lack of rational and policy making abilities and how they are making a laughing stock of themselves.

Today's fortune

2007-10-05T20:25:00.001+01:00

Today's fortune: You display the wonderful traits of charm and courtesy

Todays fortune ;-)

2007-10-02T12:09:00.000+01:00

Todays fortune in orkut: Stop searching forever, happiness is just next to you

Some of the interesting ones in the last few weeks have been like.

You will change your line of work soon.

You will have a comfortable old age.

You will never have to worry about money.

I don't why but it seems someone at orkut has a nice way of keeping people happy ;-)

So long...

2007-08-21T13:51:00.000+01:00

So finally I feel I am settled enough to write something about and the first thing that comes to my mind is the mightily hectic schedule that I've had in the last one month!!! I have been actually living out of my bags all this time and really hope to settle down at least for a few months now at one damn place.

So I have moved through 5 cities accross the seas in the last one month, not spending more then week at a stretch at any of these, collected more than 8000 airmiles and finally landed in Fareham in Hampshire, UK.

Even the thought of recalling all those travelling and shifting scares the hell and hopefully won't be doing it again soon, or it it? Well, with the way work is scheduled right now I am not sure if UK if the final destination thougf I can consider it as my base for sometime now.

Not being addicted to any thing in particular though, The only thing I missed duiring he time is blogging. God its been months since I blogged, fankly speaking I'v been pretty much cut off from the outside world and its happenings in the recent past and never really got any strong views about anything to write about.

The premiership season has started and Liverpool are visiting Portsmouth in the mid of next month, would hopefully be able to grab the tickets for my first game involving the top 4.

Last but not the least this post was not meant to make any sense as it was typed at a trubo speed in 5 mins.

So long...but not anymore :)

Mountain biking

2007-04-08T11:05:00.000+01:00

It can' t get better then this its something I could have dreamt but would have never imagined doing in my life, not creating more suspense, I went cycling in the mountains yesterday!! and completed a breathtaking run of 12 and a half miles, along the beautiful derwent and howden reservoir in the derwent valley which is around 17 miles from Sheffield. The valley is one of the most beautiful places that I have been. Its quite, calm and heavenln beautiful with the course built around the reservoirs, The course has different kind of routes added for extra thrill. Some part of it is smoothly concretized while the some of it is very rough and highly dangerous to ride. Here are some of the pics which speak more than I can.

Fortune for the day

2007-04-06T09:40:00.000+01:00

You will never need to worry about a steady income

For those wondering what that is, its my fortune on orkut for the day on orkut. Darn why wouldn't I be more than happy to see that or really??

Life update

2007-04-01T10:54:00.000+01:00

This year has been very kind to me though it has been only a quarter that has passed it has been one of the most rewarding quarters of the last few years. After lots of promises, hopes and hardwork of the year passed by it seemed God has finally thought enough of it, this has to be Asif's year or atleast this one quarter. I know it might sound a lil too much of exaggeration or boasting, but what would you say if you get half a dozen recognition or appraisal meetings, a promotion and UK visit all in a quarter, Add to it on the personal front my third anniversary of a beautiful relationship growing stronger with every passing day, a fat bonus, big raise and yeah once again to repeat it all in the first quarter of the year.

To be on the more serious note this was the first time I was flying, It was pretty exciting. Somehow I never had the reason or the need to fly since I stayed in Bombay or pune with all the friends and relatives belonging to the same city. The flight was late at the Bombay airport by an hour at the killing time of the morning that bloody 4:30 in the morning. Anyways with over a couple of delays more I reached Machester via Dubai safe and sound to be greeted by the taxi driver in an Audi!!! I couldn't believe that the cabbie who my people had hired to ferry my home had a bloody sexy Audi of his own, I mean people in India need to own a fortune to own a car like that. Anyways thats UK and thats why they are bloody rich. The cabbie as expected was a soccer fan and a Man U fan too, So had an interesting chat all along the way. An hours drive from Manchester through the stunningly beautiful landscape and I was to Sheffield.

===================================================================

Its been nearly a week in Sheffield and its going pretty well except for the damn cold, God how cold this part of the world is and the worst part is that I am the only one who finds this weather cold!! I mean by peoples admissions I have got one of the best view from apartment in the city , facing the road and what with a dozen pubs and discs around. So I can see all these people partying the night out in bare nothings while I dare not go out for the fear of freezing!!. Anways tried my hand at pool after a long time and boy I was so clumsy!! but yeah I picked up pretty fast and won thrice in a row, much to the amazement of my hosts who were left wondering at my improvement with every move.

Now this is a freaking friday and a four day break in my very first week!! Plan for a rock gig, a premeirship match and a 10 km run all on the cards. If at all I wanna settle in a place outside bombay it should be a city life this, its quite and calm with all the amenities at your disposal and cheaper compared to even other cities in UK. Now thats getting too much so I should head of but with a promise of more updates of my encounters in UK

Some thoughts

2007-03-23T04:56:00.000Z

Few thoughts that I found in an e-book on a site, Its claimed that you would realize these things only when you are fifty.

"You should not confuse your career with your life."

"No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously."

"If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and he decides to deliver a message to humanity, he will NOT use as his messenger a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle or in some cases, really bad make-up too."

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

Airtel sucks!!!

2007-03-06T09:35:00.000Z

India is the fastest growing mobile telephony market in the world!, Indian mobile call rates are the lowest in the world, Bharti has added X million of customer in on month, Reliance has added another Y million of customers in a month etc.

These are usual lines that we get to read or hear daily through different mediums of news and media. Underneath all this hype and hoopla lies the truth i.e about the quality of our telecom networks which ranges from poor to pathetic on most networks. I am really pissed of with my current service provider which is Bharti Airtel and would focus on them for now.

I got my Airtel connection around 5 months back prior to which I used a basic tata indicom phone, Though the quality of service was very poor, I always suspected it would be because of low quality handset and also the fact the CDMA quality is overall considered poorer in our country. That was the reason I moved Airtel when I bought a new handset, over the months I have realized that it wasn't the problem with my handset alone, infact the story is same for all mobile networks, following are some of the issues I face with Airtel.

Land line users not able to connect -> I am frequent traveler between Bombay and Pune that was a reason I opted for Airtel as it was one of the few which did not charge roaming charges between the two cities at that time. But to my surprise people from Bombay were never able to call me from their land line phones, the problem was not with MTNL or some single provider almost all land line phones would need many efforts at connecting to me. I am really thankful to Airtel for this though as this assures that only people who are really dying to talk to me are going to take the pain of trying a dozen times before they can reach me, but bloody hell what if someone is stuck in a life or death situation?

Call drops -> The worst thing that one would want to happen between an important conversation is a call drop and thanks to Airtel's great service I have started enjoying the suspense that a call drop brings in. I mean just imagine the amount of hard work that your brain can do guessing what the other person would have been saying just when the phone got disconnected and also the relief when an unwanted caller is pissing you off and the call drops in the middle. In fact last night itself a friend of mine was talking to his girlfriend in Europe when the call was lost, we had great fun seeing him irritated and later when his girlfriend blasted him for disconnecting her call. We would have missed out all this fun had Airtel not provided the call dropping facility.

In fact I think Bharti should officially launch a call drop facility for which users can subscribe by paying a certain amount per month. There should be an algorithm based on speech recognition software that should disconnect the call at some interesting points in the conversation and off course I don't mind being paid a royalty for this suggestion.

Number busy -> The worst thing that you would want to happen is your girlfriend calling you up to asking who were you talking to for so long? initially I would be bewildered since my phone would be idle for all the time. Now we have realized that its not the phone but the network which is always busy that causes all this trouble.

Peculiar situations-> Along with the usual troubles that people keep facing every day due to inefficient telecom networks, there has been a peculiar situation in the last few weeks that I am facing with Aritel, i.e. I don't receive sms sent from Hutch network from Bombay when I am in pune but receive the same once I reach Bombay. I know it sounds really stupid but that's how the network works.

In addition to all this there are these billing issues etc which come up every now and then. After all these issues I would have surely changed my provider but the problem is I can't do that every now and then for obvious reasons. Secondly since most of the service providers provide nearly same quality of service I don't know if it would be of any help.

Slow down to taste the joys of life...

2007-03-06T06:15:00.000Z

It might be just another forward but something which we really need introspect into our fast paced life.

What all people want is “someone" to listen.

An interesting reflection: Slow Down Culture

It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule.

Globalize processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to posses a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x quantity of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

Said in another words:
1. Swedenis about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.
2. Swedenhas 2 million inhabitants.
3. Stockholm, has 500,000 people.
4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think? Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europename Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality", "life quality" or the "quality of being". French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US's attention, pupils of the fast and the "do it now!".

This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit.

In the movie, Scent of a Woman, there's a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, "I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now". To which Al responds, "A life is lived in an instant". Then they dance to a tango.

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time. We need to live each moment. As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

Congratulations for reading till the end of this message. There are many who will have stopped in the middle so as not to waste time in this globalized world.

Our contribution to the economy

2007-02-26T06:14:00.000Z

Since the time I moved to pune around a couple of years back I travel a lot or in fact I have to travel a lot, in the midst of this traveling I have met quite a few interesting people and have been involved in some thought provoking conversations. One such event happened a few weeks back when I was traveling back Bombay on friday evening by intercity express. There was a group of old men sitting around me chatting on topics varying from their old time experiences to the problems that the country is facing today, mostly ignoring my presence. I was more than happy to be ignored as that gave me time to catch up with my sleep or the attempt at sleeping, which I am always short of considering my hectic schedules.

Somewhere one of the old guys realized that I exist near the window and my interrogation started, after the usual questions like my name, age, my job, the place where I stay etc. came the stunner, one of the old guys asked me what is my contribution to the country and its growth. I was quiet for few minutes as I wasn't ready for such kind of question. Assuming that either I didn't understand his question or probably mocking at me, He started explaining how these guys have worked all their lives for the country. They were all government servants who had spent their life in different government departments and army and now led happy and contented life with the proud feeling of having served the nation.

For a few minutes I myself thought what exactly is my contribution to this country? As with everything else these days, the thought dawned on me a bit late "I and people like me who work for MNC's and never give a thought to taking up a government job play a very important role in the growth of the country". In fact we produce the bread and butter on which the country runs, after all where do these so called public servants get their salaries paid, from the taxes that we pay.

Talking in simple terms an average Indian software engineers earns around $50K to $100K for the country in a year, of which he gets a $5K to $20K for himself. Assuming a tax rate of 10% to 20% that he usually ends up paying on his income comes around say $500 at the lower end to $4000 at the higher end. Considering all exemptions etc I assume the government would be earning not less the a $1000 per engineer in terms of direct taxes which is much higher then the per capita income of the country and we are not even talking about the indirect taxes, the money spent on housing etc.

After listening to a lot of such explanations some of the guys did agree that yeah after all this guy in the corner seat is not so worthless for the nation but its tough to change old mindsets as one of the remarked "But still there's not service better then serving the people of the nation". I don't agree that we don't serve the nation, in fact we provide a much better service to the nation then most of others do. So guys lets for once don't complain and be proud of what we do!!!

Many faces of terrorism

2007-02-06T08:34:00.000Z

Every one knows one side of the terrorism story and very few know or care to know the other kind of terrorism. The one commited by the state and which pales in comparison to all other kinds of terrorism because its the duty of the state to protect its citizen regardless of their cast creed or religion.

Many such stories linked here,

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1559120.cms

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1918322,000600030010.htm

These are still nothing in comparison to some that I have personally known, things that have happened to family friends or distant relatives. Would any one stand up for justice to these people? The answer is clear, none would because in the 'us' and 'them' divide 'they' are the ones who have no rights.

Lady luck smiling on me :)

2007-01-30T12:42:00.000Z

After missing the big bucks that Bill Gates and Nokia were sharing with their prospective customers for forwarding their promo emails, I was left very dissappointed to say the least. While every one was making thousands of dollars(As per the emails), I never got a penny. But things changed for the better, though a little late.

Of late lady luck has been really kind to me and if I somehow manage to keep it pleased I would be a multi millionaire for sure. You would surely like to know which seems to be the shortest way to make millions, Well I am sorry I can't really help much apart from telling you that I am a internet addict and hooked on most of the times. So I have started winning 100s of thousands worth of lotteries as the below mails

===================================

From: silvia@silviasmith.orangehome.co.uk
Subj: CLAIM YOUR PRIZE.
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:28:52 +0100 (CET)

GOOGLE EMAIL LOTTERY INTERNATIONAL
WORLD INTERNET LOTTO CENTRE
EASTERN AVE 6528
INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION / PRIZE AWARD DEPT.
PROMOTING INTERNET USAGE OVER THE GLOBE
( WE ENCOURAGE GLOBALIZATION)

===================================================
From: lakkana landis (lakkalandis@walla.com)

Yahoo/Msn Lottery Results You won £800.000! congratulation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

=======================================================

Just note the number of exclamations in the above message.

While in other two instances some poor soul like honourable Mr. Karim Zongo and another Mr. Isa have inherited or come accross millions of dollars of property and cash and wish to share with me for little amount of help.

===========================================
From: karim zongo
Subj: FROM THE DESK OF MR KARIM ZONGO
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:35:29 +0000

FROM THE DESK OF:
MR KARIM ZONGO
BANK OF AFRICA (BOA
OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA-FASO,
WEST AFRICA
================================================

I have already started making a list of all the shopping and travelling that I would be doing with millions. Since I had never ever imagined about this kind of wealth, Please provide suggestions as to how to best utilise the money. Thanks in advance.

How to access orkut, gmail, yahoo etc. from behind firewalls

2007-01-25T13:15:00.000Z

Most of you working in corporate environment would indentify with the pain of not able to access your favorite sites due to firewalls placed by your companies. Don't worry there are many more ways to get through these blocks than available for blocking the access. Pained with not able to acces Gmail, I had created the following site sometime back and since then I can say "Access gmail from anywhere at anytime", it quick and safe. Take my word for that.

There are many other ways which can be used to access these sites, Since most of them are listed here I dont want to take the effort of listing them again,

Scribez Blog- Acces orkut etc.

Have fun surfing!!!

2007-01-03T10:46:00.000Z

The political and other news developments in the last few weeks have shaken my thoughts very badly, to the extent that I decided a week back not to read any news related to violence and related politics forever. Considering that I am a news freak and always try to keep myself of the smallest development in the world news this is a very difficult thing to do, but I am determined to keep up with my resolution of keeping away of the big bad world of political agression and violence. That surely means that all those posts on politics etc which were in draft mode for quite some time would remain the same now.

The another reason why this blog won't get updated regularly now is to dedicate more time to other things in life. I have always been accused by near and dear ones of indulging myself into too many things at the same time, which I would accept is true. The fact was I always felt that I had the energy and grit to manage n-number of tasks at the same time. But of late it seems its got too much into me resulting in severe distraction and lack of concentration one the current task as I would be thinking about the others at the same time. So the not so important of these would be filtered out of my scope and blogging seems to be fitting into that category.

I hope I change my mind soon on these things :) and get back to blogging, but till then good bye.

India Wins!!! Finally.........

2006-12-18T11:12:00.000Z

This post is late by a few hours and so a change in title. I was wondering in the morning whether India can pull this one off and to be very fair I was apprehensive, not because I was too sure of the batting abilities of the SAF's but because of the lack of mental strength that the tourists have dispalyed time and again in crunch situations. The fact is I lost interest in cricket a long time back or better put never had much of it, but being an Indian can't just completely stop tracking it. So, hail India for their first victory in South Africa, especially the quartet of Ganguly, Laxman, SreeSanth and Zaheer. They were the ones who provided India with the cutting edge needed for a victory under toughest of the conditions.

Should Chappel Go?

Lets do some analysis, why was Ganguly fired in the first place? He was underperforming time and again. Ok, what is the Indian team being doing for quite sometime? underperforming and very badly. Who is responsible for it? Along with a clutch of players, the coach. So why is he still there? Some heads need to roll in the Indian camp, even if the country wins all the upcoming tests in SA, none less then that of Greg Chappel. He was brought into an already well performing Indian team to provide that cutting edge and mental toughness to perform under tough conditions. But its seems nothing has changed, The Indian team remains the same; tigers at home, minnows abroad. So all in all his effect has been zero and add to it the rift and groupism among the players that he brought in. Anyone listening?

Was Nehru a incapable and power hungry?

2006-12-12T15:09:00.000Z

I got my hand on this link at rediff where they have detailed how the ineptitude and stupidity of our leadership, especially Nehru brought great humiliation to the nation. These are a series of articles posted on rediff.com under Remembering a war

Lest we forget

How Nehru let us down

You can scrap the army

'Ill-armed, Ill-clad, Ill-trained...'

There are many more articles listed there mostly posted by ex-army officers and people who have been there, done that. After reading all this my belief in something what my Grandpa always narrated, that Nehru was a power hungry and inept but highly manipulative and a political animal who short changed even Gandhi to achieve quick power. He always lamented that Nehru was one of the persons responsible for the division of the country due to his hunger of power along with Vallabh Patel and Jinnah. He passed away with his wisdom and sadly I don't see anything much available in the country to know more on this considering the God status that the above mentioned 2 guys enjoy in certain parts of the country.

Akanksha

2006-12-12T10:55:00.000Z

The article on Akanksha along with many other posts is still a draft and considering the record of last few months it would remain so. So, for now putting up Akanksha pics.

Akanksha is a NGO working with kids mostly in Mumbai in Pune in field of non-formal education etc. for more details visit www.akanksha.org.

Barca rulezzzz.... Once again!!!

2006-12-06T07:29:00.000Z

To be very frank just before the start of last nights match between Barcelona and Werder Bremen when my roommate asked me for a prediction, I was pretty quick in predicting "I think like all good things, Barca's good run is near to over". I am not the one to comment so easily on such things but after watching them play in the last few matches or almost of the matches I felt something was a miss. It wasn't the same Braca of last two years, The La liga and the European champs suddenly started looking beatable and after their last match against Levante, I was pretty sure that they are on their way out to play the UEFA cup.

I was proved wrong and I am so happy to be proved wrong, The first 45 minutes of the game was stunningly amazing. I could feel the punch, the energy in the game that Barca had been missing this year. The cheeky goal by the magician Ronaldinho was a proof that he is the best brain in football at the moment, coz it was less of an art and more of being smart considering the way he slid the ball below the wall as soon as they jumped. There was more to come, the second goal was more about speed from Giuly and lack of good defending from Bremen. For a moment it looked there would be many more but Barca missed some very good chances to score, anyways this was less about match analysis and more to express my happiness wih Barca qualifying to last 16.

Explosion of the Arsenal!!!

2006-11-22T06:49:00.000Z

The biggest disappointment of this EPL season has been Liverpool, with a lineup of Gerrard, Alonso, Crouch, Bellamy, Kyut to name a few they were expected to fire and give a shot at the title. But that was not to be, their play not only lack fire but the quality too. It seems they just can't keep up the pace with anyone, finding difficult to hold on even to the second level teams. The irony is that they seem to have the problem only in the EPL, as they have played pretty well in the Champions league, with 10 points from 4 mathces they are sitting comfortably on top of their group. With talk of trouble between Gerrard and Rafa Benitez subsiding it was expected that better days might be here soon, But the talk of the club changing hands seems to bring in more uncertainity and it seems the troubled days are here to stay.

The other disappointment had been Arsenal, though their situation has not been as pitiful as Liverpool. They have had some great quality games as expected from a team of highest quality but their biggest trouble in the last couple of months has been their ability to score goals. They would play a beautiful game with perfect passing but would fail when it matters the most that is in scoring goals. So much was I frustrated with lack of Arsenal goals that I switched off midway in their last few games as I did last night. Thankfully that wait seems to be over, with hat-tricks in the matches against Liverpool and Hamburg they seem to be getting back their killer instincts. Though the gap at the top of the EPL is becoming pretty wide for them to be considered for the title, but they are still not out of contention and can surely turn the tables around.

Of vacations, issues, sicknesses and marathons.

2006-11-14T08:13:00.000Z

Last one month has been different for it has been somewhat different kind of experience than the usual. For a change I had not been blogging for almost a month, not checking my mails or being active on orkut for days at a stretch and yeah for a change doing loads of shopping. So you can see a spanking new PC which sports a graphics card that can play most high end games and many more stuff in the house. So much so that I can say the most repeated activity in the last one month has been writing cheques :). The other important actvities included hogging, hogging and more of it.

For a change nearly a months leave passed and I watched only a single damn movie!!! I don't understand what has happened to bollywood, can't they make a few good movies now and then. I mean how do they expect people like me to bear a stammering, overaged, over-acting Khan trying to be a don where he should be running around trees with a cap and a guitar, or some 40+ playing college students and crying throughout(imagine Akshay and Salman crying aaaahhhh!!!!). There used to be some good movies now and then from hollywood landing up on our shores but off late they too seem to have ran out of ideas and can't do away with their fantasies with snakes and planes etc.

There was one sensible and entertaining movie that I did manage to catch up and that was "DOR", although I was very sure after the movie that Gul Panag and Ayesha Takia need some more acting lessons if they wish to keep acting in such movies. Neverthless it was a great movie to spend a weekend and your money on, with a strong storyline, great direction and some decent performances. With DOR Nagesh Kukunoor again proves that he's the most sensible director around these days. For some obvious reasons DOR can never make money like the biggies, but yeah atleast people were not distributing its free tickets outside Fun Republic to fill the hall, as with Jaaneman(The guys offered us free tickets pleading to watch the movie, which we obviously declined).

Another important event of past one month has been my sickness, I usually don't fall sick or so I think coz I don't remember last time spending 3 days in bed in the last 5 years or so, thats the period of time I usually recall things about. It really made me realise the freedom that we enjoy being a able bodied human being.

One of the things closest to me, Career Discussions has faced severe apathy on my part in the last month. I had though of utilising my time in building up a content base followed by targeting a user base for the same. But things went differently and nothing came through, anyways I would be renewing efforts for the same. Meanwhile I thought of testing ways to monetize the gmail service on Career Discussions Gmail after a friend suggested it, considering that there is a small dedicated user base that visited the page 6000 times last month I expect to see some results out of it.

The most important thing that I missed during this period was writing, there were couple of events on which I would have surely put up something. These were the conviction of Santosh Singh, the way the Afzal issue has turned up and Hijab issue, I might still manage to turn up something on some of these.

So that was quite an update for now, The marathon season is nearing with one scheduled in pune on 26th Nov and second on 21st Jan 2007 in Mumbai. I am gearing up for them and looking for partners atleast for the pune event for which I am not sure to run as yet.

On a long vacation....

2006-10-12T11:44:00.000+01:00

5th May 2004, The first day I stepped into Patni computer systems as an PPPP is still afresh in my memory as if it was yesterday. As they say time flies, It certainly does, only sometime back I was in college and now it has been nearly 2 and a half years since I have been working. Since the day I started working for some reason or other never took a vacation, probably not more than a few days. So after two and nearly half a year I take out time for myself for a long vacation or period of paid unemployment, planned for a couple of weeks with the big possibility of being extended by another 1 or 2 weeks. A much needed break I feel, I certainly plan not to blog, no orkutting and not even checking my mails for this period, though I think it won't be possible to be away from what is a second nature now i.e. being online.

Catchya all later next month, have a great time ahead!!!

---As If

Right to kill - 2

2006-10-12T09:30:00.000+01:00

I always shun controversy but somehow often end up in one, over the period it seems now I relish controversy so I have raked up another mini one by posting "Right to kill" both on this blog and at Indianmuslims. As expected there were quite some number of responses on both the blogs, while some like Mona were pretty confused about their stand, others like atlantean were outright rhetoric and abusive in their remarks. There were others like sharique who think execution is right since its valid according to Islam, but say that Afzal shouldn't be executed since he didn't get a fair trial. Each one of them are right in one sense or other. Lets analyze some of the important points.

Coming to one person at a time, The fact is that most Indians are confused on whether the death sentence should be given in any case or not. I am talking here of the masses, they are not so opinionated and so get swayed away by the rhetoric spread by vested interests. Secondly, a lot of people are sayin since execution is a valid punishment according to the sharia, What big deal if Afzal is executed. After all Islam or the sharia demands eye for an eye, I am not a learned scholar on Islam or any religion. But what I believe in is humanity and my belief in humanity doesn't let me believe that execution is the best way to deter crime. If that means that I am a little less Muslim then others then let it be the case. Frankly, I have the right to define my own principles unless they infringe on some else's right to live peacefully.

Another thing that is being talked about time and again is that he should not be hanged because he did not get a fair trial, I don't know if its true or not. But the fact is that in most high profile cases, some poor fella or the other has to be sacrificed, Can you imagine what would had been the case If even Afzal was cleared of charges?? So someone had to be executed, right. Now this certainly looks like one of those conspiracy theories, the fact is that it is one. But I am cooking it intentionally so that I can highlight what actually goes behind all the cases where death penalties are usually awarded. Most of the ones convicted are poor people who don't have access to proper legal aid or are denied the same as it seems to in case of Afzal. That puts a strong case why India should do away with death penalty, because its highly discriminatory and there might not be a single instance where a rich or influential person would have been sent to the gallows.

The most scathing comments as expected come from the extreme elements of the society, Whenever I or anyone tries to criticize death penalty, the first question the fanatics ask is what would I have done if it was my family. Now I can't stoop down to their level of sarcasm, so won't list their other questions but for once would like to answer them. My answer is yes, I would feel and do my best to rip of the single piece of flesh from his bones, I would want to put that person on a crucifix till every drop of blood drips out of him. But, this is one of the most important "But" I would have ever used, what next? Can we have everyone ripping each others flesh for every crime. Someone some where quoted that "An eye for an eye would leave the world blind" to which someone added that, If the state does it for the victim, the animosity would end. I don't see that as a justifiable explanation, I don't see a group of arrogant old men capable of deciding on the right to live of soul especially with their eyes closed. Simply because even if at a later stage it is found that the convict wasn't actually guilty, the sentence can't be reversed and this is bound to happen often, remember the old men have their eyes closed!!!

One more point that hasn't been discussed, People say all terrorist should be hanged so that we can deter others from committing similar crimes. My question is does this work?, does a person become a terrorist for fun, That he would suddenly get scared and leave the path of terror for the fear of being executed. The fact is that the moment these people choose this path, they know its a path to death, so you can't deter them by the threat of something which they would gloriously accept. Just a look at world history and one would realize terror can never be beaten by terror, America could never win peace with the Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans or any other country that it tried to terrorize into submission. While on the other hand Britain managed to disarm the IRA(Irish republican army) by getting into negotiations, giving concessions to their genuine demands. This helped in killing the reasons for which they had taken the path of terror, Soon they lost their ground level support and negotiated peace. Similarly Spain has finally woken up to the reality and is talking to Basque and ETA separatists groups and they are themselves eager for the same.

Further, America allows execution while Europe doesn't. So is America safer than Europe? Israel kills thousands of Palestenians every year so as to deter them from attacks, but is Israel safe? Has decades of Armed forces special powers act in some of the north east Indian states been able to stem the militancy? Has the presence of majority of the Indian military in Kashmir been able to stem the militancy there? Everyone knows the answer for these questions, So the fact is state terror in response to terror is not the solution.

I pray for the mental health of the fanatics who threaten our very right to speech the moment we talk about human rights. Comments like supporters of terrorism, pakisatni, leftists, mullah-marx alliance followers etc are a common thing the moment you talk of a human beings right to live gracefully even if he is a convict. Sadly, I am pretty sure that one more soul would be executed more so to satisfy the mob hsyteria and political gains, But isn't following the mob a fascist mentality?

I repeat, "No human being has the right to decide whether the other is worth living in the world or not. No court or a collective body of people have the right to decide whether a person should live in this world or not, whatever the ground be."

Pune - 2

2006-10-06T14:59:00.000+01:00

I've spent many more years in Bombay and Azamgarh then Pune, but for some reason I always end up writing about Pune, There can be many reasons for that, probably I hate the city more than I do the others. But this post certainly isn't about any dislike in this city, well this time its the weather damnit. I mean its so great!!!, yeah believe me I am talking something good about the city. The are so many things that one could berate the city for, but pune climate is something which none should or could even if they try to, unless they belong to some god forsaken land and don't know what good climate means.

I would just relate the days weather cycle in the last couple of weeks or so. There's a beautiful sunny morning, then it becomes pretty hot somewhere around 12 to 1 and we have to face the heat while going for our afternoon prayers. By the time we are done, which is around half hour time, the sky becomes over cast in no time. It starts raining and rains for 30 mins to a couple of hour and the heat is gone presenting you a pleasent evening. The nights are mostly cool, so can pullover a sheet and go for a calm sleep without the need of an AC most part of the year. Its never humid so even if its hot you won't be sweating to death like in Bombay, probably that explains one reason why Puneites hate Bombay so much.

So looking for a break from hectic and hot Bombay life, head over to pune for a couple of days.

Caution : Avoid the main city, its pathetic.

Right to kill.

2006-10-05T08:24:00.000+01:00

The controversy over the death penalty has again come to fore, after a court directed the so called planner of the parliament attack,Mohd. Afzal, to be hanged. I don't know and don't want to know whether he is guilty or not, I am not interested in knowing what the law of the country say with regards to capital punishment, neither do I have any regards or respect for anyone or any institution which advocates capital punishment. I have a single minded thought on this issue - One of the very few things on which I am in no dilemma- No human being has the right to decide whether the other is worth living in the world or not. No court or a collective body of people have the right to decide whether a person should live in this world or not, whatever the ground be.

We talk about terrorism and it being destructive then, We talk about us being civilized and then we talk about hanging so called terrorists so as to terrorize the others from attacking us. Are we missing something out here, we just talked about being civilized which means constructive and then we talked about terrorizing others through the means of the state. Are we not resorting to what we abhor? In my view any religion, any state or any institution that wishes to decide the life of other human being has no moral right to claim to be a victim of terrorism cause it itself uses the same tool to defend itself.

All in all capital punishment is a form of terrorism in itself and should be done away with because no one has the right to kill other.

A feature on Rock music in India on Doordarshan!!!

2006-09-27T07:23:00.000+01:00

It was interesting to watch a feature on Indian Rock scene on guess which channel, our very own Doordarshan or DD news. You might find it difficult to believe that a deeply insightful feature on the rock music can be shown on a channel like DD, but I wasn't there's an interesting story behind this.

A couple of months of back my cable line went phut, due to some unknown reasons, the only channel available was DD news. After much cribbing I decide to catch the news of the day on DD new!!! I can't believe that I would have to watch DD in the age. But mind you it was much better experience watching news on DD than any channel in the world, the reason is that they show what they are meant to, News. No if's and buts, now Why's or Who's just news, they don't need to give fancy lines like "Why are all terrorists Muslims" to attract TRP's. They would tell what has happened the way it happened nothing more, nothing less. Since then I am in love DD news and prefer it over all news channels.There are certain shortcomings though in the programming on DD news but that's expected from a government control entity running on loads of bureaucracy and shortage of funds.

Coming back to the feature on the rock scene in India, It was a well crafted feature with interviews from the who's who of Indian rock scene and the newbies too - Parikrama, Pentagram, PDV, Them clones etc. It was heartening to see my favorite bands talking about their struggles, their successes, the current Indian scenario, the earning opportunities, the challenges and almost all possible details.

So next time you wish to catch some news minus loads of crap, head over to DD news.

Baby steps to entrepreneurship

2006-09-13T13:27:00.000+01:00

Its been an interesting month in terms of happenings around, along with many other things I have started my baby steps towards entrepreneurship. Of the couple of ventures that I could really hammer out to something viable, One - Careerdiscussions.com - is online, though not formally launched yet. The other car rental service has hit a road block at what seemed to be the final step, due to personal reasons. A brief introduction of Career Discussions which I would be launching in partnership with a small group of friends.

Career Discussions as the name suggests is a career based website to provide a platform to indulge into discussions which would help them make informed decisions. Our tagline "Confused about career decisions, Come to Career Discussions" does explain lot in terms of what we intend to do. We don't want to preach or tell people what to do, we wish to provide them a platform which provides them all the information required to make an informed decision.

Now to run a site one needs participant, people who wish to be a part of a community, Who are ready to share information and help others, because that is the true essence of a community. Apart from that we are open to people who are ready to be a part of the Career Discussions team, you can be in the team if you can contribute in any of the following ways,

1) Write articles and stories for the soon to be launched portal, The articles could be on anything related to any kind of careers. So if you think being a rock climber is the best thing to do in life, go ahead tell others why do you think that.

2) Work as a journalist by getting us latest information from the campuses across the country or conduct interviews with College directors and do whatever your imagination can support.

3) Propogate the idea of Career Discussions.

The most important part in this is that we are not going to pay anything for now, For now its more about making your mark by being the best. So you might not be able to get rid of that boring day job for now, but you can surely be contented to do something you love to. So drop a line or two about yourself and the way you wish to contribute at asif.mkhan[at]gmail.com.

Don't forget to wish me luck.

---Asif

Of students and politics.

2006-09-06T18:30:00.000+01:00

Politics is a disease corroding the structure of the nation, Students are the hope of the nation. Students + Politics is the right combination to expedite this corrosion and would take the nation to its death bed.

Anyone who has seen the way election are conducted in colleges and universities in the hindi heartland of UP/MP would vouch for the above statement. There has been lot of debate in the media on the need of politics in college campuses in the country, after the murder of a professor in Ujjain in broad day light. The fact is that election on campuses have become more about power, greed and prestige then anything else. Since Bombay university doesn't allow elections, for someone living in Bombay it would sound very odd to hear the fact that student election in UP campuses always result in use of firearms, country made bombs, local goons, bogus voting, booth capturing.....Its common for a candidate or his supporters to be shot or attacked so that they back out.

The so called student leaders are in their mid 30's and have usually failed many times so that they can manage to fight elections till the times they get bigger venues to fight or are thrown out by much more powerful contestants. They usually belong to powerful and rich families and have strong political backing, by and large they don't fit the bill of a student. The trouble is not just with the elections, even in the normal situations I have known many colleges where the so called students sit in the exam hall with a country made revolver on the table and a guide alongside it. The message to the professors is clear, shut up and let me copy else you understand. Now this would seem exaggerated to someone who has never been there and seen that, but its a everyday fact that plays out in uncountable number of colleges in the north. That also explains how people like Laloo and Shahabuddin get their multiple degrees.

I am basically talking of the North because I have been there, known and seen these things with my own eyes. Educational institutions in Mumbai are much more a place of respect where even the rowdiest students show atleast some respect for their teachers. Though there have been incidents misconduct by NSUI and ABVP the overall atmosphere is still good enough for education.

All in all I don't see any valid arguments in allowing student election in campuses and as rightly pointed out by the Lucknow university professors, If the elections have to be conducted let the UGC or the EC or the government conduct it. Why sacrifice the safety of the poor professors.

Abu-Salem to contest UP elections.

2006-09-05T12:35:00.000+01:00

It won't be the first or the last time that an underworld don would be fighting elections from the prison but surely criminalisation of politics can never get bigger than this, unless Dawood decides one fine day to come back to India and seek to fight his way to the post of the PM. It's a different thing whether Salem would really be allowed by the EC and the courts to fight the elections but the fact that the person with his background has the audacity to seek such a mandate is no less alarming. This goes on to show how easy these people think it is to go scot free in this nation after commiting the most henious of the crimes and how deep is the rot in the political system of our country.

Going by the record that criminals have set in the Indian political system and considering the ground realities in the badlands of UP where he is speculated to be interested in - Mubarakpur is Azamgarh- and the folk hero status he enjoys in Azamgarh, If and when Salem tries his luck at the elections I am sure he would win. Who's next?

---Asif

Lage Raho Munnabhai

2006-09-05T06:12:00.000+01:00

Watched Lagey Raho Munnabhai last saturday. Don't want to say much on it except that its a fantastic movie with negligible amount of crap and a must watch for all.

Ghettoisation of a City, Of the Nation.

2006-09-01T06:32:00.000+01:00

More than a decade a go as a 10 year old in the bylanes of Mumbai where I used to live, festivals like Ganesh Chathurthi and Garba had some meaning for me. There was a sizeable Hindu population in the area especially Gujarati's and Marathi's in the LIG colony, who would celebrate these festivals with great fervor. For us kids, It meant lots of entertainment. In the evenings we would go to watch people playing Garba around bonfire and for the ten days of Ganpati they would screen latest movies on giant screens that would be especially put up for the occasion.

Then there is this place called Brahman wadi, as the name suggests all the residents in the locality were Maharashtrian Brahmins who it seems had lived there for ages. There were couple of objects of interest for us, one was the RSS shakha and the other is said to be the house of Nathuram Godse. It's said his family and descendents still live there and as kids we would often try to peep in to see the family of the person who killed Gandhi, although I now how it would had been beneficial for us.

It's not like there wasn't any communal issues between majority of the Muslims living in the area but mostly they were minor and were solved amicably. All in all there was a kind of communal harmony in a mixed neighborhood.

Then came the Babri masjid demolition and the subsequent riots in Bombay, many things happened during that time some good, mostly bad and some very bad. Considering the scale of the riots nothing major happened in our locality except for a influential Sena member who was accused of using police sharp shooters on his terrace to shoot many people and was stabbed to death within a month after the riots got over. But things changed a lot after that, although nearly no one in the LIG colonies was ever harmed, People soon moved out of it. At first it was the Gujarati's and then the maharashtrians, All who could afford to leave the area, left, one after another.

A once mixed colony turned into a "Ghetto", now there was this Hindu Colony of Brahman wadi and surrounding Muslim colonies. We were asked not to take the route via wadi to the station as it was dangerous though the shortest route, the Brahmins and the Muslims got steel channels erected around their colonies. Each felt threatened of the other and slowly the Brahmins also moved out, now the Brahman wadi houses many times more Muslim families than Brahmins.

This is not the story of one city or a suburb, this story is being played out every other day in this country . So when sometime back I was looking for a house the broker would often tell me why I should not go to a particular colony. On being told that I don't mind I was informed that the owners won't sell their house to a Muslim or in some cases the societies don't allow them to. The trend is spreading so fast that probably within a decade there wouldn't be mixed colonies at all, we would have ghettos, "A Hindu Ghetto" and "A Muslim Ghetto". For a cosmopolitan city like Mumbai this mean death, coz what makes Mumbai is its people, now if each don't want the other to come close the spirit of the city would die as with the nation.

Note: Now onwards I would be contributing to the Indian Muslims blog and this post is cross posted at the same.

Of Vande mataram and related controversies

2006-08-21T08:49:00.000+01:00

Another age old controversy has raised its head, that of the recital of Vande Mataram to be made compulsory in educational institutions from Sept. 7th 2006, which it seems was requested by Oldie Arjun Singh - this man knows how to be in controversies time and again. The political parties have taken their expected sides and Oldie Singh has gone on the backfoot saying it was only a request to celebrate the ceneterary of the song.

As expected many Muslim organisations have criticised the move saying its against their religion to which the strongest comment came from BJP's Naqvi. Now everyone knows how this man has sold himself including his soul for party and power - remember Naqvi justifying the Gujarat riots along the party lines. The other strong comments came from Maulana Bukhari, now I don't know anyone including Muslims outside old Delhi who care a damn about his muttering, except the Sangh parivar and the media as this gives them more arsenal to vilify the "others" in the country.

Being a liberal, that's what I call myself for being not very religious and patriotic, I don't understand this concept of forcing nationalism down the throat of people. Let people to follow what they have faith in, what they believe in. If they have a problem with singing Vande mataram why force them to, no one ever spoke against the National Anthem. It's become a trend to be patriotic these days and the current patriotism and nationalism have a great bent towards one particular religion, its tradition, beliefs and customs which are offensive to the other.

Whenever such scenarios come to light there are two options, one the majority should try to force their customs and beliefs down the throats of the minorities and call them unpatriotic, traitors and many other things which I won't like to mention. The other option can be to let the minorities define their own sense of nationalism and be patriotic in their own way. In the current scenario the general consensus seems to favor the first option and hence many problems.

Coming back to the point of singing Vande Mataram, I have always lived in areas which were predominantly Muslim and since childhood there has been a trend in our localities to hoist the national flag and sing the national anthem on the independence Day and Republic Day. No one ever had problem with it, but when you ask them to play the National song they don't. One of the schools I attended made us to recite Vande Mataram occasionally, My parents being aware of it had some reservations but never really asked me not to sing it. But when the same song is being played on TV they do mind, they find it more of a bhajan and offensive to their religious sentiments. Now I dare Mr. Naqvi to call my parents anti-nationals and Mr. Bukhari to call me anti-religious because its people like them who are the problem and not us.

Another instance of how shedding blood can't win hearts, For hundred years many organisations including the Sangh tried every trick of force and coercion in the book to popularise what became the national song after Independence among all sections of the society but failed. One music maestro, the nightmare of the Sangh - a convert - created a version which was loved by the whole nation and was an instant hit. Need I say more.

Our heritage.

2006-08-21T07:55:00.000+01:00

We celebrated our 60th Independence day a week a ago, on this eve there were many features by channels across the board. Especially the news channels, the one that caught my attention was a feature on the places of historic importance with regards to the struggle for Independence rusting to dust every day on one of the English news channels. Its a fact that in India we really don't take good care of our heritage, be it the centuries old temples or mosques or places of historic importance.

One such place of historic importance highlighted was the small town of chauri chaura in Gorakhpur district of U.P. For a matter of fact how many people actually remember the name of the place let alone what happened out there. We sure due have a memorial built there in the name of those who died fighting for the freedom of the nation but how many people actually take care to visit such places is the question that bugs me.

We sure do take care of the places if there is a big inherent gain to attain from it. Take the case of Babri masjid that was destroyed by Sangh Parivar and its ofshoots, the Muslims started fighting for the place only after the parivar people laid their claim on it to convert it into a temple otherwise it was dying its own death due to neglect and I am not ever sure even if some prayers were carried out in it till the controversy arose.

This trend is too getting deeply rooted in our society, there is a viral campaign by some malicious souls which are spreading forward mails and SMS' claiming that there are certain findings which prove that the Taj Mahal wasn't actually built by Shah Jahan but by some Hindu king many centuries back, probably during Ram rajya. I don't understand how does it matter whether the Taj was built by Shah Jahan or by some other King, people don't visit the Taj because it was built by Shah Jahan, they visit it because it is Taj Mahal.

A few months back Indian Express had started a campaign to save our heritage structures where they highlighted the importance and the current condition of a few structures every week. They probably would have thought they would be able to bring about some awareness among the people, but the way the campaign died down it doesn't seem it clicked, after all who cares about what's gone there's some much to do ahead. But the fact is that the people who cannot take care of their own heritage can't build a solid foundation for their own future.

Forthcoming movies

2006-08-16T14:03:00.000+01:00

Got a chance to see the teasers for the upcoming movies Kabul Express and Dhoom2. If the teasers are anything to go by they rock, especially Dhoom2. For a change Aishwarya not only looks beautiful but sexy too!!! in Dhoom2. The flip side can be the as with most movies of its kind Kabul Express can end up in Muslim bashing in the garb of Taliban bashing and Dhoom2 might not just live up to the expectations of a heart racing action flick.

---Asif

Pune - 1

2006-08-08T09:46:00.000+01:00

The thing that struck me most about Pune on my first visit was the roads or rather lack of them. I can go a step ahead and say, There are no roads in Pune city. To elaborate more on that, majority of the roads in the city don't fit to be there even in a village let alone a city which aspires to the hub of manufacturing and technology. A 15-18 kilometer stretch from Kothrud to the Pune station can take anything between 1-2 hours. The reason being the roads that are not good enough for bullock cart to trudge along support thousands of vehicles and its not like that the problem is only at some part of the day, say something like a peak hour of the day. It's the same throughout the day, whether it is early morning or evening, you would be choked to death especially if you manage to be on a two wheeler, the most preferred mode of transport of Puneites.

There are some good roads but they can be counted on finger tips, namely the Solapur road and a stretch of Nagar road and couple of other odd names. But they are basically part of National Highways passing from the outskirts of the city.

The second thing that struck me the most was the traffic sense of the people out here. As per the best of my information Puneites on average are more educated/literate then people from other Indian cities or at least they proudly claim that. May be this literacy is the reason that they would score somewhere between 0% to 5% for the their traffic sense. The only traffic rules that the Puneites follow is none, So although there is timer at a signal people keep zooming ahead although signal has long gone read and stating the number of second it would remain red. You can take a left,right or a U-turn at your will or if someone is walking ahead of your vehicle its your duty to take the vehicle around him rather then he moving aside or else enjoy honking.

I would narrate a recent event that happened around a month back. I was on my way to passport office at Senapati Bapat road and being a traffic rule abiding Mumbaite stopped at a signal although there wasn't much traffic. Before I could realize there were people passing by cursing me, because I stopped at a red signal blocking their way.

I think I've said enough about the road and traffic scene in Pune, but there's a little more on it. There was a marked improvement in the condition of roads in certain parts of the city after the PMC received a lot of flak from the people and open criticism by the industry. But come rains and back to square one, the situation has again worsened so much that certain roads are just not motorable.

One last comment which recently a friend made on Pune drivers/riders(especially for one's riding bikes). The elders in pune drive as if the road is their's and they can move as slow as possible, anyways who's in hurry. The younger generation drives as if the road is theirs and they can move as fast as they wish, who cares if someone gets knocked off, to hell with them.

Southern spice

2006-08-04T07:17:00.000+01:00

This post I would say is straight from the "Stomach". I am a foodie to the core, always in search of quality places to eat, be it a roadside stall in galli's of Bombay or say a hi-fi restaurant in the tony areas of the Colaba causeway or now Pune. In fact the only areas that I have explored in pune in the last one year is places where you get amazing food and the variety includes moghlai, chinese, rajasthani, food from the south and some more usual but stuff.

Yesterday was one such delightful experience at a small restaurant called "Southern spice" located around a kilometer or two near the pune station opposite to the famous Jehangir Hospital. The specialty of this place is that it has got typical mallu food- yeah now I have learnt to differentiate between mallu ,kandu ,tamil etc and don't club them all into madrasi's like fellow north indians - The punchline for the restaurant goes like "Food from the God's own country" and they truly live up to the expectations.

The ambiance is nothing great to talk about and the service is not up to the mark if you don't know mallu, because all the waiters belong to the God's own country and at times you find it difficult to explain things in Hindi or English. So, we were informed about the day's special crab curry when we had already placed orders for the curries.

But they are the best where it matters the most, FOOD, I was pretty sure what to order since it was my second visit, though my friend found it difficult to imagine what "porrota", "idiappam" etc look like. Our order of Fish fry(Surmai) landed on our plates within 10 mins and believe me it can't get better, deep fried in probably coconut oil it provides immense pleasure to your taste buds. The mutton roast with dry gravy was too spicy and to reaffirm its spicy nature they had added uncountable number of green chilies just to rejuvenate your taste buds incase they are rusted, add to all this host porottas and idiappams make a delightful dinner. For the uninitiated, porotta is a kind of paratha made of maida and idiappam is made of a kind of very thing noodle like strands made of a paste of rice, held together in the shape of an idli.

So next time in Pune, surely try Southern Spice and yeah incase if you thinking something is missing from the true mallu experience, There's an additional attraction, mallu music, most of the times they play mallu songs with an occasional hindi one.

Our media

2006-07-31T12:02:00.000+01:00

I m not really a fan of the Indian media, especially the news channels. The ones who piss me off the most are Aaj Tak and India TV. I am ready to put my foot down and say they are one of the worst new channels that we could have got, but yet they are one of the most popular one I assume, at least that holds true for Aaj Tak. For them news mean crap, they would show the crapiest thing live on TV for hours at stretch without any regards whether it is of any importance to the general public or not.

So, the channels managed to make a hero out of some kid in some God forsaken place called Kurukshetra, just because he fell in to a pit!!!. One can imagine say a decade or half back, such a thing wouldn't have found a mention in the inner pages of the newspapers and forget about the CM being present at the site for hours. But the way things were presented the CM of the state thought it more important to spend hours at stretch at the site and get live coverage rather something more important as development of the state or security.

The channels managed to get a couple of girls fired by claiming repeatedly that they were drunk and that they barged into the PM's residence, threatening his security. All of this came out to be utter crap, neither were the girls drunk and neither they forced their way through the PM's residence, they went in because they were allowed to. Nevertheless their employer thought its their duty to fire the duo as its name was being highlighted on these channels repeatedly.

All this would like petty change you look at the way the other side of the media acts, the regional media especially the regional and vernacular newspapers. I have been for long trying to follow regional newspapers in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and Urdu and the only action that seems appropriate to deal with them is to ban almost all of them right away.

Take the case of the riots in Vadodara after a 200 year old dargah was demolished, incidentally the same day Kashmiri separatists had gunned down some people in Doda. The next day headlines in some papers like Saamna highlighted the Doda killings as a attack on Hindus while they either ignored the Vadodara incident or presented a highly distorted version of it in some inner pages, their counterparts on the Urdu side thought otherwise and highlighted the riots as the attack on their community and chose to nearly ignore or under report the Doda killings.

The story is almost ever the same, the regional/vernacular newspapers are one of the biggest source of provocation for the local public, often the articles are highly exaggerated, distorted and inflammatory, especially in the times of turmoil. While they have a huge combined reach, the governments either ignore them or choose to keep clear of them due to political reasons as many of these are also run by politicians or organizations related to them.

The most alarming trend is that this trend of selective and distorted reporting is being carried forward by the national media too, It has become very prominent after the Mumbai blast. I would take this up on another post.

Another thing that peeves me the most is the depth of our media reports, Most of the print reports are bad in quality and too shallow. So a story which would run into many columns in say a NYT, Times of India would try to fit into one, even if that mean it doesn't make much sense and loses it relevance in the process. I don't understand, is it commercialism or pure stupidity and incompetence and as one would expect the worst culprit is Times of India, no wonder I have moved to Indian Express long back. I prefer fewer number of quality news rather than wasting time of a hundred pages of senseless ranting.

A thousand revolts lead to a revolution.

2006-07-19T08:44:00.000+01:00

"A thousand revolts lead to a revolution". The number thousand here is just a random number it can be anything from a a thousand to a million acts of revolt which finally aid to bring in a revolution. Mark the word aid, because it takes much more than revolts to bring in a true revolution. For eg: We achieved Independence from the British in 1947, but it took another 50 years for the people to get released from centuries of oppression based on class and caste. This was the true independence that we were fighting for, the independence from the British was more of a symbolic and it was one of the first form of independence which later triggered a chain, resulting in the true one which we are relishing today. I am not saying here that we have achieved total freedom from the vices of oppression based on class, caste and religion. But its just that the things have changed too much, for better, in the last 20 years or so for the lowest of caste in the Indian hierarchy. The change that they have seen in a few decades is the one which their forefathers had dreamt for centuries or approx 5000 years.

Yesterday night while watching the movie, Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi, I just re - lived the story of one such revolt. It wasn't the first time I was watching the movie, I have seen it couple of times and it certainly figures on my favorite list. Its about movie making in the true sense, it symbolizes the thousands of unknown revolts in the remotest parts of our huge country, by some unknown faces. The revolts whose fruit of revolution we relish in our lives, oblivious of the fact that they exist. Not many really care about history in today's world, there are hardly any youth who are aware of the Naxalbari Andolan or the emergency and the fight against it, Neither are these stories told on popular stages often. I am pretty sure these stories would be lost sooner or later considering our history in preserving our heritage, might be that's their fate after all individually they were failures.

2006-07-18T06:22:00.000+01:00

When I read it yesterday on Gaurav's Blog, couldn't believe it and frankly speaking took it as just another crap floating on the blog world. Then a friend said she could not reach her blog from home, I gave a thought to what Gaurav was saying, but I could still access these sites so was still doubtful. But now its official Indian government has banned Blogspot!!!, I had expected many kind of paranoiac reaction from the government to hide its incompetence in fighting terror attack which are results of grave intelligence failure and the lack of people skills that our politicians possess. I had never expected that it would ban Blogspot, no explanations have come forward yet and I don't see any coming.

Probably some old babu would have felt that blogs are a security threat and they are the reason behind the terror attacks and the indecency in the Indian society, they could ban google, orkut, yahoo, rediff..... And why not internet. After all emails can be a great source of risk to the country with the ease they can transfer information. We can take a cue from China and allow only specific sites that would finally give the government a chance to make the Left happy, you know we are following the Chinese!!!.

As per the report in the Economic times you can still visit the banned blogs from some pakistani blogsite, can you imagine Indian visiting blogs banned by their government using sites hosted by their arch rivals!!!. This could certainly be a measure on behalf of the government for improving ties with the enemy in the neighborhood. So we could hear a statement from MS at G8 summit We are taking great steps forward towards improving our relations with pakistan, we have banned direct access to the internet, Indians can access the sites only through the pakistani blog site. Finally, our Foreign ministry would have something to show as a good PR measure.

---Asif

The Individual

2006-07-07T10:34:00.000+01:00

There has been numerous instances of the individual changing the fate of their families, countries and individuals who by their actions have changed the way the world lives. So a Newton by his intellect and findings changed the way we perceive the basic nature of the thing in the world and a Hitler or a Napoleon used their power of foresight and conquered or tried to conquer the world. I do idolise the latter two guys but for their evil intentions, they would had been one of the greatest source of power of the individual in the world history.

In the modern corporate world the power of individual is being suppressed to some extent, as there is more insistence on team work. So, if you are very good at your job and not a great team player there are high chances that your seniors would try to stymie your growth prospects. This is most obvious at the lower level positions in the corporate hierarchy, because that's the level where you can be more easily be subdued and subordinated, where there are less chances for picking up something and going for it all on your own.

Here it should not be read that I am against team work, in fact I emphasize on the fact that no individual can achieve a great objective in life without forming a great team. But for that they need to be given that leverage to go ahead in life. The most recent and striking example that I would pick up is from the field of sport, none other than the legend Zidane, any body who follows football in any form would surely be aware of Zidane's exploits, most importantly in the ongoing world cup. He had a lead a aging team, mired in criticism from all and sundry to the pinnacle of the greatest sporting event in the world. Football is all about team work, but once in a while we get to see, players who are not only great at individual skills, but are great leaders too. And they can use their charismatic greatness to lead an average performing group of individuals to glory. I know this example is debatable but one more win and the debate would be over.

In the field of Indian business the most striking name would be that of the late Dhirubhai Ambani,who single handedly fired the inspirations of millions and who doesn't know Mr. Murthy of Infosys, they not only created huge businesses but set an example of achievement, humility and how a middle class youngster can chase his dream and be one of the richest or one of the most respected by his own actions. That's the power of individual at its best, they did not inherit millions but they made millionaires out of nothing.

I want to stress on two things by the above exmples, one that hard work, passion, ethics, patience and integrity together with some arrogance and attitude thrown in can make an individual achieve his objective in life. Second, you can be everything but still fail if you don't know how to form a great team. A strong willed individual who can inculcate these few simple attributes in himself won't need to sit in a cubicle cursing his compnay, his bosses, his fate and everything else in the world for being wrong.

The number of examples about people that I have given in this one post surely exceed the sum of all examples I have given in others, the reason being I don't believe in making God out of people, they can be my inspiration but not everything.

By the ways this was my 50th post, excluding nearly 10 which I would have deleted in the initial phase of blogging.

A night of fear and love

2006-07-07T07:30:00.000+01:00

A couple a years a ago rain meant joy for me, it meant walking home from college soaking in a drizzle with a 'bhutta' in hand, visiting beaches and waterfalls with friends and pals, playing football in water logged on the roads till the body soaked and turned white. Rains meant closed schools, breezy beaches, gusty promenade, beauty, romance and so much more to each mumbaikar. Mumbaites were so used to heavy to very heavy rains that even on a rainy day when people in any other city would just doze off in their warm houses, a typical mumbaite would trudge through the waters and reach work and back as if trying to beat the nature at its game.

One fine sunny day the GOD's decided to break this will, to test our strength, to storm our minds and cloud our memory with fear, death and destruction that rains bring in and unleashed the fury which is now known and 26/7. Within a couple of hours they poured as much water as they don't even in a year, these were no rains this was wrath and revenge of the nature for a fault mumbaikars still can't understand.

The city fought back hard, refusing to bow down, people walked kilometers on a dark and gloomy night, they had never imagined in their lives. With water logged to heights of 6 to 10 feet it was nothing short of outrageous courage to even walk on the roads, tens of hundreds died. Some drowned, some electrocuted, others asphyxiated... suddenly so many reasons for death surfaced, so many ways to the same end; death, and the same reason rains!!!

One of the longest night in the history of city slowly passed by, the waters receded, leaving behind an indelible scar on the minds which would go down only with the generation. The receding waters and the breaking light showed what should not be talked and discussed, silence is what I have maintained since the day whenever some one talked of the day. Many attempts at penning my experience on the day have been shredded to dust only after a year I could freeze down some thought to pen.

The memory of beautiful monsoons now seem too distant, too far fetched, what comes to mind is the hours spent soaking in the downpour, the long night spent in the bus, walking kilometers at the break of dawn on the road which seemed a junk yard of vehicles and so many more things.

One thing blossomed through out all this was love, in many forms. One could see couples hanging around, walking hand in hand, helping each other to tide over the trouble they would probably face once they reach home. Then there was the love for humanity, people who were lucky enough to be safely at home made sure to help others with all their means, providing them place to rest, distributing food to stranded commuters, giving lift when possible.

The rains exposed many faces of the city out of which one I haven't talked about as all know it as well and none are doing anything to save themselves from its apathy.

Cost of democracy?? Cost of wealth??

2006-07-06T18:44:00.000+01:00

Was just wondering the cost of democracy that Americans are paying, no not for their own country but bringing democracy to Iraq, which is many thousand kilometres away from their land and would have never in the wildest of their dreams attacked them or even would have come close to one.

American Deaths since the war started : 2538 out of which 2051 have died in combat. source http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

Ask the Iraqis the cost of democracy that they are paying, it would certainly be hundreds of thousands in terms of direct deaths and and God knows how many in terms of indirect deaths, the Americans won't let the figures come out for sometime to come. Did the Iraqis ask for democracy they didn't, they were happy to be ruled by a dictator however cruel till they had peace, progress, education, religious freedom, a modern life and nearly everything they could ask for. But then they had the biggest curse that God and endowed them with, OIL, the oil that gave them everything, took away the same.

A fanatic, capitalistic, religious bigot called Bush and his Son not satisfied with looting their own country plundered Iraq. The reasons that they have given are many and change every few months, first they were WMD's, then chemical weapons, biological weapons, bringing democracy....... and now that God had visited Blair and Bush, the messiah of the oppressed and asked them to attack Iraq. Didn't they ask God why the heck he wants them to do that, anyways we all do that to save our asses, when nothing works blame it on God and when nothing works leave it on God. That's whats the worlds has done, leave the Iraqis on God only he can save them.

My first travelogue

2006-06-14T05:15:00.000+01:00

If I have to express my travel experiences in a few words, I would say "I am a badly traveled person". To substantiate it, I have never traveled any where except when required, the only places are Mumbai(where I have spent substantial part of life), Pune(currently working), Nashik(visiting aunt) and my home town of Azamgarh. Even in the cities that I had been staying, I found myself not visiting most of the places worth a visit. So I had not known how Essel world looks like till a year ago or say Water kingdom, Madh, Matheran.... There are so many places that I have not visited for some reason or other.

So when a travel site asks me to write about one of my most memorable visits, I am in trouble what should I write about? Some friends suggested to read about a place and write the same, after all who's gonna check, but I decide other wise. So I dig into my memories to find out an visit worth a mention and remember the following trip to Nashik which was incidentally my first one.

It was around 6 years back when I first went to Nashik with my aunt, we took a local train to Kasara and a cab thereafter. The best part of the traveling to Nashik is passing through Kasara Ghat, especially in rainy season, so you have the road cut out through these huge mountains and surrounded by dangerously deep valley and gorges. Moving on this dangerously beautiful road was a thrill until the car broke down, the driver informed "30 mins to move". I grabbed the chance to explore the Ghat. The scene out side was amazing, there was a kind of foggy drizzle I had never experienced before, the whole Ghat was covered with foggy clouds and a number of small waterfalls coming down from the hills made the scene more delightful. The valley below was alive with greenery although it was the first rains of the season.

I have always wondered how it takes only a day of rain for the hills steeped in dark brown to turn green, within a couple of days as the rains approach one can see the hilltop covered with greenery and life. What with the greenery and blooming flowers attracting different birds and animals alike, including yours truly.

Since then onwards I always looked ahead to my Nashik visits every time the rainy season arrived, until I shifted to Pune. The scenery around the road to pune, especially in the Lonavala ghat area is equally beautiful if not more than Kasara and aiding to it is the beautifully built, comfortable and speedy expressway. The ghat area stretches longer than the 12-14 kilometres than that of Kasara and has got some of the most beautiful stretch of mountains I have ever seen.

By now I have lost count of the number of times I have passed through these ghats and know nearly all the places well, including the number of tunnels and the shape of each mountain or hill, each curve on the road, but the journey is still full of excitement and thrill. But some how now I prefer taking the NH4 or what is called as the old Mumbai-Pune highway, when in the mood of leisure. The road is much slower and narrower than the expressway and is lot more dangerous too, the curves and climbings are very steep than the ones you face on the expressway but neverthless add to the excitement of the journey.

My new business plan.

2006-05-31T11:48:00.000+01:00

This is a topic which I had been long thinking of posting, I try to make a swipe at the Business of religion that's booming in the country at a much more rapid pace than the IT/ITes industry. Sadly, since the business is run by babalogs who are revered by the politicians there's no record of the amount of money that these bablog's dupe the poor of. They come in different shapes and forms, some preaching to be gods themselves and others claiming to be the medical version of God, of which the most popular one currently is a man with a stye in the eye which he cannot cure and who's omnipresent - half nude - whichever channel you surf. So comes this satiristic post on the bablogs which I had posted on the FUKAT blog.

In my discussions with some of my friends on their career and professional choices, one of the best comments came from a sports racer, not sure if it was his original though, The best business to be in, in this country are Sports, Bollywood and Politics for sure, but there is one thing that's on top of these three and that's religion.

Yes I said religion, one would ask business being a religion, why not just take a look around the country. I assume the maximum number of tourists that this country entertains are on religious or spiritual quest and the exoticism that the western writers have attached to the east certainly has a major role in it.

Coming back to the business plan, Over a cup of evening coffee one of my friend and colleague decides he wants to be God or more rightly put a Godmen. Now the thoughts turn to finding a suitable business plan and I for once readily agree to play a second fiddle by being the marketing manager for the "Baba". Since baba's are supposed to be the one who renounce the world atleast in front of the general public, this job wasn't for me and that explains my choice.

We quickly narrowed down to our clientele which certainly would be the rich class, yeah we can manage to entertain the upper middle class too, but you know they don't brin in that kinda dough. The most important target audience would be the firangs though, you know the a dollar and pound is 45/80 times more than the rupee. Well before you might think we are all for money I should clarify this is the business of spiritual guidance for the mortal souls, wretched and other wise, who have undegorne the travesty of humanely life, troubled by inhuman acts of depraved souls. Now don't ask the meaning of all that, that's for the baba to explain.

The most important aspect has to be the baba, he has to be an attractive personality, generating positive vibes and able to bond people quickly. So our would be baba is a sauve, young gentleman with military training and with the ability to bond with people. Recently some xyz devi came in his dream to inform that he is the chosen one and should alleviate the troubles of the miserly souls of this earth.

The only trouble is that our would be baba is going to UK for 6 months, yeah I know that was a certain party pooper, but this has come as even a bigger opportunity as our baba can start our right from the place where are clients reside that way they would save on travelling cost to India. Hope I move to UK soon, you know without good marketing managers like me the baba can never acheive great business or sorry I meant following.

So what say people, what do you think of the plan. All suggestions good or bad are welcome, kyun ki sab maya hai.

Grand OLD Tiger, where's the roar

2006-05-30T13:44:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time there was so called "Tiger", who lived in the concrete jungle called the city of dreams - Bombay. He recruited a bunch of hoodlums and who would create a riotous situations and brought the city to a halt, every time he roared. Time passed by and after a couple of riots in major cities of the state, the so called "Tiger" managed to acquire power along with the so called party with difference, which he ran through a couple of proxy CM's.

More time passed by, he became frail and old and the one of hoodlums refused to accept his authority and parted ways joining the grand old party and alter its offshoot, another one parted ways claiming the so called "Tiger" is promoting his so called incompetent "cub" over him. The departure of hoodlums who were the mainstay of power that he wielded weakened him from the core and now sent explicit threats to him.

More was yet to come as one of the so called "Tiger's" very own ditched him for the same reason the second hoodlum had left. He went ahead to form his own party managing to break a big chunk of youth leaders, this certainly seemed to be the final blow to the party which the old man had created. He could see the effort of his lifetime crumbling in front of him but the love of his so called incompetent cub kept him away from taking any curing measure. Now whenever the so called "Tiger" tried to roar what came out best was a whine, the Grand old man who liked to rule with an iron hand has mellowed down and lost his glory.

The reason why I am talking all this at this point of time in Indian politics is that the reservation controversy is at its peak even after going on for almost two months. The person who seemed to shoot his tongue on every conceivable topic and especially if it was against the minorities or the dalits whom he openly scorned and threatened to throw them out of the state(at least the minorities), seems conspicuous by his quite on the reservation controversy. He and his party have maintained a stoic silence on the issue in their own state, although their Delhi unit which is of no political significance initially did support the doctors and students.

The other reason is just being an analysis on the future of the party, which had a militant and flamboyant past. The militancy in its ways still remains, but more in terms of threats than action but the flamboyance is gone. The so called "Tiger" although being nothing less than a figure of scorn for me, but I admired his flamboyant ways with which he wielded power and especially his administrative skills which is evident by the way he organised his party, although the whole concept was borrowed from the Sangh Parivar.

There seems to be a distant chance of the party reaching power again or even hold on its own, I am not saying that because it lost two elections in the state. By that standard even the BJP can be categorized in the same league, but I think the BJP still has some fire left and can claw back in the next election. As far for the old man's party such possibility looks bleak and if that happens it would only enforce the truth of history, one man armies go down with the founder.

The code doesn't make a crackle.

2006-05-29T14:54:00.000+01:00

This Sunday I miss the YFE rally at Azad Maidan on insistence of my dearest friend and watch Da Vinci code. Well, the movie can be easily termed as one of the most controversial movie of all times and with the kind of thrill that the book created for the reader, too much was expected out of it. And that is the reason the movie falls short of providing any kind of thrill or entertainment, atleast for the ones who have read the book. The biggest strength of the movie- the book - becomes its biggest failing, There's no thrill and excitement left in a movie when you know exactly what's gonna happen next especially if the sole selling point it has is to make shocking revelations to captivate your attention.

On all this add direction which looks amateurish to say the least, dialogues yes these are really don't pack any punch. One fact that no Da Vinci Code reader can deny is that though being a thrilling adventurous story, it was a badly written book with run of the mill dialogues, The makers of the movie did have a chance of improving on that but chose otherwise. The result a badly made movie, with bad direction, unclear roles, badly crafted scenes where it seems that the director is assuming the viewers would have read the book so need for buildup the scene or explain it at at any point.

The movie stars one of my most favorite actors, Tom Hanks, but sadly the kind of role he has been assigned there is nothing at all for him to do. The "different" look makes him look tired & bored from the start and it seems he's been forced to work throughout the movie. Sure great actors make some bad choices and for Hanks this would be rated as one of them as Mela for Amir and probably Fanaa too(haven't watched it though). The role of Silas, Aringarosa and Fache are the better played ones and look better than Hanks and as for Audrey she surely looks dispensable, where she could had been the greatest strength for the movie.

The movie has been a hit from day one as was expected with all the controversy and obviously the kind of readership that the book got and would surely make a lot of money, but for the history it would only be remembered for those reasons and not its quality. It doesn't even come near to be a very good movie forget being a classic.

For the buff who haven't read the book and wanna know what the fuss is all about, read the book instead it would be more exciting and thrilling. For those who lack time to waste on the book go for the movie instead and for those who have read the book and enjoyed it, it's a sure miss, unless you have nothing to do on a weekend.

The reservation controversy

2006-05-27T07:41:00.000+01:00

A post which I had put on May 18th on one of my other blogs for avoiding controversy on this one, but now think should be here.

Its been over a month since the old Congress warhorse Arjun Singh, well aware that he's grown too old and loosing significance along with the grand old party headed for same fate, proposed to implement the reservations for the OBC's in the central universities. Since, that day onwards controversy has been raging like fire which has engulfed at least the medical fraternity completely. There has been sharp criticism of the move from the top honchos of the industry with the usual suspects like Murthy and Premji airing their grouse.

After all this mayhem that is going around, with the SC/ST's saying that since their percetange to the population has increased their reservation % should also be increased, A thought strikes my mind.

If the SC/ST's and then the OBC's, NT's are to be given reservation's in accordance with their percentage of the population in country, some political parties trying to bring in reservation for the Muslims, the other for economically back ward, blah, blah, blah.... We can devise a simple formula that can bring an end all this trouble by making 100% seats reserved. The question is how??.

Well its simple each community can be allotted reservations according to their population, the percentage can be adjusted after every census. According to the census report that I currently got from http://educationforallinindia.com/censusreligiondata.xls, The Hindus can be allocated 80.5 % approx of the seats with further division based on caste, the Muslims 13.5% approx, The Sikhs 1.9 approx and most interestingly there's a percentage of people who chose not to reveal their religion they number 727588 or 0.071% of the population, they can be accordingly allocated the seats.

And the reserved seats should not be limited only to educational institutes, the reservations should be extended to the parliament, the police force, army and why spare the private sector. This way we can claim proudly to the world that we are a country of equals, where no injustice is done to any. Its a different matter that if this continues for long we might not have a country left called India, but still all can have seats reserved according to their caste, creed and religion and be contented that they have somewhere to go even if they are the most useless piece of sh*t in the world.

Freedom of speech & Communal harmony

2006-05-25T15:05:00.000+01:00

I was stumped at the sharp reaction that has ensued after Amir Khan expressed his solidarity for the NBA and condemned the Vadodara riots. The state of Gujarat has put a virtual ban on his movies and all this for what??. Haven't people before supported the NBA, haven't others condemned the Vadodara riots and 2002 massacre before. Why such a sharp reaction on his remarks, there's nothing even so strong about his remarks. The following is a excerpt from outlook site,

"I think it is [Vadodara incident] very sad and what happened in Gujarat a few years ago was also equally unfortunate. It’s a shame that the administration is not able to control the situation there and it is resulting in deaths of innocent people," according to a BBC transcript of the interview.

It doesn't matter which religion these victims belong to. The bottom line is they are all human beings. It seems to me that the law and order machinery or the administration is simply not capable of controlling the situation," Aamir said, responding to a query from a fan.

Take the first statement where he says the incident is very sad, What is he expected to say, "It was a glorious event" or "The job was so well executed, I am proud of it", wasn't it unfortunate by all standards that innocent people were killed. Further, he said, "It’s a shame that the administration is not able to control the situation....". Who in the world, except the perpetrators of the crime, doesn't believe that the law and order machinery in the state was a conniving element in both the events?

Sadly, the social atmosphere in the state has become so vitiated that logic and reason have gone for a toss. Only thing that rules is rhetoric and hatred and people are blindly following the call of the selfish and greedy politicians, who can steep down any limits for power.

The question I have in my mind at this point is whether the reaction had been same had this comments not come from Amir who himself belongs to the minority community but someone from the other side of the religious divide. Secondly, doesn't Amir as a citizen of India has the freedom of speech provided by the constitution, has the fundamental right to talk on the social issues in the country. Sadly, any discussion on these issues are silenced by the accusation of being unpatriotic and anti-India, especially if it is made by someone from the minority community.

Coming again to the Vadodara riots which I had intentionally abstained from commenting, When I mentioned in an earlier post that the country is sitting on a virtual keg of gunpowder the claim looked highly exaggerated to anyone who read it. The way the events turned up in Vadodara reaffirms my conviction in my own statement and most importantly that something needs to be done to quell the communal disharmony that has stained the social fabric of the country so badly.

Of "pathetic jobs" and lots of money..... Part II

2006-05-23T12:22:00.000+01:00

A few months back I had written a post on how IT employees keep cribbing about their jobs Of "pathetic jobs" and lots of money..... in which I had presented some fact on why the IT employees seem to be such a disgruntled lot. Here I continue with the same and try to put some more facts and figures.

Apart from a Trend and The Quest for good work that I had mentioned as the last two reasons, The next most important reasons for which most IT employees vent their displeasure are,

3) Overly qualified :- Most of the people would disagree with me on this but I would still stand by this reason, Most of the IT employees are over-qualified for the kind of jobs they do. As mentioned previously that IT employees keep complaining about the quality of work they are assigned and that most of the work taken up by Indian companies is by any standards second rate compared to an world standard. But that's not the case with the employees, most of the top IT companies hire the cream of the Indian society, so you would see IITian's joining Infosys, Wipro etc and similarly MTech's and other higher degree holders are hired by the big and small companies.

These students come from an environment of stiff competition and utter hard work, but are in for an big shock when they realize that they are supposed to send only technical support mails or make excel sheets for years in the name of working on production support projects. This problem can be taken care simply by better resource management, so that people are allocated work according to their background and aptitude. Most of the IT companies lack good Project Management capabilities with one of the top 6 IT companies given a rating of poor by one of its major clients and this further alleviates the attrition level.

4) Money/Market condition :- Money is one of the most and in most cases the most important reason for which most people work, some work only for the love of it for other's it's a second choice. But whatever may be the case, most of the people would jump ship for money at least once a lifetime.

Now, consider the scenario where there is too much of money chasing a commodity which is not so easily available and highly saleable, This is results in what they call in economics as inflation. Now, replace the commodity with a good software engineer and the saleable part with their mobility. That's the crux of the problem with the Indian IT industry, It is passing through one of its best phases of rapid growth and this has resulted in spurt of demand of quality software engineers to very high levels, The top software companies hiring more then 100% of their current strength every year from a high base levels. The engineers can easily comprehend the shortage and bargain for higher and higher pay packages or switch jobs to achieve their objective. Since most of them are highly mobile, ready to move on the word go to any part of the world it becomes very difficult to retain good talent.

Enthralling victory for Hingis

2006-05-23T06:01:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday gave me the chance to watch an enthralling semi-final match between Martina and Venus Williams, one who would have read my previous post Of favourites and comebacks won't have any confusion as to who I was supporting.

From loosing the first set 0-6 to coming back and winning the match 0-6,6-3,6-3 and going ahead to win the tournament, Hingis heads to Paris after stirring Rome comeback win
,it was an amazing comeback for the Swiss Ms. Many at times during the match I felt she might just give it in. Since it was very much evident who was the more powerful player, who was serving faster or much much faster it seemed that in this era of tennis where even the Women's section has seen remarkably powerful players the beautiful game of tennis is lost. But one look at Hingis' game changes that all, she's a beautiful artist at the game who I love to watch and hope I get many more chance to see her winning and with the French open in sight and Hingis regaing top form I expect a nice treat.

Of elections and Arrest.

2006-05-11T11:43:00.000+01:00

The election results are out for the 5 or so states that had gone to poll in the last few weeks, The results have been more or less expected. Apart from the one in Tamil Nadu, where a few days back Amma J looked very confident of a landslide victory and even the media was pretty much supporting her argument of a straight victory. But that didn't happen and it looks very much possible that the old man in the dark glasses would form the new government. But this has already led many people into asking the question which the the following pictures depict the best

So making the question clear would the seen be repeated the other way round??, just consider the situation Lady policemen dragging Amma in the night :)

P.S :- I have no evil feelings either against Amm J or the Old man. This is just for fun.

---Asif

Presitgious Kindergarten - Chances?.

2006-05-04T12:49:00.000+01:00

Got the following post from Whartons discussion forums. Presitgious Kindergarten - Chances?. I am not sure in which categaory I want to classify this, a frustrated soul, a lost case, a person baring the stark truth about the MBA admissions in the top B-Schools accross the world. Whatever this may be, it surely caught my attention. One more thing, this post certainly can be a contender for the FUKAT competition

Hello Everyone!
My name is George Jones and I have just turned 4 years old and graduated from the most prestigious Kindergarten in South Forktownship, Connecticut. I am preparing myself for a prestigious MBA program at Wharton or Harvard in 23 years (Class of 2032) and I wanted to talk about what I have been doing to prepare and what I need to do in order to best position myself.
I am practicing my leadership and management skills daily. I have been cited for my strong leadership of naptime setup and takedown coordination and supply chain management by my superiors and peers alike. I innovated and overhauled the antiquated corporate procedures to integrate a network centric approach to pillow management, and greatly increased the average nap user floor space per captia output.
My recommendations are well developed, as I already have several Ivy League and MBA Kindergarten teachers and daycare staff who have volunteered to recommend me for MBA programs. They cite my innovation and drive in daily examples for younger day-care students to follow, specifically in my round table leadership of complicated sandbox projects to utilize all available resources and labor without anybody going to cry in the corner or get sand thrown in their eyes for 40 days running!
I have talked to my parents seriously about moving the family to a different district and state to better position myself in the public school system and give myself the best Elementary pedigree for MBA programs to examine.
My parents are both Fortune 500 Vice Presidents and have assured me that I am not adopted, and therefore my genetic quality is of the highest caliber, which will help me succeed in business and in the Wharton MBA admissions process.
My determination and team building were demonstrated when I single handedly lead a revolt of my Pre-School against the tyrannical and monopolistic juice box practices of the food catering contractor. The teachers and administrators involved are now being investigated for insider trading, and I am authoring a book entitled “The Kiddie School Whistle-Blower – My Life and Times.” Pre-release reviews expect this to be a New York Times bestseller.
These measures, plus excellent grades in elementary school, a high-powered New England boarding school, a strong Ivy League degree, 5 years of intense work experience at a top five consulting firm – Will this prepare me well to get into Wharton?
Please tell me what you think?
Sincerely,

GeorgeCorner Nap Spot

Giant Steps Kindergarten

South Forktownship, CT

Darna Zaroori nahin hai(take the title seriously and be at home)

2006-05-03T13:40:00.000+01:00

So I take and extended leave and make it four days in a row. With nothing to do on a hot Mumbai afternoon we decide to watch a flick, the shows running are Gangster and Darna Zaroori Hai(DZH). Now all you know Gangster has a role played by the one who shall not be named on this blog, lest this blog looses all its relevance. I love Shiney's acting skills and Kangna looks stunning, plus the songs but I decided against watching them as the scorn for the third is gr8er thn the combined liking for the other two and end up watching DZH.

So back to DZH, giving a preview on what the movie can be I let you know that there were hardly 10-15 ppl!! in the theatre. The movie peomises a lot but fails on almost all counts, I would like to compare it with an analogy here. Take the example of a Guitar artist people love his guitars since each one is handmade and customised for a specific audience. This person does roaring business and decides to hire 10 people and start manufacturing Guitars in lots and he only directs his artists as to how to work rather then himself doing anything, what comes out of this "factory" is not so gr8 quality and finesse. The same can be said about RGV, the person who gave us movies like Rangeela,Shiva, Bhoot etc now has a "Factory" that dishes crap like James(I didn't watch it though), Vaastu Shastra, Darna Mana hai and now Darna Zaroori hai.

The movie is supposed to a horror I assume but it seems more like a comedy from start to end or it seems the director was confused as to what he wanted the movie to be. The movie hardly has any spooky moments, not even one where you would jump out of your seat or even come to the edge. All the stories seem to be like heard somewhere and the presentation, seen somwhere before, some too short make an impact, some too stupid to catch attention. Worst of all they have shown 5 kids lost in the jungle dying of heart attacks!! at the tender age of 10-12!!. The movie is fast paced though and doesn't drag on more than it should. The cinematography seems lacking at times, probably with the intentions of keeping dark backgrounds which all RGV horror flicks try to capture and go over the board rendering the screen unappealing obviously except Bhoot.

The performaces are more or less just ok, the better ones come from the D-guy Hooda and the lady M. who shall again not be named on this blog for earlier mentioned reasons, If I had known that this lady was a part of the cast I would have surely avoided this one too. Rampal does look good in the scene where he has to play scared like hell, but looks utterly stipid when playing the Ghost, Big B's presence is too short to make and impact. The rest are just ok. All in all a must avoid.

Planning "Pink Panther" today so one more review on its way.

---Asif

Of dams, reservations and kisses.

2006-04-23T07:15:00.000+01:00

A few of the links on the that managed to catch my eye.

Dam Debate Dents India's Infrastructure . The Narmada issue is making news in the international media. Its not really the issue thats making the news, its the dealing of the Indian government that is be questioned. The kind of comments one gets to see in the international media on the Indian growth story and its leaders capability to handle the problems arising out of it, it surely leaves no doubt in our minds that they are not buying the Indian story, atleast not as yet. Most of them talk about the Indian governments as the ones with near to no decision making skills when handling with tough situations and poor law implementors. In the backdrop of all this our PM talks about the attracting $150 Billion, don't know who would pump that money, if all Indian governments including his own try to outdo each other as the more impotent and populist than the earlier.

Reservation in the private sector - The fight for reservation has again raised it head. For certain reasons I don't want my personal comments on that, though I have many, but the attached link for the same is one of the interesting observations by none less than an Dalit site. The author doesn't really feels the need for mandatory reservation in any sector and sights different ways through which the communities which were discriminated earlier should be brought forward.

To kiss or not to kiss (I had written quite a lot on this somehow got deleted)

Impeach Bush Blog Now this is one thing which is not waywardly possible, unless Bush commits something horrible then himself. But the people are trying their best to get rid of him.

Time to raise the level of Madness...

2006-04-19T05:34:00.000+01:00

So after wandering over the web for years and after doing some soul searching, After a lot of headbanging I realise that I have lost all our sanity. It isn't that I was ever sane, but the NET added to it to the extent that I have lost all understanding of what sanity is, the kind of people I have met over net or being more specific the kind of people I have chosen to align with some of the craziest individuals one can ever think off.
The result of all this, launching of the "Fukat" awards, the word Fukat always generates negative vibes in the listeners. But here by being the Fukat king we mean the "guru" of creativity, a person who has no qualms in dishing out their imaginations running wild even if it might be only for fun. Why do we do this, because we love to do crazy things which helps to keep ourselves excited from otherwise mundane activities of life.
Since, I like to keep my posts a little short, wouldn't stretch this too much and for one's who would like to know more about the "Fukat" awards head over to

http://fukat.blogspot.com and the reference post that started this all,
http://futsal-mania.blogspot.com/2006/04/dicovery.html

---Asif

2006-04-08T06:11:00.000+01:00

I am writing this post with an assumption that all my friends who read this blog are straight, so in case anyone isn't or had too much sympathy for people, I am sorry if they feel hurt coz this post is just a narration of few incidences, which atleast left the people involved very embarrased.

So, what does a girl do if a guy makes a pass at her avoid, yell at him, slap him.. there are quite a few things she can and in most of the cases the guy can be screwed by he ever enthusiatic bystanders. Now what does a guy do if a guy makes a pass at him?? I know its a difficult situation. So I list three of the following incidences that place one in a comical or embarassing situation(depending on which side of the story you are on).

1) There was a friend of mine Praveen, who was a model and heftly built. One day while travelling in a mumbai local there was this guy who was sticking close around him though the train was hardly crowded. After a few minutes he got too irritated and yelled at the guy,"Abe udhar jaa na, kyun chipak raha hai". This guy looked at him and gave him what we say that kind of smile. This irritated Praveen to hilt, who hit him a punch, which sent him down rolling. Now the onlookers asked the question,"Kya hua bhai?".

So this post gets posted incomplete, by mistake.

2) Now this is the best on or the as earlier most embarassing for the person involved. There was this acquaitance of mine narrating his story. These few friends were sitting in a bar gulping down some drinks, after a few drinks they decide to leave. There was this person X who was a friend of his and asked that he can drop him on the way an he agreed. On this way they stopped at X's place, where X asked him to come in. It seemed the person stayed alone and had put picture of ladies in outer rooms, till then the things looked normal. But as he entered inside the other room things started looking a little fishy, there were pictures of men in somewhat unexplainable positions. The best was yet to come,just when this person was to ask for leave, Mr X popped the question to kiss him.
Imagine a friend of yours and all this God!!!, is duniya ka kya hoga.

---Asif

Career counselling project.

2006-03-17T07:52:00.000Z

As part of the initiative to make a small contribution to the society I have planned to launch a small Career counselling project for the students of 10th and 12th after their exams get over. Following is the thread that I have started on a forum inviting people to participate.

" As the time has neared when 10th and 12th students would be getting done with their dreaded Board exams and would be faced with the difficulty of choosing a career path, with so many options and not so freely available right information for most of them. We as the ones who have gone through this entire ordeal can certainly be a helping hand to them.
We can align with an NGO or just start a camp on our own at location or few locations depending on the number of volunteers ready to provide their service. On my part I have in my contact a Mumbai based NGO whom I had provided such a service a few years back.Hoping that many more would come ahead and render a helping hand."

Looking for support from friend or anyways I am going for it alone.

---Asif

Of work and jobs...

2006-03-09T13:46:00.000Z

Prologue- I have jumped from first job breaking a bond within a year of joining.

So it has hardly been a 7 months in the current job and friends have started asking me, When are you shifting, What are your plans for the next job or as Allwin asked something like 'Kya irada hai bhai, kahin aur kuch dekh rahe ho kya' , not sure whether I am putting exactly what he said. There were some more comments like these coming from friends. So in a nutshell do people think that I am the one ready to jump jobs for the heck of it. Now I am pretty sure atleast about a handfull of them that they don't mean bad about me, but I want my friends other whoever passes over this post to a know a few things about my current work plans.

I don't have any intentions of changing my job, as I think I am doing pretty well as of now at the current job and wish to continue for sometime over here.
But, there are many if's to the above sentence I just mentioned,

'PUNE SUCKS' I am literally getting sucked at he city, just cannot leave Bombay, with all the troubles that Bombay gives me. Be it long distance travelling, crowded transport.... blah blah blah. I still wanna be back in Bombay ASAP. Mind you nothing against 'Pune' it can be very good for somebody from a smaller city or someone who wants to run away from the hustle bustle of Mumbai, but for me that's life and am drearly missing it.

As mentioned in one of my first posts my penchant for singing I want to become so many things in life. Apart from the usual career path that I would mostly be trading in the next few years, Three of the most exciting ones(at least for now on my mind) are :-

1) To be a journalist :- Now people knowing me very well would also feel that where the heck did that come from, but somewhere I always would love to be a journalist, travelling around the country, sniffing news at every nook and corner, taking interviews........... I just get thrilled at the thought of it, running this blog is a part fulfilment of a dream. I strongly feel I can justify the job pretty well. I might not be a great writer(trying to improve every minute), but do feel that have the nose for news and the knack to do it right. So, if at this point someone gives me such an offer mind you I'll just jump at it.

2) Professor :- This is something I would surely do in life, but only later when I would have lost the hair strands left on my crown completely(that doesn't mean old though). The reason for the wait I wanna be a PHD before i do that. :)

3) Entrepreneur :- Starting my own business, that is something I have planning for a few years already. Every time I read or learn about something new, the first question that pops up is how can it be turned into a successful business. The time doesn't look far when I would implement one of these and it can be anything under the sun.

Epilogue :- So, after giving all the above reasons I believe it looks and might jump job soon, even I don't know at this instant :)

Wish me luck.

---Asif

Disaster management and us.

2006-03-05T07:22:00.000Z

Does anybody even remember that there was supposedly a Bird Flu epidemic threatening the country only a week a go?. The only thing that reminds me of the Flu scare is the missing chicken and omlette at lunch & breakfast from the office canteen, apart from that if you are searching for some news on the flu in the media you are in for a surprise. The media which was covering the event as if all hell has broken loose on the country seems to have too quickly forgotten about it, almost completely. A scare that created chaos throughout the country, resulting in a ban on serving of chicken & poultry products in a host of services, from airlines to railways, military and crushing ban on poultry trade across the states and on Indian poutlry exports seems to have fizzled out without a trace. Sure, many people are still not buying chicken and it is still being sold at Rs 15-20 a KG and there is a certain section which is feasting on it at every meal.
The question is who the hell is responsible for all this mess?. Some stupid officials showcasing there newly acquired imported cartoon like medical kit and a stupid, idiotic, dumb and overzealous media. Which in its attempt to get some more eye balls can go down any levels playing up a small issue into a disaster kind of a situation.
I am no expert on diseases and ilness in animals but sure do know that there is something called 'ranikhet' disease which spreads rapidly across poultry perenially and kills thousands of them on very outbreak and the symptoms are pretty much same to the flu. It could have been simply the case of any other out of host of diseases that occur in poultry. But, the officials jumped the gun and the media quickly picked it up as there was nothing major going on around the time. As the Bush fire ascended on the country, the focus quickly moved on to it and then onwards that was all one could read or see around. Surely, some caution from the media and the state would have surely saved the asses of poor poultry farmers, many of who lost their everything because of this.
All this proves that how pathetic we are at disaster management be it the Mumbai floods, the Tsunami or the Bird flu scare, When it comes to the crunch the Indians are the worst loosers.

---Asif

Indian restaurant, Pakistani chef and an Entrepreneur

2006-03-02T08:55:00.000Z

The Recipe for Success
This entrepreneur is learning the restaurant business from the ground up as he seeks to expand his fast-service Indian takeout business.

Got the above story on Business Week online, Thats the spirit of entrepneurship when you are a westerner, educated at Toronto with an MBA degree, you hire a Pakistani Chef and start an Indian fast food restaurant. This particular story was there on Businessweek a couple of weeks or so back, about Jared RossFounder & PresidentVEDA - Fine Indian Takeout Inc.Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Who along with his pakistani chef Umair Niazi has created a unique blend of Indian delicacies including the famous butter chicken.

It might not seem really a great deal to some people, but for me such small ideals are the important ingredients in the thought process of a budding entrepenuer. Keep track of small things going around you and sense the right time and right opportunity out of it.

---Asif

So much to write so less time........

2006-02-23T05:41:00.000Z

There was a time when I had a blog and lots of time but I did not know what to write, then came the time when I had a lot to write and some time to do and now is time where I have too many things to write about but there is no time at all. The whole day passes of in either one of the SDLC phases, plus meetings, calls and blah blah blah and when I am done with all this its already late in the night and time to go home. The posponement of the laptop due the impending UK visit has added to cut in my online presence.
But thats LIFE and I am enjoying every bit of its happinesses & troubles alike :)

---Asif

Of Pageflakes and homepage

2006-02-21T13:10:00.000Z

Well one after another you a habit of yours being commercialised some for good and others for worse. But the one I am talking certaily advances my liking or the habit to another level, I am talking about pageflakes.com. While browsing through the web I just came accross this site and found it to be good, I mean they do what I would do often, create my own homepage with all the favourite links so that I don't need to type one. I know thats quite a simple thing and you can do that simply by adding links to favourites, but hey this one looks much better and easier than that and the best part they use AJAX so no page loading just updates.
Now I think I really need to learn AJAX with the kind of things its making possible and enhances the browsing experience.

www.pageflakes.com

---Asif