Bandh and Associated Telangana Fiasco

Bandh,an institution created by the Egyptians and immortalised by all sundry political parties in India,is an indispensable tool in the hands of a few goons who hold a complete state to ransom.The left calls it the fundamental right of every working class individual,but what about the rights of the aam aadmi.Why is it that this most important part of our democratic fabric feels neglected?
What about the rights of the daily wage laborer,who knows that there will be no food for his family on the day he returns empty handed or the shopkeeper whose shop got wrecked down by a bunch of hooligans.Or the patient,who has to reach the hospital in time or even the student who has to miss his day at the college or the employee who slogs day-in and day-out and contributes a considerable amount to the revenue of the state and not to forget pays up his taxes in time.Do they not have any rights?Why should the individual suffer?
What is ironical is the fact that most of these bat-wielding slogan-shouting ninnies have no clue what the bandh or hartal is about.The recent bandh called in by the Telangana Rastriya Samiti(TRS) to demand a separate state for Telangana,was no exception.Most of the people supporting this have no clue about the implications it might have,let alone the party chief KCR,who formed this party after some dispute with another party,of which he was a member,and had no serious Telangana sentiments as such.
The supporters believe that Telangana(a region in Andhra Pradesh,India) has always been neglected and a separate state would ensure an amelioration of the conditions,which is foolishly myopic.
Some of the major disadvantages for a small state(some of these are part of a discussion on the same topic at office bulletin board,don't remember the names) include,

Limited power for small states: Under the existing dispensation, the so-called States are toothless for all practical purposes with no powers to sanction either a small industrial or irrigation project. They cannot even rename a place without the central government’s approval. All minerals and underground resources squarely belong to the Centre. States cannot grant permission even to start a newspaper or journal. No resolution passed by a State becomes an Act without the President’s seal of approbation. All avenues of revenue were monopolized by the Centre long ago, leaving the States to fall back upon sales tax, octroi and registration fees only. Almost all subjects in the States’ list were gradually transferred to Concurrent list, thus enabling the Centre to poke a finger in all internal affairs of the States. Given this ground situation, what additional progress can one expect from the new (small) States, without fighting for true federalism in our constitutional framework ?

No real development for small states: Secondly, did all small States progress ? If they did, what could be the reason ? Orissa, a small State of approx. 1,55,000 sq.k.m. (half the size of Maharashtra), was formed way back in 1936 and is still rated as a backward State. Centrally sponsored irrigation projects and inflows of foreign exchange as also their proximity to the national capital. From a global perspective too, not all small countries can be credited with progress. Well in our neighborhood, we have under-developed small countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
Resources utilized for administrative machinery and not for development: New laws and systems are to be devised on a continuous basis. Thus, small States too are constrained to keep as many as departments as big ones. Can they financially afford it ? What surplus funds are they left with for development, if revenues are exhausted on the administrative machinery itself ? Uttaranchal State is a case in point whose revenue receipts are well below Rs.350 crores, but whose annual expenditure exceeds Rs.1,500 crores. It is for this reason that it was recently accorded status of the Special category State, which means more grants and fewer loans. The plight of Chhattisgarh is no different too. Thus the concept of small States subjects the States to incremental dependence on the Centre and leads to regional jealousies, charges of favoritism and ultimate loss of faith in national integration.

Possibility of more disputes with no real resolution: The inter-State boundary and river water disputes between a number of States are still unresolved with many of them remaining perpetually sub-judice. For Instance, Karnataka alone has been in conflict with a couple of States over disputed territories (Kasargode and Belgaum) and with another couple of States on water-sharing (the Krishna and Cauvery). The disputes are so emotive that they turned not only governments against governments, but also the people of one State against those of another and sporadic trading of violence is not uncommon. Given this record, more States means more disputes which will ultimately threaten to erode the very spirit of Indian nationalism.

Impetus to secessionist movements: This dangerous doctrine of small States gives a fillip to the secessionist outfits like the LTTE, ULFA. JKLF, and Khalistanis who might find in it a cloaked and implicit endorsement of their balkanization programme. “If small States are OK, why not small countries ?”they might ask. We have no answer.

Problems of determining optimum smallness: The parameters to determine the ‘optimum smallness’ are vague. We can reorganize India into 88 Keralas, or 120 Nagalands or 250 Sikkims. This number could be endless. They will serve no loftier purpose than solving the political unemployment of a few. The argument that big States have grown unwieldy by virtue of their vastness and population is untenable and anachronistic for the simple fact that we live in the age of internet, video-conferences, cell phones, express haighways, jet planes and superfast railways. Will these ‘small advocates’ agree to divide Andhra Pradesh into 2 more free and independent states because her population tripled since independence ?
So,do we still need a separate state?Do we go about splitting India based on the interests of particular groups.Does it end anywhere?

'CAT'astrophic Opening!

Come November and we can see an agog feverish anticipation in the eyes of the students all over India for something they call CAT(Common Admission Test).The discussion forums,newspapers,television news channels and even the music channels do their bit, lest we forget.Lakhs of students in India hinge their future on this one exam,locking themselves up in their homes, neglecting their regular college exams, writing mock examinations; working professionals pray that nothing important comes up during these two months and some even apply for a long leave.
So,why is CAT such an important exam in India?

We Indians have an age old habit of overdoing things.Deifying people and exam toppers is just another facet of it.As soon as a child is born most of the middle class parents would want him to become a doctor or an engineer, and if he has to become an engineer he has to graduate from nothing less than an IIT.So, they start insinuating this prejudice into their minds that all other colleges are mere buildings.During his undergraduate days this kid is told that a technical degree alone is not sufficient to make dough,you need to have a post graduation degree in management as well and from an institute no less than an an IIM,India's premier business school.Lucky if he makes it on the first count,but just in case he is not successful,which is usually the case with millions across the country,he is made to believe that those who make it to these top institutes are first rate citizens and others are mere ordinary individuals.And so every year they put their heart and soul to prepare for this One exam,CAT.
Among the people who apply, there are some serious aspirants as well,who have a set plan in mind and look at MBA not just as a mere money making educational qualification but as an extension to to their profile.But,the percentage of such people is pretty low.The majority doesn't even know why it wants to do an MBA.
Early this year the Indian Institutes of Management made an announcement that from this year onwards the entrance exam is going to be computer based giving rise to a series of debates,discussions,speculations and arguments.And Prometric,was given the job of conducting this.For starters,Prometric,an American company,is one of the leading providers of computer based testing and assessment tools,which also includes exams like GMAT,GRE and Microsoft Certification exams,to name a few.So, the possibility of a goof up was 'expected' to be pretty low.Prometric also did its part in ensuring that there are no surprises for the students on the day of the exam by releasing videos and sending frequent mailers to the applicants.
But,Murphy had the last laugh.The exams opened to a catastrophic start,various technical issues arose, including the computers failing to boot, biometric devices not responding to some as severe as servers crashing at some centres,preventing approximately 2000 exams from being delivered across 50 labs.The authorities though continued to downplay the total incident attributing it to some silly reasons.
I got some pretty interesting responses on my Facebook page on this issue.Praveen felt that the management people needed a refresher course in technology,he also observed that such a fiasco could have been avoided had they taken care of some basic practices or even run it in a beta phase and had tested on a select group of people.Bharath, an ex-IIM graduate, on the other hand felt these were just some teething errors.

Some of the more serious questions remain unanswered though,couldn't something as simple as hardware to software incompatibility be avoided?Couldn't the invigilators at the test venues be given a small briefing on how to handle what or troubleshoot?Shouldn't they have been prepared for something as obvious and as imminent as a server crash or slow delink?These things are taken care of even at a scale as small as college technical fest, this was still CAT,one of the biggest exams in India.
Whatever the reason,one of the toughest and most anticipated management entrance exams painted a very sorry and not so perfect image of the current state of affairs in India; with two of the best in their league(IIMs and Prometric) coming together and yet failing to deliver when everyone was watching,when it was required and when they definitely had to.

Kurbaan:Dissection

One of the most awaited movies of the season,not just because of the lead couple or the banner producing this or the print promotion or the humungous scale of publicity with Saifeena on almost every television channel you switch to but also because it makes an attempt to touch upon the lesser discussed subject of Islam and terrorism.
The story starts off really well without wasting much time on the courtship of Ehsaan (Saif) and Avantika (Kareena) , professors at a college in Delhi.After convincing the girl's father Ehsaan and his girl move to the United States.Avantika was teaching in the US prior to her stint in India and had to return to her college,Ehsaan also follows her in the hope of finding a new job there.After some house hunting they finally move to an Indian suburb.It is there that Avantika discovers to her horror that her husband Ehsaan is part of an Islamic terrorist sleeper cell.She gets the help of a journalist Riyaz(Vivek) whose girlfriend Rihanna(Dia) is killed in a flight accident,by a suicide bombing attack,which was apparently planned by Ehsaan's group.Riyaz,with an aim to investigate this situation himself,infiltrates into this group and tips off the FBI on the day when they were planning to bomb all the major subways.

The Let Downs:
A major let down of the movie would be the amateurish way in which this subject is handled,showing fundamentalist terrorist sleeper cells as nothing more than the real life versions of kids' spy games.Especially the scenes in which Ehsaan invites Riyaz for dinner and there Bhaijaan(Om Puri) throws a spot offer to come and join their team,believing in whatever story Riyaz cooks up,without even bothering to run a background check on him, makes you laugh at how ignorant the director is about the way these people operate.You don't need to be a secret agent to know all these,switch to any news channel and they'd tell you better.Not just this but the whole planning and execution of terrorist attack scenes were ineptly shot.
The love scenes between Avantika and Ehsaan were aesthetically dealt with but the director could not resist treading the clichéd bollywood path wherein one of the characters is seduced to get important leads and information.
Or scenes where the audience is told that the FBI has clear pictures of Ehsaan yet he roams free on the streets on NY and worse yet teaches Islamic influence on the west at a university.
FBI is shown as nothing more than a weak police department who still rely on the age old method of spot and shoot to catch dreaded terrorists; or goes by the information some caller gives them over phone,without identifying himself.The FBI was portrayed as nothing more than how Indian police was shown in old bollywood flicks.The person who played the cop would do good in a b-grade Indian movie.Per se all these scenes made a mockery of the anti terrorist cells world over.
The movie could have also avoided the blood and gore,especially in the scene in which Avantika had to pull out a bullet and stitch Ehsaan's famous bullet wound.

The Highs:
The movie had its moments.Both Kareena, and Saif pulled it off really well.We have seen Saif grow as an actor and he plays the role of a cold Islamic fundamentalist who falls in love with a girl whom he just wants to use as a tool,extremely well.
The classroom discussion between Riyaz and other students over the image that the west has of Islam and the few dialogues between Kulbhushan Karbanda's character and Riyaz over the Iraq issue or even the dialogues between Aapa(Kirron Kher) and Avantika were well written and extremely thought provoking.
Kareena looked her gorgeous self and has orchestrated the role of a woman torn between love and betrayal brilliantly.
Even the steamy scenes between Kareena and Saif, that have been blown out of proportion and demurred by some fringe group, have nothing to cringe about,they have been done pretty beautifully.
But it is the weak characterization,incoherent storyline and poor direction that are the real terrorists in Kurbaan and start to painfully pall the audience towards the end and also make movies like New York seem like Sholay.
Nonetheless it was a decent attempt at projecting the voice of Islam and moderate fundamentalism in a religion and taking a neutral stance.
I would give it a 2/5

"Happy Weekend!" ;"Oh What? Come again!"

Say the magic word "Weekend!" and it immediately conjures up images of late night parties,shopping,movies,lazy mornings,long drives,getways and all sorts of pleasant things in your head.But having said that, I still don't get what is up with the 'Happy Weekend' syndrome,esp. the techies seem to be the major victims of this blight!

Come Friday and your office bulletin board is all full with 'Bon Weekend' and 'Happy Weekend' messages,not sure how many of them actually mean this. Incidentally, Friday also happens to be the day when the whole office campus dons a festive look,people taking out the best dresses from their wardrobes,the campus is all vibrant and psychedelic giving you the vibes of an imminent festival.You can actually smell a pervasive bonhomie in the environment around.

You finish your work early,skip your gym that day,shut your workstation down,scream a ''Happy Weekend,have fun!'' to every single living entity you come across, grab your bag and rush out of the office campus,flashing your thirty two as if it were your last day at work.Even your boss and other 'serious' colleagues ignore this connivance of yours.
So,your are out of office,better yet you are home,with nothing important to do you log on to your FB/GTalk/Orkut/Wave and post a weekend-is-here-ish message(with god-knows-how-many smilies)!
You go for a movie.Party as if it was your raison d'etre.Get up late,just in time for a late lunch and an early evening snack,it is then that your friend calls you up.So, you get ready and meet her/him at the mall,squander half of your salary buying stuff which even the shopkeeper had given up on.
Now,with Saturday gone and Sunday poisoned, you are down with a widespread weltzmertz; whiling your way through the last few hours of what was your weekend,doing not-previously-on-my-list menial yet inevitable tasks such as laundry.
And before you could say "Weekend!",your weekend just vanished into thin air and before late you would give a serious wtfy look to anyone you jumps around with a puerile 'weekend' excitement.

Confusion Rules Large!

How often in ur life are you faced with a situation where you notice that the roads ahead are winding at an unconscionable pace,when everything you see looks like one giant jigsaw puzzle and you have no clue on how to get across.Not because your hands are tied,not because you have to contrive something out of ordinary to come around it but because you just don't feel like it.The situation in itself is not insoluble as such,but sitting idle and whigning over things doesn't make it any better either.Every single entity around you importunes you to act but nothing can shake you out of this comatose sleep.You choose to be blind,choose to protract things to suicidal limits.Why?You don't have an answer for that!

Repost:Art

[Repost of an post on my other blog,as I post,I don't think anything has changed as such,our nature continues to be the same]

The recent incidents of the attacks on Chandra Mohan, a final year Master of Visual Arts student at The Maharaja Sayajirao University who was arrested by Sayajiganj police from the university campus on Wednesday,has stirred fresh controversy of "Moral Policing'.

I feel 'moral policing' is an euphemism and a more polite way of imposing the conservative and narrow ideas to impede the regular flow of fresh ideas and what they call aping the west and following their 'culture insensitive' ideas.

Chandra Mohan,who is originally from Andhra Pradesh, has been accused of hurting the religious sentiments of Christians and Hindus in the district and has been booked under Section 153 (A) for promoting religious enmity and hurting religious sentiments with nefarious intentions like creating riots.

There are a few things that I feel I might never understand..
What exactly is this Moral Policing all about?
Do we need Moral Policing?
Is there any way we can justify the fuss that VHP/ShivSena...
activities?

The younger generation is mature enough to know and understand the difference between what is right and what is not.Mimicking the west is a totally different concept.I really do not understand if a couple chooses to go around in park,is it such a big crime that they get beaten up for that,what gives the police this right and what gives these activists the right to beat up anyone.

Issue is not just about celebrating Valentines Day/or any other day neither is it about sitti8ng in the park with your friend.It is about imposing your ideas and ideologies over others.

How an individual chooses to live is purely his/her wish.Policing for all the right reasons has never been criticised ,consider the incident of the recent raid on the Pune rave party.

The past incidents of the moral policing by these activists include,
Damaging public property on Valentines Day,what harm did the shopkeepers do,they were just doing their business and destroying their property is illiegal,Police chooses not to book cases against these people of the fear that,they might be the next target physically,politically etc.

Attacking Private Parties...

any the list goes on...

Again coming to the Chandra Mohan issue...

What I could not understand is the difference between real /genuine ART and gimmickery

I was just watching a news item on NDTV which said (as all of us all will agree) that we can never justify the actions against Chandra Mohan by a group of VHP activists led by Niraj Jain...
but if we talk about the works...
many famous artists said that many works were mediocre and aimed at drawing negative publicity and most of the concepts were not new...
the college authorities say it was just a part of the internal examination but the people who visited this include many Art collectors and exhibitors etc. in thick number....

Well...this is just another dimension to this controversy...

Are the art pieces that rake such controversies are really ''Good" works of art or as the news item put it just a few Mediocre repeats aiming at those 15 sec limelight!Well...this argument might never end!

Ban(d) Karo!

What is the Indian Government going to ban next?Memory?
It was a book on Jinnah now it is a movie on Nehru's relationship with Edwina.
Can't politicians have a private life?Does it make him any lesser if he was in a relationship?We have always drawn flak for this prudish scrutiny of anything.It is this squeamish behaviour of the Indian government that gives you the illusion that you are being kicked into the Victorian era.Some of the objections raised in the script submitted to the I&B ministry are outright lame!
Government has this strange habit of poking its nose into everything/anything it finds objectionable,how you define objectionable is the dicey part.May be it comes with the way we Indians eulogize our leaders,so much so that we make gods out of them,sample the Nehru family or even Gandhi for example.No one can question the fact that they have been some of the greatest leaders world has seen but they were ordinary people when alive.India Today had to black out its cover story on Gandhi,an interview with Gopal Godse.Recently Sach Ka Samana(Indian version of Moment of Truth) also triggered a similar storm,worse yet in the Parliament.Wonder if this is all our MPs have time after those puerile debates sponsored by the taxpayer.
Free press has always been this long-unfulfilled dream of the world,not just the intelligentsia but the hoi polloi in general.With some fine boundaries though!

RePost:Crutches to hop around

Crutches to hop around

This was about time when I was fresh out of Engineering Admission Counselling and had to throw away the seat I wanted to someone who had scored half as much as I did.Reservation on any ground puts me off.This was also about time when I had started sending articles to The Hindu and they used to publish it!Found this on one of the usual random browsing rounds.

Read On...

Come the counselling sessions for admission into post graduate or undergraduate courses and the bright and hardworking students have to face "the ground realities". A friend or classmate of his manages to get into a better college and stream.
How? He has reservation, on social grounds.
In my college I see and meet scores of bright students, who cannot afford even the bare minimum amenities a student needs, and their families toil hard just to pay their semester fees.
And there are students who would spend an equivalent or even a few times more the same amount just on `ordinary outings'.
Let me remind u that the latter are the same people for whom our government reserved a certain percentage of seats and the former category of students, in most cases, are among those who have been burning the proverbial midnight oil till now and have worked out of their skins.
Some have toiled for more than a couple of years, just to get into a college and study with the people whom he has seen wasting time and money, roaming around and having a gala time till now.
Just imagine how depressing it can be!
These students get a seat into the most preferred stream in the most preferred college or somewhere near that, still way lot better than the seat he would have ordinarily got.
No wonder they continue the same wayward attitude here as well.
As in any other case, there are still many backward classes, which need reservation, and it was for this section of people that the system of reservation was initially launched and is still in place because many of these people need an opportunity to progress.
But I strongly feel that there should be reservation on Economic grounds.
Contrary to popular perception, the so-called socially backward class is in most cases economically better of than most of the socially forward class people and vice versa.
As one person aptly put it -India is perhaps the only country where the rich enjoy the fruits of socialism while the poor are fully exposed to the vagaries of capitalism.
But people cannot be blamed for this it is just the politicians who cannot let go of a valuable tool to get the votes in their favour.
But again the government should not forget that the knowledge is the cutting edge of development and social reservation just blunts it.

Read the Original Article Published in THE HINDU

Read the Original Blog Post

Masters (?) of Business Administration

November is coming and the MBA fever is catching up.Every year lakhs of students in India plan their future on something they are not even half sure of.The whole MBA thing looks so amusing that I couldn't resist but blog about it.I am sure all of you would be nodding your heads in disapproval at the end this.

I have been looking(read observing)at this India-goes-MBA crowd for some years now and have broadly divided them into five categories.

Why do you want to do an MBA?

First response: It is cool!

A good majority.

Let us accept that the glitz and glam factor attracts us much like a cotton candy attracting a five year old.We see and hear so much about how they party,how the booze flows from the fountains at their colleges,about how much the girls like young MBA graduates; that it is hard to ignore that twang in the tummy whenever someone says the word M-B-A!But as far as my knowledge goes(which I am sure is tad bit better than that of a freshly passed out college graduate) the gloss would at the max last only as long as your farewell party.And would still be an understatement if I am to explain how ephemeral all this is.

Next Response: The pay is high .

This would come a close second.

This,I bet you will discover as soon as you enter the college, would be the silliest reason ever.No one cares about how much you get or worse yet,chooses a job based on the weight of the pay packet.

Response #3: Everyone else is doing,why should I be left out?!

Honest and sick.

What are you going to plan and what are you going to manage if you are not sure what you want to do with your own future?End of discussion!

Response #4 :Nothing else to do.

Again honest but this time,the limpest of all the reasons.

commune d'intervention:I have always dreamt of it and have wanted to do an MBA for quite sometime now.

Dicey!

Ask yourself,why an MBA?If you get

a clear answer,prepare well for the exams.

But I don't see more than some one or two percent in the last category.Result we have thousands of unfit MBAs passing out of the factories-in-India.

Then there are some others like:

I have two options MS or an MBA.

This is the confused category,precisely they know nothing about either fields and are heavily misinformed.Coaching institutes cash in on this ignorance of the crowd to introduce packages such as GRE+CAT and GRE+GMAT for people from this category.They should sit and think what they want rather than which is better.

All said and done I still cannot comprehend the heated discussions before an exam and this applies to our approach to all the exams in India.If there are two or more CAT aspirants,try eavesdropping and you will hear things that start at what the scores are like,but then head to dumb-er topics.

The TV channels also do their bit,inviting center directors and other students.All this is pretty usual and might sound innocuous to everyone.But then there is the crowd which makes heroes out of the people who have made it to any of the top colleges and also assume that those who haven't are mere losers.At times I feel like tie-gag-ing these guys up and then screaming out loud that what a person chooses to do with his life is his personal and we should respect him for that.I know scores of my friends who are doing fantastically well in their area of core competence,I can talk about only the engineering fields,simply because I have been in that field and have closely been and worked with them.

Having said that I still feel that those beautiful people who choose to work for an NGO or dedicate their lives for what they love,not worrying a bit about how much money they are going to make are the real managers.Time and again I have been with people for whom money is everything in life,and no I am not talking contra-socialism here,I know what is the significance of money but do not quite understand the need for the abundance of it.

I have always maintained that Manage-men-t is for people who can Manage-Me(self) and then Manage-Men(people around).Joining the MBA forums,'Bell the Cat Community' on Orkut,posting your scores on PG and TG,attending seminars,building your profile,solving tonnes of problems,indoctrinating people on why one should do MBA or even cracking the exam does not make a manager out of you.Come on guys,get a life!

India,the land of prejudices

I was just reading about the recent case of a British national Kaya being humiliated in the court to a point where she broke down.The defence lawyer asked her obnoxiously irrelevant questions,people in the courtroom were all laughing,the defence council was laughing;but this is no laughing matter neither is this an independent incident.The lawyer,Prajapati represents the sorry state of the rest of the nation.Even today a girl who dresses in a certain way,ties her hair in a certain way,drinks or smokes is considered to have 'invited' molestation(whatever that means!).It is absolutely ok for a guy to smoke or drink but not a girl?How can a girl dressing in a certain way 'provoke' a guy to molest her?We aren't animals,or are we?Kaya,the girl who was molested and then humiliated in the court of law ,said that she would file a defamation case.The issue doesn't end there,we cannot go about filing defamation suits;what we can do is sensitise the society and general public on how to treat women.

Respect for someone does not,and I presume should not,change with her choice of clothing or lifestyle.The problem is more about education and awareness than anything else.Till the time we set these things right we'd continue giving such shady pretexts as foreigners are casual about love,a girl who dresses western outfits could be molested on similar grounds. All this sounds so lame!It's high time we started debating about such things on open forums.

CAT 2009 voucher sale: Violence on the bank floor

by Allwin Agnel on 09 September 2009

97 comments

CAT Vouchers are available today at Axis bank branches and along with it came violence, parents, lovers and god’s blessings – ok, and some vouchers were finally acquired by students as well.

The following pictures were taken at Hyderabad by kk_karthik , known as highflyer on PG, while he stood in line with hundreds of others to take a shot at being one of the first to buy the CAT vouchers. Better resolution pictures are below:

http://twitpic.com/h23ot
http://twitpic.com/h247y
http://twitpic.com/h239j
http://twitpic.com/h23gf (Check out the line at 8.30AM)
http://twitpic.com/h23di

Rohit aka estranged_gnrs, being the enthu guy he is, travelled from Chembur to Vashi (in Mumbai) and was one of the early ones to go and try to buy the forms. Early morning he tweeted the following – “There r ppl with god’s blessings, parents bunkin office, lovers givin moral support,standing in queue to buy the CAT voucher”.

Apurv headed to Shivaji park at Dadar to buy forms and sent us this pic

http://twitpic.com/h22px

Send us pics of violence, love, peace and hope. Tell us the best branches, the worst ones and the most awesome things you noticed while being in line!

CAT is here people, rock on!

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Source: http://www.pagalguy.com/2009/09/violence-at-the-bank-floor/

BJP: Skewed Ideologies!

"Never Judge a Book by it's Cover Picture and Name"

[I don't know who said it(if no one has,I'll add my name,IPR guys any?!)]

I wonder how many members of the current BJP Parliamentary Board have read Mr.Jaswant Singh's book 'Jinnah- India, Partition, Independence',I will not say that reading it would have altered their stance on this issue, given the fact that BJP,per se is made up of a confused bunch of individuals.Confused about the 'ideologies',confused about the so-called 'core beliefs' of the party,in general confused about anything that is scientific and non conservative.The truth is the BJP has been on the constant hunt for a nationalist ancestor for, they have none.Their attempt to project Savarkar as a national hero during the National democratic Alliance regime, during which it started a yatra from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands where Savarkar was imprisoned and unveiled a potrait in the Parliament, can be quoted as an example.Now it is the first Home Minister of India, Sardar Patel, inspite of the later asking for a ban on RSS after the assasination of Mahatma Gandhi.Though the Kapur commission later aquitted the senior RSS leaders.It held RSS responsible for breeding people like Godse and creating a communal situation in India.It was then that RSS was asked to draft a constitution.It is this futile search for an ancestor that is frustrating the leadership and driving them to take some mindless decisions which would prove to be highly detrimental in the future.

The party 'ideology' that Arun Jaitley was talking about in the press conference during the Chintan Bhaithak in Shimla is skewed conspicuously towards a heavily communal and rigid Hindutva pole.It was pro Sardar Patel not because the RSS looked upto him,but because noone from the party high command could support the founder of Pakistan, RSS would not let that be so.RSS started abiding by what its name is, but then slowly moved towards right wing extremism trying to gain currency in the conservatist's approach to religion in politics.

The other day I was reading an article by Vidya Subrahmaniam comparing Shashi Tharoor's 'India : From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond' and the Jaswant Singh's latest.'India : From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond' :the book, which Mr. Tharoor updated in 2007, is sprinkled with critical references to the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty. Yet the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress offered Mr. Tharoor a Lok Sabha ticket in the 2009 general election. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government went a further step and invited him to join the External Affairs Ministry as a Minister of State. Consider what Mr. Tharoor had to say about one of the Congress’ greatest icons — Indira Gandhi. “Had Indira’s Parsi husband been a toddywalla (liquor trader) rather than so conveniently a Gandhi, I sometime wonder, might India’s political history have been different?”.

Further, “Mrs. Gandhi was skilled at the acquisition and maintenance of power, but hopeless at the wielding of it for larger purposes. She had no real vision or program beyond the expedient campaign slogans; “remove poverty” was a mantra without a method ?. Declaring a state of Emergency, Indira arrested opponents, censored the press, and postponed elections. As a compliant Supreme Court overturned her conviction, she proclaimed a ‘20-point programme’ for the uplift of the common man (No one found it humorous enough to remark, as Clemenceau had done of Wilson’s Fourteen Points, that “even the good Lord only had ten.”) Its provisions ? remained largely unimplemented. Meanwhile her thuggish younger son, Sanjay (1946-1980) emphasizing two of the 20 points, ordered brutally insensitive campaigns of slum demolitions and forced sterilizations.” Mr. Tharoor had a reference to Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra too.

The BJP had the Tharoor example before it. It could have taken Mr. Jaswant Singh’s book in its stride, and appeared large-hearted, as the Congress did with Mr. Tharoor. Instead, it chose to show its illiberal side.

Kaminey-Dissection

Cast:

Shahid Kapoor as Charlie/Guddu
Priyaka Chopra as Sweety
Amol Gupte as Sunil Shekhar Bhope (Bhope Bhau)

Director:Vishal Bhardwaj

'Kaminey' quite a wierd name for a movie you might say, you scroll down and see 'Vishal Bhardwaj' and silently agree that he might have had something different in store again.Such is the trust he has earned among movie-lovers and hasn't he lived up to it again!This time around he brings to us the early ninetees Tarantino style of movie making,with a perfect mix of dark humour,violence with a pinch of romance to give us this beautiful drama in shades of red and gray.Kaminey as the name suggests is about how selfish people get when it comes to their dreams,love,career and all.

The movie opens to Shahid giving us, in lisp, his take on life."pai'f'e kamane ke bas do raaste hote hai:ek 'F'ortcut aur ek chota 'F'ortcut".This is the street smart Charlie,who makes money hedging bets at racecourse.He dreams of being rich and marring a beautiful rich girl.So,he takes the shortcut('F'ortcut as Charlie would say) and bets one lakh rupees on a horse,but eventually it turns out that the race was fixed and he loses all his money.Sore at this he and his coke-addicted friend Mikhail trace the jockey and finally trace down the henchman,Francis, primarily responsible for this.But as fate would have it there is a drug-deal going on in the adjoint apartment of the hotel and while running away from the hotel Charlie hijacks the jeep of the corrupt Anti Narcotics officers Lele and Lobo,who wanted to sell the prize off to the stylish smuggler Tashi.The jeep had coke worth 10Cr(in a guitar case!).

The other track of the story is of Charlie's twin brother Guddu,who ironically also has a speech impediment too.Guddu works for an NGO that educates people against AIDS and he stammers while talking.His girlfriend is Sweety,played by Priyanka Chopra who delivers some top of the line acting.She is the sister of a wannabe gangster-politician Bhope Bhau(Amol Gupte).Bhope is a politician who wants to draw some political milege on the Maharastra-is-meant-for-only-marathis concept and obviuosly is furiated when he realises that his own sister is marrying a 'North-Indian'.

The story is about how the twins who chose separate paths cross each others ways and eventually realise their dreams.

Kaminey is beautifully crafted with an unpredictable screenplay that will keep you glued to the seats.The climax is the winner where you can hear loud cheers from the audience,for every new twist that comes around.Everything about Kaminey is right,be it the casting,acting,writing even technical aspects like sound and editing were fabulously done.

The songs were already a hit and they never for once disturb the story telling.Fatak,the first song of the movie metaphorically explains about AIDS and its prevention techniques,which will remain one of my personal favorites.Even the title track Kaminey.It talks about how kamini(if I can use that word) are the aspirations inside a man and how they take control of your life if not checked.

All in all Vishal Bhardwaj delivers a fantastic package and lived up to the high standards he has set for himself.

Verdict: 4.5/5

P.S.This might the the first time when I did not have a 'Rip Masand' section,that is because for the first time ever I agree to whatever he said.

Can you quarantine an entire nation?

"Now what is it that you are blaming the Indian government for this time? The swine flu did not originate in India, so we are not to blame for this. Furthermore, it is a pandemic; there are more than 168 countries which have been affected by this. Why blame the government for this?"
When people across nations were reeling under this influenza, we were sitting in our living rooms enjoying the bulletin on our television sets. We did nothing till the 17th of May when the first patient was screened at the Hyderabad International airport. Even then, but for a few eye-washing steps we did nothing. Now when it has reached epic proportions and hundreds of cases have been registered, we 'react' and how? We 'react' by shutting downs institutes and complete cities. What we still did not acknowledge is that we cannot go quarantining entire cities. Shutdowns will not stop the virus, what it will do is create panic. Ironically the government itself issues as Don't-Panic notice. Blames people and media for creating this panic and rush. Will we ever grow up? Will this delinquent behaviour ever end?

"Okay, there were cases like these before as well, sample bird flu. These are all viral. How can you prepare for something you do not know?"
No we cannot prepare for the unknown. But we can learn from our past experiences. What this exposed is that we do not have a good crisis management machinery in place. Our stance needs to change from a react-ive one to a proactive one. We still lack a clear direction. The notices that were issued were too less and far-spaced. We are still importing testing kits in a few hundreds everyday. There is only one institute that can perform these tests, i.e., the NIV, Pune and it is so overburdened by the number of requests (around 650 a day!) that it is turning down further requests for tests. We need to have a strong conformity of infrastructure in place. It is if-I-contracted-this-where-will-I-go syndrome that is haunting people more than the fear of the virus. Where do we go, if we are apprehensive? To the government hospitals (if we ignore that fact how ill-equipped they are!) and here the medical attendants turn you off saying that there are already enough cases. Now where does one go? To a private hospital? And what are the odds that the government has not yet issued a list of private hospitals that are authorised to test.
When a situation such as this strikes, one of the first things that strikes some people is ‘business’. Sick! How else would you define people trying to hoard and even black-market the N-95 masks or even TamiFlu in certain cases. Inspite of the heavy culture talk (that has now become a trademark of India) we do often, we lag way behind in terms of some primary things like ‘social responsibility’. We still throw our garbage on the road, have a heavy not-my-problem attitude, don’t bother to carry handkerchiefs around, lack the basic etiquette that is taught to the kindergarten kids and feel that things like swine flu are pretty exotic and out of this land to infect us!
What we are also overlooking is the fact that WHO has issued a notice saying that even if the flu plateaus now, it will resurface again in winter, it has put the number of people estimated to contract this at around 2.2bn,almost 30% of the world population! The national labs say that cheaper testing kits are coming not before a month. We still don't have a vaccine; even Tamiflu at best is questionable. Are we prepared for all this? Or are we doing what we are best at: play the waiting game; wait till it strikes that big!
What we cannot ignore is the financial hit that we will take. Mexico lost close to $55mn a day during shutdown. The headlines on BBC World yesterday morning were, “The commercial capital of India shuts down”. You cannot shut down financial hubs like Mumbai where thousands of people are dependent on daily wages. And as a senior journalist put it, If you are an 'aam-aadmi's' government you definitely cannot ignore the 'aam-dani of that aam-aadmi!

Disppointing Typo!

"Deligate" never knew such a word ever existed!!
All this at THE WORLD BADMINTION 'CHAMPION SHIP'(a new kinda ship may be)!
Just on the way to the campus! For all the people who did not know,this street is called the Finance Street and houses IIIT Hyd,Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy,Hill Ridge Springs,Infosys,ISB,Microsoft,Wipro and other firms.
when you are hosting such a world class event typos such as these om the hoardings around is highly dispappointing.

Current Mood : Disappointed :(
Current Music : Ajj Din Chadheya!

Magadheera

The Disclaimer:

Ohk this would not be called a review because to me it is more of a BTMWA(Boy! the movie was auh-sum!)Many might find my opinion a bit biased!And this also happens to be the first telugu movie I felt like writing about,also because the number of telugu movies that feature in my annual movie calender would be less than five!



The opening scene was so superbly crafted that it swept me off!The movie streched a bit in the beginning but picked up as it went along till the interval so much so that those ten minutes seemed like ages to me.Kajal looked fantabulously gorgeous.

Revenge and reincarnation are the leitmotifs of this movie.It is about this intrepid security chief Kalabhairava who loves a Princess, Mitra Vinda,the Princess loves him aswell but there is a villian RanaDev Billa who is defeated by Bhairava in a contest and is banned from the kingdom.He proves to be a renegade and joins hands with an invader Sher Khan and conspires against the kingdom.What follows is an intense battle between KalaBhairava and the opposition army.Kalabhairava is shown scything through their forces and the invader is so overwhelmed by this act of his that he offers Bhairava his friendship.But fate had a different story for the lovers.The recidivistic Billa in a fit of rage tries to kill Mitra and injures her fatally.The Princess lies at the corner of the hill,breathing her last.She asks Bhairava to confess to his love for her atleast at this last moment.KalaBhairava is also fatally wounded,he tears apart his armour and falls on his knees to tell Mitra Vinda how much he loves her,but she's already dead by then.The scene in which his hand falls on the ground close to her and precisely then Mitra slips into the deep canyon is fantastically done.



Highlights:

* 'Magadheera' was released in 48 theatres and six multiplexes in Hyderabad on 31st July, with a staggering 241 shows everyday. Yes, 241 !! The number was mind-boggling, even if you factor that this is Telugu cinema's costliest film and stars Chiranjeevi's son, Ram Charan.
* The battle between KalaBhairava and the opposition's army.
* The Sound and SFX were clean
* Kajal looked stunning like a princess.
* The new villian did a good job.
* Casting:for once a telugu flick did not rely on the regular actors,the story demanded new faces;any regular characters would never have given you the feel it does now.

Letdowns:

* The movie resorted to some usual cliches but that is acceptable given the fact that it is a regional movie and is meant also for the masses,front-row-ers,people in small towns and cities.The producer has to get this money back.And,looks like it did the same ; it reportedly grossed close to 20Cr INR in the first week.Ghajini and now Magadheera, looks like whatever Allu Aravind is touching is turning into gold.
* Charan has to polish his acting even more.He looks pretty cold at times.More so for the family he hails from.
* I personally feel Charan's hair could have been styled better.Something to suit his jawline and complexion.
* The song which was supoosed to be the biggest crowd puller proved to score tad lesser than others.It was poorly mixed.But,it was compensated for by the dance.

Verdict:

4.5/5

A must watch,in a good theatre.Can be watched with the family,kids will like it even more.U/A might have been for the fight sequences which were violent in parts



* Current Mood: blank
* Current Music: Pehli baar

We Indians And Optimism!

Indians are the most optimistic people you would ever come across.We are taught to be illogically optimistic right from ourchildhood and we even outgrow that as the number of candles on our cake increases.A mom tells her 3yr old kid stories ofhow he'll grow up and rule the country as she makes some dinner in her makeshift hut from whatever little she could forageall day.Optimist.A child prays that his test on the next day be postponed because he has not prepared well.Optimist.Youassume that there won't be a traffic jam today when you drive to the office.An Optimist again.A group of people sit down todiscuss about the new government and hope that the new government brings in some real good reforms and they'll do yougood.A bunch of Optimists.Someone in some distant town has gone to the nearby temple to pray that it may not rain on the final day of the test match because India is in a winning position.Optimist.An old man hopes that his alone sugar levels will hit normal and he will get to eat his favourite sweetmeat.An Optimist and veteren at it.The list goes on,well you may ask what is wrong in optimism?Well nothing,but for optimism we would all be living in acynical,depressing world.Some may even argue that it has got this placebo effect on our lives,because but for it the oldman in the tests lab might not find enough reasons to live n cheer about nor the mother in the hut.But what could be morally and mentally damaging could be the being optimistic and doing nothing about it,like the kidpraying that the exam be postponed,the prayer per se is harmless but what would damage would be the fact that he will growup to be an adult who wants something and does nothing about it,just hopes or prays.You want to crack that managemententrance every year,but you just hope that the project that you get at the end of the year would be pretty easy and you cando away without slogging more than 9.5hrs a day.This is a dangerous corollary of the optimism theory,that leaves everythingon your disaster management skills,which are good but might not save something as important and improbable as your career.This is how we operate.No,am not drawing parallels with our financially better off counterparts but a bit of logic mixed with this can take us a long way.

Love Aaj Kal-Dissection

LAK is about Jai(Saif) who is like any other guy you meet,chilled out, anti-commitment,you IM him Love and he would reply with a suprised smiley.Jai ,as in any other lovestory, meets a girl Meera.Meera Pundit(Deepika) is again the usual girl who her own set of ideals and is pretty cool about this love stuff herself.The story is about how these people who seem all so 'practical' fall for each other.All along Imtiaz tried explaining the audience that no matter how casual you are about relationships and people,there would be this one person you would fall in love with.This one person understands you and knows you inside out and is your 'soulmate'.
Imtiaz starts with his trademark guy meets gal,they are not quite keen(read sure) about each other but eventually destiny has it that they meet.'Socha na tha' started similar;but again it doesnot leave you with a deja vu as many critics put it; neither do I see the director being overtly cautious.It is plain his-own-style.Romance, we understand is his forte,his real test now would be coming out of his comfort mush zone.
Story:
The story quite interestingly starts with the lead pair calling their relationship quits!Talking always about being 'practical' and how long distance relationships don't take off;given the fact that Meera had to fly to India for work.Both wanted to grow professionally and so they part ways but they decide on not to sob their way out of this but celebrate with a party,a 'break-up party'.It was at the end of this party that Veer Singh(Rishi Kapoor),a cafe owner bumps into him,telling Jai how he resembled him in is youth.
Veer Singh had dated a beautiful young punjabi girl Harleen(Giselle Montero) who lived in Delhi,when he was young(played by Saif with a turban).Harleen and family relocated to Calcutta,but Veer Singh is so smitten by this girl that he travels to Calcutta just to catch a glimpse of her.The next time they meet is at a wedding in Delhi,when she tells Veer that she is getting engaged the day after and has no say in this.He eventually wins her home,despite opposition from her family.
Screenplay and good slick Editing are the stars of the film.The movie darts smoothly between Veer Singh's past and Jai's present drawing parallels between eveverything in their lives.
Saif plays Jai,he has done similar roles in Salaam Namaste and Hum Tum before, so pulls it off pretty effortlessly.This might go down as one of the better performances by Deepika,who I felt showed us that she too can act, for the first time esp. the last scene where she proved that she can cry.She has miles to go in terms of acting still and is wooden at times,particularly. the dance sequences.Deepika again has usually been potrayed in roles like these,which are by and large similar to how she is in real life aswell.Her character and 'practical' approach to life remind you of Bachna Ae Haseeno.
Rip Masand:
"The screenplay, for one, is far from foolproof."
I feel it was one of the best narrations of 2009.For example,one of the last scenes in which the love-lost Jai finally goes to Meera.The shots move quickly between Veer Singh going to get Harleen and Jai going to Meera's house.The parallelism has been smoothly crafted.

"The incident that drives Jai to realise where his heart lies is ridiculous"
It is funny how Masand expects everything to be senselessly scientic.This is how life is and this also precisely the charater that Jai and Meera play.They have no idea that he/she is the one for each other.And that is also what Meera tells Rahul Khanna,"Jai does not know this yet.And if he does anytime,he will come back to me". The one good thing that I observed in this is how she doesnot forecast that Jai 'will be back' .Quite unlike "Woh zaroor ayega,mera dil kehta hai"or "Agar mera pyaar sachcha hai toh woh zaroor ayega" cliches.

"The young Veer and Harleen track is wrapped up with a convenient culmination that isn't even dramatic enough to justify how much time has been spent establishing these characters."
What more does anyone want?Any more frames into their story and people might have started getting bored,given the fact that Veer is not the lead protagonist.

" Deepika Padukone lacks the maturity or the skill to make up for the lapses in the writing and to construct a credible character out of Meera. "
I could not figure out any lapses as such but Deepika did a commendable job as discussed before.

Verdict:
The film is a fitting next to the director's previous "Socha Na Tha" and "Jab We Met" and if we talk about the storyline and the depth,I personally found it to be tad better than JWM.You can watch it anytime with anyone.

I'd give it a 4 out of 5.

Worked Out!

One of the most common excuses that people give for not hitting the gym is "am not interested","it is not good,it strains your muscles/bones" and the lame-est of all "I don't get time".No, working out does not strain your bones,it strains your muscles only to the extent that is required,well that is what 'working out' means.You are not interested or pretend not to be for the sole reason that that you are lethargic,this can be attributed to the i-don't-find-time category above aswell.Who does not want a good body,none of us likes chiding remarks on our body,our on our increasing waist-line.

How long does a fifteen minute cardio take?fifteen minutes;3 sets of 8 reps each of crunches 15 minutes.That would be enough to just tone down the excess fat and burn down those needless calories. Again there is this category that drools over a toned body but has some dumb myths on weight training,this is the category that comes feels your biceps,slaps your abs,gives you a lame I-can-have-'em-too look and says,"Am not too much into bodybuilding n all,it's just that my clothes should look good on me".Well none of us are into 'bodybuilding' unless we aim to and when we say bodybuilding the image that flashes in our mind is of dark(no!I wasn't being racist) men on a stage with oiled up bodies,trying to flex every single muscle in their body,standing in a minimalist costume that has a huge white circular cardboard piece with some number on it.Another popular fad is that,I am thin and so will not workout.Eat lots of of protein,that should suffice!

Some chest and lats(latissimus dorsi) or shoulder or triceps-biceps reps will do you a world of good apart from the regular cardio.

It is not against people who can-not do it ,it is against people who do-not-do-it or do-not-want-to-do-it.We do not have the right to stay unfit/unhealthy and comment on how the other person is looking.People who are not working out are slowly killing themselves.And among these ,majority are boys,and in this there is a subset of boys who register for the gym on the first day of the month,come all geared up,want to hit the machines and weights on the first day itself,but the instructor wants them to do a mix.Eventually, after a week they get pissed and stop coming to the gym.Working out is an essential part of our lives and not just going to the gym.

For all those of you ,who are seriously into this,There are a couple of fundas that I follow:

1)Against the Gravity; Slow(when ever you are lifting your body/part thereof up(against the Gravity)take your body up ,as slow as possible.

2)When working out concentrate/try-visualising that particular muscle.

3)Never concentrate on girls dance-practising in the activity room beside the gym.You could end up with an injured neck!

4)If your instructor says that he was drunk all night yesterday,has a hangover and so he cannot give you support while you are doing weights.Trust Him! Else you might end up with a muscle tear or something even serious and might have to stay away from all this for a good part of your life!

I know that this post ain't going to change nothing,but this was what I've felt always.We take our bodies for granted. humph!
Hit da Gym!

Second Class Luxury

There is something about travelling sleeper class in the trains in India.I know there are hundreds of people who hate it for all the hygiene and other high funda factors.I have been one HUGE sleeper class lover.The wind in your face,your co-passengers staring down your luggage as soon as you unzip your bag, trying to get a sight of what all you are carrying,people sneaking inside the bathroom to smoke,people throwing coins in a river and praying,people joining hands and praying at the sight of a famous place of worship,guys sitting at the door even if they have a reserved berth in the coach,someone playing music on their mobile,hawkers selling stuff.Everything!The list is endless.
There is some rustic-purity in the way people see,talk,behave and react that you will never find in another class of the train.

There are many amongst us who prefer not to travel in the second class sleeper and there are people like one of my ex-girlfriends who didn't even know how the interiors of this coach looks like.Not that the people in the other 'higher' classes are not interested in the stuff their co-passengers are carrying or that they don't feel like throwing coins in the river and praying or that they actually don't,it's not even that they don't feel like sitting at the gate of the coach with breeze in their face;it is only that they feel they are too refined to show that they like or do such stuff.
The second class is sheer luxury to many in our country at the same time a last resort to another set of people and a no-go to many others.Well this is how most of our India is,this is how many countries are.Second class is the majority,the bourgeois.People come in without reservation sometimes with heavy luggage and without reservation with the hope that there will be someone who'll let him sit,if he is lucky some might even let him share their berth for the night.Things like these are pretty ubiquitous in the second class and pretty rare in the 'higher' classes.
The choice of travelling in the class of their liking is purely dependent on that person but this was something pretty generic that I observed.

P.S.Hope I didn't sound like one NRI who returned to India after twenty years :P

Home:Rains

Home!:Rains



Nothing like coming home.It washes all the murk in your head!My every trip to vizag is such a trip down the memory lane.It gives me loads of stuff to sit and ruminate and calories that take me a lifetime to burn.

Sh*T Happens

Original

Institutionalization!

I was planning leave for my friend's wedding and as it usually happens to me,some psychological undercurrents swept me to a my thoughts and I started recollecting all the discussions about marriage,of my friends,friends' friends,cousins of my age;everyone and anyone who had touched twenty three.Everyone discussed wedding.Longime boyfriend-girlfriend wanted to get married n 'settle down'!
Marry & Settle Down!
We in India tend to use these two words rather synonymously.For me they are two different words and mean two diametrcally opposite things.But as everything else marriage in India has been institutionalized.You are five you go to the school,twenty one you graduate and after that you marry(and settle down!).It is just another stage in your life.
Success Rate
It is not that this approach does not work,most of our parents did this and their parents too.But,I feel that this approach has been made to work.We have beaten this into the box and we are quite good at it,blame it on the adjust kar lo na attitude.
"Dad asked me to marry this girl,mom liked her too.They must ve chosen the right girl for me"
This applies even more to girls than guys.They solely rely on the decision taken by their parents and in most of the cases it is assumed that they must not go against their decision.What we donot undrstand is that parents are also humans like us and the margin of error is the same as it would be for any of us.The error in judgement might be because of scores of reasons,the short span of meeting being just one of then.Even the backgroud check that they might run(which extends to hiring private detectives in some cases) might prove to be inadequate.What we must understand is the fact that we ignore scores of things that we feel are not so important but the decison that we take might change a person's life completely.I am not even mentioning elders-are-experienced reason because noone and I mean no-one other than you can decide who you would be best with.
Why not?
Why can a person not chose the person he/she likes/wants to be with,marrying is a totally different thing,he may chose to marry or not.The lines of marriage and the person you would like to spend the rest of life with are skew symmetric often assumed to be interesecting by people whose vision lacks the ability to fathom depth.
If there is anything we donot know or cannot explain we take cover in our culture and/or tradition.Not chosing the right individual and spending the rest of our lives in the agony of incompatibility is not our culture,believing that others can make the right decision for you is definitely not our culture.
So what do we do?We should keep in mind that relationships are important but not everything in your life.I understand that people have their priorities but marking getting-married on the top of your list is something that still bewilders me,unless you are wedding planner or something.

· Current Mood: hyper
· Current Music:Jiye toh jiye

RSS - Dissection

I have been using RSS for quite some time now.I have closely monitored it for a few years and still don't see many people using it.It is indeed Really Simple and even people like my mom can use it.So,I thought to burst the myth and tell people without using much of jargon and terminology about what RSS actually is and what the orange icon on your browser is.

RSS,as the name suggests is a way to syndicate data for webservices.It is a group of feed formats used to publish works e.g. blogs news items,etc.It allows information to be published once and viewed in different programs.A user has to just subscribe to the feed,by visisting the feed's URI or the simplest aproach would be clicking on the RSS icon on their browser and voila!your subscription has been initiated,you donot have to visit the page often,fear missing the latest updates and stuff,just RSS.And yeah!Feeds can be read using feed-readers (such as feedburner or bloglines etc.) or an aggregator which can be a web/windows(desktop)/mobile based.So,it has something for everyone,the Publisher and the end user.

History:

If we trace the history a bit RSS started as RDF Site Summary(RSS) introduced by Ramanathan Guha for Netscape(RSS 0.9),later renamed as Rich Site Summary(RSS) and this incorporated Winer's scriptingNews syndication Format(RSS 0.9.1). Netscape gave up on this and later a team called the RSS-Dev Group developed a newer version of RSS,without much changes. In the version released in 2000 Winer made an attempt to include audio file syndication on feeds,which I feel gave birth to podcasting.RSS 2.0 was released in the later part of 2002,RSS 2.0 removed the type attribute. RSS logo was initially used by Mozilla Firefox and later incorporated by other softwares and browsers and the orange square with white radio waves the industry standard for RSS and Atom feeds.

Downfalls:

RSS does not allow any well-formed XML markup in it’s content. This is very bad when it comes to using RSS-syndicated content elsewhere. In fact, it only supports plain text or escaped HTML which, without getting into the technical issues surrounding that, simply means it’s very difficult to work with.
RSS Example:

--HTML tags cannot be included-------------

How is RSS different from ATOM?

I personally feel that both are same and work the same but for the fact that metadata is not that comprehensive in 2.0.Atom is a relatively recent spec and is much more robust and feature-rich than RSS. A feed consists of some metadata about the feed, followed by one (or naturally more) entries. The metadata chunk in ATOM contains, happily, all of the data we found missing from the default RSS 2.0 feeds. The id element provides the "where," giving the feed's URI. The title provides a "what," giving the title of the feed.Author says "who" created the feed, and link provides the "how"--giving a link to an HTML version of the resource the feed represents.And my favorite - Atom feeds provide an “updated” field which means that any feeds that are modified have a timestamp associated with them. And if we sample a section of an Atom feed,it can also contain elements detailing categories, intellectual property rights, contributors' details, a feed's logo, and more.All these are quite important from a publisher's perspective. A cool feature of Atom has to do with autodiscovery. Most of the time, if you point your browser to a feed-enabled website, autodiscovery kicks in and the browser alerts you in its own unique way to the presence of a feed. The same thing happens when you point a feed reader to a feed-enabled website as opposed to the specific feed itself. While feed autodiscovery has been around for a long time, Atom feeds actually contain a self pointer autodiscovery URL which is highly unique from RSS itself. RSS is not the be all and end all of blogging. It is certainly possible to blog without using RSS either to collect your content or to publish it to the masses. However, the sheer benefit in terms of traffic opportunity and exposure should be enough for any blogger to add a new dimension to his blog.·

Current Mood: calm ·

Current Music:Mad

Leader of the Autobots

Before time began, there was...the Cube. We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power to create worlds and fill them with life. That is how our race was born. For a time we lived in harmony, but like all great power, some wanted it for good...others for evil. And so, began the war. A war that ravaged our planet until it was consumed by death. And the Cube was lost to the far reaches of space. We scattered across the galaxy, hoping to find it and rebuild our home. Searching every star, every world. And just when all hope seemed lost, message of a new discovery drew us to an unknown planet called...Earth. But we were already too late.

I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. We have been on Earth since our ship the Ark crashed here so long ago. As leader of the Autobots, I am a very busy being, but my comrade Autobot Bumblebee told me that all the electronic devices around KK are crashing and this is because of who I am and I am writing this post in order to understand human culture a little better.
It started with the mobile of human KK, now the human found out that it had started behaving wierd,did wierd things,played its own music,went online,called friends all on its own.We suspect it was a Deceptacon.
Then it was the display on his automobile that acted strange.
Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.
Be it a mobile or a mobike display,if we have sense,they can too.
It's you and me, Megatron!
At the end of this day, one shall stand...one shall fall!Taking the children(their electronics) was a bad move. Megatron!You shall pay!

Am Back!

Alrite,

after being like an year away from the world.For a while I was in the “I don’t care what you’re doing right now” camp.Now , am back to my good ol' blogging days,actively orkutting,am into twitter too (*blush*).I feel like college again!

Am new to twitter(I know...I know) but have since discovered that it really is a great way to keep up on current events, find interesting people and keep in touch. And like a number of geeks, I carry several mobile Internet devices at all times,so it's easy to update and get updated.

Silly as I thought it was,am posting my blog link in my Gtalk status message,on my twitter.Stickin' my poster on virtually any online wall I see :P

Union Budget-Dissection-Beyond Numbers

Yesterday when the FM read out the budget there were many in the market who cheered and there were others who felt it was damp.Let us dig deeper into this.

The Numbers:

To start with 6.8% of Fiscal Deficit (on GDP) is not a very good news but the FM said that it would be partly compensated for by borrowing from the market and the remaining by printing notes.

What is it,apart from numbers?

It was a purely scheme-oriented budget rather than a growth-oriented budget as some pointed out, as the govt's major concentrated was on funding its flagship schemes rather than introducing any fresh ventures as it promised before coming into power.NREG got a whooping 144% fillip,Bharat Nirman was also taken care of well(with a 45% boost).IITs and NITs got 2113Cr and Rs450 for starting new IITs and NITs,apart from other plans such as, starting new branches for the Muslim University etc ,for the educational system.Increasing the relaxation band for Education Loan came as a pleasant surprise,would be of great help to the weaker sections,which was probably,some speculate,Rahul Gandhi's suggestion.What I loved the most was the concept of upgrading the polytechnics,under the skills-development initaitive.per se Education was handled intelligently and initiatives such as these would take us a long way.

For the Corporate:

Now,if we dive in deeper,Fringe Benefit Tax has been relaxed.Great News,eh?Only if you are an employer.It's just that the FM removed the FBT thorn from the corporate and thrusted it in the side of the employee,as ET put it.There would be absolutely no difference for the government which earns around 8k INR from this.Relaxation of this(introduced by Mr.Chidambaram and is termed as "nuissance tax" by many)also reduces the paperwork for the corporate(esp.IT).Now ,it is the employee who pays out(indirectly) for beneits like,prizes,gifts,concessional travel and stay and scores of other benefits for which the employer used to pay the tax previously.But increase of MAT from 10 to 15% might prick the corporate sector real hard,but if we look at it this way,that the credit period has only increased(7 to 10 yrs),so,even if you pay heavy taxes this year you reap the dividends later.

A brick here,a stone there

While increase of savings on personal income tax as exemption,from 1.5lakhs last yr to 1.6lakhs for men and 1.9lakhs for women,might not affect many lives,hiking it by 15K for senior citizens might sure help.Wiping out the surcharge completely might also fatten a few wallets,esp. those earning more than 10lakhs p.a.

Farmer perks are ,as was expected, good.All in all it was just the aam aadmi ka budget,which might not have pleased the corporate sector guys much,but what anyone would appreciate is the fact that taxes were not increased,they were just rationalised and also the FM has promised to introduce a new Direct Tax Code in the next 45 days,which many feel might put an extra burden on the fiscal deficit,which I presume they are planning to cover using the rationalisation receipts,disinvestment and the 3G auction coming up.Identifying sustainance of the GDP at 9% as the immediate challenge is also laudable,given the fact that this will act as the economic surplus that aould be needed to improve our standards of living,esp the bourgeoisie.