mail2nagen - Nagendra HK

Currently playig

2011-11-08T15:50:00.001+05:30

I am currently playing Block Puzzle on my Android. Pretty interesting

Some android apps for kids

2011-11-08T15:47:00.001+05:30

Here are some of the android apps that my kid uses(plays)

Ant smasher
Barney the Dinosaur
Dora puzzle
Kids coloring
Kids Animals (there is a bunch of stuff in this series. I don't remember all the names, as I deleted them due to lack of space. There were a few for alphabets, numbers, animals etc)
Moron test (my son's fav)
snow white puzzle
Memory

Ferrari collection

2010-10-06T16:55:00.002+05:30

If you fill full tank petrol (or a min of Rs 1500/- for car or Rs 350/- for bike) at shell petrol bunk in bangalore, you get a small ferrari car collection. I already have collected 2 cars

Things to cherish from school

2010-05-28T13:35:00.003+05:30

My recent post Entering the next phase of life has made me remember what all I did when I was a kid in school, some of which even my friends remember.

1. Accidentally hit principal with a ball.
2. Collided with a classmate and had stitches. Because of this incident, playing cricket in the school ground was canceled.
3. Involved in wrestling resulting in breaking the glass of library show-case
4. Caused bulbs to burst in physics lab as I had incorrectly connected the wires for my physics experiment.
5. Losing my school fees in bus. After this my mom used to make me go to the school principal's house, which was very close to my house, to pay the fees.
6. Involved in petty fights with class mates in bus.
7. Forgetting my unit test and happily going to school without getting prepared for the exam. Got very less marks in that subject

Entering the next phase of life

2010-05-22T13:03:00.004+05:30

I had not felt that I had entered the next phase of life even when I had got a school admission for my kid. But the feeling dawned upon me when I stood in the school line "with other parents" for collecting his uniform.

Wondering when the day will come when I have to stand in front of the principal's office because Nikhil broke other kid's nose

saving on monthly shopping

2010-05-16T12:28:00.003+05:30

I was stuck behind a sardar family at star bazaar cash counter, this morning. They were there to do their monthly grocery and other consumables shopping. There final bill was was a whopping Rs 33000/-. They had filled up 8-10 shopping carts. The cashier was later saying that they come every month and make such a huge bill.
Why don't people with such huge consumption rate, go to wholesalers like Metro or such and get a min discount of 15-20%.They were 8-10 people from the family who had come to shop and paid the entire amount in cash. Couldn't believe, that they didn't think of converting it to credit card reward points.

In fact, I am a frequenter at 'Metro cash and carry'. I go there once in 4-6 months and buy all the non-edible items for 2 families. On a purchase of Rs 10,000, I save close to Rs 2000. I not only save a flat 15-20%, but also beat inflation for 6 months. Apart from this my friend made me realize that every time I have to have to buy something, I have to drive to the nearby store there by spending on fuel (and also spending time). By buying in bulk, I am saving on fuel too :)

The flip side, is by buying more, I am stocking up more at home. Since I have surplus quantity at home, I tend to consume more, there by buying more. So, it is a vicious circle.

I buy more to save more. But use more since I have bought more. I now have to buy more since I have used more :)

People who want to learn to how save money on monthly shopping should watch this mommy from Massachusetts whose family of 6 lives off $4/wk for food

Switching off lights for earth hour

2010-03-27T21:50:00.002+05:30

I had switched off all the electrical equipment at home for an hour between 8.30 p.m and 9.30 p.m on 27th March, 2010 to show my support for earth hour

I not only switched off all lights at home, but also messaged more than 50 friends and relatives to do the same. A few called back to say that they did the same. Some called up to say that they switched off everything but kept TV on and a few switched off everything except one light as they had small kids at home.

As it was quite hot inside the house (since all fans were off), we all went out for a walk. I was happy to see that a few people in my area were doing the same. Some had switched off all lights and were sitting on the front porch.

Interesting profile for BBMP elections

2010-03-22T12:21:00.003+05:30

Dr Shankar Prasad is standing for BBMP elections from my area. He had come home for campaigning and distributed pamphlets. I was very impressed by reading the profile. Our country should be ruled by such educated class.

You can read about him at here

I am pasting the site contents here

--------------------
Dr. Shankara Prasad

Chairman & Managing Director
INKROMA E-Business Solutions
Bangalore 560041
Shankara.prasad@inkroma.com (P) Ltd

Dr. Shankara Prasad is the Chairman and Managing Director of Inkroma E-Business Solutions, in Bangalore. The company focuses on developing Enterprise Portal ERP Software and Knowledge Management solutions for Indian and Commonwealth Government organizations. Dr. Prasad’s educational background includes an M. Tech degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York. Dr. Prasad is an active e-governance evangelist and his passion is to bring Six Sigma process methodology and philosophy into the Indian government domain. He and his team at Inkroma are the architects of the ERP / BPM software solution for Indian Government organizations, which is specifically developed to make Indian government organizations e-enabled and paperless. The team has developed the first Indian ERP product to meet the requirements of the government vertical. The product has been developed completely based on Open Standards, international software and communication standards. Dr. Prasad has been involved in many standards organizations in the USA, Europe and India, between 1982 and 2004. He was the Chairman of the SEMI Standards committee in the US, Member of European Union Standards organization, Member of the Rosettanet E-Business Standards in the Semiconductor vertical and active participant in the ebXML standards group. He has been actively advocating initiating the e-gov standards group in India since 2002. Prior to starting the software product company in the e-governance domain, Dr. Prasad has spent more than 20 years working in the computer chip manufacturing industry working for major semiconductor companies including Intel, California, Cypress Semiconductor, California, Robert Bosch, Germany and most recently as Vice President of Engineering & Technology Development at CS2 in Belgium. Dr. Prasad has traveled and consulted with more than 30 companies in 17 countries including Brazil, Switzerland, Singapore, and Italy. Since 1983 and he has developed and taught computer technology courses to more than 3000 technicians, engineers and managers worldwide. Kluwer-Springer published the 700 page book on Advanced Chip Interconnection Technology by Dr. Prasad in 2004. It is sold world wide and is available on Amazon. He has developed and published more than 10 interactive e-learning CDROMs.

Dr. Prasad was awarded the 1998 IEEE award for “Major Educational Innovation” for innovation in the delivery methods of engineering education. He was adjunct professor at California State University, San Jose and Advisor to Center for Electronics Development & Technology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He has published more than 40 papers in major international technical and trade journals and conferences. He has been Chairman, Secretary and Member of many National and International Organizations in India, Europe and the USA. (1980 – 2005); Most recently he was the Member, Karnataka IT Task Force for Rural Advancement (2002).

--------------------

IPL tickets buying spree

2010-03-20T23:57:00.003+05:30

I watched RCB was Rajasthan Royals match on Thu, 18th march. I bought 19 tickets for RCB Vs DC on 8th April and 16 tickets for RCB Vs Mumbai on 17th Apr. All matches in Chinnaswamy stadium Bangalore.
Full family heading towards the stadium. I am planning to take my 3 year old son as well. Visited all the places where they sell tickets. Bought few from forum, few from RT Nagar cafe coffee day and a few from mobile. Did a lot of research and a lot of phone calls to find out where all tickets are available in Bangalore. Emptied the stock at both forum and at RT Nagar cafe coffee day outlet :)

6 minute entertainer

2010-03-16T16:03:00.000+05:30

Forward this to 5 people

2010-03-13T17:33:00.004+05:30

where did the 25paise go

2010-02-13T12:56:00.004+05:30

A couple of days ago, there was news that the price of milk is going up by Rs 2/- or Rs 4/-.
The same morning, I was at a fast food joint (Darshini) to have breakfast. At the counter, I started a casual chat with the cashier on what would be the result of price rise on the price of coffee. He told me that there will definitely be an increase in the price of coffee by atleast Re 1/-.

Hmmm, that made me think. Using my logical brain (hehe), I continued the conversation and put forth this argument. He would atleast make 25-30 glasses of coffee with 1 litre of milk, which means that his overhead is about 10 to 20 paise per glass, but he was going to increase the price by Re 1/- resulting him in an extra profit of 80 paise per glass. The price rise announced by the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) is a blessing in disguise for these guys. When I asked him why they couldn't absorb the extra cost of 10-20 paise themselves(as they were already making a huge profit on their sale), he replied, 'why should we'. When I complained that it was not right to raise the price that drastically, he asked he one question, for which I didn't have an answer. He aked me that if he increased the price only by 25 paise, but where the hell would he get the change from? People would only pay him a complete rupee and expect their 75 paise change back.

That gave raise to this blog. Where did the 25 paise and 50 paises go? why did the govt. stop minting these coins? I am not an economist nor a financial guru, and hence I am still looking for answers. Can someone explain to me, how and when does Govt (RBI or whoever) decide to decommission currency denominations?

maya architects

2010-02-13T12:53:00.001+05:30

These were the guys who built my house. Visit the project section on their website to see some wonderful work they have done

http://www.mayaarchitects.com/

Salman's gimmick on 'Dance India Dance' on Zee TV

2010-01-23T09:28:00.003+05:30

My wife was watching 'Dance India Dance' on Zee TV. She exclaimed that salman khan (who was one of the judges) was crying after seeing a dance performance by a couple. I guess that sucker would have never cried after running his land rover over the people sleeping on footpaths of mumbai.
I have seen such gimmicks from other judges in the past where they watch a couple dance and start crying just to fool the audience that they are airing an amazing show. But Salman crying was a little too much digest.

Nasty thing I did

2010-01-15T10:08:00.003+05:30

Recently, we had been to a friends place for lunch. On the way back, we stopped at a traffic signal. I saw a few eunuchs (khojas, hijdas) coming towards the car.

Let me pause here and give you a peep in to why they were coming near the car. Eunuchs are a menace at Bangalore traffic signals. They go and pester all the people traveling on two wheelers , cars and autos for money. Unlike other beggars on the street, who just beg for money, these eunuchs, try to harass you (by touching you, or abusing you etc). It is difficult to wade them off. If you show them that you are uncomfortable with their presence, then they take the advantage of the situation and would not leave you unless you give them money. Atleast people in the cars are safer as they can roll up the windows and avoid them.

Now, lets get back to the nasty thing I did at the traffic signal. We were 5 of us in my car with the windows closed. When I noticed that these eunuchs were coming close, I decided to play a small prank on my friend sitting at the rear seat. He had not noticed these visitors. I lowered the window on his side. Before he could realized why I had lowered the window, he saw the eunuchs talking to him and asking for money. He tried to close the window and the eunuch put his hand obstructing the window. Then the fun (for the rest of us in the car) started, with the eunuch trying to touch my friend and calling him names. This dude was very uncomfortable and this made scene more funny as the khoja pestered him more. This went on for a minute. We were all laughing, when the traffic light turned green. We managed to get away from that place without giving any money.
I regret having done this (but it was fun). My friend vouches to take revenge on me some day.

Google wave

2009-09-26T14:18:00.003+05:30

checkout Google wave. There is a 1 hour 20 minute video on wave and its cool features.
http://wave.google.com/

I am too excited with this .....

2009-06-14T18:38:00.002+05:30

I am too excited since I have read this ....

Sailing in Goa

YHAI is organizing a 6 day Sailing program in Goa
Read more about it at http://www.scribd.com/full/14653438?access_key=key-qerpw0exlgn4vz5uers

Finally my iphone is unlocked

2009-05-24T13:56:00.003+05:30

After long hibernation of 7 months, my iphone got unlocked. I am very happy abut it now
Also, my external Hard disk got repaired, I had to replace the USB casing to get it working.
Read my other post Sakkappa September

what a victory

2009-05-23T23:16:00.002+05:30

Superb semifinal victory for Royal Challengers Bangalore over Chennai Super Kings in the semi final of IPL2.
Good luck to RCB for the finals against Deccan Challengers

Back from the Himalayan trek

2009-05-08T10:29:00.002+05:30

I finished my trek successfully to Saukundi Pass and came back to Bangalore on 6th May. I will write a trip report and upload the photos soon.

2009-04-25T20:24:00.003+05:30

After a long gap of 2 years, I have packed my rucksack again. I am going on a Himalayan trek with YHAI. This time to Saurkundi Pass.
The details of the trek are at http://www.yhaindia.org/files/adv_programs/description/saurkundipass.htm
My previous trek was during April 2007 to Kedarkantha

No time to blog

2009-04-03T23:13:00.002+05:30

There was a time when people used to ask me how I get time for blogging. I used to tell them, 'if you are interested in something, then you will find time for doing it'. Today, I am finding it very difficult to get time out of my hectic day. Damn Bangalore traffic, which eats away 3 hours of my precious time.
Some people tell me that they wished there was a couple of more hours in a day than just 24. I think, the way my day goes (between office, home and traffic), even the 2 extra hours will get eaten up without doing what I want to do.
Hope I can get some time for myself from May, so that I can get back to writing more.

Changes noticed in Pizza Hut

2009-02-25T15:23:00.004+05:30

After I wrote to Pizza Hut, about their Anti kannada Policy, I was wondering if they have taken any action. Last week, I had been to the same Pizza Hut again and spoke to the staff. There was a change in the staff's approach. They replied to me in Kannada when I spoke to them in Kannada. I called the same waiter, with whom, I had interacted the previous time. I asked him if anything had changed. He told me that the one of the senior guy from the management team had come down to the outlet and had instructed all the staff to talk to the customers in Kannada if they preferred. He told me that the manager mentioned about the complaint they had received about the outlet's Anti kannada policy.
I was happy about their change. I was more happy that I had influenced a Pizza Hut to adopt and honor the local language.

Indian railways - Ticket availability info made easy

2009-02-04T16:06:00.004+05:30

Their UI is amazing. By far the best for train ticketing online in India.

Cleartrip Train Calendar provides an indication of availability for a range of dates across trains, so you can find the best date and train to travel. The availability you see here may have changed at the time you try and book.

http://www.cleartrip.com/trains/calendar

Wingsuit base jumping - Awesome stuff

2009-01-18T22:29:00.003+05:30

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Pizza Hut's response

2009-01-16T08:34:00.003+05:30

After posting Pizza Hut's Anti Kannada policy blog, I even left a feedback at their website. One day later, I received a call from Pizza Hut. The representative apologized for their actions. However, he denied that they had any policy, which says that the staff cannot speak in Kannada. When I told him the whole story, about how the staff was afraid to speak in Kannada, he kept repeating that there was some confusion and mistake from the staff, but never admitted the fact that they have a Anti Kannada Policy. He also told me that he will talk to the staff to clear the confusion (if they have any) regarding their policy towards speaking in Kannada.
Some of the people whom I have to spoken to and some people who have read my blog have told me that they have had similar bad experiences with Pizza Hut.
All I can do is probably go to one of Pizza Hut outlets some time and verify.

Pizza hut's Anti Kannada Policy

2009-01-14T14:13:00.004+05:30

Recently I had been to Pizza Hut in Ring road near Kamakya theater in Bangalore. As we were placing our orders, I noticed that the waiter replied to everything that I asked in English. When I asked him if he was not familiar with the language, he told me that he was a Kannadiga, but he was not allowed to talk in Kannada. When I inquired more he told me that, it was the Pizza Hut policy that the staff was strictly instructed not to speak in Kannada. I was furious at their racial policy. How can Pizza Hut not respect the the local language. They want to do business in Karnataka and make money, but don't want to encourage the local language. Forget encouragement, they were discouraging it. This is a highly racial attitude. I condemn their policy.
I even left a feed back about this at their drop box.

As I was in the middle of voicing my opinion with the staff, I noticed two elderly ladies in their sixties, enter the outlet. I could hear them speak as they were quite loud. They called the waiter and told them that they were coming to their 'Hotel' for the first time and wanted some help in ordering the food. It was very evident, that both the ladies were not able to talk in English. The waiter helped them smilingly with their questions - All in Kannada. If the waiter had strictly followed their anti Kannada policy, then Pizza Hut would have lost the business and would have left 2 more unhappy customers (apart from me).
Later, my wife told me that she and her cousin too have voiced their opinion at a different outlet about the policy.
I would request every reader to go the pizza hut website http://www.crm.pizzahut.co.in/index.php and give a feedback about their policy

avarekai mela

2009-01-13T22:51:00.005+05:30

I had been to the 'Avarekai Mela' last Sunday. I heard about it from my sister and went there with my family to feast on various snacks made out of Avarekai (lilva beans).
Out of the many dishes available, I tasted the Avarekai Dosa, Avarekai Obbattu, Avarekai Masala Vade and Avarekai Churumuri and Avarekai Uppit. I was tempted to taste the Avarekai Paayasa and Avarekai Chitranna, but didn't have any space left in my tummy.

Avarekai mela happens every winter at 'Vasavi condiments' at Sajjan Rao circle in Bangalore. This is at the beginning of the eat street (a.k.a Shettara Paalya or Tindi Beedi) opposite VB Bakery. Go there to try some mouthwatering authentic Karnataka food.

Movie time

2009-01-12T16:22:00.007+05:30

I spent a lot of time watching movies in December. I watched around 40 movies in one month.
I crazy saturday, I watched 7 movies back to back

The list of movies that I watched were pending for several years. I was watching a few movies for the second time. I also finished watching 8 seasons of 'Thats 70s show' and 2 seasons of 'Mind your language'. Here goes the list.

Movie list
wide awake
Hotel Rwanda
Pretty woman
Training day
Bone collector
The peace maker
Untouchables
Schindler's List
The departed
[2006] Apocalypto
Good will hunting
rush hour 1,2 and 3
spy game
The wedding crashers
The green mile
The usual suspects
L.A. Confidential
Amelie
madagascar
The Motorcycle Diaries
Flavours
Tokyo drift
Runaway Jury
Love Guru
Munich
The Silence of the Lambs
Great Expectations
Gangs Of New York
men of honour
Traffic
Fight club
click
You've got mail
Wednesday

Standup comedy
Russel peters
Comedy - Pablo Francisco -

TV series
All 8 seasons of That 70's show
2 seasons of Mind your language
Few episodes of Dilbert

Except for a couple of movies, most of them were good.

Macbook Wheel

2009-01-06T22:10:00.003+05:30

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary

smiley moon

2008-12-02T09:05:00.004+05:30

Yesterday (1st Dec 2008), we could witness a smiling moon. I wish I had a good camera to capture it. I was crippled with my 3X optical zoom camera. I had to switch on the additional 4X digital zoom to get a hazy image of moon. I just wished that I had a better camera and a tripod.

Venus and Jupiter have appeared side by side in the evening sky over the past week or so, but yesterday was the best night to see the "face" appear. I was told that this happens very occationally (once in 4 years). I called up a few friends so that they could watch it too. The kids were delighted to see this.

Because my hand shook, the moon laughed instead of a smile

Rajarajeshwarinagar - a pilgrimage

2008-11-27T09:52:00.006+05:30

Rajarajeshwarinagar in Bangalore is more like a temple town. If anyone visits Rajareshwarinagar, they can check out a few temples

1. Rajarajeshwari temple - Something I myself didn't know until I read the wikipedia, is that the temple was built in the late 1960s. This temple has Jnanakshi Shri Rajarajeshwari as its deity, and is maintained by the Kailasa Ashrama Trust.

2. Nimishamba temple - The Temple contains the shrines of Devi Nimishamba, Moukthikeswara (Isvara), Siddhi Vinayaka, Saraswathi and Lakshmi Narayana. Chandika Homa is performed everyday in a specially designed Yajna Shala.

3. Shanmuga temple A beautiful temple of shanmuga on top of a small hill. It is started by the sringeri mutt. The temple has a magnificent Gopuram with the six faces of lord subramanya.

4. Omkar hills - Omkar Hills is the tallest glorious and devotional spots in Bangalore with the avowed objective of propagating. The Ashrama has a Goshala, a Sanskrit Pathashala and arrangements for training in Vedagamas. A magnificient Tower Clock, bigger than the reputed Big Ben of London, with provision to bring out Shankanada and Omkaranada along with the striking of each hourly gong, has been installed on the Hill.
5. Shridhara Gudda

The Universal brothers

2008-11-11T16:53:00.002+05:30

One of my good friends Rohini wrote a poem for me and my friend

The great poem--:-)
THE UNIVERSAL BROTHERS
Criminal looks, diehard Image
Sporting biceps thinner than matchsticks
Oh!Here they come to display their antics
One is surely Maharishi Narad
The other no better than him
Can you guess what they are competing for
Forcing their entry amidst girls
The first competition is blading
Second is a pretty disastrous one
To obtain the title of "Krishna paramatma"
Little do they know
They are two precious ge(r) ms
Presenting Junnu bhai and Nag bhai
The universal brothers of the world

The original post can be read at
http://rohini-scribble.blogspot.com/2007/12/universal-brothers.html

Don't throw your Plastic bag

2008-11-11T16:35:00.004+05:30

Necessity is the mother of all innovation

15,000 hits

2008-10-14T08:27:00.004+05:30

Today I had 15,000th hit on my blog. It took 6 months to reach from 10,000 (in april) to 15,000

Saakappa september

2008-10-08T08:22:00.004+05:30

September 2008 was a terrible month for me. A series of things happened, which were not asked for

- I left the car keys inside and had to wait for 4 hours to get duplicate key from home.
- The car front wind shield broke as a monkey threw a coconut on it. To get it fixed, I had to spend Rs 3000 from my pocket inspite of claiming insurance.
- My cousin's son dropped my Iphone and the front glass pane got cracked. Apple does not support the broken glass for a 2G Iphone.
- The cell Iphone got locked and I am still unable to unlock it.
- The side mirror from my car fell of somewhere on the road and I have to cough up Rs 4500 to get it replaced.
- Some jerk carved his name on my car. I hate the name 'Manju'
- Traffic Police caught me at the traffic signal for a wrong reason.
- Had a severe sprain in my knee and it hurts even after 2 weeks
- The external 500 GB hard disk I bought just 2 months ago is not powering up

Experience at Indi Joe Restaurant

2008-10-06T16:42:00.005+05:30

It was my colleagues Bharadwaj's birthday and we decided to go out for lunch to celebrate. After some discussion, we decided to go to Indi Joe Restaurant (from BJN group) in Airport road. We entered the place and were comfortably seated for a while before proceeding for the Buffet. Firstly, I saw a dead mosquito on the plates kept and a while later a moth flying around. When I pointed this to the person in charge, he quickly removed the plate. Then, after picking up the soup, we proceeded further to pick up the starters. I, being a vegetarian was looking for vegetarian stuff. At that point, I saw a dish which looked delicious but looked like a non-veg dish. I mentioned that to my friend, who pointed me to the menu card placed next to it which said 'veg kabab'. So, picked it up. As I was heading back to my seat, I heard a friend of mine who said that there board which said veg-shrimps. How could shrimp be classified as veg? Without giving much thought to it, I proceeded back to my seat and started eating. I tasted the 'veg kabab' and didn't like it and kept it aside. At that point, a friend noticed that the 'veg kabab' we were eating had some meat in that. Then quickly a couple of others noticed it too. That was too much for my veggie friends. This being the dussera season, many of my colleages had given up non-veg food. The host himself was a staunch vegetarian. He doesn't even taste egg. He was very upset as he too had tasted a portion of the same dish. We called the people in charge and told them about what had happened. By now, they had even removed the board next to the dish which said 'veg kabab'. They had realized their blunder.
We decided to walk out of the place. When the manager of the place came to us and apologized for their mistake. But by now all of has had decided not to stay back. But the manager insisted that he stay back and accept their hospitality. He said that he would serve us 'A la carte'. He pleaded us to give him a chance to make up for their mistake. I think that was the least he could do for us. Our lunch which was taken care by the hotel.
What was different about this restaurant and others was that these people were polite enough to accept their mistake and make up for it. Many other restaurants would have probably just apologized and would have probably let us walk out. I have been to many restaurants where they hardly care for your feelings and their negative publicity. I really liked the manager's attitude who assigned a person to take care of our table to see that nothing else went wrong. They even gave a complementary birthday cake.
These small gestures from the hotel staff seemed to calm down the birthday boy a little, who could not eat anything after the incident. He was good enough not to spoil the occasion for others even thought he felt really bad about the whole incident.
But still this was a big act of negligence from such a big group like BJN.

Bel-Beligge Belegere

2008-09-19T09:31:00.002+05:30

Fed up of the bak-bak by the RJ's, these days I have reduced listening to the private radio channels. Switch to the radio channels sponsored by VividBharati's akashvani and you will listen to the sweet-calm voice of the RJs. There are no SMS contests, no stupid quizzes, no idiotic jokes, but simple, to the subject compering. Many a times, the RJs give out good messages early in the morning which makes you think.
While listening to FM 101.3, I listened to the program called 'Bel-Beligge Belegere'. It is a program hosted by a noted writer and journalist Mr. Ravi Belagere.
This program is at 8.00 am every morning. He picks up day to day life examples and gives out food for thought. He talks about life, relationships, small happiness in life in a very simple way that everyone listening to him goes with the flow. If we follow many of the suggestion that he gives, which are very very simple and easy, we can avoid a lot of small fights in life.
Today he was talking about getting complements from the near and dear ones. These were things we knew but never gave much importance. He was mentioning that when we get compliments from the people close to us, it makes a lot more impact than the ones whom we don't know. If we start appreciating the small things in life (like appreciating the wife on her cooking or giving mom or dad a small compliment on the something they did at home), it motivates them to continue the good work.
If you read this article, then try to listen to this program sometime

Got Iphone

2008-08-28T15:04:00.006+05:30

I had been trying to get an iPhone for the last 3 months. I tried buying at Apple stores and AT&T stores in the US, but none of them had any stock of the iPhone. Now finally, I procured one. I had been debating with my cousins who were biased by reading some blogs which said why iPhone was a bad buy. As per different blogs, iPhone features were far less when compared to other phones and they talked about the various drawbacks of iPhone. But for me iPhone is all about usability. No other phone can that I have seen so far can beat the user interface of an iPhone. Just use it to feel the difference. I can get scores of applications for iphone on the web too.
I am still enjoying playing with my new toy.

After the Bangalore bomb blast

2008-07-28T09:54:00.002+05:30

On the day when Bangalore Blasts happened, I left office by 5.00 pm. I was expecting that the roads would be crowded and it would take me 2-3 hours to reach home. But to my surprise, the roads were all empty. There are lots of IT companies around Koramangala, Airport road, Bannerghatta road etc. I was thinking that people will panic and go rush home causing traffic jams. But people thought that staying in office was safer (just like me) and hence roads were very clear. As I entered the Madivala where the bomb blast had happened, I saw a huge crowd causing traffic jam. The reason was that there a few TV channels covering the news and people were interested in coming on the TV. People didn't care about the drizzle as well. I reached home very quickly.

On monday morning, bangalore is back to business. We started with Traffic jams. Bombs and other threats does not scare people. Life must go on and so does work. Leaving the bomb threats for police to solve, people are getting back to their busy normal schedule. No one has time. People once said the same about Bombay - that no one has time and the city is always on the move. Bombay was back in business the next day after the serial bomb blasts in train stations. Now it is the same about Bangalore. Time is money. And people don't have time. You can't give the little time you have to think about these scares.

Hope we can leave all the threats behind. Hope peace returns to Bangalore soon

who says cell phone is not harmful

2008-07-04T10:52:00.002+05:30

Watch the video on how Pop corn is made usign cell phone signals

http://www.koreus.com/video/telephone-portable-mais-popcorn.html

This dude can dance

2008-07-04T10:50:00.002+05:30

watch the entire video - it is awesome
It is an unbelievable dance performance

I think he Can Dance - Watch more free videos

http://www.break.com/index/i-think-he-can-dance.html

piclens add on for firefox 3

2008-06-20T10:06:00.001+05:30

Full-Screen, 3D -- PicLens transforms your browser into a visually stunning experience for finding and viewing online photos and videos. Their "3D Wall" lets you effortlessly search and zoom your way around thousands of images, videos, news feeds, sports feeds, and more. See the demo at http://piclens.com/demo

Download it from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5579

Honda Announces FCX Clarity - hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles

2008-06-18T15:38:00.003+05:30

With crude oil crossing $130 a barrel, everyone is thinking of alternate fuel. Though hybrid cars are becoming popular, people need more fuel efficient vehicles. Honda Announced FCX Clarity which is a hydrogen-powered fuel cell car. Honda claims that it gives three times the mileage of a petrol car or twice as much as hybrid car.
Honda FCX Clarity emits only water as a by-product. So, they claim that there is no global warming not pollution. These cars will take a long time to become commercially viable as there are no petrol bunks which fill hydrogen. It will take atleast 3-4 years when we will see a few of them on road. Again the car has to be rightly priced, if not, people will never buy it.

There is a nice article about the FCX clarity launch on http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/news/16-06-08
As per this article, they want to introduce the vehicle in the US in the following way

-Step 1 -- Based on respondents' residential location, the list of potential customers has been narrowed to approximately 500 people living in very close proximity to publicly-accessible hydrogen fueling stations, including planned or existing stations in Santa Monica, Torrance and Irvine.

-Step 2 -- Customers meeting the geographical criteria will receive an e-mail prompting them to take a customer selection survey if they are serious about wanting to lease an FCX Clarity.

-Step 3 - The survey will qualify customers based on driving patterns, vehicle needs, vehicle storage and financial criteria.

-Step 4 - Customers qualify for the next steps, including an interview with American Honda.

I think till Clarity becomes commercially available, Toyota Prius will dominate the US market

Have you downloaded firefox3 yet

2008-06-18T12:04:00.003+05:30

Firefox 3 is out there for download. You can download it from
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/?p=downloadday

Firefox is trying to set a Guiness record by seting the record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours.
I am waiting to find the result myself

It is an just amazing how Firefox broke the monopoly over Microsoft's Internet Explorer. In 2004 MSIE had 95% market share and in 4 years Firefox has eaten 18.5% of it.

How Subprime mortgages work

2008-06-12T10:44:00.001+05:30

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true&pli=1#0

My photo on Deccan herald

2008-05-13T16:55:00.003+05:30

.

http://deccanheraldepaper.com//svww_zoom.php?Artname=pdf/2008/05/13/20080513t_004100003&ileft=612&itop=781&zoomRatio=130&AN=20080513t_004100003&path=0

Click on the image to see the the same photo

Me and my nephew Samarth are in today's deccan herald paper

Things to carry for a YHA himalayan trek

2008-04-29T22:05:00.002+05:30

Avoid carrying too much weight

Mandatory
Good pair of trekking shoe
Sweater
Jacket
monkey cap
Regular cap (you can't always wear a monkey cap. Sometimes it gets really warm during the

day)
Gloves (preferably leather, so that it doesn't get wet when you fall on the snow and put

your hands on the ground)
few pairs of thick socks
toilet paper/tissue papers - (mornings will be cold and you won't be able to touch water)
torch
hawai chappal
toothbrush
paste (small)
soap (small)
water bottles (preferably two 1ltr bottles)
sun screen lotion
sun glasses
rain coat (thin plastic ones)
Under garments
T shirts
Track pants (preferably water proof)
thin towel
Tumbler
Plate
spoon/fork
Tiffin box
Good rucksack
a few plastic covers (in case you need to put a few wet clothes)
some important medicines
thick Needle and thread (in case the bag gets torn)

optional
camera (extra film roles/memory card/battery)
cell phone (you generally get signal only up to base camp and sometimes higher up in the mountains)
very light weight radio
energy drinks (like glucose/electrol)
other eatables
paper/pen (in case you need to take notes)
air pillow
thermals (if you have)
shaving kit
water purifying tablets

sleeping bags, inners and blankets are given by YHA

Going green

2008-04-28T14:46:00.006+05:30

Every year, Employees of Sun Microsystems dedicate a week for Global volunteering program. India Engineering Center (IEC) is also very active during this week. One of the events as a part of the Volunteer program, was to clean up the plastic waste at 'Sangama', a popular picnic spot at the intersection of rivers kaveri and Arkavati. Close by is a 'MekedaaTu', another famous getaway from Bangalore. Lot of tourists visit these places every year and leave a lot of plastic waste. Employees of Sun along with volunteers from 'Clean and Green' go on a cleaning program along the banks of river kaveri. Last year (2007), we all had been to Muttatthi and this year they had chosen 'Sangama'. Along with my family (mom, wife, sister and nephew) I joined the team of volunteers at Sangama. The place was a big mess with plastic covers, bottles, gutka packets etc. A group of 60 volunteers worked for 3 hours in the scorching heat to collect 220 KG of plastic waste. The plastic waste was handed to a plastic company in Kanakpura who use it for laying tar for road.
Last year we had collected 303 kgs of plastic at muttatti. You can read about it on April 14 2007 - Mega Acitivity @ Muttathi

The same day evening, I had to attend a wedding reception. I met a few friends at the wedding and told them about the clean and green activity and they appreciated our effort. In most of the South Indian weddings, the guests are given 'Tamboola' (coconut and beetle leaves) as a tradition. It is believed that the guests who attend the wedding should not be sent empty handed and hence there is a tradition of giving tamboola. The practice is to give the tamboola in a plastic cover. My friend told me that in the wedding, they had decided not to use plastic and hence they gave the tamboola in a paper bag, with a very nice note on it. The note requested people to reduce the usage of plastic. click on the image to read the note.
Read A letter to Reliance Industries

Google movies

2008-04-25T10:15:00.001+05:30

Here is another interesting service from Google. Want to know, which movie is being showed in which theater at what time?

Just enter your city name. It lists everything.

http://www.google.co.in/movies

10,000 hits

2008-04-18T10:10:00.001+05:30

Today, my blog completed 10,000 hits.

Intersting questions

2008-04-15T12:56:00.000+05:30

1. What programming language is GOOGLE developed in?
2. What is the expansion of YAHOO?
3. What is the expansion of ADIDAS?
4. Expansion of Star as in Star TV Network?
5. What is expansion of "ICICI?"
6. What does "baker's dozen" signify?
7. The 1984-85 season. 2nd ODI between India and Pakistan at Sialkot - India 210/3 with
Vengsarkar 94*. Match abandoned. Why?
8. Who is the only man to have written the National Anthems for two different countries?
9. >From what four word expression does the word `goodbye` derive?
10. How was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu better known?
11. Name the only other country to have got independence on Aug 15th?
12. Why was James Bond Associated with the Number 007?
13. Who faced the first ball in the first ever One day match?
14. Which cricketer played for South Africa before it was banned from international
cricket and later represented Zimbabwe ?
15. The faces of which four Presidents are carved at Mt.Rushmore?
16. Which is the only country that is surrounded from all sides by only one country
(other than Vatican )?
17. Which is the only sport which is not allowed to play left handed?

Answers

1. Google is written in Asynchronous java-script and XML, or its acronym Ajax.
2. Yet Another Hierarchy of Officious Oracle
3. ADIDAS- All Day I Dream About Sports
4. Satellite Television Asian Region
5. Industrial credit and Investments Corporation of India
6. A baker’s dozen consists of 13 items - 1 more than the items in a normal dozen
7. That match was abandoned after ppl heard the news of indira gandhi being killed.
8. Rabindranath Tagore who wrote national anthem for two different countries one is our ’s National anthem and another one is for Bangladesh-(Amar Sonar Bangla)
9. Goodbye comes from the ex-pression: ‘god be with you’.
10. Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu is none other Mother Teresa.
11. South Korea.
12. Because 007 is the ISD code for Russia (or the USSR, as it was known during the cold war)
13. Geoffrey Boycott
14. John Traicos
15. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln
16. Lesotho surrounded from all sides by South Africa.
17. Polo.

Accident movie review

2008-04-08T21:00:00.006+05:30

I got this opportunity to watch the Kannada movie Accident starring Ramesh Aravind. Lovedale foundation - an organization which is running an orphanage, recently had a fund raising event. The event was screening of the movie 'Accident' at PVR Cinemas, Bangalore. Actor Ramesh who is one of the supporters of the organization, was present at the event. I took my family to watch the movie, the proceeds of which were given to Lovedale Foundation. There was a small ceremony before the movie began, where dignitaries like Actor Ramesh and the famous singer Kasturi Shankar spoke a few words. I took this opportunity to speak to these people and took their autograph and a few photographs with them.

The movie is Good - worth watching. The movie is about how Ramesh (who is also the director of the movie) goes about unearthing the mystery behind his wife's car accident. The movie is well paced and keeps unfolding the mysteries as the movie progresses. Ramesh has acted well. The person who in my view stole the limelight was the villain of the movie - the health minister. His dialogue delivery is very good with some rusty, blunt, local dialect of kannada.
Apart from these two actors, no one has any significant role. Actress Rekha has done her part well. Pooja Gandhi doesn't have much role to play and she has to improve on her acting skills. Ramesh should have extracted better acting performances from others in the movie.
Except for a couple of songs the music is just average.
Overall, a good job by ramesh and his team.

zyaada Akbar or Jodha Akbar.

2008-03-22T18:19:00.004+05:30

The movie is all about how Jodha (Aishwarya) tortured Akbar (Hritik roshan) and avoided going to bed with him. The director takes over three and half hours to tell us how Akbar started his family life.
The movie should have been rightfully named zyaada Akbar, as it is a long movie. Sharukh Khan who was hosting the filmfare awards this year, asked

Q. what is the similarity between Deepika Padukone and Jodha Akbar?
A. Both are good, but a little long :)

Well, I guess he was just being a little nice on the stage when saying that the movie was good.

Hritik Roshan was a total misfit for the role. I think that the role deserved someone more commanding. No justice was done to the role of the great emperor Akbar. The seriousness was missing from the movie. Aishwarya is aging and that is very clear from the movie. She is also putting on weight and it is very evident from the second half of the movie (Abhishek Bachhan Effect). The story should have been more crisp. The movie moves at a very slow pace and at places very dragging.

I just hope that the director has not skewed with history much. I am not an expert on history, but at places I was forced to think if what was happening on the screen was true. - Like Jodha going to the battle field to witness the fight between Akbar and his brother in law ( I forget his name). Even the sword fight between Akbar and Jodha look very unrealistic.

Except for one song, there is not much to expect from the music.

I just feel that I wasted a few hours watching the movie.

how to remove dents on car with dry ice

2008-03-17T14:07:00.000+05:30

Ponting singing 'Maa' after the loss

2008-03-11T11:10:00.003+05:30

Some creative dude has re-written 'Maa' song from Taare Zameen Par to show Ponting's emotions. Indians have proved that Australians are no more the world champions.

Watch the video

why blame IT for traffic

2008-03-05T13:36:00.002+05:30

Today, being Shivarathri, most of the Central Govt,State Govt offices along with a few other private offices are closed. Even Education institutes are closed. So, the working people in Bangalore today include the IT professionals and employees of other private firms. Today the traffic during the peak hour was minimal. It was lesser than the day when we had Auto strike in Bangalore.
People blame the IT industry which employs a lot of people to cause traffic jam. But thats not true. As seen today, the traffic was nearly 1/3rd of what it is every day. The only place where I saw traffic today was the Koramangala Inner ring where there are atleast 2 dozen software companies. In other places, traffic was very smooth. What I am trying to say is that the bulk of the traffic comes from Non-IT companies.

Beggars make Rs 500 a day in Bangalore

2008-03-04T12:59:00.006+05:30

This morning, I read (In Indian Express) that beggars earn(??) Rs 500 a day in a city like Bangalore. Beggars in Bangalore make the highest money in India. Rs. 500 a day, sums up to Rs 15,000 a month and that is a huge Rs. 1.8 lakhs (tax free) a year.

I read another article which said that beggars in mumbai earn as much as Rs 180 crore annually.
Read the article on http://www.indianexpress.com/story/9154.html

Another article on rediff says that 1 out of 5 Indians can't spend Rs 12 a day!
Read more : http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/mar/10poor.htm

India is truly a land of diversity

Kirchoff's law

2008-03-04T09:41:00.005+05:30

I have been receiving this mail for quite a few years. I thought of posting it on my blog as well.

Click on the image to enlarge

Save the Tiger

2008-02-21T10:39:00.001+05:30

Less than 1500 tigers are left in india now and at the current rate of deforestation and poaching the day is not too far when the beautiful cat and all other wildlife will be extinct.
Please add your name and email to the "SAVE THE TIGER" Campaign started by NDTV-Sanctuary and do your bit for the tiger and the forests of india.
The tiger needs all the support it can get..Please forward it to all your friends for support.

Here's the link to support the campaign.
http://sanctuaryasia.com/save_the_tiger_campaign.php

For more details

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/savetiger/sthome.aspx

Buying mobile phone in Bangalore

2008-02-15T06:24:00.002+05:30

Buying a mobile in Bangalore

In the last one week, I went out with friends and family to buy 2 different handsets. This is what I realized ...
The major players selling mobiles in Bangalore are Nokia priority dealer, ezone, Univercell, sangeetha, Mobile store etc. The guys at ezone are careless. They just don't pay attention to customers. I didn't like their attitude. I have had such expereince in two different ezone stores in Bangalore. On the contrary, you get very good experience at Univercell. Each customer is taken to a separate table, where a a reperesentative displays all the mobile phones from all the companies, and, explains and compares the features of each phone. If you are trying to decide on which model to buy, you can go to Univercell and they will help you identify the phone that fits your budget.

There are some places where all these different stores are located walkable distance from each other. So, what I did was to go to each of these shops and enquire the price of a particular model. What I did to get the best deal was get the quote from one guy, then go to the next one and say that the first guy was offering the same handset at Rs 100 or 200 less. Then this guy would quote the best deal he can offer. Take this price and go the third guy and get a further discount. What I realized was, by doing this, the price of a basic phone (under Rs 2500), the price could be reduced by Rs 200 and for a phone in the range of Rs 6000 to Rs. 10,000, the price could be brought down by Rs 400 - Rs. 500. One of the handset, we bought was Nokia 6300, which was quoted at Rs 7800 in the first shop, was finally purchased at Rs 7450.
Just 2 days after buying the phone, out of curiosity, I walked in to a Subhiksha store and en quire the prices. Subhiksha is a chain of retail stores, which advertises on TV that they give the best deal in the market. When I started enquiring the prices of the phones I had purchased, I realized that the price these guys quoted were less than the best deal that the other stores could offer (and that too without bargaining). The price of the basic phone was less by Rs 50/- and higher models had bigger discount. Nokia 6300 was costing Rs 7350/- which was Rs 100 less than the best deal we could get in the market (for which we had spent 2.5 hours for running from store to store for comparing and bargaining the rates).

From Subhiksha website
----
Call "60607777" for enquiries in Delhi & NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Baroda, Ludiana, Surrat, Jullundur Patlala, Ambala, Merut and many other towns.
----
Atleast till now, I feel that Subhiksha gives the best deal in Bangalore for buying a mobile. Checkout their price before you buy your handset. Use the price quoted by Subhiksha to get further discounts at the stores mentioned above.

Gufa restaurant

2008-02-14T15:54:00.006+05:30

On the eve of Valentine's, I was wondering, where I should take my wife out. Then one of my friends told me about Gufa in Jayanagar, Bangalore. I decided to try it out.
I called them up and reserved the table. They were not ready to hold the table beyond 7.45 p.m. So I reserved it for that time and arrived at the place in time. I was wondering who would go for dinner that early, but I later realized that the hotel was full by 8.30pm and the reason - It was an awesome place.
Gufa means cave and that the is the concept for this restaurant. The interiors looks like a cave. The place is softly lit and gives you an impression that you have come to a different era. The ceiling is low and the AC ducts in the ceiling also gels with the theme. The people who serve the food are dressed like 'Shikari Shambu' (people who read Tinkle know him - for others, he they are dressed like forest officers). There are people around who look like (are dressed like) cavemen. If you observe the walls closely you will notice some creatures like bats, snakes etc (ofcourse not real) on the walls. You will also see the roots of some trees. Occasionally, you will hear some strange animal noise in the background. It is just like being in a jungle.
We were assigned a table in one of the corners, where there was a single beam of soft light on the table. The food is also pretty good, but a little expensive.
A meal for 2 comprising of one drink, followed by 2 starters, main course and the dessert costs close to Rs 1000 (as of 2008). Non-veg might be a little more expensive. But it is worth going there once in a while for celebrating some special occasion like birthday, anniversary etc.
I tried to search for their phone number on the web and was unable to find it. So, I called Just Dial and got their number (call just dial at 080-23333333 to get any phone number)

Guffa Restaurant,
Jaynagar 3rd Block,
Bangalore
Ph: 080 - 41808777

Sachin's Records!!

2008-02-05T09:50:00.000+05:30

Just have look at the records held by Sachin Tendulkar. No wonder why British Prime Minister is suggesting him for the honor of Sir ........
Records Held by Sachin Tendulkar
1. Highest Run scorer in the ODI
2. Most number of hundreds in the ODI 41
3. Most number of nineties in the ODI
4. Most number of man of the matches(56) in the ODI's
5. Most number of man of the series(14) in ODI's
6. Best average for man of the matches in ODI's
7. First Cricketer to pass 10000 run in the ODI
8. First Cricketer to pass 15000 run in the ODI
9. He is the highest run scorer in the world cup (1,796 at an average of 59.87 as on 20 March 2007)
10. Most number of the man of the matches in the world cup
11. Most number of runs 1996 world cup 523 runs in the 1996 Cricket World Cup at an average of 87.16
12. Most number of runs in the 2003 world cup 673 runs in 2003 Cricket World Cup, highest by any player in a single Cricket World Cup
13. He was Player of the World Cup Tournament in the 2003 Cricket World Cup.
14. Most number of Fifties in ODI's 87
15. Appeared in Most Number of ODI's 407
16. He is the only player to be in top 10 ICC ranking for 10 years.
17. Most number of 100's in test's 39
18. He is one of the three batsmen to surpass 11,000 runs in Test cricket, and the first Indian to do so
19. He is thus far the only cricketer to receive the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India's highest sporting honor
20. In 2003, Wisden rated Tendulkar as d No. 1 and Richards at No. 2 in all time Greatest ODI player
21. In 2002, Wisden rated him as the second greatest Test batsman after Sir Donald Bradman.
22. he was involved in unbroken 664-run partnership in a Harris Shield game in 1988 with friend and team mate Vinod Kambli,
23. Tendulkar is the only player to score a century in all three of his Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Irani Trophy debuts
24. In 1992, at the age of 19, Tendulkar became the first overseas born player to represent Yorkshire
25. Tendulkar has been granted the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna Award , Padma Shri and Padma Vibhusan by Indian government. He is the only Indian cricketer to get all of them.
26. Tendulkar has scored over 1000 runs in a calendar year in ODI's 7 times
27. Tendulkar has scored 1894 runs in calendar year in ODI's most by any batsman
28. He is the highest earning cricketer in the world
29. He has the least percentage of the man of the matches awards won when team looses a match. Out of his 56 man of the match awards only 5 times India has lost.
30. Tendulkar most number man of match awards(10) against Australia
31. In August of 2003, Sachin Tendulkar was voted as the "Greatest Sportsman" of the country in the sport personalities category in the Best of India poll conducted by Zee News.
32. In November 2006, Time magazine named Tendulkar as one of the Asian Heroes.
33. In December 2006, he was named "Sports person of the Year
34. The current India Poised campaign run by The Times of India has nominated him as the Face of New India next to the likes of Amartya Sen and Mahatma Gandhi among others.
35. Tendulkar was the first batsman in history to score over 50 centuries in international cricket
36. Tendulkar was the first batsman in history to score over 75 centuries in international cricket:79 centuries
37. Has the most overall runs in cricket, (ODIs+Tests+Twenty20s), as of 30 June 2007 he had accumulated almost 26,000 runs overall.
38. Is second on the most number of runs in test cricket just after Brian Lara
39. Sachin Tendulkar with Sourav Ganguly hold the world record for the maximum number of runs scored by the opening partnership. They have put together 6,271 runs in 128 matches
40. The 20 century partnerships for opening pair with Sourav Ganguly is a world record
41. Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid hold the world record for the highest partnership in ODI matches when they scored 331 runs against New Zealand in 1999
42. Sachin Tendulkar has been involved in six 200 run partnerships in ODI matches - a record that he shares with Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid
43. Most Centuries in a calendar year: 9 ODI centuries in 1998
44. Only player to have over 100 innings of 50+ runs (41 Centuries and 87 Fifties)(as of 18th Nov, 2007)
45. the only player ever to cross the 13,000-14,000 and 15,000 run marks IN ODI.
46. Highest individual score among Indian batsmen (186* against New Zealand at Hyderabad in 1999).
47. The score of 186* is listed the fifth highest score recorded in ODI matches
48. Tendulkar has scored over 1000 ODI runs against all major Cricketing nations.
49. Sachin was the fastest to reach 10,000 runs taking 259 innings and has the highest batting average among batsmen with over 10,000 ODI runs
50. Most number of Stadium Appearances: 90 different Grounds
51. Consecutive ODI Appearances: 185
52. On his debut, Sachin Tendulkar was the second youngest debutant in the world
53. When Tendulkar scored his maiden century in 1990, he was the second youngest to score a century
54. Tendulkar's record of five test centuries before he turned 20 is a current world record
55. Tendulkar holds the current record (217 against NZ in 1999/00 Season) for the highest score in Test cricket by an Indian when captaining the side
56. Tendulkar has scored centuries against all test playing nations.[7] He was the third batman to achieve the distinction after Steve Waugh and Gary Kirsten
57. Tendulkar has 4 seasons in test cricket with 1000 or more runs - 2002 (1392 runs), 1999 (1088 runs), 2001 (1003 runs) and 1997 (1000 runs).[6] Gavaskar is the only other Indian with four seasons of 1000+ runs
58. He is second most number of seasons with over 1000 runs in world.
59. On 3 January 2007 Sachin Tendulkar (5751) edged past Brian Lara's (5736) world record of runs scored in Tests away from home
60. Tendulkar and Brian Lara are the fastest to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket history. Both of them achieved this in 195 innings
61. Second Indian after Sunil Gavaskar to make over 10,000 runs in Test matches
62. Became the first Indian to surpass the 11,000 Test run mark and the third International player behind Allan Border and Brian Lara.
63. Tendulkar is fourth on the list of players with most Test caps. Steve Waugh (168 Tests), Allan Border (158 Tests), Shane Warne (145 Tests) have appeared in more games than Tendulkar
64. Tendulkar has played the most number of Test Matches(144) for India (Kapil Dev is second with 131 Test appearances).
65. First to 25,000 international runs
66. Tendulkar's 25,016 runs in international cricket include 14,537 runs in ODI's, 10,469 Tests runs and 10 runs in the lone Twenty20 that India has played.
67. On December 10, 2005, Tendulkar made his 35th century in Tests at Delhi against Sri Lanka. He surpassed Sunil Gavaskar's record of 34 centuries to become the man with the most number of hundreds in Test cricket.
68. Tendulkar is the only player who has 150 wkts and more than 15000 runs in ODI
69. Tendulkar is the only player who has 40 wkts and more than 11000 runs in Tests
70. Only batsman to have 100 hundreds in the first class cricket

Anarthaa Shashthra

2008-02-05T09:48:00.001+05:30

Click on image to enlarge

Shivaji - The Boss or The crap

2008-02-02T20:27:00.000+05:30

Seriously, how did Rajani Kant even think of acting in such a badly directed movie. I think it is just a movie for Rajani fans and nothing else. Screen play is pathetic. This is the costliest Indian movie made till date and I wonder how the producer decide to put his money on a film which has no substance. The director has tried to bring a good message about fighting corruption (by targeting those having black money), but the narration is extremely poor.
I had to tickle myself to laugh at the comedy scenes. It is better that I don't talk about the sequences involving Rajani proposing to the heroin and trying to convince her parents for the wedding. I would expect Rajani to come out with movies with class. People have a lot of expectation from his movies. Also, I am just wondering if the heroin had any role to play in the whole movie.
After all the hype that the movie got, I am out of words to say how disappointed I am after watching the movie.
My advice to those who are planning to watch the movie is - "Leave your brain behind before watching the movie"

Blood Bath in the Stock Market

2008-01-22T17:57:00.000+05:30

Long back, I read in a novel, "If your cobbler is talking about the stock market, then it is the time for you to get out the market". That was the case in the recent past. Everyone (housewives, small traders, businessmen, salaried etc) were all pumping in money to get a chunk of Reliance Power IPO. People borrowed money to get in to the IPO. 3 days after the IPO closed, there was a blood bath in the Indian stock market. Market has lost more than 30% in the last 10 days.
There is an interesting article on www.moneycontrol.com which talks about people forgetting the fundamentals. People are not studying the market before investing money. There is a lot of liquidity in the market and people want to stay put. They read all the success stories and go after making quick money. The retail investors have lost a lot of money now.

Udayan Mukherjee of money control writes

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The thing about life is that one makes mistakes. Many mistakes were made in the second half of 2007 and those sins have to be washed away by blood, such is the way of financial markets. Some participants will go down under and never be able to get back to the market again but most will survive. The pain will linger for many months, maybe years but lessons have to be learnt. Every such debacle has lessons for us and the sooner we forget them the more we suffer.

The first lesson is not to let stock price performance become the sole reason for buying, a mistake which was made in abundance in the last 3 months. What couldn't be explained by fundamentals was credited to liquidity. The present lost all relevance as people chose to focus on the distant future, perhaps simply because the present could never justify those ticker prices; only a hazy dream of the future could. Traders and investors had no time for fundamental analysts, in many cases they were labelled "cribbing fools". Chartists became the most celebrated tribe on the street as only they could see and predict the one way run to glory for many of the hot stocks even as fundamental watchers cringed at valuations....till the music stopped. Don't get me wrong, charts do work in trending markets but once stock prices veer away completely from fundamental value, people need to get careful. But they never are. Now that the blinkers are off, people should ask themselves why stocks like RNRL, Ispat, RPL, Essar oil and Nagarjuna fertilisers have lost 50-70% of their value. It is simply because their stock prices had snapped all connection with underlying business fundamentals, earnings and value. Their stock prices became the only reasons for buying them which works for a while but not forever.

The other big lesson, one which should have been driven in earlier in May 2006, is the danger of overextending oneself in the futures market. The lure of stock futures is easy to understand. Put in some margin, take a big exposure on a fast moving stock, make a killing when prices shoot up. Repeat exercise. Just that people forgot that prices may also come down and at a pace which noone can even imagine, maybe their friendly stockbrokers forgot to tell them that part of the story. The result : unbridled speculation that ran into lakhs of crores, excesses that we are paying for today. Even this fall will not cure investors of their love for futures speculation but if at least some amount of caution is injected it would have been a worthwhile learning. Futures are not toys for amateurs, they are time bombs in the hands of inexpert and inexperienced traders, it's only a matter of when the fuse runs out.

The other learning which I hope will play out in the future, as it has in the past, is that it pays to be brave in times of panic such as these. If I was allowed to invest myself , which I am not, I would have no hesitation in deploying serious money into the market today, knowing fully well that prices may fall more tomorrow. And I would be standing there tomorrow to buy more of the same, till my money ran out. India is going to be a terrific stock market story for many years to come, even an intermediate bearish patch cannot shake that conviction of mine. At best, one will have to wait a bit for the returns to follow. That's alright. You are happy to put money in a bank FD and then wait for one full year to collect that measly 8%, aren't you? Then why does the stock market need to give you 20% every month? In the last one year, I haven't seen so many good stocks trade at such mouth watering levels. Forget trading, avoid the duds which were fuelled up by operators, just go out and buy those bluechips. They will deliver, even if there is a global market meltdown for a while, and if you are a bit patient you will be rewarded. But do remember January 2008, as history will repeat itself again in the future. Just that our memories tend to be too short and our greed too much.

Udayan Mukherjee

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(source - www.moneycontrol.com )

Nikhil turns one

2008-01-22T16:25:00.000+05:30

Time flies, Nikhil is already one year old. We had a small party at home to celebrate his birthday. After the birthday, I took a big cake to a school for special children. I met the principal of the school and told her that I want to share the cake with the kids. The principal of the school was very excited to see the dog shaped cake and exclaimed 'Oh, you have got Jimmy. The kids are going to love this'. I had to leave for my office immediately. I gave a call to the to principal of the school in the evening. She sounded very excited. She told me that the kids were thrilled to see the cake. They all sang 'Happy birthday' to Nikhil and enjoyed the cake. I was very happy to hear this. I wished, that I could have been present in person to enjoy the moment with the little ones. This was the most satisfying way of celebrating Nikhil's birthday.

Tare Zameen Par

2008-01-18T13:52:00.000+05:30

I Watched Taare Zameen Par (TZP) last week and trust me, it is one of the best movies I have seen in the recent past. The concept,narration, direction are all excellent.
The movie highlights the problem of dyslexia, one thing that many people don't care about, or in many cases, people don't know about it. Atleast in India, after seeing this movie, I guess many people will be aware of it, if not act take action.
I have known children with this problem. There is an immense pressure from parents and peers to perform well at academics. Little do they care or realize that all kids cannot scale up to all the challenges. I am told that in the western countries, the schools/parents identify dyslexia at an early and put the kids through a different learning process. In India, off late, a few schools have started this, but this trend has to catch up.
This movie is a real eye opener. Amir khan has done and excellent work in bringing out the good talent in Darsheel Safari (Ishaan Awasti in the movie). Unlike other movies of Amir Khan, this movie is not 'Hero centric', but 'concept centric'. The songs are very good. I am not going to discuss the movie here. If you are reading this blog and haven't still seen the movie, then it is time to do it. It is a must watch movie

The Great Sir Edmund Hillary Dead

2008-01-16T10:42:00.000+05:30

May his rest in peace.

What an achievement by these two - Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.
I was reading this article on espn site which talks a lot about his life. I didn't know before reading this article that he had done a lot for Nepal.

Read the article at http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=3190797
It is quite an interesting read

Tata's Rs 1-lakh car - the Nano

2008-01-11T09:20:00.000+05:30

So the much waited Tata's Rs 1-lakh car - the Nano is here. There were a lot of people questioning if Tata's could stick to their word of getting a car at such a low cost. Yes, they have proved it again that they can revolutionize this industry.
Thinking about this car, so many thoughts run through the mind - both positives and negatives.

Positives

This is definitely a boon to the middle class for whom affording a car is a dream of their lifetime. Thinking about the dust and heat that is present in our cities, this car is a big relief.
As the families grow and get little ones in to their family, people have to start thinking about getting 4 wheels. It is definitely not safe driving in India on a 2-wheeler. It is a scary picture when I see women sitting on 2-wheelers, balancing on single side of a 2-wheeler with a kid in her arm, where the kid is getting squeezed between the two parents. Sometimes, in bigger families, the elder kid is fighting for his space on the petrol tanks of the motor cycle when the driver is struggling to balance the vehicle. At times I see 3 kids and two adults on a single 2-wheeler. I think it is time for these people to upgrade to a small family car.
Rains are another nightmare times when it is very difficult to travel on 2 wheelers. Public transports are never reliable in such conditions.

Nano Taxi

Today, an auto rickshaw costs around 1 lakh to purchase. With the introduction of Nano, I think a lot of auto drivers will probably think of buying a Nano and using it as a taxi. I am sure, some smart company will quickly come out with an LPG kit for Nano, which can lower the cost of running. Given a choice I would prefer traveling by a Nano than an auto rickshaw. But for that the price of traveling by a a Nano-taxi should be comparable to traveling by a rickshaw

Negatives

Well, without having seen the car personally I cannot comment anything negative about the car. Ofcourse, one cannot expect too much for 1 lakh. The car doesn't come with most of the features (rather - no features). As they say, 'you pay peanuts, you get monkeys'. I wanted to bring out my thought on the implications that this car might bring on our infrastructure. In cities like Bangalore, people are already struggling with the terrible infrastructure. Bangalore has one of the highest vehicle density in the country. This city already boasts of the highest number of 2-wheelers in the city. The roads are all cramped. This car is just going to add to our agonies further. There are days when people take over 2 hours to reach their home after work, and in 2 years if there are a lot of cars on road, we can only think of reaching home the next day morning.
Today there is an auto rickshaw strike in Bangalore. It was a pleasure driving to office as there were no auto rickshaws on the road. I didn't have to use breaks much and I didn't have to change gears often. I think rickshaws constitute anywhere between 5-10% of vehicles on Bangalore roads. After removing more than a lakh of autos from the streets, the roads had decent traffic. Now imagine if around a couple of lakhs Nano's got added to our streets - "God help us please - are you listening". A few months back I read in News Papers that someone was making a few under passes in Bangalore in 3 day's time. I wonder when that project will see the light of the day. I hope it is time for the Govt to seriously has to start thinking about these kinds of projects.
I am not even going to talk about the fuel consumption which will add a burden on our reserves, nor am I going to talk about the heat and noise emitted by these cars.

Pricing

1-lakh is just the dealer price and one has to shell out atleast another Rs 25,000 to drive a car home. If one decides to add a few accessories like seat covers, better tires, AC,etc, then the car price will come close to 1.5 lakhs, which is still a reasonable.
If one can make a down payment of Rs 25,000 and take a loan for the rest of the moeny, then they can have a car for an EMI of around Rs 2000 p.m.

Happy Driving ...

BSNL Bangalore 2007 marathon

2007-12-16T14:28:00.000+05:30

My aunt who works in BSNL called me to ask me, if I would be interested in taking part in the marathon conducted by BSNL. Without a second thought, I said 'YES'. There were several races that day - 42 km full marathon, 21 km half marathon, 5 km marathon run for charity, run for senior citizens and for physically disabled. There was representation from many countries.
I roped in my colleague Manju and my cousin Nanda for the run. The race was expected to begin at 9.00 am for which the reporting time was 8.00 am. Me and Manju reached in time and even had break fast at the venue. Nanda was as usual late and reached when the race was about to begin. We all got T-shirts and caps from BSNL - thanks to my aunt who arranged it.
I was not sure if my fitness level was good enough to complete the 5 km stretch. But I was able to complete the entire stretch of 5 km in one go without stopping for rest (I took 10 seconds break twice waiting for my friend to catch up). I could complete the run in 25 min - thats 5 minutes per km. I was amazed at my own performance.
We waited for others to finish the race. My aunt finished her 5 km stretch 15 minutes after we had completed. My uncle took part in the race for senior citizens.
There was a senior couple (husband 80 yrs and wife 69 yrs) who completed the 5 km stretch as well. There were hundreds of kids from various schools as well. They finished the race with much more ease.

Gosai Ghat and ShivanaSamudra Trip

2007-12-15T10:35:00.000+05:30

During the October holidays, my sister and nephew were at home and we decided to go out on a one day outing. I suggested ShivanaSamudra and everyone agreed. We started from Bangalore on my car on mysore road. There are 2 approaches to shivanasamudra - first via kanakapura and the other via mysore road. I was told that the Mysore road was better for driving. We started by 9.30 am and were quickly at Ramanagar. We stopped at my favorite breakfast place - Kamath Lokruchi. After relishing on different kinds of dosas for an hour we started again. It was quite a sunny day and everyone in the car started complaining about going to ShivanaSamudra as there was no shelter there and we would be baked in the sun. My sis suggested that we go to Gosai Ghat near Mandya. I quickly called up a couple of people to find out what was in Gosai Ghat. My friends suggested that I go to that place as there was a river(kaveri) flowing there. To reach Gosai Ghat, I had to take a left turn on mysore road at Sreerangapattana. We reached the place by noon. We could see a few people taking bath in the river. There was a lot of water in the river. The place was NOT very crowded. We all got in to water and spent more than an hour there. My 10 month old son was having a great time playing in water. This is a good place for one day outing from Bangalore. The only problem is that there is no place for the ladies to change clothes. One has to take the cover of some temple shrines.
We were very hungry when we started back from there. One place I prefer to have lunch on Bangalore mysore highway is Hotel Haripriya in Mandya. After having lunch we decided to go to ShivanaSamudra. One has to take a deviation in Maddur to reach ShivanaSamudra. This road is not all that great, but you can drive on that road. One particular stretch of 4 km is quite bad near Malavalli. We reached ShivanaSamudra by 5.30 p.m. There is a beautiful water fall here. It is called the 'Gagana Chukki' falls. Close by is another falls called 'Bhara chukki' falls. But as we reached the place quite late, we didn't have the time to go to the other falls. There was a lot of water in the falls. It was a treat to watch. The weather was also cool and the sun was just setting. We enjoyed the sunset over the falls. They have even started a hotel at this place. People can stay here for the night. It is a nice getaway from Bangalore. We started from there just after sunset. Driving in the dark in the Malavalli road (bad road) could have been avoided if we had reached the place earlier. But, once on mysore road, you can reach Bangalore in an hours time.

To reach Gosai Ghat from Bangalore
Bangalore - Ramanagar - Chennapattana - Maddur - Mandya - Sreeranga Pattana - Gosai Ghat - Roughly 120 KM from Bangalore

To reach Shivana Samudra
Bangalore - Ramanagar - Chennapattana - Maddur - Malavalli - ShivanaSamudra - Roughly 110 KM from Bangalore

Carelessness causes wastage of money

2007-12-15T10:05:00.000+05:30

I recently realized that I had misplaced the copy of my car insurance. The insurance company was located in Delhi. Upon calling them up, they told me that I have to send a Demand Draft (DD) for Rs 50/- in order to get a new duplicate copy.
I quickly went to the bank close by to get a DD. I landed up paying Rs 56/- as the service charge, for a Rs 50/- DD. I was cursing myself for choosing a private bank over nationalized bank as the DD charges were high. Upon inquiring later, I found that the DD charges were only marginally lesser in Nationalized banks. A few years ago, I remember paying not more than Rs 10/- for DD of this amount.
After getting the DD, I payed another Rs 60/- for courier. A couple of days later, I was going through a pile of papers at home and found the misplaced insurance document.
I had unnecessarily spent Rs 166/- (excluding a few long STD phone call charges)for being careless. Had I sorted out my pile of papers earlier, I wouldn't have spent the money and time. I have learnt my lesson.

Indo-Pak match - Me on TV

2007-12-08T21:51:00.000+05:30

Ask any Indian, what his/her fav sport is, and the answer you get is "CRICKET".
It is the sport the nation breathes. Well, today I got a 5 day pass for the India-Pakistan test match at Bangalore. Ind-Pak matches are always very exciting. How could I miss a chance to watch it.
Me and my cousin reached the stadium. There was a huge crowd waiting to get in. Some were busy looking for tickets. It is very difficult to get tickets for a test match in Bangalore on a weekend. In the past I have paid Rs 300/- for a Rs 50/- inspite of reaching the venue at 6.00 am to buy tickets. I have seen that sometimes the tickets are sold at the counter for 15 minutes when we see a "sold out" board. The rest of the tickets goes to black market. I stopped to get my face painted with the tri-colour. I also bought a flag outside the stadium.
I managed to sneak my camera in to the stadium. But the security snatched the stick that was with the Indian flag. They think that the mob will start a fight with the stick.
It was an exciting first day of cricket. Though India lost 4 quick wickets, Yuvaraj and Ganguly played a spectacular innings. Yuvi's score was the highest by any left handed batsman in Bangalore. Our statisticians collect some crazy statistics these days.

We were jumping and screaming at every shot. I was waving the Indian flag and having fun. Just then, one of my friend's called me to tell me that he saw me on TV. A few more friends and relatives called me and told me that they all saw me on TV during the match and during the highlights. I am going again tomorrow also. Hope Indian can post a big score - Amen

Road trip from Bangalore to mysore on a bullet

2007-11-16T21:03:00.001+05:30

Two weeks ago, I had to got o Mysore for some personal work. I was continuously debating with myself whether I should take a bus, train or drive in my car. After some thought, I thought of doing something, which I rarely get an opportunity - long bullet ride.
I was up and ready with my helmet, leather jacket and clothes for a day and was off. I started from home by 10.30 a.m. After giving a quick stop for fuel, I was off on the high way. You are in a bilssful state when you are enjoying the sounds of a bullet while going at 60 KPH. It was a very pleasant day with the sun not being very bright. There was a pleasant sunshine and cool breeze. I was already enjoying the cool breeze on my face. Initially I was cruising at a lower speeds, but as I covered more distance, I started gaining speed. By now, I was touching 70 kmph. I reached Ramnagar and gave a 20 minute break. While I was sipping tea from a road side tea stall, I quickly made a few phone calls. I started from there and started touching 80 kmph and above. Even though I was traveling alone, the journey was not boring. On either side of the road was lush green paddy fields. Paddy seeds are sown right after monsoons during June-July, which cover up the entire fields by October. By now I was already at 90 kmph. Riding the bullet is simply effortless. I used to earlier own a Hero Honday Splendor, which, used to take a lot of effort to reach 70+ kph ( I have covered thousands of kms of highway trip on my splendor as well). I gave my second 20 minute break at Sreeranga Pattana to make a few more phone calls. From here, on a few occasions my 500 CC bike Bullet touched 95kms. I didn't go above this, because if something were to go wrong, I would have to run around alone to get help (had to be extra careful as this was my first solo long distance ride). Within minutes I was at Mysore ring road, where I took a deviation towards T.Narasipura, which was my final destination. T.Narasipura is a small town, 30 kms from Mysore. My problems started from here, as I had to go on some really bad roads. There were small stretches where there was no road at all. It was a dirt track ride at certain patches. Bullet, which is known for bad shock absorbers, was already hurting my back. I reached my destination by 2.00. pm. Discounting the two 20-minute breaks that I had taken, my journey was for 2.5 hours and I had covered 170 kms. After having my lunch and taking some rest, I headed back to Mysore. This time, I was feeling that I was riding on Mars (Mars has craters too). By the time I reached Mysore, my back was hurting a lot. I took a pain killer and went to bed.
The next day, I had to visit T.Narasipura again before going back to Bangalore. I decided that I had enough of the bad roads. I parked my Bike at Mysore Bus stand and took a bus to T.Narasipura. After finishing my work, I was back in Mysore by 4.00 p.m. My cousin called me up and told me that she would join me on my way back to Bangalore. I took the Bullet from the Mysore Bus stand and went to her office. After reaching there, I asked her, if we she was ready for Ass-Ass-I-Nation. She told me that she was very excited about this trip. We started from Mysore 5.15 P.M. I told her that I was going to cover maximum distance while we had sun shine. Riding during night is something I generally avoid as the headlight is not very bright. The reaction time to obstacles will be very less as we can spot them very late.
Right from the word go, I started clocking 90 kmph. We witnessed beautiful sun set en-route. I cruised comfortably all the way till Maddur. By now, I had started losing sun light quickly. I had decided not to stop till I reached Kamat Lokruchi at Ramnagar. I reached there by 6.30 PM. I had covered 90 kms in 1 hour 15 minutes. The traffic was low as it was a week day and hence we were able to cover the distance quickly. We stopped for some snacks and coffee. The hot Mirchi Bajji and coffee was perfect after the ride. We sat there and relaxed for an hour. I asked my cousin, how she felt and she said that she was enjoying the ride.
I had another 50 kms to cover before to reach home. I thought that I would take it a little easy and cruise. But as I started, I realized that I had surrendered to the supreme power of the Bullet. There was no way, I could go below 80 kmph. There were occasion when I was cruising at 90 kmph even in the darkness. The temperature had started falling. This year we are having a cold winter. Bangalore recorded some lowest temperatures in decades this year. The traffic was also thickening as we were closing Bangalore. I reached home by 8.30 kmph. I had coverd the last 50 km in 1 hour.
After reaching home, I asked my cousin, if she was ASS-ASS-I-NATED, and she said with a smile "Not As(s) much".

It was a wonderful long drive on the Bullet. I would like to call it the Biking Nirvana. I had covered a total 400 kms in 2 days. I roughly got 30 km per liter of Petrol.

Total Distance: 400 KM.
Total Time on road: 4 hours 45 minutes.
Bike: 500 CC Bullet.
Top Speed : 95 Kph.
Mileage: 30 kmpl.
When: November, 2007.
Route: Bangalore - Mysore - T.Narasipura - Mysore - Bangalore.

Tata Indigo XL review

2007-11-02T21:29:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, my friend Nawaz called me up to get some thoughts on buying a new car. He had been doing some research himself on the web and also been talking to his other friends. From what he had heard from his friends, he seemed to have been quite impressed by Tata Indigo XL. When he called me up, he was very upbeat and was explaining the features a lot. He asked me if I could go along with him to the Tata show room to take a test drive of the vehicle. I agreed and went to the show room with him. I had never test driven a new car and it was my first time.
Tata Indigo has petrol and and Diesel variants. In each of these variants, they have two models - Classic and Grand. At the showroom 'Grand' was there a display piece and we started inspecting while we were waiting for the executive to come and attend to us. The car looked good. At first glance, the most impressive thing about the car is the space. There is a lot of room inside. The back seat is very spacious and 3 people can sit very comfortably. Tall people won't have any problem stretching their legs when they are seated in the back seat.
By now the executive came to us. She started explaining the features of the car. The classic is the more basic model which has a 1.4 ltr engine. The boot (trunk) is quite big, but still not as big as I had expected it to be (as there is a lot of room inside). The interiors are not very great with the car. They have tried to give a wooden finish to the front panel, but it is made of plastic and doesn't go well with the car. The 'Classic' comes with premium fabric upholstery which is pretty good. One very good feature which I haven't seen in any sedan is split AC. There are separate AC ducts for the back seat. This feature is something, I have seen only in Qualis and Tavera. But even in those, the AC ducts are on the roof, but in Indigo, they are at the bottom (between the two front seats). This is a cool feature. Another unique feature is the chiller. The chiller is in the glove box and can keep your cool drinks chill (ofcourse the AC has to be ON for this). Fog lamps, all 4 power windows, power steering, rear defogger and central locking, front seat height adjustor (for both seats) are all default in the Basic model. There is no Cup holder for the driver's seat. It is there only for the passengers in the back seat.
The basic model comes at around 6.1 or 6.2 lakhs on road in Bangalore and is a good buy.
The Grand comes with a few extra features. It comes with leather upholstery, 4 speaker DVD player with two LCD displays behind both the front seats, a car phone kit (free nokia phone and a charger) and power seat height adjuster.
Now it was the time to test drive. I took out the 1.4 petrol for a drive. I could only drive it in busy Bangalore traffic. It had a smooth pickup even when the AC was on. The gear shift was smooth. Really not much complain with the car. This is not to be considered as the the full 'GO' for this model as the drive was only for 2 kms in traffic. One has to drive the car before making their choice. However there were a few things I was not comfortable with the car. The gear seemed to be very far from the driver's seat. One has to reach out for it. I am used to driving a Maruti Baleno which has a very big front window shield which gives a very clear view of the road. I was not very happy about it in this car. For tall people whose head almost reaches the roof, the road view is not very clear.
After the test drive of the petrol version, we tried the diesel version. I sat in the car and turned the ignition on and I was immediately disappointed. There was a lot of engine noise and vibration. It was like sitting in a truck (OK, I am exaggerating here, but I was very unhappy). The Grand Diesel comes at around 8.75 lakhs in Bangalore. Who would want to pay so much money for a diesel car with just 1.4 ltr engine which makes so much noise. Atleast I wouldn't. The diesel versions of Verna are so smooth when compared to Tata Indigo. Classic makes a good buy for that price, but Tatas will have a difficult task selling the diesel version of Indigo XL, that too when they have the image of a taxi.

Mukesh Ambani - Richest man in the World

2007-10-30T11:32:00.000+05:30

Yes, it is true. Today, Mukesh Ambani became the richest man in the world. It is a little hard to believe, but it is true. He makes India proud. Indian Stock market is on a continous bull run which saw reliance stock scaling new heights.
After the death of Dhirubhai Ambani, Mukesh got Reliance Industries and has strived hard to reach the peak. Hope the bull run continues and he stays at top for a long time to come.
He has surpassed Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft and Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu.

1. Mukesh Ambani - $63.2 billion
2. Carlos Slim Helu - $62.2993 billion
3. William Bill Gates - $62.29 billion
4. Warren Buffett - $55.9 billion
5. Lakshmi Mittal - $50.9 billion

kimi wins the 2007 championship

2007-10-22T14:22:00.000+05:30

what a victory to Kimi and what a win for Ferrari. It was a stunning victory for Kimi Raikkonen who needed to win and get maximum points. Before the race I thougth that Kimi won't make to it to the top of the championship points. But the good strategy from Ferrari and good driving by Kimi put him on the top. Unfortunately for the Rookie Lewis Hamilton, it was a disaster race.

Drivers points

01 Kimi Räikkönen 110
02 Lewis Hamilton 109
03 Fernando Alonso 109

Constructor Points
01 Ferrari 204
02 BMW 101
03 Renault 51

Rich Dad Poor dad's Robert Kiyosaki

2007-10-22T14:15:00.000+05:30

Funny mahabharat climax scene :))

2007-10-16T18:50:00.000+05:30

This is a funny episode from the movie "Jaane bhi do yaaro"

watch the video

Cool Down Tommy, He's Leavin, You Don't Have To Bite Him...

2007-10-10T17:10:00.001+05:30

This is how Sreesanth reacted when Symonds got out during the India-Australia cricket match in the future's cup 2007

click on the image to enlarge

Free medical treatment at sathya sai super speciality hospitals

2007-10-10T12:09:00.000+05:30

Medical expenses are one killer of an expense and can leave bring you to streets. Some of the treatments can run in to lakhs of rupees. If you are not prepared (read http://mail2nagen.blogspot.com/2007/07/tips-on-medical-insurance.html ), either you will have to borrow from evrey relative/friend or let go of the patient.
Time and again I had heard of Sathya Sai Super Specialty Hospitals which give free medical treatment to everyone. Today I bumped in to a nice article which talks about a patients experiece at SSSIHMS and also the research happening there (read the article here )
In a country where 70% of the people live either below poverty line or can just afford a basic life, hospitals like sathya sai hospitals are a boon.
I have no personal experience with this place, but have heard that the treatment comes totally free. Downside is the waiting period. For some of the surgeries, one has to wait for a turn.
I have read that the Sathya sai hostpitals are in Prashanti gram in Andra Pradesh and white field in Bangalore
Some links
http://www.saihospital.org/ssshhospitals.htm
http://www.sathyasai.org/saihealth/content.htm
http://www.sathyasaihospital.com/

Pranesh Comedy

2007-10-04T17:15:00.000+05:30

Pranesh Comedy Part 1

Pranesh Comedy Part 2

Pranesh Comedy Part 3

Pranesh Comedy Part 4

Pranesh Comedy Part 5

Pranesh Comedy Part 6

pranesh comedy part 7

Deepika Padukone on ftv!!!

2007-09-28T11:09:00.000+05:30

Places to visit around bangalore

2007-09-27T23:08:00.000+05:30

There are lot of places to visit around Bangalore.There are a few one day trips and a few that can be done in 2-3 days.
One beauty of Bangalore is, you find hills all around Bangalore. 50-70 kms in any direction going out of Bangalore, you fill find hills.
On Tumkur road, you will find Devarayana Durga, Shivagange etc.
On Mysore road, you will find RamNagar
On Bellary road, you will find Nandi hills
On Hosur road, you will find KrishnaGiri.
On kanakpura road, you will find kabbal durga
On Magadi Road, you will find Savana Durga

There are a lot of pilgrimage spots to visit as well.

-----Place------Dist----Type
-----------------------------
Sri-Ram-Betta---50--Piligrim
Rangasthala-----60--Piligrim
Savana-Durga----60--Hill
Ghati-Subramanya70--Piligrim
Nandi-hills-----70--Hill-stn
Revanasiddesh-be70--Piligrim
Shiva-gange-----70--Piligrim
Antharagange----75--Piligrim
Chikka-Thirupath75--Piligrim
Kanva-reservoir-80--Dam
Mekedatu--------80--Ravine
Kaivara---------85--Piligrim
Sheebi----------90--Temple-Paint
Devarayana-durga100-Piligrim
Kokkare-Belluru-100-Birds-sanctu
Kudumalai-------100-Piligrim
Melukote--------100-Piligrim
Muththathhi-----100-River
Vidurashwatha---100-Piligrim
Sri-Rangapatna--120-Piligrim
Bheemeswari-----125-River
Karighatta------125-Piligrim
Shivasamudram---125-Water-fall
Ranganathittu---130-Birds-sanctu
Adi-chunchanagir140-Piligrim
Lepakshi--------140-Piligrim
Mahadevapura----140-River
Mysore----------140-Historical
Shravana-Belugol140-Piligrim
Hogenakal-------150-Water-fall
KRS,-Balamuri---150-Barrage
Mudukuthore-----150-Piligrim
Talakadu--------150-Piligrim
Chunchana-katte-160-Water-fall
Kadiri----------160-Piligrim
Nanjanagudu-----160-Piligrim
T.-Narasipur----170-Piligrim
Sathanur-dam----175-Dam
Somanathapur----175-Archeology
Hemagiri--------200-Water-fall
Ramanathapura---200-Piligrim
Tiruvannamalai--200-Piligrim
Halebeedu-------210-Archeology
B.-R-.-Hills----220-Hill-station
Bandipur--------220-Wild-life
Gopalaswamy-bett220-Piligrim
Harangi---------220-Landscape
Nisarga-Dhama---220-Land-scape
Kabini----------230-Wild-life
Nagarahole------230-Wild-life
Belur-----------240-Archeology
Mudumalai-------240-Wild-life
Yercaud---------240-Hill-station
Bababudangiri---250-Hill-station
Irpu------------250-Water-fall
Kemmannugundi---260-Hill-station
Kudrehabbe------260-Landscape
Talakaveri------260-Land-scape
Bhadra----------270-Wild-life
Manikyadhara----270-Water-fall
Muthodi---------270-Wild-life
Subramanya------275-Piligrim
M.-M.-Hills-----280-Piligrim
Bisle-----------300-Hill-station
Gajanur---------300-Barrage
Horanadu--------300-Piligrim
Mandagadde------300-Birds-sanctu
Shringeri-------350-Piligrim
Ulvi------------300-Birds-sanctu
Nagar-----------320-Archeology
Ooty------------320-Hill-station
Coonoor---------340-Hill-station
Ikkeri----------340-Archeology
Keladi----------340-Archeology
Dharmasthala----350-Piligrim
Hampi-----------350-Historical
Hampi-----------350-Archeology
Kudremukh-------350-Hill-station
Mantralaya------350-Piligrim
T.B.-Dam--------350-Dam
Varadahalli-----350-Landscape
Agumbe----------357-Hill-station
Moodabidiri-----360-Archeology
Gudavi----------375-Birds-sanctu
Humbucha--------380-Archeology
Jog-------------380-Water-fall
Karkala---------380-Archeology
Kaup------------380-Beach
St.-Mary's-Islan386-Landscape
Katil-----------387-Piligrim
Devarahole------400-River
Magodu-falls----400-Water-fall
Mrudeshwara-----400-Piligrim
Satodi-falls----400-Water-fall
Udupi-----------415-Piligrim
Honnavar--------425-Piligrim
Gokarna---------460-Piligrim
Maravanthe------467-Beach
Badami-&-Aihole-500-Caves
Kollur----------500-Piligrim
Kollur-forest---520-Wildlife
Yana------------580-Landscape
Gokak-falls---------Water-fall
Varaahi-------------Landscape
Koravangala-----200-Archeology
Ridge-----------250-Landscape
Mosale----------200-Archeology
Doddagadduvalli-200-Archeology
Munnar---------550--Hill-station

A BRIDGE TOO FAR

2007-09-25T14:47:00.000+05:30

A BRIDGE TOO FAR ……Awesome…..!!!!!!!!!

The Lord surveyed the Ram Setu and said "Hanuman, how diligently and
strenuously you and your vanara sena had built this bridge several
centuries back. It is remarkable that it has withstood the ravages of
the climatic and geographical changes over centuries. It is indeed an
amazing feat especially considering the fact that a bridge at Hyderabad
built by Gammon using latest technology collapsed the other day even
before they could stick the posters on its pillars."

Hanuman with all humility spoke "Jai Sri Ram, it is all because of your
grace. We just scribbled your name on the bricks and threw them in the
sea and they held. No steel from TISCO or cement from Ambuja or ACC was
ever used. But Lord, why rake up the old issue now."

Ram spoke "Well, Hanuman some people down there want to demolish the
bridge and construct a canal. The contract involves lot of money and lot
of money will be made. They will make money on demolition and make more
money on construction. "

Hanuman humbly bowed down and said "Why not we go down and present our case"

Ram said "Times have changed since we were down there. They will ask us
to submit age proof and we don't have either a birth certificate or
school leaving certificate. We traveled mainly on foot and some times in
bullock carts and so we don't have a driving license either. As far as
the address proof is concerned the fact that I was born at Ayodhya is
itself under litigation for over half a century, If I go in a
traditional attire with bow and arrow, the ordinary folks may recognize
me but Arjun Singh may take me to be some tribal and, at the most, offer
a seat at IIT under the reserved category. Also, a God cannot walk in
dressed in a three-piece suit and announce his arrival. It would make
even the devotees suspicious. So it is dilemma so to say."

"I can vouch for you by saying that I personally built the bridge."

"My dear, Anjani putra, it will not work. They will ask you to produce
the lay-out plan, the project details, including financial outlay and
how the project cost was met and the completion certificate. Nothing is
accepted without documentary evidence in India . You may cough but
unless a doctor certifies it, you have no cough. A pensioner may present
himself personally but the authorities do not take it as proof. He has
to produce a life-certificate to prove that he is alive. It is that
complicated."

"Lord can't understand these historians. Over the years you have given
darshan once every hundred years to saints like Surdas, Tulsidas, Saint
Thyagaraja, Jayadeva, Bhadrachala Ramdas and even Sant Tukaram and still
they disbelieve your existence and say Ramayana is a myth. The only
option, I see, is to re-enact Ramayana on earth and set the government
records straight once for all."

Lord smiled "It isn't that easy today. Ravan is apprehensive that he may
look like a saint in front of Karunanidhi. I also spoke to his mama
Mareecha, who appeared as a golden deer to tempt Sita maiyya when I was
in the forest and he said that he won't take a chance of stepping on
earth as long as Salman Khan is around."

Jai Shree Ram

PS: Not sure who the original author of the post is. I got it as an email forward and posted it. I found a couple of links on the net posting the same article.

http://markets.moneycontrol.com/india/messageboardblog/16/51/message_thread/1922761/2222807
http://whimsicalmind.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/a-bridge-too-far/

Balle Balle - India won the T20 world cup

2007-09-24T22:18:00.000+05:30

What a great day for Indian cricket. India won their first Twenty 20 world championship. What a great show by the players. They played as a team and held their nerve till the last. There were too many anxious moments in the match. The match was never over until the last over. I was thinking that Misbah almost pulled the match away from India. Thanks to some sensible bowling and fielding from Indians. Good catches were taken.
There was heavy traffic today evening after 4.30 p.m. Everyone trying to head back home to watch the match.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni has achieved a one of the greatest success in his life and that too while serving his first series as a captain of Indian cricket team.

The team which won the world cup

G Gambhir
Yusuf Pathan
R Uthappa
Y Singh
MS Dhoni (captain)
R Sharma
I Pathan
J Sharma
Harbhajan Singh
S Sreesanth
RP Singh

Source of photos http://www.cricinfo.com/

Indian Idol 3

2007-09-24T16:16:00.000+05:30

I am forced to watch some of these programs like Indian Idol, Nach Baliye etc. The TV gets hogged during these shows at home.
Yesterday, there was the finals of Indian Idol 3 program on Sony TV and we were all watching the show. The anchor said that people of India were voting to chose the winner of the contest. What surprised me was when he said that they had received more than 7 crore (70 million) SMS votes. First reaction would be - WOW.

But then, if you put your thinking caps on, what occurs is -

In a country of 100 crore, 70% leave in villages. So I don't think that they would vote.
That leaves 30 crore people to vote.
Of this 30 crore, I guess the whole of TN, Kerala and many of the other south Indian states would not be watching Hindi channels.
So, we can reduce another 5 crore of the urban crowd.
That leaves only 25 crore people to vote
Assume that most of the people from other states, would like to watch Tele serials in Hindi and their local language. And also assuming that there are many poeple who would watch other music, sports etc channels, I can conveniently reduce the audience watching sony TV to less than 10 crore - I find this number to be very big too ( Unfortunately, I don't have any live statistics or any TPC numbers - all these numbers are arrived by me by some guess and logic).
Now there are other similar programs (song and dance competition) on STAR TV and other channels which are telecast at the same time. These programs attract good number of audience as well.
Many of the remaining viewers are students on prepaid and other middle class folks with a lot of them on life time free incoming scheme (this scheme doesn't have any messaging or outgoing facility).
Now the voting crowd (in my opinion) is definitely reduced to less than 7 crore (which is the number of votes received). Now think, how many people out of this lot would have cell phones.
With the SMS charges to these programs costing between Rs 3 - 5, how many people would send SMS to make someone win a contest. Even if we go by the logic that some people (5 percent of voting crowd) vote multiple times, 7 crore votes can't be reached.

I think, the numbers are just built up by the TV channels to generate curiosity amongst the audience. 7 crore votes NO CHANCE.

Spiderman Ganesha

2007-09-21T11:18:00.000+05:30

Click on the image to Enlarge

Yuvraj 6 Sixes vs England Twenty20 World Cup Match

2007-09-20T10:42:00.001+05:30

What a match it was between Indian and England. Yuvaraj Singh was at his best, scoring 6 sixes in an over. Thats a World T20 record. No one has done it before.
When Yuvi got out, commentator said, that Yuvi came like a Thunder and went like a lightning.

Watch the video ball by ball where yuvi scores 6 sixes

Hope India beats South Africa today and go over to the next round

Bangalore Rains

2007-09-17T12:32:00.000+05:30

It has been raining continuously in the past few days in Bangalore. Rains are good signs, but can Bangalore handle so much rains. Infact Bangaloreans fear rains.
Rains brings Bad roads, overflowing drainages, pot holes, traffic jams, flooded roads, power cuts and lot more agonies. Bangalore is one of the world's most preferred destinations for IT, BPO and call centers. This city has created jobs for lakhs of people. There is money flowing everywhere. Govt is collecting a lot more taxes. But where is all the money going. Why is Bangalore infrastructure so bad. I won't talk about how Govt should wake up to improve infrastructure. This gets discussed every day in the media. I just hope that something will be done to address issue and we can enjoy the rains in the coming days. We used to enjoy the rain a lot when we were kids. I hope that our kids too enjoy the same. Bangalore should take cue from Mumbai which receives a lot more rains than Bangalore and that too for months.
Just a glimpse, of what happened to our roads last week.

Silk board junction

Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question

2007-09-13T15:06:00.001+05:30

Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Reenactment

2007-09-13T15:01:00.001+05:30

New announcements from SUN

2007-09-13T11:39:00.000+05:30

Today Sun Microsystems made a couple of annoucements. These two announcements will help SUN expand its business with customers where it doesn't have an account.

1. Sun and Microsoft have announced an expanded relationship including Sun becoming a Windows Server OEM Read more on this at
http://www.sun.com/software/windows/
Sun Streams Through Windows

2. Sun Acquire Assets of Cluster File Systems, Including the Lustre File System

About Cluster File Systems, Inc.

Cluster File Systems, Inc. (CFS) is a leader in high-performance, scalable cluster file system technology. Extensive experience, innovative insights, and proven engineering have enabled CFS to dramatically surpass the scalability limits of modern computing. The Company's premier Lustre File System currently powers clusters with ten of thousands of nodes and petabytes of data, delivering groundbreaking parallel I/O and metadata throughput on many of the world's largest Linux-based supercomputers. CFS provides technical support, training, and engineering services, and is actively working with storage and cluster vendors to develop the next generation of intelligent storage devices. The Lustre File System for Linux is open source software developed and maintained by CFS. For more information, visit www.clusterfs.com.

Read more on this on
Sun Microsystems Expands High Performance Computing Portfolio

Additionally, there were more announcements earlier
The technology landscape shifted again earlier, with another announcement between Sun and IBM - IBM has joined the OpenOffice.org community.

Get a life

2007-09-11T16:34:00.000+05:30

click on the photo to enlarge

Sun Seeks 1-For-4 Reverse Stock Split

2007-09-06T13:03:00.000+05:30

If the reverse stock split is approved by our stockholders, Sun will exchange one new share for every four outstanding shares. As a result, Sun would have one-fourth as many outstanding shares, but each share would be worth approximately four times as much. In general, a reverse stock split will not impact the market value of Sun as a whole

Read more on
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070905/sun_microsystems_stock.html?.v=3

How JAVA got its name

2007-09-06T12:35:00.000+05:30

James Gosling the father of Java says, how it was named

------------
Begin forwarded message:

From: James Gosling
Date: August 24, 2007 8:16:58 PM PDT
To: Jonathan Schwartz
Subject: How was Java named?

The story goes like this:

We needed a name. We had been using "oak" (which was selected essentially randomly by me), and while the team had grown attached to it, the trademark lawyers ruled it out. We had lots of email debates about names, but nothing got resolved. We ended up in the awkward position where the #1 thing stopping us from shipping was the name.

Our marketing lead knew someone who was a "naming consultant" (I don't remember his name, but he was great). We could neither afford the price nor the time of a conventional product naming process. He agreed to do something rather odd, but effective and quick: he acted as a facilitator at a meeting where about a dozen of us locked ourselves in a room for an afternoon. He started asking us questions like "How does this thing make you feel?" (Excited!) "What else makes you feel that way?" (Java!) We ended up with a board covered with essentially random words. Then he put us through a sorting process where we ended up with a ranking of the names. We ended up with a dozen name candidates and sent them off to the lawyers: they worked down the list until they hit one that cleared their search. "Java" was the fourth name on the list. The first name on the list was "Silk", which I hated but everyone else liked. My favorite was "Lyric", the third one on the list, but it didn't pass the lawyers test. I don't remember what the other candidate names where.

So, who named Java? Marketing organized the meeting, the consultant ran it, and a whole pile of us did a lot of yelling out of random words. I'm honestly not real sure who said "Java" first, but I'm pretty sure it was Mark Opperman.

There certainly wasn't any brilliant marketing mind who went through a coherent thought process.

------------

Sun Ranks amongs Top IT Employers in India

2007-09-04T12:40:00.000+05:30

Sun Microsystems with an employee base of about 1,000 made its entry into the Dataquest-IDC Best Employers listing at No, 10 largely driven by a high employee satisfaction score. It scores high on compensation and topped the rank on the new age priority, work-life balance.
Read more India's top IT employers http://www.indiainfoline.com/news/innernews.asp?storyId=43817&lmn=1

Sun Rising

2007-08-28T16:08:00.000+05:30

Recently Sun Microsystems announced that it is changing its ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA.
Today more people know Java than Sun Microsystems. Company is using the popularity of Java for it branding. This has not been received well by SUN fans and other techies. Read the comments on Jonathan's blog http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/java_is_everywhere#comments
Sun, once the darling of Wall street is trying very hard to stay profitable, after years of bleeding. Recently it announced a partnership with Google, in which they'll be distributing StarOffice for free as a part of their Google Pack.
Sun has always come out with very cool technologies, but somehow not been able to convert them to revenue. Hope these new marketing gimmicks will help SUN to be back on top as the most preferred Hardware/Software vendor.

How Men Talk to their Wives on the Phone

2007-08-24T11:12:00.000+05:30