Not many realize that in India, as in the rest of the world, blogging has been growing and thriving. Although there are a lot of blogs, some stand out because of their content or the fans they have. India Uncut is one of the blogs which has its die hard fans. Well, BusinessWeek has finally recognized its strength and named the blogger, Amit Varma, as one of the top 50 Most Influential People in India. This is the first time such an honor has gone to a blogger in India. Read more
Yesterday, I bought a new laptop as my old one had become really slow given that I had a lot of applications on it. I really want to test out some business applications in the coming days and so (i) I needed larger memory and (ii) better speeds. So, I went for an HP Pavilion dv6-1030us with 4GB memory and 320 GB storage. Now what really consumes all the time is the configuration of the new laptop/computer. You have been used to all the programs and you need to install them again... but the reckless loading of old programs was not a good strategy to begin with. So, which ones do you install. Plus, I am lover of Open Source. So here is my list of Open Source Programs that I loaded onto my laptop. Read more
We look for Happiness (or Anand). But is it a product or result of a search? Search is of mind. And the result is also of the mind. Truth is not experienced. Read more
We all know Lehman Brothers - the investment banking firm - got nuked due to toxic assets. Figuratively speaking.. right? WRONG! The investment bankers were actually sitting on a stockpile of 450,000 lbs of uranium "yellow-cake". It could theoretically speaking, be used to power a nuclear reactor or even make a bomb. Now, if I put the Indo-US Nuke deal into context you somehow wonder - how come an investment bank - full of idiots who run the company under a truck - gets something more easily than an entire sovereign country? Worse the investment bankers don't even need to ratify any treaty! Do you see the apartheid in this field? Read more
The Shariat followers and the Islamic rulers (from Mughals, except Akbar, to Taliban) have always subjugated the non-Muslims. Any discussion of Islamic "love" for non-Muslims somehow does not bear itself out in practice in practical governance around the world. Now, that Pakistan is under Taliban in the Swat and NWFP areas, the nightmare of the non-Muslims will come alive. Hindus have already left or are leaving the area. Now, the news comes that Sikhs have paid Rs. 2 crores (20 million) as Jizya to escape Taliban brutality. Taliban was occupying the houses of the 35 Sikh families for days and demanding a sum of Rs 5 crores, before they negotiated and agreed to a ransom (ok, they call it by that crooked and derogatory term - Jizya) of Rs. 2 crores. Read more
All us bloggers are really in the business of news. So, one study of the teens done Conducted for the NAA by Northwestern University's Media Management Center. The findings are interesting and very intuitive. Its not that the teens do not want news. They do. But some interesting things have emerged: First and foremost, FREE is good! Teens think News should be a free commodity. They seem to prefer news from aggregating sites - like Yahoo, AOL, Google etc They do not like clutter. They like pictures, but not at the cost of news. Pictures should be there but as illustrations Basically the site should provide "an adequate sense of the news" on its own". Ok, if the teens like the aggregating sites for news then what are the basic requirements? The site should help them become interested in news by focusing their attention on a few items, illustrated with photos, explaining that is going on and why it matters. The home page should provide a general sense of the news and a seductive pitch for each story in as simple and visually enticing a manner as possible. Story-level pages should richly supplement the news with basic information, background material and other insights, all displayed in manageable chunks with multiple entry points and plenty of visuals. Read more
The captain of US cargo ship, Richard Phillips, has been freed by the Somalian pirates. Well, thats wonderful! But there are a few questions that bother me: 1. Given the regular diet of Star Wars and Star Treks, shouldn't we have been fighting with pirates from the other galaxy rather than some jokers from a poor African country in INDIAN Ocean? Of course, if the Ocean was named Pakistani Ocean, I am sure by now the entire Pakistani blogosphere would have been abuzz with the American Controversy to malign the name of Pakistan because CIA is staging a pirate threat in an Ocean named after their country! Ok, so we Indians aren't that stuck up about our name.. take it.. muddle it.. who cares. In any case, the America STARTED by messing us up anyways .. way back! But seriously. What's these pirate thingy doing in 21st century! It seems the more we go forward.. we seem to be going backwards. Read more
India finally won a Hockey Title as they beat Malaysia 3-1 in the 18th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Ipoh on Sunday. Arjun Halappa (8th minute), Prabhjot Singh (20th) and Shivender Singh (41st) scored for India while Misron (11th) scored for Malaysians. This title has come after 13 years. Last year in April finally.. KPS Gill was sacked as the head of Indian Hockey Federation. His stay at the helm also coincided with the drought of titles for India. He was the IHF President for 15 years. Strange? Anyways, finally the devil is out of this game - back to his den. And our boys are finally free to play matches.. and not "games" of the other kind with the bureaucrats! Read more
Elections never present the best face of anyone anywhere. But some kind of rhetoric just insults one's intelligence. Two things that have really made me feel that is the rhetoric coming from the Congress. Specially the replies to BJP points and the points made by Sonia Gandhi and Dr. Singh. Dr. Singh, in my eyes, has never really distinguished himself as far as speeches is concerned. No, not because he is not a forceful speaker .. but whatever he says at the podium is just an insult to one's intelligence. LK Advani has made two points against him: Dr. Singh is a weak PM Dr. Singh should stand for the Lok Sabha Elections. 1. Dr. Singh is a weak PM Constitution and the Executive: The Constitution provides for a Parliamentary form of government which is federal in structure with certain unitary features. The constitutional head of the Executive of the Union is the President. As per Article 79 of the Constitution of India, the council of the Parliament of the Union consists of the President and two Houses known as the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) and the House of the People (Lok Sabha). Article 74(1) of the Constitution provides that there shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister as its head to aid and advise the President, who shall exercise his functions in accordance to the advice. The real executive power is thus vested in the Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister as its head. The Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the House of the People (Lok Sabha). Every State has a Legislative Assembly. Certain States have an upper House also called State Legislative Council. There is a Governor for each state who is appointed by the President. Governor is the Head of the State and the executive power of the State is vested in him. The Council of Ministers with the Chief Minister as its head advises the Governor in the discharge of the executive functions. The Council of the Ministers of a state is collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly of the State. The Constitution distributes legislative powers between Parliament and State legislatures as per the lists of entries in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution. The residuary powers vest in the Parliament. The centrally administered territories are called Union Territories. If I look at Dr. Singh's track record as a PM, it is pretty clear that the first statement is true! Arjun Singh and Reservations - PM not consulted and not informed: Let's start from Arjun Singh coming out with announcements on Reservations. It is now known specially after the fact that Arjun Singh was following his own agenda, which the PM had to then acquiese to AFTER the damage had been done. The result? We have IITs that have been dipping into their endowment funds to pay the salaries of their professors.. and here we have a situation where the HR Minister goes and lays down a scenario where more seats are to be created without enough professors and creation of more IITs! I am not sure what kind of degree you need to understand this stupidity of the situation and the damage that is being done to the highest institutions of India... but you certainly don't need to be a PhD. in Economics and be one of the most kick-ass economist in the country! All you need is a bit of spine and honesty! Delhi Blasts and Modi's Warning: Modi told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister Shivraj Patil and National Security Adviser (NSA) M.K. Narayanan, 10 days before the Delhi's blasts that based on interrogation of the Gujarat terrorists it was clear that similar blasts were being planned for Delhi. What did the trio do? Just sleep! And then AFTER the blast, their story went - that the intelligence was not enough! Huh? What did Dr. Singh, Patil and Narayana want? That the bomb planter CALL them up and tell them??? WHAT? So, Dr. Singh and his National Security team was just sitting on their back-sides. Read more
Shivendra singh from India, center, battles for control for the ball with Ashraf Zeeshan from Pakistan in front of Pakistan's goalkeeper Ahmed Nasir during a Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey semi final match in Ipoh, Northern state of Perak , 200 kilometers from Kuala Lumpur, Saturday, April 11, 2009. India won the match, 2-1. (Photo courtesy: AP) India's skipper Sandeep Singh scored twice to take India past Pak and into the Finals. Read more
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