Queue in India!

Was taken aback, when I saw random people who were sitting in Mettupaalayam railyway station, suddenly jumping and forming a queue to board a train that had just arrived. I don't remember the last time I saw, queue formation anywhere in India. There were two policemen also.. they regulated the entry of people. Then came to know that the queue was for boarding the unreserved compartment. Things like this also happen in India..Hmmm..

Shibu Soren - the new King

Just three years ago, Shibu Soren had the dubious distinction of being the first union minister to be convicted. Now, he rules the roost at Jharkhand. In the recent assembly elections, people have handed over a fractured mandate, which places Shibu Shoren in a comfortable position where his word is the command.

"I do not want to be kingmaker, I want to be king. It's not important now what Arjun Munda (of the BJP) and Babulal Marandi (of the JVM-P) are stating. Now everything depends on me," Soren told reporters in Bokaro - IBNLive..

- Vaazhga Jananayagham!

Whats happening in Bengal?

Lalgarh is literally cutoff from the rest of the country. It is virtually a challenge to the democracy of this country and what we get to see: another round of shameful politics being played out.

The state ruling party says, opposition is giving tactical support to the protests; wants to avoid another Nandigram (Elections have taught the Reds a bitter lesson). Heights was yesterday, when our beloved home minister PC said 'Use your own forces'. But guess.. better sense prevailed and paramilitary troops have been dispatched.

It all started with an assassination attempt at the CM and police scooped down to harass tribals. People retaliated and maoists found a good reason to push their own agenda. Naxal- Maoists show of strength shows on one hand growing unrest among common people and on the other hand utter collapse of the political machinery.

Fashion?

May be I'm fashion-challenged??

I tried deciphering the fashion/sense behind these lovely creations, No Luck...;-(

Photos taken from MSN Lifestyle..Showcased in the Will LifeStyle India Fashion Week, that's currently going on in Delhi.

BJP's Google Adwords Campaign

Advani for PM
A Leader Committed to
Clean Politics, Good Governance

lkadvani.in/bjpleadership

Reasonably good Adword optimization! for Indian Politics - keyword search

LK Advani's Official Blog
Shri Advani shares his thoughts
on issues of national importance.

blog.lkadvani.in/

Ad for keyword - LokSabha Elections

So, you have people sitting in BJP's office trying all options to get the best CostPerClick, impressions and conversion... But they are coming on top for all such keywords - simple, they are the only people bidding for these keywords!!

Wonder ..what would be BJP's adwords budget!!!

Used Syringes - Barbaric act

This one left me shocked for words.
Used Syringes racket has left 64 dead due to hepatitis B in Gujarat. Seven Pharma companies have been identified and five doctors have been booked till now. Is the lure of money so big??? This rattles the already weak faith on humanity.
Was surprised to see a wiki entry on this issue.

Who is Muthalik?

The latest fad to gain instant political popularity is to project a carefully cultivated 'culture-vulture' image. Muthalik joins the likes of Raj thackerays, who would be so-so's, had they not fed the media with their 'culture-guardian' image. Muthalik should be treated as a normal law-breaker [ in the sense, get a solid case of assault on the rowdy gang that attacked the pub and hand over jail sentence] , the media and the public should shut him out. I'm not for sending pink cards, chaddis etc. The media plays it out and in turn, Muthalik gets a platform to address his rebuttal. These people are like parasites, they thrive on Flash bulbs and mikes. Switch that out, crush them with the strong iron hand of law.
BTW, Who gets to define culture?

Hail Tamar people

Shibu Shoren's Shameful saga continues..[this post was written way back in 2006...]
But some faith in democracy has been restored by the Tamar assembly constituency people. That by-poll defeat was a grand kick in the butt. After dilly dallying for more than 5 days, he has finally put in his papers. But the issue is yet to settle down...more drama is expected in the next few days.

Terrorism rears its ugly head again

Switched off the TV at around 10.30 p.m yesterday in the night after seeing TV headlines that screamed random firing in Mumbai - 3-4 people killed..may be gang wars.
Thanks to the never ending downpour in chennai, electricity was off till morning. Flicked on the pocket radio to know if Isha had crossed us, was shocked to hear about the terror attack. This is definitely on a very large scale. We have to rise to the challenge and defeat terrorism at its core. ATS chief and his team members were also killed fighting these cowards. Sad. Putting aside petty politics, Politicians should realize that they should take some serious unanimous decisions to fight terrorism. It is a welcome move that PM & advani are talking together.
Hope, Mumbai springs back to normalcy soon.

Golden Moment

Definitely a golden moment in the era of Indian sports. Abhinav Bindra claimed India's first individual gold medal in the 10m air rifle shooting event in the Beijing Olympics.
I'm hoping that Saina also reaches the podium for badminton (she has reached the quarters now)

Business School business in India

Not very surprising... esp. when we have more than 1600 business schools in India!
From Business Week:

The Business Barometer study was issued last month by the the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (Assocham), the country's leading chamber of commerce organization. It found that beyond the top 30 institutions, most business school professors and lecturers in India's business schools are ignorant of the world's major economic trends and key developments, such as the subprime crisis in the U.S. Few read business publications.

The study found that only 6% of the 258 faculty members she surveyed read any business newspaper on a regular basis, with steady readership of business magazines "negligible."

Setting a high standard for Indian business schools by satisfying a quality accrediting agency is an important step for Indian business schools, said Assocham's Bhutani. An improved accreditation process would have a ripple effect on all Indian business schools, he continued, forcing them to improve the quality of teachers, materials, and professional development.

Quite true...but all this accrediting business can spin off a business by itself..like engineering college accreditation.

WhiteField, OMR - Vacant deals

India Syndicate reports that

In Bangalore’s Whitefield suburb, once a magnet for IT firms, supply outstripped absorption by 300,000 sq ft in 2007 and about 8% of the developed area remained vacant. In the first three months of 2008, the demand-supply mismatch was more than a million sq ft.
If Whitefield is in a bad way, the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) technology cluster on the outskirts of Chennai is deep in the doldrums, with just nine deals in the whole of 2007. Of the four million sq ft that came into the market last year, only 1.7 million sq ft were absorbed even as rentals fell by 18% and the vacancy rate was up to 11%, according to C&W data.

Old habits die hard

'Nav Shristi' - an NGO working for women and child rights - was shocked when two police stations in the capital demanded Rs 12,274 each for disclosing information on missing and kidnapped children in Delhi under the RTI.

More info - NDTV

Vapi? Sukinda?

Rings a bell? Nope!

Well, these two places are very much in India. Their claim to limelight? - they find their way into the World's 10 most polluted places list collated by Forbes magazine.

Admist enjoying the cosy comforts of AC, cushioned chair, steaming hot coffee, AR Rahman song in the headphone, it was quite a jolt to read the article..

"In some towns, life expectancy approaches medieval rates, and birth defects are the norm, not the exception," Forbes says, quoting the Blacksmith Institute, based on a study this fall. "In others, children's asthma rates are measured above 90 per cent and mental retardation is endemic," said the study, done by researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, among others.

"Sukinda is home to 97 per cent of India's chromite ore deposits and one of the largest open-cast chromite ore mines in the world," says the magazine. "Seventy per cent of the area's surface water and 60 per cent of the drinking water contain covalent chromium at more than double national and international standards," it adds. While the main types of pollutants are covalent chromium and other metals, the potentially affected people number 2.6 million.

Vapi, on the other hand, has pollutants because of the production of dyes, petrochemicals, pesticides, pharma, textiles, fertilizers, leather products, paint, chlor-alkali and mercury, Forbes says. "Vapi's groundwater is reported to be polluted 96 times higher than the World Health Organization's health standards ," says Forbes.

"In addition, local produce can contain up to 60 times more heavy metals - copper, chromium, cadmium, zinc, nickel, lead, iron - than non-contaminated produce in control groups."

Gosh! We seem to be separated by lightyears of development ;-(

Supreme Court & Holidays

Came across this news: As per the Supreme Court's calendar for 2007, out of the 365 days a year, the Supreme Court has only 176 working days. The remaining 189 days - more than half the year - are holidays. They include roughly 104 Saturdays and Sundays, nearly two-and-a-half months of summer vacation, a fortnight of winter vacation besides several other offs, ranging from a day to a week.

ChakeDe India!

Punch-O-Punch

"If these people feel so threatened they should not come out in public places."

CNN-IBN - This comes in the order abt security for politicians - the Delhi High Court observed that politicians were not a "national asset" that should be protected.

Wonder what Madras High court will say in Jaya's security case???

Sensex Soars

Its deepavali damaka at the markets. Today, it has crossed the 19K levels - a record highest. Majors boosters are Reliance Energy, ONGC, Tata Steel. With just 4 trading sessions, the sensex has zoomed from 18k to 19k. (fastest 1000 points!). FIIs have clearly pumped in massive amounts of money. But a sense of caution is advised for retail investors - the heights are quite dizzy. To join the game, just have to wait for the next big fall to buy fundamentally strong stocks or take the MF route.

Government Backtracks

Union Law Minister Hans Raj Bhardwaj has said the government will withdraw the offending remarks from the Ram sethu affidavit and file a fresh one. Also added that Lord Ram cannot be made subject to a debate.

Just like I said in my previous blog - oh my god! yesterday.
"A round of applause..please.. to the brave souls who went ahead & spoke the truth. [popular votebank will defintely get angry over this..I'm sure the govt will now try to balance the theist & the pious lot! by issuing appeasing statements....]"

Long Live the Truth!!

oh..my god!

My eyes really popped out..reading this..

The central government today told the Supreme Court that there was no historical evidence to establish the existence of Lord Rama or the other characters in Ramayana.In an affidavit filed before the apex court, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) rejected the claim of the existence of the Ramsethu bridge in the area where the project was under construction.

All this is happening in a country which witnessed riots & killings after Ayodhya's Babri Masjid demolition in the name of rama's birthplace. This affidavit requires great amount of guts...I thought, they would just submit a report saying there is no man-made structure under the sea and be controversy free. But issuing a statement like this..A round of applause..please.. to the brave souls who went ahead spoke the truth. [popular votebank will defintely get angry over this..I'm sure the govt will now try to balance the theist & the pious lot! by issuing appeasing statements....]

This is really going to be debated like never before..Already the BJP has called it sheer blasphemy. "It's an insult to Hindu faith. We also wonder why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi have been going for the Dussehra festival if their government does not believe in Lord Rama's existence,"

I'm starting to enjoy this ;-))

Forbes Asia Fabulous 50

The list is out. India leads the tally with 12 companies. The usual suspects are there: Bharat Heavy Electricals, Bharti Airtel, Grasim Industries, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Infosys Technologies, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries, Satyam Computer Services, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel and Wipro.

But what caught my eye was that Taiwan comes second with 10 compaines. That by itself speaks volumes of good work being done there. If such a small Asian country can pull its act together, India needs to go a long way. Economic times says "Most of the firms represented are from the island's low-profile tech industry and include Hon Hai Precision Industry, which churns out iPhones, PCs and PlayStations. "