The UP political landscape is far bigger , meaner, and more of a slug fest.

It seems that she has given tickets to Brahmins for the forthcoming UP elections!!!!

An interesting scenario is opening in the coming UP election. Mayawati needs the undivided votes of Brahmins to make a significant impact in UP while her arch rival, Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is counting on Muslims voting en masse in his favour to add to his loyal constituency of Yadavs.M

Although the situation is similar to a secular JD supporting the "communal force" BJP, the scenario I guess is much more intense in UP.

Meanwhile Rahul Gandhi is also hitting the UP streets with his campaign. Let's see what kind of slugfest unfolds.

Current Music : Shilpa Shetty - UP Bihar lootne

If you really search something you can get it. Not quite, but you get the clues. Good searching and persistence helps.... But somehow, someone above is playing a nasty trick on me. Of course, there is no use trying to out-do him, but well as Linkin Park guys say "I tried so hard and got so far....In the End it doesnt Really matter". Nothing happens. Period.

As I listen to, "I can get (No) Satisfaction" song by the Rolling Stones, a lot of randomly generated thoughts just go by. The "question marks(??) and the exclamation marks (!!)" were quite visible above my head and the guy sitting next to me in the car today.

Hmmm...Meanwhile I am in _NO_ mood to see the IRELAND v/s ENGLAND match.

Then as I rewind to my coffee-filter conversations I am reminded of Moby's song "People they come together....People they fall apart". Oh yeah DA is a snail. That too, a moody snail crawling over a 7'o'clock blade.

Sometimes, the Yahoo! messenger smiley can be very irritating when it is bright yellow and laughing...

All our lives we search for an answer ... a purpose....But the Question is WHY ?

Software keeps getting written and keeps getting obsoleted. This seems to be the new mantra.

Well, just imagine the kind of software required to keep a telecom service provider like Hutch or an Airtel to carry on its operations. The software may include all the front end software like activating and deactivating various services, maintaining the profiles of subscribers and keeping a record of the bills paid and even intraweb of a Hutch or an Airtel , maintaining the employee database and all that.

To think about it, it is an enormous piece of software and would cost a company like Hutch or Airtel quite a bit.

So what do they do ?
Simple! They outsource the whole thing!

This is the truth for all the telecom operators worldwide.
Initially, the trend was "New features" or "more bandwidth" and all that.
Now it is "Cost Efficiency". They have invested quite a bit on installation of networks and pay big amounts of money for maintaining the networks and they want to minimise the costs WHEREVER it is possible.

And it seems, after the recent acquisition of Hutch by Vodafone, Vodafone has outsourced its IT operations to the Software Giant IBM. .

IBM will consolidate and manage IT infrastructure and applications for Hutch, India’s fourth largest telco. The contract is likely be on a revenue-sharing basis. “The scope of the deal will depend on the growth of Hutch’s operations in terms of circles and subscribers. As operations ramp up, the deal size and scope is also likely to increase,” sources said.

I guess, this is the kind of business which is going to become mainstream as far as outsourcing is concerned. Indian companies outsource to their Indian counterparts!

I dunno how this works,

but it is a fact that General Entertainment Channels have decided to withdraw the special 30-40% World Cup discounts on ad rates. Details here

Really interested to know how they calculate the GRPs or the TRPs.

A GRP is the sum of ratings achieved by a specific media vehicle and is a critical metric to determine the marketing effectiveness of an ad campaign.

If you live near Kathriguppa

you should check out the TEA SHOP there called "UNITEA in DIVERSITEA".

It is not such a great place as such, but the idea is damn cooL. There are so many varieties of tea. I loved the jasmine fragrance filled "Chinese tea". Awesome! It seems Chinese Tea has a lot of medicinal value and it is good for health. To me, it tasted like the "theertha" they give in the temple with all the karpoora taste, a beautiful jasmine fragrance and tea leaves fragrances. I think I acquired the taste for that tea.

And ofcourse, there are several Assamese tea flavors there, for the conventional Indian tea.

But it may not be a great idea to drink at night (esp. when you are stressed)....You may end up being an owl with your eyes wide open the whole night!!!

IND v/s SL and other tales

It seems Bob Woolmer's death is being treated as "murder" by Jamaican police.

A post-mortem examination established that the former England player had died as a result of "manual strangulation", police Commissioner Lucius Thomas said.

I generally hate to write these kind of things on my blog, but this news is a bit too much as not to be affected or un-noticed. It is a sour world cup with investigation of the Pakistani Cricket Squad and Jamaican Police being brought into reasons other than security of players. Poor West Indies organizers - I guess they are having a nightmare of a World Cup at their very first hosting. In a statement, Malcolm Speed, the ICC chairman clarified that the World Cup will go on.

"There has been speculation as a result of this (Woolmer's murder) the Cricket World Cup would be discontinued but this will not be the case," Speed said.

Meanwhile, getting to the core of World Cup, today is going to be a crucial match for India. I think it is a good match. But time to appreciate cricket as a game , rather than some mindless, irrational emotions like demolishing a player's house - this is pure crap.

Some cribs abt wc2007

Sehwag got a phone on his reliance mobile from Sehwag-ki-maa, and he played well.
Everyone was a delight to watch. Ganguly struggled initially but later it was cool. And Yuvaraj Singh too.

But, there is still story to be unfolded on the World Cup.

I PRAY that next time they don't show CRICKET on Sony MAX. Why don't they show it on some godammn SPORTS channel ? It loses the whole seriousness when they show it on Entertainment Channels, with Mandira Bedi speaking nonsense.

RIP : For Bob Woolmer.I hope such incidents don't occur again. And hope the mindset of Pakistani cricketers change. For the likes of Shoaib Akhtar : There is no point in sitting at home and blame each other for failures.

I am delighted that I am not the first bum around!
Stupidity rules.....

I had a great weekend. The highlight of the weekend was of course, the iron maiden concert!
Akshay, Teju and I had a rocking time of our lives on the 17th of March 2007. It is a pit I cannot upload photos, coz' my phone's photos are of pretty low quality :-(

Man! Bruce Dickinson has so much energy on stage for his age. Besides there was literally a SEA of black T-shirts and we looked kinda out of place. Also managed to catch Punk Floyd and Pramod.

Before that, we also had lunch at a place called "Fresco" which served really good continental food. And then there was the concert!

First were the cover bands.The first band on the stage "FTN", with two chinkis as guitarists kinda STRICTLY OKAY . They were REALLY good for an audience of maybe 1000+. But with a sea of 30000 people, it is REALLY difficult to control the audience. The audience were merciless and showed them the finger, in true metal headstyle( tee hee). And then there was Parikrama, playing REALLY good songs like "Rhythm and Blues", "But It Rained" , "Whisky" and so on. The violinist did a really good job and kinda kept the crowd controlled for a period of an hour. But later, another budding rock star of London, Lauren Harris took the stage and the crowd were not so kind to her either! Maybe she'll learn it after a few gigs, after seeing her dad.

Later, the old tigers unleashed their art designs on the stage. The crowd went berseck after seeing Iron Maiden LIVE! on stage!!! The screams were deafening loud.

The stage looked AWESOME. And they started off with some numbers of their new album called "A matter of life or death". Hardcore Maiden fans could recognize this album. But later, they proceeded on play their old favorites like "The number of the beast" , "Trooper" , "Fear of the Dark", "Iron Maiden" (from their first album), "12 minutes to midnight", "Hallowed be thy name", "Run to the Hills" (my favorite) etc. Bruce Dickinson also dedicated one of the songs "Wrathed Child" to some Indian guy, I don't remember his name.

There were people pouring into Bangalore from all over India and some people had come all the way from Kathmandu!

YESTERDAY , Kummi entrance togonda. Had some Dosas in Vidyarti Bhavan and later some AWFUL COFFEE prepared by me.

And today, wishing you all a HAPPY UGADI and I use the following C expression :-
age++;

Okay post done.

D- I - S - C - O

I am making a compilation of Disco songs in Hindi / Kannada.
Anybody have any inputs ? Thanks in adv!

Disco Songs in Hindi

Note :- My Hindi is a little poor, I don't understand a lot of lyrics :-)

1. Nazia Hassan and the Biddu combination.
This combination came up with GREAT songs like:-
a) Aap Jaise Koi Main
b) Dil Bole Boom Boom
c) Lekin Mera Dil

2. Amitabh Bachan songs
a) Jaha teri yeh Nazar hai
b) Oh Saathi Ree

3. Bappi Lahiri (Mithunda and others)
a) Yaar bina chain kaha re
b) Disco Station
c) I am a Disco Dancer
d) Dance Dance
e) Jawani Janeman, Haseena Dilruba
f) Raath baaki, Baath baaki.

Some more from Hindi ?

Disco Songs from Kannada

"Disco Kannada songs", is a terminology which I have used for a few songs which came out in the late 70s and early 80s after getting heavily influenzed by Hindi film industry (which was NOT called as "Bollywood" at that point of time).

Ths songs were characterised by a very good use of Bass and long haired dudes with bell bottoms and large check shirts.

The heroes which typically come to my mind who epitomise the mood , the style of the Disco era were :-

1. Kokila Mohan
2. Shankar Nag / Anant Nag.
3. Rajkumar during his Shankar-Guru days. Before that he had real curly hair. At these times, he started sporting a wig.
4. Ashok
5. Vishnuvardhan and Dwarakeesh duo (During their super successful days of Kalla-Kulla, Singapore nalli Raja Kulla)

OKay here are the songs which came in those days which typified Disco songs.
This is a very small list. I will put them in no particular order.

1. Halli Daariyalli Tampu beediyalli
2. Kaveri yeke Oduve ?
3. Teri kere yeri mele
4. Eko Moha , Yeno Daaha (a cover version of Nazia Hassan's Lekin mera Dil)
5. Nanna neenu gella laare, tilidu, tilidu
6. Santoshakke, Haadu Santoshakke
7. Namma Santeli mussanje hotthalli

Okay lets try to collect some more , from this point !!!!

Current Music: Unknown Artist - D.I.S.C.O

Today no big match

Kenya v/s Canada ( I didnt know Canada had a WC team!!)
Australia v/s Scotland .

The next good match (as far as I know will be on 15th March, ENGLAND v/s New Zealand)

Windies Win

MoM - All-rounder Dwayne Smith, 32 runs in 15 balls and 3 wickets


Sarvan was dropped very early! Gayle was a nasty surprise....
But, R Sarwan, was definitely good and he played good strokes on the offside.
Umar Gul bowled well. Pakistan's fielding was not up to the mark at all. Overthrows, catch drops.

In Michael Holding's accent Ith waaas guuuud to hear Michael Holding's accent after a loong time.

Chanderpaul played an anchor role. But more was expected of him!
And Lara and a new guy Marlon Samuels built the innings.249 on a pitch like that is pretty good.

If more pitches are fast bowler friendly, the Indian team, has to realise that very fast. Like Pak, our team is used to slow pitches.

Couldnt see the Pak Innings.
But, it is for certain that the Pakistan team is very new and also a little raw.They might have a tough chance to win the cup.

Key players for today : WI vs PAK

One good match today. WI vs Pak

West Indies
Brian Lara
Dwayne Bravo
Shivnarine Chanderpaul
Chris Gayle
Jerome Taylor.

Pakistan
Inzy
Shahid Afridi
Azhar Mahmood
Mohammad Sami (sometimes)

As far as I can remember Lara, has always had a very good batting average while playing with Pakistan. Let's see what happens.

God knows

As the inflation and the growth rate continues to steadily increase in India and China, and the other Eastern European countries, Financial Times reports that the pay gap between professional staff and managers employed in emerging Asian and eastern European economies and those working in more mature markets is narrowing rapidly after taking inflation into account.

What does this imply for India ?

If you take only the IT Industry into account, we have a huge pool of skilled man-power. I personally long for an Indian Product based Software Company make it BIG (like the Tatas and the Birlas)in Software.

The future is BRIGHT! (Ofcourse the immediate future, MAY have be characterised by some slump!)

Current Music : Mando Diao - God Knows

If you think about it,

There are no favorites for the 2007 world cup.
I fully agree with this article.

But the question is :-
Will India enter the semis ?

It is almost a 12 hour difference :-(
So seeing live is a little difficult for me (atleast)

And...

I thought traffic was always lesser in other parts of word.

After Infosys Bus, Wipro Bus, we have the GOOGLE bus!!
THose faces are soooooo familar like those you see on Infy bus etc....

In Silicon Valley, a region known for some of the worst traffic in the nation, Google, the Internet search engine giant and online advertising behemoth, has turned itself into Google, the mass transit operator. Its aim is to make commuting painless for its pampered workers — and keep attracting new recruits in a notoriously competitive market for top engineering talent.

Hmmm....So, allu kooda traffic naayi paadu antha gothaagatte :-D

Maybe they borrowed a thing or two from the Indian IT Companies !!!!!
Read the whole article here

Happy birthday

Happy birthday to Kummi.
Have a great day :-)

So, who is the winner ?

Offshore is one movie which I would LOVE to see. Somebody had to do this sort of a movie. Good. I had seen this coming!

Here is the synopsys :-

OFFSHORE is the corporate war between the cowboys and the Indians.

Fairfax Furniture’s call center is about to come under attack. CEO Derek Abernathy must cut costs or lose his job, so he does what any modern businessman would do: he sacrifices others. He declares Voxx of India their new call center, putting the jobs of lifers like Carol Silvers and Gen-Xers like Bridgette Mars on the block.

But first they must train their replacements.

In India, businessman Devendra Tiwari and his earnest halfwit son Ajay have their work cut out for them: Voxx doesn’t actually exist. Yet. From the masses desperate for work, they pick three candidates to go to America to be turned into trainers. Nikhil, Anjali and Reva are thrilled to land these prestigious jobs, but when they arrive in Detroit they find they are not at all welcome. In fact, Carol and her furious co-workers have declared war.

The job thieves are tormented at every turn. Carol gives them the wrong training information, makes sure they are socially ostracized, and even rallies the local television muckraker to her cause.

Meanwhile, in India, Voxx’s call center is cobbled together with mismatched phones, malfunctioning computers, employees straining to adjust to the night shift and the prayers of a swami.

More details on the official website

Summer has started. Power cuts, mosquitoes, thirst are the flip side. But there is World Cup approaching :-)

Also, today I just travelled down the memory lane to my schoold days. March was a month of birthdays and loads of tension in high school and Pre-University. Lots of exams. Things used to look better ALWAYS in April.

But as I travel in my car today, instead of noticing the road and people, I looked half way between the earth and blue cloudless sky.

The trees were FULL of flowers. Blue, Red, Bright Yellow, Pink. The Sun is definitely a god.