Political Drama

whats happening in namma naadu.. karu naadu ??

another drama??

every year there is some dissidence, some coup, some no-confidence motion..etc etc ..

the only thing that is stable and growing is the corruption level.... and the business in the resorts of the neighboring states

idu copy !!!!

Identify the copy .... from the original ...

Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre.

Finally I finished reading this magnificient book.

Here is a review of the book - Freedom at Midnight - Review

Dear Zachary

I had discovered an keyboard artist called Money Mark and I was listening to his songs. One such haunting and sad song was Color of the Blues which has a Beatlesque melody. However the video aroused my curiousity. It showed some random family snaps, of some 2008 documentary called Dear Zachary.

I read about the documentary some days ago, and it is still lingering in my mind. I think I shed a tear just by reading abt it. DO NOT READ IT. Try to get the movie. Really affecting. I have not watched this documentary but still I am sure it will have a powerful impact. Highly recommended documentary, really depressing story. Here is a trailer of Dear Zachary

Shankar

Ananth talks about Shankar in this article after 20 years since Shankar Nag passed away. The final accident.

It just offers an insight on the political views of the brothers.

Brilliant.

GM .. wassup with CWG

Now , along with the usual Good morning salutations, someone always asks about "whats up with CWG" .. two weeks ago the answer would be "dont worry, things will fall in place".. now its like "you still care??"..

watched Dabaang over the weekend.. just showed how much masala we lacked in bollywood since srk/aditya chopra unleashed DDLJ.. a nice break from the exotic foreign locations, designer clothes, Hinglish etc etc etc..

In my dream yesterday, Suresh Kalmadi had made an appearance. He was playing the saxophone. Then in the next scene, it becomes a pungi .... Inspired by the dream, I present you this high technology graphic.

Snakes are found at the CWG Village.

sweet memories

God knows - Mando Daio
Music Video which looks like a home video :-)

A thought

Alexander the Great was a great Leader. Not much of a master strategist. Leadership is about belief and emotion : Perhaps not much about logic.

At the height of his power, Alexander the great, the undisputed master of the known world (at that time) would still draw his sword first at the beginning of the war and his horse(s) would charge in the front and lead his men to the war. Alexander felt that he could not ask his men to risk their lives unless he was willing to demonstrate by his actions that he had complete confidence in the outcome.

The sight of Alexander charging forward so excited and motivated his soldiers that no force on earth could stand before them..A leader is able to inspire the "fire to do" in others.

That kind of confidence make men believe in the leader.

I am not back from any soft skill training, but this is inspirational.

CWG

First of all, India scores very poor in the infrastructure department. Taking CWG 2010 to be hosted in India, was quite a challenge. And then corruption at various levels has just provoked everybody.

Now dog faeces was found in the CWG Village (just like any other village in India) and then this and this.

Really embarrassing and bad news. We have spoilt our image due to corruption. Shame on the organizers for spoiling India's image.

Which Sunday Morning do you like ?

Sunday Morning (1995) No doubt (The first sunday morning I heard, it is hard)
Sunday Morning (2004) Maroon 5 Song (Beginning is really good, but then it loses steam)
Sunday Morning (1967) by Velvet Underground (Heard this recently )

I like Velvet Underground version - very lullaby-ish : Andy Warhol's group....

newS

I hate the 24-hour story broadcasting in the disguised NEWS form from Star News. I bet it is no different from the other channels in India.. In emulating BBC, CNN etc these guys have gone whacky.. not to be said that CNN, BBC themselves can do 24h * 365 days of quality news..

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/us/10media.html?_r=1&hp

illustrates how things are blown out of proportion by media..

I miss prime-time news .. i do not know anymore where to catch this...as a kid we used to tune to DD twice in a day in the night for the Vartegalu and English News (dint care much about the Hindi thing)... and as we grew up the frequency increased to add one in the morning and one more in the night.. but now its there all the time.. which suckssss... to much data and much less information and no analysis...

Chinese Influence

Its been no secret that China is ploughing through its way in South Asia, building strategic ties with India's neighbors. Its association with Pakistan is well known for a long time, so is its relationship with the JUNTA. And now its flexing its muscle in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

With a bank balance of $2.4 trillion.. (its literally bank balance for China), it seems to be splurging (in local currency terms) in the Indonesian ocean. The influence is just on infrastructure it seems to be entering the political minds as well..

Sri Lankan president extends grip on power

By Jane Cowan

Updated 8 hours 15 minutes ago

The Sri Lankan president will extend his grip on power after the country's parliament voted to amend the constitution.

In what critics describe as "the last nail in the coffin" of Sri Lankan democracy, the country's parliament passed a constitutional amendment abolishing two-term presidential limits.

The changes also loosen rules designed to prevent the politicalisation of the police and the judiciary.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa was re-elected in January after the government won the 25-year-old civil war against the Tamil Tigers.

He can now stand for re-election in 2016.

Mr Rajapaksa is popular with Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority but critics have accused him of stifling dissent.

He had already been accused of ignoring the rule of law and jailing opponents.

Other changes empower him to appoint top judges and other public officials unfettered by any legal veto.

Mani Ratnam made Ravana and revived the trend ;-) and now it looks like Ramayana will repeat all over again..

Looks like a new Lankeshwar in the making..

Wisdom

I was walking past the ABB compound near office in the evening hour, sunset hour. The moment I walked past a lamp post (which was very close to my head) it switched on. It sort of looked like a Halo.

Nirvana near the ABB compound. Enlightened. It was like the Billie Jean video.

Heart sutra (contd)

Here is a meaning of the heart sutra. [Emptiness]

While some random Youtubing, I stumbled upon this surreal buddhist chant called "Heart Sutra". It seems it is a Sanskrit sutra composed by a Chinese Monk. The rendition is "very chinese" but the music is really relaxing. The meaning is too complex to decipher. Just wondering how people in those days used to think so much about Philosophy.

Check out the Heart Sutra by Imee Ooi.

Under/Over Paid?

In comparison to many services which are regarded not so sophisticated, a professional working in MNC/ bank/ conslutancy seems to be grossly underpaid in Hong Kong and I suppose its the same in any big cities.. Consider this

the average salary for an MBA + 2 years exp/ IT guy with 7-8 exp/ investment analyst with 4-6 years exp in HK is around 60,ooo HKD / month which works out to $300/hour for 22 days work and 9 hours/day (many work much more than this)..

and now consider this..

1 hour Mandarin class - $500

1 hour English class - $500

45 mins personal fitness/yoga/blah blah instructor - $500 - $1000

1 hour Massage service - $200 - $1000

Relocation (2 guys working for an hour) - $1700 or $ 850/hour per person..

party planner - should be super duper expensive..

part-time professional maid - $300/hour..

somethings really seem to be way out of proportion and some other things seem to be highly underpaid..

cleaners in restaurants - $16/hours

dish washers - $18/hour

servers - $25/hour

and the hotel industry and the rest. employee association are lock heads over a $33/hour minimum wage bill.. apparently they are now stuck between $27- $30/hour...

wtf

No time to pause on rate hike yet

http://www.livemint.com/2010/08/22215134/No-time-to-pause-on-rate-hike.html?h=D

I was going through this article today on rate hike and inflation, but the problem (inflation) and the popular solution in India (rate hike) and elsewhere in the world has been bothering me for a long time, and as late as yesterday night..

If Price is a equation of supply/demand, shouldn't supply be addressed to control inflation rather than demand through credit for a country like India which is still at the development phase ??

Clearly, we do not produce much of anything, import huge quantities through traders (almost everything), much of which is hoarded most of the time, with exorbitant duties (the total duties on any product in India can reach 25% of the value easily) to benefit a few communities who monopolize manufacturing by intricately teaming up with politicians and setting beneficial policies.

It is so strange the world's biggest steel producer doesn't have a plant in India even though steel demand is expected to increase or is required for the massive infrastructure overhaul. 80% of the country's oil is imported (know the talk of low reserves, but what about low exploration). Coal imports hit a new high of 70 million tonnes last year (even though we have the 4th largest coal reserve), nearly 2/3rds of all the chemicals are imported into India and so on and so forth... obviously with the world demand increasing the prices of a lot of products which are imported in India tend to rise, and the country has to bear the price burnt...

India is one of the highest interest rate countries in the world.. they should certainly have a re-look at creating a low interest rate environment for industries to produce more.. and cater more to the demand.. rather than increasing interest rates and curtailing demand...

no idea if the above make sense.. but till then lets tighten the screw on interest rates...

P == NP ?

Lots of literature has been written over it. Scientist Vinay Deolalikar has claimed P != NP.

Of course people have been really hungry over this problem. Let us wait and watch what happens.

Meanwhile there is a joke doing the rounds : P == NP for N = 1. I would strongly agree with that.

Bullet Santi

Bullet Santi is a simple yet effective innovations from one of the brilliant yet practical brains of India. Looking at these innovations, I sometime wonder as the what the heck am I doing crunching numbers on a spreadsheet..

anyway not to take the credit away from "Bullet" here.. the things I could most associate about "Bullet" before this was

a. the character called "Bullet Basya" from the movie CBI Shankar.. though the movie and the character name sounds cheesy, its one of the great thrillers of all time..

b. Kumar's bullet.. though Avinash had one before Kumar, Kumar's transformation to Bullet made it more memorable..