Race for Perfection has no Finish Line

Barrack H Obama - 44th President of United States of America

2009-01-20T23:51:00.003+05:30

Today is a historic day for the United States of America. A day which will be remembered as a day of unprecedented change. Today is probably one day when the whole world for the period of one hour while Obama was taking the oath came to a stand still and everyone forgot the most talked about phrase "The Credit Crisis" momentarily.

Forty six years ago, Martin Luther King gave the most inspiring speech on the steps of Lincoln Memorial and today Barrack Obama repeated the same feat. His speech centered around the fact that America remains the strongest nation in the world inspite of the recent turmoil which has engulfed the world badly.

An ocean of people attended the Inauguration Ceremony in the Capitol Hill which is considered to be the costliest presidential inauguration ever.

The most touching sentences in his speech were these:

"This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath."

Salute our Brave Heroes

2008-11-29T18:57:00.002+05:30

This post comes at the time when the Mumbai Police has declared the city free of terrorists. Our Men in Uniform, the true heroes of our country, fought relentlessly for 58 hours against the inhuman terrorists and brought freedom to Mumbai, our country and to all our people. This post is my deepest homage to the following heroes who laid their lives in this battle against terrorism.

1. Hemant Karkare, ATS Chief

2. Vijay Salaskar, Encounter Specialist

3. Ashok Kamte, Additional Commissioner of Police

4. Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, NSG Commando

5. Gajendra Singh, NSG Commando

Although all the three operations, Operation Cyclone at Taj, Operation Black Tornado at Nariman House, Operation at Trident and Oberoi are now complete, but still a sense of fear remains in the residents of Mumbai. Life will not be the same after these incidents for sure.

PSLV Successfully Launches Ten Satellites

2008-04-28T23:46:00.003+05:30

On Monday 28 April 2008, India and ISRO created a history and entered the record books by launching ten satellites in one go with its Polar Launch vehicle carrying the heaviest payload weighing as much as 824 kg.

Earlier a Russian rocket in 2007 delivered 16 satellites in the outer space but the Russian launch vehicle carried a lesser payload of just around 300 kg.

The ten-pack launch of the Indian Space Research Organisation saw the 230-tonne Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C9) put into orbit an Indian Mini Satellite and eight foreign nano satellites besides the Cartosat-2A remote sensing satellite. This is the first time that ISRO has put ten satellites into orbit in a single launch.

Madhavan Nair, Chief of ISRO said that this is the first time a country has attempted to put multiple launches in a precise manner. Russia had attempted almost 13 satellites in a single go but was unsuccessful.

There were some last minute anxiousness which was cleared at 11 PM and the launch was scheduled.

Nair expressed happiness that all the mission objectives were achieved with precision and all systems functioned very well.

"The PSLV-C9, in its total flight of 1,151 seconds, has performed extremely well. It's much better than a text book performance. Every system functioned as per the parameters," Nair said.

The CARTOSAT-2A and with IMS-1, followed by the nano satellites were released in quick succession, he said.

"We have received information from international customers that they have received signals from the satellites at their ground stations. The mission stations at Thiruvananthapuram and Mauritius have also received information that the satellites are in good health and we hope that if everything goes right within the next two days, we would be able to switch on the imaging system," Nair said.

He said while $0.6 million was charged for the nano satellites, it cost around Rs 120crore for the CARTOSAT and Rs 22 crore for the IMS-1.

The launch comes ahead of India's plans to launch its first moon mission - Chandrayaan-I - expected later this year.

Truly a great feat by the ISRO. Hats off !!!!

Indian Premier League (IPL)

2008-04-24T23:50:00.001+05:30

Indian Premier League (IPL) rocks. It really does.

Initial feeling within the masses of this form of cricket was not great. Indian Cricket League (ICL), a counterpart of the IPL, did not manage to get the attention of cricket lovers in anyway possible. The matches started and the series was finished also and no one even came to know about it. It was a euphoria which lasted only on the day when it was announced that ICL will be formed.

IPL is quite different from ICL. More than the fact that its recognized by BCCI and ICC, the entire strategy behind the formation of IPL is vastly different from ICL. IPL carries probably one of the best names within the industry beginning from DLF, Sony Max, KingFisher, Citi, Hero Honda and PEPSI as sponsors. Then the concept of team owners which is first of its kind in our country picked straight from the english premier league. The team owners are no small people and consists of the likes of Shahrukh, Mallaya, Mukesh Ambani, Preity Zinta which gives IPL a all new flavor and a richness. As we would know that most of the players in IPL have been valued at exhorbitant prices which gives the league a distinction of being one of the richest in the world. Add to all the above an advertising extravaganza which was being aired before the series began. The ads like "MANO-RANJAN" ka baap and others really caught up with the audiences. Phenomenal ad spending has been done by different segments of the industry and this has helped BCCI as well as SONY MAX equally.

Some of the cutest ads like the one of Vodafone has got consumers major attention with the introduction of the pug. Godrej has launched its new identity during this IPL League.

Some of the matches within the IPL have got probably the best of the finish we have seen in recent times. The last match between Deccan Chargers and Mumbai Indians saw Gilly hitting the fastest century and just concluded match between Chennai SuperKings and Royal Challengers Bangalore saw a turnaround led by Dhoni.

Overall its really a package deal for the viewers and have caught their frenzy.

Congrats Lalit Modi, you have proved what extreme execution is all about hats off !!!

New Hyderabad Airport @ Shamshabad Courtesy GMR

2008-03-26T23:06:00.004+05:30

Last Monday I took the flight from the new Airport of Hyderabad located at Shamshabad. Hyderabad Airport is the first project to be completed amongst the running public private partnership projects in our country for modernization of airports. Bangalore Airport is also expected to be ready latest by second week of May.

True to the expectations, Hyderabad Airport is an absolute marvel. Its a terrific example of how successful a public private partnerships can be. Built by GMR Group, the Hyderabad airport located at Shamshabad got the clearance for commercial operations on the midnight of 23rd March 2008 with the first flight of Lufthansa arriving shortly. The new airport has led to the closure of 73 years old Begumpet Airport which was situated in the heart of city.

The new airport is close to 40 KM from any point in Hyderabad. HUDA is still in the process of building the required infrastructure in terms of expressway so as to ensure that the distance is covered in least possible time. The nearest point for the new airport is Chandryangutta X Roads from where the distance to airport is close to 15 KMs and there are clear sign boards and directions.

Infrastructure in the airport is truly world class and can be compared to the Dubai and Malaysian airports and probably the first of its kind in our country. A huge concourse each for the departure and arrival. Electronic baggage services akin to the international standards. Longest runway in the country in excess of 4.5 KM and capable of supporting the AIRBUS A380 as well. There are more tha 44 gates available for the passengers and different airlines together with LCD screens displaying the departure and arrival of flights at all times. The new airport, with world-class facilities, can initially handle 12 million passengers and 100,000 tonnes of cargo annually. The cost of the first phase of the project is Rs 2,478 crore. The Rs.25 billion airport with the longest runway in Southeast Asia has been built by GHIAL, a joint venture in which GMR Infrastructure Ltd holds 63 percent, Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad 11 percent, AAI 13 percent and the Andhra Pradesh government 13 percent.

Inspite of poor connectivity to the airport currently being served only by radio cabs, coaches and taxis, people have said that the airport is in comparison to Dubai and London. Significantly higher ground handling fees and user development fees were the main reason for the Airport to be operational from 14th of March which was its scheduled date.

Built by the China State Construction Engineering (Hong Kong), it is the first airport in India to have no demarcation between international and domestic terminals, making passenger movement easier. It also has a unique airport village with commercial space where passengers can meet with their friends and relatives. The airport has a 70-metre-high Air Traffic Control (ATC), equipped with the state-of-the-art equipment, a world-class cargo terminal, 42 aircraft parking stands with 12 aero-bridges and 30 remote parking bays. It incorporates the novel ‘aerotropolis’ concept on the lines of Seoul, Munich and Hong Kong international airports that houses hotels, commercial centres, hospitals and residential quarters.

All in all, the new airport at Hyderabad, truly speaks of the Infrastructure which is coming up in India inspite of ever increasing stories of slowdown. Hyderabad airport sets a superb example for other airports to follow. Soon to be commissioned Bangalore airport is also expected to be on the similar lines. Lets hope GMR is able to garner its share of profit out of this project.

A really long break

2008-02-25T00:44:00.002+05:30

I am back after really a long break. I have been waiting to scribble something here but then either it was the constraint of the time or my acute laziness or the intranet in my new company not allowing access to the Blogger .

Lot of developments took place during this sojourn from blogging in my professional life. I moved from Polaris in October 2007 to Accenture. This change in company also forced me to move out of my comfort zone in Hyderabad to Mumbai. As I see myself today, I feel proud of my decision which was not an easy one. But definitely there is something about Mumbai which I feel every other city in our country lacks actually.

On March 08, I shall be completing my probation as well as six long months in the company where I have tried to put my best efforts in doing a lot of things some of which happened, others in the pipeline and some which took off well but are now in a state of dormancy. I continue to work in Calypso but now with much more focus and much more clarity about the application.

My tryst and experiments continue with Interest Rate Derivatives and Credit Derivatives along with certain new areas like subprime mortgages thanks to the recent credit crunch and economy meltdown in US.

The last couple of months have been extremely volatile for the Indian equity markets which were rocking and had proved the decoupling theory earlier. Markets actually came down from a high of 21000 to a low of 15400 in just about 15 trading sessions. A huge fall of close to 2200 points was witnessed during a trading session but it was then lead by a recovery fueled by buying at lower levels. Most of the stock which had jumped by close to 80-90 % have fallen close to 50-60 % in the recent meltdown. Some of the notable names are Ispat (86 to 42), JP Hydro (143 to 75), Neyveli Lignite (256 to 135). New IPOs got a major hammering like the Emaar MGF and Wockhardt Hospitals which could not even get fully leave alone the question of over subscription. In January we saw volatility ranging from a low of 2 % to a high of close to 300 %. The turnover had fell considerably from a high of 1.3 lakh crores to as low as 47000 crores. The markets are still under tremendous pressure and are moving in a rangebound fashion between 16500 till 18000. The message is clear about selling on rallies and buy on decline. But the question remains as to whether the markets have bottomed out and will we be crossing the earlier highs of 21000 on the Sensex and 6500 on Nifty.

There are lot of issues to talk about. I shall take up one by one in the coming articles.

Update

2008-02-19T00:35:00.001+05:30

Finally I have been able to update my personal details on the blog after close to six months of soujourn.
There is more to come. Wait and watch.

AIRBUS A380 Takes off !

2007-11-19T15:05:00.000+05:30

As I write this post on AIRBUS A 380’s maiden flight, I would like to go back to my TAPMI days wherein we discussed the A380 case study as part of the project finance case. This case study described the way A 380’s project has been organized and what kind of issues the company can face (It did face a lot of issues !).

At this point in time, I would also like to talk about the other blog entry which I had posted earlier in which the delay in AIRBUS A380 delivery was mentioned. AIRBUS A 380 delivery to airlines was delayed by close to 18 months which resulted in AIRBUS paying huge penalties and fines. Because of AIRBUS A380 the parent company EADS and AIRBUS both went into a lot of trouble which resulted in restructuring of the business and operations.

A380 which took close to a decade in the making and is about two years behind the delivery schedule, made its first commercial debut for Singapore Airlines flying from Singapore to Sydney with more than 450 passengers aboard. People were so excited about the first journey that they were spotted wearing T Shirts which said “I am First to Fly A380”.

For Boeing, it’s truly a gauntlet and kicks off a new round of multi billion dollar contest between the rivals for jets which will serve the long distance travel.

A380 has a price tag of about $ 300 million and if the plane is completely occupied with coach seating it could carry a whopping 850 passengers. The logic behind building such huge jets lies in the fact that major airports would become congested by huge number of aircrafts and it will be important to have large planes which can carry more passengers than the existing ones.

People have described the first commercial flight of A380 as a moment in aviation history. A few tickets for the suites within the aircraft were auctioned on e-bay and a Sydney businessman bid $ 100, 380 for two of the 12 luxury suites. This speaks of the excitement which people had for traveling in jet.

In Singapore, passengers began to arrive at the airport at 4:30 a.m., anticipating long lines, but the average wait for check-in was 15 minutes and people breezed through security. At the gate, they were treated to a buffet of breakfast pastry and canapes as a string quartet played classical music.

The new jet for Singapore Airlines was configured for 399 people in economy, 60 in Business class and 12 in Suites. There were 33 in flight crew, including four pilots and the journey time was just over seven hours. On the main deck similar to Boeing 777-300, there are 10 seats in each row with four in the middle and three on either side. In the narrower upper deck, eight seats make a row in economy with four in middle and two on either side. Business class seats on upper deck were arranged in pairs in three rows.

Surprisingly of the 468 passengers, 75 were newspaper and TV Reporters.

Passengers snapped pictures of each other several times in various parts of the plane including the spiral staircase and even restrooms. Media brought in a party atmosphere and interviewed a large chunk of people in the business class.

On October 17 2007, when Singapore Airlines CEO Chew Choon Seng took delivery of the A380, he described it “The new queen of the skies”. But whether A380 will redefine the air travel the way Boeing 747 did remains a question.

Airbus has over 165 orders for it’s A380 Megaliner as against 700 Dreamliners for Boeing 787. But Airbus expects to have a second round of orders post its commercial operations of A380 take shape.

Problems assembling the A380 drove up the development cost from an initial $12-billion estimate to nearly $20 billion. That led to a major shake-up at Airbus that included the ouster of several top executives. This became a major issue in AIRBUS and the project A380 looked like a distant dream and most of the airline companies asking for heavy compensation from AIRBUS.

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner hasn't been immune to problems. In an embarrassing setback, Boeing said in October that shortage of parts would delay the first delivery by six months.For Singapore Airlines, the decision to fly the A380 on the Singapore-to-Sydney route was strategic. The airline has been in a battle with British Airways and Qantas to fly the lucrative route that connects travelers from Europe and Australia. Before jets, propeller planes from Europe had to make numerous stopovers to reach Australia. Because of the "hops" involved, the trip became known as the Kangaroo Route.

These days, a flight from London typically stops over in Singapore before proceeding to Australia, and vice versa. Singapore Airlines hopes the introduction of the A380 will help it lure passengers, particularly first- and business-class customers, away from competitors.The test will come Sunday when the Megaliner enters regularly scheduled service that will require a landing, unloading of passengers, cleaning of the cabin, restocking of meals, refueling, loading of passengers and taking off -- all within just two hours that too on a daily basis.

Subprime and the Rocking Markets

2007-10-03T12:22:00.001+05:30

Nothing can beat this. No one can afford to ignore this. This certainly is the biggest news this week. Another punch from the Markets after the 15000 mark. Sensex crosses 16000. Wowwwwwwww. A month back we were seeing the downturn and we are all back as a phoenix which will rise from ashes. Let’s go back a little bit to analyze as to what happened.

Subprime shockwave, Fed Funds Rate, Discount Rate, Ben Bernanke, Northern Rock, Countrywide Financial, Emerging Markets decoupling, These are the some of the key words which we have heard over a period of last two months day after day. The list is just endless and goes on and on. All the business news channels and the financial news paper kept on talking about the Subprime phenomena and US entering into a recession. It was also said that very soon India could also see the impact of subprime shockwave, which will hit the equity markets badly and will end the emerging markets story in one shot. But as of today 23rd September, we stand tall and straight and absolutely fine at a cool 16564 mark. Yes the benchmark index for the country SENSEX has kissed 16000 with the NIFTY cruising to 4800 mark after the Fed announced the rate cut in the Fed Funds rate by about 50 bps and the discount rate by 50 bps.

Going back to the month of July when I was working with one of our client’s and I heard the term called as Subprime and how it can hit the markets hard. I was just waiting to understand the complete picture but before that the Dow and NASDAQ reacted and on August 2 we saw the first collapse in Dow and NASDAQ. A fall of about 3-4 % leading to a worldwide belief that the bull run of the equity markets has come to an end. Asian markets fell by a good 3 % that day with Indian markets tumbling down by over 4 % lead by Reliance and Infrastructure stocks.

Lets understand the phenomena of Subprime and how does it affects the equity markets globally or on a larger basis US Market. Subprime is a term which is coined for borrowers who do not belong to the prime category of borrowers. This happens because of the fact that these borrowers have a bad credit history, have defaulted on previous loans and credit card payments or have no sufficient collateral to back up their loans. The best way to describe them is the word NINJA. NINJA stands for No Income No Jobs and Assets. We know from finance that lower is the credit rating of the borrower higher is the interest rate charges. So for the subprime borrowers the interest is charged at a higher rate when compared to prime borrowers. The term subprime actually refers to the borrower’s quality unlike the interest rate in India.

In the last 5 years Fed has cut the rates for the first time on last Tuesday. This means that rates have been northward from the last five years primarily on the inflation concerns since Alan Greenspan who was the Fed Chairman before Ben Bernanke, felt that rate has to be under a strong control to contain the inflation. Due to this, the sub prime borrowers now had to continuously pay higher rates on their existing home loans. Only way to counter this increase in the home loan rate was to refinance the loan. Refinancing the loan involves again a cost, which may not be able to match up with the lower interest rate. In late 2006, the first signs of Subprime came into picture when a few of the home loan borrowers started defaulting. But then the news died since the stakes involved were not very high.

The first shock of Subprime hit a large scale US Investment Bank, Bear Stearns. Bear Stearns announced that it has made a huge loss of $ 2 billion in one of the hedge funds it runs. Now to understand the connection between subprime and hedge funds lets go back to the concept of securitization. Securitization is a concept of repackaging illiquid assets and selling them as high yield securities. This happens normally in case of home loans, credit card receivables and a lot of illiquid homogeneous assets. Now a lot of financial lenders like Countrywide Financial actually sold their subprime loans to prominent investment banks globally which in turn created hedge funds out of them and sold the securities in the fund to investors. Why should investors buy the securities? Simple in return for the risk they take they get a high yield probably much higher than what they can get on a treasury bond.

As the subprime borrowers started defaulting more often, the value of the hedge fund started falling. This went on to such a extent that Bear Stearns declared that one of its hedge fund will not be in a position to allow any further redemption because the value of fund has fallen considerably. When the investment banks realized that the Hedge funds based on subprime loans are not sustainable, they decided not to buy any more home loans from financial institutions like Countrywide which in turn hit the latter badly since it started accumulating bad loans on its balance sheet. This soon became worldwide phenomena with prominent investment banks like Lehmann Brothers, Goldman Sachs etc closing their mortgage services and cutting jobs extensively. BNP Paribas in France stopped redemption of one of its fund. In the Far East, Macquarie Bank in Australia closed one of its hedge fund which had exposure to US subprime market. Due to higher home loan rates, the housing market hit a record 20 year low in US which actually forced Countrywide to close some parts of its business and cut jobs rapidly. This also led to collapse in the equity markets and Dow saw its worst time since 2001 falling by more than 400 points in a single day triggering the world wide collapse of the equity markets. So this is in brief about Subprime problem.

Subprime issue had spread to such an extent that now it was felt that if Fed does not jump in and take some action, US may enter into a recession. Soon Fed showed its colors and cut the discount rate by 25 bps. Discount window of Fed allows the banks to borrow emergency funds from Fed which are repayable in a month’s time. This actually gave a relief to the markets and globally all the indices went up marginally over this news. Then came the news that Countrywide is about to get busted when it went to 12 different banks in US for a $ 12 billion credit line. The markets reacted again and fell by more than 4 %. Nifty went below 4000 mark and Sensex went until 13787 levels. The punters said that the bull market run had ended for the emerging economies.

Slowly and steadily the news about Subprime losses stopped coming. It was felt that Indian markets are not prone to such markets and hence a decoupling theory was suggested for the same. Decoupling from the US markets, which actually helped the Indian markets considerably. Indian markets started recovering quite well but the recovery was seen only in quality stocks or stocks which are fundamentally good like Reliance, L&T, BHEL and couple of others. While Index was rising slowly and trying to reach the previous highs the rising dollar hit the IT companies badly. In the past few months the IT stocks have fallen to an extent of more than 5-10 % with some stocks hitting 52 week low also.

On September 18, Fed made its announcement about rate cut. Markets were expecting a rate cut of about 25 bps in Fed funds rate. But to everyone’s surprise the Fed fund’s rate was cut by 50 bps and the discount rate was cut by another 50 bps. This was an enough trigger for the markets and Dow and Nasdaq went up in the last hours of the trading session by almost 3- 4%. Next morning we had a huge rally in the Asian markets with the Hangseng and Nikkei 225 moving by more than 4 % in a single trading session. Indian markets were not far behind with Nifty crossing 4700 mark and Sensex crossing the 16000 barrier. Most of the stocks touched their 52 week high.

The rate cut by Fed is a sign of two things. One is to ease the liquidity in the markets to ensure that US keeps growing at about 2 % every year. Second is that the subprime problem is big enough to entangle the entire US into it. This can affect the US housing market which has seen the biggest slump in last 9 years.

As I complete this article, which has now taken close to a week, Market globally; have risen to lifetime highs in each and every sector. Whether it is mid cap, large cap or small cap everything has risen astronomically and some stocks are daily making new Highs. Reliance pack especially has risen like anything with some stocks getting completely out of their fundamentals. RNRL moved by close to 30 % in a single day followed by JP Hydro which moved by 28 % in a single day together with RPL which moved by 16 % in a single day. It has been a maniacal rally for the markets and more is yet to come that’s what analysts say across the world. As I write this article we are looking at breaching the 18000 mark on SENSEX and 5500 on NIFTY very soon.

Twin Bomb Blasts in Twin Cities

2007-08-28T17:49:00.000+05:30

Twin bomb blasts rocked the twin cities on Saturday 25th of August 2007. The two bomb blasts happened with a gap of about 15 minutes begining at 7:45 pm at Lumbini Park Laserium. Thereafter at about 8:00 PM a bomb blast happened at Gokul Chat Bhandar, one of the famous eateries in the twin cities and a heavily crowded place on Saturday. Over 40 people were killed and more than 100 injured in this disastrous act of terrorism which shooked the twin cities completely and everyone including the Police Commissioner were taken by surprise.

The blasts at Lumbini park happened in a laserium with about 300 people. It was a bomb made out of Ammonium Nitrate ( which is an explosive since I have used it in our Chemistry lab once for testing some cations). The second blast happened in Gokul Chat which is one of the favorite chat spots in Hyderabad. At any point in time there would be atleast 50 people standing in Gokul chat. The explosion in Gokul chat could have been done by a suicide bomber or a gas cylinder and there is no evidence yet for that and investigations are in progress.

These incidents are third in the series starting from the Mecca Masjid bomb blast which happened on a fateful friday on 18th of May this year. It has been a very tumoltuous year for the goverment as well as the Police officials in the state and they are struggling to keep up with it. There is a bangladeshi terrorist group which has been quite active in the city from sometime and is the main cause of trouble.

Very recently the police commissioner issued orders to the IT companies to conduct a background check for each and every employee within the company since there was a report that a few of the terrorists are actually working within the IT companies. Moreso on one of the friday's we got a hoax call which stated that a bomb has been planted within our premises.

Last Sunday, due to heavy rains lashing the city the flyover bridge over the Punjagutta road collapsed partially killing more than 5 people and injuring a few others added to destruction of the property. It was a horrific incident and it actually went into the minds of individual and created an adverse impact with respect to safety and security. This incident added to the bomb blasts actually created a panic situation in the city which has forced most of the people to stay indoor on the weekends as well.

Yesterday and day before, we went for a drive to a few places which normally would be full of people. But to our surprise, the roads are wearing a deserted look and there is no one to be seen around. Most of the restaurants are empty and the most happening places in the city are absolutely crowdless. This is the first time when I am seeing a Saturday evening to be so quite. Again on Sunday we went to Nagarjuna Sagar, which is about 160 km from Hyderabad and is one of the most famous weekend destination here. On a weekend one can easily find couple of thousand people out there. But to my surprise, the road which was leading to Nagarjun Sagar as well as the Launch were completely out of people. There were a handful of people scattered across and it was raining very heavily all the time.

The incidents in the past few months have created a feeling of jittery in the minds of the people. Everyone is scared to come out of their homes. Whether it is driving under the flyover or visiting a temple. The security has been tightened considerably across every place of gathering and in the times of Ganesh Pooja its really difficult for the Police to manage the crowd. But inspite of all this people enjoy and spend their time with their loved ones. Although there is fear but then as someone has said. The show must go on.

India @ 60

2007-08-15T23:28:00.000+05:30

Today India celebrated its 60th Birthday. At the outset let me wish the country and my fellow citizens a very happy Independence day. Its a momentous occasion and when I look ten years back, the amount of enthusiasm and spirit has doubled thanks to the explosive growth of the media and communication.

Exactly ten years back, I was still in Kendriya Vidyalaya whereas my counterparts had already moved into junior colleges. My school at that point in time was one of the finest schools in Hyderabad and only one of the few KV schools to offer 11th and 12th in CBSE syllabus. I still remember the long preparations which underwent as part of the 50th I-Day celebrations in our school. There were host of cultural programs including some of the fascinating regional dances and parade. Sweets distribution used to be one of the major part of I-Day celebration in our school or for the matter of fact in any school. The snack pack as I can call it was also really good and matching the occasion of 50th I-Day. All in all it was probably one of my last day's in School and hence the importance of this day was more for me.

Thereafter when I was in college I never ventured out on 15th August and tried to stay indoor for all the four years. When I went to TAPMI to pursue my MBA once again the flavor of I-Day caught up in the campus and for consecutively two years we had some or the other celebration in our campus.

This year is special in its own terms. Its the 60th Independence day and it becomes equally important to go back into the past and see what we achieved together with an outlook into the future and what we wish to achieve. Numerous television channels took this as an opportunity and invited eminent personalities from different fields to talk about achievements of India. Its definitely very difficult to point out one single event in the history of last 60 years which would stand out but certainly there are a few which everyone of us remember it extremely well.

I would like to remember the victory of Kapil's Devil over the mighty WestIndies in the 1983 Prudential World Cup. Even Omkar Goswami rates this as the most important event in the last sixty years. The abolishment of the License raj in the year 1991-92 by then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh stands as the most important economic reform carried out till date in the history of Indian economy. Before this reform, we had just enough foreign currency to manage imports worth of two weeks. Such was the condition of Indian Government.

Reliance coming out with an Initial Public Offering in the year 1978 was also perhaps one of the landmark events in the history of India. This was the first time that a private enterprise was allowed to raise money from the public. Its said that Reliance shares helped some people in the marriages of their daughters and sons.

Some of the events like emergency in the year 1977-78 and the babri masjid demolition in the year 1992 together with the stock market scam by Harshad Mehta stand as negative moments in our history. The dot com bubble bust in the year 2000 together with the Asian currency crisis of 1997 also caused a havoc in the Indian economy. 9-11 would also remain a black mark in the history of India as well as the world.

Inspite of all this, there are a lot of issues in which India still needs to focus. Infrastructure is one of the biggest issues which can hamper the growth of India in every possible way. Political instability which can be seen from last few days on account of Nuclear treaty with US. Increasing population as we look very close to surpassing China. Scarcity of knowledgeable workforce. Rise in the rupee since it has risen close to 8 % in the matter of 2 months which can be extremely bad for the exports.

I shall touch upon each of the above areas in the coming articles. Lets see how India prepares to look forward to 2067.

Canadian Grand Prix - Lewis Hamilton all the way to Chequered Flag

2007-06-11T00:33:00.000+05:30

Wow ! what a Grand Prix was that. Absolutely mind blowing. Really the best Grand Prix of the season. Only 13 drivers finished the race with Lewis Hamilton leading from the front, Nick Heidfeld in the second place followed by Alexander Wurz who moved by 16 places to finish on the podium. But out and out it was a race of Lewis Hamilton who took the chequered flag in a style. Alonso finished a distant 8th and Kimi finished at number 5.

The race was perhaps the most adventurous race in the recent times which included more than 11 drivers retiring from the race, 4 times Safety Car coming into picture and Kubica suffering a major mishap. Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella were shown a black flag because of entering the pitlane when the Safety Car was on the tracks. It was confirmed later in the race that Kubica suffered a leg fracture and his condition is stable and under observation.

Ferrari had a bad day today and as expected Williams did display some good show out there on the track. Lewis Hamilton joins the group of drivers who won a Grand Prix for the team in their debut season. In just six races in this season, Hamilton has finished on the top and in all other races he has finished on the podium. Mclaren working really well for him.

Trulli had one of the unlucky exits when his car crashed onto the walls. Coulthard once again had a engine failure and he was seen discussing this in not so good fashion with the team boss. Overall this grand prix turned out to be a delight to watch.

Impact of Technology in Cinema Theatres

2007-06-04T19:51:00.000+05:30

Last week I went to Sree Ramana 35 mm, a movie theater in our locality, to watch the latest bollywood flick based on Mumbai based gangsters, Shoot Out at Lokhandwaala. Sree Ramana 35 mm is an old theatre in our locality and I have watched most of my movies out here only in my engg days. Some of the big movies which I have watched here as a “first day first show” are Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hain and Kaal. I like this theatre because its pretty close to my house, ticketing is hassle free and gives comfort which is on par with the Multiplexes.

I saw Shoot out at Lokhandwaala in Sree Ramana 35 mm last Sunday. People have criticized this movie considerably and it too follows more on the lines of earlier RGV flicks on Mumbai underworld. But the acting by Sanjay Dutt and Vivek Oberoi is worth mentioning in the movie and deserves some credit. Ofcourse this movie is better amongst the lot available in the market. Over a period of time most of the old theatres in Hyderabad have got degraded in quality and big theatres like Maheshwari have been demolished to give rise to Muliplexes. But Sree Ramana 35 mm stands out as an exception and not only maintained its quality but in some departments like ticketing it has improved considerably making use of the available technology.

The ticketing process in the theatre is completely revamped and employs the latest technology in this field. There are no more any counterfoils being given. Instead of counterfoil a slip is given at the ticket counter with the seat numbers on it together with a photograph of the person who purchases the tickets. Once you enter the theatre with the photo ticket the person standing at the door uses a barcode reader to scan the ticket and the photo of the person who has purchased the ticket appears instantly on the computer screen. Moreover all the people enter through a metal detector which ensures that one is not carrying some weapons with him and also updates the count as the ticket is read by the barcode reader. This is really phenomenal development which I have seen in the recent times in such a small theatre. I have seen big halls like Satyam in Chennai and Imax in Hyderabad but nothing to beat a system like this. Truly a masterpiece development.

This kind of technology in a movie theatre ensures that

1. The black marketing of tickets is prevented
2. Safety and security of the moviegoers is ensured
3. Ticketing is hassle free and does not require multiple counterfoils to be carried
4. Excess tickets are not issued ensuring that hall capacity is not crossed
5. Reduces the ticketing time considerably

World Cup 2007 comes to an end

2007-04-30T20:04:00.000+05:30

Here we are. ICC World Cup 2007 came to an end on Saturday evening (28th April 2007) at Barbados. The final was played between the tournament favorites Australia and the Asian tigers Srilanka. Yet another rain hindered match which ended up being restricted to maximum of 38 overs each side. Once again the team which played first won the game convincingly and the match had almost no element of excitement from start to finish. Except for the fact that if Sangakkara had hit McGrath for a few more sixes it would have been some turnaround for the match but it was the day of Australia from the start till the end.

Australia remained unbeaten in all of its 29 matches. All the matches were won convincingly by them and they proved once again that they are just world class keeping in mind the number of upsets which happened in this cup. Minnows Ireland defeated Pakistan the same day when Bangladesh defeated India. The day after the defeat, people got literally enraged and it was a furore all over the country. It came to such an extent that we had to even watch the clash between India and Bermuda which could have been easily forgotten. I remembered getting a forward which had names of India and Pakistan already in the Super 8. Both the teams could not make it to the Super 8. The other major upset of the tournament happened in Super 8 when Bangladesh defeated South Africa and proved that they are the next Asian Tigers. Nevertheless one win was not sufficient for Bangladesh to get into the Semis which already had some of the best teams waiting.

The host West Indies again put across a dismal performance with just managing to win 2 out of their 7 matches in the Super 8. The team which once upon a time had stalwarts like Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards was reduced to dust within no time by the likes of Shane Bond, McGrath and others. England ensured that they continue their pathetic form and put up a performance which can be said as a little better than Bangladesh. None of their batsmen were in form leaving Kevin Pieterson. Ross Taylor really could not get his form back. Flintoff got himself into trouble after some charges were filed against him.

The surprise package of World Cup 2007 was nevertheless Ireland. They were the team which proved that if there is a will to win anything is possible. Its quite possible that all that happened because of team Ireland may be a chance but surely they did bring some welcome change in the World cup.

India's performance was probably one of the worst one in the recent time. The series against WI and Srilanka was a warning sign in terms of the form of the key player but of no avail. Most of our top batsmen collapsed. In the entire tournament India played three matches out of which two were not with the test playing nations even. But again India keeping up with the tradition of records ensured that this world cup 2007 does not go without. India scored 413 against Bermuda which is the highest ever total in World Cup till date. All our batsmen played an excellent innings in that match. It was unfortunate that we all had to even view that match. Bangladesh thrashed India badly with the opener Tamim Iqbal hitting the top Indian bowlers all across the fence. India was trailing at 159/9 when the tailenders came in took charge of the score and added about 32 runs to take the score to 193 which was a modest total to defend keeping in mind the strength of Indian bowling. The match against Sri Lanka was a nightmare and it really put each of the television viewers into a sorrow state. Muralitharan proved that he can be a match winner once again. Solid performance by the Sri Lankan team in the world cup must say better than the rest of the sub continent teams.

The final was a treat to match only in terms of the batting by Adam Gilchrist. He really rocked that day and it was proved again and again that it is his day today. Rock solid batting by Australians together with some tight bowling by Nathan Bracken and Michael Clarke turned the match towards Australia very easily. McGrath took one wicket and ended up as the Man of the series which he truly deserved. There cannot be a better ending than that for an illustrious career lead by this bowler. All across the newspapers and internet websites people were talking about watching McGrath bowl for the last time on an international arena.

A good number of big guns retired from the international cricket with this world cup. Inzy retired with tears in his eyes, Lara got a standing ovation from the crowd as departed from the ODI scene, McGrath retired from the limited overs cricket, Anil Kumble was the only Indian player to retire post this world cup and there is a good chance that we will not be able to see some of the players in the next world cup also. Stephen Fleming stepped down as the New Zealand Captain after a shocking defeat to Sri Lanka in the semifinals. New Zealand and South Africa stand as the most unfortunate teams of the World Cup. South Africa played disastrously in the Semis against Australia and it was really a bad performance by them.

All in all the this world cup had nothing literally for Indians other than the funky sarees of Mandira Bedi which incidentally got into a rage courtesy Indian Democracy and a pathetic telecast of the SETMAX where ads kept sneaking all the time even between a single over. Indian cricket teams came back amidst tight security and were given a very very warm welcome in literal sense. The tour to Bangladesh starts this Saturday. Let’s hope for some fireworks this time.

Some knowledge trivia about the World Cup Mascot is here

The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup held in West Indies had Mello as the Mascot. The mascot resembles an orange raccoon-like creature wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt over a white vest and blue canvas shoes. Mello is shown standing with cross legs and tossing a white ball in the air, while leaning on a cricket bat. Mello pins a red ribbon on the left side of his shirt showing his support for the ICC/UNAIDS initiative, aimed at creating awareness of HIV/AIDS challenges among people.

The mascot of ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 has sparkling eyes, relaxing smile and pleasing personality, representing a youthful, friendly and fun loving character with a positive attitude and a zest for life. Mello is in his teens - cheeky and curious and aware of social and health challenges around us. The world cup mascot was chosen after an extensive worldwide research and development sessions.

Here is the photograph of the Mello

Windows Vista running not just capable

2007-04-23T13:10:00.000+05:30

Yes my DELL Inspiron 6400 Laptop is now running Windows Vista Home Premium edition and is not just capable. About 2 weeks back, I upgraded my OS from Windows Media Center 2005 edition to Windows Vista Home Premium edition.

I bought my Dell Laptop Inspiron 6400 in London for not a very cheap price of about GBP 600. When I was buying the Laptop over the phone, I got the feel of the outsourcing advantage of India. I dialled a UK Toll free number and the voice at the other end was something like this :

Hi this is Rajesh? How can I help you (The accent was a typical english accent)

Thereafter our conversation got complete and I ordered the Laptop and asked the executive as to where is he calling from. His reply was like this :

Sir, I am calling from a city called as Hyderabad in India. Do you know about this place ?

I was not surprised over this response since Dell runs a huge call center out of Hyderabad located in Hi-Tech City. It was a pleasure talking to Rajesh as he was extremely cordial unlike the ICICI Bank customer care executives.

My Laptop is of very decent configuration (I will not rate it excellent as the RAM it has is just sufficient for Windows Vista Home Premium edition). Intel Core 2 Duo running at 1.67 GHz, 1024 GB RAM and 120 GB Hard disk. It comes with a DVD Writer, Windows Media Center Edition 2005 and Norton Internet Security 2007. Must say its a value for money when compared to the other brands in the market. I was lucky enough to buy the laptop in the period when Dell was also providing an express upgrade to the Windows Vista which got released on 30th of January.

The Windows Vista was complimentary to the purchase of Laptop and it was shipped to one of my friend's in London who got it for me to India on 5th of April. Windows Vista due to release in the month of October 2007 went into a few glitches before coming into the market on 30th January. After that Dell started shipping the eligible desktop with the Windows Vista DVD and Dell Utility DVD to ensure that the migration of all applications is smooth. Must say, the way DELL has organized the upgrade DVD and other issues is just terrific and truly a masterpiece in itself.

The installation of Windows Vista is completely automated. In the first step the Dell Upgrade Assistant thoroughly checks the PC for that software’s which can interfere with the installation of Vista. Most of the software’s which are older than 2006 version is not supported by Vista. For the matter of fact Norton Internet Security 2006 was also not supported by Vista and had to be upgraded to 2007 vista compatible version. Once the upgrade assistant completes the system checkup and uninstalls or migrates the software which can interfere with the installation, the screen for entering the software key came into picture. For the first time I was entering the OEM key for software. It was a delightful and memorable experience for me altogether. Believe me original software is definitely different from a counterfeit or pirated one in more ways than the look and feel. The installation is fully automated and does not require any kind of user intervention at all. The system restarts several times and if you PC/Laptop belong to the latest generation running on Intel Core 2 Duo, you would complete the installation in less than 1 hour of time.

Once installation is complete you are greeted with the Welcome screen where you create the User ID and password for your login. Windows Vista comes loaded with several features at different levels of the operating system. The start up and shut down tunes are very different and the Aero interface is one of the most special features of Vista. Windows Aero is the premium visual experience of Windows Vista. It features a transparent glass design with subtle window animations and new window colors. Part of the Windows Aero experience is Windows Flip 3D, which is a way to preview your open windows in 3D stacks, as well as taskbar buttons with live, thumbnail-sized window previews. Windows Vista has a new feature called as User Account Control which helps prevent unauthorized changes to the computer by requiring permissions before performing actions on the computer which can be potentially damaging. Vista has photo organizer called as Windows Photo Gallery which is very much on the lines of Picasa although not as versatile as the latter is. Some of the enhancements include features like support for a Tablet PC, a completely new Windows Mobile Center for devices which run Windows Mobile Software, an enhanced security center together with Windows Defender which is Windows Spyware protection tool. Here are some of the screen shots of the Windows Vista Home Premium Edition which supports Windows Aero Interface.

Windows Vista Home Premium running and not just capable

2007-04-23T02:10:00.000+05:30

1. The revamped Start Menu

2. The Side Bar a new feature

3. Windows Flip 3D

4. My Computer Icons. Look at the clarity

Career and Life

2007-04-10T00:54:00.001+05:30

Job has become very important part of our life now these days. Since most of us spend close to half of our time in a day at our workplace, it’s quite natural that whatever happens at the office does make a difference at your home also. The key lies in separating the two as much as possible.

Most of the time the work place expectations are not met as per our expectation. Either the work pressure is too much or it’s too less. Sometimes the work is very trivial and does not carry any challenge with it. The other times the work is massively complex and can give sleepless nights to most of us.

How about a condition where the work changes rapidly? It’s a mixture of absolute boredom and the other moment the things change rapidly and you have something really interesting to learn from the project. The moments when you decide “yes its time to call it a day” to the moment when you feel “Yes I have arrived”. These conditions are really difficult to succumb to and can really pull you back in a moment. It becomes really tough to come out of such conditions sometimes and things can go for a toss before even you react.

Sometimes it becomes really important to match the expectations of the people. These expectations may be very low keeping in mind the current scenario or can be very high keeping in mind the need of the hour.

Sustaining the interest of the individual in a particular job has become very critical now for an organization to retain the talent. It’s very important that organization if possible engage the individuals who are a cut above the rest into some of the most challenging assignments. Routine assignments cannot really allow an individual to continue for long in an organization. Motivation is one very important factor which can come from two sources either self or induced by a mentor. Unless and until we are motivated, its impossible to give a high performance.

Job satisfaction is extremely important for every individual. It’s the key sometimes if we want happiness in life. But its also important that we put that fine line between life and career and understand that career is part of life and not vice versa.

Kaun Banega Crorepati - 3 and King Khan

2007-02-19T22:52:00.000+05:30

22nd of January will have its own importance in the television history. If not for television history, atleast in the life of Shahrukh Khan. SRK’s first episode of KBC was aired on this day.

Television is not new for SRK ,infact he started his career with it. Fauji was enormously popular TV series about the daily life of an Indian Army regiment. The character played by Shah Rukh Khan gained instant popularity . The success paved way for Shah Rukh's next series - Circus and his foray into filmdom.

SRK has emerged as one of the most successful actor/star of the Hindi film industry over the last two decades and his movies continue to be ring the cash registers on the box office.

When Amitabh did not show inclination towards hosting KBC again, STAR needed someone who has the aura on the silver screen which AB possesses. STAR approached SRK and the later took a very bold decision by hosting this all time popular game show KBC. First reason being that SRK has done so, very early in his career if we go by the speculations and secondly because he has taken the challenge to compere a show which was earlier compered by Big B himself.

As unfair as it can be to compare KING KHAN with BIG B, it is unavoidable. While BIG B received rave reviews for KBC, KING KHAN has off late been the target for all the critical analysis. From giving away his watches to his “Shahrukh mujhe gale laga lo “ hugs ,SRK is trying his best to be different , probably trying to be better.

While the younger (read it as current ) generation has gone ga-ga over these acts done by SRK , the same acts have been termed as over acting by others(read it as older generation).BIG B bought with him a lot of poise to the show with his own style , the way in which he carried himself , the language (purest form of Hindi) that he used and the way he treated the contestants with utmost respect , irrespective of their age.There was a sense of seriousness that prevailed and the contestants were always in awe of BIG B.

SRK has broken all the so called boundaries and limitations to reach out his audience. here is absolutely no doubt in saying that SRK has got with him a lot of energy in KBC. His enthusiasm ,his anxiety, his charm and above all his killing dimple smile has definitely floored a set of audience by their feet.But mind you , guys its only a set of audience. Also the overall outlook and the campaign of the show has changed with a pop song starting the KBC unlike the traditional music.

The main critics turn out to be those who had loads of expectations from SRK and may be who expected that SRK will be a replica of BIG B. We all agree that a change in our life at any front is initially disliked, whether it is for our good or bad .It takes a lot of time for people to get adjusted to the so called change.SRK is now facing a similar problem.

Its not exactly a problem per se. BIG B was and still is a superstar. From nani ji to mami ji to taya ji and chachaji BIG B had the widest range of audience. People loved him for more than one factor, for more than the screen presence he had.

Infact BIG B had recently given a statement of unfair comparision with SRK.Very true .What BIG B had to say was that SRK should be compared to him only when SRK reaches the age of 60 . Pretty true right !!!!!!!!!!!

Best line of KBC 3 which I like the mos t is this:

"JO LOG KOSHISH KARTE HAIN WAHEE AAGEY BAD SAKTE HAIN"

Back Again

2007-02-19T22:38:00.000+05:30

Quite some time since my last post. To be precise about two months and to put in another way my last post came last year december when I was in London.

Off late my enthusiasm for writing something for the blog has come down to a large extent. The reason being the environment around me which can be best put in the words of KHV as a "dynamic world".

From October till January I was in London. Before I left for UK, my state of affairs was no good with whole lot of issues circling around me. In UK also problems did not leave me although I had my share of fun meeting people like Gurmeet and having some good time with Sreeni and Girish. Needless to mention the name of Vinay and Ranjana. Thanks to Ranjana I survived in London.

I came back to India in January hoping for the uncertainty to end but in vain. For a few weeks I was working on some research paper and now these days I spend a lot of my time in doing intra-day trading and observing markets only. Its pretty interesting stuff and makes you understand a lot of things. Have made some money but lost more.

Have some stuff on Calypso to work on but its something which I do not like to do. Let me not bore the readers more with it.

I will be back with some good posts on UK sightseeing and yearly round up within a couple of days, till then enjoy this commentary by Swapna on KBC 3

Stonehenge

2006-12-10T19:07:00.000+05:30

The Producers

2006-12-01T15:58:00.000+05:30

Last night I did something different from the routine and something which I always wanted to do rather see.

Last night we (Girish, Sreeni and Chandrika and myself) went to see a musical play here in London. The Producers, authored by Mel Brooks and directed by Susan Stroman is a comedy based on the dying career prospects of producer Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom his accountant. Both of them try to earn quick money by the way of making a theaterical flop called as "Springtime for Hitler". Unfortunately the flop turns the otherway round and becomes the most popular hit. Bialystock and Bloom decide to capitalize on a flop and then manipulate the accounting books to earn quick money.

The Oscar-winning film originally starred Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in the title roles, while the multi-award winning Broadway production starred Nathan Lane and Matthew
Broderick.

More than the story of the theatrical play, the characters, sets, music and lights excited me. It was just a perfect display of all the elements of the play. I have never watched a theatre before hence this was my first experience with it. It was just awesome.

Some of the notable features of the play and theatre were:

1. The display in theatre (Drury Lane, the price of the ticket £ 28, the interiors and the architecture, the lights and background sounds.

2. The full form of CPA

3. The director of Springtime and his associates stereotype gays.

4. The entry of the Hitler in the last part of the play.

5. The character of Loooooo, who was the secretary/receptionist of the Bialystock and Bloom.

6. The dialogue by Bloom "This is a dilemma", when the police catches Bialystock and the accounting books and leaves the place with million dollars.

7. The names of the accounting books: Show to IFRS, Never Show to IFRS

8. Newspaper headlines when the show becomes a hit rather than a flop

9. The depiction of Hitlers Nazi logo in the mirror.

Trip to Cambridge

2006-11-30T23:08:00.000+05:30

Last weekend was really fast and it was over well before I could realize it. The best part of the weekend was the trip to Cambridge.

Situated in east of England, Cambridge is an English university town and the administrative center of Cambridge shire county. From London it is close to 60 miles and it takes about an hour to reach the destination. Cambridge is situated near Silicon Fen, which is considered to be the heart of the high technology center. Cambridge is best known for its University, Cavendish Laboratory, King's college chapel, Cambridge University Library and Punting.

We started from London Liverpool Street on Sunday at about 8:50 AM to take the National Rail operated by ONE Network to Cambridge. Nonetheless after seeing the speeding National Rail trains in the Ilford station one of my wishes was to take this kind of train. The train started at the appointed time of 8:58 AM sharp cruising slowly and steadily towards its destination. The train was running at an average speed of 76 kms per hour and touching the peak speed of close to 120 KM per hour between certain stations.

The journey to Cambridge from London is absolutely amazing. If you are a nature lover, this is the journey one must take. Even in winter, Britain experiences rain that sometimes makes the geography of the land very beautiful. Right from the time one comes out of London; the greenery can be experienced all around which is absent in the main city. The train to Cambridge calls at Tottenham Hale, Waltham Cross, Chestnut, Broxbourne, Harlow Town, Bishops Stratford, Audley End and Cambridge town. The journey between Chestnut and Broxbourne is especially very good since the entire landscape is surrounded with plain grasslands. The surface is absolutely flat which makes the landscape extremely beautiful. Getting to see flat surfaces in India is actually a rarity. A few snaps were taken in train as well, will upload them soon on the blog.

We reached Cambridge at around 10:30 AM. The weather was good. Bright and a little sunny where the sun was trying to protrude out of the dark clouds. The temperature should be around 10-11 and not less than that. Thereafter from the station itself we took the hop on and hop off bus, which is really a good thing in Britain. This type of bus allows you to get down and see the place and then again get into the bus at a later point in time. A number of buses run throughout the day, which allows easy movement from one place to the other. As expected the bus was pretty much empty except for a few people.

Cambridge town reminds me of Manipal where I did my PGDM in TAPMI. Close to 22000 students study in the town of Cambridge in various colleges within the university. The University houses close to 31 colleges, which offer courses ranging from Arts to Science and Mathematics.

Our first destination in our journey was the Microsoft research center, which has been funded by Bill Gates for an estimated cost of close to £ 50 m. Next to the Microsoft R&D center is the Cavendish Laboratory. The Cavendish Laboratory has a major role in the Atomic Structure world. Most of the discoveries in the Atomic structure world have come from the Cavendish Laboratory. Some of the notable ones are Rutherford’s Alpha Scattering experiment, JJ Thomson discovery of electron, Niel Bohr’s calculation of radius of the atom, Bragg’s X Ray diffraction law. Cavendish Laboratory belongs to the Physics Department of the University of Cambridge. Its actually part of the Trinity College, which is one of the most well known colleges in the world. It was a dream come true for me when I looked at the place. Almost for 5 years we read continuously about Atomic Structure and all these people. Today I saw the place where they did all these experiments also.

Next destination was the American Cemetary, which consisted of a memorial for American soldiers who died in the Second World War. The area surrounding the cemetery is an awesome sight and was perhaps the true countryside feeling. Lush greenery spread all over with dried maple leaves on the ground. It was just an amazing sight and delight to the eyes. Probably only a poet can describe the nature better.

As we were coming back into the Cambridge City center we saw the express highway to London and Stansted. The cars were speeding at close to 100 mph. The next stop for us was punting on the river cam, which also provides the name to the town. It was afternoon by then we started seeing the colleges in the town like Kings College, St John’s College, Queens College and Trinity College. All of them stand tall with their historic buildings. All these colleges placed a very important role in the development of science and mathematics. Infact Trinity College boasts of close to 31 Nobel laureates including our very own Amartya Sen.

Next destination for us the Kings College backs. Kings college backs is akin to the backwaters of Kerala and reminds me of the holiday we spent there. In the Kings College backs only we had our very own Indian dish Lemon Rice prepared by Lakshmi. It was a good preparation and filled up the stomach very well.

Thereafter we just moved in the Cambridge high street and did a little bit of shopping and saw a roadside play also. I am not really sure what it is called as but on the first look it was really good and a different kind of an experience. Then we walked all along the high street seeing some T-Shirt shops and a very old church spotted by Uma Rani.

Our lunch was at a familiar space – Pizza Hut. It was quenching as well as filling for everyone. We moved on crossing the football ground to catch our bus which dropped us at the station.

We took the fast train to Kings Cross,which was a nonstop one and took just about 45 minutes to travel from Cambridge till London Kings Cross. The journey comes to an end.

Naveen Giles and myself in London

2006-11-20T23:20:00.000+05:30

Last weekend was one of the greatest moments for me. On Saturday, I met Mr. Naveen Giles who is one of ace quizzers in the quizzing circuit and winner of some of the big names like CNBC Challenge and Brand Equity Quiz 2006.

What is exciting is the way I met him. We were introduced to each other via a common friend in his house at Liverpool street in London. Soon we were walking towards a restaurant to have dinner. While we were talking, both of us being avid quizzers ended up discussing about quizzes and other related stuff like blogging. After sometime he asked me as to what do I quiz on. Pat came the reply from my side saying that I am into punchlines and logos. Immedietely he responded saying that he is the defending champion of Brand Equity quiz. I was shocked for a moment. Shell-shocked.

I could not believe myself that I am talking with the winner of the brand equity quiz. Nation's biggest quizzing extravaganza. Winning brand equity quiz is every quizzer's ultimate aim.

Thereafter we had a long talk and he described his experience of quizzing and style of Derek o Brian which has got a mixed feedback amongst the quizzing fraternity. Both the quizzes, the Challenge on CNBC and the brand equity quiz are hosted by Derek O Brian. We also watched the recording of CNBC Challenge which was as exciting as the quiz in reality.

For people who are not from the quizzing bracket it would be tough to appreciate this news. But for me it was a delight. I always wanted to see a quizzing hero. I finally met him in London.

Zune - Microsoft's Latest Innovation

2006-11-16T23:27:00.000+05:30

Zune is the latest or rather the first digital music player to be launched by Microsoft. Ofcourse Zune is also the latest one in the market amongst the music players available. Zune was launched on 14th Nov 2006 in Atlanta with a free TI concert.

The key feature of Zune is its large LCD display screen, which is close to 40 % bigger than a video ipod. This large screen makes sure that one even figures out the expressions of the people in the movie, which is not normally the case in iPod. Some of the reviews make it equivalent to a HDTV.

Coming to the user interface, its one of the sleekest in its class. With only one large center button, which can move in four different directions together with pressing straight down, anyone who knows how to use a web browser would find using Zune very easy. The menus have a sleek animation from one screen to the other that gives the Zune a really cool feeling.

One of the most striking features of Zune is its Wi-Fi functionality, which is one of the most unique features of a digital music player till date. Users can detect if there is any other Zune player in the vicinity till 50 m so that sharing of song files, albums and photos can be done. To prevent piracy and protection of copyrights, the transferred file can only be played three times, thereafter the file gets deleted.

With a matte finish, Zune spots a slippery look but actually is not. Outer shell of Zune is scratch free which makes it really good for tough usage. The scratching of screens was one of the major problems in iPod.

The sound quality of the device is 100 % connected to the headphones under usage and not really on the player itself. Better the headphones better will be the sound quality. This is really drawback for the player since iPod boasts of a superior sound quality because of the player and not really because of the headphones.

Similar to iTunes for iPod, Zune comes with Zune marketplace. It has been launched with over 2 million songs and offers 2 options for the enthusiasts: 99 cents for a single download or unlimited downloads for just 14.99. Zune will play and even share songs from other sources. The ability of Zune to fetch and album art for ripped and illegal music is nothing short of fantastic. Infact songs, which are purchased from iTunes music store, have something called, as DRM codes which does not allow them to be played on any player other than iPod.

One of the major disadvantages of Zune, which can make this product a miss in the market, is its inability to act as a memory stick or a removable hard drive. This is one of the major drawbacks keeping in mind the existing products in market all of which support the removable hard drive feature. This makes Zune useful only for listening to music and not for transferring word documents, excel files and zip files. iPod is very widely used as a storage device since it can store up to 60 GB of data.

Regarding appearance, Zune comes in three different colours – black, brown and white. Brown is catching up a lot and has maximum demand and bookings all across Wal-Mart and Amazon.com. But one thing is sure looks wise, its difficult to mistake Zune for some other player.

Finally Zune with all these features turns out to be a value for money at just $ 250. Its one the premier players available in the market, and will hit the competition with a bang with its wifi feature and large display. Zune is more like a range for Microsoft with products like Zunephone and Zunegamer in the pipeline.

Try it. You will love it.

Life

2006-11-15T22:16:00.000+05:30

Life shows its colour in all forms. Sometimes the colours reflect the brighter side, other times it reflects a gloomy side of life. Never one side of the life remains constant forever. It keeps on changing which makes the people to think negative and positive about life.

People say that change takes place because we cannot control everything happening around us. It’s really tough to ensure that everything around us remains in our control or moves according to our wills and wishes. But then sometimes things turn out to be so unfortunate that they breakdown the people who are in circumference of it.

Life definitely is not a Sunday. No day remains static in life. No day even repeats in life. Now these days the work environment is so dynamic that one never knows which trouble is he going to face next moment. Sometimes over a period of time these small troubles start causing what is called as Frustration.

Frustration is a feeling wherein one starts feeling bad about everything around him. It’s a condition, which forces a person to go into a state of disliking. Frustration leads to a whole lot of problems, which starts, from hating the people around you and ends at hating yourself.

Why do we need to think so much about our life? Can the life be left to itself?

Happy Birthday Big B

2006-10-10T23:14:00.000+05:30

As we approach October 11, 2006, Amitabh Bachchan turns 65. At the outset let me wish the Star of the Millenium and my idol for more than one reason a Many Many Happy Returns of the day.

Already amongst all the TV channels and media the buzz has started and people have started wishing the Big B via every possible mode. The fans are wishing Big B via sms, mms, emails and internet. Some websites are running a dedicated column for his birthday because the section is attracting considerable number of hits.

Amitabh Bachchan, the name itself speaks volumes. Its a hysteria.Its a charisma. Its a cult. That is Amitabh for you. A true mega star which Indian Film industry has ever produced. I got addicted to Amitabh and became his ardent fan when the movie HUM came in the year 1991. His dialogues. His delivery and the way he used to shake his head in the movie while getting angry was just terrific. Although the movie was not a big hit but then it touched the masses and presented Amitabh in a different role altogther. A role of maturity.

But soon thereafter, the worst times for Amitabh started when the ABCL corp. a first of a kind entertainment company went into severe trouble. At one point in time, Amitabh had debts exceeding 99 lakhs on his company's name which literally made his life miserable. But true to his strength and belief, he rose like phoenix from the ashes and a few years back he was one of the highest tax payers in the country.

Life has been a roller coaster ride for AB. But the way he has been able to manage it is really commendable. It was never ever thought that AB would come back in the Indian Cinema and would dominate the scene inspite of the presence of King Khan. Today AB is the highest paid actor in the country. He has worked with every Ace director and has enacted marvellous roles in each one of his movies. In 2005 he gave five hits which is next to impossible for any star. Right from Bunty aur Babli to Black his performance has been absolutely flawless and outstanding.

I believe it is next to impossible to produce a star who is as good as Amitabh Bachchan. Even Hollywood has accepted by awarding him the Star of the Millenium.

I have read both the books written on him. One by jaya bachchan by name "TO B OR NOT TO B Amitabh Bachchan" and the other one "AB - A legend" by Pradip Sarkar gifted to me by one of my clos friend's. They describe very vividly, everything about this great gentleman.

I wish Amitabh Bachchan a very best of luck in all his future endeavors and wish him a great year ahead.

Outing

2006-10-05T15:00:00.000+05:30

Its been long since I blogged. I was busy for a few days in the last two weeks and on other occasions, was lazy enough not to capture anything on this blog.

Anyhow after a long time, I am at home for Dussehra or Vijayadasami (whatever you call it). Perhaps this time its the best in terms of enjoyment. First of all, three days holidays courtesy IT companies. Three continuous holidays definitely sets your mood for the entire week and for the festival also. Finally, today’s family outing which was like icing on the cake. It was just too good. How the 7 hours passed away we did not even come to know about it.

Today we visited a place by name Vargal near Medchal about 50-60 KM from Hyderabad. The drive to Vargal was really good one. I enjoyed every moment of it as I drove the car from Home till a village close to Vargal. Pothholes free highway and no traffic made the drive a smooth one. Lush greenery, calm and cloudy weather added vividness to the trip ensuring that no tiredness sets in. We reached Vargal by 2:00 PM and stayed there till 3:30. Enjoyed a little bit of rock climbing and photography was as usual at its best with the Sony Cybershot. The weather really supported us as it did not rain even an inch. Although it was quite humid, it was manageable overall. Vargal is abode to Saraswathi Devi one of the alankarams of durga. One can have a scenic view of the green fields from the top of the rocks situated around the temple.

The next stop for us was the Ratnalayam temple situated close to Shamirpet lake which turned out to be our last destination before closing for the day. Ratnalayam temple is one of the very few temples constructed on the lines of Tirupati Balaji. Although it’s not a natural origin of the god nevertheless the sanctity of the place ensures a spiritual atmosphere all around the temple. The temple is pretty big and is surrounded by park with seating all around inside the park. We had evening snacks kind of stuff there and from there packed our bags to leave for Shamirpet lake.

Shamirpet lake is a place which has become famous because of word of the mouth publicity. AP tourism does not really project it as a tourist spot since it’s on a very rocky terrain and not ample facilities are available to reach till the spot. There were some Durga idol immersions going on and we did have a photo shoot out there albeit not very great.
We came back home very tired at about 8:30.

It was one of those most awaited picnic for our family. Nice one and much better than the ones we had in the past.

AIRBUS Crisis - Delay in A380

2006-09-06T23:31:00.000+05:30

AIRBUS A380 is considered to be the most ambitious project in the aircraft manufacturing space. The project A380 is a very well known Harvard Business Case Study and is one of the best examples of Project Finance. A380 from AIRBUS is answer to the Boeing's growing dominance in the aircraft manufacturing space. I read the case study of A380 in TAPMI. It was a very interesting one although the calculations involved were not that easy to replicate in the exam. But unfortunately AIRBUS is in deep trouble because of the considerable delay it is facing in the commercial launch of its superjumbo A380.

Recently when the superjumbo A380 took its first maiden test flight, the historical event also coincided with the replacement of the head of its delayed Airbus A380 program. Frenchman Charles Champion, once touted as a potential chief executive, is the third official to lose his post after delays in assembling the world's largest airliner forced the resignation of the company's chief executive and the co-head of parent EADS during a corporate crisis in July.

Champion paid the price for failing to inform the Airbus board on time of the superjumbo's mounting technical difficulties, and for allowing severe production bottlenecks to continue unchecked for months, rather than fix them immediately. Mario Heinen, a 50-year-old executive from Luxembourg, who until now has been in charge of the European planemaker’s chief cash engine, its single-aisle range of A320-family jets, has replaced Champion.

Heinen's first task will be to ensure that there is no further slippage in deliveries, with Airbus already facing penalty payments to airlines over previous delays. Airbus said it is on schedule to deliver the first finished A380 to Singapore Airlines Ltd. by the end of 2006 after two sets of delays totaling a year. Airbus has admitted that it will deliver only nine next year, instead of the promised 25, up to nine fewer in 2008 and five fewer in 2009.

For the first time, the A380 took to the sky with company employees for the test lasting seven to 15 hours. The A380, the world's largest passenger jet, took to the sky with 474 Airbus employees on board for the first of four test sorties known as "Early Long Flights" lasting seven to 15 hours on Monday. The plane, powered by four huge Rolls Royce engines, returned to its Toulouse base Monday evening after a fully crewed flight in which the Airbus staff was served drinks and meals. Capable of carrying 555 people in standard three-class layout, or over 800 in all economy, the A380 is billed as the industry's answer to airport congestion and rising air traffic.

Laloo to teach @ IIM Ahmedabad

2006-09-03T18:10:00.000+05:30

Laloo Prasad Yadav one of the favorite in the Gustakhi Maaf series and also the one whom Shekhar Suman imitated very well is now having the last laugh. After making Bihar, the worst state of the country, he has just done the opposite for the Railways. Doing the impossible. Turning them profitable.

The story starts something like this. The son of a poor farmer from Phulwaria in Bihar’s district Gopalgunj is today being wooed and courted by schools of management and administration. On September 18, the Railway Minister is scheduled to lecture students at India’s top B school, IIM, Ahmedabad on the nuances of the railways ‘turnaround’. The turnaround story, in fact, has already been introduced as a case study as part of the institute’s curriculum. Very few case studies can really become part of the IIM A curriculum which is the best in the world according to all standards.

The Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Mussourie — training ground of India’s steely frame, the bureaucracy — is also reported to be wooing Lalu Prasad to come and deliver a lecture. He’s scheduled to speak at a Harvard University seminar in New Delhi next month. The HEC International Business School, Paris, wants to do a case study; GE boss Jeffrey Immelt has already done his salaams.

Laloo as usual believes that he will be able to make a mark even in this activity and he has full confidence on his abilities. What is making all the top B Schools and people like Jeffery Immelt doing salaaams to the man whom most of the country hates. To get the answer, one needs to go back to 2001 when an expert group headed by Rakesh Mohan ( former advisor to the finance minister at the time, Yashwant Sinha) declared: “Indian Railways is today on the verge of a financial crisis.” The report predicted that if the railways didn’t change track it was doomed to ‘fatal bankruptcy’. The same year, the railways defaulted on paying a dividend of Rs 1,823 crore; its fund balances were a mere Rs 359 crore and its operating ratio — that is, expenses divided by traffic earnings — stood at a whopping 98 per cent.

Fast forward to 2005-06: Fund balances had reached Rs 12,141 crore, operating ratio was down to 83.7 per cent and internal generation was a healthy Rs 13,612 crore — all this without hiking either passenger or freight rates.

The irony is obvious: A man who failed to make any discernible progress in Bihar in the seven years that he was chief minister (15 if you add Rabri Devi’s proxy tenure) has managed to achieve remarkable success in such a short while at Rail Bhawan.

Sudhir Kumar, his articulate officer on special duty, a Delhi School of Economics graduate who is often credited for the turnaround, has his own take: “It is the minister’s passion and integrity that is leading this change,” he says.

NR Naryana Murthy Steps down

2006-08-21T23:28:00.000+05:30

Infosys co-founder, Narayan Murthy, who believes in leading by example, has quit the position of chairman, taking retirement at the age of 60, on 20 August 2006. He held the helms of Infosys for the last 25 years. This decision looks like is on the lines of Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates, who declared that he would quit the office in 2008.

Nandan Nilekani will call the shots at Infosys as CEO and managing director, while Murthy will serve as non-executive chairman of the board and chief mentor. The Infosys board recently voted to let Murthy continue as the non-executive chairman and chief mentor, and has inducted him as an additional director on the board after his retirement. Somebody with only knowledge as his capital and somebody who holds on to values that are middle-class is able to do not only well but outstandingly well.Narayana Murthy served as CEO of Infosys for twenty years, and was succeeded by co-founder Nandan Nilekani in March 2002.

This news was no surprise for most of the Infoscions and the industry as well. Moreover Narayan Murthy stepped down from the post on Sunday and not a working day. This was to ensure that the work does not get hampered in anyways. At the juncture when Infosys is setting global standards every day and is amongst the world's most sought after companies, Narayan Murthy's decision of stepping down creates yet another first for the IT industry. Infosys was the first company to come out with the title of Chief Mentor and the foremost company in India to come out with the ESOPs. When a company is at the peak of success, its promoters wish to be at the helm of affairs. On the contrary Murthy took a step in the opposite direction and paved the way for younger talent to grow. This is perhaps the best way to create multilevel leadership within an organization which is the biggest problem of IT industry now.

Hats off this gentlemen who put India on the World's IT Map and did all this very humbly.

CORPORATE - Politics Personified

2006-08-20T23:57:00.000+05:30

My blog features very few movies. One of the first movies to get featured here was Rang De Basanti which I felt was class apart when compared to the other movies releasing every day.

Another movie which I saw while in Chennai on one of the weekends was CORPORATE. As the title suggests the movie tries to portray the corporate world which is non IT in nature and shows two rival groups trying to counter for each other's share in the market.

Madhur Bhandarkar has done a great job, must say that. The movie was well made which each part of the movie representing the problems which the people face at the top. There were two groups in the movie by name Marwa and Sehgals. The competition between them exists in every field with one trying to outcast the other with an acquisition or new product launch.

The movie portrays many problems which probably the corporate India faces today. The resignations of senior people in the company, unethical means which end up closing the company, corruption and the most important one the effect of politics on the functioning of a business house.

One of the incidents which I liked in the second half of the movie was the episode of pesticide in cold drinks. This episode happened in reality a few days ago when people in some western states literally break tons of cold drink bottles on the roads. In the movie the FDA people determine that the drink which the company is planning to launch contains pesticides and hence informs the manufacturers to close the shop. But the launch of cold drink was connected with the IPO of the company, the company officials bribe the FDA officials and get the clearance for it. But soon the rival company who has a close link to the CM informs about the pesticides story and the CM orders to close down the shop. The manufacturers lose pride, prestige and positioning in the market. Their FIIs start leaving the company. The share prices come down heavily and it becomes an acquisition target. Soon the FII who had invested in India goes and meets the FM and tells him that he is going to leave the country on account of bad reputation to his partnership and loss of shareholder value. FM now targets the CM and asks him to get the FDA clearance threatening him that not doing so can lead his party to lose the elections. Manufacturers get the FDA clearance, both the Sehgals and Marwas club hand together. CM wins the elections and FII stay in the country. On top of it the pesticide ladden drink also sells briskly in the market. Sehgals gain their position in the market and Everything comes back to normal.

The story described above is somewhat the reality today. Most of the issues in our country and either in the hands of most corrupt individuals or they just die the natural death. For example the OBC quota bill. There was so much hue and cry over it but finally the Govt passed it and now its going to be implemented in phases. Today when I was watching the news, I heard Ram Bilas Paaswan asking for more reservations for the SC/STs in the country. The case of pesticides came in front of Govt many times but nothing happened. Most of the time the problems and issues get entangled in the politics of our country without getting resolved. Yesterday while I was watching the news I could still see some new case of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy which happened close to 22 years back. In the above story Politicians have the entire say. They control the entire functioning of the business. If its in their interest, they would go to any extent and get the wrong thing done.

God knows, in which world we are actually living ?????

Management Challenges - Compensation and Benefits

2006-08-05T23:38:00.000+05:30

The idea of putting my thoughts on this topic came as a result of my completion of 1 year in this corporate world. I read first about Comp and Ben (as it is called in short) in the third trimester of my PGDM in the HRM subject. That was the time when I had absolutely no understanding of how it works and hence my appreciation of this topic was very minimal. Only now after a year, I am able to appreciate the importance of this subject.

This is the wage hike season for almost every sector. Normally the increase in the cost for the company due to wage inflation comes into picture only in the 2nd quarter but provision for such a hike is made in the first quarter results itself. For all the IT companies wherein there is no CAPEX, wage hikes is the major component which hits the bottom line most. One of the major question which arises here is how to balance this inflation in the interest of both the company and its associates.

For an IT organization, the biggest challenge lies in two areas. First aspect is retaining the customer and ensuring the profitability in terms of the billing rates. The second and probably more important aspect is the attrition rate. Attrition is a word which came into lot of prominence only after IT companies came into existence. This word got into fame when the people started hopping from one company to other in search of better salaries. Most of the times this is where the organization loses the most.

In the past 1 year I have seen many organization's attrition statistics and talked with a number of people who were leaving some very good organizations and joining smaller organization. One of the major things which I have seen is that the attrition at the junior management level which is something like the team lead, project lead, consultants, module leads, junior project manager is pretty high for most of the companies. Look at the attrition level at the Project Manager and above level like the kinds of AVP, VP and SVP and we are in for a change. In this category the attrition level is considerably low because of the simple fact that the incentives at this level are considerably more than the incentives at the level of PL, TLs or MLs.

Generally AVPs, VPs etc grow with the organization and reach this level only because they have been working in the organization right from a developer stage. Hence they enjoy significant benefits over their subordinates. Here is where the major gap comes into picture.

At the end of the day for any IT company, the real work or should I use the term software development ends at the level of PL only. Only in extreme cases that the PM participates in the software development and related tasks. So its a very general feeling among the people till the level of PL that they only do the entire set of tasks for the company and that their increments should be the best. But most of the time it does not happen.

For any IT company, people in the range of 1.5-5 years of experience are the most important assets. These people also constitute the set which is in very high demand in the current market and can command any amount outside their home company. Its very easy to gather people fresh from the engineering colleges and give them a paltry sum, sign a bond and retain them. But when it comes to people in the 155 group (Exp range from 1.5-5) retaining them is the key for the growth and stability of the project and thereby the company. Any amount of discrepancy in their C&B (compensation and benefit) can literally give a hit to the project. Also it could bring down their motivation levels and this would end up in cribbing about the company. Its more like a chain reaction, because if leader starts cribbing about the company, it will be followed by other team members and soon it will affect the way work happens within the organization. Freshers even if they leave the organization it does not make a difference because they can always be supplemented by if not better the same quality. People at the level of PMs, AVPs and VPs generally do not make a quick shift because of the benefits they derive, their adaptability to the workplace, the power they possess and the most important one that they are more or less stable in their career now. But what about the people in the 155 group???? Any answers.

To be continued.

Phishing Mail

2006-07-30T13:15:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I got a mail from Bank of America Secrity service stating that I need to login for some security changes. A very good example of Phishing. Have a look at the snapshots. There is literally no difference between the two screenshots literally. One can find the difference only in the address bar wherein phishing site has some unknown address and the original site has address of Bank of America. The link sent in the mail takes you to the phishing site but once you click on any link on the phishing site it takes you to the Bank of America official website.

Phishing Snapshot

Original Snapshot of Website

I am Back

2006-07-29T13:13:00.000+05:30

Long time since I blogged. The days have been really tight in terms of the work. Lot of things also happened in the last 2 months since I stopped blogging completely. My last post was on Jun 09 about the FIFA World cup. It was more of a formality to capture the most happening tournament.

On the professional front also lot of things happened which kept me busy all these months. For about 2.5 weeks from 24th June till 11 July I was in London for the requirements gathering and system study phase of our new project. Keeping in mind the new engagement and the client a whole lot of things were covered in two weeks time. Trip to London was a welcome change for me. I went via Dubai in Emirates. Emirates must say is truly an international airline whether its the comfort they offer within the flight or the aircrafts they possess. Everything is out of the world. The journey to London takes somewhere close to 12 hours and the time difference is 4.5 hours in summer and 5.5 hours in winter. The difference comes because of the concept of day light saving. Daylight Saving Time (DST) as it is popularly called as allows to save energy since less artificial light would be required in the evening and makes the country more efficient in addition to the pleasant effect of lighter evenings.

In London, I visited a lot of places namely Big Ben, Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Tower bridge, Madam Tussauds, Greenwich (where there is a 0 degree meridian and GMT is set here only), Hyde Park, Canary Wharf, London Eye, Bank of England, Oxford Street and host of others. Madam Tussauds was perhaps the best attraction of my London visit. It was a quick trip and we entered just in time into the wax museum. I stayed in the company guest house at Deptford Bridge and my work location was in Liverpool street. Canary Wharf is the only area in London where one can find a few sky scrappers. Otherwise entire London has only old and historical building.

After I came back from onsite, it has been terribly busy for me in terms of the amount of workload. Last but one week I had clocked close to 100 hours in the office in a rush to complete the deliverable on time. This is my first weekend I am at home after close to 2 months time. We also had an internal audit for one of our projects and it was a nightmare and complete fiasco for the team.

Some updates from blog front. My Quiz blog (http://www.brandtags.blogspot.com/) has crossed more than 9000 hits in less than a year and in the month of July the blog is clocking somewhere 900 hits. My personal blog is clocking somewhere close to 6000 hits at the moment. Unfortunately, the quizzing activity has come to a halt and I have been receiving a lot of mails to start it again. This week will also see rebirth of the quiz site.

Recently in wake of the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai, Government decided to put a ban on the blogs and most of the blogs were blocked in this exercise. For close to a week, no one was able to access the blogs. Then there was a long debate over this issue and finally it was decided to lift the ban over the blogs. Must say terrorism can impact anything in this world.

When Italy won the world cup, I was in the flight traveling from Dubai to Hyderabad. More than the passengers who were least bothered about the world cup final, the head of the cabin crew was excited when Italy won. It was a well deserved victory for them together with the very infamous incident between Materrazi and Zidane which became the topic of the email forwards very soon.

Time management has become a very big problem now these days and working nights in the office is a usual affair. This sometimes is taking a toll on the health as it happened to me when I came back from Chennai last monday. Anyhow I am getting adjusted to this now and now the posts on the blog will be pretty frequent.

LONDON Trip Snaps

2006-07-17T00:14:00.000+05:30

Ash Arun Y and AB

2006-07-17T00:11:00.000+05:30

Big Ben

2006-07-17T00:10:00.000+05:30

Buckingham Palace

2006-07-17T00:09:00.000+05:30

Big Ben

FIFA World Cup 2006

2006-06-09T23:22:00.000+05:30

FIFA World Cup 2006 kicked off today in Germany with the opening clash between Costa Rica and host Germany. At the time when this post is being written, the Germans have scored 4 goals over the Costa Rican's who are 2 goals behind. The latest news is that host Germany have won their first game against Costa Rica by a margin of 2 goals. The stars of the game being Klose for Germany and Wanchope for Costa Rica each of whom scored 2 goals each.

What a superb start to the world cup with 6 goals being scored right in the first match.

Catch the official mascot of FIFA World Cup 2006. The name of the mascot is GOLEO.

SENSEX

2006-06-07T21:41:00.000+05:30

A Horror called Reservations

2006-05-25T10:26:00.000+05:30

I have been thinking about putting across my thoughts on reservations issue which goverment is planning to consider and keeping in mind the recent developments it has almost reached its final stage. Government is planning to implement 27 % reservation for the OBC in the govt. institutions starting from June 2007. The successor for this step from the government side could be to introduce the reservation in private sector as well. All of us have heard of what Azim Premji had to say in regard to introducing reservations in the private sector.

The protests for the quota regime has now gone into highest level wherein, we are hearing news about people dying because of fast which has been termed as FAST UNTIL DEATH. Numerous mails, forwards and smses are floating around. Petition forms on the internet, groups on various sites like yahoo and orkut have come into picture. People are doing the best to make government realise its wrong step.

Looking at all the reservation protests I can compare it with the protests done by Aamir Khan and co in Rang De Basanti. Well this is the first time I am seeing that people are deriving inspiration out of a movie. Must say Rang De Basanti came at the right time. But what is more important is to look at the level of protests which are happening and how they are affecting the youth of the country. It all started with the students of AIIMS starting, then many medical college students joined it, thereafter it started spreading like a forest fire and the protests started happening across the entire country. IIM and IIT students also joined the protests. But at some place's OBC people also came out to protest and they had a head to head with the "against quota regime" protestors.

This quota and reservations story also reminds of the "Aarakshan Virodhi Andolan" which took place in 1999 and because of which the schools, colleges were closed and the daily life was hampered badly. I remembered that time we were in Gwalior and it was difficult to come out of the house itself on many days. The schools were closed for a month or so continously. I do not know whether we will reach that stage or not but the government must remember that Mandal Commission took a big toll on it and It should not repeat this act again.

The worst part of the HRD ministry is Arjun Singh himself. He needs two people to get up from the seat. He needs two people to make him sit on the seat. He cannot have food properly and he cannot get in his car all alone. If he sits at one place it will take close to 15 minutes before he can get up. He needs callipers and support of two people to get up and walk. If such people are at the helm of such a serious affair, then I am sure our country is not going to go anywhere.

The issue of IIM fees took a toll on BJP and all their campaign of India Shining and all went into dustbin. It was a great mistake committed by Murli Manohar Joshi, then HRD minister. For the mistake of one person, entire party had to suffer the defeat in the elections. Probably Arjun Singh would repeat the feat for Congress too.

One of the statements made by Sitaram Yechury is the classic one " FIIs entry into India or their exit will not make an impact on the Stock Market. "

Well I believe he does not understand even the meaning of the term FII

My Acting Debut - GODAVARI

2006-05-22T23:49:00.000+05:30

Last Friday Godavari, the movie in which I acted or should I say was fortunate enough to act in got released. We got the tickets on saturday and went for the second show. The hall was jampacked but due to the strong rapport sreenivas shares with shekar kammula we managed to get balcony tickets without any hassles.

Finally the movie for which we were waiting for 1000 eyes got released and we were all set for it. Our gang includes our entire project team like Sreenivas, Gowtham, Prasad Taki, Vinod, Girish and myself. The first shot in which a few of us appear is the one when the second song of the movie comes in. Its a pretty quick one but one can make out Sreenivas and myself with not much of difficulty. The next shot comes in when the last song which is the sad song is being picturized. It so happened that we got a call in office from Sekhar regarding the shoot of the song and he asked us to join over there. Fortunately I was sitting just in front of the heroine at the start of the song and hence I was the only one in that sequence to get featured in the movie.

The feeling is of elation altogether. It gives us a sense of achievement although we did not struggle hard really for it except for getting up at 6:00 am that too on a Sunday. The shooting lasted for about 4 hours on that day and then I realised probably how tough would have been shooting on the Godavari boat which the director had set up specially for the movie.

Afterall everyone does not get a chance to be part of the filmdom !!!!

Controlling the Thought Process

2006-05-08T00:52:00.000+05:30

Have you ever wondered whether it is possible to control our thought process or not. Can we really control our mind to just think one thing at a time or our mind is so out of control now that whenever we are at home we think of office. When we are at office we think of outing with friends. When we are with friends we think of our life partner. When we are with our life partner we think about the future. So in all and all its never possible to think only a single thing at one point in time. Why it is so?

A few weeks back I had an opportunity to attend one of the orientation session of The Art of Living foundation which is one of the biggest organization in the world working towards humanity via spirituality. The person who was taking the session said that we as individuals do not know how to live in today. We either brood at the past or think about the future at every phase of life. He says its all in controlling our mind which makes us think, think and think only. As a child we think of growing to a youth, once youth we think of a career and a good life partner. As a married individual we think of good and intelligent kids. Once kids grow into youth we start thinking about their careers and their lifes. Once that is done we start thinking about the married life of our children. Then the last stage wherein we think about the grandchildren. In all this did we ever make an effort to think about ourselves at all. How are we doing, How is our body why is it that we are moving away from all kinds of material comforts, why is it that we have become weak and cannot have or do everything. All these questions can really shock us.

Our mind is a like a database wherein our thought process runs queries and keeps on analysing the data. In all this it creates relationships and they get entangled into each other so much that for a moment we forgot the main question of our life. Why do I exist here in this World? The central question which keeps on revolving in my mind now these days is this only. Why I am here. What do I do to get peace of mind and Where does the ultimate satisfaction for an individual resides. Can anyone in this world have happiness which is totally pristine and does not have any element of falsehood.

Is there an answer to these questions

A Torture called as SBI Card

2006-05-06T00:28:00.000+05:30

I have been using the SBI Card for now close to 3 months. It has been a pathetic experience for me right from the beginning. Here in this article I describe my experiences with SBI first and take up BSNL next which is a little better in the aspect of providing service to the customer.

SBI Card was given to me after forced attempts by its agent. In the first place the card which was issued to me was not supposed to carry any of the Insurance premium as applicable. But to my surprise the guy who filled up the form for me ticked that column of insurance without my approval. When I shouted on him, he removed it. But the story does not end here. When I receive my card to my surprise I also get an addon card together with the Insurance premium amount also. First of all with SBI Card one has to activate it by calling one number which they call as the 24 hour helpline which is busy for the whole 24 hours in a day. Then those people do not understand for what we have called.

Afterwards the real trauma begins. The application has your date of birth wrong so you will not be able to use the phone banking. The internet banking for SBI Cards is not working for the past two months and its managed by GE which is really pathetic in the outsourcing work. The website shows this all the time. Soon the pain with the emails start. Its a really great pain to deal with the people on the email system. After atleast 6-7 times one mails the people out there understand the request. One day I suddenly get a call from Chennai regarding SBI Card Balance Transfer option and it so happens that after a few days when I decide to exercise the option, there is no person to contact to. In the SBI Card division one department is not talking with the other department at all. Gurgaon people have no clue of what the people in chennai are doing and vice versa. It took me close to a month to get my balance transfer cheque courtesy the great system implemented by GE.

Even the balance transfer cheque has its own clauses. If one does any shopping within the balance transfer period it would attract finance charges right from the very first day. This is not mentioned anywhere while the scheme is availed. The SBI Card proclaims it to be the best card available.

If this is the way SBI Card is doing the business it will be soon out of the competion. HSBC is perhaps the best credit card available in the market. The transparency in their calculation is really out of the world.

A Rendezvous with Training

2006-04-24T00:20:00.000+05:30

In the last one year since I started working I had the opportunity or should I use the phrase a forced opportunity to attend a dozen training programs. The company I work in organized quite a few of them and other ones which I attended where out of my own pocket. Two weeks back I attended a two day workshop on COBIT 4.0. COBIT stands for Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology. It is mainly used in streamlining the IT controls within an organization and is being widely used in the industry especially in US for the Sarbanes Oxley Compliance. Well this article would definitely not get into the nitty-gritties of the COBIT but would throw some lights on the commonly seen uncommon scenes across all training programs.

Whether the participants are highly attentive and have spent a huge sum to attend the program, they shall and will yawn within the first 10-15 min of the start of the program. Coming to the classification of the participants, there are close to five types which I have come across. There may be more over which the people may have their varied opinions.
The first group “FRONT BENCHERS” represents themselves as the active, enthusiastic, intelligent and highly inquisitive group. The sole motive of this group is to
1. Raise questions every few minutes
2. Ask about the things which are going to come next in the session beforehand itself
3. Sit in the session and act as if they already know everything about the training program already and its only that they have come for some kind of time pass
4. Test the trainer’s abilities in delivering the content and
5. Ensure that they keep on discussing amongst themselves all the time

On the extreme end there is a group “DREAMWORLD” which is totally cut off from the training program itself and is in their own world altogether. This is a set of people who came to the training program because they were forced to do so. They have absolutely no interest in what is happening in the session and are busy in gossiping about the hotel, the food which was served, the HI-TEA which is going to come next and duration of every session. These people will normally sit together that too at the last seats only. Occasionally (refers to once in the entire session) one person would get up and ask a question which will not have any relevance to the topic under discussion. As Ram puts it for these people (You do not disturb me, I will not disturb you) is correctly applicable for these people.

Then we have a set of people “HARDWORKERS” who are totally new to the topic of the training and are trying hard not to doze off and learn something out of the program. They are hardworking, dedicated and question once in a while. They usually neither challenge the participants nor do they try to be too smart with the trainer. But the people in this set are really serious and once they understand the session or the training program well, they can give nightmares to the original trainers.

Afterwards, there is another set of people “QUINTESSENTIALS”. These people do not belong to any of these categories but are more oriented towards asking lot of questions which are highly relevant to the topic under discussion. These people actually take notes seriously, give presentations if required, complete the exercises given on time and religiously follow every part of the training. These people believe in getting the best out of the training. This set of people usually does not doze off and are always fresh and charged up during the entire course of the session. Usually this will be the lowest percentage set amongst the entire batch.

In the end there is this last set of people “DOCUMENTATION Group”. This is the most unique set among the above mentioned ones. These people irrespective of the session are most interested in the course material of the session, the handouts, the pamphlets, feedback forms and the courseware in the form of printouts. To be on the dot, these people are interested in what we call as the HARDCOPY part of the session. These people usually get restless if the notes are not provided or the printouts are in bad shape or the glasses kept on the table are not clean. They also are the time keepers of the session and keep on showing symbols whenever possible to ensure that schedule does not slip. All in all, this set is one who does a typical admin person’s job in a training session.

Well this was a brief description of the kind of people one can find in a training session. If you have any other option, do let me know. Hope you enjoy reading the stuff.

Infosys in SEC XBRL Project

2006-04-14T12:39:00.000+05:30

Securities and Exchange Commission of United States has come out with a new way of financial statements reporting for the organization listed on the US stock exchanges. Now these days almost all websites have the facility of viewing the Annual Report in a very friendly format instead of downloading very large sized PDFs. Keeping in mind the latest trends in the XML, SEC has decided to do a pilot exercise which involves some of the best firms globally to submit their financial statements in what is called as the XBRL format.

There are close to 17 firms who have reportedly joined SEC in this exercise. It has big names like Microsoft and all together with an Indian name of Infosys. It is expected that these companies will help the agency in a big way to explore how new Internet based reporting technologies can improve the financial reporting process for investors, financial intermediaries, SEC, and the companies themselves.

This is another set of initiatives taken by the SEC Head Christopher Cox on the lines of ensuring a good corporate boards and governance. The firm who have been selected are leaders in the areas of this technology and hence will provide an ideal way to use this technology.

The pilot programme will simultaneously enable the companies to determine the benefits of using interactive data, provide feedback to SEC, and enable investors and analysts to assess new techniques for analyzing interactive data reports submitted to the agency in the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) format.

Among the corporates that have joined the programme are 3M, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Microsoft Corporation, Mobile Reach International, Pfizer, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, South Financial Group, United Technologies Corporation, Xerox Corporation and XM Satellite Radio Holdings.

Meanwhile something about SBRL. XBRL is a language for the electronic communication of business and financial data which is revolutionising business reporting around the world. It provides major benefits in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information. It offers cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy and reliability to all those involved in supplying or using financial data.

XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language. It is one of a family of "XML" languages which is becoming a standard means of communicating information between businesses and on the internet.

XBRL is being developed by an international non-profit consortium of approximately 450 major companies, organisations and government agencies. It is an open standard, free of licence fees. It is already being put to practical use in a number of countries and implementations of XBRL are growing rapidly around the world.

SBI Strike Ends

2006-04-09T21:48:00.000+05:30

The week long and the first strike in the history of SBI has been called off just a few minutes ago. The bank union informed about the decision after sealing a pact with the government.

All India SBI Employees Federation Secretary PK Patnaik informed the press that the parties involved in the discussion have reached a cut off in terms of the demands.

According to Patnaik, SBI employees will now get pension equivalent to 50 per cent of their last drawn salary up to a ceiling of Rs 21,800. Beyond that pension would be given as 40 per cent of last drawn salary.

Previously, the cut-off point for 50 per cent of last drawn salary as pension was Rs 8,500 and above that pension was given as 40 per cent of last drawn salary. The staff will be back on their seats from Monday morning.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the SBI management has informed the government that it has reached an agreement with the union representing the striking bank employees.

The talks were held in capital today and Finance Minister himself got involved him in the helms of the affair and ensured that the deadlock breaks. Appreciations for the finance minister in ensuring that the people in the country are not affected any more. After failure of talks on Saturday it was decided by the SBI Union to get together with other bank unions on Tuesday and do a massive strike.

Finance minister also said that the current payscales of the SBI employees were laid down in the year of 1992. So it is the right time to revise them.

As per the existing cut-off point, SBI employees get pension of 50 per cent of their last drawn salary up to a ceiling of Rs 8,500, which is Rs 4,250 per month. Under the new cut-off point, 50 per cent pension would paid on last drawn salary up to a ceiling of Rs 21,040, which would work out to Rs 10,520.

This is one of the land mark achievements for the Finance Minister in terms of his negotiation skills. Three state governments had withdrawn their accounts with SBI after the strike looked like never ending. Many corporate houses and the nation on a whole suffered a lot because of the strike. Definitely, if something happens for the first time in the history of 200 years of the bank, it does make an impact.

Chevron Enters India

2006-03-31T10:04:00.000+05:30

As FDI continue to flow in Indian Markets one sector which did not see any FDI inflow was the refining sector. Finally it will.

Chevron, A US energy major is planning to pick up some stake in the 27000 crore hallmark Jamnagar Refinery to become the first FDI in India's booming refining sector. RIL Chairman Mr. Mukesh D Ambani is in US to meet the top officials of Chevron and closing in on signing a pact.

Earlier media had reported that RIL was planning to sell its 10 % stake to some of the western oil majors in a bid to expand its reach into western countries and to ensure long term supplies from these markets.

Management Challenges

2006-03-28T22:53:00.000+05:30

This post is on some critical issues which the organizations globally majority in the IT sector are facing almost every day.

If one looks at the IT sector in India we have very high performing companies such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro who started the business from the home ground and are now the global leaders in their respective areas. On the other hand there are companies which were once considered to be the best in their class but slowly they deteriorated considerably to yield neither profitable bottom lines nor shareholder value. Infact these low performing companies were not even able to retain the best talent which hurt the productivity massively in the long term.

This article tries to answer the question as to what factors contribute to an individual's success in the organization. How an organization can make a difference in an individual and how an individual can make a difference to an organization. At the end of the day any associate as most of the IT companies call their employees as wants is the job satisfaction than any other thing in this IT industry.

Employee retention is one of the key objectives of the HR department in the IT industry. The primary objective of the HR in any company should be to ensure that the goals of the individual and the organization are always in tandem with each other. But there is a kind of change which is happening now.

It has been observed that HR plays a key role only in the beginning that is at the time of recruitment where in the candidates interview and other formalities happen. But soon the focus gets shifted towards deploying the new resource in some project without first doing a role fitment exercise. The role fitment exercise is very essential because it keeps in mind the interest of the associate, uses his skillset to the maximum extent and overall gives him a feeling of job satisfaction. At any point in time if the above requirements are not met, the resource while at job does not feel contended and a question always gets raised in his mind saying that "Can I do something better than this".

Money is one major factor in case of any job shift. It has been figured out that close to 80 % of the people move from a low performing company to a high performing company not because of the company itself but because the latter can pay almost double the package. The resource crunch in the industry is so high that it is not possible to retain a resource and pay a higher package than the industry standards. More often one has to reach a compromise in terms of the affordability of the resource and the value which can be derived out of him. This is a critical piece of analysis which can actually alter all kinds of calculations.

To be continued.

Memorable Week

2006-03-27T22:24:00.000+05:30

This week is one of the most memorable one's when I have completed one year since I passed out of the pedastals of my alma-mater TAPMI. Last year on 26th of March 2005, I was awarded the Post Graduate Diploma in Management at the 21st Annual Convocation held in Hotel Valley View. It was a great feeling for all of us who got convocated on that day. The feeling of elation is absolutely out of the world. The successful completion of the course which changed us entirely from top to bottom and gave a whole new dimension to our personality is a ecstatic feeling. The joy is although short lived since we have to also leave the place where we stayed, studied and toiled ourselves for 2 years to become what we call as CORPORATE citizens.

I was discussing this today morning with Vasudha since both of us take the bus in the morning from the same stop. Even she felt the same that time has passed away very fast and it will be soon when we will be completing one year of our corporate experience.

Meanwhile on saturday, I somehow stayed at home since there was no work outside neither I had a party to go. In the evening I completed the download of Oracle 9i which I was trying to do from the last 4 years ever since I wanted to install SQL in my PC. The total size of the download came to about 1.5 GB. But then I forgot that my PC is not capable enough to take the huge installation size.

The installation of Oracle 9i Enterprise Edition took close to 3.5 hours on my machine. Although I was able to use the SQL editor successfully but the system became very slow and was booting up in close to 10 min which is very high by all standards for a PC with 192 MB RAM. Anyhow I had to uninstall it at the earliest to get back my PC to speed up again. This was a huge exercise once again.

The second interesting thing I did in this weekend was the Beta Testing of Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta 2 for Win XP SP2. I downloaded the extractable exe from the Microsoft site and ran the install. Now these days Microsoft is not allowing its products to be installed on any PC. They are allowing the installs only on PC which have the logo of GENUINE WINDOWS ADVANTAGE or the original key which normally of all PCs is an invalid one. Somehow I was able to circumvent the validation procedure and installed IE 7.0.

IE 7.0 on the lines of Vista spots a very sleek look. Its pretty decent in terms of the menus and offers a large space for viewing the webpages. Again on the lines of its competitors it spots tabs which is a standard feature of Opera, Netscape and the most bitter rival of IE FireFox. Loading of IE 7.0 does not take much time as such and is definitely less than what is the time for IE 6.0. I had browsed only for a few minutes immedietely an error popped up which said IE.exe has caused an unknown error. Hence I had to uninstall IE 7.0 immedietely and come back to the current version of IE.

One more important thing which happened in this week was the comeback of Amitabh Bachchan. After close to 3 months being out of action, Amitabh was back to the sets of Kabhi Alvida na Kehna, the latest venture of Karan Johar. It was reported that he was again unwell after the shoot but there is no serious issue with respect to that. The crowd or the fan following was more happier when Big B returned on to the sets than the Man or the producers themselves. I remembered the screen presence of the star of the millenium when he made a short appearance in the filmfare awards. It was majestic.

Also on Sunday Morning, I attended a seminar on CISM by ISACA. ISACA is a global authority on IT Governance and Audit and is the central body for the development of COBIT which defines control objectives for information technology for Sarbanes Oxley compliance. It was a good break for me from the usual stuff I do at office daily. Got to know about ISACA and CISM and CISA certifications.

The coming week looks extremely hectic keeeping in mind today. Lets hope for another challenging week ahead.

Windows Vista Shipment Delays

2006-03-24T14:27:00.000+05:30

Microsoft in its latest release with respect to the Windows Vista has said that the business availability for the product would happen by November 2006 but the broad consumer availability has been postponed to early 2007. This is a major setback to the plans of Microsoft and its associate partners in the launch of Vista. It seems that the OS would go for broad consumer beta to approximately 2 million users in second quarter of 2006.

Analysts say it’s a smart move, given the products' importance and longevity — but disappointing and harmful to PC manufacturers, Intel, and retailers expecting a Q4 lift in PC sales. However, Intel gets an unexpected bonus: the opportunity to make Viiv the digital home brand that matters in 2006.

Microsoft has said that VISTA needs more fine-tuning, especially on security features – a core selling point of the new OS and it said that most of its partners said that the launch should wait till 2007. Given Windows' history as buggy and unsecured, it's just plain smart to delay the release rather than ship a flawed product. However, five years and counting between operating system releases and a steadily diminishing feature list does make Microsoft look a bit foolish. Ongoing sales of Windows XP, and the fact that Microsoft's fiscal year ends in June rather than December, protect the company financially.

Most of the PC retailers and companies like Dell, HP, Intel are real losers in all this. As the consumer spending peaks around the holiday season when the initial launch of Vista was planned. It will so happen that consumers wont be able to buy Vista powered PC and this will hamper the sales considerably. It is suggested that consumers be promised to buy the PC in the holiday season with a Vista upgrade coupon attached to the purchase. But a large administrative cost could have been avoided if the release would have happened at the scheduled time.

Since the launch is delayed Intel has a big opportunity to showcase their new technology VIIV as the centerpiece of the digital home, outcasting Vista. Launch of Vista with VIIV was considered to be a dual branding strategy by the market leaders. But then Intel will have a good opportunity to leverage on an early launch and make an impressive start before Vista comes into the market.

For the unknown, VIIV is Intel's new platform designed for the enjoyment of digital entertainment—Intel® Viiv™ technology—delivers the multitasking power of a dual-core processor and enables sleek new designs that fit your lifestyle.Key components of the VIIV technology are Intel Dual Core 64 bit processor, Advanced Chipset, and Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition.

Godavari Film Shooting

2006-03-22T00:19:00.000+05:30

This is the second time that I was part of a movie shooting. The last time I was involved in a movie shooting was when I was in my Grandma’s house in the year 1998. It was the shooting of a Telugu movie by some name I do not even remember now. The shooting took place for about 2 weeks time but finally when I watched the movie the shooting at our place was their in picture for just about 30 sec to 1 minute. That time I realized the power of editing.

Recently one of our colleagues took us to a shoot sequence of an upcoming Telugu movie GODAVARI. Shekar Kammula one of the renowned director in the Telugu film industry and also the director of the movie Anand is directing this movie. He happens to be a good friend of my colleague so this gave us an opportunity to show our acting skills also. The first shot (If I can call it a shot) was the one, which we took near the HCU bus stand with the heroine. It was a very small still involving not much effort.

The second shot, which happened on Sunday, involved quite a few associates from our organization who participated in the shoot, which involved the Hero of the movie, Sumanth. The shoot was done in a conference room and was part of a song sequence. It was a nice break for me from the daily routine of going to the office and coming back. The shooting started at 8:30 in the morning and continued till 11:00 AM wherein we were part of close to 3 or 4 shots.

Shooting a movie is not an easy job. For a moment I felt that this is the toughest job, which one can think about since there are close to 100 things, which need to be done simultaneously. If someone wants to prove that he is a leader he should involve himself into shooting. All the leadership qualities of a person can be tested very well while shooting is in progress. The voice of the Director, the sequence of camera, action and cut, the control of the scene sequence, controlling the people out there, managing money, convincing the people, making sure the actor and actress are happy with what they are doing are some of the aspects which a director needs to take care. All in all, the director of the movie exhibits the true qualities of a leader.

Impossible is Nothing

2006-03-16T16:02:00.000+05:30

Impossible is nothing. That’s what the South African team proved when they chased 434 against the top team of the world and three times world champion’s Australia. In a record-breaking one-day chase South Africa on Sunday chased 434 to win the series against Australia by 3-2. Australia made an impossible score of 434 way ahead of the 398 made by Srilanka against Kenya in 1996 World Cup. I remembered the star in that game was Aravinda De Silva who scored an impressive 148 to send shocks to Kenyan’s. But this contest was different

This contest was between one of the best teams in ODI. South Africa and Australia. Known for their all rounder’s these two teams always had a great contest. Some of the best memories of their contests are the World Cup Semifinal in 1999 wherein Australia won inspite of a tie because of a better run-rate.

A disbelieving crowd at the Wanderers in Johannesburg witnessed the greatest one-day international of all as South Africa hit a world record 438 for 9 with one wicket and one ball to spare to beat Australia. The fans were amazed at lunch, having seen the visitors smash 434 for 4, with Ricky Ponting making 164, they would have been pinching themselves when Mark Boucher hit the winning runs off Brett Lee after Herschelle Gibbs had led the way with 175.

This match proved it that Impossible is nothing, if one has that killer instinct to do it. No team could ever think of crossing 400 mark in one-day cricket. But then Australia did it and broke the previous record of 398 by scoring 434 and set an example. It was one of the most path breaking moments for Ricky Ponting where in he made his career best score. When South Africa started they always felt that probably they cannot reach that target but I must say that winning this match was a perfect example of team spirit where everyone in the team contributed equally to the success. Whether it was the one run of Makhaya Ntini or the winning shot by Mark Boucher everything in the match was awesome. In the past couple of months we have not seen such a finish for the match. India Pakistan series also went very dry. The feeling of elation for the team was absolutely par excellence and no one can ever expect to see that kind of stuff in one-day cricket. I believe no match will stand parallel to this match. And Then South Africa scored 438 with one wicket to go in 49.5 overs and won the match and grabbed the series. They made impossible possible with a great dedication, determination, a team effort and above all a killer instinct. But do Indian really possess it is the question?

First Anniversary

2006-03-15T10:27:00.000+05:30

Its exactly a year now since I started blogging. So today my blog completes one year of its existence on the world wide web. It saw close to 4200 visitors in the year which makes an average of 12 visits per day. The maximum hits were on 19th December 2005 when my blog recorded close to 49 hits which were excluding the reloads. This was the day when I had posted the article on the murder of the BPO woman.

I started blogging in the last few days of my stay at TAPMI. I was very excited about writing the things about which I felt very strongly but was lazy enough to note them down in a piece of paper. That was also the time when I shifted from the notebook or diary to the electronic medium of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Blog gave me a choice to express what I feel about the things around me. I believe that has driven me to write on the blog consistently in the last one year.

As I write this post I have posted close to 108 articles on my blog some clubbed under one heading of IT and related areas. Some on Compliance issues like Sarbanes Oxley, MiFiD and Clause 49. Others on Mergers and Acquisitions and some on my feelings and thoughts about certain issues which I feel very strongly about.

Blogging has been a great experience for me. I have been criticized several time and appreciated also many times. But more than that it has given me a lot of visibility and above all a presence on the web. Once someone types in the google, "Yashasvi Arun", immedietely he lands up on my blog homepage. Bitten by the blog bug, I went ahead and created a quiz blog for my Punchliners series. It has registered close to 4200 hits within a span of 5 months.

I believe, the quality of posts and also the time variation will improve considerably as I plan my time well enough to pursue my hobby in a better way. Thanks a lot to all those who visited my blog and if my Blog was helpful in providing some info to you I would feel the best satisfaction possible.

Thoughts Emotions Feelings Sentiments

2006-03-07T22:05:00.000+05:30

It has been quite some time since I posted some stuff on the above words in which I used to believe very little until today. There are days in our lives which are just another days. But there are days which usually make a lot of impacts on our lives and take our view points to the extremes some times and make us think. Today was one such day in my life when I felt that yes that there are emotions, feelings and sentiments even in the worst of the business scenarios also.

I always felt that if we are good everything which will happen to us in the future will be good only. But often we forget that there are forces which act opposite to what we usually do. These are invisible forces which usually operate in vacuum till the time we are in our limits. But once we try to do something out of the system, these invisible forces come out of the vacuum and attack us in all directions possible and enervate us within no time. These negative forces tend to kill the enthusiasm, the dedication and the determination to make things perfect. The path to betterment is lost and suddenly the concerned human being feels that he is doing something which is not wished by others. The worst part of all this is that these invisible forces weaken you so much or hurt you so much that you sometimes start doubting as to why did you take this burden of improving the system at all.

Well the article as it sounds is not pessimistic. Its about the reality of life when we cross the system boundaries and do something which we believe is obvious and nevertheless good for the organization. But at the end we get entangled in such a web which stretches us emotionally, mentally and pscyhologically and literally kills the passion in us.

There have been days for me which always gave me a feeling that why should I suffer always in life. I questioned my existence in the organization. I questioned my education. I questioned by behavior. Above all I questioned my pursuit of perfection and belief in High Performance probably one thing in my life which keeps going me on and on. I could not never get the answer. Perhaps I can never get also.

To be continued.

Weekend

2006-02-28T13:04:00.000+05:30

The weekend went by was one of the memorable weekends for me wherein I had to deal with some unprecedented issues. On Saturday my computer went into trouble without me having any clue of what has happened. For quite sometime the power on button of the computer was not working and it so happened due to Windows XP we need not have to restart the computer also quite often. The latter thing actually spoiled the restart button of the machine. So it does matter to use all the parts of the computer on time.

On Saturday evening it so happened that my computer got hung up and instead of restarting it from the main power, I used the spoiled restart button and then it was the end of it. My computer got hung and it did not start for the next few hours and then it so happened that even display was not coming on the monitor, CD Drive stopped working, Hard Disk was continuously blinking with the red light. I was like dead scared as to what happened to my life companion after spending close to 6 years. Somehow my dad got hold of a hardware vendor and he came and scrutinized the system for a while and concluded that it’s a chip level problem. I was like finished. Then he said RAM has gone and he won’t be able to do anything. He suggested taking the computer to Global Technologies in Secunderabad.

We reached Global Technologies somehow. The guy immediately within no time connected the required cables to the computer and was trying to figure out the error. Then when we were about to give it to him for repair, I told him the incident, which led to this problem. I must say the guy was intelligent and accordingly as per my description he removed the reset socket from the motherboard and the computer started working. I was like delighted very moment. Immediately, I saw this opportunity and somehow escaped from there without giving the computer for servicing. I believe the knowledge of the guy in repairing the thing shows the signs of High Performance, which delighted me a lot. I got the computer back home but then to my surprise, it looked like due to the deletion of restoration data the computer lost its display drivers and Windows XP started creating lot of problems. Norton got corrupted and the visual display went for a toss. All in all the computer became very slow and the Internet speed also got reduced tremendously. I decided that its time to format the hard disk. So I took the back up of the entire data on C drive and made the computer ready for the format process on Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning, I formatted the C drive of my computer loaded Win 98 and Win XP and brought the computer into its original form. It took close to 6 hours for the process to complete. By night my computer was back into original shape and I must say this time the problems I encountered were really big.

Another eventful thing, which happened on Sunday, was our trip to Yadagirigutta. Yadagirigutta is about 70 KM from our house and is a religious place having a temple of Lakhsmi Narsimha Swamy. We drove till their in our new ESTEEM, and I am sure Tej enjoyed the drive a lot. It was a good one while going we touched the speed of 70. While coming I drove it in the night continuously for about 75 KM and it was an amazing drive. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was one of the pleasing moments for me, which I will cherish for life. The speed I touched was 85 and I was pretty happy about it. It took me just about an hour to complete the 70 KM stretch. Driving on Highway gives a totally different kind of pleasure and I enjoyed every moment of it.

WINNING by Jack Welch

2006-02-21T13:27:00.000+05:30

Winning is my latest book which I completed close to two weeks back but then due to some preoccupations was not able to post my experience after reading the book. This is my, If I am not wrong, 7th Management Book, the last being India Unbound which is not very close to a Mangement book but it does have that kind of flavor.

Winning came into the market sometime in May 2005 and I wanted to read the book eagerly, right from the day when I read its review in India Today. I had spotted the book first in the LandMark Stores in Spencer’s Plaza in Chennai. But then it took close to 6 months for the book to come into my hand courtesy one of my friend. Albeit, the edition being partially pirated, the content being more important than the style or the design of the book, I was satisfied.

The book starts off with the favorite theme of every go-getter. Winning Does Matter. The essence of the book lies in the phrase stated above. Jack Welch using his past experiences tries to look into issues which are at the center of winning and which can make or break any game in life whether corporate or social. The book has come out when Jack Welch retired from GE and traveled across the world covering Asia, Africa, Europe, spoke at several places and conferences and had one to one meeting with several professionals on what it takes to WIN.

As with any management thought, the important part is to apply the thought in the real life rather than reading it through and have the pleasure. The real pleasure comes in when the Management idea gets into execution to give some real results. This time I had decided when I would read the book I will apply every idea in the text in my professional life and see whether it really works or not. Believe me it does work in 80 % of the cases.

The book is divided into 5 different parts altogether, which have a central theme that is – What Does it take to Win?. The first part introduction starts by talking about the various aspects of business and theories behind the business functions, the idea of Candor, which Jack Welch strongly advocates, and the issues like Differentiation. The second part of the book talks about the essential elements of Company. How a company should be structured and what are the issues to be kept in mind. It talks about the essentials of business like Leadership, Hiring, Change and Crisis Management. Next section talks about Competition in terms of strategy, budgeting, growth and M&A. The penultimate section in the book is titled “YOUR CAREER” which is one of the unique features of any management books I have seen till now. Generally we do not find a section dedicated specifically to the career. This section starts off by talking about what kind of job is a right job for an individual then the issues in performance appraisal to the issue of a bad boss and finally closing on one of the most important issues of 21st century – How to balance work and family life.

In the last section, Jack Welch talks about some of the questions, which cannot be part of any of the other four chapters mentioned above. Here in he covers issues like Threat of China, Diverity, Regulations like Sarbanes Oxley, Business response to AIDS, His successor Jeff Imelt and How he is doing together with the last question on whether Jack Welch will go to hell or heaven.

One of the topics, which Jack Welch forces the most and deals in extensively, is the issue of CANDOR. Candor is something, which we all will never wish to practice in our live's because we fear it immensely. But I did practice it in my professional life in a situation wherein I felt that the things are not going right and yes it did work it.

All in all, WINNING is a great read and is a must for every individual who looks at good career as a journey and not as a destination.

Narain Karthikeyan vs. Sania Mirza

2006-02-11T22:30:00.000+05:30

This post is dedicated to one issue which I believe should be discussed in many forums in concern to its importance. Yesterday I was looking at Times of India where I read that Sania Mirza has been signed by Deutsche Bank as the Brand Ambassador for promoting its retail banking product since Deutsche Bank was operating in India only in the Corporate Banking space. Daily if one watches the television you can spot number of ads featuring Sania Mirza but is there a single ad which features Narain Karthikeyan. Leave alone ads. Think about other recognition.

Sania Mirza recently got the Padmashree.If we look at the statistics Rahul Dravid even after being in the Indian Cricket Team for more than 7-8 Years got the Padmashree only in the year 2004. We all know what has been the contibution of Rahul Dravid to the Indian Cricket and what he is to the Indian Cricket team.

Now look at one sport which is not very popular in India. Formula 1. This sport considered to be the hobby of only the elite class and was till a few years back not even seen widely on television is now a raging sport amongst the youth of the country. Infact Chandra Babu Naidu ex chiefminister of AP had a proposal to come out with the Formula 1 Track in Hyderabad. Our only image in Formula 1 amongst 1 billion people considering the past and the present records is Narain Karthikeyan. Till date he is the only driver from our subcontinent to break into the elite league of Formula 1 considered to be one of the costliest sport in the world. But no one not even media bothered to cover it in a very proper manner. The way hype has been created about Sania I believe not even 10 % of the hype was created for Narain. We all know how important is media for the growth of anything in this world. If media publishes wrong information about any company or some kind of news than the company's stock price will go for a toss. Similar is the case with the sports person also. Any news however small if hyped considerably can really make a person god within few hours thanks to the ever increasing influence of media in our life.

Does the fete of Narain Karthikeyan any less than the fete accomplished by Sania Mirza or is it that people do not want to recognize some sports as Cricket gets a lot more priority over any other sport in the country. Very recently Narain Karthikeyan was also signed up by William the team of stalwarts like Montoya and Ralf once upon a time as a reserve driver. This is not a small feat.

I think its high time the media recognizes the importance of every sport and does not brush away any sport which does not spot glamour in it. We also need to remember that with formula 1 we have one of the biggest corporate house's TATA's name associated.

SENSEX Touches 10000

2006-02-07T10:29:00.000+05:30

India's stock market benchmark Sensex on Monday pierced through the magical 10,000 points level for the first time on aggressive buying by funds.

The market barometer was at 10,002.83 points, higher by 260.25 points. Similarly, wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty spurted by 66.55 points to set a record high of 3007.15.

The Sensex finally settled with a huge gain of 2.4% (238 points) at a record high of 9,980.

The Nifty surged by 60 points to close at 3,000.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-sensitive index (Sensex) which set an intra-day high at 9993.92 points on February 1, remained sluggish thereafter and touched a low of 9,713 points before completing the last lag of its journey to the historic 10K level today.

The major support to the Sensex came from Reliance Industries, Infosys, ICICI Bank, ACC, Bajaj Auto, Housing Development Finance Corporation and Larsen and Toubro.
Any change in the share prices of Reliance Industries, Infosys Tech and ICICI Bank changes the market scenario as the trio enjoy over 30 per cent weightage on the index.

Major GainersICICI Bank rallied 6.4% to Rs 607. HDFC moved up 2.5% to Rs 1,338, and HDFC Bank added 1.7% to Rs 745. SBI was up nearly 1% at Rs 865.Ranbaxy soared over 6% to Rs 414 following the company's announcement that it has formed a JV with a South African firm to tap the African market. Dr.Reddy's and Cipla moved up 2.6% each to Rs 1,190 and Rs 496, respectively.Reliance gained 3.4% to Rs 720. ONGC ended with a gain of 2.5% at Rs 1,191. ITC surged 2.7% to Rs 157, and HLL advanced over 2% to Rs 194.TCS rallied 3% to Rs 1,680. Infosys gained over 2% at Rs 2,845 and Satyam added 1.8% to Rs 739. Wipro, however, ended a tad lower at Rs 514.The BSE Bankex zoomed over 3% (162 points) to 5164. The BSE Healthcare Index also moved up over 3% (113 points) to 3478. The BSE FMCG, Oil & Gas indices closed with gains of over 2% each today. The BSE Teck index gained 1.5% (35 points) to 2,442.
Advances were ahead of declines - out of 2,570 scrips traded, 1,443 moved up, 1,071 declined and 56 were unchanged today.While 302 scrips hit their respective upper limits, 177 hit the lower circuits today.

Recession

2006-02-07T10:21:00.000+05:30

Ever heard of this word now in the boom economy where literally each and ever sector of the economy is doing very well and the global economy seems to be very vibrant. But everything does not seem to be going well for the US retailers who fear store closures as the retail business faces problems.

In one of the articles on CNN, I came across the plight of US retailer’s inspite of retail being one of the fastest growing industries globally. WALMART world’s biggest retailer is also world’s biggest company in terms of revenues and features above giants like Exxon Mobil with net sales of 346 Billion Dollars in the past fiscal year.

As per the research done by the Davidowitz & Associates recently, there are three factors that can be attributed to the downfall of retail stores in US. These are:

Growth in Online Shopping
High Energy Costs
Overcapacity.

Some of the well-known names, which are planning to bring closures of some of their stores, are Zale Corp, OfficeMax, Toy R Us, Musicland Holding Corp. and a few others.

Zale Corp., which is set to turn off the lights at more than 30 of its high-end Bailey Banks & Biddle stores.
Office supplies seller OfficeMax announced it would close 110 of its 950 U.S. outlets this year as part of its ongoing restructuring efforts.
Department store chain Mervyn's plans to close a third of its stores in 2006.
Toy seller Toys R Us is closing 75 of its namesake stores, most of them by springtime, and converting 12 others to Babies R Us locations.
Music retailer Musicland Holding Corp., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this month, is considering a "significant number of closings of unprofitable stores" under the Sam Goody and Suncoast names

Some of the factors quoted by the research firm were concerning to the too much overstoring of the retail stores hence it has become a victim of its overcapacity itself. The report also says that there is about nineteen and half square foot of retail space for every shopper in the country. This calls for a debate on the ever-expanding mode of retail stores in US inspite of projections saying that consumer spending will come down in the future. There is actually another component of energy costs, which is actually coming over the head of every retail store.

It is so happening that only big retail stores like Walmart and Home Depot are able to sustain these costs and able to face the competition well. The other factor is the online stores. Online stores recorded sales worth $ 142.3 billion according to ComScore Networks, market research firm. Online stores like Amazon.com, Ebay have largely taken away a big market share of Brick and Mortars store.

Research experts suggest the only solution to this problem is the true convergence of the Online retailing with Brick and Mortar stores. Now just try comparing this problem with the story on Big Bazaar.

Konica Minolta Sell Camera Business

2006-02-03T15:59:00.000+05:30

This has to be the biggest and most shocking news in the world of camera and photo business. Konica Minolta announced on 19th Jan 2006 that it is withdrawing from the camera and photo business. They will be transferring assets related to their camera business to Sony who will continue to develop digital SLR's based around the Konica Minolta lens mount. Konica Minolta it appears will continue to work with Sony (a relationship announced last year) in the development of digital SLR's and lenses but they will not be branded as or be sold by Konica Minolta.

This is the press release of the withdrawal plan.

Konica Minolta Announces Withdrawal Plan for Camera Business and Photo Business

Konica Minolta has long been a leading company in photo imaging business covering wide range of imaging from input to output. In addition, it has also provided inspiring products and services by fusing unique technologies.

In camera business, it has expanded picture-taking opportunities by developing innovative technologies such as the world’s first auto focus cameras. In 1962, our camera, well-accepted for its high reliability, boarded on the US’s first manned spaceship “Friendship 7.” Also, ever since introduction of the world’s first body-integral autofocus SLR camera, Maxxum/Dynax series, in 1985, SLR cameras have become more popular among picture-takers, and we have succeeded in selling 16 million units of interchangeable lenses since then.

However, in today’s era of digital cameras, where image sensor technologies such as CCD is indispensable, it became difficult to timely provide competitive products even with our top optical, mechanical and electronics technologies.

In photo business, represented by the silver-halide photography such as color film and color paper, we have produced Japan’s first photographic paper in 1903, and Japan’s first color film in 1940, thus pioneering joy of photography for more than a century. In 1984, we introduced the world’s first compact washless photofinishing system known as a minilab system. The minilabs contributed to the expansion of worldwide photographic market by making photos closer to consumers and amazingly shortening delivery time.

However, traditional silver-halide photographic market is shrinking astonishingly by the surge of the worldwide digitization. In such a changing world, profits for camera and photo businesses worsened in recent years, and it became necessary to drastically reform business structure for the further growth of Konica Minolta. Ever since we decided and announced restructuring guidelines of our businesses on November 4, 2005, we have been considering practical and detailed plan, and we would like to announce our decision made today as follows:

1) Camera Business

In camera business, we have reached an agreement with Sony Corporation(Sony), having numerous image sensor technologies such as CCD and CMOS, to jointly develop digital SLR cameras in July 2005. In order to continue to have our customers use Maxxum/Dynax lenses, and to maximize possibilities of the optical, mechanical and electronics technologies accumulated through development of SLR cameras in the years to come, we came to the conclusion that it was best to transfer assets concerning camera business to Sony. Since then, we have been negotiating with Sony, and as a result, we have reached an agreement with Sony to transfer a portion of assets regarding digital SLR camera system to Sony.

*1. In this relation, we have decided to withdraw from camera business

*2, such as film cameras and digital cameras, within Konica Minolta Group as of March 31, 2006.

Sony is planning to develop digital SLR cameras compatible with Maxxum/Dynax lens mount system, so that the current Maxxum/Dynax users will be able to continue to use them with Sony’s digital SLR cameras. In addition, we will consign camera service operations for Konica Minolta, Konica,Minolta brand cameras and related equipment to Sony.

2) Photo Business

In today’s shrinking photographic market represented by color film and color paper, we have been considering to scale back and to continue photo business at an appropriate size; however, when we foresee the photographic market, it is quite difficult to maintain profitability in this field, and we have decided to withdraw from photo business. As schemed below, we will, as much as possible, avoid causing any inconvenience in providing products to our worldwide customers in the course of withdrawal.

For color film and color paper, while considering our customer needs, we will step-by-step reduce product lineup and cease our color film and color paper production by the end of fiscal year ending March 31, 2007.

For minilab business, we will cease production of the system by the end of fiscal year ending March 31, 2006; however we will have such company as Noritsu Koki Co., Ltd to provide maintenance and customer services so as not to cause any inconvenience to our customers.

In line with the above scheme, with consideration to our customers and regional situations, we will step-by-step reorganize our sales offices and withdraw from all of our photo sales activities by September 30, 2007.

3) Personnel Management

As a part of Konica Minolta Group’s restructuring, we will proceed with withdrawal plan for camera and photo businesses and aggressively shifted their management resources to other Konica Minolta Group companies. While continuing this effort, in order to rationalize a number of employees, we have decided to reduce worldwide Konica Minolta Group employees by 3,700 from the current 33,000 including early retirement offering by September 30, 2007*.

* The early retirement offering is for Konica Minolta Group’s holding company, five business companies and two common function companies in Japan. The expenses to be incurred with this restructuring are already included in the forecast for fiscal year ending March 31, 2006.

Konica Minolta Group will make our utmost efforts not to cause any inconvenience to our customer due to the decision we made this time. At the same time, camera and photo businesses are our traditional businesses ever since our founding, and we wish to express our heartfelt appreciation to the worldwide Konica Minolta fans for their patronage to our products for more than a century.

Konica Minolta Group is aiming to become more powerful corporate group by swiftly meeting market changes and pursuing “selection and concentration”. We will, from now on, be concentrating our business resources on non-consumer businesses, such as the core “business technologies” field, the strategic “optics and display devices” field, and the growth expected “medical imaging” and “sensing” fields, increase competitiveness, and endeavor to further expand corporate value.

Rang De Basanti - A Generation Awakens

2006-01-28T18:57:00.000+05:30

This is the first time ever that a movie name has appeared in my blog. Infact this post is dedicated to the movie Rang De Basanti. Rang De Basanti is one movie in recent times after probably Sarkar which I was able to appreciate and like a lot. But at the outset I can make one statement that this movie is not for the masses.

Rang De Basanti, one of the most awaited movie of 2006 was supposed to release on 20th but then as with any other movie this one also ran into some kind of trouble with the Censor board of India and finally got released on the eve of Republic day to packed houses. The movie stars Aamir Khan (DJ), Madhavan(Ajay), Soha Ali Khan (Sonia), Sharman Joshi (Sukhi) , Siddarth (Karan) , Kunal Kapoor (Aslam), Atul Kulkarni (Laxman) and Alice Patten (Sue). The music director needless to say is A R Rahman since we see the songs of the movie topping almost every chart.

The movie starts on a very slow note with the introduction of General Mckinney who felt the threesome Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad and RajGuru are different from the masses and starts writing the account of his experiences with them in his diary. His grand daughter who is Sue reads the diary of her grandfather and then decides to make the documentary film over it depicting the national heroes. But she does not get approval for the same from the senior people in the company so she all by herself comes to India where she has Sonia as her friend. They both do good number of auditions for the documentary film but in vain. This is shot in a very nice manner keeping in mind the big number of contests like Indian Idol and others happening over the television now and then. But it so happens that in a party Sue meets the five guys Sukhi, DJ, Karan, Aslam and decide that yes they are the heroes she is looking for her film.

But Sukhi, DJ, Aslam and Karan is one of the modern youngsters brad who believes that India is nothing but a useless country and nothing can be changed in this country even after the best attempts. They believe in living their life to the fullest and do not bother about anything in this world. Aamir Khan once again shines in the role superbly. He has got that terrific knack of posing as a spoiled guy who knows only how to have fun. As he says in one of the dialogues:

" Its been 5 years since I passed out of this University but then I do not want to get out of this place for a simple reason that, here there is some reputation of DJ but outside I would be nothing more than a street dog. "

The character of Karan suits Siddarth very well. He is a silent guy who does not talk a lot in the movie even but his shot at the radio station is amazing. Aslam looks more like a VJ than a Kranthikaari but the role suits him very well. Sukhi essayed by Sharman Joshi is the most energetic character of the movie. It suits Sharman very well and he gets into the shoes of Sukhi and plays the role. His death in the movie makes the mood really sad in the theatre.

These 4 guys are always together in the DU Campus and there is an activist of Swadeshi called as Laxman who is totally opposed to the idea of westernism exhibited by these people. He fights with these people but then it happens that Sue finds an excellent fit in this character and then he enters into the role of one of the freedom fighters. Then the rest of the movie revolves around these five characters together with some of the romance between Madhavan and Soha. After the intermission, the death of Madhavan shooks the five and then their mind starts thinking as to how they can make a difference in the society. The movie ends in a tragic way by the death of all the five people in an encounter. But then this movie gives a really big message to the audience and succeeds in it too.

This movie is different in number of ways. The way it has been shot. The ideal mix of youthful extragavanza and patriotism which no movie has portrayed as of yet. If we look at any of the movies in the past made on the History of India they never involved the youngsters as such. But this movie took a bold step to involve youngsters from present into the past of India and convey the message to the audience. The locales, the picturisation, the back ground score everything in this movie is so well done that one feels that all the strings are perfectly attached. Also this movie is different in a way that it portrays one of the important problem we are facing right now in terms of our defence strength. The MIG. The scandal happening in the area of MIG components is a major blow to the defence department of Indian govt. From the past in which our freedom fighters faced hell and gave us freedom to the present wherein our politicians are playing with our national security and filling up their pockets by way of corruption, the movie portrays it all. The best part of the movie is the time when the DJ and group get the message that they have to do something for their country after the death of Madhavan in a MIG crash.

Rang De Basanti stands out tall among the latest movies which are made on the theme of patriotism and national freedom struggle. Its the same story but presented in a lot different way and its also able to deliver the message across the audience. The music score of A R Rahman is extremely good and complements the movie in all possible ways. The character portrayal and the song sequence together with the selection of places is extremely well done keeping in mind the storyline every moment. The director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehara stands by his fine touch and delivers a masterpiece which the viewers were longing for quite sometime. One of the last dialogue of Aamir Khan is the most heart touching:

"Is duniya mein do tarah ke log rehte hain. Ek jo system ko maante hain aur chahe woh system kitna bhi gandha ho usi ke hisaab se chalte hain. Aur Doosre jo zimmedari lete hain system ko sudharne ki aur use perfect banane ki"

"Har desh perfect nahee hota. Use perfect banana padta hain."

Take my word Rang De Basanti is must watch for just everything it can offer to you.

100th Post

2006-01-27T23:54:00.000+05:30

Here I am. 100th post on the blog. This blog has seen 100 posts till date starting from March 12, 2005 when I had posted my first article on this blog. It has been a long journey wherein I have written articles on numerous topics ranging from IT to Merger and Acquisitions to Politics to the trips I had undertaken last year and a whole lot of things.

Every article on this blog is special to me. Whether its about the Goa trip or its about my passion of Sarbanes Oxley. I believe one of the best posts on this blog has been the one on Oracle Acquisition of I Flex. This post is the most comprehensive post amongst all the posts I have made on this blog.

There was a time when I used to write just about once or twice in a month but then the frequency of posting has increased considerably thanks to DataOne broadband service.

I have not followed a single theme for the blog just because of the simple reason that it creates monotonicity which I hate a lot. I always wanted my blog to express what I feel every moment as the days pass by.

To take my quizzing to new heights I also started a blog on quizzes. This was titled Punchliners and is currently a very famous series among the quiz groups like quinkie, quizkrieg etc.

Hope the action on the blog will continue in the future with increasing amount of activity happening around me.

GOD SPEED.

Big Bazaar vs. US Retailers

2006-01-27T10:20:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was a Maha Savings Day at Big Bazaar. Big Bazaar announced a week back that 26th January would be the day when its going to give ultimate discount on its entire range. One could buy a 21 inch television at just about 5890 bucks. VIP suitcases were available at just about 200 rupees and a whole lot of merchandise notably garments like the Ruf and Tuf jeans. A pair of Ruf and Tuf jeans were available at 499/- only which is close to 50 % less than the market. With this kind of offer Big Bazaar opened its stores on 26th of January, a national holiday, at a never before time. At 8:00 AM.

Some of the offers were as follows:
The offers were spread across categories from electronics to utensils to apparel to furniture to food. Pressure cookers will be on offer for Rs 299 while a pair of 2 Ruf-n-Tuf jeans for just Rs 499, Motorola C115 mobiles for Rs 1399, sofas for Rs 15,999 or a 21'' flat TV for Rs 5890 and many more such offers. Customers will get sugar for a year free on shopping above Rs 4000 and on shopping above Rs 8000, sugar and Charminar basmati rice will be supplied free for a year.

So to test the waters, I went to Big Bazaar in the evening at about 6:15 PM. As soon as we reached the lane close to the Mall, the traffic jam had started and I was getting the signals of it. We somehow got a parking space at a distance of about 200 m from the Mall and after parking the vehicle moved towards the Mall only to see the biggest surprise of my life.

This is what I observed. The Mall was locked out as if it was a strike of the worker's union. All the lights were shut down and the entire MPM Mall which used to shine like anything in the night turned into a dark place with only Police and security guards visible. The entire Mall was closed for any public entry by tying a rope from end to end which covered the entire structure. No citizen was allowed inside and Police was literally doing a lathie charge on the crowd which tried to make an entry into the Mall. No one was allowed to stop anywhere near on the road also and it was out an out a situation wherein once again our infrastructure was not able to serve the people. We came out of the place pretty early and went to CENTRAL. CENTRAL was ok since the crowd there is of some standard.

But then the title of the post does not reflect the story till now. A few days back I was working on a quiz where in I came across a site which was telling the story of big retailers in US. Globally the economy is doing really good and we are seeing consumer spending reaching new heights. new projects are getting kicked off and new opportunities are coming into focus in almost every direction. But in this point in time can we hear of some closures happening. Yes we do and here is the example. Instead of talking about their growth plans for 2006, many big-name retailers instead are announcing store closings.
Here are some examples

Among those retailers closing locations are jeweler Zale Corp. which is set to turn off the lights at more than 30 of its high-end Bailey Banks & Biddle stores.
Office supplies seller OfficeMax announced it will close 110 of its 950 U.S. outlets this year as part of its ongoing restructuring efforts.
Department store chain Mervyn's plans to close a third of its stores in 2006.
Toy seller Toys R Us is closing 75 of its namesake stores, most of them by springtime, and converting 12 others to Babies R Us locations.
Music retailer Musicland Holding Corp., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this month, is considering a "significant number of closings of unprofitable stores" under the Sam Goody and Suncoast names.

Only the big giants like Walmart and HomeDepot are looking into expanding their chain. Why is it that there is a rash of closings and cutbacks. Howard Davidowitz A retail analyst and, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, argued that the U.S. retail market was "too overstored" and therefore a victim of its own overcapacity. There's nineteen-and-a-half square foot of retail space for every shopper in USA which is a lot by any standard. The question raised in concern to the above is :

"Is it natural for companies to keep expanding when the market is already overcrowded with stores, especially when there are numerous projections calling for a slowdown in consumer spending?"

The problem for the brick and mortar store is increased due to the steady increase in the Online Retailing which is the second biggest group in retailing after Walmart. The movement is happening more towards consolidation of small stores as people move towards value stores like Walmart and Target. Its getting more into the hands of larger stores as the stronger is becoming more stronger. But the online retailing should be looked more synergestically with the brick and mortar stores in terms of adding value to the customer.

To be continued.

Google 2084

2006-01-24T23:51:00.000+05:30

Something really interesting which I found on the web when I was searching for a few logos. This picture is Orwellian vision of Google in the future, published in the New York Times, 10th October 2005. You’ll be able to search the net, your brain, your future, basically everything everywhere…

AICC Plenary Session

2006-01-24T11:22:00.000+05:30

If there was one news in the recent times which appeared on the front page of every newspaper, it was none other than the news of 82nd Annual Session of AICC. The plenary session was held in Hyderabad over a span of 3 days. The best part of this plenary session was the decorations which were done in the entire city because of this. But more than that the plenary session was a different one and dedicated totally to the Gandhi family.

Almost every part of city was decorated and there were only three colors visible on the roads, saffron, green and white and one symbol the characteristic of Congress "Hand". The plenary sessions were organized at Gachibowli Stadium which was once upon a time venue for the National Games. Soon thereafter it became a venue for election vote counting, music concerts and other events and not just sports. The event was held from 21st to 23rd of January and thank god that the Gachibowli stadium is pretty far from the city and near the IT Park but since it was a saturday and sunday, IT companies managed to save the business. Entire city had hoardings of all the past Congress presidents and prominently of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. One could spot new gates coming up in Twin cities where each gate was named after one president of Congress in the past years. In all this our very own Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh was forgotten and it so happened that the presence of Rahul Gandhi shadowed the position of Prime Minister itself. There was no news item covering the speech of Manmohan Singh neither the banners or the posters were carrying the photograph of Singh. Even among the party workers the enthusiasm was with respect to only Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and not for any one else.

It so happened that I was in Lumbini Park on Saturday when the plenary session was in progress and we could spot atleast 2 dozen party workers passing time near the Hussain Sagar lake. I do not know what they had come for to Hyderabad. A good number of party workers went into clashes upon the issue of Rahul speaking or not. Rahul Gandhi had to come to the stage to control the crowd. I do not understand why the people are so mad about Rahul Gandhi and give him an eternal status as to he is the only sole saviour of the Congress party.

Jet Airways Acquires Sahara

2006-01-22T00:10:00.000+05:30

In continuation to my previous post about Jet planning to buy out Sahara, this post fills the gap. In what can be termed as the biggest deal in the Indian civil aviation history, Jet Airways took over Air Sahara for nearly $500 million (about Rs. 2,300 crore) in an-all cash deal, executed on late Wednesday night.

Announcing the deal through a joint statement, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal and Sahara group Chairman and Managing Worker Subrata Roy said they were "pleased to announce the execution of a share purchase agreement for acquisition by Jet Airways India Limited of the entire capital of Sahara Airlines Limited subject to regulatory approvals.''

Though talks between the two leading private carriers on the subject had been in the air for the last few months, they preferred to term the exercise as discussions on forging a "strategic alliance.'' Shedding its initial coyness and shying away from the talk of buying out Air Sahara, Jet Airways stepped on the gas after Kingfisher Airlines chief Vijay Mallya gave up his efforts, saying $500 million was too high a price. At present, the public sector carrier Indian Airline's market share is estimated to be around 34 per cent, Jet's share at 37 per cent and Air Sahara's is put at 12 per cent.

Addressing a press conference, Air Sahara Vice President Alok Sharma said that Air Sahara's equity value was put at about Rs. 276 crore. Mr. Sharma said there was no timetable set for a total integration as there were a number of processes to be undergone, including approvals and clearances from various government authorities. He said all the 27 aircraft of Air Sahara were on lease but other tangible assets like ground equipment, engines, spares and other inventories would be transferred to Jet Airways. The lease of Air Sahara aircraft was likely to end by 2010 and two new leased aircraft would arrive in February and March.

Sahara group Chairman Subrata Roy, in an internal communication to Air Sahara employees, numbering about 4,400, assured them full job protection. "If the employees find it difficult to work under the new management, the Sahara India Pariwar, in a true family spirit, shall be responsive to any of their genuine difficulties and would take all steps to mitigate their difficulties,'' Mr. Roy said.

Reacting to the acquisition, highly placed sources in the Civil Aviation Ministry said, "Since both are private companies, laws of the land, relating to acquisitions and mergers, will apply to their case. The Department of Company Affairs and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) may have a role to play,'' the sources pointed out.

At stake would be two crucial factors — the allocation of parking bays and the arrival and departure slots during the prime time in morning and evening in the four metros — that would favour Jet Airways after the new, rebranded entity comes into existence.

Clause 49

2006-01-15T20:39:00.000+05:30

With the global standards of Corporate Governance reaching new levels continously and the need for the companies to maintain a high level of transparency in their processes , the SEBI has issued a directive on the lines of Sarbanes Oxley named Clause 49.

Clause 49 is pretty much on the lines of Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 provided by SEC for companies listed on US stock exchanges. According to Clause 49, the top management becomes directly accountable for all financial statements and internal controls of the organization, which is also the bottom line in case of Section 302 of Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002.

With the Indian capital markets touching new heights and the steep increase in the retail investors taking shareholder confidence to a new high, corporate governance has become all the more relevant today. The significant addition under the revised Clause 49 is CEO and CFO certification on internal controls.
Clause 49 derives its base from the concept of Enterprise Risk Management. ERM is a framework that

Establish, document, implement & monitor systems
Mitigates operational risks and improves organization performance
Sustains business goals
Communicates value creation to key stakeholders

Clause 49 was made mandatory for all companies to comply by 31st December 2005. At a very high level, it gives guidelines on the composition of the board of directors and the composition of the audit committee. In addition, it makes necessary for CEOs/CFOs to

Establish and maintain internal controls in their organization
Report and certify effectiveness of, deficiencies in and changes to internal controls
Disclose to the auditors and audit committee, of discrepancies and deficiencies in internal controls
Initiate and implement remediation and risk mitigation towards such deficiencies

The figure below shows the exact meaning of the Clause 49 agreement.

Similar to the implementation of SOX, Clause 49 is also becoming a big project for most of the Indian companies and in a way is allowing them to clean up their processes and standardize them to match the global standards. Looking at Clause 49 only as a regulatory requirement and bringing about a adhoc change in the processes will bring in lot of problems for the enterprises in the future. A strong system of internal controls effected by Clause 49 is very important to ensure that the goals of enterprise risk management are met.

Compliance to Clause 49 gives a huge opportunity for the IT vendors in India to come out with a Indian version of SOX solution. Most of the Tier 1 vendors have been actively involved in the development of the SOX solutions which involved majorly the Risk Management System for many global companies. Technology as in SOX is going to play a very important role in adopting the compliance standard with minimal cost and maximum efficiency.

I hope the Indian firms will keep in mind the problems faced by US firms while in the first year of SOX and even after 3 years the companies are struggling to put the internal controls process in place. Clause 49 is not as big as Sarbanes Oxley but we need to remember that this is only the first step taken by SEBI on the road to effective corporate governance in India.

As someone has said rightly:

"Good Governance is Good Business, even if it costs a bundle. Businesses that have sound corporate governance policies outperform those with weak ones in terms of total shareholder return."

Jet Airways to Buy out Sahara

2006-01-11T23:45:00.000+05:30

In one of the most far reaching acquisition in the new year, Jet Airways is planning to buy out Air Sahara in a deal which may be worth 560 million dollars. This deal if it happens will mark the beginning of M&A activity in the area of Airlines which has not seen this activity for quite some time after the usherance of number of small players with their own market strategies like Air Deccan, GoAir etc.

If this deal gets sealed then it would make Jet Airways country's number 1 domestic airline way ahead of Indian (formerly, Indian Airlines) grabbing close to 50 % market share. In all terms whether it is the fleet or the turnover or the valuation, Jet Airways will become number one in the Indian domestic airline market.

Earlier before this news, Kingfisher was in the race of buying out Sahara but later on Vijay Mallaya backed out of the race. As far as Jet is concerned the senior management has denied of any such sort of negotiations happening. Its only when it was reported in the news channel CNN IBN that the news spread.

It is expected that the merged entity would have more than half the domestic market and a fleet of more than 90 aircraft, with revenue of 70 billion rupees ($1.6 billion) and a market value of 115 billion rupees which makes it way ahead of its competitor Indian which has very recently done a brand makeover exercise.

It all began when in September, Air Sahara had announced that it is looking for a partnership to fuel its growth and appointed Ernst and Young as the strategic advisor for this activity. E&Y valued Air Sahara at $ 750 million to $ 1 billion.

Air Sahara, which began operations just months after Jet in 1993, is part of a $12-billion group owned by flamboyant tycoon Subroto Roy, with interests spanning finance, housing, power and media.

India's domestic air travel market is forecast to grow more than 20 percent a year over the next five years, boosted by rising incomes and lower fares. An estimated 19 million domestic passengers travelled by air in the year to March 2005.

From the Jet point of view this deal is very strategic as it allows the Jet to kill the competition very easily. If it acquires Air Sahara then it gets way ahead of the next closest competitor which is Indian. Also Air Sahara has a strong presence in the North which Jet can take advantage of and grab a greater market share.

With the emergence of no frills airlines with a rush like Air Deccan, GoAir, Spice Jet it has become very important for the established brands like Jet to grow at a faster pace either organically or inorganically to ensure that it stays at the top position in the market.

Perspective 2005

2006-01-09T21:47:00.000+05:30

Here is the list of events which made 2005 a year to remember for a long time.

The ever rising SENSEX which crossed all previous records and set new records every week in the month of November. SENSEX at the close of the year ended at 9397.93 and generated a return of 40 percent over the start of the year. The SENSEX at the start of the year was at 6679.

The Oracle acquisition of I Flex which once again proved the value of India IT companies in the Global IT sphere. It marked the entry of Global IT giants into India aggressively but at the same time it also ended one of the finest product companies in India.

Tsunami dominated the first quarter of 2005 although the event happened in 2004 end. The effects of the super cyclonic storm in the sea were wide spread leading to the death of close to 300,000 people. A good amount of southern India and south east Asia suffered damage in this calamity.

The fall of Laloo Prasad Yadav dominated the news channels and media for a good amount of time in the month of November. Nitish Kumar was appointed as the new Chief Minister and it gave a good amount of relief to the BJP which was struggling under its own weight.

The earthquakes in the northern region of India near LoC and Pakistan shattered the people staying in those areas.

The nation came to a stand still when the voice of the nation, the Mega Star Amitabh Bachchan fall ill and shook the nation once again as in 1982. It took him one month to recuperate and as I write this entry he has come back to his home and start shooting for KBC 2.

The M&A activity in the Indian industry whether IT or Non IT was at a heightened pace. With all the top IT companies doing some or other overseas acquisition. Notably Wipro which acquired 3 companies in the last week of December

The ABN Amro Bank deal in the IT outsourcing space was one of the biggest deals to happen globally. The deal was worth 2.1 billion dollars and got split among the top IT vendors like Accenture and IBM together with Indian vendors like TCS, Infosys and Patni. IBM got the biggest pie of the deal valuing over 1.5 billion dollar followed by Accenture.

TCS acquired world’s number four core banking solution company FNS Global which is rolling out the CBS in SBI for 26 million dollar. This ensured that TCS makes a strong foray into the market of financial solutions outsourcing. FNS Global has B@NCS 24 x 7 as its core banking solution.

In one of the landmark deals in the space of athletic wear Adidas acquired Reebok for close to 3.2 billion dollar and created a very stiff competition for Nike the world’s number one sporting goods maker.

Oracle continued its acquisition spree by buying out Siebel in all cash deal worth 5.1 billion dollars ensuring that it gets the lion’s share of the CRM solutions market globally.

BSNL rolled out its broadband service termed DataOne which gave the other Broadband service providers a run for their money. Within no time, BSNL snatched a sizeable market share in this business.

For the first time in the country, Motorola India manufactured a mobile phone in India which can be aptly termed as Made in India. This mobile phone was priced below Rs. 1000.

Natural calamities surrounded India and the World throughout the year. Whether it was the horrendous rains in Bombay which stopped the city which is unstoppable inspite of all the problems or the Hurrican Katrina and its sisters Rita and others. Lousiana and New Orleans were thrown out of gear totally. When everyone thought that Chennai and Bangalore are the safest places to make any FDI, the electronics city office of many top Indian companies were found flooded due to huge rains in these two cities. Chennai received a very heavy rainfall for close to 2 months which ensured that the city which used to cry for rains does not do any more.

RTA Office

2006-01-07T18:47:00.000+05:30

One office which has not change a bit also right from my childhood is the RTA office in India. RTA stands for Road Transport Authority. These are the people in India who issue driving licenses and do registrations for all kinds of vehicles after examining them. Well I went to the RTA office last time only about 6 years back and thank god I did not get the fortune of visiting it again in the recent past. But the day finally arrived on 7 January 2006 when I had to enter the pedestals of India's most unfriendly and totally customer disoriented office. The RTA office of Musarambagh.

Recently we got our first four wheeler, a Maruti Esteem. Since I did not have any prior experience of driving, we appointed a driver who asked me to take the learning license at the earliest because of numerous checks by the traffic police at various places. So I went to the RTA office on saturday. Inspite of lot of resistance from my side Dad took me to the office and I was shocked to see a similar kind of situation as I saw close to 6 years back. Same agents or Dalals, Same old police inspectors and the pretty much the same unfriendly staff. But there was a change in the manner the process was carried out this time.

The entire operations of the RTA office were computerized with some central system running at place. It was amazing. The application submission happens and then photograph was taken using a digital camera. Then a digital signature pad was given to me on which I had to sign and it would directly appear on the screen. It was a very unique usage of technology, I must say since I have not seen the signatures still appearing digitally. Thereafter we moved to the first floor where one had to give some computer examination against the physical and visual examination which used to happen earlier.

The way I took the examination only I know. It was one of different kind. But I must say the way IT has penetrated into the system and made it look really easy. The entire process was so well managed that the job which used to take some days to get done got over in just about an hour. Now the target time for most of the jobs at the RTA office is one day only. The improvement clearly shows the ability of IT to right track any business process although it finally boils down to the people who are using it to set the process right.

Another instance in day to day life where IT has made life simple for many of us. I got a print out of my Learning license with a hologram of RTA office for just 60 Rs. which could take anywhere between 400-700 if done through a agent.

Google and Gmail Play

2006-01-05T23:15:00.000+05:30

This post is dedicated to the way Google is playing with my listing in the Google directory. I do not have an idea as to how Google search works but definitely they revise the search algorithms over 15 days once or every week also. I had submitted my site to Google on 2 Apr 2005. After submission on that day, my site has been facing a roller coaster ride in terms of its appearance. Sometimes it appears as the first result when I type Yashasvi Arun, but on other times my blog does not appear even in the last page. Very recently both of my blogs the quiz blog and the personal blog are not coming as the search result when I type my name. They are appearing in pages 5 or 6.

The biggest surprise is that the text "Yashasvi Arun" does not appear fully in any of the entries suggested above. Only in my blog the name appears completely and I do not have any other web presence also. This is one problem I am facing with Google for quite some time.

The other unique problem which I faced today is with Gmail. It happened for the first time although the problem got resolved pretty early when I mailed back Gmail promptly with all the details. The error is “Gmail Lockdown in Sector 4”. I was just checking the answers for my quiz but when I finished checking the answers and clicked on the back, I was taken directly to this screen with the error name. In this error the account home page was replaced with the flippant title: "Lockdown in sector 4!" along with a short explanation of the lockdown. I immedietely referred the Gmail Help and found that the accounts in question had conducted "unusual usage," although the users maintain their innocence. If the account user violates the Gmail usage policy and other agreements, the account is freezed before being released within 1 min to 24 hours.

This is the mail which I got from Gmail Team. This is also the first time I have observed a mailing service closing abruptly.

“Hello, Our system has detected abnormal usage of your Gmail account. As a result, we have temporarily disabled access to this account. It will take between one minute and 24 hours for you to regain access, depending on the behavior our system detected. Your account may be temporarily disabled if, among other things, you are:

Sending or receiving an excessive volume of mail·
Using any third-party software that automatically logs in to your account and is not supported by Gmail
Using certain browser extensions that change the behavior of a Website (Greasemonkey, a popular Firefox extension, often interferes with Gmail We suggest disabling Greasemonkey to use Gmail without any issues.)

For your protection, we ask that you disable any non-supported software before accessing Gmail again. If you feel that access to this account should not have been disabled, Please respond to the following questions:

List the date and time of day when you were locked out of the account.
What task were you performing when you were locked out? (ex: sending an email, downloading an attachment, etc.
Has access to your account been disabled before this occurrence? If so when and for how long?
Indicate which of the following, if any, Gmail features you use: POP, auto-forwarding, or Gmail's Notifier
Are you using any type of browser extensions? If so, please specify
Do you use any third-party software in conjunction with Gmail? If so please specify.

Sincerely, The Gmail Team

Snap Shot of Error

MiFID

2006-01-03T20:38:00.000+05:30

Recently when I was reading Economic Times, I came across this abbreviation related to the financial directives in the european countries. Now one area which is getting tremendous amount of attention is the area of corporate governance and regulatory compliance in the financial services industry. The area of compliance has gained a lot of importance because of the number of accounting scandals happening in various large firms in USA. Notably the historic legislature called as Sarbanes Oxley is one of the best examples of this type of regulatory norm. MiFID is one of the close cousins of Sarbanes Oxley.

MiFID stands for Markets in Financial Instruments Directive. MiFID is being considered to be the most far reaching directive in the financial markets of Europe akin to what Sarbanes Oxley is to the companies in US.

MiFID will replace the existing Investment Services Directive (ISD), the most significant European Union legislation for investment intermediaries and financial markets since 1995. MiFID extends the coverage of the current ISD regime and introduces new and more extensive requirements to which firms will have to adapt, in particular in relation to their conduct of business and internal organisation.

MiFID is a major part of the European Union’s Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP), which is designed to create a single market in financial services. FSA is very popular in the world because of its FSA 133 standard for derivatives accounting. MiFID comprises two levels of European legislation. ‘Level 1’, the Directive itself, was adopted in April 2004. In several places, however, it makes provision for its requirements to be supplemented by ‘technical implementing measures’, so-called ‘Level 2’ legislation.

The aim of the ISD was to set out some basic high-level provisions governing the organisational and conduct of business requirements that should apply to firms. It also aimed to harmonise certain conditions governing the operation of regulated markets. MiFID has the same basic purpose. But it makes significant changes to the regulatory framework to reflect developments in financial services and markets since the ISD was implemented.

MiFID is going to have a huge impact on firms involved in investment services in the European region. In general MiFID will cover most if not all firms currently subject to the ISD, plus some that currently are not.

This will include:

Investment banks;
Portfolio managers;
Stockbrokers and broker dealers;
Corporate finance firms;
Many futures and options firms; and some commodities firms.

In some areas, the position for firms will be less clear-cut. For instance, Retail banks and building societies will be subject to MiFID for some parts of their business – for example, selling securities, or investment products which contain securities, to customers - but not others.

Proposals for implementing MiFID will be carried in three CPs:

The main MiFID CP: this will cover all necessary changes to FSA rules and guidance – except the organisational and financial promotions requirements of MiFID
The systems and controls CP: this will cover the organisational and systems and controls requirements arising both from MiFID and the CRD (which is to be implemented by 1 January 2007), setting out proposals for a single set of requirements (a ‘common platform’) for all firms subject to either or both of these directives;
The financial promotions CP: this will cover the MiFID provisions on marketing communications, within wider changes flowing from our financial promotions review, and will be relevant to all firms.

Happy New Year

2006-01-01T00:00:00.000+05:30

As we accelerate into 2006, let me take an opportunity to wish all my friends, and colleagues a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

INSAT-4A Launched Successfully

2005-12-22T12:31:00.000+05:30

This event is another feather in the cap of ISRO. This time it is India's most advanced telecommunication satellite INSAT-4A. INSAT – 4A was launched successfully by the European generic rocket, Ariane-5, from the spaceport of Kourou in French Guyana at 0403 IST on Thursday.

The launch is seen as another milestone in India's space programme and is expected to give a major fillip to the most awaited Direct-to-Home television services. INSAT-4A, India's heaviest satellite weighing 3,080 kg at lift-off was shot into space about 29 minutes after the European launch vehicle blasted off.

The rocket also deployed INSAT-4A's co-passenger, European meteorological payload MSG-2 seven minutes later. Soon after the launch, the Master Control Facility at Hassan in Karnataka picked up the signals from INSAT-4A at 0432 IST and Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair, who witnessed the launch, described the health of the satellite as 'good'.

Describing the INSAT-4A launch, telecast live by Doordarshan, as a very important milestone in the history of ISRO, Nair said it will revolutionise DTH broadcasting and improve the entertainment scenario in the country.

INSAT-4A, the first satellite in the INSAT-4 series under which seven satellites have been planned, is equipped with 12 ku and 12 c band high-powered transponders, with a design life of 12 years. ISRO officials in Bangalore said 12 ku band transponders provide around 140 to 150 DTH channels. The satellite is expected to be operational by the end of January.

INSAT-4A was originally planned for launch in the first half of 2005 but due to difficulties faced by Ariane and delay in the launch of first two satellites of other countries, the launch schedule was recast.

In the coming days, the MCF will conduct operations such as orbit raising manoeuvres to take the satellite into its final 36,000 km circular Geo-synchronous Orbit. Deployment of solar antennas will be carried out before positioning the satellite in its designated slot of 83 degree East longitude, along with INSAT-2E and INSAT-3B.

MCF will also carry out regular operations and control the satellite during its service life, ISRO officials said. Tata Sky has already signed an agreement with ISRO to lease all the 12 ku-band transponders to provide DTH transmission in India using VSATs.

INSAT system, which was established in 1983, is one of the largest domestic communication satellite systems in the Asia-Pacific region comprising eight satellites - INSAT-2E, INSAT-3A, INSAT-3B, INSAT-3C, INSAT-3E, KALPANA-1, GSAT-2 and EDUSAT - with 150 transponders besides meteorological instruments. INSAT-4A will further argument the INSAT system capacity by adding another 24 transponders to the system and play a significant role in the expansion of DTH services.

Murder of BPO Worker

2005-12-17T19:17:00.000+05:30

This news perhaps was the most shocking one in the recent times among all the happenings. This news together with the hoax call over parliament bomb blast totally covered the major news events on Saturday. But the murder of the BPO worker raised again a question on the security provided by the companies to its night staff in India.

This unfortunate incident happened with a woman employee of the HP Global Contact Center in Bangalore. Prior to this event everything was pretty smooth for this industry where in the work begins when everyone decides to sleep. Timings like 2 AM in the morning are quite usual in this kind of job but the 2 AM of friday turned out to be the last hour for Prathibha belonging to Bangalore.

Pratibha was raped and murdered by the driver of call center which had employed her. The driver it seems had demanded Pratibha to withdraw money from the ATM but Pratibha had declined to do so. Seeing his demand not getting fulfilled he took the cab on a isolated route and then raped Pratibha and finally slit her throat before dumping the body in a pit near Anjanapura Layout. This is a heinous act of crime one can think of. The family members especially the husband of Prathibha who himself works in another BPO was shocked and went into depression after the news of the incident.

This rape and murder of a 28-year-old city woman BPO worker has actually nicked off the "security feel" that existed among the agents community, especially among women employees and their parents. BPO firms say though they have outsourced their logistics requirements to external players, it’s strictly monitored and carefully tabbed to ensure safety.

This incident comes as a major blow to the BPO players in India since this reduces the confidence of employee on employer tremendously in providing good security measures to him/her. Also since most of the BPOs work in night shifts it becomes tough for the companies to shift the women associates into the morning shifts which are very little in number and considering the fact that close to 50 % of the associates consists of women.

Well as BPO centers puts it " We also have to outsouce certain services. Logistics is not our core business and we cannot carry out efficiently without losing focus on the core business". But this incident is an eye opener for all the BPO companies in India. Its better late than never.

Amitabh Bachchan Returns Home

2005-12-17T19:04:00.000+05:30

The Shahenshah is back. This is how most of the portals (Rediff) describe the arrival of Amitabh Bachchan back home.

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan has finally been discharged from Mumbai's Lilavati Hospital on Saturday, where he has been recovering after a successful operation to treat his diverticulitis condition.

Photo shows the superstar coming out of the hospital with his son Abhishek. He looks perfectly fine and doctors have advised him to take rest for some more time.

Huge crowds of fans surrounded the hospital, many travelling extensively just to get a glimpse of the actor.

Before he was discharged, Bachchan made a memorable appearance on the balcony of his 11th floor hospital room. Accompanying him were son Abhishek, daughter Shweta, wife Jaya and close friend Amar Singh. Industrialist Anil Ambani was seen at the hospital earlier in the morning. Amitabh looked down at the gathered media and fans, and waved -- one of those moments where the whole country collectively breathes a sigh of relief; Amitabh Bachchan is all right.

The fans weren't lucky enough to see Bachchan as he was whisked efficiently and discreetly out of the hospital. Rajesh Jadhav, one of the many who had travelled from far corners of Mumbai, said he was very disappointed. "I came early in the morning, and have been standing here for a long time. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity, to see Amitabh Bachchan recovered. I'm heartbroken that I couldn't see him up close."

But this disappointment is shortlived, and the general feeling is one of great relief.

Welcome back, Mr Bachchan.

Corporate Team Outing - 3

2005-12-15T09:23:00.000+05:30

In the past 3 months of joining the respective teams, this is my third corporate team outing. But it was the best of all. The first one was a plain dinner and nothing more than that. The second one happened in Pragati Resorts about which I had already blogged earlier. This time it was a mix of dinner and bowling.

This time the size of the team was big as two teams under one project manager were clubbed for the outing. Here in Polaris it is called as Stream Outing. I am yet to figure out why it is called that way. We went to a place in MPM Mall, Abids called as Knockin which is akin to Alleygator in Secunderabad. It has all the games like snookers, pool, billiards, TT, Bowling Alley and several others. We played three games but unfortunately our team lost. It was my first tryst with Bowling. But it was great fun, since I was the only one in the team to get a Strike. The team spirit among all the people around me was absolutely superb. It made me feel as if I was in TAPMI again. Sreenivas's team won the competition and we finished third.

The next destination for us was the restaurant Palace-Heights in Abids. Its an old restaurant and last time I came here was for the TAPMI alumni party. The food was great and finally the bill was also great. We had a great company this time with Sreenivas, Ravi and Mandadi joining us. It was a mix of people who were laughing like hell and cracking all types of nasty jokes (like me) to the other extent where some people were just enjoying the food to the core. The party ended at 12:10 and by the time I reached home it was 12:30. Inspite of a busy day and load of work on our head we enjoyed the day tremendously. It was really like reliving the TAPMI parties. Perhaps one of the best team outings I had till date.

2006 Football World Cup Groups

2005-12-10T10:10:00.000+05:30

Thirty-two teams that qualified for the 2006 Football World Cup Finals in Germany were on Friday drawn into eight groups.

Group A
Germany, Costa Rica, Poland, Equador

Group B
England, Paraguay, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago

Group C
Argentina, Ivory Coast, Serbia and Montenegro, Holland

Group D
Mexico, Iran, Angola, Portugal

Group E
Italy, Ghana, USA, Czech Republic

Group F
Brazil, Croatia, Australia, Japan

Group G
France, Switzerland, Korea, Togo

Group H
Spain, Ukraine, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia

Bill Gates in India

2005-12-09T12:51:00.000+05:30

Bill Gates is in India after a gap of close to 3 years now. The last time Bill Gates visited India was in the year 2002. But this time his visit created lot of excitement among the politicians and the industry honchos. This post will cover some of the major aspects of his visit, his look towards India as an emerging economy and how is Microsoft scaling up its presence in India under the able leadership of Ravi Venkatesan.

The meeting between Bill Gates and Finance Minister, Mr. P Chidambaram over a breakfast table was perhaps one that got lot of media attention. Bill Gates met the finance minister over the breakfast that was later termed as a Power Breakfast by the media. Chidambaram talked about how the working population in India is growing at a much faster pace when compared to other countries and how this could be a very big advantage for a developing country like us. Bill Gates appreciated India’s progress on the software and computer technology side together with Biology (Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences) and said that we are building world-class institutions in these areas. One of the sentences by Chidambaram was this: “Europe spends more money to support one cow than the per capita income of 100 developing countries. The per capita of European cow is that high”. He also talked about the way countries like Malayasia had built excess capacity that is helping it immensely now. China is doing the same. To this Bill Gates said that he never understood the manufacturing process and hence has no comments to offer but he talked about the manufacturing of X – Box, the gaming console of Microsoft on the lines of Playstation 2 and Nintendo. Microsoft today makes its X – Box entirely out of Guangzhou, China. The reason being all the components are made here. The ports or roads are very good; the other transportation infrastructure is incredible.

After the broadband-based Internet world, the next big thing that will happen according to Bill Gates is the “Talking Computer”. Bill Gates says that computers can’t talk, can’t see, and can’t hear. In next 5-10 years, as per the vision of Bill Gates computers will recognize things, talk like humans and recognize our handwriting and what not. It will be a sort of natural interface unlike the usage of keyboard. Bill Gates believes that Microsoft is in a leading position in this kind of research and hopes to bring the innovation to the people which will change their life.

Some things to ponder about Bill Gates are his idea of most influential thinkers. The most influential books according to Bill Gates are:
Ø Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat”
Ø Jeffery Sach’s “The End of Poverty”
Ø Jack Welch’s “Straight from the Gut”

Microsoft’s vision is to take computer to every home and every desk is not half done as per what he says. He says that Microsoft will continue to innovate and bring the best products for its customers that will bring excitement in their lives.

The most watched programme on television on Tuesday and Wednesday night was the chat between the Infosys Chairman, N R Narayanmurthy and Bill Gates hosted by Prannoy Roy. I happened to watch the second part of this chat. It was an amazing experience to see the two stalwarts talk on various issues relating to India. When Murthy was asked to check his microphone he said the normal 1…2…3… but when Bill Gates was asked to check the microphone he said 1 billion, 2 billion, 3 billion on which the crowd went into laughter burst. The talk between the two was a great one. He said that Google is not following the right business model and soon they will have to change it. He said Google search is not completely free. They earn revenue through advertisement, which they do not share with the people who use their search engine. So in what sense their services are free. He questioned.

The most important and landmark event in the life of Gates was when he got a computer terminal to work at the tender age of 13. When the same question was posed to Murthy he said the major drive to start Infosys in him had arisen out of an unpleasant encounter with the legal authorities in Bulgaria.

On the investment front, Microsoft has said that they will invest 1.7 billion dollars over a period of 3 years in India and will increase the headcount in the country's development centre by 3000. Mostly the MIDC carries out basic research in the field of computing. IBM is the only other company which carries out basic research other than Microsoft.

When asked by one of the audience regarding the qualities a person should possess to achieve success, Gates said the following:
Ø Passion
Ø Intelligence
Ø Integrity

Passion to perform. To do the best possible with limited resources in hand. Intelligence. To understand the subtle points of business. Integrity. To ensure that we understand our boundaries and our limits. All in all, the programme was a delight to watch after a long time.

Politics Again III

2005-12-05T21:05:00.000+05:30

This is the third post in the series of post on the nature of Indian Politicians and their practices which are affecting the people in more ways than one. As I had said earlier, literally there is no area which is spared by the touch of Indian politics. The latest one being the International Film Festival of India.

As per what the reports have come, the government has insulted Megastar Amitabh Bachchan at the Sonia' s behest. I read this news item on Rediff in the morning. Just read the lines below to understand till what extent politics can ruin the society as such.

As per the report Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, was slated to inaugurate the 36th International Film Festival of India at Goa on November 24 as the chief guest. But later he was told by the government to withdraw from the event at the last minute due to his proximity to the Samajwadi Party. This was conveyed to the media by SP leader Amar Singh said in New Delhi on Monday.

Mounting an attack on UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and former Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy for humiliating the superstar, Amar also claimed that Amitabh's health bulletins were initially blocked on Doordarshan under pressure from Sonia and Jaipal.

"It was a great insult to the country's icon when he was prevented from inaugurating the festival after being invited," the SP leader told newspersons while releasing a copy of the invitation letter written to Amitabh by Goa Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane, dated October 26, 2005.

In the Indian Film history's 100 years, 50 years belong to Amitabh Bachchan. And even the IFFI, in which he was denied chief guest status, the Indian retrospective was dominated by his films. If the government is so against Amitabh Bachchan, it should stop holding such film festivals.

Amar alleged that Jaipal was trying to "humiliate" Amitabh at the behest of the Congress president. "Mr Reddy has a history of attacking Amitabh to please his political masters," he said, adding, "I do not want to get involved in the Amitabh-Congress relations, but since the Samajwadi Party was also named in the reasons told to Amitabh for withdrawal of the invitation to inaugurate the IFFI, I had to cite some facts,"

Amar said while Amitabh's wife Jaya Bachchan was an active member of the Samajwadi Party, the superstar was not a member of any party. "The issue of keeping away Amitabh from the film festival was raised in Parliament and the media has also been carrying such reports, but the government is quiet. If the government would have tried to clarify its position, even if falsely, some benefit of the doubt would have been given. The silence is reinforcing reports about the treatment to the actor because of his relations with the Samajwadi party.

"The petty attitude of those sitting at high places was exposed by the way Doordarshan treated the news regarding his illness. When the whole country was praying for his health and people were glued to TV sets for any information about the actor, the national channel totally blocked any news about his health," he claimed.

It was only after Priyaranjan Dasmunshi took over as the Information and Broadcsating Minister that Doordarshan started telecasting his health bulletins, he added.

Amitabh Bachchan is Unwell

2005-12-01T09:08:00.000+05:30

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan is not well. 63 years old Legendary actor of the Hindi Cinema known worldwide as the BBC Star of the Millenium has suffered from the intestinal infection which resulted in swelling of the Large intestine, a condition called as Colitis.

On 28th November, Amitabh Bachchan complained of a mild stomach disorder in Delhi and got admitted into Escorts Hospital. There the leading cardiologist and Director of Escorts Naresh Trehan said that the Bachchan's illness is nothing but a normal irritation of the intestine. Bachchan came to the hospital with the problems of pain in the abdomen and after the required treatment he was discharged. Soon after he landed in Mumbai he was admitted into the Leelavati Hospital on monday night.

Seeing his condition the doctors advised him to get operated and he underwent a surgery on evening of November 30. Now 63 year old Bachchan is in the intensive care unit and his condition is seen as stable. He was operated on by gastro-intestinal surgeon Dr P Jagganath of Leelavati Hospital.

It was reported that the nearly three-hour operation for the infection, inflammation and perforation in the small and large intestine was successful. A team of surgeons also removed some old tissues which were the remnants of the injury the actor had sustained during the shooting of film Coolie in 1982.He will remain under observation for the next 24 hours.

Meanwhile all this happening got an extensive media coverage. The first family of bollywood was absolutely silent on the issue and did not attempt to make a hue and cry out of it. Even Amitabh Bachchan told people that he is fine and his health is secondary when compared to other issues which the nation needs to take care of. Almost all the news channel covered minute by minute news of Amitabh's illness and it became the headlines in most of the news papers shadowing the news of SENSEX crossing 9000.

I wish Amitabh Bachchan, my idol, a speedy recovery and hope that god gives him enough strength to perform and enthrall audiences in future.

Trip to Delhi, Noida , Meerut and the Re.1 Air Ticket

2005-11-29T13:00:00.000+05:30

After quite some time close to 45 days, I got an opportunity to spend my weekend out of my hometown. This was a dream break actually for me. The purpose of this break was to attend Souveer’s wedding. He is the first one in our batch of 2003-2005 of TAPMI to get married and with his marriage I believe the wedding season for quite a number of them has began.

I took leave on Friday from the office which is no big deal keeping in mind the work I have. Also the highlight of this trip is my Re. 1 ticket. You are right and I have not mistyped in any way. Re 1 Air Ticket courtesy one and only Air Deccan. It was a great moment when I got the Re 1 ticket because I had booked the earlier ticket for Rs. 3995 so this comes out to be dirt-cheap. The flight was at morning 6:00 am so the last night’s sleep was reduced to only 3.5 hours keeping in mind my daily schedule of sleep.

In the flight, close to my seat there was a lady sitting. She should be in her 60s, as I believe. She was part of the marriage party, which was traveling from Hyderabad to Delhi, but she was unaware of the price of the ticket. So she did the mistake of asking me the price of the ticket and when I told her that it is Re. 1, she went into a shock. I thought she would get heartache there but somehow she controlled the excitement. The journey was smooth, the flight being an AIRBUS unlike an ATR, which Deccan usually operates in other routes.

I reached Delhi at 7:40 itself 10 minutes before the scheduled time of 7:50. View of Lotus Temple from a very high elevation was very good. The autowallahs of Delhi are not better than the Chennai autowallahs because the Chennai ones are really worst of all. I believed one autowallah and asked him to drop me to bus stop where I can catch a bus to Noida. But this crooked autowallah dropped me in RK Puram which was close to 7 Km from Nehru Place where I will get the buses to Noida. So after waiting for close to 45 minutes in RK Puram, I asked one gentleman about the bus to Noida. Pat came the reply: No buses from here go to Nehru Place and catch from there. So I took the bus to Nehru place and then from there got into a Bus to Noida making another mistake here. I did not remember the sector which shetty said to me and just got into the bus asking him whether it would go to Sector 26 or not. The bus drivers in Delhi have this problem. Even if your stop is close to 2 KM from the place where from the bus passes, the bus conductor will tell you that he is going to drop you exactly the place you want to get down to. So somehow after struggling for close to 1 hour in the bus, I got down at Kailash Hospital and met shetty and then reached his house.

Shetty’s flat is good much better when compared to the flats of the rest of my batchmates. In the afternoon then we had the delicious lunch typical Delhi types. I slept in the afternoon for about 2.5 hours and in the evening then Raj and Venkat joined us. We had booked a Taxi to Meerut. We started our journey to Meerut at about 6:25 from Noida. It took us close to 3.5 hours to cover the 67 Km stretch, which is by all standards very high even in the worst of the traffic jams. The main trouble was to locate the hall in the town. Somehow we managed to reach the hall and met both Shanbag and Tandon for the first time after Convocation.

Souveer’s Marriage was one big event. The food was exquisite covering all the possible varieties one can think about. Right from Chat Items, Dosas, Variety of Curries, Rice Items and Desserts, it had all the ingredients to satisfy anyone. We did not have dinner to the extent we should have had but then it was all about meeting Souveer rather than having food or drinks. The marriage ended at about 2:30 am in the morning and Souveer looked very much satisfied and elated. We started back for Noida from Meerut due to some unforeseen events and reached Noida at about 3:55 AM. The weather was really cold out there; temperature was in single digit as far as I could make out. Then the baker session was on for us from 4:00 till 6:00 and then we slept at about 6:15 in the morning. Fully tired.

In the morning we went out to have the staple breakfast of Delhi. Chole bature. Oh god they were amazing really. The last time I had Chole Bature was in April 2004. So this was a good break for me. In the late morning also some good news landed for me. Afternoon we went to the Noida Market for some time pass. Had lunch at McDonalds.

Evening I started back for the NDLS from Noida and saw the majestic structure of Akshardham Temple. The site was magnificent and really pleasing to the eyes. The train’s departure was at the scheduled time but the rush was too much. My co-passengers were carrying so much of luggage that it literally blocked the way to get out of that cabin. The characters in the compartment were really fascinating and describing them here would take pages. Notable was the 7th class school going kid. He ensured all the 25 hours of the journey that no one is able to sit on his Window seat and his mother, do not even ask.

This trip goes as one of the most memorable ones in the recent past.

Restopub

2005-11-25T20:48:00.000+05:30

The hitech culture of IT industry can give rise to any type of jargon even in our everyday life. I was not knowing that Business As Usual is called as BAU till I joined Polaris. EOD refers to end of day but there is nothing called as SOD. Perhaps the reason being that people prefer EOD more than SOD in any company.

The title of this post is a composite word which comes from two normal english words widely heard in our circle. By now one must have guessed the two words. The first one is Restaurant and the second one is Pub. So stylishly the word has been formed as Restopub. This actually refers to a place which happens to be a restaurant as well as a pub.

Today we went for lunch to a place called as Twister near HiTech City here in Madhapur. There I spotted this trendy name "RESTOPUB". Ofcourse the inside environment does not really look like a restaurant at all by any standards. The place was ideal for drinks only and not for having food as I see it.

Ofcourse one must look at the crowd on a friday afternoon in any one of these restaurants. One cannot get a table without waiting for close to an hour atleast. The crowd consists of people belonging to all the top notch IT companies situated in that area. For the matter of fact those are the set of people the restaurant targets. The age group between 21-25 which is extremely cash rich just like their companies. A normal buffet cost close to Rs. 160 which is much higher by any standards.

Race for Perfection has no Finish Line

2005-11-24T20:31:00.000+05:30

As the time change, numerous things change. We all move in a sine wave fashion seeing the ups and downs in our lives. Sometimes good things come first and not so good things come after that. But at certain point in time bad things come first and then the good things start surfacing out slowly. In these situations its our level of perseverance which can help us come out of it. Thinking that problems are really problems and there cannot be any solution to these is a thought which can take one no where excepting near failure.

The desire to succeed is there in every individual whether he is a school going child or a CEO of a multinational. This desire to succeed actually fires the imagination in us and allows us to perform the impossible sometimes. Impossible is nothing. I believe very firmly in this phrase. With dedication, determination, integrity and a strong will one can achieve anything in his/her life. The passion for excellence stimulates the thought process producing extraordinary results. This passion for excellence is the key to success.

A positive attitude towards life is one of the foremost step's one needs to keep in mind before really moving forward to achieve something. A negative attitude towards anything in life will never help us. Positive attitude coupled with a focused thought towards learning new things in life is what the leaders say over and over again.

Perfection has no limits. One can improve ones skill over and over again. There is no point when one can say that "yes I am there" and "I have arrived". A zeal to perform better over and over again is what the race for perfection is all about. What is takes to come out as a High Performer is not a simple job. Endless efforts, single minded dedication towards the goal and close attention to the details make you stand out of the crowd.

A High Performer stands out in a set of people. Whether it is an organization, sports or politics, a high performer sets standards for others to follow and provides a way to others. This high performance comes in after lot of efforts. A high performer is a high growth individual for the organization who can help it to go places and ensure that the competitive advantage of organization sustains in the long term.

It takes a ton to prove oneself but once proven it takes a double ton to keep up that reputation and stature. In an ever changing and highly competitive scenario only a distinct individual with the characteristics of high performer will survive. Setting limits to one self would only restrict the growth of the individual and thereby the performance.

Set unmatchable standards. Think beyond the obvious. Put precision in work. Bring quality to life. Stretch yourself. Exceed the limits. Have the passion for excellence. And. Contribute to your growth.

Because

The Race for Perfection has no Finish Line.

Peter Drucker is no more

2005-11-14T09:00:00.000+05:30

One of the foremost management thinkers in the business community, Peter Drucker is no more. He was 95. Being a management student, I heard of Peter Drucker in two contexts, Marketing and Strategy.

Peter Drucker ideas deeply shaped the way business community used to work and modern corporation used to run. Known as the father of modern management died out of prolonged illness.

In his life time Peter Drucker authored close to 35 books on management which became hall mark among the management community. The landmark ones are : The concept of the corporation (1946), The Practice of Management (1954) and The effective executive (1964). These became standard at the business schools throughout the world and serve as a standard reference for any one aiming to understand strategy.

He emphasized that, rather than being a machine, the modern corporation was an organization of human beings whose management and interaction are crucial to the business' success.
That and subsequent books garnered Drucker a reputation as a "futurist" in the business world, a person who read before anyone else the trends and needs of business and the economy.

Peter Drucker coined the term "Knowledge Worker" about a decade back and said that these are the people who will be at the forefront of any organization and contribute to its success. Also the term "Management by Objectives" coined by him took a front seat when deciding control systems for an organization in the 21st century.

In the early 1950s, when other business leaders figured the worldwide market for computers was in the single digits, he predicted that computer technology would thoroughly transform business. In 1961, he alerted his followers to the rise of Japan as an industrial power, and two decades later, he warned of its impending economic stagnation. In 1997, he predicted a backlash to burgeoning executive pay, saying, "In the next economic downturn, there will be an outbreak of bitterness and contempt for the super-corporate chieftains who pay themselves millions."

To sum it up Mckinsey Quarterly described Peter Drucker as the management guru to whom other gurus kowtow.

Credit Card vs. Debit Card

2005-11-12T23:26:00.000+05:30

This post is dedicated to a topic on which I was planning to put down my thoughts for quite some time. But again due to lack of time and other more interesting stories, I could not pen it down. The interest to write on this topic also increased when I saw this particular question in the Open Spaces column of Times of India.

We will begin with the basic definition of a debit card. A debit card is a ISO 7810 card which physically resembles a credit card, and, like a credit card, is used as an alternative to cash when making purchases. However, when purchases are made with a debit card, the funds are withdrawn directly from the purchaser's bank account. A debit card is generally of two types - offline debit card which requires signature while you are paying and an online debit card which requires a separate keypad at the point of sale where one inputs the Debit pin number. Let us look at the advantages of a debit card

An easy and hassle free way of paying without usage of cash
No need of any cheques etc.
Convenient way of withdrawing money from ATM at any point of time at any place
Protects one from any kind of cheque defaults or any frauds
Ensures payment guarantee to the counterparty

A credit card is a ISO 7810 standard card similar to a debit card in size and shape. Credit card system is a type of retail transaction settlement and credit system, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. A credit card is different from a debit card in that the credit card issuer lends the consumer money rather than having the money removed from an account. This means that one gets the funds for a certain period of time which is known as the credit period. The account does not get debited as it happens in case of a debit card.

Now let us look at some of the advantages of a credit card

A very safe alternative to cash just like a debit card
No need of any cash in your wallet
Helps to deal with emergency situations when you do not have enough funds in your account
Short term credit instrument and allows to withdraw money from any ATMs as designated on the credit card
Allows better utilization of money in terms of placing it in a more profitable place
A normal credit period of 50 days for any amount depending on the individual. This allows us to pay back the money at a later period of time.

If we look at the general view of people in India about credit cards, its very biased. In terms of plastic money credit cards were introduced much before the debit or ATM cards came into picture. Usually a credit card is considered to be a dangerous instrument to use by many people looking at the current scenario and the cases which are running because of the credit card frauds in the courts.

Credit card as presented above is not a sweet pill to take. It involves lot of other addendum to it which people may overlook while in a hurry to get one. Some of the them are the Annual Fee, the Life Insurance premium which is coming with all the cards now and other taxes etc. Its also important to study the credit card monthly statement which also involves a catch with it. Normally if we spend let us say 10000 in a month and then the statement comes with all our transactions, there is a small heading at the end which says minimum payment due. This is generally 5 % of the total transaction amount. If we pay up only this amount by the due date and do not pay the rest, then 2.95 % finance charge will be levied on the rest of the amount. This makes the finance charge of close to 36 % per annum and is by all standards very high. This is one main point we need to keep in mind while transacting using a credit card. Another one is the cheque bounce. Once your cheque bounces for a credit card payment, it becomes very difficult than to transact on the card. But with the help of internet banking the need for cheque seems to be going away.

Having said all the above, here is the parting shot. Credit card can be your maker or breaker depending on the way you use it. What you choose to do with it is entirely up to you. Tempting as it might be, there is a huge downside to credit card, which is you OWE money to someone else! And if you know you can't pay back what you owe, don't pay in the first place. There is nothing like buying what you want with your honest hard earned money. At the end of the day those are the things that make you smile because they are truly yours.

Thoughts

2005-11-07T11:33:00.000+05:30

Miss: What r u doing today?

Mr. : Me just figuring out what to do now no mood of working yaar

Miss: When r u in a good mood?

Mr. : I am have become very finicky now these days, one day I will be in a nice mood the other day everything goes away and I try to start from scratch

Miss: now its u who has become unpredictable

Mr. : perhaps after becoming your friend the side effects will come

Miss: that’s a nice way to pass on the blame

Mr. : obviously I was not like this some time ago

Miss: oh?? Then u mean to say that I am responsible for your present state??

Mr. : I never said that. The situations around me make me behave in such a manner

Miss: I think that u have a negative approach to things and that even small setbacks affect you a lot

Mr. : yes you are on the dot. Very small things can literally shatter my confidence and thoughts

Miss: Thats bad. Because people have setbacks. All the time you can’t keep brooding on them and let one small thing affect other more important things in life

Mr. : perhaps I am trying to fight this out somehow but do not know when it will go

Miss: first of all you have to stop thinking that you are responsible for whatever is happening in your life. There are certain things beyond our control. Accept it and try to react normally to setbacks

Mr. : but what does normally mean should we not bother about them or what

Miss: bothering is something that everyone does. But one setback isn’t the end of life. You will always have a lot of other opportunities coming your way. So be positive.

Mr. : My only problem is the way I look at the things if they do not work out I think I have not done perfectly and I am useless

Miss: the first thing that u need to understand is no one is perfect and no one gets everything that he/she wants form life

Mr. : I am not asking for everything but what I deserve that's it nothing more but nothing less also the Judgment is perhaps wrong in thinking what I deserve

Miss: there is nothing wrong in having ambitions. But you should be able to understand that if everyone got What he wanted then there would be no problems at all in this world.

Mr. : probably u r right sometimes I think I am too ambitious is it wrong

Miss: there is nothing wrong in being ambitious. Every person is ambitious. In fact I believe you need to have ambitions to survive. But the attitude that it’s the end of the world if you are not able to fulfill one of them is wrong. you know you have the ability then you bother about small things???

Mr. : yes, I have started doubting my abilities now actually which is a new fear

Miss: why such a doubt???

Mr. : well there are a few things, which I am not able to achieve off late

Miss: may be u r worrying about the irrelevant things

Mr. : do not know yaar leave it I am worrying you too much with my thoughts

Miss: negative thoughts wont do you any good. I guess u need to come out of this

Mr. : ok how do I do that?

Miss: that’s not for me to suggest. I cannot make you do that. First of all you need to decide that

you won’t be bothered too much about setbacks. Accept that its normal for everyone to have some and one main thing that you need to remind yourself is that no one is perfect. That doesn’t mean that you should lower your targets for yourself but be more realistic about life.

Mr. : sounds good yaar nice one

Miss: that was not for getting compliments from u.

My iPod

2005-11-03T17:41:00.001+05:30

Well my quest for gadgets continues. Here is the photo of my new iPod or should I call it a vPod. It’s a fifth generation iPod that can play videos as well and has a LCD screen unlike the older versions. The older versions of iPod spot a black screen just like a Nokia 3310 whereas the new versions like the fifth generation iPod spot a color screen just like Nokia 7610.

The first generation of iPod could play only music. Then the 3rd and the 4th generation had the option of viewing photos. With the option of video also added, iPod becomes a true multimedia device with all the options one can ask for.

As a precursor, I thought of putting some stuff on iPod also. So here it is. iPod is a brand of portable digital audio and video player designed and marketed by Apple Computer. Devices in the iPod family offer a simple user interface designed around a central scroll wheel. Most iPod models store media on a built-in hard drive, while the smaller iPod shuffle and iPod nano use flash memory. Like most digital audio players, an iPod can serve as an external data storage device when connected to a computer.

The bundled software used for uploading music and photos to the iPod is called iTunes. iTunes is a music 'jukebox' application that stores a comprehensive library of the music on a computer, as well as playing and ripping it. The most recent incarnations of iPod , that is the vPod and iTunes have video playing and organization features.

The reason why Apple attaches an “i” before each of its product range is the positive effect which the company is experiencing on its sales. Media has named it the igeneration of products which they say will have far reaching effect on the culture.

Well my iPod is a 30 GB capacity which can play mp3, aac,wav and other normal formats of music but not the real media format. In terms of video there is real big problem with iPod. It supports the following formats only:

H.264 video
File formats: .m4v, .mp4 and .mov
Video: Up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to
Level 1.3
Audio: AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 KHz, stereo audio

MPEG-4 video
File formats: .m4v, .mp4 and .mov
Video: Up to 2.5 Mbps, 480 x 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile Audio: AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 KHz, stereo audio

I know above would be bouncers for all but that is the only format iPod supports. QuickTime 7.0.3 converts the normal videos into iPod videos but takes close to 1 hour for converting a 6 MB movie file. But the quality is very good on par with the DVD video. I think the problem of video conversion needs to be resolved at the earliest to ensure that vPod kicks.
The fifth generation iPod is about 40 times thinner than the original 4th generation iPod.

Some history about iPOD. Tony Fadell first conceived the iPod outside Apple. When he demonstrated his idea to Apple, the company hired him as an independent contractor to bring his project to the market, putting him in charge of assembling the team that developed the first two generations of the device. Apple's Industrial Design Group, working under the direction of Jonathan Ive designed the subsequent incarnations.

Apple originally released the iPod on October 23, 2001 as a Mac-compatible product, but the company later released a format compatible with Microsoft Windows, before finally releasing a Windows version of the iTunes software that updates the iPod. As of October 2004, iPod dominated digital music player sales in the United States, with over 90% of the market for hard-drive-based players and over 70% of the market for all types of players. The iPod has sold at a tremendous rate, now past 30 million units in about four years. Apple has posted that the iPod has a "halo effect", encouraging users of non-Apple products to switch to other Apple products, such as to Macintosh computers

All in all iPod is worth its value. The vPod was released in India on 26th of October but I got it from USA on 25th itself where it was released on 15th and was being sold at the normal iPod price of $299. The sound clarity, the picture quality and the Apple click wheel really give the feeling that yes iPOD is worth the money.

Well if any one is looking for a mobile mp3 player do not go for any thing else like the mp3 players in mobile phones or other mp3 players. Nothing can beat iPod. Just nothing.

Google Your Career

2005-11-02T14:43:00.000+05:30

Google was started by two geeky youngsters from Stanford University -- its beginning is legendary. I heard it from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ram Shriram. Shriram had made his fortune working with start-ups like Junglee and Netscape. Thereafter, he decided to become an angel investor. On one of his visits to Stanford to catch up with professor Jeff Ullman, he met the two Google co-founders. The professor told Shriram that he should be backing these two young men. Despite the existence of the concept of internet-based search engines, there was something unusual here. Shriram and Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun, were willing to listen to the professor and took out their cheque books. It was then that everyone realised that the two youngsters did not even have a company name, much less a bank account. On the spot, they thought of the name 'Google' and Shriram filled the 'to payee' column accordingly. The rest is history. Google became a great IPO success, is meeting profit projections and has already become a Wall Street darling. I like the way the company raised itself to industry leadership. I think it has huge lessons for working professionals who could take a leaf or two from the Google story to build their own careers.

To begin with, Google built itself on a solid value proposition and took a uniquely differentiated position. It provided value to the world before demanding any value for itself. It served until the world became dependent on it. It created value by meeting the unstated needs of unseen customers. That is a sure way, though a more difficult one, to win. It did not fear incumbency. So what if there were established large players who could have eaten Google for breakfast? Finally, Google persevered. It wasn't an overnight success story. These are elements that build memorable professional careers as well. But wait, I haven't told you the real secret sauce of their success, yet.

Google started as a search engine. You typed in keywords and it looked through millions of pages all over the world's far-flung servers and reported what matched your needs. As time went by, they tried to make the search process more intelligent, more intuitive. They did not stop with that. When millions of people came to them with their search queries, they added the now famous 'gmail' to their basket of products -- virtually unlimited storage, with no need to delete anything, more intuitive organisation of all your communication needs. What next at Google? I meet industry analysts who tell me that the next great wave of computing could come in the form of 'service on demand' from Google. You want to process your payroll? You want to print invoices and file tax returns? You want to manage your inventory? You will probably just go to Google and use any of these applications for a fraction of what it costs to own a software that does these sorts of things today. This may or may not turn out to be the state of the future. But, what is undeniable is the fact that Google will remain a force to contend with in the days ahead.

Now think of your career and mine. If we can be compared to Google, the question becomes, what new value have you and I added of late? I meet many folks who started out in sales, and have grown up over time to manage larger territories and bigger accounts. I meet engineers who started in production or information systems or planning, and kept growing in a linear manner 'managing' essentially more of the same as years went by. Will this model work in the future? The answer is a short 'no'.

We may all choose to become a generalist, a specialist, remain an individual professional contributor, be a manager or a leader or whatever else we want. But in any of those, one must be sure to question periodically, "What new service offering do I have to offer to the world around me? Do I deliver it after someone has asked for it or am I pre-investing in building the capability?" Just as Google needs to create new value for its users constantly, as professionals, we can't just be the best search engine and stay put. People who just continue to deliver the same good old stuff, cease to be interesting to the world around them after a while. I like people to look at their careers as five-year spans. Every five-year span is usually populated by two major assignments.

Usually, we think of these assignments in terms of roles, job-descriptions, responsibilities, span of control, location and of course, compensation. It is time to take a leaf out of Google's book. We need, periodically, to do a Google to our careers to create unusual new value and stay the favourite.

"This article appeared in Business Times Oct 28, 2005. Its written by Subroto Bagchi, Co-founder and chief operating officer at Mind Tree Consulting. "

Happy Diwali

2005-11-01T17:21:00.000+05:30

Today is diwali. Festival of lights. A Beginning of a new year for the businessmen. After a gap of nearly 2 years I am celebrating diwali at home. The last two years in TAPMI were different kind of diwali and not the typical one which you will experience at home or perhaps somewhere else. It used to happen in Boat Club and usually ended up being other party. I need not mention what kind of party it turned out to be.

I have made a special greeting for this occasion which I have sent to my near and dear. I wish all the people around me, My parent's, relatives, colleagues, Engg friends, TAPMI batchmates, My Guru (Prof. S Subrahamaniyam), faculty at TAPMI and ofcourse my newly found friends at Polaris, A Very Happy Diwali and a prosperous new year.

Politics Again II

2005-10-29T19:39:00.000+05:30

This is the second article in the series "Politics Again". This time something really serious unlike the act of Mr. Devegowda in case of BIAL. We all know very well the stand of communist party in India (Marxist) in case of Unionism and labor laws. Very recently the CPI (M) top leaders came out with a statement saying that dilution of labor laws will not be entertained under any circumstances in the IT industry.

Now I was wondering suddenly how come such a thought has come into minds of these people. Without any base and any logic or reasoning, the CPI (M) leaders Sitaram Yechury and West bengal chief minister Budhadheb Bhattaharya are now raising the issue that IT services and IT Industry in total be included in the essential services category. They are saying that labor laws must be upheld in the IT sector.

If we look at the way the labor rights have been structured in India its basically for the services which are essential. The essential services are the ones like water, power, milk and hospitals. Now the major question which comes into the picture is that whether we can categories IT services as a essential service or a money making service.

But a few days before, CPI(M) said that the Business Process Outsourcing and information technology sectors could be exempted from disruption by strike activity, if these are linked to essential or vital services. At the same time, it has defended the right of employees in the IT and IT-enabled sectors to form unions and carry out collective bargaining.

This all actually began with a report prepared by the V V Giri National Institute of Labor which describes the condition as follows :"The degree of surveillance required at work is even comparable with situations of nineteenth century prisons or Roman slave ships'' and the human resource (HR) managers' task is "camouflaging work as fun''. This report was sent to Kiran Karnik, the NASSCOM president.

Seeing the present condition in the IT and the BPO industry it is clearly evident that such a resolution is of absolutely no need and is a way to implement the useless and oldie ideas of Marxism which are of no value in the knowledge industry. Being from the IT Industry, I know the kind of work conditions which the companies provide whether they are Indian or an MNC. Airconditioned environment, flexible workhours, best salaries among all the counterparts are some of the features of IT Industry. The number of jobs created by the industry itself over the past few years is the best example of its HR Policies. Take any campus, take any institute the student's first choice is a IT company only. IT industry has put India on the worldmap with Indian companies becoming truly global and signing deals which companies like IBM or Accenture used to sign. Why the people from IT industry would be interested in doing strikes or forming unions is a major question ? As Mr. Bhasin of GENPACT says "Unions were unnecessary because each grievance was given a hearing but maintained that strict work discipline was required."

Infosys is now Sarbanes Oxley Compliant

2005-10-29T18:46:00.000+05:30

On October 24, 2005, Infosys Technologies announced that its Sarbanes Oxley Section 404 compliant. This is yet another feather in the cap of Infosys Technologies which is growing leaps and bounds in the area of IT services and outsourcing. With this compliance, Infosys becomes one of the earliest foreign filers to have achieved this milestone. Infosys reached this milestone well ahead of 31st March 2007 deadline for the foreign filers.

The unique thing about this news is the attention that Infosys Technologies had drawn among the media. I have seen for the first time an Indian company to comply with the SOX act. I searched for the info on more Indian companies but could not get any.

In its quarterly report on Form 6-K filed with the United States' Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on October 21, 2005, the company management has assessed internal control over financial reporting with effect from September 30, 2005. The independent auditors, KPMG, evaluated and independently verified management's assessment and issued an unqualified opinion. The assessment was performed voluntarily under the SOX Act, which requires company management to assess and report on company's internal controls over financial reporting.

Infosys known for its corporate governance and financial reporting standards has proved yet again that when it comes to transparency and ethics in the business, It will stand out as the leader and set an example for others to follow. Infosys has won numerous awards in the area of financial reporting notably the ICAI award for the best annual report for 10 consecutive years.

For the people who have no clue of what Sarbanes Oxley is and the related sections. Here is a quick review.

Sarbanes Oxley or SOX as it is called in short is a landmark legislation passed by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the USA for the companies listed on the US Stock exchanges. SOX has numerous sections in it but the section which has got the most attention is the 404. In the first phase of SOX the listed companies have to comply with Sec 404 which Infosys Technologies has achieved. Sec 404 says that Management should assess its Internal controls strictly and ensure that the controls which affect the financial reporting are taken care. Also it says that Top Management like the CEO of the company should sign the annual financial statements of the company and hence be liable for any discrepancy in the same. The reason why Sarbanes Oxley has come into light is because of the increasing amount of corporate scandals and accounting frauds happening in the US and European markets. The best ones are the Enron and Parmalat. Enron lead to the collapse of one of the Big Accounting firm Arthur and Anderson. Parmalat is termed as the European version of Enron.

RBI Midterm Review of Annual Policy

2005-10-26T16:45:00.000+05:30

On 25 October 2005, RBI announced its mid term review of annual policy 2005-2006. With a raised forecast for the GDP growth rate this year coupled with some other forward looking statements, the announcement by Y V Reddy turned out to be a boon for the stock market with the markets performing bullishly. Sensex ended close to 1 % up after the announcement.

Usually I keep the PDF of the policy statement but this time I thought that will post some of the highlights of the policy here on the blog. Here they are

Upward Revision in the Gross Domestic Product growth for 2005-06 to 7.0-7.5 from 7.0 %
The Bank rate was kept unchanged at 6.0 %.
The reverse repo rate was hiked by quarter percentage point to 5.25 per cent. This was necessary to keep the year-end inflation within the 5.0-5.5 per cent projection made in April. The repo rate was changed from 6.0 tp 6.25 %
The banks' exposure to capital market raised to 20 % of their net worth from the 10 % earlier on a consolidated basis.
Annual inflation receded from 6.0 % in April 2005 to 4.6 % in October 2005.
Inflation will continue to be in the projected range of 5.0 -5.5 %.
Foreign exchange reserves stood at US$ 143.4 billion as on October 14, 2005, increasing from US$ 141.5 billion as at end-March 2005.
CRR remains unchanged at 5.0 %.
The Reserve Bank has constituted a new department named as Financial Markets Department (FMD) in July 2005 with a view to moving towards functional separation between debt management and monetary operations.

Ben Bernanke - New Fed Chairman

2005-10-25T12:10:00.000+05:30

After a gap of 18 years, the Federal Reserve Bank is going to have a new chairman. U.S. President George W. Bush nominated top White House economic adviser Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board on Monday to succeed the near-legendary Alan Greenspan.

It was the third time in as many years the president had turned to the 51-year-old Bernanke for a sensitive post. Bush named him to the Fed board in 2002, then made him chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers earlier this year.

The appointment is subject to Senate confirmation, and Bush called for swift action.

Greenspan, who became chairman in 1987, completes his term as chairman on Jan. 31. By naming a successor more than three months in advance, Bush appeared to be trying to clear the path for a smooth transition.

Whatever the Senate's reaction, U.S. investors liked what they heard. Stocks rose as word of Bernanke's appointment circulated in advance of the presidential announcement.

Ben has done path-breaking work in the field of monetary policy, taught advanced economics at some of our top universities, and served with distinction on the Fed's Board of Governors.

For nearly two decades, Chairman Greenspan shepherded the US economy through its highs and its lows. Under his steady chairmanship, the United States economy has come through a stock market crash, financial crises, from Mexico to Asia, two recessions, corporate scandals, and shocks ranging from devastating natural disasters to a terrorist attack in the heart of America's financial center.

Bernanke has a reputation as a straight-talking economist and a Republican who avoids telegraphing any ideology. At the Fed, Bernanke has pushed for the central bank to be more specific in its inflation objectives; Greenspan has opposed setting a numerical target.

A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard University in 1975, Bernanke received his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979. During his years in Boston, he focused on the economic underpinnings of the Great Depression and the losing track record of the city's beloved baseball team, the Red Sox.

"Economics is a very difficult subject," Bernanke once said. "I've compared it to trying to learn how to repair a car when the engine is running."

"The content of this post has been modified and reproduced from the Moscow Times"

My New Mobile - Nokia 7610

2005-10-24T15:10:00.000+05:30

This post is about my new mobile which I got after a gap of nearly 2 year. Actually I never purchased mobile specifically for my use. At home, we had two instruments one with dad and other with my brother, which sometimes I also used. This time I decided that I am going to buy the mobile which I wanted right from the time it first came into the market. The mobile is now in my hands. Nokia 7610.

Nokia 7610 is the 76 series of mobile phones which have a peculiar shape with smooth corners. The best thing about this mobile is the design which I like the most. The camera in this mobile is 1 Megapixel and takes good clarity photos. I took close to 20 photographs yesterday in the NTR Garden and Birla Temple and they are equivalent to the digital camera photos in terms of quality and resolution. The phone has a 64 MB memory card which is actually customized to the Nokia 76 family. The phone has all the features which one can find in the phones available in the market.

The phone has a Symbian 7.0 Operating system which is the open Standard operating system licensed by the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers. It's specifically designed for phones by providing a robust multitasking kernel, integrated telephony support, communications protocols, data management, and advanced graphics support. The phone in terms of accessories provides a USB cable, a 64 MB card, Adobe Photoalbum CD, Hands free and other stuff which we get in normal mobile phones.

Nokia 7610 comes with number of bundled software's like Java, Movie Director, RealOne Player, LifeBlog, Opera 7.0 browser, Snapshot and Ulead Photoexpress. With the Bluetooth connectivity Nokia 7610 allows to communicate with devices like computers, printers and scanners within 10 m of distance.

Encased in fashionable dual-tone ruby and onyx-colored covers, the slim and stylish Nokia 7610 offers quick and convenient capturing, printing, storing and sending of photo-quality images and videos. Digital imaging has developed in ways that were unimaginable when digital cameras first entered the mainstream only five years ago. With the introduction of the 7610, Nokia's first megapixel imaging device, capturing spontaneous print-quality images no longer requires a separate camera.

Nokia 7610 is like a wish come true for me. My Nokia 7610, My Life.

Email Turns 34

2005-10-23T09:13:00.000+05:30

It's difficult to pin down the exact origin of email, but in October 1971, an engineer named Ray Tomlinson chose the '@' symbol for email addresses and wrote software to send the first network email.At the time, it must not have seemed very important – nobody bothered to save that first message or even record the exact date. I've always thought that it would be fun to witness a little bit of history like that – to be there when something important happened. That's part of what drove me to join a little no-name startup named Google, and it's why I was excited when I was given a chance to create a new email product, now called Gmail.

Of course that wasn't the only reason why I wanted to build Gmail. I rely on email, a lot, but it just wasn't working for me. My email was a mess. Important messages were hopelessly buried, and conversations were a jumble; sometimes four different people would all reply to the same message with the same answer because they didn't notice the earlier replies. I couldn't always get to my email because it was stuck on one computer, and web interfaces were unbearably clunky. And I had spam. A lot of it.

With Gmail I got the opportunity to change email – to build something that would work for me, not against me.We had a lot of ideas, but first we spent a lot of time talking to all kinds of people about their email. They let us watch over their shoulders and helped us really understand how they use email and what they need from it. We didn't want to simply bolt new features onto old interfaces. We needed to rethink email, but at the same time we needed to respect that email already had over 30 years of history, thousands of existing programs, and nearly a billion users.

So we started by learning which features were most important, and which problems were most aggravating. We also realized that solving everyone's problems was too big of a challenge for the first release. It would be better to build a product that a lot of people love, than one that everyone tolerates, and so that was our goal.On April 1, 2004, we rolled out the first release of Gmail. It immediately became known for giving away 1000 MB of storage, while the others only offered 4 MB, as they had for many years. We didn't do that just for the attention (although we certainly got our share). It's just part of our philosophy. We always want to do as much as we can for our users, and so if we can make something free, we will.But storage was only the most obvious difference, and our other improvements were just as important. Gmail included a quick and accurate search. It introduced powerful new concepts to organize email, such as the conversation view (so now I can finally see all those replies at once). It provided a fast and dynamic interface from web browsers everywhere, popularizing the techniques that have since become known as AJAX.This interface included many important features not commonly found on the web at that time, such as email address auto-completion, a slick spell-checker, keyboard shortcuts, and pages that update instantly. It included a smart spam filter to get rid of junk mail.

Finally, we made an important new promise: you can keep your Gmail address and all of your email, even if you someday decide that Gmail is not for you. Cell phone owners already have the right to keep their old phone number when switching to a new provider, and you should have that same freedom with email. To ensure this freedom, Gmail provides, for free, both email forwarding and POP download of all your mail. Many services are now beginning to include other Gmail innovations; we hope that some day they will also be willing to include this one.Of course, the launch was just the beginning, and we're still busy improving Gmail. We keep increasing free storage (2656 MB and counting), we offer the interface in 38 languages, and we now have features such as auto-save drafts, so that you don't accidentally lose that half-written message. We know that Gmail isn’t quite right for everyone yet. We’re working on that too – there’s still more we can do for the folder-lovers and devout-deleters out there.

But wait, there’s more! :) We also have a new batch of exciting innovations on the way that we hope will shake things up again and make Gmail even better for even more people.I'm proud of what we've done so far, and am excited about our future plans for Gmail. So celebrate how far email has come by joining its fun future.

"This Article is reproduced from the Google Blog written by Paul Buchheit, Gmail Engineer. I felt the article to be very good and hence re-posted here"

Politics Again

2005-10-21T16:21:00.000+05:30

Well politics in India can make its mark almost everywhere. No sector, No industry leave alone people can escape the horror called as politics. The recent news regarding the Bangalore International Airport Limited is the best example of how shabby politics can become at some times.

On 20th of October 2005, N R Narayanmurthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies resigned as the chairman of the Bangalore International Airport Limited. N R Narayanmurthy took this step after being deeply hurt by Deve Gowda who questioned the work done by him in the airport project. Former Prime minister Mr. H D Devegowda who is one of the leaders in the coalition government was one of the main reasons for the ongoing tussle between IT Industry and the Karnataka government.

Deve gowda made several allegations over the working of Narayanmurthy. He went on to say that Murthy being a world traveler took so much of time for the project to start. Murthy had said in one of the meetings for the shift of focus from rural governance to urban governance. Devegowda ridiculed this word of Murthy and said that the views of elite did not tally with reality and questioned the latter's knowledge about rural life.

Devegowda went to the extent of saying that the Karnataka government should look into the issue of giving land to the IT companies and cautioned Singh regarding the recent allotment of 845 acres to Infosys. Murthy's resignation has again revived the love-hate relationship between the IT sector and the state government over the city's infrastructure.

This example is a clear indication of how much politics can ruin the normal working process of our country. We all know how much important are the international airports for our country. The congestion of the airports is a very serious problem right now for our country. The flights get delayed frequently and the poor infrastructure makes the flight departure and arrival still bad. The project had started because of the extensive efforts of Murthy only. He spent enormous amount of time and energy in interacting with the Government in New Delhi and the Government here to make this work. The records prove themselves. But at the end of day even the Karnataka Government did not come to his side. This is really a shameful act.

Meanwhile at home in Hyderabad the International Airport (HIAL), which is coming up at Shamshabad, is doing well and its financial closure has also happened recently. GMR group and the Malayasia Airport Holdings are promoting it. I think this is the best example of Project Finance, because the risk in the venture is very high. By 2008 the capacity of the airport would be close to 70 lakh people per year. It’s expected by 2018 the airport would be able to handle close to 40-50 million people.

Landmark Deal for TCS

2005-10-19T09:50:00.000+05:30

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has won a $ 847 million landmark deal from the UK based insurance company, Pearl Group. The deal will be executed in 12 years of time and revenues from the deal will start flowing from the last quarter of this fiscal.

This deal is a momentous occasion for TCS as well as for the Indian IT industry in terms of the structuring of the deal. In the ABN Amro bank deal also TCS had its share to the tune of $ 250 million. But the new thing that figured in these deals was the movement of people. In the ABN Amro bank deal about 2000 people from bank’s IT division had moved to the five IT companies to which deal was awarded. TCS also absorbed a few people as part of the deal.

In this deal of Pearl Group, TCS is going to take over the entire business processes of Pearl and also 950 employees in UK. This will lead to the creation of a new company in UK. It will be a BPO that will handle all the life and pension businesses beginning with Pearl Group’s closed books portfolio.

S Ramadorai, MD and CEO of TCS said that this deal validates our strategy of pioneering the next generation of BPO. The biggest advantage of this deal is that TCS gets an entry into the European life insurance market. The Pearl Group has a base of 25 billion pounds and has 2.5 million subscribers. Also the Pearl Group has said that they have no objection in the new company doing business for other firms in Europe.

Indian IT companies have not been very strong in the European region. Lately the deals like ABN AMRO and the latest one of Pearl Group can give the IT companies a foot hold even in this emerging market which is considered to be the second biggest after North America.

Star “Sensational” News

2005-10-15T20:06:00.000+05:30

The title of the post says it all. For quite sometime I was thinking about writing about this and finally today I got the time to put down my thoughts.

Star News came into being when NDTV finished its contract with STAR. Subsequent to the expiry of contract NDTV came out with two channels NDTV India and NDTV 24 x 7. Both the channels still retain the quality of original NDTV. Star News on the other hand got popularity because of other reasons.

I do not know how many readers of this blog actually watch Star News, but I do watch it quite often. For quite sometime I have been observing this channel in terms of the news content it carries. Everyday the channel comes out with sensational news which no other channel has a clue even. But the news is sensational only for a day and after that everyone forgets about it, even the channel itself. The best example is the recent news about Google Earth.

The channel in its ticker carries the name of the story which it’s going to unveil later in the night usually at about 10:30 or later. This is because the story will have content which can be unsuitable for young audience. The program by name SANSANI has gained lot of popularity because of its highly energetic host Shrivardhan Trivedi. The program shows the real life crime happening around us. It will be news based on some kind of killing, robbery, or other anti human activities. The channel will give it so much of focus that for a moment people forget the current affairs and other news happening in the country. At the end of the day the channel is trying to gain popularity in the way western channel do – the reality TV.