Groping at Gandhi Ashram

I have to say it was very comforting to read the news about a foreign tourist being molested by drunk youngsters at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, in the morning paper. Ironically they were viewing the photographs of the Indian freedom struggle when they found found themselves struggling for their dignity.

Well what happened was totally against Gandhi’s dreams and what followed was violence. One of the youngster damaged Gandhi’s photos and was later beaten up(castration could have been better), the pther escaped. No complaint was lodged keeping in mind the sanctity of the place.

Is Gandhism dead? Doesn’t his principles and teachings hold no value any more? Was He just meant to liberate us from the British Raj so that we could freely molest our women? Why is Indian Youth forgetting that they are the pillars or the country?Is bad parenting to blame?

He dreamt of an India safe for women, and what did we finally deliver? Strip teasing women in public and marry off couples in public(thanks to Bajrang Dal the whooping marriage cost is avoided). Celebrating Gandhi Jayanthi would be more insulting now.

Ask anyone if Gandhi’s teaching hold any value and 90% will say Yes. But does it really? Ask yourself…

Cricket Virus

A game that is nowhere gets a whole page of news. A foreign Tennis player gets half a page when he is victorious. Yet the Indian pair of Bhupathi and Sania just gets less than quarter a page. They represented India, and they were beaten in the finals. If we can create a huge fuss about Indian cricket loosing then we can celebrate their near title miss. I have no idea. Leave all that how many knew that they made it to the finals of the mixed doubles at Australian Open

Over the days i have come to hate Cricket. It has become the single most inappropriate game that the Indians pursue these days. Its no less than a masala flick from a skimpy clad bollywood actress. There is nothing that you can define which is worth to be defined as memorable or a truly historic. I can hear people shout out what about the win at Perth? What about the lack of sportsmanship that was displayed by the mighty Aussies. I say damn all that. It was all as good as the wardrobe malfunction at fashion shows - you got to see something that you generally don’t see.

A racist remark, umpiring errors, a whole nation roars against that, a dramatic decision by the governing body, gentleman behavior by the captain - i’m asking do we need all these hype. Do we need cricket to survive. With cricket we no longer consider our neighbor as the arch rival anymore, its an island, miles south. The nation is celebrating victories and is doing injustice to other sports.

I dont care if the team loses or wins. The media makes sure that news reaches me even if i dont want to read it. Its in the front page of every news paper, flash news on TV. get out on the road, every one speaks about that, at work place the screens will have the score board open and local commentators shout out updates. I’m sick of this. Cant we just have some other sports take the center stage.

Does anyone care about what is happening to the other players. May be the media should dedicate time for other sports as well. At least report on the pitiable conditions of the other players. May be it should just avoid reporting in cricket. They are not GODs. They don’t deserve so much of attention.

Indians wake up, its just a game. F**K cricket. Its not really worthy of any praise now.

Congrats Sania and Mahesh

Sania and Mahesh have made India Proud again.

They might have lost the finals but they made it there and that is commendable. They made it to the finals by defeating Nathalie Dechy of France and Andy Ram of Israel (6-4, 6-2). In the finals they lost to Chinese-Siberian pair of Sun Tiantian and Nenad Zimonjic (7-6, 6-4).

Well done duo.

The Most Hated Company

Picture this about a laptop

It comes for as low as $299, ie Rs. 12K. Most expensive is $499, ie Rs.20k
Fully-featured laptop costs $69 less than the 16 GB Apple iPod Touch.
It’s $100 less than an Amazon Kindle e-book reader
It runs Linux (Xandros running KDE)- which is $30 less than Amazon.com’s discounted price for Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
They first in market with flash based storage.

Now thats a laptop that i would buy soon. (Just dont ask how soon ’soon’ is, as i’m known for procrastinating)
This makes ASUS Eee PC hated by, well lets just say every major company. Now that includes - Microsoft, Apple, Dell etc. and Azuztek a.k.a Azuz the most hated IT company as of now.
Intel loves them coz they are running a Celeron processor.
Is this going to hurt OLPC after the Intel back-out? I dont know and frankly i cant just about predict or speculate anything about the OLPC project. Their $100 laptop is now priced at $200 and now without Intel … i just cant make out anything.
[Source of news - http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/]
[Image source - engadget]

Some reasons why you SHOULD use Free Software..

No before i get into the whole thing, by Free Software i mean the programs that follow the 0-3 Freedoms as stated by the Free Software Foundation. Or rather Copy-Left than Copy Right …
Why is that a Free S/w user is so good at fixing a system, trouble shooting software issues and fixes thing without even reading the manual.
Now these are the reasons

1) Free software users expect open licenses and no activation methods
2) Free software users expect regular upgrades and patches
3) Free software users expect to work the way they choose
4) Free software users want control of their own systems
5) Free software users explore
6) Free software users expect to help themselves
7) Free software users don’t fear the command line
Free software users learn software categories, not programs
9) Free software users expect access to developers and other employees

iPhone : The Untold Story

Wired.com has this article : The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry.
Truly its the Untold Story on how iPhone took over the mobile industry and made the fellow competitors run for their money.

The demo was not going well.
Again.

It was a late morning in the fall of 2006. Almost a year earlier, Steve Jobs had tasked about 200 of Apple’s top engineers with creating the iPhone. Yet here, in Apple’s boardroom, it was clear that the prototype was still a disaster. It wasn’t just buggy, it flat-out didn’t work. The phone dropped calls constantly, the battery stopped charging before it was full, data and applications routinely became corrupted and unusable. The list of problems seemed endless. At the end of the demo, Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, “We don’t have a product yet.”

Read on …

“Leave Strike” - Strikes Again

Gandhi taught us the path of Ahimsa and Non-violence. We Indians took it to the next level of not-so-peaceful Hartals and Bandh; And new-age office goers took it to the next step.

Remember the times when you took leave from your company just to make a point clear to your manager. We do it all the time. Take a leave and let the manager know that you mean business. But say for the unfortunate few who got thrown out, we all have been lucky. We got what we wanted sometimes a hike, sometimes a release from the current project. The unfortunate ones you are our dear Martyrs.

Even Kiran Bedi resorted to this age old tactic. The reason - “apparently to put pressure on the government to take a decision on her application for voluntary retirement made a month ago“.

Complete article at Manorama : Kiran Bedi to go on ‘long leave’.

An innovation that ‘Kicks Balls…’

Innovation that doesn’t serve the purpose is like and over sized underwear; You have no other go but to wear it and you know you are comfortable without it.

Thats all that i have to say about the automated kiosks that have been installed by the city authorities of bangalore. Yes! its the Silicon Valley of India, where police check traffic violations using PDAs and common people no longer burns ordinary BMTC buses, but target Volvo buses. Apparently thats how they fight globalization.

Last night i went to the kiosk near my home to pay the water bill. Well if it was long queue in front of a ‘human operated pigeon hole kiosk’, i would have reached home earlier. It took me 10 min to make it accept each of the ten 100 bills that i had. Apparently it has an aversion towards money and even if its kind enough to accept the money, it would rather prefer an old bill than a new one.

If u may argue that the human factor is avoided and automation lets it run 24hrs. Hold on, i say! Apparently the then Hutch now Vodafone, introduced the same for billing systems. People were strugling to get the money in. So guess what they did? They posted a guy at that location, 2 guys in fact one for the morning and one for the night shift. At the end of the day, they end up paying 2 guys instead of one.

The only good thing about it is that if you want to make payment by cheque or with a credit card its faster. That means if u dont have a credit card, stay in the line for hours just to pay.

The fact is true that you can pay any time of the day, 7 days a week. But they just forgot the usability factor in that. Another loose underwear!!! The technology was supposed to kick ass, but it now kicks you balls and it hurts real bad.

Gandhiji’s Talisman : Give it a thought.

Does any one remember Gandhiji’s Talisman? Yes .. a vague idea? You have seen it some where right. Let me help. Remember the NCERT text books back in school, the facing page of the topics, in a nice little box, written in bold ink was Gandhiji’s Talisman.

Here it is again :

Gandhiji’s Talisman:

I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny ? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj (i.e. self-rule) for the hungry and spiritually starving millions ?

Then you will find your doubts and your self melting away.

I don’t know if they still have it in the text books, but it was there when i was in school. It never made sense to me when i was in school. I do remember reading it over and over again, trying to find the intent of the adage. Finally after school and after a long time, some how the Talisman found its way back into my head and then it struck me. The meaning is so simple and yet very powerful. If our leaders had heeded to this simple idea a long time back we wouldn’t be, may be, in such a messed up situation.

Not just the political scenario, but when this simple rule is applied, i’m not saying all the time, when ever in doubt and confusion, the results could astoundingly simple. This one has been put into the text books of your kids, we tell them to read and in the mean time we spoil their innocence.

Here education is seen as a means to mis-interpret Holy Books, promote hatred and invent innovative ways for “Angry Mob Put to your Gain”.

Ponder over IT.

All in the name of GOD

Remember : In the name of Ram???
The proposed ship route over the Pak Straight between India and Sri Lanka has stirred up quite and uproar. While the government plans at reduced cost and time in traversing all long the Sri Lankan cost to reach the Bay of Bengal ports, we have the religious fanatics spear-headed by BJP, opposing it.

Now every one seems to be in a heated debate over what should be done. People are arguing whether Ram exited or not? We are deliberately owing our subordination as mere pawn in the hands of reckless politicos and in the war of Religious Rascals.

The world has seen no good when such differences are allowed to propagate. I havent understood why they hell do they have to debate over Ram’s existence? Why dont they see the teachings that he has put forward? Ram is epitomized as the perfect man, true to his word and principles and only listed in doing good and helping others.

The old has to give way for the new, whether it be the land owned by you, me or even George Bush. Then why the hell debate on it and cause interruptions in parliament. We already wasted crores of money in the form of parliament interruptions than the money ever required to feed every poor in India.

While we still debate why a bull shitting bull must die or should we waste crores, just to preserve some thing that’s  still being speculated and debated, to be made by GOD.

Ok thats it, i better head home as Bangalore is now flooded, flooding and will be flooded with the heavy down pour. All the roads are practically closed. I don’t see a solution for that any time soon. May be its the GOD’s pee that is coming down, why should we drain it anyway. Let it flood the area, spread cholera, malaria … Oh No … It started raining again and i forgot to get my kayak !!! …