Two States - Story of My Marriage

I am currently reading " Two States - Story of my marriage" and will post a review by tomorrow as it's like 'one fly' book with lots of masala. Well, this is about a Punjabi boy marrying a Tamil Girl and I hope that Chetan has used his humor well. On a lighter note, thanks god! he didn't write a book of a Marathi boy/girl marrying a North Indian boy/girl or else he also would have to say sorry to the owner of Bombay oops! it's Mumbai.

off to my reading.

The longest Journey of Rajdhani Express

It took them around 84 hours or 3 and half days to reach Delhi from Bangalore. The train started from Bangalore on Thursday evening but reached Delhi only on Monday morning. More than 2000 passengers were stranded on Raichur station which is at the border of Andhra and Karnataka. The alertness of the local people and the railway staff helped avoid a disaster as the train was stopped on time. Later they found about 100 meters of railway track hanging in air as the wooden sleepers which holds the track together was washed away by the gushing water. This happened at 5 in the morning on Gandhi Jayanti. Else, it would have easily become a catastrophe for 2000 of the passengers who were deep in sleep.

Well, the train was brought back to the nearest station and then was stranded there for about 36 hours. It started moving only on Saturday evening and was diverted through a different route. Finally it reached Delhi today morning at around 6. Only 2 days late.

This could be a good movie subject but then only for foreign filmmakers. Well, Anurag Kashyap/Vishal Bhardwaj/Aamir Khan?.. are you listening??

Some links from the TimesofIndia hyderabad edition covering the train journey.

Link1 , Link2 , Link3 , Link4

Tum Chalo to Saara Hindustan Chale

Tum Chalo to Saara Hindustan Chale series - This was a part of Lead India Campaign of Times of India

I think it's Shankar Mahadevan's voice along with the voice of one of it's

kind Sukhwinder Singh (Sukhi).

Confirmed. It's Shankar Mahadevan, Sukhvinder Singh and the lyricist is

Gulzar. Nice initiative by Times of India. More about this here.

My name is "Johar"

Kya kya Johar dikha rahe hain? . When you are frisked in US you do nothing. When your friend is frisked, you see this an opportunity to promote your film (guess what? the film is centered on the same theme). You actually question the whole frisking business. You take it as your own insult and decide not to travel or minimize your travel to US. Well that is United States of America which at-least does not have double standards and are likely to follow the rule of law for one and all. Incidently, Bob Dylan was also arrested/frisked on the same day for charges of roaming suspiciously around. Link here to a media debate on the issue.

Well, it seems that the same Karan Johar can bend more than his back for an issue which concerns him. In one of most cowardly act displayed by a public figure in recent times is Karan Johar apologizing for using the word Bombay in his movie "Wake Up Sid". I don't know what explanation he has given but it's sure that there are people in our industry who has flexible moral standards. One day they are condemning one act, next day supporting the same. Watch the video and see how he is still confused between Bombay and Mumbai. But then, this is industry. Reminds me of the song from Hero No. 1 "Main tere pyar mein kya kya na bana meena, Kabhi bana kutta, kabhi kamina"

Video Embedded from "You Tube"

Updates..

I surfed across some of the news channel for any news related to the train which is stranded since last 36 hours. And this is what I got. In the prime time news, one was showing conspiracy behind Sachin's food poisoning (they used the word poison some 70 times in 4 minutes). Well, gosh! I think they still haven't got the pathology report of what Sachin passed out the next morning.

The other channel was debating why Karan Johar apoligized to Raj Thakrey. It seems that Thakrey bhau is back into news and Karan Johar might have provided him the right podium after a long pause. Since 26/11 he was not getting much coverage. Karan Johar's timing is superb and his sense of humour is awesome. First, he tried to capitalize on "My Name is Khan" controversy and now he has given Raj bhau some priceless prime time coverage. The Channel found out that Raj Thakrey's daughter studies in Bombay Scottish School and was arguing that he should apologize to whole of Maharashtra that his daughter studies in a school which has Bombay word in it.

A third channel is showing that the restaurant where Sachin got his food poisoning is not the one which the other channel was showing. They went one step further and interviewed the manager who said that Dhoni, Pravin Kumar and some other stars have come but not Sachin. Great. point to be noted -

1) The first channel was claiming that it was Nehra, Dhoni and Bhajji. The second mentions about Praveen Kumar and Dhoni.

2) How come the restaurant manager remember Praveen Kumar? Hmmmmmm..

Next is what?

Ram Gopal Varma will visit the station where the train is stranded and will make a movie out of it. That movie will be watched only by Varma and his fans. (PJ warning - No fans at all, he as an AC now.)

Well, Ashutosh Gowariker might also decide to make a movie and it will be exactly 1/10th of the 36 hour ordeal. The title will be "3.6 hours Ordeal". The more the people in the train will suffer, so the people in the theater.

36 Hour Ordeal..

It's really a tough task getting up at 5 in the morning on a national holiday, and for a lazy bug like me, it seems like an ordeal. While debating over the importance and obviously the rarity of occasion, finally I got up at around 6. I had to catch a train at 7:30 from Secunderabad railway station and it normally takes around an hour to reach there. So according to my calculation I started early.

I reached station at 7. Was happy at my achievement. Well, Lalu might take the credit for the turn-around of railway but it's almost a rarity to find trains running at time. Though Rajdhani has an entirely different perception in my mind, I still thought to do a casual enquiry as on which platform it will arrive. The enquiry clerk looked like in a foul mood. I don't know what it was? the time of the morning, the frustration of working on a national holiday or was it that his replacement did not arrive in time? Whatever it was he was shifting his pot belly from one angle to another on the chair with a "constipated look" on his face. Yeah! I know how it feels like working overtime on a night shift. Thanks to my IT employer.

Anyways, the train was 2 hours 30 minutes late. Bull shit! I asked again whether it will get further delayed so that I can cancel the ticket and get a full refund? Railway has this policy that if a train is running late for more than 3 hours then the passenger is entitled for a full refund. He gave me a weird look and again shifted his bottom to a different angle. "pata nahin" was his reply. I thought to shout at him but then I decided against my original thought. There is no way to find this out until you actually wait it out. I had this experience before, until the system updates the late running status, you will not get the refund. So, I thought to wait for the next 3 hours.

AC waiting room was full so I went to the sleeper class waiting room. Luckily I was able to find a laptop charging point. I was happy as I could watch a movie now. It was around 9. I looked at the LCD screen which was flashing the train running information and for a minute I was not able to find out Rajdhani Express in it. Well, after a minute it refreshed and now it was showing 4 hours late. My experience with Indian rail has been really good so this was one of those feel good moments. Your opinion is vindicated and there is no better thought that that. I told my friend that the train is not arriving any time before 3 pm and it's the typical railway's trick to give you a slow death. At 11 they will definitely make it 1 and so on. He laughed at my cynical comment. Well.

Now, the task was to cancel the ticket. Don't think it's as simple as that because it was an e-ticket. The only easy thing about e-ticket is to get one. Believe me, cancelling e-tickets can be really tricky. The rule states that we have to file a TDR (depository receipt) and the process is available online. However it's more like you can file the TDR tomorrow. For a moment I thought that today's train might come tomorrow only so that I can file the TDR receipt properly. Well I came back home and cancelled my trip. Will go some other time.

At home, I thought to inquire why exactly the Rajdhani express is delayed. A train of that importance should find a mention in the news. After all, champions league is over and the channels are again news deprived. There was nothing on it, till I found this piece of news on web. Andhra and Karnataka have seen some heavy rainfalls in the last two days and it seems that the route along which this train runs (Bangalore - Secunderabad - Delhi) is heavily affected by rains. This has affected the train service in this area and logically most of the trains are running late. As simple as that. I was wondering why Railways could not provide this simple information to the passengers? (Sounds like a good consulting opportunity for the top 5 IT companies).

So now the question was where is Rajdhani and how late it is?

See the answer for yourself. It's only 36 hours late till now :) with the possibility of getting further delayed :(. The most logical reason is that it's stuck somewhere in the flood hit area and will be there for at-least for the next 36 hours. I hope it's stationed at some railway station so that all the passengers can be evacuated if needed. Was not able to confirm as the train running information is inconclusive as where exactly the train is.

Hope the passengers are safe and their ordeal ends as soon as possible.

Force India finished forth..

Call it sports illiteracy or call it pure negligence or may be like Government of India our journalist fraternity also think that Formula1 is not a sport. Otherwise Adrian Sutil's achievement today in a Force India - Mercedes car would not have gone unnoticed for almost two hours. That too when just a week back news papers had a full page coverage on the achievement of Fishichella in the same car.

Well, just over two hours back Adrian Sutil drove his Force India Mercedes to fourth position (partly helped my Hamilton) and collected some points for his team. Call it a sweet poetic justice as Fishichella who was driving his dream Ferrari finished 9th. The year is turning out be good for Vijay Mallya. First Royal Challengers finished second in the IPL II and now his team has collected points in back to back races. Just sometime back he set a target of 2010 for the first podium finish but then Fishichella drove a brilliant race and finished second. As many people were speculating, Fishichella joined Ferrari as a substitute driver and Vijay Mallya agreed to release him (don't know whether money changed hands or not). The last two races have been really great for Force India and all the credit should go to Mallya for giving a moment of sporting glory to the believers.

Anways, GOI (Govt of India) doesn't like to call it a sports because right now they are busy talking about austerity or things like that. So going by their definition Formula1 is not a sport and that's why they rejected a request from JFSK (JFSK is promoting F1 in India). Okay fine, it's not a sport then why it's a problem that a proviate company wants to organize a racing event in the country? Anyways lets leave this debate here. So those of you who 'celebrate with Kingfisher', I think Sutil has just given you a chance to 'celebrate for Kingfisher'. Enjoy.

Amir and Deepika Playing Badminton

I know this is stale. But, given your busy lives I think you might not have checked this out.



Aamir does take things seriously. See the way he is moving in the court and that too against likes of Prakash Padukone and Aparna Popat. Got this news from Aaamir's blog which I was visiting after a long long time (given my busy life as well).

Got really bad news about Aamir and Kiran loosing their child. Despite of all the money and medical advice they were unable to prevent the miscarriage. Incidents like these do make you believe in the presence of some supreme power who has a script ready for all of us. On that note, well, it's the beginning of Ganesh Chaturthi as well as the holy month of Ramzaan today. For the next one month Hyderabad will be abuzz with festivities.

God bless Aamir and his family and hope they come out of their grief soon. And god bless you all. Hope no grief could ever touch you.

The GAS War Intensifies..

The GAS war has intensified as Government has set up a panel to discuss the issue. With each new advertisement, ADAG is digging deeper into their allegations and some of these are serious allegations like Corruption, Hoarding, Profiteering, Creating Artificial Scarcity etc. The point is that had ADAG not believed into the evidence that they have, they might not have spitted the venom out in the press. Clearly, they want a public debate more than a judicial debate.



This advertisement blitzkrieg by ADAG has raised eyebrows across the political and corporate circle. But now the debate has turned towards petty issues like whether the supreme court will take cognizance of this or whether the judiciary will completely ignore this and hear the case based on the pure facts and evidences brought in the court? I don't think anybody is discussing the more potent issue of corruption.

The media is debating the morality of this campaign. I think that the main purpose of this ad is to elicit a response from the two parties. Government and RIL. Ministry has to come out clear and RIL too have to take a stand.

We have so many reference points to decide about the price of the gas. Petroleum ministry has approved a price of 4.20$ for reasons unknown. DGH has earlier said that the cost of production is only 1.28$ per unit. That gives RIL a neat 300% margin. (--What's the problem with that? Indian gas is no more cheap boy! And also we are in habit of selling the national assets cheap. Did you forget the 2G auction? More on that here)

ADAG claims that the capex was inflated which would obviously inflate the cost of production. This inflated capex will result in loss of revenue for the govt. (--Are you talking about inflation? well who is worried about that? )

DGH or Director General of Hydrocarbons claims that their figure were validated by a third party Source Here . ADAG claims that this third property has conflict of interest with RIL Source here. Back to square one.

NTPC first decided to take RIL into court for the gas supply agreement that they signed some time back. Later they backtracked and it seems that a group of senior employees are content with the new prices decided by petroleum ministry. What's the reason? "Upar se order hai bhai".

Well, the debate has started and will continue till 1st of September when the apex court will decide on the fate of the shareholders of the two group. But till then, I think enough water will go down under the bridge. Just brace for RIL not to start offensive against ADAG group companies like ADLABS, RNRL and Reliance Communication.

Want some mirch masala on this issue? It's here.

IT IS ALL ABOUT GAS..

The 'Gas war' has started. The younger brother has sounded the war cry and has drawn the first blood with a blitzkrieg ad campaign which left the corporate circles abuzz with gas all around.

Corporate India woke up after a long weekend with this news piece on the front page of leading national dailies. Media was buzzing with discussions centered around this ad campaign. Rumors are that the spend is in millions of dollars which means, that there are more questions on this.

So it's sure that this 'War for Gas' will continue for sometime. We will see some counter ads because everybody knows that the Anil Ambani Group is also not the 'Sadhu' one. RIL also might be having some tricks up their sleeves. Anyways, it's hardly a coincidence that the person who was behind the 10 questions a day campaign against Rajiv Gandhi (Bofors Deal) might be the brain behind this Ad campaign as well. And that is Ram Jethmalani. I tried to do a search on his famous 10 questions but was not able to get anything as Indian Express Archives are available from 1997 only and the incident happened in 1989.

The stakes are high, the daggers are out, brethren is vouching for blood and gas and well, media will do all the 'gassing around' for the next few days. This will be an interesting 'war of gas'.

Top 60 Engineering Colleges in India..

There are so many university and college rankings available these days that nobody bothers about them anymore. What’s in the ranking dear? You will always have one to justify your decision. What’s more? You can have a customized ranking tailored made for your institute if you buy the right ad package.

Anyways, it’s more like 18 years since the first wave of privatization hit the country but still you will find IIT’s and IIM’s, Xaviers, LSR, Loyola, Presidency topping the chart. Partly, because they are senior citizens of the education industry respected by one and all. And partly because having these big names on the list adds to its authenticity. So, it’s better to have them there for the first few slots and then cleverly capture the “first best available slot”. I think soon we will have packages marketed like this -

A - If you spend this much then we might think of giving you fifth position?

B – But how? We have six institutes already who should figure in the list to make it look authentic?

A – Oh like that! Then we will give you the seventh position. We also have a package for ranking your competitors. If you are willing to spend this much then we can lower their ranks as well.

Anyways, the economics of ranking is something which does not come under right to information or you would have case studies on that.

Anyways, I stumbled on this piece of article in my favorite online news paper which aroused my curiosity. The authors have tried to rank all the institutes based on a common parameter. What makes this ranking different is that the data is available in public domain and is purely objective. Though it’s the only parameter chosen but still is in a better position to tell the tale about the state of engineering institutes in India.

And if you are wondering why suddenly out of blue I am posting this article on my blog. Then well, I went to the engineering school listed at 23rd position. Good to see that they have got the name and the place right.

More on the ranking here

The report can be read/downloaded from here.

A good start to the Extravaganza called IPL.

What a day of cricket it has been? IPL really has changed the cricket otherwise who would have expected to see two great cricketing brains (Shilpa Shetty and Mandira Bedi (Pun intended!)) analyzing the performance of the likes of Dravid and Warne? After India's and Pakistan's first round exit at the last world cup anything is believable but then certainly nobody would have believed that Rajasthan Royals would be routed for the lowest total ever in the IPL and that too by Royal Challengers who finished just before the last team in the previous edition.

I am sure that the organizers would gloat about the presence of Hollywood stars as well but then, this was the day of extra-ordinary cricket by the two teams, who were at the fifth and seventh position last year. And man! What else could be better for a fan of classic test cricket than to watch Rahul Dravid hitting one of the biggest sixes of the match? Nothing could delight me more than watching a retired cricketer like Anil Kumble taking five wickets in four overs. Nothing could be more beautiful than watching a vintage Shane Warne still moving the ball at his will. Still capable of drawing the batsmen forward into the drive and then turning the ball to clip the top of the leg stump. It’s really an eye candy to watch Shane chit chatting with the likes of Praveen Kumar and then our ‘desi’ boy clubbing him over the top for a six. The format might have changed but then the spirit has not and that’s really good for the cricket.

It was a really incredible day for Indian cricket and well this is something for which IPL can take credit. I mean! this is a format, where you can see a certainly young Dhoni, taking on a vintage Tendulkar and then you wonder why Tendulkar refused captaincy or have decided to opt out of the national team in this shorter version of the game? Well, half into the second match of the season and you watch Rahul Dravid clubbing a slower ball from Munaf Patel and sending it deep down the deep midwicket boundary. You wonder that is this the same guy who was sent packing out of the one day squad last year? Or is this the same old fox ‘Kumble’ who hanged his boots last year? But then at the same time some body might be thinking that have they made a bad choice in the form of South Africa as the venue?

The ball does move here a bit.

This is a country where the ball does its own thing and it seems that a score of 170 – 180 could easily be the winning score. The boundaries are big and the crowd is and will be more interested in the ‘beer’ than watching the action in the middle. The conditions will be windy and younger players will be more likely to fail than their experienced counterparts. The bowlers will be no more at the mercy of the power hitters and well the way Praveen Kumar was moving the ball around both sides of the wicket must have delighted the likes of Irfan Pathan Zaheer Khan and Nathan Bracken. At the same time this also must have sowed the seeds of doubt in the minds of some big hitters of the game. Well, as the tournament will progress the pitches will suffer wear and tear and hopefully will become more flat but by that time it seems only the best will survive.

Moving the venue to South Africa seems to be good for the bowlers but then ‘twenty twenty’ is called slam bang cricket and my doubt is that it stands to loose a part of the audience it has attracted in the last season. So, we might see moves like removing the cap of 4 foreign players in the playing 11. It might be relaxed to five or even can go up-to six because you don’t expect some of the inexperienced domestic players to make an impact like they made last year.

Anyways, the first two matches were really a treat to watch. It was really delightful to watch the legends like Kumble, Sachin and Dravid rising up to the challenge and proving that ‘class’ is ‘the class’ and will always be the ‘class’. Though it’s too early in the tournament to predict the end but then be ready to see some spectacular performances from the oldies. Who were all written off by the critics not much ago.

Image courtesy this blogger.

The Making of the new 'Gandhi'

The latest in this whole drama is the plot to murder the 'new' Gandhi which according to police reports was hatched by the D- company. A person was suspiciously arrested and Karnataka Police immediately declared that the guy in-charge was here to plot the murder of Pramod Muthalik and Varun Gandhi. Well, these two gentlemen have become very famous in the past 2 months and all of this has been made possible by media. The national media is behaving more like communist party (wants all the power with no accountability). It's the combination of sheer shortage of good news items and the 24 hour broadcasting compulsion. that they are bound to generate newer sources of stories and to fill the 24 hour schedule by repeating them time and again by adding different flavours. 'Re-usability definitely matters'.

Anyways Karnataka is a BJP ruled state so hardly anybody will buy this argument that D-Company is hatching a plot to kill Varun but, then at the same time the news becomes credible in the light of the fact that for more than two decades this constituency and the neighbour districts have been the recruiting ground for the A, B, C and D companies. There are folklores about these companies and their master henchmen. Though no sane logic can justify Varun's hate speech but then many people feel that this incident is all a media blunder and the only proof is a video footage which can not even be defended in a court of law.

Well, this case will definitely become a good example of how media can change a boy who use to write prose and poems to a man who can single handedly hijack the election campaign of a national party. Within a matter of one month Varun' s image has been overhauled and suddenly he is in the league of extra-ordinary (controversial) people in politics. Well, he will win election or not only time can tell but it is sure that this person will live his life on the edge now and nothing of this has been possible without the help of media.

Varun has denied making the speech and he is sticking firm to his stand partly because his legal advisers would have told him that the CD can not be defended in the court of law and partly because his political advisers would have told him that "make a small concise statement and wait for the media to interpret it. The more the merrier". Well, it is really surprising that though statements came into light after a gap of around 2 weeks, none of the TV channels actually dug deep to verify the source of the news item. They just broadcasted it like they broadcast popular "You Tube" videos.

More surprising was the fact that even election commission did not do any sort of verification and simply pronounced their decision against him. Had the decision based on some credible evidence (a bit more than what was already available in public domain) then probably this episode would have died down but then it was all about luck by chance. BJP stayed defiant against EC as no credible evidence was provided against Varun and also because they are already protesting against one of the members Navin Chawla. Congress who blatantly disregarded the advise of Chief Election Commissioner regarding suspension of Chawla is not upping the ante against BJP to heed to the advise of the election commission and criticizing them for inaction againt Varun. "Sab ek hee thaali ke chatte batte hain".

Varun was finally jailed and it just made the right kind of news. Article 144 was enforced in the town of Pillibhit and the entire national media covered the whole event. The live telecast and repeat telecasts made Varun one of the most talked about subjects of the month. The politics immediately followed. NSA was slapped against Varun and is mainly because BSP does not want him to campaign in the state. It's almost sure that he is not likely to repeat the same sentiments during his election speech but he will definitely snatch some Hindu votes from BSP. BSP is worried because the alienation of Brahmins from Brahmin-Dalit vote bank will severely dent Maya memsaab's chances of becoming the prime minister.

Well, the UP government's quick action which was supposed to keep this person behind the bars will definitely not succeed because, the same media which was talking about stern action against this man, will turn against Mayawati. They will telecast and repeat telecast stories of the political motivated action against him. One way or another, Media will keep getting their stories, news channels based on their broad strategies, will keep adding masala to simple news items and then at the end of the day, everybody will realize that a new Gandhi is born. Political analysts will soon start comparing him to his late father Sanjay Gandhi .The same Gandhi who commanded really strong influence over his late mother and at one point of time was regarded even more powerful than Indira. Time will tell whether Congress takes him in his fold (seems unlikely because of his mother) or BJP brands him as their reply to the Gandhi family. Either way Varun is set to make many more headlines. Good that he has discovered this art early on in his political life (like another cunning politician Lalu) and we all will see whether he can master this art over time.

"Bhai Ho" A fitting reply to Jai Ho.

I was watching this video on You Tube which looks amateurish but still drives the point home and is a fitting reply to the "Jai Ho" campaign by Congress. Well even A. R. Rahman agrees to this fact that "Jai Ho" is not among his best of creations but still it's a perfect example of "Bahti Ganga mein haath dhona" loosely translated, it's similar to swimming with the tide.

So Congress paid a good price to buy the rights of this song. (Well not sure but still I think that the ruling party might have passed a part of the cost to taxpayers like us). Anyone remember which was the most repeated ad during last IPL? Well, it was the "Bharat Nirman" ad. The giant 90 second ad sung by Kailash Kher (the second video in this post). I think that the ad money came from our taxes only as it was done much before elections and government could easily pass off the expenses in the name of awareness campaign for government programs. Well anyways, it seems that BJP has just elbowed the "Jai Ho" ad out of their way. But, I guess it needs a little fine-tuning. They should seriously start thinking of building around this concept which the party claims is sent by some well wisher. In that case, Jai Ho.

News ke peeche ka news..

Sorry for the title, It seems that slowly my blog is more and more becoming a Hindi blog. Anyways harz hee kya hai?

So was just going through some newspaper articles to kill time. I can't tell you but I really want to watch Sachin and Dravid bat together in a test match because it may be their last New Zealand tour together and for Dravid this country has always been special. It was here where he shed his tag of being a slow batsmen and later in the same year was the highest scorer in the world cup. As the timings are little odd, here I am. Up at 3 am in the morning waiting impatiently for the match to start.

Well, I was reading through ibnlive.com and immediately went on to read some masala news. It seems that they had a little quiz about who is the highest paid actress in Bollywood. They show pictures of Katrina, Aish and Kareina in that order and suddenly there is a fourth picture of a smiling girl who they say is charging 13-15 crore for a movie. And can you believe this that she is Freida Pinto? Well, may be, somebody tipped this exclusive news to this channel. Maybe tomorrow it will become breaking news on some other channel as well. But pata nahin who is paying this girl 15 crore for a movie? That too when her only claim to fame is 15 minutes of 'disguised documentary' Slumdog Millionaire. Phir pata nahin 15 crore kis baat ke? Naa hee to itni sundar hai aur naa hee itni popular.

Anyways, it seems that surely this counter has not been hit by slowdown yet. But well, isse pahle ki lene ke dene pad jaayein (I mean about a time when she has to pay some money to the producers to cast her in a lead or second lead role) hope she slows down a bit. If not, then Ye Mumbai hai meri jaan.

image courtesy - http://ibnlive.com

IPL is gone finally..

The cat and mouse game between IPL and Govt. of India is over and the final verdict just confirms the initial speculation but after lot of drama. BJP leaders immediately jumped onto the scene and accused government for letting IPL go. Congress will counter this attack by highlighting the relationship that Modi shared with erstwhile Rajasthan chief minister whom Lalit use to address with the nickname "Vasu" (and one of the reason why Jaipur got a franchisee last year and probably the reason why Jaipur was denied any matches in this edition). Also, the other leader who has just leveled the accusation has his last name common with the "karta dharta of IPL" (and because Ahmedabad was likely to get a franchisee soon).

No wonder if you hear the news about BJP wooing Sharad Pawar in the name of IPL as Pawar was the guy who ultimately had to bargain with the government. Anyways I think the government is right by denying IPL the permission for this year. Arre bhai itna bada political circus is already under the way? Who needs distraction?

Well there are some reasons why IPL should be held in India and first of all the name itself is Indian Premier league. It's really a shame if Indian premier league is to be hosted by England or Australia for that matter. Leaving aside the 'I' connection, I think the business needs are more compulsive. Just imagine -

If it is not for India or Indians then who will really bother playing 7 Indian players in the match?

Difference in Time zones will make the IPL TV coverage less lucrative for both franchisee and the sponsors. At the same time the costs will go up unless they play in Bangladesh.

I don't think that the stadiums will get the same capacity crowd in some foreign country. What worked in India (the quantity of the matches) might not work in the Videshi land. I don't find lots of Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers or Kolkata Nightridders in let's say Tunbridge Wells.

So it's a blot on the homeland security (forgive me, I know there is no homeland security thing in India but the word looks lot cooler) and the home ministry and it's foolishness on the part of the organizing authority to ask for police protection. It also raises a basic doubt that why government should provide security to an event being organized by private parties? Had IPL paid anything to the home ministry for the public/state services availed by them? "Hmmmm a nice Right to Information idea". Well, even if it's there can't the organizing authorities be a little more sensitive to the larger issue at hand like holding free and fair elections?

Well, anyways this will be definitely good for the Kolkata Knight Riders's cheerleaders if Shahrukh really allows them to travel with the team. Good hai.

Sakshat Jhoot. $ 10 Laptop a "WHITE" Lie.

Around six months back this news piece speculated that India is developing a $10 laptop and also a low cost access device. And see the speed of research and development that within six month our HRD minister even unveiled it. And wow! just after first look at this device you want to shout. What a lie and man see the color. It's actually a BIG WHITE LIE and nowhere near a laptop. The name couldn't have better "Sakshat Jhoot" which means total lie.

Kaun hai Garibon ka dushman? Kaun hai jo baar baar garibi ka majaak uda jaata hai? Kaun hai jo bhagwan ke darbaar mein khade hokar bhi jhoot bolta hai, logon ko dhokha deta hai? Well, who is this publicity crazy guy who doesn't even know the difference between $10 and $100 and for that matter the difference between a storage device and a computer? It's none other than our honorable HRD minister whose hunger for publicity has made India and Indian technology a laughing stock in the western and Indian Technical press.

His claim to fame is the famed Indian project of 10$ laptop which was finally unveiled in Tirupati (Bhagwaan ka darbaar). This is an excerpt from what our press reported about the unveiling function.

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Arjun Singh had an interaction with the vice chancellors of the remote states like Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur to prove the point that the device will be able to bring about high quality networking among the various institutions of higher education and also increase the skills of e learning of the students in rural areas. (Source - Rediff.com)
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Out of the three things mentioned about this device - high quality networking among various institutions of higher education, increase the skills of e learning and most importantly the 10$ price tag is all a big bad joke played by minister and his office. The western media was surprised about this project whose details were made public without even a feasibility analysis. Well due to some publicity hungry people the target population is confused and the whole bunch of media is reporting it as a big joke played on student community. Wo to IIT and IISC involve they so maan bhi gaye nahin to pahle se pata tha ki kya hoga.

Anyways, this is election year so you can expect some nuisance but something of this magnitude can come from the stable of this old timer only. His humor is well known but what is sad that this episode will bring a bad name to the partner institute like IIT Chennai and IISC Bangalore. I don't understand the compulsion to go public with the prototype which looks like a cigarette case with cables attached to it. Huh made for each other. I want to laugh at the audacity of same people who go on to put it on record that some components were developed by students. I agree, it do look like a prototype that we use to present during annual model exhibitions. And most of the engineering students know from where the components come from. "Kanhi ka cement, kanhi ka roda, Bhanumati ne kunwa joda" kind.

And our elite press whose technical knowledge comes out very well with this episode. None of them had the modesty to dig deeper into the device, the technology and into the press release. It seems that they published verbatim whatever was handed over to them even before the minister(s) started their bhashan about how this machine will change the life of Indians.

Well everyone is laughing now and those who will see the device will definitely laugh too. Meanwhile one thing is sure that some very very senior people do not differentiate between $10 and $100 and also between a pen drive and a computer. Well, a 2 GB pen drive is available for Rs 200 now (5$). Download a portable free Operating System from web. Install it on a pen drive and it becomes your Government of India laptop at half the price and double the memory.

Next is what?
A 20 $ scooter? Arre bhai kya hua jo tumhe tyre, engine, piston alag se lagana pade, aakhir scooter ka frame bhi ko bhi to scooter hee kahte hain" Kyon Vice Chancellor Sahab? Theek kahe naa?

Chalo! Jaane de jaane de thodi hawa aane de.

Scanadalam Part 1.

What happened, how it happened and who did it? In my earlier post I speculated about more people being involved and well, it seems that some very intelligent people are about to confirm this fact. They might tell that they do not have the liberty to speculate on things but rather have to back it up with concrete evidence. Well, I am sure that they are still speculating only and have not found any concrete proof yet but due to dilly dallying they have given those people enough time to cover at-least a part of their tracks. And kyon naa ho brother, people like IAS officer, Police personnel, senior politicians and many other important person seems to be involved.

Well I have a simple story to tell about how it was made possible. It goes like this. Once upon a time there lived two brothers in a small city. They start a sweet shop as the whole city was crazy about sweets at that point of time. Due to the presence of some famous shops around, not a single customer walked into the shop. The same thing happened on day 2 as well. The local municipality required all the shops to maintain their account books properly and they published a ranking of the sweet shops in the locality.

The weekend was still two days ahead and then the brothers came with a strategy to cook their books. The next day they called all their relatives for a feast in their sweet shop. Their family, friends of family and even neighbours of the family friends came for free sweets. And that was the day when the fortune of the sweet shop changed forever. It topped the ranking based on sales that week, next week and for many weeks thereafter. It became the best shop of the city, district, state and even of the country. Everyone just loved it and liked it. It became a case study in many business schools and the owners became the most popular businessmen in the country.

Only few people knew what happened exactly but as most of them had free sweets on day1 and were having shares of the listed company with them, they kept quiet. What exactly happened that Ram sold half the sweets to Rama and received money. Rama distributed those sweets among his family members. Then Rama sold the rest of the sweets to Ram and got back his money. Ram distributed those sweets among his family members.

Everyone had free sweets, technically all the sweets were sold, money did change hands more than once and the transactions were recorded on the books.

The story sounds simple but then the Satyam Scandal is not this simple. I will be back with more stories and more insights here on this blog. So if you are reading this do come back here.

The Moment of Truth..

Who will steal the concept? Who will bring it to India? Will be able to see another slumdog millionaire in the next few years? Will it be a new kid on the block, or some famous production house or the guys who claim to have the best sense of humor in film industry?

Today I watched the TV game show “Moment of Truth” for the first time and the first thought that came to my mind is that who will steal this concept because it looks like a crowd puller. The show simulates a lie detecting environment and you have to answer questions on your personal life in front of your family members. And these questions are not the comfortable ones but actually will involve lot of grilling and the worse thing is that you can’t even refuse to sit on the lie detecting machine. Another popular show "Hole in the Wall" is already 'adapted' and Syrus is hosting it in Hindi. I am wondering why 'Moment of Truth' which will enter its second season is not copied yet? Maybe, somebody is planning big for it. "Ismein aisa kya daal doon ki show mera ho jaye" type.

The moment you refuse to answer any question, you are out. It is an interesting game show with lots of drama and I am sure that if some of the so called intellectuals from our film industry are watching this show then they must be salivating too hard. This is really one show where there is lot of scope to dramatize things. And mirch masala is something we all love. More about the format is here.

So let’s wait for the show to be presented in India and I am damn sure the funniest question will be for the producer/director “This show is your original concept?” I am sure that there are many filmmakers here who can fail the lie detector with their confidence. So let’s wait for it. To put it more aptly, let's wait for the "Moment of Truth".

Behind the Scenes of Raaz, the mystery continues..

Let me break the first mystery - "ki ye naya concept kanha se uthaya hai Mukesh bhai sahab ne?" The concept is shamelessly ripped off from the popular TV Series Heroes where the character of Isaac Mendez use to paint future. He was the author of a famous comic series "The 9th Wonder". And the most famous of his paintings which was his last one as well was painted on the floor. That's the mystery behind this ripped off concept. Mr. Bhatt junior might have borrowed his central character from Heroes, the zombie artist Isaac Mendez and have given him the Indian touch.

Watching Heroes might have been an 'Eureka' moment for the director. The concept was good but movie ke liye you need a full script. And there the twists and turns started. And jab koi star nahin mila to apna superstar Hashmi sahi. Still there were doubts in the mind of some people.

Producer - "Sir aab Imraan Hashmi ki picture kaun dekhta hai?, chalo phir bhi naam kya rakhenge Sir?
Director - Well, even I don't know what the movie will be like? Abhi to puri story bhi taiyaar nahin hui hai?
Producer - Kya baat kar raho ho? Story is not ready yet? Why?
Director - I don't know yaar, it's a Raaz.

Now, this was the eureka moment for another Bhatt family member. He shouted from behind Call it "Raaz part 2" only.

Director - But Papa ji! it is not at all related to Raaz.
Papa ji - Who cares, you know, I know, the crew knows it but audience doesn't know it right? Let them discover. And don't worry about the hit or flop thing. At-least we will ask one great movie reviewer to write rave reviews about it. (You all know who the famous reviewer is, who not only review the movie but also predict about it's collection)

The only original thing about this movie is the dialogue " Kutte ki maut aati hai to wo ek kona pakad ke baith jaata hai" To add weight to this dialogue, they even portray the character in a 'kona' of his house. Or may be the script writer wrote the original line about "Geedar ki maut" but "Geedar" might have been too old fashioned for the creative genius of the Bhatt parivar. "Geedar geedar sab kahe, kutta kahe naa koi" So there goes the "Kutte ki maut".

Isn't it the creative genius of the director that the whole movie is centered around one dialogue "Tum Ashudh ho, Tum Sadh Chuke Ho". This mysterious dialogue takes us on the journey of 5 lives interconnected. Anyways, during the entire duration of the film I was feeling like the producer and director wanted to send this message across to 'Ramu the great' that " Tum Ashudh ho, Sadh chuke ho, isliye apna kona pakad ke baith jao". We have given two horror hits so, please refrain from this genre now.

Okay, so now here is the story lineup. A person supposedly managing a 'NGO' is murdered and a Englishmen is involved. His last call was made to a TV reality show host who then sells the tapes to the Gora in exchange for producing his TV series. Then after the success of his TV reality show, he bought a flat from that money and then gifts that flat to his love in life. Kangna holds the flat keys in her hand and that was the moment when ghost decided to haunt her as if "he was waiting ki kab ghar kharide and kab ladki aaye and kab hum shuru ho jayein". If the show would have flopped perhaps the ghost would have never decided to haunt him thinking ki "leave it yaar, bechare ko itne paise bhi naa mile ki ghar ka EMI de sake, sharm aati hai mujhe apni maut pe. Isko haunt kar ke kya milega, let's go and haunt his girl friend instead".

Well, the bhoot might be too scared to take panga with the Junior Sekhar Suman "Kya pata Sekhar bhai sahab agli movie khud produce karein and usmein Jackie will be given a negative role and junior Sahab will do his pitai. So Jackie might have requested or Mohit might have requested him to haunt Kangna only. Waise bhi who will come to watch this son of Shaker to be haunted on screen? So there it goes.

So the bhoot decides to enjoy with the leading lady like waiting for the Kangna to enter the bath tub and then playing around with the lights. "Arre bhai bhuton ka bhi koi iman dharam hota hai yaar, thodi mood lighting ho jaye, phir enjoy karte hain". But, agar ghost is here to enjoy it alone then what is the use of our serial kisser Hashmi? So suddenly he wishes to play around and start throwing stupid visions to Imran. And poor Imran living alone, hooked on beer and might be reading a lot of stupid bollywood magazines suddenly starts painting his imagination on canvas.

All his paintings carries images of Kangna and they both discover together the mystery. Jackie da is too fat for a ghost and reminds that "upar jaa ke bhi khana badhiya milta hai bhai". Imran tries to fit into the role but Kangna's boyfriend is a total waste in the role of the reality show star. In the award function, they simple nominate this only reality show and give the award to him. No Farah Khan, No Sajid Khan, kaisa award hai bhai? No insult, no poor jokes nothing. Kaisa award hai bhai? Sajid ko naa sahi kam se kam Rakhi Sawant ya Mandira Bedi ko to bulate?

Anyways movie is a total waste of time and money. But yeah, you can take your girlfriends to this movie and to put this message across that for any of her unjust demands, it will be she who will be hunted by ghost aka jackie aka Mukesh or forget it yaar, aise bhoot se darta kaun hai? Bhoot lagta hai face painting competition se bhaag kar aaya hai.

MTV Roadies - Behind the Scenes

No no no. I am no way associated to the Roadie franchisee and this "behind the scenes" version is written as the Roadies is in progress. (Not even related to the one where all the crew members sit in front of the camera and try to make the audience believe that whatever is happening is real).

The most pleasant sight is watching Devarshi doing the Ghoda dance in the room itself. Well may be this is the kind of scene which inspired the famous PJ "Ek ghoda doosre se poochta hai ki bhai? Ye Ghode pe gadhe ko kisne bitha diya?" (One horse is asking the other that who made this donkey sit on the top of this horse?) And what a dance he did. Despite of all the shoes and sandals which was thrown by the crew members of the show (a small indication of the respect they have towards participants of this show). Well, waise bhi getting shoes thrown at you is now a status symbol. Don't believe this? At-least the most powerful person on the earth for eight years will swear by this.

Another scene is where the girl with a funny accent (Tamanna) runs to the terrace, two guys run behind her thinking she might commit suicide and well, well, well the cameraman also runs behind her with a camera (so irresponsible). But then you know that it's a reality show and like all the reality shows made in India, there are just a very few things real here as well (only) .

Anyways, another very interesting part was when the "Singh is King" (well the original Singh is King is now busy preparing an explanation why Chandni Chowk to China flopped so badly. He has to explain otherwise this lad won't go to Africa) brand guy Pradeep kicks the living daylight out of the Ahmedavadi Devarshi. I am sure after watching this episode, a Marathi poster leader will try to expand his empire to Gujrat as well, because this is a clear example of a North Indian ill treating a Gujrati boy. A spokesperson might also claim that the shoe which hit on his face came from a someone who belong to the other part of India.

There was discussion going around in our office that MTV is slowly becoming a beep channel. I think that it's a conscious effort on the part of the franchisee to get this positioning. And they want to stick to it now. I am not sure how far this will go because at some point they need to alter the format to keep the fun alive. Beeps spoil half the fun. Waise bhi all the hooplah around the "Hell Down Under" is fizzing out and it seems that "Visa nahin bana hai abhi tak. Jinka reject ho gaya wo show se bahar nikal diye gaye and jinka banega wahi jaa payenge. Isliye bechare India mein hee naach rahe hain". Cost cutting ka jamana hai bhai. Waise bhi Slumdog ne dikha diya hai ki Garibi mast chalti hai and mast bikti hai. Maybe this one thought inspired the Gobar collection task.

Chalo, the show has still some half an hour to go and thanks god! somebody invented remote.

Just In.. "Microsoft is Firing"

Oh God! I must be dreaming. No posts for more than three months and then suddenly two posts in a day. This was the day

Well, our News Channels as well as Business News Channel might be slow in reporting this news (after all the source is same for me and them, the only thing is that I probably understand the implication this news could have on several other things) but the news is just in that "Microsoft is Firing". When TCS gave pink slips to 700 (about 0.7% of total workforce) employees, it became a big news and IT stocks lost the favor from investors, this news is surely going to have an impact. Perhaps a bigger one.

In a major development today Microsoft announced that it's going to downsize about 5% of it's workforce (5000 employees) to streamline costs. What is more alarming is that the company has also decided to eliminate merit-based pay rises, cut travel costs and reduce the use of contractors to increase the profitability. And to top this all, it's happening with Microsoft, a company which everyone believed will stand tall as computers are slowly becoming integral part of everybody's life and the demand for which will grow even during tougher times. Well, it's happening and it has just begun.

What does this mean for the IT, ITES industry?

The reason behind this desperate measure is to shore up the profitability as the company is able to see the slump in the global demand for the sales of PC or Laptops (bad news for Dell, Compaq, HP, Lenovo and millions of supply chain partners like vendors, resellers and distributors). All these manufacturers will start bundling their hardware with Free or cheaper open source softwares to cut their costs further deepening the slump in the sales of Microsoft products. Sensing this threat, Microsoft is trying to take appropriate steps by right-sizing the workforce.

“Economic activity and IT spend slowed beyond our expectations in the quarter,” Chief Financial Officer Chriss Liddel said in the statement. “We acted quickly to reduce our cost structure and mitigate its impact.” (Source - Bloomberg).

In this statement lies the clue for Indian IT/ITES industry. The slowing down of IT spend is alarming. Nortel which use to be one of the top 10 client of one of the top 5 Indian ITES company filed for Bankruptcy protection on a cold Wednesday morning. Other clients are either delaying their budgets or canceling the existing contracts. Clients are asking the companies to renegotiate the deals and the day is not far when they will even ask to halt the development or off-shoring to preserve cash.

The top 3 Indian IT companies have reported growth despite of the downturn but there is a sense of fear in the reported numbers. For the first time in six years all these companies are speaking of caution. The way Microsoft has reacted today, I am sure it will instill a sense of panic and will send a shock wave among the employees, stock holders and analyst all over the world. After all Microsoft was supposed to be above everything.

Let's see if our IT companies also follow in the foot steps of the big brother or they go slow and adopt the wait and watch policy which will mean avoiding the extreme step of retrenchment and adopting other measures like incentive cuts, salary cuts etc. It's surely going to be a tough time ahead. This year doesn't seem to be better than the last one. Anyways, let's pray for the 1400 of Microsoft Employees would loose their job tonight.

Jo hona hai hoga, for the time being let's believe in our Prime Minister's assurance that India is relatively insulated from this crisis (which he is repeating along with the ex Finance Minister Mr. Chidambaram since the stock market was at 22000 levels about one year ago ). I don't know how many of Indians will be among those 5000.

(As I finish writing this post, Dow is down by 3%, Nasdaq fell by 4% while S&P 500 also shed some 3% from the Yesterday's gains. Microsoft has lost 10%. Infosys ADR has lost some 5%, Wipro has lost 10%, Cognizant by 5% and IBM has lost some 7% by now. )

A Wednesday!

And the terror hit the Stock Market this time.

The day Satyam's news broke out people were in mad rush of selling shares. Call it coincidence or sixth sense, I advised one of my friend to sell all his Satyam shares before Wednesday and I specifically mentioned that market will fall on Wednesday. I never thought that this prophecy will come true. And what a fall it was.

Raju has definitely added a chapter in the "Sabse Bada Scamsters" an yearly magazine published jointly by CBI and CID. This magazine consists of all those people whom CBI probed but never was able to prove a case against them. Lalu Yadav, PV Narsimha Rao, Rajiv Gandhi, Hinduja, Abdul Karim Telgi, Harshad Mehta, Ketan Parekh all have decorated the front pages of this magazine but then Raju or Raju brothers deserve a special mention. They did not fool only the investors but rather all their stakeholders including Foreign Investors. He can gloat in glory "Lalu ne sirf poor Bihari logon ko loota, Harshad ne sirf stock investors ko loota, Ketan ne sirf bankers ko loota, but Humne to sabko barabar loota. Aur to aur Americans ko bhi khoob loota".


Scam ka king kaun? "Raju Bhai, Na Raju Bhais"

CID is investigating it, SEBI might just get some time to chat friendly with brothers and our honorable prime minister will keep monitoring the progress on this issue and then finally our honored CBI will be pulled into action. And then? Kya hoga aagey? Honestly I don't know. Nobody knows, not even the chief of CBI.

Well, one thing is sure that a scam of this magnitude cannot be pulled by just one man. Many more stakeholders are there and it's just about time when the body count will increase.

That's about Satyam. I think this issue brought me back to blogging. (and also increased the credibility of my stock tips) I am planning to migrate to my own domain name and currently I am searching for a cheap and reliable web hosting service provider. I am promising myself to take some time out for blogging atleast on weekends. So let's hope I keep the promise this time. Anyways, I am writing one investigative article on Satyam Scandal and am hopeful that I will be able to pack it with information.