Abhinav's Blog

The Indian Traffic Nonsense

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Sat, 24 May 2014 15:58:00 +0000

The light turns green and the impatient traffic waiting for the light to go green roared into action (many vehicles have already crossed the stop mark before the light turned green) and horns started blaring. It seems as soon as light go green people think that the person in-front doesn't want to move and is not giving them way so one hand is on steering and other on the horn as they start to cross the road.
In the middle of it a motor bike from the other side, crosses this roaring traffic even with the red light on. A car swerved to its left to avoid hitting the bike, the truck on the left gets to further left while still moving forward and another car on the truck's left puts the full brake on to avoid colliding with the truck and another car behind that car rams into it from behind.
Both the cars come to a halt and the car drivers from both cars jump out hurling abuses at each other. One accusing the other of braking suddenly, the other accusing the other of being in hurry and not knowing how to drive properly and asking him to pay for the damages.
And now there is a traffic jam in the middle of the road, the rest of the traffic somehow managing to go around them slowly, some stopping for a while to take a look at the cause of the traffic jam.
20 minutes of shouting, screaming, hurling abuses ensued and after that both the drivers get into their cars and drive away.
Sounds familiar? I'm sure all of us have seen or been in this or a similar situation. The scene could have played out in any manner the result is the same, people screaming, shouting, threatening each other and settling back somehow.
However the one thing that nobody is willing to accept is that the other person could be driving fine and due the traffic conditions or road conditions the accident happened.
The biggest reason I see everyday for accidents happening on Indian roads is that there are NO TRAFFIC RULES that are followed by us citizens and the rules are rarely stringently imposed or practiced by the traffic department of any city. And the reasons could be any and could be even genuine.
But on roads where people jump red lights as a habit, people drive on wrong side of the road (as if it's their right), there is no lane system, there is no restrictions on loads the vehicles can carry, slow and fast moving vehicles all tread the same line, there are crater like potholes to avoid, there is absolutely no traffic sense and top of that there is no one to ensure that traffic rules are followed, how do you expect that there won't be any accidents?
And even bigger questions why do people fight with each other when their vehicles bang each other? Can any of us really blame any one else for the accidents on the roads? In the above scenario, who is really to be blamed for the accident? The truck driver, the car driver or the biker who ran the red light?
The damage of his actions is to be borne by others and there is no one to ensure that the biker is brought to justice.
So all we do by fighting with the other person is venting our anger, our frustration of something else that is wrong in our life at that moment. Both the parties know that it won't help the cause but probably we Indians feel that screaming and cursing is the solution to every problem in this country or at least it brings us satisfaction.

#AmazonCart Shopping on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Sun, 11 May 2014 03:48:00 +0000

This week Amazon came out with a new innovative service for users in US, UK called as #AmazonCart which let's the twitter users add an amazon product whose link they found on one of the tweets to their amazon cart without leaving twitter.
So for example while you are going through your twitter timeline you receive a tweet about Nike shoes available on amazon at discounted price with a link to the product, you can reply to this tweet with hashtag #AmazonCart and the shoes will be added on to your amazon cart which you can later go and purchase. But the advantage is that you don't have to leave twitter to go to the page and add the product.

Here is a video further explaining how it works

Now the big debate going on is will people use this service. Within 140 characters there isn't enough information about a product that a customer can make a purchase decision and also this is not resulting in a final sale but adding to the cart which has a very low rate of conversion into actual sales.

Do I think it will work? Initially it may seem like #AmazonCart is a half baked innovation that has come out of Amazon stable. However I feel it's a brilliant idea, another step in generating revenues, promoting business through Twitter (however twitter doesn't has any share in it).

Most of the critique about this idea are valid but I feel that this is not the end game of Amazon, probably this is a first little experiment of a bigger idea and after gathering enough data they might come up with an excellent revenue model through twitter.
If you think of it, how difficult is it that when you hover over a amazon product link on twitter, it shows the product description right there. And while replying with #AmazonCart it's an easy task to reply with product quantity and/or product size etc. information and the purchase is complete from twitter itself rather than just getting added to cart. This could be a amazon's "1-Click" button on twitter.

So I do think it's a great idea and will soon mature and such innovations are the reason behind the great success story of Amazon.

Gar Ho Sake by Indian Ocean

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Wed, 07 May 2014 11:15:00 +0000

My favorite Indian band "Indian Ocean" recently came out with their first song of their new album "Tandanu". The song is in collaboration with another favorite singer of mine Shubha Mudgal.
The song is so powerful and so contemporary that it will send vibrations in your body and is so well sung. Simply mind boggling, you will have goosebumps.

गर हो सके तो अब कोई शम्मां जलाइए
इस दौरे सियासत का अँधेरा मिटाइये

It so much sounds like anthem of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

A must listen for everyone. Listen here on gaana.com

Also if you would like to view the making of this song:

Indians work on Instructions

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Mon, 05 May 2014 18:19:00 +0000

Today when I walked in to get the lunch from cafeteria I saw a paper notes stuck on pillars and walls that said "due to frequent loss of spoons any spoon lost will be charged at Rs. 5/-". The dirty printout was stuck around the big cafeteria.
In contrast when you enter the same cafeteria there are touch screen food coupon vending machines set up where you can choose the food you want to have, pay there and get the coupons. One would say that we are going high-tech and technology is all pervasive but then there are those dirty printouts that stare at you and scream that you guys can't live with just the technology, you still need these paper memos, alerts to control your dirty habits.
That poster was not the only one, there is another that tells people to put the plates on the washing counter and not leave it on the table, another digital board that says that keep the eating area clean, don't get into an argument with the person serving, do not bring outside food and so on.
And the stage of this scene is a giant IT park where supposedly bright brains (at least well educated) come who deliver multi-million dollar business for their companies every year.

The big question that often comes to my mind is why we as Indians still need these dirty little alerts everywhere ?
Even in toilets there are these dirty printouts which say "do not spit or throw chewing gums in the pot", "please flush after use", "switch off the lights when not in use" and thousand others everywhere. I am sure each one of us can come with a long list of such poster alerts.

Why is it that we as a nation need to be reprimanded for everything and so often? We drive down in a million rupee car to McDonald's spends thousands of rupee on food and yet feel ashamed to clear off our table (or deliberately don't want to). Why do we need a sticker to tell us to keep children from running in the restaurant? Isn't it commonsense? At a post office why do we need a handwritten note pasted which says "keep the gum at the same place after use"? Isn't this just logical, courteous, responsible behavior as individuals?

Sometimes I feel that these posters, alerts everywhere from a bus to a restaurants have become part of our culture, part of growing up in this country. And it's not that we ask for these posters and alerts to regulate our behavior, nonetheless if they are not there something inside us says "why should I put the garbage out? I have already paid for the meal, it's their job to clean the table" or "there are no instructions that says I can't scribble on the seats of the bus so why can't I make my love eternal by scribbling here".

Unfortunately I don't think this can be easily rectified it will take generation(s) to mend this behavior but least we can do is inculcate these good habits in the next generation and our children.

AAP is already a Winner

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Fri, 02 May 2014 08:32:00 +0000

In the past few days from every quarter of the media to friends and relatives have started cursing Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) heavily. You do a like on anything related to AAP on FB or tweet about them, people will pounce upon you for no apparent reason.
Some try to act civilized by asking the question(s) what the hell do you see in that party? How can intelligent people like you support AAP? They are nothing but a bunch of frauds look at Shazia, Ashutosh, look at Kejriwal's gaffe on Aajtak. They are making fool of intelligent people like you.
On the other hand every political party from SP to Cong to BJP is against them (for their own reasons which I can understand) and everyone is targeting Kejriwal and trying to ban his rallies, his roadshows, conducting attacks on him etc. And media (or better paid media) will do what it is paid for, there is no doubt about that.
Ironically these are the same bunch of people who threw Salman and SRK back in ratings in liking Kejriwal during the "andolan" with Anna Hazare.
Now at individual level I thought I would answer the question why I support AAP today when the tide is turning against them and many around me are cursing them.
1. AAP is not a political party, it's a thought, it's an idea whose time has come. I didn't support Kejriwal and Team when they were sitting at Dharna during "andolan" because I believe we all can curse but no one has the balls to take on the system by getting into it. Kejriwal and team just did that. They got into the political arena and challenged the Goliaths and giants of politics. This was not a party that was floated, this was an idea, a thought which was long in gestation. Every citizen thought that we need an alternative to the existing political parties but no one knew how or when. So when this party floated on the principals of clean politics and removal of corruption, it was a culmination of long term dream of almost every citizen of this country.
2. AAP is not equal to Arvind Kejriwal - When you listen to Arvind Kejriwal he often mentions this point that "Who is Arvind Kejriwal?", "Meri koi aukaat nahi hai". All of these statements are very true (if Kejriwal says it seriously or just to gain political points is besides the point). AAP is not Kejriwal, Sisodia, Bhushan or Kumar Vishwas, or Shazia or newly joined Ashutosh or for that matter any single individual. The only credit I give to any of them (and mainly to Kejriwal) is they gave a platform to voice public concerns, that they were having since last 60 years in this country and showed that the common man can also make his voice heard within this system, through the existing process and not necessarily an Egypt or Syria like revolution is needed to bring in change in this country.
3. Real People have joined AAP. The real "Aam Aadmi" is associated with this party. I am sure all of us must have read about the numerous stories where many NRIs have left their plush jobs and insane packages and came back to India to bring about the change, to fight elections, to 'do something' for the country. And all of this has been possible through the emergence of AAP. There are millions of AAP volunteers in the country who are in real terms volunteers - not paid, working with their own free will and expecting nothing. Unlike other political parties who have to pay to get the man to work for them and organize paid rallies.
4. Lastly, I think it's the ray of light we have been searching for past 60 years. This is our best chance to take on the system and (hopefully) change it for good. People like you and me have cursed the government and politicians all our lives, now if there is a chance that it can change then we should take up that chance. And I don't believe that things will change overnight or AAP will govern this country like no one ever did or they will be free from corruption or will always make the best decisions. The only thing I am sure of is that we will get our best shot at a clean and corruption free government till now and at least the intentions of the government/MP/MLAs will be honest for the most part and that's good enough for me.

In the end it doesn't matter how many seats AAP wins in Loksabha or assembly elections. Even if it wins 0 seats, still it will be a winner. A party that has "changed" something in this country, that gave some ray of hope, that made people believe that politics is not such a dirty word.
The onus lies on us to play our part in this transformation, the least we can do it go out and vote for this change and if we don't then that shame on us and we have ourselves to blame and no one else.

And moreover even if AAP don't win anything then also AAP will not die because it's not a political party it's a thought, an idea and that never dies.

1st Pune International Literary Festival - Review

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 15:37:00 +0000

Ever since the tradition of literary festivals have started in India, I have been disappointed that Pune has somehow been eluded from its map. So when I heard about the first Pune International Literary Festival (PILF) being held in the city I was overjoyed.
Pune being a cultural city and with such a huge reader base and budding writers, deserved it as much (or even more so) as any other destination.
PILF was organized from 20-22 September in Pune. I got to experience it first hand, so thought of sharing the experience with all Punekars and book lovers.
1. I always thought MIT was a great venue for such a meet due to their excellent infrastructure until I walked in on day one and had to spent 20 minutes in finding where the event was in that huge campus. No one seem to know about PILF happening there (most of them were students and security and they had no clue), a few banners helped but not much. People who have never been to MIT might have a lot more trouble in finding the venue and halls.
2. Day one proceedings were delayed by many hours due to chief guest Sachin Pilgaonkar arriving late but then the session with him was good.
3. Ashok Banker stole the show on day 1, had an excellent session, a few other good sessions including Jerry Pinto, Ashwin Sanghi were there.
4. On day 2 the schedule was turned upside down by Shobha De and from that point onward there was no looking back, schedule for day 3 also got changed and people were frustrated, I got hugely disappointed to the point that I skipped day 3.
5. There was no ticket checking, no security checks and anyone and everyone could attend sessions. It felt that I was an idiot to purchase a ticket.
6. In a college like MIT you are swarmed with bodies running here and there, it was difficult to strike up a conversation with a fellow book lover as you never knew if he was a student or audience.
7. There was nothing international (or a very little) about the festival, need to attract more internationally acclaimed authors.
8. On day 2 finding the right auditorium became a herculean task, took me 40 minutes and then too we were not successful in finding the auditorium and then went back to the one I knew. Even the volunteers (probably from MIT) gave wrong information or probably they didn't even knew themselves as to what is going where.
9. And then there were a few minor issues, no water/coffee arrangement on day 1, only bookstore displaying the books was crossword and no discounts, etc.

Now having said that I would not term it as a disaster, far from it. Nevertheless the organization needs a lot of work. Also the awareness about the PILF was very little within the city and in a city with millions of book lovers we couldn't attract so many as to fill an auditorium.
Hopefully these teething problems will subside in the years to come and PILF will set standards for others to follow.

Commercial Fiction Vs. Literary Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Sat, 21 Sep 2013 16:55:00 +0000

This weekend has been pretty exciting for me as I am attending the 1st Literary Festival being Organized in my city Pune (PILF).
I would very much like to do a post about the festival when it gets over on the 22nd September.

But as part of the festival there were a few discussions that I witnessed. One of the things that prominently came up in every discussion was a term that I heard for the first time 'Commercial Fiction' (apparently they have rechristened Chetan Bhagat syndrome that I like to call).
And one of the debating points was, is commercial fiction doing more bad then good?

Now please understand my state of mind where first session I attended was with the 'so called' authors like Preeti Shenoy, Durjoy Datta, Sudeep Nagarkar, Tuhin Sinha (if you have never heard of these names, you are among the lucky ones). In shorts these are the authors whose book titles would be 'It started with a friend request', 'Offcourse I love you till I meet someone else', 'tea cup...' and blah blah, you got the point. So these are the ones who are CB Syndrome (Commercial fiction) writers.
Now this session was fun and I mean funny fun, where writers were telling that what's the big deal with syntactical errors in books even the classics have it to (oh yes they did say classics have errors too) and if they were not writers they would have married a rich girl and all that shit. And girls swooning over Durjoy Sir and melting over Preeti ma'm who changed their lives through her books. And they thanked their godfather Chetan Bhagat because of whom they are getting printed.
The next session was a volte-face where 2 publishers and 3 good authors took part and one very important point that a publisher from Harper Collins Karthika VK raised was that one big concern with publishing todayis that the reader graduation from this so called 'commercial fiction' to mature fiction is not happening and the reading quality is getting from bad to worse and she went on to explain that it's not just the price that keep readers away from good literature but then there is no willingness to read good literature or people don't want to spend time to understand good literature. Other authors raised some valid points too, one of them Altaf Tyrewala raised a good point that if there was a willingness about reading good literature then there are always good quality literature available in second hand market in every city.
Later in another session author Ashwin Sanghi made a good point for commercial fiction that at least it is getting readers in the habit of reading and unless they read how would they graduate to mature literature.
Now to add my 2 cents to this conversation, first of all I hate to see that this type of literary trash gets published and then it also gets a category 'commercial fiction'. What does that bloody mean anyway? Are other good fiction writers doing an honorary job? Are they giving away their books for free? All work is commercial. And the CB syndrome books should not even be discussed in literary meets let alone have a separate category.
I agree with Karthika VK that graduation is not happening but then whose fault is it anyway? Aren't publishers and good writers to be blamed for it too? You are crowding the bookstores with literary trash. Top 10 bestsellers at crosswords and landmarks are all trashy. You are lowering the cost of crappy books just to attract more readers. Writers who are writing good books are not interacting much with readers except through abstract means like literary festivals, Facebook, Twitter (where they speak and others listen). Publishers are not trying to find ways to reduce the cost, not trying to reach audience in a different manner. The world has changed but publishing & marketing don't want to change much (superficially yes they have changed). There are no innovative ways of marketing or publishing coming up which can have farther reach and reduce cost.
Now if a common laborer can only afford a "desi daroo" and he gets addicted to it and later on dies one day drinking that contaminated spirit, would you just blame the laborer and the desi daroo shops and stop there? Won't you make an attempt to replace those desi daroo shops with good quality liquor that the laborer can get addicted to.
May be the example is not appropriate but I hope you guys get what I am trying to say.

If simple and cheap is what the market requires today then give the readers that. And if there are no authors in the current breed who can write good literature in simple language then find new ones who can, they are part of the problem. I do not think that a reader who is reading such literary trash is ever going to graduate to mature literature. A Durjoy Datta reader will at best graduate to a Preeti shenoy, from 'I too had a love story' he will move on too 'Offcourse I love you, till I find someone else' but not more than that.
And by making trashy literature glamorous in literary festivals we are only egging them to continue writing trash.
When back in the days we never gave prominence to such type of Hindi novels as 'Vardi Wala Gunda' (Ved Prakash Sharma) then why are we making these CB syndrome writers as youth icons?

This has to stop or our coming generations will only call such books as literature and may be all the real writers will either be out of job or will join the bandwagon.

Staring at a Blank Screen

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:31:00 +0000

Now this is kinda funny. I have been staring at the blank post screen for last 40 minutes or so trying to think of the next post but my fingers were just not ready to budge.
It so often happens with so many of us that if it's been a while since we have written then it becomes difficult to write again.
At such times either your mind has so many thoughts running or it goes completely blank, either ways you can't write.
In my case, it had been the former, have so many thoughts running in my mind. So many topics, so many things to say that it was becoming difficult to start anywhere on the blog post.
People call it writer's block but its a condition that every person who is into writing anything (not necessarily books and novels) faces every now and then.
I also have a similar problem with reading, if I don't read for a long time then it becomes pretty difficult for me to get back to reading and at such time my medicine is a murder mystery by Agatha Christie :)
Thankfully since I last year my book reading is going well as part off "the book this week" program of my own, where I read and review a book every week.

But back to the "writer's block", what do you do when you are faced with such a condition? I know there is no cure as such for this condition but I am sure different people practice different things to come out of it. The easiest (and the most difficult) solution is to start writing.

And after more than half and hour that's what I am doing as part of this post. So this post might not make much sense (or may be it does) but bear with me as I try to come out of this block and start posting on this blog more frequently.

Procrastination is a devil. So if you have been waiting to write a post, an article, a book, a novel anything just start typing something and I am sure it will turn out into something good.

तुमको ना भूल पायेंगे

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 06:23:00 +0000

तुम से ही शुरू और तुम पे ख़त्म ये जिंदगी
ख़ुदा से बढ़ कर करते थे तुम्हारी बंदगी ।
तुम न आये थे तो ज़िन्दगी वीराना थी
युहीं दिन काटते ज़िन्दगी बिताना थी ।
तुम जो आये तो बहार आई थी
जितनी ख़ुशी दुनिया में कभी सोची भी न थी उससे ज्यादा पाई थी ।
फिर ग़म की वो सुबह भी आई जब चारो तरफ सन्नाटा था
मौत ने तुमको मेरे और अपने बीच में बांटा था ।
मौत से क्या गिला करता तुम इस जहाँ की सबसे खुबसूरत थी
अकेला में न संभाल सकता इसलिए शायद मौत की ज़रुरत थी ।

तुम्हारे जाने के बाद दिल बड़ा उदास रहता है
ऐ मौत उसके साथ मुझे क्यूँ न ले गयी ये कहता है ।
इस जन्म क्या सारे जन्म चाहेंगे तुम्हे
इस ज़िन्दगी में न सही अगली ज़िन्दगी में ज़रूर पाएंगे तुम्हे ।

Who are the Real Terrorists?

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 17:09:00 +0000

The recent Oak Creek Gurudwara shooting once again proves how vulnerable we all are in this world. Be it the tribal of Assam or migrants residing in so called safe America.
In today's world it has become very difficult to identify who is the real terrorist and terrorism today unlike the earlier times has become a global problem and each and every country is facing terrorism in some or the other form.
There is terrorism in Gaza, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Spain, Italy, Denmark, UK, US, India,etc. almost all the countries of the world.
Every other day there is a news of a bomb attack, suicide attack, trains blown up in some part of the world.

The big question that begs the answer is who are these terrorists? This question has been asked a hundred million times by two hundred million people I am sure but the problem is, it has never been answered.
No country in the world is ready to answer it, be it Israel, Pakistan, USA, India or any other nation.
Should it be surmised then that the reason nations try to avoid this question is because they already know the answer to this question? Or simply put they exactly know who are the real terrorist.
Or in even more simpler terms the Nations themselves create these terrorists so they know who they actually are.
Doesn't USA knows if it hadn't been for its policies and its gun culture, there would have been much lesser deaths every year (15000 per year less deaths by an estimate)?
Doesn't Pakistan knows that Taliban is the one of the main source of terrorism but as the dependence of the people in Lahore is on Taliban, it continues to flourish and in the end it bites the same hand that feeds it?
Doesn't India know that Naxalites are none other than the natives of the land who had to let go of their lands, their resources for some stupid government policies or for some greedy corporate honchos and to get back what was their own they had to resort to the path of violence?

In some or the other way we all know who the real terrorists are and who creates them, our systems and values have become so hollow that all they churn out today are dissatisfied individuals who have been brought up in such an environment, where the only path they know to get what they want is of violence, of gun.

When a British teenager murders an Indian immigrant for no good reason, when a mad Joker kills tens of movie goers, when Naxalites kills hundreds of CRPF Jawans, should these Nations go out in search of terrorist or should they identify and root out the evils of the society within which is creating these internal terrorist?

What goes wrong every Olympics?

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 15:52:00 +0000

Another edition of Olympics is coming to an end and India has performed even worse than the last Olympics till now. 4 Medals in all, out of them 3 Bronze.
In a country of 1 billion plus where we insist we are an important nation in the world and we mean so much to the rest of the world, we have never been able to demonstrate it in Sports.
Being in top 10 in Olympics is a dream that probably another 100 generations won't be able to see.

The big question that never gets answered is, What goes wrong in every Olympics?

The ads of Hockey players before Olympics look so ridiculous now after they lost every single game they played in London. And we were thinking of bringing back the lost glory of Hockey.
Just look at the way Germans, Dutch, Argentine, Australian play the Hockey and you will loose all the hopes (if you mistakenly had any) from our Hockey team.
Look at that jumper who did 3 false start and was disqualified, even look at the likes of Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang who didn't even qualify in many events or stopped at a measly 20th spot or much worse.
Look at our world record holder Deepika Kumari in archery, she couldn't even reach to Bronze. The men's archery team was placed 9th in the 9 teams.

Doesn't these types of results ever get questioned? Every sportsman cribs about not getting enough support from government, not getting enough money and what not. But nobody is responsible or nobody takes accountability after the debacle. No sportsman is Man enough, it seems.
It seems we have become a country of cribbers and unless we change that attitude nothing will change at the Olympics front at least.
At least today there is enough money flowing in every sports, you have media, you have people with you. If one performs then it gets noticed. Even people who won medals in Commonwealth games got enough money, fame, television ads and what not.
But then it seems the fame and money gets to the head of these sportsman and nobody after that wants a career in sports but in everything else, be it dance shows, reality television, comedy shows, etc.

Why don't we as a country ever think about implementing a sports system like China or even like the smaller countries who concentrate on a few sports but at least comes back with medals? Countries smaller than a state of ours go back with a bunch of medals, a single athlete wins more Olympics medals in 3 Olympics than we as a country have won in total in all the editions of Olympics and we as a country are never ashamed so much so that we think about changing things.
And if we don't want to change things then let us just accept that we Indians do not have the capability to becoming world champions (except for may be in cricket which hardly 10 countries play) and that we do not have that caliber. At least after that we can stop funding these under-performing sports institutes and sportsman and utilize that money in some other needed areas.
Alas while even writing this article I m too confident that nothing drastically will change ever so its immaterial to even say that "its high time things change and people are held accountable", because till the time we have sportsman who continue to be involved in infighting, describing themselves as 'bait' and fighting to just hold the flag then nothing will change.
These sportsman don't believe in getting things by merit but by doing politics like us other Indians.

Should Anna Form a Political Party?

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Seriously who cares now what Anna does now? This was the last nail in the coffin.
Why this enlightenment today to Anna and his Team that they should have a referendum and ask the people of the country that should they float a political party?
Wasn't this the exact same thing all the Political Parties has been saying all this while? But then Anna and his team countered why every person should float a political party to remove corruption.
It clearly appears that this movement has gone directionless now, no one knows which direction to pull it in, so they are basically doing whatever they can.
By first refusing Ramdev and then inviting him, then first accusing few ministers, then all the ministers, then PM, then President, then Anna saying Congratulate the President and doing several back and forth Anna and his team has mislead the same janta, they vowed to lead in the movement for "Corruption Free India".

This could serve as a good case study as to how to self-destroy a good movement.

Technology at the London Olympics 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 17:30:00 +0000

Technology is prevalent in all the walks of life and any event small or big is touched by it at many facets. Technology has completely changed the way events are being held today.

The biggest event of this year the London Olympics 2012 have recently started. This is as big as an event can get. And once again use of technology can be seen in each and every aspect of the Olympics, from recording the personal best of athletes to resolving the conflicts by capturing micro second details to testing the athletes for banded substances.

Olympics have come back to United Kingdom after 1948 and back then there was hardly any technology, the face of the Olympics has completely changed now.

Look at the below astonishing facts of the usage of technology in the ongoing London Olympics 2012:

1. The mammoth scale of the technological challenge is put into perspective when you consider that across the Olympic Park and another 94 venues, 3417 miles of networking cabling has been laid as well as 621 miles of broadcast cables. These cables will, among other things, power and connect 16,400 Acer PCs, 10,000 Panasonic televisions, 390 scoreboards from Omega, 16,500 fixed line telephones, 900 servers and a whopping 110,000 individual pieces of technology equipment.

2. Acer has the 1,200 square meter Acer Park Pavilion, a three-storey structure located close to the athletes' village in the Olympic Park.

3. According to London 2012 bosses, a whopping 466 million photos and 334 years worth of video will be captured during the event with multimedia data generated at a rate of six gigabytes every single second.

4. All the action from every venue will be captured by the Olympic Broadcasting Services using 1223 cameras and more more than 621 miles of broadcast cable. Their pictures will then be distributed around the world with the BBC responsible for showing them in the UK.

5. The BBC itself will provide 2500 hours of live coverage on TV and online with 24 new high-definition channels created purely for the Games, four times more than used in Beijing in 2008.

6. Japan's public broadcaster NHK along with the OBS are also helping to show the games in Super Hi-Vision, a successor to HD known as Ultra High Definition. It delivers picture quality 16 times sharper than HD with three special cinemas in Bradford, Glasgow and London set up to showcase this technology using Olympic broadcasts.

7. Robotic remote cameras are used by photo journalists to get shots from positions normally unattainable.

8. Over at the Olympic Park, Panasonic has provided three 152inch plasma screens - referred to as the world's largest - along with 42 of the 103inch version. These will be mounted at venues for spectators to see instant replays and action as it happens while Panasonic are also helping produce 200 hours of 3D Games coverage with their own 3D broadcast cameras.

9. A unique web portal was setup to help London 2012 recruits more than 70,000 volunteers for Games.

10. Underwater cameras for better shots at the swimming and diving events.

11. Sports doctors have access to high-tech equipment to diagnose musculoskeletal injuries at the London Olympic Village, home to up to 16,000 athletes during the Olympics

12. Athletes can use computers and laptops provided by sponsors at the London Olympic Village.

13. Working with Adobe, they are also providing live video-on-demand giving surfers one-click access to catch-up on key moments from each sport whether on PCs, smartphones or tablets.

14. Visa has also installed contactless payment technology at every venue making London 2012 the first Olympics where contactless cards and NFC-enabled mobile phones can be used to pay with.

15. Around London, O2 has just launched free Wi-Fi throughout the games in partnership with Westminster Council. It means anyone will be able log online across the West End of the capital near landmarks such as Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Parliament Square.

16. And as the athletes from more than 200 countries compete, timekeepers Omega will be on hand with 420 tons of equipment to ensure every last millionth of a second counts. There will be 450 Omega professionals operating 70 public scoreboards and 320 sport-specific scoreboards managed by 111 miles of cable and speedy optical fiber connections.

17. A number of individual athletes and teams have been using Apple iOS apps as part of their preparations. They include camera and movie software to capture training sessions to watch back and analyze; the likes of Runkeeper to monitor training times; Stroke-Coach, used by Team GB's rowers to show average rowing rates and speeds; and Gymaware, which helps weightlifters achieve better acceleration during their sets.

18. With so much technology behind-the-scenes, it's no wonder organizers have already carried out 200,000 hours of software testing in a bid to ensure a smooth fortnight without crashes, slowdowns or technical hitches.

The competition keeps on getting fiercer Olympics after Olympics and technological advancements grows by leaps and bounds now we can only imagine what technology, gadgets, gizmos we would see at the Olympics 20 years from now.

Surface: Consumption vs. Creation - Does it really matter?

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 02:55:00 +0000

With Microsoft coming out with its tablet Surface last month (in the process getting a pat on the back for coming out with an un-Microsoft like device) the debate of Consumption vs. Creation has gathered momentum.

People have often questioned the tablets (and probably some have deferred their decisions to buy a tablet) for their capability of creating content. Often the market leader of tablet, IPad has also heard similar criticism, i.e. you can watch videos, read a e-books and other PDF documents, play some games, etc. but there is less on the creation front that one can do on a tablet.

Now to give a competition to Apple, Microsoft has come out with 2 versions of Surface, one built on top of Windows RT (Which is a scaled down version of Windows 8 OS) due for a release in 3 months and one built on top of Windows 8 Pro (which will be sort of an ultrabook with a digital ink stylus) which will be released even later.

In short, following are the main features of Surface:

1. Built on Windows RT Operating System
2. Has a removable rubberized keyboard and a Kickstand
3. 9.3 mm thick and weighs 1.5 pounds
4. Comes with Microsoft Office 2013
5. The other advanced version would be 14 mm thick and will weigh under 2 pounds and will run Windows 8 Pro operating system

All these features are considered to be excellent features when it comes to a tablet. For the people who have been working with keyboard and mouse since ages find tablet cumbersome to operate and not useful to create content. The other argument is, on a tablet (including IPad) the maximum you can type (easily) is 140 characters.

For such people Surface brings a relief and will give them back their known domain of Keyboard and MS Office through which they are for sure going to create on a tablet as well.

But the question that begs the answer is does it really matter that we get the ability to create on a tablet in addition to consume the content?

In today’s world of ever changing technologies we have devices for all of our needs and we do not carry only one that caters to all the needs. We have Smartphone, desktops, laptops, tablets, MP3 Players, e-book readers, etc.

And we use each of these devices as per our requirement and convenience, although we can make calls through Skype with a headphone & mic but we would prefer to do it over a phone (as long as the charges are same). One can read an e-book on Smartphone or a laptop as well but prefers to do it on a e-book reader. Similarly when we want to do some fast typing or create contents than we would like to do that on a laptop or desktop where there are no keyboard space constraints and we get enough display space too.

On the launch of Surface Steve Ballmer said "Much like Windows 1.0 needed the mouse to complete the experience, we wanted to give Windows 8 its own companion hardware innovation". Which probably from MS point of view could be right but it certainly does not extends to the conclusion that a keyboard is essential for creation on a tablet.

If creation was so essential for a tablet and was not supported through a tablet, wouldn’t Apple have thought about adding a keyboard as well in the already existing 3 versions of IPad (and you definitely can do that through an Apple supported keyboard, it’s just not part of the tablet) and even better would Apple have been able to sell close to 100 million IPad and another 100 million planned in next year, without such a feature.

These numbers flies in the face of the argument that Creation is important on a tablet.

The young breed who wakes up to an IPad or other tablets in the name of technology and gadgets might not even feel the need of a traditional keyboard (certainly the mouse is obsolete) and they will still be creating exciting and excellent content.

Recently I saw a video on TEDEX where a children book author has created an excellent application on IPad for children. It was an interactive application where children can use gestures, hand movements, shaking the IPad and other features to get the experience of visiting a fairy land. Such creativity and interactivity is definitely possible on a tablet.

The one word that describes today’s tablets and SmartPhones are Apps. The applications are giving way to app. The app is the highly specific task – for both consumption and creativity – that our tablets are optimized for.

And lastly who said that the only methods of input are mouse and keyboard? This is a old world thinking on which MS has based Surface. It’s a new world today, there are new ways to interact with device today and apps are definitely one way to go. You think about it and you will find other means of input to the device. Isn’t the IPod shuffle feature one way of interacting with your IPod?

Consumption vs. Creation debate is overhyped and although Microsoft may score a few points with the additional Keyboard on Surface, it has a long way to go to capture the tablet market, several measures need to be taken and one of them would be releasing the products on time.

Teenage Sex A Crime?

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Tue, 01 May 2012 08:12:00 +0000

The government's proposal to make sex illegal for teenagers up to 18 years of age defies all logic. What world are we entering in? Are the politicians or academicians have shut their eyes before coming up with such proposals/laws?
Recently I was reading the news that children now are getting mature earlier. Puberty is attained 2 years earlier than was the case earlier. Age of 18 years no longer signifies adulthood.
And with the media and the Internet all pervasive in our lives the exposure to children have become much more and they are well aware of their sexuality and have much more information then even adults sometimes have.
In such a case how can teenage consent sex be termed as 'rape'? How can it be made illegal?
And by making it in a law are our lawmakers thinking that teenage sex will stop? It would result in bad practices, unsafe sex and unsafe abortions which could become another big problem in our socially conservative country.
In different countries the age limit for sexual indulgence is different and at the age of 16 most of the countries do not object to consensual sex. And then there are further exception to their laws.
In the schools and colleges today aren't the students aware about a lot many things apart from their studies, which may be you and I have came to know in college? Aren't abuses part of their dictionary, aren't explicit photos being carried by them on their mobiles and tablets? Have we forgotten about the MMS scandals in schools that surfaced a few years back?
Also with the power of Internet in their hands they have access to all kinds to photos, videos, literature and at that tender age they might not have the maturity to withhold themselves and in such a case if two teenagers involve in sexual activities, would you jail those teens?
Will the next law also ask the teenagers to stop dating, stop any physical contacts or stop talking even?
Haven't the teens in every age done exactly the thing that has been prohibited?
The government needs to re-look at such a proposal and academicians and social activist and people from all walks of life should be consulted before any harsh law comes into practice. The feasibility and practicality of it should be debated at length.
With Maharashtra raising the age of consuming alcohol to 21 and now government coming up with such proposals and already moral policing by different groups continuing, are we entering a Taliban regime, where the behaviors and dresses of the countrymen would be dictated by the government?

Pin you interests with Pinterest

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:50:00 +0000

As the old adage goes that “a picture is worth a thousand words”. That’s the basic premise of Pinterest, the new social networking application.

Pinterest is an online bulletin board for your favorite images or a pin-board style social photo sharing website.

The site is relatively new, being launched in 2010. Nevertheless it has seen a phenomenal growth in the past few months and people have started calling it the Facebook nemesis.

FB nemesis or not it is kind of a big thing with the stats vouching for its popularity. With the latest data gathered as of February 2012, Pinterest has already hit the 10 million unique visitors mark and that too in U.S. alone. It has been declared as the fastest independent site to hit 10 million visits mark.

It has been listed as “The best 20 websites of 2011” by the Time Magazine. It is said to be driving more referral traffic to the retailers than LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+ combined.

What exactly is Pinterest all about?

Pinterest takes the social networking to a whole new level. It takes on the challenge of creating yet another way of exploring and discovering content online based on your interests. More specifically, Pinterest focuses on the visual—images primarily and some videos—rather than articles, text-based blogs, music, or podcasts. Although the site is free but currently it is by invitation only.

The behavior on the site is akin to a user’s habit of pinning important things to a pin board. There are different pinboards (similar to categories) you can create as per your interest and you can “pin” images to those pinboards from all across the web. After a while your virtual pinboards become a collage of visually stunning images, with notes/comments attached to them and links back to the original sources from where the images come from.

Pinterest provides a ‘pin’ bookmark button that you can install on any of the browsers and capture and share the images with just one click.

As it is a social networking website so it has the features such as you can comment, you can ‘like’ the pins or repin (similar to sharing) pins shared by others. You can also follow the users or more specifically the boards that interest you.

What can be done with Pinterest?

There are a lot of things that one can do with Pinterest. It gained its user base mostly from women who loved to share their accessories, clothes, interior decoration ideas and so on.

So if you want to decorate your home you can pin the images of interior decorations items from all around the web and collect them on your board and later use the ideas to decorate your home.

If you have a list of must watch movies you can pin their posters on one of your boards “Movies to watch before I die” (or may be with a less dramatic title).

You can solicit view from others by pinning the images or start a group discussion on a particular item. For example a new Jeffery Archer book’s image can be pinned on your board and your friends and relatives (and even people beyond your network) can put on their reviews or in turn they can pin their reviews on their boards and you can follow them.

And since it is a social image sharing site, it can very well be used to promote the businesses (many brands are already doing so and benefitting). With stunning design and images the website draws attentions of millions of users and your business can get benefitted by that.

Your brand can get more eye ball on a pinboard then on a FB wall, the requirement is that it has to be visually appealing. And if an image from your website has been pinned then it also links back to your entire website which makes the discoverability of your brand that much easier.

Searchable

Everything you pin becomes searchable, which is one of the best features of Pinterest. If you clip a bunch of images for an idea or future brainstorming, it's very useful to be able to search all those visual scraps based on text you entered into the description field. And as more and more images get pinned every hour, you have a good chance to encounter new search results when you search for the same item later.

Bottom line

Pinterest provides a completely new way to discover and explore images on the web. Currently the content leans more toward crafts, jewelry, interior design and décor; the palettes of a lot of images are often the same. Nevertheless it has a huge potential to grow due to its ease of use.

However what is important on Pinterest is that images you share must be visually appealing, beautiful and thought-provoking as that will only attract more attention and more followers.

So join Pinterest and discover a whole new world of image sharing. If you want to explore it and do not have an invite, drop me a line and I will send you one.

You can also follow me on Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/abhinavs

Some (Other) Sports News

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:17:00 +0000

The latest sports news (if you happen to have read) besides Sachin's 100th century, Kohli's batting, Dravid's retirement, Pakistan's win in Asia cup, etc., etc. is that Indian Women boxer MC Mary Kom and Sarita Devi have won gold medal at the Asian Women's Boxing Championship.
And you might be surprised to hear this that India finished a good second (off course to China) with 2 Gold, 4 Silver and 4 Bronze.
Mary Kom is a 5 times world champion, she has 3 Asian titles and eleven national titles and has won many awards (including Arjun, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and Padam Shri).
Sarita Devi is also a world champion and in 60KG category.
In a country obsessed with cricket it is hard for any game to get any sort of exposure, on top of that boxing and that too women's boxing must be really tough to break into.
Hopefully with the exposure that sportsperson got in last CWG at home and the medals won at Asian Championship, they will get all required support for the upcoming London Olympics and we will win some medals there.
In addition to government help, we as audience also needs to develop interest in other sports and patronize such sports and sportsperson.
The least we can do is if any game is going in our local stadium(s), we should go and watch it and also get the children interested in such sports.

No Mamata At All?

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:00:00 +0000

With the entire country questioning her move (removing railway minister) for a few days, she decides to give an interview today to NDTV regarding her relations with UPA2 and other how she is not getting the respect she deserves.
But she steered clear of any questions regarding her party's former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, whom she sacked (allegedly).
You can watch the interview here.
This is not the first time and it surely is not the last time that she is in the limelight for the wrong reasons.
Earlier in her stint as railway minister she was accused of diverting all the trains from Howrah,of shifting the railway ministry to West Bengal, after becoming chief minister she still has the reins of national politics in her hand and never misses a chance to snub the government be it Lokpal, FDI in retail, petrol prices or the latest NCTC.
Many have branded her's as a politics of blackmail.
If we were to believe her (from her latest interview) she mentions that she is ready to continue with the coalition but she cannot betray her voters and the manifesto of her party hence she has to oppose several government moves which are done without her consultation.
And she reminds that she deserves and requires the 'respect' of the coalition partner although she requires nothing for herself.
The interview is pretty ironic, whereas at one end she says that she doesn't require anything else than the due notice to the issues she raises but doesn't fail to mention that she doesn't have a room for her party in the parliament although every party has it, none of her party members are in government committees.
And at the end of the interview the real issue does come out when she explains to Barkha Dutt that her state's earning is 21000 crore while to the central government is asking for 22000 crore for the loans that were advanced to her state during left government. She doesn't hide her anger towards the finance minister in helping her out with this situation.
So ultimately it boils down to the same story that for the regional parties their voter base comes first, the promises they did in their manifesto matters, be it at the expense of the nation.
People in Bengal should praise Mamata Banerjee though the national railways can go down the drains.
And it's not only the problem with Mamata Banerjee but in today's scenario every other regional party is trying to milk the opportunity it is getting and the states whose regional parties are not the part of the government are the sufferers.
Although I do agree with Ms. Banerjee when she says that there is communication and coordination gap within the UPA, it reflects in every other decision government takes (or want to take).
Why doesn't the government takes its allies into confidence before putting out major decisions like Lokpal, FDI in retail, NCTC etc?
Why does it have to come out with the decision first and then go after the allies wooing them just before voting with the whole world watching?
In this era of coalition politics shouldn't a coordination committee a must and the decisions should be coming out of it rather than the majority partner.
Having said that, there also needs to be a constitutional mechanism devised that bounds the allies of a coalition government with every decision the government takes or they should leave the coalition.
This whole 'tamashaa' of regional parties being in the government and enjoying the perks of it and also being in the good books of opposition parties (for any future opportunities) and voters by criticizing their own government at every opportunity it gets should stop.

To Kill A Mockingbird - More than a Classic

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:38:00 +0000

There are books that you like, there are books that you love and then there are books that go beyond reading, understanding and appreciating. Books that can shape you, books that makes part of who you are.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is one such book, which might change you forever or might remind you what you wanted to be like when you were young.
I'm sure all of us have seen this book somewhere or the other, I too have seen it many a times and thought of reading it one day. That one day came after many years when I bought the book from Flipkart.
I gave the book to my wife for reading and she tried reading it between her work and couldn't get past the first few pages, think she got bored and she moved on to another book.
Post which I picked up the book, the first 15-20 pages I thought were average and started thinking what is so 'classic' about this book.
The answer came a little later when the characters were all well defined and you realize that this is a story from the eyes of a little girl.
In very short (as I don't want to reveal anything in the book for the readers who might want to read it) it tells of Scout (the little girl) and Jem's (her brother) childhood in Alabama and how a series of events shook their innocence, shaped their character and taught them about human nature. The author deals with issues like racism and other prejudices through the innocence of a child. It describes the things from a perspective of a child, how they see things and how they see the things so simply which we elders complicate.
The world of us grown ups filled with hatred, egos, rich & poor divide, racism and all sorts of issues self created in which it becomes difficult for us to breathe and how we unknowingly pass on the same teachings to our children and expect them to be better. How can they become any better than us?

Atticus the widowed father of Scout and Jim wants them to see the world as it is but teaches them what he practices and teaches them things that we all have forgotten in our lives, patience, understanding others, understanding other's perspective, believing that a person is never wrong it is his circumstances that make him say or do the things that he doesn't want to.
The writing is so beautiful that you completely get lost into it and sometimes feel that the little girl is sitting besides you and narrating the story.
The little joys that childhood brings to us, some adventure, always trying to do the forbidden, sibling fighting and the care & love after that.
The masterwork of the author is in tackling such a complicated issue of racism mixed with rape which comes in the latter part of the book and how innocently and beautifully the kids understand it and are able to distinct the right from the wrong on their own.
The depiction of how the innocence of a child can move even a raging mob with weapons in hand because within our hearts all of us are good and do not want to do wrong, we just keep on hoping that someone should pull us back from doing the wrong.
I can continue to go on describing how beautiful the book is and believe me can write a book of the same size on how good the book is and it would still not be enough.
'To Kill a Mockingbird' is what book reading is all about. It will entertain you, it will make you smile, it will make you cry and most important, it will force you to become a better individual, a better parent, a very good human being.

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view....until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." -To Kill a Mockingbird.

Urban Shots - Review

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:01:00 +0000

I got Urban Shots to complete and review within 7 days from blogadda and finishing the book during the work week is sometimes a challenge but not so if the book is good.

But Alas! that wasn't the case but I still managed to finish it before time just in the hope that there would be some worthwhile stories to read ahead.

Urban Shots is a compilation of 28 stories by 13 different writers from different parts of India.

The stories have an urban background and the backdrop is mostly cosmopolitan cities like Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi.

Is it all the urban geography that we have got? Never mind, that is not at all the pain point here.

In short, I didn't quite like the book although there were a few good stories but overall it is easily a book I could pass.

As I have been thinking for a few years that suddenly there is a flood of writers in India and you can see crap books with even crappier titles on the book shelves being served to the Indian readers, 'literary trash' as it is known in some quarters. I call it the Chetan Bhagat Syndrome, where any person opens a laptop and starts writing something about his school, college, love, relationship and surprisingly also gets published (in many cases) and starts to think that he or she has become a writer.

Urban Shots reminds me of that (not completely the same case). Although it is not as bad as some call center, loosing virginity type stories nevertheless most of the stories fail to impress.

On top of that some stories are so banal, some so ordinary that you will wonder why were they written and who picked them up as the best stories to figure in the book.

Some stories were so short or sort of incomplete that you won't even understand what was it the writer was trying to convey. My take on such writings is that either you should be so skilled, erudite a writer that people get your story even after reading those difficult words and words you left unsaid or your writing should be so simple and so easy that people get what you are trying to say. Don't expect readers to get in your mind and comprehend what you were trying to say in a story.

If it wasn't for Paritosh Uttam's stories and a couple of others I might well have thrown this book into trash. Now let me get to the book and the stories.

The book is divided into 5 sections i.e. Relationships, Love, Friendship, Angst and Longing, you will wonder why at the end of the book as there is no discernible difference in the stories in each section.

Relationships: The noticeable stories in this section are Replay (the best in the lot) and Notes of discord, both by Paritosh Uttam.

Replay is quite elegantly written and very practical, It does bring out the true nature of a human being where he/she wants to trust someone and then they get betrayed again and again. A 100 rupees saves Lata future heartaches.

The other noticeable story was Liberation by Malathi Jaikumar which depicts how a woman subjected to continuous physical abuse finds liberation by exploiting the blind faith in religion by even the meanest people in our society.

Hope comes in small packages, the featured story on cover is the worst of the lot, it should have been rather titled 'I had a dog' or 'I got a puppy'. So full of Bollywood style drama, Ganesh Visarjan, Heavy Rains, Ramp walk, etc. etc.

Paan Singh Tomar - A Brave Attempt and Successful too

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 07:09:00 +0000

Once in a while you get to see a movie in Indian Cinema which gives you a ray of hope that we are not all finished and there is still sensible cinema that we can make (and every once in a while we do make).

Paan Singh Tomar in one word is beautiful, actually I will add another word Irrfan (I read somewhere he dropped Khan from his name sometime back).

The story of a national level athlete who turns into a dacoit (or rebel as he calls earlier in the film, dacoits sit in the parliament).

There are a few movies who take into the real India and this one takes you into the heartland of India Madhya Pradesh. Now you might be having a sense of deja vu that is because you might have seen bandit queen (based on Phoolan Devi) and though the backdrop is the same and the director is the one who worked with Shekhar Kapur on bandit queen, Tigmanshu Dhulia the movie is way too different then that and in some ways better than that.

The first half of the movie is excellent which depicts a young innocent lad coming from a village in M.P. getting recruited into army. The lad likes to run and army puts him into sports. The movie tickles you and the depiction of the character by Irrfan is so endearing. Some notable scenes where he says that government is full of thieves and he doesn't believe in it but army is what protects the country and he can give and take lives for it, a scene where he asks the officer to take him into sports (for his humongous diet), the one where he delivers the ice-cream in 4 minutes, where he tells the coach (Rajendra Gupta) that he respects him as coach but he shouldn't give 'maa-behen' ki gaali kyunki hamare yahan gaali par goli chal jaati hai and one where he is about to retire and his Officer sends him an ice-cream and he becomes emotional and says this is his best medal.

The second half though I think slightly long is also gripping, the transformation of Subedar (his rank in army and later how he is addressed by his fellow gang members) Paan Singh Tomar to a dacoit is brilliantly depicted by Irrfan, had it been for any other actor I don't think this transformation could have been this easy.

PST keeps his faith in the system while he tackles his cousin over a land dispute but after failing to address it and his son getting beaten up badly and no help in sight he takes up the gun. Those few scenes where he exclaims that there is no use of representing the country and winning any medals if no one in the world credits it. His service for the nation as an athlete is useless when there is no one even listening to his woes and finally he has to take matters in his hand.

What transpires post that is a typical dacoit story his kidnappings, his growing gang, his alertness from police and conspiracy, his attempt to explain himself to a journalist that PST is not a murderer and he will not surrender and reach the finish line and in the end he succumbing to a betrayal by one of his gang members and collapsing on the ground with the pictures of his athletic past in front of his eyes.

The other major factor in PST besides Irrfan are the supporting actors they have also done a good job including Mahie Gill (as PST's wife) but Irrfan as he usually does, overshadows everyone else in the movie and when you would come out of the theater you would only remember him.

All in all a very good movie and you must watch it as between the loads of crap served by Bollywood all through the year there are hardly any gems that come out and get noticed, this is one of those gems.

A brave attempt by director Tigmanshu Dhulia and excellent performance by Irrfan, hats off to both the guys.

Know your Provident Fund Balance

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 03:47:00 +0000

You all must be aware about the EPF component getting deducted from your salaries. Until last year there was no facility to know the balance in your EPF account, unless you go to the EPF office and inquire.

Last year an online service has been launched that can help you to know how much balance is their in your EPF account.

You can access the online service here

Steps to access your EPF balance:

1. Click on the link "Click Here to know the balance"

2. Select the PF Office state where you hold your EPF account.

3. Once you select the PF Office state you are presented with the offices that the service currently has records for, you can select the proper office link

4. It takes you to the page where you can input your PF establishment code, account number, Name and Mobile Number (on which you want the details).

5. Once you input the details and click "Submit", the site will send the balance details to the mobile number you input.

Example:

If your account number is something like "MH/35634/523" and your EPF office is Pune, please select PF Office State in step 2 as "Maharashtra" then Office as "Pune" in step 3, then in step 4 input 35634 in the establishment code box, if there is an extension code put that in the second box or else leave it blank (in this example it is blank) and finally put the account number 523 in the third box. Put other details and click submit.

You can do several other tasks on the EPF India site such as track your claim status, find establishment codes, locate an EPFO office near you and several other EPF questions answered.

Google’s glasses – Do we really need them?

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:27:00 +0000

It wasn’t long ago when we saw people talking to themselves while walking on the road or while doing some other work. And later you would find out that they were talking on their Smartphone through the blue tooth devices.

Then we saw the tablets coming out where people were doing high end computing through a computer as slim as a notebook. And now next in line are probably going to be wearable electronic such as sunglasses which people will be using to access information on the go.

This is not going to happen in distant future but by the end of the year itself when Google comes out with its eyeglasses that will project information, entertainment and even advertisements. The information will be projected on the lenses of the eyeglasses and users will only have to tilt their heads to navigate.

These glasses are said to be built in the Google X labs a secretive Google lab, where scientists are said to be also working on robots and space elevators.

These glasses will use the Android Software and will be equipped with GPS and motion sensors. It will also contain camera and audio inputs and outputs. Through the built-in camera on the glasses, Google will be able to stream images to its rack computers and return augmented reality information to the person wearing them. For instance, a person looking at a landmark could see detailed historical information and comments about it left by friends.

The glasses which are expected to be launched later in the year are expected to be priced from $250 to $600.

Google’s goggles will be able to take in the environment and overlay information about what users are looking at. Users can, for example, pinpoint the location of friends, get information about restaurants, plot navigation routes, and even learn the location of the nearest bathroom. All of that will come via Google’s own products, of course.

Google as of now is said to have no business plan for the device and will launch it more as sort of experiment and based on the feedback will make required changes.

The most important issue is going to be of privacy, as unlike cameras people in general would not be aware as to when they will be getting photographed by the glasses.

A user can have all the information at his fingertip regarding a person he meets or the location he is on and that could be used in a wrong way too. Use of face recognition software will further complicate the matters. It wouldn’t be hard to search a person through face recognition software, connect to the social networking and find out that person’s friends and acquaintances.

As per the experts these glasses will be for occasional use but nerds might wear it for long time too but the question that begs the answer is that do the buyers in general really need these glasses?

Hasn’t the technology already crept into all the facet of our lives? Since morning when you wake up by looking at your Smartphone for checking emails & messages to the night when you fall asleep replying to the mails through your tablet, isn’t that enough technology already that we would still have need for something like Google goggles?

Although such gadgets look cool on Tom Cruise in Minority Report or a James Bond movie, do you really want a GPS enabled, data connection ready glasses in your eyes and you twisting and turning your head like an idiot while you came out in the park for a walk.

Stop Internet Censorship

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:14:00 +0000

The internet had been buzzing for a month with criticism of the two US house of representative & senate bills respectively, i.e. the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT Intellectual Property Act), one of which SOPA has been put to rest when it was pulled back by Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor of SOPA.

On January 18, 2012 the internet saw something unprecedented when the outrage against these bills reached to the zenith and English Wikipedia, Reddit with many other websites blacked out their content in protest. Opponents of the bills say that the proposed legislation threatens free speech and innovation, and enables law enforcement to block access to entire internet domains due to infringing material posted on a single blog or webpage.

If you don’t have an idea as to what I’m talking about, do read about these two bills SOPA & PIPA.

A quick snapshot of what these proposed bills seek to do:

a) Authorize US Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites outside US jurisdiction.

b) Extend the liability to websites accused of infringing on copyrights, or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.

c) Barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites.

d) Deem unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime.

e) Make liable any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.

Back home a couple of months ago a somewhat similar issue was raked up by one of the ministers of Govt. of India when he talked about censoring the contents floating on the social media. There was a huge criticism of such a stand then too.

Freedom of expression is important in any society, more so when it comes to democracies like U.S. and India and in today’s world Internet is such a medium where one can express his views freely.

It is important that copyright laws are enforced (of all the countries not just U.S.) and the credit is given to the content owner. Every country and the artists, creators of that country are entitled to their dues and in the age of internet piracy has touched new levels, the industry and subsequently the country has to bear those losses.

But censoring the contents is not the solution, the problem is a complex one and can’t be solved through one or a couple of laws.

Internet has made geographical boundaries blur and the content can flow easily from one end of the world to the other end of the world and if it can’t flow legally then there are several illegal means by which it can reach to masses.

The problem becomes acute at places like India where most of the people are not even aware that they are doing something wrong. For example many of the people who download movies, songs, images from torrent sites or watch TV shows online aren’t even aware that they are doing something illegal or unlawful.

They aren’t aware that they are not supposed to do that, to them an internet connection entitles them to everything that’s there on the world wide web.

Most people pirate or purchase pirated content because legal access is unavailable or too difficult to decipher. Even in this age of internet the companies have made it difficult for users across the world to have access to it at the same time.

If the Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince is released in India after a month of its release in U.S. or if a customer sitting in India wants to watch the latest episode of 30 Rock at the same time or the next day in India, why can’t he? Why does the companies not invest in setting up such infrastructures or pushing for such an international understanding (law) that helps them garner those “customers” rather than turning them into pirates for just trying to be at par with their international counterparts in terms of entertainment and knowledge.

Why doesn’t companies like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon expands their operations and reach to other countries or help some business in those countries to setup a world class and timely distribution system, which could be mutually beneficial.

It is plain and simple idiotic that a site is banned, taken down or not shown in search results even if the content is uploaded/added by the site user and not the owner. And in this age of content collaboration, it sometimes becomes difficult to credit the rightful creator. A website taking a content from another website might give credit to that website, which might have taken its content from a third site and not given credit to that rightful owner. In such a situation the site who is giving the credit might also be banned as it doesn’t know its rightful owner.

In addition, new artists and content creators don’t really want these restrictions, firstly they just want their content to be able to spread and go viral and once it does they most definitely get recognized and they might not get their due for that particular content but it opens many avenues for them.

Consider this that the song of the year 2011 “Why this Kolaveri Di?” , had it not been leaked on the internet, would it have become such a big hit? Probably not. Today the singer is thankful to the person who leaked it on the internet, Dhanush (the singer) has become a household name in India and even become a hit internationally.

Artists & Companies also need to put on their thinking cap and find new revenue model in this new digital world. Now when a movie or a song is available the very next day throughout the world through piracy then a new ways of earnings needs to be explored. There have been recent cases where an artist, a music band has released their next albums free of cost to download from their site and they have earned from advertising on their sites and in other manner.

When it comes to the internet, censorship doesn’t work, will not work. Any attempts of censorship anywhere around the world should be met with fierce criticism and should be protested vehemently.

What can work on internet is self-regulation, organizations and governments should invest in tools & applications that makes internet a safe place to be and educate the users what to do and what not to do. With the passing time new mechanisms are employed to make the user experience better and safer, user has the power to strike down the offensive content, mark spam contents, report it, these measures (ever evolving, why not a flag of plagiarized content?) along with strict local cyber laws should be used to tackle the menace of piracy and IP.

And once you educate people, empower them, self-regulation works, it works in a small organization to the world wide web too. In the name of stopping offensive contents or stopping piracy, we should not entertain censorship, lest we stand to lose the heart of internet which is to share & collaborate knowledge.

We must stop internet censorship.

A Global Phenomenon - Kolaveri Di

noreply@blogger.com (Always Abhinav) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:00:00 +0000

I'm sure if you have any connection with outside world then you must have heard this song or at least news about it's popularity.

Around 1 month back when I read a report in a news paper as to how a 'tanglish' song is getting hits after hits on youtube (more than a million hits that time), I was intrigued. I wanted to see what sort of Indian song/video can garner so many hits in such a short time.

And when I did listen to it/watch the video, like million others I got hooked onto 'Why this Kolaveri Di?'

And as it stands today it has become a global phenomenon, from India to America everyone is humming 'Why this kolaveri Di'? It went onto become the 'Song of 2011'.

And till now it has garnered 30 million views on youtube.

And if you have any doubts regarding its popularity watch this news from the CNN

In a month or so, there have been umpteen versions of Kolaveri Di that have come out in the market and all of them sound good, so there must be something special with the music of the song that has taken it so far.

There has been a Punjabi version:

Then there is this English Version by someone named Arjun:

Then there have been several other places in the world where Kolaveri Di has made its mark. From a Flash mob in Auckland New Zeland dancing to Kolaveri Di to a version on Pakistan's Democracy "Why this democracry?" .

And it all started I think with Sonu Nigam's son singing a milk version of this song

And everyday there is a news of a new version of kolaveri Di coming out in some language. India has gone crazy about it and now the world knows about it too.

Dhanush the singer and lyricist of the song is known to all. The best thing about Dhanush is his simplicity and humility even after so much success.

He still says it's a silly stupid song and requests not to give/find unnecessary meaning to it and simply enjoy it.

Anyone at this height of popularity would have cooked many stories as to how hard it was for him to come up with this song. And apparently Dhanush has won a National Award too (not for Kolaveri Offcourse) for his earlier Tamil film.

Watch Dhanush and Aishwarya (his wife and producer of the movie 3 which has this song Kolaveri) interview and call at ndtv.

Kudos to Dhanush, Anirudh Ravichander (music composer) and the entire Kolaveri team to churn out the biggest hit of 2011.

And did you know that the song was 'Leaked' on the internet and when it become famous it was officially released.

So it does appear true that music knows no boundary and language is immaterial. Dhanush and his song is loved as much by Hindi and English speaking population as Tamilians.

So lets hope it keeps on breaking many new records and here goes THE ORIGINAL: