Atul Karmarkar.Com

Registration number PB-11-AK-47 sold for Rs 2.68 lakh

Atul Karmarkar — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:42:16 +0000

If anyone doubted how rich or how “number-crazy” Punjabis are, especially after a guy paid Rs.15 lakh for a mobile number, here is someone who has gone one-up on him.Only this time, it is not mobile numbers that are in the thick of bidding activity, but vehicle registration numbers.

Manjinder Singh, a farmer from Ropar paid Rs.2.68 lakh for the number: PB-11-AK-47. Among other wanted numbers were 0001, 0002 and 0005, fetching Rs.70,000, Rs.80,000, and Rs.55,000 respectively.

What a kick these guys must be getting, splashing all that moolah on registration numbers !!! :p

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Test drove the i10 Kappa, Paul Newman dies, Ferrari screws up at Singapore

Atul Karmarkar — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:59:00 +0000

And………… another weekend comes to an end… well, the above title pretty much sums up the events of the past couple of days !!

I finally went for my long delayed test drive of the Hyundai i10 Kappa. As may be obvious from my other posts, I’m quite firm in my belief that automatic transmissions will replace stick shifts in some time, atleast for in-city driving. I drove the Automatic variant, and it was fun. None of the vibration that I was expecting at higher speeds, good to drive, responsive and a big change from not having a clutch ! Anyway, will post more on that front later after a more longer drive.

Was saddened to hear about Paul Newman’s death due to cancer. I saw quite a few of his movies and was struck by his easy charm inspite of playing characters at odds with his good looks. Some movies I liked were “The Hustler”, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, ”The Color of Money”, and of course, “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof”, the last named being one I first saw as a teen (and found it boring), and then later, when I was old enough to appreciate all the dialogue and undercurrents. The movie also introduced the word “mendacity” to me !

Last but not least, I was thrilled when Felipe Massa grabbed the pole position in the inaugural Singapore F1 Night Grand Prix. He was just a point behind Hamilton in the overall standings and looked all set to win this one. All that excitement turned to dust on raceday as a mistake from the Ferrari pit crew shattered Massa’s hopes of making any impact in this race.

As the safety car came out, both Ferraris came into the pits. While refuelling Massa’s car, a mechanic mistakenly gave Massa the green light, and Massa took off. It was a sight to see, with the Ferrari coming down the pit lane, the fuel hose still stuck in his car, snaking out dangerously.

Apparently, Ferrari is probably the only team that use this electronic ‘light’ system, all others preferring to have a guy standing in front of the car with the ‘Stop/Go lollipop’. The light signals are normally connected to the release handle on the fuel nozzle, indicating to the driver that he can leave when the hose is removed. However, due to the extra pit lane activity, they decided to switch to manual operation, resulting in the error.

Ferrari reliability has certainly gone for a toss, especially considering Kimi has not even finished his last 4 / 5 races ! They will need more than good luck if Massa is to challenge Hamilton for the title !

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Expedience CEO assaulted

Atul Karmarkar — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 03:38:45 +0000

Barely has all the outrage over the killing of Graziano’s Indian CEO died down, when news comes in about another CEO almost meeting the same fate.

Kashir Dwivedi, the Indian CEO of Expedience e-Solutions, a Houston, Texas-based software firm was dragged out of his car and attacked in Noida by four men in a Chevrolet Tavera.

They smashed his car windows, dragged him out and tried to carry him away, but luckily, he managed to elude them by rolling on the ground and shouting for help. As a crowd started assembling, the assailants fled after hitting him on the head with an iron rod.

Either the law and order situation in Noida has gone from bad to worse, or the employees of companies in that area have suddenly started having militant intentions. Hardly a great advertisement to attract foreign companies wanting to set up shop in India !!

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Scorpio Automatic launched

Atul Karmarkar — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:37:32 +0000

Mahindra & Mahindra has finally launched the Scorpio Automatic, which comes with a 6-speed auto transmission and a 2.2 litre mHawk engine.The Scorpio Automatic has ’intelligent’ driving modes that allow a driver to tackle various driving conditions with ease. These include User Engaged Modes and Auto Engaged Modes. M&M has tied up with an Aussie company called DriveTrain System International for the auto tranny, with other components developed in-house at their Nashik plant.

The Scorpio Automatic is the first Indian company & the first SUV in its class to offer a 6-speed fully automatic transmission, and comes in three colours - Diamond White, Java Brown and Fiery Black.

It is available in two variants, VLS and VLX. The VLS will cost Rs.10.21 lakhs (ex-showroom) and the VLX would be priced at Rs 10.75 lakhs (ex-showroom) in Pune. Both variants incorporate a vehicle security and voice assist system, as well as an audio system with a CD/MP3 player, pen drive and SD Card compatibility.The VLX variant would have additional features including ABS, rain and light sensors, Intellipark, tyretronics, cruise control and audio control on steering wheel. You can read Autocar’s report on their test drive as well.

Personally, I have been rooting for ‘autos’ for some time now, given the pathetic state of roads and traffic in almost every city. Driving a geared vehicle is a pain, having to alternate between the 1st and 2nd gear or driving at half clutch in bumper to bumper traffic. At the moment, though, the Scorpio Auto is a little beyond budget and I’m looking at the Hyundai i10 Kappa, which also has an automatic version (three variants).

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Delhi High Court gives go-ahead to Hari Puttar

Atul Karmarkar — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:33:27 +0000

Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors has been given the go-ahead by the Delhi High Court for public release. The film is a story of a 10-year-old boy who moves to England with his family and gets involved in a plan to save the world.

Warner Bros had sued the film makers, their contention being that the name was too phonetically and structurally similar to Harry Potter.

Justice Reva Khetrapal, in an interim order, said, “Harry Potter films are targeted to meet the entertainment needs of an elite and exclusive audience the cognoscenti-an audience that is able to discern the difference between a film based on a Harry Potter book on one hand and a film which is a Punjabi comedy on the other. In my view, the cognoscenti , the intellectuals and even the pseudo-intellectuals presumably know the difference between chalk and cheese or at any rate must be presumed to know the same.”

Originally set for a 12-Sep release, the movie is set to premiere this Friday.

The court also took issue with the fact that Warner Bros was aware of the title since 2005 but waited till the last moment after completion of the film and filed a case just before its release. Sounds like a familiar situation, right?

Yup, maybe Warner Bros was hoping to do what Ram Sampath did to the Roshans !!

The King of Good Times now facing bad times

Atul Karmarkar — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:23:22 +0000

Vijay Mallya promoted Kingfisher Airlines plans to lay off around 300 employees.

The airline said it was part of an integration process with the former Air Deccan (which became Simplifly Deccan and now known as Kingfisher Red).

The company said, ”Many employees were counselled on their career path progression and best utilisation of their individual skill sets. As a result, a set of 300 employees have chosen to move on and have parted ways with the company and/or put in their resignations.”

Around 5% of this lot is from Kingfisher Airlines, and the rest from Deccan, with 200 employees in the airline’s security department, 50 from flight operations and 50 from engineering and maintenance. They would be paid the equivalent of two months’ gross salary for every completed year of service subject to a minimum of three months’ pay-out.

Thanks to the worldwide economic slowdown and spiralling crude prices, Kingfisher has cut flights by at least 22 per cent from its domestic and international network. They’ve also deferred delivery of around 29 narrow-bodied aircraft.

Remains to be seen how quickly they are able to ‘fly’ out of this black hole…

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Graziano Indian CEO beaten to death by dismissed employees

Atul Karmarkar — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:08:45 +0000

Was quite surprised to see a news item about the Indian CEO of an Italian company being beaten to death in Noida.

L.K Chaudhury, CEO and MD of Cerlikon-Graziano Transmissions India Pvt. Ltd. in Udyog Vihar of Greater Noida was killed when a meeting of management and workers turned violent, and the workers beat him to death with a hammer. These former employees were dismissed a couple of months ago and were negotiating terms for their reinstatement. Apparently, the cause for the flare-up was an undertaking to be given by these ex-employees that they would not resort to any untoward means to stop / stall work once they joined back.

Update: Around 136 people have been arrested and charged with rioting and murder. However, what really got me was the reaction of Union Labour Minister, Oscar Fernandes, as reported by the ET.

His contention that “simmering discontent” among workers was the main reason for this incident and should serve as a wake up call to managements of companies. He also said, “The workers should not be pushed so hard that they resort to whatever that had happened in Noida”.

I found this line of thinking pretty hard to accept. While I’m not completely aware of exactly what transpired between the Graziano management and workers, simply beating the CEO to death cannot be termed an acceptable action no matter what the provocation.

In fact, to use Fernandes’ logic, if the management of a company were to be similarly provoked or “pushed hard” by some employees, would they also then be justified in beating those employees to death ?

Further Update: Oscar Fernandes has apologised for his statement justifying the action of the workers, after shocked members from industry expressed outrage at his comments. The Confederation of Indian Industry also said there was “nothing in the world that can justify lynching of any person and no dispute can be settled by murdering an adversary.”

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Indian IT cos defer joining dates, TCS postpones promotions

Atul Karmarkar — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 01:40:37 +0000

The worlwide slowdown has put hiring plans of IT companies in the deep freeze.

India’s Top Four have not only scaled down their hiring plans, but also deferred joining dates indefinitely for those candidates they had made offers to, TCS and Satyam being in the forefront.

As if that wasn’t enough, Tata Consultancy Services has also delayed promotions. According to information in the newspapers, this news was conveyed to employees by the company’s global HR head and VP, Ajoy Mukherjee. It seems the assessment process has been completed though, and the company is holding back promotions in view of the “current business environment which remains challenging and is expected to remain so for the near future”. TCS is also assumed to have taken a hit due to it’s exposure to Merrill Lynch, which was taken over by Bank of America last week.

Earlier this year, the company had sacked almost 500 employees post appraisal due to poor performance. They had also chucked out 20 employees on account of faking their resumes.

Tough times ahead, indeed !

Amar Chitra Katha goes online

Atul Karmarkar — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 02:05:17 +0000

Nostalgia time folks !! All those who grew up reading that lovely comic Amar Chitra Katha have cause to rejoice. Happened to chance upon ACK Media’s comic in it’s digital avatar along with a host of other offerings like free and paid digital comics, a wiki style information source, aptly called ACK Pedia. It is also possible to submit stories and artwork.

The site itself is quite neatly laid out with easy to browse selections and it is fun to look at those covers again, along with Tinkle, the comic we read as kiddies before ‘graduating’ to the more ’serious’ ACK titles !

I was intrigued by the thought of actually having the entire collection and hopped over to the link. Out of a total collection of 439 titles, they currently have 242 in print, along with 6 special issues (Valmiki’s Ramayana, Dasha Avatar, Jesus Christ, Bhagawat - The Krishna Avatar, Mahabharata (Set Of 3 Book’s) and Ram Charit Manasa).

This entire collection is available for Rs.10,340 (includes free shipping within India), which comes to around Rs.42 per comic and I think it is a decent enough price at today’s rates. I think I still have some of them lying in our ‘box of books’, along with other comics like Phantom, Mandrake, Bahadur and Flash Gordon, and am mulling the prospect of adding the ones I don’t have. Acquiring a slice of childhood memories, if you will !!

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The Great Gig In The Sky comes to an end

Atul Karmarkar — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:50:49 +0000

Yup, the gig is over ! After a short battle with cancer, Pink Floyd keyboard wizard Richard Wright died on Monday at the age of 65. He was among the founder members of the band along with fellow students Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and Nick Mason, all studying at Regent Street Polytechnic College of Architecture at the time.

Some all time classics associated with him forever would be songs like “The Great Gig In the Sky” and “Us And Them” from the album, ”Dark Side of the Moon”, released in 1973 and one of the top selling albums ever; “Echoes”, and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”.

He fell out with Roger Waters during the making of the ‘The Wall’ and had to leave the band, before rejoining in 1987.

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed Pink Floyd’s music but never really found myself focussing on any particular member from the band, like it usually is with most music groups, the lead vocalist being the “face” or identity of the band.

R.I.P Richard Wright, and thanks for some wonderful moments !

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