Since, I was thinking of WP.org, I began by going over to the WordPress.org website and downloaded their latest build.

Now I needed to install this on some webhosting space. Since I was just trying out the whole thing, I thought of registering at 000webhost.com. After registering, i was told that my request would be activate within 24 hours.

In the meantime, I needed to look for a theme and a way to test all of my WordPress setup offline. So I found a couple of nice themes (magazine style) and also found a post which helped me install WordPress offline with the help of xampp. After following through this guide, I was able to install wordpress on my ‘localhost’.

(At the time of publishing this post, my account on 000webhost.com wasn’t updated yet.)

Aravind Eye Hospital

Jaipur Foot

The Big leap for Indian Industry: Governance, inclusion & skill development big challenges (Economics Times)

One more push : Twenty years after India’s historic economic reforms, it’s time for another big effort (The Economist | Leaders Section)

The half-finished revolution : India’s liberalisation began with a bang in 1991, but two decades on the unreformed parts of the economy are becoming a drag on growth. Time for another bang. (The Economist | Briefing)

The dangers of redefining democracy

10 Major challenges that the republic of India faces today

Income tax India: All about form 16
Form 16 is the final certificate issued by your employer giving details of the salary you have earned and the tax deducted on your behalf and paid to the government. This article addresses the following questions:

• Form 16A and Form 16:
• What if you have changed jobs?
• What if you cannot get form 16 from the previous employer?
• Do you have to attach Form 16 with I-T returns?
• What other particulars should be checked in Form 16?
• What if there is an error in figures in Form 16?

Didn’t get tax break? Take the refund route
A tax refund could be due to the following: tax deduction at source at a rate higher than the actual tax payable; wrong (ie, higher) estimation of income while computing advance tax liability; not reporting all investments to the employer while the employer deducts taxes on salary; and claim of exemption in tax returns.
File e-returns, get income-tax refunds in a month E-Filing services include: ClearTax

No filing of tax return for salary and interest income up to Rs 5 lakh

(TDS : Tax Deduction at source)

To understand how the Tax is calculated you can check here -
Calculating Your Income Tax Liability (Some discrepancy in tax slabs)
Correct slabs (to the best of my knowledge) are given at Income Tax Rates/Slabs for Assesment Year 2011-12 (F Y 2010-11)

(This article has not covered everything. If you have some inputs, pls share with us to complete this article)

Watched a talk by Ramachandra Guha on

In case you intend to watch the video, which I strongly recommend, here is some info which might come handy:

• The video is 1 hour 23 mins long
• Ramachandra Guha starts explaining the 10 major challenges from 12 min 30 secs onwards.
• After he finishes explaining them, he lists them again. (at 1 hour 2 mins 20 secs)
• The Round of Queries begins at 1 hour 8 mins

But since the talk is quite long, here are the 10 reasons as put forward by the historian.
1. Left Wing Maoist Insurgency (includes tribals, naxalites etc.)
2. Currently recessive but ever present Right Wing Religious Fundamentalists (includes BJP, the RSS etc)
3. Decline and corruption of democratic centre and Conversion of Political parties into family firms.
4. Degradation of Public Institutions
5. Growing gap between the Rich and Poor
6. Rapid pace of Domestic Environmental Degradation
7. Apathy of the Media
8. Political Defragmentation & Policy Incoherence
9. Unreconciled Border lands
10. Extremely Unstable Neighbourhood

Since, some of points need a brief explanation, the same have been summarized at http://wp.me/pinhe-ka

Here are a few interesting articles which will give more info and evidence of the above reasons.

The Curious Case of Rahul Gandhi
Swiss Bank Accounts, Loan waiver Scam, Boston Airport arrest, Sonia Gandhi’s sacrifice of PM position, Rahul’s & Sonia’s Educational Qualifications, etc

Financial Times: Amartya Sen questions India’s title as “knowledge superpower”

The Economist: Comparing Indian states and territories with countries

The Hindu: Pakistan: water on the boil again – Water has the potential of becoming a new ‘core issue’ of even greater prominence than Kashmir, and calls for urgent attention.

To remodel our current Education system, it is essential that we understand the current problems that we need to overcome. Following may help you in determining these problems.

A TED talk on Schools responsible for killing kids’ creativity

More-

The university which does not charge any tuition fee – Wikipedia Page | University of the People

Policy challenge: How to price higher education & ensure access

The twain shall meet
Experts speak on ways in which academic excellence and technical expertise can be integrated to deploy technology in teaching-learning environments.

How TCS, IBM, HCL Infosystems help out institutes like FMS, TISS, NMIMS
These companies are offering campus automation software, enterprise resource planning solutions and education management solutions to educational institutes to automate their work flow.

(This is not an exhaustive list. If you have wish to add something or have anything to say on this, feel free to do so. )

For further insight, these links might help:

5 Reasons why Ebooks are not there yet
Ebooks vs Paperbooks: Pros and Cons
The Future of Ebooks
Publish or Perish [an article from The New Yorker]

The above tits and bits may be a bit difficult to put together to get a collective sense but you can try giving it a read. I’m hoping to craft a post which makes some sense out of it soon.

(You are free to post your suggestions on the same and what you feel should be the future of ebooks)

The Mobile Platform Race – How do mobile platforms stack up?

Click to enlarge the infographic.

Detailed analysis on ‘The Reason why even Windows Phone 7 won’t be able to save Nokia’ to follow soon. Check back later.

Image taken from – http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2011/07/infographic-developer-economics-2011/

Was greatly inspired by one of the TED videos-
Bill Ford: A future beyond traffic gridlock [TED Talk]

followed by reading related articles like -

Discouraging the use of personal cars
NY Times : Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy

Metro or No Metro?

• Slideshare doc: Bangalore – Metro is not the solution
• The Hindu: Chennai – Monorail or Metro Rail : pros and cons

Bus Rapid Transport System (Wikipedia)

(in support of BRT)

• Bangalore – Metro is not the solution
• Unlocking tomorrow’s traffic gridlock

(against BRT)

• How to un-jam our cities

So inspired that I published an article on the same (http://wp.me/pinhe-kP)

Even after writing the post, I came across a few articles which I feel are worth sharing as they might be helpful in reaching a solution to this problem. Here are these:

The Bicycle and the Airlines : Bicycles getting crushed under India’s rushing prosperity

Image source - http://s.wsj.net/media/JNUKEchrt.jpg