Probably as much as this scene from Swades.

Much has been talked about Peepli [Live]. So not writing another (re)view. Was just astonished how well a small sub-plot, not directly connected to the main narrative, could add so much to the idea trying to covey. While most of us failed to notice the importance of that small scene in Swades, the first time Mohan drinks un-bottled water in India, I guess the one in Peepli [Live] is more visible.

Scouts & Guides also wasn’t very popular. In fact I’ve heard of them for the first time, The very first I’ve heard of them was when a National Scout Jamboree happened in my town, when I was in high school.

Most of the schooling went uneventful, with very few interactions with police uncles and other uniformed folks (except for auto-rickshaw drivers, of course.) The first real chance for the social service was when we had a 10 day camp at a Juvenile prison as a part of our college NSS activities. And much followed after that.

Except for the annual picnics, there are very few chances that I and most of the students at my age had to interact with the society at large. Yeah, then there was this scheme where in students from schools volunteers for traffic control. This is a very successful model that Traffic Control Dept. has implemented to make use of unadulterated minds, probably the best ‘Catch-Them-Young’ program.

Now, Kerala police has gone one step forward with their ‘Student Police Cadet‘ Program. A real replicable model, this program is a collaborative effort of state Home and Educational ministries, being implemented in a selected few schools now. The first phase will be piloted in around 100 schools.

The idea of student police was first introduced in a Govt public program, in 2006. The pilot was done in 3 schools in 2008; Later Kerala School Cultural Festival, the largest of it’s kind in Asia witnessed the enthusiasm and effort of the kiddo police.

These kids will get formal training from Kerala police in an array of fields including First Aid, Bomb detection and diffusion, Fire handling, Traffic and crowd control etc.,

So next time, when you’re in Kerala, don’t be too surprised if you ran into one of those kids in uniform. Just give them a salute!

Riyaz made a memorable debut as a quizmaster at KC a couple of months back, on the same day as the Hyderabad leg of Brand Equity. The few of us who attended his quiz that day agreed wholeheartedly that his quizzes definitely deserved a bigger audience. And for his next effort last Saturday, Riyaz was not denied the audience he deserved. And boy, it was a memorable quiz!

Unlike his first quiz wherein he showed a slight predilection towards questions on technology, Riyaz chose to be more balanced, selecting topics that are popular with KC junta to quiz them on.

Despite being relatively new to KC, Riyaz showed the poise of a veteran in dealing with a noisy bunch that is KC. Clearly an indication that he finds himself at home and that we should look forward to many more quizzes from Riyaz. Great quiz once again, Riyaz.

Do I need to say more? Download the Quiz.

BTW, I’ve done another quiz at Sree Nidhi Institute of Science & Technology, for the Quiz club there. Pretty enthusiastic crowd there I’d say. If given a chance, I’d like to do quizzes for such audience again.

Almost everyone in India cried with ecstasy, when this man won us an Individual medal for the worlds second largest populous country after a gap of almost 44 years. He turned pro in 1991, after winning Wimbledon Junior title in 1990. 20 years later, he still is a winner. At the age of 37, he is the most successful professional tennis player in India, not to mention his amazing record in Davis cup for India.

While all the glamour of tennis belongs to the singles event, he intelligently changed his priority from singles (any one remember Leander Paes v/s Pete Sampras 6-3, 6-4 at New Port, 1998?) to doubles.  After the initial merry with Mahesh Bhupathi, he had moderate success for sometime. But he is not the giving-up kind. For the last two years, he’s on the winning track again, including his latest at Wimbledon 2010.

Dude, You are the awesomest! Keep on rocking for many more years!

Kerala Govt is going to lose Rs. 214 Crore grant from Indian Govt, allowed for the IT development in Electricity Dept. This is due to the pro-Free software policies of the Kerala Govt. Apparently, as per the report the software (which includes billing process) is impossible to develop in a free software, since many of the required ‘components’ will not work on free software. The report also worries about the inexperience of the company quoted the lowest amount on the tender, can add to the ‘obvious failure possibilities of free software’. It seems that of all states in India, only Kerala is so rigid on using free software for Government projects, and it ridicules the Govt on its stance which might result in the loss of the grant.

While I’m unsure if there’s any propaganda behind this news attack against free software at large, there definitely seems to be some hidden agenda behind this. The news doesn’t quote any expert on the inability of free software to develop such a ‘complex’ solution, or neither it does quote the source which talks about the terms and conditions of the grant. Since it seems that the opinions expressed at the report are of the reporter, we’ll have assume that he is a expert in this area, who have never heard of GNU/Linux, LAMP, Wiki, et al.

I just wonder just what this particular project need more than 91% of the Top 500 super computers, 8 out of 10 reliable hosting solutions,  and the one which powers IBM Sequoia, a 20 petaflop super computer.

Five monkeys were in a room that contained a table in one corner, and a banana hanging from a string in the middle of the room. The monkeys figured out that if they dragged the table to the middle of the room, they could climb up and grab the banana. So they did. As one of the monkeys quickly hopped up and reached for the banana, hidden compartments in the walls suddenly opened, releasing high-pressure cold water that knocked the monkey off the table and drenched the other four monkeys.

They quickly learned that whenever one of them climbed on the table, all of them were soaked with cold water. They realized climbing on top of the table was a bad idea. Unbeknownst to the monkeys, the high-pressure cold water hoses were disconnected and removed.

The next week, one of the five monkeys was removed from the room and replaced by a new monkey. The new monkey saw the table and the banana dangling from the ceiling. Realizing that the banana was there for the taking, the monkey headed for the table. But fearful of being drenched by the high-pressure cold water, the other four monkeys pounced on the newcomer and beat the tar out of him. Every time the new monkey got near the table, the others beat him up. Soon the new monkey no longer went near the table.

By the third week, another of the original five monkeys was replaced by a new monkey. And like the monkey the week before, the newest member of the group tried to get near the table to move it over to the banana. Once again, the others beat up the newest member of the group. Even the first new monkey joined in.

Each successive week, one more of the original monkeys was replaced. The same thing happened every time; when the newest monkey attempted to get near the table, the others joined in to discourage him.

By the sixth week, not a single monkey was left from the original group. Not one remained that had been squirted with cold water. But when the newest monkey headed toward the table and tried to reach the banana, the other four monkeys “trained” him by beating the tar out of him.

If you could ask each monkey why it was beating up the new monkey, each probably would say, “I don’t know, that is just the way we do things around here.”

PS: All copyrights to the original author/site.

Instructions:

• Pictures are only lateral clues to the connect. Most of the pictures do not directly connect with the answer. Normally one picture stands for one entity in the final connect.
• What you see is NOT what you get.
• Please try to explain each picture wrt to the final connect.
• Googling spoils the fun. Think Lateral and make some smart guesses.

1. Connect

• Pic 2 is poster of the movie ‘Seven Samurai’. Rest are obvious, I guess. Pic 7 – model is irrelevant, but might help – for the real nutcracker cases (It’s a Chevrolet Corvette, if that helps) . Pic 3 has to be thought together with Pic 1. Pics (the numbering) are in chronological order.

2. Connect

• The last one is slightly more screwed than others (It’s a character from Howl’s Moving Castle). But if you manage to get the rest, you can safely ignore that.

3. Connect

• In Pic1, Model of the car is important. Pic 5 is Pawan Kalyan. If you do watch SET MAX and UTV Movies, you would’ve seen him plenty.

4. Connect

5. Connect

‘Can we just fast forward 5 days?’

- Riyaz Usman

The wait is almost over.

An awesome World Cup calendar – by Team, Group, Venue and Date.

An Interactive World (Cup) Map – from Washington Post.

The Ultimate Graphics and Data resources guide – from Inspiredm.

And anytime, you want a much simpler schedule or calendar, just Google. Fifa.com provides a simple match schedule, in your time zone, a calendar and a printable pdf (SA Time only, I guess).

Note: I heard Malappuram has virtually turned into Latin America for one month. I’m sad I’m not in Kerala this season.

PS: My friend Ashwin wants N. Korea to win. I can’t agree more. While you’re impatiently waiting for Friday, read about the world cup strategies of many countries, including that of India.

I was using a Titan wrist watch since my college, once the Casio days were over. I thought, I’ll not buy one after this. I keep loosing a lot of stuffs (mostly my spectacles and wallets, the other two indispensable things), but never the wrist watch. Couple of times I forgot them, it came back to me promptly.

Then I got married. Oh, before that – around a month before the wedding, I got a watch as a gift from my organization. Not a bad one. I gave it to my Dad and asked him to give it away to someone he wants to.

Then I got married. I had a kind of wish list for the gifts, but ended up getting 4 wrist watches as gifts, all pretty good ones. A customary one I got from my wife’s cousins (I never gave one to my Bro-in-law, just in case. I offered my sister to take one from my stockpile for him, but she just gave me the looks, you know.), One my friends at work gifted, Two my cousins gifted. Since all of them were gifts, I couldn’t gave it away immediately to anyone in family. Total watch count – 5.

A few months later I won a contest at my grocery home, and the gift was… as you would’ve guessed it by now, a Wrist watch! I checked my B’Day calendar and used it on the immediate next B’Day on the list.

Today, I bought a new phone for my wife from Univercell, and Bingo! They gave me a Reebok watch free with that. Yeah! Bring it on!

Born as Mahindra and Mahindra Allied sports club in 1962, backed by the Mahindra group, this club represents the golder age of Indian football. One of the few strong teams outside the Bengal/Kerala/Goa, they had won almost all coveted football trophies in India – Durand Cup, Harwood League, NFL, Federation Cup, IFA Shield, to name a few. Rechristened as Mahindra United in 2000, the club had a pretty good run in all football leagues since then.

The disbanding of Mahindra United is latest nail in the coffin of Indian football (Remember FC Kochi, Kerala Police, ITI, BSF) . I seriously hope not many clubs will follow this path.