Shamil's blog

Life

2008-08-02T09:49:00.000-07:00

What is life all about. Its a question everyone knows the answer and yet most people don't want to believe they know the answer. An interesting quote that comes to my mind about life "Life is what happens to you when you want to do something". Sorry if I didn't put in the phrase correctly it sounded something like that and it is true. In this fast-paced life we don't have time to sit and enjoy our lunch or dinner with family and friends. We always have to play catch up game with time

For people who have the time don't value it and simply while it away on things which really aren't that important (most famous being watching TV). An interesting thing about time is most people over estimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade. If you plan towards something and keep to it say for a decade then you are bound to reach a level well beyond those who just want to spend the day as it comes

One important ingredient for success according to me is a pot of glue. Puzzled? You just apply that pot of glue to your seat and stick to the task unless it is finished. Sounds simple isn't it. But it is really tough have my word for it.

I just thought about writing something philosophical about life and actually finished writing about time and hard work. I guess if these two things are well valued then life can be a pleasant thing after all. At the end of the day we have to be happy to make life look good. Keep smiling and working hard

What if Israel attacks Iran?

2008-06-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

Recently Israel's transportation minister was quoted as saying "Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable. If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective"

Is the threat from Israel realistic or just another political statement by an Israeli politician to ward off the crisis faced by the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at home. It can be considered real given the fact that in 1981 Israeli warplanes destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor

Ok then what are the reactors that are in contention for attack by Israel. The fact is that Israel has its eyes on certain key facilities that it deems are important for producing nuclear weapons. The first site is Bushehr located on the Persian Gulf southwest of Isfahan.

This site is not on the top list of Israel's hitlist as this site is intended to be for peaceful purposes (for producing nuclear power of around 1,000 MW). Russia has signed an agreement that the spent fuel will be returned to Russia and not diverted to any other places where it can be used for producing plutonium (used for making weapons)

The second and the most contentious site is Natanz which is complete and Iran is already in the process of enriching Uranium. It is partly being built underground making Iran's intentions a little suspicious in the international arena

What are the possibilities and factors that will determine whether Israel attacks Iran
The biggest hurdle for Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities are that the fighter jets which are going to attack the facilities definitely will need a refuelling as the nuclear facilities are very far away from Israel and they also far apart from each other.

Unlike in 1981 where the site of the nuclear reactor was nearer to Israel and the fighter jets returned safely after attacking the site. Moreover all these installations have been protected by advanced air defense systems from Russia and many are underground installations which makes the mission even more difficult to carry out

What will be Iran's response
Unlike in 1981 where Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear facilities without losing anything, Iran is a completely different situation. They have their own missile program and have a missile that can reach up to London. They can hit Israel with ease and also attack other U.S. bases in the Gulf region.

Moreover Iran has the political leverage to destabilise Iraq using its Shia majority and turn them against the U.S. They can use Hezbollah as a significant weapon next door to Israel on the northern Israeli border

Israel has developed its Arrow ant-ballistic missile program which it claims can neutralise the missile attacks from Iran but the arrow missile system is yet to be tested on the battleground. And everyone knows how miserably the Patriot missile batteries failed during both the gulf war and the war between Israel and Hezbollah

Given these scenarios and the legality of attacks given that Iran's nuclear ambitions are yet to be proven, Israel and U.S. will be diplomatically isolated if they preemptively attack Iran

Cool and Latest Mobile Models

2008-05-19T11:22:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time since I wrote a blog thanks to my system that did not boot up for the past 2 weeks, At last I managed to put the bits and pieces of my system together and writing this blog. So what is this blog about? It is about some of the cool mobiles (and concepts) I happened to see. Of course you can see their reviews in some of the gadget sites but I wanted to present my perspective. So without any further fuss I start with the article

Morph
The first gadget is called Morph from Nokia which is still in its initial stage of research and development. It uses nanotechnology to build a device which will change its usage depending on the needs from a cell phone to a camera to a mp3 player and many more functions

Some of the key features are

The device can change its form depending on physical conditions

Nanotechnology will enable Self cleaning and self-repairing

As its batteries are in nanoscale (10 to the power -9) it will absorb solar energy and does not require physical charging

Cool stuff ah!!. This is the technology that Nokia is betting on in the next 5 years

You can watch a video on the various forms and shapes that the Morph can take in the following link in Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdF1JZkm2nQ

Samsung Serenata

Boy what a look it has. A mobile need not be just a mobile it can be beautiful (better than Miss Universe) and this is just the mobile that can make you fall in love.
The Serenata is a touch form music player and a slider phone with a jog-dial input. As all beautiful women come with a cost this mobile is also very costly. Th cost is a whopping Rs. 84,000

Tag Heuer Meridiist

A brand that we all know and admire is Tag Heuer and this brand of mobile surely comes with a class. The features Sapphire crystal main screen Monochrome OLED (Organic LED which is the recent advancement in screens)
The expected cost is an amazing Rs.2,33,000. It really can be a potential Vertu killer

LG Black Label

The name is not official yet but by the looks it will certainly emulate the success of LG Shine. It has cutting edge technology with carbon-fibre and tempered glass body
Expected price Rs.25,000. LG bring it soon to India, I would love to put my hands around it

Top 10 advertisers and advertising agencies

2008-05-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

Here is the list of top advertisers in the world

Procter & Gamble Co.
AT&T
General Motors Corp.
Time Warner
Verizon Communications
Ford Motor Co.
GlaxoSmithKline
Walt Disney Co.
Johnson & Johnson
Unilever

These are the Top 10 advertisers in the world spending close to 40 billion dollars on their advertising campaign to promote their products. There are also other big corporations that are not far behind in the spending campaign. Companies like Toyota, Sony, Daimler Chrysler etc. Well these are the Top 10 advertisers, what about the Top 10 agencies who prepare ads for these large corporates

Ameredia
Arnold Worldwide
BBDO
Doyle Dane Bernbach
Goodby Silverstein & Partners
N.W. Ayer & Son
Ogilvy & Mather
Saatchi and Saatchi
Partnership Advertising
Wieden+Kennedy

The above companies deal in providing advertising facilities to their clients. There are different types of advertising services given by the companies. This list is of 10 reputed advertising companies in the world

The man behind Ripley's Believe it or Not!

2008-05-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

I believe everyone has watched Ripley's Believe it or Not! (in AXN) show atleast once. The show in which bizarre things happen which we never imagined or believed existed like some of the images here

This blog is about the man behind all that. Yes the man who started it all. Guess what his name is, it is Robert Ripley. Robert Ripley lived in the first half of the 20th century in which he was immensely popular and his whole life was a Believe it or not! type for people of that period. He was born in 1890 in Santa Rosa, California. His original name was LeRoy Ripley.

“Roy” was an avid artist and a great athlete at a very young age. He pitched semi-pro baseball at age 13 and also illustrated the posters advertising the games.
At age 14, he sold his first cartoon to LIFE Magazine for eight dollars.

By age 15, Ripley was working at the San Francisco Bulletin and soon moved on to the San Francisco Chronicle.

In 1913, he moved to New York and, as ‘Robert’, rather than ‘Leroy’, he began working at the New York Globe sketching sports cartoons. After having done this for several years, Ripley came upon a slow sports day and decided to draw up nine unusual sports event in small sketches. The cartoon was originally titled, “Champs and Chumps”, but after much deliberation, the title was changed to Believe It or Not!. The rest is history!

His cartoon became famous and he travelled all over the world looking for unbelievable stories. He had a special liking for China and the far eastern countries. Ripley was an extremely shy character and always used to wear flamboyant color combinations.

Even Ripley's death was like a believe it or not story. At 58, Ripley died while taping the 13th episode of his television series, an episode that dealt with death and death related rituals. He died while taping the show and was pronounced dead of a heart attack

Ripley’s legacy and what he brought to the world is alive in all of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museums and his traditions continue with the Believe It or Not! cartoon series. Today the daily cartoon is seen in nearly 200 newspapers worldwide, in 42 countries, and 17 languages. The majority of the exhibits in all of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museums are based on the collections of oddities obtained by Ripley throughout his world travels. Every year millions of people visit the Ripley’s museums to take part in the adventure, one in which they experience first-hand the incredible world of Robert Ripley!

The official website is www.ripleys.com

You can visit this site to have a look at some of the bizarre happenings around the world

Free Web hosting

2008-05-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

Free is a word that is used in many websites recently. If you want to host a website and you want free web space for that there are plenty of sites available for that. The free web hosting concept is for those who have are just starting their site and want to try things out before starting their own full fledged site

One such site I came across is 987mb.com. The offer they provide is absolutely unbelievable. They provide 40 GB of free space, 600 GB bandwidth and free PHP and MySQL. It really is a great offer for starters in the net. The only catch in providing all this free stuff is that there will be one 468x60 banner in the footer(bottom of page) of your site. So if you want to start your new site and you dont want to spend any money this is a really useful site. The link is

http://www.987mb.com

If you dont want any forced ads on your site you can try these following links
http://www.my5gb.com
This site offers 5 GB free space with no forced ads and you can also place your own ads

http://www.gigacities.net
No forced ads. 20 GB of free space

http://www.rack111.com
No forced ads. 25 GB of free space

All the links related to free web hosting can be found in the following link
http://www.free-webhosts.com/search-webhosts.php?ORDER=16

The only catch with the free hosting sites are that as the number of users increase they start charging you for the services they offer or if they decide to shut down their servers the site you created will no longer be operational

All the best for your new site with a free host!!!

Webmaster submission

2008-05-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

I thought there was only one Webmaster that belongs to Google and that it was very important to get your page indexed by Google (it is very important indeed). There are also other webmasters out there that are equally important (more or less). One of them is the MSN webmaster which is quite good.
It may not be that good as the Google version but still it provides a lot of information about the links pointing to your site and other links that are pointing from your site. The link is

www.webmaster.live.com

There is also a webmaster option available in Yahoo. But the features in this site are too poor to be used for any useful purposes (it really sucks)

www.siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

And last but not the least the Big Daddy of them all the Google Webmaster. It allows you to see how many URLs have you submitted and how many of them have indexed and if there are any errors on your page etc. It really is a good site for you if you are the Webmaster. The link is

www.google.com/webmasters

Submit to these sites and get your page indexed if you want to increase your page rank. Alexa ranking is yet another indicator of how popular your site is. The link for submitting your site is

http://www.alexa.com/site/help/webmasters

World's Most Wanted Men

2008-04-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

Forbes recently announced the list of most wanted persons on this planet. Here is a list of those with pictures and the reason for them being searched

Name: Osama Bin Laden (Number 1)
Wanted reason: Associated with the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He has claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. It killed more than 2,000 people.
Reward bounty: $25 million
Hideout: Believed to be hiding in the tribal villages of Pakistan

Name: Joaquin Guzman (Number 2)
Wanted reason: Joaquin is a powerful drug dealer involved in importing cocaine from Colombia and smuggling it into the U.S. through tunnels. He has reigned as the drug lord killing thousands of people for power over the corridors that are used to transport drugs to the U.S.
Reward bounty: $5 million
Hideout: Mexico
Interesting fact: He escaped from a high security prison by bribing a prison guard and escaped through a laundry truck

Name: Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov (Number 3)
Wanted reason: Alimzhan has been involved in illegal activities such as drug supply, illegal arms sales and human trafficking. He is also suspected of having involvement in fixing sports events and beauty pageants
Reward bounty: $5 million
Hideout: Possibly in Russia

Name: Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar (Number 4)
Wanted reason: Dawood Ibrahim is believed to be the mastermind behind the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts that killed hundreds and injured many more. He is suspected to have links with the ISI (Pakistan's secret intelligence service) and heads an underworld regime that reigns over Mumbai
Reward bounty: Estimated to be $5 million (The Indian government will be happy to give much more than that given his track record)
Hideout: Pakistan
Interesting fact: He is believed to have carried out plastic surgery to his face to alter his appearance (The Interpol and all other intelligence services have not seen him for almost a decade now. That will take a hell lot of searching to search this man)

Name: Matteo Messina Denaro (Number 5)
Wanted reason: Leader of a notorious mafia gang in Italy, is known for his lavish lifestyle including driving porsches and fancying Rolex watches. He played an important part in a campaign involving a series of bomb attacks to stop the government crack down on the mafia gang
Reward bounty: $5 million
Hideout: Italy (Sicily)

Name: Felicien Kabuga (Number 6)
Wanted reason: Kabuga has been accused of harboring the Hutu militias by providing weapons and logistics to them. The Hutu militias were responsible for genocide of some 800,000 Rwandan men and women in 1994 belonging to the Tutsi community. One of the most horrendous war crime against humanity in the recent history.
Reward bounty: $5 million

Name: Pedro Antonio Marin (Number 7)
Wanted reason: Marin is one of the leaders of the separatist rebel movement in Colombia called FARC who has now involved himself in the drug dealings and kidnappings. Almost half of the world's cocaine comes from Colombia and the FARC controls most of them
Reward bounty: $5 million
Hideout: Colombia

Name: Omid Tahvili (Number 8)
Wanted reason: Tahvilli known as Nino has been convicted of kidnapping and sexual assault and awaits sentence for that. The American government wants him for a scam he was involved in that stole more than $3 million from elderly American victims. Tahvilli is an international operator and is searched all over the world.
Reward bounty: $5 million
Hideout: Possibly Canada
Interesting fact: Escape from a high security prison by promising a prison official a sum of $50,000

Name: Joseph Kony (Number 9)
Wanted reason: The leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has been fighting for a dictatorial regime in Uganda. Kony has been accused of carrying out a capmpaign of murder, rape, mutilation, and sexual slavery. He has directed the abduction of 60,000 of which 30,000 were children. The abducted children are forced to fight for LRA. He has been indicted on 33 charges which includes crimes against humanity
Reward bounty: $1.7 million
Hideout: Jungle areas on the border of Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo

Name: James "Whitey" Bulger (Number 10)
Wanted reason: Involved in illicit drug trading and extortion rackets in South Boston. Smart guy who has a wealth in the range of $50-70 million, James uses the contacts and wealth he acquired to evade the law enforcement agencies for well over a decade. Using his political connections he has escaped from attempts to bring him to justice
Reward bounty: $1 million
Hideout: Possibly Sicily in Italy

Useful sites for bloggers

2008-04-19T07:27:00.000-07:00

Some of the problems facing a blogger are 1. How to make a blog look attractive 2. What are the ways and means to increase revenues from the blog site. I encountered the same problem. I came across a few interesting sites that offered useful resources to bloggers

The first problem which is appearance of the blog can be sorted by using many well designed templates available over the net. But the trouble with this is that some templates available for free downloads may not be coded correctly so that it cannot be used as a template. One site where the template is in a ready to use format is blogcrowds.com. The link for this site where templates can be found for blogger is

http://www.blogcrowds.com/resources/blogger_template.php

Coming to the second problem which is monetizing your blog, many resources are available for this purpose. An interesting site that gives a detailed list of all the sites that you can use to get money out of your blog is

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/sites-that-pays-you-to-blog
This site gives you a list 0f 26 sites where you have avenues for making money

One really interesting site that has all the sites listed in one page as thumbnails for RSS and feed directory submission, different blog hosts, templates for blogs and resources for blogs is blogicas.com

http://www.blogicas.com
This site is really amazing and has all the useful resources for your blog

If you want to register your blog to individual sites here is a really useful link where you can submit your site or blogs

http://www.blog-connection.com/submit-blogs.htm

If you want to submit your blog to multiple social networking sites the following link is very useful
http://www.onlywire.com

I hope that this blog and the sites was useful for your blog in some ways. Keep blogging!!!

Book that changed my life

2008-04-13T07:12:00.000-07:00

I would like to share my experience about one of the best books I ever read in my life. It changed my outlook on life. It was really at a crucial juncture in my life when I read this book. I was jobless for almost a year and half and I was still thinking about getting a job in a software company (which was everyone's dream at that time and even now!!). That was when I read this book and it changed my perception about life. I got out of the myth of the software dream and got into the first job of my life

The book's name is "The Alchemist" by Paul Coelho. A fantastic book by one of the best authors on self improvement. It really is a life changing book. The story is about a shepherd and his dream. The story begins when the shepherd boy had a dream of finding a large treasure. The rest of the story is all about his chase after the dream. He does everything he can to get to that place where the treasure is. Sometimes he has to do things beyond his capabilities to reach that place. The climax of the book is when and where the boy reaches his dream and finds his treasure

I was able to relate myself with the story and off I went in search of my dream (certainly not a software job). I am still in search and I believe I will achieve it one day

This book is certainly for those people who have a very bleak perspective on their life and who want a source of inspiration. This book changed my life. I definitely believe it will change yours too. Happy reading

You can download the ebook from the folllowing link
http://www.esnips.com/doc/a0e0a234-72e1-4702-b584-f1060525d671/Paulo-Coelho---The-Alchemist

More blogs and articles can be found in the following links
http://srshamil.blogspot.com

Inflation – Reasons and Measures(??)

2008-04-05T17:56:00.000-07:00

Today, the inflation is up almost at 7% despite several measures by the government to curb this inflationary pressure. What are the reasons for such nflation to rise to its highest level in the past 3 years?

Two main reasons can be attributed to this rise in inflation. One is the rise in prices of commodities like fuel (oil price is hovering around the 100 dollar mark in international markets), metals and edible oils. The second reason is the slow down in the economy maily in industrial and infrastructure sectors. Te former reason is at the top of the agenda for PM Manmohan Singh, FM Chidambaram and RBI Governor Y.V. Reddy

So what measures cam be taken so that the inflation is brought down to the acceptable level. Acceptable level in the sense that the "Aam Aadmi" referred to by the government who is bearing the brunt of these rising prices

First of all the rise in commodity prices is not led by demand. They are influenced by the pricing in the international markets. For example, rise in metal prices can be attributed to the fact that China is consuming a huge amount of the steel produced to fuel its growth in infrastructure. These prices will come down only when the threat of a global economic slow down becomes real and the demand for these products comes down

So what can the government and the RBI can do to curb this inflation. RBI can raise the interest rates and it is pretty sure that it will raise the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) for the banks to suck in the excess liquidity in the system. But there is a problem if the RBI raises its interest rates. The US and EU lowered their interest rates bt January end. So the higher rate will encourage foreign investors to invest in India due to the interest rate gap. This will strenghthen the rupee against the US dollar. This will severely impact the exporters who already were severely hit last year's rupee appreciation of 12%

So in an election year the government is caught up between concentrating on economic growth and curbing inflationary pressures. One measure the government is already undertaking is to cut excise duties on commodities like edible oils, oil seeds etc.

Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope that some good things come out of this crisis like an economic reform. I wish the finance minister all the best as he is now sitting on a throne (finance ministry) with a crown full of thorns (inflation and economic slow down)

A complete review can be found in the following link
http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-31587820080125

More blogs can be found in the following links
http://srshamil.blogspot.com

Operation Cold Start - India's Strategy for War

2008-04-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

The recent war exercises carried out by the Indian army was called Brazen Chariots. The major fire power of the armed forces was in diplay for everyone to see including the delegates from over 59 countries, ofcourse excluding Pakistan

This strategy was in a bid to increase India's readiness to go to war (in case there is one) as soon as the orders were isued from the government. This was a lesson learnt from the experiences of the attack on Parliament in December 2001. When the government issued orders to the army it took them 3 weeks to get ready for war. Enough time for the US to put pressure on the Indian government to avert a war and for Pakistan to threaten using the nuclear war possibility

Operation Cold Start was designed to get the forces ready within 72 hours of the order issued to go to war. It is a daunting task given the lack of military hardware for the Indian army. Lets discuss that part later. The main aspect of this operation is to attack the key facilities of the enemy and then holding fort using the forces that arrive later. Earlier it was holding the fort along the battle lines until the attack forces came by. This change in tactics will save a lot of time for the army to get ready

Here is a comparison between the old and the new strategies

Old: Mobilise the whole army and then attack the enemy
New: Hit, mobilise, hit harder. All the key enemy installations will be attacked first

Old: 3 weeks to prepare for the war
New: Operations will start within 24 hours

Old: Pivot corps (troops holding fort) get into position until the attacking troops arrive
New: Pivot corps themselves carry out the offensive without waiting for the attack corps

Old: Sequential attack of enemy territory (time consuming)
New: Simultaneous attack of all enemy targets – Shock and awe

One main aspect of the operation that Indian army is missing the lack of military hardware. The army needs atleast a 100 helicopters to airlift the troops to the battle fiel. It is a great start for a strategy as India is one of the largest consumer of military hardware in the world it will eventually get all the military hardware it needs in due course. But the presence of such a doctrine will itself deter countries like Pakistan in carrying out operations which could provoke a war.

In a nuclearised subcontinent the whole prospect of war seems to be a grave danger for the whole world. So lets hope these measures by the Indian army will only help maintain peace and stability in the region

A complete review can be seen in the below link
http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/land-forces/4342-india-s-new-cold-start-war-doctrine-strategically-reviewed.html

More blogs can be found in the below links
http://www.srshamil.blogspot.com

Manjakattu nagar – Most memorable experience of my life

2008-04-03T08:52:00.000-07:00

I would like to share one incident which happened during my college days. I wont say it was sad,terrible or funny experience now. Just read through the blog to find it out. You will be wondering why I named it Manjakattu nagar because this incident took place in Manjakattu nagar which is on the outskirts of Madhavaram (Chennai) I studied in St. Peter's Engineerin college. One of the good (worst) practice was to have unit tests on every Saturday. We always used to study on Friday evenings and most of the time got away with pass or a reasonably good marks; there was also a practice of stealing the test note we write the test in, write down the answers and then place them back safely without the lecturers knowing (He he he).

Let me come back to the main story. The incident took place on one such Saturday. We wrote ourtest and were returning home from college when one of my friend Suresh (he is a great builder up of stories) invited us (all the guys from Perambur area) to a treat. He told that one of his friends had started a fast food shop and he wanted it to be publicised. So he invited the 6 of us to the treat. We all said that we will come in the evening to the fast food centre. We started our journey back in the train and reached our home.

In the evening Vasanth, Pakka (sorry original name is Pradeep), Suresh and Ashwin came to my home. We all headed towards a house of another friend of mine Rakesh whose house was nearer to the area where the fast food was located. (when SUresh was in my house he kept talking over the phone and repeatedly asked whether everything was ready or not). When we reached Rakesh's house he was not there but luckily we met him on the way towards the fast food. We all headed towards the fast food centre with one of Rakesh's friend also joining him.

So altogether 7 people were there. When we reached the halfway mark Suresh said that we will wait for sometime as things were not yet ready. So we waited for around 20-30 minutes. Then Suresh got a call and he said that everything was ready and we can start. So we started down the road and reached a point where there was a narrow stretch of road.

The road was very narrow and was covered on both sides by trees. It was night falling in the month of December. It was pitch dark and only the headlights of our bikes provided the lights and there was no sight of any human being. It was like going through a jungle for an adventure like in the Evil Dead movie

We were travelling in our bikes when suddenly Suresh's bike stopped. He said that his bike was not starting. We all stopped our bikes and went to look at what exactly was happening. It was pitch dark as all the headlights of the bikes were off. Suddenly two white figures appeared from a bush nearby and was slowly heading towards us. Vasanth saw that and said it was a cow

All of a sudden those creatures started screaming and came right towards us. We were all terrified as those creatures started throwing firesticks at us. They started to chase us. I will explain what happened to all 7 of us individually

Rajkumar (Rakesh's friend) – He was chased all over the place by those white creatures. He ran and ran and fell into a bush nearby (poor fellow his only fault was coming with us)

Suresh – He was jumping and running everywhere shouting "Pey pey".

Vasanth and Rakesh – By the time this was happening Vasanth took Pakka's TVS 50 while Rakesh took his bike and were standing at a safe distance from us

Myself and Ashwin – We didnt know what to do, so we stood our ground and watched as things around us were getting crazy

Pakka also was chased and he reached his TVS 50, got back in the back seat of the TVS 50 which Vasanth was driving. Mysealf and Ashwin were the last to leave with our bike. We thought we had escaped when the white creature suddenly gave a big slap on my back (Oops what a shot it was)

After all this the drama didnt stopped. We moved from the place and when we were riding on our bikes Pakka's TVS 50 got stuck in the mud and Pakka who was sitting at the back got down and started running towards Suresh's bike and got into it. It was a hilarious situation for us as Pakka was a body builder and he was stronger than all of us (atleast physically)

Then we all headed to Rajkumar's home where we discussed what had happened. Suresh was giving a lot of build up (as usual). But he was getting too interested in making us believe that it was a ghost and Rakesh who was also from the same area supported him saying that there were incidents like these happening over there. I was saying to everyone that there was no such thing like a ghost and it must have been something (or someone) else. Some of them got back the confidence and we all went home.

After an hour after I had reached my home, Vijay (one of my friends in the same area and who absconded from the treat) and Suresh came to my home. Vijay said that he heard that we were beaten by ghosts. I just told him I didnt believe it. He started laughing and took me outside my home where Ramkumar (one of the kedi number ones in my class) and Kannan (also one of my classmates and a nice friend) were standing there. Ram told that it was not ghosts, it was actually them who were there in the white dress.

He described the whole story. He told that they were wearing a veshti and were throwing computer sambraani (sorry dono the English word for it!) which appeared like flames to us. He also that there were 3 creatures Ram, Kannan and Vijay in white dress but unfortunately Vijay's veshti got stuck in his legs and he fell down there itself. So he couldnt come as a third creature. He asked me maintain the ghost story in the college and we reached an agreement.

I was laughing the whole night and it certainly was one of the most memorable experiences of mylife. The next week in colleg was full of ghost stories. Great time we had. Hope you enjoyed reading it too. Post your comments regarding my hilarious incident.

Cool Corner Peeling Ads

2008-04-03T05:46:00.000-07:00

I have started blogging for just over a month now. I wanted to display ads on my blog which does not occupy too much space, because most of the blogs I visited had ads ocupying too much space. I was on the lookout for a much better solution

Then one day when I was surfing the net to submit my blog I found a site which had a
diiferent type of ad altogether. It didnt occupy any space and it was sitting right on the right top corner of the page

It was one of the cool things that I saw over the net. If you are interested in getting such an ad for your blog the site name is Adbrite and you can vist the site by clicking here It just places a nice ad and if any of your site visitors makes a click you will get paid. You can get your amount paid though Paypal or through a cheque. If you want to create an account in Paypal click here

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Tibet – More questions than answers

2008-03-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

The recent developments in Tibet has been a cause for concern both in India and around the world.The Western countries are also looking at the option of using the Olympics as a weapon to makeChina involve in a political dialogue with the Dalai Lama. So what really is the problem between Dalai Lama and the Communist Chinese regime.

There have been talks between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities for well over a decade.The contentious issues between the two have been the demands made by the Tibetan governement living in exile in India

The first demand is that Tibet be granted greater autonomy with the idea of "One country two systems" which the Chinese government has rejected categorically. According to China it is astatus uniquely provided for Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao. It grant that same status to Tibet

The second and the most pressing demand is the idea of "Greater Tibet". This involves carving outcertain regions of China which ethnically is dominated by Tibetans. It is a demand that any country will reject and China did the same. So is there any middle path that is acceptable for both the sides. At present the certain answer is no. With the violent protests in Lhasa and other Tibetan ethnic regions China is in no mood to talk with the Dalai Lama.

The whole world is watching the situation with their fingers crossed hoping for an amicable solution between the two

123 Agreement - Necessary?

2008-03-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

I would like to share my views about the 123 agreement that the Indian Government is so keen on signing before the Bush regime changes in December. First of all nuclear energy is not that cheap as it is being hyped about. The cost involving research, operation cycle and the nuclear waste disposal makes it much more costlier than the conventional coal-powered reactors in our country.

The nuclear reactors are offering the electricity at 270 paise per kWh whereas Reliance is currently offering it at 230 paise per kWh. Also the costly nuclear reactors which are to be bought from the US and other NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) a cartel lead by US has to use the fuel supplied by these countries, which makes the Thorium abundantly available in our country useless.

Moreover the time to construct these nuclear reactors is of great contention as the US has not constructed a single nuclear reactor for its domestic market since the 1970s and the Russians who are building the Koodankulam nuclear reactors are already behind the schedule by 2 years. The Russians are building a older version of their nuclear reactor in India whereas their somestic markey has moved to a newer version

And also the fact that the Indian government is saying that the nuclear agreement can be signed by only the Bush government is also not true. On the contrary, it has to be agreed by both the Democrats and the Republicans in the Senate.

Considering so many hurdles to the agreement is it really necessary to sign on the agreement. Instead of buying those costly nuclear reactors with no real timeframe for it to get delivered, the government can spend that money on technology that can use Thorium as the fuel. Its time to think out of the box for the Indian government and concentrate on the development of technology

Private Equity Demystified

2008-03-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

What exactly is private equity and why there is so much buzz around it. Private equity emerged in the 1980s with the KKR group. These PE firms provided cash for companies to go private. Going private helped the companies to run it the way they wanted. The PE firms were run run by investment bankers who brought considerable expertise to these companies.

There is also another concept called Ventue Capital (VC). Here smaller companies which are cash trapped and are too small to list in the exchanges are helped by VC firms by taking a stake in the comapny and help them towards a growth path. Thus providing them both with the cash and the technical expertise

In India private equity is relatively young. It started with the IT boom towards the end of 90s. In recent years a number of these companies have come up due to stock market boom and the growing Indian consumer market. Global firms such as Blackstone and the Carlyle Group have a presence in India and are scaling up their operations.

Indian players like ICICI Venture are also growing rapidly in this market space. The next big question is how do these firms make money?

Essentially, PE funds raise money from high net worth individuals and financial institutions, for a period of 7-10 years and then invest in opportunities as and when they arise. The firms valuate companies and take a stake depending on how much is the company actually worth, how the company will grow etc.

Post stake taking, day-to-day monitoring and growth plans are monitored by the fund, with a senior director taking a seat on the company's board. Since the target is also to exit the investment in a few years and return money to investors, the deal team also constantly monitor the capital markets for suitable times to do an Initial Public Offering (IPO) or find a strategic investor to sell to

Trillion dollar war

2008-03-23T03:04:00.000-07:00

It has been 5 years since the invasion of Iraq. Has anything been at all achieved over these 5 years. Its a trillion dollar question. Why? Beause it is estimated that the cost of the war (both direct and indirect) so far has been around 3 trillion dollars. And also there is the human losses which amounts to thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, millions displaced due to ethnic tensions and American soldiers killed during their patrols.

The main reason for this war according to the US president was that Saddam Hussein was possessing weapons of mass destruction and that there was link between him and terrorists. All that was proven wrong and it was actually after the invasion that Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists.

Had this war been not fought the money ould have been used for useful purposes in the US and for providing aid to other poor countries in tha African continent.

The burning issue of climate change could have been better tackled using this money by allocating funds to make greener technlogy.

But President Bush does not want to look at it this way. His only aim was to invade Iraq and defeat Saddam Hussein no matter how much the cost of the war. His economy is now running on a huge budget deficit. His legacy would be passing on the ruins of Iraq war and giving the nation a huge budget deficit

India Inc's Growing Influence

2008-03-23T02:25:00.000-07:00

Reliance Power's Black Magic

We are witnessing a tremendous influence of India Inc worldwide. Few of them are Tata's acquisition of Corus Steel and Jaguar, Suzlon Energy acquiring Hansen Group and Dr. Reddy's Labs' acquisition of Betapharm to name a few of the big acquisitions.

To add to this growing list Reliance Power (the flagsip of ADAG) has a deal worth 1,000 crores with one of the coal mines in Indonesia. The coal mine is estimated to have a reserve of 2 billion tonnes. Whereas, the largest reserve of coal mines in India which is Gevera in Chattisgarh has a resrve of about 1.2 billion tonnes.

Reliance Power's Krishnapuram power project will be fed by the fuel form this acquisition. The fuel from this project will also be used for other power projects in the country.
Given the amount of money spent in acquisitions and the returns earned from them,
one thing is sure "India Inc is growing and growing fast"

Great books – review

2008-03-23T01:25:00.000-07:00

Hi all, I just wanted to share some knowledge about the best books I have read. I wouldn't call it a review, just an information for those book lovers who are looking for good books to read

The book that tops my list is Prey by Michael Crichton. I basically had no interest in reading english novels. The book that changed my opinion was Prey. It was a science fiction book dealing about Nano technology.
The author made me to feel each and every situation in the book and for a first time reader it was a fantastic experience. A review of this book can be found in the below link
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/popus/crichtm.htm
Its a must read for all those science fiction book lovers. If you want to download an electronic version of the book you can do it on
www.esnips.com
The next one on my list is Holcroft Covenant by Robert Ludlam. Wow!! was the only word that came out when I finished reading that book. It was a fantatic written book by one of the greats Robert Ludlum.
It is a story about a person named Holcroft who finds himself in a position to fulfill his father's will written some 50 years ago. What comes next was purely unexpected. When some people try to pursuade him against fulfilling the will, they mysteriously die.
Its a nice plot with the hero portrayed as timid and the villain with great skills. A complete review can be found in the below link
http://www.mouthshut.com/product-reviews/Holcroft_Covenant___The_-_Robert_Ludlum-925051466.html

Some of the other books I really enjoyed were

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Fiction)
Mega Living by Robin Sharma (Motivation)The Alchemist by Paul Coelho (Motivation)
Hope you read these books and enjoy as much as I did. Have a great time reading

Israel-Palestine conflict

2008-03-15T03:12:00.000-07:00

One of the conflicts in the world that has been going on for over six decades and will continue at least for a few more decades to come is the Israel-Palestine conflict. A brief history about this conflict can be viewed in the below link
www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm

Some of the atrocities committed by the Israelis during the formation of Israel were brutal and terrible to say the least. Susan Kozma, a Hungarian holocaust survivor, explains Israel's reign of terror in Palestine and beyond in the following link
http://terrorism.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_voice_against_israeli__terror_
But Israel continues its reign of terror over the palestinians, how? It is because of the support of its ally the US which turns a blind eye on human rights violations when it comes to Israel. The reasons for the support of US for Israel are many and is explained in the following link
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_israel_us_support.php

There can be peace in the middle east only when Israel stops using its heavy handed tactics against the Palestinians like creating new settlements in the West Bank, killing innocent civilians in the name of military action against terrorists, isolating Gaza from the rest of the world keeping it as a virtual prison for millions and start a peace process that involves all the parties affected. It includes Hamas, Syria whose land has not been returned since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and also various other parties involved

Links about Arab-Israeli war

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-06/2007-06-05-voa7.cfm?CFID=283497718&CFTOKEN=36485347
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0856668.html

Peace can be achieved only through dialog and not through violence

Online data entry jobs

2008-03-15T02:41:00.000-07:00

Hi there,
Hope everyone is fine. I would like to share my experience about searching for an online job for my friend which will help him earn money from home. First of all i tried searching through google for anything that might be useful.

But for my disappointment nothing was useful to me as every job listed was either for residents of USA, Canada or the UK. I did manage to find some sites that offer online jobs in India. But they all wanted a registration fee to be paid upfront.

One such site which offered an online data entry job was
http://www.365jobs4u.com/india/

It was a nice job site for both offline and online data entry jobs as well as other internet jobs. But as most other sites in India it also asked for a registration fees of Rs. 2000 for beginners and Rs. 3500 for experts in data entry.

Also for any other type of internet jobs they asked for an initial registration fees. Anyone who is interested in paying the sum and work at home can visit the above site for more details.

There are also sites that allow you to make bids for the projects that are available from companies. The problem with this type is that you have to bid against people from other countries whose bidding rates are really low. One such site is
http:\\www.elance.com

The fact of the matter remains that online data entry is very much debatable as the companies involved can do it themselves.
Why would these companies pay money for a job which they themselves can do. So be very careful about paying any huge amount for such jobs

You can try to find your online jobs through google or yahoo by typing online-data-entry jobs and then pressing the search button. Do not forget to include the hyphen symbol. Hope you find your matching online job

State of Indian hockey

2008-03-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

The failure to qualify for the Olympic Games for the first time in eight decades is the story of the decline and fall of Indian hockey. Historically, no other hockey-playing country can rival India: eight gold, one silver, and two bronze medals in 18 successive appearances since 1928. Six of the eight golds came without a break in Olympic Games held between 1928 and 1956. Pakistan was the main challenger until 1972, when Germany upset the South Asian applecart and ushered in the era of European dominance. Indian hockey’s present plight has been long in the making. There was a failure to read the early signals of a paradigm shift in hockey, which were clear enough by 1976, a year after India won the World Cup at Kuala Lumpur. The game went through a revolution with the introduction of the synthetic pitch but instead of embracing it Indian hockey officials buried their heads in the sand. They viewed the artificial surface as an enemy — something designed to downgrade the status of sub-continental teams, masters of natural grass. The effort to project the International Hockey Federation (FIH) as a villain — out to create problems for India by altering the rules and insisting on unaffordable synthetic surfaces — was a historic blunder. It was compounded by a mindset of deflecting criticism by attributing the string of poor performances to the pitch, rules, and umpiring.

Little was done to restructure the system, or evolve a plan to reorient coaching. Suggestions that foreign coaches be hired were dismissed as degrading in principle. The frequent change of coaches and the constant shuffling of players were demoralising. The result was that, in the era of artificial pitches, no Indian hockey team has figured in the semi-final of a major competition (if the win at the truncated 1980 Moscow Games can be excluded). The FIH stepped in to create a special project in 2006 under the Olympic Solidarity Programme, roping in the Australian stalwart, Ric Charlesworth, to fine-tune coaching. Joaquim Carvalho, the chief coach who resigned after the debacle, has observed sensibly that “not qualifying for the Olympics is not the end of the road” because “there is still plenty of talent in India.” This talent can be developed and set free only if the hockey administration is compelled to change its archaic governance. Domestic competitions like the national championship must be put on a much stronger basis, a special scheme launched to nurture the pool of junior talent, and progressive measures adopted to generate interest in schools. The failure to make it to the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 should be converted into an opportunity to set Indian hockey on a systematic road to recovery

Article source: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/13/stories/2008031355581000.htm

Double standards

2008-03-12T01:43:00.000-07:00

Today we are seeing double standards in all levels of life. Those who have the power are almost invariably prone to using double standards. Today's political situation in our country is a good example. I don't want to get into that matter.

Today the United States is the Super power of the world, yet many of its acts clearly demonstrate the double standards it has set for those who support them and those who do not. Lets take the example of Iraq. Why it started the campaign Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) was obvious to everyone. The only thing was the propaganda it carried out leading to the war was one of the ugliest lies. It said that Iraq was possessing weapons of mass destruction whereas after the war it was very much clear that there was no evidence of WMDs in that country. Another reason was that it was lead by a dictator and that the US could not tolerate dictatorship. I guess it forgot the fact that Saudi Arabia, Egypt and most of the other Gulf countries were run by dictators which is aptly supported by the US because they support them.

The next topic is Human rights. The US calls itself the champion of human rights, wherever human rights abuse takes place it will raise its concern. Be it in China, North Korea or in Myanmar. But when it comes to Israel it will turn a blind eye whatever it does. Innocent civilians die, roadblocks set up to make the life of Palestinians miserable or the complete imprisonation of the Gaza strip. What sort of human rights is this?. When it comes to even condemning Israel at the UN (of course it is a puppet of the US) the US uses its veto power to protect its ally (Israel)

All these things indicate one bad thing for the international community. We are being lead by a very bad country with no past history and glory. All they want is the world's money and oil at 10 dollars a barrel. Hope this will change in the future

Hard disk problems

2008-03-11T19:02:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody,

I would like to post here a blog about a problem I have been facing ever since I bought a new hard disk of 160 GB. The problem is that I don't know how to place the jumper settings on my hard disk. So the already existing hard disk and the new hard disk I cannot place on the same IDE channel. Because of this I am facing a lot of problems.

Recently I have been forced to use the old hard disk instead of the 160 GB the old one which is only 40 GB. So my experience from this always consult a hardware expert before buying or adding any new hardware to your computer.

That goes for my new TV tuner card as well. I bought it for Rs. 850 but due to these problems I am not able to use it.