santastic!

The best advice to avoid work

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:01:00 +0000

...is given by Wally, of course. (courtesy: Dilbert)

Happy Children's Day!

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:12:00 +0000

The adults know it is Children's Day because they celebrate it. But this child apparently doesn't know that and is probably feeling insecure being in an odd place (Rashtrapati Bhavan), with odd company (President Patil) and hundreds of cameras flashing light at him. Whoever brought this kid here...

Tricolor on Moon: Not guilty your honor!

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:15:00 +0000

The proud moment has finally arrived. The Chandrayaan landed its passenger, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on the lunar surface on 14th November. India is now one of only four countries to achieve this feat. This is such a moment that makes one feel proud of his / her identity, i.e., being Indian. It also lets us forget all the crap that goes on in everyday life. As expected, lots of voices have been raised in the west whether India could afford such a costly program. They have been answered by the ISRO (as they are directly accountable) and by common Indians whenever they faced such queries on internet forums. Personally, I feel it would be better to ignore such questions as we are well aware of the pros and cons of such missions and we need not justify them to others.

The MIP took the following pictures of the Moon on its way -

The MIP: It was a very hard landing for the MIP as it cruised at over 1.7 km/sec. to make a touchdown on the lunar surface at 8:31 PM IST. The ISRO never made a secret that the MIP would have to crash land if the mission was to be considered 'successful'. They also painted all the sides of the box-shaped MIP with the tricolor to signify India's arrival there. Now the legal question is did the ISRO disrespect the national flag? They knew that the lander would be destroyed on impact on the moon. With it, the national flag too, probably. The code of conduct (linked to a PDF) for the national flag lays out several rules of what constitutes respect and what doesn't. What constitutes disrespect is, however, still not clear. Celebrities have been harassed by media due to different interpretations. Sania Mirza faced wrath for putting her leg near the flag. This was considered an offense. A week after almost every Independence Day celebrations, all the paper flags that are put on street corners go down the drain and nobody bothers. Not even the people who felt offended by Sania Mirza's casual attitude. Coming back to ISRO. Have they disrespected the national flag? Don't know. Can a case be filed against them? Nope. Indian courts have no jurisdiction over the moon. Any case, the ISRO says the tricolor is intact. Phew, what a relief!

BSE's address seems to have changed!

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:21:00 +0000

Chandrayaan's first picture

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:47:00 +0000

Chandrayaan has sent its first picture back. It is that of the earth taken at a distance of 9,000 km.

Dogbert mocks Indian accent

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:16:00 +0000

Is it South Indian or Bengali?? Either one, it's funny.

The importance of punctuation marks

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:31:00 +0000

What's in a name? A lot. Particularly if the punctuation marks aren't placed properly or not placed at all. e.g., A company by the name Anu's Laboratories came up with an IPO recently. Whenever this name was flashed, it elicited an awkward response. Why? Coz they would write Anus Laboratories for that company's name. That even includes some major newspapers and TV channels including Reuters (only a slight mention though in Top 3 by volume). It was only at the time of listing that I discovered it was Anu's Labs and not A*** Labs.

Breaking news: Journalism reaches heights!!

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:36:00 +0000

Breaking News #1: Amitabh Bachchan catches cold

Breaking News # 2: Commissioner's dog missing since 25th March

Breaking News #3: Delhi: Commissioner's lost dog is found

Breaking News #4: A cat climbs on the roof-top

Breaking News #5: Rahul (Gandhi) eats Dal-Puri for lunch

President's affection: All for the camera!

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:41:00 +0000

Image location: here

Gujjar Protests: Fight for the bottom of the pyramid

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:11:00 +0000

There's no denying that we (as a country) have had a history of discrimination. The rigid Hindu caste system had oppressed a few sections of the society. This was, no doubt, an extremely bad thing to have happened for social harmony. After gaining independence, the Indian constitution, drafted by a person from one of those oppressed sections, Dr. BR Ambedkar, recommended reservations for them but ONLY for a period of 10 years. This would help them to join the mainstream. He probably knew the repercussion (as we see now) if the time limit was not set. After his death, the subsequent governments, instead of taking stock of their progress, kept extending the period. Not just that, the vote-minded politicians even extended the scope of reservations by including all and sundry in the OBCs. Now, the whole country seemed to be backward. What next? Reservations in world jobs since 1/6th of humanity is backward, so 1/6th of the world's jobs should rightfully belong to us. Isn't it? Well, the world doesn't elect our politicians, so these guys haven't demanded it yet.

60 years on, people still feel it is a birth right to get reservation. What is worse is holding the rest of the country to ransom while doing so, like the gujjars did. They were demanding for inclusion of their community in the ST (scheduled tribe) list so that their are entitled to a different reservation. It is not that they are backward and denied reservation. Whether they are backward is debatable, the reservation part is not as they are already covered under the OBCs (other backward classes). Now they want to be moved to a different list as they feel the OBCs list has become extremely 'crowded' and getting jobs even there is difficult. Hence, the demand for inclusion in a list that is lower down the order and the protests to press for it. Now you know, what the unreserved or the 'general' category feels. Anyway, by doing so, they encourage discrimination of themselves and cry foul when others do that to them. The gujjar agitation is the scheme of things to come in the future. People will be willing to die for such things, but won't believe in such simple things as hard word. Hard work? What's that?

VC - Following LG

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:42:00 +0000

Lucky Goldstar..what's that? We only know LG!

Lucky Goldstar, the merged entity of two different electronics companies from Korea, shortened its name to LG, probably to make it simple for non-Koreans. Repeating two words for an electronics brand, that too relatively unknown outside the home market would have made the consumers a little tired and pissed (if the brand didn't live upto expectations). This was probably a wise move, as they were definitely not as strong as Sony-Ericsson to have two words as a brand name. But, why would a single word Indian brand Videocon do such a thing as call itself VC outside India?

The name is lengthy and/or it is difficult to pronounce? Definitely not. It is and easy to pronounce

The brand Videocon may be difficult to sell outside India: well, VC is not going to be any easier as it is still going to be called an Indian brand.

Any other reason??

By the way, the executive in charge of this mission of creating a global brand for the Videocon group is Mr. K.R. Kim (ex-chief of LG India!). Co-incidence?

Games cricketers play...

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 14:34:00 +0000

I am not that a great fan of cricket...but while switching television channels, came across a news item on the Yuvraj-Steyn face-off in the ongoing test match with South Africa. Face-off? So what? It happens in all the games, not confined to cricket, you may say. Well, there's a point here. Earlier, these were rare instances for Indians, who used to have it only with Pak cricketers and even more seldom with others. Now, it is almost becoming a norm. Have Indian cricketers become more aggressive? Have they started converting a losing match into a draw, a drawing match into a winning one?? Well, I can't say anything on that. But, the trend suggests that the non-Indian cricketers become popular (notorious) here in India once they have an ugly spat with a popular Indian cricketer. Remember the Harbhajan-Symonds rift...and the IPL dollars Andrew Symonds got after that? Would he have got that kind of money, if he and Harbhajan hadn't fought?!!! Probably not. Without going into who-said-what-and-to-whom, this post looks at only the outcome of that event that happened in Australia. Andrew Symonds got almost double the money that Adam Gilchrist got, in fact the best pay among foreign players, even though there are numerous other better players than Symonds. Anyway, that, in itself, may not be a bad thing. Except for a Steve Waugh, who gets noticed for good things, there are not many cricketers (even Indian) who do such noble things and be in the news. Andrew Symonds chose the other end of the decency-spectrum to be in the news and got rewarded. Dale Steyn, it seems, is such a wannabe and is only following in the footsteps of the (not-so) great Andrew Symonds!!

Kya aap paanchvi pass se tez hai?

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:08:00 +0000

Literally translated into english, it means 'are you brighter than a 5th standard (grade) kid?' Let me rephrase that question....do you want to buy a lottery ticket? Confused? Here's the explanation.....This program from 'Star Plus' is yet another reality show where people call in or send SMSs to participate. This is to a special number that charges s special price (usually 5 times the regular call/SMS charges), the revenue from which is split between the telecom operator and the television channel. Sony's 'Indian Idol 3' reportedly brought in excess of 70 million votes. That meant Rs. 35 crore in SMS revenue alone. Taking out revenue sharing between telecom operators and 50% of the net proceeds as the sponsoring telecom operator's (Airtel) share, that still left Sony with atleast Rs.10 crore. No wonder Hussain and Mini Mathur kept asking us to vote repeatedly!!

Anyway, back to 'Kya aap...?', Star Plus was the pioneer of SMS voting/participation when it started KBC. They surely are going to make lots of money with this show as well. They keep the entry question so simple that it tempts even the most resistant critic. For example, the latest question for which call-in lines are still open as I write this post, which of the following capital cities is on the sea coast - Hyderabad, ____ (forgot the option) or Chennai. Choose your pick. For such a question, surely there'll be thousands of SMSes. In such a case, there's a very low probability of selection of a candidate. Something like one in a lakh or a million. So, how different is a lottery ticket from this now??

Nano gets a warm reception

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Tata Motors (Tata) is getting a lot of western media coverage these days - thanks, in part, to their bid to acquire the Jaguar-Land Rover combine. So, when it displayed its 'Nano' to the world yesterday, it would have been inevitable for those media to ignore. Here's a company that wants to be at the either end of the spectrum - to produce cologne and eau de parfum (in the words of the former Arcelor chief Guy Dolle). When Tata had announced some five years ago that it would pursue making a car that would cost about 100,000 rupees, hardly anybody outside India noticed. Now, every gesture gets reported.

The Nano (the 'one lakh' car then) had sent shock waves to its competitors even before the launch with top rival executives questioning the safety aspects of the car, among other issues. Now that more details about the car are available (it passes Euro - III norms currently in place in India), it has silenced the critics for the time being.

Tata has done very well to keep almost every detail about the car - top secret. Right from the design to the features. No body had a clue as to how it would look like. They have done a nice job there. They now face a bigger challenge - to meet the desired expectations. Remember, Tata Indica was also launched with similar fanfare and expectations. But, once people got deliveries of that car in its initial days, they were totally disappointed. Tata did some modifications, and the later versions, as we know, were accepted well. But the damage was done to the brand. Of course, it was Tata's first foray into passenger car (if you don't count Tata Sierra and Tata Estate as cars, as they were essentially built on the likes of the current 207 pick-up truck platform, not a totally different base. Let's just hope that the Tatas have learnt from those mistakes, and the Nano does well when commercially launched. Congratulations! Tata Motors and the House of Tatas. And all the very best!!!

Incredible !ndia

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:48:00 +0000

The tourism department can add a new chapter to its advertising campaign. After the Taj Mahal, Rajastan, Goa, and a few other places, most western celebrities seem to prefer Mumbai's slums - for leisure tourism or otherwise. This time, it is the turn of Madonna. !ncredible? !ndeed.

DLF to develop New Bangalore

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 03:20:00 +0000

Just when the JDS was supposed to pass on the baton of Chief Ministership to the BJP in Karnataka (whether they'll do it or not is a different question), comes the news that the government has awarded a whopping Rs.60,000 crore project to develop a new township on the outskirts of Bangalore to DLF. H.D. Deve Gowda, the JDS chief, is not reputed for developmental works. More famous for putting spanners in the NICE corridor and the international airport (BIAL), this action looks swift, rather fishy. Is there more to it than meets the eye, or am I turning into a conspiracy theorist?

Related Post on Finance Writer: Realty stocks get re-rated after DLF bags mega project

Sreesanth and his heroics

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:30:00 +0000

S. Sreesanth makes a complete idiot of himself (yet again). Ex-captain Rahul Dravid had to put up a sorry face to Andrew Symonds in this Kochi one-dayer. I couldn't stop laughing at this photo. Hence, decided to post it here.

Saddam Hanging

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 10:09:00 +0000

A 69 year old man being executed by hanging. Ok ok...It is Saddam Hussein being executed. But does it change anything??

Fly away on Venga Airways....

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 18:35:00 +0000

Ok, Venga Boys haven't started their Venga Airways service in India yet. And I also don't know if it is a full service airline or the low cost variety. It is immaterial what type it is as long as it flies me cheap. Till a year ago, the only time I flew was Hyderabad-Chennai-Hyderabad on the Indian Airlines. Of course, that was a sponsored ticket. Otherwise, who would fork-out Rs. 16,000/- for a two way journey? Not me. I'd rather travel by train at Rs. 1,000/- max. That was four years ago. Fast forward to now, things have changed a lot. Better for travellers, worse for airliners, but who cares!.

After coming out with Apex, Super Apex, Super Duper Apex, Super Duper Fluper Apex fares, the regular airliners ran out of ideas. Then came a small-fledgling helicopter service provider who said that he'd fly us for the cost of only a high-end bus or a second AC train fare. It was difficult to digest this claim initially. That would be anywhere between one-fifth and one-eighth of the prevailing rates then. That airline, Air Deccan, still flies at almost the same price levels that it promised. In a candid interview (I can't recall with whom), Capt. G.R. Gopinath, its chief, said that their main goal was to fly from point A to point B for as cheap as possible and with a decent on time flight schedule. They do the first part of their job most of the time, but I doubt about the second. Wait a sec., I don't doubt it, I know they don't do it. It will be breaking news if an Air Deccan flight leaves on time. I've flown them 4 times now, and it was, you guessed it right, never on time. The closest it came was only a half hour delay. Only half an hour. Of course, my concern all these time was only to go from point A to point B. Reaching on time was not a crucial factor. If it was, I would never have entrusted Air Deccan with that. Even Capt. Gopinath admits that they've to improve a lot in that aspect. I completely agree. Not just me but everybody who have flown them. That will total up to one-fifth of all air travellers in the country during the last 12 months. Yep, they have a market share of over 22% and it is inching closer to 25% or a quarter. If airports in India are looking more and more like bus-stands and railway stations, you know whom to thank/blame. Remember, it is Air Deccan's mantra. i.e., Fly the common man. No wonder, they use the common man from R. K. Laxman's cartoon strip as their mascot.

Talking about the services and politeness of the staff, I am sure they are legendary by now. The less I write, the better it is (as they are the subject of another post). All I can say is, if you are looking for good customer service, you better don't travel by Air Deccan. Instead, fork out a few hundred rupees more and travel by SpiceJet or Go Air instead. I've flown both. It may be a little premature to say this, but for the fare I paid, they were quite impressive. Their schedule was almost on time (about 10 min. delay in each case). That's ok. I didn't even notice it till the Go Air captain owned and apologised for the delay, and didn't blame the Air Traffic Controller (Air Deccan's captain did) before taking-off. FYI only, he was not an Indian. Ok. Ok. Please don't send me hate mails when I mention that he was not an Indian.

Having said all the above stuff, I didn't mean to be mean to Air Deccan. It came out naturally. Ok. Ok. I'll stop it. One thing they need to be commended for is visualising a scenario where an aam aadmi (aur aurat bhi - don't call me a sexist now) could afford air travel. They have really worked hard (and continue to do that) to bring down their fares. They've shown that the low-cost model can work in India too. For how long, that is the question waiting to be answered. All the airliners in India (incl. the low-cost ones) continue to bleed. They generate revenue which is barely enough for their day-to-day operational expenses. If you have questions on their Leasing costs, financial costs, returns to share-holders, please don't ask them now. It would be adding salt to the injury. All of them say that fares have to go up for the industry to become sustainable. But none increases. They are not interested. Their main aim right now is to increase the size of the industry and bring air travel within the reach of ordinary citizen. Once they do that, they are gonna increase the fares slightly and experiment if there's any aversion to air travel because of that. Right now, except for Air Sahara, almost all of them have big bucks in their bank accounts to wage a fare war. Till the time they do that, you simply enjoy the ride.

YOU are the 'Time - Person of the year 2006'

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 20:49:00 +0000

Don't get confused....I am not talking about you but YOU. Alright, I'll make things a little easier to understand. The Time magazine thinks that it is not a single person that has changed the world but a lot of people did. Ordinary people with ordinary lives sharing ordinary stuff has produced an extra-ordinary combination that has redefined the way people communicate globally. It is all about what has now become a cliched term 'user-generated content', 'citizen reporting/marketing/blogging'. Be it in photo-sharing, blogging, video-sharing, social networking, or just about anything that constitutes the Internet 2.0. Armed with only an internet connection and some optional gadgets like digi-cam, camera-phone, people are transforming the world. So that makes me a recipient of this year's Person of the Year Award (if I can borrow Gaurav's words). I only hope they haven't noticed the time gap between posts on this blog.

Courtesy: Gaurav Sabnis, Sadagopan

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:24:00 +0000

Selling Windows to Scott McNealy

The first lesson or one of the first few sentences a Marketing professor utters to a new batch of MBA students is that a good salesman/woman is one who can sell ice to eskimos. All the fresh faces who've heard such a sentence for the first time in their life open their jaws in awe for their professor even as he (the prof) continues his blabbering. Those kinda professors just got a new line to throw now.....A good IT salesman/woman is one who sell's Windows OS to Scott McNealy...

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 15:32:00 +0000

Arjun Singh supports 100% OBC reservations

On a day of dramatic announcements, the union ministry for HRD made a press release of the findings of a survey titled 'How to come to / retain power in an election'. The minister Mr. Arjun Singh said that this was a well planned and well prepared survey conducted by the otherwise ill-prepared beaureucrats-politicians duo. Out to hunt for the shortest possible time to achieve the goals as laid-out by the honourable minister, the empowered task-force committee headed by Mr. Ullu Moron came to the following conclusions (and their related suggestions):

- the 5-decade old policy of reservations haven't produced much intended results and that the GENERAL CATEGORY candidates continue to excel in whatever filth is left to them. For this, the committee suggests that the reservations should be rightly taken to 100% on an experimental basis for 10 years. Even after this, if these candidates continue to make a career
somehow, then taking the figure upwards should be considered.

- the backward classes of the country continue to remain backward. The brighter lot of the country continues to shine in places where the reservations are currently not in place. This go-getter attitude of the general category candidates was hurting the sentiments of the 'Backward Classes'. Since the various poverty-alleviation and other programs could not lift-up the lives of the poor and the backward class people even after 58 years of independence, the committee suggested a wealth-alleviation program. By drastically reducing the opportunities for the brighter kids from the so-called UPPER CASTES, this would make the playing field a very levelled one. This would bring socio-economic justice to the society.

Speaking to the reporters later, Mr. Singh praised the committee for coming out with an 'excellent understanding and analysis' and a 'commendable piece of work'. When asked to comment about the recommendation of increasing the reservation to 100%, Mr Singh said that this could be considered at the next Lok Sabha election as it wouldn't merit consideration for state elections. When further asked if the recommendation wouldn't defy logic, Mr. Singh 'reminded' the reporters that it was Indians who discovered the value of zero and the world would 'definitely welcome a new discovery from India'. The union railways minister Mr. Lalu Yadav, who was also present at the venue agreed with Mr. Singh.

noreply@blogger.com (santosh) — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 18:37:00 +0000

SA beat Aussies in a record-shattering one-dayer

The Times of India reports that the South Africans (SA) have won the series-decider in style as they successfully chase a record-breaking score in the history of the game thereby creating another record of sorts. The Aussies scored 434 off their alloted 50 overs after losing 4 wickets. In reply, SA gave a nail-biting finish to the match closing it off the penultimate ball of the match when Mark Boucher hit the winning run.