This is the mid May in Delhi and it’s becoming hotter and hotter.

Scorching heat of outside winds is making people mad.

After an intermittent period of cold and shower, the summer has finally arrived.

As  I type it, the topics of Nirmal Baba’s fraud, IPL fixing and nose diving of Rupees versus dollar are being aired by various news channel here.

Hope to write about them in next few days…..

Today, the entire nation, waiting for the Rail Budget,  got a huge surprise as the day passes by. By the evening, attention of entire nation has shifted from discussing various provisions of Budget to guessing whether the present Railway Minister Mr Dinesh Trivedi will be able to save his portfolio or not.

The tantrums of drama queen has begun again. Mamata Banerjee, the quintessential trouble maker for UPA Government has done it again.

Never ever in the history of Indian politics such an incident had occurred which happened today.  The price hike decision of a Minister was vehemently opposed by his own party supremo.  In the full public glare, Mamta and her other Party colleagues started criticizing the decisions taken by one of their own party members.

As the night proceeds, the news of probable resignation of Dinesh Trivedi are becoming hotter and hotter. It appears that Mamta Banerjee has asked the PMO to replace Trivedi.

No matter what is the reality, for me it all seems a big drama being staged by Mamta itself.

She has the genes of an opposition leader. She finds solace in opposing the powers that be. Now, sitting in Writers Building as the CM of West Bengal, she is finding it really tough to live an opposition free life. So what if Communists have become weak.  There is no dearth of people to oppose. If she can’t find anyone, she may fire on her colleagues. After all, she is the most ardent protector of the interest of poors in India. So what if it means making a splendid, profit making organization  like Railway into an overburdened, loss making behemoth.

This was the last opportunity for the Government to make tough decisions on financial front. Next year, they will not be able to do this owing to the fast approaching general elections.

The brave attempt in Rail Budget has failed. Let us see what’ll happen in the general budget on Friday.

Hello friends,

Indian Blogger is back. After completing my project which could not reach its logical conclusion, I have come back. Now there have been many things which I would like to share with you but right now let me tell you one thing. On the occasion of the birthday (11th December) of my most favorite spiritual teacher Osho, here is a brief snippet of his discourse in which he told us about the four brightest stars of Spiritual India. Read in his own words :-

रहस्यदर्शियों का आकाश

महाकवि सुमित्रानंदन पंत ने मुझसे एक बार पूछा कि भारत के धर्माकाश में वे कौन बारह लोग हैं-मेरी दृष्टि में-जो सबसे चमकते हुए सितारे हैं? मैंने उन्हें यह सूची दी: कृष्ण, पतंजलि, बुद्ध, महावीर, नागार्जुन, शंकर, गोरख, कबीर, नानक, मीरा, रामकृष्ण, कृष्णमूर्ति। सुमित्रानंदन पंत ने आंखें बंद कर लीं, सोच में पड़ गये…।

सूची बनानी आसान भी नहीं है, क्योंकि भारत का आकाश बड़े नक्षत्रों से भरा है! किसे छोड़ो, किसे गिनो?.. वे प्यारे व्यक्ति थे-अति कोमल, अति माधुर्यपूर्ण, स्त्रैण…। वृद्धावस्था तक भी उनके चेहरे पर वैसी ही ताजगी बनी रही जैसी बनी रहनी चाहिए। वे सुंदर से सुन्दरतम होते गये थे…। मैं उनके चेहरे पर आते-जाते भाव पढ़ने लगा। उन्हें अड़चन भी हुई थी। कुछ नाम, जो स्वभावतः होने चाहिए थे, नहीं थे। राम का नाम नहीं था! उन्होंने आंख खोली और मुझसे कहा: राम का नाम छोड़ दिया है आपने! मैंने कहा: मुझे बारह की ही सुविधा हो चुनने की, तो बहुत नाम छोड़ने पड़े। फिर मैंने बारह नाम ऐसे चुने जिनकी कुछ मौलिक देन है। राम की कोई मौलिक देन नहीं है, कृष्ण की मौलिक देन है। इसलिए हिंदुओं ने भी उन्हें पूर्णावतार नहीं कहा।

उन्होंने फिर मुझसे पूछा: तो फिर ऐसा करें, सात नाम मुझे दें। अब बात और कठिन हो गयी थी। मैंने उन्हें सात नाम दिये: कृष्ण, पतंजलि, बुद्ध, महावीर, शंकर, गोरख, कबीर। उन्होंने कहा: आपने जो पांच छोड़े, अब किस आधार पर छोड़े हैं? मैंने कहा: नागार्जुन बुद्ध में समाहित हैं। जो बुद्ध में बीज-रूप था, उसी को नागार्जुन ने प्रगट किया है। नागार्जुन छोड़े जा सकते हैं। और जब बचाने की बात हो तो वृक्ष छोड़े जा सकते हैं, बीज नहीं छोड़े जा सकते। क्योंकि बीजों से फिर वृक्ष हो जायेंगे, नये वृक्ष हो जायेंगे। जहां बुद्ध पैदा होंगे वहां सैकड़ों नागार्जुन पैदा हो जायेंगे, लेकिन कोई नागार्जुन बुद्ध को पैदा नहीं कर सकता। बुद्ध तो गंगोत्री हैं, नागार्जुन तो फिर गंगा के रास्ते पर आये हुए एक तीर्थस्थल हैं-प्यारे! मगर अगर छोड़ना हो तो तीर्थस्थल छोड़े जा सकते हैं, गंगोत्री नहीं छोड़ी जा सकती।

ऐसे ही कृष्णमूर्ति भी बुद्ध में समा जाते हैं। कृष्णमूर्ति बुद्ध का नवीनतम संस्करण हैं-नूतनतम; आज की भाषा में। पर भाषा का ही भेद है। बुद्ध का जो परम सूत्र था-अप्प दीपो भव-कृष्णमूर्ति बस उसकी ही व्याख्या है। एक सूत्र की व्याख्या-गहन, गंभीर, अति विस्तीर्ण, अति महत्वपूर्ण! पर अपने दीपक स्वयं बनो, अप्प दीपो भव-इसकी ही व्याख्या है। यह बुद्ध का अंतिम वचन था इस पृथ्वी पर। शरीर छोड़ने के पहले यह उन्होंने सार-सूत्र कहा था। जैसे सारे जीवन की संपदा को, सारे जीवन के अनुभव को इस एक छोटे-से सूत्र में समाहित कर दिया था। रामकृष्ण, कृष्ण में सरलता से लीन हो जाते हैं। मीरा, नानक, कबीर, में लीन हो जाते हैं; जैसे कबीर की ही शाखायें हैं। जैसे कबीर में जो इकट्ठा था, वह आधा नानक में प्रगट हुआ है और आधा मीरा में। नानक में कबीर का पुरुष-रूप प्रगट हुआ है। इसलिए सिक्ख धर्म अगर क्षत्रिय का धर्म हो गया, योद्धा का, तो आश्चर्य नहीं है। मीरा में कबीर का स्त्रैण रूप प्रगट हुआ है-इसलिए सारा माधुर्य, सारी सुगंध, सारा सुवास, सारा संगीत, मीरा के पैरों की घुंघरू बनकर बजा है। मीरा के इकतारे पर कबीर की नारी गाई है; नानक में कबीर का पुरुष बोला है। दोनों कबीर में समाहित हो जाते हैं। इस तरह, मैंने कहा: मैंने यह सात की सूची बनाई। अब उनकी उत्सुकता बहुत बढ़ गयी थी। उन्होंने कहा: और अगर पांच की सूची बनानी पड़े? तो मैंने कहा: काम मेरे लिए कठिन होता जायेगा।

मैंने यह सूची उन्हें दी: कृष्ण, पतंजलि, बुद्ध, महावीर, गोरख।… क्योंकि कबीर को गोरख में लीन किया जा सकता है। गोरख मूल हैं। गोरख को नहीं छोड़ा जा सकता। और शंकर तो कृष्ण में सरलता से लीन हो जाते हैं। कृष्ण के ही एक अंग की व्याख्या है, कृष्ण के ही एक अंग का दार्शनिक विवेचन है।

तब तो वे बोले: बस, एक बार और..। अगर चार ही रखने हों?

तो मैंने उन्हें सूची दी: कृष्ण, पतंजलि, बुद्ध गोरख।… क्योंकि महावीर बुद्ध से बहुत भिन्न नहीं हैं, थोड़े ही भिन्न हैं। जरा-सा ही भेद है; वह भी अभिव्यक्ति का भेद है। बुद्ध की महिमा में महावीर की महिमा लीन हो सकती है।

वे कहने लगे: बस एक बार और..। आप तीन व्यक्ति चुनें।

मैंने कहा: अब असंभव है। अब इन चार में से मैं किसी को भी छोड़ न सकूंगा। फिर मैंने उन्हें कहा: जैसे चार दिशाएं हैं, ऐसे ये चार व्यक्तित्व हैं। जैसे काल और क्षेत्र के चार आयाम हैं, ऐसे ये चार आयाम हैं। जैसे परमात्मा की हमने चार भुजाएं सोची हैं, ऐसी ये चार भुजाएं हैं। ऐसे तो एक ही हैं, लेकिन उस एक की चार भुजाएं हैं। अब इनमें से कुछ छोड़ना तो हाथ काटने जैसा होगा। यह मैं न कर सकूंगा। अभी तक मैं आपकी बात मानकर चलता रहा, संख्या कम करता चला गया। क्योंकि अभी तक जो अलग करना पड़ा, वह वस्त्र था; अब अंग तोड़ने पड़ेंगे। अंग-भंग मैं न कर सकूंगा। ऐसी हिंसा आप न करवायें।

******
Courtesy : Oshoworld.com

Hi friends,

Right now I have been extremely busy in the biggest project of my life till date. As such, all online activities have come to a grinding halt.� But rest assured, this pause is only momentary. This blog is my personal blog and if everything goes well,� I shall be writing more and more stuff here in the coming future.� Till then why not watch this video which is one of the most inspirational videos about an Indian hero Mr. Narayanan Krishna.

Hope you liked this video.�� You can read more about this here :

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/archive10/naryanan.krishnan.html

Or here at his official website:-

http://www.akshayatrust.org/

See you soon !

Hello friends,

If you are living in India or have even a partial interest in India, then you must be aware of the latest wave of corruption scams which has completely jolted the country. The 2G Spectrum Scam wherein a loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore ($39 Billions) to the Government� owing to irregularities in allocation of 2G specturm to various companies has been estimated is being considered as the biggest scam in the history of India.

Just for all those who are interested in this issue, here is a simple explanation of spectrum and it’s allocation in India.

1. What is spectrum?

The word spectrum refers to a collection of various types of electromagnetic radiations of different wavelengths.� Spectrum or airwaves are the radio frequencies on which all communication singnals travel. In India the radio frequencies are being used for different types of services like space communication, mobile communication, broadcasting, radio navigation, mobile satellite service, aeronautical satellite services, defence communication etc.� Radio frequency is a natural resource but unlike other resources it will deplete when used. But it will be wasted if not used efficiently.

A look at following picture will make the things more clearer. Click on it to enlarge.

Spectrum Allocation

The spectrum allocated to Indian telecom operator is most crowded and inadequate to accommodate the usage by 650 million mobile subscribers as on date.� This has affected the quality of customer service and resulted in poor voice quality, call drop and undelivered messages of mobile services in India.

2. Agencies allocating spectrum

Spectrum allocation is important and necessary to ensure interference free operation for each radio service. All nations share the electromagnetic spectrum and reserve their right to its unlimited use. However, to facilitate international telecommunications cooperation to support trade, transportation, communications, and mutual protection against interference, all countries have agreed to an International Telecommunications Convention. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) at the World Radio Communication Conferences allocates spectrum frequencies for the use of various countries. Since the mobile communication technologies provide international roaming facilities, it is essential to allocate spectrum in the
common bands which are being used the world over. Secondly the mobile handsets which are manufactured are aligned to the GSM 900/1800 bands. If radio frequencies are allotted in any other bands then the handsets will not be compatible to those bands. The Wireless Planning and Coordination (WPC) Wing of the Ministry of Communications, created in 1952, is the National Radio Regulatory Authority responsible for Frequency Spectrum Management, including licensing and caters for the needs of all wireless users in the country. It issues licenses to operate wireless stations. WPC is divided into major sections like Licensing and Regulation (LR), New Technology Group (NTG) and Standing Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency Allocation (SACFA). SACFA makes the recommendations on major frequency allocation issues, formulation of the frequency allocation plan, making recommendations on the various issues related to International Telecom Union (ITU), to sort out problems referred to the committee by various wireless users.

3. India’s National Frequency Allocation plan

The National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP) forms the basis for development and manufacturing of wireless equipment and spectrum utilization in the country. Frequency bands allocated to various types of radio services in India are as follows.

i)����� 0-87.5 MHz is used for marine and aeronautical navigation, short and medium wave radio, amateur (ham) radio and cordless phones.

ii)���� 87.5-108 MHz is used for FM radio broadcasts

iii)�� 109- 173 Used for Satellite communication, aeronautical navigation and outdoor broadcast vans

iv)� 174-230 MHz not allocated.

v)�� 230�450 Used for Satellite communication, aeronautical navigation and outdoor broadcast vans

vi)� 450- 585. Not allocated.

vii)� 585-698 Used for TV broadcast

viii)��� 698-806 not allocated.

ix)���� 806-960 Used by GSM and CDMA mobile services

x)�� 960-1710 Aeronautical and space communication

xi)� 1710- 1930 Used for GSM mobile services

xii) 1930-2010 � Used by defence forces

xiii)� 2010-2025 � Not allocated

xiv)� 2025-2110 � Satellite and space communications

xv)� 2110-2170 � Not allocated

xvi) 2170-2300 � Satellite and space communications

xvii)� 2300-2400 not allocated.

xviii)�� 2400- 2483.5 Used for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth short range services

xix) 2483.5-3300 Space communications

xx) 3300-3600�� not allocated.

xxi) 3600-10000 Space research, radio navigation

xxii)� 10000 � used for satellite downlink for broadcast and DTH services

4. Telecom spectrum policy in India

In India GSM technology works in the frequency bands of 900 and 1800 MHz and CDMA technology works in the 800 MHz band. Presently, 100 MHz spectrum is ear marked for GSM services and 20 MHz is earmarked for CDMA.� Out of this 65 MHz of GSM band is still with Defence forces. The minimum amount of spectrum required for launching GSM services is 4.4 MHz. In 2002, the government introduced a subscriber linked spectrum allocation process, which provided for a maximum allotment of 12.5 MHz of spectrum per operator in each service area. The initial allotment of spectrum along with the licence was 4.4 MHz for GSM and 2.5 MHz for CDMA. This could be further scaled up to 6.2 MHz for GSM and 5 MHz for CDMA operators depending on availability and the operator’s ability to justify the need for it. For additional spectrum they had to meet the subscriber linked criterion laid down by DoT.

However due to the deluge of over 570 UAS licence applications, in Dec 2007, DoT delinked spectrum from the telecom licence and implemented a policy of first come first served basis for spectrum allocation. It depended entirely on submission of licence fees to DoT’s WPC wing for a spectrum licence. In 2008 DoT revised the criteria for additional spectrum allocation.

According to this, the subscriber base required for additional spectrum allocation was hiked two to six times for different circles.

5.� Defence Band

In India significant quantum of radio frequencies required for telecommunication is used by the defence forces. The telecom and defence ministries are in discussion for transferring the radio frequencies for telecommunication. Last year the telecom ministry signed a MOU with defence ministry as per which Defence ministry will surrender 45 MHZ of spectrum to telecom ministry. Out of this, 25 MHZ is identified for 3G services. In order to compensate the loss of spectrum, the telecom ministry agreed to provide fibre cable network for armed forces across the country at a cost of Rs 10000 cr (US $ 2.2� billion). The telecom ministry also agreed for a waiver of Rs 938 cr (US $ 208 million) to the defence ministry and agreed to allocate 30% of the all frequencies in the non communication bands.

6. 3G and BWA spectrum allocation

Over the years the government has been taking steps to frame policies to ensure efficient utilization of spectrum, which is a scarce resource. However efforts of DOT and TRAI have resulted in controversies. Therefore the Government decided to go ahead with the auctioning of 3G and BWA spectrum with a open and transparent format which resulted in the Government earning Rs 67719 cr (US $ 15.05 billion) for 3G spectrum and Rs 38543 cr (US $ 8.6 billion) for BWA spectrum. Spectrum required for the launch of 3G and BWA services is yet to be vacated by the defence department and is expected to be available by September 2010,�� TRAI has now recommended that the excess 2G spectrum with the operators also need to be valued at the 3G prices and recovered from the existing operators, which is strongly opposed by the GSM operators.
7. Conclusion

The operators need additional spectrum to improve the quality of services. The Government should formulate a spectrum policy which will promote efficient use of spectrum by developing market incentives and differential pricing of spectrum in congested areas. An open and transparent auction format will ensure that the government realizes the best price for spectrum as per the market forces and at the same time the telecom operators minimize and efficiently use the spectrum.

Article Courtesy : ArticleBase.com

The author can be reached at vsmoni@hotmail.com. To read more articles on telecom, visit indiatelecomonline.com

Another important article Specturm is at HowStuffWork.com.

Read it here :� How the Radio Spectrum Works

Have you received any docx file in your email which is not opening in your word 2003 office software ? Or even after installing the ‘FileFormatConverters.exe for Office 2007′, you are still getting the error : “There was an error opening the file.”?

Recently, I had to face this problem which almost halt my ongoing projects. I have office 2003 which only supports word files with “.doc” extension.�� However, recently I have to work on a number of files with .docx extension sent to me by a client.

As such opening these .docs files(which is a default format for word 2007 ) becomes impossible through my word 2003. Someone suggested that I bought Office 2007 to overcome this problem. A new purchase just for opening a few files? Nope.

I searched and found a small file format converter utility from Microsoft which enables office 2003 users to open docx files.

Here is the utility download link. It is 37 MB.

But unfortunately, despite installing this utility, I could not open the docx files in my PC.� When I tried to open the docx file in my word 2003, I got this message :

“There was an error opening the file.”

Surprised, I tried to open another docx file. Agaion the same message, then again on another docx file, the same message. I was confused ad annoyed.

Then someone pointed me to this article :

You receive an error when trying to open a .docx file in Word 2003 or with the Word Viewer

This article informed me that one dll file viz. ole32.dll is not properly registered which is causing this error of not opening of docx file. However, the solution given on the above article did not work for me because I do not have the administrative password for my computer. The guy who build this PC for me has long gone abroad and is unreachable. He did not tell me the admin password that time and I was too novice to ask him about it.

Nevertheless, I still managed to resolve this problem. Here is how :

I needed to register a dll file (ole32.dll) without using DOS prompt and without using Admin password. Here is how� I did it:

1.Click the start button
2.Click run
3.Copy� regsvr32 “C:\Windows\System32\ole32.dll” into the run field
Click the OK Button

Presto ! Now when I opened the .docx file, it opened like a charm !

On this blog, from now onwards I shall be posting only such useful posts as I am quite busy and can’t devote much time thinking over the latest happening in India.

Hi to all,

After a long hiatus, I got the time to look at some of my unattended blogs. On one of them I find a huge pile of 850 pending comments (most of them spammy).� As I am always hard pressed for time these days, it felt quite a task to mass delete all these comments in the batches of 20s – the default WordPress allow right now. So I tried to look for some shortcut method for mass deleting my pending comments in one go.

The First Method : The hard one

The first solution I found was at this site. Here an excellent advice to mass delete comments by going into the control panel and running a SQL command in my php admin panel has been explained. Though, this method is very effective, it has some elements of real risk particularly when you have more than one blog in your control panel .As the comments on the post suggest, many users delete the comments for the wrong blog ! Further� this is something that can’t be reversed. Since I have many other blogs on my server, I did not have the time to exactly pinpoint the particular word press database for which I wanted the mass deletion.

The Second & Easy method

Then I came across a super easy method for mass deleting method. A very intelligent fellow has developed a plugin to do this task. It is called ‘Delete pending WordPress comments’ plugin. Just install the plugin and in one go it will safely delete all pending comments from your blog.

It has been a huge time saver for me. Download the plugin here

KBC 4 the� legendary ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ series has started influencing India in a big way. Right from its second day itself, it has dominated the search engine Google’s top searched queries at night.

Just see this figure of Google Hot Trends :

Do the search terms have any similarities?

If you have seen� the today’s episode of KBC, you must have remembered this question:

Which among the following personalities have been a pilot in Indian Air Force?

(a) Rajiv Gandhi (b) Jaswant Singh (c) Suresh Kalmadi (d) Captain Satish Sharma.

To the disbelief of the majority, the right answer of this question was (c) Suresh Kalmadi.

You can see that how frenetically these personality� were searched during the time this question was being asked in KBC.

The term ‘ Suresh Kalmadi profile’ attained Volcanic proportion during 9-10 PM today on Google. This is because the just about everybody with a simultaneous internet and TV access was searching for the answer of this question.

Not even Kalmadi, the colour of an Octopus’s blood (another question at KBC)� also dominated the search scenario.

KBC 4 has arrived with a bang.

Kaun Banega Crorepati 4, the indian version of ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’ is back again. This time on Sony. This realty quiz show of general knowledge is the first and the most popular of its genre that stared the era of reality TV in India.

Amitabh in the begining of the Show

Again, after a long gap, the great Amitabh Bachchan is anchoring this mesmerizing show which once made the entire India hooked to Television in 2001.

At that time, the first Kaun Banega Crorepati’ ensured the revival of two person. First person is Shri Amitabh Bachchan himself who was struggling under the loss of ABCL (his company which was struck in a financial conundrum.) Further, his film career was also not going great. At tha particular time, the KBC came as a fresh breath of air for Amitabh and he again became the icon of the nation. Later, he got offer from Yashraj Films and since then he has never looked back.

The second person was… well it is not a person. It was ‘Star Plus’ who at that time was struggling to carved a niche with Hindi audience. At that time, KBC gave a huge boost of popularity to Star Plus and it very well cashed the popularity with its another mega soap ‘ Kunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ – the serial which made Ekta Kapoor a household name in India.

This time, the only person who must expected a fresh lease of life from KBC in none another than ‘Sony Entertainment Channel’ . For past few years, Sony is legging way behind Zee, Star Plus and the new entrant ‘Colours’. What used to be the most popular channel of Indian masses has become a sort of also ran. Except the thriller ‘CID’ (which itself has become boring and repetitive) ,� at present there is no TV serial on Sony which can matched the popularity of other programs of ZEE, Colours & Star Plus. I hope Sony will be able to encash the popularity it will gain through KBC.

Meanwhile, if you want to participate in KBC 4 then visit this link :

http://www.setindia.com/show_details.php?sid=53

If you are looking for the� medal list for the current commonwealth games 2010 then you are at right place. In this post I am going to reveal you two best source of getting latest updated medal list of commonwealth games Delhi 2010.

The first list is available at NDTV.com

You can find it here : http://cwg.ndtv.com/commonwealth/medaltally.html

The above medal list is powered by SportzInteractive and the same is updated after all the events at the end of each day.

Ironically the above list is more accurate than the official one.

The another medal list of commonwealth games Delhi 2010 can be found at the official website of Delhi commonwealth games. Ironically you can see that this official website is extremely slow.

However, the medal tally page is opening pretty fast.

It is located here : http://results.cwgdelhi2010.org/en/Root.mvc/Medals

Though this second list is not as updated than the first one, its main attraction is the fact that it gives a break up of the game i.e.� under which category (Man, Woman or Mixed) the medal has been won.

With the help of above two links you can get in touch with the latest commonwealth games (cwg ) 2010 medal tally