Binarywaves

Retired Husband

2011-12-19T13:49:00.000-08:00

After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Target.

Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunate, my wife is like most women - she loves to browse.

Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from the local Target:

Dear Mrs. Harris ,

Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against your husband, Mr. Harris , are listed below and are "documented by our video surveillance cameras":

1. June 15: He took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people's carts when they weren't looking.

2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. July 7: He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.

4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, 'Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away'. This caused the employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted with a union grievance, causing management to lose time and costing the company money.

5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&Ms on layaway.

6. August 14: Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told the children shoppers they could come in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department to which twenty children obliged.

8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?' EMTs were called.

9.. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.

10. September 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.

11. October 3: Darted around the Store suspiciously while loudly humming the ' Mission Impossible' theme.

12. October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of funnels.

13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'

14. October 22: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed the fetal position and screamed 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!

15. Took a box of condoms to the checkout clerk and asked where is the fitting room?

And last, but not least:

16. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, and then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here.'

One of the clerks passed out.

Read and write in tamil

2011-06-12T09:35:00.001-07:00

1) for type online http://www.google.com/transliterate/

2) Choose Tamil for chrome https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dooacmfhdikjfklbmejepfcjblnfjnhp#

3) Install the local window client http://software.nhm.in/products/writer

For Firefox use addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/tamilvisai-tamilkey/

for Chrome Use this add on https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gafpeaoljjcahihccmjpkmijdlmocnjl

Hope this works

AD Tools on Windows 7

2011-04-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

Download RSAT and install

The RSAT link is http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=7d2f6ad7-656b-4313-a005-4e344e43997d

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows features on or off. Now select "Remote Server Admin Tools". You have to expand each component and check the ones you want. Once that runs you can add the in the MMC snap in. Good luck!

Turned on-

Remote Server Admin Tools

Server Manager
Role Admin Tools
DNS Server Tools

AD DS and AD LDS TOOLS

Remote Desktop Services Tools

Feature Admin Tools (These may not be needed, or only applicable to NT Systems and Security Team)

GPO Tools

SMTP Server Tools

Windows System Resource Monitor Tools

CricInfo Comments and Indian cricket Sentiments

2011-03-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

We always have our own sentiments during cricket matches, Holding 1's and 2's, not scratching head, nail biting, more and more :). the following are collected from the Match between India Vs Aus in Quarterfinal match.

Aussie Innings:

Sunny: "At home, I am feeling the pressure of the game...I wonder what the players are going through."
Mel: "Aussies turning it around here...Ponting seems determined to prove a point...did India miss a trick by benching Sreesanth today? He would have sledged him out by now!"
@End of over 18 (10 runs) Australia 86/1

Shantu: "Munaf looks more and more like Venkatesh Prasad, bowling 5 slow balls and one slower!" That's being very unfair to Prasad!
@End of over 21 (5 runs) Australia 100/1

Ankit: "Ponting's innings is increasingly resembling the one he played in the 2003 WC final: starting slowly with careful nudges while getting the odd-boundary. I hope he didn't watch that part of the video where he explodes, because otherwise it might be curtains for India. "
Comment from CricInfo: Hmm, he didn't really begin slowly that day.
@End of over 25 (2 runs) Australia 116/2

Prashant: "Ponting has reached his highest score for this world cup!!!Conratulations and celebrations!!!Thats enough mate now time to go back and break another LCD!" Hooha!
@End of over 27 (2 runs) Australia 122/2

Sasikaran: "How good it would be if Sachin gets Ponting out now.. Both of them are playing their last world cup & for one it's his last world cup match." The latter may not be true you know.
Grumpy: "that could be the last time sachin bowled in ODIs." Too many hasty conclusions being made!
@End of over 32 (5 runs) Australia 146/3

Indian Innnings:

Talat: "Ponting just personified the phrase "Form is temporary - Class is permanent".... time for sachin to personify "Form is permanent - Class is Permanent"!"
@End of over 2 (11 runs) India 16/0

CricInfo: I wonder if Munaf Patel is watching the speeds on Lee's bowling. I wonder what he makes of it.
Mukunth: "Munaf might as well think that someone replaced the speedometer with an Auto Meter!"
@End of over 3 (4 runs) India 20/0

CricInfo: Amol Palekar is in the stands. No one is upto any golmaal, just yet.

Nitin: "Hope Amol Palekar's boss doesn't catch him seeing the match" Hahaha! By the way, Rajnikanth played Amol's role in the Tamil version of the movie - "Thillu mullu"

Mukunth: "The no. of matches Tait has played is less by 2 compared to Sachin's age. See, who is having a go at whom!"

Mike: "Amol Palekar?? Golmaal?? Please explain?"

Palekar - Bollywood legend. Glmaal - great Bollywood movie. Google for other details.

Kevin: "And there is Pankaj Udhas in the crowd! And Udhas unlike his name is Happy."

Udhas - great singer of ghazals. Google for more info.

Later Sometime by Vijay: "Google for more info". To know more about google, bing it."

@End of over 6 (4 runs) India 34/0

Utkarsh: 'I think I have crossed all boundaries when it comes to superstitions .. I took off my left shoe and Ponting got out .. some time later I took off my right shoe and Sehwag got out . Now am walking around with one shoe in my office !! "
ColinfromLondon: "18,000 runs! If runs were dinners it would take 50years to eat them. (well technically 49.31506 but still)"
@End of over 14 India 70/1 G Gambhir 3* Sachin 45*

Mukunth: "The no. of matches Tait has played is less by 2 compared to Sachin's age. See, who is having a go at whom!"
Karthik: "SRT has just entered the Cheat code and turned on the God Mode."

@End of over 15- India 76/1 G Gambhir 8* Sachin 46*

Neeraj: "Utkarsh, you removed your shoe?"

@End of over 19 India 98/2 , Sachin was OUT 53 (68b 7x4 0x6) SR: 77.94

Karthik: "Heart in the mouth moment for yuvraj, heart in the mouth moment for the whole of India. No more thrillers please"

Sathya: "For once, India is chasing well under pressure. I really really hope they dont throw it away. Virat's horrendous shot and now the run out.. "

@End of over 33 India 168/3

@36.3

Johnson to Yuvraj Singh, no run, there are no fish in the Kankaria lake in Ahmedabad, but Yuvraj is really fishing hard. Another lazy flail at a back of length ball outside off, swish and a miss.

@36.4
Johnson to Yuvraj Singh, FOUR, and you wonder why he does that fishing thing, when he can play shots like these.

37.3 Lee to Dhoni, OUT
Abhishek: "Looks like Indian players are getting ready for IPL ...."
Tait with a slip, over the wicket. Australia are going for the kill.

@End of over 38 (wicket maiden) India 187/5

Sasank: "When ever I move from my desk , I see a wicket down.. Now holding my bladder tight... India you will do it...."

Jim: "Shoes! Shoes! everyone take off your shoes!"

@End of over 42 (2 runs) India 222/5

Md Akhtar: "I am not moving from my place, old Indian trick. Fingers crossed. :-)"

@End of over 46 (7 runs) India 246/5

Sai: "Buh-Bye! Restroom here i come!!"

Kedar: "This innings ranks at the very top for Yuvraj... a gem of an innings under immense pressure, what a transformation!"

Priyadarshini: "The last time Australia hadn't played the world cup final was 1992. Things changes and I am loving it."

Its ME: Save TV's(beware of Ponting)

@END OF THE MATCH

Sweet edu, kondaadu. NO NO it's time for LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

www subdomain not working

2010-12-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

It is my experience in cent os.
edit the file httpd.include, which will be located at /var/www/vhosts/DOMAIN_NAME/conf
vi httpd.include

search subdomain configuration and after:

ServerName sub.domain.com:80

then add:
ServerAlias www.SUB.DOMAIN.com

and RESTART Apache service

GM Diet

2010-11-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

A copy paste from the website http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/~jajoo/gmdiet.html

General Motors: Weight Loss Diet Program

The following diet and health program was developed for employees and dependents of General Motors, Inc. and is intended for their exclusive use. This program was developed in conjunction with a grant from U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. It was field tested at the Johns Hopkins Research Centre and was approved for distribution by the Board of Directors, General Motors Corp. at a general meeting on August 15, 1985. General Motors Corp. wholly endorses this program and is making it available to all employees and families. This program will be available at all General Motors Food Service Facilities. It is management's intention to facilitate a wellness and fitness program for everyone.

This program is designed for a target weight loss of 10-17 lbs per week. It will also improve your attitudes and emotions because of its cleansing systematic effects.

The effectiveness of this seven day plan is that the food eaten burn more calories than they give to the body in caloric value.

This plan can be used as often as you like without any fear of complications. It is designed to flush your system of impurities and give you a feeling of well being. After seven days you will begin to feel lighter because you will be lighter by at least 10 lbs. You will have an abundance of energy and an improved disposition.

During the first seven days you must abstain from all alcohol
You must drink 10 glasses of water each day Day One All fruits except bananas. Your first day will consist of all the fruits you want. It is strongly suggested that you consume lots of melons the first day. Especially watermelon and a loupe. If you limit your fruit consumption to melons, your chances of losing three lbs. on first day are very good.

Day Two All vegetables. You are encouraged to eat until you are stuffed with all the raw or cooked vegetables of your choice. There is no limit on the amount or type. For your complex carbohydrate, you will start day two with a large baked potato for breakfast. You may top the potato with one pat of butter.

Day Three A mixture of fruits and vegetables of your choice. Any amount, any quantity. No bananas yet. No potatoes today.

Day Four Bananas and milk. Today you will eat as many as eight bananas and drink three glasses of milk. This will be combined with the special soup which may be eaten in limited quantities.

Day Five Today is feast day. You will eat beef and tomatoes. Eat two 10 oz. portions of lean beef. Hamburger is OK. Combine this with six whole tomatoes. On day five you must increase your water intake by one quart. This is to cleanse your system of the uric acid you will be producing.

Day Six Beef and vegetables. Today you may eat an unlimited amount of beef and vegetables. Eat to your hearts content.

Day Seven Today your food intake will consist of brown rice, fruit juices and all the vegetables you care to consume.

Tomorrow morning you will be 10-17 lbs. lighter than one week ago. If you desire further weight loss, repeat the program again. You may repeat this program as often as you like, however, it is suggested that you are allowed two glasses of white wine in addition to the instructions on the program. You may substitute champagne for white wine. Under no circumstances are you to drink any other alcoholic beverages with the exception of beer which is allowed. Any liquor (bourbon,vodka, rum) is forbidden. Cream drinks are especially forbidden. You may have an occasional cordial such as creme de menthe or schnapps, but you must always limit yourself to two drinks. If you wine, drink only wine that day. If you have beer, drink only beer that day, etc. Alcohol adds empty calories to your diet. However, after the first week it will help your digestion and settle your stomach.

G.M.'S Wonder Soup

The following soup is intended as a supplement to your diet. It can be eaten any time of the day in virtually unlimited quantities. You are encouraged to consume large quantities of this soup.

28 oz, Water, 6 Large Onions, 2 Green Peppers, Whole Tomatoes (fresh or canned), 1 Head Cabbage, 1 Bunch Celery, 4 Envelopes Lipton Onion Soup Mix, Herbs and Flavouring as desired.

Additional Comments

Vegetables as may be taken in the form of a salad if desired. No dressing except malt, white or wine vinegar, squeezed lemon, garlic, herbs. No more than one tea spoon of oil.

You have been given a recipe for the WONDER SOUP which can be eaten in unlimited quantities. This soup is a supplement while you are on the program and it should be a pleasure to eat. Not everyone likes cabbage, green peppers, calory etc. This recipe is not inflexible. You may substitute vegetables according to your taste. You may add any vegetables you like: asparagus, peas, corn, turnips, green beans, cauliflower, etc. Try to stay away from beans (lima, pinto, kidney, etc.), however, because they tend to be high in calories even though they are very good for you.

Beverages you may consume while on the program :

Water (flavoured with lemon/lime if desired).
Club Soda is OK.
Black Coffee. No cream or cream substitute. No sugar or sweetness.
Black Tea = Herb or Leaf.
Absolutely nothing else except the fruit juices which are part of day seven. No fruit juices before day seven.
How and Why It Works

Day One you are preparing your system for the upcoming programme. Your only source of nutrition is fresh or canned fruits. Fruits are nature's perfect food. They provide everything you could possibly want to sustain life except total balance and variety.

Day Two starts with a fix of complex carbo-hydrates coupled with an oil dose. This is taken in the morning for energy and balance. The rest of day two consists of vegetables which are virtually calorie free and provide essential nutrients and fibre.

Day Three eliminates the potato because you get your carbohydrates from the fruits. You system is now prepared to start burning excess pounds. You will still have cravings which should start to diminish by day four.

Day Four, bananas, milk and soup sound the strangest and least desirable. You're in for a surprise. You probably will not eat all the bananas allowed. But they are there for the potassium you have lost and the sodium you may have missed the past three days. You will notice a definite loss of desire for sweets. You will be surprised how easy this day will go.

Day Five, Beef and tomatoes. The beef is for iron and proteins, the tomatoes are for digestion and fibre. Lots and lots of water purifies your system. You should notice colourless urine today. Your allowance calls for the equivalent of five "quarter ponders". Do not feel you have to eat all this beef. You must eat the six tomatoes.

Day Six is similar to day five, Iron and proteins from beef, Vitamins and fibre from vegetables. By now your system is in a total weight loss inclination. There should be a noticeable difference in the way you look today, compared to day one.

Day Seven finished off the program like a good cigar used to finish off Victorian meals, except much healthier. You have your system under control and it should thank you for the flushing and cleaning you just gave it.
-----------------------------------------

I am going to post everyday about what I eat and drink for the all 7days. Let see how this works

Happy Diwali

2010-11-05T06:17:00.000-07:00

Now, I am thousands of miles away from my country. Switching channels for programs to avoid the ads, sweets from neighbours, feel of nasty smoke from crackers, shocking noises, enjoyable moments.. where are all they, Why do I loosing them?

News & Views: Don't Let a Good Recession Go to Waste -- Lessons Learned from the Latest Downturn - Winter Wyman - The Northeast's Leading Staffing Firm

2010-09-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

As signs of a recovery continue to emerge, it may be a good time for company leaders and job seekers to look back over the past two years and ask "What have we learned from this recession?" As history has shown, we will inevitably go through another downturn and looking back at your decisions, may help you develop a game plan for the next time you or your company is faced with economic adversity. Having been through many recessions and their associated impact on the employment market throughout our 38-year history, we at Winter, Wyman have a unique vantage point of seeing how we, our clients and candidates have successfully negotiated these rough waters. Here are some key components we feel should be part of your game plan:

FOR ORGANIZATIONS

React quickly — When the storm clouds gather and it becomes apparent that the economy is heading into a tailspin there is a tendency to hold off on making tough decisions in the hope that the clouds will soon pass and everything will be back to normal. Cutting expenses is a necessary part of weathering any downturn but it cannot be done over night. Many of these expenses take weeks and months to fully take effect. During a recession, cash is king. Reduce expenses quickly to adjust to changes in top line income; if the downturn ends up lasting two or more years, you will be glad to have the reserves.

Plan for the worst and hope for the best — Many changes such as hiring freezes, staff cuts, plant shutdowns, benefit adjustments or salary freezes need to be implemented during a recessionary period. All of these decisions can be alarming to your employees and have a negative impact on company morale. It is infinitely worse however if these changes are stretched out over a period of months or years and your people are constantly subjected to an ongoing drumbeat of negative news. Decide what in all likelihood will need to happen and get it done. Take your medicine and then focus on the positive and competing in the marketplace with a leaner and more efficient company.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate — Your employees are bombarded with negative news from TV, the internet and newspapers and most likely have friends and family who have been laid off. Do not underestimate their need for information from company management about the state of the organization and plans for riding out the recession. Without information they will fill in the blanks themselves. One rumor leads to another and productivity and morale are impacted. Communicate frequently both good and bad news. Transparency leads to trust and eliminates fear of the unknown.

Embrace your best employees — Planned turnover of staff is painful, but usually necessary during an economic downturn. Unplanned turnover of key employees, though, can be disastrous. Take your key employees aside and make sure they understand they are valued and needed. They should feel confident regarding their job security and also understand that you are committed to their long-term success and advancement as the economy improves.

Stay close to your customers — When revenue is down, the pressure on your sales force can go up. When customers aren't buying or have cut back spending, and prospects are few and far between, there can be a tendency for sales reps to get more frantic and saturate existing customers with calls or emails. This can come across as desperate and annoying. Instead of repeatedly contacting customers looking for additional business, try to make each call valuable. In most cases they are feeling the same pressure and stress that you are. Use each call as an opportunity to pass along some market information or business intelligence that might make their job easier. Relate to them as a valued long term partner. Each call should reflect an attitude of what can I do for you versus what have you got for me.

Don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes — During the course of trying to stay afloat every company has numerous opportunities to make decisions. Hopefully most will be right, but inevitably some will be wrong. It’s okay to talk about the good and bad decisions that were made and where appropriate get input from employees at all levels. The fact that you are open, transparent and willing to talk about the decisions will buy you loyalty from your employees and help you avoid making the same mistakes the next time the economy goes off the tracks.

FOR JOB SEEKERS

Never let your network lapse — Job seekers who had strong pre-existing networks were better positioned to take advantage of the few jobs that were available during the economic downturn. Conversely, their counterparts that had let their networks lapse, or hadn’t searched for a job in years, needed to start from square one reaching out to former colleagues, classmates and contacts — without sounding desperate or needy. Not an easy challenge! With today’s technology and the multitude of social and professional networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, it’s much easier to keep your networks up-to-date and connected.

Don’t burn your bridges — Any HR professional will tell you that a critical part of the hiring process is checking references. You will also hear them say that fair or not, an employed candidate is often the preferred choice. During this past recession, we saw many organizations much more willing to look at unemployed job seekers, especially those with stellar references. Always know which former supervisors, colleagues or customers can provide you with a great reference — and know how to contact them. No matter the situation or how bad things were at your former company, don’t burn any bridges as you will need these references in the future.

The importance of keeping your skills and knowledge current — There are only so many hours in a workday, but the people that volunteer for new projects, take on new responsibilities and try to learn new things on the job (whether it's a new timecard system, new business process, new technology, new regulation, etc.) have a better chance of landing a new job. When unemployed, especially for a long period of time, it's imperative to keep your skills fresh through classes, certifications or seminars. Check out low or no cost alternatives offered by your state's Department of Employment and Training.

Stay positive — Even in a down economy, companies still hire. Being negative not only will hurt your chances during an interview, but a negative attitude can also affect your job performance. You might not be able to control your circumstance, but you can control how you react to it. Staying positive is sometimes difficult to do, but important for your job search and career.

When you have the benefit of hindsight it is not a bad exercise to look at all the plans and decisions that were made and learn from them. By seeing where you or your organization could have reacted quicker, communicated better or planned more effectively, you will be better positioned for long-term success, no matter the economic conditions.

News & Views: Don't Let a Good Recession Go to Waste -- Lessons Learned from the Latest Downturn - Winter Wyman - The Northeast's Leading Staffing Firm

Alumi Tea Cup- Fwd Mail Story

2010-08-28T05:17:00.000-07:00

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor.

Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other's cups.

Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. Some times, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

Don't let the cups alone drive you...
Enjoy the coffee also !!!

--------------------
My Comment: We always choose Super figure rather attu figure, is that what a moral of the story?

financial management

2010-08-25T03:50:00.000-07:00

A beggar to another beggar: I had a grand dinner at Taj yesterday.

How? The other beggar asked.

First beggar: Some one gave me a Rs 100/- note yesterday.

I went to Taj and ordered dinner worth Rs 1,000/-,

And enjoyed the dinner. When the bill came, I said, I had no money.

The Taj manager called the policeman, and handed me over to him.

I gave the Rs 100/- note to the police fellow, and he set me free.

A wonderful example of financial management indeed.

I recieved the story as forwarded email. The above story implies that how we are messed up and migled with Bribe socially. Now Bribe is also coming with a price chart, Damn

Children Do what they See

2010-07-24T06:42:00.000-07:00

Parents, Just think before what do you do.

Semmoziyam TAMIL Moziyam

2010-05-30T18:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, I just saw the video of Semmozi. When Manoj said that he has done this work, I thought it is same like as the other promotions videos. No, not at all. I dunno how many days it took to make this video. Rajiv Menon, he is the one makes every frame as the portrait image. This is video is just more than that. Hats of to GVM team . My favorite shot of the video is..

Though it flies in seconds, I just inspired the angel of the shot which covers the status of the family and it has the wow content.

Its always embarrassing to appreciate a friend's work (my opinion), so far I did the same. Even after seeing this video, if I am not appreciating his work, that misses something in the strings between us.

Lets do it. Great job Manoj.

Every frame shows your hardwork, especially I saw a different tamil nadu in this video.

110% Love

2010-02-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

A boy and a girl were playing together. The boy had a collection of marbles. The girl had some sweets with her. The boy told the girl that he will give her all his marbles in exchange for her sweets. The girl agreed.

The boy kept the biggest and the most beautiful marble aside and gave the rest to the girl. The girl gave him all her sweets as she had promised.

That night, the girl slept peacefully. But the boy couldn't sleep as he kept wondering if the girl had hidden some sweets from him the way he had hidden his best marble.

Moral of the story: If you don't give your hundred percent in a relationship, you'll always keep doubting if the other person has given his/her hundred percent.. This is applicable for any relationship like love, friendship, employer-employee, customer, relationship etc., Give your hundred percent to everything you do and sleep peacefully

14K Pending

2009-12-12T05:10:00.001-08:00

1) Qus. : What are you doing?
Ans. : Business.
Tax : PAY PROFESSIONAL TAX!

2) Qus. : What are you doing in Business?
Ans. : Selling the Goods.
Tax : PAY SALES TAX!!

3) Qus. : From where are you getting Goods?
Ans. : From other State/Abroad
Tax : PAY CENTRAL SALES TAX, CUSTOM DUTY & OCTROI!

4) Qus. : What are you getting in Selling Goods?
Ans. : Profit.
Tax : PAY INCOME TAX!

5) Qus. : How do you distribute profit ?
Ans : By way of dividend
Tax : Pay dividend distribution Tax

6) Qus. : Where you Manufacturing the Goods?
Ans. : Factory.
Tax : PAY EXCISE DUTY!

7) Qus. : Do you have Office / Warehouse/ Factory?
Ans. : Yes
Tax : PAY MUNICIPAL & FIRE TAX!

8) Qus. : Do you have Staff?
Ans. : Yes
Tax : PAY STAFF PROFESSIONAL TAX!

9) Qus. : Doing business in Millions?
Ans. : Yes
Tax : PAY TURNOVER TAX!
Ans : No
Tax : Then pay Minimum Alternate Tax

10) Qus. : Are you taking out over 25,000 Cash from Bank?
Ans. : Yes, for Salary.
Tax : PAY CASH HANDLING TAX!

11) Qus.: Where are you taking your client for Lunch & Dinner?
Ans. : Hotel
Tax : PAY FOOD & ENTERTAINMENT TAX!

12) Qus.: Are you going Out of Station for Business?
Ans. : Yes
Tax : PAY FRINGE BENEFIT TAX!

13) Qus.: Have you taken or given any Service/s?
Ans. : Yes
Tax : PAY SERVICE TAX!

14) Qus.: How come you got such a Big Amount?
Ans. : Gift on birthday.
Tax : PAY GIFT TAX!

15) Qus.: Do you have any Wealth?
Ans. : Yes
Tax : PAY WEALTH TAX!

16) Qus.: To reduce Tension, for entertainment, where are you going?
Ans. : Cinema or Resort.
Tax : PAY ENTERTAINMENT TAX!

17) Qus.: Have you purchased House?
Ans. : Yes
Tax : PAY STAMP DUTY & REGISTRATION FEE !

18) Qus.: How you Travel?
Ans. : Bus
Tax : PAY SURCHARGE!

19) Qus.: Any Additional Tax?
Ans. : Yes
Tax : PAY EDUCATIONAL, ADDITIONAL EDUCATIONAL & SURCHARGE ON ALL THE CENTRAL GOVT.'s TAX !!!

20) Qus.: Delayed any time Paying Any Tax?
Ans. : Yes
Tax : PAY INTEREST & PENALTY!

21) INDIAN :: can i die now??
Ans :: wait we are about to launch the funeral tax!!!

My 14k is pending from Govt, thats the anger made me to post this.

Heart Attacks and Drinking Warm Water

2009-12-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

This is a very good article.. Not only about the warm water after your meal, but about Heart Attacks . The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals, not cold water, maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating.

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion. Once this 'sludge' reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine.
Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer & arthritis . It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.

Common Symptoms Of Heart Attack...

A serious note about heart attacks - You should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting .

Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line .

You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack.

Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms.

60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep.

Let's be careful and be aware.

The more we know, the better chance we could survive.

Not sure this is true?

Manoj Paramahamsa

2009-11-23T13:05:00.001-08:00

Port Numbers

2009-11-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

15 Netstat
21 FTP
23 Telnet
25 SMTP
42 WINS
53 DNS
67 Bootp
68 DHCP
80 HTTP
88 Kerberos
101 HOSTNAME
110 POP3
119 NNTP
123 NTP (Network time protocol)
139 NetBIOS
161 SNMP
180 RIS
389 LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)
443 HTTPS (HTTP over SSL/TLS)
520 RIP
79 FINGER
37 Time
3389 Terminal services
443 SSL (https) (http protocol over TLS/SSL)
220 IMAP3
3268 AD Global Catalog
3269 AD Global Catalog over SSL
500 Internet Key Exchange, IKE (IPSec) (UDP 500)

Car Stealing - A new Way in NJ

2009-08-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

Just last weekend on Friday night my friend parked his car in a public parking area. As they drove away for a while and he noticed a sticker on the rear window of the car. When he took it off after I got home, it was a receipt for gas. Luckily, he didn't stop the car on the parking lot. There is a notice from Police stating as below

WARNING FROM POLICE
THIS APPLIES TO BOTH WOMEN AND MEN

BEWARE OF PAPER ON THE BACK WINDOW OF YOUR VEHICLE--
NEW WAY TO DO CARJACKINGS (NOT A JOKE)'

Heads up everyone! Please, keep this circulating..... You walk across the parking lot, unlock your car and get inside. You start the engine and shift into Reverse. When you look into the rearview mirror to back out of your parking space, you notice a piece of paper stuck to the middle of the rear window. So, you shift into Park, unlock your doors, and jump out of your car to remove that paper (or whatever it is) that is obstructing your view. When you reach the back of your car, that is when the carjackers appear out of nowhere, jump into your car and take off. They practically mow you down as they speed off in your car. And guess what, ladies? I bet your purse is still in the car. So now the carjacker has your car, your home address, your money, and your keys. Your home and your whole identity are now compromised!

BEWARE OF THIS NEW SCHEME THAT IS NOW BEING USED...

If you see a piece of paper stuck to your back window, just drive away. Remove the paper later. And be thankful that you read this e-mail. I hope you will forward this to friends and family, especially to women. A purse contains all kinds of personal information and identification documents, and you
certainly do NOT want this to fall into the wrong hands.

Punches from Bush

2009-08-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

'The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.' - George W. Bush

'If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.' - George W. Bush

'One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'.'
-George W. Bush

'I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.'- George W. Bush

'The future will be better tomorrow.'- George W. Bush

'We're going to have the best educated American people in the world.'- George W. Bush

'I stand by all the misstatements that I've made.'- George W Bush

'We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe . We are a part of Europe '- George W. Bush

'Public speaking is very easy.'- George W. Bush

'A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.'- George W. Bush

'I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them.'-George Bush

'We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.'- George W. Bush

'For NASA, space is still a high priority.'-George W. Bush

'Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.' -George W. Bush

'It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.'
- George W. Bush

Vijay, Simbu and other Sullans should closely watch Bush, for their career growth.

Who is this?

2009-06-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

Mahesh Music Director

2009-06-05T09:59:00.001-07:00

Mahesh Mahadevan…. A tribute to the young music director who passed away few years ago, but remains in my soul for ever who gave me a opportunity to start a music career, where I failed after his demise.

47 year old Mahesh Mahadevan, composer and music director, who passed away on October 29-2002. He succeeded in MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur, he worked with corporates such as Hindustan Polymers and India Pistons until cancer struck him in the late 1980s. Mahesh learnt the rudiments of Western Classical Music on the guitar and successfully passed the exams conducted by the Trinity College of Music, London, for the guitar. When childhood friend P. Jayendra, one of the founders of Real Image Media Technologies, visited him in hospital and found him somewhat depressed, he suggested that Mahesh, who showed great promise as a music composer in his school and college years, revive this interest and compose music for jingles.

Mahesh soon went on to compose music for over 250 jingles including the hugely popular one for Regaul Blue (Sottu Neelam, Doi) besides TVS Tyres, Apollo Tyres, etc.

Meanwhile, with Real Image Media Technologies growing rapidly, Mahesh was roped in to provide management inputs and establish systems. As Director, Finance and Administration, Real Image Media Technologies, Mahesh did all that and more. From ad jingles to films was a natural transition for the talented Mahesh. As music director, he struck gold with his debut film Nammavar starring Kamal Hassan and won the Special mention award in the National Awards given away in 1995.

Thereafter, he went on to compose music for seven other films including Kuruthi Punal (Tamil) 1995, Preminchukundaam Raa (Telugu), Pelladi Choopistha (Telugu), Padutha Theeyaga (Telugu), the background score for Alavanthan (Tamil), Vaanam Vasapadum (Tamil), directed by cinematographer P.C. Sreeram and Janaki Vishwanathan’s Kanavu Meipada Vendum (Tamil).

Mahesh was also involved in career counselling and motivating other cancer patients to face life with the right attitude. He certainly struck a chord in all those whose lives he touched. For a man whose heart was in music and for the rare human being that he was, it was perhaps the most natural thing to do.

Kavya- The Spelling Bee- Championship

2009-05-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

"It was something I’d been dreaming of for so many years, and it was great that I was finally able to achieve it," she told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen. "But then, in a way, I also felt like I couldn’t believe it was happening."

Hats Off !

espanol blogs

2009-05-03T18:38:00.001-07:00

espanol blogs, espanol news, at http://espanol.blogkut.com

Keyboard Shortcuts

2009-04-13T09:00:00.001-07:00

CTRL+C (Copy)
CTRL+X (Cut)
CTRL+V (Paste)
CTRL+Z (Undo)
DELETE (Delete)
SHIFT+DELETE (Delete the selected item permanently without placing the item in the Recycle Bin)
CTRL while dragging an item (Copy the selected item)
CTRL+SHIFT while dragging an item (Create a shortcut to the selected item)
F2 key (Rename the selected item)
CTRL+RIGHT ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next word)
CTRL+LEFT ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous word)
CTRL+DOWN ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next paragraph)
CTRL+UP ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous paragraph)
CTRL+SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Highlight a block of text)
SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Select more than one item in a window or on the desktop, or select text in a document)
CTRL+A (Select all)
F3 key (Search for a file or a folder)
ALT+ENTER (View the properties for the selected item)
ALT+F4 (Close the active item, or quit the active program)
ALT+ENTER (Display the properties of the selected object)
ALT+SPACEBAR (Open the shortcut menu for the active window)
CTRL+F4 (Close the active document in programs that enable you to have multiple documents open simultaneously)
ALT+TAB (Switch between the open items)
ALT+ESC (Cycle through items in the order that they had been opened)
F6 key (Cycle through the screen elements in a window or on the desktop)
F4 key (Display the Address bar list in My Computer or Windows Explorer)
SHIFT+F10 (Display the shortcut menu for the selected item)
ALT+SPACEBAR (Display the System menu for the active window)
CTRL+ESC (Display the Start menu)
ALT+Underlined letter in a menu name (Display the corresponding menu)
Underlined letter in a command name on an open menu (Perform the corresponding command)
F10 key (Activate the menu bar in the active program)
RIGHT ARROW (Open the next menu to the right, or open a submenu)
LEFT ARROW (Open the next menu to the left, or close a submenu)
F5 key (Update the active window)
BACKSPACE (View the folder one level up in My Computer or Windows Explorer)
ESC (Cancel the current task)
SHIFT when you insert a CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive (Prevent the CD-ROM from automatically playing)
Dialog Box Keyboard Shortcuts
CTRL+TAB (Move forward through the tabs)
CTRL+SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the tabs)
TAB (Move forward through the options)
SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the options)
ALT+Underlined letter (Perform the corresponding command or select the corresponding option)
ENTER (Perform the command for the active option or button)
SPACEBAR (Select or clear the check box if the active option is a check box)
Arrow keys (Select a button if the active option is a group of option buttons)
F1 key (Display Help)
F4 key (Display the items in the active list)
BACKSPACE (Open a folder one level up if a folder is selected in the Save As or Open dialog box)
m*cro$oft Natural Keyboard Shortcuts
Windows Logo (Display or hide the Start menu)
Windows Logo+BREAK (Display the System Properties dialog box)
Windows Logo+D (Display the desktop)
Windows Logo+M (Minimize all of the windows)
Windows Logo+SHIFT+M (Restore the minimized windows)
Windows Logo+E (Open My Computer)
Windows Logo+F (Search for a file or a folder)
CTRL+Windows Logo+F (Search for computers)
Windows Logo+F1 (Display Windows Help)
Windows Logo+ L (Lock the keyboard)
Windows Logo+R (Open the Run dialog box)
Windows Logo+U (Open Utility Manager)
Accessibility Keyboard Shortcuts
Right SHIFT for eight seconds (Switch FilterKeys either on or off)
Left ALT+left SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN (Switch High Contrast either on or off)
Left ALT+left SHIFT+NUM LOCK (Switch the MouseKeys either on or off)
SHIFT five times (Switch the StickyKeys either on or off)
NUM LOCK for five seconds (Switch the ToggleKeys either on or off)
Windows Logo +U (Open Utility Manager)
Windows Explorer Keyboard Shortcuts
END (Display the bottom of the active window)
HOME (Display the top of the active window)
NUM LOCK+Asterisk sign (*) (Display all of the subfolders that are under the selected folder)
NUM LOCK+Plus sign (+) (Display the contents of the selected folder)
NUM LOCK+Minus sign (-) (Collapse the selected folder)
LEFT ARROW (Collapse the current selection if it is expanded, or select the parent folder)
RIGHT ARROW (Display the current selection if it is collapsed, or select the first subfolder)
Shortcut Keys for Character Map
After you double-click a character on the grid of characters, you can move through the grid by using the keyboard shortcuts:
RIGHT ARROW (Move to the right or to the beginning of the next line)
LEFT ARROW (Move to the left or to the end of the previous line)
UP ARROW (Move up one row)
DOWN ARROW (Move down one row)
PAGE UP (Move up one screen at a time)
PAGE DOWN (Move down one screen at a time)
HOME (Move to the beginning of the line)
END (Move to the end of the line)
CTRL+HOME (Move to the first character)
CTRL+END (Move to the last character)
SPACEBAR (Switch between Enlarged and Normal mode when a character is selected)
m*cro$oft Management Console (MMC) Main Window Keyboard Shortcuts
CTRL+O (Open a saved console)
CTRL+N (Open a new console)
CTRL+S (Save the open console)
CTRL+M (Add or remove a console item)
CTRL+W (Open a new window)
F5 key (Update the content of all console windows)
ALT+SPACEBAR (Display the MMC window menu)
ALT+F4 (Close the console)
ALT+A (Display the Action menu)
ALT+V (Display the View menu)
ALT+F (Display the File menu)
ALT+O (Display the Favorites menu)
MMC Console Window Keyboard Shortcuts
CTRL+P (Print the current page or active pane)
ALT+Minus sign (-) (Display the window menu for the active console window)
SHIFT+F10 (Display the Action shortcut menu for the selected item)
F1 key (Open the Help topic, if any, for the selected item)
F5 key (Update the content of all console windows)
CTRL+F10 (Maximize the active console window)
CTRL+F5 (Restore the active console window)
ALT+ENTER (Display the Properties dialog box, if any, for the selected item)
F2 key (Rename the selected item)
CTRL+F4 (Close the active console window. When a console has only one console window, this shortcut closes the console)
Remote Desktop Connection Navigation
CTRL+ALT+END (Open the m*cro$oft Windows NT Security dialog box)
ALT+PAGE UP (Switch between programs from left to right)
ALT+PAGE DOWN (Switch between programs from right to left)
ALT+INSERT (Cycle through the programs in most recently used order)
ALT+HOME (Display the Start menu)
CTRL+ALT+BREAK (Switch the client computer between a window and a full screen)
ALT+DELETE (Display the Windows menu)
CTRL+ALT+Minus sign (-) (Place a snapshot of the active window in the client on the Terminal server clipboard and provide the same functionality as pressing PRINT SCREEN on a local computer.)
CTRL+ALT+Plus sign (+) (Place a snapshot of the entire client window area on the Terminal server clipboard and provide the same functionality as pressing ALT+PRINT SCREEN on a local computer.)
m*cro$oft Internet Explorer Navigation
CTRL+B (Open the Organize Favorites dialog box)
CTRL+E (Open the Search bar)
CTRL+F (Start the Find utility)
CTRL+H (Open the History bar)
CTRL+I (Open the Favorites bar)
CTRL+L (Open the Open dialog box)
CTRL+N (Start another instance of the browser with the same Web address)
CTRL+O (Open the Open dialog box, the same as CTRL+L)
CTRL+P (Open the Print dialog box)
CTRL+R (Update the current Web page)
CTRL+W (Close the current window)

Be a Decent Husband

2009-03-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time a married couple celebrated their 25 th marriage anniversary. They had become famous in the city for not having a single conflict in their period of 25 years. Local newspaper editors had gathered at the occasion to find out the secret of their well known "happy going marriage".

Editor: " Sir. It's amazingly unbelievable. How did you make this possible? "

Husband recalling his old honeymoon days said: " We had been to Ooty for honeymoon after marriage. Having selected the horse riding finally, we both started the ride on different horses. My horse was pretty okay but the horse on which my wife was riding seemed to be a crazy one.
On the way ahead, that horse jumped suddenly, making my wife topple over.

Recovering her position from the ground, she patted the horse's back and said " This is your first time ". She again climbed the horse and continued with the ride. After a while, it happened again. This time she again kept calm and said " This is your second time " and continued. When the horse dropped her third time, she silently took out the revolver from the purse and shot the horse dead !!

I shouted at my wife: " What did you do you psycho. You killed the poor animal. Are you crazy ?"

She gave a silent look and said:

" This is your first time!!!”

Husband: "That's it. We are happily married ever after. "

Disc: This story may or may not reflect my personal experience , how abt yours

Masala Dosa

2009-03-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

There are many ways to eat a masala dosa .What ever the way one eats; there is a very good reason for doing that. It shows some traits of the person that is you...

Case 1: People who open the masala dosa and eat it: These are the people who are very open about their life. Everyone one the persons friends would know all about him/her. I have generally seen guys do this rather than girls. Some people think that it is a gross way of eating but in truth, these people are just portraying who they are and how their life is.

Case 2: People who start from both end and approach the masala later: These are the people who like to wait for the exiting things to come to their life. Sadly when the times comes, they are not too interested or just do not know how to enjoy it to the fullest. These are the folks who just want life as either dry or exiting. They just do not know how to phase their life and enjoy it no matter what. There are two types of people within this group

Case 2.1: People who do not finish all the masala: These folks just do not care as much for the fun times as they are already brought down by the harsh reality of life. The dry periods in their life has left them with so much scars that they do not want to be really happy when the time is right. They just take only as much as they needed and end their life. A very sorry state indeed.

Case 2.2: People who finish all the masala with the little dosa they have: These are the folks who just are the extremes. They just go all out in life. No matter it is dark or bright. They may not enjoy life to the fullest but they sure make sure that they get every single good and bad thing out of life. Sometimes these folks are really hard to get along with. They are either your best friends or your worst enemies. They do not have a middle path at all.

Case 3: People who start from the middle and proceed to both ends: These are the people who like to get right to what they think is their best part of life. Usually these guys finish of the good portions in a hurry and get stuck with nothing but worst parts of their life. The thing to note among these people is that the tendency to burn out very early in their life. Like the above case, there are two kinds of people in this group too.

Case 3.1: People who do not finish the dosa: These folks are really the saddest of people. They are the ones who tend to end their life as soon as it hits the bad patch. For them, they only need and want the best things in life and nothing more. Typically, they are not prepared or tuned to life as a whole. They just want to enjoy from first till last. Sadly, no one in the world can live without even an ounce of sadness in life.... Not even the richest of the richest. But to self destruct at the mere sign of distress is very bad. That is what these guys tend to do. Some learn to live life but most of them do not.

Case 3.1: People who do finish the dosa: These folks are the typical human beings. We all enjoy the greatest of times in life and push the sad parts thinking about the great times in life. Typically the plate is clean and nothing is left for fate or in life. Happiness and sadness are part of life and these guys know that and are kind of prepared for it. Life is not always happy but there are moments of happiness here and there.

Case 4: People who eat the dosa making sure that the masala lasts for the whole dosa: These people are very rare. These are the people who like to attain balance in their life. It is hard to displease these people and it is hard to make them really happy. They like their balance and are very protective of it. Sadly these are the people who tend to be lonely as anyone else may upset the balance of their system. Perfectionist to the core and are very careful. These guys do not make the best company but are needed in any group to make the group from going hay wire.

Case 5: People who do not share and eat the dosa as if it is precious: These folks are very protective about their life. They do not want anyone to come and interfere in their life. They like to hide their true nature and intensions for their benefit. Beware of such people as they are in every group for their own need and nothing else.

Case 6: People who offer their first bite to others: These guys are overly friendly. They do anything to be part of a group and make everyone feel like the group is important than the individuals. They are the glue that holds any group together. They are very friendly and bring the best of all the others in the group. They go out of their way to help other friends. Most groups should have a person like this and they are the ones who plan the group outings and other group activities. Once this person is out of the group, typically the group slowly falls apart.

Case 7: People who take one or two bites and then offer the dosa to others: These guys care about friends and friendship but they take their time to get into the group.... They take their time in making friends and they typically are very committed once into the friendship. These guys like to always be in the side lines and typically do not jump into anything in life. They always take their time to analyze the situation and then make a decision. These guys take the better safe than sorry approach.

Case 8: People who wait for others to make the offer first: Typical people I must say. They are unsure about everything. Even if they wanted to offer, they will wait till the other person offers the food first. If the other person is silent, so are these people. They are the followers. They do terrific idea, they will pitch it to someone else and get their advice before proceeding. Sadly, most of the elderly world like these types of people.

Case 9: People who offer dosa only when they cannot finish it on their own: You all may be familiar with these kinds of people. People who are very generous only when all their needs are fulfilled. These folks are selfish but at the same time not misers or greedy. They just want to satisfy themselves before they give it to the world. They typically do not stuff themselves nor do they tend to starve. They are very good people who would give you the best of advices in life. They would make sure that you are not sad following their advice.

Case 10: People who offer the whole dosa and eat from others plates: These folks are other extreme. They know what they want, they get what they want but they cannot enjoy what they want. Instead they tend to settle for other things in life which satisfies the needs but does not satisfy the person completely. These guys are termed as born losers cause even when they have the thing they wanted, they can't stop others from stealing it from them.

So next time you sit with a person eating a masala dosa, look closely and see if he falls into one of the above categories. You may be surprised as how much it reveals about the person

Know Your Customers

2009-03-04T07:02:00.000-08:00

A disappointed salesman of Coca Cola returns from his Middle East assignment.
A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Arabs?"

The salesman explained

"When I got posted in the Middle East, I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch as Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem I didn't know to speak Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters...

First poster: A man lying in the hot desert sand...totally exhausted and fainting.

Second poster: The man is drinking our Cola.

Third poster: Our man is now totally refreshed.

And Then these posters were pasted all over the place “Then that should have worked!" said the friend.
"The hell it should had!? Said the salesman. didn't realize that Arabs read from right to left"

GF ne Bhikari bana diya!

2009-02-23T07:36:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Police arrested a drunkard & asked: Where r u going?
Man: I'm goin 2 listen lecture on ill effcts of drinking.
Cop: Who'll lecture at midnite?
Man: My wife...
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Law Professor: Which is the most important LAW of Finance for Starting a New Business?
Student: Father-in-Law!
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Before marriage: Roses are red, sky is blue. U r beautiful, I luv u.
After marriage: Roses are dead, I'm blue. U r my headache, one day I'll kill u.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Man: Is there any way for long life?
Dr: Get married.
Man: Will it help?
Dr: No, but the thought of long life will never come.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
What's the biggest pressure for Pak captain when Pak needs 1 run to win in 8 over's, with 5 wickets in hand?
Ya Allah! How to speak English in presentation ceremony?
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------
Beggar: Saab 12Rs do na coffee peeni hai.
Man: Lekin coffee to 6Rs ki hai?
Beggar: Par saab girlfrend bhi to hai.
Man: Bhikari hokar bhi GF banali.
Beggar: Na saab,GF ne Bhikari bana diya!
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Q: Why do women live longer than men?
A: Shopping never causes heart attacks, but paying the bill does!
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Wats the diff between Complete & Finished?
If you find good wife u r complete otherwise u r finished.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
So many options: Poison, sleeping pills, hanging, jumping from a building, lying on train tracks, but we chose Marriage, slow but sure!
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Have u heard about the man who threw his wife into a pond of crocodiles? He's now being harassed by the animal rights for being cruel to the crocodiles.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Two men r talking. 1st: I got married coz I was tired of eating out, cleaning the house, doing the laundry & wearing shabby clothes.
2nd: Amazing, I just got divorced for the very same reasons
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Wife: If I dismiss the cook and make the food myself for a month, what will you pay me?
Husband: I won't have to pay you, you'll get my entire insurance amount.

Why INDIA is in trouble?

2009-02-18T14:45:00.000-08:00

Population: 100 crore
9 crore retired
30 crore in state Govt;
17 crore in central Govt.(Both categories don't work)
1 crore IT professional (don't work for India )
25 crore in school
1 crore are under 5 years
15 crore unemployed
1.2 crore u can find anytime in hospitals

Statistics says find 79,99,998 people anytime in jail.

The Balance two are U & Me.

U are busy ' reading my blog

HOW CAN I HANDLE INDIA alone?

Wada-pav and Recession

2009-02-13T05:01:00.001-08:00

DO U KNOW

What is recession?

This Story is about a man who once upon a time was selling "Wada-Pav" by the roadside.

He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers.

He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio.

His eyes were weak, so he never watched television.

But enthusiastically, he sold lots of "Wada-pavs".

He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales.

His sales and profit went up..

He ordered more a more raw material and buns and use to sale more.

He recruited few more supporting staff to serve more customers.

He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove.

As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from College, joined his
father.

Then something strange happened.

The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?"

The father replied, "No, but tell me about it." The son said, "The international situation is terrible.

The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times."

The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV.

He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly.

So the next day onwards, the father cut down his raw material order and buns, took down the colourful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic.

He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs.

Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his "Wada-Pav" stand.

And his sales started coming down rapidly, same is the profit.

The father said to his son, "Son, you were right".

"We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

Moral of The Story: It's all in your MIND! And we actually FUEL this recession much more than we think we do!!!!!!!!!! !!

What can we take away from this story??

1. How many times we confuse intelligence with good judgment?

2. Choose your advisors carefully but use your own judgment

3. A person or an organization will survive forever, if they have the 5 Cs

* Character

* Commitment

* Conviction

* Courtesy

* Courage

The tragedy today is that there are many walking encyclopedias that are living failures.

The More practical and appropriate views on this economic recession is:

"This is the time to reunite together for any small or a big organization,

this is the time to motivate and retain people which are the biggest asset,

this is the time to show more commitments to the customers,

this is the time show values of our company to the world,

and this is the time to stand by our Nation".

Please do not take this Lightly…..

SW Prof-Matrimon'e'y

2009-02-10T12:16:00.000-08:00

SW eng always on Hardtime, either with work or Personally. Its Just an another example how s/w eng having hard time with Society too. Who cursed S/W engs?

Disturbing Co-Passengers

2009-02-04T07:41:00.000-08:00

An Indian and an American are seated next to each other on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. The American asks if he would like to play a fun-game.

The Indian, tired, just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks.

The American persists and explains that the game is easy and a lot of fun.

He says, "I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5, and vice versa." Again, the Indian declines and tries to get some sleep.

The American, now worked up, says, "Okay, if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $500."

This gets the Indian's attention and, figuring there will be no end to this torment, agrees to the game.

The American asks the first question, "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?"

The Indian doesn't say a word, reaches into his wallet, pulls out a $5 bill and hands it to the American.

"Okay," says the American, "Your turn."

So the Indian asks, "What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four legs?"

The American thinks about it. No answer.
Puzzled, he takes out his laptop computer and searches all his references. No answer!

He taps into the air-phone with his modem and searches the Internet and the Library of Congress. No answer.

Frustrated, he sends e-mails to all his friends and co-workers. Checks the input. All to no avail! Finally, a long time later, he wakes the Indian and hands him $500.

The Indian thanks him and turns back to get his sleep. The American, more than a little miffed, stirs the Indian and asks, "Well, what's the answer?" Without a word, the Indian reaches into his purse, hands the American $5, and goes back to sleep! Gorrrrrrrrrrrr

Thanks Pic Courtesy: Lostweekend.tv

sgtrane mnid

2009-01-13T14:28:00.000-08:00

If you can read the following paragraph....

Only great minds can read this

This is weird, but interesting!

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveie e t aht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it

Internet & Toilet Cleaning

2008-12-11T08:59:00.000-08:00

An unemployed worker applies at XXCompany for the position of a janitor. The HR chief invites him to an interview and subjects him to some tests. Then he tells him: You got the job, just give me your e-mail address so that I can send you the employment contract as well as the day and time when to start. The man is distraught and answers that he has no computer and therefore also no e-mail. The HR boss tells him that if he has no e-mail address he virtually does not exist and therefore cannot hold a job.

The man leaves in a desperate mood without knowing what to do with his last $10 in his pocket. Finally he decides to go into a supermarket and to buy a 10 lb box of strawberries. He starts out with door to door calls in order to sell those strawberries by the pound. He manages to double his capital in 2 hours. He repeats the deal 3 times more and goes home with $60 in his pocket.

He comes to see that he can survive this way. He starts every day earlier and comes home every day later. So he triples or quadruples his money every day. A short time later he buys a wheel barrow, then exchanges it later into a truck and sooner or later is the owner of a complete fleet of delivery trucks.

5 year go by…

The man is now the owner of one of the largest food chain in the USA. Now he starts thinking about the future for him and his family and decides to buy a life insurance. He calls an agent and selects a good policy. At the end of the negotiations the agents asks him for his e-mail address to send him a confirmation of the policy. The man tells him that he doesn’t have an e-mail address! That is strange, says the agent, you have no e-mail and nevertheless you built this large empire. Can you imagine where you would be if you you had an e-mail address.

The man briefly thinks and then answers: I WOULD BE A TOILET CLEANER AT XXCompany

Moral of the story:
The internet does not solve all the problems in our lives!

FMCG companies get IT savvy

2008-11-20T06:18:00.001-08:00

Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies are looking at 10-20 percent improvement in production and efficiency levels this year because of the adoption of newer technologies to track expansion of product portfolio and manufacturing locations, besides aggregation of godowns and shipment warehouses.

FMCG companies will spend around 10-15 percent of their net profit on technology. Companies like ITC Limited, Emami and Marico have forayed into diverse businesses in FMCG alone. This has not only led to the rapid expansion of the supply chain but has also increased complexities.

ITC’s manufacturing locations have increased rapidly to about 200 from about a dozen-owned manufacturing facilities for its different businesses. In addition to these manufacturing locations, ITC’s aggregating of godowns and shipment warehouses have grown exponentially in a couple of years.

Emami’s recent investment in IT has ensured finalisation of its balance sheet in a record 35 days against the 60-day norm.

Mohan Goenka, director, Emami, says: “We foresee an improvement of 10 percent in production and efficiency levels at Emami for financial year 2008-09. This will be achieved by implementing sales and operation planning, demand management and distribution resource planning which will enable system control to forecast sales, check inventories at locations, plan manufacturing resources and logistics to meet the customer schedules.”

Marico, on its part, is investing in better connectivity through enterprise portals; wi-fi enabled offices and in unified communications.

Marico is investing in automation of many workflows like Writeoffs, insurance claims, and media spend management portal.

According to Udayraj Prabhu, head, business applications, Marico: “We have commenced Project Edge, an initiative to improve the budgeting, planning and review systems using the TM1 tool of IBM-Cognos. This will enable us to strengthen our budgeting, planning and review processes by making them quicker, error-free and less tedious. This should lead to a significant saving in time for those involved in these activities.”

The company has also launched HR portal platforms as active channels of communication within the organisation.

ITC Ltd is building an IT infrastructure to bar code its produce at the warehouse itself, even before it reaches the retailers.

This is expected to help ITC keep track of product manufacturing time, thereby enabling implementation of first-manufactured-first-out (FMFO) strategy, which means items manufactured first are shipped out of the factory and the warehouse earlier than products manufactured later.

Among other projects, ITC will also implement this year usage of ‘push technology’ for its sales force.

VVR Babu, chief information officer, ITC Ltd, says: “Each salesman is allotted specific locations and he has to track sales and requirements of all shops and stores of a particular area. We are working on an integrated IT system which will gather and push information onto our salesmen’s laptops so that they don’t have to waste time looking up details on the company portal. For instance, if a salesman is covering 10 outlets of a region, every evening ITC’s systems will push onto his laptop the sales, distribution and requirements of that region and also the target to be met.”

Build Wisely

2008-11-17T07:23:00.000-08:00

An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house-building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by.

The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials.

It was an unfortunate way to end a dedicated career. When the carpenter finished his work the employer came to inspect the house. He handed the front-door key to the carpenter. 'This is your house,' he said, 'my gift to you.' The carpenter was shocked! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently.

So it is with us. We build our lives, a day at a time, often putting less than our best into the building. Then with a shock we realize we have to live in the house we have built. If we could do it over, we'd do it much differently. But we cannot go back.

You are the carpenter. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. 'Life is a do-it-yourself project,' someone has said. Your attitudes and the choices you make today, build the 'house' you live in tomorrow.

Build wisely! Remember... Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching.

I am not sure about Pink Slips

Why God Doesn't Have Voicemail

2008-11-13T16:02:00.000-08:00

We have all learned to live with "Voice Mail" as a necessary part of life. But have you wondered, what if God decided to install voice mail?"

Imagine praying and hearing this:

Hi! Thank you for calling GOD.

Please select one of the following options:

Press 1 for Requests
Press 2 for Thanksgiving
Press 3 for Complaints
Press 4 for All Other Inquiries.

Else wait for our Customer Support Executive.

-------------------------------------------------------

What if God used the familiar excuse... "I'm sorry, all of our angels are busy helping other sinners right now. However,your prayer is important to us and will be answered in the order it as received, so please stay on the line"

------------------------------------------------------

Can you imagine getting these kinds of responses as you call God in Prayer:

If you would like to speak to:

Lord Ganesh, Press 1.
For Lord Hanuman, Press 2.
For Lord Krishna, Sorry He is on Annual Leave!
For a directory of other God's & Angels, Press 3.

If you would like to hear Naradha sing a Bhajan while you are holding, please press 4.

To find out if a loved one has been assigned To Heaven, Press 5, enter his or her PAN number, then press the 0 key. If you get a negative response, try area code 420 for(Hell).

For reservations and bookings in at "My Father's Guest House - Exclusive 7 Star Hotel " please enter Your Name , Date of Birth in mm-dd-yy format followed by 3-1-6.

For answers to nagging questions about Future of Indian Cricket, the age of the earth and where Majnu Ka Tila is, please wait until you arrive here.

-----------------------------------------

Our computers show that you have already prayed once today.

Please hang up and try again tomorrow.

----------------------------------------------

This office is closed for the weekend to observe a religious holiday.

Please pray again Monday after 9:30 AM. If you need emergency assistance when this office is closed, contact your local Priest at your neighbourhood Temple.

----------------------------------------------------

Thank God !! He doesn't have Voice Mail and He listens whenever we pray !!!!

Why Planning is important?

2008-11-07T10:11:00.000-08:00

One Night 4 college students were playing till late night and could not study for the test which was scheduled for the next day. In the morning they thought of a plan. They made themselves look as dirty with grease and dirt. They then went up to the Dean and said that they had gone out to a wedding last night and on their return the tire of their car burst and they had to push the car all the way back and that they were in no condition to appear for the test.

So the Dean said they could have the re-test after 3 days. They thanked him
and said they would be ready by that time. On the third day they appeared before the Dean. The Dean said that as this was a Special Condition Test, all four were required to sit in separate classrooms for the test. They all agreed as they had prepared well in the last 3 days.

The Test consisted of 2 questions with a total of 100 Marks.
See Below for the question Paper

Q.1. Your Name........ ......... ......... (2 MARKS)

Q.2.. which tire burst? (98 MARKS)
a) Front Left
b) Front Right
c) Back Left
d) Back Right.....!! !
True story from IIT Bombay ...Batch 1992

Moral of the Story: Be prepared to fool others, else ends up fooling yourself.

Change has come

2008-11-05T05:37:00.000-08:00

Support Raj Thackeray

2008-11-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

We all should support Raj Thackeray and take his initiative ahead by doing more...

1. We should teach our kids that if he is second in class, don't study harder.. just beat up the student coming first and throw him out of the school

2. Parliament should have only Delhiites as it is located in Delhi

3. Prime-minister, president and all other leaders should only be from Delhi

4. No Hindi movie should be made in Bombay. Only Marathi.

5. At every state border, buses, trains, flights should be stopped and staff changed to local men

6. All Maharashtrians working abroad or in other states should be sent back as they are SNATCHING employment from Locals

7. Lord Shiv, Ganesha and Parvati should not be worshiped in our state as they belong to north (Himalayas)

8. Visits to Taj Mahal should be restricted to people from UP only

9. Relief for farmers in Maharashtra should not come from centre because that is the money collected as Tax from whole of India, so why should it be given to someone in Maharashtra?

10. Let's support Kashmiri Militants because they are right in killing and injuring innocent people for the benefit of their state and community..

11. Let's throw all MNCs out of Maharashtra, why should they earn from us? We will open our own Maharashtra Microsoft, MH Pepsi and MH Marutis of the world

12. Let's stop using cellphones, emails, TV, foreign Movies and dramas. James Bond should speak Marathi

13. We should be ready to die hungry or buy food at 10 times higher price but should not accept imports from other states

14. We should not allow any industry to be setup in Maharashtra because all machinery comes from outside

15. We should STOP using local trains... Trains are not manufactured by Marathi manoos and Railway Minister is a Bihari

16. Ensure that all our children are born, grow, live and die without ever stepping out of Maharashtra, then they will become true Marathi's

Monkey and Wall Street

2008-11-03T08:14:00.001-08:00

The following should help in understanding the current world financial situation.

Once upon a time in a village, a man announced to the villages that he would buy monkeys for $ 10 . The villagers seeing there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man brought thousands at $ 10.00, but as the supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts. The man further announced that he would now buy at $ 20. this renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to $ 25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to see e monkey, let alone catch it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $ 50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would act as buyer, on his behalf.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: ' Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $ 35 and then when he returns from the city, you can sell them back to him for $ 50.'

The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man or his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere!.

Welcome to WALL STREET.

Cops: $2M credit card scam busted

2008-10-23T05:44:00.000-07:00

A $2 million credit card fraud ring was been taken down month after a two-year investigation by the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and several local police departments, officials said today.

"This was a complex, time-consuming, cooperative investigation with our federal law enforcement partner and it revealed a more extensive degree of theft than we originally imagined," said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio.

He called the criminal enterprise "sophisticated and extremely disrupting to the victims, both businesses and private people."

The investigation culminated with early morning raids at several locations in Hudson County on Friday and charges against Mohammad Sheikh, 47, of North Bergen; Secaucus residents Afzal Sheikh, 54, and Rubina Sheikh, 44, as well as Jersey City residents Quaisar Mahmood, 47, Rafiq Malik, 56, and Rauf Farooqi, 54, officials said.

They are charged with theft by deception, identify theft, money laundering and conspiracy, officials said, adding that Afzal Sheikh, Rubina Sheikh and Mohammad Sheikh have been arrested and remain in custody on $2 million bails. The other remain at large.

Leaders of the group used multiple aliases and Social Security numbers to open credit card accounts at various banks and credit card companies, DeFazio said. The cards would then be used to make nonexistent transactions at "shell" companies created by the suspects, DeFazio said, adding that the companies had no actual sales locations or inventory.

After ringing up fictitious purchases equaling several times the limit of the cards, they would abandon the cards, leaving the unpaid balances, DeFazio said. The prosecutor said the bills would be charged to the accounts of real victims but the credit card companies and banks would wind up footing the bill.

Investigators suspect some of the money was transferred to members of the ring in Pakistan via money orders and other means.

Source:http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2008/09/cops_2m_credit_card_scam_buste.html

Recession-Do's and Dont's

2008-10-10T07:36:00.001-07:00

Recession is coming .... make your own judgment, don't panic !! Do what is wise.

The recession looks very eminent. It is really time to take pro active steps to avoid a painful time in the next two years which is how long the recession is expected to last.

Suggestions:

1. Don't take any loans; buy homes, properties with loans, or even cash. Keep as much cash as possible.

2. Pay off as much of personal loans, private loans, as debt collection will be hastened.

3. Sell any stocks you can even at lower prices.

4. Take money off from Trust Funds.

5. Don't believe in huge sales forecast from customers, be extremely prudent, lowest inventories, reduce liabilities.

6. Don't invest in new capital.

7. If you are selling homes/ properties/ cars, do it now, when you can get good prices, they are going to fall.

8. Don't invest in new business proposals.

9. Cancel holiday plans using credit cards.

10. Don't change jobs, as companies will retrench based on 'last in first

out'.

Stay cool, wait, and if you took all of the above actions and more, you probably will be better off than many. This is not a rumor. Bear Stearns is the first of many banking and financial institutions that will start falling in the not too future. If Bear Stearns can fall, so can JP Morgan, Citibank, HSBC, and the whole world. US economy falls, the rest will crumble.

India and all those self economies will be the most protected, but not gullible.

Europe may be a little stronger, but not China , another giant! : place Malaysia will see significant impact.

A friendly reminder from a friend!!!

Money for US

2008-10-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

Marc Faber comment on US economy.

Investment analyst and entrepreneur Dr. Marc Faber concluded his monthly bulletin (June 2008) with the Following:

''The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China . If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. If we buy a computer it will go to India . If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico , Honduras and Guatemala . If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany . If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. I've been doing my part.'

Anyway this might be true, but the benefits goes to USA.(rather)

Bankruptcy Concept!

2008-09-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

Once there was a little island country. The land of this country was the tiny island itself. The total money in circulation was 2 dollars as there were only two pieces of 1 dollar coins circulating around.

1) There were 3 citizens living on this island country. A owned the land. B and C each owned 1 dollar.

2) B decided to purchase the land from A for 1 dollar. So, now A and C own 1 dollar each while B owned a piece of land that is worth 1 dollar.

* The net asset of the country now = 3 dollars.

3) Now C thought that since there is only one piece of land in the country, and land is non producible asset, its value must definitely go up. So, he borrowed 1 dollar from A, and together with his own 1 dollar, he bought the land from B for 2 dollars.

*A has a loan to C of 1 dollar, so his net asset is 1 dollar.
* B sold his land and got 2 dollars, so his net asset is 2 dollars.
* C owned the piece of land worth 2 dollars but with his 1 dollar debt to A, his net residual asset is 1 dollar.
* Thus, the net asset of the country = 4 dollars.

4) A saw that the land he once owned has risen in value. He regretted having sold it. Luckily, he has a 1 dollar loan to C. He then borrowed 2 dollars from B and acquired the land back from C for 3 dollars. The payment is by 2 dollars cash (which he borrowed) and cancellation of the 1 dollar loan to C. As a result, A now owned a piece of land that is worth 3 dollars. But since he owed B 2 dollars, his net asset is 1 dollar.

* B loaned 2 dollars to A. So his net asset is 2 dollars.
* C now has the 2 coins. His net asset is also 2 dollars.
* The net asset of the country = 5 dollars. A bubble is building up.

(5) B saw that the value of land kept rising. He also wanted to own the land. So he bought the land from A for 4 dollars. The payment is by borrowing 2 dollars from C, and cancellation of his 2 dollars loan to A.

* As a result, A has got his debt cleared and he got the 2 coins. His net asset is 2 dollars.
* B owned a piece of land that is worth 4 dollars, but since he has a debt of 2 dollars with C, his net Asset is 2 dollars.
* C loaned 2 dollars to B, so his net asset is 2 dollars.

* The net asset of the country = 6 dollars; even though, the country has only one piece of land and 2 Dollars in circulation.

(6) Everybody has made money and everybody felt happy and prosperous.

(7) One day an evil wind blew, and an evil thought came to C's mind. "Hey, what if the land price stop going up, how could B repay my loan. There is only 2 dollars in circulation, and, I think after all the land that B owns is worth at most only 1 dollar, and no more."

(8) A also thought the same way.

(9) Nobody wanted to buy land anymore.

* So, in the end, A owns the 2 dollar coins, his net asset is 2 dollars.
* B owed C 2 dollars and the land he owned which he thought worth 4 dollars is now 1 dollar. So his net asset is only 1 dollar.
* C has a loan of 2 dollars to B. But it is a bad debt. Although his net asset is still 2 dollars, his Heart is palpitating.
* The net asset of the country = 3 dollars again.

(10) So, who has stolen the 3 dollars from the country ? Of course, before the bubble burst B thought his land was worth 4 dollars. Actually, right before the collapse, the net asset of the country was 6 dollars on paper. B's net asset is still 2 dollars, his heart is palpitating.

(11) B had no choice but to declare bankruptcy. C as to relinquish his 2 dollars bad debt to B, but in return he acquired the land which is worth 1 dollar now.

* A owns the 2 coins, his net asset is 2 dollars.
* B is bankrupt, his net asset is 0 dollar. ( he lost everything )
* C got no choice but end up with a land worth only 1 dollar

* The net asset of the country = 3 dollars.

************ **End of the story; BUT ************ ********* ******

There is however a redistribution of wealth.
A is the winner, B is the loser, C is lucky that he is spared.
A few points worth noting -

(1) When a bubble is building up, the debt of individuals to one another in a country is also building up.
(2) This story of the island is a closed system whereby there is no other country and hence no foreign debt. The worth of the asset can only be calculated using the island's own currency. Hence, there is no net loss.
(3) An over-damped system is assumed when the bubble burst, meaning the land's value did not go down to below 1 dollar.
(4) When the bubble burst, the fellow with cash is the winner. The fellows having the land or extending loan to others are the losers. The asset could shrink or in worst case, they go bankrupt.
(5) If there is another citizen D either holding a dollar or another piece of land but refrains from taking part in the game, he will neither win nor lose. But he will see the value of his money or land go up and down like a see saw.
(6) When the bubble was in the growing phase, everybody made money.
(7) If you are smart and know that you are living in a growing bubble, it is worthwhile to borrow money (like A ) and take part in the game. But you must know when you should change everything back to cash.
(8) As in the case of land, the above phenomenon applies to stocks as well.
(9) The actual worth of land or stocks depend largely on psychology.
ForwardSourceID:NT0001570A

108 Names of Lord Ganesha and the meanings

2008-09-03T07:12:00.000-07:00

1. Akhurath: One who has mouse as his charioteer

2. Alampata : Ever eternal lord

3. Amit : Incomparable lord

4. Anantachidrupamayam: Infinite and consciousness personified

5. Avaneesh: Lord of the whole world
6. Avighna: Remover of obstacles

7. Balaganapati: Beloved and lovable child

8. Bhalchandra: Moon-crested lord

9. Bheema: Huge and Gigantic

10. Bhupati: Lord of the gods

11. Bhuvanpati: God of the gods

12. Buddhinath: God of wisdom

13. Budhipriya: Knowledge bestower

14. Bhudhividhata: God of knowledge

15. Chaturbhuj: One who has four arms

16. Devadeva: Lord of all lords

17. Devantakanashakarin: Destroyer of evils and asuras

18. Devarata: One who accepts all gods

19. Devendrashika: Protector of all gods

20. Dharmik: One who gives charity

21. Dhoomravarna: Smoke-Hued lord

22. Durja: Invincible lord

23. Dvaimatura: One who has two mothers

24. Ekaakshara: He of the single syllable

25. Ekadanta: Single-Tusked lord

26. Ekadrishta: Single-Tusked lord

27. Eshanputra: Lord Shiva's son

28. Gadadhara: One who has the mace as his weapon

29. Gajakarna: One who has eyes like an elephant

30. Gajanana: Elephant-Faced lord

31. Gajananeti: Elephant-Faced lord

32. Gajavakra: Trunk of the elephant

33. Gajavaktra: One who has mouth like an elephant
34. Ganadhakshya: Lord of all Ganas (Gods)
35. Ganadhyakshina: Leader of all the celestial bodies
36. Ganapati: Lord of all Ganas (Gods)
37. Gaurisuta: The son of Gauri (Parvati)
38. Gunina: One who is the master of all virtues
39. Haridra: One who is golden colored
40. Heramba: Mother's Beloved son
41. Kapila: Yellowish-Brown coloured
42. Kaveesha: Master of poets
43. Krti: Lord of music
44. Kripalu: Merciful lord

45. Krishapingaksha: Yellowish-Brown eyed

46. Kshamakaram: The place of forgiveness

47. Kshipra: One who is easy to appease

48. Lambakarna: Large-Eared lords

49. Lambodara: The huge bellied lord

50. Mahabala: Enormously strong lord

51. Mahaganpati: Omnipotent and supreme lord

52. Maheshwaram: Lord of the universe

53. Mangalamurti: All auspicious lord

54. Manomay: Winner of hearts

55. Mrityunjaya: Conqueror of death

56. Mundakarama: Abode of happiness 57. Muktidaya: Bestower of eternal bliss

58. Mushikvahana: One who has mouse as charioteer

59. Nadapratithishta: One who appreciates and loves music

60. Namasthetu: Vanquisher of all evils and vices and sins

61. Nandana: Lord Shiva's son

62. Nideeshwaram: Giver of wealth and treasures

63. Omkara: One who has the form of OM

64. Pitambara: One who has yellow-colored body

65. Pramoda: Lord of all abodes

66. Prathameshwara: First among all

67. Purush: The omnipotent personality

68. Rakta: One who has red-colored body

69. Rudrapriya: Beloved of lord Shiva

70. Sarvadevatman: Acceptor of all celestial offerings

71. Sarvasiddanta: Bestower of skills and wisdom

72. Sarvatman: Protector of the universe

73. Shambhavi: The son of Parvati

74. Shashivarnam: One who has a moon like complexion

75. Shoorpakarna: Large-eared Lord

76. Shuban: All auspicious lord

77. Shubhagunakanan: One who is the master of all virtues

78. Shweta: One who is as pure as the white colour

79. Siddhidhata: Bestower of success and accomplishments

80. Siddhipriya: Bestower of wishes and boons

81. Siddhivinayak: Bestower of success

82. Skandapurvaja: Elder brother of Skanda (Lord Kartik)

83. Sumukha: Auspicious face

84. Sureshwaram: Lord of all lords

85. Swaroop: Lover of beauty

86. Tarun: Ageless

87. Uddanda: Nemesis of evils and vices

88. Umaputra: The son of goddess Uma (Parvati)

89. Vakratunda: Curved trunk lord

90. Varaganapati: Bestower of boons

91. Varaprada: Granter of wishes and boons

92. Varadavinayaka: Bestower of Success

93. Veeraganapati: Heroic lord

94. Vidyavaridhi: God of wisdom

95. Vighnahara: Remover of obstacles

96. Vignaharta: Demolisher of obstacles

97. Vighnaraja: Lord of all hindrances

98. Vighnarajendra: Lord of all obstacles

99. Vighnavinashanaya: Destroyer of all obstacles and impediments

100. Vigneshwara: Lord of all obstacles

101. Vikat: Huge and gigantic

102. Vinayaka: Lord of all

103. Vishwamukha: Master of the universe

104. Vishwaraja: King of the world

105. Yagnakaya: Acceptor of all sacred and sacrificial offerings

106. Yashaskaram: Bestower of fame and fortune

107. Yashvasin: Beloved and ever popular lord

108. Yogadhipa: The lord of meditation

ITC Infotech acquires Pyxis Solutions

2008-08-19T06:05:00.000-07:00

Its been a while in the internal I used to hear from higher officials that ITC Infotech is going to acquire companies in India, esp on companies who have projects on Semi Conductor or embeded. All the roots have been looking for a niche player to engrave market. Yesterday I heard the news tha ITC Infotech acquired US-based Pyxis solutions. Congrats Infotechians to stepping one more step on the ladder.

The news here..

ITC Infotech, a global IT services company and fully owned subsidiary of ITC Limited, has acquired Pyxis Solutions, a US-based niche player offering Quality Assurance (QA) solutions and testing services.

The deal has been closed at $25 million, ITC Infotech MD Sanjiv Puri told reporters here today. "It has been an all-cash deal and funded internally", he said.

Pyxis offers a full spectrum of services in software Quality Assurance ranging from user-interface testing to QA process improvements, including QA management and consulting, quantiative analysis testing and data validation testing.

Describing it as a "strategic acquisition", Suri said, Pyxis brings on board "differentiated capabilities, domain expertise in capital markets, unique testing methodology and an impressive roster of customers" which will compliment ITC Infotech's service offering and will further strenghten its presence in US, in addition to building up capabilities.

For Pyxis, the deal would bring on board the "benefits of scalability, a robust global delivery model, strong offshore base and institutional strengths of being part of a larger group", to provide better services to our customers, he said.

The synergies between the two companies is expected to create large opportunities for cross selling by leveraging existing customer relationship of both Pyxis and ITC Infotech. and help enlarging the geographic reach of services offered and create new opportunities for diversified offerings.

Pyxis would continue to work under its founders and would be a subsidiary of ITC Infotech (USA), he said adding the deal was in line with company's vision of actively seeking synergestic partnerships around key industry verticals, solution areas and focus technologies.

Thanks : PTI

15 Style Mistakes You Can Fix Now

2008-08-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, we all need help sometimes. And like it or not, we're judged by how we look and how we handle ourselves in social and professional settings.

The 15 style tips below aren't meant to turn you into a metrosexual—none, for instance, will instruct you to blow $600 on a pair of shoes. These tips are for the everyday guy. They're meant to help you gain confidence when you walk into a meeting or the next cocktail party, and they'll help make your wife or girlfriend feel proud to stand next to you. You're a grown man—it's time your wardrobe grew up too.

But, remember, it's not about being trendy, it's about looking good. Just follow these tips to looking better.

1. Match your belt and shoes. If you're wearing black shoes, put on a black belt. And brown shoes demand a brown belt. A good, general rule is to never mix the color of your leathers.

2. For crying out loud, pull your pants down. You may be pushing 40, but you don't need to hike up your pants like you're ready to start walking the mall. And it's even worse if you tuck in your shirt like Napoleon Dynamite.

3. On the flip side, pull up your pants. Seeing some 19-year-old's boxer shorts is bad enough; we don't need to see your tighty whities. You should have stopped buying "baggy cut" jeans years ago.

4. Pay attention to your shoes. You could be wearing $100 jeans with a sharp-looking shirt, but you'll still embarrass your wife or girlfriend with those old loafers that should have been pitched in the 1990s. Buy quality shoes that look smart and stylish. Remember, people check out shoes. Potential employers often will look at them to judge a candidate's attention to detail. Good rule of thumb: Spend your money on shoes, not shirts and pants. Also, match your socks to your shoes (very easy) or at least make sure they are a nice "bridge" from the shoes to the pants. Save the tube socks for the gym and lounging on weekends.

5. Wear clothes that fit properly. At this age, trying to look trendy is a cry for help. And just because that fitted (another term for "your nipples are showing") medium T-shirt looks good on Jake Gyllenhaal, that doesn't mean it looks good on you.

6. A side note to No. 5; if you're short and stocky, don't wear horizontal stripes—you'll look 3 feet tall. (My wife has to remind me of this once a year).

7. Don't worry if you're a little chunky; just wear what looks good on a guy with a little heft. You can't go wrong with black. It's slimming, classy and makes you reek of confidence.

8. Put away the tank top—even at the gym. You're not 12 years old anymore, and no one wants to smell your pits.

9. If your woman's not happy, you're not happy. After getting ready to go out, if you see concern on her face when she looks you over, change your clothes. There's a 98.9 percent chance she's right.

10. Man boobs are our kryptonite, and we have to fight back. They're an immediate turnoff to women, even though most don't mind a plump guy. Attack the problem head-on: Go to the gym, and wear clothes that don't cling to your body. We have Phil Mickelson to thank for officially raising this to a national emergency. We're at Defcon 1.

11. If you wear glasses, remember they're a window into who you are. Update them at least every other year and consider style when choosing them. And don't skimp. Expensive glasses are infinitely better than those $50 specs on special at the local mall.

12. Drop the baseball hat. Yes, it was standard issue in college, but those days are gone. The only exceptions to this rule: Working in the yard, casually hanging out, or playing drums for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

13. If you have to wear cologne, tone it down. You get points for wanting to smell good, but those points are immediately taken away when your co-workers can smell you in the break room—10 minutes after you left. Just spray a small amount into the air and walk through it. Less is more.

14. If you have a hairy chest, you cannot wear a V-neck without an undershirt. This is not 1977 and your name isn't Smokey. Or Simon Cowell, for that matter.

15. No socks with sandals. And if you do wear open-toed sandals, keep your feet groomed. Have you even looked down there since last summer? Trust us on this one.

Thanks Craig Playstead

Frustrated by Marketing calls? National Do Not Call Registry

2008-07-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

You are in midst of your better half's call and found an another call in waiting. You hold sweetheart's call and expect the other call is important.

"Hello **** Sir, Good Morning"

What a manager, wishing and calling to offer a job. "Yes Madam, Good Morning. How are you Doing?

"Doing great Mr.*****. Is n't pleasant morning today?"

"Yeah, hectic traffic though"

"We are calling from **** bank and we offer life time free credit card.."bla bla..

"Sigh"

This incident happens to everybody in our country and I remember my MD got a marketing call when he was in conf call. And you can imagine what happend later :). I understand these calls are bread and butter for them, however it is irritating for others, can't help it.

So what is the solution for this?

Since most people are disturbed on their cell phones by telemarketer these days, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has instituted National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC Registry) is to curb Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC).

A Mobile or landline subscriber, who does not wish to receive telemarketing calls, can request their telephone number be included in the NDNC Registry. Such requests are sent through their telecom service providers which will be stored in National Do Not Call Registry. Subscribers can make a Do Not Call requests via Letter, phone, SMS or on-line.

The telephone number "1909" is designated for registering your request in the National Do Not Call Registry. Registrations can be done either by calling or sending SMS with keywords "START DND" to "1909". Telephone calls/SMS to this number are Free of cost. The telecom service provider will acknowledge the request within ten days. Requests will become effective in 45 days from the date of request.

For more details, please click the following link http://ndncregistry.gov.in/ndncregistry/index.jsp.

Hope this works :)

How to Stop Gossip, Rumour and Backbiting

2008-07-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high
esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and
said, "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?"
"Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything I'd
like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my
friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're
going to say. That's why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is
Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell
me is true?"

"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not.
Now let's try the second filter, the filter of goodness. Is what you are
about to tell me about my friend something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about
him, but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though,
because there's one filter left: the filter of usefulness. Is what you
want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?"

"No not really …”

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"

This is why Socrates was a great philosopher & held in such high esteem.

Blaming?

2008-07-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

A boy was born to a couple after eleven years of marriage. They were a loving couple and the boy was the gem of their eyes. When the boy was around two years old, one morning the husband saw a medicine bottle open. He was late for office so he asked his wife to cap the bottle and keep it in the cupboard. His wife, preoccupied in the kitchen totally forgot the matter. The boy saw the bottle and playfully went to the bottle fascinated by its color and drank it all. It happened to be a poisonous medicine meant for adults in small dosages. When the child collapsed the mother hurried him to the hospital, where he died. The mother was stunned. She was terrified how to face her husband. When the distraught father came to hospital and saw the dead child, he looked at his wife and uttered just five words.

The husband just said "I am with you Dear". The husband's totally unexpected reaction is a proactive behavior. The child is dead. He can never be brought back to life. There is no point in finding fault with the mother. Besides, if only he had taken time to keep the bottle away, this would not have happened. No one is to be blamed. She had also lost her only child. What she needed at that moment was consolation and sympathy from the husband. That is what he gave her. If everyone can look at life with this kind of perspective, there would be much fewer problems in the world. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" . Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears. And you will find things are actually not as difficult as you think.

MORAL OF THE STORY:
Sometimes we spend time in asking who is responsible or whom to blame, whether in a relationship, in a job or with the people we know.
By this way we miss out something called L.I.F.E.

Its Vacation Time

2008-06-05T14:48:00.001-07:00

It's been more than a year I left india. And Yes I miss my country, state and weather a lootttttttt. Now I am taking a deep breathe and taking off on saturday by Virgin Atlantic.(Guys, let me know if you any experience travelling in virgin atlantic). Hopping at London, mumbai and bangalore.(that is the cheapest itinerary I got). Will be back to USA end of June.
So, Busy in packing my bags and ready to fasten my seat belts.

Till then .. bye bye

Bushkill falls

2008-05-19T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yet another, unplanned trip, however ended with an awesome experience. We were uncertain about for a dayout on this Sunday (May-18-2008) untill we started.

Reasons are
1. My self and bro attended a party on Saturday and got latenight when reached my friends place and started playing carom with my fellow blogger. When we completed one board my opponent got a call from another blogger and they started discussing/quarrelling about a blog post. I waited for him for a while, since he didn’t come back, I gone for bed where Samuel Adams begging me for a good sleep.
2. Weather report predicts a rainy day in Delaware Water Gap.
3. Haven't browsed about the place and not planned till the end.
4. What else, Its Lazy Sunday.

Sunday, I woke up by 9:15 am and actual plan was to start by 8:00 AM. I thought of continuing my sweet sunday resting however I haven’t given any chance. Had our coffess and started by 10:30am to Delaware Water Gap. While keyin the destination in GPS we all 3 looking at others face as no body knows the destination. Wondering about our smartness, co blogger have been to his house back with the address. It’s a quite decent drive, had breakfast at DDonuts and lunch at Subway. As per GPS plan we should have reached in 1:40 mins, but we took 3 hrs, becoz of long breaks and drizzles.

On the way we found Welcome Center(information center) and being advised that the day is not good for visiting. Great, we started heading to the last attraction marked by the Gentleman in the welcome center which is BUSHKILL Falls.

About Bushkill falls:Falls located in Northeast Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. Beginning at the headwaters of Bushkill Creek, the water descends the mountain, toward the Delaware River, forming Bushkill Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, Bridesmaid Falls, Laurel Glen Falls, Pennell Falls, and three additional, unnamed falls.

Bushkill Falls was opened to the public in 1904 by Charles E. Peters.
Falls is a series of eight waterfalls, the tallest of which cascades over 100 feet. Bushkill Falls is often called the "Niagara of Pennsylvania. I feel it is too much. No where it can be compared to Niagara.
Bushkill Falls is owned and operated by the Peters family.
Contact Bushkills Falls: 570.588.6682

We reached the place, Less people around, lush green surroundings, strong meadows, fresh (unpolluted) air, pin drop silence, smell of a thick forest made me crazy and sure you will refresh yourself before reaching the falls. Entrance fees per Adult is $9 and for kids $4.

The steps were built by wood and guide you through the falls from top to bottom, a great plan. Looks like human untouched place. The falls aren't huge, but very nice to look at with the nature surround water falls noise. Then the photography session started. Enjoyed climbing the steps with chilled rain drizzle and sprinkled water from falls. Better not to go with kids, since the steps are too deep. Excellent network of hiking trails and bridges affording fabulous views of the falls all made by wood. We took more than an hour to look at, grounds are very scenic and every photographer would like this place to digitalize. Outfitters store and a restaurant also around in the entrance.

Then we saw Arrow Island, Delaware water gap overlook and Mt.
Tammany which were okay kind of places. We didn’t have enough time to move around to other places and weather also not allowed to hang around. Had a deep breathe of Pocono's fresh air in a place where we can have a scenery view and drove back to NJ. It was a nice trip, driver was good as usual and my photographer bro(clicked 800+). Thanks for both guys who made the wonderful and unforgettable trip.

US slowdown will keep India as hot IT offshore

2008-05-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

The US economic slowdown will lead buyers of IT services to consider increasing the percentage of their labour in offshore, lower-cost locations. India will remain the dominant location for IT offshore services for North American and European buyers as a result of its scale, quality of resources and strong presence of local and traditional service providers, according to Gartner.

With concerns that the US economic slowdown could extend to other geographies, organisations are refocusing on IT cost reduction and taking steps to accelerate the use of offshore labour, Gartner said. Buyers of IT services will shift from cost-containment goals to a greater focus on cost reduction and productivity increases in their sourcing decisions.

This will lead to a steady increase in the adoption and expansion of offshore services - primarily from India, but increasingly from other countries as well.

“Factors that will give India the edge over other offshore locations are scale and quality of labour. North American and European buyers of IT services have been the force behind a growing offshore services market and India is central to almost any discussion of offshore services delivery for these buyers,” said Gartner research director TJ Singh.

Gartner sees two possible scenarios that will have an impact on offshore services adoption in the coming months: temporary economic downturn (best case scenario) or a more sustained recession (worst case scenario). According to Gartner vice-president Allie Young, “In the best case scenario, buyers will aggressively seek cost-saving measures by accelerating offshore delivery or, for first time users, moving IT services to offshore locations.”

In the worst case scenario, if a more sustained economic slowdown leads to a prolonged recession in the US, Gartner expects a more-aggressive movement to cut IT budgets

Story of SriLanka

2008-04-30T14:59:00.001-07:00

A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure

2008-04-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

In Corporate always the failures goes to bolt and nuts, not to the leaders/managers. None of the managers hold the responsbility when it comes to failure, at the same time when there is a success most managers comes forward and take the honor. But this incident shows a different view.

(Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic Forum, Philadelphia, March 22,2008)
Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?

Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India's 'Rohini' satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources -- but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.

By 1979 -- I think the month was August -- we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order. My experts -- I had four or five of them with me -- told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal. It was a big failure.
That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference -- where journalists from around the world were present -- was at 7:45 am at ISRO's satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself. He took responsibility for the failure -- he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.

The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite -- and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, 'You conduct the press conference today.'

Abdul kalam said, I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.

Kuruvi mp3 songs download

2008-04-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

Kuruvi Mp3 songs -download from here

Disc: I dont own any rights on the source or destination. I am just a forwarder, as usual.

Stop the War on Journalists in Sri Lanka

2008-04-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), an organization which aims to protect and strengthen the rights and freedoms of journalists is calling for a Global Day of Action on the 10th of April, titled Stop the War on Journalists in Sri Lanka. Thanks to Mathy for sharing ...For More info

I dedicate my 300th post to my fellow tamilians who shedding blood for their rights and lives in SriLanka.

A simple solution

2008-04-08T11:22:00.000-07:00

We know Pencil-moon-russian-USA and Japanese Soap boxes-Fan kinda incidents and its way of simple solution, I got a mail today which shows the similar kind of, however it is a story. Here we go.

Hero went to a psychiatrist.

"I've got problems. Every time I go to bed, I think there's somebody under it. I'm scared. I think I'm going crazy."
Doctor repled, "Come and talk to me three times a week, and we should be able to get rid of those fears after powerful councellings"

"How much do you charge?"

"150Rs per visit" replied the doctor.

Hero nodded and left the hospital.

Six months later the doctor met hero on the street.
"Why didn't you ever come to see about those fears you were having?" asked the psychiatrist.

"Well, Rs150 a visit three times a week for a year is an awful lot
of money! A bartender cured me for Rs 120. I was so happy to have saved all
that money I went and bought me a new pickup!"

"Is that so! And how, may I ask, did a bartender cure you?"

"He told me to cut the legs off the bed! - Ain't nobody under there now!!"

Friday Fun-Ctrl C & V

2008-04-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

1. Long back, a person who sacrificed his sleep, forgot his family, forgot his food, forgot laughter were called "Saints" But now they are called..
"IT professionals"

2. An interesting line written at the back of a Biker's T Shirt:
" If you are able to see this, Please tell me that my galfriend has fallen off"

3. Most Relationships fail not because of the absence of love..
Love is always present..
Its just that,
One loves too much,
and
The other loves too many,

4. Employee: Boss, Now i have got married..! Please increase my salary..!
BOSS: Factory is not responsible for accidents occuring outside the company..!

5. Philosophy of life
At the begining of married life, every gal treats her husband as GOD,
Later on somehow the alphabets got reversed..!

6. What is a Fear?
Fear is the Deep, Wrenching feeling in your stomach When pages of your book still smell new and Just few hours left for your exams..!

7. Someone has rightly said, "A fool can ask More questions that a wise man cannot answer". No Wonder why so many of us speechless when lecturers ask question..!

8.Girl: Do you have Cards with sentimental Love quotes?
Shopkeeper: Oh sure..@! How about this card, it says "To the only boy I ever loved.!"
Girl: Thats good, Give me 12 of them..!

9.After reading the form filled by an applicant.. The employer said: " WE do have an opening for you..!
Applicant: What is it?
Interviewer: Its called the "door..!"

10. A Banner cum Sign Board In front of an IT company..
Drive Slowly, Dont kill our Employee...
..... Leave them to us

New business models for IT

2008-03-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

The Indian IT industry has witnessed an exceptional growth over the last two decades, led by the 1990s, when companies were notching up 50-100 percent growth rates. Such was the momentum that even the dot-com bust of the early 2000 and the global economic slowdown only marginally impacted growth, keeping it above the 30 percent mark. The excellent performance was in large part due to the vast talent pool harnessed by industry leaders and their investments in process capability.

The global delivery model, created as a result, was a disruptive innovation enabling the industry to comfortably ride the economic downturn of the early 2000. The model is now being universally adopted, leading to commoditization of traditional IT services around vanilla technologies. Companies are differentiating their services by moving up the value chain and acquiring domain capabilities.

Seeing the rapid acceptance of the lower-cost offshoring model, global multinational consulting firms have dramatically scaled up their presence in India. From less than 10,000 people in 2002, the top six global consulting firms now account for a headcount of more than 150,000. This rapid growth and our own success in scaling business have put huge pressure on sourcing and retaining quality talent. As a result, wages are increasing, adding to the overall cost of doing business.

The twin challenges of the appreciating rupee and rising cost structures are accelerating the search for non-linear business models, where revenue expansion does not imply a proportionate headcount increase. The industry is exploring new services for exploiting the offshore potential, building Internet Protocol (IP)-based software assets that can be customized to rapidly deliver solutions, or simply creating innovative commercial models that shift the terms of engagement away from headcount. As I had mentioned at a recent Nasscom meet, three non-linear business options are promising.

Managed services: Services around applications, development and maintenance (ADM) were the first to be offshored. According to a 2006 Nasscom-McKinsey study, this is a $35 billion opportunity. It indicates that offshore services around IT operations represent a $75-$80 billion market. While more than 30 percent of the ADM offshoring opportunity has been penetrated, the field of IT operations is wide open for Indian IT services players.

IT infrastructure has traditionally not been offshored largely because of inadequate communications infrastructure, high perceived risks and limited automation tools. These notions are beginning to disappear.

The remote infrastructure management services segment is growing rapidly, with large organizations providing a complete end-to-end solutions portfolio. This market, incidentally, is not just for big players. Mid-sized organizations, too, have established their presence in it. Global research body Forrester in its report, Smaller India-Based Infrastructure Providers Can Be The Right Size For The Right Clients, has showcased a clutch of smaller organizations building successful models in this space.

IP asset-based services: Delivering solutions around IP assets (frameworks, reusable components, and productized services) is a powerful service differentiator and a significant margin lever. Implementing such solutions requires significant customization—a strength of Indian services providers. Contracts can include both licensing and services components, with support revenue streams, making it another good non-linear option.

Compared with the pure-play products business, IP asset-based solutions will be easier for the industry to adopt. Large players are investing in this capability although revenue streams currently are a small part of their business. Smaller players are taking the inorganic route to acquire such IP assets.

Software as a service (Saas): The philosophy behind Saas rests on the concept of positioning an application as a set of services as opposed to a licence. The customer is charged for usage rather than outright ownership. Recently, enterprise solutions giant SAP announced its “Business by Design” programme in the US, where it will offer its applications at a charge per user per month, which is a path-breaking development in the packaged software world. Saas by its very definition is non-linear, since revenues are linked to usage and the transactions performed. Being a relatively new concept, it’s too early for market sizing but it remains one of the most promising disruptive approaches to delivering IT solutions.

The global delivery model that emerged from India has changed the way IT services are delivered. The industry, in essence, redefined software development by converting the art form of programming into an engineering discipline. The industry has benefited from the early-mover advantage of adopting this innovative process. However, with increased global presence offshore and a challenging environment, Indian IT services providers will need to transform with newer services.

1 mn Jobs in India

2008-03-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

Read a news today which states that
" New Delhi, March 10: It is good news for those fresh out of college or for those who are keen for a job change, as a leading HR consultancy firm has predicted one million new jobs in India this year.

Ma Foi Employment Trends Survey (METS), conducted by Ma Foi, one of India's largest HR consultancy firm has predicted a three per cent increase in employment in 2008.

The largest chunk of the new jobs according to the survey would be generated by hospitality sector which is riding high with the tourism boom in the country.

"The Hospitality sector will generate the maximum number of employment in 2008. 426,668 jobs are going to be generated by the Hospitality sector. This sector is closely followed by Health at 295,829 and Education Training & Consultancy at 166,005," says the survey.

It adds that an estimated USD 11.41 billion is expected to be seen in the Hospitality sector in the next two years and that India is likely to have around 40 international hotel brands by 2011.

"The boom in the tourism industry has had a cascading effect on the hospitality sector, which was a result of the increase in the occupancy ratios and average room rates. With the demand continuing to surge, many global hospitality majors have evinced a keen interest in the Indian hospitality sector," says K. Pandia Rajan, Managing Director, Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd.

While, IT and ITES sector continues with high growth in recruitment at 7.3 and 7.2 per cent, the survey says that it is the Health sector which shows the highest growth in recruitment at 8.9 per cent. "

Coming to the point //IT and ITES sector continues with high growth in recruitment at 7.3 and 7.2 per cent//, is nt crazy where people are getting fired everyday from top level companies with their (HR's) strong judgement, as recession being supplimentary and strategic of the HR?

Bits and Pieces of Feb-8

2008-03-04T13:57:00.000-08:00

1) I just learned that PlateSpin, leader in the P2V migration market, has been acquired by Novell. Platespin, as per my concern and everybody's an expensive product for converting the Physical Servers(mostly) to Virtual servers(VMware).

I Started working with Novell Technology as my first networking OS which provided major jobs at that time on Networking, mid of 1997. Before completing my course Microsoft's WinNT gained the market and insisted me to get to GUI based OS which is feeding me till now, Touch wood.
Here is the news about the acquistion.

2) Information technology (IT) firms appear to have lost their appeal at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). Campus recruitment figures by major Indian and foreign IT firms have dipped this year, raising further concerns of an industry slowdown.

Firms like IBM, HCL, Hughes Software and CSC opted out of placements this year and hiring by firms like India’s largest IT services provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro has dropped.
Bush, said that this is only slow down- a better political word. I know this is going to be a collapse in IT market and will take some to gain, at that time China will be the pioneer and we will fly to China for onsite. So I am packing my bags along with Chinese to Eng books.

3) JetAirways- My understanding and feedback thro friends, shows that it has good service and yes tickets are cheaper than others. AirIndia is the only flight which competes with the ticket prices obvsly not in the service. I guess, from this year onwards I may not get a chance to fly by my fav. BA.

4) Able to read more blogs thro blogkut and finding lot of friends thro blogs. Sameera is one among them who inspired me a lot in these days, she is really in enthu person. The other who is really amzing is Archana. roping them to my mind. I hope most of my CSC friends stopped blogging(seems they gotta work in these days after a decade).

5) Chinmayi- Again blogging more and rejecting my most of criticising comments. I guess, I am the only guy who criticise her for more than 3yrs of blogging tenure. Girls, never liked being suggested and criticised.. is it true?

6) Freezed the coding of BLOGKUT and concentrating more on my new venture classfieds.

Asians-Tougher time to enter UK

2007-12-18T11:13:00.000-08:00

The UK government will on Tuesday be releasing new proposals that lay down stiffer conditions for getting a visa to enter that country. This is not yet even close to becoming law but if and when it does, it will be a lot more difficult to go for a holiday to the UK.

Even before the British government officially announced the new visa proposals, there were angry reactions especially from the UK's large South Asian community who say the changes are discriminatory and unfair and will hurt poorer families the most.

Families in the UK will have to pay a bond to ensure that their relatives from outside the EU leave. If the visitors don't leave on time the money is forfeited, and it's recommended that tourists from outside the EU should now get visas for just three months instead of siz.

The UK government says the new rules are necessary to check illegal immigration, and they have already made it more difficult for people to bring their spouses into the UK.

However, the labour government could lose the South Asian community's support over the latest proposals. Anticipating their anger the UK's immigration minister has planned a trip to India in February to explain why the move is needed.

The new immigration and visa rules are clear indication to Non-EU populations that they are no longer welcome, unless they fit the criteria immigration minister Liam Byrne has chalked out, and families stand to lose a lot of money, if they do not leave.

The UK is trying to tighten its borders, and in the process is giving out a strong message that discourages Asians from trying to make this their home.

Meanwhile, the British High Commission in New Delhi has called the planned tightening of immigration rules as an attempt to make the system both more secure but also to ensure that we maintain the UK's position as the destination of choice.

Talent mismatch hits customer services

2007-12-06T16:18:00.000-08:00

At a time when India Inc. is facing severe talent shortage, a recent study highlights existing talent mismatch in the customer service function across sectors. The survey estimates that only 20 percent of people working in customer service profile have the perfect orientation towards such jobs. India’s largest skill assessment firm MeritTrac has conducted the study.

The study also points out that if an employee has a high orientation towards the job/function, the productivity per employee increases by 314 percent. As a result, several local companies in the services sector are losing out on maximum return out of their employee talent pool.

“The situation is quite alarming since customer service jobs account for a large chunk of hiring across sectors, especially banking, financial services, insurance, retail and telecom,” MeritTrac vice president Arvind T said.

The study was undertaken with a total sample size of 507 people with 0-3 years of experience across sectors.

The study has also analysed candidates on three critical parameters of a customer service role — personalised service, persuasive service and helpful service.

On the personalised service (how an employee approaches a customer) parameter, the survey shows that 5 percent of the candidates have a high orientation with the majority 82 percent with medium-level orientation.

On persuasive service (how to convince customers) parameter, employees have fared better. The study notes that nearly 58 percent of the candidates have a high inclination towards persuasive service with just 1 percent having a low inclination. However, high level of persuasive service and less towards personalised service show a sense of detached professionalism,” said Arvind.

In helpful service (how fast employees respond to customer needs), 30 percent of the candidates have high orientation, 61 percent have medium-level orientation and balance 9 percent has low inclination.

This is the only parameter with a fairly equitable distribution showing they are more adaptive towards responding than going that extra mile to build a rapport — essential for repeat purchase and loyalty, the study notes.

“The study has analysed executives on their basic orientation towards the job. These are basic soft skills, which a person can hardly acquire through experience. Since customer service roles are becoming critical, companies need to focus much more on their selection process,” added Arvind.

Going global: Indian firms create jobs in US

2007-11-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

Indian firms are not just taking up outsourcing any more, but have in fact invested a whopping $6 billion in the United States and created 40,000 jobs with quite a few of them going to the Americans. If a Janaki posing as Janet at call centres in India has been servicing customers in the US, many a Jane and John employed by India Inc. in the US is now helping travellers worldwide book a flight or send flowers and gifts to loved ones in America.

A group of 34 Indian companies represented in the India Business Forum (IBF), launched in June 2006, structured at the initiative of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), has made investments in such diverse sectors as technology, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and gems and jewellery. The Indian companies with 40,000 employees have invested about $6 billion in the US this year alone through acquisitions and mergers. While there are more Indian nationals in the service sector, the number of local employees goes as high as 95 percent in the manufacturing sector. The Tata Group alone has invested over $2 billion in the last couple of years through acquisitions and mergers in the US with 16 of its companies from hotels to manufacturing employing 16,000 people, about 5,000 of them local.

The local American employees work in all Tata companies, but heavy concentrations are in the hotels, manufacturing, telecommunications, engineering and software and in beverages besides two call centres in Ohio and Florida. The group provides engineering and software services through Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and INCAT/Tata Technologies with TCS earning 53 percent of its $4.3 billion revenue from the US. And in telecommunications, VSNL, a 74 percent Tata owned company, emerging as the largest voice provider in the US offering competition to the likes of AT&T and Verizon. Tatas' call centre business, SerWiz Solutions Limited, has 250 full-time employees at its Milton, Florida, centre and 260 such employees at Reno, Ohio. "Both centres are currently in a hiring mode," says Ricardo Layun, vice president, Customer Care Operations.

At the moment, the two call centres support one of the world's leading online travel companies, a large US airline carrier, and the American region of a large Asian airline carrier, large domestic and international airlines. They also seasonally support a leading telephone and online retailer of flowers and gift sales. The Tatas have been expanding these call centres since acquiring them in April 2006 as "we have found that the US communities in which we operate provide a strong workforce, competitive economic conditions, and positive growth potential," said Layun. Both call centres operate 24/7, but "We have not experienced an issue with staffing after hours. We have found that offering these night shifts provides employees opportunities to attend day-time college courses or avoid day-care costs," he said.

Crazy 'huh'

Top 7 Strategies To Achieve Your Goals

2007-11-20T07:02:00.000-08:00

1) Find out what is it that you want to achieve. Write a one-sentence definition of your goal. Work on this sentence until it is clear and to the point.
2) Read this sentence several times before falling asleep at night, and upon waking up in the morning.
3) Several times a day, visualize your goal for some minutes. In your mind's eye see your goal as achieved.
4) Stay alert and with an open mind. This will help you to become more attentive and aware of any ideas and opportunities that come your way, and which you may help you to achieve your goal.
5) Exercise your will power and self-discipline to keep your focus on the goal, and to stick to your resolve to succeed. Do not let anything distract you or make you deviate from your goal.
6) Go on, even if there are obstacles on the way or you see no progress. Those who persevere succeed.
7) Silence is power. Do not talk too much on what you want to achieve. Concentrate on doing, not on talking. Too much talking with others about your desires and goals dissipate your inner powers. Learn to concentrate and channel your energy toward achieving your goal.

Wipro & Cap Gemini

2007-11-19T14:29:00.000-08:00

The rumour is back again. This time, as i read in www, it’s Wipro that is planning a bid for France-headquartered IT giant Capgemini. In June this year, there were rumours of Infosys making a bid for Capgemini.

Wipro is now reportedly looking at a 60 euro-per-share bid for CapGemini, which will value the IT consulting giant at 8 billion euros.However, Reuters reports that Wipro has denied any comment on the acquisition buzz. “We don’t react to market speculation,” Wipro’s spokeswoman told Reuters. The Economic Times quotes Sudip Nandy, chief strategy officer, Wipro, as saying that “it is market speculation.”Reports, however, suggest that Wipro was indeed in discussions with Capgemini for a cash-plus-stock swap deal. The buzz had its effect on CapGemini share prices which rose 3.7 per cent on Friday.

Wipro’s largest acquisition so far was that of Infocrossing for $600 million.In the case of Capgemini, Wipro will have a huge challenge of managing the integration.

The Bangalore-based company has around 77,000 people while CapGemini has over 80,000 of which 17,000 people are in India. The French company plans to employ over 40,000 people by the end of 2010.

Hmm, anything can happen, it's all just matter of money and market value

Diwali-All NO's

2007-11-09T10:02:00.000-08:00

No crackers, No wishes, No ripping the channels, No actress bluffs, No rush to see the Movie(even it is a crap one), no new dress, no reducing the purse's weight.... Thats how this year Diwali was.. it really Su**s being out of india..

Story by Pics

2007-11-08T19:08:00.001-08:00

If USA asks me to leave the country...

Then I say ...
Visited Statue of liberty this week end.

How to keep your employees happy

2007-11-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

Work is, well, work. But a few companies understand that in order to get the most out of their staffers--and keep them -- they need to have fun. At least sometimes.

Take Nugget Markets, a 10-store northern California grocer. Turnover is 12 per cent among its 900 full-time employees. That's relatively unheard of in the grocery industry, where average turnover is 8 per cent higher. CEO Eric Stille attributes it to Nugget's culture. Management shows employees they are valued with dance parties, field trips, unexpected financial giveaways and lots of free food. "We want our team to know how much they're appreciated," says Chris Carpenter, Nugget's COO. "That's the number one thing we want them to understand."

That's not a priority for many employers. But it should be. Many say they're fretting about how expensive it is to advertise, recruit and train new employees, not to mention the toll it takes on morale. They're racking their collective brains over how to attract and keep the best talent. It's become such a key issue because unemployment is low (4 per cent), and the supply of jobs is high. That adds up to lots of options for employees.

Interestingly, throwing money at staffers isn't always the answer. Neither is throwing a party every few months. Having fun at work and creating a cohesive team is just one element. The most successful companies also realize flexibility, values, career development and providing meaningful experiences are also important elements to minimizing turnover. The interesting thing is that many of the companies that value having a good time usually incorporate those other elements too.

Nugget Markets, for example, pays its employees for sick days they didn't use. They provide incentives to come into work every day. Combine something like that with the newest addition to Nugget's roster of events--a rave held on a Saturday at an auditorium in the University of California, Davis.

The idea was to recreate a Las Vegas nightclub complete with a DJ flown in from Sin City, a band and an elaborate light system. The grand total was $150,000 --money well spent, Stille says. "It's not about the money," says Stille. "It's an investment, and you can't figure out a return on investment on that event, but as long as we're creating a great working environment, it's worth every dime."

Other events held for Nugget Market employees: a trip to Six Flags and white water rafting. (Employees who don't want to go rafting are given a paid day off and the $75 it would cost the company to send them on the trip.)

Aside from the field trips, there's a certain spirit brought out in just about everything they do. For a recent sales presentation, management replicated the Octagon used for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and had salespeople deliver presentations in the ring. "They were in a fighting mentality," says Stille.

The Octagon isn't for everyone. Neither is the Rave or white water rafting. And that's what companies need to keep in mind when hiring new employees: Do their personalities mesh with that of the company? If they don't, they still won't remain in the job. "You have to touch the heart of what is considered fun for the people that work for you," says Tamara Erickson, author of Workforce Crisis. "Companies that are good at retention are engaging people. They hire people who fit in there. The ones that are good at it tend to be a bit odd. They do things that are different."

Many will say the Octagon is evidence of that.
Rackspace, a San Antonio, Texas-based managed hosting company, is a bit kooky too. Their annual version of Oktoberfest, Racktoberfest, features a David Hasselhoff look-a-like contest, German beer (there's a two-drink maximum) and dancing to live German oompa-pa music. Family and friends are invited to join employees. This year nearly 1,000 people attended. It cost between $30,000 and $40,000.

"Throwing money at people will only work for a little while," says Rackspace's CEO Lanham Napier. The nine-year-old firm added 80 new employees per month last year and expects that number to grow to 90 next year. Napier says there's an 11% attrition rate annually.
His system for keeping talented employees is clear. Pick people who fit into the organization both professionally and personality-wise; form small work teams that have their own authority and if you get a good result you get a bonus. He also allocates a "fun budget" for each team. They've used it for all sorts of activities including tubing, laser tag and videogames.
The next step is to advertise the culture of the company. Use those events as a way to recruit talent. "The best thing to do if you're a company is make it clear what you have to offer," says Erickson. That way, when a candidate receives two job offers, and everything else is equal, they might go to the company that has a culture similar to theirs.

After all, bosses want employees to look forward to coming to work every day.
Source: Rediff

Managers' attitude

2007-10-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

A team of Managers was given an assignment to measure the height of a flagpole. So the Managers go out to the flagpole with ladders and tape. They're falling off the ladders, dropping the tape measures - the whole thing is just a mess.

An Engineer comes along and sees what they're trying to do, walks over, pulls the flagpole out of the ground, lays it flat, measures it from end to end, gives the measurement to one of the managers and walks away.

After the Engineer has gone, one manager turns to another and laughs." See this idiot. We're looking for height and he gives the length!" J J

Moral: "No matter what good you do, Managers can always find fault with you".

Top 10 Weird Dismissals in Cricket

2007-10-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Found a video is Youtube and this video insisted me for a post.

The Sensex story: From 1K to 18K

2007-10-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

Indian markets achieved yet another milestone on Oct-9-2007. The Sensex crossed the 18,000-mark on the back of renewed buying today. The index hit a fresh all-time intra-day high of 18,002. It took just 8 trading days to hit 18,000 from the 17,000 mark.

The rise and rise of the Sensex through Indian stock market history.

1000, July 25, 1990
On July 25, 1990, the Sensex touched the magical four-digit figure for the first time and closed at 1,001 in the wake of a good monsoon and excellent corporate results.

2000, January 15, 1992
On January 15, 1992, the Sensex crossed the 2,000-mark and closed at 2,020 followed by the liberal economic policy initiatives undertaken by the then finance minister and current Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

3000, February 29, 1992
On February 29, 1992, the Sensex surged past the 3000 mark in the wake of the market-friendly Budget announced by the then Finance Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh.

4000, March 30, 1992
On March 30, 1992, the Sensex crossed the 4,000-mark and closed at 4,091 on the expectations of a liberal export-import policy. It was then that the Harshad Mehta scam hit the markets and Sensex witnessed unabated selling.

5000, October 8, 1999
On October 8, 1999, the Sensex crossed the 5,000-mark as the BJP-led coalition won the majority in the 13th Lok Sabha election.

6000, February 11, 2000
On February 11, 2000, the infotech boom helped the Sensex to cross the 6,000-mark and hit and all time high of 6,006.

7000, June 20, 2005
On June 20, 2005, the news of the settlement between the Ambani brothers boosted investor sentiments and the scrips of RIL , Reliance Energy , Reliance Capital and IPCL made huge gains. This helped the Sensex crossed 7,000 points for the first time.

8000, September 8, 2005
On September 8, 2005, the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-share index -- the Sensex -- crossed the 8000 level following brisk buying by foreign and domestic funds in early trading.

9000, November 28, 2005
The Sensex on November 28, 2005 crossed the magical figure of 9000 to touch 9000.32 points during mid-session at the Bombay Stock Exchange on the back of frantic buying spree by foreign institutional investors and well supported by local operators as well as retail investors.

10,000, February 6, 2006
The Sensex on February 6, 2006 touched 10,003 points during mid-session. The Sensex finally closed above the 10K-mark on February 7, 2006.

11,000, March 21, 2006
The Sensex on March 21, 2006 crossed the magical figure of 11,000 and touched a life-time peak of 11,001 points during mid-session at the Bombay Stock Exchange for the first time. However, it was on March 27, 2006 that the Sensex first closed at over 11,000 points.

12,000, April 20, 2006
The Sensex on April 20, 2006 crossed the 12,000-mark and closed at a peak of 12,040 points for the first time.

13,000, October 30, 2006
The Sensex on October 30, 2006 crossed the magical figure of 13,000 and closed at 13,024.26 points, up 117.45 points or 0.9%. It took 135 days for the Sensex to move from 12,000 to 13,000 and 123 days to move from 12,500 to 13,000.

14,000, December 5, 2006
The Sensex on December 5, 2006 crossed the 14,000-mark to touch 14,028 points. It took 36 days for the Sensex to move from 13,000 to the 14,000 mark.

15,000, July 6, 2007
The Sensex on July 6, 2007 crossed the magical figure of 15,000 to touch 15,005 points in afternoon trade. It took seven months for the Sensex to move from 14,000 to 15,000 points.

16,000, September 19, 2007
The Sensex scaled yet another milestone during early morning trade on September 19, 2007. Within minutes after trading began, the Sensex crossed 16,000, rising by 450 points from the previous close. The 30-share Bombay Stock Exchange's sensitive index took 53 days to reach 16,000 from 15,000. Nifty also touched a new high at 4659, up 113 points. The Sensex finally ended with its biggest-ever single day gain of 654 points at 16,323. The NSE Nifty gained 186 points to close at 4,732.

17,000, September 26, 2007
The Sensex scaled yet another height during early morning trade on September 26, 2007. Within minutes after trading began, the Sensex crossed the 17,000-mark . Some profit taking towards the end, saw the index slip into red to 16,887 - down 187 points from the day's high. The Sensex ended with a gain of 22 points at 16,921.

18,000, October 09, 2007
The BSE Sensex crossed the 18,000-mark. It took just 8 days to hit 18,000 from the 17,000 mark.The index hit a fresh all-time intra-day high of 18,002.

Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age-50th Anniversary

2007-10-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race.
The story begins in 1952, when the International Council of Scientific Unions decided to establish July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958, as the International Geophysical Year (IGY) because the scientists knew that the cycles of solar activity would be at a high point then. In October 1954, the council adopted a resolution calling for artificial satellites to be launched during the IGY to map the Earth's surface.

In July 1955, the White House announced plans to launch an Earth-orbiting satellite for the IGY and solicited proposals from various Government research agencies to undertake development. In September 1955, the Naval Research Laboratory's Vanguard proposal was chosen to represent the U.S. during the IGY.

The Sputnik launch changed everything. As a technical achievement, Sputnik caught the world's attention and the American public off-guard. Its size was more impressive than Vanguard's intended 3.5-pound payload. In addition, the public feared that the Soviets' ability to launch satellites also translated into the capability to launch ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons from Europe to the U.S. Then the Soviets struck again; on November 3, Sputnik II was launched, carrying a much heavier payload, including a dog named Laika.

Immediately after the Sputnik I launch in October, the U.S. Defense Department responded to the political furor by approving funding for another U.S. satellite project. As a simultaneous alternative to Vanguard, Wernher von Braun and his Army Redstone Arsenal team began work on the Explorer project.

On January 31, 1958, the tide changed, when the United States successfully launched Explorer I. This satellite carried a small scientific payload that eventually discovered the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, named after principal investigator James Van Allen. The Explorer program continued as a successful ongoing series of lightweight, scientifically useful spacecraft.

The Sputnik launch also led directly to the creation of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In July 1958, Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act (commonly called the "Space Act"), which created NASA as of October 1, 1958 from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and other government agencies.

2007 Vendy Award Finalists

2007-10-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

Thiru "Dosa Man" Kumar from NY Dosas Washington Square South and Sullivan StreetSri-Lankan style vegan fare “Thiru makes super fresh Indian food-- mixed in with his own influences from Sri Lanka. All under the constraints and philosophy of veganism. He's always exceptionally nice and professional. Everyone knows that if money is scarce, you can get a meal from him and pay later. He's a great guy, humanitarian and environmentalist all while being one of the most legit chefs in the city. And his food is cheap. I essentially survive because of Thiru.”

Veronica Julien from Veronica's KitchenFront Street and Pine Street Trinidadian/Jamaican cuisine (jerk chicken, oxtail stew, etc.) “It was an unexpected treat to find such yummy food hidden in lower Manhattan. I think it's a mother and son who are frying up the fresh cod fish cakes, delectable jerk chicken, sumptuous macaroni and cheese and perfectly flavored rice and peas. I'll be heading back for more as soon as I've worked off my first indulgence!”

Muhammed Rahman from Kwik Meal 46th Street and Sixth Avenue Bengali-spiced Middle Eastern fare (felafel, chicken, marinated lamb, shrimp) “I walk a mile in every kind of weather to get my daily helping of Kwik Meal's delicious food. The owner used to work in the kitchen at the Russian Tea Room and the quality and presentation of the food shows it. The lamb is the best - it's tender, flavorful and utterly delicious! The yogurt sauce goes above and beyond the usual and has a spicy tang to it - I wish I knew what they put in it to make it so good. When they're offering salmon, you're also in for a treat.”

Super Taco, aka "Sobre Ruedas" 96th Street and Broadway Tacos, tortas, tamales, quesadillas, etc. “I’m from California, so I grew up around taquerias. Hands down, Super Taco can match up to anything I grew up with. I close my eyes and I am 10 years old again. Try the al pastor – diced pork with pineapple. Even better is watching all those Super Taco taco-makers crammed into that truck, all working together in unison to serve up tasty goodness. They even have a bicycle delivery fleet! Excellente!”

Farez (Freddy) Zeideia, the King of Falafel and Shawarma30th Street and Broadway, Astoria Middle-eastern style street food (falafel, shawarma, chicken) "The best and cheapest meal in Astoria. Always consistently good food prepared with care. These guys are such characters that it adds just as much flavor to your meal as their secret hot sauce. They will feed you for a little cash and make you smile for free. During the big blackout they were the only place open because they had their own generator. They could have easily doubled their prices and made a killing, but they didn't. Their lines reached well around the block and they served food well into the early morning. They were just happy to serve and help so many people.”

Meet the finalists for the 2007 Vendy Awards contest for the best street food chef in NYC-Video

For more Details/Source/Thanks

Mallu's and Pronunciation

2007-10-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

1) What is the tax on a Mallu's income called? IngumDax

2) Where did the Malayali study? In the ko-liage.

3) Why did the Malayali not go to ko-liage today? He is very bissi.

4) Why did the Malayali buy an air-ticket? To go to Thuubai, zimbly to meet his ungle in Gelff.

5) Why do Malayalis go to the Gelff? To yearn meney.

6) What did the Malayali do when the plane caught fire? He zimbly jembd out of the vindow.

7) How does a Malayali spell moon? MOON - Yem Who yet another Who and Yen

8) What is Malayali management graduate called? Yem Bee Yae.

9) What does a Malayali do when he goes to America ? He changes his name from Karunakaran to Kevin Curren.

10) What does a Malayali use to commute to office everyday? An Oto

11) Where does he pray? In a Temble, Charch and a Maask

12) Who is Bruce Lee's best friend ? A Malaya-Lee of course.

13) Name the only part of the werld, where Malayalis don't werk hard? Kerala.

14) Why is industrial productivity so low in Kerala? Because 86% of the shift time is spent on lifting, folding and re-tying the lungi

15) Why did Saddam Hussain attack Kuwait? He had a Mallu baby-sitter, who always used to say 'KEEP QUWAIT' 'KEEP QUWAIT'

16) What is the Latest Malayali Punch Line? " Frem Tea Shops To Koll Cenders , We Are Yevery Where "

17) Why aren't Mals included in hockey and football teams ? Coz Whenever they get a corner , they set up a tea shop.

18) Now pass it on to 5 Mals to get a free sample of kokanet oil.

19) Pass it on 10 Mals to get a free pack of Benana Chibbs

20) Pass it on to 15 Mals to get a set of colorful lungi ....

Why Women Worry So Much

2007-09-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

Scientists have known that on the whole, females of all ages tend to worry more and have more intense worries than males. Women also tend to perceive more risk in situations and grow more anxious than men.

Now we know why.

Women are more likely than men to believe that past experiences accurately forecast the future, according to two new studies.

The research, involving both 3- to 6-year-olds and adults of both genders, tested the extent to which participants' thought that worry can be caused by thinking that a bad event that happened in the past could happen again in the future. (This skill, in its simplest form, is critical to social understanding as it is important to making decisions and assessing risk.)

For the first study, subjects listened to six stories that featured characters harmed by another person or animal in the story. Many days later, the character felt worried or changed their behavior when confronted with the same wrongdoer who had hurt them before. (For example, if one little boy stole a toy from another, the child might be worried when he saw that boy again and hide the new toy he was playing with.)

The second study was the same, except that the person or animal the character ran across later only looked similar to the one that had harmed them before.
At the end of each story, the participants were asked to explain why the character was worried or changed their behavior.

Females, both children and adults, were more likely to use uncertainty to explain the character's reaction, that is, they tended to explain the reaction in terms of events that might happen versus those that will happen, the researcher reported. They also tended, more than males, to predict that the characters who encountered the new character who looked similar to the wrongdoer would feel worried because they thought the new character would also do them harm.

The studies, detailed in the Sept./Oct. issue of the journal Child Development, also found that children increasingly made these kinds of past-to-future connections as they got older, which yields insight into their cognitive development.

"These results are significant because they reveal that knowledge about the impact of past-to-future thinking on emotions and behaviors develops during the preschool years," said study author Kristin Lagattuta of the University of California, Davis.

Source: Live Science

Advertising can be outsourced

2007-09-27T14:16:00.001-07:00

Advertising sector is no different. Outsourcing across categories works on few basic parameters. Financial as well as resource efficiencies and talent. The advertising sector is no different. The need to communicate brand strategies and fulfill marketing objectives is under tremendous pressure at any given point in time. This has to do with the rapidly changing dynamics of the market everywhere.

So, it’s inevitable that marketers are going to look for the best possible efficient methods of running the show. Outsourcing is an outcome of that. There are already enough advertising agencies across India doing work for global brands.

The reasons are simple, we work faster; we multitask; we speak the English language; our ability to absorb different cultures is higher; our costs are not as high as in other markets. All of these are very important factors when it comes to advertising in a highly competitive environment.

South Asia, South East Asia and the Middle East have, for a large part of this year and the last, been using centralised communication resources from India to create and execute advertising. For Unilever, LG, HSBC, P&G, to name a few, this kind of brand communication has worked both qualitatively and quantitatively. So, there is no reason why advertising can’t be outsourced.

Artwork and printing outsourcing is another huge area where we will soon see a large number of entrepreneurs setting up shops. The amount of money that the company outsourcing saves is huge. At the same time, the amount of money the outsourced agency makes is also huge. So, it’s a win-win all the way.

It’s a global economy and let us face it. Sooner or later outsourcing is going to be a full-fledged reality of the business. We should be prepared for it. Today, with the Internet available everywhere, there is no reason why we can’t have a force of talented people, servicing and creating global brand campaigns that surpass the boundaries of the regions and the world.

'Nobody has proved that Ram did not exist'

2007-09-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

Vishwa Hindu Parishad General Secretary Praveen Togadia talks to Nistula Hebbar on Ram, the Ram Sethu and the VHP-Bharatiya Janata Party relationship.

You have raised the Ram Sethu issue in the past, but your point of view has got a boost because of the government's controversial affidavit, rather than the movement itself?

Our movement has got a boost from the faith of the people, not from anything that the government has done to undermine Ram. The government may have precipitated matters by its blasphemous affidavit, but the underlying anger among the people was there to begin with. The media was not aware of the movement but people have supported us fully.

What do you say to people who say that Ram is a mythical character and that he never existed?

According to rationalists, anything that cannot be proven does not exist. Therefore, since God's existence has not been proven, he too does not exist. I want to ask them: Has it been proven that God does not exist? So, why are you so eager to believe that God does not exist? To compare the history of Islam or Christianity to that of Hinduism is not fair. Those are products of fairly young civilisations, not like Hinduism, which is a product of the oldest living civilisation in the world.

You have said that the government has deliberately filed a blasphemous affidavit in court. Why?

The government filed that affidavit on September 11 and the VHP organised a chakka jam (road blockade) on September 12. Had the affidavit been filed by mistake, the government would have withdrawn it immediately. Instead, after it realised that it had offended Hindus beyond breaking point, it had to withdraw the affidavit. This clearly illustrates the intentions of the government.

The National Democratic Alliance government initiated the Ram Sethu project. Don't you think you should protest against them as well?

The NDA government had not approved the project, and I refuse to believe that it would. They, like us, have not been against the (Ram Sethu) canal, but against a channel. We too are not opposed to the project per se, but the destruction of the Ram Sethu. We are for a land route which will save the Ram Sethu. If there are alternative routes, we too are in favour of the project.

What about Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's remarks on the veracity of Ram and his engineering degree? What about attacks on his family?

Karunanidhi is a known atheist, so there is no surprise if he denies the existence of Ram. The people of Tamil Nadu will give a fitting reply to his words as Ram's appeal cuts across caste and regional lines. As for the attacks on him and the Tamil Nadu state transport bus, no VHP worker was involved. Someone engineered the attacks to discredit us. Ours is a peaceful movement. Even during the September 12 chakka jam, there was no violence.

There are other issues people have against the Ram Sethu, like the destruction of marine ecology and the plight of fishermen in the area. Why aren't you highlighting them?

We are and what's more, the fishermen at Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi, among them Hindus, Muslims and Christians, are supporting us. I have met many of them and even the communist party-led fishermen's union is opposing the Ram Sethu project.

You have said that this movement will not depend on other organisations. Are you going to keep it a VHP-specific movement?

This is not a VHP-specific movement. Over 40 Hindu organisations and many others have joined us in this movement. This is a movement for Hindus across the country.

Is the BJP a part of this Hindu coalition? There has been some talk about you not wanting the BJP to join in, looking at the way the Ram Janmabhoomi panned out, with the NDA government not doing much to build a temple at Ram Janmabhoomi.

Well, it is up to the BJP to decide whether it is a Hindu party or not, how can we decide for them? All Hindu-minded organisations are free to join us. The question of them joining the movement starts from there. For this, I am afraid you will have to direct your question to the BJP, not to me.

What if people like Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, with whom your relations are not among the best, use the Ram Sethu issue at election rallies. Would you say he is politicising it?

Narendra Modi or whoever talks about the Ram Sethu issue, whether on a political platform or otherwise, will have to examine his own motivations for doing so. For us, Ram is a matter of faith, he cannot be a political issue. But that is our stand. I cannot tell you why he will speak of the Ram Sethu, I only know what motivates me.

Much has been said about Ram as God, a man or a historical figure. What is your belief?

For me, Ram is God, a man and a historical figure. I am a practising Hindu, a believer and this comes out of my convictions. As I said earlier, rationalists only believe what can be proven. Well, nobody has proved that Ram did not exist. What crores of people believe and have believed over centuries has not been convincingly disproven. People said that Krishna did not exist, then what about the submerged Dwarka city that scientists have discovered?

What are you going to do to take this forward?

From September 28 to October 10, we will be asking Hindus and Hindu organisations from all districts across India to spread the movement, carrying with them copies of the Ramayana, the Rameshwaram Jyotirlinga and illustrations of the Ram Sethu. It will be like the Ram Shila movement all over again, with a massive mobilisation of people from all over the country.

What is the scope of this movement? Do you think that it will be as big as the movement over the Ram temple in Ayodhya?

Yes. This is going to be huge, as big as the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. Our motivation and zeal are as they were during that time and the people also appear to be with us on this. Log jag gaye hain (people have awakened). This issue will have major implications on the politics and future of the country just as the Ram Janmabhoomi movement had.

For More Info:
Source: http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/sep/25inter.htm

And the comment which made me surprised was

DMK's political twist unravelled...
by Seshadri on Sep 25, 2007 11:04 PM Hide replies

In today's "Witness" programme on NDTV, it highlights that DMK is opposed only to the "Aryan" gods... and Lord Rama, according to DMK, is one... The other Gods like Murugan, Ganesha and Shiva, Shakti are worshipped as they are all considered "Politically correct Gods"... Now, probably DMK back their concept of Aryan-Dravidan divide based on Max Muller's work... Surprisingly, the DMK do not look at the bias and controversies overlooking Max Muller's work and simply accept his theory which has proved as a trump card for their electoral battles... how clever! Another notable point is that Ravana, who is considered as a dravidan icon, is a Brahmin and a Vedic scholar, a Samavedic and an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva... DMK have hidden this point in their wardrobes! So it seems that while the DK/DMK have managed to hoodwink the guillible tamilians in their pursuit of "attaining the chair", the public, mislead by this clever political drama, are frenzied over their supremo karunanidhi and his false 'Dravidan ideologies"... Tamilians comprise the intelligent, hardworking and tolerant lot of India, but the flip side is that they are also extremely egoistic and adamant... So, now the situation is a standoff with the predominantly "backward" mass of Tamil Nadu conveniently choosing to follow the path which elevates their status, and thus are caught in an ideological dilema with having to choose between their "Salvation" leader karunanidhi and the "Disputed" Aryan concept...

Actually the point was Bizness Vs Belief.

Now the Problem has been spinned as Politically such as Aryan Vs Dravids/North India Vs South India. Bloody hell, no body thinks about the people who is living vice versa. Cant they discuss in a closed room and get it concluded? Let see who/which wins the race.

IT-Sept 2007

2007-09-19T09:50:00.003-07:00

India to help build 2nd Silicon Valley in US
This could very well turn out to be the making of a second Silicon Valley in the US. Over 40 IT software companies who have been jostling for space and market share in the Silicon Valley are now moving on to set up Silicon Valley-II at New Jersey and Chicago backed by the commerce ministry. The government and industry would set up incubation centres in New Jersey and Chicago for providing easy operational facilities to the start-ups. The incubation centres would be set up on 50:50 financial support.

“The commerce ministry has agreed to provide support for setting up the incubation centres. The industry and government would put equal money to start the centres from where any new company can start operating without actually putting up their independent facilities,”

Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) executive director DK Sareen said. “It is for the first time ever that the government is setting up an incubation centre outside the country,” he said. Apart from providing support for setting up the centres, the government would also bear the operational cost of the facilities for a period of three years, after which the scheme would be reviewed.

“Silicon Valley is saturated. New software companies were finding it difficult to get orders and so they were in search of newer markets. Places like New Jersey and Chicago provide them an alternative,” Sareen said. Plans for setting up the first such centre in New Jersey is in its final stage and the facility would be operational by January next year, he said. “We are looking at markets where we can sell our softwares. At Silicon Valley already big software producers are there, so who’ll buy our products? Cities like New Jersey provide new marketing opportunities,” Alliance Infotech vice-president Rajendra Kukreja said.

Over 37 companies from across the country, including Alliance Infotech, Intrust Global eServices, Super Infosoft and Nippon Data Systems, have expressed their desire to start business from these centres, out of which the government is in the process of finalising a list of 20 companies, as one incubation centre could not accommodate more number of companies.

TCS plans aggressive hiring in north India

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest software exporter, is planning an aggressive recruitment drive in Northern India and intends to take 3,000 at the trainee level, and offer 2,000 lateral entry by the end of the fiscal.

“The north is showing a huge manpower potential, and we plan to leverage it. The net additions for TCS this year would be 30,000-32,000 people. Of this 12,000-13,000 will be trainees, with north accounting for a healthy 25 percent ratio,” Thomas Simon, Vice-President, Human Resources, TCS said at a conference here. For the first quarter, the company’s offers in the region was pegged at 1,809, of which 70 percent came from Tier II and Tier III cities. TCS’ sourcing channels include laterals, direct trainees, campus (management graduates), science graduates, Academic Interface Programme (AIP) and campus recruitments (engineers).

Commenting on the campus talent acquisition plans for the Northern region, he said that TCS visited 41 campuses in the first quarter of the fiscal, accredited 80 institutes so far and plans to have 35 more accredited campuses by the end of FY08. Hiring would happen for positions based in the NCR region apart from Lucknow. While experienced professional hiring would be done for pre-mapped positions, the selected would be sent to Thiruvananthapuram for initial training

India OutSources to USA

2007-09-18T08:30:00.001-07:00

The Indian Embassy in the US has contracted an American firm to outsource its visa collection and delivery processes at its five diplomatic missions from October 1.

Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen said the new system will offer "speedy and efficient" service against the backdrop of a growing number of Americans travelling to India.

Travisa Outsourcing Inc will handle the outsourcing service for the embassy in the capital and the Consuls General in Chicago, Houston, New York and San Fransisco.

Sen said the outsourcing was necessary due to rapid transformation of India-US relations in recent years which has "manifested in an unprecedented growth of business travellers, tourists and other US residents to India and the introduction of several non-stop and additional travel services between the two countries".

The burgeoning cooperation in the economic, commercial, technological, educational and cultural fields and the "increasing close bonds" of the Indian American community with their country of origin has led to increasing demands for visa and other consular services, Sen said in a statement, adding "severe constraints" posed by space and shortage of trained personnel had made it difficult to provide efficient service.

Travisa Outsourcing will charge a service fee of USD 13 per visa application and offer same day collection at its visa application centres and next day service for applications received by post. It will also have a 24/7 call centre manned by bilingual staff.

The Indian envoy also said the consular wings of the missions will continue to offer services after office hours or on holidays for emergency travel on extreme compassionate grounds 365 days a year.

Sivaji - Rocking

2007-09-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

Having struck gold at the box office in India and abroad with Rajnikanth starrer Sivaji: The Boss, AVM Productions is trying to work out another foreign release in Malay and Chinese as dubbed versions.

But, playing it safe, S C Babu, CEO, AVM Productions insists that it is too early to make an announcement as the talks with foreign counterparts are still in early stages.

The movie is likely to be screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival in the first week of October and discussions are on to release the film in Japan with Japanese subtitles.

Rajnikanth has a strong fan base in Japan and the demand is backed by local fan following and not just Indians living in Japan.

According to Babu, the universal appeal of the music scored by A R Rahman along with the strong visual attraction (all those stunning sets created by Thota Tharani) are strong drivers for the demand for this movie in foreign countries.

The background score for the movie was recorded in Prague, Czech Republic, using local musicians by an American music conductor.

Sivaji has already been released in Malaysia in its original form (Tamil) and it has created history by beating the highest Malay grosser in the country.

Back home, the movie will complete its 100 days on September 23.

"The estimates of box office collections so far would be available only by the end of the month, " says Babu.

Rough estimates reported in the media so far range between Rs 200-450 crore, a number that the production house insists is inaccurate.

The dubbed Hindi version of the movie is also under production.

"Though there have been rumours about a Diwali release, we feel the festival would not be the right time for the release of the Hindi version. The reason being that the deadline is too short and also, we would look at a less competitive timing for the release. After all, the original Tamil version has already been released and tasted great success in the so-called northern markets," says Babu.

Sivaji has been a great success in markets like Julandhar, Lucknow and Jaipur apart from metropolitan cities like Mumbai and Delhi.

For the Hindi dubbed version, certain parts of the movie will need to be reshot to make it relevant to the Hindi audience. Mumbai writer and lyricist Swanand Kirkire, who wrote the dialogues for movies like Eklavya and Chameli, is writing the Hindi version of Sivaji).

The television rights for the movie were recently bought by Kalaignar TV -- the yet to be launched DMK party backed TV Channel -- for an undisclosed price.

While Babu refused to discuss the subject, industry sources said that the TV rights have been sold for Rs 3-4 crore. Under the contract, the buyers reportedly cannot broadcast movie for three years.

Despite tight controls over the prints, Sivaji has already become a victim among movie pirates.

"As long as the film is in the analog version, there is very little we can do to control piracy. With 800 prints in circulation, curbing piracy is a logistic nightmare," says Babu
Thanks : Rediff

Weekly Note September 2 Week

2007-09-11T06:05:00.000-07:00

L&T Infotech to open office in Dubai

L&T Infotech, a subsidiary of India's largest engineering and construction company Larsen and Toubro, is entering the GCC with a commercial office in Dubai.

"We have already applied for a licence to set up our regional base in Dubai and, if approved, we will set up the business in few months time," Vijay K Magapu, chief executive of L&T Infotech and member of the L&T board, said.

"The IT services businesses in the Gulf is about $600 million annually and we'd like to achieve a $100 million annual turnover in three years," he was quoted as saying by the Gulf News.

Boeing may pilot captive unit in India

The $65-billion aerospace and defence behemoth, Boeing, is evaluating a captive centre and defence sub-assembly line in India apart from capturing business across the aerospace spectrum, including manufacturing, engineering, BPO, KPO, maintenance and raw material sourcing. Boeing could take the JV route to set up its captive centre or could establish it independently.

If that happens, Boeing will join a host of multinationals, which entered India through partnerships before setting up their captive centres. Boeing has partnerships with several Indian technology majors such as Infosys, TCS, Infotech, HCL and research bodies like HAL and Indian Institute of Science in India. “Targeting over $50-60 billion opportunity in the long-term across the civil and defence aviation, and with availability of skilled talent pool, I don’t see any reason why we should not have our own Boeing facility in India,” Boeing India president Ian QR Thomas said. Ian declined to divulge further details about the nature of the captive centre.

While numbers on investments and scale of operations are still in the evaluation stage and depends to some extent on multi-role combat aircraft order apart from other defence orders, Boeing globally operates an technology integration and design captive centre in Moscow. The captive centre has 1,200 engineers engaged in mission-critical work. “Globally as far as captive centres are concerned, we go for tools, technology and talent. India has the potential to emerge as an aerospace constellation,” added Thomas.

Boeing has gained traction in both Indian commercial aviation and defence space with the US major running for $10-billion order for the purchase of 126 multi-role combat aircraft. Boeing has also submitted a proposal to develop and deliver eight long-range maritime reconnaissance and antisubmarine warfare aircraft to the Indian Navy. The Boeing P-8I Multi-mission maritime aircraft, a variant of the US Navy’s P-8A, is currently under consideration by the MOD for India’s maritime requirements.

Customer is today looking at an end solution

IBM employs more than 40,000 by far the highest among the global IT giants. Shanker Annaswamy, IBM India’s managing director talks on its India strategy.

The IBM chairman had announced $6 billion FDI last year. How is that going?

After the chairman’s (Sam Palmisano) announcement, we explained that the milestones are really about bringing investment into India both from global strategic point of view and also from domestic point of view. We talked about bringing in a very high-end system and technology lab, which will bring in tremendous capabilities of our mainframe and other servers and storages into the country. Customers can bring their technical team to network with ours. That has been completed. It is a high-technology high-investment lab.

We also talked about a research centre purely focusing on telecom. India gave us a great model through the Bharti relationship. That business model is again unique for doing telecom research. How do you do a call for two cents, or less than two cents, and yet make money was a big revelation. It is not just about pricing. It is also about how you bring an on-demand solution to this kind of a dynamic market.

Those are the stuff we are looking at. The next milestone was the high-performance-on-demand solutions lab (Hi-pods). This is the lab where really high-performance solutions are brought in and the customers can network through the lab with the entire technical team across the world. Then they can leverage that.

This lab is again in Bangalore. We have recently opened in Delhi another lab called the industry solutions lab. That is largely to address the domestic market. When we looked at the domestic market we felt we should go more and more towards a solutions approach. We are great in point products like servers and storage and stuff like that. But no longer is the customer buying a point product. He is looking at an end solution. So how do you, for example, demonstrate solutions in banking or future solutions in retail?

How do you assess the domestic demand for your services?

In the domestic market we are looking at telecom, banking, BPO, infrastructure solution, retail and government. We are building up solutions for the Delhi airport, which we won against tough competition. Real estate is another example in the infrastructure category. We are looking at retail where we have core competency. In banking, apart from core banking, we are looking at payment systems. We are also looking at branch productivity, Basel II. We announced a core banking deal with Canara Bank a few years ago. There is a huge opportunity in the government. We won the CBDT infrastructure deal, which is going well.

Very interesting things are happening in e-governance. More than 15 state governments are working on e-governance projects. The challenge is to expand them, make them scalable. If there is a treasury or land record work we have done, how can we replicate it? Then there is the SME segment. I think India’s big growth will come from the SMEs and unless we enable them we would be missing out on a big opportunity. That is why we recently launched with ICICI the SME tool kit. There is micro-financing. We are working with the Jan Lakhmi group. IBM can contribute in each of these to make a difference through the globally integrated enterprise framework.

IBM is the most visible MNC challenger to the famous Indian challenge pioneered by TCS, Infy and Wipro. Are you satisfied with the way things have gone?

From whatever we have publicly stated, we are extremely happy with India and its model. It is a key component of the globally integrated enterprise model. In the business model of IBM, emerging economies contribute to a sizeable portion of the growth. If the IBM corporation is looking at 6%-7% growth, they look at contribution from emerging markets as a certain portion, which would be high. What really impresses the corporation is the rate of growth. We declared recently that we grew in Q2 45%, which is faster than the market and therefore gaining share. And our strategic outsourcing we grew almost 150%. And, large and small put together, we announced eight deals in the first half of the year.

'We're confident Oracle will grow fast here'

India is one of the fastest growing markets for Oracle in terms of revenue, as well as being its largest research and development presence outside the US. Krishnan Dhawan, managing director, Oracle India spoke on the company’s plans.

Excerpts

India is the fourth largest market for Oracle in the Asia Pacific (APAC). What plans does the company have to make it one of the top three?

India and China continue to be the high growth markets for Oracle in the APAC region. Given the outlook for future economic growth and with continuing increase in IT adoption, we are confident that our business in India will grow fast. (According to market intelligence firm IDC, Oracle had 72 percent of the database market in India in 2006, a 79 percent year-on-year growth rate)

Though Oracle is the market leader in India in several segments, you have been losing ground in a few, especially in areas like ERP and SMB...

We have over 4,500 customers in the SMB space. Last year, we put in place a high growth city initiative, as part of which we established points of presence in the non-metro, high growth cities in India, taking our presence to over 20 cities. We managed to win over 300 new customers in the database and middleware space and empanel 70 new partners because of this.

We also launched the global Oracle Accelerate programme in India earlier this year to help take industry vertical-specific applications to our customers with the help of partners. Two of our certified partners, Zensar and EBZ Online, have launched special market initiatives to take ERP to small manufacturing companies and banks, respectively.

In addition, we are introducing new business models aimed specifically at the SMB market, such as CRM (customer relationship management) on demand and hosted ERP solutions. These will enable SMBs to benefit from the use of the technology without having to undertake large upfront investments.

What is the Emerald India initiative?

Emerald India is an initiative to identify key India-specific innovation and market opportunities and put in place strategies to meet those requirements. The launch of our e-governance centre, the launch of Think.com in Hindi, an SMB penetration focused programme, are all part of this initiative.

Any more acquisition plans in India?

We are not in a position to comment on our future plans.

In conversation with Phaneesh Murthy, CEO iGATE

When many sections of industry were facing a crisis due to the rupee appreciation, iGATE was ready to face the menacing wave. The company constantly reviewed its hedging strategies in an attempt not to be worse off than what the economic factors dictate. In an exclusive interview with Phaneesh Murthy, CEO, iGATE this newspaper found out what makes this company stand high despite the crisis. Murthy, who took over as CEO of iGATE Global Solutions in August 2003 has pioneered the iTOPS (integrated technology and operations) model in iGATE. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A), Ahmedabad and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai Murthy was a member of the board, worldwide head of sales and marketing, and head of the communications and product solutions group at Infosys.

Excerpts from an interview with Murthy

Rupee appreciation is becoming a serious concern for all companies. How has iGATE tackled the issue? What are the measures you have put in place?

We have taken several measures to combat structural changes taking place in the rupee–dollar parity and its consequential impact on our business. For over a year we have been attempting to include exchange rate provisions in customer contracts that would make material changes in the exchange rates trigger a discussion to relook at the pricing and we have had fair degree of support from customers. We are tightly monitoring the benchmark — in the last quarter alone we could improve our utilisation by over 350 basis points. Our strategy is de-risking from currency concentration and in the last couple of years we have grown our Canadian operations in North America. Our focus is to expand euro revenues in the future.

Do you see a decrease in the operating profit margin due to the rupee appreciation? How has this affected iGATE?

In the last two quarters when the rupee appreciation was the steepest, our margins were better than expected. We could recoup much of the impact as a result of the mitigating measures we undertook to protect margins. As long as the appreciation is not steep we will not be too concerned, as I believe our margins will be protected.

Out of your total inflows, how much do you hedge? Has there been a change in the hedging strategy?

We have been more closely monitoring our hedging strategies from October 2005. Since then, we have always had almost all of our forward six months net inflow of dollars hedged. Recently, we have even covered a significant portion of longer-term inflows — 12 to 24 months. We have a system of evaluating our hedging actions against benchmarked positions. We constantly review hedging strategies in an attempt not to be worse off than what the economic factors dictate.

Coming to the subprime lending crisis, how has it affected you? Ten percent of your revenue came from mortgage space a couple of quarters ago, and is down to 7 percent in the recent quarter. What is your take on this?

iGATE’s revenues from mortgage services seem to be flattening at the current levels. However, these revenues continue to be at risk in view of the on-going subprime market turmoil. The subprime loan originations in the US have almost ceased and the demand for origination services have dried up. We do not expect this to change in the short term. We would keep focus on mortgage service offerings as our delivery platform and unique pricing model would provide us the means to seize the opportunity that may arise as a fall-out of this crisis

My Fav Rapper-Blaaze

2007-08-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

Blaaze (pronounced Blaa-zay) might not be a familiar name to many of us. But the rap song B to the A to the B to the A, BABA from the movie Baba is something that you would have definitely heard. The song, which was sung by rapper, Blaaze.

A regular rapper based in Mumbai, Blaaze was called by A R Rahman to sing for the Tamil movie Boys. ''After working for the song in Boys, I was going to return to my room when Rahman stopped me on the way and asked if I could rap for Baba. I had not heard of Baba before and asked if it was for Sai Baba. He just looked and me and said 'Rajnikanth is Baba'. I was shocked,'' says Blaaze, who could not believe what he was offered. He then rushed back to the recording room and penned down the lyrics of the rap. Rahman gave it the green signal as soon as he heard it.

''I went back to Bombay and when I returned to Chennai a few days later Rahman told me that Rajnikanth had listened to the track and was very happy with the way it had turned out. I was kicked,'' says Blaaze.

Blaaze, a Chennaiite, left for Zambia in 1979 with his parents. He later went to the UK to do his O and A levels. His interest in rap began while in school. His big break came when he rapped a special song during the election of President Chiluba. ''While watching TV during the 1991 elections in Zambia, I was moved by what the Presidential candidate was saying about democracy and human rights. I immediately wrote down a song. My dad's friend saw it and took me to the TV station. They heard my song and I got my first video!,'' he says. After that he, along with his friends, started performing in South Africa. But still Blaaze's dream to see his song up on the charts did not materialise.

''I did not want to waste my time anymore, though rap was still my passion, and decided to pursue film-making. I left for Columbia University, where I did my honours in Cinema. I tried to get a job there but it did not materialise,'' says Blaaze.

He returned to India in 2000 and landed a job with MTV as Production Incharge. After two years, he quit to join Radio City. ''Everything went smoothly for two months as radio had become the big thing in Mumbai,'' he says. But overnight they decided to shift the broadcast language from English to Hindi, putting Blaaze in a fix. ''I couldn't host shows in Hindi and knew that I was going to lose my job. And that was the day I got a call my A R Rahman's office asking me to come down to record a song. I have always believed in destiny,'' he says.

We will get to hear Blaaze again when Boys releases. In the movie, Blaaze has sung a song with Vasundhara Das. Now, if you are wondering what his name means, here's what he has to say. ''My name is actually Rajesh Raman, but as a rapper I could not go around with that name. So I called myself Blaze. That's when my friend told me to add an accent on top of 'e', which he said would be more stylish!''

IT-Aug 2007

2007-08-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

Fame drives web contribution: Mc Kinsey

The biggest motivation for Internet contributions is fame and not financial considerations, says a recent McKinsey study. It suggests that online companies would do well to nurture these contributors with money and other motivators. The study conducted by Jacques R. Bughin, a director of McKinsey in Brussels, combines the results of other McKinsey research activities to reach its conclusions. Bughin says that a small number of participants still contribute the bulk of popular items on contributory web portals.

Websites that thrive on video uploads and Wikipedia-type of contributory content need to hook the small percentage of contributors who bring in quality content. It does admit that while people come in driven by the urge to achieve fame or share something within their community financial considerations can lead them to contribute regularly Bughin says: "Visitors under 25 years of age made up the bulk of the video-viewing audience we measured, but members in the 25- to 44year-old age group contributed equally to postings -suggesting that working-age people would be open to participation in enterprise settings." He says the presence of tools like ones that show a most viewed list that make it easy for users to see what's popular or to send favourite videos to friends corresponded, by as much as 30 percent, with more downloads for popular videos.

The study found that in video sites, around three to six percent of the contributors accounted for 75 percent of the videos up- loaded and two percent of the contributors accounted for half of all the popular videos uploaded. Bughin suggests that in companies where there is an effort to build up internal content through contributions from employees, the manager must identify the employees with the best networking within the company He suggests that a track of the internal mails will help executives find out the best net-workers within the company "Companies should make sure that their employees can access collaborative tools with a minimum of bureaucratic hassle," he writes.

ITC e-Choupal to focus on product traceability
ITC Ltd through e-Choupals is working on traceability of farm produce aimed at providing buyers products of their choice.

Traceability is the ability to track the origin of a product and its attributes.

Speaking here at The Custommerce meet on Friday, Sivakumar said that ITC had planned to invest about Rs 5,000 crore in e-Choupals by 2012. From 6,450 kiosks in 38,000 villages touching about four million farmers, it is proposed to enhance this to about 20,000 kiosks, spread across 1,00,000 villages to serve around 10 million farmers by 2010.

Compuware ties up with HCL Tech
Compuware has announced a partnership agreement with HCL Technologies. The partnership would focus on India's fast growing IT governance opportunities, combining Compuware's IT portfolio Management, Application Development Management and IT service Management solutions capabilities with advisory and implementation services capabilities of HCL's IT Transformation practice, Bob Donald, V-P, Partner Business Development, has said. Compuware also announced the expansion of its management team in India with the appointment of Hariharan Ganesan as Managing Director for India and SAARC.

Wipro weighs funding options for buyouts

Wipro Technologies is on the prowl for more buyouts — especially in Germany and Canada — and is ready to look at acquisition modes other than all-cash deals.

“We generate over $100-million reserves every quarter and all-cash deals are not the only mode. Funding is not a problem. We can look at equity, joint ventures or any mode that suits us best,” Sudip Banerjee, president — enterprise solutions and chief strategist — Wipro Technologies, said.

Banerjee added that cash reserves till June 30, 2007, amounting to Rs 3,200 crore, would be used for the Infocrossing deal worth $600 million (Rs 2,460 crore). Over the years, Wipro has gradually increased the value of its acquisitions.
The company started with the $10-million computer-aided design company Quantech and went on to buy the $246-million FMCG company Unza.

Its latest acquisition is the $600-million Infocrossing. The Infocrossing deal will help Wipro expand its infrastructure management solutions business. The company plans to increase combined revenues to $1 billion from $0.5 billion in two to three years.

New centres

Wipro Technologies is also planning to set up centres at university towns in the West. The first such centre in the US will be in Georgia.

“This will give us access to a ready talent pool. Such towns surround a renowned university and therefore there will be students wanting to work in the vicinity,” Banerjee said.

Happy Raksha Bandhan

2007-08-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

To all my sisters, Happy Raksha bandhan

China: Bloggers Should Use Real Names

2007-08-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

Blog service providers in China are "encouraged" to register users with their real names and contact information, according to a new government document that tones down an earlier proposal banning anonymous online blogging.

At least 10 major Chinese blog service providers have agreed to sign the "self-discipline pledge" issued by the Internet Society of China, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.

Online bulletin boards and blogs are the only forum for most Chinese to express opinions before a large audience in a society where all media are state-controlled.

China has the world's second-biggest population of Internet users after the United States, with 137 million people online. It also has 30 million registered bloggers, and more than 100 million Chinese Internet users visit blogs regularly, according to the ISC. The group is under the Ministry of Information Industry.

The guidelines, issued Tuesday and effective immediately, "encouraged" real-name registration of users, according to a copy posted on the Internet group's Web site.

The information -- to be filed with the companies, not posted online -- should include the user's name, address, contact numbers and e-mail address, it said.

Measures listed in the document were guidelines only and blog service providers were not required to comply, said an official at the Internet group, surnamed Zhu.

It was not clear whether the guideline calling for real-name registration covered bloggers only or whether it extended to people who post comments. Zhu refused to provide details.

The Chinese government had wanted to require real-name registration, but the proposal was met by "fierce opposition," Xinhua said.

"Conditions are not yet mature for implementing real-name registration as we lack reliable technology for privacy protection and identity verification," Huang Chengqing, secretary general of the ISC, was quoted as saying.

But he said service providers were still responsible for the content of the blogs. Chinese leaders often try to block online material deemed pornographic or a threat to communist rule.

"Blog service providers who allow the use of pseudonyms may be more attractive to bloggers, but they will be punished by the government if they fail to screen illegal information," Huang was quoted as saying.

The Xinhua report did not provide additional details of banned information, but other measures called for in the pledge include not spreading pornography and not speaking ill of other nationalities, races, religions and cultural customs. Bloggers also should not spread rumors or libelous information, it said.

"Blog providers should monitor and manage comments ... and delete illegal and bad information in a timely manner," the document said.

Blog service providers such as People's Daily online, Sohu.com, Sina.com.cn and cn.msn.com have said they would abide by the pledge, Xinhua reported

Thanks ENT News

ITC plans small hypermarkets in rural areas

2007-08-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

ITC on Wednesday said it would set up new small format stores in rural areas on the lines of existing hypermarket chain - Choupal Sagar - by early next year, even as it plans to ramp up its retail operations.

The company was planning a large number of smaller Choupal Sagar stores, which would have a capacity to house 12,000-13,000 units at 40 locations out of 170 across the country, where ITC runs its big format stores.

"The idea is to penetrate the rural areas where the income levels are even lesser through smaller Choupal Sagar stores covering around one acre of area," ITC Limited chief executive officer (agri business) S Sivakumar told reporters on the sidelines of CII Marketing Summit in New Delhi.

These stores would cost Rs 2 crores (Rs 20 million) each and would be set up in small towns and rural areas of UP, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, he said without disclosing how many outlets the company planned to open.

ITC was also looking for a multi-fold increase in the number of e-Choupal - a platform where villagers can access Internet - in the next 5-6 years.

"We will increase the number of e-Choupals from current 6,400 in 130 districts of the country to 20,000 across 350 districts in the next 5-6 years," Sivakumar said.
He said the company would also open around 200 new Choupal Fresh outlets in major towns of the country, including the metros, to expand its presence in urban areas.
The urban retail chain focuses on stocking fresh horticulture produce like fruits and vegetables, for which ITC has set up cold chain.

"Currently, we have three Choupal Fresh stores in Pune, Hyderabad and Chandigarh and the number is likely to go up to 50 in these three cities by this fiscal. In the second phase, ITC would set up 140 new stores in other cities including Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai," he said.
The company was also focusing on strengthening health services in rural India.

Thanks to Rediff

Really Non-Veg

2007-08-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

Coming into the bar and ordering a double, the man leaned over and confided to the bartender, "I'm so pissed off !"
"Oh yeah? What happened?" asked the bartender politely.
"See, I met this beautiful woman who invited me back to her home. We stripped off our clothes and jumped into bed and we were just about to make love when her god damned husband came in the front door. So I had to jump out of the bedroom window andhang from the ledge by my fingernails!"
"Gee, that's tough!" commiserated the bartender.
"Right, but that's not what really got me aggravated," the customer went on.
"When her husband came into the room he said 'Hey great! You're naked already! Let me just take a leak.' And damned if the lazy son of a bitch didn't piss out the window right onto my head?"
"Yeech!" the bartender shook his head. "No wonder you're in a lousy mood."
"Yeah, but I haven't told you what really, really got to me.
Next, I had to listen to them grunting and groaning and when they finished, the husband tossed his condom out of the window. And where does it land? My damned forehead!"
"Damn, that really is a drag!" says the bartender.
"Oh, I'm not finished. See what really pissed me off was when the husband had to take a dump. It turns out that their toilet is broken, so he stuck his ass out of the window and let loose right on my head !"
The bartender paled. "That would sure mess up my day."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the fellow rattled on, "but do you know what REALLY, REALLY, REALLY pissed me off? When I looked down and saw that my feet were only SIX inches off the ground!!"

2007 Notable Books for Children

2007-08-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

These books were chosen by a committee of librarians, educators, and other professionals for the Association for Library Service to Children.

Younger Readers

Once upon a Banana, by Jennifer Armstrong; illustrated by David Small (Simon & Schuster and Paula Wiseman)
My Cat, the Silliest Cat in the World, by Gilles Bachelet (Abrams)
Keeper of Soles, by Teresa Bateman; illustrated by Yayo (Holiday House)
Move Over, Rover!, by Karen Beaumont; illustrated by Jane Dyer (Harcourt)
Cork & Fuzz: Short and Tall, by Dori Chaconas; illustrated by Lisa McCue (Viking)
Best Best Friends, by Margaret Chodos-Irvine (Harcourt)
Below, by Nina Crews (Holt)
I Lost My Tooth in Africa, by Penda Diakité; illustrated by Baba Wagué Diakité (Scholastic)
Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride, by Kate DiCamillo; illustrated by Chris Van Dusen (Candlewick)
Wolves, by Emily Gravett (Simon & Schuster)
The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon, by Mini Grey (Knopf)
Lilly's Big Day, by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow)
Duck & Goose, by Tad Hills (Random and Schwartz & Wade)
Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building, by Deborah Hopkinson; illustrated by James E. Ransome (Random/Schwartz & Wade.)
Houndsley and Catina, by James Howe; illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay (Candlewick)
Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways, by Laura McGee Kvasnosky (Candlewick)
Uncle Peter's Amazing Chinese Wedding, by Lenore Look; illustrated by Yumi Heo (Simon & Schuster and Anne Schwartz)
Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur! A Palestinian Folktale, by Margaret Read MacDonald; illustrated by Alik Arzoumanian (Marshall Cavendish)
Once I Ate a Pie, by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest; illustrated by Katy Schneider (HarperCollins and Joanna Cotler)
Adèle & Simon, by Barbara McClintock (Farrar and Frances Foster)
Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet, by David McLimans (Walker)
Los Gatos Black on Halloween, by Marisa Montes; illustrated by Yuyi Morales (Holt)
Hippo! No, Rhino!, by Jeff Newman (Brown Little)
The Little Red Hen, by Jerry Pinkney (Dial)
Not a Box, by Antoinette Portis (HarperCollins)
Black? White! Day? Night! A Book of Opposites, by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook and Neal Porter)
Good Boy, Fergus!, by David Shannon (Scholastic and Blue Sky)
Thelonius Monster's Sky-High Fly Pie, by Judy Sierra; illustrated by Edward Koren (Knopf)
Scaredy Squirrel, by Mélanie Watt (Kids Can)
Mammoths on the Move, by Lisa Wheeler; illustrated by Kurt Cyrus (Harcourt)
Dizzy, by Jonah Winter; illustrated by Sean Qualls (Scholastic and Arthur A. Levine)

Middle Readers

Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas, by Cheryl Bardoe; illustrated by Jos. A. Smith (Abrams)
Ivy and Bean, by Annie Barrows; illustrated by Sophie Blackall (Chronicle)
Hugging the Rock, by Susan Taylor Brown (Tricycle)
Su Dongpo: Chinese Genius, by Demi (Lee & Low)
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate DiCamillo; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline (Candlewick)
The Adventures of Polo, by Régis Faller (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter)
All in Just One Cookie, by Susan E. Goodman; illustrated by Timothy Bush (Greenwillow)
Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship, by Hatkoff, Isabella and others; illustrated by Peter Greste (Scholastic)
Lugalbanda: The Boy Who Got Caught Up in a War, by Kathy Henderson; illustrated by Jane Ray (Candlewick)
Toys Go Out: Being the Adventures of a Knowledgeable Stingray, a Toughy Little Buffalo, and Someone Called Plastic, by Emily Jenkins; illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky (Random/Schwartz & Wade)
Families, by Susan Kuklin (Hyperion)
The Story of Salt, by Mark Kurlansky; illustrated by S.D. Schindler (Putnam)
The Year of the Dog, by Lin Grace (Brown Little)
Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything, by Lenore Look; illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum)
Rules, by Cynthia Lord (Scholastic)
Oh, Rats! The Story of Rats and People, by Albert Marrin; illustrated by C.B. Mordan (Dutton)
Aliens Are Coming! The True Account of the 1938 War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast, by Meghan McCarthy (Knopf)
Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea, by Sy Montgomery; photos by Nic Bishop (Houghton)
Jazz, by Walter Dean Myers; illustrated by Christopher Myers (Holiday)
The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron; illustrated by Matt Phelan (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum)
Clementine, by Sara Pennypacker; illustrated by Marla Frazee (Hyperion)
Here's Looking at Me: How Artists See Themselves, by Bob Raczka (Lerner/Millbrook)
The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin, by Susan Goldman Rubin and Ela Weissberger (Holiday)
She's All That! Poems about Girls, by Belinda Hollyer; illustrated by Susan Hellard (Kingfisher)
Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow, by Joyce Sidman; illustrated by Beth Krommes (Houghton)
To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel, by Siena Cherson Siegel; illustrated by Mark Siegel (Simon & Schuster/Richard Jackson)
Younguncle Comes to Town, by Vandana Singh; illustrated by B.M. Kamath (Viking)
Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon, by Catherine Thimmesh (Houghton)
Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom, by Tim Tingle; illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridges (Cinco Puntos)
Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, by Carole Boston Weatherford; illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun)

Older Readers

Crispin: At the Edge of the World, by Avi (Hyperion)
Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement, by Ann Bausum (National Geographic)
The Killer’s Tears, by Anne-Laure Bondoux; translated by Y. Maudet (Delacorte)
Ask Me No Questions, by Marina Budhos (Simon & Schuster/Ginee Seo)
The Runaway Princess, by Kate Coombs (Farrar)
Framed, by Frank Cottrell Boyce (HarperCollins)
The Last Dragon, by Silvana DeMari; translated by Shaun Whiteside (Hyperion/Miramax)
Odd Man Out, by Sarah Ellis (Groundwood)
Escape! The Story of the Great Houdini, by Sid Fleischman (Greenwillow)
Jane Addams: Champion of Democracy, by Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin (Clarion)
The Adventures of Marco Polo, by Russell Freedman; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine)
Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, by Russell Freedman (Holiday)
Penny from Heaven, by Jennifer L. Holm (Random)
Up Before Daybreak: Cotton and People in America, by Deborah Hopkinson (Scholastic Nonfiction)
Isaac Newton, by Kathleen Krull; illustrated by Boris Kulikov (Viking)
Sigmund Freud, by Kathleen Krull; illustrated by Boris Kulikov (Viking)
Hattie Big Sky, by Kirby Larson (Delacorte)
Gossamer, by Lois Lowry (Houghton/Walter Lorraine)
Heat, by Mike Lupica (Philomel)
The Pull of the Ocean, by Jean-Claude Mourlevat; translated by Y. Maudet (Delacorte)
The Legend of Bass Reeves: Being the True and Fictional Account of the Most Famous Marshal in the West, by Gary Paulsen (Random/Wendy Lamb)
All of the Above: A Novel by Shelly Pearsall; illustrated by Javaka Steptoe (Brown Little)
Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett (HarperTempest)
Larklight: A Rousing Tale of Dauntless Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space, by Philip Reeve; illustrated by David Wyatt (Bloomsbury)
Yellow Star, by Jennifer Roy (Marshall Cavendish)
Andy Warhol: Pop Art Painter, by Susan Goldman Rubin (Abrams)
House of the Red Fish, by Graham Salisbury (Random/Wendy Lamb)
Whatcha Mean, What's a Zine? The Art of Making Zines and Mini-Comics, by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson (Houghton/Graphia)
Remember Little Bighorn: Indians, Soldiers, and Scouts Tell Their Stories, by Paul Robert Walker (National Geographic)
Counting on Grace, by Elizabeth Winthrop (Random/Wendy Lamb)

All Ages

Tales Our Abuelitas Told: A Hispanic Folktale Collection, by F. Isabel Campoy and Alma Flor Ada; illustrated by Felipe Dávalos and others (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum)
It's Not the Stork!: A Book about Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends, by Robie H. Harris; illustrated by Michael Emberley (Candlewick)
Porch Lies: Tales of Slicksters, Tricksters, and Other Wily Characters, by Patricia C. McKissack; illustrated by André Carrilho (Random/Schwartz & Wade)
Solomon and the Ant and Other Jewish Folktales, by Sheldon Oberman (Boyds Mills)
Flotsam, by David Wiesner (Clarion)

Best Blogger So far

2007-08-13T10:08:00.001-07:00

The Best Blogger so far and nominated for best cause and UK Award Goes to Baghdad Burning

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Tamilnadu and India

2007-08-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

I studied Hindi in my earlier schoolings for 4 yrs, so I can read and write Hindi, however I can’t speak in Hindi at that time (2004). Though I worked in North India, I was unable to learn Hindi at that time, because of the Tamil guys who around me for all the 11 months. And I never bother to learn at that time, now also. All matter of communication made me to learn. Till the time I reach London, I never thought that Hindi will be casually spoken language among all Indians nevertheless of which state. Not only in UK, where ever in the world, the most common language among Indians is Hindi. I did realize when I start going abroad this same after travelling a lot.

Let describe about myself, tamilnadu and regarding Hindi. Tamil is the first language and English the second language in TNadu. Though capital of TN-Chennai, only a small portion of people learns Hindi in their schoolings, so they are safe when they move to other states or country. Being a remote village guy, I hear only there is a cricket match that too when the commentary is in Hindi.

I can’t only blame on Dravidian parties now for Anti-Hindi strikes during 1970's. The anti-Hindi parties, Dravidian political parties playing to the tunes in 60's. Now, not a single party wants to touch the subject. Was it a big hindrance to mainstream integration, yes of course? When talking about globalization, it is ashamed of not learning a national language. Still I can say, there is no need of Hindi in tamilnadu, until you stay. Else learn Hindi. Our states have been separated based on languages, I agree. Tamilnadu is literally separated by language. I indulge everybody to learn Hindi till the extent of communication. Bloody language is a just communication media, once you know the media is required, don’t hesitate to learn it. Local Business men stays in tamilnadu, however they need to talk to other language people once they come out of their state. I have seen lot many business people learned Hindi, so as the IT employees because of survival.

An interesting incident happened in Paris for me which really made ashamed that I don’t know Hindi, Punjabi either. Under the tower, people sell the toy towers, key chains and bla bla. I liked a Eiffel tower toy which is made up of Glass with sparkling lights, I started bargaining with an Afro guy for 12 Euros which Afro guy demanding to us to get it for 17 Euros. At the same time an India chap came with key chains and shown those chains, said something in Hindi, I got a word 5 (paanch), so I thought he is trying to sell those chains to me. I thought I am over smart and bargained with Indian guy to give 5 chains for 2 Euros. He said okay and I bought it still my wife is bargaining with Afro guy, that Indian moved for 2 steps and said with other guy that" samja nahi" yaar. I was confused what he is saying; how long a guy can act that he knows the language. Finally my wife bargained for 12 Euros and bought that tower statue, we were amazed that we got it for 12 Euros. Then that Indian guy came and said that statue is worth for 5 Euros that is what he was trying to convey to me in Hindi, by the time he acted to afro guy that he selling the chains to us.

Yeah, it is a simple loss of 7 Euros; however this incident impacted me a lot to take a ‘U’ turn to learn Hindi properly. Now I am able to read, write and talk Hindi fluently. This is my suggestion” learn Hindi, if you want to come out of the state for any reason”.

UTI to AXIS

2007-08-03T15:37:00.000-07:00

UTI Bank has rebranded itself as AXIS BANK on July 30, 2007. The Bank had used the UTI brand with great pride for the last 13 years, and has in recent years strongly contributed to the resurgence of the UTI brand. My first bank account is UTI Bank during 2000. They say the rebranding has been necessitated due to the limitations on the use of the brand after January 2008. So they decided to create a distinct brand identity for itself. Rebranding provides an opportunity to communicate elements of personality, values and vision, which are specific to the Bank. This rebranding becomes more important as the Bank takes its initial steps in establishing a global footprint.

"Axis as a name is simple; it connotes solidity and stature, and conveys a sense of authority and credibility. Axis as a brand further has the ability to transcend geographical boundaries - this is relevant as the Bank has built an initial pan-Asian network with offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Dubai, and seeks to expand further its international presence.
Graphically, in the new logo, the first stroke depicts forward growth while the second stroke signifies a solid support system. The two thick strokes also connote solidity and security.
The rest of the Bank remains the same. The same people, same facilities and the same products and services would continue to be offered to you and you can also expect the same level of dedicated service and professional expertise, as always."

All the Best AXIS

Indian men cannot be trusted in their sexual behaviour: Renuka Chowdhury

2007-07-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

Indian men cannot be trusted in their sexual behaviour and are fuelling the country’s HIV epidemic, says Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury.

“You cannot trust men or your husbands, with apologies to the men present here,” she told a meeting of the National Women Forum of Indian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS.
“If you believe that men will be careful, then you can forget about protecting yourself,” the minister said. “Men will not buy a condom when they come staggering home while drunk”, Chowdhury said, adding that women must not be embarrassed to ask for condoms.
“Women need to get condoms to protect themselves; let the men be suspicious,” she said.

India has 25 lakh people living with HIV/AIDS, the third highest number of people in any country after South Africa and Nigeria. Nearly 40 per cent of those infected are women.
Chowdhury said the opposition to sex education was morally hypocritical.
“We have a population of one billion and we don’t want to talk about sex,” she said.

“We have to be vocal on such issues. If we don’t, then it will effect the generations to come.”

// Kudos to Renuka Chowdhury for speaking the hard truth. We need more people like her in politics. I personally cant comment on this//

Worm in iPhone?

2007-07-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

I never jumped on to the iPod bandwagon. Let me assure you, I was probably the only person in Montreal not bouncing along the streets plugged into an iPod, exchanging a knowing nod with fellow Macaholics as I crossed them on the street. But that didn’t make me miss out on the phenomenon that is the iPod — the product that is poised for an elevated place in the technology hall of fame (if there is such a place). It isn’t really surprising —Mac was always considered the cooler (richer) cousin of the PC, so any product Apple Inc. came up with just had to be slicker than the rest.

Apple managed to ride the cool wave for a long time. Very intelligent and perceptive marketing is the backbone to an already impressive product — ‘Think Different,’ Apple urged us and then told us how, with the ‘Switch’ campaign that followed. The computer offered software that allowed people like you and me to produce movies, music, websites, whose quality could rival big production houses. The iPod offered new ways of organising and transferring music— and everyone wondered how they ever did without it! But now we are faced with the iPhone. Can it bring about a similar (global) Mac attack? Let’s go step by step.

Why would you buy an iPhone? (As opposed to simply salivating at the thought of owning one.) It’s the first phone that does not extend its software to accommodate extra features (for example, a music player) but instead it essentially condenses an entire operating system into a phone — a mini Mac, if you will. Its real feature, then, lies in applications that have not been introduced as yet. This means that you can do virtually anything with it, with features far beyond what a Blackberry offers.

WORLDS GREATEST DUNKER!!

2007-07-09T23:26:00.000-07:00

Tag-for a Cause!

2007-06-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

Chain Blogs for a cause!

Q: There are hazards of bloggers scribling everyday. Do we really read all those blogs?

Ans: NO.

Q: Why?

Ans: Because we are not aware who are all blogging?

Q: If we know who are posting, can we read those?

Ans: Yes, may be.

Q: But how do i know there is a new post available ?

Ans: that is the reason we are going to make a community for us. As a initial stage we need people for the forum. A forum cannot be successfull with out contributors. So, this chain blogs will intimate the people are in same wavelength and the forum will make aware those new post available. Sounds great, huh

Rules:
1. You have to invite 4 of your fav. bloggers
2. Give your tag post link as a comment in http://binarywaves.blogspot.com/2007/06/tag-for-cause.html
3. This rules must be copied in the botton of your post.
4. Intimate to your fav. bloggers by commenting on their blogs

The chain blog content:

1. What are all the four countries you have been since.
2. Name the 4 celeberities you like.
3. Name 4 singers you like.
4. Name 4 movies you like

Let me start with:
1. What are all the four countries you have been since.
UK, US, France & Scotland

2. Name the 4 celeberities you like.
As of today, Paris Hilton, Rajini, Mr. Tony Blair and Gandhi

3. Name 4 singers you like.
SPB, KJ Jesudas, HariHaran & Shreya Ghosal

4. Name 4 movies you like
Saving Private Ryan, Unnal Mudiyum Thambi(tamil), Cast away and Dil Chatha Hai

My 4 Fav bloggers:
1. Cogito
2. Chin
3. Vicky
4. India Un cut Amit Varma

Rules:
1. You have to invite 4 of your fav. bloggers
2. Give your tag post link as a comment in http://binarywaves.blogspot.com/2007/06/tag-for-cause.html
3. This rules must be copied in the botton of your post.4. Intimate to your fav. bloggers by commenting on their blogs

iPhone-in India

2007-06-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Apple Inc will launch its latest offering, the iPhone in the here (US) tomorrow. Apart from functioning as a phone, the device can function as a media player and also as a wireless web surfing device.

Officially, it will not be available in India for at least another year.

But for those who really want it, the wait might be as short as a fortnight or, at the most, a month. This is not just because of efficiently smuggled shipments but a technical ‘feat’ as well.

In the US, Apple has tied up with AT&T in an exclusive contract. This means that the iPhone will only work on an AT&T SIM card for which buyers have to sign up for an $59 to $100 a month plan for a minimum two-year subscription.

But in India, grey market operators say they can “unlock” the phone for just Rs 1,000 or Rs 1,500 so that it can be used on any network in India. “Unlocking the iPhone isn’t tough,” said a dealer in central Delhi.

In the US, the phone is priced between $500 (Rs 22,000) for the 4 GB version and $600 (Rs 25,500) for the 8 GB model. There are further variations depending upon the memory. Out in the grey markets of Palika Bazar or Sarojini Nagar, an entry-level iPhone will be available for Rs 30,000. National Market Rs 32,000.

Unlocked Apple iPhone units are expected to be auctioned off at a premium, especially in Asian markets.

//As the world gets ready for this deadline to grab one of the most sought after handsets - the iPhone - two Indian companies are also getting ready to register gains from this revolutionary offering of Apple Inc., the makers of Macintosh computer (popularly called Mac) and the iPod.

Noida-based HCL Infosystems and Bangalore-based Wipro Technologies are close to becoming the exclusive Indian distributors of the iPhone. Analysts are expecting 1-3 million handsets to hit the shelves on Friday.

A luxury product costing $499 for 4 gigabytes memory and $599 for 8 gigabytes memory, iPhone will have a large touch screen minus the conventional keypad. It will also double up as an iPod, video player and will come equipped with a digital camera.//

Sivaji-Making of Oru Koodai Sunlight

2007-06-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

Shanker started his CG (Computer Graphics) adventure from his first film itself, the Cartoon type of Dance which suited to Prabhu Deva's choreography in the song Chikku bukku was a super dooper hit all over India. He continued with Prabhu for next film Kadhalan and brought the technology from the Hollywood film Invisible man to Mukkabla Song. He the person who pulled the DTS technology to his tamil film Indian, with the help of his Friend H Sridhar. Both running a successful sound recording theater called Panchathan. Skeleton dance from MJ in Jeans, used morphing technology from MJ again for Maaya Machindra Indian-Tamil(Hindustani in Hindi), technically headed by "Maayavi" Venki.

Before getting to Sivaji making, Lets start with company who done the miracle ever in the world. The company name is Indian Artists from Vadapalani.

Indian Artists was the first to start and use digital Ink and Painting for 2D Cel Animation in South India. They foray into filmdom with the film INDIAN (Tamil). Until date, worked on the following films – Sivaji (Tamil), Anniyan (Tamil), Krish (Hindi), Gajani (Tamil), Imsai Arasan 23m Pulikesi (Tamil), Veyil (Tamil), Sivakasi (Tamil), Dishyum (Tamil), Bangaram (Telugu), Gilli (Tamil), Boys (Tamil), Dhool (Tamil), Runway (Malayalam), Enakku 20 Unakku 18 (Tamil), Anji (Telugu), Magic Magic 3D, Mizhirendilum (Malayalam), Kunjikunnan (Malayalam), Ramana (Tamil), Run (Tamil), Kushi (Tamil), Kadalar Dinam (Tamil), Hindustan (Telugu), Yuvakudu (Telugu) and Palayathamman (Tamil) and list continues. They were awarded the National Award for Magic Magic 3D in 2003 produced by Navodaya Films.

About Sivaji: Director Shanker wanted to change Rajini's wheatish complexion to a white European complexion. It was Directors brilliance and peak of his imagination. Indian Artists took this as a challenging task, because nobody has executed this type of concept in the world. To begin with, Indian artists did an in-depth study of the European complexion. They found that white skin reflects more light and has less shadow when compared to dark skin and is translucent in some areas. Therefore a simple color correction of the hero's skin would not achieve the desired effect.

For the shoot a London based young white lady with a fresh complexion and flushed cheeks was chosen and with the help of Cinematographer Mr. K.V.Anand every single shot of the hero was repeated with her because lighting conditions change in every shot. After the final edit all the 630 hero shots and 630 girl shots were scanned in 4K resolution. Each of the 9000 scanned frames ware rotoscoped to separate the body parts (face, hands, legs etc.). The white lady's skin was mapped onto the Super Star's image using Eyeon “Digital Fusion” software. Thus the Super Star got his glowing white complexion. There were two difficult aspects in this project. One was matching the girl's action with the hero's action and the second was matching both of their body proportions during mapping.

Though it sounds simple, the work involved was laborious and painstaking. Great attention was paid to detail right from the shoot until the final print. It has taken 25 dedicated CG technicians almost a year to achieve this 6 ½ min. feat.

Thanks for Info and Movies Indian Artists.