Friday, October 28, 2005

Rain Rain Go Away

The past couple of days have been very harsh on Chennai. As a person who has made Chennai his second home for 15 years now, this is probably the first time that this city has experienced rains for 36 hours non-stop. It started raining at 8.00 pm on the 26th and continued into the morning of the 28th. Most of the city was without power on the 27th. I couldn't update my blog. I used a Tata Indicom wireless phone with low battery to browse the internet to check important office mails. When i woke up at around 6.30am on the 27th to get ready for work, the it was dark and the rains were wreaking havoc. The place I live in , Tambaram has escaped the brunt of yesterday's rains and I don't know how people in the rest of the city are doing. Godspeed. The roads are pathetic. There are craters all around. The city is inching its way to normality. With Diwali just around the corner, lets hope this rain doesn't hamper the festive spirit in all of us. One thing though, I hope this rain has solved most of the city's drinking water problems for atleast a year!!

You can have a look at a slideshow here.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

The Hindustan Times take on the IIPM episode

All the events which transpired over the past few weeks have put IIPM in a spot of bother and bought out the i-will-be-silent-till-something-happens Indian blogging community to the fore front. This augurs well for bloggers in India and belies my belief that though we call ourselves a "democracy", we still have people to raise their voices to question the jerks who do stupid things and deserve to be shot.

This is what an author of the Hindustan Times had to say.

By the way my friend doing his Masters in IIPM has given his view of the entire fracas. He thinks its just hijinks from IIPM and nothing else. Neat!

Friday, October 21, 2005

President Kalam expresses concern over Google Earth

India's former Missile Man turned Supreme Commander of the armed forces has expressed his shock at the way strategic Indian installations can be accessed on Google Earth. I did check some websites and found this is true. I am downloading Google Earth to see some satellite maps for my satisfaction. You folks can check this out. This link belongs to a British newspaper and used Google Earth to zoom in on some secret military bases.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

India improves position in the FIFA rankings - right!!

India has improved its position from a lowly 134 to an even pathetic 132. Rediff.com calls this improvement. For a nation of 1 billion people, having a team of talented players backed by a lead footed association climbing up the ranking ladder to two places, towards the end of the list is appalling. Priyanjan Das Munshi, its time somebody lit a fire up your ass and threw you out. And to the Indian public, kick cricket out for the time being and shower your attention to other sports and sportspersons, they need you. And screw Sania Mirza. There are other talented and good looking tennis players who would like to be pushed into the spotlight, not down a hole.

Narayana Murthy miffed with politician, quits BIAL

So much for political co-operation. Our netas are good in one thing - mud slinging and shooting themselves in the feet. Some fat netas lack basic courtesy when it comes to making comments. Hell, these fat ass babus only think about themselves. This article appeared on rediff.com. The link to the article is here. Take a look for yourself. It represents the sad state of affairs in India's Silicon Valley after the Dharam Singh government took over. Tsk tsk.

Freedom of Speech

This is a link the whackos at IIPM have to visit. It's about Freedom of Speech you morons. One thing that confuses me is that even though India is referred to as the world's biggest democracy, we are still stuck in a time warp. This country has not evolved in a lot of areas. And one of them is respect of opinion. First the Kushbu episode in Tamil Nadu and now the IIPM episode. WTF is this country coming to? Who gave these whackos the right to file lawsuits to counter private opinion?

One of the sections in the link

"The Indian constitution guarantees freedom of speech to every citizen and there have been landmark cases in the Indian Supreme Court that have affirmed the nation's policy of allowing free press and freedom of expression to every citizen. In India, citizens are free to criticize politics, politicians, bureaucracy and policies. The freedoms are comparable to those in the United States and Western European democracies.

Article 19 of the Indian constitution states

All citizens shall have the right

(a) to freedom of speech and expression;

(b) to assemble peaceably and without arms;

(c) to form associations or unions."

Yeah right!!!

Try this

A funny mail my friend sent me.

Go to Google.com and type 'failure' in the search box. Now click "I'm feeling lucky" instead of Google Search and enjoy the results. Try this before the guys at Google find the gag and fix it.

Have fun!!

The IIPM episode

I have not been blogging for almost two weeks as I was stuck with work. I did want to blog on a variety of issues but somehow dropped the idea at the last minute. Well I am back. This particular episode has evinced a huge response from the blogging community in India. It all started when a popular website called Jam published an article on the Indian Institute of Planning Management(IIPM), one of India's so called best management institutes. This, my dear folks resulted in a shit storm. The link to that article is here. A blogger who was previously working for IBM India wrote his views on the article in his blog. Arindham Choudhary, who runs the IIPM empire saw red and used his contacts in IBM to get even-steven with Gaurav. Now, that is nothing short of being an ass. Methinks Gaurav used his freedom of expression and gave his views and every Indian is entitled to do that. IIPM's actions prompted a response from India's blogging community and is unprecedented. Technocrati, a popular blog site registred 700+ posts on the topic. Visit Technorati to find out more. You can read more on the episode and Gaurav's musings by visiting his blog.

This article appeared in Metro Plus, an newspaper magazine published by the Hindu on Thursday the 20th of October 2005. Guarav will surely go ballistic as will the other bloggers who think Arindham Choudary is made of horse shit. The link to the article is here.

`Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch' is certainly a record success story of our times. If the response of the market is anything to reckon with, Arindam Chaudhary is one man to watch out for. Having geared up for the highroad to success, he is busy bagging feats, left, right and centre. And it doesn't stop there. Take for instance his most recent exploit where he took on the Capital with four "fire-brand" communicators and a sack-full of corporate wisdom.

Extending the success of his book of corporate wisdom, "Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch", author and management guru Arindam Chaudhary has organised the Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch Power Seminar in different places across the country. "This is probably for the first time in India that an initiative has been taken by a B-school to take management dialogues beyond the realm of the CEOs and MDs. While in the past we have had workshops where CEOs and MDs have paid Rs.40,000 a day, this has been priced at an affordable Rs.2,500 per head. This seminar is an effort to take management to the masses," he said.

Chaudhary says despite being the costliest B-school in the country, his Indian Institute of Planning and Management makes necessary financial arrangements to assist the students in their studies. In addition, IIPM has tied up with Al Amin and the Ramakrishna Mission, to educate students who, as Chaudhary puts it, are underprivileged in terms of exposure.

Twelve films

Among other projects in the offing, is the plan to take IIPM to the U.K. and the U.S. Besides, Chaudhary is all set to try his hand at films again, a total of 12 projects this time. Rituparno Ghosh, Aziz Mirza and Anjan Das are among his directors, while stars like Konkana Sen and Salman Khan have been roped in. Commenting on his debut production Rok Sako To Rok Lo which bombed at the box office, Chaudhary clarifies that he got its final print one day before the release date and terms it a "gigantic mistake". But that doesn't mean he will stop counting his chickens before they hatch!

I feel sorry for one of my friend's who is doing his MBA at IIPM. I will ask his views and write on that later.