Gift Vouchers and Gift Cards

Whenever I get an invitation for any function, the first trouble that I face is, "What gift should I give?" I am very bad at selection, and I used to chose something random. Most of the time, the recipients told me that the gift was good, and I am 99% sure, they told that out of courtesy.

Some time back, when I was moving out of the team that I was working, I came to know that, the team members were thinking of some gift for me. I was 100% sure that, whatever they give, I would put it in my suitcase safely atleast for the next 5 years. But, I was 100% wrong.

They had given me gift vouchers of Crossword Book stores. Very soon, I visited the store, and spent equivalent money of the gift vouchers by purchasing the books equivalent to the double the value of the gift vouchers.

After they gave me the gift vouchers, one of the team members said, if I am going to buy a book of Rs.350, then, I can give two Rs.250 gift vouchers, and the shopkeeper gives back a credit note of Rs.150, and I can use that credit note to buy another book in 6 months time. When, he was telling that, I did not say anything to him. But, I was 100% sure that, I will never need to take a credit note, and I did not take.

Thanks to (in no particular order)

Anurag N
Krishna Doss
Parag Bhand
Praburaj Thiagarajan
Raghavendra Babu
Santosh Javagondanahalli Padaraj
Sravanthi Rajanala
Srikrishna Mutnuru
Srinivas Patnaik
Tanu Singhal

This was the second gift that I had received that was useful for me.

Gift Voucher is a very good gift that can be given to anyone who is staying in a city. Recently Canara Bank introduced Gift Cards which can be used like a credit card. That is also a very good option to give it as a gift.

Extra Storage For Mails

Those who are old enough would know that, 10 years back, yahoo used to offer 4 MB of email space, and by paying some amount, one could upgrade to 10 MB. (If you are a kid, you are reading the numbers and measurements correctly.)

At that time, I thought, why would anyone upgrade the email account? Everybody would just register another email account and forward all the old mails to that account. In 2004, Gmail started giving 1 GB, and in couple of years, it increased to 6 GB and then to 7 GB. That is a lot of storage. Till two years back, I was under the same impression that, we never need to buy extra storage for the mails, and in the worst case, we can register another email id.

Now, I have upgraded my Gmail account, and I am paying money for my personal email account. Ignoring how much I am paying for the extra space, even two years back, I thought, there was no question of paying money for my personal email account. But, it became invalid in just two years.

One famous quote that is misattributed to Bill Gates
        640K ought to be enough for anybody.

The Case Against Lord Krishna

A nun in Warsaw, Poland, filed a case against ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness). The case came up in court.

The nun remarked that ISKCON was spreading its activities and gaining followers in Poland. She wanted ISKCON to be banned because its followers were glorifying a character called 'Krishna', "who had loose morals," having married to 16,000 women called Gopikas.

The ISKCON defendant to the Judge: "Please ask the nun to repeat the oath she took when she was ordained as a nun."

The Judge asked the nun to recite the oath loudly. She did not.

The ISKCON man asked whether he could read out the oath for the nun.

"Go ahead", said the judge.

The oath said in effect that "she (the nun) is married to Jesus Christ". The ISKCON man said, "Your Lordship! Lord Krishna is alleged to have 'married' 16,000 women only. There are more than a million nuns who assert that they are married to Jesus Christ. Between the two, Krishna and Jesus Christ, who has a loose character?"

The case was dismissed.

Source: http://durgeswara.blogspot.com/2010/12/blog-post_23.html (Don't know the authenticity)

Sent by Rajesh Tiruveedula

---

One common misconception everyone have is, Krishna married to 16,000 Gopikas. Actually, Krishna did not marry Gopikas. He married 16,100 queens of different kingdoms who were captured by Narakasura. After Krishna killed Narakasura, the queens said, since, they were captured by Narakasura, and no one would marry them now, they asked Krishna to marry them. And, Krishna married all of them. Another misconception that people have is, Satyabhama killed Narakasura. It is not correct. Satyabhama helped Krishna, and she even fought with Narakasura for some time. But, at the end Krishna himself killed Narakasura.

Doctors - Responsibilities

• Drinking 2 liters of water everyday morning before brushing with empty stomach
  
• Eating sweets regularly to maintain sugar levels
  
• Drinking warm salt water in case of stomach pain
  

The above three health tips saved me from lot of pain, money and time. Unfortunately, doctors did not give these advices, but my friend and relatives have given. (one of them is a doctor, but, she has not given the advice as a doctor.)

I have met many doctors, and I have told them all my problems. All the doctors gave the medicines that solves the problem for the time being. But, none of them gave any health tips by which the disease will not come back in future. A doctor giving just an advice without medicine as the treatment is too much to expect. The doctors should give treatment in such a way that, the patient does not need to come back. But, I hardly met a doctor who does treatment like that. When I ask for the root problem, almost everyone tells in very abstract terms, which are not at all useful. I feel many doctors are not doing what they are supposed to do.

Drinking 2 liters of water everyday morning with empty stomach before brushing cleans the stomach, and many problems related to intestine would be solved by that.

If the sugar level goes down, then one may get frequent headache and feel stressed even by small work. One must maintain sugar levels for good health. Except those who have high sugar levels, everyone should take enough sugar or related products regularly to maintain the sugar level.

Courtesy: Krishnan Sundaram and Dr.Usha Rani Vinnakota

Bug in Blogger in Alignment in HTML Mode

Sometimes, in blogger, when you post in edit HTML mode, the alignment fails partially/fully. The partial/full text is shown in a single paragraph. That is due to some bug in blogger, where it stops converting the new lines to <br>. In that case, wherever you want new lines, use <br> tags yourself and don't depend on blogger for converting automatically.

Anonymous Feedback Without Anonymity

I know a company which takes regular anonymous feedback. They have enough checks to make sure that, the feedback is really anonymous. The feedback is conducted by a third party, and it contains many objective questions. The third party aggregates all the responses at the senior manager level for each question and gives it back to that company. All the senior managers and above would know the aggregated feedback, and they are obliged to publish the aggregated feedback to his/her team.

In that company, some time back, under one senior manager, for the question, Intent to stay in the company, nobody said, they would stay in the company.

Where is the anonymity in that? If there was atleast one person who intended to stay in the company, the anonymity would have been there for everyone. But, now, it is clear that the entire team under that senior manager wants to leave the company soon, it would be too embarrassing for everyone in that team.

By the way, soon after publishing the results, the senior manager left that company.

Error With %0D in Linux - Removing 0D characters in VIM

Symptom
If there is a batch file in Dos/Windows, and if it is copied to Unix/Linux and run it as a shell file, it appends %0D at the end, and the command won't work. But, if the file is opened in a text editor, everything looks proper and you cannot find any ^M characters.

Cause:
In DOS/Windows, the new line is represented by CRLF. In Linux, it is represented by LF, and in Mac, it is represented by CR. If you are getting error with 0x0D in Unix/Linux, it is due to the difference in the line terminator only. The hexadecimal code for CR is 0x0D and it is represented by ^M in VIM and other similar text editors.

Verifying:
Run hexdump on that file, and see whether you are seeing 0a0d or only 0a. If you see 0a0d, it means, it is a DOS file.

Resolution:
Easiest solution is, if you have dos2unix command, then just running that command on that file would remove the 0x0D characters.

You can remove it from VIM also. If you open that file in VIM, and if you see ^M characters, then run the command

:%s/<Ctrl+V><Enter>//g

The above command will remove all the ^M characters in the file, and the file can be used as if, it is a unix/linux file.

If you don't see ^M characters in the file, it may be because, the configuration has been set to recognize DOS files. (i.e., you will not see ^M characters, which are valid in DOS). To remove the ^M characters, first we have to let VIM to show them. For that, we need to set the file format as unix, and reload the file to open in that format. The following commands set the file format to unix and reloads the file.

:set ffs=unix
:e <filename>

If we run the above two commands, it will show ^M characters, and by running the command (:%s/<Ctrl+V><Enter>//g), those characters would be removed, and you can use that file as if, it is unix/linux file. The above commands have the scope of the present buffer, and if we reopen VIM, the file format would be reverted to the one that is set in the configuration file.

Transliteration From English to Indian Languages in HTML and Javascript

In continuation with Transliteration From English to 6 Indian Languages, I have changed the transliteration from Java/JSP to Html and Javascript.

The primary differences are, the transliteration happens instantly and anyone can use this offline without installing any softwares.

URL: http://www.tnsatish.com/translate

To access this offline, save http://www.tnsatish.com/translate/index.html and http://www.tnsatish.com/translate/translate.js in the same directory and open translate.html.

I have tested this in Firefox 3.6, IE 8, Opera 10.63, and Google Chrome. If you face any issues please let me know.

Courtesy: Cannot be disclosed. [If I disclose it, they may fight for copyright ;) ]

Corruption Vs Policies

If I have to choose one of the following

• Getting back 10 times of what we lost in 2G scam
  
• Completely liberalizing Education and Transport in India
  

Without any second thought, I would choose the second option.

Even Good People Are Becoming Bad After Entering Politics

Even good people are becoming bad after entering politics. This is one of the most popular statements one hears, whenever any new person joins politics.

I would say that, the perspective is wrong. If a good person enters politics, the general expectation from the people is, he/she will do very good, and changes the entire system. But, in practical, it is not possible, even if that person has been made as Chief Minister or Prime Minister. Because, even if they reach that position, in most of the cases, they will not get full power. He/she would be controlled by many others.

Let's take a hypothetical case. You are a very good person who wants to change the entire country. You were chosen to become the Chief Minister. From the second day onwards, you have to listen to the people who made you as CM. They ask you to do all the corrupt things. If you don't do it, then you would be asked to resign. Would you do it or resign to CM post?

All the great people did not resign to the post, and they continued. What they have done was, they listened to the controllers for whatever they asked, and fixed everything else that they have not interfered. Whenever they were forced to allow corruption, they allowed it, but, never got benefited from that. But, unfortunately, they had to face the criticisms of the bad things that happened, and media never mentioned the good things that they had done.

P.V.Narasimha Rao faced so much criticisms for all the scams that happened during his rule. Till his death, everyone considered him only as a corrupted person, and nobody knew about his real achievements. Only after his death, people started realizing that, he is one of the best prime ministers of India who saved India from bankruptcy. In his minority government, when all the people wanted to do corruption, he did not have any other option other than allowing them, but, he made all the economic reforms, which a normal person cannot understand, and saved India.

If a policy cannot be explained to your grand mother, then the opposition parties or alliance parties will not oppose it. Since, they won't get anything by opposing it. The great leaders like P.V.Narasimha Rao and Vajpayee used this, and brought many policies which changes a common man's life, but, cannot be explained to an illiterate so easily. Media takes only the points which can be explained to anyone. So, they will be left only with the corrupted activities and bad policies. They project those only which creates bad image for those leaders. That's why, many people are not aware of good politicians, eventhough there are many.

Thanks to Anija Linus.

Don't Have Any Rules

Few years back, when I was learning Sanskrit, there was one teacher, who never speaks in any language other than Sanskrit. May be she had taken a vow of not talking in any other language. But, when she is in the role of a teacher to spread the knowledge of Sanskrit, the vow would be a big obstacle. Even if she feels that, she could manage, but the students cannot manage. Among all the teachers I had in Sanskrit, I appreciated everyone who tried their best to give maximum knowledge of Sanskrit. I remember one teacher, when he was explaining one thing in Kannada, I asked him to explain in English. He asked what was my mother tongue, and I told him Telugu. Since then, he started teaching Sanskrit in Kannada and Telugu, eventhough I was the only telugu student there. I appreciate him a lot.

If the goal is spreading the Sanskrit, then talking only in Sanskrit may become an obstacle in that.

Generally, if a political leader calls the leaders of other parties, then not everyone comes. Most of the time, the main rival parties do not come. When Sakshi TV was inaugurated, Chandrababu did not go, eventhough he was invited. Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan went there, and he gave an extra ordinary speech. It was one of his best speeches. He utilized the opportunity of speaking at the inauguration of a TV channel, spoke about media, and conveyed his message to everyone. You can watch the video or read the transcript from the below links (both are in Telugu).

Video : http://www.loksattavideos.com/2009/12/excellent-speech-by-jp-sakshi-tv-launch.html
Transcript : http://news.loksatta.org/2009/02/drjps-speech-on-saakshi-tv-inauguration.html.


Some time back, Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan was invited for a meeting which was exclusively for Muslims. Many people think that, if anyone wants to abolish caste and religion from the government, then they should try to be as much away from them as possible. From that perspective, they may think that, it is not a good idea for Dr.JP to attend that meeting. But, he attended the meeting, and by the end of the meeting, all the attendees have started supporting him and understood his ideologies. If he has any rule like, not attending the meetings of a specific caste or religion, then he would have missed many people who are ready to learn from him and follow his ideology.

If anyone has a higher goal or vision, it is better not to have any rules in that.

Mindless Background Verification

My classmate worked for a company for 2 years and then she went for higher studies. After her higher studies, she joined back the same company and has been working for the last 7 years. After having experience of 9 years in that company, now, that company wanted to verify her background.

She gave her classmate's phone number with whom she studied for 1.5 years in her post graduation 7 years back. That company called her classmate and talked for 10 minutes about her and happily closed the background verification.

I cannot find more funny thing than this. If a person has been working for a company for 9 years, still do they need background verification? Working for a company for 9 years is pretty long in the software industry. If a person works for a company for 9 years, then after the employee's family and immediate relatives, the company is the one which would be knowing more about the employee than anybody else. Still, why do they need references of people who know much less about the employee than the company? Do they think that, those who worked with the employee briefly 7 years back can provide better information than the company in which she has been working for the last 7 years?

I cannot understand who comes up with this kind of great policies in the corporate world.

Quote of the Day - Change

Change cannot be given to you everytime.
You only must bring the change.




Great lines said by




Mr.Appa Rao,
Bus Conductor..! (now read again)

Formula For Job Safety

	a * {Effort spent for the Company}
Job Safety =		+	b * {Effort spent for the Manager} * (log({No.of Employees}) - c)
	log({No.of Employees + 1})

Where a, b, and c are constants.

For those who are not very good at formulas,

If you want high job safety, If the no.of employees in the company is very high, then work for your manager (i.e., do what your manager has asked, even if it is not good for the company).
If the no.of employees in the company is less, then work for the company.

Sometimes, the employees face dilemma whether to do something in the interest of the company or the manager. Manager may say something which is not good for the company. If the employee does not listen to the manager, then the manager may want to get rid of him/her, and the employee's job will not be secure. If the employee just listens to the manager and helps in implementing the bad decisions and finally brings huge losses to the company, then the entire company/project may land in trouble, and everyone in the company/team may lose job.

The control that manager has, is directly proportional to the size of the company. If the company is big, then the manager gets more control, and he/she can take decisions at his/her level, or make others to support his/her (even bad) decisions. If the company is small, then he cannot just do whatever he/she wants to do. Also, if the manager is continuously taking bad decisions, then his/her job will be in trouble.

If the company is small, and if you are not having regular interactions with the top management, don't think that, they will just listen to your manager and they do not know what you are doing.

If the company is big, and if you are having regular interactions with the top management, don't think that, they know what you are doing and they do not listen to your manager.

If the company is big, and if you work for the company, then you cannot work for the company.

Does Separating Telangana State Solve Law and Order Problem?

For those who prefers to have Telangana state just to escape this law and order problem in A.P., they should know that, if Telanagana state comes with Hyderabad as part of it, then there will be another movement for separate Hyderabad state/union territory. If Hyderabad is made as a separate state/union territory while giving Telangana state, then there will be another movement to merge Hyderabad into Telangana.

Separation of the state will not solve the law and order problem. It is better to take the correct decision rather than trying to solve the problems created by the stupid politicians.

Interesting StackOverflow Exception in C#

class Program
{
  public static void Main(string[] args)
  {
    Program p = new Program();
    p.Krishna = 10;
  }

  private int krishna;
  public int Krishna
  {
    get
    {
      return krishna;
    }
    set
    {
      Krishna = value;
    }
  }
}

In the set block, change from Krishna to krishna, and the stack overflow exception will go away.

Rankings in Cricket

When India lost a test match few months back, the statement from someone,

India does not deserve to be Number 1.

When Australia lost continuously three test matches and dropped to fifth position, the statement from an Australian cricketer,

Australia does not deserve to be in Number 5. We deserve to be at a better rank. The ranking formula is considering very old matches also.

I cannot understand these people. ICC came up with the ranking formula for the teams and individual team members by considering the matches in the last few months. It takes many things into consideration, and comes up with one number, which represents how they compare with others. If the team is continuously losing few matches and is still at number one position, it means, the team won so many matches with many countries, and these defeats are negligible when compared to the wins they had. The ranking formula takes care of all these things.

When they introduced the ranking, nobody objected to it. But, once they dropped in the ranking, if they give statements like Australia does not deserve to be in number 5, what are they trying to say? Do they want to hard code the formula that, Australia is always number 1, or do they want to change the formulas after every match in such a way that, Australia is always in number 1 position?

If anyone thinks that, the formula is not actually representing the team's rank, then they should suggest the changes in the formula. There is no use of criticizing that, the particular team does not deserve to be in that rank.

Australians do not have right to suggest now. They should have suggested when they were in number 1 position for many years. If the suggestions of the Australian cricketer had been implemented many years back, Australia would have lost number one position much before.

Quote of the Day

You will not grow if your manager does not have work.
You will not get promotion if your manager does not have time.

Typical Feedback of Software Engineer

When the developer is just doing whatever is assigned to him/her - the manager feels that, he/she should be proactive.

When he/she is proactive and taking bigger things - The controllers of the project feel that, he/she should not have done that.

When he/she is proactive just at the code level - Other team members of the project see it as a red flag, and raises to his/her manager, and his/her manager asks him/her to stop doing that.

When the developer is just doing whatever is assigned to him/her - the manager feels that, he/she should be proactive.
.
.
.
.
It never ends.

Why do we need BMW or Benz? Is Maruthi Not Enough?

Whenever few people talk about cars at length, then definitely somebody or other says something like Why do we need BMW or Benz? Is Maruthi Not Enough? Till a month back, I used to think that, it is a waste of money to spend more than the basic limit on cars. I had to change my mind after one incident on Sep 7th.

On September 7th, one engineering student who is a son of a big business magnet was travelling in Honda Accord. He was driving very rashly, and at one place, he lost the control of the vehicle and it hit the divider and fell on a Tata Indica car that was coming in the opposite direction. There were four people in that car, and two people died on the spot, and one person died after few days. The driver escaped with injuries.

But, nothing happened to the student who was driving rashly. Honda Accord has all the security measures, and even in the worst accidents, the people escape with no injuries or very minor injuries. He escaped without any injuries, but, still, he joined the most expensive hospital in Hyderabad, and took the most expensive room that hospital offers, only to escape from the police and court cases.

My friend's friend's brother is one of the three people who died in that accident. After that incident, I realized that, BMW or Benz is never a waste of money. It is just that, since, we cannot afford it, we don't buy. But, if we can afford it, it is definitely worth the money. Had those people were travelling in any expensive vehicles which have all the security measures, nothing would have happened to them.

Airtel From Best to Worst

In 2005

I had airtel internet connection, and had a normal modem. I was told that ADSL modem is better, and I called the customer care at 11 PM for ADSL modem. Next day morning by 11 AM, I got ADSL modem.

Once I returned from my home town at around 1 PM. When I came home, I realized that, both airtel phone and internet connection are not working. The reason that I came to know later was, the wires were cut, and they had to get new wires and set it up. By 3.30 PM, both phone and internet connection were working. Within 2.5 hours, they came to my house, found that, the wires were cut, they returned to office and brought wires to my house, and arranged everything. For a home connection, by any standard, it was too fast.

In 2010

If you have not bashed the customer care already from the number that you have, or if your profile looks like you are a normal person, then by default, airtel activates many services for you. For any service, the minimum charge is Re.1 per day, and if they activate three services, you will be paying Rs.90 per month. If you call the customer care, they would say that, you have accepted the service when you received the call. If you say that, you did not get any call, they just do not listen.

Recently, I took a new airtel number. After some time, I saw a message on my cell. It is not an SMS. It is like a message that is displayed after the call is ended to display the balance and expiry date etc. It said some thing like, "blah blah blah..To activate this service, click ok. To do not activate this service, click back". If anyone does not read that message or does not understand the message, they would click only ok. That is the acceptance of activating the service, and they would just activate it.

You cannot call karnataka customer care from outside karnataka. You can call only from karnataka number. If you are outside, and if your karnataka number is not working, you have no way of getting help unless you goto karnataka or you take help of people in karnataka (except airtel customer care people). If your number is AP's number, then you just cannot call customer care from outside AP, even from working AP's number.

Around a month back, I got message that, I have to submit id and address proofs. I submitted within a week, and I was still getting the messages. I called the customer care and asked about it. They said, if I had submitted the docs, then I can ignore that message. Those messages are sent to everyone, and there is no filtering of the numbers. I was moving out of AP, and one day before moving out, I went to airtel office, and asked whether I need to submit the docs again. They said, it is not required. after, I moved out of AP, they blocked my number. I could not call customer care of AP from outside AP, and the customer care people in the state I am staying said, they cannot help it. I had to call my friends in AP and they called customer care number from airtel number (from other phones, it won't work) and with lot of fight they activated it and they told that, if I don't submit the documents, it would be deactivated in three days. Airtel people misplaced my documents, and now, I had to spend lot of time and effort and take help of many other people to activate it again.

I don't think other service providers are any better. Eventhough, the service of Airtel is very bad, still it is better among the worst service providers. So, I don't think I will shift to other service providers soon. I may keep other providers just as a backup.

Cheating in Business Vs Cheating in Captial

You and your friend wanted to start a business together. You started the business informally without much legal formalities, since, you believe your friend. After couple of years, when the business is at it's peak, your friend thrown you out of the business by paying peanuts. Since, your friend handled most of the legal formalities and everything was under his name, you cannot even take him to court. Essentially, you lost everything.

How do you want to criticize him? Do you want to beat him or kill him? Please keep that anger for few more minutes.

People of different areas together developed one city and that city started generating lot of revenue for the entire state. Now, the people surrounding that city want a separate state for themselves so that, they get exclusive rights on that city, and other people will lose their share on the revenue of that city.

This scenario is exactly same as the above scenario. If you had become angry by reading the first scenario, please show the same anger on the people who are looting in the second scenario.

Don't talk Negatively

If somebody likes you so much, then don't talk negatively with them about them. If you tell them like, You will not get it, You cannot do it, or You will lose it, then that may really happen.

Anti Trust Law Against A.P.S.R.T.C

A big bank comes up with an offer that, if anybody purchases anything with their credit card, then they would get 2% cash back on the purchases. Other small banks cannot give the same offer, because, it would incur too much loss for them. With that, everyone takes the credit card of the big bank. Once, the small companies go out of business, the big bank cancels all the offers.

If there are multiple players in the market competing with each other, then the consumer gets the best deal. If a big player kills all the small players, and there is only one provider for the service, then the consumer never gets the good deal.

Anti trust law makes sure that, a big player does not kill the small players and becomes monopoly. Practically, Anti trust law is not required if there many players of equal capacity. It is required, if there is only one big player or all the big players are united.

In Hyderabad, everyday many people travel between Mehdipatnam and Gachibowli Financial District (where lot of IT companies are there). It is one of the few routes, where the no.of passengers is huge. Travelling by bus at any time is a pain in that route. During peak time, it is not even possible to enter the bus. That's why, most of the IT people take share autos to travel in this route. Few months back, suddenly, I observed the reduction in the no.of share autos in this route. I was wondering what happened suddenly. The reason was, APSRTC increased no.of buses significantly, and people can sit and travel during the peak time. I thought it was the greatest thing done by the APSRTC in years.

After a month or two, APSRTC reduced the no.of buses back to their normal. But, once in a while, I see many buses in that route, but, not everytime. After that, those who are travelling in that route by using public transport (bus or share auto) are waiting minimum half an hour to one hour.

When the APSRTC increased the no.of buses significantly, people started using buses instead of share autos. So, the business of share autos went down in that route, and probably, they shifted to different routes. Once the no.of share autos went down in that route, APSRTC reduced the no.of buses. For an auto person, who does not have any other income, he would prefer consistent income every day, rather than with ups and downs. If they are getting consistent income from the route they are traveling, they will not change their route to less consistent one. So, after the reduction of the no.of buses in that route, the share autos did not increase. Because of that, those whoever is traveling by that route are waiting minimum half an hour.

APSRTC is a very big player and it is a monopoly in public transport (in Andhra Pradesh). The share autos are very small players. When APSRTC increased the no.of buses, the share autos had to move to different route. Once they moved to different route, APSRTC reduced the no.of buses to their normal. It essentially killed the small players without increasing the service.

If this has been in US, APSRTC can be prosecuted and severely fined under Anti Trust Law. But, unfortunately, India does not have strong laws in this. If we have that law and really apply on everyone who violates it, then except P.V.Narasimha Rao, Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, all the prime ministers would be in jail forever.

Workaround for those who travel in that route

If you are going from Mehdipatnam to IIIT/Wipro/Infosys, take the share auto that goes to Kondapur, and get down at Gachibowli or Kothaguda. From there, you can take another share auto to IIIT/Wipro/Infosys. If you are returning from Wipro/Infosys/DLF, take share auto to Kothaguda, and from there, you can take to Mehdipatnam. Never get down at IIIT. If you get down at IIIT, you will be stuck, since, it is difficult to get share autos to Lingampally/Mehdipatnam/Kothaguda from IIIT. If you get down at IIIT, and want to go immediately, then the only option would be going to Infosys and from there taking share auto to Kothaguda.

This option will cost more. But, we don't have an option, since we elected the party which follows socialistic economics.

Unethical Behavior of Job Consultants

A person sent his resume to his friend in a big company for developer position. The employee of that big company forwarded his resume. The employee was told that, his resume is already there in their database (It essentially means, the employee will not get any bonus, if the candidate gets the offer). The candidate never sent his resume to that company through anyone else. Still, that company got his resume through some other sources. After few days, the candidate was called for the interview, and in the interview, the interviewer told the candidate that, they were looking only for test position. The candidate walked out of the interview, since he was not interested in the test position.

The employee of that big company forwarded resumes of few others, who did not submit their resumes to anyone. But, most of them were never called for the interview.

Whenever somebody posts resume on any job portal, there are few consultants who takes these resumes and forwards it to the recruiters of few big companies immediately. There may be some understandings between the recruiters and the consultants. By this, if the candidate is selected in the company by any means, the consultant would get the referral bonus. If the candidate goes through consultant, then entire process would be finished in couple of days, and if he/she goes through an employee in that company, it would take couple of months.

The behavior of the consultants and recruiters is causing loss to the company, potential employees, and the employees who are referring the potential employees.

Expectation Time For Promotions From Management

If the top management gives promotions to all the eligible employees in the top 20% in the annual review, and says, those who do not get promotion in 3 years are non-performant, it means, the top management is dumb and all those who are in the top management should join elementary school immediately.

Don't they know that, if they give promotions to at max 20% per year, there will always be atleast 40% people without any promotion at the end of the three years?

Acts for Rental on Agriculture Lands

In many states of India, the acts on agriculture lands are more supportive for the tenants and not at all supportive for the landlords.

If the agriculture land is given to a tenant, then the landlord would lose most of the powers on that land. Once the land is given to a tenant, the landlord cannot take back the land in many cases. In few states, the landlord can take around half of the land for farming on his/her own. In few other states, the landlord can take even half of the land only if the landlord does not have any other way of earning. If the landlord has to sell the land, then he/she can sell only to the tenant at the government price. There are many other rules like this, which takes all the powers from the landlord and gives full powers to the tenants. Eventhough the rules vary from state to state, but, overall, the rules are in such a way that, the landlord would always be at disadvantage by giving the land to the tenants.

There is another act by which the tenant can get loan from banks by pledging the crop.

All the socialists are very happy with the above acts. They feel like the person who actually does the farming would get benefit out of it. If there is any change in any of the above acts, then all the non-capitalistic parties would oppose to it.

Let's see the reality.

Since, the moment the land is given to a tenant, the landlord loses most of the powers on the land. So, nobody gives the land to a tenant officially. Everyone gives unofficially without any agreement. The tenants take the land just on word.

Since the tenants are not getting the land officially, they cannot get any loan by pledging the crop. Because, officially the crop is owned by the landlord.

The landlords get the loan from the banks for less interest (around 6% per annum). Many landlords take the loan, because the interest rate is very less. The tenants have to go to private lenders and the interest rate would be anywhere from 36% to 60% per annum.

Because of the floods or by any natural calamity, if the crop is damaged, then the tenants who made the agreements and got the loan by pledging the crop would be benefited. Since, nobody is having the official agreement, so, nobody is getting benefit by this.

Whenever there is waive-off of the loans, all the landlords get benefit, but, no tenant. Many landlords are taking the agriculture loans for personal use, and giving the land to the tenants unofficially. i.e., whenever there was waive-off, the actual waive-off was not for the agricultural purposes in most of the cases, but, for the personal uses of the many landlords.

The very simple solution for all these problems is, changing the acts for agriculture land, and not taking any power from the landlord. But, if there is any proposal from any government, then all the non-capitalist parties would oppose to it, and they make it so big issue. Since, in India, everyone including media (except two political parties and the president of another political party) sees capitalism as a crime, even if somebody wants to bring this kind of change, they would face many obstacles in implementing it.

Don't Go With Google Blindly

If you had read my earlier posts, Can I live without google? and Google Products that I use, you would be wondering about the change.

I have been using Google analytics since jan 2008. Because of the blind faith in Google, I never tried to review any other competitors. Recently, in Apparao Blog, I saw the statistics, and came to know from ranjani that, statcounter.com gives detailed results. I have tested that for my site, and it gave very detailed results. After seeing those results, I realized that I missed a lot in the last 2.5 years by sticking to google analytics. With free account, statcounter stores only the last 500 results. If we don't upgrade to premium and we need detailed statistics, then we need to download it regularly.

Gmail is still one of the very good email providers. But, there has been no significant increase in the space in the last few years. Both yahoo and live are providing virtually unlimited space for the mails, and gmail did not cross 7.x GB in the last few years. It is increasing the space just by 4.26 bytes per second. With this speed, it would reach 11 GB by the end of 2037. There has been no increase in the space (from 1 GB) in google photos, which is used by the photos that are uploaded in blogger as well. Since, my usage has increased significantly, and if google does not increase the storage space, I may have to take premium account.

I am feeling like, I am going back to 2004, when I had to delete all the unnecessary mails and mails with big attachments. In 2004, Gmail came with the advertisement that, you don't need to delete any mail, and they had buried the delete button in one menu. Now, if I get any unnecessary mail or a not so important mail with a big attachment, I am deleting it immediately.

I hope Google thinks of consumers and will not become like another Microsoft.

Land Reforms in Andhra Pradesh

Land Reforms were introduced in late 60's, and different states implemented at various times between late 60's and 70's. In most of the states (may be in all the states), the way they implemented was really bad for all the landlords.

This act caused lot of problems to many people in Andhra Pradesh. The surprising thing for me was, P.V.Narasima Rao (Who started economic reforms in India) was the main person who implemented major part in Andhra Pradesh.

When this act came into rule, effective that day, a family was allowed to have only certain limit of the land. If any family had more than the limit, that was taken over by the government and given it to the poor people who did not have land. All the land transactions and divorce cases in the last 6 months were reviewed, and in many cases, they cancelled those transactions, and did not consider those. (Few people had taken divorce for the name sake, so that, they become two families, and hence can keep extra land.)

If the government does not want one person having huge land, then they should have given enough notice to all the people who have more than a limit to sell the land to others before the reasonable deadline. If they don't sell the land before the deadline, then the land can be taken over by the government. But, government did not do it, and they had done it in (almost) retrospective.

The way, they implemented was so bad that, it caused many problems in the state. There were many families who had bought land just before the act came into rule by taking loan. After this act came into rule, the government had taken over the excess land. To repay the loan, they had to sell the remaining land they had, and finally end up losing everything. Many families collapsed because of this act.

In those days, if the land owner dies, then the legal heirs were not pro-active in registering the land with their names. Because of that, according to the documents, the land belongs to someone who had died 20 years back. But, if they were pro-active in registering, now, the same land may belong to 5-6 people. If the government goes according to the documents, and if the land crosses the ceiling limit, the government will take over the excess land. If the government allows the legal heirs to register with their names, then there may not be any excess land.

After the government took over the excess land from others, it distributed evenly to all the poor people who did not have land. Because of the distribution to everyone evenly, the land that everyone got was very less (may be in the order of 10 cents (0.1 acre) or so). Farming anything less than 2 acres of land is unproductive. The farmer cannot live on land less than 2 acres. The expenditure for farming is very huge for small land when compared to the returns. When the government distributed the land to the poor people, nobody's life got changed because of that (may be except those who sold their land unofficially and got enough money to live for sometime).

After the government brought this rule, many people went to courts, and lawyers became very prosperous. The government spent more money in implementing the ceiling act (including the court cases) than the value of the land that it got.

Eventhough government knew these things before itself, but, changing any of those would have been suicidal for the political party. So, they went ahead with their plans to save their party and finally destroyed many families and made big loss to the state.

The insider written by P.V.Narasimha Rao is an inspired life story of P.V.Narasimha Rao from his birth till 1973 (When his term finished as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh). Apart from the general politics during that time, it dealt mainly with the land reforms. He wrote this book after his retirement from politics (after he implemented free-market economics). Still, he wrote that book as a supporter of the land reforms. On a side note, his close friend Aruna in his book was Lakshmi Kanthamma.

Asalem Jarigindante written by P.V.R.K.Prasad (Secretary to P.V.Narasimha Rao, when he was C.M. of A.P as well as when he was P.M.) also has few articles about land reforms. Most of the above points are taken from that book only.

God Sent Me to Show How to Play Cricket

Courtesy: Rajesh Tiruveedula

Joke on Intel and McAfee

Intel CEO: "We need antivirus, can someone buy me McAfee?"
Few hours later,
"Done."
"Great, which version?"
"Version ... ?"

I read this joke few days back, and I could not understand it. Today, I understood it after reading the news that, Intel bought McAfee.

Unnecessary Expenditure by the Government

Recently, Government started a new scheme by which, it pays Rs.35,000 per annum per student to the corporate junior colleges as the fees for the selected poor students. Government has allocated more than Rs.21 crore for this. If the same money is allocated to improve the government junior colleges, the number of beneficiaries would increase by atleast 10 times.

Government is ready to give Rs.25,000 for an operation to the corporate hospital in the name of Arogya sri, but, it is not interested in giving resources worth of Rs.5,000 to a government hospital which can do the same operation. Government is ready to spend lakhs of rupees for an operation, but, is not ready to spend Rs.10 per person for the medicine which will prevent the disease in the first place.

Government may say that, they want to give quality service to the poor people by this. But, first government should provide basic necessities to everyone and if it has surplus money, then it can improve in other aspects. When there are many people who are not getting basic health/education, instead of providing them less expensive facilities, if government takes more expensive approach just for very selected people, that does not do any good for the state.

Mail Alerts on Way2sms - IISc Life (BhOndOO)

We can setup email alerts by SMS from way2sms. If we setup email alerts on way2sms, and if anyone sends mail to <OurId>@way2sms.com, then they would send SMS to us with the sender and subject of the mail.

This is a really good feature from way2sms. But, the problem is, the mail alerts expire exactly after 14 days from the date of activation. Before expiring the alerts, they don't give option to renew. After expiring, you will not get mail alerts till you activate the alerts again. This is one big drawback in this.

With Way2sms, we can send an SMS in future (in the next 10 days). What I used to do was, I used to setup a future SMS alert as a remainder to renew my alerts. After 10 days, when I get the SMS alert, I used to setup another future SMS alert for 4 more days as a remainder. Even then, there was a loss of alerts for few hours.

Now, I realized that, there is much simpler way. After 10 days, I can deactivate the mail alerts, and activate it again. With that, it will expire 14 days after the re-activation, and I can have another SMS alert in 10 days. With that, I don't lose even a single mail alert.

Update: With ibibo.com also, we can setup mail alerts, and there is no need to renew mail alerts. But, it sends few promotional SMSes once in a while.

IISc Life

IISc Life is a very good blog written by my classmate Rupesh Nasre. I like the stories of bhOndOO very much. If you have some interest in reading love stories or humour stories, then I would strongly advise you to read the bhOndOO stories.

After reading the story, Does she love me?, I thought, I should not delay any time in reading the stories of bhOndOO. As soon as the article is published, I should read the story. I use google reader for reading anything. But, the frequency is not high enough and SLA for reading this blog will not be met with this. I asked for enabling the posts via mail, and he enabled it. Even that did not meet my SLA. I created way2sms mail account, and I enabled forwarding of the blog mails to my way2sms email account and enabled mail alerts. So, whenever there is any post, I get mail on my gmail account, which forwards to my way2sms account, which sends an SMS alert to my mobile. I have GPRS on my mobile, and can browse from my mobile. So, except when I am in sleep, I can read the posts within half an hour after posting it in iisc.wordpress.com. With that, I have met my SLA, and my way2sms mail account is exclusively used for sending this alerts only.

Transliteration From English to 6 Indian Languages

Try Transliterate from http://www.tnsatish.com/translate.jsp.

I developed a small tool to transliterate from English to Telugu, Devanagari, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya and Bengali. This tool was developed 3 years back, when the local languages were not that much popular in google sites. Now, nobody needs this, since all the google sites support local languages. I did not want to throw away this. So, I put it on the site. You can access the transliteration from http://www.tnsatish.com/translate.jsp. If you write the text in english, it converts and shows it in the language that you chose. If you see the view source, you will also get the html (with the unicode) for that, and you can use that html in your sites.

Except Telugu and Devanagari, I have not tested other languages. If you find any issues please let me know.

English Text

harE kRRushNa harE kRRushNa kRRushNa kRRushNa harE harE
harE rAma harE rAma rAma rAma harE harE

Transliteration

హరే కృష్ణ హరే కృష్ణ కృష్ణ కృష్ణ హరే హరే
హరే రామ హరే రామ రామ రామ హరే హరే

হরে কৃষ্ণ হরে কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ হরে হরে
হরে রাম হরে রাম রাম রাম হরে হরে

हरे कृष्ण हरे कृष्ण कृष्ण कृष्ण हरे हरे
हरे राम हरे राम राम राम हरे हरे

ಹರೇ ಕೃಷ್ಣ ಹರೇ ಕೃಷ್ಣ ಕೃಷ್ಣ ಕೃಷ್ಣ ಹರೇ ಹರೇ
ಹರೇ ರಾಮ ಹರೇ ರಾಮ ರಾಮ ರಾಮ ಹರೇ ಹರೇ

ഹരേ കൃഷ്ണ ഹരേ കൃഷ്ണ കൃഷ്ണ കൃഷ്ണ ഹരേ ഹരേ
ഹരേ രാമ ഹരേ രാമ രാമ രാമ ഹരേ ഹരേ

ହରେ କୃଷ୍ଣ ହରେ କୃଷ୍ଣ କୃଷ୍ଣ କୃଷ୍ଣ ହରେ ହରେ
ହରେ ରାମ ହରେ ରାମ ରାମ ରାମ ହରେ ହରେ

Press * and 9 to copy the song

Press * and 9 to copy the song. Charges 15 rupees per hello tune, and monthly rent 30 rupees.

This is what I hear most of the time, whenever I call any Airtel number which has caller tune set. The lady tells this very slowly, so that you don't miss anything that she says. After all that, if the person is busy and could not pick up the call, then I will listen to the caller tune that they have.

I feel this is so ridiculous. We pay Rs.30 per month, so that all the callers can listen to the song we set. But, these cell phone providers give this message most of the time, which is defeating the purpose of the caller tune in the first place.

Does the leader have to take Responsibility for Everything?

Many decades back, when there was a train accident, then Railway Minister Lal Bahadur Sastry resigned. Many people praise him for that. At the same time, there are many people, who says that, if there is a train accident at one remote place, how is the minister responsible for that?

Of course, there are enough arguments on both sides. I believe, if the no.of incidents is not negligible, then the leader must take the responsibility.

Just to take an example of Railways only, there are more no.of railway accidents recently. Previously for the maintenance of the compartments, Railways used to take one week per month. Now, they reduced to half week per month with the same resources. That is one reason, why the no.of accidents increased recently. If Her Excellency Mamatha Benarjee suspends few officials, that will not solve the problem. Let's suppose, if she increases no.of trains by reducing the maintenance time, it would be her fault only. She will have to make sure that, either they would get enough time to maintain the engines and compartments, or she has to provide enough resources, so that, they can do the full maintenance in less time. If she does not provide time or resources, and at the time of any accident, if she suspends few officials, that will not solve the problem. On an average, if there is one train accident per month, she cannot say that, it is due to somebody else. She has to take the responsibility of the accidents, and take appropriate action.

The same thing can be observed in any industry. In software industry, generally, the top manager decides the technology and high level design. Sometimes, the developers do not get any say in deciding those. If the manager chooses wrong technology/design, then the entire project will fail, and most of the time, I see managers saying that, the developers are incompetent and it failed. But, only the manager should be responsible for the failure and not anyone who does not have power.

If somebody has power, then they must take all the responsibility for that.

Good Change in Medical Insurance

The health insurance companies decided to stop cashless transactions in the high end hospitals (like Apollo, Fortis, Ganga Ram, Max or Medicity) in Delhi, NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. If we see the statistics, 11% of the hospitals are consuming more than 80% of the claims. More than 50% of the claims are from the top four metro cities. [Source: Times of India]

This is one very good step taken by health insurance companies. If you go to any big hospital, and get treatment done with insurance which provides cashless transaction, then the bill would be atleast double to the actual cost that you would have incurred, if you had paid from your pocket. In almost all the big hospitals, if they see anyone with health insurance, they just get unnecessary tests and treatments, and say that, since you have insurance, you don't need to worry. Most of the time, they double the treatment cost. If a hospital unnecessarily charging more money from the insurance company, then insurance company will increase it's premium, which in turn effect the consumer. If the premium is more, then those who do not use health insurance significantly, will drop out. And, there will be further increase in the premium amount, and if it continues, finally there may not be any benefit of having insurance.

If the treatment costs a lot, and if insurance company takes a lot of time to process the amount, then typically, consumers would prefer to go for cashless transaction. If the insurance companies process the claims quickly, then it would help both the company as well as the consumers.

Generally, I don't prefer to tell anyone that, I have health insurance. I know that, the moment I say that, they charge like anything. I would prefer to pay for the treatment, and later on reimburse it. Still, I had to tell this at almost all homeopathy hospitals. Since, no homeopathy doctor tells the medicine names that they are going to give, and no insurance company is going to process the claim without knowing the medicines they used. So, I had to tell them to get the information on the medicines they used.

Nana Chudasama on Emergency during Emergency

22 September, 1975

1975 Was women's year
But all years are hers


14 March 1976

New pack of cards
One Queen
Few Jacks
Rest Blank


21 March 1977

When
Mrs 'I' Became
All 'I'
People said Good-Bye

Source: Nana Chudasama Mumbai’s Original Tweeter

Emergency - Between August 11th and 25th

The National Herald, the daily paper in Delhi started by Pandit Nehru, wrote an editorial then praising the one party system in African states like Tanzania as being no less virile than the multi-party system. The paper observed:

The Westminster model need not be the best model, and some African states have demonstrated how the people’s voice will prevail whatever be the outward structure of democracy. By stressing the need for a strong Centre the PM has pointed out the strength of Indian democracy. A weak Centre threatens the country's unity, integrity, and very survival of freedom. She has posed the most important question: If the country’s freedom does not survive, how can democracy survive?

On 25th of August, the same news paper wrote:

“The PM has made it clear in recent days that there will be no attempt to establish a one party system in this country and that she is not thinking in terms of a constituent assembly or a new Constitution. As far as the party system is concerned, the one party system, however well it might answer needs theoretically, will not be forced; it can come about only in the course of natural evolution, and at present there is no such prospect.”

Uma Vasudev, a journalist, after citing this statement of the Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi), asked L.K.Advani, "What happened between August 11 and August 25?"

His immediate answer was : “Mujib’s assassination on August 15”, he added: “That gave her a shock; and made her realize that the kernel of Democracy must be maintained.”

Summary: On August 11th, The news paper started by Jawaharlal Nehru emphasized that, there should be a single party system in the country (so that Indira Gandhi can rule without any obstacles). On August 25th, Indira Gandhi gave a contradictory statement that, there was no plan to introduce single party system. L.K.Advani says, the difference in just 15 days, is because of the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (President of Bangladesh) on August 15th.

Source: Memories of the Emergency

Obituary - 35 years back

Obituary section on 27th June 1975 - Bombay Edition of Times of India

D'Ocracy - D.E.M.,
Beloved husband of T.Ruth,
Loving father of L.I.Bertie,
Brother of Faith, Hope, Justice
Expired on 26th June.


35 years back, on the same day, Emergency was declared on June 25th 1975 at night. That was the first time, when the president has taken an important decision on the advice of the Prime Minister alone (without the cabinet). The Home Minister Kaasu Brahmananda Reddy came to know about it only after Indira Gandhi intimated to the president. All other Cabinet Ministers came to know only the next day at 6 AM during the cabinet meeting.

Potti Sriramulu's Fasting

After Potti Sriramulu started his fasting on 1952 October 19th, Nehru announced in Rajya Sabha that, if all parties agree, they are ready to form Andhra State without Madras. But, Potti Sriramulu wanted Andhra State with Madras. He did not agree to the proposal by Nehru, and continued his fast-unto-death. After the death of Potti Sriramulu, Andhra state was formed without Madras.

I have already mentioned my comments on the similar one in the interview between Vundavalli Arun Kumar and Jaya Sankar.

Bhavathah nama kim?

A Sanskrit teacher is teaching Sanskrit, and for all the students, it was their first class in Sanskrit.

Teacher: mama naama vasuvaj. mama naama vasuvaj. bhavatah naama kim? (My name is Vasuvaj. My name is Vasuvaj. What is your name?)

Student: mama naama kim.

Teacher: mama naama vasuvaj. bhavatah naama kim? (My name is Vasuvaj. What is your name?)

Student: mama naama kim.

Teacher: mama naama vasuvaj. eshah naama krishnah. bhavatah naama kim? (My name is Vasuvaj. His name is Krishna. What is your name?)

Student: mama naama kim.

Teacher: mama naama vasuvaj. eshaa naama radhaa. bhavatah naama kim? (My name is Vasuvaj. Her name is Radha. What is your name?)

Student: mama naama kim.

Later on, the teacher realized that the student's name is Kim.

Told by my Sanskrit teacher Sri Vasuvaj.

Physics Experiments - Corporate Policies

For all those who have done physics experiments would have remembered getting the results. Even if few people have not done it, still, they would have seen their classmates doing it.

For those who do not know the meaning of getting the results,

Physics experiments are to verify the theories mentioned in Physics. For example, an experiment can be verifying that gravitational force is 9.8 m/s². When they do the experiment, they observe readings in the given experiment. After that, they apply certain procedures by using few formulae and finally get the result of the experiment.

Before doing the experiment, the student knows what the answer he/she should get. Due to experimental errors, it is not possible to get the exact answer. So, (in this case) it may vary from 9.3 to 10.5. If the student does not perform it properly, it may vary from 6 to 15. So, many does reverse engineering. First they fix the final result. Generally, they don't fix at the exact value. Since, it will not look realistic. Once they fix the final result, they calculate what should be the values in the last but one step. Once they get those values, they calculate the values of it's previous step, and finally, they will calculate what the observed values should be, and write that in their records. From the observed values (not the real observed values, but the values that they got by reverse engineering), they apply the formulae, and finally they get the value which they wanted. In this process, they get whatever the value they want.

Recently, I came to know that, it is not just students, but also many companies follow this procedure.

One of the biggest software companies of India does almost the same for giving promotions. Every year, few days before their annual review cycle, they announce the criteria for the promotions for that year. And within few days, they will announce the list of the people who got promotions (whoever satisfied that criteria). If anyone wants to get promotion, it is simply not in their hands. Since, they announce the criteria at the last minute, and those who had already done those things would get promotion, and others will not. The correct way should be, they should announce the criteria and if anyone follows that for that year, then next year, they should get the promotion. But, what this company does is, they announce the criteria, and if anyone had done that in the last year, they would get the promotion. They have a reason to do like that. They have some budget, and within that budget, they will calculate how many promotions they can give. Then, they get the details of all the employees, and what each person has done in that year. Then, they will come up with the criteria, for which the no.of employees satisfy the criteria is almost same as the no.of promotions they can give, and give promotions to everyone who satisfies that criteria.

I heard that there are companies which gives ratings to other markets based on some formula. Few companies gets the formula, and just optimizes on it, and gets the best rank, eventhough their services/products are not so good. They said, it is because of that reason, why so many A star rating companies also went down during recession.

For ratings like Best Employer etc., sometimes, the organizers disclose on what criteria they provide the ranking. If a company has huge cash reserve, and wants to get good brand name, then they just work on that criteria, and gets good rank. I heard from one senior employee of an MNC that, the HR of that company worked hard on the criteria, and they became the Best Employer.

Politicians Way of Solving Problems

Chetan Bhagath has explained the way of solving problems by politicians in a very simple way in his book, The 3 mistakes of My Life.

It is like two customers go to a restaurant and the manager gives them only one plate of food. And if you want to eat, you must fight the other guy. The two guys get busy fighting, and some people tell them to make amends and eat half plate each. In all this, they forget the real issue - why didn't the manager provide two plates of food?

Our politicians do not provide enough, and within the limited resources, they will bring hundreds of acts and policies and they make people to fight each other in those hundreds of acts, and people forget the real issue that, if enough resources are provided, it would solve the real problem.

If we take higher education, government has complete control on it, and it does not allow everyone to provide services in education. There are many students who would like to study, but, there are not enough colleges for all of them. So, to solve that problem, government introduces many things and there will be many acts like the following.

• Reservations based on caste
  
• Reservations based on locality/NRIs
  
• Minority Colleges
  
• Acts for the number of seats in each college
  
• Acts for the admissions of the students in the colleges
  
• Acts for the management quota
  
• Acts for the fees structure in the colleges
  

People and political parties spend a lot of time in debating all the above and everyone forgets the root problem. If they just allow enough no.of colleges with open competition, it would solve the original problem, and the government never need to solve any other pseudo problem. But, that make politicians go out of job, so they don't do it.

Unfair Practices of Mobile Companies

Tata Indicom has started unlimited plan within their network. If anyone recharges with Rs.299, they get unlimited talk time for one month. With that unlimited talk time, they can talk for 30 minutes everyday within their network. After 30 minutes, they charge nominal price of 50 paise per minute. On sundays, they can talk for 60 minutes. If we calculate the charge in the plan, it turns out to be approximately 30 paise per minute. It is same as any other plan by any service provider.

There are many service providers who just subscribe to the value added services without taking confirmation from the customer, and enable it and charge the customer every month. If the customer calls customer care and asks them why they enabled that service, they would say that, customer received the call, accepted it, and it was enabled. There are many instances where the customer never receives the call, but, the customer care says, they received the call and accepted the offer. The unsubscription from the service is so complicated that, a normal uneducated person cannot do himself/herself. Many times, they are not even aware that, they were charged.

These mobile companies are thinking that, since the consumer is ignorant, and nobody is going to file any case against them, they can just say whatever they want. Even if anyone files case against them, still, because of slow speed at courts, and not so severe fines, the company can easily escape.

Capitalism Increases Inequality

Communists criticize that, Capitalism increases the inequality between people, and the difference between poor and rich is huge. I agree to that. Since Capitalism encourages better services/products, people who provides better services/products will become richer. If we follow communism, everybody will be at the low level, and everybody would be poor. So, there will not be any inequality in the society, and the difference between poor and rich is insignificant.

Using Multiple Messengers For a Single Account

If you are using multiple messengers to connect to a single account, then you might be facing problem with the status (Available, Away, Busy etc.). It may not set the correct the status automatically, because of the differences in different messengers. In that case, except for the primary messenger, if all the other messengers logs in invisible mode, then the status would be displayed properly. Make sure that, you are using the latest versions for all the messengers and it's plugins. Sometimes, the bugs in the old versions may cause issues in the status.

Thanks to Tanneru Kameswara Rao for helping me in this.

How to Control Corruption?

Many people suggest to do the following to solve the corruption problem.

• Speedy Justice
  
• Confiscation of properties
  
• Throwing them in Jail
  
• Getting them out of job/politics
  

While solving any problem, we have to find the root cause of the problem, and what we are trying to achieve by solving that. We should come up with the systematic changes to solve it, and not just few incremental changes. The main problem that people face (related to corruption) is, People had to bribe to get any service done. The ideal solution is, people should get all the services without any bribe. We should change the system in such a way that, we don't need to use Police or Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to reduce the corruption.

Let's take an example of Telecommunications.

Till 1999, to get any telephone connection, one had to bribe the employees of BSNL, and even after that, they used to get the connection after a month or two. At that time, the long distance STD charges were Rs.16 per minute. After the telecommunication reforms, private operators were allowed to serve. By 2003, everyone could get a phone of private operators just in 10 minutes without any bribe, and STD charge was dropped to Rs.3.50. This change was not a small improvement. It was a drastic improvement. This change has come only because of open competition in telecommunications. The private operators want profit. They can get profit, only if they provide better service to the consumer. So, all the private operators started providing better and better services, and at the end, the consumer is benefited significantly. Eventhough BSNL is a multi billion dollar company and has been there for a very long time, still the players like Airtel, Reliance and Vodafone have got more share in cell phones than BSNL. Now, how many people are bothered about corruption in BSNL?

In this reform, government has not done anything like introducing extra employees in ACB, or replacing the employees of BSNL with sincere employees etc. Government just brought open competition, and everything automatically got changed. Corruption Control and Development go together. We cannot do only one and not other. If we develop, it will automatically control the corruption. Reducing the corruption without development is not possible.

Eventhough not directly related to corruption, we have the following problems.

• The house rentals in certain locations are very high just because they are near to big companies.
  
• Traffic is a very big problem. It takes a lot of time to travel.
  
• Global warming is increasing, and we have to reduce it as much as possible.
  
• Transport cost is very high.
  

All the above problems can be solved very easily by allowing private operators in bus services. If a family can travel comfortably at any time, from any place to any other place by using public transport, then many people would prefer to use public transport rather than their own transport. Everyday, many people are getting injured in bike accidents, and many people do not like to drive for one to two hours in traffic. But, they had to do that, because, the transport is very bad. In any city, at peak time, one cannot even think of getting into the city bus, no need of speaking about sitting in the bus. There are many people who are ready to pay more than city bus price for a comfortable travel. But, the government is not providing more buses, and not allowing private operators to provide the same. If there is open competition, then the no.of buses will increase, and people will get better service, and many people will start using public transport. By that, no.of vehicles on the road will decrease, and by that, problems of global warming and traffic will also reduce. If the transport is good, and if one can reach the destination in less time, then the employees do not need to stay very near to the office, and rentals will be stabilized.

Whatever revolution we had in telecommunications, we should bring in Transport, Education, Power Supply and in every other field to develop and at the same time to control the corruption.

Many people think that, what can a common man do? Vote is a big weapon that every indian has. By voting for a party which can improve the society, they can definitely bring the change. But, many people are thinking that, how does my vote can change? The fact is, everybody is thinking like that. If everyone just votes for a political party, which can change the system, and asks their friends/relatives to vote for that party, then the entire state will develop, and there will not be any place for corruption. Other than voting for the right party, a common man does not need to do anything more to reduce the corruption, and anything less will not be sufficient.

Reciprocation - Returning Others Help

If we are getting help from someone, it is minimum courtesy to return atleast what they have spent for us, be it money or time. For big personalities, it may be difficult to return either in the form of money or time. Because, the big personality may be earning a lot per hour, and may be able to do a lot in one hour of his/her time when compared to others. If that person had spent one hour time for us, returning in any form would be very expensive. At that time, atleast if we do their monotonous/inferior tasks, and free up their time, it would be equivalent to repaying what they had spent. If they directly ask in helping their monotonous tasks, and if anyone rejects it because of the inferiority of the task, (without repaying their help by any other means), it means, they don't have any courtesy.

Punishments For Different Offences

This is taken from the book "All in One" by Omkar.

Salman Khan made an accident few years back, in which one person died. Regarding that, Omkar asked his lawyer friend about the punishment that he may get. His lawyer told him that, if anyone beats someone and makes even a small injury for their finger, it is possible to arrest that person under section 325, and without even getting bail, he can be given punishment upto 7 years. Salman Khan was arrested under section 304(A) under the cause of death of a person due to negligence. If he pays Rs.950, he would get bail, and even if he gets punishment (after many years), it will not cross more than 3 years.

Encouraging Honesty

A is getting a favour from B. A assumed few things to help B, where as B is not satisfying those assumptions. B knows the assumptions by A, and also knows that they are not satisfied. If B discloses that, they are not satisfied, then A may not help B. Otherwise, when A comes to know himself/herself, at that time, A may create problem. If B is fine with the problems in the future (or thinks that, they would be solved somehow), then most probably, B would not disclose it.

If A would like to have more information or honest relationships, it would be better if he/she encourages others to disclose those invalid assumptions with the promise that, he/she would continue doing that favour atleast till he/she gets the information from somebody else.

This kind of situations happen regularly in case of big events. At that time, it is better to maintain the honest relationship rather than hiding few facts.

Atheist Praying God

An atheist prays the god. "Hey God, I want the power to know where exactly a person is right now. I need this power to follow the girl whom I love whenever she goes for lunch, snacks, or home. If you grant me this power, then I will believe that you exist and I will start worshipping you. Otherwise, I will continue to believe that, you do not exist."

After a few days, his friend comes to know about his interest in following that girl, and gives the following advice.

Install Pidgin and SIPE plugin (replacement for Office Communicator). Add buddy pounces for her, and put alert for any change in her status. With that, you will get an alert whenever she locks her system or signs out etc. If you know her general routine and have her accompanying friends also in the messenger, then it is very easy to predict where is she going, and you can follow her.

The atheist does the same and starts following her regularly. Finally, he says the God, "Hey God, you do not exist. You have not given me any power to find where exactly a person is right now. My friend has given me a technical advice to find out where is she. But, you have not given me anything. So, I don't believe that you exist."

Cricket Is Our Religion

India is a poor country. India is a developing nation. This is what everyone says about India. But, in one field, other countries say, "Rich countries like India...". That field is none other than Cricket.

If Vishwanathan Anand wins World Championship, or Abhinav Bindra wins Olympic gold model, everyone celebrates. After few days, everyone forgets them and their sports.

If India loses badly in any main Cricket tournament, everyone criticizes our cricket team, throws stones at the houses of Dhoni, Dravid etc. After few days, everyone forgets the defeats and again starts following cricket.

How many people care that, Vishwanathan Anand won Championships of all the main types of Chess, which even Gary Kasparov could not win? Before Vishwanathan Anand, there was only one International Master. Now, we have 64 International Masters, and 21 Grand Masters.

How many people know that, Ramanathan Krishnan reached Wimbledon Semi Finals in 1960 and 1961 with 7th seed both times? He also received 5th seed in 1962. His son Ramesh Krishnan reached Quarter finals of Grandslam tournaments three times. Vijay Amrithraj reached Quarter Finals of Grandslam tournaments four times. But, people remember only Sania Mirza who successfully reached fourth round of one Grandslam.

We should not criticize Cricket or BCCI or anyone else who encourages Cricket for not allowing other sports to grow. Cricket is given very high importance, because, there are many followers to that. If everyone stops watching cricket, then the importance will automatically go down. It is just that, in India, there are more no.of followers of Cricket. So, there is more money, more importance etc. Everyone has their favorite sport, and why should somebody try to influence to change their favorite sport? If people do not change their favorite sport, then Cricket will lead for quite some time.

Cricket is our religion and Sachin is our God.

Kasab - What Next?

In the last 15 months, Government had spent more than Rs.35 crore on Kasab. At last, Court has given him Capital Punishment. Now, how long does it take to hang him?

It depends on how long Kasab wants to prolong it. Let's assume that, he wants to prolong as much as he can, then the procedure is the following.

For Capital Punishment, approval from the High court is mandatory. Kasab can appeal in the high court, and can extend the trail for few more months/years [Since his case his special, I hope it would be done in months only, and not in years]. If the High court approves the sessions court, he can appeal in the Supreme court and he can extend it for few more months/years. If the Supreme court also approves the capital punishment, he can appeal to the special court. If the special court also approves it, then he can appeal to the President. The President will forward the request to the Union Ministry and asks for the recommendation. Once the President receives the recommendations from the Union Ministry, the president will take the decision on that. Once that is also approved, Kasab would be hanged. On a side note, Afzal Guru was given the capital punishment for conspiracy on the attack on Parliament. His appeal has been in the pending state at the Union Ministry for the last 5 years. Only after the Union Government sends its comments to the President, the President can take an action.

Another story of a bollywood actor.

One famous hero of bollywood was involved in a serious issue in 1993. When he was arrested, he immediately applied for bail. Then, this is what happened/is going to happen.

For each Court in (Two courts which are below high court, High Court, Supreme Court)
Do
      Apply for the bail in this court.
      Since he is not proven guilty [Since the trail is still going on], the bail would be granted.
      Drag the trail for minimum 5 years.
      At the end of the trail, the court would give some punishment.
      As soon as the punishment is given, he would be taken to jail.
      Immediately, file an interim bail petition till he receives the judgment copy. It may take anywhere from one week to two months.
      Once he gets the judgment copy, he would be again taken to jail.
      Appeal in the above court.
Done

If he gets a good lawyer, the above procedure easily takes 20 years, and the person will stay in the jail at max a month or two. By the end of all the trails at all the courts, if that person crosses 60 years, file another appeal that, since he is too old and not healthy, reduce the punishment.

Impractical Requirements

If you have constructed a house in less than 150 sq.yards, then there is more than 90% chance that, it does not follow all the rules set by the government for the construction of house. Government specifies that, the house must have some percentage of free space, and it needs to have water harvesting facility. In cities, the houses must have solar water heater. The construction of the house (not for apartments) must be finished in one year. There are many more rules like this. If anything is not satisfied, the official can reject the house plan at the beginning or can impose huge fine after constructing the house.

Similarly, if you have a school, which is not an international school, then it is very rare that, it satisfies all the rules.

Government had set many impractical rules in many fields. If anyone wants to get something done without paying any bribe, then they have to follow all the rules, which are very difficult to follow. So, for most of them, there is no other option other than bribing.

Government does not change those rules, since changing it means, no money for politicians and government employees.

The following Dilbert strip is the inspiration for this post [Got it from Enagar]

Teaching 10 times Vs Teaching Basics Once

I have seen many teachers who are ready to teach a topic 10 times, if the student does not understand it. But, most of them miss the point that, if the student does not understand even after teaching second time, it means, there is some thing wrong. Most of the time, the student does not have the basics of that topic, and that's why he/she could not understand. The student should be taught on the basics of that topic, and then only he/she can understand. Without teaching basics, if they keep on teaching the same topic even for 100 times, they will not understand, and the student may lose confidence and then interest on the subject.

Learn Basics and Teach Basics.

Copy Right - Is Registration Mandatory?

Most of the articles that I have read says, if I publish anything that I own, that itself is proof enough that, it is copyrighted to me. Once I copyright anything, then nobody can use that without taking permission from me.

Recently, in one discussion in a TV Channel, Loksatta's Legal Cell Convenor C.V.L.Narasimha Rao told that, just publishing itself is not enough for copyright, and one must register it to copyright it. He said, just publishing cannot be produced as a proof in the court. Due to few other issues, the discussion did not continue on that line.

Few months back, I had met C.V.L.Narasimha Rao to discuss whether there can be any way, I can proceed legally for the issues that I mentioned in the article Is it Legal or Illegal?. He told me, what are all involved in any case. For the transport problem, the court would ask questions like,

how many buses are there?
how many passengers are there?
What is the capacity of the bus?
Which routes have problems?
How many buses are required in those routes?
Whether there was any complaint given to RTC for this?
What did they say?
Whether the issue was escalated to the Managing Director?
What did the MD say?

For any of these questions, if the response is negative or does not have supporting documentation, the court would dismiss the case immediately. Not only that, court does not involve in changing any act. If there is any problem, then court would just ask to solve that problem, and it does not involve in solving root problems or solving for long term, which is the duty of Assembly/Parliament.

Based on the above experience, I could easily understand the problems in filing a court case on copyright without registering it. Even if they publish it, still they need to prove that, they have created that content on that day or before, which is not trivial. Even if one person publishes a book, how do they prove that, that book was published in the year mentioned in that book? It is not very trivial. Theoretically, just publishing may be enough to copyright it. But, in practical, it may not be enough. So, it is better to register it to copyright.

On a side note, all the creations of all the employees of almost all the corporate companies would belong to the corresponding companies, and not to the actual person who created it. Since, almost all the companies write in their agreements that, all the creations of the employee would belong to the company, irrespective of whether it is done during the office time or not.

KPAstrology.org (In Telugu)

Sri Adigopula Siva Sankara Rao has developed a tutorial for Astrology (KrishnaMurthy Paddathi) in Telugu. It has all the information about KP Astrology. The tutorial is available at KPAstrology.org. For any suggestions or questions on KP Astrology, please contact Sir Sankara Rao at 93939 55000.

How do the managers force their Favorite Technologies?

A Manager comes up with some technology which he/she wants to use. He/She learns few buzzwords in that technology and proposes it.

Developers do not know how to respond to that. For any question by any developer, the manager throws some buzzword in the marketing guide of that technology, and says, with that technology, one can do everything.

Developers cannot reply to the manager, because, the manager knows more buzzwords than the developers.

When developers are not in agreement with the manager in using the new technology, the manager tells them that, it is only a proposal and not the final design.

For verifying this proposal, the manager asks the developers to start prototyping.

If the developers fail in prototyping, the manager googles the corresponding keywords and sends the top 10 results to the developers, and asks them why they could not search in google.

If atleast one developer could manage the prototype of his/her component, then the manager is impressed by that developer. If any other developer fails in his/her component, the manager asks the developer who was successful to help this developer.

Once everyone finishes the prototyping of their respective components, and if all the developers unanimously say that, this technology is not good for the product, since it is taking more time and effort, then the manager says the following:

"Why are you telling me this now? We are already in the middle of the release. We have spent lot of time and effort in this technology. If we change the technology, then we cannot deliver by the deadline, and all the effort would be wasted."

With that, the developers unwillingly use the technology proposed by the manager.

Minimum Matches To Win In IPL To Enter Semi-Finals

In IPL (till 2010), there are 8 teams. Each team plays with all other teams twice. The top 4 teams would go to semi-finals. If two teams get equal no.of points, then the one which has higher Net Run Rate would get better rank.

How many minimum no.of matches should a team win to enter semi-finals in the best case as well as worst case? Assume that, in all the matches, one team would win, and there is no case of draw/tie/cancellation.

Each team plays 14 matches. Generally, people tend to think that, if any team wins one more match than the half, then it would surely go to semi-finals. i.e., if a team wins 8 matches then it would enter semi-finals. But, that is not the case.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	X	W	W	W	W	W	L	L
2	L	X	W	W	W	W	W	L
3	L	L	X	W	W	W	W	W
4	L	L	L	X	W	L	L	L
5	L	L	L	L	X	W	L	L
6	L	L	L	W	L	X	L	L
7	W	L	L	W	W	W	X	W
8	W	W	L	W	W	W	L	X

[In the above table, for any cell, if there is a W/L, it means, the team in that row won/lost against the team in that column.]

In the above case, teams 1,2,3,7 and 8 won 5 games each. Since, each team plays with all other teams twice. In the second round also, if they win exactly like this, and there will be five teams with 10 wins each. So, even if a team wins 10 games, it is not guaranteed that it would reach semi-finals.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	X	W	W	W	W	W	W	W
2	L	X	W	W	W	W	W	W
3	L	L	X	W	W	W	W	W
4	L	L	L	X	W	W	L	L
5	L	L	L	L	X	W	W	L
6	L	L	L	L	L	X	W	W
7	L	L	L	W	L	L	X	W
8	L	L	L	W	W	L	L	X

In the above table, 1, 2 and 3 reach semi-finals. 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 have won 2 matches each. If the same is repeated in the second round also, then one of 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 would reach semi-finals with just 4 wins.