Mid December

Just another 2 weeks to go for New Years. Looks like many holidays coming up and lots of plans being made by people. Even Deep Purple is in town and the concert is on 17th December. I am sure many might go for the show. I hear that the tickets are Rs 1,200 per person. I think people will go for it as I remember that Black Eyed Peas concert was cancelled due to security threat at that time. Anyways we cannot always hide, sometimes we should have fun also.

I think the coming weekends will be entertaining as Christmas and New Years are falling on Monday. I guess there will be a lot of people who will be taking this opportunity for returning to their hometown for a small vacation. Currently not having any specific plans for New Years, but am expecting to spend some time with friends. Otherwise there is always the internet, right!!!

Entrance Exams for Colleges

It's amazing to find out that the season for Entrance Exams are here. I still try to figure out whether a student should sit and concentrate on their +2 (12th Std) Board Exams, either be State or Central board OR should be busy getting application forms filled for different Entrance Exams for colleges. The following are few entrance exams whose applications are out.

• All India Pre-Medical/Pre-Dental Entrance Examination (AIPMT 2007) application forms were out on 9th October 2006 and final submission date was 20th November 2006. The exam is on 1st April 2007 and 13th May 2007. (I find it really funny that the forms were taken so early and another thing is that the exam is on 1st April, usually board exams get over by the end of March. A small break would be really considered by the candidates.)

• All India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE 2007) application form came out on 1st December 2006 and the last date for submission is 10th January 2007. The exam date is 29th April 2007.

There are many more application forms which are to come out by December end and in the month of January. Isn't life a stressful for +2 pass outs???

Ocean's 12 Laser Dance

The other day I was watching Ocean's 12 on Star Movies and that refreshed some good memories about the Laser Dance sequence. The laser dance done by the Night wolf towards the end of the movie was amazing, especially the music. When I was searching for information on that, I came to know that the music was not available on the Original Ocean's 12 Soundtrack CD.

CLICK HERE if the above video does not work

The end credits in the movie suggest that the song used was "Thé à la Menthe" by the group "La Caution". When I searched further, I found that the same song was performed by the group Nikkfurie. I would suggest people to check out and atleast once hear the song. It is musical one without lyrics but has a touch of Arabic music. It is really soothing. The laser dance sequence can be seen on Youtube.

CLICK HERE if the above video does not work

Bad condition of some Highways

A few days ago I made a road trip from Bangalore to Mangalore. The route taken was National Highway 48 (NH-48). The amount of time taken to get out of Bangalore itself was amazing. Once on the two way highway, the ride was smooth when passing Hassan. But the moment we reached Shaklespur Ghat were the road goes downhill all the way for 40 kms was a horrible experience. The quality of the road was so bad that people needed to go a 20 kmph. Lots of potholes, forget potholes... I would say the roads would be missing from the middle as the whole Base layer of the road was destroyed. At every small distance you will find some truck or the other on the side of the road having problems with the tyres or axles. I guess if I had known earlier about the bad conditions of the road, I might have flown to Mangalore or atleast taken an alternate route. I am sure lots of transport companies have been suffering because of that section of the highway. The government should start spending some time fixing up the essential highways.

Performance of Shatabdi Trains

These are the train tickets from Bangalore to Katpadi and back. I had gone to visit my college VIT and had taken Shatabdi Express.

The only thing I needed to understand was why the prices varied as the distance was same. For Shatabdi, the place from where the ticket is purchased is also taken into consideration. Anyways Shatabdi services are good, as the whole train is A/C and has Chair car and Executive chair class only. Food is provided accordingly, like breakfast for the morning trains and dinner for the night train. Drinking water bottles are also provided which are kept cold. The new features introduced were the announcement of the upcoming stations over the speakers which have been provided in each car. This has helped a lot for passengers. Also people have been using the Mobile Charging sockets a lot as you can find them crowded, who knows the railway people might have to put up more sockets.

Finally the only thing I can say about the travelling experience by Shatabdi is that it was good and nice experience. I guess the trains still have lot of competition with the airline industry but still the railways have not been making any loses.

CNBC: News on the Loose

This is a 3 minute program which comes on CNBC TV-18 from Monday to Friday. But I watch it on weekends when they sum up the whole weeks news. The weekend show is at 8:30 pm IST or at midnight. The anchor of the show is Vir Das and he has some other colleagues along with him to make parodies out of the week's news. It is really good for giving a hearty laugh. The original idea comes from the American show of Comedy Central - The Daily show with Ron Stewart. It is a must see show, give it a try once.

New VIT Main gate

Last week I had visited my college and found some new changes or developments. First of all, the main gate had been modified. This picture shows the left side of the gate. The gate is pretty huge to show on one pic. Even my seniors find themselves lost if they show up in college as it has changed a lot. Lots of new staffs and buildings. I guess this is how things work. Hope these new pictures will help.

This picture shows the right side of the gate. Nearly similar to the left side.

O-zone - Dragostea Din Tei

"Dragostea Din Tei" sung by the Romanian pop band "O-Zone" has some great music and lyrics. I hope people have time to check it out, they can watch the video on YouTube. The original video from the Album can be seen HERE. The original lyrics of the song can be seen on THIS website. Also there is an English version, the lyrics for that can be found HERE.

But this song became more popular because of a guy lip-synching the song energetically over his webcam and posting it on the Internet on the site "Newgrounds" in 2004. It had a record views of 13 million. That video became more popular and was known as the "Numa Numa Dance" video. It was performed by some 19 year old amateur Gary Brolsma. For viewing that video click HERE. This video is now been posted over many sites including YouTube. The amazing thing about this video is that it created something known as the Numa Numa Phenomenon. It is also sometime considered as an Internet Parody.

Based on this many more videos have come up with the same song posted by different internet users with Webcams including a competition for $45,000 for the best Numa Numa Dance video.

Name change for Cities

The Karnataka government has finally decided to implement the name change of Bangalore to Bengalooru from November 1st. But this is not the only city changing, along with Bangalore 6 other cities are having their names changed. Following is the name list:

• Bangalore --> Bangalooru
• Mangalore --> Mangalooru
• Mysore --> Mysooru
• Belgaum --> Belagaavi
• Hubli --> Hubballi
• Shimoga --> Shivamogga
• Hospet --> Hosapete

So looks like this is finally happening. There is always a habit of copy, so I am guessing their will be many more states in India which will try changing more names of cities. Hope with the name change, the government will be able to improve the infrastructure of these cities as well.

Traffic & IT funny signs

One of my friend's forwarded these funny signs pictures and I really enjoyed some of these. The source of the below image is unknown but I am sure this can work in Bangalore unless or otherwise some steal it from the street.

The next funny sign is amazing for hiring programmers. This is an amazing idea as one needs to do some simple calculations to obtain the phone number of the company. Ofcourse the sign did provide with multiple leaves with the equation to obtain the phone number. People can take them and work them out later on or even if they forgot the number.

The last one is for those who want trespassers off their property. I am also guessing that this sign could have been posted by the people who are selling German Shepards.

Ya Ali (or is it) Ya Ghali

I was compelled to write about this topic. When the music release of the Hindi Bollywood movie 'Gangster' took place in the start of 2006, its songs became quite popular. My friends used to drop by and tell me how great one of its songs 'Ya Ali' was. That's when I used to put the song 'Ya Ghali' and ask them to give me their opinion. They use to say that the song sounds like 'Ya Ali' and they wanted to know who had copied it already. Even the truth takes time to hit the masses. I used to tell them that I had this song since 2002. At that time their reactions were worth watching, but now any reaction is not available as many songs are getting lifted.

The song 'Ya Ghali' is one of the songs from the Album 'Qassati' made by a Kuwaiti group - 'Guitara' which was released in the year 2002. The lead singer of the band Fahad Shammoh was shocked when he got to see the song 'Ya Ali' being played on the TV. The music company that owns the rights of this Arabic song is owned by Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal who belongs from the Saudi Arabian Royal Family. He is the 8th Richest man in the world with net worth of $20 Billion. The Saudi Prince has sued the Music composer of 'Ya Ali' song and the case is in progress. The video of the song can be viewed on YouTube by clicking Here.

The music composer, Pritam who created the 'Ya Ali' song denies getting the inspiration from the Arabic song and says that he didn't know this song even existed. The song introduces /debuts Assamese singer Zubeen Garg. Zubeen says that he knew about the original song but adds that it's not being completely copied. The song's lyrics are written by Sayeed Qadri.

Many other songs have been considered to be copied by Pritam and they can be found on the internet also. Click Here to go to the website. Another example is the song 'Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai' from the movie 'Woh Lamhe' is a lift from the Indonesian band 'Peterpan' and their song 'Tak Bisakah'. This song is already popular in Indonesia and known to people. Also this song is an OST track for the movie 'Alexandria'.

One of my friend's Blog

Hi all, I just wanted to talk about blogs written by others. I have a friend of mine who also writes a blog but his contents mostly contains reviews of Hindi Bollywood movies. He is a fan of Bollywood movies and gives quite a good information on the movies and song releases. If possible he might mention even where you can get to hear the song on the net.

The link of the site in Here. Give it a try, no harm in doing so.

Awesome Animated Website

One of my friends send me a link of a webpage. I ended up liking it a lot. The website is known as Aninote.com . The site gives all the details required and how to modify to suit for oneself. Some of my favorite animated pages are as below:

For friends: Click Here

To praise someone for their great qualities: Click Here

I guess their are a lot of websites on the internet which are fun and just need to be discovered and mentioned to others. I hope I can mention some other good ones soon.

Teacher's Day

It funny to know that today, 5th September is celebrated in India as Teacher's day. It's funny as many don't know the reason for that. This date corresponds to the Birthday of a famous teacher who also became the 2nd president of India, Dr. Radhakrishnan. It started off in 1962 when some of his students wanted to celebrate his birthday. He suggested that instead of celebrating only his birthday why not celebrate a day for all the teachers. Teachers have contributed a lot to a student's life and also the students want to remember and respect their teachers. What better than a particular day to spend time remembering some good times.

By chance yesterday I met a teacher at the airport who taught me Hindi in school from 1992 to 1995. She was really amazed that I recoginised her and more astonished for me remembering her. I cannot tell what others think about there teachers but I remember most of them who taught me throughout my life as they have spent time in improving me in making me a better person. I do hold them in high respect for the contributions they made including the times they complained my parents about my bad performance in school or regarding my talkative nature which got me into trouble a lot of times. I still drop by my school whenever i am in the neighbourhood to pay my respects to the teachers who had taught me.

Air traffic jam

The other day I was at HAL airport or generally known as Bangalore airport. They have been quite busy in modifying the international departure terminal, making it look better and moving the luggage check-in counters to the ground floor. Anyways that doesn't change the fact that the airport is under heavy pressure for upgradation. Unlike most airports around the country, this airport has one runway which has to bear the load of Domestic and International flights, Cargo, Chartered flights used by politicans and businessmen and ofcourse you cannot forget the main users to whom the airport belongs to HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited).

On that beautiful day when the weather was plesant, the Airbus 320 which was scheduled to leave on time at 10 am was asked to wait for 15-20 minutes as they were put on a queue for takeoff. There position was number 9 on the queue. By the way this particular Airbus belonged to the Srilankan Airlines fleet which was headed from Bangalore to Columbo. When the 20 minutes were up, the pilot agained announced that there would be another 15-20 minutes delay as the air traffic was heavy. This did make me realise one thing that Bangalore has made itself well known for Traffic delays on road and now ofcourse even in air. Finally when these 20 minutes ended, the plane was reversed and asked to wait on the supporting runway behind 2 other planes - one AirDeccan and the other Jet Airways. Anyways it took another 15 minutes for takeoff during which 3 planes were landed and the preceding 2 planes were made to takeoff. When this plane taxied the runway, I could see another 4 flights waiting on the supporting runway for takeoff.

Even with the heavy pressure for the completion of the new Bangalore International Airport since the early 90s is showing slow progress. Atleast I really appreciate the work the Air Traffic Controllers at Bangalore HAL Airport are doing to keep things moving under so much pressure. I am hoping that day will come soon when their pressure is reduced with the completion of the International airport.

Fancy inauguration

This weekend presented me an opportunity to see some fancy inauguration of a new showroom opposite to the backside of Forum (KFC side). This happened specifically on Saturday evening when I dropped into Forum for a snack and found loud music and laser lights being projected at Forum from the new showroom called @HOME. The green laser lights reminded me of J.Lo's video "Waiting for tonight" and it would have been a really intentional coincidence if they were playing the same song. This showroom is a 4 storey building with furnitures on display and the laser projectors were on the roof-top pointing towards the people in Forum. The music was pretty loud as it could be heard even inside Forum. This style of inauguration did succeed as I could see a lot of people outside Forum and many checking out the showroom. I wasn't expecting this kind of pulicity in India but then again if it doesn't happen in Bangalore then where else will it take place first.

Been a long while

It's been a long time since I put up some posts on the blog. I have kept myself away from the blogs for a long time. Anyways I will be updating on some things. Let's hope this doesn't tire anyone from reading.

Signboards of these days

My friend when returning back home found this sign put up infront of a shop. Seeing this sign he couldn't help but take a snap from his cellphone. Who says camera cellphones don't come in handy? This statement of "Buy one Take one free" is an awesome technique of making people to stop for a moment and check it out. I really could doubt about this being a mistake as for a Shopkeeper 2 words are always embedded in their minds - Buy or Sell. There are many more tacky lines which capturing people's view for a few minutes. It's just that we need to stop for a moment and look.

Services to improve by BMTC

The famous BMTC - Bangalore Metropolitian Transport Corporation which has a very high success rate compared to its counterparts in Mumbai and Delhi has been working very hard. They have been improving there services and facilities as they might little later on stand in competition with the Metro Rail which should be function by 2009 and fully active by 2013 (If no delays are seen). Until then BMTC is really working out their options.

Recently they have started off with the Volvo bus service within the city for some 5 routes. Mainly catering the ITPL area in Whitefield and also Electronic City from Kempegowda Bus Station near the City Railway Station. It has shown a great response among people due to the congested and polluted air on the streets. This has let BMTC to increase the amount of round trips on a route. I guess things are really looking up for Bangaloreans who wish to have an A/C feel on the streets of Bangalore.

There has been some improvement with the new buses which are completly in Blue. These buses have mentioned major bus stoppages on the side of the bus in English and Kannada. This is amazing as most of the buses have only Kannada writing on the top of the buses. These could easily improve over a period of time. In this city the bus transportation is going to play a major factor even in the future. One should travel during the early hours to really enjoy a bus trip as it avoid crowding in the bus and can get people to the destination on time due to the traffic problems.

Fifa World Cup 2006

The Fifa World cup has taken everything by storm. This times Fifa World cup which is in Germany and 12 stadiums has been chosen in which 64 matches will take place. Even Fifa has Yahoo as the official Internet Sponsor and the official Website is FIFA WORLD CUP 2006.

In India this World cup is more popular as the media has been covering it heavily with news on the front page and ofcourse the dedicated Sports pages for the Fifa World Cup. Everyone has been talking about the matches and have been showing their support for one team or the another. This is really in contrast to the fanatic nature shown for Cricket in India. I hope that due this enthusiastic response shown by people towards the game of football, helps India in improving it football squad. The game of football has been played in India since a long time but the attention given by people has deteriorated due to the excessive media attention to Cricket and BCCI which is the richest Sports governing body in the world.

The other things that are have been making news are the Sports Fever shown by people and also by different brands. Like this pic shows Nike showing off its Fifa World cup fever. This particular car has been placed infront of the Nike showroom on Brigade Road, Bangalore for show to the people. This has been placed since the time the world cup began. It is a real eye catcher which makes people to wait a minute to check it out. Everyone trys to figure it our intially whether the Ball fell on the car to make it look like this or was it designed in such a way.

Some useful websites

I was seeing BBC channel the other day when I came across this website on the show "Click". OnlineNewspapers.com is an amazing site if you want to find the link to any newspaper of any country around the world. Just select the country and they will display you the newspaper name. On clicking it you will be taken to the main page of that official website of that newspaper. I really found this useful.

Talking about websites, I just wanted to inform that Digit Magazine is celebrating its 5th Anniversary. Therefore this months magazine is Rs 200 but with a lot of features. Just check it out on the website or atleast check the magazine out. Anyways while we are talking about Digit, we can also include about its sister magazine Skoar. I have heard recently about the major gaming expo that is going to be held in Bangalore's Kanteerva Stadium from 7-9 July 2006. I am sure many might show up to see what so entertaining about all this. Atleast I have really seen the adrenaline rush going through gamers when LAN games were held in the college hostels or fests.

College Queries

I am amazed to see a lot of people enquire about colleges over the internet itself. Apart from students checking out websites and registering for the entrance exams, they get in touch with the Alumni or students of the colleges through forums and chat rooms or in my case through blogs. Their interest is ofcourse to know about the college from the students point of view rather than the publicity or newspaper ads put up by the colleges.

The enquiries are pretty general. A few are as mentioned below:

• How many company placements are done when one finishes the college?
• How good are the faculty and departments in the college?
• What are the facilities provided by the college once a student takes admission?
• Infrastructure of the college is worth while or not?
• If attaining any rank in the entrance exam which branch will one get?
• How is the cultural environment in the college?
• What is there to do during the lesiure hours in college?

As for my college, Vellore Institute of Technology has been performing beautifully in the admission front. In the last few years the number of applications forms for college admission was as follows. In 2004 admissions only 8000 application forms were purchased. In 2005, the number jumped to 44,000 where as the amount of application forms this year went upto 87,000. The price of the application form is not cheap either. The current application form for B.Tech degree admissions is Rs 650 will for B.Sc is Rs 350. The college does make a lot of money off these but they even play their part in putting up more examination centers around India. Even in our college case, this time the centers had increased upto 17 locations all around India.

The education sector has reached a whole new level. Everything can be done through the internet and the colleges in USA and UK are one of the best examples. They provide for prospectus and details from the websites. They go into full details to explain what are the procedures. In India, the colleges put up websites just for publicity and in some cases donot give enough details, making people to write emails for more enquiry. Colleges and Universities should make it way more easier for parents and students to enquire as the admission process is really tiring. More development should be done so that future applicants and prospective students find it easier and more comfortable in applying.

Rainy Weather in Cybercity

Bangalore has been seeing some exceptionally good weather with rain spells for the past few days. In the evenings for the past 4 consecutive days there has been strong breezes prior to the rain. Now this has improved the nights as the temperatures have been quite pleasant. With this kind of weather there is supposed to be some great smiles of happiness but what can one say especially in Bangalore.

The traffic conditions deteriorate and the true conditions of the road are seen. Currently in Bangalore major road projects are underway like putting new layers and extensions of many roads throughout Bangalore. I have seen lots of roads getting extended and even that extension of the road has been asphalted. But I guess no one can use that section of the road as there are electric poles which have not been shifted. Now extending a road, works but without moving the poles is useless. Ofcourse the problem is the huge amount of money needed to move the poles as the wire are live. How can a project like extension of a road be passed without the full consideration and understanding?

The next issue is of the Autorickshaws which was supposed to have improved since the hike of the auto fares from Rs 10/km to Rs 12/km. Currently most of the autos have time till the end of May to get their meters tuned to the new rates. Many have got themselves tuned along with placing their Identity placards on the auto to state that they are registered. But during the last few rainy days has shown something else regarding them. On Friday evening around 7:30 pm when I wanted to return from Forum Mall to my house 3 kms from there, I usually take an auto which I easily get. But on this day, after 50 empty autos passed, (ofcourse rejecting to take me) by then I was able to get an auto which took me around 40 minutes. All the empty autos had their meters up which meant that they were for hire but none agreed to go once I told them the destination. Not only me, there were 10-15 other people waiting to get an auto. Even the ones standing there were not agreeing. In some cases, autos came and demanded for 'One and half or Double meter' rates. Now I really want to understand why is it that after the hike of rates and watch kept by the traffic police still leads to the Auto drivers being arrogant. During Rainy weather the price hike by autos is always seen and they really take advantage of the helpless nature of the people.

If this is the way how Bangalore works then I guess there is no use of the advancement or more modernisation of this city. The ever increasing population has already been a challenge but then again the pending projects which the government takes its own sweet time to finish is also useless. Currently speed and immediate attention to things will get the whole process moving.

My current Status

It's been quite a while since I wrote any post on my blog. I had been on journey and was visiting my parents. The trip was hectic as I took a flight with lot of transit points. While returning to Bangalore, I had stop overs at Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Muscat and finally landed on HAL Airport Bangalore. Anyways the trips are alright but I still suffer sometimes from Jetlags and fatigues.

Anyways since I returned, I was kind of a little busy so have been putting less time on the blog. But I ofcourse have tons of things to write about. Also this month's Rave Magazine is out which has come out after 2 months. As I am not subscribing the magazine, its sometimes hard to find. But a good list of new musics and songs have been mentioned. By the way the Head office of Rave Magazine is in Bangalore on Richmond road.

Also this month's Digit Magazine has a lot to offer with reviews of MP3 Players and Speakers (2.1, 4.1 and ofcourse 5.1's) It gives a good insight and options for people looking into buying economical speakers. As for me I have a Mercury 5.1 which I had puurchased in 2002 and it still can blow me away with its power. It had been economical at that time. I guess now in 2006 better choices will be there for people.

Another good stuff to read is the Reader's digest as they provide a lot of hilarious jokes and also beautiful articles. I keep seeing lots of people taking up GRE and Vocab books for strengthing their language skills. But seriously if they spend time on this digest it can do a lot good especially for the school kids as it's worth for them to read.

So I hope everyone is ready as I am back with information on different things for people and ofcourse am going to write about my journeys, good and bad times and other things.

Gulf Air travel

I have travelled on many airlines and this time my travel agent suggested to give a try on Gulf Air. At each airport an airlines is allowed usually to stay upto 2 hours after which they have to pay rent for the time they stay at the airport. Therefore most of the airlines belonging to a country make return trips. Example: The British Airways flight from London to Bangalore makes a trip from London to Bangalore and then picks up passengers at the Bangalore airport and makes a return trip back to London. 2 hours is usually very much sufficient for Re-fuelling, Caterers, luggage transportation and other services. Each flight returns to their country where the flight originated and is then sent to the hangers for re-checking or maintenance depending upon the hours of air travel.

Timings of flights are put in so many ways like Long journey flights take off during night hours as more passengers (naturally after duty hours) can be expected and also the flight travel time is long leading the flight to reach in the early morning in the destination country. It is ofcourse great for the pilot and also passengers. For short journeys usually flights are kept throughout the day.

Back to the topic, I will give details about each airport in separate posts. My journey originated in Bangalore from HAL airport. I travelled through 3 aircrafts before reaching my destination. All the aircrafts I travelled were Airbus 320s. My first flight took me from Bangalore to Muscat at Seeb Airport. My next flight was from Muscat to Bahrain and then another flight to Kuwait. The whole journey took nearly 12 hours excluding the long awaiting time at the originating airport of Bangalore.

Talking about the Gulf Air, the outer look is attractive as they have the front half of the plane painted in gold colour. The inflight services are alright for a Airbus 320. Lunch is provided at the transit Airport if the transit stay is long. So I can say the service is worthwhile. But the best service I received was when I landed in Kuwait as I came to know that my luggage had not arrived with my flight. I placed a complaint in the Baggage claim department at Kuwait Airport. The next day when I enquired over the phone regarding my baggages, I was informed that my luggage was at Muscat airport and would be sent that night. Therefore I had to pick up my baggages the next day. The interesting thing was that since I am one of the very few to pick up my baggages at the baggage claim office in the Cargo terminal, they took their sweet time in going through my things. I think I must have spend half an hour and had to explain anything and everything he thought could be confiscated.

Bangalore's night life

It's been a long time since I have written a post on the blog. Due to my travelling I was held back in putting up some posts. Just before I left Bangalore, I was busy travelling at night times. Be it a weekend or a weekday, the roads are peaceful during the nights. The Call taxis are really better than the Autos in the night time. There are a lot of Call taxis in Bangalore and their performance until now has been good from my own experience.

I guess in a city like Bangalore where Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) companies have thrived has led a new lifestyle for people to work during night hours to meet the demands of their American clients. This has brought a whole new concept for development in related sectors like transportation and food industry for the night shift workers.

Also the topic that can be discussed is the 11:30 pm close down time of shops, restaurants, night clubs etc. The topic here about restaurants being kept open a little more late is not only for the night shift people but also for others whose duty times and deadlines can take them to as late as midnight. Even after the implementation of this rule one can see places like Night clubs and Discotheques open till 4-5 am. I guess I need not say much about pocket warmings related to this. Then why do cops target restaurants for closings at exactly 11:30 pm. There have been cases were the owners of family restaurants have been manhandled by the cops just because they closed 15 minutes late than the deadline provided due to the customers still sitting in the restaurant.

Another topic that keeps popping up is the security and other factors. The traffic police is already trying to meet a demand which has been created due to the 24 lakh vehicles on the Bangalore roads which can actually handle 7 lakh vehicles for smooth traffic flow. To make the streets safe, the cops roam around in the night time in their vehicles. But the funny thing is that we still get to read a lot about theft, chain-snatching, harassments, murders etc. Every place has a demand for better security and I hope the city has been working on a better solution.

Nuclear Power Generation

This topic comes late but at a time when everyone around the world is worried about power generation and especially Nuclear Power generation. With any other kind of Energy source no country in the world has problems except taking the above mentioned. Sanctions, negotiations, treats to economically isolate and others words and phrases are being brought into the picture.

First of all what right does one country have on another to decide who should utilise some kind of resource or not. This becomes a dictatorship only but with the country taking the place not a person. India's power generation through Nuclear is hardly 5-10% but does India need to answer USA for whether it is using for Military or Power generation. Does USA disclose whether they are using Nuclear for Military or Power generation. USA has millions of documents which are classified and are related to nuclear weapons. It posses so many nuclear weapons that can destroy the world over. Then who gives USA the power to question any other country until it solves its own problem.

India whereas should learn that for 5-10% power generation through nuclear should not make it bend before any country. It has been busy trying to purchase fuel for the power stations which has been provided by Russia. First policy of Power-generation is that the source should be available then only should the project be considered. We are on such cross-roads that we need to purchase nuclear fuel for power stations. It sounds like what the Maharashtra government has done with ENRON. They made a power plant which runs on some kind of synthetic fuel which by the way led to the price of power generation go upto Rs 8/unit. So the whole ENRON company went bankrupt and Maharastra government suffered.

What the whole point here is that first of all we have to weigh our options. We need not bend before any country for listening to them as long as we are using our own resources for our own benefits. This point is not valid for our country itself but for all others in the world.

Delays in starting malls

When I was reading today's newspaper, I came across an article stating that the IT mall (off Brigade Road, Bangalore) is going to be inaugurated in the first week of April. I am pretty sure a month back I read in the newspaper about the starting of the same mall by the first week of March. Looks like India will stick to its name of delaying things either in completion of a project or waiting for someone to inaugurate it.

Many more things have been pending and keeps getting delayed. Another best example is the Bangalore airport project, which was supposed to be completed some time back and dates keep on getting postponed not in days or months but in years. What the main point is that when will India improve on its timings. We keep expecting to go against International countries but with this kind of habit, we may as well take another 20-30 years. The same Indian people working in the other countries are punctual and meet their deadlines on time or in advance. When we come back to good old India things are back to normal.

Things have to change, people have to take responsibilities and then only will life for people improve in image, time and other factors. The Indian President has some great ideas and trys to spread them but what to do, people are ready to listen since he is the President. Once the President is out of the picture, they return to normal and are joyous as they have got there photos taken with such a big personality and forget the main purpose of the visit or the cause.

Authenticity of CVs by Googling

An article in the Times of India March 27th, 2006 talked about people applying for jobs through CVs are now being scrutinised by search engines like Google and Yahoo through their prospective employers. This has come as a concern for job-seekers as many informations which are not related to the work are seen and checked out by the prospective employers and these influence their decision in hiring them. Many people have already been rejected due to this.

The problem is that job-seekers are worried that whatever will pop-up in the search engines will result in deciding their future even if it were true or not. Also their are somethings which are personal to people and should not be taken into consideration while hiring for a job.

Now the employeers are finding this useful as they think that knowing the person better for a job is important and then again while searching one can come across their blogs which give a lot of insight into a person's characteristics. As one person stated, "With google you can check a person's CV, but ofthen you want to find out what makes them tick, dig behind the CV and see whether they will fit culturally withing the organisation."

Rave Magazine

Recently I bought a copy of RAVE Magazine from the news stands. It takes out 10 issues in a year and they have just celebrated their Fourth anniversary. What I found interesting about the magazine was the details about Music, not only international but also Indian music. It sums up about the latest in the market and the upcoming events with whose in the making of new ablums and on on... it goes.

I guess anyone should pick up one copy atleast and check it out yourself to see what it really contains. The price is also pretty okay with Rs 50 per issue. For gaining the knowledge of artists and their albums before buying them, this is a little price to pay. It gives ratings and other information which is what we are really searching for. The best thing I like is the bottom footers on each page which contains 'Soundbyte' that gives interesting info on anyone or anything in one sentence.

Got myself Sketched

I really love sketches of anything as it really looks amazing. It has something more special than photos. If you people have seen Titanic then you will see the amazing hand movements in the making of sketches and those beautiful descriptions of the subject. Not only in the movies, in real life I have seen many people who make amazing sketches but I doubt whether they are given much importance or appreciation which they deserve.

Since it was a Sunday, I dropped by Forum Mall with a friend of mine. There is a sketch machine put up and I got myself snapped by it. The whole process takes hardly 2 minutes. Intially they will take 3 snaps. Before each snap is taken, 5 seconds countdown is given to prepare oneself. There is a gap of another 10 seconds between the next snap. After the 3 snaps are taken, we are given a choice to choose which snap is to be sketched. After this, there is another type of choice which deals with the smoothness or sharpness and also the strokes which are brush or fine. Each type is mentioned after a famous painter like Leonardo and Michelangelo. After this whole process of choosing, there is a minutes time for the printout to pop out. Framing of the sketch is also done.

At the bottom right, name of the artistic type is mentioned. Like in mine Leonardo is signed with the date mentioned as 23.03.06. On the bottom right corner, the logo of the company which owns the machine is mentioned. Not a bad way to have a memory saved in a different format. At one time, people wanted to shift from Black & White to colour, but looks like old things hardly die out. It's a different experience.

Trip to college

Today I made a trip to my college VIT for which I had to leave early from my home to catch a train. Since I had already checked up on the internet that seats were available on the Shatabdi Express leaving Bangalore at 6 am and reaching Katpadi at 9 am, so I left my house early intending on catching a BMTC bus or an auto. Funny as it may sound, I kept waiting from 5 am till 5:30 am in search for a BMTC bus or an auto, neither of which were available. The road on which I was waiting is actually having heavy traffic of buses and autos throughout the day. So it looked like my day wasn't starting of well.

Anyways I did get an auto who was charging me 1.5 times the meter. Since it was way before 6 am I accepted, as if I had a choice due to the scarcity of autos (This is were I keep trying to figure out where are the 1 lakh autos in this city disappearing to). I reached the station around 5:45 am and was happy that I will make it. Now when I stood infornt of the current reservation counter, that was it. A large queue of people waiting for booking ticket or cancelling existing ones. There were 3 trains going to leave in the next 45 minutes. Shatabdi at 6 am, Intercity Exp at 6:15 am and Lalbagh at 6:30 am. Now I was hoping to get my tickets by then. The person sitting at the counter said 'stay in a queue and wait for your turn' which I had to do to get a ticket. The only difference is that I got my ticket at 6:15 am that also for Lalbagh as Shatabdi had left the station as I was waiting for the tickets. I kept guessing that the priority for trains should be given at some point but looks like the person behind the counter just cares about doing his job comfortably without any problems or doesn't care if one misses his train or not. Lucky for me I got one of the last seats on Lalbagh Exp. while Shatabdi had a lot of free seats. The system at some point sucks.

I reached my college at 10 am and finished up my work at the student's records and then met up with some of my juniors. They all were busy with there exams or project reviews. The temperature at the college was soring high. Some things had changed at the college since I had last visited like infrastructure. After all this, I planned to return back to Bangalore by the 4 pm bus. The bus was an A/C Volvo run by a private agency group. The buses are always amazing, well maintained and the roads have improved. The road on which we were travelling is part of the 'Golden Quadrilateral' project so the quality is good, not only that I guess it could be due to the newly built roads. Anyways the journey was comfortable, only thing to find was the amount of vehicles moving on the roads. Large quantities of Trucks were travelling and the process of overtaking keeps occuring frequently.

The bus was able to cover the distance until Hosur town without any interruptions as not much traffic on the roads. This town being just 40 kms from Bangalore is very easy to reach in 45 minutes. When travelling from Hosur to Bangalore usually the trip will be 1 hour due to the major checkpoints for vehicles by the Karnataka Transportation check post. After this when we pass the famous Electronic city which can get the roads to a standstill due to traffic problems can get anyone in 1.5 to 2.5 hours. But today being a saturday was comfortable enough to get through to the town without any jams. I was able to get down at the dropping point and then hired an auto after bargining as all were quoting there own price.

This is how a trip can go by. Sometimes the days are worse than all this. One comes to know about it when you see the person cursing or dead sleeping after arriving. What can one do to improve the system and make it more efficient.

CV Fakers enjoy job for some time

Curriculum Vitae (CV) which is important for any person who wants employment irrespective of their work experience. It is also known as Resume or Biodata. This topic is being brought into the picture only for one reason, that is many people who faked their CV's are paying the price dearly by losing their jobs. Recently Wipro has fired some employees for faking their CV's and also has filed police complaint against several recruitment agencies for helping these employees falsify CV information.

Manipulation of resumes, often in active collaboration with the recruitment agencies and sometimes with the knowledge of the recruitment personnel of the IT companies, is assuming alarming proportions. IBM India recently sacked amny employees for the same reason. Some are said to have worked there for nearly two years. TCS, also facing the same problem has from this year outsourced the entire process of CV verification to a specialised agency.

The main reason for the above problem is due to the huge and fast recruitment process as companies have many projects than they can handle. So the recruitment process has been undermined, enableing people with manipulating CVs to get in. Also recruitment agencies are into this due to the commision they receive on getting a person recruited. Therefore for fast making money they compromise with the situations. The only best solution to stop all this is at the company level where stricter cross checking of CVs are to be undertaken.

Alternative power - Wind Energy

This is another type of energy which is not much publicised due to many factors. The amount of intial investment is very large and also the requirement of wind to flow throughout the year in the same place is very less. Also the cost of maintenance is high as the blades of the windmill is to be really taken care off. Usually installation of these are done on large scale to cut down on the overall costs of the windmill. When many number of such windmills are put then they are known as wind farms. With wind farms, production of power is done on large scale to meet the power demands.

Currently in India those places which have a very good possibility of having winds flowing throughout the year are taken into consideration. Tamil Nadu state is one of the best locations were winds flow throughtout the year. This state produces 60% of the total wind power produced in India. It' s current status is 1600 MW and is planned to increase by double soon. These quantities of power donot contribute much to the national power generation but it is way better than burning that much fossil fuel to gain that energy. Sooner or later better renewable energy will be taken into consideration.

Better ways to perfect and gain more from these wind energies are still underway. Hopefully in the future better solutions can be found for harnessing wind energy. Also lately offshore wind energy farms are being made. These are in experimental stages to check out the after effects of such projects to the surroundings and environment. Example like conditions where ships or boats colliding with the windmills; also effects seen by birds and fishes on these windmills have to be seen and determined. But this could be another future prospect if we are running out of land. Even there is 20-40% more wind energy detected in the sea compared to the land.

Let's see the round about figures for the height of the windmills and blade sizes with the amount of power produced. A Windmill with 3 blades are attached at 120 degrees are taken into consideration. The height of the windmill is from the ground to the center of the blade joints. The following will give the data (these windmills should be set up at good wind flowing locations) :

• Height is 100 feet & blade length is 12 feet. Power 10KW.
• Height is 132 feet & length is 66 feet. Power 500 KW.
• Height is 262 feet & length is 135 feet. Power 1650 KW.

Status of Solar Energy

I was going through an article in 'The Hindu' regarding solar energy. Its main focus was to use solar energy for street lights and also how to use it in homes to cut down on the electric bills and power problems. The main reason about power cuts is that there is an overload somewhere, that is somebody is using excessive power some place. Hence, we ourselves are slightly a reason for the power cuts. So we have to work on the problem.

It is estimated that nearly 5 lakh homes in Bangalore city consume 3 Million units of power everyday between 6 am & 9 am for water heating alone. If just 20% of the households in Bangalore switch to solar energy to heat water, about 150 MW of power will be saved during peak hours everyday. Also 75% of total expenditure of Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) goes into keeping streetlights glowing. (Courtesy to Metro Plus, the Hindu, March 20, 2006)

Water heaters are a good investment in a long run. Intially the cost will be heavy than an electric water geyser but then again we need not pay any electric bills for the water heater. The life time of a water heater is also long. So intial investment is everything. In Bangalore itself there are more than 50 companies dealing in solar water heater and will install it in 2 days period. This is just one example.

In many new types of Solar energy experimentation, a solar furnace has been created. But in this instead of Solar cells, concave mirrors are used to divert the sunlight to a single point like pointing to a top of a tower. This way large scale temperatures can be attained. One such example can be seen in France.

This is the future, where we need to use clean source of energy and sunlight is in abundance, so more practical use should be implemented. This way we can meet the demand of power generation that keeps on rising. More things like solar heaters should be implemented for human use.

Patents to bring money to colleges

Stanford university gets $88 million annual royalty for its inventions; Massachusetts Institute of Technology gets a huge royalty from optical mirror technology which alone can run the university for the next 10 years; Oxford has invested 10.7 million pounds in research. In India, despite having more than 250 universities, 800 engineering college and 1300 research and development facilities, IIT's are the only educational practising patenting thoroughtly. (courtesy to Times of India, March 17,2006)

The question here is that in every college there are many students who are capable of inventing or perform amazing research projects. There are many things that stop a student from performing something amazing. One is the college and staff do not support the student in there endeavours and in many cases I have seen sometimes the staff taking the full credit to what the student is performed and sidelining the student.

The second thing is as mentioned in the above article. Not knowing the knowledge of patents and other things. Even if one patent is done to a college in India, it will give popularity to the college and also can get funds for the department and college. The colleges in India should encourage there students and assist them. In the end, it is the name of the college that will gain popularity.

Cognizant's gift to Employees

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) has crossed the $ 1 Billion turnover and for celebrations is gifting there employees. People who have joined before 30th June 2005 will be given Apple Video Ipods which has a capacity of 30GB. The company wants to gift its employees who are mainly in the 20-30 age group a techie gift.

Looks like other companies will have to do some good competion with CTS by providing better bonuses or gifts for their employees. These Ipods are usually costly but since being purchased in a whole set and imported by CTS will be very cheap for the company. With each company providing better perks and services, the competition for better jobs is on full flow.

Bangalore Shopping Malls

Shopping Malls are opening at tremedous rates as they have noticed that current working class people are spending money openly. One of the first malls to be seen in Bangalore is 'Bangalore Central', which opened in 2004. This is situated in the heart of the city on residency Road. Later in the same year another mall opened towards the south of Bangalore which proved to be a success. 'Forum' is situated next to Kormangala which is a host to many IT companies. PVR Cinemas are located in Forum with 11 screens making it India's largest Multiplex. With the success of these malls, many more Mall projects came into the picture.

Garuda Mall on Magrath Road started off at the end of 2005. INOX has 5 screens in the Garuda Mall. Soon after the opening of this mall another mall which is exclusively for Women is the EVA Mall situated on Brigade Road. Also Sigma Mall on Cunnigham road is another mall that recently opened up. With the beginning of this month, another mall exclusively for IT products like softwares, hardwares and computer peripherals opened up on brigade road known simply as IT Mall.

With the huge success seen by malls in bangalore, huge investments are being made to open many more. It is estimated that Bangalore's IT Industry forks out wage bill of nearly Rs 9,000 crore annually on an employee community of 3 lakh-plus (courtesy of Economic Times). The list of other malls that are underway are

• Brigade Metropolis in Whitefield
• Brigade Gateway in Rajajinagar
• Forum Mall [Shantiniketan, Whitefield]
• Sobha Minerva [Minerva Mills]
• G Corp Lido Centre [old Lido Theatre] in Ulsoor
• Galaxy Embassy [old Galaxy Theatre] on Residency Road
• Mantri House [Sarjapur Road]
• Ozone [Factory Outlet, Whitefield]
• Sigma Grand
• Tata Imperial [Old Imperial Theater] off Brigade Road
• Poorva Mall on Old Madras Road

The above list is only of the ones that are under construction. Let's see what else Bangalore holds for the 64 lakh people staying in the city. Atleast people will get to enjoy malls on weekends better as the crowds in any of the malls on the weekends are immense and sometime can really exhaust anyone.

College weather

This post is about the how weather changes around my college, VIT. During my stay for 4 years, the climate had always been pretty hot. But there were times when during the monsoons or winters when one could see amazing things. In the early hours of the day, one can find some awesome scenery which could blow your mind away. I would have not been suprised if I were in a hill station but when I saw the clouds passing through the hills near our college, it was an amazing sight.

During the monsoon months, the showers are sometimes heavy and it is difficult for us to leave the hostels. This sometimes used to be the best reason for not attending classes but the timing is supposed to be correct like raining at the time when we have to leave for class. But that mostly never happened making us attend classes. Worst is when it rained during our classes, we could never get to bunk or get free classes as there was nothing to do. But when it rained during the day time then the nights used to be pleasant so we had good walks around the hostel campus and also enjoyed sleeping comfortable during the nights.

During the summer months, the sun would really make the days tough and drive us into the showers couple of times a day. The temperature could easily go to 40C +. That would really make us tired if we returned to hostel and had to go again to college. During a semester break, who will like to stay in the college and spend there time getting baked, so almost everyone use to go home for vacation.

These pictures which are displayed were taken in the early hours in November. After staying in college during the hot months I never had expected to see this.

Progress on Metro Rail

It's amazing to see the boards put up for the Metro Rail. Traffic was already have a field day when you see boards of Metro on the road. These holes that they have dug up is for soil testing. Anyways hope this project goes on schedule otherwise it could end up like the Bangalore International airport project getting extended without anyones knowledge when its completion is going to be taking place.

Also amazing is the Logo that has been selected after so much competetion. I am still trying to anazlyse that from which angle does the logo tell you that it is Bangalore Metro. It is colourful, could be the Holi effect on it. On the logo the words are "Namma Metro". WOW!!! Now I know what actually the Bangalore Metro should do, they should also rename their name as Bengalooru Metro. If they continue this trend, then I can say that they have been doing a lot of work as they have been busy changing names. First they change the Bangalore Mass Rail Transit Ltd (BMRTL) to Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL). So the trend of renaming can go until they really go into working.

The project is a Rs 6200 crore and if not finished on time then the pricetag is going to rise. Why do they need to talk so much, they have a real live example of Delhi Metro and can use the assistance of those people who have gained a lot of experience during the construction of the Delhi Metro. There experiences can really speed up the process of the construction of this Metro. This city desperately needs some sort of rescue from the choking that is building up. The BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) can do as much as they can but still the roads and infrastructure is what the Bangalore authorities have to work on.

Mornings of Peace in BLR

In a city like Bangalore, the mornings are really beautiful. I enjoy it in one way as I have to attend a 7 am class and therefore leave around 6:30 am to catch a bus. There is no traffic jam at this hour and the bus journeys are smooth with regarding to the number of people not the road. The road conditions are as they were but recently have seen an increased amount of road maintainence going on. The bangalore authorities have been quiet busy by putting another layer of tar on the roads. That also on all the inner roads of many areas. Anyways, the roads are peaceful at this hour until after 7 am when the rush begins. The same 30 minute trip when made during the rest of the day can be 50 minutes to an hour and half.

The rest of the day in Bangalore until the night time is as congested as it can be. Also like the recent newspaper article which states that BESCOM is helpless if there is loss of power in areas from 6-9 am and 6-9 pm as they are busy trying to replace transformers which are damaged due to overloads. BESCOM is finding it tough to handle the large power requirements but ofcourse they do love going on diconnection drives in different areas when bills are not paid.

Echo: Sounds of Music

In 2002, when i had entered into my second year of college, Echo took place. It was a symposium in which technical papers were presented. Apart from the hectic paper presentations which started in the morning after breakfast at around 10am would go on till lunch at 1 and then resume at 2 which will then finally end by 5pm. Rest of the time would be for fun. We had food stalls set up so that food can be taken which was atleast not the one in the hostel mess. (What can we do, we got too used to the food!!!) Apart from the food stall would be the Music stall, which had a computer with large speakers connected to the amplifier. The music was being handled by me, but ofcourse at that time the computer belonged to my senior who had let me borrow it. For 3 days I would move the computer to the college campus and start off with the music.

Since my college has many students from diverse regions with different languages, this music stall was very tough to handle. I had the usual English songs to play, apart from that the Hindi, Tamil, Telgu, Malyalam and many other kinds of songs were needed. In this particular system, I had varieties of English, Hindi, Arabic, Malyalam, Telgu but by chance I had no Tamil songs. The songs kept playing throughout the day. The worst moments were when I had seniors who were breathing over my neck just to get there songs to be played. That is when I used to get up, give it to them and walk to the food stall to have some food. During that much time they kept themselves quiet busy trying to play some song or the other but could not make up there mind who should take charge of the keyboard and mouse.

During the duration of 3 days in which I was handling the music stall, I had taken assistance of a friend of mine who knew telgu songs as I only knew about English, Hindi and Arabic songs. Those 3 days became really unbearable at points when a few seniors would try using there authority to play there songs. For me, it was important to handle songs in the sequence of requests which were given first come first serve. This sometimes got the situation heated up.

Apart from this was the Last day factor. The last day or 3rd day will always be a weekend so people had a tendency to spend their evenings at the stall for dancing and eating. So we used to keep a playlist which would contain dance numbers. Some of our college authorities never liked the idea as the dance would go on till late night and ofcourse never enjoyed the gender mixing. Those moments remind me the pressure from various people like the management, then the seniors and last but least the crowd which would be in a full groovy mood. After all this, I still remember that I had to take a complete 1-2 days rest just to get all the loud music out of my head. My ears were hurting as i couldnot hear much and then ofcourse I had lost my voice. That experience was really different as I had to try keeping the crowd happy with the different kind of music with different language which is actually a really pain staking work. Now where would one's life be without the fun of handling pain and problems.

Auto fare hike

Bangalore is supposed to be better than other cities like Chennai or Delhi were Meters on the Auto-Rickshaws or Taxis are not implemented. In those cities, one has to bargin just to get around. Here in Bangalore with the meters running, it is an amazing site, but then again there are bad habits of charging Double meter and other kinds of things on the oddest hour or place. With this happening, I dare think, providing hike on the Auto fares will bring down this kind of behaviour of the Auto drivers.

When it rains, the Auto drivers automatically start charging double meters. When as per rule Double meter are to be charged only between 12 midnight and 6 am. One and half meter after 10 pm until 12 midnight. Rest of the time it is supposed to be simply meter charge.

Another worst kind of behaviour that an auto driver can do is not take you if he is not going that way. In one incident, my friend and myself were trying to hire an auto but it took us more than 15 empty autos to get one that agreed to take us to our destination. Every other Auto said that they are not headed that way so they just drove away. It took me more than 25 minutes to get an Auto that day.

The hike given to these auto-meters which now will be Rs 10 for 1.6 kms and Rs 6/km from 15th March 2006. Naturally it is going to make auto travellers feel slightly heavy on the pocket but atleast hopefully the Auto drivers can now behave little better by being polite enough to pick us up rather than us asking them "If you are going this way, can you just drop us there. Ofcourse if its convenient with you" (What to do, the auto drivers are doing such a big favour to us.)

March Rain

With the starting of this month, Bangalore has seen rain with thunder showers. Till now the rain that has been falling has been sudden and for a short period but heavy. Already into a week in March and we have broken the 25 year record of rain in the same month. With the first rain showing the real Bangalore with potholes and stagnant water has really put pressure on the new government of JDS-BJP coalition.

The sudden showers has brought down the temperatures a little bit which can be a relief to many people as the days had started to heat up. Even if the government is planning on the Metro Rail or the Elevated roads or also the many flyovers, it has to pay attention on the quality of the road and also try making less traffic problems for the people and give some relief to the traffic police. The March rain is not in there control so they have to be well planned for everything. Just hope that Bangalore lives through all this.

Time Flies

It's amazing to notice how time flies. I had written my last post just one week back on Friday when the weekend was beginning. During that weekend I had some ex-collegemates drop by and the weekend went by. At the beginning of the new week, I ended up getting sick with stomach trouble and some temperature. So that day goes by. The next day I am nearly recovered and I had to leave town for some work. I show up on Thursday early morning and am so tired that I sleep through out afternoon. Now I am back on the computer just to find that it's been 1 week since anything had been posted on the blog. What can one say when time can fly so fast.

During my school or college days when exams were flying over my head, time stood so still that I thought I could run faster than the second's hand of the clock. But looking at this week and other things like the time I have spent in Bangalore makes me think whether the second's hand would stop if I glued it to the clock. Probably it will but I guess TIME wouldnot stop. The saying 'TIME and Tide wait for no one' holds truth.

IH T-shirts

Today I will talk to you about how the guys in International Hostel (IH), VIT pulled off a T-Shirt for the hostel. I will also be uploading the pics of the T-shirt. When my batch entered final year, we thought of making a souvenir which would remind us the good times we had in college. So the idea was to make a T-shirt with our own customised designs. We expanded this idea of giving the T-shirt to as many of the IH students possible, be it juniors or ex-seniors.

When some of the guys started to work on the designs, we thought that it would get ready in 2-3 weeks time but then everyone got busy with their final year projects. Some of the guys were doing their projects in Bangalore, some in college and other places depending on the company location. Therefore the design kept on getting prolonged and also kept on getting modified from time to time. We eventually came to the conclusion and gave it for manufacturing. The time it took for making the designs was 6 months. Also the final product which we received from the manufactures took 1 month. So the T-shirts came out in July 2005.

We were really thinking of making the base colour of the T-shirt as black but then again in our college many events were organised and everyone had been using the same base colour. So we went for the white base colour and got the T-shirts bleached. The designs were strictly kept as black and blue which really gave a good effect on the white background. The pic on the top is the front of the T-shirt while the one on the side is for the back of the T-shirt.

The T-shirt contains many designs contributed by many of the guys at the hostel. The motto "Cogito Ergo Sum" is Latin which means "I think, therefore I am". This statement has been taken from René Descartes (1596-1650) who was a noted Philosopher, mathematician & scientist. Also the word 'Revellers' was used due to the merry & party nature of the IH guys. In the center we have the alphabets IH printed in Blue. The year when the T-shirt came out is on the left sleeve 'MMV' which is 2005.

The main thing is that this is a great reminder to all of us about the good times we spend in the hostel. The juniors are planning on taking out another new model for the T-shirt, I am sure they will be able to do better. I would like to say thanks to all the people who were able to make this T-shirt come out.

College Fest - RIVIERA

Today I will talk about an event which I had been part of since the time of its starting. In 2001, when I entered college, my seniors were planning on holding an event which would bring the college together. Since every department kept on having their own conferences and symposiums, it was getting difficult to organise as their attention was more towards their departments. But I still respect my seniors as they pulled off this event which has now become a tradition of our college. This event is held every year since January 2002 and has completed its 5th Anniversary in January 2006. Every year it has performed better and flourished over the period of time.

In January 2002, this 3-day event was held between 17th-19th January. Since I was in first year we were not allowed to organise any event, instead we to assist our seniors who were busy organising. The kind of things that needed to be organised were divided into 15 committees. All the committees were overlooked by the main committee known as the organising committee. This contained a few final years which overlooked the working of the entire fest. They were the main mediums between the management, staff and the committees. Since this was the first time, seniors had a hard time but they were able to organise things like sponsors for the event, get the judges for the event, lighting, sounds, bands for the groups etc. For this particular year we invited the group 'Ideas' to perform in our college. The rock concert was not much fun as we were all asked to be seated in chairs which was unbearable for a rock concert. Fireworks was something our seniors had organised and it really lit the night sky and captivated all of us for those 15 minutes.

As for me in Riviera 2002, I was working for the 'guest care and accommodation' committee. I still remember that around 60 first years were part of this group. Our seniors had assured us that there was not much work in this group, but were proven wrong on D-Day as we were suppose to lift pillows and big carpets of sizes 6X2 metres to 1st-2nd floors. All the guys did some of the work and then disappeared for lunch or tea, never to return. By that much time all the things had been kept in their proper rooms. The other things that really made people run away from this group was escorting the guest college teams to their accomodations from the reception area. The distance to cover is usually 1.5 kms and above, this is not much but for a volunteer in first year who has to make couple of trips up & down to escort couple of teams can make anyone runaway. My chance came when everyone was ready for the rock concert and a group of participating guest college team had shown up at that very moment so everyone was reluctant to go towards the hostel side for their accommodations. I donot think it was the tiredness (which by the way was), but mainly the time wasted in going & returning back. I had performed that task and returned in time to sit along with my hostelmates. Another incident was that during the concert we were suppose to sit quietly on our seats and attend it like some lecture. Imagine sitting for a Rock concert. One of my friends sitting next to me was wearing formals due to a prior function he attended. With the music rocking, he just took out his tie and waved it in the air, for this his ID card was seized and was asked to leave the auditorium. I think rest was history with the concert closing down early. Overall the whole fest was successful giving us a good ahead for the next year.

In 2003 (2nd-4th Jan), I was given the same committee, due to prior experience and I think that could have been my downfall. I was never able to lead any other committee due to the experience in guest care & accommodation otherwise also known as 'hospitality' committee. This year I had a senior heading the committee who also was part of it last year. I had another friend of mine tag along with me for the work. We pulled off the event better than the previous year because we had learned our mistakes. We had asked suppliers of the pillows & carpets to dump it in a room on the ground floor of the hostel. Then we decided to dispatch the pillow and carpet to the guest college directly when they are taken to their accomodation. This way we were able to cut down on the work our students had to do. Also each volunteer escorting a team to the hostel was asked to take leave so they could take a breakby going to their rooms. This way only one trip, one way was made by each volunteer. This really cut down on their fatigue level. The interesting part of guest care is that you get to take care of everyone including chief guest, rock groups and other college students. That year for the rock concert the group was David Pascal & group. Unlike the year before this time the concert was held in the Stadium area but the seating arrangements were still valid. The reason for not letting us loose was that we were considered uncontrollable and could not take care of ourselves. The event went on without a hitch.

In 2004 (8th-10thn Jan), I was to head the committee and ofcourse was given the same guest care & accommodation. The only problems I faced during 2003 & 2004 was the lack of first years as our college had given them a semester break exactly at the time of the fest which really made it difficult for us to get hold of them. It was sheer temptation and participation in a major event which made them stay for the fest. Anyways the number of people I used to keep in my committee for assistance used to drop to anywhere between 40-60% during the event as they were busy seeing the other events or had prior engagements. That year for the rock concert we had the group 'Moksha' and also 'Malgudi Suba' for the musical night event. This time during the rock concert the people were able to dance for 10 minutes before the event ended. This was another successful step for the students.

In 2005 (5th-7th Jan), I had taken control of the same committee for the final time as I was in my final year. This time as i was close with the organising committee, I was able to give my experience I had for the past 4 years for the success of the event. I organised the event and as each time had to face some problems but was able to tackle them with time. This year we had to take care of many groups for the event. We had 'Parikrama' for the rock concert with opening bands of 'Yellow' & 'Vinapra' capturing the moment. Also the musical night was amazing with Shankar Mahadevan singing the songs. Ofcourse this time everyone got to dance the entire show without any problems. I guess 4 years of hard work taking each step did pay off. The event was pulled off beautifully.

I did always have a team of few people who really participated by putting there full efforts. I am sure that I could have never pulled off the event without their help. I take this moment to thank them all. Everyone should understand, to pull off any event you have to take help and always you have to respect others who have put their efforts in it.

One lonely vacation

This goes back to 2001 when the college had given 2 weeks vacation in december. I had come back from home after taking 3 weeks holiday from college. Literally the moment I stepped into the hostel, my warden informs me that in another week we were going to have 2 weeks holiday. At first I was taking it as a joke but then again the college had decided to go ahead with the idea due to Chrismas and New Years around the corner. At this point I wanted to strangle someone with a telephone, as somebody could have informed me and I could have postponed my ticket by another 3 weeks.

The week went by in the class with the all time low attendance and then came the 2 week vacation. For the weekend I dropped by in Bangalore to check it out but then again staying 2 days in a lodge in Bangalore was enough so I headed back to the hostel. In the hostel the strength had fallen to less than 10%. All my seniors and my batchmates had left for the holidays, the only ones remaining back was me, myself and a friend. For the next 2 weeks we kept having dinner outside in the town and kept watching TV in the hostel which by the way had a really crap reception. The reception kept coming and going so if we were watching a movie chances of not seeing the climax of the movie was very high.

Christmas came and went then we waited for the New years which was really boring as we didnot do anything interesting except taking complete rest and sleep. In college there was nothing interesting to do as the facilities of internet was not available to students then. Also the library was a no entry zone for me. Unfortunately, at that time I had no computer to spend my time with.

During this time, we had some conference in the college which was being held so the campus didnot feel like a graveyard but pretty good quantity of people were around. Nothing interesting was going on atleast for us to enjoy. By the time the classes had started everyone was back busy preparing for the college fest which was to be held in mid January. That was one time I really enjoyed participating as I was able to help in organising different events.

The only main suggestion I can offer anyone is that they should keep something planned in case you do end up getting holidays, like a getaway plan to Ooty or any kind of hill station or somewhere. Another important thing is to use the internet wisely, keep in touch with people and I still hope the college can update the latest schedule of holidays and classes on the internet which can benefit hundreds of people.

Still Bangalore...

I am amazed that the craze of changing name of all the major cities to their local ones have not seized. The latest one is that of Bangalore. Intially Bombay became Mumbai, then Calcutta --> Kolkata and also Madras --> Chennai. So how could the Karnads remain back. Thus Bangalore is going to be renamed as 'Bengalooru' official from November of 2006. So looks like many other cities can follow taking this as an example. The last that I can guess is the National capital city Delhi being renamed to 'Dilli' (It's hindi version). So let's see the renaming game goes on to what level.

The other day when I and a friend were at a Juice Shop, we read a statement that really sent us rolling on the floor laughing. This statement was regarding Bangalore and here it goes: "In India people drive on the left of the road, but in Bangalore people drive on what is left of the road". I am sure many people will be able to understand this statement. The traffic in Bangalore is so much and so still that it is wiser to drive on the leftover portion.

Currently Bangalore stands with the population of 63 lakhs and still growing. Also the amount of vehicles are awsome. 23 lakh vehicles out of which 18 lakh alone belong to the 2-wheelers which by the way is a record in its own for a city to have such a high number. Apart from this 3 lakh and above belong to 4 wheelers. 90,000 Autos which by the way are slightly arrogant and also the fares are to be increased by March or April. At present people pay Rs 5/km and the revised prices are Rs 6/km. Another thing about the autos is the One and half meter and double meter charges. Auto people keep demanding for these when the timings are not correct or when they find a person helpless at a particular remote location were no other auto can be found.

Bangalore has an army of 12,000 buses run by the BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitian Transport Corporation) which cater to 70% of Bangalore population. This is one of its kind which makes profits against its counterparts running in Delhi and Mumbai. What can one say? Advertisements on these buses are also plenty. With this current statistics we know that Bangalore cannot handle the pressure but still the amount doesnot seize but instead keeps increasing.

The IT industries have stopped their growth in Bangalore and are looking for better locations for expanding. Karnataka enjoys something which no other state has, the Bio-Tech Industry which are mainly based here. Credit can be given to the traffic police for handling so much load that has been thrown on them but then again they are humans. They also make mistakes by losing temper and have made strict judgements at times. People can somethings be not friendly which leads to many road rages that happen around the city.

Political games have left this city in a very slow developing conditions that can someday paralyse this city unless priority is given to the city and the state. The future of this once beautifully known 'Garden City', 'Pensioners Paradise' and 'IT/Cyber city of India' is at stake. People have to also cooperate to make this a better city.

Justice Sys. & Punishment in India

This topic is to be highlighted and what I will say is nothing new. Everyone knows this and the amazing thing is that the Justice system in India really sucks. Cases go on for years. In India, the law courts are kept slightly different from the police so that corruption might not infiltrate it. But the funny thing is that the Police has the power to manipulate with the evidence being presented in the court and also the accused will be in their possession until presented before the court. So one can imagine the treatment given to the accused when he is with the Police. Royal treatment to those who have money and power while the one who is innocent but without any such facilities to offer can be treated to 3rd degree torture which can make any human accept any kind of accusation that he might have not committed.

This is not a fairytale story but done in reality. One such case currently being talked about is the Jessica Lal case in which their are witnesses but still after 7 years of the case being in the court, the accused have been set free. In the justice system, they say it is better to let go 100 criminals so that no innocents are sent to jail. But it is very easy to say that the vice-versa can be seen where criminals are set free while innocents are put in the jail. The justice system is really weak. Worst is the punishments that are set for criminals. For a rape or murder, the person can goto jail for anywhere between 3-14 years jail but not death sentence. Another thing is if a person is given sentence more than 7 years in a lower court then his case has to be seen by a higher court. This only invites to delay the case.

If criminals are given small punishments then it is comfortable for anyone to murder someone and make a weak case out of it. He will just get 1-2 years of jail and then be set free to do more murders. People make tens of murders before being caught or atleast being presented in the court. The system is weak at many levels which really assist the criminals. Cops are humans and their actions & reactions also are human like so they can be short-tempered, revengeful, angried, confused, changed and ofcourse manipulated.

Why is it that Human-rights organisation keep shouting about Capital punishment being wrong. It is right as long as the person who committed the crime was in his full senses and the murder was intentional. Punishments are to set example to others that if the same crime is done then the outcome is like that. It is to make people realise that crime is evil.

In a regular day life, lots of theft keep on happening as the culprits know that chances of getting caught is minimal. Even if being caught, the chances of getting tried in court is minimal. When being tried in court the case can go on for ages without any results. Also while getting tried in court, chances of getting sentenced to jail is minimal. So eventually the options are better doing some theft and living. This example is only for thieves, imagine what is the procedure for murder accused and rapists.

In India, Mahatma Gandhi's murderer was sentenced after 2 years of his crime. Also Indira Gandhi's murderers were sentenced to death after 8 years of their crime. If high profile murders can take so much time then what can one ask for the crimes committed against comman man. In rape cases, when a victim makes accusations the court and people make it feel as if it was the victims fault and not the criminals. So even if many rapes happen, only a very few are brought to notice depending on the mental strength of the victim and her families.

In my opinion, if we can clearly prove the crime committed by the criminal then there is no need to wait but execute the punishment on spot. If he commits a murder then he can be hanged/shot/killed in anyway immediately so as to set an example. Also if a rapist is proven guilty with full eveidences then he should be killed on spot by the victim so that they can respect the sanctity of women. Major changes are required to teach all the criminal kind and instill fears in the minds of the criminals for their actions so that the same action can never be performed again.

Print vs. Electronic Media

This is one of the most known topics. We have newspapers and magazines which mainly come in the print media. Newspapers have been there since centuries. All kinds of news from around the world can be seen on the newspaper. In school, the teachers use to say we should read newspapers so that our vocabulary and grammar could improve. I guess that is one way we got hooked to the newspapers. I think using the word hooked would be inappropriate as at one time in the world the print media was threatened by the amazing entry of the electronic media.

The electronic media came with the advent of Radio which was popular during the first half of the 20th century and then by Television. Currently for more than a decade the cable television has captured everyones view. We get to see more than 50 channels on TV with channels ranging from news, sports, music, family, cartoons and etc. With everything at our fingertip with remote controlled TVs and their prices coming down in the market, we choose this over print media or that is how it is supposed to be.

The funny thing is that with so much Television and Satellite relayed channels, the print media was supposed to be wiped out but still everyday in the morning, people have the habit to read newspapers. There is no loss for the print media currently as one can see people reading newspapers in traffic jams or in buses and trains. So this is one thing that stands out. Yes, I do agree that they must have been affected by the reduction in readers. But still surviving against the electronic media is amazing.

Not only this, in electronic media itself, radio was nearly wiped out from the market but still suddenly there has been a revival in that sector also with major success by the radio channels like Radio Mirchi and Radio city channels on the Radio in many metros. People listen to songs will on there way to work, in cafeterias, malls, buses etc. So due to the resurrection of some of the media types, there is a major scope in the market and predictability of the market share is really unexpected.

Anyways still people know that be it either Print or Electronic media, they will receive their share of the latest news.