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.