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.