Is piracy no more surreptitious!..?

A small handout slipped out of today’s newspaper as I was flipping the pages. I was really amused by the handout as it was about availability of pirated CDs ranging from latest engineering tools to kid’s games. The handout also mentioned their web-site, e-mail id, address and contact numbers. Usually the pirated CD business is against law and surreptitious and this handout left me wondering about the boldness of the person behind this and the sad state of law and order in the state, Googling the issue, I landed on a relevant article published in ‘The Hindu’ newspaper (Click Here).
People are also encouraging piracy as they get the required software for peanuts. Now who is to be blamed…the people or the police or the clandestine business people?

Where is the money draining?

Amused to see two incongruous news on the same page of Economic Times today

One was the move towards increase in taxes, the others was that of Mumbai under the crunch of poor infrastructure...

The professional tax levied in India is likely to be tripled from Rs.2500 per year to Rs.7500 this year. The professional tax is the 3rd largest contributor to the state tax kitty following the sales tax & VAT and the stamp duty (1). Where is all this tax money going…?

Is it funding urban development?
I think no…
Indian infrastructure is bleeding; a rain can overthrow the entire city into chaos, be it metros like Mumbai or Chennai or Tier-1 cities like Bangalore or Hyderabad or any other tier-2 cities like Coimbatore or Mysore.
One may argue about posh airports, flyovers or malls, but we need to concentrate on basic infrastructure such as sewage disposal and its treatment. Any flyover on a busy road in Bangalore takes 2-4 years to complete.

It funds rural development during political elections. The results are no good either.

I am putting across road infrastructure for example. We are under funding our every other system such as education, transport, agriculture and the like. And we are overtaxing our bonafide tax payers

Where is our money draining?

It is time to hone our financial management policies rather than hiking the taxes

Thoughts based on the news(1) from Economic times ‘Professional Tax may Pinch you more’ published in India

More thoughts and comments are welcome

The wrestler...

I come across this sight at least once in a week and more than once during exam season. This is common among engineering students in Bangalore. Two college kids on a bike, one busy wrestling the traffic and the other wrestling with a set of equations and diagrams scribbled on a sheet of paper. Occasionally the guy at the handle meddles into the equations and then goes back to the road… Always the equation wrestler seems to run at full MIPS (As we indicate a micro-processor performance in Millions of Instructions Per Second), storing the unprocessed RAW data. In most cases the traffic wrestler is a boy and the equation wrestler is a girl. The current trend in India is that you need to and will get into IT industry irrespective of your engineering major. The real wrestling starts if they go in for a job breaking this trend and this is rare.

Debate...for what?

I got an opportunity to watch a debate program in a leading Tamil TV channel. The debate happens between two groups of people moderated by one person. I really got an opportunity to see how ignorant and arrogant the people are. A girl in her early teen was talking about the pitfalls of the Indian marriages and the marriage custom, I wondered how many marriages she had before to arrive at that viewpoint! I simply walked away from the TV room and switched off my brain to a good piece of music. You encounter such people in our day-to-day life and you can’t avoid them. You have got to isolate and have fun. And the program might be a commercial success but it is a flop when it comes to the intellectual or entertainment content.

Romance too deep for words, Passion too deep for tears!

I got a series of pod casts on the Irish and Celtic music last Thursday and now I am addicted to them. The pod cast is available along with the link to the band’s web page which posts info of their achievements and their life.
I am really moved by the quote that welcomes us to Jamie Laval’s web page

“When I play truly from the heart,
the music of countless past
generations become my own voice
It’s romance too deep for words,
Passion too deep for tears”

The last two lines express the simple truth…
Want to experience? type http://www.celticmusicpodcast.com/

Navigating through the pages, I got a music sheet written for fiddle and tried out in guitar. Also I tried playing a song featured in the pod cast and lol…I could make it. This has revived my love for playing the guitar.

Plastics...

11.58 p.m. 29th May 08

It is close to midnight. There is an eerie silence that has engulfed the city as there is a power cut. A shower of rain had thrown the Bangalore city out of gear few hours ago. The rain water did not find an easy path to drain off…they occupied the roads, flooded them: this is the state of engineering here: there are no channels to drain the water into sewer. The situation in the drain is no good. They have their own enemy… plastics; the drains are heavily clogged by plastic covers. This is the state of any city or town at present.
In the process of reviving ‘Noyyal River’ in Coimbatore, nature enthusiasts submitted a report to the city corporation and have got a rule in place which bans usage of plastic covers at all stages. The point here is, the rule exists day-in and day-out and not just on paper. Moving further, I see a great need in creating the basic awareness of waste disposal and I firmly believe that this can be achieved only if we start it from our own home and our surrounding. Few years ago, the then ruling party in Tamil Nadu state issued an order requesting every household to install rain water harvesting sites in their house. Every other household now has it at least on paper. Even then, after an year, the water table rose to a considerable amount…imagine if every other household did the exercise with whole of their heart…
A small tipping point can change the fate of the world…I think so, Do you?
As engineers, we need to design for future at the least and we get the prophecy only by sharing our thoughts and ideas… Are we?

Trouble with my demat account...

One of my worst experiences with Religare Securities...Recently I opened a de-mat account with the BTM layout branch of Religare. Without me booking any orders, the guy managing my account there has done intra-day trading for which I am receiving transaction slip in my inbox. Moreover, the guys in the office act too smart …I need to check with their boss and pull myself out of Religare. By the way, de-mat in any other firm has the same risks. Only way out is to check the account on a daily basis… J

Train 0627

I was returning back from my native town. My train bound for Bangalore was scheduled at 10.35 pm, Tiruchirapalli junction (Trichy for short). This was a seasonal special train. At my aunt’s place I got to know that the train was late by 40 minutes. I reached the station at around 10.15 and punched the train number 0627 in the help-kiosk. It gave me a shock: the timetable said 0627 was bound for Chennai! Later I confirmed at the help counter that this was a special train. Suddenly, the speaker announcement said the train is routed to platform-2. I proceeded toward platform-2... in the next round announcement he said platform-4. Another train bound for Rameshwaram was arriving in platform-4. This caused the confusion: the passengers were in full chaos. Later in his Hindi accented English, he informed it to be platform-3. From then on, he kept sticking to platform-3. Boarding the train, I felt the tension vanishing and a ray of silence. It will be good, if they pay equal attention to special seasonal train announcements as well.

Right ecosystem nurtures…

My mom gave a plant to me 18 months ago saying ‘Let this plant divert you from the ever bright computer screen and work pressure to the reality of life’. The plant came all the way from Coimbatore to Bangalore adorned with only five leaves. Now the plant has around two dozen leaves! One more lemon seed found its way from my grandma’s backyard three months ago… Just after a cuppa lemon tea, I put the seeds in the pot and it got buried under the thick layer of humus on the top layer. We were closed for the weekend following May-1 for a span of four days. I sprinkled some water and bid good bye to my plant family comprising this indoor plant and a money-plant plus a croton. Post long weekend, yesterday, I noticed a centimeter long shoot from the edge of the pot. The lemon seeds have germinated. I like the way they have grown; straight pointing to the sky…
My plant family has one more member to its group… :)

It takes a heart to conquer Cancer...

Awareness is the key to conquer cancer and spreading cancer awareness is the prime most vision of Vasantha Memorial Trust. At VMT, we have been striving to spread the message that ‘Cancer is curable if detected early’ among fellow beings from all walks of life. The trust functions with blessings from well-wishers and volunteers. 100+ awareness sessions every month, 300+ patients sponsored, Jumble sale for cancer aid and Music concerts in aid of Cancer every year and many more events / milestones buoys our spirit and our mission. On a broader perspective, it takes a heart to conquer Cancer. Drop a web-visit to www.vasantha.org or mail vasanthamemorial@gmail.com to get to know how you can also be a part of this awareness drive. You can ping me too…