A long distance STD Call to one state to the other was around Rs 50 per minute. Likewise 500 Hours of TCP/IP internet connection (56Kbps max speed dial up based) was around Rs 10,000/- This was the situation in 1997/8, when I was doing 11th class, in  Namakkal, a town in TamilNadu, where there wasnt a internet dialup server, so I have to do a STD call to connect to the internet.

Today, due to high volume and usage, voice & data bandwidth are becoming dead cheap! When compared to the US, UK or Australia, we enjoy the "cheapest" rates, which is also due to the "high population".

In the West, lot of companies landline (wired phone), gives option like Pay flat for the call, ie., 10 cents/pennies per call, regardless of the duration of the call.. And in some cases, you can see, free outgoing from landline to landline. This was there for nearly a decade.

Oflate here in India,  when the new GSM Cellular providers came into the market, especially TATA DOCOMO brought Pay per second PLAN, which is now catching up very hotly. And parallely, we have got Pay per call, which is around Rs 3 per ten minutes, or Re 1 per three minutes (for Local/STD / while in Roaming) which is also catching up!.

Likewise the broadband connection is hitting the cheapest rate, like 20GB download a month is around Rs 750 etc Possibility of the rates to go down, as usage per Sq.Km is still getting dense (thanks to the indian population!!)

I still remember the days I liked to download few hundred MB,and it was pathetic!! Now, I love these rates,speed, and its just a throw away price.
Also, the technology has reached and reaching all the levels of people!!
But, when are we going to reach a saturation level ? Its soon, probably in few years..like the US/UK.

Indian Students getting attacked in Australia particularly in Victoria State (in Melbourne Suburbs) is the news everywhere in the past weeks. And some people are blaming the Media for blowing this up.

I have couple of stories.

First one is mine happened last year. At this time I was in Melbourne. Melbourne Central Business District is a very small area which we can cover by an hours walk. Central Business District is the city part of Melbourne. The suburbs are surrounded as like other places. On 14th June 2008, a colleague of mine SenthilKumaran came back to India few days before me. I dropped him in Bus Depot to Airport with my friends Sudarshan, Bala and other Senthil and few more. Few of them had Australian PR too. It was midnight, I was coming alone to my Hotel by walk. Just near the hotel, I was about to cross the road and a car possibly a Toyota crossed very fast. A chewing white colored gum came out and fell near me. Someone from the car spitted a chewing gum and shouted something, due to the cars’ music system I couldn't hear what they said.

Second one, an incident happened few weeks back to my friend in Sheffield UK. When he was coming back to home in the evening few teenagers playing in the street shouted “Fu**ing Indian” and few days later one guy may be around 15 came and asked for some money to him. These things happened when he came via a dark road from the train station.

Coming back to the Australian Racism news… I just asked few of my friends in Melbourne and both of them immediately replied its just exaggerated. Even lot of  “Indians” in Australia in have mentioned the same.

So what's the big deal ? If we go out of our own country or area we must always try to maintain low profile and adjusting with the new community. e.g.., In the trams/trains/buses shouting in some Indian language calling or communicating with a friend who is sitting four or five rows after , when mobile rings, without putting it on mute, making it to sing the latest bollywood song and thinking whether to attend the call or thinking who it is…. etc are very bad. Things like this will irritate the people. It doesn't mean that is the reason behind all these attacks. Wherever we go, we can find few miscreants in all the community. My friends in Melbourne say its not Racism, its business. Its the business the media is oiling up… It is happening for years. Just Bing. You will then know whether its a business or the real Racism.

It doesn't mean that if it happens for years its not Racism. Its the matter of “blowing up”…

Even I do agree with my friends. Medias in India is as usual playing the game after the Election 2009.We are going abroad just to study or to work or get settled. But whatever we do, will be called “Indians” did. Everyone of us have a morality when we represent some community.

ie.., if you go abroad

# on a business trip, in your client place you are representing your company (“The Companies in India”) in the customer place,

#  to study, you are representing the “Indian Students” community &

# to settle we represent “The Indian Origins”.

likewise the list goes on and on…

So we must know the responsibility. Developed nations are not India. Shouting in a public place, cracking the rules etc will affect the whole big community called “Indians”.

Whatever the case may be, its our life, our near and dear ones are here in India looking for us. Even when we get attacked by words, its always better to leave the place as soon as we can. I do accept in few circumstances we cant do anything other than getting “attacked”, but lets be safe. We cant stop any unexpected happenings, lets only try to reduce that by not doing these mistakes which kindle those “miscreants” more….

Using Credit cards

Credit card fraud is a big issue in India and abroad. I still know lot of people who never uses internet banking and earns more than a million rupee a year in IT field. Most of the time I have felt why these people are more reluctant?? Sometime back a colleague of mine used to give me money every week for booking him a rail ticket in IRCTC. He had a debit card, he was eligible for a Corporate Credit card but he never used those in the internet.

Even last week one of my ex-Manager who is yet to start a interior designing business came to my home to buy some softwares and domain name using my card in the internet. Lot of times I have used my cards for my friends’ purchase online.

But lot of Credit card based fraud are really making me to think twice before helping others to use my card... Visa & Master card gives a new way to secure your card information online called Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode. Most of the companies comes with their own way of securing or some good proven way to secure that. Nearly two years back I criticized in my blog about HSBC over killing the users by giving a security device.

 BBC claims that they have purchased UK residents credit card details from New Delhi. [More] This new issue and other stories are really making me to feel that those reluctant people are better!

Twin Oscars for AR Rahman

 

A.R. Rahman, the Legend holds up his Oscars for best original song and best original score for 'Slumdog Millionaire' backstage at the 81st Academy Awards in Hollywood.

AR Rahman, the Legend

Music director A.R. Rahman has won a Golden Globe award in the Best Original Score category for his music in British director Danny Boyle’s uplifting underdog tale, Slumdog Millionaire!

Satyam Saga

Ramalinga Raju is the Founder and Chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd. Satyam Computer Services was incorporated in 1987. It went public in 1992 and has since grown to become one of India's preeminent IT companies with a global presence, serving over 144 Fortune 500 and over 390 multinational corporations. Raju has an MBA from Ohio University. He is also an alumnus of the Harvard Business School. Raju has won several awards and global accolades, which include Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Services in 1999, Dataquest IT Man of the Year in 2000, and CNBC’s Asian Business Leader - Corporate Citizen of the Year award in 2002.

Its a pity, he could have not done that :( Even the Sensex lost around 1000 points.

Updates from here.

Let 2009 be a Bull Market

 

Hope this year be good for us and the share market. While we cant expect a V-shape rally though, but it can make sustainable gains.

 

Movies in your City from Google

After Vasanth, its my time to get amused by Google.
Searched for Movies in Madras, it just showed me. Even for Tiruppur, Salem, Madurai... the list goes on.

Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Reason for the current financial crunch

As many of us know the reason, still lot more people didn't understand why exactly this financial crunch the so called "Subprime Mortgage Crisis" happened. Also, we can take it like, every decade something will come to affect the market.

Found a good article and something more in the Wikipedia.

Also I got a forwarded mail from my friend Gunasekaran who runs a website called Thamizh Studio. Forward is a PDF document in Tamil which explains the financial crunch in a funny colloquial language. But its too hard in supporting communism and offending the current Indian governments' financial policies which I don't support.

Dell India is Hell

A month back I ordered a Dell Laptop for my friend SasiKumar. It was my sole decision to go for a Dell Laptop here in India. I ordered for Dell Inspiron E1505/6400. It was more than a month, and I didnt get any reply from Dell Sales Team in Bangalore, India. At one point, I  started asking for the status, and not the Laptop. But they didnt even reply to my email for more than two weeks.

I was given a link longtime back to check the status. Excellent updation on the status. For nearly 3 weeks, there was no status update. Even I bounced these things back to them and to few other email Ids I got from their website and Google. But nothing invain. I really felt bad talking to my friend, though he didnt tell anything.

Even I sent two mails insulting them for this. Its here.. Even for that they didnt respond, thats different story!!

Actully, a friend of mine nearly a year back had the same problem. But, I thought it was Past(a yr old story). But it again happened!! Really I think no retail buyer will go and buy in the Dell India or their Website.

Atlast yesterday someone from Bangalore Dell called me and asked whether the Laptop has been despatched.
I shouted "No".
Then she said "It might be on the way to your place".
I replied "Place in the sense where ? Even Chennai is the place where Im staying and even India is the place where Im residing".
She said "Its in Madras and will come today itself ". And it really got delivered in the same day!!!

 

Unattractive Ads

Even though Indian Consumers are being attracted towards great advertisements, still there are some ads which are really unattractive/bad. Companies like Hutch(Vodafone), Airtel(Google Search Ad), etc are posting damn good Ads daily. But today I saw an Ad for HDFC Bank NRI account.  "Open a HDFC Bank NRI Account and get a pack of 2 Amitab Movie DVD"

I saw this 'Unattractive Ad' in the NDTVProfit site. The Advertisement is targeting NRE/NRI people. But do they open a Bank A/c for those 2 DVDs ??? I dont think so.

Exclusive Disclaimer : Im not attracted to Amitab. And I wont tell HDFC Bank is doing a better service than other banks(im writing a small review about Banks in India)

Long time back I got a call from a girl called Priya, a tele-caller based in Madras, for HSBC Personal Loan. I was not interested so I told her that. But she called me again, and I shouted that Im busy and Do not call me. She called me again, fourth or fifth time.

But I have registered in the Do Not call Registry of HSBC bank, in their website a long time back.

I asked for her age & education. she was in her early 20s' and some BSc degree. Then I replied, "Priya, Im really interested in talking to you, I dont mind talking to you regulary, but dont call me for this Loan. Just talk, tell me about yourself etc.," She didnt reply, thats all. She didnt call me from that moment. 

Like this a guy called me for deutsche bank credit card. I told him that I already have many cards ...

Wi-Fi Hotspots in Chennai Airport

Last week I went to Madras(Chennai) Airport to pick my brother. As I haven't accessed any Wi-Fi connection in Madras Airport, I took my new Laptop, to check out the Wi-Fi Hotspots.  BSNL, KingFisher & TATA-Indicom are the three networks available inside the Airport. Though I expected Sifys' Sify Wi-zone, but it was not there.

I tried connecting

Private Banks Vs Nationalised Banks

In India, Retail banking is very much successful than any other developing countries. Take some private banks for example : ICICI, IDBI, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra etc are not just a Retail banking institutions started. They were started for some different purpose or to render financial services for Home Loan, Consumer finance, Corporate Lending etc.,and in years they have started Retail banking. Not only Private Banks, Multi-National banks like HSBC, CITI Bank, Standard Chartered, ABN Amro etc., are also there in the list, and they are doing a very good business over here. Then we have the Nationalised Banks like State Bank of India, Indian Bank, Punjab National Bank, etc are there in the list, and these Nationalised Banks only have a large customer base.

All the Nationalised banks are operating in the rural areas and the Cities. Whereas very few private banks like Karur Vysha Bank (KVB), Karnataka Bank, Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB), operate in the rural areas.

Many other private banks like IndusInd, ICICI, HDFC have started to show their presence in the rural areas. We know that in rural areas its tough to do business since those people won't be looking for all these hi-fi services like ATM, internet

Quota issue to the MAX

 

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in INDIA

Just last week ony I have changed my mobile number (ie., I have moved from BSNL to Airtel) I have used BSNL for a long time. Since I don't want to continue with BSNL, I shifted to AIRTEL, so my mobile number have changed from 94433 76694 to 99940 49398. Not to miss few important calls, Im holding the old number for a month. But this issue will be over very soon, since Telephone Regularity Authority of India (TRAI) have come up with the idea of implementing Mobile Number Portability(MNP), moving to any Operator, but retaining the same number. Also, they have ordered that this must be implemented within one year down the line, and from April 1st 2007 eveyone mobile user must be able to port the number.

Actually MNP is already there in countries like US, UK, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore etc., Mobile Number Portability is a very big advantage to the customers(subscribers) as well as to the operators. I have a uncle in Coimbatore, basically a tech entrepreneur, who is having a mobile number for the past 9 years. Im sure, he wants to change the operator(since that is the worst rated in Tamilnadu Circle), but he don't have the choice of retaining the number. So, he still maintains it. Likewise we can see many people we have this kind of issue. So, if this MNP is implemented, then we can freely move to any operator. Also, TRAI have said, the changing (Porting) of number must not take more than three days.

Technology behind this is maintaining a database of the numbers by the Operators, as available in other countries.

So, operators with good & cheap service & excellent customer support will be benefited more!!

For more details : [Link]

Karuthu a new tamil site to express our views

Karuthu is a Tamil word means View.  Karuthu.com, a new web forum to express our views, thoughts on any general issues or happenings. Click for latest topics on board. The forum even supports Tamil. The site was launched this sunday and holds Freedom of Speech, Expression & Views as their Caption. To know more click here.

The highlight is that, Karuthu.com was started by Karthik Chidambaram, son of Union Finance Minister P.Chidambaram along with Kanimozhi, daughter of DMK Chief Karunanidhi

Also, Mr. Karti Chidambaram, owns Myvakil.com, a legal advisory site.

Update : Its really nice to see, Karuthu.com with nearly 3800 entries (replies & posts) in just 45 day!!  Well, the truth was, there wasnt a good, reliable site before to throw peoples' karuthu. .

Now we can call this as a good initiative, rite.

Speaker s  for FOSS. IN ( Linux Bangalore / LB ) 2005

FOSS. IN announces its speaker list for the forthcoming FOSS. IN 2005 event. We have unexpected set of people... Thanks Atul for making it.

The Key speakers are :

 

He is the co-author of what could probably be called "The Bible of Linux Development", in which he uses his keen knowledge of the Linux kernel and its design to show people how to develop device drivers. No one in India would even *think* of trying this without referring to his book, now in the third edition.         He is Jonathan Corbet, co-author of "Linux Device         Drivers", and editor of LWN.NET, aka "Linux Weekly News".
His code safeguards millions of networks across the world, and can be found in virtually every consumer router these days. And when he isn't writing code, he makes the world a safer place for the GPL, by relentlessly tracking down and exposing corporations who "don't get it" when they use GPL'd code without following the rules of the game, and provided the first precedent of the GPL standing up in court - and winning. From Germany comes the chairman of the netfilter/iptables project, and the man behind GPLviolations.org - Harald Welte.
He speaks Japanese, German, English and a variety of other languages, but most importantly speaks Geek as well. He had a knoppix CD before people knew what that was, and can lie in the sun for hours without getting a tan or a sunburn. He is Mr.Wizards-of-OS - Volker Grassmuck.
Every time you go to the web to access information, you are using technology that this man has had his eager fingers in. His work is one of the first instances of a FOSS project almost completely demolishing the proprietary competition, and is used in a majority of all web servers across the Internet. The man behind the Apache project, COLLAB.NET's Brian Behlendorf.
He started off writing something to make it easier to maintain his personal home pages, and ended up changing the way the world created websites. He is Mr.PHP - Rasmus Lerdorf.
When she speaks, people sit up and listen. She was behind the open sourcing of the project that today gives FOSS a place in every office and in every home, and is also part of the organization that decides what's Open Source, and what is not - literally. The Diva of Open Source - Danese Cooper.
As one of the world's best known bloggers, he has played a vital role in getting his highly influential organization to play nice with FOSS. He loves to dabble with things ranging from Linux servers, databases, to PCs, gliders and now powered aero planes. He is Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny.
The world of sound and music is a fascinating one, and there has always been a deep connection between code-hacking geeks and music. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that a lot of effort goes into making FOSS platforms "music compatible" - not just in the playback department, but in the music creation and recording department. The man behind Linux Sound and Audio - Dave Phillips.
He is probably one of the most recognizable faces in the FOSS world, and at the same time one of the most respected names, as well. His contributions to Linux rank with those of all the greats out there, and that includes Linus Torvalds. He has been the official kernel maintainer, and little happens in the Linux kernel today without him having some say in it. He is Alan Cox.

The regular drizzling rain in bangalore gone crazy last week, making bangalore a mini-bombay. Southern- Karnataka (mainly Bangalore), have good under water level, not like Tamilnadu. Even in Madras its raining most of the time. But the speed of absorption or the amount of water sucked by the soil/earth will be very less when compared to Madras/TamilNadu. So it might take more than a week to go out. And the climate won't help also.  Here in madras, it rains, but all of a sudden the sun plays well in the same day.

Atlast, Madras is becoming a mini-Bangalore & Bangalore has become a mini-Bombay, in the climate alone.

To say the truth this blog entry is to get more clicks from search engines. Im getting many clicks from the search engines for this flood in bangalore, not for proper keywords. So I thought of doing something to get a better keyword importance.

So please bear this :: please don't read below. Just look the stills below...

/*****************Its just for s.e.a.r.c.h--- e.n.g.i.n.e --o.p.t.i.m.i.z.a.t.i.o.n, ****** don't read*******************/

Actually Bangalore is affected a lot due to this flood still (stills are below, even flood image, images), bangalore city is more surrounded with water /  flood,  full of water, bangalore flood pictures, flood stills,bangalore in water, flooded bangalore image,stills

Actually Bangalore is affected a lot due to this flood still (stills are below), bangalore city is more surrounded with water /  flood,  full of water, bangalore flood pictures images, flood stills,bangalore in water, flooded bangalore image, stills

/**********************************************************************************************/

 

   

More stills, nearly 20 are in the power point file.[Link]

ThanX to Umaka & Anandha Balaji for forwarding it. Also Narasiman, my graduation friend & a native of Trichy for explaining the situation.  

I have blogged about Bangalore's pathetic Traffic situation illustrated in Jokes before too.

One more photoblog with the similar news is here. [Link]

My cousin Durga, who is doing her Ph.D., in Strathclyde University left to Glascow this morning after a months' holiday. I accompanied her with Kanchi (another cousin of mine who is studying 11th standard in Lady Andal School) till Chennai(Madras) International Airport. Inside the Airport, in a public telephone booth, I saw a sticker, saying BSNL Wi-Fi SPOT. As usual I got wired up, since I have blogged about BSNL Wi-Fi a month back. Anyway Wi-Fi is becoming cheaper in India. Interestingly Kanchi was having a  Nokia 6230i which had a 1.3Mega Pixel camera, so I clicked and send it to me thru Bluetooth.  The original picture is here : [link]

I can't access any FTP site from my office. So Im using Geocities, to upload images

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), to provide Wi-Fi access. I have heard that the  private operators are finding it difficult to increase their Wi-Fi customer base. I hope that BSNL is the best PSU in india, having all the lastest features in by its counterparts in the world. And service offered by them are seamlessly comparable to all the private operators in the country. They didn't miss to provide any service provided by its private-competitors. Im planning to review global Telecom giants, supporting BSNL

Even BSNL is having a website (Cellone.in)to provide Value Added Services for its mobile phone customers.

For more news/rates on BSNL Wi-Fi visit :  http://bsnl.co.in/newsdetailed.php?news_id=222

"I have today amicably resolved the issues between my two sons, Mukesh and Anil, keeping in mind the proud legacy of my husband Dhirubhai Ambani"    said Kokilaben (Wife of Late. Dhirudhubai Ambani).

The Rs.100,000 crore($20 bn) empire split between the Ambani brothers, Mukesh getting RIL and IPCL & his younger sibling Anil heading Reliance Capital, Reliance Energy and Reliance Infocomm ended after a long six month issue. It is said that the settlement is based on the idea by Mr. KV Kamath, MD & CEO of ICICI Bank.

NOPworld, a leading market research organization explores global media habits like reading, searching internet, listening to radio & watching TV. Interestingly India leads in Reading with a great score of 10.7 hours per week(hr/wk), while the global average goes around 6.5 hr/Wk. In watching TV, it is 13.3 hr/wk which is 3.3hr/wk lesser than the global average.

For more information : [ Yahoo ]