Bye bye 2009… welcome Twenty10

Yeah, it’s gonna be 2010. Oh God! I’m gonna live another 2 years only, because 2012 is the end of this world! No, stop the clock… Enough of the 2012 story. Cut the crap mate!

And another end of the year. Unlike last few years, I dint go on vacation for the last week of the year. It has been a rough year for me. Lot of things took U-turn, rather I took a U-turn; lot of plans shelved, lot of things had to be changed. Lost an important person, cast my first vote, moved to a different city, visited the oldest city of India, etc etc..

Any ways, change is good, change is the only constant thing, and so does the year change…

Wish you all a happy new year! Wish you all the best.

Sarvejana sukhinobhavanthu.

Krishna Floods – Karuninchavamma Krishnamma

ఆస్తిపాస్తులు నీటిపాలు పాడిపంటలు నీటిపాలు
పూరిగుడిసె నీటమునిగె పెద్దమేడ నీటమునిగె
రాలేరు ఆప్తులు కనరాలె మిత్రులు
కాదేదీ శాశ్వతమని తెలుపుటకేనా ఈ వరద
కరుణించవమ్మా కృష్ణమ్మ కరుణించు

నీ పరుగుకు ఆనకట్టలు ఎత్తు కావని
నీ వరదకు బ్యారేజిలు అడ్డు రావని
నూరేళ్ళ నీ ఓర్పుని గమనించలేదని
నూరేళ్ళ నిండు జీవితాలు బలి చేయడమా
కరుణించవమ్మా కృష్ణమ్మ కరుణించు

నీ దారిన వంతెన కట్టి కొండల మధ్య నిను బంధించి
సముద్రునికి దూరం చేశామనా నీ కోపం
నీ అక్క చెల్లెళ్ళతో కలిపి సంతసింపజేస్తనని
దీక్ష బూనిన భగీరధుడు విసిగి విరమించెనే
కరుణించవమ్మా కృష్ణమ్మ కరుణించు

నీరు లేదు భాగ్యనగరానికి నీవు లేక
ముంత నిండదు చెన్నపట్టనానికి నీవు లేక
ఆంధ్ర దేశం అన్నపూర్ణ కాలేదు నీవు లేక
తప్పదడ్డు నీకు తాతలు కట్టిన ఆనకట్ట
కరుణించవమ్మా కృష్ణమ్మ కరుణించు

Recent floods have brought life to stand still in few districts of Andhra Pradesh. Krishna, which is one of the life lines of AP has swallowed villages and towns. Man made structures had to look in awe and nature won hands down. Help those in need.

If you feel government is the best channel, donate here: http://cmo.ap.gov.in:8080/cmrf/index.do

Otherwise, please take time to find a good organization that can help the needy there.

Magadheera – Hit movie

SS Rajamouli gives a hit again! I think all his movies did well in Tollywood. This is no exception – Magadheera has all it’s needed to be a hit movie. Good story, good music, nice performances from the cast and A class direction.

Ram Charan Teja did well in the movie. Though the second movie, he gave a good performance in the movie. His voice resembles very much that of Chiru’s. He voice has to be more fine tuned. But still, I think he’s identified as Chiranjeevi’s son. It would take quite a bit of time to get his own name. Kajal has been amazing, gorgeous and what ever. She is at her best in this movie. Music is good, story is good – on similar lines with Arundhati, centuries apart a rebirth etc. etc. But one thing that misses the logic is telugu speaking kingdom in Rajasthan :-p, that too before four centuries. Overall, the movie is good, and will attact family audience a lot. Another hit movie of the year!

Yahoo! Mail – wow

New upgrade

Yahoo! Mail gets a complete upgrade. The UI is lot cleaner, ads on the left gone, only one ad on the page! That’s a great upgrade.

The left pane is lot more clean than it was with all those small irritating ads. Calendar and Notepad are pushed to applications section, which looks lot cleaner. Next thing to do is integrate the UI of calendar and notepad in to the mail UI. This upgrade is very clean, I like it and it’s lot more easier on the eye. I hope Yahoo! adds thread support too. The space after the check box is a hint if I’m not wrong.

It all depends on how well the applications are integrated into the yahoo mail experience. Otherwise, everything is cool minus the threading experience.

Away from Bengaluru

Trip Planner Mind Map
Originally uploaded by The Last Paladin

This blog has been collecting dust. Infact, twitter spoiled this blog. :p

I’ve planned to go on a trip with my friends, and this is the mindmap of all the things that are needed. Please suggest if something needs to be added.

Apart from this, going on a trip with little planning, for six days. Off from regular work, should provide some relief from the robotic Bangalore life.

See you!

Y! Image search gets cool day by day… one feature at a time…

Y! Image Search

Go check out yahoo image search… search for taj mahal…

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=taj+mahal&ei=utf-8&iscqry=&fr=sfp

Update: I think this is in a bucket, here is the screen shot.

The left bar contains related topics and thumbnails, which can boost number of searches by the user and gives relevant images quickly with out much typing.

Or is this an old feature that I’m seeing today? :-p

Find yourself in the electoral rolls

I registered with the ERO of my constituency and I was eagerly searching for my name in the rolls. My name was in disguise in the list. If you face the same problem finding your name in the list, here is the reason (that I heard from Jaagore):

Names are transliterated from Kannada to English.

So your name might not have the spelling that you expect. Search for your name with different combination of first few letters. You may find it. If you do, go, vote.

Here is the site for Karnataka: http://stg1.kar.nic.in/searchfinalroll_2009/

Thanks Jaagore for waking me up.

The Political Clutter

I was out of home after 20, and I never voted in any election because I was moving from place to place. Now I registered with the Rolls Officer. I hope my name will be included in the list and if it is, I will definitely vote.

Came across this quote today:

The ultimate tragedy is not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people. -Martin Luther King

Yes, don’t be silent. I’ve seen many people criticizing politicians. I always ask them “Did you bother to vote in the last election?” Yes, it’s the silence of good people that’s bad. You may be good in your profession, earning good salary, paying taxes more than you really want to etc. but paying taxes is just not enough to run the country. We need good leaders, when there are no good leaders, there will be only “politicians”.

The current situation is bad. Parties have become family-run businesses. Vote has become a commodity. ECI is doing its best, but still this country is too diverse and too big to control each and every thing. And not to forget, the rift between ECs.

AP politics has become very interesting these days. With so many parties and “mergers”, they look like businesses. Have a look at what kind of people are going to rule the state. Coming into power at any cost seems to be the main aim, instead of serving people.

Some years back, the ‘Vision 2020′ was colorful to me. I appreciate each and everything that happened in the IT world of AP in his time. But now the ‘Television 2009′ looks awkward to me. Why should people be given color TVs? Everyone will get what they deserve. Try to raise income levels of people by creating good jobs and providing more opportunities. People will buy color TVs themselves. Why do you want to take away their dignity? This is just making people lazy. This practice is not good to the nation in the long run. No, I don’t want my tax money to go like that. Teach fishing guys. Don’t feed.

Then emerged a ray of hope for the people of Telangana. What’s the great man been doing? Separate state might be good for people, but what about the problem of Fluoride in hundreds of villages? Do you care to save people from “the poison”? Sir, will it be solved magically if you get Telangana? What’s your priority? Don’t worry, separate state will come along.

I thought “the star” would bring change in political scene. But doesn’t seem to be. For now, looks better than existing parties, but once they come into power, the real color will be exposed. After all, most people came from other parties.

And who wants to give mobile phones to below BPL people? Bring IT to people, it’s good. But, first create jobs for them, they will buy them on their own. You (I) need not give them. And don’t forget that India is not only Hindus. Only Hindutva will take you nowhere. I want to live in harmony, not amid hate and fear. Yes, I still remember who gave me nice roads to travel. Thanks for that. Promise and make such investments, I would me more than happy to support you.

We’re seeing the corrupt government in the papers daily. Sir, people are watching you. May be you should go to a top B-school and teach how to create companies and make them profitable. Many facilities brought by the govt. look good from outside, but how well it reached people is the question. But my mom cares only her groceries budget, and she knows which party is ruling the state. BTW, what did those European folks tell when they visited us?

In this big clutter, a ray of hope is JP. His 50 guarantees are sensible. And I believe he can bring change to the situation. Sir, my mom doesn’t know that your party even exists. You might be good, but you need to get into the masses. I think your priority should be to get a permanent symbol for elections. I know how difficult is it to do that amid vote bank rich and cash-rich parties. But, you will make it one day. I support you at the moment.

And what would I do? Donate my two cents to the party I support. And VOTE.

At least, I would send the best of the worst to the Parliament, if I don’t get to choose a good one.

Rangula Ratnam

I was in Chennai last weekend. Merina beach is one place I love to go every time I go to Chennai. The place is vibrant with lot of people, kids, girls etc. etc. I can just sit there on the beach and spend the whole evening alone.

I was crazy about this “Rangula Ratnam” in childhood. But it was very difficult to get pocket money from dad to spend on this. Only time we get to ride on this is the day after Kanuma, when we go to the river bank and spend the evening there with friends and family.

I was given only 10 or 20 paise per day when I was in primary school. My sister was given only half of what I get… gender bias. So, getting 50 paise to enjoy a ride was very difficult. Still remember those days. It’s very refreshing to see kids enjoying a ride. How ever small, that joy can never be forgotten.

A’Satyam’

All that has been said and heard about Satyam reveals one satyam: Indian promoters still have more influence than they should actually have on the company. When a company grows beyond the size promoters can run it, it should be run by professional team and if the promoters are not professional enough, they should just remain non-executive or move on to other ventures. Satyam may reveal more ugly facts on the transperency of Indian corporate sector.

While my head says Ramalinga Raju is a 420, but by heart I still respect him as one of the brave entrepreneurs that took on the IT challenge. Apart from Satyam, the other charitable activities he does are of great help to common people. Generating 53,000 jobs is not an easy task in this country, and he is one of those tough guys who did it.

To my knowledge, all this can’t happen with out the knowledge of bada netas. Only time answers everything.

‘Satyam’eva jayate, for the sake of 53000 employees.