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\startsong
\stitle{bahaaro.n phuul barasaao, meraa mahabuub aayaa hai}%
\film{Suraj}%
\starring{Rajendra Kumar, Vyjayantimala}%
\singer{Rafi}%
\music{Shankar, Jaikishan}%
\lyrics{Hasrat Jaipuri}%
%
% Contributor:
% Transliterator: Venkatasubramanian K. G (gopala@cs.wisc.edu)
% Credits: rec.music.indian.misc
% Editor: Anurag Shankar (anurag@astro.indiana.edu)
%
\printtitle
#indian
%
bahaaro.n phuul barasaao
meraa mahabuub aayaa hai \- (2)
havaao.n raaginii gaao
meraa mahabuub aayaa hai \- (2)
o laalii phuul kii me.nha.Ndii lagaa in gore haatho.n me.n
utar aa ai ghaTaa kaajal, lagaa in pyaarii aa.Nkho.n me.n
sitaaro.n maa.Ng bhar jaao
meraa mahabuub aayaa hai \- (2)
nazaaro.n har taraf ab taan do ik nuur kii chaadar
baDaa sharmiilaa dilabar hai, chalaa jaaye na sharamaa kar
zaraa tum dil ko bahalaao
meraa mahabuub aayaa hai \- (2)
sajaaii hai javaa.N kaliyo.n ne ab ye sej ulfat kii
inhe.n maaluum thaa aaegii ik din R^itu muhabbat kii
fizaao.n ra.ng bikharaao
meraa mahabuub aayaa hai \- (2)
bahaaro.n \threedots
%
#endindian
\endsong
%
% Send corrections to Anurag Shankar (anurag@chandra.astro.indiana.edu)
%
\startsong
\stitle{rim\-jhim gire saavan, sulag sulag jaaye man ## both versions##}%
\film{Manzil}%
\year{1979}%
\starring{Amitabh, Moushami}%
\singer{Lata / Kishore}%
\music{R D Burman}%
\lyrics{Yogesh}%
%
% Contributor:
% Transliterator: Avinash Chopde (avinash@acm.org)
% Credits: rec.music.indian.misc (USENET newsgroup)
% Private Eye (an36002@anon.penet.fi)
% C.S. Sudarshana Bhat (ceindian@utacnvx.uta.edu)
% Editor: Anurag Shankar (anurag@astro.indiana.edu)
%
\printtitle
#indian
%
## (Lata Mangeshkar) ##
rim\-jhim gire saavan, sulag sulag jaae man
bhiige aaj is mausam me.n, lagii kaisii ye agan
rim\-jhim gire saavan \threedots
pahale bhii yuu.N to barase the baadal,
pahale bhii yuu.N to bhiigaa thaa aa.nchal
ab ke baras kyuu.N sajan, sulag sulag jaae man
bhiige aaj is mausam me.n, lagii kaisii ye agan
rim\-jhim gire saavan \threedots
is baar saavan dahakaa huaa hai,
is baar mausam bahakaa huaa hai
jaane piike chalii kyaa pavan, sulag sulag jaae man
bhiige aaj is mausam me.n, lagii kaisii ye agan
rim\-jhim gire saavan \threedots
## (Kishore) ##
rim\-jhim gire saavan, sulag sulag jaae man
bhiige aaj is mausam me.n, lagii kaisii ye agan
rim\-jhim gire saavan \threedots
jab ghu.ngharuo.n sii bajatii hai.n buu.nde,
aramaa.N hamaare palake na muu.nde
kaise dekhe sapane nayan, sulag sulag jaae man
bhiige aaj is mausam me.n, lagii kaisii ye agan
rim\-jhim gire saavan \threedots
mahafil me.n kaise kah de.n kisii se,
dil ba.ndh rahaa hai kis ajanabii se
haay kare ab kyaa jatan, sulag sulag jaae man
bhiige aaj is mausam me.n, lagii kaisii ye agan
rim\-jhim gire saavan \threedots
%
#endindian
\endsong
%
A lot has happenned over the last few days. Most of it unexpected. Few of it good.
The biggest of the surprises is ofcourse the rapid ascent of Sonia Gandhi on the national stage. Luck and a few bad decisions by the BJP seemed to have worked magic for her and the congress party.
What do I think of her ?
Not easy to describe. On one side, it certainly is a sign of the age-old Indian tradition of “embrace and extend” still thriving. But on the other side, I see a complete lack of charisma which worries me. Vajpayee is a tough act to follow. He commanded the respect of his coalition partners and naturally dissent was minimal. He steered BJP away from the RSS, winning the hearts of several sceptics in the process. It helped that he had a few good men like Arun Shourie around him. People who actually had the courage to think of change and the conviction to carry it through.
Now coming back to Sonia. Already, we have seen the left misbehave and Sonia not saying anything about it. Not a single word. Worrisome. Will we have a puppet prime minister with the likes of Jairam Ramesh actually calling the shots. Or will the coming days see a more assertive Sonia on the center stage. Tough to predict. Interesting to watchout for.
I am willing to give her the benefit of doubt. Manmohan and Pranab, hopefully, will be given prominent roles and the likes of laloo reserved for what they do best, witty one liners for the next day's headlines.
Which then brings us to the biggest of troubles facing the nation now : The left front. A bunch of old men trying to keep alive a proven failure : Communism. I can't find the right words to describe my feelings when I see Sitaram Yechuri talk. Watching an intelligent guy defend a losing cause is a pitiable sight. He knows his idealogy has failed the world over. Failed right here in WB & Kerala. We know it. He knows we know it. Still he continues. Like an aging superstar trying to relive his best days. One of these days, the voters will see through the facade. One of these days, He himself will get tired of repeating a lie.
Till then, India will suffer. The markets will be painted in Red.
Befitting for a nation held hostage by a couple of states and a failed idealogy.
“Welcome to the homepage of the Indian Linux Project. The goal of this project is to create a Linux distribution that supports Indian Languages at all levels. This Indianisation project will strive to bring the benefits of Information Technology down to the Indian masses. We want to make technology accessible to the majority of India that does not speak English.
The task of localization has several pieces that need domain expertise. Some examples are I/O modules, development of fonts, kernel enablement, word translation etc. The project is looking for experts and volunteers to champion the cause of Indian language computing. You may volunteer and participate here.
The Indian Linux project is open source and completely free. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License.Here are the complete licensing terms and conditions.”
The IndLinux Project
See if you can help them out in any way you can.
“Here are some figures for anyone who has doubted the future of the Indian software industry.
In calendar year 2003 Cognizant has upped its revenue guidances for the year five times — each time by hefty amounts.
It started by predicting revenues of $229 million and that climbed to between $300 million and $305 million. Cognizant didn't stop there. It revised its guidances three more times: first to $330 million, then to $354 million and finally to $365 million.
One thing's for sure. Cognizant is about to post terrific returns. The company believes that revenue growth will climb by 60 per cent for 2003. That means it's about to post the highest revenue growth amongst India's top five software services players.
Says Lakshmi Narayanan, president and chief operating officer, Cognizant: "The reasons for such stupendous growth are clear. The IT industry is transitioning from the early stages of a global mega trend in offshore outsourcing to a mainstream mode where offshore outsourcing is seen as the highest priority by Fortune 500 and blue chip companies in the US and Europe."
Cognizant isn't the only company that has the champagne ready. In Delhi Vijay K Thadani is looking pleased.
For the chief executive officer of NIIT, business seems to be booming after about two years of instability.
The company has recorded a 347 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 5.9 crore (Rs 59 million) in the fourth quarter of 2003 against a Rs 1.31 crore (Rs 13.1 million) net profit last year.
These aren't isolated cases. After two years of cost-cutting and living with trimmed margins, the Indian software industry is once again on a roll. Most companies have announced improved business and have revised projections upwards.
”
Read more.
“Foreign funds stepped up purchases of Indian shares in September, with the month's net inflows surpassing their investments in all of 2002, buoyed by a bullish outlook for the farm-dependent economy, fund managers said.
Data released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India late on Wednesday showed offshore funds picked up stocks worth $855.2 million in September.
Their cumulative purchases this year totalled $3.1 billion, the highest portfolio inflow into the country since foreign investments were allowed a decade ago.
"The underlying economy is doing phenomenally well, there is no argument about it," said London-based Avinash Vazirani, the chief investment officer for South Asia and Africa at BNP Paribas Asset Management.”
Read more.
Lately. there has been a lot of positive buzz about India in the media. The hockey team, the cricket team's performance in the world cup, Anju George, the economy which is generating the maximum buzz, the BPO sector which of course is growing at a torrid pace of 60%, the excellent monsoon and so on and so forth.
Gradually, Momentum is building up. All this reminds me of Gandhi's classic quote,
“First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
that is when you win”.
Maybe, the mahatma is finally smiling somewhere up there :-)
Happy birthday, old guy. You moved an empire without firing a single shot. A certain GW Bush could learn a lot from you.
Meanwhile here is hoping, the forthcoming elections next year don't end up having a major impact on the economy.
It is going to be fun watching the next year's election. The number of channels, especially the number of news channels, has gone up significantly since the last election and it should be fun watching the channels trying to outdo each other.
Hace a nice long weekend.
Travel is the biggest fraud I play on myself.
People who know me, know that I rarely deviate from my home-office-home lifestyle. Inspite of having lived in bangalore for the last four years, there are vast portions of the city that I know nothing of.
Still, I live in the hope that one day I will start travelling around this world or atleast around India.
Occassionally, I turn to google for finding new travel websites to plan out this distant future of mine ( remember we are talking something atleast twenty years ahead and no, I am not mad :) ).
I came across this particular website
http://hill-stations-india.com/ today and was immediately impressed by how pretty it looked and how usable it was.
This ofcourse underlines the fact that there are countless such well designed Indian websites out there which I know nothing about.
So here is my question for the few readers of my main page. What is your fav
indian website ? Please try not to answer with the usual suspects like rediff which everyone knows of. I am looking for the hidden gems.
Kindly indulge me.
“Enakku thevayelaam ettu mani neram thookam, poo pola naalu idli, pudhina chutney, manssukku niraivaana vellai, appa ammavoda oru kai rummy, pooncholai gramathilai oru azhaghana rakshasi .. sunday evening titanic .. saravana bhavan tiffin”
It is a line mouthed by the middle class hero in the Shanker superhit, Mudhalvan. A line which underlines Sujatha's astute understanding of the Indian middle class.
There is one quote which I use whenever talk centres around India. It goes something like this,
The rest of the world has the “haves” and the “have nots”. Only India has the “have but did not wants”.
The dialogue from Mudhalvan best illustrates this. To be satisfied and be happy with the simple pleasures of life is a gift which adversity has bestowed upon the Indian middle class.
Capitalism is fueled by ambition. The great american dream has its roots in the ambitions of the immigrants who set foot in the land of oppurtunities with dreams of making it big.
India is, ofcourse, well known for its “chaltha hai” attitude. A casual approach towards work indeed towards life itself is what best charecterises India. You don't get to find a lot of perfectionists, go - getters, people bend upon conquering the world from India. Occasionally, a raw talent like tendulkar comes around and suprises the world. But people are still searching for the Steve Waugh from India.
Why is this ?
Can it be something as simple as the fact that oppurtunities were simply not available as a result of which lethargy set in at a national level ?
Or is it simply a lingering legacy of the british rule which left behind an absymally poor country and people shorn of ambition ?
Or is the fact that knowledge/art and not business was what was encouraged during the ancient maharaja days.
Or is it the fact that from a long time back, we have had a history of renunciation where people realising the meaninglessness of the material world have given it up and found comfort in the spiritual ? The idealogy behind the matrix, that the world that we see around us is an illusion, is something widely prevalent in local literature and nothing new to us.
In any case, the new wave of capitalism is changing the way India functions. National research instituitions which for a long time worked under the “knowledge is free” principles are actively patenting their ideas and defending their IPs. The IITs are getting more and more concerned about their industrial collaborations and profits.
Capitalism definetely has its pluses. But it distorts the moral fabric of the country. Americans are just waking up to this fact.
Should we be worried ?
I dont know. Change is as always inevitable. Clinging to age hold traditions will take us nowhere. Looking back and glorifying the past is something Indians are good at. Something which I regularly indulge in.
But I can't be oblivious of the fact that poverty is rampant. Money, however ugly the word might sound to be, is what is needed to take us forward.
Let us take an example which I am best qualified to talk about. Me. Here I am, doing everything in my wherewithal to earn more. There was a time when I used to write simply because I enjoy writing. Now I try to think of ways in which I can increase my traffic and earn more.
Still, I console myself by thinking that I am doing this with a short term goal of earning more to meet a long term goal of early retirement and social service.
The sheer fact that I am ashamed of thinking up of ways to earn more shows the deep seated guilt in the middle class minds associated with earning more than what is reasonable.
Maybe, I am a hopeless romantic or an idealogical fanatic or an emotional fool.
But here is what I hope,
I hope to see an India where money is seen as a means to an end and not as a lifelong quest. I hope to live in an India where people have all the money in the world and are still able to give it up if needed.
A return to the time of the Budha, someone who had everything yet gave it up all and embarked on a search to find the true meaning of life. The only worthwhile quest that life has to offer.
Having lived most of my life in kerala, I ( like most others ) had a bias towards communism. Communism is an easy philosophy to like, One which appeals to a comman's man mind instantly.
I used to write speeches for the “wannabe communist leaders” in our college, most of whom sadly hadn't even bothered to read the
Das Capital let alone understand it before hitting the campaign trail and and making promises bordering on the absurd ( yes, even at the college level, communists have a penchant for making populist promises ).
It takes a while for the impracticalities of communism to sink in. Atleast, It took a long while in my case. But eventually I had to give in. Communism is not practical however good it might sound.
But apparently most of the oldguard at the Communist party of India still don't have enough common sense in them to realise that communism has failed to deliver its promises. By a long margin.
What prompted me to write this post was the big fight on NDTV over the perils of the disinvestment process.
Here was sitaram yechuri, sitting with a big sheef of papers, making statement after statement about the perils of disinvestment. The whole audience, infact anyone who was watching that programme, could see the hollowness in his arguments. But was he willing to concede a point ? Was he even remotely willing to compromise ? No Sir. Not at all.
All he did was to repeat the same argument a thousand times. It is suffice to say that it was a sorry sight.
Chidambaram, on the other hand, was lucid and put forward a compelling argument on why certains PSUs must be privatised for the betterment of the people. Or why, “Government should not be in the business of doing business”.
It was suggested by someone in the audience that the AAI with a cash kitty of over 2300 crores could do the modernisation of the airports itself. Obviously, the guy who made this statement, has no clue about the amount of investment needed to create a modern airport.
It was said that HPCL & BPCL are strategically important to India. IOC ( 191 in fortune 500, the only Indian company in the 500 ) dwarfs both of these by a long margin and is the primary supplier to the defence.
Do we really need 30 odd nationalised banks ? Do we really need three big nationalised petroleum companies ? Does the government really need to run star hotels ? Simple questions with a straightforward “NO” as an answer.
Unfortunately, the likes of sitaram yechuri will not understand Or don't want to understand or even better, They understand but don't want to admit that they were wrong. All these years.
So sit they will, in front of Posters of Lenin, talk day and night about an outdated idealogy and hope that their union brothers don't see the obvious hollowness in their arguments.
Meanwhile here is my favourite quote about our politicians these days,
“India will grow inspite of its politicians.”
“India's IITs have, of course, been the subject of admiration - now bordering on envy - in corporate America for more than five years now. A 1998 BusinessWeek article on India's whiz kids has this to say for IITians: "The rise of IITians, as they are known, is a telling example of how global capitalism works today. The best companies draw on the best brains from around the world, and the result is a global class of worker: the highly educated, intensely ambitious college grad who seeks out a challenging career, even if it is thousands of miles from home.
By rising to the top of Corporate America, these alumni lead all other Asians in their ability to reach the upper echelons of world-class companies."
A researcher at UC Berkeley estimated that fully 20 per cent of start-ups in Silicon Valley are IITian-owned. Amazon.com CEO and founder Jeff Bezos has described the Indian IITian as a "world treasure." Bill Gates says the computer industry has benefited greatly from them.”
Continue reading to see the dilbert comic strip.
“Bharateeya Blog Mela is a celebration of the best content in the Indian blogspace. The latest Mela is always available at this URL (bookmark it).
This page is the 28th edition of the Mela. It's archived at this URL.
Any type of feedback is always appreciated. Leave a comment.
This is a spoof of the Indian Express. Please don't bother warning me about it.
The 28th Mela was brought to you by the brewers of...”
28th Bharateeya Blog Mela
Go
here for the complete review.
“Inga panam illaama irukara ovvoru payanukkum padippu kedaikanum,
Padippu ezhaingalukku etta kaniyakida kudathunu thaan sir naan ippadi paninen - Gentleman
Zoom...
Naattaiye azhikera oru governor irundha enna illana enna - Kadhalan
Zoom...
Podhupanithurai, Pokuvarathuthurai, Kalvi, Sugadhaaram, Minsaram ippadi
ella thurailayum lanjam vaangi vaangi naatai seer kedhututeenga - Indian
Zoom...
Indha America cosmetics ellam nekku pidikaathu. enakku therinchathellam thallaikku seiyakkai, udambukku manjal thool. Please itha ellam edhutundu poidungoo - Jeans
Zoom...
Enakku thevayellam ettu mani nera thookam, poo pola naalu idli, pudhina chatney, mansakku niraivana vellai, appa ammavoda oru kai rummy, pooncholai kiramathilai oru azhaghana ratchashi - Mudhalvan
Zoom...
And now BOYS.
Completing half-a-dozen movies successfully with BOYS is the whiz kid Shankar. Brought up in the neighborhoods of Chennai and having done his schooling and college in Chennai, this is shankar's wish to celebrate the coming of the age of adolescence. His boldness to describe BOYS as they are has helped him to come out of his pedestrian fantasy movies.
Keeping out the controversies of the media to the end of this review, Boys is a movie with no false pretensions, no intended puns and a no-nonsense movie. Even if you have the smallest nail in the world, I can write the story on it. Five guys and a girl find their hidden talents due to unforeseen situations and take an elevator to their career. The thread that unites them is friendship and love. What begins as a small time eve teasing ends up in a relationship that displays a spectrum of emotions, debacles and re-unions.
Sidharth playing the quasi-hero, leaves a distinctive influence of a typical lover boy in us. Harini playing the full-time heroine is the most natural of all the characters. To use an often used cliche, amazingly brilliant performance. Not a typical heroine to just run around those lavender farms. To our surprise, she often gives a FINGER. Good one.
The other BOYS have done their best and 'natural acting' comes so easily to them. That innocent looking Kumar has given a flambuyoant performance. Vivek as Mangalam sir is a typical drunkard whom we find in every other bar in Chennai. He has downplayed his comic sense to match the character. The surprise is senthil's cameo role. It is a sure shot shankar punch to explain Information is wealth through a most unassuming character of senthil. Glimpses of classic characterization.
”
“He was the first to predict the massive downsizing of organisations and the increasing emergence of self-employed professionals. In fact, back in 1981, when Charles Handy said that the huge corporations that were the pillars of employee life in the twentieth century would be superseded by small independent operators, people chose to not listen. But prediction after prediction turned out to be prophetic, and the world tunes in to Handy now. So listen to him as he predicts a new world order: Fifty years from now, I see India and China fighting over which will be the next America, he told Corporate Dossier in an exclusive interview.”
Read more.
I hope, I will be alive fifty years from now to see all this happen :-)
Anyways, for some time now, I have been interested in our economy. Readers might have noticed a dramatic increase in business related articles posted here and over at netlife.
For as long as I can remember I have been interested in business, probably sparked off by an amazing rags to riches story I read in my high school about Dhirubhai Ambani. Lately it has assumed obsessive proportions wherein I have been reading everything I can about our economy and even ended up updating the
wikipedia page on the Indian Economy. The fact that media is ripe with positive stories about our economy helped quite a bit in this regard.
I can see that I am not only one interested in business these days. The fact that youth of the country seems to prefer anil ambani over sachin and shah rukh as the MTV youth icon of the year, says a lot about the aspirations of the current generation.
Now if you have been following up on the economy, you would know that comparisons between India and China are the favourite pastime for economists world over right now. People just cant get enough of them and they all end up giving different predictions.
It is indeed quite difficult to predict the winner. The explosive inorganic growth achieved by china via the FDI route suggests it might be the winner. But then almost all of china's manufacturing units are owned and operated by outsiders, making many say that china is nothing but america's economic colony. The fact that almost all the leading economies of the world are moving away from an industrialized to a service dominated economy is not helping china either.
That is where India comes in. India already is a service dominated economy ( 50% of GDP as per last year's figures and growing rapidly). Further, we are much more of a domestic oriented economy with exports as percentage of GDP being quite small. This essentially ensures that our economy is virtually shock proof from external factors unlike other leading asian economies like singapore & thailand wherein exports form a significant portion of the GDP.
Indians have traditionally done well when given the right platform which is seen by the fact that the Indian population in US has a per capita income higher than the national average of US !
Finally, after decades of inertia, the conditions are becoming favourable for Indians at home. This when combined with the fact that a significant amount of our population is young as against the rapdily aging population of Japan, Germany and US gives us a great advantage over them.
How well we make use of all these remains to be seen.
But for now, the readers of this site will have to bear with me as I continue posting all the business related articles that I find interesting.
“Call it an emergency rescue by the Indian Army.
Tired of a sports infrastructure that has only managed three medals in the last six Olympics, the Army has launched Operation Olympics to win laurels for the country.
The reason why is not far to seek.
India's Olympic haul, in the period 1980 to 2000, reads: Gold in hockey at the 1980 Moscow Games; bronze in tennis for Leander Paes at the 1996 Atlanta Games; and bronze in women's weightlifting for Karnam Malleshwari at the Sydney Games.
The prognosis is equally bleak if you judge by the activities of various sports associations in the country. The Indian Olympic Association, for instance, lists 24 objectives in its official charter — winning a medal is not one of them.
The IOA's official web site goes into elaborate detail about its functions, members, duties, and definitions; it is, however, silent on the goals it has set for its athletes, the progress it is making towards an Olympic medal.”
Read more.
:-)
Telegenisys, an ITES company is using blogs in a big way to run an advertising campaign centred around outsourcing to india.
They have three blogs running on this topic,
callcenterinindia.blogspot.com/,
outsourcingtoindia.blogspot.com/ and
bpoindia.blogspot.com/.
Interesting. This is the first time I have come across a company, especially an indian company, coming up with a marketing campaign based on blogs.
Wonder whether this will work ?
It would have if they had run this on their corporate website rather than using blogspot.
“
India is not just a country. It is our identity.
India enthrals, elevates and captivates. It can be infuriating, but those who know it love it unflinchingly.
There is no country like India. There are no people like Indians.
Every day, men and women from different parts of this vast nation rise above religion, class and language to create a country that is unique and beautiful. Together they form the true wealth of this country.
In its 56th year of Independence, rediff.com celebrates the Indian spirit through the lives of 56 Indians. Individuals, diverse as only this country can be, yet bound together by the wonder that is India.”
Read more
Rediff manages to come up with gems like these every once in a while.
Great stuff.
“But Khanna and Huang say India is streets ahead of China.
”The speed with which India is catching up is due to its own efficient deployment of capital and China's inefficiency, symbolised by all the money squandered on SOEs (state-owned enterprises). And China's misallocation of resources is likely to become a big drag on the economy in the years ahead.“
Most importantly, the authors say it's wrong to get distracted by the big picture.
”Statistics,“ they argue, ”tell only part of the story — the macro-economic story. At the micro level, things look quite different. There, India displays every bit as much dynamism as China.“
There have been comparisons between India and China before. But this study comes at a time when the Indian economic story is suddenly looking more impressive than it has for years.
It would be rash to say we're on the threshold of a giant economic boom but there are promising signs.
For a start, take a look at the feverish construction around the country. More than 24 million sq ft of office space will be added in the next 36 months.
That's the equivalent of six Nariman Points.
At the same time some 250 malls and multiplexes are going up around the country. About 2.9 million sq ft of retail space is being added in southern cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad alone. There's also a housing boom and the government's road building projects are in full swing.
A great deal will depend on software and business process outsourcing industries that will be employing about 2 million people by 2007, according to forecasts. About 80 per cent of the office construction is for the software or BPO industries.
Other industries too are accelerating sharply. More cars are being sold than ever before. Newly listed Maruti has just announced profit growth of 971 per cent. So is India about to take the Great Leap Forward?
It may not be evident when travelling down the country's potholed roads but Khanna and Huang seem to think so.”
Read more.
“In order to receive pings, you need to have a trackback server that receives the pings and can display the list of sites that have pinged you. Some people cannot or will not run servers, even servers that are just gussied up CGI scripts (i.e. people using BlogSpot). So, we developed No-Host Trackback to help those people out.
To use No-Host Trackback, you sign up for an account, add some code to your template, and you're ready to go. As an added bonus, No-Host Trackback will also allow you to have remotely hosted comments. No-Host Trackback is fully skinnable. And of course, it's free.
No-Host Trackback is currently being beta tested. You are welcome to sign up for an account, but we are limiting the test to just 25 users. If you are limited in time or patience, wait a month or so and we'll be ready for you then.”
Remotely hosted Trackback.
It would be nice if a few more
indian bloggers had trackback. Consider signing up if you use a tool which doesnt natively support trackback.
Networking always helps.
“After getting recognition in Asia, India Inc's leading lights are beginning to fetch accolades from across the world. Just the other day, Venu Srinivasan, TVS Motor chairman and managing director, became the only Indian manufacturer to be featured as one of BusinessWeek's Stars of Asia. Now, it is the turn of N R Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief mentor of Infosys Technologies, to become the first Indian recipient of the Ernst & Young's World Entrepreneur Of The Year award.”
Star Entrepreneurs
“The Indian IT services industry today can best be compared to a child heading towards adolescence. The initial teething problems are over but there still exist the strenuous task of providing the right direction and further growth opportunities. The first-mover advantage that we had gained over a decade back has certainly brought our country to the centre stage of global IT services. But the question is How can the Indian IT services industry grow to the next level?”
Will Indian IT industry realise its potential?
“Air-India on Tuesday announced special fares for travel on the domestic sector, much lower than the apex fares announced by the domestic carriers, with immediate effect.
The special fares for A-I flights departing between 8 am and 8 pm would now be five per cent lower than the apex fares being offered by carriers like Indian Airlines, Jet Airways and Sahara.”
Air-India announces special fares on local sector
The war has begun.
First and foremost, The United Nations must be disbanded. Right now it is more useless than Dinesh Mongia in the Indian team. No point in wasting more money on the relic of the past.
George Bush obviously has not seen the chilling speilberg film, “Minority Report”, wherein he warns against any sort of pre-emptive action.
Blair still is Bush's stooge while Australia seems to have lost its spine all of a sudden.
Germany, Russia and France have impressed me with their confident consistent rebuttal of the US-led invasion. I will be interested in the moves they make now as the war has started without an UN sanction. A trade embargo on US and Britain ? Not likely, I suppose. Nobody can surivive without doing trade with the US.
All in all, We live in interesting times.
Francois Gautier, You show an incredible level of insight into
what India is all about. Thanks for writing this article.
The reason behind the lack of updates on this site can be summed up in two words : world cup. When all you do is to track the scorecard during the day and rush home in the evenings to catch whatever little action is left, you dont have much time left to do anything else least of all blog.
It feels great when sachin is in such fine form, isnt it ? I read a while back a stock broker proclaiming that the BSE sensex shoots up whenever sachin scores a century. Just the other day, I was reading an article saying the viewership on setmax goes down by 20 percent when sachin gets out. It is amazing how much power one man holds over the collective psyche of a nation. Is he the most popular man to have walked on the surface of the earth since Jesus ? If you go by just the sheer numbers of his fan following, I would say yes :-)
Masala gets a new url :
netlife.tamizhan.com. From my referrer logs, I can see that people tend to make the mistake of thinking that the name masala implies content, the sort of which is found on sites like
these ;-).
Last week, something interesting happenned on
my site which even I failed to notice till yesterday. For some time now, I have given the option to
advertise on my site. Never thought somebody would actually do so. So imagine my surprise when I found out that
somebody has done just that. There is indeed an advertisement
there now. So if you are not doing anything in particular, do go there and click on the ad. Since it is a CPC ad, I need to get another 25 odd clicks before I get money from my advertiser.
Thanks goes to my
sponsor. I hope, you got something out of this and even better, keep doing this again and again :-)
Before I wrap up this entry, there is one surprise news. We had an impromptu indian blogger's meet yesterday at koramangala, bangalore :-).
Shyam was in town. So was
nilesh.
Vignesh is always around. So we decided to meet up and the conversation went on expected lines atleast for me :-)
Shyam was the observer. He is a lot similar to apna vignesh, though to be fair to him, a lot quieter :-) Nilesh was the thinker and he reminds me of
sreekanth. Both have a serious air to them though the smile is never far away.
Suresh as always kept all of us smiling.
A major portion of the conversation was around my still to be released article titled Thrill Vs Peace. I have been teasing vignesh about this for a while now since he plays the main role of the thrill seeker. I get the author backed role of Peace Lover. This article is going to unleash the flame war to end all wars ;-) The moment I decide how to end this article, I will be publishing it. So stay tuned.
Phone rings.
Indian Team Manager: Hello.
Other Side: Hello, Can I talk to Saurav? I am his friend from Kolkata.
I.T.M.: He just went to bat.
O.S.: No problem, I will hold on.
The nominations have been
announced..
I was disheartened to find that not a single indian blog made it to the final five.
I was part of the bloggie panel which was asked to narrow down the list from 20 odd nominations in every category to the current five.
Madhoo and
Mahesh were part of the top twenty for the asian blog category. I did my bit and voted for these two. Unfortunately, it wasnt enough. I think ( i am not sure ), I was the only indian blogger on the panel. So we went unrepresented in this year's list.
But not to worry. I am sure next year will be ours :-)
Update :
Blogsnob and
Anil are part of the nominations. (
Thanks kiruba! )
I was pleasantly surprised to see that
rediff has re-designed. And even more pleasantly surprised to find that they have given their
blog service such a prominent place on the main page.
This augurs well for the indian blogland. A few people I know visit rediff daily but have never heard of the word blog. This might the stimilus needed to bring such people into the blogging world. Kudos to
rediff for spotting this trend at such an early stage.
I havent taken a close look at their tool but i must say that the lack of commenting option is disappointing especially since their main site now supports comments beneath all articles. It wouldnt have been difficult to add that here as well, isnt it. Maybe, in a later version.
All in all, good days ahead for indian blogland.
Now if only,
humblog would take off ...
Third Annual Weblog Awards.
I had a good time there nominating my fav indian blog sites for the awards. Unfortunately, journals are not accepted Most indian blogs are journals rather than a collection of links which is the accepted definition of a blog. Still I did bring sites like
kiruba,
sathish,
mahesh,
sachin and
nilesh to their notice. All well deserved and I hope one of them wins the best asian weblog award or in one of the other categories I nominated them in.
Update : I saw a category called best non-weblog content in a blog site and so ended up nominated
kanchana,
shyam and
syl.
I am surprised that the Indian government has not realised the potential of the .in domain name and made registration simpler.
Let us say somebody registers the name : am.in. He could then possibly start sites like i.am.in/love or i.am.in/need/of/money :-) On the other hand, let us say somebody registers made.in. He could start a hundred sites like made.in/india or made.in/usa or better still made.in/heaven :-) Surely, there is a lot of money to be made in this area.
Let us have some fun here. You tell me one good name with a .in extension.
At some point in the future, our huge population may actually work in India's Favour. Reading stories like
these definetely make me think so. That story points out that 10% of the developer community is Indian and this is only going to grow. Microsoft itself says this country can affect the company's destiny.
Oracle thinks so too.
From a Blogger's point of view, Imagine what will happen to
blogdex when there are sufficient number of Indian bloggers. Every link on that will be Indian just because our numbers will be more.
Maybe, I am indulging in a little bit of fantasy here but I sure am hopefull that such a day will come :-)
Been blogging for over eight months now. A pre-occupation with design and frequent changes in the backend/host has meant that writing has taken a back seat.
Note to myself : write more.
Sreekanth, Please get back to blogging.
Bill Gates will be giving a speech at the wipro amphitheatre in ecity day after tommorrow. The thought of kidnapping him and asking a BIG ransom appeals to my criminal mind :-)
The one day series without sachin holds no interest for me, more so since the Indian bowlers seem to be in a genorous mood.
The ban on tamil movies in karnataka has meant that I am yet to see even a single tamil movie released on Deepavalli. Gotto to get my hands on a VCD soon.
The new ThumsUp ad with Akshay is cool. Finally brawn takes a backseat in a ThumsUp ad.
The Vaa Nila song in the latest rahman album, Kaadhal Virus, is groovy.
Time to get a snack.
Since the current design of tamizhan.com revolves around a photograph of arjuna's penance from Mamallapuram, I thought I would share some information I collected on it during the process.
from the
indiamart pages,
Name.
The proper name of the site is “Mamallapuram”, after Mamalla, an honorific of the Pallava king, Narasimha Varman I (630-668), who created the earliest of its monuments. But it is popularly called “Mahabalipuram”, or “The city of Bali”, whom Lord Vishnu chastised for his pride and of whom there is a relief in one of the excavated temples here.
About Mahabalipuram
The history of Mahabalipuram dates back to two thousand years, it contains nearly forty monuments of different types including an “open air bas relief” which is the largest in the world, for centuries it has been a centre of pilgrimage, it figures in the early annals of the British search for the picturesque in India in the 18th century, today it attracts shoals of foreigners in search of relaxation and sea bathing, and most strange of all, it has an atomic power plant for neighbour. A small library has been written on it.
Over its history and that of its monuments a number of scholarly controversies rage. Mahabalipuram was already a centre of pilgrimage when, in the 7th century Mamalla made it a seaport and began to make temples fashioned of rock. It was through Mahabalipuram that many Indian colonists, who included sages and artists, migrated to Southeast Asia. Sri Lanka's national chronicle, the “Mahavamsa” testifies to this fact.
from the
TTDC site,
This skilfully carved rock is the largest bas - relief sculpture in the world. It gets its name from the figure of an ascetic who is believed to be Arjuna, the hero of Mahabharata, doing penance to obtain a boon from Lord Siva. However, there are others who think that the figure is actually Bhagiratha who entreated Siva to let the river Ganges flow over the earth.
Among the other carvings on the rock are animals and heavenly beings witnessing the descent of the Ganges from the Himalayas and some episodes from the Panchatantra tales.
from the
roamin-aboout site,
One of the most spectacular carvings is the “Descent of the Ganges”also known as 'Arjuna's Penance'. The carving tells the story of pious Arjuna who persuades Shiva to use his hair to break the fall of the River Ganga. The large cleft between the boulders is the where the Ganges descends.
Around him is a crowd of animals, gods, and ascetics watching the saving of the world as the river descends.
from the
jetairtours site,
TOURIST SPOTS IN AND AROUND MAMALLAPURAM :
Caves : There are nine rock-cut temples. The Mahishasuramardhini cave, depicting the goddess fighting a demon on one side and Lord Vishnu's cosmic sleep on the other, is a particularly remarkable one.
Krishna Mandapam : A bas relief, notable for its realistic representation. The panel relates to one of the stories of Lord Krishna.
Arjuna's Penance : This is the world's largest bas relief measuring 27m X 9m. This huge whale-backed rock contains figures of gods, demigods, men, beasts, birds and almost all of the entire creation. And, this is easily the pride of Mamallapuram.
The Five Rathas : There are the five monolithic temples, each created in a different style. They are also known as the Pancha Pandava Rathas - and four out of the five rathas are supposed to have been carved out of a single rock.
The Shore Temple : This is one of the oldest temples. Unique about this temple is the fact that it houses shrines for both Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu. This belongs to the early 8th century AD and it is a classic example of the first phase of structural temples constructed in pure Dravidian style.
The Government College of Architecture and Sculpture: Here training is imparted in the various branches of temple art and architecture, according to Silpa Sastra.
Crocodile Bank : Is situated about 14 kms. away from Mamallapuram. Over 5000 crocodiles representing 6 different species are maintained here. There are also numerous other types of rare reptiles.
Covelong : The remains of the fort have now been converted into a luxury beach resort which offers facilities for windsurfing and swimming, an ancient Catholic Church, a mosque and the ruins of the fort make interesting viewing from this 5 Star hotel.
Tirukalukundram : This tourist spot has a small Shiva temple situated on the top of the Vedagiri
hill which is 160m high. Just before noon everyday, two White kites stop at the temple and are fed by the temple priests. Legend has it that these two birds are actually saints who daily make a stop to rest at the temple on their flight between Varanasi and Rameswaram.
There is also a larger Shiva Temple in the town below. At the South-East end of the town is a spacious tank whose waters are said to have curative powers. Once every 12 years, a conch is discovered in this tank and thousands of devotees flock to bathe in the tank at this auspicious time. A collection of the conches is displayed in the larger Shiva Temple.
Muttukkadu : This is an ideal picnic spot. T.T.D.C, runs a Boat House, where facilities for boating and wind surfing are available.
Sounds like a good place to visit ?
God's biggest mistake was giving us humans a mind.
Without a mind, a human would be just another animal. An animal kills another when it is hungry. We are now animals, directed by a mind. And that mind tells us to kill another human just because he does not believe in something we believe in.
Without a mind, there would not be a good human or a bad human : only a human. Without a mind, there would not be a Christian, Hindu or a Muslim. Without a mind, there would not be an indian or a pakistani. Without a mind, there will not be money in this world. All humans will be equal : nameless bodies wandering in search of food.
Without a mind, there would not be a knife to stab another, a bomb to blast others. Without a mind, there would not be a war on earth. Yes, fights will be still be there. It will be minor disagreements ( like a dogfight ). Nobody gets killed by another human.
God, Please take away our mind. We have struggled to master it. Tonight, We give up. The mind you gave us : the mind which if used sensibily would have brought peace and harmony on earth is now an instrument used to kill. The mind has done more harm than good. If We dont return it tonight, there would not be anything left of us humans.
Mind is meant for the Gods not for animals like us.
Prathap is a recent entrant to the Indian blogland. Good writing with humour thrown in for good measure as evident from his recent posts.
check it out.
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