Few Questions!

There are some questions that I would like to ask major political parties:

Congress:

• Regarding the recent statement by our PM than he will revive economy in 100 days; What steps will he take to do so? Also why were they not taken 100 days before the elections?
• What will be the position of Rahul Gandhi?
  
• Will Tytler come back in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha?
• When will the NSG hubs be active in various parts of the country? What happened to all the equipment that was promised after Mumbai attacks?
• Will IIT's and IIM's just become state institutes considering the fact that they are being opened up in each and every state?
• What steps are being taken by the government for the black money stored in Swiss banks? According to PC some steps were being taken. When will they give results?

BJP:

• How many more Godhras and Babri will happen in 5 years?
• When will India attack Pakistan as being said during campaigning? Will it be another cost-intensive exercise as the one that happened after Parliament attack? What were the advantages of that?
• Do you really plan to build Ram mandir or is it better for your future electoral prospects that it is not build? If you would like to build it then what steps did you take during 5 years of NDA rule?
• Why should a party be given National mandate when it is not even present in major South Indian states?
• How do you plan to improve economy? In five years of opposition there were only walkout's. Never was a single concrete step given to the government that could have helped the country. Will walkout really solve India problems?
• If NDA loses this time then what will be the fate of L K Advani?

Left:

• Will you allow India to do any trade with USA? Or should it be just China?
• Whom did you support during 1961 war?
• Will Arunachal Pradesh still be with India after 5 years of Left rule?
• Will I be able to 'earn' my own money and 'own' lands after 5 years of rule?
• What will happen to someone who echoes his own personal views that are not supported by Left? Will he become an outcast like Somnath Chatterjee?
• Are you pro-SEZ or anti-SEZ?

SP & BSP:

• Will every park be either called Lohia park or Ambedkar park?
• Will police force be disbanded to allow your goons to function easily or will it become part of your gang?
• Currently it is said 40 paisa of every Rupee spent reaches the poor. In your regime what will that amount be?

For all of them:

• When will criminals be in jail?
• When will corruption end?
• When will the government really work of sarva-hitaye?
• When will MP's really debate in parliament? And not just with their bodies but with their minds?
• Will ever a opposition play a constructive role? Or is opposition meant for staging walkouts only?

There may be countless more questions but I can only think of these currently.

Times of India advertisment!

No comments.
After Aamir Khan shouting for Tata sky while reading a news article these are the new ad's on front page of Times of India. Looking more of a tabloid than a national newspaper.

Blogging season @ our lobby

Well something is in the air cause everyone in our lobby seems to be in mood of blogging. Although everyone is blogging on topics that are poles apart but still it seems to be the flavour of the season.

Current bloggers:

Kinshuk baba: Dont ask me to list his blogs cause they are numerous. He still holds the record for mantaining 12 blogs simultaneously and I suppose he still has 5-6 of them.
http://www.blogger.com/profile/01344610750518430564

Dhanendra dhaniya: Just came to know that he mantains 2 blogs. One is private (cant even guess what would be in it) and one is about technical difficulties that you can face and can find a way how not to resolve it there.
http://www.blogger.com/profile/08323067715680264964

Gaurav Kumar: started his blog for writing about his 'life' and programming but later turned into just programming (you need some activity to write about your life :) ).
http://comeoncodeon.wordpress.com

Himanshu dohte: started a blog. wrote two lines. end of story. it was just to promote his mouse and mousepad.
http://m3th0d-dohtem.blogspot.com/

my roomie shanky: naya josh. naya addiction. as you all know he always has loooots of time. started a blog and wrote 10-12 posts in two days. at this pace he will be running out of topics soon (but considering the number of essays we wrote in school days it will surely last few months). topics include his all time favourite dota, sachin and tigers :)
http://shanky-itbhu.blogspot.com

Ankur chimota: started his blog so that more people can pull his leg. and maybe he can record his daily leg-pulling there (will be the most active blog if he does so). on a more serious note his blog contains his collection of cartoons he sketches while sitting in front of the mirror.
http://swattbhu.blogspot.com
as you can notice he is chimota so is bound to make mistakes; forgot one 'i' in between...it was supposed to be swatitbhu but turned out to be swattbhu (and dont ask me why swat cause even i dont know that).

dota-lobby [continued]

http://shanky-itbhu.blogspot.com/2009/04/dota-lobby.html

Please read this post before even attempting to understand this one.

shanky wrote about everyone but forgot about the best player in our lobby: himself.

So I will try to find matching hero for him. Waise to while playing he s able to play with any hero (even if you give him pugna he will become GOD-LIKE), but still we need a hero that matches his personality.

I think the hero that matches him most is axe: strength hero, and the best part that if you try to attack him he will swing his arms, legs in any direction and you will get helix back.

Dream Diet to become like chimota

(chimota)

(dhanendra soni)

Dream Diet of chimota for dhanendra to get fat (personal experience):
Morning 7 am:
3 glass of water
500gm Butter with/without bread as breakfast

8am:
3 plate Idli (6 idlis)
1 glass juice (orange)

10am:
2-4 samosa

12:30 pm:
4 rotis with ghee/butter + rice

4:30 pm:
1 glass juice

6:00 pm:
2 sandwich + cold drink (and no swimming)

8:00 pm:
4 aloo parantha

late night:
3 glass of mango shake

sleep by 11:00 pm

Jai Ho- Hallelujah

First of all who can say that the lead singer is not Indian? With bindi and Indian dress she sure looks like one.

Just saw the Pussycat version of famous 'Jai Ho'. Still cant understand what was the meaning of lyrics. I suppose they were written just to rhyme with the music. No attention was paid to ensure that they mean something. 'Hallelujah' was added after some lines where it rhymed well. Well as the music was to remain the same it must have been a difficult task for 'pussycat dolls' to understand the meaning of the song. Whatever video is nice (in comedy genre I mean). You see pussycat dolls trying to do some Indian aerobic dance (dance step while saying Jai Ho is just too good). As if shouting slogans in some rally or what.

And sometimes in between A R Rahman shows his face just shouting Jai Ho (yeah I know thats what happens in most of the song).

Just watch the video to hear the song while also seeing fresh (and better) faces :)

L(e)M(o)N: summer flavour

In summers Lime drinks have always been associated with freshness (although I associate them more with Vitamin C and hence winters :) ) with traditional Nimbu Paani leading the lot. Before this season there was Limca, 7UP, Fanta Lemon (i think it exists could be wrong). But this summer suddenly all companies have decided to come up with new products.

First I saw Nimbooz by 7UP. It is a non fizz lemon drink. Nice idea but my opinion was that it not only lacked fizz but also lemon taste. Sorry but not giving it another try.

Next was LMN by Parle. This is another non fizz drink but tastes much better than Nimbooz. While on the out can easily substitute it for real Nimbu Paani.

At home I saw another Lemon drink from Catch (is it the same company that made spices?) called Spring Lemon (now they claim its made from pure water of Himalyas....huh). Just checked their website they have lauched new flavours also: Cola and Orange. It is corbonated drink. Not fizz free. It tastes good very much like Limca (I never associated 7UP with lemon. donno why but never gave the same feeling). Need to try their Cola and Orange flavours also.

But my favourite drink at home is Rasna (prefarably cola but can manage with Orange flavour). Rasna also has been around since quite some time (donno how many exactly).

If you come across any other Lemon drink then do inform me.

Emergency ATM PIN

There was this discussion going on among us about the emergency PIN if entered in ATM gives out the cash but also alerts the police. This emergency is meant to be the reverse of your original PIN. This discussion was based on numerous mails that keep coming to our inboxes everyday. During this discussion spawn said that as his PIN is a palindrome what will be his emergency PIN. With that we ended the discussion as it was in all probability just a hoax. But when I checked it on internet then I found that although it has not been implemented anywhere it has been proposed a lot. And for implementing such a step a bill has been passed in the State of Illinois in February 2009.
And yeah if implemented you cant have such palindromic PIN's so spawn you gotta change it whenever it happens in India :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATM_SafetyPIN_software

Testing Broadband Limits

Was just going through websites of major Broadband providers for Lucknow. Was inspired to do so by new Airtel ad offering 16Mbps.
First of its very good promotional advertising and targets the right audience. Even the website is well made according to that. http://airtel.impatientones.com/

Currently am using BSNL Dataone 750 plan which provides unlimited download at 256kbps for 750 pm. Will be upgrading soon to 1350 one which provides unlimited download at 512kbps for (yes you guessed it right) 1350pm.

While searching for Broadband limits I paid little regard to the 'cost' tag.

For Airtel in Lucknow the maximum I could find was: 2mbps 4GB download (huh) for Rs 777.
There was another one with speed of 1mbps but unlimited usage at Rs 2222 pm.

BSNL Dataone has no unlimited plans for speed great than 512kbs. Thats at 1350 pm. There is another plan with speed of 2mbps and maximum download limit of 20GB (can do with that for 2 weeks I suppose) for 3300 pm (now thats out of my league).

Next I checked was Reliance Broadband (dont trust much of the information provided) but there I found limited plan of speed 4000kbps (yes thats how it is written, they show off the number of 0's) with doanload limit of 7.5 GB at 1499 pm.

At Tata Indicom Broadband, situtation was quite grim. They refuse to provide High Speed net and you just need to be content with 512 kbps which is though unlimited for 1500 pm.

Sources:
http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone_tariff.htm

http://airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect/airtel.in/Airtel.In/Home/ForYou/Broadband+Internet/Tariffs/

http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in/Communications/rcom/broadband/broadband_con_postpaid.html

http://www.tataindicombroadband.in/access/postpaid/order/post_wl_512_zero.html

Maggi- my fav junk food!

Just saw the new Maggi ad on TV which asks to share your Maggi moments (whatever they might be). Well forget the moments (atleast I dont remember any except yeah going out of hostel at 3 am and having Maggi; if it qualifies then yes it is..whatever), the fact is that since childhood one thing that is still here is Maggi. Whatever memeories I have of my childhood (no matter how small I was), Maggi was there. And I guess it would be true for everyone in my generation atleast (they claim on ad that its 25 years but atleast from my time it was popular). Many variants came (top-ramen, wai wai and many varieties of Maggi itself) but still the original taste rocksss.

And no matter what people say about it being junk food and all that stuff, fact is that it is here to stay. Cause it is easy to make and good to taste.

Well writing this post just for the sake of writing (and because dure wanted something other than politics :) ). This post is not meant to mean anything!

AdSense was close but not good enough

Just tried AdSense in my blog. As my whole blog is filled with word politics it was but natural to expect some ads related to politics. But to my surprise what came out was a full banner of BJP and Advani picture. God! Cant Google see just how anti-BJP I am? Had they shown Congress ads I would have gladly kept them but sadly had to remove the ads the very next minute. Will sign up later after the elections :)

Headlines in my mind

Have been thinking of writing since many days but could not find time to do so (busy playing dota and trying out many more games). Also so many topics were going on with elections around the corner that i was not able to decide which topic deserves my valuable time. So i came up with just headlines instead of a lengthy post. Now first of all am in a train and writing from mobile so dont know how to change paras. Tried html tags last time but they failed. Will try the newline char that is provided in mobiles this time :-).


Hope it works!


Recently went through Times of India editorial (web edition) and found it quite nice. Although I never liked the ones that got printed, web editorial page is definitely wort going again. One nice link is in my twitter updates.


Varun Gandhi got what he wanted (maybe a little more) with his name and pic being used all over and even getting his 'fan club' on orkut. Not a surprise as even Godse has one with over 10k members.


Another editorial talked about how considerate Maneka Gandhi is on topics related to animals but Homo sapiens are excluded. Dare you talk about killing any street dog without inviting her wrath. But its ok if her son wants to kill anyone but animals.


Forgetting the last post got news of positive action from Obama of closing down all secret prisons by CIA. Keeping good to his promises although its but obvious that Afghanistan will take lot of time to heal. Dont personally agree to his policy regarding Pakistan but I doubt he can do much. But still not joining the Rahul Gandhi for PM bandwagon.


Coming to Pakistan its just a matter of time when the country breaks up. I doubt whether at this stage even military in control could save it. Dont understand whether they even want to save themselves or not? But I have little hope that pumping lots of money will solve the problem.


With elections around the corner and situation in Pakistan deteriorating India indeed has strong threat to counter.


But besides terrorists even situation in Assam and in naxal areas is going out of hand. Its easy to counter terrorism but internal issues can easily be contained by sustained development. Whatever!


Nice shoe attack by the journalist but instead of shoe should have used a bullet and instead of Chidambaram could have targeted Tytler. Still dont understand why does congress seek to protect those two. Can never condone Rajiv Gandhi for this very act and hope to see those two serving some time behind bars (am against death sentence so cant say hanged :-().


Good to see some politicians and officers feeling the heat for Godhra riots. Though am sure Modi himself will never feel the same (brainy fellow) this should act as deterrent the next time.


Very strong and positive statements by our weak-looking prime minister. Very courageous of him to admit that minorities are harassed by the police and a very tact comment while rejecting offer of TV debate by Advani.


Similarly found nice comments of Nitish Kumar. Have forgotten what they were exactly but were related to communal ism. Am sure that Lalu and Paswan will be no match for him at least not on topics related to regional development.


Sri Lanka: LTTE needs to be uprooted no matter what. Have heard of policies followed there of 'white van kidnappings' and other atrocities on people of Tamil origin but the fact is that they still have democracy left. Taking up arms is no solution (and having two air forces is too dangerous). This is similar to that of naxals which is in no way legitimate. If their concerns are genuine and if they command such respect (not fear) in their region (which is growing by the day) then why dont they fight in elections. With the area affected by them they can easily get more than 20-30 seats which can make or break government. In Sri Lanka it is half the country.


North Korea: Tested America to the limit. Good or bad only time will tell. Should not in any way lead to any kind of was due to Americas prior engagement (read Afghanistan).


Now some light stuff!


Opinion poll about how much will online campaign affect polls found online. Did not bother to check the results.


Invasive ads of Tata Sky being used on Times of India website (yes i surf it every hour even from my mobile). You open a page and suddenly Aamir Khan starts shouting. Have been startled by it quite many times.


Why is swimming and other sports facilities closed on holidays? Thats the time we need it the most ;->.


Still havent got my voters card. Its another matter that I wont be able to vote anyhow as exam schedule in BHU usually ignore election schedule of Lucknow. Another time. Anyhow there is no one to vote for. I would anytime prefer Congress but my vote would be waste on them in Lucknow. Would prefer Lalji Tandon sans BJP.


Reaching Lucknow so gotta stop writing. Got a lot off my mind :-). And one more thing no comments on spelling mistakes (I made few of them up). Rest your mind if you have read till the end ;-). I need to rest mine after writing so much.


[UPDATE]: Came to know that in Lucknow poll prospects of Rita (Congress candidate) are good enough. Still exams come first :)

Taste of their own security acts

Recently Varun Gandhi was charged under NSA for making inflammatory (dont mind the spelling) speeches. We should remember that it was BJP only that wanted strict (read draconian) laws to tackle terrorism. Post Mumbai attacks it was able to force the government to yield and make new laws (as good as POTA). But our politicians are not angels (hardly human). Their only aim is defeating their opposition and would go to any extent to achieve that. This new law is just another weapon in their arsenal.

What Varun said was wrong and he should be punished (such class of politician should be nipped in the bud including those who divide people on any basis) but in no way should he be tried as terrorist. Even if such laws are made care should be taken that they be used only against external threat not internal. This will at least minimize its chance of misuse. Otherwise as always laws would only be used for suppressing their opposition be it using Emergency, POTA or NSA. It will lead to same results.

And yeah one more thing, first you need to catch the terrorists before applying any law on them. Kasab would be hanged even under the simplest laws. Even without any NSA.

Thank you Supreme Court

I was very relieved to hear the Supreme Court judgment that barred Sanjay Dutt from contesting the coming elections. For those still in dark he was a candidate from Lucknow and wanted a stay on his conviction so that he could contest the elections. He was just part of the tradition in which to escape the law just enter politics. Leave aside his criminal links, what makes him a eligible candidate? I have no doubt that he would have won partly because of lack of strong opponent and because of recent victories of his 'mates' in last election. But I dare them to contest from any village area and then win. From what i have observed lately, people in such area vote for good candidates cause it affects them much more than in cities.
As for the allegations that the current government was reason for such judgment, all I can do is thank them even though I doubt that they have such influence. And yeah hope his wife stands for the election. People may be stupid but not so much that they allow her to win. She wasnt even an actress.