2010 - A Year to Remember for Sports

Great sporting success is what I would like to remember 2010 for. It started with greatest sporting icon India ever had, Sachin scoring a double century in ODI, first ever in cricketing history, followed by India taking official number one raking among all test playing nations, for the first time.

As cricket brought us cheer, so did other sports too, especially, Badminton, wherein Saina Nehwal really rocked throughout the year. She maintained a 100% success record in finals. This followed by great over all performance by athletes from various competencies at CWG Delhi and Asian Games.

I hope we continue our success stories in 2011, and biggest challenge would be to win Cricket world cup and something worth watching would be India due of Leander and Bhupti playing tennis doubles in all major tournaments.

Good luck India.

WikiLeaks: A Bold Mirror

Who thinks what of whom - that's what wikileaks tell the world and then emerges an ugly face of not just a nation, diplomats but of we humans as such. Un-parliamentary words used for reputed world leaders, and nations is too much of dirt for those who spoke to clean in their lifetime.

Uncovering the pseudo secular face of self claimed secular face of the world - and reveling the truth from the mouth of those who denied it openly are just couple of examples of dirty manipulators we humans have become.

Well done wikileaks, you deserve and get pat on back from the world.

Toll on BIAL / NH 7

The cost to fly from Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) is soon going to rise. As per current proposal, authorities have decided to put a toll booth on NH 7 just before the airport diversion. I am not sure how much but for sure cost to travel by air is soon going to rise.

Looks like for authorities, the distance of BIAL from city was not so killing and they have introduce more hazards for travelers, tool both would mean more cost and time, unless what I see in pic here gets demolished.

Air travel overheads are taking over air fares for sure now, calculate this'

1. Cab fare to airport Rs 600 from MG road (approx) / Volvo fares are Rs 150

2. PSF - passenger service fee

3. UDF - User development fee

4. Tool booth

ha ha....I am sure this list would have new entries by this time next year....

Era of Corruption

It has been most consistent performance of any government in India when it comes to corruption. UPA 2 was voted with lots of hope and reforms looked like the only way forward but the facts have unfolded in a very dramatic way over last few months, and though the hope for a better India is still bright sentiments and trust has taken back seat once again, this time jolting wise and noble. So let's have a quick count of recent scams;

1. Common Wealth Games - common dude it infect is common wealth
2. Adarsh society - yes you heard it right, they meant adarsh high on our agenda
3. 2G scam - you are living in past, talk about 3G now hmmm I mean new technology

let's see what better we get as new year gift.

3G Life - It’s freedom to me

3G for me is freedom. Freedom to be mobile, freedom to work, communicate and enjoy from the location of my choice. I dream of a life where I am not confined to my cubicle or office walls for accomplishing my work. A dream where entertainment of my choice follow me and I don’t have to rush back home hoping that I don’t miss anything interesting on television. My life of my choice would have all communication gazettes shrink into my wrist watch with capability of high speed data transfer for voice and data on a 3G network. Such is the potential of 3G technology and its impact on our social, economic and cultural aspects of our life is inevitable. So are you ready next revolution that is knocking hard on your door and whether we care or not it is bound to enter our life.

What is 3G?
3G is acronym for third (3^rd ) Generation of telecommunication technology. Most cellular networks in India today offer voice and data services, however the data speed offered is too slow for us to enjoy video streaming, large file transfer and attaining an online conference. 3G network offers all these benefits both in home network as well as while in roaming.

Data speed available on a 2G networks mostly lesser than 1 Mbps. With the advent of 3G networks this data transfer capacity is going to reach new highs, 4 Mbps, 8 Mbps and more. Leading telecom operators worldwide offer high speed data networks. Telecom operators in Japan, Australia, Germany, USA etc are now offering 24 Mbps speed and are soon launching 42 Mbps network. So limit is your imagination. Data transfer speed would largely depend on infrastructure set up by telecom operators, traffic congestion and the device that consumer use. So 3G is a high speed telecommunication network that allows us to live with greater freedom.

Taste of freedom - My personal Experience
I have enjoyed the TATA Photon mobile broadband device that allows me to surf at data speed as high as 1 Mbps even while travelling at 80 KMH. I landed at Airport, hired a cab and then switched on my laptop as cab started moving. I inserted TATA Photon device manufactured by ZTE in USB port and in less than 5 minutes I was connected to my office network. As cab driver drove me for an hour and half long journey maneuvering through city traffic I was on my job, seating on back car replying to all high priority mails and assign work to my team members, this all without any disturbance from any corner. A highly productive 90 minutes that I often practice when I am on move.

With 3G from Tata Docomo coming soon you can expect more such freedom in life and to learn more just go to official 3G Life website http://www.3glife.com/

3G Devices and Applications
Mobile data cards are the most commonly used 3G device globally. A mobile data card allows us to connect to internet on a laptop. Apart from data cards popular handhelds like iPhone 3G offers us such data rates. There are number of other niche products specially in retail and medical industries where high speed data network is business critical need.

In future we would see many more such devices in shops that would allow us to live streaming of any IPL match, or Olympics sprint or a world cup football final. Imagine this, you go out for vacation and some bugler breaks into your house, you immediately get alert on you handset or 3G enabled wrist watch, you switch on to live streaming from your home CCTV camera and warn buglers over 3G network. You inform police, neighbors and relatives with details of buglers, how many etc.

More, I am on a vacation in Goa and an important business meetings comes up. I need not to worry of flying back to my office wherever it may be, all I would do is switch on my 3G device and attain it relaxing on ‘Anjana beach’, I my though prefer to switch my video streaming for obvious reasons.

Is it a curse or boon
I firmly believe that no innovation is curse, be it television, mobile or nuclear energy. It always boils down to how we use it. For me 3G is a boon and it’s launch would be my second independence day.

Visit: http://www.3glife.com/

BIAL Car Parking

This was an horrible experience. The driver of the cab occupied two parking slots for his hatch back, refusing to vacant either one of them.

Why?

well this is the closest lane to Bangalore International Airport Terminal. You probably have to walk about 20 mts extra if you park your car in 2nd lane.

so what's the great deal?

This cab drivers reserved closest parking slot for his friend. He was waiting for his friends to arrive and park car here. He won't allow others to park here.

Authorities?

....in Bangalore!, you must be joking.

How many more.....?

I shot this photo on March 4th, 2010. The photo reveals the true story of dying garden city of India, and entry into adulthood of another concrete jungle.

Trees have been giving away their part of the land to these commercial establishment. A sacrifice to ensure that the brand image of these high value products are easily visible to people walking and driving around. These trees are now used for hooking advertisement pamphlets, and nothing more.

100ft road Indira Nagar Bangalore

I remember being caught by sudden heavy down-pore couple of years back, and it was one of these trees on 100ft road where I took shelter along with over a dozen more bikers.

This reminds of Avatar. Looks like we humans will achieve on earth, what we failed to achieve in Pandora.

False Stunts from Great Leader

what makes Baraka Obama so cynic about captive centers in India? Is this because of his lack of understanding of economics or prejudiced political agenda or lack of maturity to accept globalization. Whatever it may be, he has succeeded in terrorizing the United States from this third world country. If United States decides to pull back all captive centers belonging to US MNC back to their homeland and we in third world decide to stop imports from United States, what would be the score then? Will Obama even have face to walk in the cross hall of the white house.

Few points that will help us better to form an opinion

1. 1. The American trade deficit with India is around 12%,
2. 2. Software Industry contribute less 5% to India’s GDP
3. 3. Zinc, Sugar, Steel (& related items) along with precious metals are top exports of India to United States

If you understand the statements mentioned above correctly, Obama is putting his energy in wrong directions, intentional or out of ignorance, he knows better. For India, it cannot be of much concern as software exports to Europe and rest of the world continues and net impact on its GDP will be negligible. India’s IT export to USA is approximately equal to total US exports to India. Then why just target these captive centers? Why not heavy metals and precious stones which contributes to a big chunk of India’s export to United States.

Such false stunts of world leaders is hurting the economy, relationship and most importantly recovery and hope for better future. Hope they someday will realize the mess they created for gaining few extra applauses.

Solar Eclipse, Jan 15th 2010

What a wonderful site that was, moon almost engulfed the mighty sun in the war of celestial bodies. Here are few pics taken from Bangalore, India.

Pic 1: Solar Eclipse

Pic 2: Solar Eclipse