An Experiment Called Life

2011

2012-01-01T07:29:00.000-08:00

As we grow old, time passes too fast (As we involve in activities and keep ourselves busy, might be it looks

too fast). For me it looks like just the weekends are the life and rest of the week days are something that just disappear with the office work or other activities. Some times(or should I say most of the times), even weekends are spent for doing something or the other.

Year 2011 was an eventful year and made me realize the GAP that remains between "What I want to be and what I am now". I realized I am not sufficient enough to reach what I need to be.

I need to stay focused to realize my entrepreneur goal. I have already had a taste of it with my association with yassume , freshbrains and the attempt of careerscale made this year taste the path to my goal a bit.

on a personal front moving to "ivy comptech" was an important decision I made. Every job I have done gave me lot of different exposure on a technical front as well as people management. Very often our intentions might not be understood by the people around with the correct motive and assuming that other will understand it was the biggest mistake and learning I have in the year 2011. At the same time, i still believe my work should speak for me and I shouldn't do any parrot talk and get the superficial attention. Even if it takes time my work will speak for me and pay the way. Working more and smart is the only way I could reach what I want to be. The thirst for success is increasing with time and I hope that is positive for me.

Learning good politics is one thing I need to do. We often complain that the boss or team members are not good or playing politics. They might be feeling insecure or just not ready to accept "as you are", but time should always provide a solution and the fact is "When you know what you want the whole world conspires you to achieve it" (paulo coelho in Alchemist).

People often play politics because they might not like you or might be they feel insecure. I believe no one has any life time enmity with you. I have very few objectives for the new year. I am not sure I should make them public, but a blog post might help me log it for rest of my life. After all we do not know when is our last day.

1. Perform well in the job (Goal is not to be fired :-) ).

2. Learn training skills.

3. Be nice to people. I am really nice to people whom I know and have good association. I need to extend this to everyone I work with. I am not against anyone but I should never leave a doubt factor that I am harsh or against anyone. It is just about giving positive perception.

4. Never forget the first objectives.

I hope the year 2012 will be a better year for the world. Let the goodness spread everywhere. Let us ring in this new year with all positive hopes. let us hope our hopes come true.

Adith turns 2

2011-12-11T03:01:00.001-08:00

Adith turns 2 tomorrow. Life is moving so fast, looks like it was months back that I was in sweden and expecting father but in reality it is been 2 years. I still remember that first thing I did after reaching home from sweden was to take my wife to hospital and then Adith welcomed me. :-).

Starting a startup

2011-12-11T01:55:00.001-08:00

I worked with 5 companies earlier and have been through different processes and tools employed at each of my employment

Mostly there is always a great vision and wish. Still very often companies built a total mess with too many of tools introduced and multiple alternatives for every purpose available. Changes in management introduces more tools and processes that might hard land employees into difficulty.

Thought I would write about my thoughts on how we can run an organization with simpler tools. I have limited knowledge so there could be better tools/alternatives.

Simplest commercial solution I could see is with "JIRA/Confluence" along with SVN. You could extend it with multiple helping tools. Atlassian has good package for startups.

we can even experiment with free tools like wiki software(media wiki etc) and tracking tools like Trac/ bugzilla. I am impressed with Trac. There are many providers who are very cheap. I liked repositoryhosting that provides a good platform to host our source code online.

But having multiple alternatives doing samething, having JIRA just to track bugs and other tools like CLARITY or HP PPM is a good idea but personally I prefer not to do so. Employees, specially in software development companies should focus on getting their stuff right most of the time and not with too many tools to learn/manage/update.

Adaptability that we gain by going with lean and agile is really great and it should always be supported with cleaner tools/processes with less learning curve and less effort by the team members.

Also realizing the fact that software development is not a machine made logic so treating employees like factory works will for sure not make the company great. Software creation is more artistic in nature and great implementations come from dedicated and undisturbed minds. You always need to hire people with lot of filtering and once an employee is in, we just need to trust him to deliver and guide him to get comfortable with new environment, tools, processes so that he becomes productive.

Also just demanding something always never works. I have seen managers, who always try stupid project management theories. If an employee comes to you for help, turning against him on the same issue and demanding why it is not sorted out is the easiest way for the escapist manager. I never wanted and will never want to become such a typical managers. Some time in the future these escapists will become obsolete. A higher up employee should always be a leader guiding and solving the impediments of the team members. Designations should be earned and from the team and not from the top. So just managing the top management and getting promotions etc might be a real shortcut many apply leaving many others disappointed, it might work to some extent but will not make great innovations develop and best of the team will never happen for sure.

The rational system

2011-11-21T19:36:00.001-08:00

Some times pretty casual discussions can lead to critical solutions that can change the world. Recently one such discussion helped us to invent a solution to many of the india's financial issues because of the external factors.

Primarily the imports are costing too much on Indians. Raising prices and the dollar (it is marching towards 54/56 rupees) eating most of the revenues most of the companies (some companies like IT companies, do get benefit out of this situation).

Back to the discussion, we were discussing about increased prices including petrol etc. Petrol became major in the discussion. we were discussing about pros and cons of Govt taking the load of the price fluctuations. It hurts all govt development programs.

A better alternative is to identify the real users and then identify the per capita usage and provide the required commodities at limited units to the end user at subsidized price. Anything that is consumed on top of it should be at market price. I know our complex political system is very very slow and might never let this happen.

Simple benefit is that people will be cost conscious and may not waste fuel. This might lead to reduced fuel use and might put pressure on the Oil producing countries and may cause ripple effects on the international crude prices.

Yes the way India is consuming the fuels, it also provides a greater power to control the pricing as well. We need to leverage and make decisions that doesn't affect the average user.

For me this looks a great idea but again our governments are more error prone in implementing any great idea and then stupid politics that play more vital role than the national actual interests.

Jai Telangana

2011-10-26T04:24:00.000-07:00

Let us celebrate. Every employee gets the salary even without working for more than 40 days. All the important leaders of the unions might have been given a better compensation. News says Polavaram contract is given to some one related with the KCR. Everyone got the good deal. Even the TDP MLA who resigned for telangana got re-elected on TRS logo. Students got the schools back. Leaders got lot of free publicity. Now the the poor can go to the towns and cities for their livelyhood work and also can visit a doctor as well without any problems (RTC unions called of strike). Now my cousin need not pay Rs 200/- to go to his home town Jadcherla from Rajendranagar,Hyderabad. When you hire a cab, he will be 100% working for you and will not do any extra trips for his own benefit. Probably they got really great BOOM period as there are no buses and life should go on.

Media needs novelty everyday, how long same JAC story?, Let us celebrate with a new story. Telangana could have become really a boring story if Telangana was formed every time KCR made an announcement, we could have had more Telanganas than the countries we have in the world. It could have been a bigger disaster to see that many Telangana instances. (in terms of OO concepts, Telangana should be a 100% perfect SINGLETON object).

Only few millions of poor people got affected, it was a bigger dry period for most of the street side vendors. But it doesn't matter as they do not matter after elections and are available as buyable commodities, only thing is because of the inflation, election to election the price increases.

Even the wineshop dealers announced one DRY DAY. You know it could have been the most hazardous thing that could have happen for the entire period. People should drink and sleep and never worry about what is happening around. Yes people should enjoy life and should it really matter if we have the roads, water, housing etc are available and affordable. This doesn't make a bigger story.

JAI TELANGANA, yes we need TELANGANA minus and the so called leaders creating so many hurdles to the common man in daily life by all stupid decisions. It doesn't really make any difference if there is a DALIT puppet as chief minister. It is as much as having a highly qualified Prime minister who is remote controlled.

Can we dream of some evolution in our daily life. Will we ever see REAL LEADERS who care about people of larger community (people of the state) than their own community (son, daughter, son-in-law etc). You know life is not like a 2.5 hrs indian movie, so certain things are really stupid even to think of. So I will cut short the dreams (even JP dreamed about something but you know what he along with the Joker Chiru made a mess in the last elections). Reality bites, it is harsh but the fact is we need to live with it. We will have these leaders unless they are died of natural causes and some extremist fed up with the news channels is going to do something. Showing sympathy for their "fast-unto-death" doesn't really need that attention because they will not die. You know the system is something that all political guys share, it is only that some time someone plays a different role (like fasting etc) but as per the "Politics-money equivalence theory" (well it is my own theory, as per this theory "SYSTEM = POLITICS * (MONEY)(MONEY) " ), it is only the set of people share the "fruits". The fasting or the "walks" or the "oordarpu yatra" etc will certainly will have the result but not for the common man.

Resolve Telangana

2011-09-22T19:23:00.000-07:00

This is itching everyone in this area for so long. People have strong opinion about Telangana. Either they want Telangana or they want some declaration that it will never happen. Either way everyone wants a amicable solution to the issue. While I want Telangana to be a developed area (as much as I wish every other part on this earth to be developed), I some how hate the politicians of this area more. If There is a Telangana and the same junk leaders are going to enjoy the power, there is no difference to the end user. We can no longer run a government by giving "freebies". If take KCR,for this guy it is like a family business. his son, daughter, son-in-law etc are into this and are making lot of money. I am really interested to see if Telangana is given and what is going to be their FATE. Once the issue is resolved then I guess they will be unemployed.Same with most of the other leaders, We need to bring a revolution in the way political leaders function, and how rest of us view them. We need another moment just for this purpose. If they become dedicated and work only for the welfare of the people, I guess we can just merge entire India into just 4 states (say North, South, East, West). So time for our leaders to stop preaching and start living exemplary life.Telangana moment is just the "effect" and I am afraid, the "cause" (underdevelopment) will remain even after the statehood. It might be in different format (May be south Telangana will raise against North Telangana etc). Unfortunately no one has real serious interest into fixing the "cause" issue. Remove the "Free" schemes, help every person to stand on his own and earn his own food. on a personal front, I moved onto Ivy and this month has been bit relaxing for me (not too much of work at my previous employment and with new company I am started getting used to it).

Springboard Team lunch @ Angeethi

2011-09-14T03:44:00.001-07:00

Abhinav

2011-04-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was trying to explain Abhi on the benefits of being literate and learning alphabets.

He generally doesn't focus much to learn alphabet. so I was explaining him that If you know how to read and write A, B,C etc you will be able to play many games on laptop and read everything on your own.

He seems convinced. He is so confident that he immediately asked, so will you buy another laptop for yourself?

He is so inquisitive that at times it becomes so irritating. an year before I think, when I told him, the way you are irritating me, I am able to see stars in day light, his immediate question was "where are they NANNA ("daddy")" and started looking up at the sky.

Managing and mentoring kids is highly sophisticated job and most of us fail miserably in it. But the experience gained is worth.

We are not corruption free yet

2011-04-09T19:12:00.000-07:00

Recent hunger strike by Anna Hazare and the media and civil support for that event and the union govt. consent for the demands gave some impression that there is a big different that is going to happen. Anna Hazare has accepted that it is not DONE yet, and it is done only when the "Lokpal" bill comes into force.

Making changes to constitution or creating a framework/scheme to address corruption and bringing in everyone into the new framework so that everyone is accountable is just a baby step towards this complex issue called "Corruption". Essentially because we are so much wired into it. Almost everyone is part of this anomaly (corruption).

We actually need a government who is dedicated and has no political concerns about their survival while executing good rule (tough for corrupted people). This is nothing but a dream. While running the government, they are always in need of making some compromise or the other.

Alternatively everyone in INDIA should stop bribing and this is one more near impossible scenario.

What we can do and what is a possibility in INDIA is to make the system more transparent and increase accountability and reduce the loss of development because of the corruption in a gradual manner. Sudden changes may push system into chaotic and then into same "Old system".

But overall, it is good that this time this attempt got more attention (because it is Anna Hazare who was doing it).

Whose money is it?

2011-03-25T09:18:00.001-07:00

Tamilnadu state elections or to be specific, parties that are in the race for power and their election manifesto is shocking.

Both the present DMK govt and opposition AIDMK are promising to give away laptops, gold, mixer/grinders, free rice,free power and lot more to the people. This sounds as if the parties have trillions of dollars and are on philanthropic mode.

The same thing has happened in Andhra Pradesh with Y.S.R announcing everything free to people earlier. Now he is dead and state is struggling to meet the financial closure for its schemes.

well, the answer to the title question is, as everyone knows, it is public money. People should learn how to teach lessons to parties who bribe officially announcing FREE schemes.

I am a happy man to struggle and earn my food. I don't want someone to feed me for a day (If there is a guarantee that I get free food for rest of my life, probably that is the best way I can become lazy, but no one is promising that). If someone does and if I am not in a condition to help myself to earn my food, I think I got really good help.

To Telangana or Not Telangana

2011-03-12T21:32:00.000-08:00

This is a million march question for the people ofAandhra Pradesh. With no signs of new state formation in the immediate future, the struggle for telangana statehood is now not in one man's control. Students, employees etc are now are often active with various activities.

For me the question of statehood is primarily secondary issue. It is because if formation of state alone gives development, I am all game for it. But the fact is far from statehood formation alone.

Northern parts of Telangana is better with water irrigation etc. southern districts are poorer with no proper irrigation water facility. So after Telanagana formation, there might be fight within Telangana about distribution of funds and resources for development. Even more important thing is that the same leaders who are now asking Telangana or united andhra were (and are) pretty much ruling andhra pradesh most part of their political career and still have strong investments and business relationships from Telangana and non telangana parts of Andhra Pradesh.

On the political side, the issue more for the survival of the political leaders from this area. No one wants to lag behind so they blame government and they say they will resign. One rich minister recently sent his resignation to Party president in Delhi (I am not sure if he is not that educated that resignation letter should be sent to CM /Governor) and then was happily appearing in assembly later. Resignations of everyone for this cause are highly enacted.

People are not ready to listen to these junk leaders. If we have to go by the word of these leaders, we are supposed to have Telangana may be a decade before.It is pretty much common for these leaders to give a dead line just to make announcement for another deadline later.

I think the fight becomes intense once Telangana is formed,because once Telangana is given there will be struggle for power and every one want to get some gains. Some student leaders might be eying for political entry and that could be primary source of inspiration in creating chaos now and then in Hyderabad.

Same junk leaders will be there even if statehood is announced. Britishers left india and everyone said they have looted many things from India. But I think the loot that happened after India got freedom is worse then what Bitish have done to India in their 200 years of presence in India. Samething will happen in Telangana. The people will be loosers whether there is Telangana or no Telangana.

I some times wonder, should we really ask for STATE alone. Why not ask for country? make every district as a state and we got a big city Hyderabad to be our national capital. I am not sure why no one is thinking for separate nation :-).

It is all for money and power. No leader cares for the real people and no person really cares for the leaders. People are busy in they struggle for survival and they don't have any time to look upto leaders for inspiration for development. Leaders are busy increasing they financial portfolios and for protecting their wealth, now they are either in favour of Telangana or united andhra.

As a common man, what worries more for me is the Bank EMIs I need to pay and my children education. Whether Telangana or not is not going to change my life in anyway. Well same should hold good for my father as well who is still a farmer and struggling to make something out of agriculture.

What we need is able administration and reduce the corruption. There are lot of good thoughts going around something like the Cash Transfer instead of subsidy items. Central government is planning to introduce the Cash Transfer to individuals and shut the ration shop system. This is the same concept chandra babu naidu fought last elections as their main party agendra.Unfortunate thing that Chiranjeevi spoiled babu hopes with new party splitting votes. Now chiranjeevi has become a big joker of politics. I think the Silent revolution that he was talking about was starting a party and then merging it with congress. If Telangana is formed, TRS may be merged with congress. Jagan is yet to understand politics. He is just shedding out the corrupted money his father has earned for him. But time will come for him to become another political joker.

Hyderabad DEO office contacts

2011-02-28T03:14:00.000-08:00

Here are the contact details of Hyderabad district educational officer.
http://www.deorrdceb.com/hyderabaddceb/deostaff_hyd.html

If you are interested with overall schools information (not so latest but not stale as well)
http://projects.cgg.gov.in/dsemis/

Vegetable prices are down

2011-02-05T22:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is true. Here is the price list (I tried to remember some of the items and their prices at the Gudimalkapur market this morning).

Prices are down, let us cheer up for time being.

Onions - 15 to 20 kg( based on the grade)
Tomoto (country - 8
Green chilly - 16
Okra - 15
Beans (chikkudu) - 7
Carrot - 10
keera - 15
Spinach - 2 bunches for 1 rupee
Coriander leaves - 1 bunch for 1 rupee
Cabbage - 10
Califlower - 1 flower for 8 rupees (when you buy 2, otherwise 10), weight around 1 KG
sapota - 4 per Rs 10 (Big ones).

We are able to get around 23 KG items for Rupees 350. That makes it 15 per KG or so. It is really good to see the prices coming down, but I think it is only short tim relief as summer coming up and power problems going to raise and less water for farming makes it the people in CITY to feel the cost.

I am talking about only vegetables, not commodities like petrol. Petrol is 67+ per litre in hyderabad.

A Project called Birthday Celebration

2010-12-15T03:00:00.001-08:00

Adith 1st Birthday (12-12) celebration was like a project planned and executed. Strength of collective effort of the some of my neighborer cum friends who helped me in various departments of the event.

Will post the details later.

Hyderbad trip

2010-10-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

It was fruitful day today. A very hectic day but relaxing from routine week day work.

Here is the update about the ZPHS, Bhallanpally students Heritage walk trip sponsored by Oracle. I anchored it from TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE and also with support from BPALLY google group.

Arranged Bus from Kalwakurty depot, spoke to the driver in the morning and spoke with teachers to make sure they are on time. Bus came around 10AM to SALARJUNG museum.

There were 56 students and 6 teachers. I got support from Naveen (cousin and member, bpally group) and 18 Oracle volunteers.

Trips in hyderabad are fully organized by the oracle volunteers. They have taken exception care in handling the trip. Nice planning and execution.

We went around in SALARJUNG museum and then had a quick trip around charminar and few snaps at Mecca MASJID. It took around 3 hours. Then we went to Oracle campus and had lunch there. Prize distribution for the painting competition and then we had a quick trip of cyber towers and other IT companies (just moving around in the bus). After this we went for Golconda. Rain interrupted us for some time but then we finally made it around Golconda fort.

We had snacks (biscuits and chips during the trip). Couple of Oracle volunteers (Sivakumar and one more person) actually made us wait for some time but then surprised to see that they bought slippers for all the students (they found some students without footwear,so they bought for everyone).

They also bought A microscope for the school and dictionaries for every student. As per their advice, I bought few science teaching aids (pipet,burette,electro magnet, periscope,thermo meters (Centigrade and Fahrenheit),Convex concave mirrors and lenses,periodic table chart and a prism) with the funding from this program.

I hope students enjoyed the trip, though we needed to rush at few places.

I felt I am indebted to these volunteers lead by Kranthi for their generous support for this program. I must specially thank kranthi, Mahati, jhansi, suhasini, Sivakumar and other person who helped with slippers for the students. I must thank each and every one present out there, but I am sorry I do not know their names.

The Job of being a post man is great. My school (ZPHS, Bhallanpally) needs motivation and some assistance. Students need mentoring and some support. Oracle GVD helped me in this caused. I spent some time but not money. I was more a post man in helping the GVD reach the school.

GHM Srinivasulu garu always appreciates my efforts but I am not doing anything special. Its my duty to connect the needy with the people who can help. I am a contented man at the end of the day.

Their support to this school is great and they really wanted to do more, probably next time(like organizing awareness camps in the school itself etc).

Last but not the least I must thank school teachers (specially Mr. Venkateswarlu garu for coming to the village around 4.30AM to make sure all the students are present and ready for the trip) and TMAD.

Poverty of Indian bureaucracy

2010-10-13T20:28:00.000-07:00

Yes, I mean poverty of Indian bureaucrats. I have heard of good bureaucrats and actually experienced bad bureaucrats. Probably I am not fortunate enough to experience a good bureaucrat till now.

When I say good bureaucrat, what am i expecting? I would be glad if he shouts at me if i have done a mistake. Give priority to the citizen who visit the office to get their claims/queries addressed. Do not make people wait when there is no reason etc..

My recent experience was ITO of ward 12(3). He looks so blind that he cannot make out my salary from the 2 FORM 16s I have submitted for the specified financial year. He asks me to bring him an break up of salary slip(Does this guy ever need to know various factors in my salary slip, I always thought they need to know how much i got and how much is in deductions and taxable income, is there any invalid deduction or income that is not account). And he says he can help if I need. I told him, tell me what you need and I will furnish. A simple case of expecting money for favour.

Another experience is with RVM (Rajiv vidya mission/SSA), Hyderabad district. These guys are so shameless that they do not care to get the work done.
These guys are supposed to contribute their portion towards a class room construction work near mehdipatnam. I am representing TMAD (tomakeadifference a voluntary organization in hyderabad) towards this and actually have been working on this for the last 2 years. They say their contract computer operator entered wrong account number so the amount didn't get credited to the TMAD account. The same guy harrassed like anything for quality and all that junk (says works build walls horizontally etc, I never saw a building in the world that stood on horizontal walls).

May be I am fortunate enough to experience these things, because others will miss the chance by paying them money.

Doesn't it show poverty? yes it is. It is not financial poverty. Poverty because of lack of ethics and esteem. I pity them.

Adith

2010-09-22T07:49:00.000-07:00

-19 sept 2010

Rains rains, please go

2010-09-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

Last few weeks, it is been raining like anything. Probably not seen in a decade or so.
Probably I am not too much affected as my house is not in low lying area so it will not get drenched and the route I take to work place is not much affected. But then people are getting affected a lot. My colleagues spent 4 to 5 hours to reach home which usually take not more than 1 hour (not every day but there are instances).

So I say "Rains rains, please go", though you are like blessing, to grow our food and all, still at least please cut short your trip to our city, as we are full of falsified dignity about regional issues and we do not take for anything that is proper and correct.

Our guys lay roads that are of sub standard. Our engineers do not care, if there is a drain way to rain water or should we design roads with that in consideration. Our political leaders are actually contractors who are running the show because they need to win contracts. They do the same job repeatedly (laying the road time and again). We do not care if we should really stop using the traditional approach of BT roads and go with something that can sustain and withstand few days of rain and heavy vehicular moments.

Some are busy pulling the people in power, some are busy designing plans to break and make, some are busy trying hard to pretend everything is fine.

The state that was kind of the top in progress a decade ago but now not the same now. It is just another state,left behind with the growth of the past.

Am I exceptional, No. I must agree that I am part of the crowd and though I try some times with RTI and other stuff to figure out what could be wrong, I think I need to do lot more to really bring out change. Funny part is that while we have so many issues to solve, our bureaucrats are pampered so much by the politico contractor leaders have almost forgot doing serious job. To one of my RTI request they have added values in KM and meters together to give me a final KM of roads. Even a KG student can fix that bug easily.

So I say again, "Rains rains, please go", we can not manage our roads in your presence.

Teachers day at Z.P.H.S Bhallanpally

2010-09-05T02:48:00.001-07:00

Reaching the thresholds

2010-07-08T15:16:00.001-07:00

Having 2 kids at home is more fun and actually takes most of your attention. Indulging in their innocence gives the fun that you will never get anywhere else. And some times that becomes the most difficult part of your life.

Some of my experiences:
1. When it is too difficult for me to manage "Abhi", i tell him, you are making me see "stars" in the day time, his response is "Where are they?,Can I see them"?

2.Abhi doesn't care about the physics or chemistry rules. He thinks everything in this world is mutable.He cuts chocolate into 2 pieces and then orders you to make join it, making it as it was before.

3. When the sky is dark, and I ask him, where is the moon, don't know where he leart, but says "Mummy shouted at him, so he ran away". Similar answer why starts don't appear.

4. He strongly believes, there is reason for everything, he always asks "why" for everything.

5. He always overrides everything else, I stopped logging onto computer at home. Taking him to school, feeding him are the most difficult tasks. Also making him sleep when he is sick. He is very good at creating sleepless nights for me and my wife when he is sick.

Of course you also get a chance to blog something like this post.:-).

Children are good at exploiting the limitations of the parents. You may think you have too much of patience and will never shout at any one, your kid can prove it wrong.
They are very good at making you understand your "Threshold limits".

But the fun you get with kids overrides all other feelings. Children are you blessings and not your responsibilities. The time you spend with kids is more helpful to you to get away from any stress you may have. Of course, overdoing the job also will put you in trouble. My son wants to go to "office" every morning rather than to "play school", not sure what kind of job he has.:-).

Abhi goes to school

2010-07-04T02:59:00.000-07:00

We are all wired...

2010-06-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

I took off today to see "Agritech 2010" at the Agriculture University, Rajendra Nagar, Hyderabad. It was kind of below my expectations and was more like a 'duty' of CARD to conduct such an event every year.

So I got some time at home. took out a DVD from my collection and watched 'National Security'.

Then I was watching news discussion about corruption cases against Naveen Mittal, former collector of Hyderabad district with JP. JP was striking the right thing in answering about the corruption. Our leaders/Politicians are corrupted so are our officers. JP says around 50% of the officers (IAS) are corrupted for sure. But there is a crowd of around 25% still good and working for the good of the people.

Striking point is about we getting wired into the corruption. Everything around that is not working properly is because of the corruption. Only thing is we do not realize this fact. We hate power cuts but we never question. We suffer if we do not get the corporation water and adjust with what ever we have. We have never questioned why in India we have mosquitoes and not in developed nation.

None of us is an exception, we deserve the government we have elected to power. We are responsible for our poor infrastructure and all our local problems.

Wish the realization comes soon and we fight against corruption.

PS: While getting the approvals from RVM office for Mehdipatnam school class room construction (I anchored this on behalf of TMAD), SSA project officer got signature of mittal with old date (to avoid election code). I didn't mind because I wanted the class room and fighting with these guys will not help for that cause.

You see I am wired too. It is in our blood.we need fresh blood without corruption.

Adith April 2010

2010-05-05T19:46:00.000-07:00

Poland's grave yard

2010-04-11T00:25:00.000-07:00

It is really sad to read about the plane accident in Russia carrying the top brass of Poland. It is very very difficult condition for any nation, loosing most of the top management of the nation. President, army chief etc. I think they went to attend in memory of brutal killing of thousands of its army personnel in Russia during world war but then Russia turned out to be a real grave yard for poland. Sad. Very sad.

Bloggers meet today at Hyderabad

2010-04-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

I am planning to attend bloggers meet by indibloggers. I see few names that I was very familiar with on Infy BB in the list of bloggers. It is going to be good gathering.

A visit to hyderabad

2010-04-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

Or actually a visit to Bholakpur is more opt title for this post. My dairy project is still getting delayed so I wanted to buy the material required for the shed and my brother took me to bholakpur area where there are lot of small shops that sell new and used steel/iron material. we needed 30 2.5 inch pipes and some 1.5 inch pipes.

If we see the small streets in the hyderabad (even begum bazar,troup bazar and surrounding areas are like that).

These lanes are very narrow, and some of them are not even with proper road (today the areas I went around are having the narrow roads also dug up for water or some other repair works). Yet they are successful business centers. We get to see people doing rupee margin businesses around begum bazar (but again don't venture into that area for shopping if you do not know how to bargain).

With curfew in most of the old city areas in the last week (even this week but at nights), there is a major blow to the business of thousands. Really sad. I pray god that some day humans do understand humanity.

Time to get recharged

2010-04-03T22:46:00.000-07:00

When we are after something and then too much involved into it without acknolwedging the fact of the tiresome effort and the struggle, and if we are getting frustrated even over things that are pretty much manageable, then it is the symptom of workholic fever. Medicine is to take a breath and go on a break. Well, I am not talking of not doing anything.

If we are obsessed with too much of something, best break could be doing altogether different thing rather than doing nothing. Once we start involved in work and keep working all the time, doing nothing is a big punishment. So it cannot be a break. We need to keep working and do different things.

Biggest challenge is that what is "that different thing" that can give a man a break? I am thinking. Hope to get recharged soon.

Abhinav

2010-03-28T06:25:00.001-07:00

It is been at least a month since my family left to in-laws place. I am badly missing Abhi, my cute little son. I made a quick visit today (I am back to hyderabad) and spent few hours with my family. I am not able to decipher Abhi's feelings when he saw me. He is just silent. He liked my company as much as I liked him having with me. He wanted to come with me,When I said "Bye" he didn't resist much but was sad, I can read his face. Earlier in the noon,when I asked him to get ready with his clothes to come with me, he was kind of very interested.

Other side Adith is growing cute and was full smiles when he saw me. this boy is not even 4 months and he remembers me. A fantastic job by this little cute boy.

Sad part is not everyone understands feelings. We live in a falsified world of customs and rituals. People are busy and are in no mood to help me and my children. So another a week or so for them to join me.

Betechs.com Tech Star event

2010-03-28T06:16:00.000-07:00

I have attended Tech Star event as a judge to the presentations of IT related topics by engineering graduates. It was really great learning. Participants have done really good home work and present so much of information about A.I, Neural networks, Surface computing (these are the topics I was involved in judging the presentations). I am glad that I was there. Thanks Kashyap for the invite. I wanted to spend couple of hours in the event at Hotel Sandya (Lakdikapool), but I was there till the last presentation. It is just because the sessions were interesting. Students were supposed to deliver their theme/topic in 8 minutes as presentation and 2 minutes for Q & A. a deck of around 10 to 15 slides in 8 minutes? isn't that a difficult task? Most of them did very well. I am glad I was there.

Next Project - Dairy

2010-03-13T10:52:00.000-08:00

Today I have visited few dairy forms around Amanagal area. It was really good field study. I am planning to take up a small diary project in my native place, bhallanpally. We already have around 10 buffalos. So decided to build a proper shed built for this purpose. It is going to be an important project for me as I have interest into agri based business models. More updates to follow in the coming weeks.

Abhinav and Adith

2010-02-22T18:39:00.000-08:00

Leader - The Managed show

2010-02-22T18:29:00.000-08:00

I have seen the "Leader" Sekhar kammula movie. Unlike the previous movies of Sekhar, this one looks pretty much managed.

Though the title says "Leader", movie begins on how the Hero candidate manages CM post after his CM dad death. He buys power, he bargains deals and then in the last few minutes of this 2.5 hrs movie, he realizes that he is almost in his father's line (of allowing corruption etc, kind of forced to let things happen to keep in power), then orders ACB raids on all political leaders and MLAs with a resignation preplanned.

Too much of unwanted drama, no major songs and dance scenes or commedy, its too much of a documentary movie rather than a main stream movie that can pull crowds to theatre.

Too slow movie and then suddenly in the last few minutes too much happens with just a background music, too bad for Sekhar. Looks like he didn't get a chance to apply his heart into the movie under big banner. Unwanted love track with no link to the main plot, that too of a young CM. Not convincing at least to me.

Title actually contradicts, It could have been "Political Manager".

suicide note

2010-01-23T05:56:00.000-08:00

I am shocked to see a student death followed by 1 full day BANDH called across the telangana region. Every time there is a call for BANDH it is the common man who suffers most. Children miss their school and classes. Exams get postponed. If there are any central exams, they may not get postponed and our candidates lose their opportunity to enter into central services.

Buses do not run and Road Transport Corporation increases the bus tickets to meet the losses. Hell lot of things happen. No petrol, no shopping nothing.

It all started with the news of suicide of OU student for the cause of Telangana. when I read the news paper, that student was from some college in the outskirts of Hyderabad but not the student of the Osmania University Campus.

Problem with life in India is that generally it doesn't value as much as it matters in developed nations. So usually if there is a death, it goes unnoticed. Family and friends take some time to adjust with the fact of the loss of life.

Back to the topic. There was one death supposed to be suicide (CCS is enquiring into that), and students who were looking an opportunity to delay exams used it and called for 2 days of BANDH across the region. They are successful.
Irony is that there are at least 4 other students who committed suicide (supposed to be) as per the media, but their death didn't cause any more BANDH (actually mostly went unnoticed).

What is it all about? should we really encourage students committing suicides? Certainly not. Then how about the living people around and how should they react? Should a loss of a life cause too much of hardship for the people still living?

There seems to be no one in control of things, there is no government authority that is functioning in a decisive manner. Students are not worried about their losing academic year and following careers. The issue of Telangana state is there for the last few decades and certainly will take time to resolve even now.

But it does no way get affected by students losing their academics. It is the families of the individual students who get affected. Getting jobs gets difficult.

Suicide is not as simple as writing something on a notepad and it doesn't really make any difference to those student leaders or political leaders who are trying to gain advantage of the deaths. But the respective families are at huge loss. It is a loss of life time. it can never be compensated by anything else.

It makes me really sad when I hear or read about suicides by students. It makes me more and more sad when someone else is trying to gain advantage of deaths.

On a side note, I was checking on deathclock.com website and here is my date :-)

Why people? Not leaders

2009-12-21T17:52:00.000-08:00

The events that are happening in this southern part of India are really sad. There are leaders who are trying to make this visibility and political career with the separate state and the united state arguments. Unfortunately, the students and the people are becoming scapegoats and are loosing their lives in the name of sacrifices.

Surprisingly the so called leaders who are on hunger strike for more than a week are suddenly finding lot of energy to walk and run away to different places. I am not sure if they are born with lot of energy to live without food for that many days. I have tried this (living on without eating any food but with water alone) an year back or so but was about to live normal for 3 or 4 days but not more than that.

These guys I believe are are pretending hunger strikes. And poor people believe this as true and thinking that either seperate statehood is good or bad, jumping into agitation mode.

Irony is that there are people around 100 or more than that who committed suicides either for or against the seperate stood hood for a geographical region of this part of India, and surprisingly not even a single political party leader sacrified his/her life toward this cause. It is always the people who are paying for any cause that is raised by the so called leaders. Its like aparthied to me. Aren't we equal in this country? why the hell is that lives of very few people are very very important than remaining billion people?

May be we should explore creating a independent controlling body which monitors all the activities of each leader and it must have right to disqualify from contesting in elections or enjoying any govt benefits political or back door entry, If they have deviated from certain set norms. This body should have the power to execute leaders if they are corrupt or trying to instigate people against each other.

Or simply let us kill all the leaders iteratively until we get good ones. There is no real development that is happening because of our leaders (in power or in opposition). They are making money that is too much for even few dozens of their family and generations but are least bothered about the real development.

Why is that poor is becoming more pooor? why no one is listening? we still have villages without proper drinking water or electricity or roads. We still have people dying of hunger. We still have people struggling to feed their children. We still have people selling their daughters for sex trade because they are not able to feed them or survive on their own. We still have people who are sleeping on roads/footpath. We still have students with no career ahead (lots of them). Govt doing lip service to all the ideals and serving only who demand something (whether they need it or not). We have reservations to keep certain sections of the population happy. We still have people who are struggling for education while so many other people are getting govt sponsored education.

Can't we think of a better nation? If situation goes like this, what if I go back to my village and announce freedom to my village into a seperate nation? May be I use friends abroad to fund my nation and then show rest of India(and its leaders) how to make a great nation.

Any one listening? why only people are dying for any cause, why not leaders?

New entry

2009-12-13T07:47:00.000-08:00

Here is the snap of my 2nd son.

Chrome on ubuntu

2009-12-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

It is nice to see the chrome beta released with support for Linux. I installed in my laptop immediately once I found about it in some discussion on LinkedIn.

Its beautiful, it is faster, and I can read eenadu as well without any problem.

The faster time to load an application is always an advantage. with lesser memory footprint chrome is really impressive. I am loving it.

2012

2009-11-08T00:40:00.000-08:00

21-12-2012, is it going to be the real dooms day? or it is just another myth, that never comes true? Some people/groups are trying to figure out the what will cause the great disaster ever humans have seen. A great galactical alignment where the sun comes into the center of milky way (our galaxy) causing a great distrubance. they claim this happens every 26,000 years. Also researchers are finding Mayan calender ending on this same day. Nostradamus predictions, mayan calender ending on 2012 and what ever is happening now a days (earth quakes, tsunami, famines, floods) are indications of great dooms day.

pyramids of egypt, mayan calender, last book of nostradamus all are referring to the great dooms day at the end of year 2012. Year 2012 also signifies the 3 eclipses that occur on this year.
1 Total eclipse of the sun
2.Venus eclipse against sun
3.Grand eclipse of sun at the center of the galaxy.

Also they claim that older generation people like mayan civilization etc have clearly understood the moment of the earth, moon and stars and they have calculated their calender. This means they had more better knowledge than the present generation.

Well, if you watch the documentary on 2012 with nostradamus predictions or the 2008 movie of 2012 dooms day or watch the big movie that is getting released soon, I think it makes you feel interested about this event that might or might not occur.

Earth revolves slowly, earth's magnetic field going to collapse resulting reversal of earth poles and also might cause all electro magnetic technologies fail. A day could take actually 2 days of present day. North pole may not have any more ice.

Interesting to note the observations, hope it remains as a myth and never come true.

Cheap calls

2009-11-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

When you are away from home, you can think of cheaper and reliable alternatives to call home.

Few options:

Ubuntu:
Diamond card, you can use twinkle, QuteCom or Ekiga as your SIP client /soft phone software in ubuntu. I found twinkle better in ubuntu 9.10
Diamond card is a SIP based VOIP provider with cheaper rates. I can call india at INR 1.21, this is kind of very cheap or can compare with STD charge in some parts of India. Now a days concept of local and STD calls is disappearing with a country wide local rates.

Windows:
Busta, I think it comes with its own client which is available for windows platform. I haven't found a linux based client for busta.

Skype, yahoo etc are the default soft phone solutions general users can think of, but their tariff seems to be on the higher end. skype has ubuntu version, I do not think yahoo is available as softphone in ubuntu.

There are lot of other alternatives available on internet, if we type SIP and cheap internet calls, we are so many alternatives.
http://www.wengophone.com seems to be one platform indepent client, similarly X-lite comes in support for multiple platforms.

Reliance I call is providing the cheapest calls on internet (so far calling indian numbers are concerned). I am yet to try the SIP tweak (using some info given on another blog). Reliance I Call formally supports windows boxes only.
If you are reading this post and know better alternatives, please post a comment.

ICE Hockey at Vaxjo

2009-11-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

This evening, we watched ice hockey match in vaxjo. It was very exciting, though weather was cold, it was a good match that resulted in home team (Vaxjo lakers) win by 5-4. Thanks to Boss media for arranging the tickets and for Sebastian for giving company.

Thought of posting few snaps, but there was a minor glitch in the camera, so no photos for now.

Well, some of the snaps of the last weekend trips to few areas in sweden are available on madhava's picasa albums.

Jonshoping-Visingso trip on sunday

Kosta boda(glass factory) and Oland (an island in eastern part of sweden)

I have been little bit busy and little bit lazy to post anything on my blog. But atlast the vaxjo lakers victory made me post something again on this blog.

Greater Hyderabad Updates

2009-10-06T06:14:00.001-07:00

There are few updates I would like to blog about the greater hyderabad.

After formation of the greater hyderabad (MCH is now GHMC), ghmc website was not integrated with newly added suburb muncipalities. Atleast for 2 years I was waiting to see "Rajendra Nagar" in the drop down list (or say upparpally to be specific). I never had that luxury.

But when I checked again today, there are lots of updates. I could see Rajendra nagar in the dropdown list.

I could check my property tax amount on ghmc website (this was add few months back) and also there is a payment option for the newly created property tax numbers (called PTIN). It is great isn't it?
Now I can raise complaints that are very local to me.

GHMC website really looks stable. I am very happy to see this IT development.

On the other side, water board website is still with errors.

I needed to call local water board manager to get my CAN (customer account number or something) for my house water connection. He was kind enough to get the CAN number based on my house number.

Other update about greater hyderabad is the PVNR express way. Main flyover construction is completed and ramps construction is going on. Now Attapur has few foodjoints and new bank branches and ATM centers have come up. My village (Upparpally is more a part of Metro city slowly, though I want it to be a village rather than a polluted city part).

తోట రాముడు మనసును నవ్వించిన బ్లాగు

2009-08-22T23:00:00.000-07:00

అప్పుడప్పుడు ఆదర్ష్ పంపించే లింకులు చదవడం నాకు పరిపాటే. ఆ మధ్య పంపించిన "ట్వింకిల్ ట్వింకిల్ లిటిల్ స్టార్ " యూ ట్యూబ్ వీడీయో.. కింది లింకు చూడండి.

ఈ మధ్య పంపిన బ్లాగు లింకు తోట రాముడు మరింత నవ్వించే రచనల సంపుటి. మీరే చదివి చెప్పండి.

Life breakers

2009-08-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

Why should I care for these speed breakers(I call them life breakers)? Well, I struggled like hell to get the road built. Fought with GHMC and met people and was in touch regularly with officials until it is built. Now few weeks back guys in chaitanya vilas colony built hurdles in their colony (5 speed breakers in less than 100 meter distance with 3 curves). This inspired few guys in my colony to demand treasurer to give money to build speed breakers(as they call it) in our colony as well. Is it a fashion in colony road? I am not sure. Is it acceptable to cite 1 or 2 errant drivers and troubling everyone. Can I take my pregnant wife on this road to hospital or shopping? Any one cares? God please help!

Ideas for sustainable development - Cities

2009-08-12T22:09:00.001-07:00

Few thoughts that are floating in my mind regarding development.

1. Pollution control : Govt should proactively buy/replace all the outdated vehicles. Look at no of scooters, auto rikshaws that leave smoke like a serious fire incident (If it is a developed nation, for sure there will be hell lot of fire alarms because of these vehicles).

2. Making life easy for vehicle owners/drivers. Let them drive without fear. Make rules simple. I always wonder why one need to pay fine if he forgets to have copy of insurance or RC book with him. If system is automated enough, it should be able to identify if he has valid documentation or not. If not(no insurance for that particular vehicle) then police can charge fine for that. Also if pollution certificate is not available, it is better to do the test on the fly and charge for the test. If test fails, then vehicle should be sent to garrage for repairs at the owner's cost. This will save millions of people from unwanted embarrassment followed by giving bribes to traffic police.

3. Inclusive development: Involve private and NGOs at various levels of development activities.

4. Traffic signals & sign boards: There is lot to be done. Regular monitoring of traffic nature and immediate alternatives to decongest traffic should be implemented. If a main road is too crowded at some junction may be alternate roads (through the neibhourhood residential areas can be developed and used. Most of the traffic problems occur at traffic junctions.

5. Cattle, Stray animals should be banned in metro cities. When there is no space for humans, these animals add more chaos in the system.

6. Increased public transport: Public transport should be increased on large scale. Private vehicles should be taxed more and public transport should be encouraged in all means. Public transport should be treated as a essential service and profit/loss shouldn't be counted. Similar to the focus on primary education, transportation should be given enough allocations.

7. Oxygen pumps at all important traffic junctions. These pumps should suck all polluted air and release pure oxygen into environment. I am really breathless because of pollution.

8. VIP visits: Security should be streamlined and camera's should be installed across the city at all locations, centralized data center should monitor the security conditions. VIP visits should not block traffic in anyway. If it is mandatory, then use of Helicoptors etc should be forced rather than making thousands suffer at every traffic signal for 5 min to 30-40 min.

9. Proper toilet facilities should be built across cities at all junctions/crowded places. If cities are made up of concrete jungles and millions of humans, certainly we are worth having enough public toilets.

10. Bus bays: It is very difficult to figure our when a city bus is going to stop to pick passengers at bus stop. If we have detailed marking for bus stops (some coloring on the road for bus bay).

11. Closed doors. Doors of all public transport vehicles should be closed while in motion and should be automated through control at driver/conductor seats.

12. Public notification system:
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Giving it back - Bhallan pally

2009-08-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

My recent visit to Bhallan pally village, Mahabub nagar district gave me more in sight into what the schools in the village require. Yes it is my native place and my parents live here.

Last few days (or one week), I have been busy spending my evenings exploring various shops for buying some teaching material and books for my schools (Primary and High schools).

Here is a list of items that bought.

1. Vernier calipers - 2
2. Screwguague - 2
3. Magnets (Bar and Horse shoe)
4. Pendulum
5. Stop watch
6. Metal ball and ring
7. AID (Association of India Development) kit worth Rs 400/-
8. Spring balance
9. Thermo meters - 2
10. Min, max thermometer.
11. Magnesium sheet
12. Chemistry model making material (60 balls and sticks)
13. Litmus papers
14. Biology charts -8
15. South america chart -1
16. Paper charts -20 (includes periodic table, maps and other related items).
17. Good student - telugu motivational books by B.V.Pattabhiram. -3 copies
18. Wings of Fire - Telugu version - 2 copies
19. Plastic tables books (multiplication tables).
20. Pens - 150 (individual price is Rs 5/- but we bargained for Rs 2).
21. Pencils - 100
22. Ch.Ramaiah books -2
25. Geometry boxes -5
26. use and throw pens - 2 packets (50 pens)
27. General knowledge books -2
28. Pedda balasiksha (small version) -1
29. Sumathi, vemana shathakam - 1 each.
30. Convex, concave lenses and mirrors - 1 each
31. Calculators -10 (gifted by Divya, Hope children will like them (and they are from USA). 4 I will give to divaker reddy garu. (total of 15 sent by divya, 10 for bhallan pally school, 4 for bhasheerabad mandal school of diwaker reddy garu, 1 for a +2 student in hyd)

List may not be complete but thought it will help me track what are the needs of school children.

I must thank few people in this regard. Divaker garu for giving me company while buying some items. Satya krishna for pointers. Adarsh for giving me loan to buy these items (It is becoming little difficult as I am trying to become debt free :-) ). Prasanthi for connecting me with AID Srihari. Sri hari for giving me wonderful kit of physics experiments. It is really wonderful. as many as 36 experiments can be executed with the kit he has given me.

Places of interest:
Scientific and sergical items - Tilak road(Abids) and Nampally.
Stationery: Siddiamber bajar,
Books Sultan bajar
Pens and pencils: Hafiz plaza (divaker garu bought it for me at this place).

If you are buying in bulk, you get good discount.

Why am I doing this? Am I doing service? No. It it is a delayed previlage for me. I went through lot of hurdles in my life. Even a 5 digit salary was a dream while I was in B.Sc but I am far better now. No proper guidance, no proper facilities, no money to study, always doubt abt what is next for me (question about will I do intermediate (+2) after 10th and then will I study degree after +2 etc..). Society helped me. I remember how seshu, adarsh, ramesh,srinu etc helped me to get ready for my first job interview in life. some one gave tie, some one gave a shirt and someone gave shoe.. Did they do service? they didn't think of that. They wanted some one of us to get selected. Everyone needed jobs and way back in 2003 it was still post y2k recession.

Also I think of my parents who sent me some money order by cutting trees and by selling wood, and some of the daily wagers who loaned small amounts to my mother which in tern are used for my education.

Prasanthi has some quote in her signature that means "If you want to do something, whole world will try to help you". Its very meaningful message. I believe it is true. Even when you are in troubles, may be there is some lesson to learn that helps you grow.

Well back to the main subject. I am not serving anyone, I am just giving it back to them. They helped me grow to a level where I can stand on my own. Now I am trying to take care of small small needs of the schools in my village hoping that someday someone will think of it when they grow in their life and start giving back to the village. Isn't it a beautiful idea.

Website review: India development Gateway

2009-08-11T22:41:00.000-07:00

While looking at SSA AP, I got a link to Govt. maintained website called "India development gateway". It really looks cool and informative.

Home page of this site looks like this (at the time of this blog writing).

Here is a telugu screenshot.

It seems to be very much informative. Contains information on farming,agri loans etc.

Exploitation of the society

2009-08-10T05:49:00.000-07:00

Last sunday I happen to watch Saraswathi's documentary called "coastal under attack". It was an interesting movie exposing the problems of the coastal villages where people lost their land, livelyhood etc because of the large scale industrialization.

People lost their lands, almost by force. Though there are "hearings" to know people opinions, everything (should I say most of them) are manipulated.

We can always argue about the immediate need of more GAS, more POWER and more chemical companies but as Rakesh rightly put it "At whose cost?". Are these people inferior than us in hyderabad? If it is we in big cities who use most of the GAS, POWER then why these village people on coastal corridor are suffering?. Rakesh argued about having a nuclear reactor right here in Jubilee Hills or in ISB (Indian School of Business, this Context came when Krishnan of ISB argued about the necessity of the industrialization).

Well, I view this as a controllable inevitable problem. If the villages were relocated to places where then can get houses, work etc., that becomes easy. But there is inertia in the villagers to move out and also there is no proper political will to achieve this. The result: Polluted water, air and many deaths because of this. Do we need this? I say NO.

Instead of giving solutions, I am trying to relate this with exploitation present everywhere. Look at the corrupt Government. Do not go by what they say in media. They do not have any serious will to develop the state(of Andhra pradesh) to next level. They want themself and their families to grow rich and develop. Politics is a mean of achieving development.

Did you get the idea? If you want to become a big businessman then I would suggest you try politics first.

When the system is weak, everyone who can bend or break the system will exploit it anyway. I Strongly believe that system itself should be tough to exploit. If not everyone will exploit it.

I was speaking to one person in my village few weeks back. He is a ward member as well. He was telling that he along with another person took contract of Rs 1 Lakh to build boundary wall. They did 50% of the work but got only 32k in hand. Remaining amount ? District, Mandal and village level distribution for officials and chota mota leaders.

Village surpanch demanded 2 laksh as loan from my father but as my father has no money, he was denied some govt assistance (because surpanch didnt want).

Government is patronizing the cast feelings and religion feelings (because of reservations and many other factors). Govt execution doesn't really protect the real interest of the state.

Look at the "Sakshi" phenomena. To give advertisements to Sakshi, Y.S.Rajasekhar reddy govt exploited the system by changing the law. Instead of ABC report, CA report is sufficient to win advertisements. Sakshi is getting crores of rupees (Or we can say Sakshi is run by the state congress govt). Well, the story doesn't end here. Other news papers as well started using "CA reports" to show their circulation strength and getting benefit out of it (more money from govt through advertisements).

Y.S.R. gov. should understand (I think they know it already) that If you want to do mistake, you need to live with many compromises because of that.

Anyway government is shameless. They are direct beneficiaries of corruption, bureaucratic hell. So they will want the system to be same rather than making it better.

System should be same for everyone. It should be a place of law rather than of people. System should treat everyone equal and provide equal opportunities to everyone.

Until we reach this point, present issues (of corruption, militancy, neglect) will continue exist. I hope you agree with me.

Freshers openings in HP, Bangalore

2009-08-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

Job Description:
We have Fresher openings in HP STSD. What we have for you! You can look forward to a fulfilling and enriching career with HP. At HP, we encourage employees (after a minimum of 18 months in the current roles) to explore career opportunities across different business units, customer segments and functional roles within HP itself.

Designation: Fresher (B.E/B.Tech- 2009 pass out) Openings
Company: HP (Hewlett Packard)
Experience: 0 Years
Location: Bengaluru/Bangalore
Education: UG - B.E/B.Tech
PG - Any PG Course

Eligibility Criteria:
1. Education – B.E/Btech.
2. Stream – ISE, CS, EEE, E&C.
3. Aggregate – 70% & above (Mandatory) with no backlogs.
4. Year of pass out – 2009.

Candidates who meet the above Criteria please revert with your updated resume & the following details ASAP: The below details are mandatory else will not be processed.
Name:
College Name:
Education:
Stream:
Aggregate Percentage:
Year of pass out:

Regards,
Prabhu LV
Human Resource
HP India
prabhu.lv@hp.com

Execute it,Please

2009-07-07T00:40:00.001-07:00

Pranab Ji's latest budget (introduced in parliament yesterday) is more focused on rural development, agriculture and infrastructure development.

It doesn't make much difference for common man/Middle class, It is nice to see infrastructure and rural development taking highest priority.

Well, results depend on how this funds are distributed across states and spent effectively. Boils down to reducing the corruption in the money utilization and providing quality implementation of the schemes.

I hope things get better for the people who really need help and guidance.

SSA(Sarva shiksha Abhiyan) Procedure on community projects

2009-06-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

At last we got the mehdipatnam school work started by another contractor.Privious contractor intentionally delayed the work even after having the payment done before itself.

it is painful process but if you have the desire to help the society it is a good effort. Please see if you can help some govt school by constructing class rooms or so and get the children from these schools get good education. It helps building our nation.

Well, here is the procedure (as i thought) for the same. SSA (Sarva Shikha Abhiyan) and RVM (Rajiv Vidya Mission) are names represent same govt entity.

1. Identify the work to be done (school related work).
2. Decide on what % of expense the group can bear. 20:80 or 30:70 etc.
3. Approach district SSA office with a request letter for the work with your organization credentials. Attach artifacts of previous history and activities of the group that are relevant.
4. SSA District office head is 'Project Officer'. SSA will take time 1 to few weeks to visit the school and identify the need. Also basic design etc will be done by SSA engineers. We need to discuss on the partnership (on contributions of either parties)
5. //Regular follow up might be required. Get the contact numbers of the people in SSA office (project officer, S.E, Deputy Engineer, Assist.Engineer, Draft man etc.
6. Proposal will have 2 approvals, financial and technical. There are some rules like if the work is below 5 lakh or so D.E. approval is sufficient else, it also has to get S.E approval etc. I am just giving example and the actual procedure could be little different.
7. Drafting & Engineering team will provide the estimates.
8. We need to enter into agreement with SSA. Agreement will be signed by the voluntary group representative and the district collector. District collector is the chairman of district level SSA but the actual work will be executed by SSA Project officer himself (mostly).
9. MOU (agreeement) , work order letter (signed by project officer),estimates design will be provided by SSA office.
10. Please get all the relevant details of plan and design at minute level. Otherwise there will be issues on the quality. steel thickness, cement etc.
11. SSA engineers will come to the location and explain the work related details and hand over the location to voluntary group.
12. It is the responsibility of the voluntary group to take ownership of the work and execute it. If the group is not into construction field (most probably), we need to outsource the work to contractor and deal with him abt the work. It is the responsibility of the voluntary group to take care of the work. SSA engineers will super wise anyway.
13. SSA will release funds in phased manner (after raising columns, slab, walls.. ) check the details in the beginning or while getting work order. Please do not hesitate to ask, in case if you are not sure what need to be done or what is the further course of action.
14. Voluntary group has to start the work with its contribution and SSA funds will be coming in the way as work progresses.
15. There will be time lines in MOU document, but extension can be sought in case if we are not able to meet.
16. Most importantly, have patience, lot of it. Things may not go as we plan, Delays will be common (most the time), Individuals at SSA office are important and their nature as well.

PS:
On a side note, there might be informal commissions to SSA people, it is a practical issue that need to be dealt carefully. If contractor takes the responsibility on this aspect, that is well and good.

In case of big projects, we can make deals where is voluntary group can manage not spending the amount as pledged by it (% of contribution). It depends on how we deal with the contractor. Other side of it is, on some occasions voluntary groups can make profits :-). You get a 1 crore work and get it done in 60 lakhs or so, then u have profit (without contributing to it). It is sad, but I heard it is possible.

Learnings of Abhinav

2009-05-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

It is a great learning for me day by day and the tutor is Abhinav my 15 month old son. Very cute and dynamic. He finds a job for himself when he is not sleeping. The way he is descovering the world makes me think a lot.

His findings are.
1. For every switch you have associated light, fan or AC. So when you press a switch look around to figure out which one is associated with it.
2. World is full of switches, without switches you do not have the world. wondering? He experimented with computer key board and coupe of mouses as well. When you pluck out the keys out, you will agree with abhinav.
3. When you want something, you will get it. But you must want it to get it. (Ofcourse you need to try out, Abhinav uses crying as his best tool).
4. Mother is for feeding and father is for playing. It might be universal. Abhinav believes this and still experimenting.
5. Birds of same feathers flock together. Abhi loves to see and play with other kids. Yes, some times he doesnt care for parents as well.
6. Abhinav believes in surprises. He descovered few missing items in the house. yes. My backup battery of spice mobile and also the extra black catridge that came with my printer. When I lost hope he descovered them.

... lot more..

Well, holding the fingers of your kid and watching him walking, running without falling is a great pleasure.

For all the parents, You may want to read khalil gibran views on children..

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you
with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that
is stable.

-- Kahlil Gibran

Recover windows 2003 Active Directory admin credentials

2009-05-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

Hmm, ever wondered what will happen if you forget admin credentials that too of win2k3 server that serves your organization? Silly it shouldn't happen at all, but what if it happens?

I was facing a similar issue few days back. It is like confirmation of my short memory. I forgot the password... :-(

Recovery process is little tricky. Machine password is different and windows 2003 AD administrator password is different (or stored differently..).

If you are the genuine owner and really lost password, here is the solution (compiled from Internet and it worked for me).

1. If you know the local admin credentials, good you can move to step 3

2. If not
a. Download the cd080802.zip
b. Unzip the file, it contains ISO image, burn it into CD. (If you are a VMWare or other virtual software user, then just point your vm image CD drive to this ISO image).
c. using BIOS settings, make sure your CD drive is the first boot device.
d. Restart your system.
e. Follow the instructions (system boots from the recovery CD image). and reset password or make it blank.
f. If your win2k3 system is not an AD, you are done now. remove the CD/iso image and restart your system.
g. If your win2k3 system is domain controller then, you are not done, read the step 3.

3. While restarting your system, keep on pressing F8, it will take you to boot options of windows 2003. In case if you are using vmware and if you miss to avail F8 (because of the delay in getting the vmware window opened) try setting the following option.

Set the option "Enter the BIOS setup screen the next time this virtual machine boots". So that you can relax and find the BIOS setup screen. Now just press F10 to exit from there to start the OS. Yes you have to keep pressing F8. It works.

4. Follow the instructions as given in this web page by Seb.

let me reproduce the summary here.
a. From boot options (after pressing F8), choose Directory Restore Service Mode. It disables Active Directory.
b. Login with the local credentials.
c. Download the zip file .
d. Unzip into some folder. Say c:/temp.
e. Also copy cmd.exe from c:/windows/system32/cmd.exe to this folder (i.e., c:/temp).
f. Start a command prompt and type instsrv PassRecovery "c:\temp\srvany.exe"
g. You have installed new service called PassRecovery.
h. It is now time to configure SRVANY.

Start regedit, and open the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services \PassRecovery.

Create a new subkey called Parameters and add two new values:

name: Application
type: REG_SZ (string)
value: d:\temp\cmd.exe

name: AppParameters
type: REG_SZ (string)
value: /k net user administrator new_password (or any password that you want. replace "new_pasword" with your new password).

i. Make sure this new service is "Automatic" one and also allow this service to interact with desktop.
j. restart your system in normal mode. You should be able to login with your newly setup password. If not you might have missed some step or the other mentioned above. If my steps are wrong, then get the right ones from internet :-)
k. PassRecovery service runs once you start the system, so you can remove or disable it as you no longer need it.
l. If you want to remove..
net stop PassRecovery (, then:)
sc delete PassRecovery

Now delete c:\temp and change the admin password if you fancy.

You saved lot of your time and frustration,if you are lucky enough to recover your system. :-).

Mixed results

2009-05-16T03:25:00.000-07:00

I am kind of disappointed to see the congress getting power again in the state. While I do not have proper alternative, Future of the state is might be at risk. I have suffered enough while dealing with govt offices. Govt employees are not doing their jobs well. Most of the offices are highly corrupted, if the same trend continues, it might not be good for the state. One of my neighbour was telling that state needs around 30k crores of rupees immediately to put things in place. Is Y.S.R govt going to get rid of the so called welfare schemes to manage the deficit? or new type of taxes?

May be politics are like that, It is difficult to get the right people at the right place. I strongly believe Y.S.R alone cannot make the state better. Throwing money and building some huge canals/dams certainly helps but that is not 100% of what state really needs.

Everyone must have rights and responsibilities. Exposing people to only one side (rights) may not be the right thing.

In may places in the state, it might be difficult to get water, but easy to a beer. There are many things. But I think money has power wins you more power. It might be true in politics.

Attributing reasons for grand alliance failures or congress success is like doing posts mortem which does not help to the state.

At the same time, I am happy to see UPA doing better at the center. What india needs is a stable government. I really do not bother which party is leading it.

Another corruption case - metro water employee

2009-05-07T04:19:00.000-07:00

There is one guy called Anjaneyulu, Work inspector, Metro water works department. This guy took 2000/- from each new house in our colony to get water connection as we are getting new roads in colony. In order to avoid digging of the road afterwards we felt it is good to get connection beforehand itself.

This guy came to our colony as if he is on his duty, and took the money. He slowly revealed that he will get receipt for only 500/- and remaining is for expenses ( I do not know what type of expenses cost him that much).

But he didnt get the receipts and also he didnt turn up in the colony for providing the connection.

Incase if you are in Rajendra Nagar circle, please do not pay bribe to this guy. He is worth nothing. If you need any help dial 155313 (prefix 040) for customer care and ask for guidence.

Yes, I am not the task to get this guy punished, will lodge a complaint in their office near Maithrivanam.

btw his contact number is 9010224222, you can call him and shout at him. :-).

Goal is who ever comes to my colony, shouldn't expect bribes.

Ubuntu 9.04, sweet but painful...

2009-05-07T04:09:00.000-07:00

I upgraded my laptop from ubuntu 8.10 to 9.04 that is released recently. Downloaded the DVD image and burnt into DVD and upgraded to 9.04. It removed few issues that i felt always with 8.10. Most important one is too much of boot up time. This issue is fixed with 9.04.

But then I had altogether new set of issues. I actually had 8.10 kubuntu, then installed gnome desktop, then it became ubuntu. Also installed Eduntu stuff and lot of community stuff (whether i used it or not, installed lot of software that I felt useful).

So though the migration was easy, 2 days back when I hibernated my laptop, it didn't come up again.
It was a touch thing for me. Used the DVD and tried to rescue the laptop. There was some problem with Xserver and then with usplash.. After few trial and errors it looked fine. Hibernated session was restored back.

This time, i thought of removing software that i am not using at all. But it caused one more major issue, that is blank screen issue. It looks fine while booting but you never get a login screen, few flickerings and then dark screen. Not something to enjoy.

Another few hours of additional effort. removed Xserver, kde, gnome desktop, installed gnome again followed by Xserver. And my laptop is back to normal and it is faster and easier experience with Ubuntu.

If it was not Ubuntu, it would have been very difficult to resolve the issue. Importantly If you are left with no solution other than re-installing the OS which will erase your valuable data from disk (or get another hard disk and take backup before you re-install OS).

I wanted no OS installation as I do not have another hard disk :-(. I am still a poor IT guy.

it was painful comeback, but now ubuntu looks cool. Well, getting software for free itself is like a magic and getting a system that serves most of your needs without paying a penny is always great. :-)

Ubuntu zindabad.

New road in the colony

2009-05-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

At last, some good news now a days even in recession period and despite the election season. We are getting new road in our colony. It is great to see the work progressing last few days. It is difficult to manage the work, rather than getting the approvals.

Emergency numbers for Rajendra Nagar and specially for Sri Venkateswara Enclave

2009-04-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

Please keep the following numbers handly in case of any emergency.
Petrolling vehicle number :9490617364 /9948064760
Rajendra Nagar police station: 040-24015333
Cyberabad helpline: 040-27853418 / I was told that we can even call 108.

Please note dialing 100 will not work for us as we fall in cyberabad area (police have this seperation while there is no revenue division with the name cyberabad).
if you dial 100, u will be given the cyberabad help line number and asked to dail that number. It is a stupid thing with police.

Other important numbers:
Street lights:
Imran (Superviser) : 9866023340 - first preference
Call center: 040 - 24577623 - second preference
Contractor Yadaiah : 939136392 - contractor will give pointers in case if above 2 numbers are not picking the phone
Ambedkar - Engineer : 9989930672 - Head for electricity for Rajendra Nagar circle

Power line/Transformer (APCPDCL)
24hr helpline :9396440728
Srinu 939404756

Drainage and other civil works:
Work inspector : Hem singh : 9989635954

Water leakages
Towards Chaitanya vilas
Narasimha Reddy :9391100656

Towards Upparpally village (from transformer onwards)
Rami Reddy : 9399907277

Who will win?

2009-04-22T04:25:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the 2nd phase elections in India and Assembly elections few states of India including Andhra Pradesh. There is money, alcohol and power playing role in this election as well.

When it comes to Andhra Pradesh, Y.S.R wants to be king again and it was kind of sure few weeks before. But as we progress towards the elections there are various factors that are looking like working against Y.S.R.

Personally I would prefer chandra babu to be chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. He is a good administrator and knows how to extract work from every employee. At present Govt offices are not running properly. No one cares to attend to citizen requests. Every where (or most of the places) corruption has become very common phenomenon. If Y.S.R wins again, state will go bankrupt without any doubt.

While I am not happy about the COLOR TV scheme by chandrababu, because it is still kind of luxury to have color TVs and is not a common need for the people. Instead if he has promised something like Roads, water, drainage etc to every village it would have been better. Cash Transfer scheme(crediting cash to poor families) looks good, but subsidies might have effect of it. Showing this cash, most of the subsidies may be removed.

Already there is a big gap in the state, rich/earning people are facing difficulties with price raise while poor are getting rice at Rs 2/- per kg (only rice alone, other things like vegetables etc are common with other people).

Tax payers get nothing, Government doesn't care if i loose my Job. But still It is ok if government is really doing something to the upliftment of the poor. There must be a strategy and regular review on what % of the poor are becoming self dependents. May be Babu has this in his mind.

Well, HUNG is as dangerous as Y.S.R ruling the state.Anyways we have to wait till 16th May to see the actual results.

Drinking License

2009-04-22T04:07:00.000-07:00

It might look like nonsense but this idea has flashed into my mind few weeks back and its keep coming, so that i could record it.

Most of the Indian middle class, poor segment people are affected by the bad habit of drinking often causing disturbances in the family and also heinous crimes. If you look at the real issue here is that, people are drinking at the cost of the family. If you have lots of money and drink occassionally it is fine but if you do not have enough money and put all your daily/monthly earnings into buying some more alcohol, it doesn't look fair at all. So there must be some control by the state and one solution possible is issuing licenses for drinking.

Well, the idea is that every BAR and WINE shop should be automated and every purchase should record the drinking license of the customer.

Like PAN card or Credit Card, every person who is interested to drink should apply to the Government for drinking license, based on the economic conditions of the applicant he should be issued license (silver, gold,platinum kind of). The silver license should get him few bottles a month where as gold can get him some more, platinum should give him even more bottles.

Criteria

1. He must be Indian - Foreigners may be exempted when they produce their passport.
2. Income proof
3. Doctor certificate - only from government hospitals.
4. ID Proof
5. Address proof.
6. Family details.
7. License category opted for
8. Applicable free (Rs 500/- for silver, 5000/- for gold and 50,000/- for platinum)

When the application is received with all the documentation, there will be a verification and upon verification of the information, automated system will figure out the eligibility of the applicants and print out the card which will be sent to the address of the applicant via registered post.

Each WINE shop should have a computer with network and each sale they do should be recorded in the centralized server.

This solves various problems:
1. So called Belt shops /unofficial retail shops will find it difficult to source the alcohol.
2. Families will be happier as there is a restriction on the total alcohol he/she can buy.
3. Every sale is recorded so if some one is trying to buy in bulk and bribe people during election etc, it will not be possible.
4. Government can change the rules without much problem like eligibility etc and also easy to find out the total profit/taxes to the government.

General Elections 2009 Useful information for voters

2009-04-14T03:41:00.000-07:00

Did you register yourself as voter? are you sure it is available in the voter list?
If you do not want to get disappointed at the last moment at polling booth, please check the links below.

for the people in GHMC range.
http://ghmc.gov.in/election1/knowurconstituency.asp

Rest of Andhra pradesh

http://ceoandhra.nic.in/Final_erolls_2009_I.html or http://ceo.ap.gov.in/

Well, now if your name is present in the list, but you do not have voter id card, do not worry, please get id proof as allowed by election commission.

1.Passport
2. Driving license.
3.Service Id card/Company id card by state govt/central govt employees/public limited companies. It must be with photograph.
4. Bank passbooks (if you hold a bank account in govt owned bank, you must be familiar with passbooks).

Well, by availing your vote, you are delivering one of your responsibility in democratic system.

Voting is a responsibility, It is also fun. Please use your vote. easy to say reasons but please, please no excuses. If you are a voter please vote

Election commission websites are down

2009-04-13T03:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, If you are an admirer of IT applications at Govt departments, then you are for disappointment when you see the election commision websites are not accessible or facing technical problems.

There was a link for searching latest updations into the voterlist (as of 30th march 2009) http://ceoandhra.nic.in/Final_erolls_2009_I.html it actually is just redirecting to another site called http://ceo.ap.gov.in. This link worked as of yesterday and supprisingly it stopped working from yesterday evening (as my neibhour says) and i see this website not at all accessible. I tried to ping it (ceo.ap.gov.in) with no luck.

Then i searched on election commission of india website. there is a search option available but then it throws up technical errors. Also it is prompting me enter credentials.

Now see the condition, for the enthiastic voters there is no easy way of getting their polling booth number/name and whether his/her name is there in the list (especially if you have applied for voter after december 2008).

Too bad isn't it.

Well, If you are looking at voterlist as of december 2008 then please check with this link http://apland.ap.nic.in/eroll

My Dream Government*

2009-04-13T00:27:00.000-07:00

Chief minister : Mr. Chandra babu naidu
Revenue : Mr.Rajesekhar Reddy
Finance : J.P
Cultural : K.C.R
Youth Affairs : Chiranjeevi
Auditing : Raghavulu and Narayana

Won't it be good to see all our leaders sharing the responsibility rather than fighting. if they work sincerly for 10 years, I am damn sure our state will be on par with developed nations.

Let us win

2009-04-12T23:51:00.000-07:00

I some how have gut feeling that our guys in politics (should we call them leaders?) are not up to the mark (most of them, with few exceptions). But then we need to elect someone, so we need to choose the better one among the bad guys. It is little difficult job.

I went to GHMC Rajendra Nagar cirlce office to get updated vote list of my colony (I am the General Secretary of Sri Venkateswara Enclave, Upparpally), but I didn't get the list. MRO said they will distribute the list to political parties and i need to get it from them. There was one political party leader who assured he will get a copy to me. We spent lot of time in that office looking over the paper bundles if there is a list (numbers between 79 to 85 ) of our colony residents. But of no use. There are too many of them and I was not able to figure it out.

This morning,I visited One Mr. K.S.Rao who is owner of a house in my colony, He told me he never voted in his full life time. (He is a retired engineer). His reason, once upon a time, he went to polling both to vote, but they said he has to vote in another booth. No one helped him properly. He went around 3 to 4 polling booths just to get disappointed. He made a oath not to try to vote again.

There are 2 things that bother me in this.
1. As a citizen he must have spend few minutes before the poll day to figure out where to vote. Might be checking with his neighbours local chota mota leaders.
2. Election commission or its representatives must guide people about this. Probably they can simply print some information kits with the necessary information and distribute it for free. I see this not at all happening.

Well, regarding the vote and the results, no one is going to change our life. I only wish they not to create any further troubles.

Who ever wins, no direct use to us (most probably). Only way we can get work out of them is to force them to address our issues. Let us raise RTI requests, or raise complaints with all the relevant departments, go and meet the govt representatives etc. If we do this aggressively, Govt, MLAs will be forced to look into the issues. Let us keep them so busy and give a sense of monitoring so that they will work for us. After all they are our servants. It is our responsibility to extract work out of them. My wife will shout at the maid javascript:void(0)if she doesn't clean the house properly. We must apply the same rule to our public servants. Let us shout at them and get things done.

If we do this, who ever might be the winner in elections, Ultimate winners will be the voters/public.

Indiatoday book club lottery - a 419 cheating

2009-04-08T22:14:00.000-07:00

It is kind of 419 cheating by India today book club. In the name of a lottery of 60 Lakhs, they are selling books. If you buy books from india today book club, then you will become elgibile for this lottery. What is more, they say you will get 12k worth of gift vouchers for hotel and air tickets. Actually it is a cheating because the gift vouchers are not at all useful. read the following mail chain.

I would have not felt it as cheating if they have not told me about 12k worth gift vouchers. When you say gift, what do you expect? gifts are supposed to be free and delivered at home, but in case of ITBC (India Today Book club), It is altogether different.

Suggest me what kind of legal action we can initiate against ITBC/India Today to stop this 419 cheating.

Thanks
Harinath

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: harinath
Date: Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 1:12 PM
Subject: Fwd: india today book club /lottery
To: feedback@indiatodaybookclub.com

For your information.

Thanks
Harinath

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: harinath
Date: Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 12:58 PM
Subject: Re: india today book club /lottery
To: Ravinder Kumar Sharma , ITBC4U@indiatodaybookclub.com

Thanks for calling me and trying to clarify things. But I am not convinced. Not telling about terms and conditions in the beginning certainly amounts to cheating.

I am going to file a case against India today book club, just to make sure it will not happen to other customers of india today.

Thanks
Harinath

On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 11:18 AM, harinath wrote:

Hi,

There is lot of mis-information in this lucky draw thing.

I was NOT TOLD about
1. 800/- DD that i need to pay to india hotel reviews.com
2. There is a timegap of applying for the free gifts. looks like it must happen within 60 days from the invoice.
3. I need to send documents to multiple addresses. There is no single contact point to claim the free gifts.
4. And that I cannot claim the gift vouchers in most of the duration in the year. It is only on working days and off-season.
5. And that It I cannot choose the places I want, but there are only few places that one can opt for.

I feel that by not communicating the details properly and by creating lot of hurdles in the process (like free gifts were not enabled for me in the system (some number gets generated along with invoice but it didn't happen for me that way and took few weeks of follow up). India today book club has committed fraud.

I would like to escalate this issue first with indiatoday and ITBC (india today book club). Please do respond to this.

Please treat this communication as official and I will be producing the same with appropriate court/consumer reddressal forums.

Thanks
Harinath

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Ravinder Kumar Sharma wrote:

Dear Mr.Mallepally,

I’ve heard the call and based on that the information that was given to you stands as mentioned below: -

* Sweepstakes Entry for Rs.60 Lacs lucky draw
* You are entitled for Rs.5000/- gift voucher against Holidays & Rs.7000/- against Air Ticket Fares.
* Rs.2600/- Benetton Watch
* The procedure is mentioned to claim these free gifts in a leaflet which will be coming your way through courier.
* Please send all the relevant documents in order to claim your free gifts.

The amount payable is Rs.2598/-

Please revert for further clarification.

Thanks & Regards

Ravinder Sharma

From: harinath [mailto:harinathreddy@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 5:52 PM
To: Ravinder Kumar Sharma
Subject: india today book club /lottery

Hi Ravinder,

Few days back I got a call from India today, stating that I am in the final list of 40 people to win Rs 60 lakh lucky draw.

and i am eligible for Rs 12000/- worth of travel ticket/accommodation, if i pay Rs 2592. Also i was told i will be getting some books for this amount.

I can see the credit card bill showing the amount against indiatoday.

Could you please confirm the following
1. is that lucky draw/lottery a fact one?
2. how and when i will get response/courier about books and other 12k package details?
3. My booking number is 110003374

thanks for the understanding and for your precious time in reading this mail
--
Regards...
Harinath
http://harinath.in

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--
Regards...
Harinath
http://harinath.in

--
Regards...
Harinath
http://harinath.in

--
Regards...
Harinath
http://harinath.in

--
Regards...
Harinath
http://harinath.in

Auto Riskhaw - AP 13 V 5336

2009-04-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

No, the title is not about another movie in Indian film industry. This is the number of a Auto Riskhaw that troubled me with hell lot of smoke that it is releasing. It actually hides visibility of the road some times because of the dense smoke it is releasing.

I chased the auto, asked the driver to take side and stop. he obliged. I asked him in Telugu, why are you driving an auto with this much of smoke troubling everyone on the road. he said he doesn't know Telugu, so then asked the same in Hindi with my limited knowledge. He says it is the problem with LPG. I told him he must rectify the problem before coming onto the road and it must be in garage not on the city roads. he was pretending as if the problem started just few min before and he cannot leave his customer on road. Its a big lie.

I usually stop 1 or 2 vehicles every month that irritate me too much with smoke. You know all our lives are at risk because of the greedy nature of few vehicle owners.

I already tried raising the issue with RTA. These guys say they have lot of their problems like shortage of man power, no funds etc. To one of my RTI request with RR district RTA office at Attapur about the GMR airport buses releasing too much smoke (they are outdated/overused second hand buses mostly), RTA gave me a response stating everything is within the control of pollution standards. Too much a lie than a fact.

Well, It makes me sick, if govt cannot provide us basic stuff to live, our leaders must be ashamed for not taking care of all these stuff. But If you shut your car windows and go in AC mode, then you might not find the pollution as an issue at all.

Well, I think I must fight with few more departments. Let the common man win.

Corruption everywhere

2009-03-29T22:25:00.000-07:00

True, the title of this post is very much true to best of my experience with various govt departments.

In most of the offices of state government,the normal work flow is not executed most of the time. there are alternative work flows that always work and at the end they pretend to be normal work flows/processes.

Impossible is nothing, it holds good for corruption. If you can pay, you can get most of the things in the world done:-).

I have many experiences in this regard, everyone looked at my face when I have applied for NOC at jayanagar RTA office in bangalore few years before. It is almost the case with every RTA office that people pay around 700 to 1000/- to get petty things done. So when I went on my own, they were surprised. But then with less than 100/- I got my NOC done (couple of trips to deputy commissioner office and had no problem there :-)). Interestingly couple of agents who were following me through out the process, were bargaining with me, they initially demanded 1000/- but when I applied on my own, the rate came down to 300/- :-).

My marriage certificate, this was another terrible incident. it was at Nagarkurnool sub registrar office. The sub registrar who was a muslim (he was not good at Telugu, nothing to do with his religion such as) and was like a dummy guy in the office. The clerks who do the work there are too demanding. They cite silly reasons like they do not have the stamp (its really silly isn't it, because govt office are supposed to have enough of them :-) ). We were forced to pay him 300 or so. That clerk was not even aware of the rules, he demanded a notary letter, and then lawyers demanded around 500/- just for one 20/- stamp paper and typing a template in there which is hardly 5 min. job. Just wonder about how bad things are!. A clerk demanding a paper which is not at all required and a lawyer charging 500/- for 5 to 10 min work in a remote town called Nagarkurnool. Think of the poor villagers who visit them for any legal support, Lawyers mostly do not have a kind heart in towns at least. :-(. After knowing all the stuff, I paid bribe at the office and hefty amount to lawyer, just because I had fully family (including my father, in-laws) and you do not want to take adventures by straining your family isn't it?

Lawyers are terrible, they never let you know the facts and extract money from you for nothing in most of the cases. This is true for any petty case that happens at gully level. they really do not do any work other than submitting some paper in court. it is no way similar to movies(where lawyers do lot of stuff to prove something in court).

Then APCPDCL, My self and my neighbour had a peculiar problem. after installing meters we didn't get bills for around 7 months. And then it was a single bill for all these months(which means higher tariff band and more than double the actual amount you need to pay )Ideally it should take max of 2 months for first bill.

The way I solved it and my neighbour solved it are different. I fought with Rajendra nagar A.E and raised an RTI request at their head office for similar incidents. It was done. They reduced my bill amount.

My neighbour paid the JLM (Junior Line man), and you know what, they destroyed the meters and he got new ones. what my neighbour paid is just a part of what he ideally has to pay. JLM got the bribe and then my neighbour got reprieve from paying big amount. At the end APCPDCL lost few thousand rupees. But who cares?

You want water connection? electricity connection or want property tax assessment for your new house or you want to change your name in your property tax note etc, common man lands up paying hefty amounts to what ideally is a simple work and couple of visits to the near by offices will do.

Every one of us are part of this corruption. The moment govt employees see lot of extra income, they stop doing normal work. You go to any office and I bet you they never process your request/file on time. If you do not want to pay bribe you have to strain yourself. But then think of proper alternative. If every one of us start visiting offices and avoid middlemen/bribe, will they escape from work? they will work for sure. But as long as most of the people pay bribe and few people who want to avoid bribes etc will have problems for ever.

The recent one being Rajiv Vidya Mission. I have been trying to construct an additional class room for a primary school near mehdipatnam. You can see another post on my blog which talks of that.

The project officer at RVM office, gave oral instructions, they withhold papers with them like estimates/plan and we get oral instructions to start work. He even called a constractor and told him, One Mr. Harinath Reddy will call you and do his work :-).

Later,Contractor was telling me how the RVM works, he was telling me that normal flow never works at RVM office. around 10 to 15 % of the total amount goes as bribe to employees in the RVM office. Also he says there are charity organizations(or to put it straight the people who handle stuff with RVM office) who make property out of the deals with RVM. My work is on hold as of now.

Surprising, charity for profit :-).

Well, there are other incidents as well but let me wrap up here.

System works wonderfully if you make corruption legal, go into consultant mode, employee only few regulars and all other consultants. pay your employees decent amounts. A gazetted officer,a teacher and doctor must get similar salaries. We need a balance of all professions. Let people get trained on every profession and let quality come into govt offices. Increase the salaries, implement reservations with a proper quality check. Salary hikes must be associated with the performance. Govt need to build proper systems to monitor quality of the work done by each office and employee and provide salary hikes based on performance. Make things straight forward let everyone know what the systems/processes we have and let people involve into govt activities and serve them better, remove middlemen by removing obstacles/hurdles in the normal work process, have enough escalation mechanisms where in a suffering citizen can raise complaint and his case be heard.

Money Effect in politics

2009-03-22T09:04:00.000-07:00

The more you observe politics in andhra pradesh, more you will understand the money effect. If you want to contest from a major political party, you need to shed out around 2 to 5 crore of rupees. Incredible. If we take average as 3 crore, around 300 seats and 3 major parties, 3*300*3 = 2700 crore. (to make simple math took 300 as no. of seats instead of 294 the actual number).

There is around 2500 to 3000 crore political market around there. I am wondering what can we do with this amount.

Then add around 10 for campaigning, its really big amount right. who said india is going through recession? If I am given a chance, I would keep elections every quarter until the all those political leaders go bankrupt.

For me political leaders are looking like STREET DOGS. It is natural for them to bark and bike people, it is their nature. Some times they form groups and fight among themselves or kill some of them within them selves.

But we must exibit our nature of good human beings. Take the money from each candidate, but do not vote for him/her.

You know what!...street dogs are harmful, but if you train them how to behave, they can be faithful isn't it?

What should we do? will the elections really do magic? if money is the only factor that plays role on who is going to win, then elections do not really matter for the real benefit of the state and people.

Let us try to understand the system and the rules. If we start playing them properly, everyone has to bend and do their duty and make the society free from corruption.

Mehdipatnam school (Ambedkar Nagar GPS)

2009-03-18T22:49:00.000-07:00

At last we crossed initial bottlenecks to construct additional class rooms for Govt Primary school at Ambedkar nagar (a small slum area behind ICICI bank, Mehdipatnam).

This is a major activity from TMAD . At present this school has 1 class room and a small hall attached to it for running 5 classes with more than 100 students.
TMAD has been involved with this school for the last few years. We distributed them notebooks, slippers etc. Mr. Naresh, Teacher in this school is enthusiastic and got lot of energy in running this school.

We got the approvals from Rajiv Vidya Mission to start the work with 20:80 basis. TMAD will own the work and bear the 20% cost while remaining amount will be granted by Rajiv Vidya Mission.

We are talking to contractor for starting the work in another few days. It is a good news for me and for TMAD. I was into this task for the last few months doing the ground work. While Prashanti worked out the donations. Special thanks must be given to Maheedhar Maddi, who generously contributed 20k. He is the first donor and this gave us confidence to gather momentum and come to this stage

Politricks and possible solution

2009-03-06T18:33:00.000-08:00

If you are native of Andhra pradesh state in India, you are for a sure confusion about the politricks played by various political parties. It all started with the present chief minister who promised too many things in the last elections. Now opposition parties are left to repeat the same thing.

My thought process on the present political system and the problems around it, is that, just because I like a particular leader, I must not endorse every silly mistake that leader or his party is doing. It will lead nowhere.

I see everyone expressing helplessness. Corruption is a very much known issue and almost all the political parties are part of it.

What should we do? should we cancel all present parties and their leaders? it is not going to work out.

The best alternative I can think of is to change the rules of the game, not players. The same players will be there but when rules change, we get the result we want (state and people getting the result).

Few steps towards it:

1. Automate all processes in the bureaucracy and legislation. Reduce the human intervention and make everything transparent. If outgoing is barred because of some reason, I call my mobile operator, if he says it takes 2 days, I have to wait, no other way. Similarly every service offered by government and its bodies must have very much clearly defined SLAs.

2. Make simple processes. Let us not invent too many schemes. Even if there are too many govt schemes, let the model behind those schemes be simple that can be understood by common man (should I say common woman :-), tomorrow being womens day).

3. Flat hierarchy, let the hierarchy of the govt be as simple as possible.

4. Integrated service centers:

We must have a learning from the present customer care centers of Mobile/Phone operators and similar services. it is clear to every phone user, where to go and complain or get a particular service from his phone/mobile operator like changing a handset or change scheme, change address etc.

Government must have Integrated service centers on population size basis. Something like for every 2000 people there can be one service centers. Every activity related with the execution/administration of the governement should happen from there. This might include Displaying Government Orders, Electoral updations, Bill payments, complaints, new requests(electricity, water,phone etc), clearance certificates etc.

When I first discussed this idea with some collegues of me, we have done some basic calculation, we can really do wonderful job, if we can spend around 300 crore rupees every year. This includes employment to around 20,000 people. Mind you this employmnent is based on normal education like +2 or graduation. Basic computer operating skills are required but not mandatory.People can be trained.
around 50 crore rupees for building/integrating software solutions to achieve the functionality. around 50 crores for building rentals/stationary/misc expenses while 100 to 150 crores will be for salaries and some buffer amount.

It will take around 6 months to 1 year to productize the concept from inception (provided we have approvals and budget allocated).

But this will bring down all the perils of present system. Now every person knows where to get his grievances addressed. Every silly problem need not get attention of chief minister or opposition leaders

5. Empowered committee on Political promises and validations:
A committee should be formed with all powers to validation manifesto documents of each political party, no party can publish their manifesto without approval from this committee.

Every rupee income and expense must be published along with beneficiary information to general public, so every political party will have access to this information so that they can plan their manfesto/list of promises. No promise by any party should be like a magic. Everything should be based on the factual information.

Members of this committee should be eminent personalities in the political system and should represent all sections of the society. I think I need some home work on how these members need to be picked and making sure these people do not favour a party or set of sections in the society. Because otherwise it becomes like any other ordinary committee and the ruling party makes it a meaningless one.

We know mostly we cann't expect surprises in our system. I cannot expect a great leader coming out all of sudden from no where.
But with all our limitations what we can do is to spend some effort and do is change the rules so as it really benifits the people and political parties will be like trusties. you know what, if we implement these ideas, it is like 'Shubham' card in the last scene of a great movie isn't it?

Millionaire Slumdog

2009-02-22T20:55:00.000-08:00

It was nice to watch the Oscar awards function in the T.V. Interesting thing to see was A.R. Rahman and Rasool receiving the awards. Rasool made "Dedicated to country" while Rahman said "Mere pass Maa Hain".
More details can be had from rediff and other online resources
This Mumbai slumdog winning maximum awards at the function is really great.

I think, if you know rules of the game, winning is easy. Our movie makers should make a note of it. and win awards at international events like this.

నాగార్జున సాగర్ గురుకుల డిగ్రీ కళాశాల

2009-02-10T03:15:00.000-08:00

నాగార్జున సాగర్ గురుకుల డిగ్రీ కళాశాల రజత్సోవ సంచికకు ఎదయినా రాయాలి అని గత వారం రోజులుగా అనుకుంటున్నా, కాని అర్థం కావడం లేదు ఎక్కడ మోదలు పెట్టాలో. కరువు జిల్లా పాలమూరు లో,దిగువ మధ్యతరగతిలో పుట్టడం వల్ల,చదువంతా కష్టంగా గడిచింది.జడ్చర్లలో ఇంటర్ కాగానే చదువు ఆగుతుందా,సాగుతుందా అని చింతిస్తున్న సమయంలో ఆపద్భాధవుడి మాదిరిగా దొరికింది సాగర్ కాలేజిలో ప్రవేశం.

ఇక్కటి ప్రశాంత వాతవరణం,చదువు,వసతి, భోజనం ఉచితం కావడం బాగా కలసి వచ్చింది, దానికి తోడు రాష్ట్రం నలుమూలల నుంచి విధ్యార్థులు ఉండటం,మంచి అధ్యాపకులు ఉండటం జీవితంపై ఆశను పెంచి భవిష్యత్తుకు మంచి పునాది రాళ్ళు పడటానికి బాగా దోహదం చేసింది.

డిగ్రీ అంటే పార్ట్ టైం జాబ్ చేస్తూ పి.జి ఎంట్రెన్సులకు ప్రిపేరు కావడం అని కాకుండా,ఇక్కడ నేను చాలా విధాలుగా లబ్ది పొందాను. లైబ్రరీ ను వాడుకోవడం. రోజు వార్తపత్రికలు చదవడం, జాతీయ, అంతర్జాతీయ మ్యాగజైన్లు చదవడం వల్ల చాలా విశయాలు తెలుసుకున్నాను.ఇది నా మానసిక వికాసానికి ఎంతగానో దోహదం చేసింది.

రోజూ ఉదయాన్నే డ్యాం పైన జాగింగ్, లేక్ వ్యూ చదువులు, స్వర్గీయ కె.ఎస్.ఎన్, లాంటి గొవ్పవారి పాఠాలు వినడం ఎంతో అద్ర్షుష్టం. ఎంత డబ్బు గుమ్నరించినా దొరకని భాగ్యం అది.

ఫైనల్ ఇయర్ లో హాస్టల్ లెక్రటరీ కావడం, ఆపై పాండిచ్చేరి లో ఎం.సి.ఎ, చెన్నై, బెంగుళూరు నగరాల్లో ఉద్యోగం,ప్రస్థుతం హైదరాబాదులో ఓ సాఫ్ట్ వేర్ కంపనీలో ఉద్యోగం చేస్తున్నా.

కష్ఠపడి పోరాడితే ఓటమి పారిపోతుంది,విజయం సొంతం అవుతుంది.సాగర్ జీవితం నేర్పించిన పాఠం ఇది. సాగర్ కాలేజి జ్ఞాపకాలు, జీవితంలోని ఒక ముఖ్యమైన మదుర ఘట్టాన్నీ రివైండ్ చేసుకోవడం లాంటిది.

హరినాథ్ మల్లేపల్లి. B.sc 1997-2000

ఉచితం జాగ్రత్త

2009-02-09T09:55:00.000-08:00

ఈ మద్య అన్ని ఉచితంగా ఇచ్చే బజారు వోటు బిచ్చగాళ్ళు వోచ్చారు. సంబరపడి పోకండి, అంతా ఉత్తి ఉత్తిదే. చిన్న పిల్లలు మారం చేస్తే పెద్ద వాళ్ళు ఏదో ఓక కథ చెప్పి మేనేజ్ చేసినట్టు రాజకీయం పేరిట కొంత మంది అవసరం ఉన్నా లేకున్నా ప్రతిది ఉచితంగా ఇవ్వడానికి సిద్దంగా ఉన్నారు. మాటల వరకే సుమా.

ఓ ప్రణాళిక లేదు. ఓ పద్దతి లేదు, అసలు ప్రజలకు ఏది అవసరమో తేలీదు. రూపాయి ఎలా వస్తుంది, ఎలా ఖర్చు అవుతోంది తేలీదు. ఎలా చేస్తే బాగుంటుందో అసలు తేలీదు. కానీ అదంతా అనవసరం. ఎన్నికలు వస్తున్నాయి కాబట్టి ఈ కతలు, కోతలు.

దీనికి తోడు మన న్యాయ వ్యవస్థ. అదే చట్టం. కాని, కోర్టు కోర్టు కు తీర్పు మారుతుంది. న్యాయానికి కూడా ఫాలిమార్ఫిజం ఉంటుంది కాబోలు. డబ్బున్న వాడికి అన్నీ దోరుకుతాయి. పోలీసులు గులాం అవుతారు. న్యాయం చుట్టం అవుతుంది.జైళ్లు ప్రత్యేకమవుతాయి.

డబ్బున్నవాడు ధన్యుడు,బలమున్న వాడు రాజవుతాడు. భీధవాళ్ళు బలవుతూనే ఉంటారు. ఉచితానుచితాలను పక్కన పెడితే ఇది మాత్రం నిజం.

Smart electronic displays for traffic management in India

2009-01-23T04:49:00.001-08:00

We have seen Indian cities having exceeding growth than the available/affordable infrastructure. The more we build, the more is the demand. You see traffic problem, you build flyover roads and\or wide roads, just to find that after couple of years, it reaches saturation and we see lengthy traffic queues and problems. Other side effect is that too much of pollution and fuel utilization.

While the existing traffic signal mechanisms look sufficient, I thought we can create a better infrastructure, where in a commuter doesn't too look around dedicated for a possible traffic signal and its color. Lives are becoming busy and those tiny bulbs may not get enough attention all the time. I feel we have to have a better traffic signal display mechanism. probably an electronic display with 50 inch(height) row, spawning the width of the road could be a wonderful idea. We can display not just that RED/AMBER/GREEN bulb, but can show them text "STOP/PROCEED/SLOW" etc. When there is a "STOP" Signal, we can show updates on locally interesting items like the following.

Traffic conditions
Dynamic speed limits
S market
Weather report
Advertisements
Local happenings/events
Traffic alternatives/suggestions
Similar items

I captured some of the existing smart displays here. I am looking at a far better solution which is self sustaining (through the means of advertisements etc)

Data display seems to lead the smart display market.

In case if you have ideas/inputs on how we can build a cost effective, Eco friendly, robust traffic management system, please do share with me. you can send me mail. my mail id is the {subdomain}@gmail.com, please replace the subdomain with "harinathreddy"

Also please share with me, if it is possible to have LED based multi color display (need not be on part with LCD) 50 inch height,and 40 feet length and if yes, what is will be the rough estimate for the same?

Thanks
harinath

Shashirekha parinayam - film review

2009-01-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

Saw this movie, "Shashirekha parinayam" at prasads. A typical telugu movie with road side romance and love. This movie is not that interesting as the title. It is about a a girl who runs away from home on her marriage day (surprisingly, she is the last person to know about her marriage and that too on the last day, far off from today's realities, where people go around and spend time together in shopping etc even in arranged marriages). Incidentally it is Tarun (supposed to be the groom of the marriage, herion was trying to run away) who follows her journey from Amalapuram till Dilsukh nagar (I guess the distination, because we get fruitmarket, vegetable market in the last fight, suspect it to be kothapet market, then hospital climax, could be DSNR).

With a little halt in Bejawada, and couple of dances near Nagarjuna sagar (yes, the places are familar to me, Ethipothala and the Nagarjuna sagar Dam. I studied in Sagar for 3 years in APRDC).
heroin and hero reach hyderabad, with no particular purpose but landup realizing that they are the bride and groom for the cancelled marriage. Typical reunion of the families.

There is nothing much new in the movie. Genelia is not that nice as she was in "Bommarillu".

Movie was like an extended advt for CMR or some other cloth/jewellery showroom(Infact hero,heroin spend around 10 minutes of movie time in Manya shopping mall, vijayawada) you can rate around 2, 2.5 on the scale of 5. Not worth spending few valuable hours in costly cenema halls, that too in the present market conditions.

Shame Shame, No Petrol

2009-01-08T20:34:00.001-08:00

India is going through a surprise shock. More than 50% of the petrol bunks are running dry. I saw at least half a Kilo meter traffic JAM at Lakdikapool HP petrol bunk, similar stuff at Shell petrol pump on Rajbhavan road. What about remaining pumps on the way? there is a black rope tied end to end, representing "OUT OF FUEL".

If the Situation continues,Indian cities will be pollution free and traffic police can sit at home watching TV, because there will be no more fuel for any type of vehicles.

It is really shame on the government, they must haven't let things go out of control. Really shame shame!

Hope and coordination Helps Pakistan and India

2009-01-07T20:47:00.000-08:00

At last "kasab" is confirmed as pakistani. But what next? should we attack Pakistan and ruin it or keep blaming it? We must see Pakistan as a very critical neighbour in very critical condition. It is time Indian government show more hope and try coordinating with Pakistan some more time. May be a visit of Mr. Singh to Pakistan and meeting the Pakistan high political and military heads help resolve many issues.

World must acknowledge that They created Pakistan,and it has grown to such a condition where it has become more dangerous than any nuclear bombs that exists in this world. Its political system is very weak. I seriously doubt if their military arms are in control by their heads.

Mumbai attacks might have had serious support from inside people,but may be on their personal account. There might not be a state support, there may be also.

A war will lead us no where. It is like two families fighting each other. Winning condition is always that "No one should lost". A very difficult condition, but it is true. Both these countries are highly populated and any step towards war will leave many dead and wounded and that is NO GOOD for any country.

Probably India should be more clever. Put its people across Pakistan, help Pakistan grow as a stable country and its political leadership. Grow some good thoughts in their minds and get them good visibility in the world. "Make it your partner, not enemy"

India could help Pakistan by providing required help to meet their power,fuel requirements and other commodities. Treat Pakistan a union of Indian states and then you start providing them more help.

Humanity should win. Terrorism is like cancer, we must have treatment, but not kill the patient.

Let satyam be saved

2009-01-07T07:52:00.000-08:00

Today's revelation by Mr. Ramalinga Raju, Satyam Chairman, about the inflation in the financial statements of the company are very much shocking.

He must be going through very difficult times, at least for the last few months. As he mentioned, it is really difficult to manage the "tiger ride". He might be honest and was trying to bring normalcy in the company affairs. Also it could be possible that he is saving real culprits.
Raju's statement says it all. an excerpt.

"Every attempt made to eliminate the gap failed. As the promoters held a small percentage of equity, the concern was that poor performance would result in a take-over, thereby exposing the gap. It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten."

It is time, Government should come forward and protect the interests of the stake holders,employees, customers. We cannot just blame and kill Satyam.This world class company must make a come back. Every one who have a chance to make this happen, should provide all the support and let the "come back" happen

Democracy, Governement, Bureaucracy and Elections

2009-01-03T04:52:00.000-08:00

The way Government and its Ministers make promises in India really surprises me. India is not yet fully democratic. Part of what is present is not truly democratic. Son becomes ruler after father, Wife becomes party president or minister if father dies or goes to jail. Leaders are big liers. They promise heaven to keep people happy, but they do not know basic work flow of how money comes and goes. I am not saying everyone is like this,but most of them are!.

Ministers do not have enough details on whether they can actually commit something to people, whether the budget allows new promises. But they know only one thing, they need to keep people or a particular sect happy, so they go on promising.

Governments are like white elephants. They are very costly in India. Not the 100% of the budget goes into public service. Our elections are costly affairs. All the parties need lot of funding. Ever wondered why this time the wine shop licenses got lot of money to Exchequer?(in the state of Andhra pradesh) Because this time we have elections. All of sudden, We see new roads (in Greater Hyderabad), probably this is to fund the present government and its leaders for the summer elections.

Well, well, well, everyone talks of this. What is there to a common man? Have you ever applied for a water connection? electricity connection? a ration card or a voter id card?

You name the service, the end user experiences are not pleasant. An year back I wanted to get a water connection, went to water board office in Rajendra nagar. They gave me a "Form" but said we need to submit the filled in form in Khairatabad. yes I did that after struggling to identify where that office is, took few months of serious follow up with various people, Satyanarayana and Mr. Laxman Rao (Water board Rajendra nagar Manager), Finally I got the approval. They are supposed to send their workers to provide me the connection. It never happened. So I went ahead and got it done.

Why this story?, Last week I visited the same office (they got new building) for a water connection again (for my neighbour), this time the answer is "Form" is not available.

Well, The "Form" is not in TELUGU, but it is in "ENGLISH", I wonder how many can really read and fill in the "Form".

But for those who are little scared of this complex process, Please talk to Mr. Satyanarayana or someone in that office informally (pay them a thousand or something extra) and you get the connection without any problem.

Ever tried to apply an electricity connection?, everyone scared me about it and they told me to contact one JLM (Mr. Fakruddin), He took little over 3000/- for a new meter installation (in 2007 august).
Few months back while fighting for something with APCPDCL (about not issuing proper bill for new meter connections), I found that actual cost is just 1300/- or so and it is a simple process (Go to APCPDCL customer care center and there will be some one to help you on this). But it takes 2 weeks or so (standard time).

Again there is a problem with "Form", its in "ENGLISH". How many people can really fill in English? I do not think we really have a choice here.

In 2007, when I was in Scotland, I saw some booklets "Know your government" or something, having Urdu translation as well, Because there are many Muslims from south Asian countries.

Do we really care for "What a common man needs?" Surprisingly not many of us know "What is needed", not the governments, not the opposition parties, and not even by those NGOs.

Regarding the ACB rides(Anti corruption bureau) rides, and finding some big fishes (senior bureaucrats involved in corruption), everyone is shouting on this, but Is there any proper "Root cause analysis happening on this?" Not really.

Government (of Andhra pradesh) is fully on shopping spree, they want to sell every acre of government (including the land of poor people), and then build some big concrete jungles (Lift irrigation schemes), irrespective of whether we really are going to have enough power to run this plants (Everyone knows about the power problems we are facing, all the villages in the state get only few hours of power supply daily).

Government want to release as much money as it can, borrow as much as it can,and fund their party workers to grow rich. You know "Congress is fat and smiling".

When you spend like hell, isn't it your responsibility to have a proper analysis, execution, auditing etc? Even properly planned and executed projects find lot of issues. When you do not plan anything and go on spending, well people will try to get benefit of the situation. Bureaucrats will earn "CRORES" of rupees and properties for doing favours to contractors.

Is it only problem with bureaucrats? No not really. Bureaucracy represents "Government". I strongly believe they are like "Mirror image" for government.

Whether we agree or not "Money, Power, Wine and Women" rule us irrespective of whether it is medieval times or modern era.

Irony is that, we are in democratic country but do not have to choice to choose our future.Wether we vote or not, some one will win and rule us.

Probably we need to bring awareness in people about 49-O. read more about more about 49-O rule here

I re-print 49-O here.

49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his

electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters

in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as

required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his

vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in

Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb

impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.

Isn't it time that we say "No" to everyone? let there be elections multiple times, let every political leader become poor because they end up spending all their earnings? May be we need to evolve mechanism to conduct elections with "Least cost" possible so that it doesnt cost much to conduct elections time and again.

Let there be elections as many times required, till it proves that all these afluent political leaders run out money.

Well, for me a "Fair Election" is the one, where individuals vote based on their personal understanding about the candidates, not by the money, sarees or the wine provided by these candidates.

On the side note, I think it will be a wonderful idea to impose "Prohibition of wine shops and supplies" for at least 3 weeks before the elections and 1 week after the elections.

Into another new year

2009-01-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

Hmm, days and months passed by and the year 2008 is over. Another year with lots of changes, activities.

Jan 1st, I have celebrated at Darul shifa govt blind school (behind salajung museum) along with TMAD group.

Couple of snaps:

more snaps at http://picasaweb.google.com/nravi3/Jan012009BlindSchoolVisit

We spent time interacting with the students, understanding their ambitions, requirements and exploring their talent etc. It was nice to be there on January 1st. It gave a scope to understand a different angle of the life.

During the interaction, best answer I can remember is (question is "what do you do you want to become in your life?")," I will go home and play with my neighbouring kids". This is what a 1st grade student can think of about his life :-). Murali was right in saying, "don't worry much about your aim and all, there is still time for it. But then those who want to make difference in his/her life and the future of the world, an early ambition is always good (provided we work on it without forgetting).

Thanks Satyakrishna for all your initiative for this trip.

Let us hope for change, No YSR again please

2008-12-28T08:23:00.000-08:00

The state political situation looks to be at a decisive phase now. Congress is trying to regain power back again. While chiranjeevi is making inroads into all the districts but making the opposition votes split up ( In case if he goes alone for the polls).

The Congress has done enough of what they wanted to do. Lot of irrigation projects in progress (lot of corruption is reported), and as the works are in progress, we do not need really congress again into power to complete irrigation projects.

That was the positive side. On the other side, they sold all government lands to private people at throw away prices (or occupied themselves). They have done what ever is possible to sell what ever is available (or first grab and then sell). Borrowed money from all possible means just to make a fat budget without proper discipline. They have introduced so many welfare schemes, but essentially all of them are like pittance when compared to the profits out of corruption/power plays. It is like bribing people to vote by distributing money in all possible means. While people are getting little bit of benefit, Congress leaders made hell lot of fortunes.

Bureaucracy is highly corrupted now and looks like if someone is decent then he/she cannot work. Chandarababu naidu (TDP president) tried to bring the state bureaucracy to a viable and disciplined order but congress pushed it back to few decades.

Free power:
YSR went on giving what ever is demanded. He promised free power and now villages do not have proper power supply even during the monsoon season(when we are supposed to have abundant hydal power).

Rs 2 Kg:
When TDP wanted to play similar tricks as congress and brought back,Rs 2 KG rice scheme (which NTR has introduced during his tenure), YSR,introduced Rs 2 KG rice for the BPL people, while removing the subsidy for the majority of the people.

Drink more for the state development:
Lots of licenses for given for wine shops. Congress wanted more people do drink and contribute to the state Exchequer.

In case if we elect Congress back to power in the state, we are going to have very difficult condition, they are going to ruin the sate.

It is time, opposition need to join hands together and defeat congress. Remember YSR played all cheap tactics like encouraging naxalites to kill TDP leaders (during last elections, every day some TDP leader or the other was killed daily by naxalites) and joined hands with TRS and communists.

Only thing Chandrababu noidu, didn't realize was to get money by selling all govt/public lands to get money and distribute to public in the name of some welfare scheme or the other.

Let us hope, we do not get to see YSR into power again.

Virus removal instructions

2008-12-25T22:01:00.000-08:00

Some of the steps, that I apply when I find that my system got infected with a virus, Usually this becomes more visible when you find task manager, or regedit is disabled, or you find system resources are in full use even though you do not run too many applications.

1. download process explorer from microsoft website. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx
This is a nice tool, to begin with. it provides you details of present running processes in your system. It provides you additional information like path, executable name, whether it is a microsoft application etc.

2. If you suspect an application that is running, take the name of it and search on internet, see if you get any virus alert. If yes, your system is infected with virus.

3. Follow the internet for removal of virus.

4. One simple cure, that I always apply is to remove the file entries from system and remove references to the file from registry (especially from the start up applications list). Open registry editor (run->regedit), search for the virus executable file name in the full registry. You must remove all the references of it.

In general, HKEY_lOCAL_SYSTEM->Software->Microsoft->Windows->CurrentVersion will have 2 child nodes "Run" and "RunOnce", please check if virus has registered an entries under any of these nodes, If yes, please remove the entries. Make sure you also delete the executables from your file system.

In case "regedit" is disabled by virus, you can follow instructions from internet, on how to enable them, if nothing works out, you can try some reliable thirdparty, registry editing tools.

Ubuntu zindabad

2008-12-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

Recently I moved to full fledged non MS environment by installing KUBUNTU in my laptop. I nhave been using open office in windows box as well for some time.

I had few problems with Kubuntu.
1. sound - was getting sound only while shutting down, installing VLC also didnt help.
2. wireless network - whole idea of buying a laptop was to be mobile, not to sit at a fix place in the house.

With the help of Mohan and Shiva, got mplayer installed, it was working but not the other softwares like VLC.

After doing some fixes (exact fix is unknown :-), sound is working fine.

Today, I have installed gnome in my kubuntu, now it says "Ubuntu".

Apart from the name change, the real benifit I got is the wireless connectivity. I got my INSPIRON 1525 connected to the Dlink router. This is wonderful. GNOME is not as flashy as KDE but then it is more comfortable because the options look similar (familiar as windows :-).

The concept of free software is great. IT is no more a luxury. You do not need to pay anything to get generic softwares setup in your computer. Its true, Try ubuntu. As kranthi says industry will be more democratic in the near future.

Symfony PHP framework

2008-12-23T03:49:00.000-08:00

Symfony is one the good PHP frameworks available. It is not for simple projects (considering the overheads and learning curves). If your project little big have decent number of screens and some logic and authentication, role based access etc and if you are seriously looking at PHP, mysql based solution, then symfony is a good solution. we have using symfony to build OCMS. I am attaching couple of screen shots from the symfony generated code. They look good right? who doesn't like some tool to generate the UI for us based on database tables? we can customize and use the stuff.

Get paid to play games

2008-12-23T03:47:00.000-08:00

Get paid to play games. interesting isn't it. That is what i am doing right now. This wont be the case for you. If you want to loose some money, then go ahead and play the games I am playing now at http://www.chitchatbingo.co.uk/. Yes it is fully developed and managed by my company.

Well, in order to build a new jackpot solution, I need to learn and play most of these games. Altogether new domain, but intersting.

Drupal and zoomla - the CMS

2008-12-18T04:20:00.000-08:00

I was doing basic study of zoomla and drupal. As both of them being open source content management systems, it was very easy to get the latest downloads and setup them up in my apache server.

unzipped them into d:/apps folder. renamed the root folders to plain names (removed version info etc). and configured apache with additional virtual hosts.

we need to have mysql installed already.

Apache configuration entries...

Listen 100
Listen 200

ServerName localhost
DocumentRoot "D:/apps/Joomla"
DirectoryIndex index.php
Alias /zoomla D:/apps/Joomla

AllowOverride All
Allow from All

ServerName localhost
DocumentRoot "D:/apps/drupal"
DirectoryIndex index.php
Alias /drupal D:/apps/drupal

AllowOverride All
Allow from All

Zoomla, installation is straight forward. after installation it asks us to delete "installation" folder.

Where as drupal asks you to copy "/sites/default/default.settings.php" to "/sites/default/settings.php" to start actual installation.

Installation basically includes creating certain tables with the database information we provide during installation steps (It is mysql database info).

In both the applications, we create a admin account during installation.

Both of them look similar to me.

URLs

http://drupal.org/
http://joomla.org/

Multi site option seem to be available with drupal not with zoomla. But it requires some effort to do the same.
http://drupal.org/project/multisite_manager

reading the documentation and some stuff on http://www.scribd.com/ will provide basic overview and usage of both of them.

some quick references.

http://docs.joomla.org/Beginners
http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla!_Extensions_Defined#Templates
http://drupal.org/handbook/customization/tutorials/beginners-cookbook

Essentially both of them offer basic features of web building. we can say they provide some additional features than the standard blog/other open source softwares.

Probably, they dont really let you do very serious business.

My first week outside Infosys

2008-12-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

Just thought of sharing my experience with new company. While it was not too difficult for me to leave previous company and start with another one without any gap, I found lot of difference within the few days. I got what ever I missed at Infosys. Infosys is a factory, People, Printers, Stationary all are called "Resources". You cannot browse internet properly, you cannot download, you need to big someone to do the downloads for you and wait for their mercy (1 or 2 days).

Last few months were very very difficult, the more I tried to contribute the more work I had in my plate. And always there were only few questions "What is the status and when will it get completed?". While there is nothing wrong with these questions, think of a scenario where in you are deep into troubles,fixing issue by issue and some one asking you update for every 10 or 15 minutes. Doesn't it irritate you? There are many bosses then the people who really execute it. All those typical software industry jokes are infact true. There are very few people who stood with me and understood my condition. But otherwise, everything was shown as a technical issue and then because it is a technical issue, it is in harinath's plate. You work day and night and fix few issues. Response you get is not acknolwedging the work, but questions on the status of next set of issues.

It really made me go mad, I was responding to one of the manager, requesting to "Let me go, I do not want to remember infosys experience at all because it is painful".

But then last 1 Week was really out of all these bad experiences. I was able to sleep properly. play with my son and more over do some of the pending stuff (RTI,OCMS) etc. Still the queries on bulk testing haunt me :-(.

The bag that was given to me at the farewell party is really good. Thanks Janaki (He is a project manager who worked with me very closely and spent lot of his time with me) for the bag.

Successfull formula for succeeding in BIG Software companies is that, do less work and more talking. You must know how to delegate the work, if not you will be in troubles. You must be really good in playing the role of a POST MAN, delivering the tasks around.

It might look stupid, but it works. But then there are few cases where you get really GOOD BOSS who will help you out and recognize your work.

Mostly, all these BIG IT companies are like this. You become a "RESOURCE" and while you keep getting your salary (not so fixed, beause it is variable pay most of the places), you slowly loose your self. Your individualism. Your thoughts and you become a slave doing some knowledge work to your employee. Surprising fact is that you will never be able to identify the difference of being pulled into the corporate slavery, becuase you are lured with so many additional flavours. you see BIG GYM, swimming pool, big buildings and thousands of employees.

I am happy that I am out of the difficult times. It was not work that was difficult for me. It was those stupid policies and then junk timelines that made life too difficult.

On the positive note, It was mutually benifiting, because Infy got money out of my work, and I worked on multiple projects with no intersection of teams/technologies. At the end I learned more because I struggled and it made me more confident.

Life at Springboard looks good. While it is too early to go deep into the work, I am able to download GBs of data at around 50 to 80KBps and no filters troubled me. (Senseless Websense used to filter the jars i download and used to add lot of debugging classes into the jar files). While there is not work allocated to me. I am kind of taking help from teams and trying to understand the business and the technologies involved.

Interestngly, It is fun to get paid to play games. I come to know that "Tambola" game is called Bingo and there are various rules for it. There are so many fun games which doesn't require much of your brain.

Roads, Footpaths and Speadbreakers in GHMC

2008-12-04T08:26:00.000-08:00

You can find below, the response framed by GHMC to one of my RTI request with them. I have scanned all the documents (including appeals) and uploaded them to blogger.

I was asked to visit SE-II at GHMC to get the information after the final hearing at AP State Information Commission.

Today noon, I visited GHMC office, and when insisted they provided me a xerox copy of the information. Ironically, you can find the GHMC formal response to the hearing (signed by Sudharshan, SE-II) containing just one line response stating the number of spead breakers in GHMC. But they gathered information and kept it with themselves.

Formal response they sent to me by reg. post is

AP Information Commission is a farse

2008-12-02T23:39:00.000-08:00

I have really bad experiences with AP State Information Commission. These guys at APIC are care free birds. For the information commissiors their designation is important. They enjoy the luxuries of the designation and do very little to do justice to RTI spirit.

In one hearing that i attended there, they asked me to come to their office and pickup the information on last saturday. I went to their office today (2 work days delay) assuming that information will be available there and I just need to pickup from them.

they gave me one sheet which is response from GHMC Superintending Engineer-II (Lt No SE-II/GHMC/PA/2008-2009/1669. With just one line response "Total no of speed breakers in GHMC are 4261"

My request contained what is the total footpath and usable foot path as well as how many speed breakers and for how many of them indicators are available.

When insisted for information in complete, they said go and meet Mr. Sudarshan SE-II at GHMC office at 3PM tomorrow. Also they are blaming me for not turning up on last Saturday.

When I asked for next level of escalation, they said it is at "High court".

Actually I filed RTI appeal (2nd appeal) with APIC in May 2008, and there is a long gap for the hearing. The Information commissioners are really big junk guys there. They are the best people in the state who are killing the "SPIRIT OF RTI".

I will post updates later in the day or tomorrow.

ఫొటో వోటర్ల ప్రత్యేక సంక్షిప్త సవరణ

2008-12-02T19:42:00.000-08:00

విషయము: ఫొటో వోటర్ల ప్రత్యేక సంక్షిప్త సవరణ చివరి తేది: డిశంబరు పద్దెనిమిది 2008మీరు ఇప్పటి దాకా వోటరు కాకపోతే ఫారం సిక్ష్సు భర్తీ చెయాలి...వోటు కోసం దరఖాస్తు ని ఇంటరునెట్ లో కూడా భర్తీ చేయవచ్చు

Please use Internet explorer only for accessing http://ceoandhra.nic.in some of the functionalities are not compatible with other browsers.

What went wrong in Mumbai?

2008-11-29T22:52:00.000-08:00

It is really unfortunate to see the Mumbai incidents. I am thinking about what went wrong. Why is that we were not able to sense anything about this attack? Mumbai blasts are not everything, it just means that we have very difficult neibhourhood.

Let us curse the leaders who didnt close Kashmir issue, they wanted name, fame and stopped the war, leaving kashmir an unifinshed business. Then the bangladesh seperation saw them yelling at us. We are really stupids that we are not that proactive. We have been reactive. Let someone do something for us and then we fight. Perils of too much of freedom and corrupted political conditions.

We should always remember that, blaming pakistan is not always the only option we have. Let us grow from there. Look, even pakistan is bleeding now. Pakistan political system is not really strong enough to curtail all this.

We must have sabotage plans, let us have our people into the so called terrorist groups. let us have decent networking into their world. It is time we need to be more smart. Every life is important for us.

Task is not simple. some of my thoughts.

Let us provide proper opportunities to the poor muslim community. The rich onces are rich and do not need any help.
Let our muslim leaders prevail the thoughts of our muslim brothers. Let no poor heart bend towards them for money or something else.
Seriously implement family planning, especially in the poor and not so educated muslim community.
Let us not treat Islam as our enemy. It is those deviated minds causing troubles to us. When we should at "Islam terrorism" why are we not shouting againt "Nehru, Gandhi" families for their unfinished job?
Solve Kashmir, its really burning many people. Either we occupy POK or leave J & K to make another nation in the middle. Probably we have to go with first option. Let us close the issue ASAP.
People should avoid electing junk leaders. Let no "Rahul" or "Jagan" rule us. Enough is what their parents have done to us. let us look at new blood. No more dynasty rules. Father and son are not the same. we shouldnt be stupids to keep future of our country into some ones hand because of their dynasty. Let us elect young leaders with fresh outlook.Enough is enough with all these old leaders.
Remove poverty, if you think you do not have enough work here,then train people and export them. let the world be full of indian workforce.
Let us be critical at international events. Let us start getting confidence and influencing the world.

Let us fight back

2008-11-29T22:33:00.001-08:00

Days look gloom. Various reasons. Mumbai blasts claiming around 200 lives in Mumbai, the economical capital of India and also the industry conditions.

It is time, individuals need to be more careful. It is certainly not party time. We are yet to see the worst. Let us keep our jobs safe, reduce expenses and have enough savings to pay our EMIs at least for 6 months even without job.

We need to be more careful about what we do. Let us make ourselves as inevitable so that our jobs are safe, and then our employers will become inevitable for their customers and that makes we surpass the difficult times with less pain.

It means, we work seriously, take the learning's well and work hard and smart. Going forward, it is going to be no more 9 to 5, 5 days a week work life. We might need to work more and more.

On my personal account, I have decided to move on. Everyone asked me, are you doing the right thing, but I have no other choice. Banks have increased EMIs, and expenses for livily hood are not the same as it was before. I had some other other personal issues as well. I had difficulties in getting relieved from my present employer. I was kind of inevitable for them. I have been going through difficult times for the last few months and needed to fight issue by issue.

It is my little son comforting me all these difficult months. It is altogether different world with kids at home. They mend relationships, make you forget your worries and give the energy to fight back.

Chiranjeevi, Hero or Villain

2008-11-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

AP politics are getting spicier, with so many movie actors trying to test their luck into politics. Chiru started his own party after long long long long thought process and is still seem to be a fresher into politics.

There is Balakrishna, making his thanksgiving to chandrababu naidu who helped him out of Bellam konda suresh shoot out case.(Still people say that Bellamkonda suresh is having a bullet in his body even now).

There is krishna and company, who are having some benefits related with their padmalaya studios, and hence will provide support to congress.

And we have other opposition parties like CPM,CPI who are not able to make up their minds that well. Though CPM looks decided,CPI (or should we say it is Narayana) still looking out for alternate options.

And as usual, you can never ever trust Mr. KCR, one of the shameless guys on earth. Add Devender goud, who felt he will never make it to No 1 in TDP so has his own party now. He want to try out his luck as well. No problem, if he wins he will win, if he loses, he will lose few acres of land (He belongs to Ranga reddy district and is a landlord).

Coming back to chiranjeevi, he looks to be a real villain rather than a hero in AP political movie. Look at the strategy of YSR before last elections. He did all stupid things he can do to join all opposition parties together. He even did magic to get support from Naxalites.

Opposition is split into multiple parts and it obviously helps YSR. But it might most probably push the state into hung assembly.

But if chiru is trying out his capacity by stating that he is the reall opposition and will go alone in elections etc and all these statements are just to increase his spread in the state and if he goes into an alliance with TDP, it makes lot lot lot difference to the state. And I am damn sure it will say THE END to YSR.

KCR will go with any one, all that he speaks is meaningless. so instead of listening to him and making out decisions, it is always better to see what is his action. He might even go with Congress if he feels congress is stronger than other parties.

My personal wish was, Chiru joining JP (lok satta party), they have good policies and I wish Lok satta winning some seats this time. If Chiru joined Lok satta, it could have been a big boost for cleaner politics.

Chiru might say many things, might do visits to many places (so as any other leader). But even if he wins CM post, will he ever be able to make any difference to the state? I am doubtful. We do not have the vacuum that was present at the time of NTR, making TDP. TDP came into picture when the market was kind of Black and White TV. so TDP was like a color TV and got success.

But now the situation is different, we got lot more options, LCD,HDTV etc, so success will be difficult for him.

If chiru wins the election and becomes CM, he will be Hero in politics, otherwise certainly he will be a villain. Because he will not let TDP win as well.

Well, I am not for any particular party, but just sharing some thoughts

Career move

2008-11-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

IT Industry looks dull day by day, and I strongly believe worst is yet to come. We are going to see lot more news about bulk firing at work places. Present finance domain crisis is going to hurt most of the Indian companies who do business with headcount. More people, more work hours, more revenue model is not really scalable and is going to have problems time to time.

Indian companies need to start next level evolution into software industry. We got hell lot of IT people in India who are competent. we need to break the walls of packaged software where we need to pay huge amount to get licenses. Open source is there to help us, we need to leverage on open source concept and charge on the services. It is about committing to Open source, creating more open source projects and gaining expertise into the code base of existing open source projects.

This will help us various myths like the software giants like MS are doing great job in writing software. It is high time we change the way software is created and used. Let the client get benefit out of free software,but let him pay usual project changes to you.

Well, looking back at the present market condition, we have lay offs, no salary hikes, more companies moving towards variable pay structure, no promotions kind of stuff.

Not many people are interested to jump companies now. TO BE safe, staying with the same company, even if it means you draw less salary because of the industry slow down.

Not many on site opportunities, reducing bench counts, stopping later/fresher recruitment drives, creating more stubborn processes (like attendance systems, daily work reports etc) seem to be order of the day.

Few weeks back when I decided to move on, my boss was asking me to look at the market condition and think over the decision again. But I am decided, it is the tough times that make us better. Unless we fight, we never win, isn't it?

Last few weeks, I am breaking my head over, Mule ESB (Java), Symfony (PHP based web framework) and little bit of few other things as well.

I am trying to foresee the industry and where will I be in the immediate future. I will be creating software which is relatively better, learning about open sources more and trying to be an active Committer to open source etc. I also have plans to start something of training sort into little bit of high end sutff (Spring,Hibernate,JBPM, Mule, Struts,PHP etc) but looking for like minded people who can join me in this effort.

When industry is dull, you can conduct training sessions for engineers unlike freshers kind of training at Ameerpet University.

Let me see what happens, couple of more weeks before I say bye to infy

Abhi

2008-09-06T21:02:00.001-07:00

Abhi will be 6 months old by September 11th. He already started operating computer. He is very serious about it. When ever you hold him near the computer, his fingers love to dance on the keyboard and you know what?. He looks so professional :-).

The computer stuff looks normal, though it is not thing of a infant of his age.

And now he loves news papers and he doesn't discriminate by language or title. For him Times of India, Eenadu or sakshi doesn't matter. He treats all of them with the same affection.

But he differs from us the way we use them. He strongly disagrees with the basic purpose of new papers and he believes that it is another food item :-).

RTI Report Release - Press Reports

2008-08-03T18:03:00.001-07:00

RTI here is a mail chain about RTI recent press release. Even I was part of this initiative in analysis of the RTI requests of previous years that went till CIC level.

Rakesh

Yes Harinath, well said. There is a lot that needs to be done. This report is specifically to highlight the govt apathy towards popularizing this. We need a larger debate. We are planning a panel discussion on this report towards the month end. I will keep you all informed.

Till then , kudos to all of you who made this report possible and put in those hours.

Lets create awareness.

Cheers
Rakesh

--Harinath

Hi Rakesh,
I read the news morning itself. I was held up in something else and missed attending this session.
Yes, there is lot of work still pending in improving the awareness on RTI.
I found RTI as a singlepoint solution for many things.
one example:
our colony people have been struggling to get few basic things done by GHMC for the last few years. they even met Sabita indrareddy (minister and MLA for our area) and GHMC commissionr and some HUDA top brass, collectors etc
But we didnt see any happenings, but recently i encouraged my colony people to file RTI requests along with me and when GHMC people saw bulk of requests, south zone commissioner told us that our colony parks will be protected from encroachments. he gave us date commitment for implementation. His only request was to avoid RTIs. He said if GHMC people start working on responding to RTI, they may not be able to do their normal works, hence they resolve pending issues to avoid more RTI requests.
While the works are still pending, but there is a momentum and my colony people are happy about it.
Also I have few requests in 2nd appeal with CIC, awaiting call from them.
Thanks
Harinath

On 8/3/08, Rakesh Kumar Reddy Dubbudu <rakesh.dubbudu> wrote:
sorry for cluttering your mail boxes..here is the TV5 report..

http://www.tv5news.in/story.aspx?id=11958

On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 9:51 AM, Rakesh Kumar Reddy Dubbudu <rakesh.dubbudu> wrote:

Dear all,

I could find the reports in Eenadu, Hindu and TOI. PFA the articles and also the links,

Eenadu:
http://www.eenadu.net/homedisplay.asp?qry1=StateNews&qry2=2&qry4=16&qry3=16
The Hindu:
http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/03/stories/2008080354320500.htm
TOI:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Hyderabad/Call_to_review_RTI_Act/articleshow/3319815.cms

Regards
Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu
BHUMI
http://www.bhumi.in/
weblog: http://rakesh-will-do-it.blogspot.com/
+91 9885419012

There are only two options,
Either 'you Change' or 'Change the system'

I chose the second one!!!!

--
Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu
BHUMI
http://www.bhumi.in/
weblog: http://rakesh-will-do-it.blogspot.com/
+91 9885419012

There are only two options,
Either 'you Change' or 'Change the system'

I chose the second one!!!!

--
Regards...
Harinath
http://harinath.in/
http://sosoft.org/ciki Your information source of Hyderabad
"Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive"

--
Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu
BHUMI
http://www.bhumi.in/
weblog: http://rakesh-will-do-it.blogspot.com/
+91 9885419012

There are only two options,
Either 'you Change' or 'Change the system'

I chose the second one!!!!

--
Regards...
Harinath
http://harinath.in/
http://sosoft.org/ciki Your information source of Hyderabad
"Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive"

PVN Expressway to be ready only by May ’09

2008-07-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 24th July 2008, Hyderabad edition

Hyderabad: It will be a longer wait for air passengers waiting for the completion of P V Narsimha Rao Expressway to ease their travel woes. The complete commissioning of P V Narasimha Rao Expressway has been postponed once again, this time till May 2009.
The construction of the 11.5 km P V Narasimha Rao Expressway from Sarojini Devi Hospital at Mehdipatnam to Aramgarh crossroads started in August 2006. The Rs 438 crore express highway project was expected to be completed in 26 months and be ready by October 2008.
With the delay in the commissioning, the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (Huda) has come up with an alternate proposal, of opening a part of the flyover for use. Huda vice-chairman K S Jawahar Reddy told ‘TOI’ that Huda had sent a proposal to the government about opening the partially completed flyover. So far, only 4 km stretch of the expressway from SD Eye Hospital to Hyderguda has been completed. Officials said the new proposal is to construct a down ramp at the Hyderguda junction so that this portion of the completed expressway can be used.
“If the government accepts, part of the flyover can be opened for public in three months,” Jawahar Reddy said. Severe labour shortage is delaying the project completion. Besides, the rise in steel and cement prices has also made the contractor put the project on hold.
“The contractor kept the project on hold for sometime because of rise in steel and cement prices. Following the government’s assurance to the contractor about the compensation, the project is once again on track. One of the biggest challenges is to remove the underground utility services,” said Huda chief engineer Vivek Deshmukh.
As several infrastructure projects are in progress there is a great demand for skilled and semi-skilled workers. “Ideally there should be 1,400 to 1,500 workers per day for the project. Until two months ago, the contractor was short of 200 workers but now things have fallen in place,” Deshmukh said.
As of now, out of the 328 piers, only 176 have been completed. As many as 100 precast segments have been arranged out of the 327. “To compensate for the delay, the work is now going on briskly. The under pass at Aramgarh area on the way to Shamshabad will be completed by the month-end. Along with this the trumpet near the entry of the airport will also be ready,” an official said.

Alignment from PVNREEC

The making of PVNR Express Highway

2008-07-19T09:50:00.001-07:00

Here is an update of the PV Narasimha Rao Express highway that is under construction in hyderabad. This connects Sarojini Devi Hospital with Aramgarh Cross road with a total of 11.6 KM. Once completed this could be the longest elevated highway in india.

There seems to be around 320(approx, I found pillar number 290 before Aramgarh cross raod and a rough estimate of around 20 to 30 pillars further) Pillars that will be erected in total.

At present pillars are erected till Upparpally X road. There are few left overs around musi river and hyderguda area (in total around 10 pillars). In total There are around 175 pillars constructed till now (approx).

Pre-fabricated units are arranged between the pillars instead of layout the slab for the elevated highway. In some places(Especially when there are curves), it is done manually which takes lot of time.

A quick observation about the work gives you undestanding of the present status of th work.

Other than the starting ramp construction, every thing is completed till pillar number 40. again construction is almost completed from pillar no. 47 to 125 with a gap of around 20 pillars in between.

So in total total work is completed for around 100 to 110 pillars (including the actual elevated road construction). Given the complexity of laying out the express highway in the busy traffic, we can treat this work as 30% to 40% of the total work.

Well, an RTI Response from HUDA who moniter this work says that October 2008 is the scheduled completion date for this full project.

While the actual completion is for around 100 to 110 pillers while there are supposed to be more than 300 pillars.

Over all progress of the work 40%
Actual work completed 100 pillars
Pillars layed out 175
Total pillars (approx) 320

There are 3 more months left for the actual completion of the work and there 60% of the work still pending. It is almost impossible to complete the work in the schedule d time.

There is an under pass(4 lane) in construction on inner ring road at Aramgarh X road. Almost 80% of the work is completed. I expect this under pass to be available for general traffic in another few months.
Once open to public, this under pass provides free passage for the commuters on inner ring road. No more waiting for green signal at Aramgargh X road for inner ring road commuters.

People from Attapur towards shamshabad, people from Gaganapahad towards Attapur, people from Shamshabad towards Attapur, people from Katedan towards Gaganpahad need to wait at the signal.

Here are some of the snaps of the express highway.

Here is an update from Hindu about the development phase of the project. This article claims December 2008 as the scheduled completion time for this PVNR express highway.

There are couple of obstacles in the inner ring road on this route. One is(a muslim worship place) a the X road at moghal ka nala (connecting lungar house and karwan), while the other one is a small maisamma template near the X road connecting Nanal nagar and Gudimalkapur. I am not sure if these two things are going to be shifted to some other place, But that is highly required to allow general flow of the traffic without any problem.

Well, The best part of this express highway is that expanded inner ring road will be available for the people (all the airport traffic will be directed through the express highway). You can dream of a nice riding experience in this road.

But then be careful, there are some surprise medians for this road and you never know who is going to cross the road all of sudden, so drive carefully and reach your destination safely.

Pollution check

2008-07-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Look at this snap depicting intersting scenario. Not sure of the other cities but in hyderabad, some people are experts in rocket science. I guess Kalam might have got the motivation from hyderabad.

See this scooter rocket, mistakenly travelling on the roads, rather than onto space. May be that is the reason, these rocket scooters do not display any vehicle number.
We can call this technology as SSTV, scooter satellite travelling vehicle.

If you are a hyderabadi and are used to inner ring road, you will find aero express planes(GMR aero express buses), plying on the roads. Those junk outdated old volvo buses with new look and feel, create hell lot of pollution, You feel like hell if you are lucky enough to go behind of a GMR bus on your bike.

Well, I checked with RTA, these people not bothered about GMR organized proliferation of pollution as a free gift to the new metro city of india.

Abhinav in July 2008

2008-07-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

Here is a snap of Abhinav, my son. He looks really cute.

Sign Board and bullock cart

2008-07-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

See the interesting snaps near Aramgarh X road (cross of Inner ring road and NH7).
First there is a sign board and bullock cart.

Ayyayyoo...few steps bt bullock cart and the sign board gone. :-)

State matters -police

2008-06-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

Police, supposed to be protectors of the state and people. Most of us have seen how bad the police could be, in most of the indian movies. That is true mostly, but there are some good people as well.

I met police few months back, when some miscreants stopped the bus I am travelling and started breaking the window glasses. They damaged the front glass (infront of the driver) and also few of the window glasses.

It happened somewhere near Kandukur(on the way to kalwakurthy\Srisailam from hyd). Some how some of us(passengers) were managed to catch hold of one guy in the team and took him to the kandukur police station. S.I in that station is ditto copy of the corrupted police we see in the movies. He almost took the stand of the miscreants and started doing settlment like penalty of 1000 or 1500/ from the miscreants, while the actual damage was more than 3000/-. I was really shouting at the SI, asking him whether this is what he is supposed to do. Then we came out of the police station and went for settlement directly with the miscreants. they gave the conductor 3500/- for damanges and few hundred rupees for passengers who had minor injuries. If you know any movie producer who is looking for some bad police man, recommend this guy, he is the right guy for that wrong role.Well, this SI (dont remember his name, but he had a muslim name[no offence meant]). Those guys are from the local area and if SI behaves against them, he will have issues. Now a days real estate value is reaching sky, and hence Rangareddy district police have lot of good future in terms of settlements.

Now looking at the Job of the police, it is really difficult one. How many of us know that if a person is in police custody for 1 day, Police station can claim Rupee 1 for the food expenses of that person. Most of the police stations do not claim this amount. Imagine what u can make out of 1 Rupee? we cannot get even a cup of tea.

There are 2 types of custodies. Police custody, meaning the person is held by police and he must be presented in the court within 24 hours of the arrest.
Judicial custody, meaning the culprit is in the custody of the judge. Judges send the culprit to jail. so essentially judical custody means, short term jail.

Most of the hard core criminals do not reveal the facts in the first instance and generally 3rd degree is required for around 2 to 3 days minimum to extract the facts from the culprits. But police cannot keep the culprit for more than 24 hours in legal terms. So what they do is they keep the culprit in their control, but they just don't record it.

In unfortunate cases, innocents too suffer and some times, innocent people will be forced to accept the wrong things.

Stationary:
The kind of paper work that involves with day to day cases require lot of stationary, papers and other stuff. Often the cost of the staionary is proportional to the number of people involved with the case. But the government spending is too less in stationary expenses.
How do they manage? they either extract it while doing settlements or get funding from DONORS.

Good police will always have difficult conditions with politicians. Remember the Balakrishna - Bellam konda suresh shoot out case. Balakrishna did shoot suresh multiple rounds. As per the information from reliable sources, Suresh has a bullet in his body even now.

In cases like this Victims and their cooperation is very important but they often bend and turn hostile to police. There was some settlement that happened and Bellam konda suresh got hell lot of money (around 8 Crores or so) and hence he turned hostile to police stating he didnt see the person who did the shooting.
Think of the fate of the police in this single scenario. Court needs witness and the main victim is not ready for any statement against Balakrishna.Either get something from the people behind and keep quit or face the wrath of the top brass including transfer. Usually people prefer first option.

And now Pandurangadu is in theatres. Balakrishna is supposed to be behind the bars but still making movies.

Kind of the powers police department has are too funny. Normal police cannot stop a polluting vehicle. A traffic police can stop a polluting vehicle, but if the driver of the vehicle produces a pollution certificate, he becomes helpless but to leave the vehicle go. RTA has the supreme powers but they are always busy in issuing licenses and collecting taxes etc.

The Maruti omni, pollution checkup vehicles are a big joke. RTA gives them permission and what they do is to give pollution test certitificate to all the vehicles at the cost of little extra money irrespective of the actual pollution levels of the vehicles. The pollution certificates issued are not updated to a central system at all. So if we cannot validate if the certificate issued is a valid one or not.

Traffic police
One of the most hated job in this world is being traffic man.
I get to hate this people on a daily basis. You can find these white dress men at any major junction doing some chit chat or extracting some money from people who dont wear helment or do not carry pollution certitifcate or some other papers of the vehicles.

In most of the junctions, we get more traffic jams becuase there is one traffic man trying to control the traffic. These people, I doubt, really might haven't been trained at all on how to manage traffic. Mostly if there is no traffic man, then traffic flows smoothly.

Once i stopped a traffic inspector on the way to office (mehdipatnam to gachibowli) and asked him why he is not wearing helmet. His answer is he cannot talk on walkie talkie,if he wears helmet.

But are these people trained properly. Do they have proper oxygen supplies or atleast are they been provided wiht tea/water expenses?
I heard they got pollution masks few months back, but they are not useful now. they need to change the filter every 3 to 4 days which cost Rs 5/- not a big amount but they are not available locally and need to be ordered from some other city.

Discipline
police cannot do strikes, they cannot raise their voice against their sufferings with their bosses.
Mostly high level officers are always protected. What they look for is... Am I given good accommodation, Do I have gun men, Am i given a vehicle and driver etc and I am happy. I do not need to know how my subordinates are doing.

Politics
Politicians control the police to max extent. We have seen how police have arrested 'Andhra Jyothy' editor and other scribes, just in the name of burning an effigy. there are real people who are burnt alive every day, and police just doesnt care much.
In andhra jyothy case, there is no doubt it is the act of the Chief Minister Mr. Reddy. He is growing more polished day by day. He knows how to take revenge on the people he doesn't like.

Leaves
If we look at the leave calender of the police it is really surprising. they generally dont get leaves at all. theirs is kind of 24*7*365 kind of job. VIP visits, strikes, naxalites and hell lot of things make the leaves as a big joke. people at middle tier (like SI, CI) too do not get proper leaves.
Work-Life balance of the police is really at risk.

RTI
Few of the RTI requests that I always wanted to raise with govt/police head quarter are

1.No of police in the state and leaves availed per designation.
Year |Disignation |No of people |Actual holidays per head |total holidays actually taken holidays|.
2.Stationary expenses per case on an average, and total number of cases booked in the state per year and the expenses granted or reimbursed per year.
3.How many person days of police custody was reported and how much of expense reimbursement has happened?

4.What is the plan year by year for training the state police and actual implementation.Do the police really have training on firing etc on periodically? If yes please provide the details.