Monday, August 22, 2011

Lokpal Bill - reviewing Bill + contacting standing committee

Anyone seriously reviewing the Lokpal Bill and wanting to contact the Parliamentary standing committee should check out the related documents at Rajya Sabha portal :

http://164.100.47.5/newsite/press_release/bill_committee.aspx

Search for "Lokpal" section. The first link takes you to the bill itself while, the second link, called "press release", has the email-ids of the standing committee members where your comments/suggestions can be send to, before 3rd September 2011.

In addition to reviewing the current Lokpal bill on its own, you might want to compare this with the JanLokpal and propose the most practical / sensible options among them.




Friday, August 19, 2011

Why Anna Hazare fails to convince me.

1.) The concept of indefinite fast is good to get attention and for the concerned people to act. But, does it mean that the fast/peaceful-protest etc would continue until all the items requested are accepted by the concerned?

There appears to be some disconnect here. Assume I am convinced that capital-punishment should be enforced by the law and then start an indefinite-fast such that people take notice. Yes, it would definitely attract a set of people who think capital-punishment is right, say a crore. Does this mean the law makers should accept my terms and enforce a new bill/law ? Isn't this like twisting the arm?

India as a democratic country expects the legislative assembly, who are its people representatives to discuss, debate and finally pass any bill. The system expects that the parliament is the place where the bill would be discussed/debated out. Yes, you can definitely put your points forward through an indefinite-fast, but don't expect everything to be accepted as-is.

2.) Supporters for the bill might come from all walks of life, but it has to be noted that these people are NOT the majority of India. Population of India is around120 crore - even if 1 crore people become part of any agitation; it IS NOT THE representation of India! The representation of India as a democratic country is its elected members. From the last count, the support for Anna is in the range of thousands (6 crore mobile support supposedly)

3.) JanLokpal as a committee : After all this, if JanLokpal as an independent committee gets affected, what's the guarantee that it itself does not get corrupted ? Would we have Lokpal-Supreme committee then formed to oversee Lokpal ? Where would this end ?

3.1) Isn't this like leading to a Lokpal Dictatorship? Why do we want a parallel government to be created with so many rights?

Shouldn't we be fixing what's wrong in the current system rather than have a new committee that is above and over the parliament/judiciary ? The possible rights of JanLokpal as listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Lokpal_Bill sounds pretty dangerous.

4.) The supporters are mostly youngsters (school goers too!) who might not be capable of absorbing the intricacies of the bill and the path followed.

4.1) On a related note, wonder how many of his supporters really understand what the difference between Lokpal and JanLokpal are and what they are really supporting for ?

I think Anna has to have more constructive discussion with the government to come out with a more effective law/committee rather just sit around in a indefinite-fast and trying to break an existing powerful democratic constitution.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Culture lost

Came across this site when reading on Hindu philosophy, Mimamsa, Chattambi Swamikal et al:

http://malayalamebooks.wordpress.com/

A great ebook collection of spiritual,philosophical thoughts, quite a few that reflect the Kerala culture & life and that has books on Aitihyamala, Advaitha studies etc.

On a related note, its quite sad that a generation has been lost who has no clues to the idealogies, thoughts, philosophies, legends of their ancestors. I think that this 'lost' feeling applies to all other branches including science, mathematics, literature and everything else where the past seems too rich, as we dig deeper into it. Where did we loose all of it?

How do we reset, perhaps starting with the education system such that it builds upon the lost past ?

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Partnership only firms

Isnt it an exploitation of humans that they have to work for someone else for 9hrs daily ? Whatever happened to human rights ? Is salary a convincing enough reason for an employee to help the shareholder grow richer by the day while missing life ?
Where are the partnership firms ? Need a model where there are only partners-as-employee with stakes. No employer-employee.
Time to head to office.

Update 05.05.2012 : Came across at an amazingly flat structure @ Valve. Read their employee manual

Friday, March 26, 2010

Make their day today through worldvision.in

A great opportunity for you to help the underprivileged children today through worldvision.in. Gift them and make their day.

Read more here : http://www.worldvision.in/gifts/gc10/mailer01.html

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Chilli Chicken Andhra Style?

This tasted more or less same (better?) to the andhra style chilli chicken you get at some of the Andhra restaurants in Bangalore. Here it goes:

Ingredients:

1.) Chicken small-medium pieces - 1 Kg
2.) Pepper powder - 1/2 tbsp
3.) Lemon - 1
4.) salt to taste (under 1/2 tbsp recommended)
5.) Onions - 5
6.) Ginger garlic paste - 2 tbsp
7.) Cloves - 3
8.) Cardamom - 2
9.) Cinnamon- 1"stick
10.) Corainder powder - 1/4 tbsp
11.) Turmeric power - 1/4 tbsp
12. ) Cooking oil - 1/2 cup
13.) Green Chilli - 10-12 - cut in length, then in half.

Procedure:

1.)
a.) Mix well items 1-4 (chicken, lemon juice, salt, pepper), pressure cook till the first steam in medium flame.
b.) Once cooked, open and put in the corainder & turmeric powder. Keep aside.

2.)
a.) Use the mixie to make a paste of the onion, ginger-garlic. Ground items 7,8,9 (cloves, cinnamon, corainder powder) and mix it with the onion paste.
b.) Heat the oil, put in this onion-masala paste and cook in low'est flame for 20-25 minutes with lid on, stirring occassionaly. (the idea is not to make the onions brown, but to cook in while it absorbs the masala flavor)
c.) Put in the cooked chicken into this. Stir.
d.) Mix in the cut green chilli's, stir on high flame for 2-3 minutes.
e.) Close lid, let it stay on the stove for a minute or two.

Serve hot!

Friday, February 5, 2010

ExitSourcing

Though the primary aim of the slashing the tax breaks to US firms by Obama is to make sure that the business stays within US, a possible final end result ('ExitSourcing') after all these policies are affected is that the US based firms would instead totally relocate their business offshore.

Hey Obama, no more outsourcing required - we are currently based out of India. Cheaper anyways.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Beef Groncu

This beef recipe ended up as a hit with our guests over the many fish preparations by my sis, mom, wife. Thought its best to narrate it too; especially if some poor man wants to impress his roaring wife (and vice-versa)

Stuff Required:

1. 1 kg fresh beef cut to small pieces
2. cooking oil (us Keralites prefer coconut oil) for caramelizing the onions.
3. 10-12 green chillies cut in length, then midway.
4. Two handful of curry leaves [make it four if your hand cannot hide an egg ]. We need lots of this.

For cooking the beef :

5. 1.5 table spoon vinegar
6. 1.5 table spoon red chilli powder
7. 0.5 table spoon turmeric powder
8. 1.5 table spoon coriander power
9. 0.5 table spoon pepper powder
10 Salt to taste
11 A cup of water

12. 3 onions chopped to small pieces
13. 4 onions cut in length.
14. half table spoon of whole mustard

[just realized that I appear to use the table spoon quite a bit; but then it does serve the purpose]

Start cooking :

Mix items 5 - 11 in a pressure cooker, then cook the beef for 5 - 6 whistles. Heat the cooking oil in medium size kadaai. Put in the mustard and when they pop add the onions (item 12) to it. Stir in low flame until the onions turn medium brown (should take 20-25 minutes).

Add the cooked beef from the cooker, straight into this. Put on medium flame and cook for another 20-30 mins. Towards the end of this routine, we want to crush the beef using a heavy spatula until the beef ends up as strands.

Turn to low flame, add in the curry leaves, green chillies and the onions (items 3,4,13). Mix the entire stuff for around a minute (and not too long). The core idea here is that we don't want the chillies, onions, curry leaves to over-cook.

Turn off the flame, close the kadai and leave it for 5-8 minutes. We need to wait for the flavor of curry leaves and chillies to spread through the beef.

Serve with rice and enjoy the comments :)

Now for the name - GReen chillies ONions CUrry leaves - Groncu.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

A human trap that works - learn it from the authorities


May 11th 2009:

Haven't seen or for that matter heard of a human trap as good as this one. The trap in concern - the 6ft deep pits dug into the median running through old madras road, Bangalore. The entire 5-6 km stretch of the median has been dug with a series of 'man holes' presumably for the electric/light poles which should soon stand tall (see pics below). The problem here being that some of these pits are precision aligned with the zebra crossing, waiting for a accident to happen for that poor pedestrian.


I was such an unfortunate pedestrian. While crossing this road in the middle of the night, running for his life from the approaching trucks and buses, thought for a moment that it was safe at the median. Alas NO! The authorities (BDA/NHAI/BBMP ?) had different plans for me. What laid straight ahead of the zebra crossing at the median was a perfect pit build to order - the entire width of the median was dug deep. I went straight in, heads et al :( . Took a moment to realize that I was 6ft deep in a hole, in the pitch of the night. Thankfully my climbing skills from teenage helped me jump back onto the road when there was no approaching vehicles. That should have been a sight for some of the car drivers - a man coming out from deep under with a laptop on his back.


Cannot imagine what would be been the situation if it was a small kid instead of me - would have remained there until another pedestrian came (fell?) through?


That medicine shop fellow at Big-Bazaar had some pity on my plight and offered water to clean up & some anti-septic for my minor bruises.

Strangely all those pits lay there as it is for further two more weeks without any warning signs before the light poles finally made its way into them. Sub kuch chaltha hai (everything goes OK) here in India.


Concerned authorities , please put up some signs at these pits the next time.



Copied to
1.) Commissioner BDA (com@bdabangalore.org)
2.) Chairman BDA (chmn@bdabangalore.org)
3.) PRO BDA (pro@bdabangalore.org)


Content also available at http://crosswaves.blogspot.com/2009/05/human-trap-that-works-learn-it-from.html






























Friday, November 14, 2008

Why ? Why ? Why ?

This was the question that came into my mind when I finished reading 'The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga this week after many in-between pauses. Why did this rather average book get the Man Booker prize ? A point worth commendable about his writing could be his 'observation' on the life around him and how it gets narrated through the voice of Balram. Note the single quote. This is necessary to indicate the narration which the author assumes to be from an Indian background; while in fact most of the time his 'observation' would not make believe an average Indian.

Additionally, the writing is rather too plain and is really a very very light read. When you think about the numerous novels with good English, you wonder what is special about this writing. If you take the other Booker's like The God Of Small Things, Life Of Pi or for that matter the Inheritance of Loss, the language is in a different class of its own, so is the narration. I would not dare to compare this book with 'Midnights Children' - centuries ahead.


Am no literary critic and perhaps someone could clear up my why's. But then, my pea brain never understood why R.K Narayan never received a Booker or a Pulitzer or a Nobel.

Finally what matter here now is the moolah and the sales which comes with the award. Good for Adiga.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Bangalore-Kochi-Bangalore on Enfield Bullet

With wife away at her hometown and an upcoming four day weekend, could not resist the temptation to ride down to my hometown-Kochi from Bangalore on my newly acquired second hand (fourth actually) Enfield bullet. A few words about the machine - 1999 make, single cylinder, 350cc,18bhp, cast iron engine, classic thud thud :). Read more about this bullet version here. http://www.royalenfield.com/app/IN/Products/Bullet350.asp

Got it serviced a day before the journey from Teknik Motors on CMH Road run by Anand. The mechanics there does appear to know their job well, though the service centre itself appear a bit disorganised. It was the best thud thud ever after the service. Anand did give me a few tips for the upcoming 1100km (550kms oneway) trip including varying the throttle frequently, 10-15min stops after a 100kms and the very much required confidence to get me going! For that matter, I could not think of a better way to build confidence with the bike rather than get going.

May 01, 2008 - 04:00AM
Packed the shoulder bag light with a couple of tee-shirts and two bottles of water. Made sure that the shoulder straps of bag was extended to its limit such that it would 'sit' just behind me. The bike-start routine went perfectly well and here I was thumping down the Hosur road. The engine seemed to get more smoother once it covered a few kilometers and heated up. Down the road, the engine seemed to thud perfect when the speed was maintained between 55kph-65kph. At this speed everything appeared to be just in sync - the bike, the road and the rider.

It is interesting to note that the 50kph average speed was maintained throughout the entire trip through Hosur - Krishnagiri - Dharmapuri - Salem - Erode - Palghat - Thrissur - Angamaly - Kochi route, with 10min breaks after each 100kms. Enjoyed the gazes on the bike while on road and the intrigued bike queries from the locals during the breaks. It definitely is easy to make friends while on a bull. The hotel waiter at Salem wanted me to take a few hours of rest in the a/c room with a cool drink since this road trip did not make sense to him.

Loneliness took over when travelling across the Coimbatore bypass. Perhaps it was the boring dry landscape and the many cars that overtook you. But then, the idea behind bullet is the systematic thump, speed and patience. It is a different matter that most of the time you manage to overtake these cars down a few kilometers when they slow down behind a convoy of trucks.

Around 400kms, the end of my spine started to pain unless I kept adjusting my seating position. Thankfully, the numbness of my bottom appeared to subside at each break. The breaks are crucials not just for cooling down the bike, but also to make sure you gulp half a bottle of water to prevent dehydration. Another advice for prospective riders is to use a hand-glove unless you want to get the darkest tan (read black) ever.

I was home at Kochi for the evening tea and had completed 550kms in 12hrs. Not bad considering the innumerous breaks. To think about it, my best timing in my car was 9hrs without a single break and my usual Bangalore-Kochi car trip takes 11 to 12hrs with two or three breaks.

The return journey on May 04 was more easier since I started early from Kochi and missed the infamous Kerala traffic . The rattling sound from the back of the bike did worry me; before I figured out the loose bolt which held the chain cover. Tightened it at Avinashi and it was beautiful thud thud time again. Made it in 11.5hrs back to Bangalore. I did not feel the tiredness this time, but felt more confident with the bull.

The consistent and reliable performance of the bike through the 1100kms needs to be noted.
Moves you. Literally.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Court's Take

Few of the court observations from today's 'The Hindu' newspaper.

Only Centre can end Kannur violence, says High Court

While requesting New Delhi to act at Kannur, the court said, “all-party peace missions are nothing but a hoax to hoodwink the fickle-minded public.” and “All political parties there seem to freely indulge in the cult of violence.” True indeed. The court appears to have the same mindset of the general public.

The fellows engaging in these activities in Kannur appear to be of the same kind, no matter what the color of his flag - zero principles, no clues to why this is happening other than that they could not resolve the allegations verbally. This leaves the public as idiots and the sufferers.

"Do not treat anonymous letters as PIL" says Supreme Court

A matter which could have got resolved at the High court itself I believe. Supreme court had to confirm that anonymous letter cannot trigger investigations. The case in concern being the anonymous PIL filed at High court against Divine-Retreat-Centre, Thrissur. The High Court judge appears to have ordered independent investigations based on this anonymous letter. Why? Perhaps the Judge knew the anonymous ...

High Court directs DGP to initiate action against DSP, SI

If you thought that the registered police case getting closed this quick (in a matter of hours!) was the efficiency of the police department, you got it wrong. It appeared to be a case of police in hands with the culprits, leading to High court wanting actions against them.

Plea to decommission Periyar dam rejected

Court says - “all your concerns will be taken care of in the suit” .

Classic case of one case overriding another case. The 100yr old dam is in more than one news. On one side we have an NGO asking to decommission the dam since its too old and the related dangers it pose. On the other side, we have TamilNadu filing a case against violation of some water conservation Act and requesting that the dam operations be stopped temporarily. Court believes that the two cases can be clubbed together to reach a final verdict. Hmm.

Hope

Anyways, the words from the courts does appear to make sense most of the time in this odd democracy. With a more or less functional Judiciary, guess we still have hope.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Predicting the future - Dilbert

“The Dilbert Principle: People are idiots.”

Just finished reading Scott Adams - Dilbert - 'Predicting the future', wherein he predicts the future about varied things using humorous logic. The context is mostly set in Dilbert's office space and talks how we would finally harness the stupidity around us. Does make your mind tingle even though its a light read. This smart fellow is ranked 21 in the global ranking of business thinkers.

The last chapter of this book is totally different in that he keeps humor aside for a moment and questions the various explanations of stuff around us and introduces to an interesting concept called affirmations. I had to re-read this chapter thrice to get the gist of these things ; quite thought provoking.

Double Slit Experiment - Basically showed the interference of light waves when passed through a sheet with two slits. Initially demonstrated in the 19th century, Scotts version talks about the interference getting affected when we start to record things. Wish I could see this in action/video.

Affirmations - This one is interesting. This talks about how you could achieve nearly anything if you write down your need 15 times on a piece of paper everyday. It does not matter if you believe in it. But as per Scott, it would finally just work out! Weird. You might want to check out the chapter on affirmations in his book "God's Debris"

I think he is making an Induhvidual out of me!


Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Weather man

Its getting hotter by the day, but what got my attention was the weather forecast for Bangalore City in 'The Hindu' newspaper today (Page 3). It went "A fresh cool morning. A bright sunny day...." for today and "A charming morning. A dry sunny day. The clear night is likely to be comfortable." for tomorrow.

I dont know why, but I like this guy. He sounded just out of England and different.

Tom - 'Morning old fruit. What a charming morning.
Charles - 'Morning young Tom. It indeed is sweet. A perfect day for scroll by the woods.
Nitin - Easy for you blokes; I have to catch the Infy bus at 7!

Monday, February 25, 2008

Revisiting Malayalam

For all Keralites ('mallus') lost in the routines of life in a different culture, my best advise is to keep in touch with the malayalam'ness ('malayalitham') by reading the numerous malayalam books and short stories. Not knowing where to buy good malayalam literature out of Bangalore, it was a pleasure to see the book seller on train. I presume this guy works for DC/Current books directly as he did not look like the normal vendors you see on the Indian trains.

For better or worse, I studied Malayalam only until my 4th standard and thereafter it was just Hindi, Sanskrit and English as languages while at the Naval Public School. Of the three books I bought, the stories by M.T Vasudevan took me over completely. The description of emotions and the narrative writing of the day to day life was just at its best. There were more than one instance wherein I re-read the stories just out of sheer joy in reading them. These guys rock.


Effectively, this means I have more Malayalam writings to catch up; the ones I left behind since my school days. Here are the sites I now frequent :

http://www.dcbooks.com/
http://puzha.com/
http://indulekha.com/

Any good suggestions on books and writers are seriously welcome.