Total Lunar Eclipse in March 2007

Here is an interesting photo with multiple exposures of total lunar eclipse that I took. I thought it came out well.

The cricket world cup and Indian people

So finally the cricket world cup is over, for Indian atleast it is. I feel so happy that I did not get sucked into joining the bandwagon of people who wanted to fly to Caribbeans or buy a 52� plasma TV to watch the world cup or get a satellite connection.

Now what I fail the understand is the reaction of Indian fans. Ok, so we lost the world cup. It is not that we are a country of people who excel in everything. We are mediocre at best. Look at our great software Industry, it fixes bugs for rest of the world and survives by wage arbitrage and we call ourselves IT superpower.

I have also not seen anybody burning the effigies of hockey players, I think they are loosing matches of all variety since last couple of decades. Now people are saying that we should bring the young team out. Where is this young team?

Anyway, enough about cricket. I think I can watch F1 peacefully. There is no India so no need to feel bad. May the best driver win.

Remedies for Indian Cricket Team

You can't help talking about cricket. So I again went to our trusty stats guru. How bad is really tendulkar. How bad is he compared to himself and how bad is he compared to his peers. The first chart is the life record of all the Indian players and here you can see that there is really no comparison. He has won around 50% of all the matches he has played. Only player who is higher then that number is Yuvraj Singh. The other criticism of Tendulkar has always been that he does not play for team. His average is higher when India wins. He has scored more percentage of centuries in the matches that he won compared to matches that he lost. The other argument that I have heard is that he was ok but last one year he has not been performing well. To a large extent this criticism is true, but it seems none of the top batsmen in last one year have been doing well. If you see record of all the top batsmen, (other than Ganguly) they have been performing much worse in last one year. Now only common factor in last one year was the coach so I would go ahead and blame that on coach. Something went awry in last one year that all our top guns stopped performing. The last chart just compares all these players� records for life vs. last one year and you can see apart from Ganguly all of then have deteriorated in last one year. So my verdict for Indian team, fire chappel and everything will alright.

A really stupid robber

Here is one interesting story of a really stupid robber. He goes into an ATM and steams the CCTV camera while the camera records him.

The video recording showed the accused had entered the ATM twice, first for a recce and later to commit the crime. ââ?¬Å?We became suspicious when we saw the accused more interested in the camera at the corner of the room than performing any banking related task during his first visit. He entered the ATM counter again, 15 minutes later, wearing a cap to hide his face and removed the camera, the SP said. However, police had no problems identifying the culprit as he has used his credit card to enter the ATM.

Motorola Launches ROKR E6 in India

Here is an interesting Ad from Motorola that was launched today coinciding with the crucial world cup cricket game. I would say among the mobile phone ads, this one ranks pretty high.
Tell me how do you like it.

Google's innovative hiring

Here is an interesting thing that I saw. Google had put-up a road show at the popular Bangalore mall (Forum) with a huge banner which said "We are hiring". This is something new in India. Let's see how people like it. Click on the photo to see a slightly better one.

Unknown Indian is billionaire No 4, shocking news!!

Rs 35,000 crores of wealth, 10 Swiss Bank accounts plus what's still not known! Have the I-T and Enforcement Directorate sleuths bumped into who could possibly be one of the top five richest Indians or the fourth richest man in India?

He is probably just one of the many.

read more | digg story

Yahoo apologizes to Indian housewife | InfoWorld | News | 2007-03-08 | By J

Here is interesting stuff, yahoo just copies stuff from somebody's blog and then claims that it was done by their outsourcing organization.

read more | digg story

Govt to make TV firms share sports feeds

Here is a stupid government, rather than worrying about making sure people get their share of food, water, housing etc, they think providing them with sports feeds is in public interest. Here is a country where hundreds of millions of people are finding it difficult to find enough money for two square meals but they think their priority is sports broadcast.
read more | digg story

I am Vishnu and my wife Laxmi, claims man

So here is an interesting news item that I saw.

A man in Mumbai claiming to be â??godâ?? and wanting recognition of his â??divine statusâ?? failed to get the judicial endorsement he had sought.

The reason that court gave to reject the application was very interesting.

The Bombay High Court rejected 30-year-old Dharmendra Mishra's application, saying it was not in its jurisdiction to respond to his prayers.

The person pleaded with the court

I am Vishnu, Buddha, Christ. I know everything that goes around.
I should be given the reins of the country and the UN as he was god.

Now what I don't understand that if this person really knows everything that goes around, how did he not know that court are going to throw out his plea.

Strange world this is.

read more | digg story

US asks India to help Oracle up i-flex stake

This is an interesting story, If oracle wants to fully acquire a company's share, they could just increase price and buy out rest of the shareholders. Rather than doing that they approach American government to pressure Indian government to force minority shareholders to sell their stake to Oracle.

read more | digg story

Microsoft at it again

This is a company that as soon as you feel like sympathizing with, they do something so moronic that all of a sudden you get rid of that feeling. See this.

Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft.

Now who is to say what is inaccurate. The whole point of wikipedia is that people decide, here is a company that is taking away that right of people to decide. Microsoft can put up corrections on their own website, send out whitepapers to people or better still ask Bill G to write in his blog. But the fact is that they are paying to somebody to modify the wikipedia is not really the right thing to do.

Chavez sworn in, vows to radicalise Venezuela

Here is a story that really does not concern me. But I can not help but think that this country has screwed itself. I don't know why can't people learn after so many years.

Chavez, who won 63% of the vote in December, has amplified comparisons with Cuban leader Fidel Castro by forming a single party to steer his revolution, but insists he will always tolerate opposition.

I think in democracy, people will have to take responsibility for voting the leaders in power. For example in Kerala, if the state does not see development, I think people are responsible for that.

HC judge 'beats up' HC judge

I don't really want to say anything. Please see here.

Here is a nut case

One would think that we have moved beyond the dark ages but every now and then you see something that really proves it otherwise.

See this. Here is a Indian Forest Service officer who is demanding a dowry of Rs. 1 cr. to get married to somebody otherwise he would breakup his engagement. Now I am thinking that this guy is supposed to take care of forests and animals but if for the sake of money he is ready to trade his life, wife and future happiness and can anybody expect him to not give in to illegal forest mafia and poachers.

For him the value of his life is Rs. 1 cr. which approximately comes to Rs. 900,000^* per years for 60 years, that is probably more than his salary. In some sense what he is demanding is utterly unfair, for screwing the whole country he is probably getting Rs. 400,000 per year and for his wife (from wife's father) he is looking for Rs. 900,000 per year.

* Assuming interest rate of 9%

Mumbai immigration deports children!

Here is an strange news item that I saw. Basically what happened that a couple (both having India passports and green card) and their two children (both having American Passport) landed in India on an Air France flight. Air France made sure for the parents that they have valid travel documents while did not verify for children.

Now after they landed in India, Indian immigration officials refused entry to two children on the premise that they do not have valid travel documents. I am sure they could have behaved properly and been more considerate with the couple but I want to discus some other issues in this post.

Why does a couple with Indian passports have American passports for their children and then he claims that he is ashamed to be and India. I think he demonstrated that he is ashamed to be and Indian when he opted for American passport for his children in the first place.

The other point that I have that would American (or French ) immigration officials have behaved in any different manner i.e. if a family from India with valid passports and visa landed in a US airport but without visa for their children.

There is nothing wrong in one decided to change his/her nationalities if he feels (and the other country willing to do) so. But I have a problem in people expecting better treatment just because they have green cards or their children have American passports and then blaming it in skin. I know almost the whole world is racist and one should learn to live with it but these people do not crib when they are stopped on a US freeway just because of the color of their skin.

What is wrong with mainstream media

Here is an article in The Indian Experess. The article is titled "It's Rs 250,000 cr loss in 3 days". Why don't these guys understand that this would happen in stock markets. In last one year sensex has gone up from 8000 to 14000 so if it falls by some 1000 points what is the big deal. This 250000 cr. is just notional money which people made by staying in same stock markets. Why can't these people just grow up.

Prime Minister and his speech

Over the weekend there was lot of noise about what prime minister said in the meeting of National Development Council. Here is what Indian Express Reported. The starting line of the Indian Express news says

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said plans for minorities, particularly Muslims, must have the â??first claimâ?? on resources so that benefits of development reach them equitably.

Here is what The Tabloid (oops Times) of India wrote.

In his address to the National Development Council, the PM chose to take up the issue of devising "innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development". The PMâ??s remarks addressed all minority groups as he said, "These must have first claim on resources." BJP used references to Muslims to attack PMâ??s speech.

After all the noise, the PMO came back with following press release.

The statement said the Prime Minister's reference to the first claim on resources referred to all the priority areas, including programmes for the upliftment of SCs, STs, OBCs, women and children and minorities.

So I thought, let me find for myself what PM really said. It is available on PM's official web-site.

I believe our collective priorities are clear. Agriculture, irrigation and water resources, health, education, critical investment in rural infrastructure, and the essential public investment needs of general infrastructure, along with programmes for the upliftment of SC/STs, other backward classes, minorities and women and children. The component plans for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will need to be revitalized. We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources. The Centre has a myriad other responsibilities whose demands will have to be fitted within the over-all resource availability. The Planning Commission will of course undertake a thorough review of ongoing programmes to eliminate those which have outlived their original rationale, but we cannot escape from the fact that the Centreâ??s resources will be stretched in the immediate future and an increasing share of the responsibility will have to be shouldered by the states.

The quoted text above is a complete paragraph from PM's speech and from the above paragraph it is very clear that PM is talking of all the SC/ST, OBC, and Minorities. From within minorities, he does say that "particularly muslims ".

I would agree to the PMO press release and it looks to me that most of the media has now has attention span of a one year old kid and can't really read through a 3 page speech so they pick and choose words and sentence segments and report on that.

Gaia is reborn, version 0.1.1 of open source 3D Earth viewer released

Interesting, I should download and play with this one.

After receiving a letter from Google on November 25, Gaia downloads had to be removed from the webpage. The project doesn't use Google Earth images and data anymore. They now use images from NASA World Wind project. Version 0.1.1 is now available for download and also has some bugs fixed and build system improved.

read more | digg story

Comparing Tendulkar and Dravid

This post just tried to compare the performance of Tendulkar and Dravid against different teams in matches with large score. This does not talk about only matches when we were chasing. The averages here are slightly off because I have not taken into account the not-out innings.

Again Tendulkar performs better than Rahul Dravid in matches with large scores.