Why we need big retail chains

I an all for small entrepreneurs to do well but small general stores just seem to be taking their customers for a ride. They almost always sell their stuff at mrp or more. Well never have change. Don't care about bringing any efficiencies into their supply chain. When prices go up their prices are first to go up when these come down they still sell at inflated prices.

Why I think "Civil Society" drafting laws is elitist

My understanding of democracy is that it is off the people, for the people, by the people. In any decent sized country, people are too many so they chose their representatives which are legislatures and executive.
In India member of parliament (and assemblies) are law makers and ministers, prime ministers and chief ministers are executive.
Now if people of the country want something to be done, they will chose people who would get those things done and that's how democracy works.
We see ourselves in a situation where a section of society thinks that they are better than rest of the people, who are too naive to understand the stuff that is going on and they assign themselves to be protectors of rest of the people. They go ahead, blackmail the government and become pseudo-lawmakers without any responsibilities. This behavior is driven from the belief that rest of the voters who peacefully go and vote in every election are fools and idiots and do not comprehend bigger and better things.
Just think about it, if government drafts a bad law, after five years they are answerable to the people and can be voted out, but "civil society" is now answerable to anybody.
If the "Civil Society" was really representative of society and believed in democracy, they would just go ahead and fight the next election, get elected and then do the right thing.

Why mainstream media should not report on technology

Here is a new item that I saw in most of the newspapers in India. The headline says:-

Now, access Facebook without internet

If you read little deeper in the article, here it what it says :-

"We are using USSD technology, which will enable users to access Facebook without having a GPRS connection on their phones," said Sumesh Menon, the co-founder and CEO of U2Opia Mobile.

So, the newspaper conveniently has replaced term GPRS with internet. GPRS is not internet and if you are accessing something from facebook, there is very little chance that one can do without using internet in some form.

Why people running recording industry are nuts

When a judge asked representatives of recording industry, their estimates of losses because of a service provided by LimeWire, their answer was between 400 billion dollars and 75 trillion dollars.

The record companies suing Limewire were asked to estimate the damages that should be paid by the file-sharing service. Their estimate? $400 Billion on the low end, and at the high end — $75 trillion dollars. That’s more than the GDP of the entire world.

These guys must be out of their minds really.

Get an Idea Sirji

Indian mobile operator Idea advertises its service with the fact that they are the operator with the least call drops and best call quality.  In the light of that, it is interesting to find out that they actually have highest call drop rates. The minister of telecommunication informed Lok Sabha that among the worst of telecom operators.

As regards the parameter, BSNL, Etisalat and Idea are not meeting the prescribed benchmark," Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Finally some concrete action against pre natal tests

Even though pre-natal tests related to discovery of gender have been illegal for quite some time in India, I never came across that anybody was punished for violating the law. That changed today. A court in Gurgaon has sentenced five doctors for violating this law.

Five Gurgaon-based doctors have been convicted and sentenced to three-year rigorous imprisonment for conducting pre-natal diagnostic tests at unregistered genetic clinics.

More such action is needed to curb this menace.

Science Minister of Odisha

Here is something interesting, the Science Minister of Odisha state tried to clear 12^th standard examination and failed. That did not deter the chief minister in making him the minister of Science.

Taking no chances, the minister had duly reached the centre 20 minutes before the scheduled start of the paper at 10 am. He was, however, allotted a separate room for the exam. As many as 235 other Plus-II students are appearing for the exam from the same centre

So he was allotted a separate room for the exam. Why? I would say.

Interesting offer by Loop Telecom

With all the fiasco surrounding 2G license auctions, the latest offer by Loop Telecom sounds very interesting. What the company has said that the government can go ahead and auction its license and keep any additional money that it raises. The government should also give a right to match the auction price to the company if it wants to do so.

The proposal, presented to the Supreme Court by Loop's lawyer, Ariama Sundaram, is that the government should auction the airwaves received by Loop. If the auction fetched more than 1,454 crore - which is the amount it paid in 2008 - the government could retain the difference, it suggested. The affidavit goes on to say that the Loop should also have the option of matching the highest bid to preserve its investments.

I think this is a really good solution and would also bring out the fact of what is the real price of a 2G license. Let's hope that supreme court orders this to be done.

Law is an ass (continued)

Another interesting twist to my post yesterday. The guy was declared as alive yesterday by the courts, today the family has hit back saying that he is not the same guy but impostor.

But his family, including his wife and sons — Baljit, Prabhjot and Jagjit — and daughter Sarbjit Kaur, refuse to accept him so and have filed an appeal to challenge the decision. Nasib has alleged that the person, who won the case in Rajpura court, is not her husband, but "another man, who is impersonating as her husband``

Read more: Family challenges man`s claim of being 'alive', call him 'impersonator'

I only hope that they will not another 12 years to decide this. A simple DNA test should resolve this issue. If he has kids, the DNA test could prove if these were his kids. Also if he is an Air Force officer, they must be having some kind of record, atleast finger prints etc.

Why law is an ass

Here is an interesting story. A 70 years old gentleman, retired from Indian Air Force has to fight the courts for 12 years to prove that he is not dead. I mean this sounds like a joke. His family refused to recognize him since they had already moved authorities claiming that he was dead and claiming his pension.

Between 1987 and 1998, he kept moving from one place to another and did not contact his family members, who were residing at their ancestral house in Patiala town.
Bagi stayed at various places in Orissa, Kolkata and also in Dhaka.
When he returned home in 1998, his wife and children refused to recognise him, the ex-air force officer claimed. It was when he approached the IAF authorities that Bagi found his wife had submitted his death certificate there.

Indian Banks on Android Bandwagon

Two of the Indian banks have finally released their Android applications for core banking. Citibank and ICICI Bank have pretty much fully functional apps that would allow you to do everything that you can do using netbanking service.

• ICICI Bank application can be downloaded from Android Market. It is listed as iMobile.
• Citibank application can be downloaded from citibank website. To get the actual URL of the application, please send sms MBANK to 52484

I just hope that SBI and other large bank also join these banks in releasing their banking applications.

How stupid can people get

This is a really interesting new item. Just goes on to show that even people in position of power can be totally stupid.

A computer expert was paid more than 13 million pounds (about $21 million) after he fooled the CIA that he developed software to stop Al Qaeda attacks, a media report said

Looks like that CIA did not ask any questions to this so called expert. How the software will stop terrorist attacks etc. They just blindly believed him.

Officials were so convinced by Dennis Montgomery that, acting on a tip-off from him, former president George Bush ordered passenger jets flying from London to be turned back over the Atlantic amid fears they were being hijacked, Daily Mail reported Sunday.

There was even talk of shooting down the jets because it was feared the 'hijackers' would crash them into US targets in 2003.

And as usual when they were proved to be stupid, they hid under the excuse of confidentiality.

But an inquiry by The New York Times has revealed him as a fraud and, it is claimed, court documents that would prove the software failed are being kept secret by the US Justice Department to prevent embarrassment to spy chiefs.

Sleepy Raina

It seems Suresh Raina missed the team bus ride because he overslept. I don't seem to understand how can something like this happen. I am not in cricket team and I don't travel too many times, but whenever I have to catch a flight, I have never overslept. I have alarm clocks, mobile phone where I put an alarm and get up on time.
Is it just a case of taking things too casually?

What the hell is going on

Here is an interesting new item that I saw today on CNN IBN. The news item is actually a positive. Basically a mall guard saw another person dropping some money and returned it to him.

The incident occurred last Friday when designer Saurabh Sharma, after coming out of DT Mall, sat in his Gypsy right outside the complex.
"While sitting in my vehicle, I somehow dropped Rs 60,000 that I was carrying in the denomination of Rs 1,000. As I moved away from the complex, the security guard Ram Ashish appeared to have noticed that I had dropped something. Later, I saw him following my vehicle. I stopped and found that he wanted to return the cash which I had dropped there," said Sharma.

My problem with this story is little different. Who really carries Rs. 60,000/- in his pocket, drops it and does not even notice it. Even in Rs. 1000/- notes, 60K is lot of notes that can not just slip out. It seems to be that some people just have too much money and really don't miss it at all.

Anyway, who am I to talk about it.

Curious case of Dr. Binayak Sen

I don't know whether the judgement in Dr. Binayak Sen case is fair or not. I don't know all good or bad that he did. But current competition in intellectuals to support him seems very unfair and in my view doing more harm to his cause then good.

A day after 40 Nobel laureates from 12 countries called for Dr Binayak Sen’s immediate release, the Chhattisgarh High Court on Thursday denied bail to the civil rights activist. Sen, charged by the state government with sedition, will now appeal against the high court order in the SC.

Do these intellectuals expect courts to agree to their demand and be seen to be giving out an judgement based on pressure put on them. I don't think that is going to happen. The best these people could do is to leave him along and if the judgement was really unfair, based on the merit of evidence, it will be quashed by the higher courts.

Is DVD rental business dead in India

With more and more DTH operators providing pay per view (or pay and view for a day) type of service (like Showcase for Tata Sky), I find movie rental businesses like Seventymm.com completely useless.

For last few times, whenever I tried to get a DVD delivered to my home, the movie was available the very next day (or the same day) on Showcase. Recently the same thing happened in the case of movie "The Social Network".

Movie rental guys, get limited number of DVDs and even if you try to get it on the day of the launch, it is very hard that you will get it, while services provided by DTH providers are available for everybody.

So I am letting my seventymm account expire.

Too much of a good thing

I have heard a lot about Kota IIT coaching institutes, finally it looks like happy story is going to end.

Virtually all coaching classes in Kota, including the popular Resonance, were started by former faculty at Bansal Classes. And now, seven teachers from Resonance, including three heads of department (HoDs), have formed a brand new coaching class called Rise.

It is also very interesting to see the reaction of the students to the whole story.

Arpit and Rishabh said they were willing to forgo the Rs 76,000 they had paid to Resonance as "money wasn't the main concern while preparing for IIT-JEE".

I have always believed that education is the mother of all business opportunities in India, but this just proves it further, students are willing to forgo Rs. 76,000/-, it may not be a fortune but still a lot of money.

Now, China to read, censor SMSes

Here is an interesting new article. What I found interesting is the typical government wording of the article.

Nine government departments have listed 13 undisclosed criteria to judge text messages. An automatic filtering system will pounce on improper messages by honing in on key words.

Common sense is so uncommon

Here is an article about an academician who has been offered a post in Obama administration's India department. She has been know to be anti-India in previous instances. What is interesting is her cribs with what India is doing.

I think it is unfair to dismiss the notion that Pakistan's apprehensions about Afghanistan stem in part from its security competition with India,' she had then said, and noted, "Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity. Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Kandahar along the (Pak-Afghan) border.'

"Is likely doing so from the other consulates", if that is the quality of academic research then Elmer Fudd is a top class researcher.

'India is also building schools on a sensitive part of the border in Kunar, across from Bajaur,' she said, alleging, 'Kabul's motivations for encouraging these activities are as obvious as India's interest in engaging in them

So now building schools is a bad activity. I am really amazed how out of touch with reality people can be and argue to further their own agendas.

  

A lesson for everybody

Here is a really sad news. Just goes to prove that one can not be too careful in this materialistic world anymore.

The worst nightmare of working parents entrusting the care of their children to nannies became a reality for a city couple recently.
As soon as they would kiss their little one goodbye, the nanny would feed him and get him ready - for a day of begging on the streets of Bangalore. Instead of milk, the baby was fed sedatives; instead of the clothes carefully put out by his parents, she would dress him up in rags.

Looks like it is really a kaliyuga.