Andhra's new CM ?

It was shocking to hear that Andha's CM died in a chopper crash but what was more shocking to hear is that his son is being recommended for the CM's position. Why ???? Why is it that politics have to be a family affair ?I mean what is his credential to be a CM ? He is fairly new to the politics and I do not think that a coveted seat like that of Chief Ministers should be given out based on the family names.

One of the reasons that we are still lacking behind China and other countries is because of people who put their interest above countries.


I just hate when i read article like these and feel like questioning the sense of people involved. Ahh......may be i should join politics :)

Shahrukh @ Newark Airport

Let me start by saying that I like Shahrukh ( more as a person than as an actor) . He is smart, a great communicator, suave and knows how to work the crowd. It was sad what happened to him at the Newark Airport( for those who dont know , Shahrukh Khan is a leading Indian actor of Bollywood and holds a similar kind of mass appeal as Tom Hanks or Cruise in Hollywood and he was interrogated by Immigration officials @ Newark Airport for 2 hours ) but having said that I do not think there is anything wrong with it . I think what those people did was absolutely right , I mean do we Indians care about some hot shot from Zimbabwe or Kenya ??? Then how and why do we expect these American Immigration officers to care about him ? It would have been a different issue had they known him, but I would give them benefit of doubt and assume that they had no clue who he is. I think those Immigration officers only did their job and we should not be making a big deal of it .


Just my two cents.

India celebrates its 62nd Independence Day

Happy Independence Day to all Indians out there.

Life on Mars ????

I am a big believer that we are not the only ones to inhabit this universe. Millions of Galaxy and in them probably zillions of stars and each having so many planets revolving around them , i just think that its impossible that we are the only exceptions. Anyhow we are not discussing life in Universe but Past/Present life on Mars so I would like to stick to that school of thought.

I do believe that there was definitely life on Mars in past and here is why i feel so

1. Diameter of Mars is almost half of earth which means that it was cooling at a faster pace than earth. So its very much possible that Mars was a habitable place with warmer temperatures ( as compared to now ) billions of years ago while earth was still a burning hot place.

2. All the photographs suggest that ridges on Mars is most likely because of erosion by water and as we know that Water is basic ingredient for life as we know of today.

3. Existence of Methane (approx 10 parts per billion) in Martian atmosphere.As far as i know ,presence of Methane can be explained by only two phenomenon 1. Volcanic activity or 2. Biological process. We know for a fact that Mars does not have volcanic activity or too much of tectonic movements, so is it biological process??

Is there any form of life present in Mars as of today?

I dont think we will find any intelligent life on Mars presently but may be microbial life which i guess would be a good news from research/academics point of view.


Just my two cents.

India's Longest Flyover- 4 Lanes.....is it enough ?

Read on rediff.com that India is soon going to have their longest flyover ( 11.2km ) in Hyderabad.I am not sure when would we really start thinking ahead of time. India is growing fast and with cheaper cars coming into the market, is it really a smart move to just build a 4 lane flyover? What after 5 years we realise that this flyover is not meeting the traffic need and we need to expand more. Are we again going to take up new expansion project ? I do feel happy that something is getting done, but we need to think ahead of time. We need to start building 8 lanes considering the rising traffic of India. 4 Lanes may work right now, but would cause bottleneck in future.

Just my 2 cents

UPA again

Finally the Indian elections are over and UPA has come out on the top . This election was a game changer in many ways and for many people

1. Congress doubling its seat in UP ( from 10 in '04 to 20 in '09)
2. Limiting the Lefts to a handful of seats as compared to what was being proclaimed by them.
3. Loss of the constituencies by heavy weights like Lalu Prasad, Ram Bilas and others.

1. Congress doubling its seat in UP :- For all those who know about Indian elections , they might be aware how important it is for any party that wants to form the government to do well in Uttar Pradesh. I believe this time , it has been the best performance of Congress in UP in a very long period of time . UP has 80/543 seats in Parliament and I don't think its necessary to do well, but it definitely helps the party if they do well in UP. As I had already mentioned in my very first post ( back in December '08) that its time that youths should play more vital role in the today's politics and we already saw the result of it. Kudos to Rahul Gandhi for making it a successful elections for Congress in UP . Seriously, it was his idea to go alone in UP ( instead of contesting jointly with SP ) and he lead the whole campaign from the front. I know that its too early to say that just because he led a successful campaign in UP doesn't necessarily mean that he will be a good leader, but what I think is that he can be trusted . I like Rahul and would be interesting to see what he does next .

2. Limiting the Lefts to a handful of seats as compared to what was being proclaimed by them :- All these four years , they tried to play their cards, trying to block the nuclear deal and pressurizing the government from not doing what they ( lefts ) not want to be done. I think its good for the country because we all know that who is the Boss and the onus lies on Congress/UPA to prove what they have been chosen for ( and I hope that they will come out with flying colors)

3. Loss of the constituencies by heavy weights like Lalu Prasad and others:- Glad that people chose to elect mainstream parties rather than regional ones . Does it mean that its time to quit regional/caste ism based politics and start thinking about the real problems and real solutions? I am so glad that BSP/SP/RJD all didnt do fairly in this election. For once, we wont live under the fear that someone like Mayawati might actually become a PM ( thank god ).



I am not sure but this may be the end of Advaniji's career. I always liked him as a leader but I do not confer with the ideologies of his party. BJP should try to reshape itself as an agenda based party rather than being communal party. And if they are not a communal party then definitely they should start thinking about re-marketing themselves coz clearly voters didn't think otherwise.

All the best to the UPA government, may they lead India towards being a more successful,strong, prosperous and most of all a happy and proud nation.

Poker Nights

May be its time for me to take my poker skills to Vegas. I have been playing Texas hold'em with my boys for last 10 weeks now and i think i have cleaned out most of them on at least 4 or more occasions. Poker is a card's game but the ability to read the body language of your opponents is the most important element. When i started playing poker ,i could not even say that card that I had was the best hand or the worst , but as they say "good things come to those, who can wait" i got it . After putting couple of hours every Saturday and some research over the Internet and by observing some of World Poker videos on you tube, i think i got a hang of it .

So is there anyone who is ready for a game of poker;)

Inspired by "If"

I brought Xerox today at 4.41 and hope that it goes up. I know its not the best time to invest in the market and there is no guarantee that our investments wont tank but as Kipling once wrote "If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, and lose, and start again at your beginnings and never breath a word about your loss......you'll be a Man, my son" " so why not live the crazy life and see if I have guts to be in the stock market at the first place. I cant say that I am not getting butterflies in my stomach,but overall i feel confident. I have done my research , have been following this stock for a long time and after they cut the dividends today , i feel that its the right moment to get a piece of it .

Lets see how next week, turns out to be :)

Time to rise against differences

This Morning I received an email from my friend which had a YouTube link for one of the Swami Vivekananda's speeches delivered in Chicago in 1893. For those who don't know about Swami Vivekananda , I would suggest that you google it or go to Wikipedia and read about him. Just in a nutshell, he was one of the most progressive thinkers of his times ( late 18th century) and could be considered as one of the early Hindu missionary to the west. He was a great thinker and worked really hard in his times to help India rise beyond caste ism and other petty differences among humans.

The main reason why i mentioned him is because I want to draw people's attention towards atrocities done on people based on religion,cast,race and so many other physical dimensions of which one has no human control. I am Hindu because I was born Hindu, I am an Indian because I was born in India . Point I am trying to make is that I could have been an American or British had i been born here or in UK. I could have been a Black,White or Latino had i been born in the any of those respective family.

One cannot control where they are born or who there parents are ,its not a choice we make . We could have been anybody , so why discriminate people based on color,religion,or any other dimension? Killing people in the name of religion is just not right , don't do it . Life should be all about hope and happiness , not about killing or hatred or discrimination.

Even in my society(Indian) there is lot of double standards.On one hand , we are trying everyday to make it a developed nation and on the other hand,there are still families who don't let go racism and casteism. They will talk about racism in America but they would not talk about casteism in India. To me , that's hypocrisy. We need to clean up our house, before we go on pointing fingers at others . I know people feel more comfortable with their own kind, but isn't it about time that we break the jinx and come out of the cocoon and be more acceptable w.r.t other culture,race and casts .

Beauty & the Beast

Ever given a thought that why Men and women are so different ? I mean if you look at women, they are god's best creation and then you look at men and you think......nothing . Sometimes i feel pity for those beautiful ladies , i mean they let men climb on them, touch them ,kiss them ....pretty gross isn't it .

Look at women's body , everything is just perfect.Pretty nice lips, beautiful eyes , a very smooth skin and then you look at men, rough skin , hair all over their body and that too not like bear type hair ( actually my friend has one of those kinds) but in patches like someplace you will have whole jungle and at other it will be like African desert. We (men) look like half human and half goat ,isn't it ?

Well , I am pretty sure that if i was a woman , I would have been a lesbian:)

Enthusiasm or being blown away?

Its funny how people get carried away in excitements. Last weekend, I was at one of my friends place for dinner,Karthik(my friend) and Vinita ( his wife) had made awesome chicken curry and we all were having very good time . I enquired Vinita about the recipe for the curry and before she could explain it to me , one of my other friend who happens to be a very nice guy but does have a tendency of getting hyper-excited hijacked the whole agenda and declared ostentatiously that I cant cook it .

Let me take a step back and explain the whole reason of him being so cynical about myself. I have been boasting about my culinary skills since last two years without any factual display and last weekend when I enquired about the recipe,he could not take it anymore and challenged me that if I cook chicken curry anytime within next seven days (ending on March 08, 2009),he would gladly give away his new BMW 335i to Vinita.

Well folks......tonight is the big night .I am going to cook chicken curry tonight and after that we will have a small hand over ceremony in which BMW will exchange hands:)

Apart from humour , Isn't it strange that people do such irrational things in excitement??????

Oh Darling, India!!!

While browsing over the internet yesterday, I happened to stumble upon an interesting article about how India can hasten its climb as a superpower and someone had posted that Slumdog Millionaire (2008 Oscar's best movie )shows the real India and as per him , there is no way India can achieve a Super power status in 25 years.

There are many people who have inhibitions about India being superpower in 25 years and almost all of them have one of their so called logical reasoning (mentioned below) behind it.

1. Total mess (Politically)
2. Corruption
3. Population
4. Being Lazy ( trust me , i have heard it )

Total Mess - "Super Power " may hold different meaning for different people but to me ,it means a country which is economically,socially,technologically and defensively ( please note that I have mentioned military as the last criteria) developed. I believe for any country to be a super power, it needs to be a developed one first. We have political instability , there is no "one" political party that gets absolute majority in the elections and because of which there are so many things which don't get done at all . In other words, onus doesn't lie on one political party to take blame for a mistake or to even take credit for a successful strategy. If India needs to be a super power, Indians need to make some major amendments to the constitution and the first one should be "Bi- Party System". Its about time that we get rid of multi-party system and let there be one and only one party in control of the government at any given time.

Corruption - That is a killer. There is no remedy to cure corruption except tough (and equal)laws and installing a sense of responsibility in every Indian. As English say "Spare the rod, spoil the child " . Let everyone who commits a felony shall pay the price of their misdeeds. I know, we still have a long way to go but I already see some changes ( look at how many famous people got charged,sentenced in last 5 years ). Some people may say that its not enough or its too slow but then Rome was never built in a day . Strict regulations,centralization of data and tougher punishments will keep a check on the corruption and perhaps may bring it down sooner than expected.

Population - I believe NGOs and government have spent considerable amount of time and money in recent years to send out a clear message that India cannot afford a huge population. Some people argue that we should have laws like China (one child ) ,however I don't buy that statement. People need to be educated about merits of small family and I should say that government, NGOs and media have done good job in spreading the word.

Lazy - Utterly stupid reason and does not deserve any clarificion.


Slums/Poverty/population are a reality and so is our zeal to reach the pinnacle. If we get bogged down by the petty things then we shall keep waiting for another 50 years. France, which is considered to be a developed country has lot of Algerian shantytowns and of course everyone knows about Brazilian slums. India is thousands of mile away from being a developed nation forget about being one of the biggest power but we are getting there pretty fast.

There is lot to accomplish and not much time to waste. But if we can land a probe on the moon, become 11th biggest economy in the world ( miles away from where I would like to see India, considering its huge population) ,develop a fully functional cryogenic engine on our own than yes we are on the right track . I think 25 years is sufficient enough time to cleanup the mess and become one of the leading nation in the world .


It all starts with a vision and ends with proper implementation.

Dear Investments

Investments: Should or Must not ???

Is there anyone who feels overwhelmed by so many investment options available in the market. 401K,IRA,Roth IRA,Stocks,Mutual Funds,CD,Foreign Exchange,Real estate ( one of the best options right now ,if someone can afford a 20% down payment ) and many more.

I started trading recently and somewhat face the same dilemma , should i buy only the finance stocks, as they are so down right now or should i diversify and buy energy,commodity,tech as well.As smart investors always say that secret is "Diversification of Portfolio" or in good old plain English phrase "Never put all your eggs in one basket" . I may not be the smartest investor on the block but what i feel is that diversification is good to minimize the losses but if you want a big,fat return .....its better to go full throttle without any diversification. I know it can be suicidal and we may end up loosing all our investment but what if it booms ? What if that one stock where you have put all your money doubles in lets say two years as compared to an average 10% return on your diversified portfolio ? ( provided one has done in depth research and has full confidence in the sucess of the company or the product)

Something to ponder:)

Stocks were down yet again

What a day,phew!!! . I was hoping that Monday will bring much needed boost and may be some goodluck to the stockmarket but nope , nothing of that sort happened today. I believe the only thing more disheartning than seeing your portfolios shrink is to see your company in jeopardy. Someone asked me today " Are you worried about your job ? " Hello.....aint we all are? Whats happening to US Economy and as a matter of fact to the world economy? All we hear about on tv is unemployment rate,housing crisis,banks collapsing and so on and on . Its sad to see that what started as greed and bad decision of some individuals could transform collectively into such a mammoth financial fiasco.

Its easy to blame big corporates like Freddie/Fannie/AIG for the current mess but as far as I am concerned the biggest culprit are those homeowners who knew all along that the mortgage was too big for them but yielded to the greed of making quick bucks on the equity of the house.


Sad to see that greed of some individuals have brought us to the brink of collapse of capitalism.

My take on Oscar's

So after watching marathon long Oscar's ceremony , i realized two things about myself . First of all how many good movies did i miss out in last year. I have always been a big sucker of good movies , however i havent seen so many recently . Secondly, i think i got the theme for my blog. Ever since i started jotting my thoughts over here I wasnt sure if i should write about politics or technology or anything else , but tonight i realised that there is only one thing about which i can talk at length and actually might have opinion of my own . So yes, from now on I would like to post my comments/oppinion about the movies that i have seen or will see in the future.

Coming back to Oscar's, Slumdog literally owned the show. I was little bit upset to see Mickey Rourke loosing but having said that I dont think it could have gone to a better guy . I have always admired Sean Penn and undoubtedly he puts his heart,mind and soul into any project that he takes. Also i liked his acceptance speech where he made an statement by talking about acceptance of Gays and Lesbians in our society. I am not gay but I do think that everyone on this earth should have the same rights . Being Gay or Lesbian is a personal choice and why should they (Gays/Lesbians)not have same previlages as so many others ( straight ) .

Oscar's night

Oscar's start in another 15 minutes and I am still not sure which movie should i be rooting for . My mind says that I should root for Slumdog Millionaire as it was shot in India, has a feel good theme and in general is a pretty nice movie. However my heart says that I should go with "The Wrestler". Its quite a movie and definitely deserves a recoginition. I think the best thing to happen would be , if Slumdog gets the best movie award and Mickey Rourkey gets an award for Best Actor. He has done a brilliant job and definitely deserves it.

Connundrum

Ok, So i am sitting here watching Seinfeld, talking to my friend over Yahoo and thinking how may I make my life more meaningful. I even hate the sound of it but it may be true that " I am a quitter" . Recently I enrolled in Spanish class but had to drop out coz i got bored after couple of classes, thought of developing applications for iPhone but could not finish off a single line of code.

Is there anyone out there who feels the same way ????


Is there a society for people like me ?