Caesarean Rhapsody

Came across this really informative blog post over at MotorCyclist at Large on Bajaj’s latest offering.

Really informative post. But YT still thinks the bike could do with some finesse as regards the looks.

Microsoft of late has been in the news for having disclosed the alleged “iPod Killer” codenamed “Zune” (rather lame methinks)

Today I came across this piece of news on ET. Seems the Redmond based software giant is interested in Pune and is going to invest $150 million for a development center just outside the Hinjewadi IT Park. Finally the IT majors are thinking out of the metaphorical box of Bang-Galore and Hydera-Bad.

The state is apparently out to woo other IT majors like IBM, Intel and AMD in its plan to boost revenues by taking a less conservative stance towards non-conventional profit power houses. Cities like Nasik, Aurangabad, Nagpur etc which earlier were known for traditional heavy industries like automobile, foundries and ore processing stand to gain a lot as IT takes the lead in the state’s priority list. It probably is the right time to sow seeds of reform as the newly incumbent party can use its tenure to the fullest and ensure establishment of a corporate culture while displacing the not so great babu-giri from the offices.

Mogambo khush hua!!!

Mocha, the veritable hang out for teens and early twenties folk, has been planning to open 2 joints in the cozy corners of Pune. I have had my spy networks crawling up to these places on Law College Road and Koregaon Park areas. Some efficient moles have reported back with news. Rather good news I should say. A lot of them had sensed activity in the one on Law College Road a few days back. As in the doors weren’t open yet though there were people inside and those who had the opportunity to peek in saw a preliminary tasting party. Good chances of the place opening up in a week or two they had reported, then.

But now it is official. Mocha is finally throwing the doors open to public on 1st August 2006 at 9 am. It is next to the Kinetic Showroom on Law College Road where the 3 roads, Senapati Bapat, Law College and the one going towards BMCC, meet at an island. The Koregaon Park venue shall be quickly updated once it is confirmed by the spies working in that zone

So all you caffeine addicts and chocolate starved junta, roll up your sleeves and whet your appetites, for this party certainly promises to deliver!

To keep up with the break neck speed with which games of today are changing, the world’s largest selling game of one time, Monopoly (and not GTA: San Andreas), has now adopted plastic cash instead of paper notes. After EA games led the foray into in-game advertising with popular titles like NFS and FIFA, board game designers decided to get a piece of the action, and of course the moolah. An electronic reader will now show the amount of cash a player holds in his account from a debit card. A sigh of relief that you won’t have to now pick up gazillions of thin paper pieces after your cousins are done with them on a lazy sunday afternoon. But then the purist in me would still like to have those multi-coloured notes and smell a freshly opened pack.

For now though keeping aside the conservative me, I would like to gaze agape at the kind of advancement in entertainment. A few years back I didn’t even know things like Playstation. Now kids younger than me, and of course born to more affluent parents, can coax their hapless guardians into getting them the XBox 360 (which I so badly want after the demo I got the other day at Forum).

I’m guessing next they’re gonna come up with a GPS to hunt down the notorious Mr. X in the massively popular Scotland Yard or a fingerprint scanner in Cluedo. Hmmm….interesting.

The cabinet has agreed to bring back the office of profit bill without the amendments suggested by the President. It is be presented before the Two months back this bill made headlines since the Presidents suggested that the bill be discarded and a legislation be which would mean that a whole set of ministers would stand to lose their cash cow seat a la Mrs Jaya Bachchan.

But the media on the whole has been hardly comprehensive in delivering news in this regard. Just what does this term “office of profit” mean? I was haunted by this, being the anally curious biped that I am. So I went around hunting for this and in my search even touched base with a lawyer friend based out of Mumbai. So he quickly pointed out Article 102 (1)(A) of the Indian Constitution which bars an MP or an MLA from holding any office of profit under the Government of India or in any state other than an office declared by the Parliament by law as not disqualifying its holder.

Confusing? Definitely. But here’s what I got when I dug deeper.

Consider an example to make things easier. In 2004, the UPA government appointed the National Advisory Council, which consisted of distinguished people from various fields who would act as intermediary between the people and the government. Now the salaries for the members of the NAC come from the govenment’s pocket. However these people are allowed to continue holding the other offices (and drawing salaries) they did at the time of appointment to the NAC. Thereby making the other post an office of profit.

Currently there are about 62 MPs holding such seats. The list includes Amar Singh of the Samajwadi Party and chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh Industrial Development Council. Others include Somnath Chatterjee (Lok Sabha Speaker and Chairman of Sriniketan-Santinikatan Development Authority), T Subbirami Reddy (Union Minister and Chairman of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams), and V K Malhotra (nominated Rajya Sabha member and former president of the All India Council of Sports). Even Mrs Sonia Gandhi is a candidate since she is an MP along with being chairperson of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, the Jawaharlal Nehru Trust and the Indira Gandhi Trust. However UPA claims that the rule doesn’t apply to her since she doesn’t draw a salary for any of these posts. Fair enough but I hardly think that would keep the oppositions dogs from barking!

Now that the introductory part is over, I would like to draw attention towards the consequences of the bill. The President had suggested that there be a clause to It would definitely mean that these people can safely continue holding their multiple jobs and enjoying the profits from one or all of them. Is that what UPA really wants? Doesn’t this account for connivance and abetment of malpractices? A million questions arise when the sagacious President’s advice is simply ignored so that allies of the incumbent party could be kept happy. Is this a democracy we are living in? Is the Parliament interested in the benefit of the populace at all? Is there no end to the avarice of the elected individual?

Seems to me all the powers-that-be are conspiring and anything that ruffles up the feathers in the coop we call Parliament will be shot down. Even if it comes from the highest office in the country.

This is a follow-to a post made yesterday. If you’ve lately found the browser throwing 404 errors for typepad, blogspot and other blogs that you regularly visit, don’t go searching for another browser. Chances are it got blocked by your ISP due to a new self-enforced policy being brought into action by many Indian ISPs. A list of such Internet Service Prohibitors can be found at : List of ISPs that seem to have blocked Blogs

But the good news is you can now use a new proxy specifically aimed at accessing blogs hosted on blogspot. You can find it at : http://www.inblogs.net

Have fun and screw the system.

The Ubuntu CDs I ordered ages back are finally here. Now to convince the sys-admin to allow me to install it on my comp and I’ll be up and running this one instead of Mandriva. What’s more…they sent cool stickers and decals along with it. Wanted to click a picture of the 10 CDs in all their glory, but then realised that the digi-cam was missing. Anyways, more on this after the jump.

Read this disturbing piece of news on Gaurav’s blog first thing this morning. More than anything else, it is disturbing to know that instead of upping the national bandwidth our government is showing greater interest in curbing access to popular websites. Isn’t this a restriction of people’s right to freedom. Why isn’t there a ban on pornographic websites instead? Remember all of them are based outside India and do not generate any revenue whatsoever for our country. Is there a reason behind all of this? Is the government taking measures to keep the public mum? Isn’t it ironic that a country that was happy at getting the Right to Information Act a few years back will have no free medium to express individual views.

More on this at : Neha’s Blog , Mridula’s Blog

Do you know who Pamela Lillian Isley secretly is? Do you know who Steve Rogers, a freelance artist, turns into upon the call of duty? What is Ironman’s height/weight and which group is he affiliated to?

If you don’t know the answers to the above questions you might want to visit : http://www.superherodb.com/. It’s like a dream come true for a comic book fan. A whole website dedicated to superheroes. And not just their names and superpowers. This website goes the whole nine yards in providing superhero information like real world names, place of birth, affiliations, even height and weight :O

Well what’re you waiting for. I’m about to teleport there myself. Over n out.

Oh how I wish I had a Macbook Pro right about now!

Sigh, for now here’s a Flash version of an almost completely functional Mac OS. And guess what it even plays Coldplay’s Speed of sound in the dummy iTunes. Bliss!!!

http://www.ifizzle.com/ifizzle.html