Happy New Year

-- Shibu

ADVANCED WISHES

Govt. Departments?

Two different departments & two different treatments and they both are part of the Indian government.

With my friend's advice, I had registered for my new landline & broadband connection at BSNL. Ten days went by and didn't really find any response. Hence, made a walk into a BSNL office near my house and happened to meet the manager at the office. From that point onwards, the office manager himself took so much interest in making sure we get both the connections. The same was treated with very high priority. The heights of it is, the manager called me at 9.45PM on the day I got the net connection, just out of his concern and made sure that as a customer I'm satisfied with the service. I really wonder, if I can get such a treatment from any other Governmental organization. :)

Here is another department representing the domestic LPG Gas Cylinder service, where I'm really trying to transfer the name and location for past 4 months. And still, there is only one answer - The person who had the authority to do so in the department had passed away & still, no one has taken over the same!! :(

Headlines...

Quite some interesting headlines in the newspaper last 2 days...

• Dead body found in the luggage hold in an Air India flight and that made a scare in the Britain Airport. Just not sure, why such things always end up happening in Air India:)?
  
• Lalu, the new Management Guru for Harvard & Wharton students! From the time I have been in India, people have always been talking about the Indian Railway Sector turn around which Lalu has made in like 30 months time and that too with no layoffs. I really wish, he had done something very similar in Bihar too.

  "Bihar is too difficult. It has no potential. Per capita income is low, there are constant floods. But the Railways is like an empire. It has huge potential,"

Hutch.. Hot or Not?

From the day I started looking into options of taking a cell connection at India AirTel, Reliance, BSNL and Hutch have had been the major players. But past four days have changed my opinion on Hutch infact.

Like, when I heard from one of my friends that Reliance have made an offer for Hutch, I just couldn't believe my ears. So, as I was trying to get this fact into my mind, the next day I saw the news of Vodafone thinking about Hutch. Hmmm... And wait for a day more and now Essar group have made an official offer to buy the remaining 67% of the stake in Hutchison!

Haven't really gone into the details. Well, Hutch is too hot in the Indian cellular communications business market now, but from a customer perspective...

'e'ducators!

There are so many graduates especially girls & ladies who tend to sit at house after marriage and engage themselves within the word called 'House Wife'.

The studies, the efforts & the pain they have undergone all in their earlier years can be made worth and it is being made possible by some websites now-a-days. Like, TutorVista is one. It is bringing teachers from India closer to students in USA via web technology. Great stuffs, indeed! To term it in another way - Tutions outsourced to India, but it is reaching a bit more to the house wives:)

Well, 2 things to note though - The teachers have to be awake at odd times like early in the morning in India inorder to manage the time zone differences.

And the other one is, I remember the tutors when I was in Masters at OSU were being paid like USD10 per hour and a tutor is allowed to work for 20 hours per week. That means, a tutor in US should be able to make more than say USD 800 per month, which is around Rs. 36,000/- - May be the Indian house wives should be getting say Rs.8000/- per month. Real cost cutting, real cheap labours & real outsourcing:)

Likewise, I have heard real good reviews about EduComp too! May be, I'll get to see the demo of it soon...

'Wiki' What?

So, the new word is out in the market. Wikiasari - yet another competitor for Google & other web search giants but with some difference from the makers of Wikipedia.

The difference is, there will be Human Intervention in the algorithm based searches. Humans can sure help in making better decisions rather than completely depending on machines, just like the logic Will Smith gives in 'I, Robot'! But... What we are looking at, is a stupendous job of finding the relevance from millions of pages. So, can human really make a difference in such areas?

Meanwhile, on a side note is - The funders are Amazon.com. Why? What happened to A9.com? Anyways, let's wait 'n watch what Jimmy Wales is upto.

Invite - Orkut Way:)

Getting More Innovative:)

Thanks To SM

Simple 'X'lication

Xmas Gift

Thanks To SM

Auto Gambling?

When the trio deal between GM, Nissan & Renault didn't happen, it was all over for Kerkorian. His words were no more a pressure tactic on GM's CEO Wagoner. Now, he is more like a gambler, a person who owns Casinos who atlast made a decision to sell all of his stake in GM. One headache gone for Wagoner, now its high time for him to make some turn arounds with the greatest backing from the board of directors.

Well, its in fact high time to act because Japanese auto makers are not showing any slow down in US market - Toyota just tipped Ford from No.2 spot.

Bruins Ruins...

Haha... Wooohhh...
Trojans are out from the run for the National Championship game... I never expected that UCLA Bruins could go ahead & beat their cross town rivals USC. Whenever I used to stay in Sou Cal, the whole crowd around me used to cheer for USC & it always used to be easy win for USC... Well, not this time. The run for national champs against the Big 'O' is still a big question!!!!

And so, most probably it's yet again a game of the rivals:) Wolverines & Bucks. What a great game it would be for the Columbus-Ann Arbor fans!