So what’s up?

This must be 3rd or 4th post with the same title… yeah yeah.. I have this bad habit of asking “What’s up?” every other time and this time, like always, I am asking myself again..

So, what’s up Deep? Well, it’s surely a new theme. Got bored of the previous theme, bought this one, customized it a bit and we are online In 2009 I had got a new custom design done for the blog but due to my laziness, I ended up staring at those PSDs all the time and now when I look at it, I felt like, “hell with it”, I need something sober.. I think this one fairly does the job.

So apart from the theme, what else is going on? I am not sure if I have shared this with everyone here or not, we (me and 2 other friends) bought a hosting company called Expertrio a year back, setup few servers, managed to get everything in shape and things are going on very smoothly out there. Few years back, I had almost stopped Web1′s hosting services because I was not able to dedicate full time to it but now, since we are team of 3 and few staff members, the rail is very much back on the track without putting any load on me.

Apart from this, the most exciting thing happening around me is, BiteBank Websites – I am Technology Director there. It is basically as SaaS based CMS (targeted to Dentists in Canada and US for now) with very user friendly and advanced features. Yea, I am not good at boasting the stuff so I will stop there itself. But I am proud of what I have been doing for the past 1 year. We have started showing the app to various biggies and so far the response has been more than what we had expected. Just love it when your designed architecture is loved by people, it’s a different feeling.

So what about Web1? Well, Web1 is doing pretty good too, but have minimized taking projects, I just take selected projects these days. I do not want to be in a situation where I take more projects than and deliver the bad quality stuff, so the quality is on very high importance right now. Happy with the way it’s shaping up. Not too fast, not too slow. Steady and the good part is, I am getting time to explore some ideas of mine.

About the personal life, well, it’s going on pretty smoothly too, have started playing badminton on regular basis but for the past 15 days, I am trying to get back in shape. Managed to mess up my back while playing, now almost on the verge of recovering. And I think I should be able to get back in action in a week max.

I guess that’s about it, I should go to sleep now..

Later..

Image Source: High in the Clouds by aLiTaBlondeGoth

Bandh..

So.. a bunch of political party decided that, prices are going up and we should call for a Bandh.. And, the ruling government give statements showing people how strong the government is, and how well they have prepared..

And finally, the Bandh day arrives.. and what we get? haha a Bandh obviously.. I don’t see any rickshaws or buses on the road, around 84 flights have been delayed / cancelled, around 74 buses have been damaged in Mumbai so far… the trains services are hit in many areas…

The political parties claim the Bandh to be a peaceful one but I don’t see it around? I don’t see any peace in damaging the buses or halting the trains.. These parties on Twitter boast about how peaceful the Bandh is but they themselves know that it’s not peaceful at all.. The funny part is, these parties are being proud of Bandh is trending on Twitter but they are not bothered to read the content of the tweets… The Bandh is trending on twitter because everyone is frustrated of it and tweeting about it…

So, now after all this, what’s the reality? Thinking of a common man?

Well, the price hike is a really bitter truth and the worst part is, the government is not able to do anything to tackle it. The vegetables prices have reached almost double the cost than earlier.. (in some cases, the rates have touched 5-6 times costlier too), fuel prices have touched the rooftop, the movie tickets which used to cost me Rs. 50 – 75 max are now, Rs. 225 – Rs. 500, Rs. 10 popcorn costs Rs. 70 now.. Everything has become way too costly.

Now, in this, some of the prices have actually gone up due to lack of resources or say high demand but in this process, many have taken undue advantage and hiked the prices.. (e.g. cinema halls, packaged food, drinks etc..)

So, instead of doing something to control these factors, the political parties preferred halting normal life of a common man. They claim that, they are doing it for the common man and this Bandh will open eyes of the ruling government. But these parties do not understand that, the common man does not want all these.

It hurts a common man, when their one day’s wage is wasted due to this so called unwanted Bandh, it hurts a common man when he cannot travel just because of the Bandh which he never wanted..

The common man is helpless, the ruling government is not acting tough, they are just making tough statements but everyone knows the reality.. the opposition parties are forcing everyone to do whatever they want.. a common man cannot speak up.. the media is working more for the TRP than than the common man, Media is more interested in knowing what is Dhoni wearing for his marriage than focusing on the issues of the common man.

It was time, when these Bandh used to work but now a common man has become much more smarter than earlier, by doing all these forced Bandhs, these parties are making things worst and lose the remaining voters they had till now..

We should start working towards the solution rather than running away from the problem..

I just don’t get it..

I am talking about initiatives like Earth Hour, Aman ki Asha etc.. I just don’t get the purpose of these initiative in India.. I noticed hordes of people following this blindly just for the sake of it.. (or some even genuinely) but I am not sure if they understand the reason behind this?

Okay, let’s get to the basics now..

Earth Hour is basically to save as much as electricity in a hour.. or in other words, it’s an initiative to save the climate change.. Okay, I agree it’s a good cause but how well can we apply this to India?

Do we have regular power and water supply at the first place? (Which I feel is necessity for the living) Don’t you think we should fight for that first? We are paying taxes to Government on time, we are paying our bills on time then why we are not getting the basic services?

In other countries like Australia, US, UK etc.. they have all these basic facilities provided by the government and they can afford to take part in these kind of initiatives.. but we certainly cannot..

Even after paying approximately Rs. 10,000 electricity bill per month, I get random power cut atleast twice in a week.. Thankfully, in our area, Load shedding has stopped since past few months.. (It used to be daily 2-4 hours), the power companies increase their rates at almost every 6 months.. The government is not aggressive in making people aware about other sources of power.. (Solar, Wind etc..) The water supply is not 24 hours, due to negligence of government authority, millions of liters of water gets wasted.. and in the end.. we face water cuts..

This was just about Mumbai, I am sure other cities and states are also facing similar issues..

So why not work towards that rather than following the crowd? We should do something about our country and then worry about others..

We have actually habit of following others blindly, another such example would be Aman ki Asha campaign.. according to me, it was one of the worst campaign I have ever came across..

At one end, militants in Pakistan making Anti India statements, the Pakistan government officials not taking action against them.. and we are working out on so called “Aman ki Aasha"?

Okay, let’s leave Pakistan aside, we won’t ever understand these political things.. Let’s talk about issues in our country first…

We see, fights on the name of language and religions going around in many states.. the government is doing almost nothing to control that.. At one end, the Congress government calls itself as secular and in the other end, they approve quotas for minority..

We don’t want to look at our own issues and we want to build bridges of peace between 2 countries..

We should actually start fixing our own system first before trying to fix something else.. Developed countries have done all that, citizens get all the basic necessities there, so they can afford this kind of initiatives.. but we certainly cannot..

We just need to wake up and smell the coffee..

MF Hussain and India

You must have noticed the name, MF Hussain, popping up on many news channels and sites these days. The reason? Because the guy got citizenship of Quatar.. So what? What we have to do with him.. well, according to some people.. it’s a matter of shame that India has not called him back to stay in India?

But why would India welcome him? Well, because in 90s, he had painted Hindu goddesses and mother India nude.. and he hurt sentiments of so many Hindus or I should say, Indians.. but that was just his freedom of expression and there was nothing wrong in it..

I am sorry, but I don’t buy the bullshit of freedom of expression. I am game for the freedom of speech or freedom of expression but not at the cost of hurting anyone’s sentiments.. what was the need to paint mother India or any goddess nude? What was he trying to achieve from it? I am really not sure about it..

And, if he actually feels it as a freedom of expression, then why can’t he try with prophet or any other Muslim gods? Well, he won’t.. he wants to live in this world

I have noticed that Indian media is always most interested in bringing up anti-hindu issues.. they never show the stuff on Kashmiri Pandits or other issues where Hindus are being attacked (or got injustice..) We are shown only one side of the story..

I am actually very much afraid by this “political” side of these news channels.. (Specially the English ones), these guys have got lot of power in their hand.. and they are misusing it..

I have nothing against any religion but the news or anything should not be judgmental based on the religion.. it should be balanced..

And I am yet to see that day..

Update: Following videos which will throw some light on the issue… (Excuse the poor guy’s English)

Traffic Rule Violation Fine…

Sorry guys, I seriously could not think of a better post title.. was thinking for like 10 minutes and gave up..

Let me start with an example..

You are driving the car, suddenly RTO stops you in the middle of the road and asks for your car papers.. you realize that your car’s PUC has been expired or you have left it at home.. so? the officer tells you, you have to pay Rs. 1,000 as fine.. and.. the process of pataofying mama starts.. you end up paying him Rs. 2oo 0r 300 bribe and feel proud that you saved Rs. 700..

But did you even bother to check if there is actually fine of Rs. 1,000 for the PUC? or he was just fooling you to get the bribe money?

Well, if you are not sure, then you should do something to make sure that, you know the fine you have to pay.. so that no one can fool you with some bogus charges or figures..

I have been into this kind of situation more than twice.. we have even fought with the RTO guys in their office and made them read their own rule book… and realized that, the charges which were told to us did not exist at all.. the fine was 10 times lesser than what they had told us..

Obviously this does not happen all the time but we never know when it will happen to us.. so it’s better to be prepared…

Not many of us know about this.. Traffic Police of Mumbai website has a PDF document with the list of all the charges.. you can download it from here, take a print of it and keep it in your vehicle.. so next time, if someone tries to slap you any charge.. you better be ready with the exact figures

I hope it helps..