Spoken words

Wishing All a Happy and Prosperous Diwali ( Deepavali )...!!

D iwali is here.. and like every time its a joyous moment of celebration and festivities. Not just in India but also in lots of other countries, where Indians are in abundance...! So as usual it involves a lot of celebrations, shopping, traditional stuffs... and the dreaded crackers. I am not a big fan of crackers, as anyone who knows me for more than 2 years would be able to guess why. The reasons are many, but the solution is in fact very simple. Don't burst crackers...!  One of the reasons is the pollution it causes. The other reason being the alleged use of child labour to manufacture them. And of course the fact that they are highly irresponsible objects to have fun with. F or the first reason, well, i suppose everyone knows the smoke and and noise that they produce. They hardly think of the long term consequences of them. We are actually contributing to Nitrogen Dioxide, Sulphur Dioxide as well as other harmful gases, raising the levels considerably on the days of Diwali. ...

Well, it may have been quite a while since someone showed interest to visit our nearest celestial neighbor -  the Moon. So on 22 October, 6:20 AM IST mission Chandrayaan-I will be launching off to explore the moon's surface, untouched by an Indian Spacecraft ever. In fact its the first time an Indian spacecraft is going so far away form the Earth. Sending back a lot of knowledge about the the celestial body and hoping to break new grounds in planetary explorations. Also the knowledge acquired will be shared with the entire world. The mission objectives as quoted by ISRO are to map the surface of the Moon and to conduct mineral analysis. As well as to deliver numerous ground support stations and facilities on the moon's surface. These are supposed to aid in future moon missions by making available a usable basic infrastructure. Many equipments going to be set up on the surface have been contributed by many space agencies across the globe. This is indeed a global initiative an...

Really funny things happen when you throw in big corporates, innovative ideas and a lot of competition. Like this whole ad war that started around the big red couch. Well, the story goes as follows.Airtel in a bid to spice up their launch of digital television service, started a series of teasers, without giving  a hint to what it was about. Just a red couch and the line "See you at home" was said by a cowboy, an African Zulu tribesman, a rock band , cartoons resembling Timon from the Lion King.... and many others. But no one had much of a clue as to what it was or which company it belonged to. Though probably someone could connect it to a television based product or home delivered pizzas. Anyway, the build up continued... So Reliance's digital TV service - BIG TV - decided to crash in on Airtel's party by putting up their own promotional advertisement with the big red couch. To suggest as if the whole build up was for their BIG TV. How they came to know ofAirtel...

It is indeed a very sad thing that apart from hunger, disease and natural disasters, there is another factor that kills children.... The scourge of the Open Bore wells.. ( eerie background music ) !!! Well.. a rather stupid reason for sure, but it does happen. Probably not in any other part of the world, but definitely in India. And is it too difficult to curb this children killing "menace"..?? Doesn't seem so. Definitely not difficult as fighting poverty or polio. Then why does it happen again and again and no one seems to care. Sonu, a 2 year old boy, was almost buried alive in a 150 ft deep bore well in Agra, is just one of the victims in a long list of similar incidents. The 4 day rescue operation by the Army, only resulted in the recovery of his lifeless body. Well, after such a long time, no wonder he didn't make it through..! Imagining myself in his place is both scary and discomforting. And it wasn't the first time, but will it be the last...?? Well, the m...

By now every ram, arun and vijay ( Indian versions of Tom, Dick and Harry ) where ever he is, would be quite aware of the financial "situation" in the world. So what happens when a big financial institution crashes..?? People fear that other institutions will collapse as well. In a financial setup, set backs are common when something major like this happens. But are all fears justified...? Definitely not.. Sometimes they just make matter worse. Like the rumor that a major Indian bank - ICICI - was doomed because they had invested in American banks. So what happened was that people began to rush to the banks and ATMs to withdraw their hard earned money..!! But the way a bank functions, its not possible to return everyone's money within a day..!!  NO bank can do that..!! Definitely not possible..! A bank doesn't keep all the money it collects from its customers, in their vaults. They circulate and invest it..! How else are they able to give you an interest on your dep...

I don't really understand the ration card or the Public Distribution System (PDS). Quite simply, because we don't need the so called subsidized rations. By "we" i mean people who can afford to buy from air conditioned supermarkets, and have cards to swipe the bill. Yet due to some strange enlightenment in our political system, they deem it necessary for us to have it as a source of identification. Well that part is ok , but the trouble is we even need to get our rations regularly. Or else the card gets canceled, which implies you lose your identity. Even though we ( my father :P ) pay our taxes for the roads, lights, sanitation and not to forget the subsidized rations as well, without the ration card, the local administrative bodies and many other organizations don't accept you as a valid resident of the state. ( Used to need that for buying LPG Gas as well... thankfully that is not needed anymore ) Earlier, we didn't feel the need to have one, because we co...