Well it’s no big news that oil prices are on the rise. I guess it might even reach $200 per barrel soon if the price band suggestion is not implemented. This all is the technical gibberish which holds importance for us but is just not what we care about.
To tell the truth what I care about is how much I have to pay for any kind of public transport which includes buses, taxis and autorickshaws(according to Indian context). Main problem anyone would face would be with autorickshaws in India. Take my case for example, I used to pay around Rs. 30 to go to the Bus Depot(CMBT) from my house in an auto. That was about a month or so ago. Suddenly some days ago when I wanted to go there, I was being charged Rs. 50. I actually thought it was just this one guy trying to get more money but I realised that every single auto driver was charging the same price. The truth is that, the place is barely 3-4 kms from my house and I really don’t think 1 litre of petrol would be wasted for 3-4 kms even if its an auto. This shows how these people are having fun with the increase in petrol price.
When you talk about fuel prices you really can’t miss the rising inflation in India. Its like the latest hot topic. Wherever I turn to people are talking about how that inflation in India might actually cross 20% if the fuel prices don’t go down. Many things that are not related to fuel directly or even indirectly are increasing price giving a boost to the inflation. So my fellow Indians be ready to pay through your nose for anything and everything.
Photo of a autorickshaw
I am not going to go much into the detail how TATA motors bought Jaguar and Land Rover. I actually don’t care much about it. But the point I wanted to make was how cool the deal was. I mean look at it an Indian company owning two most recognized automobile brand. This is definitely more amazing than someone wasting as much money as India’s GDP to get some cars running. More on that topic later.
The deal was of around $ 2.3 billion which comes to around Rs. 9,300 crore. That is a huge amount considering that the company who bought these was a Indian company. They own all the intellectual property rights and factories which come under Jaguar and Land Rover. It seems they went with some agreement with the Ford Motor Corporation over this. That means they get the 3 factories owned by Jaguar and also 1500 workers with it. The Deal would officially be completed by the start of the next quarter.
Exciting thing here is that TATA, has now shown the world that India’s automotive companies’ capabilities are much higher and better than what the other countries expect. From what I see TATA may continue the manufacture of Jaguar and Land Rover in their respective factories and use the design ideas to build India specific cars. Importing the cars to India would be a costly affair which may be done for the rich and elite class in India.
Something I have noticed quite often is that how people get confused between an iPod and any other PMP(Portable Media Player), well atleast in India. It seems that most of the people in India think that iPod is how you refer to any portable media player. I have a Transcend T610 and many times people have asked me what is the cost of this ‘iPod’ and I clarify that it is not an iPod but a Transcend T610. They tell me, "Yeah its an iPod made by Transcend." Then starts an ordeal, where I try to make them understand that it’s not like that and that iPod is a PMP made by Apple. If the person is elder to me by let’s say around 3 to 5 years then he would say that I have no idea about what I am saying. If it’s someone much older they would have changed the topic to something else long back. Then if the person is my age they may agree or may not.
I am sure many people might have faced same or similar problem. It’s just that iPod is such a popular brand that people think it’s how you refer to the device itself. I must say for a country where Apple has no official retail store and no iTunes store, it’s definitely very popular among the masses.
Published on July 9, 2007
in Web and World.
I am not going to post about how happy I am about Taj Mahal getting into the new 7 wonders of the world. I am happy but my post is not about it. What I actually want to say here is how every once in a while someone comes up with the idea of making a new list for the seven wonders of the world and people go totally mad over it. I mean voting for a wonder of the world is the most ridiculous thing. These things should be judged by the most experienced and the best architects and archaeologists of the world. But what happens is lots of silly votes are taken in and used to see who wins.
I agree to what UNESCO had said about this that the method is not scientific and that its purely money making campaign. The method is definitely not scientific but the worst part is asking the people to vote and select it. I mean is this some kind of freaking reality show like American Idol or something. I did not understand how they could do such a thing. I mean architectural marvels like Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty were left out.
It was certainly amidst a lot of controversy with the whole Pyramid of Giza fiasco then later on UNESCO claiming it to be just a money making campaign. Well, I personally believe that it should not be accepted as something of a great importance. The only reason for me saying this thing is that I don’t general public can actually make out what is a wonder in terms of archaeological and architectural ways. It just reduces the seven wonders of the world to some cheap reality show on a world wide scale.
Technorati Tags: new seven wonders, voting wonders
Well, it seems Jamaican Police after their intensive investigation for three days they have concluded that Bob Woolmer died under mysterious circumstances and that it suggests its murder. This is what the cricketnext site says about Woolme’rs death as said by Jamaican Police officials:
The police termed the nature of death as “suspicious” and said it is
possible that Woolmer’s food was poisoned. They, however, clarified
that suspicion doesn’t necessarily mean a negative outcome.
It seems there has been a rumour on the rumour-mill about Woolmer that he was about to burst the bubble of some Pakistani players who were indulged in Match-Fixing.
Though it’s not a confirmed rumour but that is the only present rumour that tells why he could have died. There is also some news about him writing a book detailing about these things which could have really shown some light on the match-fixing matters.
It was earlier reported that he was found unconscious in his hotel room and was declared brought dead in a Jamaican Hospital. Actually the defeat
of Pakistan could have been a good way to put an end to his life by anyone who didn’t want to him to live. But, it might simply be a case of suicide as nothing is proved exactly.
Link to the story on cricketnext site: Woolmer was murdered Report
Published on January 24, 2007
in Web and World.
I for the first time really mean what my title says. I had just a thought what would happen if in some near future blogging actually became a topic in the curriculum of the schools. We might see a mad rush of young students coming out to blog on net and actually competing with their fellow classmates probably for grades. Maybe their grades will be determined by the pagerank they have for their own blog.
Though it’s a quite innovative idea I believe, but bad for the health of upcoming bloggers as many of those kids might grow up to take blogging as an interest and end up thinking that blogging is just about pageranks. One might presume that nothing good might come out of this but actually someting good will come out of it.
Someone with a spirit of a true blogger might end up making a blog that would tell others about the happenings of the school. They might not blog for the grades but for the pure joy of freedom a blogger gets while typing a post. They would definitely be the true bloggers who will or may take up blogging seriously in life.
Many subjects have been degraded just because they were pulled into the curriculum making them a part of the studies. I personally believe that subjects like arts and crafts should never be part of curriculum but should be extracurricular activities though many schools in Inida have them as subjects making them a subject were kids compete rather than enjoying what they are doing. Heck I would say adding computers to curriculum is bad as some people have keen interest and want to learn something different in computers but as they are limited to their schools, they learn nothing but old programs and stuff that is near obsolescence and teachers who don’t know anything other than what the kids have in their books.
But unfortunately we can’t stop time and as time flies by these words may come true at some point making the whole blogging scenario nothing but a big joke.
