Pen is mightier than Speech

On 21st November 2008, the headlines of the telugu newspaper sakshi was about the feud between Ramoji Rao and his son Suman. Ramoji Rao is the chairman of the Eenadu business empire which consists of the Eenadu newspaper, etv network, margadarsi chitfunds, ushakiron movies, mayuri distrubutors etc

It is a well known fact that Ramoji Rao is a supporter of the Telugu Desam party (the main opposition party), while Sakshi is run by Congress man Jagan, who is son of the current Chief Minister YSR.

This newspaper looks like the media arm of YSR’s government, rather than a private newspaper, as one can see only news that is- pro Congress and anti TDP (rather any other party that speaks against Congress).

It was evident that Sakshi took advantage of the family dispute and printed this right on the front page. There is much more important news that public need to know. Unlike the famous dispute between the Ambanis, which affected the share market, this news had no consequences that affected the general public.

Politicians are using media for their own good. The ethics of journalism are compromised. It has become a fact that politicians have their own media arms to help them influence people. Apart from the usual abuse on opposition through public meetings, this is another way to weaken the opposition. The unspoken rule of the day has become – “Pen is mightier than Speech”

BITS Alumni's "Rocking" Performance at OASIS-2k8

After 25 years BITS Pilani alumni reunite and Rock On at Unio Mystica OASIS 2008. Oasis is the Annual Cultural Festival @BITS-Pilani.

This year, the festival saw the performance of the unsual band NYOTH. NYOTH is the acronym for "Not Yet Over the Hill". Dont imagine the performers to be young people dressed in Rock-Star attire, with long hair and wild clothes. Infact, the band's average age is around 50's and would have easily fit into the "Corporate bosses" category.

Here goes the description of the event and their scintillating performance

"The only thing common among L S Ganesh, Vijay Athreye, Sunil Nanda , Raju Varghese , Rahul Chettri, Prdeep Viswanathan, Shalabh Ahuja and Sanjeev Punj is that during the 70s they were all students of Birla Institute of Technology and Science – BITS Pilani Rajasthan which is one among the top ranking universities in India today. They were admitted and graduated in different years, studied different degrees, stayed in different hostels, took up different careers, went to different cities, different countries but yet one thing common for them was that they had passion for music which they had played together on different occasions in the auditorium of the Institute during their student years at Pilani.

On 20 October 2008, the passion packed team LS Ganesh and Vijay Athrey (Vocals), Pradeep Viswanathan and Sunil Nanda (Bass), Rahul Chettri and Raju Varghese (Lead), Sanjeev Punj and Shalabh Ahuja (Drums) landed up at Pilani and after the scintillating start to OASIS literally stormed the stage. The team also included Anirudh Punj son of Sanjeev Punj on drums. Gautam De (Goat) played the managerial role for the band's pilani visit.

With his talented voice and superb guitar playing LS Ganesh presently Management Professor at IIT Madras enchanted the youngsters from BITS and colleges across the country who had converged at Pilani for the annual pilgrimage Oasis. Rahul Chettri was awesome with his great charisma enhanced by his shiny bald head on stage. Pradeep had the crowd eating out of his hands with his imaginative lead. Raju and Sunil Nanda played some deeply resounding bass. Vijay had a good haunting voice all through and sang with ease as if he was in his teens. Sanjeev was terrific on drums and his son Anirudh who played the drums for Hey Jude was superb. Ganesh ended the session with his famous desi song about Let Me tell you how this fellow fell in Love. After reading this, it’s for sure IIT Madras would love to see their beloved management guru Prof LS Ganesh doing case studies on magic of music.

When NYOTH finished their performance, the Richter scale measured over 8 in the jam packed auditorium of the Institute to trigger a well deserved tsunami of applause. The audience glided out humming Uriah Heep’s Sunrise and the new day breaking through.

The band was also seen in the MTV- U , the show which covers campus news and festivals in universities across India.

Its great to see the reel ROCK-ON coming true as real ROCK-ON @ BITS-Pilani

BITS-Pilani ROCKS!!!!!!!!! :)

Rumours of ICICI Bankruptcy

This rumour is doing the rounds currently. It was 10.30 pm when i reached my room yesterday and was about to crash to sleep, but it was all gone with my roommate telling me about this rumour.

All the salary accounts of my peers at work are in ICICI. Its hard to believe such rumours, but when it is something with your hard earned money , none of us want to take the risk.

It was already late at night, and there were huge crowds outside the ATM, eager to withdraw their money. Being my salary account, i too was eager to get to the ATM. But somehow felt it would be stupid to do that without verifying the facts.

Had it been real, my cousin working in ICICI bank, would have informed me. So I just surfed through the news channels and read all the "Breaking News" scrollings. No news of icici bankruptcy anywhere. Thanks to the news channels, i finally got some sleep.

ICICI has been the worst affected among the Indian banks because of the Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy. It is natural that people believe such rumours.

With the current global economic recession, one should be prepared for the rainy day. So the best strategy would be to distribute the savings in 2 or 3 bank accounts (with atleast 1 govt undertaking) and minimise the risks.

Splitsvilla- Reality show that justifies the name Idiot Box

It was a hectic week and I was free after a long time. I wanted to enjoy the weekend by watching something on TV. I started surfing the channels for something interesting. I had some expectations on MTV, and thought it might offer something different. And all I could see was the boring drama of Splitsvilla.

For those of you who do not know what splitsvilla is- It was a reality show where 20 women compete for 2 men. It was disgusting to see women, fall beyond moral standards for winning the show. And guess what? It was more disgusting, to see the 2 guys finally fighting for the woman who won.

It was barbaric that they judged the women/men , based on various tests, or what they’d say tasks. The tasks were stupid, like wresting in a pool of mud! Are we Indians really ready for such shows? I feel this show is a mockery of the word “Love”. And tomorrow there would be reality shows to mock every human relation and emotion.

The content on television has changed drastically from the national integrity song “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara” on DD to sleazy shows and saas-bahu dramas on such channels
The television industry is boosting its TRPs at the expense of social values, culture and heritage. In how many saas-bahu serials can we see no extra-marital affairs? Or how many shows can we see the participants not degrading his/her competants? The news channels are no exception, they can help you commit a crime, by showing enacted sequences of crimes. Can the idiot box be more idiot than this?

Nostalgic again!!- Miss you BITS-Pilani

It was one of those hectic Fridays at work.. Calls from clients.. Discussions with Manager and the bottleneck of completing the task before office hours. With great difficulty i did manage to complete the work on time and left just in time to catch a bus to my hometown. I comfortably sat in the window seat, i had reserved and the bus started . I starting enjoying the view outside, when i heard the word "Gen" . Then the words "Ob" , "PS-II", "Insti" followed. This was a junior of mine, doing his internship in hyderabad . The flashback reel, started to play in the background of my mind. Registration, Time-table, Faculty Divisions, CP-II Tutorials, SUP-Ts , Chimpu's Coffee @Bluemoon, the lively C'NOT, the Library, FD-5, IPC, SKY-Lawns, OASIS, APOGEE,Labs, Reidi, Records,SHIV-G, Saraswati Mandir, BOSM... everything is still fresh in my memory.... This feeling of NOSTALGIA never leaves me!!!!!!!!!!

Miss you BITS-Pilani

[Image: The clock tower at BITS-Pilani ]

What if you become the CEO of your company for one day?

This was the topic for an essay writing competition held in our office. I was surprised to see such a topic! Thought it would be easy. But as i began writing it, i could understand the toughness it posed. I had to be innovative, yet not accusative.

Some of the things i realised while writing this was...

I knew nothing of what work the CEO does

You have to satisfy your employees, customers and vendors alike, and when you have to compromise on one of them then it would be on your employees.. As an employee, i crib a lot about lack of benefits, but this is the truth after all - Customer First!

My knowledge of business is very poor.

All i want is a decent salary on the 1st of every month...and as long as it is satisfied, i dont want to be anyone else . I enjoy being what I am!

Kudos to all the CEOs who take up the Herculean task of leading their organisation and come out with flying colors!!

Why do i blog???

My workcycle is something like .. Either hell lot of work or absolutely no work. And many times each of the phase seems to be extending for quite some time.. For the past few days i was experiencing the Busy phase and now i am free once again.

When the free phase of the workcycle starts , i find it difficult to transform my mood from the busy phase to the free phase. I feel extremely bored and wish there was some work. I make a lot of phone calls initially, as it is the easiest way to pass some time . When i realise,that the receivers of these calls aren't as free as i am, i slowly tend to look for other ways.

Then i think of reading books, if i am lucky enough to find some free ebook, i read it. Or i read some blogs. Once i am done with reading, i get bored again!!!

Then i feel i need some change..The influence of reading books and blogs makes be pendown something... and that is what i publish here....

This is it.... One more post , after reading Sudha murty's story....!!!!!

Signing off!

What is it to be a software engineer? A hilarious insight …

Parents think- He is successful in life
You think- I have to do an MBA to be successful.

People think- He makes a lot of money!
You think- When is my next appraisal!

Government thinks- No one is paying tax properly.
You think- How do I stop paying tax?

Managers think- When will he complete the work?
You think -When will my manager forget work?

Clients think- He is useless
You think- Clients are brainless

Friends think- His Company is better than mine.
You think- Naukri.com or Monster.com?

Staying in touch- Electronically or Personally?

After Graduation, some of my friends went to USA to do their Masters. At that point, I thought it would be difficult to maintain my relationship with them.

In fact, I was wrong. I am still well connected with those friends of mine. In this world connected with Internet, the physical distance between people is insignificant .But due the same Internet, emotional distance can arise. You may be miles apart and still remain connected. But your relation with your neighbour might break, due to lack of communication.

These days we spend most of our time before the computer. We check our Inbox regularly, stay in contact with friends in the other continent. But we do not have time to spend with friends near us. We don’t wish a friend next door personally on a festival, instead we send them a “Happy ……….” E-mail along with a 100 recipients in the “To” section.

Communication gap is arising between old friends, especially among those working or staying together. Though they chat on messenger, the relation is not the same as it was. At least one of them thinks, “Why can’t he tell me the same thing when he passes through my desk or when he was in the room?” Slowly the distance keeps growing and they finally end-up becoming like strangers once again.

We have become mechanical, rather electronic in our way of living. There is nothing offensive, in using emails to stay in touch. Many feel special reading that email. But when it is a friend next door, the reaction may be different.

A bit of personal touch to communication, would add a different flavor to our lives. So keep in touch personally, it makes your friends feel special!!





Stay in touch

Bus Ticket Reservation before a festival- A Nightmare

This is my post in this blog after a long hiatus of 2 years... My company has its own blogs and i have been posting there... I felt nostalgic, when i saw my friend's blogpage on this site today.. and decided not to abandon my first blog.. So here goes my comeback post...

Bus Ticket Reservation before a Festival- A Nightmare!!!

I had read a post recently, on the installation of two televisions in a few buses in Coastal Karnataka..The reason was the customers complained that some of them could not see the TV as it was placed on one side of the bus . This shows the importance the travel agencies give to the customers and their preferences.

Business is always driven by the economic fundas of Demand and Supply and the Travel business is not an exception . This is just an analysis of the travel agencies and their behavior, during different seasons.

The customer base of travel agencies in hyderabad mainly consists of software and bpo professionals whose hometowns are in Andhra Pradesh or in cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Pune..etc...The travel agencies have captured this customer base, by providing convinient timings[ mostly after working hours] and pickup spots in the centre of the city.Going ahead of others, some have also started websites, and customers can book their tickets online.Some reserve your tickets over phone, and you can pay them when you board the bus. All for the convinience of Customers ??? Great!!!

But all this Customer Worship is forgotten when the God Worshipping Season Comes.. Before a festival, no customer can book his/her ticket online. Websites dont show you buses for that date !!!. Reasons:If it is two weeks before the scheduled date, they say ticket booking hasn't started yet as it is too early now. If it is before a week , they say all the buses are filled .People queue up near the counters of these travel agencies for bus tickets to their hometowns. They know their Customers well - they can pay exorbitant price for a seat to reach their homes as they dont want to miss being at home during the festive season.

It is this festival time that the Travel agencies make big bucks in short time by forgetting ethics and selling tickets in Black . Most of the tickets are sold at atleast 100 bucks more than the normal price, sometimes at double the price. Larger the demand, higher the cost of the ticket. And generally this is done 2-3 days before the date of travel.

And finally the same customers for whom, they had started all the facilities suffer...
Is there any way out of this situation? Might be the key to the solution lies with us - the Customers!