Does the Celerio really offer what it claims?

The ageing Tata Nano needs a refresh and our family has to now take a call on which car to go for given the limited budget and affordability at this point in time. This being a second car its purpose would be to only run it in and around home a few miles everyday.

(source: maruti suzuki celerio official website)

A call to Pratham motors in HSR Layout and a word with them on the interest in Celerio was enough for them to scramble a car for a test drive. The AMT (automated manual transmission) is lately catching the fancy of many Indian car buyers as well as automobile manufacturers. Maruti, Tata have taken early leads to jump into the business of making this transmission in order to woo two kinds of crowds – ladies who would otherwise find it difficult to drive a manual tranny car and the scores of individuals who are fed up commuting in a 2 to 3 hours gruelling traffic jam each day changing gears thousands of times.

The Celerio was the first of the bunch to sport the AMT, followed by Alto, and news of Wagon R jumping onto the same bandwagon. Tata however have cleverly put in an AMT only currently into their zest sedan, needless to say only on the top diesel variant retailing over 8 lacs ex-showroom. This cost would definitely put off a few prospective automatic car buyers.

(source: maruti suzuki celerio official website)

On the non AMT side, we do have many cars that already sport an automatic transmission including but not limited to the Maruti Ritz & Dzire, the Honda Amaze, Brio and the City, the Micra and Sunny from Nissan, etc. While these are pure automatics, the AMT is a different experiment to keep the mileage returned at almost that of a manual. While the CVTs like the micra are the most fun to drive, the AMTs are basically trying to address the mundane commute in a much better way.

A couple of pleasantries later, I let my wife drive the Celerio first after which I took to the wheel myself. There are basically two modes provided with respect to the automatic transmission. One is the fully automatic D-N-R mode where the car takes over what to do fully, and the other is the Manual (M) mode with + and – for upshifts of gear or downshifts. This mode must be enough to remind you of the fact that at heart these cars are still the manual ones, but the manufacturers have pulled off neatly the clutch handling part by automating that physical action of engaging or disengaging a clucth.

My drive was roughly about 2 to 3 kms with varying terrain: some smooth roads, few really bad speed breakers, and some roads with potholes. The first part was the fully automatic drive mode. The car picks up rather hesitatingly but settles down from first gear and the gears quickly move upto 2nd and 3rd thereon. The idea of this mode is to bring the car to the highest gear in the shortest time to conserve fuel on the drives. This is both good and bad. Good for the money saved, bad for the thrill lost of driving a manual car. With due respects to manual cars, I would not hinge on discussing those here. The only aim here is to let you know the comfort that AMTs aim to offer and evaluate whether the claims really make sense.

7-2014-Maruti-Suzuki-Celerio-Interior-Dashboard-AMT

(source: carblogindia.com)

The automatic mode is something I can term as a complete fuss free experience. Release the handbrake and you are all set to go. That’s it. Accelerate when you want, brake when you want and the car simply wont switch off. Wish granted and it performs great wherever you amble the car around. While moving from standstill since it picks up from 1st gear, all the way to 4th, its a smooth acceleration barring a momentary hesitation in second and third to lunge forward. Its not unbearable, and in my opinion not significant enough to delay you so much to get you frustrated (unlike the honda amaze automatic CVT).

While slowing down the car tends to remain in second gear most of the times unless you physically get it to a full stop where it would switch back to first gear. Now when you accelerate rather hard when its on second there is a certain vibration before the car settles down. This is rather annoying but I guess we have to live with this flaw for the remaining creature comforts of an automatic. Its just an overlooked aspect in my opinion and may be addressed in forthcoming revisions of the vehicle after customer feedback.

(source: mid-day.com)

Now the manual mode. Slide the lever to “M” or “D” on the go as you like. In “M” mode, the onus is on the driver to trip down (pull down the gear lever) each time a gear upshift is needed. For downshifts the level would be pulled upwards. This is more precise for me and its like driving a manual without the clutch pedal but with gear shifts 🙂 And the car can be made to listen to your whims of which gear you want to be on. One clever thing that you expected and is provided as a feature is that you only need to upshift while on the move. If you slow down the car downshifts by itself upto 1st gear. Smart.

(source: motorbeam.com)

Even in the manual mode, the car tries to remain on second gear as much as possible. Not sure why this implementation was done this way, but that is how it is.

For the other bits that are worth liking about the Celerio now. Some colours are head turning in this car – I loved the green, red and blue specifically. The headlamp design, the indicators in the front are certain things that make the car look definitely good and modern enough. The rear seems in my opinion a bit disconnected from the whole frame, but its not totally worthless. The LXi version is for those who dont have money, and the VXi version is for those who have money but still dont get enough features for that money.

The difference is about 50000 bucks and for that money, you get power windows, wheel caps (yea we are still talking like its 1995), auto driver window down (I call this double click down), lots of chrome here and there, vanity mirrors (LXi owners wives would be an angry lot), rear parcel shelf (oh common maruti), 60-40 split seat (necessary in my opinion as a combination of passenger+luggage is possible at rear), central locks, and power windows. This feature set is worth paying the differential amount for in my opinion.

What the car is missing though is Airbags on AMT version which is a big minus (now you remember the indian dialogue “if i am driving slow i dont need airbags” 🙂 ). There is no stereo in either AMT version which is another minus. No seat covers, etc. The rear wiper is present which is much better than defogger. Another point is the gear indicator shows up on the console only in auto mode (wonder why!) if that really matters to you.

I don’t like manufacturers deliberately cutting down on the airbags just to make a model sell well. This shows the irresponsibility from their side on the lives of buyers. Even the impending rules from government for making airbags mandatory would mean they consider only the driver as a human being and provide a single airbag to satisfy the government. What I really hate is the either automatic or airbags choices which are really senseless and idiotic in the year 2015. I wish manufacturers use their heads more than just keep cash registers ringing by selling unsafe cars year on year. I wish someone puts up a petition challenging all this in a big way. For me an optional airbag facility would have made this an A+ car to drive. Unfortunately Maruti for their own reasons cut out that pleasure from buyers and dampened them for good.

So if I buy the car, I guess I’ll be one of those owners who’d have to tell anyone who asks “I am driving slowly why must I need an airbag?” to satisfy my foolishness of buying a car without these. The other way to ask this question is to say “I am willing to pay who is giving me airbags in this combination?” – that’s atleast a better proposition.

The space in Celerio is really commendable for a hatchback, and five people might be able to sit in peace. Overall I found the headroom, legroom and general comfort to be substantial for a car this size and Maruti has really worked on the space part and got this equation right on this car. Given Celerio is coming in with diesel, it would be a right spot that the company has got with respect to having its sales charts on fire. Not that it already hasn’t with whats available.

On bad roads the Celerio is a good boy and handles most bad-boy-road-humps with ease even when loaded upto 4 people and a kid. I really went on some seriously ugly humps and it didn’t bat an eyelid. The handling was good and the occupants did not complain or were thrown about much. I did find the pickup to be slightly less with AC on and 4 people loaded but I need to drive this car more to ascertain whether this is indeed a sore point or not. A 2km test drive was insufficient for me to understand this part. The window was slightly higher to my liking and kids would not be able to see out if they are on the rear seat. The Hyundai i20 is like that and there are some cars such as these which have deep seating which is both good and bad. The driver maybe able to feel the pinch with this kind of seating.

There is no seat height adjust or steering tilt which is really sad as I am pretty sure providing that feature is not going to cost Maruti a bomb. These are mainly missed out to keep that differentiation in sales and in my opinion these are really stupid moves to say the least.

In summary the Celerio is a likeable car for the way it handles, and the space. Sprucing up the feature list can make it the next Wagon R for the next decade or so. The AMT is a breeze and its a no brainer for new drivers. Five adults would be comfortable on this vehicle and on long drives it surely would be much appreciated for the cruises it can offer. The hill holding capability is not yet tested by me but I did see that on a sloping section of road, the car did not move backwards on releasing the brakes which means there is some sort of implementation to prevent that.

The LXi at the time of writing sells in Bangalore at 5.3 OTR and the VXi at 5.8 OTR. The recommendation is to go for VXi as the features are much better. All the colours are nice to look at and Maruti’s service assurance should keep 90% of the customers happy with any purchase you do through them.

There can be many things told about the car, but experiencing an AMT in action is a totally different pleasure and I am sure you would not have any complaints on that front. Until the next car review, this is Srikanth from the Bangalore blog signing off for now.

Malabar Beach Front resort and spa review (Nileshwar, Kanhangad)

After having done many visits over south india to the east, my family expressed a desire to visit the western coastal areas of India either in Karnataka or Kerala. So I looked up tripadvisor and found Bekal and Kasaragod which were two areas that offered beach properties for holidaying.

After looking at the reviews, I chose Nileshwar and adjoining areas for a decent resort. Most of the reviews indicated that Malabar beach front resort and spa was the place to go to considering the value for money proposition. Some did say Nileshwar hermitage and Kannan Resort were also good, but I decided for Malabar instead.

There is an earlier report on how not to do a journey to this place which you can read here if you’d like to. We reached Kanhangad (pronounced kaa-nyan-gaad) which is roughly about a couple of hours from Mangalore junction railway station. The train ride from Mangalore gets pretty interesting as we proceed towards this place as the scenic regions of Kerala are a treat to watch.

We reached Kanhangad railway station after an overnight train journey roughly by about 10am which is more or less the perfect time for both adults and kids to feel refreshed enough to disembark after a rather long train journey. Our cab arranged by resort was ready and waiting for us at the station. The resort itself was about a fifteen minute journey and just outside the town towards the village areas.

My family was warmly welcomed by the people at the reception including the manager. We were offered a welcome drink and my kids started to get adjusted to the place as such within a short time. We found the usual Kerala style of construction of the resort which was no surprise after our earlier honeymoon trip to Punnamada, Kerala a decade ago.

Our rooms were just after the restaurant area and these rooms were like villaments with two floors of staying areas for multiple families. The rooms themselves were pretty equipped though not to the standards of other bigger resorts we know of. But it was adequate for us to settle down. The beds, tables, sofas, and toilet facilities with wardrobes were all in plenty and there was enough room for a family of four to play around the room.

The piece of the cake in this whole arrangement was the balcony, which would offer a fantastic view of the ocean front, and would also lead you to it every time you wanted to sit by the sea. Of all the properties I have visited which were supposed to offer a by the sea experience, this was one of the resorts which was practically right next to the sea shore. This is a perfect place to play around for the kids, and you can keep walking to the sea as many times as you want in full privacy that the resort offers. Its just you and the sea – and its that private. Full paisa vasool.

The restaurant is large and airy and there would be many items on offer for food. However since this is a small resort and hence the team of cooks call you and let you know what is available for breakfast and lunch. There is not much of choice really unlike some other bigger resorts which offer buffet meals, but I guess that is also to do with the occupancy rate. During the time of our stay, we were the only family which was occupying the entire resort, so the meal plans had to be only for us which is why the crunch. This was not a big bother for me, so I was at home with this kind of arrangement.

One thing though is that the resort lacks people who can communicate in english properly, or understand other languages properly so there are two outcomes of this kind of situation – either you don’t get what you want until you explain it multiple times, or you learn Malayalam 🙂

The dishes themselves were limited to either Kerala style dishes, or standard fare like sandwiches, etc. Pricing was not a concern, though it was slightly on the higher side but variety was a huge concern for me. Thankfully they did have Appam, Phulka and the likes which was the kind of stuff kids could eat so it did not create much flutter for me. Definitely though the dishes and the menu itself can be made better for the money charged. Which by the way was about 5000 per room per day during off season occupancy (end september).

Next up is the swimming pool. These guys have a large pool with a kids pool as well. They have lots of poolside tables, sprinklers, and good amount of towels to dry yourself. All professional enough for a great experience. I am not a swimmer myself, but my kids enjoyed being in the pool. There are lots of crows around the resort since well, its Kerala and its got hundreds of coconut trees and its by the beach, and these birds are a concern while people sit in the restaurant. There is nothing much that can be done about it except that the staff have put in a huge mesh around the place to keep the prying birds away.

Further there is also free Wi-Fi in the resort, which gets switched off for some unknown reason in the night. Only the manager can say why! Same is the issue with hot water and it was a concern to us, since we got hot water only after multiple requests and due to an issue with the solar water heating which had conked out and had to be repaired. Getting manual labour to rectify these things is a concern in Kerala and this was no different case either. However the manager was pretty sympathetic to my requests which were a complaint on non functioning WiFi to a wrongly made Dosa, to no hot water and to a request to get me some medicine urgently to attend to my son having a viral fever while in the resort. Attitude cannot replace actual faults but atleast the management was willing to listen and admit to the complaints. Hopefully they would work on it to make this a better place.

There is a watch tower from where you can climb up and get a unobstructed view of the beach and fishing boats plying around and its fun to spend time there. Its not a neat place though so you must watch what you step on. It can be dangerous for kids to go up there alone, so keep a watchful eye. As for the beach access, there is a security placed there at all times, though he is only more of a security than a beach attendant. Going deep into sea waters is not policed and its upto you to maintain your limits of having fun. From where the resort limits end to the sea shore is a short one minute walk, and there are hammocks and by the sea basking furniture which are a nice touch. Once you step onto the seashore the fun awaits and you are seriously one with nature. The kind of fatigue reduction the sea can offer you is unparalleled and I can bet on the fact that this alone is worth the money you pay. Pristine sunrises, warm sunsets and scorching hot afternoons – every part of the day is just worth it when all you have to do is sleep, eat, build castles in the sand, and play in the water.

Two days is all you can really enjoy this and there is nothing beyond this nearby except if you decide to go out of Kanhangad to places like Bekal which are again beach fronts of their own. Our reason was to get out of the maddening city crowd of Bangalore and enjoy the calm sea shores of Kerala. And this resort provided exactly that requirement.

There are some negatives considering the cost like the food variety, etc – but overall this place is neither lovable nor can you hate it so much. Its a perfect offering of sea front cottages, which at best keep you happy and occupied. You are really one with nature. The resort accepts card payments and the people at the reception are receptive to most needs. There is nothing outside this place in terms of tourist attraction or even great hotels, but that is something that did not bother us much.

The journey back to Bangalore can be by a direct train from Kanhangad station via Mangalore or by road via Coorg, or by air via road to Mangalore and air to Bangalore. So if you are planning an outing to a sea front resort, with direct train from Bangalore, then the Malabar Beach front resort and spa is a good place to visit. You can either plan a two day visit or even a one day visit – neither will disappoint you.

Why I will not purchase a Honda Mobilio !

Image credit : http://www.hondacarindia.com

After a rather long while I decided to finally hit the road to get to the Honda showroom. The reason was my urge to test drive their new Mobilio MUV which has been generating so many raves for the past few months. Some said its the most stylish MUV, some say its an Innova killer, so it was actually time to investigate it for myself. Without wasting much time I reached the showroom on time and there was hardly anyone willing to ask me what I needed at Dakshin Honda. Maybe it was a Sunday morning, or maybe they had too many bookings, no one knows the true fact, but whatever be the case, I would have preferred some more attention.

Now straight to the car itself. The diesel that I was looking at was the V(O) model which had all the bells and whistles such as sliding seats, airbags, music system, alloys and whatever else you wish for. My awe at the exterior was only to last a while before I entered the inside of the car. Let me explain a bit. I have noticed a common issue with all the cars and it is the steering getting in the way of tall people’s driver seating. I am not complaining but personally I would have liked the steering rake to go up a bit more. So now since that does not happen, the only way to fix that is to bring your seat height down, that is if seat height adjustment was indeed an option given to you in the first place.

Image credit: http://www.hondacarindia.com

Having said that, the front row of seats were sufficiently spacious and generous. Even when the front seat is reclined, the rear passenger was not inconvenienced. How does Honda achieve it? Minimalism. Quite exactly the opposite of TATA. If anyone has to learn seating its still from TATA. period. The middle row of seats is slidable, leading to different space configurations. I particularly liked the amount of space one gets by sliding the middle row seats. Its a boon and I am not sure why car makers did not think of this much earlier on. The middle row seats are 1/3 is to 2/3 split, and they tumble nicely to become vertical. But do not get fooled by the picture with the space on the last row, I will come to that in a moment.

The middle row is best suited for only 2 people. Whether you want to put a kid in between or a teddy bear in between is your choice. But please do not put an adult in between unless you want to be shouted at for the rest of your 500km journey somewhere on a holiday. Pathetic middle occupant space is the way to put it. The whole reason mobilio sells is due to the 6th and 7th seater space at the back. However, to my utter dismay neither could I comfortably get into that space nor could I actually get out of the space easily. It is so absurd that even thinking of putting the kids into that space requires a daily strategy of sorts.

I am really very very disappointed with Honda for trying to pass off something as ridiculous as this seating space as something mind blowing saying – ‘Aap ke liye, apno ke liye’ : bullshit. I did not want to test drive this car anymore after taking note of its flaws. The car I was looking at was priced at around 12 lac on the road for this version. And for 12 lac there were much better 5 seaters than a stupid 7 seater like the mobilio. Now I know many people will critique what I have said about this car, but please sit inside and you will realise that the points I made are very genuine given you are paying that amount on the vehicle. People will still tend to buy this no doubt. But for me, I need something better than my sunny to even consider it. For the rest of you who do buy it, good luck with your daily drives.

I hope your car loves you back as much as you love it. The scope of this review does not cover the drive or mileage aspects. I have restricted to first look opinions. With respect to stroage space, dashboard and roof top AC Honda have done a good job. I would have still preferred that they gave butterfly trap windows at the rear since not everyone can live with just AC and they may need a waft of fresh air at some times. The elements of the dashboard are good and simple, though I don’t quite buy the argument that its bland looking. Agreed that it looks much worse than City, but its nothing to feel bad about.

The quality of plastics are really nice and I would have personally preferred a coin box or some storage stuff on the dashboard top area. Most car makers do not feel this is an option to be given, but some like Mahindra and Tata do provide the same. It is useful to store toll tickets and the small change and very accessible too. I personally like the exterior of the mobilio, specifically the rear tail lamp assembly as its a very cheerful looking design.

The mobilio is most definitely NOT an innova killer or the most stylish car of all. Design without function does not make a car stylish as I consider style to be a factor of both. For example the duster may be minimalist but might offer more function. This said, the Mobilio is Honda’s first shot at the MUV segment and if they had priced the vehicle at about 10 lac they would have hit the sweet spot. With the current pricing and the obvious flaws in seating, I am not impressed.

Update: (13/Mar/2017)

I had stated in this post that the mobilio will not be a worthy competitor to Innova earlier. In agreement with that opinion, Honda decided to discontinue the model due to lack of demand. The mobilio also does not meet the upcoming standards for indian automobiles as well and Honda decided to ditch this model since it did not even sell a single unit in February which is a pathetic record for this segment of car.

So long Mobilio, its time to make way for the Honda WR-V !

My visit to Pyramid Valley International

I had a chance to visit the Pyramid Valley International today after much prodding myself to get out of my house. This was one place on my list that still did not have time to visit and finally got a chance to. This place is about 35km from Silk Board junction (Madiwala) via Jayanagar. If you have more time to spare and would like to check out the drive via Nice Road then it adds up another 10km and takes a good one hour to cover. I did this drive on Sunday afternoon but any other day can have a lot more peak hour traffic and you need to take precautions for driving appropriately.

We reached the place in about an hour or so roughly. The society is about 2km off the kanakapura road itself and the road is in good condition to reach through the village. No major bottlenecks there. Its primarily a meditation centre based on harnessing the energy generated within a pyramid structure. Within the pyramid, at the base there are lots of chairs organised where people can sit and mediate in absolute silence. There is also a king’s chamber of roughly 1/3rd the height or about three total floors where you can sit at a higher level and meditate. Kids of upto 8 years are not allowed inside even though the board says 6 years. Also, you need to remove the footwear and go inside. Further the king’s chamber meditation means that you need to spend a good thirty minutes mandatorily within there.

Many people were observed leaving the higher location in ten minutes or so. But the real gain is when you meditate at least for a minimum of half hour or so since one can harness all energy that is there within.

The society also has a cafeteria that serves some real decent food with sometimes spicy side dishes at cheap rates. If you have to know coffee tea at ten bucks, idli, chapati and 30 bucks and so on. Pretty neat. There are two to three toilet facilities and the one near the cafeteria is neat and clean while the rest may not be.

There are also a couple of parks around the complex and these are good for children to enjoy around. Also there are couple of water bodies with statues in them and it lends to the overall ambiance of the place.

If you are looking for an evening to spend in meditation or just playing around gardens with a light snack or two for kids, without burning your pocket, I would strongly recommend you visit the Pyramid Valley International. The organization also provides a lot of programmes at different times of the year which you can access on their website for more information. The place also offers luxury cottages and non a/c rooms as well as dormitories if you plan to stay for a day or two. Booking charges are not specified on their website so you may wish to contact them directly for the same.

The CET condurum

There has been a recent decision by the government of Karnataka to abolish the Common entrance exam for private colleges and also remove any cap on the maximum fees that can be charged by these private colleges. However to mitigate the possible consequences the government also states that there would be a governing committee or ombudsman to decide what fee the colleges can charge based upon their location, infrastructure, coaching and course (You can read the full news report here

Everyone who has studied in Karnataka for their entire life or atleast from high school would perhaps know how much of a game changer the CET exam was. Even during the early 90’s this exam was the most coveted exam which brought in a sense of academic discipline among both students from Karnataka and other states. Though one had the potential to clear the IInd PUC exam, that was no reason to say the same person could match up against the CET exam with similar potential.

Take my case in point. I am from the ICSE stream for high school. With an 86% and above in my Xth board exams, there was still a feeling in me that my state syllabus bretheren were much ahead of me in terms of sheer marks scored. After switching to the state syllabus for my pre-university college, the sheer amount of coaching I received from one of the most experienced teachers from Bright Academy and my equal willingess to put in the same hard work from my end saw me top my college and score close to the 20th rank in the entire state. While this was just half the story, the coaching for the CET exam was a challenge in itself owing to the fact that the exam was 2 months away and we had to learn up what mattered by putting in a year’s worth of hard work in two months.

It was not the question of whether someone cleared the CET or not. It was the question of whether someone had the right focus, the right aim and understood the challenge of time in front of us. More than the students, it was so challenging for the teacher to optimize the opportunity to bring out the best in students in the right amount of time – what we call smart studying/working rather than hard work today.

The CET itself was a mixed bag of luck for each student as it was an outright pressure which made everyone tense on the day of the exam. It was not about the technical complexity. It was about negative marking, it was about wasting time on the one hard question than on the 5 easy questions. It was about focus and hitting the target that mattered. As a person who was confident of getting a rank between 1 & 100, the day of the exam changed all that confidence in me to revise my guidance (!). Owing to the fact of twists appearing in the form of more questions from Ist PUC syllabus a span of 10 extra questions that were unexpected, changed the fate for me to now provide a new expectation of being numerically below the 500 rank mark.

A rank of 483 showed how much one could be precise about his performance. CET was about bringing the best to the forefront. It was a show of might. A show of dedication. A result of suspense. An atmosphere of tension. A feeling of euphoria. A nail biting finish of the counselling. A sinking feeling of the fact that an engieering or medical seat had been secured. A family union after the whole episode. A feeling of 12 years worth of hard work, and more specifically 5 real years of hard work showing results. A sense of pride of having achieved something for what the parents stood for. For having educated you with their sweat of hard work.

Cut to the present day situation. More and more private colleges mushrooming day after day. From 10 to 26 to perhaps a 100 or even more. The chaos was already in the making. And it only got cemented so well that the private colleges association now had more teeth to demand anything and everything from the government. The last nail in the coffin being fee structure control.

Coming to the government’s latest stand on grading colleges based on :

Location: So what the government seems to be saying is that colleges which are easily accessible score more? Now in today’s situation does it mean a college in Jalahalli which is accessible in 30 mins from byappanahalli scores more than a reputed college in Basavanagudi which takes 2 hours by bus to reach?

Infrastructure: Alright, makes sense. But how do you quantify what infrastructure means? Labs? Cabs? Cafeteria? Library? What exactly?

Courses: Again we seem to be treading the wrong path here. Is it the number of courses or the kind of courses? Are these going to be measured on how industry specific they are? How industry relevant they are in today’s situation? How much in tune they are with the way education is organized abroad?

Coaching: I’m not sure how to write about this or what to write about this. Roughly about 30% of the lecturers have no freaking idea what they are teaching. While the remaining 70% are really good, its impossible to grade a college on just the kind of teaching done given the attrition rate of the lecturers every single year.

Veerappa Moily’s soft protest against changing the CET regime is very legitimate. Not because he started it. Because of the kind of control it weilded and shaped today’s industry that you see in Bangalore today. The kind of organized education that it brought about for what Karnataka is famous for.

To me its not about the poor who will be marginalized. Its about the rich who would be made poorer. Arbitrary fee structure increase is the last kind of favour any college needs from the government to start growing into automous currency monsters. An engineering degree that costed 20000 bucks way back in 1995 is now costing about 6 lakh+ in 2013. while this rate increase justifies against inflation, imagine the next three years fee structure. Are you able to guess where this is leading to?

I am predicting a four fold increase in this cost. Upto 25 lakh for a payment seat. Notwithstanding the fact that management seats are being auctioned anywhere between half a crore to more than 1 crore in both the engineering and medical segments. Assuming one spends half a crore on an engineering seat it takes anywhere between 15-25 years of meticulous hard work and growth in the software industry to even get anywhere close to earning back that amount. Given the kind of industry irrelevant subjects on offer this money spent is not even going to be of any worth.

Of course the colleges want to invest more money by charging students higher fee to maintain some standards within themselves. But if you are with me in understanding how building bye-laws worked and the Akrama-Sakrama scheme, you would know that this situation under discussion is no different from growing into an academic racket with similar dimensions and irreversibility few years down the line.

By the way is anyone looking at the way the schools are mushrooming with their own fee structures without a proper ombudsman? Your guess is as good as mine.

While every country is striving to make education free until high school and bringing the focus back into developing individuals to a higher level of performance, our education system is weaning towards a dangerous path laden with high unaffordable fee structures which only promotes growth of those people with money. This will eventually widen not only the urban-rural gap, but now widen an already mushrooming urban-urban gap in the education system.

If a doctor pays up 1 crore to get a seat and doesnt study well, you can imagine the guarantee for the set of patients that go under his knife! Similarly if an engineer pays up half a crore and doesnt study well, you can imagine how relevant what he studied would be for the industry. Thankfully the industry lobby is different from the college lobby. They select candidates based on how relevant the candidate is. Not how much a college in which he studied has been graded by the government.

If not anything else this will only start making the industry more aware that they need to start looking at the merit in candidates rather than the grade of the college in which he studied (as given by the government) in future. Its about time the companies start looking at visiting all educational campuses irrespective of their industry or academic standing. In three years time, a meritorious candidate could be well studying in a college which hardly people know of, which is hardly accessible, but might have the right amount of coaching and a more relevant course offering.

Bye Bye UVCE, RV, BMS, PESIT & MS Ramaiah.

KHB announces auction notification for 1st phase of suryanagar

-auction date is on 08-JANUARY-2013 at 11:30 AM.
-The auction location is at KHB suryanagar phase-1 office in khb suryanagar itself.
-The minimum stipulated recommended starting price is pegged at a rather steep Rs.2000 per sq.ft.
-These properties are sold at as-is-where-is basis. The initial fee for participating in the auction is Rs.50000 per site.
– DD or cash must be taken in the name of Commissioner, KHB, bangalore
– those unsuccessful would be refunded the amount after auction
– those winning the auction shall pay 25% of the amount along with 2 passport photos
– tokens will be provided at 10am. those coming later than 11:30 shall be disquaified from the auction
– if the winner does not provide 25% of the amount within 24 hours he shall lose 50000 without any reasons assigned
– Within 60 days the remaining 75% shall be paid
– in case this is not paid, bidder/winner shall lose the 25% as well
– the KHB reserves the right to cancel auctions without assigning any reasons for any of the sites published
– the winners are expected to register their sites with their own funds
– any alterations found in the stipulated dimensions shall be finalized by KHB and the bidders are bound by the same.

For more information contact 080-27804400, 9740335386 & 9980869439.

Tags: bangalore, bengaluru, khb, suryanagar, auction, january, real estate, land, plots, apartments

The new Nokia Lumia 900 review from The Verge website. Great phone, but software has to catch up a lot !!

The Verge put up a crisp review of the new Nokia Lumia 900 which was released by AT&T recently in the USA. One can compare this to the Samsung Galaxy Note in terms of dimensions. However this has a clear black display and not an AMOLED and the focus point about this phone is its industrial design in terms of hardware. Since microsoft uses lots of playing around with fonts for its menus, and not much of icons or pictures, the phone is definitely fast to use. However not many people would be comfortable with this mode of user interface and menus after seeing Apple and Android which would deter them from buying this phone. After the Nokia Lumia 800 dropped to 23000 from 30000, a straight 7000 jump in amount in India, it is clear that this is to make way for the next hardware beauty the Lumia 900. One can expect this to be priced at 30000 and further drop to about 25000 in coming months after launch.

What is left then is to see how people receive the windows software and how many more useful updates are provided by Microsoft in future. Hope you enjoyed the video. Do leave your comments and let us know if you will buy this phone or not?

Tags: 900, bangalore, benglauru, blog, design, india, industrial, karnataka, launch, lumia, mango, microsoft, nokia, phone, price

ICICI bank to provide social banking through Facebook in 2012

According to an email received, ICICI bank is set to usher in banking via Facebook in the year 2012. It is not exactly clear what or how they intend to do it. But for starters they are planning to include a page of their own for you to like on Facebook.

Here is an except of the plan:

As we step into 2012, we re-affirm our commitment to continue offering you superior banking services in line with our philosophy of ‘Khayaal Aapka’. We are pleased to inform you that ICICI Bank will soon be present on Facebook. The ICICI Bank page will include a one-of-its kind ‘Your Bank Account’ app through which you can access your bank account information while on Facebook. You can also choose to ‘Like’ our page and get updates on exclusive offers.

It is only known at this point that they will provide an app which will let you interact with the bank backend. But given the number of security loopholes in Facebook or any other social application/website so far, this in my opinion is only a recipe for minor disasters on average users who are already being lured by useless offers and mails.

Tags: 2012, app, bangalore, bank, banking, bengaluru, facebook, icici, my bank, networking, new, social, year

The phenomenon – part one

I always wanted to pen down this story, but time was at premium. It finally finds its way into this blog. This is not a story of a place. Its an article about the phenomenon called Koramangala and my gratitude for a chance to breathe, live and loathe it.

The year was 1983. But we were living in 1682. The mood wasn’t exactly one of jubilation but more of an urgency. An urgency to find a place which we could call our own, in anticipation of a family which would shortly burst at its seams. With many siblings of my father yet to be married, there was never a perfect time for this shift. Our then rented home 1682, in Rajajinagar had a reason to be vacated. With burgeoning rental demands, and for reasons beyond my comprehension when I was just six, and with pressure from everyone around, we had to vacate the place.

Koramangala was neither in the city, nor was a village. At best it wasn’t even lands that belonged to the rich and powerful Reddys those days. It was more of unexplored forest, which BDA decided to tame in the name of site allotments. My father had been allotted a site for five thousand rupees. Five thousand was like a current day fifty lakh figure to him with his rather abysmal salary levels and the last thing he could do was cough up this amount for the property. He had two choices – Koramangala and Indiranagar. While he could somehow locate the former, he was afraid to go to the latter area !! 🙂

After a lot of discussion and math crunching all the brothers decided to pitch in for the house so that my dad could enable the change in life. This in my opinion was the beginning and end of a joint family. The beginning was one of happiness and the seeds for the end were being sown not withstanding my oblivion about it.

The nearest bus stop to Koramangala those days (80’s era) was can-you-believe-it Diary Circle which is a good 3-4 kms away. I would say its good for a heart patient as such, but for the good-for-nothing health freaks that we are, this was way too much. This also is the sole reason why my dad and grandpa are living/lived a healthy life. They walked this distance at least for a couple to three years before the phenomenon started happening. With just six houses for the entire eight blocks of Koramangala, this was nowhere near a phenomenon in the making.

From there what happened until now is the phenomenon.

Palace road widening, GIM investments and the impacts

The road widening hooligans are at it yet again. This time they are aiming to chop off full grown trees alongside the palace road from both cauvery theatre side as well as from TV tower side. Reason is they want to make it a 10-lane road leading to the already glorious (for the wrong reasons) airport. Of course Mr.Srikantadatta being from the royal lineage wants 40 crores per acre or per squarefeet – all this while the government is already mulling whether palace really belongs to him or not in the first place. The palace itself is earning crores of money for all kinds of events and some sundry income from few roadside meters chopped off is a feather in wadiyar’s money cap. Here it seems both the government and wadiyar are equally selfish to their own ends. Whether its road widening or underpass or flyover, in the name of infrastructure the government seems to be siphoning off funds here and there in mass scale. No wonder in the recent GIM, the government has sanctioned power projects alone to the tune of some 2 lac crore if i am not mistaken, and pat came the query from the high court asking for the details of such blanket approvals and what exactly were these projects. While industrialization of karnataka is not bad, mass approval of projects without any consulting agency or committee just by the chief minister is a certain invitation for trouble in the short future.