Category: blog

Longest Solar Eclipse begins its reign, Bengaluru sun feels strange

Today is the longest solar eclipse for this millenium. The next time you can view such a celestial episode is by 3043, and surely you will not be alive by any means by then 🙂 Rameshwaram and Kanniyakumari were two places where the eclipse looked great. Take a look at this video from Times Of India (Video has been removed).

The Bengaluru sky looked very overcast with no sunlight until almost 8am, and beyond that the sun tried peeking out of the clouds slowly and steadily. The atmosphere was one of some kind of devastation. No traffic on the roads, and no one to be seen doing their usual duties. The temples remained closed and by about 11am, the sun started showing up. The flare of the sunlight was brighter than usual, and most obviously even harmful too. Even with so much of sunlight, still the outdoors looked like being viewed with a tinted glass! There was a subtle amount of shade within the sun rays and even through office windows, the sunlight was pretty harsh.

Here are a few snaps I took of my crappy Blackberry 8520! Enjoy.

So when is the next such eclipse ? How about when you are married and have kids? Yes, its in 2020!

The Madikeri Sipayi is no more. Vishnuvardhan 1950-2009

Today morning, it was a shock to understand that our very own Kannada Superstar Vishnuvardhan was no more. He had died of a cardiac arrest in Mysore at an early age of 59 years. His movies are still etched in my memory right from my childhood and has brought cheer to many a fan in the state. No wonder then that his demise has brought about sudden shock to the state. With him, two superstars including Rajkumar are no more. Hopefully we will be able to educate our children about our great heroes of yesteryears!

You can read all about Vishnu here. Do listen to the song above, I really liked it as its not only great sounding, but also shows Vishnu in traditionality of Coorg in terms of dressing and choreography.

May his soul rest in peace.

Our infrastucture experts lag by a decade – KH road flyover mess solved

Ask a small kid and he would have given the solution. Ask an old man and his wiseness would have manifested as a solution. It took the Bengaluru infrastructure experts a few years to come up with a solution to the (stupid) KH Road flyover. What is wrong with the flyover many people might ask. Well I would ask – what is exactly right?

  • Its the world’s only flyover with a signal light at the center

  • Its the world’s only flyover where a cop sits managing traffic at this signal light

  • Its the world’s only flyover which is mismanaged to such an extent that it has made proper roads crooked just because it exists

  • Its the world’s only flyover (perhaps) which can crush an entire road beneath it and the people on it to death in seconds

  • Its the world’s only flyover where the span of the column can be considered so huge to cause regular traffic jams

  • Its perhaps the world’s only flyover that looks like an X in shape!

Yes we are talking about the great Double Road flyover. Finally atleast the mess it has created has been solved to some extent by keeping things the way they must be. See for yourself: (picture courtesy TOI)

Now for some questions on this way of traffic flow:

  • Isn’t one of this enough either mission road to residency road or double road to richmond road, why both ways the traffic now needs to flow on the flyover?

  • Is that design not silly ?

  • The bigger question is whether this flyover is now required at all once you see the traffic flow 🙂 ?

  • If they do decide next to remove this flyover, will it solve any issues if one ways are created accordingly?

  • Must a small stretch of road between richmond circle and VGP junction on double road make life hell ?

  • Will we never see architectural marvels in flyover making at all ?

  • What about the maintenance of such a flyover, what will be its state after say 10 years more ? Would you travel on it or under it ?

The issue is not with building flyovers. The issue is with people designing them and the limited scope of the needs of such a construction, that these people have in their narrow mind. Money flow aside.  Any guesses what the next great architectural marvel would be ? How about an underpass on both sides of this flyover ? Or better still a metro train running under this flyover ? Infrastructure planning is an art. Experience must speak by itself, without even a single question asked. You want an example, see for yourself the better part of Bengaluru infrastucture:

Image courtesy: BMIC – NICE

Citibank starts its new tantrums in India

Many of you might have noticed an email sent from Citibank very recently where they have increased the minimum account balance for non salary accounts that one has to maintain in order to be receiving the services of the bank. Citibank was known to be the pioneer in India to introduce online banking, and also for utility bill payments among other useful services. The bank’s image merged well with the minds of young engineers who adopted Citi as a part of their daily life since a decade.

There was also a point in time when Citibank was the new face of banking as against banks such as Canara Bank, SBI which our parents were accustomed to. While salary accounts of Citibank had the zero balance scheme, non salary accounts started off with a minimum account balance of Rs.1000/- in 1999, and grew to Rs.5000 and Rs.10000 subsequently. The email that most of us received a while ago, gave us nightmares when we saw that the new minimum balance for non salary accounts has now been increased to Rs.25000/-. While this kind of amount is perhaps the salary of many engineers across the country and perhaps the savings of a few wealthier folks, the mail also reflects the way Citibank is headed if they continue such tantrums.

Its about time that nationalized banks have increased their image in front of the public, and at a time when Citibank just came out of crisis in the USA, tantrums like these are bound to make people reject Citibank for banking and move to much more reasonable banks in the near future.

I happened to check out on Bank of Baroda, and was pleasantly left surprised at the kind of service they offered though they were still a bit naive to internet ways of banking. What mattered finally was that I could open an account in no time, and was a happy customer of theirs sooner than later. Canara Bank has lately restyled their logo trying to connect more to people as they continue their dream run forward. IDBI has now introduced banking for all to shed their image of only being a loan disbursement company. ICICI is already in the list of the not so good banks to deal with. HDFC and AXIS Banks have retained their image through tough times due to their consistent policies. SBI and its sister banking divisions have enhanced their images through beneficial loan schemes and exchange rates. ING Vysya is about to launch FD products giving 12% interest even in good economy upswings.

With all these banks vying hard to woo people, one wrong move that Citibank has done can start denting its Indian image pretty seriously. Today’s youth connect well with nationalized banks yet again and its only sooner than later that it will be the good old golden period of nationalized banking to the fore yet again.

As for me, I’ve decided to log off from Citibank for obvious reasons. Your choice is not yet made! Think for the longer term and make a wise choice.


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the 8520 is finally mine!

I finally own a blackberry 8520 Curve. Its a nice mix of technology and looks. And there is no reason why BB will not make inroads into the low cost high feature mobile market sooner than later.

There is already lot of information on the internet on this new phone and I will cover more details about this in a seperate video review later on. However what is important is the fact that there is finally an affordable blackberry at our reach.

Before I end this small post I will leave you with some pros and cons of this device so that you can make your decisions!

The good points of bb 8520 :

– great screen with very good resolution
– new menu system which is very slick and quick
– all expected business features are nicely packaged in the phone
– sweet pricing this will attract lots of hitherto missed out customers
– very nice trackpad does what it says on the tin
– nicely packaged keys all around the phone
– very loud audio, clear and nice

And now the cons:

– typing not the best experience
– slightly hard keypad nowhere near N97 from nokia
– some options are hidden and only professional users can locate such features.
– wifi and bluetooth connectivity configuration not so straightforward
– camera is nothing to talk much and while its not pathetic its not great either

I hope you liked this small review on the blackberry 8520. If you did, watch out for the more detailed review on video soon.

Autorickshaw grafitti

The other day I managed to see this autorickshaw in front of me with the message written in Kannada

It reads thus:

and in english it means:

Going behind a girl will only get you agony,
(Hudugi hindey hodrey golu)
Going behind an auto will only get you lots of dust!
(Auto hindey hodrey dhoolu)

So now, which one will you go behind? 🙂
Tomorrow is fool’s day, make your choice!

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Does Microsoft finally agree Google’s search is better than theirs? You see for yourself

Today I had the chance to install the new Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 beta, which claims to be better than (of course!) version 7. While I was installing it, I could not help noticing this dialog box

Under the express settings, I noticed that they are suggesting you to set the search provider to Google. Now MS being the company they are, wont do this inadvertently. So have they now officially agreed to the growing reality that there is no one to beat Google with their searching techniques? Your guess is as good as mine! 🙂

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Seasons greetings

Its time to bid adieu to the old year and usher in the new once more. Lets hope that in the next year all of this years losses are made good for, all the lessons learnt this year are practised more efficiently and that the new year 2009 generates the same joy and enthusiasm that the recession of 2008 has subdued; all once more again.

Wish you all my dear readers, a very happy and fun filled prosperous year 2009!

 

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Thanks dear readers! Keep them coming :)

It could have been yet another post. But its not. This is time to thank my dear readers for making the Bengaluru blog, what it is today. That too in a short span of time.Agreed, not without turbulences, but something is better than nothing. My efforts to pass on knowledge through this website has paid off, and in a much better way than originally anticipated. And it also goes beyond saying to prove what blogging and bloggers and blog readers can do to the online world.

Here are some statistics of the Bengaluru Blog, which has made me immensely happy. And I do believe it will make you more enthusiastic in visiting this blog more often. Read for yourself ! And do visit again 🙂

  • 20000+ visitors in one year
  • 25000+ visitors with one and half times more page views in one year
  • PR 0/10 in 2007 to PR 3/10 in 2008
  • High quality knowledge posts to secure returning visitors
  • Worldwide reach of the blog
  • many bangalore related terms searched on google shows this blog on first page of results
  • the bengaluru blog search term shows this blog on result #4
  • bengalurus best photographic blog
  • growing Pagerank with an urge to perform better

I can keep writing more. But its finally all because of you and your continued support, that I am able to reach these heights. My quest has not ended. There is more to achieve. But I believe its a matter of time going forward.

A big thanks once again!

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Dialysis on wheels in Bengaluru from Manipal Hospital

It was sometime back that I noticed this service while driving to work, but I could not find time to blog about this. However its better late than never that I tell my readers about this. Manipal Hospitals have made an attempt for kidney patients in Benglauru, to bring Dialysis closer to their home by making the service mobile.

They also have a kidney helpline where you can dial 2520 4000 for any queries on kidney ailments, and also avail the dialysis on wheels if you require it urgently.

According the Hindu Business Line,

Manipal Institute of Nephrology and Urology has launched a “Dialysis On Wheels” programme that will bring renal care to the houses of patients, particularly to the aged and who are unable to travel to the hospitals. The fully equipped air-conditioned dialysis mobile unit will be available round the clock and can be called for on 520 4000. The dialysis can also be transported to smaller hospitals and nursing homes where such facilities are not available, allowing the patient to get treatment closer home rather than moving from one hospital to other.

Dr H. Sudarshan Ballal, Director, Manipal Institute of Nephrology and Urology said, “with this programme, we intend to make life easier for the unfortunate patients who have severe kidney failure and need dialysis.” The compact `dialysis on wheels’ would also have trained doctors, technicians and other support staff needed for smooth running of dialysis. The machine can be moved into the homes if required and patients can receive the treatment right along the bedside. This service is priced at Rs 2,200 and ambulance charges per visit.

If you found this post useful, click the share button below and send it by email to your near and dear requiring this service, do a good deed!

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