I was in my office cracking some really irritating codebase when my friend Raja just came into office after his holiday in Telegu Desam. Oops I meant to say Andhra Pradesham. He thrust a box full of tissue papers into my hand and asked me to take one. Being used to the hot and wet face tissues that are given on flights I was about to take one and wipe my face with it. Its only then that he told its to be eaten. Yes you heard it right – EATEN!!!!!! I was a bit dumfounded at that moment wondering why is he making donkeys out of everyone asking them to eat paper. Its the he told me that it was a box of sweets.
Called as Pootha Rekulu, this is a coastal andhrasweet, made of starch and powdered sugar. Andhra is known for its many flavours, sizes and types of sweets and this one brought a smile on my face. Its been a while since I saw or ate anything like this one. It was too good and required an entire 10-15 minutes to complete one such sweet!
So here’s a cheers to Raja, for his Pootha Rekulu Sweetulu made of paperu, brought to Bengaluru 🙂
Technorati Tags: Technology, Pootha rekulu, Andhra pradesh, Paper sweet, Coastal andhra, Sugar powder, Starch, Maida, Recipe
Have you ever wondered how you would feel if you met yourself somewhere on the streets? Would you not have the curiosity of understanding who the other “you” is ? well, though this exactly did not happen to me, I however bumped into an identical pair of twins in a super market. And boy oh boy, were they exactly similar!? You betcha! To be a twin brother or sister to someone is perhaps an exciting thing in itself in life. Very few people are gifted with that combination. But though we feel that twins will have the same behavioral tactics always, that is not really true. I have two pairs of twins in my home, with completely different interests and behavioral themes! Well when you have had a lot of pressure at your work and return home to spend a quiet evening shopping around, what more pleasure can one get than a scene like this? – Identical twins!
Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Twins, Identicals, Same, Similar looking, Bengaluru, Blog, Supermarket, Nilgiris, Shopping, Trolleys
Today I was getting ready to drive out of my locality towards office and I was greeted by the most insane of foggy conditions just outside my home. The fog was so bad the visibility was less than 20 feet! The winter in Bengaluru has been greatly chilly this time alone which is again a climatic pattern change compared to couple of years back when it was more moderate. This is only a prelude to then what summer shall bestow upon our city ! Enjoy the pics
Here is wishing all the readers of my blog a very happy Sankranthi!
Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Bangalore, Blog, Bengaluru, Winter, Fog, Sankranthi, Pongal, Chilly, Temperature drop, Cold, Smoke, Visibility, Driving, Bad weather
So have you been wondering why the updates on this blog have become slower? Well Happy New Year 2008 to all of you and I must say I’m just back from my one week full shutdown vacation. Got my batteries recharged spending time with my family and now ready to take on 2008. And what does Bengaluru have to give you this year? More levies and fees for each and everything that the citizen is involved in. Take a look yourself
This year the whole country seems to be talking big. After the climate change convention in Bali, stricter norms are in the making for all countries including India. Though we may not be immediately affected, India has managed to convince USA to reduce emissions, it being a developed nation. While this might mean more fuel efficient vehicles and lesser dependence for USA on fossil fuels, back home this automatically leads everyone (yes even if he is a politician) to think about the impact of climate change and accordingly self impose stricter rules and penalties to reduce this drastic impact on human life.
Taking one item at a time from the sticky notes above, while congestion tax is a good thing for India (just like in London) it will work out well only if the tax is almost 250 bucks a day. But it also means the government needs to moot and run an efficient transport system which not only uses cleaner greener fuels, but also handles the whole population of cities like Bengaluru. Higher parking fees would work out only if the parking fee is Rs.100 per hour or more, and it will not only discourage people from taking out their cars each time, but also bring in lots of developmental moolah for the government to run an efficient point to point public transport. This brings back the pressure on the government to look into the transport aspect in full detail.While current vehicle registration charges are almost 10% of vehicle value, it will make a lot of sense to make it 25% of the vehicle value. This only means going against the automobile lobby as their sales will drastically drop and indirectly impact many workers in the automobile sector. This however will not only prevent 1 lac cars from clogging roads but also enable only the super rich to flaunt cars and keep most general public out of a traffic jam at all times. What this essentially means is that the public then will learn to use public transport such as buses and trains instead of cars for every single mile they travel (mind you this includes me too!)
The tax on fuel is already as much as the per litre cost and this is already one significant expense for the average indian. The fuel charges alone work out upto Rs.5000 to Rs.10000 per month which on the average is about 5-7% of a person’s monthly income. But there is a negative impact of this tax, as it will push up the commodity prices for those essentials transported by vehicles running on this fuel. Whichever way you look at it, the common man is going to be burdened! So either you pay more for your food or for your fuel or both! Needless to remind you of the already existing food (hotel) tax and entertainment (cinemas) tax that you are paying up. The carbon based road tax is however a good thing as less pollutant vehicles might end up paying lesser tax than those that burn more fossil fuels. On a larger scale the carbon credit system will define future economies as we continue to march ahead with economic progress.
Since diesel vehicles pollute more, the government has already started discouraging diesel vehicles with Delhi announcing banning of diesel vehicles sooner than later. While this is definitely going to help the automobile lobby even more, it also helps oil companies earn more with petrol. But on the brighter side we have automotive companies working on hybrid’s and showing their commitment to ethanol based petrol – like Mahindra and Honda for instance. Diesel vehicles will also be dearer to get and more scarce if there is a cap on diesel vehicles manufactured per year. Already we have 15000 vehicles (of all types) being registered in Bengaluru per day now and you can rightly imagine whats going to be of our city if this continues! Already the fuel economy standards have been much spoken about above so there is no need to reiterate on that again.
The statewise public transport funds is definitely going to help for a city such as Bengaluru as we have dedicated funds to run proper services. But the one thing still is a dire necessity is dedicated lanes/roads for these buses to ply on. Hopefully the governments schemes would surely turn into a reality soon. The dedicated bus lanes on highways is more of a doubt cast with the highways we have in place in Karnataka. If it were to be an expressway one can understand the reasoning (an example of highways in Kuala Lumpur and around), but around Bengaluru all lanes have already turned into truck only lanes leave alone buses and two wheelers/cars to drive on! That requires some really serious planning and most of all enforcement. As long as enforcement is not a regularlity such schemes will die a relatively fast death. Hopefully encouraging private sector to design better public transport systems would bring about the best engineering talent forward to give us an effiicient system for our clogged city.
Lastly the inter city rail links are already a hit, and enhancing this by adding more trains at better frequencies and also for freight is surely going to bring the congestion burden down by a bit if not too much. So hopefully by end 2008 Bengaluru should be on the pathway to lesser congestion unless a new government becomes a stumbling block for economic progress once again. This makes me only wish that the president’s rule lasts the remaining two years more.
Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Bengaluru, Transport, Buses, Lanes, Bmtc, Taxes, Congestion, Bangalore, Blog, Registration, Vehicle, Carbon, Diesel, Fuel, Petrol, Economy, Rail links
I had earlier written an article on the entry of Sun Direct DTH into the DTH space, when they started off in Tamil Nadu. In that article I had compared various players in the DTH space as well. You can find more details about the various DTH players here
Today Sun Direct DTH has started off their services in Karnataka, and particularly in Bengaluru, although they are now singing a different tune than the old “Free set top box + free installation” song! This time they are offering the service for Rs.1999/- (*****) with lots of “conditions apply” buzzword – the jargon meant to indicate everything is not what is indicated in there! If I am probably right, it would only mean an installation charge of Rs.999 extra putting the totals upto Rs.3000/- which is no different from the other existing players.
Interestingly earlier Tata Sky was offering their customers a million minutes free which they have now withdrawn. Instead now they are beginning to capitalize on the kids segment (a segment where the people involved wont take a “NO” from their parents) by saying kids of TATA Sky owners are more brilliant than others– becuase they do mathematical puzzles and play reasoning games on their set top boxes using ACTVE LEARNING.
For once I believe Tata must provide more channels in their boquet rather than all these games before customers assume Tata DTH is only for kids alone in the longer run. Coming back to the Sun Story, note however in the above AD that they still do not disclose the monthly charges which by foresight I assume to be much higher than Rs.150 atleast and not the erstwhile Rs.75 for 75 channels (which is ridiculous since it will eventually bring down their profits like hell).
As usual a call to any of the dealers mentioned in the AD only returns one of these
So another day of wasted phone calls to no avail, even to find out details. Perhaps the Sun scheme details are already there on their website, I would’nt care much just because I expect Sun to take atleast a month or more to seriously begin addressing the Karnataka market. Since this is all about pre booking, it means you pay up your hard earned money for equipment that you would get perhaps a month or even six down the line! If Sun has to make boxes for you, you pay up first, they get confirmed orders and perhaps approach a hardware vendor like Flextronics or the likes and place a volume order for those many pre booked number of boxes! From that day your wait starts until you get frustrated.
So its all a wait and watch to see what impact Sun Direct DTH makes in Karnataka, and in particular a cosmopolitan city like Bengaluru.
Technorati Tags: Technology, Sun direct dth, Sun tv, Sun network, Direct to home, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, Set top box, Flextronics, Karnataka, Cable tv, Tamil nadu, Maran, Dayanidhi
So its about time we had some decent net speeds, and BSNL seems to understand our requirements as well. Yesterday, they have launched an 8Mbps broadband scheme in Bengaluru. Now you can be assured of simply blistering speeds. I got a chance to experience 8Mbps while I was at London, and it was simply terrific.
They have three plans, 2000, 4000 and 15000. While the first starts from 256kbps upto 8mbps, the latter start from 1mbps minimum and go upto 8mbps. Whats also good is the download limits. Instead of skimpy 1Gigs they now have 27GB in the starter plan upto 125 GB !!! in the last plan.They even have a free modem (rental, and without monthly charges, returnable on disconnection) for the last two plans which makes this a scheme to lap up immediately if you got the dough!
For more details you can call a toll free number of BSNL – 1800 424 1600 and be rest assured your life might change forever with respect to the way you browse!
Technorati Tags: Technology, Bsnl, Broadband, 8 mbps, Bandwidth, Free wifi modem, Router, Internet connection, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, High speed, India, Telecom, Net, Fast, Superfast
Some decent support for all your computers seems to be finally in the making! Yesterday a website called itsupportdesk.com was launched in Bengaluru. Operating out of rajajinagar area, for about Rs.899/- ($23) they offer you unlimited software downloads onto your PC/Laptop, live chat 24/7 and one year’s worth of warranty for your PC. Stealing the punchline off HP’s ad blitz about the computer being personal, they go on to add, ’the computer is personal, lets treat it personally’
For this price you get 4 free carry in services if in case something is wrong with your PC. While the price seems a bit steep for just four services, atleast you have someone reliable (hopefully) and someone you can reach 24/7 online. This makes the price a bit attractive especially considering 24/7 work.
(image courtesy : times of india)
They have quarterly, annual, and pay per visit plans while they have managed to keep their online support free forever. They would perhaps be able to solve most of the problems by logging in remotely into your PC. A sister concern of Rooman Technologies, this company seems a bit promising for now. Other than PC support, they also offer support in network installations, security and offer helpdesk outsourcing options to customers. Their website is basic, static HTML content, with a login page for customers to login and view history of their activities with the company. This unique database management of customers would provide such companies with strong base to manage their ever growing base of people coming to them and put them into the bigger league of well managed companies.
Their customer service link though did not work on the website, which means something is still brokenSo what are you heading for? Have a problem late in the night in Bengaluru? log on to www.itsupportdesk.com and voice it out.
Technorati Tags: Technology, Rooman, Itsupportdesk, Pc, Laptop, Help, Online support, Knowledge base, Problems, 24/7, Bengaluru, Technology, Blog, Bangalore, Live chat, Technical experts
Yes we have seen thousands of cigarette lighters of all jazzy types and prices and sizes in both the domestic and international markets so far. But how about the good old indian beedi and cigarette lighter? It has withstood the test of time, and has lit many billions of cigarettes and beedis for the customers since time immemorial and continues to do so.
Except that if its electricals arent so right, it could even light you and your clothes in flames too
This the real raw deal – two probes connected to a 230 volts 50Hz AC supply and a small spring connected inbetween them, much as a filament rests between the leads in the tungsten lamps. When you pass electricity through this spring, it lights up and becomes white hot (not red hot!) which you can then use to light your puff. Though dangerously exposed, this still is the cheapest, to the point concoction that simply works till date! And maintenance is super easy too! Just replace the spring or better still each component that goes into this stuff.
Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Cigarette, Beedi, Lighter, Puff, Smoke, Health, Smoking, India, Bengaluru, Bangalore, Blog, Electricity, Spring, Tungstend
I had posted earlier about the onset of winter in our Bengaluru, well the season seems to be still on, with temperatures going as low as 12 degrees this time. Add to that a cyclone in Tamil Nadu, and the shivers only crept up more faster than ever. The fog was so thick that it had engulfed the whole of the KR Puram hanging bridge. Proof of that is here:
Its there in the first snap, and missing in the second! With this being the only hanging bridge (other than the ones that well …. sort of hang precariously), it always makes me stare at it in awe everytime I pass through it each day.
Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, Kr puram, Hanging bridge, Winter, 2007, December, Fog
Bangalore Blog 