Category: regular

The Nokia Asha 501 – a cute little story


 Nokia released erstwhile the Asha series of phone to pump some more life into the dying series 40 phones. Whe microsoft announced the launch of the nokia asha series for emerging markets, it was yet another launch story with the same old ingredients which would not make the phones a roaring success. It is somewhere after this that nokia was completely acquired by MS, and they also somewhat settled onto making rectangular phones with an eye for design.
After their failures with nokia lumia 610 and 710, the x20 series of phones started emerging as the post-guinea-pig-experiment product line having windows phone 8 operating system. It was at this time that MS was seriously considering unifying the desktop, tablet and mobile operating systems into one amalgamation more for the benefit of them rapidly being able to deploy apps on different platforms without much code change.
That the fact that the surface tablet was not such a great hit, and the non availability of MS own windows tablets beyond this, did not make such a great dent in the market. But then the x20 (520,620,720,820,920,1020) series of phones from MS and Nokia have somewhat managed to keep up the sales so far. The one thing I did not much like about the MS sales strategy is to price its dual core phones, in the same pricing leagues as others’ quad core phones among the android brethren. MS can give any excuse they want saying “our os can run just on 1GB ram” or whatever such stories, but then the question still remains on the value for money when it comes to anything greater than the 550-600$ mark in India.
The Nokia 1020 with its 40MP camera as the main excitement is priced at 50000 here as well as about 800$ in the USA. I am not sure what MS is pitching as its sales strategy with this product at this price.
Coming to the lower priced side of MS/Nokia products, there were and are phones but there was no REAL phone in the making. That is until the Asha 501 was released. With this little fella, MS has pulled off an Apple within the 80$ mark (Rs.5000) with almost everything on this phone.

This phone boldly speaks some interesting design elements. I love squared phones as they are easier to hold rather than curved ones (cursing my iPhone 3GS). And this phone is the perfect fit in the hand. Its just one piece of back cover all over and it has everything else nicely integrated into that cover beginning from screen and ending with the battery. Sporting just 2G and Wifi it also suits perfectly for the homely-rarely-go-out type of phone user where the WIFI takes care at home and the EDGE takes care outside. Considering that many rural towns still don’t even have 3G connectivity in India and considering you need to live life more than be using your phone more, this combination works well with some set of people.
The screen itself is made of hard material (gorilla glass?) and the capacitive touch is brilliant and just about right. It recognises everything that is touched and responds quickly and accurately to whatever is needed. The camera itself is nothing to write home about and one had expected that the falling cost of optics might have made MS rethink about introducing some real good camera element in this phone. But that is not the case. So if you are looking at this phone for Camera related usage, forget it. The screens themselves are reworked upon since the original series 40 and they are a pleasure to use with the fonts, and colours chosen. Each and every native app looks gorgeous to use on such a cute little phone. the responsiveness coupled with good tactile feedback on key press to the user is really a good effort by MS. Nokia has delivered on the hardware front to create a beautiful masterpiece of this phone.
Next up is the keypad on the phone. Compared to the Asha 3xx series of phones, MS has particularly paid lot of attention to matching up the keypad experience on the Asha 501 to the levels of the x20 series of its other phones. You must remember that early reviews of the MS windows phones including windows phone 7 were really very appreciative of the keypad that was extremely snazzy to use and nearly flawless. MS has carried on that tradition to the nokia asha 501 and the keypad is just so outstading for such a small screen size. MS has also reworked on every single native app to choose colours wisely and the size and type of fonts, buttons, and other elements to complement the overall phone appearance and use. At the same time they have ensured that they phone usability is not compromised one bit, though the screen is small.
I still feel the Facebook and twitter applications could have used better fonts, but then these applications are not native, and hence this is always debatable.
The dial pad as expected is large and easy to type on and anything that is touchable and clickable is take care of to be shown to the user accordingly. One thing to note about this phone is that since it emulated apple, there is exactly only one button to navigate back, and out of any screen. The apps screen is divided into the all apps, and frequent apps/ recent apps screens and we can toggle by swiping across. Notifications also appear on the screen and can be clicked/swiped out. The quick access pull down bar from the top, provides access to quickly switch SIM cards – did I forget to mention to you that this is a dual sim phone?, toggle WIFI, and also toggle Vibrate modes. Everything is so responsive and amazingly implemented in this phone.
Don’t assume that this phone will provide you with amazing speeds on everything that you use on it, but then its not bad either. If asphalt 6 is pre loaded on this phone, you can imagine then!!
One of the popular and important grouses about this phone is that it does not support the Whats app application yet, and there are many people who don’t buy this phone just because of that issue. You must remember that you need to give some time for app developers to iron out their issues and launch something that is stable and that is honestly not in the decision making from MS/Nokia side. A final comment on the battery life – well this is a nokia low end phone, so what do you expect? Guess. Yes. Its almost 2-2.5 days of use without hitting the zero percentile. Again a commendable effort by nokia on this device. I have used this device for long distance calls for almost an hour or more and it does not get hot at all, and is cool on the ears (thereby losing out to the overheating award winner – Nexus 4). People whom I spoke to mostly did not complain about not being able to hear me, but sometimes – just sometimes they said there was some issue in the calls. But I feel it has nothing to do with the device itself.
If you need a dual sim phone, and you don’t care about 3G connectivity, whatsapp (for now) or anything more smarter – and have only 4500 to spend on, go right to the online stores and make the purchase on the nokia 501 asha. You will not regret the ingenious design of this phone. Definitely something to flaunt around to people. There are rumours of the nokia asha 502 with probably 3g, and other better things, but thats as always a rumour and no one has clear information on when this would be available in the market. This phone also has a 32GB memory card capability for all your music, it has radio, it has bluetooth and a 1200 mAh battery if you care to know.

The Curse of Blackberry

(source: Blackberry.com)
Ever since the launch of blackberry Z10, considering the company’s fate which was going downhill otherwise, I was finally happy to see that BB was stepping up its efforts to match upto Apple and Google in making good phones. After all when the world did not have a proper smartphone, it was BB who brought phones into the market that could be put to proper business use. The BB Storm with the clickable keyboard wasnt all that bad, just that BB fanatics became angry about it as it was a new concept that they could not get used to and the phone itself felt like it would break on every click on the screen.
Then of course was the curve series, the torch series and so forth. It is somewhere down the line when their revenues started plumetting and shareholders started questioning the company fundamentals was there a substantial shakeup of the management. All this with the acquisition of TAT (the Astonishing Tribe) who felt rather astonished to be part of the company which was crumbling. And if there would ever be another good product out of the assembly line from BB, then there would definitely be a TAT imprint on that. Which is what was precisely going to happen.
And then came BB‚Äôs dream device. First on leaked pictures, on alpha modes, then some more interesting news leakages, and then lo and behold the device itself – the bold and beautiful z10. I am always a fan of blackberry devices in the build quality and the z10 did not disappoint either. Slightly bulkier than either the nearest competitors or the older BBs themselves, in some way or other, the z10 is still a beautiful device, great to hold, polished volume and other buttons which look upmarket and needless to say excellent call quality which has always been their strong point. 
(source: forums.trinituner.com)
Where BB did not concentrate to be unique was in the app world perspective. The app world itself was invented by Apple, piggy backed by Google who were a strong force in convincing developers to build the same or similar apps for them as well. BB however did not maintain the required traction with developers for the apps which led them to make the decision of supporting Google apps on their devices via sideloading in an effort to counter Apple’s progress on this direction. This was the biggest mistake that BB did, which not only led to its meek agreement that Google were (and surely were) better than them, but also that they could not counter Apple effectively.
BB’s own app store was not growing at the rate needed, I still cannot forget the day when I bought my shiny new BB tablet and realized the Facebook and Twitter apps were just mere links to browser based mobile sites for these services. If that does not suck then what does? It only portrayed BB in a very bad way and gave a perception on their preparedness to the world who bought their products. The damage had already started at that point.

Intex and Panasonic challenge Micromax on its home turf

  1. Intex and Panasonic have launched android smartphones having jelly bean to challenge players like celcom and micromax on their home turf. Both these players have launched phones that boast of HD displays, 1GB of RAM, dual sim, Jelly bean 4.2. , 8MP camera and over a 2000-2500 mAH battery that must suffice to make the phones last a long while in a given day.

    While the ad shows that intex is priced at a paltry 11,000 , Panasonic have preferred not to put up the price ranges on the ad. However a small search reveals the price of the latter to be in the 25000 range. This puts panasonic in direct confrontation with the just launched Nexus 4 by LG, except that the LG phone boasts of faster google updates as well as a 2GB RAM which DOES make a significant difference in the way the phone operates.
    What is more in focus is that there are now serious challengers to Apple, not limited only to Samsung, which have cropped up in recent months. While Apple might actually keep screaming about the fragmentation of Android, that does not seem to hit any mobile provider too hard at the moment. This only in fact proves that Apple must roll out an iPhone with a higher sized display and more RAM and perhaps a 128GB flash drive as soon as possible (a.k.a September of 2013). As is the usual custom they have now created ios7 from the ground up as demonstrated a while ago in the keynote of WWDC and what matters to be seen is the followup on the device front in september. Whether or not this will make any significant impact in sales or the consumer’s mindsets is still a question for which there is no answer.
    Only one thing is clear: Even phone makers like Nokia/Microsoft, and the small time ones, such as micromax or celcom or intex and of course the market leaders to some extent LG/Samsung have now managed to pull the carpet from under Apple’s leg. The more Apple does not forecast or produce some good hardware on the phones segment, the likely it is that their value might take a further hit no matter how much is the innovation done. All said and done, Apple do things differently each and every time, but whether that alone is enough to keep a hungry public waiting is another question to be answered.

Nokia Asha 308 review

 

I recently purchased a Nokia Asha just to experience the supposedly improved s40 operating system by Nokia. The new version of the operating system is supposed to be more smoother and richer compared to the previously boring user interface. So does it really meet the stated improvement as far as the user is concerned? Read on to find out.

Even after Microsoft aligned with Nokia to manufacture Windows 7, 7.5 and 8 phones, and Nokia open sourced symbian, their series 40 and 60 operating systems are still doing well in low cost markets. The team at Nokia has revamped these operating systems to a great extent to make better use of available larger memory and processing speeds.

The first thing you notice about the new Nokia Asha series is how the icons are more beautiful against a stark black background which makes the colours not only rich to the eye but also the fonts more clear to read at any point in time.

A notfication bar is almost an absolute must for those who do not wish to dwell into a million settings menus to get what they need. Given that the higher end smartphones have set that bar, Nokia has managed to implement a slick looking pull down blue notification bar for its Asha range of touch phones. Not only is the blue color soothing to the eye, it provides just the necessary information that is needed for us to glance quickly at the status on the phone. The slide down and push up is well implemented and its smooth and nice to use.

 

Another thing that I liked in this new operating system version is the concept of overlay user interfaces. For example if you wish to have chosen a profile to use for meetings, or outdoors, or slient modes, earlier one had to go into settings -> profiles, and choose one of them. A long press # key also put the phone into silent mode. However, in the Asha series, Nokia has managed to overlay the most important and always used 4 settings or profiles as a simple touchable option over and above the standard icons. This not only provides an easy way of setting the profiles but also goes along with the overall notion of a simplified user interface in the phone.

The settings menu is slick and scrollable and you can reach multiple levels quite easily with a few touches. The way Nokia has chosen the colors for the apps only emphasizes how good they are getting applications to look extremely unique to themselves and at the same time, pleasing to the eye without creating any form of strain. Take the calculator for instance, its neat white background with black keys, and light gray background with black fonts for the keyed in numbers helps the user focus more on using the calculator than getting distracted with wrong colors that hurts the eyes. I always have hated the work of people who used ridiculous colors on their apps or websites as they tend to expose their lack of concentration on how the readers or users of these can feel about their work. In this department its full marks to Nokia which has managed to refresh its really aged and super old s40 OS !

Next on would be the focus on really how usable any input mechanism on such a small phone would be. Compared to the ruling smartphones out there in the market today even in the budget range, the Nokia Asha is still much smaller on the screen which makes it a challenge for Nokia to make the input mechanisms more accurate. Whether its the calculator or the onscreen keyboard for messaging or chat, or whether its scrolling through menus by touching through, I can confidently say after what i have experienced – that the Asha series of Nokia phones finally nails what was missing in the S40 OS since a long time. A super easy keyboard, which is very accurate and highly usable even in spite of tight space between characters makes this phone all the more a joy to use in terms of its elegance!

Continuing with this new tradition, Nokia has left no stone unturned to ensure that all its apps merge with the overall scheme of things to make a highly saleable operating system. The Radio app, the clock, alarm and timer apps use the right type of fonts at the right places to emphasize on what the user should concentrate on. The only other way it should have been is that Nokia must have concentrated on these improvments long back which would have perhaps showed the world what they are strong at. Even now is not a bad time though, and its only more joy to see a new and rich operating system.

Finally much as in the other higher end phones, Nokia Asha comes with three slidable pages or sets of panels where one can put a much wanted app, or shortcuts to frequently used apps.

Coming to other matters, the Nokia Asha 308 has the following specs:

(source : flipkart)

At a cost of Rs.5000+,

This phone has: Bluetooth, navigation, EDGE, GPRS, USB, expandable memory, conferencing support, and dual sim

This phone DOES NOT have: 3G, personal hotspot, WiFi, rear camera.

To summarize on other aspects that we know where Nokia has its strong points:

  • This phone has good call quality

  • This phone has good battery life

  • Detachable batter slot and memory slot, supporting upto 32GB

  • Over the air upgrades

  • Good touch response

  • Socially connected apps are available

  • All formats of audio/video mostly supported

  • All mail mechanisms are supported

Some sore points of the phone would be:

  • Unlock button is on the right bottom which hurts the thumb

  • Overall the phone is quite slippery

  • Phone is tad bit heavy

  • Sometimes the user interface could be a bit laggy

  • Opening and closing apps can take time depending on the app

  • atleast Wi-Fi must have been included in order to help faster downloads and at the home or at the office use.

So should you buy this phone?

If you need dual sim, dont need 3G or WiFi and can manage with Edge and only need to see mails or chat, then this phone is for you.

If you need strong navigation support, mail attachments, downloading games, music over Wifi or 3G, good video call support and many more apps, then this phone is NOT for you.

 

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The destiny farmstay, Ooty

In my last post , I wrote about my journey to Ooty, spiced up with certain constraints and situations. In this post, I will let you know my review of the Destiny Farmstay at Ooty. Read on ….

The Destiny Farmstay is about 25-30 kms away from Ooty main bus stand. The car parking in Destiny is about 2km away from the actual farmstay, and the road beyond that does not permit normal sedans or hatchbacks to get to the actual farmstay as its very slushy, extremely bumpy and risky in terms of damage to the vehicles. The directions provided by the resort is fairly accurate, but towards the end you may have to keep your ears and eyes open for signboards, turns, identification points and the likes.

An army truck belonging to the Little Earth group who run destiny farmstay, took us from the car parking into the resort. The ride can be very bumpy and little kids can feel rattled and extremely afraid as did my little one. So take care of this part. The reception at the resort was neat and kept well attended and the staff there were very courteous in welcoming the people to the stay. A welcome drink was also made available on arrival since it would mostly be beyond noon when people reach there. As other formalities were being completed, the lunch menu was also being taken for order from different guests so that lunch could be made available on time.

A point to note here about the lunch or dinner is that they are limited in timings and one has to be within the time frame of cafeteria being open to source the required dishes. Room service is available at a cost but not always. So its best you return to the cafeteria at specified times in order to avoid missing out on the food. And you guessed it right that there is nothing near the resort where you can otherwise go for food and so you are by yourself. Another thing I felt about the food was that it was quite expensive (even beyond bangalore standards) which is not a good thing. This is always a demand supply factor resorts capitilize on and I am okay with that if the resort were to be otherwise highly rated. Though TripAdvisor rates this resort high, one must understand the fact that there are actually very few new, other resorts, around this place. So naturally everyone who goes here would tend to recommend only this one. Additionally they do not add too much spice into the food, so its kind of kid friendly too which is a plus.

The rooms themselves are nestled neatly along a row overlooking a valley created by more than few mountain slopes. This is the valley where sloped farming is done. When we went to the resort rains were lashing ooty, and towards the evening the atmosphere was damp and the skies opened up a bit. The sunset was a surreal experience. The rooms were large with two single beds put back to back. So that meant some ample room for four of us (two kids). The toilets were large and neat, however not always did we get hot water. You can compare that to my review of the eagle eye holidays in chikmagalur where I did have hot water 24 hours of the day. So if they can do it, why not Destiny?

The room was supposedly a deluxe room, but the only deluxe part about it was the front verandah area overlooking the valley. Other than that the sofa inside the room was not well maintained and the springs had worn out. It was more uncomfortable to sit on it than anything the other way round. The rooms also had no tube lights or no fans and had a coffee maker in case you needed a quick one.

The farming itself consisted of many different type of flowers, cabbages, carrots and the likes being cultivated there. In addition to this they had a horse stable with atleast 3-4 horses who would take you for a ride at a specified time in the mornings with supervision on a high ground area. In addition to this were a large amount of cows, and some sheep. There were also rabbits and ducks which were near the pond down the valley. There were hundred odd steps that led to the valley below which is a good exercise if you take your kids down and back, assuming you are carrying them.

In addition to this, there is a disco room that’s operational at night, and there is a bonfire every night which in my opinion is absolutely necessary. Its advisable to carry a set of diapers, all essentials for kids, and atleast three pairs of footwear for kids. Some woolens and raincoats and atleast one or two umbrellas are a must.

Please be advised that there are NO medical facilities anywhere nearby atleast for a good 20+ kilometers, so you have to take all medical supplies that you might need. Remember that your car is parked a good 2-3 km away from the resort from where the nearest hospital is another 20km away, so this could be risky if you need urgent medical attention. From what I spoke with hotel staff, I am not sure that they are addressing this need.

Its also mostly likely that the cafeteria or reception would remain out of reach beyond some earthly hours. There is also a well stocked library to spend some time in. One of the major reasons I went to this place was that they had advertised some activities for the kids such as nature painting and so on, but the person conducting these was away on holiday himself, so one promise never met. Luckily since I carried a whole lot of sketch pens myself, I was able to get some paper and let my son try his artwork there.

I stayed at Destiny Farmstay for only one night, but I feel its an experience where kids learn about farming, and look and feel domestic animals once in a way. To summarize Destiny is aiming to be unique in what it offers, but the expensive food and no medical help nearby might make it go out of your list for a holiday. If you still want to give it a try, the location is beautiful and would relax a tired soul.

The cost for a deluxe room towards end of March was 5,500 + and the three time meal cost came to almost 1,700 +, add a fuel of almost 3,000 + from bangalore upto the resort and we are looking at around 10,000 for a day’s worth of holiday.

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In search of my Destiny

 

 

 

When everything is in your control, your life seems great. You can do what you need to, when you need to with predictable outcomes. If you are taken out of that organized lifestyle and put on an unknown path with a time limit to reach your destination, and your quest is spiced up with very less food, bad weather, poor visibility, and no end in sight then that becomes another situation altogether. You then have to resign to only one thing – your DESTINY!

 

This was the essence of a trip that I undertook during the last two days covering hundreds of kilometers with my family to a non descript location a few tens of miles of a fairly populated hill station – all from a concrete jungle infested with information technology professionals much like locusts eating up all the produce in a field and leaving it empty. The upcoming festival weekend only meant a long holiday and a certainity of unavailability of any room in any resort anywhere in Karnataka thanks to the smartness of the above mentioned locusts of the city.

 

So this time, my ploy was different – but a rather tried and tested one – with accurate results – that of using up the weekend days to make this trip possible when the locusts were busy elsewhere working away. In a situation where you have a couple of young kids, planning is of utmost importance for their comfort. My analogy of the kids being able to cover about a 150 odd km range in three hours or so as a maximum threshold at any given point of time proved to be right beyond which enjoyment turns into hunger, sleep and frustration. A brief halt at Mysore for the night proved to be useful to bring the kids back to a calm state of mind.

The next morning was fresh and the journey continued towards Nanjangudu, Gundelpet and Bandipur. For those harried souls of the information technology kingdom, whose only source of inspiration is a wallpaper on their laptop showing a never ending road with the mountains far beyond and only yourself to drive through – the above said highway would be the actual representation of such a wallpaper! This stretch of highway is a treat to the eyes and to the mind. For those who travel extensively one would not debate on the fact that distance and time are inseperable. You have to keep your eyes on the clock, and keep the vechile at a certain designated speed in order to reach a certain place in a certain defined timeframe! For these kinds of people the Nanjangud-Bandipur highway is a place to step on the gas!

 

When you enter the Bandipur forest area with the sole intention of ripping through forest land like a vagabond, the government has ensured that you give respect to the rightful owners of the land there – the animal kingdom of bandipur. India is a country where when people are said of certain things to follow – they do exactly the contrary. So there is only but one option left – keep crippling your enthusiasm until you start behaving properly and predictably. I was referring to the innumerable road humps in the Bandipur-Masinagudi highway which kill your enthusiasm just when you go past the 80kph mark to throttle upto 100 and beyond, much like if you receive a phone call in the middle of an intercourse 🙂

 

You really know when Karnataka ends and Tamil Nadu begins. Much like a climate change would let you know the difference, here the road conditions change for the worse as soon as you enter Tamil Nadu. Without much to do along this stretch, as the number of kilometeres on the boards begin to decrease towards a certain hill station originally inhabited by the (yea you know who) britishers, the adrenalin begins to increase. It is then that you are welcomed by a huge mountain in front of you, with a head spinning 36 hair pin bend road that leads you straight to the top – if you are lucky enough.

 

This stretch of road is the best to test a car that you own or want to own. Forget all the useless test drives and the customary question Sir, so how was the test drive – just take the car to this road. The last time I took a Ford Figo it stopped on hair pin bend 26/36. In first gear. Just like that. It gave up. It wouldnt go forward even when Maruti 800s, altos didnt give up. Agreed this was a diesel but still the manners were ridiculous. And Ford says it is celebrating the sales of lakhs of units of a car that just gives up on the owner. Dear Ford, its perhaps time to take your vehicles up this curve and see for yourself what you are selling.

 

This was my second go on this road, this time with the Nissan Sunny Diesel and at 26/36 I was naturally a worried person. The feeling was one of frustration but thankfully the vehicle drove past all the way upto 36/36. It was not an impressive climb, but nevertheless it was completed. There was a feeling of euphoria of having reached Ooty or Ootacamund or Udhagai or Udhagamandalam and having neared the destination – only to understand that my destiny was something else. A thunderstorm with hardly 100m of visibility with rain lashing on the car from all sides. Just few tens of miles before it was as hot as hell and now this!? Google had advised me the route to the destination as just less than a mile ahead only for me to understand that it went horribly wrong for once. My destiny was 30 more km ahead. Google has this habit of saying take slight right and then turn left and this led me to a small road off the actual highway. Only later that I understood that this is just googles way of saying stay put on the same damn highway until there is actually a reasonably visible large right turn.

 

You must remember that in Ooty its best to ask people locally or rely on your own intuition than to choose Google maps as there are some really narrow roads that may or may not lead anywhere as your destiny is defined. After about 25kms of drive towards a place called avalanche (or avalaanchi) and further inside emerald town, I hit upon two bridges as advertised on the resort route map – one without water on both sides, and one with water on both sides – the latter being the emerald dam. Then I had to pass the White house (unfortunately obama was out and i couldnt meet him) towards two sign boards that brought me to my destiny – The Destiny Farm Stay!

 

In my next post I will share with you my view of the resort or holiday destination as offered by the Little Earth Group – Destiny.

Hakrappa KJP-gey vote haakro, hakroppo ….

(source wikipedia)

On one fine evening in 2008, a certain reasonably old man with white hair and moustache was crying on the TV screen, when a little girl who phoned in told him that Karnataka has finally elected a leader who will work towards its development and who will rid the state of its corrupt practices. He assertively declared that he will wage a war against corruption and uphold the victory that the state had provided to his party.

Five years down the line, the same gentleman was still crying on the TV screen, accusing his bosses and detractors of robbing his role and respect for all the hard work he did while wearing a khaki trouser and learning to stand in the hot sun to build up the party he so fondly cared for. After he took over the party to power way back, his growing deeds of giving away large amount of money to temples of his choice, giving away prime lands in Bangalore city to his sons, and his supposed illegal involvement of being a beneficiary in the mining scan and iron ore scam earned him nothing but a boot out of the party.

After so many misdeeds and his political incompetence within the BJP on how to handle his peer pressure from Sadananda Gowda, Eshwarappa, Ananth Kumar and others, the man knew two things. One that his only way to escape this mess is to get out of the party before people decimated him. And two, that BJP had no chance in the upcoming ULB and assembly elections. The second turned out to be the trump card hiding close to his chest which he used to bail himself out to form the KJP.

The ULB election results are a direct pointer to what awaits the state in 2013 assembly elections and it has already given the BJP both a smack on the head and a slap on the face pretty deftly. The huge swing in votes towards the Congress means only one thing: People dont know who else to vote for – whether for KJP which is yet to test its waters with the same candidate who screwed the state, or for the JDS which is yet to be clear on how it intends to be a good state level player with credibility and track record.

Due to the obvious reasons, Congress wins by default, but the real acid test now is the expected bickering in the congress between Kharge, Siddu, DKS, and a few other stalwarts who will form a team similar to that in BJP and might either be advisories or ruin the show. While at a national level congress is stressing on youth participation and young blood and all that, we are yet to see a visionary congress leader after SM Krishna during whose time Bangalore’s transformation was unbelieveable.

Given we have a gazillion flyovers, and toll roads now, given we also have the metro, given we have billion people from all the states settled down here, given the increased crime rate, given the absolute lack of governance, given the beating Kannada as a language has got, given an already overgrown city without similar growth in infrastructure, given crazy land prices all over, and in general given the mammoth metamorphisis of Bangalore into a lazy-concrete-traffic-jammed-mall-cultured-rude-screwed garden city, what exactly would be the congress manifesto to bring back some sanity to Bangalore?

What is there to vote for? What hope as a city do we have left that things would be any better anymore? – The answer is NOTHING. The last time I could vote for congress, jds and bjp. This time i can also vote for another one – the KJP. I am surely wanting to hear yeddy cry again in joy on TV for some reason that never matters. Its the iconism that matters doesnt it ? 🙂

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Bhumi puja completed for netaji subhas chandra bose khb layout,nearbidadi

On 22nd JAN, 2013 in the times of india, KHB has released a notification for the bhumi puja for Netaji Subash Chanda Bose layout, at Bidadi. There are very sparse details (less details) on what exactly this layout will contain, but it prominently looks like they will offer individual sites and houses surely. The development may later incorporate apartments as well.

This function was presided by Jagdish Shettar, Somanna, GT Devegowda, the chairman of KHB, HD Devegowda and HC Balakrishna, MLA of magadi constituency.

There were no other details that were provided.

Tags: apartments, bangalore, bengaluru, bidadi, blog, bose, chandra, cm, devegowda, hd, housing, jagadish shettar, karnataka, khb, kumaraswamy, magadi, netaji, sites, subhash