New Year Resolution ideas

2011 was fast, so much activity all around that it ended no time at all, but then every year we feel the same and the time really seems to fly. 2012 is the year when the world is supposed to end but in case it does not there would be a majority of people who are not able to keep up their new years resolutions. A new year is a great time to start something new especially when that new thing is good for you and is easier to measure if you start the change on 1st January. Here is a list of a few New year resolution ideas, obviously this list is not and can not be comprehensive.

1. TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH FAMILY: Is something that all of us should do and time does not mean just being there in your living room while being online or watching television. We must keep a detailed tab of whats happening within our family and we should try and indulge in a lot of activities(indoor and outdoors) with ones immediate family . Its important to keep talking to keep the bond alive. For kids and elders there is no joy quite like you chatting up with them about anything and everything. Their happiness can give us happiness unparalleled.
2. TO MANAGE FINANCES BETTER: Every year we make a resolution to save more, spend less and blah blah, I think this year it would make a lot of sense to exercise all those principles as this is an year of stress and in the current time of uncertainty saving is the most sensible thing to do. Add to it the returns that you could make on savings in a high interest rate scenario.
3. TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW: is a great thing to do, adds a different new dimension to one's personality. Its a great time to learn a new language, to learn cooking, to change ones career, to pick up a sport or to learn dancing. Its something thats never a top priority but to live fully we must try and expose all shades of our personality so that we actually live to the fullest. This is an absolute must, and I shall cook.
4. TO GAIN FITNESS: Fitness is something that one needs a drive towards and hopefully all of us can be driven as health is something that no one can share with us. I too resolve to lose atleast 10 kgs and soon. A fit person always looks and feels a lot better than normal. Good Luck.
5. GETTING ORGANIZED: All of us should, helps in our efficiency and saves us a lot of irritation and frustration especially when we are looking for something.
6. TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THE FRIENDS: in our hectic schedules we often lose track of a lot of our friends over a period of time and that is usually ones biggest treasure that we let go off. Its a great time to call up all our good friends, wish them for new years and then start off from where we left.

Here is wishing everyone a great year ahead. may we all grow wiser in 2012.

My Wishes for 2012

My 2012 wishlist, I hope all of it or at least maximum out of this come true.

GOVERNANCE

• India gets a strong LokPal bill: possible but highly improbable with the government that we have at the centre. The govt clearly sees team Anna as a threat and would manage to weaken them in some manner. For our good I wish we get a strong LokPal and steps in terms of eradication of corruption become real.
• Reforms start off once again: With RTI scaring the shit out all the babus and politicians, we all beg for the reform process to continue as its come to a standstill for the last few months.
• Arrogance is killed. Kapil Sibal, PC, Diggy should be publicly punished for the disservice that they have done to this country.
• We have a strong PM like Vajpayee ji and Indira Gandhi and I hope Indians don’t vote as dumbly as they have voted in the past.
• I hope Rahul Gandhi or Sonia Gandhi have the guts to give an interview to Arnab Goswami or Karan Thapar. I have never seen them in a press conference or in an interview ever.
• I hope UP develops like the way Bihar is, that could act as the engine for India’s growth story.

SPORTS

• I hope to hear the national anthem a number of times in London 2012.
• I hope other sports get more commercial support than cricket especially hockey.
• I sincerely hope both Sachin and Dhyaan Chand don’t get a Bharat Ratna as they already are Bharat Ratnas and don’t need the civilian honour reserved mostly for the corrupt politicians.
• I hope we get more new talent in Cricket to take the mantles of test match cricket from Sachin, VVS and the Wall. Also I hope India breaches the arrogant Aussie walls down under.
• I hope FC Barcelona and FC Bayern Munich excel in club soccer and Jose Mourinho is sacked from Real Madrid.
• I hope shooting becomes a national sport as this sport can get us maximum global glory.

ECONOMY

• Well I hope Europe disintegrates and Euro as we know it ceases to exist as thats only going to cause a knee jerk problem over a long run the scenario would be a lot better. Similarly I hope US defaults on its commitments and gets a junk rating, atleast hitting rock bottom would give us some direction to move on.
• No more political conflicts for the sake of the Global economy.
• The dumb economists in the US and Europe take lessons from us or the samba boys or from the Chinese on how to manage money.
• No More job cuts and no more inordinate expenses for any company.
• Black Money ceases to exist (highly wishful), the reason for Global inflation and crimes.
• Global tax laws become very easy to understand so that there is no illegal money anywhere.
• We discover and extensively start using alternate sources of energy so oil does not stay such a big deal.

ENTERTAINMENT

• I hope we see a lot of hits and new records are broken and some superb films come out.
• I hope we see the sequel of Andaaz Apna Apna this with AK and SK in it.
• I hope we see Rajni sir in more films this year.
• I hope we don’t win any Oscars as we don’t need gora recognition for our industry.
• I hope AR Rahman cancels his show in NY so they also know how it feels. (remember Metalica)
• SRK combines with Rahul Gandhi and joins politics and dances on poll podiums.
• I hope Chris Nolan outclasses himself in The Dark Knight rises.

A Along with the above I wish there are no natural disasters and man made disasters causing loss of lives anywhere in the world and there are no more boys that convert into terrorists.

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The MAD MAID mania

The maid servant or aayaa or baai or Mausi as she is known in Mumbai has emerged as the single most benefited career choice after the advent of capitalization in India 20 years back, all others are effectively net losers. Here's why:

• Maid servant is probably the only indispensable employee group that exists today, you could probably do without your spouse but not your maid. If she does not come in the morning you are screwed, if she takes an off without informing you, you cant do a thing and her performance can usually not be measured in terms of any quantitative terms.
• The performance and regularity of a maid's attendance is directly proportional to the love that flows in homes from wife to husband, from mother to a kid etc etc.
• When the maid is not available be ready to spend almost 5 times of her monthly salary in eating outside, calling food home is also not a great option as who would do the utensils.
• It has been seen that the best performing professionals at work have the best maids at home and have stable maidservants for a long time. Take the maid away from a successful individual and you would find a hollow man/woman who is struggling to make ends meet.
• Successful households today dare not discriminate in the food they have and that they offer to the maids and they dare not travel by air and make their maid travel by train if they are taking her along somewhere.
• Maid's jobs have a lot of extra benefits like low lifestyle expense, clothes requirement taken care of by employer and great food available on the job(mostly).
• Men love their maids as the maids are able to do all that they could never do to their wives. Irritate, intimidate them and force them to apologize sometime in words and sometime in actions.
• Maids have a recession proof career in fact they tend to become more and more important in the times of economic disturbances.

Love them or hate them, somehow you cant do without them.

My midnight snack ideas

Midnight snacks are an essential part of all our lives especially when we have early dinners and there is so much to do and to watch on TV late at night. I have my priorities right on what i would like to eat late at night. The two biggest points of consideration for nighttime snacks are taste and ease of preparation. So here is a list of snacks in no particular order.

• Cheese slice patty: well this is very easy to make, just put a slice of cheese between two slices of bread and then toast it in a sandwich toaster. This takes 5 min in preparation time and tastes particularly good when combined with Maggi Hot and Sweet tomato chilli sauce its different. For health freaks you could use Multigrain bread instead.
• Marie biscuits with cheese spread: easy to prepare and ideal when you only like to munch a bit. Cheese spread can be alternated with green chutney or coconut chutney as well.
• Freshly prepared Maggi: Classic form or a multigrain form with extra onions and capsicum for that unbelievable taste. A variation of maggi would be to add some potato, peanuts or coriander. Can be easily prepared in the classic form in the Microwave too. alternatively Cup Noodles is a good option too.
• Alloo bhujia chat: Combine one portion of Alloo Bhujia or Bikaneri bhujia with 2 portion of well cut mixture of tomatoes, onions, green chillies and cucumbers. Top it with Chat masala for an awesome and spicy treat. For those healthy boys and girls you could have smaller portions of bhujia and larger portion of veggies.
• Midnight pizza: A slice of cheese on top of a slice of bread toppped with thinly sliced tomatoes heated in the convection mode in your microwave can make quite a spectacular pizza. Can be made with Multigrain bread as well but yeah one cant guarantee the taste in any other way.
• Leftovers Kathi rolls: whatever preparation is left over can be rolled up in a leftover roti and topped up with tomato sauce and onions to make variations in tastes.

This list is never too exhaustive but any snack i mean any snack must be combined with CHAI or TEA to get complete satisfaction of a proper midnight grub.

Hope this helps someone atleast

I Love Madraasis

The biggest advantage of being from an Army background is that you got to live in a lot of places across the country and you ended up adapting to so many different places. Its shocking and disturbing to read something what Shahana managed to write and grab attention with (http://raagshahana.blogspot.com/2011/09/open-letter-to-delhi-boy.html?commentPage=12). Its probably not right to judge as to what conditions she wrote this in but there are a few things that are very very clear here is that she is certainly disturnbed by an event outside of all that she has mentioned in her blog, probably she is embarrased by it so she put in stronger words.

Well i feel that most of us who have grown in the post liberalization era and have seen 20 whole years of rapid development and globalization we dont really care of ethenicity anymore. Sometimes you feel that you have more similarities within your friends group than even your siblings as no one really cares. This changes in case you do have a grudge against someone so you shall like to knock them down completely , knock down their values, knock down their upbringing etc etc. What was worse is the number of people who really agreed with her. This is a dangerous trend for our country as new lines are being drawn. I have the following arguement.

• My take is that probably she was dumped by some Punjabi guy who would have fallen for a fairer and better looking girl and Shahana is just proving that this mystery guy was actually right.
• whts often said about Delhi and the flash and the flamboyance is quite true and there is nothing wrong with it, every body flaunts something that they like to flaunt, some people flaunt their jewelery and the other flaunt their cars while some other flaunt their company's balance sheets. Its perfectly fine as long as it does not harm anyone.
• Another thing about Delhi being unsafe is true and that probably holds true for north india. There are two reasons for it, one is tht Delhi is surrounded by some of the most underdeveloped and undereducated regions in western UP and Haryana so the sort of people who have migrated in the recent years are usually not the most polished and it reflects in their values. Secondly north India has seen all the invasions for the last 1000 years and people have become a little over aggressive because of this. But under the tough skins of Jats and sardars you shall find a heart of gold and once they are friends they are friends with you for life. You gotta drink with these guys to know them well.Though I wish Delhi was slightly safer :)
• Importantly Delhi is the only city which has no ethinicity so people from all over can call it home without being called outsiders which is fast becoming the case with so many other wonderful cities. I am very proud of this but it does not mean that i am any less proud of Mumbai, Blore or Calcutta.
• Importantly every city is different and their sensibilities are different. I remember that I was amazed as to how Tamil movies with Rajni sir were such big hits with all the unreal drama around it and now I enjoy all of it. I feel that "No City is perfect, but we all got to make it as close to perfect as possible" Anonymous
• Shahana seems to be obsessed with Fair skin herself and its sad that despite this hypocrisy she support . The only actresses she mentioned are the fair ones, it would have been heartening to see in case she mentions Rekha or Sushmita sen or someone.
• The one fact that people need to know is that north india and south india are not seperate countries but they do have a lot of differences as culturally they are really really different and it takes a while to adapt, this holds true for east and west india as well. What would irritate you initially in a new city might become the reason you like a city later and so many people can testify this.
• Mind you South Indians look as good, some of the most attractive looking girls in college were actually from bangalore or chennai and they were all extremely popular or even better than their Delhi counter parts and its not right to say that all Delhites are dumb, The rapid shift of industry in Delhi NCR proves that Delhi and its people must be doing something right and are not as dumb as you would like to believe.
• Every city has short comings even the most cosmopolitan ones have it, NYC in parts is quite unsafe, London has racist rants all around, europe can be cold with outsiders but then you gotta see the good and ignore the bad in case you really wanna go forward else keep getting dumped. b

One tip, looking good is not bad, but talking crap is really bad and Shahana you have proved that you really not pretty and its not your skin color.

The Price of Capitalism

Capitalism, ah the widely debated topic the way of life the west has successfully adapted for the last 100 years is getting even more widely debated now especially in the times of economic slowdown. Capitalism in layman terms creates a free market for every one to compete and to prosper with minimal restrictions by the government. Whoever has capability prospers in such a system and amasses enormous wealth, consumers benefit from competition so that they get the best products at minimal pricing. If your product is exclusive you can demand a premium, if its not you have to be priced with the market. This holds true for the job market as well. Today's youth are motivated by money which is natural as more and more money is flowing in the hands of the youngsters and peer pressure and greater pleasures in life motivate youngsters towards working really really hard to make a big buck.

The risk of capitalism is not with the system but with the fact that when the times are good the market tends to go overboard and when the times are slow the market becomes over protective and business starts slowing down very soon and people start losing their jobs or taking salary cuts, people stop paying their mortgages and life changes in no time.

Now the good or bad thing is that the economic cycles never stay one way for long so whatever you lose during the down turn can be recovered and more during the reverse cycle.

Incidently this phenomenon is new to India and Indians and we have got properly "Capitalized" as an economy and we have seen some three downturns in the last 12 years which have left people flabbergasted. What is still different from the west is that Indians are probably still not as leveraged and most of us are still very conservative in their habbits but this is changing very fast.

People are losing jobs today for no fault of theirs, their salaries are being cut left right and center and are facing the darkness as the downturn is all over and its difficult to find another job especially with the same or equivalent salaries that one is working at. Today we face a scenario like this and its even more tough because your expenditures have gone up too and to take care of your basic necessities gets challenging.

The argument in favour of a pure capitalistic economy is that in the long run it all evens out in the favour of the people and this can be seen with the success of the western economies or even economies like Japan which have been in a recession for the last 30 years still have a better qualioty of life for their people than a lot of protectionist economies.

The world is opening up but then we have to wake up to the realities of life which come along with our new way of life. There are a few things that one can do to be ready with any eventualities that can come in

• Save for atleast basic expenditures upto an year and keep it liquid.
• Dont put in all your investments in risk assets as in the times of slowdown even the valuation of equity and real estate assets would be lower.
• Dont really go in for job options with high fixed salaries but look in for options with high probablity of making a higher variable as variable salaries are easy to save as compared to the component which comes in your salary every month.
• Dont go in for excessively expensive houses however convinced you might be for the property.
• Staying in a single jobs for atleast 3 years plus is very important as layoffs are usually for the more recent joinees.
• REMEMBER: High fixed salaries are not good, if you have a good deal you gotta be worried about sustainability .

As they say tough times dont last tough people do, i am sure India and Indians would come out of any global economic crisis stronger and bigger and we shall keep growing. we are more global than ever and we have to grow along with the whole world and we shall do.

Jai Hind

The most memorable holiday ever : more ways than one

Well the best holiday i have had in a long time was our most memorable trip that we had last weekend in Ramgarh Bunglows. Ramgarh Bunglows by Neemrana are definitely one of the finest hotels i have ever seen and its only because of the service levels that they expose you to.

We decided to go on a road trip as in the hills there is nothing quite like driving down on my Innova carrying loads of stuff. Especially in monsoons where everything is so beautiful and picturesque. We started our awesome journey very early on a friday morning and reached the place by the afternoon via Nainital. Ramgarh was better than expected and we lazed around totally and took a lot of pictures were spell bound.

The best thing about the place was the silence which was around, this silence was so pure that you could sometimes hear even river flowing at a distance and our private terrace gave us some great views to the hills. I also made up my mind to buy a place there and make my own small weekend cottage and it shall happen soon.

The second day we went to Mukhteshwar for some great views and our Lunch and while we were reversing our car to go back we realized that my new tyre had burst coz of a huge metal structure coming out of the ground, it burst immediately and with the help of a few drivers around i changed my tyre and put on the spare tyre in the car which seemed to have less air as well. The other boys were convinced that even with less air we would be able to drive upto the nearest car repair shop which was 8 km away, as luck would have it this tyre was punctured as well and i was scared as hell as to what i could do.

This is when i realized how nice the people around were, every single person around was ready for help and was ready to give me a lift with my tyre until the tyre repair shop. My bigger worry was the three women I had to take care of but they were all as chilled out as usual. I came back fit and fine with the tyre and the car was up and running, the main tyre of the car was now gone and i had no spare tyre but it seemed enough to take us back to Delhi easily. We had a great lunch in a pahari dhaba and bought some awesome chocolates. The evening was great as the staff there served us some nice tea and pakoras to rejuvenate us from all the stress of the day. The last day of the week we ventured down to the famous river with another staff member taking us down to the river and we had a nice sumptous breakfast before deciding to take a quick drive through Bhimtal enroute to Delhi. Bhimtal was beautiful as expected and we did some nice boating in the sun and started back to Delhi and then what happened with us was unprecedented.

After Rampur NH-24 was blocked by these stupid Kanwarias who have become more than just a menace and we were diverted via villages back to the highway, the route that was meant to take 8 hours took 13. Travelling through these small lanes i was scared and i hoped that my car does not break down for some reason and also remembered the fact that i was one tyre short. I kept praying that nothing more goes wrong and it did'nt.

Some times when things are going wrong its easy to blame everything on luck and that one has had a really really bad day but then we just gotta feel that it could have been worse. When I came back home on Sunday night all I remembered is the grief of the trip but thinking through the sunday night i felt that i had already forgotten about both these incidents and all I remembered was the awesome awesome trip that we have had.

Three things that i shall always remember about this trip are

• People in smaller places are really nice and helpful something that we city dwellers are not used to. They would go out of the way to help you with whatever they can and they do it all with a smile.
• You gotta believe in god no matter what.

I had the time of my life and now after 3 days of coming back I dont even remember the faux pas that happened more than once. Strongly recommend Ramgarh to anyone who is keen on visiting.

The man they call "THE WALL"

He is the one saving you from the most emabarrasing situations especially while travelling abroad, for 15 years with the meteoric rise of Indian cricket has seen one man at the backbone of it all and thats been Rahul Dravid. From the famous Lords test when he came into forte with a gritty 90 odd he was overshadowed by the magic of Dada who rose like a flamboyant left hander India always wanted. Fortunately or unfortunately RG Dravid has played second fiddle to the more extravagant batsman that India has had in the past. The great thing about Dravid is his ability to score against quality opposittion in winning causes. Initially Dravid was under the shadow of dada as dada was this explosive batsman that India always needed and we could really not notice this Bangalore boy making giant strides, later he was overshadowed by VVS Laxman for a bit especially around the 2001 Australian series at home and 2003 series abroad. But one man who has always managed to overshadow this genius is the little master SRT himself.

The arguement could be of only academic interest as to who is a greater test batsman in the last 15 golden years of test cricket but one thing is for sure, if you look at only quality opposittion like Australians, South Africans, Pakistanis, English and Kiwis and especially in an away seies and the record of "The wall" in such matches then one would really understand the pure genius of this man. From the famous 148 that he hit in 96 series in South Africa he has always been a giant killer. I remember how he neutralized the sheer pace of Shoaib Akhtar in the away series in Pakistan 2004, which is vividly remembered for Sehwag's famous 300.
Most importantly in case one has a look at top partnerships in both tests and one day's you shall see RG Dravid as the junior partner as he usually does not score at the pace at which certain other boys score. The biggest moment for test cricket in India when India beat Australia at Adeliade in 2004 was fully engineered by Rahul Dravid not by a massive 100 but by a gritty performance taking team through victory. Dravid's got certain unique feats which often got unnoticed.

• He has faced the maximum no of deliveries in test cricket, the next best is Allan Border


• He played 93 consecutive test matches that speaks volumes for his fitness


• He has the record for scoring most 190 plus scores amongst Indian Batsmen.


• Besdies being one of the best test batsman he is also the 3rd highest scorer for India in ODI's where he has been often considered a failiure.


• The only batsman to be involved in two 300+ stands in ODI's once with Dada in 1999 WC against Srilanka and once with Sachin in Hyderabad against Kiwis.

Besides this its the very spirit with which he plays the game, never showed any arrogance in his life, was happy to appreciate everyone who ever wanted to overshadow him in any arena. If its not for Sachin, Dravid would have been India's best batsman ever which some believe he still is. When you needed a keeper, he is around, when you needed a skipper to put all blame on he was around, when you wanted to blame someone for Bangalore Royal Challenger's failiures in IPL he was around, but significantly he was around when INDIA LEARNT TO WIN
HAIL THE WALL- HAIL RAHUL DRAVID

Reality of Private Bankers and Investment Bankers

Four facts about (most)private bankers and investment bankers. Must remember

• Bankers never make money for a client in the long run, no matter how hard they try, no matter what they do but they just don't and frankly they cant, with all their systems
• Investment bankers have not closed even 5% of the deals that they claimed to have closed, if they did they would never be claiming them anyways.
• Every banker feels that every other banker in a different organization is making millions every year, the fact is that no one does. They only overspend on cars, flashy accessories etc, actually are a poorer lot
• If you really get convinced with a banker, that means you are really gonna get screwed and screwed hard and that you are convinced about being screwed.

Golden quote from an "sound"investor "The only person to make money from a portfolio consistently@ 8% every year was my banker"

My CP My New Delhi

Connought place as i know of the place has been my favorite market since the time i can remember. CP is some place that Delhiites have been very proud of for the last 5 generations. The famous white pillars, Janpath and Palika are places that are embedded in the minds of Delhiites. CP came into existence in 1933. Prior to this construction in CP, there was a Jungle though its unbelievable today. The first few merchants to come to CP were people like Snowwhite, Kaventers and Wengers. These stores still exist and have their very loyal customers as what matters to them customers is nostalgia associated with these places. Even today stores like Wengers who have not changed a thing in their menu or in their processes for last so many years, their cumbersome processes might irritate us but they are still overfull and is mostly regarded as the best bakery in the city of Delhi which has seen so many joints opening up that its impossible to achieve top spot for such a long time.

In the older days Delhi grew inside the Ring Road and CP was considered the center of the city and was full of people. The growth of the city towards the south and east gave rise to many more shopping centers like South Ex, Noida, GK, Gurgaon Malls etc but CP still tops in more ways than one especially when it comes to the charm and the X factor.

As a kid i was fortunate enough to visit CP very often as my dad like me was very fond of the place and we often ate at Nirulas, embassy, gaylord, hotel Janpath amongst others. The lemon tarts from Wengers are most special to me as its been my favorite for a long time. We bought clothes from Janpath and Palika, some toys from Maya Sports, electronic and imported stuff from Palikas and then the amazing spicy bean burgers from Wimpy's. Most of us would associate with childhood like this. CP was the place where most of us discovered what bhel puri was and what burgers and Pizzas were thanks to Nirulas. Nirulas helped us understand that sundae is not a day of the week.

CP is not as great now as there has been so much construction over the years for metro, for various other development along with the increase in traffic that people started disliking CP especially the new timers, however its restored its past glory last year and i have to give it to the govt for making it a metro hub to make the place more accessible . For anyone who feels that Delhi does not have cult restaurants one visit to UCH or a Qba would change all perceptions for such people. CP is Delhi's answer to South Mumbai.

You have to visit CP, whether its the MaxMuller bhavan canteen to Street market in Janpath, to the famous alloo chaats in every nook and corner to the unique walks that one can experience only here, to the central park chuskis to the Palika market which is getting all redone, to the Andhra Bhavan Canteen to Bengali market and Gole market sweet shops to Pot Pouri of Nirulas, to the Blues and @live, to Delhi Durbar and Kaka hotel, to Yamu Panchayat to a drive closeby to Khan Market and Pandaara road and to the lazy dining at United Coffee house. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that can quite match the charm of Luteyens Delhi.

Well CP is one place we can thank the british for. CP you rock and i am fortunate to work in CP. Thank you Delhi

My "near perfect holiday"

Well just like everyone else i love to holiday too as it gives me an opportunity to relax and to see a new place but over the years the concept of holidays have changed and i have my personal likes and dislikes in terms of what i would like to do, but what i would actually like to do would depend a lot on the company that one is holidaying with.

When we were kids I was one of the lucky few who managed to holiday a lot especially because every one in the family liked to see new places and we saw a large part of India. Earlier all the holiday planning was done by my dad and he used to take data out of all these travel books in various libraries and he always increased his knowledge to a level that he almost had a knowledge of a local when he visited far flung places even like north east and extreme south. He had data of stuff like the famous shopping areas, stuff to buy and a few local slangs. Those times were different as we usually holidayed in our summer holidays and we had a lot of time at hand as even my dad was a government servant and we always had time. At that time we were all less fussy, swimming pool was not a decisive factor in choosing a room for vacationing.

Over a period of time things have changed and now we plan but our planning is concentrated more around the property that we are going to stay in and if the property has a spa or no and if the pool in the property is good enough, are there enough places around to have a good time in the evening too.

Its important that we have the relaxation angle attached to the holidays which have strangely started missing and our endeavor is to cover as many places as possible, shop as much as possible and have a good time and then post pictures on facebook so that people know what good time we had. There is nothing wrong with this except for the fact that we usually end up getting tired more than we get relaxed. This sort of holidaying is a product of capitalism and the lack of the number of leaves that people are compelled to travel in tight schedules and sometimes peer pressures force you to holiday at certain places. Anyways this is anyone s choice but personally wether we holiday in India or abroad we should definitely have a lot more time with us.

My ideal holiday is either on a beach or a mountain destination which is totally secluded where i can get good food and i have a lot of time to really enjoy natural beauty and to enjoy the company that i enjoy in this vacation. This is rarely possible but i would try and ensure that we do this more often as my life means a lot more than completing routine schedules where we are bound by timelines.

Well i have a few holidays coming up and are either ones of the varities mentioned ab0ve but one thing is for sure that holidays should definitely fulfill the following purposes

• connect with nature and or the place that you are visiting.
• connect with the people you are holidaying(friends or family)
• connect to yourself(the most important)

Well might sound boring but i certainly plan to update you on both my holidays soon.

i am not strong, I am not resilient

The Prime Minister ghas condemned the attacks on Mumbai so .... so what even the Pakistani government has condemned the attacks on the city but what does it mean, or does it mean anything at all. This time for a change atleast the reactions are swift and are more comprehensive as compared to 26/11 and 11/7. But id does not change anything.



If there is any one who needs to be resilient and strong it is the PM and the government including the home minister, who at this point in time is busy in making sure he potrays that this event is really not a big deal especially in comparison to some of the earlier events. Some of the facts that he mentioned are that this was a low intensity blast, there was no intelligence failure, there has been no major terrorist attack in the last 31 months. Mr. PC you have to remember that there has been no terrorist attack on the US since 09/11 and thats not because of its geography, but its reaction to those attacks. The most important part of a country is its people and in case you cant protect those people with a certain level of certainity then there is no point in becoming a major economy or a permanant member of our security council.



We were all strong and resillient when Sarojni Nagar blew off and the childhood favorite market was full of blood, the place is not the same even now, we were resilient when blasts in Central Park happened in CP in New Delhi, exactly in front of the building where I work, we were resilient after the massive tragedy of the train bombings in Mumbai, making franctic phone calls to all my friends and relatives in Mumbai to see if they were all safe, on top of all of it i was resilient to see a blast at Pune destroying a part of my young hage hangout joint, the German Bakery, it could have been me i sometimes think. I was resilient even when India was raped by 10 men with guns in Mumbai itself aka 26/11. Time and again they do it to India as they realized that we dont have the will to tackle them.



YES I BELIEVE WE HAVE LOST THE WILL TO NAB THEM, these guys know that if Afzal Guru can live and his trial can go on for so long and Ajmal KAsab be kept like a VIP only helps them believe in the fact that we are soft. The fact that most of these belong to a particular religion is usually misused to settle scores with each other. Inspector MC Sharma lost his life in knocking down the terrorists in Jamia Nagar and the entire incident was potrayed as an attack on the minority community.



Stop all this bull shit, the easy funda is execute all of them publically so that people really get scared, clean up all the suspect areas in the city and do it without the fear of any religious implications, just clean every part of the city and man it carefully, Delhi Mumbai, Calcutta even the smaller ones. This is very important. Also its very important to understand that these terror attacks must not be associated with any particular religion as some people might like to do. I sincerely believe that the fact that these terrorists are usually from one religion is only because a large part of that community is backward in terms of education and socioeconomic condition and its youth can be easily swindled. Also I feel that since its a minority community youth who has been misled they like to stay united with each other and commit such henious crimes, so one should clearly refrain from using religion as a factor here.



As Rahul Baba says, we might have improved 99% but 1% of India's population is 1 cr and is a really large number to risk. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE START GOVERNING THIS COUNTRY FOR A CHANGE YOU

Politics of India and of Hindustan

India was never a country which was really divided on the basis of language in the past, the decision to divide states on the basis of language was the worst possible way of starting functioning of a country which is especially so diversified in terms of culture. We started off by Sardar Patel creating states on the basis of language like Tamil Nadu, Gujrat, Maharashtra and Orissa. This ndivision did not make any sense. The state of bengal which had the current states of Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand were unnecessarily divided to create more disparities. between ppl who were earlier a part of one state.

Now whenever there is a part of one existing state which has a governance snag or has been ignored by the centre it asks for an other state. First we made Assam and then we made 7 states out of it to give local people a sense of empowerment. Well this is not the solution as the development in India happens on the basis of only two factors.

1. If you are from the constituency or the region of powerful and honest leaders.

2. You have high levels of industrialization .

#1 happens very sparsely so people very convininently ask for new states because they feel that the current setup is ignoring them. Well there is no end to it. The current debate between Andhra and Telengana is another feather in the shameful hat that we don in this regard. The only place where development is visible in Andhra has been Hyderabad which is a part of Telengana region so the people there feel left out, I mean if there is so much problem why dont we give them Telengana without Hyderabad or give them Andhra without Hyderabad. The fact is everyone is playing on development but is only looking at revenues coming in from the industrial hub of Hyderabad.

Now nthe talk is to make two states within UP and make a Vidharba and Gorkhaland. It takes money to create another state, that money could be better spent on developing the undeveloped regions of the state.

When would we ever learn and not fall into Politician's hands.

well done Mr. Sibal

If there was one minister that most of us agreed is doing justice to his ministerial berth along with Jairam Ramesh, it had to be Mr. Kapil Sibal and by trying to knock down the CAG report on the loss on 2 G spectrum allocation he has lost a lot of well wishers including me. The fact is that 2010 definitely was the darkest year for the Indian government and that the year saw numerous scams of different magnitude coming out but the 2 G scam was simply the biggest because of the huige difference an auction could have made to the exchequer. India is reeling under a huge fiscal deficit and this auction could have taken care of a major portion of that deficit.

Lets just analyze the main points of what Mr. Sibal said:

• He mentioned that there is no loss of 1.7 lakh cr as is being projected in the media, i dunno why any one did not question him when he made this comment as the CAG report clearly states that there was no loss due to the auction but the figure has been arrived keeping in mind the opportunity cost. This cost could have well gone up. Opportunity cost is a cost, though not in accounting.
• Secondly he said that this pricing mechanism of 2001 was correct in allocation of the spectrum, the sheer dynamics of the telecom industry changed between 2001 and 2008 and the number of subscribers increased almost 50 times in that time period, so there is a difference in scale that the telecos were operating. The government needs to look after the industry but not at the cost of people.
• Thirdly he said that keeping the cost low we could get lower tarrifs for the telecos, which is also untrue as the lower tarrif is the function of market and scale and that this had to happen looking at the opportunity that existed in the Indian market. Reliance and now tata Docomo got into this game.

The goverment has put their foot in its own mouth and yet again our competent journalism would never get after them. thank you Mr. Sibal, hum hai na tax dene ke liye.