Union Budget 2015 - What's there for me ?

This Budget simply defends the statement "Rich getting richer, Poor getting poorer" J.

Corporate tax is reduced to 25% Whereas service tax is increased to 14%. Individual tax slab is not increased. Middle class people, like me will suffer huge burden on their shoulders..!!

However, the finance minister Arun Jaitley has not forgotten to throw out a few pieces to the salaried middle class tooL . Below is the summary of tax benefits we get. 

• Deduction u/s 80C - Rs.150,000;
• Deduction u/s 80CCD - Rs.50,000;
• Deduction on account of interest on house property loan (Self-occupied property) - Rs.200,000;
• Deduction u/s 80D on health insurance premium - Rs.25,000;
• Exemption of transport allowance - Rs 19,200;

          Total = Rs.4,44,200

Yes, I agree. I too cry like the one in the ignorant crowd - where everyone is looking what is there for them in the budget, but don't want the government to give the slightest benefit to Industrialists who are going to create jobs for Indians thru' which a lot of families also benefit. 

But what to do, we have such a positive belif on our politicians and tt’s human nature to think only about the immediate benefit, right J

Happy New Year 2015

Wish you all a very happy new year. May all our dreams come true this year.

What happened to AirAsia Flight QZ 8501

Just saw the news of AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 flying from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 passengers gone missing :(.  Isn’t the 3rd such incident this year in the South East Asia, and all of them focused on Malaysia. Air Asia is also a Malaysian Registered Airliner.

I am not a regular flyer. But still since I have flown in this route in a day time once, It’s really surprising for me to know that an airbus can disappear on such busy and short route. The waters between Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia are filled with passenger and cargo ships, sky is busy with flights and these countries are so close to one another (with several land masses in between them). A crash in such area would definitely be seen by someone. It is more than 24 hours and still there is no news of what happened. I hate to believe in conspiracy theories but this is really strange.

It is very sad and shame on us that we are unable to trace missing planes in spite of advance technology we have today. We have reached planets like Moon & Mars but failed to trace planes which are flying just 30-40K feet high.

We fly thinking it is one of the safest means of transportation with all modern technologies and monitoring but this has been 5th fetal crash this year :(

Why to pay extra for using Social Networks ?

That's great. Now pay extra for using social service. Read more: Airtel wants you to pay extra for using Skype, Viber, more - Hindustan Times

When the Telecom Regulation Authority of India (TRAI) had already quashed a proposal from Indian telecom companies to charge over-the-top players like Whatsapp and Viber extra "connectivity charges. Does this makes sense now?

How will you react if you are asked to pay for electricity at different rates for different appliances you use? This is exactly what Airtel intends to do!. And it’s not just the Airtel,, soon all the other operators will also follow the same or even poorer strategy.

Let’s see what TRAI does!

Successfull Mangalyaan - A Day To Remember !

I do not know how many of us have really cared to notice the historic feat we had today. India’s MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission) has successfully entered into the Mars Orbit, making India as the first country in the world to achieve on its very first attempt.

The Mangalyaan (Informal name of India’s MOM) has reached Mars after a 300-day marathon covering over 670 million Kilometres. The spacecraft was launched on 5 November 2013 and it is successfully inserted into the orbit of Mars today - 24 September 2014.

Many countries have tried their luck with Mars, many time, but out of the 51 attempts only 21 were successful and India is the first country to achieve this feat on the debut. Earlier in 2003, European Space Agency (ESA) has got its orbiter right at the first attempt, but still India will gain the glory of first position, since the ESA is a conglomeration of many countries. India now joins the Martian club that consist of the United States, Russia and the European Space Agency.

What an achievement by ISRO scientists ! The whole project’s budget is just $74 Million, less than the $100 million budget of the movie “Gravity” !!! . This is nine times cheaper than NASA's $671 million Maven.  ISRO has yet again proved the through brilliance and hard work of Indians.

Really feel proud to be an Indian!. Congratulations to ISRO for this magnanimous achievement. Unfortunately, the government could spend only $74 Million for the Mangalyaan Mission (as they had to allocate $29 Billion to 2G Spectrum Mission and another 100+ billion$ on other scams), else we could have reached even the Proxima Centauri :)

Gardening Without a Garden

I have been missing in action for quite some time! Was too much busy at office, and at home too :). After so many days, right now am sitting at my apartment balcony garden and enjoying a hot tea. Why don’t I write about my “Balcony Garden” itself today ?

If you have been using your balcony/terrace just as a place to dry clothes or only to relax on warm evenings, I may look an odd animal. Both me and my wife (so our kid too) have a quite common interest in gardening (that's the only thing though :P ). Living in an apartment doesn't limit our gardening interest to fade out. We have set-up a small garden at our balconies. These greens not only make my balconies beautiful, but they also feed our body and nourish our soul !.

I developed a liking for gardening ever since I was a child. We used to have a small garden in our house with rows of plants, vegetables, flowers and a few trees. Not just ours, almost all the houses in my village had their backyards as a garden. As kids, we used to spend most of our off-school hours at the gardens , whether I do little gardening or just play with friends, we stayed mostly at the garden areas.

But now I live in Bangalore. With peaking real estate rates, I can’t even think of buying a small patch of ground . So we decided to covert our balconies into little gardens., with a few vegetables, a good collection of herbs and leaves. Not every day , not every meal,.. but still they feed us the most healthy food on the earth.

I love planting and watching the new plants pushing up through the soil every day. It gives so much peace and insight into our lives: a fragile beginning, that with sincere love and patience blossoms into something strong and beautiful that eventually returns to the earth leaving behind seeds and memories that pave the way for even more splendors to follow….What do you say?

Creative Ways to get Work done from Your Kids

If you have landed in this page by the super-serious topic of the post, am very sorry I don’t have anything useful to offer here.

When you go through consecutive management training, and in-turn loose all your common senses :P , you’ll intend to be a manager every second, and can’t digest the fact that one of your team member is simply running around happily, without any task and responsibility. Yes, am talking about your preschool son & daughter :-O. See, here are some of the funny (yet very productive!) ways, I get my work done through my 3 year old daughter.

When you need to shred some papers:  Just keep the papers nearby and tell her that they are very important papers. Believe me, they will be in million pieces before even you finish.

When you’re searching for a sketch pen/ marker: Wear a white shirt to her and wait for a few minutes. She’ll soon make the plain white shirt to a colorful dress. Yes, the sketch pens are found !!! . It gets great when I do the same trick for finding a permanent marker  X(

When you want to clean-up your wallet, just hand it over to her. It will be super clean in a minute , even the smallest piece of paper scrap will be out and empty. If you’re a mom, this would be very helpful, as your handbag is expected to have much more dump than men’s wallet :))

When you go to a grocery shop, but have forgotten to bring the shopping list:  Just ask her, “What do you want to eat for the dinner ?” . Sure, she will give a list of all the items that you don’t have in the house.

When you want to hang-up a boring phone call which is going for so long:  just go to the room where the kid is. Rest will be taken care of >:)

And these are just a few I could think at this moment.. am sure everyone of you will have a lot more experiences like these. Would you like to share ?

Ice Bucket Challenge in India - is nothing but Useless

Ice Bucket Challenge has been going viral across all social media networks. Our newspapers publishing the news of Indian celebrities taking up the challenge every minute, as if they don’t have any other headline in the country.

Ok, before I scream further let me summarize what this “Ice Bucket Challenge” is. (…for the benefit of illiterates , like me >:D<  . I had no idea about it till today morning!. )

It's a simple task of pouring a bucket of ice water on self or donate $100 to ALS Association. And while you are doing it, you need to create a video, post it on social network and tag a few friends (six to be accurate) challenging them to complete the same task. Those who fail to respond within 24 hours, have to donate $100 to the ALS association and declare it on the network.

ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Scelorsis - a neuro degenerative disorder - also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. This is a deadly disease that is fast claiming the lives of people with no known to cure.

I agree that the ice bucket challenge is a "cool" thing and an innovative way to promote a good cause. Celebrities in the US and other western counties do because about 30,000 Americans are living with this killer disease. They do it to create awareness about the disease and in turn to build a corpus for the charity. But, does it have any relevance in Indian context?

Aren’t our Indian celebrities just copy the west without any thinking? Do you think that they really care about ALS? Instead they do it just for fun and for some cheap publicity :-( .When Modi asked help to setup toilets in every home in rural India., did any of them came front?

Instead of campaigning for a unreported (not even a  single case in India so far) disease, why can’t we make meaningful contribution to other killing diseases which are being reported in millions in India every year. More than 30% of the total tuberculosis patients of the world, are living in India L. Still hearing a lot of bitter incidents on Dengue, Cancer and Infant mortality !

If all these celebrities create awareness and donate money as much to the research into TB, Dengue, and Cancer which are immediate problems., just think of the difference we could make!!!. Why only celebrities, we all can join the cause…  think of all the 1.2 billion people of us.

Why Do I Write ?

After seeing my milestone post, one of my friends called me, congratulated ironically and asked “ why do you write?” , “What do you earn by blogging” and even argued that I am actually wasting my time, that 1 hour I spend for writing !

That’s true. I don’t "earn" much, except a few ¢ents/day that come from the sidebar adverts-  certainly not enough even for a single dinner (forget about family :P). Then "time" : yes, the 40-60 minutes I spend for my blog, is also really a big thing with my current workloads., that can be spent with family , friends, or for sleeping extra time at least :) . But still why do I write.

The answer is simple: I do it because I enjoy it. 

Reading and Writing has always been my favorite /passion or whatever you call it.

1. It makes me to think better : Writing starts from thinking. I read a lot and dig deep on the topic I write. It develops my overall thinking capability, be it a R&D engineering design, a business presentation or at least to make something creative for my wife &  kid  :P

2. I become a better writer : Writing is like every other habit/hobby- gets better and better with practice. Blogging does not force you to become a better writer, but it’ll just happen as we do it.

3. It serves as a digital diary on the cloud: Whenever I read my old posts such as My first flight experience , Niagara Trip, Chicago tour...they take me completely back to those days and make me to remember every minute fun of it. My blog is like a personal journal of my life that is recorded in the cloud , which will never be lost / destroyed.

4. I get connect with new people : Through Comments ,Shares , Likes… every day  I make new friends. The blogging community is definitely is very encouraging, friendly and genuinely appreciating my efforts.

Last but not the least,
5. It’s free :)  : Google, Wordpress, and many more people are there to create and maintain your blog without spending a single paisa. So if you get inspired by my words, you can start your blog right away, at $0 cost !!!

History behind “The Madras Day”

India’s first modern city – Chennai celebrating it’s 375th birth day today, August 22.

Chennai day used to be so much of fun, when I was in Chennai., it used to be a week long celebration everywhere, start from the local buses to colleges, and corporates.

What I wonder is, all these celebrations are hugely voluntary, No government or authority recommends or regulates it. Just that different people would do different things, but focused on the history, culture and traditions of the city, with full of fun and peace. I used to enjoy the entire week!

But today, when I go through the history behind the Madras day, I really don’t know whether to celebrate it or not. It’s the day when the British East India Company acquired a small piece of land in Chennai (the first in India) and laid foundation for their 100+ years of slavery ruling.

See here, am scribbling the history behind the Chennai day, as heard from multiple people and articles.  After reading the history , you decide whether you’ll celebrate the Chennai day or not !

Those days, most part of northern Tamilnadu was being ruled by the Vijayanagara Dynasty , by their chiefs known as “Nayaks”. That was the time, when the British had just arrived-in India to set up its trade and other commercial activitiesJ.

On 22 August, 1639, the British East India Company signed the deed with the then chief - Damarla Venkatadri Nayaka , to a three-mile long piece of land in the fishing village of Madrasapatnam.

It’s believed that they started the construction of St.George Fort on the same day – which is why still you see a lot of celebration at St.George Fort on the Chennai day!

The deed signed by Venkatadri Nayaka was effective only till 1645, but soon the new king, Sri Rangarayulu, renewed the deed and empowered the Eastern India Company to expand its business with a lot more additional land, which is believed to be the present form of Chennai.

Unexpectedly in 1646, Golkonda Empires forces conquered the complete Madras area and bulgulared and massacred a huge population, including the British communities. Followed by plague and other deadly deceases, the madras town was almost destroyed.

In 1687, after the fall of Golkonda, the area came under the control of the Mughals, who again granted the rights to Eastern India Company to develop and expand the City, which made the British to take more control over the city.

The city was subsequently attacked by the French, Dutch and Hyder Ali. But the British was brilliant to let the French and Hyder Ali Sultan to fight and they regained the control of Madras.

In the 18 century, they constructed the Chennai harbour , which led the city to become an important center for the trade between India and Europe. Chennai City grown-up so fast and became popular all over the world; In-fact, Chennai was the only Indian City bombarded by the Germany during the World War – I.

We all know rest of the story in late 18th Century and till 1974.

Now tell me, will you celebrate the day, when we laid the first stone to loose our independence? Or do you feel that it’s because of the British only Chennai (Infrastructure) has developed this much, otherwise would have got collapsed by consecutive attacks ,diseases and natural disasters?

I am not biased, fair to hear from both the sides of response. Please share your thoughts.

I like the "Like" button

Today, while I was scrolling down the Facebook page, some odd question popped in my mind..."why do I click the “like” button?". Here are some of the answers I got...

1.       I really like what I read.
2.       I do so that the post will appear on my timeline / News feed
3.       I just want to acknowledge that I read something.
4.       I do not want to comment anything on the post (& /) there’s no “dislike” button :P

Out of the above four, the reason#3 is why I mostly click the like button a lot nowadays; and I don’t hide the fact that reason#4 closely follows it :P.  Not only me, most of us do the same thing only, right?

Whether we really like it or not, just click a “Like” the button. (prob’ly you may have some more interesting reasons for clicking the Like” button). At times, even before reading the complete article I have clicked the like button (including one An obituary /death notice :-o   [then later I realized, regretted and did a unlike J ]. We have become such addictive to the ‘liking’ in Facebook.

Btw, Do you know that the ‘like’ button on Facebook was previously named ‘Awesome’? . For a more detailed history of the like button, check out this link. Anyway, I’m not sure if I would have liked the ‘Awesome’ button as much as the ‘like’ button if it had stayed.

Now, I hope you won’t start thinking about the reasons why you click “Like” for my posts ;) Please don’t put reason# 4 on the comment section :P

A Milestone

30,000+ Visitors
30+ Countries
230+ Posts
200+ Comments
7+ Years
..
And, never-ending love.

Thank you all so much, for supporting my writing.

Airtel's new Ad: Together at Home & Work - practically possible ?

Recent Airtel advertisement, a couple working in the same office has created serious buzz all over the working class , Is in it?. I personally like the ad very much, but the question is: Is it really practical in everyone’s life?

Yes, of course. Even in villages , where we claim gender inequality (not true though), I have seen many couple successfully run a small shop to medium scale business together, themselves. Then why can't a modern man & woman work in the same organization together?

On a mutual understanding, couple working in the same department is definitely possible. But not sure, if any company in the world, allows direct reporting between spouses in the office (Woman/Man as the Boss to their spouse), that part is li’l exaggerated !

It’s all depend on your mental Strength and your maturity to handle the situation. From my point of view, it’s not a so bad idea to work together, you just need some smartness to tackle the small-small situations and circumstances. If you are so, then it’s more enjoyable.

The Ad is brilliantly scripted and directed, but somehow, the guy’s face reaction at the last shot makes me to think that he's planning to leave either his wife or his job on the next day :P  .
Do you also feel the same :)

Happy Independence Day India

Let's touch our hearts and say: Have we ever bothered to see Independence Day speeches? Even if we have, have we ever seen fully? Neither me . But just happened to watch/hear the speech of our PM today.

I never heard a such a speech so clear and direct from the heart, from any of the previous Prime ministers, in my life time at least. No hatred against Pakistan or China, which will bring nothing but misery to the people and the country.

What a confidence. I admire his confidence on his security, as well on the people of India, seeing a PM addressing the public gathering without any special bullet proof enclosure, for the first time.

Aspiration for a Great Nation reflects in the speech; and in fact, spread seeds in everyone’s heart. Longing to see the government in action.

Happy Independence day to all my fellow Indians on its 68th year celebration. I wish a new vibrant and progressive India to emerge without any religion or region based hatred.

Are Men Unskilled at House Work & Child Care?

It’s Saturday, but am still breaking my head in office. At least had a relaxed lunch with my colleagues, and this was the topic of the day.

"According to a recent survey within Indian Corporate, married moms who work full-time spend an average of 83% of their time caring for their kids, whereas fathers working full-time spend just 52 minutes on their kids per day, that too  only 55% of those fathers spent that amount of time on a regular basis."

OK, all men in our group agreed the above statement seems quite obvious, revealing what most mothers are suspecting for a very long time that fathers are lazy. However, some other interesting arguments came-up.

One girl (sorry, mother:), disagreed that it’s not only the laziness, it’s also about the skill / ability to handle the kid and household works. She argued that most of the moms have a fear to leave their child with dads, since they are not capable of handling them.

Some guys bounced back that it’s not about ability and infact, dads can take care of the kids very well and keep them more happier than mom. And in household work too, men are superior start from the Garden to Kitchen. It’s just the women who want to maintain hard image on "managing home”, intentionally keeping the responsibility always with them :)

Of course, we won the argument since guys outnumbered the girls over there. But how many of us are really good in managing household work and kids? How well we know about the kids’ food and routines? If the woman goes out for a day or two and let dad run things at home, how well we can handle? Don’t we still bother her with hundred+ calls, asking stuffs like ‘Where do you keep this?’, “how to do this” “When to do”…. etc.

Ok, am half way to admit it , not fully though:)  I will leave you to be the judge for yourself.

Do Dreams have Meaning ?

Nobody knows why we dream. Physiologists, Religions, Ancestors , ...everyone gives out varied reasons for dreaming. And some people keep it as simple as some nonsense that is created by our brain while "disk fragmenting" of images and scenes that stored in our mind :)

But it’s the fact that most of us believe in dreams, and believe that dreams are some symbolic memos of events that might happened/happen/will happen in our real life .Usually we don’t remember the dreams precisely; if we do and dig deeper - relating them with the incidents from our lives, we could get some interpretation for those dreams!

Nowadays, almost every day some dream wakes me up in the early morning.  And I don’t even able to recollect much about those dreams, except that hollow and empty feeling it leaves with in. After waking up to these ruthless dreams, it doesn’t even feel like I was sleeping the whole night.

I love to dream… dream about anything, but not something that makes me feel so unfilled. It's usually said that dreams have meanings and can be encrypted. So these of mine have any meaningless meaning… ? 

Friends & Friendship

Yes, a friend is someone with whom we are our true self. With whom we let down all our guards. With whom we never have to worry how we look, how we dress, whether it’s great or insane…., we just have to be our self. 

He does not push you to be better or bad. He just needs you to be truly you.  He’s the person to whom you can speak anything and everything,  doesn’t matter how bad, how obscene or how insane, you don’t need to filter/fine tune your thoughts and words; He'll still love you, because he knows you. 

You can hurt him, scream at him, fight, irritate him but still he’s always there for you. He will also do everything to ruin your patience, but will never ever let you down to anyone else. 

There’s no other relationship is like friendship. A true friend is always a blessing !

Running to "Stand Still"

Guys, It's not about U2's popular rock track "Running to Stand Still". I just picked this title for my ramblings . Too much of sports and movies in the blog for a few weeks, so back to some serious thoughts today.

How many of us have not heard the phrase “When will you settle in your life ?” or “You should settle in your life”.

During the school & college days, everyone from your mom, dad, relatives, neighbors, neighbor’s neighbor :)… literally everyone would have advised you to settle in life. What do they really mean by settling in life ? . Without understanding much, I also nodded myself that I should settle in my life !

But as the time moves on, now I observe that the word “settle” is also keep moving. It involves constant change at every phase of your life.

When you’re in the final year of the college education, you’d have heard “Get a good job and settle in your life”. After lot of hard work and struggles,  you get a decent job.

Then everyone will start “You should get married and settle in life”. After getting married, within months parents and relatives urge “When you will get kids and settle in your life ?”. Yeah, now you have a beautiful kid too.

Then, all friends and relatives say “Wow! great! you’ve a lovely kid ; A great family. Now why don’t you get a decent two bedroom apartment and settle down in your life ?”

After so much pressure , You take 40-50 lakh loan. Work hard to pay-off your EMI’s , Work 24 hours in office ; Sacrifice the time for your kid and wife ; forget about your vacations and holidays; don't even get a chance to think about your old friends, and start living on a mechanical routine for the next 15-20 years.

By the time you complete your loan, your kids will be grown-ups. By this time, the word “Settle” would have deeply penetrated inside your brain and will make you to yell on your kid as “You should settle in your life” on his school/college final years :(

Now you see, how one word has made you into nothing but a money making machine. If you make all the money without being happy then there is no point working in a job or living in a million dollar apartment, right?. The word “settle” has killed all your happiness and peace to the root and still made you think that what you are doing is right. Doesn't that sound ridiculous ? Yes it does. But this is the reality.

How many of us are willing to break this social pressure and live a pressure free / worry life?. Me neither !!!

What Will You Be When You Grow Up?

“What will you be when you grow up???” – This is probably one of the questions every one of us would have heard a thousand times, during our school days.

I was also no exception, heard it a million times! Someday, I replied my real wish freely and sometimes got influenced by the peers/parents, and in some odd-times, I did not really have any answer but silence.

So for a change, now I asked a same question to some of my friends (who are parents of 4-8 years old kids) – “What do you want your kids to be when they grow up?” – I got a wide range of responses. But no one really said that they want their kids to pursue a specific profession as an engineer or doctor; No one really said that they want anything in particular. What all they want is their kid to grow up to be a good human being, well-educated (doesn't matter what stream it is), just be happy & healthy, a better life than the what we had!

And I asked the same question to my daughter and a few of her friends in the age of 4-8. And their reply also completely put me surprised. My daughter wants to be a Chef and an Artist. Her friend aspires to become a lawyer; the other guy sees him as Car Engineer. Singer, Dancer, …and the list continues….

So, here’s my take:

• There’s an ocean of difference in the way parents of today view their kids (compared to the our generation), what they expect from their kids and the kind of life that they want for their kids
• Today’s Kids are also really well-informed. Kids express themselves freely. Gone are the days when we hidden behind our parents or looked for permission to respond to any query…

Feel really happy about today’s generation of parents and kids !

What to write today ?

Someday, I am filled with so many topics to write about (obviously, I won’t find time to write even a single post on that day). But there are some real hard days, I’ll have so much of time, but completely dried out of thoughts.

Not only me, I guess, so many new bloggers out here will also feel it difficult to make out a topic for the day.

When I was googling, got into this page, The ultimate list of blog ideas by Digital Marketer has given a deep insight in content creation for your blogs. Check out you’ll be astonished!