Sunday, July 24, 2011

Zindagi Na Mile Dobara - Poetry


Zinda Ho Tum...

Dilon me tum apni betabiyan leke chal rahe ho, to zinda ho tum...
Nazar me khwaabon ki bijliyan leke chal rahe ho, to zinda ho tum...
Hawa ke jhokon ke jaise aazad rehno sekho...
Tum ek dariya ke jaise lehron mein behna sekho...
Har ek lamhe se tum milo khole apni baahein...
Har ek pal ek naya sama dekhe nigahein...
Jo apni ankhon mein hairanian leke chal rahe ho, to zinda ho tum...
Dilon mein tum apni betabian leke chal rahe ho, to zinda ho tum...





Dil Aakhir Tu Kyun Rota Hai...


Jab-Jab Dard Ka Baadal Chaya...
Jab Gham Ka Saya Lehraya...
Jab Aansoo Palkon Tak Aya...
Jab Yeh Tanha Dil Ghabraya...
Humne Dil Ko Yeh Samjhaya...
Dil Aakhir Tu Kyun Rota Hai...


Duniya Mein Yunhi Hota Hai...
Yeh Jo Gehre Sannaate Hain...
Waqt Ne Sabko Hi Baante Hain...
Thoda Gham Hai Sabka Kissa...
Thodi Dhoop Hai Sabka Hissa...
Aankh Teri Bekaar Hi Nam Hai...
Har Pal Ek Naya Mausam Hai...
Kyun Tu Aise Pal Khota Hai...
Dil Aakhir Tu Kyun Rota Hai...


Pighle Neelam Sa...



Pighle Neelam Sa Behta Ye Samaa...
Neeli Neeli Si Khamoshiyan...
Na Kahin Hai Zameen Na Kahin Aasmaan...
Sarsaraati Hui Tehniyaan-Pattiyaan...
Keh Rahi Hain Bas Ek Tum Ho Yahan...
Bas Main Hoon, Meri Saanse Hain Aur Meri Dhadkane...
Aisi Gehraiyaan, Aisi Tanhaiyaan, Aur Main… Sirf Main...
Apne Hone Par Mujhko Yakeen Aa Gaya...

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Patna City Transport - Route information

As many as 70 new city non-ac buses and 7 ac buses have started running in Patna. For all there who do not know Patna, it is a very big news for the city and those who love it (like me).


As far as I remember, Patna still has those over-crowded yellow mini buses. When I used to live there, those buses mainly used to run between Patna Junction and Danapur Junction. And they used to charge 3-4 rupees form Ashiana Mor to Saguna Mor (where my school was). Just for your information, I used to live in Khajpura...and now dont ask me where is this place. All those who know Patna, know Khajpura too. Though it is not a very popular place, but still known by all.




Now back to the news...The new buses have GPS, emergency alarm button, inbuilt fire extinguisher, electronic ticketing machine, music system etc.
The fare of non-AC buses are between Rs 3 and Rs 10.


From 5th August 2011, seven 36-seater AC buses (maroon-coloured Marco Polo buses of Tata Motors) have joined the fleet of existing 70 non-AC city buses. The fares of AC buses are Rs 10, Rs 15 and Rs 30, depending upon the distance travelled.


The non-AC buses ply between 5 am and 11 pm. AC buses plybetween 8 am and 8 pm with a frequency of one-and-a-half hour.


Route Information:


Route #1 (Red Buses, total 12+4): Starting from Gandhi Maidan to Khagaul, via Patna Junction, R-block, Harding Road, Chitkohra and Phulwarisharif.


Route #2 (Blue Buses, total 18): Starting from Gandhi Maidan to Danapur, via Frazer Road, Patna Junction, GPO, R-Block, Income-Tax roundabout, Bailey Road and Saguna Mor.
3 AC buses ply on this route.


Route #3 (Green Buses, total 12): Starting from Gandhi Maidan to Danapur, via Rajapur, Kurji and Digha.


Route #4 (Yellow Buses, total 4): Starting from Gandhi Maidan to Gai Ghat, via PMCH and Tripolia Hospital.
2 AC buses ply on this route.


Route #5 (Orange Buses, total 6): Ring Service from Mithapur Bus stand, via New Bypass, Pahari Mor, Agam Kuan, Kumhrar Park, Bahadurpur, Rajendra Nagar terminal and Chiraiyatand.


Route #6 (Purple Buses, total 6): Ring Service from Gandhi Maidan, via Rajapur, Kurji, St. Michael's School, Alpana Cinema Mor, IAS Colony, Ashiana Mor, Bailey Road, Income-Tax roundabout and Patna Junction.


Route #7 (Sky Blue Buses, total 12+4): Ring Service from Gandhi Maidan, via Rajapur, Kurji, IIT, Patliputra roundabout, A N College, Boring Road crossing, Bailey Road, Income-Tax roundabout and Patna Junction.
2 AC buses ply on this route.


Ladies Special / Family Buses (Pink Buses, total 15): Operate on all the routes after every 1 hour; Males accompanying women are allowed to travel on these. As the govt is incurring losses, it is planning to discontinue this service.


Patna is now turning into a 'City'. After Domino's starting operations in Patna, Cafe Coffee Day has now started at Regent Cinema, near Gandhi Maidan, Patna. Whenever I visit Patna, I usually hangout at Hotel Maurya's cafe to have coffee and spend time with my childhood friends. Though Maurya is a 5-start hotel, they just keep only a few varieties of coffee there. I hope with Cafe Coffee Day opening in Patna, I would have a variety of coffee (my favourite being Latte - king size) there.







Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Indian Cricket Team: Hot News


It is exciting to read about the possibles changes in the Indian Cricket Team for the West Indies Tour. India would be playing One T20, Five ODIs & Three Tests.
I am jotting down some of the interesting things related to the Indian Cricket Team doing the rounds:

  • West Indies are currently ranked No.7 in Tests and No.9 in ODIs. While India is ranked 1st in Test & 2nd in ODIs.
  • Windsor Park, Roseau, Dominica will host its 1st ever Test. That would be the 3rd Test of this tour.
  • Telegraph India has quoted one of the national selector - 
"Left to us, we’d probably rest only Zaheer Khan, as we can’t do without him in England"
  • Virender Sehwag might again require surgery on his right shoulder and may miss the tour completely. He didn’t bowl in the World Cup and hasn’t bowled in the IPL, either.
  • There is a speculation that Eric Simons, India’s bowling consultant, will be appointed as chief coach for the Tour. He is believed to have the backing of the seniors in the national team.
  • Robin Singh could be the assistant coach.
  • Names of Lalchand Rajput, Zimbabwean Duncan Fletcher, New Zealander Stephen Fleming and Andy Flower as the Chief Coach.are also doing the rounds.
  • Fleming is the current coach of IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings which is owned by N. Srinivasan, the Secretary of BCCI. CSK's Brand ambassador is Kris Srikkanth, the current chairman of the National Selection Committee. CSK's Captain is the National Captain Dhoni.
  • Latest media reports suggest that Andy Flower has been offered a new three-year deal by England Cricket Board.
  • If Seniors of the India Team are rested for the Tour of West Indies then there could be some curious changes in the team like
Ø  Yuvraj Singh might be selected for the Test Team.
Ø  Yuvraj Singh might captain the squad for the Tour.
Ø  Mumbai Indians’ Ambati Rayudu could be included in the ODI squad.
Ø  Kings XI Punjab’s Paul Valthaty could get selected for the T20 game.
  • Nike extends Team India uniform sponsorship with BCCI for 5yrs. As Nike had the first right of refusal, no other bid was entertained.


Champions League  updates: BCCI is mulling to include a 4th IPL team in the Champions League. CL will have a total of 10 teams this time. It will have 3 teams from India, 2 each from Australia & South Africa and 1 from England. For the last 2 slots, it is planned to have a qualifying round of matches between the fourth IPL team and a team each from West Indies, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.


Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Indian Grand Prix circuit has been named as Buddh International Circuit

The Formula 1 circuit at Jaypee Integarted Sports Complex in Greater Noida for the Indian Grand Prix has been named as Buddh International Circuit (BIC). 


The 5.14 Km circuit has been designed by Herman Tilke. The 1st Indian Grand Prix will happen on October 28-30 2011. The approximate cost to develop the circuit has been $400 million.


The circuit's official logo has been designed by Prasoon Joshi. The stylized ‘B’ of the circuit’s logo stands for ‘Buddh’ and for ‘Bharat'.


It is said that the initial seating capacity would be 110,000 which can later be increased to 200,000. Jaypee Greens Sports City, where this circuit is situated, plans to host a 100,000 seat cricket stadium, 18-hole golf course, 25,000 seat hockey stadium and a sports academy.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

SkyNet has become self-aware

Just saw this message on Facebook:
Beware of electronic appliances around you, Skynet is supposed to be self aware from today :)
For a few seconds I really got a bit scared or you can say I got curious. Instantly I searched it on Google. I found the following things:

  • Skynet may refer to: Skynet (satellites), a UK military communications system. And,
  • Skynet is the main antagonist in the Terminator franchise - an artificially intelligent system which became self-aware and revolted against its creators.
Finally the mystery got solved when I read a post about it on HuffingtonPost. It is telling that on April 21, 2011, SkyNet became self-aware and began its worldwide attack on humanity.

Read the post on HuffingtonPost @ Friday Talking Points -- Skynet Attacks!


Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Think twice before opting for the HTML version of email subscriptions

Though I always dislike subscribing to newsletters, I find several times Newsletters from Respected firms sneaking into my Inbox.
You would have noticed that while Subscribing to Newsletters, they ask whether you want plain-text 'boring' Newsletters or 'rich & colorful' HTML version of it. Please never fall for the HTML version. HTML helps in tracking user's activities like which link in the mail has been clicked or whether the mail is getting landed up in the Junk folder or when it has been actually read or not etc etc.

Please read the complete article on Forbes: Newsletters: HTML or Plain Text

Just to add to the story, I had once tried a third-part software which used to go along with a plain-text email in Outlook. The free version of it used to send me exact time when a particular mail was read, the internet service provider etc etc.
So be careful before subscribing to Newsletters from even Well-Known firms.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Bihar roads are better than in many parts of Europe: EU MPs


A delegation of European Union (EU) MPs recently met Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and told that the roads in the state are better than those in many European countries like Belgium and Romania.
Wow!! It seems those days are over when Bihar's roads were compared with the cheeks of Om Puri.

I don't know how much Bihar is progressing or whether it will get counted among the most developed states of India in the near future, however one thing is very obvious that it is getting much good press along with Nitish Kumar.
Recently only Anna Hazare took Nitish's name along with Narendra Modi's name in the same breath while talking about development in India. The initial report of Census 2011 too is showing tremendous progress for Bihar, though still it is trailing behind the rest of India.

People are talking about the Bihar's model of development!!
Lets hope that Bihar progresses fast and uniformly.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Jharkhand Players in IPL 4

I have compiled a list of players I know who are now playing with different teams of IPL's 4th season.

.
NameIPL TeamPlaying StyleProfile on CricInfo
.
Mahendra Singh DhoniChennai Super KingsWicketkeeper, Right-hand batMahendra Singh Dhoni
.
Saurabh TiwaryRoyal Challengers BangaloreLeft-hand batSaurabh Tiwary
.
Varun AaronDelhi DaredevilsRight-arm mediumVarun Aaron
.
Ishank JaggiDeccan ChargersRight-hand batIshank Jaggi
.
Shahbaz NadeemDelhi DaredevilsSlow left-arm orthodoxShahbaz Nadeem
.

Friday, April 08, 2011

Outsmart the Airlines to Get the Best Seat in Coach

The Middle Seat: Outsmart the Airlines to Get the Best Seat in Coach - WSJ.com: "Where others saw tiny tush space, SeatGuru.com saw opportunity. With seat layouts and ratings for 720 different airplanes flown by 100 different airlines, the website has become the authoritative source for cabin information. Using internal research and feedback from fliers, SeatGuru highlights the gems, like seats with unlimited legroom, and flags the duds, like window seats with no windows. Information is so thorough that SeatGuru says airline reservation centers use its site for information on their own planes. (Airlines confirm that.)"

Format of IPL 4 - Group Stage & KnockOut


Format of IPL IV (taken from Wikipedia)

With the introduction of 2 new teams, a new ten-team format was created. This new format consists of 74 matches and was introduced as retaining the previous format would result in 94 matches, significantly greater than the 60 matches from the previous season, where teams compete in a double round-robin tournament. The knockout stage was changed to a playoff format. If a match ends in a tie, a Super Over will be played to determine the winner.



KnockOut Format
Four games will be played in the playoffs:
  • Qualifier 1: between the teams ranked first and second in the group stage.
  • Eliminator: between the teams ranked third and fourth in the group stage.
  • Qualifier 2: between the loser of the Qualifier 1 and winner of the Eliminator.
  • Final: between the winners of the Qualifiers 1 and 2.
The top three teams from the tournament qualify for the 2011 Champions League Twenty20.



Group Stage Format
The ten teams are divided into two groups of five. In the group stage, each team plays 14 games: facing the other four teams in their group two times each (one home and one away game), four teams in the other group once, and the remaining team two times. A random draw was used to determine the groups and who plays whom across the groups once and twice.
Each team plays the team in the same row and the same column twice, and all others once. For instance, Pune Warriors will play Chennai Super Kings and the other Group A teams twice but the other teams from Group B (Kolkata Knight Riders, Kochi Tuskers Kerala, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals) only once. Similarly Kochi Tuskers Kerala will play Delhi Daredevils and the other Group B teams twice but all other teams from Group A only once.
Group AGroup B
 Deccan Chargers Kolkata Knight Riders
 Delhi Daredevils Kochi Tuskers Kerala
 Kings XI Punjab Royal Challengers Bangalore
 Mumbai Indians Rajasthan Royals
 Pune Warriors India Chennai Super Kings

Monday, April 04, 2011

Brazil stares down the US on Libya - Al Jazeera

Brazil stares down the US on Libya - Al Jazeera: "he Washington Post, the New York Times, and National Public Radio, along with a host of other newspapers, cable news commentators, and blogs, all predicted that Obama, the US's first African American president, and Rousseff, Brazil's first woman leader, would find common ground, reversing the deterioration of diplomatic relations that had begun under Rousseff's predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The bad blood started, or so the story went, when Lula refused to listen to the administration of George W. Bush and isolate Venezuela's populist leader, Hugo Chávez. Before long, Brasilia was opposing or, worse, offering alternatives to Washington's position on a growing number of issues: climate change, opposition to the 2009 coup in Honduras, Cuba, trade and tariffs."

Is there anything to cheer about Bihar’s literacy rate?

Is there anything to cheer about Bihar’s literacy rate?: "True, according to Census 2011 data, Bihar’s literacy figure jumped from 47.5 per cent to 63.82 per cent in the last ten years. But this does not mean that there is something to celebrate about as the state has long way to go."

Sunday, April 03, 2011

GoDaddy CEO Shoots Elephant, Posts Video: Critics Outraged - TIME

We all shoot vacation videos, but most of us choose to keep them to ourselves — or, at worst, share them with our Facebook friends. Bob Parsons, CEO of the Internet-hosting firm GoDaddy.com, which you know from its lame Super Bowl ads and absolutely nothing else — likes bigger exposure. Parsons recently posted a video of his trip to Zimbabwe, where he shot an elephant.

Friday, April 01, 2011

Ferrari of space probes

Goce satellite maps the Earth's gravity in unprecedented precision | Science | guardian.co.uk: "A European spacecraft that skims the upper reaches of the atmosphere has mapped Earth's gravity with unrivalled precision. The map shows how the pull of gravity varies minutely over the surface of the Earth, from deep ocean trenches to majestic mountain ranges."

Cricket diplomacy: Mocking memory of 26/11

Cricket diplomacy: Mocking memory of 26/11 - The Economic Times: "Spanish-born US philosopher George Santayana's saying is particularly applicable to India: 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'. Ad hoc, personality-driven policy-making has long been India's curse. Pakistan, although widely perceived to be a failing state, is still able to outwit India diplomatically. It is India, not Pakistan, that has climbed down diplomatically and sought a cricket-inspired thaw in relations."

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

SimpleGeo Launching ‘Storage’: A Distributed Hosted Database For Location Data

SimpleGeo Launching ‘Storage’: A Distributed Hosted Database For Location Data: "The story of SimpleGeo is a familiar one: two founders — Matt Galligan and Joe Stump — set off to create location-based games, only to find that the tools they wanted to use to build their apps didn’t exist yet. So they switched gears and decided to build what they wished they had: a suite of tools optimized for the creation of location-based services (which was probably a good call given the explosion of location-aware mobile devices)."

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Did Microsoft leave Hotmail open for Dictators? | ZDNet

Did Microsoft leave Hotmail open for Dictators? | ZDNet: "“always-use-HTTPS option in Hotmail for users in more than a dozen countries, including Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, had been turned off.” This meant anyone using Hotmail in these countries could have their e-mail read by their government-controlled ISPs."

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Don’t steal computers belonging to people who know how to use computers.

"When 18-year-old entrepreneur Mark Bao had his MacBook Air stolen from a college dorm lounge in February, he assumed it was gone for good and bought a new one. But a month later, he got the chance to recover his laptop and publicly shame the guy who stole it — by posting a video of the thief’s dance moves to YouTube. How’d he do it?"

Video:  

Read the complete story - To Catch a Computer Predator

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Is Facebook a massive online surveillance program run by the CIA?

Is Mark Zuckerberg a CIA agent codenamed the Overlord?

Facebook: Massive online surveillance program run by the CIA?

Operation Farmville: Pacified as many as 85 million people after unemployment rates rose dramatically?

Twitter: 400 billion Tweets, and not one useful bit of data?

Read the complete report on TechCrunch.



India card Rupay to replace Visa, MasterCard

"National Payments Corporation has at last finalised the proposed unique India Card which once commercially launched would be an domestic alternative to the global real-time payment processing firms like Visa and MasterCard."

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Microsoft Launches Internet Explorer 9

After months of beta testing, Microsoft has finally released the final version of Internet Explorer 9 to the masses.

The final version of Internet Explorer 9 will be available for download at midnight ET/9:00 PM PT at BeautyoftheWeb.com.

Read the complete story at Mashable

Monday, March 14, 2011

Litti Chokha is becoming famous

Last month, novelist Chetan Bhagat tweeted: “Litti chokha, a Bihari dish, totally needs to be available everywhere. Superb.” Actor Sonakshi Sinha, of Bihari origin, tweeted back, asking him to get the dish from her in Mumbai.

If Bihar becomes a super success story in the next 10 years, what will be the fate of litti chokha? “It will become as common in Delhi and Bombay (Mumbai) as aloo tikkis and bhelpuri,” says Bhojpuri film star Ravi Kissen. “And I’ll start a litti chokha franchise on the lines of McDonald’s.”
Read the Complete Article

Litti Chokha's fan page on Facebook.
 

The Secret of Victoria’s Secret is out

“I didn’t invent anything. I didn’t invent the bra or stores or the name,” he says. “I just see things differently.” Still, when it comes to how women think about the most pragmatic items they wear, that’s made all the difference.
The Secret of Victoria’s Secret is out...Read the complete article here...

Google Circles could be launched at the Google I/O 2011 conference

"Google Circles" codenamed "Google Me" could be launched at the Google I/O 2011 conference in May (10-11th).

According to ZDNet, it is coming this fall (Sept. – Dec. 2011). ZDNet Report

However Google has made some big product launches, including Wave, Chrome Web App Store and Google TV, at the Google I/O conference.

One Report suggests that it is a "False Alarm: Google Circles Not Coming Now–and Probably Not Ever".

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Who stands to lose the most in the $45 million fraud trial of Raj Rajaratnam?

The insider-trading scandal that involves the most respected names in business is shaking up the financial world. Who stands to lose the most in the $45 million fraud trial of Raj Rajaratnam?


Rajat Gupta

or

India

or

Goldman Sachs

or

Warren Buffett

Read the complete article in Newsweek: Who stands to lose the most in the $45 million fraud trial of Raj Rajaratnam?

Saturday, March 12, 2011

With hacking, music can take control of your car

"But their most interesting attack focused on the car stereo. By adding extra code to a digital music file, they were able to turn a song burned to CD into a Trojan horse. When played on the car's stereo, this song could alter the firmware of the car's stereo system, giving attackers an entry point to change other components on the car. This type of attack could be spread on file-sharing networks without arousing suspicion, they believe. "It's hard to think of something more innocuous than a song," said Stefan Savage, a professor at the University of California."


Read further...

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Libya Looks to a Future Without Gaddafi - TIME

Libya Looks to a Future Without Gaddafi - TIME: "Libya, they explain, is more traditional than its neighbors Tunisia and Egypt. The activists say they want to see a new government that preserves Libyan culture, not a democracy imported from elsewhere. Says al-Shohiby: 'I have one soul. I will give it for this revolution — not just for money, but for freedom. We want freedom, but democracy that fits with our culture. Not just any democracy. One that respects our religion. Libya is 100% Muslim and Sunni, and 100% original Libyan. So we need to make our own democracy. We need support from outside — the U.S. and U.K. — but not to tell us what to do. We just want advice.'"

If Libya Falls, What Happens to All Those Twitter bit.ly Links? - TIME.com

If Libya Falls, What Happens to All Those Twitter bit.ly Links? - TIME.com: "If you're a serious or even occasional twitterer, you may have wondered what the '.ly' at the end of those shortened bit.ly URLs stand for. Well, the answer is Libya. Like '.uk' for United Kingdom or '.jp' for Japan, .ly is a country code top-level domain that serves as an alternative to 'generic' top-level domains such as '.com' or '.net'. So now that Libya is further slipping into chaos, an obvious question arises: what happens to all those shortened links?

Two scenarios: one good, and one pretty bad."

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

IPL 2011: Hot News



  • Kochi team will be called "Indi Commandos"
  • The Opening match of IPL 2011 will happen between defending champions Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders at Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
  • A total of 10 teams will play at 13 venues over 51 days.
  • The schedule can change due to the state assembly elections at different host venues.

Fake truth of Suraj aka Nagesh : MTV Roadies 8

"Suraj aka Nagesh of MTV Roadies 8 has been a student of the Indian Institute of Bartending. If this listing of Suraj aka Nagesh from MTV Roadies 8 in the students profile isn’t enough, then nothing will be. We’ve just resized the image but please feel free to check http://www.iibtindia.com/placement.html
Suraj aka Nagesh from MTV Roadies 8 boasts of the 9th student profile that’s featured on the institute website. If you look closely, Suraj aka Nagesh from MTV Roadies 8 has his eyebrow pierced and is quite a happening dude from Jalna, and quite hep for being broke."

Read the complete story...Fake truth of Suraj aka Nagesh : MTV Roadies 8

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Two Indians in Man Asian Literary Prize shortlist

Two Indians in Man Asian Literary Prize shortlist: "Works by Indian writers Manu Joseph and Tabish Khair have been shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize (MALP), the leading international award for authors from the continent.

Poet-novelist Khair's The Thing About Thugs is story of Amir Ali who leaves his village in Bihar to travel to London with an English captain, William Meadows, to whom he narrates the story of his life — the story of a murderous thug."

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Census 2011 - a Herculean Task

Over the night of February 28 and March 1, a small and businesslike army will spread across the land. To locate their targets, this army will look into municipal pipes, under flyovers and bridges, on footpaths, along railway lines, up dark staircases, around places of worship - everywhere the legions of the "houseless" come to rest. Other elusive targets will have been captured on the preceding day, including tourists in hotels and every human on every ship that will be in Indian territorial waters at midnight.
For 00:00 on March 1, 2011, is the moment of reckoning. The Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner has to find out exactly how many human beings there are in the territory of India at that moment, Indians as well as foreigners.
I was reading this very informative article on the Census 2011 of India and found some very interesting. I am jotting down some interesting facts/figures here:


  • The headcount will be done by 2.7 million teachers as the enumerators.
  • About half the enumerators are women. They will go along with their colleague or family to avoid possible harassment.
  • For this work, each of the enumerator will get paid up to Rs 6,500.
  • This Census will try to answer questions like how many PhDs live in houses without latrines.
  • The government has allocated Rs 2,200 crore for the Census, which brings the per capita cost to Rs 18 ( The lowest in the world; in the United States, it costs almost $50).
  • In Sentinel Islands in the Andamans, where the tribes are still hostile, the enumerators will throw coconuts and red cloth into the sea. Once these hit the shores, the tribesmen will come out to gather these presents. From afar, the enumerators will take video films, come back and freeze the frames, and count their numbers.
  • The headcount in snow-bound villages of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand was completed between September 11 and October 5, 2010. Births and deaths after that will go unrecorded.
  • For the first time, apart from male and female, respondents can tick a third option - others.
  • How accurate is the headcount? The omission rate was 1.8 % in 1981, 1.9 % in 1991 and 2.3 % in 2001. This year, it is expected to be around 2 % - the internationally accepted norm.
You can read the complete article at Business Standard.

Census 2011 is also on Facebook at Census2011 - Facebook

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Transcript of Commencement Speech at Stanford given by Steve Jobs



Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Thank you all, very much.






[I copied it from a friend's Facebook note who might have got it from somewhere else. I found it very interesting and inspiring and therefore I am posting it here. Hope you too will appreciate it. - Shayan]

Friday, February 11, 2011

Arab unrest index: The Shoe Thrower's index | The Economist

Arab unrest index: The Shoe Thrower's index | The Economist: "Shoe Thrower's index aims to predict where the scent of jasmine may spread next.
The chart in the attached link is the result of ascribing a weighting of 35% for the share of the population that is under 25; 15% for the number of years the government has been in power; 15% for both corruption and lack of democracy as measured by existing indices; 10% for GDP per person; 5% for an index of censorship and 5% for the absolute number of people younger than 25."

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Another Rags-to-Riches Story from Bihar

My home in Patna is near to the Patna Golf Club and therefore I have some interest in the golf players from Bihar. Once I was travelling in AC 2-tier from Patna to Bangalore, (That was my 1st experience in AC 2-tier. :P) I saw a gentleman reading 'Golf Digest' - a popular Golf magazine in India. I had always had this notion that only big shots travel by AC 2-tier & therefore I started to think that that guy might be some famous golfer. Actually he turned out to be an army personnel who used to play Golf. I wanted to know more from him about Golf in Bihar and thus I started the conversation with him. I started with the little knowledge that I had about the players from Bihar which included the name of Ashok Kumar. And I was pleasantly surprised that this army man had actually played along with Ashok Kumar.
Ashok Kumar (Wikipedia) was born into a poor family in Bihar that struggled to make ends meet. So he was sent to Delhi to earn his living. He then from being a helper at the Jaipur Polo Club, finally rose to the No. 3 among Indian Golf Players.
“I was back to square one. I then went away to help a lorry owner who was transporting sand. I remember the days when I had to pay Rs. 5 to hire a blanket during winter and sleep in Connaught Place,” recalled Ashok.
Please read a complete account on him in this article in the Hindu newspaper published on May. 06, 2010:
                                              Happy with ‘God's gift through golf'

There are many other similar Rags-to-Riches stories in India...