Sunday, August 31, 2008

Reliance

Reliance Industries, One of the premier companies of India. Probably the most profitable in India. Started by one person, Dhirubhai Ambani, who started off small but dreamt big, only to fulfill them. He never had a clue that one fine day his two sons, Mukesh and Anil would be at war heads in the court of law and washing the dirty linen in public. Nevertheless, these two brothers had made the world look at them and India as well. Personally speak, I hate this company but love the stocks. I hate because, In more than one way this company does things illegally, of which I am also a victim. From that day onwards, I have pledged never to use any RELIACE product in my life, and I still stand by it. But I am not really sure whether I will be able to continue doing the same for long, given the fact that, they have entered into every segment the market. You name it and they are there in it. One of the brothers. If I want to put it across as a story, I could say, whatever you do today, Reliance will earn something from it. Right from buying fuel, to using a cell, paying insurance, trading in stocks, credit cards, jewellery, footwear, stationary material to your day to day grocery. Did I miss anything ? I sure would have. Of course the latest entrant is DTH service and social sites though the mobile.

I hate them to the core. My hatred has gone to the extent of not only cancelling my cell connection with Reliance, but also cancelled 5 of my friends connections, and that I see as one of my acheivements in life. But no matter what, I still like them for that very fact that, its only because of them that we are having so cheap telecom rates. It was them who started the concept of incoming free. Else earlier, I would pay for all the junk calls too :(

So what should I really be doing ? Loving them or hating them. Well I guess we need such people to keep the market on track. Use them carefully without getting cheated. Be on your toes when you are dealing with them, as they are the last people on planet whom you can trust. You can turst them to be infair. Sometimes these fishes are needed to keep a tab on the market rates. I do have a feeling that now that they have ventured into the Cable TV segment, the prices of TATA SKY and ZEE DTH will come down further.


Love them Hate them, but cannot Ignore them. Just hoping that one fine day, they get some clean mind and do the good for India.

Before I end, let me just list out the companies under the Reliance Brand, regardless of which brother owns it.

Reliance Petroleum
Reliance Energy
Reliance Retail under which comes Reliance Fresh, Footprint, Jewellery, Digital, Wellness, Time Out

Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group is a group of companies headed by Anil Ambani. The companies under the group are:

I guess this is quite a spread

Sunday, August 24, 2008

New Books in my Library

It was an shopping spree in the book shops this weekend. I picked up around 8 books . 3 from crossword and 5 from Landmark. The reason I went to these book shops was because I was looking for a particular book. Didnt find it at both the places, but ended up buying a bunch of books.
3 of these are Calvin and Hobbes, a new book by Subroto Bagchi " Go kiss the world " , Shantaram. among others.
Will write a review of all in the coming weeks.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

20-08-2008

This month has all the beautiful days in it. 08/08/08 was one such day we would never again come across in our lives again, and yes it was a day to cherish for the rest of my life. All thanks to the Beijing Olympic Games.

Today its different, but again related to the Games. And again to Olympic games. India is on the verge of making history today. Winning the 2nd medal and making sure of the 3rd is definitely a great day. and what better day to remember this, 20/08/2008. These numerically rich days really make me feel great and all excited to write something.

To add to this, I also got an email from Anita , that I am selected to be one of the Authours of the famous Bangalore blog, http://bangalore.metblogs.com/. Now thats something that I would myself as an achievement. So guys watch out for my blogs on the Bangalore MetBlogs.

I guess I should be getting a good night sleep tonight.

Monday, August 11, 2008

India Wins Gold at Olympics

Finally India Wins Gold at the Olympics after a Gap of 28 years and the first Individual Gold Medal Ever,

by Abhinav Bindra

http://www.ibnlive.com/olympicsnews/abhinav-bindra-wins-olympic-gold/70827-29.html

Article is as follows

Beijing Abhinav Bindra won India's first-ever individual Olympic gold medal when he claimed the men's 10m Air Rifle shooting title here on Monday.

Athens Games champion Zhu Qinan of China won the silver and Henri Hakkinen of Finland took the bronze at the Beijing Shooting Hall on the outskirts of the Chinese capital.

Bindra, the 25-year-old businessman from the northern city of Chandigarh, followed his world championship title two years ago to finally win a landmark gold medal for his country.

In one of the most thrilling shooting finals in Olympic history, Bindra overcame a two-point deficit against Hakkinen and one point against Zhu after the qualification rounds to annexe the title.

The Indian trumped his rivals with the best finish of 104.5 in the 10-shot final as he went into the last shot level with Hakkinen on 689.7 points.

While Bindra secured his best score of 10.8 in the deciding shot, Hakkinen managed only 9.7 to concede the silver to Zhu, whose last shot was 10.5.

Bindra finished with a combined tally of 700.5, a fair distance behind Zhu's Olympic record of 702.7 set in Athens.

Zhu came in with 699.7 this time and Hakkinen, a member of Finland's armed forces who is taking part in his first Olympics, scored 699.4 points.

India, winners of eight field hockey gold medals, had never won an individual Olympic title before Bindra's feat.

The previous best was trap shooter Rajyavardhan Rathore's silver at Athens, while there were bronze medals for wrestler Khasaba Jadhav (1952), tennis star Leander Paes (1996) and woman weightlifter Karnam Malleswari (2000).

Sunday, August 10, 2008

My next will not be about three friends: Chetan Bhagat

Found this article on the net. For Chetan Bhagat Fans this should be some news :)
http://sify.com/movies/fullstory.php?id=14722675
The article is as follows

After writing youth-based books like Five Point Someone, One Night @ The Call Center and Three Mistakes Of My Life, of which two dealt with a group of three friends, author Chetan Bhagat has no plans to base his next book on the same theme.

"I am not going to write anymore dark novels and surely my next book will not be about three friends. It will be about something else about which I am still unaware as of now," said Bhagat.

The author was in the capital for the 10th Osian's-Cinefan Film Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema that ended last week.

Bhagat's Five Point Someone, published in 2004, is being made into a film by Rajkumar Hirani of Munnabhai fame. The movie is titled Idiots and Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor are expected to lead the cast.

His other bestseller One Night @ The Call Center, which hit the stalls in 2005, has already been made into a film titled Hello. Directed by Atul Agnihotri, it stars Salman Khan, Sohail Khan, Katrina Kaif, Sharman Joshi, Isha Koppikar and Amrita Arora.

"Storytelling and humour comes easy to me. I generally write about young people and my stories always have friends. That is mostly because it is impossible for young people to imagine their lives without their friends," said Bhagat, an alumni of Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT).

The author lamented the fact that a young country like India is being run by old men, leading to utter confusion in the entire system.

"The youth of this country is a storehouse of energy, but the main problem is that 80-year-old people are taking decisions for them and therefore their exuberance and energy goes waste.

"I have seen young college going students spending four hours travelling to seek an internship. I have seen kids fighting for admissions after scoring even a 92 or 93 percent - in fact some of them even drop one precious year to get admission in a good engineering or medical college. And all of this rat race for those old people who hold the platter?"

Bhagat strongly believes that it is not necessary that an 80-year-old's experience is better than that of a 25-year-old youth's energy.

"At times experience can also turn into baggage," he said.



Beijing Olympics 2008

The Beijing Olympics inauguration ceremony was simply awesome. No real words to describe this event. Showcasing this event, China has proved that they are not someone they can be ignored. They made a statement in the ceremony and how powerful they are technologically and how disciplined they are. With the discipline they had showed , they will very soon over take India in the only field which we were ahead of them ie fleuency of English Language. I do remember Dr S Sadagopan , Dir Of IIIT Bangalore, almost 4 years ago, saying that the Chinese are so disciplined that they have taken a stance that every athelete who comes for the prestigious games, will be spoken to in English right from the time they get off at the Airport till they leave. When I told this to one of my friend who had been to China, ridiculed me to that fact, saying that its impossible, knowing the level of English they knew. He had to actually enact the flying of the Aeroplace to tell the Taxi driver that he wanted to go to the Airport. Well this was standard then. I am not sure whats the state now, but I am sure that this must be true by now.

If on a given timeline, we had to improvise on the quality of the Olympic Games, it shouldnt have reached this level. They have moved it ahead by an decade. London has definitely felt the pinch of this and now expectation from them has been increased drastically. Can they even match up to the Chinese, given the fact that they still have 4 years with them ? Only history will tell this. But in the next two years time, ie in 2010 we will be hosting the Common Wealth Games in New Delhi ? Can we match to them even to a fraction of Beijing Games. Apparently after the inauguration of the games, all the participants ie above 10,000 were being shifted to the Olympic Village in flat 50 min. Can we even dream of this ? First of all we need to change our thinking. The Chinese have thought of doing which didnt even strike us. And not just thinking they have showed it to the world.
Lets see whats in store ?
Either we will see the results or hear the excuses .

Got my Voters Card Today

Today I finally got my Voters card done. It was a quick job. I mean actually in 5 min I got it done.
I did have my name registered earlier , so all that I had to do was to go there and give my ID.
And within 5 min it was all ready. Forgot to mention that there was no queue at all.. so unlikely in a place like India. But clearly shows that not many people are very keen to get their Voters ID. So first of all we need to change our mindset . The mindset that for seeing the change we need to change first. Are we ready for the change ?

Friday, August 08, 2008

08 08 08 08 08

Nice title isnt it ?
Yes, its basically the time stamp of this moment in China..
Yes , its 8 min past 8 on the 8th of August 2008
And this is the time when the Olympics Games in Beijing are being inaugurated.

Its definitely going to be a lovely day to remember.

And not just that, it has been a nice day for me and hope it remains the same for the remaining part of the day..

enjoy 08 08 08 08 08

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Friendship Day

Today is the first sunday or August, which means its the friendship day... Hmmm now we need "special days" to remember friends .. Funny isnt it. Or Rather an oxymoron. All these years I used to call up all my so called friends, whom I am not at all in touch. But now I think differently.. Whats the use of calling whom you arent touch at all. This year, I only called those people whom I am regularly in touch. And I didnt really wish them so.. I guess if we are in touch with some friends regularly, neither the explicit mention nor the day is needed. For the rest, even if its a special, the expiry time is just 24 hours :)