Perspective...

In the proverbial 'foot-in-the mouth' style, the minister for Labour in Karnataka notified an ordinance banning women employees working in shifts and promptly scrapped it after outcry from various "welfare organizations", which upheld that the minister is infringing upon the rights of the working women...!

I had not given this issue any importance since this seemed like a routine stunt...However, reading the supplement of Kannada Prabha (20th May 2007) changed my views on this...I wanted to link the article, but their online edition pops up so many ads that I got fed up with it and gave up...Unfortunately, I don't remember the columnist either...I will try to present the gyst of the article here...!

The author asks...

As soon as the law was notified, we had all the women's welfare organizations swooping down and protesting vehemently asking the govt to backtrack and let the IT sector function smoothly...However, none of these people tried to understand that there are women in other sectors (like retail outlets and garment factories) who typically work up to 10 pm, but are not provided transport back home and even if they are provided transport, they are usually dropped a couple of kms away from their homes and have to travel alone for "the last mile"...It is here that they face the taunts and are harassed by rogues whom they encounter en route...! Who is looking into their problems...? This law, if implemented would've been a boon for these employees and helped in reducing the atrocities against the women...Instead the welfare organizations are fighting against the govt, citing the examples of women employees in the IT sector, for whom transport is taken care by the companies...

My Take:

This article came as an eye-opener for me and I liked the perspective of the author in presenting the issue...I wonder how many people would have thought of this argument...My biggest doubt is whether the minister himself thought from this angle before notifying the law...If he had indeed thought about it, he would have made at least one statement to that effect...

I agree/disagree with the views of the author on some of these counts...

1. Yes...Women have to face problems while returning home due to the various anti-social elements who are nothing more than scavengers...! But by banning women from working late, you are solving the wrong problem...Wouldn't it be better if action was taken against the people who are loitering on the streets passing comments and making suggestive actions...?? Just because a woman is not working late, doesn't mean that she might not need to go out at that time...!

2. Employment in the above mentioned sector itself is un-organized and the employees are subject to exploitation. A couple of other websites also carry tales of horror, but I am not sure of how creditable the source is...! In these circumstances, I am sure even if a law is passed, implementing and regulating it would be a big problem...

So the law would've remained a law just for the sake of it and would not do much to improve the state of the working women anyway...!

Hehehe :)

En route to Kamath Yatrinivas in Majestic, we found this sign along the road...


It took me a while to comprehend what it meant...Its a simple yet unique way to put across a not-so-subtle message...!

It happens wonly in India ;)

Google hell...

(Courtesy Digg)

The thought sure sounds funny doesn't it...But go through this...
Am not sure that the "do-no-evil" company would like to be associated with the tag of hell...!!!

For the uninitiated, Google's PageRank is the system used to rank pages...

Have been speaking about Google for a couple of posts now...Time to move to something different...but such has been their influence that you enter the web, you are bound to stumble upon something google...!!

Makes you feel that you are just a tenant in Google's world...Doesn't it...;)

Heading the Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle way...!!!

I just finished reading "The Google Story" and i recommend it is a must read for everyone...!

Google acquired tonic systems and looks as though you can say bye bye to MS office...

Google Toys

Google has pretty much everything anybody needs to run an office...What they don't have yet, is available open source...This was the topic of discussion of today's chat with rk...

Taking a shot at future, here is my wish list of what Google might do...

1. Port the latest version of MySQL and release a competitor to Access...

2. Come out with a OS (Let's call it googlos for now...;)) and keeping up with Google trend, it'll be as intuitive and simplest possible UI and reverse compatible with all the windows softwares...

btw, there is a new entrant to online TV segment Joost...Though still in beta phase, it has generated a lot of buzz...Though I got introduced to it only today morning, i've read enough material to take up a mastermind on "joost"...:)

If this thing takes off, this could be the biggest competitor to Youtube and its clones, but this could also be the next big acquistion target for Google...Let's see what happens...!!!

Adios Inzi...!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=U9lO1-JHJxM

The opposition was not the toughest, the ground not packed to the fullest, the team morale was not at their highest and among these circumstances came to an end the ODI career of one of the most accomplished batsmen of the modern game...

Adios Inzi...:)

Hopefully your test farewell will be at Multan, with home fans giving you a send-off you richly deserve...!

PS: We will miss your run-outs...;)

Its Just Not Cricket...!!!

In one of the most candid comments ever, Lance Klusener, when asked about their exit from World cup semi-final after that run out with Allan Donald, said…”So what, no one died…”

Well, yesterday somebody did…!

Bob Woolmer died under tragic circumstances yesterday and his death brings into perspective the pressures faced by modern-day cricket. I watched the drama unfold on all the news channels by midnight on Saturday and my first thoughts were “Please let this be a natural death”…Though the vomit and blood might suggest otherwise, I hope for the sake of sport, that there was no malice involved…!

There have been cases where football team managers have faced heart ailments related to stress of managing their teams…The cases of Glenn Roeder(West Ham Utd) and Gerard Houllier(Liverpool) readily come to mind. Fortunately, both of them recovered and returned to team management again…Woolmer though, was not so lucky…

With passions running high, India and Pakistan are under unreasonable pressure to perform and the mercurial nature of the players involved in the Paki juggernaut makes it doubly difficult for any soul brave enough to attempt managing the team…Already struggling to cope up with the loss of Akthar and Asif for whatever the reasons might be, the early exit from the world cup was something they would not have anticipated. Coupled with the demolition of democracy by the Prez back home, this is a week the Pakis would like to wipe off their calendars…!

And we witnessed bizarre things by crazy Indian “fans”, who went about damaging the assets of the “men in blue”…! In the recent past, Indian hockey team has lost matches by bigger margins, playing far worse than what Dravid & co did…Its an open secret that India is the honey comb of cricket, The line between being a fan and being a fanatic is neither thin nor blur and the fans(read fanatics) have left no stone unturned (un-hurled, in this case) in expressing their disappointment at the result. Yes, the same fanatics, who just a week ago were holding prayers and performing Yagnas in the hope that the cup would come back to us…Thankfully, nobody is blaming the gods for not accepting the offering and helping team India in its quest…:)

I am a big fan of sport in general and have had the good fortune to follow a lot of sportsmen thanks to globalization of various sports. One thing that characterizes all the players is that they expect a standing ovation on the good performances and constructive criticism on the bad ones. Anything beyond these boundaries on either side is bad for everyone. Indian cricket, for quite some time now has bred the negative trend and I believe that the media has to take the bulk of the blame for it...With 24/7 news channels dissecting each and every ball and seeking the “expert” opinions of the former players is a disturbing sight. These former players by no means, were great players and a look into their cricketing credentials doesn’t reflect Bradman-esque statistics either…However, we see them day in day out, all dressed up for the crucification of the players whenever they fare badly.

Corporate India, with all its big bucks is another major culprit. With so many lucrative advertisements coming their way, the cricketers are making more money than their counterparts from other countries…Coupled with their bad performances, these ads tend to leave a bad taste in the mouths of the spectators…Ironic as it was, even as India was losing, the prominent ads during the India vs Bangladesh were the one of Sachin promoting some biscuit and the war cry of “ooooooo aaaaaaah”…!

Let cricket be just another sport. Getting too emotional and passionate is good neither for the team nor the sport itself…Enjoy the success of the team and criticize them in a civilized manner whenever they fail…It bodes well for everyone…!

Movie quiz...

Quizzing being one of my many interests, I usually send out quizzes in our office group...Like this blog, the quizzing group has been dormant for majority of 2006 and my new year resolution is to revive both of them...:)

This is one of the movie quizzes that I put up last year...!

Q1:

Andy Dufresne is a young and successful banker whose life changes drastically when he is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife and her lover. Set in the 1940's, the film shows how Andy, with the help of his friend Red, the prison entrepreneur, turns out to be a most unconventional prisoner…


Q2:
Loosely based on Homer's 'Odyssey' the movie deals with the grotesque adventures of Everett Ulysses McGill and his companions Delmar and Pete in 1930s Mississippi. Sprung from a chain gang and trying to reach Everetts home to recover the buried loot of a bank heist they are confronted by a series of strange characters. Among them sirens, a Cyclops, bank robber George 'Babyface' Nelson (very annoyed by that nickname), a campaigning Governor, his opponent, a KKK lynch mob, and a blind prophet, who warns the trio that "the treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find."

Q3:
The gangster Colorado kidnaps Marshal _______. He believes that Marshal has seen a map which leads to a rich vein of gold in the mountains and forces him to show him the way. But they're not the only ones who're after the gold; soon they meet a group of "honorable" citizens and the cavalry crosses their way too - and that is even before they enter Indian Territory.

Q4:
The story of a rich Jewish prince and merchant in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 1st century. Together with the new governor his old friend Messala arrives as commanding officer of the Roman legions. At first they are happy to meet after a long time but their different politic views separate them. During the welcome parade a brick falls down from Judah's house and barely misses the governor. Although Messala knows that they are not guilty he sends Judah to the slave galleys and throws his mother and sister into prison. But Judah swears to come back and take revenge.

Q5:
During WW2 a British aircraft is shot down and crashes in Nazi held territory. The Germans capture the only survivor, an American General, and take him to the nearest SS headquarters. Unknown to the Germans the General has full knowledge of the D-Day operation. The British decide that the General must not be allowed to divulge any details of the Normandy landing at all cost and order Major John Smith to lead a crack commando team to rescue him. Amongst the team is an American Ranger, Lieutenant Schaffer, who is puzzled by his inclusion in an all British operation. When one of the team dies after the parachute drop, Schaffer suspects that Smith's mission has a much more secret objective.

Q6:
Film version of the stage musical, based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem. Tevye the Milkman is a Jewish peasant in pre-Revolutionary Russia, coping with the day-to-day problems of `shtetl' life, his Jewish traditions, his family (wife and daughters), and state-sanctioned pogroms.

Q7:
An abusive husband, his wife and their psychic son take care of a haunted hotel over the winter, but the isolation becomes too much pressure…Jack Torrance gets a job as the custodian of the Overlook Hotel, in the mountains of Colorado. The place is closed down during winter, and Torrance and his family will be the only occupants of the hotel for a long while. When the snow storms block the Torrance family in the hotel, Jack's son Danny - who has some clairvoyance and telepathy powers - discovers that the hotel is haunted and that the spirits are slowly driving Jack crazy. When Jack meets the ghost of Mr. Grady, the former custodian of the hotel who murdered his wife and his two daughters, things begin to get really nasty...

Q8:
Spoilt socialite and notorious practical joker Melanie Daniels is shopping in a San Francisco pet store when she meets Mitch Brenner. Mitch is looking to buy a pair of love birds for his young sister's birthday; he recognizes Melanie but pretends to mistake her for an assistant. She decides to get her own back by buying the birds and driving up to the quiet coastal town of Bodega Bay, where Mitch spends his weekends with his sister and mother. Shortly after she arrives, Melanie is attacked by a gull, but this is just the start of a series of attacks…

Q9:
You're young. You have an easy, well-paid deskjob. You have a condo, Swedish furniture, artistic coffee tables and a fridge full of condiments. Yet you feel emotionally and spiritually empty. You eventually find comfort in going to support groups for lukemia and cancer victims when there's nothing wrong with you until they're hijacked from you by another faker. Then you meet Tyler Durden, a man that shows you that not only can you live without material needs but that self-destruction, the collapse of society and making dynamite from soap might not be such a bad idea either. A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy.

Q10:
The real-life story of America’s most notorious couple, who caught the imagination of the nation during the great depression…To their victims, the duo is doing what nobody else has the guts to do. To the law, the two are evil bank robbers who deserve to be gunned down where they stand. The inspired the famous poem…

Some day they'll go down together.
They'll bury them side by side.
To few it'll be grief -
To the law a relief -
but it's death for ________ and ________

Answers sometime soon...In case you want to take up the quiz, mail me the answers at sathishkumarv@gmail.com

Movie quiz...

Quizzing being one of my many interests, I usually send out quizzes in our office group...Like this blog, the quizzing group has been dormant for majority of 2006 and my new year resolution is to revive both of them...:)

This is one of the movie quizzes that I put up last year...!

Q1:

Andy Dufresne is a young and successful banker whose life changes drastically when he is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife and her lover. Set in the 1940's, the film shows how Andy, with the help of his friend Red, the prison entrepreneur, turns out to be a most unconventional prisoner…


Q2:
Loosely based on Homer's 'Odyssey' the movie deals with the grotesque adventures of Everett Ulysses McGill and his companions Delmar and Pete in 1930s Mississippi. Sprung from a chain gang and trying to reach Everetts home to recover the buried loot of a bank heist they are confronted by a series of strange characters. Among them sirens, a Cyclops, bank robber George 'Babyface' Nelson (very annoyed by that nickname), a campaigning Governor, his opponent, a KKK lynch mob, and a blind prophet, who warns the trio that "the treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find."

Q3:
The gangster Colorado kidnaps Marshal _______. He believes that Marshal has seen a map which leads to a rich vein of gold in the mountains and forces him to show him the way. But they're not the only ones who're after the gold; soon they meet a group of "honorable" citizens and the cavalry crosses their way too - and that is even before they enter Indian Territory.

Q4:
The story of a rich Jewish prince and merchant in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 1st century. Together with the new governor his old friend Messala arrives as commanding officer of the Roman legions. At first they are happy to meet after a long time but their different politic views separate them. During the welcome parade a brick falls down from Judah's house and barely misses the governor. Although Messala knows that they are not guilty he sends Judah to the slave galleys and throws his mother and sister into prison. But Judah swears to come back and take revenge.

Q5:
During WW2 a British aircraft is shot down and crashes in Nazi held territory. The Germans capture the only survivor, an American General, and take him to the nearest SS headquarters. Unknown to the Germans the General has full knowledge of the D-Day operation. The British decide that the General must not be allowed to divulge any details of the Normandy landing at all cost and order Major John Smith to lead a crack commando team to rescue him. Amongst the team is an American Ranger, Lieutenant Schaffer, who is puzzled by his inclusion in an all British operation. When one of the team dies after the parachute drop, Schaffer suspects that Smith's mission has a much more secret objective.

Q6:
Film version of the stage musical, based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem. Tevye the Milkman is a Jewish peasant in pre-Revolutionary Russia, coping with the day-to-day problems of `shtetl' life, his Jewish traditions, his family (wife and daughters), and state-sanctioned pogroms.

Q7:
An abusive husband, his wife and their psychic son take care of a haunted hotel over the winter, but the isolation becomes too much pressure…Jack Torrance gets a job as the custodian of the Overlook Hotel, in the mountains of Colorado. The place is closed down during winter, and Torrance and his family will be the only occupants of the hotel for a long while. When the snow storms block the Torrance family in the hotel, Jack's son Danny - who has some clairvoyance and telepathy powers - discovers that the hotel is haunted and that the spirits are slowly driving Jack crazy. When Jack meets the ghost of Mr. Grady, the former custodian of the hotel who murdered his wife and his two daughters, things begin to get really nasty...

Q8:
Spoilt socialite and notorious practical joker Melanie Daniels is shopping in a San Francisco pet store when she meets Mitch Brenner. Mitch is looking to buy a pair of love birds for his young sister's birthday; he recognizes Melanie but pretends to mistake her for an assistant. She decides to get her own back by buying the birds and driving up to the quiet coastal town of Bodega Bay, where Mitch spends his weekends with his sister and mother. Shortly after she arrives, Melanie is attacked by a gull, but this is just the start of a series of attacks…

Q9:
You're young. You have an easy, well-paid deskjob. You have a condo, Swedish furniture, artistic coffee tables and a fridge full of condiments. Yet you feel emotionally and spiritually empty. You eventually find comfort in going to support groups for lukemia and cancer victims when there's nothing wrong with you until they're hijacked from you by another faker. Then you meet Tyler Durden, a man that shows you that not only can you live without material needs but that self-destruction, the collapse of society and making dynamite from soap might not be such a bad idea either. A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy.

Q10:
The real-life story of America’s most notorious couple, who caught the imagination of the nation during the great depression…To their victims, the duo is doing what nobody else has the guts to do. To the law, the two are evil bank robbers who deserve to be gunned down where they stand. The inspired the famous poem…

Some day they'll go down together.
They'll bury them side by side.
To few it'll be grief -
To the law a relief -
but it's death for ________ and ________

Answers sometime soon...In case you want to take up the quiz, mail me the answers at sathishkumarv@gmail.com