Controversial Sania and Raj

Sania has made a very controversial decision by deciding not to play in the Bangaluru open where even the Williams sisters are set to play.
But, this decision has been a reaction to the constant torture faced by her from fellow Indians who can't see any other Indian succeed. An environment has been created where all merit is perceived to be foreign and nobody believes that India and Indians can so something great.
Though I was never interested in the girl or her sport, I remember a Sania with a "nath" in her nose. Today, Sania and any other typical European lady cannot be distinguished by the uninitiated. This is because the concept of beauty widely accepted by India today is of European origin.
Sania is just a victim of this "only foreign originated is good".

Coming to the hot topic of North Indians in Mumbai, instead of castigating Raj Thackeray, the leaders of the cow belt should introspect as to why do so many people move out of UP and Bihar and come to Mumbai and live in sub-human conditions. Whoever re-emphasizes that all Indian citizens have a right to settle in Mumbai an earn their living should first ask why any Indian citizen cannot buy and own a house/land in Kashmir or the north-eastern states.

BOON TO YOU

It was sometime in May 2007 that I was suggested by an extraordinary soul to install UBUNTU on my brand new laptop. The promise of free software and freedom was irresistible and I installed the OS. I was forcing myself out of the clutches of Microsoft. But, I was not ready for this journey. I wasn’t prepared for the change in mindset as also the extra effort and initiative.

The installation was smooth and the look of the OS was good. But, I banged into a big wall. My Broadcomm wireless card was not detected and I could not use the wireless internet. This was as good as not having a laptop or using one sometime in the 1970s. Now I realized the real difference between Windows and Linux: you fend for yourself in Linux and thus you are the master. In Windows, you blindly believe MS and hence are chronically dependent on them. My wireless did not work and the frustration mounted. During the time, I was parted from my laptop because of my long duration official trips. Thus came November and I was contemplating migrating back to Microsoft. But, I mustered hope inspired from the plight of the BABA man. He was torn apart trying to migrate UBUNTU. He could not break himself from the bond of enslavement from MS. He found the effort worthless.

Now, I wanted to prove to myself that I have the courage and resilience to go the distance. As my journey progressed, I was introduced by the faithful soul to a financial accounting software Gnnucash. I started maintaining my daily accounts with the help of this software. Gnucash has diverse and versatile capabilities. An account all your financial transactions can be maintained in this software. Even investments can be logged into the software. But, how do you see your capital gains. Income and expenses are exactly what they are, but the value of investments changes on daily basis. So, how do I measure what money I put and what is it worth now. Here the wizardy capabilitites of Gnucash came handy. Gnucash has the facility of retrieving the stock quotes online. But, is it possible with Indian stocks? Have the stock exchanges in India become technically savvy enough? Do Indian markets have the might to develop the stake which forces popular websites to stream online quotes of Indian stocks? And the answer is yes. Yahoo Asia gives realtime quoted for stocks listed in the NSE. Now came the most difficult part: getting to the technical grind and configuring the Gnucash application. After two days of struggle, I finally managed to get online quotes not only for the stocks but also for mutual funds. I was thrilled and convinced of the cutting edge technology of Linux.

After this small success, I am past Microsoft and have stepped irreversibly into the free world of linux. I am happy that I didn’t disappoint the soul whose name I reveal at the end of the article: RVB.

Economics in one Lesson : Book Review

This is one of the best books I have read. Very lucid and always revolving round the central theme. The essence of the book is summarized in the author’s words itself as

“The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate, but at longer effects of any act or policy, it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group, but for all groups.”

It is significant to note that the author calls economics an art and thus distances economics from the rigors statistics or what in modern days is called econometrics. The author takes up different issues like supply-demand principle, subsidies, tax sops, price control, import-export policy and analyses (using the before mentioned principle) the effects of a particular policy on different groups of people viz. producers, consumers, tax-payers and indirectly affected people. Pure straight thinking and natural reasoning flows to draw conclusions of which we know, but are not aware or refuse to accept. All the reasoning in the book is based on the following axiom.

“Something cannot be created out of nothing”
In other words,
“Economic resources have alternative uses and the best policy is the one which which produces net gain in the long run.”

Also, the author tends to rely on the belief that

“Nature always tries to reach a static equilibrium” which does happen in mechanics but is contrary to the III Law of Thermodynamics: “In any thermodynamic process, entropy (chaos) is always greater than or equal to zero.”

I would recommend this book to all those interested in economic and business policy. It would entice those people who believe in long-term rather than quick-fix solutions. One reason I liked the book was that the author thinks in a way similar to the author of the book “The Intelligent Investor” viz Benjamin Graham. They both believe that making your point louder and more often doesn’t make it right. A short review of this Geeta of investment philosophy will come next.

Available at:http://www.mises.org/books/onelesson.pdf

At what cost?

We make choices everyday, some with due consideration some impulsively. Choices decide the course of our journey and we realise which road we are on only after coverung a great distance. Then we start thinking: Am I achieving what I had set out to? Were the sacrifices I made to come here worth it? Do I really want this at the price I paid for it? Many a times either we don't realise how much we pay for something or we don't anticipate what price we will have to pay in the future

This is the theme of the movie "Life in a Metro". We work long hours just to earn few more Rupees for our family, but do we realise that our family requires more time than money? What happens when the spouse can't fulfill their emotional needs from each other? (Shilpa and Kay Kay).
The "at whatever cost" attitude makes us commit so many crimes, but only when the consequences are reflected in our personal life do we realise that the "cost" was just too high. (Sharman and Kangna-what a babe).
The movie also narrates the oft repeated story of "waiting a bit more for the perfect thing". One can always invest more time and achieve more but the law of diminishing returns always holds and one should not expect "beyong a point". (Konkana and Irfan).

So, all in all the movie makes us sit back and think about what we are running after and what we are leaving behind.

PS: Shilpa has one of the best figures in Bollywood. The pic is the first on my blog which tilts towards beinf termed erotic

Open up (Notebook)

Friends, after witnessing a lot of fights, some sensible (Bhute Vs Thite) and others just for the sake (Bhute Vs Bhise), I have finally migrated to Linux.
And guess what, I have made my recently purchased Compaq notebook totally open. It has only one OS and it is Kubuntu. Now the three of us Bhute (Ubuntu), Bhise (Xubuntu) included have Ubuntu with each enjoying his flavour of the Desktop.
The migration has been made possible after I learnt Solaris on joining Siemens.
I would like to thank Bhute for spending his time on me and help me migrate to the open world - I myself feel free. Though the change has been sudden and I don't have my old ways to fall back on, I am navigating the open world by RTFM.
Both my notebook and me will take some time to stabilise with the new OS. This would be the time of maximum learning. Also, I feel fully confident of using the net for more purposes as Linux is free of malice. So, the next step would be to configure my personal financial software and use it to track my investment portfolio online.

As for the lady in the pic, I simply can't see her marrying to Salman. It is difficult to accept. But, I have always maintained that man should always accept the truth and I have had the strength till this point in my life.

So, adhering to the principle of accepting the truth and conronting relaity head on, read the piece of article on this link http://valueresearchonline.com/story/storyview.asp?str=9903 and send in your comments.