kvrlogs

There you go - let me come out in the open. While I might doubt the success of the JanLokpal bill - which no politician in the right mind will ever pass it - I love the revolution Anna Hazare and team is creating. Dear Egypt, Syria, Lebonon - watch what is happening here. We are a healthy democracy and we are not fighting dictators. In another 50 years you will be going through what we are going through. You might be getting a honest leader now - but slowly without you even knowing - like the proverbial frog on a hot stove - your country will start getting looted. You will get so used to corruption tax that you will not even know that this is a crime you are committing. Then look back at history and see 2011 - what happened in India. You can get some inspiration out of this. Back to my beloved country people - Go ahead - ask me - have you bribed? Yes. I have. I am guilty but I am not ashamed. Before you call me a hypocrite read further. Karnataka - the most corrupt state in I...

5 years back we emigrated to India - and here is the story. July 13th - 2006 : My sister got a phone call around 10.30 AM. We called her from Meenambakkam airport - and this is what we asked her : "Have you kept rice in the pressure cooker?" - she did not understand - why will we call from US to know if she has kept rice in the pressure cooker for the afternoon. We were not supposed to come to India till October and it was not yet confirmed - and why was he asking this dumb question. Anyway I did not let her wonder too much - and broke the news that will be in landing in Coimbatore airport in another hour. So please add some more rice for both of us! Good my mother did not take the call - she would have got a heartattack. My sister's and my mother's BP shot up. After we had spoken, my sister suspected I was playing a prank. But she knew I will not play with sentiments like this - so it has to be true. And for the first time ( her claim ) she scolded me as ...

Our poor netas, who have already sacrificed some good professions like farming, medicine, engineering, business, law, stock trading, IT etc - for the greater good of the country, and for serving the downtrodden of this nation - are being punished by forcing them to travel in economy class. What sacrilege. No one is there to speak in support of our netas - and they will not protest but will accept this quietly - because their humility does not allow them to protest. So I am taking up their cause in this post. No they did not pay me - our netas will never do such a thing. Why our netas deserve business class and private jets: 1. Stress They take so much stress. From the build up to getting a party ticket, fighting for votes, then the horse trading and finally they become ministers. And still it is not over, they have to ward off allegations of corruption, nosy reporters, RTIs, PILs - and somehow manage to find time to serve the masses. And you expect them to be herded like cattle in econ...

I feel Election 09 is more wholesome entertainment than IPL 09 - here is my top 5 reasons. 5. Cricket is a boring sport and IPL is trying to make it interesting and is quite successful in it. Politics has been the world's most oldest profession/game/sport and Elections make it really interesting. So no contest in this front. 4. IPL has got too many statistics - Net run rate, Batsman's average, Bowlers average - it all confuses me and is too much for my mind. I like what Election 09 is going to throw up - all within 545 seats distributed among 1025 parties - and you can play the permutation and combination to see who can make the magic 272 - except make sure you dont club the 2 big parties ( now why don't they partner for a change...that will be fun!) 3. IPL needs gimmicks like cheer leaders, bollywood actress and actors to keep people glued to the screen. Netas need no help from any quarters. They goof up enough, say outrageous things, call names of their opponents - its li...

Tata Nano is back in the news - for all the good reasons - booking is open online and launch date has also been announced. Here are my top 3 reasons why Nano is actually good for all of us. 1. Nano will make better citizens out of us : Nano is going to congest the roads - which is a good thing. Now the lazy ones who always had better alternatives to commute will just give up driving and take to cycling, walking, take the public transport or try car pooling. One cannot drive on 1st gear for 20 kms daily - the clutch foot will hurt and petrol bill will bite like a vampire in the neck. Ouch. So these lazy bozos will now suddenly "discover" new ways of commuting - which are cheaper, cleaner,stress free and faster too.  Time to recommend two of my friends who are doing their part to change the world - Rohan Kini's pedal power - bumsonthesaddle.com Vipul Kasera's Car pooling portal - commuteeasy.com 2. Govt will make better Public Transport: This will be the second effect. ...

Hello Mr.Advani - err.."Ad"vani. You are killing me. You are there everywhere - wired posts, slashdot posts, lifehacker posts. One Mr.Obama had tremendous success by working the internet machine - but it will not work for you. Here is why. 1. Ads annoy people - especially if it is not targetted. Why should a prosperous India ad show up when I am reading about Pirate bay's defence or some tech forum topic.  If I am reading about a political blog or on some serious concern related to India then there is some sense. Just throwing money and plastering an ad everywhere will not work.  2. Is it a wholesome media campaign or your campaign team has bought a big bag of google adwords? I close my laptop, open Indian Express and if I read some thought provoking Ad it will sure impress me.  3. The "How" is missing. I agree Mr.Advani will try to make India strong prosperous and all that. And so are Mr.Manmohan Singh, Mayawati, Jalalalitha, Laloo etc.  - but "how" i...

Hi Jeff Bezos! How are you doing? Feeling recession pangs? Don't worry - you have got a solid business. You can recession proof further and consider expanding to India. When are you releasing kindle here btw? This is the one gadget I really really want.  I have 30 or so books in my reading list ( in shelfari ) and none are available in India.  I feel guilty when I buy books - dead trees and environment and all that.  I need to search - lot of times I would think of quoting from a book but feel lazy to go search through the book Can read multiple books at the same time But please please please do not do an iPhone in terms of pricing. Thank you. 

Its a sad day for us. In the last post I was exulting that the next apple or google is being cooked up somewhere in India. And yesterday I was shocked to hear about Satyam with its hand muddied with a Rs.8000 crore fraud. We have managed to create an ENRON. I hope other Indian Companies do not get in the rat race to give bigger better balance sheets compared to the previous year - in order to have better share market results. Focussing on near short term and missing out on the long term benefits - of happy customers, happier employees and a rock solid business. Thank you Mr.Raju - you have in one stroke made us cheaters. Don't know how long it will take to  clean up the tarnished image in the world's eyes.

The man on the left is the scape goat because of the incompetency of the following stalwarts. 1. Manmohan Singh 2. A.K.Antony. 3. Sonia Gandhi. Mrs.Gandhi has successfully placed "dummies" for Prime Minister, President, Defense Minister and Home Minister. 1 and 2 might be clean but that did not come of any good to handle crisis. I prefer a corrupt paan chewing bad guy who will make our enemies think twice before indulging in any such adventures. Venkat how can you say such a thing? I know I know - even if 1. and 2. are clean - the rest of 3,4...272 are  looting - remember the just concluded Telecom scandal  - Rs 60,000 crores swindled by a Swan technology and one more company - who never had any plans of selling mobile network - but got the spectrum from Mr.Raja for a measly sum and resold it within days to companies who wanted the spectrum badly.  So corruption will happen - its a serious cancer. But the wounds that are being inflicted now will bring us a quick death. It has...

Terrorists choose the wrong place and wrong time to strike. They have dug their own graveyard. Here is why.  1. It is election year . The in power, out of power, no chance of power - all politicians with half,quarter brain will be baying for terrorist blood. Any draconian bill will get passed this time in the assembly.  Of course the short term impact will be - the terrorists will look for alternative professions and lie quietly. The long term impact will be - too much power with police,army will backfire in the long run. Then a peace loving government will come to power and clip its wings. 2. Those idiots attacked business capital. In the past few years business lobbying has started growing. So now enough businesses ( I am counting on you feuding Ambanis, Tatas and Birlas) will lobby for tougher security - and the half and quarter brains will comply and pass the laws even if they do not understand a thing. And in another note :  We are  tired of our Neighbour  My great neighbour nex...

I respect Mumbai more than Delhi. It is India's capital according to me - so many businesses, ideas, entrepreneurs have flourished here.  I got my coffee ready and picked up Indian Express and saw "Terrorists take over Mumbai" - I could not believe it. Thought it was a prank. Economic Times concurred. This is like a movie script. What is going on with our country? Knock Knock Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Shivraj Patil - what are you guys doing? Enough of your vote bank politics and cuddling terrorists. Terrorists have gone from 0 to 1000s in the last 4 years - thanks to your inaction.  If you cannot deal with it - quit. Take with you the crores that you got from Telecom licences and what nots and go holiday in France or Swiss - I don't care. Leave my country alone - and let an able administrator take over. Cannot watch this country bleed slowly to death. 

I always wondered what it takes to start a business in India. Turns out that it is quite simple - no big bureaucratic red tape which I always thought India was. There are 3 major types. Sole Proprietorship: This is what I opted for. Nothing to register with the government, lawyer or auditor. You are fully responsible for your business. Liability is solely yours. What it means is you incur a huge loss - you have to pay from your personal property. You wake up in the middle of night and decide - man let me start a business. There you go - your business is born. As simple as that. Want to open a bank account. No problem - tell them your company name and give address proof and PAN card number. Done. Till 2 Lakhs of income, you pay 20% tax. Beyond that it is 30%. Partnership: You need help from an auditor for this purpose. You and your partner(s) decide what is the percentage you own the company ( and hence the liabilities ) etc. Costs some 5000Rs I guess. I did not dig deep into this as t...

Good luck Senator. I hope you win the election and by next week you are Mr.President .  Here are the reasons why I support this young man. 1. Obama is young and is experienced enough. If W can be President, Mr.Obama - editor of Harward Law Review - can very well be. No arguments. Shut up Mc.Cain and Palin . 2. I am an admirer of Clinton. I love to listen to him. Obama is another great orator of our times. Give him a chance to speak to the world. 3. This is kind of a hope. Currently I am reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and there is a striking similarity to the story and our present day crisis. I n the story all innovation wasstifled . The industrialist who invents a new alloy, another one who invents a new way of drilling oil - all are hounded by the establishment ( Washington, old way of doing business guys, incompetent scientists ) - to not prosper with their innovation. In fact these new ideas are killed unceremoniously citing various reasons.  Roll forward 70 odd years and t...

Morning today I woke up to see Chandrayaan lifting off on our trusty Doordarshan. What a feeling it was. There was cloud cover so did not quite get the majestic spectacle of a rocket firing on all cylinders - but instead had to watch a dull 2D representation of a dot moving through a graph paper with the rockets speed slowly increasing - 4.8Km/s and so on.. A few minutes after launch when all the boosters had done their job, and the satellite was safely tucked away in orbit around the earth a mic was put and all the scientists got behind it and one by one started congrajulating their team. The 3rd to speak was one gentleman who was so emotional that he said " i dont know what to say " and his eyes were moist. And he did went on to congrajulate all his team members. I was waiting for some sound bite where some scientist will say take that you NASA or take that for calling us land of snake charmers and call centers - but none. All of them were such sophisticated gentlemen and ...

I have every reason to be proud of India. A mission to the moon. I am awaiting eagerly for this historic lift off tomorrow. When the rovers scooped dirt on Mars I was proud to be a human being - from swinging from branch to branch - and now to hopping planets  - what a giant leap mankind has taken. Also was teeny weeny jealous of NASA for having achieved such a big feat But when a Made in India  metal starts orbitting the moon, it will be doubly special. We have squeezed a rocket from pinching poverty, corrupt netas, terrorism, border disputes, pollution, suppression of minorities - it is an endless list. But for the common man beaten up by all these bad elements - the lift off will be one uplifing feeling - to encourage him to fight off all these cancers and rise above the clouds to achieve bigger things.  ISRO - a salute to have dared to think beyond 36,000KMs. What is next?