Rain! Rain! go away.

Rain! Rain! go away.
Never! Ever! come again!

This is what Mumbaikars praying at the moment.

Since last few days heavy rain lashing in Mumbai city non-stop, affecting daily life there. The total of 944 mm rainfall recorded till Wednesday morning. All the roads were flooded; people stranded in the middle of the roads, Railway tracks invisible and covered by flooded water. Electricity cut off for several hours, Phone lines were damaged. Even Airports closed, all the overseas flights diverted to other major cities. Passengers who were waiting for connecting flights stayed in the airport for more than 3 days. Totally Mumbai was cut-off from other cities.

In this monsoon Western India was the worst hit comparing to other parts. Already we saw floods in Gujarat, Saurashtra and few parts in Maharashtra. Mumbai already experienced heavy rain and this one is worst of all.

Many of the Mumbaikars dare to take roads, as many vehicles stranded in the roads, most couldn't find the way to reach home. Few prefer to stay in the office itself, TV Channels flashing news that most school children are stuck in the Schools and School administration making alternate arrangements to reach them their homes. Mumbai's main public transport suburban train service shutdown in many places, lot of passengers force to take station platforms. In other hand passenger in Air ports spend their days in waiting halls without proper food and water. Many complaints flight operators fail to make the alternate arrangement and not accommodate them in the hotels. Even this rain resulted heavy market fall in Economic capital of India, news suggest that there are 1,000 crore loss in last 2 days, and chambers of commerce and Industry called the government to restore on war footing.

In one part of India people floating in waters, in other part people fighting for it. You cannot control the Nature, and nothing in your hand. Only thing you can do is take precaution when it shows the real face!

The Mobile revolution in India

A few decades ago using mobile phone is part of luxury life, people thought the upper class people only use the mobile phones. Now things are changed, nowadays you can see a common man also has one mobile with him. This is because it's became very cheap these days, thanks to the tariff war between leading mobile operators.

Recent study showed there are 55.87 million Indians using the Mobile phones, and we are not that far to overshadow China, World's largest mobile users. It's growing day by day as the new tariff plans coming in.

The first revolution came when Reliance Infocom entered in mobile market and introduced their lowest tariff plans and easy installment handsets. This forces other mobile operators also change their minds to compete with them. And even Government helped their hand to introduce innovative bills. Now the giant Operators like AirTel, Hutchison Essar, BPL, Spice and Idea cellular has a schemes which suitable for a common man.

In future we may see the mobile phones being sell at the platforms. Mobiles are very helpful and it became a must thing in a daily life. But it looks very bad when you some people misuse it.

Technology and scientific invention growing day by day and people fall addict in it. When all this falls we came back to our old age.

Will Narain Karthikeyan finish in German Grand Prix?

Indian rookie Narian Karthikeyan hope to do well in German Grand Prix with his new car. Will he eclipse his poor performance in last few races? In Friday Practice he finished 18th position ahead of his teammate Tiago Monterio and Jordon's new test driver Nicolas Kiesa, clocking 1:18:988.

In a Britain Grand Prix, he was the lone driver to retire and fail to finish the race, he was so disappointed about not finishing on Jordon's home track. He has a clear mindset now, just to finish the race, ahead of his teammate and Minardi drivers.

German Grand Prix not only pressure race for Narain, also for the 7-time world champion Micheal Schumacher, as he is racing in front of his home crowd. Last year he won the race here. Definitely he's going to have tough race, Fernando Alanso and Kimi Raikkonen is the real threat to him.

Millions of Indians hoping something better from him as he was the first Indian formula one driver. The question now is "Will he finish the race tomorow?" We need to wait and watch.

For Live timings, Results and Latest News visit to Formula One official website.

Changing Food Culture in India!

When you go out with your family on a weekend and planning for a good dinning place. You are thinking of a place where they serve tasty south Indian dish or hot Chettinadu curries. If you ask a suggestion to your little one's they reply "Pizza corner" or "Chinese Restaurants" or "McDonald's". You are wondering what they serve and how it taste like. Definitely the food culture changing in India, especially there is lot of changes between young generations.

There is lots of Pizza outlets and other foreign food courts booming in India. And the other hand some of the old restaurants are closing down as they couldn't pull the crowd like the fancy foreign companies. The main reason is the current generation prefer a fancy place to dine and they fall addict to the western culture.

Few Research say there is lower risk of not-fatal heart attack who regularly
eat pizzas and burgers. Even it causes digest system and raise the calories level. An even doctor confirms that there is lot of cases of heart attack in young age.

To compete with foreign companies our local restaurants force to introduce the new dishes to attract the crowd. The famous South Indian restaurants Hotel Saravana Bhavan has Chinese dish in their menu card, which offered by most of the crowd. Even you get pizzas, sandwiches and burgers in some of South Indian restaurants. If this continues no wonder we may end up seeing our dishes like Masala Dosai's, Idlies and Vadas in the musuem.

Most of our South Indian dishes attracting the western people and we have opened few Franchises there. Hotel Saravana Bhavan has their own Franchises in New York, California and United Kingdom. The famous Chettinadu Cuisine Hotel Anjappar has a franchise in Toronto.

The Food culture changing in India, at the same time we are getting weaker generation. I am not saying don't eat pizzas and Burgers. Make it occasional dine, not a regular. Have a nice eating!

Careless in your Credit card usage? please read this

When I read the article about credit card on The Hindu today I was shocked. It explains how the credit card consumers suffers when they not following their transactions regularly. As I was using couple of credit cards, the first thing I did is checked my last month statement. It's confusing, lot of credits and debits columns in it. After spend few time in it I convenienced myself that my last month statement has nothing suspicious.

In that article, the author explained that how the few people had a problem with credit cards. Also he gave some useful tips and what are the consequences we face.

So if you are credit card holder please read that article and follow the same. Also share this useful information to others.

"Ignorance is expensive" is the thought of the day, think how it matches in this issue.

The forgotten Entertainers!!!

Nowadays people opt to spend their weekends in luxury hotels, clubs and beach resorts. Few others who prefer cost-effective weekend goes to beach, cinema halls and shopping malls. There are few other entertainments available for them which they ignored, or they are not showing much interest in it. In that list, stage dramas which was one of the main entertainments few decades ago. If you walk in to some of dramas you may see 10 or more artiste performing for 5 or more people in the audience area. Which is very sad and shows how the people ignored the dramas.

In Chennai very few go to stage dramas, and you may get little crowd if you announce the gate entry is free. The famous artistes like S.V. Shekar and "Crazy" Mohan get their regular audience while others struggling to pull the same.

In July the United Visuals celebrating their 10th anniversary (also famous TV personality Varadharajan celebrates his 25th year on stage this year.), in which they have plan to conduct "Drama a day" festival. It start from July 22 to August 15. Some of the leading drama troupes going to take part of this festival and they are going perform each day. It's going to happen at Mylapore Fine Arts, Krishna Gana Sabha, Narada Gana Sabha, Rani Seethai Hall, Vani Mahal and Bharath Kalachar. The organizers announced the gate entry will be free and given call to the people for give enormous support. They also planned for a photography exhibition on the theatre movement, a seminar on dramas and honoring of senior artistes.

So whoever in Chennai please spend sometime to visit these places and encourage the artistes. It's not going to cost anything for us. Let's support the great entertainment and show we have not forgotten them.

Telemarketing - A trouble marketing?

When you are driving on a heavy traffic road, suddenly your mobile makes a noise. You are wondering who's calling me on this time, Is this a boss calling you to give more work? or Is this your friend calling you to convey the weekend bash plan? or Is this from your home to know about your whereabouts? You just park your vehicle in the roadside and attend the phone call, a sweet female voice asking your name. When you confirm that you are the person she targeted, she start explaining about her company and their products. Following that she query about details like where are you residing, your working place and your salary details. Without giving much opportunity you to speak, she talks like bullet train. If you manage to understand few words and asking her to call after sometime as you are middle of your journey. On the way you may think why I am getting this calls? How did they got my mobile number? What is this all about? This is new trend of marketing adopted by the marketing people these days.

By the time you reach the place your mobile gets a call from the same sweet voice. This time you got irritated and told her that you are not interested in their products. Immediately she requests you to refer few of your friend's names and their contact numbers. Now you realize the secret behind how the Telemarketing people building their database. You convinced that one of your idiotic nut (u also call him best friend) gave your number to her after fallen in love hearing her sweet voice. This is true, nowadays face-to-face marketing became old and Telemarketing centers rising in large numbers.

It's simple and cost effective; just you need hire few young females or males (very few vacancies). Place a phone in front of them and give them list of phone numbers, ask them to call each and everyone and fixing target of getting at least 10 customers a day. They have told to call the customers again and again till he gets mad on you. No matters what, they have to achieve their goal even if you are in Heaven or Hell!
Nowadays if you open Employment newspaper you may see there are 100 of vacancies available under Telemarketing category.

Now it became nightmare for a mobile users, sometimes they are forced ignore the calls. Even after High court gave a severe warning to Telemarketing companies, nothing has changed. The world remains the same. So how do we going prevent this? Tell your friends not to give your mobile number to any other third person. Don't write your personal contact numbers in public forum. Just ignore the Feedback forms or personal detail forms when you are going buy something from any shop.

Please make awareness to other people about this Telemarketing trouble!!!

Set top box - A gift or A curse?

It has been long time since we watched action pact movies in Star movies, Block busters in HBO, Cricket actions all around the world and Formula one races in various sport channels, dazzling music videos in MTV, even our little one's missing their favorite cartoon heroes in Cartoon Network. Thanks to the Previous central government implementing Conditional access system only in Chennai Metropolitan city (they decided to implement this in four major cities, but stiff agitation in other cities force them to drop it).

When Multi system Operator's introduced Set top Box in Chennai city most of the people confused what it is, as there was no proper explanation from the government. Most people thought it is mandatory to have one their home. Then the MSO's came up with different kind of campaign and advertisement to make clear the doubts in their mind. There are various reasons for implementing a Conditional Access system, such as the need to enforce payment by the end user for consumed services, which means we are going to pay for the channels which we using rather then paying for everything. Most of the consumers happy to pay only for the free channels instead of going for Set top box. This resulted poor subscription of CAS when it was introduced in Chennai. Even misunderstanding between Multi System Operators and Cable operators led the slow sales of Set Top Boxes. Multi System Operators like Sumangali Cable Vision and Hathway bought huge number STB's, which kept in the godown for long time.

Most of the Chennaities not ready to invest huge amount in it. After a poor response, MSO's came up with different plans to build the subscription, even they ready to rent the STB's and Installment payment. After this there was slight increase in STB sales, but not to the mark which they expected. Who actually goes for it? The high class people, few corporate offices, Five star Hotels, luxury bars and Clubs. So it didn't reach the common man yet. One group of STB users happy with the system and another one raising serious allegation about it. For example the Five star hotel not ready to invest huge amount for installing STB's in each room (Le Royal Meridien has 240 rooms). They are getting complaints from the guests who staying in their hotels for not having foreign channels.

Who's suffers a lot? The MSO's or the end users? Definitely the end users. Especially the younger generation who is missing their favorite programs. When I visited my friend's house in a small village just outside Chennai, he was watching NatWest Series match in Star Sports, I was amazed and thinking is this curse for Chennaities. Chennai Cricket lovers are famous for their neutral supporting habit worldwide, When Saeed Anwar thrashed Indian bowling and scored 194 runs in Chepauk the whole crowd gave a standing ovation. The same Cheenai crowd missing The Ashes action, Caribbean classics and South African matches. At the other Hand, they are not able to cheer the Naryan Karthikeyan (first formula one rookie from Chennai) and see his action live. One day me and my friend went to a local bar just to watch football match between Brazil and Argentina.

After seen the CAS failure here still the government not thinking whipping it. I am not blaming it is poor system, but it came in a wrong time. While other cities not adopting it why it still forced in Chennai. Chennaities already showed their agitation in the way not subscribing it. So at least government makes arrangement to remove it and give back our entertainment.

Set Top Box - A gift to Multi System Operators and A curse to End-users!

Should Chennai enforce wearing helmet compulsory like other city?

Now days two wheeler population zipping in chennai roads, the official figures shows there are 17 lakhs vehicles using chennai roads. Sometimes when you ride you are forced to jumb the yellow line, as there was no space in city roads. Yesterday chennai city traffic police launched campaign to use the helmets voluntarily. Also they are planning to enforce the law to use helmet mandatory like few other neighboring cities.

Facts and figures:

Out of 17 lakhs vehicles only 20 % to 30 % two-wheeler raiders using the helmet here, most of them thinks it’s uncomfortable to use. Interestingly female raiders using large numbers than their male counterparts. Most of them hate to carry the helmets wherever they go. But they didn’t think about what it cost on their life. Everyday road accidents increasing by numbers and most affected group are two-wheeler raiders. Official figures shows there are 188 two-wheeler
raiders died in road accidents from january to june, in that 88 persons who died are motorcycle raiders. Most of the cases due to head injuries, and they are aged between 20 to 40 years. There are few pillion raiders who became victims in these cases.

On the other hand, most of the accidents occurring during night time between 8:00 pm to mid night 12:00. Now days it has been reduced, thanks to routine night check on drink and drive. You may think I am slightly out the topic, but all the above figures shows the usage of helmet.

Difficulties and solution:

Let’s discuss what stop people to using the helmet, first and major fact, there’s rumors around that you may lose your hair if you helmet regularly. As of nothing like that even doctors advice people to use it. First of all our lawmakers should make awareness among the people this is not at all true. And the second one most people hate to carry their helmets wherever they go. Most of the two-wheeler manufacturer not providing any provision to keep the life saving device in the vehicle. When we go to buy a new vehicle we are forced to pay extra money to get that facility, in which most of them ignore. So all the manufacturer should provide the helmet carrier compulsory in their vehicles or even giving free helmets when people buying new vehicle. They can charge that cost among the vehicle mrp. If this is happen, then there will be definite increase in usage of helmets. Unless there is nothing going to happen by distributing pamphlets or placing campaign van in major city roads.

Final word:

Use helmet! Save your life, it’s a beautiful world and still there are lot to see and enjoy. Happy riding!

Making entry to the blog world!

Hi,

Suddenly the blogging fever hit my friends as everyone started
their own blog site, so I thought I will also start one for me.
The result this blog page born on 12th June. I haven't decided in which
topic I write everyday. Coming days may reveal that! Till then
bear with me and enjoy blogging. Thanks a lot!