Lalu's Computer

I have not posted anything for a while now, don't feel like writing anything these days. Got this by email, couldn't resist posting it :)

LOL, the third user must be the Admin :D

The name for Lalu's "My Computer" couldn't have been better

*Still rolling on the floor laughing*

Cheers!

Monkeys, FIIs and Indian Stock Markets

Got a story by email today, reminds me of the Indian stock markets. Read it and see if u agree with me:

A man appeared who announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs. 10. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys went out in the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at 10 and as supply started to diminish and villagers started to stop their effort he announced that now he would buy at 20 rupees.

This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to 25 and the supply of monkeys became so that it was an effort to even see a monkey let alone catch it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at 50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business his assistant would now buy on behalf of the man. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at 35 and when the man comes back you can sell it to him for 50."

The villagers queued up with all their saving to buy the monkeys.

The assistant and his boss never came back, they smartly booked profits and ran away.

The man in the story reminds me of the FIIs and the villagers are like the retail investors.

Long live the Indian Stock Markets.

Cheers!

Microsoft initiates Anti-Piracy Campaign

My friend Pappu Yadav (name changed) was a worried man today, his newly acquired desktop computer had started displaying strange pop-up messages telling him that his copy of Windows is not genuine. At first he suspected it to be a nasty spyware infection but on discussing this problem with some of his contacts (me included), he came to know that the pop-ups were genuine and were part of Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Campaign.

As a part of the campaign, users who are detected running pirated software receive constant alerts on their monitor screens telling them that they are using pirated software, and that they should click on a link which will take them to a website for further instructions. A similar message pops up at random times from the system tray section of the Windows taskbar.

If one chooses to ignore the messages, Windows plants a permanent banner at the bottom of the screen that reads, "You might be the victim of software piracy. The copy of Windows installed on this computer is not considered to be genuine by Microsoft." When people get frustrated and click on the link mentioned in the pop-up, they are taken to a Website where Microsoft gives them gyaan on the benefits of using genuine Windows, and tells them how to purchase a genuine copy of the software.

While some people have ignored the warning messages completely, broadband users (and others with static IP addresses) like my friend are taking it very seriously because they know that the next step in this campaign could well be tracing the physical location of computers running pirated software (by having tie ups with Broadband providers and government) and litigation. Ultimately my friend had two options - stop using the Internet or buy a genuine copy of Windows, he obviously opted for the latter. One down, many more to go.

Way to go, MyCrowSoft :D

P.S: I use a genuine copy of Windows XP Home ;)

Remember this?

Remember this video from the good old DD days? I bet you do :)

"Sooraj Ek, Chanda Ek"
.
.
"Ek chidiya, Ek ek karke Anek chidiyan"
.
.

In case you still don't remember it, watch it here

The video conveys the message of Unity in Diversity wonderfully, can someone get Mr. Arjun Singh to watch this? Wake up, Mr. Singh. Stop dividing the country!

Let there be peace.

Cheers!

Sneak Peek: Windows Media Player 11

Just downloaded the all new Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 and here's a sneak peek into what it looks like.

First impression: The Interface is definitely cooler and visually appealing (Vista Effect!), files are better organised as a result of which the searching is much faster. I personally loved the black interface and the fresh new visualisations. All said and done, it's just another media player and if you are an ordinary computer user, the only compelling reason to download the 22MB s/w is the Interface.

Go ahead and download it today (But please don't ask me to give you the download link :P)

Cheers!

The war for news?

The War for News is one Blog Kkekta Kapur can't afford to ignore. If these guys compile their work, it can easily become a top selling book or even a spicy reality tv programme. Nobody knows the true identity of people behind the blog, but the three "characters" (known by the names of Artemis Zoop, the Watchful Acolyte & the All Seeing Spy) certainly have all the insider stories from three popular Indian News Channels - NDTV, CNN-IBN and the ever struggling "Times Now".

The blog has continued to irritate the top bosses at the respective news channels, so much so that CNN IBN and Times Now had banned access to this blog some time back in their offices. The notorious trio somehow manage to get access to all the Internal emails, inside stories, internal politics etc. and publish the contents on the blog for the general public to see (and enjoy). One wouldn't be surprised if there are "Most Wanted" posters containing the name of these bloggers are pasted all over the offices of these news channels. Interestingly, the bloggers never support any particular channel and are mostly neutral in their opinions, which makes it even more difficult to ascertain their true identities.

It would be interesting to see how long can these chaps continue to publish the inside storieswithout getting caught. I just hope that they never get caught but if Rajdeep Sardesai has his way, he will definitely catch them red handed ..Whatever it takes ;)

It's not about Reservations...

Just came across this brilliant post on August Fury written by Mr. Yogesh Parmar. This post must be read by all, if possible, please post it on your blogs and email it to your friends. All the students of the country must support this Anti-Reservation movement now. Spread the word.

(Image courtesy ibnlive.com)

____________________________________
It is not about Reservations
By: Yogesh Parmar

Make no mistake about it. Its been executed with such finesse,it can put the state controlled pogrom in gujarat to shame-wonder if there is some training ground where they learn these skills.But then,one gets better, with practice. And its not just wine that gets better with age. To call this vote bank politics would be being courteous. To call this an exercise in futility would be well, churlish. To call this a master stroke,err, nothing would be further away from the truth. Truth is, this is a failure of imagination. Yeah, its a dismal failure of the senses because we take pride in having the largest written constitution on the face of this earth. It is a farce because we say that it took us many long years to sow the seeds of liberalization since we are a calibrate democracy, a vibrant democracy at that.It is a sham because we say that free speech and expression is the cornerstone of our egalitarian society. Yea,Like hell it is.

Let me then, enlighten you, Honorable Minsiter of HRD, Shri Arjun singh,that dissent is what distinguishes communist china from democratic India. A Hitler from a Nehru. A rigid fascist from a liberalist. A despot from a meritocrat. Hell, when George Bush-,the redoubtable foot in the mouth exponent- visited Great Britain, and tens of thousands of angry protestors assembled in front of the Buckingham Palace,to protest his presence in their country, all he could say was that he loves going to a country where there is freedom of speech; dissent. Affirmative action, dear sir, can be imported later. Learn the rulings of democracy first. Take away dissent, and we are as good as dead.

And I am not yet drawing myself into the debate of whether the government should or should not uphold the bill seeking the 49.5 reservation. For its not about the reservation at all. Reservations, beloved sir, are a manifestation of a form of anachronism, which was shameful even in a society which prevailed in your prime. And the anguish,the despair,the despondency, and the desolation are a function of this utterly shocking and reprehensible proposal . That fifty eight years into the life of a nation, we still haven’t imbibed the first imperative of democracy. I can almost hear the founding fathers quiver in their graveyards.

I was thrilled, delighted even that interns and medical students my age stood up for what they thought was right. For no cost is too high to stand up for what one thinks is right. Kids my age who have little to do with this imbroglio, many of them ,who will either join elite hospitals or head abroad, kids who have nothing to gain and everything to lose, risk their careers, their lives. For the uninitiated, a doctor cannot apply for a visa or practice, if she has a police statement against her.


They voted with their feet and you lathi charged them. They protest in a silent , non violent manner, and you hit them with 3rd gear water cannons? They stood up for equality and you tear gassed them? Its quite some time since holi and quite some time left for diwali, but never mind. In more ways than one, you have invoked our collective consciousness. We knew our generation was up for it. You helped us prove it. And lest, you misunderstand us, this is no flash in the pan. When you flushed them out, they formed a huddle. When you canonized them, they held on to each other for their lives. When you detained them,they didn't even so much as to raise a whimper. When their futures were being decided they couldn’t think of influential names to bail them out. And sir, perhaps, what was the last nail in the coffin, was when you arrested 6 of them, an overwhelming 400 of them quoted mass arrest.

And perhaps, we don't have much to lose. Let me correct myself then. How many of you in the government would want your grand children to be delivered by mediocre doctors? How many of you would want to come under the knives of surgeons who got through on reservation grounds. Terra Firma. How many of you would want your intestines and kidneys removed by well, at best, ordinary doctors?

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history. And if history repeats itself and yet what happens catches us off guard, how incapable are we of learning from our mistakes. Our best doctors- Naresh Trehan, Pratap Reddy- and the like are all great men not because they hail from a Tulu or an Iyer background, but inspite of it.

Even as I type this, a rather buoyant news reporter claims probe has been ordered and I quote NDTV here. “The Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra has ordered a probe after police use batons to disperse anti-reservation activists.”

A probe? Prime time televison disemminates live pictures of students being attacked, battered and bruised. And you order for a probe? You don't trust your eyes! Ahh…fitting, aint it?. Or else I would have been forced to believe that human beings can commit such heinous crimes. Yet again, this is not an effort to stem the rot. This is a charade. A farce. A bloody travesty.

And sir, if you still can't hear us, let me assure you that the screech is going to get shriller. Today we ve got to the streets; Tomorrow we are going to be in the south and the north blocks. Thanks to people like you, we have arisen from what is seemingly a long , long siesta. It's thanks to you that we are potentially at the cusp of what is seemingly an awakening of a generation. Indeed, it’s thanks to you that has made us realize our strength of character.

This sums up the mood really- ( quoted by a friend who was a part of the protests)
"chadha do gaddi....kya farak padta hai....seat to le hi lee hai....ab jaan bhi le lo.

Now you know why Rang de Basanti was as big a phenomenon as it turned out to be. You don’t play with our self respect Mr.Singh. I understand you successfully implemented a 49.5% reservation in Madhya Pradesh a couple of decades back. Lightning strikes just once. And yeah, what goes around comes around. Except that, its your turn to be hit by the collective thunder.

In conclusion, all I d say is, even after having said what I have, I d still want to you to have a peaceful twilight of your life. So kindly keep off from the morning walks. Like I said, Rang de Basanti is cult. And to us, defence minister ho, ya human resource, kuch farak nahi padhta.

Reserved About Reservations?: An Insider's Perspective.

The great Indian Reservation debate continues, meanwhile student protests are gaining in momentum across the country. Here's a guest post by Mr. Johan Jose, giving you an insider's perspective on the debate.

Read on.

___________________________________________________
Reserved About Reservations?: An Insider's Perspective.
By Johan Jose
Published: May 10, 2006

Ipshita Parida is an intern at the Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) and associated hospitals in Delhi. In her four and a half undergraduate years she has held office as an elected representative of the college students union, has been involved with a lot of high profile agitations in the capital and is currently the intern representative at LHMC. She is here speaking on behalf of Youth for Equality, a movement that commenced in New Delhi against the proposed extended reservations. She is also a friend of the interviewer.

Could you introduce yourself to the people who will be reading this interview?
Sure. My name is Ipshita Parida and I'm an intern at Lady Hardinge Medical College, Delhi.

I believe you associate yourself with something called Youth for Equality?
I associate myself with a number of other protesting medical students who have cumulatively come up with a forum called the Youth For Equality (YFE).

What exactly is Youth for Equality about?
I am taking the liberty to presume that most of you are aware about the current stand on reservations and the proposed bill in the Parliament by the Human Resources Development Minister Mr Arjun Singh, which increases the total number of reservations including those for OBCs and other reserved categories in educational institutes to 49.5 pc.

I think we have a fair idea.. go on.
Youth for Equality is a forum created by representatives and students from the 5 medical colleges in the capital and a host of other colleges splattered all over the country, who believe that such a bill is discriminatory, regressive, cripples merit and is completely opposed to the principles of equality and democracy.

Who is heading YFE?
No one heads YFE because it's not a body, it's a forum, and more like a banner that covers all voices of dissent.

So when was YFE born and how did it evolve to become what it has?
YFE started post the announcement in the papers about the now famous or infamous bill. It started small with some founder members that made their cause known through posts on our notice boards. It really did start small, just a small voice by some passionate people who had the courage to fight for what is right but then gradually it gained momentum and strength.

What were the first signs of action on your part?
We observed a black badge day on the 17th of April in colleges and hospitals and had a couple of meets before the episode on the 26th of April, which made the news. About 300 students had decided to protest peacefully in front of the HRD Minister's residence, however what actually transpired was essentially baffling given this is 21st century India.

Why, what happened?
It soon turned into a shocking lapse in the democratic face of this country that totes free speech and liberal thought. We were lathi charged, tear-gassed, mobbed and barricaded. They even soaked us to the skin with water cannons. Talk about washing down the issue!

Where was the Minister while this crackdown was taking ...
The rest of the interview can be found here

At what price will RPL list?

The much hyped RPL share will list tommorow and the million dollar question that remains to be answered is - at what price will it finally settle down? The IPO got a resounding thumbs up from the investors as it received bids worth Rs 137,000 crore, an oversubscription of over 50 times. The company had offered to sell 45 crore shares but ended up receiving applications for over 2226 crore shares!! The issue was made to part finance the Rs 27,000 crore (Rs 270 billion) export-oriented refinery being set up in a special economic zone, at Jamnagar in Gujarat.

The Economic Times reported today that "the total investor wealth from both Mukesh and Anil Ambani groups has nearly doubled since January 18 this year, when the erstwhile RIL began trading on a split basis following the implementation of the scheme of arrangement reached between the two brothers". This wealth creation will go one step further with RPL as RIL has 75% ownership of RPL and with each single rupee increase in the price of RPL, RIL is set to gain 337.5 crore (atleast on paper)! It would be interesting to see how Reliance manipulates the price of RPL, the general public and QIBs hold a small share in the company and Mr. Ambani can definitely take advantage of this. I'm not trying to suspect his intentions, but any businessman in his place would do the same.

Analysts expect the share to list at close to 100 but if one goes by the recent IPO trends and given the strength of Reliance Industries, 150 rupee mark cannot be ruled out. At what price will RPL list (and stablize)? Only time will tell.......stay tuned!

Time for Revamp?

It's been around 20 days since I made this blog public and I have decided that the Blog needs a new colour scheme and background images etc. I am bored with the current scheme and my friends have also suggested a change in the current colour scheme to make the posts more readable. I shall try to come up with a New, Improved version of this template soon...till then I have done some make shift arrangements. Kindly bear with me as this blog goes through a temporary phase of transition.

Cheers!

Edit: Removed all the background images, the glare is gone now. I think I'll stick to this version for some time :) What do you think? Do post your feedback.

-Anurag

Three years of Bull Run

One can see the celebration of three years of bull run on CNBC TV18 all day long these days. The BSE sensex has continued to rise at a scorching pace, the growth rate has been faster than most of its foreign counterparts. While I have been following the markets since I was a school kid, my interest in the stock market grew when I started reading Economic Times daily. At that time, virtually every IT stock was sky rocketing. Some clever companies got themselves renamed and got the word "Software" to pose as IT companies even if none of their employees hadn't even seen a computer. What a time it was! Fast forward to the year 2006 and I am begining to get the feeling of Deja Vu - the only difference this time is that the game is not limited to the IT sector, new sectors like Capital Goods, Sugar and Real Estate have supplanted IT. While I'm by no means an expert in this field, I have been watching the stock markets very closely for some time now. It was amazing to see every stock with sugar attached to its name soaring to new heights, all the capital goods companies trading on unrealistic valuations.

As if that was not enough to amaze me, certain stocks like Bata and Ceat have started soaring now because of re-valuation of their assets (read real estate). The boom in the real estate sector has been primarily due to FDI. In yet another reform move to deepen the economic liberalization process, India had threw open the country's property and housing sector doors to foreign investors by allowing them to establish wholly-owned subsidiaries to construct housing projects without having to seek government approvals. Post that, the growth rate of infrastructure stocks has been exponential. Take a look at the yearly price chart of Ansal to get a better idea of what I am talking about:





Now, DLF (another big company) is coming out with its IPO and that too is expected to move in a similar fashion. Smaller companies like DS Kulkarni too are also taking advantage of this mad rush and have come out with their IPOs, while there is no doubt that their IPOs will be fully subscribed, valuations seem a bit unrealistic to me. But then, at this stage, if my friendly neighbourhood Tikkiwaala comes out with an IPO, even that will get oversubscribed ;) Small investors like you and me would be better off investing in Mutual funds as their fund managers are much more knowledgeable and have much more experience.

Even as I type this post, I can see CNBC TV18 speculating that the government would allow 49% FDI in retail soon (Multi-Brand, /Multi-Product now). Looks like it's Pantaloon's turn to soar now.

Happy Investing!

Search Engine Wars

I was amazed to read a news item titled "New Microsoft browser raises Google's hackles" today. Google is crying foul because MSN Search is the default search engine in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7, I had noticed this thing long time back when I downloaded the beta version of IE7. Google has tried to counter this by modifying the appearance of the Google Search homepage when when opened in IE7, the page looks like this:

(Look carefully at the top right corner, you will notice something extra)

Google may be crying foul now but it has enjoyed this position in other browsers like Firefox without users noticing it (have you ever noticed that MSN search is not even available in Firefox?) but the only difference is that the other search engines are "also available" for the users (if they manage to discover them) Microsoft should do the same thing, it should hide all the search engines (including Google and Yahoo) under the MSN Search Box just like Firefox and 90% of the users won't even discover their presence in IE7. I am not trying to take sides here but if the Google Gang wants to play fair, it must treat the others fairly too.



But then, everything is fair in love and Search engine wars....long live the M$ vs Google battle.

Cheers!

Create your webpage with Google Pages

Are you one of those who want to have their personal page on the Internet but have not been able to do so because you don't know HTML. Google has come up with a solution for such people, the product is called Google Pages. Google pages lets you build your webpage using a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) interface within seconds (okay, make that minutes :p)



Another good thing about Google Pages is that you don't need to signup anywhere else for hosting the page, the page gets hosted at http://"your google username".googlepages.com (eg. my page is hosted at http://anuragxp.googlepages.com)

What are you waiting for, go ahead and make your personal page :)

Cheers!

P.S: Google didn't pay me for this :p