Enlightened

During our trekking between Donigal and Yedukumeri

“The Great Green Route” – a memoir

Donigal to Yadakumeri Railway track trekking

So at last I am back after the most beautiful trekking experience of my life till now. I had been for many other lovely treks, but this one didn’t miss anything associated with the word trekking. It had everything starting from truck safari, scenic beauty, dangerous bridges, dark tunnels, up and down the hill, forest inhabited by elephants, food prepared at track side, night stay in the open station, campfire and ending with crossing the flowing river without knowing how to swim.

It all started with small plan to arrange for a get together with my friends who had studied with me at Manipal. And that too a plan for a 25Km, 10hrs trekking at Donigal – Yedukumeri Rail route or more famously known as the Great Green Route. Donigal station is situated around 4-5 hrs journey from Bangalore and 10 Km from Sakleshpur. The date was fixed and tickets where booked all in advance. The date was 16th December, just some days before the train route will be busy with increase in number of trains. We where 7 old friends, 6 from Bangalore (Nimesh, Rejo, Varun, Sajid, Alka and Ashwini) and me, Sainath alone from Mangalore (planning to join them at the spot).

I reached the meeting spot, Donigal tea shop “Hotel Picnic” at around 2.30 am. It was a chilling cold over there. 4 cup tea and 1 cup coffee that’s what my body had to take to withstand that cold morning hours till my friends joined me at 4.30 am. After finishing our morning needs and small breakfast we decided to start our journey at 5.15 am.


The Donigal station was again 5-6 kms from the spot we had got down towards the Mangalore side. We got a truck pickup till the Muthapan Temple on the highway. From there its now our way ahead. After walking about 1km in dark with the torch in hand we reached the Donigal station by 6.00 am and decided to start the trekking through the railway tracks. The first 2 kms we couldn’t find any major bridges or tunnels. The game of Anthakshari also accompanied us and even Rejo, who doesn’t like Hindi songs started chipping in with those blockbuster songs, along with the singers like Ashwini and Alka. Crossing the first bridge/tunnel was electrifying. But the thought of bigger and dangerous bridges and tunnels still waiting for us on the way made us walk more exciting.


Some of the tunnel which we crossed where dark and as long as half km, where filled with bats. Even those small water drop flowing through those stones and the hard blowing breeze inside those tunnels sounded like even they where joining us in the Anthakshari. The long bridges across some of the small streams where really photogenic and one would really try imagining how many days and how many peoples hard labour would have been used to build the mammoth structures.

After completing 12 Km, 10 -12 dark tunnels, nearly 15 bridges, posing for many more photos which we couldn’t count, we stopped for refilling our stomach at 12.45 pm. Made a temporary arrangement for boiling the water and preparing the Noodles. We succeeded in preparing a good noodle which was more then enough for our hungry stomach. During that course, Alka even had some small nap just beside the track.

As our energy was back and still some kms to complete we started the walk again. But this time everything was not as easy as it was earlier. There where 2-3 bridges with no proper iron planks for walking and where as tall as 5 storied building. Crossing those bridges took some courage out of me and a sense of achievement when we reached the other side.

Again walking for nearly 6kms we reached our trek destination Yedukumeri, a small station build for just passing the signals between Kukke Subramania and Donigal at about 3.30pm. We had a chat with the so called Station Master, one Mr. Lingeshwar (a chap wearing college volleyball jersey, never looked more) for a train lift till Sakleshpur. He was not ready to help us in any case. He told us that he can’t let those goods train drivers to take us back to Sakleshpur. Sad to say that how these types of bigheaded people spoils the name of Indian Railways.

After some useless negotiation with the station master, we decided to cross the jungle by our own and find the way out to the highway nearby. With very little information about the way out, we started to climb down the hill and crossed the small stream ending up finding a so called damaged road. But my instinct and the echoing sound of winds betrayed me and we started moving in a wrong direction. The walk become creepier when we found those elephant foot marks and dung all around and the sun started setting, increasing our shadows as we walked. It took us nearly 1hr to realize that we are on the wrong way. The only best thing we could do was return to the station and sleep for the night there. As all of us agreed for that, we started to walk back before the sun sets fully. To return back (climbing back up the hill) it took hardly half the total time of climbing down the hill. And at last we are again on the top of the hill at the Railway station.

After returning from the tiring and unsuccessful walk, we sat at the platform figuring out what went wrong and thinking “What ever had happened was for good”. We had our bread and jam packets opened and gobbled as much as we could. And made arrangement for a good sleep, which we couldn’t get the whole night because of the heavy cold and high wind which lashed every now and then making it tough to sleep. After struggling much for a good sleep we left the hope and got up by 5.00 am with the intension of making a campfire for getting ride of the cold. Collected some wood and successfully created a campfire.

We where joined by other 3 group of campers, who had come from Bangalore. We decided to move together and find the way out to the highway from there. After a bit of refreshment we all set out to find the way out. We all, around 18 of us climbed down together the hill and started walking in a pursuit to find the river which we couldn’t find the other day.

Walking for another one and half hour through the forest we where hearing the sound of trucks and busses together with the high flowing river. Ya we could even see the trucks and busses going through the highway just across the river around 400 meters away. The bridge was broken and only one way to reach the other side of the river was by stepping on the slippery stones which had formed a natural path for the trekkers. With all courage and withstanding the pressure of the flowing river all of us successfully reached the other side. I couldn’t resist the clean and crystal water for a long time, so as soon as we reached the other side I took a dip in the water and that refreshed my whole body. It was like whole pain had washed away with that one dip in the chilled water.

As soon as we climbed up to reach the highway out of the water, there it is, a KSRTC bus coming from Mangalore towards Bangalore. That was the time to say adieu to the great green route. Looking through the windows of the bus towards those green mountains which we had trekked, at least I felt like I had conquered that whole mountain range. But rather it will be better to say that the beauty of nature have conquered me.

tag : Donigal, railway, trekking, yedakumeri,Yadakumeri, yedukumeri,green route bangalore

Did you know : Bangalored

Bangalored is a neologism and used as a verb. Bangalored is used to indicate a layoff, often systemic, and usually due to corporate outsourcing of the business function to lower wage economies. The word is derived from Bangalore, India, which houses many outsourcing centers for Western economies.

It refers to people who have been laid off from a multinational company because their job has been moved to India (outsourced — a business practice designed to save money that is arousing passions in some countries, especially Britain and the United States). Bangalore is cited in particular because of its reputation in the USA as a high-tech city, and widely regarded as the Silicon Valley of India that has benefited significantly from such outsourcing.

Bangaloreophobia refers to fear of Bangalore or fear of losing jobs to Bangalore.

source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalored

Is World still not flat enough !

Ya, its official news now, Google have gobbled yet another dot com startup (rather a giant in its field), YouTube famous for free video sharing which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. A company just started just in 2005 at San Mateo, US with a small sum of money and innovation done by just three people.

This success story leads me to a question,"Why can't we Indians come up with such an Innovation ?" Its said that "the world has gone flat" which allow anyone anywhere in the world to fight with even the giants in the same level. We are able to access same material which any US innovator can through the World wide web, we are able to communicate between each other on web in the same way how an US innovator does through IM and phones. Still why are we not able to come up with these type of innovative product based startups. What are we lagging in ? Is that world is not still flat enough ?

One of the problems which I find is that Indian companies are not supporting innovations in our country at that magnitude which is required to. Let’s take an example of supportive innovation of Google, Google has something known as Google Labs which comes out with new new product at a frequent interval of time. It support the new ideas which comes out of its Employee and try to incubate it with moral and monetary support. As a result the new products of Google comes up.

Why can’t an Indian company like Infosys or TCS or Wipro come up with its own incubators or Labs ? Why can’t they come open into the product based business rather sticking itself with the Service oriented business culture. Infosys, TCS and Wipro each have huge employee strength of 65,000 each. Only thing they need to do is to give them chance to think and express their ideas. Surely from this 65,000 employees each company can get enormous number of practical innovative ideas. Which can be latter incubated and nourished. If they, then India is going to see a sea change in the scenario in the near future. Hope the next startup which Google is going to gobble be from India !

News which lead to this thought: Google Buys YouTube for USD1.65 billion

Me the WinneR

Yes i am the winner of techtribe.com "the iPod winner for last week".
Check out it here : http://promotion.techtribe.com/

New Yahoo! Mail Beta

New Yahoo! Mail Beta is out and Rocking.
When i first tried it, i just felt like i am at home with my microsoft outlook. The new Yahoo! Mail is a sleek, finely wrought piece of interface design. The overall look is an Outlook-styled, three-pane window with folders in the left vertical pane, headers top right, and a message preview pane below the headers.
Also some of the other addons are its right click enabled menu and the Tab interface for getting several message/folder on the screen at a single time and reading it latter.
They have made use of AJAX in the most stylish manner...

Happy Birthday Google

Google turns 8 today..
Thanks google for making "World Flat"..

A long rainy season..

After a long time, i just thought again about my blog.. Poor little blog, no updates from a long time.. Lot of thing happened in my life, A city change, A company change, A new house,.. and lots more... But nothing had happened to my this beautiful page.. For me it was an eventful long rainy season.. Hopefully its ended and i am well settled for a while. Hope to post soon regarding a lot of thing.. See you soon my blog..:)

Snap search

Snap search -An AJAX based search..
Surely google is going to follow this.. Nice interface and UI design.
Check it yourself

ipod shuffle

Bought an ipod shuffle yesterday.. a 512MB one...

Barca, the winners. ( Champions League Update )

Barcelona fought back from a goal down to beat 10-man Arsenal 2-1 and win their second European Cup in the 50th anniversary final at the Stade de France on Wednesday.
Late strikes from striker Samuel Eto'o and substitute defender Juliano Belletti cancelled out a first-half header from Arsenal defender Sol Campbell.

Full story here

Flickr Goes Gamma

Ya, Flickr have added some new features and changed its look to name itself as Flickr Gamma. The features that has been added are minimal but the layout change which has been made will take some time for a flickr user to be accustomed with. The menu have been relocated and the photo set have been shifted from left to right side of the page. Flickr blog says :

New Navigation, New Search, New and Improved Organizr, and the Person Menu. All of these improvements have been designed to help you navigate the site with less effort and organize your photos more efficiently.

it's for my mom..

Google Launches "Google Trends"

Google Trends have been launched. It’s a analysis tool, that allows you to see how often specific search terms are being entered into the Google search engine. Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time.

43thing i wanna do

I am hooked up with this site : 43things.com

More About 43 Things

Write down your goals
People have known for years that making a list of goals is the best way to achieve them. Why is that? First, getting your goals in writing can help you clarify what you really want to do. You might find you have some important and some frivolous goals. That is OK. You’ve got space for 43 Things on your list. Not every one of them has to change the world (but save room for the ones that might).
Get Inspired
What do you want to do with your life? It is not an easy question to answer – and you shouldn’t have to answer alone. Browse 43 Things to find out what others want to do. You might find some goals you share. Click the “I want to do this” button to add a goal to your list. Got an idea for a new goal? Just type it in the text box on the homepage or at the bottom of any page on the site. Bam. Now, it’s your thing.
Share your progress
We all have stories about what we care about. Writing down your progress on a goal can help someone else learn about something you both want to do. When you see a goal you’ve achieved, click on the “I’ve done this” button and share a story about how you did it.

I am doing 18 things
1. keep smiling 10 people
2. Start my own business 2499 people
3. Create a successful Startup 29 people
4. write a successful social web application 18 people
5. Buy a Sony CyberShot DSC-H1 1 person
6. Get a laptop 517 people
7. own an iPod 72 people
8. learn PHP 815 people
9. master CSS 588 people
10. learn ruby on rails 783 people
11. stay a non-smoker 13 people
12. give back to my parents 23 people
13. spend more time with my mother 14 people
14. Fly a plane 265 people
15. write a book 6761 people
16. Read more books 3905 people
17. Make my parents proud 454 people
18. be more social 1198 people

Bangalore Travel Series

Alexander Muse of Texas Venture Capital have written a nice series of article on Bangalore Travel. He had collected lots of details from his last visit to Bangalore for attending BarCampBangalore and made a series of travel tips. It Will be really a nice for those who are planning to come to Bangalore, The silicon Valley of India.

Bangalore Travel Series: No. 1 - How to get there
Bangalore Travel Series: No. 2 - Where to stay
Bangalore Travel Series: No. 3 - Where to eat
Bangalore Travel Series: No. 4 - What to do
Bangalore Travel Series: No. 5 - Where to shop
Bangalore Travel Series: No. 6 - Warnings and Tips

Spirit of BarCampBangalore

Yes, it was not a conference, but a get together (or unconference by definition). More then that it was a platform for communication, idea exchange, a platform for knowing each other. I was really excited and motivated after attending the Bangalore BarCamp. Bangalore BarCamp unconference included lot of interactive sessions. Ya nearly 25 sessions. As expected when i reached yahoo office at 9.00am there where quite a large people who have showed up for the event. All where excited about being a part of this movement. There where some people who have come down to Bangalore just to organize or attend the camp. Some had even attended the recently concluded BarCamp at Delhi/Hyderabad/Chennai. But most of us where new and first timers. One interesting thing about the unconference anyone who attended would have noticed was the names of the unconference rooms : narangi, Toddy, Arrack, Fenni, Santra (upholding the BarCamp spirit). I wanted to mention some of the interesting sessions at BarCamp Bangalore which i could attend.

- Pete from yahoo on agile development model SCRUM
- Tara Hunt from Riya.com on Pinko Marketing
- Arun and Arjun on their new startup TAAZZA.com
- Jai Fichialos on junk prototyping for UI design
- Chris Messina ( barcamp starter) on Microformats
- Prashant on web 2.0 development modeling
- Shreyes on independent music in india

also other sessions i attended where on podshala, Amazon web API's and one on Adobe flex programming.

The best presentation was of pete on SCRUM and most crowd pulling was of Taazza (http://www.taazza.com) and the session which shreyas gave on spot about independent music ( http://infinityradio.info).

Remains of BarcampBangalore are here :
Photos :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/barcampBangalore
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/bcbattendee/

Reviews :
Anita bora's blog
Alex muse's blog
Tara Hunt's review
Amit Ranjan's blog
Rajan's rambling

Clicks :

GetFirefox for Protection

History of Bangalore

It all began with a handful of boiled beans!
The story how Bangalore came to be called by its present name has an interesting history. Once on a hunting expedition King Ballala of the Hoysala dynasty lost his way in the jungle. Deep inside the jungle, lived an old woman who took pity on the hungry and tired hunter. The old woman was poor and had nothing else to offer but boiled beans. But the king was so pleased with her hospitality that he named the entire city as bele-benda-kalu-ooru, which in the local language Kannada means, the place of boiled beans. The historical evidence of the name “Bengalooru” can be found in a 9th century inscription found in a temple in the village of Begur. Today the name has been shortened and anglicised after the British influence and has come to be called Bangalore.

Kempe Gowda marks the four corners of the city
Another historical figure instrumental in shaping the city of Bangalore is a feudal lord who called himself Kempe Gowda, and who served under the Vijayanagara Kings. Hunting seemed to be a favourite past time in those days. During one of his hunting bouts, Kempe Gowda was surprised to see a hare chase his dog. Either his dog was chicken hearted or the hare was lion hearted one does not know, but the episode surely made an impression on the feudal lord. He told himself this is a place surely for heroes and heroics, and he referred to Bangalore from then onwards as “gandu bhoomi” (heroic place). Kempe Gowda I, who was in charge of Yelahanka, built a mud fort in 1537. With the help of King Achutaraya, built the little towns of Balepet, Cottonpet, and Chickpet, all inside the fort. Today, these little areas serve as the major wholesale and commercial market places in the city. Kempegowda, the II built four watch towers to mark the boundary of Bangalore. A hundred years later, Vijaynagar empire fell, and in 1638, it was conquered by Mohammed Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur.

Power shifts from Sultans to Marathas to British:
Pleased with the services of his trusted lieutenent Shahaji Bhonsale, (father of the great Maratha king Shivaji), Adil Shah gifted Bangaloreto him. After 49 years of Maratha rule, the moghuls captured and passed it to the Wodeyars of Mysore for 3 lakh pagodas. In 1759, Bangalore came into the possession of Hyder Ali, father of Tippu Sultan. It was during these two heroes, Bangalore flourished with parks, gardens and palaces. When Tippu died, British restored Bangalore back to the Mysore rulers, the Wodeyars, but were not too sure of their entrpreuner abilities. So they ruled Bangalore directly. Under the British influence, Bangalore bloomed with modern facilities like the railways, telegraphs, postal and police departments. In 1881, the British returned the city to the Wodeyars. Diwans like Mirza Ismail, and sir Vishweshwarayya were the pioneers to help Bangalore attain its modern outlook.

Important Historical Dates
BC(-) Stone Age implements, Roman coins & burial grounds unearthed.
850 AD ‘Bengalooru’ appears on Mauryan empire milestone
1015 Chola Empire takes over City
c.1120 Veera Ballala II calls it ‘Benda Kalooru’ or ‘Town of Boiled Beans’
(after a poor woman feeds him beans in the forest)
1537 Kempe Gowda I designs City as it exists today. (KG II builds the 4 towers)
1638 Shahaji Bhonsle (Shivaji’s father) captures City for Adil Shah who gifts it to him
1640 Shivaji marries Bangalore girl
1687 Aurangzeb’s army captures City
1690 Sells it to the Wodeyars for 3 lakhs!
1759 Wodeyar gifts it to Hyder Ali who builds Lal Bagh
1791 Cornwallis defeats Tipu but returns City to him
1799 Tipu dies. City returned to Wodeyar
1800 Bangalore GPO opened
1809 Cantonment established
1812 St. Mark’s Cathedral built
1831 British take-over administration
1853 Sunday declared weekly holiday
1859 1st train steams out of City
1864 Sankey builds Cubbon Park
1867 Attara Kacheri built
1887 Bangalore Palace built
1898 The great plague. (Another plague-the 1st telephone rings)
1903 1st motor car pollutes city
1905 India’s 1st electric bulb lit in Bangalore City Market
1909 Indian Institute of Science built
1940 1st flight Bangalore/Bombay
1948 Deccan Herald launched
1954 Vidhana Soudha built
2005 I came to Bangalore

courtesy : startupbangalore

Da Vinci Code Quest on Google

Try it yourself here..

Arsenal in Final (Champions League Update)

Villarreal 0 - 0 Arsenal (Arsenal advance 1 - 0 on aggregate)

Jens Lehman saved a penalty kick to preserve Arsenal's 0 - 0 draw against Villarreal and send the Gunners to the Champions League final. Leading 1-0 after the first leg, Arsenal just needed a draw to advance. But Villarreal were given a chance to send the cup tie into extra time when Gael Clichy fouled Jose Mari. But Lehmann was the hero of the day as he made a diving save to deny Riquelme from the penalty spot. The Gunners will now face AC Milan or Barcelona in the final in Paris. And with Thierry Henry and Arsene Wenger, May 17th is going to be Arsenals biggest day at Champions league.

Congratulations to the Gunners!

Today : AC Milan Vs Barcelona (second leg semifinal)

Barcamp Bangalore Rocked !!

Really a great experience attending Barcamp, Bangalore..
Will be posting more soon..

Beer Troubleshooting

45 Kg Trophy !!

Luckly India and pakistan is going to share the trophy. Other wise both dravid and Inzamam-ul-Haq would have felt difficulty in holding the trophy alone.
The DLF cup made world record for the biggest trophy made for any cricket tournement. The sparkling 45 kg trophy is made of gold, silver and diamonds with Jaipur's famous meenakari work around.
The trophy has five players engraved at its base wearing India and Pakistan colours. The bottom has flags of both countries along with logos of the respective boards. The centre has ten golden stumps with a red ball striking them.

Champions League (Update 1)

For those who follow European football and love Barcelona and Arsenal (not Inter milan and Manchester) this is a happy moment. Both Barcelona and Arsenal have won their first leg Champions League semifinals. So one step closer to the final !!
Results:
Arsenal 1 Villarreal 0
AC Milan 0 Barcelona 1

Track Back :
Arsenal and Barca into Champions League semis..

My Childhood Memoirs (Part II)

Doordarshan Days

This post will be nostalgic for those people who used to watch Doordarshan in their childhood days and still remember the old Mile Sur Mera Tumhara and all those Doordarshan programmes. Ya i did. When i get to hear those old song my mind goes back to those days 12-15 years back, when we had only one channel Doordarshan and hardly of 12 hours of telecast per day. The telecast of programme used to start with the RED Doordarshan logo filling the whole television screen. There where programmes like Ramayan, Mahabharath, Circus, Malgudi days, Chitrahaar, Buniyaad, Hum Log, Udaan, Fauji, Surabhi... The news for the hearing impaired, even "Street Hawk" Some of my best childhood programs were.. "Turning Point" and "Bharat Kee Khoj" (with Nehru narrating) and ofcourse how can I forget my best ever ... "Surabhi".. I remember sending those answers to swaal jawab answers in postcard and waiting for sidharth Kak or Renuka sahani to pick my card from those huge heap of postcards. I miss all that !!

Children’s series like Hi-Man, Spiderman, Vikram-Vetaal.

Advertisements of Nirma, Kayam Churen, Rooh Afza, Rasna ( I Love You Rasana!!). lots more

National integration programme like “ek anak aur ekta” cartoon, Mile Sur Mera tumhara.

Some Links here:
Mile Sur Mera Tumhara song : Here
ek anak aur ekta Video : Here
Bharat_Ek_Khoj title song : Here

For Those who don’t know about Doordarshan : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doordarshan

PS: Do any one remember a Chinese/Japanese program, dubbed into Hindi which used to be shown on Doordarshan in the afternoons. A story of a young girl.???

tag : Doordarshan,Ramayan, Mahabharath, Circus, Malgudi days, Chitrahaar, Buniyaad, Hum Log, Udaan, Fauji, Surabhi, Bharat Kee Khoj, renuka sahani,sidharth Kak

Not just a WebNotePad its Netvibes

[Link] www.netvibes.com
For those who dont know about netvibes is, its like they still memorise each and every blog address, open each site one after the other to see if their is any new post. Have you ever thought about what if we could see all these blog post at one time and at one page ?. Ya thats what netvibes helps you in. Not only that, You can see your mails( Pop3, yahoo and Gmail). Place your Del.icio.us links on your page. Not just this, you can do lots more with netvibes. Customize how your page should look. Can even present the contents in a tab format. I just love opening my netvibes page every morning and finding whats new happening.
I am sure even you will get addicted to this..

Also posted at: www.sailink.blogspot.com

Back from home to work

Don't Remember how fast those four days went.... :(

Happy Vishu

For those who dont know about vishu click this Link Here

BarCamp @ Bangalore

Yes, BarCamp the most heard Technical event in the blog circle is going to be conducted at Yahoo! headquarters in Bangalore on 22nd april 2006. I have registered but bit late. My name comes in the list at 154th position. Hope i will be able to attend the unconference as the limit stated was 100 campers.

What is BarCamp ?
(for those who are new to this)
BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees. For more details see this link

History of BarCamp
check out this link to learn the politics behind its inception.

Check out what these newspapers had to say
DNA Network
Economic Times

Official Links
http://barcamp.org/
http://barcamp.org/BarCampBangalore

Rush to add your name and topic to this list .
Also join the mailing list for the discussion.

Lets raise our voice against this reservation policy..

Its really sad that Indian government has become more vote bank friendly then people friendly. The recent reservation policy of the government shows this attitude of our current Indian government. The government is on the path of increasing the reservation for OBC/SC/ST in public department and educational institutions to 50%. Better then me saying about this i want you all to read the article written by one of my friend Abhishek> even my heart says the same :

I guess the hot news now is the govt.'s proposed
reservation bill seeking to add 27% reservation for
OBCs which would lead to the total reservation coming
to nearly 50%.

Now with all due respect to any SCs/STs/OBCs etc. etc.
blah blah out there, in my opinion this is simply
bulls**t! Why don't they increase reservations to 100%
while they're at it? Why do it piece by piece when
they're gonna reach 100% anyway?

I'll tell you why - it's because if this govt.
increases reservations to 100% (and don't think for
one moment it can't), then forthcoming govts. will not
know what to do to get more votes. After all, it's all
about cheap and petty vote-bank politics, nothing
else. All this talk about affirmative action is simply
an eyewash to fool people.

How else do you explain the fact that while all
parties in the parliament can *never* agree on any
issue and lakhs are spent on the tables and chairs
broken everyday in protests by one party or the other,
on this one issue there were *NO* objections by
*anyone*?

Obviously, because no party wants to lose the votes of
the minorities. It's a simple case of "you scratch my
back, and I'll scratch yours".

All I can say is that I'm saddened, bemused and
sickened all at the same time. When merit takes a
back-seat to politics, then India for sure is being
pushed down the abyss of destruction.

'India Shining' is the govt.'s cry. What rubbish! The
shine, if ever there was any, has fast been replaced
by the rust and degradation of avarice and greed.

India is a name to be reckoned with in the Silicon
Valley and all over the world solely due to the best
and brightest of our minds having contributed so much
to the industry. And after years of 'brain drain'
which saw us lose our best minds to the US and others,
there was some amount of 'reverse brain drain'
happening which saw those people return to their
motherland and contribute to the institutions here
that made them what they are today.

But now where is the incentive for any young and
talented person, especially of the General category,
to stay here anymore? No appreciation for hard work or
merit and fighting day after day with literally
thousands and millions for a few seats here and there
in educational institutions. I have myself given exams
where we were all competing like crazy for maybe 5 or
10 seats that were open to us out of the total. Won't
people go crazy in this situation after a while? It
pains me to say it 'cos I love my country, but who
wants to stay in such a place for long?

Even the few available seats are filled by people
through back-door means like bribery, nepotism etc.
What is a normal, average to above-average student
from a poor or middle-class background to do if he
belongs to the General category? If he can't afford to
go abroad and can't get a seat to study here, where
does he go? No wonder we have so many highly qualified
people working as chaprasis and what not. What a
waste!

I have seen with my own eyes my very own classmate
from school walking into IIT Kanpur and joining the
Computer Science BTech course (you all know only top
rankers in JEE get it) just because he was an SC or an
ST. I'm not sure which as I never asked him. In fact,
before he got into IIT, all through school I never
even knew he was an SC/ST. And why should I? I never
treated him any differently from the others. We were
all alike and there was no discrimination. In fact,
his family was distinctly in the higher economic
bracket as his father was a highly paid executive.

Now can someone tell me why this guy needed a seat
reserved for him? Was he discriminated against? Not
that I could tell. Was he poor? No way! Then how come
he got a seat that should have gone to some other
deserving candidate? Don't get me wrong, he probably
did have enough brains to get into some other course
at IIT but certainly not enough to get into the Comp.
Sc. course.

Today's paper says that 60% of IIT students whose
performance is reviewed and who're thrown out (yes! it
does happen in IIT too! Not everyone who gets in is a
genius, mugging can and often does suffice) are
SCs/STs. The tragedy being that deserving candidates
are turned away and such students are allowed in only
for them to be thrown out and seats remaining vacant
at the end! After all, even IIT doesn't want its
placement figures ruined. So better remove beforehand
those students who're useless.

Question - why did they allow those supposedly useless
people to get in in the first place?

This is what happens when you have reservations to the
tune of 50% and more. First it was govt.-aided
educational institutions, soon it might be in private
institutions, schools and even companies (they tried
this recently) too.

Now tell me - if you were told that you would have an
assured seat in school (do you know how tough school
admissions are nowadays?), then in college, then for
PG, then have an assured job - would you study hard?
Where is the incentive? Everything's free so why sweat
it out, right?

Let me clarify one major point here - I am *not at
all* against SCs/STs/OBCs etc. and I'm not totally
against reservation. But it should be MERIT cum MEANS
*ONLY*. If someone's got talent but is from a poor
background and can't pay for his education, by all
means it should be subsidised for him, whichever
caste/creed etc. he belongs to. But there should be
*no blanket reservations* for anybody who brandishes a
caste certificate saying he's an SC or an ST or
whatever.

People laugh and joke about one-room 'colleges' and
'universities' all over India giving degrees in any
and all subjects under the sun. But has anyone thought
of why they've mushroomed and how come they thrive?
It's because as a society we Indians are driven
towards gaining knowledge as a means to improve our
status in life. But if a person even with percentage
marks in the high 90s can't get a college seat in the
good universities like DU etc. (some courses, even
97-98 is not enough!), where will he go? And what of
the 50 and 60 percenters?

Every year the number of school students committing
suicides increases. It's obvious isn't it? They feel
that with their 'ordinary' marks they'll never make it
to any decent college and as they've ruined their
lives anyway, why not end it all. It makes me so sad
to read such news items - each one is a potential gem
lost to the country forever. And why? Because there
aren't enough seats for them. Why? Because of
reservations, of course.

The worst part is, no govt. will have the guts to
decrease reservations, ever. So like I said earlier,
with every govt. the ratio will increase till it
touches 100%.

My final opinion? First, for all prospective parents -
get a fake caste certificate made ASAP for your kid!
He'll appreciate it a lot when he grows up and needs
to go to college or during a job interview!

Second, I wish reservation touches 100% soon, for then
the only way out will be to start reserving seats for
us General category students. So govt., do it quick!

Already there's gonna be a massive shortage of trained
manpower and teachers in India in the IT sector within
a few years. For all it's flaws, China will soon
overtake us in the IT software sector too and we'll be
left licking our wounds yet again.

Great. When Manmohan Singh, an academic himself can
take such stupid decisions, what hope is there from
the rest?

So I ask you all, if you support this cause, then at
the very least raise your voice against this madness.
Write letters to the newspapers or mail them to let
them know how you, the youth and future of this
country, feel. Don't just sit back and think that
someone else will fight your battles for you. And yes,
it does affect you, whether directly or indirectly.

We can make a difference. Let us all shout together so
that the govt.'s foundations shake and totter. let
them know that enough is enough!

I know this was a loooong rant from my side but it was
just something I had to get off my chest. It may be
incoherent at times and not make total sense to you,
but if you read even part of it, you'd have surely got
an idea of what I was talking about. So do let me know
what *you* feel about it all? Do you think I'm right
about something or wrong about something else? What's
*your* opinion ?

For all those who believe that the recent decision of the Govt. regarding 49.5% reservation is unfair and is against the basic tenet of democracy...sign this online petition.

Hope we the citizens of india react to this bill before it is amanted as a law. Wake up my friends..

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Arsenal and Barca into Champions League semis..

Hype, hype, hurray.. Both my favourite Arsenal and Barcelona are into semi finals of champions league.. In the semi-finals later this month, Barcelona will face AC Milan, while Arsenal takes on Villarreal. Hope both will win there semi and i will be lucky to see them in the finals. Thierry Henry's and Ronaldinho's presence in these teams makes these teams my favourite.

Match summary :

Arsenal-Juventus: 0-0
Arsenal’s young guns showed tremendous composure throughout the night as Arsenal moved into the semifinals of the Champions League for the first time with a gritty 0-0 draw at Juventus in Wednesday’s quarter-final, second-leg. The Londoners won the tie 2-0 aggregate triumph to spark off wild celebrations.

Barcelona-Benfica: 2-0
Ronaldinho had a penalty kick saved by Benfica goalkeeper Marcelo Moretto. Well Ronaldinho did ammend his mistake just minutes later when Samuel Eto’o excellent run-n-cross provided Ronaldinho with a simple goal in the 19th minute. Benfica didn’t posed much threat to Barcelona until the 60th minute when Simao failed to score with acre of space. Well that pretty much rounded up Benfica performance that night. Samuel Eto’o scored Barca 2nd goal to seal the game minutes before the final wistle.