[ Sajith M ]

No I have not been nominated for any award at the Indibloggies India Blog Awards, just a plug for my favorites :-)

Best IndiBlog directory - DesiPundit
Best Community IndiBlog - The Great Indian Mutiny
Best Topical IndiBlog - Atanu Dey on Indias Development
Most Humorous IndiBlog - Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind
The Indiblog of the Year - Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind

Go ahead, cast your vote. Hope your choice matches mine :-)

Update: The results are out. Congrats, all the winners. Except for The Great Indian Mutiny, everyone else I voted for managed to win in the respective categories. All you mutineers, you are still my favorite, and there is always the next year :)

Posted under: Thoughts , Blogging
Tagged with: Awards, Blog, India, Indibloggies, vote

If you are a headhunter (or a job consultant), or anyone else who plans to call me to tell me that you found my resume to be a perfect match for one of your clients, please read this first.

• If you search Monster for a keyword, and send a mail to every single soul whose resume happens to have that keyword, you are spamming people. Just because I have worked on an ASP.NET web application that talks to DB2 server does not mean that I have the ability or the inclination pursue a career as a DB2 administrator.
• If you can’t tell me the name of the company you are recruiting for, you might as well not bother to email me. Making up my mind on if I want to work for “a large US based MNC” (while not knowing which company is in question here) is not something I like to do
• If your mail/call starts with “we found your resume to be a perfect match for …”, don’t ask me things that are already there in the resume. I expect you to have gone through the profile/resume.
• If my resume says that I am not willing to relocate, please don’t talk about opportunities that require me to relocate.

This is not to say that every single person whom I have met has been like this. I have interacted with people like Anamika from Vshreyas, Pallavi and Sreedevi from Peepal, and a few others who are good at the match-making game; and it has been a pleasure - may their tribe increase :-)

Posted under: Thoughts
Tagged with: headhunter, job consultant, resume

A week back (on 5th February, 2007) he three-member Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal headed by Justice N P Singh gave its verdict. In the much-awaited final verdict after almost 17 years of hearings, the Tribunal allocated 419 tmc ft of the Cauvery river water annually to Tamil Nadu, 270 tmc ft to Karnataka, 30 tmc ft to Kerala and 7 tmc ft to Pondicherry.

This is a verdict that has left me baffled. It’s a known fact that both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu need more water if they are to continue with the rate at which the land under irrigation has been growing. Unfortunately, its also a known fact that increasing the land under irrigation does not increase the amount of water that the river can provide. Both states have been bringing in more are under irrigation (and TN has been the fastest), as that has been the yardstick that the tribunal has looked at while awarding the share of water to states.

The verdict means that tomorrow if Tamil Nadu brings a few thousand hectares of land under irrigation, it can again demand another tribunal and demand yet more water. Sure there will be some camera footages of dried crops (see these crops dried because we did not get more water from Karnataka), all the while the fact that these are areas that were added so that you can get more water will never find a mention.

Both states will want to increase the area under irrigation; but while human greed knows no bounds, the quantum of water available is limited. Under these circumstances, the tribunal could not have given an order that satisfies everyone, the least it could have done was to give an order that at least had some semblance to justice being done to everyone concerned.

The present order is (unfortunately) heavily skewed in favor of Tamil Nadu (looks like the footages of dry crops had an effect after all). Tamil Nadu gets 57.7% (419 TMC ft) of water while having only 36.9% (12,790 km²) of drought area in Basin and contributing only 31.8% (252 TMC ft) of water to the river. Karnataka on the other hand contributes 53.8% (425 TMC ft) of water and despite having 63.1% (21,870 km²) of drought area in the basin, gets only 37.2% (270 TMC ft) of water.

Human greed knows no bounds, and left to themselves both the states will try to increase the area under irrigation to crazy levels and then one of them will end up moving the tribunal alleging that its crops are drying because there is no water. A good solution might be to consider the length of the river in each state and award a share in proportion to that, or look at the contribution each state makes. The present formula that depends on the area under irrigation is a flawed one, and will only lead to another round of fight when each state takes the area under irrigation to unsustainable levels (yet again)

Reminds me of what my friend Po (She is from Coorg, Karnataka - the place where the river Kaveri originates) told me a few days back “The place where she (the river) originates, people don’t have enough water and looks like everyone else wants more water”. Well Po, looks like Tamil Nadu has managed to deny you the right to water, maybe time to get used to it.

Posted under: Thoughts
Tagged with: Cauvery, Dispute, final, Kaveri, Tribunal, verdict, Water

IIT Bombay student Anupam Biswas 5th Year Mechanical Engg is suffering from Colukabki (caused due to excessive nabad and depression) a disease very rarely found (3 in a billion). His condition is very pathetic and the treatment is very expensive, obviously his parents are not able to afford his treatment. Orkut has agreed to pay 1 paisa after each time this message is forward. So please pass to all ur friends.

Colukabki is a pretty interesting disease. It is one of those rare diseases that are not indexed by google and no information can be found on it. When I get this kind of spam from well meaning friends, I am left wondering how could they be so stupid. Okay, most people who have forwarded this message are not stupid per se, its just that they probably know it well enough that companies (Google, Orkut, Yahoo, MSN etc etc) don’t pay people to forward messages but somehow forget this when faced with a message that could “help save a life”. Something to do with human psychology?

Oh Btw, I was under the impression that Engineering courses were of 4 year duration, since when did we have a 5th year Mechanical Engineering student?

Posted under: Thoughts
Tagged with: Colukabki, disease, forward, spam

Simon Phipps in his post Edited Out of History talks about how IBM’s former Fellow, “Father of Websphere” Don Ferguson, is already in being airbrushed out of history with his blog redirecting to the home page for IBM’s dW bloggers.

Now that is sad. This is no way to manage a corporate blog, or to encourage corporate blogging. IBM sure can do better than that. Frankly, one fails to see how his views could have suddenly became irrelevant now that he has left IBM for Microsoft. Shame on IBM.

If you have a blog on the corporate site or were planning to start one, maybe its time to rethink. It’s probably better to have the blog on blogspot or wordpress than leaving to the mercy of people in-charge of the corporate website. Of course, having your domain and hosting is better still :-)

Update: The blog is back :-)

Posted under: Thoughts , Blogging
Tagged with: Blog, corporate blog, corporate blogging, IBM

Saddam Hussein is no more. Ironically. he was informed of his death sentence at the dawn of the Eid al-Adha feast which recalls the would-be sacrifice by Abraham of his son.

He appeared so calm and fearless in the execution video. I salute the dignity and pride Saddam showed as a country’s former ruler in the face of death. Saddam died a martyr’s death.

When he was captured in November of 2003, the insurgency against American troops increased in ferocity. Three years later the Americans are bogged down in the Green Zone in the heart of Baghdad. The rest of Iraq is a deadly war zone, which is neither under the control of ‘Coalition Forces’, put in place by the Bush-Blair combo, nor under the control of the puppet Iraqi government. After his death, it will redouble in intensity again.

George Bush is right when he says that Saturday, December 30, 2006 is a “milestone” in Iraq’s history, because this was the day when all hopes of peace in Iraq completely disappeared. This day marks the beginning of (what will become) a very violent sectarian civil war in Iraq.

Mr. Bush, December 30, 2006 is a “milestone”; not just in Iraq’s history, but in World’s history. Never before has victor’s justice been carried out with such a complete disregard for law and with the sole intention of sending a message of word dominance. Saddam’s execution was designed and timed to show the world that “we don’t care what you think, we do what we please, by mean we like - fair or foul”.

Saddam Hussein died a martyr. May his soul rest in peace.

What do you think of Saddam’s execution? Was it Victor’s Justice? Would Saddam become a bigger threat to US in his martyrdom than he would have been had he been alive?

Posted under: Thoughts
Tagged with: death, death sentence, execution, execution video, Iraq, martyr, martyr's death, Saddam, Saddam Hussein, Victor's Justice

We find no ground whatsoever to modify our order dated September 29, 2006 (sealing of unauthorized shops)

Thus spake a supreme court bench headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal while dismissing the applications filed by MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi), Delhi government and the center.

Sure enough our Supreme Court has better things to attend to than consider what will happen to more than 44,000 traders, their families and everyone else who is directly or indirectly employed by them. Assuming that a shop directly employs just 3 people (a very conservative estimate) and each person has a family of 2 (again very conservative), that’s just about 265 thousand people who will be adversely affected by this judgment. Oh! Just about 0.25% percent of the population. Of course, the fact that a quarter percent of the population will be adversely affected is no grounds for our honorable supreme court to change it opinion.

Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General of the Confederation of All India Traders asks “If I shut my shop, will the Supreme Court or government take care of our livelihood?” Frankly, I don’t know; but I am sure that Justice Y K Sabharwal can answer that. Will you answer that Justice Sabharwal?

Update01: IBN tells me “5.4 lakh shops across Delhi face closure, 27 lakh traders have their livelihoods at risk”. Thats much higher than what I had thought. Still no one (the parliament, the executive or the judiciary) seems to be concerned - ah, the sad fact of our democracy.

Posted under: Thoughts
Tagged with: Delhi, supreme court, traders, unauthorized shops

Statistics in the fourth India Today-AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG survey on sexuality published in the India Today magazine

• 46 percent said they have had premarital sex.
• 62 percent said they watched pornographic films with friends.
• 63 percent said they expected their future wives to be virgins.
• 37 percent of men surveyed said they’d had at least one homosexual experience.

While the first two points sound quite believable, I think the last two points indicate that the survey has had some serious trouble with statistics.

• 63% would make most women would rejoice as they point out that this proves that men have double standards. While I would not comment on double standards, I do think that 63% is probably way above the mark. My guess would have been in the vicinity of 15-25%
• 37% of men had a homosexual encounter… Hmm… Is homosexuality that prevalent in out society. Guess they do a great job of hiding their sexual preferences.

Can someone subscribed to the magazine update me on the sample size they used?

Posted under: Thoughts , Sex And Sexuality
Tagged with: India Today, sex, sexuality, survey

I had written about the need for disclosure in my earlier post. When you are being compensated in any manner, you have a moral obligation to let your readers know that you are being compensated for what you have written.

This blog always had a little notice at the end of every PPP post that said that this relates to a PPP opportunity. I am glad that the good folks at PPP too think that disclosure is a good thing to happen, and are now encouraging bloggers to have a disclosure policy on their blog. This blog has its disclosure policy here.

If you too want a disclosure policy for your blog, head straight to Disclosure Policy Generator. Its pretty simple and in less than 5 minutes by answering some simple questions you will have your own disclosure policy. I would strongly recommend that you read the generated policy and edit it to suit your requirements before you put it on your blog.

By disclosing your affiliations or compensation received for post, you let your readers know more about what you have written. If you have received any compensation for your posts, don’t you think your readers should know that? Or if you have an affiliation with a company whose products you are writing about, should your readers know that too? So go ahead and increase the transparency in blogosphere by adding a disclosure policy to your blog.

Disclaimer: This post relates to a PayPerPost Opportunity.

Posted under: Thoughts , Blogging
Tagged with: Blog, disclosure, disclosure policy

Indiatimes reports Google’s social networking site in trouble

The Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court has directed the Maharashtra government to issue notice to Google for the alleged spread of hatred about India by its social network service Orkut.

The order was issued by Justice A P Deshpande and Justice R M Borde Monday in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by local Advocate Yugant R Marlapalle.

A picture of burning the national tricolour, bearing anti-India message, has been put on www.orkut.com and a community “We Hate India” has been created on the site, the petition said.

The petition has also appealed to the government to appoint a ‘controller’ under the Information Technology Act-2000 to regulate all such communities being in operation on the internet.

Now what do they expect Google/Orkut to do? Moderate every single community? Maybe moderate every single post and scrap as well…
Or better still maybe a “controller” to control every single line of text or image on the net. wow!!!

Did the litigant and the court seriously think that people are complete idiots and will believe whatever they see, and so need to be protected from such content… Why can’t you trust people to make their choices without any interference from the government and judiciary?

Seriously makes me wonder when will we have courts and governments that do not try to censor information or curtail expression of opinion?

Posted under: Thoughts , Censorship
Tagged with: Bombay High Court, censor, expression, Google, Information Technology Act, opinion, Orkut