Old Mc Donald had a spam!

Arz kiya hai
Old Mc Donald had a spam ,eeya eeya oh
And in that spam he won a fortune, eeya eeya oh
From Discount printer ink to Free sex pills
From Madhumati Singh to Deborah Whitney
What else could he ask for, eeya eeya oh

Taaliyaan, Taaliyan

Well, this post is dedicated to all those mails which lie in the dark corner of your mailbox, also known as the 'spam'

Different spam filters work differently, i.e, in google and yahoo, the mails go in the spam folder and remain there for 30 days or unless one deletes them. Indiatimes had the worst mailbox (sometimes I wonder it had a mailbox with a hole!) which showers mails into the inbox, leaving the user to decide 'spam or not spam' which gave me a good reason to stick with only yahoo and google.

The point is that sometimes these mails feel so real that one might be taken for a ride if any button linked to it is clicked even once. Sometimes, people who trust these distress mails get duped of their online savings in their banks. Recently, a group from London operated in this way promising lucarative jobs in exchange for a service fee.

Other kind of spam mails recieved only during the festival season are also irritating, you know that the author doesn't care for you and doesn't really mean anything by the greeting, its just an eyewash, a business strategy, nothing else!
But, even after knowing this, we treasure mails in the hope that may be there is a 0.01% chance if the author really meant it. Here's one of them

Dear MR. JEETENDRA

As 2008 dawns to a close and 2009 beckons, I want to personally thank you for your continued patronage of Kingfisher Airlines.

It was an exciting year for Kingfisher Airlines. We launched our international operations and introduced Kingfisher Red, a new class of service that will redefine low fare flying. As we enter 2009, we will continue to raise the bar on India’s only Five Star flying experience with innovative service offerings, and will be adding new international routes starting with direct flights from Mumbai to London, Singapore, Hong Kong.

I am glad to inform you that Kingfisher Airlines now connects 70 destinations with 440 daily flights. I regularly receive feedback from valuable guests like you and want to thank you for your kind wishes, great ideas and suggestions on how we can offer you an even better journey with Kingfisher Airlines.

Here’s raising a toast to this festive season and wishing you a very Happy New Year.


Warm Regards,

Dr. Vijay Mallya
Chairman & CEO
Kingfisher Airlines Limited

Rendezvous with VIP’s

So much hype, so much of publicity and exceeding expectations gave way to the global conference held at the Institute. Never before had so many VIP’s gathered and never will there be any such congregation in the near future. So what are these special creatures made up of?
The thing about these VIP’s is that they are humans like us and still manage to gather so much attention that people go ga-ga just by hearing their names. Yes, they are also known as celebrities but are important enough to the society. What makes them so special? Why can’t you and me become as important? What do they have that you and me don’t? Hope that the below arguments might just pop up some possible answers

1. You can’t be important unless you feel that you are after all ‘important’ – This effectively translates the principle of 'self fulfilling prophecy' or the belief in the principle that one is born to achive nothing less than being famous.
2. You need to have lot of flabber (hindi word for it-charbi) in order to break the ice.
3. You need to have good everlasting contacts of course!!, the more of the opposite sex, the better!!
4. You need to follow the PDCA cycle (Plan, do, check, act which is the fundamental principles builing block of ISO certification)for all your activities, nobody is going to hear the same old speech on the same subject given at different venues.
5. You need to create a demand for yourself. This is the hardest part, but if perfected, can lead to heavenly position. This is where the true test of character and principles will show up the result - whether you are fit to be a VIP or not!!

Recession blues

Battling the recession is not going to be a piece of cake, so apart from beating the heat in Lebanon (if you haven't still figured out whats so special about Lebanon, here's the fact - the male : female ratio there is 1:6) people can now concentrate on exploiting new markets like the one below.

Faced with shortage, Canada woos skilled Indian workers
Wed, Dec 3 11:15 AM
Chandigarh, Dec 3 (IANS) Here's good news for engineers, technicians and other skilled workers wanting to work abroad. Canada is trying to attract young talent from countries like India by relaxing norms for visas in this category, says a Canadian immigration expert.
'There is an acute shortage of skilled workers in Canada and the situation will worsen in the next 5-10 years unless the government makes an effort to attract talent from a young country like India,' said Curtis Panke, director of global operations for the Ontario-based Global Placement Services.
Pointing out that the retirement age for most occupations in Canada is 55 years, he said in the next five years, more than 20 percent of the country's engineers, doctors, professors and geologists would retire.
'This huge void cannot be filled with domestic talent alone. If we do not attract the talent from outside, there will be a talent vacuum of up to 70 percent in the next 10 to 15 years,' Panke told IANS.
Keeping all this in mind, he said, the Canadian government has made vital changes in its immigration policy and relaxed certain norms for a Canadian visa in the skilled worker category.
The latest fast track processing of visa applications in the federal skilled worker category ensures a Canadian visa in a shorter period of just 6-12 months, pointed out Panke.
The Canadian government has issued a list of 38 high-demand occupational categories, including health, finance, engineers, heavy-duty mechanics, industrial technicians, food service managers and other skilled trades.
Panke is in Punjab to gauge the talent pool available and to conduct seminars all over the state in collaboration with the city-based World Wide Immigration Consultancy Services (WWICS), which has sent over 60,000 families and around 250,000 individuals to Canada till date.
'There are thousands of Punjabis in Canada, who are doing extremely well in their professions and contributing to the country's economy. Comparatively, we have more applicants from this region if we compare it with other states in India,' stated Panke.
Asked about the impact of global recession on the Canadian economy, Panke said a majority of the organisations and companies there would be unaffected in the long run.
'There is some impact but all this is a temporary phase and will pass very soon. Moreover, there is no impact on the openings available under skilled category there and Canada is looking forward to employ skilled workers in a big way.'
Talking about Canada's federal investor category for permanent residency in the country, Lt Col (retd) B.S. Sandhu, chief managing director of WWICS, said: 'An investor is only needed to invest Rs.5 million in some flourishing trade in Canada and can relocate there under the Canadian Investor Program.'
The applicant, under this category, only needs to have a work experience of two years and no language proficiency test like IELTS is required, he added.

Aftermath

Finally, after two days and a lot of widespread destruction, nature's fury ended, but the exactly opposite happened on the West coast, in the financial capital of India. Terrorists went on and on relentlessly until the death toll reached 300.
But, this time I feel angry on myself, I feel angry on the common man who needs a reason such as a 'terror attack' to lash at the politicians. This is just like saying "I will worship God only during Diwali and the rest of the days, I just do nothing". This feeling of guilt is going to stay on for years to come. On the contrary, one might argue that the common man cannot do anything about it just because he is "common" and not "special", he does not have any power.
Well, can anyone prove the "common" statement wrong, please!!!

Weather forecast

Never paid attention to cyclonic warnings and such stuff in my life, but this time, it dragged attention because couldnt move around much and was cramped for doing work and moving around. So, googled on the Indian met dept and got this image which shows the situation, this is really baffling. No wonder, 28 deaths have been reported in TamilNadu since this whole cyclone terror began on Tuesday 25.11.08

A film

Well, its not like it appears in a sentence "I watched a film", neither is it the sarcastic way of telling that I watched "a" film, it was "the" film or something like that. In a way it was, but I am really referring to the name of the film "A" in a most unusual language (and my favorite) , I bet the first thought would be that its a hollywood blue film or some french/spanish masala. But, seriously this film is a kannada film and my inner true fan following for Upendra (the actor cum director)led me to this post.

From any kannadigas point of view, the moment one utters a word about Upendra, thats it, people start getting hallucinations, feel instant jitters and write him off as a confusing "real star". In fact, even Upendra doesnt expect his audience to fully understand the movie, one of the rare specialities, and the talent he shows in the movies is simply out of this world, nobody can imagine. I seriously recommend people to watch his movies with subtitles. Although, there is nothing to beat the real dialogues in Kannada.

Coming to this movie, it is quite old and his debut movie. It is not expected to be understood and I will attempt to give some insight for easier understanding.

Well, its a film for all of us which contains a film inside a film. We all know about the concept of a film inside a film like for example say Om shanti Om. But, imagine a double decker of that!!
The best part is that it deals with all issues related to the common man, which gives me the best reason to follow Upendra. In the opening scenes itself, he acts like a retard and goes on to become God!, Not to mention the dialogues, wow! Amazing!, stupendous! (like Himesh puts it in Saregama)

As I said, its not expected to be understood. Only hope to watch more of such movies, already watched Raktha kanneeru, which is again marvellous. I must thank IIT's Lan system and the genius behind it. This post certainly is in a way dedicated partially to the genius apart from the man "Upendra"

Back on Track(aray)

Certainly there has to be something like 'inertia' which controls human mind and bodies. A gap of 15 days since the last blog just proves that Newton was a great scientist even though some of his theories are found to be irrelevant in quantum terms.
Moving on from science to politics, the new trend bundled in an old school thought 'divide and rule' is being followed by none other than Thakeray uncle who is very happy with the support of Maratha manoos and since people can't do anything with manoos nearby, dislikers protest in their own state. Trains in Bihar burned with the fury of the angry mob who can't stand the size of Raj T.
Some say, he is a mole of the mountain or a "baccha" of politics, but his charisma and the support he has managed to gather is laudable. These things say a completely different story and the fact that even the police had to resort to tactics to keep him in jail, speak volumes about the matured and new "teenager" or youth of politics who can't be undermined.
Whether he is a hero, or the villian, at this point is irrelevant. For now, he is the hero in Maharashtra and villian elsewhere. At times, one has to respect even enemies for their greatness and learn from them. Only hope that he doesnt end up implementing a 'visa' scheme for all outsiders who wish to enter Maharashtra.