Big Embarrassment for Indian Government

CVC or Chief Vigilance Officer, is hired to ensure transparency, is himself charge-sheeted in a case. Supreme Court did well to make the process of his recruitment illegal.

Yesterday, I read in news that a minister in German has to resign because he cheated in his PhD thesis. I wonder when politicians in India stop making fun of Indian masses and think at least once about outcry it can generate.

Congress need to clean themselves. BJP might be suffering from serious leadership crisis and has absolute no agenda to talk about. But given so many holes in Congress from 2G, CWG games and verdict in Godhra, I wonder what will happen in next elections.

Timeline of US Recession

Good post about Recession in US

link

Exam Time Friend :(

End term exams are going as I write..Will be over in next two days...Hope to get active on blogosphere after that...

Don't know when this trimester started lagta hai kal ki hi baat hai...aur term khatam hone ko bhi aaya...

Prowess

Used Prowess for the first time, it's really nice in terms of kind of data it provides, but in term of speed it really sucks, BIG TIME. You can press save and go and have a cup of coffee in the mean times. Compared to that Bloomberg is much better...However even it sucks some time. For who knows what reason, their financial numbers for Tata Power is not even close to the actual one, and interesting things is that they actually have put annual reports at their website.

Guys, don't panic, I haven't suddenly developed interest in anything like this..It's just one of those majboori...course requirement hai yaar karna padta IIMB mein..>We are comparing Tata Power and NTPC...by their balance sheets. as if we know..I guess only take away for me would be that I got to know that Kanti Thermal Power Cooperation is actually a subsidiary of NTPC...Why they run it in such a bad shape..(for those who don't know where Kanti is, it's at Muzaffarpur, Bihar quite close to my native place Motihari and it's major source of power for North Bihar).

Up for now 25 hours..gotta catch a nap...

I love Wall Street :P

It has been a couple of months when everyone was cursing Wall Street guys for their extra advanced sense of innovation of securitizing mortgage products and selling them to innocent pension holders. I thought it will take at least couple of years for them to get back with something like this. But, these are not the guys who relent...They have come up something quite interesting...

"The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money."

The idea goes like this. Every policy holder knows he is gonna die and someone is going to claim their pension money. Let's say pension money is $ 1 million and the old man lives for next 10 years, assuming prevailing market interest rate of about 3.5%, one can calculate present value of $ 1 million would be $708,918.81. The pension holder can actually sell this to any financial institute at $ 400,000. It's a Win-Win situation for all, the banker earn and as well as the poor pension fund holder earns too. The sooner the old man dies, the better return one can have. Now, the banks can create collateral of thousand of such loans and sell in tranches to different class of investors.

Imagine, a pension holder in Sweden, praying for death of an Insurance holder in US for better return, so bad.

Read the full article here...

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?

Being a great fan of Nobel Prize Winner, Paul Krugman, I find any of his articles quite interesting. This time, he has written a great deal about origins of failure in curbing recession.

Do read this here

Yesterday, while browsing through Crossword at Bangalore Airport with no intention of buying anything, I bought One hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Let's see when do I get time to read that...currently so many books are in Read Me list.

Guess what, what for our project on Improving Primary Education, we have made a video apart from 10 point agenda. We will share that once presention is done this afternoon.

Bloody Hell

Its really amazing when people remember their roots. Take the recent case of Designer Anand Jon...who was convicted for 59 years for serious charges like raping a minor and sexually assaulting countless number of girls. I mean, it's okay that he was born in India that doesn't mean Indian govt. will start on defending every criminal..and why should Indian govt, everyone should be prosecuted by the rule of the land, it's not that he was some secret agent of RAW, a partiot Indian. He was having fun...so face the burn.

I just saw the video of his sister Sanjana Jon pleading Indian govt to intervene, for no reason at all. Another designer, claimed to be a friend of Anand Jon, says that he was such a talented designer who could have taken India's name further, lamenting on sad ending. Its not clear whether he supported the judgement or not. Sanjana writes that do one need to be a Khan to get Indian govt's attention...comparison itself is preposterous.

The law is above all. What would we have done had there been some foreign national caught doing somethink like this in India. Remember, what happened with Michael Jackson who was so popular, he still faced jury.

Check out the video here

Know more about Anand Jon from his website and his wikipedia page...

Coming to sex, look at the new kind of crime...It can't get worse than that. What's the underlying reason for such heinous crime, is it new or is it first time when something like this is being exposed in India, follow the link

Economist version of love

I loved these lines

"As an economist I think that a good marriage, like a good employment relationship, emphasizes shared vision, common interests, complementary abilities, and gains from specialization."

I am currently studying a course on Microeconomics, I can very well imagine how they think ...

Read the full version here...

By the way, did I tell my tiny poem....

you make me cry

with each of your good bye :(

Chalo AMRIKKA chalen...

It had been a dream to large part of Indians especially Sardarji and Gujju bhais to go to America and make a forture. They made a name for themselves and propered their families. However many of first generation Indian - Americans are now old. And they feel lonely and sad.

Check out what New York Times has to say about this

Government baling out companies is not that bad :)

Apparently, govt can actually make money by bailing out companies in difficult conditions. An interest rate higher than 23%...aur kya chahie economy bhi bach gayi, junta ka bhi bhala sarkar bhi mast :)

To read the full article, follow the link

My IIMB Project Group

It is as diverse as it can get...From each part of the country

Follow the link ...

Anyone interested in the pic of the group..??

Class XII marks may play key role in IIT entry

Now, take this. I mean what's wron g with JEE authorities, don't they understand the widespread inequality that exist in Indian Educational System. They want to undermint the effect of coaching tutored i.e. Kota and Hyderabad and focus on RAW Intelligence, how does getting higher marks in 12th show raw intelligence.

I am sure this step will tilt towards students of metropolitan cities. Already most of IIT and IIM students come from urban area. Students of state board will be affected the most.

On a good note, schools will gain a higher importance but school system is not uniform across the coountry. Having a cutoff of 60% is fine, anyway hardly any student of any board getting less than 60% clears JEE.

I strongly oppose this proposed move. Read the full article here

Amazing stuff going on in BJP

Everyone wants to leave a sinking ship..seems this is what is happening to BJP...A party with principles seems to have lost all its principles. A single issue of Jinnah is going to blow to the party with disproportionate damage...It can be felt that underlying problem is something else...the Top leadership is just not ready to get open with the idea of discussing the defeat through proper channel and more of a power struggle than something else...

After all that bayanbazi from Jaswant Singh after his expulsion..he got something to cheer...Not only BJP Arun Shouri is supporting him but in an interesting angel it is former RSS chief Mr. Sudarshan who said Jinnah was a nationalist..Cool stuff going on...

Read Sudarshan's view here

'Kaminey' takes Indian cinema beyond Tarantino

Shekhar Kapoor compares Vishal Bharadwaj with Tarantine...What could be a better compliment for Vishal...


'Kaminey' takes Indian cinema beyond Tarantino: Shekhar Kapur @
The Hindu


As far as I am concerned, watched it today and loved it..Almost spent 2 hours trying to book the tickets online..Damn online movie ticket booking sucks..and INOX people don't event care to pick up the phone..

Wanted to go for 10 AM show..for a ticket of 80 bucks yeah yeah paise nahi hai yaar but anyway I saw 3 tickets available tried to book..shit I need to create a login..by the time I got my id...tickets sold out..kisi tarah 12:35 ka ticket liya...was taken aback that FAME charges 20 bucks per ticket if you book onlline..isn't that outrageous...so 160 + 20 = 180...
And since everything in Bangalore is no near spent 200 bucks going and coming to campus..and ate some tiny burger and water worth 90 bucks...per head 325 ..Damn it...325 for a movie..I could have bought DVD...

Thankfully, movie was great...paise wasool ho gaye....

Rating 4.5/5

Your caste decides your health...It's not just income...nobody gets it...

Caste and inequalities in health @
The Hindu

Shared via AddThis

Interest rate derivatives soon: SEBI chief @ The Hindu

Interest rate derivatives soon: SEBI chief @
The Hindu

Shared via AddThis

Online social networking may decide your employment prospects! @ The Hindu

Online social networking may decide your employment prospects! @
The Hindu

Shared via AddThis

Poverty up in India

Contrary to all that feel good factor...Economy is grwoing at such a high pace...number of poors much be reducing day by day...We must be building a prosperous India...

Guess what it's not true...Number of poors in this country is actually going up...some new 110 million people have come below poverty like...

Sad..very sad...

Follow the link

Facebook is amazing :)

I have just started using facebook..and got really hooked to it..Orkut really is nowhere compared to it...

What's more you can share article/news so easily..New websites like BBC, NYTIMES have just options like this..it works like twitter too..its very cool...

I am wondering if I can share articles from websites to blogger as easy as facebook...couldn't find..any idea?

Teach for India

How many of you have thought of doing something for Indian education system which sucks big time. Such a huge inequality exist between rural and urban India...male and female. Just to quote the number literacy rate in India is 66% (in China it is 91%), male literacy is some 76% and female literacy is 54%. Can you imagine what it would be at the rural level? In my district East Champaran, arguably one of most backward district of one of the most backward state Bihar it come to 38% in all (50% for male and 25% for female). Sure India is making huge progress, but 3 out of 4 women in my district is not educated. Situation is really alarming. Thanks to all these private schools, had we been dependent on govt schools we could have been still illiterates.

Anyway the point is, I came across a concept of Teach of India which has been designed after Teach for America (yeah! yeah! it's not original but it is I guess a subsidiary). It takes top institute students (IITs, IIMs, BITs and others) to volunteer students for 2 years, 2 YEARS. It's huge. It has been a success in US, I wonder how many in India would have courage to do that. Peer pressure, parental pressure and what about acceptance in industry after that.

I am skeptical but nevertheless I have applied for its Campus Ambassador Programme where my job would be convince 2nd Year seniors to opt for this :)

All that gyan about education in India is coming because I am doing a project in one of the courses on Universal Literacy and Primary Education where we need to come up with 10 points which will be sent to Prime Minister of India (BIG).