My Office Building - Cyber Towers

New job, new office, new pictures.

This place is a concrete jungle.

New Hyderabad Airport at Samshabad

I have been visiting the new airport in Hyderabad quite a few times over the last few days. This is a picture early morning sometime back.

The new airport is named "Rajive Gandhi International Airport" which is in my opinion is a very sad thing to do, since it is in Andhra Pradesh, it should have been in named after one of the local persons rather than a non-local person. However since the present provincial government is that of Congress Party, the current Chief Minister muscled his way to name it after Rajive Gandhi. Come to think of it, Rajive Gandhi never even ruled a full term, at least they could have named after P V Narashimha Rao, who not only completed a full term in the office but also spearheaded the opening up of the economy and which in a way lead to a private company to actually build an airport.

This is the first private airport to come up in India, and has been successfully operated over last few days. The other private airport to come-up is the Bangalore airport which has hit turbulence and not yet operational.

This airport is quite a distance from the town and they are trying to build an elevated expressway to the airport to ease the congestion. The new expressway will take some time to come up and expected to completed by June 2008; I doubt that though. But the thing that I don't understand is why they need and expressway now when the road leading to the new airport is mostly 4 lane national highway for the part they are building the elevated expressway and is fairly capable enough to take on the increased traffic; rather they should have concentrated on building better roads in the town itself.

Anyway as I said it is a far away from the town and most often it takes the similar duration for most people to reach their destination as it takes to reach the airport.

I have not yet flew from this airport but what I learn is it is super fast to get out of it once you land here and seemed very small in size for a new airport,

Reliance Broadcom Wimax: My First Impressions

Today the guys from the RCom came and installed the system.

I have subscribed speed of 150 Kbps, and I am getting better speed than that at 2 speed tests on speedtest.net clocking 176 Kbps and 205 Kbps, but the upload speeds are pathetic with around 6 Kbps both the times and in a current test 1 KBps. On the torrent uploading it is not crossing 3 KBps. I also ran uTorrent and got nearly 16 KBps (it's the big B) on average download speeds, with the Gmail IMAP folders updating in the background. I guess I have to file a complaint for the upload speeds because I am not been able to update the mandatory My Profile page, and change the password as that page is not getting updated at all.

Following is the 3rd test:

Another problem is the PoE needs UPS backup, every time it switches off it takes nearly 5-20 min to get back to normal and start working. And I was told that the PoE (Power over Ethernet) is very sensitive to voltage fluctuations. That means you really don't get instant internet as in the case of bsnl where it used to take much less time.

They installed a reception antenna facing towards the reliance mobile towers and a PoE thingy. The engineer said the installed instruments cost 15K but I think he was bluffing. Line of sight to the reliance towers is a must it seems else the connection speed reduce drastically. Fortunately I got one.

One small irritant is the "User Workspace" window that needs always needs to be open else the connection drops.

BSNL Customer Care

I went to the BSNL office to subscribe a new fixed wired telephone connection so that I can subscribe their very fast Broad Band Internet service. However I was surprised to find this customer service motto of BSNL by Mahatma Gandhi. What is even more funny was the ladies behind the desk were least bothered about the customers present there and their primary goal of the day was to plan for the party that they were going the next day. The lady who took my form took a leisurely 1 hour before she processed it.

By the way even after 5 months I am still awaiting for the connection to come.

Indian Hokey: Died in Santiago Chilie March 9, 2008

Hockey was introduced to India by the Brits as the case with many other games. Indians took to the game and did very well in the Olympics. India won 6 consecutive Gold Medals in Olympics form 1928 Amsterdam to 1956 Melbourne. In 1960 Rome Olympics India had to be satisfied with a Silver Medal, losing to Pakistan in the Finals. India bounces back to win Gold medal in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. India defeats Pakistan in the Finals taking revenge of the ‘60 loss. Since then Gold Medal eluded India till 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. India won the Bronze Medals in 68 and 72. But the worst was 76 where we finished 7th. But 1980 was redemption time where we got the Gold once again after 16 years. This time India face Spain in the Finals. Since 1980 however India had lost the appetite for the Hokey as Indian become Cricket crazy after winning the 1983 Cricket world cup, and in 2008 India fails to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

What went wrong?
Indian Hockey teams debacle of in the 1976 Montreal Olympics where it finished 7th was attributed the lack of experience on the newly introduced astro-turf. We were kings of the ground but Hockey takes a new avatar on astro-turf. While the lacked experience on playing on the new truf, which hindered the ability of Indian Hockey internationally. We lost momentum in nurturing talent at the grass root level due to lack of infrastructure meanwhile people lost interest in the game as a consequence of poor performance.

Another reason could be attributed to the lack of preference and coverage by Media and general public. Hokey never got the print space that Cricket got and the fact is Indians favor Cricket over Hockey. The reason why Hockey is regarded as the national game is due to its incredible showing in the Olympics. To date the only gold medals India ever got in Olympics are in Hockey.

Many people blame the management of Hockey in India for the poor showing. Indian Hokey Federation has been under the supervision of erstwhile Super Cop KPS Gill since 1994. It has been reported in the media quoting IHF President : “We do not have an instant coffee machine that you can get results instantly. It takes time to regain your position. We have put the process in place and the results will take some time.” Makes many wonder how many more days one needs, to brew coffee?

Tiger: Big Cat's Days are Numbered

Lion was the National Animal of India till it got independence, since it was part of the Royal Coat of arms for England. That’s why it can still be found on the Reserve Bank of India’s Logo which was incorporated in pre-independent India. After independence of India the new National Animal was Tiger. The logic behind the change was, Lions were only found in some parts of India like Gujarat while Tiger was found in many states.

Tiger is the means of transport for goddess Durga as well as Lord Ayyappa. Whereas Lord Shiva can be seen wearing cloths made of Tiger skin presumably to suggest that he is beyond ne mortal world. Tiger is revered in the Chinese and Tibetan civilizations.

They say cat has Nine lives, but when it comes to Tiger the Big Cat of India, even the single life is not guaranteed.

National Animal of 5 different countries apart from India, Tiger population has come dwindled from nearly 100 thousand (nearly 40K in India) early in the 20th century to just about 5 – 7 thousand in wild currently. Half of the wild tiger population was estimated to be in India. However per the latest Tiger Census recently released by the National Tiger Conservation Authority put the Tiger number at 1,411 down from 3,642 per the 2002 survey. As per WPSI ‘s tiger poaching statistics 832 tigers have been killed since 1944 to 2007 in India.

The main reason for the decline is the $12 billion illegal wildlife products industry. China, Japan and other South East Asian counties keep demanding Tiger products at any cost and India is the largest contributor to the trade. In the international markets Tiger can fetch upto $50,000, the skin alone fetches nearly $15,000 while the bones cost nearly $4000 per kilogram – while the investment in the poaching each tiger is about Rs. 1 Lakh.

Another reason is the never ending encroachment of humans into the Tiger habitat. Take for example the latest news of a Tigress straying into a village in Sunderbans on Feb 18. Thousands of villagers chased her almost killing her.

Government of India had initiated the Project Tiger in 1973 with the main objective of ensuring viable population of Tigers in India. In 2006 Project Tiger was replaced with National Tiger Conservation Authority .Currently the program is spread over 27 Tiger Reserves covering an area of 37761 sq. Km. The tiger population under the Project Tiger shows that Tiger population has increase from 1638 in 1972 to 3773 in 2002. However the latest census indicating the rapid decline in the Tiger population compared to the previous census suggests some kind of artificial inflation of the numbers earlier.

Government of India has enacted the “Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972” with the object of poaching and illegal trade in wildlife in India. As per the Act offences pertaining to hunting of endangered species like Tigers is liable for imprisonment of 3-7 years and fine upto Rs. 10-25K. Since Inception however only 16 persons have been convicted of killing tiger.

References:
Project Tiger
Wildlife Protection Society of India
Wikipedia
Big Cat Rescue

A Status Check on India's National Symbols

In the year 2008 Indian Hokey Team for the first time since 1928 will not take part in the Olympic Games to be held in Beijing, China. Hokey is the National Game of India. This is the darkest days for the Indian Sport in which we were once undisputed world champions from 1928 to 1956.

This news come on the lines of another highly disturbing bit of information that the Tiger population in India has shrunk to all time low of 1411. Tiger is the National Animal of India.


I will on my part do a status check of how the national symbols of India doing these days. The status check follows very soon.

Who said it?

It was the first day of school and a new student named Chandrashekhar Subramanyam entered the fourth grade in a school in the U.S. of A

The teacher said, "Let's begin by reviewing some American History Who said "Give me Liberty, or give me Death"? She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Chandrashekhar, who had his hand-up: "Patrick Henry, 1775" he said.

"Very good!" Who said "Government of the People, by the People, for the People, shall not perish from the Earth?" Again, no response except from Chandrashekhar. "Abraham Lincoln, 1863" said Chandrashekhar.

The teacher snapped at the class, "Class, you should be ashamed.Chandrashekhar, who is new to our country, knows more about its history than you do."She heard a loud whisper: "F**k the Indians," "Who said that?" she demanded. Chandrashekhar put his hand up. "General Custer, 1862."

At that point, a student in the back said, "I'm gonna puke." The teacher glares around and asks "All right! Now, who said that?" Again, Chandrashekhar says, "George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991."

Now furious, another student yells, "Oh yeah? S*ck this!" Chandrashekhar jumps out of his chair waving his hand and shouts to the teacher, "Bill Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!"

Now with almost a mob hysteria someone said "You little shit. If you say anything else, I'll kill you." Chandrashekhar frantically yells at the top of his voice, "Gary Condit to Chandra Levy, 2001." The teacher fainted.

And as the class gathered around the teacher onthe floor, someone said, "Oh shit, we're f**ked!" And Chandrashekhar said quietly, "George Bush, Iraq, 2005".

Shamelessly Copy/Pasted from <http://agelessbonding.blogspot.com/>

At the Restaurant - Hyderabad House - Madhapur

They have been upgrading the look and feel of the Madhapur branch of Hyderabad House since some time. And now this is how it looks after the renovation of the restaurant. The looks are much better and refreshing then the earlier dark room feel of the erstwhile establishment.

Hyderabad House is on franchises model, evident from their website that I visited today to pickup some lines for the blog. They are also running the new Oriental Cuisine restaurants named Bowl 'O China which have opened up in the recent past.

The crowed is predominantly the software engineers form the Hitec City here. Biryani is the specialty of Hyderabad House. Most visitors who want to eat authentic Hyderabadi Biryani visit this place among others like Bawarchi, Paradise, etc. I personally eat Biryani without using spoons etc as that is the way it tastes good but some foreign return guys like the one above insist on using the silverware.

Challenges faced by Indian Software Industry

1. Indian software industry has become expensive due to the rapid increases in the cost for the manpower.These days the salaries of the middle to top management of any organization are comparable to the costs in the developed nations, add to that the salaries of the lower levels such as the team leaders and the developers has also increased at around 10-20% every year. This increase in the salaries with out correspondent increase in output levels per person is eating into the profit levels of the software services companies.
2. Though initially India provided "less expensive - highly skilled "manpower; currently it has ran out of that "skilled" manpower and the whatever manpower is available is either not "skilled enough" or very expensive.
3. Indian Education system is not able to output the skilled manpower in terms of skill level in the numbers required. The quality is sore point when comes to the education. There are only a few Indian universities and institutions which can be regarded of international quality. The better educational institutions are highly subsidized by the government and hence the development of the same has not been as good as it could have been and money making has been the sole criteria when it comes to the private sector institutions. There are some good institutions in the private sector as well but they are as expensive as any in the developed nations.
4. Infrastructure in India has not been able to keep pace with sustained development in the software industry. e.g. the rental in the housing markets have increased nearly 4 fold in last 5 years, however the incomes for these software professionals have not increased in the same proportion. Further added is the traffic levels in the software dominated cities is another example of the bottlenecks in the infrastructure.
5. Due to the high Dollar inflows into the county due to its lucrative stock market return the Indian Rupee has become very strong compared to the Dollar. The government is also not keen to improve the situation due to the high prices of crude petroleum in the international markets since the petroleum products are highly subsidized in India and any weakening of Indian Rupee will add to the subsidy burden.
6. The Eastern European countries provide as much cost benefit as Indians do and they currently are as competitive as Indians are in cost. Similarly other Asian countries are exhibiting better cost benefit advantage compared to Indian Software Industry.
7. The Advantage for the Indian software industry has been its early beginning, and a large English Speaking populations - the highest in the world. But due to the globalization of economy that advantage is not significant anymore. We have Indian software professionals working in non-English speaking countries similarly now manpower from less expensive non-English speaking countries is trying to compete for the big bucks of Software Services Industry.