Category Archives: india

india, terrorism

2 reasons why Terrorists made a mistake this time

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Terrorists choose the wrong place and wrong time to strike. They have dug their own graveyard.

Here is why. 
1. It is election year. The in power, out of power, no chance of power – all politicians with half,quarter brain will be baying for terrorist blood. Any draconian bill will get passed this time in the assembly. 
Of course the short term impact will be – the terrorists will look for alternative professions and lie quietly. The long term impact will be – too much power with police,army will backfire in the long run. Then a peace loving government will come to power and clip its wings.
2. Those idiots attacked business capital. In the past few years business lobbying has started growing. So now enough businesses ( I am counting on you feuding Ambanis, Tatas and Birlas) will lobby for tougher security – and the half and quarter brains will comply and pass the laws even if they do not understand a thing.
And in another note : 
We are tired of our Neighbour
 My great neighbour next door I last read are in the brink as usual. I hope they learn a lesson or two from us and get going with life. They are blessed with the same brains we have, their culture is the same, they watch the same stupid TV serials like us and that boring game  – what is stopping them from creating an economy like us. 
I hope they realize and stop exporting terrorism or fight for a piece of my land – and instead copy us in creating a happy place to live. Heck, we can help you with everything. Infosys,TCS will be more than willing to set up shop there – having exhausted the supply here.
We are tired of you guys. We cannot spot you in the rear view mirror any more – we are off…just like Chandrayaan to higher orbits. Stop chasing us and trying to compare with us. Accept it – you guys have lost it. So take a break and concentrate on progress. That is the only way to be happy. You guys deserve to be happy. 
frustration, india

Shame on us

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I respect Mumbai more than Delhi.

It is India’s capital according to me – so many businesses, ideas, entrepreneurs have flourished here. 

I got my coffee ready and picked up Indian Express and saw “Terrorists take over Mumbai” – I could not believe it. Thought it was a prank. Economic Times concurred.

This is like a movie script. What is going on with our country?
Knock Knock Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Shivraj Patil – what are you guys doing? Enough of your vote bank politics and cuddling terrorists. Terrorists have gone from 0 to 1000s in the last 4 years – thanks to your inaction. 
If you cannot deal with it – quit. Take with you the crores that you got from Telecom licences and what nots and go holiday in France or Swiss – I don’t care. Leave my country alone – and let an able administrator take over. Cannot watch this country bleed slowly to death. 
india, legal

Legalities of starting a business

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I always wondered what it takes to start a business in India.

Turns out that it is quite simple – no big bureaucratic red tape which I always thought India was. There are 3 major types.

Sole Proprietorship:

This is what I opted for. Nothing to register with the government, lawyer or auditor. You are fully responsible for your business. Liability is solely yours. What it means is you incur a huge loss – you have to pay from your personal property. You wake up in the middle of night and decide – man let me start a business. There you go – your business is born. As simple as that.

Want to open a bank account. No problem – tell them your company name and give address proof and PAN card number. Done.

Till 2 Lakhs of income, you pay 20% tax. Beyond that it is 30%.

Partnership:

You need help from an auditor for this purpose. You and your partner(s) decide what is the percentage you own the company ( and hence the liabilities ) etc. Costs some 5000Rs I guess. I did not dig deep into this as this was not the option I was taking.

Even if your firm made only 100Rs as profit you have to pay 30% tax.

Private Company:

This is the most expensive and longer router ( but safer route ). You first give a proposal to the government entity with a bunch of company names. Then they will tell you which one is available. Then you might have to spend to the tune of 1Lakh Rupees to get all done and it is a long drawn out process.

So you have a great idea – just go ahead and start doing it. Have a friend helping you out – cough up the 5K and continue your march.

I know what you are thinking – even I went through the same phase. What if someone stakes claim to my brand name by doing the legal 1Lakh Rupees way while you were slogging to popularise brand.

Well first accept that you are screwed. Like it helps !!

You have your user base – just change the name to something better – call it formerly known as blahblah.com. I am no expert in this – but when you are beginning do not worry about such things – if it did not cost a whopping 1Lakh I would have registered my company. But the 1Lakh can be spent in far better ways – getting a good UI designer, designing a fundoo logo, get a kickass server – so your pages load fast.

How about patenting? I still have not explored this area – might be doing it soon. Watch out for a post on that.

So have you started your business by now?


hope, india, US

Good Luck Mr.Obama

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Good luck Senator. I hope you win the election and by next week you are Mr.President.  Here are the reasons why I support this young man.

1. Obama is young and is experienced enough. If W can be President, Mr.Obama – editor of Harward Law Review – can very well be. No arguments. Shut up Mc.Cain and Palin.
2. I am an admirer of Clinton. I love to listen to him. Obama is another great orator of our times. Give him a chance to speak to the world.
3. This is kind of a hope. Currently I am reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and there is a striking similarity to the story and our present day crisis. In the story all innovation wasstifled. The industrialist who invents a new alloy, another one who invents a new way of drilling oil – all are hounded by the establishment ( Washington, old way of doing business guys, incompetent scientists ) – to not prosper with their innovation. In fact these new ideas are killed unceremoniously citing various reasons. 
Roll forward 70 odd years and the same thing is being enacted. Stem Cell research has not taken off, electric cars are yet to start rolling off in US ( biggest consumers and biggest pollutors – sorry – it is not China and India – howmuch ever you twist the facts ). I feel John Mc Cain, W – are all the bigots who stifle innovation – because they and their friends ( oil companies pharmaceutical giants, insurance companies) will get wiped out if the new ideas succeed. They prevent the world from becoming a better place to live in. I am hoping Mr.Obama will remove the barricades and change the world. I can bet on Mr.Obama than on Mr. Mc Cain.
4. And this is another hope. I hope Obama inspires another Obama in India. An energetic young man who will put India to where it deserves to be – a country that redefines mankind and spreads peace and happiness in the world – and not a third world country, that apes US and UK.
Me? Thanks for the thought 🙂
And Hell No – not  you Mr.Rahul. It is a sad sad comparision. Tell me one good book you have read. I know you have not written any thing – not even a blog? Tell me one original speech you have given – what are your views on Reservation, Terrorism, Kashmir, China, LTTE. I cannot stand the coming General Election in India when such comparisions will be made. 
Coming back to the man of the moment – Mr.Obama – may the pregnant chads and dimpled chads fall in your favor.
india, pride

and we have a lift off !!

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Morning today I woke up to see Chandrayaan lifting off on our trusty Doordarshan. What a feeling it was. There was cloud cover so did not quite get the majestic spectacle of a rocket firing on all cylinders – but instead had to watch a dull 2D representation of a dot moving through a graph paper with the rockets speed slowly increasing – 4.8Km/s and so on..

A few minutes after launch when all the boosters had done their job, and the satellite was safely tucked away in orbit around the earth a mic was put and all the scientists got behind it and one by one started congrajulating their team. The 3rd to speak was one gentleman who was so emotional that he said “i dont know what to say” and his eyes were moist. And he did went on to congrajulate all his team members.
I was waiting for some sound bite where some scientist will say take that you NASA or take that for calling us land of snake charmers and call centers – but none. All of them were such sophisticated gentlemen and were so visibly elated and at peace – and were profusely thanking their team members and their family for having allowed them to spend months of hard work. 
But one gentleman did make me happy. ( Thank you Doordarshan for not having the “vision” to put the names of the scientists when they come to speak ). He said next is Mars and other planets. Wow – that is exactly what I wanted to hear. We need visionaries, we need Howard Roarks and I was glad to spot one among them. It took 4 years of dedicated effort for this day.
And the screenshot I took now – is from CNN. Back in 2000 when I was sitting in US doing my MS – I would wait for any news from India on TV. There will be none, zilch – except for Fox News where they had a segment – around the world in 60 seconds. They will dediate 10 seconds for bizarre news – and news of big mouchtaches, or upturned buses that killed school children – was all they showed. Scroll 8 years down and here we are in the home page of CNN – India launches unmanned mission to moon.
Perhaps it is time I let down the nagging feeling of what the world thinks of India and instead let India think of the world in turn. Perhaps seeing our sensex zoom, the markets in other parts of the other world will react positively to it. Perhaps the Revas and Nanos will teach the world how to conserve. Perhaps Hollywood gets inspired by Bollywood and Angelina Jolie starts doing jatkas.
I am feeling groovy…
india

Chandrayaan

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I have every reason to be proud of India. A mission to the moon. I am awaiting eagerly for this historic lift off tomorrow.

When the rovers scooped dirt on Mars I was proud to be a human being – from swinging from branch to branch – and now to hopping planets  – what a giant leap mankind has taken. Also was teeny weeny jealous of NASA for having achieved such a big feat

But when a Made in India metal starts orbitting the moon, it will be doubly special. We have squeezed a rocket from pinching poverty, corrupt netas, terrorism, border disputes, pollution, suppression of minorities – it is an endless list. But for the common man beaten up by all these bad elements – the lift off will be one uplifing feeling – to encourage him to fight off all these cancers and rise above the clouds to achieve bigger things. 
ISRO – a salute to have dared to think beyond 36,000KMs. What is next?