Friday Lunch turns Pilgrimage Discovery

Friday Lunch turns Pilgrimage Discovery

Being Friday today and instead of just struggling with the old unpalatable and monotonous food, I had a schedule to work out some sumptous lunch outside. Then, the decision was homed in on to Hotel Saravana Bhavan in Ashok Nagar. Of course, the restaurant is bit expensive. HSB did enter into and get hands dirty into litigations but that is in a different behavior aspect of its founder, Rajagopal. As far as the restaurant is concerned, the quality is extremely good albeit the quantity would be an inverse proportional. They do have door deliveries and fast food outlets in many of the key places in Chennai. So planning a bite at HSB should'nt take a while as also getting a bite for the wallet -- credit card and the bank account.

Well! Coming back to the discussion, the travel to the restaurant from my workplace is just about three bus stops and in the bus, there was an advertisement by a travels operator based from Mylapore (I guessed this, based from the telephone number). They were operating almost weekly tours to Shirdi.

Shirdi is famous for Shirdi Sai Baba temple and it is located, I guess, in the state of Maharastra. There are a lot of Shirdi Sai Baba devotees. Regarding Chennai, Shirdi Sai Baba has His temple in Mylapore, in the road opposite to Mylapore tank, opposite to Desika Bhavanam. I do not at the moment, recall the road, but from near Mylapore tank, it is about two to three minutes walk and anybody there would be able to guide the pilgrim, wishing to worship Shirdi Sai Baba

For the tech savvy, you can locate Shirdi Sai Baba temple website over here. Perhaps, since it is Friday, you can have a plan of visiting any of Shirdi Sai Baba temples. Within Chennai, Mylapore should be fine. I have noted down the telephone numbers of the travel operator whose advertisment I have seen and would like to give them for readers' convenience:

• +914424950318
• +914424952319

Did a check in Chennai BSNL Directory lookup for the abovesaid numbers. The first number could not be found listed but the latter was listed with the following details. But I think, since Shirdi is an overnight journey from Chennai, you may need to book for the next week now. Here is the travel operator details:

KUMARESAN M , 43,SOUTH MADA STREET, MYLAPORE P.O., CHENNAI-600004

Taints of Sentiments amidst business ventures

Taints of Sentiments amidst business ventures

Commissioning a new business venture is no easy task. There are so much of environmental, economical, social, political factors that come into interplay and have a resounding influence on the business. If it comes to a more critical financial segment like banking and finance, the effects are still significant.

Indian society with its more sentimental touches in everything that it ventures, seems to give a more sensational touch cum inspiration to this and is no exception. Besides investigating all the above options and verifying them to be viable, which applies in the case of residential premises, in the case of latter, we also see some religious causes like whether the chosen area is in preference to Lakshmi or Kubera so that it would invite more prosperity to the households.

Now this sense of prosperity and flourishment is followed in the case of banking in Chennai to a greater degree. There are at least two instances me and my colleague were discussing this yesterday while travelling in Velacherry. On a personal front, I have seen a variant of this instance in Camp Road, Selaiyur also.

As everybody knows, ICICI Bank is currently India's number two private banking industry. Let us not discuss about the negative aspects of the bank while we are dealing with positive and optimistic attitude. ICICI Bank, Velacherry has been functioning in a small campus in Dr. Ganesan Matriculation School, Velacherry. This campus seems to be very lucky and now ICICI could get a good area in LIC India Colony, Velacherry with more prospects in its business. Similarly, ICICI Bank had been having its office at the junction of Camp Road. Might be because of the positive and prosperity power of that land, now ICICI Bank has moved to Adhi Nagar, Selaiyur (near Ahobila Mutt), with more spacious premises and more business venture. In the case of latter, now the new premises is more prosperous since that building also hosts one another financial services provider, Karvy Finapolis.

Now the more interesting thing about these is, the former area has been identified by Lakshmi Vilas Bank for its Velacherry campus. The latter area has been identified by HDFC Bank. HDFC Bank, I have the opinion, is really excellent in thier financial services. Though a private sector bank, they have innovative and dedicated customer care. Of course, in the Chennai arena, there are some thugs operating as DSAs but at least with respect to the Central Processing Unit, HDFC Bank seems to be well committed to the customer care. No wonder, they are being vested by the Government of India to give pension accounts for citizens. The good gesture of HDFC Bank also encourages people to go for home loans with HDFC Bank. Quite interestingly, HDFC Bank is child of HDFC, but the child is now revered and respected more than itself. But in the words of Tiruvalluvar, this is a fact of prestige and privilege for HDFC itself.

Magan thanthaikatrum udavi ivan thanthai
ennotran kol enum sol

By the way, the caption of this post starts with 'Taints of Sentiments'. If you check a dictionary, the word 'taint' would be bearing a negative effect like 'An infecting touch', when the actual intended meaning should be 'An influencing touch'. However, I guess, this can be treated as an oxymoron too like deafening silence, mournful optimist or cruel kindness.

Bhagavad Gita Discourse by Sunanda Parthasarathy in Chennai

Bhagavad Gita Discourse by Sunanda Parthasarathy in Chennai

While travelling from Triplicane to Chennai today, I found a hoarding announcing the Bhagavad Gita discourse by Sunanda Parthasarathy, daughter of Shri A Parthasarathy in Chennai. I have also seen this last week but I forgot about it. I would like to share the details with the readers too and I hope it would be beneficial for others also, in attending it.

The details are:

1. Venue: Kamaraj Memorial Grounds (Congress Grounds), Teynampet, Chennai [near Gemini Flyover]
2. Date/Time: July 1 to July 5 from 6 PM to 8 PM
3. Fees: FREE (All are Welcome)
4. Programme Sponsor: State Bank of India

Try to mark your calendars so that we can attend the same. Since this discourse is on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2, I searched the Internet for some online Bhagavad Gita and I would like to share the following URL with the readers: http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/chapter-02.html

[Imported from Blogdrive]Wedding Bells Ring

Wedding Bells Ring
It is time for the Wedding Bells ringing again. Two weddings in a single day.
An auspicious Ekadasi day and the most adored Friday would witness the wedding of two friends, one in Chennai and the other in Pune. They are:

Santosh Sinha with Priyanka(in Pune)
Sharmila Lakshmipathy with Vinoo (in Chennai)
Let us join hands to greet each of them hearty wedded life for thier respective weddings.
Happy Wedded Life to the brides and grooms!!

Win-Win Offer does not seem to apply between service providers and consumers

Win-Win Offer does not seem to apply between service providers and consumers

I hope you would have seen advertisements like Win Win offer which says that the product is discounted so that both the manufacturer is benefitted by forecasted huge sales and also cheap products for the consumers.  Good. I accept that largescale production really helps in cheaper product and mass consumption at affordable rates.

But there are certain cases, I felt, that there is a disproportion and this Win-Win offer or a good weighing variant does not seem to get applied or does it not apply to these contexts? It is just an open ended view. Feel free to share your comments too.

Take an example of currency exchange. When you go to a foriegn exchange shop or a bank dealing with foriegn exchange, there are actually two rates mentioned -- 'We purchase dollars at XXX and We sell dollars at YYY'. Normally the purchase price is higher than the selling price. This seems to be beneficial for the financial institution and at least on the broader factor, the end customer seems to be paying a higher price for the same requirement.

Similar thing applies for credit card and other loan balances from banks. When we have an outstanding in the credit cards, normally the banking or the financial institution levies an Annualized or Monthly interest and/or service charge. But sametime, in the same credit card, when we have a credit balance, even for more than two months, they don't seem to give any credit. Of course, I accept, behind the scenes, having a credit balance on the credit card would add plus to your credit history and rating. Again to reemphasize this is just an open-ended and personal view. It might be that I am missing some feature of the credit card or a related fact in the financial transaction

What do you feel? Share your views.

Pure Luxury Communications Mobile (Vertu)

Pure Luxury Communications Mobile (Vertu)

It was Friday evening and just dropped in casually at the Internet Kiosk for a while. A couple of SMS alerts on my mobile phone. One was the usual CitiAlert from my Citibank, keeping posted regarding the card statements and so on and so forth. The next was quite interesting "World's most costly mobile (Vertu) is on display in Rani Meyyammai Hall".

What? What is special in that? As I was already sitting in the Internet Kiosk, tapped one more Internet Explorer to run Google to find out about this elusive Vertu. Some of the most inquisitive and/or interesting information on this are as below:

• The world's most costliest mobile model from luxury communications company.
• Diamond, Gold and Stainless Stelel studded mobile chassis.
• Most highest capacity of Phone Memory, Notes, Message Capacity, Talktime and Standby time etc.

Currently, the other most sought after mobile model that is driving everyone crazy are Nokia N Series and BlackBerry. Perhaps this would surely add the craze for most jazzy mobile phone instruments. With a humble start as a luxury instrument, now mobile handsets have dual-faceted role of both inevitable communication instruments and luxury showoffs. Check out the pictures.

Serving the educational cause of the challenged kids...

Serving the educational cause of the challenged kids...

Yesterday morning, I recieved a courier mailout in my home that was from CRY. It was about seeking donations for kids since it is start of academic year. I visited CRY website and it is really amazing to find the noble educational service that these guys render for education of the financially challenged kids.

It is purely lack of education that opens up plethora of avenues for legal, political and socio-economic problems in the country. Even child exploitation is aplenty even in several parts of the country. I just thought I would like to share the CRY URL and a message to other readers as well, so that they can visit the website and if the message reaches right philanthropists across the world, it would be a humble service to the Lord and lighting a candle of knowledge for a kid.

SkyScrapers in Chennai

If you have watched a television screening any film that has been shot sometime in 1960 and portraying Chennai city, you can see them focussing Chennai on its erstwhile Mount Road (now Anna Salai) and particularly on the 14-storeyed Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) head office near Santhi theater complex. However, this situation is changing now.

This is not the only tall building now. Every corner you turn now in Chennai, you can find at least a minimum nine-floor building located starting from western end near the Chennai Airport towards the far east near Marina Beach or from ECR in the South to Minjur in the North or North West towards Tiruvellore. Real Estate and particularly industrialisation and constructions with multi-tenanted buildings have been a common figure in Chennai.

In one way, is our City capable of handing this tremendous growth of industrial development and population? This is one such question that needs an answer both from the district administration and from the people itself. The alarming rate in which the city swells both in its static and floating population presents and accompanies with it a lot of problems like traffic, ground water, atmosphere pollution, employment and basic amenities like hospital etc.

The lush green areas of Chennai are now a very rare scene since now the city has become a concrete jungle all over. With the expansion and tremendous growth of IT (Information Technology) industry, the number of skyscrapers hosting and serving as IT Parks are also on a fast paced growth. Small industries are selling off to property developers and large scale IT parks are developed. One advantage of IT parks is that they are non-polluting and have more export potential adding to the national exchequer income.

But in a way, I would put, development of IT Parks is a great boon to the country since it is both nonpolluting. The only thing that needs to be taken care is that more of afforestation and ecological preservation for the longevity of earth life.

Are we trading humanitarian attitude for modern life?

Are we trading humanitarian attitude for modern life?

1. Concrete jungles.
2. Mechanical Life.
3. Busy Schedules.
4. Stretched Hours.
5. Stressful Moments.

These are the some of the common words that we could hear these days. Are we cheating ourselves or pretending to be modern and busy? Even the most common desktop application that we use (Microsoft Office) has lively animated characters like Rocky, Merlin, Links which makes to shed the mechanical shell ego and support and breathe the live world. Rocky never appeared as just another dumb animated character built out of Agent Character SDK. Whenever, any of the Microsoft Office application or even its Windows Search (from XP or higher) is open, the desktop becomes more vibrant with more liveliness. So what is this discussion for?

There are a lot of things that we ought to learn from Windows XP too. I am trying to describe here two types of incidents. First cruelty to animals. Second nonchalant attitude (passive cruelty) to mankind.

Heinous Cruelty to Dumb Animals

A few incidents that made me to write this:

• Runover of small dumb animals in Chennai roads.
• Nonchalant attitude of administration.
• Self-glorification of animal cruelty in forums, including my favorite technology forum.

Last sunday, I found a small dog near my house run over by a two wheeler. When initiatially surveyed and investigated the neighbors, it seems the run over happened the previous day afternoon and the dog has been haplessly crying for help for the entire night and till I noticed it the next day morning. I tried to reach BlueCross Ambulance in Velacherry. BlueCross has always been the pioneer in AnimalCare and Rescue services but being a Sunday, thier bad day, they have left the rescue services to some stupid crazy idiots, who did not care to arrive till about 11. I really wonder, whether this would be the attitude if thier own kith and kin would be run over and hence I think Nature is giving so much upheaval then and there in the world by way of TSunami, earth-quakes and so on and so forth. If mankind could still not understand and realize the punishments by the nature, I really wonder, what would be the repercussion from the Nature, which is omnipotent.

Well! After a struggle of two hours, I found one more small animal volunteer in Medawalkam, and they immediately came within ten minutes of my rescue call, took the dog to thier shelters for veternary treatment and rehabilitation.

This is one such incident. The other one being hit-and-run of dog in Adyar Sardar Patel Road, near Adyar Signal. This happened about six months back. The traffic cop, when asked about him reason for bieng mum and competing like the statue post in VGP Beach resort, nonchalantly and silently replied that 'What can I do sir? It is only a dog. There is no legal statute for animal care" Is it true?

Another incident which I found is glorification of run over in public forum. Check out the attachment. The author himself has mentioned about narrow roads filled with people and dogs. And in that, speeding up was a testimony of stupidity too. Had this author run over a person, he would have been behind the bars counting ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX and then again SIX FIVE FOUR THREE TWO ONE, for at least a period of seven years, which is the normal minimum sentence given to murderers under Indian Penal Code.

Another blatant aspect of dying humanitarianism was witnessed in Tambaram. It was scorching hot afternoon near Madras Christian College (MCC) campus, East Tambaram. A very much poor man unable to spend much in human labor conditions had to depend on alms for his basic survival. The scorching heat, which we ourselves, under the mercy of Voltas and Godrej products supported by TNEB lines are not able to manage, this poor person was suffering out of hunger. It was actually witnessed by my mom which I wanted to share with the readers.

My mom was actually in the moving bus which got held up in a traffic snarl in the opposite direction. I guess from the narration, he was also a North Indian and he was painfully begging most humbly to the biriyani shop "Bhook lag raha hai. Bahut Bhook Lag raha hai". Hundreds of eaters giving tips to the waiters and waiters busy counting tips from the eaters but no one to give him one (nay at least a handful) to appease his hunger. She was actually saying that two more minutes if the guy could not get any help, she should get down, throw one ten rupees to the shopkeeper and ask him to give one plate of whatever the same is being served to the other persons. Fortunately, the shopkeeper, who seemed to very kind person, and was busy inside, came out and what he thought and did was really praiseworthy. He immediately went in and seemed to have made a parcel of whatever same type of serving is made and gave to the poor guy.

Two things to learn from this incident:

1. Nonchalant attitude of people to others' sufferings.
2. There are a very few people who are there still understanding others.
   

In Tamil Nadu, elders used to say, that only because of good persons, Rain God used to shower His blessings. I think, the rains are coming down in quantity and merciful showers are on depletion only because of depleting humanitarian attitude.

Here is the verses of Thirukkural, which shows good people and humanitarianism alone causes world prosperity and showers of blessings and rainfall to the world.

The National Poet of India (Sri Subrahmanya Bharathi), has also supported humanitarian cause in his verses:

thani oru manithanukku unavillai enil intha jagaththinai azhiththiduvOm

I think, it is a good thing, Kalaignar M Karunandhi, has brought in subsidised rice for the poor community. But there is a long pending TODOs for him.

1. He should try and control the distribution from being diverted into black market.

The Government also should bring in some measures to protect and preserve poor people, who live on roadsides. They are also humans. There should be some rehabilitation measures and organisations that need to be instituted. While we waste so much food, there are scores of people eagerly waiting for the rice. Check out my other post here. There should be some streamlined measures by either the government of by social welfare non governmental organizations towards this aggravating and painful social issues.

Ashtamangala Devaprasnam reveals that Lord is unhappy

Ashtamangala Devaprasnam reveals that Lord is unhappy

The world's most famous pigrimage shrine and the most small and cute Lord Ayyappa seems to be terribly upset, intimidated and furious as diagnosed from even the first day of the Ashtamangala Devaprasnam towards the proceedings in His Devaswom. It is an yearly practice by the Dewaswom of Travancore to hold a Devaprasnam to find out how best is Lord satisfied by the devotional activites of the temple and as well the devotees and priests. The prasnam began on 11 AM on saturday and the astrological committe comprised of twenty astrologers from different parts of Kerala and led by Parappanangadi Unnikrishna Panicker.

The very first day of Prasnam seems to reveal some serious issues with the ongoings in Sabarimala. All purity and sanctity seems to have vanished long ago. The full bunch of folks at Sabarimala (comprising of priests, traders) and the Government of Kerala seemed to concenterate on making money and fleecing the pilgrims in whatever ways they can. The Lord shows His extraordinary magnanimity in bearing all these and providing His blessings to devotees, who come with total devotion. The erring guys seems to have taken the enormous mercy of the Lord as His weakness and are dancing haywire. But if He starts back retaliating and giving repercussions, the world can not bear that. This was the diagnosis on the first day of the Ashtamangala Devaprasnam.

The Devaprashnam is supposed to be held for four more days and they would be discussing more problems in granular and minute details.

My Personal Experience at Sabarimala, during my third year pilgrimage:

Click here.

News Courtesy:

1. Tamil Murasu, leading evening daily in Tamil Nadu.
2. The New Indian Express. (Thank you, Google News)

Operation Anamika

Operation Anamika

Mobile Phones are no wonder the best communication gadgets that man has ever discovered and is using to a very large extent. However, the obscenity and glamour that the cine fields portray drive them to make dirty use of these excellent communication gadgets through modern messaging techniques like MMS, GPRS etc.

About sametime last year, the news papers have been reverberating in thier headlines on a MMS scam in New Delhi where obscene photos were being passed through. In January, this year, Pune took its stand to curb a similar menace in its realm. Check out the news coverage here.

Next this month, it seems to be Chennai. A private bank collection executive has chosen MMS has a technique to lure school and college girls into taking obscene photographs in his mobile and circulating them among the underworld. Starting with a first set of photographs, he has adopted a modus operandi of blackmailing the girls affected by him that he would releasing them to their parents and educational institutions thus forcing them to go along with him, wherever he summoned them.

Chennai City Police came across this but they could not initate immediate action against the offender for the simpler reason that there has'nt been any written complaint from any quarters. However, they did setup a secret team to nab the culprit redhanded. One of the team was the woman police (Kayalvizhi) who got introduced to the culprit as a school going girl. When the culprit tried to apply the same modus operandi of first seducing her with glamorous photographs in his mobile, the other police cops who were hiding in the vicinity nabbed him.

More details in 16th June Tamil Murasu Weekly. Check out the online edition here. The day since the new government has been sworn in, I think, the underworld criminals have started to experience tough times. All police teams have been strictly warned to eliminate rowdies. If nabbing is not possible, they are also asked and empowered to shoot them in encounters.

We should take this instance to appreciate the Government of Tamil Nadu, Chennai City Police and the daring woman police (Kayalvizhi) to have taken herself into risk and nabbing the culprit

Health Alert in Chennai

Health Alert in Chennai

With the climatic transition from Summer (Kathiri Veyyal) to the Aadi (July - August) month in progress, there has been a lot of incidents of infections spreading across the width and breadth of Tamil Nadu and its capital city of Chennai. The most significant among the infections that are currently causing panic in Tamil Nadu are:

1. Chicken Fever (colloqially called as Chicken Gunya)
2. Acute Conjunctivities (colloqially called as Madras Eye)

Here is a small introduction about this disease and quick helplines so that you can safeguard of yourself, your family and diseases and ensure that you have taken greatest care of your precious treasure and wealth, that is health.

Chicken Fever
This disease is spread by mosquitoes that proliferate and spread from stagnant water near the residence. This is a viral infection that causes symptoms like persistent fever and headaches. Though it does not cause death, the normal functioning of the patient is affected to the period of ten to fifteen days.

Conjunctivities
This is an eye infection which is caused by inflammation of the think skin covering the eyeball, which is called as Conjunctiva. There are two flavors of them:

1. Viral Conjunctivities is also known as Acute Conjunctivities and/or also known as Madras Eye colloquially.
2. Bacterial Conjunctivities, which is of milder form.

The disease is characterized by the symptoms like reddening of the eyes, irritation, burning and watering of the eyes. There are occasional incidences of conjunctivities also accompanied by fever and cold.

Both the diseases that have been discussed above, which are spreading through the length and breadth of the state are highly contagious and spread by people contact.

While the governments have stepped up the vigil through its public administration agencies to have the environments spic-and-span and to ensure healthy nation, it is our foremost duty also to support them in ensuring our immediate environment to be clean without any infections.

Check out this list of hospitals in Chennai for immediate healthcare attention and remedy.

[Imported from Blogdrive]Account Number One in my branch for the financial year 2006-07

Account Number One in my branch for the financial year 2006-07
Earlier sometime we have been discussing about the importance of Small Savings over my other weblog here. A friend of mine suggested that we can have an account in Corporation Bank. This is a premiere nationalised bank in India, with more innovative technology features introduced in the banking sector. The foremost banking to have introduced Visa Debit cards amongst the nationalised banks besides its peer from the same region of Karnataka, Canara Bank.
Rather than depending on the vagarious equity based investments which I think is just another diplomatic gambling, I think, a Corp Classic account from Corporation Bank should help us out with our future aspirations and ventures. I closed one account with another private shack and migrated here. The customerservice and the more friendly ambience and atmosphere, lures into small savings instead of just making you to spend.
After the account got opened, I just found one another surprise while dissecting the account number by parts, just with a curiosity and inquisitive sense to learn deeper about the account and its operations. This account of CorpClassic type is the first one to be opened in the branch for the financial year 2006-07, perhaps I think it was outside the metropolitan area. 
Another good milestone and a good welcome sign as a gesture of encouragement tone, to cultivate the habit of small savings. Perhaps to fondly recall,  during my college, we had an extension counter of Indian Bank in the campus.  The bank actually was an extension counter, its base branch being "DARAPADAVEDU branch" in Vallimalai Road, Katpadi. The extension counter itself did open up, the same day when we were joining. I guess, it was September 4, 1999. And interestingly the first two accounts were from our own department, Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Account Number 1 was held by Anupam and Account Number 2 was held by me (Deepak Kumar Vasudevan).
Though a small coincidence or an observation but it seems like a positive encouraging trend bestowed by the nature.

Healthcare on the Web

Healthcare on the Web

There is a very famous and well-known proverb called Health is Wealth. Perhaps, in Tamil, there is one another proverb called 'Suvar irundhal thaan Chittiram Varaya Mudiyum'. To translate this means, only if we could maintain good health, we can be able to achieve a lot of laurels and achievements.

These are the days when each hour is brimming for us with competitiveness. We have what is called Fast Food restaurants to cater to us, Dial-a-Pizza for dinner since we go home late and then no time for cooking. Gone are the days when our elders used to practice Joint Dining. By the way, I fondly remember, that our school correspondent (Ananthu K Bhat) used to stress on two things that every student ought to follow daily rather religiously instead of just for the sake of AK Bhat or Vanitha K Bhat. The two things are:

1. Shasthanga Namaskar of Parents before starting off to School.
2. Joint Dining with all family members in the night. Avoid any discussions which disturbs the peace of joint dinner.

But these are the days we start so early and reach home late. Even we take healthcare on the least priority.  To aide us in the process, there had been tremendous amount of electronic healthcare avenues that have been mushrooming up on the Internet and helping us in the same. A few of the reputed ones that you could trust and use are the following:

1. WebHealthCenter, managed and powered by Tata Consultancy Services.
2. Ask Your Doctor Online, managed by Umesh Dhingra, a Chennai-based engineering entrepreneur and an IIT-delhi graduate.

These sites recommend and solve most of your health care issues online and direct you with the more specific health related ailment to a more appropriate specialist. Of course, you can not have the complete prescription on the Internet, since your physical condition can not be examined on the Internet. A personal visit to a physician anyway, is mandatory.

Let us try and make use of these websites for taking care of our health, which is of all, the most precious asset, that the God has bestowed upon us.

Saving for the Rainy Day

The necessity of saving had never been underemphasized in any literature. At this juncture, I would like to fondly recall two slogans, though in the context of advertising, that I came across. One of the agencies is now defunct, but nevertheless, I don't find a reason, why we should not adopt this slogan (a good thing).

1. State Bank of Travancore, T Nagar:
   "No one has ever collapsed doing saving operations for the future"
2. Royeppetah Benefit Fund (RBF)
   "Let your first expense be savings".

Towards this, it had been magnanimous on part of the Governement of India, to open up banks to private entrepreneurs. However, as in the case of any private firms whose ultimate ulterior objective would be "profit making by cost-cutting using outdated technologies", there had been a steep deterioration in the banking quality. One such salient example being the number of grievances posted on ICICI Bank on Arjun's blog. In this context, it had been a dire need of PSU (Public Sector Undertaking) banks to gear up with more sophisticated technology to serve the people and saving the nation from public looting for the booty by these private entrepreneurial folks.

You would already read my earlier blog post on "Tight Schedule of the Week", which has elucidated my way of bringing in the fold the financial control and operations through Corporation Bank. At this juncture, I should also mention that peers who have accounts with country's bicentennial old banking institution (State Bank of India) need not worry.

The only set of State Bank branches which were kept on hold from the migration of Core Banking Network has been resolved by State Bank group. Now almost all State Banks in Chennai are Core Banked and you can freely transact, deposit and withdraw your cash in any of the State Banks without any hassles.

The only thing needed by the account holder is to have a visit to the branch only, get his new account number affixed on the passbook and he can start banking away in any state bank branch of his choice. In fact, we discovered these while visiting our SBI  Adyar last saturday.

With the nation's premiere banking with its slogan 'Safe Banking with SBI', let us join hands in saving for the rainy days with caution and care.

Week of Tight Schedule

Week of Tight Schedule

This week had rather been an hectic and a tight schedule, mostly being devoted and dedicated towards various planning activities. As usual, everything has been tracked and managed by my MSN Calendar. Perhaps amongst the schedules the significant among that that were pending was reviving of my old account with Corporation Bank and closing of certain unneeded accounts which were difficult to mention and were opening security holes, just like what Windows Firewall in Windows XP2 defines these interface points in Help and Support Center which goes like this:

To allow an exception is like poking a hole through the firewall. If there are too many holes, there is not much wall left in your firewall

Towards this, I would also emphasize about Corporation Bank. A humble start financial institution from Bangalore but providing the most affordable, polite and dependable banking services to the masses. The more innovative Internet Banking and a globally valid Internationally accepted debit cards is a big plus.

This provides a brief summary of my personal schedules that were lined up. Perhaps sometime later, more than providing an archive of my plans, I would also be updating my TODOLIST. This is currently in the pipeline. I am working on it and there is no confirmed ETA for this.

Stay Tuned!

Unrelenting Telemarketing Calls -- Best Way To Make Use

Unrelenting Telemarketing Calls -- Best Way To Make Use

These are the days when most of the businesses thrive on potential tele-sales. This trend is copied from the Western hemisphere to India but interestingly, the way it has been copied and developed here seems to be quite amateurish. The private entrepreneurs who pitch the business deal for the major clients, in order to save significant ex-chequer, employs just passouts or passing-by grads. While this is a welcome measure and appreciated stand that they are magnanimous to provide a good measure of employment to people, supporting the administration of the country, the sad part of the story is that they feel stingy to impart the basic communications skills training.

When I say communications skills, I am encompassing a significantly wider range of topics including neutralized accent to cover a wider sector of people, professional message conveying skills, diplomatic way of handshake with the tele-customers, so on and so forth. I don't think the just passouts can be expected to have this by default and it should be the duty of the employers to have the same reinforced on them, which they fail to so.

Well. This is the background of the story. Let us stop debating on the high-level topics on the same, which build boredom. To bring in some life and humor, let us narrow down to a few set of calls that we normally recieve. If there is a reader, who would like to add a couple of points to this, please feel free to do so.

1. Private Banking Enterpreneurs issuing credit cards opening up a plethora of offers.
2. Finance institutions offering personal loans
3. Unsolicited Insurance Offers
4. Recruitment and Placement Consultants

Are these telemarketers really trustworthy? I think the answer to this question can be a summary 'NO'. In my view, the trustworthiness comes purely via a stronger ethical educational foundation. Anything sans this, would stand testimony of crystalline hypocrisy sooner or later. This can be significantly proved with a lot of examples in any of the quarters including the ones listed.

Some examples of risks involved with a credit card telemarketer who does not properly introduce or proves transparent between the finance institution and the customer would be the credit card number may be illicitly divulged to third parties resulting in malicious use. In the case of placement consultants, resumes of women candidates may result in excessive number of eve-teasing cases. Even otherwise, there might be cases of extortion or forgeries.

In my opinion, I would suggest that unless the answered call from a telemarketer, if does'nt comply to proper communication skills, I don't see a valid reason to continue the conversation. The mobile handset, I hope, has a key called 'Hangup' which can be immediately resorted to. I don't see a valid reason of courtesy too in that case. This also behind the scenes results in good amount of traffic saving for the telephone network, for bona fide calls. At the same time, picking up the call adds to the ex-chequer of the telephone network, and I would appreciate that.

The telemarketing clouds in India would get cleaner only on cooperation of the people and as well by cleaner business practices of the enterpreneur and the beneficiary business house concerned.

Acute Deforestation

After a significant amount of time, I had to travel the Sardar Patel Road, Adyar to visit my State Bank of India, Adyar branch. Today, as I was driving a bit slowly, since the traffic was more even during the afternoon, I slowly recalled the Sardar Patel Road, which used to be there some about even five years back.

It used to be an avenue road, with only minimal amount of exposure to sunlight so even in Summers, it would'nt be a bit hassle for you to have even a prolonged walk. Things seemed to have changed and each of the changing governments ushering to make the best of the city and filling thier 'private' treasury chests with all imported flyover contracts etc.

Too much of human intervention has rendered the road wide open to scorching sunlight. I think it is high time that NGOs and even the government should take steps to correct this. Eliminating greenery from the face of the earth for lame reasons like widening of the road etc. can not be accepted. Deforestation comes with a plethora of ill-effects for a nation (and the earth) opening the dreaded Pandorra's Box for the mankind.

First and foremost, deforestation presents multiple social, ecological and environmental problems. A few of them are:

1. Since there is no live tree or its root to hold it, the land becomes very much vulnerable to Erosion. Essential Nutrients of the soil too gradually washed out and the fertility of the soil is lost.
   This presents a significantly less amount of land available for cultivation.
2. Global Warming: Incessant slaying down of trees for want of space and for wood log purposes, includes and introduces reckless climatic disturbances in our ecosystem.
   

It is high time that we try to understand the needs of Afforestation and save the earth for our successors.