Personal Weblog of Deepak Vasudevan

The Launch of செந்தமிழ்ச்சோலை It has been a while since I created an account dedicatedly for the publishing of my Tamil weblog. But I have been delaying this and postponing this for a while. A beta version was deployed on Sunday (22nd July 2007) and after refining the name, layout and design, this has now been posted with a first technical post on An editor for Tamil blogs. You can check out செந்தமிழ்ச்சோலை from here . Do send me your comments and suggestions regarding the same. If you would like to use the Tamil Unicode editor, you can find it from here .

7-Day Isha Yoga Programme in Chennai   I would like to thank my colleague (Sankaran Raman) for sharing me the message about the seven-day Isha Yoga Programme that is being organized in two places in Chennai from 25th July 2007 1800 hours. In the quick and cute text message, there were two venues mentioned which were:   Ramana Mahal, Mahalingapuram Ramana Hall, T. Nagar The message also carried a contact number of Isha Volunteers (+919994026763) for further information and details. I just thought I would share across the message to other interested readers. Missed the show?  Watch videos of the Live Earth Concert on MSN. See them now!

Harry Potter Seventh Series Edition Rocks Chennai The seventh and final series of Harry Potter ("Harry Potter and the Deathly Gallows") rocks Chennai bookstalls since early Saturday. There had been serpentine queues near Spencers Mall (hosting Landmark bookstall), Higginbothams and other famous bookshops of Chennai. I seldom frequent online websites or bookshops for novels and other such entertainment books. But for some reason, I think, Harry Potter alone does not fail to enthrall and enchant me too. While we rejoice over the release of the book after really a long long wait, at the same time there are a few negative news that are accompanying this release: Teenage girl kills herself over fake spoilers of Harry Potter and the Deathly hallows Let us hope that people are alert and active over and against the counterfeit issues.

The Aadi Month Starts with Gifts from Lordess Andal Yesterday was the beginning of the Aadi (ஆடி) month. And there were two interesting and happy news to share too. I recieved a message from Community-Credit team about a week back that the grand prizes that I had won in March and June has been shipped. I have been closely tracking on the United States Postal Service website with very much eagerness and enthusiasm. We call it in Tamil as "வழி மேல் விழி வைத்து". Just on Aadi eve (one day before the month start), I got a message from my post office that a packet has come and I needed to pay a difference duty amount to claim the same. Again, the same day, it was interestingly, MVP certificate was also being held back at DHL , due to address discrepancies. Interestingly both the issues were sorted out and on Aadi first day both the gifts were delivered at home. It was just the blessing of the Lordess Andal, to which the month of Aadi is dedicated to for having showered Her choic...

Aadi Velli Celebrations at Chennai Om Sri Skandashram, Selayur Chennai Om Sri Skandasramam will celebrate every Friday in the month of Aadi (that starts on Tuesday) with grandeur. Aadi Velli assumes significant importance in the state of Tamil Nadu. The following are the plan outline as mentioned in Tambaram Talk, a neighborhood newspaper for Tambaram. 1. Inaugural Day: Pushpapavadai Alangaram for Goddess Bhuvaneswari. 2. July 27: Manjal Kappu Alangaram 3. August 3: Unjal Alangaram 4. August 10: Annapurani Alangaram 5. August 17: Sarkarai Kappu Alangaram On all these days, the following are the schedules: Pooja: 0715 hours Prathiyankaran Saraba Soolini Homam: 0900 hours Abhishekam: 1000 hours Annadhanam: 1230 hours Special Alangaram and Navavarna Poojas to Sri Chakra Maha Meru: 1800 hours Contact Details: Chennai Om Sri Skandasramam, 1, Kambar Street, Mahalakshmi Nagar, Selayur, Chennai -- 600 073. Tamil Nadu. INDIA. Telephone: +914422290134,+914422293388

A Unique Search-And-Win Contest from an Indian Search Engine While casually browsing through my inbox, there was one interesting email from one of my friend, basically delivered as 'Invitation' from his Guruji.com account. At first, I normally, I don't much entertain such emails as they just begin the clutter of your emailbox inviting more spam. But this one, after a close watch and browsing the website, seemed to be really interesting on the following grounds: Innovative Quick Tour: Every website would provide a QuickTour of the various features that it proposes to offer and is offering at the time of its introduction. Normally most of them would be self-explanatory flash movie with no user-interaction from the websurfer. This means the user would be just a mute spectator (audience). But this one, I felt threw open questions, made the user to throw specific searches to the spider, get the result back and analyze it on the results page. Fine-Tuning Search Skills: Deducing...

Dedicated Vidya Seva The Vivekananda Educational Trust, which is functioning from Mudichur, Tambaram is organizing 'Dedicated Viya Seva', an orientation programme for teachers. Thier latest 14th annual event was held from July 5 to 7, 2007 at S Badalchand Sugankavur Chordia Vivekananda Vidyalaya, Mudichur. In the words of the Principal Sivakumar of Vivekananda Vidyalaya "The trust has five schools under its umbrella and over 100 teachers participated in the programme, which is the 14th annual one this year" They have very good course contents for participating teachers: Yoga Physical Exercise Music Classes Importance of Human Resources

Special Bhagavad Gita course for Kids in Tambaram ISKCON is organizing a special Bhagavad Gita course for children in the age of 5 and 15. They are planning to start it sometime around the second week of July. The special spiritual course oriented towards children will be held at: Sri Ahoram, 'Bharat Nilayam', New #5, First Cross Street, Rajagopal Nagar, West Tambaram, Chennai -- 600 045. Tamil Nadu. INDIA. Telephone Number: +914422418139 The course is being conducted under "The Bhakta Prahlad School" Programme. The course contents would include the following: Bhagavad Gita Slokas Mantra Yoga Bhajans Episodes from vedic literature Planned Timings: Sundays 3 PM to 5 PM Source Courtesy: "Tambaram Talk" (A weekly publication from TalkMedia ) Prevent accessing dangerous websites - Protect your computer with Free Web Security Guard! More information at www.inbox.com/wsg

The Youngest Age Person with Income Tax PAN Number in India Today, while reading through the weekly edition of 'Tambaram Talk' magazine, organized and distributed by TalkMedia in Chennai, I saw this news about an youngest person having an income tax PAN number in India. The most youngest of the person who has a PAN ( P ermananent A ccount N umber) is Ayush Ranjan. He is actually a three-month old baby of Saroj Kumar Routh and Geethanjali. The family is from Rourkela near Bihar. Since the kid has been involved as an active advertising model with significant amount of revenue from it, he needed the PAN number to file his returns. The Income Tax Department has also alloted the number ALABR3284J. Source Courtesy: "Tambaram Talk" (A weekly publication from TalkMedia ) in page number 6. Since the number and message has been in Tamil, the PAN number might not be accurate in English since we do not have P and B in Tamil.

07/07/07 -- Unique Date Today I had to visit my bank today and whilst filling up the challan, I observed today's date being a very interesting combination of date, month and year. In India, we follow dd/mm/yy format. Nevertheless, even with mm/dd/yy, today's date is quite interesting. Today's date is 07th July, 2007 and hence when we abbreviate it reads as 07/07/07. Quite interesting. Isn't it?

VIT -- My Sweet College Gets Sweeter and Stronger It is a matter of great rejoice and pride for the selected few of us, who have chosen to graduate out from Vellore Engineering College (now Vellore Institute of Technology ). As the slogan of the institution itself conveys the essence of life @VIT -- 'A place to learn; A chance to grow'. There are some sweet news from VIT for Alumni and others. I would like to share them over here: IndiaToday magazine ranks VIT as India's premiere and No. 1 private engineering insitution. I have hyperlinked the magazine screenshot over here. You can also see it from VIT website over here . A bit old news -- G.V. Selvam, pro-chancellor of VIT gets into the Limca Book of World Records for being the youngest pro-chancellor. Check it out here

Blogger broke and Inbox.com Saved The blogger rich text editor seemed to have went mad today or my web browser. The HTML formatting went pathetic besides the title was not correctly formatted and displayed. Thanks to Inbox.com, when I just pasted the post into its Compose Editor, it auto-corrected everything and gave me pristine perfect HTML. And the interesting post in which I encountered this breakdown was for an invitation to a temple function in Kattawalkam near Chennai. If you are interested, you can check it out here . I would like to thank Inbox.com for the timely formatting assistance and it is a great opportunity and blessing for Inbox.com also to have participated in the service to the Lord. At this moment, I would also like to mention about our little testimonial on Inbox.com .

'Kalaignar TV' to come in September This Thursday, when I was travelling to Thiruvallikeni, it was quite late. As I was crossing the Anna Arivalayam near Teynampet, I saw the board called 'Kalaignar TV' would start sometime in September. So, I guess, now for Tamil viewers worldwide, there is more TV channels to watch. Though there are inner dirty politics, at least on the broader view, I feel that it is a great service the Tamil Language. A Tamil poet wanted the name and fame of Tamil Language to spread across all countries. Here goes his lyric "தே மதுரத் தமிழோசை உலகமெல்லாம் பரவும் வகை". I sincerely feel that this step is a little one in this direction. Let us wish the team all success in thier venture.