Software Product for Politicians and Public Personalities!

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Just another thought that came up in  my mind, for politicians really interested in public good and would like to have information at their finger tips.

I was watching, Laxmi Talk Show today on Z Telugu and saw the wonderful guest today, Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan or shortly called JP, who heads the Loksatta party in Andhra Pradesh. (That is the party to which I voted this time around in both the state and the central elections!) Anyways, he’s one of the politicians with a real good heart, who left his Doctor education to enter public service (IAS) and later on start up a political party named – Loksatta.

He said a few wonderful things about simplicity, about common sense and that good for others in the longer term being good to us! One striking thing about a way to end corruption he said/meant was through ‘changing the basis’ and through ‘transparency of information’. The example he gave was about getting a telephone line a few years ago, where everyone would have had to bribe to get a phone line faster and today’s world, where even after a call from distant location, a phone line is put in just a day/ few days..no more bribing here!!!! Superb thoughts.. have to hear more from him it seems.. an honest and a true public personality..

Anyways, coming back to the theme of my post here, I was thinking (again while having a shower!) why we don’t think about facilitating easy and on-click access of information to politicians.. maybe build a “Politician Pro” or some software which could help politicians and people in public office access to information at the click of a button!

My idea is a system, where these politicians or public figures can access a database of public information from various government organisations and agencies at the click of a button, to facilitate  fact based debates at the Parliament or the State Assembly.

A system which could have access to a huge database of public information, bungled in with Time Management software, Checklists, Reminders, a Schedule Management option, a issue list with core issues the politician is giving time to, with all the supporting documentation in soft copies, all integrated with a mailing system to exchange mails with party colleagues or others…

Maybe this system would be portable onto hand held computing devices like a Palm or a iphone and which could just be used on the move and at the click of a button! What an idea SirJi?!!

Just a whole host of things to plan, to discuss, supporting data everything available on the move, at the click of a button, wouldn’t that really increase the productivity of our politicians? I think some company should take up this lead (and pay me a royalty for the idea of course! 🙂 )

Rahul Gandhi, are you listening to me??

Do you have a Social Responsibility plan?

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Ever wondered — Do I have  a Social Responsibility plan?

Everyone of us would have heard about a retirement plan, a savings plan, an education plan or mostly an investment plan as soon as one joins a job and starts working. These are very good! Everyone must save or plan for their future..

But something just struck me as I was taking a bath and my mind churning with thoughts.. what I am doing for the society?? Good question! Probably I would have done some donations, very rarely for a paltry amount and that all about it?! No..no..I have always thought about helping people, people in need, maybe helping some poor kids get educated.. like they come up on newspapers after getting through CAT for an MBA or a UPSC exam for district collectors after toiling hard, coming from poorer backgrounds..help create such success stories..by helping kids who want to study..

Maybe another good thought of mine, is providing funds to NGOs plant trees and green up the cities, which we are polluting hard everyday! Maybe another is helping small entreprenuers by becomming their angel investor, helping them start a business and maybe share the fruits as well someday 😉

But all these good thoughts, is it good to have them all in the mind? .. is that all?? Maybe what they say is right, we are pretty good at idea’s but bad implementers..right?

Now, just re-tracting a bit to my opening statement, and comming up with this idea or thought that, why can’t we have a Social Service Plan or even better called – Social Responsibility Plan!  Maybe a mutual fund of Social Welfare Plans?

Wouldn’t it be great if an organisation comes up to us shows us plans from various NGOs/ self help groups working  towards different causes (I know each one has a soft corner for one type of social cause!) and gives us different options for investing (read …investing for the betterment of our communities/ society) for the International level causes and organisations, National Level, State Level and maybe the Community or City level causes..

We just pick and choose th causes and organisations we want to support and how much we want to pledge and what interval and sign it off and that’s it.. monthly an x- amount of funds is deducted from our savings account for these…

We would have an online account to see how our funds have worked, who or what is being supported and we would be able to change our investment options online!! Good idea isn’t it!!

I know its difficult to make time these days to research and do background checks of each company to invest it these days, isn’t it the same for with these NGOs.. the worst fear is that we pour in money for a cause and an NGO and finally see it being eaten away by a few corrupt people in the NGO!

So, I urge for some bigger NGOs to help people come up with a Social Responsibility Plan, where people can really give money to causes of their choice and they have no fear of being conned, have transparent access to data and see how these funds help the cause and have an option to change their plan when necessary..but overall pledge money on a regular basis, month-on-month to the society’s well-being… isn’t that a good idea?!

Will things Change?!!

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Are things changing? Well Yes, all the time!.. But whats special about the changes today or these days? Nothing or maybe everything!.. 😉

Well, lots of stuff happening these days; happenings rather than maybe changes.. most of us reading newspapers would have heard about the Madhu Koda, Jharkhand’s Ex-Chief Minister who has been caught recently in the scam related to the Rs4000 Crores that he personally stashed away everywhere in the world.

Rampant corruption, misusing places of power, exploiting country’s natural resources to one’s own benefit rather than the  country’s well-being none of these change it seems! Do people change after hearing this? Do mindsets change? Without this amount of corruption wouldn’t our country be much ahead or way  ahead in the developing countries block? The people much healthier, wealthier and maybe happier? What greatness or benefit does it yield to store away all this black and corrupt money in Swiss banks or other exotic places to launder money yield?

Would things change? ever? for better? for good of all? Well, let us wait for answers, from the polity, from people in power, from each one of us..will things change?

Claude Levi-Strauss

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“Not a year goes by without my receiving an order for jeans – usually from Africa.”

Claude Levi-Strauss, who died a few weeks short of his 101st birthday, was widely regarded as a founder of modern anthropology and one of France’s foremost thinkers.

He introduced structuralism to anthropology, an approach that seeks to identify common patterns of behaviour and thought in all human societies.

In 1955 he published Tristes Tropiques, an account of his time as an expatriate doubling as a philosophical meditation. The book – which starts with the arresting sentence: “I hate travels and explorers” – was immediately hailed as a masterpiece and turned the author into one of France’s best-known intellectuals.

He went on to publish hugely influential books, including Structural Anthropology (1958), the Savage Mind (1962), and The Raw and the Cooked (1964). The latter led to a series of works entitled Mythologies, in which Levi-Strauss found common threads underlying seemingly arbitrary myths across cultures.

It happens only in India!

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The Hyderabad-Pune train that left Hyderabad today morning was abruptly stopped and the train service cancelled at Osmanabad itself and the passengers were left in the lurch.

“We don’t have any official information about this Hyderabad-Pune train, so we stopped it,” said one of the senior officers of the Central Railway here. The inconvenience to passengers was caused due to lack of coordination between Central Railway and South Central Railway authorities. Central Railway Department stopped the train at Osmanabad railway station and returned the ticket money to the passengers.

Railway Minister Mamata Banerji had announced in 2009 budget to start Hyderabad-Pune Railway service via Latur and Osmanabad. As per this announcement, Railway Department published the time table of Hyderabad-Pune service on every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday to Pune early morning.

According to the time table many passengers from Hyderabad, Latur & Osmanabad reserved their tickets to Pune and boarded the train but their journey was cacelled by the authorities at Osmanabad itself.

Courtesy: www.zeenews.com

What’s caught my View?

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The last couple of days, I think there were quiet a few things happening..notably the hijacking of the Rajdhani express; the huge fire in Rajasthan at the IOC depot very near to Jaipur which is still burning and burning a hole into the company’s finances (Rs 1.4-1.5 billion of oil burnt); BJP stong man from Gujrat, Narendra Modi diagnosed with Swine Flu and if not the least the event to be – the 3rd one dayer today to be played between India and Australia in New Delhi. 

Hey, plan to go home early today.. (unfortunately we are working to compensate for the Maharastra elections off day  🙁 ) and have a pizza day watching the cricket match in the evening.. hope the Indians won’t disappont us with any bad play today.. (albiet they always lose sight after winning a match big!) .. Anways, have a blast guys.. have a gr8 weekend..

Song Search on Google..

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The next thing Google is coming up after its very successful text and image search is music search!

Not only searching but users can also play the song after searching for it on pop up music players and not only that album art would also be displayed for ease of identification.. isn’t it cool?!!

Warner Music Group Corp., which invested $20million into this venture with Google, benefits with the exposure to the company on each of the music searches on Google.

I think stuff that adds value to consumers is going to be a hit and so be it for Google and its song/music search features..

Cricket ** India – Australia Match 2 at Nagpur

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Hey that’s a superb score after the exiting finish on the first match of the tournament. 354 runs in 50 overs is pretty well done. I watched till around 240+ runs at our pantry when we were 4 down and around 36th over. I had a doubt on the score we could make. But I guess we’ve got a wonderful score and are on our way to win this match for sure…  Any other opinions??

Ah, just learnt Dhoni put in a very impressive 124 runs off 107 balls! This boy has got some guts..mate! Good luck at Nagpur it seems..

And finally as expected we won! With such a huge total it is very difficult for any opposition team to sail through easily..but winning with 99 runs was good..

Google to be your new 3G/WIMAX provider?

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Would google be your neighbourhood 3G/WIMAX Internet service provider?

This could really be true, as per some reports on some top tech and news reports. Google may bid in the upcoming auction for 3G and WIMAX spectrum in India in joint venture with a local venture, as per the telecom regulation here. The regulation allows for up to 74% ownership of such a venture by a foreign firm.

The reason here is again that India has a very low per capita penetration of internet usage and when the new users hop on to the web using their mobile phones or PCs or laptops, google could leverage its already big clout by offering more services other than the ISP business.

Also, according to a report by ASSOCHAM, by 2014 WiMAX subscribers would outnumber 3G subscribers. It is expected to touch 60 million users compared to 20 million for 3G. So, to access the WIMAX space, Google is probably using the 3G license auction as a route.

Whatever the case, its going to be more that more services and google applications would be being available to the end customers in India, including the rural areas which could come as a bane.

The World is small!