Big money with Corporates

 

Biggest corporate coffers
The 20 companies with the highest cash balances, as of the middle of 2010.
Cisco Systems, Inc.	$39.9 billion
Microsoft Corp.	$36.8 billion
Google Inc.	$30.1 billion
Oracle Corp.	$23.6 billion
Ford Motor Co.	$21.9 billion
Pfizer Inc.	$19.3 billion
Johnson & Johnson	$18.9 billion
Intel Corp.	$18.3 billion
Hewlett-Packard Co.	$14.7 billion
Amgen Inc.	$14.5 billion
Exxon Mobil Corp.	$13.3 billion
General Electric Co.	$12.9 billion
Dell Inc.	$12.4 billion
IBM	$12.2 billion
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.	$10.2 billion
Coca-Cola Co.	$10.2 billion
Merck & Co., Inc.	$9.9 billion
Chevron Corp.	$9.4 billion
News Corp.	$8.7 billion
Boeing Co.	$8.7 billion
Source:Moody's Investor Service

What's so Obama about it

 

Indian press is going ga ga over a visit of the US President to India. I am not sure what he is coming here for, first of all. Indians probably don’t give much value to the boss of USA anymore as was before. Well he is a bigger celebrity, probably that’s all that i can think of

The President of US, is bandied about as the most powerful man on Earth…but Forbes does not think like that anymore in their recent powerful people list. So that means, Barack Obama is now one notch lesser with his power. Why is his visit then made up so much ?

The US President is thought to have great power in making Pakistan tow its line, may be because Pakistan survives on the many millions of dollars that go there as aid from the US. These aid we all know are send in the garb of them being the US’s Chief ally in the war against terror and that all this money is not just cash, but also solid fire-power like fighter planes and other military machines. But still everyone including the Americans know very well, the Pakistani soil breeds terrorism into India… So why is a President who supports this terror indirectly attracting so much attention here in India ?

Mr Obama delivered a plain speech at Mumbai sometime back and it was again another bland one, … given that the place was where the major 26/11 terror attack happened, he made no mention to put some pressure on Pakistani sponsored terrorism.

I thought Obama meant ‘ Change ‘ … So What’s so Obama about this visit ?

Snippet…..

News articles say that this visit is to put some personal pressure to the impending  $12bn defense spending that India is taking up, so that India makes these purchases from the US. That’s what makes me laugh…. for getting such a big deal the Obama administration is supposedly spending about 600 Cr Rupees a day for his stay & security arrangements here in India. On a 3 day stay, that would be about 1800 Cr Rupees. [ i am not bothering to convert it into USD ].

Yellow Mellow !

 

What’s in a yellow colored public carrier, have you ever thought ?

There is some relation, apparently Yellow or its related colors, gets attention very fast and more than other colors that we usually see. Its said, that we will notice yellow objects first amongst a lot of others. According to science, "Lateral peripheral vision for detecting yellows is 1.24 times greater than for red." So during misty conditions or in low visibility, drivers will spot yellow cars or any moving vehicle fairly well.

This is probably why, we have a School bus in Yellow color. Indian Govt very recently made it mandatory for all school buses to be Yellow in color… we sort of caught up with what was started in North America during the late 1930’s. These days you find school buses yellow and also many machines that are used in construction like Bulldozers, JCB, Cranes etc.. just to make it easier to spot the danger that comes with these machines

So if its a Yellow then be mellow !

Supply & Demand

 

India is on a race to be the most populated country in this world. Its literally an Abundance …err.. of people though. Most HR people will only be more than happy to see more heads around

Last week i had to take a print of some documentation and since my home printer wasn't working, had to get the prints from a cyber cafe. The dingy little place and its smaller cubicles was least to say crowded. Many youngsters waiting for their turn… privacy was lost for some and i could see a lady jeering at a person standing beside her. The best thing i liked about this cafe was that, all their PC’s were so outdated by looks, but the Operating System was the latest Windows 7. The monitor was a 14’ CRT … 100% of zoom on the screen made the fonts look huge size on them. I finally managed to get my hand on a PC after about half hour wait, my prints were fired onto a printer that was connected to the WLAN (!), the printer was a HP Laserjet. Print per copy was charged only at Rs 3

As i was walking out of the shop, i was thinking to myself the way population has outstripped supply in this great country of ours ‘India’. A railway station, bus stand, auto / taxi stand.. .its all filled with people. Railway stations even in a cosmo city like Bangalore are far short of space for the crowds that it was meant to operate with. A city bus is something that you cant step into during peak hours… well you may think the Volvo buses that are operated on premium by the bus corporation has space… no longer are they spacious, regardless of the premium fare collected on them

The cyber cafe when it started was meant for those who knew computers only… now there is hardly any grown-up person who doesn't know computers, so you will find this place always crowded. That's the way India has grown… we have absolutely lost our handle on the resources that need to be to support such a large population

Will a we 2 ours 2 revival help ! ?

Train to Subhramanya

Couple of railfan friends from bangalore undertook a trip to the famous Sakleshpura ghats. A route of about 55 km filled with tunnels and bridges through the serene .. thick forests on the western ghats

                                   

Oh yaaro ! an ear sore

 

Oh yaaro, yeh India bula liya ! thats the theme song of the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth games. The noise that Suresh Kalmadi and Co built up was so much that i was very anxious to hear it. ‘It would even beat waka waka – said Kalmadi. Finally it was launched on Aug 28th again at a gala event because money is in no short supply for the CWG organizers – they repeatedly are proving this. The launch was no short of any political gimmicks with both Haryana & Delhi CM’s throwing their support behind the messed up organizers

My expectation were belied when the song was presented and by Rahman himself. It lacked any kind of genius music that this man is so capable of. Oh yaaro, sounded like too much of hindi and mix of some pop and loud guitars, in short a convoluted song… not amusing that so far the organizing has been nothing short of confusions and corruption. I would have imagined a theme song to give some patriotic feeling to the host country at the same time convey a message of oneness, pride, motivation & bonding to the athletes above all energy !!. It should’ve contained more of music atleast.. rather than those jarry tones. Given that the launch of this song was delayed and more changes requested by the organizing committee in its first review, rahman saab should’ve put in more work.

Oh yaaro…do you know, it cost 5 crores for this theme song. This is why we call our desh mahaan

puncher angadi

 

Long before the dawn of tubeless tyres and stickers that took no time to stick up a punctured tube, there existed on the roads of Bangalore city small shops that used to do the repairs of punctures. many a bangaloreans would remember them to be the puncher angadi;s { puncher is Puncture and Angadi is Shop }

We don’t find them anymore and i would imagine, its yet another roadside easy trade that has been eaten away by the developments in technology. These shops used various mechanisms to ready a damaged tube. Let me just step them out…

1. Remove the tyre from the vehicle [ any vehicle ]
2. Separate the tube from the tyre
3. Fill the tyre with air to spot the puncture
4. Soak the tube into a bucket of water, then turn the tyre its complete circumference
5. Use a chalk piece to mark the spots from where air leaks and produces bubbles in the water
6. Dry the area marked out on step 5
7. File the area to create a rough patch
8. Application of the puncture fix [ different types ]
• Cut a small tube piece that will fit the size of the puncture, apply a gum / solution onto the area and stick the cut piece. Which is then kept under a vice and a small fire lit under the vice’s base to heat up the solution and enhance the sticking
• Stick the ready-made sticker
9. Check the tyre for the object that caused the puncture, remove it and then spray some powder [most often its the common talcum powder] into the tyre
10. Fit the tube back into the tyre, fill it with air up to the specified pressure

In 8a the vice plates later on started coming with a electric heated plate. In 9 the air filling used to be with those pumps that had to be operated with the leg, which then became motorized

The shops operated in dingy spaces on the road and were almost dark in color with all the fire and its smoke… these days, you find the MRF’s tyre center which are much posh but more or less doing similar activities and are more machine dependant… yet costly

Lawlessness in the enforcers

Police – the word generally evokes a sense of caution to say the least in an average human mind. Most often, it brings about  a fear given the way they actually behave with an average joe. Since they form part of the Law enforcement body, they are supposed to be walking talking law. In Bangalore, the Khaki colored {a mix of Black, Yellow & Red} policemen are the law & those that wear a white shirt and khaki trousers are the traffic

Most bangaloreans would agree with me that these folks no longer bring that sense of caution to mind, instead they are probably mocked at . Why are they mocked at, simply because they don’t stand for any of the morality that they are supposed to guard & enforce.

Today, i was at Shivajinagar -  a commercial center in bangalore – the chaos that i witnessed along with a traffic policeman was maddening. Those from this city will know that Shivajinagar is an utter mess and i would say thanks to this policemen the mess is just getting worse by the day. Its appalling that this has been allowed to happen without any check. Hazrat Kambal Posh Road or the Broadway Rd near the market is a pretty broad one in that area. However, its a lane that has huge number of commercial establishments, its always crowded to say the least

Coming back to today, as i was entering this road from the Russell market side this road was already jammed by a mini truck unloading some stuff into one of the shops. Few minutes into the drama, a traffic policeman rides nearby on a Pulsar bike and is now witness to this jam. He stands by for couple of seconds and then shows some actions at the truck driver… nudges his way into the jam and then rides away. As a commoner, i was happy at the sight of this cop thinking that he will act and clear up the road that never happened. It took me another 20 minutes to clear out of it. As i drove ahead i saw this same constable standing by the side of a road and again chatting around, probably trying to make another roll-call and then turn a blind eye. The department’s boss says, no vehicle should be stopped for checking, unless the vehicle has violated some law, however the constabulary of the Bangalore traffic police and their Senior offices, still hide behind trees and lay wait for people to  ‘make-up’ a cause and fine the gullible

Would the esteem of this department go up in my sight or lower…. ! ?

Mallu or Malayali

This is a dilemma that i am in, caused by no specific theorem that proved the case in either of the sides

 

Personally I have never found the word mallu a great moniker, but for the sake of it considered it a short form of Malayali. That said, my feel is that most of the malayali’s call themselves a mallu and that is what would’ve given the buy to others who use it. What best example – see the blog by an IBN writer ‘Mallu’s musing’ on www.ibnlive.com.  The word seems to be in line with calling Gujarati a Gujju & Bengali a Bong. Makes me want to ask, is calling a Tamilian a pandi apt ? No one in tamilnadu will take it lightly if you call him a Paandi

 

Although i have always been averse to this word, the first time i decided to be really against the usage of this word is when i got a mail that said a mallu in hindi means a monkey. The mail has not given any basis but just that, once a malayali told his Bihari friend that he is a mallu and the Bihari man started laughing. On enquiring the reason, the monkey meaning was bought out

 

What next, Google the word … no there didn’t seem to be any major listings that pointed to the monkey. Shockingly most of the links were about aunties who apparently were ‘hot’ … coming back to the monkey relation, there did seem to be one link that said Mallu = Ape {noun}  See the link here - http://en.bab.la/dictionary/hindi-english/%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B2%E0%A5%82

 

Its quite evident, that most of our people are addressed in a slang and that may be Okay with few and not with the rest. In this case, mallu doesn't sound very attractive to me and hence discourage using this word…. let it be a Malayali

Will food be affordable

In a week Elakki Baleh hannu [ Banana ] has become costlier by 10 Rs. This is constantly the rate at which this particular commodity has been increasing in its market price. The inflation rate is also on its upward path and today its at 16.75% and is almost 10% more than what it was last year same time

The sad part here is that salaries aren't growing at this great rate and companies obviously aren't willing to give anything better. It remains to be seen where we Indian's are headed in terms of our basic food needs. How long can we keep paying and i am sure with the kind of rise we are seeing… many people are shrinking their consumption

 

The chart should be a ready reckoner… wonder where we are headed.

 

Is it time that the Govt start investing into making more farmers, so that at least food items remain available readily