Tharoor's Unfettered Tweets

Tharoor is in news again for his tweeting antics. This time around he has tweeted on the strict VISA regulations following the Headley findings. Tharoor has aired his concerns on twitter, and this has not gone down well with SM Krishna. He has been pulled up, but Tharoor has once again tweeted on how he missed the whole brouhaha. Tharoor had earlier tweeted into the headlines for his cattle class remarks following the Congress' much publicized austerity drive.

Is Tharoor trying to woo an online audience which is supportive of his tweets? Or is he being too naive and not being sensitive about the reason for the strict VISA regulations. Tharoor maybe the tech savvy politician that India may have never had. But his online support will remain online. Only his offline support can win him elections. So, even if media channels showcase his tweet supports on twitter, ground reality will be totally different. The online audience in India is sadly one which remains online and will seldom wield its voting powers.

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Sleaze with Ease

A multitude of issues are tumbling out of the ongoing sleaze charges against Narain Dutt Tiwari (N.D. Tiwari) and molestation case against S.P.S Rathore. If not being responsible enough about the position they held wasn't good enough, they have been cunning enough to have hidden away their cheap escapades using political clout and misuse of office.

It is funny to note that these high flying gentlemen are well past their reproductive capabilities (Tiwari is 85 and Rathore is 67), but still manage a fling. I can be argued against by stating that S.P.S Rathore molested Ruchika almost 19 years back. Ironically, 28th December is precisely the date when the charges were levelled against the supposedly celebrated police officer.

N.D.Tiwari on the other hand, has been a step ahead, as should be the case with someone administering affairs of a state. While being chief minister of U.P. it was an open secret to many of his extra marital affairs. He did use his wife's gynaecological knowledge to manage his flaccid endowment on three women. It is as yet unknown if his performance or the lack of it with the three women was the reason for his ouster from governorship of Andhra Pradesh.

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Nagarholing Mysore to Calicut

It’s been really long since I went on a trek. More than eight months I guess. But, I did manage to sneak some snaps on a short trip to Nagarhole earlier this year in May, and then again yesterday, en route to Calicut. So finally I have some snaps to share on slideshare.

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Fleece Frenzied

Private bus travels in India can be quite mean and unrepentant. I can cite my examples with those in Bangalore, but I can bet a dime a dozen, that it would be a similar case elsewhere in India too. One trip to Kalasipalayam in Bangalore, and you will be overwhelmed by the number of touts who want to make a quick buck by selling tickets to places as far off as Goa, Mumbai, Pune and so on. The irony of a booming Indian middle class is all too evident in such areas.

As more of the Indian middle class population moves around in the country, working in different locations, travelling back to their hometowns becomes a frequent necessity. With more of money and less of time to spare, the willingness to pay an extra 50 or 100 bucks has become commonplace. The extravagance is also on the rise with Volvo buses giving all the comfort in the world for the burgeoning Indian middle class traveller. But in the midst of all the hurry, the typical middle class traveller ignores how the bus agent goes about fleecing him/her.

When a festival season comes up, there is even more rush, and even normal air buses which would cost a few hundred bucks are plied at double the normal price. And the traveller is firstly left with no option (lack of time, hectic work, no time for booking in government buses .. reasons are endless ...), but has enough and more money to pamper the increasingly fraudulent bus agencies. Sadly for the passenger, there is seldom any guarantee that there will be atleast half the value of what is being promised in terms of comfort in the bus.

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Don't let Agile Beguile !

I have been more than curious as to why Agile methodology is so sought after in software development. With very little knowledge on the thought and the process behind it, I could well be misinforming my far and few in between readers.

As the name suggests, the need of the hour is fast paced development. And agility in any form can always bear rich dividends. When it comes to business, the benefits are manifold. So it is no surprise that there is a constant push for an Agile model of project execution in software development. To put it simply, Agile methodology lays emphasis on incremental, iterative software development with rigorously frequent reviews between all the project resources. The pretext for the push for Agile is the rapid progress in each of the phases of a typical SDLC.

Imagine a scenario when the requirements gathering is going on, and simultaneously the design also is kickstarted. Typically in a sequential development project, the development team would wait until the requirements from the customer are frozen. Once this is done, the design and implementation starts. Thus, a project which is simple and has medium complexity would need, say 6 months from start to end. But with Agile, the end objective is to do parallel activities starting from requirements till the end.

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Test Cricket : A T20 Twist

India sure managed to scale the expectation and reached the top of the ICC Test cricket ratings. India, like Australia and South Africa has been the only Test playing nation to have consistently performed in away conditions with victories. In that perspective, India deserved to be among the top 3. But, the very best? I wouldn't think so. India still has a weak bowling attack, and there is no certainty or surety of a return to form of Ishant Sharma. Moreover, Harbhajan Singh's performances have been patchy to say the least. What India surely is missing though is an express pace bowler to bowl at 145 clicks consistently for a entire spell of 4 or 5 overs. Until India finds consistency in its bowling attack, the Indian team will continue to rely heavily on its batting.

Even so, the top spot in the ratings look like more transient in nature, because of the lack of test matches India would be playing. BCCI has now asked South African cricket board to play two test matches, by dropping two one day internationals in India next year. While it would seem that this maybe an opportune moment to give a much needed fillip to sagging fortunes of test cricket, BCCI surely wants to give the Indian team a fair opportunity to continue atop the test cricket ratings. While these are certainly welcome thoughts, one cannot but be reminded of the lack of sponsorship interest for the Indian cricket team. If the BCCI can bring in more crowds to see the Indian cricket team perform well and retain its top ranking in test matches, there could be an opportunity to win back elusive sponsors.

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Tiger drinks Gatorade for Accenture

Note: Some portions in the post may be offensive to some readers. Reader discretion is advised

To follow and know more about gossip on news channels can be quite addictive. The more spicy the news, the more eyeballs it gets. Rather sadly for Tiger Woods, its not his growls on the golf course, but his groans and moans of an otherwise guarded life which is being heard more. He may have hit a good ball with a golf stick, but he didn't need more than a pair of them to hit a dozen birdies. And birdies which have not ceased tumbling from the nests he secretly flew to. Birdies which were so free to fly anywhere but found great comfort in building nests in Tiger's Woods.

Isn't it the easiest thing on earth to have a chance to point fingers at someone ? It sure is, and when it is something sensational, media and bloggers like me feel it is our right to frame a celebrity as a scandalous man, an ill-worthy sportsman, and never a role model. As I did read, internet publications are attracting huge traffic, riding on the Woods controversy. On a self confession note, I wouldn't be too far behind either.

But I would like to acquit myself of using the controversy and ponder over what led the Tiger to moan in the birdies' nests and not growl in his own den. First and foremost, it goes without saying that his flings brought him a zing in his life, which probably helped him win 14 majors. Besides, he may have felt that he had to prove to himself of being a major (the adolescent one, silly) and so visited the birdies. On an empathetic note, one cannot blame a normal guy to not be visiting nests of experienced, bootylicious birdies, when there is a bottomless wallet to boot. If he hadn't been attracted, he may have been stamped as gay !

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To Tweet Or Not To

I was neglectful of twitter for a long time, but the tweeting bug finally bit me . Twitter has been the rage, especially in the past year. The fact that twitter is the top word used in English language in 2009 bears testimony to this. Quite an act, driven almost entirely by the social website's popularity. It took out words like H1N1 and stimulus in the top words list, published by Global Language Monitor.

Twitter is such a rage, that it is almost like the next rss out there. While twitter restricts the number of characters to 140, the impact of tweeting has been contagious. Any news channel or website, which does not have twitter ids would come as a shock for me in this day and age. Any mobile phone which comes out these days, brands itself with claims of having tweeting options in them.

It does seem to me though, that twitter is the sms version of the web. The crucial advantage twitter has, that it is ubiquitous due its presence in the internet. A sms though is confined to a circle. The only comparison which comes up and which ends abruptly is the character based entry. While a sms would be a quick message or response to a select group, tweets are more for a quick update or a news item on the web, for one and all to see. sms is at a personal level, while tweets are at a social level for anyone accustomed to internet.

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A tale of two crashes

Note: All views expressed or concluded here are my own, and are a figment of my imagination and nothing else. If anything in this post makes sense to the reader, it is not my responsibility for any hallucination resulting out of such an exercise.

Two crashes in a week, has spiced up the tabloids especially in the U.S. So, the question is which is the spicier of the two ? Oh well, if one were to go by the nature of these crashes, one is metallic in nature and the other very wild. Though metallic is exaggerated from the term gate crash,  crashing into a tree certainly speaks of someone dying to be natural, even in a crash. Going by comparisons though, while the gate crash was inflicted at the White House by a couple obsessed with publicity, the tree crash by Tiger Woods was seemingly self inflicted.

Two spectra of society, one of a pure sports star celebrity who craves for privacy, while the other is a world leader, out to bring U.S economy out of its slump. Creditably though, both Tiger Woods and Barack Obama are certainly the best in their business. While in Obama's case, its a question mark and certainly a blot on the security cover at the White House, in Tiger Woods' case, its a question mark on his privacy.

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