Indian Railways Train Status...

Most of us know about the online reservation site of Indian Railways, but many of us don't know about their train enquiry website - check it out - it has some useful information on the current status of trains.

If you are already on the road, you can just SMS the Indian Railways for PNR status, ticket availability etc. This site has all those details.

E-Registration

If you are in Andhra Pradesh and your name is not on the Electoral rolls yet, here's your chance - you can do an e-registration at this site. Pretty painless process except for figuring out the name of the assembly constituency :). I think this enrollment closes in Dec 1st week.

Aliens finally make contact!

Hyderabad, 8th Nov 2005.

It is THE moment the entire earth (and in particular the sci-fi community) has been waiting for. In a bizarre incident reported today, a few alien agents (claiming to be from the moon) today made hostile contact with a few citizens at Hyderabad (including a few MCH officials). While the earthizens ran for cover, it is said that the the aliens captured a remaining few and took them along for questioning.

While the real reason behind this incident is still being investigated, leaked reports mention that this is in connection with the alien interest in the technology of the moon-like roads, particularly on the Old Bombay LowWay and in the CyberCraters stretch in Hyderabad (photos coming soon). The aliens were apparently taken by surprise on how their proprietary MoonCrater 1897(TM) technology was used on these LowWays without their permission. It is learnt from reliable sources that the captured localites have promised to revert back to the original EarthRoads technology by Jan 2006 (just before the national convention of a major political party begins at Gachibowli).

A Tale of Two worlds...

Trivia question for the day:

If you are in Hyderabad, and want to catch up on some Chennai news on TV, how do you do it?

Don't laugh. Atleast, not yet. Believe me, the answer is not really that simple. It is not as simple as watching just "Sun TV News" or "Jaya News"? The correct answer is you need to watch both of the above and then really spend some time interpreting and resolving the conflicts.

Let me give you an example. You know there has been 21cm of rain in Chennai and want to see the news on the current ground situation. It is 07:30 pm and you switch on Jaya News. "Jaya News" would report a bit about the rain and then give a demonstration of how quickly the government and the administration have reacted to the crisis - you will see interviews of "podhumakkal" (general public) praising the government and the CM. You will see the relief material being distributed to people (never mind if there was a stampede in that process and six people died - it would be reported as "the live witnesses reported that the DMK was responsible for this incident"). Add in a couple of news items such as the 16th ward 20th division ADMK member's compensation issued by the CM, and the bad state of the Central government departments etc. It is now 8 pm. Switch to Sun TV. You will see the total opposite of the above news - how lethargic the administration has been in responding to the crisis, how "the indifferent attitude of the government officials" caused the stampede, and interviews of "podhumakkal" criticizing the state government.

It is 8:30 pm. You are where you started. Good that you still remember that it rained in Chennai.

Well, there is NDTV for more objective news, but it can't compete with the above two channels on this level of detail ;)

Agreed that in a democracy there need not be agreements on everything and that the wrong doings and inefficiency should be exposed. But doing this for each and every silly thing to score cheap political points is ridiculous and plain exploitation of the people.

What do you think?

One night @ the call center

I just finished reading Chetan Bhagat's new book "One night @ the call center" - it is a rocking book. It is almost impossible to put this book down once you start reading it. The story flows along very nicely and I don't want to reveal the plot or story by doing a detailed review on it. The characterizations are great (the "boss" character deserves special mention). I do have a few nits on this book though - the characters do too much bashing of a particular country and its people, has a lousy ending, and the author seems too obsessed with MS Word in the story (for e.g. one of his characters wrongly mentions a Word feature as a bug.). Anyways, the positives outweigh the negatives. It is priced attractively at Rs. 95.