Mumbai local bomb blasts.

Seven blasts rocked the local service today evening at around 6.30. Some 150 ppl are feared dead and many injured.
The phone lines in mumbai are clogged with heavy traffic but sms are working fine. The city is panicked but very controlled. So if your relative or acquintances were not travelling by local at that time on those routes then most probably they are safe. In case you are not able to reach them, try sms first, sometimes that reaches faster. Secondly if you are able to reach them, try to keep the conversation limited to their safe keeping, for information on blasts turn to web or TV; there are thousands more waiting for their calls to connect.
The help blog http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com/ is running an informal helpline sorts. Post a comment to the first post (here) and someone will try to contact your relative and get back asap.
At this moment its very important to stay calm and controlled. Please dont listen to and spread any rumours. Please try to help anyone in any small manner you can.
May the souls of deceased rest in peace and all injured get well soon

The option of "None of these" in Indian elections.

Just saw this on Ashwin's blog
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Anyway, here goes the procedure.

Chapter XX ,Handbook for presiding officers, taken from here. I am just typing out the pdf (page 65 in the 9 MB document)
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Electors not deciding to vote

1.1 If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the Register of Voters(Form 17a)and he has put his signature/thumb signature on that register, decides not to record his vote ,he shall not be forced or compelled to record his vote.

1.2 A remark to the effect that he has decided not to record his vote -"Refused to vote"- shall be made by you in the remarks column against the entry relating to him in the Register of Voters.You shall put your full signature below that remark.

1.3 The signature or thumb impression of the elector shall also be obtained against such remark under rule 49Q.

1.4 It shall,however,not be necessary to make any change in the serial number of the elector or of any succeding electors in column[1] of the Register of Voters.

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In the above clauses, 'you' refers to the Presiding officer. This is the law. Will it work in practice?? You can certainly expect an ill-informed presiding officer turning hostile to the idea of someone going all the way upto the polling booth to say "I wont vote" !! . You could,in principle, ask him go back and read his job-briefing . But , I would advice you to take a photocopy of this particular article in Hindu. It quotes the chief election officer for TN, Naresh Gupta on this issue.
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I just loved the grin on this Ferrari F430's face. She came to NTU Motor show. One more was this Lotus Exige. She smiles like a kid who has earned some pennies from the tooth fairy :)


by bakshi_sumit

cool one ... cheer.

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable,
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table,
David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the turning of the wrist,
Socrates himself was permanently pissed...
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
with half a pint of shandy wasparticularly ill,
Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day,
Aristotle, Aristotle was a beggar for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart,
"I drink therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.

The Merit is dead. Long live the Merit.

dedicated to HH Arjun Singh, without whose stupidity this blog would not'v been written.
The same Mandal Commission recommendations are now been enacted, against which Rajeev Goswami had lit the fiery protest by using himself as fuel. The politicians have gone to the extent of bringing in 104th ammendment to the Constitution to gain the power to take reservation to the absurd level of 49.5%.
First thing first, 49.5% reservation for whom? Meritorious??? are u nuts !!! okay ... so those who deserve but cant pay??? SHUT UP U KNIGHT IN THE STINKING ARMOR !!! this reservation is for those children whose prehistoric forefathers were oppressed by your prehistoric forefathers. they have the right to take up your position of merit for which you have tolied so hard. and HH Arjun Singhji is just trying to correct the prehistoric 'mistakes' that might have been done !!! Kudos sire ... keep the fire alive ... we are ready to burn ourselves for your lofty goals.
Now seriously, this move has to be protested by strongest means coz this has much too bad consequences. For one, this move doesn't abolish the cast system but strengthens it. 50% reservstion based on cast!!! Thats not rediculus, thats absurd, thats dangerous. The cast system thats now nearly non-existance, except in arranged marriages is getting a new life with this move. In my 27 years of existance I'v not seen a single instance where a 'lower cast' person was not allowed to take a bus, or go to a temple, or sit on the same bench as others. In colleges student dont ask about family names and cast before making friends. Some of my friends i dint even knew were from 'backward classes'. but this situation would now change. people will think more along cast lines and it'll enter into their minds much earlier ... as soon as they leave schools and try entrance into any good higher education institute. they have to coz people from some casts are stealing their bread, that too when now no bias is done anywhere against them. imagine a kid's frustration when he is denied admission not because he is bad but becasue the quota is full. wheras another student who gets through even with much lower ranks coz he has a quota for his cast. just think what these kids are going to grow into. (chek http://furasati.blogspot.com/2006/01/quot-quota.html too) also, meritorious students from 'lower casts' can take apply outside the quota but economically weaker and meritorious students from 'upper casts' can not take the unfilled quota seats. ye kahan ka insaaf hai. institutes are forced to leave the quota seats vacant to maintain their quality standards. the upliftment of the so called lower casts has to start from the grass root level. very high proportion of the schools in villages are non-functional. first improve them. if you want the 'upper cast' to correct their past mistakes, then ask them to teach at least 10 students from a village that has no school. thats a better option to utilise their intelligence, hard work, and merit.
secondly these politition chutiyas, they havnt even given reservation to women in the parliament where the merit for entrance is number of chargesheets against you, and they are asking us to give up our share of future. for the uploftment (thats no type), y not reserve 49.5% parliament seats for SC/ST/OBC??? let more people from these classes come into mainstream politics where they can make policy changes according to their most necessary requirements. this will have better reaching consequences than killing the veena goddess. but alas, chargesheet has defeated marksheets.
O Lord! Forgive them. They dont know what they are doing.

Blockhead??? Yes... thats me :)

yeah, i am on a roll here too. singaporeans got the first taste of the phenomena that Sumit Bakshi!!!
it all started when i was sleeping peacefully after having a beer that tasted more like a horse's sweat. suddenly i wokeup with a jolt! oh shit! mom was waiting to chat! hurriedly i started the comp and phew! shilpa and shivani both were still there. wetried skype and must tell u it works great!!! so will talk to mom tomm morning.
okay ... so what to do next? and then this divine idea cropped into my pin-sized head of going to lab. then at 3 in the morning i was heading to lab. came here (i m writing this post in the lab), chatted with father, saw a really stunningly beautiful girl on orkut, tried playing stickcricket, and then decided to go out for some fresh air. so what did i do? what else, i just got up and went outside, breathed the cool early morning breeze, heard birds chirping and ... went back? heeheehee ... nyopp ... i'd left my access card inside !!! cool huh? thats not all, my roomkeys were also inside X-( so my holy ass was now left in the middle of the NBS building wondering WTF!!! what the hell is this! what am i to do now!! i did three pradakshinas of the lab looking for any sign of anyone inside. then i found a window that was open, so i shouted inside, but no one was there to answer (but i am sure i heard keyboards tapping when i was in!!!).
anyways so i started of in another direction looking for the security ppl but not a fuckin soul was around. then thank to the 33 crore Holy Gods i saw someone walking in the parking lot. it turns out that he was a student going home. he found the security office number, called them, and helped me out of the situation. he was an undergrd engg student and when i asked him if he was coming from lab he said ... he was sitting on a bench near the library and studying !!!!!! now wait a min ... in the middle of the night that was the only place u got to sit and study !!!!!! boy these ppl are crazy!!!!!
well now that the security has opened the gate and has jotted down my name and roll number, i am in the lab again and now going back to my room and sleep. enuf adventure for today. but i am sure its not over yet ... more will be coming !!!!!! till then good nite :)
and i dont know why but suddenly the doors unlocked and then locked again !!! really this place is CRAAAZY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kya-mera liya maine !!!

finally i bot my first camera. its a point and shoot Nikon Coolpix L1 with 6.2mp, 5x optical, 4x digital zoom. it cost me SD470, with a 256mb card and a case thrown in free. but actually cameras are cheaper in US. the same thing i wud'v got ther some 15-20% cheaper.
it has very sophisticated automatic features. red-eye reduction, anti hand-shake, automatic exposure and flash control. it has Best Shot Selector facility that takes 6 shots and then selects the sharpest one. this makes it slightly slower but for novice users it actually helps a lot in taking dificult snaps. its a drawback too. i want to learn fotography but this camera leaves very less scope to learn. but indeed the results in fully automatic mode are really good. today i tried tweaing a little by adding shorter/longer exposure (the camera doesnt allow u to control shutter speed, rather an Exposure Equivalent scale -2 to +2 is provided). i tried some white balance settings too and colors also. i dont know why but i really like B/W snaps. the different modes, like portrait, landscape, sport, night, etc are extremely good. today i only tried some night experiments, tomm i'll try the camera in harsh lighiting.
the best part is the panoramic feature. in this mode the screen is reduced to half, and the remaining half is used to show the last picture taken so that the continuity can be easily maintained. but u must get a tripod for this. i tried but the hand invariably moves, either the angle or the inclination changes. the CD i got with the camera carries the s/w that merges the pics thus taken. its a nice piece of code. quite effective and very good results.
some snaps are shared at photos.yahoo.com/furasati
do chek and comment ... on my fotography skills too !!!

Survey-llance

The Indian defence minister Pranab Mukharjee has asked the armed forces to conduct a survey of all the muslims recruited and the postings they'v been given.
Now as a researcher I'd say that the data coming out of this survey will ne absolutely invaluable. Proper analysis if this data can shed light on many things that happen but go unsaid or the things that are much spoken of but are never done. This is not in relation to castism/favouritism rather about the overall working of the armed forces.
But on the other had, this data is a potential nuke! This data can blow into pieces one of the last standing bastions of true professionalism in India, others are the Election Commission and the Supreme Court. Armed forces have always clinically performed their task aiming only at defending the country. Any tampering with the armed forces can have very serious and far reaching implications on the mere existance of our country.
First of all why is this survey needed? Did the ministry recieved any complaints of gross injustice to some specific group of people? Is the minstry planning to have special recruitments on communal/religious grounds?
Secondly, coming to think of it, what is intended to be the outcome of this survey? How would this data be used? Whou will use this data? Will this data be given to the armed forces heads with recommendations from the ministry? Can it be ensured that the data will not be used for political purposes?
By my experience of watching the politicians, I would be wary to had over this sensitive data to the politicians of our land. This data might be wrongly analysed or might be analysed out of context to support certain perspectives. And I am damn sure that those perspectives, coming from our politicans ARE dangerous.
Thirdly, where would it stop? Today muslims, why not parsis tommorrow, of the OBCs the next day, and so on. Can anyone assure that this survey is one time, that there aren't going to be any more communal surveys? For this reason too the survey MUST be nipped in the bud.

God please help.