This trip was made specifically with the aim of flying the Indian national flag at Lal Chowk and the yatra was named ‘Sadbhavana Yatra’ which roughly translates to Peace trip. The trip was envisioned because on 26th Jan 2010 there was no unfurling of the Indian flag at Lal Chowk in Kashmir. Which is sad and embarrassing. To make things even better at no point in time before this trip has the Indian flag flown alone in Kashmir. It is always accompanied by the Kashmir flag at the same height which as you might know is unconstitutional. So this was the first time that the Indian Flag was flown alone in Kashmir.

According to mom, as soon as they entered Kashmir their convoy was harassed in increasingly belligerent tones to take the flag down (All their cars were flying the Indian flag) and it got to the point that they were worried about attacks to their caravan and even a mid-night police raid to arrest them at their hotel. The initial plan was for them to fly the flag at Lal Chowk at 10am but when they saw the amount of anti-nationalism and the threat of attack they unfurled the flag at 5am instead and then left soon thereafter. Even then a lot of the people who saw the unfurling opposed it with one person who tried snatching the flag to prevent it from being unfurled.

Now you might be wondering why this is a case, how can a state act against the country and not fear retaliation by the rest of the country. I am wondering the same thing. How can our Prime Minister, President and the MP’s allow this state to so consistently insult India?

A lot of it is because Kashmir only joined India when it was invaded by Pakistan and the only way it could secure aid from India was to agree to become part of India. But that was 60 years ago, their king made the decision and now they have to live with it. Pakistan poking their noses into it every few years haven’t helped either… along with all the other aid that is being provided to the militant factor in Kashmir to prevent the ‘repression’ of the Muslims in the area by the Hindu’s.

I think its past time that the Indian government grew a backbone and sorted out this problem once and for all.. The loss of life and property in Kashmir is appalling and the situation won’t change unless those in power take a decision and then back it up by force if required.

- Suramya

Now thanks to Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Chief Robbie Bach we know for sure. He confirmed in his exit interview that the Courier Tablet ‘wasn’t a device’. In his own words:

Well, Courier — Courier, first of all, wasn’t a device. The project and the incubation and the exploration we did on Courier I view as super important. The “device” people saw in the video isn’t going to ship, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t learn a bunch and innovate a bunch in the process.

So basically it was all a big PR stunt. I not saying that companies should stop publicizing their feature lists or that the company should include every feature in their feature list into the final product. I know that its not always possible to include every feature that you envision into the final product. But still… If MS had a device in production that did a major portion of the features that were touted in the video or even a minor portion of them it would still make sense. But creating a PR hype on a product that they have no intention of releasing and then giving it a launch date is cheating and just wrong. I believe that such devices are rightly called vaporware.

It looks to me like all they were doing was trying to steal some of the hype from the product launches of other companies.

- Suramya

Source: Robbie Bach Q&A Part 3
Thanks to: The Raw Feed for the initial heads up

The unit will employ 200 educated convicts who will handle back office operations like data entry, and process and transmit information.

The project will begin at Charlapally Central Jail, near the state capital Hyderabad, in the next four months.
…
…
The unit, which is expected to undertake back-office work for banks, will work round the clock with three shifts of 70 staff each.

I want to know what banks will be part of this program so that I can move my money to another bank if required.

- Suramya

Source: BBC News – Outsourcing unit to be set up in Indian jail
Thanks to Schneier on Security for the story.

This is not because I don’t have photos to upload and share. It wasn’t because I was feeling lazy and didn’t have time. It takes me about 15 mins to create a new section and upload new pics and most of it is spent on creating captions. The main issue is that I have gotten tired of getting crap from people about the photos I post. I spend hours deciding what photos to post and what not to post. The no of photos I post on the site are not even 1% of the total photos I have taken. The gallery wasn’t made to embarrass people, it was made to share photos of the good times I have had with friends.

When people asked me to remove a particular photo or change a caption I usually remove the photo if their reason made sense to me. Then I started getting comments telling me that I always post crappy photos of people on the site to make them look bad. If that’s what you think. Fine. Its your point of view. I am tired of listening to the crap and have people giving me shit. So I have stopped uploading photos to the site.

I take photos because I like it. I don’t HAVE to post it for others. If you want a copy of the photos I take email me and I will put them up in a private section of the site and give you access. But I am done posting these photos publicly for now. This is not a decision I have made today. Its been in my thoughts for a while but this is the first time I am writing this down.

I am seriously considering moving the entire photos.suramya.com domain to a password protected area. No public photos no BS. But its not something I have decided yet. Lets see, I am still thinking about it.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

- Suramya

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

Earthquakes? Seriously? If that was the case then Europe, US should be the most earthquake prone area’s in the world thanks to all the beaches and clubs and all the cleavage and nudity that goes along with them.

Jen McCreight, a student from Indiana has decided to test this claim scientifically:

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics.

The facebook event for this is located here and already has over 33,000 confirmed guests. You can also follow it on Twitter using the tag #boobquake!

Now this is why I like science and the internet. If some idiot makes a stupid claim then there are those who decide to test its validity. Somewhat like mythbusters. Now if only all these people also post pics

Source: Chicagotribune.com.
Testing the validity of the statement: In the name of science, I offer my boobs

- Suramya

As far as I know the Indian government hasn’t banned porn in India. Actually… according to this news article on the Times of India dated Feb 11th 2010 the Govt can’t ban porn websites for obscenity.

So why is Yahoo filtering out results? Yahoo is the only search engine that I know which is doing this. Google, MSN don’t filter out stuff so…

In any case I don’t use Yahoo for much, but still. Does any one reading this have any idea what is going on?

- Suramya

Just something that I have been thinking about.

- Suramya

Bryan Berg with the world’s largest house of cards

All I can say when I see this is: Wow! It takes skill to do something like this and its just wow. If you are in Macau then do check it out. Its located in the Macau’s Cotai Strip.

Source: American architect beats his own record after creating the world’s largest house of cards | Mail Online.

- Suramya

Check them out here:

• CMAP #1
• CMAP #2: How Books Are Made
• CMAP #3: What Authors sell to Publishers.
• CMAP #4: Territories, Translations, and Foreign Rights

Out of all the posts listed above I like #2 and #3 the best. #2 explains how a book gets from a concept in an author’s mind to a finished product in the market. I think its a great read for anyone interested in publishing and how it works. #3 explains what authors sell to publishers and what a standard contract consists of, again quite interesting how the entire thing breaks down and how the remuneration works.

I don’t write fiction, but if I did I would find these posts quite informative on how the entire process works and knowing that gives a person advantage when they try to sell their manuscript to a publisher. So if you write or are planning to, do check out the posts above.

- Suramya

Till I went to college (before 1999) mode of address was easy, anyone in the same generation as you but older was called Bhaiya/Didi (elder brother/sister), anyone younger than you was called by their name. Any person from the older generation was either called Uncle/Aunty or by their relationship to you. Oh and teachers were called Sir or Mam. Over all quite easy to remember.

When I went to college in the US everything changed and it was a shock. Suddenly I was supposed to call my professors by their name which I felt was rude and when I started working I kept calling my bosses Sir/Mam. It wasn’t me being formal but just showing respect which thankfully they understood. Still I was told to stop doing that and call them by their names. For a person coming from a background where you never call your elders by name it was a big deal and took me quite a while to get used to it.

Then I came back to India and was lost again, because by then I was used to calling everyone by name even when they had kids older than me. In personal interactions it wasn’t that big a problem but professionally it was an issue. If you called someone by their name they felt that you weren’t giving them the appropriate respect. So I ended up calling everyone senior to me Mr xyz or Ms Xmy.

Luckily for me all the companies I have worked for had people who dealt with Americans or had studied in the US so if I accidentally called someone by their first name it wasn’t an issue.

Now I have a simple policy in this regard, if you are my age or 5-10 years older I will call you by your name unless corrected and if you are older then that I will call you by your last name. This is for in-person meetings, for conversations over the phone I take my cue from whoever introduces me to them; if they called the person by their first name I do the same otherwise its was back to formality. (Though I have stopped calling anyone sir or mam and I tell all my juniors to not call me sir.)

The mode of address is a small part of dealing with a customer/co-worker but is quite important. You want to come across as an approachable person but not get too familiar which some people might find offensive and its quite a balancing act.

I sympathize with Flipkart that they lost a customer but in the customer’s defense he told them that he wanted to be addressed formally but they still addressed him informally so its understandable that the person got ticked…

Another way to annoy a person is to get the gender wrong when addressing them. I have made that mistake but thankfully the person I was corresponding with had a sense of humor and corrected me without getting upset. Since then I try to be extra careful when using gender based vocabulary in an email but to my dismay the name doesn’t always tell if a person is a male or female especially when you are dealing with names from another culture. So I rarely use gender specific words when I don’t know the sex of the person I am emailing/chatting with.

The funny part is that my name has been mistaken for a girls name a couple of times so I know what it feels to be on the other side. But still, I think most issues can be overcome if both parties are willing to work for it and have a sense of humor (Yes, I know sometimes humor doesn’t translate well across cultures but that’s for another post)

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

- Suramya