shashi tharoor twitter on visa rule: Krishna asks him to shut up

Sashi Tharoor is in news all over again and for the same old reason, twittering something which is not well appreciated by Indian Government. External affairs Minister S M Krishna has ticked off Sashi Tharoor to publicly questioning the new visa guide lines and advised him that if he has any issues related to the new guidelines, Tharoor should shut up in public and rather discuss those issues with-in the four wall of Government.

Krishna underlined that "the business of government is far too serious" and "has to be conducted in a manner in which we decide."

While tweeting, Tharoor had wondered whether tightening of the visa norms for foreign nationals made any sense at all and if it would actually "protect" security.

Summer Resorts

Abu Azmi slapped:Maratha braves of MNS making a mockery of India

Should Yahoo sue Google?

Yahoo has just received the U.S. patent for something called “Method and apparatus for search ranking human input and automated ranking.” Yahoo applied for this patent in 2002 and has finally received the ownership of the said concept.

What does it mean for you?
It mean, if implemented, it will calculate search rankings on Yahoo Search based on a combination of automated search algorithms and human editor input – hence better search results, presumably.
So if you’re an SEO worker and you’ve successfully work on a particular site to make it rank higher on a particular search query based on Yahoo’s search algorithms, your site might not actually appear on the first page of the Yahoo SERPs if the human editors found it not so relevant to the search query at all. Of course this will be based on your site content.

What does it mean for Google?
It might mean a complete change in game for Google in search.

1. Yahoo will/might market it effectively as a great improvement in search results and hence taking a dig at Google's #1 position in search.

2. One of the main reasons of Google search results having a higher relevancy is the human editing of search rankings. It was a great process so far for Google. But now it means an infringement of a patent obtained by Yahoo and Yahoo can very well sue Google for this. This is again going to be a big blow for Google and could be a potential source of revenue for Yahoo from Google and other websites; websites which are willing to pay Yahoo to use the Human editing techniques of search ranking.

Yahoo if you are listening

Forget the new Y!ou marketing blitz. If you want some real attention, sue Google for patent infringement–that will earn you plenty of publicity and possibly a boatload of cash too (not from MS but from GOOG this time)

The Regent Hill side Resort: A house that haunts

We recently visited Yercaud from Bangalore over a long weekend. As always, we drove down to Yercaud from Bangalore. It's a 200+ km drive from Bangalore which one can easily cover in 5 hours. I would write about the trip in more detail later. For now, I feel like penning down about my bad stay experience in Yercaud. The fact that this happened after my memorial stay in Taj Exotica Goa; made it look even worse.

We stayed in an old residence, converted into a hotel named "the regent hill side resort". The holiday turned out to be a little disappointing because we chose to stay in this much hyped hotel.

The hotel is an old house owned by one Mr. Vishu. The house has been converted into a hotel. The rooms are big with attached bathrooms and interior done in old style; an attempt to give an old-british-style-house look. However, the place lacks the basics of a hotel industry and hospitality and is very highly priced at INR 4000/- a night, not a value for money for anyone. There is no reception or friendly front-office desk kind of person availble to help you with anything.

The kitchen is run by a local, hired by the owner of the Hotel, to cook for you on demand. The cook also plays the role of a front-desk person, cleaner and does various other miscellanious activites; cooking is a part of one his duties.

Don't expect to get delicacies or cuisines from around the world; you can just get the standard Indian meal to survive. The list of dishes that you can get are limited by the knowledge of the cook available. We ordered "dal makhni" and what we got was "yellow toor daal"... not something you would expect when you are paying a premium for the stay.

The place has no power back-up (at least there wasn't when we stayed). With frequent power cuts in any Indian town, this is not something which you would want to happen to your place of stay while you are holidaying. We learnt it the hard way; during our stay, the power went off at 1.30am mid-night and in the absence of a reception or front-desk, we were inside a pitch dark house in the middle of a coffee plant....scary...haunting..can take the shit out of your pants......I can't explain that scary feeling in words.
The "house-cum hotel-cum resort" is in the middle of a coffee plant and there is an old (aged about 60+ years) care-taker who sleeps in the night in the house.You definitely don't want to get into situation like this where you are spending a night in a completely unknown place without a power and without anyone to help you out.
The power came back after 2 hours at 3.30am after repeated calls to the owner of the hotel. These two hours without the power were scary for both me and my wife. We realized the importance and need of checking the service background of your "place of stay" in any holiday location before checking-in.
We completely lost our nights sleep after this incident and the peaceful night in a holiday destination became a night mare. We had to cancel our plan of going for a trek at 6am in the morning after this loss of sleep and slept through till late early morning only to get a call that we have to check-out at 10am next morning......
I wish, I was in a frame of mind to write about some of the good things about the stay...thanks god you made me stay there just 1 out of the many more days I will stay on this earth

Michael Jackson's History: A Tribute to MJ

Well, what can one say about someone who started his career at 5 years of age and even then garnered adulation as much as an established star? That was just one of the humble achievements of Michael Jackson, the unbeaten King of Pop. Here’s a run through HIStory!

Michael was born on the 29th of August, 1958 in Gary, Indiana. His parents were working class African-American folks. Though his father was a guitarist, he had to hang up his boots to work as a crane operator in order to provide for his wife and 9 kids, Michael being the 7th child. The era of Michael’s magic began in 1964 when he was 5, and the lead singer of a band Jackson 5, formed by his brothers, Jackie, Jermaine, Tito, Marlon and himself. The band would play the same clubs as biggies like Jackie Wilson. Four years after their formation, the Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers discovered Jackson 5 and got them an audition for Motown Records. Their singles, "I Want You Back", "ABC", "The Love You Save", and "I'll Be There" were declared US No1 hits. The Jackson 5 then recorded 14 albums and Michael recorded 4 solo albums with Motown.

In 1976, The Jackson 5 decided to move on and signed up with Epic. The group renamed The Jacksons (their name before Jackson 5). Youngest brother Randy replaced Jermaine and the Jacksons made 6 albums till 1984. Michael made his first film debut in 1977 with the musical 'The Wiz' playing Scarecrow with Diana Ross. Michael met Quincy Jones there, who did the score for the film. This collaboration resulted in his successful album "Off The Wall", the first ever album to release a record breaking 4 No1 singles in the US.

There on, success just followed. In 1982 saw the world's largest selling album of all time, 'Thriller', which produced 7 hit singles, and sold over 50 million copies worldwide! Michael worked with the best directors and producers to make music videos (short films, as he called them) for promoting his singles, especially 'Billie Jean' and 'Thriller'. Not just the single but also 'The Making Of Michael Jackson's Thriller' became the world's largest selling home video combined with soaring album sales.

In 1983 was the year when the super famous moonwalk came into being, when Michael performed it for the first time on the 'Motown 25 years' anniversary show. A year later, in 1984, Michael won a record breaking 8 Grammy awards in one night. December 9, 1984, saw the last concert of the Jacksons’ Victory Tour. Michael split from the group and went solo. 1987 saw the release of his eagerly-awaited third solo album, 'Bad', and went on his first solo world tour. 1988, Michael wrote his first autobiography, in which he spoke on his childhood and career for the first time. The end of the 1980s marked Michael as 'Artist of the Decade', for the success of 'Thriller' and 'Bad'.

Michael’s fourth album Dangerous came in 1991, when he signed with Sony Music, the largest ever recording contract. He did a world tour again in 1992, and took his concerts to new territories never before visited by any artist. The same year Michael founded the 'Heal the World Foundation' to help improve the lives of children across the world. Michael married Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of rock legend Elvis Presley in 1994. The marriage only lasted for 19 months, as they divorced in 1996.

Michael’s fifth solo album, 'HIStory' came in 1995; it was a double album - first half containing new material and the second half a compilation of greatest hits. What followed was a 2 year long tour. On November 14th, 1996, Michael married for the second time to Debbie Rowe, a nurse who he met while getting a treatment for his skin pigment disorder. They had their first child Prince Michael Joseph Jackson Jr. on February 13, 1997 and daughter Paris Michael Katherine Jackson on April 3rd 1998. Michael released the remix album 'Blood On The Dance Floor' in 1997. This contained 5 new songs linked with a 38min film "Ghosts". Michael played 5 roles in this using the latest special effects and make-up artistry, combined with his dance and music.

Michael celebrated his 30th anniversary as a solo artist in September 2001, with two concerts to be held in New York, USA. Biggies like Whitney Houston, Usher, Destiny’s Child, and Shaggy performed their original and Michael Jackson’s songs. Michael reunited with all of his brothers and performed their biggest hits, followed by his biggest solo hits. In October 2001 Michael released the album 'Invincible' so far releasing only 2 singles including the big hit "You Rock My World".

The almost four-decade long career ended abruptly and tragically. As MJ passed away, he was apparently in a debt of $ 500 million. He was meant to embark on another world tour that would have got him $ 50 million. But, guess that was not to be! MJ has moonwalked back in History!

$25,000 USD casket to burry Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson's family is leaving no stone unturned to make sure that the pop legend has a grand funeral and they have reportedly chosen a custom made USD 25,000 casket to bury the 'King of Pop'.

The 'Thriller' hitmaker will be laid to rest in a gleaming gold plated coffin, known as The Promethean, just like his idol, soul legend James Brown, reported Sun online.

The bronze coffin inlaid with velvet is made by a company from Jackson's home state of Indiana called the Batesville Casket Company.

After Brown died aged 73 on Christmas Day 2006, Jackson had visited the Georgia funeral home where he was in repose and studied the various caskets available.

Trend: Online Classified Market in India

Online classified market in India has been growing rapidly. The market size two years back was roughly 250 Cr. , still growing at a steady rate of 10%. With this speed, the Online classifieds market in India should be 300+ Crore.

Internet has been taking a big toll on traditional newspaper classified market. The huge size of the market as attracted lot of small and big players into classifieds market. Some of the big players likes Yahoo, Craiglist, Rediff and Kijiji have already got a strong presence in the market with another long tail of start-ups trying to take a bite of this big market. One of the rapidly growing Indian classifieds is www.Mozili.com. The classifieds, in just couple of months has got a good grip in Bangalore market with their Bangalore classifieds section and not trying to expand in Pune , Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai and Ahmedabad.

The website mozili.com is completely free and offers a range of other services, the popular one being setting up a Feed Synchronization system with their developer corner.

IPL Season 2: Closing ceremony

The closing ceremony of IPL Season 2 was great, well organized. After Deccan Charger lifted the trophy, it was IPL chairman, Lalit Modi, who addressed the crowd, thanked the South African administration for arranging the event of such a big magnitude in such a small notice period.

After, Lalit Modi's address, it was the time shake a leg. The whole stadium was filled with nice lightings and some great music played by the DJ.

IPL Season 2: Deccan Charger is the winner

And the DLF IPL Season 2 Trophy goes to Deccan Charger. Deccan Charger has beaten Royal Challenger by six runs to lift the IPL Season 2 Trohpy. It was a tough match between the two teams which were at the bottom of the tally in season 1 but at end Deccan Charger emerged as the winner. The Deccan charger was the better team throughout the match and kept their cool in the tough fought match.

Deccan charger batted first and lost their early wicket, Adamn Gilchrist, in the first over of the match on a lovely in cutter of Anil Kumble. But even after losing early wickets Deccan charger kept the ball rolling and set a target of 144 to win for Royal Chargers. Royal Chargers batted well but could not keep up the pressure of the close match at the end and lost all their wickets 6 runs shorts.

Gibbs, the local boy, made a magnificient half century to put a nice total on the board for Deccan Charger.

Fake IPL Player: A Great Success

Like any other Indian, I too am crazy about cricket and get involved with it passionately. IPL has been a great revolution in the game. With session 2, IPL as a concept is getting matured and as a format definitely making it's place to replace, the now favorite, one day format.

With all other things on one side, the one thing which I personally admired,liked and followed to every bit of detail is the blogs written by our fakey, the Fake IPL Player. Man, I must say, the man has the vision, the style, the ability or write and dramatize things, the ability to articulate and build stories and what not. I am all praise for the man behind Fake IPL Player. I don't really care whether it was a cricketer who was a part of KKR team, a journalist who was following the team, a friend of someone who was a part of KKR administration or wahtever. The entire series of Fake IPL player was well conceptualized, nicely co-ordinated and well written. There could be questions about the indentity of the person and we donot know whether it was a player faking or a faking player but at no point of time we can question or doubt the facts that were mentioned in the entire series of the blog.

I have followed the entire series of Fake IPL Player bit by bit, detail by detail and doubted the author lot of times and thought of digging out details on internet to find out who could be behind this but then I thought, I should rather enjoy and appreciate this entire fun from outside.

And finally after watching the shadow video of Fake IPL player and hearing the sound of his voice, I could not stop my self but write a few lines about him, as a gesture of appreciation. This is just to tell the fakey (Fake IPL Player) that how much I appreciated and admired him all throughout the series. If You happen to read this blog fake, do drop a comment to me just to confirm that you have got that message.

Long Live our Fake IPL Player.

Is Vellupillai Prabhakaran worth a tear?

Now that the LTTE mastermind Vellupillai Prabhakaran has been shot dead by Lankan Army, there is a small segment amongst the large tamil community who sympathize with him and are sad for the brutal killing of the man.

The big question for the Indian population who sympathize with him is, is he really worth a tear?

Shouldn't you first shed your tears for 70,000+ innocent civilians, army men who became victim of his terror activities in the last 30 years.

Shouldn't you first shed your tears for thousands of lankan tamilians who were brain washed by him to become suicide bombers and gave their life to kill more and more people in sri-lanka and India.

Shouldn't you first shed tears for India who lost a progressive leader like Rajiv Gandhi, who had a vision for India and whose leadership would have taken the country on fast progressive track.

And even now if can afford to shed some more tears And if you feel that Prabhakaran's refusal to settle for a peace talk and rather take the path of violence to solve the issue in the island was right, go ahead and shed your tears......after all there are supporters for Talibans too...why not for LTTE.

Top 6 Reasons I didnot vote for Advani Ji

I always had a hint that Congress-led UPA has an upper edge over NDA but never ever thought that the margin would be so big. The change is for good, good for the country and good for the common man of India. Whether you are with me on this opinion or not but UPA can provide much more stable and mature governance than NDA.

I am not a pro Congress/BJP or any party for that matter. I voted for the first time in my life and it was a great experience. I cannot reveal to whom I voted as it is against the rules of Election commission ;) . However, I can definitely reveal that I didnot vote for BJP or Advani Ji (with all due respect to him he is so elder to me that even in my dreams I cannot think of doing anything disrespectful for him)

I made my opinion about whom to vote over a period of one month prior to election, after reading the policies and plans of various parties, after watching the ad campaigns of various parties in television and internet. Here are the top 10 Reasons which gradually shifted my important vote away from BJP and Advani ji.

1. The internet/television/print media campaign of BJP always gave an impression as if it was the campaign to make Advani ji a PM and not a campaign to suggest that BJP can give a more stable and better goverment than the existing goverment.

The fact that Advani Ji launched a separate website than www.bjp.org strengthened my above hypthesis.

2. Most of BJP's Ad campaigns were negative in nature and criticised the existing governement. Instead of projecting the good things that they intend to do after coming into power, they always focussed on the bad things the existing goverment is doing as the reason of change. This was never convincing enough to make change in Government.

On the contrary, Congress Ads were focussed on stability and growth.

3. I didnot appreciate a direct personal attack on Mr Manmohan Singh by Mr Advani Ji. A decent amount of maturity is expected from a person of this age and cadre. When you know that millions of people are watching you and making opinion about you for election, at-least for this selfish reason, one should have exhibited maturity in not saying something like this directly.

I really appreciated the maturity with which Mr Singh responded to this issue ( he got a bonus +5 from me on this :) ).

4. The indecent proposals ( thats what I call them, forgive me for my language) made by Mr Advani Ji went against them in the case of my single vote. The proposals made in the form of "Ladli Ladki Yojna" and another proposal to increase the tax exemption slab to 3 Lakh. It sounded like Mr Advani Ji is trying to bribe me openly for my vote. Damn!!! tell me something concrete that you can do after coming to power rather than wooing me for these couple of lakhs. I know this trick might work for a segment for Indian population but you lost me a big time here.

I was rather curious to know how would you increase the GDP of India or reduce the impact of current financial meltdown on our economy rather than getting a tax exemption.

5.  The stand taken by BJP on 26/11 was that it would have attacked Pakistan to take revenge.  It might sound the right decission when you are high on emotions but it will definitely not sound practical once you start analyzing the impact of such a drastic step. 

Hundreds of lives and millions of Rupess is spent in couple of days of war. Do you really want to take such an step whose outcome it not worth and which cost you like hell and hit your economy adversly. The maturatiy that UPA governement demonstrated in diplomatically handling the issue by putting international pressure on Pakistan is worth the applaude. 

6. One of the biggest political agenda that BJP governement had was their Governement will get back all the black money that is lying in swiss bank. 

woooooh...now this was the height of non-sense ( no I seriously mean it). How can this agenda beome a public agenda? Aren't you supposed to sliently handle such a sensitive issue and make it public only when you have got success.

Have you even seen the crime brnach annoucning about the clues that they have got to nab the criminal? 

If you are with me in opinion share this article with your friends and let all pro BJP people read this and let this reach Mr Advani Ji and and the BJP high command so that they are better prepared in 2014 to give us an alternative option to UPA. 

The more the competetion between these two main national parties the better for us " We the people of India".

Pakistan players ruled out of IPL

Pakistan players will not feature in the second edition of the Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi has confirmed.

Eleven Pakistan players who participated in the IPL last year while five more had been included on a list of over 100 players drawn up for an auction ahead of this year`s tournament. But Pakistan's Foreign Office, however, refused to grant permission to players to travel to India due to deteriorating diplomatic and political ties between the countries.

"We have informed the IPL and the Board of Control for Cricket in India of the Pakistan's government's decision not to allow players to travel to India for the IPL," Pakistan Cricket Board's chief operating officer Saleem Altaf said.

The five players included for Friday's auction were removed from the list, which was trimmed down to just 43 players overall.

"The Pakistan Cricket Board has informed us that no Pakistan players will be allowed to play in the IPL," Modi confirmed.

"This is something which is beyond our control."

The majority of Pakistan's players who had participated in the first edition have three-year contracts in place with the IPL.

Champions Rajasthan Royals will be the hardest hit as they will now be without left-arm seamer Sohail Tanvir, the highest wicket-taker in the Twenty20 competition last year with 21.

The Jaipur-based team have two other Pakistan players in their ranks, while Kolkata Knight Riders have the maximum number of four.

But the Pakistan's government's decision also means the IPL franchisees will not have to pay these players.

Google's blunder ever

Google did a blunder of their life today when by mistake the search engine placed the entire internet on a blacklist which caused every site, that appeared as a search result in the search engine's result pages, to be marked as potentially harmful and dangerous.

This caused the Search giant an embarrassment and a search advertisement loss of $2-3m. The problem affected internet pages across the world, and lasted for around 40 minutes before engineeers were able to fix it.

Google blamed "human error" when an engineer tried to add one web address to the list of those deemed suspicious, and mistakenly added them all.

"We periodically receive updates to that list and received one such update to release on the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file," Google said in its official blog.