Bullshit tax laws

I know that if i ever run for a public post, i can win by a comfortable majority....provided the voters have commonsense. Most of the elections are farce, they call it democratic and yet when illiterates creep into the system, the outcome is obvious. So lets not go in that direction...my point is about senseless tax laws. I still dont get it as to why they say income tax and the income after tax is again taxed when you buy things. I mean does it make sense at all? and if i ask people around they start lecturing me about income tax going to federal/central govt and sales tax going to state. I am not that dumb to understand the existing system. I have gone through the pain of studying civics along with history. I still dont get it as to what can u do knowing history....and on a lighter side --> The history repeats and hence there is no need to understand and remember history :D

Knowing history can only make you a popat...popat=Parrot in hindi, you can be a good popat when you have history at your tongue tip and can win you admirers when exact dates and events are narrated. Back to taxes, doesnt it make sense to issue a kind of tax card which you can use it to avoid paying sales tax? you must have a kind of photo id which also contains tax information, if the records on swipe shows that you have already paid tax then you need not be charged sales tax on the already taxed income. So if there are some who are avoiding taxes then sales tax could be collected on purchase. This system sounds sane to me rather than the existing one. if i stand in the election and if i win, then i will bring in these new tax laws.

I also dont understand the concept of political morons going for more taxes to rich, i mean some people are rich as they work hard, they provide jobs for others. So why penalize them for working 20+ hours a day and working under pressure? For someone gone through 16+ years of schooling and 10+yrs of industrial exp is bound to start a company and any company exists for profits. There isnt any company that is social company, the only social company i know of is the company you get when you booze :D. So if someone is not rich then blame it on fate and blame it on the laziness factor. Vote me and i will put an end to this crap

The Dog menace

I just hate the pets, i dont even want to use the word "dont like" instead of hate. I really dont think that a human is not developed much to take care of himself or herself, how can he or she take care of another soul == Pets. The most common pet i hate is the dog, i dont know but i hate them for a reason. I am confused whether to hate them or the people who own them. Anyways the owners of the dog are dogs and their dogs are much worse when they show off their owner's ego. I have come across dogs who wont bark at rich and good looking people but will give out a bark or two if it someone shabby looking moves across them. Atleast in bangalore, i know the ground reality where there are three kinds of dogs- The real dog, The stray dog and the bloody humans who own these dogs. The stray dog can be given a 9.0 as they keep chasing you in packs, trying to bite and cause harm, no idea why they do that way. If you are brave enough, try to walk on the streets after 9 pm and one will know what i am talking of, these stray dogs dont care and have no respect for human laws :D, they just chase 4 wheelers, 2 wheelers, old guys who go for a walk, kids, middle aged folks....in short they dont care about gender, race or caste. The real dog gets a 5.0 as they are OK but again they can drive you to nuts with their constant barking all 24 X 7. The human dogs who own these dogs can be given a scale of 10.0, they are the worst of the kind who just own dogs as status symbol, as an arrogant symbol of themselves. These people are the real culprits who throw away their dogs once they think their dog has become a liability, these dogs then go on streets and breed to raise the street-mad-dog-stray dogs. Whatever people think of me, i dont care....my outburst is justified by this article.....

While things have returned to normal after a Kingfisher Airlines aircraft on Thursday hit a dog on the runway at the Bangalore Airport during its takeoff , urgent measures are being taken to contain the animal menace on the runway. Dog catching squad at the old airport in Bangalore on Friday rounded up stray dogs in the airport’s vicinity. Several passengers were stranded after the accident caused the Hyderabad-bound plane's nose landing gear to collapse. “It is most unfortunate that the dog menace at Airports in India still persists and that an incident occurred today in Bangalore," Chairman and CEO Kingfisher Airlines Vijay Mallya said in a statement issued to the media soon after the accident.

I think all those animal activists like menaka gandhi et al must sit up and ponder over their support for these dogs. I still remember that menaka gandhi was the culprit who rein gave a free rein of terror for these dogs to openly flout all human made laws and charter the unwritten constitution way :D ... Well no offense meant but i still hate the dogs.

Mobile Phones players fighting for 2nd spot

Gone are the days when Motorola commanded first place, its probably behind sony ericsson and samsung. Apple with its pleasant UI has taken the first position. But the cost is the worrying factor there. Now the only way for the other players to give apple a run for money is to get into accessory and service businesses which could tie it up with their own product. The main factors/features one looks for is cost, weight, dimensions and misc features...may be not in the same order. But there is one more domain ---> Sophisticated Accessories and services. No one has entered the business of content rental, no one has come up with a virtual screen which could give the same effect as a TV. Again no one listens to me when i speak out, too bad that they cant hire me to go ahead in the wild race :(

My take will be sophisticated accessories, i had the tiny screen and its high time. I had worked for a proposal to create foldable screens for mobiles, so that user need not use scroll features, but i really liked the arrival of swivel screen which could be either positioned horizontal or vertical, but the main problem with this one is that it adds dimensions. The foldables or swivels or sliders makes the mobiles thicker, its weight goes up if you use traditional materials, if you go for lighter ones then the cost goes up. I had seen some kind of a glasses way back few years ago which had the capability of projecting images in front of the eyes that gives the same effect as a big screen. Now i dont know whats the problems with that kind of technology, all one needs to do is integrate that technology into accessories where you wear those glasses and can instantly view a lot of data rather than using scrolls. As its the time for mobile TV or mobile movies, its high time such technology could get back motorola or sony back in business by going in for this hi-def glasses that could convert watching content on mobile phones a pleasant experience. The only problem with the downloadable media content is the waste of air time, wont it be great to allow rental concept of those clips for prices as low as itune songs? All one needs to do is go to a vending machine like kiosk, flash their phone to instantly download contents via a cable or add on cards, the charges would be billed to their accounts. Save on airtime, save on money and buy those super glasses to enjoy the content. Hmmm as usual, its for those ambitious players to take this idea to next level and get on to grab the first position!!!! and its just that i am helpless and hopeless to push such things because of money constraints :'(

Can Accessory

Sometimes its so ridiculous to buy a can of soda and have to drink it in a jiffy.. if u dont follow this process then the soda is so unpalatable if taken in small sips over a period of time. Some may argue that for a small price, 40 cents at walmart and 70 cents in univ vending machines, dont matter much. But i fail to agree to this argument of low price products must be consumed in a short span of time. I would agree to this argument if and only if the time frame is like a month or year. But come on u just dont drink it off in a minute or 5 minutes. The problem is that the chilled cola soda tastes better and is lot for refreshing than a un-fizz, warm or room temperature cola and another problem is that for the money paid, you dont get to finish off all the traces in the can. So i was thinking a way to solve this problem so that the soda's life time out of refrigeration is atleast a decent 2 to 5 hours. Just imagine you are in a marathon meeting and need to sip little quantities rather than leave the room twice or thrice.

Now look at my proposed small accessory, its a straw with a bent bottom to suck up all those tiny itsy bitsy droplets. The top has a lid to keep all the fizz back in the can, then a rubber stopper to clamp down at the can opening. This will atleast keep the fizz inside, now the option to keep the can losing out its cold temperature is to have a foamy insulated material that can form as a sort of a gripper and as an insulated material. If these accessories could be priced around a dollar .... straw and gripper, then i think it would sell well and also help slow-sippy soda enjoyer like me to get the quality for my money. Any takers around for this one? if so leave a comment.

In Rome be a Roman

This proverb---"In Rome be a Roman", is quiet true in a lot of cases. But i dont understand the ethics and crap that is enforced by the governments. The latest to be in the news is Alcoa, the 3rd largest third aluminum producer in the world. Lately its under fire from the justice department over allegations the company bribed officials in Bahrain in an effort to obtain business. This is what happens in almost all the asian countries. Never knew its happening in the middle east too. I dont see a logic as to why US justice dept is after Alcoa. Its between the company and bahrain government and if corruption thrives in their kingdom, they better go after their own corrupt officials and not after this company. If the company tries to be a saint and follows all the rules then it better shut down its door on day 1 as they will go nowhere. Let them come to india and use the saintly characteristics and approach the government keeping in mind all the rules and regulations. It will be a joke and i will have the last laugh!!! Its high time they enforce this proverb legally and define that its ok to be unethical outside as long as the "unwritten law" of the land is followed :D

Next step for animation companies

There has been mushrooming of animation companies in india after some of them got big projects from the US. Some had luck in minting money like sahara tried its hand in hanuman and return of hanuman, greengold making it big with krishna series and now venturing into bheem and other cartoon. Krishna got a slot on CartoonNetwork and was an instant hit. But somehow these people arent as business oriented as US companies which creates a brand out of the cartoon. Just visit ToysRus and you can see so many toys based on these cartoon themes...be it raichu or pokemon or starwars or spongebob. Many of movies are spin out as money making games, its high time these animation studios start building their own line of cartoons and project it to the west. Instead of guns and violence, some can put in hanuman and say that this cartoon beats the raakshas thus moving the kids away from reality. What happens when you play Grand Theft et al is that things are so close to reality that one gets tendency to get violent and even grab a gun to release your anger. But with cartoons like Krishna or hanuman, there may not be tendency to get violent as these raakshas wont have even the closest similarity to humans :D . I had written to greengold to venture in this but no reply ... they seem to be like any other company. Sometimes you need to listen to the market and end users as to what they need. so a good relations is needed to get the inner vibes of the market. If only i had that kind of money ... i could have done the impossible. But again I still have time to strike it rich

This happens if you dont identify the problem

I have seen that india is the most democratic county when it comes to spitting paan in public or urinating in public. The govt of karnataka has this scheme of getting after the violators by photographing them and levying a fine, but the corrupt cops pocketed the money and things went no where. Now did any person identify the cause at all? why is it that people are doing this? But look at what ghaziabad administration has come up with?

Men treating walls as public toilets is a common problem across this country, but Ghaziabad administration has come up with a unique solution. Fed up with the men treating city walls as public toilets, the city administration has installed mirrors on the walls with the slogan "What you do, the world sees" inscribed alongside. The move is aimed at all those who see a dry wall and feel it's their duty to wet it. The idea is to let people reflect on their wrong doings and broadcast their acts live to passersbys.

This is just sheer nonsense, i dont know who came up with this crappy idea? no one whether sane or insane likes to urinate in public. Its just that they dont find public restrooms or even if they find one, its so filthy that the urine is cleaner than the restroom itself. Atleast in the US, all these eat outs or gas stations have public restrooms and in a way no one urinates in public. Its high time that the govt constructs public restrooms at certain distance and look at the results...rather than putting a mirror. My God!! i dont know who came up with this idea. If a state is ruled by a @#$#^#*@&@ like mayavathi, whatelse can you expect? Everything is a maya/illusion and one must just close one's eyes, one's nose when you cross the streets.

Search Engine Market

One of my friend was telling as to how there is lot of space in the search engine market and its up for grabs. Too much money in this domain that there has been mushrooming of companies around. Antya.com is one such engine which uses the human powered search. My friend was telling about the complexities in the current times where the web is growing like crazy and how relevancy will help taking the market share. My question to him was simple..what do u get from indexing and displaying results? i mean how does the revenue come in if its not for adsense type model. Lately there has been lot of talk about adsense losing its cutting edge with revenues taking a hit. My take on searches is this, do a category based search ...like say product search or people search etc. So its this is hard, i would propose this model where when users key in the search words, you prompt them to select the combo words along with the keywords like say ... if the user types in apple, you instantly recognize apple as apple+fruit, apple+juice, apple+company etc, so if the user says never mind and searches then show him all those results, if they want to narrow down the search then they better select these combo words which will make things easier and precise. Or it must be categorized as say who is searching for what. say a techie is looking for apple computers, he will obviously look for apple computers and not apple juice, if a health freak is searching for apple then its either the fruit or the juice. so it would be handy to know the person well before displaying results. Its a big pain to index million sites with spams and crap. Another model could be to do like a wikipedia where you stream all those data or links to a specific thing ...... like say apple will mean fruit and there is only one apple fruit, if its a company then there is only one apple company. so all those data on the web could be channelized to point to this thing. Unless someone does these, search engines wont be efficient and user friendly.

pizzas cost a lot :(

Was shocked to see that prices of pizza are on the rise...blame it on the economy. The dollars falling which is putting a stop on the purchasing power of the consumer. But the main culprit is the cost of wheat, wheat prices are shooting up so fast due to the fact that importing wheat is costing a lot..so its not the pizza alone but bread and baked products will keep rising it. Now that keeps me off subway too, too bad its happening when it must not happen. But others are blaming on low supplies from australia as imports are hit for crop failures. Oil prices are rising which increases transportation costs, job cuts and cuts on budget is putting a tight lid on money flow in the economy. Then the farmers are growing on corn in lands which used to grow wheat once upon a time. All these factors and many more are putting people in tight spot. As they say that "all difficulties come in flocks"...too bad when i am struggling to get rich :(

What a shame!

There is a saying which goes like "a guest is like a god", but in taslima's case the government treated her worse to a criminal. I dont know why the current government is so shy at taking right decisions. It always has this shaky feet and is so scared to move forward but surprisingly it ca step backward with ease. Taslima's case is like a muslim VS muslim, and the government which calls itself secular [needs to either change meaning of secular or must understand what is secular] was caught in the wrong foot, if it was majority VS minority, its easy for the govt to gag the majority and pander to minority. I really dont think that Taslima crossed the line anywhere as long as she was in india, she was heckled wherever she went and i saw that video report where some fundamentalist moron threw slippers at her in a public meeting and it was shown repeatedly on the news channel but even to date no action is taken. Its a real shame that these so called govt representatives ... be it ruling or opposition has spolit our cultural image by resorting to vote bank politics. I really look forward to military rule in india where whatever religion you want to practice ...must be limited to your personal space. It was sad to hear what Taslima said when she left to an unknown destination

"I was put under tremendous stress but I could not speak out as I was under their (government) surveillance and could be harassed by them," she said in a choked voice from the British capital. "The government (Indian) is no better than religious fundamentalists," she said. Nasreen said she used to call the government safe-house in Delhi where she was put up as the "torture chamber". "I gradually came to realise that it was the chamber of death instead," Taslima said, adding she was forced to leave India because of "extreme stress" that she went through the last four months"

Now what is to be seen is whether they treat Dalai Lama the same way as her if china requested dalai to be put on gag?

is it worth holding an indian passport?

It looks as if you are better off if you are citizen of some other country. Its really an handicap being a citizen of india and holding an indian passport, i landed in singapore and the immigration refused to give me a transit visa since i was an indian citizen with indian passport. I wanted that visa so that i can roam around the city and kill time. i had the next connecting flight 8hrs later and all i could do was sit around for a few minutes before i noticed singapore tourism booth which offered bus rides on condition that you surrender your passport. Land in the middle east and you are treated as junk, the airport officials are rarely helpful and dont give you proper directions, on the contrary they yell at you for no reason, even if you are standing to get clearance for transit visa...an arab is given higher preference compared to you. I also saw many indians working hard to earn something to send some money back home so that their folks get a good life. Its a real shame that India talks of getting the global edge and is moving towards being a global power. Its light years away to taking that position. From being one of the earliest of the civilizations, its has let go that leading edge. If one looks at the united states, they always stand behind their citizens where-ever they are, they are looked after so well that any harm to its citizens keeps US on the move and they will get them out ... no matter what. Now lets shift to our own position. In malaysia, when our own citizens asked for a backing, india kept mum ... i dont know for what reason, now look at Sarabjit Singh case where india is not even making any effort to save someone who suffered just for his country's well being. if Sarabjit is a spy then he took that path to serve the country and undergoing the pain and suffering. It is really ungrateful on india's part in not doing anything to repay anything, They dont even treat his parents well when they go to seek audience with the govt officials. Now do u think after this incident and many more like these..anyone will actually have the same nationalism and bonding? It took kashmir singh so much time to get out of the jail and he was given media attention for a day or so and he is nowhere on the news. Countless people have so much love and respect for the country but its not getting translated into anything worth. All the people over there come out in droves to have glimpse of our movie stars, they have so much admiration for cricket stars but have no respect and admiration for these unsung heroes. Its a real shame that being an indian citizen means nothing at all, the country doesnt even send commandos to rescue these folks stranded in a foreign country, they dont do a thing to save this guy who loved his country so much that he took the job of a spy. I dont know how those govt officials and minsters can have a night's sleep when that person is rotting in the jail facing all those humiliations and seeing his imminent death. Indian govt gives out a call to all NRI's to take up positions in DRDO and help build cutting edge technology? so i am asking this question to the reader of this blog .... "is it anything at all being an indian citizen and holding an indian passport?"

Things lose value over time

Recently heard someone narrate a news about how some young kid publicized his suicide and recorded that and streamed it on youtube. Its pathetic to see how people chose the wrong option to get out of the mess they have created themselves. Earlier, people would become kamikaze and sacrifice their life for the country. Japanese bettered this art by driving their planes straight into enemy front lines. There were thousands of unknown female folks who committed suicide when mughals attacked the rajput kingdoms. The current day folks seem to think that they are under a lot of pressure and the only way out is to give up one's life. Loving a girl...that too one sided... which often ends in failure leads genY to commit suicides. Some feel that the family, peer pressures are too high a value to undergo the torture. Freedom fighters in india's pre-independence era faced so much of torture that they didnt commit suicide, instead they bare their chest to drive the brits out. So the genY doesnt read these and understand things? But i am shell shocked to see all these things like if you dont spend money on these things then you are viewed as some low creature, or if you dont move around in a car then no girl will fall for you, or if you dont take in drugs then you wont be allowed into socializing parties.... strange indeed that people call these pressures in life :O

The great Indian Dilemma

India is always in the news for the wrong reasons. Sometimes i do feel pity...thats a rare exception though. India is land locked and is always in trouble whether it sides with one party or remains neutral. Lets take it case by case
1) Pakistan is a pain in the neck....they push problems in but if you try to stop that then the muslims within try to voice their anger. If the govt doesnt take any action then the opposition and the hindus are up in arms.
2) LTTE is another pain in the neck...you support the sri lankans and the tamilnadu politicians are up in arms threatening to pull the government down. if you openly support LTTE then sri lanka allows ISI and terror outfits to operate on its soil.
3) if you try to remain neutral on nepal, the nepalis begin to point fingers so we have to side with them as its another launch pad for the terror outfits.
4) Bangladesh is another headache as they also try to push in terror outfits and anything you do is detrimental to india.
5) you try to support afghans then pakistan starts to be belligerent towards india.
6) Try iran for our oil needs, the US comes in accusing india of helping a country which is on the axis of evil and threaten sanctions.
7) Move towards the US, the left parties threaten to pull the government and they force india to be friendly with china and russia.
8) Try pandering to china, dalai lama's issue is on the front page. switch sides to support Dalai then china will send things to pakistan.
9) show india is a secular country by support muslims and in turn palestine then israel wont help you in selling hi tech goods.

Now tibet is burning and i find it amusing as to why tibetians who are known for their patience and non violence is resorting to riots and burning? why at this time when olympics is about to start in china. Is it a ploy to push tibetian cause on the world stage? Who is behind the plot? China was minding its business and was rapidly expanding economically and now would some people who are jealous let china to go the way it want to? I doubt that...but again china is no saint as evident from events that has taken place in the past. China has this habit of assuming tibet belongs to them, arunachal pradesh belongs to them, snatched macau and hong kong already, was gifted part of kashmir by pakistan. In 100 years the chinese many claim that india belongs to them. Thats the headache and only way to go about is go on offensive and take responsible role and not be bogged down. Its an opportunity for india to go offensive and force a peace on warring factions and eliminate trouble makers. But for now, india has to do what US is doing for taiwan in protecting Tibet militarily and economically hook or crook. If india fails to do anything then arunachal will go china's way and dont know how many more places. The left parties are mum too and they dont care of what happens to monks but would spring up if something happened to muslims in gujarat. As of now all eyes on the Dalai and his tibet, this time will buddha smile again?

Do Not Disturb

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday notified its decision to fine cellphone operators for failing to act against pesky telemarketers harassing subscribers listed on the National Do Not Call Registry (NDNCR). Now isnt that an opportunity to turn tables? All one needs to do is .. call up listen to the advertisements and promotions to earn minutes free or lower your bills if and only if you allow telemarketers to call u up, listen to ads for a month while you earn free SMS. This is an opportunity for them to go for a kill. To keep tabs on smart people, one must implement a sort of a system like....say someone calls to hear the ad but the general tendency is to call up and keep the phone away so that they dont need to listen to the ad, but if one implements a thing like.....put on random interactive thing where the voice on the other end will say "please enter 5 to continue" at random times, so a person needs to hear to that to do as instructed and once the ad promotion is completed, minutes are added to your account. Isnt that a brilliant idea? ah come on just compliment me once.

Toys R Us

My friend will be leaving to india for a vacation and he wanted to shop for toys to give it as present to his nephew and niece. I had gone along with him to Toys R Us and i was shocked for a moment to see all those toys in that hugeeeee shop. There were so many sections each lined up with that particular cartoon character...be it kermit or starwars characters, dino, pokemon, raichu, mickey, donald etc etc etc. When i was a kid i had this bad habit of pulling down the parts of my toys, just that curiosity to know whats going on inside and why that toy acted that way. Most of the toys i had were cars, helicopter with a key, hot wheels car, electronic toys...never were those cars or toys in that place, it was full of toys...be it dolls, remote controlled cars, helicopters, toy guns which sprays sponge pellets or soft balls, starwars toys, lego ones, talking toys, toy computers..wow, so many and for a moment i was stunned and stood there admiring those hi tech toys with only thing running in my mind..."come on tear that open and look into the mechanics behind it"..but whatever it is..ToysRUs rocks big time and i just want to grow younger to check each and every toy and enjoy every moment, too bad its not possible :(

India's Jockshock

Jock=Short form of Disc Jockey
Jock Shock= A Disc Jockey who shocks
I used to listen to his voice on Anil Ki Aawaz and whenever he used to be on air, the program would start with .... this is u r host "Anillllll Srivatsaaaa". Anil was one of the early internet radio pioneers...with a degree in media and communications plus his shocking taboo talks/topics helped build his fans and non-fans aka people who liked to hate him. He moved onto television for a short stint in ImagineAsiaTV and then moved back to india to become a COO for Radio Today's FM. I was expecting him to do something again and he proved it by starting an FM-MeowFM - "Just for Women" Radio station. Never knew women had patience to listen to radio as i know them to have liking to shopping, making trips to beauty parlours, gossips et al, but a radio station for these ppl? or may be that indian women folks have changed over the century. His radio seems to be as popular as any other TV serial :D or wait is it because of Anil's magnetic personality? eh? His popularity is evident from the fact that he has 3 profiles as orkut has a limit on the number of friends. Whoever wrote/write offs radio as an obsolete must look up and anil who bring in innovative things to keep things afloat.

Animations in India

Founded in 2001 and fast forward to 2008 equals recognition and rapid growth. I still remember those boring cartoon on doordashan....especially those indian made ones, even sometimes the russian imported ones seemed better. I would always look out for disney cartoon on sundat mornings, but the villain always was Karnataka Electricity Board. They are the worst run corporation I have ever come across with rampant load shedding especially on sunday mornings. Anyways its 2008 now, 32 years have passed by without any change in the attitude of Electricity supply board but a lot has changed in the animation industry. A decade ago, Pentamedia of pentafour fame used be in the limelight but now i think greengold is leading the way along with Silver Line. Silver line is famous for its hanuman range backed by sahara one group. Hanuman is a decent one with the first one related to the actual story and after building the brand image, Hanuman returns had an innovative story line with good adaptation. But green gold is offering various cartoons and the most important being the ability to capture a timeslot on Cartoon Network which has the largest kid following. The winning quality with greengold is the depiction of expressions on Krishna's face. It looks realistic and has a great potential if they could iconify or copyright those faces and spin off into a sort of toys and dolls offerings. The merchandise value for such things runs high and wonder why greengold isnt thinking of those. Another biggest market is the games market with huge potential to rapidly expand. Sometimes i feel why indians not as shrewd as the americans. Disney has built a hugggggeee fortune in mickey, donald et al characters and its high time these animation people get the games out and flood the indian and overseas market. For $100 a pop, there would be no need to go for an IPO. Second strategy used by greengold is opening up training classes, this will help increase interests of people and show the way for better and better quality cartoons. But no one has come close to pixar yet, but its time that indian ones will go for the kill sooner or later, there is a huge talent base in india but lack of knowledge or fear of not being an engg or doctor is the only factor that is blocking the careers of 1000s of people in the field of animation. I hope greengold thinks of ways to start a sort of cult following for krishna et al cartoons.

The world is a stage and .......

There is a saying that goes like "World is a stage where you need to act and get through with life"...but lately it wouldnt be improper to say "World is a stage which is seized by morons and you need to tolerate these junk". I dont know why nature isnt proceeding towards adaptation in line with Darwin's theory. Man is killing the nature hence nature has stopped refining him into a better being? No idea what is happening. i was shocked at this news report which is ridiculous.

MUMBAI: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, India (PETA) on Thursday filed a notice against Hindustan Petroleum and Indian Oil Corporation Ltd before a committee monitoring animal welfare laws in Maharashtra. The dealers of these companies have been using bullocks to pull heavy kerosene tankers through the streets of Mumbai in violation of law. In its application the NGO says its volunteers had been "watching with concern the unfortunate plight of the bullocks used to draw kerosene tankers in Mumbai". Read it further here

I dont know why PETA exists in first place. If you closely monitor who join such things, 99% of the members are there just for publicity and most of them use this as a sort of platform to get popular or push their agenda. If i were in the media business, i would do a sting operation in exposing their double standards. I bet many of them are hypocrites....meaning they are good at preaching and fall sick when they put things into practice...simple example would be some of the members may be meat eaters...the reason they might get when caught would be "well this chicken or goat was killed ethically". Then there are some more who oppose street dog's termination must be allowed to stay on streets, then they will know the menace of street dogs, how they attack people who dare to go on streets at night. I bet 99% of PETA members would be violating their own norms, like drinking milk or coffee or tea with a dash of milk...Same is the case with green peace, narmada andolan etc etc..all these NGOs are politically backed and they are like a tool to fulfil someone's wants. Its really sad that we have to tolerate all these kinds of specimens.

PS: I am pure vegetarian who have been this way all my life. so if someone thinks that i am pushing the agenda of benefits of meat eating then they are way off the target. i always see any living being as a living being just like us, everything has a soul and treating them bad is a big No No, so if these organizations are cleaned off publicity seekers then world will be a better place

DRDO turns to NRIs to reverse brain drain!!

Wohooo so DRDO finally gets up to honor those who got honored in America? Good O Lord, atleast they are making an effort...Times of India for a change has put this news on front page, they have sacrificed a lot by providing some space for this news. All one can see on times of india is some adult news, some adult pics on the top right or some NRI news. Anyways the article says
"The scheme for NRIs, though still in its infancy, has already netted at least 40 PhDs and MTechs working in academics or industry in countries like US, UK, Japan and Sweden. We are intensifying the drive. In 2007 alone, we received 150 applications from NRI scientists and engineers and finally picked up 22. The number of applicants is increasing, with the majority coming from US," a top DRDO scientist told TOI on Wednesday. NRIs in the 35 to 45 age-group, having worked abroad for 10 or more years, have enough buffer money. If they want to come back to their kith and kin, we can provide them with job satisfaction," said a senior DRDO official. "We also give value in terms of accommodation, working environment and facilities in our labs, health benefits, pension and the like," he added. Then, of course, DRDO has demanded a ‘performance-based incentive package’ for scientists, over and above the revision in salaries, from the 6th Pay Commission. This includes proposals like a Rs 10,000 award for every patent being filed or a paper being published in a reputed journal, as also a ‘technology-transfer fee’ for every lab-to-industry transfer. DRDO scientists say Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself has promised to them that careers in science will be made ‘more attractive from all perspectives’ to stem brain drain."

First mistake they are doing is this, opening up quotas for minorities and throwing us out. Corruption taking the toll, IT misused left and right, when priority is given to IT and rural ... who damn cares about innovation and science? The way DRDO has treated my dad for his service, I wouldnt dare go and act as if nothing happened. Wouldnt go even if they paid me in dollars and gave me free rein or independent research status. The thing is India is a great country but i dont like the ways some goons are running my home country. Second thing is why cant they go the easy route of paying russians or the americans money and get the best weapons? ... in a way this is more profitable as there is a way to get kickbacks and pocket tax payers money!!!

Walmart will stock Bollywood DVDs

Bollywood movies at walmart in US and cannada? Yesss its possible now thanks to a tie-up between Eros and Walmart. Is there so much craze for bollywood recent substandard script that walmart is willing to lend its valuable shelf space to Eros? One can get latest DVDs at desi stores for around $1-$3 a DVD, will eros try to flood walmart with $16 DVDs which would interest many americans? I doubt it, americans will probably get confused seeing a rip off of hollywood's movies in strange language and with interesting endings :D

Even if its an oscar winning movie, i wouldnt pay $16 and keep a copy as something like some Holy Grail. I dont know why people keep collections.... is it for some sinister ulterior motive of selling off at a kill after 100 yrs? When you watch a movie and you know what it is about and how it ends, there is no fun at all in keeping a copy to be watched after 10 years unless its some dirty A movie. I really dont see things getting sold like hot cakes for $16, if its priced around $3 there is a probability that the desi crowd would go for it.

ICL + IPL + Cricket = Circus

The circus is back in town in a new form....20/20 the shortest form of the game. The hype is so much that it has brought in bollywood, BCCI, Zee together and has made the players too costly. One thing what we dont know is whether these tamasha matches are more or less like scripted soap opera? The players are given hefty salaries to play their part and keep the crowd enthralled? is the betting cartel opening up new ways to make money? Are they trying to glorify cricket akin to WWF by scripting this act? No one knows for sure and i doubt if people will lap it up like they religiously follow football and NFL. One reason why the business model works here is that they work harder and party harder, they take out an excuse to enjoy the game. But in India are the new generation so stressed up and working harder that they will use cricket as a way to relax and get together? Its been too much cricket and if one starts crossing out the days which have a cricket schedule, i doubt if there are any days left which arent marked. So how long will this circus last? I vaguely remember that much of the hype was put into hockey and i think Vijay Mallya was promoting this as well as football with "FC" suffix teams...but both flopped. The logic behind this 20/20 circus is because india is flooded with cricket religion? Even the quote says "having too much of immoral nectar gets transformed to poison". I learnt from the marketing course that you cannot create a need, you can just create a product or service to satisfy this need. So is cricket watching a need for viewers? I dont know what logic is behind pouring in this much millions into something that may not yield billions as revenue. As they say "Only Time can tell the tale" and i will wait for that day when i get proved wrong and the cartels win taking advantage of morons :D ... but they are using bollywood nymphs and scantily clothed imported and desi dancers as cheer leaders. a cheap shot eh?

Jamba ai-ka-ramba

Jamba sells blended fresh-fruit beverages with nutrient-packed power boosts. They talk of no tolerance towards man made processed ingredients like corn syrup or trans fat .... Yummy Yummy!! Now they are jumping into breakfast segment by offering all-natural baked goods, granola and yogurt blends in addition to its cornerstone juices and smoothies and prodding Americans to be & stay healthy by enjoy the much needed skipped breakfast. Now a days many companies are jumping into this bandwagon but some like starbucks is jumping out. One way to send the message across is eat healthy, stay healthy and keep the doctors away. But one worry is that they are entering in when there are talks of recession and pink-slip season setting in. If jamba gets into the gym business or use gyms as their distribution center then its a good strategy to pull away from the rest. They could start with the message of be healthy by eating healthy and staying fit and healthy. This sort of message is good as is evident from the fact that the volume of sales of cereals and granola or health bars. So if jamba's people read this post, they must get some idea :D
The shameless message i could send is "Please Hire Me!!"

Bargains drive up sales of homes

Det News article "

DETROIT -- After more than three years of declines in home sales, prices and new construction, Metro Detroit could be taking a step toward a housing recovery.

For the third month in a row, sales of single-family houses and condominiums in the four-county region have increased over the same month a year ago.

In the February data released Tuesday, sales were up 13.8 percent over February 2007, according to Realcomp, the Farmington Hills-based multiple listing service. In December sales were up 7.3 percent from the same month a year earlier, and in January they were 15.2 percent.

Wooohoo i was right in predicting what will happen to the housing market in my previous post. So its moving in the right direction by cutting supply virtually. I mean Virtually here because, there are already many unsold and defaulted homes around, only way to cut down supply is to refuse to sell it at a price below certain buffer value. So what happens is that just put a bait and keep on flooding the news media with housing slump, no one wants homes, its all cheap now and you may get for a deal. When people are exposed to such news, the tendency is to go and look at prices. Trick here is that say you mark the price of a house as $100,000. 10 people with varying budgets will look at this one, 5 out of them may look at factors like location, the depreciation costs, the built up sq feet etc etc. 5 will be interested and will have a budget of $100k to $150k, so when there is 1 house and 5 people for it, the bidding war follows and its like an increased local demand. When you string together n-local demands, you have a whole demand curve with supply curve dictating the cost. So eventually sooner or later, a time will come when the housing market will reach previous level. Another factor driving the cost up and sales is that those fence watchers will buy it with a hope to sell it off at a kill. So all those rich guys and investors will jump into fray. Mark my words as this will happen sooner or later all round the US.

TiVo to let users view YouTube

Tivo the creator and pioneer of Personal Video recorders or Digital VRs are moving in a wrong direction by trying to increase value added advantage to its customers. It would have made sense if TiVo had signed up a deal with blockbuster or netflix as it would have been better to stream movies on demand for half or quarter the rental rates thus avoiding postage charges, delays, the rising cost of gasoline. By signing up with youtube, they are making a mistake of trying to go in for poor quality videos with useless picture magnification scales. I dont know if youtube purposefully uploads substandard quality on the web, if tivo tries to stream this low quality one onto TV screens, i fear the quality will bring bad name to Tivo. Tivo needs to move in opposite directions and shouldnt go in for computer and TV convergence with its DVR boxes.

Online Movie / download model

It was way back in 2000 when i landed in the US and was stunned to get a feel of video based learning, it was like this...if you had enrolled for a course and if that course was also available to distance education students then you also had the privilege to watch courses you bunked or to listen to those courses again to get the concept. At that time i was so excited to have a feel of this technology and also a kick of using the super fast internet for virtually free. An idea flashed in my mind as to talk to people who may be interested in online download model, so the only name i knew at that time was vinod khosla...because of sun microsystem's popularity and sabeer bhatia...because of hotmail success. Also 2000 was more or less like dotcom model everywhere, by that time i think the investors had a clue of the impending bubble burst. I contacted vinod khosla as i had his email listed on some site. He politely declined saying it was not his domain to invest. So i thought may be i was dumb in proposing this idea. The slowly pre-2005, things have started moving due to internet speeds, Napster, P2P etc. If napster was positioned properly then it could have triggered the movie and season episodes revolution. But somehow no one came up with this. Now there are so many players in the rental and download domain. The latest to jump is bigflicks with a backing of Ambani Brand Name. They have huge access to movie content due to acquisition of Adlabs and also strategic buy outs of many multiplexes in the US. So it makes sense for them to be in rental business and online download model. But it doesnt make sense to price the downloads pegged at around $9.99, if it was priced around $4 or so, it could start the trend as you can get an illegal DVD copy for $1 or $2 a pop, plus $2 for gasoline to go there and pick it up + time spent in driving there = around $5. But $9.99 is too high a price which is like 100% premium for new movies and i dont think anyone wants to pay $4 or $5 for older movies. Another advantage is that 99% of the movies that are getting released are crap and i wouldnt spend even $1 plus 3 hrs of my time to watch the crap. So if Anil Ambani reads this one, he better lower the prices as there are many players in this market and he needs to go for pricing advantage to get the market share. I was surfing the free movies in there, most of them are adult rated ones and is it like a bait to get people used to this site? Very Very very bad move in getting users into this site.

Religion+Political leaning=One's private issues

I always felt that one couldnt choose one's religion when you were born but could do so later where you switch faith either you are pissed off with the existing one or you are getting some kind of incentive converting to another. Whatever the case may be, i agree with china's concept of keep all the crap inside and perform things inside the privacy of your homes and dare the risk of showing one's affection and beliefs in public. The same is the case with political leaning, you dont go around thumping your chest that you steadfastly support some party or aligning with some party's objective. This ranting is due to a news article .....

New Delhi: At a time, when a political battle is being fought in Parliament on the very existence of Ram, a different version of Ramayana is being shown in several parts of Uttar Pradesh. The CD shows Lord Ram in poor light. He is portrayed as someone who was anti-Dalit, so much that he even killed a Dalit, whose feet he touches by mistake. The clips were exclusively available with news channel IBN 7 and are all part of a movie called Teesri Aazadi. The movie is being produced and sold in many parts of UP and Gujarat by an organisation called Bhimrao Ambedkar Samaj Sudhar Samiti. Activists of this organisation claim that they have the support of a BSP MP. However, the MP seems to deny encouraging the organisation.

I see this as a cheap shot in highlighting the ills of being a hindu and a stimulus to get the membership drive up and running for some hidden agenda. Thing is no one cares a damn in cities and they must target the confused segments with poor family values and culture to get popular. There wont be any credibility at all if it comes from someone who have little knowledge of what he or she is talking about. Its akin to a milkman concocting a new drink and trying to say that his cocktail is better than coke and pepsi because coke and pepsi use water and he is using milk and water...both natural ingredient :D ...He may get some publicity to some extent and some curious customers on the fringe or someone who hates colas may become a steadfast supporter and loyal consumer. But which is important....eroding a major market share of established existing company or get the consumers who werent drinking any colas?

I still dont get it

The topic of the day in the economic class was "Monopoly, oligopoly, perfect competition, imperfect competition, monopolistic competition". The concepts were all ok and true but what i couldnt understand is the anti trust crap, the notion of preventing collusions, price fixing etc. God Himself is into bias, nature is biased towards certain beings, nothing in this universe is a platform for perfect competition. Even darwin said "survival of fittest", the resources are so less that there will always be competition and mind you....there will be no perfect competition at all. Knowing all these things, Govts are foolish enough to swim against this and show itself as being fair enough.

Even simple things like .... being fair and handsome gets you an advantage over others in the field of acting, being fair and beautiful is an advantage of any girl to be a chooser, getting a degree from MIT or stanford is an open seasoned ticket to anything in the world, having an heft bank balance is also an open ticket to buy anything, being an investor and venture capitalist lets oneself choose the best and make money out of the startup...the list goes on and on. Nothing is perfect at all and the concept of anti trust case against microsoft or a delay tactics in allowing google to buy out double click etc etc doesnt make sense to me at all!!!

TiVo

We had a case study discussion on Tivo like 2 weeks back and Tivo is in news!!! What a coincidence.

"TiVo Fourth-Quarter Loss Narrows; Hardware Costs Drop"

Tivo has a great technology but its failing to capitalize on its technology. No idea whats making them go downwards and stay at the bottom. Offering a product that has capability to record and replay things, timer based recording, recording of serials based on preset keywords etc etc must have kept it way above in profits, but its always been in the red zone for a long time....even now its struggling...or one can put it as "Decade old but still struggling to stand up"

The problem they are encountering is that they are offering a setup which is powered by linux OS and things gets stored on the hard disk, now why must a customer pay monthly subscription fee if they are recording stuff on their set-top box? I think this may be a reason as to why its not growing as expected. Second thing is they arent capitalizing on the fact that subscribers skip ads. If i were the CEO of Tivo, i would have embedded ads as and when someone skips the add, i would add text based ads running at the bottom or a permanent ad display on the top left/right.
I would have gone ahead and signed up with advertisers like google ad sense or someone who is good at text or context ads. When the user stops and skips ads, these ads will be beamed on resumption. This way the user need not pay for the monthly subscription. Second thing is who will pay $x for one time cost of the box and $n recurring costs in addition to cable TV subscription costs, instead the best way is to push this technology to comcast or Time warner and charge them per customer...license the technology where subscribers could use video on demand, where u hit the repeat and u r choice ... then that particular program will stream in.

• Local Context based ads or text ads sourced from google could supplement the revenue.
• Offering free set top boxes but clipping the ability to skip ads or embedding own ads.
• Local set top box must have 30 min recording facility and if users need more then paying for online storage space of say 10hrs or 24 hrs recording could be of variable pricing
  

Starbucks woes

What a coincidence!!! We were given a case study on starbucks and was due tonight. First it was Howard Schultz, coming back to take over as the CEO. There was another news of how they closed down an evening to train its baristas [ they call all entry level employees as baristas]. Now its US operations president steps down and wants to spend time with her folks. Starbucks' revenue seems to be slowing down due to various reasons, be it competition from low end players like Dunkin Donuts..who are offering 99 cents coffee or from regionally specialty coffee houses. Even on the international front, I had read a news of how Coffee Day, the indian starbucks, got hell lot of funding to take over the europe, middle eastern and african markets. So starbucks may be in real trouble both in domestic and international markets. The fierce competition is so evident that starbucks is climbing down to offer 99 cents coffee too. Coffee day has taken a leaf from starbucks and is replicating the samething like offering an atmosphere to drink coffee. I still remember that coffee day also had the same model of operating its own shop and started with offering whole beans as well as ground/roast powder. The only advantage coffee day has over others is that its run by SM Krishna's [ex-chief minister of karnataka] son-in-law and coincidently started when Krishna was CM of karnataka, they also have access to coffee planters co-operatives in kodagu region. You can call it the coffee cartels...now a venture that has the blessing of cartel and super politician, can do anything to stop starbucks from entering indian markets. Indian govt will never allow a perfect competitive market as its always into over protecting its companies. This means starbucks forays into India is impossible, but they can do one thing to limit coffee day's entry into US markets but europe, middle east, asia and africa is already into coffee day's kitty, now what is to be seen is...would starbucks and coffee day open up their arms and form a JV? Doing so would open coffee day's entry into US and starbucks could get a free source in return and go in for zoning the world of who takes which part. Only Time will tell what happens. But as of now..starbucks seem to be sliding down due to recession concerns, rising costs of coffee, milk and transportations.

Gift cards a great gift for retailers?

Mail in Rebates (MIR) and Gift cards are more or less like guaranteed revenue into retailers account book. Till date i was of the feeling that atleast gift cards arent as slimy as MIRs, but was shocked to see this news

"You know that Sharper Image gift card you got for Christmas? Right now, it's worthless. And other gift cards in your wallet could lose their value, too. As more retailers file for bankruptcy or go out of business, more than $75 million in gift cards are at risk of becoming worthless pieces of plastic this year."

So is it like free money for these retailers or where did this money go? did it get lost in costs incurred in running the business? I fail to understand this. of late these gift cards had become an headache with so many hidden costs and constraints on how soon you must use to get the value out. First time I came across the concept of MIR in the US, i couldnt understand the plot behind it. I was wondering what is the idea behind such a concept where you give away the product free after n-months or n-days by refunding the costs you incurred. Then there was a dot com site known as cyberrebate which used to list all the products and would offer you MIRs after 3 months or so. I resisted the move to fall for that, the logic was "there was nothing which comes for free" and i have already come across this fact after i lost some money on stupid things. One more thing is that what you pay is what you get, go for deals or cheap priced products and such ones will come for a very short duration. Now coming back to cyberrebate thing, many of my friends were paying for products and they got it too and got back the money too after 3 months, but what happened was that many people started pouring their money in the hope that they can get back the money and get to keep the product too...this phenomena triggered some of those companies listed on cyberrebate to go bankrupt as they were giving away products for free and give back their money too...in short they couldnt survive thus taking away people's money. One fine day, my friends discovered that cyberrebate itself filed for bankrupcy and closed down the site.

Then i figured out the secret behind offering MIRs

• Most of well established companies give away MIRs for short periods either to take away market share from its competitors or to empty their inventory containing old stocks and get cash for the junk.
• 99% of companies giving out MIRs are those which arent well established and they use it as a vehicle to get the word of mouth out. They cut down on advertisements and employ this marketing ploy with a hope that the consumer using these items may refer them to their friends or give good reviews.
• MIRs also act as credit or free money available at 0% APR for 3 to 6 months, this way fledgling get the required capital to produce their wares.
• MIRs also have so many constraints that you must send it within this date and also send it after 1 month of purchase or send it with UPC barcode etc etc, these are tactics employed to loot people. When someone forgets to send or doesnt send it according to the requirements, the payout is null or void. Thus allowing free money to the companies.

On the other hand, gift card is like you put in some amount in a plastic card and give out to dear and near ones so that the recipient has full freedom to buy whatever he/she likes in contrast to a stupid worthless gift. This gives a guaranteed buy of something to the retailers and if someone doesnt use that card then the retailer has a great kill...got free money and has an unsold product which he can sell and make money. Usually its better to give away cash to the recipient as cash is worth more than a plastic card and they can use it for anything and wont be tied to shop at a particular retailer. But in the existing state of economy, when you pay all the salary you get as credit card balances, rent or on gasoline, there is hardly anything left to give as gifts. So the concept works well when you pay via credit card and put money into gift cards. So gift cards may thrive as long as plastic credit cards are around and so many people are living under the debt line. No doubt why gift cards used to be popular in india as atleast we can touch and see the cash and people do hoard money in banks :D

Warren Buffets shouts recession

According to economics, a recession is more or less like two back to back quarters of negative growth. Ben Bernanke is yet to confirm that its recession time, he is beating about the bush and indirectly talking of rise in gasoline prices and rising food costs. Just past Thanksgiving, christmas and New year, i had seen news of record breaking purchases and constant loud ringing of cash registers....that was just a quarter back. If that 4th quarter of 07 was a growth and its just 1st quarter of 08...how in the world could it be called recession? Just because there was a $400b housing slump doesnt mean that everything is gone in thin air. I think many more billions was lost in war and no one talked of recession then. Warren buffets is the first one to beat the death drum. This is more or less like rumor and gossip syndrome of someone talking about it and others act like sheep and follow blindly without thinking anything. There are two things to do now, either cut down on frivolous costs or pay the price for having an extravagant life.

Virgin Mobile enters India

Sir Richard Branson is upto something again....latest is the act of entering india courtesy Tata Teleservices Ltd. Will this redefine the indian market? Reliance and Airtel will scramble to hold onto their positions and market shares? Disappointed with just 1 feature ... paying 10 paise for every minute in coming call...hmm a nice strategy to hook on new consumers. Unless one has their service, there is no way to make that 10 paise per call. Other than this, there arent any direct freebies or earth shattering feature. I was expecting free SMS to attract youth or something else that would target the youth segment. 100% FM-radio enabled is OK..But something like .... allow unlimited SMS between two mutually chosen number could increase user base. Consider a situation a boy friend - girl friend combo, they are the likely ones who would indulge in SMS or talks. So if this one is incorporated then they get 2 customers in a flash. Such things are more youth friendly :D

Old was better?

Personally feel that it was way better in the past than now. One such example is hotels/eat out places....just imagine a hotel which would serve you dosas, idlis and other non-gravy stuffs in banana leaf. The convenience in using the banana leaf is that you dont waste water on cleaning that, then no use of nasty non bio degradable detergents, no issue on hygiene regarding unclean plates. Disposal of these leaves is easy as it can become fodder for cows. This eco system is a lot better than the existing ones which pollutes the environment in every step. Too bad that there are hardly any hotels serving this way :(

Summar---Savings on

• Low cost banana leafs
• No initial costs on plates
• No need for wastage of labor hours in cleaning plates
• No issue on hygiene
• Easy handling & disposal
• Eco friendly
  

Some Clarification

In my earlier post under "if chinese can why not indians?", i was talking of building everything which has an indian touch and not something that is in parts. I had a comment on the post

"PSUmba said... The Indians are ... Global Vehicles (www.GV-USA.com) of Alpharetta, GA has been named the USA importer for trucks from Mahindra & Mahindra. Look for a 2009 launch"

If one looks at the post, it mentions this point "The vehicles are expected to have a base price in the mid-$20,000 range and use diesel engines built by a major German auto supplier." Now when you go for JV or strategic alliances, the price of the product is the worrying factor and engine is the most important parts in an automobile. I can understand if it were small parts like bolts, nuts etc. But in this case, I cannot accept this one as an engineering marvel akin to TATAs. Its more or less like procuring private brands and putting on a label. From a business perspective it seems OK, but has nothing to do with long term planning so as to capture a market share. So if one looks at the automobile industry in the US, just to keep tab on the costs, some of small parts may be from other suppliers or may be from other country.

Send an SMS and track the Bus

Not bad at all, I didnt expect that communists in the east would allow such things. But kolkata has implemented this system and is helping commuter's keep track of their public transport system.

WBSTC officials said the system would benefit passengers and operators alike. "Passengers can even find out exactly how far away a bus is. This will help them time their departure from home. They won’t have to wait under the sun. As for operators, they would know how many passengers are taking a bus on a particular route during the day. This would tell us which are the busiest routes and help us cut down on unnecessary expenditure," an official said.

BSNL has helped get this system up and running. No idea how they have implemented it. One way could be embed a GSM module and use GPS to update the data ...say every 2 min or 5 min.
I dont see any need for such sophisticated service and no idea how it could be a revenue generator for BSNL if its not charging the SMS as premium one. The easier method could be, as the bus stops at particular stops, the driver or conductor could send in an SMS to the central unit where the data would be stored. So anyone sending an SMS to the central server could know the position of the time along with the last updated status. That way it could be like 50 paise per SMS and 20 such stops in a trip would mean just 10 bucks...rather than putting a GPS, then using a GSM module and constantly updating values.

The easiest way would be to put RFID tag in the bus and the receiver in the bus stops connected to telephone line. As the RFID receivers are placed on top of telephone poles, the theft of these devices to an extent could be avoided. As the bus pulls over, the reader scans the RFID tag and updates the servers. But the best way would be to put such a system in some local shops and help update the position values pertaining to each bus.