What was that number?

The TOI has a report that makes a shocking statement - Since 1994, over 50000 people have died in India due to Terrorism. link.

The SATP website has the numbers in detail. The numbers are up to date till June 2005 and the counter is at 50937. link.

Compare that with the 2986 casualties in the 9/11 attacks. link. The response to those acts has been swift and the entire world stood as one with the victims. The report on the attacks are available on the net. link.

Contrast that with the lack of information on the Indian Govt's policy. Is there a policy?

There has been legislation to that effect in the form of POTA and there were legistative actions earlier in the form of POTO and TADA. link.

But has there been action that can demostrate the reduction of this scourge?
In light of the Delhi Blasts, the need is for action and not procrastination. Who knows where terrorism will strike next? No doubt there are people within the Govt. who are working towards a safer world, but what we need is a co ordinated, focussed, unwarying, unyielding approach.

Myopic view of delhi

One Year of Ranga Shankara

Its been a year since Ranga Sankara has opened and the theatre scene in Bangalore hasn't been the same ever since. link.

In addition, the exorbitant costs of hiring such a space was adding to the problems of theatre groups. Ranga Shankara has filled that gap. Actor Arundhati Nag gave 12 long, challenging years of her life to build it. How she did it is in itself like a heart-stopping story with all its twists and turns, but with a happy ending. Shankar Nag would have approved.

Recently, a couple of colleagues from Europe had come down. Invariably, the question asked is - What's nice to see in Bangalore? My first reply is usually to point to Mysore, Srirangapatna, Shravana-Bellagola, Belur and Halebid. But none of these are in Bangalore and so I have to come up with answers such as Tipu's Palace, Lalbagh, Vidhan Soudha, High Court Buildings etc.

So, the question to ask is - what cultural, and historical landmarks do we have in Bangalore?

Myopic view of bangalore

Not so fast

Interesting article on why India and China have huge challenges ahead of them. link. (via)

While there is no doubt about the great potential of these two economies in the rest of this century, severe structural and institutional problems will hobble them for years to come. At this point, the hype about the Indian economy seems patently premature, and the risks on the horizon for the Chinese polity – and hence for economic stability – highly underestimated.

It is a timely reminder that one should not get carried away by the hoopla and actually get the work done.

Time to quote Robert Frost. Two Poems come to mind -
From the The Road not Taken -
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

And from the Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Myopic view of india, economics

Things Bangalore needs to do to reduce traffic congestion

From the US Federal Highway Administration website, some of the key things to reduce congestion are below. link (via)

• Traffic signal improvements
• Advanced traffic signal control
• Traffic monitoring
• Access management

There are literally hundreds of places where Traffic signal improvements can be made in Bangalore. One classic case where this has worked (to some extent) has been J C road. The signals are synchronized and as a result one gets from Minerva Circle to Corporation Circle fairly quickly. Another example would be Cubbon road.

My list of arterial roads that are candidates for a makeover are

1. M.G Road. From Victoria Statue to Trinity Circle there are 4 traffic lights. The distance? 2 km. These can easily be improved, esp. at Mayo hall. Duration to cover 5 years back - 5 mins. Current Duration - 15 mins
   
2. Ring Road from Silk Board Junction to Banashankari Temple. This 10 km stretch is a nightmare. There are at least 8-10 junctions, most of which are manned by a traffic cop. Duration to cover 5 years back - 15 mins. Current Duration - 45 mins
   
3. Koramangala Main Road from St. John's Hospital to Indiranagar/Airport Road and continuing on 100 feet road to Old Madras road. This 10 km stretch was a breeze 5 years back. It would take 15 mins to cover the entire distance. The current duration is 1 hour.
4. JC Road. I know that earlier in the post, I mentioned JC road as place were traffic management has worked, but I believe it can be better. Currently, the 3 km stretch has 5 traffic signals and the problem is that even though they are synchronized you end up hitting at lest 2. The last traffic light is timed incorrectly, as its only 100 meters from the previous one, and yet one has to wait 10 secs before it turns green.
   
5. Nanda Road from Ring Road to South End Circle and continuing on RV Road till Lalbagh West Gate. This 5 km stretch has at least 5 traffic junctions. Most of these are manned lights and that adds to the inefficiency. By placing synchronized lights throughout, the current duration of 20 mins can be reduced. Duration 5 years back - 10 mins
   

Myopic view of bangalore, traffic, management

Hatred Begets Hatred

A quick look at the technorati search for Delhi shows a large number of blogs jumping to the conclusion on who is responsible. link.

Rather than pointing fingers, there is an urgent need for us to work towards returning to normalcy. The very fact that the attacks were not against any military, government or state run organization indicates that the perpetrators want normalcy to be shattered. By targetting innocent people, these ogres want us to give in into the irrational ideas they harbor. By definition, Terrorism is ignoble because there is no glory, no valour, no courage, no strength, no pride in murdering innocent people from different creeds, religions and ages.

If anything, Indian Democracy gives a clear answer. Put down your guns and participate in democratic institutions. Indian History teaches peaceful methods and the power of non-violence. Sadly, those who give refuge to terrorists believe far less in democracy and more in medieval practices. Those who proliferate terrorism sully the very ideals that they claim to uphold.

There are very few folk in India who dont believe that their future is going be better than their past. If the Middle Class and Upper Middle Class incomes have doubled over the last 10 years, then the Below Poverty and Lower Middle Class incomes have doubled if not tripled over the last 10 years. If those who think that terrorism is the way forward to a better future, cannot be more wrong.

Update: Improved Grammar :-)

Myopic view of delhi

Millisecond convertor - WTF

The Daily WTF has a hilarious piece of code that describes how to convert milli seconds to seconds. link.

Given the problem of converting milliseconds to minutes, I imagine that most of us would simply divide the number of milliseconds by 60,000. That's because most of us are not experts in the art of complexification.

Had a good laugh.

Myopic view of funny

Grease Monkey to improve Fark in Bloglines

Came across a nice script to get the links from fark without going through the forum in a separate page. I can always go to the forum and post a comment later. I was about to unsubscribe from fark and as luck would have it, I stumbled across the greasemonkey script. The script can be downloaded from here.

Myopic view of mozilla, firefox, greasemonkey, bloglines, fark

Solar Powered Charger

CNET has a story about a new product that can charge iPods or cellphones using a Solar Receiver. link.

The 5-inch by 3-inch device known as Soldius1 converts solar energy into 6.58 volts at a maximum of 320 milliamperes of power after only about 3 hours in direct sunlight.

Given all the rain in Bangalore recently, this is one device that's going to be gathering dust, while it pours outside.

Myopic view of tech

Pit wall Celebrations banned

Doctorvee has the story. link.

It is a classic image, seen at the end of almost every grand prix — the pit crew that has worked hard all weekend to get their car to the chequered flag run across the pit lane during the final lap and climb the fence, arms waving, fists clenched, to greet their man at the finish line.

The actual FIA Press release goes on to describe the new qualifying format, the restored tyre rules from 2004 and Provisional Calendar.

What's also interesting in the press release is not just the CDG wing for 2008 but the fact that there could be only 1 tyre supplier and slick tyres from 2008. link.

Myopic view of f1, sport

The rain is going to grind bangalore to a halt

According to soultrot, the bangalore traffic police have declared an holiday for educational institutions for the next two days. link.

However, the bangalore police govt website does not have such information. I didn't expect the website to be updated, but at least its worth a try to check out. link.

I guess everyone in Bangalore will be checking the weather reports and hoping for the best. weather.com has satellite imagery of the NE monsoon. link.

Myopic view of bangalore, weather

Impact of NGOs in banning plastic

Most of my posts have been on the problems that Bangalore is facing due to the explosive growth and how the Govt is turning a blind eye to these problem. In light of this, is a story of how, NGO (Non-Govt Organizations) make an impact.

TOI has a story about how banning plastic is feasible and its impact to Bannerghatta. link.

The zoo, particularly the area around it, faced a lot of problem because of visitors littering it. Almost a year ago, they started enforcing the no-plastic rule strictly and now they have achieved good results.

These are the real people from Bangalore who make an impact.
Myopic view of bangalore

Calvin and Hobbes - Entire Collection available

TOI reports that the entire C&H collection is now available. link.

the complete Calvin and Hobbes series has come out in the form of a 1,456-page tome and art-book.

Now, that's one more in the wishlist.

Myopic view of comics

More news on the expressway

The Indian Express says that the Expressway is a litmus test for the investment in Infrastructure. link.

Third, the success of the project is a litmus test for foreign investment—especially in infrastructure—not just in Karnataka but in India.

The article goes on to quote an unnamed official from a Japanese company and compare the situation in other SE Countries.

Firstly, I think that the comparision is unfair. There are no real democracies like we have in India in the places mentioned. For all its faults and all the problems that the Indian Politicians can cause, we have a working democracy. All democracies have different forces pulling in different directions. I'm including the western democracies to this list as well and India is no exception.

We all blame the politicians for bringing in too many road blocks, but consider the scenario where there is no one in the political class who constitutes an opposition. In that case, the govt can suddenly decide to build an expressway right through downtown bangalore, all residential areas and throw people out of their homes and the only sources of their livelihood. Given the alternative, I choose the slow and cumbersome process.

However, I would still like the politicians to have a vision of the future. But at least I can say that , so far the Indian Govt hasn't bankrolled a tinpot dictator in the Middle East only to find that the puppet has turned hostile.

Myopic view of bangalore, woes

My views of flock after a weekend of use

List of things I liked about flock

1. Its based on firefox. That means that the advantages of firefox should be carried over here. But it also means that some of the problems with firefox turn up as well
2. Integration with del.icio.us. Its really pretty simple to use and helps it tagging.
3. Posting directly to Blogger is pretty good. I was able to make a couple of posts to blogger directly through flock. I also found the wysiwyg editor quite good.

List of things that were missing

1. The wysiwyg mode is pretty good but I do require a html view mode. Being a bit geeky, I want to have a look at the code before posting. Also, I tag such that the links appear from my del.icio.us account rather than technorati. This can be done by adding the html code directly rather than using the inbuilt tag manager by flock.
2. I did find that it wasn't able to post to blogger in the beginning but then it seemed to work. I wouldn't really blame flock to much here, because for some reason my atom feed wasn't working correctly over the weekend. Only after changing my template did it start to work again and flock started working too. The gist is that since flock depends on how co operative blogger is, the blog editor will be difficult to get right
3. Firefox extensions. I know that this just an alpha and it will take time to ensure that firefox extensions work as-is in flock.

On the whole, I really liked the del.icio.us integration and found the Blogger integration pretty good. Keep up the great work guys and hope there's more to come from you. But did I post this from flock? No, I used the blogger editor cause I really want the raw html editor interface as well. So, I guess I will be waiting quite eagarly until v1.0 is out.

Myopic view of flock

Radical Wing for 2008

Planet-F1 has the news about the new wing proposal for 2007/2008. link.

The FIA today unveiled the design for a double rear-wing concept that they want to introduce into Formula One in 2007 to improve overtaking. In order to encourage overtaking, the FIA initiated a programme of research into improving the aerodynamic performance of a car when trying to overtake.

Can this latest change by the FIA actually improve the quality of racing? What about the bloated costs of running an F1 team. All this will definitely push the costs skywards.

Myopic view of f1, sport, news

What they really mean is...

link Via imeGination.
When people say... What they really mean is...
For Engineers:
“Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive.” - The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.
“A number of different approaches are being tried.” - We don't know where we're going, but we're moving.
“Developed after years of intensive research.” - It was discovered by accident.
“Test results were extremely gratifying.” - It works and boy, were we surprised!
“The entire concept is unworkable.” - The only guy who understood the thing just quit.

Adding to this would be a list of boss-speak during yearly raises.
"You were rated amongst the top 10% in the company" - The rest have left for better jobs
"Due to cost cutting there wont be any stock options this year" - Since is the stock is at an all time low, only management has been given stock options
"Your hike is very generous and nobody in the team were given such a good hike" - The others were "given" lower hikes but then they negotiated better hikes.

Myopic view of funny

Testing out flock

Given the huge publicity that flock has received, I decided to try it out. So, here's a post using flock.

The integration with blogger isn't perfect, but its usable. I need to figure out how to add a link.

Myopic view of flock

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

There is only way to find out. Click on the link and find out. link via bloglines toplinks.

I got an A+.

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Myopic view of funny

Bill Waterson enjoys his privacy

Maybe someday, officials will put up a statue marking this quaint village as the birthplace of "Calvin and Hobbes."
Just don't expect cartoonist Bill Watterson to attend the unveiling ceremony. It's been nearly 10 years since he abruptly quit drawing one of the most popular comic strips of all time. Since then, he's been as absent as the precocious Calvin and his pet tiger, err, stuffed animal, Hobbes.
Some call Watterson reclusive. Others say he just likes his privacy.
link.
Calvin and Hobbes are one of the most popular fictional characters of all times.

The love-hate relationship with Suzie, the unimpressed school teacher Mrs Wormwood, the chirpy Dad and quiet Mom all make this a classic. The very fact that BW does not support any effort in merchandizing C&H has made the strip even more popular. Though we can always buy a knock off C&H T Shirt or a coffee cup, these are not official merchandize and BW does not make even 1 cent from the sales of these item.

Myopic view of comics

Phase 1 of Blr-Mys Expressway to open soon

The question one should ask is why does the Govt. treat the Blr-Mys Expressway Project with so much contempt? link.

Part of the Expressway will be the Peripheral Ring Road connecting Hosur road to Mysore road and to NH4. If utilized correctly it can really reduce the amount of traffic by Buses and Taxis within the city. Ideally, if a person coming in from Madras wants to go to Malleshwaram, then he will have to through the city. Instead with the Peripheral Ring Road the route will change and traffic will divert from the city. The impact? Reduced travel time, lesser pollution, and less petrol consumed.

Roads such as the PRR no doubt are the concerns of the urban middle class, but what about the lower class and the rural folks. It is these people for whom most politicians hearts profess to bleed for. With the PRR it will easier for rural people to travel to Bangalore either on business or pleasure. The Urban Poor will use Buses that travel on the PRR to get from one end of the city to another faster and as a result be more productive. All this will add up.

But these are hardly the concerns of the current Govt. Why?

Myopic view of bangalore, woes