e-Nagar » Links

IT rates in India

Ankur Aggarwal — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 05:29:54 +0000

This is one interesting fact.. salaried Indians are the 10th most taxed people on the planet.. whats more is that we are 40 places ahead of USA.. which somehow i always believed was a very heavily taxed country. I wonder how badly were the people tax before the Narsima Rao Reforms which lowered the tax rates to half.

Filed under: Links

Feeling Lucky

Ankur Aggarwal — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:47:31 +0000

A friend of mine recently forwarded me a nice article which lists down the differences in attitude of lucky and unlucky people. The author believes that by changing one’s outlook towards life one can also be lucky.

You might not have to agree completely to what the author says but the article has a lot of merit. So do give it a read.

Filed under: Links

rape and death penalty

Ankur Aggarwal — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:09:48 +0000

I was always against the demand for death penalty for rapists. My reasons were:
1. I believe that society is a lot to blame when they sometimes assume that the victim did something wrong.
2. Death Penalty is taken quite seriously by law. Hence it means almost infinite appeals, re-opening the case at the smallest pretext and getting involved in a lengthy and costly legal battle. If someone believes in delayed justice being equivalent to justice denied, then this change in law will only increase the victim’s agony.
3. Usual crap against the very idea of death penalty esp. does state or anybody have a right to take someone else’s life.

However this Wall Street Journal & Mint’s article presents an economist’s view against harsh punishment. If you get time do read it because I like their treatment to the subject.

Posted in Links

South Indians and Hindi

Sandip Chaudhuri — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:03:54 +0000

First of all Hindi is not our national language, so it is not necessary for people to know it.

However as this guy rightly points out, there are a few barriers to speaking in Hindi as well.

Hindi and Me

So next time feel a bit for those guys who only learn Hindi in school.

Posted in Humor, Links, Thoughts

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Ankur Aggarwal — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:12:00 +0000

Randy Pausch was a computer scientist at CMU. Diagnosed of pancreatic cancer he gave the last lecture on Sep 2007. The lecture is all about achieving ones dream and enabling others to reach their dreams.

Although the lecture lasted for more than an hour, but you can really appreciate how moving this passionate lecture was.
Thanks Karthi for forwarding it to me

Neighborhood Effect

Ankur Aggarwal — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 07:25:15 +0000

I recently came across a very interesting finding. How the fortunes of one person increases the spending of the entire neighborhood.
Isn’t it interesting that just to show off and for senseless vanity we often are driven to over spend and live beyond our means.

where-are-indias-innovative-companies-products-and-solutions

Ankur Aggarwal — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:12:28 +0000

This wonderful article from seeking alpha tries to address the paradox that in spite of the fact that India has the best brains in the world, why do we lag behind in terms of finding innovative solutions to address Indian needs.

marriage confusion.

Ankur Aggarwal — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:05:37 +0000

A young man in love with two women could not decide which to marry. Finally, he asked his buddy for help. “One is a great poet, but the other makes the world’s best pancakes.”
“Oh, I see,” his buddy responded, “You’re trying to decide whether to marry for batter or verse!”

—-
Here is how i get my monitor screen cleaned.

—-
A male fly was buzzing around, searching for good-looking females when he spied a real cutie sitting on some cow manure. He dove down rapidly and then hovered before her.
“Pardon me,” he asked, “is this stool taken?”

Animator vs Animation

Ankur Aggarwal — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:24:53 +0000

These are 2 very creative animation videos designed by Alan Becker. Here a stick guy goes crazy and plays havoc with the computer screen. You can download the MS Office files, or you could watch them at the following links
Part1
Part2

- Courtesy Dhruva

Theatre Premier

Ankur Aggarwal — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 06:48:46 +0000

I love this show. In 6 minutes it shows a preview of almost all the famous singers. Why can’t there be something as creative in India
—-
And a nice Video by Nokia depicting how nano particles can change our future. I need this keyboard device.
—-
Watching your teenage daughter being collected by her date feels like handing over a Stradivarius to a gorilla.

Don’t judge too quickly

Ankur Aggarwal — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:40:03 +0000

some good short videos
Don’t judge too quickly

Is this equilibrium even physically possible?

Follow your heart

Cool pool shot

Here is why I don’t introduce my girls to my friends

Why do girls think so much?

And here is why I hate people talking over phone

So How difficult is it to create a hit Song

Sandip Chaudhuri — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:21:37 +0000

Scott Adams believes that he has an answer, or at least one of the answers.

Dilbert Blog is one of the most if not the most interactive blogs on the net.

The song writing started out by Adams asking the blog readers to write catchy phrases which almost mean something.

Write a Song

A band weeded the response from the readers and based a song with them.

The Hit Song You Wrote

And now we have a video:-

She Amazed Me

some nice videos

Ankur Aggarwal — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:12:44 +0000

Here is a nice CSI Spoof video
Even a monkey can dance better than you

—-
The other day I tripped on the escalator and fell downstairs with a big thud. Soon afterwards, when I was picking up stuff, the saleswoman said, “Hi–if you need anything, I’m Jill.”

I thought, “Wow! I’ve never met anyone with a conditional identity before!”

Shashi Tharoor @ ICC

Ankur Aggarwal — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:23:29 +0000

This weekend I got to listen to Shashi Tharoor – he was here in CA at a forum along with Sam Pitroda. He gave quite an inspiring talk about India and the what hes doing post-UN. Hes become a lobbyist for “Brand India” and is also involved with a couple of
organizations to improve infrastructure projects.

These clips are from another event in September but he covers few of the same topics here. Thought I’d share these.

India’s multiculturalism

Cell Phones in India

Video of the whole talk:

- Forwarded by Jerin Joy

My goodness, I cannot believe that any of the indian politicians could express themselves so effectively in such simple words.

India’s Rating Below Investment Grade

Ankur Aggarwal — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:03:58 +0000

I was reading this nice informative article. which explains why Indian currency bonds are 7 notches below the Chinese Bonds and share its ranking with bonds issued by bankrupt states like Jamaica and Armenia.

1) Government Fiscal Deficit (6.2% of the GDP)
2) Public debt (which accounts for almost 77% of the country’s GDP and almost all the taxes Indian government collects goes in servicing the debt’s interest rates)
3) Deficit of Power and basic infrastructure without which no industry can be expected to perform well and this deficit is robbing the country from atleast 2-3% growth of GDP.

Uncomfortable chart

Ankur Aggarwal — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 13:00:55 +0000

an indepth analysis on the subject of why politically repressed economies do better than politically free economies.

colors of holi

Ankur Aggarwal — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:19:57 +0000

do watch the public service message embedded at the last of this video song.
—-
A Taliban was sitting in a cave when he hears over a dune the voice of one American solider:
“One American solider is better then 10 Taliban fighters” so the Taliban angry sent over ten of his high-ranking soldiers.
After a lot of gun fire and yelling and screams of agony the Taliban heard the voice again. “One American solider is better then 100 Taliban fighters”
So the Taliban sends over 100 of his highest ranked soldiers sure of victory.
After a lot of gun fire and yelling and screams of agony the Taliban heard the voice again. “One American solider is better then 1000 Taliban fighters”
So the Taliban sent his toughest, meanest, personal guards over the dune. After hundreds of bullets fired, and explosions and the screaming and crying, it was over.
The Taliban now wondering what happened goes over the dune where he finds a wounded Taliban solider who says “don’t send anymore men it’s really a trap there is really two of them!”

India Poised

Ankur Aggarwal — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 18:19:04 +0000

A patriotic video by Amitabh Bachan

courtesy: Vivek

Affinity with friends

Ankur Aggarwal — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 07:47:35 +0000

If you use gmail and always wanted to know how close you are with a particular friend, use
http://docs.google.com/data/contacts

I am still finding a link where google based on your searches, websites you go to, documents you read, emails you send, orkut interactions etc. has prepared a psychological profile of you. I am sure it is there somewhere… i just need to find it.

open source programs for windows

Ankur Aggarwal — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 06:16:20 +0000

This website contains a comprehensive list of open source windows applications. I hope it saves some license fee for some of us.

If you ever felt the need of having a centralized management of documents. A database with CVS repository like versioning system so that each individual can track down the changes/flow of thoughts by looking at the line additions/deltions only then pbwiki.com is your way.
PS: Although it gives only 10mb of space which looks small, in reality 1a4 page of text document costs just 2kb of space. So you can practically write a book of 5000 pages in this much space.

For image/movies/clip hosting photobucket is the way.

Afraid of flying

Ankur Aggarwal — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 15:48:02 +0000

Then definatately do not read this article

The probability of people surviving an aerial mishap is miniscule. And please do not even think about lightning bolts, meteorite showers.

Red-Bull contains Beef

Ankur Aggarwal — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 11:37:55 +0000

How did Red bull get its name?
The active ingredient in Red-bull and most energy drinks is Taurine C2H7NO3S which is extracted from the bile juices of mammals esp. Bulls. (Latin taurus = bull) I hate to break this news to my vegeterian friend who is hooked to this drink.

Online Travel bookings

Ankur Aggarwal — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:15:25 +0000

I tried to make a list of options avaliable
1) indiflight A nice tool which allows you to find cheepest flight to multiple destinations, on multipe days and using break journeys.
2) makemytrip Huge publicity, but it charges extra for credit card bookings.
3) rediff good plotting tools, fast site.
4) flightraja fast flight, with a persoanl touch. The agents actually call you to confirm the bookings

Then to book international travel tickets:
Stic travels is specially useful. They get the best discounts, yet ensure hassle free luxurious travel.

Bus tickets use redbus. It has a very fast query engine. However its services are limited to Chennai / Bangalore originating routes and does not support KSRTC/government operators.

For train travel, I guess one has not much choice but to go for irctc. Even though it is the only govt body in my list, the service is good. Tickets get delivered in time. However the user interface needs lots of upgradation.