One More Idiot

I read the poem again and could not believe that this was written by him in the examination hall, when everyone was trying to solve numerical of Strength of Material (popularly called as SOM). This guy was a friend of one of my batch mate. He attempted thrice before he could crack the prestigious entrance of IIT and joined our campus one year later than me. I won’t called this guy looked like a poet from romanticism in a navy cadet uniform, but his eyes were what I would call a pair of speaking eyes.

After completing two semesters, he quit. He quit something he got so hard. But seems he quit because he knew what he does not wanted. I heard from sources that that he started teaching IIT aspirants in Bokaro, and later he left that also to pursue graduation in English literature from Delhi University. Last I heard from my friend that he was pursuing masters from DU.

I little care of what he wanted and absolutely unaware of what is he doing now. But I am sure must not be doing something which he don’t like.

3 Femindiots

This post is about three females, who has done things they want despite being from very traditional Indian middle class families. I call them achievers and feel great to share classrooms with them. Since, I cannot rank their achievement so I am ranking them chronologically in the post.

1. Sonali : She was the first lady marine engineer of India. Her father was in pharmacy profession in Allahabad, Still sho chosen to take up IIT Joint entrance exam and finally joined Marine Engineering college. This college had never seen a girl cadet before. So all the arrangement had been done to accommodate her. The discipline was tough for a girl that too for four long years.
She not only completed the education and training successfully but also joined the Merchant Navy career, after serving on high seas for 4-5 years she has taken a shore job at Jamnagar with reliance group.
2. Capt. Poonam Joshi: She had served Indian army for 5 years for short service commissions, that not the point I was making. While at service she has joined the expedition team sailing on pacific ocean. In this expedition 4-5 member troop take head on to ride waves of ocean for 2-3 weeks and abode on the small boat all by themselves.
Post her service in Indian army, she did her MBA from IIT KGP and now working as SAP consultant in USA.
3. Saraswati : Few years ago in India it was very difficult for a girl to choose profession of her choice, even boys are not getting enough options to choose and get settled down. But Saraswati, first did Engineering from B’lore and worked for Infosys. This didn’t gave her a kick I suppose, so she pursued MBA from IIT KGP and landed job at MNC IBM. But this also appeared mundane, she quit IBM and started preparing for Civil services from Delhi.

She got selected for prestigious IPS (Indian Police Service). She hailed from lesser known village tumkur in karnataka, which has earned her nickname "Tumkur ki maharani" & also "Tumkur ka Terror". We never knew what she was destined to.

My expectation from this post is to inspire younger lot to chase their dream. There are times when we don’t choose right career options in our life, there is nothing wrong is correcting ourselves and changing path. Instead of cribbing about sacrifices lifelong, go ahead and follow your heart and do something you are good at. I am working on a post on tips to choose right career path will be back soon. Until then watch movies like "Patiala House" and "Social network"

PS: Femindiot is combination of Female+Indian+ Idiot, this is an extension of Indiot (Indian+Idiot)

Home Loan: ICICI vs SBI

When I planned to take house loan last year, got advice from everyone to take it from nationalized financial entity and not from private banks. People supported blindly that nationalized banks are always good. But despite all the recommendations I went ahead with ICICI, because when I did all calculations it worked cheaper for me in coming 3 to 5 years, which mattered more for me, as I feel after 5 years I will be financially more secured than today. I gave all the possible documents required, the representative came home and when I had to enquire anything in branch there was one inside my office campus. Though it took almost a month to get the loan sanctioned, but this was due to the reason I wanted to get interest rate of previous month as exception, this has to get signed by senior authority.

Recently, my brother also decided to buy a house in pune and hence taking a home loan and he followed to societal advice and went ahead with SBI home loan. They had an offer till Dec 31^st 2010 where theywere giving some  rebate on interest rate and loan pre closure. He applied well before time, but he dint got the offer. Not because of his mistake but because his file got lost somewhereduring the process. He had to go to local and main branch for every single enquiry. There was no assistance from bank in filling up the form, he had to resorted to outsiders for working on how to fill up applications etc. He provided all the document sought by them, but still they keep asking them for one thing or another. At the end they pushed an insurance with one time premium of 45000 Rs for 17 Lakhs. And additional 8 thousand worth insurance against house property. All these conditional add on’ he had been given no choice. If I can count my brother has taken at last 5-6 full day leave excluding saturdays to run after them. They have not even offered an apology for the delay or losing the file they shouted "Take it or leave it" statement. And he has to pay 0.5% more than he initially agreed for.

I can see the only advantage with nationalized banks is that during the time of crisis it will bother you less. For example when the market goes bad the difference between Private and public sector interest rate will be more. However, with such high inflation and interest rate in current market the private companies playing even with their nationalized counterpart.

I fail to understand that despite all the convenience and fast processes provided by private players and months of difficulties and negligence offered by our sponsored public institutions. Why citizens choose the later. Almost all the top economist says economy is driven by private players in India. This will only improve more when we stop relying on BSNL, Indane, SBI, Post Office, PPF and likes.

We shout for service quality to any private company, but we will say "this is the way it works" for public sector. Why do we want better service only from private sector. The Quality of public sector will only increase when, we started asking for it and live with "NAHI CHALTA HAI"

Sensex, Valentine & You

Stock market is just not letting bear go away. almost since last one 10-15 days market has cling on to bear and not allowing anyone to get bear for their dear one. Last year you could afford a nice furry pink color bear for your valentine, but this year the lost love of market has come and hit all of us from the back. Two days to go for valentine day, we are praying to the bull to return to his love and roam in dalal street happily with BSE and add some basis points. 

It was observed that bull was serving valentine market, and enjoying guarding all the bears inside glass cages, well lit and decorated, This market is happy to release all the bears, red, pink and yellow, to whoever dare to cross the bull-guard. Bull for all, now know that his term with this valentine market will get over this Monday so moved towards the dalal street and from Friday noon the bear has moved 265 steps. Valentine market after knowing that bull will move out of her market soon, resorted to a scam release 2 come 65 steps near to teddy bears, a flat 32.5% scam. The other part of the scam is overnight they move all the Glass cages of colorful bears up by 32.5% and disillusioned You.

You, who was eagerly waiting for this day when you will bring colorful bear to your valentine so that she will forget all your bull (shit) and start loving you, still doing a circus with bull and bears of two market. 

Facts:

1. Florists and gift shop inflate the prices by 30-40% during valentine season and no discount.

2. In 2009, 90% of all the online orders with Ferns and Petals, happened for valentine day.and 10% for remaining 364 days. 

Two States: one car vol: 2

In today’s job scenario, we often change locations, sometimes temporarily for short term deputations and sometime permanently when we change our base and company. Central Govt. employees goes on transfer from one state to another. This bring misery for changing house moving goods and transferring vehicle. We get surplus of info for looking out for accommodations and packers and movers over Internet and other sources. But when it comes to vehicle registration, NOC, entry into other state and road tax etc. there is no clarity and information also not clearly displayed on the state RTO portals.

This make more difficult as the rules and taxes are not the same in all states.

In my previous blog, I mentioned that i will collate the information and get back to you. Here is this post compilation of information from various sources, people & portals. Mostly the information is verified from the authentic sources but can change with course of time or exceptions can be found to these

Terms:

Vehicle Registration: This is only an identity of vehicle, given by RTO in a state, to track and identify ownership in case of theft, damage and accident etc., the cost of registration is nominal vary from 100-2000 Rupees. One vehicle can have only one registration no at a time. In case one want to move out to another state and want to change the registration one has to surrender the first registration.

Road Tax/Life time tax: Road tax is given to state govt. for using the infrastructure of the state, earlier the road tax was given for 1,5,10 years, now the rule has changed and one has to pay the life time tax at the time of registration. In case the vehicle is moved out of state this can be refunded based on number of years of use. However you cannot hear this unless you have a relative in RTO.

NOC: No Objection certificate is given for the vehicle to take the vehicle out of state and consent is taken from 1. RTO for tracking and re-registration. 2. Police: to verify that the vehicle is not under theft, 3. Financier : if loan has been taken and if it is hypothecated to any institution than in that case consent of the institution is also required.

Octroi: This is special tax levied by Municipal corporation and not the state, it is tax on entry of goods for use/consumption within areas of the Local Bodies. Very few  cities like mumbai, Baroda, chennai etc are levying octroi.

　

1. When Visiting other state only as tourist: you can show the toll bridge slip, petrol bunker receipt etc to prove that the vehicle entered recently. If the stay is prolonged than better take the challan for entering the state. There are naka’s at state entrance, but are not operating properly in most of the Indian states. Maximum on 30 days is the period when you can be considered in transit.
2. When going to other state for some time and don’t want to Re-register the vehicle in new state: Pay the road tax for the period one intend to stay with old number. I am not sure of interval one can stay. But as per AP RTO site, its mention that in case one want to stay for more than an year the re-registration is must.
3. When going to other state and want to Re-register the vehicle in new state: 　you need to get the NOC from old state authorities and pay the life time tax to new state get the new registration in the new state. Surrender the RC of old state and get the balance of Road tax paid to previous state.
   

   Below is the link for a detailed case by case procedure from Karnataka Hope this helps…

http://knol.google.com/k/rules-to-transfer-vehicle-within-india#Case_1(3A)_New_vehicle_(3C)_30_months

How will you justify this...

It’s happened with me not once, not twice but many a times at least 10-12 times in my recent memories and it happened again today.

I was busy in the office with my team members resolving an important issue, we were on call from US discussion how to resolve an database issue. The call on my phone was going on for hours and we were checking the possibilities. In the mean time I felt like calling an acquaintance, which was not necessary that time and this idea came out of blue, usually when I am into something, I don’t usually get deviated.

Since my phone was not me and being used for the onsite discussion, I resorted to an old email which had his number. I used my office phone to call them and checked how are they doing.

Once the onsite call got completed I saw two missed call on my phone, from the same friend of mine, I thought he might have called again to tell me something but when I checked the timing he called me before I called him@ 7:05 PM and I called him @ 7:10PM.

I call it………6^th Sense..what will you………

Two states: One car

A friend of mine, who has relocated to Hyderabad 2months ago from Pune and bring along his  car, brand new i20, which bears Maharashtra registration. Two days ago his vehicle was seized by a vigilance team and he had to pay, life time tax in Andhra Pradesh. The tax which is 12% for new car is an heavy penalty.

Since the  seizure was done by senior vigilance officer, nothing could be done by the RTO officials. Otherwise he could have paid one year road tax along with some penalty, he could have saved lot of money.

Now as he has already paid lifetime road tax to AP, he can claim refund from Maharashtra by registering the vehicle in AP and surrendering the RC of Pune. There are lots of technicalities and nuances of these rules which are not available in any of the RTI portals. One can get some info from less reliable sources over Internet but can not be guaranteed.

State Governments of AP and Maharashtra and likes are claiming to implement e-governance, but fail to provide even basic of information to the user. and we suffer from this inability of government. we can be taken for a ride under exclusive rules which are not made available to mass.

If you are in Hyderabad: Vigilance team appears to be very active in Hyderabad since a week, seem they are running sort of revenues and out for collections. Keep your papers ready and reviewed.

Try searching for any such rules you will realize yourself.

If you spend time to read this blog. do a favor to yourself send feedback to RTI portals if you dont get information.

I will compile the information and place them in next post.

Getting Inspired vol-1

I missed this news and consider some of the readers might as well.

Mr. Ashish Goyal received "National award for empowerment of person with disabilities". I was flipping this about a month old ET, when this news caught my eye.

This 30 year old is special because..... 

1. He is a successful trader, who works as Chief Investment officer (CIO) for JP Morgan London office.

2. He holds Wharton MBA with honours.

3. He Represented London Metro club and part of cricket tournament winning team.

------and he is BLIND ---------

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashish_Goyal

Better Safe than Sorry

The details came out of the case i reported in my previous blog.

http://expressbuzz.com/cities/hyderabad/4-held-for-killing-ibm-engineer%E2%80%99s-wife-mother/245365.html

Very young workers for aluminium frame for windows assumed that they will get big booty from the house, which they didn't.

I am afraid that when they come out from prison after completing the term, what will they become?

Security has been beefed up in the apartment, CCTV, recording, gate pass, security log, solar fencing and intercom...but if the crime will intended for such brutal plan and organised with 4-5 people, it can be only avoided with co-operations and precautions.

I would advise and recommend women's and elder people to take following precautions, which i gathered from various discussions after the incident.

1. Dont believe any worker blindly, despite since when you know them, mind that the culprit in above incident were working for almost one year.

2. Don't allow any outsider to work at home when alone, consider security guard or neighbour to accompany you.

3. Even for small time anyone is coming in house keep the main door open.

4. Advise security personnel to ask for small note to anyone who is carrying items from any house, if  residents are giving any item to maid or any outsiders they must send a note along.

5. Check from peep hole before opening door specially,when alone during afternoon.

6. Don't keep valuables left outside in open when outsiders are at home.

7. Don't discuss about valuables or show bullion or cash in your closet, in case carrying much even for short time.

when going out of home for long time, specially outstation. tell your neighbour and security personnel to visit the house and check for any deviations.

I used to feel all the above unnecessary, until i witnessed the incident in my apartment.

Its a sorry state that we cannot relax in our own home, but that is the reality let's face it.

Fantastic Job: Cyberabad Police

Since my childhood, I have heard a lot about police involvement in crime and their lackadaisical approach in registering and resolving the case. But here I witnessed a prompt and professional action by cyberabad police.

Incident:

wife and mother of an project manager from IBM was brutally killed in their own flat. This happened on Monday afternoon, when Mr. Anand was working in office and the daughter was in school. And worst a 3 month old baby was in the house itself.

Apartment was occupied by one third, and there were very few families on each floor. The culprit dared to enter the house killed both of them and walked out with cash aprox 30000 cash. All the ornaments on the dead body remains as it is. Neighbors alarmed only when the 6yr old daughter came home from school and saw their mother and grandmother lying in the kitchen floor.

Investigation:

Police came they tried to find clue but there were few, all the security personal, house maid’s and other workers were questioned for two days in police station. One guy who used to put mosquito nets in the house including Mr Anand’s house was found missing, upon contacting he was not picking up the phone and picked up once late in the night and said he will be reporting to police next day, but instead of reporting he fled.

Police used the mobile tracker and other information about the suspect and send two teams, one to UP his native, and another to Mumbai where his mobile was tracked to. Police incharge Mr. Bheema Reddy gave assurance to us that they will crack the case withing 24Hrs.

And as he said on the 4^th day mid night 3AM, which is about 18 Hrs from the statement police team in Maharashtra caught him.

Judgment:

Police has done their bit and remarkably fast. Now it’s time for judiciary to act upon, we have seen high profile cases like Jessica and Arushi taking years unresolved. Let’s hope for right justice in time.

Will update you all about the judgment through my post.