Thought Garage

Just 7 hours of Electricity for Agriculture that too in 2 separate shifts ?? How much land can you water in those dire circumstances? That too at this time of summer!! Source: Eenadu.net

People of Andhra Pradesh have exercised their fundamental right of democracy to elect their next Government with a whopping 72.5% turnover. While every political party has feverishly pitched their plans, they gave little chance for individual voters to raise their local issues and ask questions. Ask a question or Vote for a question today. Click on the following link: Set Agenda For The Next Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh   In about 20 days, the next Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh will be decided. Its time for the People of Andhra Pradesh to set the Agenda for the new Government. Whoever the next CM, we will take the top voted 50 questions and get answers with an action plan to each of the questions right from the NEW Chief Minister. And we also would like to take questions relevant to each Constituency to their elected representative for their answers and action plan. So exercise your right to ask a question and demand an action plan. This process is e...

Yahoo bought GeoCities for more than $2.9 billion in dot-com-priced stock in 1999, when GeoCities had more than 1.1 million users. However, while the idea of having a personal presence on the Internet has caught on, GeoCities turned out to be a backwater, not the mainstream. "We will be closing GeoCities later this year," Yahoo said in a note on the site . "We'll provide more details about closing GeoCities and how to save your site data this summer." Source: CNETNews

One of the most intriguing presentations I have ever watched on how to market a startup.  Key take-a-ways (in my own words): Don’t even bother, if you don’t have an insanely great product. Trend means end. Never follow the trend, but try to create your own trend. Charge early. Charge a lot. Your price could be your best marketing strategy. Spend as little money on advertising. Instead spend on developing an insanely great product. The product will speak for itself and your customers will advertise for you. You can never have enough budget to promote a crappy product. If you ever have to give out your product free, build a beautiful and amazing UI to give a much better experience to customer. I must admit and warn you, if you ever watch this video or read about the presentation either on this blog or elsewhere, take the advice with a pinch of salt. While appear sound (and anecdotal and may have worked for him and his team), the advice is quite narrow and ...

You may just beat it as featured in Sakshi TV, the congress party’s ’ official ’ media channel, but its a good summary of all Surveys conducted so far and all of them give a clear victory to Congress while TDP alliance comes second. Now the big question of whether surveys are accurate enough, no body can guarantee that. But if all surveys predict the same or almost similar result, and based on past results of how surveys predicted, well, Congress may win again. Good or bad!!

Every political party alleges that everybody is seriously corrupt. And yet, each Politician, irrespective of the party he/she represents, spends as much as he/she can to BUY votes by offering primarily liquor and money. Some political parties are creative and offer sarees, cricket kits of youngsters and kind. No Political party, Absolutely NO political party has any hint of honesty or guts to put out their account books to the public. Source: The Hindu I wrote a while back about the three questions each Political party must answer. So far, barring all the pep talk about ending corruption, no political party has demonstrated any transparency in the party to prove they are NOT corrupt. It appears, I am asking too much from the politicians!!! The Real Questions ( YesToPolitics ) If there is any party that is promising to end corruption, we ask the following questions to prove that a) they are not corrupt, b) they will not resort to corruption during elections and...

Quite an interesting collage set up as an Ad for a program in local TV. (Rajahmundry) (Source: Kalyan’s Flickr Photo )

There has been no update since the 9th April 2009 news release by USCIS indicating whether H1B cap limits have been reached for FY 2010 yet or not. As per 9th April notification, about 42000 applications have been received. So it appears, the cap limits haven’t been reached yet, even after almost 19 days in April. Last two years (in 2007(H1B2008) and 2008(H1B 2009)) quota has been reached on day 1 itself. This is quite expected. As I said earlier, I would be surprised even if the cap limits are reached. If any firm is planning to apply, they would have applied on day 1 itself knowing what happened in the last two years. If they hadn’t applied yet, most probably they won’t. May be once Economy picks up or knowing the news that this year it won’t be a lottery, some firms may still look at H1B option. But otherwise, I guess, this is it.

With little bit of twisting of words, Chiranjeevi appear to be saying Praja Rajyam Party has been predicted by Potuluri Veera Brahmendra Swamy, the renowned saint.   Source: Eenadu, 19th April, 2009 Well, you can see how nicely words have been twisted. What was said is about the Government by People themselves of course, which meant Democracy.  People have been electing their own government for more than 60 years now. Did Chiranjeevi forgot the history that we fought more than 100 years to get Independence and we started electing our own government since then? Or just leveraging the knowledge of his dialogue writers to twist the words to give a new meaning to Kaala Gnanam that will help his party?

Snapshots of a cool RIA application that provide Andhra Elections at a glance. List of constituencies, various details about each constituency that include current voter strength, list of contestants and results in previous elections in a particular constituency. My biggest objective in designing this application is to impress with a clutter free, stylish grayish design. And, Best of all, NO advertisements , what so ever.   The application is available at http://andhra.yestopolitics.com Dashboard of Current Predictions The app displays current trend and prediction of Andhra Assembly elections on the top the application. It has two different estimates. The first one is based on research of Media reports, selective user interviews and trend estimates. The second one is based on survey of users visiting Yes To Politics website. As of now, TDP alliance is leading in both while PRP is running closely behind. Main Screen Once loaded, the app displays list of Di...

KONIDALA CHIRANJEEVI   (Praja Rajyam Party) is contesting from Two constituencies in this election. For what? Social Justice? or plain arrogance. I always hate any leader contesting in two locations. It is just plain arrogance and waste of public money.  And total lack of respect for both constituencies. Knowing that If he wins in both,  he must leave one constituency for the other and Government had to conduct election one more time, what is the point contesting in more than one location. There are few more such irresponsible leaders contesting in more than one location: B.V.SUBBA REDDY    Independent DONEPUDI DILEEP RAJA    Independent KONDAMURI SATYANARAYANA    Independent M.A. GAFFAR    Independent S.ABDUL GAFOOR    Independent SUNDARA RATNAKAR ROKKAM    Independent VAVILALA POTHULA SUNITHA    Independent BANOTHU JANBABU ...

Building a business rather than a product. That was my recent status update in my LinkedIn profile and surprisingly it has evoked lots interest and  responses from my friends and colleagues. Some just wanted to know what I am trying to build while others question my ‘lack of understanding of the meaning of entrepreneurship’ in saying so. For one, they assume, I am an entrepreneur, by their own definition.  Another close friend admonished saying that I need to open up a little. May be I don’t understand the usual meaning of entrepreneurship, but as I understand one must be a business man first before even thinking about starting a venture. To me, the word, entrepreneur is too fuzzy and often doesn’t mean too different from a business man. After all, there is no entrepreneur without a business. Of course barring academic differences aside. As my friends explain to me that entrepreneurs must create new products or solutions. I think the kid next door that opens up a lemon sta...

As per USCIS notification issued on 9th April it has received just 42000 applications for h1b 2010 under general cap. However it received just about 20000 for advanced degree quota. For both categories, applications will still be accepted.

Chief Secretary of Praja Rajyam party, and the first three members in the party has resigned from the party, citing serious poisonous interests in the party and declaring that party is beyond repair. Party Vice President resigned. Party chief secretary resigned. Will this affect anything in Elections?  I guess, it will have a serious effect.  Before this disastrous array of resignations from the top of the party line, TheWeek Survey projected that PRP could gather only 57 Assembly seats behind Congress and TDP. Now with this disaster so close to elections, it may cost quite dear to the party. He is one of the top three members that were quite effective in projecting a thoughtful and disciplined image to Praja Rajyam party so far. Now, he resigned from the party in quite a dramatic fashion that could seriously cost the upcoming elections for the party. Farewell Speech Right From the Party Office Quite shockingly, so far one of the most respected leaders in the party, ha...

The social justice blue print or the The ‘Caste’ based exploitation of Political parties for the upcoming Elections in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Source: eenadu.net

Praja Rajyam Party vice president Anjaneya Reddy resigned from the party citing unable to find the change   he love to bring in the political party and asserting that Praja Rajyam party is no different than Congress and Telugu Desam party and others. (Source: eenadu.net ) Recently I have expressed similar sentiment that I was not able to see the ‘Change’ the party has been talking about. The party is talking like others, acting like others and spending money desperately to come to power like others and selling tickets like others. I even noted the way they have copied the manifesto and key messages from NTR and LokSatta. Their website is a copy cat of Barack Obama’s website. Now this is a confirmation from none other than the party’s vice President that he did not find the party any different from other political parties. The only different I have seen so far is that the party is championing a clever exploitation of caste in the state in the name of Social justice. Wha...

For the first time in the history of Congress party, the party is fighting this election on the flank of Development and people friendly policies. Telugu Desam party took a u-turn on key policies and trying to position itself as little better than Congress when it comes to populist policies. Eenadu published a comparison of sops by Congress and TDP. Click on the image to see a larger images to read it clearly.

It is no surprise to any body that know about Elections in India, that Money play a very important and often deciding factor in Elections. No wonder, there is such a free flow of money all around the state. News reports from all News papers indicate that political parties are seriously throwing as much as they can. That is not restricted to money alone, but alos include lakhs of Cricket kits for youngsters and in much bigger number, Sarees for women. Parties are literally trying to BUY the vote. And as far as I know from friends all over, this frenzy includes all political parties alike, especially including Praja Rajyam party that spoke against corruption all the while.

In many constituencies it will be quite a triangular contest in this elections, for the first time in many years. Hung assembly is most probable outcome. Both PRP and TDP refuse to accept each other as any competition but say Congress is the only enemy. And in folk parlance, if your enemy is my enemy, we are friends. So … If anybody is reading between the lines, there is always a possibility of PRP and TDP alliance to join after polls to form the government. That could be one possible reason, why both parties are quite reluctant to admit that they are fighting against each other. If PRP and TDP gather momentum, no party will be alone have sufficient strength to form the government. Left parties and TRS could be split from alliance, but that won’t suffice as well. So the only option is another marriage of convenience between the Grand alliance and PRP. Quite a prediction?

If the way the whole drama of seat adjustment between the Grand Alliance partners is any indication of what we can expect if the alliance comes in to power, one can infer that it will be a total disaster. The Grand alliance did not appear anything but just a marriage of convenience. In the minds of many people, TDP has already lost the election even before a single vote is cast. If at all anything gets reversed it would be due to filmy drama of Jr. N.T.R just like Chiranjeevi. No Common agenda/manifesto yet. Not clear if left parties and TRS would join the government if the alliance wins. If they don’t join, it would be so predictable that TDP won’t stand a chance to run even for a few months (if wins, of course). Just 14 more days to go, except the Movie stars Bala Krishna and junior NTR, TDP hasn’t done any serious campaigning yet. Lost already many leaders to Congress and PRP, some are quite a key in many constituencies. YSR’s serious criticism on political back...