A few weeks ago, I filed two complaints pertaining to the Secunderabad GHMC office, one about broken traffic lights at Mettuguda (10ENG1694) which look like they were stoned to death; second about a breach in a divider at Rail Nilayam (10ENG1713) which causes painful traffic slowdowns every evening. While I do not have an image for the first grievance, here are pics depicting the second grievance:

A typical example of too many layers of the road eventually reaching up to the height of the divider. And wonder of wonders, we have perennial potholes even after so many ‘layers’.

I can also smell the hands of the petrol pump owners here. This would have definitely done wonders to their business.

Here is the RTI application I had filed: RTI-Mettuguda

And, here is the response from EE-Div-11 : RTI Response

Here is the portion where they mention the list of officers associated with these grievances:

Sl.No.	Name of the Officer	Designation	Cell No.	Remarks
1.	Sri. Venkateshwara Rao	E.E. Project Divn-2, GHMC,	9959912577	Regarding Road Dividers
2.	Sri. Chandra Shaker	EE (Traffic) GHMC	9959442432
3.	Sri. Madhulety	EE (Elec) NZ, GHMC	9849054407	Traffic Light
4.	Sri. Upender Reddy	Inspector of Police (Traffic)	9490616016	Police Traffic

Now you atleast know who to call with regards to the Tarnaka/Sangeet pothole riddled stretch.

Note, there is absolutely no mention about the work done in regards to these grievances anywhere, which simply implies that there was no work done, at all. The GHMC is mandated to provide information regarding the work (not) done, which they haven’t. I can hear GHMC say : “Aaw, don’t make me work, don’t make me move my body now, please let me continue sleeping”

Why did I take light years to come back online, then? The reason for that lies in the fact that I have returned to India for good, and the website was completely ignored for many days while recovering from the jet lag, and getting things into order here at home. Now that my blog is also up n running, it feels so good to have everything in place for once in life.

Till the next time!

Edit: Now on WordPress’ blog hosting. I’ve setup a redirect from http://vsanjay.com/ to http://sanjayvaranasi.wordpress.com/ . Not only is this great for reliability, it also makes great sense for the pocket!

The very first decade of the 21st century comes to an end today and this shall be the last post of the same. It has not been an easy decade for India, or for several other countries. It was a decade filled with many advancements -

Better communications: Mobile phone market has grown from a mere 36 lakh subscriber base in Year 2000 to nearly 51 crore connections as of Nov 2009. Last month alone, we added nearly 180 lakh more connections. Internet penetration has been extremely slow, growing to a mere 1.34 crore connections from 46 lakh connections in Year 2000;

Urban growth: At the helm of this decade, around 27% of Indian population resided in urban India. However, extremely rapid urbanisation due to globalisation helped grow sectors like IT and Services as if on steroids. Urban Indian population as of 2006 stood at 29%, however, there is no data for 2009. We could safely estimate it at around 31-32% based on previous growth data. With a 4-5% increase in urban population every decade, India is struggling to cope with providing infrastructure to its urban areas.

Middle Class rises: Globalisation of India helped fuel the rapid growth of India’s middle class, thus creating a new demand for processed foods, high quality and imported clothing and accessories, lifestyle products and services such as fine dining restaurants, high-end malls and multiplexes. Finally, it jumped up the demand and sales for 2-wheeler 4-wheelers like never before. People were traveling farther to work, and since the government did not meet demand with supply of public transport facilities, citizens had to make their own arrangements. As a result, urban traffic is very dense, chaotic and unruly.

Economy: Indian economy, despite all its problems, has been on a roll with our GDP rate nothing less than 7% since 2003 with a high of 9.9% in year 2000. However, owing to this century’s first depression in the developed world, India’s growth rate slipped to around 6.6%. It is still highly commendable that our economy stood while other nations struggled.

This decade was also filled with sadness owed to an increase in the number of attacks by terrorists, be it the attack on Indian parliament in 2001, or the series of blasts in the trains of Mumbai in 2006, or the coordinated attacks in Mumbai – November 2008, multiple bombings at various parts of Hyderabad in August, 2007; or multiple blasts in Bangalore in 2008, there is a trend that is to be taken seriously. These attacks have been more regular, are more planned, and are targeting not just Indian monuments or places of importance, but places of general public like parks, restaurants and train stations.

This decade has also witnessed a huge support for separatism, what with three new states(Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand) all emerging in the same month of November, 2000. Blame or hail BJP for that. Following that, there have been more requests and agitations for separate states across India, with Gorkhas wanting a piece of West Bengal; Mayawati and her supporters wanting BundelKhand again from UP; Vidharba from Maharashtra; and most importantly the agitation for a separate Telangana from Andhra Pradesh. A month of severe agitations have brought AP to a grinding halt and there seems to be no respite from rasta-rokos, bandhs, and other forms of anti-democratic agitations. People of Andhra Pradesh have been spared two days of ‘relief’ on the occasion of New Year’s celebrations.

There were also several scams, as always. But the one that takes all the cakes is the Satyam fiasco early 2009 that was a result of misreporting of profits and figures ending up in a Rs.7000 crore fraud and the abrupt demotion of Mr. Ramalinga Raju from a role model to no-more a model, with several charges pressed against him and his co-scammers.

I could go on and on, it is, after all a decade I’m talking about. But I should leave the rest for you to ponder about. On the other hand, this was the most important decade of my life and decisions I took in this decade form my career for the rest of my life. I finished my Xth grade in the year 2000, my +2 by year 2002 and a fun-filled Bachelor’s in 2006. Worked in several jobs for abruptly short durations and after much confusion I ended up in the US of A for my Master’s. I graduated out of school just this month, marking a very eventful and fruitful decade.

Here is wishing all my (very few) fans out there a new year filled with memorable events and successful endeavors and a very grand new decade.

Jai Hind!

One (Woodlands) of the two pairs of shoes brought in my last life is still are as reliable as they were before. My Casio watch is relatively new, although cheap and very basic. One out of the two pairs of sunglasses (Polaroid) was bought nearly three years ago and I still love and use them. My cell phone was also bought more than 3 years ago (Sony W550) and I’m amazed at the fact that this piece doesn’t look outdated yet (or does it).

I believe in using things until they reach their end of life. This, in my opinion, is real value for money. While I may seem cheap and stingy, I strongly believe that being wise with the wallet pays off for itself in the long term. Also, I think I have already outgrown the need to constantly look like someone from MTV, and I simply don’t bother myself too much to buy something new.

Fast forward 2 months and I have a blown gasket. Several months back I had noticed that I had to top-up coolant quite frequently. I asked the dealer to check it out and he said everything was fine. Anyways, I’m here now with this great problem that needs another grand to be fixed. Excellent.

Then, I have to pay my fees for my next semester – $1550. And I’ve been paying all this using my credit card which has no interest rate until March ’09. Now I have the time bomb ticking. I need to gather a total of nearly $4000 to get out of debt in the first place, and more to get going for the next semester. That brings the total to nearly 6 to 7 grand.

So now, its apparent that I made a mistake selecting the car I did. But, I’m going bankrupt ain’t I? So, can I ask the US govt. for a bail-out? Or atleast a freaking scholarship!?

If you find yourself in a similar situation, you could try being frugal. Since my financial position hasn’t been all that great since mid-spring 08, I’ve learnt to cut costs and save money. Its never too late. Try this link for 50 tips for being frugal.

Meanwhile, enjoy this funny video about a frugal man:

For those of you living on cutting edge software, and for those desperately waiting for fixes and drivers for some of their hardware, get ready to gear up your Internet connections to download the release next Thursday.

If you are one of those who like living life on the safe side of Long Term releases, feel free to skip this release. This doesn’t mean that this release is not worth noticing. It definitely is, for me. My Thinkpad R500 barely worked onHardy and X.org couldn’t do anything with my display on Gutsy. But, on Ibex, my laptop runs at full steam with Wireless, Audio and Graphics working out of the box without me having to install or enable any additional drivers. The availability of Open Office 3.0 comes as a blessing, and I was one of the first ones to download the final build. (Yeah, curse me for the slow speeds and for the OpenOffice.org website going down). The good news is that Ibex comes with OOo 3.0 by default.

As a user who doesn’t really exploit most of the features of Linux, I couldn’t really find many new features. When I say features, I mean those that add more/new functionality to the end-user. One new thing that I noticed was the integrated icon for Pidgin and the User Switcher icon in the taskbar.

.. to be continued ..

… apparently not…

But, I live in a apartment with 3 other guys. So, I thought it would be really wonderful if our room had a unlimited calling facility like Skype, but detached from the computer. Thats when I went back to the heavily priced Skype phones. The first one to impress me was the Philips VOIP841. I have always liked products from Philips. The best price I could get was on Buy.com for $112, but it was on backorder. I waited and waited and waited for nearly 2 weeks after which I simply canceled the order. I simply went to Ebay and ordered a NetGear SPH200D Skype phone for $130. Why not the philips? Coz all of the philips phones were priced at a huge profit margin. Nowhere near the $112 that I saw on Buy.com

This Netgear phone arrived by DHL today and I was quite excited to get it after all the wait since I ordered the Philips phone. I tore open the package and quickly had a look at the contents. What I had were a Base Station, one docking station, the handset, two adapters – one for the base station, and one for the docking station, one ethernet cable and one telephone cable, and two AAA rechargeable batteries.

The first thing I did was to plug in the Base station to the outlet near my desktop computer and then connect it to my ADSL Router’s Ethernet port. My Router has 4 ports. Next, I put in the two AAA batteries into the handset which triggered it to turn itself on. I was welcomed with a colorful screen. The setup started by itself. It first asked for my Country code, then for my Area code. Then the screen where I was either supposed to Login using my existing Skype ID or Create a new Skype ID.

As soon as I ordered the phone, I had signed up for the Unlimited US calling feature with SkypeIn number.

So, I entered this information into the tiny little screen. It was quite easy doing so. The password reveals each letter while typing and then becomes an asterisk. Nice feature.

After that, the handset tell me that its signing-in and within seconds, I see my userID on the screen. All my Skype contacts were automatically imported into my phone.

I tried my first call to my own mobile. I was asked if I wanted to use SkypeOut or the Landline. Since I didn’t have a landline, I chose SkypeOut. The handset had no problem connecting to the base station and then to my mobile phone number and within a few seconds I see my SkypeIn number on my mobile phone. I cannot comment on the call quality as such, coz I’m yet to talk to anybody using the phone.

Later, I explored the Menu items. It was pretty easy navigating all the various menu items and configuration.
The handset also allowed me to set the default calling setting to SkypeOut to the phone didn’t keep asking me for the same each time I tried calling someone.

Well, these were my first impressions. I’d give it a 4.5/5 just for the lack of a stable feeling when you hold the handset. It doesn’t feel as sturdy and strong as a regular mobile phone or a cordless handset. I’ll let you know more about the Netgear SPH200D phone in a few more days once I start using it widely, in a hope to reduce my minutes usage.

Now, I’m in India. Initially, I explored many known and unknown places in Hyderabad, and also had lots and lots of fun. Now, I feel I’ve nothing better to do than to laze around all day with the computer, watch TV, go to the Gym, eat, and sleep. Once in a while I do watch a freaking movie. And thats all. In all these days in Hyderabad, I’ve not made a single new friend, neither have I done something new.There is nothing I do here that I cannot do in the US.

Today, for the first time in mo-o-o-nths I’d say I’m bored. If you have any suggestions to get me out of this boredom, please feel free to comment.

If possible, I’d like to sneak a trip or two to places (anywhere in India) I’ve never been to. Alone. It’d be a nice adventure.

Meanwhile, I still have a few things pending, the first of which is to search for a nice topic for my Graduate project, so I can start working on it as quickly as possible. Then come shoes, ties, clothes, non-perishable food items and more.

Each day spent is one more day lost in this trip to India, and I want to make the most of it. I wish to back to the US with pleasant memories of this age-old country.

Cya!

Initially I found the place to be wierd, coz I was used to US airports, and their way of handling people and issues. The new Shamshabad airport left a lot to be desired. It was awesome by all Indian standards, but, pathetic by any global standard. I found the staff at the airport very non-professional, and the immigration officials very unfriendly. Luckily, I didn’t have to put up with them for long, as the immigration process was short. Baggage collection was equally quick too. After coming out, I had to wait for my parents for quite sometime, and I heard people were still waiting for their baggage.

My uncle had come to pick me up in his car, and when we drove back, I was quite uncomfortable with the lane-less bumper-bumper driving, especially as I was so used to US driving.

When I finally reached home I still wasn’t sure if I was really in India. I needed some serious sleep. It was only after I woke up I realised I really was in India. (I hate these spell-checkers. Why can’t I use ‘s’ instead of ‘z’ in realised?)

That very day, I met my friend in the evening, and I ventured out to explore my favorite city. I was apprehensive if I would be able to drive.. duh .. ride my motorcycle in the city’s extreme traffic conditions. Nevertheless, I decided to try it out, and was surprised that I fit so well into the messy traffic. Initially I felt a li’l uncomfortable, but that was shortlived. Very soon, I started zipping and zooming through the traffic like always.

Went to visit some of my ( and all Hyderabadis’) favorite spots – Necklace Rd/ Eatstreet, Prasad’s IMAX, Hyderabad Central). I liked the experience, but not to the fullest, since there was little youth around, mainly due to the fact that it was mid-week. I came back happy to have rediscovered my Indian-self.

I still do find a few things to be wierd, esp. after knowing for a fact that we can do better than this. Like for ex: the utterly  pathetic download speeds of BSNL – 256kbps as compared to 1.5Mbps I get with ATT at the same price (in rupees), the list of requirements – Photo, ID, proof etc required to acquire a SIM card for a cell-phone, etc.

Enough said. I’ve been enjoying the new-old experience of being in a hip and happening city, that is Indian, and that I can relate to very well.