Inflation, Infrastructure, etc.

News channels and papers are full of news regarding the rather high inflation currently prevailing in India. Clearly, 8.24% is a little too much for India’s common men to handle.
True, that the government can do very little about the rising fuel costs and the steeply rising number of vehicles on the road. The government seems to lesser hopes of curbing inflation, especially after the recent hike in petrol and diesel prices. Fuel is heavily subsidized. Subsidization is paid using the tax-payers money. This means that the burden of high fuel prices hits us someway or the other.

India’s economy seems to be on a slow-down. Suddenly India Inc. seems to be shying away from the optimistic attitude shown at the markets last year. The Sensex has been steadily losing points, while the rupee has been weakening at a rather quick pace.

Various parties conducted bandhs, strikes and rasta rokos all over the nation, in protest of the fuel-price hike. Such mindless acts by politicians not only disrupt normal life for the common man, but also make it difficult for them. Also, if a city like Hyderabad is under a bandh, businesses lose millions of rupees each day, and the government loses lakhs to crores of rupees in taxes and other revenues. Acts like these are clearly done only to gain political mileage. But, any sensible person would only be aggravated by such inconveniences. It was rather ironic, when a ruling party initiated a strike in its own state.

On the other hand, are our age-old, creaking, fuel-guzzling roadways and highways ‘connecting’ various parts of the country. Some of the so called national and state highways are being ‘upgraded’ to four lanes ! Thats wonderful – you might exclaim. But thats barely  enough to carry vehicle population that has been growing faster than the movement of papers for road-projects from one govt. office to another. Many of the National Highway Projects initiated by various governments are yet to be implemented. Moreover, with such vehicular growth, today’s highways quickly become tomorrow’s clog-ways.

Fast urban connectivity ensures faster movement of man to and from commercial districts. This helps develop suburban areas, and towns surrounding cities.
Speedy rural connectivity helps quick transfer of farmer’s produce to industry and markets. But this is still a dream in modern-India. Many rural roads non-exist, and where they do, they are mere 1 to 1-1/2 lanes wide; roads barely enough for two trucks to pass comfortably. Then we have cows and buffaloes, tractors, cyclists and many more reasons for traffic to slow down. Fresh fruits and vegetables can start spoiling fast, and each minute lost to traffic is loads of stock lost on countless trucks all over the nation.

What has infrastructure got to do with inflation? – you might wonder.  Let me explain. If 10kgs of a vegetable get spoilt on a truck during transit due to traffic delay, it means  end-consumers have 10kgs less to eat. When there is more demand for a product than there is supply, prices are bound to increase.

And why did I use the term fuel-guzzling infrastructure? Each minute wasted in non-moving, or slow traffic is thousands of liters of fuel lost all over the nation. More fuel means more import, which means more subsidy, which means crores of monetary loss for the nation. In turn – more burden on the tax-payer.

Railways are no better when it comes to handling goods. Existing rail-networks are congested enough for passenger traffic. Indian railways is having a tough time handling the extra-load of carrying goods along the existing lines. The recent proposal by Shri. Laloo Prasad Yadav of laying a third rail-line, though immensely useful, might just be a little too late.

What this country now needs is a network of super-highways, elevated at populated places to avoid congestion and bottlenecks, with atleast 4-6 lanes criss-crossing India’s vast expanses, connecting important cities and towns, and high-capacity, well maintained roadways connecting rural India to its markets. Projects like these, would no doubt need investments of thousands of crores of rupees, which definitely means more burden on the already heavily burdened middle-class. But, I’m sure people would be more than happy to help turn India into a truly Modern-day India.

Back on home soil!!

Hurray!! After 10 months of living in a foreign land, and after having completely settled and adjusted to the new environment, I came back to my home land on 20th May. I stepped out of the terminal expecting the shock of my life.

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.

Back to Ubuntu!! And for some wierd reasons.

I’m sure you’ve heard that the latest version of Ubuntu – Hardy Heron hit the servers on 24th Apr. After abandoning ubuntu for one full release (Gutsy Gibbon), I’m back to it.And I’m loving it! I’m just pleased to see Ubuntu getting better with each release, especially since I’d began using it since Breezy, way back in Apr 2006.I started out with Breezy, and the experience was anything but breezy. But, I’m happy with the fact that I started with that release, coz I got to learn a lot, as most of the stuff wasn’t as easy as it is today.

But the reason why I’m back to Ubuntu is something unrelated to Ubuntu. My Gmail was hacked recently, and repeatedly. Paypal was linked to it, and so credit card information was misused too. Though I don’t want to explain much of it here, I could say that s.o.b created a mighty mess, and I’m still 1/3rd drowned in it. I got to say, he gave me an entirely new picture of security on the Internet. Now I know its f*cking easy to mess with public systems like Gmail and Orkut. I’ve decided to take Google out of my diet to the maximum exten possible, and have almost completed the task. No details here.

Someone suggested that the hacker might have installed s/w on my Vista, say, a keylogger or something. And that was when it struck me. I had actually tried the Beta a few days ago, so I was aware that there was the Final releasing sometime soon. I checked the Ubuntu site, and there it was, the Final version of Hardy up for download.

I now don’t use Firefox for anything related to Google (Orkut). Its a security hole.. It is.

I’ve had no instance of a hack/ password change since, and you can guess the rest of the story.

India Excitement

It seems like my excitement to be in India seems to be decreasing just as the count-down to the flight back home. When I initially bought the tickets, I was very excited and couldn’t sleep for many nights, as I remained awake with thoughts of being back home, where I could relate to things happening around me, where I had my friends, where I could eat Mom’s khaana(food), where I could get dinner for as little as 50cents.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to improve or rather transform myself before I reached India. Though it looks like I’d overshoot that deadline, I’m confident I’d be able to finish my transformation even while in India. My new life’s resolutions go something like this :  (sorted acc. to priority)

1) Finish the work I start.

2) Put my weight under control. You must have read about this in my previous post.

3) Try to mix with people of all kind, and to make few friends.

4) Learn how to talk, and be free even in crowds, or strangers.

5) Start taking studies seriously, for a change.

These translate into two essential things : Get rid of my laziness, and set my attitude right towards life.

I must say that I’ve actually started working on all the 5 points, though it is just a beginning, and I hope to get rid of the 1st factor at the earliest. Wish me all the best!!

Frantic trials to lose weight!

A couple of weeks back, I made a visit to our local university doctor due to ear pain. The assistant checked my weight and noted it down. I was curious, since I knew I had put on lot of weight after coming to the US and because I had started jogging a few days earlier. When I asked her, she said in her typical american accent One Nah-eighty. It took me a ‘huh?’ and another round of the stupid accent to understand that she was saying “190″. I was sorta shocked. 190 pounds is 86kilos. Prior to coming to the US, I weighed 78kilos.

I was aware of the Warrior Diet, since I had read a few pages of the book  long ago. I thought it was time I put it into practice. Since that day, I’ve been on a strict diet of the warrior. This means, you eat skimpy, high fibre, low calorie meals during the daytime, and you get to eat as much as you like of average caloried meals in the night. Though this is contrary to popular belief of eating more during the day when food has highest chance to digest, I went ahead with this plan, since it is always my trait to try out different things, or doing things differently.

The doctor  had adviced me not to jog for a while due to the ear infection. So, I’ve been doing some basic exercises like push-ups, bending, and minor weight lifting for 1/2 hr daily. All this leaves me very hungry by just 7:30, and that is when I start cooking. It takes me less than half hour to cook, and I’m usually eating by 8:00.

Its said that the brain take 15 minutes to know its hungry/ or that its full, and the Warrior Diet asks the warrior(me) to eat slowly. It usually took me 10 minutes to eat, but now it takes me nearly half an hour.

Yesterday, I went to walmart to get a weigh scale for convenience sake. I checked my weight after coming back home, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was 180. That means nearly 4.5kgs of weight loss in about 20 days. But, the pessimist that I am,  I wondered if the scale at the university was working properly. That is a job left for Monday.

Happy Birthday blog!

My blog completes one year in the internet world today. Happy Birthday to it!! Wishing it many more years to come.

Tasty Rajma (Kidney beans) Recipe

While in the US, there is little choice of fresh / frozen vegetables especially in small towns like Kingsville. I’m left with no choice but to use what I get in ways that would wake up my Indian taste buds.

Here is the recipe for Rajma (Red Kidney Beans as is called in the US) – Serves two.

What you need :

1. One large US size onion or atleast 2&1/2 Indian size onions. ( Onions in the US can be as large as small Indian cabbages)
2. One and half US size tomatoes or 4 Indian size.
3. One can of Red Kidney Beans.
4. Two green chillies.
5. Turmeric powder.
6. Red Chilli powder as per individual requirement
7. Garlic-Ginger paste. 1/2 tablespoon.
8. Whipped Cream ( Malai blended smooth). 1&1/2 tablespoons.
9. Garam masala- one teaspoon.

Procedure :

• Put the skillet / kadai on medium flame. Put one tablespoon vegetable/corn oil or even ghee.
• Cut the onion into 1 inch pieces, and grind to a fine paste.
• Put the paste into the kadai, and keep stirring.
• Meanwhile, put the tomatoes in the blender and grind to a paste.
• When the onion paste has turned to a slight brown, put the tomato paste into it.
• Keep stirring till oil starts to separate. Then put the turmeric powder, ginger-garlic paste, salt and mix.
• Put the kidney beans along with the water that comes with it. This adds some gravy to the curry, and stir.
• Cut the green chillies into whatever shape desired, and put them into the curry. Add the red chilli powder and garam masala.
• Mix well. Add the whipped cream now, and mix well again. Keep stirring once in a while, for 10 minutes on low-medium flame.
• Take the kadai off the flame, and pour the curry into a bowl. Garnish with coriander leaves if desired.
• Serve with either Roti/ Naan or just plain white rice.