Safe path chosen by Chidambaram

This is the first time I have followed budget so closely and it deserves a mention over here. So here I am with my own review of the budget. Jotting down the merits and pitfalls of the budget.

Disclaimer: Information provided here must already be known to you . Opinions expressed here are mine.

First the merits:

• Farmer's loan waiver has to be the man of the match for this budget. This will help crores of farmers across the country.
• Income tax slab revision is another master stroke targeted towards the middle class. The revision is beyond expectations. The salaried class is all set to benefit hugely from this move up to a whooping amount of 45000 a year. Another point here which might be missed is an amount of 15000 is eligible to be exempted from tax under 80G for medical insurance for parents.
  
• Cars ,bikes,fridges and other household items will be cheaper from April 1 2008. Another arrow in the quiver targeted towards the election.
• Lots of new institutions, 3 IITs among them and many other sops for education.
  
• Duty on cigarettes without filter raised which will turn people towards "safer" filtered cigarettes.

Now for the pitfalls. The biggest pitfall with this budget is FM has NOT spoken about many crucial aspects. He has simply chosen to avoid them.

• Nothing being told about extending the STPI sops beyond 2009 March, IT cos future still hangs in balance.
• Nothing being told about Interlinking of rivers. As soon as summer comes this issue is set to rise its ugly head.
  
• No announcements about the pay commission report on revising the pay of Central Govt. Employees.
  
• Increase in duty for packaged software, another small blow to the IT industry.
• No change in the corporate income tax, corporates were expecting a reduction so that their operational costs get reduced.

FM has tried to please everyone with the budget but as an IT professional I feel betrayed except the decision on the other IT, income tax.

Agree with me or counter me... let me know.

Rules change in cricket

On behalf of cricket Australia  I propose the following changes to the cricketing rules  to enable Australian players and teams to continue their winning ways.

*) Any bowler who picks more than 10 wickets in any series in Australia will be treated with rotten eggs and will be boo ed by the crowd.
*) Any player who responds to aussie sledging must be immediately banned for at least 3 matches.
*) Any comment which an Australian player makes is made in the spirits of the game as it is "fun" and any comments from the opposition is NOT.
*) No team can beat Australia in Australian soil, even if they manage to do that , for the next match three of their main players should be dropped or banned from playing.
*) No opposition team can lodge a complaint against any Australian player.
 
And finally these set of rules come to effect immediately and these will be modified and new rules added with each match and each series with the sole consent of Australian cricket team and board.

Welcome to the new world of domination in cricket by Australia!!!

The Afghan: Must read

Being quite busy in the new place settling down and the fact that blogspot is blocked in my office has contributed to the delay in posting. Here I am back with another of my review on the book “The Afghan" by Frederick Forsyth which I managed to finish today.

Afghan is the latest offering from the master of thrillers and it surely lives to the high expectations I had after “The Negotiator". As is my cup of tea, it is a fiction which gives us with lot and lot of facts and edge of the seat thrill.

The story begins in Pakistan when the Brits get a hint about a Al-Qaeeda mastermind plan. The rest of the story goes about how the Brits and Americans bond together to send an imposter into the Al-Qaeda to figure out what the plan is. Giving any further insights into the story will be injustice to the book.

My favorite part of the book being the part when he talks about the two warriors, the original Afghan and the imposter. How each of them became the stalwarts in their respective fields. Esp. the portions involving the Afghan which give us a good insight

into the Afghan story, the evolution of Mujahideen,Taliban and Al-Qaeeda. These are the portions where I understood the

ideologies behind each of these forces . Some more facts which I got through this is that the so-called West friendly countries like UAE,Singapore, Malaysia etc. have their own supporters of Al-Qaeeda who are fortunately comparitively dormant.

The book is so detail in all these aspects that one starts wondering if Forsyth was ever involved in any of these. :)

Same is true with the details of the operations performed by CIA and other US forces. His knowledge of the subjects is encyclopedic.

By the time I ended up reading this, one fear starts lingering in your mind. If someone plans an attack to this precision as is done in the novel, it is really difficult to counter it.

Hats off!

IT crash

Is the IT dream over? This question is pondering on everyone's mind. With the dollar values refusing to surge ahead, this is very much a valid question. If any such thing happens, IT is all set to become the most scary profession to take up. The IT companies and Govt. of India who have reaped out so much benefits from the industry should have some moral responsibility to bring it back to track. Companies have made such huge profit during hay days and now it is time to pay back. It is time they adjust with slightly lower margin of profit. As for the Govt., it should take some economic steps like some more sops for the industry to keep it alive. They should just think about all the employment IT has created for the country and the whooping amount of honest tax payers who belong to this sector.

Finally, we the IT people, should be ready for any inevitable change and be prepared with our armors on.

Indian cinema != Bollywood

I was delighted to see the NDTV entertainer of the year award for the year 2007 being given to Rajnikant. Not because I am a hard core Rajni fan or a big admirer of the movie Sivaji . But because of the fact that Indian media has started to recognize beyond the horizons of bollywood. There have been always quality movies which come out of 'woods' other than bollywood but most of them have gone unrecognized. For instance, it fails my understanding as to why was Paheli sent to oscar last year and why is eklavya being sent this year. I know of many movies which were better than them in Tamil, the only regional language movie I follow and am sure others following will give more of such instances. So it is time the term bollywood gets redefined and no longer means Indian cinema. World should realize that bollywood is not Indian Cinema and there is much beyond that. Its time we stop seeing the movie industry from a myopic view point.

One last note on Rajni, according to me he is the most bankable actor in the whole country. Have him in the movie and you can definitely achive six sigma level success or may be more.


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