ThoughtfulChaos

Cause: DesiPundit saying that "Varun is tracking all the developments regards the IIPM case" Yikes!
Effect: Me feeling guilty about not following up on the issue and eventually overcoming my laziness to blog once more.

I just jotted down some points throughout the day and I put everything together in the evening. Consequently I have rambled a little and coherence takes a hit. What the heck!

Btw if you have just crawled out from under a rock and don't know what I am talking about read my previous post on this or read Time Line: IIPM Vs Blogosphere by Chenthil. OK about the "just crawled out from under a rock" statement... I just used it because it sounds so cool! I really don't mean it :-)

Continue reading "IIPM Blog wars: Indian Bloggers=1, Fake Blogs and Idiots=0"...

Something very interesting is going on in the (Indian) blogosphere right now. It is serious and hilarious at the same time. This is the first time I am witnessing something of this sort and I am keeping a close watch on it to see what happens. It has potential to snowball into a serious issue or maybe it will fizzle out on its own. Personally I prefer the former since that will make a lot of things clearer.

This will also be interesting from a purely academic point of view. Does blogging have any effect in India? How fast can it spread? How do blogs stand up in court?

OK enough rambling... here's the real deal. The time line of the whole issue goes something like this:

1. The little known JAMMAG magazine does some snooping around and discovers lot of dirt on IIPM. Read their report titled The Truth About IIPM's Tall Claims. Also read this and this. Even though their website is quite shabby their research seems genuine and thorough enough.
2. Gaurav Sabnis blogs about the expose in a post titled The fraud that is IIPM.
3. In a blog titled The Truth About IIPM Truth Seeker, who claims to be an IIPM ex-student and ex-employee writes negative things about IIPM
4. Legal cell of IIPM serves a legal notice to Gaurav for totally false articles about IIPM on the website blogspot.com (reference blogger.com) (sic). The legal notice (an email) sounds more like a dhamki than a legal notice. See below...

Continue reading "The IIPM Blog wars"...

Another day gone by. Am still bored out of my wits so no blog for today. But I was itching to post something and I decided to 1 more in the 'silliness' series. Actually this is more cool than silly...

Do you like what you see? This nice webapp called photo mosaic is 1 of the many toys created by John Watson. Another 1 of my favourites is the calendar maker that takes in any (largish) photo you want and superimposes a specific month on it. I create a new page every month, print it and put it up in my cubicle.

You can feed in photos from many sources, control the size of pics in the mosaic and the number of rows and columns in the mosaic. Enjoy!

Click on the photo to see the actual (large) version

I read lot of stuff on the Net everyday, some technical some not so technical, some useful and some totally frivolous. However I very rarely comment on them in the blog. If you are interested in what interested me on a paritcular day just go and visit my StumbleUpon page (RSS feed) and you will find sites/pages/articles that I liked. Sites that I liked and want to remember more permanently I bookmark. You will find my bookmarks on my del.icio.us page (RSS feed).

I just read something that I think all of us should read. The author explains a very current topic, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (commonly abbreviated to NREGS or just REGS) in very simple but accurate terms. By far this is the best non-technical analysis of REGS I have ever read. A must read for all those interested in what it is.

One of the best things about the essay is the manner in which it thrashes out the differences between income, employment and poverty. We usually have very muddled up definitions for these things and this essay is an eye-opener.

Enough said. Go read the essay now...
The REGS Guarantees Poverty

Continue reading ""The REGS Guarantees Poverty" by Atanu Dey"...

Are you Abhishek Patel? Or do you know anybody by that name? If yes read on...

Abhishek was a good friend of mine back in school. He left Ahmedabad in 1995 (after 8th Std) and went to Mumbai. We exchanged a few letters for about a year and then we lost touch. I have been trying to trace him since 2 years but no success... Here is hoping that somebody stumbles upon this page...

You are the Abhishek Patel I am looking for if:

• You came to Ahmedabad in 1992 and left Ahmedabad in 1995.
• You studied in Prakash Higher Secondary School when you were in Ahmedabad.
• Your house in Ahmedabad was somewhere in the Paldi area.
• You had a Hero Mach 1 bicycle.
• You used to go to NCC (Naval wing) in the 7th and 8th standard.
• You were the CR (Class Representative) in 8th standard.
• Your father's name is Amrutlal (or maybe spelled as Amritlal). He used to work for LIC India.
• You had an elder brother named Akash (not very sure about this) who had a Suzuki Shogun bike.
• You had a Pomeranian dog named Honey.
• You went to Mumbai after leaving Ahmedabad.

If you are this particular Abhishek Patel or if you know someone who matches the facts given above please get in touch with me. You can also directly email me at varunvnair_gmail_com (replace the 2 underscores with a @ and . respectively)