One more life lost to corruption
This news makes me feel sad. Manjunath, an IIM graduate and an IOC official was killed recently. His fault? He stood up against corruption. He ordered closing down of a petrol pump (petrol/gas station) on charges of adultration. So he just performed his duties honestly. But the petrol pump owners seem to work in a mafia-like fashion, and a honest officer to inspect the pumps is certainly not liked by them:
IOC official seals petrol pump, is killed
Gaurav Sabnis, a fellow student at IIM-L, has written a tribute to Manjunath. Unfortunately, the mainstream media does not seem to be bothered with this.
This is so similar to the Satyendra Dube murder, when an honest officer on National Highway project (and an IIT graduate) who exposed the rampant corruption in the prestigious highway project was killed, exactly two years ago:
To add insult to the injury, the real culprits in the Dubey case are not brought to book, nor do we hear of any action been taken on the issues raised by Dubey.
The positive thing is that even after Dubey was killed, there was Manjunath, and there still are many more like them who continue to work honestly!
And I am sure they are, because without their presence things would not be half as good as they are.
And India bashers (mostly Indians themselves), please don’t insult these two noble souls (and others) by starting the usual rhetoric of corruption and India not respecting its talent and blah blah. Atleast respect their sacrifice!
Fantastic cooking blogs …
Today’s find:
An amazing cooking blog: Mahanandi: Cooking with Consciousness – Recipes from India and the World
It’s a blog/website with lots of innovative recipes, mostly Indian. The recipes are accompanied by nice pictures, of the ingredients and the final product. There is also some gyaan (info) on the ingredients and the item itself. The recipes seem to be painstakingly written. (recently I tried putting down one recipe, and it took hell lot of time to remember all details!)
What I find interesting is also the fact that the author is based in US, and knowing how difficult it is to find Indian cooking ingredients (oh, the authentic ones), it is a remarkable job indeed.
A few more resourceful sites (some discovered through the above blog):
By the time I was on the 5th entry of the above list, I realised there are so many. So unless there is some categorization/classification, it’s a tough task to keep track of all. Maybe the data mining people interested in food can help 
Maybe I should make this food blog list an ongoing project, like a cooking resource. Just to keep the in one place (tags or no tags), links to old posts:
Arrogant americans abusing Indian call-center workers
The SF Chronicle has published an article on how Indian call-center workers suffer abuse from irate callers from USA. It makes an interesting reading on the reactions to outsourcing. Quoted from the article, some racist comments by callers:
The caller greeted her with a torrent of racial and sexual slurs, accused her of “roaming about naked without food and clothes” and asked, “What do you know about computers?” The diatribe ended with the comment:”This company is just saving money by outsourcing to Third World countries like yours.”
…
The less favorable view, though, is beginning to seep into Indian popular culture. The scripts for a new sitcom called “The Call Center,” scheduled to air this winter on the leading channel NDTV, depict Westerners as arrogant, immoral and comically rude.
…
One of the episodes recreates a real-life exchange that occurred in January between an American and an Indian agent that has become notorious among the call center crowd here. On the Philadelphia radio show “Star and Buc Wild,” host Troi Terrain phoned an Indian call center pretending to order hair beads for his daughter. The call quickly turned vicious.
“Listen to me, you dirty rat eater,” Terrain growled, to muffled laughter in the studio. “I’ll come out there and choke the — out of you. You’re a filthy rat eater. I’m calling about my American 6-year-old white girl. How dare you outsource my call?”
The complete article here: Outsourcing Outrage
I am surely going to watch this program on NDTV if I get to.
I have another issue with the way call-centers (whether Indian or not) work. The person who takes the call has little authority (decision-making power as well as command over the topic). I, as a user, would first try to find solutions myself, or do the preliminary investigation over the net, before calling the call-center.
When the person on phone repeats the same things that I already know (despite being told so), it is the most irritating part. And finally since the person taking care of my problem is someone else (who’s hidden from me, the call center people refuse to give their contacts), I don’t have anyone to hold responsible for, if my problem is not solved. I have rarely been able to get my problems solved through a call to a call-center (within India). I still believe in the old-fashioned across-the-counter/letter/email way of doing things!
Coming back to outsourcing of call-center work, I believe we Indians are fairly good at understanding others’ problems and solving them. Why? I am not claiming that we are a superior race — just that we are products of a chaotic system, a fact which aids development of troubleshooting capabilities.
From whatever little I know about outsourced call-center workers, they are not expected to apply their own mind, and operate according to a fixed set of rules: see if there is a ready solution for the problem already entered in the system. If not, refer the problem to your supervisor, who will follow the same procedure.
So this is not a problem of competence, but just cultural/social/economical/racial problem.
Someone should do a discourse analysis of the media coverage of outsourcing, as well as the conversations during the calls themselves. It’ll surely be one of the most interesting research topics! 
Thesis-writing in Office software
For those who have to write their thesis in MS-Word or Openoffice: (LaTex users need not worry )
Here are some nice resources I came across regarding typesetting and document preparation, for dummies like myself:
- University of Calgary writing resources (the step-6, writing hints and tips is particularly useful)
- Endnote tutorial
- Thesis-writing, from Illinois Institute of technology
Tips:
- Any decent office software is capable of much more than what a type-writer can do. Do not forget that writing professional-looking documents requires sensible use of document-preparation tools.
- Think always about the logical mark-up (formatting) rather than physical looks of the elements. LaTex and HTML force you towards logical mark-up, while MS-Word (or Openoffice) does not. But it still supports many of the logical mark-up and automation features.
Update: I found some references on OpenOffice:
Making a business of the dead
I get disturbed with those pictures of the dead- or of those in grief. Not because of the gore, but because I feel the dignity of the dead and the grieved is not respected. And these days you see more and more such stuff in an attempt to show off the “photojournalism”. Take a look at the award-winning entries at World Press Photo. Most of their award-winning photos are related to death or mutilation. The stories which we already know about and feel sad about. IMO, a good picture should tell a story, but it is bound by the same rules of decency that apply to written words! Only the 2003 winner is a sensible and very effective picture.
I’m sure there’ll be thousands of pictures from the recent earthquake in Kashmir. And then others will admire the picture framing, light, exposure, and so on.. Yuck! See the first pic on this page: pictures from the quake hit Valley.
As a side note, I found this site with daily photos. Beautiful pictures, but story-less indeed! But atleast he’s not offending my senses!
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/archives/photos_macro/051110_1358.shtml
P.S.: I forgot to mention that the word press photo exhibitions are not free. One has to pay a hefty entry fee to enter the exhibition, as I found out some years back in Bombay.
Indian Breakfasts
The first time I came across something useful on Indiatimes.com. This one describes breakfast from all regions of India. Does not seem very authentic, but interesting read, though.
Thanks to chaitraa.wordpress.com for the link!
Nestle patents Coffee Beer- Invention, really?
Quoted from NewScientist.com:
Nestec, part of the Nestlé empire in Switzerland, has filed patents in every major market round the world on a “fermented coffee beverage” that pours and foams like beer, but smells of strong coffee and packs a concentrated caffeine kick.
The beverage is made in a similar way to beer, but fine-tuned temperature control stops the formation of ethyl alcohol. So the new drink could go down well with people who want a long tall pick-me-up while driving. …
I don’t know what exactly this patent is about, but coffee beer is not new. In fact, I had a chance to taste coffee beer, proper beer at that (with alcohol) at a cafe run by a traditional brewery (I forgot the name) in Prague! Proof? Take a look at this:
The flavours, from left to right: sour cherry, coffee, nettle and banana. the small glasses are 100ml samplers, and all beers had a distinct taste! It’s needless to say that the plain Czech beer (not in picture) was excellent too!
Trivia: The name Pilsener is derived from the town Pilzen in Czech republic, so Pilsener is Czech in origin! There are day-long conducted tours of Pilzen town from Prague.
Virtual Street Reality
http://www.rense.com/general67/street.htm
It’s an interesting site- about pavement art by Julian Beever. The photos really are impressive, but I wonder whether the paintings will really appear the same to naked eyes!
Nevertheless, interesting watch indeed!
Link discovered via Myke’s weblog.
I came across some pavement art in London and Budapest:
Recipe for Biryani
My first attempt at noting down the recipes I know. I’ll try to add photos when I make it next time. This one is for my good friend Pinto
The recipe is dedicated to my mama from whom I learnt some fundamental concepts of biryani. I’m giving a North-Indian version. The biryani down south tends to be bit different, even served/mixed with curd at times.
Chicken/Mutton/Veg Biryani:
Biryani is a rice-based preparation, most probably part of the Mughal cuisine. There are many variations of the recipe, but there are two constants: rice and crisp-fried onions. Usually it’s made with Mutton (goat/lamb meat), but chicken is also quite common. It can also be prepared without any meat at all, with eggs, cauliflower or soya nuggets!
I’m the milk
Many of you would have probably seen this post, but I liked it so much that I have to post it here.
Excerpted from Gaurav Sabnis’ blog:
… I stood in the “thorough” queue, and looked at others standing in the queue. Most of the folks were either black or brown, but there were one or two white men as well. One such white man was standing behind me. He probably noticed me observing the composition fo the queue and said to me,
“I’m the milk.”
“Beg your pardon?”, I said, not sure if I heard him right. Did he just say he was the milk?
“I’m the milk” he said and seeing the puzzled expression on my face, went on “The milk added to make sure this coffee doesn’t seem too dark.” …
Discrimination is a reality. It is not just based on race, but also on gender, language, education, social status, nationality, religion, and so on. Some of it is explicit, rest is taboo to speak of.
And whether it’s present or not, it’s there on everyone’s mind.
