Friday, December 31, 2004
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
The Phantom of the Opera
Never Judge A Book By Its Musical
- Me :)
Geston Leroux's The Phantom Of The Opera is not an exceptionally gripping novel, nor is it widely acclaimed for literary brilliance. It is but a unique, compelling combination of horror, mystique and romance. That probably is the reason why the "legend of the Opera Ghost" has for a century caught the imagination of some of the most illustrious directors of stage and screen.
The horror-mystery-romance set in the Paris Opera in 1881 is the fantastic story of a disfigured musical genius, desperate in love of his beautiful protege, who holds the opera house in terror through a series of mysterious events.
Leroux's imagination is compelling, brilliant. His writing dissappoints. The book reads like a piece of investigative journalism, which indeed was Leroux's occupation before he took to writing. The Paris Opera House does exists exactly as he describes it, with a lake-area and the cellars underneath it. The fall of the chandelier and other events are also believed to be based on real events.
The author himself claims in the opening of the novel -
"The Opera Ghost really existed. He was not, as was longed believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak-room attendants or the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh and blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom; that is to say, of a spectral shade"
Leroux keeps asserting the authenticity of his narrative, providing references to evidence of existence of people, places and events which he strung together into a story. I can imagine a terror spellbinding, unfolding into a powerful romantic tragedy that the book would have created, had it been written for an audience less incredulous of dramatism, written with lavish strokes of grandeur and magnificence.
IMDB lists six feature films based on the story. Somehow, neither do these have seem to have done justice to the idea (only two - 1925 and 1943 - versions make it to respectable ratings).
The musical rendition by Andrew Lloyd Webber, however, is known to be amongst the most powerful theatre presentations of our times, and "The Thespian" by H2-H7 ( :)) ) amongst the most powerful that I have seen. And the music, which "The Thespian" borrowed from the former, is awesome. A movie adaptation by Webber and Joel Schumacher is just 'round the corner, the wait is torturous.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Google adds more punch!
Check out this new feature on Google - As you type, Google will offer suggestions. 'ts Real Cool!
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Bangalore Theatre Update
Dec 14 - The Open Couple - @ Rangashankara, 7:30pm
Dec 16 & 17 - Where There is a Will - @ Rangashankara, 7:30pm
Dec 18 - Evam Indrajit - @ Rangashankara, 7:30pm
Dec 19 - Final Rehearsal - @ Rangashankara, 7:30pm
Dec 16 & 17 - Where There is a Will - @ Rangashankara, 7:30pm
Dec 18 - Evam Indrajit - @ Rangashankara, 7:30pm
Dec 19 - Final Rehearsal - @ Rangashankara, 7:30pm
Monday, December 06, 2004
Bangalore Theatre Update
Plays at Alliance Francaise (@8 pm)
8th & 9th Dec -- Woza Albert! -- A political satire set in South Africa
10th & 11th Dec -- Two
Plays at Chowdaiyah Memorial Hall
10th Dec -- The Class of '84 -- Rahul Da Cunha's blockbuster comic drama (highly recommended)
11th Dec -- Pune Highway -- Sequel to The Class of '84, no reviews yet
Plays at Thespo Youth Festival at Rangashankara (@7:30 pm)
9th Dec -- Manusmriti
11th Dec -- First Edition
8th & 9th Dec -- Woza Albert! -- A political satire set in South Africa
10th & 11th Dec -- Two
Plays at Chowdaiyah Memorial Hall
10th Dec -- The Class of '84 -- Rahul Da Cunha's blockbuster comic drama (highly recommended)
11th Dec -- Pune Highway -- Sequel to The Class of '84, no reviews yet
Plays at Thespo Youth Festival at Rangashankara (@7:30 pm)
9th Dec -- Manusmriti
11th Dec -- First Edition
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Bangalore Theatre Update
Shabana Azmi and Farooq Sheikh will present Feroz Khan's 'Tumhari Amrita' on Thursday, November 25 at Chowdaiah Hall, Bangalore, at 7 pm.
Inspired from A.R. Gurney’s ‘Love Letter’, the play chronicles the lifelong correspondence between a pair of friends. An easy intimacy allows the two characters to slip into the roles of people who love each other for life, but, for one reason or another, remain apart. With a minimalist set and almost no physical action, this is a least demanding show of modern theatre. The two actors just sit at writing desks and read directly from their scripts. The script maintains lightness and does not overpay on melodramatic sentiments and is therefore is breezy and easy to watch.
I watched the play earlier this year in Bombay, and what appealed the most to me were the exquisitely beautiful use of hindustani, and the warm, affectionate humour sprinkled throughout the script.
In its 14th year now, 'Tumhari Amrita' is amongst the longest running plays in Indian theatre. There is indeed a sequel to the play now, called 'Aapki Sonia' that starrs Sonali Bendre with Farooq Sheikh and promises to present an equally delightful experience.
Inspired from A.R. Gurney’s ‘Love Letter’, the play chronicles the lifelong correspondence between a pair of friends. An easy intimacy allows the two characters to slip into the roles of people who love each other for life, but, for one reason or another, remain apart. With a minimalist set and almost no physical action, this is a least demanding show of modern theatre. The two actors just sit at writing desks and read directly from their scripts. The script maintains lightness and does not overpay on melodramatic sentiments and is therefore is breezy and easy to watch.
I watched the play earlier this year in Bombay, and what appealed the most to me were the exquisitely beautiful use of hindustani, and the warm, affectionate humour sprinkled throughout the script.
In its 14th year now, 'Tumhari Amrita' is amongst the longest running plays in Indian theatre. There is indeed a sequel to the play now, called 'Aapki Sonia' that starrs Sonali Bendre with Farooq Sheikh and promises to present an equally delightful experience.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Supermarket of the Future
Metro has taken a flight to the future with its concept Metro Future Store in Rheinberg, Germany. The store is a testbed for technologies in retailing, hoping to create standards in the use of RFIDs, info-kiosks, auto-billing, inventory management and CRM applications that might in the future completely change retailing as we know it. Not unlike my own imagination of the RFID era that may be...
Monday, November 15, 2004
Killer words in divergent series die of exhaustion
Read the sentence below carefully:
"I do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing handwriting nevertheless, extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality counterbalancing indecipherability, transcendentalizes intercommunications' incomprehensibleness".
This is a sentence where the Nth word is N letters long. e.g. 3rd word is 3 letters long, 8th word is 8 letters long and so on.
Enjoy!
"I do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing handwriting nevertheless, extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality counterbalancing indecipherability, transcendentalizes intercommunications' incomprehensibleness".
This is a sentence where the Nth word is N letters long. e.g. 3rd word is 3 letters long, 8th word is 8 letters long and so on.
Enjoy!
Sunday, November 14, 2004
RFIDs to Keep Tabs on U.S. Drugs
The New York Times > Health > Tiny Antennas to Keep Tabs on U.S. Drugs
The Food and Drug Administration and several major drug makers are expected to announce initiatives today that will put tiny radio antennas on the labels of millions of medicine bottles to combat counterfeiting and fraud.
Experts do not expect the technology to stop there. The adoption by the drug industry, they said in interviews, could be the leading edge of a change that will rid grocery stores of checkout lines, find lost luggage in airports, streamline warehousing and add a weapon in the battle against cargo theft.
Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense have already mandated that their top 100 suppliers put the antennas on delivery pallets beginning in January. Radio tags on vehicles and passports could become a central tool in government efforts to create a database to track visitors to the United States.
The labels are called radio-frequency identification. As in automated highway toll collection systems, they consist of computer chips embedded into stickers that emit numbers when prompted by a nearby radio signal. In a supermarket, they might enable a scanner to read every item in a shopping cart at once and spit out a bill in seconds, though the technology to do that is still some distance off.
The Food and Drug Administration and several major drug makers are expected to announce initiatives today that will put tiny radio antennas on the labels of millions of medicine bottles to combat counterfeiting and fraud.
Experts do not expect the technology to stop there. The adoption by the drug industry, they said in interviews, could be the leading edge of a change that will rid grocery stores of checkout lines, find lost luggage in airports, streamline warehousing and add a weapon in the battle against cargo theft.
Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense have already mandated that their top 100 suppliers put the antennas on delivery pallets beginning in January. Radio tags on vehicles and passports could become a central tool in government efforts to create a database to track visitors to the United States.
The labels are called radio-frequency identification. As in automated highway toll collection systems, they consist of computer chips embedded into stickers that emit numbers when prompted by a nearby radio signal. In a supermarket, they might enable a scanner to read every item in a shopping cart at once and spit out a bill in seconds, though the technology to do that is still some distance off.
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Me turns a theatre buff
The seven-week ban on new movie releases in bangalore, together with the hangover of my final years at college, has turned me into a theatre buff. It took me some time to dig out solutions to solitude over empty weekends, once I was done with the essential pub-hopping and stuff... Bangalore threatened to bore me to death. Then I found a couple of cultural centres in town that host plays occasionally - Alliance Francaise and Max Meuller Centre. While by no means comparable to NCPA or Prithvi, I was happy to make do with 'em.
About a month back I watched a play at Alliance - Evam Indrajit - it was a brilliant brilliant play - a combination of an abstract theme, flirting with metaphysical dilemma captured by a script and performance in simple terms.. and it was very fast paced... The actors switched back and forth into different characters, yet their parts were effortlessly lucid and distinguishable.
...I could go on; you should watch it if you get a chance. The play has been translated from Bengali by Girish Karnad. It's a pity that there was so sparse an audience.
Another day I teamed up with Potty, Parul and others to watch another play called The Final Rehearsal. We took the front row, and while we were waiting for it to begin, there comes Girish Karnad himself and quietly slips into the seat right next to me! And i went paranoid.. checking my phone (which i had already switched off) every ten seconds to ensure it hadn't switched on by itself and wouldn't ring out loud in the middle of the play! :)) Guess Karnad is kind of a mentor to the actor-director of the play. Well, this one was a one-man play, brilliantly acting. It's not in the must-watch league, but was enjoyable all the same... you could check it out sometime.
Around that time the city was beginning to turn theatre-crazy, with a bounty of plays by groups from Bombay, and two back-to-back theatre festivals... A new dedicated theatre called Ranga Shankara has just opened in town now, which promises to be the Prithvi of Bangalore... And their month-long inaugural festival, backed by a tremendous publicity campaign by hutch people, is running to full houses. I couldn't get tickets to any english or hindi plays even a fortnight in advance. But there are some nice platform performances happening. Watched a couple of these last week.
More will follow from the theatre circles of Bangalore on this blog...
About a month back I watched a play at Alliance - Evam Indrajit - it was a brilliant brilliant play - a combination of an abstract theme, flirting with metaphysical dilemma captured by a script and performance in simple terms.. and it was very fast paced... The actors switched back and forth into different characters, yet their parts were effortlessly lucid and distinguishable.
...I could go on; you should watch it if you get a chance. The play has been translated from Bengali by Girish Karnad. It's a pity that there was so sparse an audience.
Another day I teamed up with Potty, Parul and others to watch another play called The Final Rehearsal. We took the front row, and while we were waiting for it to begin, there comes Girish Karnad himself and quietly slips into the seat right next to me! And i went paranoid.. checking my phone (which i had already switched off) every ten seconds to ensure it hadn't switched on by itself and wouldn't ring out loud in the middle of the play! :)) Guess Karnad is kind of a mentor to the actor-director of the play. Well, this one was a one-man play, brilliantly acting. It's not in the must-watch league, but was enjoyable all the same... you could check it out sometime.
Around that time the city was beginning to turn theatre-crazy, with a bounty of plays by groups from Bombay, and two back-to-back theatre festivals... A new dedicated theatre called Ranga Shankara has just opened in town now, which promises to be the Prithvi of Bangalore... And their month-long inaugural festival, backed by a tremendous publicity campaign by hutch people, is running to full houses. I couldn't get tickets to any english or hindi plays even a fortnight in advance. But there are some nice platform performances happening. Watched a couple of these last week.
More will follow from the theatre circles of Bangalore on this blog...
Friday, November 12, 2004
Gump Memorabilia
The Great's been egging me on for some time to blog more often. And now he's shown me t he highway to blogging through Blog This! It is only befitting that this post be a tribute to His Highness. And what better form of flattery could I indulge him with than imitating his own style myself.
Much inspired by The Great's recent post with favourite quotes from one (series) of his favourite movies, I plucked out from the web the script of one of my favourites, Forrest Gump. Here are some memorable passages...
My momma always said, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
Momma always says there's an awful lot you could tell about a person by their shoes. Where they're going. Where they've been.
Run, Forrest! Run!
They even put me on a thing called the All-America Team where you get to meet the President of the United States....Now, the real good thing about meeting the President of the United States is the food.
Nobody gives a bunk of shit who you are, fuzzball! You're not even a low-life scumsucking maggot! Get your faggoty ass on the bus. You're in the Army now!
This one day, we was out walking, like always, and then, just like that, somebody turned off the rain and the sun come out.
Neil Armstrong : That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. The, uh, the surface is fine and powdery. I can, I can pick it up loosely.
I thought I was going back to Vietnam, but instead, they decided the best way for me to fight communists was to play ping-pong.
... and we were the only boat left standing "Bubba-Gump" shrimp's what they got. We got a whole bunch of boats. Twelve Jenny's, a big ol' warehouse, we even have hats that says "Bubba-Gump" on 'em. "Bubba-Gump Shrimp." It's a household name.
Now, because I had been a football star, and a war hero, and a national celebrity, and a shrimpin' boat captain, and a college graduate, the city of fathers of Greenbow, Alabama, decided to get together and offered me a fine job.
Though he did take care of my Bubba-Gump money. He got me invested in some kind of fruit company. And so then I got a call from him saying we don't have to worry about money no more... And I said, "That's good. One less thing."
And 'cause I was godzillionaire and I liked doing it so much. I cut that grass for free... But at nighttime, when there was nothing to do and the house was all empty, I'd always think of Jenny.
Sometimes I guess there just aren't enough rocks.
I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.
Much inspired by The Great's recent post with favourite quotes from one (series) of his favourite movies, I plucked out from the web the script of one of my favourites, Forrest Gump. Here are some memorable passages...
My momma always said, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
Momma always says there's an awful lot you could tell about a person by their shoes. Where they're going. Where they've been.
Run, Forrest! Run!
They even put me on a thing called the All-America Team where you get to meet the President of the United States....Now, the real good thing about meeting the President of the United States is the food.
Nobody gives a bunk of shit who you are, fuzzball! You're not even a low-life scumsucking maggot! Get your faggoty ass on the bus. You're in the Army now!
This one day, we was out walking, like always, and then, just like that, somebody turned off the rain and the sun come out.
Neil Armstrong : That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. The, uh, the surface is fine and powdery. I can, I can pick it up loosely.
I thought I was going back to Vietnam, but instead, they decided the best way for me to fight communists was to play ping-pong.
... and we were the only boat left standing "Bubba-Gump" shrimp's what they got. We got a whole bunch of boats. Twelve Jenny's, a big ol' warehouse, we even have hats that says "Bubba-Gump" on 'em. "Bubba-Gump Shrimp." It's a household name.
Now, because I had been a football star, and a war hero, and a national celebrity, and a shrimpin' boat captain, and a college graduate, the city of fathers of Greenbow, Alabama, decided to get together and offered me a fine job.
Though he did take care of my Bubba-Gump money. He got me invested in some kind of fruit company. And so then I got a call from him saying we don't have to worry about money no more... And I said, "That's good. One less thing."
And 'cause I was godzillionaire and I liked doing it so much. I cut that grass for free... But at nighttime, when there was nothing to do and the house was all empty, I'd always think of Jenny.
Sometimes I guess there just aren't enough rocks.
I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
A First Take On Bangalore
I'm in bangalore.. 2 weeks in town infact. It's been a mixed experience so far.. the company's great, work's exciting and workplace is super cool. The city is full of rowdy traffic on a rampage on broken roads overseen by helpless cops who dress up like cowboys. I've been through hell looking for a decent place to stay. Finally settled for a flat which is steeply expensive but is big and in good surroundings. But of course the weather is marvellously pleasant. It's good to be here, all in all.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Blogger: Hey, look who's here!
Me: How 'ya doin' fella? So sorry man, it's been over a month, and I didn't e'en notice! See I've been so tied up and drained with work here, couldn't find the time or the spirit to see ya.
Blogger: Yeah, I understand, pal! No sweat.
Me: My project, you know.. i'm testing these scheduling algos.. here, look..
Generating Schedule...
machine 1: 11 (0) 3 (37.2) 1 (14.4) 8 (3.6) 2 (26.4)
machine 2: 7 (13.2) 9 (9.6) 15 (22.8) 12 (24)
machine 3: 17 (52.8) 20 (67.2)
machine 4: 13 (25.2) 10 (38.4)
machine 5: 23 (51.6)
machine 6: 6 (10.8) 5 (0) 14 (13.2)
machine 7: 18 (0) 4 (43.2)
machine 8: 16 (67.2) 19 (73.2) 21 (78) 22 (81.6)
average flow time = 32.9783
machine utilization = 0.416672
generation 12
new sequence formed!
sequence mutating!
Generating Schedule...
Blogger: (disinterested) Ah yes, interesting!
Me: It's a rather long and complex piece of code.. I've been so busy working on it. I'd surely have blogged a lot this summer, had I not been putting in the hours into it.
Blogger: Eh, like I care! I have a million other visitors.. and I don't care about the lazy half 'uv'em like yourself half as much as the other half.
Me: Eh?
Blogger: Yeah, there're plenty 'uv'em like you, coming up with lousy excuses all the time. I'm used to 'em now. Tied up with work, you say, eh?
Me: Yeah, I showed you..
Blogger: I know what you did this summer! You call that silly little program complex? Anyone can write it from scratch in a week.
Me: My project guide said the same thing, but it's really...
Blogger: Pray, where were you last weekend?
Me: Uh.. (how the hell does he know?!)
Blogger: She blogs. And how are the Coffee Shack-ers and Pubs@Bombay doing? (smiling) He he.. sorry for the spying.. but Orkut Buyukkokten and I work for the same company, and he being great at making friends and me always looking for gossip, slime gets to me pretty quick. Don't worry, Google isn't evil. :)
Me: Thank God for that!
Blogger: Thank Larry and Sergey. They wrote it in the IPO document. But listen here, you wanna blog, you're welcome. You don't wanna blog, just the same! But don't go around making glorious excuses. If they all knew what I know, they'd laugh at you.
Me: Right.
Blogger: Now that you're here, you might wanna talk about those books you've been mailing to that tinyscule yahoo account about :P.
Blogger: Yeah, I understand, pal! No sweat.
Me: My project, you know.. i'm testing these scheduling algos.. here, look..
Generating Schedule...
machine 1: 11 (0) 3 (37.2) 1 (14.4) 8 (3.6) 2 (26.4)
machine 2: 7 (13.2) 9 (9.6) 15 (22.8) 12 (24)
machine 3: 17 (52.8) 20 (67.2)
machine 4: 13 (25.2) 10 (38.4)
machine 5: 23 (51.6)
machine 6: 6 (10.8) 5 (0) 14 (13.2)
machine 7: 18 (0) 4 (43.2)
machine 8: 16 (67.2) 19 (73.2) 21 (78) 22 (81.6)
average flow time = 32.9783
machine utilization = 0.416672
generation 12
new sequence formed!
sequence mutating!
Generating Schedule...
Blogger: (disinterested) Ah yes, interesting!
Me: It's a rather long and complex piece of code.. I've been so busy working on it. I'd surely have blogged a lot this summer, had I not been putting in the hours into it.
Blogger: Eh, like I care! I have a million other visitors.. and I don't care about the lazy half 'uv'em like yourself half as much as the other half.
Me: Eh?
Blogger: Yeah, there're plenty 'uv'em like you, coming up with lousy excuses all the time. I'm used to 'em now. Tied up with work, you say, eh?
Me: Yeah, I showed you..
Blogger: I know what you did this summer! You call that silly little program complex? Anyone can write it from scratch in a week.
Me: My project guide said the same thing, but it's really...
Blogger: Pray, where were you last weekend?
Me: Uh.. (how the hell does he know?!)
Blogger: She blogs. And how are the Coffee Shack-ers and Pubs@Bombay doing? (smiling) He he.. sorry for the spying.. but Orkut Buyukkokten and I work for the same company, and he being great at making friends and me always looking for gossip, slime gets to me pretty quick. Don't worry, Google isn't evil. :)
Me: Thank God for that!
Blogger: Thank Larry and Sergey. They wrote it in the IPO document. But listen here, you wanna blog, you're welcome. You don't wanna blog, just the same! But don't go around making glorious excuses. If they all knew what I know, they'd laugh at you.
Me: Right.
Blogger: Now that you're here, you might wanna talk about those books you've been mailing to that tinyscule yahoo account about :P.
Friday, May 14, 2004
Caught me napping!
Last year when Jumbo and I made a class presentation on the product development plan for our imaginary shoe company, conjuring up all sorts of gizmos to fit into our "future-ready" shoes, we chuckled at each other in the middle of it, as amused as the rest of the class at the outrageously sci-fi shoes we said we had plans for.
We had force sensors, health trackers and shock adjusters powered by micro-sized batteries, all fitted into the everyday shoe. Stuff that wasn't gonna be there for the next 20 years at the very least, we were convinced.
I made the same presentation last month in my 'presentation skills' class, delivering the product plan with the same inconviction of its possiblity, this time chuckling at Ankur, who had been at the earlier presentation, all through. We had a good laugh about it after the class, bliss in the ignorance that stuff like this was already being developed at research labs across the world.
This morning The New York Times reported that Adidas had launched just the product to wipe my chuckle out, caught me staring at the screen, dumbfounded, with unbelieving eyes.
Adidas 1 has internal sensors connected to a 20-megahertz microprocessor inside each shoe which takes a series of readings, adjusting the amount of cushioning to the environment and foot-position. Price tag: $250.
I blurted out to myself, "Oh Boy! It's already here!"
Technology caught me napping, there.
We had force sensors, health trackers and shock adjusters powered by micro-sized batteries, all fitted into the everyday shoe. Stuff that wasn't gonna be there for the next 20 years at the very least, we were convinced.
I made the same presentation last month in my 'presentation skills' class, delivering the product plan with the same inconviction of its possiblity, this time chuckling at Ankur, who had been at the earlier presentation, all through. We had a good laugh about it after the class, bliss in the ignorance that stuff like this was already being developed at research labs across the world.
This morning The New York Times reported that Adidas had launched just the product to wipe my chuckle out, caught me staring at the screen, dumbfounded, with unbelieving eyes.
Adidas 1 has internal sensors connected to a 20-megahertz microprocessor inside each shoe which takes a series of readings, adjusting the amount of cushioning to the environment and foot-position. Price tag: $250.
I blurted out to myself, "Oh Boy! It's already here!"
Technology caught me napping, there.
E-Governance in India
I recently read an article ("E-governing India" by Sunil Jain, Business Standard, May 3, 2004) that pointed out the ways in which the use of technology is creating fantastic improvements in public services, from railway reservations to customs clearance to the election process.
The landmark e-election just held is of course the most impressive automation exercise ever witnessed in this part of the world at least, and is illustrated in the now-usual manner as testimony to India's acceptance of technology ahead of most developed nations.
But the article also points out some other significant yet widely unknown e-governance projects that hold great potential in benefiting businesses and the public. Here are a few excerpts...
"At a conference on large e-governance projects organised by consulting firm SKOCH, railway ministry officials made a presentation on some of their plans... you can now book your tickets on the Net and, very soon, even download your ticket details onto your printer at home/office, and just walk into the train with this and some form of ID like a driver’s license!"
"At 23 customs offices across the country, the official said, you can file your documents online, and figure out the status of your approvals even before your cargo hits the country’s shores — does your cargo have to be physically inspected, what is the duty to be paid, and so on, all these details can be checked by a series of clicks.
With over 95 per cent of all paperwork filed in this fashion, the number of processing steps has been cut from 18 to 6 for imports and from 15 to 5 in the case of exports."
"Computerising of cases in various courts helped reduced the pendancy (a polite term for cases not getting decided for decades) from 1,20,000 to 22,000. Once the cases were computerised, they could be classified under various points of law, and then it took just one judgement to dispose off thousands of similar cases.
Today, in most high courts, cases are assigned to different benches by the computer, and status of various cases (when is the hearing, before which bench, etc) can be seen online. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is now trying to do the same in civil courts as well."
"An even more ambitious project, and one that touches a lot more lives, is NIC’s AGMARKNET, a network that links up the major mandis in the country to provide information on 300 major commodities. Seven hundred and fifty such mandis have already been connected, another 2,000 will be connected in the next two years, and the balance 4,000 or so in another 3-4 years."
The landmark e-election just held is of course the most impressive automation exercise ever witnessed in this part of the world at least, and is illustrated in the now-usual manner as testimony to India's acceptance of technology ahead of most developed nations.
But the article also points out some other significant yet widely unknown e-governance projects that hold great potential in benefiting businesses and the public. Here are a few excerpts...
"At a conference on large e-governance projects organised by consulting firm SKOCH, railway ministry officials made a presentation on some of their plans... you can now book your tickets on the Net and, very soon, even download your ticket details onto your printer at home/office, and just walk into the train with this and some form of ID like a driver’s license!"
"At 23 customs offices across the country, the official said, you can file your documents online, and figure out the status of your approvals even before your cargo hits the country’s shores — does your cargo have to be physically inspected, what is the duty to be paid, and so on, all these details can be checked by a series of clicks.
With over 95 per cent of all paperwork filed in this fashion, the number of processing steps has been cut from 18 to 6 for imports and from 15 to 5 in the case of exports."
"Computerising of cases in various courts helped reduced the pendancy (a polite term for cases not getting decided for decades) from 1,20,000 to 22,000. Once the cases were computerised, they could be classified under various points of law, and then it took just one judgement to dispose off thousands of similar cases.
Today, in most high courts, cases are assigned to different benches by the computer, and status of various cases (when is the hearing, before which bench, etc) can be seen online. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is now trying to do the same in civil courts as well."
"An even more ambitious project, and one that touches a lot more lives, is NIC’s AGMARKNET, a network that links up the major mandis in the country to provide information on 300 major commodities. Seven hundred and fifty such mandis have already been connected, another 2,000 will be connected in the next two years, and the balance 4,000 or so in another 3-4 years."
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Day dreaming an RFID future
I've been reading stuff on applications of RFID technology in supply chain visibility. For the uninitiated, RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification... it's a microchip that replaces the barcode on products and can be tracked and identified by RF sensors. Each item has a unique code on its RFID chip and a retail store, for instance, can not only automatically keep track of the shelf-stock and inventory, but also track it online while it's transported from the manufacturer or warehouse to the store itself.
Read more in "RFID Supply Chain Revolution" by Gavin Chappell, Logistics & Transport Focus (November 2002)
RFID is already a decently affordable technology that holds promise of enormous benefits for businesses. Wal-Mart is in the process of RFID-ing all its stores and it's revolutionising the chain's retail operations across US.
What if we were to extend the concept further, to the demand chain, and build intelligent products and applications around it. Imagine the RFID future:
You enter Haiko (a local supermarket), pick up a few items, leave the supermarket. The items will de-register themselves from the store's stock as you go through the checkout gate, and you swipe your credit card yourself on a VISA machine. Better still, put an RFID on the credit card and you don't even have to take it out of your wallet.
The store's information system automatically sends info to VISA and withdraws the sum from your credit account. Some light turns green two seconds later to signal a successful transaction, the bill appears on your mobile phone and/or in an email message from your card issuer.
Then take the items home and put them in your refrigerator. The refrigerator will warn you if you are are running out of something. If you have "subscribed" it, it will automatically put it on your shopping list and order a home delivery. Or, if you are in the super market and want to know what you need, just use your phone to ask your refrigerator.
Enter a movie hall. If you have reserved you will be guided to your seat automatically. If not, you will be automatically billed going through a gate, using the same mechanism as Haiko.
At present, an RFID chip costs 5 to 10 cents to manufacture. RF sensors and other infrastructure are a bit expensive, and not every store has pockets as deep as Wal-Mart. But the most challenging issue that's holding the technology back is lack of standardisation and cross-platform operatibility. It is expected that once this issue is sorted out, widespread implementation will bring manufacturing scales and drastically reduce implementation costs. The RFID dream might come true in some time.
Wanna Startup?
Read more in "RFID Supply Chain Revolution" by Gavin Chappell, Logistics & Transport Focus (November 2002)
RFID is already a decently affordable technology that holds promise of enormous benefits for businesses. Wal-Mart is in the process of RFID-ing all its stores and it's revolutionising the chain's retail operations across US.
What if we were to extend the concept further, to the demand chain, and build intelligent products and applications around it. Imagine the RFID future:
You enter Haiko (a local supermarket), pick up a few items, leave the supermarket. The items will de-register themselves from the store's stock as you go through the checkout gate, and you swipe your credit card yourself on a VISA machine. Better still, put an RFID on the credit card and you don't even have to take it out of your wallet.
The store's information system automatically sends info to VISA and withdraws the sum from your credit account. Some light turns green two seconds later to signal a successful transaction, the bill appears on your mobile phone and/or in an email message from your card issuer.
Then take the items home and put them in your refrigerator. The refrigerator will warn you if you are are running out of something. If you have "subscribed" it, it will automatically put it on your shopping list and order a home delivery. Or, if you are in the super market and want to know what you need, just use your phone to ask your refrigerator.
Enter a movie hall. If you have reserved you will be guided to your seat automatically. If not, you will be automatically billed going through a gate, using the same mechanism as Haiko.
At present, an RFID chip costs 5 to 10 cents to manufacture. RF sensors and other infrastructure are a bit expensive, and not every store has pockets as deep as Wal-Mart. But the most challenging issue that's holding the technology back is lack of standardisation and cross-platform operatibility. It is expected that once this issue is sorted out, widespread implementation will bring manufacturing scales and drastically reduce implementation costs. The RFID dream might come true in some time.
Wanna Startup?
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Four Seasons In One Day
Four seasons in one day
Lying in the depths of your imagination
Worlds above and worlds below
The sun shines on the black clouds hanging over the domain
Even when you’re feeling warm
The temperature could drop away
Like four seasons in one day
Smiling as the shit comes down
You can tell a man from what he has to say
Everything gets turned around
And I will risk my neck again, again
You can take me where you will
Up the creek and through the mill
All the things you can’t explain
Four seasons in one day
Blood dries up
Like rain, like rain
Fills my cup
Like four seasons in one day
It doesn’t pay to make predictions
Sleeping on an unmade bed
Finding out wherever there is comfort there is pain
Only one step away
Like four seasons in one day
Blood dries up
Like rain, like rain
Fills my cup
Like four seasons in one day
- Crowded House
Lying in the depths of your imagination
Worlds above and worlds below
The sun shines on the black clouds hanging over the domain
Even when you’re feeling warm
The temperature could drop away
Like four seasons in one day
Smiling as the shit comes down
You can tell a man from what he has to say
Everything gets turned around
And I will risk my neck again, again
You can take me where you will
Up the creek and through the mill
All the things you can’t explain
Four seasons in one day
Blood dries up
Like rain, like rain
Fills my cup
Like four seasons in one day
It doesn’t pay to make predictions
Sleeping on an unmade bed
Finding out wherever there is comfort there is pain
Only one step away
Like four seasons in one day
Blood dries up
Like rain, like rain
Fills my cup
Like four seasons in one day
- Crowded House
Friday, May 07, 2004
Launchpad
Here it is, finally, my own blog! :) And I have absolutely no idea what to do with it now. It's an open diary, I hear... I hesitate, wondering whether what I write would make any sense to others, let alone be interesting enough for them to read it.
My fears are helped along by an entry by Ankur the Great, a friend and a veteran blogger, one that warns against having others read your blog unless 'there is something interesting up there', and systematically shatters the whole idea of blogging on technical inconsistencies in the manner of great attorneys of law.
I consider giving up the idea altogether here and now, but I come across another entry that instantly reaffirms my faith with the simple, yet compelling style that is trademark of its author.
So Welcome, World! I share with thee musings on my life and others', articles, poems, and a few words of wisdom once in a while. Stay tuned! :-)
My fears are helped along by an entry by Ankur the Great, a friend and a veteran blogger, one that warns against having others read your blog unless 'there is something interesting up there', and systematically shatters the whole idea of blogging on technical inconsistencies in the manner of great attorneys of law.
I consider giving up the idea altogether here and now, but I come across another entry that instantly reaffirms my faith with the simple, yet compelling style that is trademark of its author.
So Welcome, World! I share with thee musings on my life and others', articles, poems, and a few words of wisdom once in a while. Stay tuned! :-)
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