Peak Day Blues

Due to the hectic schedule over the weekend, I had missed all F1 qualifying action out of Monaco. Was able to catch hold of a TV at around 6 pm on Sunday to watch the race and was shocked when the commentaters said Schumi a.k.a God started from the pit lane... From what I heard from a friend via SMS on Saturday was that he was on pole position!! Half way through I heard the commentators speaking about some controversy! Only later after the race I heard about the disgrace that Monaco slapped on Schumi! You guys didn't know what happened?? Apparently, Schumi had put on the best lap and was heading for the pit lane when his car got struck in the track. Stewards ruled that Schumi purposely stopped his car and tried to stop others from getting the best time out of their laps!! I would have believed if it was anyone else. Yeah, I do agree that Schumi is very competetive, but for a man who was whon so many titles, I don't think it is needed! And his talent was evident in the race. He

3 days = 72 hours = 30 hours of professional life = 12 hours driving = 28 hours of personal life (meeting relatives, chatting, eating, talking, dialling etc. etc...) And I have slept only for 2 hours out of these 72 hours! It doesn't get bigger than this! :-) Hoping to make a Guiness record! To be continued....

In Qatar, a cellular number was auctioned off for a whopping $2.74 million! The number? "6666666" It's a craze in South India for fancy numbers, especially for automobiles. There were even instances in Kerala, where mafia goons thratened people to part aways with their lucky numbers. Indians believe that the number "9" or the total of "9" is good for vehicles. They believe that since the number is pointed downwards, it will ward off evil and abate accidents. They prefer doing away with the number "6" or its multiples!! Strange!

What goes around, comes around - it's an old saying but which still holds true today! The so called "informed" people heavily invested in the stock markets during the bull period, even when it reached unreachable heights. Those who did it are now repenting to an extend that this story is being featured in Yahoo Oddly Enough news. Today, YOE News says that Indian police are on high alert to avert any possible suicides from stock brokers and retail analysts!

The Indian ITES-BPO industry lived up to expectations and market projections during 2005-06, setting the stage for higher levels of growth and achievement over the 2006-07 phase. Having attained consolidation—driven by a spate of crucial mergers and acquisitions—the key players within the sector gravitated towards higher levels of process excellence in operations and product and service quality. NASSCOM's annual ITES-BPO Strategy Summit 2006 is being held from 7-8th June 2006 at Bangalore . The theme for NASSCOM's ITES-BPO Strategy Summit 2005 will be "Setting benchmarks in global outsourcing". The two-day Summit will host two separate events the 'India BPO CEOs Conclave' targeted towards the CEO community on June 7, 2006. The second event targeted towards operational heads will be a The CXO Conclave on June 8, 2006. Click here for the reigstration form

Today's The Hindu Business Line carries a well-written article on the state of Medical Transcription in India as a whole and Coimbatore as the next big thing. Suresh Nair, CEO of Spheris and the President of IMTIA (Indian Medical Transcription Industry Association) quotes - "Coimbatore has the potential to become one of the largest Medical Transcription (MT) centres outside the US due to the advantages of a large number of student population and health care knowledge available in the city"... Read the article

Adding to the already cluttered Matrimonial websites in India, here's a new one offering free membership profiles for everyone. Shaadi.com, indiamatrimony.com, jeevansathi.com are some of the famous sites already in business. The launch of iRishta.com is significant because unlike existing free matrimonial sites, iRishta.com offers a full range of features and services. The new matrimonial website aims to take a major market share away from existing paid matrimonial sites. In an opening salvo fired at the leading matrimonial sites, an iRishta.com spokesperson said, “They have continued to raise their membership prices, while offering little additional value to their customers. We think that once Indians realize that there is a viable alternative to paying for what amounts to little more than a high priced messaging service, they will abandon these paid sites and migrate to free matrimonial sites like iRishta.com. The combination of high end features and no membership fees offer an

After much tinkering and thought process, Anil Ambani's new corporate logo is finally unveiled. I heard it took nearly nine months to come up with this logo and it will be rolled out throughout India in a multi-tiered advertisement pretty soon. First impression? I am not impressed! Looks like the art of an amateur!

For the first time ever in the history of the Indian stock markets, the BSE Sensex today plunged to its highest ever single day fall of 826 points!

This is a car advertisement from New Zealand. When they finished filming the ad, the people who made it noticed a ghostly white mist moving along the side of the car, and an eerie sound... you may need to turn the volume up, enough to hear it. The ad was never put on TV because of the unexplained ghostly phenomenon. About halfway, as the car goes past the trees, look and you will see the white mist crossing in front of the car then following it along the road......Spooky!

With the I&B Ministry in India " temporarily suspending " the release of the much awaited Da Vinci Code movie (the adaption of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code), the expectations among people to watch it only has increased. The veteran actor and my all-time favorite Tom Hanks takes the lead in the movie depicting Langdon's character. The movie is slated to release all over the world on May 19. I hope the air is cleared in this controversy and audiences in India will get to see it. Here's a theatrical preview of the Da Vinci Code

By dialing a number, one can listen to the news of All India Radio, Thiruvananthapuram, from anywhere in the world from Wednesday. The news on phone service will be available from 9.30 am in English and Malayalam. For listening to news in Malayalam, BSNL phone users within Kerala can call 125900, for this, code need not be used, from other phones, including mobile phones. The news in Malayalam news can be accessed by calling 0471-2335702. For listening to news in English from BSNL phones 125800 should be dialed and from other phones, it can be accessed by calling 0471-2335700. Through this system, 30 people can listen to news at a time.

A shocking news! MS Dhoni has cut his hair in West Indies according to this report !

Rs. 10 crore worth diamonds and jewels was looted from the Joy Alukkas Jewelery showroom in Hyderabad in the early hours of Tuesday. It was a big news in Aaj Tak and NDTV and Aaj Tak had an extensive coverage. Joy Alukkas Group runs the Alukkas Jewelery in Coimbatore. They had opened their Hyderabad showroom just 2 months back. The Alukkas group is split between four brothers and Joy has been concentrating mainly in the Middle East and other states in India other than Kerala. Alukkas has a big brand name in the Kerala market and is the market leader. The burglars took away all the diamonds and jewels kept on the shelves, but didn't enter the strong room which had an estimated 20 crore worth more jewels!! About Alukkas: Alukkas Jewellery is the flagship company of the Joy Alukkas Group. With 38 outlets spread across the Gulf in the Middle East and Kerala in India the Group is today the world's No.1 22 karat jewellery retailer. The Joy Alukkas Group has also ventured into a nov

BharatBala Productions, the makers of hits like Maa Tuje Salam videos are back again, this time with a video titled "I am India", chronicling the rise of India as an economic superpower. This video just got released and is made for India Brand Equity Foundation. The video has got a wonderful sloka from Bhagavat Gita with the latest techno-edge music. Is that ARR? Not sure though. If you have any more details on this, pls do comment

Sashi forwarded me this wonderful poem written by Sangeetha N on the occassion of Mother's Day! PS: Those not in sync with Tamil (like me), get it read by someone!

Ever since the call center/BPO boom in India, India/Indians have always been in the limelight for all the right/wrong reasons. Here's a no pun intended video of a typical call center according to this filmmaker.

MC Vikram & Ludakrishna, the "infamous" mallu rappers are striking it again! After the humengous success of Welcome to India and Curry-n-Rice Girl , here's their latest one I found, Christmas Gift! You will sure njoi! Powered by Castpost

As the title suggests, the Assembly polls for the four states that concluded yesterday puts the read party (Communists) and the Sun group family... oops, sorry, the DMK in the forefront. DMK and its allies won the TN polls and in all likelihood, TamilNadu is going to see its first coalition government. Kerala and West Bengal got swept by the Left Democratic Front and Assam got a hung assembly. Though am one of the least interested in politics since childhood, I have started an inkling towards it as it fodders me with even laughter material when there are no comedy shows running in TV. What's in store @ TamilNadu? The emergence of SUN Group as the most powerful media in Southern India. Dayanidhi Maran contesting for the PM post in the near future. Free Color TVs for all, rice at Rs. 2, no need to pay back your loans etc. etc... As for Jayalalithaa... pretty soon the DMK is going to dig up all her disproportionate asset cases... So it's Jail, Lalithaa! Would like to quote what my

With just hours left before the actuall poll results are out, Peak Day Blues exit poll throws up a picture which is similar to the exit polls conducted by many newspapers/televisions. While, DMK has a clear lead here of 44%, AIFB [thanks to some vote rigging] got a chunk of votes by some outlaws among us :-) While this may be a small percentage, let's wait and watch how the actual results turn out to be. Thanks to all who participated in the poll. Special thanks to those who were hell bent on vote rigging!

As the weather warms up, election results expected tomorrow, the government in all likelihood will increase the prices of petrol/diesel. With petrol prices at about Rs. 50 a litre already, driving is becoming more expensive than ever before. What can be done to improve gas mileage? The get comprehensive answers to these questions, check out Car India PS: Highly Recommended. Holds true for those who ride bikes also!

I have never believed in fascism or communism, but if the current government has its way around, they are planning to hike the petrol price by another Rs. 10 per litre pretty soon. A litre of petrol costs only Rs. 8 in Iran and it's similar in other Middle Eastern countries. If this goes around, I will either start using a bicycle/walk to places or will go settle myself in Iran!!

JVK forwarded me this link of a news article talking about a British IT worker, who collapsed suddently at his desk due to DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis)... On a relative note, I had read about a few tips to reduce health hazards while working in front of a computer in Google blog ... Both are worth a definite read!

Hybrids are going where they've never been before. Lexus introduced the first "full" hybrid paired to a V8 engine for the best in luxury, performance and efficiency. The 2008 Lexus LS hybrid sedan was introduced to the world at the New York International Auto Show. Read the rest of the story and a video at Car India

While I've seen a lot of road accidents whenever I go to my native during weekends, this time around, I had a cam with me and was able to take a snap of this incident. This was in the L&T bypass road, which connects KG Chavady to Pollachi road. It was a full load of watermelons and it crashed to the fields nearby, which were at 10 feet below the road. While I heard that the driver and the cleaner were rescued moments after impact, thanks to an efficient ambulance service, what caught my eye was that the locals had gathered in huge numbers to check out the lorry and conveniently carry the watermelons from the lorry! What a world!

It's poll fever in TamilNadu and keeping with the tradition of "exit polls" by the Mainstream Media, I also decided to conduct an exit poll. Let's see who do you poll for. So, start your virtual polling now. PS: You can see the poll box on the left side.

Internet has always been at the forefront when it comes to love... There were days when we used to try to find our our crush using FLAMES... But thanks to internet, this has become easier... Click here and enter your name and your crushes/lovers name and find out your compatabaility!! Listen to this article

Rajiv forward me this special message of RR!! :-)

Peak Day Blues has always been at the forefront of the blogging technology or the Internet 2.0 per se. I started with some mad ramblings, went to link interesting articles or stories that I came across while browsing, starting adding pictures... Then recently even videos... Now as the next step, you can listen to my blog entries by clicking on a link at the end of each entry titled "Listen to this article"... It's a state-of-the-art speech recognition software that helps accmplish this task. Try it out for yourself. As usual, feedbacks/brickats are welcome! Listen to this article!

Our very own Rajiv has decided to start a Chinese Restaurant and give a tough competition for our canteen and other eateries surrounding our campus.... U think am joking?? He is serious! He has even come up with a hoarding... Listen to this article

Newspaper readership is booming in India, thanks to widening literacy, a surging economy and a new generation of young consumers. WSJ has an interesting article about the booming print media in India. Of course, our slacky Times Of India is covered, but a notable miss is the South Indian giant, The Hindu! Listen to this article

Got a pleasant surprise this morning when I was reading The Hindu with my droopy eyes... The MetroPlus magazine had a cover story about KGiSL's Online Education project with insightful quotes from Kalpana Ma'am and Shyam Sundar. K Jeshi of The Hindu had done the article and has covered it extensively.... For those of you who didn't get a chance to reaad it, click here Update: Click here to read an old article that appeared in the Hindu BusinessLine regarding the same project. Listen to this article!

Folks, have been busy with work for the past 2 weeks.... will b back into full action next week... Till then, njoi!

Yes, you can read all the articles in Wall Street Journal online free today... They are celebrating their 10 year existence in the cyber world. Go click it fast!