Cricket debuts

For the cricket aficionado’s – the raw talent of Umar Akmal and Adrian Barath is a treat to watch ….pity that both ended in the losing side ….both are 19 year olds – Sure in the coming days we are going to hear about them more ….

While the Pak vs NZ is a great advertisement of cricket, it is sad to see WI capitulate to Australia within 3 days, inspite of Baraths heroics. Chanderpaul's failure in both the innings is the key moments but I guess Chris Gayles captaincy is uninspiring. May be his doubts on the future of test cricket makes him indifferent to Test cricket. As Ian chappell tells its time WI needs an inspirational captain and who else than the Darren Ganga to do the same ? This can make Chris Gayle focus more on his batting and on his day he may prove to be handful for the Aussie bowlers to handle.

Recommended weight

The recommended weight based on the height of an individual is given in the following sheet:

On Tamilnadu, an info presentation

A Zoho show presentation on some very basic facts about Tamilnadu. Will expand this later or add more presentations.



You can visit http://www.zoho.com to try out Zoho Show and other online tools of them.

Fake Office ?

One of the Microsoft’s top executives recently mentioned that the competitors (Zoho, Google, Zimbra ......among others) online office application offerings as “fake office”.

The response from Zoho is below :

http://www.fakeoffice.org/

Creative, hilarious and head-on, makes you smile when an underdog fights a Gorilla ….

As one person by the name of M.K.Gandhi mentioned :

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you and then you win ......

New Wave of Tamil Films

Among the new Tamil films released over the past year or so , the following were the good ones -

• Subramaniapuram
• Vennila Kabbadi Kuzhu
• Kunguma Poovum Konjum Puravum
• Pasanga
• Nadodiagl

offbeat themes, different subjects, decent picturization, bold attempts - which should be applauded and rewarded. Very correctly, the public and the critics are unanimous in applauding these films - though the commercial results were mixed, it is good to note the fresh wave of new directors and experimenting producers.

While the above movies are mostly with new faces or with small actors - the so called big budget films and the Stars failed miserably at the box-office - except for Suriya's Aiyan, none of the hyped up films stood up to their billing - this include Kuruvi, Villu, Sathyam, Thoranai, Vaaranam Aayiram .....et all ...

Oracle buys Sun

Posted on April 21 elsewhere on the news on proposed Oracle's buyout of Sun.

The big news in the techcircle is the Oracles proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems. In all probability it will go through.

Its again the signs of consolidation in the big (bad ?!) world of hitech/computing. IBM was the original bidder and as they harangued over few pennies, the ever predatory Larry Ellison snatched the deal. In one sense its good for the market as it can (sun-oracle combination) check the behemoth that IBM is. On the other hand analysts and Industry watchers are worried about the fact that now Java is actually *owned* by Oracle ! And not to mention about the MySQL the open source database that many SMB’s, academics and ISP’s prefer over that of the *commercial* Oracle.

Its a direct conflict of Interest for Oracle. And one will not be surprised if MySQL was given a quite burial, but I hope it will not happen beacuse of the widespread community base of the MySQL users.

And the other issue is Oracle never had experience in HW and with many enterprises using Sun HW they will be watching with crossed fingers on how Oracle’s strategy on this.

Overall, a good buy for Oracle, good competition for IBM, good value for Oracles shareholders, good suitor for Sun …….but for the Industry whether it is good or bad, have to wait and watch ……

Sivakumar

Caste, Politics and Reservation - Part I

Caste based politics is not new to TN, or for that fact for India. The more we say we are casteless, religion neutral secular country, the more we practice casteism. Even in this century, even in this IT age. The popular matrimony sites advertise - database of "x" no of castes, "y" no of communities .....and so on. And we are replete with all kinds of "sangams" (associations) who are supposed to take care of their respective castes and in few cases their respective political parties too.

The story of PMK in TN is too well known to be documented - PMK "graduated" to the most-sought-after political ally (usually for different parties in different elections) from its earlier roots of Vanniyar sangam. They are particularly strong in Northern and part of western districts of TN. Even after some of the most politically opportunistic alliance switching - its political base remained intact and whenever major political parties aligned with it, it got benefited.

Few other caste based parties also tried this route albeit with little success. Most of them remained as "letter pad" parties and used it so called power to bargain with political parties for one or two seats or for nothing (but settled for some cash.)

Most of us say we detest caste based politics, but we dont know from where these guys gain strength and confidence. It is particularly depressing to know that even well known Cinema starts (Karthik, Vivek and now Sarathkumar to name a few) tries to use (exploit) the youth of their caste to promote their benefits. (To be fair to him, Vivek is no longer in the forefront of his caste "sangam", Karthik has made a mockery of a Once-a-Nationalist-party into a caste based outfit and Sarathkumar in a none-too-subtle way is wooing his community people with his political outfit, ironically named with "equality")

Representatives of mainstream political parties also play their own caste games especially on micro level which largely gets unnoticed by the mainstream media or at best ignored.

The main demands of these caste based outfits is for more job opportunities and more educational opportunities (read exclusive reservation) for their community. With TN being one of the "advanced and mature" states in "social equality" (whatever it means) not much tinkering can be done in the existing reservation formula (though PMK was able to extract a significant % in the pretext of MBC). As a result most of the caste based political parties doesn't seem to do much actually to the upliftment or welfare of their community people. Instead it remains as a fringe political force and mostly militant in its way in dealing with the other communities, especially with the oppressed classes (in their region). This trend is particularly disturbing as this has caused the affected parties to join or form an outfit of their own (again with their own caste affiliations). The emergence of PB and VCK in the northern districts and PT in the southern districts is an indication for this (PB - Puthiya Bharatham, VCK - Viduthalai chirruthaigal, PT- Puthiya Tamizhagam ).

As though all this is not enough, TN is witnessing the next wave in the heady cocktail of caste and politics - the emergence of a political outfit for Kongu Vellalars, known as Gounders and the FEBAS, the Federation of Brahmin association of South India.

More on this on the next posting ...