Wishing you all a very

Happy Baisakhi

and

start of new Indian Year (Vikrami Samvat)

I am celebrating Baisakhi / Vaisakhi by being at my hometown - Hoshiarpur.

Virgin Mobile just launched in India in this year. It is advertising its services at war level and offering services with very attractive schemes. One of the promotional schemes include 10 paise return on every minute you talk over incoming call. I don’t know how will they justify their counter-roles in other countries where they charge for incoming calls!

Here are few advertisements from Virgin Mobile being floated over TV these days -

And now Virgin Mobile is following me on Twitter . One more Hatke (different) thinking (as they promote) from provider…

Another photo in album to be remembered - the Holi celebration at Gurgaon…as always!!

Roomies: Myself and Pankaj in stolen moments from rest of world

Yesterday for first time, I felt the meaning of this phrase -

Dry Smile

with

Silent Screams

I saw people going out from work not to turn back

Just yesterday while reading this news in Times Of India, I realized that I received this mail years back and it was proved to be hoax.

The news went like - 36% of scientists at NASA are Indians: Govt survey.

Of course, any Indian will get interested in reading more of this news after going through such interesting title and getting into detailed news, you get to know that there are 34% Indian employees at Microsoft and 17% at Intel. Voila what a feeling you get specially knowing that these all facts are provided by our own minister of state for HRD, D Purandeshwari in Rajya Sabha (Parliament House).

Just imagine, how thrilled you will feel when you will be getting a similar mail with title - Be A Proud Indian with lot and lot of facts listed down in subject. One such mail I had received in year 2005 and along-with many facts, it contained lot of false data. Find the content of mail below with the link over Internet. And after about three years to that, our minister is presenting all those numbers as facts without checking their truthfulness. Three years is quite long time. Even if minister had figured out that it is 3 years old data, he might had refrained from sharing it but looks like he was in very much hurry to share them in defense of the country’s higher education system and the state of research.

I wouldn’t be getting into details about minister even knowing about him more than average but these are we Indians who select such leaders and should be ready to bear with such statements.

Here is the excerpt of news -

 

36% of scientists at NASA are Indians: Govt survey

NEW DELHI: If you thought that Global Indian Takeover was just a hollow cliche leaning on a few iconic successes like Pepsi’s Indra Nooyi, Citibank’s Vikram Pandit and steel world’s Lakshmi Mittal, there is a slew of statistics now to give it solid ballast.

The extent to which desis have made an impact in the US was reeled off in the Rajya Sabha — as many as 12% scientists and 38% doctors in the US are Indians, and in NASA, 36% or almost 4 out of 10 scientists are Indians.

If that’s not proof enough of Indian scientific and corporate prowess, digest this: 34% employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM, 17% at Intel and 13% at Xerox are Indians.
And the House of Elders also heard some startling facts about a country that’s still stuck with a Third World tag — 20% of gold in the world is used by Indians and nine out of 10 diamonds used in the world are made in India.