Hidden Wonder !!

The first time i heard about Venugopala Swamy temple was in 2002. When SM Krishna was the Chief Minister of Karnataka, There was a drought in Southern Karnataka and KRS dam built over river Cauvery never touched it's full capacity of 124 feet. It was then that this hidden wonder was unveiled. At that time i never got a chance to visit this temple. When i had a long weekend during Vijaya Dashami, me and my wife decided to visit this temple.

We started off from my house in Mysore and reached KRS. At KRS a bridge over river Cauvery will take us to famous Brindavan Gardens. Instead of turning towards left, if you continue straight, you will reach a village called Katteri. Before getting into that village at a junction where three roads meet, turn towards left and after driving straight for 3 kms, You will reach a village called Hosa Kannambadi. In Hosa Kannamnadi village drive slowly and look for a Sign board towards left which gives directions towards Venugopala Swamy temple. Its a gully which pass through the village and green paddy fields. After driving for half a Kilometer, You can see a wonderful temple on the banks of Cauvery.



It was a huge temple situated at scenic location on the banks of Cauvery. It is somewhat similar to Somanathapura temple in architecture (Hoysala style). There is an inscription in old Kannada on the walls of this temple. When KRS dam was built this temple got submerged in backwaters and was visible only during drought. When old Kannambadi village got submerged new village was built and called Hosa kannambadi. People brought the Venugopala Swamy idol from the submerged temple and still worship it in a temple in Hosa Kannambadi through we didn't visit that temple.




Thanks to Khoday foundation which has taken up the task of shifting this temple, we are now able to see this temple at any season of the year. There is no idol yet at the temple which they are planning to bring in after work is fully completed. The temple looks new as they have polished stones. The architecture of the temple is inspiring and after completion it promises to be prominent tourist destination.
So if you visit Mysore, never miss this temple. You can enjoy the beautiful architecture and serenity of the cauvery backwaters.

Semiconductor industry to grow by 10.3% in 2010

Global research firm Gartner today raised it outlook of semiconductor industry by predicting that revenues will fall by 17% in 2009 compared to 2008, which is better than their earlier estimate of minus 22%. Gartner's research Vice-President Bryan Lewis said in a statement that "The semiconductor market has performed better than expected as was evident when second quarter semiconductor revenue increased 17 per cent in sequential sales". He attributed this to stimulus package in China and strong consumer demand as a result of reduced price of PC and LCD TV.

According to Gartner all major segments of semiconductor market are expected to decline in 2009. The largest segment of the semiconductor market, ASSP(Appliction-Specific Standard Product) will reach $57.2 billion in 2009, but this is a 16.5 per cent decline from 2008 revenue. The memory market, the second largest segment is forecast to touch $41 billion, a 13.5 per cent decline from last year. The microcomponents segments is on place to reach $39.4 billion in 2009, a 19.2 per cent decline from 2008.

In its outlook for 2010, Gartner said the worldwide semiconductor revenue was expected to total $233 billion, a 10.3 per cent increase from 2009 projections. Gartner expects the fourth quarter of 2009 to be positive but foundries have reported they are concerned that demand may drop of more than seasonal in the fourth quarter and it may carry into first quarter of 2010. Gartner's most likely scenario was a negative five per cent growth in the first quarter of 2010 as customers take a pause and absorb all the devices they purchased over the previous three quarters.

Stop operation lotus and focus on development

Today's by-poll election result held for 5 legislative assembly seats in Karnataka is a wake-up call for the ruling BJP. It's true that BJP has gained two seats and has opened an account in Chamaraja nagar district for the first time but two of it's heavyweight candidates, housing minister V.Somanna and C.P.Yogeshwar has bite the dust. Both these people have switched sides and had jumped to BJP within a year after having won on a congress ticket.

It's well known that BJP now having 117 seats is more stable and there is no need of "operation lotus" anymore. All it has to do now is just contain infighting within the party to complete it's five year term. People have given clear mandate today rejecting party hoppers. Now Yeddyurappa should focus on sorting out sickening power issue, improving infrastructure of Bangalore and development of a state as a whole.

Chip sales up in July

Global chip sales in July are believed to have increased by a seasonally adjusted 6 percent over the previous month, according to analyst Bruce Diesen at Carnegie Group (Oslo, Norway). He is expecting that the three-month moving average of global chip sales to be $17.5 billion, compared to $17.2 billion achieved in june. However, compared to June 2008, chip sales are down 21% this year.




Diesen suggests that handset chips, which were weak in June, probably improved more than PC chips. Chinese handset sales improved in July. Memory chips were aided by the trend of more memory per handset including 16GB NAND memory in the third quarter of this year. He also said automotive chips should improve because different governmental initiatives.

ASIC design outsourcing slowed down in 2008 : Gartner

According to the report prepared by Gartner analyst Ganesh Gurumurthy, the survey conducted over 40 vendors offering chip design services has revealed that outsourced design projects saw only a marginal increase of 6.5% in 2008 compared to 34% growth in 2007. According to the the report, growth in full-chip and partial design and back-end physical design outsourcing slowed to about 20 percent, 24 percent and 3 percent, down from 27 percent, 38 percent and 52 percent, respectively, in 2007.

Earlier report prepared by gartner in March said that the number of new ASIC projects will drop 22% in 2009 compared to 2008. Lack of visibility, deteriorating business conditions made chip vendors to cut back or postpone new chip designs in third and fourth quarter of 2008. This took toll on chip design service providers and semiconductor IP vendors as they faced delays and cancellations of projects.

Gartner further advised that with a recovery in chip design activity expected starting in the Q4 2009, design service providers should prepare now to invest, especially in engineering resources, to meet a likely surge in demand for design services and support activity.

Masala Restaurant - Uttarahalli main road

Two of my team mates Mahesh and Santosh gave us a treat today as they got promotion. after considering several restaurants we decided to go for Masala restaurant which is on Uttarahalli main road. Most of my team mates are vegetarians.

Here's what i feel about Masala restaurant and my ratings(scale of ten).

1. Ambiance : 7/10, It was a big hall. Seats were comfortable however there was no AC. There is an attached bar but we didn't order any beverages. There was ample parking space.
2. Non-veg food : 8/10, Wide variety of chicken, mutton and seafood available. We ordered hot chicken pepper soup, chicken Manchurian and prawn pepper as starters all of which were good. For main course we ordered mutton rogan josh and chicken tikka masala. Mutton rogan josh didn't had a taste of rogan josh instead felt like mutton masala. Chicken tikka masala was good.
3. Veg food : 5/10, I only tasted gobi manchurian and finger chips. Finger chips were good but gobi tasted bad. Most people who had vegetarian food had negative opinion about food.
4. Service : 8/10, servers were neatly dressed and serving was quite fast.
5. Overall : 7/10, It's good for non-vegetarian food. For pure veggies near our office, there are better options.

Reliance WiMax broadband review

I am using Reliance Wi-Max broadband since last one and a half years. You can find my review at mouthshut here.

When i was looking to get a new broadband connection, i called Airtel, Sify and Hathway and all of them said they won't provide service in our area(Nagarabhavi in Bangalore). It's surprising that Bangalore is called IT city/Silicon valley of India but it's very difficult to get a broadband connection. After this I went to BSNL office in Chandra layout and applied for a new landline connection along with broadband. When asked when i will get connection, i was told i will get it within a week. When i didn't hear anything from them even after a month i went to BSNL office and enquired about my application and it was all up in the air. They didn't had any clue about my application even after showing receipt. If BSNL can't provide a connection then why do they advertise on TV?. As a last resort i took Reliance Wi-Max connection. I have 400kbps connection and i pay Rs.1100 per month including taxes.

So far except customer service, i am not having any issues with the connection. It's more than 6 months since my net went down hence i didn't find any reason to contact their customer care. It was worst when i started using it. It used to take long time to get dynamic IP. Net used go down a lot of times and when i call customer care, i used to get irritated with the same way they used to speak every time for different problems. Now i keep PoE(Power over Ethernet) on for five minutes and i get a connection. Few months back the antenna installed on top of my house was stolen, They installed a new one in place of that. I heard from the guy who came to istall antenna that many incidents of antenna being stolen has happened lately. The reason he told was since the company which used to provide Wi-Max antenna(Telsima corporation) went bust and stopped production, rival Tata group person may be doing this since they also use the same antenna. I haven't verified the authenticity of this. I have to give Police complaint that my antenna has been stolen and produce the receipt to the reliance to get a new antenna. I can tell you that it's easy to say that i gave a Police complaint, but it was really hard to explain Police what Wi-Max antenna was and how it looks as they never had seen any and refused to take any complaint initially but took it after repeated requests.


To conclude heres my observation of Reliance Wi-Max connection.

Pros
Stable connection, has improved over last year.
Download speed: 40-45kbps(stable) for 400kbps connection
Upload speed : 40 kbps
Outage : No outage since last 6 months

Cons
Pathetic customer care!!. The customer care people are like answering machines. They repeat the same thing again and again. The first person whom you speak won't have any clue about Wi-Max connection nor they have technical knowhow about how to solve your problem. They just give you one complaint number and say technical person will contact you. Many times that technical person won't contact you. If you call them again and tell them about the complaint number you had received before, they will say sorry and give you one more complaint number. This goes on and on and on.

They ping customers 15 days before the last date to pay the bill and ask them to pay. I never missed any payment but still i get calls atleast 2-3 times before due date asking me to pay the bill.

Tata Sky review

The cable connection at my house was pathetic as i was getting bad quality picture. The cable operator of our area was not at all helpful and despite calling him several times, things didn't get any better so i decided to get DTH connection. I also considered set top box but i din't wanted to deal with my cable operator again. I did research on the web, read reviews in mouthshut, broadband forum and several blogs. I also visited their websites and checked their packages.

Currently in India there are 6 DTH service providers

1. Dish TV
2. Tata Sky
3. DD Direct
4. Airtel Digital TV
5. Big TV
6. Sun direct

My package(What i need) should include all Kannada channels + English news channels + Sports + Business + infotainment(Natgeo, discovery etc).

Finally i shortlisted two of the following.
1. Tata Sky
2. Airtel Digital TV

I rejected the following

1. Sundirect (Cheapest of all but lots of unwanted channels, sports package is expensive, English news channels(CNN & BBC) were missing.
2. Dishtv (First to offer DTH in Indian, saw lot of negetive feedback on the web
3. Big TV (Best channel package among all, again lot of negetive feedback)
4. DD-Direct (I have moved on from Doordarshan era, never considered it)

My house owner had Tata Sky connection and picture quality was good but i found Tata Sky to be expensive among all. I went to Airtel office in Vijayanagar and enquired about the DTH connection. They said it will take minimum 15 days for me to get the connection. They lost one customer because of that. Why should anybody wait 15 days to get a DTH connection? phew!!.I called Tata Sky customer care and booked Tata Sky. I was told within 24 hours installation will be done. As they said two guys came to my house and installed Tata Sky next day. I took one year warranty on set top box for Rs.199 and Star Cricket as an add-on package for Rs.25. It's been three weeks since i am using Tata Sky and here are my observations.

Pros
1. Picture quality is great
2. So far i didn't had any problem with the customer service.
3. Apart from sports i get most channels i want in south saver pack(109 channels).

Cons
1. Having separate remotes for TV and STB is a nuisance. Airtel scores over TATA in this as they have same remote for TV and STB.
2. Bad business ethics!!. In these 3 weeks they already blocked all channels twice. I didn't pay for Star cricket channel upfront and it was given one day free to me. Next day when i came home from my office i was not getting any channels because i didn't recharge Star cricket.

Imagine you brought South Jumbo pack for Rs.2600 a year and star cricket as an add on package for Rs.25 a month on August 1. On September 1 if you forgot to recharge Star cricket, they will block your South Jumbo package along with Star cricket. If you call customer care and ask to discontinue star cricket, they will charge per day usage (say 80 paise) even after blocking that channel. When asked, they said it is computer generated. Computer doesn't have it's own brain right?. Everything is with the way it is programmed. The name TATA reminds me of JRD Tata and Ratan Tata and i have high regards for them but i wonder is TATA sky belongs to the same TATA group.

3. One day when it rained, it stopped working and it took 15 minutes to resume service.

What i paid?.
Set top box + Installation(1 month subscription free) Rs.1999
Start Cricket add on package Rs.25
1 year extended warranty Rs. 199
--------------------------
Total Rs.2223

Is it worth?.
If your cable connection is good, just get a set top box to enhance your viewing experience and don't go for DTH. If you have a bad connection, then you may consider it.

Dr. Zhongjun Cao - Will he get justice?

I have been following this story since the beginning. It happened on January 12th 2008 in Footscray in Melbourne Australia. Footscray was the place where i used to live while i was studying in Australia.

The story goes like this. A group of eight young Australians met at McDonalds at the corner of Ballarat road and Gordon St in Footscray. A person by name John Caratozzolo,21, who was the leader of that group told others that he need to change his phone and he thinks Indians have a better phones. He asked his mates to join him in "Curry Bashing". Curry Bashing is the term used in Australia to assault and rob Indians of their valuables. It was already dark and these thugs went down looking for Indians on the streets, instead they stumbled upon Zhongjun Cao who was a Chinese academic at Victoria university. They mistook him for an Indian and assaulted him. One guy lifted Dr.Cao and dropped him head down. Caratazzalo kicked Dr.Cao's head so hard that he injured his own legs. They relieved Dr.Cao of his mobile phone, wallet and left him to die on street. Later that night the group assaulted another Mauritian student Binesh Mosaheb in Sunshine whom the gang mistook to be an Indian.

After that trial was held in Victoria's supreme court, two teenage thugs were given just pat on the wrist and handed over counselling and detention as punishment. The ring leader John Caratozzolo was sentenced to maximum 15 years in jail with being eligible for parole after 10 years. Another thug was sentenced to minimum of 6 years in jail (Read here).

These is just a plain injustice. I really feel for Dr.Cao's wife and daughter.They have to suffer throughout their life but these thugs will be out in the public within 2-10 years. Australia should get tough on criminals. Some Indian poilce may be corrupt but they treat these kind of thugs really the way they should be treated. This case encourages thugs to commit crime and getaway with it. If courts and Police doesn't get tough, crime will explode in Australia.

Amazon Mechanical Turk review

Last year when i brought my laptop and got internet connection, i thought of making some spare money off it during my leisure time. I googled about work from home jobs and found lot's of them. I was sceptical about most of them as many asked for money upfront before starting any work. It's better to stay away from these spammers who will take your money and disappear. I did exhaustive research and went to many reviews, blogs and user opinions until i stumbled upon the website www.mturk.com(Amazon Mechanical Turk).

I went through that website and thought of giving it a go. The main reason i chose to work with mturk is that they were offering to pay in Indian rupees but still i was sceptical as i never had any experience of working online and was not sure whether they will pay me and also i had to invest my spare time.

Mturk is a concept called crowdsourcing where thousands of simple tasks are listed by many companies and individuals. These tasks are called HIT's(Human Intelligent Tasks) as computer cannot perform them automatically but require human intelligence. HIT's vary from identifying whether the images are obscene to transcription to writing short stories. The payment starts from 1 cents(US) a HIT and the maximum i have earned on a single HIT is $15.Most of the work at Mturk is boring and straight forward and doesn't require any special skills, however i found skills like rewriting sentences and translating from English to Hindi interesting and i work on them most of the time. Click on the below mention to enlarge and see sample HIT's.




After working on HIT's your earnings will get accumulate in mturk account. One can withdraw this amount or can do some shopping at amazon.com. For Indian nationals mturk provides an option to withdraw money in Indian rupees. For this user have to scan either his PAN card or Driving license and send it to them. They will promptly dispatch cheque to the address that is mentioned while registering. Cheque will reach within 15 days after the withdraw money request is raised. I myself has withdraw money twice and got Citibank cheques payable at all branches in India.



To conclude Mturk is a good option if you are watching TV and parallely working on some HIT's which needs no intelligence but can get you some spare money. Devoting most of your time is not advisable as the pay is very less.

Attacks on Indians in Australia

Since last 2-3 months Indian media has been regularly reporting about attacks on Indian students in Australia.Two months back it was like media frenzy calling Australia a racist nation. Having studied and lived in Australia for two years, i was appalled to see the reputation of the place where i studied going down the drain. I was in Australia during 2003 July till 2005 Feb. My experience of Australia is as follows.

1. There are racists in Australia but its unfair to brand the whole nation as racist. I have met some nice people there.
2. My experience there was pleasureable and all people i have met there including people from my universities, factory(part-time work), neighbours were nice to me except a bunch of young people who were rude to me and had racist intentions.
3. Melbourne really had a best public transport system with train, trams and buses. I have travelled in London's tube but i can tell you Melbourne's train system is better. Recent attacks had happened mainly in trains or near train stations. I used to catch last Sydenham train at 12AM and get down at Footscray but never faced any issues. These attacks may be recent.
4. I lived in Footscray which is a western suburb as it was cheaper and closure to the university. Most attacks have taken place in the Footscray and sorrounding suburbs like St.Albans, Sunshine etc. These suburbs have more ethnic population than any other suburbs in Melbourne. Except drug trafficking, Footscray didn't had any problem during those days.
5. Most Indian students during that time were attending universities to get degrees. There were 11,000 odd Indian students. Now overwhelming majority attend colleges to get some cooking or hairdressing diploma. No one is fool to spend $30,000 and study cooking in an alien country. They pay that much because they were promised that they will get permanant residency once they finish their course as these skills were in skills shortage list for permanant residency visa and get them extra points. It's safe to assume that student who is neither rich nor attending some top university in Australia is there only for permanant residency.
6. Many Indian students drive taxis to make up for their living expenses there by branding all Indians as taxi drivers in Australia. Even during 2003 majority of Taxis drivers in Melbourne are Indians. Few people have asked me "Do you drive taxi for living?". Taxi driving is not a profession for many but just a stop gap job till they get a better one.

To conclude i believe there is an insecurity creeping in the minds of Australians that their country is being taken over by Indians as there are 97,000 students there. These students take up jobs which a young, unskilled, highschool dropout Australian also vie for there by leading to clashes. Also few youngsters may have found Indians as soft targets since Indians wont report crimes fearing it may affect immigration application if their name is featured in Police records.

Statue - Politics or Brotherhood

The statue of the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar was unveiled today in Bangalore after being under the wrap for almost eleven years. Through this great poet deserved every respect he can and this should be laudable, i doubt the intentions of politicians from both states behind this. It's well known fact that there has been many long standing disputes between the two states such as Cauvery, Hogenakkal etc and there has been riots and loss of lives before like the riots of 1991 as a result of interim verdict handed out by Cauvery tribunal board. Unveiling Thiruvalluvar statue in Bangalore was one of the condition that slain bandit Veerappan had set to release the then abducted Kannada matinee idol Dr.Rajkumar.

I smell something rat here as Karnataka CM Yeddyurappa has arranged all these in a hurried way. He is struggling with administration as state has been witnessing power cuts like never before. There are many more pressing issues in the states that needs to be addressed. His party BJP which lost Lok Sabha elections badly has realised that unless it spread it's wings in Tamil Nadu and Andhra, it can't make it in the center. These two states were the key swing states in favour of the congress and BJP has no base here. By unvieling this statue, may be Yeddyurappa want to send a message to Tamil Nadu people that BJP is more friendly to them. This also makes it easy for BJP to get some alliances in the next general election.