Down South

Rediscovering the joy of flying

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
After all the jet lag and catching up on sleep, here is the last post on wingeing back from London on Kingfisher's newly introduced direct flight. Kingfisher wanted hacks like me to experience Business class. List price of Rs 1.6 lakh and available at half the price if you search around hard enough, it is a experience worth savouring, that is if...

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Kingfisher : Smooth takeoff, Turbulent landing

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
Exactly three years and three months after he launched Kingfisher in the Indian market, Mallya's dream of flying internationally finally took wings. The first flight took off 25 minutes late after civil aviation minister Praful Patel did the hnonours. Mallya with son and heir Siddartha in tow was all smiles. The passengers were welcomed with Karnataka's...

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Of Tinpot Dictators, Kingfisher Airlines and UK Visas

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
If all goes well, UB Group's Kingfisher Airlines will have its first international flight from Bangalore to London tomorrow. Good news (for me at least) is that I am hitching a ride on that inagural flight. Though Jet was the first private Indian carrier to fly abroad, Kingfisher a relative new entrant to aviation is now making its international...

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The best web browser ?

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
In a few hours from now Google will launch Chrome its web browser and I am eagerly awaiting for it so that I can download and use. Since I already have four on my desktop, any sane person would wonder why? Somehow I am serial browser switcher (or should it be parallel) since I keep shifting from one browser to another. Internet Explorer from Microsoft...

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Lights, Camera, Axon : Infy finally makes a big acquisiton

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
This blog in the past has argued that Indian IT companies need to get out of their sandbox and make acquisitions if they want to have geometric and not arithemetic growth. So it is heartning that Infosys has made this move . Infy in the past has made just two minor acquisitions of Expert Infosystems for $ 22 mn and BPO units of Philips for $ 28 mn,...

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BJP's 'Operation Lotus' will come back to haunt it

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
The BJP in Karnataka is continuing its 'Operation Lotus' to lure opposition MLA's to resign their seats and join the party with ministerial berths as reward. Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa has shown unexpected political cunning in luring opposition members. Having won 110 seats in a 224 member assembly, the party has always lived in the...

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Right Move : TRAI's net telephony recommendations

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's recommendation to allow 'unrestrcited net telephony' is a welcome move. Here are the recommendations . It is also a sensible move. Technology had enabled that anybody with a broad band connection could have net telephony using the likes of Skype , Google's GrandCentral and Jajah . In a sense...

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6th Pay Commission hike : Can we have more accountability also ?

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
With just around nine months to go for the general elections, the government is naturally in a generous mood. Government employees have got hikes all around. See here for the recommendations . While nobody begrudges government servants their hike, specially with the increased cost of living, one only hopes that hikes go hand in hand with greater accountability...

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A life without Google's GMail ?

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
Lot's of you must have experienced problems like I did yesterday when I tried to access my Gmail. Here is the official statement from Google on its outage. For some time my productivity was hit because while I do use our internal mail system, for most of my correspondence and backup (given the nearly 7 GB of space it provides and counting), it is...

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Can India make a global mark in software products ?

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
The IT industry lobby Nasscom today has released this report which has outlined some pretty ambitious goals for the software products sector. Whenever their is criticism of the Indian IT industry, it is pointed out that Indian companies have had no success in the products space. Critics say that since product play is inherently risky in nature (if you...

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Say no that bond and/or non-compete agreeemnt

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
For all those companies who have been facing a talent crunch and been forcing employees to sign bonds and asking them to sign non-compete agreements, here is a wake up call . This practice has specially become rampant in the IT industry, though it is spreading to other sectors, including sadly the media. Companies should not coerce employees into signing...

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Why another Infosys cannot be built in IT Services

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
Can a company on the scale of TCS, Infosys or a Wipro be created again in the IT services space ? Vishal Gondal who founded IndiaGames has an interesting post in which he calls the triumvarite of Indian IT as the Axis of Evil who in some way stifle innovation. This is a touchy subject for the Indian services giants. While the angst expressed by Gondal...

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AP's Minority Quota Muddle

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
While the Supreme Court has for the moment allowed Andhra Pradesh government to provide admission in educational institutions, based on religion, pending final outcome of cases in this regard, the state government should not feel jubliant. The AP government under Y S Rajashekar Reddy has tried to divide society on the basis of religion. While nobody...

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Bangalore's Black Friday : A wake up call

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
The serial, low intensity blasts in the city, luckliy hasn't done significant physical and fiscal damage but the psychological damage might be more long lasting. Inspite of the doubling of population in the last 10 years and phenemonal growth witnessed thereof, the tech city has always had a laidback attitude to security. Yes, blasts happened in...

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Karnataka : An area of darkness

Posted by Venkatesha Babu at 
With monsoon having failed, 'load-shedding' an euphemism for unannounced power cuts is in. Bangalore is all set to face 5-7 hours power cut daily (up from the present 2-4 hours) while non-urban parts of Karnataka (which means almost the rest of the state) will face power cuts ranging from 12-18 hours. All this makes me wonder whether we are...

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