Origin of Day Light Savings practice

Banjamin Franklin who coined the proverb ""Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise", published a letter (An Economical Project, a discourse on the thrift of natural versus artificial lighting.) to Paris citizens on how to save candles by raising earlier and use morning sunlight. This concept was later used as a way to save energy and thus came in the practice of "day Light savings". More

Origin Of Red Ribbon Logo

In 1991, Patrick O'Connell, founding director of Visual Aids and his friends observed a significant raise of AIDS among artists in East Village and decided to launch a campaign to increase awareness about AIDS.

They Observed Americans in small towns were willing to visibly express their support for soldiers by putting up yellow ribbon and after a little brainstorming they designed Red Ribbon logo. Red was chosen for its, "connection to blood and the idea of passion -- not only anger, but love, like a valentine."

source: BBC

The Pigeon

He worked the land as a boy in the New South Wales outback, harvesting wheat, rearing chicken, sticking pigs, while his father, a road-train driver, transported livestock to an abattoir. For release, the young bowler bowled at a 44-gallon drum behind the machinery shed, inflicting “belly wounds” on it. Despite the hours of practice, he did not have the accuracy he has come to be revered for. His captain in bush cricket rarely used his services as a bowler; he preferred to deploy him on the boundary. “It seemed as if everyone thought I was wasting my time playing cricket,” says X. “There were times when it would’ve been easy just to give up; I mean, I didn’t even get a bowl! But I didn’t want to quit.”

He was nicknamed "Pigeon" as his legs are extremely thin, and so his team-mates decided that they resembled pigeon-legs

Identify X

Answer in Comments

Red Flag limousine

The limousine in which China's President Hu Jintao stood when he reviewed the military parade at china's 60th nationa day is a indigenous car developed by Chinese, manufactured by FAW.

Hongqi HQE, or "Red Flag limousine" had been a political symbol in China since 1958, when the first "Red Flag" rolled off the production line at the First Automotive Works (FAW).

FAW is China's first automobile manufacturer in 1953 as part of their first fiver year plan with soviet assistance

Hu Jintao stood in a red flag limousine reviewed the military parade Thursday on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of china



CA770 used in the 1984 parade by Deng


What impressed me is the way Chinese go to any extent to have their own distinct brands (copied/inspired or whatever) than relying on western brands.

Tata Crucible Quiz

Tata Cruible Hyderabad witnessed a seesaw battle between Google and Mahindra Satyam, both the teams scored 35 points each after three rounds. Google hold its nerves at this stage and satyam's mistakes on buzzer helped them book a place in national finals for second year in row

DE Shaw, SBi Life, Microsoft and Idea are the other teams to enter finals


Prelims:

Whirlpool Logo

Which term is derived from latin word "secreme" meaning to distinguish and to set apart - secretary

This magazine always featured only its founder on its cover, before Michelle Obama appeared along with her on its cover - O, Ophara winfrey's magazine

Identify - Deepak Chopra

Which computer industry billionaire owns valley crest, Americas largest landscaping firm - Michael Dell

Sr. Journalist Flynn Remedios is the official spokesperson of which controversial personality - Rakhi Sawant

Who siad this - " Keeping liqidity and not investing in low market is like saving up for sex in old age" W. Buffet

Which MNC is nicknamed "The Big Australian " - BHP Bilton

Identify - Geeta Piramal

Which mgmt guru said 'Todays problems comes form yesterdays solutions " - Peter singe

WHich maverick tycon was briefly given the post "litter tear" by the M.Thatcher govt, charged with keeping Britan tidy - Richard Branson

Founded by W.S.Borne in 1791, this is worlds oldest sunday newspaper - The Observer

Which NGO was founded by an airlines purser and his 6 friends around the founders 6 mothers dining tabel in 1979 - CRY

Identify this logo - Prax Air

Which multiplex chain has inhouse food and beverage counter called Refuel - Inox

Who had a fragrance line called contoversial and beauty salon called 'homme fatal' - J.Goody

Which buss group entered fiberglass boat manuf industry with 'odyssea' - Mahindra & Mahindra

WHich comp launched a city specific program called 'mana Hyderabad' to reach out regional markets - Canon

Which comp sponsors the reality game 'khelo jeet lo jiyo' - godrej

First indian company to sponsor a car in the Nascar national wide series - M&M

Forbes india was launched in association with which bussiness entity - TV 18

Which iconic brand did Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery of china buy - Hummer

TVC's of HDFC, Heinz

Finals:

They began Indian operations in 1928, closed down in 1959 returned in 1994 with a JV with CK Birla group - GM

Connect mobira, salora, televa, luxor - Nokia

This was first introduced in USA during 1930 depression by Albert an unemployed architect - Scrabble

Pic of Dale carrnige and their training model

Pic of Mortin Salt global identity

Identify this educationalist and economist - Dr. Jhon Mattiaha

Identify this great moment of time - Omega

It is positioned as India's first national youth focussed mobile - Virgin

This comp was incorporated in 1955 as the commercial printing divsion - Tata Infomedia

Pure, is positioned as India's first international restaurant with a focus in organic ingredients - Taj Hotels

To sum up its a typically pickbrain quiz with a mix of questions.

In case you missed it,check out the interview I did with giri here

Bizdom posted Tata Crucible Bangalore questions here

Coimbatore Quiz circle posted coimbatore round crucible questions here

Anish Raju posted Tata Crucible Cochin questions here

SEQC posted Tata Crucible Goa questions here

Rohit Nair posted Jamshedpur tata crucible prelims questions here

Qbit Mesra posted Ranchi Tata Crucible questions here

Readers Digest trivia n history

Readers Digest was conceived in Montana when DeWitt Wallace, a college dropout and struggling with life by publishing an agricultural digest for farmers.

DeWitt Wallace thought about why he could not do the same with general articles from leading magazines for a wider public.Dewitt wallace worked on his dream two years later in a hospital in Aix-les-Bains, France,, as World War 1 intervened

Dewitt Wallace felt magazines at that time or either too long or not worth reading

Dewitt relocated to USA and then used to go to Minneapolis Public Library,and attempted to cut a selected article in a magazine by as much as 75% while still retaining the substance and the author's style.

Dewitt then selected 31 such articles(one for one day) and published it as a pocket sized book and named it Readers Digest

Dewitt approached leading magazine publishers but none showed any interest. So Dewitt decided to sell it directly to the subscribers. He wrote a mail-order circular and posted it to a list of potential subscribers



Dewitt Wallace and his wife Lila launched the magazine in 1922 with a mission: to help new immigrants learn how to become American citizens.

Way ahead of his time and amazing focused execution that's what I think made RD such a iconic brand. I hope RD survives the recent crisis

origins of share trading

Share trading originated in Amsterdam, where the ‘Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie’, a large shipping company, was in permanent need of funds to finance the shipping of goods from the Far East.The popular Dutch nickname of this company was V(ergann) O(nder) C(orruptie) which means "Ruined By Corruption".

VOC founders decided to raise money from general public, with one condition - in case you want to take back your money, you need to sell it to some other partner, thus introducing the practice of share trading

The Oldest Share in the World:



Dutch Vereinigte Oostindische Compaignie (VOC) share certificate # 6, down-payment on a share; issued by the Camere Amsterdam 27th September 1606.

Blue Oceans in web conferencing market

Last night I read, Blue Ocean Strategy written by W.Chan Kim and Rene Mauborgne. Blue Ocean strategy promotes creating new market space or "Blue Ocean" rather than competing in an existing industry. The authors argue companies need to go beyond competing with in themselves and need to seize new profit and growth opportunities abd create blue oceans. Chan and Rene argues companies instead of dividing up existing and often shrinking demand and benchmarking competitors, need to focus about growing demand and breaking away from competition.

It looks good on paper, but creating a blue ocean is really a challenge, and sustaining leadership position in blue markets is equally tough.

Blue ocean strategy makes more sense in industries which are prone to technology innovations like say web conferencing markets

Web conferencing market is a highly competitive space fought between two set of players

Software based tools – Like Webex and Gotomeeting in which users need to download software before conducting conferences in a browser. Software based tools are primarily used by business users, medium to large companies as stability is their primary concern.

Browser based tools - Close to 80 browser based tools came in last couple years (Dimdim, fuze meeting etc) which radically transformed the industry by offering conferencing products purely via browsers without adding any software and at significantly lower prices. Browser based tools are slowly becoming popular in B2B space and enjoy a good amount of patronage in B2C and SMB category.

Software based tools hold around 65% in market share and around 80% in market value however it is intensely fought space driven by price and features

So how can web conferencing markets create blue oceans?

They can do it with widgets; widgets which create new applications and market segments

For starters, Widgets are mini-Web applications that are downloaded onto a desktop or transported into personal Web pages, blogs or social-network profiles. Widgets are built to share. If you see one you like, you can take a copy and customize it for yourself and use it in your blog, on your web pages, on your computer desktop or on your cell phone

However many brands limit the scope of widgets for content distribution, the real opportunity I guess is in adding more functionalities to make widgets as a “must have” tools for publishers.

Let me explain with the case of Dimdim widget, the only company as of now offering conference widgets

Dimdim widget is powered by clearspring and every time a user schedules a meeting with dimdim a widget will be created by default. You can customize it with features like chat transcripts after meeting, show recording after meeting, add countdown timer and registration form in the widget.

Like any widget, Dimdim widgets can be promoted in various social networks, blogging platforms or any other website just by copying a bit of code. Users can confirm their participation from all websites in which the widget was added.

The widget looks good, but got some issues in sharing options, when I tried to share the widget in twitter/facebook it gave some code and asked me to “copy and paste this url “, I am not sure where to paste it

Dimdim can take this widget to next level by adding e-commerce element to it. Offer a one stop solution to publishers who want to earn extra revenues via Webinars and a build a community around it, a community of publishers who want to share knowledge in various topics via Webinars and users who are willing to pay a token price to get knowledge

Let’s say, Steve is a popular HR consultant and runs a popular blog, probably he can conduct a monthly webinar on HR practices via dimdim and charge a token amount for it.

They are few reasons why Dimdim should chase this opportunity:
Market space:
Dimdim and other browser based tools are increasingly eating software based tools market share and at the same expanding the total pie. Web conferencing services are now affordable to a larger set of users and new set of applications are build over it(especially in e-learning space).

What Dimdim should do is gain significant market share in b2b space by offering more stable services and gain trust of enterprise clients, at the same time expand the overall web conferencing market by developing new set of applications and reach new set of markets and users(like many of them are chasing e-learning clients)

Community: Community as a USP is a very strong differentiator and dimdim can build it using a widget which offers a large section of publishers to earn extra revenue and at the same time makes webinars more popular

Revenue per user: If successfully executed, the revenue per user can go up significantly

First Mover: First mover strategy may not work in all cases, but a feature like this will create lot of buzz and this will help diddim earn more brand recall and place it as innovator in conferencing space

Value Innovation: One more term coined by Kim and Rene, value innovation is the cornerstone of blue ocean strategy. Value Innovation places equal emphasis on value and innovation. Value without innovation tends to focus on improving value but is not sufficient to make you stand out in the marketplace. Innovation without value tends to be technology driven, market pioneering or futuristic.

Widgets right now are good to have, it helps to spread your word, but it won’t motivate more speakers to try Webinars. Building a monetary system around widgets, coupled with dimdim’s strengths in delivery platform will result in more users trying Webinars and create a blue ocean

Michael Jackson 1984 Pepsi commercial footage

A rare video of Michael Jackson's 1984 Pepsi Ad Footage. Jackson received serious burns to his head when the pyrotechnics were set off too early.

Burger Kings Controversial Ad

Burger Kings Controversial Ad made some news in international press, I guess this is all part of advertisers strategy to create some cheap publicity,(Like the one BK is getting here)otherwise there is no chance of such lame advertisement hitting press.

Bgyan 10

1. What was named after the fantasy island in the story of Peter Pan, where children never age.

2. The idea for a hotel project first took seed in X's mind in 1957, when he visited Kempin Sky Hotel, West Germany as a representative of handloom board seeking newer markets. Identify X and the hotel chain started by him

3. What term was coined in the late 1970s, by a college dropout and Salomon trader to name a tidy bit of financial alchemy in which home loans were packaged together by Wall Street firms and sold to institutional investors.


4. who is also known as Diwan No. 1 and submitted his first budget in 1982


5. The co-founder of this company often described his company as the Ellis island of American business because it intentionally attracted the dissidents who wouldn't fit into corporate America


6. Who was sued by Apple computers on 23 September, 1985 for making plans for a new company and falsely representing his intentions to the board


7. More than anything else, X wants to became a teacher, a goal he wouldn't be able to achieve unless he earned his college degree. So he returned to Berkeley college to complete his electrical engineering and enrolled as "Rocky Raccoon Clark", Clark was his wife's name and Rocky Raccoon was his dog. Identify X


8. Which brands new logo is composed of two animated green, lava-like shapes — called Chouw and Mouw —with distinct identities of their own.


9. The scheme was originally described by Charles Dickens in his novel Little Dorrit and came into limelight in early 1900's. it was named after the Boston swindler who gave his name to the scheme nearly a century ago. Experts believe this scheme is one of the primary reasons for the current financial crisis. what scheme are we talking about?


10. Which website came into existence after a day long brainstorming session by employees of odeo. The original product name / codename “twttr” was inspired by Flickr and the fact that American SMS shortcodes are five characters.

Rules: Shoot your answers to praneeth82 AT Gmail Dot com and I will send you answers, please don't send your answers as comments

Interview with quiz master Pickbrain 'Giri Balasubramanyam'

Few months back, I mailed Giri to report a issue, which I observed at one of his quizzes. To my surprise Giri called on my mobile immediately and promised to escalate the issue(as it was organizers responsibility to fix it). I was surprised by the gesture,come on why will a ace quiz master call back and explain his point of view.

I requested Giri to reply to a small email interview to understand quizzing, and how it all began and his experience as quiz master. Giri was kind enough to spare some time and replied back, So presenting you all ace quiz master Pickbrain 'Giri balasubramanyam'


Q: Now, let me began this interview with a question, that's been in my mind from quite a long time, whats the story behind your name "pickbrain"

Giri: It’s a long story like any quiz answer! I was employed with the Times of India and we decided to introduce a quiz column for a kids supplement and being an in house resource I was asked to contribute. The catch was I was part of the Brand Team and not editorial so technically my name could not appear as a byline, hence a fictional name was coined. Overtime the name became a character and the character a personality so I just lived on.

From my point of view, I get to live two lives 

Q: I guess you been into quizzing from mid 1990's, have you seen any significant changes?

Giri: Oh quizzing has changed more in the last 10 years than it has in the last 50! Fundamentally quizzing is today a sport and not just a hobby over wine and cheese. It is also about big budgets, big prize monies and far far tougher than the fun days. In short it is serious business powered by corporates and technology


Q: Why did you choose to become a quizmaster?

Giri: Quizzing in our college days (early 90’s) was an activity that attracted probably 20 to 50 people. Winning was directly proportional to your ability to read and ransack libraries. During my Disney days in corporate life it dawned on me that anything could be made fun oriented and we tried to make quizzing more fun oriented with interesting facts rather than unknown facts and that made us popular. This translated into a viable business model and we started this company.

Q: Giri's quiz generally surprises participants with formats (pyramid quizzing, nano quizzing). How do you approach a quiz? What kind of efforts generally go in making a quiz successful

Information in this google era that we live in is no longer a great differentiator. Its how you manage your knowledge that matters. Hence, we have modeled our shows around the ability the work answers out of clues or posers rather than mere recall. The effort for this is huge because our starting point is where research ended few years back – that is with identifying a fact. For us once a fact is found we work on how to present it etc.

Perhaps I am like the curator of a cricket ground who is testing players with different wickets.


Q: How tough was it to quit a corporate job and do a startup, in a rather unknown industry?

Giri: It was a tough call to be honest. It is a decision that took more than a year to take especially because I was with a giant like Walt Disney and there were many telling me I was a fool to chuck such a job.

In retrospect, it seems a wise call and my advise to youngsters on this front is simple. If you have a strong, economically viable idea, define a clear time frame and practical goals and tell yourself if I don’t reach there I get back to the corporate world.


Q: You took Tata crucible from an India level quiz to international quiz, how is quizzing culture in places like Singapore. London

Giri: It is very very different from what we see in India. They do not have a quizzing culture or system like ours. They quiz for fun and not necessarily to win, so the intensity and pressure levels are not as much. Having said that, I think the scenario is fast changing and at Singapore the second year was a lot bigger and tougher than year one.

London is an interesting location for a business quiz. Given the quality of the B-schools there you get contestants who join these schools after 3-5 years of work experience. Hence, the quality of contestants seems to be very good.

Q: Tata Crucible grew tremendously in last couple of years, participation keeps growing year on year, is it putting you a extra pressure on you??

Giri: Yes the growth of a quiz especially the way Tata Crucible has grown puts a lot of moral pressure on you as a research team. Its as simple as this. There are two types of audience that I get. Regular Teams who prepare from a few wks to a few months for your quiz and you don’t want to disappoint them, so you do your best to ensure everything is tested over and over again. The other is the first time entrant who comes with huge expectations from you because he/she has heard a lot about the quiz

Q: 1000 + quizzes, Could you share some of your interesting experiences while conducting quiz contests?

Giri: Oh the numbers don’t matter. Every show is like the first of our lives – if you don’t view it that way you can take things for granted and errors can creep in. We do encounter a lot of interesting experiences given the extent of travel we undertake but the one that I never forget is when I was at Muscat for a quiz and a man started shouting in Arabic and I thought I had done something wrong. It took a few people to gather to explain to me that he had recognized me.

Q: What advice would you like to give to young quizzers

Giri: Use quizzing as a tool to help yourself know more. Never read to win shows, read to gain knowledge. Once you start enjoying the process of knowing things you start doing well in life and in quiz shows as well.

Q: And finally what advice would you like to give to young aspirant quiz masters?

Giri: Three important things

1. Don’t try to become a quizmaster because of the glamor you see. It is one of the toughest public personality domains because you need to prepare for atleast 10 days for 1 hour show.

2. Accept the fact that as a quizmaster you role is get answers out of the teams and not use the forum to display how intelligent you are.

3. A good quizmaster is one who understands the pulse of his audience and can get his teams to answer atleast 75% of the questions and have his teams and audience understand all 100% of the questions.

IPL is the 6th most valued brand according to SportsPro magazine

Wow I am really surprised that IPL became sixth most valued sports brand according to a study conducted by Sports Pro magazine. IPL is valued at 1.6 billion $

The list includes:


1. NFL $4.5bn
2. MLB $3.936bn
3. NBA $2.344bn
4. Nascar $1.9bn
5. Fifa World Cup $1.7bn
6. Indian Premier League $1.6bn
7. Ferrari $1.55bn
8. Manutd $1.495bn :)


BCCI/lali Modi must really thank ZEE groups Subhash Chandra for giving them a innovative idea. I guess these rankings are more or less driven by TV rights + marketing hypes, more on it later

Facebook vanity URL policies

Facebook vanity URL craziness has struck netizens across the world. A record(if it exists)200,000 usernames have been registered in 3 minutes.FB vanity URL's bring Facebook one more step closer to beat twitter and this is one of the smartest moves in social network space of late.

So keeping in mind of the mad rush Facebook has set up few rules and regulations in claiming vanity URL's. The basic idea is to prevent people from creating new accounts just to take advantage of reserving a username.

For usernames eligibility is limited to anyone who joined Facebook before username availability was publicly announced at 3 p.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, June 9, 2009.

And for, Fan Pages (Which FB started treating as profiles) they must meet two requirements: it must have been live on Facebook prior to the May 31, 2009 cut-off date and have had a minimum 1,000 fans at that time.

Fair enough, but I am surprised how Intel created a vanity URL to one of there fan page with just 103 fans?

Facebook is under fire very often these days for screwing up there policies and terms and I hope they don't messup on vanity URL's policies, as this dictates online identity of many users and brands

ROGER FEDERER TRIVIA AND FACTS

1. Why was Roger Federer nicknamed "Fedex"

2. "In an era of specialists - you're either a clay court specialist, a grass court specialist or a hard court specialist... or you're Roger Federer". Famous statement on Federer made by whom?


3. “I AM TOMORROW’S FUTURE” a statement made by Nolonwabo Batini, a girl aged fifteen from, South Africa was adopted as vision and slogan of which organization

4


On what occasion Roger Federer dressed as King Arthur


5. Federer is the only player in history to win which two grand slams consecutively for three straight years.

6. One of federer's nickname is TMF. what does it stand for

7. Connect Federer, Rod Laver, Jimmy Connors and Mats Wilander.

8. Federer won a Golden Bagel award for what?

9. In July 2003, he launched his own fragrance called "RF-RogerFederer. True or False?

10. What was presented to Fedex as a homecoming gift after his 2003 Wimbledon triumph

11. what does those Swiss flag marks on Roger Federer shoes represent? (OK this may sound bit odd, but quite interesting)














Check out the answers in comments

Brand Equity Quiz India finals questions

Few questions from Brand Equity Quiz India finals:

Round 1: Teams need to frame questions from the clues given by QM:

1. The municipality of Belgium, which lies in Walloon Region and Province of Liège

What is Spa

2. According to legend, all earnings from here is payed to kubera to repay his loan

What do u do with Tirumala Tirupathi Devesthanam donations

3. Russian has a patent for a METHOD OF PLAYING A LOTTERY GAME AND SUITABLE SYSTEM

Patent owned by Garry Kasparov

4. This edible variety from india, got its name from a goan...

How did Alphanso Mangoes got its name

5. From 1919-2004, what was performed twice at the offices of Rothschild’s in London

Setting up gold prices

Round 2,3:

Pareto principle(80:20 principle) was first studied on whom - Pareto first found 20% of people in Europe owned 80% of wealth

Audio clip of Ramalinga raju

Aditya birla group ad audio clip

Which US company operates highest number of private playgrounds - McDonald's

What is client golf- playing with a prospective customer and losing it intentionally and then subsequently clinch a deal

Budget presented by T.T. Krishnamachari first introduced measures to restict black money

According to mexican laws Tequila can be produced only from the state of Jelisco

Frooti is made with only thootapuri mangoes

P.S: based on memory


For 2008 Questions click here, For 2007 BEQ questions click here

Forever United

THe football season comes to an end with what was described as clash of titans between Europes best clubs. unfortunately Red devils failed to meet the expectations and loosed the match and title too easily. It is one of the night that nothing went right for United. Players lost rhythm, our midfielders lost possession too easily, passing was poor, defense was broken apart, at times Ronaldo was selfish n failed to run freely and we failed as a unit in a big match.

The good part is United lost to the only other team in the world that plays exciting football as Manchester United

I don't have any regrets, United retained EPL in spite of tough schedules and loosing out several players due to injuries, the team has depth and quality, the junior boys showed there class (Macheda- Rafel- Danny wellbeck) and I am sure united will emerge stronger next season

Ending with a small question

Kia Joorabchian and a group of Investors of Media Sports Investments own economic rights of which Manchester united player

Answer in comments

Proudest moments of Indian democracy

Are you proud of Indian democracy? if you ask this question majority Indian's will say No(Esp educated, Urban, still sleeping kind).

And yes, without any doubts there are significant loop holes in our Election system. getting Voter ID cards is pain, we don't know if our name is in election list or not, we don't know where our vote is,25% elected representatives have criminal records,majority are corrupt, politics became a business and the list goes on and on.

But on the other side of coin, they are few classic examples of Indian democracies strength:

1. Voting rights to all irrespective of caste, religion, and qualification: The right to vote was given to all Indian citizens without any struggle, unlike in many countries which took decades to get voting right



Blacks in USA were guaranteed their voting rights in 1965 by Lydon Jhonson. The world's most matured democracy took 100 years to give its minority a chance to vote.

Greece, gave women right to vote in 1952, after 64 years of aggitations

Indonesia took 36 years to sanction voting rights to women

Like many other gulf nations, Saudi Arabian women still don't have voting rights

2. Military did not interfere in politics and by and large bureaucracy is not partisan:


Unlike our neighboring countries or many African countries Indian Army restrained from taking hold of power and restricted themselves to their duty.

Many of my friends occasionally rant about, benefits of Army taking our India. They feel it is the only way to kick out corrupt politicians. Unfortunately its not a intelligent solution. I believe semi-functional, un matured democracy is much better than no democracy. Absolute power without any review system will be disastrous.


3. Peaceful transfer of power:

India has ensured a smooth, almost effortless democratic transition for more than six decades.Again a fundamental thing for any working democracy which we did not screwed up in last 60 years, except on one occasion when congress leaders thought Indira is India, India is Indira.

4. Indira Gandhi defeat
1977 elections truly tested fairness in Indian elections.Indira Gandhi's mindless decision to take on judiciary and two years of ruthless power killed all democratic institutions(independent media, Police, Judiciary), however people taught Indira Gandhi a strong lesson. Remember it happened in 70's when there is no 24/7 media



I think we made a good start in sustaining our democracy, by and large we are convinced that there is a need of one working democracy, now the challenge is to make it better.

We need to change the way we elect our representatives, scrap First past The Post(FPTP) electoral system, a legacy of British colonialism and a system our constitution writers choose given India’s extremely diverse and multi-ethnic society. Stop criminals and encourage internal democracy in parties, make fund raising process more cleaner, and ensure politics attracts right(not winning) candidates.

Check It Out

Edgar Hernandez a.k.a "Patient Zero"may be the first person to have contracted the swine flu, or the New H1N1 virues. I hope he survived the deadly flu. BTW, Common seasonal flu kills 250,000 to 500,000 people every year worldwide.


Bill Waters claims to found out the original formula of Dr.Pepper from a book he bought at a antique stores. The formula is written in Alderton’s notebook labeled “CASTLES FORMULAS



Dr.Pepper was started out in the late 1800's as a syrupy additive to tonic by pharmacist,Charles Alderton, an employee of Wade B. Morrison at the Old Corner Drugstore. The original formula drink contains ‘denatured rum,’ and vanilla, among other thing and was probably sold as a "digestive" to help make stomach medicine palatable.

Cambodian Farmers expressed concern about the rice harvest after the royal oxen refused to eat the grain. more on this thamasha here

E.U levied a $1.45-billion fine on Intel for bribing retailers and manuf to shut its main rival out of European markets.Neelie Kroes, EU Competition Commissioner joked after passing the judgment that Intel can change its latest advertising slogan from "sponsors of tomorrow" to "the sponsor of the European taxpayer". More.

Homai Vyarawala Tata Nano First Owner

Tata's gifted the much awaited Nano to 96 year old Homai Vyarawala, who is India's “first Woman photographer’. Homai sold her 55 year old Fiat car to buy a brand new Nano and respecting her passion for the car, Tata's gifted the car to her.

Drive safely mam :)

2009 Brand Equity Quiz Questions

27 teams battled out in Hyderabad leg of brand Equity Quiz.I guess this is the easiest prelims in recent BEQ's. The toughest part was understanding the question in first go, Derick did not repeat the questions and they are hardly visible on the screen


Prelim Questions:

In Hyderabad, what is auctioned by Balapur utsav Samithhi - The famous Ganesh Ladoo

The store mangers of which retail gaint are known as "Karthas" - Future Group

twitter.com is founded by Jack Dorsey

What is the new name of Guinness Book of World Records - Guinness World Records

Aceralia (Spain), Usinor (France) and Arbed (Luxembourg) merged in 2002 to form which company - Arcelor

To arbitrage is to make fit without risk

Dabur is named after blah blah n blah. Is that statement true or false - True

Time magazine called which brand an example of peer production - Wikipedia

The device was called Leapfrog, then became Strawberry, a reputed linguist suggested Straw is slow word and thus the brand name was changed into - Blackberry

Under whose leadership GM started "A car for each purse and purpose" - Alfred Sloan

If it is Incredible India,for India, what is for Australia - Amazing Australia

THe word comes from old english word for anxiety - Business

Who received royal warrant as the only English supplier of coco to Queen - Cadburys

Payment method invented by Marselis Berry - Travelers Cheque

Longest running hoarding campaign - Amul

In 2008, which economist was appointed as advisor to PM - Raghuram Rajan

OSRAM brand name originated from

In its centenary year, what did yamaha added to its name - Corporation

The small swedeish town of..produces what - Absolot Vodka

In 1987 Mills and Boons was entered into Oxford dictionary

Print ad of horlicks

Pic of Alexander Graham bell

Logo of ISB

Twitter Yes or Twitter No

I had a good number of discussions/arguments on Twitter(A.K.A micrblogging) and the hype around it with many of my friends and colleagues. Many of them think twitter is rubbish and serves no purpose.

Nay sayers generally argue, why do you want to know pointless status updates of others, how many are your friends, its better to do status updates on facebook

Without getting into the debate of how good it is, I believe Twitter is revolutionary and will be a critical tool in how people connect and network with each other.

Social networkers serve a dual role as both the suppliers and consumers of content, and your experience depends on the kind of content supplied by others. What will you do if none of your friends are on the same social network, what will you do on a social network without an active community? What will you do if no one is contributing (supplying) content?

The problem I see is, users fail to understand how twitter works and what they can do on twitter. We are not used to this kind of real time communication channel

Twitter enables you to have conversations, some time beyond your friend circle, connect with a diverse set of users (mostly techies and 2.0 kind of guys)

So the core experience on twitter depends on who you are actually following on twitter, the kind of content they generate and quality of conversations you participate in.

Agreed you feel lost if none of your offline friends are using twitter and you are the first one on twitter. But if you want to connect with some interesting users in areas of your interest (like start ups, web2.0, tech, politics, sports) you should give twitter a try, because that’s where conversations are happening, not on Facebook groups


Twitter yes or Twitter no?

The answer to it depends on what do you want to do on a tool/service(FB or Twitter).
Do you want to network with people?
Do you want to connect with your friends?
Do you want to take part in discussions/conversations via groups or on real time?
Who do you want to talk with? (2.0 guys or friends)


You will enjoy twitter:
If you follow people who are creating content with similar interests ( like say u r interested in F1 and connected with users who are creating interesting content about F1)

Or your real life friends are active on twitter


I guess many started using twitter because of reason 1

So how can I connect with users of my interest? It may take time to find people you are interested in connecting with, but move slowly, try to understand how it works, use search.twiiter.com, track hash tags, use hash tags.

Reason 2, will take some more time to happen, I hardly know any one who loves twitter because many of their offline friends are updating their status messages on twitter

Twitter is growing like crazy, but the challenge they may face is getting on board users who understand twitter at first go, or else users will skip it as one more dotcom with no real purpose

The second question people generally ask me is difference between updating status messages on FB and Twitter

There is hell lot of difference

Networking on twitter is much easy, and you can easily find a bunch of people who have similar interests, and start talking with them with little effort. On FB u can find people, but can’t easily talk with them


On FB your r status messages or not search able, its reach has limitations, its personal(to you and your friends) and are not part of conversations. Twitter is more open, u can use it with various tools and developers have more scope of building useful tools. Openness is a limitation on facebook and thus limits innovation

FB has recently copied some twitter functionality, but its question of Open Vs Private and both are popular for there own reasons

Indian Elections Trivia

The popular coinage "Aya Ram, Gaya Ram" originated in 1967 when a Haryana legislator Gaya Lal changed his parties thrice in a single day

In 1957, CPI made history when it became the first Communist outfit in the world to take power through the ballot box( Kerala)

In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections 230 parties fielded candidates and 40 parties recorded representation of one or more seats in the House.

In first general elections, many women in northern India were reluctant to register under their own names, wishing instead to identify themselves as A’s mother or B’s wife. However EC was reluctant to add their names as A's wife or B's mother, nearly 2.8 million eligible women voters who refused to cooperate with EC, or whose husbands would not permit them to do so, had to be struck off the rolls.


Panduranga Rao is India's first and only elected candidate to conduct a referendum on his work. Panduranga Rao was elected as Sarpanch of Allagadapa village (Nalgonda Dst, AP). After 3 years as sarpanch, he thought it is important to know his performance as sarpanch and conducted a referendum with help of few NGO's. Out of 1789 polled votes, 1710 supported him. He entered in Limca book of Records in 2006 as the first elected representative in India to hold a referendum on his tenure. Guinness World Records, is examining to enter his name. Hats off ,for upholding the spirit of democracy.


Over the years the number of candidates for lok sabha polls are increasing with the figure touching 10 contestants per constituency in 2004 compared to 3.83 in 1952.

In 2004 4,218 candidates lost deposits out of them 907 are from UP. Out of total contestants 77.6% candidates lost deposit

Out of 5,435 contestants in India only 1351 are from National parties and out of them 541 lost deposits

In 1952 elections India used multiple ballot boxes system. Each ballot box was marked with its party’s symbol, so that a voter could simply drop the paper he or she was given on entering the voting booth into the appropriate box

Total Registered parties in India - 1027,out of them 980 are not yet recognized. A few aspirants started parties with some innovative names like " Bharthiya prajatantrik shudh gandhiavadhi krishik dal"


In first Parliament elections 533 independents contested in election and 37 won in 2004 election 2385 independents contested and only 5 won

13th loksaba(1999) has seen highest number of women representatives in parliament - 49,where as in 1977 only 17 women candidates won

In only 5 elections 40 or more women representatives got elected in India

In five Indian states and one union territory, women voters outnumber men(Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Puducherry)

1996 Vajpayee Govt has highest number of ministers - 90

Just before 2004 elections 27 guys jumped into rival parties and contested on rival party symbol. out of them 20 lost in elections

In 1989 K.Ramakrishan was elected from Ankalapally parliamentary constituency by just 9 votes majority.

In 2004 elections 23 Mp's won by less than 5000 votes and 6 of them got less than 1000 votes majority

20,140 litres of violet ink will be used in Indian elections as EC decided to put ink from top of the nail to the bottom. Voters' ink was developed by the Delhi-based National Physical Laboratory, the ink's manufacturing has been licensed to Mysore Paints, a 72-year-old company owned by the Karnataka government. Only one man in the company knows the formula for making the ink - its quality control manager. And he does it behind a secure, locked door and alone.

Vote difference between congress and BJP in 2004 elections - 4% in 1998 it was just 0.4%

The highest voting percentage in any general elections has been 62.2% in 1957, the lowest was in 1967 when only 33% cast their vote

EC decided to give photo ID cards to all voters in year 1993

2009 General Elections would be the first time when the entire country, except the three States of Assam, Nagaland and Jammu & Kashmir, would be using the Photo Electoral Rolls

" `Ballot` and `bullet` are both derived from words for `balls`. The Greeks dropped a white ball when they favoured a candidate, and a black when they were against.

The word candidate comes from the Latin `candidatus` meaning `one clad in white` and most, till this day carry on with this white!"

A B Vajpayee is the only parliamentarian to be elected from four different states- UP, Gujarat, MP and Delhi!

Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were first used in Kerala. The highest number of candidates that an electronic voting machine can support is 64

IN 2009 elections Uttar Pradesh is not fielding a single serving or former Prime Minister from its sprawling constituencies.

The average age of MPs in the present Lok Sabha is 52.63 years

No ruling party has won re-election after serving a full term since Indira Gandhi led the Congress to victory in 1971

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P.S: Collected from various newspapers over a period of time

Click here to meet King maker of Indian politics Mr.Subba Rao

Meet Subba Rao

Meet Subba Rao

View more presentations from indizen.

I made a small ppt on one Subba Rao, a common man and middle class Indian who is feeling helpless.I'm sure many of you can relate to this guy and have same question Vote kisko dena hai?

Let me know your feedback and please help me in spreading the word. That awesome pic in the first slide is taken by my colleague Madhu. Check out his flickr stream

Check It Out

A year back I posted few "Thursday Trivia" posts, unfortunately work n life took a toll on quizzing and I discontinued it. Now I am reviving Thursday trivia but in a new form " Check It out", a collection of interesting news, business trivia, and blah, blah. I hope this series last quite long

Depilex salon chain is a popular saloon chain in Pakistan,it employees acid attack victims of Pakistan. I guess clients do deserve a pat for supporting such a saloon. Read more

March 28, 2007: 2.2 million Australians turned off lights. 2008: 50 million people turned off lights, as part of "Earth Hour". Check out some amazing pics from Boston.com

Well earth Hour is a good initiative, but is it enough??

To be legally accepted as an 'idiot', one has to be so dumb as to be unable to count till 20, list the days of the week, or fail to remember the names of one's parents
- Supreme Court of India




KFC launched a pilot infrastructure program "re-fresh" in USA, the deal is KFC will offer road-repair grants to cities across the country if mayors allow KFC to brand freshly repaired potholes with temporary chalk declaring "refreshed by KFC.

That's a awesome idea to fill some 350 million potholes in USA


Who are the greediest people on earth, check out this slideshow

IBM filed an application to copyright a computerized system that calculates how to offshore jobs while maximizing government tax breaks. IBM withdrew it later on, but do they really need a copyright of it??

In 1998, blogging was called journaling

Forbes released Most Corrupt nations list, and yes most of them have failed democracies.
More than 5% of global gross domestic product, or $2.6 trillion, was smuggled, used for bribes or stolen from taxpayers in the past year, according to World Bank

TATA CRUCIBLE CAMPUS QUIZ QUESTIONS - HYDERABAD

Vivek and Daniel of Dhanalaxmi Engineering college emphatically won Hyderabad round of Tata Crucible Campus Quiz. In first of its kind, Hyderabad round saw 5 engineering teams and only 1 b-school in finals.

Teams on stage cracked almost all questions and Giri mentioned about a lower cut off in prelims(I guess it will be somewhere between 11-13)and noted there are more undergrad teams


TC Prelims questions:

Krishna Palepu who was on the board of Satyam was also on the board of which company - DR.Reddy labs

Identify the logo - BEL(Bharat Electronics Ltd)

Which steel manuf launches "Project Cheetah " and "Project Falcon" for upgradation and expansion of its steel plants - JSW

Which retail company founded by Otto Bershem has the tagline "Spirit of Commerce" = METRO

Taj hotels economy hotels are now rebranded as - Gateway

Which software major has launched controlcosts.com - Microsoft

Who in India now endorses Ford Endeavour - Sunil Shetty

identify the logo - Paradise Hotel, a famous Hyderabadi biryani joint

Which watch brand is advertised with slogan "it takes a licking and keeps ticking" - Timex

This brand of clothing describes generational differences between Babby boomers and their parents - GAP

Identify Goldman Sachs CEO

This telecom gaint has a new logo, the blue color represents depth of integrity, orange stands for passion with two arrows focusing on diversity - Bharti

Which alumni of Osmania Univeristy and co founder of Pictra India replaced Bruce Chizen at Adobe - Shantanu Narayana

Which IT businessman divided his company into "Network of Circles" - Ramalinga Raju

Identify whose brands are these from the world of footwear - kids, Eva lite, breezers, Soldiers - Lakhani

Which Indian has been nominated to the UN taskforce that will suggest reforms to the global financial system - Y.V.Reddy

identify the production house from the audio track(song from Dostana movie) - Dharma productions

TVC of lifebuoy soap

Wild Card Round 1: This one was a very close affair. 4 teams answered one question each and finally MJCET( I guess) answered the third tie breaker question

This group started in chennai as Ajax india by A.M.M Chetyar - Murrugappa Group

Hospitality company started in 1927 in Washington is today a more famous as a hotel chain - JWT Marriot

This is a campaign for a billion....Jaago Re

Started in Feb, 1906 it was named Battle Creek, toasted corn is there first business - Kellogs

Time person of the year in 1982 - PC

This cop is famous for using a painting(Nipper, the Dog) - HMV

THis org originally thought of 11 then extended to 21 and finally to 31 ... - baskin Robbins

This org recently celebrated its centenary and created a new punch line "Together we can" - Canara Bank

Jisco Subsidary of - Tata steel

Wild Card 2nd Round -

2 companies are involved in makeing of CD's - philips and Sony

Full form of MICO - Motor Industries company

Financial advisor to Arnold Schwazneger in his California Senate elections - W.Buffet

Massaro ibuka founded - Sony

mercedes benz is subsidary of - Daimler

FINALS:

what word did Jayram Ramesh coined in the world of economics - Chindia

It first started as bikini festival and introduced the concept of swimwear in 1980's, it repositioned with a greater purpose - Miss World Contest

Founded in 1927 as Victory Company, its a subsidary of US comp and gave VHS format to the world - JVC

Tern coined by Hywell Murell in UK in 1949, this was term for study of interaction of technology they use and environment they work in - Ergonomics

Picture of Srini Raju

Dream spark is a program by Microsoft in which MSFT provide free software to students

Renalut and Dalda logos

Steve Wozniack Pic

Tata comp which signed a deal with Fox - Tata Sky

You will associate this Tata partner with Man Utd - AIG

This global consulting company was founded by Bruce Henderson- BCG

This company was founded by two brothers Edward and Andre , it began publishing Red guides and Blue Guides - Michelin

She featured at the 25th spot in Forbes most powerful women , She did her MBA from Jamanlal Bajaj - Chandra kochar

P.S: Check out interview with Giri Balasubramanyam

Campaign song of Jaago Re - shut up and vote

"Shut up and Vote" is the campaign song of Jaago Re! One Billion Votes, an initiative by Janaagraha and Tata Tea. This song is written and composed by Bangalore based band "Thermal and a Quarter".

Kudos to Tata's for supporting a awesome camping.

2009 Brand Equity Quiz Schedule

There seems to be a change in the BEQ schedule from what I heard initially . Check out the latest schedule from BEQ official site

Good luck guys !

For 2008 Questions click here, For 2007 BEQ questions click here

For BEQ Audience passes click here

Forbes World's Billionaires trivia

The average net worth of those on the list fell 23% to $3 billion.

Bill Gates lost $18 billion, Warren Buffett, lost$25 billion and our very own Anil Ambani lost 32 billion -- 76% of his fortune.Anil is Last year's biggest billionaire gainer

New York.is home to 55 billionaires

Zhou Chengjian one of the newly added billionaire is a former tailor Zhou made his fortune selling fashion to the masses. in his chain Metersbonwe

John Paul DeJoria is once-homeless Navy veteran used to sleep in his car and sold products door-to-door in Los Angeles.

Iceland nationalizes its second-biggest lender, Landsbanki, wiping out billionaire chairman Bjorgolff Gudmunddson.This guy sold EPL team, West ham united in a desperate sale

Laxmi Mittal's super-home is embellished with marble taken from the same quarry that supplied the Taj Mahal

Michael Dell's home is known locally as "the castle" thanks to its high walls and tight security.

Loksatta the only real alternative in India

I meet Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan(JP), as part of the youth interaction program conducted by Loksatta. I strongly believe JP/Lok satta can bring/initiate change in India and redefine how politics are conducted

Some thoughts shared by JP at this meeting:(P.S: based on my memory)

Its easy to sell color Tv schemes and idiotic policies in India and win elections on emotional issues, but it is extremely tough to sell the right thing, especially in a society where there is no belief in politicians and less hope on credible alternative

The window for opportunity to prosperity is getting thinner for India, world won't wait for us. China created 140 million jobs in last decade and we created hardly 2 crore jobs and added with failed nations as neighbors. we are running out of time and need to act immediately. But unfortunately our politicians are caught in the race for power.

Poorest Indian now know what can happen, so we now have to meet aspirations of a aspiring generation. If we can't meet aspirations India can't survive and India should n't survive, So fight as if our life is at stakes

Statesmenly politics should touch all sections, work with all forces and not exclude few sections

India will change but by design or destiny is the questions. Giving money/liquor in elections, dynasty politics will bring change only in leaders not country

Politicians who spend crores, distribute money and make politics as business are more dangerous than terrorists

Nothing happens with JP alone, people should come forward and work for better politics to give a prosperous country to our kids and future generations.

JP talked about the challenges Loksatta is facing in current political landscape:
Money: Loksatta wont accept black money, LS funds are all voluntary and raised through fund raising
Human Resources: Getting people on board, very few volunteers across the state
Time: Even if we raised money and built volunteers., we have limited time in our hand
Perceptions: Changing perceptions of people. people agree loksatta is a very good party but thinks its waste to vote for loksatta as we are not in a position to win. We need to create belief in people that lok satta is the right alternative and vote for it with confidence

I registered in voters list, just to vote for Loksatta.Would request you guys to see Lok Satta agenda and cast your vote/spread the word,if you are convinced about them.

As always let me end with a bit of trivia , I understand there are 12 Young MP's in parliament. what is common between them??

TDP's Lame Colour TV scheme

So the great election tamasha had began in India. I dont have any hope on Main stream parties(Congress, BJP, Third to Fifth fronts), but they are few things which make me really upset on our political leadership, like the free Color TV scheme by TDP. TDP's freebies will cost 20,000 Cr RS yearly to exchequer i.e. is 20% of state budget

Its illegitimate, irresponsible, unconstitutional and is a kind of bribe to voters. TDP has a comical logic to support this scheme:
Poor people after working from morning to evening need a form of relaxation, so free TV's.
TV's help people who cant read newspapers get information. we can spread knowledge with TV's
In the villages, there is only one entertainment, TV so we are giving it poor and lower income groups

I am sure congress manifesto will be on similar lines, they may offer free color TV+ DVD player + unlimited Cd's from bigflicks.

History and trivia of voting machines

The word ballot has been described as being derived from the diminuitive form of the word ball in Italian, ballota, and in fact, many early ballots were small balls.

In ancient Athens, votes were taken by issuing clay or metal tokens to each voter, and the voter would vote by depositing the appropriate token in the appropriate ballot box, or perhaps in a clay pot that served as a ballot box.

Paper ballot system was first adopted in the Australian state of Victoria in 1856, The paper ballot system thereafter became known as the "Australian ballot."

Some really nice history on how voting systems developed over time. The other big doubt in my mind is why cant Oscar guys count votes electronically or something like that than manually counting votes with Pwc leading the balloting process. Any idea??

KC Quiz Fest

Debjit mailed me about KC Quiz Fest happening on 7th March 2009 at ISB

Details :
Date: 7th march
Time: 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM ( Buss quiz prelims 10:30 -11:15, Open quiz prelims: 11:30 - 12:15)
Venue: Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
Format:
Quizzes: 2 members from same team can participate in Business quiz and three members from any background can participate in open quiz
QM: Naveen Rajaram from ISB will host Biz quiz and J Krishnamurthi will conduct Open quiz

Wordcamp India Quiz

Ankur conducted a small quiz at Wordcamp. I must say this is one of the best set of questions I heard in a long time. No odd trivia, good workable tips, questions keeping in mind the audience(Techies)and a lovely format(no teams, no prelims, just raise your hand and answer)

Check out the questions from here

Barack Obama Trivia

I am fascinated by Obama, will update the post as and when I read more about him, till then enjoy this bit of trivia on Obama:


Barry ,is Barack Obama's nickname in college

Barack Obama first meet Michelle in a Chicago law firm, where she was assigned to be his mentor

Michelle Obama used to call her husband the "Fact guy" , as he seems to have a fact about everything

Obama came into limelight with Project Vote where he successfully registered 150,000 new voters for the 1992 presidential elections, especially black people with low incomes

While running Project vote by day, Obama wrote his first book, Dreams from my father

Obama generally open his speech with a joke about his name by saying that people invariably call him something else - "Yo Mama " or "Alabama"

Obama took "The Audactiy of Hope" from a sermon by his pastor Jermiah A Wright, who himself took by writings by Dr.Martin Luther King who said "I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds and dignity and freedom for their spirit. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, other -centered men can build up"

Barack Obama's popular slogan was copied/inspired from the slogan Si, Se, peude (Spanish for "Yes it can be Done) which a US farm workers union on fast had raised way back in 1972

My Fav Sportstars

Ok thats actually quite a big list, the latest one to join in the list is Scotish cyclist Graeme Obree.

A Small glimpse about his achievements:
Obree built a bicycle from parts of washing maching and became a world champion in 1993
Instead of traditional dropped handlebars it had straight bars like those of a mountain bike. He placed them closer to the saddle than usual and rode with the bars under his chest, his elbows bent and tucked into his sides like those of a ski-jumper. Watching a washing machine spin at 1,200rpm led him to take the bearings, which he assumed must be of superior quality, and fit them to his bike.

Why Political Ad campaigns might not work in India

Let me tell you two examples why Obama's campaign was a huge success:

First one, In year 2005 Obama decided to contest for Senate. He faced tough competition from one Blair Hull in Democratic party Primary race. Blair Hull, a former gambler made a fortune in the stock market and fought the elections because he thought its cool to be a senator. Blair spend millions of dollars to run TV commercials and internet ads, his billboards appeared in every street corner of the state, he paid his volunteers, cheer leaders handsome day wages, where as Obama did not spend a penny till last three weeks and then used all there resources. Its a tough decision, because a month from the elections Obama is still unknown to most voters. In those last 3 weeks Obama launched "yes we can" campaign and other commercial displaying his experience, work he did in Chicago slums. Obama's team strategy to hold the campaign till end worked, before Obama's Tv ads were shown,just 15% blacks planned to vote him, a week after the number jumped to 50% and Obama won democratic party primary.

Second example, Obama faced Republican Jack Ryan in final Illinois senate elections. During the Campaign Ryan ran into trouble when a scandal about his divorce became public. Obama firmly refused to talk about the topic and said "I've tried to make it clear throughout the campaign that my focus is on what I can do to help the families of Illions and I'm not considering this something appropriate for me to comment on"

Obama's Campaign was a success because: His vision and ideology is revolutionary, people trusted him and in his ideas and it was "communicated' to voters successfully with various medias(TV, New media). Obama did not succeed by pumping millions of dollars into his campaign, but by involving people and creating hope in Americans

Obama’s success of using internet/social media as key campaign tool inspired every politician and our very own L.K. Advani is launching a 250 Cr Rs ad campaign and positioning himself as a ‘change agent’ and launching him as NDA Prime Ministerial candidate. UPA of course has luxury to spend tax payers money on ad campaigns

I am sure at ground level these Ad campaigns wont make much difference because no one believes in our leaders(NDA/UPA/Third, Fourth, Fifth Front), spending money wont change perceptions about them in few days. We know all of them are equally worthless but unfortunately we don't have much choice and keep electing the best among the worst and hope for a better future by changing our leaders every five years

Unless you creat trust in people on why they are different from the rest, how they will keep there promises and do some productive work to make India better, no one will believe you. Fake Slogans like Good Governance (at a time when you give tickets to criminals), Security/ Terrorism ( when you make police forces incompetent,kill innocent people in mob violence's), Aam Aadmi( when you squeeze land from innocent farmers to give it to a industrialist), Garibhi Hatao(by giving free TV's and not providing them any chances to come out of poverty by increasing skills)wont help in building credibility, it may help you win one or two elections

quizzes at Sui Generis

"Sukrit Vijayakar mailed about a quiz March Ahead is conducting details below:

Vivekananda School of Post Graduate Studies is conducting a tech quiz and a biz quiz for college students during its festival “Sui Generis”. These quizzes are being conducted by March Ahead along with the Indian Quizzing League. Manas Nayak, the founder of March Ahead will be QM.

More details can be found at http://www.vspgs.com/Suigeneris.htm

Econmic Times Classroom Quiz

ET Classroom Quiz Hyderabad Prelims Questions:

Which company has acquired 76% stake in Iceberg, a katiyal family owned Bihar based brewery

She has been around from 1967, ans at 40+ she in envied by best of bollywood hotties...what am I describing here

whose ad campaign is this " Booker, Oscar, Nobel, Bournvillie, Hope you get the drift"

Whose autobiography is called as "Just for fun" and coauthored bu David Diamond

It is described as "Active thing for a hyperactive generation, it improves short term memory, alertness and elevates mood any time" what is being promoted

Which product comprises of a wing, tip, vamp, quarter, plate, counter facing and a tongue

Which Indian brand ambassador would link Manipal Education and Ing Vysya Bank

Sameer patil and Shripal, promoters of ACK Media and bought licenses of characters to launch mobile games

Aquapod, Arrowhead, ice mountain and purelife are all brand names of Nestle in which product line

Identify - Gautam Singhania

Which company is better known as "The official timekeeper of the olympics"

Yankee doodle industries ltd and Merry Weather food products are a subsidary of which company

Which brand derives its name from the Japaneese god of mercy

identify - Shiv khera

Until 1925 Ford sold only in one colour, which color

Max New York Life TVC

Tata Crucible Campus Quiz 2009

Tata crucible campus quiz 2009 schedule is out, Details here.

Few changes I observed in this year Tata Crucible Campus quiz:

Crucible will be a 16 city affair and goes longer than Indian general elections

Teams can participate only from the city where the institution they represent is located

The event is not open to junior college/foundation students lower than under-graduate category. seems Giri dont want another controversy around CA/CS students.

As I said before, unless participants stick to basic principles and ethics, it is impossible to conduct a fair quiz of this scale. Be a sport and play it fair

Good luck guys!!

Aamdani aathani...

Citibank, which has taken funds under a separate 700 billion dollar Wall Street bailout, have nixed plans to buy a 42 million dollar corporate jet after the Treasury Department complained.

Wall Street bankers had given themselves $20 billion worth of bonuses -- the same amount of bonuses as they gave themselves in 2004

AIG spends millions of dollars lavishly in a sea view resort

I wonder when will these guys learn.

Fortunately Americans funded Obama to fight elections. He hardly received any significant donations from corporate houses and can act in the best intrests of ordinary Americans. Imagine a scenario where a guy who took massive donations from companies became president, can he make such bold statements? can he atleast dare to express his dissent publically no way.

Identify

“This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that’s what I had.”

Identify the business icon

Answer here

Burger King launches perfume

Burger King launched a new brand of perfume called Flame by BK. Burger king and Perfume?? its almost as bad as Harley Davidson’s cake decorating kit. I sometimes wonder how stupid companies act, I remember a quote from Pantaloons head two years back when they roped in Bobby Deol as there brand ambassador and described him as youth icon !!

The Marissa Gauntlet

Marissa Mayer takes important decisions in a famous tech company, and insiders call the rigid process of her critiquing and approving new features 'the Marissa Gauntlet'

Which company did Marissa joined 10 years back as there first female engineer

Answer in comments

Infosys not to hire Satyam employees: How media mislead with there own interpretation

Worst example of leadership:

ET reveals "Infosys has made it clear that they will not hire anybody from Satyam and has told its human resources executives to refrain from hiring employees of Satyam Computer services. Infosys has even advised staff against entertaining calls from Satyam employees"

As a company Infosys has every right on who they recruit and how they recruit, but I clear see no point in disclosing that they wont touch any Satyamite(As if all Infy guys are true epitomes of ethics). Why do Infosys need to talk about a highly sensitive policy with press??

You cant blame all associates of a company for misdeeds of senior management,board members, auditors and play with there emotions at a time when many of satyamites are worried about there future. Think about freshers who got placed in Satyam and waiting for there joining dates, where will they go and how will they react after reading such idiotic statements.

It is a pity that Mohan Das Pai cannot empathize with employees in IT sector and talk such crap.

“We will not touch such a tainted company,” Infosys founder and non-executive chairman N R Narayana Murthy(I used to respect him) had said(at present conditions no one will touch satyam). I wonder if he will stick to the same principle to clients, will he not touch tainted clients?? I am not sure

Update: I Stand corrected, the article seems to have a miss leading heading. What infosys said is they wont poach anyone from satyam, clients included. There is quite a difference from hiring and poaching. Given the tough phase satyam is going through, it is very important to retain talent and Infosys made it clear they wont take advantage of the situation and poach talent from satyam

people paid to join queue

Which Fastfood chain paid around 1,000 people to join the queue outside there branch during release of their Quarter Pounder burger in Japan.

Answer here

Ramalinga Raju and Satyam

In 1980's Ramalinga Raju did his MBA from ohio university and began providing back office support to this company. He identified that this work can be done by any qualified Indian engineers, but the company was wary of outsourcing. Raju made a bet with this company, if he failed to provide quality work yet more cheaply, the company need not pay him anything.

Ramalinga Raju then set up a office in next street with a handful of Indian engineers and ran it on Hyderabad time. He won the bet and Satyam was born

Identify the company which became one of the biggest customer in Satyam's early days??

Answer in comments

Fraud, unfortunately, is a fact of life in the globalized business world and most of the financial frauds happens with others moneys. Some idiot will get too greedy and mismanages others hard earned money

Satyam Fiasco is unprecedented, for a company to over report cash flows in such a extent from years is shocking.about $1bn (£0.65bn), or 94% of the cash on the company's books, was made up and no one knows about it??

The reckless strategy to cook the books and cover it by acquiring his sons companies proved too costly to Raju. And everyone in Satyam's leadership team, Board of Directors, Auditors,Professors who teach how to mange business, Bureaucrats, Politicians who helped MAYTAS to win projects(AP govt gave 15,000 cr rs worth of projects out of 50,000 cr rs it is spending on Irrigation projects and Maytas failed to finish many of them) are acting as if they dont know anything.

Buzzwords of 2008

Check out new buzzwords listed by Grant Barrett in NYT. My personal favorite Caribou Baribie - A nickname for the former vice-presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

I sometimes feel relieved of our politicians, watching this video. Scarah Failin may be the dumbest human ever to enter the American Politics