Starbucks offering free paper - good sheet

Starbucks is offering a free paper known as Good Sheet,the paper covers important election issues like education, health care etc.

Starbucks previously tried its hands with Joe Magazine, a lifestyle magazine that lasted three issues with which company.

Answer in Comments

Indian Railways and IRCTC sucks

I heard quite a lot about Indian Railways reforms, how they became more customer centric and blah blah, but unfortunately I had a horrible experience yesterday.

We booked couple of tickets to Bhubaneshwar(BBSNR) in Faluknuma express from secunderabd thru IRCTC and return tickets in the same train from a railway reservation counter. We boarded the train in Secunderabad and came to know that the train was diverted in other route and wont go to Bhubneshwar.The train was diverted in some other route as the track in orissa was damaged 1.5 months ago, but IRCTC and Railways are still selling the tickets in old route. Countless others have experienced the same problem from last 1.5 months, but authorities are lethargic neither they made any attempts to inform passengers about the change in route nor made any alternative arrangements

The whole episode, have some comical errors -

IRCTC issued a ticket from Sec'bad to Bhubaneshwar, when the train is not going in the route from 1.5 months. I can understand acts of god and the IRCTC did not make changes for a week or so, but for god sake 1.5 months is damn long time, why cant they update it??or at least when they know the train is not running in that route, shoot a mail to all users who bought tickets in the train. Do they have any CRM system in place?? Its not just you refund my fair within 90 days, who will pay for the damages??

Ok, Understood IRCTC dont have info on trains diverted in some other routes, but how the hell a Railway reservation counter issue a ticket on a train which is not running from sec'bad to BBSNR. At least they should have informed the train is subject to availability and may run in some other route.

And more idiotically,Our names and berth numbers are printed and pasted in respective boggies, with seat numbers

And Our PNR status still shows our tickets are confirmed both up and down, even though the train is not running between the 2 stations

We got a gem of advice from railway authorities- Cancel the e-ticket, you will get 100% refund and buy a ticket in Vishaka Express. It was supposed to leave in 1 hr, so we need to buy a general ticket and travel 20 hrs in it, for your mistake

We called Railway Call Center to find out whether the train is coming via Bhubneshwar to Secunderabd or going in a route of there choice but the jokers dont have information on the status. The call center guys suggested to call secunderabad railway station to find out the info, but he dont have number of sec'bad station, I am not asking you phone number of a remote railway station, If a Call center dont have phone number of a zonal head quarters , who will have it?? south central railways website is down, the contact us link in official website of Ministry of Railways takes you to a park domain full of advertisements!! (go to site map n then click contact us, its not working in home page)


Railway officials came up with other innovative idea recently - add one more berth in side seats and squeeze more money. The mere sight of a side berth make me fear of a torturous journey.How the hell can 9 passengers sit in a row meant for 8? where will the extra passenger put his luggage? How can poor guys in side berths sleep in such a little place.



A railway official supported this decision saying “By adding so many passengers, the railways is doing a service. And I am sure that the inconvenience of sharing a seat with an extra passenger is better than being denied a ticket,” . Crap first you are not doing a free service. Second this is not the way to meet extra demand. Because of your inefficiencies you cant make people suffer, especially when common man dont have other choice of transport

And Dear Lalu, I know you are too busy with your guest lectures at IIM's, but don't take customers for granted. It may not reflect in your railway financial statements, but will for sure reflect in general elections.

Update: Common sense prevails, Indian Railway board decided to remove the side middle berth recently.

khadi

Congress in it early days used to charge 4 annas from new members, but when Gandhiji took over Congress he changed that rule and all new members instead of paying 4 annas to party were asked to buy Khadhi. Gandhi's belief was when new members buy khadhi it will generate employment to villagers and his view of Khadhi as a swadeshi fragment and a symbol of India's freedom struggle.

Now coming to the question The word 'Khadi' is derived from which Hindi word. Answer in comments

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

One of the best things in India is cultural diversity. I dont think any other country has such diverse set of cultures (though with minor glitches). “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara..”,released in 1987 commemorating the 40th anniversary of Indian Independence showcases this diversity amazingly. The videos was created in 1988 by Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad, and promoted by Doordarshan to promote national integration. The song was composed by Louis Banks, written by Piyush Pandey. Raga Bharavi, a sampoorna raga, was chosen as the base for the music.

Tata Crucible Corporate quiz - Hyderabad

70 odd teams took part in Hyderabad leg of Tata Crucible. I must say they braved out a huge downpour to reach the venue. Giri is known for innovating new formats/rounds(Pyramid quizzing..etc etc) but this year crucible don't have much surprises, its a plain simple business quiz.

A 25 question prelims, more of current affairs and a bit of history/trivia.

6 TCS teams battled out in Tata track(TCS Track can be more apt), and won by a young TCS team(last year Student track Kolkata finalists)

Google won the Non Tata track by cracking the last question on a buzzer. As many as 4 teams got a chance to clinch the title

Coming to rounds:
1st: Dry round - 6 question 10 on direct, 10 on pass
2n Tata round - 5 question on buzzer
3rd round -Connection round - I find this one bit wired
4th round - Code Buster - 6 on buzzer, will show 4 logos/pics, need to crack those 4 pics n code - pretty much simple, but its the question of speed
5th round - 3 question on buzzer, crack on first clue -15 points, 2nd 10 points, 3rd 5 points

For question check out Nishit's blog

KILB

A smart company has launched a campaign(OOH, TVC, Print) recently, asking user 'Kyaa Aapko K.I.L.B hai? well nothing unusual, except users thinking what is this k.I.L.B and searching in Internet for possible answers.






As on 5th August K.I.L.B is among top 10 search terms in India according to Google Trends (yesterday its at 18 th rank). I guess that's considerably number keep in mind KILB is promoted prominently using OOH and some rare TVC's

The engagement would be at different levels if the advertisers extended the campaign online they probably would have thought users wont search about KILB on internet and did not invested in online
Online/offline integration happens when advertisers/marketers look at bigger picture, gauge what different mediums can do to the campaign and execute it in a mix of mediums(if needed) than push one over the other. But in many cases agencies/advertisers end time and energies arguing the pros and cons of one medium over another

Update - Chiefbruts, says its a BigAdda Campaign and K.I.L.B Stands for Kyunkie I Love BigAdda, more on it here , So my guess(Vodafone) went utterly wrong:P

oh its not BigAdda, its form AEGON Religare Life Insurance and K.I.L.B Stands for 'Kum Insurance Lene Ki Bimari'

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Last week I seen few of my friends changed there Gtalk status to "R.I.P. Raundy Pausch", initially I thought he may be some pop star or a sportsmen, and did not bothered much.

The buzz keep on going on, and accidentally I came across his Last Lecture video on youtube. His life really mesmerized me.

Randy worked as a professor in Carnegie Mellon Univ and was diagonised with pancreatic cancer. He delivered his "Last Lecture " at CMU, one month after he found he only had 6 months to live.Last lecture's are ongoing series of lectures at CMU where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk," i.e., "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?" Randy Spoke about "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams and how he worked to achieve his childhood dreams.

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it or read the gist here




Randy's story touched me deeply, he accepted fate and was extremely brave to face the reality, in his 1hour 16 mnts talk you will never see fear in his eyes,words, body language, he teached about "living" and living and having fun.