Thought Beans Blog

The Cat is out of the Bag. No Bharat Ratna awardee this year. This is the Seventh year in row that the award has not been awarded.  This year the marketing by the various political parties has reached a high pitch & the govt was in a fix as to whom the award should be given.

It was L.K Advani who first said that award should go to Vajpayee.  Vajpayee’s Pokhran II sucess, his long standing as a parlimentarian were cited by Advani for his Bharat Ratna. This was followed by Mayawati’s pitching of Bharat Ratna for Kanshi Ram & others also followed the process.

The news of Bharat Ratna has made national news for the last few weeks. It is really a shame that when a country is unable to give its highest award. Does this mean that in a country of 100 crores there is no one who deserves the Award. Instead of marketing by various political parties like this, it should be a citizens’ process. Citizens should choose who should get the award.
 

NASA’s Mars explorer Spirit, which has taken the photos on planet Mars, has sent a curious photo this time. The photo looks like a naked woman with her arm outstretched. She is walking down a hill on the planet Mars. NASA has not confirmed this yet. Recently French Scientists have found that Mars has dense clouds of carbon dioxide ice clouds. Even Nasa Scientists have also been puzzled by this. This news has been met with humor like ” it is Osama bin Laden or a tiny rock of a few inches high”.  The Blogosphere has been set agog with the image. This has added fuel to the fire. With the debate on whether life exists on Mars or not still going on, the image of a Woman in Mars is sure to add fuel to the fire.

The Fed rate cut has finally given the much needed oxygen for the Global Stock markets to breath. Ahead of the meeting next week, Fed has intervened to cut the rates. After the cut, Asian Markets have recovered with Europe markets still in the cold. The Indian Bull ride which has the sensex touch the magic 20000 mark has been badly affected by the Subprime mortage crisis in the US. With India Showing growth rates of average 8% why should the US economy affect the Indian stock Market. This shows that India is still dependent on Uncle Sam for the Economic oxygen. If there were no rate cut, Imagine the mayhem it would have caused in the Stock markets by now.  No amount of assurance by the FM was able to stop the downslide. Trillions of rupees has been lost in the market in last 1 week. As for India, whom do we hold accountable for this? There should have been rate cut in India even before the fed rate cut. Millions of small investors have been affected by this. Even though we blame the capitalism. globalization for the everything finally it is the same capitalist US which has come to the rescue of the Global Stock markets.

Finally it is the time for the GaaliPata to fly. The question is how high it will fly. This film has generated a lot of hype ever since it was announced.  With Ganesh, Rajesh Krishnan & Diganth & Daisy Bopanna, Neetu & Bhavana this is a new kind of movie in the Kannada film industry. Coming on the heels of Mungaru Male, Director Packs off Bangaluru Huduga Ganesh & others to the Hill stations & water falls of the malnad region.

The Cinematography by Rathnavelu is nice. Music by Harikrishna. Songs are good. I wonder why Mano Murthy was not selected for the music. I beleive the music by Murthy would have made the difference. Lyrics by Jayant Kaykini is again at his best. I like the Minchaagi neenu baralu song very much. Video clippings of the movie is available on the Chitraloka website.

The difference between Mungaru male & Gaalipata is MUngaru Male generated the “Actual Hype” after the release. The movie was like a silent killer. No one had expectations about the movie.  So for GaaliPata, question is how high it will fly. Will GaaliPata set a new trend in the industry like Mungaru Male.?

After the launch of Live documents, Sabeer Bhatia, has now launched SabSeBolo.com, first free audio conferencing service. Registration is reuqired for the service. After registration, an activation link is sent & this is to be activated. Once activated, conference id, dial number & pin number is sent by email. This is first such service in the country & can be a trendsetter in the audio conferencing service. To start a Conference call, a number is to be dialled & upon entering the pin number & conference id, they can communicate. There is no software required to utilize the service.

With the number of telecom users in the country increasing, there is a huge potential to tap the audio conferencing market by bringing many together. Even the corporates can make use of such service for to schedule conference call for team members & clients. For small business who cannot afford costly services, this can be a very useful service.

Apple shares are down with Wall street which has been expecting more from Apple at the macworld conference. Will Apple be able to pull more customers with The Macbook Air, priced at $1799? Apple shares were down by 5% on Wed. At the last Macworld conference Apple announced iphone which led to an increase in share prices. The movie rental service which Apple has announced has been met with mixed reviews. Also Apple announced added features for the iphones & ipods. There has always been  a trade off between the Wall street and silicon valley. In the dotcom bubble era, wall street which invested heavily to internet startups had to pay a heavy price with the collapse of those companies. 

Apple has introduced MacBook Air, the ultra mobile laptop, at the Macworld Expo. It’s weight is 3 pounds & tapers from 0.76 in to 0.16 in. It’s screen is 13.3. Apple is trying to bring iphone style functionality to laptop. The harddrive is a 80 GB with core 2 duo.  But the price is a bit high at $1799. However, the Macbook air has no optical drive. Its a classic Apple marvel at such a small size. Apple is wooing the premium end of  ultra mobile laptop market. With the wifi/wireless being the  emphasis of all the product makers now, Mac Air is also emphasizing on wireless. This laptop is more like a Corporate CEO styled laptop. Like ipod nano for ipod, this is another Apple’s product at MacBook air for Macbook. Apple is introducing cooler products every year with iphone last year.  This will be another trendsetter in laptop design.

Bajaj is planning to launch a small car ‘Bajaj Lite’ in partnership with Reanult & Nissan in the next few years. With this, the competition to the Tata’s 1 lakh car is getting hotter. The car has a tall boy look with front design similar to i10. Reanult’s CEO is looking at pricing the car in $3000 range.  Rajiv Bajaj says both petrol & diesel version will be avaialble.  Bajaj also unveiled other vehicles like bike Blade, sprint. The  question is will Bajaj which has so far made 2 wheelers will be sucessful in 4 wheelers?  By the time, Bajaj makes this vehicle, & if other global companies come up quickly with similar cars, it would be difficult to compete against. 

1984 Apple Ad was used to promote the Macintosh personal computer in the USA. The Ad was aired during the Superbowl The ad has been shot in London. The Ad showed Anya Major with red shorts running through an Orwellian world & throwing a sledge hammer on a TV image. At the end of the Ad, there was a message saying Apple will introduce the Macintosh. The ad has won many accolodes like Commercial of the Decade & No. 1 in 50 greatest commercials of all time. This ad is one of the Most remembered ads about Apple.