The Congress is hell bent upon furthering its agenda of populist, divisive and pseudo-developmental initiatives. The latest salvo is the growing voices in the party for legislation to enforce reservation in private sectors.

Corporate India has still not taken a stand against it, although Azim Premji recently put forth his scorn for reservation.

One wonders what happened to the reformer called Manmohan Singh, and why the hell is he letting all this crap fly.

After carrying the relics of the 200 yr old British rule, India is finally getting rid of some useless baggage from past.

Their Lordships will henceforth just be their Honours. 'My Lord' and 'Your Lordship', the two phrases used since the British Raj by lawyers to address judges of the Supreme Court and high courts, have just been confined to history by the Bar Council of India. In a recent resolution amending the rules, BCI replaced the two most important phrases with 'Your Honour' and 'Honourable Court' saying that words 'My Lord' and 'Your Lordship' are "relics of the colonial past" which need to be weeded out. In the lower courts, lawyers can address the presiding officers as 'Sir' or the equivalent word in the respective regional languages.

Talking about grassroots adoption of technology (and a more cutting edge open source one at that) what Kalyan saw is definitely not what you would normally expect.

While traveling from Mysore, Kalyan came across this bus sporting the famous firefox logo.

We inadvertently link rich people with a flamboyant and lavish lifestyle. However, it turns out that the average billionaire is pretty modest. Rediff reports that the life of most rich people is not what we expect it to be.

India's 23 billionaires (2006 list) have a combined net worth of $99bn, surpassing former Asian leader Japan's 27 billionaires with their total worth of $67bn. ... Most also lead lives of boring rectitude. At the least, they maintain boring public personas. Indian billionaires are, individually and collectively, devoted to their respective spouses and families. Many are vegetarian teetotallers, with strong religious-spiritual convictions. Shockingly high energy levels and 16-18 hour days are routine. Quality time is spent chilling out with family and close friends. They are careful with money; many travel economy class and quite a few self-drive middle-aged, mid-range cars.

How easy or difficult it is to survive the life of an IT engineer in India? Looks like most companies are exploiting its employees. Harshad Oak's musings on Staying Alive In A Software Job.

Most of these youngsters are well aware of this gap and so work under an impression that they are being paid an unreasonable amount of money. They naturally equate unreasonable money with unreasonable amount of work. It's unbelievable how hard he works. When I come to office early, I see him working, when I leave office late, I still see him working".. These sort of comments can kill the morale of every employee trying to do good work in an 8hr day.

Now even the dead are not spared. India Shining Anyone ?

No sooner were the big blaze doused that miscreants and criminals reportedly had a field day. They came to the ground like vultures and took out bangles, mangalsutras, nose rings and finger rings from dead bodies.

Read More ...

Rediff is running an engaging article detailing the economics and logistics of deploying IT in rural areas.

The success of ITC's 6000 odd e-choupals covering over 35000 villages, has made many believe that this model can be made viable. Big boys are jumping onto the bandwagon - ranging from top IT companies, NGOs, technology providers and the government.

Not only are these initiatives helping to build the digital divide, but efforts to make such projects economicaly sustainable has met with much success.

A printer and software for desktop publishing ensures that you can publish marriage or invitation cards or even a CV for a nominal Rs 10 to Rs 12 a piece.

And as PCs our loaded with Windows Media Player - many local kiosks owners have converted themselves into mini movie halls - offering movie shows at a nominal Rs 2-3 a show... says Ranjivjit Singh, group director, consumer business, Microsoft.

Read the entire piece here.

Google has just announced this year's Anita Borg Scholarship winners.

The scholarships given to female undergraduate and graduate students are based on the strength of candidates' academic background and demonstrated leadership.

Interestingly there is a significant presence of girls of Indian origin in the list (almost 4 out of 19).

Check out the entire list here.

Outlook India has an interesting piece on how online tutorial is becoming the next big thing for the Indian KPO industry.

According to market estimates, online tutoring companies in India earned around $10 million last year and 80 per cent of the earnings were from the US.

At present, there are four main Indian e-tuition providers: Educomp (Delhi), TutorVista (Bangalore), Growing Stars (Kerala) and Career Launcher (Delhi).

Since Indian tutors charge less ($20-$30 per hour) than Americans ($60-$100 per hour) and because Indians are known for their proficiency in maths and science, business is booming for the handful of e-tutoring firms in India.

Get the entire piece here.