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The IPL fever is in its full intensity in India these days. IPL and its probable winner is one of the hottest topics of discussion here. Many people are of the view that it is one of the best things that ever happens to the game of cricket. In fact IPL has become so popular worldwide that Australian Captain Ricky Ponting had to issue an appeal to his countrymen to focus more on their national team’s recent series with West Indies than to watch their retired cricketers perform in IPL. The entire IPL tournament is being broadcast in Australia as free-to-air and it has become a huge craze.

As I watch so much craze of Cricket among people some thoughts come to my mind. What exactly is there in this game that make it so interesting and worth watching ? Why people are so crazy about Cricket especially in India ? Here is my attempt to demystify the secret of this game’s huge popularity in India (and the world at large). Read the rest of this entry »

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On 13th of May Jaipur, the pink city of India, bathed in blood. In a short span of 12 minutes, 8 Bomb blasts rocked some of the busiest areas of the cities. It was the auspicious day of Tuesday when devotees offered prasad to Lord Hanuman. One of the bombs exploded near a temple thus creating communal tension in the area. On the last count, the blast killed 80 people and injured more than 150. Most of them were Hindus. Read the rest of this entry »

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I am not getting enough time for this blog these days. A demanding job and an equally busy personal life is taking its toll on me. I have so many ideas in mind, so many thoughts and tutorials to write on…..but no time to put these ideas/thoughts into words.

Please don’t unsubscribe this blog’s feed from your RSS reader. I shall be back as soon as possible.

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Internet has presented a huge opportunity to people for making money online. Everyday millions of online transactions are taking place. People are buying all kinds of stuff online. This has resulted in an enormous online market for almost everything imaginable. Apart from big online stores like Amazon & Ebay which sell thousands and thousands of items in hundreds of categories, there is an emergence of relatively small websites that caters to only one particular niche. These specific websites are build around a particular niches and sells items related to the niche. For example, the site FamilyPet.com caters only to topics related to Pets and sell products related to pets.

Finding profitable niches and building websites around them has become one of the most trustworthy models for making money from Internet. The reason for calling it trustworthy is that by using right promotional strategies and developing a search engine friendly website, a niche related website can become a huge money-spinner. Read the rest of this entry »

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It will be a real shock if true i.e. if really comes from Google.

Recently I came across a small pdf file (download link in the end) which is being circulated as a leak document from Google internal training manual for ‘Quality Rater’. (The above is a screenshot from that report and the last line is underlined by me). It is not known whether it is a fake report or a real one. However, if it is a real report then it reveals interesting (and a bit shocking information) on the methodology being adopted by Google to rate the quality of its search results. Read the rest of this entry »

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I really mean it. Being a student of meditation, it is my heartfelt desire to visit Tibet once in my life. Once I read in a book that you need not go to any monastery in Tibet for the whole Tibet is a big monastery. Some of the most important research and development in the field of meditation and spirituality have been done in Tibet.

But what an irony it is. This great place of spirituality is now controlled by a Communist Country which has no belief on God ! From what I have read about Tibet in various sources, it appears that there has been a huge cultural invasion in Tibet by the Chinese Government. There has been a systematic strategy on a massive scale to inhabit Tibet with Han ethnic Chinese. Tibetans have been relegated as a minority in their own country. Read the rest of this entry »

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In the comfort of our urban homes, we feel quite secure and immune from various ills that pervades our villages. However, media coverage of what is happening in the deep hinterland of Indian villages is enough to send a chill down your spine. I witnessed one such incident today.

Suspecting a woman of practising black magic, a villager mercilessly beat up the woman faith healer and tonsured her head in Bihar. He then tonsured her head and smeared her face with limestone.

45-year-old Lalpari Devi of a village near Patna had on Thursday gone to Adalchak village for treating one Manorama Rai, who was suffering from a mental ailment. As Manorama’s condition deteriorated during treatment, her husband Ramayodhya Rai got angry with Lalpari and tied her to a tree with the support of his neighbours and mercilessly beat her up. He did this in front of full media coverage.

The saving grace is that the Police soon reached the scene and rescued the woman. She was admitted to a hospital and later discharged today. Police lodged an FIR and have arrested Ramayodhya Rai.

Instead of my telling you how shocking this incident was, just watch this video:

A majority of Indians in villages still believe in superstitions. They prefer a magical cure to a proper medical one. The end result in most cases is suffering. We need to do immense work on education front to bring awareness among masses about these quack cures and their ill effects. Further, we also need to do something to ensure that women are not mistreated like this in India. I hope that the state Government of Bihar will do something tangible on this issue. Bihar has become a notorious state for such incidents of mass justice. People are routinely taking laws in their hand here. It is not a good omen for the Indian society as it not only reflects the backwardness of our society, it is also an indication of their growing mistrust on our judicial system. The society will crumble if people start taking law in their hand for settling their scores.

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After I wrote my full RSS feed post where I explain why & how you can ensure a full RSS feed for your blog, one of my friend told me that despite installing the full text feed plugin, his blog is still getting truncated at the point where he used <!––more––> tag. I got confused as to why it was happening. One reason that I found that it may be due to a cache issue and probably it’ll take some time to be full reflected in the RSS reader. However, on checking with another RSS reader, I still found his feed truncated.

So I searched Google for an answer..and found it

It’s very simple.

Just go to the Reading Option of your wordpress blog and in the Syndication feed option, choose ‘full text’. Read the rest of this entry »

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If you are blogging, you must be aware of RSS. (If not read this). I have a list of my favorite blogs in my RSS reader and I read them regularly. However, it is a little annoying to see that many bloggers (probably unknowingly) allow only partial feed of their blog post in RSS reader. Though their main intention is to prompt the reader to actually visit their blogs (for seeing advertisement or whatever reason), it acts as a big turn off.

Take my case itself. Owing to lack of time, it is not possible for me to visit each of my favorite blogs separately in my browser. I prefer to read them in my reader so that I can go through them quickly and grasp all the relevant posts.

Man do I read them? No. I don’t read any post from start to finish unless of course it has some exceptionally unique content. I just scan most of the posts quickly to have a general idea of what is being written in these blogs. Read the rest of this entry »

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Often I think why I am here and why should I blog? What is the purpose of this blog? Is this an online journal of a guy’s thoughts on his life? On his country? Or on his family, career or ambition? I become confused as to what is the purpose of this blog? The punch line is ‘Life and times in India‘. But am I being honest to my readers and presenting a true picture of life in India? Perhaps not.

India is too big a place and filled with so much activity at any given moment that it is impossible for a part time blogger to include every part of it. To be honest to you, I am not able to present even .001 % of what is happening in India these days. And I genuinely believe that even if I start commenting fulltime on all the happenings in India, still I would be able to cover only 1 % of events that takes place in India. The truth is India is too big for a blog to cover it.

Then I think that is it the real purpose for which I started this blog? Probably not. This was meant to be my personal blog where I would write whatever I like to write. This is not a chronicle of events that are taking place in India. It never was started with that aim.

Yes this is my personal blog and I am free to write anything I like. However, since I am an Indian and my life is effected by various events in India, many topics on this blog will be related to India. I can’t escape that. If I need to comment on something in the society, it will come. I can’t comment on American society or for that matter any society outside India. I can comment only on my society. About its shortcomings, its weakness, its merits, demerits and what not..? I am an Indian blogger. Not the only one, just one among millions.

So enough of my ranting and enough of my attempt to justify my irregularities on this blog.

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