Sunday, 23 October 2005

OTOH

On the other hand, BW India does some probing of its own. No matter if its already been done by all the bloggers already, it's still a step in the right direction. They manage to question PTM about all the advertising liberties, the replies to which sound rather sheepish...I wonder how long he was expecting to continue that way without being found out eventually.

Another interesting tidbit in that article - not is is A. Saxena the "President, Legal and Compliance Cell", he's also "Head of Corporate Communications". I tell you, that man is multi-faceted.

In related news, the animated .GIF in this post is simply tooo funny. Kinda makes me think of Bill Gates if he ever read Slashdot....

More MSM crap

Outlook puts out articles where it is, more often than not, sorry for the ensuing French, talking through it's ass.

Their coverage of the IIPM brouhaha is no exception.

I actually stooped to registering on the site so that I could provide them with the following 'feedback':

First Mr. Vivek labels Indian bloggers as a "bitchy, self-indulgent, incestous network" and then accuses THEM of name-calling and taking potshots at others?

And still the mainstream media continues to ignore the real issue. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just MAYBE, the bloggers aren't doing this imply to drive traffic to their blogs? That there might be something to these 'allegations'? And that maybe the so-called 'real journalists' should be doing the work here?

Saturday, 22 October 2005

An enumeration of the general idiocy

What next? Taking out supari on the bloggers in the forefront of this issue?

Sheesh. Grow up.

An enumeration of the fraud

Office blues

It's 1600 hrs on a Saturday. And I'm sitting in office. Not that I had any great plans for the weekend, but it's always nice to have an entire day to yourself after a week of weird work timings. The worst thing about me sitting in office today is that I'm not actually doing any work. [I can feel wisecracks coming on about when I do any work. Stop it.] I just have to w...a..i..t. So what do I do? Go restricted surfing, of course!

Some interesting things have turned up..Press Talk led me to this link about fake Indian universities i.e ones that have been blacklisted by the UGC All the indignation aside, that list has some really funny names, which in itself should alert any person with any reasonable amount of intelligence about their dubious nature.
  • Commercial University Ltd., Daryaganj, Delhi

I mean, come ON people! They're practically flaunting their intentions!

  • National University of Electro Complex Homeopathy, Kanpur

Right. As opposed to other instis only indulging in the pedagogy of Magneto Simple Homeopathy?

  • United Nations University, Delhi

Like I said - come ON people! I really cannot believe anybody would fall for that one. But then again, if all of Ekta Kapoor's teleserials rack up the TRPs, despite being exactly the same, anything's possible in our country...

  • Vocational University, Delhi

Fakest name. Ever. Even faker than the word 'fakest'.

  • Raja Arabic University, Nagpur

Nothing unusual about that one. Just included to show off the secular nature of my blog..

  • Handwriting University India, No 16 Church Road, Basavaugudi,Bangalor-4

Wow, an entire university for penmanship alone? That sounds like a univ I could use...

  • Indian Institute of Planning and Management

Oh wait, that's not on the list. Silly me, I wonder how I could've made that mistake..

There's also a reference to the 'Mal Practices Alert regarding American University of Hawaii'. Sounds neat :)

Come to think of it, when I said 'any person with any reasonable amount of intelligence', I probably wasn't thinking. These kinds of shady places don't really target those kind of people. They're more likely after the gullible types who want a degree appended to their names at any cost. Kautiliya has written at length about 'trapping suckers'.

Coming back to my opening paragraph, one of the few good things about slaving one's [admittedly large] posterior off in software development is that you get to see that even Vinod or Goach can't get out of this one!

Saturday, 15 October 2005

IIPM quickie

Even though the article is fairly dated, this is apparently the only way IIPM grads are getting jobs...heh

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

This is supposedly a leaked IIPM press statement. Please read the title of this post again for my reaction to it.


...
Therefore, in the general interest of our existing students, as a policy decision we have decided that we will take legal action against any form of media trying to spread baseless lies and rumours about us with malicious intent.
...


This really means they're going to sue themselves. I mean, who's been spreading baseless lies and rumours about them more than themselves?

Oh yes, and speaking of blatant lies - Swati's done some interesting work. Makes you wonder - are the Tehelka-style shenanigans the only methods of investigative methods known to the MSM? And are they only interested in politics and sex?

And now that IIPM's declared war openly on Gaurav Sabnis, now that they're stooping to leaving insulting comments openly on blogs, now...what? All I can say is - now that I'm in a position to take active part in such goings-on, I will stand by the blogosphere's right to freedom of speech all the way.

That major newspapers STILL don't have any proper coverage of this story is an outrage. I'm hoping at least The Hindu lives up to its principles and does something, anything about it.

[As an aside, I bought an LG 17" monitor recently, Man does it rock!]

Thursday, 13 October 2005

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No, it's my 3-day week-end flying up, up and away into the yonder! Ah the trials and tribulations of one in the I.T industry...

Anyways, since I'm at my office now, this is just a quick post to prod my blog into believing I'm not dead, and also to state that I'm not unaware of the IIPM vs. bloggers fracas. I also find it mildly surprising that IIPM hasn't come out openly on the issue. I would've thought that anybody being 'defamed' would issue stringent denials of all charges first, *THEN* take to legal recourse.

All this only re-inforces my belief that anybody who advertises that much should be given a bullet or two. Not because they might be misleading/lying thru their ass/being 'obscene', but because they're hogging the space where interesting news would otherwise have appeared.

And yes, I totally support JAM (which rocks, by the way), Rashmi, Gaurav, and Varna. I would put a few reactions on the apathy of the MSM (which stands for Mainstream Media, as I recently found out - we can thank IIPM for that..heh), but I don't have cable :-( so my only access to the MSM is The Hindu (which also rocks, by the way, so much more than that tired, washed-out, downright vile excuse for a newsrag)

More power to bloggers!

Saturday, 8 October 2005

A sad day for my blog

I have had to turn on the Word verification thing, even though very few comments I get. Comment spam sux. All spammers should suffer the same fate as this Russkie here.