BSNL: Bhai, SMS Nahi Lagta

BSNL successfully made me lose my patience and I changed my mobile no. (though the new one is another BSNL connection as a stop gap measure).

I was not receiving any SMS in my cell since January last and repeated complains lodged with BSNL fell on deaf years. (the customer care people at BSNL are a stupid lot too. They insist on speaking wrong English with no sense of grammar or enunciation.) I also let go off the opportunity of knocking at the Consumer Forum's. I could have actually got rich with compensation claims. But, never mind. I doubt if BSNL regrets losing a few demanding customers like me.

Railway Budget 2009

The Union Railway Minister Miss Mamata Bannerjee presented the Railway Budget for 2009-'10 yesterday. The contents were not entirely unexpected.

What irked me to no end was the reaction from Lalu Prasad. He feels that his state has been neglected. The fact is that for the last five years he has introduced so many trains and so many projects (most of which are not feasible) in Bihar that there perhaps is no space for more. In fact there have been introduced a few trains exclusive for Bihar like the Ranchi-Patna Jan Shatabdi and the Jamalpur-Gaya Passenger. He has been announcing so many projects for the last five years and done little to introduce them, yet he feels that the present budget is a copy of his ideas.

He has been tabling inflated revenues at the parliament for the last few years. This is a fit case to book him for cheating the people of India.

He hoodwinked people (successfully to an extent, and that is perhaps why he was hailed by one of the IIMs) by not increasing passenger fares while backstabbing them by declaring even sundry trains 'super fast', thus levying surcharges.

Overall, the current budget has been popular. And why should it not be? The Government is expected to work for the people. The low price tickets for the low income group is welcome. But it must be seen that this is not misused. Political persons must be debarred from authorising incomes.

But the concession on the Kolkata Metro for 'minority students' is a gimmick. I can point out a thousand minority students who are affluent enough to buy tickets at the full fare. Concessions should be based only on economic background and merit. When will our 'leaders' learn?

IBM training

Attended the first day of the IBM DB2 training today at college. Don't know how much will I be able to gain from this. DBMS is boring anyway. Learnt that DB2 is highly scalable. We don't need a 400 MB Oracle for records on a small mobile device. A few kBs version of DB2 is enough. Sounds great. (Just wondering if my Motorola W180 has DB2 in it!)

This is going to be followed by a training on Enterprise Computing. Will learn to program for the Mainframes then, in COBOL too! This will be something! Am looking forward to this.

Chew upon this

Today Hemant and I were standing at the bus stop when a man walked up to us and said that he was short of his bus fare by Rs.2 and asked if we could give it to him. Hemant instantly shook his head. I followed suit.

Most probably he was bluffing. (He looked drunk anyway). But suppose he were really in a fix? If he were not lying? Was I correct in refusing him?

My conscience churns everytime I recollect it.

Soapish

Why are Bangla Soap Operas so detached from reality? Why are the makers so imaginatively challenged? Why do affluent families invariably turn up in every flick? Where do the ladies find so much time to remain always dressed and made up? How can they always afford to elaborately discuss the same old matters over and over again around different rooms in the house? Don't they have house work? Why are most ladies in these flicks always scheming? Why is it always possible to detect which lady is a good one and which is a bad one by their make-ups, ornaments and facial expressions, with a little help from the background music? (wish it were so simple in real life). How do characters so often lose their memories, or go mad and are deported to an asylum? Why does Mr.LostMemory end up in a nice gentleman's house and soon marries his daughter? Why does the original wife turn up at the marriage reception?

How can my mother fret over such invariably predictable humbug?

Am I in?

Am new to this business.
Thoughts keep piling up in my mind. Just thought of putting them down for everyone.
I promise to keep writing. Until I can think of something good, have a nice time.