Facebook Timeline

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Timeline during his keynote address at the Facebook f8 Developers Conference today.

Facebook Timeline: Story of your life, a new way to express who you are.

I bet Facebook Timeline is going to bring a positive change in Social Media field and Apps. It would be a great tool for people to look into the past of their Facebook activities and bring together various aspects of lives at single place.

Watch this video below to better understand the attributes of Facebook Timeline:

This is how my Facebook profile looks after enabling Timeline.



This is how your Facebook profile Activity Log would look once Facebook Timeline is enabled.



Learn How to get your Facebook Timeline:

You can enable Timeline for your Facebook profile by following these steps given on this post from techcrunch right this second.

लोकपाल बिल ज़रूरी है यार

502 Production House Presents "लोकपाल बिल ज़रूरी है यार"

Inspired from Airtel's "Har Friend Zaroori"

Concept: Mohit Agarwal

Lyrics: Nimit Jain

Special Thanks to: Airtel, Ram Sampath, Amitabh Bhattacharya and 502 Family :)

मोच के लिए जैसे balm होता है
वैसे लोकपाल बिल ज़रूरी होता है
ऐसे लोकपाल बिल ज़रूरी होता है

कोई खुद से घर आके पासपोर्ट पकड़ाए
कोई License के लिए चक्कर कटवाए
एक तेरी Problems की Caring करे
और एक तुझसे Bribe लेके Setting करे

कोई Nature से Honest.. कोई Corruput होता है..
इसलिए लोकपाल बिल ज़रूरी होता है

एक दिन भर काम करे और कुछ भी ना कमाए
एक कुछ भी काम ना करे और ढेरों कमाए

Lobbying को कोई घूमता फिरता Satellite
नेताजी चाहे तो करदे सब Alright
कोई Effortless, कोई Forced होता है
इसलिए लोकपाल बिल ज़रूरी होता है

पासपोर्ट Agent, कोई पासबुक Agent
कोई Bike के License वाला Driving Agent
वोटर कार्ड वाला वोटिंग Agent
कोई सिनेमा हॉल वाला Booking Agent

हर्षद स्केम .. चारा स्केम
2G स्केम.. CWG स्केम
वोट स्केम.. स्टॉक स्केम
सत्यम स्केम.. बोफोर्स स्केम
ये स्केम.. वो स्केम

स्केम.. Agent

Everybody.. Subsidy
A To Z

सुन सुन के काण्ड भेजा Roast होता है
इसलिए लोकपाल बिल ज़रूरी होता है
इसलिए लोकपाल बिल ज़रूरी होता है

{
GUYS GUYS.. अन्ना.. अन्ना.. अन्ना..
लोकपाल बिल ज़रूरी है यार
}

"Corruption - A lost war or a battle to be won??" - A Talk by Justice N. Venkatachala

The current events which are happening in India, Anna's Anti-Corruption movement and Government's response, remind me of Extra Mural Lecture conducted by me and my EML team. It was one of the most inspiring lecture delivered by Justice N. Venkatachala (Retd. Judge Supreme Court of India & Former Lokayukta, Karnataka) on "Corruption - A lost war or a battle to be won??" Given below are key points of the talk. Thanks to EML team member Akila for this write-up.

-----

We live in a society where if you are caught giving bribe, you can get out of it by giving another one. Justice Venkatachala, who has been the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court and has served as a judge in the Supreme Court and who has been the Lokayukta of Karnataka, talked on Corruption and its adverse impacts on society.

Starting with the different kinds of corruption that prevails in the world, he moved on to define what is known as the public perception of corruption. The corruption levels in a nation are determined by the public servants, he said.

In 1995, Transparency International, the global civil society organization was set up at Berlin to fight corruption globally. He then presented some figures concluding that Denmark, Newzeland, Singapore and Sweden were some of the least corrupt countries in the world and that India, with a corruption percentage of 66 among public servants could be described as rampant and corrupt.

On the 9th of December, 2005, India became a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Corruption. Article 1 of the Convention mentions effectively combating corruption in the member countries. India has failed to become a member country.

Justice Venkatachala drew a contrast between India and USA. While USA maintains that freedom of speech in the parliament does not entitle corrupt parliamentary members to obtain favour of judgement in any manner, in India members of the parliament are not penalized for the fear of interfering with parliamentary proceedings.

Hence, he concluded, our representatives in the parliament are not capable of making laws to abolish corruption. The Lokpal Act, though has been introduced nine times in the parliament, has not been passed yet. This clearly indicates the level of commitment that our representatives in the parliament have towards eliminating corruption.

But there is still hope, he said, and added that sectors such as Science and research and Defence have not entered the clutches of corruption yet and hence we live in a safe country today. He told the students that as voters, each one of us has a role to play in choosing the right people, who are honest and sincere. There will definitely come a day, when we shall live in a society that is rid of corruption.

Congress' (or rather Raul/Sonia Gandhi's) Action Plan

This is what I posted on my facebook notes few days back. My take on Anna's Anti-Corruption movement and Govts' response to it:

1. Let people of India and opposition unite for Lokpal, spoil MMS' image & let BJP open its cards/face for next LS elections.

2. Raul meets PM, tells him to release Anna Hazare. Anna refuges and puts fwd some conditions... Permission granted.

3. 2-3 days later when everybody supports Anna,Rahul says he'll chair Lokpal drafting committee and accepts most of the recommendations from JanLokapl

4. Rahul assures team Anna that he'll make this mutually agreeable bill pass in the parliament (which opposition is already supporting now!)

5. Bill is brought to the parliament. Opposition either refuses/accepts the bill. WIN-WIN situation for Rahul. He becomes the national hero!

6. BJP has already started promoting Varun Gandhi so it's going to be Gandhi V/S Gandhi. BJP cant change the face else credibility issues.

7. In the end people will vote for Rahul because he got Jan Lokpal passed in the parliament. Mission accomplished!

8. And you never know if Anna Hazare is the next president of India!!! Everything is fair in Love, War, Sports and POLITICS!

9. And team Anna members (Arvind Kejriwal Sahab and Kiran Bedi Ji) as Lokpals.

Having said that, I still support Team Anna Hazare for the noble cause for which they are fighting (hope they dont deviate from that). Power to them!

TEDxWWW: Worldwide TEDx community event

On July 10th, 2011 TED announced a worldwide TEDx event exclusively for TEDx Organizers - TEDxWWW. The ‘WWW’ expands to World Wide Workshop, a global event exclusively for the TEDx Organizers around the world. The event will be hosted by the Doha Film Institute (DFI) and will be a three-day event convening in Doha, Qatar commencing April 16th, 2012.

TEDxWWW will be a private event, open only to members of the global TEDx community, together with the TED team. It will be an opportunity to connect, share best practices, discuss local and regional and brainstorm new ideas and collaborations.

TED has always surprised us with its vision and ability to think different and big. And this time it has come up with an event which will have TEDx organizers from around the World. There are over 2000 TEDx events in almost every country around the World and pulling together an event of this scale is going to be a massive challenge!

I've been part of organizing teams of TEDxChennai and TEDxHitechCity and I know how tough it is to bring together all people on a fixed date at a venue, organizing stay, working out the logistics and much more. And mind you these were city based TEDx events; I can only imagine the efforts required to pull together an international event like TEDxWWW on a Worldwide scale.

TEDxDoha, curated by TED, DFI and the global TEDx community, will take place on April 20th, immediately following TEDxWWW. The event will feature speakers and performers from the Middle Eastern region as well as other parts of the world, recommended by the TEDx community.

Kudos to TED staff, TEDx volunteers and members of Doha Film Institute.

Best wishes for TEDxWWW.

For questions, please check http://www.ted.com/pages/tedxwww or email TEDxWWW@ted.com.

A Fascinating (But Expensive) Hobby

Hello everyone...
Welcome back to Express Yourself!

In this blog-post, I am going to write about a fascinating (but expensive) hobby called Numismatic (aka coin collecting). It is the hobby of collecting legally minted currency, old/rare coins or notes, currencies having special numeric sequences or in general currencies having some X-factor (Wonder what's that?? Keep reading!). I know most of you must be wondering how come (after almost 4 months long break from blogosphere) I'm back with the post on this hobby (instead of my usual comeback posts!), well all the credit goes to Mr. Muralidhar Pai, a Numismatist. Last week I met Pai and saw some of the notes, coins (having X-factor!) from his amazing collection.

Muralidhar Pai with a bunch of young enthusiasts.

"People collect coins for various reasons which could vary from certain themes, country, year when the coin came out, subject, metal composition, period collections and even for the number series that they contain!" says Pai. "I started this hobby 15 years back and the inspiration came from my dad, who also used to collect coins. In those days it was very expensive to collect currencies of different denominations but now-a-days it's not that expensive. In those days, I used to beg my relatives to give me all the notes/coins with X-factor! This is how I started the collection." shared candid Pai. "I mainly focus on collecting Indian currencies, which itself is very vast and for collecting international currency, you need lots of money and I am not that rich!" says modest Pai. When someone from the audience asked him "What is this X-factor?", he had this in his stores to explain:

(More pics @ http://twitpic.com/photos/jainnimit)

Amazing! Rite?? Yeah this was the exact reaction of all those who saw it. "You could also collect notes based on criterion like signatures by different Governors, different series started by same Governor etc etc" added Pai. After this, he showed some of the old notes of old times when Nizams used to rule Hyderabad.

100 Rs. Note

10 Rs. Note

Now, it was time for the Numismatist to switch the gears to coins and he started showing some of them from his vast collection with varying themes from the subject (Maharana Pratap, Chhatrapati Shivaji) to the period (Quit India Movement Golden Jubilee, 150 years of First War of Independence).

Maharana Pratap

Chhatrapati Shivaji

Quit India Movement Golden Jubilee

150 years of First War of Independence

In between, he kept giving tips to the budding Numismatists about how to go ahead with this hobby, resources from where they can get more information about new/old/rare coins, various communities/people/govt. organizations involved with it etc etc.

"So next time when you withdraw some money from the ATM, search for the X-factor!", Pai signed off giving this advice and promising us to show his stamp collection next time.

Transformation: Humara Bajaj

Time has changed, technology has changed, people have changed, life has changed but still there are few things which haven't changed yet. And one of those few things is Ad Campaign of BAJAJ. From 1989-2009, there have been many changes in the way media industry has emerged. With the technology changing everyday with lighting fast speed, life becoming so hectic and tensed, and the world becoming a 'Global Village', Bajaj ads also changed but the core theme of the ad campaign is still the same. Now, when everyone is talking about the Vodafone's ZooZoo ad campaign (which is really nice!), TOI's The Lead India campaign, Airtel's Express Yourself Campaign etc etc how can we forget about Bajaj's Humara Bajaj Campaign! Here are the 3 videos of Humara Bajaj Campaign, which started in late 1989 (if I am not wrong!). The one thing that I like the most about this campaign other than the title song is the way they have captured and represented Indian culture, values and aam aadmi's feelings. And this makes more sense in the latest ad of the same campaign in which the music has changed (or remixed!), India has changed but the basic values are still the same.

So here are the videos of Humara Bajaj Campaign... Enjoy!

1989 Ad


Late 90s Ad

Latest Ad

It’s long since I wrote last time!

Continuing with the title of the post, last few days were very hectic but rocking as well. Now, when I've officially retd. from the post of Students General Secretary, IIT Madras, I'm jobless and have more time to write about the things which happened in last few days.

I got a chance to meet Mr. Michael Balter, Col. Peter Garretson and Kris Gopalakrishnan. I really got impressed by what Col. Garretson shared on "Space Solar Alliance for Future Energy: The Biggest Idea in Space and Energy" and Balter on "What made humans modern?"

Last few days I was also actively involved with NDTV's "Youth for Change": A series of interviews regarding the views/concerns of the first time voters. This is my appearance on the show. (i missed the other clips!)


The high resolution video of the same can be seen @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFywKFP3zJM&feature=related

Other show with Mr. Vinod Dua is soon going to be aired. (mostly on 24th April'09)

And yeah the best thing which happened is something about which I am very passionate: Film Making. Thanks to Adieu'09 film making competition. Adieu is the official farewell function for all the graduating students of IIT Madras, organized by the IIT Madras Alumni Association. Our entry got the 2nd prize and was appreciated by one and all. Special thanks to Harshal for believing in me and bringing back the energy and enthusiasm in me to work on this film. Here is the Adieu'09 video.



The high resolution video of the same can be seen @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbhnl3-ZGOc

Lots of other activities also took place which include frequent visits to the insti hospital, stadium , dept. lab (YES!) etc etc. Other than that there were hostel nites, treats, classes and yeah the night outs! I am enjoying my last few days of IIT Life and then I'll be joining Deloitte in Hyd.

With this I end this post and request the viewers to VOTE (for the right candidates) in the upcoming Loksabha Elections!