Diwali Celeberation

Let me start with a Diwali Wish - Wish you all a Happy Diwali 2011....



Diwali is a festival which is celeberated across India with pomp and ceremony by the Hindus. It is a festival of lights during which we offer prayers to Goddess Lakshmi, celeberate the end of evil and express our joy by bursting crackers..

The cracking part of Diwali is the crack of cracking of crackers...which becomes uncontrollable at some point...Many of them start as early as 3-4 AM in the morning as if they need to lead by waking others....Disturbing their Sleep.Kids and Elderly people are taken for a toll by the noise pollution it creates.The bang continues upto late night till 11-12 pm so that rest assure no one has a good sleep.

Some feel that the amount of crackers burst by them represents their social status-Good Assumption

Apart from noise pollution it also has an impact on the environment...The smoke that gets released because of bursting crackers affects our 'Go GREEN' Mantra.

The good part is that many of the younger generation have stop bursting crackers for the following reasons:

- Noise Pollution
-Environment gets polluted
-Child labour involved in making crackers
-Burning crackers is same as burning Money-Let money be used effectively.
-Safety of Kids and Elderly people on the Road

I am not saying that we shoudln't burst crackers but we need to ensure that we do that within our limits and maintain the balance across all the elements involved.

So my kind appeal to celeberate a BALANCED and SAFE Diwali moving forward.

Cricket 2 Corruption

Come 2011 has been a landmark in cricketing history as we have won the world cup after a prolonged wait. The unity displayed by we indians in celeberating the world cup win across India made us proud to feel that we Indians are so united for a common cause

 Why is this unity not shown in other issues we face in our day to day life?-Corrupt Politicians,Hike in price of essential comodities etc.,

But it is good to see medias exposing issues bravely and bringing to public attention so that the issue get resolved or highlighted until the government takes some action- The recent example is the fast by Anna hazare for getting the Lokpal bill implemented. It started in a small stage and then thousands of people across various cities supported him and that made the government to negotiate and come in agreement.

Let us stay united as we did for the world cup win for everything that affects common man...This unity will make our rulers (politicians) think and make the work as a real public servant...let us creat that thought in them...

SAVE INDIA (TAMIL NADU)

We Indians boast ourselves of our democratic and secular India. Are we really enjoying democracy?As India is a diversified country with vast heritage and different cultural values across different parts of the country-We wanted democracy. Who are the owners in the democracy? -The People, says the politicians but they feel our importance only during the elections when they need our vote.The Vote is the tool we have to show our power in democracy and we need to ensure it is not misused.

Today India is under the grips of the politicians - the so called 'NETAS' who are enjoying their power and swindling wealth for their generations. How many times does an MLA or an MP comes to his constituency to see what are the problem faced by public? He has time to reach us when he need votes but not after that...What does MLA or MP mean, they are the representatives of the people in the government but do they do that. They are busy thinking about themselves and their people.

Recently I met a MC (Municipal Councilor- the level at which his political career starts) and he had 4-5 people surrounding him as his shadow. Is it really needed? Imagine the people around MLA, Minister or MP then. These netas speed up in cars after winning the elections. When all other job requires prior experience, Politics is the only arena where no experience is required. Now a days heriditery politics is also a common scenario in India as they believe the easiest job is to fool our people.

The only powerful tool we have is the 'VOTE' and hence we need to be cautious and make use of it very effectively. Let us make use of the opportunity and select the best among the lot

Own a House in Metropolitan Chennai

The feel of owning a house makes us feel proud and all of us will devise a plan to built/buy a house of our choice that suits our pocket.What are the difficulties we currenlty face when we try to freeze a house of our choice in a metro like Chennai? Who are the various people cashing in on the Real estate market and making a huge cut in our had earned money. I am just sharing my thoughts and some scenarios I have witnessed / heard based on my experience with the Chennai real estate market since I bought a house in 2003.

In olden days a property consultant is a person who mediates between the seller and the buyer and gets a meagre amount as fees for his consulting. He also ensures that the deal is beneficial to both the parties and owns responsibility. He builts a reputation to ensure that he gets more business.

Come 2007 was the boom for real estate market when every one beelined to buy a nest for them to dwell and the prices sky rocketed from where it was in the start of 2000. An individual house/posh residential apartment in a decent locality which costed 15-20 Lacs has increased four fold. Have the factors associated with the construction risen so huge? No way, the major contribution to the rise is the middle man/power agent (so called property consultant) who flush in money into real estate market to make huge profits in short term. When you approcah a property consultant for buying a property the first question they ask:

What is your Budget?

Now the trap is laid for you that they overestimate the value of the property and then reduce some (negotiation) and completes the deal. However you might have overpaid and increased the market value in that area. All other properties will be sold with your deal as the benchmark.

Who is not a property consultant?

I am just listing different people who are self proclaiming them as property consultants/middle man

1. Auto Driver
2.Vegetable vendor
3. Dhobi
4. Lawyers
5.Retired officials
6. IT crowd (in some cases)
7. Jobless youth

Have I missed any? If so, I haven't come across them

They believe that cahing in on real estate market is the easiest way to make quick money(with tax exemption).

Apartments for sale-the Builder chain

A mason with 10 years of experience and have done 3-4 above said deal becomes a builder and starts building apartments. I have seen a lot of such second rated apartments which are far below benchmark in quality and durability, however the prices are in par with the current market. Is the government taking any steps to ensure the quality and credibality of these small time builders? Hope they need to to avoid any disaster in future..

Puliarai Dakshinamoorthy Temple - A Snapshot

In the southern part of Tamilnadu about 75 KMs from Tirunelveli is Puliarai - A beautiful village in the foot of western ghats adjoining Tamilnadu-My Native. The scerenic beauty of the village will memerise you on the first glance.
The very old Dakshinamoorthy temple is situated in Puliarai very close to the mountains. It is a temple of old cultural heritage and the Lord Dakshinamoorthy (Guru) is very powerful. This is the only temple in the world where Lord Dakshinamoorthy is situated between 'Nandhi' and the idol of 'Lord Shiva'- All in one line. One can view Shiva through the horns of the 'Nandhi' and Dakshinamoorthy-This is said to be of unique in nature.

Thursdays and Saturdays are very special for lord Dakshinamoorthy and people beeline to Puliarai on these days to have a glance of the god and seek his blessings.

Puliarai is about 10 KM from Shencottah.You can reach Puliarai by road if you get down at Tenkasi or Shencottah.Would encourage you all to visit Puliarai once in your life time and get the blessings of Lord Dakshinamoorthy.Other temples near by are Aryankavu Aiyappan temple,Tenkasi Kasi viswanathar temple.

Increasing Trend of Cyber Addiction

Cybernet or Internet is the buzz word which has changed and modernized the way we live, work, shop and communicate/talk.Come 2000, we saw cyber cafes/browsing centers emerging across streets in India in contrast to today where most of us are connected to the cyberworld via blackberry or SMART phone (Even chinese in same cases).
       Its a good sign that technology has made our life easier by making everything available in a click of a button. However we also need to think about the number of child users who are using the internet daily and the increasing number of cyber crimes  which has increased the need for more and more cyber security.Although we are aware of the risks of cyber usage, we are still encouraging and getting more and more addicted towards it. I have seen people who will go mad if they are not allowed to log into social networking sites for a day.
    Cyber addiction has made our personal data easily vulnerable to hackers and phishers as we have our history with photos in social networking sites which makes their life easier.We need to act swift to arrive at a point where we can balance ourselves....Thoughts please

Are you a Manager or Damager?

Friends,
I have written a blog in this topic in Management Scholars Academy blog. Here goes the link.
http://msacademy.in/wordpress/management-scholars-academy-blog/2011/01/are-you-a-manager-or-damager-guest-post-by-sethuramalingam-b/