Facebook Buys IRCTC Website

 Realizing the fact that Indians end up making friendship with their co-passengers during train journeys, Facebook has decided to buy IRCTC – the train ticketing website of Indian Railways – to improve the network of friends of Facebook users.

The social networking website has offered 5 billion USD – five times it has offered to pay to Instagram  – to buy out IRCTC, which has been accepted by the Railway Ministry, sources say.

“Since train fares were not increased for most of the traveling classes, we thought this was the best way to increase revenues,” a source at Railway Ministry confirmed the deal with Facebook, “And we are just selling the website; ownership of the Indian Railways remains completely with the government.”

Post this acquisition, every user will need a Facebook login to book train tickets through IRCTC. In fact, he’d need to mention Facebook login details of every passenger who’d be traveling on that ticket.

The moment a confirmed ticket is booked, all the passengers traveling on that ticket will be added to the friend-list of those who would be traveling on adjacent berths.

“A user will get an automatic message from newly added friends like – Hi! I’d be traveling with you on the Side Upper seat of Radjhani Express next month. Let’s connect! – and they can start getting friendly so that there is no awkwardness during the journey,” a Facebook official explained the ‘benefits’ to the end user.

“Newly friended users can play card games on Facebook as rehearsal of what they could be doing during the actual journey, or they can just start chatting,” the official further enumerated the benefits.

The Facebook official clarified that a friend added through the IRCTC website can’t be removed till the train journey is completed or till either of them canceled their confirmed ticket.

“We are looking into cases where a passenger could exchange berths with another during the journey. We’ll make sure that the ‘right’ friends are added to a user network so that the train journey is truly enjoyable,” the Facebook official told Faking News.

The official rejected privacy concerns, claiming that passengers traveling by Indian Railways were already exchanging crucial contact details like email addresses and phone numbers at the end of the journey.

“We are just helping them stay connected,” he said.

Facebook is confident that the step will help them grown their reach in India and witness increased activity by thousands, maybe millions of users, who will be getting new friends each day.

“I am sure that Indian users will ‘like’ this feature, especially those guys who spend like hours at the gates of the railway coaches staring at the reservation chart to find out if any girl has been allotted a berth near to them,” an IRCTC official said.

From,

Smit


Thanks: http://www.fakingnews.com/2012/04/facebook-buys-irctc-to-promote-social-networking-in-trains/

IPL 5 will give Emraan Hashmi of the Match

In order to encourage people to buy tickets to watch IPL matches, BCCI has decided to award viewers in the stadium after each match. Five deserving spectators will be chosen after each match in IPL-5 for awards that have been named after some celebrities. In fact, these awards have been sponsored by these celebrities, who will be paying the sponsorship fee to BCCI, making it even richer.

A team of experts having an eye over spectators in various stands will be deputed and these experts will submit their report after every match, which will have recommendations for various awards. For now, IPL-5 will have the following awards for the spectators in the stadium:

Emraan Hashmi of the Match:this award will be won by the person, who will be spending more time ogling the cheerleaders than watching the match. This is expected to be the most competitive category, and most likely the winner could be a man, despite homosexuality being decriminalized. However, experts don’t rule out a woman winning the award in Chennai Super Kings matches, where one sees male cheerleaders. Sources say that the sponsorship amount will be paid by Mahesh Bhatt     to promote his upcoming movie Jannat 2.

Deve Gowda of the Match: the award will be won by someone who’d sleep off even during a Twenty20 match. BCCI clarified that their intention was not to encourage people to sleep off during matches, but the sponsorship amount was too lucrative for the board to ignore. Deve Gowda refused to comment whether he approached BCCI or some middleman approached him for this sponsorship opportunity.

Digvijay Singh of the Match: this will be won by the person who will come up with a conspiracy theory to defend the loss of the team he or she supported. Calling the cricketers of the rival team as RSS agents will not help anyone win the award as BCCI wants people to think out of box. Sources say that Vinod Kambli also wanted to sponsor this award but he couldn’t better Digvijay Singh’s offer. Apparently Kambli has asked BCCI to give the Digvijay Singh of the Match award to person constantly on phone, and name this conspiracy theory creator award after himself.

Suhel Seth of the Match: will be handed over to the person with a strong opinion on everything happening on the ground and around. The person, who’d always find fault with a captain’s team composition, field placements, scheduling of bowlers, etc. and would keep cribbing about ground conditions, flood lights, and dressing sense of the person in front of him would be favorite to win this award.

Shahid Afridi of the Match: the only Pakistani involvement in this year’s IPL will be this award, which will be handed out to a person claiming to have seen things that nobody else could see in the stadium. This is inspired by Shahid Afridi’s claim of watching Sachin Tendulkar’s leg shake while facing Shoaib Akhtar. People claiming things like, “abbey, did you see? That girl in the fifth row kissed her boyfriend!” would also be eligible for the award, BCCI clarified.

BCCI, which sold off TV rights to Star TV for a whopping Rs. 3,851 crore rupees, refused to divulge the sponsorship amounts of the above awards, but sources say that they will definitely help the board recover their office expenses and salaries of experts who’d keep an eye over the spectators.

Sources further claim that the board rejected the idea of a Manmohan Singh of the Match award for a spectator keeping mum throughout the match.

With Thanks : http://www.fakingnews.com/2012/04/ipl-to-give-emraan-hashmi-of-the-match-award-to-spectator-checking-out-cheerleaders/

The Unsung Hero

 Dear Rahul,

This is not going to be easy. But I will try. One sentence at a time.

Congratulations. Is that appropriate? That’s what people at work say when someone quits. And, despite the anguish surrounding your decision, this is supposed to be a happy day. At least I would like to think of it that way.

I expected you to finish in Adelaide. The same Adelaide where, in 2003, you found gold at the end of the rainbow. The same Adelaide where another colossus, Adam Gilchrist, retired four years ago, his wife and children sitting among the press, his voice breaking towards the end of each sentence, tears trickling down his cheeks as the press conference wound down.

But the Chinnaswamy Stadium fits well. That’s where it all began. And that’s where it ends. Like Gilly, you leave with your family and former team-mates watching over your retirement announcement. And like him, you leave amid breaking voices and teary eyes.

There is a constant temptation, especially when a cricketer retires, to draw comparisons. We live in a world that loves definitives. It frowns upon ambiguity. We want to determine your exact location in the pantheon. I will refrain from this. I am sure you are tired of being compared to other great Indian batsmen. And I am not about to bore you.

But I must tell you something that has bothered me for a long time. You are too conveniently slotted as a specialist batsman. I disagree. That’s too simplistic. For me, you are an allrounder – not in the way our limited imaginations defines an allrounder but in a broader, more sweeping, sense.

I find it hard to think of a more versatile cricketer. You were one of our finest short leg fielders. You were, for the most part, a remarkable slip catcher. You have opened the innings, batted at No.3, batted at No.6 (from where you conjured up that 180 in Kolkata). I’m sure you have batted everywhere else.

You have kept wicket, offering an added dimension to the one-day side in two World Cups. You even scored 145 in one of those games. You captained both the Test and one-day teams. Sure things didn’t go according to plan but you were a superb on-field captain. More importantly you were India’s finest vice-captain, an aspect that is often conveniently forgotten. Jeez, you even took some wickets.

There’s something unique about this. In Indian cricket’s hall of fame, you can proudly share a table with Gavaskar and Tendulkar. But you can also share one with Kapil, Mankad and Ganguly – cricketers who excelled in more than one aspect of their game for an extended period of time.

The only people who will understand this are those who you played with. The only people who will begin to appreciate your value to the side are those who you propped up. Which is why it is not the least surprising when Tendulkar said yesterday, ‘There can be no cricketer like Rahul Dravid.’ Hell yeah. It’s too far-fetched.

Talking about Tendulkar, you know my best moment involving you two? Adelaide again. 2003 again. Damien Martyn c Dravid b Tendulkar 38. Ripping legbreak, spanking cut, screaming edge, lunging right hand, gotcha. That was magic. Pure magic. Swung the game. Ignited the series.

What else will I remember? Hmm. That shirt of yours immaculately tucked in. How did you manage to keep it tucked in every single time? I’ll remember the way you chased the ball to the boundary line, as if you were competing in a hundred-meter race. I’ll remember the intensity with which you studied the pitch before the game, like a geologist, scraping the surface with your palms, examining the grains of sand, gauging the direction of the breeze. You loved all these tiny details, didn’t you?

There is a perception that you have not got the credit you deserve. I don’t know if that is accurate. I wonder if you feel that way. But just you wait. Wait for India to play a Test without you. Wait for the team to lose an early wicket, especially on a challenging pitch. You’ll hear a gazillion sighs, sighs filled with longing. India 8 for 1 and you sitting in your living room, sipping tea and watching TV. I’ll be surprised if you don’t palpably feel a nation’s collective yearning for a sunnier, glorious past.

But even that I may be able to somehow handle. What I won’t be able to come to terms with is not watching you bat. Over the years few things have given me as much joy as watching you construct an innings, hour upon hour, brick upon brick.

Here I must mention what the great American author, Edgar Allan Poe, once said about the importance of punctuation.

It does not seem to be known that, even where the sense is perfectly clear, a sentence may be deprived of half its force – its spirit – its point – by improper punctuation.

An innings of yours would be incomplete without the punctuation marks that you masterfully employed along the way: the focussed leaves, the immaculate dead-bats, the softening of the grip, the late strokeplay, the ducking, the weaving, the swaying, the head totally still, your eyes always on the ball, the focus, more focus, still more focus, even more focus.

There is no point watching an innings of yours stripped of all this. I’ve cursed all these TV producers who create highlight packages with fours, sixes, your raised bat after each fifty, a jump after a hundred, more fours, more sixes and done. Finished. Poof. That’s supposed to be a summation of your innings.

It’s the same with all these photographers who click away and the websites that use those photos to create galleries. None of them even begin to portray the painstaking manner in which you create these pearls. None of them can capture over after over of graft. There is nothing more exhilarating that being exhausted after watching you bat. But there is no technology that can capture that, no software that can simulate it.

So if my grandson were to ask me about your batting, I would be lost. The only way anyone can begin to understand your craft is by watching you bat through a whole day, by experiencing your pain. There are no short cuts.

There are a million links that pop up on YouTube when I type ‘Rahul Dravid’. All of them show you batting. None of them contain your essence. There is no Rahul Dravid in there.

That’s sad. But maybe that’s also a good thing. I was fortunate to be able to watch you bat. My grandson won’t be as lucky. He’s just going to be born at the wrong time. Let’s go with that. It’s much easier.

As I said, this is supposed to be a happy day. It’s the memories that matter. You’ve left us a world full of them.

So long, Rahul. Adios. Ciao. Auf Wiedersehen. Tata. Bye. Bye. Olleyadagali guru.

And thank you. It’s been a privilege.

Yours faithfully,

A Cricket Fan

From: http://sidveeblogs.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/goodbye-dravid/

Amitabh Bachchan sells ICICI child future plan to Abhishek Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan, who has been educating the aam aadmi about the importance of securing one’s family’s future through insurance plans, successfully sold such a plan to his son Abhishek Bachchan earlier today after Abhishek became a dad. The child plan, total value of which has not been disclosed, will make sure that the girl child of Abhishek and Aishwarya will grow up and become what she truly desires, ICICI sources claim.

“What if she wants to become a chess player or an astronaut?” Big B is supposed to have asked Abhishek, who though his daughter will become a successful Bollywood actress.

Amitabh and Abhishek celebrating the arrival of a baby girl in the family

“With Katrina ruling the roost, and actresses like Nargis Fakhri getting a break, Bollywood is getting increasingly trickier. They are no longer looking for Indian born beauty pageant winners. Just think about it,” Senior Bachchan advised his son, following which Abhishek asked his dad for help after he failed to get any innovative idea to solve this problem.

Amitabh Bachchan is reported to have sold a premium plan for child’s education and future to his son at this point of time. No one from the family or ICICI was willing to comment over the value of the plan, but sources say it covers all costs of professional grooming for the newly born girl, and secures her against any possible risk, even astrological.

“The girl’s future is secure with us,” an ICICI official claimed, “I just tuned in to India TV and they had made a kundli of Aishwarya’s baby assuming the time of birth to be the same when Abhishek had tweeted the news. They claim the girl could be maanglik and advice the parents to eat grass on all Mondays after taking bath with goat milk. But Abhishek-Aishwarya don’t need to worry or do anything of that sort. Hum hain na!”

With Thanks -  http://www.fakingnews.com/2011/11/amitabh-bachchan-sells-icici-child-future-plan-to-abhishek-bachchan/

Everything you need to know about Narendra Modi - Aakar Patel

Narendra Modi is positioning himself to be prime minister. What sort of leader will he make? We can tell by understanding him as a man. Look on this piece as his biography. Born 17 September 1950, Modi is 61. His resume says he has a master’s in political science.
He speaks a Gujarati purged of Persian words (like Advani’s Hindi, but better crafted). His Hindi is marked by his nasal accent, but is correct. His English is poor and he works on it.
Modi is called “NaMo” by his fans (the word also means “bow down before”). His father was Damodar, however his early opponents invented the middle initial “ka”, calling him NaKaMo (“useless”). That joke isn’t funny any more.
He radiates charisma and Gujaratis love him. Gujarati women are greatly attracted to him sexually, as women are towards all men of power.
Modi is the finest manager of media of any Indian leader. During one speech in Ahmedabad, he learnt a national channel, I think it was Aaj Tak, would broadcast him live at a particular time. He switched to Hindi mid-speech and then reverted to Gujarati when the 2-minute patch was over.
He takes his image very seriously. He is vain and terrified of being humiliated. When shoe-throwing began in the last election, he insisted on a fine mesh between the stage and his audience.

Orator: In his speeches, Modi speaks a Gujarati purged of Persian words. Amit Dave/Reuters

He is stylish, wearing perfectly cut half-sleevedkurtas. These are not inexpensive and are crafted for him by the Ahmedabad store JadeBlue. He has a problem with his weight because Ahmedabadi diet is rich, but neither drinks nor smokes and is vegetarian.

On his website (www.narendramodi.in), Modi uses these words to describe himself: “great dreamer”, “remarkable ability”, “realist”, “idealist”, “excellent organizational capability”, “rich insight into human psychology”, “sheer strength of character and courage”.
He is possessed with self-belief and utterly uninterested in what others say. He has over 360,000 followers on Twitter, but he follows nobody.
He is above caste.
Gujarat’s BJP vote bank is Patels + upper castes. As a ghanchi from the OBC, or Other Backward Classes, community of oil-pressers (teli) Modi has no caste base. Ghanchis get little respect in a state of merchants and my family will use the word “ghanchi” sneeringly.
He has united a very caste-minded society by first rallying it against Muslims/Pakistan/jihad/terrorism and then rousing their pride in their state. He has put to pasture one Patel rival (Keshubhai) and made another Patel, the clownish Pravin Togadia, irrelevant. He has neutralized Patel “unhappiness”. Four of his nine cabinet-ranked ministers are Patels.
Modi has brought to heel an unruly and factional Gujarat BJP by creating unity of command.
Modi has dismantled the Congress strategy, called KHAM: Kshatriya + Harijan + Adivasi + Muslim.
After Modi, Harijans and Adivasis are almost as likely to vote BJP because of the popular appeal of Hindutva and the great social work done by the Sangh in northern Gujarat and the Panchmahals.
He has excellent sources and usually has research done on those he is about to meet.
I first met him in 2002 when the Editors Guild sent a three-man team to assess if there was media prejudice against Muslims during the riots (of course there was).
In his Gandhinagar office Modi took me aside. He slipped his left hand into my right, interlocking our fingers, and began swinging it playfully in the manner of Indian men. “Saurabhbhai saffron, Aakarbhai red,” he said with a chuckle.
The reference was to my colleague, the editor of a Gujarati paper whom I got fired because he wrote what I thought was an appalling editorial justifying the riots.
He doesn’t share power. For years, Gujarat’s finance minister (Saurabh Patel) and home minister (Amit Shah) were denied cabinet rank.
I once met an IAS officer on a flight out of Ahmedabad and told him I had just met the CM. “You’re fortunate,” he said, “my minister hasn’t met him in six months.”
Modi does not hesitate to get rid of high-quality and dedicated civil servants if they cross him. Young and upright IPS officers like Rahul Sharma and Satish Verma who defied the Gujarati consensus to “go easy” on rioting Hindus have been fixed.
Sharma, who cleverly secured the damning cellphone records of Modi’s ministers during the riots, is being prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. Verma is facing action on charges of negligence.
Modi is probably one of India’s three most disciplined leaders in terms of control over policy and work ethic. Those who are given time to meet him are guaranteed to be led into his office at precisely the appointed hour.
He is decisive, and persistent in his policies. The Panchamrut schemes he initiated 10 years ago are still the thrust of his vision for the state. Economist Shankar Acharya wrote in Business Standard (14 July) that under Modi, Gujarat’s agriculture grew at an astonishing 8%.
How?
In their book, High Growth Trajectory and Structural Changes in Gujarat Agriculture, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) professors Ravindra Dholakia and Samar Datta explained Gujarat’s agricultural success thus: “It is fully endogenous, systematically led by long-term vision and comprehensive strategy requiring solid commitment and dedication to the cause, political will to pursue market-oriented reforms of policies and institutions, interdepartmental and inter-ministerial coordination and cooperation, and a responsive and entrepreneurial farming community.”
Acharya wrote that, given this was not possible in our other states, “it seems closer to an ‘exogenous’ miracle”.
Meaning that it was influenced and created from the outside, by Modi. This is true.
He makes no concession to Muslims.
For four consecutive Lok Sabha and assembly elections he has given not a single ticket to Gujarati Muslims. That is 364 assembly and 52 Lok Sabha tickets handed out. Muslims are 9% of Gujarat’s population, but Modi has made them electorally irrelevant. He reminds them of that by not throwing a token ticket their way.
Gujaratis are used to leaders who compromise. Modi is another kind of Gujarati leader. Not inclusive and ideologically unbending. Gujaratis wrongly believe Patel was such a man and call Modi “Chhote Sardar” (I’m certain he seethes at chhote).
In his book Sardar Patel and Indian Muslims, Rafiq Zakaria wrote of how Articles 25 and 26, the right to convert Hindus and to set up Muslims-only institutions, were actually put in place by Vallabhbhai, his gift to Muslims. Gujaratis are horrified to be told this but Vallabhbhai Patel was no bigot.
Modi does not have a problem with minorities as such. He loves Parsis, whom he sees as patriots, and he is in turn popular with them. He was chief guest for their oldest fire temple’s 1,290th anniversary in Udvada earlier this year. One day I went to meet Modi with a friend from Surat, Aadil Bhoja. When I introduced him by first name to Modi, the chief minister, who was expecting only me, hesitated and said: “Aadil etle... (Aadil meaning...)?”
“Parsi,” said Aadil (Gujaratis always place each other by community and caste). Modi was immediately at ease, talking about how colourful Parsis were. His problem is Muslims.
During the Ayodhya movement, when Modi was in his late 30s, sociologistAshis Nandy interviewed him. In 2002, Nandy wrote this in Seminar: “It was a long, rambling interview, but it left me in no doubt that here was a classic, clinical case of a fascist. I never use the term ‘fascist’ as a term of abuse; to me it is a diagnostic category comprising not only one’s ideological posture but also the personality traits... He had the same mix of puritanical rigidity, narrowing of emotional life, denial and fear of his own passions combined with fantasies of violence—all set within the matrix of clear paranoid and obsessive personality traits.”
That such a man became not just a leader, but a popular one led Nandy to add: “I am afraid I cannot look at the future of the country with anything but great foreboding.”
In a nation that responds to emotion, Modi is one of our great orators. I would say that along with Balasaheb Thackeray and Lalu Prasad, he is one of our three best. All three men are hugely entertaining and original. About the US president, Modi said his name reminded him of a Gujarati child in pain screaming for its mother: “O ba! O ma!”
The late Chandrakant Bakshi, one of Gujarat’s most famous writers, told me over a drink that he trembled each time he heard Modi’s rallying cry: “Paanch karod Gujarati (50 million Gujaratis)”.
There is no whiff of corruption about Modi, and he isn’t interested in money in that sense.
He does not have much of a life or interests outside of his work. One night I was the last person on his list of people to meet for the day. As we wound up, I asked him what he would do now. “Go home to my mother, of course,” he said, surprised.
He has a wife, a villager, whom he discarded very early on. He does not respond to stories about her.
His elbow is sharp. Seven years or so ago, he upset the RSS because he was autocratic and dismissive of their advisers. Among them was a powerfulswayamsevak named Sanjay Joshi. It appeared Joshi had Modi in trouble.
Then Joshi, or someone looking exactly like him, was secretly videotaped bedding the young daughter of a family friend. These CDs were distributed anonymously to leaders at the meeting of the BJP national executive in Mumbai in 2005. The visuals made the front pages of Gujarati newspapers. Soon SMS jokes began where Joshi’s sorry sexual performance and orthodox underwear were skewered (“why did he even bother taking off his langot?”).
Modi has ruled unchallenged since. His economic success and national popularity has silenced the Sangh.
Modi has great patience. He has worn out the secularists. His insistence on economic performance has trumped their insistence on secularism. His understanding of middle-class Indians and what moves us is first-rate, better than any politician on the subcontinent.
He is street-smart and clever but not intellectual. He isn’t widely read, and the books he has written are by way of hagiography. His poetry is shockingly banal. Here he has escaped criticism because he writes only in Gujarati, but sample this translation:
“At sweet sixteen, melody of a cuckoo within
On whom showers romance, the flowers of spring?
Appearing poor, but rich within
From the heart of autumn, Rises the cooing of spring
Who’s getting wedded in woods?
Each tree is lit in festive moods!”
Personally, I am not enamoured of a man who thinks up such rubbish. However this is the sort of mush that Indians love and perhaps Modi has calibrated it. The man himself will be much harder, as we will learn.
Manmohan Singh gave Indians our best laws in half a century: Right to information, right to education, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the nuclear deal and soon the right to food.
Unlike America, India’s parliamentary system conflates legislature with executive. It is fair to see Manmohan Singh as passing the first part of his job and failing the second.
In that sense Modi will be right for a people who have always required firm governance more than they have the freedom to write their laws.

With Thanks to Live Mint

http://www.livemint.com/2011/09/29212829/Everything-you-need-to-know-ab.html?h=A3

Check out Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat @ Rs 20 - Refer & Win

Check out Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat @ Rs 20 - Refer & Win

They are back with BANG...

Hi friends,

After long time writing blog.. felt something excited to share. so I am here.. Like to talk about show on television which will be back with new season. and I am excited about it.

I am talking about show which started in 2003. and changed face of reality tv shows head to toe. I am talking about ROADIES. yes after completing 8 seasons. they are coming with 9th season. Now whenever talking about roadies. first person come in mind is Raghu. Raghu is guy who made this show, what it is today. I personally believe that format of this show, Specially interview portion, asks you a simple question. and that is "Be what you are".

In life we are always trying or pretending to be what we like most or what we amused about? but this concept or this show tells us that Life requires to be what you are? You can achieve anything and everything if once you are cleared what you are. It's about knowing yourself. I always believe that ordinary person can do extra ordinary things in extra ordinary environment.

At end of day, You have to achieve what you were thought impossible at one stage. Roadies shows people who come from different back ground, different culture and different ideology try to reach at one place by hard work, planning, back stabing. But that's life. We always feel life is unfair to us. and that's what I love about show. It's unfair. deal with it.

Love you Raghu, Rajiv and Ranvijay. HATS OFF...

Love,
Smit