Tuesday, November 22, 2005

CAT and the after shocks

Ek aur CAT aaya aur aakar chala gaya. Peeche apne dhul bhara samaa chhodh gaya.

Massacre for anyone with a mindset! I have always believed that CAT is a paper of mental aptitude more than it is a paper of QA, DI or English. In my opinion, CAT tests a student's ability to take pressure, face tough situations, not lose control over one's senses, not suffer from mindsets and pre-conceived notions, not going into any situation with a preset thought, not worrying about huge problems on all areas. It also tests a candidate's ability to allocate limited and precious resources (time) over a large number of opportunities (questions) so as to achieve the maximum profit (marks).

DI out of the window. Reasoning in dollops. (This was one scenario we had predicted in workshops and counselings this year and I believe a lot of guys studied reasoning because of this!!)
QA was damn tough, especially the two markers.
RC considerably lesser, but murderous! Grammar was very tough. Critical reasoning was tough. Other VA was still easier, but not easy.

Other institutes are predicting unrealistic cutoffs. Paper karke dekho to pata chale, how difficult it is to get marks in the paper during that time. Sitting in a/c offices later and solving without time pressure, I can also get all the marks. Point is what can one do in limited time. T.I.M.E. has given vey realistic cutoffs, which will bring hope to students. I really detest institutes that are predicting cutoffs of 60 for a single call. They are the ones that are driving students to the brink of committing suicide. Oh, how I wish, IIMs would do something about releasing the keys/solutions along with or just after the paper and releasing the cutoffs openly ASAP. That will at least drive the pressure down.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Things I Hate or Hated

  1. Dangling hoods behind jackets - I can't begin to recall the horrible looking dangling hoods. Jackets were a rage when I was growing up, but I always hated that begging bowl dangling behind people's necks. It was as if you had a permanent begging appendage, open for donations, whether u were walking or sitting or standing. It collected dirt, dust, leaves and of course, people's comments. People could not care less, but to me it looked like an extra head, just that it was scooped out. And the strings looked like matted hair dangling from the skull.

    Today's detachable hoods are more graceful. They are useful, and not a fashion faux pas.


  2. Baggy pants/jeans - Baggies were in fashion around 1988-1995. I have been guilty of buying at least one jeans that was a baggy (baggy? it was a bag!). Thankfully, I was not guilty of wearing it too often, so I can live in peace with the knowledge that I did not torture the world with a clownish appearance. Baggies came in fashion from Salman Khan (I think) or Govinda (more likely). I remember people wearing baggies that hung in front of their bodies like huge shaadi tents. What were people thinking making those clothes? I think it was engineered by the cloth manufacturers to encourage sale of more cloth. Each pant required 30-50 percent extra cloth to be made. Horrible, that is the word! The clothes, not the marketing strategy. That was wonderful ;-)

Pragati Maidan and Traffic

Pragati Maidan is a major bottleneck for traffic. If one lives in Noida (where I live) and wants to goto Central or West Delhi then Pragati Maidan is invariably part of your way and you live to regret the day this road was made; The Roadtrip to Hell. The situation is so bad sometimes that people have renamed it from Pragati Maidan to Durgati Maidan!!

The situation worsens considerably every year from 14th Nov to 28th Nov. when Pragati Maidan hosts the India International Trade Fair (IITF). Miles long traffic jams are a common sight, and that is not a pretty sight. The situation worsened so much last to last year that it was virtually impossible to cross the area during peak hours.

The traffic police woke up last year with a new metallic overhead bridge, better traffic management and better pedestrian management. And this year they have excelled beyond themselves. The traffic this year is much better. So much better that it is a pleasure to drive from there! There are various reasons to this;

1. Far better traffic management - Policemen every 10 meters to push forward any stationery vehicle. No stoppage means better movement
2. Heavy barricading so that pedestrians do not spill on to the roads
3. Overbridge to help pedestrians cross peacefully
4. Lots of parking areas that are located around the area than being concentrated in a single area.
5. Good shuttle services from parking areas.
6. No U-turn anywhere
7. Large ads in all newspapers to show all these arrangements.

But the biggest reason is that there is so much hullabaloo about the trade fair traffic situation that people voluntarily keep away from the area for the fear of traffic jams. I personally avoided the area on the first day of the IITF. But the other roads were so jam packed, it took me 45 minutes to cross 1.5 kms. But because everyone is keeping away from Pragati Maidan, that is actually a better place to go from!!! No traffic jams and no problems.

So in peak season, Pragati Maidan is my favourite route!!

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Hmm...

Mentioned in a student's blog. Have a look at Nitika's blog.

Madan Prahar

Madan Prahar - interesting name, isn't it?

Madan is a name for Kamdeva, the God of love in Hindu Mythology. Prahar is a strike, a blow. So technically Madan Prahar means a blow by Kamdeva, in other words, Cupid's arrow strikes!

I use it for someone I know, who thinks he is a gift to women, whereas the case is actually the opposite.

So, it is a derogatory reference to someone who thinks highly of his charms ;-)

What happened here?

A chance look through my blog's stats showed something interesting - I checked out a referring link and it turned out that I was being linked to by another blog!

Have a look at India Daily which is a roundup of Indian blogs.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Should India hang Abu Salem or not?

Everyone in India is excited about the extradition of Abu Salem and wants to hang him for his involvement in the Bombay Bomb Blasts.

Wait!

Before I go further, let me say that I fully support hanging him for his involvement in the crimes.

But, let's do a bit of future gazing, also called scenario analysis.

If we hang him, how likely is Portugal (or for that matter European Union(EU)), to hand over any more terrorists to us? They will refuse to hand over any more terrorists and thus become safe haven for terrorists who will committ crimes and run to Europe, knowing fully well that even if they are caught, EU will not hand over them to India.

So the choice is clear. We can hang one Abu Salem and be done with it. Or we can sentence him to 25 years in prison and make some strong friends in the EU to help us in the war against terrorism.

And with 25 years in prison, hard labour and India's poor record on Human Rights in prisons, who knows what can happen to him!

The official website of India

Have a look at the Government of India's website here.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Songs uploaded by me

Have a look at some songs that I have uploaded.

http://www.coolgoose.com/go/music?user=ankurjain&go=1

Any requests for old or new songs may be sent to mail2ankur AT gmail DOT com - I specialise in Hindi film music (right from 1930s to 2005)