June 2006 Archives

Like all normal people in the world, I too had always wondered why American forces had to move from Afganisthan to Iraq and now to Iran... calling it neccessary for world peace.

I mean, why did America after everything they live for, in their economically busy country invest to prevent world terrorism... that too when more than half of the world dont participate. Americans definitely would be last to sacrifice their life for world peace ... more so since they are economically more valuable than many others.

All questions were being answered slowly in the past years of this struggle america has been leading.... though many of us have been ignorant to understand it.

This news item: Zarqawi killed... begs to be noticed and explains the core strategy behind coalition troop movements in this struggle.

The explanation: Zarqawi moved from Afganisthan to Iraq when Afganisthan was struck and cleansing started. And Zarqawi was leader of Al-Queda and one of the planners of Sept'11 other than Osama bin Laden. It is even considered that osama bin laden moved to iraq sometime before zarqawi. The chief heads moving from Afganisthan to Iraq demanded American coalition forces to finish their work in Afganisthan in a hurry and move next to Iraq...which they did.

After these many years they have got Zarqawi.. now on is Osama bin laden... and you would guess it right. Osama seems to be hiding in Iran, otherwise why would American forces suddenly throw up their interest there.

If I remember right, the Iranian chief cleric (I forgot his name, somebody like 'quatollah') openly said once (when i think american coalition forces entered iraq), that America has no right to invade any arab nation and if osama would come to Iran they would protect him, and Americans should be only managing their country.

This Iranian chief kept on voicing things atleast in indirect support of Jehads, atleast until the time American defence secretary and the president started talking about Iran hosting terror and secretly making atom bombs, and the world media started investigating.

Now, the chief is more so silenced and whole of Iran says its a responsible nation and would not encourage any terrorists in its soil, and its interest in weapons is only to strengthen its defence against Iran's own view that threat to the country's assets have increased.

I somehow feel America is working on Iran and any mistake Iran's government makes or is forced to make by external hands, America will take advantage and push for UN sanctions, then attacks just like they went into Iraq. Because the target osama bin laden is HOT, and americans know that osama and his men are always waiting for americans to stop doing the war somewhere. If Americans stop somewhere, it would allow for easier coordination between terrorists holed up around the globe to wake up to planning newer attacks on Americans.

Can extradition treaties help stop wars like this?
I have heard about extradition treaties and how different countries vary in their perceptions in seeing terrorists. One person who is called "the most wanted" in one country is just a tourist in another country and the other country will ask for a lot of proof and documents to allow arresting the terrorist....sometimes... but most often countries dont allow other country's forces to make headway in their land, for political reasons, even if it be arresting gross terrorists like osama bin laden.

This is where extradition treaties help countries. The treaties are signed just like other treaties and allows countries to communicate in trust and deport a terrorist who moved into hiding... but even with extradition treaties things might take nothing less than 4-5 years for clearance of papers and the deporting or arrest to happen... you must have heard a nation reporting that they arrested a person found to links with a terrorist attack in a different place in the world, and that the police handed over the fugitive to that country's police where the guy committed the error.

The inter-country escape route..
Most often extradition treaties have something important.. they spell out how the extradited person should be treated and tried at court before punishing him, and how the country that deports the terrorist can recommend punishment even if the person is found guilty. Its for reasons to support the idea that you cannot allow some country to call a person living in your country, a terrorist, and finally shoot him on his head saying he deserved to die because he was a terrorist.

Imagine, if an extradited person would later be found innocent than guilty, it puts a bad sign on the source country.. and hence all this communication formalities.

Unfortunately, all this goes in favor of terrorists and they make use of such political problems and border rights to move into hiding without the hiding part actually. Saddam hussein was only one i have heard of, who stayed in real hiding, underground, in his own country calling it for the love of his country... i guess saddam never trusted any other country, becos he knew his errors were many and very popularly known that he would stand no chance even if he escaped to Tulavu islands.

Eucador for the first time scored 2 goals in FIFA and stunned Poland and the hopes of polish fans. Poland which won the world cup in 1974, has a big history of international games dating back to years. Poland still lost to the considerably new team of Eucador which proved to be every bit better than the poland side, be it defence or mid-fielders or forwards.

Poland 0 - 2 Eucador

Finally, you could see a big crowd in white and red keeping mum as they watched eucador score their second at the 80th minute.

And about poland.. I am new with poland players.. what seemed interesting was, we had a lot of '...ski' names like borowski in the players.. which I thought was only common with japanese names... and poland was also donning a white and red uniform for players which again looked japanese. For instance somebody could think it was japan playing against eucador if they weren't aware.

Fifa begins with 90 mins and 6 goals of precision..

It was a great game between Germany and Costa Rica... which germany won 4-2 amidst good contest by CostaRica. By skills, player levels, and history Costa Rica may not be considered any threat to Germany... but they do threaten to use all open opportunities best and they did that today. 'Wanchop Again' said the commentator when CostaRica's wanchop artistictally crafted the ball to score is consecutive second.. (He did try many an attempt for a hatrick but a lone hero he was for sure because many of his teammates were all the time busy with defence and stayed back in their half of the ground.

If you saw the replays of all the goals today, you would want to play four of the six again and again..
1. Germany's Lahm plays a direct kick way out from the penalty area, and the ball drifts and swirls to the topright corner of the goal as if it was an preprogrammed to hit the corner folding of the goal post and head inside, and that was Germany's and the match's, and this world cup's first goal.

2. Wanchop is an artist with the ball.. After receiving a pass from teammates amidst the complex web of german defence, wanchop carries the ball like he is practising football and loves the ball so much and calculates so much that he doesnt energetically kick the ball to the goal even if the area seems clear... He manipulates time and his defence and artistically pushes the ball the direction, the height, the way it needs to get into the goal.. right at the last fraction of the second when the ball otherwise would have moved out of his quarters.

3. After two other goals by klose for Germany, through great headers, making it 3-1, Costa Rica badly wanted goals.. and there's one when Wanchop is there.
Wanchop again gets the ball after their teammates succesfully struggle and push it to him.. wanchop wastes time as usual just pushing the ball more closer to an area, as if he already knew the future positions of the ball and the defenders.. again wastes time not kicking it even though a german defender is already flying with all legs towards the ball to knock wanchops chances.. wanchop makes your fingers nervous pressing on your chair watching TV waiting to see wanchop just kick the ball with all the world's force.. And the artist with exclusive care and love for the ball does his 45th international goal in only 70 matches. ... and all costa rica fans and of course your fingers feel relieved of the pressure and smile at wanchops precision.

4. Another long shot from outside the penalty area with no tactics but just another direct pass, Frings of germany takes his time running straight and fast towards costa rica's goal while the pass comes exactly perpendicular to his run... reaches him just as he crosses the half-line of the field and runs forward like a steam engine headed to slam all costa rican defenders into their own goal post... .. Frings does a good shot with good power, and at that exact spot on the ball with that exact position of his German Reebok shoe, which carries the ball swirling and arcing slowly away from the very good costarican goal keeper's faar extended left hand...again a goal close to the unreachable top corner of the goal post and there it is.. the fourth goal that gives all Germans the clear signal that Germany has already won this game with 15 odd mins to spare...and as the scoreboard trickles... Germany 4 - Costa Rica 2.

And if your internet savvy, and especially google search savvy,... you have more for this football season. Search for 'fifa' on google and you come with this page.. google seems to have worked great on the result.. What else would one expect searching on the internet, you have the results of the current or last game until the last minute, the schedule of the next game ..that too in your timezone, and the 'as always' good google results.

"Enjoy FIFA" .. And, hope you saw the new logo of google to mark FIFA 06.

You should be storing or remembering atleast 5 important phone numbers. And these will be customer care numbers of your bank, or broadband service provider, or mobile service provider and the likes.

Why? Because you need to contact them on issues with their services. If you are a regular internet user and that too from India you would definitely have called the broadband provider this week.

Are these numbers helpful?
Firstly,
Its good these days every company really spends money on customer care by hiring a call center and they are reachable 24-by-7 for solving issues, or atleast that consoling message 'Your complaint has been noted".

Secondly,
More than anything else this helps the middle and top level management of services companies to happily escape facing the customer... since all customer complaints are routed through the call center to the support personnel.

The big advantage:
Like said earlier, your call is handled 24-by-7 and your issue processed (atleast forwarded by the system to the right guys). This is a huge advantage which should be likened. And this advantage is very meaningful in populated countries meaning more people could complain, and also wherever the attitude of managers or the companies itself not being customer friendly.

About the attitude part.. Its bare truth that you would come across only a few managers in big offices, who really bother if a customer has a complaint, because the general opinion is 'if you have customers you will have complaints...don't be glued to them.'. And so, raising a complaint with a call center helps you feel better that somebody atleast makes a note and gives you a complaint number.. and still further, they sometimes call you up as part of a feedback process to find out whether you are happy with the way it was fixed.

About the protectionism... yes, this needs no proving that managers hide behind the firewall of call centers.. and its so hard to get a manager to answer your complaint on the phone. I would only believe that Call centers might have very clear instructions that calls are not to be redirected to managers unless its a big customer.

Though advantageous to many occassions, a customer care center has so many protectionisms implemented that you can't ignore 'that big fact' that managers are hiding behind.

The term used in software is Firewall for equipment protecting computers from the internet, the general public and importantly from hackers. The term is very applicable here .. We could term Customer care as a corporate firewall to protect middle and higher level management from facing the heat of problems in the services that they mismanage.

© copyrights harishpalaniappan.com

After cricket politics, welcome movie politics in india... better call it movitics since the links seem getting too closer that they are already merged words 'movies' and 'politics'.

We could actually start from years back, but to allow this writing to discuss till today's scenario we better jump in leaps.. starting with the movie 'Water' which got accolades in world stage but not one decent screening in India, to the review by Defence ministry for allowing the movie 'Rang de basanthi', to the name-sake ban on Da Vinci Code for impressing christians in the country, and the latest stupid ban in Gujarat on the aamir khan flick 'Fanaa', ..... uh..cough.. politics in india is sure maturing. (Anybody has a doubt here!, stop me.)

Wait a sec.
Everyone says Tamilnadu is the state where movies and politics are linked at the roots, and grow hand-in-hand... may be... ya it is... da vinici is banned in the state government even after the central government passed the movie..(its state government's turn to ban)

Whatever! I wonder... Is our politics really so boring :o) that all ministers and the government in the country seem to be watching all movies at home and banning what they dont like (or may be the ones they dont understand..).

movitics is the medicine to be taken once in a month (or a week considering bollywood frequency of new releases), to catalyze boring indian politics.

short sms:

.. hey guys there, our honourable indian politicians.. i know you are all busy reforming the country, and solving sitting-on-the-head big issues....anyway, consider taking a break out of the movies, you can watch it on weekends like i do, not so loyally every movie, and that too, before its release.

Movies and politics are so connected here..you know... it takes a message or two to remind people.. otherwise there are no issues in india. .. Do visit us.. (consider that a small incredible! india promo)

And yea! how did i forget this thing.. you must hear this..

Lately supreme court judges are pushed to handle some movie releases..

yea, breaking news today was, 'Supreme court asks Gujarat government to protect people who want to screen the movie Fanaa'.... I am not sure whether the judgement had any clause to provide security for the audience. Its such a state in that state.

You know why things like ipod, mac mini, sony handycam, japanese restaurant robots, sony's robot dog..and such gizmos don't sell much or nothing at all in India... because we just need a TV, watching news is becoming more entertaining these days.. and you should give it to the media's cover stories on such movie bans...they even started showing movie trailers part of the news.

India is happening. :o)

Disclaimer:
I am not trying to be harshly funny and unpatriotic about my country here... cmon' too many new movie releases and you always need to make strange ways to make the release breaking news.

The attempt to politicize movies actually does free promotions for the movies, or I would personally think so if I were a distributor for Fanaa (outside Gujarat ofcourse!).

And.. For the aggressive patriots who cry foul at all this... it also helps to keep your stress levels low if you can think of issues such fun in a way...until solutions show up.

With so many people around (second largest populated country), with so much happening (not just in politics), I would not leave india even on business for another 2-3 years...that's what i tell friends. Sure enough, more Indians abroad should be catching up with indian blogs and news these days to know whats happening in the country.

If you have more ideas (becos movitics will run out of fashion soon), write to those emailIDs which you find on indian government and ministerial websites making your suggestions.

Meanwhile i will wait till Da vinci gets the nod in Tamilnadu, and also a tamil version hits the screens in chennai..(with some funny name...i wonder whether it would be 'ragasiya kurippu da' :o)

President Abdul kalam returned the bill that was hurriedly prepared in the past few weeks, and passed on the floor of the house recently.. to protect more than 40 Members of parliament that the the ruling coalition government depends upon for staying in government. The new bill passed tries to amend laws to block 'office of profit' disqualifiction of members if they are directly holding positions in companies or organizations other than being the members of the parliament.

The drama troupe called 'congress party' which is the major party in the ruling coalition government has a lot of members who hold positions outside the parliament....what nuts! what can they do inside there...it should be boring.

After the president slapped disqualification notice on a member for holding an office of profit, the issue became bigger with the chief of the congress party Sonia gandhi being pulled into the arena for her office of profit, being Chairperson, National Advisory Council...other than Member, Parliament.

Politicians raised issues that the constitution is not clear about what is an 'office of profit'... and so the law needs to be amended...That was the gimmick to make possibility of amending the bill. During this time, senior drama artiste of the congress party sonia gandhi resigned all her posts including her member of parliament post saying she is "sacrificing" because the issue pained her. And no wonder she stood and won a relection from the same constituency 'Rae Bareli', which went into re-election only because she being its elected member, resigned.

From now on the artiste is to be addressed with a 'ji' in respect of the sacrifice.

Sonia gandhi ji is a sacrificer though... she would not bother whether her resignation, in a stupid attempt would bring in additional costs to conduct relections, spending peoples tax money for proving her single-mindedness. Its not her money, so it doesn't matter.

The president returning the bill, was a little good sign that someone cares whether the bill is legally correct... but still by law the president can only reject the bill once, and now that the parliament has decided to send it back to the president on its second round trip, without making any changes for the questions raised, .. the president has no option but only to accept the bill.

Thanks to all stupidity and the laws of stupidity being amended again and again... india will remain a stupid country. If there's a grave hole in the constitution whereby some people who killed a person jessica lal could not be arrested, the parliament wont bother to ammend it this faster or move and close the bill all this aggressive.. they will do it only if it disturbs their money making business of running a government.

And hurray, big applause for another excellent show-off by the drama troupe, and outstanding performance by chief artiste Sonia Gandhi. Mission impossible 3 can wait for release until our own nail-biting dramas still play center stage.