Harish Palaniappan's

A few years ago I gave up non-vegetarian because something I witnessed in a butcher shop when I was a kid was always lingering around in my head and bothering me as I grew older. The butcher, in the excitement of selling fresh meat to customers waiting in line outside, happily slit a goat's throat in front of me and grandma.. we were standing first in the line close to the doorway.

The scene of the goat moaning in pain and beating its legs and waving its head with eyes almost popping out in the fear of dying is something that I still can't seem to forget.

After I became an adult I had the maturity to push it to my family that I am no more eating meat or eggs. Slowly it happened that my people at home felt similarly uncomfortable about the meat they eat, also because they were having one person at home(me) who was running out of the house with excuses whenever meat was on the dinner table.

I also had another reason to quit non-veg.. the vegetarian and junk food industry grew with a lot of options, some of them even kind of replacing tastes that you get with meat. So sticking to my decision was easy for me. and its more easier nowadays with the options you have.

My parents and family slowly moved to be pure vegetarian even disliking the smell of eggs .. partly because we had pets.. from dogs to fishes and birds. We still do have a cute pet dog, and a nice big aquarium at home. These animals showered so much love on us, and we got so attached, that we kind of became so sensitive towards animals. We would have tears in eyes whenever some TV channel does a special story on animals being tortured and killed for meat.

I am not sure whether we can argue and stop the world from consuming non-vegetarian foods.. and I don't believe that it is possible or feasible for human kind to do away with meat because humans by evolution consumed meat always. You can't change something that was historically created...at-least not by showing videos or talking sympathetically, and definitely not in a few years.

But, if you are a non-vegetarian..and you love non-veg foods, and sometimes thought that you can take more of meat for it is tasty tasty and kindles excitement, you should see videos in the youtube.com link below...and make a decision about reducing your meat intake or at least not increasing it.

You tube - meet your meat videos

By this article, I am not trying to put pressure on non-vegetarians just because I have given up meat.. or try demonize the meat industry or people who earn their money with that industry,

but, inturn, I am ignoring everything happening around me, around everywhere, and think of those animals from their point of view of existence.

Like us, they too would have dreams of playing over the grass, munching some, and running around some, or at-least if not all that, to just die gracefully, without dying like in war with all that pain and butchering scenes in front of their eyes.

Think.

Posted by Harish at 9:43 PM | Permalink

p.s. All through this post below, I refer to the people in the American government as Americans. as it is the usual way for critics of American government. So, 'Americans' used below doesn't refer to American people, but the American president, his staff.. ,also importantly chief of American army, navy airforce, and the American defence secretaries.

We all know of the way Americans consider themselves and the rest of the world.. yes, they consider everyone else the "rest of the world". as if the world was a big platter with Americans as the main dish.

Yesterday(or today if I am right) kosovo got freedom .. it became a Nation. While I was reading something on that.. I landed up on some crazy things only Americans can do calling it interestingly "for world peace". What you see below is America's largest military camp(since the vietnam) outside of America.. in kosovo.

Well Americans are not just stupid enough to build military bases outside of their country.. but also build very large bases outside their country.. and of course.. that's for world peace.

Camp BondSteel

The camp is called bondsteel. and there are about 7000 soldiers or more in the camp .. yea for world peace.. To any dumb fellow, it would be obvious that having 7000 troops at a place itself calls for war, not peace.. anyway, we are talking about Americans here.. not just dumb fellows.

Dick Cheney who served as defence secretary during the senior Bush administration granted a company 'Brown and Root Services' a big military contract in 1992 .. and later on became the CEO of the company for 5 years in a goodwill exchange offer from that company. no not joking. It all happens in America. Now, the part we are interested in is, Dick Cheney comes back as US Vice President in junior Bush administration and grants a lot (read loot) of defence projects including development of camp BondSteel.

The company 'Brown and Root Services' did a good job.. and that's why the landscape is so lovely in the above picture. For electronic engineers like me, can compare it to seeing a well laid out printed circuit board. It doesn't look real.. it looks extraordinarily perfectly developed site. What we are interested in knowing here is the money the company made. They made a whopping amount in developing this project, because in kosovo, in the area where the site is located they only had to pay $1 - $3 per hour of labour to the locals and that is considered very good compensation as the local economy which is 80% unemployed was almost entirely dependent just on agriculture-oriented jobs until bondsteel.

To read more on this crazy money and power stuff you can read the below links.
1. Camp Bond-steel in Kosovo - Hanna's blog
2. Remarks to United States Troops at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo - George W. Bush - Transcript

Notice to Indians:
In the second link, there's a part of transcript of American president Bush's remarks to troops in Camp BondSteel where he says something like the Americans are indeed controlling world peace "from kosovo to kashmir" ... whoopy.. yea, kashmir he says.. both kosovo and kashmir are not in America and looks like Americans have hell a lot of free time to tackle things outside their country (as they have completed managing their country enough).. and so Mr.Bush addresses the troops saying their involvement and sacrifice is required for world peace from kosovo to kashmir.

This person Bush, he is definitely very funny when he speaks, because he, I think, is one American President who often stupidly assumes he has done a lot to the world(oh, may be in line of hitler) and thinks he is not just responsible for America but the world itself. Good grief.. God save America(save the world too).

End Note:
Anyways, all this is something that happened in 2002, I just read that blog now..
Although, it was an interesting pass-time read... and imagine how interesting Americans should be now in 2008, if until 2002 itself was such interesting.

Posted by Harish at 12:04 AM | Permalink

Have you seen the movie 'The Pursuit of Happiness'... and did you have goose pimples watching its climax.. .My newspaper today had an actually much more inspiring story.. narrates briefly a real story of Petchi.T. Read at the below link.. take your time to feel every word of it... as if happening in front of you.. you will feel it.

She chartered her own course - The Hindu, metro Plus, pg 1

A dream: How would it be, if all poor had this courage and perseverance towards education.. ..actually some of us too have to learn something about perseverance from such people, we take it for granted that we are hard working and using our time the best. Keep dreaming. I will, for me thats the first step towards acheiving.

Posted by Harish at 11:06 AM | Permalink

I have sometimes made boring advices, a couple of sessions/seminars at workplace... and I have been a listener in more boring sessions especially powerpoint based .. particularly ones which have paragraphs of text in every slide.

Here are some interesting thoughts a friend(sangeetha) makes on the idea of how NOT to do presentations/meetings.. and if you are victim, how to adjust.

1. How NOT to make meetings interesting...

2. 20 things to do when you are listening to boring speakers in a ‘dignified’ gathering…

And, regarding how to do a good powerpoint presentation.. from another friend's(venkat) blog archives

3. Tips for doing effective Presentations (Proffessional tips that is.)

Posted by Harish at 2:43 AM | Permalink

A friend sangeetha.. brewed up some interesting thoughts here on that topic.

Posted by Harish at 7:05 PM | Permalink

A sudden thought.. and I was wondering where all these human beings I come across came from. It started after I saw the usual thing that irritates me while I am driving.. seeing somebody spit on the road with all the ignorance they can show to keeping the city/place clean.

After cribbing to myself over it for few minutes, I landed up thinking about evolution of human beings. Yea, I know I am wasting lot of time thinking over a lot of things.. too much of the time.. but for now, this thought I think is worth sharing.

Born in Africa:
Most of us know or have read somewhere that the human species emerged from Africa. Many findings and researches on the species and evolution of life on earth, have only confirmed this, times too many.

Some interesting questions come up.. which we probably don't seem to ponder over much:

Does Africa look like the cradle of the earth..
Has mankind(including women) done "anything" interesting to the birthplace of us all.

Some of us take extraordinary measures to keep the birth place of our gods and goddesses, or the birthplace of our religious beliefs in great shape and with all sacred-ness attached.

What have human done with Africa.

SouthAfrica is a great place.. that's fine.
But what we see in at least the rest of africa is not like anything respected as the birthplace of human species.. it only looks the other way.. like the butchering place of human species.. take Darfur.. take Rwanda..

Is it then always like.. migration takes off the love you have for your starting point? I haven't migrated much, so I don't know.. but looks like migrations not only take off love, it just detaches you from the original world. Its like we shifted from Earth to Mars, and ignored about back home, because we consider it somebody else's place.

Migration does a lot to people.. thanks to that fairer skin some of us have, only because our species moved to colder parts of earth. But this shift in migration has changed a lot more, a lot in how people live, and how they see different parts of the Earth.

To the American president, America is the world.. and the other part.. is called the "Rest of the world". I think most American president's have famously used the 'Rest of the world' thing in all their speeches.. at least their election campaign speeches.

The Genographic project:
Not geo-graphic.. but geno-graphic.
The national geographic channel.. has this project.. studying the migration of human species from genes... genes that are voluntarily donated from people around the world.

Anybody(human.. :o) is welcome to donate.. if you want to, you can sign-up on their website, buy a gene kit, which you will use to extract a small sample of blood from your body and send it with your details, your immediate parent details, and your place of stay or migration history from however high the family chain you can remember.. if you wish to, you can send your details anonymously without your name or exact street address and all.

They will take a few months.. and send you back a gene map of your evolution(by email only).. with details particularly stating how you came to where you are... from Africa.. of course, they have their disclaimers of the accuracy of the map because it is simply based on the number of donor samples they receive from around the globe. Also, they add your gene mapping to the world's gene mapping they are creating.

Off track:
For now.. I think I remembered the song 'Born in Africa' by Dr.Alban.. one of my favorites years back. These days, probably Dr.Alban is too old for the music industry and he doesn't seem to release anything.. My other favorite of Alban's was.. "It's my life".

Posted by Harish at 6:06 PM | Permalink

Wow.. chennaiist ran an interesting post on a tamil columnist Jasmine Ramesh..

While the post is a small interview they had with the writer, the portion that interested me was about a question the writer once raised with kalam and what kalam had replied for that.

I quote this from chennaiist:

Question: I'd asked him why professionally successful people like him don't care too much about their appearances.

Answer Sir APJ Adbul Kalam - the former (and the most favorite) president of india, gave:
"Once, soon after the successful launch of an Indian satellite, I'd gone to meet the then Prime Minister, Mrs.Indira Gandhi. Owing to the late working hours and tension, I'd gone in a crumpled and dirty attire. The watchman refused to let me in saying I was not dressed fit enough to meet the PM. The PM came personally and told the watchman-'He wears the clothes of victory! What can be better than that?' and welcomed me in. From that day, I decided that a man is what his nature and achievement is!"

"Clothes of Victory"
That's something I hear for the first time.. and think will relish knowing this for a long time to come.

As far as I read or as I can remember, this thing doesn't appear in kalam's biography "Wings of Fire" too (if i am right).

Posted by Harish at 6:23 PM | Permalink

No its not teacher's day today.. but I am writing this post so late.. yea, I seem to always write delayed posts especially because I am probably not specifically a writer who can get used to writing stuff because there's this occasion or something.

I think some discussions with friends at cry.org volunteer meet-ups, have got my head rolling on some thoughts on education, standards of education in India, and what quality of teachers we have at schools, etc.,

While I am probably a 51% pessimist, and would love to use another opportunity to critique the system like it is most often in my posts, this one is for good teachers I have seen, who have inspired me to see things differently.

My favorite subjects at school were simply the ones taught by my favorite teachers at school.. I tend to believe it is so for everyone, that they start having a liking a subject if that subject's teacher is very kind, inspiring and motivating apart from being a good, communicative teacher.

And my most hated subject was zoology, its not that I don't like animals or anything, but because my zoology teacher always found interesting ways to harass me or humiliate me in front of the class because my scores were extra-ordinarily low in her subject.. probably she strangely thought that all her humiliation was going to improve my interest towards the subject.

Botany (and biology later) were my all-time favorites because of my botany teacher at school.. who went great extents to teach the subject more lively and innovatively.. For that, she would go all extent around the city, to find some plants or animals and bring them to the class to show us live what is 'moss' or, how an owl's eyes really looked, or how a rat goes to sleep long hours after smelling some chloroform.
She would give us interesting homework.. "catch a cockroach".. she would even explain where we can find cockroaches at home... how to catch them by their antennas.. how to pack them alive in polythene packs... and bring them to class the next day. the next day morning, even before school starts everyone would be trying to show-off their designer cockroaches and start exaggerating about why their cockroach find is more looky and fashionable and brave than what other people have caught. All that discussion would trigger a great interest to wait wait and wait eagerly till the botany class happens in the evening.
A few minutes after the class starts, we would all be doing the most obvious thing, tearing a leg or antenna from our cockroaches and counting how many segments are there as per the diagram on board.. Obviously you could hear girl screams from the 10th standard biology lab in our school every wednesday at 1pm.. (it is AVM school vadapalani chennai if you want to check out.. but i don't know whether they still do it so interesting even today.. or whether that inspiring teacher still works there).. even some boys faint, let alone girls.
Unfortunately, my interests were more to computers later, and I didn't specialize in biology in 11th or 12th.. otherwise I could have killed more rats, cockroaches, and all that. I heard many years back that one of the guys got very inspired and became a professional snake catcher... i dont know whether it was a rumour.

Physics:
My physics teacher was a young man in his 20's and he was one of the non-english teachers who spoke good, clear english. Before every physics class, two students would go and bring something from the physics lab into the class, and the teacher would follow. "So, what are we going to see today" was the surprise.. most often he would bring some boring shiny ball tied to a long string and let it oscillate from his table and ask us watch it.. "the pendulum and oscillations changed a lot in physics" he would say.. what! this string and the ball changed everything.. this man is nuts I would think.. until I learnt about oscillators and more science and more equipment in electronics at college.
Once, while he was teaching and writing the word 'parallelogram' on the board, he forgot whether it was single or double 'l'... (today we can dismiss such things as not a mistake, because we have American and British spellings always to justify mistakes). this spell check thingy caught him un-awares, and he was probably slightly embarrassed that he forgot the spelling.. for that one student even got excited and pulled the chalk out of the physics master's hand and added one more 'l' to the word to the laughter of the class.. 'Sir' was ok with that.. but probably he planned all day until next class to talk something about it.
The next day, the first thing he told in the physics class was.. a story of newton's real life, and how newton made small small mistakes in real life.. we all listened to the interesting story without realizing why he was telling us the story.. after the story, he said.. "this is how big people forget small things often.. " with a grin on his face depicting that he was a big shot like newton and forgetting two 'l's for that word was ok. everyone had a good laugh.. and many of us particularly admired his way of smartly justifying the previous day's joke on him.

There were quite a few teachers like this.. and quite a few teachers who would do nothing but read out from books or small bits of paper they made notes on. Similar experiences at college too.

Probably these experiences got me interested in teaching.. though I have not particularly been a teacher anywhere except for the 3 or 4 classes I enjoyed taking at my previous employment.. but unfortunately on programming and technologies.. not my favorite subjects.

Whenever I hear some interesting story or experience of a teacher.. or a student saying or blogging about his/her teacher, I tune in and start imagining the story.

Today, I was reading this friend's blog who has posted something on her experience with students.. which was touchy.

Western education system:
How can I end this post without comparisons with the western systems of education:

I have different perceptions about quality of education in other countries, and they keep changing simply because I have never visited (leave alone living in) a different country. But, the idea of schooling / education or the grade system or the syllabi, taken anything, I always have an unanimous feeling that the west's school system is best organized.. in terms of all that.. and importantly the policies and the education system itself.

The best thing I have heard about American schooling is, it seems they even recognize grades from home-schooling under certain conditions, which means students could study from home and still be eligible to apply to colleges when they are ready.. Imagine! .. if we had a proper system like that in India, it would mean, any child can study from home itself even if he/she is poor or cannot travel far for school, or doesn't have to quit education itself just because his/her poor parents find work in a different place away from school every few months. The kid, could still study from home, take up tests at centers, and still be eligible for college if only he/she had the drive and motivation to do so.

That would be interesting.

Posted by Harish at 12:39 AM | Permalink

Some years back,

A relative's child I was trying to play with once asked me.. "Why are you having a moustache".. got me surprised and dumb unable to respond.... made me even keep away from kids and children for sometime.
If that question came today, I would probably just smile and find a changeover topic.

Back then,
I didn't like the idea of talking to people who are "strangers" or unknown to some extent.. "networking is important" everyone said.. but it didn't get into my head. May be the way I was brought up.. until I escaped to a greener patch.. Tumkur for college and hostel.. and even self-cooking experiments of how to make a sambar taste like a bad soup (Recipe will be shared on request :).

I used to think, what networking?, what to talk to people, and for what benefit or help.
yea dumbo.. kind of... to tell you my seniors at college ragged me just one way.. "poi pesu da".. and only after a slap I spoke to anybody...

Today it is a different thing.. I probably can talk (read reel out) non-stop for hours on something I know nothing about.

Blogs helped open up..

And before blogs.. it was
Films, conversation with office colleagues, taking sessions at office (which people would eagerly attend for that after lunch siesta.. especially getting a quick sleep at my sessions), and some humility of making mistakes or being unable to answer something..... even a couple of painful break-ups.

One of my offices took pains even trying and pressing me to handle my first client myself.. no, not on a project.. but to tour chennai with him and show him places.

Nice thing was, my office organized everything, except that I had to talk and keep him company.. I don't think I was afraid..only that I was not particularly a chatterbox or did I have anything interesting to tell somebody about me or my work.. this is what I always thought those days... "There's nothing to talk".

I and Tom.. so went around chennai that day.. and not just Tom, it was even my first time visiting Rajiv Gandhi's memorial, Egmore museum, and the whopping-ly great collection of old adorable gods and goddesses statues in the stone museum wing.

All my life until then I just ignored knowing about chennai, or visiting all these places.. This was changing my interest in chennai for the first times I think.

On the way, I saw how people would react to seeing Tom a foreigner carrying a live preview digicam (which was not common at that time in india).. how people liked to stare at him and ask "What's the time?" though they know it.. and Tom would smile and walk on.

We were in vandalur zoo.. unfortunate for me, we thought we will use the first public rest room in the zoo..nature's call. The rest room was very badly "un"maintained.. and Tom couldn't believe this was the state of the only zoo in chennai.. I had to pull out stuff like .. "that was probably the over used one.. inside there will be better rest rooms"... I think this was my first instance of trying diplomacy with a client outside of technical discussions.

Vandalur zoo was more disappointing in that there were only cages and cages in most parts of the zoo... I and Tom would search for animals, sometimes end up joking that they put this cage for that cockroach which was there running around the walls of the cage.

When we were in vandalur zoo.. on instance of seeing any animal or bird, Tom would flick out his cam and start shooting.. and I remember the long queue of people who immediately line up behind him seeing the shot in the preview screen on his cam("dei anga irukrathu ithula theriyudhu da").. some would go the extra bit to ask Tom to allow them hold his cam with their hands to see it.

These days..

I realized slow and late that if you are not good at networking with people, talking to people understanding your audience, .. and all that, you will just live life like a process. unable to enjoy it, or feel confident of doing bigger things.

You need people.. not just to watch a movie with.. not just to read the blog you write.. not just to befriend.. .but for living life itself...

(no not talking about life partner stuff.. but hmm. shaadi.com might like to use that sentence)

It dawned on me big and costly when I failed to secure one single project in my first 6 months of quitting cognizant and starting my own office from home. Its been a year few months now, many learnings.. many costly misgivings where I lost work because of a miscommunication.. or I got a work because the person liked the line I had for the day on my msn... sometimes working for people who are all talk and no payment kinds.. sometimes arguing with even good clients... later apologizing.. and things like that.

Initially, I was only becoming known for quitting a job at cognizant to start my own.. and with no big money in the bank. I remember my Exit interview at cognizant where my HR said "Yes.. thats what i am trying to understand.. ", when I told him, my father is not a rich man with whose money I was going to start..

I had this drive.. again reading from blogs of small and big entrepreneurs of how they started, and how they stressed that "you should not have options like returning to salaried employment if you fail.. because then you will not think what to do to not fail"... and readings like that.

and I am happy for having been successful to a basic level now that I am registering my own office and trying to expand.

Meeting people and sharing views is a major driving force for me.. and I relish the meet-ups for quite a few days after the meeting too.

Blogs
Blogging in a way encourages people to express their self with more narration... and imagine, what better way than knowing somebody through their writings. Also, blogs are popular because of the simple fact that everybody can talk as much as they want .. not like in meetings or get-to-gethers when not everybody gets a comfortable opportunity to talk and express all they have to.

The most good thing about blogs is,
for the writer,
it is the way you improve your writing to fit your audience.. which you might lack/not be able to correct when directly speaking to a live audience,
and,
for a reader,
the way the reader can be an anonymous listener.. to what is expressed in the blog, its comments section and all that, even without responding to it.

Meeting people
Meeting people and blogging probably should be used alternatively, if you are trying to enjoy both. Meeting real people makes the blogger write better, have real experiences rather than write movie reviews and news item reviews... and reading blogs can help one understand a person before and after meeting them, and you will love how your perception differs.

My recent meet-ups with CRY.org chennai volunteers .. over the past few months, have given me an enriching experience in meeting people, understanding different kinds of people's perspective of things. Just that I had to make an attempt to meet people... and it has added to so much of brainstorming and in future will also add to some social work I would be able to do.

After most of the meetings at CRY chennai office on sunday evenings.. I come out hungry and with a little headache.. .. you feel hungry when you think more.. and if you didn't eat and continued thinking, it gives an ache.. 'Food for thought' stuff I think.

Posted by Harish at 9:33 PM | Permalink

Accidentally found a link and landed up on aamir khan's blog.

Actor Aamir khan's

Feels very out of the box reading some celebrity's box, the celebrity/page 3 view of things... because I have always been only reading blogs which have posts and posts and posts.. some short, some long, some too very long(like mine)..also kind of monotonous to always read posts...thought that's what any blog becomes end of day.

So reading different people's blogs helps, and if the blogs are very different in their content it is easier. For example, probably aamir is a chatterbox and has a blog that just fits into the 3rd category (long posts).. while jackie chan's posts are one line messages.

Actor Jackie Chan's diary

Later found a link which listed a lot of celebrity blogs.. not sure whether the list is updated or not, neither know whether the blogs have RSS feeds for subscribing and all that.. but if you find your favorite celebrity's blog, be it a TV anchor, an actor, or a marketing /business guru then it should be nice isn't .. Try this below link if you like the idea.

List of Celebrity blogs

Posted by Harish at 1:29 AM | Permalink

Was reading through my old stored collection of important mails and got to this.. How did I forget to put it on my blog before.

Location: Tata Museum, Jamshedpur.

Its an interesting painting.

It reveals itself when you keep a steel cylindrical rod on the board.

Click below image for a better(1024x768) picture:

The steel part symbolically represents JRD Tata's referrence in business circles as a steel man

JRD Tata was the chairman of TataSteel (and TataGroup later until current chairman Ratan Tata took over), and was very successful with bringing up the steel empire of the Tata's in Jamshedpur.

Tata's had set up the steel plant in Jamshedpur well before India even had independence and had almost adopted the town.. It is even today often referred to as 'Tata nagar', which is highly regarded as the other name for Jamshedpur (You can send a snail mail marking TataNagar in place of Jamshedpur and it will reach there).

The ironically real story is:
The painting was a gift to JRD Tata on his Birthday by a street artist. Nobody was able to understand his art. Unfortunately, only the painting was given to JRD and the artist had promised to reveal the secret later (almost an year). And by the time the artist revealed about the steel rod, JRD Tata passed away.

Posted by Harish at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Recently I received an email from Mani Satya Samuel Jayaprakash Santosh. He is a friend of mine.. No, not a grammatical mistake, all that is one person's name.. and he is one of the top 5 long email id guys at cognizant, my last office. We obviously shortened it and called him JP.
While as you may expect we all often make lots of fun on that name, its one really really secular name. hmm. may be not too really because it lacks a muslim part.

I hope JP is not going to look for me after reading one full paragraph about his name here.. agreeably way too much of it. Ok. I will quickly move on to the email he sent.

It was about Portal India Quiz .. and he had marked me to see who was the winner of round 10.

Both the quiz site, and the name of the winner of round 10 excited me.

For, JP was the winner of round 10.. ,
and,
the quiz had an interesting flow, where the person who answers a question, gets to ask the next question. Isn't it more interesting when we can question others and they have to answer. Feels like you are taller than the others.. atleast as long as they figure out the answer. And for obvious reasons, people go to extraordinary effort to use their brains when they know its someone else who is to take the pain searching for the answer.

I have been through this flow before when we quiz each other at college or get-to-gether's, but going through it on the internet, and importantly on Wikipedia, was very exciting.

For any web person, or software programmer, wiki is a cute little, but powerfully big software for content editing and management. And they give it free for community's sake.

No mention of its features or introduction may be neccessary, because everybody sometime must have known that the software world goes ga-ga over wiki, next to google search. For starters though, one aspect should tell it all, that, whatever you see in wikipedia with all its categories and inner pages, can be setup in just a few mins of using the software (except for the content which many users have to start posting).

So, it was exciting to know that this interactive quiz, was one of those many things that you can do with a wiki... and probably only with a wiki you could play quizmaster to make 1000's of unknown people on the web.

You can see / participate in the Quiz here: Portal:India / Quiz

Since its online, and people have time, we could say many get their answers googling for it, but the questions don't sound like any search program in google will know that one. But by the way the questions are, and the way people have explained their answers, this quiz rocks.

One thing.. that I didn't understand though was,
some rounds of the quiz had more questions than the others.. . may be probably it took more to make a winner because everyone was scoring. I didnt understand still whether that was the reason.

Posted by Harish at 7:19 PM | Permalink

Here you get for free today, two links, to make your day hereon interesting.

No reviews about what links have what. Read your choice and let me know what you thought if you have time.

http://rja.blogspot.com/2007/02/v-day-or-d-day.html

http://www.alexisleon.com/story.html

Posted by Harish at 2:12 PM | Permalink

This is an account of what a blog has done to a family and a friend who needed (and still needs) some help.. here in Chennai, India..

It always is interesting to read about some good people you probably haven't met, and the compassion they have on life around them.

If you have the time, please read through these links one after the other.
The posts are verified to be true.. my guarantees on that, if you may.

http://www.kiruba.com/2007/02/seen-life-crashing-down-its-cruel-how.html

http://www.kiruba.com/2007/02/kindness-towards-absolute-stranger-im.html

Thank you
Firstly, you are one of few readers who read this blog..
Though this blog hasn't made me special so far, neither do i expect to become,
I am honestly proud you are reading this and probably the links above. Thanks a ton.

Thanks again,
Harish Palaniappan

-------------------
And now, for the technically inclined, there's a great innovative technology on the second URL above, to collect money easily through the web, calls itself "ChipIn".

If you liked its implementation on that page (in above link), then you might like to read more about it here at chipin.com

The web is rocking, compassionate, and a good place to be part of.
Good thing is all these innovation moves us away from our worries a few years earlier, about the web's unsecurity, lack of passionate web users/innovators... etc., and if anybody still thinks web is an imaginary place, well even 'mind', 'love', 'heaven' .. for that matter even 'GOD' are imaginary.

Posted by Harish at 3:41 PM | Permalink

If you like what steve jobs has created with Apple, with Pixar, with anything else you can think of..and related to Steve jobs... then you will like his 3 stories... that he told to stanford university pass-out students in july, 2005...

You can read the speech in text here..

Posted by Harish at 1:10 PM | Permalink

Is today's world more intelligent or the yesterday's ?
It is building from scratch that is difficult, not building on an existing platform.
It is invention or inventive thinking that creates revolution, not research over an existing invention.
People can only grow inferior in the amount of thoughts and amount of work they do because more and more stuff evolves and makes life more and more easier or better..
Your father would have taken more pain to do what he wanted to do with his children or his business or his life... than you.

"Each new generation of the Earth's beings or the New world, is and will be, inferior in all ways with the Old World."

That is a popular, studied statement by historians, proved through observation by bilogists, scholars and their writings, even from way back in the 18th century.

The dinosaurs were much superior in power, size, mass, and their energy compared to today's animals.. what we call the elephant the biggest animal today. There have existed Dinosaurs of such size that they could eat 4-5 elephants for breakfast everyday.

The old world plants or tree species have always amazed even the scientists of today in their size, life, and how they survive many odds in climate and changes in the earth itself. While botanists around the world have been, and are, looking for every bit of a tiny growth of plant species from the old world believed to have been extinct now... zoologists, geologists and historians are looking for remains from the old world to understand the old world and their life and extinction theories.

All these researchers have almost concluded that earth goes through a cycle of life all the time, and that the new world always has inferior living beings in any and all species, be it animals (inclusive of humans), plants or even rocks and the earth beneath..
And that the new world stuff is inferior in all means, by size, by power(both physical and mental), by capacity to survive and also to evolve.

Everything has the problem of Ageing
Its more similar to the ageing process in our lives. As you get old you start losing your memory, your eyesight, and what not. And you always see that younger people do less work and stuff than you did in your days, but there are more younger people and hence more it looks like its better.

Cycle of Life
You know, even if we humans didn't extract the Earth's resources like coal, oil, etc., they are prone to deplete as the Earth ages. And this resource decrease, in many ways triggers ageing in the Cycle of life also, wherein inferior beings are produced in every cycle.

Future worlds
You and I are existing today in one of those cycles of life and extinction and we can assume that in the future (new world(s) will occur as long as the Earth and the system is alive), the beings of the new worlds, will be less capable on thought, probably smaller in size, and evolve much slowler than we have evolved so far, be it in understanding our history and cycle of life over many centuries or be it in technology advancements.

Though Aristotle, Newton, .. bill gates, .you and me, all are not far apart in our date of birth and period of existence (considering that the Earth is already many billion years old), there is convincing evidence in that we haven't found another dinosaur after their period, another scholar as big as aristotle after his period, another warrior like Alexander, ... and so on.

And so, we are probably not going to see more bigger companies or company chairmans like there are today, be it bill gates, or anyone else with such high corporate power.

Why all that, we probably can safely assume that there may not be even as capable humans like you reading this blog post and me writing it, in the future worlds to come after we all go extinct, and that assumption would be strongly true based on past evidence and understanding of Earth's history over the few centuries our human species has studied it.

The idea of this post is not that current technology is stupid or new generation is worser than the previous. As stated in the first few lines of this post, the idea is that the new generation or new technologies have it easier than the old.. and so it may not be of importance for anybody to become or think like aristotle or bill gates in the future, because everything would be done to some extent and people will consume their brains lesser.

And if anybody is wondering how we might go extinct, there can't be any clearer probablity other than the climate changes we are forcing on ourself. And there is some proof for this already.

Posted by Harish at 10:53 AM | Permalink

Its that time of the year in India. Armed with weapons of all sorts ranging from atom bombs to electric bombs, and including the pepsi or coke bottle based rocket launchers, all hindu families in India (that means 80% of the population), demolish the streets, and roads in India. Its Diwali.. the Dhamakedar 'festival of lights' which underwent obvious exxageration over the years, and became the 'festival of crackers'.

Diwali, or Deepavali in the south, or Dhantheras for the shopping freaks, it has many names, and an historical story where some god destroyed evil on this day and asked the people of the world (indian hindus basically) to celebrate it as a festival of lights, in significance of the dawn after the destroyance of evil.

Yes, yes, dusshera is also a festival in celebration of destroying evil, and so are many hindu festivals.. we believe in destroying evil that many times in a year to make for 12 to 22 days of holidays in a year.

Anyway.. the story here is about the dogs, the canine lot in India spending a frightful, shivering 2 or 3 days, rightfully scared at the never-ending loud diwali blast.

You might have a dobberman, an Alsatian, or Boxers, and the lots.. why not, even be it Lions, they all think the world is coming down with every blast, and somebody is attacking their territory with those weapons.

Some dogs take shelter under the bed for days, even insisting on this food plate being shifted to the same under-the-bed place, .. and some try to brave it for a what? max 4-5 hrs and keep barking at the direction from where the blast noise emanates. .. and some run helter-skelter within the house where its bred trying to check whether everything is still ok after the blast... may be these few dog guys think that everything is rocking and its their responsibility to save the world from this one now.

For them its not festival of lights, its festival of .. whatever.. they are scared to talk about it.

HAPPY DIWALI.. and wish your doggie, puppie, munna, buji, all the same.

Posted by Harish at 8:08 PM | Permalink

I am not for sad stories / stories that portray a whole community in bad light... But there is the reality about life in some places you can't hide... and so exists a painful reality of women harrassment in India.

March 8th is celebrated women's day. And in India there are people (mostly men) who argue that we don't need such days because India is the only country where women are "respected" the "most". I wonder what here means "respected" and further what is "most respected".

If you had a few female friends at college, or even at office, people say "Lucky guy yaar.. ", "kush kismati ho"... I used to think this was a joke, never understood the internals of why they said so.

There always is a never-ending argument on why women are harrassed in a society... men would say (even i have felt so sometimes) that its women who are to blame for their dress-sense..for their weakness in fighting harrassment.... while women would say, "you want us to dress the way you would feel comfortable looking... rather than what we feel good about our dress, and why would you ask whether we are weak, how many guys should we fight through every day for our space".

If everyone in India is agreeing on one thing... that can only be this... "India has a rich culture.. and women are treated well". ... A BOLD FAT LIE that is.

Born a woman in India?
Welcome to the world of adjustment, tolreance & patience...for the rest of your life,
you will understand how to dress-up such that no guy teases you,
you will learn how to put your head down and walk so conscious about people around you,
you will learn how to avoid certain roads at odd timings,
you will learn how to select the bus in which you can travel without anybody hurting you,
you will learn how to avoid people following you,
...
...

And sometimes, women will unfortunately, sadly, even have to learn how to take little sexual harrassement, forget it the very next second and laugh it off... as if you are not hurt.

Read what Annie has to say on the shocks and adjustments she had to overcome to live through bombay.

Chennai or any other place is no better.. but if you are a man, it will take you one or two female friends, or sisters if you have, to tell you a painful experience like Annie's article to know the truths about people around...and how they treat women.

I found Annie's blog name 'Known Turf' (for known playfield or known strategies), say it all, rather than the article in her blog.

Unfortunately, people who behave like that with women won't be advanced enough to read this or any blog...

Image courtesty: http://www.amnesty-volunteer.org

Posted by Harish at 9:29 AM | Permalink

Mexico has a mummy museum. Not actually 1000 or 3000 year old mummies. Here, dead bodies from graves are taken and preserved in a state to make it a fashionable museum for horro freaks. All mummies so displayed have mouths open, eyes open, and have their hands stretched towards you looking very much like those seen in the film 'Mummy part 1 and 2'

This museum was on show as the No.6.... in Discovery Travel & Living channel's 'Best 10 destinations in Mexico' show.

The interesting fact is... I heard on the show that there is a rule around that place in mexico or closeby, wherein if relatives fail to pay rent for the tombs continuously for 5 years, the body can be dug out and displayed.

But.. wondering will the body not have decomposed fully to bones in 5 years. does it take longer than that. Could this information be a hoax.

Anyways.. there's a mummy museum if you someday tour Mexico. And all these place in Mexico have strange, kind of, non-western names.. This museum I think is in a place 'Guanajuato' in Mexico.

More Reading:
The Mummies of Guanajuato

Posted by Harish at 10:22 AM | Permalink

If you have an old computer which is not fetching much money, but you have to do away with it as scrap, then consider donating it to an organization which refurbishes these computers and gives to the needy poor..

You can find a local NGO who can do it.. or donate the old machine to the professionals in this kind of charity, "Computer Aid International"

You can visit their website to find information on:

1. starting something like them.
2. Ask them for old, but cleaned and tested computers, which you will use in teaching the poor in your local.
3. or, as I said before, to donate your old computer to them.

Computer Aid international is in the UK. If you are not in UK, then you probably find a similar organization in your place, or if you can bear the packaging and transporting costs, send your computers to them in the UK.

Computer Aid International have been doing this charity in an organized manner for many years. They disassemble all computers they receive, clean them up, choose the highest configurations they have got so that the machines can be used for a few more years at schools, and then send it needy organizations which request their help. African schools in Nigeria, kenya, etc., are all kudos for this organization as they are now able to give computer education to their poor children to make them more employable.

Related links:
"Computer Aid International"
BBC report on computer aid international's work

Posted by Harish at 12:40 PM | Permalink

Food is science.. or rather... cooking it is.

When I used to be a self-learned cook a few years back (now i cant do anything more than ready-to-cooks), things were interesting every day. Everyday I used to wonder in all my intelligence as to how I landed here(with what I had cooked).

But... apart from those starting experiments, Cooking is like Management. And, just because you do it differently or your cooking tastes differently doesn't mean you did it wrong or bad. Its your style of it... or we call it here in chennai "kai pakkuvum".

Learning to cook, I used to wonder how humans have evolved from just heating/burning their raw food from the forest, to today, where we have so many ways of doing it.. and we have different masters of the art. Enter food technology.

Here, I can only talk about the technology I had the time to learn. From my understanding, in south-india there are two main ingredients of every food namely 'pulipu, uppu'..(bitter, and salt)

And later I always admired how intelligent i was, when I realized,
'the amount of puli determines .. pulipu..
'the amount of uppu determines ... how much of the food's raw taste should be hidden..'
.. and things like that..

Translated (to the best of my food-english):
"amount of salt determines.. how much of the food's raw taste you want to hide'
"amount of bitter determines... how much of that bitter feeling you want your food to evoke.. for the tongue to relish it"

Imagine.. salt is from oceans.. how interestingly humans have mixed it
in the old ape-man days to taste their food more better. I see no connection between oceans and food atleast in those early stages..

Probably some apes thought their animal-catch was dirty and washed it in a salty river..and may be that's how mixing salt in food evolved.. Yes, I have heard that in some countries, salt is not mixed to food, especially non-vegetarian cooking. Its their way.

At this time I remember how my physics master at school told a story about how the apes learnt to eat with their hand.

"The apes initially ate food like other animals eat even today... directly dipping your mouth into the stuff. :o)
But sometime it seems, there was drought in forest, and the apes didn't get any animal to kill.. they were very
hungry.. very very hungry...
After weeks, they killed an animal and put it under fire.. while it was under fire, being cooked, all the apes were waiting in hunger to relish it.
Even when it was not enough time under the fire for being fully cooked... they couldn't wait any longer.. and in a hurry one ape, trying to tear some cooked meat plunged his hand into the food. It was so hot, and by his reflexes he pulled his hand back and put his fingers in his mouth to wet the burn on the fingers. while he did this, he tasted food on his finger.. he did it again. and this started to evolve as eating food with hands.. "

:o)

Now.. make your own stories for eating with knives and forks... cooking with vessels and all that..

If you got something interesting post it here.

I just got hungry. bye bye.

Posted by Harish at 9:56 AM | Permalink

Do you have a website of your own?

Ah! never mind whether you have or not.. the Empire State Building(ESB) in New York has! Its not a normal sell lease space website though around 20% of the website does that.

The website is about the building itself, and what it means to the city New York.

esbnyc.com is the web address. The website gives you access to even view images of new york captured by webcams on top of the tower.

This is one of those highly inspiring buildings in new york other than the late WTC. I don't want to get into writing about WTC... it was like killing two tall handsome guys... were two of those who inspired New York for what it has become - The business capital.

Coming back to ESB, Why does it inspire?
Its in essence a warrior building I would say, which was built to guard the surroundings from lightning strikes. And is architected like a warrior in its strength as a building and as a commercial space.

Why is it a warrior?... because this tower acts as a huge lightning rod in the area attracting lightning to it and grounding the current. If that is not too much physics for you, please continue reading my entire post on this here...[Lightning and Empire state building]

Pics of Empire State building: (1)Top View (2)Lightning strike

[Tip: Do you know any other buildings that have websites? Add to the comments!]

Posted by Harish at 3:08 PM | Permalink

Its the 59th anniversary of indian independence tomorrow. India attained independence slightly past midnight of 14th August 1947.. very early hours of 15th August.

Remembering the day, it also reminds of Pakistan and India being partitioned as two countries just the day before, with majority of the muslim population in India moving out to the new Pakistan. And hence pakistan's independence on 14th August. (Two countries which have all the ingredients of being considered 'One' are considering each other enemies..rather than neighbours.. ironic isn't it.)

The day of Indian Independence should be remembered as a day when Indians got their right to democracy and the right to their motherland -their everything.

I pray that, more and more Indians understand that why the day is celebrated. Independence is relished only to remind us of our responsibility towards our country, to remind our deeds towards bringing up this nation with all the positive strengths showing up highly prominent than our weaknesses. And that we should strive to live up to the expectations we Indians committed to ourself on this day of Independence 58 years ago.

Let there be something missing in India, be it cleanliness or attitude or committment towards societal responsibilities or whatever, let we Indians put the past behind us and strive to nourish the future in some way. Let us protect our DNA of being diversified in religion, in language, and other things.. and still be 'One' united force in attitude towards the nation. Lets protect and fulfill our societal / national interests, other than our individual and family interests.

Cinematically put,

Let there be light.. may the force be with us.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY.

[No, I don't feel like I made a speech, I stressed every word while I typed that to push it deep into my inner self. I am happy being an Indian.]

Posted by Harish at 11:30 PM | Permalink

Kashmir or Jammu & Kashmir is a state in India which is more known for militancy issues there, for the wars India and Pakistan fought along their borders in this state.

But .. what is long forgotten is that kashmir is a beautiful scenic tourist state. If kashmir wasn't at the border of India and Pakistan, and if there weren't wars or terrorism like kashmir has seen, then kashmir would have been the first tourist spot anybody would visit in Asia.

War has deprived this state not just of tourism, but of the peacefulness and calmness that nature has inscribed in this place. People should know what Kashmir means.. it definitely doesn't stand for terrorism, or for hatred.

India, Pakistan, and the terrorists who are nested permanently here are interested in Jammu & Kashmir for obvious reasons.

If something is too beautiful, too good, and if this something is ours, we would do anything to keep it. That's what terrorism here is trying to do. And in turn terrorism also is trying to promote kashmir as a place for hatred and killing to keep away good intentions from taking away their habitat.

And there are political confusions over which India & Pakistan are trying to occupy kashmir. These issues started with the split between India and Pakistan as separate countries on Independence.
...The split wasn't fully ever completed in this border state...

Links to Kashmir:
Visit the official website of the government of Jammu & Kashmir.
Here don't forget to visit the Cultural heritage of kashmir.

Visit the Indian Army site on kashmir .. http://www.armyinkashmir.org

Visit this pakistani website on kashmir Roshan Pakistan

Website of Anonymous thoughts on kashmir dispute
http://www.kashmir-information.com/

Visit this dedicated india-pakistan-kashmir news feed site of einnews. newsfeed-IndiaPakistanKashmir

Pictures on kashmir :

A house in kashmir

Kashmiri women selling bread

Papier mache art form

Kashmiri dance roof

Dogri dance - surma

Kashmiri water way

Posted by Harish at 10:59 AM | Permalink

Tennis's most coveted lawns are back in the camera.. for Wimbledon 2005 has started challenging the greatest tennis stars. Marked no less than the No.1 competition in lawn tennis, tennis in wimbledon is 'The biggest' challenge for Tennis champs on earth.

But tennis is not the only or even the first sport that brought wimbledon national fame. Let's explore wimbledon from the history.

History Source: wikipedia
Wimbledon, best known for much of the 20th century as the home of the Wimbledon tennis championships, is a town in south-west London. It began life as a village at the edge of Wimbledon Common

Tennis was not the the first sport to bring Wimbledon national fame. The National Rifle Association's first competitions took place in 1860 on Wimbledon Common and were opened by Queen Victoria firing the first shot. In 1878 the competitions, now lasting two weeks, had grown to nearly 2,500 competitors.

Meanwhile, in the 1870s, at the bottom of the hill next to the railway line, the All-England Croquet Club had begun to hold its annual championships. But croquet was beginning to become less popular and after initially setting aside just one of its lawns for the new sport of lawn tennis, it decided to hold its first Lawn Tennis Championship in July 1877. Increasing popularity for tennis meant that the small grounds could not cope with the numbers of spectators and in 1922 the renamed All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club moved to new grounds near the village. Wimbledon historian Richard Milward recounts how King George V opened the new courts. "He gave three blows on a gong, the tarpaulins were removed, the first match started - and the rain came down..."

The club's old grounds continue to be used as the sports ground for Wimbledon High School.

Wimbledon has also been well known for another brief period of sporting fame. Wimbledon Football Club won the FA Cup in May 1988 prompting great celebrations in the streets of the town as the team appeared on the balcony of the Town Hall. But by 2000 the team was demoted from the top division of English football after just 14 years competing amongst the country's top teams.

In the world of literature, Wimbledon provides the principal setting for several comic novels by author Nigel Williams (including the best-selling The Wimbledon Poisoner) as well as for Elizabeth Beresford's series of children's stories about the Wombles. Also, Wimbledon was the site where the sixth Martian invasion ship landed in H.G. Wells' book The War of the Worlds.

Catch up with some ..more..wimbledon tennis facts here.

Wimbledon tennis courts -How to get there.. maps and links.. here

In my next blog.. i will get with some wimbledon tennis court images.

Posted by Harish at 3:01 PM | Permalink

I was having a normal, hot discussion with some collegues today about the way India is growing, and whether growth leads to rising costs, which itself is blocking growth as a cycle.

Our discussion drifted towards the political division of the country into States and Union Territories. During this discussion each one of us had differernt definitions for the difference between an Union Territory and a State in India.. like "Union territories are those developed territories which are small and can't be eligible to be state", "States are larger areas of governance, and union territories are smaller", "union territories are so created, because they need separate administration but are not big enough to generate revenue and support themself"... and so on.

Actually, I had a feeling only one of the views is right, but it turned out to be that all of them were in one way or the other correct. That's when I searched the internet for more difference of definitions, and landed up strangely in "wikipedia" - the new popular encyclopedia on the web.

Wikipedia had another definition, that, an Union territory is a region of governance directly ruled by the national government (or central government of India) unlike States which have their own ruling bodies.

I derived then.

Union territories are small areas of governance identified by the national government based on many factors as,
-Growth and Economic attributes of the region.
-Special consideration on the region due to its resources or location in India.
-For administrative constraints due to compactness and its difference in culture/heritage from its surrounding regions.

Union governments are ruled by the national government and at times (as felt appropriate) by the President of India or by an Appointed Governor for the territory.

In comparison to states,

Union governments, most of the times enjoy tax benefits on sales, and might have faster development in its economy or infrastructure (If the national government is interested in developing it).

Also, Union governments don't have the huge administrative overheads like a State has, since States have local governing bodies.

Another big difference is, unless a State government is formed by the same political alliance ruling the national government, the State governments lack good coordination with the centre and this leads to delay / almost stoppage of development and reforms in the State. This doesn't happen in the Union Territories since administration is directly done by the Centre.

Useful Links:
States & Union Territories in India
What's a National Capital Territory? - New Delhi
Popular union territories of India: Goa
Popular union territories of India: Pondicherry
Directory of India Govt. Websites
Maps of India

Posted by Harish at 11:34 PM | Permalink

Continuing on my thoughts with my previous blog (yesterday's), I wanted to put up another interesting thing my parents explored in their tour to Bihar and Orrissa last week.

Planning for their tour, my parents took the not so interesting route.. to register with local government run tourism offices wherever they went, and get guidance on transport, stay and tourist spots from these agencies.

These agencies showed decent hospitality, they were also surprisingly !Free! on their consultation, and my parents had to only spend for their tickets, accomodation, and food expenses. These expenses were very low since they were routed through government agencies, in lieu of promoting tourism.
My parents almost toured the two states for a week at almost 70% lesser than what it would have costed if they hadn't considered the government tourism agencies.

That was definitely news to people like me, who has had pretty bad experiences with government agencies for they delay things especially until they are bribed. Good news.

Posted by Harish at 11:44 AM | Permalink

Today's blog is about pakistan. Why? For many reasons.

Its a complexly built nation. Atleast thats how the rest of the world see it. It joins the league of muslim nations like Iran, Afganisthan, and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan does share the reputation that generally muslim nations have, on affairs related to Terrorism.

Being an Indian myself, I am more tempted to see pakistan as a threat rather than a neighbour of India. And as you might have heard of these problems India and Pakistan have on kashmir, on ethics of each other's core religious population and the likes, India politically would rate pakistan more on the Threat side than the Friend side of the scale.

With this writing, I am not trying to bridge any gaps between India and pakistan. Neither do I sympathise for the people of that country, because they dont need my sympathy.

Pakistan is a matured muslim country. Its people are a tolerant lot. Its economy slightly weaker than some of its neighbours. Its businesses are of comparable quality. Its technology leadership levels.. notable (for every now and then one of my friends or the other reminds me that the first computer virus was written in pakistan in those days).

Against popular belief, people of pakistan, are workable with, and make good pals.

Just because somebody is tolerant and because they arent able to do anything faster about the terrorist outfits operating from there, it doesnt mean they support terrorism.

Also, however these people are grouped, I don't think even a handful of them would support a motion of considering pakistanis alone the population of the world... ...while, there may be some countries where quite a lot of people openly say that they are the world.

Of Pakistani Software
Ah.. The world is smaller.. said somebody.. how true.. you wouldnt agree less if i said theres only one kind of people in this world who link and communicate together away from their country's politics, their religious beliefs, their agreements-disagreements, .. yep and that's people who use computers regularly.

Pakistan is working hard to make up its software majors big enough to compete the biggies of software. The pakistan software industry's representative body is P@sha.
Leading software companies include,
— Network Solutions (Netsol) (Founded in 1998 in Lahore). Listed in NASDAQ since June 2000
— Align Technologies (Founded in 1997, based in Lahore). Listed in NASDAQ since August 2000

Chief attraction: No Income tax on IT exports until the year 2015