Indian search engine launched

India’s first local Internet search engine, http://www.guruji.com/ was launched yesterday, 12th October 2006 in Bangalore.

Guruji.com is the first crawler based search engine for India and India related content. Two young entrepreneurs, Anurag Dod and Gaurav Mishra, ex-IIT Delhi alumni with significant Internet and search experience have started guruji.com, after Sequoia Capital India provided seed funding to the venture.

Anurag Dod, co-founder and CEO, guruji.com said, "guruji.com is the result of the feeling that there is a need for an Indian search engine which can help our people and people who visit our country find what they are looking for. The search is more specific here. What sets us apart is our focus on the Indian market and the Indian consumer. We have worked very hard to build the best local search product in the market."

Gaurav Mishra, co-founder and coo, guruji.com explains, "90% of Internet search queries are local in nature, and guruji.com will deliver better search results than anyother search engine in these instances. For example, if a user types a search "Pizzain Koramangala, Bangalore " or "Chinese restaurant Juhu, Mumbai" the user will beable to see local business listings as well as articles, reviews, blogs, or any other web references."

Guruji currently has the data for the following cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Indore, Noida, Mysore, Ludhiana, Mangalore, Vadodara.

Shantaram

"I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum-security prison," says Lin, in this fictionalised account of the author, Gregory David Robert's life.

The narrator, Lin, is an escaped convict from an Australian jail. He arrives in Bombay, India with a fake New Zealand passport. He immediately meets a taxi driver named Prabaker who gives him tours of the city and a hut in the local slum. Lin starts a free clinic for the people in the slum, and to provide for his own income sells drugs to tourists. This gets him the attention of the local mafia, and he's increasingly pulled into their world of crime- from counterfeiting to gun running to passport schemes. And as a gunrunner he resupplied a unit of mujaheddin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan.

The story of "Shantaram" is the story of Roberts's own life. He really did break out of a maximum-security prison in Australia, travel the world, become fluent in several Indian dialects, get captured and returned to jail, only to be victimized by sadistic prison guards who twice destroyed the first 300 pages of his manuscript.

I like this novel because of the originality in Robert's writing and some of his philisophies he propound in his book.

The rights of the film has been sold to Johny Depp and he is set to star in the film which will be released in 2008.

The Innocent Man-John Grisham

John Grisham's first work of non fiction "The Innocent Man" is slated for release on 10th October 2006. Really looking forward to reading the book.

Here is a www.play.com review of the novel

When John Grisham read the obituary of Ronald Williamson in the papers early last year, he realized he had come across a story even more riveting than those he had turned into 18 global bestsellers, which have sold 200 million copies around the world. It was a story of failed dreams, madness, rape and murder, a botched trial, a death sentence and a twelve-year fight to win justice for a wronged man. Ronald Williamson was a local hero when a young man in his home town of Ada, Oklahoma. A fabulously talented baseball player, he excelled at college and was set to become a national sports star when injury wrecked his career. Mental illness and alcoholism followed his return to Ada, a burned-out shell of a man. While in prison serving a short sentence for a petty felony, a fellow prisoner alleged that he had heard Williamson confess to the unsolved rape and murder of a local bar girl. Denied drugs to control his psychiatric problems, given a blind attorney who had never defended a criminal case, Williamson stood no chance in court and was sentenced to death.One of the greatest mistrials in American judicial history became one of the greatest single fights for justice of any convicted man. 5 days before his execution, Williamson was given a stay and shortly after completely pardoned. John Grisham has been consumed by the Williamson story, researching every detail of the nerve jangling drama of Williamson's trial and deathwatch. A court room drama and a race against time, John Grisham's first work of non-fiction is as compelling as any of his novels, and will be compared to Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood."

What Should I Do With My Life-Po Bronson

This book by Po Bronson is a must read for everyone who is confused about their careers and those who are stuck in the rut. Bronson travels around the country and meets numerous people. He chronicles their life story and how they have dealt with this question in this book. These are ordinary people who have the courage to make life-changing decisions, who have found their true calling and pursued it relentlessly. This book highly motivating and makes for a good reading. Here a few excerpts from the book which I really like.

• A calling is not something you know, it's something you grow into, through trials and and mistakes. Work shouldn't just be fun. Work should be like life, sometimes fun, sometimes moving, and defined by meaningful events. Attack your fears, rather than shy away from them. Bring what you do in alignment with who you are.
  
• Nothing seemed more brave to me than facing up to one's own identity and filtering out the chatter that tells us to be someone we're not.
  
• Individual success will not be attained by migrating to a particular "hot" industry, or by adopting a particular career-guiding mantra...instead, the individuals that will thrive will do so because they focused on the question of who they really are, and from that found work they truly love, and in doing so unleashed a productive and creative power they never imagined.
  
• So why is it truly okay to to search for a church that's right for you, but not a profession that's right for you? Why, when it comes to work, are we supposed to simply accept that this is just the way it is.
  

Is Secularism Dead?

Here is an article I wrote on www.e-pao.net, a web portal of Manipur about the Vengnuam firing incident. Hope you enjoy the post.

For the residents of Newlamka, life will never be the same again after 20th August, 2006. The painful memories and the trauma they had been through that night would remain with them for a long, long time.

For it was on that fateful night at around 7:30 pm that security forces belonging to the 3rd Rajputana Rifles attacked EBC Church, Vengnuam, New Lamka and fired indiscriminately at innocent churchgoers attending the sacramental service.

The firing resulted in the death of one Mr Thawngkhanlian s/o Rev. S. Ginjam and injuring many others. The deceased is the chairman of Baptist Youth Fellowship (the youth wing of the church), EBCC, Vengnuam and also the editor of a local weekly paper, Voice of Newlamka.

May it be known to the world that EBCC Vengnuam has never and will never harbour any insurgents/militants inside its premises, as alleged by the army. The army should stop concocting "cock and bull" stories and immediately apologise to the people for their misdeeds.

The attack on a religious place by state actors is a blatant violation of the secular provisions of the Constitution of India which they have sworn to uphold and protect at all costs.

This incident is an act of terrorism on the part of the security forces which has no parallel in the history of India. Nowhere has a religious place been attacked by the security forces expect maybe in the infamous "Operation Bluestar" to flush out Sikh militants from the Golden Temple.

Operation Bluestar can be justified as militants are present inside the premises. Operation Vengnuam can never be justified as no insurgents/militants are present inside its premises. The perpetrators of this crime should not be made to go scot-free and the guilty should be given appropriate punishment.

Or is secularism dead?

It may be mentioned here that this is not the first instance that EBC Church Vengnuam was attacked by security forces. On 1st June 2004, combined forces of IRB and police commandos of Bishnupur had attacked the church and beaten up choir members of the church for no apparent reason.

The latest incident is a grim reminder of this incident and the fact that the security forces could not be trusted anymore.

The attack on the church has angered the public and condemnation has poured in from all quarters. In fact there is a rhyme doing the rounds in New Lamka area which goes like this:

Captain Shekhar go away(Tune: Rain, rain go away)

Captain Shekhar, Captain Shekhar go away
Never come again another day
Faithful Christians want to pray
Shekhar, Shekhar go away

(PS. Captain Shekhar is alleged to be the man behind this incident)
Hello, is anybody listening????

Champions League 2006 group stage

World's greatest club football competition, Champions League group stages have been announced. Looking forward to some exciting football. Barcelona and Chelsea have been drawn in one group and the clash between the Spanish champions and the English champions will probably be the main attraction of the group stage.

Group A

FC Barcelona (Spain)
Chelsea (England)
Werder Bremen (Germany)
Levski Sofia (Bulgaria)

Group B

Inter Milan (Italy)
Bayern Munich (Germany)
Sporting Lisbon (Portugal)
Spartak Moscow (Russia)

Group C

Liverpool (England)
PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands)
Bordeaux (France)
Galatasaray (Turkey)

Group D

Valencia (Spain)
AS Roma (Italy)
Olympiakos (Greece)
Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)

Group E

Real Madrid (Spain)
Lyon (France)
Steaua Bucharest (Romania)
Dynamo Kiev (Ukraine)

Group F

Manchester United (England)
Celtic (Scotland)
Benfica (Portugal)
FC Copenhagen (Denmark)

Group G

Arsenal (England)
FC Porto (Portugal)
CSKA Moscow (Russia)
Hamburger SV (Germany)

Group H

AC Milan (Italy)
Lille (France)
AEK Athens (Greece)
Anderlecht (Belgium)

Vengnuam Incident

Security forces believed to be belonging to the Rajputana Rifles fired indiscriminately towards EBCC Church, Vengnuam, New Lamka on Sunday, August 20, 2006 at around 7:30 pm. Mr Thawngkhanlian s/o Rev. S. Ginjam was killed in the firing and four others injured. Among the injured Mr Thangmuanlal succumbed to his injuries on Monday, August 21, 2006.

It may be mentioned here that deceased Mr Thawngkhanlian was the chairman of Baptist Youth Fellowship, EBCC, Vengnuam and editor of Voice of New Lamka, a local weekly newspaper.

The incident is condemned by all and sundry.

What's up????

It has been a long time since I last udated my blog. I guess, I have fallen into a state of ennui-I have been bitten by the "boredom bug", a state where I started questioning the very purpose of starting this blog. Like my previous blogs, I have a feeling that this blog is also dying a slow death.

I think I do not have the passion anymore-the passion with which I started this blog. I had planned on updating it at least a week but this was not to be. More than two months have passed since my last post.

What have I been doing all this time? I have been thinking, reflecting and introspecting. I have reaffirmed to udate this blog at least once a week. This time I hope I will not break this promise. And I promise to make this blog work just for the sheer joy that writing has given me. The adrenaline rush you get after each post is unbeatable.

So all you guys out there keep checking this blog for my views and comments on all things I love-movies, books, soccer and others. Thanks for visiting and enjoy your stay here.

Leave the kids alone

"Girl who killed herself gets 95% in Class X" screams the headline of Sunday's edition of the TImes of India.

Shaifali Bhan a student of Sanskrit School committed suicide on May 16-apparently becuase she was under pressure to take up science in Class XI, against her wishes.

Shaifali's case is not an isolated one, many others students are also facing constant pressure which eventually leads to stress and forces some to the ultimate act of suicide. Parental pressure is the "trigger" here. Pressure to be the best and pressure to take up subjects not necessarily of their choice.

Subject choices or for that matter careers should be chosen on one’s aptitude and interests-not on somebody’s whims and fancies.

John Grisham-The Innocent Man

The new book by John Grisham, a true story of an innocent man convicted of a crime he did not commit that I had written about in my previous post has been titled "The Innocent Man". Eagerly looking forward to reading it.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

It's been a long time since I have last updated my blog. At the start I had planned to update it regularly but things do not go as planned. And I have also stopped filling the pages of my diary where I had planed to write about at least one thing everyday. Anyway planning is one thing and following through that plan is another thing.

These days I am reading Robin Sharma's "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari". It is an account of a highly suceessful but highly stresed lawyer who had everything going his way as far as his career is concerned but eventually broke down in Court one day. It is his quest for happiness and personal meaning to his life, his journey to India in pursuit of these. Robin has blended the ancient wisdom of the sages with the wisdom contained in modern inspirational books into his novel. It is a must read for all those who want to improve the quality of their lives. The book contains many thought-provoking theories which are aptly backed up by examples.

I have not yet finished reading the book but I would rate this among the best books available today in its genre. You can have access to his blogs and many other things at www.robinsharma.com

John Grisham

I could not remember the first time I read a Grisham novel. I probably must have been in Class VIII when I read "The Partner" the first Grisham novel that I read. I enjoyed reading the novel so much that I started reading every Grisham novel that I could lay my hands upon.

His style of writing is impeccable and his name today has become synonymous with the modern legal thriller. He is the one who kindles my interest in legal cases and introduces me to the exciting world of courtroom dramas. The Partner and the Firm are his best novels to date in my view.

Graham, born on February 8,1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, as a child dreamed of being a professional baseball player. But life has other plans for him. He majored in accounting at Mississippi State University. After graduating from law school at Ole Miss in 1981, he went on to practice law for nearly a decade in Southaven, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. In 1983, he was elected to the state House of Representatives and served until 1990.

He is now in the process of writing his first nonfiction book which is as yet untitled. It is the story of Ronald Keith Williamson who was convicted, sent to death row, and came within five days of being executed by lethal injection fora murder he did not commit. After twelve years in prison , he was freed in 1999 but continued to struggle with psychiatric disorders.He died at the age of 51 on December 4, 2004.

Mr Grisham read his obituary in The New York Times , and found it impossible to forget. As he says, "Not in my most creative hour could I imagine a story as compelling as Ron Williamson's." With the full cooperation of the Williamson family, Mr Grisham will recount the murder, its aftermath, the trial, the imprisonment, and the exoneration.

The novel will be published by Doubleday in the US and Canada in 2006 and as a Dell paperback the following year.