Having relaxed emission norms for import of Harley Davidson motorcycles, India has informed the US that it cannot cut duties but will allow the American cult bike to be sold through dealers network.
This is partially good news.
"After all, the bike is going to be imported by rich people. Let them pay duty," the official said.
I want to own a Harley, but 'rich' I'm not. To fulfill this desire I'll have to pool in my life's savings for just the downpayment, the rest would have to be financed by some company, with me shelling out the EMI.
India imposes 60 per cent duty on import of motorcycles.
Now that makes it beyond my reach. Seems like I'll have to settle for some
desi variant (provided I don't get myself a
Nano).
But I can atleast enjoy
The Creed Film (the government doesn't impose any taxes on this).
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Download for mobile [00:02:21 3GP 2.37 KB]Makes you feel like owning one.
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Yesterday, The Union Minister for Railways Lalu Prasad Yadav tabled a populist Railway Budget for the next financial year in the Parliament and this morning the papers (expectedly) were full of reports on that. Some adulatory, some critical and a quite a few cynical.
Amidst the melee of reports, most of which I just glanced through, I found one on page two of The Times of India (Delhi edition) which made me think. Not because it was an intriguing write-up but because it was an example of present-day standards of journalism (I too am a part of this).
The report headlined "E-ticketing yet to net passengers" doesn't carry a by-line, it is attributed to Times News Network.
I too am one of those who don't buy in whole the Great Indian Railways Turnaround Story, but this is not the manner in which I would like to package my argument.
The report says:
However, at present, a measly 27 per cent of all bookings are done through the internet.
By what standards can someone term 27 per cent of the millions of bookings done by the Indian Railways as "measly." 27 per cent is more than a quarter, and one-fourth of all reservations done online in a country like India with limited internet penetration is not "measly," it is an achievement.
It goes on further:
But in Delhi alone, the seven ticket vending machines in place now can be used only to procure platform tickets. In addition, thanks to improper maintenance, most of them are lying defunct.
I agree with the "lying defunct" part having experienced that first hand. But who ever filed this story doesn't perhaps understand the fact that the "seven ticket vending machines," are meant to deliver platform tickets only. Not that it is designed to deliver all kinds of tickets and is presently delivering only platform tickets.
Moreover, common sense tells us that since they are coin operated, you cannot book a sleeper class ticket to Bhopal inserting three hundred rupee coins or one-fifty two-rupee coins (or a combination of both as it doesn't perhaps accept five-rupee coins).
Regarding the first ATM ticket counter it says:
...one has to be registered with the IRCTC
Like it or not, registration is a necessary evil because it helps both - the user and the service providers - to track the transactions made and in case something goes wrong there is an identification procedure to track that.
The story ends with a quote:
"Unless we manage to include all banks under this service, it is going to be difficult to involve all passengers in this scheme. The railways at the moment is happy earning the royalty after lending out prime space to this bank. They are planning similar ATM counters at all important stations in Delhi. Sadly, scant regard is being paid to the profile of the passengers, many of whom have never operated an ATM or a computer in their entire life."
But it isn't attributed to anyone. Should I, as a reader, interpret this as said by one Sashi Kumar who was quoted two paragraphs before? If yes, I shouldn't.
The few places I worked in and the few stories that I filed while working there, my editors never let a single quote story go live (or to print) unless it was an exclusive or the story itself is wound around that quote. This doesn't seem to be the case here.
And to top it all, actually it was what caught my eye first, the image and the caption.
The image is of a self-operated platform ticket vending machine and the caption reads:
RARELY USED: Only 27% of all bookings are done through the Internet
This is a revelation. A platform ticket vending machine is a representative of the Internet and online ticket reservation.
And interestingly, there's a story on The Times of India website dated, January 31, 2007 (quite recent) that says:
Good response to rlys' e-ticketing facility
PATNA: The railways have been earning good revenue ever since e-ticketing facility was introduced by it across the country from January 1 last year. In fact, the facility has received good response in metropolitan and several other big cities, including Patna.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation website (irctc.co.in) - the one which e-ticketing is routed through - is listed at No. 26 on Alexa's list of the most popular websites in India while The Indian Railways Website (indianrail.gov.in) is at No. 34 at the time of posting this.
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This is just an additional little feature that looks and feels a little better than the existing.
All you bloggers on blogspot would have surely noticed that when you upload any image to Blogger, it gives you three size options to display the image in - large, medium and small - and at the same time the original sized image is accessible to users when they click on the image displayed on a post. But then it opens in the same window and thereby navigates your reader away from your blog.
And easy way would be to use the attribute target="_blank" within the anchor tag, so that when clicked the image would open in a new window. But why not add a little frill and make the image open in a popup window.
I'm doing this on this blog, for the want of a better alternative (tried using Lightbox but the results were not satisfactory on slow connections).
Here's how:
This blob of HTML might look a little different if you're using Internet Explorer. But that doesn't make any difference to our process.
All you need to do is insert this bit of script:
target="_blank" onclick="window.open(this.href, 'popupwindow', 'width=420, height=350, resizable=no, scrollbars=yes, menubar=no, toolbar=no, status=no'); return false;"
after the closing double quotes enclosing the url of the original image, but before the > tag. The result will look something like this:
Now let me explain the elements:
the target="_blank" makes the link open in a new window
width=520, height=520 defines the size of the pop-up window. Ideally you should keep this greater (by 10 to 20 pixels) than the original image dimensions so that it displays properly across browsers.
resizable=no, scrollbars=yes, menubar=no, toolbar=no, status=no are optional attributes, you can change their values to yes or no according to your needs and fancies.
For a demo click on the accompanying Blogger logo.
For others who might need yet more cusromisation, you can add the attributes top= and left= to define the position of the pop-up window.
Here's an example:
target="_blank" onclick="window.open(this.href, 'popupwindow', 'width=420, height=350, resizable=no, scrollbars=yes, menubar=no, toolbar=no, status=no, top=20, left=20,'); return false;"
This would make the window open with a displacement of 20 pixels from the top and left of the screen. The numerical value can be changed to suit individual requirements.
Since I'm a novice when it comes to these things and would like more able members of the blogging community to further develop the idea.
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Ban - the word invokes both interest and anger. Interest because anything that is banned has definitely rubbed someone the wrong way and we the curious masses always want to know why. And the very idea of not letting someone else see/hear/read something because you (or an accumulation of people of your kind) think so, atleast in a modern democracy (with pretensions of progressiveness) like India tickles my annoyance.
Jodhaa Akbar banned in Madhya Pradesh
...and in parts of Haryana in addition to Rajasthan where it wasn't released.
Historians and certain communities might not all agree with the story that the makers of the movie presented in 70mm. That Jodhaa depicted as Akbar's queen was - according to certain versions - actually his daughter-in-law. Right. Everyone has a right to protest. If the film is indeed offensive, they should have called for a voluntary boycott. If the halls are empty, distributors will themselves take it off.
But then no one wants to gauge the sentiment of the general public; rather it is much easier to threaten violence. And the administration, which is supposed to uphold the rule of law, falls prey to blackmail (and political considerations).
Though I didn't like the movie much, I would at best give Ashutosh Gowarikar's latest directorial venture a three star rating (out of five). The film tried to mount two horses at once - history and romance - and in the process fell of both.
Hrithik nevertheless delivered a commendable performance and looked his role while Aishwariya fitted in nicely only when she wasn't talking and moving. As for the royal intrigues, Santosh Sivan packaged it much better in Asoka.
Coming back to bans. In the long run a boycott would work better than a ban. Because a ban, as mentioned in opening sentence of this post invokes interest and would go against the purpose of the ban in places where the film (or whatever) is not banned. Whereas a successful voluntary boycott would dissuade habitual controversy seekers, as it would hit them where it hurts the most - their bank balances. Moreover, in this e-era do bans really work?
If tomorrow, a section of the population disgusted by the goings on in any of the state assemblies threaten to burn it down (they actually did in Manipur, while in Meghalaya it was reduced to ashes by accident). Will the state administration, relying on intelligence inputs, ban future session in the assembly?
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I want to own a Harley, but 'rich' I'm not. To fulfill this desire I'll have to pool in my life's savings for just the downpayment, the rest would have to be financed by some company, with me shelling out the EMI.
