ankur Warikoo

Well, we all knew how it would eventually look, but we didn’t really know what to expect when it came to its functioning. We all know now!

I dont know how much Steve is involved in creating these videos, but the art of fantastic story-telling is excellent. Pixar hangover?

The official Apple iPhone 4 Video from the WWDC 2010

First Views:

1. I really like the sleek look. Wasnt a big fan of the curved backside of the current iPhones, so this flat slim body for me works awesome. View the video above to learn more about they got all of what they have, in this size. Remarkable

2. FaceTime – the chatting facility, has been a little overplayed, given that its been around for a while now. But then, I think its more about quicker adoption through the iPhone. Just like the analysis that suggested that after the launch of the iPhone 3GS, the number of uploads to YouTube through phones, increased. People were still shooting videos through their phone, but the 3GS just made it easier to adopt!

3. The Retina feature seems awesome. Honestly, will have to see it to beleive it, but if it really works as sharp as suggested, this is great stuff.

4. Multitasking raises questions on the already quite bad battery power of the iPhone. I hope the bigger battery size takes care of it, but thats a big pain area for me currently and its unfortunate that the previous models will have to bear the brunt without enjoying multitasking to the hilt.

At first glance, I LOVE THE PHONE! This also makes me wanna buy the next gen iPad, whenever it will be released! Am sure all this technology is going beyond the iPhone right now, in the Apple chambers!

94%…yes you heard it right…94%…! Thats just 6% lower than a situation wherein a stressed-out parent enters the campus, approaches the reception and asks, “Madam (or sir…I dont mean to be sexist here!), I want to enroll my son for the engineering course.”

Figure this:

Out of 391 students in the IIMA Class of 2009-11:

# 369 are engineers

# 12 have a science background (which itself sounds so derogatory, as if engineering is some intellectual science and there is another field called science!)

# 9 have a commerce background

# 1 is from Arts background!!!

—

This basically means that in the 2 years that will follow, these 391 students will have diversity examples as follows

Professor: “Students, what is a code?”

Student 1 (Or rather Engineer 1): “Sir…code is what I wrote when I couldnt get girls, but a guy named Mark Zuckerberg offered free beer and I gave it to him”

Student 2 (Engineer 2): “Sir, code is what humans are made up of..the DNA code”

Student 3 (Engineer 3): “Sir, code is what I hate mode about software design”

Student 4 (Engineer 4): “Sir, code is a form of modulated wave whose amplitude is directly proportional to the wavelength when travelling at the speed of light”

Student 5 (Engineer 5): “Sir, code is a mathematical complexity that is so hard to comprehend that one can only hope of making a movie out of it and winning the oscar”

Student 6 (Commerce Student 1): “Sir, I am surely going to flunk this class”

Student 7 (Arts Student 1): “Sir, I think the commerce student and me are surely going to flunk the class”

—

This also means that irrespective of what students do in these 2 years, the one getting the most press coverage (and rest assured there WILL be a LOT of press coverage) will be the Arts student!

Oh..but there is more

Number of female candidates has dropped from 19% last year to 11% this year

WHATT??? Did the students know this, when they accepted the offer?

So let me get this straight, not only does the new IIMA Class of 2009-11 have more “super stud red underwear over pants” engineers, it has lesser of the “dumb good for nothing only know how to bitch and giggle” females!

AhA…now THAT is a perfect MBA CLASS! Undivided attention, no hormonal excitement at the age of 21, no world perspective from a lawyer or a doctor…but pure divine engineering based business education. Such joy!

But high WTFness emerges when you read such statements made by the Admissions Chairpersons

“We had a limited pool of candidates from arts and commerce backgrounds making it to the first round. On our part, we tried to include several combinations during the interview, but engineers scored well,”IIM-A admissions chairperson Diptesh Ghosh told ET

Aaah…that explains it. Its not their fault. We have just dumb Arts and Commerce students in this country! Engineers scored well!

Because hey, when we asked students what is the probability that you will take out a red ball from a box when you have thrown in 7 red balls in Box1 and 8 Black balls in Box2 and transferred 3 balls from Box1 to Box2 and then re-transfered 5 balls from Box2 to Box1, WE HONESTLY THOUGHT ARTS STUDENTS WILL GET IT!

—

Its a pity! Because the institute is one of the finest the country has. And yet, it remains blindly attached to fundamentals that fail to modify themselves as per the times. Students from IIMA perform well in life (statistically atleast) not because of the education they have received or the work-experience they come in with, rather the ability to work like crazy. They are fantastic when it comes to slogging and working hard and cracking the exams and the CATs of the world…but that doesn’t necessarily make them good business managers!

An MBA in India has been reduced to a “degree that will get you a job”, rather than a degree that will teach you business fundamentals. And admission processes that are skewed towards a certain section of society, especially in terms of numerical capability, defeat any attempt to change this attitude. You get number crunchers in your batch and give them sexy I-Bank/consulting roles at dollar figures…and the MBA dream just keeps getting bigger and bigger! Its another thing that the MBA itself did not do anything to that student, apart from making him/her marketable!

Tragic!

DNA: Engineer’s dominate IIMA’s new Post-graduate programme batch

Economic Times: It’s engineers galore at IIMA

Albert Einstein, the genius physicist whose theories changed our ideas of how the universe works, died 55 years ago, on April 18, 1955, of heart failure. He was 76. His funeral and cremation were intensely private affairs, and only one photographer managed to capture the events of that extraordinary day: LIFE magazine’s Ralph Morse.

Click on the photographs to view the entire Slideshow on Life.com

Armed with his camera and a case of scotch — to open doors and loosen tongues — Morse compiled a quietly intense record of an icon’s passing. But aside from one now-famous image (above), the pictures Morse took that day were never published. At the request of Einstein’s son, who asked that the family’s privacy be respected while they mourned, LIFE decided not to run the full story, and for 55 years Morse’s photographs lay unseen and forgotten.

They have released them now!

I have a feeling that this is not genuine (the Time Magazine bit), but heck, irrespective of who has written this…it still is one of the best captures of what Sachin is all about!

When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam.

When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and company, Roger  Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters. The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country, Dr Manmohan Singh was yet to “open” the Nehruvian economy.

It seems while Time was having his toll on every individual on the face of this planet, he excused one man. Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had another Sachin Tendulkar and we never will.

Here is a genuine Time article though, when Sachin broke the 200 barrier

I know that stunning is not quite an apt word to describe these photos, but honestly…these are! I only wish the occasion was something pleasant to remember!

These were released by the New York City Police Department and provided on Feb 10, 2010.

Check out all the snaps here

That’s it..! Does anyone out there need any further documentation on which is the sexiest phone out there?

Scottish couple use an iPhone app to help conceive a baby girl

Got a call this morning from ISB that the FT Rankings for 2010 have been released and ISB has moved up the ranks to close at Global Rank 12! Fantastic

The top 15 schools according to the rankings are:

1. London Business School
2. Wharton
3. Harvard
4. Stanford
5. INSEAD
6. Columbia Business School
7. IE Business School
8. MIT Sloan
9. Chicago Booth
10. HongKong UST
11. IESE Business School
12. Indian School of Business
13. NYU Stern
14. Dartmouth Tuck
15. IMD

You can view all the ranking here

And here is an evaluation on the top schools from a placements perspective

Comparison from a career progression point of view

And from a value for money perspective

Its fantastic that in less than 10 years ISB has reached the levels it has. Ofcourse, the ranking do tend to hide a lot of qualitative aspects that ISB might suffer from, but then I am sure other schools also have their own deficiencies! Keeping all these aspects in mind, I love the fact that ISB has done so much in such a short period of time…and needless to say…I AM PROUD TO BE AN ISB’ian!

Top 10 rankings next year! :)

Dont know if this is true…but even if it is…I wont be surprised

“Shahrukh Khan charged a whopping Rs.30 lakh for releasing a book written by management guru Arindam Chaudhari, earlier this month in Delhi. But when an upcoming writer approached Aamir for his book launch, Aamir agreed on one condition to do it and that is if he liked the book.”

Yet to see 3 Idiots, but people tell me that it will reinforce what Aamir is all about!

In a remarkable marketing strategy (I think this is marketing…they cant be that stupid to be serious!) employed by Haagen Dazs in India…I saw the biggest WTF banner on Saturday at the Select City Walk, Saket. Unfortunatly my phone battery has gone down and I couldnt capture it, but am glad someone did…!

1. Some agency is definitely getting fired

2. They really did take the marketing seriously and asked Indians to go away! Now THAT is crazy!

Ofcourse, as with everything in India…this too is a big media thing now…

(Photo Credit: Rajesh Kalra)

And this is the battle of the new age, Ladies and Gentlemen! Google vs. Newspaper (and not yet Rupert dude!)

So it all started with Rupert suggesting that he will (or can, or whatever) block Newscorp Sites from being part of Google. Basically, stop Google from indexing them and thus not showing them in search result. Because Google friggin hasnt made all that content, which has supported the lives of random journalists (only half of whom are actually needed to write that shit!) and so doesnt have any reason why it should show all that content when being searched for.

So Eric, comes back with a stellar response! If not for the battle, the sheer honesty and clarity in his thoughts makes it for a fantastic read

With dwindling revenue and diminished resources, frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame. Much of their anger is currently directed at Google, whom many executives view as getting all the benefit from the business relationship without giving much in return. The facts, I believe, suggest otherwise.

Google is a great source of promotion. We send online news publishers a billion clicks a month from Google News and more than three billion extra visits from our other services, such as Web Search and iGoogle. That is 100,000 opportunities a minute to win loyal readers and generate revenue—for free. In terms of copyright, another bone of contention, we only show a headline and a couple of lines from each story. If readers want to read on they have to click through to the newspaper’s Web site. (The exception are stories we host through a licensing agreement with news services.) And if they wish, publishers can remove their content from our search index, or from Google News.

t’s understandable to look to find someone else to blame. But as Rupert Murdoch has said, it is complacency caused by past monopolies, not technology, that has been the real threat to the news industry.

Brilliant!!

Reminds me of the kings, who long after their ‘kingdom’ had vanished, still insisted that they are kings and insisted on living that way!

Air India, yet again (but this time bigger and better!) posted losses, amounting to a shocking Rs 7,226 Crores in the last 2 fiscals! Ok…let me take that back. Its not shocking, more like expected!

But THIS is shocking

AI issued an order allowing chairman and managing director Arvind Jadhav and his spouse to travel first class on its flights, whether on work or leisure. The order also allows serving chief executive’s parents and children to travel in AI’s business class during vacation.

The mayhem continues

The diktat making it mandatory for senior officials to fly only economy class, part of AI’s much touted economy drive, has also been reversed in this latest order

And stamping it down is the addendum

AI and IA’s retired CMDs or MDs will be entitled to business class travel along with their spouses, parents and children. The same will apply to people who retired from the posts of DGM to corporate directors

Read the entire shit here…! And honestly, it is shit!

…i hope never…(or for that matter I hope someday!)…

But this is what Mr. Thackeray (no, the old almost dead one…not the young ‘always orgasming’ one!) believes Sachin has done by commenting that “Mumbai is part of India”

“There was no need for him to take a cheeky single by making such remarks,” Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamna’ quoted Thackeray as saying.

and hey…friggin entire India comes together…and this time not to simply light candles on India Gate (with all due respect…but really…candles…solidarity…??)…but barging full-on to face the Thackerays! Ofcourse they all know that no one will ever vandalise their house for doing so…since Tendulkar is god in India…and anyone even coming remotely close to branding him otherwise will only draw flak! Least…the political party will loose all voters..!

I dont get it…politics! What was the old man thinking…?? He knew this would become a national “breaking news”. And its not even something that will draw appreciation from some quarters of the society. Anyone who says anything against Sachin is bound to be either drugged, or made to confess so by Delhi Police…(or both..!). So whats the point…!

But maybe he has one…

On the other side…ofcourse a lot of people have found their moment of fame by coming up with their two pence on what they think about Sachin’s statement! HT covered some of them….one of which was a masterpiece

“Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra, which is part of India. Mumbai is, therefore, an integral part of India”

Thanks Sherlock! Thats exactly what we had in mind when we asked you if you felt Mumbai was a part of India.

Then the Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa should thank you!

An RTI reply has revealed that Yeddyurappa has spent a staggering Rs 1.7 crore to renovate his bungalow, Rs 35 lakh of which went into redoing his bedroom.

Read the gory details here

On one hand, I find it amazing that such level of information can be procured in this country…andthe ones procuring it are people such as you and me – fed up of living in the “chalta hain” scheme of things!

And on the other, I find it unfortunate that this very chief minister will come back to power, if you will, because he will distribute rice at Rs 2 per kg!

——

I travel 38 kms one-way to work! And I am blessed because the road to office is awesome..and it hardly takes me 45 minutes to cover it. However, if a certain 7km stretch of the road (which I avoid…infact everyone except the trucks avoid) was to be repaired…the same distance would reduce to 32kms and under 40 mins.

Yah…its not a lot…6kms or 5mins…but if you cover this over the number of vehicles that travel this route everyday, you will wonder why no one bothers to just repair the road! A few lacs…and god knows how much will be saved in time, effort and money!

I did write to the Department of Roads, Haryana and was told that this road falls under the Highway department. I wrote to them…and never got a response!

And to think of it…I am friggin complaining about my life…when I am aware of several others who spend twice as much time on the road…covering half the distance I travel!

To whosoever it may concern at AI, (Bad start…because it really will not concern anyone at AI…it never will)

Recall the incident wherein one of your Airhostesses on the Sharjah-Lucknow flight had reportedly leveled molestation charges against two pilots. Today, you have gone ahead and chargesheeted her.

“Komal Singh has been chargesheeted for speaking to the media against company policies. She has also been accused of insubordination, disobeying seniors,” said a senior official working with the airline, wishing anonymity.

A lot of people are crying foul here and accusing you of gender-bias. But I don’t think you…I don’t think you guys even thought that this would amount to gender-bias, because quite frankly thinking that far requires brains. So no, its not gender-bias! I would be writing this letter even if the person levying the charges would have been a guy!

I simply have 2 questions:

1. Imagine that the undergoing case would actually have resulted in the charges being proven true. Would you still have gone ahead with the chargesheet?

2. Imagine that the air-hostess had not jumped up and down infront of the media and simply reported the matter to her seniors. Would you have still taken this charge as seriously?

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I have another question, this time for my lawyer friends. Can the public chargesheet Air India and Indian Airlines for running this setup the way it is run. Where money continues to be lost every year, and not because it is offering any ’social service’ to the nation by operating at subsidized rates, but simply because of the public sector hangover where accountability is not a standard to live up to. A company whose losses are being funded by the population! I think that crime enough for a chargesheet, no?

Recall your younger days playing cricket…when the smarter guys used to bowl you out…and you started sobbing and went “yeh meri ball…main ghar jaa raha hoon…mujhe nahi khelna” (this is my ball…am going home and not playing anymore)

well…it seems some really old guys also suffer from the same

BJP Blames EVMs for assembly elections loss

BJP Concedes defeat in Maharashta; Blames MNS

such babies…! and such joy to see them defeated!

In yet another instance of financial fraud that have emerged like Akshay Kumar’s Films in the last year, Galleon Group’s billionaire founder, Raj Rajaratnam, was charged Friday in a sweeping, $17 million insider-trading case (btw notice how amazingly fast a concept like wikipedia updates on even biographies!)

I have never heard of this dude, but apparently he is a billionaire! So strange that he would do this for 17 mil…! So either its a false case or the hole is deeper than visible!

Also arrested in the case is Anil Kumar, Director at Mckinsey. Now a director at Mckinsey is pretty big…its a senior partner level…something that is achieved only by nomination and election. So this could be a big dent to the company (woohoo!!)…imagien clients resting seriously confidential data in consultants hands, only to realize that the same information is being used for personal gain! Well, honestly, this shit happens all the time, but being caught is not cool. Especially when you are Director Mckinsey

Unfortunately, Anil also happens to the Board Director at ISB. Which SUCKS, because this dude’s working will impact the rather fragile branding perception that ISB is going through this year. Its rapid rise in the first 6 years brought with it a lot of critics…people who love to lap onto the fact that ISB has been now involved in 2 financial scams…starting with Dean Rao and Satyam and now this!

ISB has started its band-aid solution by asking Anil to step down, but the damage might have been done! Especially when it comes to people commenting on whether “this is what ISB teaches its students!”

It hurts! But such is the price you pay for being in the limelight!

Joke (as heard, when I was 12)

3 nations decide to build a rocket. USA, UK and India (dont ask me how they got together). And so they decide to contribute with what they feel they have best.

US – I will pump in the money to build in and also the infrastructure

UK – I will lend all the technology needed to build it.

Both them turned towards India…wondering whats left to be done.

India – I will get “Made in India” printed on it!

___

So yah…the joke might be bad and you have heard this before…but do you realize the undertone of the joke. Do you realize why this is a joke in the first place?

Somehow we Indians love to find ways to associate India with whatever is happening around the world. We get excited if Slumdog wins an oscar (which beyond Rahman is as much Indian as is Hamburger from Hamburg!), if Rushdie wins a booker (has he?), if Russell Peters wins the US Stand-Up Comedian Show (which he deserves to, if there is such a show) or if an 2nd-Gen US-Indian enters the final of the SpellingBee Contest.

Its as if “one of the fastest growing economies of the world” tag has brought with it a lot of performance pressure. We desperately need these achievements coming in! Western acknowledgement for us, is our “Boost is the secret of my energy” and I fail to understand why!

Instead of cherishing performance and achievement, we find it fashionable to display blinded patriotism!

Latest, in case is Venki Ramakrishnan. I love the fact that he has won the Nobel Chemistry prize 2009. Being a science student I somewhat understand his work (though most of it flew over the top). But suddenly the recognition has brought with it this Patriotic deluge that he cant handle! As a scientist who is not ( at all) used to such public attention, he quite innocently expressed disenchantment with people from India “bothering” him “clogging” up his email box and dubbed as “strange” their sudden urge to reach out to him.

Needless to say, the very same people who were reaching out to him now expressed anguish over his remarks. And in a wonderful admission of sorts, he writes in again today

The best way to take pleasure in someone’s achievement is to take an interest in their work and feel motivated to learn more about science.

…

Finally, there are many excellent scientists in India and elsewhere who will never win a Nobel prize. But their work is no less interesting and people should find out about what they do. My visits to India confirm that it has great potential and bright young students. A little less nationalistic hero worship will go a long way to fulfil that potential.

Read the entire entry here

I concur!

or maybe…there is someone who wants them to…get married!

Matrimonial sites comprised the highest share of online advertising between June-August 2009! Followed by Travel and Education

SecondShaadi has a big(!) role to play in this :)

damn…!! after Maggi, Bata and Cadbury ditched me….(YES…at some point of time in my life…which could be as recent as 2 weeks back…I believed all of these to be Indian!)…

this was the last thing i wanted to hear…!

SRK and KJo can finally come out of the closet…! The judgement has been passed!

Honestly…i dont have a firm view on this…surprisingly all through my 2 years in the US i never had a gay friend…atleast no one who seemed obviously one…or said that he/she was one…! but i have interacted with them…and hv found them to be no different from anyone of us…

whats funny is how people start to brand things as natural/unnatural…as if they know what the base is supposed to be…! cmon…sometime back it was unnatural to speak about your GF/BF in front of your parents…it was unnatural for women to work…and it was unnatural for men to appear in beauty soap ads…! but things have changed….because the base keeps changing…we are not what we used to be…so dont expect the world to remain the same….

maybe the next generation wont even consider gay marriages as an issue…whats the big shit eh…?

as always…do spend sometime on the comments that follow the article above…! kickass…