To what extent you can bank on Railways website?

My parents planned to catch a 10AM train to Mysore from Bengaluru. Just to make sure that train is running as per schedule, I just quickly hit Southern Railway website and checked about the train. It showed that train is departing as per schedule and it reaches Mysore around 1.45PM.

When my parents reached ticket counter at Bengaluru raliway station, railway official said that train does not reach Mysore, instead it will terminate at a station called Naganahalli because of some repair work being carried out in Mysore station. As the next train was at 2.15PM, my parents had no option but to take the ticket till Naganahalli.

I just wondered if I misread in the website and again hit the railway website and checked. To my surprise, this is what it looked like:



As you can see, I have queried for today's date (28th Apr) and it clearly says that train reaches at 14:20 (It is expected arrival). To add to it, this report was last updated at: 13:33, 28 Apr 2009.

I was just thinking if the decision of terminating the train before Mysore was taken very recently. To verify that, I again did googling and I got to know that Railways had already released a press note on 22nd April about the changes in the train services.

That means, the above site is not updated! And whatever timings it displays could be one of those calculations implemented in a program!

I now wonder to what extent we can bank on this website! If railways has created a website with so much of information, it really needs a pat on the back. But it should also keep updating these information. Out-of-date information is worse than not providing any information.

End of civilization?!!!

"For scary speculation about the end of civilization in 2012, people usually turn to followers of cryptic Mayan prophecy, not scientists. But that’s exactly what a group of NASA-assembled researchers described in a chilling report issued earlier this year on the destructive potential of solar storms.

Entitled "Severe Space Weather Events — Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts," it describes the consequences of solar flares unleashing waves of energy that could disrupt Earth’s magnetic field, overwhelming high-voltage transformers with vast electrical currents and short-circuiting energy grids. Such a catastrophe would cost the United States "$1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first year," concluded the panel, and "full recovery could take 4 to 10 years." That would, of course, be just a fraction of global damages.

Good-bye, civilization."

Read on here.

e-Campaign

Things are changing. Nowadays, every candidate wants to have his/her identity in Internet! Look at the way the candidates are creating their own websites and use it for their campaigning.

Ananth Kumar of BJP, Krishna Byre Gowda of Congress, PC Mohan of BJP, Prof RadhaKrishna of JDS are a few examples. Krishna Byre Gowda has gone one step further. He has created a blog in Blogger but I've not seen him interacting with visitors. Also, he has opened a twitter account where you'll get updates about his campaign. Ananth Kumar has a section called "heLi-keLi" (literally meaning Speak-Listen) wherein he directly interacts with visitors answering to their questions. He has also created a voter's help desk!

As more people are becoming computer savvy and using it for discussions, communication, and information, it is obvious for these candidates to use this medium to reach out to people.

We need to check if these websites are created keeping the elections in mind or do they really update their sites and interact with people even after the elections!

A conversation with a party worker!

Yesterday when I was at home, someone knocked my door and it was a group of people from Congress party who were distributing pamphlets for the forthcoming Loksabha elections. One of the guys started conversation with me and it went like this:

Guy: Namaskara Sir

Me: Namaskara

Guy: Please vote for Congress. Candidate is young, very hard-working and sincere

Me: Okay

Guy: He's a class-mate of Rahul Gandhi

Me: Is it? Really?

Guy: Yes, they were class-mates in US (United States)

Me: Oh!

Guy: Rahul Gandhi has promised to give 10000 crores for Bangalore Sir

Me: Well, Congress government was at center for 5 years and they didn't give at that time. Should we believe that we'll get that money for Bangalore development?

Guy: No Sir. They were ready to give. But, BJP (state government) didn't accept it!

Me: But, BJP came to power only 9 months back. Congress government came to power 5 years back?!

Guy: hmmm.... Sir, please vote for our candidate.

And he left!

World’s Biggest Companies – A Forbes List

Forbes has published a big list of world’s biggest companies called “Forbes Global 2000”. Ranking of the companies is based on sales, profits, assets and market value.
The rankings span 62 countries. General Electric heads this list. 47 Indian companies have made it to the list.

Source: Forbes

Collision of Galaxies

I always wondered how it would be to view a (spectacular) collision of two galaxies! I imagined that it would result in a devastating display of fireworks! Well, that's only my imagination. I'm not a Physics student to come up with a mathematical equation describing what would happen in such cases! (I even don't know if we can derive like that!).

Here is a brief explanation on what might happen as two Spiral galaxies are approaching nearer to each other! It says the whole process takes over hundreds of millions of years! I wish, at least, it starts the process in my life time! I love to see the event!

Meaning of "Suresh"

I was surprised to see an article in Wikipedia on the name "Suresh". It says,

Suresh (sureša) is a Sanskrit word which means "Ruler of Gods"; from surya ‘god’ + īša ‘lord’, which is an epithet of the god Indra.

It is commonly used as a synonym for the Hindu God Vishnu. It may also refer to Devendra or Shiva depending on which branch of Hinduism. Its etymology is a contraction of sur + esh: sur means god, esh means king. So Suresh means king of the gods. Suresh also means the planet Sun. Suresh is a frequently used name for Hindu male children. It is a popular first name in India and a common family name in North America and the Caribbean. Variations of this name in Latin America include Sureza, Sureze, Cires and Cirez. Several of these examples are found on the South-Eastern region of the Dominican Republic (La Romana, San Pedro de Macoris, Boca Chica, etc.)

Check the article here.