The Dark State of Power in Tamil Nadu

Hi Guys,

The power situation in Tamil Nadu has gone crazy.

I was speaking with my friend Vimal and he was asking whether I’m planning to write any more posts on the same as I have already written four posts. He said that each time I say power shedding is bad, it becomes worse.

One of the pictures published in The Hindu Newspaper

 The last time I wrote was on April 21, 2012. It was titled Frustration at its Peak – 10 hours of Power cut per day! I finished the post optimistically writing that the power situation can’t worsen and I hope not to write about 12 or 14 hour power cut. But, sadly I have to write about 14 hour power shedding.

Last week I was in Madurai and the way power shedding is done is absurd. There is no schedule, no announcement and you don’t know when power is there and when power is not there. The inventors don’t enough power to get charged up. This is the situation of all the cities in Tamil Nadu, except Chennai.

Government has been largely ineffective. This government blames the previous government. Then, they blamed the previous government (which is the current one). They said that there were no steps taken from early 2000s and they never took any steps to build power stations and neither is Government taking any steps to rectify the situation. And no one knows why Chennai is excluded from this list and faces just 1 hour power cut. With the huge power consumption, an increase by another 1 hour could relieve the state in some way.

It has people in all walks of life. With the monsoon approaching and mosquito menace increasing, sleep is completely lost with the alternate 1 hour power shedding in night. All the businesses are completely affected. People don’t know what to do. Small scale businesses can’t afford for generators. Students are affected and they are not able to study.

Everyone is complaining. Media is covering to certain extent. They are too tired of writing the same thing for 4-5 years with increasing time duration of power shedding (me too!!!). The number of sarcastic comedies in Facebook about the power situation has been on a rise. And Government is with an attitude of ‘Who Cares?.

What is the Solution? Will the situation reverse? God only knows.

Happy Reading!!!

Interesting People - 2

Hi Guys,

After the good response I received for the post Interesting People, I felt that I should revive back many such moments. So, here I again present of the moments when I had come across Interesting People.

Who are the important persons for running a Public Transport Corporation Bus? Of course, Driver and Conductor. Have you ever travelled in a Public Transport bus without a conductor? I have. This interesting incident happened just two months back. I and my cousin started to Express Avenue Mall. We got into a bus at Koyambedu. The bus started in 5 minutes. There were only 10 people in the bus and we were only people sitting in the back end.

After the bus started, my cousin asked me, ‘Where is the conductor?’ I said he must be somewhere in the front. Only after some 2 minutes, everyone started looking back and forth. We realized there was no conductor in the bus. The driver was alarmed and he stopped the bus. I thought that the driver might take a turn to the bus stand and got down. The driver was not even bothered about the incident. After some five minutes, the conductor arrived in another bus. As soon as he got down, a big fight started between the driver and conductor. The driver was abusing the conductor that he missed the time and conductor was blaming the driver for his irresponsible behaviour.

Whenever I see the ICICI Bank nearby Koyambedu Bus stand, this incident comes to my mind. This is where the incident took place. Isn’t it the driver’s responsibility to start the bus only after verifying with conductor?

Sometimes, you come across people who ask you genuine questions unexpectedly and you stand still not knowing what to answer. I and two of my friends were doing a project in a Manufacturing Industry a few months back. During the initial few days we were getting to know the working of the unit. There was a friendly worker in the furnace division. He was a contract labour and he was working there for the past two years. After explaining the working of the furnace, he asked us what we were doing.

 When we said we were doing Mechanical Engineering, he said that we people had a very high education. We said its nothing like that. Before we could say anything, he came up with the next question, ‘Your job is to remove our job. Isn’t it? You people automate things and decrease the Human work force’ He asked it directly in a soft tone and we were paralyzed not knowing what to answer. It seems that they were automating a process and hence from the next month they required only one worker instead of three. Whose mistake is that? Management? Mechanical Engineer? Worker? I don’t know.

That’s it for now.

Happy Reading!!!

Advantage Nokia?

Hi Guys,

It looked as if all the roads were closed for Nokia. From the days of being a very dominating player, they were pushed to an ordinary player whose smart phones were terribly failing in the market. Their unwillingness to switch to a different OS seemed perilous. When Apple came out with innovations and Samsung followed the path with comparatively cheaper phones, Nokia’s comeback strategy looked difficult.

Do you India’s most trustable brand? It’s Nokia. It has been in the number One place for quite some time. Nokia has been my favourite brand for a long time. It was the market leader in India’s mobile segment till last year. Even now, it has a dominating power among the lower income group. The stable and reliable lower price phones were the supporting factors. But when it came to higher end mobile, Nokia lacked market space and Samsung conquered it.

For the past few months, Nokia has been trying to innovate and come out with a new product. The initial Lumia models were quite average and didn’t perform as expected. 808 Pureview was promoted with Camera as the main product and that worked to some extent for Nokia. Camera crazy guys started to adore the Pureview.

But, Nokia needed something big to be back. So did Windows Phone OS. For both the players, the new product is nearly a ‘Do or Die’ product. After a series of hypes, the introduction ceremony took place today and the whole Twitter was trending with the tagline #switchtolumia

Nokia has succeeded to create the initial impact among the customer’s mindset. With Apple lacking innovations and Samsung caught in the copycat scandal, it is the best time for Nokia to breakthrough. Nokia seems to promote the product with the tag of Wireless Charging. Basically, you don’t need to plug in and charge but if you keep the phone on the charge pad it will get charged. How innovative is this? The technology is innovative, but the flexibility it will create depends on the convenience factor.

Also, the first phone with Windows Phone 8 OS creates some hype. After failures, there is a hope that Microsoft will come out with a better OS as it is very critical for the future of the mobile OS of Microsoft. Also the addition of Pureview seems to be an attractive feature as it promises better Camera than other smart phones.

The initial hype is great. With Apple phones getting stereotyped and Samsung facing troubles, the wind is blowing towards Nokia. Now it depends on how strong Nokia’s sail is. It’s Make or Break situation for Nokia.

Let us wait and see how customers respond.

Happy Reading!!!