Maharashtra Elections, Politics, Left and Right Wings: Some Lessons

The Maharashtra election drama finally came to an end today with Uddhav Thackeray becoming the CM and the voters like you and me becoming fools yet again like in Karnataka. Whether you voted for BJP, Sena or the NCP, there is no way you can feel any pride about that decision now, its as clear as water that your vote hasn't been respected.

Alexa will soon express emotions through its voice

According to this latest Verge report, technology giant Amazon has decided to add a new "human" touch or feature to Alexa, their flagship virtual assistant based on AI.

Twitter will remove inactive accounts from December

According to recent news reports, the social media platform Twitter has decided to terminate the accounts of all users who haven't logged in since a very long time, such users have already been notified of this through emails.

Whoever may become the Maharashtra CM, the Voters have become the real losers

The high decibel drama going on in Maharashtra politics since almost a week has come to an end today. But the kind of selling of buying of ideologies I saw in the last few days made me question the very existence of democracy and the integrity of the leaders of our country. Does the voter even matter at all?

The Korean company KIA has started racism in India

According to reports coming out of a Kannada news channel (News18 Kannada) this morning, the Korean company KIA Motors is actively practicing racism in their Bangalore and few other plants.

Robin Hood Paradox: The unavoidable conflict of interest among all politicians

In today's world, politics is played around issues - some public representative stands for the LGBT rights in her constituency, another may be fighting for minority rights, someone else may be fighting for labor laws, nationalism, etc. Whatever we get to know about them is through media who's narrative is extremely biased and manipulative because most media outlets always have some skin in the game, be they in the mainstream media or social media.

The battle between privacy and transparency rages on in the 21st century

There are reports today that 1.2 billion individuals had their data leaked which included their personal information and activity on linkedin, facebook, etc.

The psychology of overcoming masturbation addiction: A guide for men

Over the last few years, every health magazine and tabloid in existence has been teaching us that masturbation is so good, that there is nothing wrong with masturbating and it has only pleasures and good things to offer. And we accepted that as holy grail of truth without questioning it and without using our own rationale or judgment about it.

Tech Mahindra joins hands with Business Finland with an MoU for R&D in 5G/6G

Recent reports indicate that Indian technology firm Tech Mahindra, a major IT company listed in the NIFTY Index has today inked an important MoU with Finland based Business Finland for research and development in 5G/6G.

Good News for India: Customs clearance time will be reduced from 12 hours to 12 minutes as government introduces blockchain and automation to the process

According to recent reports, the Indian govt. is going to take some drastic steps in IT Automation by introducing blockchain, AI and ML to the process of customs clearance at Indian ports like JNPT and Nava Sheva in Mumbai. This is part of the efforts to improve India's ranking in ease of doing business globally.

Its high time that the world needs some good PayPal alternatives

A couple of days ago, PayPal pulled out of Pornhub, thus hurting the income of several of their performers. Now, one may argue the ethics of watching porn at a workplace or even watching it at all but there is no doubt that handing such a monopolistic power over international remittance to one entity called PayPal isn't a desirable thing.

Flipkart takes a small step towards fighting climate change - to collect plastic packaging back from customers

Few weeks ago, I had made a post about how BigBasket has taken a positive initiative in fighting climate change by introducing "You Return, We Recycle", a wonderful policy which involves taking back used recyclable card-board boxes from customers at each visit.

Google App Engine (GAE) will no longer have a standard free tier

Google App Engine (GAE) was perhaps the sole remaining service which had a proper free-tier (after Openshift placed limitations on their free-tier last year) where small developers like myself were able to deploy Java and Python web apps and experiment with them.

In Indian IT companies, creative people like programmers are treated like subservient labor class by managers and supervisors

This is a very old and systemic problem, call it a work culture issue or a mindset problem. Ironically, creativity isn't appreciated at all in an industry which deals with as progressive a thing as information technology.

1.2 lakh employees might lose jobs in coming days as IT companies decide to "skim some fat" in middle management layer

A renowned industry veteran in the Indian IT industry has spoken and the news isn't good. Three major tech firms, Infosys, Cognizant and Capgemini have already made it clear that they are laying off employees soon.

The "missing" foreign tourist from Anjuna Beach (Goa) was actually in a Maharashtra Hill Station

Since last two days, the Indian Reddit has been quite concerned about this young Minnesotan tourist woman who had been to Anjuna Beach in Goa for sight-seeing and went missing from there.

After Infosys and Cognizant, now Capgemini to lay off techies as Indian IT Sector woes continue

It seems as though all Indian IT companies are on a firing spree at the same time. Barely a few days have passed since Cognizant CEO first announced that they are going to get rid of 7,000 employees and Infosys joined the club soon after by announcing they will be letting go about 12,000 employees in senior and mid level positions.

Bailing out builders in the name of helping the Economy - Why govt's decision to infuse ₹25,000 crores into stalled housing projects is wrong

The Indian real estate sector is in a real mess. Hardly a month has been passed since the PMC Bank depositors were left deprived of their money and even Yes Bank's financials was in shambles. All due to one real estate giant called HDIL which not only promptly defaulted on their loans but also committed a great fraud by creating several fictitious accounts to receive this loaned money in the first place.

Approximately 20,000 employees will be jobless out of Indian IT Industry soon, thanks to Infosys and Cognizant

Some of the worst fears about the Indian IT industry are coming true. While Infosys was already reeling under pressure due to whistleblower complaint to SEC since last several weeks, Cognizant CEO has spoken and made it clear that they are sacking about 7,000 techies. And now, Infosys has also confirmed that they are going to lay off about 12,000 employees in mid and senior level positions.

Transactions through apps like Paytm are free for now but they may not be once you get addicted to them

Demonetization was announced in India on the evening of 8th November, 2016 and right on the very next day (9th November), there was this glorified advertisement of Paytm across all Indian newspapers about how the new cashless and digital revolution is going to be driven by Paytm. Right on that very day, the seeds of this new drug called payment apps was sown in the minds of all Indian citizens.

As Cognizant and Infosys loom under pressure, could this be a warning sign that India's IT story is about to end?

Two large Indian firms which are struggling to keep their businesses intact right now are Infosys and Cognizant, the latter being a US based multinational which only has manpower and development centers in India.

On one hand there is talk of economic slowdown and on the other, NIFTY is about to cross 12K!

As any stock market veteran will tell you, the stock market activity always anticipates the real economic events in advance and will rise or fall accordingly.

Don't meddle with payment apps like Paytm/Phonepe unless you know what you're doing

Payment apps have become the hot thing these days, their usage has been steadily increasing ever since demonetization happened in 2016 and digital India became a thing. But right now, every single dude and his chacha seems to be using apps like Paytm, Google Pay and Phonepe daily and yet, how many of them even have the required technical knowledge to use these apps effectively and securely?

Opinion: Reading skill has decreased a lot in Indians over the last decades, we should strive to read more

There is no doubt that reading skill has decreased tremendously over the last few decades, almost anyone can sense it and those of us who were raised in the 90s can clearly see the diminishing intellectual prowess and attitudes everywhere which is mostly caused by a lack of in-depth reading.