Dekho dekhe ye zamana

A new ad has been "floating" on our TV screens. After a long time a fresh music based ad is creating space in our mind. There are two aspects of the ad who gets your attention. One is visual treat. In the back drop of Rajasthan, a bunch of  ski divers make a jump and create an impression of wing while floating over the space over people. It looks improbable to imagine such a huge impression of wing being created that floats across the sky. But it is fantastic. Hats off to those who actually perform this stunt.



Dekho dekhe ye zamaana
Panchhi uda jaye re.
Ud jaye re, ye dekho panchhi
uda raha ye, pankh phelaye

Sabhi ko chhod kar
Wo dekho udd gaya

Are ud ud ud ud, are udgaya, udgaya, udgaya (Akshay Kumar voice)

Dekho dekhe ye zamaana
Panchhi uda jaye re.

Second and probably more impressive thing of the ad is the background song, that makes you stop for a minute and watch the complete ad. Song has very beautiful wordings heard in recent times and the voice used makes it eternal. I could not get the name of the singer anywhere, but it reminded me of Ustad Sultan Khan's singing who is well known for the video album " Piya basanti re".

Lets go Glassgow

Common wealth games 2014 were inaugurated yesterday. Unike India, we hardly came to hear any news about the lacunae observed during preparation. That was surprising. In fact most of us must have come to know about commonwealth games just yesterday or may be today. I remember 2010 commonwealth were all full of mismanagement and involved corruption news. Anyway, that is an unending story.

Indians should be keep some good expectations from our players. Last time, we had a good season where India won 38 Golds, 26 Silver and 36 Bronze crossing a tally of 100 medals for the first time in this sporting event.

But there could be a problem in repeating the same run. Some of the events like Greeko-Roman Wrestling will  not be conducted this time. This will really badly hurt India's campaign.  Also, some Indian players like Saina Nehwal have pulled out of these events.

Overall, these games  will be interesting to watch. But expecting Indian tally to cross a ton is difficult. My expectations for the whole number stays around 80 at the max.

If you want the schedule of Indian player's day to day events, you may follow the link here:

http://www.sportskeeda.com/general-sports/cwg-2014-schedule-indian-players-24th-july

MH17 crisis: where did it really started

Two days back we saw a crisis struck all of us when a passenger plane was shot down at a height of 33,000 feet above the ground. This probably is first ever such incident when a plane full of non-troubling passengers was shot for probably no reason. 

MH17 -  a Malaysian plane going from Amsterdam - Kuala Lumpur  while on its way was crossing over the airs of Ukraine -Russia border. This region at the moment is on a war front. And for some reason, either the Ukraine defence, Russian defence or the pro-Russian rebels of Ukraine took this drastic step to hit the plane with missile and bring it down. All the 298 passengers are dead. For once, I was praying that all the passengers should have died the moment missile struck the plane. Otherwise, what those passengers must have gone through while falling down 33,000 feet.

Ukraine-Russia has been in this tense situation for some time now. As far the reports, last November Ukraine was supposed to sign an agreement with the European Union. But, Russia apparently put economic pressure on Ukraine. They put a counter offer of buying $15 billion Ukrainian bonds and provide gas to Ukraine at one third of the price.

The then President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych, agreed to this deal and postponed signing of agreement with the European Union. This did not go well with the opposition. They smelled a dead rat and on investigation, revealed that it involves lot of corruption on part of the President himself. President made several attempts to shun these protests and even lead to few horrible massacres.

After lot of protests including violent as well as non violent, at one point opposition took charge. But there is a pro Russian group in the parts of Kiev (near to Russia) having their own agenda to be a part of Russia. Some how, the new Russian government succeeded into shun down this protest for some time. But they made a mistake soon. They went ahead and tried to declare Ukrainian as their only language. This did not  go well the pro Russian rebels who are comfortable with the Russian. A new wave of protests erupted where rebels started taking over the charge of cities closer to the Russian border.

Things have been going from worse to worst since then. There are three centres who are trying to get hold of Ukraine now. One, that is the government of Ukraine, second the pro Russian rebels who want to dissolve Ukraine back in Russian and third is the Russia, who are silently leaving no stone unturned to keep this issue on fire.

Two days back, the issue absorbed some innocent people who got nothing to do with this issue. 298 people form different countries lost their lives for no reason. 189 people belong to sole Netherlands. Their were some researchers who have big names and contributions in curing AIDS disease were also part of people who lost their lives. Their number may be in the range of 75-100. All of them were going to Australia for a conference.

There is an Australian family who lost their family members not just on MH17 but also on MH370 flight just few months ago which just disappeared some where with no clue what so ever of its existence.

This tragic incident should at least make politicians open their eyes and realize that the game they are playing is killing innocent lives. In the end this game leads to no good deeds and all that happens is suffering to every body involved or not. Will we ever learn any lesson out of it?

A Well deserved World Cup Winner - Germany

Congratulations Germany!

Football has received a well deserved Champion in this World Cup. I have been following performance of many teams since last few years. One team that always stood out was Germany.

In Euro Cup, I couldn't believe when Germany lost to Italy, thanks to Balotelli's two goals. Germany somehow don't have good answer to Italy and Spain's way of playing. If Germany is playing to either of these two teams, I am not sure if Germany would win. But, since, both the teams could not qualify beyond first round, I was kind of sure, that, this time, it is Germany.

Brazil and Argentina's game is not impressive. It is player centric and I feel there is lack of team work in these teams. That's why we get Neymar and Messi. We hear chants by their names, which, I doubt happen about Muller who has always been consistent but never came into picture untill last few days.

That also brings up another point how media turns a God into a criminal with in a day. Till yesterday, Messi was the God of Football, but today, he is looked upon as a criminal by the media. I found it so difficult to watch news today, because, overall tone of the news was, how it was all Messi's fault that Argentina lost. Luckily, Neymar managed to escape such a situation.

Was it really a Brazil -Germany match!

What happened last night was nothing less than a nightmare. Did any one expected that Brazil will go down so badly, the worst ever performance of any team in the semi finals of World Cup.

Unbelievable!

Before the match, when I was talking to someone, I predicted Germany's win. To support my statement, I added that since Nyemar is out and Silva is not playing, their strong point that is attack has become weak and their defence has always been weak. Brazil wins match because of their attack. I did not know, my words will be so true. Brazil's defence was not just weak, it was the weakest. Somewhere, Spain must be relieved that they were not worst looser of this world cup.

I always wanted Germany to win. I have been supporting them. I felt they had some problems from two teams, Spain and Italy. But since these two teams even did not make beyond the first cut, I started feeling assured that this times its Germany.

Yesterday's win has made that expectation even stronger.

I am wondering if Argentina or Netherlands are really thinking about winning the semi final match. Because if they win, they face Germany. Are they ready for it? 

I think, Argentina will make it to finals. Riding on the waves of Messi, they can make it to finals. But Messi alone is not enough to get them the cup considering they will be facing Germany. 

Netherlands is good, but are good enough to be in the finals? I suspect. 

Very soon, every thing will be clear.

Finally, a glimpse of the difference in body language between the two teams that mattered the most yesterday.

Airtel 2G data balance enquiry

Last week, I had a situation. I was supposed to be on the move for some time and I desperately wanted my mobile internet to be available during this move. But, my 2G data had almost finished and that too quite before its validity date. Considering that I won't get access to internet, I decided to make a recharge for 2G even before its validity expires, so that I will have enough 2G balance. I made an online Rs. 153  recharge giving me 1GB data balance on 2G for 28 days.

I got a message from Airtel saying "Recharge successful for Rs. 153. Talktime Credited: Rs 1.00, Processing Fee: Rs. 135.17, Service Tax: Rs. 16.83, -----Validity:  -----"

Now, normally when this message is received, the 2G balance of 1GB is added to your account. So, I did not bother about checking the balance. Later on, after using net on mobile for some time, a pop up came on my mobile mentioning my 2G data balance is only 11mb remaining. It showed no added balance of 1GB. 

This took me by surprise and I started trying different ways to check why the balance has not been added.

While doing so, I had to check the 2G balance after every (un) successful attempt. Normally, I receive pop up giving details of this balance but I was not sure how to check for the balance as per your convenience.

I did what any one would do. Check online. 

I came across many sites like these:

http://www.indiascan.in/how-to-check-2g-3g-internet-data-balance-in-airtel-mobile/

                                                               OR

http://www.imobileandroid.com/check-internet-balance-airtel-2g3g-data-pack-airtel/

                                                               OR

http://www.thinkcept.com/blog/telecom/airtel-how-to-check-2g-3g-internet-balance-short-codes-for-prepaid-postpaid/

                                                               OR

http://knowledgekites.blogspot.in/2014/01/check-internet-balance-in-bsnl-idea.html

or many others like these

All these sites mostly suggest dialling a number *123*10# which apparently should let you know your 2G balance. For me it doesn't work. It ends up with very funny pop up like "local and STD minuted DA 10 bal 0.00 INR; "FaceBook without internet *325*88#(tollfree)"

That surely doesn't give me my expected answer.

There is another number mentioned in there:

 *123*21#

This number returns 2G balance, but occasionally. And many a times some absurd balance that doesn't fit your calculation. Most of the times, I came across some error in returning answer.

I had also checked airtel's website.

http://www.airtel.in/mobile/instant-help

Till few days back, when I check this site also was suggesting *123*10# for 2G data balance.

But now, it seems to have changed. I could not find any number specific number for 2G but there is a number *121*2#.

This number returns your call data, its validity, 2G data and validity together.

Once you dial this number a message pops up which basically is an ad of some airtel scheme. You need to wait for almost 3 seconds and then your expected message arrives.

So, next time, if you want to check your 2G balance, try *121*2#

And by the way, the answer to why it was not showing the added balance? Because, apparently my earlier scheme (where balance was almost finished) was still running with preference. Once its validity got over, automatically new scheme was started and new balance started appearing.