Tragedies at North London

Why is that whenever something good is to happen in a few days ,time seems to pass by at snail pace ?? When something that seemed inevitable crawls back and creates doubt.Its a known fact that nothing has gone right for the red side of north London over the past couple of years.Be it the lack of silverware,the never ending injury saga of the so called "promising talents" ,the sometimes errant tactics of Mr Wenger ...everything....bloody everthing ... seems to be pointing in the wrong direction.The upcoming season is supposed to be the end of empty promises with Arsene promising a better display.There has only been a single signing this summer .Agreed the transfer market is overinflated with money being showered around worthlessly on overhyped individuals who suddenly have a bloated sense of pride and have even gone to the extent of saying they are worTH it!!.But we all know arsenal need a couple of good signing to stay afloat in the so called top 4 (which we barely hung to this time ) with Man City close on heels.Hope Wenger brings in a few new ones ...coz hope is only what I can do.

Coming to where I started off ,the deal of Adebayor to Man City for 25 million seemed god sent and seemed inevitable.Sometimes greater value addition takes place when a player leaves a club and there is no greater exponent of this theory than our very own "Greedabayor" .I say this with fear that one day the guy will be back at emirates and may put one past the gunner as well ...but after being a premier league addict for the past 5 years ...I know that he may score a few goals which may give you reasons to believe that the man has flashes of brilliance,he may have a few tap in goals which critics might attribute it to so called "striker instincts" but at the end of the day you will know he is just a dumb,lucky guy who wont pay dividends in the long run. His statement that he would play like Henry if paid like Henry swept away the last set of sympathetic gooners. Newaz I was overjoyed when I received a tweet saying Ade had got work permit and it was a matter of time before the switch was made.For once the events seemed to fall in the anticipated chronological order with no disruptions & Man City's urge to sign him before they leave for a 10 day South Africa trip seemed to make the entire situation rosy.But the universal law which says that things are bound to go wrong when everything seems perfectly perfect gave an example of its practical application.Another tweet : Ade transfer delayed!!!! apparently he came under heavy criticism from his homeland over the motives of his move .Remember!! Arsenal have huge Fan base in Africa & apparently he is having second thoughts.Now I its gonna be a painful wait for another 10 days without knowing whether Ade would be gone for good .This is likely to hinder our transfer market ambitions as a lotsa good players were being looked at for replacements for the Togo Striker.(I use the term "Striker" reluctantly as the two roles for Ade that came to my mind were a) Striker from the more benign part of my mind while the other suggested b) "Lazy ,ludicrous, over hyped offside loving egomaniac" ......finally decided to go for the milder one for a bit of respect for the 30 odd goals out of the possible 100 I may have cheared.).

Newaz enough for now I bid adeu with simple hopes one that Ade leaves !!(pretty oBvious ehh !!) second ...go out there and get some FOOTBALLERS Mr Wenger , not kids looking for internships ..

Liars Poker ...worth a read !!

For the last two days I have been hooked to a book called "Liars poker".Though I had planned on reading this one for a long time ,never been able to get time.Finally at home I had loads of time on my hands and decided to take it up .The book describes the happening in one of the wall street's biggest investment bank during the mid 70's "Salomon brothers" through the eyes of a Bond salesman Micheal Lewis .His portrayal of life as student at Princeton university,as a trainee at the Salomon office in New york gives us a glimpse of darker side of the route to one of the most monetarily rewarding profession of our times Investment Banking.The books introduces how the otherwise silent world of bond markets became the epicenter of all the financial activity,how enormous profits were made by selling housing mortgages as securities and how new shortsighted financial instruments were invented by the ever so smart traders to make a quick buck.

Apart from the working of the bank the author also describes the ways of working of traders,salesman & managers ,their aspirations and how they went about achieving it.The vivid and metaphorical descriptions of the traders did succeed in creating highly demonic impression of the traders ..if that was the author intended to do .The books ends with the author describing how greed,fall in the markets ,infighting within the organization for superiority and the inefficacy of Salomon brothers management resulted in the downfall of this great financial giant.

As mentioned by the author in his epilogue, this book is not a product of a disgruntled or estranged investment banker( the author himself was successful and liked his work) , its just the story of his life ,an unbiased description.It is essential for all to know this else the book would be worthless & will be viewed as a writing of a sad unsuccessful trader.Besides the other frank admission of his greed and incompetence made by the author during the course of his story add a great deal of credibility to his work.Even though a lot of financial terms sound gibberish to us ,a bit of goggling or as they say now a bit of "binging" will help.The different possibilities in the financial world is bound to stir one's imagination.A nice book...a good two days work

Hail Barca...

10th  min : a Samuel eto toe poke into the near post.

69th  min :A rare Messi header

scoreline : 2-0

Thats as simple a statistic as there is ...a simple victory for barcelona ....a very expected one from arguably one of the best ever teams assembled teams in Europe.But Statistics hardly tell u the story.On the night mancheter united werent just defeated ..they were battered and ripped apart by a relentless barcelona attack.Its not everyday that wayne rooney looks like an errant eboue set loose on the football field .Rooney played in three positions during the course of the game and failed to make any sort of impact .The so called Messi Ronaldo battle just showed that sometimes nice guys do win and staying on your feet is  a tad better .

To say that Barcelona were the better team would be an understatement.The catalans made the red devils (oops !!! srry white fairies @rome) look exactly like the relegated newcastle united .A team which had everything to play for but showed no signs of fight or determination.In ManU's case this wasnt because the players didnt have the fight within ,it was coz they were helpless(....grinning)The fact that Barca made a bunch of "never say die" footballers to give in meekly speaks volumes about the team. I have been rather too generous in heaping up praises for the barcelona team.But as a gunner to the core I was overjoyed to see Manu being ruthlessly destroyed .Hats off barca and njoy it ....its ur moment of glory 

Indian Elections for Dummies

This Post is for people like me who come to know of most of the election news from office lunch time talk , from friends who follow the political drama religiously and from the glances at newspaper headlines in the everyday rush. As Iam not abreast with current state of affairs in Indian politics I did a bit of googling so that i could formulate an opinion on what was different in this election ,what was new and jotted down for many more like me out there.

Lets begin with the basic stats

UPA :262

INC 206

DMK 18

OTHERS 38

NDA : 159

BJP 116

JD(U) 20

OTHERS 23

THRD FRNT : 66

BSP 21

LEFT 22

BJD 14

OTHERS 9

4th FRONT : 56

SP 22

ADMK 9

OTHERS 25

The major change observed in the voting patterns from the general election of 2004 is that the Congress has made serious inroads into the vote banks of the so called third front and fourth front parties rather than BJP(even though it has strengthened its presence in BJP strongholds).

The 2004 general election saw the BJP garnering 138 seats while Left ,SP,RJD,BSP and other 3rd/4th front parties won 60,39,21 & 17 seats repectively making their total 137.In the 2009 election the BJP's total has reduced to around 116 ,mainly due to inroads made by Congress in Rajasthan & Madhya Pradesh.The major change is in the total seats garnered by Left,SP,RJD
,BSP which dropped from a majestic 137 to around 70 with RJD not even being in the picture.It is precisely this fall of around 60 votes that has landed into the UPA kitty.

The Major states reponsible for this landslide victory for the UPA are UP, Rajasthan,West Bengal,Kerala & Andhra Pradesh.The Stratergic alliance by congress with NCP in Maharashtra & with DMK in tamilnadu also helped in winning crucial seats. Let me put in a small note as to what happened in each of the above mentioned states which tilted the 2009 general election in congress party's favour.

Uttar Pradesh

1. The Extensive Campaign by Rahul Gandhi played a important role in congress improving its hold over the region.He toured almost the entire of UP unlike earlier campiangns which were restricted to in & around the congress strongholds of Amethi and Rae bareili .His stress on Youth playing a more important role in politics found many takers .

2.The electorate sick of Mayawati's misrule had no option but to go for congress as there was nothing done by SP in recent times which would have shifted the votes to them .

3. Mayawatis Prime minister ambitions and her neglect of state affairs in favour of her roadmap to the PM office proved disastarous

Rajasthan

The anti incumbency factor failed to hurt the congress here as they won a good number of seats.

1.The last ditch effort by BJP to make Narendra Modi to campaign in Rajasthan backfired.Modi's aggressive speeches against the minority communities developed a sense of insecurity among the Muslim voters ( a sizeable number) who voted against BJP. BJP should have moved slowly in a liberal state like Rajasthan.

2. BJP's campaign was mostly based on anti terrorism and they projected it as an attack against a community .The electorate saw terrorism as a war against a nation and attributed it to pakistan. As history has shown during crisis people rally around the government .They saw the BJP move as a step towards weaking the govt and hence may have voted against them

West Bengal

1.The governments handling of mysterious death of Rizwanur Rehman turned the muslims in the urban belt away.

2.The Sachar commitee report which stated that the Left had done nothing for development of Bengal for last 32 years alienated a lot of hardcore traditional Leftist voters.

3.The forcidble land acquisitions at singur and nandirgram further alienated muslims who form a major part of rural farmers and are usually a Left votebank.

4.Finally the arrognance of the CPM and the firebrand politics of mamta banerjee delivered the final blow to left.

Kerala

1. The LDF which had a resoundig victory in the 2006 state assembly elections lost out mainly because of the infighting between the CPI[M] State secretary Pinarayi VIjayan and theChiefMinsiter V.S.Achutanandan.Pinarayi Vijayan is infamous for his close relations with unscrupulous Industrialists and Real estate Mafia.The electorate which had voted LDF to a resounding victory were tired with infighting and decided to serve the ruling party a warning.

2.The ploy of parading Abdul Nasser in a public meetings of LDF with an aim of garnering the muslim votes backfired.Abdul nasir is considered to be still connected to jihadists and his presence might have consolidated the hindu votes against the LDF.

Andhra Pradesh

1. YSR is undoubtedly the star in this important state.Inspite of the rampant corruption in the goverment his schemes and its implementation in rural areas were greatly appreciated.Even though the government werent upto the mark the electorate were satisfied with its performance and didnt want to risk bringing TDP to power as TDP had many a times given false promises.

2.Chiranjeevi's PRP inspite of its initial charisma and rumoured promises to take in only graduates ended up with TDP rebels & failed to live upto people's expectation

3. The lack of a quality opposition would have made people to vote for the incumbent.

Irrespective of the the local reasons mentioned above which might have affected the election a moor change observed in this election is the electorate rose above the petty politics of caste and regional issues and the kept the big picture in mind .The demise of the regional parties in some regions clearly pointed to the fact.The electorate has given a decisive verdict to the UPA now it is upto them to deliever on its promises & bring about radical changes.Let hope it is a sign of better things to come.


For more statistics visit http://in.webdunia.com/Hindi/election/electionmap.htm

Respeck !!!!

With ManU drwaing the game against Arsenal its hard even for a gunner not to apreciate the tenacity the champions have displayed during the course of the season.A comeback after christmas inspite of a depleted back four at times has shown what liverpool lack .....a chAMpions mindset.Winning the premiership (toughest in europe!!!) three times a row takes a lot & helluva lotta credit goes to Sir Alex who brought the right players into the fold and kept the star studded line up motivated.

The next season aint far off and as a true gunner I do believe that the next season is ours .With the  potential we have we just need a few more experienced heads on the pitch to turn things around .Wenger has his task cut out to create champions out of his bunch of long time contenders.But as they say " IN ARSENE WE TRUST" . But in spite of what the future holds ...this moment belongs to ManU....so to all u reds out there for once ......Respeck man ...Respeck !!!!!     but beware ur glory is shortlived gunners will be on the prowl

IPL FIXEDDD????

Let me start off by saying Iam a ardent sports lover and not a saddist who seems to find fault with each and everything.I just wanted to clarify my status prior to blogging on this issue as Iam bound to get a lot of crap for this.The thought of IPL being fixed just popped up in my mind owing to the following reasons 

Deccan Chargers vs Daredevils (May 13 ,09)

1.Catches were being dropped more frequently than runs being scored .Agreed that after all cricketers are humans and are bound to make mistakes but the Andrew Symonds catch certainly seemed funny .Slow motion replays shows his palms opening up rather intentionally as he made contact with the ball & trust me it looked very intentional.

2.Apart from that  no one in their senses could understand the strategy behind sending  Mr.Ravi Teja (Yes He is a cricket Player and not a BITSIAN) ahead of  guys like symmo and dwayne ,especially after their recent performances.Its hard to find a valid argument for the strange batting order change.

Royal vs Mumbai Indians (May 14 ,09)

3.A decision to the above one was taken to send Mr . Takawal(or whatever) & Mr Rahane ahead of duminy ,jaysuriya & tendulkar. Isnt this done  to ensure that the match goes down to the wire or atleast the match remains competitive till the last few overs ???

4.The Duminy wicket(bowled) looked fishy ...he surely played it to the stumps man  :) . 

Okay! Okay! I know that Duminy thing was a little over the top,forgive me ,for a Knight Rider Fan has nothing else left to do but to speculate . But guys for god sake cant u understand there is something wrong going on for sure.Doesnt it seem the game is being manipulated to have nervy endings which send TRP's rocketing sky high.There seems something fishy about these incidents.So I have decided to keep a watchful eye on the few upcoming matches ....if something turns up & my finding find more conclusive evidence ,thank me for bringing it to your notice and saving the gentleman's game from disgrace else consider this as the random ramblings of a disgruntled Kolkatta Fan who has no other olternative  but to cry foul .

PS2

Hey ..back after pretty long..three months i guess .PS2 has been a little busy even though it isn't work that is keeping me engaged.My PS2 station is Infineon technologies ,a Germann chip maker providing semiconductor solutions in various fields .Until,now surprisingly my PS has been rather good in comparison to other stations where interns are bemused at why the company takes in interns if they dont want them to work.I was alloted my team after about two weeks and it almost took a month for my team to realize that there has been addition of one more member into the team.Apart from the sluggish start things have been moving smoothly with a some work coming my way (even though Iam never assigned deadlines & those tasks are far from the critical path ).I have probably learnt more about how people work,how interdependent the tasks are & how difficult it is to get stuff working from top to bottom in a given time. Some people Iam associated with have been in the industry have been around for about 5-6 years and seem to know almost everything associated in and out.There knowledge spikes in certain specific domains makes them invaluable to the organization & the recession just seems to get by them unnoticed.Even though people are pretty busy and are not able to devote a lot of time to me ,I must say that whenever possible they have always helped me out.Sometimes it does get boring and frustrating when you realize that the work assigned to you is so monotonous & repetitive that even our BITS chowki bhaiya could complete it ,even though it may take a bit longer for him to pick it up.I guess it is a part and parcel of this sytem called "internship" where u gotta do what no one else wants to .Some few boring moments apart its been a good 3 months at bangalore (even though missing pilani like ever) and iam looking forward to the last few months of PS.