Oru Cup Coffee

1. Dalamo..Dalamo.. Baskar song from Dishyum - cool beats
2. Kuruvi song from Cheran's Thavamai Thavamirunthu. I liked the dramatic picturization of this song also
3. Of couse, still listening to Theepidikka...Theepidikka... along with original "Manida Jenmam" by T. Bhagavathar

Hey, what's up Tamil education in film songs. Vairamuthu started this bad precedence with "Atrai..Kotrai" and it has gotten us to "Alabadai". Soon, we will be dancing to Yuvan Shankar Raja's tune of Thevaram....

The rice scheme announced by ADMK has astounding financial implications to the state govt. Here is a simple calculation:

1. There are 1.88 crore ration card holders in TN.
2. 1 KG rice costs Rs. 8.50 to the govt.
3. ADMK wants to provide 10 KG rice free every month to all the ration card holders unconditionally.

Total budget required for a year 1.88 Cr * 10 * 8.50 * 12 = Rs. 191,760,00,000. A whopping 191 crores.
If this was carried out for a term of 4 years, it would be Rs. 767,040,00,000.00. Close to Rs. 800 crores.

God help TN.

Rediff is doing a great coverage on 2006 elections.

On Tamilnadu elections, a short interview with Cho Ramaswamy also features here.

Wonderful blog on Tamilnadu elections at HotMachiHot. (Thanks LazyGeek). The imaginary interview with Jayalalitha is very funny.

BTW, Karunanidhi is giving away TVs. I guess there is going to be big secondary market for buying those TVs. This is a cool marketing initiative to expand the grips of Suntv across TN. But, will this strategy be successful with Radhika having no future in Sun TV? We have to wait and see. How about Jayalalitha providing cable free w/o Sun tv on it? I guess that would be a balanced use of the TVs distributed.

I've always felt the Muslims in India must be feeling very insecure as a minority. Here is an article in Rediff that affirms my thought. And the comments to this article are nothing but disparaging in spirit.

Galatta is an yearly event that promotes Udavum Karangal chapter of Bay Area. I had missed it for last couple of years, but this year, this evening, had a chance to attend the sold out event. Generally, events in the Tamilian community are in two distinct ends of a entertainment spectrum. One being the eclectic language based events that only serious Tamil literates can follow and the other as an evening of cinema songs. There has not been serious effort within the diaspora to have an event that will appeal to wide variety of people, at the same time, have a charitable means to it. Though, Galatta borders with latter of the category spectrum, meaning cinema songs & theme, it also provides enough mix of programmes that are with non-cinematic themes. Last year, they had programme for kids, various other competitions that were not based on cinema themes. This year, a new concept called Galatta Idol, borrowed from American Idol, was introduced and it brought in enough local talents to participate. After all, these events are all about participation. At one time, participation used to mean attending the event. As many as 110 participants went through a process of elimination and the final six were on stage today. Out of them two finalists were selected.

The finalists’ idols sang in the Pallavi troupe for the Galatta Idol. Pallavi troupe itself has matured quite well. It was refreshing to see new singers that were outstanding in their deliveries. Galatta also continued its fashion show from last year with the concept of "Pancha Bhoothas" aka. Five Elements and it was rendered extremely well. The seating, food and the time management were key to such events' success. Galatta kept it all very well. Kudos to the volunteers that pulled it off.

With elections in Tamilnadu looming large, it seems like there is no clear measure of candidate effectiveness in the places they contest. In the cities, where people can clearly distinguish between actions and inactions, do not do so because of all the election time claims made by politicians. IMO, this can be done very well by civic entities in each of those constituencies, that can record list of things executed in favor of public and can be used to compare notes about the candidates. If nothing, this will help motivate politicians to do something for their constituencies. I guess, we're all to be blamed to be not caring so much that anything goes with politicians. I am sure such listing may be happening in some blogs, but it should reach the common man in the cities at the very least. Who will bell the cat?

Recently, I got a mail on this subject. O Podu is an organization that highlights to people the importance on voting. I always thought you need to vote for someone. But there is an article in the elections called 49-O that allow people to discard all the candidates. Though taking this path does not seem trivial as the process is more complicated. But there is a push towards making selection of 49-O more simple and discreet. You can all read about this at this site. So, O Podu...

Villivakkam is a suburb of Chennai where I grew up. With its infamous railway station, place of worship and the ever bustling market street, it caters to various demographics. I'll write about the history of the town itself some other time, but what caught my attention recently was the Lions club of Villvakkam. Not a fancy website, but I heard about it a while ago when my dad's friend Mr. A.M. Kumaraswamy used to be associated with it. We used to live in Thazhankinaru street next to his house. Only today I realized that he was the first Secretary of the club itself. I am not sure of the accomplishments of the club itself, I could see that the club has setup eye health clinic and promotes eye health check campaigns. Anyway, another interesting piece of information for those who lived in Villivakkam is that the first president was Dr. T.V.N. Iyer. He is famously knows as Nelliapa doctor, who served the community until his very old age and quit only when he could not continue. I've visited him during my childhood, vividly remember his palacious housed colored in white. I do not remember him, treatment or the medication, but I recall how good he was to his patients from the stories I heard from my parents. Today, that house has given away to newer structures. Sometimes, I fear walking those streets to find my memory of Devar street completely out of place.