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Camp seasons are ahead

On 27th Aug we had our Kolkata CGPF committee meeting to decide about the upcoming regional ICPF camps (ICPF camp 2004, ICPF camp 2005) . This year we will be having few more camps compare to last year. Thus the total budgeted expenses are higher too. This year we need approx Rs 2,50,000 for next 2 months. This is a big requirement and we are rushing with our donation sheets to make it happen. We believe that God will provide everything; all we need to do is try. Last year the requirement was around Rs 1,00,000. Till the last day of camp we were running on loans but God provided enough to complete the camp debt free.

ICPF’s special musical team Angelos 2 will be available for all camps with their special vehicle. We will have great youth speakers for all the camps. We are expecting showers of blessing this year. This year ICPF kolkata had arranged many awareness programs like anti-aids, anti-drugs (the list will go on).

ICPF Kolkata camp will be held from Oct 3 to Oct 6 but during first 2 days I will be traveling to Bhilai for YPE camp (Youth People Endeavor, where different youths from different regional state churches come together for competition). For last three times our church is winning the trophy and for this year also we are expecting it. Almost 8 years back my first YPE camp at Vizag as secretary of YPE Kolkata Chapter was a great learning experience when with just 10 members we won the competitions marginally. That experience taught me many things about team power. I am waiting for the camp seasons and praying to God for all the needs.

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BSNL is down – Cant recharge

For last 2 days my dad is trying to recharge his BSNL prepaid connection where he is continuously getting a message, “this service is currently not available, try after sometime”. After trying few times he assigned the job to me. I tried but the message did not improve for me either.

Today I came to know from some my colleagues that BSNL database is having some problem and is a major issue. Even I heard that they have lost the data but I have no authentic data to support it. From one of the programmers who once worked at BSNL I came to know that the validity will stay unhampered but recharge won’t be possible. According to him this is the sixth day. In this Indian market where telecom sector is a synonym for competition I wonder the possible losses for BSNL. Are you facing such problems too?

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Pluto – I am no longer with Sun

pluto - no longer a planet within solar system

Pluto
Disney Family, Earth

My friend,

Perhaps you know by this time, that I am not a planet anymore Sad . Yes you are right, I am the object far away from the Sun, used to be known as the 9th planet of the solar family. I have lost my position yesterday, though I don’t know how a group of people got the right to decide my fate, anyways, I don’t want to break up a fire, I am writing to you just for venting.

I have never complained for all the injustice that I have been awarded so far, sunlight and heat rarely reach to my surface. My body is covered with ice. But I never argued. I have only one ‘moon’ where some other planets have as more as 17 and I never argued. But today I cannot keep quiet anymore. I have been demoted to a ‘dwarf planet’ state where I have to sit with Charon? What a humiliation? ……………………………………….

Read more at http://www.hedir.com/introduction/about16383.html

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IT majors in Mega hiring mode

Thanks to Parikshat Sharma of MBA-5 for sharing this information.

IT majors are hiring
(Click here to enlarge it)

IT industry is growing bigger and bigger everyday, I hope we start developing our own brands too. On one side we are getting jobs but on other side we are just doing work for others. We need to support the innovation drive over the outsourcing. I am happy to be with a company where we keep doing new experiments.

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NIMC forums got hacked

I was using invision, an old version, the version when it used to be free. I always wanted to shift to phpbb as it keeps the code updated for free. I think this is the time when I should shift to phpbb. I will certainly check the log files and find out the people behind these hackings.

I wonder what they get out of it. Bad day, I slept only for 3 hrs yesterday because of these idiots. I have a backup of 17th Aug 2006. I did not automate the whole backup system yet, so I should do that as well. I will try to bring it back asap.

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Nostalgia 2006 – Old memories and new dreams

Nostalgia 2006, the alumni meet for our Institute Army Institute of Management (formerly known as National Institute of Management, Calcutta) was scheduled for Aug 26th after few changes. The college crowd (current batches MBA-9, MBA-10) was very much involved to make it special in all possible ways. It all started few months back when I started getting emails and calls for the student reps. I was happy and was expecting to see few batchies, who ones use to depend on GP (Gill palace, a road side dhaba, open for 24 hrs) for energy.

The day came when the NIMC countdown clock was about to reach the 0th count. I slept late the other night, as I had to do the usual last day preparation for the AIMAA presentation (AIM alumni association, a new venture to network the alumni). Got up somewhere at 9:00 in the morning (which is late as per professional schedule and early from NIMC point of view) and collected my new personal visiting card with the blog address in it and reached the venue at 10:45 IST.
aimaa presentation
(Click here to enlarge)
With few alumni and the current batches the event started when Dr K.K.Chaudhuri (Director) addressed the congregation. He stressed on the point that the success for any institute is measured by the success of its alumni. He requested all the alumni to be a loyal brand ambassador for the Institute at all possible venues. Thereafter the registrar TR Nial shared his viewpoint. I was then given a chance to speak about the upcoming AIMAA activities. One of my tasks was to motivate the existing batches for brand building. Keeping the participation in mind I made it as interactive as possible. I tried my part and ended it silently offering a challenge. But on request I did make it loud by asking, “Howz the Josh” in nimc istyle. It was followed with Q&A session. After the presentation I expect at least 50 mails in our mailboxes, future will only be able to calculate the right variance for my expectation.

Thereafter different Alumni, representing different companies and ex batches shared their experiences. It varied from marketing to HR, IT to finance. Some introduction sessions with the fresh batches were also arranged, the same NIMC istyle introduction (you know what I mean). At around 1 noon we had tea and then I had a special meeting with the website crew (Narendra Kumar Singh,Abhishek Malik & Avinash Dubey). It was attended by few more MBA systems and alumni. Thereafter we had special AIM/NIMC lunch in the very famous mess (where all the curvy sofas were replaced with straight wooden chairs, we did unsuccessfully tried to figure out the reason for the replacement). Meal constituted of Plain rice (pure white in color), Roti (without oil), dal (green one), chana (small black type), bundis, Karela surprisingly without Aloo and another sabji with an optimal mix of everything (Aloo included). According to former Mess secretary Umesh (MCA-2), “This (the last one mentioned) is a special NIMC sabji, which is creatively innovated to hide the privacy of all vegetables included)”. I am sure you must be missing it; join the crowd who are missing it.

In the second half, the website crew presented the newly designed website. Narendra and his crew did a really nice job and hopefully we all can witness it online soon. I added some tips at the end like offering space for all the alumni, free advertising option for all good companies. Then Syndicate bank, the official sponsors of the Alumni meet 2006 introduced their loan programs for students within allotted 30 mins. The session continued till 5:00 where we had introductions and other small programs.
Alumni meet 2006
At 5:30 the cultural programs started, some songs, great dances and amazing skits. In one sentence, “Ha ha ha, Bada Maja aya”. After the cultural programs I saw the real alumni crowd (due to month end the local alumni could only make it after their office hours). The dance party started which might have continued only till 9:30 pm due to curfew imposed by our new registrar. I left at around 8. Before leaving I had talks with Abey of MBA-2, Sachin Narang of MBA-2, Piyu Dutta of MBA-2 , Indradeep of MCA-1, Pramod Mishra of MCA-1, Umesh of MCA-2 and many more about the upcoming AIMAA activities. Saket Prabhakar of MBA-4, attending his 3 alumni meet, most regular alumni was the man of the day without any doubt (awarded for his josh and the pune event).
Alumni
(Click here to enlarge)

I must say that Anusree did a good job, when I say Anusree I mean the whole team represented by her. Keep up the good work; I will put my suggestions through alumni mail group.
anusree
(Anusree)

Some more pics

crowd
Some known faces, a sardar, a HR with god
crowd
Official photographer from Delhi via Pune
talented new batches
The talented crew and future alumni

I will upload more pics later some time.

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Chirkut Vs Orkut

[Note: Some of my related popular posts are: 1) why mistakes are often mistaken – It talks about what are real mistakes. 2) Orkut used for crime, is orkut responsible for it anyway? ]

Orkut???? What am I talking about? Is it something to do with the dodgeball? I am sure you did not ask this socially unexpected question, as you too must be an ORKUT by now. Chirkut is non-dictionary hindi word often used in Utter Pradesh and Bihar (two states from India) to praise a person for being loser, stupid and dullard. Recently our favorite politicians have accepted this word as an integral part of their performance appraisal system (Interested people can read, “So what if am a ‘chirkut’?” by Samajwadi party’s Amar Singh).

As you have rightly guessed that orkut is nothing but a social epidemic created by a Google guy called Orkut Buyukkokten (his orkut id). I have never seen such a social virus that transmitted (verbally or by demonstration) from one social unit to another so rapidly. Its penetration rate in India is very high, redefining the scope of Indian web business, that’s the point when another community got created, “Chirkut”. At NIMC/AIM campus there are two groups, orkuts and chirkuts.
Chirkut Vs Orkut
The formula for Chirkut is very simple,

~(set of people in orkut.com) = community of chirkuts.
In other words either you are an Orkut or a Chirkut. The propagation was so intense that almost every young soul I know is almost not a chirkut. Recently at Gym I heard two not so techy guys explaining their experiences at orkut.com . I hear it almost everywhere I go. I was forced to join orkut when my mailboxes were filled with invitations.

I myself am involved in creating communities (mainly niche and topic based, with nimc community as the only non-commercial one). Let’s try and understand the success secrets of orkut,

  • It is not available for free: It created a virtual scarcity and a real demand. A little new to all the economics experts. In social networking a virtual scarcity can create good demand, provided the right environments.
  • Word of mouth publicity: I never saw an ad for orkut but I got more invitations than those spammy mortgage promotional mails.
  • Simplicity: It is very simple to use.
  • One shop for all concept: I am with batchmates.com and various other communities but orkut.com is a social platform for every activity. Orkut is a right platform for anyone interested in anything.
  • Really Good: It is really good with all 7ps of online marketing. You can really find some childhood friend by a simple search.

The biggest secret: The number game


It played the number game better. “Hey I have n number of friends, how many do you have?”,”I have Y scraps on my scrapbook how many do you have?”. When there is a number, people try to improve. And when there is a comparison chart, people try to compete for a better number. Orkut did exactly what I call the number game, he showed all possible numbers at all possible place to motivate people to improve their number.

Surprising factor:
Orkut Buyukkokten
“Orkut Buyukkokten had an interest in social networking and so developed his service”, says Google. At Google every employee is allowed to spare 20% of his or her time on their interest area. This is a product of a good policy, well done Google and Orkut. Do let us know how you joined Orkut with a comment.

The battle continues,

Chirkuts

(loosers)

Vs

Orkuts

(winners)

Other releated topics

Read on the other interesting posts from my http://www.idealwebtools.com/blog/ and do not forget to subscribe to the blog.