Tipster Scherezade alerts us to a disturbing story out of Guwahati, about a protest gone horribly awry:

Assam was rocked by violence during Saturday’s protests by tribals backed by the All Assam Adivasi Students’ Association (AAASA) students when locals brutally beat them up resulting in at least one death and over 250 people getting injured.

But not only were the Adivasi students beaten up but the women protesters were stripped and molested by the residents of Guwahati.

A local Assamese businessman Ratul Burman was seen attacking a woman after she was stripped during clashes on Saturday. Burman and two others have been arrested. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has announced a Rs 1 lakh compensation to the woman.

The Chief Minister has indicated that he wants Burman to receive the “maximum punishment” for his role in this assault. More than 250 people were injured in Saturday’s protests.

In more incidents of violence in Assam two more people have been killed, one of them shot in firing by the army.

Army was called in to stage flag marches in Guwahati on Saturday evening after Adivasi students went on the rampage, looting shops and burning vehicles in Assam’s capital city.

The cause of the protest? A desire for Scheduled Tribe status.

In her tip, Scherezade says:

Residents beat up women who were a part of the All Assam Adivasi Students’ Association (AAASA). Local media has been circulating videos of a businessman constantly hitting a naked woman in the genitals with his boots and beating her with a wooden plank. Heart-breaking stuff. Stories like these almost never catch the eye of the larger(read: western) media. People I know of, who were witness to this horrendous atrocity lie injured in a hospital. It’s tragic.

Allow me to preempt someone from asking why I chose to write this story. No, really, let’s get it out of the way, this nimisham:

Unless you were the last person to be found during hide and seek yesterday, you have heard the cringe-inducing-on-so-many-levels news about an Indian man “marrying” a dog (thanks, Aggiebabe). It is somewhat like the whole “Aish weds trees…twice”-fiasco…except in TMBWITW’s case, she was doing it to compensate for her apparently unfortunate nakshatram and not because she had killed two trees.

• An Indian man has “married” a female dog, hoping the move will help atone for stoning two other dogs to death.

• P Selvakumar, 33, said he had been cursed since the killings, suffering paralysis and a loss of hearing.

• The wedding took place at a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu state. The “bride” wore an orange sari with a flower garland and was fed a bun to celebrate.

Superstitious people in rural India sometimes organise weddings to animals in the hope of warding off curses

Buried among the hundreds of jokes which punsters are giddily guffawing over (enjoy your free pass to bitch about how the bride is a bitch…but more on that later) is to me the most appalling aspect of this story; this man killed two innocent, defenseless creatures.

I didn’t know how he killed them until I settled in to my seat on the subway this morning and found out that he had stoned them. That detail bothered me so much, because my imagination doesn’t need any assistance in recreating actual events. Have you ever seen an animal cowering in front of a human? Yelping and whimpering out of fear and pain? It’s heartbreaking, but that’s what this so-called man saw, as he brutally stoned two dogs. I remember the way our late German Shepherds looked terrified and anxious, when they were merely being scolded…and that was after they had committed capital offenses, like uprooting our only curry leaf plant.

So the big day finally arrives. You've got an interview at a company where you'd really like to work. You eagerly arrive 15 minutes ahead of schedule, are ushered into a room with three interviewers, and it begins. Just when you think everything's going great, the HR manager asks you one of those groaners. "So... what would you say are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?"

Your mind screams, "Oh no, not that one again!" but you somehow manage a clich餠answer anyway. And just as you're hoping that the question was just an aberration, out shoots the next one: "If you were an animal, what animal would you be?"

In an instant, your impression of the company crumbles. Is this the company you admired? How could it be, when you're being asked such asinine questions?

Sadly, far too many managers, especially HR folks, continue to ask stupid, clich餬 and pointless questions at interviews in the misguided hope that somehow they can reveal the true nature of the candidate.

Nonsense! Interviews must focus on how well a person can do the job he's being interviewed for. Most of the "standard" interview questions are so cliched that interview guides all over the Internet and magazines have canned answers ready for you to use. They're like those beauty pageants where the girls get asked what they would like most and they reply "world peace!"

So, dear managers, here is your guide to stupid interview questions and why shouldn't waste your time, and more importantly, the candidate's time, with them.

Let's start with?

The stupid

If you were an animal, what would you be?

These types of questions make me laugh. Some people actually believe that questions like those can realistically measure how "creative" the person is or how well he can "think out of the box" (how I despise that term). Yeah, right! If you think that if a person wanting to be a lion tells you that he'd make an excellent leader, you need to go back to school and learn something useful. What does being an animal have to do with the job they're being interviewed for anyway? Are you looking for cats for your company? Horses? Elephants? Gorillas? Besides, why on earth would any "creative" person want to be an animal? They'd be bored out of their skulls. All animals do all day is wander around, find food, eat and sleep. Even sex is usually restricted to the mating season. Not exactly what I'd want to be doing.

Want to see how creative they are? Give them a real life problem your company has faced, and ask them to tell you how they'd solve it.

Variants:
If you could have dinner with a famous historical figure, who would it be?
How many squares are in this figure?
A plane crashes on the border between USA and Canada. Where did they bury the survivors?

How would your boss/ friends / subordinates describe you?

You expect an honest answer to this? Is the candidate supposed to read the minds of his co-workers and tell you what they think? If they thought he was an incompetent moron, do you reckon they'd tell him about it? And even if the candidate knew that they felt that way, do you think he's going to tell you that? Asking someone what others think about him or her is silly. You'll never hear the truth, so why bother asking? You might as well ask, "Describe yourself."

You want to know what others think of him? Call up his references and find out.

Are you a team player / a good manager / a good leader?

Not one sensible person will answer "No" to any of those questions. If an interview question has only one answer, don't waste time asking it. Who in their right minds will say that they're not good "team players" (a term that means different things to different people) or being good managers, even if they weren't? (Aside: if you asked me if I were a good team player, I'd reply, "depends on the team". It's true. I've been in situations where I've got things done faster by myself because I was working with idiots.)

If you want to find out more about a person's leadership skills, I'm afraid that no interview can ascertain that. Leadership skills are best demonstrated in real life situations that demand them. Sure, you could pose several hypothetical situations, but case studies are very limited in what they can measure. Besides, the best people to ask about someone's leadership ability are his subordinates.

For managerial skills, ask questions about how he managed performance problems with subordinates, conflicts within the team, and how he developed their skills.

The clichéd

What are your weaknesses? 

Every darn interview guide you can read on the Net has a canned answer to this. Pick something positive and point it out as a weakness - "I work too hard", "I tend to work late to adhere to deadlines", etc. This is the king of "I wish for world peace" questions. Ask a clichéd question and you get a cliché answer.

The candidate knows that an honest answer to this question is quite likely to cost him the job, so why would he tell the whole truth? What if the interviewer then decides to "put him under pressure" and keep picking at his "weakness"? How many people will admit, at least to an interviewer, that they have a short temper?

Ask specific questions about the work they need to do in their new job, and then see if you can spot weaknesses in their answers.

(I'll admit my weakness. I can't put up with people asking stupid interview questions. Thankfully, I've never been asked any of these, though I've sat in on interviews where they've been asked.)

Where do you see yourself in five years?

This one is one of my favourites. In this age when the business landscape can change radically in less than 3 years (dotcom "boom", anyone?), making long-term career plans can be a mistake. Companies change, businesses change, business models change, and technologies certainly change. The IT industry especially is one where you have to keep adapting quickly. Locking your sights on some distant goal can leave you blind to the other opportunities around you. Other opportunities don't necessarily mean switching jobs. It can be a new direction for your existing company. The real question is where the company sees itself in 5 years.

If you're interviewing for a middle or senior management position, there is always the chance that the job the candidate is aspiring towards is held by one of the interviewers. Making that the target could be seen as a threat, and could cost the candidate the job.

Here's a tip: don't make 5-year plans for your company, and please don't ask candidates to make astrological predictions. Concentrate on what they can do for you in the present, and whether they show the resilience to adapt to changing business conditions in the future. It doesn't matter if they are good candidates for the VP - Automated Widgets position in five years. Who knows if the Automated Widgets department will even be around in five years?

Tell me about yourself

It's a "classic" interview question. Supposedly intended to be open-ended to break the ice, this question isn't and never was very useful. It's too vague to be of any help. Is this the first you've ever heard of the candidate? Don't you have his resumé in front of you? Doesn't that tell you about him? Yep, there's his work experience, there's his education, there's the stuff he's supposedly skilled at. So what do you want to know? Whenever I've heard this question being asked at an interview, the candidate usually starts off from the beginning, explaining his educational qualifications, his first job, his second job? his eleventh job, and so on. Some have even started off with their childhood. Why waste everyone's time? It's all there in the resumé, dear manager. Why don't you look at it?

Tip to candidates: if you're asked this question, reply with "what specifically would you like to know about?"

The worthless

These are questions to which there's only one appropriate answer, and those are available in any of the hundreds of interview guides you can find. They also try to measure qualities that can't be realistically measured in an interview. Some of these are:

How do you feel about working overtime?

If you say you don't like it, you'll be labelled a lazy slob. If you say you don't mind at all, you will be seen as a desperate, overenthusiastic bloke who's saying it just to get the job. The only "acceptable" answer is that you don't mind it once in a while if it's critical to the work being done. Don't bother asking this. You know it's a canned answer.

Can you work under pressure and deadlines?

Ever known a person who said "no" to this one? If he says that he thrives on pressure, he comes across as a guy who needs to be pressurised before he gets anything done. If he says he doesn't like it, he gets the boot. What's the alternative? I've interviewed hundreds of people, and I can confidently tell you that there is no reliable way of measuring the candidate's ability to work under pressure in the job he's being interviewed for. For that, you just have to put him in a real work situation, something that the interview can't do. If you ask him about pressure on previous work, it's very easy for him to either lie about it or to exaggerate, which makes the question worthless.

How do you take criticism?

"Not very well" is not an option, even if it's true. There's only one "acceptable" answer to this too. The interview guides usually suggest that you reply with "I consider it if it seems valid and reasonable." Phooey! There's another canned answer.

So, dear managers, tell those clueless HR lackeys to stop asking these silly interview questions. Instead, explain to the candidate what the job requirements are, right at the beginning of the interview. Then ask them questions that will help you understand how they'd do the job. Encourage them to ask questions and get more information, and accept that job interviews cannot always reveal everything about a candidate.

These aren't the only stupid questions out there, but I hope they do give you an idea of what to avoid. If your HR manager could use the advice in this article, e-mail this link to him or her. And if you're asked three or more of these types of questions in an interview, I suggest that you think again about the company you're planning to join.

Of course, I expect a lot of angry mail from HR folks. I welcome feedback. If you can think of other stupid questions you've been asked, let me know too. I'll add them here.

Photos From the Ultimate Frisbee Tournament

Saawariya.. tintintinaning
Saawariya.. tintintinaing
Saawariya.. o ho o ho
Saaaawariya......

This is my daughter's favourite song right now. It's not mine for sure.

The big Bollywood showdown this Diwali is Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Saawariya vs Farah Khan's Om Shanti Om. And in a way it's a battle of Youth vs Experience.

Saawariya uses one of the oldest formulas in Bollywood's book: launching a new lead pair. There are a number of big stars who were born that way:
- Bobby (Rishi Kapoor, Dimple)
- QSQT (Aamir Khan, Juhi Chawla)
- Maine Pyaar Kiya (Salman, Bhagyashree)

Note: Technically MPK was not Salman's first film , and QSQT wasn't Juhi's either but whatever they did before that has been long forgotten. Everyone remembers these as unki pehli picture.

Then there were actors like Kumar Gaurav who made a smashing debut with Love Story. Neither Kumar nor his heroine Vijeta Pandit made it big in Bollywood subsequently par kam se kam ek picture to hit hui!

The 'young love story' is actually a favourite way to launch star sons. I think it fell out of favour when the last chappie launched this way - Abhishek Bachchan - did not make it for about 4 years.

But that was a while ago. India is once again ready for a new chocolate hero and new candyfloss heroine. And a new generation of star kids is ready to be launched.

Lekin there are interesting differences this time. For the first time, a star daughter is being launched with full blessings and fanfare from the family. Poor Karisma had to fight for her career while even Kareena took a backseat to Abhishek in Refugee. This time, Ranbir and Sonam are getting equal footage and so are both sets of parents.

What's more, although either of the Kapoors could have produced a film to launch their kid they have put their eggs in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's basket. And both sides have formed this mutual admiration society.

At the music launch of Saawariya Bhansali gushed: "I am so touched to see Krishnaji here" and made glowing references to Raj Kapoor. While Ranbir came on stage and said in a small and humble voice:"I am grateful to "sir" for considering me worthy of this project." Vagairah vagairah.

Makes sense for both sides. Bhansali has this grand and opulent cinematic vision which India loves. While a debut pair which can generate so much free press and public curiosity can only boost the film. And lead to profitable though bizarre marketing tie ups like this one.

On the other hand, there's 'Om Shanti Om'. Also a love story but with a 'reincarnation' twist. And a reincarnated Shahrukh 'six pack' Khan. And the whole '70s era reincarnated as 'retro cool', actually.

OSO also has a new heroine - Deepika Padukone - but clearly she is not the USP of the film. In fact - in an exact opposite strategy - Om Shanti Om is pitching the star card heavily. The song 'Deewangee', currently on air, features '31 top stars'.

Bottomline: OSO is old wine in a new bottle while Saawariya is new wine in an old bottle. If I had to choose just one I'd go for 'Om Shanti Om'. But then... I'm old.

P.S> Regardless of who 'wins' the box office battle, I think Ranbir will go on to do very well. But hey, I thought Rishi Kapoor (in Karz) was really cool. And Ranbir does have a jhalak of Rishi... Before he graduated in size and had to hide behing horrendous checked sweaters!

There are different types of alcohol. Some are used in chemistry laboratories and industry, e.g.

isopropyl (industrial process and home cleaning)and methyl alcohol.

 

Another type of alcohol is ethyl alcohol, also known as ethanol. This has been consumed by human beings for its intoxicating and mind-altering effects. It is a thin, clear liquid with harsh burning taste and high volatility. It is usually consumed in diluted concentrations of absolute (i.e. 100 per cent) ethyl alcohol.

 

Brief description of alcoholic beverages

Wines are made from a variety of fruits, such as grapes, peaches, plums or apricots. The most common wines are produced from grapes. The soil in which the grapes are grown and the weather conditions in the growing season determine the quality and taste of the grapes which in turn affects the taste and quality of wines. When ripe, the grapes are crushed and fermented in large vats to produce wine.

 

Beer is also made by the process of fermentation. A liquid mix, called wort, is prepared by combining yeast and malted cereal, such as corn, rye, wheat or barely. Fermentation of this liquid mix produces alcohol and carbon dioxide. The process of fermentation is stopped before it is completed to limit the alcohol content. The alcohol so produced is called beer. It contains 4 to 8 per cent of alcohol.

18

Whisky is made by distilling the fermented juice of cereal grains such as corn, rye or barley. Scotch whisky was originally made in Scotland. The word "Scotch" has become almost synonymous with whisky of good quality.

 

Rum is a distilled beverage made from fermented molasses or sugarcane juice and is aged for at least three years. Caramel is sometimes used for colouring.

 

Brandy is distilled from fermented fruit juices. Brandy is usually aged in oak casks. The colour of brandy comes either from the casks or from caramel that is added.

 

Gin is a distilled beverage. It is a combination of alcohol, water and various flavours. Gin does not improve with age, so it is not stored in wooden casks.

 

Beverage Source Alcohol content

(percentage)

Brandy	Fruit juices	40 - 50
Whisky	Cereal grains	40 - 55
Rum	Molasses/sugarcane	40 - 55
Wines Champagne, etc	(Port, Sherry, Grapes )	10 - 22
Beer	Cereals	4 - 8

 

Common local brews in the countries of the South-East Asia Region

Arrack is a distilled beverage, obtained from paddy or wheat. Jaggery, sugar or sugarcane is added to either of these two cereals and boiled with water. This is allowed to ferment, after which it is distilled. This beverage contains about 50- 60 per cent of alcohol.

 

Toddy is obtained from the flowers of a coconut or palm tree. A white liquid, with a sweetish taste, oozes out of  these flowers. When consumed fresh, this juice has no intoxicating effect. This liquid is collected and allowed to ferment. At times, yeast is added to hasten the process. The fermented juice has an alcohol content of approximately 5-10 per cent.

 

Country Local brews

Bangladesh	Bangla Mad, Cholai, Tari
Bhutan	Ara
India	Arrack, Desi Sharab, Tari, Tharra
Indonesia	Palm wine
Nepal	Raksi, Tadi, Chayang, Tomb
Sri Lanka	Toddy, Arrack
Thailand	Oou, Krachae, Namtanmao, Sartha, Waark

 

Browser War’s

  In the early 1990s there were many simple graphic-oriented World Wide Web browsers available. The first which reached widespread popularity was Mosaic, developed at NCSA. Several companies licensed it to create their own commercial browsers, such as Spry Mosaic and Spyglass Mosaic. One of the Mosaic developers, Marc Andreessen, founded the company Mosaic Communications Corporation and created a new web browser named Mosaic Netscape. To resolve legal issues with NCSA, the company was renamed Netscape Communications Corporation and the browser Netscape Navigator. The Netscape browser improved on Mosaic's usability and reliability, and it soon dominated the market, helped by the fact that "evaluation copies" of the browser were downloadable without restrictions or cost.

By mid-1995, the World Wide Web gradually began receiving a great deal of attention in the popular culture and mass media. Netscape Navigator was the dominant and most widely used web browser at that time, while Microsoft had just licensed Mosaic as the basis of Internet Explorer 1.0 which it released as part of the Microsoft Windows 95 Pack in August 1995. Internet Explorer 2.0 was released three months later.

  New versions of Netscape Navigator (later Netscape Communicator) and Internet Explorer were released at a rapid pace over the following few years. Features often took priority over bug fixes, and therefore the browser wars were a time of unstable browsers, shaky Web standards compliance, frequent crashes, security holes, and lots of user headaches. Internet Explorer only began to approach par with its competition with version 3.0 (1996), which offered scripting support and the market's first commercial Cascading Style Sheets implementation.

Internet Explorer 7 was finally released in October 2006. It included features such as the tabbed browsing seen in Opera version 2, a search bar, and improved support for web standards. Additionally, it included a publishing filter and a new GUI redesign. Microsoft distributed Internet Explorer 7 to genuine Windows users as a high priority update through Microsoft Update

 

On the 11 June 2007, Apple officially entered the second browser war by releasing a BETA version of their Safari 3 browser for Microsoft Windows.

Linux and Unix

The Unix-based Konqueror browser is part of the KDE project and is the primary competitor against Mozilla-based browsers

Mac OS

Safari is Apple's web browser and is the most popular web browser for Mac OS X The web browser is based on KHTML. Other browsers include Shiira, and OmniWeb, which use the API WebKit, and many Macintosh programs are adding web-browsing functionality

Camino is a Mozilla-based browser for the Mac OS X platform, and uses Mac's native Cocoa interface like Safari does, instead of Mozilla's XUL which is used in Firefox

i ain't a rich kid, just a poor nerd,
Ain't got no money, my pocket's full of mud.

Faded jeans and ragged shirts, thank god theya re in,
Cuz those are the only things i have to fit in.

So if you are that kinda gal, who just goes for money,
you can check out hary, he's got a limousine.

All i have got a unconditional love.
All i can promise you is i'll be there when the things are though.

No i can't promise you dinner at golden plates.
No i can't promise you disco night so late.

We can get a candle or two and light up my place,
Maybe wash some crockery, order pizzas at low rates.

No lousy music, my guitar gently plays,
A song, written, especially for you babe.

All i have got a unconditional love.
All i can promise you is i'll be there when the sea is rough.

All i have got a unconditional love.
All i can promise you is i'll be there when the things are though.

you haven't paid your rent,
Landlord ain't much of a friend,
he wants his 50 dollars 3 cents,
or you'll be booked for offence.
you'll be kicked out, but you'll find new house, new town
Cuz life goes on.

Her name is Alice,
yesterday you got your first kiss,
today she tells its all over,
she saw you with another miss.
Before you tell her it was only your sis,
It's a bye-bye-Alice.
Alices will go but Sallies will come,
Don't worry, Life goes on.

You finally found a new job,
Good pay, not much work on the shop,
you get your pocket picked on the morning train,
"Oh my God" you are late again.
Don't worry they say "It can't get worse."
O-O-O life rolls on.

Got no gal to call your own,
No job, no money, no home,
You've been searching for a bench to sleep on.
Everything's so bleak'n forlorn.
Life's a rollercoaster, with its ups and downs,
O-O-O Life rocks on.

There's one thing you gotta learn,
Life is ful of twists'n turns,
you've gotta break teh rocks in the hot sun,
For the tide to turn.
If there is night, there has to be dawn.
O-O-O Life goes on.

yesterday may be shit,
Today you may be complete misfit,
But tomorrow's a new day,
So don't give up that wenny ray,
You've gotta pray dream, hope and move on,
o-o-o Life goes on.

please tell me how to react?

yesterday was a very tiring day for me, i was struggling to repair my system (its just because of lack of resources).

early morning i got a call from my girlfriend that her parents are looking some boy for her and they want her to marry as soon as possible. she told her mom about me and she got the usual response which you expect from any guardian. i have to say here that she is brave to say all this at home. i know it will be impossible for 80 percent of girl to accept in front of their parents that she love someone.

but now what i do ? i really love her and i can't see her crying, she is brave enough to say good bye to me but i know she can't stand a single minute without me.

then while on a my way to office many times i thought of calling her (i am totally brooked now, just because i have to spend lots of money on my laptop). but some part of my mind is stopping me saying that -

why vishal ? why are you now increasing her problem, even she has a work to at least make her happy so that she can work properly.

then suddenly i got a message from her that she is fooling me in the morning. this was the second shock of my day then i called her, i know she is good liar (because she is exactly  a clone of mine.. )

 

Gmail

Gmail groups emails in a thread into a single line in the inbox. Some users love this, others hate it. It’s not my favorite feature, but I’ve gotten used to it. The best Gmail feature in my opinion is the ability to tag emails for better organization and search. None of the other services offer this. Gmail also has integrated Gtalk into the GMail interface, and continues to add other functionality as well (such as integration with Docs & Spreadsheets). Gmail is consistently fast, offers the most storage and free POP-in and POP-out, meaning you can use Gmail to access your other email accounts, or access GMail from whatever email client you use. It’s a near-perfect piece of software, and has only occasional hiccups. The fact that Google is paired with Google Calendar, the best online Calendar application, doesn’t hurt, either.

Windows Live Hotmail

The new Windows Live Hotmail will be a welcome change to Microsoft’s 228 million webmail users, but it falls short of the Yahoo and Gmail offerings. They offer 2 GB of storage, better than Yahoo, but there are no POP-in or POP-out features at all. If you want to access your account outside of the web site, you have to do it via Outlook or Outlook Express. It remains the slowest among the three in our tests.

Yahoo Mail

Yahoo Mail is very good, allowing users to access other email accounts (POP-in), but only offering POP-out access for an additional fee. This is probably due to the legacy users who are already paying for this feature - Yahoo may not want to give up this revenue stream. Storage is on the low side - only 1 GB, which is less than half of what Gmail offers. Still, Yahoo Mail has recently been running very fast and offers an intuitive, Outlook-like interface. Instant Messaging and RSS integration is awesome.