Small and Medium Sized IT Companies (including Vishwak) in India have been enjoying Government of India Tax break under 10A scheme (managed by STPI) where by for their investments on new plant and machineries they get a 10 year Income Tax holiday. Few years back the government set the sunset for the tax break as 31st March 2009. The idea was to encourage movement in to the new China like SEZ (Special Economic Zones) where by more investments and job creations will be done. Unfortunately the SEZ Promoters are only selling spaces in them to large IT companies - the minimum you can buy is 100,000 sq. feet which is way above for any SME to afford. So this was perceived by many industry bodies as an anti-SME move. On top of this, in the last 12-18 months Rupee has been appreciating against the US Dollars by over 10-12% literally wiping off the margins for SMEs. Lastly the Finance Minister in his last budget imposed a 10% (approx) MAT (Minimum Alternate Tax) as well. So the industry was looking forward for the FM to extend some support in the budget but he didn't do it. But on the request of the IT Ministry and PM Office, the FM has yesterday announced for the extension of the STPI (Software Technology Parks of India) scheme for another 1 year till 31st March 2009. This certainly is a welcome move and I thank the Government for the same.

Now it is the turn of the industry to use the extension time to become self sustained by increasing productivity and introducing innovation, they should stop looking for perennial tax breaks.

Both in my home and work I have powerful 8GB Quad-Core Desktops running Windows Vista x64 and I love the machines. I use extensively Windows Live Writer for writing my blog posts and Live Messenger for IM. Now they come as a single install package (Windows Live Suite) easy to install. When you try to install it on 64-bit Windows the installer fails. I then found this article on how to get the individual MSI files and install the programs from C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\WindowsLiveInstaller\MsiSources.

Recently I bought a XBOX 360 from USA to be used a Media Extender. The AC Adapter was 110V and surprisingly unlike your laptop/mobile chargers this doesn't support multiple voltages. So to connect the XBOX in India I needed a new AC Adapter that works in 220V. I checked in my other XBOX 360 that was purchased in India and that had a 220V rating and Amazon US Store carried the 110V as an item to buy from Microsoft. So I assumed I can buy the AC Adapter locally, but bad luck. No shop (brick 'n' mortar or online) carried the AC Adapter alone separately in India. They redirected me to XBOX service centres, who said only on production of the faulty one they will give me a new one.  I wrote to XBOX 360 support, surprisingly I got a reply from them the next business day. I asked for a new 220V AC Adapter, they replied that XBOX 360 bought in USA won't work in India due to voltage and DVD Region differences. I said clearly I understand that and I take the ownership, but they kept insisting that they don't support voltage convertors (which I never wanted) and they don't support using USA XBOX 360 in India.

We have received your email and as I understand, you would like to know if there is an available power converter that can be used with your Xbox 360 console bought from the United States (110V). I apologize for the inconvenience.

Venkat, I regret to inform you that Microsoft and Xbox do not have a first-party power converter for the console's power supply. Although there may be third-party power converter sold that might be able to address the issue, we cannot guarantee the performance of the said items.  Furthermore, use of third-party or unapproved accessories with your console may cause performance issues which would void the warranty of your Xbox 360 console. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

Finally before giving up, I went to Chennai's Electronic Heaven "Ritchie Street" which is a miniature version of Delhi's Nehru Place/Lajphat Rai market or Tokyo's Akihabara. There I found a new XBOX 360 220V AC Adapter for Rs.1600. This was without any warranty, but when connected worked beautifully and my problem was solved (fingers crossed). This was much better than having a separate 220V to 110V convertor, as this was a native AC to XBOX DC Voltage conversion.

About 18 months back I was surprised to find a convenient checking-in process done by Kingfisher (Yes, I know that this was the only item I am in praise of an airline other than my favourite Jet Airways). It is by what they call "Roving Agents" who are airline staff roaming around near the entrance and checking counters. If you just have a hand baggage they check you right there with the help of a PDA and print your boarding pass as well (with the printer connected to the hip belt). I noticed the PDA they use was a Windows CE based Symbol Technologies device, but I was interested in knowing the entire solution story.

In an article that came in CIO India Magazine's supplement "10 Studies in Innovation" I saw the article "Terminal Velocity" which described this solution in detail. The Roving Agent piggybacks on the Wi-fi infrastructure available at airports. Agents carry PDAs (MC-70 from Symbol Technologies) that run a client application connected to the host system. The PDA is also connected to a portable thermal printer (Cameo-3 from Zebra Technologies) via Bluetooth. Read the entire article here.

Agreed that this solution is less appealing now than 18 months before. With most of the airlines allowing you to print your boarding pass online itself it makes Roving Agents less compelling, but from a technology perspective this is a good case study.

I was running Vista Business in my Sony Vaio Laptop for almost a year and I wanted a change for change sake. Going back to Windows XP was unimaginable and felt old. I needed something new.

So about a month or two back, I got interested in trying Windows Server 2008 (WS2008), just few weeks after it got released. I remembered the experiences of running Windows NT and then Windows Server 2000 on my previous laptops, so I thought this will not be so good with drivers and I will lose all the gizmos & UI of Vista. How wrong I was, the installation was nearly the same as Vista and all my Vista drivers that shipped with the machine (OEM Disc) installed perfectly fine including Graphics, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth. The fingerprint driver from Sony CD installed fine, but the application from Sony for fingerprint management didn't work - so that was one device I couldn't use in WS 2008.

When the basics are done Windows Server 2008 installation displays an ultra useful "Roles & Features" Wizard to complete the rest of components based on your needs. Each Roles & Features listed has a good explanation text of what it is, what it does, dependencies, etc. It I guess this shows Microsoft is listening and they took this from the good UX they saw in various Linux Distros. Many of the Linux Distros mainly due to the sheer volume of applications that they ship do a fine job on explaining the various components and help you in selecting them. I wish they included a similar Wizard in Windows Vista that will have various user roles (Home User, Games, Information Worker and Developer) - and for "Developer " it should switch off the annoying UAC, Windows Defender, TCP/IP Optimization, Shadow Copies & Restore Points, Services like Ready Boost, Superfetch, etc. and install by default Visual Studio Express Editions.

Make Windows Server 2008 as beautiful as Vista

Since Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 are supposed to be from same code-base, share most of the kernel files I wondered whether I can make WS2008 appear as jazzier as Vista with UI including Aero Interface. I found this well written, step by step guide (WS2008 as a Super Desktop OS) from a Microsoft Engineer VijayShinva Karnure

Windows Live Suite in Windows Server 2008

After installing all the components & applications like MS Office 2007 and others I tried installing Windows Live Suite (mainly for Live Messenger and Live Writer). The installation refused to install in a WS2008 as it is supported only in Desktop operating systems - how silly. I then managed to find an individual download of Live Messenger from download.com that got installed fine in WS2008. For Windows Live Writer (WLW) no such luck. So I tried copying the folder (C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Writer ) from a Vista PC that had WLW installed on to this WS2008 PC. Then ran "WindowsLiveWriter.exe" it worked perfectly fine. The same trick didn't work with other Live Applications like Photo Gallery - and that I didn't mind as I don't miss them that much.

Blog post to dasBlog with Microsoft Word 2007

I am making this blog post from MS Word 2007 just as a trail. Configuring Word 2007 for blogging is straightforward. My blog engine dasBlog doesn't show up in the blog type listbox. So you need to select "other", for API select "MetaWeblog" and Blog Post URL enter as "http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/blogger.aspx"

நேற்று விடுமுறை, எங்கே போவது என்று யோசனை செய்ததில்  சுட்டெரிகக்கும் கோடை வெயில் பயமுறுத்தியது. குளிர்ந்த திரையரங்கம் தான் சரி என்று முடிவு செய்து, இணையத்தில் தேடியதில் ”சத்தியம்” திரையரங்கத்தில் ”சந்தோஷ் சுப்ரமண்யம்” படத்திருக்கு  சிட்டு கிடைத்தது. எவ்வளவு தேடியும் “அறை எண் 305” மற்றும் “யாரடி நீ மோகினி”க்கு இடம் கிடைக்கவில்லை. இது ஒரு வகையில் சந்தோஷமாக இருந்தது, ஒரு சில வருடங்கள் முன்பு வரை தியேட்டர் தொழிலே அழிந்துவிடும் என்ற நிலையிலிருந்து இது ஒரு நல்ல வளாச்சி. எதனால் என்று எனக்கு சரியாக சொல்ல தெரியவில்லை - அரசாங்க வரி சலுகையாகயிருக்காலம், திருட்டு விசிடிக்கு எதிரான போலிஸ் வேட்டையாகயிருக்காலம். எனக்கு தோன்றுவது என்னவோ மக்களிடம் இப்பொழுதிருக்கும் பணப்புழக்கம் (Disposable income) மற்றும் ஒரே இடத்திலுள்ள பல சிறு திரையரங்குகள் (Multiplexes) வளர்ச்சி தான் முக்கிய காரணங்களாக.

எது எப்படியோ ஜெயம் ரவியின்  ”சந்தோஷ் சுப்ரமண்யம்” படத்திற்கு  வருவோம். படத்தைப் பற்றி எதுவுமே தொரியாமல், எந்த எதிர்ப்பார்பும் இல்லாமல்  போனதால் ஏமாற்றமில்லை. அடிதடியில்லை, அசிங்கமான மொழிகள் இல்லை, ஆபாசம் இல்லை அதனால் குடும்பத்தொடு செல்லலாம். பாடல்கள் மோசமில்லை ஆனால் சுமார், தனியாக நகைச்சுவையென்று எதுவுமில்லை. அப்பா மகன் இடையே நடக்கும் நல்ல உணர்ச்சிவசமான கதை என்றாலும் அதிகப்படியான சினிமாதனமில்லாமல் எடுத்திருக்கிறார் இயக்குனர், வசனங்களும் குறைவான எதார்தமானவையாக இருந்தது.  குறிப்பாக ரவி-பிரகாஷ்ராஜ் பேசும் கடைசிக்காட்சி அழகு.

இந்திய கிரிக்கேட் விரர் ”சடகோபன் ரமேஷ்” இதில் ரவிக்கு அண்ணவாக வருகிறார் - அவரின் முதல் படவாய்ப்பு என்று நினைக்கிறேன்.

படம் பார்த்துவிட்டு இணையத்தில் தேடியதில் தெரிய வந்தது; 

• ஆந்திராவில் சக்கைப் போடு போட்ட தெலுங்குப் படம் பொம்மரிலு. சித்தார்த், ஜெனிலியா, பிரகாஷ்ராஜ் தெலுங்கில் நடித்திருக்கிறார்கள். அந்தப் படத்தின் தமிழ்  ரீமேக் தான் சந்தோஷ் சுப்ரமணியம் என்று. தெலுங்கில் சித்தார்த் நடித்த இடத்தில் ஜெயம்ரவி என்பது மட்டுமே மாற்றம்.
• படத்தின் இயக்குனர் ராஜா மற்றும் நடித்துல்ல ஜெயம் ரவி இருவரும் தமிழில் பிரபலமான எடிட்டர் மோகன் அவர்களின் மகன்கள்

I have been enjoying "Archie" comics for over two decades now. I was introduced to them during my high school days by my cousin "Anand" who is now working in USA. Those days (and even now in Indian Rupees) they used to be very expensive and not available in Chennai. So the option was to rent them from book lending libraries and my favourite was Raviraj Lending Library in Usman Road (Opposite to first GRT Thanga Maligai). Those days the membership was like Rs.25 or Rs.50 and even if you take half-a-dozen books for reading you paid only few rupees (which itself was got after a big fight with my mother). Nowadays whenever I take my nephews to "Eloor" lending library in North Boag Road I still take few of them and I still enjoy reading Archie comics once in a while.

And whenever I travel to USA and shopping in Safeway I end up buying the latest issue. At $3 per issue they are expensive but then cheaper than a Starbucks coffee, right?. Last week when I was there I bought Feb '08 issue of Pals 'n' Gals double digest. What pleasantly surprised me was seeing the main theme to be "Raj" an Indian Student whose parents where Dr. Ravi Patel and his wife Mrs.Mona Patel. The character "Raj" is shown as a tech whiz taking a school film for fun.

ஓவியர் மதி அவர்களின் “அடடே” புத்தக வெளியிடு நேற்று மிக பிராமாண்டமாக “Music Academy"யில் நடைப்பெற்றது. இந்தப் புத்தகத்தை வெளியிடுபவரான எனது நண்பர் திரு.பத்ரி சேஷாத்ரி அவர்களின் அழைப்பில் விழாவிற்கு சென்றிருந்தேன். இப்படி ஒரு பெரிய விழாவைத் திட்டமிடுவது, இவ்வளவு எண்ணிக்கையில் இத்தனை சிறந்த முக்கியஸ்தர்களை சம்மதிக்க செய்து அழைப்பது, கடைசியாக அரங்கம் நிறையக் கூட்டத்தை வரவழைப்பது என்பது மிக மிக கடினம். எங்களது புத்தக (லிப்கோ) நிறுவனத்தில் எனது தந்தையின் இது போன்ற உழைப்பை நேரில் பார்த்தால் எனக்கு இந்த சிரமம் நன்றாகத் தெரியும். இவ்வளவு பாடுப்பட்டு  மிக சிறப்பாக செய்ததற்கு எனது நண்பர் திரு.பத்ரி சேஷாத்ரி நிச்சயம் சந்தோஷப் படலாம்.

Though I purchased the book "The HP Way" long time back, I just managed to finish reading it few weeks back. The book is written by HP (Hewlett Packard) co-founder & Silicon Valley legend David Packard. This small book of 200 pages is a must read for anyone in High Tech Industry. David talks about their early days around starting HP, how it got named and their initial challenges. One of the common business management myths the book dispels is that you need a clear laid out Vision and Business Plan to run a successful business.

Though the book talks in detail about early decades in HP, it has little information on modern day HP as we know it mainly because David handed over the reins to John Young as CEO in 1978 itself.

It has been more than 2 decades since I have been to a Stadium to watch a cricket match live, the last time was during my School Days that too only once and I remember it vaguely . So yesterday when I went to MA Chidambaram Stadium (Chepauk, Chennai) with my son to see the match it was pure fun. I didn't want to go through the parking hassles so I left my car in a relatives house in Royappetah and went to the stadium in an Autorickshaw - a wise decision that helped us to reach to our seats by start of the match at 8PM. The atmosphere was dynamic with popular Tamil film songs playing for every 6 runs, 4 runs and during breaks. The stadium was packed with people everywhere - all were enjoying themselves, cheering the entertainment below by waiving, dancing, playing music & whistling. We got good seats in Gate 13 (T-3) area which was right in front of the pitch and with an excellent view.

The match was played between the home team "Chennai Super Kings" (owned by India Cements & captained by M.S.Dhoni) and "Mumbai Indians" (owned by Reliance Industries and captained by Harbhajan Singh in absence of Sachin Tendulkar).  My home team "Chennai Super Kings" won the match by 6 runs which was largely helped by the superb batting performance earlier by the pair of ML Hayden (Australia) and Suresh Raina (UP, India). Captain Dhoni came in during last few overs but entertained the crowd with his few hits to boundaries.

Everything was great during the match, except for the main scoreboard being updated poorly and for the hot Chennai summer weather. After few overs of second innings it was getting late and becoming unbearably hot, so we had our dinner in the MCC club below and returned home to watch the remaining overs in the comfort of Air Conditioning in our house . Will I do it again, certainly "Yes" for another IPL/T-20 match but next time not during the summer.

எனது நண்பர் திரு. சிவாபிள்ளை சமீபத்தில் ”மொழிகளுக்கான ஐரோப்பிய விருதை” பெற்றுள்ளார். அவரை பாராட்ட லண்டனிலுள்ளத் தமிழமைப்புகள் ஒரு விழாவை போன வாரம் மிகச் சிறப்பாக கொண்டாடினர். அவர்களுக்கு என் மனமார்ந்த நன்றி!

On my way back from USA, I saw this movie "Juno". I suppose this to be a hit movie b'cos in every store I went to in last 1 week in Seattle, I kept seeing tons of DVDs of this movie. It is starred by Ellen Page as a 16 year old Teen, who gets pregnant and gives away the baby for adoption. The story is about what happens during her pregnancy - how supportive her parents were on this and how the couple who are adopting the baby gets divorced before the baby's arrival. I will not rate it as a great/must see types, but certainly worth to see if someone lends you the DVD. 

I saw this documentary (Original German dubbed to English) on my Lufthansa flight (Frankfurt to Seattle) last week - imagine they having only this worthwhile to watch. Overall Lufthansa hardly had a dozen movie and absolutely no comedy TV Shows in their in-flight entertainment - it is one of the things I don't like in Lufthansa. And they don't offer a hygiene kit (toothpaste, socks, perfume) either individually (or) even have it in the rest rooms. Lufthansa, please charge one or two dollars more and offer a decent hygiene kit - with airport security and restrictions on carrying liquids and paste it is difficult for us to bring it ourselves.

OK, enough of my airline ranting, coming back to the documentary. It is a retro comedy that talks about gender differences - a mixer of biology lessons and a love story line of two couples. Acted by Benno Furmann and Jessica Schwarz. Fun to watch especially how couples fall in love, fall out and then fall back in love. Nice to watch on an airplanes while killing the time.

Footnote: Native speakers of Non-English languages, pardon my ignorance and dumb description here. When I had to type Furmann's name with the non-English U character with a dash on top, I went to Windows Character Map application to copy it. That's when I saw there are 6 different variations of U, 5 of them having a symbol on top (Tilde, Dash, Half Moon, Circle, Double quotes) and sixth one having a hook on bottom. Interesting, isn't it.

I never thought I will buy an Apple Mac as my primary PC (laptop) but I did just that today. After nearly a month of thinking, I finally bought a Macbook Air to replace my aging Sony Vaio TX57GN laptop. The machine looks irresistibly beautiful.

I bought it from the Apple Store in Bellevue Square, the whole experience was smooth. A floor person did the entire transaction from his handheld (it looked like it ran Windows CE) including Credit Card charging, signature capture. Since I have been to Apple online before, he told they had my email Id and will send me an email receipt and not waste paper by printing it. WOW that was impressive.

Now look at the cool bag (below) they gave to carry all the stuffs that I bought including the Air and its accessories.

And look at the sleek boxes (below). Simple, clean and efficient - I could open all of them with my bare hands and never needed a scissor.

I then wanted to do the envelope test with both the Macbook Air and my Sony Vaio, both passed it well. Sony Vaio going in with room to spare on the width but less impressive than the Macbook when it comes to thickness.

I started used it for 5 minutes now - will keep you posted on how it goes. One thing is sure I will install Windows Vista in this in few days

Update: After I started using it I found that the "Delete" key was stuck and not functioning properly. I visited the Apple Store at Bellevue Square, WA again and I was scheduled a time slot in the evening 4PM to meet a "Genius". The sales person simply refused to even see the machine, their argument being once sold we got to contact Apple Service over phone (or) schedule an appointment with Genius. So going for the 3rd time to the Apple store I went to the "Genius" bar, where they identified the problem to be DOA (Defect on Assembly I suppose) and promptly replaced with a new one. They said since Macbook Air is a new machinery it takes some time for the assembling machines to settle and perfect the process. Anyways, I was glad they at least changed the unit before my return trip to India.

One thing that surprised me is that the Apple Store at Bellevue Square, WA being crowded all the time. During my three visits there every time I saw around 50 people in the store. This was the first time I am seeing a computer/electronics store in a mall crowded. I guess Apple has perfected the "Consumer" magic.

If you are from India (or Asia) and you happen to visit USA, in the first few days itself you are likely to notice the amount of food (and other stuffs) that is wasted here in this country. For example, today I was in a nearby Safeway (Grocery store) and I couldn't find a small (100 Grams) pack of Potato Chips. Most of the time, it is because it is cheaper to buy in bulk, much more than what you need and throw the rest. This is encouraged by sellers, you only get everything in really big packs - whether it is socks, handkerchiefs, envelopes, pens or Coffee or Popcorn. In my many visits over last one decade to this nice country this is one thing I wish they can do without. The good thing is that in recent years there is a very slow but sure awareness growing about this, especially due to environmental concerns.

Having said the above, it is also in this country that you see many grass root movements to encourage reuse, donations, etc. It does exist, but it has to expand to general population in large. I was impressed to see few years back Used Clothes Donation Bins (like the ones you see below) in many apartment complexes and malls. They normally place these strategically near to garbage dumps so that even at the last minute before throwing people are reminded to donate and make a difference to the life of a poor. If you are India - you can donate to a near by orphanage like Udhavum Karangal and the likes, all of them accept wholeheartedly any donations.

When posting this, I remembered my grandfather's saying "Don't buy anything just because it is being sold cheap" (or) in other words "buy only what you need when you need it"

I was telling someone yesterday on why I love the new messenger control. This is the control that you see on left hand side of this page titled "Chat with me" that allows any anonymous visitor to the page to chat with me in real time when I am logged in to Live Messenger.

I love the opportunity this simple control gives me to interact with visitors around the world. I am sure they are finding this easy to use this, rather than writing a comment and it also gives them instant gratification. Today I was having an interesting conversation with an Facility Manager from Saudi Arabia on how he came across my blog (actual chat snippet below)

What I like most is the convenience of using and the control I get with this service. I don't need to sign in to yet another site or install a client application for being available for chatting. The only thing I need to do is to be signed in to my regular Live Messenger. And including this in the blog page couldn't be more easier - other than the Microsoft style of plethora of different sites you need to go before you understand it.

To include this control in your page, there are three steps.

Step 1: Enable Permission in Messenger settings page to "Show your Messenger Status on the  Web"

Step 2: Click on the "Create HTML" on the left hand navigation on the same page. In the page select the style of the control you want to display in your page

Step 3: Copy the HTML at the bottom of the page and paste it in an appropriate area in your blog page.

For more details refer to dev.live.com/messenger. But please spare yourself by not starting with this page, it takes you to a complex looking MSDN page which finally redirects you to these 3 simple steps I have said above.

In the recent months there has been good improvements in Virtual Earth's Birds eye view. One of the reasons this was possible was due to new camera used for these excellent high resolution images - Ultracamx. UltracamX is from a company (Vexcel) Microsoft acquired some time back. It supports very large image format available (216 megapixels: 14,430 pixels across track; 9,420 pixels along track) which means they do fewer flights to capture images. It has something like 13 CCD Arrays, each of them controlled by a dedicated CPU and instance of Windows CE Embedded and a 14th CPU for overall control.

I just now saw this movie on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Seattle - where I am going for MVP/RD Summit. The movie is about August Rush (played by Freddie Highmore) an orphan who loves Music more than food and runs out in search of his parents. His parents (played by Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys) are a sheltered cellist and a charismatic guitarist who get separated by accident after a single night of love and living in search of each other for 11 years. The mother herself never knew she had a boy born alive. The story is about how this boy becomes a child music prodigy performing his own composition in New York Central Park music festival and gets united with his parents at the end. The movie has some Bollywood/Kollywood like elements like the boy running into bad guys (played by Robin Williams) and always falling back into good guys. A nice to see Movie with fine background music.  

Yesterday in JAX India 2008 event at Bangalore I presented the Keynote on behalf of Microsoft India. The topic I choosed was "Living with Heterogeneity: Bridging the Worlds", covering on need for Interoperability and what is new now on this in the Microsoft world. It will cover four main areas of interoperability with Microsoft technologies – MS Office Interoperability, Web Services Interoperability, Rich Internet Applications & Dynamic Language Runtime.

Download the PPT from here: keynote for Jax 2008 - April 2008.pdf (740.24 KB)

Today Tamilnadu CM was inaugurating at 5PM the Phase 1 of the mega bridge in Chennai Katipara junction on the way to Chennai Airport.

I went to Bangalore for a Morning-Evening trip today by flight and landed in Chennai around 6:30PM. My father gave me an idea to avoid the traffic jam at Katipara due to the event on my way from Airport to my house in West Mambalam - it was to take the local electric train. I did just that just, walked across the road from Airport to Tirusulam Station (I didn't know the under-pass was already opened today) bought a ticket for Rs.4 (unbelievable) and got down in West Mambalam. Took an Auto from there to my house paying Rs.25. The whole trip from Airport to my house took less than 25 minutes and I saved myself the hassle of waiting in Traffic Jams. The last time I travelled in Chennai electric train (though I more frequently travelled by train than now during my school/college days) was few weeks back when I came back from Bangalore by train, landed in Chennai Central and then taking the electric train from Park station to Mambalam.

These two trips set me thinking into the usefulness of several new bridges coming in Chennai including the recently opened Kodambakkam/Mahalingapuram bridge.  I am seeing the fact that over bridges don't help much other than employment to hundreds of bridge workers in short term - they simply move the traffic bottleneck from place to another. It is an established finding now around the world that the real solution is to build more of mass transport systems including Trains in more routes, Buses and to educate people on the advantages of using them. The next step will be to make it convenient for people to convert to these public transport by providing Air Conditioned Trains, Buses & Terminals, easy access to the terminals including underpasses & escalators, common smart card based ticketing systems for an integrated system (bus, train, metro) in the city. If you are not convinced travel to Singapore (or) London and use their public transport for few days.

Hope our policy makers are thinking on the same lines.

I have travelled in Chennai ECR road several times, but not even once I have stopped to go inside the Crocodile Park which is there. Today being a Sunday I was thinking of a place to take my son out and came up with this place. Though I have seen Crocodile parks in many zoos around the world, my only recollection of seeing them in Chennai are in my school days at Guindy National Park. So it was exciting for me as well to see them in Chennai

Madras Crocodile Bank (as it is called) is located 40 km from Chennai city (or 10 Km from Mamallapuram) along east coast road with the Bay of Bengal as a backdrop. We started off from my home around 3:30PM, reached 15 minutes to 5:00PM. The park is open till 6PM, so we spend nearly an hour going around the park. I was expecting a small collection of Crocs, but was surprised to find they have hundreds of them and of many species. The place is also quite spread out and neatly maintained. The Entry fee for Indians - Adults (Rs.30), Children (Rs.20), Still Camera (Rs.20). The place is worth going with your kids.