« October 2006 | Main | December 2006 »
Check out this interesting site. This site allows you to register and then submit your favorite kerala links, stories and news. The content is driven by users! Hence a story which gets maximum votes gets to the front page.
If you like my site, vote for it here. :)
Mullapperiyar is a dam on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border (Check out Mullapperiyar dam on wikimapia. ) which is more than 100 years old. Mullapperiyar dam even though is located in Kerala, is used by Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu wants to increase the height of the dam. Obviously Kerala opposes this since there are strong concerns about the safety of the dam (Click here for dam cross section).
It seems that spillways on the dam are not sufficient if there is heavy rain for a long period and it happened recently. As can be seen from the above map, if anything happens to mullapperiyar dam, everything will flow to the main Idikki dam. No one knows what will happen in such a case. Destruction of Idikki dam will submerge at least 3 districts, causing huge loss of life.
This issue is now affecting Kerala-TamilNadu relationship. Kerala is dependent on Tamil Nadu products and there are lot of Keralites in Tamil Nadu and vice versa. Unfortunately politicians on both sides have made the issue worse by irresponsible comments.
I think only reasonable solution is to strenghten the dam, keep the water height as it is now and then build a new one!
Further Reading
Roy Mathew's report
From this week, we will be starting a new section. Every sunday a weekly Daily round up of interesting news/blogs from Kerala will be posted. As far as possible, I will try to quote the original source.
Some time back I posted a general knowledge answer sheet by Navas. It seems he is also good at social science. Check out this funny answer paper. I hope this is a joke by someone! :) Do let me know if you know more of this funny stuff.
Deepika is reporting that clever mechanics in Kerala have created keys to break the speed governer system installed in heavy vehicles. Mechanics are claiming they can break any system. Supreme court had made it mandatory for all heavy vehicles to have speed governer which limits speed at 70KM/hr. Supreme court deferred the implementation of this till February 2007.
Kerala Kaumudi is reporting that dead bodies were buried secretly near Kalamasseri(Ernakulam). The newspaper alleges that these bodies were from muringoor divine centre. Later newspaper clarifies that these were bodies of Aids patients who were living there.
Desabhimani (onkerala note: link unavailable) is reporting that crimes in Kerala reduced by 32% in last 6 months (onkerala note: Left came to power about 6 months back). Registered cases have come down and increased number of cases are being solved. The statistics are quoted from crime records bureau. It is suggested that Shadow policing, maithree policing etc. contributed to this.
Sangeeth has become the Amrita TV's Kerala Superstar! Sangeeth managed to get a lead of more than 20000 votes over Job in the final voting! Interestingly lot of voting happened during the last 15 minutes or so. Due to the SMS flood, Amrita TV kept on extending the closing time for voting. It was finally closed at 10PM.
Superstar final was probably the most watched live event on Kerala television. It also generated close to 200,000 SMS messages not considering the duplicate votes. Kudos to Amrita TV for managing the event so well! There were some good stage performances and bringing all the previous contestants was a good touch.
Job didn't sing too many Malayalam songs. Probably that cost him the title! In fact at one point, Job had a lead over Sangeeth.
Amrita TV knows how to capitalise on the super star hype. They will be doing a Junior super star show soon. It is going to be good fun! I just hope they change the Anchor lady :)
We are happy to announce the launch of Onkerala daily horoscopes!
Site undergoes various minor enhancements as well.
I have started a new blog in pure Malayalam. This is available here!
The Kerala Blog Rolls are now in new layout. I have added categories to Blog feeds. This means you can read only movie blogs if you want!
Also I have added a lot of categories for malayalam only blogs. This is probably the best blog collection out there for Malayalam! Ensure that you have a Malayalam font installed before reading these blogs.
More categories and blog feeds will be added regularly. If you have any good blog, please post it to OnKerala Forums for inclusion in the blog roll. Please note that the blog rolls are intended for aggregating blogs related to Kerala.
It is interesting to see how some of the technology developments affect our daily life. One of the sites which I found very useful recently is the Wikimapia site based on google earth.
Last week I wanted to do some textile shopping. We usually visit Parthas shop in Trivandrum. This time I decided to look for some other shop and Ayyappas was another commonly heard textiles shop. But I had no idea where it was located. So I opened www.wikimapia.org and searched for "ayyappas textiles". Voila! The first result I got pointed to Ayyappas Textiles and I could see the complete route to the shop!
Wikimapia like wikipedia is surprisingly reliable even though it is publicly edited. There are some problems such as people not qualifying the places they add completely(For example, Ayyappas alone brings many entries without any reference to the place where it is located!). Another problem is that people have a tendency to mark their home much more prominently than useful public places. And lastly not all places are mapped. For example, the place I live is not on wikimapia.
In Kerala, most popular broadband services are dataone from BSNL and dataline from Asianet. Arrival of dataone service has now improved Asianet services since their Internet market is seriously threatened.
I have home 500 from BSNL dataone and WOW 199 from Asianet dataline. Recently I switched to Home UL 900+ (which costs Rs. 900 including free telephone line!) of dataone, which is an unlimited service. Following are details of the services I currently have.
| Service | Monthly Charge(In INR) | Download limit per month | Speed | Reliability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BSNL home 500 | 500 | 1GB | 256kbps | 100% |
| Asianet WOW 199 | 199 + tax | 375MB | 256kbps | 95% |
I am using BSNL broadband for about a year. Surprisingly I never had any problem. The uptime as far I know is 100%!! Also the speed is almost always at offered 256kbps.
Asianet broadband also offers decent speed. But I found it to be less uniform than BSNL probably due to the fact that it is on cable. Also uptime is decent. Sometimes I had connectivity problem. Also in between there were some problems with their server software upgrade. I mainly use this as a backup to my main BSNL line.
Overall I find that both BSNL and Asianet services are quite good in Kerala.
My recommendation – Take Home UL 900+ of BSNL if you do a lot of download else go for Home 500. Back this up with a WOW 199 service from Asianet.
Thiruvananthapuram Capital Region Development.
Improvements have been happening in traffic infrastructure of Trivandrum for about 2 years now. Things have improved in some areas and further improvement is expected once project is completed. But there are couple of problems.
Indian Railway offers various classes of travel which includes air-conditioned cars, chair cars, sleepers etc. Following diagrams illustrate the coach/compartment layout for various classes.
Following chart shows the price comparison for various classes in Indian Railways (as on november 2006). Note that the prices are sometimes different across trains. FC class (very spacious but no air conditioning) is very rare now. Its fare is between 2 tier AC and 3 tier AC.
| Train | AC 1st | Ac 2 Tier | Ac 3 Tier | Sleeper(SL) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chennai Express running from Chennai to Mumbai covering 1274KM in 22 hours. | Rs. 2660 | Rs. 1534 | Rs. 1084 | Rs. 405 |
This article explains the setup i have at home to ensure failsafe broadband access. Since I have multiple pcs at home I have setup the whole thing on Wireless network. If you are in Kerala I recommend my setup.
Here is what you need,
1. Two broadband connections(In kerala BSNL and Asianet are best).
2. Two Wifi routers(Netgear or Dlink).
3. Wifi adapters for each PC(Netgear and Dlink).
In my case I have a BSNL broadband connection (UL900+ which offers unlimited download) and Asianet broadband (WOW 199 which offers 375MB traffic per month) as the backup line. Whenever something happens to the BSNL line (which is yet to happen!) I switch to Asianet using the Wifi Adapter software setting. Another scenario is when you have a big download going on and at the same time want to do a voice chat on another PC!
Following diagram illustrates my setup which uses SmartAX MT882 ADSL Router, Asianet cable modem, D-Link DI-524 wifi router, Netgear WGT624 Wifi Router, Netgear WG311 internal Wifi card and Dell TrueMobile 1180 Internal 802.11b Mini PCI Card.
In my case, BSNL has provided a simple SmartAX MT882 ADSL Router without wireless support. So I have connected D-Link DI-524 wireless router to this. Following diagrams illustrates the main setting(WAN) on the wireless router (accessed via http://192.168.0.1/). Also ensure that Wifi is secured using WEP encryption. Otherwise your neighbours will enjoying free broadband internet at your expense!
Malayalees have a unique ability to start any business and prosper "if and only if" they are outside Kerala. Even language is not a problem for them!
In the attached audio file what you hear is a conversation between a helpless mallu(Malayalee), who knows bits of english and an american customer. The american had just bought a DVD from the malayalee shop and realizes it doesn't work. So he calls him up.
Download Mallu Conversation (mp3). Right click and save the file locally before playing!
Hilarious!
This site now contains a Kerala Blog Roll. This roll is updated every 5 minutes. If you have a blog related to Kerala and would like to add it to the Kerala Blog Feed aggregator, please mail the RSS link to me. Adding your blog here will increase visitors to your blog.
Song: Ente Khalbile
Film: Classmates
Lyricist: Vayalar Sharath chandra Varma
Music: Alex Paul
Singer: Vineeth Srinivasan
An MP3 version of this song is available for download at mp3lizard site. Use Windows Media Player for playing it. Songs are also available at musicindiaonline.
Check out this interesting parody also!
Ente khalbile vennilaavu nee
nalla paattukara
thattamittu njaan kathuvachoren
mullamottiloorum athoronnu vende
ente khalbile vennilaavu nee
nalla paattukara
thattamittu njaan kathuvachoren
mullamottiloorum athoronnu vende
atharonnu vende ente koottukaara
sulthaante chelukaara
ninte punchiri paalinullile
ninte punchiri paalinullile
panchasaarayaavaam
ninte nenjile dafumottumaayi ennumenteyaavam
oppanaykku nee kooduvaan
mailaanchi monchonnu kaanuvaan
oppanaykku nee kooduvaan
mailaanchi monchonnu kaanuvaan
enthu maathramennaagrahangale modi vachuvenno
ente khalbile vennilaavu nee
nalla paattukara
thattamittu njaan kathuvachoren
mullamottiloorum athoronnu vende
atharonnu vende ente koottukaara
sulthaante chelukaara
thottu meettuvaan ulla thanthrikal
thottu meettuvaan ulla thanthrikal
potttumenna pole
thottaduthu nee ninnuvenkilum
kai thodaanjathenthe
laalanagalil mooluvaan
kai thalamittonnu paaduvaan
laalanagalil mooluvaan
kai thalamittonnu paaduvaan
ethra vattamen kalchilankakal melle konchiyenno
ente kalbile vennilaavu nee
nalla paattukara
thattamittu njaan kathuvachoren
mullamottiloorum athoronnu vende
atharonnu vende ente koottukaara
sulthaante chelukaara
ente kalbile vennilaavu nee
nalla paattukara
thattamittu njaan kathuvachoren
mullamottiloorum athoronnu vende
atharonnu vende ente koottukaara
sulthaante chelukaara
Superstar (similar to Pop Idol/American Idol) in Amrita TV is a reality TV phenomenon in Kerala. It is generating the same heat that the "Survivor" series created in US! This program alone has pushed Amrita TV ratings to all time high!
All the participants are highly talented singers. They have been well trained also and their performance is what made this program so popular.
One of the most irritating thing in this program is the anchor lady. She probably provides an element of humour to the whole proceeding by her looks and talk. For example, the way she addresses the judges - Deepakji, Alphonseji and even Menakaji!
The judges are very sympathetic and encouraging. In short they are miles away from Simon Philip Cowell in Pop Idol!
Sangeeth becomes Kerala Superstar!. Check here for details.
All are welcome to join Kerala Forums and participate in discussions. Suggestions are also invited for forum categories. Following are the current installations on this site.
Technopark is an IT park in Trivandrum employing about 15,000 people. Technopark organizes an entertainment event called "Tech-a-Break" annually.
Following video is made during the Tech-a-Break event. It is a humorous look at the daily life at Technopark. Video available via www.youtube.com.