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What has the World taught me?

Why do we travel?

Some do it for Passion. Some do it for a relaxation. Some do it for time pass. Some do it just like that.

Travelling around the world needs lot of time and a good amount of money and most importantly, a perfect companion. There are few who prefer to travel alone. When you are alone, you confine or restrict yourself though you may explore places at your wish and will interacting with localities and doing all that you wanted to. Does it have any fun quotient? Certainly not.

Only when the joy is shared with others, it gives you an immeasurable happiness. The companion need not have to be your better half always because not all would have been married when they started to travel. Hence it can be your best friend or your parent.

I never had the habit of arguing with others though I knew the other person was wrong or incorrect. It does not mean that I possess less knowledge. It is just that I respect the other person's views. I wouldn't expect it to be reciprocated since this open-mindedness always differ from person to person. Some confine to a smaller radius thinking that they knew anything and everything thereby underestimating the potential of others. It is this attitude which would pull down even a born genius even without his/her knowledge.

I have been taught to be obedient,patient and listening all the time and open up for opportunities and possibilities since the world has to offer so much. It is this which made me to book my first overseas trip exactly 10 years back. I was not married then and I was working for an MNC Bank for its back office operations. I noticed how the westerners use to enjoy their life by travelling at least once in a year. Hence I too decided to follow their footsteps.

Firstly, I applied for a 2 week mandatory off in my office and then I applied for a personal loan for travel. I got all of them approved. I was then left to decide the place of travel. I zeroed in on Singapore and Malaysia since I have heard a lot about it. Since I haven't travelled outside India, I thought this would be the safe bet. I should not forget to mention here that I have my granny and few others in both the countries. Hence I booked a ticket for me and for my mother.

My mother had been to Singapore more than 5 times. Still, it was me who helped her in doing most of the stuff in the airport be it with immigration or other things. I was neither afraid nor was I tensed.  We were warmly received by my granny in the Singapore airport who came along with her daughter-in-law and her baby boy. I had the mindset that it is one of the cleanliest places in the World and it got further enhanced after seeing that city. Though I always believed in keeping my surroundings clean, I have exercised more precaution when I was there since even something done without our knowledge(ignorance) can attract heavy fines over there.

I had a gala time over there for the next 2 weeks with majority of the time being spent in Singapore and few days in Malaysia.

What have I learnt?

1. People are more friendly than you think.
2. It is only we assume that they unhelpful which isn't the case
3. In case of doubt, ask. Never assume.
4. Always get to know about the country you are planning to travel, in advance unless you have a backup there.
5. Know about the local temperature, food, culture, travel modes, currency preferred and used and to some extent, the local language as all these would come handy in case of an emergency.
6. Keep an emergency contact no always. Keep your passport and other travel documents safe and try to memorise the local contact address so that you will not get lost in a foreign nation.


The video portrays the beauty of us - the travellers that we are not alone. Can it be done any better than this?



Its time you too said #YesToTheWorld
MannKiBaat with Youngsters

MannKiBaat with Youngsters

Dear PM,

At the outset, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks for being an untiring and demanding PM who has led the party with iron fists till date. It is easy to comment from outside and only those who are in the receiving end would know as to how much difficult it is, in reality.

You have never shied away from your responsibilities and have always faced the criticism on a positive note. Those who criticised about your foreign trips themselves are the one who have abused their position earlier. Your trip came with lot of benefits like foreign investments, deals and collaborations which were concealed nicely by those hypocrites.

Well, the entire world knows about your functionality style and I, being a citizen need not have to talk about it or glorify it any further. What I am looking forward is this:

There are 100's and 1000's of youngsters who have got lot of brilliant ideas. These ideas wouldn't have occurred even in the brightest minds of IAS officers since their concentration is mostly on the daily administration and their own performance since they cannot sit on their laurels anymore. These youngsters voice often go unnoticed. I understand that there is an app developed by your team which promises of "Being Heard" but how far it is heard is certainly a question here. Since those ideas are at the mercy of the team who handles it, some o the core ideas may not be reaching you at all. This is the fact and this is the reality.

We know that you conduct a #MannKiBaat session once in a month where you appear on TV or voice it over Radio which isn't a two-way communication. A communication gets its real success and is complete only when it is TWO-WAY. While it would always be good for you to continue with the MannKiBaat, I would like to request you to conduct a one to one or a group session with the youngsters at least once in a month so that you would get to know about their mind and some revolutionary ideas. The Prime Ministers who served us earlier weren't least bothered about this but I am writing to you with fullest confidence that you would do something about this.

Thanks and Regards,
Sarath Babu S
A Humble Citizen

Saving water is the need of the hour

WATER is the essence of Life. It has influenced even the great civilisations to change their place of dwelling since during those days, almost all the civilisations started at flourished at the banks of some great rivers.

While the World War has happened for various reasons, lot of them had predicted that, if there is another World War ever, it would happen only because of water which shows the importance that the water has been commanding for a while now. India has had trouble with regards to saving the water effectively and efficiently. We are still in disputes with out neighbouring nations like Pakistan and China with regards to water sharing from the great or evergreen rivers like Indus and Brahmaputra.

China is busy in building a major dam across Brahmaputra and once that is complete, it can stop major part of water flowing into the eastern part of India though it has denied it. While, let us not concentrate on rivers that is flowing outside India, it is time to divert our attention towards the one which is flowing inside our nation.

We are very much aware of the fact that we still have not taken any major steps in preventing these crucial rivers sources getting dried. We do also most part of them to go and get submerged with the ocean in the yet. 

What steps have we taken to prevent this?

Literally nothing...

We talk about lot of things but we end up spending more water than we have got. The consequences, though isn't immediate can be felt within a century. It would for sure affect the future generation as we would leave them a place which has had no water. Do we need this to happen? I am sure we don't wanted that to happen. It is time to Save Water.

Let us all come together to create the awareness within our surroundings and make it spread across the nation. It all begins with a small talk and effort. There are lot of causes happening around us. Saving Water is the most important one.

I am joining the Initiative by Livpure in saving water and I have already signed the petition too to bring in the change. Will you be joining me?


Vote your choice with MyVoteToday

We all have got accustomed to voting. Many of us would have voted when the paper ballot system of voting was followed to select our MLC/MLA/MP in a democratic way. As and when the technology progressed, we saw the introduction of EVMs which reduced the waiting time to a considerable extent. The joy of seeing our vote being flashed in the EVM can only be matched with the joy of seeing the candidate who we supported win.

Going by the above scenario, we can safely say that we are well versed with voting. Having said that, we nowadays come across voting in different formats in different channels. They cover topics from movies, entertainment, sports, politics and other current affairs. While some brands have been tried and tested by announcing the results of the polls conducted by them, many do not do it diligently. Even if they did, when it comes to announcing the results, they are not backed by actual figures, which play a vital role in ascertaining as to who has emerged triumphant.

MyVoteToday comes into picture as it has been into voting on social media for the past 25 months. Founded by Mr. Amit Bagaria on 26th January 2016, this ePollster has come a long way thrashing few records. It is already the World's 2nd Largest Social Media Pollster and achieved this feat in just 16 months.




What has it achieved so far?

The brand has achieved 5 polls with more than 200,000 votes. It also boasts of 34 polls which crossed 100,000 votes.

With 93 polls crossing 50,000 votes, the brand has breached more than 25,000 votes in 224 polls, which equates to conducting a poll 25,000+ votes once in every 3½ days.

The brand achieved almost 24 million votes on its 2nd Anniversary which equates to 1 million votes a month or 32,873 votes a day on an average.


Topics

MyVoteToday (“MVT”) chooses the hot/trending topics and runs a survey (usually for 5-6 days) where lot of points on that particular topic gets posted by its team members. While the topics are mostly political, the brand also takes up and tweets about social issues, and at times, about sports and movies.

Multiple surveys (polls) are run simultaneously. For some of the surveys, the brand adopts a unique approach of running it with several rounds namely Pre-Qualifier, Qualifier, Pre QF, QF, SF and finally the Final Poll.

Images and Visuals

MVT has an in-house image/visual maker who makes the images corresponding to the particular poll with the brand logo on it. These are complimented with images which are sourced online.

When it comes to multiple polls involving different names, categories etc., MVT also generates LeaderBoard charts, which get shared with the public every now and then, and facilitate voters to know where exactly their choice stands/fares.

Vote Counts

The brand also shares the vote counts when the poll has to go through several rounds and when the final results are declared, the number of votes that was received for that particular poll is revealed.

Followers

MVT has more than 741,700 followers, which includes eminent personalities from various fields, including Indian central government and state Ministers, several MPs and MLAs, several spokespersons of leading political parties in India, American Congressmen (equivalent to our Lok Sabha MPs), British MPs, as well as entertainment/sports personalities, who RT MVT’s tweets or engage with the brand tweet or do both, frequently.

Other brands

While MVT is the mother brand, it also has subsidiary brands such as PeopleNChoices, MyVOTR, MVT_NEWS, PollCourt,  MyDebateToday and ARUSadisors.


How to vote?

You can vote for all topics/ open polls on the LIKES tab of @MyVoteToday on Twitter, or by downloading the app from Google Playstore or iOS App Store. 

Link to download - bit.ly/mvt-getapp

Are you ready? Follow the handle or download the app and starting voting.....

Book Review - I Owed You One


Title - I Owed You One
Author - Madhu Vajpayee
Genre - Fiction / Family Life
Publisher - LiFi Publications
ISBN - 978-93-86191-28-1


A novel which has captured the essence of various emotions - be it a son who was kept in the dark, a dutiful wife, a dutiful father, a faithful husband, a melancholy mistress etc., The story begins with the protagonist Dev Khanna narrating the incidents in his own words.

Been born in a wealthy family - both his Mother and Father had their own posh background, Dev notices a sadness in his mother. Despite enormous wealth and success, her mother could never be able to hide her disappointment whereas his father hardly spends any time with him.

While there was a dark secret behind it, Dev with the help of his college friend Javed finds out the exact reason which gives him the shock of his life. In the meanwhile, his mother gets diagnosed with advance stage of liver cancer which claims her life.

Dev leaves India for good and in another country he starts a fresh life. He happens to meet Radhika there and falls in love with her. Radhika had Indian roots though she was born and brought up in Australia and she was convinced that Dev was her perfect partner. While all was going well, Dev gets couple of big shocks which forces him to travel to India.

Dev comes to India. He gets entangled in some complex situations including a kidnap of a girl, a murder and losing a good friend to a mob. Dr Madhu Vajpayee has created some compelling events which brought forth some of the heart wrecking incidents which has happened (& is still happening) in a much appropriate way through her novel which is surely needs a mention here.

The characters were given appropriate roles and the events were stitched together perfectly which would make you feel that you are watching something in real rather than merely reading a novel. It captures the essence of how a mother feels when her daughter disappears, how a parent feel when their son is charred to death among others. A heart touching novel for sure....

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

Book Review - Dead To Them


Title - Dead To Them
Author - Smita Bhattacharya
Genre - Thriller Fiction
Publisher - StoryMirror
ISBN - 978-93-86305-91-6

An unusual thriller fiction which would keep you guessing from the beginning till the end. It all begins with the disappearance of the protagonist Moira who was close with Misha and Avni.

When they try to unearth the reasons behind her disappearance, they stumble upon some bizarre truth which couldn't be taken by them as it is. Moira who is a happy go girl otherwise was friendly with all including other characters like Piyush, Kartik, Ashish among others.

Though she was suffering from some kind of depression and had taken medication, she did not leave any note when she disappears.

Was there a conspiracy behind her sudden disappearance?
If yes, who and why did they do?
Was she held for ransom?

Strangely her boss, Himanshu did not press for police charges. He felt uncomfortable when he was compelled to register one. Moira on the other hand before her disappearance receives a threatening letter. 

Who was it from?

There were few other incidents that happens post this which would make you to complete this beautiful novel in one go.

Kudos to the author who has stitched the events together in a well organised way. Though initially I was confused with the presence of numerous characters, as and when I started giving more concentration to it, I could able to connect the dots easily. I can very well say that this novel can even have a sequel :-)

The book is available on Amazon

The Juggernauts Of Online Shopping




Years back, people used to trust only the things that are tangible to them. They used to shop for the products they could feel and make a perception accordingly. But now, after years of development, things have changed and we prefer shopping online rather than going to the market to purchase the products we like. Although, there still exist the majority that doesn’t trust these online stores like Flipkart or Amazon. People still have that misconception about these e-commerce stores, who are now a brand in themselves, that they might do a fraud or they might deliver products with defects. However, this mindset is still changing mainly due to the offers, discounts and the dirt cheap prices these big banners has to offer and through that, they aim to capture as much audience as they possibly can. They even provide their audience with further discounts and facilities through their respective Amazon offers and Flipkart offers, that not only surface at the time of Amazon sale and Flipkart sale but also during the other points of time. But how did these once recognized startups topped the rankings of the biggest e-commerce platforms in this whole wide world?

A Brief History Of Amazon

“Work hard, have fun, make history.”
-Jeff Bezos (Founder & CEO of Amazon)

This Washington, United States based online shopping website has been on the market for over 24 years and now, it has finally gained a name for itself and climbed to the top of the hill. Amazon started its journey by selling books and gradually moved on to the various other sectors and kept on increasing the categories for the users to choose from. Later on, Amazon has begun to venture into different countries and there too it rose to popularity faster than ever. It was because of the Amazon offers that this e-commerce website used to introduce and the discount it provided its user base with, at the time of their initial steps in the country. Recently, just around a year back, Amazon launched its Amazon Prime and if you subscribe to become a member of it, you will encounter such amazing Amazon offers and facilities including free delivery, early access to Amazon sale, free access to Amazon Prime video, and Amazon prime music. From selling books to now ruling the e-commerce market, Amazon has become the most trusted place to do your online shopping from.

A Brief History Of Flipkart

“You can never SWITCH OFF!”
-Sachin Bansal (Co-founder Flipkart)

Flipkart is an India based e-commerce website. Before there was Amazon, there was Flipkart in India and till date, the Indian audience trust and prefer shopping from Flipkart rather than Amazon. Although, sometimes there are these brand flirt people who shop for products via Amazon because Flipkart occasional have limited options to choose from. Sachin & Binny Bansal began their journey by selling Flipkart bookmarks in front of bookstores. And slowly but steadily they began to work hard and saw their ambition, their aim shape into reality. Since 2007 both of these founders know where each brick is set, that built Flipkart so big. Although, after Amazon India began to exist, Flipkart became the second most used online shopping website in India and number seven in this competitive world. Flipkart surely presents its audience with lucrative Flipkart offers even when there runs no Flipkart sale.

These people knew that they would face finite disappointments in their journey but they believed in their dream and never lost their infinite hope. Now, they are successful and living the life they only dreamt about and made their baby a brand, whose one stamp marks trust!

Book Review - The Evil Trance


Title - The Evil Trance
Author - Mark Dysan
Genre - Erotic Horror(Fiction)
Publisher - NotionPress
ISBN - 978-1-947586-65-9

A good attempt by the author in bringing out a fantasy story in an interesting way. I felt the story was bit similar to a movie released in Hollywood though this is a different concept. The essence of the story was kept intact till the end though there were at times, I felt that I am not following the story. 

The story has few characters but the main ones include Dr Mitra and his assistant Dr Gopi who along with Shukla, a Private detective and Feroz, an Inspector gets into a situation where they had to investigate about few murders which starts happening in a mysterious way.

The story talks about both the aspects - Science and Belief. As a reader, we have our own presumptions and we may choose our side. If you wanted to read a novel to experience a horror movie, this is certainly the one.

Why did the death occur?
Who commits the murder?
How was the murderer identified?
Has that been stopped?

Give it a read. You will find it interesting. By the way, I guess there is a sequel to this :-)


The book is available on Amazon

Solitude And Other Obsessions


Title - Solitude And Other Obsessions
Poets - Uma, Binod, Trupti, Shruti and Saurin
Genre - Poems
Publisher - NotionPress
ISBN - 978-1-947697-41-6

This is a compilation of 73 brilliant poems written by 5 different authors. What I also liked from this book is the presence of few paintings that were done by Shripad Bhalerao which has perfectly complimented the book.

I could clearly see the difference and variations of each poet as they brought out their best with their writing. While Uma has brought the best with the poems in Ladakh which I could very well connect with since I had been to the "Divine Paradise on Earth" myself, her poems on soldiers were equally a good one. I was glad after reading her poems since I shared a similar mindset.

Binod talked about mixed emotions whereas Trupti focused on melancholy(is what I feel). Shruti was at her best with her collection of poems where I liked "Why do we fall?" in particular. Saurin again brought out some brilliant reflections of his mind.

As a composer of poems myself, I felt really glad after going through different styles in composing a poem but with one motto "connect to the readers" which has worked really well in this beautiful compilation.


The book is available on Amazon