2 States - The Story Of My Marriage

From the author of blockbusters Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Center and The 3 Mistakes of My Life, comes another witty tale about inter-community marriages in modern india.

2 States - Is a 2009 novel written by Chetan Bhagat. It is an love story about a couple coming from two different states of India, who faced the conservative parents and how they finally persuaded them to get themselves married. The novel is a fiction, but is said to be inspired from the real story of the author and his wife Ananya who are from Delhi and Tamil Nadu respectively.

Click here to download E-book

Thanks to the original uploader...

Recently 'The Banker', a part of the Financial Times group figured out five Indian banks in the list of the world's top 1,000 banks in 2009.

According to them the top five banks in the world are JP Morgan Chase followed by Bank of America, CITI Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC holdings. As per my knowledge HSBC is the only bank that has not received any government support till now.

Coming back to the indian banks State Bank of India holds the first position among the Indian banks and ranked 64th position and ICICI bank ranked 81st among global banks. Punjab National Bank , HDFC Bank and Bank of India at 239, 242 and 263, respectively :) .

Its an great achievement from Indian banks to hold postions in world banking system.. This clearly shows that our regulatory systems are really in strong shape.

I think soon we have to pay an annual fees for our credit cards..!! So credit card holders be ware of it...! According to banks, the reason behind this move is high cost of issuing and maintaining them...

Reliance Mutual Fund as come up with new fund called Reliance Infrastructure Fund, an open ended Equity Scheme. The New fund will close on June 23, 2009. The units will be available at Rs. 10/- per unit (subject to applicable load) during the New Fund Offer and Continuous offer for Units at NAV based prices.

It pre- dominantly invests in the infrastructure sector, with the government spending more on the same and foreign investments coming into Indian infrastructure companies. Infrastructure spending has witnessed a sharp acceleration, with most of the segments in the economy constrained in terms of capacity availability. Riding on the back of the fourth consecutive year of 8%+ GDP growth, a balanced increase in the gross capital formation (GCF) in infrastructure as a proportion of GDP emerges as the most important key in sustaining high economic growth. Currently, the GCFI is at 5% of GDP. As per the Planning Commission, the GCFI need to be increased to 9% of the GDP to sustain growth momentum in the economy.

Infrastructure sector plays important role in country’s development and GDP growth. India has already negotiated the difficult transition from public infrastructure creation to a market determined model. This will give room for more rural developments and spending.


NFO Details:

Mutual Fund Family: Reliance
Mutual Fund Fund Type: Open Ended Equity Scheme
Minimum Investment: Rs. 5000/-
Entry Load:
Below Rs. 2 Crs - 2.25%
Rs 2 Crs & above and below Rs 5 Crs - 1.25%
Rs 5 Crs & above- Nil

If anyone interested to go with that, do reach me at 9886803739 or
chethan.st@gmail.com or write2chethan@gmail.com

Friday Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),while releasing its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections said that it would exempt individuals with an income of up to Rs.300,000 per year from income tax.

Mean time they also said it will implement strong laws like POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) to counter terrorism and will also strengthen coastal security.

This will be a great move, lets vote for BJP :) save your tax and save your country ...!

PHEW!!!! at last, it is finished...


It has been around 1 month since I hav started working on this, as I was busy with II PU tution, I wasn't able to finish it early... finally I am convinced.


Doctors : Life savers or Man eaters..??!!!


Hmmm, from the times unknown, doctors have been considered saviours, with their positions being held by the people close to God!!!! Sadly this is turning out to be a contradiction with many docs bringing disgrace to this, one of the most noble profession.. .. There were times when doctors were absolutely service minded, but now many mercenary doctors can be seen almost everywhere..!!! Sadly now many doctors make poor illiterate villagers targets and make money even out of free samples(not that its not going on in urban areas). People shelling out hundreds of rupees just for a mere consultation has become a common sight now.. Shamefully,many hospitals would have set targets based on which the consultation charges are put up. Interestingly we can even get a sight of hospitals advertising "get one ill patient to us and get 10 to 30% off on your next consultation!!!!' (not on advertising boards though)



Many hospitals are also into the act of hoodwinking people around, by asserting the condition of the patient to be serious, though dead, and procuring lakhs of money from the patients family!!! (not an unknown fact now)

I would like to put forth a small incident that took place abt 4 months back..
A friend of mine working in Mindtree,used to drink coconut water almost everyday in front of the office...One fine day the coconut seller charged 5Rs more citing the reason that he was working in such a big IT company and so can afford paying just 5Rs more...!!!!

the same way the hospitals have in fact started getting info regarding the salary as well as profession of the patient as a pre requisite for billing...!!! higher your salary higher is your consultation fee...!! Most of the times its the management of the hospitals which plays a major role in such corruption and its not the doctors who are always to blame..!!!


Is a consultation really worth hundreds?? In a doctor's view it's not a very high fee, keeping in mind the struggle they would have gone through during their study n which they go through during their practice or if taken otherwise it may be because of high standards of living.. It wouldn't be wrong if said that high standard of living is a gift of the IT industry!!! It is only because of the same industry that things like "target fixing" ,"Achieving deadlines", "referral schemes" etc became a vogue in almost every field!!! people had, but now have a stronger predilection towards doctors, snatching the game away from the IT people!!! ;) Strangely this daylight robbery is not confined only to hospitals, now seen even in SCHOOLS and HOTELS...!!!!!


In recent times doctors referring patients to various scan centres inspite of having facilities in their own hospitals and getting commission from those scan centres has already come to the public notice!!! of course it doesnt imply to all the doctors.. sum refer patients to other centres solely because of the improvised technologies there...

It is gratifying to think there are still many docs who are dedicated...I would like to put a special mention about Dr.Shankare Gowda who is practicing in Mandya.. He is a man who is not prejudiced(biased) to any patient and charges only Rs 5 whatever is the illness (doesn't mean everyone should take 5 Rs).. he is quite a known famous doc in Mandya.. I'm sure he will be gr8 inspiration for the future doctors..

My question is , Is it not possible to charge a reasonable and common fee to all the diseases??...or rather grade the charges depending on the severity of the disease??? but who is to decide how to grade it?? the doctors themselves?? the hospitals?? some senior minds association ?? or common man?? the answer remains a question of debate...!!!!! :(



Post your views, suggestions as comments...

Yesterday Mohandas pai (one of the board member of Infosys) said it has decided to give Rs 5-million (Rs 50 lakh) cash award to each of the top five Indian scientists and also Rs 20million for each of five scientists who are residing in other countries in recognition of their research and achievements. This will be given yearly under the aegis of Infosys foundation (Infosys trust).

This award will be given under the category of Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and statistics; Engineering Sciences in all branches of engineering, Biology, Medicine and economics to honor the scientists who will make difference to India in future said Narayan murthy. He also reported that, these top 5 scientists will be selected/recognized by five eminent experts who are from the same field.

I think this is one of the good moves to recognize the talents; we need more of these types..!

Infosys rocks again ;).

Many around us would be dreaming of scoring high in our +2(pu) exams and getting into various fields of study of our choice. Many might want to be an engineer or a doctor or an entrepreneur and many more. Most of the times the situation would be such that we wouldn't know how the course would be or about what to follow there and what not to follow right after getting into the college or even before getting in. In my experience I have seen many ppl pass out of college, they search for Reference/VTU books. Most of the times we end up with no results then we starts searching for seniors to get info from them. One day I was thinking about this and finally I asked my friend divya to write on this as she also from medicine field, she is the best person to answer this.

This is for those PU students who will be very much clueless about how it would be right after entering the course of most noble profession,the field of medicine (those getting into the field of engineering will hav to wait on guys)... I would like to thank Divya who helped me out in posting this useful info :).

In her words.......

In your very first year in medicine, You wil be asked to sit in front of dead bodies and get adjusted to the smell n gradually to study them (we were asked to be right in front of those bodies the very first day!!!!) the initial lectures will seem as though they are in greek n latin with nothing gettin into ur head since many medical terms will be used which u ll be unaware of. The books ll be more than thrice as voluminous as ur pu books. Many might already be getting goosebumps.. Trust me there is absolutely nothing to be scared of.. you ll start feeling comfortable with everythin, the lectures, the books,and of course even the bodies :) very soon.. may be even by around 15 days...!!!

Here is just a bit of useful information regarding the books you can go through, which might be of help for the freshers (for those who would want to prepare a bit in the holidays) ...!

In the first year of MBBS you will have 3 subjects--Anatomy , Physiology and Biochemistry. These three subjects form the foundation for your further medical studies.. Be strong in all the three since you will be expected to remember it till the end of your course and even further...

In anatomy the favourite among many students is "B.D.Chaurasia's Human Anatomy". It is available in three volumes and is a book anyone can rely upon to score well..for reference,to gain extra knowledge you can read "Gray's Anatomy". This book is very much informative and is a favorite among professors!!! There are many divisions in anatomy like histology, embryology etc.. for both histology and embryology u can follow books written by I.B.Singh.

In physiology "Guyton's book of Medical Physiology" is a book to die for. Many might get scared just by looking at its size..but trust me physiology is made very much easy here.. it would be good if one starts reading it right from the beginning... remember this is not a book to be read (if it is for the first time that you will be reading) when ur exams are approaching.. many might find it difficult to write answers from it in exams..so they can switch over to other easier and scoring books about a few weeks before your tests or exams..for that there are books like "G.K Pal book of physiology" , "A.K.Jain's text book of Physiology" and many more...

In biochemistry you can go for "DR.Vasudevan's text book of biochemistry"...this one is usually enough for biochemistry..but if anyone feels like reading more of it or who feel they are quite good in chemistry can go for "Harper's book of biochemistry" which usually is only for reference..the above mentioned books are the most followed ones n the most important ones.

There will be many other small books that you will have to read about which you will come to know after your college starts..try to be in touch with your seniors as far as possible, that will be very useful in future.

Effective from April 1, 2009, in India customers will be able to withdraw money from the ATMs of any bank in India without paying out any fee (transaction charge) for the same, as per the new circular issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

RBI has directed banks to permit customers of one bank to use ATMs of other banks for free of cost for all transactions. Isn't it great news :) ??

But, my question is, then why would banks start new ATMs, their customers can use that of other banks...!!! :( ?

These days pledging shares in India has grown significantly. Recently I heard many people talking about "Pledging shares", even 5 to 6 members asked me also. So this time I would like to give basic gyan on this.

Basically pledging is just like you going to banks/financial institutions, keeping the gold and borrowing money from them. You can get ur gold back when you return the money/loan back with interest. I think many people are aware of this.

Just like that “Pledging shares” means giving your shares as collateral to the Institutions/Banks that lend money to you. In simple, you can call it as collateral loan.

Once you pledge ur shares, as and when the stock falls down, you will have to pay the marginal money to the institutions from which u borrowed the money. In case you dont pay the amount, the institutions have the authority to sell your stocks. That implies, in the falling market pledging shares will be high risk.

If promoters are pledging shares, then there may be chances where they will go for manipulating company's balance sheet to keep the stock price high, so that they can escape from paying marginal amount.

Will pledging shares by promoters have an impact on the market ??

Yes,Usually promoters will have some _ % stocks (bole tho some crores together shares); in the falling market paying marginal amount on that will be very difficult. If the promoter failed to keep that amount, then selling a huge chunk of those stocks by institutions, will lead to a big fall in that stock price. This will have a huge impact on the small investors.

Recently SEBI has made it ‘ mandatory for all the companies to disclose the shares pledged by the promoters’ till last year it was not there…!. May be that’s the reason sometimes we never come to know why some XXX company stocks fall all of a sudden without any news.

Not only promoters, even we can pledge our shares by submitting the written pledge statement to our bank (where you have ur DP account). Pledged quantity of shares will be blocked in your DP account and you will get a loan amount on that.

Loan amount will depend on the current stock price, it doesnt mean that they will give loan on full amount. For example, suppose XXX company is trading at 300Rs currently,and if it wants to pledge 100 shares then they may get around Rs 15000(100 * 150)as loan. pledge amount will be decided by Institutions/Banks.

Upon the closure of your loan, the pledge is closed on your DP account and bank will return back your shares to your DB :) .

Dr Reddy's Lab, Aban Offshore, Asian Paints, Godrej Consumer Products, Great Offshore and JB Chemicals ,Mytas Infra, UTV software , Lanco Infratech , TV-18, PVR, Balaji Telefilms, Radaan Media, Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision, UTV Software and Crest Ganesh Housing, J Kumar Infraprojects and Peninsula Land and many more....are names of some of the prominent indian companies whose promoters have pledged shares against loan.

For any queries/suggestions please contact write2chethan@gmail.com.

Marriage, they say its not just coming together of two individuals, there is much more to it. Some say marriage is a good recipe whose main ingredients are love, commitment, understanding, concern and togetherness.

Everyone would dream of gettin that unconditional love and support for better or worse from their spouse.Let’s consider the following instance,

Now, doesn’t the thought of gettin an HIV test (ELISA) before getting into the most special commitment of our life come into our minds? Is it not necessary? They say successful marriage is not merely finding the right mate but through you being the right mate!!! So at least for the sake of that special person, for the sake of your successful relationship together cant the two of you get a HIV test done together? I don’t say only the guy should or only the girl should but both of them together!!!!!

Many might or rather would disagree saying that it is not at all practical!!! Many will be of the opinion that asking your partner before marriage to get a test done would make him/her feel that you do not trust him/her!!! While some others might say that they don’t need it as they trust their partners more than themselves!!! Well, it’s definitely not about trust. It will just be a conscious decision which u both would make for each other!! By you yourself being ready to undergo the test you would be respecting your partner, not hurting their ego and at the same time giving him/her the assurance that mutual trust is not coming into the picture!!!

Tell me how many of us would undergo blood tests routinely?? at least once in a year?? We wouldn't have even bothered about it unless something goes wrong!!!

Akhil never broke Smriti's trust. He was completely innocent. Had they spoken to each other before marriage and undergone the test akhil could have saved his love's life and at the same time he could have controlled his situation not allowing it to worsen!!!

Even now many would have a doubt of whether they should go ahead or not...its true that a girl asking her to be husband to get a test done can be very dangerous. It can make her life miserable if that guy takes that question the other way!!! Almost in 90 to 95% of cases this becomes very difficult!! (Strangely, though most of us very well educated!!!!)

It would be remarkable if the government legalizes getting an HIV test done before marriage!!! But why denounce the government and wait for it to make it legal?? If 90% disagree the remaining can agree to it and be an inspiration!! Those couples who are ready to get (or those who have got) the tests done before marriage can encourage other couples to get it done... Thus surely though slowly we can achieve the desired goal!!!!

I hope all of us will at least give it a thought!!! , Keep in mind; no one is having rights to spoil someone’s life knowingly or unknowingly…!!

Precaution is better than cure (But there is no concept of cure for this)..!

Good news for Satyam investors and employees

Many of us often come across address proof problem while taking loan/credit card/pan card and many more that’s because we are unable to provide current address proof, as we shift our houses more often that to bachelors’.

In order to solve this issue post office has come up with a solution. They are giving address proof along with our photo which is similar to Driving license, Voters ID etc which we normally produce as a proof.

To avail this facility one as to pay 250Rs as the charge (Rs.10 for application and Rs.240/- processing fee). For more info just go through the below link

http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/16/stories/2009011657140300.htm

After several cuts in the policy rates, followed by stimulus package given by the union government finally banks and other housing finance companies are started reducing the interest rates on housing loans. Mean while fixed deposits in banks regained their lost glory by giving attractive interest on it.

Check out the latest interest rates banks are offering:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/4003290.cms

Latest home loan rates :
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/4015535.cms

Chill ;)

Java 1.5 come up with a feature of changing the return type of an overridden method in a subclass this is known as covariant return.

Here I had given an example, how we can override the method of super class with a covariant return in sub class.

/************************************************/
package org.sample;

public class SuperClass {

public SuperClass sampleMethod (int count){
System.out.println("I am in Super class");
return new SuperClass();
}
}
/************************************************/
package org.sample;

public class SubClass extends SuperClass {
public SuperClass sampleMethod (int count) {
System.out.println("I am in Sub class");
return new SuperClass();
}
/**
* @param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
SuperClass sc = new SubClass();
sc.sampleMethod (5);
}
}

/************************************************/
When we run "SubClass" class, we will get output as
I am in Sub class

This shows that we can change the return type of the overriding method only if the new return type is a subtype of the declared return type. And another thing we have to keep in mind is, this Covariant return type is possible only in java 1.5 and in advance version.

We all know that Satyam’s debarment by World Bank became old news, after this incident today World Bank revealed that action has been taken against a total of five firms in India.

These are the Indian companies barred by World Bank
IT firms:-

• Satyam
• Wipro technologies
• Megasoft

Non-IT firms:-

• Gap International
• Nestor Pharmaceuticals

A Three member board was named by sebi on Sunday to bring back financial order to the fraud hit Satyam and to restore confidence of employees, investors and clients.

The new board comprises former National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) chief Kiran Karnik , HDFC chairman Deepak Parikh and former Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) member C. Achuthan.

On this news, today Satyam Stock price rose by 54% and now trading firmely at 36.65.

National Stock Exchange will remove Satyam from its Nifty 50-share index from 12th of Jan. On the news of Ramalinga Raju’s resignation and disclosure of profits falsely for years, Satyam stock price was crashed nearly 80%. From Jan 12th Anil Ambani group's co Reliance Capital will replace Satyam in the nifty. It will also be excluded from the CNX 100 index, CNX 500 index and the CNX IT index.

PunjLloyd is one of the good pick in engineering sector. Today they have got an order worth Rs264 crore from the Airport Authority of India (AAI) for building a greenfield airport at Pakyong in Sikkim. It’s a 2 year contract.

Even last month one of its subsidiary company bagged an order for Jurong Strategic Study project at Jurong Lubes Terminal, Singapore for a value of S $ 44,700,000 . On Dec 23rd Punj Lloyd had informed that, they had secured a contract from Municipal Corporation of Delhi for a value of Rs 303.95 for development of parking facility near Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games -2010.

So one can go for buying this stock as it is a fundamentally very strong company and also they keep getting good orders.

Stock Market (NSE/BSE) Holiday List for 2009

Moharram----------------- January 8th 2009
Republic Day-------------- January 26th 2009
Mahashivratri------------- February 23rd 2009
Id-E-Milad---------------- March 10th 2009
Holi ----------------------- March 11th 2009
Sri Ram Navmi------------ April 3rd 2009
Mahavir Jayanti----------- April 7th 2009
Good Friday--------------- April 10th 2009
Dr. Ambedkar Jayanti----- April 14th 2009
Maharashtra Day---------- May 1st 2009
Ramzan Id----------------- September 21st 2009
Dasera--------------------- September 28th 2009
Gandhi Jayanti-------------October 2nd 2009
Diwali ( Bhaubeez)--------- October 19th 2009
Gurunanak Jayanti-------- November 2nd 2009
Christmas----------------- December 25th 2009
Moharram---------------- December 28th 2009

There is a saying in Sanskrit "Where women are respected there resides God". Has it lost its meaning today? Are women truly respected now?? Unfortunately these days, answer has turned out to be a big NO!!!!!
It’s sad to say that it has become difficult for women to walk on roads being carefree!!! :(

I would like to share an incident which recently happened with one of my friend..!! It so happened that after a small party, my friend was walking towards her home alone at around 6.30 pm in quite a deserted road; when a guy had tried to molest her!! It came as such a big shock to her that she had frozen for a moment. Soon after she had gathered all her guts and yelled at him and had pushed him hard. Instantly, a cloud of fear had surrounded her making her go weak. Luckily someone came by and that guy ran. This appalling incident took her two days to be back to normal!!

If this was the case with her what would be the condition of a girl who will be raped??!! How much traumatized will she be?? How long would it take for her to come out of it?? A day?? A month? A year? Or a lifetime?? No one can probably even imagine what she would have gone through!! Will the society let her lead a normal life even she is willing to move on??
Where is the solution for all this?? I would say first of all each and every one of us needs to change ourselves. We need to place ourselves in the position of a person who is facing/has faced trouble, think and then react. None of us do that!!! A major problem amongst most of us is that we always tend to rely upon our own experiences rather than picking up a point from others' experience!! Sadly this is not all!! Most of us have a still BIGGER problem-Never learning from our mistakes of the past!! .

It’s very strange that though we know about it we never bother to even try doing anything about it!! So, what can be done?? Wake up from your sleep and start being more careful!! I feel probably women can only be more careful each time they are alone on the roads whether during daytime or during nights.

• Try to be in a group as far as possible.
• Try reaching home as early as possible.
• Try learning some defending skills if you can. One such skill is hitting the shin hard with your leg of course i.e., around the middle of knee and ankle from the front. This place doesn’t have any muscles and has only bone. So however strong the person is, it will definitely take some time at least for him to recover.[since most girls wear heels, the punch given will be still more harder ;)] Soon after hitting his shin, stamp his same foot hard and simply RUN towards safety!! :) These kinds of skills are many a times put in newspapers or shown in TV programs.
• It’s always better not to walk alone in unknown areas especially during nights.
• Knowing your surroundings might be of great help if you want to seek help or to run to a safe place.
• Keep some things which can help you in your defense (even a small knife would do). It may sound stupid, but trust me, it will be of help to you in someway or the other sometime or the other.

In spite of taking all precautions it’s true that incidents still happen!! During those times try to be as gutsy as possible. Try something like what I had told before IF POSSIBLE!! If you feel that you don’t have anything left in you to fight then there is no better way than running shouting for help. Ya, it’s true that it is always very easy to do the talking business but very tough to act at that moment! But, if you are always alert and prepared for any such incident, may be you can place yourself in a better position to defend than being completely helpless. At the same time, I feel it’s also the duty of guys to behave in a responsible way. Just try thinking of placing your own sister or some close loved ones in that position. You cannot even tolerate that thought. So I would say be wise n be responsible. :)

I would also like to thank Divya (my friend), who had given a wonderful suggestions and helped me out in writing this.

I hope that such incidents never happen with any gal!!!

Inflation came down by 0.23% from 6.61% in the last week to 6.38%. Declining in food and fuel prices pushed the inflation down in succession. I think this fall in inflation will force RBI to go for further cuts in key policy rates to strengthen the economy. This will be good news for market to go up for short period of time.