Chevrolet Spark, 10m-10k :-)

Just 10 months ago, I acquired my Chevy Spark LS for a good sum of Rs 3.35L, spent additional 11k for the music system; for one month, used call driver services, I figured out I wasn’t enjoying my car drives, simply because I don’t stop wherever I want to and whenever I want to. Regardless of scratches and dents, I needed to start driving, and I did manage to get scratches on all four sides of the car, and a huge dent while backing out of our parking lot. That didn’t deter me.
Today I clocked 10000km on my odometer, and it was a proud moment for me. Just right, few feet away from Vijayanagar Traffic Junction. Best part of it being the lovely Chevy Spark LS, icy blue metallic, hasn’t let me down once so far. Done 3 long drives – Pondicherry, Bangalore and Tranquebar, apart from various mini-long trips to Siruseri.
Chevy has delivered excellent value for money through my Spark; I was unable to pinpoint any specific problems to fix during any of my service. I just stuck to same old rhetoric “low mileage, gear shift problem” though both didn’t really exist. Spark gives me 12-13 in AC inside city, 16-17 in AC on highways, 13-14 non-AC in city, 18-19 on highways…I would say good mileage, definitely;
Engine doesn’t make noise, I don’t have to really stand on accelerator to get a good speed, AC is good. When I drive the car, the experience is as good as the first day I took the car out. The condition is the same. I didn’t need intermediary trips to garage, except for regular services. When I just finished my second free service, I did “under body rust coat” for being in a coastal city like Chennai, tends to rust the metallic parts easily. Spark being a cheaper metal at that!
It is just amazing how easy to turn the car in such cranky corners and lanes of Chennai. The turning radius is fantastic. Since the car is just wider than an auto, I can almost zigzag around where an auto can. That explains the maneuverability of the vehicle. Interestingly, the car can comfortably seat 5 adults + 2kids with enough leg space for all. Considering the turning radius, easy maneuverability, smooth drive features, I was once able to drive fast with excellent control of the car, so nimble the car drive is, in flat 45 minutes from Triplicane to Ambattur, during the peak 5pm traffic via royapet, anna nagar, mogappair…
By the way, Sundaram Motors does excellent job of servicing and customer handling. KLN Motors, who is the other GM dealer in Chennai, is worst and has got some irresponsible and uncaring sales people. I still wonder why I opted to purchase from KLN instead of Sundaram Motors.
So here is my 10 month 10000KM delivery story of reliable Spark!

Updated to add:

The car is so spacious and comfortable, there are so many comfy spaces in such a small car. Just to give a perspective - When I sat in an Indica, I realized I didn’t space to place a water bottle, but in Chevy Spark I had four bottle holder spaces. A full-sized jute bag (the ones they give in textile shops) was needed to accommodate all the CDs, along with their jewel cases, that I have placed in spaces around my seat; beyond this, I have space for coins - to give tips, for my kids books and crayons - all neatly tucked in spaces around.

My son starts complaining he is feeling very cold, in 2 mins, whenever I switch on AC and keep it in just 1. Excellent product is this Chevy Spark, so are Opel Corsa, Astra, Aveo UVA, Tavera...sad GM, despite such rigorous SDP21s didn’t really get their business and union strategy right and have gone this way!

Old age and operations

This post in IDLYVADAI about Mr. CareNoNidhi's chronicling about his spine operation, and Mr. (Vi)Gnani - because he discovers many things - feedback in Kumudam, I was prompted/compelled/urged/itched to post a response. Since by itself, this response became lengthy, I just realized I can use the Dilbertian technique, to post this as a post in my blog as well, and increase my post count. Only if I can also fudge the visitor data, and the comments section...hmmmm...
Anyway the post now -
As usual Mr. CareNoNidhi invites wrath of people precisely because of his personal experience narration. For a moment, let us forget he is a public figure, let us forget he went to a private hospital, instead of Govt Hospital etc etc; let us think only about the resillience and the sufferings they undergo,at such an age; it is actually heart rendering...a couple of days back I read about the hip operation performed on a 99 year old; and my grandpa had a leg operation performed on him at the age of 85...cant help but imagine the many risks in the operations for them. I am sure at any other country abroad, mostly they would neither be covered by insurance nor would the doctors take a risk on their professions...that says something about the confidence of our own doctors, and the care they take to do such operations. Having seen the analysis done by the dotors for my grandpa, I can vouch for this. They cannot be under full anesthesia, as it may affect their heart/brain. The sugar levels and protein levels have to be controlled, but not so much with lot of insulin or diabetic medicines because it may adversely affect their sugar levels; etc etc (any medical professional should be able to explain this further...)Another important things about this n-2 generation people - they have been quite mobileand agile by virtue of their lifestyle, that they can withstand such operations...may it be Dr. manmohansingh at 70+, CareNoNidhi at 85+, 99-year, old, er, old man, or for that matter, my grandpa at 85, or Vajpayee at 80+ with knee replacement operation...and can we forget the numerous operations that Writer Sujatha had at his age, and how he survived all of them? kudos to both the old generation, and the efficient team of doctors.And we "waste-bandwidth-increase waistband" generation have some message there, and it is good one of the thatha actually chronicled this.

Continuing family saga...

Thatha vaazhga!!!

• A channel and big business for his grand-son - the eldest MORON!
• IT Ministry earlier - first part of "Spectrum" (mis)allocation, now a party post - the youngest MORON (how come he still retains the old website with title as S(M)INISTER of IT, despite being removed out of ministry, while the current KOOJA has not even a website, and even the current MIT website does not even list his name anywhere except in "Who's who", while the State IT Ministers are mentioned - What a pity?)
• One of the sons is "South Zone Organ-Riser" - Harakiri in MADurai
• Another younger son (of age almost 58 - retirement age) - Stalling - is Youth Wing Secretary and Potty Treasurer
• The lady girl is "Pagutharivu Parappalar" and a Rajyasabha MP.

But it is not on par with other praises showered on other power centers in the family; so Thatha creates a new TV Channel named after the son of this daughter - CHANNEL ADITYA..

Nallathoru kudumbam, thalavarin kazhagam!

Mylapore macabre

The scene at the CM and CM Son's neighborhood, and their constituencies
- CM's house is in CIT Colony and it leads one side into Oliver Road in Mylapore. It is one way from Alwarpet end, and its parallel road, Luz Church Road, is one way as well from Luz side. However, this one way rule normally does not apply to Auto, arrogant two-wheelers and to Police.
- We hardly have any policing of traffic – except month-ends when non-helmet wearers are caught by traffic police.
- Even if they come on the wrong side, if they wear helmet, no issues.
- The Police posted for CM house duty prefer to id travel on the wrong side without a helmet on the Oliver road , at good speed. This is a very common sight
- There are also no "NO ENTRY" boa rds, or "ONE WAY" only sign boards at Oliver Road entrance from Alwarpet side, opposite to MCTM school, near Kennedy lane entrance, at the Luz Church Road entrance, opposite to Amrutanjan.
- To compound to these woes, private institutions like Green Trends, An University
's open study center have signboards respectively at De Silva road junction and opposite Amrutanjan, with big arrows and the road name, pointing in the wrong direction
On top of this, many a days, street lamps wont glow at the Nageswara rao Park- Luz Church Road-Amrutanjan-Marry Brown areas. The EB office that has to attend to these street light problems is exactly at this juncture!!!

At CM's constituency, Chepauk,
- First big problem is encroachment of platforms
- Regularly used roads like CNK Road, Bells Road, Big Street are full of potholes that are perpetually never fixed
- The road branching off from Pycrofts road, housing KG Hospital (Gosha Hospital), ending at Wallajah Road, has no functioning street light, is a dumpyard and house to most illegal activities in that area.
If this is how things are being treated at CM's backyard and constituency, imagine his influence on the police and administration in the entire state! It is so scary…
So how are CM's son - grand-son bearing Youth (???!@!!) Wing Secretary - Mr Stalling's neighborhood and constituency?
Let us take his constituency – 1000 Lights. (In next post)

Satyam:Forgotten aspects, unasked questions

Some of the aspects that were either overlooked or forgotten:
1. Employees welfare: Though I hear that the "spirit of satyam" campaign is on, and it is trying to instil morale in the minds of the employees, it is still seen as senior management activity. High time the mid and junior level employees actually start something to voice their collective opinions and discuss concerns. Still "Economic Times" is acting as a proxy-HR, and until they get another sensation, it may conctinue. High time, associates pull up their socks, to do something for themselves without relying on HR or Senior Management, until the crisis tides over

2. Overseas employees: Off late, in the recent 3 years span, almost all front running Indian IT Service Providers have started recruiting locally. Though the concerns are being addressed at the Indian level, of whom we see lot of news items, there are hardly any interviews or voices of the overseas employees - like american nationals, brits, french people etc. It is important to address them as well, not just as Satyam employees, but also as confidence building measures in the minds of overseas propsetcs to join other running Indian IT Service providers. This will definitely be a stumbling block, for the industry itself, considering that control is not relinquished to foreign national and board level decisions are never consulted.

3. Infy vs TCS: We get to see at least one opinion or other, in the media, said by some person connected with Infy, but we have not seen a single word, not even a reaction by the TCS. It is worthwhile to note World Bank contracts have already been given to TCS, and SFI may well be on its way. As an onlooker of IT industry, it is interesting for me to watch the stark contrast nature of reaction by these two Indian IT Toppers.

4. Large scale defections: I think this is just waiting to happen, with people at Project Manager levels, moving in with their IT teams to MNCs. Losers might be Indian IT Service Providers

5. Senior Management: has been silent in the media. It is but natural, they have gag orders on themselves. However, what is intriguing is Business Heads of profitable (???)..ok...high-revenue generating divisions like SAP, Testing and Manufacturing verticals have hardly uttered anything.

6. Ex-senior management: There are many senior people and their teams, who held exec level positions until about a year (or two) back, have not uttered a single word in the press or elsewhere. These are the people who headed successful units in the company and held director level

7. Satyam Historical Analysis - by the media and analysts is still flawed. Dig any person been in satyam between 1998-2006, they will have stories to tell. Whether there is anything bad/doubtful is a different story, and it is not the intent here. COncept is Satyam withdrew its stake from Dun & Bradstreet Satyam Software (which eventualy became Cognizant tech) to become Satyam Computers. In 1999-2000 time period, there were 5 Satyam entities in the market - Satyam Computer Services Ltd, Satyam Renaissance, Satyam Enterprise Solutions, Satyam Spark and Visioncompass. The 2, 3 & 4 entities merged into 1st entity to become single strong entity called "Satyam COmputer Services Ltd". They then ventured into ISP business, as Satyam Online, which got rebranded into SifyOnline later. Sify was doing web design etc, along with Internet Service proviing and host of other Infradtructure offerings. Around 2002 and later, Satyam had SCSL, Sify and Visioncompass(VC). For VC, they even had a couple of enteprise clients, but they were loss making anyway. VC, as a tool, was the brainchild of Raju, which was built on the lines of Balanced Scorecard, and had some xcellent aspects about the concept. Except for Raju, no one in sneior management believed in it. The company got eventually closed down. But then, Satyam ventured into BPO space, and established Nipuna. Now they had SCSL, Sify and Nipuna. Of this, Nipuna did not break even for quite sometime - for 2 years I guess, and had no clients. They had SCSL as their only client. (Yes really!!!)

Around 2003, Satyam consolidated the software/web development business into SCSL, and Sify was fully in ISP and Infra business. Thus Satyam ehnaced its portfolio strength-by-strength. It is also possible the operating margins were simply getting eroded into such too many companies, and it was also easier to siphon off money. Apart from these, Satyam also had joint venture with TRW for engg services as SMTI, with the-then tainted Computer Associates as Satyam CA. Guess, it is hard to discern what kind of services were actually being delivered out of these companies, and their account books are how clean. Sify was then divested and sold off by Rajus to another Raju Vegesna. Then Satyam got into some acquisitions to shore up their strength in areas like Datawarehousing, BI etc. Each and every investment was so strategic, it is so hard to believe, Raju dared to risk the running business. Given the nature of such changes year-after-year, it was also not surprising to long-time Satyam followers they wanted to divest into real estate to derisk. It is but a different thing, the evaluations were too much, and thus began the snowball. If any analyst, consultant or media thoroughly track this history through their financial stories as well, it might be easier to see a pattern

8. Naxalites and Land mafia: It is interesting so far, any story about Maytas talks about Raju and his political bribing etc in the land transactions, or their siphoning off of Satyam funds (alleged) to this entity had been touched upon, has not tracked the usual suspects of Land mafia around this. Another angle to Raju's sudden confession is could his life been threatened by land mafia or naxalites, and he saw prison as safe avenue? Many of his lands are in AP and in orissa in naxalite infested areas, and naxalites who always were headache to Naidu regime, because he promoted IT, never reall came in news in getting into lo ggerheads with Rajus. Could there have been specifc angle to this?

9. Meryll Lynch Evaluation and Revelation to SEBI: If Raju was "riding the tiger" and didnt know when to get off, and if Srinivas Vadlamani merely signed statements given to him by accounting team, and if Ram Mynampati questioned Raju about non-existent of cash to pay the salaries, and that is when Raju confessed, why then did they have to appoint a 3rd party like ML to do due diligence, when they would very well knew they were likely to be exposed? Were ML also offered any bribe to overlook? This aspect needs probing too.

10. Employment sureties and other benefits: At Satyam, there is a bond for new joinees , and they are asked to pay a surety of somewhere in lakhs. Are those money safe? And what about stuffs like PF etc? Were they being paid as well? Anyone wanting to withdraw from PF account, can they withdraw or are they frozen?

11. IT Ministry: The much hyped IT Ministry, ministered by the cohort of CareNoNidhi, Mr. Ra(Koo)ja earlier headed by Mr. Dayanidhi MORON, has not uttered a single word. Every other ministry had something to say, except for this ministry. How come? and why no one in the media questioned about this? Spectrum cat will be out, is it?

Dinamani or DIN-A-MANY

Refer to this Dinamani editorial on Satyam Scandal from idlyvadai. And my subsequent reaction:
Dinamani and its ridiculous editorial! There are so many factual errors, and it is not clear what is the editorial trying to imply. Sometimes I feel there is nothing wrong in that CareNOnidhi admonishing Dinamani. It also shows how limited is the view and insight of tamil dailies in out-of-tamilnadu affairs, or a national affair.""அவர் வாழ்க்கை முழுவதும் பங்கு வர்த்தகத்தில் ஈடுபட முடியாது'' என செபி விதித்தத் தடை ஒன்றைத் தவிர வேறு தண்டனைகள் ஏதும் இல்லை.But I think HM was in jail. There are also cases of DSQ Software head, Dinesh Dalmia who had fictitious companies and fictitious trades to siphon off money, and being in judicial custody. Also Ketan Parekh was imprisoned as well.
எல்லாமும் தணிக்கை நிறுவனத்துக்குத் தெரியாமல் நடந்திருக்க இயலாது.உலகமயமாதல் காரணமாக பன்னாட்டு வங்கிகளும், பன்னாட்டு தணிக்கை நிறுவனங்களும் வந்து புகுந்ததன் விளைவுதான் இவை யாவும்.What is the connection between the PWC not knowing things and globalisation/liberalisation? Doesnt Dinamani get good newsprint? Dont they have good investment by FIIs? Why such hatredness, if you dont understand a concept? It is like CareNONidhi statements - aboslutely pointless
ஆனால் பெரிய நிறுவனம், பெரிய தணிக்கை நிறுவன உதவியுடன் கோடிக்கணக்கில் பணம் இருப்பில் உள்ளதாக கணக்கு காட்டி, கோடிக்கணக்கில் மோசடியும் வரி ஏய்ப்பும் செய்தால் அதை அரசு சரிபார்ப்பதில்லை. There is no வரி ஏய்ப்பு. Satyam had indeed paid their taxes for the excess profit shown.மோசடியில் வங்கிகள் நஷ்டமடைந்தால், அதை வாராக்கடன் பட்டியலில் தள்ளிவிடுவார்கள். பங்குகள் வாங்கி நஷ்டப்பட்டு நிற்கும் குடிமகனுக்கு நஷ்டஈடு கொடுக்க "செபி' முன்வராதுDoes Dinamani as a national newspaper know the differnce between organizationS called BANKS, and an organization called SEBI.? Does it know the difference between a deposit in bank, and a trading where simply money is traded.? How can one fix a value for the trade and give compensation? Is it "Kuselan" or "Baba"?
திருடுகிறவன் எத்தனைப் பெரிய பூட்டாக இருந்தாலும் உடைத்துத் திருடப் போகிறான். ஏதோ ஒரு மனத்தடுமாற்றத்தில் திருட நினைக்கும் நல்லவனைத் தடுக்கத்தான் பூட்டு உதவும்.அரசின் ஆயிரம் விதிமுறைகளும் சட்டங்களும் கெடுபிடிகளும் நியாயமான குடிமகன்களுக்கு மட்டும்தான் போலும்.So, dont use locks. Let everyone steal. Besh besh...romba nanna irukku...
Is Dinamani for all its intelliegence (or the lack ofit) a national newspaper or notional one?Instead of misleading with its ignorance and inducing a false sense of frustrated desperation, it can actually do a proper analysis, provide a proper writeup, lead people for a renaissance movement and make them take actionable actions.Can Dinamani do that?
Else it will simply be DIN-a-MANY. Simple noise...and we all know noise is polluting