Movie Log 2009

Thanks to utvworldmovies – I am watching better movies.

1. Department 36 – French thriller – This was a surprise because genuine thrillers coming from France were rare in recent years. This provided plenty of edge of seat action and drama. Gerard Depardieu in genuine role after long time as one of the police officers competing for the post of chief with Daniel Auteuil. Movie traces the cost of jealousy, greed and plain apathy. It raises questions about ethics of methods deployed to produce “pr” worthy “newslines” and impact on people who actually perform them. How professional life gets intwined with personal? Some of the questions remain unanswered – but overall journey is awesome.

2. Lives of others -(German, 2006) – A subtle take on a paranoid society. A society which is clearly anguished and fractured by constant demands on their will and right to live. Former GDR was hotbed of spies, counterspies and “rebels” who needed “re-learning”. Some of the scenes are demeaning enacted to encite purile response. Is it worth watching? More than ever…as we become more “rationalized” and want simple “us” vs “problem kids” via information aggregation and tagging of personal items (audio/video/pictures).  Something like this in hands of few lowers the bar for abuse.  Personal view – I still think GDR had something good to offer – was the whole country painted in bad way? Are folks any better now without the “skills” to survive the “marriage” with FDR.

3. American Flyers (via Warner Brothers Channel)   – A movie worth watching for bicycle racing scenes (based on coors classic) in last half hour. Movie stars earlier Kevin costner( this guy has done more sport movies than others ?)  pushing younger brother to meaningful life. It is cheesy in many places – remember it is 80s .  But the racing scenes shot from innovative angles add up for watchability.

Pick up movie times from – http://tv.burrp.com/channel/world-movies/74/

Filed under: Service Experience , bike movies, french movies, german movies

Nearly Trillion $ stimulus in picture

stimulus via washington post

Filed under: Uncategorized , Obama Stimulus

Important steps for property tax payment – Bangalore

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/786-bangalore-property-tax

Filed under: Uncategorized , BBMP Bangalore, BBMP Tax payment

Voting in India? Sites to get information about candidates

via (http://empoweringindia.org)

• Did you know that the former Chief Minister of Karnataka, declared financial assets worth Rupees 4 crore in the 2004 state elections whereas in the affidavit filed for 2008 Karnataka assembly elections to the election commission, he disclosed Rupees 40 crore?
• The present Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Sushri Mayawati, declared assets worth over Rupeess  50 crore in 2007, when she contested for a seat in the UP legislative council, but when she had  contested the election for the Lok Sabha in 2004,  she had declared assets worth Rupees 5 crore.
• In the 2004 general election, about 1,000 candidates out of over 5,000 had declared
assets of over Rupees 1 crore. But only 136 of  these crorepatis actually made it to
Parliament. There are over 800 MLAs around the  country with declared assets over one crore.

Sites for getting more information on election/candidates etc.

http://www.adrindia.org/home/index.asp

http://www.indiaelectionwatch.org/disclosures.htm

(updated – 16 Mar 2009) Attendence record of MPs (India) – http://ibnlive.in.com/politics/stats/mp_attendance_2004.php

Latter provides excel sheets about candidates and their disclosures.

Electoral roll challenges – http://indiatogether.org/2008/mar/gov-rolls.htm You will see this but try to remember enumeration/verification is done by people who are working in less than perfect conditions (no consistent house numbering scheme, no proper road numbers , non availability of to scale actual recent maps – more of a challenge in urban areas).

Kind of challenges

- name misspelled in different languages
- name repeated with different house #
- people from same house placed in different section thus having to go to different polling booth
- invalid entries

One can find these challenges across the nation and these can be minimized by preventing bad data entry, forcing citizens to be more proactive in updating their data as they move, adding easier access to the information and simpler verification at the local level and way to push this feedback into the system(something which janagraaha tries to do with sabhas etc).

Filed under: Media , Attendence record of MP India, Election 2009 India