Living Diagonally In My Parallel World!

Just read this quote on the net: The whole problem with the world is that Fools and Fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and Wiser people so full of doubts! -- Bertrand Russell

This is the story of the blunder I made by subscribing to Maharashtra Times. Maharashtra Times is now launched in Pune. Prior to the launch, Maharasht ra Times started a scheme of subscription at just Rs.11 for 4 months. I was very happy that Maharashtra Times was launched in Pune and being a fan of its editorial content, I subscribed to the scheme. While filling up the subscription form, I ga ve my cell number in contact details. That was the blunder I made. Since that day, I am getting SMS’s from Maharashtra Times twice a da y. The message center number is +91 98211 00006. The first SMS comes during the day time and the other at 3.45 in the morning! The SMS’s typically urge us to read some advertisement appearing in the newspaper. To find the origin of this SMS I used the services of Mobile Tracer and this website . This is the output it gave. I also checked the TRAI website to confirm that my phone was indeed listed under the National Do Not Disturb Registry. Whe n I signed the s

Todays (11th Jan 2010) Times Of India carry's a good article on gratuity. I always thought that gratuity was useless. In times such as todays when people change jobs frequently, Gratuity is one way to earn money for employees who stick around for more than five years. What is gratuity? Gratuity is governed by the Gratuity Act, 1972. It is a defined benefit plan. It is a lumpsum that is paid to the employee when he/she exits the company. It is mandatory for companies with more than 10 employees on their payrolls to give gratuity to an employee on resignation, retirement and termination of service. But this applies only to those employees who have completed five years continously in the same company. Which means if you leave after working for two years and rejoin after sometime and work for another three years, you will not get this benefit. Gratuity is non taxable for government employees but has a cap of Rs.10 lakhs for it to be non taxable for privately employed persons. The calcu

I got this story from a forwarded email - Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs.1000 each. The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at Rs.1000 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at Rs.2000. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to Rs.2500 each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs.5000! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers; "Look at all these monke