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Monday 30 November 2015

BBMP to Monetize Potholes in Bangalore

After Seeing different variety and sizes of potholes on Bangalore roads, potholes varying from 1x1 square feet to 4x4 square feet, potholes with zero shape to square shape to some even snake shape and being unable to maintain roads well,  BBMP (Bangalore municipal corporation) has come with a master pan of monetizing these potholes.

After getting hint about this story from sources, I contacted a senior BBMP officer and he agreed to share the secret master plan after assurance of his confidentiality. Here is the conversation with him.  

Sir, is it true that BBMP has made a master plan to make money from potholes?

See, we have given our 100% to maintain roads in Bengaluru City, we have worked day and night too, but due to excess rains and some environmental factors beneath the earth potholes keep popping up. We were feeling helpless but suddenly an officer proposed that why shouldn’t we make use of these potholes to generate revenue? He proposed that we should monetize potholes to increase our revenue so that we can serve this city even better.

So what is BBMP’s plan to monetize these potholes?

We are planning to auction these potholes as “Space for Ads”, brands can put small ad hoardings at those potholes. The price range will vary depending on the 1) Locality, 2) Traffic on that road and 3) Index of twitter outrage, more the outrage about a pothole and its locality more the ad price.

Do you think BBMP can do it on its own or it will be on PPP model?

Actually we are looking for startups that can take up this work. We are willing to share good part of profit with them and we have assured them that this contract will be for life time as potholes are never going to go off the roads.

What about the daily commuter who gets injured due to these potholes?

Well, we request them to be careful while driving, after all it’s their life. We have requested the RTO department to make driving test tougher and include “Pothole-friendly driving” test before giving driving license. Also we will make sure that we put light reflective ad hoardings to help commuter in night time.



Disclaimer : This story is totally baseless and has no relation with any living human or creature or pothole. As our politicians do always say after any wrong thing happens “I CONDEMN THIS” :)  

Thursday 26 November 2015

Once a Cancer fighter, now a Lead Singer of her own band - Kanchan Daniel

Life is not easy for anyone, for some it is little less tough, for some it is little tougher, for some it is even more tough. It has everything from hope to pessimism, from happiness to sadness, form success to failure, from excitement to anxiety and it applies to every living human being, but there are few people who have to give the toughest challenge in their lives at different points of time to end up becoming a complete person and symbol of hope and courage. Despite all these odds these people make it big in life and become an inspiration for the rest. They conquer all the challenges life throws towards them with the guts and all the power they have and end up laughing over those challenges. This journey make them such a strong person that they become almost immune to any challenge life throws towards them in future. We get to hear about some of these old stories, but many of these stories go unnoticed for reasons even I am not sure of. One such story is of a young Mumbai girl Kanchan Daniel. I came to know about her story through Facebook few days back and decided to go through it in detail. I contacted her on Twitter and thankfully she agreed to share some information related with her journey through a deadly cancer at such a young age of 17.

Her Story:

She had just completed her 12th standards exams and was ready to move into a college for a new beginning when one day she got some severe pain in her thigh followed by fever. After checking with family doctor and doing some tests the saddest news of her life came to haunt her and her family. Tests showed a 4 KG tumor inside her, after the few more checkups it was clear that she had 3rd stage Dysgerminoma Cancer. When the family discussed with Doctor about seriousness of Cancer, doctor replied with a 0% chance of survival. At this moment any person can go down and lose the hope but only question she asked to doctor was “Will I lose my hair?” In her words From the very beginning I didn't allow cancer to get the better of me - if anything, cancer was always playing a losing game with me. Since the time I was diagnosed with a 0% survival chance, I had made up my mind that I would defeat it. I did lose my hair, so I called a barber home and shaved it all off and proceeded to mock myself in front of others as 'egghead' - I never allowed cancer to make me a victim. I've always called myself a 'shameless cancer patient' because I would just laugh things off and embrace them as an experience - but I think that's the only thing that got me out of it. “


After all those extremely irritating and painful cycle of treatments, she finally conquered it with her head held high. It increased her confidence even more. After getting better and bit healthier she did study clinical psychology just to help the young teens who are suffering from menace of Cancer. As per her the biggest contribution this battle with cancer has done to her is that it made her incline towards singing so that she can express herself in better way. She formed the band “Kanchan Daniel & The Friends” and became lead singer of her own band. This band is now known as Kanchan Daniel and the Beards and has all young members.Now a days her band keeps doing live shows regularly and she has won many fans with her lovely voice.



Excerpts from Some Q & A With her over Email :

Q. What was your first reaction when you heard that chances of survival was 0%?

A. I took everything in my stride. From the first time I got to know that I may not make ,I never  did the whole why me or never pitied myself or my condition because the only aim and direction that I had decided to take was to beat cancer.

Q. Who was always there next to you supporting you like solid pillar?

A. My family has been my pillar of strength. And not just my immediate family, my entire family from all over the world

Q. Did you find any negative person too around you at that time? How did you avoid their negativity?

A. Yes i did. There were people and still are people who dont understand the depth and gravity of what cancer can put you through. There were people who would say stupid things such as cancer is contagious and a few who had already deemed me dead.I didnt let their negativity to me firstly because their opinion didn’t matter and secondly because my bigger battle was with life itself and I was busy too busy fighting that one.

Q. What is one must do and one must not do for anyone suffering from Cancer?

A. The one thing that one must do is to keep the utmost positive atmosphere   around a cancer patient because it is also a part of healing process for both a patient and the family.
What one must not do around the cancer patient is victimize them. People don’t need to hear " why me " around them all the time. It does nothing to boost ones morale and fighting spirit. Try and maybe empathize even though it may be hard to truly understand what one goes through while fighting a disease like cancer.

Q. Does the age matter for anyone suffering from Cancer?

A. Cancer does not differentiate between the young and the old.

Q. What was the first thing you did after getting cured and moving out of home totally fit?

A. I decided to study clinical psychology and simultaneously music happened to me.

Q. Which journey has been better? 17 years of Life before cancer diagnosis or Life post cancer treatment?

A. Definitely post cancer. I never regret it. It’s made me who and what I am today.I am thankful for it because it turned my life around. 

To end the this story of Cancer "Fighter" Kanchan in her own words -I went through 3 chemo sessions, 8 surgeries and a million complications at the age of 17 -- but I won the battle, only because I was shameless enough to laugh at it rather than giving it the power to be life threatening.



Credits : All pics credit to Kanchan's Twitter feed @KanchanDaniel1 and some of excerpts have been taken from her discussion with "Humans of Bombay" Facebook group. 

Sunday 22 November 2015

The New Yahoo Mail App

Last month was Yahoo Mail’s 18th anniversary and the company has decided to celebrate the occasion by introducing a new Yahoo Mail app that is fast, intuitive and smoothly designed. Available on iOS and Android, the new app comes with a number of features, including smarter search, contacts management and enhanced compose option.

To make life easier for people who have more than 1 service providers email account (which of course many of us have), Yahoo Mail users can connect and manage their email accounts from Outlook.com, Hotmail and AOL Mail, right from Yahoo Mail on mobile and desktop. Once connected, users can access Yahoo Mail’s features across all their mailboxes. Now it may not be that useful for users in India as many of us only use Yahoo mail or Gmail and very few of us use AOL or Hotmail in India, but it is clearly going to be good USP for Yahoo Mail app in Europe and USA. The desktop experience is currently available for U.S. English users, and will be coming soon to users outside of the U.S.

In addition to speed, smarts and support for multiple mailboxes, the new app marks the introduction of Yahoo Account Key – a more secure and simple future alternative to the old password. This new feature simplifies the sign-in process with a secure and easy-to-use interface to access a Yahoo account with the tap of a button.




“Passwords are difficult to remember and secondary sign-in verification is inconvenient and confusing,” said Dylan Casey, vice president of product management at Yahoo. “Earlier this year we launched on-demand passwords using an SMS code. We’re now taking a major leap towards a password-free future with the launch of Yahoo Account Key, which uses push notifications to give users simple and secure access using their mobile device.”

Availability of updated App :

The ability to manage multiple mailboxes has been rolled out globally in the Yahoo Mail app. The desktop experience is available for U.S. English users today and will be coming soon to users outside of the U.S. 

The new Yahoo Mail app is available in the Apple App Store and to Android users in Google Play 

For more information visit http://yahoo.tumblr.com/