Partition: Good or Bad

Growing up I always felt that the partition of India and Pakistan was a huge mistake, the and the ill-effects of it are visible to this day. And especially the constant wars with pakistan made me feel that if we were one But looking at the mess in Iraq, I was forced to reconsider my thoughts. I now think, was it really a mistake? would things have been worse otherwise?
The situation in Iraq is such that the two major Islamic sects, (which are almost equal in number) at this time cannot exist together. Under the Sunni Saddam Regime, there was order in the country bcoz the shia's were always oppressed, and had no say in the government. But now it is a power struggle, and neither sect would want to give away even a part of the power. And it makes me think that since they cannot exist together it is better they live seperately in their own different countries.
Could the partition situation in our country been handled better? What if the country was not split? Would it have been a better place to live in or would we have had an Iraq like situation?

World's Richest from India

Mukesh Ambani becomes the richest person in the world.
Rising Indian Stocks took the net worth of Mukesh Ambani past Bill Gates and Carlos Slim
His net worth now stands at $63.2 billion, while Gates and slim are at $62.29 billion each.

Ambani's wealth comes from his three group companies viz; Reliance Industries, Reliance Petroleum and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure Ltd.

Its great to see an Indian reach the pinnacle that too from an Indian company

Source: sify.com

I-Phone Communications

The recent launch of the I-phone has seen a lot of mad rush for the phone. AT&T, is the exclusive wireless company in the US, which is offereing the I-phone. But Apple gets the entire $500 average selling price of the phone plus a cut of AT&T's monthly subscription fees over the life of each two year contract.For UK, Vodafone was offered a similar deal, which it turned down, and now the exclusive partner in the UK would be O2, while Orange and T-Mobile are the partners for France and Germany respectively.
Earlier, in the US, Verizon would not succumb to such an agreement. So now its left to see who wins in the long run, whether Verizon and Vodafone for sticking to their guns, or AT&T and O2 for carrying the Iphone, inspite of such agreements. But with first week sales of i-phone hitting half a million it does'nt look all too rosy for vodafone.

Cheque Scams

Lately I have been hooked onto Radio Talk Shows, and I heard some very interesting piece of news today.

There was this guy somewhere in Florida, who put up his couch for sale on craigslist for $200. Enquires started flowing in, and he got this email from some lady who said wanted the couch and would pay for the couch and the shipping charges for sending it to her. He did get a cheque from her by UPS overnight, a week later for $4500. On enquiry he was told that it was a mistake by the secretary, and he could cash the cheque and send the remaining money with the shipment. To cut a long story short, it is a scam, wherin the person sends stolen cheques to you and wants you to send them the money after you deposit the cheque and after a few days when the bank tries to clear it, you get caught for identity theft and they get the cashed amount.

More such instances were people dating online, and having the other person (after they become comfortable) send them cheques to cash, and after that it works the same way.

A dealer on ebay, had a customer send him a cheque for $7000 for buying some PS/2’s and requested the remaining money (around $2000) to be sent back along with the PS/2’s. He suspected something fishy, and went to his bank, and they called the toll – free number at the back of the cheque (it was a Chase Bank cheque) to verify the authenticity which was confirmed. A gut feeling with the dealer made him wait for a few more days before he sent the money and he later got a call from his bank saying the cheque was fraud and that the number at the back of the cheque was made up too and it went to the scammer who verified the authenticity of the cheque.

A bank confirmed that on an average they get cheques like this once in 10 days.
Be careful while dealing and doing any such business online, most of the cases you will find the other person communicating only by email.

Mehngaa Mumbai

According to a study conducted by International Human Resource organisation ECA International, Mumbai has been listed as the 7th most expensive city to live in.
The rising property prices in India in general and Mumbai in particular, are cited to be the primary reason for this.
Hong King leads the list, followed by Tokyo, New York, Moscow, Seoul and London.
High Rentals in these cities cause the living costs to go up. Mumbai and Shanghai suffer from the lack of well equipped and modern facilities, hence inflating the price for facilities which do.
Shanghai, Caracas (Venezuela) and Paris fill up the remaining 3 slots in the list

Google Humor

I was planning a few trips for this summer, and while taking directions, a typo gave me driving directions from Europe to the United States. I could'nt believe what I saw, but it did give me a hearty laugh

Sued Seoul’ites

One of the more bizarre piece of news I have heard.
Jin Nam Chung and Ki Chung, (like most other South Koreans in US), have a dry cleaning business, but one irate customer has made their ‘American Dream’ into a Nightmare.
They are being sued by one of their customers, who is a District of Columbia administrative judge over a missing pant for $65 Million.
Wow, that must be a really expensive pant for a judge to wear.
Chung’s would be pretty disappointed and kicking themselves for not paying the $1000 earlier asked for.
You can read the full story here.
I really think it unfair for the Chung’s. Comment your take on this...