Arun Gupta, Miles to go ...

Bollywood Dandia in Fremont on Sep 26, 2009 - Sharvari Dixit and Troupe

Content available at: http://blog.arungupta.me/2009/09/bollywood-dandia-in-fremont-on-sep-26-2009-sharvari-dixit-and-troupe/.

Posted by Arun Gupta in General  |  Comments[0]

LOTD #18: Campus Ambassadors presenting on GlassFish - France & India

Agnieszka and Julien, the Sun Campus Ambassadors at INSA Lyon presented on GlassFish. Read the complete report here and enjoy a picture:



Here is another report on Hibernate/NetBeans/GlassFish presentation - again at INSA Lyon.

Dwarkanath, the Campus Ambassador at Sastra, presented on GlassFish as part of Student Technology Camp. Read the complete report here and enjoy a picture:



If you are interested in learning/talking about GlassFish at your university, spotlight.dev.java.net/start provides a comprehensive set of slides (with speaker notes), demos, screencasts, training materials and other resources to get you started!

All previous links in this series are archived at LOTD.

Technorati: lotd glassfish students campusambassadors france india spotlight

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Sun Tech Days 2009, Hyderabad - Technology meets fashion and entertainment

A fashion show was organized for Sun Tech Days Hyderabad attendees. Check out some of the videos:


And some dance performances as well ..


And some more ...


And you can of course see the Tech Days team on the ramp ...



Technorati: sun suntechdays india hyderabad 2009 fashionshow dance

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Bangalore Traffic

Enjoy a glimpse of Bangalore traffic during peak time!


Technorati: traveltips india bangalore india traffic

Posted by Arun Gupta in photography  |  Comments[0]

Dilli Haat - An Exotic Arts & Craft Bazaar

"Haat" is a Hindi word that means a weekly marketplace where the producer sells the product themselves. As a result, the buyer can find out interesting details about the product which are typically not available when sold through retailer. This is equivalent to Farmers Market where the Farmers are replaced by local artisans.

Dilli Haat is one such place set up by Government of India in New Delhi. It has traditional clothes and jewelry, handicrafts, music performances, paintings, foods from different Indian states, and a lot more. It's a great way to spend a weekend!

Explore the location by clicking on the map below:



Here are some pictures:

Posted by Arun Gupta in photography  |  Comments[1]

Little India, Singapore in Pictures

Little India in Singapore is a great glimpse of Indian culture in Singapore. It has access to everything Indian in a matter of few streets: grocery, clothes, restaurants, music collections, temple, jewelry, and anything else you can think.

Click on the map below to explore the exact location:



I spent my yesterday evening strolling through the streets of Little India and took some pictures:

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Kenya sings for India - Pangea Day, May 10, 2008

Learn more about Pangea Day - 4 hours, 24 films and a new way to see the world!

Technorati: kenya india youtube nationalanthem janaganamana pangeaday

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Hyderabad in Pictures and Traffic

Shahi Qutbi Tomb, Golconda Fort and Charminar. Ate biryani @ Cafe Bahar in Basheer Bagh. This place served real good biryani with a good variety. I went there with a friend who ate at Paradise Biryani earlier in the week and he liked it much better at Cafe Bahar.

Posted by Arun Gupta in Finance  |  Comments[3]

South Indian Food & GlassFish

Here are some pictures of the food I've eaten so far:

• Banana leaf is used as the base for serving the food - clean and green
• A large variety of items are served, including the traditional sambar/rasam/rice/yogurt
• Modular - Items are served in a pre-defined order.

• HK2 is the core kernel - clean (written from scratch) and light-weight (green)
• GlassFish v3 is a container that can do the traditional JavaEE and much more such as JRuby, PHP & Phobos.
• Modular - Appropriate containers are loaded only if they are required. For example Web container is loaded only if there are any web applications deployed. Similarly for JRuby, PHP & Phobos as well.

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Hold the Date - Feb 29, 2008, GlassFish Day is coming to India

What is GlassFish and Why GlassFish ? How community is an important aspect ? How is it different and better than other alternatives ?

If you would like any (or more) of these questions answered, then the upcoming GlassFish Day in Hyderabad, India will provide answers to all of them. This is our first such event in India and we are excited! There will be presentations and demos highlighting different aspects of GlassFish.

Date: Feb 29, 2008
Venue: Hyderabad International Convention Center, Hyderabad, India

All you need to do is Register for the Tech Days and then you get to attend GlassFish Day as an extra bonus day. The Tech Days Session also provide a wealth of information ranging from Java SE 6, Java Scripting, Project Metro, Java ME and many others.

Community is an overarching aspect of GlassFish. Let us know if you have been using GlassFish and would like to talk in front of audience. Just leave a comment on this blog to get in touch.

Read about success stories, see how GlassFish is used in your geography and how it has been gaining adoption. You can also subscribe to the weekly highlights.

I'll be there, will you ?

Technorati: glassfish glassfishday suntechdays india hyderabad

Posted by Arun Gupta in webservices  |  Comments[0]

Domestic Air Travel in India

I traveled to multiple cities (Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi) in the span of last 4 days. The air travel has significantly improved but there are some rough edges as well. Overall I enjoyed the pampering by the booming airline industry. Below are some specific observations:

1. When I left India (many years ago) then there used to be only two major airlines for domestic travel - Indian Airlines and Jet Airways. This time around, I saw so many - IndiGo, SpiceJet, JetLite (nee Air Sahara), KingFisher, Indian (fka Indian Airlines) and many others. And the frequency between any two destinations is much higher with lower fares.
2. I traveled only on Jet Airways and Kingfisher and I must say I was very impressed by the courtesy and an always smiling face of the flight assistants. This was quite a contrast with an Indian Airlines flight I took many years ago.
3. The impressive part was that complementary meals/snacks were served even for a short flight of 30 minutes. And a typical snack will consist of sandwich, cereal bar, guava juice, brownie and some sort of munchies. And if you are taking a slightly longer flight, then of course you are treated with a full meal. In contrast, even a coast-to-coast flight in the US serve only complementary drinks ;)
   
   Here is a typical snacks served for 30 minutes flight in Kingfisher:

   And here is a typical meal served for 2 hour flight in Jet Airways:

4. Most of the planes of Kingfisher are new and really trendy. Comfortable seats, good leg space, leather headrest, personal TV screens for each passenger with fancy remote controls and really nice headsets. Each passenger was also given a pen. Little goodies, but over all makes you feel treated well. No wonder they incurred a loss of Rs 577 crores for FY 07 ;-) I would definitely recommend Kingfisher till they are here.
5. Make sure to get the baggage tag of the airline for all hand-carry luggage. This is checked at the boarding gate otherwise your bag is scrutinized heavily. Generally airline officials do a good job (they missed one one of mine) about ensuring this but it's good to make sure yourself to avoid any inconvenience later.
6. Very few (read rarely) planes have tube access connecting directly into the airport. In my case, all the airlines stopped on a designated area in the airport and buses were used to transfer passengers from or to the airport. These are conducted very professionally but just a different way of doing things than the US where planes are mostly connected directly to the airport. I feel this is airports' way to keep up with the burgeoning airline industry.

Now some rough edges ... I don't think much can be done to change any of this but this is just to prepare you better.

1. The flights typically are delayed, at least the domestic ones! At least all my flights were delayed. And the fun part is it that it's very reliable. Some passengers plan their arrival at the airport accordingly.
2. At the reservation desk, passengers tend to clutter around the counter. In most cases, standing right behind you and literally peeping into your paperwork. At Mumbai airport (impressive facility), a fellow passenger conveniently jumped ahead of me and cursing me for being slow. I guess this is one way people express their frustration when they get stuck in traffic and delayed for their flights.
3. At the boarding gate, everybody tend to clutter around the counter (yeah, once again). Nobody seems to care about this "clutter", certainly not the people who are cluttering. The surprising part was that even the airline officials also did not do anything to fix that (even after being reminded by other folks). And these people seem to get into the plane before everybody in the queue.
4. Now the scary one - Once the plane taxis, all the passengers seem to be in a super hurry to get out of the plane. And it could be violent sometimes. For example, after the plain taxied at the Pune airport, I waited for the aisle to clear up, stood up and then tried to put my laptop in the bag. It took me probably 3-5 seconds to pull the bag from the overhead cabin, open the zipper and place the laptop in there. But that got some passengers behind me completely impatient. One of the passengers pushed me aside to the extent where I was about to fall on the floor, and he just moved ahead. And interestingly the passengers behind him just followed.

Enjoy the complete album so far:

Technorati: traveltips india airlines kingfisher jetairways airport

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60th Birthday of India

Happy Birthday India!

Also check out India Poised.

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Cricket World Cup 2007 - India at Worst and Best

In the cricket world cup, India's defeat by Bangladesh on Friday was a shameful one. The team spirit, top/middle/bottom order, bowlers and the fielders - everybody performed terrible. And on top of that, Bangladesh really played very well. And as I said earlier, may the best team win - Bangladesh was indeed a superior team on that day. I'm happy for them!

Although I was extremely disappointed by India's loss in their debut match but today, against Bermuda, was the other extreme. India scored 415 for 5, a record total in World cups. The top order gave a solid start (205 for 2 in 30 overs) and stormed the Bermudan bowlers by scoring 144 runs in the last 12 overs.

Comparing the statistics of two matches India has played so far:

India's desperation to not only win the second match but win with a huge margin is evident from these statistics. After this win, India is in a better position to get into "Super 8" but they still have to beat Sri Lanka to be sure of that.

Over the weekend, Pakistan's coach Bob Woolmer died under mysterious circumstances and their team captain, Inzamam-ul Haq, retired from One Day International cricket after Pakistan's early ouster from the world cup. My condolences to Bob Woolmer and his family. Irrespective of whether India reaches final or not, I always wait for the match with Pakistan, especially in World cup where India has always won. I'll have to miss that exciting moment this time.

Technorati: cricket worldcupcricket india pakistan bermuda bangladesh 2007

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2007 Cricket World Cup

Call it a fever, frenzy or craze but this once-in-4-year event completely changes India and it's people. Cricket is not just a game, it's a religion in India. The 2007 ICC World Cup was inaugurated over the weekend and matches are scheduled from Mar 13 to April 28, 2007. West Indies being the host who better than Sir Garry Sobers to declare the world cup open.

The 16 participating countries (South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Scotland, Netherlands, Iceland, Canada, and Bermuda) are divided into 4 groups (Group A, Group B, Group C, and Group D). In each group, each country will play with rest of the countries. A Win is 2 points, a Tie is 1 point and a Loss is 0 point. Two winners from each group will then move to "Super 8" where again each country will play against each other from which 4 semi-finalists are decided. And then finalist and finally the winner.

India won the 1983 World Cup and were runners up in 2003. The complete team profile is a good mix of medium pace bowlers, spinners, strong opening batsman, reliable top & middle order and hitting low orders. May the best team win and I wish, and hope, India is the best team this time Send your wishes to India here. Here are some detailed analysis on Indian Cricket and their prospects in the World Cup:

• Can India lift the World Cup ?

• Underwater video album for Indian Cricket team ahead of ICC World Cup

• Acid Test for Greg Chappell

• Google Maps + YouTube mashup showing each player's detail and a video 

Here (and here and here and here) are some detailed analysis of Indian Cricket Team.

Dish Network and DirecTV offer all the 51 matches for $199.99 in USA. If you subscribe using Dish Network, then you can also watch the games on willow.tv.

51 games, 16 countries, 47 days, 1 winner. Let's see who outwits, outplay and outlast everybody else.

_{Technorati: cricket worldcupcricket india 2007 youtube}

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"India Poised" by Amitabh Bachchan

Read about "India Poised" campaign here. Amitabh Bachchan, Big B, is a Bollywood superstar. In my opinion, and many others (Greatest Star of the Millennium by BBC where he beat Charlie Chaplin and Marlon Brando, Most powerful Indian star by Forbes, Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF),  he is the best actor Bollywood has ever produced so far and it's really nice to see him reciting this anthem. My childhood is full of his movies such as Mr Natwarlal, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Amar Akbar Anthony, Don, Do Aur Do Paanch, Shaan, Naseeb, Satte Pe Satta, Coolie and many more. If you understand Hindi, then I'd recommend to watch that one since, to me, that connects directly to the heart.

_{Technorati: Amitabh Bachchan India IndiaPoised}

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