There has been talk these days about the bad behaviour of citizens in Delhi. Recently our Home Minister P. Chindambran and Chief Minister of Shiela Dikshit has appealed to all the people in the city to improve their behaviour. I am happy that both of them have raised
this concern about the "bad attitude" of Delhiites. I think we really to improve the rude behaviour of people to make it truly a world class city and Common Wealth Games could just be an excuse to start working towards this "Attitude Makeover".

I decided that I will do my part by contributing in whatever way I can to raise awareness and I will be posting series of blog posts with the tag "Attitude Makeover".

To start with I will start with a very common problem in our city that we all face on a daily basis and it seems that we have started living with it, and that is "Nuisance of Auto drivers". We all know that most of the Auto drivers harass people. Their meter don't work, they over charge, refuse to go and misbehave with the passengers. Yesterday I was watching one talk show on NDTV channel where Kiran Bedi mentioned that anyone can lodge a complaint against the Auto Drivers. We all know that there are laws but we are either not aware of them or don't want to take the pain to get into the procedures.

If we just crib and do nothing about it then things will never improve. If we start bring the change now then may be in 5 years or 10 years things will get better! I searched on the internet and found Delhi Traffic Police website and I came to know that lodging a complaint against Taxi and Auto drivers is as easy as sending an SMS. Yes, as simple as that.

Lets see how to send that SMS. There are four different kind of complaints that you can lodge. Here are them.

1. Refusal

REF [SPACE] VEHICAL NO. [SPACE] LOCATION [SPACE] TIME OF REFUSAL

Example: REF DL1RF1234 DHAULAKUAN TO GO TO RK PURAM 3:30PM

2. Overcharging

OVC [SPACE] VEHICAL NO. [SPACE] LOCATION [SPACE] TIME OF OVERCHARGING

Example: OVC DL1RF1234 DHAULAKUAN TO GO TO RK PURAM 3:30PM

3. Misbehaviour

MIS [SPACE] VEHICAL NO. [SPACE] LOCATION [SPACE] TIME OF MISBEHAVIOUR

Example: MIS DL1RF1234 DHAULAKUAN 3:30PM

4. Harassment

HAR [SPACE] VEHICAL NO. [SPACE] LOCATION [SPACE] TIME OF HARASSMENT

Example: HAR DL1RF1234 DHAULAKUAN 3:30PM

Send SMS to 56767

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I just bought a bicycle and now I have big plans to take it to many places. I don't have a car or motorcycle so my cycle is gonna be my vehicle. I want to use it for both exercise and traveling but after riding it yesterday I realized that it is a little dangerous to ride a cycle on Delhi roads which are ruled by blue line buses and always-in-hurry people. I was wondering why can't we have dedicated bicycle tracks on all major roads in Delhi. If you have ever traveled on BRT from ITO to Khan pur you we see that there is a separate track for cyclist. Not only it is safe for them, also they can't disrupt the fast traffic.

I think at least major roads like Ring Road, Outer Ring Road, NH8 should have cycle tracks. It is too dangerous to ride cycle on these roads along with the traffic. My office is 35KMs from my home and I would love to commute by cycle. I would be awesome to travel 70KMs daily on a cycle. Not only health wise but also it is good for environment.

I am a member of Delhi cycling group and I must say that by seeing so many people taking part in cycling events I got inspired to buy my own cycle. A normal healthy person can easily ride 20KMs daily but still everyone use their cars. If someone wants to travel to a far location then may be they can travel half the distance on a cycle and remaining on public transport like Metro or Buses. Besides cycle tracks, government should also focus on building parking facilities for cycles.

Daily I see trillions of cars on Delhi-Gurgaon highway, it seems that everyone on earth has a car except me :) I feel there should be a law that should punish all those people who are traveling alone in the car :p Each car should have at least 2 people, else give them a challan for causing traffic on roads. I feel this is just my wild imagination, this can't happen in India. We people are too used to luxuries and comfort of life, moreover people will never trust strangers to give to lift or car pool.

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Picture clicked from the balcony of my home.

I saw Solar Eclipse today in the morning. Last time I saw it in the year 1995. I remember at that time the streets were empty and people were not out, but this time there were less people outside. In the park I didn't see many people. I guess they still scared of the eclipse.

Monsoon Cloud

Monsoon Cloud

These pictures of strange clouds where taken last week. These clouds were too big and the cloud in the second picture reminds me of the movie the Independence Day where a giant Alien's space sheep covered the whole city.

I wish I had an SLR camera for taking better pictures, but never mind one day I will it for sure.

Monsoon has finally arrived in Delhi on 30th June. It rained well yesterday and now Delhi people can get some relief. I hope rains will also reduce the electricity problem in the city.

BTW I am blogging after so many days, I think almost after a month. I don't know. Last time I decided that I will at least write one blog daily, but I failed to keep my promise. This time I will not again any more promises. I will blog whenever I feel like.

I am feeling really very sleepy right now.

Lot of exciting things are happening in my life right now, I will share all those thing in few days.

Bye for now

Somewhere in Connaught Place

Can I read all these in one life?

Shastri Nagar red light

Ok this nothing new but I request all the paan-chewing people in Delhi to please spit in buses, parks, roads, cows, dogs and anywhere you want but please spare the road signs, especially when it has the name of historical figures.

Just below the sign you can read - "MY DELHI I CARE".

Motia Khan red light

It's embarrassing to see silly mistakes like this.

Drupal Delhi meetup is a gathering of drupal enthusiasts in Delhi. This meetup is focused at getting together and coding for drupal. The event will focus on module development and theme development for drupal. There will be two talks, one focused on drupal module development and another one focused at drupal theme development. Following the talks we will have hacking session for coding a module and a theme.

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Sick of your wife?
Are you sick of your nagging wife? She scolds you for no reason? You want to get rid of her?

If the answer to these questions are yes then this message below will help you.

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I noticed this on Rohini West Metro station. I know photography is not allowed inside Delhi Metro but I couldn't resist myself from clicking this picture.

The dictionary meaning of spite is given below.

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Last night it rained in Delhi, all night there was thunder with lightning, it think it also hailed because I heard loud noises of rain. I wanted to get up but was too lazy to leave my blanket :) I am glad now, the weather is pleasant again after some uncomfortable warm days.

The met department says that this cloudy weather will stay from couple of more days. For Delhites it is a good news.

It is that time of the year when you leave your home in the morning wearing your favorite jacket just to find out that you don't really need to wear it. It is almost mid February, winters are gone. There is not even a slight child in the mornings. During the daytime it is difficult to stand under the sun. Summers are ahead and that mean no sweaters, mufflers and jackets :(

Winters are fun in Delhi, you can wear nice cloths. You can go out anytime of the day. Winters are best season for hanging out. This winters I was busy mostly with the Alumni Reunion of my school. I did not even bought much clothes also. Now I just feel like going to Shimla to enjoy low temperatures for few more days. One more thing that I like about winters is the food, you can eat just about anything in these days, Seekh kababs, Tikkis and pakoras.... :p

I haven't visited Chandni Chowk for a long time now, I guess I should go there this week. I am also thinking of visiting Red Fort also. Let me call my friends now and share this plan :)

I am proud to say that I voted today!!

Once again I reached late at around 12:00PM but luckily the talks were started few minutes before my arrival. Here are the list of talks presented on Day 2.

1. Python for Dummies - Gajendra
2. Shell Programming - Varun Torka
3. Open Source for Dummies - Kinshuk Sunil
4. Cross Platform, Cross Language - Gora Mohanty (really nice to finally meet him)

Lunch @ Sips and Bytes

5. Open Source Software Business Models - Pradyot Sahu

After this talk we saw Big Buck Bunny Movie.

6. Open Street Map - Vikas Yadav
7. Open Innovation & Open Source Software - Pradyot Sahu
8. Drupal Hooks - Pratul and his friend

Gora Mohanty brought F9 DVDs and live CDs (too nice of him) and I want to thank Pratul for getting those Open Source sticker. Overall it was nice event. For the first time in OSScamp I saw so many new faces and wish that they come again next time. We stretched the sessions till 6:40PM and didn't get time to catch up with Kinshuk to discuss about next camp. Today Wifi was working but I don't think anyone was live blogging there. I was really very happy to see so many people like me who love Drupal, thats really cool.

I think the two days were awesome! I will share whatever pics links I get and also the presentations presented during the camp.

Good Night guys.

$ls Pictures
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30939683@N06/

There has been another bomb blast in Delhi today at Mehrauli flower market near Qutub Minar, 1 death and 17 injured have been confirmed till now.

Please stay calm and be alert.

I was in CP when the blast took place. I was in CCD outer circle attending the OCC Delhi 3rd meet. Here is the timeline of today's events.

1. I reached CP via metro at around 4:55PM and went to ICICI ATM near India Today office on the Inner Circle.
2. After withdrawing money I went to the other side of CP near Janpath. I was very near Pallika Parking and Central Park.
3. I reached Cafe Coffee day at 5:05PM, only Satpal was there. Others also came but little late.
4. Around 6:15PM or 6:20PM I heard a high base sound, the CCD building shook a little but I ignored it. Initially I thought that the sound came from some construction work in the building.
5. At 6:45PM we realised that there are serial blasts in Delhi and minutes after that we saw the bombing news on the TV in CCD.
6. Most of the people stayed in CCD till 7:20PM. Kinshuk, Satpal and I stayed there till 7: 45PM. Kinshuk went to Janpath hotel where someone picked him up, Satpal and I took a bus from CP to Kashmere Gate and from there we took Metros to homes.

I am safe but little disturbed today, anything can happen in life and you can't even do anything about it. I mean we just can not stop going to our favorite places, it is part of our life. I like roaming around in Connaught Place and it is one of places that I visit the most in Delhi. It is the heart of Delhi and its a place where you feel life moving at a fast pace, people from all over India and world come to visit CP. It's a landmark, business hub, shopping center and everyone's favorite hang out in Delhi.

I guess life should move and thats what we can do, to not let anyone dampen our spirits and our way of life.

If anyone wants to convey a message to their loved ones then feel free to post a message here. Hopefully some will read your message here. Call this helpline number 011-23490312 to know about your loved ones.

Delhi also has another Emergency Number - 1077 for all kind of emergencies. Please call this number in case of need.

Today while coming back from the office we discussing about a device that can be factory fitted in all the cars and that device would keep track of overspeeding.

What would this system do?

1. If the car overspeeds then ticket should be sent to the registered address and there could be a relaxation limit of +-5 Kms/hour or rather before sending the ticket system should check the number of previous overspeeding attempts. There should be some mechanism where car speed is sent to the server every Kilometer.
2. That device should be GPS enable so that location can also be tracked.
3. Different places have different speed limit hence this information can be either downloaded to the car itself or the speed of the car is sent to the central server.
4. Now speed limits should be different in the day time and mid night. All this information can be fed in the system.
5. If we take this further, in true sense speed limits should be based on the amount of traffic moving on the road, hence the system should be able to figure out the number of cars moving on the road and adjust the speed limits. We can call this flexi limits where one need not worry about the limit, the driver should not worry as long as he is driving safe i.e. if there are less cars on the road that implies that there is a scope of extra speed and vice versa.

Unanswered questions
1. How do we identify the Road Lanes? Each lane has different speed limit.
2. Fitting a device in Car is not tough but how to setup the infrastructure across the city? What technology can be used to implement this system. I think some existing infrastructure can be used to implement this, like GMS/CDMA mobile networks can be used.

I wish to study this topic further and make a model. Please add your points or something that I might have missed.

Capital Delhi now has a 24-hour toll free emergency help line number - 1077. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit Tuesday inaugurated a Disaster Management Emergency Operation Centre. The centre has been set up as per the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

The call centre is setup in North Delhi and is operative round-the-clock. It will act as a centralized helpline number accessible to all landline as well as mobile numbers.

I hope this would help people in need.