Airtel FUP

Airtel is one of the biggest telecom companies in India still there approach towards broadband is nothing short of pathetic. No new plans, high data limits aka fair usage policy's, no increase in speeds.
they talked quite a lot about their VDSL 50mbit service but that failed like utter crap.
When will they wake up God knows !!!

NOKIA C5: A review from a user.

Nokia C5

Ok all you guys who have been looking for the NOKIA C5 your wait is over. The cellphone has finally arrived in India. I bought it some 15 days ago @ 7750 from a Nokia priority dealer.

So how is the phone, first lets look at the specs quickly:

NOKIA C5 

*Nokia S60 OS

*2.2' screen LCD display

*3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash,secondary VGA camera

*3G upto 10.2Mbps

*16GB memory support (2GB included)

*A-GPS

*Music player/FM-Radio/bluetooth 2.0

*PDF reader/ZIP manager/ms-office support

The screen

ok this was all about specs now lets jump to a small review

• LOOK:It is definitely a good phone with a lot of features and at this price point is way too good. It is more of a all rounder hence you get little bit of everything. It is good looking but not out of the world. The classic Nokia feel is very much there-the good old candy bar. It has a lot of functionality in it with almost all things you want from your phone.
• OS:The S60 OS is old and a lot is talked about it's rivals but still it is pretty good. The phone is equipped with a 600 MHz processor hence it is decently fast. Though heavy themes can slow it down a little bit.
• CAMERA: The 3.2 mp camera is good in certain conditions but at night the flash sucks. Its range is just 1.5m and is under powered, it is a single LED flash and not a duel one. Hence at night the pics are not up to the mark. You can expect good quality photos at day time though with proper photography, i mean look for over/under exposure,twick settings and don't just leave it to auto mode.
• MUSIC:The music experience is good at the most. The music player is the same old styled one though at last pretty decent. The dual speakers are also loud and audible. But the headphones again sucks,Nokia bundles a WH-102 headset with it and it is pretty substandard. Go for an open market headset as it comes with a 3.5mm jack.
• OTHERS: As of other things like maps,office support,gps,application support are pretty good. The battery life is also good staying some 3 days at full charge. One new feature is USB charging which pretty cool. Google maps runs amazingly well in spite the phone not being touchscreen.

There are certain problems with this phone though, one is the ocasional; hanging of the phone without any reason. But don't worry it might just be a minor software flaw which the subsequent software update's may resolve. The camera too hangs sometimes.

To sum up it is definately a great phone. If you don't care for looks it is a good deal. You would not be compromised in any aspect in terms of features,it is pretty well loaded. From my point of view it is better than its Nokia competitors like 5230 as it has a better camera with flash,a faster proceesor etc. Nokia touchscreens at the low end are clearly not a good idea owing to its resistive touchscreen interface which are not very responsive and you have carry a stylus all the time.

So go for it..............................

INDIA: A DEFENCE SUPERPOWER...in the making

CAN INDIA BE A DEFENCE SUPERPOWER WITHOUT RAPID EXPANSION OF ITS DEFENCE CAPABILITIES?

• We all know and hear that India will become a Superpower by 2040. Everyone says that India is the next U.S.A. and China is the next Russia. But have we ever thought why U.S.A. is what it is today. We may think of things like democracy, freedom of speech, capitalism, size of economy etc. But single handily one thing which outweighs all others is its muscle power. Its capabilities are so huge that any other country is not even near it. Like its navy is bigger than the next 13 country’s navy combined, its air force is 4 times bigger than its nearest competitor. It was only this country which had the power to single handily press and pass the safeguards agreement for India at IAEA, going against normal conventions. It is perhaps only because of this that the global balance of power is maintained. To prove this we may take examples of Japan and Germany which in spite becoming major economies don’t have corresponding equivalent powers in the world arena.If India wants to avoid such a situation it should really start to think about expanding its defence capabilities. Not to mention it is necessary as India is surrounded by very great neighbours (pun intended).

• In one side is Pakistan with whom India has fought four wars and is engaged in a proxy war for more than two decades. On the other side is china whose intentions are still unclear what it wants to do and with whom we were once engaged in a war.  Then we have Bangladesh for whom we had fought a war and Sri Lanka for whom we had lost one of our prime ministers. Truly speaking what India lacked in the last sixty years has been strategic planning. Perhaps India’s biggest mistake was allowing Pakistan to go nuclear. India could have easily done an airstrike upon Pakistan’s nuclear installations like what Israel did to Iraq in 1981. And today India’s biggest problem is a ‘nuclear’ Pakistan with a no ‘no first use policy’. It is like a piece of meal which is struck in the throat. Neither you can swallow it nor can we throw it out.

• Things have gone and time has changed. Perhaps now time has come to refine our thinking, our aims, and our goals. If India had a nuclear or conventional arsenal of even one third of that of US Pakistan would have never dared of thinking of destabilizing our country with tools like terrorism.  Technically speaking for a developing country like India spending such a huge amount on defence was not feasible but now it possible. May be now time has come that we should change our strategy of deterrence against china and Pakistan only.

• Our defence industry is still in a very nascent state. It needs huge sums of money for development of future technology. We need to ensure thorough private participation in the process. Without their involvement red tape & corruption will always provide hindrance to the development of the defence sector. Again not to mention we need to replicate the American model here too. In India people have a very wrong notion that defence should not be priority now. Let India be a country with a huge economy then defence should be given priority. But this is entirely wrong. Sectors like defence need a huge gestation period for the development of technology. It needs a minimum of 15 years of development to build a nuclear submarine or an advanced fifth generation fighter aircraft. In India case involvement of public sector has ensured it to be double that time. Examples are many. India’s first indigenous fighter the LCA took nearly took 25 years for development. The project was almost stalled after 1998 pokhran tests as U.S.A. had put sanctions on India for many things one of them being the power plant (engine) of the LCA. Now news is coming that the Air force is not very keen on buying this aircraft in huge numbers as it is now considered outdated. For the army DRDO’s Arjun main battle tank was also not a good experience as it was far away from its recommended specifications. DRDO’s INSAS rifle has been the main stay of army for quite a long time. But DRDO has failed to make it good enough for exports. Our very first SSBN or ballistic missile submarine INS Arihant took nearly 30 years for completion with substantial Russian help. Perhaps the only successful project which we had was the IGMDP or Integrated Guided Missile Development Program which led to development of Agni, Prithivi and other missiles. Most of them have been successful projects. As this a project of prima strategic importance separate funding mechanisms was put in place. All this snail pace work is due to establishments like DRDO and HAL (Hindustan aeronautics limited). The very nature of public sector is to be slow. It is clear from the fact that BrahMOS missile development was a huge success because of foreign participation. It was more or less on schedule thanks to pressure from its foreign partner. Nowadays public sector firms outsource small parts of their work to private firms but it is simply not enough. The only possibilities of speeding up things are disinvestments in public sector defence companies or more conservatively forming joint ventures with pvt. Firms.  Development of sophisticated technologies like fighter aircrafts or nuclear submarines should be transferred in private hands.

• For example government should divest a major part of its holdings in companies like DRDO and HAL and form joint ventures. Company’s like Tata, L & T and Mahindra

• Now it comes to the matter of money. How much we should spend on development of new technology and is it feasible. India currently spends 1.5 lakh crore on defence i.e. 3-3.5 % of the GDP. According to economists and analysts it should be around 5 % of the GDP. That’s almost double that of current size and no doubt a large part of it should be spent development of modern technologies. A quick estimate suggests that approx. 50,000 cr per year for the next 15 years is enough for development of fighter aircrafts (in all three categories Light, medium & heavy combat) , wide bodied transport planes, development &  production of at least five aircraft carriers (supercarriers) & five ballistic missile submarines  with ten attack submarines and a host of other small projects. All this projects should be world-class as huge sum would be spent on its development. India could easily recover the costs by exporting fighter aircrafts & other equipments to friendly countries. India should also seriously think about increasing its ballistic missile range. Currently govt. has sanctioned missiles up to range of 5000 km. And there were recent reports that India has capped its ballistic missile program to 5000km in lieu of the civilian nuclear deal. The reports are denied as wrong and they should be. India is a responsible nuclear weapons state and the world could only feel safer if India expands its capabilities.

• If India wants to be superpower it should also start to develop its muscle power simultaneously. Otherwise it would be too late to start up. Examples are many Japan & Germany are 2nd & 4th largest economies in the world respectively but don’t have a rightful place in the power lobby & international arena as their defence capabilities are underdeveloped.  It is said that proper development of defence sector can give a much needed boost of up to 1% to the GDP growth of our economy. If India is able to develop credible systems new horizons could open up in the export side. India could turn into a net exporter from being a net importer. For all this things to happen work has to start quickly otherwise it would be too late to compete with others.