Aarushi Murder Case

Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were convicted of double murder of Aarushi Talwar and their domestic help, Hemraj Banjade in 2008. They got life sentences on Nov 23th, 2013. This case is so botched up that the claims made by CBI and prosecution claims do not make sense. Referring back to the infamous case of O.J. Simpson, common people could then understand that the suspect had a motive - that is, a disgruntled husband finding her wife having an affair with another man. 

In the case of Aarush murder case, the initial claim made by CBI was that the father caught her 14 yrs old daughter in a compromising position with an older man and so in the fit of anger, they killed both of them. This is such a bizarre and far-fetched motive. Unless the man is a psycho or a serial-killer, no biological parent can possibly kill his/her own daughter even if she is caught in a compromising situation. However, some say that there were only 4 people (The Talways, Aarushi and Hemraj were there in the apartment) and honor-killings are prevalent in North India.

Then there were numerous inconclusive evidences. Even at one point in time, CBI decided to close the case. However, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar didn't want the case to be closed. Some people will say it was their mistake (in retrospect) but one can also say that they didn't want their names to be floating around as possible murder suspects (like OJ Simpson). It also suggests that probably they wanted to find the real culprit. Can someone fake so much intent or motive ?  

I would rather let the real culprit/suspect roam freely but I would not let an innocent be convicted. I am not saying Rajesh and Nupur Talwar are innocent that but until unless one is not 100% sure, the benefit of doubt should be given to the accused, specially in a case where the investigation is botched up and it's a murder trial.

Arvind Kejriwal - Hope for Future India

Arvind Kejriwal is a well-known public figure. He stands out from the rest of the politicians because of his brand of politics, his vision for modern India and the timeliness and relevance of Arvind Kejriwal in the evolving politics of India and rest of the world. 

Arvind Kejriwal spearheaded an anti-corruption movement in India (India Against Corruption) along with Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhusan and any others. After struggling for two years, he ended up creating a political party, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Arvind Kejriwal is a known face on media, newspapers and is a highly respected speaker on issues related to mis-governance and corruption. Arvind always has to answer to hostile, biased, irrelevant questions coming from (paid) media, agents of established parties such as Congress, BJP and others. 

Arvind Kejriwal caught my attention for the first time while he was giving hard-hitting public speeches against flaws of the current system and against the current corruption ministers. His speeches would be so easy and focussed. He would say, "These politicians would all reach a consensus and pass a bill in 5mins if the bill is about hiking their salary". He would present the actual of criminals (convicted for rape, abduction, corruption) out of 552 seats in the Parliament of India. I have rarely heard him speaking without presenting facts.  

He appeared in many interviews. The following link points to one such recent interview. Please watch the video to know of his vision and politics.

P7 Exclusive: Sirf Rajneeti with Arvind Kejriwal

Sometime I think that Arvind tries to answers every question without being assertive and leaving out irrelevant points. In the past, he appeared in a show called Right To be Heard hosted by Rahul Kanwal on Headlines Today. I would like to highlight some of the questions that were asked and how he answered.

Questions: Why did you split with Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi ? It shows you don't have "genes" (yes, someone mentioned about genes) to get along well with colleagues. How can you make AAP a successful party. You are an anarchist. You were ready to kill Anna when he was on a fast doing protest. How can people trust you ?

Arvind kept saying there was no tension between him and Anna Hazare. There were no differences in opinions. He suggested how Headlines Today should invite Anna Hazare and clarify with him. He kept saying he had the highest respects for Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi and both of them were honest. 

I think he had answered such questions for umpteen number of times else where. He also lost opportunities to talk something important. It is not difficult to understand that people asking such questions are planted agents of Congress/BJP or paidmedia. I do not understand, why he doesn't say -- We had our differences in opinions. Either you live with it or you don't. If you cannot live with it, don't vote for us but stop asking such meaningless questions. If you think Anna Hazare was mis-led or used, let him follow his own directions now as he is doing. Go and extend support to him.....

Nitish Kumar and his politics

Nitish Kumar (#Niku) is the new found love of Congress and paid media (e.g., NDTV, CNN-IBN, Timesnow...). We got to know his true colors after BJP elevated Narendra Modi as the chief of the election campaign for 2014 general elections. Immediately after the event on June 10, 2013 in Goa, Nitish Kumar and JD(U) were found saying that it was a BJP interval event. One week after that JD(U) severed political ties with BJP. JD(U) is an independent political party and it can do whatever is best for them. However, when a party tries to fool the voters, it is no longer acceptable. We should clarify a few questions from Nitish Kumar. Niku and JD(U) kept saying that they wanted a leader for NDA (and the PM candidate) which would have the following characteristics. 

1. He/she should take forward all sections of the society along with him. Does he mean to say that Narendra Modi never took forward all sections in Gujarat. Gujaratis voted him to power 3 times in a row. Isn't Niku implying that Gujarati voters are greater fools than the Biharis ? Does Niku have evidence to show that Modi didn't help poorer sections of the society whereas Niku did everything for poor Biharis ?
   
2. He/she should have secular image. He obviously is implying that Narendra Modi does not have one. Is Niku not disrespecting all non-Hindu voters who voted for Modi ?
3. He/she should respect the party elders. It seems he forgot how he forgot his party elder George Fernandes.

Niku has already appreciated & welcomed 'secular' certificate given by the prime minister, Manmohan Singh (MMS). Who is MMS ? He is a Sikh who according to me has not done anything to enable the Sikh community to win any kind of justice for the victims of 1984 Sikh massacre. The Sikh massacre was sponsored by Congress party under Rajiv Gandhi. It was not a riot. The Sikhs were sorted out and butchered. Two of Congress Ministers who are widely believed (according to multiple witnesses) to be involved are Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler. Most of the riots in Gujarat happened under Congress regime. In fact the recent riots in Assam and Maharastra happened under the watch of Congress Chief Ministers. For how long will pseudo-secular ministers like Nitish Kumar will make fools of the citizens and voters ?

Pacific Rim

There was so much hype around this movie. So, I went to watch it in IMAX 3D. There was hardly any story to tell. The movie was about humans, machines and monsters. There were only two things which were different in this movie - the source or place where the monsters come from; and size of the monsters. The monsters looked cheesy. Most of the scenes were shot in dark and in water. The look and feel was not as neat and sharp as in Iron Man or Man of Steel.

Usually aliens come from outer space. In this movie, the monsters came from under the ocean (deep down below ocean) and they wanted to capture the earth by eliminating human beings from all over the world. In order to protect the human race, humans developed LARGE sized machines or robot. A robot needed two pilots to operate however the two pilots were needed to be connected such that their body and minds were synchronized.  

Here is something I didn't understand. If one can build such a huge machine, why not make it more easily maneuverable for the pilots ?

In a fight between a robot and a Kaiju (monster), the protagonist lost his brother and he gave up his job to work for a wall-construction company for 5+ yrs. As the program to kill Kaijus was not producing results, the bosses told the leader to wrap up the project in a few months. As expected, the leader would not give up and so he decided to re-assemble a team in Hong Kong and made the protagonist join his team. As they arrived in Hong Kong, the protagonist finds a Japanese (or Chinese) girl there. Sooner he found her to be the most suitable co-pilot. Twist - The leader would not let her go into a fight as he had been protective of her. After minor drama, it was decided she would become his co-pilot...followed by more minor drama.

More threats of attacks by Kaijus became imminent. The goal for the team was simple. They would be ready for the next set of Kaijus to come and they kill the Kaijus. However, to end the war, the team needed to nuke the place under the ocean. As the task became difficult, the leader also joined the fighters team and soon there were two robots which went down into the ocean. The robots foughts the Kaijus and blew their actual home with nuclear bombs.

Something was missing in the movie...it was not fulfilling...

Got inspired from Bruce Timm !!

Angry Boy

Inspired from Kyle Webster..

Woman with a dream.

Inspired from Kyle Webster...

The Kitchen Work

Improvements could have been made...ran out of patience...

The Dark Knight Rises.

Inspired from Kyle Webster...

Illustrations

Kyle T. Webster has such a distinctive sharp style of drawing...I am going to get inspired from his drawings and doodle...

Women are always a good topic for sketches.

From Wall Street Journal..on Food Snobs..

"Bodyguard" Movie Review

It's amazing how Bollywood makes profit out of  mega-budget movies that have no stories. I can not understand why the producers undertake such projects. Except for the designer dresses for the lead actress and some dialogue lines, nothing works in the movie, Bodyguard.

"Lovely" Singh, the protagonist (Salman Khan) is hired as a bodyguard for Divya (Kareena Kapoor), the daughter of Sartaj (Raj Babbar) while she completes her studies in Pune (probably at Symbiosis College). Apparently Sartaj has made many enemies fighting against criminals. These goons are a threat to her life. For a college-going actress who is waiting to get married to a London based NRI, studying is only a formality.(Indian MPs and their sons are richer, more powerful and well-connected today). So far so good !!

No one can be happy if such a macho bodyguard hovers around all the time, wearing the same uniform and acting mechanical. The bodyguard is also supposed to wake her up at 4am in the morning, help her in the gym and teach her self-defense moves. He's so serious about his job that he follows her to restrooms, classrooms, library everywhere.

Being tired of her bodyguard, Divya decides to bring changes in him if not get rid of him totally. First, she tries to make him lose his uniform in vain. Following which, she decides to make him fall in love with a girl. In order to execute her plan, she keeps making anonymous flirtatious calls to Lovely Singh as Chayya. After all, man is a man !! The plan works. He falls for the girl behind the voice. This is the only "Oh Shit !! Now what ?" moment in the script.

Divya enjoys her daily prank as it works in distracting her bodyguard from constantly following her. Here comes the twist. The villain goons spot Divya in a bar and their intention is to kill her (out of enmity with her father). Predictably the bodyguard saves her from them, killing & injuring them shown through a cliched action sequence. What is the outcome, Divya immediately falls in love with him. He is already in love with Divya (or Chayya). Bloody fight killed some goons and the brother (Aditya Panchali) is furious on his brother's death. He and his team pledge to take revenge on the bodyguard and Divya.

Divya is in dilemma how to express her love to Lovely Singh. Her friend suggests her against it, reminding her of her father's expectations. One day Chayya asks Lovely to meet her at a park on Sunday. On Sunday she accompanies him to the park requesting him that she would only see his meetup with Chayya from a distance. Here is an emotional turn. She makes him do a dry run on how to express his love and feelings for Chayya. She gets very emotional hearing his confession of love for Chayya. Then he leaves to meet Chayya.
Divya calls Lovely from a distance pretending to be Chayya to say that she will not meet him as Divya has accompanied him to the park.

I do not understand what more to be told in the script. Now, the villains are really really angry. They want to come back hard. Before that happens, Divya makes the final call. She can't take it anymore. She wants to get married. So, she tells Lovely to meet her at the Railway station (Pune). Her friend listens to this and informs her parents. Sartaj is very angry, obviously...

The goons come back before she leaves for the station with Lovely. This is followed by the final fight between them and Lovely Singh. When Lovely along with Divya is about to head out to the station, the father with his gang arrives to the scene. In order to escape the wrath of her father, Divya lies about her love for Lovely and makes Lovely go to the station. Obviously she cannot not get married immediately.

The movie is still not over. It cannot end like this. Since Lovely singh has to show that he will meet Chayya, Divya sends her friend to the station. Otherwise, her father's assistant will know about her lies. The best friend reaches the station but instead of telling Lovely the truth, she betrayes Chayya/Divya. After all where can she find a better and handsome husband. She pretends to be Chayya and subsequently gets married. They have a son.

However, as Karma would have it. She suffers from a terminal disease and dies. Soon after that the son and father come to meet Sartaj. Surprise, Divya is still single. No more London business. The son's name is also Sartaj. This only adds to the humor when Sartaj's assistant (Asrani) calls the kid as "Beta Sartaj" (son Sartaj). The boy comes to know about Divya and her love-sacrifice reading his biological mother's diary. He insists that Divya should accompany them as her mother.

Finally, they board the train and somehow Lovely gets to read the diary and they live happily after.

Probability Question

It is interesting to interview fresh grad candidates. I'll post interesting questions as I find them. Please let me know if you have good solutions. I often find the candidates in interviews cannot answer the following question correctly.

A couple has two children. One child is boy. What is the probability that the other child is boy ? Assume that a boy or girl child is born with probability 1/2.

Another interesting version: A couple has two children. One of them is a boy who is born on Sunday. What is the probability that the other child is a boy. Assume that a boy or girl child is born with probability 1/2.

Thanksgiving Vacation.

Mostly spent time at home relaxing. Original plan was to go for shopping on early morning. However due to stomach ache, had to stay in. Managed to visit a couple of electronics shops on Black Friday with mild stomach pain. Such was the power of discounts offers of Black Friday :)  As asked by Dan Ariely, why is it difficult to resist temptation for free (discount) stuffs? Why do cheapest stuffs sale so fast although the next expensive stuff is only a few dollars more?

Visited software section in different stores. I found that many software were FREE after mail-in rebate. For example, one could buy AVG anti-virus s/w (valid for 2ys) for $60 and they would get cash rebate within 8 weeks. I am wondering why people were not buying? Do we value $60 and its depreciation so much that we hesitate to keep it in someone else's pocket for two months?

Books Read/Reading in 2009.

1. 401(k) for Dummies
2. Predictably Irrational
3. Outliers: The Story of Success
4. White Tiger
5. Kite Runner (reading)
6. Super-Capitalism (reading)
7. Effective C++ (reading)
8. Code Complete (reading)

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Haven't watched the movie but from the review it seems many people like me can identify with Mr Suri (SRK character). The songs are awesome -- quite relevant and meaningful and were sung by good singers -- Sukhwinder, Sonu, Shreya, Sunidhi, Roopkumar etc. 

The song "Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte" is so funny in that an amateur singer often mixes up different songs and their tunes. What an observation from the composer !  

"Dance pe Chance" is a song on how to teach dance steps to a novice. I can really identify as I had the same experience in my dance classes. The instructor would break it down into basic steps.  

Convergia Rip-Off

Yes, there are still scam and fraud businesses in US and can rip one off blatantly. Convergia is a Canada based company and has agents in India and elsewhere. I kept getting annoying calls from agents probably located in India. They would call me periodically and used to offer a great deals for calling to India. Convergia agent told me that the deal would be flat rate of $60 dollars and unlimited calls to any numbers in India from US. The first month would be free for trial. They gave me a code and asked the local carrier such as AT&T to add that code. They told me there was no paper contract and I could disconnect anytime. I could pay the bills using check or card card.

The deal sounded quite reasonable and I subscribed to it. After using for 3 days, I could not make any further calls to India. After trying for many times and waiting for long long hours, I got hold of the customer care agent. She told me my account was blocked by the computer due to over-usage. But there was no mentioning of it in the contract. Actually there was no contract (my mistake that I didn't have the proof). I immediately cancelled my subscription on phone. After a month, I got a bill of $111. They mentioned that I was charged for all the calls. Wait a minute, I was told the first month was free. It seems they didn't cancel my account. I didn't send the bill. In the second month, they send another bill of $222. I sent a check of $111 and wrote on the check "my account should be canceled as soon as this check is encashed". Now, I have a proof of cancellation. But I am still trying to resolve $111 that was charged in the second month although I made no calls.

Garmin GPS

I have been using GPS navigation devices for sometime. I was told Garmin was the best brand for GPS. It's hard to judge how good a brand could be unless one uses some other variety. So, last week, I rented a Hertz car in which they had already installed a GPS which was custom made. I would say, the GPS only helped me find a route between a source and a destination. The interface was not friendly at all - it was not a touch screen and the keypad prompted every key I pressed a key. Pressing the letters and numbers was inconvenient. Morevoer, there was no option to search for businesses close to a place. It happened that I pulled over the car and searched for the Starbucks cafe. However, it returned all addresses in different states and cities. I realized that I was standing next to a Starbucks cafe and the GPS failed to locate it. What a performance !

It is obvious that the Garmin GPS is indeed among the best. First of all, the vendors underestimate the value of simplicity and user-friendly (Google-like interface). The interface needs to be touch screen. It's a pain to punch in keys. Today I was traveling from LA to Riverside and the traffic on the freeway was extremely bad. However, the Garmin GPS kept finding alternative routes for me. The GPS takes into consideration an existing congestion in the freeway. For example, at one point of time, it told me to take an exit and re-enter the same freeway from the right side (it was awesome that I could cut through the traffic for 1/2 mile several times). It does many other optimization to save time. Another feature that I like in Garmin GPS is the option to localize near by attractions, restaurants etc.

Interesting thing is that all the GPS devices have the same broadcasted information from a satellite, still there is so much difference in performance.

More Interview Questions:
As I went through more interviews, I was asked some interesting questions. If you happen to know the solutions or want to know the solutions, you write to me.

[1] Given an array of n integers both positive and negative integers. Find the sub-sequence of the array which has the largest sum. Find the algorithm with a better complexity than brute force one.

[2] Given a character array, print all the palindromes. Find an efficient algorithm.

[3] Write a C program to show if stack is growing into higher memory.

[4] How to make a server accept client connections in a non-blocking mode efficiently ?

[5] Find the Kth largest element in a binary search tree.

[6] Many more to come ...

Good Interview Questions


Sometimes I wonder what is the purpose of asking problem solving questions in an interview ? Some of the interesting questions I came across in the recent past are as follows. I have solutions to some. Do let me know if you have an effiicient solution.

1) Given an array of integers randomly selected from [1,n], what is the average number of comparison to be made in finding the minimum integer ?

2) What is the complexity of merging two lists of numbers ? How will you improve the complexity if one list is very large compared to other ? What if the numbers are distributed uniformly in [1,n] in both the lists ?

3) Given a circular list of integers (some of which could be -ve), find an index i such that sum of integers from index i to index j is never < 0. First find out if such an i exists.

4) Given n sets and each set consists of characters. Let the sets be S1, S2, S3, .., Sn. Given a string denoted by x1..xk. Find out if the string x1..xk can be constructed from S1, S2, ..., Sn by first looking at S1 and then S2 and finally Sn in an efficient manner. You can look at any set only once and you need to follow the ordering for looking at the sets. In one case, assume that you can skip a set. In another case, assume that no set can be skipped.

SPAM

I have been getting this spam again and again.

"Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2008 13:08:14 +0800
From: Miguel Wall <a-3446@agenziairis.com>
To: dhiman
Subject: Chatting online

Hello! I am tired today. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at Gunnel@WilderGoLovan.com only, because I am using my friend's email to write this. I will show you some great pictures of me."

I am sure there is a person sitting on the other side who edited this. However, I am wondering why does a girl who is tired today want to meet me ? Also, if she could log in to her friend's email, why couldn't she login to her own account say, yahoo or gmail or aol or hotmail ? Why would I be interested in seeing her pictures ?