My Latest Toy

Is it an iPod, another laptop computer, a new phone, or a plasma screen TV? No, unbelievably, its a mosquito zapper!

Here�s why:

A couple of years ago, there was an outbreak of dengue fever in Hyderabad and since then I’ve been stricken by the phobia that I too will fall victim to this deadly disease. This is not an exaggeration because mosquitoes everywhere seem to fancy my blood more than others, so during their mealtime, all of them converge and have a go at me. So isn’t it quite possible that one of them will be carrying the dengue virus?

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Pay Structure and Tax Liability

newtax.pngDespite being on the job since 1997, I have absolutely no clue of why my salary structure is the way it is, how can it be different, and most importantly, how much is my tax liability and how can I cut it down.

I just received my tax statement from my employer, according to which I have paid about Rs. 27,000 this month. Unfortunately, there is more damage headed my way. Over the next two months, my employer will cut another Rs.70, 000 from my salary in two equitable installments.

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A Foodie’s Nightmare: Kabura Hyderabad

Being away from our hometown, we hardly have a friend circle to spend our weekends with. So more often than not, we end up at one restaurant or the other. As with restaurants elsewhere, we have mixed feelings; we’ve had stupendous meals at places such as Ohri’s Jeeva, Grill Room, 100 Degrees, Pickles, Our Place etc. In the same breath, we’ve had the grave misfortune of wasting our time, money, and appetites at places such as Havmor, Nanking, Okra, Serengetti, and the one we visited tonight for dinner, Kabura.
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Akismet: Ultimate Annihilator of Comment Spam

Last night after upgrading to WordPress 2.3.2 I forgot to re-activate the installed plugins, including Akismet I didn’t realize this until this morning, a good 10-11 hours after upgrading my WordPress install. All this time, my blog was exposed to the elements, and as Akismet soon reported that as many as 388 spam comments were left on my blog.
ManuKhanna.com_Akismet_Spam

This is at least 380 more than the total number of hits this blog has ever received. One can only wonder what will happen if Akismet or any other spam filtering mechanisms were disabled on the highly popular bogs on the Internet.

If this isn’t proof enough of how good Akismet is, then I really wonder what is.
Still here? Go Akismetize your blog right away!

Benazir Killed, Musharraf Thrilled (Albeit in Private)

The world should have guessed it! But no one had a clue of what Musharraf was upto, or rather what he had up his sleeve.Today Benazir Bhutto the world’s youngest ever Prime Minister was assassinated earlier today in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. This I believe is the fruit of the seeds of Musharraf sowed when he imposed emergency in Pakistan in November’07.

Indira Gandhi’s imposition of Emergency in India, lasted over a year, this in the face of strong opposition from leaders of the stature of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, George Fernandez, Chandrashekhar etc. Then how does one explain the short-lived Emergency in Pakistan where opposition to General Musharraf is few and far between? Not to mention the presence of Islamic terrorists who have the General on top of their hit-list. Musharraf revoked t Emergency on December 16th signaling the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.

Isn’t this a bit hard to swallow? Of course it is. Musharraf could have been successful in executing Benazir while there were restrictions on the free movement of all, and the army roamed the streets. Assassinating Benazir then would have made Musharraf the only suspect. Now when normalcy has been restored, the needle of suspicion can fall on other elements as well.

Musharraf would have liked to continue the Emergency, but US pressure forced him to act otherwise. Not only does the Bhutto assassination justify last month’s Emergency, but also gives Musharraf enough reason to post-pone the upcoming elections in Pakistan.