The ToI discovers Google Earth. Yipee!

But first...
Jain and Jain Company Limited is in some sort of hot soup, following the articles that they printed on the morning of the 22nd of January which in no uncertain way contributed to the market crash (mainly in the pinker paper) they were castigated by the PM himself. You know the man which the pinker paper had written would quit about a month and a half ago. Now, the conspiracy theory behind this is that an investment company (related/close to J&J) was holding bearish positions on the market. What is surprising about all this is - the day these articles were printed almost all the editors of J&J papers were in Udaipur. Secondly, the pinker paper which has some of the biggest Finance Ministry acolytes in their employ managed to say lots of things without corroborating it. This, unfortunately is very typical of the pinker paper, lets not get into that. What is even more surprising is that the pinker is usually the most bullish of all of India's business publications, not just that they're sometimes even more bullish than the folks at CNBC-TV18 (quite strange to see Udayan acting holier than thou on this matter though, in fact it is positively ironic). You've seen what they do to their front pages on the days the market crosses any major landmark and lament the day the market crashes. Not this time. Weirdly enough, they have even managed to defend themselves today, or mount some semblance of a defence - saying in no uncertain terms (or well, with as little uncertainty as possible) that the government doesn't know its head from its ass. Which, true the government of India never has, but for gods sake, the PM said that the pinker paper, and the whiter one were responsible for Terrible Thursday. Which also proves that J&J papers still have the power to move the market whichever way they want. Of course, I would bat for DNA here (maybe), but seeing Gautam Adhikari and Malavika Sangghvi's pictures stare at me at Bandra has kinda traumatised me. Maybe the SC was right in banning hoardings in the capital.
Now back to the point. I noticed the ToI today morning and Charles Assissi has done a huge piece on Google Earth and how it poses a security risk (thanks to the ToI's pathetic Delhi-centric internet team, I can't find the story). Of course, its not as if the ToI didn't have any really good stories today. Now ToI Bombay has been using Google Earth for some time, something for which they should actually be paying Google (which I frankly doubt they do). Now, obviously it was only yesterday that they discovered that Google Earth has only high-resolution images of one Indian city, which is Delhi. While Bombay is a blurry mess, and Bangalore can hardly be recognised, southern Delhi is beautifully resolved, I can even see the cars parked outside my house, my school, almost all my friends homes, the vast farmhouses of Chattarpur, Delhi Airport, Gurgaon (though only a two year old picture, so its slightly inaccurate, but the Maruti factory can be seen) though because northern Delhi is blurred out you can't see Delhi University. Now, what is even more surprising is that I wrote about this potential risk (and the fact that you can see the NDMC area clearly) in a Tech column that I occasionally write for a publication. So, there!
Now, the Ganguly-Chappell crisis gets worse - rather more fun. Again, lets throw some light on the matter. Almost all the cricketers supporting Ganguly (which don't include an explosive opening batsman and the two of the world's best middle order players as well as a kick-ass swinging leftie pace bowler) are signed up by one particular image management firm. A firm where a certain individual at the haert of the matter supposedly holds a benami interest. I have no parochial loyalties and I believe that our cricketers should work for their money, and the way that Ganguly has used the media is disgusting and he reminds of a petulant child or Wayne Rooney or maybe both. Chappell's dignified stand on the issue is something I admire. Why are we doing this to our team! If we have to have any chance of pulling the 2007 WC out of the bag, we have to work our asses off, otherwise Freddie 'Humble' Flintoff will kill us.