Mirzapur (Amazon Prime Web Series) - Review #ShRt

I have just completed watching Mirzapur, the latest crime series on Amazon Prime and I am definitely not happy with it. The show begins perfectly and then loses the grip just like the show's protagonist duo. The main issue of the show is its predictable script which lacks character development criteria for many characters. Also I feel the ending was hurriedly made. However most of the cast did their job best and that's without help of the script many times.

Through out the web series you can see the extreme violence among power mongers, sex scenes and intense moments. But that was not enough. 

Small town crime drama is not new in India, and Karan Anshuman and Puneet Krishna created Mirzapur keeps you reminding Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur. Also being the story of a crime lord, Mirzapur could not avoid the comparison with very popular Sacred Games from the house of Netflix released recently. The lack of suspense, lineal storyline and predictability fails the show inspite the strong backing from the actor.

I would rate it 2/5.

Jio Updates : September to November #ShRt

Jio who is finding its own way to reach last mile connectivity for its 'gigafiber' ultra broadband services, has acquired majority stakes in Den Networks (66%) and Hathway Cable & Datacom (51.3%) to solve that issue. That brings consolidation in fiber market also, after the telecom sector. The existing users, that's nearly 24 million users in 750 cities in the country, of the both companies may able to upgrade to Jio GigaFiber at ease in due time. However Jio have to invest a fresh to replace old cables with fiber optic cables.

Acquiring these two MSO (multi system operators) and their LCO (local cable operators) partners Jio will definitely get advantages over Airtel and BSNL. I am not considering Vodafone Idea as of now though the merged entity owns You Broadband. As Jio wants to enter the drawing room targeting TV watchers, DTH industry will also be impacted.

And for obvious reasons we can hope further consolidation in this space.

P#rnHub backs Indians with P#rnHub.net 

As per Uttarakhand High Court judgement dated September 28 all ISPs are asked to block hundreds of p#rn websites in India. And Jio follows that quite fast before others to do it. There are already outrages among Jio users regarding that and many prank calls are made to Jio customer care. However using a VPN or Tor Browser that can be easily bypassed. At the same time popular porn site P#rnHub.com lists a new domain P#rnHub.net for Indian users.

Data is the new oil, turns very true for Reliance. In Q3 Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio counts a combined revenue of ₹44,615 crore, exceeding the ₹43,745 crore sales reported by RIL’s petrochemicals business. Reliance Retail holds a 121% growth, while Reliance Jio made a 52% growth.

Xiaomi Loosing Shine in India ? #ShRt

Xiaomi, whose first smartphone Mi 3 was launched in India in 2014 has perceived as poor man's Apple in the country. Top notch hardware, forked Android based MIUI operating system, flash sales and unbelievable low price made its Indian journey a great success since the very beginning. 

In the process of rise of Xiaomi, many handset makers got them flopped in the Indian market - special mention to Indian company Micromax, as well as Chinese counterpart Gionee and LeEco. Gionee had first mover advantages but without a proper strategy it is on the verge of shutting down sales in India. 

However sitting in October 2018, it seems Xiaomi is loosing its focus in India - their flagship Mi series had their last launch with Mi 5 in 2016. Xiaomi has launched several sub brands in India - 

• Redmi for budget segment (segmented as Redmi Note series as budget premiere and Redmi series as budget or first smartphone), 
• Mi A series for Android One program,  
• Redmi Y series as selfie focused smartphone,  
• Mi Max - phablet series 
• Mi Mix - full screen display series 
• Mi series - the flagships (probably no more Mi phones are coming to India)
• Pocophone - the flagship killer 

CMR Mobile Industry Consumer Insight (MICI) did a survey and the result was pretty interesting as people who are eyeing for a flagship update are looking for One Plus mostly, then Apple and lastly Samsung. 

Xiaomi should bring their innovative products to India, like AI based devices as well as laptops. 

Introducing #ShRt stories on my blog - which includes heat of the moment stories. 

OpenSignal: Kolkata Tops in India in terms of 4G Coverage

Kolkata, the City of Joy always has a sweet spot for Indian telecom. Back in 1995 Kolkata became first city to get mobile services in India, that was MobileNet from Modi Telstra - turned Hutch later, and now operates as Vodafone Idea. 

Interestingly 3G, the next of 2G obviously, was not first launched in Kolkata, rather it was Delhi to get country's first 3G mobility from MTNL in 2008. And see what happens - in 8 years (however private players didn't able to launch 3G until 2010 when 3G auction did happen; so to be precise it's just 6 years) 3G is turning to be obsolete in favour of 4G (Jio was launched in 2016).

4G again fell in love with Kolkata, as Airtel became first Indian operator to launch 4G in April 10, 2012. Fyi, I attended that inauguration press meet. 4G has a very slow uptake until Jio started their commercial services in September 2016.

What I want to say, with out Kolkata touch, 3G failed while 2G is surviving and 4G is rocking. Same for CDMA too, Reliance Mobile India went for countrywide launch back in 2002 and in 2018 all CDMA networks are defunct.

Now while we are embracing 4G - thanks to Jio for bringing down the tariff to a super affordable level, Kolkata touches a new milestone as per OpenSignal's data. It's the only city in India to cross more than 90% 4G availability (90.7% to be precise) - keeping the other top areas of South East Asia behind, Hong Kong (90.4 per cent), Singapore (86.6 per cent), Taipei (89.8 per cent) and Kuala Lumpur (80.8 per cent) in terms of 4G coverage.

Well though it's impressive to reach a global standard, it's not acceptable that 4G is not that much fast in India. India's average speed is behind to that of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

App Aggregator Tapzo to End Journey as Amazon Pay Acquires Tapzo

Tapzo is to be shut down by 31st October, 2018. It was launched with a target to bring many apps (35+) under one roof that includes cabs, recharge, food, shopping deals, bill payments, news and etc. Tapzo was earlier known as HelpChat when I personally started using it. 

Tapzo, the biggest app aggregator in the country had tie up with Ola, Uber, Mobikwik, freecharge, nearby, Zomato, Swiggy, hindusthan times, airtel money, Cleartrip, bookmyshow, billdesk, redbus, mysmartprice and others. 

Tapzo had sent a mail to its users on 2nd of September regarding its shutting down. 

Interestingly there was market news that Amazon to buy out Tapzo on August end. 

Update: Tapzo was actually acquired by Amazon Pay soon after Tapzo's announcement of shutting down services. 

Best of Beef Food Joints in Kolkata

Like many Calcuttans, I started my journey into beef dishes from Nizam at Esplanade. But it's sad that Nizam closes its door for beef lovers. Right now they only serve chicken or mutton. The famous beef roll of Nizam is now a history. Nizam was also making Halim during Ramzan days and beef biriyani every day, though biriyani is still not a favorite of mine.

How to Install One Plus USB Drivers

When I connect the 1+6 to my Windows 7 laptop, it auto installed 3 drivers out of 4 required drivers and failed to install OnePlus Device Driver USB Device. 

Airtel Creates Fiber Subsidiary, Jio Giga Fiber Looking for Major Disruption in the Market

The next phase of Indian telecom war lands as Jio is not abating its plan of disruption with the announcement of Giga Fiber - the fiber to home broadband connectivity on 15th of August, 2018. Immediate effect went on Den Networks, Hathway Cable and Datacom - whose shares went down by upto 18% post announcement of Jio's Giga Fiber. Another big fiber player in the country, ACT Broadband has revised their broadband plans with more data on most of the plans. Delhi-NCR based pure play fiber player, Spectra is all set to do the same. 

As Jio goes direct to home with fiber, it will make toughest competition against existing fiber/cable based broadband operators as well as DTH service providers. With the power of fiber at last mile, Jio will offer broadband, TV and other infotainment packages at a great competitive package to hurt the other players. A similar quad play package - a trend has already been practiced by Verizon in US and Vodafone in different countries. 

(Press Release) BSNL Improves Customer Experience with EverestIMS Solution

BSNL Madhya Pradesh improves it's Customer Service Experience; Ensures 99% SLA Adherence with EverestIMS

EverestIMS ensured minimal downtime, real-time monitoring and hawk-eye view of the entire BSNL network across Madhya Pradesh, thereby creating satisfied and happy customer base yet again, for another Telco giant in India.

BENGALURU, India - July 31, 2018: EverestIMS Technologies Pvt Ltd (Everest), an Indian software product company specialized in providing software offerings for Unified IT Infra Management and ITSM, this time has successfully equipped the most prominent Indian Telco brand, BSNL with a one-stop solution. Everest's integrated solution, Infrastructure Management Suite (IMS) and ITILv3 based Ticketing Engine (Service Manager) helped BSNL to ensure maximum service quality along with SLA management.

 

BSNL, was earlier facing major hassles in managing business IT network present across multiple locations in Madhya Pradesh (MP). The BSNL network service link connectivity is spread across thousands of locations within the state through two of its prestigious clients, namely MP SWAN and MP High Court. However, in no time, customers started to complain about disrupted services, interrupted connectivity and heavy downtime -raising serious questions on the quality of services being provided by BSNL.

11 Things Jio did to Indian Telescape; How Others React to Jio

​Reliance Jio came, and broke many rules of Indian telecom but the biggest question is can Jio sustain the hype created by itself? Jio during its journey ongoing, has created many milestones and reshaped the Indian telecom sector which turned out to be offering lowest data price in the world, and removed the un-serious or smaller players from the mobile turf (like RCom, Telenor, Tata Tele, Videocon, Aircel). 

Jio does not aim for becoming a simple mobile service provider, it's a brand focused on digital sector - and the tagline says it all, 'Jio - Digital Life'. 

#JioGigaFiber : Unrealistic Target, Tie up with Netflix or Own Contents

After disrupting mobile space with Jio, Mukesh Ambani targets DTH and Cable TV business with its fiber to home services (Jio Giga Fiber @ 1Gigabits per second) - with a target of 50 million subscribers in 1100 cities to achieve in two years. 

Jio Giga Fiber will provide  ultra high definition entertainment on TV, voice activated assistance, virtual reality gaming and digital shopping as well as smart home solutions on its state of art optic fiber network. Registration for Jio Giga Fiber will start from August 15, 2018. 

But but and but... 

Analysts believe that Jio's target to reach 50 million households with FTTH is an unrealistic target. The main reason is Indians prefer wireless internet on smartphone over fixed line broadband as the entry cost to FTTH is high plus they need to buy equipments of higher cost. But as Jio did for 4G with JioPhone, many believe that Jio may offer FTTH devices or CPE (customer premises equipment) at a nominal cost. Still you need to buy a smart TV costing nearly INR 20-40K minimum to unlock all features of Jio Fiber. 

What is ASHTAMANGAL Project under Telecom Ministry of India

BSNL with its social responsibility is working to connect remote parts of the country. To connect the north eastern states with high speed broadband Union Ministry had made a project. The project, part of the Comprehensive Telecom Development Plan for the North-Eastern Region (NER) to connect all 7 states of north east India was approved by Union Cabinet in September 2014 and BSNL got it by April 2016. The whole project is being funded by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). 

The project became a part of Digital India, a dream plan by PM Narendra Modi and it got rebranded as 'Ashtamangal' which includes 7 NE states (Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland) and Sikkim. BSNL Social Media posted a video on Ashtamangal project on January 19, 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1DbZLbG11s 

The phase I of Ashta Mangal project was completed on 16th of July 2018 as connectivity has been provided from Kolkata to Guwahati (Assam) and to other Seven State Headquarters of the region (NE) Shillong, Aizwal, Agartala, Itanagar, Dimapur, Kohima, Imphal, Tezpur and Nagaon using optical fibre power ground wire (OPGW). Gangtok has been connected to Siliguri and Kolkata. The cost was Rs 100 cr. Bandwidth of this region is up-graded by additional 810 Gbps by this project. Out of the 11,970 gram panchayats in North East, 5858 were taken up in the first phase and 2281 gram panchayats are Service Ready. 

The project of Ashtamangal also includes setting up 6994 towers to provide connectivity to 8621 villages and along the national highways at a cost of Rs 5336 crore.

The phase II of Ashta Mangal project, estimated cost of Rs 430 cr will connect District Headquarters, other cities and State Headquarters in North-East Region. The govt. of India wants the phase II to be completed by end of 2018. 

Official Opera Portable - How to Get Best of it

From my last Win7 reinstallation, I learnt a lesson hard regarding backup of browser's settings. Opera v12 had no issues, and I had a portable version in other drive. So with standardalone installation of Opera was there, and I copied all files from  C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable but when I paste this on this folder after reinstall, I found no data restored - including settings, bookmarks, extensions, log in data etc. 

So I planned for a portable installation of Opera - thankfully Opera now offers official portable version at https://www.opera.com/computer/portable which work for Win7 + Windows versions. Opera_PortableSetup.exe (approx 2MB or less) is the file I downloaded. 

Windows 10 on Lenovo Ideapad Z570 and Return to Win7

I have an old lappy - Lenovo Ideapad Z570 bought in 2011. It was on WinXP initially, then moved to Windows 7 for pretty long time - now it got slowed down and I planned for a format as well as an upgrade to Win10.

Win10 is not my choice due to its mobile UI oriented UX but it's the latest one from Microsoft. I installed Win10 - but found that Lenovo officially don't support Win10 on my model.

Win10 is fast, quite faster than Win7 - even the installation is faster.

Anyway main two issues I found with Win10 - and therefore I am now back to Windows 7 with Classic Shell.

1. Drivers are not available officially. I had a broken installation of Nvidia Graphics - but somehow it worked to bring my display resolution to 1366 x 768. The driver of WiFi for Win7 somehow worked.

2. With these troubles, I had another big issue. Win10 had got into Blue Screen error several times and restarted. IRQL_ unexpected_ value is the error code and I found that it's may be due to improper WiFi driver.

Redmi - Snapdragon 625 Love Story could Derail its Success Run

Xiaomi or its subbrand Redmi is one of my favorite brand for smartphones these days. The main reason is pocket friendly or affordable smartphone with quite good quality. The second reason is its service center is just 4 min walk from my home. There is another reason which most OEM skips - regular software update which is great on Xiaomi phones with regular MIUI updates.

Now recently Xiaomi launched Redmi Y2 in India - to target selfie lovers.

I am using Redmi Note 4 since 1 year and I am happy with its camera and overall performance. But as per their 3rd phone on the series Note 5 is a disappointing launch, rather returning customers would buy Note 5 Pro or better wait.

Why Oppo's RealMe 1 is Big No-No for me?

Launching sub brands by major handset makers has turned a new trend in Indian smartphone market and Chinese giant Oppo could not use this opportunity better by launching Amazon India exclusive Real Me 1 smartphone to take on rival Xiaomi and its sub brand Redmi. The sub brands RealMe and Redmi sound similar right?

But I will never buy any smartphone from Oppo, why?

1. Oppo's Chinese employee is accused of discarding Indian flag at its Noida office.

The following reasons are to discard RealMe 1:
2. It does run on Mediatek processor 

3. It runs on ColorOS and seeing the trend of Oppo, it's unsure that when this phone will get latest Android update - not a future proof smartphone.

Tower Companies of India

The article was first published in November 2017, and therefore updated regularly til November 2020. 

In March 2024 this post was deleted by Blogger. The reason I don't know. Therefore putting it for a review by Blogger Team. 

As Indian telecom sector is going through the merger and acquisition - the consolidation of the mobile operators is pushing the consolidation of the passive infra providers, most specificly the tower firms. Apart from the carrier/operator's own tower companies there are several independent tower and infra providers in the market and these companies depend on the tenancy of the towers by small and mid sized telecom operators. Now as the consolidations are reshaping the market, it's obvious that the tenancy business is not working. And at the same time operators, burnt out by huge debt, plan for renting towers to cut down operational costs. 

Right Click on Opera v12 v Opera v52 v Vivaldi

BSNL's Delayed Entry into 4G Expected to be a Lacklustre Show

Back in 2007 BSNL made some really great move which marked a benchmarking event on India's wired broadband sector - to upgrade to wired broadband speed to 2Mbps minimum in most plans. Though that time was Manmohan Singh's era, many argue that main game was started during Atal Bihari Bajpeyi's time. Whatever the man stood behind BSNL's growth is actually Dayanidhi Maran, who was minister of communications and information technology (22 May '04 - 16 May '07). 

When BJP came at the power, I personally thought that it will mark another success story of BSNL - however it is not, rather government is on the way of privatization of government assets like Air India is gonna be sold. BSNL may see the same fate with no proper planning and investment, though ministers keep pressing the bell that that will not happen.

Whatever it happens, the loss making state owned PSU telco - BSNL and MTNL will continue to make losses against the competitive mobile market of Airtel, Jio, Vodafone+Idea. 

In February 2018, the telecom minister Manoj Sinha clarified that there is no plan at present to merge these two state owned telco but there will be steps taken to create synergy between two including effective utilisation of human resources as well as land and buildings. 

Certificate/Fellowship Courses after MBBS

This article is meant for certificate courses after MBBS. While young medical professionals are running behind post graduation, there is always a need for primary care physicians in India, though Indian laws are sick, people are biggest ass and politicians made people fool that governments do care for them while doctors are not - whole scenario made many doctors to leave this country.

However the certificate courses are very much useful if you're a PCP or want to be updated with latest guidelines. There are a number of such courses - I am sure that I could not list up all but will keep this post updated.

Most of these fellowship/certificate or diploma courses don't accredited by MCI.

[Press Release] Cryptocurrency Aggregator CoinSwitch Begins Operations in India

Multiple cryptocurrency exchange aggregator, CoinSwitch launches Indian operations, supporting 100+ crypto-assets

New Delhi, May 16, 2018: Driven with a mission to bring transparency and simplicity in the trade of crypto-assets, Bangalore-based CoinSwitch has launched its operations in India. CoinSwitch is a blockchain-based crypto-currency exchange aggregator platform that presents users with a one-stop solution for buying, selling or converting crypto-currencies across all partner exchanges. CoinSwitch users need not sign-up at multiple exchanges and yet, compare different prices and strike the best bargains.

The aggregator platform further helps users diversify their investments in various leading crypto-assets by supporting over 100 cryptocurrencies in India and 300 across the globe including altcoins, tokens like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Litecoin (LTC) etc. Users can access CoinSwitch to also convert their existing crypto-asset in other pairs. The platform currently supports over 7,000 currency pairs in India and over 45,000 across the globe. Owing to its diverse offering, CoinSwitch has been successful in clocking in daily trade volumes worth over USD 1 Million. 

Opera R2 Event Unveils Opera Touch and Latest Desktop Version

Opera Software ASA has whole array of internet products including Opera Browser for desktop, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. 

Opera Software sold its assets - browser, privacy and performance apps, and the Opera brand to a Chinese consortium named olden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I Limited Partnership (a consortium of Chinese investors led by Beijing Kunlun Tech Co and Qihoo 360) in 2016, and rebranded as Otella. 

In 2017 August Opera sold its Opera Max (browser + data compression + VPN like service) to Samsung. And Opera Max was withdrawn from Google Play Store. Later rebranded Samsung Max was launched in February 2018 for Galaxy smartphones only.

In January 2017 Opera launched its new browser project Opera Neon under banner of Opera Reborn. Later many features of Neon (social networking focus) came to Opera Browser.  

Opera has launched two new stuffs in the R2 event on April 25, 2018. Opera desktop got a new version with some new user friendly features. 

Opera Touch is the second product - another mobile browser available for Android only. Apple iOS version is coming soon. 

5G Update: 5G Readiness Index List & 5G-FWA vs FTTH

China, South Korea, U.S.A., Japan, Germany, the U.K., France, Canada, Russia and Singapore are the top 10 countries in the 5G Readiness Index List prepared by Analysys Mason. 

Reasons of 5G readiness as seen in China - proactive government policies and industry momentum while in United States mobile operators urge to become global leader on technical prospective.

New debate is landed upon 5G domain - Fiber to the home (FTTH) vs mmWave 5G Fixed Wireless Access (or simply 5G-FWA) while telecom analysts are seeing 5G is destined to be in track after 2020. 

Technogy means progress and progress often comes with a technical competition. If you can remember we had seen GSM vs CDMA, 3G vs EVDO, LTE vs WiMax and FTTx vs Wireless Broadband. The next competition is destined to be in between Fiber to X vs 5G- FWA (Fixed Wireless Access) as global analysts are expecting. 

Flickr Got a New Parent: SmugMug

It's been leaked that Flickr is going to be acquired by SmugMug on 20th of April, 2018 by USA Today. 

However being a Flickr user, I got mail from Flickr on 21st of April confirming the same i.e. Flickr got a new parent - SmugMug. 

VoLTE: The Most Emerging Technology in LTE Domain

Globally most of the mobile service providers already on LTE or deploying LTE on their network. As far as we are concerned about Indian landscape, here the big players all are offering LTE. 

As the global trends show the universal acceptance of VoLTE (Voice over LTE) – for offering voice calls over IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) architecture based LTE networks, here in India apart from BSNL, all serious players (Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone/Idea) are launching VoLTE or already launched it. Reliance Jio is completely on VoLTE, while Vodafone is offering it in ten circles, followed by Bharti Airtel in nine circles. Idea Cellular has opened the VoLTE to its employees, which is expected to go official for the users in some circles very soon, but there’s no word on the same.

Reliance Jio is completely on VoLTE, as the telco doesn’t have any legacy voice network on 2G/3G. Others telcos have the Circuit Switched Fall Back mechanism based voice on 2G/3G and data on LTE initially, later they are moving on to VoLTE.

Why is VoLTE gaining momentum in the country? The reason is simple – better spectrum efficacy, refarming of spectrums that is being used on 2G/3G networks, better services like HD voice and video calling are the main reasons. 

List of Courier/ Delivery/Logistic Services in India

Previously Indians meant post is equal to Indian Post. If we can remind our childhood days, we had seen the postman in the afternoon hours, riding on a bicycle and delivering the letters.

As India saw telecom boom, the letters, fax, telegram went off their popularity, and so the India Post - the monopoly they started loosing. And private players entered in the market. Probably in 2005 I used first pvt delivery/post or simply courier services and that was DTDC. Later Bluedart became my choice.

However the boom in the delivery business came along with the e-commerce boom. I can remember the enjoyment in my brothers' face, when first delivery (a book, of course) from Flipkart came to my house. Later with food delivery chains (via app and phone call) the delivery business reached the last mile connectivity with delivery boys (or Captain Delivery) riding on motor bikes carrying a huge bag on his back.

I am hereby listing the postal/logistic services available in India.

Coorg Travel in March 2018

Coorg is a district of Karnataka, located near Kerala border. It's now known as Kodagu (Coorg is British name). The main town is Madikeri (British name Mercara).

We took Airavaat club class bus from Bangalore. These buses start from Old Mysore Road Sattelite Bus Stand (at outskirt of Bengaluru) at 11:30 pm and reach at Madigari Mercara bus stand by 5:30 am. 

There are many hotels around the bus stand, but there are also many homestays and resorts which are bit away from main town. The homestays are preferred over hotels as homestays often give you excellent viewpoint locations. 

We were recommended Eishwara Inn but did not get a booking on Goibibo/MMT as it was weekend. Hence we did not book any hotel. 

ACT Broadband to Connect Google Homes to Internet

Google has just entered into smart home products market of India with their Google Home and Home Mini Speakers (AI driven), which are competing against Amazon's Echo speakers.

Both products priced at Rs 9999 and Rs 4999, are available on Flipkart exclusively and will be available in offline stores in coming days.

ACT Fibernet to Power Google Home Users with High-Speed Fiber Broadband Connectivity

ACT Fibernet is Google’s Fiber broadband partner for Google Home launch

Bengaluru, 10 April, 2018: ACT Fibernet, India’s largest fiber-focused wired broadband ISP (Internet Service Provider) today announced its partnership with Google to support its newly launched Google Home smart speakers with high-speed fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) connectivity.  As part of this, ACT Fibernet will work in conjunction with Google to leverage the adoption of next-gen technology and will offer a bundle of special plans for its customers.

New Social Platform Hello from Orkut Going to Launch Officially in India on 11.04.2018

Hello, another social platform by Orkut Büyükkökten is going to be launched in India on 11th of April, 2018 officially.

Yes, he is the guy behind Google's Orkut social networking site, which is now shut down in favor of Google Plus.

Top Wrist Watch Brands in India

http://www.rado.com/

http://www.citizenwatches.co.in/

http://www.tagheuer.com/

http://stuhrling.in/

http://www.titanworld.com/

https://www.raymond-weil.com/en/

http://www.rolex.com/en/index.jsp

http://www.timexindia.com/

http://www.seiko.in/

https://www.casio-intl.com/in/en/wat/

http://www.fastrack.in/

http://www.xylyswatches.com/

https://www.swatch.com/hi_in/

https://www.omegawatches.com/

http://www.maximawatches.com/

Defunctional Online Marketplaces in India

The list includes online marketplaces/e-commerce sites which are now defunct.

==== this list is not inclusive of all =====
I had a big list of e-commerce/online shopping sites in my bookmarks. I am now filtering out of them and sharing the de-func websites here.

Phase I - list 
timtara.com
letsbuy.com - sold to flipkart
zovi.com
freecultr.com
www.tangydeals.com
www.indiaplaza.in
offerbean.com
hotvilla.in
askmegrocery.com
fliptrazon.com - coupon search bot
ndtvshopping.com
ishop2buy.in
indiavarta.com (the New Indian Express Group backed)
khojguru.com - discount/coupon
brandtrendz.com
brandsdragon.com
nord51.com
shopping.anandabazar.com mainly books
vefro.com
surpluss.in
zoffio.com
iridegear.com
bitfang.com
cost-club.com
seventymm.com
johnlaj.com

Phase II list
www.clickroo.com/
www.myoutlets.in/
factie.com/ changed to techunts.com and that's not a proper e-commerce site
yumedeals.com/
www.locville.com/
daddyscapes.com/
buddyshoppe.com/
www.govasool.com/
www.bhaap.com/
www.tradus.com/ - now an OLX company turns into global marketplace for selling and buying heavymachinery
www.ordervenue.com/
adexmart.com/
buxsa.com/
shelltag.com/ - no active product
www.missflurrty.com/
www.scrunchh.com/
www.donebynone.com/
www.kaaryah.com/
www.oghaindia.com/
www.zomint.com/
www.shopabroadonline.com/
www.buytheprice.com/
www.landmarkonthenet.com/  - redirects to tatacliq website
www.nectar.in/
www.digaaz.com/
www.grabmore.in/
www.ynew.in/ - store shut down, but shifted to ebay platform stores.ebay.in/ynew which has old dated products
www.fashionara.com/
buynbrag.com/
www.jewelskart.com/
www.statebank.yourmarketplace.in/
www.watchkart.com/
www.indiaontime.com/

99garments.com/
www.dealsupto.com/ - filled up garbage
bigbazaardirect.com/
www.bigadda.com/ [backed by zapak.com] - turned into online gaming site
beforeafter.in/
www.20north.com/
www.autsun.com/
www.itsmuahlife.com/

March 2019

bushirt.com
masticart.com
www.askmebazaar.com
www.zabme.com
fashionfreakstore.com/
lazyninja.in/
www.saverr.com/index.php
iknowstudio.com/
shopping.indiatimes.com/
www.theitbazaar.com/store/
www.bespecimen.com/ - down
gobol.in/  - zero activity
www.lootbargain.com/
discountpandit.com/
freedealstation.blogspot.in/
thegstreet.com/
www.thetshirtsale.com/
www.coralhub.com/

Sometime during 2019

https://www.shopmonk.com/
http://www.funatic.in/
https://shopping.sify.com/
taggle.com
http://lootspot.com/
http://www.lootore.com/
http://shoppingneeds.in/
http://www.lemall.com/in/
http://www.doozyshopping.com/
http://www.hankerbuy.com/
www.fullondesi.com/
http://www.yuvastyle.com/
http://styletag.com/
http://www.checknshop.com/
http://www.yepme.com/
http://bagrab.com/
http://www.styleever.com/
http://dutyfree.buzz/
http://www.buffersales.com/
http://stophere.in/
http://oshopindia.com/
http://www.locville.com/

Vivaldi Address Bar Auto Complete Issue: How to Solve

Vivaldi is my new lovable web browser. But it's a quite new and hence some issues are there, while it's being very customized you can tackle the situation easily. 

For the uninitiated readers, Vivaldi Browser was planned by ex-Opera employee and is intended to fill the gap between Opera v12 and Opera v15+. It runs on Blink/Chromium engine - which also runs Chrome and Opera latest. 

Opera is still doing good, and now it is owned by a Chinese consortium, and updates regularly. But I am more inclined to Vivaldi these days.

Issue: Vivaldi showing suggestions, and it's completing .com or remaining part, so for eg, as you see in the picture, I typed flipkart and Vivaldi adds .com  and when I push Enter button on keyboard it goes into flipkart.com, but I wanted to search flipkart on Google. The issue is with Auto Complete.

Road to 5G: 4G/4.9G/5G Modems

I am seperating the 5G modem story from the original blog post - Gigabit LTE - Global Progress and India's approach to 5G. 

Early Gigabit-LTE supported modems

Qualcomm has X16 LTE modem which supports Gigabit LTE. At present Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset has this modem. A lot of present day flagships like Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, Sony XZ Premium, HTC U11, Motorola Z2 Force Edition, Xiaomi Mix 2, Xiaomi Mi 6, Essential’s One, OnePlus 5, OPPO Find 9 are capable of 1Gbps LTE speed. 

Qualcomm has another modem - X20 LTE modem which is technically advanced in few ways - support for 5x carrier aggregation (5x20MHz), increased number of usable spatial streams from 10 to 12, 10nm LPE processing. X20 will show its power in Snapdragon 845 chipsets which will be used by many flagships of 2018. 

[Press Release] Alstom Completes first all-electric “Make-In-India” locomotive from Madhepura; Won Contracts worth €75 million

10 March 2018 - Alstom announced the completion of its first all-electric locomotive from its state-of-the-art locomotive facility at Madhepura in the State of Bihar [1], on schedule. In line with the Government’s and Indian Railways’ target towards 100% electrification and towards sustainable mobility, these new locomotives will not only bring down operating costs for the Railways but will significantly cut down greenhouse gas emissions as well.

This first locomotive is part of a €3.5 billion order comprising 800 electric double-section locomotives signed in 2015 which contributes to the Ministry of Railways’ public-private partnership programme to modernise the country’s rail infrastructure. This agreement remains the largest Foreign Direct Investment in the railways sector to date and has a strategic role in creating a multiplier effect on the economy. This contract is also one of the biggest contracts in the history of Alstom.

“Our operations in India are paramount to our business globally and we continue to stay committed todeveloping India’s infrastructure needs, improving the quality of services to citizens and investing in the nation’s economy,” said Henri-Poupart Lafarge, Chairman and CEO, Alstom.

JetScreen Offers in-Flight Entertainment on Jet Airways

India is yet to allow in-flight internet, but that does not stop you to enjoy contents while you're on board.

While you are at 30000 feet of height on Jet Airways, you can can access to Jet Screen facilities. What is Jet Screen? It is an web based approach to serve Jet customers with contents which they can watch onboard during the flight.

JetScreen does not offer internet, or it can not be accessed over an app (may be in future). Web based UI helps the passengers to access JetScreen on their mobile phone very easily.

Jet Screen signal beams via 2.4G and 5G spectrum.

Bata Shoe Stores Offer Free WiFi to its Customers

Offering wifi to the customers is not new to attract more crowd. But earlier it was done mostly by restaurants and cafes.

On my recent visit to Bangalore, I found every a Bata store (sells shoes mainly) is offering free Wifi to its customers.

I found this one, near Forum Mall. I didn't use it, so can't review it.

Videocon Telecom's Facebook Page Turned into Videocon Wallcam

Do you ever wonder what happens to the telecom company's facebook when they shut down the store?

I had an idea. And that was found today, though screenshot was taken long back in 30-11-2017. 

Dhoot Group backed Videocon Telecom, a subsidiary of Quadrant Televentures stopped its mobile services in the last telecom circle - Punjab w.e.f. February 15th, 2017. However till this day their website is still running at http://www.videocontelecom.com/   

Back in July 2017 Videocon Telecom ventured into one of the fastest growing Security and Surveillance market by launching a new brand - Videocon Wallcam (website: https://videoconwallcam.com/) 

After the launch Videocon did not create a new facebook page of Wallcam, instead they revised the page of previous Videocon Telecom - as you can see in the screenshot. 

Wallcam fb page: https://www.facebook.com/VideoconWallcam/ [update below]

At the launch event Arvind Bali, CEO, Videocon Telecom says,

‘The current video surveillance market of approx Rs 3650 Cr is 55% of the overall Rs 6600 Cr security & surveillance market and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 26% and reach Rs 9150 Cr by 2021, which is 2.5 times the current market size. The growth will be driven by households,including small commercial establishment(Shops& offices) segments and the key success factor for market expansion will be affordability, ease of use (plug n play), and quality.This is where Videocon as a brand has its expertise in.We are all set to enter this market in a big way and capitalize on brand acceptability, manufacturing capabilities, R&D, distribution strength and reach.”

“Why ‘WallCam’, there is a very interesting background behind this. The term CCTV is a technical lingo and stands for Closed circuit television, while what we are selling is surveillance cameras. There is no product name to identify the category with, and this is where our marketing team came up with this interesting thought of a brand name which could represent the product category, something similar to Handycam for mini-camcorders, and Walkman for mini music players. Our objective is to make our brand ‘Wallcam’ a synonymous to CCTV cameras.”

I am not going deep on the security and video surveillance market, because that's beyond discussion here. 

Update : 4th September 2018

I found this: 

Now the page is located at https://www.facebook.com/OzoneWallcam/ and they did all kind of delinking with Videocon branding. Even their 'about us' says: 

Established in 1999, Ozone has a global presence spinning across 15 countries with 4 R&D centres across Israel, Korea, China and India and 4 state-of-the-art factories in India & China. Ozone WallCam is a professional security & surveillance equipment and solution provider having its own R&D, manufacturing, sales & service setup. At Ozone WallCam we 'Make in India' and specialise in providing world class security and surveillance solutions for various industries and customer segments.

Our product & solution portfolio in the video surveillance domain includes IP, AHD and Wireless Cameras (incl. 4G enabled cameras), NVR (Network Video recorders), DVR (Digital Video Recorders), Video door phones, Automatic License plate reader, Mobile vehicle surveillance solution, Video Analytics etc. We also specialise in other security products including access control solutions, sensors, alarms and connected devices for IoT based solutions.

With the help of our worldwide technology partners, R&D and design centres, we have built the capability and technology to address the security and surveillance needs across various customer segments including large Enterprises, Government and Retail. Having worked on numerous projects, we have gained unmatched business and technical expertise by offering customised and integrated industry specific solutions.

Innovation and quality are the ethos of the Ozone brand, and we are committed to it. All our products go through stringent quality control tests and are CE, FCC, RoHS and ISO complaint.

We are your One Stop Shop for End-to-End security and surveillance requirements.

So it seems that Videocon has sold this venture to other company, Ozone. Their previous website videoconwallcam.com redirects to ozonewallcam.com.