Types of EV batteries

 

How to improve gut health !!

 

This is shared by an Indian doctor !! 

Basic funda is to eat atleast 30 different plant products every week. This is very much possible if you eat 4-6 different curries /dal in a week with our Indian diet. 

Indian Inequality

 

Two maps which striked me a lot on how Income and Govt spend inequality are there in India. 

I really hope the states of UP, Bihar, MP buckle up and make people productive !! 

Feb 2024 - Interesting things

 

How India has been urbanising . A clear expansion on cities like Delhi, Hyderabad , Jaipur etc. 

It is said that eating food of 30+ different plants is good for gut health. 

Electoral Bonds - Biggest scam of this time

 

January 2024 recommendations

 

I decided to list down the things i liked and would like to recommend to others. It may be podcast, youtube videos, Movies , Songs and writeups. 

Movies : 

I had some good free time this month due to holidays and less work. I liked Salaar,Irugupatru, Hi Nanna, Mission Impossible Dead reckoning,  How is it for a Monday(Telugu- English) , Awe (Telugu). 

In Salaar, Prabhas got one of the best role for him which utilizes his cutout (i like how he is named that too in that movie for a while :P ) and the Kateramma fight was brilliantly executed , the high of Shreya Reddy shouting on top of her lungs screaming "Salaar Devaratha Raisaar" are some peak points, for me and Prashant Neel is probably the best SSR school topper now in India .

Irugupatru deals with married couples , so may be not everyones cup of tea but i liked how simplistic the topic was dealt. Hi Nanna, kudos to Nani for doing it and director Shoryuv for ensuring an emotional movie had enough high points to be hooked to . I watched Mission Impossible so that its checked off my the list and it was fun and as expected. 

One movie which i liked how a acquintance of mine , Sripal Sama executed and made such a wonderful film called " How is it for a Monday" , intertwining Telugu customs , Telugu NRIs and a very very good message . I even tried to nod like Kaushik ghantasala in that "Nenu Nasagaadina " scene quite a few times. 

Awe was another movie wanted to watch since long time and i now understand why it was so highly critically rated . Brilliantly made right from start to end with enough cues to keep hooked and some loose ends too. 

Music :

I am now hooked to Guntur Kaaram (Dum Masala, Mawa enthaina) and Hi Nanna albums . 

Podcast: 

Iam now commuting to office more due to new rules and have more time to finish pending podcast episodes. 

My favorite Telugu podcast "harivillu" by Nag Vasireddy where he is back with a review of 2023 movies with guest Yaswant Aluru. I am mind blown by the analysis and thoughts of Yaswanth and out of those 23 movies discussed, i had similar thoughts about 20 movies. 

I am a fan of Amit Varma podcast and i finished the KP Krishnan's one (probably the longest one i heard till now ) which is just great for anyone to understand the inner workings of a govt servant. Another one of India's pension crisis where as usual Ajay Shah keeps you hooked on to the subject. Another one with Pritika Hingaroni on citi planning . Lately, i think iam getting more interesting in cities planning and public safety. 

I heard couple of episodes from Ideas of India by Sruthi Rajagopalan , the year 2023 in review, Rahul sagar on hidden 19th century India  ( where he discusses some interesting things about how Indian monarchs did public policy in British Raj and lot more on Madhav Rao, the Diwan of Travancore ) and listened to a bit of Alain Bertaud episode too where he discusses some interesting points of city planning) . 

As usual , i finished Decoding Democracy episodes as soon as they are out. This is a treasure for every folk out there interested to public policy. Available on Spotify and Amazon too .

And finished all pending episodes of Morgan Housel podcast. I do think i am reading the book at free of cost.

I noticed that my org has now tied up with linkedin learning and also has some good book summaries available. 

On Youtube, i started watching Eco India series by scroll Link  . I do think we are getting over scared on Climate Crisis and doing so less on mitigation front. And Along with Waning Antibiotic resistance and Plastics, Climate Crisis will change lives so soon that when it hits the fan, we will be in a pandemic . 

I was so much fascinated by credit card and became a junkie recently that i started exploring credit cards for no particular reason, more on that later. 

Paytm payments bank going down has impacted me a lot and currently in mitigation efforts. 

I ordered a new fastag from ICICI and it arrived . 

I changed my UPI credit card linkage to Phonepe ( It already gave me decent cashback for this linkage than paytm ever gave me ). 

I am in process of changing my mutual fund auto pay mandates to my ICICI account . 

I am now looking for a digital account and if you have any suggestions, please do let me know. As of now, i am looking at Kotak 811(suggested by a friend) and Jupiter app ( Federal bank- i liked the jupiter app and their philosophy)  

Credit card comparison - India

 

Top Iphone tricks that will save you some time !!

 

• Set up a text replacement for your email. I never have to type my full email anymore, just @@.

• Tap the status bar (where the clock and battery are) to scroll up to the top on any app

• Settings -> Accessibility-> Touch -> Backtap
• Allows number of things to be set up by double/triple tapping the back of your phone.

• When marking up a photo, you can use the pen to draw the rough shape you want (eg an approximate circle, rectangle etc), but if you keep your finger on the screen the phone will convert it from your rough shape to a properly drawn one

• In the calculator app swipe left with one finger to delete one character

Annual Budget 2022 - India - Environment and Climate Change

 

There are some really good steps that are being taken and fund allocated in this year's budget by our Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman. 

Listing down some of them :

1. Proposal to launch a Hydrogen Energy Mission in 2021-22 for generating hydrogen from green power sources.

2. Proposal to provide additional capital infusion of Rs 1,000 crores to Solar Energy Corporation of India and Rs 1,500 crores to Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency.

3. Creation of Energy Service Company (ESCO) business model to facilitate capacity building and awareness for energy audits, performance contracts, and common measurement & verification protocol.

4. An amount of Rs. 2,217 crores for 42 urban centres with a million-plus population has been set aside for tackling air pollution.

5. To reduce the carbon intensity of the country the finance minister has proposed the issuance of sovereign green bonds as a part of government’s borrowing programme. This will bring in much needed funding into the country for its public sector. Private capital will now have to increase their funding as well to meet the net zero challenge.

6. Proposal to bring a battery swapping policy.

7. Action plans for ten sectors such as electronic waste, end-of-life vehicles, used oil waste, and toxic & hazardous industrial waste.

8. 19,500 cr allocation for PLI manufacture of solar PV modules.

9.Promotion of greener public transport through special mobility zones with zero fossil fuel policy.

10.Thermal Power Plants are mandated to use 5-7% biomass pallets

Streaming movies recommendations - January 2022

 

This is a list of movies i watched or added to my watch list in this month of January 2022. 

Telugu :

Akhanda - Hotstar : Pakka Telugu masala Balayya movie. If you are familiar with Balayya , i dont need to tell you anything about this movie. This is a feast for a fan, tolerable for a regular moviegoer and overall a good family movie if you have aged people watching Telugu masala movies. 

ShyamSingaRoy - Netflix :  Nani makes a comeback . Sai Pallavi's best role so far. Good story for a family watch. 

Minnal Murali - Netflix : Loved this superhero movie set in a village. Like the way the story was groomed into a superhero format. 

Others which i added to my watch list are :

BroDaddy - Hotstar ( Malayalam ) 

Republic - Zee5 (Telugu)

Mandela - Netlfix ( Tamil)

Skylab - SonyLiv (Telugu) 

Telugu podcast for Kids

  This blog lists some interesting things i come across and are my recommendations.

If you are looking for a nice podcast to tell bedtime stories for Kids in Telugu , here it is 

"Anaganaga".

Every Sunday an episode releases

Links :

Anchor FM:

https://anchor.fm/anudeepgv

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/5muefHGei5EpLw09EjxVZ2

Google Podcast:

https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xZThhYTliYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==

Apple podcast :

https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/anaganaga/id1510836257

An English Movie must watch for everyone

 

 If there is one English movie, which is a must watch for everyone, it has to be 12 Angry Men.

The legal link to watch it is :

https://ia800902.us.archive.org/5/items/12AngryMen1957/12%20Angry%20Men%20(1957).mp4

From Wiki :

12 Angry Men explores many techniques of consensus-building and the difficulties encountered in the process among this group of men whose range of personalities adds to the intensity and conflict. It also explores the power one person has to elicit change. The jury members are identified only by number; no names are revealed until an exchange of dialogue at the very end. The film forces the characters and audience to evaluate their own self-image through observing the personality, experiences, and actions of the jurors.

Minnal Murali Review

Minnal Murali is one movie i loved watching every moment of its runtime. It is available in Telugu on Netflix which made my viewing experience a lot better as i dont need to spend mindspace in reading the subtitles. 

First of all, i am proud of my Malayalam brothers and sisters that they are able to churn out such great scripts to the movie viewers. Stories like Drushyam 1 & 2 , Driving License , Ustaad Hotel, Minnal Murali are such a joy to watch it on screen. And coming to this film, i particularly like the way they took time to get the hero and villain story arcs in proper organic growth . The music was fabulous to augment the pace of the movie . 

I was super curious when i heard about this super hero film and my mind was wandering on how he became a superhero. We cannot show that he got some powers from an animal or an alien or he is super rich like our existing super heroes. I loved the trailer when i saw and was very intrigued to see the Thunderstorm angle . What blew my mind was the villain part of it and how they were able to make story with regular human touch in a village setting , ultimately bringing us to the hero super hero and Villain super hero to a faceoff towards the climax. 

I am now an fan of Tovino Thomas , loved his part in Lucifer and now this movie. 

My best uses for Alexa

 

I had bought the first generation of Amazon Alexa from US in 2015. I was very excited with it and wanted to explore it more and even code some skills for it. That coding part didnt go as per plan . However, Alexa has been part of the daily life since then . I wanted to list down some cool uses i use Alexa for. 

1. I added my home and Office location and used it ask Alexa how is the traffic every day just before starting from home to office. It would give the time taken and route which helped me guess the traffic without looking at maps. 

2. I had a routine setup ( Series of commands grouped ) to list down the weather, top news on that day when i got up and taking care of morning activities. 

3. I have a 3 year toddler now and i have a lullaby playlist which i play it in loop while he sleeps and there are some outside noises. 

4. In extension to above, we use the skill " Animal sounds" where i play with my kid listening to various animal sounds . 

5. Ofcourse, listening to music from Amazon music with voice commands is the best use in addition to setting up Alarms and Timers. 

6. My best and fun usecase is playing with Smart bulb . I have a wipro smart bulb setup and we play it almost every day with commands , changing colours , brightness and on/off.

Digitize old negatives of photos

 I am sure most of us have some old negatives of photos from our parents time lying at our home. I saw some posts that we can digitize them but after trying one or two things , they seemed difficult.

Until i encountered this app called Filmbox by Photomyne . It is simple to use and was able to digitize some of the negatives i had into colour photos. 

Links for app : Android , iOS.

The app is very simple to use . Just install, it gives instructions on how to create backlight (going to their website) , just scan and hold and voila you have your photos. 

My favorite podcasts

 

Podcasts have now become part of consuming edutainment . 

My favorite ones are : 

The Seen and the Unseen by Amit Varma.

This is a national treasure . Host brings some great experts in a long format discussion around 3 hours and is a bliss every time we listen to it. There are lots of mindboggling episodes. I loved the ones with Jayaprakash Narayan, Chinmay Tumbe on Migration, Manu Pillai on his history books, the one on Kashmir, the one on Maharashtra politics , the one on CAA, the one with Ashwin Mahesh, the one with Madhavan of PRS and lots more. 

After Hours by HBR

This is my another favorite where some of the greatest minds from Harvard Business School discusses on the trends in the world and brings some interesting perspectives. They also give out some great reccos to watch and read. 

Finshots

5 minute size bytes on current economic affairs . A brilliant way of explanations that will calm down your curious brains.

Interpreting India

The episodes are of 30 mins and discusses some policy / governance implications related to India . 

Paisa Vaisa

A financial treasure to understand all the new products coming out in Indian financial space . 

ThinkFast Talk Smart

This one is from Stanford business school. Focusses on communication .

Harivillu

My latest favorite and this is in Telugu. Discusses some great topics and people from Teluguland . 

Climate Change - What can you do

 One of the biggest disasters we would be seeing in our life time , but very slowly in myriad ways is Climate Change. 

>> See how your city would become in future due to Climate Change.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/graphics/see-how-your-citys-climate-might-change-by-2070-feature

>> What Matters most : https://www.grid.news/roadmap-saving-planet/

>> Google has created a Timelapse to see how we can transformed our earth. 

Here 

>> Watershed is a software platform enabling companies to offset its carbon footprint. 

>> Klima is an app one can download and see how much you can offset the carbon footprint you create.

The Tech Magics

 Recently i came across the Paytm audio announcement box where it announces to the merchant that a payment has been received. This is so indigenous solution to avoid fraud , give a confirmation without much effort to the merchant and is a brand advertisement every time it speaks. And i marvelled at the people at Paytm for thinking such an awesome solution.

I was thinking what all other similar things i loved seeing in the tech world where it solved a problem with an awesome thinking.

My first on the list is Chromecast . I was blown away when i heard of it and experienced it in person. It was a simple thought that you can just use a small hardware piece and stream almost anything to the TV and make any TV connect to Internet. 

Next is the PayTm QR code payment and also its Audio announcement box. You can transfer the money by just scanning an QR code. It has decreased the transaction time , no touch and made it cool.

Next is the Airtel WiFi calling , this solves a bigger problem of cellular network availability using the Internet at home and is probably the biggest factor for me to continue with Airtel . 

Next is the UPI transfer mechanism ; This is mindblown . It is easier to remember an emailid than a number which is unique and be used for transferring the money. And that thought to implement the communication feature which revolutionized the world has been brought to be used for financial transactions. 

Next is the OneNote software from Microsoft. The most underrated and awesome software Microsoft has produced after Microsoft Excel. You dont need to save anything and it does tons of Auto formatting.

Next are the voice assistant devices, I know lot of work has to be done for these to work but whatever the progress done till now has been remarkable. 

What are your favorites ?

I got some answers that Google Docs . True. It has truly revolutionized the way we could collaborate.

Best credit card in India for daily use (IMO)

 There are multiple credit cards out there in market and most of them provide benefits which are not for common man utility . If you are looking for best one for airline miles or best for providing lounge access , this is not for you; Please excuse. This is not a promotion or paid post but an effort to provide better information to viewers.

The recommendation is based on daily usage of a middle class family using supermarkets, e-commerce , fuel usage ,bill payments ,annual fee and customer service. 

The first one is the new American Express SmartEarn™ Credit Card , which has some exciting bonus for utilizing multiple times  in a month, very good reward plans with multiple e-commerce platforms offering rewards at 5x for every 50 Rs spent and 10x on Flipkart and Uber . No fuel charge with Hpcl outlets and a waiver of annual charge on 40k spend in an year. Not to mention American Express has an impeccable customer service team and awesome dispute resolution mechanism. (The author doesnt own it yet).

The Second one is the ICICI AmazonPay Visa credit card which the author holds and is a recommendation if you use Amazon atleast decently enough. It provides 5% cashback on non-emi Amazon spend for Prime members , 2% of Amazon pay usage for bill payments or checkouts on any available app, 1% for all other non-fuel spends . The best part is there is no annual charge and rewards get added to your Amazon account every month and no other redemption process is required. I cant recommend this enough.

If you have a good recommendation, please share it in comments .

Telugu app for E-books , audio books, podcasts and more

 If you are Telugu Literary lover and would like to explore more on e-books,stories , audio books and podcasts , there i no better app than " Dasubhashitam " .

Link for ios Appstore download : https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dasubhashitam-telugu-audiobook/id1319854474

Link for Android playstore download : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dasubhashitam&hl=en_US