An interesting thought, forwarded of course.....

मौत से क्यों इतनी दहशत, जान क्यों इतनी अज़ीज़
मौत आने के लिए है, और जान जाने के लिए

On this philosophical note, I will sign off for the day! :-)

I admire animals - especially dogs - from a safe distance. The moment the canine invades my personal space and starts sniffing, I get jitters. Today, however, I was totally smitten by a cute pup - on my laptop. :-)

In the course of my work today, I had to repeatedly search for files. I am not known for my patience so for the first few searches I was tapping my fingers on the table in the classic symptom of impatience - until I noticed the pup in the left bottom corner of the screen. It was looking at me, then it picked up a book. I wondered for a moment why it is turning its pages from left to right instead of the other way around though. ;-)

When the search ended, it kept the book out of sight and looked at me again wagging its tail. When I clicked on "finished searching", it stuck its tongue out, wagged its tail and disappeared - Happy to Help, just like the Vodafone doggie. :-)

I like the new look of The Business paper Mint. Now there is more on the Personal Finance front in it. Of course, I was never a fan of the sections that disect new Financial products. These days one cannot be sure what is being paid for and what is not. But if you discount the advisory part (it comes with a "do at your own risk" caveat anyways. So being risk-averase I ignore it:-)), then the bare-bones summary of the salient features of new products as well as a list of potential gotchas will go a long way in helping people decide on whether to invest or not.

I always admire Monica Halan's column. This week's article was an eye-opener in the sense that she gave 2-3 instances of the financial products' mis-selling. I am sure the regulators need to do their part but they can do only so much. Finally, it is upto us to check out at least a few basic facts before investing because it's finally our money. But something more is needed if this awareness is to be taken to the grassroots level.

There is no dearth of Personal Finance sites and blogs in English. I am not sure about the scenario in vernacular languages though. And for those of us who don't go online, there should be more financial news in print in local languages - in an easy-to-digest format.

It has been almost 10 days since I last came here. I really had to pause and remember my password :-(

I wonder how people manage their accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and God knows what other sites. I know, I know, the fact that you don't have time often means that you are not able to manage it properly. But believe me, I have been trying my best.

Guess I need to try a bit harder, what say? :-)

I don't know why everyone is saying that India has redeemed itself after the team's win agaist the Lankans. How can a debacle such as exit from the Twenty20 World Cup before the semis be erased by a victory in a single match? And everyone seems to be forgetting that Zimbabwe did defeat us in the first match of this series.