Thanks for all the love!

With the best wishes and regular visits by the readers, the IndiRank of www.AnandDholi.com is now 74! This will motivate me to put my random thoughts here and frankly if you don't read regularly, I don't care ;) It's my life and I will live it my way!






What does IndiRank mean?
It's like runs in a game of cricket - the higher the score, the better your ranking. Blogs are evaluated on a scale of 1-100, and the top ranks are in the range of 80-90. Several blogs may share the same rank.
Keep blogging!

Pic of the week


Cooling off

Children swim in the polluted waters of the Hindon River in Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, on April 20. Northern India continued to experience a heat wave, with temperatures in New Delhi reaching 107 degrees according to news reports. 

And you thought ....

You know Google! Well, might be that its your home page, might be that you prefer it over all the search engines available today but ... there are some interesting facts about 'Google' which you would like to know. Go through these and you might enjoy them for once.

  • Google.com – The domain was registered on 15 September 1997.
  • In 1997, Google’s prototype was named “BackRub”.
  • Google started off its first operations in a rented Garage.
  • The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’.
  • The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. In fact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
This is how Google page looked in 1997



  • The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button. I’m Feeling Lucky Costs Google $110 Million a Year.
  • Google’s first chef Charlie Ayers, ( hired in 1999 ) quit Google and opened his own restaurant in 2005.
  • Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.
  • Google won the prestigious award for Technical Achievement in 2000. In the nominees list there were no search engines at all.
  • The Google logo was never centered (as it appears today). It only appeared centered in March 2001. It was aligned to the left earlier. (And there were a lot more distractions then).
  • Google’s first employee is Craig Silverstein. Craig is the man behind “exact search” (where you get pages containing the exact search term within quotes.)
This is how Google page looked in 1998


  • In 1999, when Google moved to their Paolo Alto office, there were only 19 employees in the company. Today there are 0ver 2,700 Googlers.
  • Google reckons only 10% of the world’s information is online.
  • 70% of Google engineers are working on search-related problems.
  • Baba Tiratzo does not work for Google!

Aftermath: When IPL is 'Nationalized' ...

Its quite funny that I couldn't put my hands off the IPL sleaze. Like everyone else on the earth, I also got hooked to write something about the IPL (it's called by so many names these days - Indian Political League, India Panga League etc). Its amazing how the politicians have all the time in the world to debate on this not so important for the nation topic than debating about terrorism, poverty etc.


Well, I was watching the TV news channels (for fun only), I saw a politician saying, "यह IPL को  'Nationalize' कर देना चाहिए. Government को इसका control ले लेना चाहिए!" I got what I wanted after seeing this - my share of happiness and fun -:)


After that though provoking 'thought', the various memes running around my brain got activated and sort of a lift to write the 'Aftermath' of this 'IPL Nationalization'! So here are some of the things that would happen after we see the IPL being 'Nationalized'. All the characters mentioned here are real but the thoughts have been fabricated by 'Dholibaba' -;)


So here is my list of things. The IPL Nationalization 'Aftermath' -


  • People who do not call Sachin "God" will be termed pseudo-secular.
  • Salaries of players will be as per "Pay Commission" recommendation.
  • All debate deadlocks in Parliament will be solved by a Super Over.
  • The Prime Minister will give his message to the nation before start of a season.
  • All 3rd umpire decisions will be referred to the Liberhan Commission.
  • Spectators will throw chairs to umpires for wrong decision.
  • We'll have a Jayalalitha Blimp flying over each stadium. Awesome!!!
  • We will have two CPI sponsored Strategic Bandh for 2.5 minutes in each innings!
  • After IPL is nationalized all appeals for lbw must be submitted in triplicate with a copy to the match ref. and Sports Minister.
  • Dogs running into the ground will have support from Maneka Gandhi.
  • Obama would call up Manmohan Singh if Pakistani players are given a snub.
  • Sledging will be possible only after getting "A" certificate from the Censor Board.
  • Khap panchayats will outlaw same gotra partnerships and ask for a change in ICC rules.
  • Every suicide in Andhra Pradesh would be linked to Deccan Charger's performance.
  • Ravindra Jadeja would get justice after 15 years, that too after throwing a shoe at Shilpa Shetty.
  • Amar Singh will replace Danni Morrison.
  • Umpires will not be able to listen to the sound of ball hitting the bat because of Mamta Banerjee in stands.
  • The pitch will be dug up everyday to lay cables for the tv, mic, etc.
  • Franchisee not opting for any UP city will be declared anti-dalit.
  • Arundhati Roy will cry foul & write 36 page essay on why the team that finished last should be declared the winners.
  • Corruption cases and shady dealings won't look out of place!
What do you think?

Who was Udham Singh?



In the week gone by, there was an important date which Indians seem to have forgot over the years. After all the world is more interested in sleaze than patriots these days.


On April 13, 1919 thousands of people gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh (garden) near the Golden Temple in Amritsar, on Baisakhi. An hour after the meeting began as scheduled at 4:30pm, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer marched a group of sixty-five Gurkha and twenty-five Baluchi soldiers into the Bagh, fifty of whom were armed with rifles. Dyer had also brought two armoured cars armed with machine guns, however the vehicles were stationed outside the main gate as they were unable to enter the Bagh through the narrow entrance.
The Jallianwala Bagh was bounded on all sides by houses and buildings and had few narrow entrances, most of which were kept permanently locked. The main entrance was relatively wider, but was guarded by the troops backed by the armoured vehicles. General Dyer ordered troops to open fire without warning or any order to disperse, and to direct fire towards the densest sections of the crowd. He continued the firing, approximately 1,650 rounds in all, until ammunition was almost exhausted.


Apart from the many deaths directly from the firing, a number of deaths were caused by stampedes at the narrow gates as also people who sought shelter from the firing by jumping into the solitary well inside the compound. A plaque in the monument at the site, set up after independence, says that 120 bodies were plucked out of the well.


The wounded could not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew had been declared - many more died during the night. The number of deaths caused by the firing is disputed. The official figure given by the British inquiry into the massacre is 379 deaths, however the figure was around 1500.


There was one man who was injured in the shooting and his name was Udham Singh. He wanted to take revenge by killing O'Dwyer who was the mastermind behind the massacre. Despite numerous opportunities to strike, Singh awaited a right time when he could make more impact & internationalize the event. At last, the opportunity came on 13 March 1940, almost 21 years after the Jallianwala Bagh killings: A joint meeting of the East India Association and the Royal Central Asian Society was scheduled at Caxton Hall, and among the speakers was Michael O'Dwyer. 


Singh concealed his revolver in a book specially cut for the purpose and managed to enter Caxton Hall. He took up his position against the wall. At the end of the meeting, the gathering stood up, and O'Dwyer moved towards the platform to talk to Lord Zetland. Singh pulled his revolver and fired. O'Dwyer was hit twice and died immediately. Then Singh fired at Lord Zetland, the Secretary of State for India, injuring him but not seriously. Incidentally, Sir Luis Dane was hit by one shot, which broke his radius bone and dropped him to the ground with serious injuries. A bullet also hit Lord Lamington, whose right hand was shattered. Udham Singh did not intend to escape. He was arrested on the spot.






Singh had told the court at his trial: "I did it because I had a grudge against him. He deserved it. He was the real culprit. He wanted to crush the spirit of my people, so I have crushed him. For full 21 years, I have been trying to wreak vengeance. I am happy that I have done the job. I am not scared of death. I am dying for my country. I have seen my people starving in India under the British rule. I have protested against this, it was my duty. What a greater honour could be bestowed on me than death for the sake of my motherland?"


Singh was also known as Ram Mohammed Singh Azad, symbolizing the unification of the three major religions of India: Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. Singh is considered one of the best-known of the more extremist revolutionaries of the Indian freedom struggle; he is also sometimes referred to as Shaheed-i-Azam Sardar Udham Singh (the expression "Shaheed-i-Azam," Urdu: شهید اعظم, means "the great martyr").


Singh was hanged to death on July 31, 1940.





Pic of the week


Clouded view

A cloud of ash from Iceland's spewing volcano grounded all U.K. flights and closed all airports in an unprecedented move that left hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded. This picture of the volcano eruption was taken by a farmer in Iceland on April 14. 

Pic of the week


Blowing in the wind

A dust storm engulfs the desert city of Bikaner, in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, April 2.

Pic of the week

Water worries

Children carry water home on a mountain path in southwest China's Guizhou province on March 28. The worst drought in decades in southwest China has left millions of people without water and caused more than 1,000 schools to close.


Twitter’s @anywhere Platform

Twitter is soon going to announce a new platform called @anywhere, which would allow third party sites to integrate Twitter features. Twitter didn’t give a launch date for when sites would start integrating the new platform, I just came across the first site to feature @anywhere.


The site, which will almost certainly be pulled down soon after this post is published, is clearly a testing environment for @anywhere, but it’s currently open to the public. It features the following: various variable states; a button to ‘Connect With Twitter’; buttons to follow twitter users @jack, @biz, and @ev; a test hovercard that allows me to see @wendyverse’s latest tweets and follow counts at a glance, and a test box that lets me tweet. It isn’t particularly easy on the eyes, but it works well enough.


Hitting “Connect to Twitter” pulled in my Twitter profile photo and gave me the option to log out. Clicking on each of the ‘follow’ buttons appropriately changed the status from “Follow @jack” to “Following @Jack” the next time I refreshed the page.






If you’re fast, you may be able to try it out for yourself. Visit www.eggboiling.com now!