So I decided to tread into the unknown abyss of ‘books’!

And right through the rabbit hole I fell; Rode the blue dragon; Swallowed the snich; Found the Alchemist; Spotted the Rose line; Pulled snow sleds; Played with anti-matter; Spoke with Mr.Ghandhi and ‘che’ Guevara.

Have you ever thought may be, Instead of  Timothy Olyphant, Jason statham would’ve been a better agent-47 ? Or may be Robin hood should’ve been a little less muscular? Or Voldemort  should’ve had a more callous voice? Or the details like this sword should’ve been a katana and not a bulky claymore, he should’ve worn blue shirt and not red, not just Mr.Bond but all the heroes should’ve had cooler cars? Well, I’ve thought of all this and now this was all suddenly possible. It was like a movie made just for me and me only. I didnt see what the director wanted me to see but i saw what I wanted to see, with the people whom I thouht were perfect to play the roles, spoke and did things how I wanted them to do, with the best possible special effects and with uncomparable detail which was beyond any animator and HD, and if I am not satisfied with it, i could revert back, change what I wanted to change and play it again. This was all happening inside my head! Each book gets an oscar for everything, from acting to art direction.

In addition to this you get some extra perks too, Your reading speed becomes insanely good. In the process, You can actually understand some hi-fi words spoken by eminent people. Now when your friend yaps about that new awesome book he read, you can join him and yap about how super duper awesome the book was. You can stop lying in your resume that your hobby is reading. And the best of all, your mom stops scolding you for sitting infront of the computer for so long and instead she thinks that you are doing something productive<Ha! Ha! Ha!>

And there are the side effects too, your mom keeps scolding you not to bring the book to the dining table and yes, Now you will also feel that they really screwd up that movie!

But if you think that you are too old for Dragons, Elves and Spells, believe me, you are not and you never will be!

No, I am not asking any of you to hold a banner and become a social activist nor am I asking you to go on a indefinite fast for a noble cause. But if you do all this there wouldn’t be a greater thing. Every one of us has our own families to feed and our own friends to be with. We may not want to go out of our way to try and change the nation; that does not mean we don’t care because we do care! We do feel bad for the plight of our nation!

Well, basically we are not happy with our public administration<i.e. the action part of our government>, we feel that most part of the bureaucracy is either corrupt or insensitive to public needs and we feel that we cannot do anything about it because we are at their mercy.

Although we may not find the need to act upon these problems right away, we should know how to act when a situation arises. Just the awareness on what you can actually do about it will definitely make you a better citizen.

Throughout our school life we learn things like, how is a member of a legislative assembly or the Member of Parliament is elected, what is the structure of the judiciary, what is the rajiya sabha or the lok sabha, what is the work of the president or the prime minister. It is only once in a while that we get subtle hints on what a responsible citizen should do.

A government is not just the prime minister and his cabinet of ministers. It includes a lot more than that,

A government is a summation of many organizations (E.g. Ministry of rural development, PWD, Defense ministry, etc.), and each such organization is nothing but summation of people, i.e. common man.

A government is like a cart with two wheels, one is the bureaucracy and the other or the nation’s citizens. If only one wheel spins at a time, the cart will keep spinning in the same place. If both of them spin in opposite directions, the cart will break. If and only if both of them spin in the same direction, the cart will move forward.

So, why are we taught only about how does the government function and not about how we are suppose to be? Why are we not taught about how to BE governed? It is because of this ignorance on our part that sometimes we feel that the government is not doing enough even if it does what it has to do. It is because of this ignorance, neither do we demand transparency & quality from the government nor do we hold the government accountable for its actions.

In contemporary times good citizenship is equally important as good governance, hence there is a need for a new discipline or at least a sub discipline that teaches us how to be ‘good citizens’. This shall and will empower the common man. This discipline essentially may include four basic categories of information that every citizen should know.

Category-1: Effective usage of schemes

This category may include information on schemes that will benefit the public in their daily life; it will enlighten them on hoe to derive the most from the policies that are made for their welfare.

For example, consider this policy implemented by the rural development authority of India. It is called National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), it is the flagship program of the government that directly touches lives of the poor and promotes inclusive growth. This act aims at enhancing livelihood security of households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. Unique features of the act include time bound employment guarantee and wage payment within 15 days, incentive- disincentive structure to the state government for providing employment as 90% of the cost for employment provided is borne by the Centre or payment of unemployment allowances at their own cost and emphasis on labor intensive work prohibiting the use of contractors and machinery.

Category-2: Concepts

This part may include concepts pertaining to citizenship and the importance of knowing them.

For example, what is tax? Why is it important to pay tax? What happens to the money you pay? What will happen if we don’t pay tax? Which section of the population is exempted from tax? – This section shall seek to answer such questions.

Category-3: Accountability measures

This category shall throw some light on how to make the government accountable for its actions and how do you derive quality from the government.

Consider the Right To Information Act, It means the freedom of people to have access to the governmental information. It means openness and transparency in the functioning of the government. It envisages the appointment of a Public Information Officer in every governmental ministry and department to attend to the demand of the people for official information against nominal service charge for certified photocopies of the documents. There will be however be exemptions from disclosure of information in eight areas of the country defense, security, intelligence agencies related information, cabinet papers, minutes of advice including legal ones relating to decision making, trade or commercial secrets, information likely to breach of privilege of the parliament & state legislature.

Information commission shall fine an official Rs.250 per day (subject to maximum of Rs.25,000)  if information is delayed without reasonable cause beyond stipulated 30 days.

We can file an application by,

•  Filing RTI application through Public Information Officer (PIO) or Assistant Public Information Officer (APIO) of the concerned department.
•  File an application through post office.

The information shall be provided to the applicant within 30 days from the date of receipt.

Nominal charges required:

• Application fee (Rs.10/-) for central government departments, different for different state government.
• Further fee (Rs.2/- per page)
• Fee for document inspection (First hour free; thereafter Rs.5/- per hour.

Category-4: Guarding against exploitation of civil liberties

Our civil liberties are the basic right or the freedom that is offered to us by our constitution. This part may tell you how to protect your rights and how to retaliate if it is offended in any way. For example, knowing how to issue a police complaint in case of any infringement and following up on it is a very essential knowledge that one should posses.

Let us assume that my laptop is stolen, then I should go to the police station in whose jurisdiction the crime took place and not the police station in whose jurisdiction I live in, to give a complaint. Any personnel present in the police station ought to record a report from me and file a First Information Report, I will be asked to sign and I will be provided with a copy of the FIR.

Then if the culprit is nabbed and my laptop is found, the police will inform me about it and file a petition in a trial court. Then I will get a court summons asking me to appear before the court of law for the proceedings. Once the laptop is identified to be mine and the crime is proven, I will get it back and the offender will be penalized with respect to the case.

The complete procedure does not include taking even a penny from you, except that you have to pay for your own bus charges.

This is just a basic idea on how a new branch of civics can be formed in order to teach the people on basic citizenship. So the next time a 6^th grader from a rural school opens his social science textbook and reads about NREGA, he will tell his unemployed dad on how to save their lively hood and not to buy a bottle of poison for the whole family, the next time you submit your passport application form expecting get a passport within 10 days but it has already been a month, instead of paying thousands of rupees as bribes, you shall just fill up a ten rupee RTI application form.

Every citizen gets a government that he deserves; eternal vigilance is the price that you will have to pay for your liberty.

An ideal citizen is well-informed, right conscious, duty conscious, participative, having a stakeholder mentality and assertive. Let us be one shall we?

My anger is not irrational, i have reasons for my current state of mind

Now if I am hungry, No one is gonna make noodles and soup for me!

I cannot go to “sumesh” and drink free chai, Now I have to pay for it!

Nobody is forcing me to go to the seashore. Eventhough I hated it when you guys stare at the horizon and act all intense while i wait, I would’ve liked to have an option!

All my note books look so damn neat like I am in the 4th grade! There isn’t anybody do draw stuff on it!

And dont even get me started on the lack of entertainment!

For god sake! I MISS being IN-CLASS! Screw all of you!!!

And to top it all, half of the jackasses left for “Inf-ass-is” even before the first internals ended!

For the first time in my life I have realised that ‘Miss u 2′ is not just something you say but you DO miss people!! Missing sucks! I dont like it!

Most of you cried your eyes out, let it all out and moved on! What the hell am i suppose to do? I am biologically incapable of crying!! >-(

But i guess this was inevitable, eh? This had to happen some day or the other…

There were a lot of ‘first times’ for me here and trust me when i say, ‘a lot’… THERE were a lot! It wouldn’t be enough if I just say, ‘thank you all for that’!

Yeah, Its a little hard to part, thats why i’m picking a fight!

And did i mention, ‘I HATE U ALL’<for making me miss u all!>

Dhanushkodi has the only land border between India and Sri Lanka which is one of the smallest in the world-just 50 yards in length on a shoal in Palk Strait. Dhanushkodi was a flourishing tourist and pilgrimage town. Since Sri Lanka 31 km away, there were many ferry services between Dhanushkodi and Talaimannar of Sri Lanka, transporting travellers and goods across the sea. There were hotels, textile shops and dharmashalas catering to these pilgrims and travellers.

The area around Rameshwaram has been frequently ravaged by several high-intensity cyclones and storms in the past. Before the 1964 storm, there was a train service up to Dhanushkodi called “Boat Mail” from Chennai and the train linked to a steamer for ferrying travellers to SriLanka. On that fateful night (December 22) at 23.55 hours while entering Dhanushkodi railway station, the train No.653, Pamban-Dhanushkodi Passenger, a daily regular service which left Pamban with 110 passengers and 5 railway staff, was only few yards before Dhanushkodi Railway station when it was hit by a massive tidal wave. The whole train was washed away killing all 115 on board. Massive tidal waves swept into the completely unaware town and all that the townsfolk could do was wait and pray for help that never came. The storm then continued for the next three days unleashing all its fury. All together over 1800 people died in the cyclonic storm. All dwelling houses and other structures in Dhanushkodi were marooned in the storm . The high tidal waves moved almost 10 kilometres onto this island and ruined the entire town. Following this disaster, the Government of Madras declared the town as Ghost town and unfit for living after the storm.

Now after 46 years one can still see the ruins on a once cheerful town. A railway station which can only be identified by its ruined platform, an old post office that lays in ruins, a couple of walls with cracked blackboards on them which tells that there was a school, a ruined granary and an old catholic church which is almost destroyed, All these resonate the melancholy of this mystique place. Now only a few fisherfolk now live here, they say that some days they can still feel “that” chill in the air. When tsunami struck in 2004 the water level here receded to about 3 km for a short period of time and then the fishermen who live here actually got a glimpse of the part of the town which still lies under water. They say they could see a Temple tower and a lot of houses.

Dhanushkodi is now a tourist attraction, around 500 people come here everyday and it goes up to 1000 on festive days. Getting here is not an easy job, you have to hitch a ride in one of these specially designed vans that are specifically designed to tackle the terrain in here. After that it is a slow and sad 12 km long journey in this treacherous terrain into the heart of this ghost town. Every year on December 22nd people here pray for those poor souls who lost their lives to the wrath of nature. If you get a chance to visit this place don’t miss it.

Anyway, let me come to the actual story, one fine day we go there and we try to implement a FTP server and a NFS. We started doing it in my laptop and everything was going fine. We installed and configured both vsFTPd and NFS and it was working fine in my Ubuntu, but sarath told me there is no point in doing it in Ubuntu we should be able to do it in RedHat too.

So we decide to do it in one of the lab systems, we chose the nearest one(we did not know that we had chosen the wrong one!!) and tried implementing NFS and the service was up and running so now we moved on to FTP now. The vsFTPd package was not installed in the machine, so we try installing it using ‘yum’, but its not working. It was telling us that the repository was missing!!. We checked the repository list and the local repository’s ‘.repo’ file was missing. We googled it and wrote the ‘repo’ file.We thought we had resolved the issue(Ha Ha Ha!!)

We tried again and it was telling us that the local repository was also missing!!. We loged into the server cheked if the files were really missing, but there they were sitting in the server. Now i asked sarath to mount the NFS share that we had configure earlier, he tried it and to our surprize the system replied “Sorry (dumbass), cannot mount specified location”, by now you might have figured out the problem but we didn’t.

This time we were really confused, we thought that there was some configuration error and we started going through the configuration files. We rewrote the configuration files and restarted the services again, but still the problem persisted. Just this had taken half a day!!. We were completely clueless and we had lost all interest in doing anything.

Just then i had a spark(Finally!!) and i tried pinging our client from the server, guess what was the reply i got??

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 172.24.24.5:

Packets: Sent = 3, Recieved = 0, Loss = 3 (100% Loss)

And just now I understood why our glorious efforts did not work……….

“THE ETHERNET CABLE WAS NOT EVEN PLUGGED IN THE COMPUTER”

Still sarath didn’t know this yet, so I asked him to take a peek behind the CPU. He asked me why?, I just insisted that he should look…. He took a peek….Took his notebook, walked straight out of the lab……

I typed “poweroff” in the terminal, took my laptop and traced his path out of the lab.

LOL :-O

Installing Apache2

Apache HTTP Server is a free software/open source web server for Unix-like systems.
#sudo apt-get install apache2

This will complete the installation of apache2 web server. To check whether your Apache server is running, just open your web browser and type “http://localhost“, you will get a default page which says “It works!“. Now you need to know where the configuration files and document root for your Apache web server.
By default all the configuration files are located at /etc/apache2

Editing the document root
Default document root for apache2 is /var/www. If you want to change the default document root you need to edit the /etc/apache2/sites-available/default file and look for this line “DocumentRoot /var/www/” here you can change where ever you want to change.For example if you want to change /home/wwww the above line looks like this “DocumentRoot /home/www/”.
The main configuration file located at /etc/apache2/apche2.conf. At this stage reading through all the ‘.conf‘ files inside the /etc/apache2/ directory will be a good option.

Installing php in Apache
If you want to add support of php and cgi scripts install the following packages libapache2-mod-php4,php4-cli,php4-common,php4-cgi

#sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 php5-cli php5-common php5-cgi

This will complete the installation of php support for apache2.
Restart your Apache server

#sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

To check whether your Apache server is parsing  you php scripts just do this.

#sudo gedit /var/www/index.php

Enter the following script and save the file
<html>
<body>
<?php echo “Hello World!!“; ?>
</body>
</html>

Now go to your web browser and type “http://localhost/index.php“, you should be able to see a page which says “Hello World!!“.

Troubleshooting PHP 5
I got stuck at this point for a long time, my browser kept asking me if I  wanted to download the php file instead of actually displaying it!!.
This will happen if Apache is not actually parsing the php after you restarted it, to resolve this just install libapache2-mod-php5.

#sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5

It is installed when you install the php5 package, but may have been removed inadvertently by packages which need to run a different version of php.

You may also need to actually enable it, by doing

#sudo a2enmod php5

followed by

#sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

If sudo a2enmod php5 returns “$ This module does not exist!“, you should purge (not just remove) the libapache2-mod-php5 package and reinstall it.

Be sure to clear your browser’s cache before testing your site again.

Recommended module
The worker MPM provides a threaded implementation for Apache2. It is considerably faster than the traditional model,and is the recommended MPM.You can install this using the following command.

#apt-get install apache2-mpm-prefork

Installing MYSQL with PHP 5

#sudo apt-get install mysql-server libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql

This will install MySQL. Once MySQL is installed it will ask you for a mysql-root password, note that it is just mysql-admin password and not your system’s root password.

Set mysql bind address
Before you can access the database from other computers in your network, you have to change its bind address. Note that this can be a security problem, because your database can be accessed by others computers than your own. Skip this step if the applications which require mysql are running on the same machine.

#sudo gedit /etc/mysql/my.cnf
and change the line:
bind-address           = localhost
to your own internal ip address e.g. 192.150.1.34
bind-address           = 192.150.1.34
If your ip address is dynamic you can also comment out the bind-address line and it will default to your current ip.

If you try to connect without changing the bind-address you will receive a “Can not connect to mysql error 10061“.
You might have to go through the MySQL commands from a proper reference to create a user and play with the database.

Once you are done with all this, to verify that Apache and mysql are running just nmap your own system and if you’ve done everything right you will see something like this.

#nmap localhost

Starting Nmap 4.76 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2009-11-30 13:00 IST
Warning: Hostname localhost resolves to 2 IPs. Using 127.0.0.1.
Interesting ports on localhost (127.0.0.1):
Not shown: 997 closed ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
80/tcp   open  http
631/tcp  open  ipp
3306/tcp open  mysql

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.12 seconds

I got a lot of help from the Ubuntu forums, a special thanks to all the guys who ask questions and to the guys who answer those.

It goes like this……….

SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK

1‘st shake: The machine which wants to establish the connection or ‘Host-A’ sends a TCP SYNchronise packet to the machine that has to be communicated with or in our case it is ‘Host-B’.
2‘nd shake: On recieving the Host-A’s SYN packet Host-B sends a SYNchronise-ACKnowledgement packet if the connection is possible.
3‘rd  and the final shake: On receiving the SYN-ACK Host-A sends an ACKnowledgement back to Host-B and the connection is established.

If the communication is complete any one of the Host will send a FINish packet to the other host signaling the end of communication and the connection will be terminated sucesfully.
On recieving the SYN packet in the second step, If Host-B is not ready or if the port is closed or if the connection is not possible in one way or the other, Host-B sends a RST packet to terminate the connection witout establishing it completely.
Refer a good TCP/IP text for further info.

Better now or Never. Thats why Now.