fingerprints and technology

Biometrics has seen some major advancements in the last 10 years. Finger printing and other techniques are adopted by various countries to collect the information of their citizens and the visitors.

India's UID (Unique identification Program) is supposed to be the largest deployment of the biometrics solution. This program will provide an unique ID card (called Aadhar) to approx. 1.2 billion people!. Hats off to the folks who conceived idea and building the solution.

Nandan Nilekani, who spearheaded the UID got significant recognition from the Congress party, which has nominated him to contest in the upcoming parliamentary elections during April 2014. 

Check out the links; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics and http://onin.com/fp/fphistory.html for more information.

Living in Melbourne

Melbourne is one of the most active and vibrant cities to live. The city is a melting pot of ethnic cultures and food and nice & friendly people. Melbourne CBD ( central business district) / is a typical downtown with the right mix of high rise towers, companies with large offices, colleges, hospitals, specialty restaurants and small businesses. There is a good ethnic mix of immigrants from Asia, Europe and other places.

Melbourne has an excellent public transport system with a combination of buses, trams and suburban trains. The central district and the neighborhood suburbs are connected by trams that traverse through busy roads. The public transport system can be accessed with one access card called "Myki". Though it takes a while to understand "Myki", it is nevertheless very convenient to use.

The downtown or the central district is active through out the year. There are some specialty and regular restaurants that specialize in Italian, geek, Asian and Indian cuisines. The downtown is usually busy, thanks to the nearby universities and the other educational institutes. Formal dress code is almost the norm in the CBD. As the afternoon & the evening rolls in, the attention shifts to entertainment. Scores of street entertainers line up the busy river walks, key spots and demonstrate their special skills. There are a number of cool pubs and dining options in the city. "BYOB" - Bring your own bottle: is available in majority of the restaurants. They charge a small corking ( or opening) fees to cover the service.

Experience Australia

It has been long time since my last blog post, so happy to be writing again!. The following is the summary of my experience of living in Australia close to one year.

Renting an apartment
Finding a place to live took more time & energy than I initially thought. I realized quickly that the real estate rentals worked completely different than the US and India. In Australia, apartment rental amount is calculated weekly, but paid monthly. The rentals are astronomically high in cities like Sydney and Melbourne. The rentals (both renting and subsequent monthly payments, operational support) are managed by the real estate companies.
1. One needs to  view multiple websites, make appointments with the real estate companies to "view" the apartments. The properties are open for "viewing" for a very short window like 15 minutes on a wednesday or the week ends. Walk-in viewing is welcome but the challenge is to reach the place within that short period of time. key website; http://www.realestate.com.au; http://gumtree.com.au
2. The subsequent paper work takes a lot of time. It is common for the folks to apply concurrently for 4-5 properties
3. Finally when the application is approved, the apartment is ready for occupation. The apartment is mostly equipped with a electric or gas stove. The tenant has to procure the rest of the appliances :(. But there is a very good value chain of small retailers who sell used appliances and can even home deliver.

Some common experiences from self and my colleagues;

• Taking time off from office and head to the appointment, only to figure out you missed it by few minutes and the agent saying sorry..time up
• The attitude of the real estate agents 
• Too much use of the calculator to figure out the monthly amount
• Thoughts of unknown expenses in buying the appliances...
• Unable to view apartments after 5pm on week days or sometimes even Sunday.

In a nutshell, it is a unique experience and I somehow enjoyed going through this exercise!