My phone

There was a time when I had changed mobiles a number of times in a single year. I was in college and stupid and thought that I was keeping up with the current trend. Then a time came when I felt grown up and stopped. Well I have been with my Nokia N73M since then and after two and half long years the mobile finally died on me. I used one of my friend's phone for a while and then decided that I should go and get a phone for myself.

After doing a lot of research on the net and checking a hell lot of reviews here is what I had decided:

1. I want a mobile with Dynamic OS preferably with a touch screen interface as it is much much better than the earlier inconvenient models(remember Nokia 7700?)
2. Now to satisfy the above condition I had only a handful of options from the current market namely, Symbian OS phones, WinMo OS phones, Android and iPhones.
3. I want a decent camera with a decent video recording on the phone. Wi-Fi is needed.
4. I dont want a ridiculously expensive mobile which will cost me an arm and a leg.

So after checking all these stats above I had a very few options. HTC viva, HTC touch 3G, Nokia 5800 XM, LG KM900 Arena, Samsung S8300 ultraTouch(no Wi-Fi), HTC dream G1

So after breaking my head on the internet and watching a marathon of reviews, I councluded to Nokia 5800XM. It pretty much met all my requirement. I can understand that the camera specifications are less compared to the Arena and the ultraTouch but I have been using Symbian phone before and with that I knew I would feel right at home with the 5800. I honestly dont think that anyone who has serious interest in photography would like to buy phone for photography no matter how many megapixels they can churn out. And trust me its not sour grapes. Plus in India now there is this offer where you buy a 5800XM and you get a sennheiser headset free with the handset. Sweet deal considering that the sennheiser headsets are really nice. The one they gave free along with the handset is not the top of the crop but definitely very very nice. I am not an audiophile but I sure know music quality. This phone also comes loaded with Wi-Fi and a bunch of music which I probably will never listen in my life. Anyway they do give 8GB of memory card in the phone. Thats just enough for my use. I dont listen to music all the time but I do like to listen to music at times and its good that I can carry my favorite songs with me everywhere and also fit in a few movies.

Overall I feel the phone is pretty good if you want a standard touch screen phone. I had also checked the LG cookie and Samsung Star they had the 3D window view like in HTC touch however they come with a major drawback due to their propreitary headphone jack and OS. Same goes for the S8300 and the Arena. Their touch screen looks really fancy. They swivel and swing and you can put widgets on the screen. But the flexibility of installing different types of software for different purpose is very limited. I was really disappointed to see that Sony Ericsson were not providing any competition to the Nokia 5800 XM. They do not have any phones in that price range with similar features. HTC were good options too as their touchflo interface is really smooth and silky but the thought of Windows Mobile kind of put me off. Nonetheless the HTC touch HD is a wonderful mobile for whoever can afford it(I can't). Then there was Apple iPhone which is a wonderful phone as per some people but feel it is way too overpriced for the features it offers, but more about it later.

Anyway, the bottomline is that I have a new phone and I am excited. I am off to play with my new toy.....

Does this even happen

Today afternoon I experienced a strange incident. One of my friend, did not get recruited to a company because she is pregnant. The strange part was that there were a few rounds of interview and after the last round yesterday they informed that she I was not aware of the fact that companies can reject a candidate because of maternity issues.

Now under The Maternity Benefits Act 1961 Bare Act, it is stated that

(1) No employer shall knowingly employ a woman in any establishment during the six weeks immediately following the day of her delivery or her miscarriage.

(2) No woman shall work in any establishment during the six weeks immediately following the day of her delivery or her miscarriage.

(3) Without prejudice to the provisions of section 6, no pregnant woman shall, on a request being made by her in this behalf, be required by her employer to do during the period specified in subsection (4) any work which is of an arduous nature or which involves long hours o standing, or which is of an arduous nature or which involves long hours of standing, or which in any way is likely to interfere with her pregnancy or the normal development of the foetus, or is likely to cause her miscarriage or otherwise to adversely affect her health.

(4) The period referred to in sub-section (3) shall be -

(a) the period of one month immediately preceding the period of six weeks, before the date of her expected delivery;

(b) any period during the said period of six weeks for which the pregnant woman does not avail of leave of absence under section 6.

Now considering the highlighted line above, the friend of mine that I mentioned was not withing 6 weeks away from delivery date. So my question is that does this company(Transworks a.k.a. Aditya Birla Minacs) has the right to just deny employment to a woman because of her maternity condition?

I mean there are strict laws in US that states that this is discrimination. Is there any law/amendment in India that says likewise? A clause from US law

Pregnancy Discrimination

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act is an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions constitutes unlawful sex discrimination under Title VII, which covers employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments. Title VII also applies to employment agencies and to labor organizations, as well as to the federal government. Women who are pregnant or affected by related conditions must be treated in the same manner as other applicants or employees with similar abilities or limitations.

Title VII's pregnancy-related protections include:

* Hiring

An employer cannot refuse to hire a pregnant woman because of her pregnancy, because of a pregnancy-related condition or because of the prejudices of co-workers, clients, or customers.

Play Asia

I had ordered a game from play-Asia website on 9th February. Reached today. Must say that i am impressed with the shipment time. I don't know whom to give the credit for it. Play-Asia, Chinese postal service or the Indian post. Today is 19th February. Taking the weekends in consideration, the time taken for the package to reach me is 8 days. This is by far the best international service that i have received so far.

It just makes more sense to order the games from play-Asia anyway because there is no extra charge for shipment of game CD/DVD. Moreover the game prices are cheaper than in India. I went searching for this game "Assassins Creed" in Bangalore and could not get it from the big game shops in Brigade road. I looked it up online from EBay. The price for this game from the online shops of the EBay merchants is Rs. 2700-Rs.3500 plus taxes and shipping charges. Then I checked play-Asia. The price there was $24.90(Rs. 1275). Since its from another country I was a little skeptical at first about ordering from them as the Indian custom office can be pain in the ass at times. But I must now say that I will be ordering all my games from play-Asia from now on. EBay sellers you suck!!! trying to rip off people like that. If I can get the game for less than Rs.1300 then so can you suckers!!

Anyway so much of eBay bashing for the day. I am off to 1911 AD.