I had heard about it as the train through ghats, bridges, tunnels and waterfalls. It was stopped due to gauge modification for several years. Recently they opened the track again but only for night train. When I got to know they have a day train *now* , it was on my list. But I didn’t know it was going to happen so soon. Well it happened and I was super excited and was expecting a lot. I tried to sleeper class but couldn’t get so settled for 3 tier AC. I knew its a waste, as I was planning to spend the whole day near the door. The train journey is about 10hrs. It starts at 8:40 am from Mangalore and reaches Yashwanthapur by 7pm. This whole ten hour journey is like toy train ride in Darjeeling.
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As part of CSR, I was introduced to UbuntuAtWork.org, in their own words
Ubuntu at Work is a global social networking community that connects women micro entrepreneurs across the developing world with coaches and collaborators around the world who offer them encouragement and support to develop sound business ideas, funding assistance, and networking resources to pursue their entrepreneurial aspirations.
It looked very interesting for me as both social media and social entrepreneurship are my biggest interests. I started as a regular volunteer visiting women at their home and trying to understand their business model, financial status etc.

But in recent times my work involved lot of traveling, I shifted my focus to other place “The Web”. For UbuntuAtWork web is their second home. We tried to make it is as simple and social as possible. I choose WordPress as the platform. There are many reasons for not selecting it but my biggest reason to select was a. user friendliness and b. community. Today I am happy. The community helped me to integrate twitter, facebook, shopping cart(We are already trying to sell some interesting stuff made by women) with wordpress. The site is as such under continuous construction (Its a living site and not create and forget it, kind of website), I keep tweaking it everyday. I know there are so many things that I can do. I am waiting for buddypress to stabilize, so I can add more social features. There are so many other things in my mind which I am not able to implement as I am traveling. In the mean time suggest me that can make it social and viral.

Working with UbuntuAtWork has been fulfilling. I have met many interesting people, thanks to Vibha. She makes sure to introduce at least two of her friends every week. As I know more people my interest in social media and entrepreneurship keeps growing. One day I might become one!

BTW you can also help one of us at UbuntuAtWork to go to BlogWorld. It just needs a click and doesn’t even need an email :)

If you are interested in volunteering. Please leave a comment. One of us will send you the welcome kit.

Yeah my watch shows 09/09/09 09:09, post because its cool :)
I was at Mangalore bus station after dropping Zaiki at Railway station.

Quoting TOI “With IT firms buffeted by today’s turbulent times, the government has reached out a helping hand. Reciprocating their needs, it has exempted IT/ITES and software establishments from the provisions of Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act 1946 (Central Act 20 of 1946)”

I am not sure what is the rational behind suspending a rule. Labor laws are “rights of working class” (all of us). Suspending rights for any amount of period means we are in the state of emergency.

The rules are suspended only for IT/ITES and software establishments to help them sustain during recession. Why suspend laws to help fight recession? No other country in the world has suspended laws to help industry to fight the recession? Who took this decision? Who were part of this decision making? Did they have discussion before taking this step? If yes, did it include all the concerned parties and people? Who represented us^*, people who actually are effected by this suspension?

According to me, you cant suspend a law by the request of a sector of Industry with out public discussion. If you need any labor rule reforms. It should be done after full public discussion and by the recommendation of a committee which represents all the concerned parties. The present decision is completely irrational. Not sure what do you think. I, personally feel my^* rights have been violated.

I also see that none of the mainstream media wrote anything *big* on this, not very surprising.

^*Me and Us as in middle class IT engineer.