After Nano, TATAs are aiming high by collaborating with MDI to manufacture AIR POWERED cars. Yes you heard it right. The engines of this new model will be powered by compressed air. According to this press release by TATA Motors. They are getting into an agreement with MDI to refine the technology and license it to use in India. So air powered car is not very far away. From the press release

The MDI Group is headed by Mr. Guy Negre, who founded the company in the 1990s in pursuit of his dream to pioneer an engine using just compressed air as fuel – which may be the ultimate environment-friendly engine yet. Besides, the engine is efficient, cost-effective, scalable, and capable of other applications like power generation.

One of the product of MDI is Minicat. Its a small car with looks of Reva  But it is as big as Nano with three passenger seats and boot for luggage. Some more details of it taken from MDI.

With the MiniCATs, all pollution is completely eliminated in urban areas by using the 100% Compressed Air operating mode.

- The car has a built-in on-board system that can be simply plugging into a mains power outlet to refill the tanks with compressed air. The moto-alternator reverses the process which compresses the air and fills up the tanks. The compressed air reserves are thus refilled by using the national power grid. Refilling time for the MiniCATs is about five and a half hours using a 230V outlet. This is the most important advantage of the MDI Technology.
- Compressed Air Storage System is simple and MDI is planning to install a network of such “Filling Stations” where vehicles can be refilled, in three minutes, by connecting the Car Tanks to the outlet from the Storage System.

Looks like TATAs have great ambition of providing cheap and environmental friendly vehicles. I am not sure how their rivals will react. But for sure I will be happy to buy one.

Here are the two greatest speeches by Subash Chandra Bose in his own voice. The first one was given by Subash representing India at Great East Asia Conference at Tokoyo. Japan. Where he speaks about martyrdom and future of India and Asia.

Subash at Great East Asia Conf mp3 download
The second one is the final war cry by Subash given to INA at Singapore.

Subash’s War Cry - mp3 download

• “We can not make a Rs one lakh car. Our engineers have said they cannot do it.” - Shinzo Nakanishi, MD Maruthi Suzuki India
• “Since, a promise is a promise the standard dealer version will cost Rs 1 lakh” - Ratan Tata releasing the Nano to the world
• An official of Hyundai Motors said “We definitely see it as impacting our sales” he said in halting English, preferring to maintain anonymity
• “I observed families riding on two-wheelers — the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby. It led me to wonder whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for such a family.
  Tata Motors’ engineers and designers gave their all for about four years to realise this goal. Today, we indeed have a People’s Car, which is affordable and yet built to meet safety requirements and emission norms, to be fuel efficient and low on emissions. We are happy to present the People’s Car to India and we hope it brings the joy, pride and utility of owning a car to many families who need personal mobility,” - Ratan Tata releasing Nano to world
• “I am having nightmares” - Chief U.N. climate scientist Rajendra Pachauri. Nobel Peace Prize winner. Talking about TATA 1 lakh car
• “Pachauri will not have a nightmare and Sunita Narain can also sleep” - Tata talking about emission standards
• “My skepticism about the Tata car is not about Tata’s ability to put it together but to put it together at the price of Rs 1 lakh. It is not fair to say that Rs 1 lakh is the ex-factory price — our two-stroke directly injected three wheeler, which is nowhere close to a car, costs close to Rs 1 lakh to the customer. I still haven’t heard them (the Tatas) say it will be profitable.” - Rajiv Bajaj of Bajaj Auto
• “It is a proud moment for India. It demonstrates India’s technological and entrepreneurial ability. The car will help people move from two-wheeler to four-wheeler and it will leap-frog the two-wheeler,” It fulfills the need of the common Indian who aspires to move from a two-wheeler to a four-wheeler“- Kamal Nath. Minister of Commerce. Govt Of India
• ” It is a good car but we need to test it,” “Only the Tata’s can explain how they managed to achieve it.” - Jagdish Khattar, former chairman and managing director of Maruti Udyog
  
• “The key thing, therefore, is not the price of the car but the running cost” - Rajiv Bajaj of bajaj Auto
  
• “I think it is a great thing for India because mobility is giving new opportunities. I hope Tata is driving a great success with the Rs one lakh car, but it is not our plan.” - Thomas Kuehl SkodaAuto India Board Member
• “The Rs one lakh car is a good decision and a good intention, but as far as Volkswagen is concerned producing a Rs one lakh car is a pure no because meeting the quality standards and safety is not feasible at all in such a model” - Andreas Prinz Volkswagen Group Sales India Managing Director (Passenger Cars)
  
• “It is fantastic, outstanding engineering. It helps redefine the sector in the country. It has established new grounds.” - Venu Srinivasab MD TVS
  
• “The more, the merrier. Fundamentals of the two-wheeler industry are strong and Rs one lakh car is not something which we are worried about.” - Anil Dua, VP Sales and
  Marketing, Hero Honda Motors
  
• “In an ideal world, after the small car has been launched and is successful, that would be a nice time for me to exit,” -Ratan Tata
  
• “Every car has its own buyers and I am sure this car would also have its set of customers, but this segment does not excite us.” - Karl Slym GM President and Managing Director
  
• “The 1-lakh rupee car is not going to impact our potential customers. Our customers would buy our products for the sheer joy of riding.” - P.Sam Head Sales. Yamaha
  
• “In the marketplace, the best wins. I am quite willing to fight in the marketplace. I urge all players to fight in the market” - Ratan Tata
• “The best thing is that they have kept the price at levels promised at concept stage. It is good to look at. I can’t say about the driving experience as I have not taken a trial.” - Ramesh Suri, Chairman, Subros
• “I think it’s a moment of history and I’m delighted an Indian company is leading the way.“ - Anand Mahindra of Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd
• “I congratulate Tata. He has delivered what he promised.” - Onkar Kanvar Apollo Tyres

Source: TV/Offline papers/Online papers/Magazine etc. Let me know if I quoted you wrong.

I just wish Ratan Tata, a happy retirement.

Peoples President ( Yes he is still ) Abdul Kalam will start blogging very soon. From long time I had this wish of Dr APJ Kalam blogging. A week back I wrote him an email

On 12/14/07, Thejesh GN wrote:
Dear Kalam ji,
I am so glad that you are spreading the good news using your website and Billion Beats. But Billion Beats looks very formal and it is difficult for the readers to reply to the article and as well meeting somebody else with the same passion.

It would be great if you start blogging. It will be simple blog where you just have to put your ideas. This will help us to reply to the post in the form of comment and also debate with like minded people by commenting.You could blog once a week if time is a big constraint.
Wishing you all the best and expecting your blog post.
Jai Hind,
Thejesh GN

After a week I got reply this from Ponraj webmaster of Abdul Kalam’s official site.
Read the rest of this entry »

I have a dozen of domain names which I bought from godaddy. All of them have been easy and clean transactions. But this time I wanted a .in domain for filmcamp which is not sold by godaddy. I thought either sify or rediff will be good. I settled for rediff as it was much cheaper. I happily paid Rs.640 and went to sleep after I got a mail that the transaction is in progress.

In the morning I was eager to map it to my hosting service. I tried logging into to rediff to see if I can access the domain records. There was no clue! Then saw the order it showed “Delivery Status = Pending”. I was not sure what it meant, All I bought was a domain name. I did a whois search to see that it showed nothing. I was lucky. I went to Name.Com and bought the filmcamp.in domain again. Can you imagine buying a domain second time? If they can’t handle a domain purchase properly how will they handle business emails? I feel sad for them. God save their business customers. BTW Name.com was cheaper than Rediff and I could use paypal.

Then I thought may be rediff will send my money back in a day or two. But it didn’t happen. Then I became busy and didnt think about my 640 rupees. Today I logged into rediff to see the status. Here it is.

They still think they can get the domain for me. Idiots. I sent a mail today to customer service. (They don’t have a toll free number. They just have one land line number of std code 022.) Lets see what happens.

But one thing for sure I am not going to buy anything from Rediff. It looks like Sify is no better than Rediff.