Faking News » Business

Infosys announces three-hour break for freshers to discuss CAT scores

Pagal Patrakar — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:59:16 +0000

Bangalore. Employees of software company Infosys who had joined the company last year straight out of their colleges, were pleasantly shocked to see a three-hour break given to them for discussing CAT scores and MBA admissions. The decision was taken after the HR employees noticed freshers, and other still-young employees, discussing the same today morning instead of paying attention to work. CAT scores were announced last midnight.

“All of them were coming up with numbers between 80 to 100. Initially I thought some cricket match was going on and they were discussing runs scored by Tendulkar, but soon I realized that they were discussing their CAT percentiles,” Hari Sadhu, HR manager in the Bangalore office told Faking News.

The mood at the office is not expected to change for the next couple of days, IT experts believe.

Taking cognizance of the fact that this was a waste of working hours, HR department thought of sending a memo asking the employees to desist from such unproductive acts. However they soon realized that this could turn the freshers into pagal guys.

“Many were already upset with poor percentiles, and those who had fared better were trying not to read any SMS jokes or email forwards, lest their smiles and laughter is misinterpreted as jeering and presumptuous by others,” Hari described the scenes he witnessed this morning.

After an emergency round of meeting, the HR department came up with the solution to provide the CAT stricken employees a three hour break where they could discuss their lives and careers. An internal communication was sent to all the employees to take a break and have a chit chat.

The three-hour break started at 3PM today after employees were asked to fill in details like CAT percentile, the number of CAT attempts, and employee ID to get into the CAT discussion room.

HR department denied that the data will be used during performance appraisal and those, who had fared horribly even after three attempts, would be marked “least concern” on the attrition meter.

“This is just a normal data collection process,” Hari Sadhu claimed, “We are trying to help our boys.”

“They will just need to come to the office on Saturday and compensate the company for the lost hours,” He offered the helping hand.

Vicks launches caste-based inhalers, as cold affects people based on their caste

Pagal Patrakar — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 05:51:17 +0000

Mumbai. After the path-breaking discovery by the Indian parliament, which established beyond doubt that corruption affected people based on their ethnic roots, a team of doctors have concluded that the ill effects of common cold too were sensitive to a person’s caste and religion.

Researchers have found out that if a Brahmin, Muslim, Yadav, and Paswan were left exposed to the same cold weather conditions, they will develop different health complications and hence they required different levels of treatments. Based on this finding, Vicks, the leading manufacturer of cough-and-cold over-the-counter medicines, has launched caste based VapoRubs, throat lozenges, and inhalers.

Different castes need different remedies

“All these years we thought that corruption affected every person, every aam aadmi, in the same way, but thankfully our honorable leaders opened our eyes and made us realize that it was a myth,” Dr. Anu Hazarika, the lead researcher told Faking News.

The eye-opening realization dawned upon Dr. Anu and her team once the parliament agreed to introduce caste and community based reservations in Lokpal, the proposed anti-corruption body.

“We always thought that crime and corruption spared no one and made no distinctions among the victims,” Dr. Anu said, “But we were wrong, the parliament proved us wrong; and the parliament is supreme in our democracy.”

After crime and corruption were connected with caste and community by the council of MPs, Dr. Anu started looking for more ‘C’s and zeroed upon “common cold”, which had two Cs in it. To her bewilderment, she realized that common cold too was pretty casteist and communal in nature.

“A Brahmin was less vulnerable to common cold than a Yadav if both were made to stand naked in the same freezing environment,” Dr. Anu shared her findings, “and that’s why a Brahmin didn’t need as much Oxymetazoline dosage as a Yadav. We were definitely doing it the wrong way by prescribing the same dosage to every man suffering from common cold effects such as nasal congestion.”

“What we need right now are caste and religion based medicines,” she concluded.

When Faking News reporter tried to reason that maybe the different effect of same cold weather condition on people belonging to different communities were due to their financial condition and personal lifestyle, Dr. Anu argued that one didn’t need to take such a “complex” view of a situation that can be easily explained in terms of one’s caste.

“Let’s keep it simple; let’s have quota in cold-and-cough medicines,” she suggested.

While her research is still being debated by the doctors, sociologists, lawyers, and twitter users, Vicks has decided to launch such caste specific medicines by the next week. Proctor & Gamble, the company owning the Vicks brand, has justified the move.

“It reflects the sense of the house and the nation,” a representative of the company said, “If there is any objection from the scientific community, we hope the parliament will pass a law allowing sale of such caste based medicines. Unlike Anna Hazare, we have full faith in our MPs.”

Rats welcome Food Security Bill in anticipation of rotten grains

Pagal Patrakar — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:45:41 +0000

New Delhi. With Food Security Bill cleared by the union cabinet, millions of rats living in and around FCI godowns have gone on a reproduction spree in anticipation of free grains that will be left rotting by the government agencies for the lack of robust public distribution system in the country.

Rats are confident that their coming generations will not die of hunger as there would be enough grains lying unused in the warehouses and railway stations.

Mikki, along with many other rats, thinks now his days of penury and hunger are over

“I have finally decided to marry my longtime girlfriend and have at least two dozen little mice by the next parliament session,” Mikki, a brown rat living below an FCI (Food Corporation of India) godown in East Delhi told Faking News.

Mikki got the news while chewing on the morning newspaper yesterday where he got the news about Food Security Bill getting nod of the cabinet. Immediately, he tore off the paper and went to the burrow of Mini, his girlfriend, and showed the piece of paper to Mini’s father.

“I told him that we’d have enough grains to feed our next seven generations,” Mikki recalled how he convinced his would-be father-in-law, who asked for the whole newspaper and scanned through the whole newspaper to find out if Mamata Banerjee was opposed to the idea.

“Once he was convinced that Mamatadi was not against the Food Security Bill, he agreed to marry off Mini to me!” a visibly happy and hopeful Mikki thanked Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for securing the future of his family.

However, experts warn that the happiness of Mikki might be short-lived as many human beings were also planning to benefit from the Food Security Bill.

“Thieves and black-marketers have already started renegotiating the terms of the engagement with the officials to hoard away the PDS grains, and it might not leave much for these poor rats,” an expert pointed out.

(inspired by this Facebook status update by Prof. Anil Gupta of IIM Ahmedabad)

NRI uncles back in demand as Dollar reaches record levels

Guest Patrakar — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:35:38 +0000

New Delhi. The Indian Rupee reached a record low of Rs 53.75 to a US Dollar today, continuing an unprecedented run over the past few weeks. While the markets welcomed the volatility and Gujarati traders made crores on trading bets, there has been another welcome side-effect of this sudden fall in the Rupee’s value.

The NRIs are suddenly back in demand, now that their dollars translate to more rupees. From relatives to luxury brands, everybody wants a slice of the NRI action. N Srinivas Reddy wrote in to Faking News from Seattle, where he works for Microsoft:

The new rupee symbol was supposed to give it strength

“It is unbelievable. The last time I went to India I carried a pack of Ferrero Rocher chocolates. When my cousins saw the box, they merely rolled their eyes and offered me the tastier, imported Toblerone chocolates they had bought from the grocery shop down the street. I cried myself to sleep that night and didn’t go to India for the last five years. Today I got a call from my sister who was asking when I am coming next. She even added coyly, ‘don’t forget those yummy chocolates.’ I feel so special! This time I’ll carry Godiva.”

Shopkeepers and beggars in Delhi’s Janpath market too have changed their strategy with US Dollar getting dearer. Not only are they luring the easily identifiable NRIs (wearing expensive shades, a bottle of mineral water in the hands, men wearing shorts, women with funny haircuts, and a horde of scruffy beggar kids chasing them around), they are now accepting dollar bills.

“Earlier they weren’t worth the trouble with cops and Western Union, but now we easily get 40 rupees for a dollar after ‘cuts’. Enough to get two Pizza McPuffs from Mc Donalds,” said Raghubeer, a beggar kid, flashing his US dollar.

Raghubeer claimed that NRIs have started giving dollars to beggars after Paris Hilton did the same earlier this year.

A security guard manning the Delhi’s T3 terminal’s arrival gates had the last word: “Over the last few weeks, all international flights are running full. They come with bags full of gifts, and return with household supplies.”

“Arbitrage”, he added knowledgably.

“You should see the warm welcomes they get these days. Paisa bolta hai saab (it’s all about the money).”

He looks away woefully, perhaps wishing he had sent his brother to work at Atlanta airport when they had the chance 6 years back.

While things do look rosy for NRIs in India, there have been reports of Indian bodyshoppers blocking salary increments for desi folks back in the US, attributing it to the strong dollar. Allegedly, some firms have been quoted as telling employees that the 14% rise in dollar value translates into a much larger pay raise than what they would get otherwise.

(written by AmreekanDesi, who blogs here)

Rahul Dravid haggles with Auto driver, misses IPL match

Fake Walmart store discovered in Ulhasnagar during anti-FDI protests

Ashfaque Anees — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:49:54 +0000

Mumbai. In an astonishing discovery, a totally fake desi Walmart store was uncovered at Ulhasnagar, an “enterprising” suburb of Mumbai.

In an irony of fate, the fake store was discovered by BJP workers who had actually gone to tear it down thinking it to be the American version. The black flags turned white with shock when they discovered that the desi Walmart belonged to the USA – not the United States of America but the Ulhasnagar Sindhi Association.

One of the fake Walmart shops that totally confused the anti-FDI protestors

Coincidentally the founder of the desi Walmart is our desi Sam Walton – Sameer Wassan, president of a breakaway faction of the USA (Ulhasnagar Sindhi Association). Further shocking was when Sameer revealed that the desi Walmart was indeed started by FDI.

“No no, not Foreign Direct Investment,” he clarified. The FDI in question was Footpath Dealers of India, a breakaway faction of the USA that sold goods on the footpath.

Sam (Sameer, as he is locally known) clarified that the FDI (Footpath Dealers of India) members were repeatedly bullied by the Kirana shops to vacate the footpaths, after which they formed the desi Walmart to teach the bullies a lesson.

“Actually the credit goes to my son Chota Wassan (no phonetic matches please),” said a gleeful Sam Wassan, “It was he who googled for Jobs when he was kicked out of his footpath space. The word Jobs was mistaken for Steve Jobs and the search led him to the ‘fake Apple Stores in China’, and lo and behold, the seeds of the desi Walmart were sown in Ulhasnagar!”

When asked if he wasn’t bothered by a backlash from the real Walmart that could open its store in India post FDI (Foreign Direct Investment), Sam casually shrugged the concern: “No Way! In fact, our sourcing is so cheap that we have a proposal from the real Walmart to supply them goods once they set foot in India.”

Meanwhile the red faced BJP workers still maintain that they weren’t fooled as the desi Walmart did affect the business of Kirana shops, however, they returned silently for the fear of losing the footpath vote bank.

An equally confused Congress has asked the Prime Minister to comment on the issue, and hence we guess we won’t be hearing from them for some time.

As for the desi fake Walmart, it goes on unhindered just like the average Indian – FDI or no FDI.

(written by @Ashfaque_Anees)

Animals outraged as new Benetton ad shows dog kissing cat

Pagal Patrakar — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 07:35:36 +0000

The latest UnHate ad poster released by Benetton

Mumbai. In a strong indication that shows animals catching up with the human beings on the evolution front, a group of cats and dogs have lodged strong protest against an ad released by Benetton, which shows a dog and a cat kissing each other. The latest ad released by the clothing retail company is part of its latest UnHate campaign, which had earlier shown world leaders kissing each other.

“What the mew is this,” Pussy Patrick, global leader of cats protested, “The ad shows no sensitivity towards feline feelings and mocks our dignity. Cats can’t tolerate such denigration and we will do everything to stop this nonsense, which is aimed at selling a few clothes.”

The ad shows a black cat being kissed by a brown dog in a romantic and passionate way. Both cats and dogs maintain that this is completely untrue depiction of the relationship that the two animal families enjoy and it hurts their sentiments.

“We fucking hate cats,” a dog barking outside Faking News office said, “What kind of joke is this by human beings on us? If they think they can play with our sentiments just by giving us a few breads and bones, then they are mistaken. This is not done! Sadda Haq, Aithe Rakh!”

Representatives of cats and dogs are planning legal action against Benetton if the company fails to remove the ad and apologize for their tasteless act. Earlier, Benetton was forced to remove a similar ad that showed Pope and an Imaam kissing each other.

“They will have to do the same with this ad too. Else outraged cats will infest all Benetton showrooms and drop poop all over, and we will not be responsible for that,” Patrick Pussy warned of the consequences. A group of dogs too have threatened bite everyone who wears Benetton brand of clothes.

Benetton has not yet responded to the complaints or threats by the animals. Faking News tried to contact the top management but a source revealed that all of them were busy checking sales figure and media mentions in the last few days. However, a company spokesman claimed that they were disappointed with the reaction of the animals.

“We came up this ad as we thought human beings were being sissy in their reaction, but even the animals have disappointed us,” the spokesman said, “Maybe we will release an ad showing two flowers kissing each other. That should be pretty non-controversial.”

“Of course not, our motive is to spread the message of love and tolerance,” the company spokesman reiterated when asked if this was just a marketing gimmick to push up sales.

Satyam’s Ramalinga Raju appointed as India’s new CAG

Pagal Patrakar — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 06:28:14 +0000

New Delhi. A week after he was released on bail, former Satyam Computers founder-chairman Ramalinga Raju has been appointed the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Raju will take over as the new CAG with immediate effect and review all the earlier reports of the outgoing CAG Vinod Rai.

“We need someone like Sri Ramalinga Raju as CAG,” union minister Kapil Sibal announced the new appointment, “Raju could create wealth where none existed. He could bring cash in excess of what could have been counted. He could make Satyam earn interests on NPAs, and he could write off huge liabilities. Such an acumen and ability is not to be found easily in men, and India could benefit from his experiences in these troubled times.”

He’s back in business

It should be noted that Raju had confessed to doing such financial and accounting jugglery in January 2009, after which he resigned and was subsequently arrested on charges of fraud.

Kapil Sibal, who has often argued that CAG had erred in calculating the losses due to the 2G spectrum allocation process, claimed that Raju would prove to be a better CAG.

“People laughed at my zero-loss theory, but I’m sure the new CAG can show that the government of India actually benefited from the 2G spectrum scam,” he hoped.

Within an hour of his appointment, Ramalinga Raju joined office and asked for all the CAG reports related to the 2G scam, CWG scam, Adarsh scam, etc. to be tabled before him. Raju didn’t take any oath of secrecy or transparency on his appointment, as this process was deemed to be irrelevant.

Stock Markets reacted positively and BSE jumped over 420 points as soon as the news was broken about Ramalinga Raju’s new role. Shares of telecom and real estate companies were the biggest gainers as stocks continued the upward trend the whole day.

“Ramalinga can kill the Ravana of inflation with his divine prowess. I guess the UPA government has finally taken a market-friendly decision,” stock broker Harshad Maytas welcomed the development and wished that Raju was roped in for a bigger role in corporate affairs in India.

There were some disapproving voices too in the corporate world, who thought that Ramalinga Raju was guilty of unfair practices and a symbol of bad corporate governance. However, no one was willing to comment on record as they feared Congress leader Digvijay Singh raising question marks over their own practices and ethical behavior.

(originally written for and published in English daily DNA)

Apple announces free IIPM degree with every purchase of laptop

Pagal Patrakar — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:56:58 +0000

Mumbai. In its first major marketing initiative after Steve Jobs’ death, Apple Inc. has announced that it will give away free IIPM degrees with its MacBook brand of laptops in India. These special laptops are priced at 5 lakhs rupees each and will come with a pre-installed IIPM degree that a buyer can print after he successfully turns the laptop on. Apple has named these laptops iDare.

“Dare to think beyond computing,” IIPM Dean Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri announced in a joint press conference with Apple India representatives. iDare will be available in markets from 18^th November when Common Admission Test (CAT) by IIMs ends, so that all those who might have screwed CAT can get a second chance.

The new laptop that gives free degrees

However, a footnote (mentioned in small sized font) in the press release clarified that the free (mentioned in capital letters) IIPM degrees were not MBA degrees, let alone a UGC approved one. iDare – discover the Apple in you – buyers will get a Certificate in Mac Operations (CMO) instead.

When asked about the relevance and career prospects of such certificates, Faking News correspondent was legally warned against asking such distressing and defamatory questions.

“It will help Apple give thorns to competition,” an Apple representative explained why the US based computer electronics company decided to partner with IIPM, “After Steve Jobs, we were at loss to come up with innovative ideas, and we thought this was pretty much innovative. Other laptops are given free with IIPM degree, while we are giving away free IIPM degrees with laptops!”

Marketing experts believe that the coming together of two popular and reputed brands in India was long overdue as there were indeed some similarities between the two.

“They keep out churning the same products with minor changes, but market it as some brand new stuff, their products help a person gain confidence to strut around in the world, and both of them sue,” a marketing expert from Silchar, Assam, argued.

Chinese guns rejected by Pakistan being sold off as Diwali toys in India

Pagal Patrakar — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:33:49 +0000

New Delhi. Intelligence agencies have concluded that Chinese toy guns and bombs, which are being sold as Diwali firecrackers, are actually defective ammunitions that were rejected by the Pakistani army while buying war equipment from China with US aid money. Delhi police had earlier banned such toy guns, but now an inquiry has been ordered to find out how India ended up buying these substandard firearms disguised as firecrackers.

“It’s not a secret that Pakistan buys low cost arms and ammunitions from China with the help of US aid money that it gets to fight terrorism,” an IB source told Faking News, “We had earlier seized similar second-rate guns and explosives from captured Pakistani terrorists – one of the major reasons why 99 percent of terror strikes are stopped – but we now realize that these Diwali toys are made up of similar materials, though of even lower quality.”

Chinese way of celebrating Diwali

After preliminary examination, intelligence agencies could verify that these Chinese Diwali toys were nothing but third-rate defective ammunitions that were most probably rejected by the Pakistani army in last season’s annual bumper sale of arms.

“I think Pakistan refused to buy them even with 50% off festive offer,” the IB source said, “But I wonder how they landed in India. Were they sold off to domestic insurgents groups, who are now trying to sell them off as Diwali firecrackers, or were they sold off as firecrackers to unsuspecting Indian businessmen?”

While the toy guns and bombs could be third-rate pistols and hand-grenades, intelligence agencies are trying to ascertain if other Chinese firecrackers like rockets, flower-pots, sparklers, etc. could also be a part of defective war equipment that were rejected by Pakistan.

“There was a suggestion that the Dragon-brand rocket-bombs could be rejected samples of Hatf or Shaheen missiles, but we thought that to be preposterous,” the IB source candidly admitted, “But we are trying to find out if they were being sold off to Pakistan as an equipment to counter American drone attacks.”

At least five shopkeepers from Delhi have been apprehended for further questioning to unravel the mystery, but experts believe that the incident has exposed India’s strategic as well as economic vulnerability.

“We are still a dumping ground,” Asatya Sen, a leading Economist argued, “Earlier US used to dump their expired and dated goods in India and now China is doing it with even better precision and penetration. Just that this time we are laughing off the threat instead of taking it on.”

BlackBerry outage removes difference between managers and workers

Pagal Patrakar — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 08:02:26 +0000

Mumbai. The disruption and outages in BlackBerry internet services early this week successfully removed the disparity between managers and common employees in many offices, sources say. According to industry experts, many bosses and managers were totally indistinguishable from other employees of their offices once their BlackBerry smartphones turned into normal mobile phones due to the outages.

“BlackBerry has played a vital part in maintaining corporate hierarchy since its launch, and many companies have been using these phones as part of their HR strategy and employee management,” Harish Kala, an HR consultant and industry expert said, “Companies have been giving BlackBerry phones to its employees as part of promotion in jobs, which made these phones a status symbol; Emails that were not marked with ‘Sent from my BlackBerry’ were not given the importance it otherwise deserved.”

Even Digvijay Singh believes that there is a corporate manager’s hand behind the BlackBerry in the photo above, not any RSS hand.

“Many HR managers privately confess that this strategy has saved them a lot of money that could have otherwise gone into salary hikes as part of promotion in jobs,” he added.

Harish further claimed that flashing BlackBerry phones during meetings or even during informal chats in canteens had become an integral part of office culture over years – something that suffered heavily due to the outages.

“Bosses felt helpless and many of them had to employ techniques of anger management when they saw their junior employees flashing their Chinese Android phones in meetings and offering to mail ‘minutes of the meetings’ to the group from their phones operating on GPRS,” Harish informed about the hardships BlackBerry carrying managers had to go through due to disruption in services.

In another example of how outages caused agony to corporate honchos, a senior manager in a manufacturing company (names withheld on request) was stopped by a security guard at the entrance after he failed to flash his BlackBerry smartphone while entering the office.

“I couldn’t recognize him as normally he would normally be looking at the screen of his phone when he entered the office; I mistook him for being that irritating salesman and asked him to show his identity-card,” the now-suspended security guard recalled the incident.

However, the junior employees in such offices expressed happiness and satisfaction at the BlackBerry outages.

“It gave us a lot of confidence,” a trainee with an ad-agency revealed, “It reassured us that nothing but a black smartphone separated them from us. I’m now confident of climbing the corporate ladder and become a successful professional.”

(originally written for and published in leading English daily DNA)

Infosys to shift focus on hiring IIT students of lower quality

Pagal Patrakar — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 05:58:34 +0000

Bengaluru. After its founder Narayana Murthy revealed that 80% of the IIT students lacked quality, Infosys has decided to hire only the lower quality students from IITs from this year onward. The software giant has said that it didn’t really need any higher quality IIT student for the kind of jobs one has to perform in an IT company, which could be carried out even by non-engineers.

“They just need to work as project managers and shift around the names of employees in an Excel sheet,” Nandan Pai, an HR manager with Infosys said, “We realize that it doesn’t really need a high quality IIT student to perform that work. And frankly, we never were looking to hire the best brains from the IITs.”

The comment by Narayana Murthy has been well appreciated by most IT companies

“But it’s official now – we are interested only in the lower quality IIT students,” Nandan said.

Nandan further disclosed that since most of the IT companies in India were experts only at outsourcing and back-office operations, many of them actually feared the quality of IIT students going up.

“A higher quality student doesn’t come cheap; he will expect higher salaries and better facilities. If the quality of IIT students go up, recruitment and HR costs go up,” Nandan explained, “You won’t believe but my last employer had clear instruction for teams going to IITs for recruitment – hire the worst of the lot, just to get the brand IIT on board, so that we can win some projects from clients in the US.”

He said that while Infosys didn’t have any such official recruitment policy for the IITs, the company decided to come out of the closet after the comment by Narayana Murthy.

“The best brains at IITs anyway don’t opt for Indian IT companies,” Nandan justified the approach of his former employer and shift in recruitment focus by Infosys, “The supposedly best go for finance and trading jobs, so I guess the Investment Banks and Brokerage Firms would take care of the 20% who were marked as having good quality by Murthy Sir.”

“Research? There is a separate course at IITs for that, no?” Nandan responded when Faking News asked whether the “higher quality” students opt for research as well.

Sensex loses 700 points as traders fear a massive gorilla outside

Pagal Patrakar — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 05:52:12 +0000

Mumbai. Indian stock markets witness a record fall today as stocks tumbled on worries of a huge gorilla standing outside the BSE building, which no one in the streets actually saw. BSE traders maintained that a gigantic and sinister gorilla was waiting outside the building, ready to pounce upon anyone whom it saw coming out after trading – a constant fear that pushed them into panic selling of stocks.

“It’s waiting out there, a huge huge gorilla, it will destroy everything!” said a visibly shaken Sonali Ranade, a trader with BSE. When pointed out that no ordinary Mumbaikar could see any gorilla the whole day, Sonali referred to some reports by financial consultants and economists to back her fears.

A gorilla, apparently not very happy with Indian economy and stock markets.

Not only BSE in Mumbai, stock markets across India witnessed this sharp fall, which many experts blamed on the fears of gorilla.

“Stock markets work on sentiments,” explained leading investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, “Currently there is a strong sentiment among Indian investors that a giant gorilla could soon appear on the horizon and go berserk; destroying big buildings, bridges, and other infrastructure in the process. People are panic selling infra companies’ shares as a result.”

Jhunjhunwala refused to disclose if he was buying or selling the shares of infrastructure companies. “Will let you know once the gorilla comes and goes back,” he said. He also refused to comment if he believed that gorilla was certain to appear.

“I can’t tell you about the gorilla, but yes, infra companies’ shares are certainly going to fall more,” he added.

But stock traders and many other investors appeared totally convinced that India was destined to be mauled by this giant gorilla, which they claimed was a distant cousin of King Kong. Traders further pointed out to the losses registered by American and European stock markets, which they claimed was due to fears of King Kong returning to attack USA.

However most of the traders were unable to explain how panic selling of stocks could guarantee any safety against the threats from this massive gorilla. Will the gorilla attack people based on how their stocks performed?

“Oh my god, look, gorilla! It has arrived!” a trader screamed in panic and ran away without answering our correspondent’s question when he saw a madari with his monkey.

Next petrol price hike to be pegged at 4.20 rupees per liter

Pagal Patrakar — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 05:22:52 +0000

New Delhi. Realizing that people spent more time on cracking Pi (π) jokes than understanding the probably bad economics behind the latest hike in petrol prices by 3.14 rupees per liter, the government has decided to hitherto follow this pattern and raise prices in equally amusing numbers in future.

If sources are to be believed, the government could soon announce a price hike of 4.20 rupees per liter for petrol on a day when a court could pass orders on framing of charges in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

“It would be awesome if the court orders filing some charges under the section 420 of the IPC,” an official working in the petroleum ministry hoped, “A petrol price hike on 4.20 rupees per liter in such a scenario would give rise to a deluge of 420 jokes and people would just forget the economics.”

Such posters are expected to be photoshopped to protest the next petrol price rise, a mode of protest government won’t respond with lathicharge.

The official claimed that even though the decision to raise the petrol prices by 3.14 rupees had got nothing to do with the mathematical number Pi, the subsequent comments and jokes cracked by the middle class, the worst hit by this hike, forced the government to think that perhaps it was not a bad idea to keep the citizens hooked this way.

“An irrational decision and an irrational number. LOL!” was some of the sample jokes cracked on the latest petrol price hike, which was apparently the result of weakening of rupees against the US dollar.

“LOL! Then they should allow us to buy petrol in dollars!” one of the middle-class consumers, in full joke-cracking mode, refused to think over the economics behind the price rise.

“We didn’t expect such a favorable reaction on a rather unfavorable decision, but we are not complaining!” the petroleum ministry official referred to the reactions by the citizens of India over the 12th price hike since June last year.

“In retrospect, we now regret missing the opportunity to raise the petrol prices by 9.11 rupees per liter on September 11,” the official rued the missed jokes by the citizens of the India.

“They think that the joke will be on us, while the joke will be on them,” he clarified the thought behind raising the petrol prices by special numbers.

(originally written for and published in leading English daily DNA)

Fears of US recession excite Indian company to announce salary cuts

Pagal Patrakar — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 06:51:09 +0000

Mumbai. Big Sahara Private Limited, an Indian company with absolutely no exposure to US or international markets, is planning to delay a pending appraisal and salary hike citing reasons of a possible US recession in coming days. Big Sahara had given its employees a salary hike of 11.5% back in 2007, after which a second hike has been pending and subject to constant speculation by its employees.

“Sensex came down today and the papers say that US economy could go back in recession, as it had in 2008,” Sapan Waghmare, the HR head of BS said with a palpable excitement in his tone, “We had cut down salaries by 2.5% in 2008 and laid off at least 35 employees. Can’t wait to do something similar again!”

Many Indian companies had laid off employees and announced salary cuts even as experts claimed that there was no recession, only slow growth, in India during the 2008 US recession.

Employees of Big Sahara were promised a salary raise later in 2010 but the whole process was stalled apparently because there was a change in senior management.

“They told us that the new CEO will revise all strategic decisions so the appraisal and salary rise will happen later,” recalled Ravindra, a junior sales executive with Big Sahara, who has been waiting to become ‘senior’ for over four year now.

After the new CEO took over and replaced all the steel mugs with china clay signaling a change in the guard, employees expected a salary hike announcement next. Sources say they have been expecting for the last nine months.

“Well, they will need to wait for a few months more,” Sapan said, as he dipped a Britannia Good-Day biscuit in his filter coffee, “I have asked my secretary to draft a mail informing them about the impending US recession that could push the company to take some unpleasant steps.”

A similar mail drafted during the 2008 recession, during which Big Sahara did a brisk business, had asked the employees to help the company in “tough times” and bear with any unpopular steps that could be taken by the company to “save the family”.

“WTF! Why is this Obama guy screwing up my happiness?” Ravindra said when Faking News apprised him of the possible delay in his promotion and salary hike.

Meanwhile Manmohan Singh is expected to make an announcement that the Indian economy would not get impacted by the US debt crisis.

Lay’s mistakenly fills packets of flavored air with potato chips

wackysalil — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:30:24 +0000

Mumbai. Lay’s, the premium producers of packaged flavored air, faced a major crisis today when a production glitch resulted in far more potato chips being put into every pack of air than the “normal” level. Potato chips normally fill around 5% of the packet volume and they are helpful in adding flavor to “packaged air”, which is the flagship product of the company.

The production glitch caused this level to go up to 75%, sending the top management of the company in a tizzy. Before the Quality Control supervisor could detect it, hundreds of thousands of packaged air with “Magic Masala” flavor were already in the market and the news about the production glitch spread like wildfire.

“It was unbelievable!” 15-year-old Ravish Kumar exclaimed as he munched a handful of chips, “I bought the packet, slipped it in my school bag, and waited for my friend to go away before opening it, so that I don’t have to share those 12 chips with him. When I opened the packet I saw that it was full of potato chips! I immediately went back to the shop and bought five packets more, yes, can you believe it? Packets full of chips!”

People couldn’t believe their eyes when dozens of potato chips came falling out as soon as they opened the bulging packets

Ravish claimed that it was the first time when he tried putting more than two wafers in his mouth in one go.

“I would normally put one at a time as I wanted to enjoy each one of those 12 valuable chips. But sometimes I’d put in two, as no one can eat just one. But boy, the human mouth is capable of taking in at least 12 chips in one go, see!” said Ravish as he enthusiastically crushed a bunch of 12 chips with his 32 teeth.

Hundreds others like Ravish too found out about the high amount of chips level in Lay’s flavored air packets and soon every general store was besieged by hordes of customers and chips enthusiasts, forcing police to resort to a mild lathicharge to disperse the crowd.

“Well, yeah, we always knew that they were packets of flavored air, but we bought them for those little chips,” claimed Ankit, a customer with lathi bruises on his left foot and 20 units of “defective” flavored air packets in his hands, “You know, it’s like some people buying eggs only for the egg white.”

Realizing that a high level of chips in a packet meant for flavored air could have adverse impact on consumers’ health, Lay’s has decided to recall all the defective packets of flavored air. The company has also issued a public apology.

“It has always been our goal to provide people with the finest flavored air that is becoming rare due to urban pollution. This is an aberration and we promise that such mistakes will not be repeated again,” Kareena, Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Lay’s told Faking News.

Sources suggest that the production glitch happened when an employee accidentally changed the “Chips in Packet” (CIP) setting from “Commercially Available” to “For Advertisement Only”.

Lay’s PRO dismissed rumors that the top management had beaten up the erring employee because of whom Lay’s profit margins risked being wafer-thin.

“The official position of the company is that we treat our employees well. That particular employee fell down a flight of stairs after he had slipped off on a banana peel in the section where we are coming up with a banana flavored air,” Kareena clarified the “truth” in a press statement.

“There has been a mistake and the company will learn from it, No one will be Lay’d off! We do not give up so easily when the chips are down!” she added.

Obama says sorry as NATO mistakenly bombs anti-India terror camp in Pakistan

RBI hires goons for snatching money from people to control inflation

Pagal Patrakar — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:22:00 +0000

Mumbai. Frustrated with the fact that there appeared to be no impact on circulation of money in the market even after recurrent raise in interest rates, RBI has now decided to take extreme measures to control inflation and supply of money. The central bank will now hire goons who will snatch superfluous money from individuals and organizations to maintain the optimal level of liquidity in the market.

“We were left with no option, nothing seemed like working,” Dr. D Subbarao, RBI governor said. RBI has increased key policy rates 11 times in the last 16 months, the latest increase announced on Tuesday.

Sources suggest that RBI had liked Baba Ramdev’s idea of doing away with 1000 rupee notes, but the central bank preferred totally taking them away from people’s possession instead of replacing them with notes of lower denomination.

“We need to send a strong signal to the economy and we thought this could be the strongest one,” RBI governor claimed. RBI has decided to hire strong and sturdy men between 25-35 years who would make sure that there was not enough money in the market that could push the prices of goods further up.

These RBI goons will be placed in all major marketplaces across the country and they will make sure that nobody spends too much.

“All the security guards at multiplexes will be replaced with our goons or trained to become goons,” RBI governor informed, “They will frisk all the entrants and their wallet will be checked. Any amount of cash in excess of 1000 rupees will be confiscated then and there.”

Similarly goons will be positioned at eateries such as McDonald’s and KFC, who will not allow a person to buy more than one burger or chicken wings for himself. Women will not be allowed visit beauty parlor more than once a month, and people would be randomly robbed off at traffic lights.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has welcomed the move by RBI and called it “aggressive”, while Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has predicted that more such steps would be taken in future to control inflation and make lives better for aam aadmi.

RBI governor has clarified that anyone resisting the latest ‘monetary policy’ could well be beaten up by the bank goons, and he will subsequently be prohibited from spending above a specified amount on medical bills if injured while doing so.

Idea to launch 3G condoms to control population growth

Pagal Patrakar — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 08:22:29 +0000

Mumbai. Mobile services company Idea, which has outdone Chetan Bhagat in offering simple solutions to complex problems faced by India, has gone a step further and announced their intention to launch special condoms to control the population of India. The step was announced after the company’s latest television ad, which proposed high speed internet access to control population growth, drew flak from experts who termed it “infeasible”.

“What do people do once they get high speed internet for the first time?” Mr. Kuselan, an expert on population growth and a virulent critic of Idea’s latest campaign argued, “Of course people start accessing adult sites and download porn clips. Do you think they will practice ‘abstinence’ after consuming adult content?”

Mr. Kuselan, a proud and pestered father of nine babies, blames adult sites and “ask the sexpert” type of columns in leading newspapers for population growth of India, and believes that a widely distributed 3G network will only encourage people to access such “copulation causing” websites.

Abhishek Bachchan is rumored to be the brand ambassador of the Idea’s latest product as well

“I know a friend who locked himself in a room with his wife after reading ‘how to spice up your sex life’ column on a leading newspaper’s website,” Kuselan claimed, “He didn’t even bother to shut down or hibernate his laptop. He was blessed with a baby after nine months and a computer virus every month after that incident.”

“With 3G reaching every household, such incidents, and thus the population of India, will only increase,” Kuselan added.

Not only from experts like Kuselan, Idea’s latest idea was also rejected by the union government.

“Idea simply copied the idea from Ghulam Nabi Azad, who had originally proposed electricity as solution to India’s population growth,” Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde pointed out, “Even Azad thought that people would watch television and not indulge in sex. But we realized that there was too much of sex on television these days and the result could be counterproductive, hence we decided not to electrify villages. We care for the aam aadmi.”

Faced with criticism and opposition from the government and the experts, Idea Cellular tried to justify their campaign by claiming that the events portrayed in the latest television commercial were “symbolic”.

“Our aim was to show that a 3G connection actually works like a ‘virtual condom’, ensuring that both hubby and wife are kept entertained separately,” Mr. Manish Manga, the chief marketing officer at Idea, tried to justify the campaign, “If people don’t believe us, we are ready to launch real condoms.”

As a result, every Idea customer will now get a free packet of special 3G condoms along with his monthly bill. Mr. Manga couldn’t explain what the company meant by a “3G” condom.

Sources tell Faking News that the company might use the ‘third generation Bachchan’ connection to justify the 3G name and Abhishek Bachchan’s endorsement of the latest Idea product.

(based on an exclusive report sent by Moron)

Middle class promoted to “more middle” class rank in economic reshuffle

Pagal Patrakar — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 08:15:19 +0000

New Delhi. The government announced a major economic reshuffle today after successfully executing a cabinet reshuffle yesterday. Chairman of the Planning Commission and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who retained his portfolio in the cabinet reshuffle earlier, revealed the new economic statuses and classes for the citizens of India.

This is the first time an economic reshuffle has been declared publicly though the rearrangement has been taking place for generations since India gained sovereignty and independence.

“The middle class is more middle class now,” Prime Minister informed the most important change in the reshuffle, though did not explain what “more middle” meant. However he did clarify that it was a “promotion” for the middle class.

“They had always wanted ‘more’ – I still remember the Pepsi ad when I was the leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, and I knew that BJP and NDA were going to lose the next elections because they didn’t give them more and more,” Dr. Manmohan Singh claimed.

A middle class family, apparently celebrating the change in their official status over the years.

“However during the UPA regime, they became more and more middle class, more middle than ever,” he added, “This is a promotion of course, just like Jairam Ramesh was promoted to a cabinet rank minister earlier.”

Prime Minister, a man of fewer words, refused to elaborate beyond this point but experts picked up from there.

“I guess middle class is more in the middle now because the rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer; the middle point in the economic spectrum is more prominent than ever now, hence ‘more middle’ class,” an expert opined.

However others disagree, with a few claiming that the lower class had inched up thanks to Bhaarat Nirmaan initiatives like NREGA causing the middle class to become ‘more middle’ as nothing had changed for that group. While some believe that the middle class too had inched up as it could afford higher prices of LPG and Petrol, hence definitely ‘more middle’ than earlier.

“I don’t know what it means, but since it impacts the middle class, clearly it’s the most important fallout of the economic reshuffle,” editor-in-chief of a leading media house said, who attended the press conference where the economic reshuffle was announced leading to a change in the economic status of BPL families as well, however the news was considered relevant enough.

“This definitely is not the last reshuffle before the next elections,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh issued a final clarification before winding up the press conference.

25 slaves rescued from an IT company go back to their ruler

Pagal Patrakar — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 11:54:54 +0000

Bangalore. Harassed by single digit salary hike, exploited by their bosses, and beaten by senseless coding – this is the condition from which around 25 IT slaves were rescued two months back by an NGO, but latest reports suggest that nearly all of those freed have now gone back to their former ruler.

The change in status quo apparently didn’t go down too well with the rescued slaves who found their new lives “a little too challenging”.

“I missed the coffee vending machine so much,” said Ankit, a born-again coder who was the first one to return to Mindpowers IT Services Private Limited, setting the cat among the pigeons. Ankit spent around three weeks of what he initially called “freedom” before he realized that it was an “illusion”.

Ankit gets his prized free coffee that he missed during his so-called freedom

“Well, I could get drunk during the weekdays that I missed during my slavery, err… I mean employment,” Ankit said referring to his “free” period, “But then consuming coffee and tea is better for my health than guzzling wine and beer, no? I realized that perhaps Prasanna Sir was not so bad; he cared about me and never allowed me to relax during the weekdays.”

The decision by Ankit to go back to his former ruler P K Prasanna, the Managing Director of Mindpowers IT Services, was initially scoffed at by other fellow slaves who were rescued by an NGO called Free Thyself Worldwide (FTW) that works for development of people who have pledged their freedom and foresight to corporate entities.

“A lot of other freed slaves came to us and hotly debated the decision of Ankit,” Tripti Morparia, the regional director of FTW informed, “Although many of them thought Ankit was being foolish, I could sense some anxiety in them. They felt they were losing some kind of contest. That was exactly the kind of non-ending race from which we had rescued them.”

But other slaves, who eventually followed Ankit’s footsteps and returned to Mindpowers, reject any peer pressure or anxiety being the reason behind their decision.

“I was anyway sitting at home and spending all the time in front of my laptop surfing internet. I thought I might as well do that while being in an air-conditioned room,” Tamas Talukdar justified his decision of returning to a job that he used to hate so much.

“And I can get those print outs of my railway tickets so easily now,” Tamas enumerated the treasured benefits of an IT job and criticized the likes of FTW for confusing happily employed professionals with red pills.

Accountant who deducted TDS for alms to beggar nominated for industry award

Pagal Patrakar — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 07:49:44 +0000

New Delhi. Himmat Tripathi, who always gave nine rupees to a beggar but entered ten rupees in the account books with one rupee shown as TDS (Tax Deduction at Source), has been nominated for this year’s industry award for Creative and Honorary Excellence in Accounting Practices (CHEAP).

CHEAP awards, which aren’t supported by any organization as it would cause cash outflows for the sponsors, are given each year to accountants who come up with innovative and path-breaking ways of saving cash for their clients, organizations, or themselves.

“I am thrilled and deeply indebted to all the accountants of this country who chose me for this honor,” HT, as Himmat Tripathi is fondly called, told Faking News. HT was selected for the award through an online poll that was conducted only during the nights when internet surfing charges are discounted for many.

HT, working as a consulting accountant with Scrooge Industries Limited, won’t get any cash prize but will receive an email confirming his success and his name would be prominently displayed on the Facebook page, which is the only organizational infrastructure of the CHEAP awards community.

In an exclusive interview to Faking News, HT said that the idea of applying TDS on alms to beggar came to his mind when he read the news about 2 lakh rupees, a taxable income, found in the pockets of a beggar, who unfortunately was dead before he could hire a CA.

“Clearly this income was accrued through begging and it was taxable,” HT explained, “I say it was taxable because we never get any tax exemptions under Section 80(G) from the government when we pay alms to beggars, which obviously means that the government doesn’t recognize beggars as any charitable entities.”

“Therefore, either the government should allow tax exemptions on money we pay to beggars or we should be allowed to apply TDS on that payment,” HT explained why he decided to apply 10% TDS on 10 rupees he used to pay to the beggars, either by paying nine rupees in loose change or by taking back a one-rupee coin from the begging bowl of the beggar.

HT denied that there was anything illegal or unethical in what he was doing.

“Begging is a legitimate profession in the eyes of the government as hardly any beggar is arrested for breaking the Prevention of Begging Act. Perhaps the term ‘begging’ in constitution is notional! I hope Kapil Sibal would clarify that. But in absence of any clarification, I’d treat this ‘notional begging’ as a genuine financial transaction,” he argued.

HT claims that this ‘financial transaction’ i.e. alms to the beggars can be treated as OPEX or ‘operation expense’ in the account books and insists that other individuals or organizations should do the same.

“It is like ‘adverting expense’ for many of us, where we advertise our persona and promote ourselves as socially responsible entities. That’s how I treated it in my income tax returns that I file as a professional,” HT informed.

“My juniors and relatives would be so impressed when I’d drop 45 rupees in the bowl of a beggar, but they would never know that it was actually 50 rupees in the books!” the CHEAP award winner said.

Sources inform that HT was a dark horse who won the CHEAP award, which almost went to the CA of Sachin Tendulkar, who had shown Tendulkar as an artist for tax purposes.

MBA students continue to buck trend, intern in an Auto-rickshaw

Harshad Karandikar — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 05:54:59 +0000

Mumbai. Continuing the trend of MBA grads giving up lucrative offers to “do something meaningful”, 3 students from the Wannabe Institute of Management, WIM, have successfully completed their mandatory summer internship in an auto-rickshaw here.

Confirming the development, Mr. Sharma, the placement chairperson of WIM, praised the lads for their lateral thinking in trying to solve the myriad problems that society today faced, the chief of those being what to do with all those MBA students during those 2 months between the first and second year.

Talking exclusively to Faking News, the trend setting students shared their experience.

“Every year, all of our fellow MBA students occupy so much space in corporate offices, drink gallons of coffee, cause the AC system to generate another ton of greenhouse gases and give already overworked middle management personnel the really enriching but also tiring task of cooking up something to keep us busy. At WIM, however, we have always been encouraged to challenge status-quo and think out of the box,” remarked Gaurav, in his impeccable Raymond suit.

Suraj, his classmate and project partner, had an altogether different take on the issue: “Corporate Social Responsibility is another area of focus at WIM. Unless we create real change at the bottom of the pyramid, India cannot shine. If we, the top brains of the country do not contribute to this, then who will? Therefore, we decided to catch hold of somebody who would really do with some help from us. A stint with an auto-rickshaw wallah seemed like a good idea.”

“The changing scenery would also alleviate boredom and stimulate creative thinking. Considering the state of Mumbai’s roads, the risk of falling asleep in office in the afternoon was also negated, a common problem faced by many of our batchmates,” he added.

Initially the MBA grads had an idea of working on a summer project of converting an auto-rickshaw into an eco-friendly one, but later settled for a project on livelihood finance.

Pratik, the third partner, no longer being able to control his annoyance at being denied precious airtime, pitched in: “We decided that the auto driver could well do with some improvements in his top and bottom-line. Unfortunately, he was already heavily leveraged due to the considerable support that he extended to the local liquor business. Therefore, we needed to find a solution which was not very capital-intensive. With the RBI hiking lending rates every week or so, how could anybody afford to get more debt? What we proposed was a result of an intense session of pot, err, I meant brainstorming. We decided that the best way for the fellow to make more money was to sell umbrellas!”

“Umbrellas?” this curious reporter asked with a sinking feeling that his inferior mind would not quite be able to fathom the brilliant logic behind the suggestion.

“Oh, it’s really simple. It was clear that he had to diversify. Rickshaw services are a commodity, and he just had no USP. In a situation of perfect competition, he could do nothing with the market demand curve. His price was market given. Diversifying into a completely unrelated market was the perfect solution. Plus, selling umbrellas is a cyclical business. After all, even a third-grade MBA student knows that a cyclical and non-cyclical mixture of businesses creates a healthy portfolio. In addition, his existing business ensured that the marginal costs involved in selling umbrellas would be zero,” Pratik explained.

The students also handed out an implementation plan to the auto-rickshaw wallah at the end of their internship period.

“The core of the business is based on fundamental consumer behavior – the tendency of passengers to forget umbrellas in autos. All that the auto driver has to do is to only choose customers carrying umbrellas, and he’d have a fine selection by the end of the day. Once he had plenty of variety, he would simply have to start choosing passengers who weren’t carrying umbrellas, and sell them one on the way. It’s a simple model, really, with no working capital and a hundred percent profit margin,” students explained.

Speaking to Faking News on the condition of anonymity, a partner at McKinsey & Co. confirmed that they were deliberating making offers to these students:

“We have a rare mixture of talent and humility here, exactly what we look for in future McKinseyians. These boys have created real change, and we’re really excited at having them on board. In fact, we might even work with them on extending the scope of the project. I don’t think we currently have anything in the not-completely-public-but-something-like-that transportation space anywhere in the world. It creates value for all stakeholders.”

A placement committee member from one of the lesser IIMs declined to comment on the impact of McKinsey recruiting from a non-IIM while steadfastly refusing to visit their campus for placements year after year. “All our students get their choice of roles and industries during placements and are extremely satisfied,” he maintained.

(reported by Harshad Karandikar)

“Fair & Handsome” faces bankruptcy as Gayle, Malinga shine in IPL

Divya Sharan — Mon, 30 May 2011 09:57:21 +0000

Mumbai. Fair & Handsome, the so-called “mardo waali cream”, might soon be out of business as it’s no longer deemed effective, Faking News has learned. The fairness cream for men has failed to impress the youth after cricketers Chris Gayle and Lasith Malinga, both with dark skin color, proved to be the best cricketers in the fourth season of IPL, with Gayle winning the “orange cap” and Malinga bagging the “purple cap”.

“We are afraid that Indian men finally might want to look like them; after all both of them picked playing for an Indian professional league over their own respective countries,” Emami CEO Gaurav Gorabankar told Faking News, conceding that his deepest fear was Indian masses no longer being embarrassed with dark skin color.

The message won’t work anymore?

His fears are backed with data as the fairness cream recorded a decrease in the rate of sales with the increase in the number of runs and wickets amassed by both the players in IPL-4.

“This trend might continue as India plays West Indies next; even Ravi Rampaul is not exactly fair,” the CEO rued.

Chairman of ICCF (Indian Consumer Complaints Forum) under the banner of “jaago gharak jaago” also agreed that the success of Gayle and Malinga would surely affect the overall thinking of Indian customers.

“People are slowly becoming aware that using deodorants, creams, shaving gel, soft drinks, etc. cannot change anyone’s fortune except the stars who are endorsing it,” ICCF Chairman opined.

In fact, the success of the duo is impacting other products as well. Shareudiin, a stock broker, revealed that the share-price of a combs manufacturing company also recorded loss as investors felt that consumers could stop using company’s products to get dreadlocks like Gayle and Malinga.

But the corporate sector and marketing managers are not wholly disappointed and see a silver lining in the clouds. Sources suggest that companies selling hair oil, health capsules, and energy drinks are in the race to get their products endorsed by either of the new stars with “interesting” hairstyles.

Apparently, Navratan Tel, the hair oil brand, is planning to come up with an advertisement where a fair skinned bowler would apply the oil on his head for “cooling effect” after facing heat of Gayle on the pitch.

Meanwhile Kolkata Knight Riders owner Shahrukh Khan, who endorses “Fair & Handsome” cream, has refused to comment if his endorsement was the reason why Chris Gayle was not performing as brilliantly when he played for KKR.

(reported by Divya Sharan)

Planning Commission ropes in McDonald’s to eradicate poverty

Pagal Patrakar — Sat, 21 May 2011 10:43:23 +0000

New Delhi. Heralding a new era in public-private partnership, Planning Commission has decided to partner with fast-food restaurant chain McDonald’s in an attempt to remove poverty from India. McDonalds will soon give employment to a poor Indian and pay him one McAloo Tikki™ in kind, which costs at least 20 rupees even during Happy Hours, thus meeting the threshold set by the Planning Commission to identify urban poor.

“Since India is growing at a rate of at least 9 percent, we are hopeful of at least one McDonald’s outlet in each urban Indian city soon,” Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission said after undertaking some complex mathematical calculations, “Clearly McDonald’s would need more employees and we thought it was a perfect opportunity for us to join hands.”

If a person alive in India can afford this Tikki, and only this Tikki and nothing else for the whole day, he is not poor.

As per the agreement between the government and the fast-food restaurant chain, McDonald’s will be given a list people living below poverty line in the vicinity of an outlet, and the restaurant will then employ them gainfully for a salary of one McAloo Tikki™ a day. Since the market price of one such Tikki is at least 20 rupees, the employee would thus no longer remain poor in the eyes of the government.

Sources at McDonald’s confirmed the partnership and expressed confidence of employing all such urban poor at their outlets.

“Anyone not earning even 20 rupees a day is surely quite hungry. We can easily give such a person a job of cleaning the leftovers,” a McDonald’s official said, “We get a lot of urban rich at our outlets who order more than they can eat.”

The official clarified that US based McDonald’s would never get into such an arrangement with the US government as the poverty threshold in US was at least 30 US Dollars per day and non-cash benefits were not counted as income while measuring poverty.

“But India is not US; even the government here has clarified it many times recently,” the official pointed out.

McDonald’s could launch this employment scheme at their Colaba outlet in Mumbai next week. An intensive manhunt to find a person earning below 20 rupees per day and alive in the area has been launched by the CBI for this purpose. No success was reported till reports last came in.

But the government has dismissed such issues as teething problems and hopes to kick off the partnership in other cities soon. Post this arrangement, government is hopeful of bringing down the number of urban poor to levels matched by those in developed countries, thus paving the way for India to become an economic superpower.

No. 992 on trade-list submitted to Pakistan had “Terrorism”

Pagal Patrakar — Fri, 20 May 2011 09:06:05 +0000

New Delhi. In yet another goof-up in the official documents submitted to Pakistan, it has come to light that government had listed “terrorism” as one of the tradable goods between India and Pakistan when the commerce secretaries met for talks last month.

The list of 1250 commodities was presented by India as an indicative and exhaustive list of goods and services that Pakistan was allowed to send into India. “Terrorism” was listed at number 992 in the list between “Television” and “Textiles”.

“Amazing! I think that concludes our war on terrorism,” said strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellany, “Now Pakistan can claim that their support to terrorist organizations was not only legitimate, it was actually asked by India to do so!”

The officials at the Home Ministry, External Affairs Ministry, Finance Ministry, and Defense Ministry blamed each other for the mistake, which they thought was a “little typo”.

“There were 1250 commodities on that list, why are you focusing on just one?” Home Minister P Chidambaram expressed his frustration, “It is a minor oversight and we would fix the accountability.”

Some groups in Pakistan celebrated the news that terrorism could be officially supported and supplied by the establishment in near future.

Sources inform Faking News that Ramesh Chand, 26, a human data entry operator working in the Finance Ministry, could be suspended for this human error.

While the government has called it a minor “oversight”, this error could have far-reaching impacts on international relations, experts warn.

“This is not an ordinary error; this gives a whole new dimension to the way international community has been looking at the issue of terrorism,” Chellany argued, “India has ended up defining ‘terrorism’ as a ‘tradable good’, with Pakistan arguably the leading exporter of this commodity. What if tomorrow Pakistan starts sending invoices for all the terrorism it has supplied to India till date?”

Chellany argues that Pakistan could indeed take on this path as US has been rejecting their bills of late. He said that Pakistan could officially accept that some “state actors” supported Bin Laden in not only hiding him in Pakistan but also in carrying out 9/11. Consequently, Pakistan could send an invoice for the 9/11 attacks, which had cost US dearly.

“They can legitimately ask for billions of dollars now from both the US and India,” Chellany pointed out.

While the Government of India has not reacted to such concerns, sources suggest that the Government of Pakistan is consulting leading economists on whether to accept the charges of supplying/supporting terrorism.

Adulterated petrol prices also raised, clarifies government

Pagal Patrakar — Sun, 15 May 2011 07:56:18 +0000

New Delhi. Government has clarified that the recent hike of 5 rupees per liter in the prices of petrol is applicable to all forms of petrol – leaded, unleaded, ethanol blended, and adulterated. The confusion was created after a set of over enthusiastic citizens refused to pay at the new rate for the adulterated petrol, claiming that the effective price of “pure” petrol was already higher owing to adulteration.

“There should be no confusion; prices have been raised across the board, and the hike applies to all forms of petrol,” a statement from the Petroleum Ministry read. Later talking to Faking News, a ministry official elaborated the rationale.

A poster put up by one of the petrol pumps last night, after the ninth price hike in as many months came into effect.

“While it’s true that there is less than a liter of pure petrol in the adulterated version, the cost of adulteration has also gone up in the recent years,” the official clarified why the government was not raising the prices on a pro-rata basis for adulterated petrol.

The official pointed out that the oil mafia has to take risky and costly steps such as murdering Indian Oil employees like Shanmughan Manjunath and burning government servants like Yashwant Sonawane alive, because of which they had been asking to raise the prices even before the prices in international market went up.

“There are other operational costs involved too in adulteration, which warrants no less than the current price hike,” the official explained.

When asked why the government was paying attention to mafia’s needs and concerns instead of finishing them off, the official told Faking News to stop joking, although he added that petrol prices could be raised again by another 5 rupees per liter.

When further asked why were petrol prices in India higher than those in the USA, where it hovers around 45 rupees per liter despite the cost of living there being higher than India, the official said, “Prime Minister had already clarified that before the hike was announced – we are not the US.”

Subprime crisis stares Pakistan as Osama’s mansion found mortgaged to many banks

Pagal Patrakar — Mon, 02 May 2011 20:40:05 +0000

Abbottabad, Pakistan. While many in the world, especially in the US, are celebrating the death of Al-Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden as a welcome news, it might turn out to be a very bad news for Pakistan. Authorities have confirmed that the Abbottabad mansion of Osama, reported to be worth 1 million USD, was mortgaged to many private and public banks in Pakistan, which now face almost a certain risk of default.

“Osama had taken loans worth billions of dollars from various banks by pledging his Abbottabad mansion as collateral,” Iqbal, an executive with Citibank Pakistan told Faking News, “Apart from that, he had various credit cards that he used to fund his own and possibly his organization’s expenses. I myself had sold him a Gold Card with his clean shaven photo and some fake name on it.”

Osama was money to many in Pakistan

Although Banks in Pakistan are not coming out in open like the Pakistani army over their association with Osama, sources inform that the financial institutions are having late night meetings to find out ways to save themselves from an impending financial crisis.

“We could face a severe cash crunch,” said an official of Habib Bank on conditions of anonymity, “We had thought that we could recover some cash by acquiring the Abbottabad mansion and turning it into a pilgrimage spot, but to our horror, we found out that at least a dozen other banks had the same security for loans they had issued independently to Osama.”

Sources say that the banks didn’t bother to check the details of the borrower (in this case, Osama) as his mortgage loan applications always had names of some “influential people in the establishment” as guarantors. This caused the credit rating of Osama to be upgraded to “triple A” status, with more banks queuing up to lend him money.

“Many of these banks had securitized the loans and sold it off in the market, which led to a real estate boom in Pakistan,” pointed out a market watcher, “Now the imminent default by Laden and destruction of his collateral can create domino effect and create similar scenes in Pakistan as was witnessed in the US some three years back.”

Sources further inform that Osama had never defaulted on his payments earlier as his guarantors enjoyed guaranteed cash-inflow through some foreign funding. But with Osama reported dead, the guarantors themselves are clueless.

“They can’t even claim for the 25 million US Dollars reward that US Government had announced for anyone helping catch Osama,” a banker rued.

Kyazoonga announces e-lathicharge for fans buying tickets online

Pagal Patrakar — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:42:51 +0000

Mumbai. In order to give cricket fans the complete experience of ticket purchasing, Kyazoonga, the official online ticketing partner of the ICC 2011 World Cup, has announced e-lathicharge for all the fans who bought tickets though its website. Many fans, who had bought tickets online, had complained that they missed bamboo sticks falling on them even as they waited in the queue to collect their tickets.

“I have been waiting here in this queue with print-outs of my purchase receipt and other documents for over four hours now,” said Prashant Verma, a senior manager working with an advertising agency, who had booked the tickets for the final match between India and Sri Lanka, “It’s hot over here and I’m sweating; very similar to what I had seen on television happening to fans buying tickets from stadium counters. The only thing lacking is lathicharge.”

Online ticket buyers are missing such experiences even as the ICC 2011 World Cup is coming to an end in a couple of days

Other fans standing in the queue too agreed and wished Kyazoonga had arranged for a lathicharge, as had happened to cricket fans buying tickets in Bangalore, Nagpur, Motera and Mohali.

“Why should only people buying from the counter have all the fun?” wondered Nikhil, other online ticket buyer, who was now planning to wake up early tomorrow morning and be the first one to stand in the queue to collect his tickets.

“I am even planning to brush my teeth while standing in the queue,” he added excitedly.

Reacting to the wishes of the customers, Kyazoonga confirmed that it had specific plans to keep them waiting in the queue for hours again to make their experience as real as possible, but expressed inability in arranging for a lathicharge.

“That’s the prerogative of the police department and the government,” an official of Kyazoonga told Faking News, “Although we would not mind beating them up with bamboo sticks, we are afraid we could be accused of taking law in our hands. That’s why we are thinking of arranging for an e-lathicharge.”

It’s not yet clear how will the e-lathicharge work and whether the fans would be able to enjoy virtual or real pain, but sources indicate that the online booking company was looking to remove all barriers between the virtual and the real worlds, with plans for e-black-ticketing also in the pipeline.

French Restaurant in Delhi to offer meals to BPL card holders to qualify for VAT waiver

Simon — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:53:44 +0000

New Delhi. An upmarket restaurant is acting upon Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit’s decision to remove VAT on meals for the poor by offering free meals for the hard-up. La Maison Goinfre has purchased 30kg of camembert, 50 cases of Bordeaux wine, 5kg of foie gras and 25 jars of preserved duck legs VAT-free.

To qualify for the VAT waiver, the restaurant must provide meals for 50 poor people per week, including wine, although a Delhi Government spokesman confirmed that “house wine” would be acceptable.

“This is excellent news for us,” said restaurant manager Suhail “Pierre” Kumar, putting on a French accent, “at the moment some of our dishes are inaccessible to the poor because the ingredients are so expensive; we are delighted to welcome the masses into our arms and educate them in fine dining – haute cuisine is for everyone, not just the cultured.”

Now the poor can enjoy such luxuries, on policy level

“The man at the PDS shop sent me here,” said Rahul, 27, a rag-picker with a BPL card, “but they won’t let me in. They said I need a tie to get in. So, I borrowed Sunil’s tie – he’s a security guard down the road. When I came back they said if I could afford a tie I could afford to pay. I’m confused and hungry.”

Rahul argued with the doorman for a minute before being told that the main course was “cold duck liver” and ask if he “really wanted that”. He decided he didn’t. His friend Kabir, who works as a beggar near CP, wanted to try out the “cold duck liver” but he was turned away as he didn’t have a BPL card to prove his ‘poor status’.

After hiding behind some bushes for a while, our correspondent accosted a man identified on his number plates as “MRB1G” on his way from his Audi A8 Quattro to the front door of La Maison. Faking News asked if the businessman had a valid BPL card.

“This man is in debt by 500 crores,” interjected the manager, “he has less than no money so he is in a far worse position than most, and look, he has his bank manager with him as his income proof,” gesturing to a man in a suite with “MRB1G”.

Faking News tried to say something about assets, liquidity and investments, but security quickly intervened. Our correspondent did manage to have a glimpse of the man’s three BPL cards though before being ejected from the premises.

However, for the sake of balanced journalism, we must point out that the restaurant does have plans to host BPL diners. Next weekend, 50 BPL card holders will dine with 100 American philanthropists, NGO workers, and diplomats.

Tickets for Let Them Eat Cake: Meet the Poor night start at Rs.15000 for a “standard rag-picker” seat and rise to Rs.25000 for a view of “the deformed”. “We will be offering our BPL guests the full French menu and also a special menu, in case there are ‘cultural issues’,” said Kumar, “I suspect we will have to outsource some of the catering to our ‘BPL scheme’ partners, Punjab Dhaba.”

HR employee showed cash to be used to buy MBA students

Pagal Patrakar — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 08:15:31 +0000

New Delhi. The ugly truth about b-school campus placements has finally come out in open, even though it was known by almost everyone all these years. A WikiLeaks exposé has revealed that HR employees of various companies proudly showed “chests of cash” to be used to “buy” MBA students during the placement process. The chests were shown to a placement committee chairman of an unnamed b-school of India.

“I showed him 10 lakhs in cash, two boxes full of 100-rupees notes, along with various offer-letters of recruitment; he is very happy and has slotted our company for the first day during the campus placements,” read an email by an HR executive of a financial sector company, referring to his interaction with the placement committee chairman.

Buying MBA students with money is not officially recognized as bribery or a corrupt act under the Indian laws

The email was sent by the executive to the VP, HR of his company, but was leaked to WikiLeaks by a whistleblower in that company. Many other similar emails have been leaked to the whistleblower website started by Julian Assange, signaling that after US diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks could release classified corporate communications in future.

“All of these emails show how HR employees of various companies were planning to buy MBA students from various campuses,” an expert analyzing the emails explained, “Not only placement committee heads, but these HR guys had definitive plans to flash cash before the students.”

Some of the emails accessed by Faking News though WikiLeaks reveal that HR departments of companies had directed its employees to use “pompous means” while making pre-placement presentations to “influence” MBA students into being easily bought over.

These means included commonly used strategies like giving free Pizzas and Coke during presentations and gifting free iPods or gift vouchers to “deserving students” through some then and there designed “competitions”.

“Flash your iPhones or other smartphones as regularly as possible while talking to them, and make sure your Rolex watches are not covered by the cuff of your shirt,” read one of the emails sent from the HR department to its employees going to b-schools for placement presentations and interviews.

The chain of leaked emails hinted that corporate houses believed that an MBA student was most vulnerable to be influenced and “bought over” during the placement season, and they were not shy of using cash and other favors to make best use of this “opportunity”. A couple of emails suggested that some of the employees even showed cash to MBA students, whom they wanted to buy.

In one of the instances, an employee, who also happened to be an alumnus of that particular b-school, ordered Maggi from the local canteen for three students and himself, and left back a 1000-rupees note with the bill, excusing himself on the pretext of having to attend an emergency meeting.

“I’m sure those guys would want to lead a similar lifestyle and they’d apply to our company,” read the leaked email by that particular employee following the Maggi incident.

When Faking News tried to contact corporate houses for their official reaction of the latest WikiLeaks revelation, all of them refused to comment. B-school authorities too refused to comment while the final year MBA students were too busy with placements to comment.

Government mulls direct cash transfers by dropping money bags from the sky

Fake Chanakya — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:59:48 +0000

New Delhi. This could be the fastest implementation of any budget proposal as the government is ready with a plan to replace subsidies with direct cash transfers within three days of its announcement. An influential think-tank close to the Congress political leadership is finalizing the contours of a new welfare scheme under which money bags amounting to Rs. 100,000 crores per annum will be air dropped every month over the vast rural hinterland by flying aerial sorties.

The scheme is the brain child of a leading economist cum journalist turned politician who is very close to the Congress high command. Explaining why the scheme can be the most effective poverty elimination scheme designed yet and a game-changer in the electoral arena, he said, “This does away with the problem of identifying the eligible BPL households, which could otherwise take several months under the AADDHAR program of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).”

The economist claimed that direct cash transfers by dropping money bags from the sky was “self-selecting” as it automatically excluded many “non-deserving” segments of society.

“The salaried classes with day jobs are constrained from going out in search for money bags. Well-heeled members of the leisure class have better things to do with their time. Many economists who believe that it is futile to look for a one rupee coin on the sidewalk because it would already have been taken can also be eliminated from the consideration set. That leaves only the labor class that has to toil away to earn subsistence wages. A few hours of physical labor in search of money bags will now yield economic rewards and help this lot live a life out of poverty,” he explained.

An artist’s impression of things to come

A social activist involved with scheme design told this reporter, “The poor rural farmer/laborer used to look up to the skies for a normal monsoon. Going forward, he will look to the skies for showering wealth on him. He will literally hold his head high going forward.”

The scheme has the support of the influential National Advisory Council that, amongst other things, advises Smt. Sonia Gandhi on issues concerning social welfare, though there are some voices of concern. “The modalities of implementation have to be fine-tuned. For instance, will the aerial drops happen during the day or at night? Nocturnal drops will disproportionately benefit the 20 something partying class – which is usually active at night – and lead to socially regressive outcomes. Also, the intensity of air drops should be proportional to the degree of poverty prevalent in the region. We only have poverty head count ratios at the State levels but not at the district and block levels. So it is better that the implementation of the scheme be preceded by block level poverty estimation surveys. The quantum of money transferred through such a channel also needs to be inflation indexed for which appropriate legislation needs to be passed. Also, in some very backward regions with a low degree of monetization of economic transactions, the transfers need to be in kind and not in cash,” a member of the NAC told this reporter.

A party insider revealed that the scheme has caught the fancy of the party high command and also Rahul Gandhi who is keen that the scheme be launched by the first quarter of the new fiscal. If it comes down to an eye ball to eye ball confrontation between the PM and the Congress President, the PM may well have to blink and give in to its implementation.

According to a party insider, the scheme will be called the Moti Lal Nehru Lakshmi Barsaat Yojana. The party high command had sternly rejected the idea of naming it after Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi since there are already 500 extant schemes named after any one of them.