The Aam Aadmi Party and how it handles donations: My personal experience as a donor.

Recently, there have been reports and news items going around, majorly promoted by other political parties which have also been highlighted by the media that the Aam Aadmi Party launders money.

This allegation was based on 4 donations of Rs. 50 lakhs each in April 2014 which were traced to 4 companies not carrying out any business activities. The money was received by cheques and it was posted in the website of the AAP. Here are the questions which people must ask but are not asking-

1. Why is the issue being brought up now? The funds were received in April 2014.

2. If the AAP had laundered money, why did they put up all these details on their website? They could have easily not disclosed these payments.

I decided to donate some money to the AAP to support them in the upcoming Delhi Elections. At the same time I wanted to test their transparency. Following was my experience-

The following fields were mandatory while filling up the details, without which I could not proceed. (see the Image 1) This ensures authenticity of the donors. I proceeded to donate.

Mandatory Fields (Image 1)

Here is what happened within 10 seconds of my donating-

1. I got a call with a pre-recorded message in the voice of Arvind Kejriwal thanking me for my support.
2. I got an email from AAP mentioning the receipt no. of the donation and also received a Donation Certificate (See Image 2)
3. My name was listed on their website as a donor with the amount of donation. This came in within 2 minutes of my donation timing. (See Image 3)

Donation Certificate (Image 2)

List of Donors on AAP's Website (Image 3)

Here is what happened after 5 minutes-

1. I got an email from my bank confirming the debit.
2. I got an SMS from my bank confirming the debit.

How much more transparent do you expect a political party to be?

My above experience only goes on to prove that the AAP is way more organised, better governed and efficient than a private sector bank. I am now totally confident that they will use public funds effectively and deliver when they come to power in Delhi.

My heartfelt thanks to the founding members of the AAP for the IAC movement and when that fizzled out, for not giving up and to continue fighting for the people of India and most importantly for your impeccable integrity and strong moral fibre! We, the people of India are indeed very gracious.
Win or Lose, you have already made your place in millions of lives.

Jai Hind!

"Ladoo" might be the L in Android L 5.0

Back in 2013 we first saw people campaigning and sending signed petitions to Google requesting them to name the next version of Android by the Indian sweet "Ladoo". In India we distribute Ladoos whenever there is any function or a happy occasion in our family. Be in a Wedding or Graduation, we Indians distribute Ladoos and share our happiness with others.

It looks like Google has finally heard the voices of Indians who are Android Fans. I won't be surprised if Google announced today that the L stands for "Ladoo". After all, the head of Android is Sundar Pichai who is also of Indian origin and there is a possibility that he would have heard the voices of all the people who wanted the version to be named Ladoo. Earlier Indians had requested Google to name the 4.4 version as Kaju Katli which is also a delicious Indian sweet. They were disappointed when it was named KitKat. However, I have a feeling that Google will not disappoint their Android fans this time.

Google has left a few clues by releasing this video yesterday. I noticed in the video that along with all the other sweets (Gingerbread, Doughnuts, Cupcakes), there was a bowl of "Ladoos". It is clear from this picture-

Fingers crossed everyone. Ladoo might just be happening.

Zomato: The Ever Improving Social Media for Foodies!

I am sure all of you have heard of Zomato. For those of you who don't know what it is, I would explain it as - "The Facebook of the foodies, by the foodies and for the foodies."
It was founded in 2008 and has really taken of in the last 2 years and it is gaining importance day by day. They have even brought out their own mobile app and it is really elegant and beautiful.

There are many awesome features but my 3 favourite features because of which I visit the website and use the Zomato app are-

1. The vast coverage of restaurants with complete details (including average cost of the food and special citibank offers). The app also includes the phone no. of the restaurant so that the user can make a call for reservations from within the app. Its so simple and brilliant!
2. The newly introduced filters in the Zomato App so that the photos of the food taken can be beautified with special effects.
3. The categorisation of restaurants (Eg: trending this week, Irani cafes, Hidden Gems, Pocket Friendly, Kickass Burgers etc.) It really makes it easier for the user to search for new places to eat.

However, there are few things which can be improved upon and added. The 3 major things what every Zomato user according to me would need are-

1. A dedicated search bar for finding friends who are users of Zomato with ease through the website and the mobile app. (Find the screen shots of the website and app attached).
2. A Zomato user should also be able to suggest which restaurants can be included in which category. Zomato should conduct a monthly/quarterly poll suggesting users of all regions to add a restaurant that they feel should be included in a particular category. Depending on the polling results, Zomato can incorporate the same. It would make the users more enthusiastic. Also Zomato should allow users to start events so that all the foodies can get together occasionally and gorge on delicious food at their favourite restaurants. This feature can be named as "Going Dutch."
3. In the future, Zomato should slowly enter into arrangements with various restaurants such that a user can directly make table reservations from the zomato website or through the app and with a possibility of making the payment of the bill also through the app. I know it is a huge task but it would really take Zomato to the next level.

There must also be a secondary search bar to search for other zomato users

Same feature must be incorporated in the app too

I personally love the concept introduced by Zomato. This company really has a bright future. Watch out for their name.

Calculation of Leave available for Study for CA Students

Dear fellow CA students.

You must be working really hard the whole day. Morning classes, then your articleship then again evening classes. You must be wondering as to how much time you will get time to study for your CA exams and whether the days will be enough for preparation.

You need not look any further! If you feel you need 90 days then you can plan, if you need 120 or even 150 days, you can still plan. I have created a leave calculator which allows you to know how much leave you have at your disposal. Not only that you can decide how much leave you want to take in order to get enough time to study without having to serve an extension period.

Find the link to the excel sheet here.

Before you start calculating your leave I have taken the following into consideration.

1. In the 1st and 2nd year of articleship I have assumed that you would be working for 6 days a week and in the 3rd year 5 days a week.

2. You can change the dates according to when your articleship commenced.

3. You can make changes in the holiday list.

4. You can pre-decide as to how much leave you want to take in the 3rd year as study leave. You can put your own dates.

5. The calculation of excess will be done for you automatically. You should be fine as long as the excess leave shows "0", else you might have to serve an extension.

I have tried my best to simplify this. Go ahead and download the sheet.

If you make your own calculation and it differs from the one on this excel sheet, then you can either leave a feedback by way of comments or email me with your calculation so that I can make changes and upload the revised sheet.

Your Friend and Fellow CA Student,

Raunak

Note: This is for students who have 3 years of articleship and not 3.5 years.

How to Flash CM12(Unofficial) 5.0.2 Lollipop on your Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus 3G (GT-P6200)

Update 2: The developer daniel_hk has been kind enough to update this ROM to 5.0.2 Lollipop. Find the links to the ROM and GApps on this link. Head over to his XDA Link and support him.
Flash in the following manner-
1st Flash the ROM
2nd Flash GApps
3rd Flash latest SuperSU by Chainfire

Note: Use TWRP provided by Daniel to flash. All instructions are provided on the XDA forum provided above.

Update 1: The developer daniel_hk has been kind enough to update this ROM to 4.4.4 KitKat. Find the links of ROM and GApps on this link. Head over to his XDA Link and support him.

I have been using a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus for over 2 years now. Samsung had stopped updates for this tab after 4.0.4 ICS in India. Few countries got updates to 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.
I was really disappointed because even CyanogenMod didn't officially support this device. However, I found the unofficial 4.2.1 Jelly Bean ROM and I installed it. It used to lag but I was happy that I got a software update.
Recently I found an unofficial 4.4.2 KitKat ROM (Unofficial) and I said that I will flash it immediately.
I will take you through the steps that I followed. The ROM has a few bugs. The screen distorts when the screen is rotated. However, I love that I have the upgraded and latest OS on my device.
All this was provided to us by Daniel. Follow him on XDA and support him-
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2532835

There are 2 major steps in flashing custom ROMs-

1. Rooting the Device-

First do Step 1


2. Flashing the Cyanogenmod unofficial 4.4.2 KitKat ROM and GApps-

Download these 2 files on the XDA developer's page and store it on the external SD card.
Reboot the device into recovery mode by holding the Volume Up button along with the Power button. As soon as you see the Samsung logo on your screen, let go of the Power button but keep the Volume Up button pressed.
Once your tablet has booted in recovery mode, click on "wipe data/factory reset" then click on "wipe cache partition" (You can use the Volume up and down button to move up and down to select options and power button to click the options)
Once you have done that click on "Install zip from SD card" and click "cm-11-20140410-UNOFFICIAL-p6200" and wait for it to complete.
Once it completes the click on "gapps-kk-20140105-signed" and wait for it to complete
Then you can click on "Reboot System Now".

Your tab should take 5-10 mins to reboot and install the ROM. In case Gapps does not work the reboot into recovery mode and only select Gapps and reboot again. It should probably work.

Caution: Do this at your own risk. The author is not responsible for your device getting bricked.

Creation of a Map using Maps Engine Lite feature in Google Maps

I had enrolled for a Google course on Google Maps and Google Earth. I'm still in the process of completing the course. This is just a glimpse of my project that I was required to do during the course.

I will tell you more about this course in due time. Please check my blog for further details and updates.

Google's Stakeholders

We all know how huge Google Inc. is. Hence, it would obviously have various stakeholders. The following are some of the main stakeholders of Google-

1. Users
2. Investors
3. Employees
4. Developers
5. Advertisers

Let us see what claims they place on Google and how Google is working towards satisfying those claims.

1. Users
Google has many many users, You could say way beyond a billion. This is because Google has may
products which now-a-days are indispensable for almost all their users. We users have taken for granted that Google will provide the answers to all our questions. Everyday, Google is working towards making the life of us users extremely simple and easy. They do it mainly by way of their products or applications.
Google is a vast machine with all types of apps, programs, and tools. A lot of these—like Gmail and Google Docs (now Drive)—are clearly useful and beloved by many. But hidden inside Google's network are some awesome, lesser-known tools that can make your life easier.
Over the last couple of years Google has experimented with a lot of products. Hidden beneath popular apps like Gmail, Google Search, and Chrome are a lot of cool features that most people don't mess around with. To know more about all these features, visit the Chrome Webstore.

Products of Google

Google is keeping all its users satisfied and every year there are more satisfied users. We can say this because of a survey conducted by American Consumer Satisfaction Index. This is what the survey on this website says.
Report of the recent American Consumer Satisfaction Index showed that there are more satisfied Google users now than there were last year.
The American Consumer Satisfaction Index is based on the comparison of customer satisfaction among companies, e-business and other sectors as well. As expected, Google beats all the other search engines with its 86% satisfaction rating. All the other search engines got 78% satisfaction rating.

2. Investors
All investors expect that their companies should do well. The same is in the case of Google. Google

has been giving announcing better results every quarter. Google recently announced its earnings for

Q4 of 2012 and guess what? They made a ton of money. I was shocked. Q4 of 2012 was really

great for Google. The company earned $14.4 billion in revenue, which is 36% better than what they

did last year. While we tend to think Google is an American Company, only about $6 billioin of

that revenue came from the US, while the rest was made in international markets.

3. Employees

Another major stakeholder of Google are their employees. The employees also have a great interest and respect for their job and company they are working for. They need to be kept happy and hence they are a major stakeholder in Google. If employees are provided good working conditions, they find their work interesting and workplace enjoyable. This would inculcate more of an ownership attitude in the employee and at the same time his work efficiency would improve.

Just recently my friend had told me that his girlfriend got a job offer from Google. She would be placed in Hyderabad. He told me that Google's offer is very lucrative. She is just a fresher and she's getting 2 stocks as Employee Stock Options. My friend also added that one stock of Google in terms of INR is around Rs. 40,000. I was amazed. All the fresh recruits get a minimum of 2 stocks as ESOPs. This is a great thing for Google to do.

CareerBliss, the career site has released a list of 50 employers with most-improved worker-satisfaction scores, culled from more than 50,000 employee reviews posted on their site. Topping this year's list is Google Inc., which saw its employee-satisfaction rating soar by more than a third -- 37 percent -- during the last year. CareerBliss says the jump in Google's score was the result of improved employee support and growth, a category that saw an 80 percent rise among Google workers.

None of us can even imagine how friendly and relaxed the work environment at Google is. If you really want to find out, go to Google.com and type "Google's Work Environment" and see the pictures for yourself. Jealous aren't you?

Google's California Head Office

That's not all. Google employees reported improvements in the rewards they receive and the overall way in which they work, said CareerBliss CEO and co-founder Heidi Golledge. "With the increase in Google stock price, the death benefits offered to a spouse or domestic partner, as well as the other array of benefits Google employees receive, the search-engine giant continues to lead the way in pioneering a happy work environment," Golledge told AOL Jobs. Read this article to know how Google manages to keep their employees satisfied.

4. Developers

Google has done a lot for developers and vice versa. After the Android Operating System was launched, the number of developers creating products for Google and its OS rose considerably. This was because as Android came out, more and more people wanted to make the OS versatile, just like the computer. That is when the concept of applications or Apps came out. Many developers started creating numerous apps for Android and Google. Then came the Chrome Webstore which also today has innumerable and very useful apps. Apart from the users, Google and Android owes its success to its developers. Hence, they are very important stakeholders of Google.

Without its developers, Google would not have reached where they are today. Hence, Google has a responsibility towards its developers. Therefore, Google has taken some steps to repay and keep the developers happy. It may not be much in monetary terms, but developers do feel good that Google is noticing their role and giving them some importance.

Google has started out with encouraging more people to take interest into developing products for them. Google provides various developer tools online for FREE for users to download, learn and become developers. Some of the developer tools are- API Console, App Engine Console, Oauth 2.0 Playground, Project Hosting etc. Anyone and everyone can learn and master Google API and Technologies.

What more? Google has even brought out a blog for its developers which contains all the latest news and tips for developers who want to create something for Google. The website for developers is “developers.google.com”. Their tagline says- “Inspiring Developers Everywhere”. Hence, we can deduce that Google is striving towards encouraging new developers and are going a long way in supporting them.

5. Advertisers

Google offers people to advertise anything they want. This service is provided by their product called Google AdWords. Advertisers are also main stakeholders of Google. This is because they pay money to Google can reach their ads to billions around the world. The common advertiser expects some returns on his payment. As of today, Google has over 1 million advertisers. As a matter of fact, I myself have spent Rs. 10,000 until now on Google AdWords and I am really satisfied and happy with the kind of response I am getting.

Google AdWords is Google's main advertising product and main source of revenue. Google's total advertising revenues were USD $42.5 billion in 2012. (source) AdWords offers pay-per-click, that is,

cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, cost-per-thousand-impressions or cost-per-mille (CPM) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads.

Since Google makes a lot of money through AdWords from their customers, they have a responsibility towards them. Google has to make sure that their users are not unhappy and dissatisfied. Google makes this possible by having a very sophisticated algorithm for reaching a particular advertisement to a person who is interested in that particular advertisement. I don't know how Google does it, but they do it. We can't even imagine how complicated and sophisticated their algorithm would be.

Therefore, we can see that every stakeholder of Google places various claims on the company and Google manages to satisfy them very effectively.