My Musings

If you are within Canada and you need to get background check done in India to apply for your PR, I hope the below information is helpful. The Consulate General of India is located at 365 Bloor Street East, 7th Floor, Toronto ON M4W 3L4. The closest intersection is Bloor and Sherbourne. The nearest subway is Sherbourne station (http://www.cgitoronto.ca/) Visa and consular applications are handled by BLS International Services Canada Inc. (BLS). NOTICE. Applications for Visa, Passport, Surrender Certificate, Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card, Persons of Indian Origin (PIO), Certificate of Birth and Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) should be submitted at the BLS Visa Application Centres (VACs) at : Toronto – 1448 Lawrence Avenue E, Unit 6 A, ON, M4A2V6 Brampton - 10 Gillingham Drive , Unit 201 , ON, L6X5A5 Winnipeg – 1806, 201 Portage Avenue, 18th Floor, MB R3B3K6 BLS International Services Canada Inc. Helpline number is 647-846-8141 and their website http://www....

The last couple of months have been very turbulent for Indians as we try to get a grip on the demonetization wave.  While people residing in India seem to have come to an understanding with the new normal, Indians abroad are still confused and trying to make sense of what this means to them and how do they convert/exchange the devalued SBNs (1000 and 500 Rs Notes) with the new ones. I can claim that I am one of the few NRIs who have successfully submitted my old currency notes at RBI and while I wait for the money to be deposited to my account, I wanted to share my experiences that may be helpful for others who are looking for pointers /directives online but don’t find any useful information. I visited RBI Chennai on 18 th Jan 2017. I had Rs 18,500 that I carried with me when I landed in India almost a week before. Below, I try to provide as much information as possible. If I commit any mistakes in this post, please help me to correct it by leaving a comment. I ...

Book Review: The Shadow of the Winds Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Spanish) Translated by : Lucia Graves Genre :   Fiction, Mystery Other books in series : The Angel’s Game The Shadow of the winds is the story of Daniel and his quest to locate the author of a book that he has found and adapted at a secret book society called the Cemetery of Forgotten books. The plot is based in Barcelona, 1945 that is reeling through the aftermaths of the Spanish Civil War and throughout the book you will realize the impact these aftermaths have on the life of the main characters of this story. To sum it up, Daniel, a 10-year old, son of bookseller is lamenting the loss of his mother. His father takes him to Cemetery of the forgotten books to get him a hobby and in turn a new life. Cemetery of forgotten books is a place known by a few and visited by far lesser people where in everybody picks a book, adapts it and makes sure its passed on to a  new generation. Daniel picks a ...

One of the requirements to apply for Canada PR (Permanent Residency) is that the principal applicant must meet the minimum language requirement and prove that he / she can communicate in one of the principal Canadian Language - English / French.  You need to clear the language test from an agency dedicated by CIC. 

CELPIP stands for  Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program . Like IELTS, CELPIP is an English language proficiency exam specific to Candian scenario. The certifcation can be used either to apply for Higher education, job opportunities or to prove English Language proficiency while applying for Canadian PR (permanent Residency) or Immigration to Canada. 

Facebook Fan pages are central and essential to any social media strategy. It is the means as well as the ends to engage the audience in social media and can also be the doorway to e-commerce. In this post I share 10 tips to create engaging fan page posts that are advised by the masters and creators of facebook. 

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when I say Horror Movies? Gory scenes of blood, intestines and organs falling out and weird walking dead bodies - Z.O.M.B.I.E.S. !! Yes!! now imagine the fun when you get to spend a good part of the day with these weird characters and caricatures. It was like Dawn of the dead characters attacking Toronto. I have had this luck. Twice!! I have been a part of Toronto Zombie walk 2012 and 2013 and I am here to share my experiences from this year.

I came across this amazing graphic and wanted to share with you all What Kind of Spender Are You? infographic

"ROVIO".  Ring any bells? yo! the team behind the now "Cult game" ANGRY BIRDS. Now they are atlast breaking out of the Angry birds stance and avoiding oblivion by challenging new horizons.  Amazing Alex is the latest offering from ROVIO, a physics game that requires the player to apply the basics of physics to achieve the goals at every level such as knocking out something or land the ball in particular basket. My first impressions said that this game was similar to Gravity Master , one of my all time favorites.  I dug a bit further and now I can say that this game was previously known as Casey's Contraptions . They improvised upon it and here we are with our very own brand new Amazing Alex.  It is also claimed that the game is a copy of the 1992 PC game  " The incredible Machine ". Whatever the source, as of today it is called Amazing Alex. I would want you to watch the official trailer before we go ahead about the game. ...

Why Food is the topic this year? This year Blog Action Day  coincides with  World Food Day, a time that focuses the world’s attention on food,  something we all have in common.There is so much to say about food.We use food to mark times of celebration and sorrow. Lack of access to food causes devastating famines, whilst too much is causing a generation of new health problems.  It can cost the world, or be too cheap for farmers to make a living. The way we companies produce  food and drinks can provide  important jobs for communities or be completely  destructive to habitats and local food producers.  Food can  give us energy to get through the day or contain ingredients that gives us allergic reactions. Food can cooked by highly skilled chefs with inventive flair, or mass produced and delivered with speed at the side of road. It can be incredibly healthy or complete junk and bad for your health. It can taste delicious or be a locals only de...

This Pic by Phil Watson, is an entertainer as well as an insult to the mankind. It is time we start taking the responsiblity for the mess we have created for all living beings. 

I recently received this E-mail from a group claiming to be google security team and that they are mailing all accounts to confirm if they IDs are active and if you do not reply to the mail your account will be shut down. And when you reply back to initial mail, an automated mail delivery services delivers you another mail asking you to compulsorily share your account details including your PASSWORD. Now now why would google do that. I did my bit of research and found that there have been mails from other Ids as well . First they started with gmailteam_cs@inbox.lv, and to make it look more genuine the same mails are now sent by gteamsecurity01@gmail.com and few others.  So my dear fellas BEWARE!! do not reply to any such mails. Hope Google realizes this at the earliest and takes an action. In any case, below is the entire text of the mail ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: GTeam Security01 Date: Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 10:19 PM Subject: Gmail! ...

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 20 ; the twentieth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton . Mr. Q was sitting  handcuffed in the  federation police car. He stared out the window of the car.It was raining heavily. His overcoat soggy and wet made him feel cold. A shiver ran up his spine. He was reminded of a similar scene, but different times and a different place. His sordid and nonchalant father had returned home drunk, lost money on betting and the frustration was being shown on his mother. What started with a blow or two ended into his father battering his mother to death. Many things happened in succession, he was too young to comprehend. His father was unaware that his better half had breathed her last, there were police and medical people. A kind hearted monk had taken him to the car waiting outside. It was raining heavily.He h...

Author : Steve Berry Genre : Historical, thriller, adventure, action Original Title : The Venetian Betrayal Series : Cotton Malone 3rd book ( The Alexandria Link, Templar Legacy) ________________________________________________________ If you love books that deal with treasure hunts, unraveling historical puzzles and stuff; if you have loved Dan Brown’s Da Vinci’s Code then you will fall in love with Steve Berry’s works. Steve Berry’s plots generally pick a historical legend – a man or place and the story revolves around it. In this case, the title TheVenetian Betrayal misleads you to think that this book is all about Venice. This book has a Venetian connection but the central theme is all about Alexander the great. This is the third book in the series featuring Cotton Malone, a retired US justice department employee now running a book store in Copenhagen. Malone with his friends Cassiopea Vitt and Henrik Thorvalsden take on another villain bent on world domination, Irina Z...

This is an amazing cartoon by Randy Glasbergen. I wanted to share wtih all and so here it is.

I started pessimistically with Windows vista and as my mom says, things go from bad to worse when you are pessimistic. Everything I to run on my vista laptop gets screwed up and the error? The one and only "COM SURROGATE HAS STOPPED WORKING" I did my bit of research on this topic and luckily didnt have to look far. The issue was with the NERO softwares on my system. The easiest solution was to uninstall Nero but, that is not an easy affair. So this is what i did : Rename the file C:\ProgramFiles\Common Files\Ahead\DSFilter\NeVideo. ax to NeVideo.ax.bak and NeVideoHD.ax to NeVideo.ax.bak  Please Note that these files are the root cause for the issue, so you can rename them any which you like it. Once renamed the issue is resolved and can have relief for a long time. Also note that this may be one of the reasons along DivX and other softwares. For a detailed solution read this article . If you like my post, you can   FAVE it here

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton Season 2 edition 18 ; the eighteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton . “Do you know who he is Sir?” Said chambi the constable, sipping his tea. “Yeah, He is the famous Mr. Ravinder” Replied a thoughtful inspector Sharma. “You don’t mean the Founder of Ravinder & Ravinder Group of Industries ?” Senior constable Ravi kumar asked raising his eyebrows to inspector Sharma’s Nod “He is the richest man of the country, why would he want to rob the minnow jewellery shop?” Chambi continued sipping his tea. “It is all over the news channels and News papers, Richest Man of the country caught trying to Rob a petty jewellery shop . Want me to read the front page story from Times of India”? volunteered Sub-inspector Imtiyaz taking a seat besides Ravi Kumar at the Police canteen, holding a folded copy of Times of India News...

Thomas Jefferson, 3 rd President of USA(1801-09) and author of the Declaration of Independence says  “ A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine ”. A thought provoking statement with lot of depth to it. It just doesn’t talk of majority in the parliament but about all those wrong-doers who wish to grow their wealth at the expense of everyone else. Right to Information Act, was brought on the table and made a reality just to counter such elements of the society. RTI guarantees transparency of Information that is vital to its functioning and to contain corruption. In other words, it aids to hold governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed. We will try and understand more about the SCOPE of RTI, What information is accessible and what isn’t. SCOPE of RTI The following Governments, Organizations  and bodies are covered under RTI and are subject to it.   C...