OC – 99.3%

BC – 98%

MBC – 93%

SC/ST – 65% 

We are not looking at dilution of merit to a great extent. In the beginning it was a bit low, as the years rolled more students aspired and tried to break in and the cut offs went up.  

When the new system is plugged in, dns server was not responding. There was an issue with the permission to /etc/bind directory. Once changed it to give write permission to bind things worked.

Sendmail was tougher. Sendmail smtp authentication did not work at all. Tried so many things. Finally it turned out that I should have read the release notes to figure out what changed from RH 8.0 to FC 1.

QUOTE From the Release Notes 

 The openldap, postfix, and sendmail packages are now compiled using version 2 of the Cyrus SASL library. For these packages, the default location of each application's SASL configuration files has changed from /usr/lib/sasl to /usr/lib/sasl2. In addition, some SASL configuration options have changed; refer to /usr/share/doc/cyrus-sasl*/options.html for a list of options recognized by version 2 of the Cyrus SASL library.
Configuration files that specified a pwcheck_method of sasldb must be changed to specify auxprop, the auxprop_plugin setting must be set to sasldb, and the contents of /etc/sasldb must be migrated into /etc/sasldb2 using the dbconverter-2 tool.
Configurations that set pwcheck_method to other values must be set to saslauthd, and the saslauthd service must be enabled and started.
Refer to /usr/share/doc/cyrus-sasl*/upgrading.html for more information.

UNQUOTE

In addition I also did the following:

a. Used this page  to test the smtp auth working. Especially the telnet session to test the settings is useful:

  You can also try to test it manually. Here is a dialog from my system (properly garbled for security reasons). The green text is what you would type. The blue text is what the server displays.

> telnet localhost 25
EHLO localhost
AUTH LOGIN
a4msl9ux
ZvVx9G1hcg==
MAIL FROM: me@something.fake
RCPT TO: you@nowhere.land
DATA
This is a test .
QUIT
The line a4msl9ux is a user name encoded in Base64. Likewise, the line ZvVx9G1hcg== is the password to that account also encoded in Base64. 

b.  Downloaded sasl certificates following procedures outlined here. 

c. Added a sasl password to the user

saslpasswd username

passwd username 

d.  Change sendmail.mc file to allow collections from all hosts (not only localhost) and also allow plain/login authentication methods. Use this file to create sendmail.cf as m4 sendmail.mc > sendmail.cf

e. On the client use TLS, PLAIN authentical method to send mail.  

Political parties use religion to garner votes, appeal to passions and incite violence. The minority vote banks are easily tappable with Jamaath's of Muslims and Churches of Christians issuing diktats to the congregation on voting preferences. All the politicians have to pander this segment to take care of the votes in block.

What the hindutva parties do is more dangerous. They have to sow hatred to reap the benefits. I have observed one pattern during late 80s and early 90s. Whereever there is a relegeous riot, BJP will win the seat next time. When they orchestrated large scale violence during Advani Yatra, Babri Masjid demolition and Bombay bomb blasts, they gained electorally in the subsequent elections.

But the irony is once in power they can not indulge in such activities and their vote bases erodes. And it is not so easy to go back afterwards. The question will naturally arise as to what they did during their time in power.

That is the path BJP, Shivsena and even Akali Dal are going.

The other side of organising religion as political activity is more dangerous and amoral. The strings of criminal acts of by mada heads and organised economic activity by religeous groups. 

When you overeat or hold things more than what you require you are stealing from another person, this is Gandhian economics and perfectly logical economics.

The rich shall be trustees of the wealth entrusted to them by the society and apply them for the general development of the society (which does not mean giving it away). Earn and spend money honestly and ethically.

Apache 2.0 implements multi-threading support. The PHP guys recommended against upgrading to 2.0 version of Apache and asked php users to stick to 1.3.3x series of Apache webserver. To my knowledge all major distros started including Apache 2.0 version. But the hostility of php group did hurt apache 2.0 adoption and further development.

The argument was php is not thread safe and even if they can make php thread safe they can not guarantee the multitude of external libraries would be threadsafe. Apache 1.3.x version works and why upgrade to 2.0 version.

Now the otherside happens. PHP releases a latest and greatest version 5.0. Guess what many user groups started arguing why to upgrade to 5.0 when 4.x series works well. There is no guarantee that the number of PHP applications would comply with 5.0 requirements any time soon, so don't upgrade.

I think the lead developers would feel a bit of remorse at their anti Apache 2.0 stand now when the boot in on their foot.

Empathy towards fellow human beings is the most important thing. If that is present the rest can be provided by any number of follwers who will be attracted by the empathy of the leader.

That is why a political party by IIT alumni need not necessarily be a success. Why a Kamaraj, Anna Durai, Indira Gandhi, and MAHATMA GANDHI become leaders? Not because of their admin or intelligence alone. But by connecting the those around them which makes the circle wider and wider.

Every one is stripped down to their bare bodies have near similar physical worries and stripped off their pretentions have near similar psychologicl needs. Recognising this a leader is bereft of hatred, anger and full of understand and love.

Is that not enought to attract human beings?

Name one person in India/ World who is such a leader!

During my school days and even today, Gandhi bashing is a fashion statement among my contemporaries. I read blogs proudly proclaiming that they have issues with the way Gandhi handled————– (fill anything you want here).

But what the "thinking" class can not understand is how Gandhi was able to move the millions of people. How people identified themselves with the "half naked fakir". You can write treatise on economics, you can use super computers to calculate what is the right way to reduce poverty in the country, but you are still living in your cathedral in New Delhi, Chennai or in a foreign town.

Nothing beats emulating the lives of the meekest and the poorest. That helps to understand what they go through and how they think. With that empathy, whatever decision the leader takes will resonate with the masses, because they would have done the same as a leader.

If you expect to solve starvation deaths by discussing about funding plans with Wold Bank officials at Ashoka Hotel lobbies, it can get you only a little distance.

ADMK led by Jayalalitha and DMK led by Karunanidhi are in the fray. DMK has a strong coalition with Congress, PMK, MDMK, CPI(M) and CPI. Jayalalitha has roped in DPI of Thol Thirumavalavan. MDMK and the communist parties are negotiating hard over seat share with DMK. One or two from the DMK camp might switch sides to ADMK on the seat allocation issues.

What kind of results I would like: (I think ADMK should win irrespective of the alliance arithmetic).

ADMK – 100 seats
DPI – 5 seats
MDMK – 20 seats
PMK – 10 seats
Congress – 30 seats
DMK – 25 seats
Communists – 10 seats
DMDK (Vijayakanth) – 20 seats

DMK + PMK + MDMK + Congress+Communists should not cross 100 mark (95 seats here)
ADMK should not be able to form government on its own (100 seats) and should form government with DMDK (20) and DPI (5) as partners.

This will let Jayalalitha head the government with some temperation to her methods. She should be forced to co habitate with other parties.

In 1980, there was a parliament election. DMK/Congress combined won 38 seats out of 40 in TN/Pondy. The ruling ADMK ended up with just 2. The victors wanted to cash on quick and dismissed the state government and arranged fresh elections to the Assembly.

Mr. Karunanidhi was arrogant and declared himself the future CM. DMK contested 117 seats with congress contesting 117. MGR was returned to power with 130 seats with both the opposition allies less than 50 seats each.

Now in 2004-06 also the same situation. The mega koottani won the MP elections handsomely and they are already slapping themselves for the victory in assembly elections. But JJ is going to win and win big. Vaiko made the right decision.