Gastroenterologist in Bangalore

My wife was recently diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis. I visited quite a number of doctors, and the experience with majority of them was pretty average.

At first, I visited Columbia Asia near Hebbal. Her condition was identified as “Acute gastroenteritis” after blood report and abdomen and pelvis scan. She was given couple of injections which gave her some relief for the moment. But the stomach problems continued on the immediate next day. After this i visited a family doctor nearby. She gave similar medicine, but after 4-5 days, she asked us to go and get checked with a specialist.

Then I had to admit my wife to Rangodore Hospital after consultation with Mr. Parvesh Kumar Jain. He was able to identify the problem immediately and asked her to get admitted. She had to stay in the hospital for 3 nights, and her situation has improved a lot now.

I highly recommend Mr. Parvesh Kumar Jain. He was able to diagnose and solve what the other two doctors couldn’t. For any further gastro issues, Mr. Parvesh would definitely be my first choice.

BESCOM helpline and e-payment

Yesterday my area experienced power cuts. There is nothing unusual about power cuts for Indians, but the interaction with the BESCOM call center guys was pretty irritating. The helpline folks had no clue when the power might be back, and kept extending the arrival time of power by one hour every time I called them.

BTW, I was surprised to see that BESCOM has their own website http://bescom.org/en/. You can even pay your bills online in http://bescomepayment.com/EPayment/. I have never paid the BESCOM bills using this link, but I might try this out for this month bill.

From my phone contacts, I got two numbers for BESCOM helpline: +9180-22873333 and +9180-22355180. It might take some time to connect to any executive, but it looks like the helpline is active 24×7. I called up the helpline yesterday night at 10 PM, and it took me about 4-5 minutes for someone to answer my call.

Titan Eye+

During my visit to Nethradhama, I was told that I need not wear any glasses. I showed them the glasses that I used. After examining the glasses, I was told that I need not wear them, and I can use them if I want to, although not mandatory.

But my wife needed a new pair of glasses after the test since her eye power had changed. She is the kind of girl who likes to wear designer stuff, and so I decided to give Titan Eye+ a try.

The store I went to was well organized, clean and the staff were attentive. One sales guy greeted us as soon as we entered the store and started to make suggestions. After various tries by my wife on different frames, we decided to get an dark-black colored frame. The best part is that the frame comes with 3 different pairs of replacement temples in different colors. The sales guy showed us the frames from many costly brands, and some decent priced frames too. Overall they have frames in all price range.

I was in need of a pair of sunglasses for myself since I lost my Tommy Hilfiger sunglasses last month in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand during my honeymoon. The sales guy told that if I get Fastrack sunglasses, I can get 10% off on the spectacles I purchased for my wife. Overall I felt like a nice deal and bought myself a nice pair of Fastrack polaroid sunglasses with UV protection. Fastrack sunglasses were being sold with huge discount of 20 to 30%. I was lucky to get a 30% discount on my sunglasses and 10% on my wife’s glasses.

The sales guy took us to a room and detailed about the advantages of fiber glasses over plastic ones. He also explained in-depth about 6 layers of protective coating that would be done on the glasses at extra cost. The glasses with 6 layers of coating costed about 2.2k, and I decided to get it since it would be a one-time charge, and there is no point in saving money in health related matters.

The total damage on my pocket was around 5.5k for my wife’s spectacles after discount, and around 2.1 for the Fastrack sunglasses. So for 7.6k, I managed to get a pair of sunglasses for myself and spectacles for my wife.

Nethradhama

I got my eyes checked couple of weeks back at Nethradhama. Check out http://www.nethradhama.org/. It is their official website.

Every visitor on registration gets a booklet similar to this:

I went on a weekend and there were no slots for appointment. However the assistant managed to get two slots (for me and my wife).

Overall I felt that it is a pretty innovative concept. Eye care has always got less attention in Bangalore. And the eye care clinics present used to charge hefty amounts for regular checkup. The pricing in nethradhama is pretty reasonable. The aam-aadmi can easily go and get a check-up done with minimal expenditure.

For me, the only irritating part is when they put some drops into the eye and we have to wait few minutes till the eye clears up before the actual check-up. Luckily I did not need any eye drops, but my wife had to ake these drops and keep her eyes closed for about half an hour. Lucky me 🙂

I was prescribed some lubricating eye drops by name “Glytears”. I used it only a couple of times, and couldn’t notice any difference with these drops.

So overall for just 500 bucks, I got the eye check-up done for me and my wife. It is not just the cost that matters, but the quality. I personally felt that the quality at Nethradhama is top notch.

Nexus 4 review

I’ve been using Nexus 4 for almost 2-3 weeks now, and explored almost all of its features. Prior to Nexus 4, I have used HTC Sensation, HTC Desire HD, HTC Wildfire, and I can easily compare the difference in hardware, software, ease of use, and UI between Nexus 4 and other HTC devices I have used before.

I paid INR 26,000 for my Nexus 4. I ordered the device from Flipkart and it was delivered in 2 days flat. Hats off to Flipkart’s quick delivery service. Before ordering Nexus 4, I thought about buying a Micromax Canvas HD since the specs of this phone are pretty awesome for a device worth INR 12,000. But then my wife has used a Micromax phone for some time, and she has always complained of the low in-call volume on this device, even when the in-call volume is pushed up all the way. I did order the Micromax Canvas HD initially along the screen protector. But then sense prevailed. I cancelled the order since I felt that I’m walking down an unfamiliar territory with Micromax, and I felt that it is better to stick with reputed brands. I had never had any experience with LG phones before, but then being a major player, I felt they are dependable. I ordered a Nexus 4 in black color the day after cancelling the order for Micromax Canvas HD.

Till date I have faced few problems with Nexus 4. Here they are:
1) I use my Android smartphone with my Nokia BH-216 bluetooth headset while driving. This helps me keep my eye on the road while driving the car. Nexus 4 does pair quickly with the BT headset, but many times the audio kept playing in the phone speaker instead of the BT headset. This is very annoying since I had to use the phone while driving to inform the other person that I had to disconnect the call due to problem in my handset.

2) Sometimes the bluetooth button never goes to ‘ON’ state even when you make it ‘ON’. Tried it multiple times and it was the same result. On Googling, I realized that this problem was faced by multiple users, and a reboot is the oly available solution for the time being.

Regarding problem 1, I contacted LG customer care and was directed to visit the nearest LG customer service center. The device was flashed with a new firmware, and problem 1 went away for a few days. But it recently surfaced couple of days back. I had to restart my phone, and afterwards the problem has never occured again. When I’m paying 26,000 INR (~450 USD), I expect a much much better device than this. My HTC Sensation was so much better even though it was a older generation phone. I never faced any of these problems.

Come on, LG and Google, is this the best you could do? Being a Nexus device, I expected much more from it! I’m totally disappointed with this device, and I’ll sell it as soon as the price of Galaxy S4 reduces after a few months. I’ll sell my Nexus 4 and get myself a S4 or Note 2. I really feel I made a mistake by buying a LG handset. This’ll be the last LG handset that I’m going to buy.

Update on 23rd July 2013: Issue (1) cropped up again today when I connected by BT headset. Had to restart my device 4 times for the audio to route to BT headset again. That’s it. No more LG devices from now on. I’ll buy Samsung phones, they are much more reliable.

Airtel 3G balance check

Airtel recently has stopped pushing popups with balance 3G data when you disconnect the data (mobile network) on your smartphone. Now the popup displays just the remaining amount in the account.

I had a chat with Airtel customer care regarding this and they provided a new USSD code to check the balance 3G data. Dial *123*44#, and you’ll the balance 3G data ASAP.

Check the snapshot below to see a sample balance data popup received from Airtel:

Android ban in India

Saw a news article in IBNLive website that there is a chance of Android getting banned in India. Here is the link to the article: http://khabar.ibnlive.in.com/news/103038/5

The literal translation says: “Phones developed on Android platform are not good for children”. I wonder why there has been a sudden change in stance. The same person had earlier recommended Aakash tablets, and that again is based on Android (http://akashtablet.com/). The articke says that the biggest impact of this would be on companies like Samsung, and local companies like Micromax too to some extent.

But I really feel that this won’t impact the big players to a large extent. Yes, the large players like Samsung and LG might have a huge share in the Indian market, but most of their profits would be from developed countries, mainly from US, countries of Europe, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. Even if Android does get banned, these large players have enough potential to come out with innovative devices on their own platform. Samsung might roll out new devices based on Bada, which made quite an impact couple of years back. Also they can launch phones based on Windows Mobile. The options are many.

I wonder what else might get banned in India – TV, laptop, internet, e-commerce. I hope this minister reconsiders his stance. In the long run such a decision would definitely affect the Indian economy, which is not doing so good now with Rupee going down day-by-day for every dollar.

ICICI BSDA account

Received mail from ICICI couple of weeks back about the option to open a BSDA account. BSDA stands for Basic Services Demat Account.

There are two schemes under this BSDA account. In the first scheme, the customer will not be charged any AMC if the demat holding is between Rs 0 and Rs 50,000.

In the second scheme, the customer will be chanrged Rs 100 as AMC if the demat holding is between Rs 50,001 and Rs 2,00,000.

For those who fall under any of these two schemes, I suggest to opt for this BSDA account immediately and save some money.

IT proof submission

Just finished submitting my IT (Income Tax) details to some tax consultant. My employer has been kind enough to arrange for a tax consultant to visit our office to help us file our IT reurns for the assessment year 2013-14. This guy has charged just a nominal amount of 150 bucks for filing two Form 16. He charges just 110 bucks for filing a single Form 16.

You can save this amount by submitting the IT form yourself online in http://cleartax.in/. The process is simple and easy, and any layman can easily do it. However I couldn’t make use of this site since I had to submit medical bills worth bore than 5000 bucks. I wish there was a way to submit these bills to IT department ourselves and file the IT on our own. Yes, we can file the IT sheet on our own in case there are no bills to be submitted to IT department for exemption. But what if bills need to be submitted? Is going through the CA guys only way? Is there no easy option?

Waze joins Google

This was bound to happen and I always wandered why no big player is showing any interest in Waze. But then few days back I saw this news: http://www.waze.com/blog/waze-joins-google/.

For those who are not aware of what Waze is, in layman terms, Waze is a navigation app that helps to reach you from source to destination. The navigation takes into consideration multiple factors like current traffic scenario, availability of toll roads, highways, shortest/fastest route, and many such parameters. In my opinion, what makes Waze really stand out from other apps is its ability of social integration. Users can report current traffic conditions, hazards, accidents, and police traps from the app, and this would help other users, and Waze does use these reports for calculating the optimal route. Also the users can edit the map from the browser and the updates are pushed to the server regularly.

With Waze joining Google, I hope Google Maps becomes more social. Google Maps is a bit social in the way that users can send bug reports, and they are corrected in a quick time. But I hope Google integrates the much needed features like reporting police traps, hazards and other reports from other users into their maps.

Also another feature that I really miss in any navigation app is the absence of traffic light indicators. Including this shouldn’t be much of a problem, and yet I haven’t seen any app include this in India. I have used Waze, Google Maps and Navigation, and Sygic and all these miss this feature.