Drive to Yelagiri Hills

It was end of June but not typical summer for Bangalore. Despite a cool weather in Bangalore, we thought of going to Yelagiri hills just for a nice drive and family outing. Yelagiri is a very small hill station but due to short distance from Bangalore it is a good drive for outing. Most of the drive is on Chennai highway which has great road except considerable wait on toll plazas. There are number of good eateries on this road. The restaurant where we stopped was full of tourists and so we could have coffee only. From Krishnagiri we took left and drove on AH45 for next twenty kilometers. This road was again good. Then we left highway and drove on village side roads for next ten kilometers to reach a small town Ponneri which is at foothill for Yelagiri. From here drive of next ten kilometers which has fourteen hairpin bends is scenic and eye catching. Traffic on this road was not high but there were tourists vehicles stopped at haipin bends to capture the lush green beauty in their cameras. Each hairpin bend offers a different view of green valley down under it. After three hours of drive for one hundred and fifty kilometers, we reached on top of Yelagiri hills. It was ten o'clock by now and first thing we had is, a great breakfast just near to the lake entrance.

After a satisfying breakfast we went to lake. Lake was not so big but well maintained. There were number of boats and a long queue. Boating was little costly but this is the main attraction of the place. I guess lake was not so deep. We spent half an hour in lake and then we roamed around. There are some rides and well maintained park in lake premises. Kids had fun in park whereas parents went for a refreshing walk. From lake we moved towards Nature park. On road from lake to Nature park, there were numbers of  road side shops selling jack fruits and fried fishes. Nature park has good landscaping and well made scenery but still there is a miss of Midas touch in the park. Yelagiri hills is not very big but worth visiting due to its cool ambiance and less exploited as it is less popular. There are number of resorts and homestay. I knew about the good track to Swamimalai peak and Murugan temple on top but we happily skipped these as we had senior citizens in our group. After staying in Yelagiri for four hours we started our journey back for Bangalore. This time we changed our route and drove via Jolarpettai. After crossing Krishnagiri toll, we stopped at an eatery for late lunch. In next two hours we were back to home with happy moments of Yelagiri hills trip.

Winston Churchill: A Life

Book "Winston Churchill: a life" written by historian John Keegan is a short biography of Churchill but it gives the complete details about his life, his thought process and events around him when he led his country in second world war. John Keegan seems to be unbiased while describing the character of Churchill. Churchill used his reach to press to glorify himself in wars. Churchill never had a great opinion about India and its citizen, simply because it never fought war or never shown serious resistance towards British.

Book clearly presents the picture on why Winston Churchill was one of the finest prime minister of England. He shown hope to its countryman when everyone was sure about German overtaking the county. He could pulled Unites states in to the war by untiring efforts. Not only this but when German was loosing how he traveled a lot despite his illness just to keep its county head high during negotiations going on between "Big three" countries including Russia and United States.

This Book is one of the best for reading enthusiasts who would like to know about the great statesman of England or hero of second world war.

Day to Day Economics

This post is about the book "Day to Day Economics" written by Satish Y Deodhar. It is one of the business books published by IIM Ahmedabad. This explains some of the day to day macroeconomic and microeconomics activities very well, with very simple, sharp, and practical examples. 

One of the excerpt from this book explain the economics activities of government and private sector very well.The existence of pure public goods, natural monopolies, and externalities are clear cases of market failures. In such situations, the private sector either cannot provide goods and services profitably, or provides them with a disregard of social costs. Therefore government has legitimate reasons for undertaking the economic activities.

Similarly other chapters on Budget, Banking, Free trade, Inflation, Govt's monetary policy and Share market explain the key words of finance with clarity. Book not only goes beyond the facts and terminology but helps reader in understanding it in very enjoying way. This is highly recommended for people not having economics background.