Gionee Elife E8 Smartphone: The 24 Megapixel Camera with A Smartphone Attached!

For those of you who are smartphone and smart camera enthusiasts from India, there is an exciting news. The news is about the launch of the smartest smart camera phone by Gionee, the Elife E8 today in the Indian markets by the company through online retailer Snapdeal.

The product is being launched at a price under Rs.35000/-

Buy Gionee Elife E8 64GB from Snapdeal

(Waiting to be launched anytime with effective from 12th October 2015 in India)

Technology is fast moving forward that cameras and phones of the past are getting obsolete and replaced by superior combos which combine smartest lenses with smartest phones operated through smartest microchip computers.

As customers are looking for convenience and higher functionalities, the manufacturers are designing and producing products that satisfy the tech savvy consumers.

Twenty-five years ago, I remember purchasing a desktop computer with Cathode Ray Color tube of 14 inch size with a hard disk capacity of 4GB and the super fast Celeron processor which clocked a speed of 450 Megabytes per second by spending a sum that was not affordable to many. It costed Rs.45000/-! But I considered it as a windfall gain at that time because some of my friends had purchased PCs with black and white monitors having a processing power one fourth of that at costs that was three times higher just some months ago.

But we had seen technology progressing faster over the years. In these years, tremendous changes have taken place. Even the toddlers are computer savvy now-a-days! It seems that they learn the tricks while still in the mother's womb!

Now these are not any thing surprising now, but we have assumed technological advancements as a matter of routine. A time has now come that we get annoyed when the technology giants are not innovating on a monthly or yearly basis!

The Chinese company, Gionee,  had launched this product in China in June 2015 with a price equivalent to about Rs.41000/- and the Indian arm of the company is now launching it in India at a lesser price for the Indian enthusiasts of cameras and phones.

The noteworthy feature of the Gionee Elife E8 is its 24-megapixel rear camera.  With a matching software this phone camera can stitch pictures together and produce images up to 120 megapixels in resolution. 

Gionee is claiming that the E8 has a six-element lens with sapphire glass, optical image stabilisation, lossless zoom at up to 3x, 4K video recording, a dedicated camera button, dual-tone LED flash, and phase detection auto focus for speeds up to 0.08 seconds. The smartphone also has a ‘biological’ fingerprint reading feature on the back panel, and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera.

The Elife E8 runs Android 5.1 Lollipop-based Amiga 3.1 operating system, and is a dual-SIM 4G smartphone. 

This smart slim phone is with a 6-inch QHD (1440×2560 pixel) Super Amoled display with a pixel density of 490 ppi. Powered by a 2 GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio X10 (MTK6795) system on chip (SoC) coupled with 3GB of RAM, it comes with 64GB of inbuilt storage without expandable storage. 

The smartphone is powered by a 3520mAh battery, and it supports fast charging.

Those interested in procuring this phone may also like to get other accessories for this phone as well from SnapDeal. That could be easily done by using the search facility given in this online shopping page which could also be used to find other smartphone models including those of Gionee as offered by Snapdeal, flipkart and Amazon.

In case you are not inclined to spend too much money for your Gionee Elife E8 smartphone I would recommend you try any one of the following smart camera phone models instead. These too are technically superior and available for around Rs.10,000/- from the online shops such as Snapdeal (Click the links to see the details and order online!):

Intex Cloud Swift 4G 3GB RAM/16GB ROM- Buy from Snapdeal

Samsung Galaxy Grand Max 16GB- Buy from Snapdeal!

iPhone 4S 8 GB Black-Buy from Snapdeal!

Samsung Tizen Z3- Buy from Snapdeal

Mi4i 16GB- Buy from Snapdeal

Nathaniel and Thomas: the Two Disciples of Jesus Associated With India!

The St.Thomas Christians of India generally believe that it was St. Thomas, the disciple of Jesus, often called the ‘doubting Thomas’ who preached Christianity for the first time in the Indian sub-continent.

But my favorite book of life guidance clarifies that Thomas never reached India. He died in Malta and it was Nathaniel, son of Bartholomew, who did it instead.

In the Bible there are a few references about Nathaniel. We read in the Gospel of John chapter-1 verse 45  like this: 

Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

In the same gospel, in chapter 21 we find the name of Nathaniel again. He was among the small group of desperate disciples who had just decided to go back to their original fishermen's profession after the crucifixion and death of Jesus. But the resurrected Jesus appeared to them to restore their confidence and their work towards preaching what he taught them about God's kingdom. Interacting with the resurrected Jesus indeed helped them to believe in the teachings of Jesus more firmly than before. They gained the confidence to face threats and deaths to preach the good news to the ignorant but egoistic mankind.

For sure they now believed about the invisible but real worlds of the divines. They now realized Jesus as a living divine being and not one of the kinds of those mortal prophets. As a human he moved with them some time ago and died miserably in the hands of his egoistic humans who took pride in temporal powers of human authority and never really believed in the existence of God though they did all they did in the name of God!

From the assurance received from the resurrected Christ, the disciples moved to all nations to preach about the good news about God, the heavenly father and about the His divine kingdom. And Nathaniel moved first to Mesopotamia and from there he reached India.

But these are all histories of the past and recorded evidences of all these are difficult to find, though not impossible. But the mismanagement of history by the latter generations of human beings made historical evidences difficult to find and interpret without ambiguity. There are many learned historians who have their own interpretations. Mr. T.V.Philip's book is an example.

But to me the nitty-gritty of historical details are not of much relevance. It does not make any difference if it was Thomas Didymus or Nathaniel Barthalomew who preached Jesus's teachings in India 2000 years ago. But one of the disciples of Jesus, indeed, came to reveal the good news to the Indian descendants of Andon and Fonta and also the later descendants of Adam and Eve that existed as a great humanity occupying the Indian subcontinent! 

We do not know much about the personality traits of these two disciples of Jesus from the literature that had been in existence for centuries. But now my favorite book provides much insight about this which I would like to share with my readers.

Nathaniel was known among the other twelve disciples as 'honest Nathaniel'.He was an associate of Philip and it was Philip who brought him to Jesus. He was on the way to meet John the Baptist that he was diverted to meet Jesus. When he was initiated as one among the twelve, he was the second youngest of the group having attained twenty five years of age. He was unmarried and hailed from Cana. He was the youngest among seven of his siblings.

Nathaniel's greatest virtue that Jesus admired was his sincerity and honesty. His weakness was his pride about his family, his hometown, his reputation and the Jewish nation. He was also well educated just as Judas Iscariot. In many respects, he was the genius among the twelve disciples. He was a philosopher, a practical dreamer, a humorist and a story teller among the lot. Jesus greatly enjoyed Nathaniel talking about various topics, both serious and humorous. He came to the grip of the teachings of Jesus only slowly.

Except Judas, all other disciples loved and respected him for his  knowledge and honesty. Nathaniel was also a troubleshooter and a helping hand to all. Whenever there was a problem in the families of any one, it was Nathaniel who was deputed to help and resolve the problem.

Nathaniel respected Jesus most for his tolerance and open mindedness. Among the twelve, it was he who noticed the remarkable quality of generous sympathy of Jesus towards all people and admired his master for that..

After Jesus had gone to his heavenly abode, Nathaniel preached in Mesopotamian regions and later in India. He died in India while doing his mission of sharing the teachings of Jesus to the peoples of India in the later part of his life. 

While Nathaniel was the sixth disciple of Jesus and was one who was directly chosen by him, Thomas Didymus was the eighth apostle. He was chosen to be in the group by Philip. Thomas was not much educated but possessed a very keen, reasoning mind. He was the true analyst among the twelve! His parents were excellent people hailing from Tiberias, but having a difficult married life. That caused Thomas to grew up as a quarrelsome young man. He was married but his quarrelsome nature had remained to a greater extent. For his wife, Thomas was a pessimistic and suspicious husband and when he decided to follow Jesus as a permanent companion, his wife was too happy about it.

By deciding to join the group that followed Jesus, Thomas got the great opportunity to come in to contact with the noblest human being on earth at that time, Jesus. The direct association of Thomas with Jesus brought remarkable changes in the mind of the latter.

He was under great depression when Thomas came and joined the group that followed Jesus.But his problems began to vanish as he began to comprehend Jesus. Jesus loved Thomas and was always interested in talking to him. Thomas had the highest intellectual understanding and personality appreciation of Jesus.

Thomas was always cautious and his attitude was to give safety the first priority. But when the group decided on something, it was he who moved out first fearlessly to implement the decision. Sadness was another characteristics of Thomas. It was because he had lost his twin sister while he was a boy of nine. When Thomas became moody and sad, often Nathaniel helped him to overcome his melancholy with his humorous talks.

When the news of Jesus' resurrection from the miserable death on the cross came, it was Thomas who refused to believe it, only to  become a firm believer of Jesus later when his doubts got removed.

As my favorite book's superhuman authors point out: 'Thomas is the great example of a human being who has doubts, faces them and wins'.

Thomas was a logical thinker and he was the acid test of Jesus and his fellow disciples. If the work and teachings of Jesus had not been genuine, it could not have held a man like Thomas from the start to the end. Had he noticed even a speck of fraud, Thomas would have left the group!

Modern human scientists may not fully understand all about Jesus and his work on earth, but there lived and worked with him a man whose mind was truly scientific and it was Thomas. And Thomas believed in Jesus, after clarifying all his doubts logically and scientifically!

He doubted the news of the dead Jesus rising up again as a living personality. He got the opportunity to quench all his doubts. Once done that, he became the true messenger of for the teachings of his master to all people.

Many historians believe Thomas reaching India while many others do not support this. But Nathaniel and Thomas both had contributed to spread the good news of Jesus to India and the far east either directly or indirectly a few decades after Jesus' mission on earth.

Would you like to share your views?

Why Do I Consider Frequent Rate Control Exercise By the Reserve Bank Not Good?

I presume that you have some idea about the basic functions of a central bank in any economy or country. In India it is called the Reserve Bank of India or RBI while in the United States of America it is called the Federal Reserve System and in the United Kingdom it is the Bank of England. There is no standards as to how a central banking organization of a country is to be named and these institutions are known differently in different countries or economic regions.

Essentially, the central bank functions more or less independently and its main function is to control or direct the country's economy properly with various monetary measures or policies adopted from time to time. The central banking system though may be called independent of the government, it is not practically so always. The government does have influence on its functioning, though exercised by indirect means and methods.

The central banking system uses its powers vested on it by appropriate legislation or laws for framing and implementing the monetary policies of the country. Just as individuals deposit money in commercial banks or take loans from them, the central banking system functions as a banking system for the banks. In other words, banks can maintain an account with the central bank and they get an interest for their deposits and they are charged for any loans they take. 

The interest rate at which the central bank lends money to the commercial bank is called the Repo Rate while the interest rate they obtain on their deposits is called the Reverse Repo Rate. The central bank can mandate how much money that the individual banks need to deposit with it at any time. This is called the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR). Thus the Repo Rate, Reverse Repo Rate and the CRR are often used by the central bank authority for exercising controls on the economy by changing those appropriately. These are like the accelerator, brake and steering of a car!

A car driver can use the pedals and the steering for controlling the speed and direction of the car the way he wants. In a similar way, the head of the central bank ( e.g. the governor of the Reserve Bank of India) can use the control tools for giving direction and speed of the economy.

But a passenger sitting on a car may not feel comfortable when the driver uses his pedals and steering quite abruptly or irrationally or too frequently. We call such a driver a novice who does not know how to drive properly. The car drive could be chaotic and may even prone to accidents. The passengers would be scared for their lives by sitting in such a car. The behavior of such a driver becomes too unpredictable when he happens to drive in a crowded place with narrow roads. His chaotic drive becomes too panicky if he happens to have a master who scolds him too often.

Same applies in the case of the head of the central bank as well. The economy becomes chaotic and unpredictable when such a head cuts rates or enhances rates abruptly or too frequently. The people who happen to be in such an economy become too panicky and confused not knowing what to do next. They may curse the fellow who creates this mess or may even try to jump out of the economy.

When a novice driver starts behaving unprofessionally, there appears many bystanders who cries out various instructions to the driver from the outside for various reasons. Some want to see the fun. Some wants to see and accident taking place. Some may even want to make some money out of the chaos by crooked means.

In a similar way, when an economy starts behaving chaotically under the chaotic policy steps too frequently implemented by the head of its central bank there could be outsiders who start giving directions from outside for their own vested interests. They may be the media, the representatives of business entities, the politicians or even the general public!

When an economy is in an unsteady equilibrium its dynamics becomes unpredictable. In such a situation some people make windfall gains while the majority make huge losses. It is always the uninformed masses that suffer the most. When an insane driver drives the car in a crowded place, it is always the innocent bystanders who get affected adversely!

In short, such a situation takes out the confidence of the people in the economy and the policy makers that drives the economy. More than the certified driving skills, it is the confidence of the passengers that makes a driver more desirable!

And public confidence is the most important thing for a stable and progressive economy. Public confidence comes when the economy is in a steady state of progress that is more or less predictable. Measures taken to control inflation might cause deflation too quickly in an unpredictable economy and frequent happenings of these situation further worsens the situation. Peoples' confidence in monetary policies deteriorates and people begin to bypass the governmental systems in their own manner. And that is not good for any nation!

When an unsteady behavior sets in for an economy, any quick action to set it right could further enhance the instability. That is the general rule for any control system, applicable for the economy as well.

The way the RBI tries to control the Indian economy is causing worries though the media bystanders are extending all praise. ( News-1 / News-2/ News-3) 

My worries are on account of the following:

1. The Indian stock market cannot ensure safety of savings of the majority public as the Foreign Institutional Investors can suck out public money at periodic intervals of their choice making the uninformed public helplessly watching their savings evaporate suddenly without any notice. Stock market investments are subject to risks and therefore there should be dependable investment options with reasonably good returns such as the bank fixed deposits. The monetary policy makers should not do their acts without addressing this issue.

2. The government has washed its hands from the responsibility of paying pensions to the retired people. Neither the government nor the private organizations now has any guaranteed pension scheme which offers some reasonable income to the retired population. Even the present savings linked pension plans are mere brainwash systems which are too poorly managed causing great sufferings to its members. When pension funds are invested in equities, the same money sucking by the FIIs keep happening which the government nor the RBI can prevent. What the people want is guarantees to their savings!

3. A growing economy in paper with macro economic data do not necessarily safeguard the interests of the individual citizens. When jobs or incomes from employment are proceeding towards the no guarantee mode, how can people take long term loans from banks? If long term loan EMIs to work, it is essential that long term fixed deposits with guaranteed returns also should work simultaneously.

4. Floating point interest system is essentially a cheating system. It is not market driven or based on ethical practices. Once the people understand it well, the confidence in banking system would diminish. It is neither good for the banks nor for its customers in the long run.

5. Unsteady monetary policies help only some individuals to make huge money by way of corruption and it does not ensure good governance.

6. Indian business houses that make huge profits from low interest regime do not pass on the benefits to the general public or even its employees. Neither they do any thing to enhance employment opportunities.

Let me stress this once again. Confidence in the economy and its monetary policies are more important and that cannot happen when the policies change too rapidly and too irrationally without due consideration of ground realities of the nation.