shifting shadows: faddism Exposed

BBC News - Egyptian newspaper under fire over altered photo

2010-09-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

BBC News - Egyptian newspaper under fire over altered photo

Teen banned from US for abusive email to Obama

2010-09-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

Teen banned from US for abusive email to Obama

London: A British teenager who had sent an abusive email to US President Barack Obama has been banned for life from visiting America.

According to media reports, Luke Angel, 17, had sent an insulting email to the White House in a drunken state after watching a programme about September 11 attacks on the US.

In his hate email, Angel was abusive of Obama. The FBI intercepted the message and contacted police in the UK.

The local police found the teenager at his home in Silsoe, Bedfordshire, and informed him that he is now on a list of people who are banned from visiting the US, the Daily Mail reported.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/teen-banned-from-us-for-abusive-email-to-obama-51977?cp

The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> Bindras father asked to pay Rs2725 cr dues

2010-08-29T00:10:00.000-07:00

The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> Bindras father asked to pay Rs2725 cr dues

BBC News - Lennon's toilet sells for £9,500 in Beatles auction

2010-08-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

BBC News - Lennon's toilet sells for £9,500 in Beatles auction

The Holy Warrior - 60 Minutes - CBS News

2010-07-09T03:08:00.000-07:00

The Holy Warrior - 60 Minutes - CBS News

8 Historic Symbols That Mean The Opposite of What You Think | Cracked.com

2010-07-03T04:53:00.000-07:00

8 Historic Symbols That Mean The Opposite of What You Think | Cracked.com

The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> To fix Jaya CM robs Fort St George of its splendour

2010-06-29T23:44:00.000-07:00

The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> To fix Jaya CM robs Fort St George of its splendour

The grandeur of the historic Fort St George which housed the Tamil Nadu Assembly for decades has been stripped, just to spite a rival.

Having made a huge structure, shorn of any traditional Dravidian artistry, to house the Legislative Assembly of the State, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK chief M Karunanidhi wanted to initially preserve the old pad as a museum — a testimony to Tamil Nadu’s history. History was so much in his heart that he even got replicas of the Speaker’s and other chairs made for the new Assembly, while preserving the old rosewood and green set-up with huge decorative chandeliers, lamps, etc.

However, earlier this month, Leader of the Oppo-sition and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa criticised the look of the new Assembly-cum-Secretariat complex and announced that when her party returned to power, the Assembly would be shifted right back to its old moorings in the Fort St George. No sooner did she mention that than Karunanidhi announced that the old Assembly would be turned into a library. Then what happened to his idea to preserve a valuable heritage?

At the recently held World Classical Tamil Conference in Coimbatore, Karunanidhi, driven by emotions, announced that the Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) would be shifted to the hallowed hall at the Fort St George even before the conference ended and that his office chamber would become the office of the institute head.

Anti-politics machine - article by Noorani in Frontline

2009-01-23T18:35:00.000-08:00

“[T]he politician lives in a world of publicity, calumny, distortion, and insult. He is often looked down upon by police society as being a mere ‘fixer’ and an ‘opportunist’ (though it is puzzling why this last word always has a bad meaning) and he is mocked by intellectuals for rarely having ideas of his own: a politician is an arse upon/which everyone has sat except a man, which is the whole of an easy poem by E.E. Cummings. And, indeed, the politician, beneath his necessary flexibility, will rarely be a man of less than normal pliability and ambitions. He will provoke such cheap mockery from spectators. But he will not take these things to heart. The successful politician will learn how to swallow insults.”

A politician deserves scorn only when he is disloyal to his calling and fails to perform his duties as a politician. A free society has diverse interests with conflicting claims on power and the state’s attention and finances. The politician is an advocate as well as a mediator. He espouses an interest and meets with advocates of other interests to reconcile them peaceably and in an orderly way, whether in the legislature or outside. That is the only way a free society can function: by compromise, conciliation and reconciliation. It is messy, but it is unavoidable. That is life.

To be sure, the politician does not act purely from altruistic motives. He does seek power for himself. But it is a pursuit that is informed by a commitment to the public interest as well. That is what is known as “honourable ambition”, as distinct from that of the man who enters politics in order to line his pockets. The corruption of politics and the disavowal of politics form a vicious circle. Implicit in both is contempt for the political process. Read it all here

US priests 'in $800,000 theft'

2009-01-22T07:17:00.000-08:00

By Robert Pigott
BBC Religious Affairs Correspondent

Father John Skehan admits stealing the money for property and gambling
Two Roman Catholic priests have been accused of stealing $800,000 from the collection plate of their church in the US state of Florida.
They allegedly planned to spend the money on property, holidays, gambling and to meet the expenses of mistresses.
One of the priests, Fr John Skelan has admitted the charges, but his colleague Fr Francis Guinan denies them.
US law - the statute of limitations - prevents the priests being charged with thefts that occurred before 2001.
But the auditors say that up to $8m might have disappeared over a period of 20 years.
It could be the biggest embezzlement case to affect the Catholic Church in the United States.
One of the priests - Fr John Skehan - abandoned his not-guilty plea just before his trial began, and admitted stealing $800,000 given by parishioners at St Vincent Ferrer Church in West Palm Beach.
The priests allegedly hid the money in the church ceiling and opened offshore accounts.
Fr Skehan - who is 81 and has been given the honorific title "Monsignor" - served at the church for 40 years.
He admitted spending stolen money on expensive houses and gambling in Las Vegas.
Police reports claimed that he used more than $100,000 to pay the expenses of an alleged lover, and almost $300,000 on rare coins. More

Twitter Surpasses Digg: Almost 1000% Growth in One Year

2009-01-22T07:08:00.000-08:00

Tweet smell of success over Digg

The rise and rise of Twitter traffic in the UK
Twitter, the mobile phone-based micro-blogging service, rocketed nearly 1000% in use in the UK over the past year according to industry analysts HitWise.
For the first time, the site has seen more visits than "social bookmarking" site Digg, which allows users to share links to sites.
Twitter made headlines earlier in January, providing the first pictures of downed US Airways flight 1549.
The site may continue its meteoric rise as the new US President is a devotee.
The Twitter site has jumped from 2,953rd most popular in the UK in 2008 to 291st as of mid-January.
"A big driver of traffic to Twitter last week was around the US Airways plane crash in to the Hudson River last Thursday, driving many posts and updates about the situation," said Hitwise research director Heather Dougherty.
The first picture of the crash was posted to TwitPic, and was picked up by more traditional media outlets - sparking the widely-quoted notion that Twitter is the poster child for a new era ofcitizen journalism.
Among the "Social Networking and Forums" category, however, Twitter came in at 23rd for the week ending 17 January, garnering just 0.24% of the site visits in the category.

Facebook maintains a significant dominance among them, with nearly 38% of site visits, twice as many as YouTube and more than four times as many as its predecessor Bebo. Read it all

Christian bus driver walks out over atheist advertisement

2009-01-17T03:16:00.000-08:00

Jan 17 2009
A CHRISTIAN bus driver refused to take out his vehicle because it sported an atheist advert.
Ron Heather, 62, walked out of the depot in protest at the words "There's probably no God" written on his bus.
The First Bus vehicle was one of 800 across the UK to feature the first-ever atheist ad campaign, run by the British Humanist Association
Now bosses have agreed to accommodate Ron's beliefs by trying to put him on buses which don't carry the advert.
Dad-of-three Ron, from Southampton, said: "I was just about to board and there it was staring me in the face. My first reaction was horror.
"I'd heard about this silly campaign but I had no idea it was coming to Southampton.
"I felt strongly I couldn't drive that bus, so I went up to my inspectors and told them.
"To be fair, the company have been very good and have agreed to do everything they can to keep me off those buses.
"However, if it goes on any longer, then I will consider giving up my job." more

Businessman who faked his own death in a plane crash has been found alive

2009-01-14T02:13:00.000-08:00

Times Online

Yagam that smacks evil

2008-12-20T23:29:00.000-08:00

Gayatri Aswamedha Yagam to be held in Sambalpur district on December 25 smacks of evil intent Christian leaders in Orissa told the Chief Minister of Orissa.

A delegation of Christian leaders led by Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Raphael Cheenath met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik urging him to provide security to Christians in other areas besides violence-prone Kandhamal district.

"Christians in other dioceses are also afraid. Security should also be provided to Balasore, Berhampur, Rourkela and Sambalpur dioceses", Cheenath told reporters after meeting the chief minister.

Claiming that a number of "strange" people from outside Kandhamal had entered the district despite extensive frisking exercise on roads, the Archbishop alleged criminals were freely moving in Kotagarh area.

"We apprehend that influx of non-state players into Kandhamal is aimed at creating communal violence", he said adding Christians were leaving relief camps because of fear. read it all

Geneology of Pencil: Fifty year old article on Pencil by Leonard E Read

2008-12-20T03:37:00.000-08:00

..........

not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year.

RP.6

Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there's some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser.

Innumerable Antecedents

RP.7

Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents. But I would like to suggest enough of them to impress upon you the richness and complexity of my background.

RP.8

My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink!

RP.9

The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California. Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails and railroad engines and who construct and install the communication systems incidental thereto? These legions are among my antecedents.

RP.10

Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces. People prefer that I look pretty, not a pallid white. The slats are waxed and kiln dried again. How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers in the mill among my ancestors? Yes, and included are the men who poured the concrete for the dam of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company hydroplant which supplies the mill's power!

RP.11

Don't overlook the ancestors present and distant who have a hand in transporting sixty carloads of slats across the nation.

RP.12

Once in the pencil factory—$4,000,000 in machinery and building, all capital accumulated by thrifty and saving parents of mine—each slat is given eight grooves by a complex machine, after which another machine lays leads in every other slat, applies glue, and places another slat atop—a lead sandwich, so to speak. Seven brothers and I are mechanically carved from this "wood-clinched" sandwich.

RP.13

My "lead" itself—it contains no lead at all—is complex. The graphite is mined in Ceylon. Consider these miners and those who make their many tools and the makers of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped and those who make the string that ties the sacks and those who put them aboard ships and those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along the way assisted in my birth—and the harbor pilots.

RP.14

The graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi in which ammonium hydroxide is used in the refining process. Then wetting agents are added such as sulfonated tallow—animal fats chemically reacted with sulfuric acid. After passing through numerous machines, the mixture finally appears as endless extrusions—as from a sausage grinder-cut to size, dried, and baked for several hours at 1,850 degrees Fahrenheit. To increase their strength and smoothness the leads are then treated with a hot mixture which includes candelilla wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated natural fats.

RP.15

My cedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do you know all the ingredients of lacquer? Who would think that the growers of castor beans and the refiners of castor oil are a part of it? They are. Why, even the processes by which the lacquer is made a beautiful yellow involve the skills of more persons than one can enumerate!

RP.16

Observe the labeling. That's a film formed by applying heat to carbon black mixed with resins. How do you make resins and what, pray, is carbon black?

RP.17

My bit of metal—the ferrule—is brass. Think of all the persons who mine zinc and copper and those who have the skills to make shiny sheet brass from these products of nature. Those black rings on my ferrule are black nickel. What is black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story of why the center of my ferrule has no black nickel on it would take pages to explain.

RP.18

Then there's my crowning glory, inelegantly referred to in the trade as "the plug," the part man uses to erase the errors he makes with me. An ingredient called "factice" is what does the erasing. It is a rubber-like product made by reacting rape-seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulfur chloride. Rubber, contrary to the common notion, is only for binding purposes. Then, too, there are numerous vulcanizing and accelerating agents. The pumice comes from Italy; and the pigment which gives "the plug" its color is cadmium sulfide.

read it all

Marriage soleminsed at Orissa police station

2008-12-15T07:11:00.000-08:00

Orissa policemen play cupid
Subhashish Mohanty
Monday, December 15, 2008 01:22 IST

BHUBANESWAR: Marriages are made in heaven. But this one in Orissa was solemnised at a police station.
Sabir Ahmed, 25, an Indian Air Force man, on Friday married girlfriend Reshmi Roshan Nigar, 22, at Kendrapara police station, about 100 km from here, under the watchful eyes of superintendent of police Diptesh Patnaik.

Sources said Ahmed, who is now posted in Chandigarh, met Nigar in Bhadrak in 2005. They stayed in touch over the phone and soon fell in love. Nigar’s parents told Ahmed’s family about the relationship. But Ahmed’s parents did not approve of the relationship.

Ahmed snapped all ties with Nigar. Shattered, the Nigars sought the help of Ashiyana, a Bhadrak-based NGO working for the welfare of minority communities.

Ashiyana secretary Sophia Seikh stepped in to settle the discord. She first went to Chandigarh to settle the issue amicably. “As we did not get any help from the Air Force, we came back and lodged a police complaint,” she said.

When Sabir came to his hometown, Kendrapara, for Bakri-Eid last week, cops took him to the police station. The girl’s family members were summoned to the police station. Ahmed then agreed to marry Nigar. The marriage was soleminsed at the police station. Before the nikaah, a pre-nuptial agreement was signed between the two families. “The agreement states that if Nigar dies under unnatural circumstances, Ahmed’s family will be held responsible. Ahmed cannot divorce his wife,” Sophia said, adding that her NGO has settled about 18 such disputes. But for the first time, a marriage had been solemnised at a police station, she added.

Woman, 70, in 'oldest new mum' claim

2008-12-10T04:53:00.000-08:00

A 70-year-old woman from India claims she has become the world's oldest new mother.

Rajo Devi and her husband Bala Ram had wanted a child in all their 50 years together.

She claims to have given birth to a baby girl at the end of November after having IVF treatment. Her husband is 72. more BBC

Bush gets Foot in Mouth award for his abuse of English language!

2008-12-10T03:11:00.000-08:00

Wed, Dec 10 12:35 PM

New York, Dec 10 (ANI): United States President George Bush's long, rambling sentences and grammatically incorrect speeches have finally been acknowledged by a British language watchdog group.

Bush's famous gaffes have won him this year's not-so-coveted Foot in Mouth Lifetime Achievement Award, reports the New York Daily News.

The Plain English Campaign (PEC) gave the award to mark the departure of Bush from the White House.

While handing out the title, PEC praised Bush for "capturing the spirit of every true gobbledegooker" by using his unique way with words to address a wide range of subjects.

"I hope you leave here and walk out and say, 'What did he say?'" was just one of the Bushisms singled out for special praise, along with a comment he made on a visit to Rome in 2001.

Bush said: "I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right."

Bush has joined the list of celebrities and politicians who have also received the title, including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and supermodel Naomi Campbell. (ANI) courtesy

Martha "Sunny" von Bulow dies after 30 years in coma

2008-12-07T05:49:00.000-08:00

Sun, Dec 7 05:05 PM

New York, Dec 7 (ANI): After spending 30 years in coma, Manhattan socialite Martha "Sunny" von Bulow died in a New York nursing home. She was 76.

She spent the last decade at an upper East Side nursing home, surrounded by pictures of grandchildren she never got to meet.

Sunny was found unconscious in the marble-tiled bathroom of Newport, R.I., estate in December 1980.

Her second husband, Claus von Bulow was convicted of trying to kill her with an insulin overdose - then acquitted after an appeal got him a retrial.

The events were turned into a 1990 Hollywood film, 'Reversal of Fortune'. more

P. Sainath on American Elections: Socialism haunts America

2008-10-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

Pro-Obama television channels are running dictionary definitions of ‘socialism.’ These aim to clear the air by establishing that nothing he has proposed falls into that dreaded territory. In no other electoral democracy in the world is this kind of response possible. Certainly not in Europe where so many of Washington’s allies wear the labels — if not the legacy — of ‘socialism’ and ‘labour.’ To those from most other countries, this ‘debate’ must seem whacko. In the United States, it still has adherents, even if they are confounded by the scarier spectre of economic crisis. Two million families could lose their homes in the mortgage avalanche. But the buzzword, for the Republicans at least, is ‘socialism.’ “Obama says he wants to spread the wealth around,” Mr. McCain now protests. “That’s a basic tenet of socialism. If I were President, I would never do that.” more

NewsBlaze Published: October 25,2008

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Obama Wants A Welfare State For America

By National Black Republican Association

Thanks to Joe the Plumber, we now know for sure that Barack Obama wants to "spread the wealth around." But the Democratic candidate still hasn't come clean on just how much of a European-style socialist he is.

Look at the "tax cut" he says he'll give to 95 percent of Americans. In fact, this is simply a government check he'd hand out - including to millions who don't pay income taxes, since each year 38 percent of Americans already get a full refund. In other words, his "rebate" is a welfare plan, plain and simple.

When called on this, Obama's answer is that those 38 percent still pay payroll taxes, so he's rebating part of those payments. But that actually puts him deeper into the socialist hole. Here's why.

Payroll taxes go to fund Social Security and Medicare - the main US social-insurance programs. The taxes are dedicated because these are insurance programs - you're paying so that you'll be covered when you hit retirement age. more

2008-10-25T04:04:00.000-07:00

Bishop told to file affidavit

DNA INDIA

Mayura Janwalkar

Saturday, October 25, 2008 03:46 IST

HC wants to know if there is a sale deed by the church land trust

The Bombay High Court on Thursday asked bishop of Mumbai Prakash Patole to file an affidavit stating whether or not there is any sale deed between the Bombay Diocesan Trust Association (BDTA) that runs Afghan Church and any private builders.

Additional public prosecutor Sangeeta Shinde said the case will be heard on November 17 by when Patole will have to submit his affidavit.

Former bishop of Mumbai Baiju Gavit and other trust members of the BDTA that runs Afghan Church in Colaba had moved the high court urging it to quash a complaint of forgery and cheating filed at Colaba police station.

Gavit with trustees Bishop Vijay Sathe, Shrikant Salvi and the bishop of Pune Rajnikant Salvi, in their application stated that an activist, Cyril Dara, had filed bogus complaints against them for allegedly striking illegal deals worth crores of rupees with various builders for development of the land where the Afghan Church, a heritage structure, stands on. more

3-year-old goddess of Nepal: abuse or worhsip?

2008-10-07T17:50:00.000-07:00

Nepal appoints 3-year-old as new living goddess

By YUVRAJ ACHARYA, Associated Press WriterTue Oct 7, 9:59 AM ET

KATMANDU, Nepal - Hindu and Buddhist priests chanted sacred hymns and cascaded flowers and grains of rice over a 3-year-old girl who was appointed a living goddess in Nepal on Tuesday.

The new "kumari" or living goddess, was carried from her parents' home to an ancient palatial temple in the heart of the Nepali capital, Katmandu, where she will live until she reaches puberty and loses her divine status.

She will be worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists as an incarnation of the powerful Hindu deity Taleju.

A panel of judges conducted a series of ancient ceremonies to select the goddess from several 2- to 4-year-old girls who are all members of the impoverished Shakya goldsmith caste.

The judges read the candidates' horoscopes and check each one for physical imperfections. The living goddess must have perfect hair, eyes, teeth and skin with no scars, and should not be afraid of the dark.

As a final test, the living goddess must spend a night alone in a room among the heads of ritually slaughtered goats and buffaloes without showing fear.

Having passed all the tests, the child will stay in almost complete isolation at the temple, and will be allowed to return to her family only at the onset of menstruation when a new goddess will be named to replace her.

Devotees touch the girls' feet with their foreheads, the highest sign of respect among Hindus in Nepal. During religious festivals the goddesses are wheeled around on a chariot pulled by devotees.

Critics say the tradition violates both international and Nepalese laws on child rights. The girls often struggle to readjust to normal lives after they return home.

Nepalese folklore holds that men who marry a former kumari will die young, and so many girls remain unmarried and face a life of hardship. read it all

I Too Am Hurt Dear Father

2008-10-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

October 06, 2008
Vivek Bharat

Reacting sharply to the attack on Churches in Karnataka, the Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore fumed indignantly that Christians were deeply hurt. I, too, have been badly traumatized, dear Father, not once but repeatedly. Your compatriots have consistently trampled upon my sensibilities and those of millions of others like me for sometime now. The only difference is that I am a Hindu and in the broad framework of India's warped secular ideology, Hindu sentiments are dispensable to maintain this hollow but grandiose show of communal harmony that has been essentially built on the backs of the Hindu community. So, neither you or nor the authorities have bothered to take any corrective action to assuage the Hindu hurt. It does not even register as a cause for remedy on your moral radar. more

Friedrich Schiller, dead for more than 200 years asked to pay TV Radio fees

2008-10-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

Dead German poet gets TV demands

Friedrich Schiller is one of Germany's favourite poets

The celebrated German poet Friedrich Schiller, dead for more than 200 years, has been sent reminders that he should pay his TV and radio licence fee.

The German fee collection agency, GEZ, mistakenly sent letters to "Mr Friedrich Schiller" - which arrived at a primary school bearing his name.

The author of Ode to Joy had been registered with GEZ as a householder.

With the annual fee of about 200 euros (£157) unpaid since 1805 Schiller would owe more than 40,000 euros.

Guinness World Records:Loudest Burp at 104.9 dB in UK

2008-09-29T17:20:00.000-07:00

Loudest Burp
The world's loudest burp measured from a distance of 2.5 m (8ft 2 in)and 1 m (3 ft 3 in) high, read 104.9 dB on a certified and calibrated class 1 precision measuring noise level meter, and was achieved by Paul Hunn (UK) at the offices of Guinness World Records, London, UK, on July 20, 2004.

Nude church services

2008-09-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

A Dutch Nudist Church Services called off
Friday, 26 September , 2008, 22:09

Amsterdam: A group of Dutch nudists called off a special church service to be held in a nudist park after receiving threats, a spokesman for the group said on Friday.

In June, the Christian Gan Eden nudists held their first church service at the Flevo-Natuur nudist park in Zeewolde in the eastern Netherlands and planned to hold a second service.

However, the group was hit by numerous emails and phone calls, many of them threatening, the Gan Eden spokesman said. The church service was called off and the group shut its website down.

"I do not understand the fuss," the spokesman said. "We are just a group of Christians who want to have our own church service."

Amarinder Singh former Congress Chief Minister of Punjab is expelled from Punjab Assembly

2008-09-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

Satinder Bains | Chandigarh

Vigilance to file FIR in land scandal

In an unprecedented decision, the Punjab Vidhan Sabha on Wednesday expelled former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh from the membership of the Assembly for its remaining term (three-and-a-half years) after being indicted by a House committee in the Amritsar Improvement Trust land scandal.

In a resolution adopted amid ruckus, the House directed the Director, State Vigilance Bureau, to register an FIR against the three accused named in the committee report and investigate the distribution of money among them.

The House also resolved to write to the Election Commission of India to declare the Patiala City seat held by Capt Amarinder Singh vacant.

Read the full story

Bachans say sorry

2008-09-10T21:37:00.000-07:00

I am by nature an individual that invariably, when confronted, addresses an issue by looking at the other person’s point of view first. This is my character. I was born with it and shall remain with it. I cannot change it now. Many friends and family look upon it as a malaise, which is defensive, wrong and incorrect. But, much to their dismay I have remained unchanged.

My first reaction therefore is, that in this matter, sentiments have been hurt.

I am not going into what has been said and under what circumstances. But rather that, even if one person is disturbed, then I would wish that that disturbance be addressed first. All else can come later.

I immediately therefore sent an sms to Jaya stating that -

The casual off the cuff remarks made by her at the music launch function were without malice or deliberate intent, but if it has caused hurt to the sentiments of Maharashtra, Maharashtrians and indeed the city and citizens of Mumbai, then she must seek regret and offer apology. Everything that we possess today is what came to us from this great state and city. We never have and never can look at Maharashtra with disrespect. If inadvertently this is what has been construed, then we apologize and are sorry and seek forgiveness for any sentiments that have been hurt.

Read Bachan's blog

Hindus help Muslims keep Ramadan fast

2008-09-08T17:52:00.001-07:00

IANS
Sunday, September 07, 2008 15:35 IST

PATNA: Setting an example of communal harmony in relief camps in flood-hit Bihar, Hindus are helping Muslims keep Ramadan fast by sharing their meagre resources.

"What is interesting to note that Hindus are helping Muslims to keep fast by providing whatever possible in relief camps," said Bihar Disaster Management Minister Nitish Mishra.

The majority of Muslims in relief camps were keeping fast while sharing everything with others.

It was reported that several NGOs have been providing food to Muslims keeping fast outside government control relief camps.

"People, mostly Hindus are arranging fruits, sweets and dinner for Muslims keeping fast outside relief camps," said Ranjeev, an activist in Saharsa district. Read more

The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria

2008-09-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

Goodbye America? Not yet
Manish Chand, Indo-Asian News Service
August 28, 2008
First Published: 18:21 IST(28/8/2008)
Last Updated: 18:38 IST(28/8/2008)

The Post-American World
Author: Fareed Zakaria;
Publisher: Penguin/Viking;
Price: Rs 499

Don't write an obituary of the American superpower yet. It's not that America is declining, but everyone else is rising - this is the "great story of our times" Fareed Zakaria tells in his new book that goes to the heart of tectonic power shifts to the non-Western world in the 21st century.

Take a few random examples, says Zakaria, of this "great transformation taking place around the world". The tallest building in the world is now in Taipei, the world's richest man is Mexican, its largest publicly traded corporation is Chinese, the biggest plane is built in Russia and Ukraine, the biggest refinery is under construction in India, and the world's largest factories are all in China.

What's more, Zakaria says, "quintessentially American icons have been appropriated by foreigners" with Singapore flaunting the world's largest Ferris wheel and Macau showing off the world's largest casino.

"The biggest movie industry, in terms of both movies made and tickets sold, is Bollywood, not Hollywood. Of the top 10 malls in the world, only one is in the US; the world's biggest is in Beijing," he writes.

If all this gives the impression that "the most powerful country in the world since ancient Rome" is fading into the sunset, don't be gulled by appearances. In The Post-American World, Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International and one of the most influential commentators in Washington, tries to deflate the hype about the "rise of Asia" and pits it against hard facts about American power.

The US economy has averaged about 25 percent of global GDP for 130 years and will continue to do so; it's economy at $14 trillion is more than four times that of China; and nearly 14 times that of India. Its military spending is nearly equivalent to what the rest of the world spends on defence.

Read more

A Crtique of Evangelization by Dr.BABUSUSEELAN

2008-09-05T01:10:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 01, 2008

Evangelization and destabilisation of states

Three reports:
1. Seven hundred plans to evangelize the world
2. Ram Swarup's expose of christism
3. Robert Kaplan's idea of bringing in Baptists and other missionaries to subvert the Burmese state

k

“EVANGELIZATION: THE GREAT COMMAND AND A COSMIC AUDITING"

(A REVIEW ARTICLE OF ‘SEVEN HUNDRED PLANS TO EVANGELIZE THE WORLD: THE RISE OF A GLOBAL EVANGELIZATION MOVEMENT, by, DAVID B. BARRATT and JAMES W. REAPSOME. PUB: THE A.D.2OOO SERIES.)

Continue to read

Korean Buddhists Rally against 'pro-Christian bias

2008-09-05T00:49:00.000-07:00

Fri, 2008-09-05 05:15
Seoul, 05 September, (Asiantribune.com): The Buddhists of South Korea strongly protested accusing President Lee Myung Bak and his administration of showing religious bias against Buddhists and favoring Christians.

South Korea by law is a secular state. Article 20 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea stipulates the prohibition of state religion, and the separation of religion and politics.
It was alleged that, since the inauguration of the new government, some of the high government officials and the President himself have been violating the Constitution as if intent upon turning the country into a Christian state. We strongly regret the government's physical suppression of the civil rights of peaceful assembly and demonstrations demanding the principle of democracy.

However due to the phenomenal rise in the size and power of the Christian community in recent decades, it has the Buddhist community here gripped by apprehension.

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Blog Beauty Contest for Nuns

2008-08-25T16:47:00.000-07:00

Italian Priest Organizes Beauty Contest for Nuns
Italian Priest Says He is Organizing an Online Beauty Pageant for Nuns
ROME August 24, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press

An Italian priest and theologian said Sunday he is organizing an online beauty pageant for nuns to give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.

The "Miss Sister 2008" contest will start in September on a blog run by the Rev. Antonio Rungi and will give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.

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Oprah Winfrey and Jesus Christ

2008-08-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

Oprah Winfrey is a hero of tens of millions of television viewers. "How can there be only one way to heaven or to God?" She asks her audience. She is of the opinion that there are now millions of ways to get to heaven.

When a lady in her audience asked, "What about Jesus?" Oprah defiantly answered her by repeating the question, "What about Jesus?" Oprah went on to explain how she had been a Baptist until she heard a charismatic Pastor make the statement that God was a jealous God. She told her viewers in her opinion God was simply love and God being described as a Jealous God made her really stop and think.

On her television show Oprah Winfrey has been pushing a new book by Eckhart Tolle called A New Earth.

Read more

Teacher Arrested for Sex Acts With Student

2008-08-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

Another Teacher Arrested for Sex Acts With Student
Police Say the Affair Started When the Student was 15 Years Old
By SARAH NETTER
Aug. 22, 2008

A 24-year-old Maryland woman has become the latest high school teacher to be arrested and charged with having sexual activity with an underage student.
Autumn Leathers was charged after police say she performed sex acts with a student.
Police say teacher Autumn Leathers had a sexual relationship with a teenage student.

Autumn Leathers, of Frostburg, Md., was charged Thursday with child abuse, fourth-degree sex offense, perverted practice and second-degree assault. She is alleged to have been having sexual relations regularly this summer with a 16-year-old boy from Mountain Ride High School in Frostburg. Leathers taught at the school, but it was unclear whether the boy was one of her students.

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At 138 years, India's oldest man dies

2008-08-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

Wed, Aug 20 03:27 AM

India's oldest man, Habib miyan, who entered the Limca Book of World Records in 2005, died early on Tuesday morning in his Jaipur house at the age of 138 years. The centurion fell ill with fever and dysentery on Sunday and succumbed in Jaipur's SMS Hospital. Incidentally, Habib decided not to celebrate his 138th birthday on May 20 this year following the serial blasts in Jaipur on May 13.

Born in Rajgarh in Rajasthan's Alwar district on May 20, 1870, Habib grew up to become a clarinet player with the Jaipur Royal Palace band. His close friend, Rajesh Nagpal, a bank employee, recalls, "I noticed him when he came to collect pension for years from the bank. He started with a pension of Rs 1.28 in 1938, which finally rose to Rs 2,698."

Read the full story

The Shroud of Turin Controversy

2008-08-18T17:11:00.000-07:00

From the Los Angeles Times
A Colorado couple researching the shroud dispute radiocarbon dating of the alleged burial cloth of Jesus, and Oxford has agreed to help them reexamine the findings.
By DeeDee Correll | Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 17, 2008

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.

In 1988, science seemed to put that question to rest.

Findings Radiocarbon dating by three separate laboratories showed that the shroud originated in the Middle Ages, leaving the "shroud crowd" reeling. Shroud skeptics responded, "We told you so." The Catholic Church admitted that it could not be authentic. Many scientists backed away.

But John Jackson, one of the shroud's most prominent researchers, was among those who insisted that the results made no sense. Too much else about the shroud, they said, including characteristics of the cloth and details in the image, suggested that it was much older.

Twenty years later, Jackson, 62, is getting his chance to challenge the radiocarbon dating. Oxford University, which participated in the original radiocarbon testing, has agreed to work with him in reconsidering the age of the shroud.

If the challenge is successful, Jackson hopes to be allowed to reexamine the shroud, which is owned by the Vatican and stored in a protective chamber in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.

Jackson, a physicist who teaches at the University of Colorado, hypothesizes that contamination of the cloth by elevated levels of carbon monoxide skewed the 1988 carbon-14 dating by 1,300 years.

On that point, Christopher Ramsey, head of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, seems to agree.

"There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow, and so further research is certainly needed," says a statement on his website. "Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information."

Steven Schafersman, a geologist who maintains a website skeptical about the shroud, dismisses the effort as one that's bound to fail.

At a conference sponsored by the Shroud Science Group at Ohio State University this weekend, the Los Alamos National Laboratory presented findings that the 1988 test results were flawed because the samples tested came from a portion of cloth that may have been added to the shroud during medieval repairs.

The shroud's historical record dates back to 1349, when a French knight wrote to the pope of his possession of a cloth he described as the burial shroud of Christ. In 1978, a team of scientists led by Jackson conducted a series of tests on the shroud, including X-rays and chemical analyses. They concluded that the shroud was not painted, dyed or stained and that the blood stains were real. But those findings did little to quell the controversy surrounding the shroud.

Many believe that Jesus imprinted his image on his burial cloth during his resurrection, and others think that the shroud is the authentic burial cloth but that the image was formed by natural processes. Skeptics maintain that the shroud is a forgery created by a medieval artist seeking to display it to relic-hungry pilgrims. The debate often is bitter; each side accuses the other of twisting facts and ignoring evidence that doesn't fit its view.

A former professor at the Air Force Academy and scientist at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Jackson holds a doctorate in physics from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. Born and raised in Denver, he also is a devout Catholic who has been transfixed by the shroud since he first saw its image at age 13.

Read it full

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-na-turin17-2008aug17,0,7350329,full.story

The story of Asaram Bapu and controversy of child deaths in his ashram

2008-08-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20080811/814/tnl-cult-controversy-the-story-of-asaram.html
Search:
Cult & Controversy: the story of Asaram ashram

Mon, Aug 11 03:48 AM

For the phenomenally influential religious guru, Asaram Bapu, his 37-year-long spiritual career had never been a cakewalk and the four mysterious deaths in his ashramss here and in Madhya Pradesh and the public ire he has been courting are only the latest that he hopes to shrug off.

His spiritual domain is spread across 300 ashrams throughout India, as also in the US, with lakhs of his followers and admirers flooding his commune with funds. Sixty-seven-year-old Bapu has even delivered a speech at the parliament of world religions.

Few controversies connected with his ashrams have invited media attention the way the deaths of four children in his two ashrams - in Ahmedabad and Chhindwara - did in just one month. His ashram, in both the cases, is facing serious problems, with investigators finally getting down to grilling inmates of the ashrams in connection with the deaths.

Asaram Bapu may not have had to look back ever since he set up his first kutia or hutment in Motera village here in 1971, but the path had all along been strewn with scandals.

Sindh-born Asaram, who had migrated to Ahmedabad with his parents during Partition, is facing about dozen-odd cases at different places - all of them pertaining to alleged land grabbing by his Sant Asaram Bapu Trust. One of the villagers in Motera, Ashok Thakore, has moved the court to get back five acres of his family's land allegedly grabbed by the ashram. According to Thakore, the land is situated adjoining the ashram and was used for erecting tents on the Guru Purnima day. Permission to this effect was given by his father to the ashram. After his father's death, the ashram grabbed it by saying that Thakore's father had 'gifted' it to the ashram. However, the ashram has not been able to substantiate its claim with proofs.

In another case, Anil Vyas, a farmer from Jehangirpura village near Surat, where the ashram is facing several allegations of land grabbing, is fighting a prolonged battle for recovery of his 34,400 square metres of prime land from the ashram. According to Vyas, despite the fact that the ashram's claim over the land was challenged in the court, the state Government regularised the unauthorised encroachment on January 24, 1997. However, the Gujarat High Court on December 8, 2006, held the regularisation illegal and decreed in favour of the farmer. The Ashram then appealed to the Division Bench against the order.

A Delhi-based widow, Sudarshan Kumari, is also fighting a legal battle against Asaram Bapu whose Trust, she alleges, had fraudulently got some papers signed by her. The paper later turned out to be a 'gift deed' to the ashram. The documents say that she has gifted the ground floor of her house in Rajouri Garden, New Delhi, to the ashram. According to her complaint, on July 6, 2000, on the pretext of taking her to Asaram satsang, she was taken to the office of Sub Registrar in Janakpuri, New Delhi. One of the inmates of the ashram, identified as Mani Kaka, hypnotised her and made her sign a number of documents, without allowing her to go through the content. The other person who signed the papers there, according to her, was Narayan Swamy, son of Asaram Bapu. She came to know about the gift deed when officials from the Municipal Committee of Delhi came to confirm it.

The ashram authorities at Rajokri village, near Gurgaon, have allegedly forged documents pertaining to the registration of the ashram. Bhagwani Devi, a resident of Rajokri, has also approached the Delhi High Court levelling allegations of land grabbing against Asaram's Rajokri ashram.

Even Government agencies have levelled allegations of land grabbing against Asaram's Trust. A few months ago, the Bihar State Board of Religious Trusts (BSBRT) had served a notice to the Trust's headquarters in Ahmedabad, asking it to vacate a land belonging to BSBRT, worth Rs 80 crore. And in April 2007, a retired judge of the Patna High Court had filed a criminal complaint in Kadamkuan police station, Patna, alleging grabbing of his land by Asaram Bapu and others.

In Ratlam, Asaram's Trust had to vacate a piece of land after a prolonged litigation. In January 2007, power theft amounting to Rs 4.7 lakh was detected from his Rajkot ashram.

Despite all these cases and allegations, Asaram Bapu's popularity is on the rise - particularly among the ruling party politicians in the state. "It is due to the clout of Asaram that no criminal case was registered against any of his ashram-members nor was anyone from the ashram arrested after the two boys of his gurukuls died under mysterious circumstances," said a rebel BJP leader, requesting anonymity.

The popularity of Asaram can be gauged from the fact that his photographs can be spotted in every government office across the state and even state transport corporation's buses display his photos and messages.

When the Gujarat Government in 2005 decided to rejuvenate the Saraswati river by filling long tracts of land considered to be the vestiges of the mythical river at Sidhpur town in Mehsana district, Asaram Bapu was the chief guest at the launch of the project. Though there are other religious leaders in the state, inviting him to such a high-profile programme as the chief guest explains the popularity of the man among the ruling party.

Again, when the state Government temporarily launched Vande Gujarat TV channel, telecasting its developmental achievements on the eve of December 2007 Assembly polls, the channel regularly carried footages of Asaram Bapu.

This explains the clout of Asaram Bapu whose religious movement has taken the shape of a cult, having followers in every section of the society. With his influence growing, there are many politicians, including Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, visiting his ashram regularly.

Senior BJP leader L K Advani is also believed to be one of the regular visitors to the ashram. The Ashram manager in Ahmedabad, Arvind Patel, is a senior BJP functionary.

Beijing rockets rain away from opening gala - Yahoo! India News

2008-08-09T04:09:00.000-07:00

Beijing rockets rain away from opening gala - Yahoo! India News

Magazine Preview - Malwebolence - The World of Web Trolling - NYTimes.com

2008-08-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

Magazine Preview - Malwebolence - The World of Web Trolling - NYTimes.com

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Malwebolence
Robbie Cooper for The New York Times

The Trolls Among Us: Weev (not, of course, his real name) is part of a growing Internet subculture with a fluid morality and a disdain for pretty much everyone else online.

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By MATTATHIAS SCHWARTZ
Published: August 3, 2008

This article will appear in this Sunday's Times Magazine.
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The Medium

Virginia Heffernan talks to the existence of trolls, mad scrollers and all matter of Internet denizens.
Comment Post a Comment at The Medium
Blogrunner: Reactions From Around the Web
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Robbie Cooper for The New York Times

“A normal person who does insane things on the internet.” Jason Fortuny in real life.

One afternoon in the spring of 2006, for reasons unknown to those who knew him, Mitchell Henderson, a seventh grader from Rochester, Minn., took a .22-caliber rifle down from a shelf in his parents’ bedroom closet and shot himself in the head. The next morning, Mitchell’s school assembled in the gym to begin mourning. His classmates created a virtual memorial on MySpace and garlanded it with remembrances. One wrote that Mitchell was “an hero to take that shot, to leave us all behind. God do we wish we could take it back. . . . ” Someone e-mailed a clipping of Mitchell’s newspaper obituary to MyDeathSpace.com, a Web site that links to the MySpace pages of the dead. From MyDeathSpace, Mitchell’s page came to the attention of an Internet message board known as /b/ and the “trolls,” as they have come to be called, who dwell there.

/b/ is the designated “random” board of 4chan.org, a group of message boards that draws more than 200 million page views a month. A post consists of an image and a few lines of text. Almost everyone posts as “anonymous.” In effect, this makes /b/ a panopticon in reverse — nobody can see anybody, and everybody can claim to speak from the center. The anonymous denizens of 4chan’s other boards — devoted to travel, fitness and several genres of pornography — refer to the /b/-dwellers as “/b/tards.”

Measured in terms of depravity, insularity and traffic-driven turnover, the culture of /b/ has little precedent. /b/ reads like the inside of a high-school bathroom stall, or an obscene telephone party line, or a blog with no posts and all comments filled with slang that you are too old to understand.

Something about Mitchell Henderson struck the denizens of /b/ as funny. They were especially amused by a reference on his MySpace page to a lost iPod. Mitchell Henderson, /b/ decided, had killed himself over a lost iPod. The “an hero” meme was born. Within hours, the anonymous multitudes were wrapping the tragedy of Mitchell’s death in absurdity.

Someone hacked Henderson’s MySpace page and gave him the face of a zombie. Someone placed an iPod on Henderson’s grave, took a picture and posted it to /b/. Henderson’s face was appended to dancing iPods, spinning iPods, hardcore porn scenes. A dramatic re-enactment of Henderson’s demise appeared on YouTube, complete with shattered iPod. The phone began ringing at Mitchell’s parents’ home. “It sounded like kids,” remembers Mitchell’s father, Mark Henderson, a 44-year-old I.T. executive. “They’d say, ‘Hi, this is Mitchell, I’m at the cemetery.’ ‘Hi, I’ve got Mitchell’s iPod.’ ‘Hi, I’m Mitchell’s ghost, the front door is locked. Can you come down and let me in?’ ” He sighed. “It really got to my wife.” The calls continued for a year and a half.

In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word “troll” to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a “pseudo-naïve” tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, “If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.”

Today the Internet is much more than esoteric discussion forums. It is a mass medium for defining who we are to ourselves and to others. Teenagers groom their MySpace profiles as intensely as their hair; escapists clock 50-hour weeks in virtual worlds, accumulating gold for their online avatars. Anyone seeking work or love can expect to be Googled. As our emotional investment in the Internet has grown, the stakes for trolling — for provoking strangers online — have risen. Trolling has evolved from ironic solo skit to vicious group hunt.

“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium. “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” said one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his legal identity.

Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had.”

/b/ is not all bad. 4chan has tried (with limited success) to police itself, using moderators to purge child porn and eliminate calls to disrupt other sites. Among /b/’s more interesting spawn is Anonymous, a group of masked pranksters who organized protests at Church of Scientology branches around the world.

But the logic of lulz extends far beyond /b/ to the anonymous message boards that seem to be springing up everywhere. Two female Yale Law School students have filed a suit against pseudonymous users who posted violent fantasies about them on AutoAdmit, a college-admissions message board. In China, anonymous nationalists are posting death threats against pro-Tibet activists, along with their names and home addresses. Technology, apparently, does more than harness the wisdom of the crowd. It can intensify its hatred as well.

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Mattathias Schwartz last wrote for the magazine about online poker. He is a staff writer at Good magazine and lives in New York.

Unsigned passport

2008-07-28T18:43:00.000-07:00

Malayala Manorama Indian Newspaper of Malayalam Language from eight places in Kerela

Unsigned passport lands official in trouble

New Delhi: Anuradha Thadipathri Gopinath's plan to visit Dubai was dashed at Mumbai airport because she had been issued an unsigned passport. Now a court has pulled up the passport officer for "serious deficiency in discharge of duties".

National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission pulled up the passport officer posted at the Bangalore regional passport office last week for the negligence and asked him to pay a compensation of Rs.10,000 and cost of Rs.2,000 to Gopinath.

Observing that travelling on such a passport could have invited unnecessary trouble for her, commission president M.B. Shah said: "A passport, which is issued without the signature of the competent authority, is on the face of it invalid which would have placed the complainant in a precarious position and she might have been hauled up for various offences if she had tried to go abroad on that passport.

"Such lapse amounts to a serious deficiency in discharge of duties, which is in the nature of rendering of service," said Shah.

Gopinath was issued a passport by the official, who did not sign it at the time of its issuance. She got a visa too.

She reached Mumbai airport to embark on her journey to Dubai. But at the airport, the lacuna came to light and the airport authorities asked her to go back. She lost the opportunity of going abroad on a trip that her company had sponsored.

Gopinath went to the Karnataka District Forum. The forum directed the officer to pay a compensation of Rs.10,000 and costs of Rs.2,000 to her.

The passport officer appealed to the Maharashtra State Commission which upheld the original order.

The official then appealed to the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. He said he was "exercising a sovereign function" while issuing the passport. He was not charging a fee, and therefore this could not be a consumer dispute, the official contended.

But the commission ruled: "In our view, issuance or non-issuance of a passport may be a statutory duty and may not be a consumer dispute but issuance of an invalid passport which is not signed by the passport officer, would be deficiency in service on the part of the officer concerned."

Everybody pays a fee for getting a passport, the commission, and dismissed the appeal.

ABC News: Randy Pausch, 'Last Lecture' Professor Dies

2008-07-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

ABC News: Randy Pausch, 'Last Lecture' Professor Dies

Carnegie Mellon Professor, Author of 'The Last Lecture,' Succumbs to Cancer
By GEOFF MARTZ, SAMANTHA WENDER and CHRIS FRANCESCANI
July 25, 2008

Randy Pausch, the charismatic young college professor who chronicled his battle with pancreatic cancer in a remarkable speech widely-known as the "Last Lecture," has died at the age of 47. He was at home, surrounded by his wife, Jai, and his three children.
A dear friend to Diane Sawyer and "Good Morning America," Pausch's lecture and subsequent interview was one of the most powerful accounts of hope, grace and optimistism ABC News has ever featured, and drew a worldwide response.

"I'd like to thank the millions of people who have offered their love, prayers and support," Jai Pausch said in a statement. "Randy was so happy and proud that the lecture and book inspired parents to revisit their priorities, particularly their relationships with their children. The outpouring of cards and emails really sustained him."

Tune in to "Good Morning America" Monday July 28 and Tuesday July 29 for a special tribute to Professor Pausch. Then be sure and catch "The Last Lecture: A Celebration of Life" Tuesday July 29 on "Primetime" at 10 p.m. ET and click here to see ABC News' full coverage of his story.

It all began with one, age-old question: What would you say if you knew you were going to die and had a chance to sum up everything that was most important to you?

That question had been posed to the annual speaker of a lecture series at Carnegie Mellon University, where Pausch was a computer sciences professor. For Pausch, though, the question wasn't hypothetical.

Pausch, a father of three small children with his wife Jai, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer -- and given six months to live.

Friends and colleagues flew in from all around the country to attend his last lecture. And -- almost as an afterthought -- the lecture was videotaped and put on the Internet for the few people who couldn't get there that day.

That was all it took.

Alice: Randy Pausch's Computer Software for Kids

Somehow amid the vast clamor of the Web and the bling-bling of million-dollar budgets, savvy marketing campaigns and millions of strange and bizarre videos, the voice of one earnest professor standing at a podium and talking about his childhood dreams cut through the noise.

The lecture was so uplifting, so funny, so inspirational that it went viral. So far, 10 million people have downloaded it.

And thousands have written in to say that his lecture changed their lives.

If you had only six months to live, what would you do? How would you live your life? And how can all of us take heart from Pausch's inspiring message to live each day to its fullest?

Pausch's answers to these questions, both in the lecture and in three separate interviews over a series of months with Diane Sawyer, are moving, funny, thought-provoking and extraordinary.

According to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, an advocacy organization for the pancreatic cancer community, approximately 37,170 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2008 and 33,370 will die from it. The Pausch family has asked that donations on Randy's behalf be sent to the organization or to Carnegie Mellon's Randy Pausch Memorial Fund.

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States, and unlike other cancers, during the last 30 years the medical community has seen very little advancement in prolonging the lives of pancreatic cancer patients.

But instead of focusing on his death, Pausch spoke about his childhood dreams. "You may not agree with the list but I was there. ... Being in zero gravity, playing in the National Football League, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia -- I guess you can tell the nerds early. ... I wanted to be one of the guys who won the big stuffed animals in the amusement park."

He went on to attain almost all of those dreams, but they didn't all come easy.

In the lecture, he spoke of overcoming the obstacles that may seem insurmountable.

Although he graduated magna cum laude from Brown University, he nearly didn't get in to Brown in the first place -- he was wait listed. It was a brick wall that some might have walked away from. But Pausch had a novel way of looking at obstacles:

"The brick walls are there for a reason," he said during his lecture. "The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

He kept calling the college until it let him in.

Pausch maintained that his most formidable brick wall was a beautiful graduate student named Jai Glasgow. Pausch was 37, with a reputation as something of a ladies' man, when he met her at a lecture. Pausch was smitten, but she resisted. However, he refused to give up, and they eventually married and had three children.

Pausch spoke movingly of how he was trying to create memories for his three kids, Dylan, 6, Logan, 3, and Chloe, 18 months, and why he couldn't allow himself to wallow in self pity.

"I mean, the metaphor I've used is ... somebody's going to push my family off a cliff pretty soon, and I won't be there to catch them. And that breaks my heart. But I have some time to sew some nets to cushion the fall. So, I can curl up in a ball and cry, or I can get to work on the nets."

Pausch was already a popular professor, and one of the foremost teachers in the field of virtual reality, when he proposed a class that would become legendary at CMU: It was called Building Virtual Worlds, a high-wire act that brought together students from many different disciplines, writers and computer programmers and artists who were forced to work together intensively in small groups.

Pausch told Sawyer that while the course was ostensibly about designing virtual reality worlds, there was a stealth message as well: "How do you behave with integrity? How do you behave in a way that other people will respect you and want to keep working with you?"

The result was so popular that it eventually spawned an entire program at the university. Together with drama professor Don Marinelli, Pausch started the Entertainment Technology Center, which over the years has become the go-to school for video gaming and Hollywood high tech.

At the ETC, students were encouraged to try the unconventional and the risky.

As former student Phil Light said, "We went to him and said, 'We have these ideas, we have a couple of ideas. This idea here is very safe. This idea here is risky.' He said, 'Go for the risk. It's better to fail spectacularly then to pass along and do something which is mediocre.'"

Pausch said that over the years, he went from attaining his own childhood dreams to learning to enable the dreams of his students, which he maintained is every bit as satisfying.

'Never Lose the Childlike Wonder'

To enable dreams on a grand scale, Pausch began his latest venture, called Alice. Alice is a free computer application that teaches kids to program, while giving them the impression that they are simply creating animated stories.

Created by a Carnegie Mellon team including Wanda Dann, Dennis Cosgrove and Caitlin Kelleher, Alice has already been downloaded more than a million times. The new version of Alice will feature characters from the popular computer game "The Sims."

After his diagnosis, Pausch devoted almost all of his time to his family, moving to a location near his wife's family, so that she would have some emotional support, and spent a lot of time with his three kids.

He had tried to approach what he called his "engineering problem" as a scientist: He interviewed people who'd lost their parents and asked them what they would have wanted to have as keepsakes; what they wished their parents had told them before they died. Pausch said he wanted to make sure he gave his wife and children what they would need to remember him, and to know that he loved them.

He and his wife, Jai, consulted psychotherapist Michele Reiss and other experts to help them grapple with such issues as when to tell the children. Reiss says very young children "have no particular time orientation yet. So you can talk to a young child in terms of breakfast time, or lunchtime, or dinnertime, or nap time, but you can't talk about the day after tomorrow, or next week, or next month, much less three to six months from now."

Therefore, the decision was made not to tell the children until their father was much sicker. The Pausch family had asked any viewers who might run into them to respect the experts' opinion and say nothing.

One of the things Pausch left behind for his kids: the lecture. He called it a message in a bottle. The lecture, along with private videos he made for their eyes alone, and a book he wrote called "The Last Lecture" would help give his children -- at least one of whom is too young now to be able to have distinct memories of her father -- a sense of how much he loved them.

Sawyer asked Pausch about his children, in particular Chloe, the youngest. "I hope that her passion will take her to wherever she goes. And the same for Dylan and Logan. I just hope that they have passion for things, and I'm sure they will. I'm sure their mother will instill that in them. And whatever they see of me in direct memories and indirect memories, uh, will send that signal. Because if they have passion for things, then I'm happy for whatever they have passion for."

Worldwide Impact

But if Pausch's lecture was written for an audience of only three, it has touched millions of others as well. People around the country told ABC News about the many ways his lecture had helped bring magic into their lives.

Alfred Nicolosi of Salem, N.J., said the night he watched Pausch's lecture was the "same night when Randy's life turned mine around." Battling depression, cancer surgery and facing heart problems, Nicolosi cleaned up his life, literally.

"I had never been very organized person, but this was exceptional. I'd allowed piles of boxes, groceries, laundry, books scattered everywhere. There was absolutely no order to my life, no way to find things, it was just lost. So immediately after seeing the lecture, I began to organize my house, and I felt like I was rediscovering my life in the process."

Peter Riebling, a lawyer from Vienna, Va., handed his 10-year-old daughter, Kimberly, a pencil and gave her free reign on her bedroom walls. "He told me to go draw on my walls, so at first I honestly thought he had gone crazy, because most parents wouldn't let their children draw on the walls, especially when they are brand new and painted and stuff. So I did start drawing on my walls -- and then I actually found it was extremely fun so I kept doing it," said Kimberly.

Diane Gregory from Las Vegas encouraged her teenage son Matt to express himself by hanging every piece of sports memorabilia he had collected on his walls. Matt jumped at the opportunity and with the tacks and double-sided tape went to work. Harry Wooten, a choir minister from Dallas, uses Pausch's message to touch his congregants through prayer and song.

After battling breast cancer, Kaje Lane of Los Angeles says Pausch has inspired her to pursue singing -- a passion she had put aside for many years.

"I think so many people relate to Randy because every one of us has some sort of dream they want to make real, or some sort of passion that they want to tap into if they're not already thinking that way. … I think people are just drawn to that. It's very magnetic to see someone positive not just about the big things but the little things."

'Leave It All on the Field'

Even though he had enabled the dreams of so many others, we couldn't help but notice that there was one dream Pausch had never been able to fulfill -- playing in the NFL.

So ABC News made a couple of phone calls, and in October, Pausch took the field with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was wearing the jersey of his favorite player: wide receiver Heinz Ward.

Moments later he was catching balls thrown by Ward.

He caught every pass -- and even kicked a field goal, on his first attempt.

"There was a definite sense," Pausch told Sawyer, "when I put that talk together, to use another football expression, you know, I wanted to leave it all on the field. … If I thought it was important, it's in there. I played in football games where you walk off the field and the scoreboard didn't end up the way you wanted. But you knew that you really did give it all. And the other team was too strong. Yeah, I'm not going to beat the cancer. I tried really hard … but sometimes you're just not going to beat the thing…I wanted to walk off the stage and say anything I thought was important, I had my hour."

After a bout earlier this year in the hospital to overcome kidney and congestive heart failure -- side effects of his chemotherapy -- Pausch returned home to his family.

"His fate is, is our fate, but it's just sped up," said co-author Jeff Zaslow. "He's, you know, 47, and, and we don't know when we're gonna go, but we all have the same fate. We're all dying, just like Randy is … when we can see him, how he's, how he's traveling, it makes us think about how we're going to travel."

Millions of people around the globe have been touched by his message of optimism.

Last spring, Sawyer asked Pausch what was the best thing that had happened to him that day. He replied, "Well, first off, I'd say the day's not over yet. So there's always a chance that there will be a new best."

Lasting Legacy

Carnegie Mellon University will honor Pausch's commitment to collaboration by building the Randy Pausch Memorial Footbridge to connect a computer science center under construction with a nearby arts building.

Announcing the project last September, Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon said, "Randy, there will be generations of students and faculty who will not know you, but they will cross that bridge and see your name and they'll ask those of us who did know you. And we will tell them."

In a statement released by the university today, Cohon expressed the community's sadness at Pausch's passing.

"Randy had an enormous and lasting impact on Carnegie Mellon," Cohon said . "He was a brilliant researcher and gifted teacher. His love of teaching, his sense of fun and his brilliance came together in the Alice project, which teaches students computer programming while enabling them to do something fun -- making animated movies and games. Carnegie Mellon -- and the world -- are better places for having had Randy Pausch in them."

The family requests that donations on Randy's behalf be directed to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, 2141 Rosecrans Ave., Suite 7000, El Segundo, CA 90245, or to Carnegie Mellon's Randy Pausch Memorial Fund.

Abhishek, two Bollywood Khans in Forbes' 10 'cell celebs' list - Yahoo! India News

2008-07-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

Abhishek, two Bollywood Khans in Forbes' 10 'cell celebs' list - Yahoo! India News

Abhishek, two Bollywood Khans in Forbes' 10 'cell celebs' list

Thu, Jul 17 07:14 PM

New York, July 17 (IANS) Three Bollywood stars, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Abhishek Bachchan, feature in Forbes magazine's list of 10 celebrities who are brand ambassadors for different mobile phone companies.

The three Indian actors are joined by football star David Beckham and tennis champion Maria Sharapova on the list released by the US magazine, otherwise known for its billionaire rankings. Sharapova endorses Sony Ericsson phones and Beckham lends his name to the Motorola RAZR2 phone.

While Shah Rukh lends star power to mobile phones made by Nokia, Abhishek and Aamir endorse Motorola and Samsung phones respectively.

The Forbes report said that Nokia, the world's largest phone manufacturer, 'doesn't work with many celebrities but makes an exception for Shah Rukh, who says he has used Nokia phones for more than a decade.'

It added that after a popular commercial last December, the company sponsored Shah Rukh's Indian Premier League cricket team earlier this year.

The magazine said Abhishek, a former LG Electronics' brand ambassador, now represents Motorola phones in India, and that he is 'Bollywood royalty, thanks to his famous actor father, Amitabh Bachchan, and glamorous actress wife Aishwarya Rai'.

About Aamir, the report said: 'After appearing in his first movie at eight, Bollywood star Aamir now produces and directs films, as well as acts. Samsung has said it is counting on his popularity to help it double its market share in India this year.'

Samsung also claimed that Aamir's work mirrors their brand's 'qualities of innovation, change, discovery, self-expression and excellence in performance'.

Explaining how mobile phone companies are now emulating perfume and designer jean makers in hiring celebrities, Forbes said: 'As nearly everyone on the planet seems to have a cellphone, device makers must work harder to win new customers. Cool designs and low prices help, of course. But so do celebrities. That's led phone makers to recruit some A-listers from Usher (a singer) to David Beckham to lend an ear and a smile to selling cellphones.'

Others in the magazine's 'Ten Celebs and Their Cells' list are singers Fergie, Rain (also known as Jung Ji Hoon), Andy Lau and race car driver Danica Patrick.

Mukesh Ambani's $2 bn home world's most expensive: Forbes

2008-07-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

tag: luxuary

Economic Times - Indian Newspapers in English Language from seven editions.

Mukesh Ambani's $2 bn home world's most expensive: Forbes
2 May, 2008, 1225 hrs IST, PTI

NEW YORK: The 27-storey skyscraper being built in Mumbai by Mukesh Ambani, the richest person in India, could be the world's largest and costliest home with a price- tag nearing two billion dollar, according to Forbes magazine. ( Watch )

"When the Ambani residence is finished in January, completing a four-year process, it will be 550 feet high with 4,00,000 square feet of interior space," Forbes said in a report on its website.

Earlier in March, Mukesh Ambani was ranked as the fifth richest person in the world with a net worth of 43 billion dollars by the Forbes magazine in its annual list of world's wealthiest billionaires. While Lakshmi Mittal, who is an Indian citizen was ranked higher at fourth, he is a British resident. Among resident Indians, Mukesh was ranked at top.

"The only remotely comparable high-rise property currently on the market is the 70 million dollar triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New York, designed to resemble a French chateau, and climbing 525 feet in the air," Forbes said in its report titled, "Inside The World's First Billion-Dollar Home."

Mukesh Ambani heads India's most valuable firm Reliance Industries, an oil and petrochemicals giant.

"Like many families with the means to do so, the Ambanis wanted to build a custom home. They consulted with architecture firms Perkins + Will and Hirsch Bedner Associates, the designers behind the Mandarin Oriental, based in Dallas and Los Angeles, respectively," the report said.

karnataka BJP paid MLAs Rs 5 cr to switch

2008-07-07T16:58:00.000-07:00

Deccan Chronicle - Indian Newspapers in English Language from Secunderabad

BJP paid MLAs Rs 5 cr to switch

Bengaluru, July 7: The four MLAs who quit their Assembly membership last week were paid Rs 5 crores each to switch sides. Sources in the BJP said the party — that worked out a strategy to pre-empt the Congress’ strategy to bring down the BJP government midway through the Budget Session of the state legislature — agreed to a long list of demands put forth by these leaders.As part of the deal, Rs 5 crores was paid to each MLA on resignation. At least two of the MLAs, Balachandra Jarkiholi and Narasimha Swamy, will be inducted into the Cabinet on Wednesday.

Two others are likely to be made chairmen of boards and corporations. Besides this, the party will bear the expenses of the by elections in which the MLAs will contest as BJP candidates. Also, they will be helped in retaining political clout in their constituencies.Sources in the party said that the entire episode was strategised when the Congress Rajya Sabha MP Anil Lad tried to persuade BJP MLAs Shankarlige Gowda and A. Narayanaswamy to quit their Assembly membership midway through the Budget Session besides cajoling the six independent MLAs to rock the BJP’s boat in exchange for a fat sum that was promised by the Congress leaders.

The Congress’ strategy, is to woo disgruntled BJP MLAs and persuade them to leave the party. In fact, BJP approached Mr V. Somanna, who had promised to resign, but he is believed to be bargaining for a ministry. The BJP spin doctors found it easy to convince the four MLAs who quit to defect. BJP strategists are working overtime to persuade a few more MLAs into quitting the Congress and Janata Dal (S). The names doing the rounds include Umesh Katti, Mahadev Prasad, Cada Venkatesh and H.C. Mahadevappa.

The Telegraph - Indian Newspapers in English Language from Kolkatta (Calcutta) India.

2008-07-07T16:38:00.000-07:00

The Telegraph - Indian Newspapers in English Language from Kolkatta (Calcutta) India.

Goddess of small change
- 100kg of coins in retired alms-seeker’s shanty

Calcutta, July 7: Lakshmi started begging from the age of 16 but it wasn’t for nothing that her parents had named her after the goddess of wealth. Over 100kg of coins stored in four iron buckets have been found in her one-room shanty.

At 60, Lakshmi Das is worth anywhere between Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000.

Shantanu Neogi and J.P. Singh, two employees of the Central Bank of India’s Manicktala branch, expect that it will take them three days or more to count the woman’s life’s savings.

Partho Mondal, a constable at Burtolla police station, watches the counting, which started today, in the branch manager’s cabin. Lakshmi, physically challenged, looks hawk-eyed from her chair, springing to pick up a coin when it falls.

“I used to beg at the Hatibagan crossing and would keep the coins in buckets. I thought these coins would buy me food and clothes when I became too old to beg,” she said.

From a one-paisa coin going back to 1961 to the more recent Rs 5 coin, the buckets contain denominations of all kinds.

“It is taking a lot of time. There are several coins which have become obsolete over the years but we have to accept them as directed by the Reserve Bank of India,” said Singh.

Neogi, who guessed that it would take two more days or maybe more to go through the three other buckets, put the value at Rs 25,000-30,000. It cannot be less than Rs 20,000 even on the rough assumption that each is a Re 1 coin, whose latest version weighs 4.85 gm.

Lakshmi was dipping into her savings to meet her daily expenses as she had retired from begging until one day a few weeks ago a teenaged boy chanced upon her treasure that she had covered with jute bags while playing.

Four days back, some local youths entered her shanty at Nandanbagan looking for the coins. She raised an alarm and her neighbours informed Burtolla police station.

The police visited the shanty where Lakshmi lives alone and took away the buckets. When she did not hear from them for a couple of days she thought her money was gone.

The cops were wondering what to do with her and her buckets.

“Our officers were stunned to see such a huge quantity. Realising that Laskhmi stays alone and these coins would be stolen, the officers brought them to the police station,” said Baidyanath Saha, the officer-in-charge of Burtolla police station.

Banks would usually not accept currency that has ceased to be legal tender, though there is a Reserve Bank directive to do so. Saha said the police narrated Lakshmi’s story to the Central Bank manager who was so touched that he agreed to open a savings account for her.

But before that the coins have to be counted.

“This is the first time we have a customer who has come with such a huge number of coins to open a bank account. She is poor and we want to help her,” said Neogi.

All that Lakshmi has for family is a sister, Asha, who lives nearby. “She is very possessive about her coins and never allowed me to touch them,” Asha said.

Lakshmi doesn’t remember her parents or when she lost them. Nor may she be aware that in her own way she has lived up to the name they gave her.

ABC News: Blood Atonement: Survivors of Sect Ritual

2008-07-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

ABC News: Blood Atonement: Survivors of Sect Ritual

Two Polygamist Sect Survivors Tell Their Stories
"When I Thought of My Dad, I Thought of Him Being God"
by JEN PEREIRA, KIRAN KHALID and EMILY YACUS
July 7, 2008

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There's been a lot in the news recently about polygamist groups, but what is it really like for the children who grow up in them? Amber Dawn Lee and Estephania LeBaron are two women who spent their childhoods in two very different -- and very troubled groups -- and later escaped.
Two women discuss growing up in secret societies.

The women shared with "Good Morning America" what it is like to live in and to survive the secret society of a renegade polygamist sect.

"The children were all taught that if we were ever to talk about what happened sexually inside the group, that we will go straight to hell," Lee said of her time spent inside the Zion Society.

After she was abandoned by her mother, Lee was adopted and her new parents joined the Zion Society, a group led by a retired landscaper and excommunicated Mormon named Arvin Shreeve.

"I always had a feeling that something wasn't right. That it wasn't normal," said Lee.
Related
Sect Members: Brainwashed or Faithful?
Children of Polygamy: Life on the Outside
WATCH: Mother Escapes Polygamist Cult

Shreeve divided the women into groups called Sister Councils in which it was their job to sew lingerie to sell to local strippers. But first they had to model the lingerie. Shreeve reportedly even hired strippers to train his wives for the sect's fashion shows.

Lee, who as part of a Sister Council learned to sew at a young age, said that she "hoped that I could stand out somehow to Arvin, and that he'll notice that I'm here too."

Lee also said that the children suffered repeated physical and sexual abuse. "A 15-year-old girl would be instructed to teach the 9-year old girl how to sexually satisfy a man or woman," she said.

"Arvin sort of came out of nowhere. There are a lot of independent polygamists," according to senior reporter Mike Watkiss at KTVK in Phoenix. "That's what they call themselves, and they're just guys who basically put their hands up and say, 'I'm a prophet.'"

Estephania LeBaron said she knew about the horrors from a different sect. She is the daughter of polygamist Ervil LeBaron, founder of the Church of the Lamb of God.

"When I thought of my dad, I thought of him being God," she told "GMA." "I just had a huge feeling of awe." She also feared that if she deviated from her father's sect, she "might not get into heaven."

Indo-US nuclear deal Good for us: A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

2008-07-04T17:09:00.000-07:00

Good for us: Kalam
Faraz Ahmad
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 3
Having secured the endorsement of former President of India A. P. J. Abdul Kalam for the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Samajwadi Party for the first time came out in open support of the deal ditching its partners in the United Progressive National Alliance (UNPA).

This decision of the SP with 39 MPs in the Lok Sabha has also put the Left under greater pressure to announce withdrawal of support to the four-year-old United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh leaves for Tokyo on July 6 to attend the G8 Summit.

Late on Thursday evening, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav announced that the “Nuclear deal is in the interest of the country.” He said this soon after meeting former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and said, “Kalam told us that the deal is in the interest of the nation and it is beneficial. Kalam explained to us the nuclear deal. Now we will decide what to do.”

The SP chief declared, ”Without the interest of the nation there is no politics.”

Earlier in the day, Mulayam and his confidant general secretary Amar Singh made a big show of camraderie and bonhomie with his UNPA colleagues N. Chandrababu Naidu of TDP and Om Prakash Chautala of INLD, others and swore by their loyalty to the UNPA at Amar Singh’s residence.

They endorsed Chautala’s declaration that “We will not give a certificate to the Prime Minister before July 6. Till we are convinced we will never give our ascent,” Chautala asserted.

In fact, Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh had said, This is a national issue. It should be debated nationally It dosn’t just concern the SP or the UNPA.”

To avoid the embarrassment of answering for the capitulation of SP leaders, the other UNPA leaders went underground. While Naidu remained incommunicado, his parliamentary party leader here K. Yerrannaidu refused to speak to The Tribune pleading urgent business.

Simultaneously, the Left is busy making preparations to pull out support from the UPA government as soon as the government says it is going ahead with the deal, either before July 6 or after the Prime Minister returns, depending on the government’s response.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) has already authorised its leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury to take the necessary steps as and when the government finalises its decision to go to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to sign the Nuclear Safeguards Agreement.

The Communist Party of India (CPI) central secretariat also met here on Thursday authorising Bardhan and Raja to decide together with the other Left parties the timing of withdrawing support to the UPA government and the contents of the letter to be given jointly to President Pratibha Patil.

The other two Left parties, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Forward Bloc, also conducted a similar exercise.

After the meeting Bardhan said, “We will demand tomorrow from the government to tell us as to when it is going to the Board of Governors of the IAEA. The question is not whether they are going (to IAEA). The fact that they are going ahead is clear, but when is the question,” he said.

”There are no two opinions (about the Left decision to withdraw support). Modalities will be decided ... We have to write to the President (to declare withdrawal of support) ... all these things will be decided,” he said.

Asked whether the Left parties had any indication as to when the government would move the IAEA, Bardhan said “The government itself is in a hurry. If they are going (to IAEA), they are going within this week... Within the next seven, eight or 10 days.”

Asked whether the Left will wait for the Prime Minister to return from G8 Summit, Bardhan said, “If they tell us they are going on the 5th or 6th, we will withdraw then itself. But in the normal course, we will wait till he comes back.”

Israeli tourists experience mini Israel in Kasol

2008-06-28T02:17:00.000-07:00

Israeli tourists experience mini Israel in Kasol

Sat, Jun 28 02:05 PM

Kasol, June 28(ANI): The sign boards you're looking are from the town of Kasol in Himachal Pradesh. Encouraged by the inflow of tourists from Israel, almost all the business establishments display boards in Hebrew.

Kasol a village situated in Parvati valley has become a favourite destination for tourists from Israel. Israeli tourists are coming here in large numbers, which has turned this small village into a 'mini Israel'.

Windows XP Departs, updates till 2014

2008-06-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

Windows XP Departs: Good Riddance or Sad Farewell?
Two of PC World's most opinionated editors weigh in on whether Microsoft Windows XP's departure is bad for PC users or the best thing that could happen to computing.
June 27, 2008

The forced retirement of Microsoft's Windows XP is set--with some exceptions--for Monday. To quell XP separation anxiety and the rancor of seething Vista haters, Microsoft has agreed to offer Windows XP updates and security patches until April 2014.

However, PC retailers such as Dell have pretty much stopped selling computers preloaded with the venerable OS.

XP's disappearance has stirred much conversation. In fact, more than 200,000 people signed a petition to keep XP--a campaign championed by our sibling publication InfoWorld. In the long run, though, Microsoft refused to yield to the entreaties of XP-philes.

We have discussed this issue so vigorously here at PC World--in meetings, in our offices, and in the hallways--that we decided to enlist advocates for the two principle points of view to make their case, and then ask for your input in our Comments section. How do you feel about XP's departure?

Speaking first, in favor of Vista, is Senior Editor Robert Strohmeyer.

Chip TaylorWindows Vista is flawed, to be sure, but I won't shed a tear for the demise of Windows XP.

First let me define my position on the question of XP versus Vista. I don't intend to mount a whole-hearted defense of Vista, because anyone can see that the OS has some problems, but I when I consider the tidal wave of nostalgia that has been swelling over Windows XP lately, I can barely stop my eyeballs from rolling out of their sockets. So let's try to put things in perspective.

When PC World's editors took their first hard look at Windows XP back in 2001, we weren't blown away by any means. In our tests, we "found its performance generally on a par with that of other recent Windows versions."

Among the operating system's annoyances were its activation scheme (which we characterized as a needless burden on law-abiding users), its cute-but-inept canine helper in the search utility (which we saw as an uninvited dog), and the System Tray balloon text (which we termed an intermittent irritation). Meanwhile, we spotted compatibility issues between XP and a slew of devices and apps designed with earlier incarnations of Windows in mind. Ultimately, we gave XP our thumbs up as a marginal improvement on its forebears.

Robert CardinPersonally, I never liked XP. I did run it on my daily workhorse PC out of sheer computer-magazine-editing necessity, but my preferences leaned toward Mac OS X and Linux, both of which offered superior stability, performance, and security even then.

Only when I booted up a beta of Windows Vista--with its streamlined interface, protected kernel, and improved networking tools--did I begin thinking of Windows as a modern OS again.
Vista's Improvements: A Real Difference?

Like Windows XP, Windows Vista improves marginally on its predecessors. My esteemed but mildly delusional colleague Ed Albro asserts below that marginal improvements aren't enough to warrant an OS upgrade. And he may have a point.

I certainly wouldn't recommend that everyone run out and buy a copy of Vista to install on their aging PCs. On the other hand, it's not as though Vista is the first Windows upgrade to make much ado about relatively little. If history has taught us anything, it's that marginal improvements are the norm for new OS launches.

In fact, I can think of only two operating system releases in the past 20 years that have bucked this trend: Windows 95 and Mac OS X, both of which massively revamped their respective platforms.

Revolutionary OS upgrades are occasionally necessary to keep the industry moving forward, but they inevitably cause problems for end users working with legacy hardware and software--and sure enough, the historic launches of Win 95 and OS X left users around the world griping over their suddenly obsolete gear.

Of course, if Ed had his way, 92 percent of us would still be glumly clicking around in a heavily patched and repatched version of Windows 95. But at least we wouldn't have had to upgrade any of our hardware to support pesky new-fangled multimedia features.

I concede the points that Vista runs slowly on older hardware and that it has compatibility problems with aging devices and apps. I feel for anyone who has had to buy a new printer because their old one didn't work with Vista. (I have several printers at home, each from a different vendor, and none of them has ever balked at Vista, but I hear tell that this is a problem for some people.) Still, the fact that Vista runs poorly on my oldest laptop neither bothers nor surprises me. If that thing were a horse, I'd have shot it by now anyway.

And marginal as they are, the improvements in Windows Vista make a real difference to end users (even though many users may fail to notice it).

Most important, Vista is quantitatively more secure than XP. Yes, the User Account Control feature is annoying, but it does protect hapless users from inadvertently loading their PCs with system-wrecking malware. If anything, the UAC isn't annoying enough, since you can still all too easily to click 'Continue' without considering whether you really want to allow some random process to access your hard drive's boot sector.

But we can't have it both ways: Either we accept an OS that nags us when something we're doing is likely to cause trouble, or we keep living in the malware-ridden universe that is XP. Rather than assault Microsoft for trying to strengthen Windows' system security, I'd prefer to encourage the company to continue hardening the OS.

Vista looks better than XP, though that isn't saying much. While the silver trim of XP Pro is tolerable, I find the forced cheeriness of XP Home's blue, green, and red color scheme fundamentally offensive. And though most users have grown accustomed to XP's clunky menu system, I find Vista's more compartmentalized (and customizable) Start menu far simpler to navigate.

In addition, Vista beats XP hands-down on everyday features like photo management, multimedia entertainment, networking, working with mobile devices, searching for files on the hard drive, and calendaring.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Windows Vista is amazingly great. But Vista is certainly competent enough that when XP finally fades out of my life, I don't think I'll miss it one bit.

Ed?
I'll Miss You, XP

And now speaking in favor of Windows XP is Editor Edward N. Albro.

Chip TaylorOkay, so I know how these point-counterpoint duets are supposed to go. I'm supposed to rip into the arguments presented by my opponent, Robert Strohmeyer, and perhaps rip into him, too. But nothing Robert writes inspires me to call him an ignorant slut. (Working with him every day does, but that's another story.)

Robert's argument, in a nutshell, is that XP isn't as great and Vista isn't as horrible as all the gripers out there make them out to be. I'll grant both points--XP has some significant flaws, and Vista makes some marginal improvements.

Here's the problem: Marginal improvements just aren't enough.

Changing your OS is always a major hassle. Your old hardware may be incompatible with it or too slow to accommodate it (and Vista has had more than its fair share of driver problems). Some software makers will force you to buy new versions of their programs for the new OS. And commands, menus, and shortcuts inevitably get moved around (Microsoft engineers seem to take an almost sadistic pleasure in changing the OS's organization for no apparent reason).

Robert CardinIf I'm going to go through that much hassle, it had better be for a good reason. And that's what Vista lacks: a compelling reason for you to upgrade.

Robert cites User Account Control, Vista's more stringent security system. But UAC is an unholy combination of whiny nag and officious bully. Those who can, disable it; those who can't, ignore it.

The interface? If translucent window borders aren't the very definition of a useless change, I don't know what is.

When Microsoft came around to demo Windows Vista before releasing it, the feature they seemed most proud of was Flip 3D, which shows your open windows three-dimensionally, angled off into space. Since acquiring a Vista-based PC, I've used Flip 3D about three times. Though it looks cool, it actually gets in the way of doing your work quickly. In that respect, it's a bit like Vista itself. (Also, if you really like Flip 3D, you can get it in XP.)

Robert cites some other features that he says make Vista superior to XP: photo management, multimedia entertainment, networking, working with mobile devices, searching for files on your hard drive, and calendaring.

I have to disagree on networking, which I find even more opaque and confusing in Vista than in XP--and that's saying something. As for the other features, I'll cite these personal statistics:

* Months I've been running Vista on my desktop and XP on my notebook: 18
* Times I've been working in XP and wished that I had a feature that was available only in Vista: 0

The somewhat discouraging fact is that XP remains the highest expression so far of what Microsoft does. Redmond doesn't do beautiful, and it doesn't do elegantly efficient. That's for the design freaks at Apple. What Windows has always achieved is bureaucratic competence.

It makes lots of devices from lots of different manufacturers work together reasonably well. You'll encounter problems occasionally, and you won't always love the way it works, but generally it gets the job done.

And even 18 months later, XP still gets the job done better than Vista. It's just a better bureaucracy. That's faint praise, I know, but it's reason enough to stick with XP if you can.

Copyright (c) 2006 PC World Communications, Inc.

BJP received Rs 1 lakh from Dow chemicals

2008-06-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Expressindia » Story
BJP received Rs 1 lakh from Dow chemicals

Posted online: Saturday , June 14, 2008 at 03:14:42

Bhopal, June 14: Three leading Bhopal Gas Peedit (sufferers) organisations have assailed the ruling BJP party for accepting Rs one lakh donation from Dow Chemicals.

They said this showed the state government's "aggressive efforts" to protect the American Multinational from its environmental responsibilities".

"BBC's report about Dow Chemical's Rs one lakh donation to BJP explains the Madhya Pradesh government's aggressive efforts to protect the American Multinational from its environmental responsibilities in Bhopal", Syed M Irfan, President of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila, Purush Sabgharsh Morcha said in Bhopal.

Presenting Right to Information documents to the Press, he said Rs one lakh donation to BJP is merely the tip of the iceberg as the "favours extended by state government by way of pushing for burning of Union Carbide's toxic wastes, despite the recommendations of experts, is clearly worth a lot more to Dow".

Accusing the BJP government in the state for leading the efforts in the High Court to burn 340 tonnes of Carbides toxic wastes in an incinerator in Anbkleshwar, Gujarat, despite opposition from the Gujarat government and against the opinion of the Expert Committee constituted by the High Court, he said a massive fire-damaged large portion of the Ankleshwar facility on April 3, confirmed the nores of caution in this regard.

Alleging the state government for pushing Dow's agenda of creating a memorial over the lands where more than 10,000 tonnes of toxic wastes lie burried, Irfan said indeed it was the buried waste, rather than the 340 tonnes waste that the government was desperate to burn.

A family that loves using the language in reverse order!

2008-06-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

A family that loves using the language in reverse order!

Wed, Jun 11 03:05 PM

Muvatupuzha (Kochi), June 11 (ANI): Believe it or not, the Pottas family residing in Muvatupuzha village near Kochi has cultivated a unique talent to read, write and spell words or sentences, all in reverse order!

This talent has come naturally to the family, as everyone just loves practicing it any time of the day in daily life.

Anyone just needs to utter a word or sentence, regardless of its length, the members are always eager to read, write, type and spell it out in the reverse mode.

One of the family members is the 20-year-old Geordie Job Pottas, who is also a law student. He is stated to possess an ability to relate the exact number of alphabets contained in any word or sentence in any language within seconds.

"My elder son Geordie has a unique talent which even I do not possess. He can count the number of letters in a word or phrase and in a small sentence, which you can read out to him. Nobody in the world so far has claimed such a talent and we want to claim such a record," said Job Pottas, the head of Pottas family residing in Muvatupuzha Village.

Job Pottas, the eldest of the Pottas family, has been an inspiration for the rest of his family. He has also found a place in some book of records for his talent of pronouncing words and sentences in reverse order fluently.

Job, however, reveals his secret saying: "I do not have to practice it. I was a voracious reader and used to read all sorts of books on knowledge right from medicine to law. And through this reading, I also acquired a good vocabulary and never made a mistake. Reading in reverse order became spontaneous and today it's a habit. It is God's gift to me. Plus I have a good verbal memory. All these factors made me possible to achieve this."

Besides, Job can sing any song in reverse mode. He also records in his personal computer that enables him to listen in the correct from.

Job's younger son Jaacs Job Pottas, a standard XII student, and daughter Gemima Job, a standard six student have also imbibed these qualities. They are following their father's footsteps.

"There is nothing like practicing and I think it is just an inborn talent. I can spell backwards and if you ask me, I can spell reversibly," said Jaacs Job Pottas, the younger son.

Job Pottas' talent was revealed when he was in the high school and used to write in reverse to make his secrets.

Today, Pottas family has already bagged several awards and mementoes for demonstrating their talent in various shows at various colleges and schools in India, Singapore and European countries.

Job Pottas attributes his amazing talent to his wife whom he describes to have been the main driving force. But she passed away a few months ago.

In 1992, Job wrote in reverse an entire chapter from the Holy Bible's St. John's Gospel taking just 35 minutes to write 1,200 words. By Juhan Samuel (ANI)

700-Pound Mexican Man Hopes to Stand for Wedding

2008-06-11T04:27:00.000-07:00

700-pound Mexican man hopes to be able to stand on his own feet to get married
By MARK WALSH Associated Press Writer
MONTERREY, Mexico June 10, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press

Manuel "Meme" Uribe, 42, smiles with his girlfriend Claudia Solis, during an interview with the... Expand
Manuel "Meme" Uribe, 42, smiles with his girlfriend Claudia Solis, during an interview with the Associated Press, in Monterrey, Mexico, Monday, June 9, 2008. Manuel, who is the worlds heaviest living man according to Guinness, has one wish for his upcoming 43th birthday; to be able to walk his fiance Claudia down the aisle.

Manuel Uribe, who once weighed a half ton but has slimmed down to about 700 pounds, celebrates his 43rd birthday on Wednesday with a simple wish for the coming year: to be able to stand on his own two feet to get married.

Interviewed at his home in northern Mexico, where he can still do little more than sit up on a bed, Uribe said more than two years of steady dieting have helped him drop about 550 pounds from his Guinness record weight of 1,235 pounds.

He hopes Guinness representatives will confirm in July that he holds a second title: The world's greatest loser of weight.

But Uribe is still unable to walk his fiancee, Claudia Solis, down the aisle.

"It frustrates me a little, because it is not easy to get out," said Uribe, who has not been able to leave bed for the last six years.

His most recent attempt to escape the house — to attend Solis' 38th birthday party in March — fell through when a flatbed tow truck brought to transport his reinforced bed got caught beneath an underpass.

But Uribe vowed not to be deterred: "We are in love, and this year my birthday wish is to be able to stand when we get married," he said.

Uribe said he met Solis, a 38-year-old hairdresser, four years ago. They have been together for the last two.

"We are a couple," Uribe said. "We have sex, and in the eyes of God we are already married."

Proudly showing off her sparkling engagement ring, Solis said life with a heavyweight is not always easy.

"I bathe him every day, and we get along very well," she said. "At times, yes, people say things ... that it's a fake relationship, but what we have is real."

Solis said her family initially opposed the match with Uribe, because her first husband, who was also obese, died of respiratory failure.

"They were worried about me being involved with another fat man, because they thought another husband would die on me," she said.

Uribe, a former auto parts dealer, said his birthday party Wednesday will be a low-key dinner with the family.

Smart animals Change People's Understanding of Intelligence.

2008-06-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

Animal Smarts: Intelligence in the Wild Kingdom
These Icons Have Changed People's Understanding of Intelligence.
By TUAN C. NGUYEN
June 9, 2008

Throughout history, intelligence has often been considered a quality unique to humans, but that conventional wisdom has been shattered over the years as researchcontinues to turn up examples of animals, birds and fish that can develop vocabularies, communicate and even roast marshmallows over a campfire.
smart animals

The belief that intelligence was human-specific was held by a list of influential thinkers, such as Rene Descartes, who argued that unlike people, animals were simply mindless creatures incapable of any complex thought. Even the scientific classification homosapien, which in Latin translates to "wise man," seems to highlight this distinction.

But several recent studies have challenged this long-held view.

Crows, for instance, invent tools. Researchers have observed them using twigs and wires to snatch food from hard-to-reach places. Octopuses have exhibited their own brand of ingenuity by using rocks to build homes in crevices along the ocean floor. The eight-legged eggheads have also been known for mischief, as one researcher learned when he captured one on video sneaking out in the middle of the night to feast on fish, than returning to its tank as if nothing had ever happened.

A few species, however, deserve special mention for being at the head of the class.

Chimpanzees and bonobos have DNA that is 98 percent identical to ours, and the similarities don't end there. They hunt in groups, invent tools and transfer learned behaviors to others.

This tendency to pass on knowledge within a group has led some researchers to suspect that the primates may also possess a capacity for language. In the '60s, a chimp named Washoe surprised many scientists when she began to acquire sign language. It is believed that she eventually learned to use about 250 signs.

Although Washoe died last year, another ape had already begun showing a prodigious knack for gab. Kanzi, a 27-year-old bonobo, started to pick up language as an infant by watching researchers try unsuccessfully to teach his mother how to use keyboard symbols to communicate.

Within a short time, Kanzi has been able to understand thousands of words. Smithsonian magazine reported that during an outing in the forest, Kanzi used the keyboard to ask for matches and marshmallows. With the items in hand, he prepared a campfire and toasted the marshmallows on a stick.

Lalu Prasad turns a blogger

2008-06-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

Now, Lalu turns a blogger
9 Jun 2008, 0450 hrs IST,Madhuri Kumar,TNN

PATNA: Barack Obama has it. So do Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan. Now railway minister Lalu Prasad has jumped on the blog bandwagon.

But his first blog entry isn't about how well the Indian Railways is doing under him, or even his favourite food roti-dal. It's about the raging Gujjar fire. " Yeh andolan disha hin ho gai hai ...," says Lalu in his very first blog on myPOPKORN.com. "Accepting the demands of the community for scheduled tribe status would trigger similar demands from others, which would lead to a constitutional crisis," he says.

Lalu confirmed to TOI on Sunday that he had turned blogger. " Haan main apne vichar blog ke liye de rahan hoon . Ek de chuka hoon, doosra bhi denewala hoon . Wo log mujhse mere vichar chahte the . (Yes, I am giving my views to the website for the blog. I have already given one and the next will come soon. They had been approaching me and I agreed)," he said over phone from New Delhi. " Are kono truck ya bus se kuch bhejna hai jo koi dikkat hai. Vichar hi to dena hai . (It isn't as if I have to send anything by truck or bus. All they need is my opinion)".

Lalu's blog also has an audio version but the rustic wit that is Lalu's trademark is missing from the entry — it cuts straight to the point.

"Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje is the root cause behind the spread of agitation by Gujjars. She promised reservation in the election manifesto and now she is not keeping her word... No amendments can be made in the Constitution to confer special status to some individuals...," Lalu has said in his blog.

Officials of Digital Media Convergence Limited (DMCL), which built the website, have been after Lalu to join the blog for several months. On May 30, Lalu posted his Gujjar blog, say company officials. DMCL CEO Ishwar Jha said the railway minister could post blogs "according to his will". "Lalu Prasad was very excited about the idea of a blog when he realized that it would help him interact more closely with the people. He readily agreed to post and record his views," said Jha. "In fact, my team was with Lalu on Friday to collect his second blog for the site."

The Lalu blog is already making waves. RJD MP from Patna Ramkripal Yadav said he had heard of the blog but was "yet to speak to Laluji on the issue". Party colleague Shyam Rajak, however, accepted that a Mumbai-based organization had approached Lalu for a blog. "Laluji has given his silent nod for it," he said.

The next blog from Lalu is expected to be on how he has turned the Railways around and become a ‘management guru'," said a DMCL official.

jail for evading tax: Deepak Gajjar to prison

2008-06-06T17:54:00.000-07:00

Man jailed for evading tax
6 Jun 2008, 0410 hrs IST,TNN

AHMEDABAD: A person has been convicted by metropolitan court for committing a fraud to the tune of Rs 44 crore by evading commercial tax.

Deepak Gajjar from Vejalpur was sentenced to four-year imprisonment for raising false bills for business transactions that had never taken place at all. He has also been slapped with a fine of Rs 12,000, said a media release by commercial tax department.

Gajjar was nabbed by sleuths of commercial tax department during a campaign they carried out against the bogus bill raising scams. A flying squad had recovered blank ration cards, 16 cheque books and bank receipts, school leaving certificates, etc. from various premises belonging to Gajjar. It was found out that the accused along with his accomplices was mainly raising false bills showing deals in dyeing chemicals, plastic goods, electronics items, ceramic tiles and plywood.

Mask Falls: Clinton's Racial Politics

2008-06-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

Political Punch
Power, pop, and probings from ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper

Jake Tapper is ABC News' Senior National Correspondent based in the network's Washington bureau. He writes about politics and popular culture and covers a range of national stories.

Clinton-Backing Congressman Says Clinton Camp Pushed Racist Strategy
June 06, 2008 9:03 AM

Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Barack Obama, D-NY, met last night at the home of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. -- who is a big supporter, it should be noted, of a joint ticket.

A joint statement came from Obama spox Bill Burton and Clinton spox Jay Carson saying: “Senator Clinton and Senator Obama met tonight and had a productive discussion about the important work that needs to be done to succeed in November.”

But threatening to steal some thunder from the rapprochement comes Rep. Rob Andrews, D-NJ -- fresh from his primary loss to Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ -- who tells the Newark Star-Ledger that it may be tough for the party to unify behind Obama since the Clinton camp "has engaged in some very divisive tactics and rhetoric it should not have."

Before the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, Andrews says, a "high-ranking person" in the Clinton campaign "pushed a strategy of winning by exploiting tensions between Jews and African-Americans.

"There have been signals coming out of the Clinton campaign that have racial overtones that indeed disturb me," Andrews said. "Frankly, I had a private conversation with a high-ranking person in the campaign ... that used a racial line of argument that I found very disconcerting. It was extremely disconcerting given the rank of this person. It was very disturbing."

The Clinton campaign's response, from spox Phil Singer: "Comments like these, coming so soon after Congressman Andrews' crushing defeat, are sad and divisive."

- jpt

Fr Michael Pfleger suspended for political comments

2008-06-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

Church in the World
7 June 2008
United States

Anti-Clinton cleric suspended

Rocco Palmo

AN OUTSPOKEN priest has been temporarily suspended after comments he made attacking Senator Hillary Clinton caused presidential nominee Barack Obama to resign from his Church of 20 years, writes Rocco Palmo.

Cardinal Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago, on Tuesday said he was removing Fr Michael Pfleger from St Sabina's Church on Chicago's South Side "for a couple of weeks" so that the cleric might "put recent events in some perspective". He also appointed a neighbouring priest as temporary administrator of St Sabina's. Despite the cardinal asking for cooperation from church members, laity-led protests took place in the church's sanctuary within hours of the announcement.

Late last month Fr Pfleger condemned what he called Mrs Clinton's sense of "white entitlement and supremacy" in the Democratic presidential nomination contests and termed "America as the greatest sin against God". He later apologised, but added: "There's more to the story."

Fr Pfleger's remarks, made during a routine appearance at Trinity United Church of Christ on 25 May, were denounced as "divisive, backward-looking rhetoric" by Mr Obama, a senator for Illinois and long-time Trinity member who once cited the priest among three "spiritual guides".

In his homily, which has had nearly 400,000 hits on the website YouTube, the priest, who is white, said Mrs Clinton had been on the verge of tears days before the New Hampshire primary in January because she felt "there is a black man stealing my show".

Fr Pfleger has established his mainly African-American parish as an influential force on the black church scene in the city and beyond to a rare degree for a Catholic community. The leader of a host of social-service and community-aid ministries, the priest usually travels with an assistant and bodyguards.

Prophet Yisrayl 'Buffalo Bill' Hawkins of Abilene: Doomsday Begins on June 12

2008-06-06T07:26:00.000-07:00

Texas Sect Leader: Doomsday Begins Next Thursday, June 12
Thousands Follow Self-Proclaimed Prophet Yisrayl 'Buffalo Bill' Hawkins of Abilene
By BRIAN ROSS and VIC WALTER
June 6, 2008

Nuclear war will begin next Thursday, June 12, or sooner, according to the latest prediction of self-proclaimed prophet Yisrayl "Buffalo Bill" Hawkins, the founder of a religious sect in Abilene, Texas.
Lawmakers investigate a former policeman and his doomsday cult.

"It could be turned loose before then," Hawkins told 20/20 for a report to be broadcast tonight. "You're going to see this very soon, really soon," he said.

Hundreds of truck trailers have been loaded with food and water on the group's 44-acre compound, in preparation for the coming war.

Unfortunately for Hawkins, it is not the first time he predicted the outbreak of nuclear war.

Most recently, Hawkins set Sept. 12, 2006 as the beginning of the end.

His followers produced an on-line video with a countdown to doomsday.

In Kenya, hundreds of his followers actually hid in basement bomb shelters and donned gas masks on the date.

They went home in humiliation when there was no war.

Hawkins says he does not care if people consider him a laughing stock.

"You know, the savior himself, told me not to worry about that. He said, 'They're going to hate you above all people on the face of the earth,' " Hawkins explained.

Other former members say those doomsday predictions led believers to buy emergency food and supplies from a company that Hawkins owns personally, Life Nutrition Products.

"He's been saying just give me two more years, we're right at the end," said former member Miriam Martin who left in 2004.

"Why would you give up now? That's how he controls people, is through fear," Martin said.

Other former members say they are required to buy doomsday food and supplies from a company that Hawkins owns personally, Life Nutrition Products.

"Everything that he preaches has to do with people buying something," said former House of Yahweh elder David Als of New York city.

Like many of the his followers, Als actually legally changed his last name to Hawkins because he became convinced that only those named Hawkins would be saved.

Broadcom co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III charged in tawdry narcotics indictment

2008-06-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

Billionaire Drug Bust
Broadcom's co-founder charged in tawdry narcotics indictment

JUNE 5--A technology billionaire was a drug fiend who trafficked in cocaine, Ecstasy, and methamphetamine, spiked the drinks of business associates and employees, hired prostitutes for himself and others, and maintained several narcotics dens, including one in an underground lair at his Los Angeles mansion, prosecutors charge. In a remarkable federal indictment unsealed today in Los Angeles, Broadcom co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III is portrayed as an out-of-control wild man who scored drug caches for Super Bowl parties and rock festivals and had his dealer invoice him for these illicit purchases. A copy of the felony drug conspiracy indictment against Nicholas, who is reportedly worth about $2 billion, can be found below. The 48-year-old Nicholas, who was charged with securities fraud in a separate U.S. District Court case, allegedly "used threats of physical violence and death and payments of money to attempt to conceal his unlawful conduct," according to the indictment. Prosecutors allege that, in June 2002, Nicholas and Broadcom entered into a $1 million settlement agreement with an employee who was aware of the executive's "unlawful narcotics activity." The hefty payout, which Broadcom covered, contractually prevented the employee from speaking about Nicholas's drug abuse. The billionaire apparently did little to conceal his drug transactions. On one occasion, in the lobby of Broadcom's southern California headquarters, he directed an employee to provide cash to a courier "in exchange for an envelope containing controlled substances," the indictment charges. On a drug-fueled 2001 private plane flight--during which Nicholas allegedly used and distributed narcotics--the pilot was forced to don an oxygen mask due to the "marijuana smoke and fumes." According to a March 2008 Forbes story, Nicholas, with an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion, is ranked 677 on the list of the world's wealthiest individuals. (18 pages)

Man Falls After Receiving Spirit, Sues

2008-06-05T17:09:00.001-07:00

Man Falls After Receiving Spirit, Sues
Claims church liable for injuries sustained during healing service

JUNE 5--Last June, Matthew Lincoln was attending an evening service at his nondenominational Tennessee church when he approached the altar where a visiting minister was offering individual prayers for parishioners. Assigned "catchers" were present on the altar in case congregants fainted, fell, or otherwise lost control. When the minister, Robert Lavala, slightly touched his forehead, the Knoxville-area man "received the spirit and fell backwards." Except nobody was there to catch him, Lincoln charges in a $2.5 million lawsuit filed yesterday against Lakewind Church and its pastors. Lincoln, 58, claims that he fell backwards, striking his head against the "carpet-covered cement floor," according to the Circuit Court complaint, which was first reported by Courthouse News Service. A copy of Lincoln's lawsuit can be found below. Since he already suffered from a "degenerative disc disease of his neck and back," Lincoln, a former church board member, contends the fall exacerbated the pre-existing condition and has caused him "severe and permanent" injuries. As a result of the fall, Lincoln, a recording engineer, claims that he is no longer able to care for his disabled daughter. Lincoln alleges that Lakewind and its pastors were "negligent in not supervising the catchers to be sure that they stood behind the person being prayed for...should they have a dizzying, fainting, or falling in the spirit as had occurred on many occasions before." Lincoln's lawyer, J.D. Lee, told TSG that the church's insurer, Zurich of North America, rejected an insurance claim, asserting that Lincoln should have realized that no catchers were situated behind him. (5 pages)

Sri Sri brokered peace between Raje, Gujjars

2008-06-05T04:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday, June 2, 2008

Sri Sri brokered peace between Raje, Gujjars

Bangalore: In a significant development, spiritual guru and founder of Art Living Guru Sri Sri Ravishankar has brokered peace between warring Gujjars and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundaraje Scindia to find an amicable solution to the long pending problem of reservation.

Talking to ANI in an exclusive interview in Bangalore at his ashram on Sunday, the spiritual Guru said he had talked to both of them and they have agreed to negotiate in peace.

The initiative of Guru Ravishankar is seen significant in breaking the stalemate of the agitation.

The Gujjars, already considered a disadvantaged group, want to be reclassified further down the complex Hindu caste and status system so that they qualify for government jobs and university seats reserved for such groups.

The Gujjars, who have been protesting for more than a week now, have started to branch out from Rajasthan, the epicenter of the protests, to take their protests across northern India.

The government reserves about half of all seats in state colleges and universities for lower castes and tribal groups to flatten centuries-old social hierarchies, in what has been called the world's biggest affirmative action scheme.

But the scheme has been criticised for accentuating caste identities in India, where discrimination on caste is banned in the Constitution.

A year ago, Gujjars in Rajasthan fought police and members of another caste that already qualifies for job quotas. At least 26 people were killed in that violence.

After these protests, a state government committee said it would spend 2.8 billion rupees for improving schools, clinics, roads and other infrastructure in Gujjar areas. But Gujjars rejected this option.

Source: ANI

Navi Mumbai to have revised version of tram cars

2008-06-04T17:18:00.000-07:00

Blue Star
Wednesday,June 04,2008
Navi Mumbai to have revised version of tram cars

Mumbai: Tram cars that had vanished from Mumbai in 1964 could be resurrected in a new and futuristic version in the satellite city of Navi Mumbai, a senior government official said.

"We are considering a pilot project in Navi Mumbai and have written to the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation seeking their approval to carry out feasibility studies," Sanjay Ubale, Secretary (Special Projects) said.

Navi Mumbai, presently with a smaller population than Mumbai, could face problems of congestion in future and trams were expected to help ease them, he said."Navi Mumbai's streets also have the require road width to provide space for the tracks which would make it easier to implement tram systems there,"Ubale said.

The electric tram car in Mumbai operated in 1907 with its first ceremonial journey from the civic headquarters in south Mumbai to the nearby Crawford Market, now renamed the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Market.It ran its last route on March 31, 1964.

The re-introduction of trams is also expected to change people's perception of them as being an antiquated mode of transport that cannot be used in the modern age, Ubale said.The model expected to be used is on the lines of tram systems in Europe where air-conditioned trams operate in city centres and are often used to convert areas into no-entry zones for private vehicles, a planner associated with the project said.

Uncontacted Tribe Spotted in Brazil - Mascho Piro?

2008-06-03T17:34:00.000-07:00

Land of the 'Lost'
Disease and Development Threaten Isolated Amazonian Groups, Experts Say
By ASHLEY PHILLIPS
June 3, 2008

When a so-called "uncontacted" tribe was spotted last week in Brazil shooting arrows at a passing plane, global curiosity was piqued. Who were these people covered in black, red and orange paint? And how could they be completely ignorant of modern society?
Mascho-Piro

In September 2007, scientists spotted members of what they believed to be the Mascho Piro tribe in Peru while looking for evidence of illegal logging. Survival International, an indigenous rights group, estimates that there are more than 100 uncontacted groups in the world and about 60 in the Amazon. Collapse

But according to anthropologists and activists, this group is one of many in the Amazon that have chosen isolation as development encroaches upon the land that Indians have called home for centuries.

Brazil released the photos, which were shot in late April and early May, on Friday. Taken from a plane passing overhead, the photos show several nearly-naked Indians painted head to toe and brandishing bows and arrows. Experts know little about the group, a Brazilian Indian protection group told the Associated Press.
Related

These uncontacted Indians of the Ethno-Environmental Protected Area along the Envira river, in the Brazilian state of Acre, were photographed during a flight in May 2008.

This wasn't the first time that a so-called "lost tribe" was spotted from the air. In September 2007, scientists spotted members of what they believed to be the Mascho Piro tribe in Peru while looking for evidence of illegal logging. Survival International, an indigenous rights group, estimates that there are more than 100 uncontacted groups in the world and about 60 in the Amazon.

Others argue that there's no definable number. "That's a number pulled out of almost thin air," said Beth Conklin, an associate professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt University who works with the Wari' group in western Brazil. "There certainly are a number of groups in several specific area. No one knows how many people, how many different groups there are."

While the term "uncontacted" is often used to describe these Amazonian tribes, multiple experts say that these groups are fully aware of the outside world, but choose to opt out of it.

Young Adults Hit by 'News Fatigue'

2008-06-02T18:34:00.001-07:00

Study Shows Young Adults Hit by 'News Fatigue'
By KARL RITTER Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden June 2, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press

Young adults experience news fatigue from being inundated by facts and updates and have trouble accessing in-depth stories, according to a study to be unveiled at a global media conference Monday.

The Context-Based Research Group, an ethnographic research firm, found that the news consumption behavior of younger readers differs profoundly from that of previous generations.

The research project, commissioned by The Associated Press in 2007, analyzed the news consumption patterns of an ethnically diverse group of 18 men and women between the ages of 18 and 34 in six cities in the United States, Britain and India.

It ultimately helped AP design a new model for news delivery to meet the needs of young adults, who are driving the shift from traditional media to digital news, said Jim Kennedy, AP's director of strategic planning.

"The real value was that it gave us a lasting model of how news is being consumed in the digital space by young people that we can use to improve our own newsgathering and project development," Kennedy said.

That includes what the AP calls "1-2-3 filing," starting with a news alert headline for breaking news, followed by a short present-tense story that is usable on the Web and by broadcasters. The third step is to add details and format stories in ways most appropriate for various news platforms.

Editors at the Telegraph in London are following a similar approach and have seen a big jump in traffic at the newspaper's Web site. The study said the Telegraph has adopted the mind-set of a broadcast-news operation to quickly build from headlines to short stories to complete multimedia packages online to boost readership.

The study's purpose was to obtain a deeper and more holistic understanding of the news consumption behavior of younger audiences. The results were scheduled to be presented Monday in a 71-page report to media executives and editors from around the globe at the World Editors Forum in Goteborg, southwestern Sweden.

Cocaine Jesus

2008-05-31T09:51:00.000-07:00

Feds Seize Cocaine Jesus
Man busted after dog sniffs drug in statue at Texas border crossing

MAY 29--Meet Cocaine Jesus. Federal agents last week arrested a Mexican national for allegedly paying a woman to smuggle into the U.S. a statue that was made of a dried cocaine paste. The carefully painted religious icon, pictured below, weighed about six pounds and would have had a street value of about $30,000. The statue was confiscated at a Texas border crossing after a drug-sniffing dog alerted to it during an inspection of a vehicle driven by a Mexican woman. The woman later told agents that she was paid $80 by a man who wanted the statue delivered to him at a Laredo bus station. The man, Bernardino Garcia-Cordova, was arrested when the apparently unwitting female mule identified him for investigators, according to a felony cocaine distribution complaint filed May 27 in U.S. District Court in Laredo. When questioned by agents, the 61-year-old Garcia-Cordova, who is a legal permanent U.S. resident, initially acknowledged that Cocaine Jesus was his, but then claimed he was only helping to smuggle the statue on the behalf of a man known only by the nickname "La Arana," or The Spider. Cocaine Jesus, he claimed, was supposed to be delivered to The Spider in Dallas. (3 pages)

Pakistani Bomb Scientist Dr. A.Q. Khan: people who were supposed to know knew i

2008-05-30T18:47:00.000-07:00

ABC Exclusive: Pakistani Bomb Scientist Breaks Silence
Dr. A.Q. Khan Gives His First Interview to an American Journalist Since Being Placed Under House Arrest in 2004
By BRIAN ROSS
May 30, 2008

Pakistani scientist now says he did not sell knowledge to N. Korea and Iran.

The Pakistani scientist blamed for running a rogue network that sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya has recanted his confession, telling ABC News the Pakistani government and President Perez Musharraf forced him to be a "scapegoat" for the "national interest."

"I don't stand by that," Dr. A.Q. Khan told ABC News in a 35-minute phone interview from his home in Islamabad, where he has been detained since "confessing" that he ran the nuclear network on his own, without the knowledge of the Pakistani government. The interview will be broadcast Friday on "World News With Charles Gibson."

It was his first interview with an American journalist in a series of telephone interviews he has granted this week, marking the 10th anniversary of Pakistan's first test of a nuclear bomb.

"People were asking a lot of questions, so I said, 'OK. Let me give an answer,'" Khan told ABC News early Friday, Pakistan time.

As to his widely publicized confession, Khan said he was told by Musharraf that it would get the United States "off our backs" and that he was promised he would be quickly pardoned. "Those people who were supposed to know knew it," Khan said about his activities.

If true, it would mean Pakistan lied to the U.S. and the international community about its role in providing nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

A spokesman for the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington, D.C. said today the government there hasn't changed its views on Khan despite the claims he makes in the interview, "The government of Pakistan has adequately investigated allegations of nuclear proliferation and considers the AQK affair closed," said a statement from the embassy to ABC News.

A U.S. official said American investigators were also unconvinced of Khan's latest claims. "We have not changed our assessment that A.Q. Khan was a very major and dangerous proliferator. He sold sensitive nuclear equipment and know-how to some genuinely bad actors," the official said.

Khan admitted in the ABC News interview that he had twice traveled to North Korea but denied ever going to Iran or Libya.

Khan said the North Korean nuclear weapons program was "well-advanced" before he arrived, as part of an officially sanctioned trip by his government.

As to Iran, he said he believed it would be a "long time" before that country would be able to test a nuclear weapon.

Sabarimala flame is man made, admits priest

2008-05-30T01:32:00.000-07:00

Friday, May 30, 2008
Sabarimala flame is man made, admits priest

Thiruvananthapuram: After a crackdown on fake godmen now the Left Front government is planning to unravel the mystery behind the celestial light at the hill shrine of Sabarimala. For the first time it admitted that the divine light is a man-made phenomenon, not a miracle.

Temple supreme priest Kandararu Mahewararu was the first to make the confession that there was nothing godly behind the mystery flame that flickers thrice on the Makara Sankranti (Makaram first) day every year sending million of devotees into frenzy.

State Temple Affairs Minister G. Sudhakaran and the Travanore Devasom Board (TDB), which manages the affairs of temple, backed the priest’s contention.

Known as ‘Makara Vilakku’ the light blinks thrice at the forest on top of the Ponnambalamedu, some distance away from the hill temple, on the evening of Makara Sankranti when the three-month seasonal pilgrimage touches its peak. Millions of devotees converge at the hilltop to witness the celestial light.

Though the government and TDB disowned the divine light, former TDB chief Raman Nair claimed that the police and the TDB officials jointly light the fire on the orders of the state government. Now rationalists and others have asked the government to tender an apology for “deceiving million of devotees for years together.” Rationalists had claimed for years that the light was lit by TDB officials.

© Copyright 2008 HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved.

Stonehenge: Monument of Death?

2008-05-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

Ned Potter reports that Stonehenge Riverside Archaeological Project head, Mike Parker Pearson claims the Stonehenge to be Part of Vast Religious Complex. The archaeologists think that Stones Celebrated Death while the Wood Circle nearby celebrated Life. The 4,500 years old English rock formation would most probably a graveyard.

Parker Pearson and other scientists were excavating the site for the last eight years. Stonehenge was built by Neolithic people in Britain. The archaeologists have discovered evidence of a primitive town two miles away from the circle of Stonehenge.This small township was remarkably large for 2,500 B.C. big enough for more than a thousand people. There were also signs of a second circle made of wood. The two great circles were so close to each other, not far from the river Avon in southern England.

"The two circles have very profound architectural similarities, even if they're made out of different materials," said Julian Thomas of the University of Manchester, who has been working with Parker Pearson.

Parker Pearson thinks that the wooden circle could be a celebration of life and perhaps fertility, while Stonehenge would have been a monument to death or the afterlife. The scientists are of the opinion that the wood and stone structures reflect what materials meant to peoples' lives in those days.

Parkinson said, "Wood is something that doesn't last forever, just as our own lives won't last forever. But stone, that's going to be there for eternity."

Cremated remains of some 240 people have been found in the last 75 years at Stonehenge.

Apex court stays proceeding against Uttar Pradesh judge

2008-05-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

Apex court stays proceeding against Uttar Pradesh judge

Wed, May 28 10:17 PM

New Delhi, May 28 (IANS) The Supreme Court Wednesday halted a contempt of court proceeding against a judge of Uttar Pradesh lower judiciary at the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.

While halting the contempt proceedings against Senior Civil Judge Amarjit Varma, a vacation bench comprising Justices C.K. Thakkar and L.S. Panta also issued notice to the registrar general of the high court, asking him to explain why the proceedings against the judge should not be quashed.

A Lucknow-based senior advocate, Prashant Chandra had allegedly managed to have initiated the contempt of court proceedings at the high court on the grounds that the civil judge had not disposed of a lawsuit he had filed within three months as per a high court direction.

Appearing for Varma, advocate Anoop George Chaudhary pointed out to the apex court that Chandra had managed initiation of contempt proceedings of criminal nature against the judge without mandatory permission from the state's advocate general.

The apex court stayed the contempt proceedings after Chaudhary pointed out to it the lack of this important procedural step for initiating criminal contempt of court proceedings against a judge.

Chaudhary told the apex court that Chandra earlier had moved the court of Civil Judge Varma challenging the suspension of his membership from the city's prestigious Golf Club.

Varma, however, dismissed his civil suit, finding it devoid of merit.

At this, Chandra moved the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, challenging Varma's order. The high court, in turn, remitted the matter back to the civil judge, directing him to possibly dispose the matter within three months.

But Judge Varma could not dispose it within the stipulated period.

At this, Chandra again moved the high court, seeking initiation of a civil contempt proceeding against the judge. But the high court dismissed the plea.

At this Chandra moved the high court yet again, this time for initiation of criminal contempt of court proceedings against the judge.

This time around he allegedly also concealed the fact that he had already earlier moved the high court against the civil judge for civil contempt proceedings.

A person is liable to face civil contempt of court proceeding for his inadvertent lapse in obeying the court order, while a person deliberately disobeying a court order is liable to face criminal contempt to court charges.

How a Thriving Social Life Can Boost Lifespan

2008-05-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

How a Thriving Social Life Can Boost Lifespan
By LINDA GEDDES
May 27, 2008

They say you are only as old as the woman (or man) you feel – now we might be closer to understanding why.
dating
Teen dating can be tough when there are allergies to contend with.
(Ebby May/Riser/Getty Images)

It has been suggested that humans and other vertebrates live longer if they have more social interactions, and now this has been verified – in fruit flies.

Chun-Fang Wu and Hongyu Ruan at the University of Iowa in Iowa City studied fruit flies with a genetic mutation that reduces their lifespan by interfering with an enzyme that mops up dangerous free radicals.

The same enzyme is implicated in age-related diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in humans.

Mutant flies that shared a home with younger flies, or non-mutants, lived longer and were more mobile than those sharing a home with similar-aged flies. They were also more resistant to the effects of extreme physical exertion, heat and oxidative stress.

Impairing the movement or activity of younger flies reduced this effect, suggesting that social interaction with the younger flies through courtship, aggression, or grooming, plays a key role in increasing the lifespan of the older flies. "Social activity is the key," says Wu.

Keeping the flies in the dark, so they could not see each other, also reduced the effect.

The next step is to unravel how these social interactions override the mutant gene at the molecular level. In doing so, Wu hopes to understand how similar interactions could benefit ageing humans.

"This study shows that the lifespan of these flies is plastic and can be conditioned by social interactions, corroborating the notion that human patients of certain age-dependant neurological diseases may be benefited by an appropriate social environment," he says.

However, Wu has studied several genes that influence lifespan in fruit flies, and not all of them can be overridden by social interaction, he says.

Provided by NewScientist.com news service © Reed Business Information

Delhi Municipal body fined for flooded streets

2008-05-27T22:35:00.000-07:00

Blue Star
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Delhi Municipal body fined for flooded streets

New Delhi: In a first of its kind order against a civic agency, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission on Tuesday slapped a fine of Rs 25 lakh on the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for failing to prevent water logging on Delhi’s streets recently during the rain.

Taking cognisance of a series of recent reports in the Hindustan Times, the Commission expressed anger over the fact that every year the MCD “makes tall claims” of cleaning the drains spending crores of rupees. But one heavy downpour was enough to cause water logging and commuters were put to immense hardship with traffic coming to a grinding halt as experienced during the recent rain.

Bringing every citizen under the definition of “consumer” for the first time, a bench of Commission president Justice J.D. Kapoor and member Rumnitta Mittal said “the public is getting services like road, electricity and water after paying tax and therefore they are liable to be compensated for any loss, injury or mental agony owing to deficiency of service”.

The order came on a petition filed by a group of residents of Chittaranjan Park seeking an intervention to put an end to the civic agencies’ “callousness”.

Reacting to the report ‘It is money down the drain-roads clogged as MCD fails in its promise to clear drains’ and ‘Delhi roads cope with traffic nightmare’ in HT dated May 22, 2008, Justice Kapoor said, “We feel constrained to observe that year after year MCD makes tall claims of de-silting of drains but the rain god proves their claim hollow every time”.

“We find the MCD guilty of extreme deficiency of service in not discharging its obligatory functions as a result of which the city is crippled and life paralysed every time it rains,” he said.

© Copyright 2008 HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved.

King Gyanendra must leave palace: Nepal govt

2008-05-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

King Gyanendra must leave palace: Nepal govt
27 May 2008, 1126 hrs IST,REUTERS

KATHMANDU: The Nepali government warned on Tuesday that it could use force to throw unpopular King Gyanendra out of the royal palace if he refuses to leave voluntarily after the 239-year-old monarchy is abolished.

A special assembly elected in April is scheduled to hold its first meeting on Wednesday and formally declare an end to the monarchy, a key part of a 2006 peace deal with Maoist former rebels that ended a decade-long civil war.

"The king must leave the palace immediately and move to the Nirmal Niwas," Peace and Reconstruction Minister Ram Chandra Poudel said, referring to Gyanendra's private home.

"If he does not leave the palace then the government might have to use force to vacate the palace," he said. "This will not be good for him."

There was no immediate comment from the palace. Many Nepalis think that the king will quietly go after the assembly vote. Gyanendra has been living in the Narayanhity royal palace in the heart of Kathmandu since ascending the throne in 2001, but he has made no public statement over his plans.

The government has banned demonstrations around major royal sites and the assembly. But Maoists and other main political parties say they are going to take to the streets on Wednesday to celebrate the monarchy's end.

The government that includes the Maoists took over control of the royal palace after Gyanendra was forced to end his absolute rule following weeks of street protests in 2006.

Anti-monarchy Maoists emerged as the largest party in elections to the 601-member assembly in April.

Authorities posted more police outside the International Convention Centre, the venue of Wednesday's assembly meeting, after a pro-Hindu militant group set off two small bombs outside the building, officials said.

Monday's blasts did not cause any injuries but raised security concerns ahead of the historic meet.

Twin Mix Up: Mistaken Woman Raised as a Twin

2008-05-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

Hospital's Double Jeopardy for Twin Mix Up
Woman Raised as a Twin, While Real Twin Raised in Wrong Family
By DANIEL WOOLLS Associated Press Writer
MADRID, Spain May 27, 2008

Spanish twins who were separated at birth through a hospital error -- then reunited as adults through a fluke -- are suing for millions in damages, as is a third woman who grew up thinking, erroneously, that she was one of the twins, a lawyer said Tuesday.

The real twins finally met each other in 2001. The case has been working its way through the courts since 2004. A decision is expected soon on whether the three women deserve damages, said Sebastian Socorro Perdomo, a lawyer for one of the twins.

He would not release the names of any of the women, who are all 35 years old.

Socorro Perdomo said in an interview that his client is seeking $4.7 million from the government of the Canary Islands, where the error occurred in 1973 in the city of Las Palmas. The other two women are also suing, he said.

He said his client was taken out of her crib as her twin sister lay in one right next to her, mistakenly replaced by another baby girl, and ultimately raised by the family of that child.
Related

The other two girls were brought up in the mistaken belief they were twin sisters.

"It does not take a lot of effort to put yourself in the position of any of these people in order to understand the damage that has been done," Socorro Perdomo said.

Of the three, he said his client -- taken away from her twin sister and real family -- is the most devastated. "Since this discovery, her world has turned a bit upside down," he said.

"The first right of any child is the right to their own personal and family identity," he said. "In this case, that right has been violated."

The error emerged a generation later through a chance encounter at a clothing store in Las Palmas.

A friend of Socorro Perdomo's client worked in the shop. When a woman who was the spitting image of that client came in and failed to recognize the employee, the clerk was dumbfounded.

When the dead ringer came by the store a second time, the clerk began to put two and two together and arranged for the women to meet.

DNA tests proved they were identical twins, the lawyer said.

Not allowed to watch TV, boy kills self

2008-05-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

Not allowed to watch TV, boy kills self
26 May 2008, 0629 hrs IST,TNN

NEW DELHI: Addiction to television, failure to perform in examinations and father's scolding, the normal stuff in a child's life drove a 9-year-old to suicide in Budh Vihar in outer Delhi on Saturday evening.

The victim, Sanjeev Gupta, a resident of Harshved Park had failed in his class IV examinations in a government school where he studied.

According to the police, he suffered from severe myopia. The power of his spectacles in both eyes was -10. "First of all, he had failed in his examinations and then he had such weak eyes. To top it, he was watching TV from a very close distance and his father asked him to study instead. This started the entire argument," said a police official from Sultanpuri police station.

He added that the boy's father, Surinder Gupta, a junk dealer, scolded Sanjeev for performing so badly in his exams and watching TV from a close distance. When the father snatched the remote control from him, Sanjeev took the remote control back and switched on the TV on again. This angered Surinder, who slapped him twice and sent him to his room as a punishment, said a police official. "Sanjeev was so addicted to the TV that he had threatened his parents in the past that if he is not allowed to watch it, he would do something drastic," said a police official.

Later during the day, when Sanjeev's parents had gone out and his 14-year-old sister was taking a bath in the first floor bathroom, he got a rope and hung himself from the staircase railing in the house. His sister discovered his body and alerted her parents who rushed him to nearby Brahmashakti Hospital where he was declared brought dead. His body was later sent to Sanjay Gandhi hospital for a post-mortem.

toireporter@timesgroup.com

Near-Death Experience: Velma Thomas comes back to life

2008-05-25T04:01:00.000-07:00

Doctor Calls Near-Death Experience a 'Miracle'
Hospital Took Velma Thomas off Life Support -- Then She Woke Up
By GIGI STONE, TRACEY MARX and STEPHANIE DAHLE
May 24, 2008

Velma Thomas' heart stopped beating three times -- and her doctors thought she was dead.
Doctors took Velma Thomas off life support -- and then she woke up.

She was taken by ambulance to a local West Virginia hospital when her heart stopped after experiencing symptoms of a heart attack. For more than 17 hours, Thomas had no measurable brain waves, according to her doctors.

Doctors tried everything to save Thomas' life, even inducing hypothermia in an attempt to lower her body temperature and stimulate the brain.

Her family said their goodbyes and left her side at the hospital to make funeral plans.

But after medical staff took Thomas off life support, she miraculously came back to life.

"I said, 'God, just show me something,'" her nephew, Daniel Pence, told ABC News.

"There were really no signs she had neurological functions," Kevin Eggleston, an internist, told ABC News.

"There was no life there," her son, Tim Thomas, told the Charleston Daily Mail. "Her skin had already started hardening, her hands and toes were curling up."

Family Was Distraught but Hopeful

Family members made the difficult decision to take Thomas, 59, off life support.

"We just prayed and prayed and prayed," Tim Thomas told the Charleston Daily Mail, "and I came to the conclusion she wasn't going to make it. ... I felt a sense of peace that I made the right decision."

After their goodbyes, medical staff took Thomas off her respirator.

"There was no heart beat," Tim Thomas told the Daily Mail.

Family members left the hospital to make funeral arrangements.

That's when they say a miracle happened.

Ten minutes after the medical staff stopped the respirator -- while nurses were removing the tubing -- Velma Thomas woke up.

"She moved her arm, and we thought it was reflexes," Pence told ABC News.

Nurses hurried to call Tim Thomas, who was already a few miles away, on his cell phone.

They told him that his mother was moving and had a heart rate, Tim Thomas told the Daily Mail.

Velma Thomas had moved her arm and foot, then she coughed and moved her eyes. Amazingly, Thomas began speaking. By the time Tim Thomas arrived back at the hospital, his mother had already asked for him.

"She had already asked, 'Where's my son?'" he told the newspaper. "She was off everything."

Her doctors were baffled.

"There are things that physicians and nurses we can't always explain. And I think this is one of those cases," Eggleston told ABC News. (ABCNEWS)

2008-05-24T16:41:00.000-07:00

German Parents Post Baby on eBay for 1 Euro
German authorities take baby from parents who posted eBay ad offering to sell him for 1 euro
BERLIN May 24, 2008 (AP)

Authorities in southern Germany said Saturday they have taken custody of a 7-month-old boy after his parents posted an ad on eBay offering to sell him for one euro, the equivalent of $1.57.

Peter Hieber, a spokesman for police in the Bavarian town of Krumbach, said the baby was placed in the care of youth services in the southwestern Allgaeu region, although the child's 23-year-old mother insisted the ad was only a joke.

Authorities have launched an investigation into possible child trafficking against the baby's mother and 24-year-old father, neither of whom was identified.

"Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud. It is a male baby, nearly 28 inches (70 cm) long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller," police quoted the ad as reading.

No offers were made for the child in the two hours and 30 minutes the ad was posted on Tuesday. EBay later deleted the posting, but assisted police in tracking down the parents.

Several people who saw the ad alerted police.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Appa Sherpa climbs Everest for record-breaking 18th time

2008-05-22T18:02:00.000-07:00

'Super Sherpa' climbs Everest for record-breaking 18th time
22 May 2008, 1816 hrs IST,AFP

KATHMANDU: A 48-year-old Nepalese Sherpa broke his own world record on Thursday by conquering Mount Everest for a breathtaking eighteenth time.

Appa Sherpa, who hails from a village at the base of the world's highest peak, topped out in the early hours of the morning, the head of Nepal's Mountaineering Association said.

"Appa Sherpa summitted Everest at 5:45 am (0000 GMT) this morning. He has set the new world record as it is the eighteenth time he has got to the top," Ang Tsering Sherpa said.

"This is another proud moment for the whole mountaineering fraternity." Appa Sherpa, known as one of Nepal's "Super Sherpas" -- hardened local climbers with almost superhuman stamina -- was among 37 climbers taking advantage of the good weather to reach the summit Thursday morning. Twenty-seven others reached the peak Wednesday.

Appa's closest competition -- trailing at 15 ascents -- is 42-year-old Nepalese climber Chhewang Nima.

This spring's other aspiring recordbreakers include 75-year-old adventurer Yuichiro Miura of Japan and 77-year-old Nepalese Min Bahadur Sherchan, who are both vying to become the oldest person to conquer Everest.

Retired Japanese schoolteacher Katsusuke Yanagisawa, 71, set that record last year. The youngest climber was 15-year-old Nepalese Temba Chheri in 2001. Appa Sherpa bagged his first Everest summit in 1990, and has been making the climb into the "death zone" look like child's play ever since.

The communities living around the mountain are essential for commercial expeditions.

They lay out kilometres of ropes and prepare camps, and Appa Sherpa -- who started climbing in 1987 -- was quickly recognised as someone who foreign expeditions wanted on their team.

This year he reached the summit with the Eco Everest expedition, an international team aiming to highlight the effects of global warming in the Himalayas as well as test ecologically sound mountaineering practices.

"He wasn't planning on trying for another summit, but he joined the Eco Everest expedition as he wanted to raise awareness about melting glaciers and the fragility of the mountain environment," Ang Tsering Sherpa said.

Since it was first climbed in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the 8,848-metre (29,028-foot) mountain has been conquered more than 3,000 times.

Last year 557 people -- 254 via Nepal and 303 via Tibet -- reached the highest point on earth, which was a record.

The numbers are expected to be lower this year because of a climbing ban Nepal imposed up to May 11 to allow a protest-free path for the Chinese Olympic torch, which was carried up the northern approach to the mountain from Tibet.

Is Google a threat to consumer privacy.?

2008-05-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

Michael Gottschalk/AFP/ writes:

Founded in 1998, Google runs the world’s most popular Internet search engine. For hundreds of millions of Web users, an online session starts at the Google search box. It’s a position that has given Google an outsize influence over anyone doing business on the Internet and that has allowed the company to build a hugely profitable and fast-growing online advertising system.

But Google’s ambition far exceeds the confines of Internet search and advertising. The company has an expansive interpretation of its already far-reaching corporate mission: to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. For that, Google has built a powerful network of data centers around the globe in hopes of, among other things, connecting users instantly with high-resolution satellite pictures of every corner of the earth and sky; making the entire text of books, in and out of print, available online; and becoming the leading distributor of online video through YouTube, which it acquired in 2006.

At the same time, Google has taken its advertising system offline, as it tries to capture portions of large ad markets in television, radio and newspapers. It is investing heavily in mobile phone technology to replicate its online success in the wireless world. And it has built an array of online software programs, including e-mail, word processing and spreadsheets that it hopes will become the building blocks of a new computing paradigm — one that, unlike the Microsoft-dominated PC world, will have Google at its center.

Google’s unbounded ambition, as well as what many critics say is a cavalier approach to copyrights, has put it at odds with a growing list of companies in industries ranging from Hollywood to book publishing and from telecommunications to e-commerce. And the company’s appetite for collecting vast amounts of data about its users and their online habits has prompted increasing fears that Google could become a threat to consumer privacy.

Google is known for the quirky corporate culture created by its billionaire co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, which includes a chaotic, campuslike atmosphere at its offices, where workers are pampered with free, chef-prepared food and other amenities. Part of that culture includes a principle that some critics believe will become harder for Google to uphold as it grows in size. That principle: Don’t be evil.-- Miguel Helft, Sept. 14, 2007

Anti-foreigner violence spreads in South Africa

2008-05-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

Anti-foreigner violence spreads in South Africa

By Paul Simao Mon May 19, 3:57 AM ET

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A wave of xenophobic attacks spread through South African townships on Monday and mobs beat foreigners and set some ablaze in scenes reminiscent of apartheid era violence.

Two people were killed and more than two dozen shacks were torched in the Tembisa township near Johannesburg, the South African Broadcasting Corp. said. Police, struggling to restore order, said at least 13 people were killed over the weekend.

Immigrants from African neighbors are accused by many in the townships, among South Africa's poorest areas, of taking jobs and fuelling the high rate of violent crime. Local media report about 20 dead since trouble broke out a week ago.

The unrest is an embarrassment for a country that has vaunted its tolerance since the end of apartheid and an indicator of growing disaffection among South Africa's poor.

President Thabo Mbeki and ruling ANC party leader Jacob Zuma have called for an end to the violence, which threatens a new strain on an economy struggling with rising inflation, power outages and a skills shortage.

Hundreds of immigrants have taken refuge in police stations, churches and government offices.

"At the moment some of the people have been taken to the city hall as a place of safety, but some of them are still running around and do not know where to go," police spokesman Veli Nhlapo told SABC.

Police fired rubber bullets at gangs of youths, who patrolled unruly streets, armed with sticks, rocks and knives. Scores have been arrested in connection with the violence.

South African newspapers carried photos of a man who was set alight by a mob on the weekend. Callers to radio stations urged authorities to impose curfews and bring in the army to restore order in some of the most violent areas.

Among the immigrants are an estimated 3 million Zimbabweans who fled economic collapse at home. The immigrants say they more often the victims of crime than perpetrators.

The Zimbabweans, like others on the continent, have been lured by work in South Africa's mines, farms and homes, and by one of the world's most liberal immigration and refugee policies.

Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said the situation in the townships now amounted to a humanitarian crisis.

(Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

Changing name to fight atheism

2008-05-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

Man asks court to change his name to 'In God We Trust'
May 4 05:52 AM US/Eastern

ZION, Ill. (AP) - Steve Kreuscher wants a judge to allow him to legally change his name. He wants to be known as "In God We Trust."

Kreuscher (CROY'-shir) says the new name would symbolize the help God gave him through tough times.

The 57-year-old man also told the (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald he's worried that atheists may succeed in removing the phrase "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency.

He recalls that the phrase "God Reigns" was removed from the Zion city seal in 1992 after courts deemed it unconstitutional. Zion was founded as a theocracy—by a sect that believed the Earth was flat.

The school bus driver and amateur artist in the northern Chicago suburb says he has filed a petition to change his name in Lake County Circuit Court.

Einstein on Faith in God: 1954 letter

2008-05-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

Belief in God 'childish,' Jews not chosen people: Einstein letter
May 13 08:24 AM US/Eastern

Albert Einstein described belief in God as "childish superstition" and said Jews were not the chosen people, in a letter to be sold in London this week, an auctioneer said Tuesday.

The father of relativity, whose previously known views on religion have been more ambivalent and fuelled much discussion, made the comments in response to a philosopher in 1954.

As a Jew himself, Einstein said he had a great affinity with Jewish people but said they "have no different quality for me than all other people".

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

"No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this," he wrote in the letter written on January 3, 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, cited by The Guardian newspaper.

The German-language letter is being sold Thursday by Bloomsbury Auctions in Mayfair after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, said the auction house's managing director Rupert Powell.

In it, the renowned scientist, who declined an invitation to become Israel's second president, rejected the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people.

"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions," he said.

"And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people."

And he added: "As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

Previously the great scientist's comments on religion -- such as "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" -- have been the subject of much debate, used notably to back up arguments in favour of faith.

Powell said the letter being sold this week gave a clear reflection of Einstein's real thoughts on the subject. "He's fairly unequivocal as to what he's saying. There's no beating about the bush," he told AFP.

Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

125 exchange

2008-05-16T05:17:00.000-07:00

Against offshoring to India

2008-05-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

BBC journalists oppose offshoring of programming to India

Thu, May 15 09:49 AM

Journalists from south Asia working in the Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and Sinhala sections of the BBC World Service in London have launched a campaign to protest against offshoring of programming to the Indian sub-continent.

A series of meetings have been held between the affected journalists and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), which is supporting a union campaign against what is described as a "money-saving adventure" of the BBC management.

The offshoring involves new contracts for the London-based journalists who have been told to accept redundancy or relocate to their countries of origin in south Asia, and accept downgraded pay conditions.

Defending the move, the BBC said it had plans to have around 50 per cent of overall language service staff located closer to their audiences.

Mike Gardner, Head of Media Relations at the BBC World Service, said: "The proposed redeployments of staff to India, Pakistan and Nepal recognise the new media realities in those countries."

He added: "It aims to serve our audiences in the region better; equip those services with the qualities that will be successful in these fiercely competitive media landscapes; and use resources more efficiently."

Gardner said, it was BBC World Service's policy that its language services work closer to the audiences they serve for some time.

However, Indian and other south Asian BBC journalists said that the redeployment would "dismantle a broadcasting service that is the envy of the world". They added that it would affect their working and the lives of their families.

Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the NUJ, said after a meeting with BBC's south Asian journalists on Wednesday evening: "We are committed to opposing these offshoring plans which are ill-founded and put at threat not just jobs but editorial quality, integrity and the future of the world service".

Dear said the plans which would have a fundamental impact on staff and their families were conceived without proper consultation and were in breach of agreements, which should worry staff across all BBC services.

"It is unacceptable that staff should be faced with the kind of choices - offshore or go - the BBC are seeking to impose... We're not against new staff, not against being closer to listeners across the sub-continent. We are against jobs being cut, offshored and outsourced to meet artificial budget restrictions.

"We're not against additional resources and staff - we are against seeking to get work on the cheap," he said.

Gardner noted that there was a rapidly changing media environment and highly competitive market both for radio and on-line in all parts of the world.

"This presents the BBC with new challenges, but also opportunities. It means the BBC can work closer with our local FM partner stations that deliver around one-third of our 183 million listeners a week and allows us to respond more rapidly to changing local media market conditions." According to Arjum Wajid of the BBC Urdu Service, the offshoring process started three years ago when Hindi programming was progressively shifted from Bush House, London, to New Delhi. This included the Hindi online service.

In 2007 end, staff of the Hindi Service was reportedly told that 80 per cent of the programming would be moved to India, while the Urdu Service staff learnt that 50 per cent programming would move to Islamabad.

Shaukat Hussain Guru's plea rejected by Supreme Court

2008-05-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

Supreme Court rejects Shaukat plea for release

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to entertain a writ petition filed by Shaukat Hussain Guru for his release. Guru was convicted and sentenced to 10-year imprisonment in the Parliament attack case.

He contended that his continued detention was in violation of his fundamental right.

A Bench consisting of Justices P.P. Naolekar and V.S. Sirpurkar said: “We do not find any ground to entertain the petition under Article 32 of the Constitution [filing a petition directly in the apex court].

“Moreover, for granting the relief prayed for, it is necessary to set aside the judgment delivered by a Division Bench of this court confirmed by dismissal of the review petition as also of the curative petition, which cannot be granted.”

In his petition, Shaukat alleged that though he was not charged under Section 123 of the Indian Penal Code (concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war), he was convicted of that offence.
No opportunity

He had no opportunity of being heard on this charge and there was nothing in the charge sheet or in the evidence put to him.

It was argued that the apex court could correct its order if there was miscarriage of justice.

The Bench said: “It is settled law that a judgment of this court cannot be assailed invoking Article 32.

“This court has held that to prevent abuse of its process and to cure a gross miscarriage of justice, it may reconsider its judgment,” subject to the petitioner meeting certain requirements for exercising such a jurisdiction.

Mr. Justice Naolekar, writing the judgment, said the court had already held that the evidence on record justified the conviction of Shaukat under Section 123 of the IPC.

The Bench pointed out that the review petition in which he had taken the same stand was rejected by this court.

Fight Diabetes

2008-05-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

hba1c diabetes?
Diabetes mellitus, often simply diabetes is a syndrome characterized by disordered metabolism and inappropriately high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia) resulting from either low levels of the hormone insulin or from abnormal resistance to insulin's effects coupled with inadequate levels of insulin secretion to compensate. The characteristic symptoms are excessive urine production (polyuria), excessive thirst and increased fluid intake (polydipsia), and blurred vision; these symptoms may be absent if the blood sugar is mildly elevated.
The blue circle was recently adopted as the symbol for Diabetes, much like the Red Ribbon is for AIDS. The World Health Organization recognizes three main forms of diabetes mellitus: type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes (occurring during pregnancy), which have similar signs, symptoms, and consequences, but different causes and population distributions. Ultimately, all forms are due to the beta cells of the pancreas being unable to produce sufficient insulin to prevent hyperglycemia.[4] Type 1 diabetes is usually due to autoimmune destruction of the pancreatic beta cells, which produce insulin. Type 2 diabetes is characterized by insulin resistance in target tissues, but some impairment of beta cell function is necessary for its development. Gestational diabetes is similar to type 2 diabetes, in that it involves insulin resistance; the hormones of pregnancy can cause insulin resistance in women genetically predisposed to developing this condition.

Gestational diabetes typically resolves with delivery of the child, however types 1 and 2 diabetes are chronic conditions. All types have been treatable since insulin became medically available in 1921. Type 1 diabetes, in which insulin is not secreted by the pancreas, is directly treatable only with injected or inhaled insulin, although dietary and other lifestyle adjustments are part of management. Type 2 may be managed with a combination of dietary treatment, tablets and injections and, frequently, insulin supplementation. While insulin was originally produced from natural sources such as porcine pancreas, most insulin used today is produced through genetic engineering, either as a direct copy of human insulin, or human insulin with modified molecules that provide different onset and duration of action. Insulin can also be delivered continuously by a pump surgically embedded under the skin.

Diabetes can cause many complications. Acute complications (hypoglycemia, ketoacidosis or nonketotic hyperosmolar coma) may occur if the disease is not adequately controlled. Serious long-term complications include cardiovascular disease (doubled risk), chronic renal failure, retinal damage (which can lead to blindness), nerve damage (of several kinds), and microvascular damage, which may cause impotence and poor healing. Poor healing of wounds, particularly of the feet, can lead to gangrene, which may require amputation. Adequate treatment of diabetes, as well as increased emphasis on blood pressure control and lifestyle factors (such as not smoking and keeping a healthy body weight), may improve the risk profile of most aforementioned complications. In the developed world, diabetes is the most significant cause of adult blindness in the non-elderly, the leading cause of non-traumatic amputation in adults, and diabetic nephropathy is the main illness requiring renal dialysis.
Diabetes on Wikipedia | Yahoo Diabetes

Love the dying - Marrying an.HIV-positive

2008-05-14T01:42:00.000-07:00

His love is blind... & HIV-positive-Ahmedabad-Cities-The Times of India

His love is blind... & HIV-positive
14 May 2008, 0600 hrs IST,Radha Sharma,TNN

AHMEDABAD: They met on a passenger train, while travelling together every morning from home in Viramgam to work in Ahmedabad and back in the evening. They fell in love, got married and have embarked on a journey of life that dares the jaws of death!

This is the love story of Rajiv, a healthy young man, and Dipali a widow with two kids. She is also HIV-positive. She says that after marriage, she falls ill less often.A couple of years ago, Dipali's first husband, a driver, was admitted to hospital with a terminal illness. The illness was diagnosed as AIDS and Dipali was asked to undergo a test as well. The result turned out to be as expected — Dipali was HIV-positive.

Dipali, her husband and two children were shunted off to a separate floor of the house and treated as untouchables by her in-laws. All hell broke loose when Dipali's husband died. Her in-laws started taunting her, beating her up, wishing she would leave.

It is then that Dipali started work with 'Adhaar', an agency working with HIV-positive people in Ahmedabad. She would take the Viramgam local every morning at 7.30, just like Rajiv, a supervisor at a shirt manufacturing unit. The journeys together got them talking and Dipali shared her travails with Rajiv. Friendship bloomed into love and one day, when Dipali was beaten black and blue by her in-laws, Dipali shared with Rajiv her only option - to leave for Mumbai to get into prostitution for which a pimp had offered to pay Rs 1.5 lakh. "I proposed to her, asking her to ditch her unhappy life and be happy with me. I knew she was HIV-positive but that didn't make any difference. We all have to die one day," says Rajiv. Today, Dipali is a happy homemaker living with Rajiv and her elder son - the younger one stays with her in-laws. Asked Rajiv if he ever fears contracting the virus, he says, "We are careful and I get myself tested every six months. But if I do, I will accept it as a gift of love from my wife."

Tata Nano

2008-05-14T00:31:00.000-07:00

The story behind the Tata Nano

The story behind the Tata Nano
Manjeet Kripalani, BusinessWeek.com

May 14, 2008

At Tata's Engineering Research Center, near the bucolic surroundings of the Tata Motors [Get Quote] factory in Pune, India, there are two cars on display.

One is a complete prototype of the Nano, the $2,500 compact car Tata unveiled in January, whichhas all the essentials and safety features of India's higher-priced automobiles along with a sticker price that will forever change the economics of low-cost cars. The other is a neat bisection, with the car's innards clearly visible.

"Every day we invite people to come and examine the car and ask: 'How can we make more savings?'" says Tata Motors Chief Executive Ravi Kant.

That quest to build the world's cheapest car hasn't ended. The Nano should be available this fall, but the mission began back in 2003, when Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors and the $50 billion Tata conglomerate, set a challenge to build a "people's car."

Tata gave an engineering team, led by 32-year-old star engineer Girish Wagh, three requirements for the new vehicle: It should be low-cost, adhere to regulatory requirements, and achieve performance targets such as fuel efficiency and acceleration capacity. The design team initially came up with a vehicle which had bars instead of doors and plastic flaps to keep out the monsoon rains. It was closer to a quadricycle than a car, and the first prototype, Wagh admits candidly, "lacked punch."

Even a bigger engine, which boosted the power by nearly 20%, was still dismal. "It was an embarrassment," says Wagh.

But the failure was also the catalyst for Tata's decision to build a proper car, not an upgraded scooter on four wheels or anything flimsy or cheap-looking. "We didn't want an apology for a car," says Ravi Kant. "We were conscious of the fact that whether it was a $2,500 car or not, it ought not to have looked like a $2,500 car."

Becoming a part of history

The tale of the creation and design of the Nano is one of innovation and ingenuity, both inside and outside Tata's own organization.

First, Ratan Tata called a meeting of his top parts suppliers and, after showing them the early, earnest but flawed prototypes, asked them to help. Companies including Germany's Bosch, which makes the computer that is the heart of car's engine, were skeptical. So were local Indian players.

But Tata persisted, pointing out that not only could a company's specific developments for the Nano help to make history but they could also improve their companies' businesses and bottom lines. Soon most of Tata's traditional suppliers were on board.

Rane Group, for instance, makes a rack and pinion steering system. It focused on reducing the weight of the materials used, replacing the steel rod of the steering with a steel tube -- a major cost-reducer. Typically, the product is made of two pieces, but it was redesigned as one to save on machining and assembling costs.

According to Harish Lakshman, director of the $317 million company: "The world has seen this sort of integration of two pieces into one, but applied differently -- not for a new car, and not to reduce costs."

GKN Driveline India, a subsidiary of global auto parts leader GKN, made the driveshaft -- the component that transfers power from the engine to the wheel. The team spent a year developing 32 experimental variants to create the perfect driveshaft for the Nano. It roped in designers from the company's French and Italian operations and changed the design to make it lighter and easier to manufacture.

For the Nano's rear-wheel drive system, GKN designed a smaller diameter of shaft, which made it lighter and saved on material costs. "We thought if we were successful in this, we could dictate terms to the market, and every other car manufacturer would want to work with us," says Rajendra Ojha, chief executive of GKN Driveline India.

Taking the pulse of the project

All the suppliers have similar stories. And although none would disclose specific cost savings, most stuck to Tata's mandate to cut costs. That was, as Kant acknowledges, the biggest hurdle for the company -- "then, now, and in the future," -- particularly as the price of raw materials like steel have more than doubled in the past four years, and the company has to follow new, tighter industry regulations.

Kant, who recently led negotiations to acquire luxury auto brand Jaguar Land Rover, has little time to get involved in day-to-day details of Tata's many projects. However, with the Nano, "every cost, every component price, has to be run by me," he says.

Coordinating the vendors with Tata Motors' team was a whole new exercise in logistics. Wagh quickly realized it was necessary to bring everyone on board, "else it leads to last-minute heartache and delays."

Every morning, he would spend an hour or two on the floor of the Pune factory, insisting that everyone involved -- designers, manufacturing teams, vendor development people -- be there to accelerate decision-making and problem-solving. "We had to have the pulse of the project and know exactly where the hurdles were," Wagh remembers.

Over time, Wagh's team grew to comprise some 500 engineers, an impractically large group to gather on a daily basis. So instead, a core team of five engineers gathered every day at 3 p.m. to discuss the latest developments. Each engineer represented a different part of the car: engine and transmission, body, vehicle integration, safety and regulation, and industrial design.

Attention to detail pays off

Fitting the parts of the car together required lots of little, head-breaking details, recalls Wagh. The engine, for instance, was designed three times. Initially, Wagh thought they'd buy an off-the-shelf engine and so studied all the small-capacity engines available. They were unsuitable, so in early 2005 he decided to build his own.

The first was a 540 CC engine that, when fitted on the prototype, lacked the necessary power. So its capacity was increased by 9%, then by another 9%, before Wagh finally settled on a 623 CC engine. Then the foot pedal had to be realigned to create more legroom.

The body had to be changed because Ratan Tata, over six feet tall himself, wanted it to be easy for tall people to get in and out of the car. "Imagine the plight of the body designer -- he went through hundreds of iterations, then at the last minute the car length was increased by 100 millimeters!" Wagh says.

The attention to detail paid off: When the car rolled onto the dais at the Auto Show in New Delhi in January, and Ratan Tata stepped out of the driver's seat with ease, it made an immediate impact.

What shook the automobile world most was the fact that the designers seem to have done the impossible: The sleek, sophisticated Nano doesn't look flimsy or inexpensive. If it had been an upgraded scooter on four wheels, Tata still would have been applauded for making a family of four safer on Indian roads. The Nano, however, affords both safety and status.

"The innovation wasn't in technology," Kant recalls. "It was in a mindset change." The Nano, he adds, has put an end to all discussions of having variants of scooters or quadricycles as passenger vehicles on India's roads.

Organizational innovation

Still, the story of the Nano is not confined to its impact on the auto industry. It's a tale that illuminates the India of today -- an eager, ambitious nation with a combination of engineering talent, a desire for low costs and value, and the hunger of young managers looking to break from a hidebound corporate environment.

Indeed, the team that worked on the Nano -- on average aged between 25 and 30 -- has helped to flatten Tata Motors' stodgy, multilayered management structure, which has resulted in an unexpected side-benefit Wagh calls "organizational innovation".

The factory in Singur, Bengal, is still being built, and machinery is being installed. Wagh now spends most of his time away from his Pune home, supervising the work at Singur leading up to the launch date in fall.

Tata Motors is determined to succeed in its mission, Ravi Kant says. "We are hungry for growth -- and innovation is a by-product of that."

Facebook Is Dangerous!

2008-05-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

Nicole Ferraro discusses how new social websites can be misused and threten our privacy
BBC: Facebook Is Dangerous!
Written by Nicole Ferraro

The BBC today published a harrowing report that third-party Facebook applications can access your personal data. Halfway through my reactive bout of running in circles and screaming in panic, I had to take a moment to wonder exactly where the BBC has been for the past year?

According to the report, the BBC, with the help of its crackerjack technology program Click, created a malicious third-party application to run on Facebook. The organization then made up a profile for some frat guy "Bob Smith," and went to work on stealing his personal data. (Sigh. Poor Bob...)

The BBC reports: "While we could not get all details, what we did get, included his name, hometown, school, interests and photograph, would certainly help us to steal someone's identity." Or, at very least, his lunch money.

The story would have been at least mildly interesting if the BBC exposed current, real applications that are eating our data in a malicious fashion, but alas: "We do not know of any specific application which abuses user information, apart from ours."

Well, then. Look who's malicious now!

The point of the expedition was to prove that Facebook's third-party applications acquire user data and, in turn, can leave users vulnerable should the app have ill intentions. Simply by reading Facebook's terms and conditions, or a blog, or a tea leaf, users would have figured this out themselves without putting old Bob Smith to work.

This idea that Facebook and its platforms aren't to be fully trusted is something we've been aware of for quite a bit of time. In fact, one of the issues the BBC "discovered" -- that we are responsible for our friends' data security -- is something one of our ThinkerNetters Mary Madden wrote about in her blog on Internet Evolution this week. Perhaps the BBC should spend less time in its mad scientist lab and more time on the blogosphere? Hmm?

Aside from the fact that BBC is telling an old story, this great, big, evil problem it claims to have exposed is not a homegrown Facebook problem -- it's an Internet problem. The moral of their story is that, although it's not happening right now, someone at some time on the Internet could create something that may harm you in one way or another. Bravo, Sir Holmes.

Nevertheless, it is always a positive thing to consistently challenge Facebook. This is the only real way to get the company to fix its flaws (of which it has many)... and it's also fun to get Mark Zuckerberg to shake in his sandals time and again.

— Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution

Nandigram: Women allege stripping by CPM cadres-India-The Times of India

2008-05-11T02:16:00.000-07:00

Nandigram: Women allege stripping by CPM cadres-India-The Times of India

Nandigram: Women allege stripping by CPM cadres
6 May 2008, 1542 hrs IST,PTI

Shifting Face of a political party

NANDIGRAM: Three women activists of Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Commitee on Tuesday claimed they were beaten up and stripped by CPM cadres in Nandigram for refusing to support the Marxists in the ensuing panchayat polls.

Malati Das, Krishna Das and Tulsi Das of Simulkundu village claimed that they have filed a complaint but the Nandigram police refused to comment.

When contacted, Superintendent of Police of East Midnapore S Panda said that he had no information on the matter and that the Nandigram police station could only say anything.

The women alleged that around 40-50 CPM cadres, led by Mamata Das, came to their houses on Monday.

"The CPM cadres told us that we should vote for their party in the panchayat polls. When we refused to oblige, they started beating us. They even snatched the voter's identity cards," they alleged.

"They then started stripping our clothes. We ran for around one km without any clothes to escape from their clutches," they claimed.

The CPI-M denied the allegations, saying it was all a part of the malicious campaign to tarnish its image ahead of the polls.

The East Midnapore district secretariat member of CPI-M, Ashok Guria, alleged that during the clash at the village, a party activist Sheikh Javed was shot at by rival party activists and women present there ran in panic.

"In the confusion, one or two of them might have fallen down and the incident was thoroughly distorted by the opposition parties," he claimed.

He alleged the Opposition was bent on tarnishing the image of the CPI-M at a time when defeat in the panchayat poll was staring it in the face.

Freedom Software

2008-05-10T06:09:00.000-07:00

The Hindu - Indian Newspapers in English Language from eight editions.

Frontline
Volume 25 - Issue 10 :: May. 10-23, 2008
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU •

TECHNOLOGY

A new wave of freedom

V. SASI KUMAR

The new freedom movement , in software, knowledge, publishing and commerce, will change the way we think, do things and interact.

H. SATISH

Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation.

Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral.

– Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

INDIA became a sovereign republic on January 26, 1950. India became free. Or, more precisely, political power was transferred from the British to the Indians. That was a period when a number of countries that were living under the yoke of imperialism broke free.

Politically, that is. We still do not enjoy certain freedoms that we deserve. A new wave of freedom movements, to achieve these freedoms, is now sweeping the world – a movement that is bound to change the way we think, the way we do things and the way we interact. It started in the United States and aims to free people from the clutches of monopoly corporations. And the role of Gandhiji is being played by an extraordinary person with long hair and a long beard; a man called Richard Mathew Stallman, who vehemently rejects any comparison with Gandhiji or Nelson Mandela.

“Till we are fully free, we are slaves,” said Gandhiji. Developments in technology have made it possible for mankind to enjoy greater freedom in certain ways. However, vested interests, with help from legislators, are now succeeding in preventing society from enjoying this freedom. For instance, with the advent of computers and the Internet, it has become possible for data, information and knowledge to be communicated instantaneously, provided a computer with Internet connection is available at both ends. However, some of our laws that were designed for an earlier era are preventing societies from benefiting fully from this technology.

The new freedom movement is finding means to circumvent these laws. And, interestingly, this movement is not led by political parties or activists, but, of all people, by computer programmers (or hackers). Let us look at some of the ways in which our freedoms are being curtailed, and how there are ways by which we can regain them even within the existing paradigm.

When you switch on your computer, you are making a political statement. This may sound absurd, trying to find politics in even mundane matters. But this is a fact. In the early days of the computer, users used to write their own programs and they used to exchange these programs according to need. No one used to hold exclusive rights over these programs. Those days, computers were big and expensive, often occupying whole rooms, but were much less powerful compared even to the small PCs of today. As technology developed, computers became smaller and, interestingly, more powerful.

It was around the early 1980s that computer manufacturers started enforcing what was called a non-disclosure agreement on programmers who were engaged to write software. These agreements prevented programmers from disclosing the human-readable source-code of the programs. And software became a product for which users had to pay. Of course, some users continued to write programs for their own purposes, and still do so, but ready-made programs became available on payment and computer users increasingly started using them.
Software for all

It was as a reaction to this productisation of software that Richard Stallman, then working in the Artificial Intelligence Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), decided to create an operating system (OS) and applications that gave users freedom. He believed that software was like knowledge (as he often says, like a recipe) and, like knowledge, software should not be the property of any individual or organisation. It should belong to all humanity.

Stallman wrote: “What does society need? It needs information that is truly available to its citizens, for example, programs that people can read, fix, adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners typically deliver is a black box that we can’t study or change. Society also needs freedom. When a program has an owner, the users lose freedom to control part of their own lives” (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html).

Stallman started a project that he named GNU to create free software, and he decided to model his free OS on the then very popular Unix. Unix was a proprietary OS that could handle multiple users simultaneously, it could interconnect computers and was very secure. In those days, many programmers used to name a new program that was similar to an existing one by creating an acronym saying this is not that.

Thus, for instance, a new text editor similar to the existing Emacs editor was called Eine for Eine Is Not Emacs. In a similar manner, Stallman called his operating system GNU for GNU is Not Unix. This was later used with the Linux kernel (the core part of an OS) and thus was born the GNU/Linux OS. We now have different kernels that can be used with GNU software, such as Free BSD, Open Solaris and so on.

“Free software is a matter of freedom, not cost. It is a matter of liberty, not price. The word ‘free’ in free software has a similar meaning as in free speech, free people and free country and should not be confused with its other meaning associated with zero cost. Think of free software as software which is free of encumbrances, not necessarily free of cost. Think of it as swatantra software,” says the Free Software Foundation of India ( www.fsf.org.in). Free software gives users four freedoms, namely,

1. Freedom to use on any number of computers for any purpose;

2. Freedom to share the software with your family and friends;

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) website and the first issue of its free biology journal. PLoS publishes seven such journals today.

3. Freedom to study and modify the software; and

4. Freedom to redistribute the modified software.

The third freedom means that the so-called source-code (the human-readable text) of the programs should be available to any user who wants it. But one may wonder of what use it is to the users. While most users may not be able to even study or understand the program, let alone modify it, this freedom makes it possible for anyone to get a programmer to modify it and also makes it possible for programmers around the world at least to study the program and ensure that no part of it causes any harm to the users. In reality, business houses and other organisations are able to modify programs to suit their needs.

Stallman soon left his job at MIT fearing that MIT may claim the copyright for his work. He was virtually a one-man industry when he started the GNU project in 1984, but was later joined by tens of thousands of people from all over the world. In 1985, he started the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Today, apart from the FSF in Boston, United States, (see www.fsf.org) there are FSFs in Europe ( www.fsfeurope.org), India ( www.fsf.org.in) and Latin America ( www.fsa.org). And free software has become powerful enough, and popular enough, to challenge the might of many proprietary software companies.
Free and popular

For instance, all schools in Kerala use only free software, and the government of Kerala is in the process of migrating all its computers to free software. Schools in the Extramadura province of Spain do the same. But much before them, the city of Munich had decided to migrate all its computers to free software. Many companies and government bodies have already migrated (such as ELCOT in Tamil Nadu) or are in the process of doing so (the Kerala State Electricity Board, for instance). Though the Government of Kerala has adopted an IT policy that explicitly promotes free software, the Government of India is yet to take such a step. Let us hope that the Government of India, too, will soon declare freedom in software.

Now, software is like knowledge, as Stallman found. The similarity can be established in a very detailed manner. Instead of listing all the arguments, it may be pointed out that a lot of knowledge is available in digital format today and, for a computer, there is little difference between a program and digitised knowledge such as a text file, an image file or a video file. In this situation, it should be possible to make knowledge also free, just as the GNU project made software free.

In March 2000, Jimmy Wales, an American Internet entrepreneur, started Nupedia, a free content online encyclopaedia, the forerunner of today’s Wikipedia. The content of the encyclopaedia was licensed under the Nupedia Open Content Licence, which permitted anyone to copy, modify and distribute it but prohibited anyone from charging for the content. The content was written by volunteers whose capability in the area was assessed by a committee and the content they submitted was peer reviewed before publishing. The cost of running Nupedia was underwritten by Bomis, an Internet company owned by Wales.

However, Nupedia was wound up in 2003 after Wikipedia became a success. Many contributors were unhappy with the extent of editorial control over contributions, and Stallman and the FSF were in favour of allowing much greater freedom to contributors. As a consequence, FSF started a new free encyclopaedia called GNUPedia in 2001. But since Wales already owned the domain name gnupedia.org, this was renamed GNE (for GNE is Not an Encyclopedia) along the lines of GNU.

GNE had an even shorter life, partly because it was going through a struggle to decide on the extent of editorial control but mainly because Nupedia started Wikipedia in 2001, which offered total freedom and licensed its content under the GNU Free Documentation Licence. Apparently, it was Stallman who first put forward the suggestion for a free online encyclopaedia in 1999.

Though he started GNE, since its failure, he has been supporting Wikipedia. Wikipedia today is the most popular encyclopaedia with more than two million articles in English alone and has many pages in other languages. Eight of these other languages have more than 300,000 articles each and eight other languages have more than 100,000 articles each.

As many as 254 languages of the world have at least one Wikipedia page. Indian languages are not well represented in Wikipedia. Telugu tops with 38,000 articles, followed by Bishnupriya Manipuri at 23,000, Bengali (17,000), Hindi (16,500), Marathi (16,200) and Tamil (13,000). All other Indian languages have less than 10,000 articles. It is understood that the Malayalam encyclopaedia being published by the Government of Kerala will put all its articles in Wikipedia.

Though, admittedly, the number of Internet users is a tiny fraction of the country’s population, this is bound to grow and the availability of information in Indian languages would certainly be of great help to all Indians, in India and abroad.

Wikipedia is today run by a non-profit organisation called Wikimedia Foundation with the help of contributions from the public. It has several other projects today, such as Wikibooks, Wikinews and Wiktionary. All the material, including text and figures, in all these sites can be copied, modified and used freely for any purpose without violating copyright rules. This really is freedom in knowledge.

Another related project is WikiMapia (http://wikimapia.org/). To quote Wikipedia, “WikiMapia is an online map and satellite imaging resource that combines Google Maps with a wiki system, allowing users to add information [in the form of a note] to any location on earth.

“It was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, and was launched on May 24, 2006 with the aim of ‘describing the whole planet Earth’. It is one of the top 1,000 websites visited, and has over 6 million places marked. While registration is not required to edit WikiMapia, over 153,000 users from around the world are currently registered.”

The word “knowledge” is used here to denote a wide spectrum of material including articles, books, stories, pictures, music, movies and so on. It has to be remembered that each of these has certain features that are not present in the others. Thus, for example, an article on Indian astronomy would largely contain material culled from various sources, though the actual form of presentation may be the author’s own. But a story would be the creative work that has emerged totally from the author’s imagination.

Thus, for human beings, knowledge has a fundamental difference with software. This is because, unlike software, it may not be advisable for some forms of knowledge to be allowed to be modified by anyone. For example, an interview with a personality has to retain its form and content since it is a report of an actual conversation. It may become dangerous to allow anyone to modify it.

On the other hand, freedom could be given, for instance, to publish it elsewhere without any modification. Again, an artist may not wish anyone else to modify his or her painting, though it may not cause any problems. Thus, it is not sufficient to have a single licence for all forms of knowledge as we can do with in the case of software. Then what is the solution?
Creative Commons

S.R. RAGHUNATHAN

Jimmy Donal Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, at the "Wiki-AMP" meet in Chennai in February 2007.

The solution was first offered by Creative Commons (CC) in December 2002. CC ( http://www.creativecommons.org) was launched by Lawrence Lessig, Professor at Stanford Law School, and friends precisely to address this problem. “Creative Commons took its idea ‘give away free copyright licences’ from the Free Software Movement. But the problem we aimed to solve was somewhat different,” says Lessig.

And how was it different? “We didn’t begin with a world without proprietary culture. Instead, there has always been proprietary culture meaning work protected by an exclusive right. ... But for most of our history, the burdens imposed by copyright on other creators, and upon the culture generally, were slight. And there was a great deal of creative work that could happen free of the regulation of the law. ... All that began to change with the birth of digital technologies, and for a reason that no one ever fully thought through” (http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5668).

There was another reason that prompted the formulation of these licences. After the Berne Convention in 1886, it became unnecessary to register for copyright. Any original material is automatically copyrighted. Eventually it became unnecessary even to mark a document as copyrighted. Unless otherwise declared, every document not in the public domain is copyrighted.

Thus, it becomes difficult even to know whether a work is protected under copyright laws or not. This puts considerable difficulties in reusing material that is already available. And authors who may be willing to allow others some freedoms had no means of doing so. It was either copyright or public domain (which allows all rights to everyone).

Creative Commons offers several licences through which the creator can offer certain freedoms to the people – or, as CC puts it, Some Rights Reserved as opposed to All Rights Reserved under copyright. CC has four core licences, namely, Attribution (denoted as by), Noncommercial (nc), No Derivative Works (nd) and Share Alike (sa). These licences can be combined to produce new licences such as by-sa, by-nc-nd and so on that are more useful than the core licences (http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses).

CC has also developed a Sampling licence that permits others to use portions of a work in their own work. Remember a young author, Kaavya Viswanathan, of Indian origin being penalised some time back for using parts of other books in her novel, even though people liked her novel?

An interesting consequence of CC was demonstrated through the creation of a piece of music through collaboration between people who never knew each other. Colin Mutchler, an advocate for using media and technology to inspire people and cultures to take action toward a sustainable economy, submitted “My Life”, an acoustic guitar song, to Opsound, a music registry that requires Attribution-Share Alike licensing; Cora Beth, a total stranger to Colin, then layered a violin onto the song to create “My Life Changed”. No copyright lawyers were consulted – or harmed – in the process. Gilberto Gil, Brazil’s Minister of Culture and a Grammy-award winning musician, has been supporting freedom in culture and has released some of his music under the CC Sampling licence.
Can earn money too

A natural question is whether the creator will not lose revenue by allowing people to use his or her creations freely. The experience has been that he or she does not. For instance, music groups have said that free music downloads, in fact, help them get more concerts. And their main income is from concerts (http://www.news.com/2010-1071-944488.html). A Google search will find several such reports. And there are ways in which they can earn money, too.

As Stallman and others have suggested, there can be a link on the download page that makes it possible for a user to make a payment voluntarily. For a reasonably good work, this could fetch the author a good sum. In any case, illegal copies of most movies and music are freely available in almost all parts of the globe, especially in developing countries, and nothing has happened to either the music industry or the movie industry.

However, in the long run, the publishing industry, the recording industry and the film industry may have to move to a new paradigm that may be defined by the new technologies that are bound to emerge, though these industries have always shown a strong tendency to cling on to old paradigms and try their best not to change. Remember how the music industry protested when the tape recorder was invented. Until then, however, no drastic changes can be foreseen.

The music industry in the U.S. succeeded in bringing legislation to support themselves through the DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology and an associated law and the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Stallman and free software enthusiasts call the DRM Digital Restrictions Management. DRM technology actually prevents people from copying material recorded using the technology, or even play the recording on another player. Therefore, the word Restrictions seems to be more appropriate.

Music enthusiasts have been protesting against this and one can find a lot of material on the Web about this. They say that DRM even prevents their fair right to make a back-up copy. Opponents have created software that can overcome DRM technology. But the DMCA makes it illegal to create or use such technology to break DRM. Fortunately, these laws are now present only in a few countries. India is under pressure from the recording industry in India and abroad to implement these laws. But let us hope that India would choose to give the benefits of technology to society than to the industry.

Publication of journals in science was started with the intention of communicating the results of research to other scientists. The first scientific journal in the modern sense was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London which started publication in 1665. In those days, the only means of such communication was through print. Most of the first journals were published by societies of researchers such as the Royal Society. As the number of journals and researchers increased, publication companies found this a good business.

A number of large publishing houses entered the business and, interestingly, the price of journals too started increasing. Eventually, the scientific community started revolting against journals that charged heavily. In 2001, two organisations jointly published Declaring Independence ( http://www.arl.org/sparc/DI/).
Funding the publisher

K. GOPINATHAN

At The inauguration of FOSS.IN, free and open source software conference, at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in November 2006.

Scientific or scholarly publishing is in many ways different from other forms of publishing. Here, articles are written by researchers and peer-reviewed by researchers. The editors of journals are also often researchers. The publishing house only prints and sends the journals to subscribers. The researchers are mostly paid by the public. Their research work is also supported by the public. Yet, the copyright of the articles is owned by the publishing house.

Researchers and the public need to subscribe to these journals (that is pay the publishers) in order to access the information that was generated through public funds. And the journals were becoming more and more expensive that even some of the well-to-do universities in developed countries found it increasingly expensive to subscribe to all the relevant journals. These were the circumstances in which scientists began to revolt. The movement seems to have started in 2001 with a petition initiative by Patrick Brown and Michael Eisen, though there were sporadic protests from scientists even earlier.

Thus, Prof. Donald Knuth, author of the classic Art of Computer Programming and the inventor of TeX, a language for typesetting technical documents, writes, “I love my library and the other libraries I visit frequently, and my blood boils when I see a library being overcharged. Therefore, I wrote a strong letter to Elsevier in August 2001… expressing serious concerns about their future pricing policy for the Journal of Algorithms. Elsevier, however, ignored my letter and did not reply.” (http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Eknuth/joalet.pdf)

The Brown-Eisen petition called for all scientists to pledge that from the September of 2001 they would discontinue submission of papers to journals, which did not make the full text of their papers available to all, free and unfettered, either immediately or after a delay of several months.

The establishment of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) was the next important event in the move towards freedom in scholarly publishing. Though they had support from an eminent Nobel laureate, Dr. Harold Varmus, they had to wait for some time before they could become fully operational, with the publication of the journal PLoS Biology in 2003.

Today, they publish seven journals, the contents of which are freely available on the Internet. They follow an author-pays model where authors of articles have to pay for publishing. They, and similar other journals, have provisions to waive payment for authors from developing countries or authors who do not have provision for payment.

In Europe, the Budapest Open Access Initiative, which was, at the same time a statement of intent, a statement of strategy and a statement of commitment, was signed by several scientists at a meeting convened by the Open Society Institute in December 2001. Today, the initiative has been signed by thousands of scientists. This initiative has made a significant impact the world over, especially in Europe.

Several research and funding agencies, such as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), have mandated open access for all publications arising out of research funded by them.

Open Access (OA) means that the publications are available freely to other scientists and to the public. In fact, it asks for all freedom for users and only demands that the author be acknowledged and the integrity of the material be maintained. Of course, it does not permit republication of the material in its original form or in a modified form, as CC licences do. Open Access to scholarly publications is very important in a country like India.

The Government of India, therefore, should mandate OA for all publications arising out of publicly funded research. This can be in either of two ways: the author can put up the article in his/her own website, in his/her institute’s website or in a centralised website (journals that permit this are called OA Green); or, they can publish in Open Access journals that put up their contents on their own websites (called OA Gold). Fortunately, a large fraction of Indian journals are OA. But most good papers from India are published in journals abroad that are not necessarily OA.
Freedom in Commerce

This is about a new experiment being conducted in India. The idea is to bring total transparency to businesses. An IT company called WikiOcean has started functioning in Pune. Details about the company can be found at www.wikiocean.net. This company is unique in that its website shows all details of its functioning, including financial transactions. They call this kind of a system Wekosystem, a play with wiki and ecosystem. As its website explains, “WikiOcean is a participatory, non-proprietary organisation where professionals join on revenue-sharing model as explained in the wekosystem.”

This company was inspired by the transparency of free software, and, in fact, one of the so-called catalysts (the ones who regulate the structure and dynamics of Wekosystem) is the chairperson of the Free Software Foundation of India, Prof. G. Nagarjuna. The company is already working on projects. But, it is too early to see how well such a company can survive. Let us hope for the best.

Another absurdly exotic idea is to copy the free software model for other products. In other words, make all needs freely available to everyone. Though this may sound totally absurd, we may not be able simply to rule out the possibility since some small-scale efforts are already on and seemingly running.

This idea is being discussed by a not-so-small group of people that calls itself Oekonux (derived from oekonomie, the German word for economy, and Linux). Details can be found at www.oekonux.org and you could join their active mailing list if you are really interested.

As we have seen, new technologies bring new challenges and new ideas. And we may have to rewrite old laws that were created for an entirely different situation, a different technological paradigm.

When new technology appears, we need to change our laws to suit the new situation so that society can fully benefit from the new technology. Or else, a small section of society would garner all the benefits. And, at the pace at which technology is changing, it is not going to be easy to keep track of all its implications. Our technocrats and policymakers need to keep pace.

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 licence. For details about this licence, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- sa/2.5/in/

Morning sexercise

2008-05-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

Morning sex can keep you hale and hearty

March 11, 2008 17:12 IST

A steamy sex session in the morning can keep you in good health, say researchers.

According to a research from Queen's University in Belfast, a good morning session at least three times a week, decreases the risk of heart attack or stroke by half and a regular session improves circulation, thereby reducing blood pressure.

According to a study in New Scientist, a steamy session twice a week enhances IgA, an antibody that provides protection against microbes that multiply in body secretions, reports The Sun.

Morning sex also helps in alleviating arthritis and migraine. It burns around 300 calories an hour that simultaneously diminishes the risk of developing diabetes.

Moreover, an American study involving 300 sexually active women whose partners did not use condoms revealed that they were less prone to depression.

Sex increases the production of testosterone that provides stronger bones and muscles thus helping to stave off osteoporosis.

A good morning session can make the hair shine and skin glow by raising the output of oestrogen and other hormones associated with it.

According to Yale School of Medicine researchers, it can aid in averting endometriosis, a condition where the tissue that normally lines the uterus, grows in other parts of the pelvis.

However, the researchers have also warned that having sex more than three times a week can have a negative impact on our immune system thus lowering its resistance.

Spare Setu, it might be monument, ponders Court - National News – News – MSN India - News

2008-05-09T05:14:00.000-07:00

Spare Setu, it might be monument, ponders Court - National News – News – MSN India - News
Friday, May 09, 2008
Spare Setu, it might be monument, ponders Court
Supreme Court

New Delhi:In a setback to the UPA government’s ambitious Setusamudram Shipping Canal Project, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked it to conduct an archaeological investigation to find out if ‘Ram Setu’ could be declared an ‘ancient monument’.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan also asked the government to explore the possibility of adopting some alternative route/alignment for completing it without damaging the Ram Setu, as suggested by the petitioners opposing the project.

“There is a specific direction of the Madras High Court that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) should carry out investigations whether Ram Setu is an ancient monument or not,” the bench said. The court had already ordered that no damage be caused to the Ram Setu.

The latest development virtually puts the project — being pushed by UPA ally DMK — in a limbo. The government cannot proceed without presenting before the court the findings of the ASI and its decision regarding alternative routes. The ASI will examine if the Setu could be declared an ancient monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958.
In a way, the UPA government that had to withdraw its earlier affidavit denying the existence of Ram and Ram Setu as a manmade structure would heave a sigh of relief. It may indeed lose a few brownie points to the Opposition.

But at the same time, the Centre can put the issue on the backburner without offending the DMK, as the process ordered by the court may not be complete before the next round of assembly elections and the general election.

The court noted that Janata Party president Subramanium Swamy and Hindu Munnani senior advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan had advanced "serious" arguments for conducting an ASI probe and for taking forward the project through some other route. The two and others opposed to the project submitted that they wouldn't oppose the project if it could be completed without damaging the Setu.

They argued that alternative alignments would be economically more viable and won't cause damage to the environment besides respecting the religious faith of crores of Hindus.

Vaidyanathan had suggested a route through Dhanushkodi by removing the landmass in an area of about 800 metres. It could start from where the present route i.e. alignment no.6 begins in the Gulf of Mannar and take a turn towards Dhanushkodi in the southern part of Rameshwaram island and finally meet the same alignment in the Palk Bay to avoid the Ram Setu' altogether. The court posted the case for hearing on July 22.

© Copyright 2008 HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved.

Add StumbleIt to Your Site

2008-05-04T00:26:00.000-07:00

Add StumbleIt to Your Site

Armchair Interviews: Shattered Dreams

2008-04-29T18:46:00.000-07:00

Armchair Interviews: Shattered Dreams

Shattered Dreams
by Irene Spencer
Published by Center Street (August release)

Click on book
cover to order
at Amazon.com

Reviewed by Lauretta Ali

Irene Spencer’s heartbreaking memoir, Shattered Dreams, tells the true story of the life of a polygamist wife. Born into a fifth-generation polygamous family, Irene was the daughter of a second wife. Her father had a total of four wives and thirty-one children. Polygamy was not only accepted but expected by all who believed in “the Principle.” It was this principle that led the author to become the second wife at the tender age of sixteen.

The author takes you on a journey that is frequented by pain and rejection. Irene settles into a plural marriage but is never happy. She ends up marrying the husband of her own half sister, Charlotte, which causes both women much misery. Irene settles into a life of poverty and rejection that at times seems almost unbearable. Then, her husband, Verlan LeBaron, decides to take on another wife. Irene finds herself alone and pregnant most of the marriage. The road to freedom is a long and tedious one.

Shattered Dreams is a story of one woman’s conflict between her religious beliefs and her own human needs. Irene endures the unimaginable as she fights to free herself and her children from a life of bondage and pain.

I experienced great sadness and joy while reading this brave woman’s story. I rejoiced when she finally escaped from this maddening situation into a glorious new day and life. I encourage all who believe that dreams do come true, to read this fantastic story. I celebrate Irene’s courage to pick up the pieces of her Shattered Dreams and step into the promise of a brand new tomorrow.

Armchair Interviews says: A true story of hope for a better future.
From our armchair to yours...

© 2008 CASI Publishing, All Rights Reserved.
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book reviews and author interviews

Irene Spencer : Shattered Dreams

2008-04-29T18:41:00.000-07:00

"Shattered Dreams by Irene Spencer is a masterpiece. What courage it took to carve out a life in a polygamist cult for twenty-eight years, sharing her husband with his nine other wives, caring for her thirteen children in the starkness of poverty, and trying to come to terms with a religion that had swallowed up her identity. Spencer's personal portrait as a long-suffering wife in the LeBaron Colony based in Mexico is a true, heart-wrenching story, but one that's long overdue, exposing the bleak, spirit-crushing world of plural marriage. A must read."
--Bud Gardner, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul

"Irene Spencer is proof that the human spirit survives intact after decades of psychological suffering. Her story shows how inhumane behavior spans cultures, universally wearing the same face, while humane impulses thrive in the indestructable nature of the spirit. Her memoir begs the question--will we (like Irene) ultimately choose the best of ourselves over the negative forces that invade our lives? Will we follow our innermost voice leading us out of harmful circumstances and beyond our former disempowerment?"
--Maxine Hanks, author, editor, feminist theologian, Merrill Fellow

"In Shattered Dreams, Irene Spencer describes a way of life that most of us don't even realize exists. Irene shares with us her agony and heartbreak as she survives horrid living conditions, heartbreak, and a husband who takes wife after wife. Few writers can bring out the heartbreak of living in a polygamous marriage the way Irene does. This book is a must read."
--Duane Newcomb, Author, Literary Consultant

copyright 2006 - IreneSpencerBooks.com

IreneSpencerBooks.com

2008-04-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

IreneSpencerBooks.com

The Official Irene Spencer Web Site

Irene was twenty-three and already had five children when this photo was taken.
NOW AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE

Irene Spencer was born February 1, 1937, in Salt Lake City, Utah. She grew up in a fundamentalist Mormon family- the 13th of thirty-one children. Her mother was the second of her father's eventual six wives. It was no surprise she found herself, at sixteen years of age in a plural marriage, sharing her husband with a half-sister.

Enduring abject poverty, living in isolation, and suffering the neglect of a husband with divided loyalties to 10 wives, created unbearable conditions. Irene mothered 14 of her husband's 58 children. Through all of this, she managed to overcome these impossible odds to seek a life that she believed would be better for her and her children. She made the bold step into the "outside world" and into a freedom she never knew existed.

Family Role of the Husband

2008-04-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

Family-Role of the Husband

Rev. Dr. T. Jacob Thomas

What is the Christian concept of family and what is the role husband as the leader of the family? These questions will be briefly discussed in the following paragraphs.

Bible uses two words to denote family: one is “patria”, a Greek word referring to the historical descent and biological lineage and the second is “oikos,” another Greek word for a house or household which includes not only blood relatives but also other dependents like slaves and other helpers in the house. Oikos is translated to Latin with the word, “familias,” from which the English word family comes. Oikos, is more commonly used in the New Testament for family. For example, in Acts 10 the whole household of Cornelius receives baptism, meaning, all who are associated with his house, including servants. The English word, husband, is derived from the old Nordic (Norse) word, “husbondi,” with the meaning, manager or steward (keeper of animals) of the house and tiller of the soil, the head of the household. It is interesting that in the New Testament some women are also mentioned as the heads of households such as Lydia, Nympha and Priscilla.

In the New Testament Christ is presented as the model of a husband. Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave his life for it” (Eph. 5:25). Here husband’s role is not of domination but of sacrifice. Husbands as the head of the family must emulate the role of Jesus in their relation to other members of the family. Mutual submission to one another in Christ is the model code of conduct in a Christian family. Children must be loved and protected as Jesus would do. Neighbours, both of one’s own faith and of other faiths, must be respected as Jesus showed us in his relation to the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman. People in need, the poor and the hungry, the rejected and ridiculed must be loved and taken care of. Husband has a leadership role in the family and that must be exercised in humility and with grace.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Indonesians seek salvation in shops

2008-04-28T02:10:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Indonesians seek salvation in shops

Indonesians seek salvation in shops
By Lucy Williamson
BBC News, West Java

Indonesian Christians
Shopping malls in West Java are home to a number of Christian congregations

Empty shopping malls are eerie, and this one is no different.

But in the dim light of early morning, figures can be seen slipping past the security guards, their footsteps echoing down empty corridors.

It is Sunday morning, not yet 8 o'clock, and the shops are all still locked and shuttered.

But these people have not come to shop; they have come to pray.

Shopping malls in West Java are home to a growing number of Christian congregations. There are 10 in this mall alone.

Few of them want to talk publicly about why they are here, but off the record they admit it comes down to intimidation by Muslim groups.

According to Church groups more than 100 churches have faced attack or intimidation in the past two years.

Religion or rules?

One of the groups alleged to be behind some of these incidents is the FPI, or Islamic Defenders Front, a radical group that became a household name when it forced Playboy magazine out of Java.

FPI crew
Christians complain the FPI use threats to pressurise churches into closing

Church leaders allege the group's members are forcing churches to close through violence and intimidation.

Saipul Abdullah, the head of the FPI in this area, told me that there may be people at the grassroots level who react emotionally.

"They become very angry and frustrated and little eruptions can happen," he said.

"Maybe they'll tear down a sign, or shake some doors, or lock some doors, but they don't really have the right to do that."

But, he said, this was not about religion. It is about the fact that some churches are not playing by the rules.

Only 20% of the Churches in this province have an official permit to hold religious services.

It's not only about the permits, but about being Christian
Pastor Olbertina Modesta

To the others, often housed in temporary buildings, Saipul Abdullah and his group send letters asking for proof of their legal status.

If they get no response, he told me, they issue a warning letter, and then pass the matter on to the police.

To get an official permit, congregations must get 90 signatures of support from their non-Christian neighbours.

But in some areas, that is not easy to do.

Islamic stronghold

Pasundan Church has been holding services in a suburb of Bandung for more than 60 years.

But its pastor, Olbertina Modesta, says that whenever they try to collect the signatures they need to make the site official, no one wants to sign.

Indonesian Christians
Many Christians now feel too scared to hold major services in public places

West Java has a strong history of Islamic activism.

For decades it was a stronghold of the radical Islamic group Darul Islam, and many areas still retain preachers with hard-line views.

Last November, Pasundan church was attacked by a group of local Muslims.

They threw out the pews and prayer books, and smashed anything else they could - including the cross hanging on the wall.

But Pastor Olbertina doesn't believe this is simply a bureaucratic row.

"Sometimes I heard that the mosque is saying we are kaffirs, and we're not allowed to stay here," she told me.

"So that's why I believe it's not only about the permits, but about being Christian."

Police say no one has so far been arrested for the attack. Pastor Olbertina now holds her weekly service at a local hospital.

Shopping malls and hospitals don't have religious licences either, but they are a bit more secure.

And until congregations like hers can find a permanent home, it is where they will stay.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Punjab reaps a poisoned harvest

2008-04-27T01:01:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Punjab reaps a poisoned harvest

Punjab reaps a poisoned harvest
By David Loyn
BBC News, Punjab

The governments of many poor nations are alarmed at the rise in food prices. There are even problems in the Indian region of Punjab, where science once seemed to have found answers for a hungry world.

Wheat crops in India
The Green Revolution made the Punjab, India's richest farmland
The first thing Satpal Singh sees when he walks out of his bedroom door in the morning is a gleaming tractor, without a speck of mud on it.

It is given pride of place and washed down before being put away for the night in its garage built into the middle of his house.

This is a sign of the wealth that has made this the richest farmland in India.

In Mr Singh's front yard, half a dozen cows chew contentedly on a maize-based mix, processed in his own machine in the corner.

But behind this idyll serious questions are being asked about farming practices in Punjab, which have consequences for the looming crisis in world food supplies.

Pesticide fears

Before Mr Singh's father died young of cancer in 1992, none here suspected that the technology that had brought wealth to these farmlands in the 1970s might have a downside as well.

The new strains of seed and chemical pesticides and fertilisers, certainly brought high yields.

They called it the Green Revolution.

The benefit of high yields from new seed types was not long-lasting, and the pests kept ahead of the pesticide

But today the food the cows eat and the milk they produce, along with the water the cows and Mr Singh's family drink, all show high levels of pesticide residue.

As well as being a successful farmer, he works part-time as a health co-ordinator in the village.

He took me to meet a group of farmers, who all spoke of health problems and knew of deaths they believed came from the use of pesticide sprays.

No protection

The problem here, as in many other places in the world, is that the benefit of high yields from new seed types was not long-lasting, and the pests kept ahead of the pesticides.

An old man, suffering from cancer, told me that in recent years he has had to spray round the clock to keep the pests off his wheat.

Farm worker using pesticide
Chemicals and pesticides brought high yields

The sprays all have instructions demanding that they should only be used with face masks and protective clothing.

But the farm workers here do not use protective equipment, and they spray far more than the recommended amount.

The cause of cancer is always a contentious issue, but a new study from the Punjabi University at Patiala ruled out other potential factors like age, alcohol intake and smoking, concluding that the way the sprays are used is causing cancer.

Organic ignorance

The farmers told me that they wanted the same agricultural scientists who had given them the high yields of the 1970s to come up with something else.

They know that what they are doing now is unsustainable, because they are getting lower yields despite using more spray and paying more for fertiliser because of the high oil price.

None had heard of organic farming.

Punjab

In neighbouring Pakistan, the local TV news carries interviews every night from flour mills and farms, as well as a daily check on the market price of flour.

The police have intervened to stop hoarding.

Ration cards have been issued, and the World Food Programme (WFP) talks about a crisis as the number of people who do not have enough to eat has risen to 77 million, half of the population of Pakistan.

The WFP describes the food price rise as a "tsunami" affecting the poorest in the world and there are many poorer countries than Pakistan.

The political consequences are already apparent in the troubled regions of the North West Frontier, where the Taleban and al-Qaeda have significant support.

They are more easily able to recruit by saying the government is failing to make affordable food available.

And on the other side of the border on a recent trip to Afghanistan, I heard the US-led occupation squarely blamed on the streets of Kabul for the high price of food.

Radical solution

High oil prices, drought, over-intensive farming leading to lower yields, increased food demand in India and China and the loss of land to biofuels have all played their part in ending the long period of cheap food that the world has enjoyed for the past 30 years.

One radical solution now being talked about is direct payment of subsidies to farmers.

Until recently Malawi was dependent on food aid.

Farm worker sprays crops in Punjab
Farm workers should use protective clothing spraying crops

Back in 2002, I remember going from village to village, walking through fields where stunted maize plants had failed to grow.

Children climbed a tree to show me the tiny indigestible hard fruits which were all they had to eat.

At that time Malawi was one of a number of southern African nations at the centre of a worldwide appeal for aid.

When it introduced a voucher scheme to provide cheap fertiliser to farmers, the big donors opposed it.

Hunger victory

Memories of corruption and belief in economic orthodoxy that allowed the market to decide prices had given subsidies a bad name.

But now international donors are starting to change their minds and back the scheme.

Malawi has turned the corner, its farms are producing food for domestic consumption as well as for export, and few go hungry.

It is a stark contrast to the picture in 2002. And maybe an example some countries currently experiencing food shortages could follow.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 26 April, 2008 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.

The Hindu : National : Indians have no genetic shield against HIV, says study

2008-04-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

The Hindu : National : Indians have no genetic shield against HIV, says study

Indians have no genetic shield against HIV, says study

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: There is some bad news on the HIV-AIDS front. A multi-institutional nationwide study of the genetic landscape of people of the country conducted by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research has revealed that a known protective genetic marker against HIV-1 sub-type is virtually absent in the country. In other words, the people in the country are bereft of any natural or genetic protection against HIV-AIDS.

The study, which involved scientists and researchers drawn from six CSIR laboratories as well as experts at the Indian Statistical Institute and anthropologists from several institutions, has also revealed that vegetarians among north Indians are at a high risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, if they also had low levels of vitamin B12.

Releasing the findings on Friday, Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said studies with regard to other diseases were under way.

The results would be available in due course. The other diseases under study include diabetes, asthma, epilepsy, cancer, parkinsonism, chronic pancreatitis, malaria, glaucoma and retinitis pigmentosa.
Better management

A major aim of the project is to make predictions of both diseases as also the effectiveness of specific drugs used for various diseases.

A pilot pharmacogenomic study on response to salbutamol, which is used for treatment of asthma, has, for instance, identified genetic markers in a receptor gene, which could classify individuals as poor and good responders. This kind of findings could help in better management of diseases.

A large number of projects would be undertaken during the eleventh plan period that would aim at using the data for predictive marker discovery and pharmacogenomics, he added. The study, which began in 2003, has generated genetic information on over 4,000 genetic markers from over 1,000 bio-medically important and pharmaco-genetically relevant genes.

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