Things in a heavy heart

http://specials.rediff.com/yearend/2006/dec/21yrsl1.htm?q=tp&file=.htm

It Happens in Life------Take it easy

1. The handle of a cup you keep in the microwave always turns to the unreachable side after heating.
2. The second one of a pair of socks aways takes more time to find from the bunch of washed clothes.
3. The road to success........ is always under construction.
4. Since Light travels faster than Sound, people appear brighter before you hear them speak.
5. Anything dropped on the floor will roll over to the most inaccessible corner.
6. If at first you don't succeed.... Destroy all evidence that you ever tried.
7. You can never determine which side of the bread to butter. If it falls down, it will always land on the buttered side.
8. All the desirable things in life are either illegal, expensive or fattening.
9. As soon as you mention something...... if it is good, it is taken.... If it is bad, it happens.
10. If you come early, the bus is late. If you come late...... the bus is still late.
11. Once you have bought something, you will find the same item being sold somewhere else at a cheaper rate.
12. When in a queue, the other line always moves faster and the person in front of you will always have the most complex of transactions.
13. The girl for whom you have a crush at first sight would get engaged to someone in two weeks or would have already got married.
14. If you have paper, you don't have a pen....... If you have a pen, you don't have paper...... if you have both, no one calls.
15. If you have bunked the class, the professor would have taken attendance that day.
16. You will pick up maximum wrong numbers when on roaming.
17. All PTC buses are crowded. Corollary : PTC buses in opposite direction always go empty.
18. The door bell or your mobile will always ring when you are in the restroom.
19. After a long wait for bus no.20, two 20 number buses will always pull in together and the bus which you get in will be crowded than the other.
20. If your exam is tomorrow, there will be a power cut tonight.
21. Your code which goes on production will always throw a null pointer on the line where you had tried to log something.
22. Your saturday night expectations come in TV only when everyone at home and guests watch with you and the remote control is far from reach of your hand.
23. Irrespective of the direction of the wind, the smoke from the cigarette will always tend to go to the non-smoker
24. The traffic on the lane which you choose to drive always goes slower than the other one
25. Will continue...

30 Kodi Janangal

America passed a major demographic milestone this week: the U.S. population reached 300 million people. This was india's population in 1940s when Mahakavi Bharathi was singing.Life expectancy at birth was just 54.5 years in 1915. By 1967, it had risen to 70.5 years. This year, babies born in the United States have a life expectancy of 77.8 years. Its immigration history starts orderly from germans, italians, africans,mexicans,asians and now esp Indians :)
Well India is the seventh largest country in the world. Its population is now more than one billion, making it the second most populous country after China. It is more than three times the population of the United States though its area is only about one-third.
Population density is a serious bane to India and I request my friends who got married recently to Stop at Signal No: 1 and drive always with only three seats occupied. Lets not mess up the country anymore.

Cinema, Fries, Latte -- Manathodu Mazhaikalam

Shyam : Takes different story lines in his movies, different characters, Handsome guy but couldn't find a good break. Yevalavu makeup potalum, He couldn't be shown older Or the makeup man slept in the studio? ABCD la pesina style a innum vidala pola.
Nithyadas : Looks like navya nair, a typical mallu kuty...short and bubbly with long hair like my dream mallu girl.
Samiksha : Did her role to the need.
Direction : Though the movie had a good intention / story , It wasn't shown the way it was thought. Screenplay and Direction lacks lustre. It would have been a hit if it is from Balu Mahendra / Mani Ratnam.

Message : Though the movie couldn't makeup the way it was thought , It shows the distinct relationship of a Guy and Gal having friendship throughout Life. Yevalavu thaan pasanga friends a irunthalum, Oru thozhi life la kandippa venum. she gives a warmth and comfort next to what you get from your mother. The only tender hand to hold and the only shoulder to rest on without any kind of lust is from this thozhi. One whom you share the feelings which guys make fun or won't take serious when discussed. I always thank god who had given this unique relationship to exist and carries the life of guys all through their life. Even friendship between girls themselves doesn't exist this longer at all times. As like the movie name, this relationship gives a feeling like how you feel when you smell the manvasanai on the first rain of the season.
cha...now i started dreaming of Autograph Divya :)

Remembering Gandhi

Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) has become the strongest symbol of non-violence in the 20th century.
1]Redefine Nobel prize : Nobel peace prize for Gandhi or create Gandhi Peace Prize for others who follow suit.
2]Reinvent Innovation : very simple mantras Satyagraha & Ahimsa but very powerful weapons than any types of weapons existing in the world ( at level of root cause )
3]Reengineering Religion : Religion is about Truth & Love.
4]Reinvent Leadership : Leadership at Indian context and at global context ! a true example of Level 5 Leadership = Personal Humility + Professional Will simultaneously.
5]Redefine Economics development : Sarvodaya : universal uplift progress of all.
6]Redefine Education : The purpose of education is to bring out the best in you : relevant , practical & moral education Holistic development of children.

Gandhi's Daily Resolution:
Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day
I shall not fear anyone on earth
I shall fear only God
I shall not bear ill toward anyone
I shall not submit to injustice from anyone
I shall conquer untruth by truth
And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.

"Gandhi continues what the Buddha began. In the Buddha the spirit of love set itself the task of creating different spiritual conditions in the world; in Gandhi it undertakes to transform all worldly conditions." - Albert Schweitzer

Be the change you want to see in the world- Mahatma Gandhi

Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Sillendru Oru Kadhal

First few mins for people who didn't go to their real marriage.

Surya : Unnai parthu thaan naan meesai yeduthen...ippadi pannitiye...but looks smart even as a college student with a mild mush. Emotion aaana appa sivakumar a mariduraru.. drink pannama drive panna mudiyathu pola ...
Jo : you have to form a community in orkut for women to find ex of their hubbys. propably they might be wives of someone else who are also in search. Mathapadi an Abstract Tear Factory and Romba nalla ponna iruka...aavvvvvv...
Bhoomi : flash back la "chikun guniya" vantha mathiri iruka..chemistry lab partha yenaku electrical lab nyabagam varuthu...Asin why did you walk out?...Bhoomi later comes and talks like swarna akka...who gave her voice?......I like the bhoomi of the film badri (saathvigam).
Comedy : Santhanam makes better comedy than Vaigai puyal.
Music : Rahman your best is gone. we are still waiting.
Message : surya , jo love panrathuku , they need a film. This film is complete fiction and should not be reproduced in everyday life (veliyila pora onaana yeduthu veti la vitta kathai thaan)

Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Vetaiyadu Vilayadu

Neither a Kamal movie nor a Goutham movie...and called a thriller

Kamal : please stop acting and concentrate on directing movies. Your last best performance was in vasool raja mbbs. now you look old and heroing doesn't look good.
Back home it is called ragavan instinct aamam.
US cop undermine panrathu nalla illai. iritating. Over scene.
Jo : Looks like cancer patient...Unnecessary character just for a second romance.
Kamalini : I dont know when she came in the movie...vaama minnal....go to thatstamil.com to see her best pictures...in the movie she looks like next house aunty (who watches tearsome Tv serials).
Goutham : You could have made this movie with someone else than spoiling kamal and his skill. watch some more english movies to find a perfect thriller.
Camera : Tied in a sanal kayiru and was rotated. New york kaamikarangalama.
Prakash Raj : Tries to cry like "Nayagan kamal" seeing his dead daughter but kamal stops him doing so.
Message : All women in the movie will be killed and you dont have anything to guess.

The Best from my Camera

War of the Worlds--Congo

Uncle Sam ! I would be very happy if you fight for these kind of Wars.

Sitting on a bed in a refugee camp in Katanga, a cursed province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaïre), Mukeya Ulumba, 28, recounts the epic losses she has suffered in recent months. Several of her relatives and neighbors were killed when antigovernment rebels stormed their village last November, moving from house to house in a murder spree that lasted for hours. Ulumba and her husband managed to flee with their four children, leaving behind their life's possessions, a ravaged community of torched houses and the bloodied corpses of family members and friends. Now Ulumba is struggling to save another life: that of her 6-month-old son Amoni Mutombo. The baby lies whimpering in a clinic run by the aid organization Doctors Without Borders. His belly is distended by malnutrition, and although he appears to be in pain, he has no energy to cry. A nurse tries for half an hour to inject antibiotics into Amoni's twiglike arm, its wrinkled skin wrapped loosely around the bones. Without the drugs, he will die, wasting away from starvation.
Some wars go on killing long after they end. In Congo, a nation of 63 million people in the heart of Africa, a peace deal signed more than three years ago was supposed to halt a war that drew in belligerents from at least eight other countries, producing a record of human devastation unmatched in recent history. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that 3.9 million people have died from war-related causes since the conflict in Congo began in 1998, making it the world's most lethal conflict since World War II.
By conventional measures, that conflict is over. Congo is no longer the playground of foreign armies. The country's first real election in 40 years is scheduled to take place this summer, and international troops have arrived to keep the peace. But the suffering of Congo's people continues. Fighting persists in the east, where rebel holdouts loot, rape and murder. The Congolese army, which was meant to be both symbol and protector in the reunited country, has cut its own murderous swath, carrying out executions and razing villages. Even deadlier are the side effects of war, the scars left by years of brutality that disfigure Congo's society and infrastructure. The country is plagued by bad sanitation, disease, malnutrition and dislocation. Routine and treatable illnesses have become weapons of mass destruction. According to the IRC, which has conducted a series of detailed mortality surveys over the past six years, 1,250 Congolese still die every day because of war-related causes--the vast majority succumbing to diseases and malnutrition that wouldn't exist in peaceful times. In many respects, the country remains as broken, volatile and dangerous as ever, which is to say, among the very worst places on earth. more

Warning : dont read more if you have a weak heart.

Photo Exercise--My American Life

Smoky Mountains--Tennessee

Ocean City with Bala , Satish(roomie) Parasailing & Jet Skiing

Niagara Falls with Soma

Liberty with Soma

Kappalotiya Tamizhan

Annapolis --Capital of Maryland

Airshow

Owings Mills Open

Gun Powder Falls (Tubing) with Sanjeev

DC with Mani

Gaithersburg ---- Santhosh, Uday

DC with ezhil

Virginia with Srini

Hotel Rwanda --- Yesterday and Today

Ten years ago some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind took place in the country of Rwanda--and in an era of high-speed communication and round the clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, one million people were brutally murdered. In the face of these unspeakable actions, inspired by his love for his family, an ordinary man summons extraordinary courage to save the lives of over a thousand helpless refugees, by granting them shelter in the hotel he manages.
I saw this movie two weeks back and I read this article (below) today
If successful, the percentage of Rwanda's workforce involved in farming will drop from 90 per cent to 50 per cent in 15 years Six years after the project's launch, half of the 2,300 primary schools have at least one computer Biggest challenge is bringing the project to the rural areas and making it sustainable .
OFFICE WORKERS talking over Skype. Fibre-optic cable snaking hundreds of miles underground and to the top of a 4,500-metre volcano. Paperless Cabinet meetings with every Minister using a laptop. This may sound like an advanced Western country rather than a tiny, poor African state. Yet this is Rwanda, now in the midst of an extraordinary development plan to leap into the 21st century.
More "mobile in every pocket" than "chicken in every pot," the Vision 2020 project aims to rapidly transform a depressed agricultural economy into one driven by information communications and technology (ICT). If it works, the percentage of Rwanda's workforce involved in farming will drop from 90 per cent to 50 per cent in 15 years. By then the country should be the regional ICT hub — a kind of Singapore of the Great Lakes.
"Rwanda is to some extent doing with technology what Britain did with mechanisation during the industrial revolution," said Calestous Juma, professor of international development at Harvard University, who believes the plan can serve as an inspiration for Africa.
Donor countries are more cautious. Two-thirds of Rwandans live below the poverty line, half are illiterate, and four in five live in rural areas. AIDS and the 1994 genocide have created tens of thousands of orphans. Technology is not the main priority, they say. But government officials insist that not only is their plan viable, but that there is no alternative. As one of Africa's most densely populated countries, large-scale farming is impossible. There are few valuable minerals or oil deposits. The country is landlocked.
"We are at a huge competitive disadvantage to our neighbours," Albert Butare, the Minister of Communications and Energy, said. "Our people are the one resource we have, and we must develop them."
Progress has been slower than hoped — only 26 per cent of targets have been met on time so far — but still significant. When the ICT plan was launched in 2000 only one school in the country had a computer, there was a single Internet cafe and a handful of science graduates, and fewer than 100,000 of eight million people had mobile or fixed-line phones.
Today half of the 2,300 primary schools have at least one computer. There are 30 Internet cafes in the leading cities and there will be 30 more in even the most remote rural areas by 2007. Telecom companies hawk broadband Internet for home use. More than 300,000 people have mobiles. If a plan to assemble phones locally, and sell them for the equivalent of £19 with six months to pay, comes to fruition the growth will be even faster. The Kigali Institute for Science and Technology (KIST), established in 1997 at a former army barracks, has already graduated close to 2,000 students. Still it is just a fraction of the tech-savvy workforce the country needs.
Which is why bringing schools online is seen as crucial. In a two-year, £20-million project, the state electricity company will lay fibre-optic cable along its power lines. Cables will be run to schools within three miles of the national grid, giving them high-speed Internet access.
Thousands of computers are being ordered for schools from Rwanda Computer Network, which has already assembled and sold more than 6,000 "Gorilla 1000" desktop computers to the government and banks. A software firm has translated a free open-source version of Microsoft Office into Kinyarwanda, the main language.
Incentives for investment
Meanwhile, the government is offering incentives to attract private investment. The home of the Senate, a modern seven-storey building, is being turned into an "ICT park" for hi-tech companies that will receive free rent and utilities. Five young Rwandan graduates are in charge. Aged 26 to 34, all have studied abroad — in India, South Africa, and France — and all have masters degrees in technology-related fields.
"In the long term this whole road could be an `ICT alley,'" said Patrick Nyirishema, 30, an electrical engineer, gesturing towards the wide avenue outside. "People are going to be astonished by what is going to happen here."
The rest of Africa is already taking note. Kigali, the Rwandan capital, has also been selected as the headquarters of the 23-country Eastern African Submarine Cable Project, which will greatly increase Internet bandwidth in the region. The telecom mast at the top of the Karisimbi volcano will serve as a regional air traffic control centre.
But the biggest challenge, on which the grand plan may succeed or fail, is bringing ICT to the poorest rural areas and making it sustainable. A few Internet cafes that were set up in small villages failed because people could not afford the dollar-an-hour Internet fee.
But in the dusty village of Nyamata, 90 minutes from Kigali, Paul Barera, a 29-year-old KIST graduate, has made his shop work — for him and for his customers. He helps dressmaker Donatille Mukakarara, 38, use Google to search for new patterns once a week. "The Internet has changed my business," she said. "People want modern designs and that's what I can give them."

Financial Capital of our Country

Finding answers from Uncle Sam

The Haditha killings (also called the Haditha massacre or the Haditha incident) were an incident that occurred on November 19, 2005 in the town of Haditha, Iraq. A convoy of United States Marines was attacked with an improvised explosive device which killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas. Up to twenty-four Iraqis were subsequently killed; it is alleged that they were non-combatant local residents who were massacred by Marines in the aftermath of the insurgent attack. A Marine Corps communique initially reported that 15 civilians were killed by the bomb's blast and eight insurgents were subsequently killed when the Marines returned fire against those attacking the convoy. However, media reports contradicted this story.The evidence uncovered by the media prompted the US military to open an investigation into the incident, with charges reported to be delivered in due course. Video shot by Iraqi journalist and human-rights worker Taher Thabet and cellphone photos reportedly taken by one of the Marines the day after the killings have been put forth as evidence that the killings were methodical and without resistance.The term "execution-style" has been used by US military officials to describe the killings. The intentional killing of civilians, or indeed of any unarmed people, is prohibited by modern laws of war derived from the UN Charter, the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions, and constitutes a war crime. The Marines and officers are expected to face courts martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is U.S. military law. Due to a Status of Forces Agreement with the Government of Iraq, the troops will not be subject to Iraqi law.
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
Beginning in 2003, numerous accounts of abuse and torture of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq (also known as Baghdad Correctional Facility) occurred. The acts were committed by personnel of the 372nd Military Police Company, CIA officers, and contractors involved in the occupation of Iraq. An internal investigation by the United States Army commenced in January 2004, and reports of the abuse, as well as graphic pictures showing American military personnel in the act of abusing prisoners, came to public attention in April 2004, when a 60 Minutes news report (April 28) and an article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue) reported the story.The resulting political scandal damaged the credibility and public image of the United States and its allies in the prosecution of ongoing military operations in the Iraq War, and some critics of U.S. foreign policy argued that it was representative of a broader American attitude and policy of disrespect and violence toward Arabs. The U.S. Administration and its defenders argued that the abuses were isolated acts committed by low-ranking personnel, while critics claimed that authorities either ordered or implicitly condoned the abuses and demanded the resignation of senior Bush administration officials. The U.S. Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and seven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault, and battery. Between May 2004 and September 2005, seven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to federal prison time, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner, and his former fiancée, Pvt. Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison, respectively, in trials ending on January 14, 2005 and September 26, 2005. The commanding officer at the prison, Brig. General Janis Karpinski, was demoted to the rank of colonel on May 5, 2005. The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib was in part the reason that on April 12, 2006, the United States Army activated the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion, the first of four joint interrogation battalions.

Dating Niagara falls

It had been my dream in my life that i wanted to visit Niagara once i come to US. Many people suggested to visit once I get married. But i didn't have much patience for the D-day . Good that soma booked a ticket from Des Moines to NYC and asked me to pick him up and drive towards Niagara.

we became 6 who planned to Niagara including soma's colleague saravana bhava..ezhil's friends in Connecticut. I took a rental van ...a Chrysler-town and country minivan kinda SUV from the Baltimore downtown and drove towards NYC. I never have drove such a big vehicle in my life...a seven seater....cool drive towards NYC with mild rains...finally landed in a place..thanks to google map that i landed in a place which is not called La Guardia airport in newyork.i followed the map so religiously and finally landed up in a gas station according to that map. found out the airport and after long trail in the terminal path to pick soma and his accomplice saravana :) (wont tell what he did bad ..married poor fellow). Driving the newyork city is the most crazy thing in life.somehow managed though iam a religious driver after coming to US.There is a sign in newyork city saying please go on green light only.....c'mon india of united states...we are no bad ...its all population and head count counts to drive anywhere in this world,,.,,I have to go to china and see how they drive....soma checked in as thirupathi ajith ..(once he was red ajith) with a telugu/kannada actor saravana. good that soma took over the driving and we started roaming in NYC by drive and then headed towards connecticut...finding out ezhil's house wasn't that tough and we were guided by a cop who initially stopped us by throwing his serial light. my first encounter with a cop, later finding us searching for a route in local roads he guided us. ezhil's house is near river valley....i could hear the noise of water flowing...though not big, his place is too good. connecticut is a good place...full of greenery and water and i like it next to my garden state.....next day went to liberty statue to visit amma....this statue is much exaggerated in hollywood movies with light setting......But when you go there , you'll find an ordinary statue which is painted with a pale green...It is not even painted properly....Designed by a French architect , One of the best place to visit in US, this doesn't attract me that much and also I had been here with my HCL friends earlier. So finished of this, then went to Newyork city , crazy driving , found out our thrifty rental place after a long struggle tunneling all the time. Then evening we decided after adding additional drivers soma and ezhil, we started towards Niagara....There are 2 freeways which are long like 150 miles in each that you reach buffalo where we have booked a hotel to stay...in one of the freeways it was difficult to drive ..guess what it is not due to fog but it is due to clouds...i think it is in a high altitude place...atlast in the midnight we could reach our hotel which is near to university of buffalo....Quite good place to stay and enjoy the serene climate....Then next day morning after a brief spell of something called sleep , we started to the falls place which is 20 miles from the hotel. I heard that when you go to Niagara, you can hear two languages , one is telugu and one is english ...this time also we heard two languages....one is tamil and one is telugu...too many tamil crowd citing long weekend as an excuse ..machi...mamu....lot of young couples...when we were searching for parking spot we played Arinthum Ariyamalum "theepidika song" in high volume , window open....making the place real desi....only two good attractions...one is called of "Maid of the mist" which is sailing in the cruise towards the falls and feeling the drizzle and another one is "Cave of the winds" which is typical showering in the falls...both are too good..only when you go in the crew you get reminded of why people ask you to go to Niagara after marriage ...too much of desi romance....
The world's second largest falls...another god's gift to this country...The second exciting place next to Newyork city i found in united states...Other states are just the same with wooden houses, dunkin donuts, Mc D s , gas stations near the lights....hmm...next day morn started back from Niagara in the early morning since soma has to catch 5 30 evening flight....With good average high speed most of the time exceeding speed limit,we returned back to connecticut to drop ezhil, sunil and bhavani....Then towards la guardia airport to drop soma and saravana..and finally i drove back to baltimore. The longest drive i ever have made, my CD-cassette converter crashed due to over heating as it had been singing all the way in the drive.
You can view photos of liberty and Niagara here.
My next plan is Florida..finding out the best season to go

India-Pakistan Wagah Border Closing Ceremony

I love watching this ceremony in TV and searched in web manytimes to find this video.

This video is taken from pakistan side. yet to find one from our side on web

The march and flag hoisting is really great.

This is shown in only one tamil movie starring murali and simran i believe.

World is blind to this Dark Continent--Somalia

Unscrambling Somalia
During World War II, the Italians briefly took British Somaliland, only to see the British return to retake "their" Somaliland, plus Italian Somaliland and Ogaden, too. In 1949, the Italians returned to administer Italian Somaliland as a UN trust territory, but not before many Somalis had begun longing for their own independent, pan-Somali state.
In 1960, the British and Italians left, and British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland joined to form the United Republic of Somalia. Almost immediately, the new nation became embroiled in border conflicts over Somali-inhabited lands in northern Kenya and eastern Ethiopia. A military buildup followed, even as internal tensions mounted between the former British and Italian regions.
In 1969, a bodyguard from a rival clan assassinated Somalia's president, and the military assumed power. The commander of the army, Mohamed Siad Barre, became president--and, before long, dictator. The coup was restyled a "revolution," as "Comrade Siad" announced his pursuit of an Islam-friendly version of "scientific socialism." Yet socialism never really took root in Somalia, and rival clans and Islamic leaders soon resented the Comrade's rule.

Somalia Rescrambled
In 1974, Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie fell. Three years later, Siad Barre retook the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region. At first, the Soviets tried to mediate the dispute. Then they shifted their support to Ethiopia (which has 75 million people to Somalia's 9 million). Somalia's Soviet arms shipments stopped, while Ethiopia got military advisors and Cuban troops. The United States shifted its support from Ethiopia to Somalia, but not before Ogaden was back in Ethiopian hands.
After the defeat in Ogaden, officers from a rival clan tried to topple Siad Barre. They failed, but the threat they posed prompted the dictator to start making government appointments based on perceived clan loyalty. The government and military became less competent, clan rivalries increased, and guerrilla attacks began. As the 1980s wore on, opposition groups became more powerful, and Siad Barre responded with increasingly repressive measures.
By the end of the 1980s, militias from several clans had seized much of the country. A series of last-ditch efforts at political reform failed to appease them, and in January 1991, a united opposition front captured the capital, Mogadishu. Siad Barre fled, his regime collapsed, and the militias turned on each other. In the next two years, 50,000 people died in factional fighting, and some 300,000 Somalis starved. Meanwhile, the former British Somaliland effectively seceded, calling itself, simply, "Somaliland." Somalia hasn't had a functional central government since.

Surveying Somalia
Somalia hasn't had a functional central government since 1991, when a group of warlords representing a variety of the country's traditional clans and sub-clans overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. The warlords promptly turned on each other, and the situation in much of Somalia has been chaotic--and frequently deadly--ever since.
In the early 1990s, a United Nations task force, led by the United States, tried to restore order and provide humanitarian assistance. The effort saved many Somalis from starving, but ended in failure after militiamen downed two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu. The ensuing firefight killed 18 U.S. soldiers and more than a thousand Somalis.
Since then, 13 internal attempts to fashion a national government have failed. A 14th attempt, backed by the European Union, got underway in 2004, when warlords and politicians agreed to create a new parliament and made a former warlord, Abdullahi Yusuf, president.
The transitional parliament met on Somali soil for the first time in February 2006, in the town of Baidoa, 155 miles (250 km) northwest of Mogadishu. Neither of the factions in the recent fight for Mogadishu answers to it. In fact, Yusuf and Company have stayed away from Mogadishu, which is more war-torn fief than capital city. What's a capital, after all, in a country without a government?

Separate Somalilands?
Understandably, large parts of the country have begun governing themselves. In the northwest, the part of Somalia that was once a British colony seceded 15 years ago, right after the warlords toppled Siad Barre. Enjoying relative peace, prosperity, and representative government, it longs for legal recognition as an independent nation, "Somaliland."
In the northeast, another large region--called "Puntland"--functions autonomously, too, though its leaders like to see it as the start of a federal system in Somalia. Puntland has ancient roots. Egypt's pharaohs once sought frankincense and myrrh from the "land of Punt."
Finally, in 2002, a group of warlords in the southwest followed suit, establishing "Southwestern Somalia." Its status is now unclear, as several of its leaders have taken posts in Somalia's transitional government.

Long-Suffering Somalis
Amid the political chaos, many ordinary Somalis suffer. One in four Somali children dies before turning five, cyclical famines kill thousands (and threaten millions), and pirates patrol the nation's coastline, stealing everything from black market goods to humanitarian food shipments. According to the United Nations, a drought in the south has left a sixth of Somalia's 8.8 million people in need of food aid.
Much of the aid that actually reaches Somalis comes in the form of money sent by relatives living abroad. According to some estimates, such remittances account for more than 20 percent of household income, though they've come under pressure from campaigns to curtail terrorist financing.
Despite it all, some sectors of Somalia's economy have actually thrived. Most major towns have wireless phone services, and many now have internet cafes. The airline business has boomed, too. "Corruption is not a problem," says one airline executive, "because there is no government."

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

India burning with reservation crisis? Attn Mr.youth

I have been reading all news about the good n bad things of India.

I appreciate all people who take part in protests on government decisions and policies.

But only thing which pricks me is the perception we all youth of India have on these and we are the Tomorrow of India.

Friends, let me tell you one thing. Most of us lead a selfish life (including me) thinking of things concerning about our own life and we see what affects us. If we don't have any concerns, then we see our inner circle of friends who are getting affected and finally we think about India as a nation.

All of us have a point to argue.

But all our conscience should have only one point to argue.
Are we doing something for others or allow others to do so?

Castes formed in India based on the profession we did in those days. People who were doing meanly jobs were suppressed in the society and Hence reservations are made in India for people of lower sections of society to know that they are also part of India and they are welcome to pursue education and job even if they are poor . I didn't accept this during my college days since I was directly affected and I also felt govt should give money rather than reservation in admission seats. But when I entered my college which is a govt college and after I met rural and lower caste students in my college , I came to know that they are not even aware of a University called" Anna University", though they deserve a seat based on their marks. That's when i realized that people from lower castes and rural side should be given reservation so that they start exploring more opportunities in better institutes. Lower castes are not always economically poor but they are treated poor in the society. That hurts even more.Hope you would have read about a story of a running race in which one handicapped child fell and others grab his hand before reaching to the end. This is how sections of society in India.We have to sacrifice something for them to make them come to our level.

Dont think reservation divides the nation. If reservation hadn't been there, then we would not be having friends who are from lower castes. Though I dont want to mention them as lower, I want to emphasize that they are our friends now. Otherwise they would be doing some meanly job in child age rather than studying.

After getting a job and after I got an experience of 6 yrs I realize they still need reservations, since our basic primary education across schools in India is not standardised yet after 60 years of independence .Do you think if you had studied in a rural school , would you have got an attitude to target IITJEE or AIIMS?

In my experience from my class 2 to till now, I feel getting good marks academically doesn't level you to the kind of achievement we look in life.Many people who have studied well during childhood may not have studied well in class 12 and many who didn't score well in class 12 would have landed up in a good job after finishing their degree. So one who is really talented will find his own way to survive in the country. How many you accept after getting good education, you are ready to stay in the country?
And recently I heard the protests are going to the end of "fast until death" . This is just to show the solidarity of students without purpose. All protestors (IIT ians , Doctors, Medical students )..A question for you? Do you read everyday news about a dalit being raped by an upper class society and killed, the convicts escape free. Have you ever thought of going for fasting for seeking the justice for them? Or any of atrocities against lower caste people? Are you ready to marry a girl from a lower caste section of India? why do you blame dalit doctors will kill patients? You are killing patients now by being on strike joining the students and leaving numerous patients in hay. How many of you doctors prefer to work in a govt hospital . After finishing in IIT or IIM , are you ready to work for the country? Are you ready to work as a professor in IIT?. They are the one who are given reservation tries to work in all these and help the poor people of the nation. And you should know they are the majority of India.

Protest to increase the number of seats in these premier institutes.
Protest for justice of the atrocities against dalits.
Protest for the corruption and bribery in the government offices.

I don't know how hatred towards lower castes and non-Hindus came in these protests. We all have to be human and remain so whatever happens to us.

Lets speculate an amicable solution rather than simply protesting.

Da Vinci---Decoded

The movie version of the megahit novel The Da Vinci Code opens Friday in theaters across the world. Like the book, the movie is causing a stir because of suggestions it makes about Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and because of its unflattering depictions of members of the Catholic Church.

We haven't seen the movie, but we've always loved Leonardo da Vinci--the man himself. Why? Well, if Leonardo were a modern-day American, he probably wouldn't be in the movies. He'd be making movies. He might also be an engineer at NASA, and a leading researcher at the National Institutes of Health, and a special advisor to the president on matters of national security--all at once.

Polymathic Man

Born in the town of Vinci (hence "da Vinci") in 1452, Leonardo became the quintessential "Renaissance man." He's been called the first great Renaissance master, the first scientist, even the first modern. His genius reached across a divide that few before or since have succeeded in bridging--the divide between transcendent, visionary, expressive artist and practical, methodical, mathematical scientist.

In addition to creating some of the world's most famous art, Leonardo conducted extensive research into human anatomy, dissecting by his own count more than 30 corpses. He served as a military engineer, preparing plans to overhaul fortifications, divert the river Arno around Pisa, and outfit Venetian "SEAL" teams with primitive scuba gear. And he advised some of the most powerful men of his time--including Cesare Borgia, the notoriously ruthless commander of the papal army, for whom he sketched maps that helped lay the groundwork for modern cartography.

He also endowed posterity with thousands of manuscript pages, written in his famous "mirror-style"--that is, right to left, so that they can be easily read only in a mirror. Within these pages are inquiries into the flight of birds, the construction of military fortifications, hydraulics, optics, human anatomy, perspective (in both art and science), observations on the moon's craters, a design for a flying machine (which looks something like a helicopter), and more. And, of course, there are still those other works--the ones for which Leonardo is most famous.

The Last Supper

Completed between 1495 and 1498, Leonardo's Last Supper may be the world's second-most famous painting. The work reproduces the moment at which Christ, during a Passover meal, announces to his apostles that one of them will betray him. Except for Judas (and Christ, who calmly accepts his fate), each of the apostles displays the confusion and apprehension of the moment--disbelief, anger, frustration, sadness, fear, denial, and exasperation all at once.

Unfortunately, the Last Supper wasn't built to last. Leonardo had invented a new fresco technique for painting the masterpiece, but the technique didn't hold water. The painting began to deteriorate within a few years, and by the middle of the 16th century it was practically ruined. Leo fans have been trying to restore the work for centuries.

The Mona Lisa

Leonardo's Mona Lisa is almost certainly the world's most famous painting. Leonardo completed the faintly smiling lady between 1503 and 1506. Its influence was immediate, setting the standard by which portraits would be judged for centuries to come. In fact, the young Raphael sketched the Mona Lisa while it was still a work in progress and was using it as a model for his own portraits by the time Leonardo was done.

No one knows for sure, but the woman in the picture is generally believed to be "Mrs. Lisa" Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a prominent Florentine of the time. And her smile? Your guess is as good as anyone's.

Mr. President on "Corruption"

EFFECTS OF CORRUPTION ON GOOD GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Conscience is the light of the Soul that burns within the chambers of our psychological heart. It is as real as life is. It raises the voice in protest whenever anything is thought of or done contrary to the righteousness. Conscience is a form of truth that has been transferred through our genetic stock in the form of the knowledge of our own acts and feelings as right or wrong.

A virtuous and courageous person can alone use the instrument of conscience. He or she can alone hear the inner voice of the soul clearly. In a wicked person this faculty is absent. The sensitive nature of his / her conscience has been destroyed by sin or corruption. Hence he or she is unable to discriminate right from wrong. Those who are leading organizations, business enterprises, institutions and governments should develop this virtue of the ability to use their own conscience. This wisdom of using the clean conscience will enable them to enjoy the freedom.
more...

Cinema, Fries, Latte -- M:I:3

Last Sunday night , just because I don’t want to be left out -and miss the movie, went to AMC theaters with guys here. We almost skipped dinner, grabbed a big pack of pop-corn , soda ( I meant coke) peeped in the theater..but we felt it was too late for 9 15 pm show and hence went in to call Bala who gave attendance earlier than us. As soon as we entered , the theater hall in the deepest silence , the dialogue delivered on screen was "Thanks for coming" the guy who called tom cruise to 7/11 spoke that. We burst into laughter for the timing of the dialogue delivery as soon as we entered. I was looking for our Patel in that 7/11. Then we called Bala aloud and asked him to come out so that we can watch 10 pm show from beginning. Here yu can watch any timing of the movie provided you enter with one ticket. I don’t know how legal it is. Then we entered the 10 pm hall , sat comfortably the back seat center and started eating popcorn, saw all the trailers and the movie started. Such a fast paced movie had the best of Europe starting with berlin and Vatican and finally popped into Beijing , the wonderful city. Reminiscences of the Robert Langdon adventure in Vatican city came to my mind when tom broke the high secure Vatican city with their strategic plan and making an abduction so easily.
Again they called "cannister" and some thing called "rabbit's foot" reminded me about antimatter. but all my imagination is wiped by the fast paced action exhibited by tom. God when this guy will act old. He is too good no wonder Katie Holmes is possible when even MI-2 is six years old.
I read recently about the PLA of china and their dominance in conventional war that no country including US can beat them. The dominance is showed here by the exciting city of shanghai. I can't add this to my list as even road signs painted on the road for left only is written in Chinese. God I cant drive here in this city.
The movie is real good and worth watching. The villain displayed his act in style. IAM expecting a MI-4 sooner.

I got this in email

Can you make out what it is …. ..Black ones are shadows, white ones are the real camels… !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The snap has been taken from top.........

One of the most beautiful snap i've seen..........

Is India shining in the land of Gandhi by these flames?

A 32-year-old man was burnt alive by a crowd of 1500 in Vadodara early on Wednesday morning.
According to eyewitnesses, the victim was chased by a crowd and burnt alive when he was passing through Ajwa Road's Mahavir hall crossing.
The man was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced 'dead on arrival'.
Sources report that crowds have been gathering across the city through the night. The fact that Vadodara is rife with rumours makes the work of the police very difficult in such tense times.
Vadodara is rife with rumours making the work of the police difficult. The city has been tense since the demolition of a dargah and the death of two person in consequent violence.

Stop the non-sense, Life is really worth than anything else.

Discover India : Akshardham Temple in Delhi

This is not the one which was targettted by terrorists in 2002. That is in Gujarat.

O Podu !

Election fever is sweeping Tamil Nadu with two major electoral combines and smaller parties reeling out promises. Most parties have released their manifestos and the lists of candidates for the May 8 Assembly elections.
It is now time for the voters to weigh the merits and demerits of the candidates. Suggestions have been made to make voting compulsory.
But if the electors decide that none of the candidates is worth their vote, can they officially register their decision?
Yes, says the Election Commission.
Chief Electoral Officer Naresh Gupta said on Monday that some non-governmental organisations wanted the option of "negative voting" by providing an extra button in the electronic voting machines that says "none of the above" clause.
Though there was no scope for negative voting now, as the issue is before the Supreme Court, there were provisions for electors to register their decision not to vote.
According to Rule 49-O of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, if an elector whose roll number has been entered in the register of electoral rolls in Form 17A, decides not to vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry by the Presiding Officer and the signature and thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark, he said.
Officers to be sensitised
All Returning Officers, Assistant Returning Officers, Presiding Officers and Polling Officers would be sensitised to the provisions, he said.
Catalyst Trust, an NGO, had requested the Election Commission to publicise this provision. However, adequate security would have to be provided for such brave voters, an observer said.


'O' Podu "O Podu" is a social awareness movement.
"O PODU' means "cast the vote". Voting is both the right and duty of thepeople. Another objective of our movement is to make people aware of theirconstitutional right to cast their vote under section 49 'O'.
On an average, in every election, nearly 45 percent of the eligible votersdon't vote at all. Therefore even if a winning candidate bags 30 percent ofthe polled votes, it amounts to getting the support of only about 16 percentof the total electorate. If more and more non voters begin to exercise theirvote, the result of many elections would drastically change.
Why are many people not voting at all? One of the usual reasons cited isthat they are unable to accept any candidate and don't want to vote foranyone of the available candidates.
It is a unique feature of our Indian constitution that it has provided thelegal right to the voter to reject all the candidates. Section 49 'O' of theElection rules 1961, has empowered the voter with this right. This sectionhas conferred the right to the voter to inform the booth officer, after theindelible ink mark has been marked, that the voter does not want to vote forany of the candidates. The section requires the booth officer to record thevoter's choice of 49 'O'.
"O PODU" movement will campaign for the following demands:
1. Every voter should cast the vote. Failure to cast the vote only preventsenhancement of the standards of politics.
2. If the voter feels all the candidates are unworthy, the best ay tocommunicate this view to the political parties is not through abstinence.The best method is to record this view through 49 'O'.
3. Secrecy of ballot is a right conferred on the voter by the Constitution.But the election commission's procedure of not keeping 49 'O' voting assecretive, amounts to a violation of this right. Therefore the Electioncommission should rectify this anomaly by introducing a separate button for49 'O' in the electronic voting machines, for the forthcoming Tamilnaduelections.
4. It is the duty of the Election commission to educate the booth officersabout the availability of 49 'O while conducting classes to them on pollingprocedures. The present practice of booth officers expressing ignoranceabout 49 'O' and refusing a vote to record under 49 'O' should be totallyeliminated.'
"O PODU" movement will campaign among voters, particularly the youth,seeking support for the above demands, by use of posters, pamphlets,meetings, T shirt messages, e mails and SMS.

The making of an eco-city

Namakkal town, in Tamil Nadu, reinvents itself and gets the country's first ISO 14001 certification.
It took three years to put in place a system that has brought Namakkal international recognition.
I REMEMBER it as a dirty and noisy town where dogs roamed the government hospital and stories about them carrying away newborn babies circulated. Then the roar of lorries and stories about people with HIV/ AIDS in Namakkal grabbed national headlines.
This time around, I could not spot any stray animal. Residents, instead, talk about an effective administration, cleaner roads, quieter environs and an ISO 14001 certification — the first of its kind to any town in the country.
Namakkal, a southern district in Tamil Nadu with a population of 53,000, took three years to put in place a system that brought it international recognition. The certification is given to any organisation that uses technology and maintains internationally acceptable standards in services and develops an environmental management system in which water, air and sound quality are maintained.
Initial hiccups
S. Gandhiselvan, the municipal chairman, recalls: "We wanted to do something good. So former commissioner Umapathi and I visited every house in the Anjaneyar Koil (the most congested area) and took up three wards as an experiment. People laughed at us. But we continued. For four months we talked to people, issued notices and finally showed them results of garbage removal."
Gandhiselvan says that the movement included women and has remained "completely apolitical".
"Soon neighbouring wards wanted to be integrated. We privatised garbage collection and trained a group to form `Annamalai Associates'. We have six slums and we never thought they would cooperate. They also joined the group and the success is because of them. When we projected our work at meetings in other districts, people did not believe us. We asked them to visit us," says a proud Gandhiselvan.
Profitable too
Annamalai Associates segregates garbage, prepares vermicompost and recycles non-biodegradable waste, such as tyres and tubes littered around this town known for its lorry "body-building" units. All this fetches the municipality Rs. 4.5 lakh a year, says municipal commissioner P. Kanthaswamy.
"Using GIS (Global Information System) we do route optimisation to save time and fuel. It also ensures 100 per cent removal of garbage," he says.
The effects were there for me to see: Lower noise and pollution levels despite a heaving bus station, a touch screen computer at the municipality for residents of the 30 wards to check their property/ water tax arrears, birth certificates in 15 minutes and an upgraded government hospital with flowerbeds. Gardens and solar electrical fencing have been laid in the town's crematoria. Since its garbage segregation drive, local agriculture does not use chemical fertilizers.
Attitudinal changes
The drive has resulted in attitudinal changes. G.M. Saraswathi, a homemaker who has lived here for 50 years, says: "Initially I did not segregate garbage. One day I saw a woman who came to collect garbage with cuts on her palms. That's when I decided not to dispose sharp items like blades. Now of course the women wear gloves."
The municipality's efforts came into focus when the Supreme Court acknowledged its achievement. The Asian Productivity Organisation based in Tokyo, Japan, introduced the concept of green productivity to enhance efficiency and improve the town's environment and over-all social economic position. The National Productivity Council of India pitched in to develop Namakkal into an "eco-city", the first of its kind in Asia-Pacific region.
New goals
Namakkal is not likely to rest on its new-found status and recognition. Efforts are on to build a Chandigarh-like rock garden in this town, which is in a rocky belt with perennial water shortage. "I remember a summer when even the coconut trees began to wither," recalls N.B. Kala, a resident. But political parties are still finding it difficult to change their ways.
During a recent sports meet, the town's main road was filled with cutouts of a political leader. This despite the municipality levying charges for removing garbage from commercial establishments, hotels and marriage halls and not allowing hoardings unless they carry its mandate for a "beautiful" town.
But, Gandhiselvan and Kanthaswami have even bigger plans. They want computers for the four municipal schools, a swimming pool for the town and a couple of libraries. The ISO certification may be a beginning.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

Found the WMD. It is here.

A 10-megaton nuclear weapon (The current U.S. warhead strength) creates an explosion equivalent to the detonation of 10 million tons of TNT--from less than 200 pounds (90 kg) of nuclear fuel. Pressure waves emanating from the blast would exceed 30 pounds per square inch and generate winds in excess of 700 miles per hour (1,125 km/h). Such winds could knock down steel-and-concrete buildings with ease. Even 20 miles (32 miles) away, the blast would shatter windows and uproot trees.
The temperature around the blast would rise in an instant to more than 18 million degrees Fahrenheit (10 million degrees Celsius)--hotter than the sun. Everything in a 2-mile (3.2-km) radius would be vaporized. Further out, materials like glass and steel would melt. Further still, combustible materials would ignite and produce innumerable fires. Even at distances greater than 20 miles (32 km), humans would suffer serious burns from the flash.
And when the dust cleared and the fires were out, the bomb's most insidious effect would remain: radiation. Radiation is all around you. It bombards you every moment of your life, everywhere you go. Don't panic, though. Radiation is simply traveling energy, and most of it is harmless. But some forms, like ultraviolet light and X-rays, are harmful if you're exposed too long. Radiation like this, called ionizing radiation, contains enough energy to break down chemical bonds in substances that absorb it.
Radioactive elements like uranium and plutonium emit, among other things, gamma rays, packing 10,000 times more energy than visible light. Gamma rays can pass right through humans, penetrating tissues and ionizing atoms in your body. This leads to massive cellular damage, resulting in system-wide "radiation sickness" and, with enough exposure, death.
Although damage from the blast, heat, and even radiation burns may heal over time, the ionizing damage done to the DNA in human cells will remain. Sooner or later, the body's own replication of damaged DNA leads to the final danger of a nuclear blast: cancer, mutations, and a host of genetic abnormalities. These last casualties can take years, or even decades, to occur.

Andaman Beauties--Next target

Will they be able to create a real YUVA ?

The political party Lok Paritran (changed from Paritrana due to certain policies of the Election Commission) was founded on 18 th November, 2005.
Two and a half years ago, an informal group of youngsters was formed with the intention of actually taking action against the degeneration of society and the increase in suffering at the collective level which are the order of the day in spite of the immense potential of the country. Intensive efforts in trying to implement changes in key areas like public health and education brought home two irrefutable facts – the intellectual bankruptcy and corruption that have seeped into every layer of the current system, and the inherent interconnectedness of all issues facing society and the impossibility of a partial solution. The group was faced with two choices – to abandon their goals, or go all the way.
Lok Paritran is the result of the group that remained after all the trials and tribulations to go all the way.
Most of the Party leadership holds degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, and all of them have sacrificed lucrative opportunities both in India and abroad in order to participate in the Party. The President Tanmay Rajpurohit has returned to India leaving his PhD in Economics in the US in order to head this group.
Elaborating upon the reason which prompted these individuals to launch a political party of their own, the party President Tanmay Rajpurohit, who holds a B.Tech degree from IIT Mumbai and double masters degrees from the US, said, “This party has been founded for the purpose of bringing about a fundamental change in the system, which, riddled with corruption and inefficiencies, has become the sole reason of distress to the people”. Soliciting support for this novel initiative he further added, “Any help of any kind would go a long way to help us get a foothold in the Indian political arena, which is so slippery because of the accumulated filth that we intend to clean.”
Chief advisor, Santhanagopalan Vasudev, who is postgraduate in Economics from the US called upon the youth to rise and join the movement. “The stagnated political system is in dire need of fresh blood and dynamism”, he said. Speaking about economic and social policy, he said “Plenty of good ideas have come and gone, for lack of proper implementation. The call of the hour is for broad structural changes that will permit the benefits of policy changes to reach the intended beneficiaries with minimal leakage of resources.” On the decision to contest in the upcoming elections, he said, “Our first goal is to increase awareness in the people, and arouse them from their state of inaction by bringing to them the definite possibility of actual change. And what better way than taking a stand in the elections to let them know that we are determined to change the existing system?”
Lok Paritran will contest in the upcoming elections in Tamilnadu, Kerala and Pondicherry .
The Party's long term and short term action plans are :
Short Term Plans
To expand the membership base of “ Lok Paritran ” as a political party
To take people out of inaction due to complete loss of hope
Outline a concrete, detailed and pragmatic plan to make India a developed nation.
Making region specific plans depending on the local parameters.
Spreading the message of “ Lok Paritran ” at every level of society.
Preparing strategies for the elections.
Exploring the possibilities of establishing institutions for health, cultural, legal and social awareness as well as action.
To conduct “camps” and seminars for building a better understanding and cohesion in the people with the same goal.
Long Term Plans
To achieve the full potential of the country both at the individual and the collective level.
To exterminate corruption by whatever means necessary.
To overhaul the current education system that has lost its relevance in the changed social and economic conditions.
To reorient political organization making it more structured and dynamic.
To integrate technology in industry at both urban and rural levels.
To modernize India 's force structure and defense doctrine.
To adopt a practical foreign policy for India .
To establish India as a formidable economic and intellectual power in the world.

If you are interested in joining this party or any more news, visit : http://www.lokparitran.org/

http://www.lokparitran.youaremighty.com/

And it seems in chennai they are contesting this elections from
1. T Nagar2. Mylapore3. Park Town4. Thousand Lights5. Saidapet 6. Anna Nagar

The World is Flat---India Flattered

India Emerging As Engg hot Spot For Global Firms

Potential for outsourced services estimated around $10 b-12 b Among the global firms that have set up base here, UK's Rolls-Royce Group Plc has already established a wholly-owned subsidiary in the country to manage the growing volume of engineering work that it is sub-contracting to India. New Delhi , April 9 The growing shortage of core-sector engineers across the globe has international firms flocking to tap Indian civil and mechanical engineering skills. India, which had nearly four lakh engineers graduate in 2005 as against just 70,000 passing put in the US, is seeing jobs of transactional engineers coming in, especially in the core infrastructure sectors. While engineering work currently being executed by India-based vendors is estimated to be around $500 million, analysts estimate the market potential for outsourced engineering services is estimated to be around $10 billion-$12 billion. Overseas consultancy Besides the engineering outsourcing pioneers such as L&T, Thermax, Mahindra and Hero Global Design, firms such as NTPC Ltd and Power Grid Corporation India Ltd (PGCIL) are now betting big on overseas consultancy assignments. NTPC is offering training to power engineers of Aluminium Bahrain and technical personnel of Oman Refinery Company at its facilities here and has deputed shift engineers to power stations in Nigeria in lieu of sizeable consultancy charges. PGCIL is in the process of roping in retired engineers on a contractual basis to execute projects at home as it is putting several of its regular engineers on overseas consultancy assignments due to the huge demand for heavy engineering skills abroad. The India subsidiary of the US-based Quality Engineering and Software Technologies (QuEST), which employs around 700 engineers in Bangalore, is executing direct engineering work packages and sub-contracting projects from India for clients abroad, including several Fortune 500 firms. The company offers concept design to drafting and modelling, to analysis and product realisation solutions in sectors such as aerospace, automotive engineering, energy, industrial products and the petroleum domain. Among the global firms that have set up base here, UK's Rolls-Royce Group Plc has already established a wholly owned subsidiary in the country to manage the growing volume of engineering work that it is sub-contracting to India. Based in Bangalore, Rolls-Royce Operations India Pvt Ltd would tap domestic engineering analysis and design capability skills in developing aero-engineering solutions. Analysts predict that the country is also set to get a bigger piece of the auto offshoring business. According to an AT Kearney online survey of American Automotive Executives, India leads the outsourcing market when it comes to auto-outsourcing with 24 per cent of auto manufacturers giving it the thumbs-up for outsourcing, much higher than those favouring China, Mexico and the Philippines. Eicher Motors has also forayed into engineering services outsourcing with the acquisition of the US-based company Design Intent Engineering (DIE) and the company expects new business to contribute revenue to the tune of $100 million in the next four years.

US Immigration

Is America's melting pot set to boil? Congress is trying to pass the first major piece of immigration legislation in 20 years, but senators simply can't agree--even within political parties. The poem on the Statue of Liberty welcomes the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free," but a majority of Americans--52 percent--now call immigrants "a burden because they take jobs and housing."


Most--56 percent--came from Europe. But many came from the Americas and from Asia, too--about 28 and 14 percent. A few came from Africa and elsewhere. (The numbers don't include those who were forced to come as slaves from Africa, as Congress banned the importation of slaves in 1808.)
Almost half of the 70 million--49 percent--came from Germany, Mexico, Italy, Great Britain, Ireland, and Canada. They came in waves, with Irish men and women giving way to Germans, giving way to Italians, giving way again to Germans, and giving way, most recently, to Mexicans.
Polls say that today's 300 million Americans aren't sure what to think of immigrants anymore. Fully 40 percent think there should be fewer immigrants. Only 17 percent would welcome more. But at least 41 percent admire their pluck.
Opinions are even more divided on illegal immigration. About 27 percent of Americans want illegal immigrants deported. About 32 percent would let them stay--temporarily, as guest workers. Another 32 percent say let them stay and have a chance to become citizens.

Penal System in US

One would simply love to live in the US, if only for one reason: The ruthlessness with which the law enforcement machinery goes after the high and mighty — whether politicians or business tycoons — who fall foul of the law. President Nixon's once-powerful aides, including the Attorney-General himself, were tried for their part in the Watergate scandal and put behind bars to serve harsh sentences. Corporate bigwigs caught for violations of the law are similarly meted out stiff sentences after trials lasting six months or less. The two recent cases to hit the headlines concern the former Representative of the US Congress, Mr Randy Cunningham, and Washington's "super-lobbyist," Mr Jack Abramoff. Unlike India's politicians against whom cases drag on for years, and eventually fizzle out, Mr Cunningham straightaway admitted his guilt, and the trial was over in just two months. He has been sent to prison for eight years and four months (the longest awarded to any Congressman) for collecting $2.4 million as bribes; besides, the court has also confiscated $3.65 million and the proceeds from the sale of his mansion. He is the third Congressman in the recent past to go to prison for a long period.

Mr Abramoff was very close to the President and his top advisers for years and enjoyed enormous political clout. He too pleaded guilty to running an extensive network of fraud and corruption and has been sentenced, after a trial of barely a couple of months, to nearly six years. In all such cases, regardless of how big or powerful he may have been, the person sentenced is promptly handcuffed behind his back and marched off to prison and asked to change to prison uniform. No ducking the sentences by various legal ruses is allowed. Trials are over within a few months and sentences are invariably heavy, sometimes going up to 30 years or more. Prisons too are as prisons should be.

Will it not be lovely to have a similar penal system in operation in India as well?

My Experiments with Truth--Just Jolly

Searching Ms Right--You know what iam talking about
Bold text is mine.

HAI I AM BROAD & FREE MINDED, JOLLY TYPE GIRL,LOOKING SMART.
I AM SEARCHING FOR THE CHARMING,SMART,JOLLY TYPE,YOUNG HUS FOR MY PARADISE.
About My Family :
JOLLY TYPE BUT SRIKT IN NECCESSARY MATTER.FATHER IS SOMEOVER STRIKT MOTHER JOLLY AND CHANGED FOR US LIKE MOEDEN,FATHER IS STILL IN THE OLD,BROTHER STUDING IN THE COLLEGE,FIRST YEAR Bsc IT,HE IS FREE CHARACTER
A spell checker is definitely needed in every matrimony site.

One girl who is older to me ...
do you know iam younger to you?
hmm thats what i want to ask you. do you mind?
Yes I do mind.
Iam sorry to contact you though your age is avlbl in your profile.
desperate than me?
She is a computer science engr from a top university in chennai

Ours is a nuclear family.
Iam surprised how it doesn't come under UN Supervision.

Hello we are calling from california, we are bride's sister and BIL. We are looking only for 24 manai 8 house chettiar.
Sorry I have only 1 house and 2 manai kattai s in that house

Hi, Iam looking for compatibility match ie wavelength match than horoscope match
Iam chatting with you for the past 2 days...and i dont see it.
God, in jus 2 days after I acted like good n true, is this the answer?
Aaana kadaisiya onnu sonna...nee romba nallavan da.nu yu'll get a better girl...
Naanum manasukalaye ninaichikuten (yevalavu neram thaan nallavana nadikarathu nu )
Let the wave length match and resonance happen one day.

How do you want your life partner to be?
He should be a good friend to me.
So what will you do to your friends after marriage?

Do you like pets?
I said , No i dont !
Then iam sorry... (May be only one pet constraint at her home)

Shall i study in US after marriage?
Why did nt you study in US till now? What stopped you?
Ok. Will you allow me to work in US.
I can allow. but on H4 you cant work. you need a workpermit.
Oh is it?

Our girl is not that fair as you?
I was laughing. She was actually fair.

To a very pretty girl , I told
Iam not particular on looks ;)
She said that’s good. But ain't i look good ?

My parents are intercaste. Is that ok for you.
First you are of different caste, and i didnt mind this.
Why do i mind your parents?.

Sub-caste no bar.
Periya manasu may be they are searching for long.

Hey tell me abt yourself
Please read it in my profile and then we can discuss
I read it but i want to hear from you.
Ithu yenna virumandi kathaiya?

One girl read my profile
Spoke like a requirement gathering session.

A reply from a mail id which is not the girl's or the one who is contacting me
Are they loaning email id from anyone else?.

Lets chat and find about each other.
i dt understd tamil understd tat im really bad at tat
God who found this chat language? too cryptic,

Do you know tamil
Yes i do
Lets do voice chat
Nope. I cant talk with you in tamil till i get the comfort
Is tamil that tough?

Hi, i am happy to intimate that our horoscope are matching well (8/10). We are planning for further steps.
Oops. I didnt contact and asked them to check.

send me your photo. Only then i can contact your parents.
I am sorry, 1st u have to contact my parents to get my pic
Whats the difference?.

How ru doing?
Iam expecting a reply for my previous mail about your details
Reply:
hi,
I am fine here, how r u?
have a good day
hmm,
I didnt expect this reply anyway.

Hi
Iam attaching my pic.
Its a group photo taken in her workplace
Lot of beautiful chicks. I thought of asking who the girl next to her.

Hi shall i ask you a basic question? Why do you want to get married?
To be very frank, my parents told me that iam getting old
and hence should get married
What you would do if they haven't told like that
I would have been their child always
Well Iam not interested in child marriage

Later : Matrimony Id XXX profile has been hidden. You cannot send a reply.

One girl called me in the midnight 2.45 am
Hello do you know the time here in US EST
Yes i know. but i thought you would be awake.
Am i in production support? Ipovey thookathey kedukaranga pa…

A woman of age 35 divorced contacted me
I was quite into surprise.
No its not for me
It’s for my cousin who is a Tamil but living in Gujarat
Kootu muyarchi ithulayuma?

I AM AN EPICUREAN.I THINK THIS IS ENOUGH.IF INTERESTED FEEL FREE TO CONTACT
No way if they say explicitly

Hi It’ll take a long period for me to understand you.
Ok no problems. We can chat everyday through email
First day: hi what did you have for break fast and what for lunch?
Same question everyday...purinjikirangalama...

Hi, after marriage where are you gonna live
Hi I’ll marry and come back to US for 1 year
Will you leave me and go?
No i wont go without you.
Shall I study in US?
Yes if it works out
When are you planning to come back?
will be coming back to India after a year.
Oh if so will you leave me alone in US while I do my studies?
???

Dynamic personality -Possessing two and four wheeler License
So what I 'll have to buy both vehicles and keep it ready?

be open i love my parents,i like roaming,i like freak outs,i be modern
???

Guy should have clean habits.
Do they mean that I should wash hands before and after smoking or drinking?

am very strit of my life so am avert to my hsband also strit and enjoy our life.
wel fam but in all fam members r hard worker.
Should be from a beehive

I am a doctor in middle class family i want sutable to my professsion as well as myself
A doctor’s words

good (looking ,character), lovable, adjustable, no complex, no domination, sharing thoughts & ideas, should be diffrent from others. should be a graduate, salary about 10K-15K. we should be a idle couples
I can be idle all the time :)

What is this woman trying to do ?

In brief, the Government's plan is to build 30 large, 135 medium and 3000 small dams to harness the waters of the Narmada and its tributaries. The proponents of the dam claim that this plan would provide large amounts of water and electricity which are desperately required for the purposes of development.

Opponents of the dam question the basic assumptions of the Narmada Valley Development Plan and believe that its planning is unjust and inequitous and the cost-benefit analysis is grossly inflated in favour of building the dams. It is well established that the plans rest on untrue and unfounded assumptions of hydrology and seismicity of the area and the construction is causing large scale abuse of human rights and displacement of many poor and underprivileged communities. They also believe that water and energy can be provided to the people of the Narmada Valley, Gujarat and other regions through alternative technologies and planning processes which can be socially just and economically and environmentally sustainable.

Patkar, who has been on a hunger strike for the last six days, claims raising the height will render thousands homeless.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan is one of the longest non-violent movements in the country.

But the government prefers to negotiate with militant groups such as the ULFA and Naxals instead.

The NCA claims that relief and rehabilitation has been done satisfactorily while the activists' term it's a big lie.

The onus is now on the Centre to find out just what is the truth.

As per the law, the governments were required to ensure that every single affected family was resettled at least 6 months before submergence, offering cultivable land for land and resettling them in resettlement sites provided with all civic amenities. However, in clear and inhuman violence of this it has not resettled atleast 35,000 families.

Rehabilitation has been reduced to a paper exercise in the process. This decision, made possible by the political nexus between Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh governments, will not only murder the lives and futures of affected people but will also submerge a culture, a heritage, a civilization that is centuries old.

The cruelty with which the natural resources including land, water, minerals, of adivasis and farmers are being snatched away by governments, using brutal force in most instances, in violation of Constitutionally guaranteed rights needs to be stopped immediately.

In the last 20 years, NBA has seen a great game unfolding in the Narmada Valley, which involves a mockery of figures. With this project of 50,000 crore rupees, the generations-old villages are being taken away from us by using water as a weapon.

This development that is based on capital investments from large Multi National Corporations, is leading to the massacre of our workers. Even the public sector is going in the same perverted direction. The principles of the capital market and political contractors are pushing this process forward. Sardar Sarovar Project best epitomizes this.

Governments hope that the resilient sathyagrahis of the Narmada valley, the adivasis and farmers, will be destroyed by their submergence.

This struggle is not just for the Narmada. It is for every valley,
every village, every community under threat. And is the voice against
the snatching away of sustenance and livelihood.

- NBA's pledge is that, while stopping the Sardar Sarovar project,
any form of forced displacement without consent and participation is
unacceptable.
- It is pained and ashamed by the use of force and arms to displace
people
- It wants that the planning of development projects must be in the
public interest and within the democratic framework and through
scientific processes
- It believes that where a dispute has been raised by people, it
should be resolved through dialogue and consent, and not through
monetary inducements and threats of violence
- The development planning must start in the gram sabha at the
village
level, and the basti sabhas at the city level
- The Government of India should change the colonial Land Acquisition
Acts and changes in the National Resettlement Policy must be
introduced
- NBA has appealed to the peoples movements from every corner of this
Country, raising such questions to come here, join this struggle and
seek answers to the fundamental questions we all pose together.

God's Own Country ---Kerala (Kumarakom)

These pictures were taken by my friends when we went to kumarakom way back in 2004

AGCD: America Gone Confused Desi- Back in India

Scare relatives by giving them frenzied electronic items like Electric Razor, Robot vacuum machine and scare the hell out of them explaining how it works.

Prefer tin coke instead of soda bottle coke and think tin coke is cool when you pay more for less quantity.

Call a friend and ask for appointment/expect the appointments for a casual visit.

Complain about not having lanes in road system to friend as if driven in laned roads.

Listen acknowledging with huhumm, hahhan instead of our traditional hmmm.

Carry a laptop to office without any use of it.

Have a flip type mobile with ringer tone of some unknown english song.

Stop and Wait for pedestrians to cross while driving car even in small Indian roads listening to the honks behind.

Donate at least 10 rs to a beggar.

Always say yup or yep instead of yes.

Cry wazzup buddy / baby when meeting friends.

Wear a thick half trouser tucking in T-shirt (with a small tummy) even
when going to meet relatives.

Play/watch tennis, basket ball, baseball, F1 race.

Always take cold coffee...buy Tropicana.

Say thank you to servant maid even for any small help.

Try saying Soccer when football (deep down the heart it is still football).

Tries to look out for Clorex in super market.

Just for the sake of it try entering car in right hand side and say "ooooh ..." as if u right from birth driven car in right hand side.

Tries to use credit card in road side hotel.

Drinks and carries mineral water and always speak of health conscious.

Sprays deo such so that he doesn't need to take bath.

Sneezes and says 'Excuse me' Says 'Bless you' when someone does.

Says "Hey" instead of "Hi"
Says "Yogurt" instead of saying "Curd"
Says "Cab" instead of "Taxi"
Says "Candy" instead of "Chocolate"
Says "Cookie" instead of "Biscuit"
Says "Free Way" instead of "Highway"
Says "got to go" instead of "Have to go"
Says "Oh" instead of "Zero", (for 704, says Seven Oh Four Instead of Seven Zero Four

Doesn't forget to crib about air pollution: Keeps cribbing every time he steps out.

Says all the distances in Miles (Not in Kilo Meters) and counts in Millions(Not in Lakhs)

Tries to figure all the prices in Dollars as far as possible
(but deep down the heart multiplies by 43 times).

Tries to see the % of fat on the cover of a milk pocket.

When need to say Z (zed, never says Z (Zed, repeats "Zee"
several times, if the other person unable to get, then says X, Y Zee(but never says Zed)

Writes date as MM/DD/YYYY, on watching traditional DD/MM/YYYY, says "Oh! British Style!!!!"

Makes fun of Indian Standard Time and Indian Road Conditions.

Even after 2 months, complaints about "Jet Lag".

Avoids eating more chili (hot stuff).

Tries to drink "Diet Coke", instead of Normal Coke.

Tries to complain about any thing in India as if he is experiencing it for the first time.

Pronounces "schedule" as "skejule", and "module" as "Mojule".

Looks speciously towards Hotel/Dhaba food.

From the luggage bag, does not remove the stickers of Airways by which he traveled back to India, even after 4 months of arrival.

Takes the cabin luggage bag to short visits in India, tries to roll the bag on Indian Roads and Railway platforms.

Ultimate one

Tries to begin conversation with "In US ...:" or "When I was in US..."

If you are an American....

You know how baseball, basketball, and American football are played. If you're male, you can argue intricate points about their rules.

You count yourself fortunate if you get three weeks of vacation a year.

If you died tonight... You're fairly likely to believe in God; if not, you've certainly been approached by people asking whether you know that you're going to Heaven.

You think of McDonald's, Burger King, KFC etc. as cheap food.

You probably own a telephone and a TV. Your place is heated in the winter and has its own bathroom. You do your laundry in a machine. You don't kill your own food.

You don't have a dirt floor. You eat at a table, sitting on chairs.

You don't consider insects, dogs, cats, monkeys, or guinea pigs to be food.

It seems natural to you that the telephone system, railroads, auto manufacturers, airlines, and power companies are privately run; indeed, you can hardly picture things working differently.

The train system, by contrast, isn't very good. Trains don't go any faster than cars; you're better off taking a plane.

You don't expect to hear socialism seriously defended.
Between "black" and "white" there are no other races. Someone with one black and one white parent looks black to you.

You think most problems could be solved if only people would put aside their prejudices and work together.

You take a strong court system for granted, even if you don't use it. You know that if you went into business and had problems with a customer, partner, or supplier, you could take them to court.

You'd respect someone who speaks French, German, or Japanese-- but you very likely don't yourself speak them well enough to communicate with a monolingual foreigner. You're a bit more ambivalent about Spanish; you think the schools should teach kids English.

It's not all that necessary to learn foreign languages anyway. You can travel the continent using nothing but English-- and get by pretty well in the rest of the world, too.

You think a tax level of 30% is scandalously high.

School is free through high school (at least, it's an option, even if you went to private school); college isn't, unless you get a scholarship.
College is (normally, and excluding graduate study) four years long.

Everybody knows that

Mustard comes in jars. Shaving cream comes in cans. Milk comes in plastic jugs or cardboard boxes, and occasionally in bottles.

The date comes second: 11/22/06. (And you know what happened on that date.)
The decimal point is a dot. Certainly not a comma.

A billion is a thousand times a million.

World War II was a just war, and (granted all the suffering of course) ended all right. It was a time when the country came together and did what was right. And instead of insisting on vengeance, the US very generously rebuilt Europe instead, with the Marshall Plan.

You expect marriages to be made for love, not arranged by third parties. Getting married by a judge is an option, but not a requirement; most marriages happen in church. You have a best man and a maid or matron of honor at the wedding-- a friend or a sibling. And, naturally, a man gets only one wife at a time.

Once you're introduced to someone (well, besides the President and other lofty figures), you can call them by their first name.

You'd rather a film be subtitled than dubbed (if you go to foreign films at all).
You seriously expect to be able to transact business, or deal with the government, without paying bribes.

If a politican has been cheating on his wife, you would question his ability to govern.

Just about any store will take your credit card.

A company can fire just about anybody it wants, unless it discriminates by doing so.

You like your bacon crisp (unless it's Canadian bacon, of course).

You talk more about cookies than eating them.

Contributions to world civilization

You've probably seen Star Wars, ET, Home Alone, Casablanca, and Snow White. If you're under forty, add Blazing Saddles, Terminator, Jaws, and 2001; otherwise, add Gone with the Wind, A Night at the Opera, Psycho, and Citizen Kane.

You count on excellent medical treatment. You know you're not going to die of cholera or other Third World diseases. You expect very strong measures to be taken to save very ill babies or people in their eighties. You think dying at 65 would be a tragedy.

You went over US history, and some European, in school, Not much Russian, Chinese, or Latin American. You couldn't name ten US interventions in Latin America.
You expect the military to fight wars, not get involved in politics. You may not be able to name the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Your country has never been conquered by a foreign nation.

You're used to a wide variety of choices for almost anything you buy.

You consider your car as your wife and wife as car. you wont allow anyone to drive your own car...not even touch it.

You still measure things in feet, pounds, and gallons.

You are not a farmer.

The people who appear on the most popular talk shows are mostly entertainers, politicians, or rather strange individuals. Certainly not, say, authors.

You drive on the right side of the road. You stop at red lights even if nobody's around. If you're a pedestrian and cars are stopped at a red light, you will fearlessly cross the street in front of them. You never honk unless someone makes a shit.

You consider the Volkswagen Beetle to be a small car.

The police are armed, but not with submachine guns.

The biggest meal of the day is in the evening.

There's parts of the city you definitely want to avoid at night.

You feel that your kind of people aren't being listened to enough in Washington.
You wouldn't expect both inflation and unemployment to be very high (say, over 15%) at the same time.

The normal thing, when a couple dies, is for their estate to be divided equally between their children.

You think of opera and ballet as rather elite entertainments. It's likely you don't see that many plays, either.

Christmas is in the winter. Unless you're Jewish, you spend it with your family, give presents, and put up a tree.

You may think the church is too powerful, or the state is; but you are used to not having a state church and don't think that it would be a good idea.

You'd be hard pressed to name the capitals or the leaders of all the nations of Europe.

You've left a message at the beep.

Taxis are generally operated by foreigners, who are often deplorably ignorant about the city.

You are distrustful of welfare and unemployment payments-- you think people should earn a living and not take handouts. But you would not be in favor of eliminating Social Security and Medicare.

If you want to be a doctor, you need to get a bachelor's first.

Space and time
If you have an appointment, you'll mutter an excuse if you're five minutes late, and apologize profusely if it's ten minutes. An hour late is almost inexcusable.

If you're talking to someone, you get uncomfortable if they approach closer than about two feet.

About the only things you expect to bargain for are houses, cars, and antiques.

Once you're past college, you very rarely simply show up at someone's place. People have to invite each other over-- especially if a meal is involved.

When you negotiate, you are polite, of course, but it's only good business to 'play hardball'.

If you have a business appointment or interview with someone, you expect to have that person to yourself, and the business shouldn't take more than an hour or so.