, January 18, 2007 at 9:09 PM PST
During the 1965 war, it was in dry dock, and could not be used. During 1971, there was a crack in a boiler, because of which they could not fire the steam catapult needed to send out the aircraft.
Three months before the war, Naval Headquarters decided it was not operable at all. The aircraft were moved ashore. If the aircraft could not be catapulted out, it would fall into the sea, and kill everybody.
I said 'What's the bloody point of having an aircraft carrier if it cannot be used during a war?'
So I decided to take a risk. I ordered a steel band to be put around the boiler which had a crack. Then I said we need to get to a place where we have strong winds, and check out whether the aircraft falls into the sea or not.
We waited till the wind was strong enough. The aircraft was finally ordered to take off. And it was a success. We did that three or four times.
But there was still aversion. Somebody said 'Sir, there are people in the boiler room, and if it blows up it will kill all of them.'
So I said how does the boiler work? It works on oil. How does it come into the boiler? There is a pipe which brings it in. Who controls the valve of that pipe? The tanks are down below, but the valve is on the upper deck.
I said vacate the boiler room. Have someone man the valves. So if the boiler blows up or catches fire, it will damage the boiler room, but not the men. So that was done.
We have to take the risk. We discussed all possible scenarios. We were operational.
Ref: http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jan/18inter.htm
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Useless to usefull aircraft carrierThursday, January 18, 2007 at 9:09 PM PST
During the 1965 war, it was in dry dock, and could not be used. During 1971, there was a crack in a boiler, because of which they could not fire the steam catapult needed to send out the aircraft.
Three months before the war, Naval Headquarters decided it was not operable at all. The aircraft were moved ashore. If the aircraft could not be catapulted out, it would fall into the sea, and kill everybody.
I said 'What's the bloody point of having an aircraft carrier if it cannot be used during a war?'
So I decided to take a risk. I ordered a steel band to be put around the boiler which had a crack. Then I said we need to get to a place where we have strong winds, and check out whether the aircraft falls into the sea or not.
We waited till the wind was strong enough. The aircraft was finally ordered to take off. And it was a success. We did that three or four times.
But there was still aversion. Somebody said 'Sir, there are people in the boiler room, and if it blows up it will kill all of them.'
So I said how does the boiler work? It works on oil. How does it come into the boiler? There is a pipe which brings it in. Who controls the valve of that pipe? The tanks are down below, but the valve is on the upper deck.
I said vacate the boiler room. Have someone man the valves. So if the boiler blows up or catches fire, it will damage the boiler room, but not the men. So that was done.
We have to take the risk. We discussed all possible scenarios. We were operational.
Ref: http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jan/18inter.htm
Monday, September 10, 2007
Hearing impairment
The Indian youth is fast becoming hearing impaired, thanks to the increasing use of electronic gadgets leader like the "hands free" earphones.
Hearing impairment extracts a heavy social and emotional toll. It is known to cause fatigue, tension, stress and depression; and leads to withdrawal from social situations, which cause rejection and loneliness. It reduces alertness and increases risk to personal safety, impairs memory and the ability to learn new tasks, reduces job performance and earning power and impacts negatively on overall health.
Said leading audiologist Dr R. Oza, honourary audiologist and head of the department at Mumbai’s Nanavati Hospital, "Since as much as 20 per cent of hearing disability is caused at birth or immediately thereafter, it is essential that parents be aware of the early signs of a hearing problem. Early detection and treatment can help the child lead as normal a life as possible." Paediatricians can help detect many early warning signs. Strides in technology have meant that hearing impaired children can be helped to enjoy as normal a life as possible. The US-headquartered global hearing solutions company Starkey was launched in India by commencing a programme to raise awareness of the causes, challenges, problems and solutions for the hearing impaired in India. One of the key objectives is to focus on hearing impaired children, one of the most vulnerable segments along with the aged.
"Inclusion of the hearing impaired is very important to Starkey and is the focus of our technology. Customised nanotechnology-based hearing solutions and handling the ‘given up all hope cases’ across the globe are prime motivators for Starkey Labs," said Dr Girija Sunder of Starkey. Only 16 per cent of physicians routinely screen for hearing loss during a physical checkup. So, a majority of hearing loss among adults remains undetected. Hearing loss and listening needs differ from person to person. The audiologist helps patients determine how much a hearing aid can improve hearing. There are several styles of "state-of-the-art" hearing aids.
Mr Prashant Kamble audiologist at Wockhardt Hospital cautioned, "Today’s plugged-in lifestyle has its own downside in terms of increasing hearing impairment. Listening to iPods, playing video games and exposure to loud music in discos are common to urban youth. They don’t realise the significant impact it can have on their hearing. They need to turn down the volume if they want to continue to enjoy the music."
http://deccan.com/Health/Health.asp?#Hearing%20impairment%20causes%20fatigue
Hearing impairment extracts a heavy social and emotional toll. It is known to cause fatigue, tension, stress and depression; and leads to withdrawal from social situations, which cause rejection and loneliness. It reduces alertness and increases risk to personal safety, impairs memory and the ability to learn new tasks, reduces job performance and earning power and impacts negatively on overall health.
Said leading audiologist Dr R. Oza, honourary audiologist and head of the department at Mumbai’s Nanavati Hospital, "Since as much as 20 per cent of hearing disability is caused at birth or immediately thereafter, it is essential that parents be aware of the early signs of a hearing problem. Early detection and treatment can help the child lead as normal a life as possible." Paediatricians can help detect many early warning signs. Strides in technology have meant that hearing impaired children can be helped to enjoy as normal a life as possible. The US-headquartered global hearing solutions company Starkey was launched in India by commencing a programme to raise awareness of the causes, challenges, problems and solutions for the hearing impaired in India. One of the key objectives is to focus on hearing impaired children, one of the most vulnerable segments along with the aged.
"Inclusion of the hearing impaired is very important to Starkey and is the focus of our technology. Customised nanotechnology-based hearing solutions and handling the ‘given up all hope cases’ across the globe are prime motivators for Starkey Labs," said Dr Girija Sunder of Starkey. Only 16 per cent of physicians routinely screen for hearing loss during a physical checkup. So, a majority of hearing loss among adults remains undetected. Hearing loss and listening needs differ from person to person. The audiologist helps patients determine how much a hearing aid can improve hearing. There are several styles of "state-of-the-art" hearing aids.
Mr Prashant Kamble audiologist at Wockhardt Hospital cautioned, "Today’s plugged-in lifestyle has its own downside in terms of increasing hearing impairment. Listening to iPods, playing video games and exposure to loud music in discos are common to urban youth. They don’t realise the significant impact it can have on their hearing. They need to turn down the volume if they want to continue to enjoy the music."
http://deccan.com/Health/Health.asp?#Hearing%20impairment%20causes%20fatigue
http://icantsayno.blogsource.com/
The world will change beyond our capacity to recognize it. Islam might defeat the western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East. that Christianity will have become a Sino-centric.
Years ago I speculated that if Mecca ever is razed, it will be by an African army marching north; now the greatest danger to Islam is the prospect of a Chinese army marching west.
Ten thousand Chinese become Christians each day, according to a stunning report by the National Catholic Reporter's veteran correspondent John Allen,
200 million Chinese may comprise the world's largest concentration of Christians by mid-century, and the largest missionary force in history.
China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelization.
Chinese Christians at 111 million, of whom 90% are Protestant, mostly Pentecostals.
China's network of house churches may turn out to be the leaven of democracy, like the radical Puritans of England who became the Congregationalists of New England. Freedom of worship is the first precondition for democracy, for it makes possible freedom of conscience. The fearless evangelists at the grassroots of China will, in the fullness of time, do more to bring US-style democracy to the world than all the nation-building bluster of President George W Bush and his advisers.
ref : http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IH07Ad03.html
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PENTAGON'S MISSING HARDWARE
Monday, August 06, 2007 at 9:03 PM PDT
PENTAGON'S MISSING HARDWARE
AK-47 rifles: 110,000
Pistols: 80,000
Body armour pieces: 135,000
Helmets: 115,000
ref : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6933569.stm
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Centre for advanced operational culturae training
Monday, August 06, 2007 at 9:02 PM PDT
The Centre for Advanced Operational Culture Training is the new military body specialised in "improving marines' cultural skills and foreign language abilities".
The US military has built two "Iraqi towns" in a California desert as part of training to troops. During the six- to eight-week course, the marines learn about 200 care fully choosen basic words in Arabic - enough to allow them to deal with local people on the ground in Iraq.
The training for US troops for Iraq is not taking place in Iraq but rather in Wadi Sahara and Khalidiya, two fictional Iraqi towns built in the middle of the Mojave desert, in California, as part of a $23m project.
The city has its own mayor and a vision for him . "No matter where we are, in Wadi Sahara or in Khalidiya, we are working as one for the good of this city, and as long as we are one, we will get the best results, Insha'allah," says the "mayor" of Wadi Sahara, addressing the marines.
Pentagon has, according to the GAO report, asked for another $2bn for new equipment for those forces.
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Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 9:05 PM PDT
Buddhist nuns perform a rarely performed religious dance called Nga Chham outside the Naro Photang Puspahari temple in Shey, near Leh. Monks and nuns from monasteries across the Himalayas have gathered in Ladakh to celebrate 800 years of Drukpa, or 'dragon' sect of Tibetan Buddhism.
Dramitse Nga Chham is performed by sixteen dancers, wach wearing a mask representing an animal or a bird. The dancers have a Nga (drum) in their left hand and a drum stick in their right hand.
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The real winner is New 7 Wonders
Monday, July 09, 2007 at 3:04 AM PDT
The real winner of the campaign arguably is New 7 Wonders, a not-for-profit organisation started in 2000 by Swiss author-filmmaker Bernerd Weber.
Besides the massive publicity it generated,
this organisation is expected to net millions of dollars through SMSes and phone calls as well as sale of merchandise.
it has been selling T-shirts for as high as $22.99 while coffee cups have been priced at about $12.99 each.
HUL was the only sponsor that extended support with its Fair & Lovely campaign.
that telecom operators kept 75% of the revenues for themselves.
Industry estimates suggest that I Media spent about Rs 70 crore on the campaign.
Industry sources estimate that about 12 million SMS votes
18 million internet votes were cast by Indians.
Vodafone Essar, for example, sent out SMSes to over 6 million of its 30 million customers, and customers were charged Rs 3 per SMS
Bharti Airtel offered its 40-plus million subscribers one free SMS but subsequent SMSes were charged at Rs 3 per message.
Of the SMS value generated, 15% is being given to the government, with telecom operators retaining 75%. The remaining 10% is being shared between I Media and New 7 Wonders.
Travel companies, meanwhile, are sceptical about the campaign’s rub-off, pointing out that the overall tourist experience of Agra and the Taj needs to improve first.
Among the brands that cashed in on the campaign were Radio Mirchi, Bharti Airtel, Zee News, Fair and Lovely, Travel Port Holidays and Club Mahindra.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2187189.cms
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Milking phoney patriotism
Sunday, July 08, 2007 at 9:45 PM PDT
The brainchild of Bernard Weber, a Swiss businessman who has also dabbled in films, the campaign was orchestrated by his for-profit corporation called New Open World Corporation (NOWC). Weber roped in Federico Mayor, a former UNESCO director-general, to be part of this project, but UNESCO itself was not involved. Needless to say, this campaign has miffed experts who question the integrity of a private body that will declare a new set of seven wonders.
History gives sanctity to only one list of Seven Wonders, the one that was compiled by Greek mathematician Philon of Byzantium in 200 BC.
The money-spinner for the campaign was mobile phone voting. In India, the voting rights belonged to a private company called I Media Corporation Limited (IMCL). It controls the number 4567 you sent your SMS votes to.
For every rupee spent on sending the SMS,
15 paise went directly to the government in the form of a wireless planning coordination fee.
Sixty-four paise went to the cellphone operator you used to vote.
The bulk of the remaining rupee was divided in equal halves between a company called IMI which collected all the votes in an electronic vault-like space and media partners like IMCL.
Weber made two to three paise for every rupee that was spent on the voting.
A remarkable aspect of this poll was that nothing stopped a person from voting many times.
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Encroachment of airport lands
Sunday, June 10, 2007 at 9:46 PM PDT
Ref: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/City_not_alone_in_airport_land_problem/articleshow/2113221.cmsIllegal occupants control 788 acres—20 times the size of Nariman Point—in the high-security area near runways.
Mumbai airport tops the list prepared by the Airports Authority of India with 247 acres (this, however, may not be the accurate figure as the airport no longer belongs to AAI) in the control of encroachers,
Satna in Madhya Pradesh with 150 acres,
Hyderabad with 97 acres,
Amritsar with 83 acres
Kolkata with 75.7 acres.
Mumbai and Delhi mostly have slum-dwellers sitting on airport land, but in other cities, especially the non-metro ones, encroachments usually mean small establishments, hotels, shops and even companies providing support to airlines.
The commencement of flights to towns like Rajamundhry, for instance, has led to encroachments as service-providers usurp the land with a little help from the local authorities,’’ said an AAI official.
While encroachment is not a major security hazard at the Gaya, Ahmedabad and Rajkot airports, it still is a cause for concern for the authorities.
“Standard operating procedures safeguard the flight path of aircraft—both landing and taking off—at all these airports. However, there is a degree of operational risk on the runways as the movement of dogs, cattle and birds increases with encroachments,’’
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I
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at 9:18 PM PDT
Intimate, Playboy
we don't have intresting discussion.
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Electicity crisis in New India
Sunday, May 20, 2007 at 9:14 PM PDT
Indians are, for now, relatively conservative consumers of energy: about 600 units per capita per year, or one-fifth that of a typical American. But that will certainly increase as Indian desires reach those of the wealthy Western countries
India has stepped up generation in recent years at the pace of about 6 percent a year. It is a pittance compared with what neighboring China adds on each year and in any case insufficient to keep up with India’s galloping demand.
The development of power plants, meanwhile, is constrained by a lack of access to land, fuel and water, all of which a power plant needs in large quantities. The power grid remains weak
The World Bank estimates that at least $4 billion in electricity is unaccounted for each year — that is to say, stolen. Transparency International estimated in 2005 that Indians paid $480 million in bribes to put in new connections or correct bills.
The country’s energy needs are one of the government’s main arguments for a nuclear deal with the United States, which would allow India to buy reactors and fuel from the world market.
Tata Consultancy Services, a technology company, maintains five giant generators, along with a nearly 5,300-gallon tank of diesel fuel underground, as if it were a gasoline station.
The reserve fuel can power the lights, computers and air-conditioners for up to 15 days to keep Tata’s six-story building humming during these hot, dry summer months, when temperatures routinely soar above 100 degrees and power cuts can average eight hours a day.Behind the building, three generators purred as a sweltering evening descended. A 2004 World Bank survey found that 60 percent of companies in India have such facilities.
City’s Metropolitan Mall burns an average of 1,600 gallons of diesel a day to run its generators during power cuts.
ref:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/world/asia/21india.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
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Sunday, April 29, 2007 at 11:40 PM PDT
Membership of a minority religion is no bar to advancement in business or the professions.
The richest industrialist in India is a Muslim.
Some of the most popular film stars are Muslim.
Three Presidents and two Chief Justices have been Muslim.
At the time of writing, the President of India is a Muslim, the Prime Minister a Sikh, and the leader of the ruling party a Catholic born in Italy.
Many of the country's most prominent lawyers and doctors have been Christians and Parsis.
Very few Indian Muslims have joined terrorist or fundamentalist organisations.
Even more than their compatriots, Indian Muslims feel that their opinion and vote matters. One recent survey found that while 69 per cent of all Indians approve and endorse the ideal of democracy, 72 per cent of Muslims did so. And the turnout of Muslims at elections is higher than ever before.
On the other hand, there have been periodic episodes of religious rioting, in the worst of which (as in Delhi in 1984 and Gujarat in 2002) the minorities have suffered grievous losses of life and property. Still, for the most part, the minorities appear to retain faith in the democratic and secular ideal.
As long as Pakistan exists there will be Hindu fundamentalists in India. In times of stability, or when the political leadership is firm, they will be marginal or on the defensive. In times of change, or when the political leadership is irresolute, Hindu funcamentals will be influential and assertive.
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Behind every successful nationalist movement
Sunday, April 29, 2007 at 11:32 PM PDT
Behind every successful nationalist movement in the Western world has been a certain unifying factor, a glue holding the members of the nation together, this provided by a shared language, a shared religious faith, a shared territory, a common enemy—and sometimes all of the above.
The British nation brought together those who huddled together on a cold island, who were mostly Protestant, and who detested France.
The France, it was language which powerfully combined with religion.
The Americans, a shared language and mostly shared faith worked in tandem with animosity towards the colonists.
As for the smaller East European nations—the Poles, the Czechs, the Lithuanians, etc—their populations have been united by a common language, a mostly common faith, and a shared and very bitter history of domination by German and Russian oppressors.
By contrast with these (and other examples), the Indian nation does not privilege a single language or religious faith. Although the majority of its citizens are Hindus, India is not a 'Hindu' nation. Its Constitution does not discriminate between people on the basis of faith; nor, more crucially, did the nationalist movement that lay behind it. Gandhi's political programme was built upon harmony and cooperation between India's two major religious communities, Hindus and Muslims. Although, in the end, his work and example were unsuccessful in stopping the division of India, the failure made his successors even more determined to construct independent India as a secular republic. For Jawaharlal Nehru and his colleagues, if India was anything at all, it was not a 'Hindu Pakistan'.
Reference:
http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070507&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1&pn=3
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The big fat Bollywood wedding on April 20.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 10:12 PM PDT
All four Bachchan bungalows situated within a few kilometres in Juhu have been decked up
The four houses - 'Janak', 'Jalsa', 'Prateeksha' and 'Ammu' — . Although Amitabh Bachchan has termed it a small and private affair, all the rituals leading up to a Hindu wedding are taking place at Bachchan's residence at Jalsa.
According to a source close to the family,"Each one of them will be doing a different song and all of them have been rehearsing for the same every night for the last ten days. The performers include Rohan Sippy, Apoorva Lakhia, Chirag Doshi, Sanjay Dutt, and Sikander Kher."
The Sangeet ceremony on April 18. The function will begin at about 7.30 pm at Jalsa and will go on till the wee hours of April 19. It is expected to be nothing short of a sangeet ceremony out of a Yash Chopra film.
Both bride and bridegroom will be performing film songs like Kajra Re from Bunty Aur Babli and Balle Balle from Bride And Prejudice for which the couple has been rehearsing every day. But one of Bollywood's best dancers Hrithik Roshan, who starred with the duo in Dhoom 2, has not been invited. Neither has his family.
Contrary to media reports, Hrithik who stays about 10 metres away from Prateeksha will not be there. Rakesh Roshan, father of Hrithik Roshan, said,"The reports about Hrithik performing at the function are not true. We are not invited but we wish them a happy married life."
The guestlist, however, does include Yash Chopra and family, Karan Johar, Hiroo Johar, Anupam Kher, Kiron Kher, Sikander Kher, Apoorva Lakhia, Chirag Doshi, Preity Zinta, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Romesh Sharma, Danny Denzongpa, Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty, and Ram Gopal Verma to name a few.
Those left out are Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Soma Sekhar, Saif Ali Khan, Rekha and Rani Mukherjee.
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The star wedding invitees
Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 9:57 PM PDT
The star wedding
The groom himself arrived at around 9.30 pm with sister Shweta Nanda and her daughter Navya in a white limousine.
Celebrations have already begun with the bachelor's party on Tuesday apparently hosted by Sikander Kher, actor and childhood friend of Abhishek. Abhishek's friends will be performing special dance numbers at the party.
The list of invitees for the Abhiash wedding remains very exclusive but also includes many who have stood by the Bachchans through thick and thin.
Dilip, a childhood friend of Abhishek's who had arrived from Hong Kong for the star wedding of the year.
There are valets and staff members
Abhishek's choices, besides his schoolmates and buddies, Ajay Devgan and Kajol, Suniel Shetty and wife Mana, Sanjay Dutt and his partner Manyata.
Ash has invited film-maker Rituparna Ghosh, Tendulkar, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and ad man Prahlad Kakkar.
Jaya Bachchan wanted actor Dimple Kapadia and her younger daughter Rinki Khanna to be present.
Abhishek's Sister Jaya is godmother to Rinki, a close friend of Sweta Nanda, Abhishek's sister. Her better known sibling, Twinkle, and spouse Akshay Kumar have, however, not made it. Jaya Prada, former star
While virtually the entire Kapoor khandaan has made it to the guest list— apart from their standing in Bollywood, they are also samdhis via the Nanda parivar —there are three notable omissions, Karisma, Kareena and mom Babita, given the bad blood that was spilt between this lot and the Bachchans over Abhishek's failed relationship with Karisma.
The Big B has made sure that some of his close Bollywood friends are invited— yesteryear screen villian Danny and his wife Gaba, actors Kiron and Anupam Kher, film-maker Karan Johar and his mother Hiru Johar (who is also Jaya’s friend), blockbuster wizard Yash Chopra and sons Uday and Aditya and ace director Ram Gopal Varma.
Apart from Shiv Sena boss Thackeray and Mulayam, there will be no other politician at the do.
Among industrialists, Anil Ambani, wife Tina and mother Kokilaben will be present. (With Amar Singh being the host along with the Bachchans, brother Mukesh could not have expected an invite.) Subroto Roy of the Sahara Parivar, with wife, two sons and their wives will be there.
The Nandas of Escorts have been invited because they are related by marriage, Flex Industries' Ashok Chaturvedi and wife Rashmi as well as Himachal Futuristics' Vinay Mallu and his wife Vinita are there because of the Amar Singh connection.
Among the non-glam set to have been invited are Shobana Golikar, a former Indian Airlines staffer, her son Vinay, and the late comedian Mahmood's younger brother Anwar, who had helped Amitabh when the star was struggling to get a foothold in Mumbai.
Shammi Rabadi, former wife of film-maker Sultan Ahmed, who is better known as Asha Parekh's close friend. The Bachchans invited her because she has been close to them much before the family achieved their standing in Bollywood.
Make-up maestro Deepak Sawant and Pravin Jain, Amitabh Bachchan's personal valet for several years, along with domestic help, some of whom have been with the family since Abhishek was a toddler, have also been invited.
A family friend said Amitabh, who had grown up watching his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan offering the first ceremonial tilak to the family sweeper every Diwali, has gone largely by all those who have been with the family through thick and thin.
Amitabh, Jaya, Abhishek and Aishwarya, all have their special invitees at the wedding, celebrations for which began with the Bachchan and Rai clans dancing vigorously at Wednesday's sangeet .
K M Birla, Narayan Murthy, Azim Premji, Anil and Tina Ambani, Mulayam Singh and his son Akhilesh are also expected. Last but not least Rai family (Krishnaraj and Vrinda).
Several prominent personalities from the world of films, politics and business attended the sangeet ceremony.
The guests included Ajay Devgan, Kajol, Karan Johar, Ram Gopal Varma, singers Amaan and Ayaan Ali, Amar Singh, Sahara head honcho Subrata Roy and Anil Ambani.
The Kapoor family members, including Krishna Raj Kapoor, her sons Rishi, Rajiv as well as Rishi's actor-wife Neetu were also present. Actors Sanjay Dutt and Suniel Shetty were seen arriving together.
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Desire that makes the world go round.
Monday, April 09, 2007 at 9:55 PM PDT
The basis of sexuality and desire has been the discovery that genes may have a direct effect on the sexual differentiation of the brain. That steroid hormones like testosterone and estrogen did all the heavy lifting of shaping the male and female brains. brain role is quite different from its testosterone-related activities, and women’s neurons presumably perform that role by other means.
It so happens that an unusually large number of brain-related genes are situated on the X chromosome. The sudden emergence of the X and Y chromosomes in brain function has caught the attention of evolutionary biologists. Since men have only one X chromosome, natural selection can speedily promote any advantageous mutation that arises in one of the X’s genes. So if those picky women should be looking for smartness in prospective male partners, that might explain why so many brain-related genes ended up on the X.
“It’s popular among male academics to say that females preferred smarter guys,” Arnold said. “Such genes will be quickly selected in males because new beneficial mutations will be quickly apparent.”
Women’s care in selecting mates, combined with the fast selection made possible by men’s lack of backup copies of X-related genes, may have driven the divergence between male and female brains.
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Source
Monday, April 09, 2007 at 9:50 PM PDT
Sexual orientation, at least for men, seems to be settled before birth. “I think most of the scientists working on these questions are convinced that the antecedents of sexual orientation in males are happening early in life, probably before birth,” Dr. Breedlove said, “whereas for females, some are probably born to become gay, but clearly some get there quite late in life.”
Sexual behavior includes a lot more than sex,three primary brain systems have evolved to direct reproductive behavior.
One is the sex drive that motivates people to seek partners.
A second is a program for romantic attraction that makes people fixate on specific partners.
Third is a mechanism for long-term attachment that induces people to stay together long enough to complete their parental duties.
Romantic love, which in its intense early stage “can last 12-18 months,” is a universal human phenomenon, and is likely to be a built-in feature of the brain. Brain imaging studies show that a particular area of the brain, one associated with the reward system, is activated when subjects contemplate a photo of their lover.
The best evidence for a long-term attachment process in mammals comes from studies of voles, a small mouselike rodent. Since gay men have about one-fifth as many children as straight men, any gene favoring homosexuality should quickly disappear from the population.
Such genes could be retained if gay men were unusually effective protectors of their nephews and nieces, helping genes just like theirs get into future generations. But gay men make no better uncles than straight men. gay men have more relatives than straight men, particularly on their mother’s side.
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Brain as organ
Monday, April 09, 2007 at 9:44 PM PDT
Human sexual behavior is not a free-form performance, biologists are finding, but is guided at every turn by genetic programs.
Desire between the sexes is not a matter of choice. Straight men, it seems, have neural circuits that prompt them to seek out women; gay men have those prompting them to seek other men. Women’s brains may be organized to select men who seem likely to provide for them and their children. The deal is sealed with other neural programs that induce a burst of romantic love, followed by long-term attachment.
In the womb, the body of a developing fetus is female by default and becomes male if the male-determining gene known as SRY is present. This dominant gene, the Y chromosome’s proudest and almost only possession, sidetracks the reproductive tissue from its ovarian fate and switches it into becoming testes. Hormones from the testes, chiefly testosterone, mold the body into male form.
In puberty, the reproductive systems are primed for action by the brain. In the hypothalamus, at the central base of the brain, lie a cluster of about 2,000 neurons that ignite puberty when they start to secrete pulses of gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which sets off a cascade of other hormones.
The trigger that stirs these neurons is still unknown, but probably the brain monitors internal signals as to whether the body is ready to reproduce and external cues as to whether circumstances are propitious for yielding to desire.
Several advances in the last decade have underlined the bizarre fact that the brain is a full-fledged sexual organ, in that the two sexes have profoundly different versions of it.
It is no surprise that the male and female versions of the human brain operate in distinct patterns, despite the heavy influence of culture. The male brain is sexually oriented toward women as an object of desire.
Presumably the masculinization of the brain shapes some neural circuit that makes women desirable. If so, this circuitry is wired differently in gay men.
The systems for sexual orientation and arousal make men go out and find people to have sex with, whereas women are more focused on accepting or rejecting those who seek sex with them.
The trigger that stirs these neurons is still unknown, but probably the brain monitors internal signals. Several advances in the last decade have underlined the bizarre fact that the brain is a full-fledged sexual organ, in that the two sexes have profoundly different versions of it.
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Colours affect performance
Tuesday, March 20, 2007 at 10:43 PM PDT
The yellow colour of team activates joy, gives intuitional insight of opponents' weakness and is a colour of destructive decimation. Looking at the colour yellow for more than a minute can cause physiological disturbances to opponents, whereas it helps team to activate the motor nerves and generates energy for the muscles. It also drives away exhaustion and arthritis
Blue is a cool colour but not suitable for aggressive and competitive sports, it also promotes flights of fancy".
Leaders of countries that led their countries to battle used red in banners, flags and uniforms, like Adolf Hitler used Swastika on a patch of white, black and red. Red Indians and Africans used red to frighten their enemies while Aztecs of South Mexico used irritating colours to torture their enemies.
Astrologuically some colours are said to be wrong colour. Colours are ruled by planets giving it qualities like aggression and a never-say-die attitude, or lacks consistency.
The teams win on days when the matches are on their numbers and when ruled by their respective colour. If you wear wright color irrestpective of the day many days are advantageous.
Reference:
http://worldcup.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1772241.cms
By Astro-numerologist Anupam V Kapil
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MOSAIC SOPHISTICATION
Monday, February 26, 2007 at 8:42 PM PST
In the beauty and geometric complexity of tile mosaics on walls of medieval Islamic buildings, scientists have recognized patterns suggesting that the designers had made a conceptual breakthrough in mathematics beginning as early as the 13th century. It appears to have involved an advanced math of quasi crystals, which was not understood by modern scientists until three decades ago.
Islamic designers and artisans had developed techniques “to construct nearly perfect quasi-crystalline Penrose patterns, five centuries before discovery in the West.”
Some of the most complex patterns, called “girih” in Persian, consist of sets of contiguous polygons fitted together with little distortion and no gaps. Running through each polygon (a decagon, pentagon, diamond, bowtie or hexagon) is a decorative line. The interlocking tiles were arranged in predictable ways to create a pattern that never repeats — that is, quasi crystals.
The geometric star-and-polygon girihs, as quasi crystals, can be rotated a certain number of degrees, say one-fifth of a circle, to positions from which other tiles are fitted. As such, this makes possible a pattern that is infinitely big and yet the pattern never repeats itself, unlike the tiles on the typical floor.
Ref:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/science/27math.html?em&ex=1172638800&en=e068881110455331&ei=5087%0A
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Post-war psychological disorders
Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 2:57 AM PST
"exposure therapy."
Re-introduce veterans to the experiences that have inflicted mental scars until gradually they are no longer haunted by the memories, a long-established therapeutic technique known as "exposure therapy."
virtual Iraq
Their trauma event was being blown up in a Humvee -- we might start them off just standing in the desert next to a Humvee.
"Gradually we would put them in the Humvee and have them start driving down a desert road. Eventually over the course of the therapy you introduce elements that increase the realism -- bombs going off, things blowing up.
"It's a gradual exposure to a realistic environment which you can't really do just through imagination."
Soldiers undergoing the treatment can be placed in a variety of situations -- either as the passenger, driver or gunner in an armored vehicle or as a soldier on a foot patrol walking through an Iraqi city.
"You could be walking down one street and a child will come up to greet you, you could be walking down another street and a car explodes," Rizzo said.
Fake aromas -- including gunpowder, burning smoke, diesel fuel, body odors, exotic spices and roast mutton -- are wafted under the patient's nose.
The boom of bombs is simulated by giant speakers placed under the patient's chair
Ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070219/ts_alt_afp/usscienceitvirtual
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The Land of Fire
Sunday, February 04, 2007 at 8:10 PM PST
Azerbaijan has long been called "The Land of Fire" due to the phenomena of "burning hillsides".A few references have been found in the ancient written documents that are housed in the Institute of Manuscripts in Baku regarding this.
Word is derived from the Persian words "Surakh" (hole) and "khani" (source or fountain).
LEGEND
The earliest information found in that refers to "the eternal fires of Baku" appears in 5 A.D. in a volume entitled "Stories" by the Byzantine author Prisk of Pania. He quotes Romul, the Ambassador to Rome, who mentioned that when the Hun leaders came to Rome to sign a peace treaty, they had traveled via the Caucasus along the Caspian Sea where they had seen "a flame that appears from a rock underwater".
The legend of Yanarsu (yah-NAR-su) which means "Burning Water" is about a mother who couldn't find her lost son though she wandered all over the plains of Mughan. Exhausted, she sat down and cried so much that her tears formed a small river. Legend says that she herself was turned into a tree that rooted itself there by the edge of the river. A few years later, the grief from the mother's heart caused the river to catch fire. The local people say that they have seen the flames shimmering on the river at night. Some people believe that sick people will be cured if they see these flames.
Do you know how this fire is generated? This is caused by gas seeping through fissures in the earth. And a relegion is formaded based upon this natural gas.
That is Zoroastrianism, a religion based on the worship of fire, was once practiced in Azerbaijan before the Arabs invaded the land in the 7th century and forced everyone to accept the Islamic religion. In fact, you can still find a fire-worshipper's temple (Which build by INDIAN traders).
In Zoroastrianism, the human breath was thought to be unclean. Priests serving at these temples used to put a cloth over their mouth and nose so that they wouldn't breath on the fire which they considered sacred. Even though this religion is no longer practiced in Azerbaijan, some people in certain regions still practice the custom of never blowing out a fire or extinguishing the flames in their oil lamps.
Beliefs of Aspheron Peninsula
The flaming torches of gas escaping from under the ground and burning in many places all over the Apsheron Peninsula were believed to have miraculous divine power.
People worshipped fire, seeking its protection against adversity and oppression and begging it for happiness and well being.
Ateshgyakh Temple
Medieval Azerbaijan carried on trade and exchanged cultural values with many countries. One of them was India. Indian trades paid money to the local ruler for the right to build cells, prayer rooms, stables, and a guestroom (balakhane) at the temple. Thus it happened that these structures were built one after another for a century and a half, from the late 17th to the mid-19th century.
The inscriptions on stones set in the walls, made in Sanskrit and Hindi, testify to the Indian origin of the fire-worshippers' temple at Surakhany. In the course of time, the "eternal fires" of Apsheron ceased to be viewed as divine. The heat they give has been placed at the service of the people, and today gas serves people economic and every day needs. And only the place where the fires used to burn still remains in the memory of the people under the name of Ateshgyakh (home of fire).
Ref: http://www.bakupages.com/pages/monuments/worshippers_en.php
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Years ago I speculated that if Mecca ever is razed, it will be by an African army marching north; now the greatest danger to Islam is the prospect of a Chinese army marching west.
Ten thousand Chinese become Christians each day, according to a stunning report by the National Catholic Reporter's veteran correspondent John Allen,
200 million Chinese may comprise the world's largest concentration of Christians by mid-century, and the largest missionary force in history.
China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelization.
Chinese Christians at 111 million, of whom 90% are Protestant, mostly Pentecostals.
China's network of house churches may turn out to be the leaven of democracy, like the radical Puritans of England who became the Congregationalists of New England. Freedom of worship is the first precondition for democracy, for it makes possible freedom of conscience. The fearless evangelists at the grassroots of China will, in the fullness of time, do more to bring US-style democracy to the world than all the nation-building bluster of President George W Bush and his advisers.
ref : http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IH07Ad03.html
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PENTAGON'S MISSING HARDWARE
Monday, August 06, 2007 at 9:03 PM PDT
PENTAGON'S MISSING HARDWARE
AK-47 rifles: 110,000
Pistols: 80,000
Body armour pieces: 135,000
Helmets: 115,000
ref : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6933569.stm
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Centre for advanced operational culturae training
Monday, August 06, 2007 at 9:02 PM PDT
The Centre for Advanced Operational Culture Training is the new military body specialised in "improving marines' cultural skills and foreign language abilities".
The US military has built two "Iraqi towns" in a California desert as part of training to troops. During the six- to eight-week course, the marines learn about 200 care fully choosen basic words in Arabic - enough to allow them to deal with local people on the ground in Iraq.
The training for US troops for Iraq is not taking place in Iraq but rather in Wadi Sahara and Khalidiya, two fictional Iraqi towns built in the middle of the Mojave desert, in California, as part of a $23m project.
The city has its own mayor and a vision for him . "No matter where we are, in Wadi Sahara or in Khalidiya, we are working as one for the good of this city, and as long as we are one, we will get the best results, Insha'allah," says the "mayor" of Wadi Sahara, addressing the marines.
Pentagon has, according to the GAO report, asked for another $2bn for new equipment for those forces.
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Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 9:05 PM PDT
Buddhist nuns perform a rarely performed religious dance called Nga Chham outside the Naro Photang Puspahari temple in Shey, near Leh. Monks and nuns from monasteries across the Himalayas have gathered in Ladakh to celebrate 800 years of Drukpa, or 'dragon' sect of Tibetan Buddhism.
Dramitse Nga Chham is performed by sixteen dancers, wach wearing a mask representing an animal or a bird. The dancers have a Nga (drum) in their left hand and a drum stick in their right hand.
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The real winner is New 7 Wonders
Monday, July 09, 2007 at 3:04 AM PDT
The real winner of the campaign arguably is New 7 Wonders, a not-for-profit organisation started in 2000 by Swiss author-filmmaker Bernerd Weber.
Besides the massive publicity it generated,
this organisation is expected to net millions of dollars through SMSes and phone calls as well as sale of merchandise.
it has been selling T-shirts for as high as $22.99 while coffee cups have been priced at about $12.99 each.
HUL was the only sponsor that extended support with its Fair & Lovely campaign.
that telecom operators kept 75% of the revenues for themselves.
Industry estimates suggest that I Media spent about Rs 70 crore on the campaign.
Industry sources estimate that about 12 million SMS votes
18 million internet votes were cast by Indians.
Vodafone Essar, for example, sent out SMSes to over 6 million of its 30 million customers, and customers were charged Rs 3 per SMS
Bharti Airtel offered its 40-plus million subscribers one free SMS but subsequent SMSes were charged at Rs 3 per message.
Of the SMS value generated, 15% is being given to the government, with telecom operators retaining 75%. The remaining 10% is being shared between I Media and New 7 Wonders.
Travel companies, meanwhile, are sceptical about the campaign’s rub-off, pointing out that the overall tourist experience of Agra and the Taj needs to improve first.
Among the brands that cashed in on the campaign were Radio Mirchi, Bharti Airtel, Zee News, Fair and Lovely, Travel Port Holidays and Club Mahindra.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2187189.cms
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Milking phoney patriotism
Sunday, July 08, 2007 at 9:45 PM PDT
The brainchild of Bernard Weber, a Swiss businessman who has also dabbled in films, the campaign was orchestrated by his for-profit corporation called New Open World Corporation (NOWC). Weber roped in Federico Mayor, a former UNESCO director-general, to be part of this project, but UNESCO itself was not involved. Needless to say, this campaign has miffed experts who question the integrity of a private body that will declare a new set of seven wonders.
History gives sanctity to only one list of Seven Wonders, the one that was compiled by Greek mathematician Philon of Byzantium in 200 BC.
The money-spinner for the campaign was mobile phone voting. In India, the voting rights belonged to a private company called I Media Corporation Limited (IMCL). It controls the number 4567 you sent your SMS votes to.
For every rupee spent on sending the SMS,
15 paise went directly to the government in the form of a wireless planning coordination fee.
Sixty-four paise went to the cellphone operator you used to vote.
The bulk of the remaining rupee was divided in equal halves between a company called IMI which collected all the votes in an electronic vault-like space and media partners like IMCL.
Weber made two to three paise for every rupee that was spent on the voting.
A remarkable aspect of this poll was that nothing stopped a person from voting many times.
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Encroachment of airport lands
Sunday, June 10, 2007 at 9:46 PM PDT
Ref: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/City_not_alone_in_airport_land_problem/articleshow/2113221.cmsIllegal occupants control 788 acres—20 times the size of Nariman Point—in the high-security area near runways.
Mumbai airport tops the list prepared by the Airports Authority of India with 247 acres (this, however, may not be the accurate figure as the airport no longer belongs to AAI) in the control of encroachers,
Satna in Madhya Pradesh with 150 acres,
Hyderabad with 97 acres,
Amritsar with 83 acres
Kolkata with 75.7 acres.
Mumbai and Delhi mostly have slum-dwellers sitting on airport land, but in other cities, especially the non-metro ones, encroachments usually mean small establishments, hotels, shops and even companies providing support to airlines.
The commencement of flights to towns like Rajamundhry, for instance, has led to encroachments as service-providers usurp the land with a little help from the local authorities,’’ said an AAI official.
While encroachment is not a major security hazard at the Gaya, Ahmedabad and Rajkot airports, it still is a cause for concern for the authorities.
“Standard operating procedures safeguard the flight path of aircraft—both landing and taking off—at all these airports. However, there is a degree of operational risk on the runways as the movement of dogs, cattle and birds increases with encroachments,’’
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I
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at 9:18 PM PDT
Intimate, Playboy
we don't have intresting discussion.
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Electicity crisis in New India
Sunday, May 20, 2007 at 9:14 PM PDT
Indians are, for now, relatively conservative consumers of energy: about 600 units per capita per year, or one-fifth that of a typical American. But that will certainly increase as Indian desires reach those of the wealthy Western countries
India has stepped up generation in recent years at the pace of about 6 percent a year. It is a pittance compared with what neighboring China adds on each year and in any case insufficient to keep up with India’s galloping demand.
The development of power plants, meanwhile, is constrained by a lack of access to land, fuel and water, all of which a power plant needs in large quantities. The power grid remains weak
The World Bank estimates that at least $4 billion in electricity is unaccounted for each year — that is to say, stolen. Transparency International estimated in 2005 that Indians paid $480 million in bribes to put in new connections or correct bills.
The country’s energy needs are one of the government’s main arguments for a nuclear deal with the United States, which would allow India to buy reactors and fuel from the world market.
Tata Consultancy Services, a technology company, maintains five giant generators, along with a nearly 5,300-gallon tank of diesel fuel underground, as if it were a gasoline station.
The reserve fuel can power the lights, computers and air-conditioners for up to 15 days to keep Tata’s six-story building humming during these hot, dry summer months, when temperatures routinely soar above 100 degrees and power cuts can average eight hours a day.Behind the building, three generators purred as a sweltering evening descended. A 2004 World Bank survey found that 60 percent of companies in India have such facilities.
City’s Metropolitan Mall burns an average of 1,600 gallons of diesel a day to run its generators during power cuts.
ref:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/world/asia/21india.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
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Sunday, April 29, 2007 at 11:40 PM PDT
Membership of a minority religion is no bar to advancement in business or the professions.
The richest industrialist in India is a Muslim.
Some of the most popular film stars are Muslim.
Three Presidents and two Chief Justices have been Muslim.
At the time of writing, the President of India is a Muslim, the Prime Minister a Sikh, and the leader of the ruling party a Catholic born in Italy.
Many of the country's most prominent lawyers and doctors have been Christians and Parsis.
Very few Indian Muslims have joined terrorist or fundamentalist organisations.
Even more than their compatriots, Indian Muslims feel that their opinion and vote matters. One recent survey found that while 69 per cent of all Indians approve and endorse the ideal of democracy, 72 per cent of Muslims did so. And the turnout of Muslims at elections is higher than ever before.
On the other hand, there have been periodic episodes of religious rioting, in the worst of which (as in Delhi in 1984 and Gujarat in 2002) the minorities have suffered grievous losses of life and property. Still, for the most part, the minorities appear to retain faith in the democratic and secular ideal.
As long as Pakistan exists there will be Hindu fundamentalists in India. In times of stability, or when the political leadership is firm, they will be marginal or on the defensive. In times of change, or when the political leadership is irresolute, Hindu funcamentals will be influential and assertive.
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Behind every successful nationalist movement
Sunday, April 29, 2007 at 11:32 PM PDT
Behind every successful nationalist movement in the Western world has been a certain unifying factor, a glue holding the members of the nation together, this provided by a shared language, a shared religious faith, a shared territory, a common enemy—and sometimes all of the above.
The British nation brought together those who huddled together on a cold island, who were mostly Protestant, and who detested France.
The France, it was language which powerfully combined with religion.
The Americans, a shared language and mostly shared faith worked in tandem with animosity towards the colonists.
As for the smaller East European nations—the Poles, the Czechs, the Lithuanians, etc—their populations have been united by a common language, a mostly common faith, and a shared and very bitter history of domination by German and Russian oppressors.
By contrast with these (and other examples), the Indian nation does not privilege a single language or religious faith. Although the majority of its citizens are Hindus, India is not a 'Hindu' nation. Its Constitution does not discriminate between people on the basis of faith; nor, more crucially, did the nationalist movement that lay behind it. Gandhi's political programme was built upon harmony and cooperation between India's two major religious communities, Hindus and Muslims. Although, in the end, his work and example were unsuccessful in stopping the division of India, the failure made his successors even more determined to construct independent India as a secular republic. For Jawaharlal Nehru and his colleagues, if India was anything at all, it was not a 'Hindu Pakistan'.
Reference:
http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070507&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1&pn=3
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The big fat Bollywood wedding on April 20.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 10:12 PM PDT
All four Bachchan bungalows situated within a few kilometres in Juhu have been decked up
The four houses - 'Janak', 'Jalsa', 'Prateeksha' and 'Ammu' — . Although Amitabh Bachchan has termed it a small and private affair, all the rituals leading up to a Hindu wedding are taking place at Bachchan's residence at Jalsa.
According to a source close to the family,"Each one of them will be doing a different song and all of them have been rehearsing for the same every night for the last ten days. The performers include Rohan Sippy, Apoorva Lakhia, Chirag Doshi, Sanjay Dutt, and Sikander Kher."
The Sangeet ceremony on April 18. The function will begin at about 7.30 pm at Jalsa and will go on till the wee hours of April 19. It is expected to be nothing short of a sangeet ceremony out of a Yash Chopra film.
Both bride and bridegroom will be performing film songs like Kajra Re from Bunty Aur Babli and Balle Balle from Bride And Prejudice for which the couple has been rehearsing every day. But one of Bollywood's best dancers Hrithik Roshan, who starred with the duo in Dhoom 2, has not been invited. Neither has his family.
Contrary to media reports, Hrithik who stays about 10 metres away from Prateeksha will not be there. Rakesh Roshan, father of Hrithik Roshan, said,"The reports about Hrithik performing at the function are not true. We are not invited but we wish them a happy married life."
The guestlist, however, does include Yash Chopra and family, Karan Johar, Hiroo Johar, Anupam Kher, Kiron Kher, Sikander Kher, Apoorva Lakhia, Chirag Doshi, Preity Zinta, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Romesh Sharma, Danny Denzongpa, Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty, and Ram Gopal Verma to name a few.
Those left out are Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Soma Sekhar, Saif Ali Khan, Rekha and Rani Mukherjee.
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The star wedding invitees
Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 9:57 PM PDT
The star wedding
The groom himself arrived at around 9.30 pm with sister Shweta Nanda and her daughter Navya in a white limousine.
Celebrations have already begun with the bachelor's party on Tuesday apparently hosted by Sikander Kher, actor and childhood friend of Abhishek. Abhishek's friends will be performing special dance numbers at the party.
The list of invitees for the Abhiash wedding remains very exclusive but also includes many who have stood by the Bachchans through thick and thin.
Dilip, a childhood friend of Abhishek's who had arrived from Hong Kong for the star wedding of the year.
There are valets and staff members
Abhishek's choices, besides his schoolmates and buddies, Ajay Devgan and Kajol, Suniel Shetty and wife Mana, Sanjay Dutt and his partner Manyata.
Ash has invited film-maker Rituparna Ghosh, Tendulkar, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and ad man Prahlad Kakkar.
Jaya Bachchan wanted actor Dimple Kapadia and her younger daughter Rinki Khanna to be present.
Abhishek's Sister Jaya is godmother to Rinki, a close friend of Sweta Nanda, Abhishek's sister. Her better known sibling, Twinkle, and spouse Akshay Kumar have, however, not made it. Jaya Prada, former star
While virtually the entire Kapoor khandaan has made it to the guest list— apart from their standing in Bollywood, they are also samdhis via the Nanda parivar —there are three notable omissions, Karisma, Kareena and mom Babita, given the bad blood that was spilt between this lot and the Bachchans over Abhishek's failed relationship with Karisma.
The Big B has made sure that some of his close Bollywood friends are invited— yesteryear screen villian Danny and his wife Gaba, actors Kiron and Anupam Kher, film-maker Karan Johar and his mother Hiru Johar (who is also Jaya’s friend), blockbuster wizard Yash Chopra and sons Uday and Aditya and ace director Ram Gopal Varma.
Apart from Shiv Sena boss Thackeray and Mulayam, there will be no other politician at the do.
Among industrialists, Anil Ambani, wife Tina and mother Kokilaben will be present. (With Amar Singh being the host along with the Bachchans, brother Mukesh could not have expected an invite.) Subroto Roy of the Sahara Parivar, with wife, two sons and their wives will be there.
The Nandas of Escorts have been invited because they are related by marriage, Flex Industries' Ashok Chaturvedi and wife Rashmi as well as Himachal Futuristics' Vinay Mallu and his wife Vinita are there because of the Amar Singh connection.
Among the non-glam set to have been invited are Shobana Golikar, a former Indian Airlines staffer, her son Vinay, and the late comedian Mahmood's younger brother Anwar, who had helped Amitabh when the star was struggling to get a foothold in Mumbai.
Shammi Rabadi, former wife of film-maker Sultan Ahmed, who is better known as Asha Parekh's close friend. The Bachchans invited her because she has been close to them much before the family achieved their standing in Bollywood.
Make-up maestro Deepak Sawant and Pravin Jain, Amitabh Bachchan's personal valet for several years, along with domestic help, some of whom have been with the family since Abhishek was a toddler, have also been invited.
A family friend said Amitabh, who had grown up watching his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan offering the first ceremonial tilak to the family sweeper every Diwali, has gone largely by all those who have been with the family through thick and thin.
Amitabh, Jaya, Abhishek and Aishwarya, all have their special invitees at the wedding, celebrations for which began with the Bachchan and Rai clans dancing vigorously at Wednesday's sangeet .
K M Birla, Narayan Murthy, Azim Premji, Anil and Tina Ambani, Mulayam Singh and his son Akhilesh are also expected. Last but not least Rai family (Krishnaraj and Vrinda).
Several prominent personalities from the world of films, politics and business attended the sangeet ceremony.
The guests included Ajay Devgan, Kajol, Karan Johar, Ram Gopal Varma, singers Amaan and Ayaan Ali, Amar Singh, Sahara head honcho Subrata Roy and Anil Ambani.
The Kapoor family members, including Krishna Raj Kapoor, her sons Rishi, Rajiv as well as Rishi's actor-wife Neetu were also present. Actors Sanjay Dutt and Suniel Shetty were seen arriving together.
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Desire that makes the world go round.
Monday, April 09, 2007 at 9:55 PM PDT
The basis of sexuality and desire has been the discovery that genes may have a direct effect on the sexual differentiation of the brain. That steroid hormones like testosterone and estrogen did all the heavy lifting of shaping the male and female brains. brain role is quite different from its testosterone-related activities, and women’s neurons presumably perform that role by other means.
It so happens that an unusually large number of brain-related genes are situated on the X chromosome. The sudden emergence of the X and Y chromosomes in brain function has caught the attention of evolutionary biologists. Since men have only one X chromosome, natural selection can speedily promote any advantageous mutation that arises in one of the X’s genes. So if those picky women should be looking for smartness in prospective male partners, that might explain why so many brain-related genes ended up on the X.
“It’s popular among male academics to say that females preferred smarter guys,” Arnold said. “Such genes will be quickly selected in males because new beneficial mutations will be quickly apparent.”
Women’s care in selecting mates, combined with the fast selection made possible by men’s lack of backup copies of X-related genes, may have driven the divergence between male and female brains.
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Source
Monday, April 09, 2007 at 9:50 PM PDT
Sexual orientation, at least for men, seems to be settled before birth. “I think most of the scientists working on these questions are convinced that the antecedents of sexual orientation in males are happening early in life, probably before birth,” Dr. Breedlove said, “whereas for females, some are probably born to become gay, but clearly some get there quite late in life.”
Sexual behavior includes a lot more than sex,three primary brain systems have evolved to direct reproductive behavior.
One is the sex drive that motivates people to seek partners.
A second is a program for romantic attraction that makes people fixate on specific partners.
Third is a mechanism for long-term attachment that induces people to stay together long enough to complete their parental duties.
Romantic love, which in its intense early stage “can last 12-18 months,” is a universal human phenomenon, and is likely to be a built-in feature of the brain. Brain imaging studies show that a particular area of the brain, one associated with the reward system, is activated when subjects contemplate a photo of their lover.
The best evidence for a long-term attachment process in mammals comes from studies of voles, a small mouselike rodent. Since gay men have about one-fifth as many children as straight men, any gene favoring homosexuality should quickly disappear from the population.
Such genes could be retained if gay men were unusually effective protectors of their nephews and nieces, helping genes just like theirs get into future generations. But gay men make no better uncles than straight men. gay men have more relatives than straight men, particularly on their mother’s side.
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Brain as organ
Monday, April 09, 2007 at 9:44 PM PDT
Human sexual behavior is not a free-form performance, biologists are finding, but is guided at every turn by genetic programs.
Desire between the sexes is not a matter of choice. Straight men, it seems, have neural circuits that prompt them to seek out women; gay men have those prompting them to seek other men. Women’s brains may be organized to select men who seem likely to provide for them and their children. The deal is sealed with other neural programs that induce a burst of romantic love, followed by long-term attachment.
In the womb, the body of a developing fetus is female by default and becomes male if the male-determining gene known as SRY is present. This dominant gene, the Y chromosome’s proudest and almost only possession, sidetracks the reproductive tissue from its ovarian fate and switches it into becoming testes. Hormones from the testes, chiefly testosterone, mold the body into male form.
In puberty, the reproductive systems are primed for action by the brain. In the hypothalamus, at the central base of the brain, lie a cluster of about 2,000 neurons that ignite puberty when they start to secrete pulses of gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which sets off a cascade of other hormones.
The trigger that stirs these neurons is still unknown, but probably the brain monitors internal signals as to whether the body is ready to reproduce and external cues as to whether circumstances are propitious for yielding to desire.
Several advances in the last decade have underlined the bizarre fact that the brain is a full-fledged sexual organ, in that the two sexes have profoundly different versions of it.
It is no surprise that the male and female versions of the human brain operate in distinct patterns, despite the heavy influence of culture. The male brain is sexually oriented toward women as an object of desire.
Presumably the masculinization of the brain shapes some neural circuit that makes women desirable. If so, this circuitry is wired differently in gay men.
The systems for sexual orientation and arousal make men go out and find people to have sex with, whereas women are more focused on accepting or rejecting those who seek sex with them.
The trigger that stirs these neurons is still unknown, but probably the brain monitors internal signals. Several advances in the last decade have underlined the bizarre fact that the brain is a full-fledged sexual organ, in that the two sexes have profoundly different versions of it.
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Colours affect performance
Tuesday, March 20, 2007 at 10:43 PM PDT
The yellow colour of team activates joy, gives intuitional insight of opponents' weakness and is a colour of destructive decimation. Looking at the colour yellow for more than a minute can cause physiological disturbances to opponents, whereas it helps team to activate the motor nerves and generates energy for the muscles. It also drives away exhaustion and arthritis
Blue is a cool colour but not suitable for aggressive and competitive sports, it also promotes flights of fancy".
Leaders of countries that led their countries to battle used red in banners, flags and uniforms, like Adolf Hitler used Swastika on a patch of white, black and red. Red Indians and Africans used red to frighten their enemies while Aztecs of South Mexico used irritating colours to torture their enemies.
Astrologuically some colours are said to be wrong colour. Colours are ruled by planets giving it qualities like aggression and a never-say-die attitude, or lacks consistency.
The teams win on days when the matches are on their numbers and when ruled by their respective colour. If you wear wright color irrestpective of the day many days are advantageous.
Reference:
http://worldcup.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1772241.cms
By Astro-numerologist Anupam V Kapil
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MOSAIC SOPHISTICATION
Monday, February 26, 2007 at 8:42 PM PST
In the beauty and geometric complexity of tile mosaics on walls of medieval Islamic buildings, scientists have recognized patterns suggesting that the designers had made a conceptual breakthrough in mathematics beginning as early as the 13th century. It appears to have involved an advanced math of quasi crystals, which was not understood by modern scientists until three decades ago.
Islamic designers and artisans had developed techniques “to construct nearly perfect quasi-crystalline Penrose patterns, five centuries before discovery in the West.”
Some of the most complex patterns, called “girih” in Persian, consist of sets of contiguous polygons fitted together with little distortion and no gaps. Running through each polygon (a decagon, pentagon, diamond, bowtie or hexagon) is a decorative line. The interlocking tiles were arranged in predictable ways to create a pattern that never repeats — that is, quasi crystals.
The geometric star-and-polygon girihs, as quasi crystals, can be rotated a certain number of degrees, say one-fifth of a circle, to positions from which other tiles are fitted. As such, this makes possible a pattern that is infinitely big and yet the pattern never repeats itself, unlike the tiles on the typical floor.
Ref:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/science/27math.html?em&ex=1172638800&en=e068881110455331&ei=5087%0A
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Post-war psychological disorders
Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 2:57 AM PST
"exposure therapy."
Re-introduce veterans to the experiences that have inflicted mental scars until gradually they are no longer haunted by the memories, a long-established therapeutic technique known as "exposure therapy."
virtual Iraq
Their trauma event was being blown up in a Humvee -- we might start them off just standing in the desert next to a Humvee.
"Gradually we would put them in the Humvee and have them start driving down a desert road. Eventually over the course of the therapy you introduce elements that increase the realism -- bombs going off, things blowing up.
"It's a gradual exposure to a realistic environment which you can't really do just through imagination."
Soldiers undergoing the treatment can be placed in a variety of situations -- either as the passenger, driver or gunner in an armored vehicle or as a soldier on a foot patrol walking through an Iraqi city.
"You could be walking down one street and a child will come up to greet you, you could be walking down another street and a car explodes," Rizzo said.
Fake aromas -- including gunpowder, burning smoke, diesel fuel, body odors, exotic spices and roast mutton -- are wafted under the patient's nose.
The boom of bombs is simulated by giant speakers placed under the patient's chair
Ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070219/ts_alt_afp/usscienceitvirtual
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The Land of Fire
Sunday, February 04, 2007 at 8:10 PM PST
Azerbaijan has long been called "The Land of Fire" due to the phenomena of "burning hillsides".A few references have been found in the ancient written documents that are housed in the Institute of Manuscripts in Baku regarding this.
Word is derived from the Persian words "Surakh" (hole) and "khani" (source or fountain).
LEGEND
The earliest information found in that refers to "the eternal fires of Baku" appears in 5 A.D. in a volume entitled "Stories" by the Byzantine author Prisk of Pania. He quotes Romul, the Ambassador to Rome, who mentioned that when the Hun leaders came to Rome to sign a peace treaty, they had traveled via the Caucasus along the Caspian Sea where they had seen "a flame that appears from a rock underwater".
The legend of Yanarsu (yah-NAR-su) which means "Burning Water" is about a mother who couldn't find her lost son though she wandered all over the plains of Mughan. Exhausted, she sat down and cried so much that her tears formed a small river. Legend says that she herself was turned into a tree that rooted itself there by the edge of the river. A few years later, the grief from the mother's heart caused the river to catch fire. The local people say that they have seen the flames shimmering on the river at night. Some people believe that sick people will be cured if they see these flames.
Do you know how this fire is generated? This is caused by gas seeping through fissures in the earth. And a relegion is formaded based upon this natural gas.
That is Zoroastrianism, a religion based on the worship of fire, was once practiced in Azerbaijan before the Arabs invaded the land in the 7th century and forced everyone to accept the Islamic religion. In fact, you can still find a fire-worshipper's temple (Which build by INDIAN traders).
In Zoroastrianism, the human breath was thought to be unclean. Priests serving at these temples used to put a cloth over their mouth and nose so that they wouldn't breath on the fire which they considered sacred. Even though this religion is no longer practiced in Azerbaijan, some people in certain regions still practice the custom of never blowing out a fire or extinguishing the flames in their oil lamps.
Beliefs of Aspheron Peninsula
The flaming torches of gas escaping from under the ground and burning in many places all over the Apsheron Peninsula were believed to have miraculous divine power.
People worshipped fire, seeking its protection against adversity and oppression and begging it for happiness and well being.
Ateshgyakh Temple
Medieval Azerbaijan carried on trade and exchanged cultural values with many countries. One of them was India. Indian trades paid money to the local ruler for the right to build cells, prayer rooms, stables, and a guestroom (balakhane) at the temple. Thus it happened that these structures were built one after another for a century and a half, from the late 17th to the mid-19th century.
The inscriptions on stones set in the walls, made in Sanskrit and Hindi, testify to the Indian origin of the fire-worshippers' temple at Surakhany. In the course of time, the "eternal fires" of Apsheron ceased to be viewed as divine. The heat they give has been placed at the service of the people, and today gas serves people economic and every day needs. And only the place where the fires used to burn still remains in the memory of the people under the name of Ateshgyakh (home of fire).
Ref: http://www.bakupages.com/pages/monuments/worshippers_en.php
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