quote

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.
-- Erich Fromm

Signature lines I have used

I tend to get comment on the signature line that I use. Here are some of them...

SMILE is the only curve that sets things straight...

Why does the choice between happiness and sadness seem such a hard one to make?

The best indices to a person's character are
how he treats people who can't do him any good,
and how he treats people who can't fight back.

Don't GIVE UP because it might not work;
TRY because it might.

Since I lost HOPE I feel much better.

A friend is someone who helps you up when you are down,
and if they can't, they lay down beside you and listen.

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.

The soul had no rainbow, had the eyes no tears.

Never have I tried so hard to understand something,
and understood so little about it.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength;
loving someone deeply gives you courage.

and now back to my fav one
Smile is the only curve that sets things straight...

quote

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
-- Dale Carnegie

thought

What - could have been, should have been or would have been - does not matter.
What - was, is and will be - matters.

Job Description for HIM

One of the jobs for Software developers said under the section for desired profile 'HE' should... 'HIS' experience... etc. etc.
And guess what I did.

Promptly applied for it :) Would love to see the face of the HIS majesty once HE recieves HER(my) resume.

Friends

[from Anantha]

thought

on some days it just seems that there is a need to go through the archive of life...

it is amazing how many memories we collect in different categories happy, sad, funny, humiliating, irritating, hurtful, etc. and how over time these memories shift from one category to another without any conscious effort on our part.
...awaiting few such changes.

Could this be true?

Free Wi-Fi? Get Ready for GoogleNet via CNN

"What if Google (GOOG) wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user's precise location? The gatekeeper of the world's information could become one of the globe's biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop. Sounds crazy, but how might Google go about it?
First it would build a national broadband network -- let's call it the GoogleNet -- massive enough to rival even the country's biggest Internet service providers. Business 2.0 has learned from telecom insiders that Google is already building such a network, though ostensibly for many reasons. For the past year, it has quietly been shopping for miles and miles of "dark," or unused, fiber-optic cable across the country from wholesalers such as New York's AboveNet. It's also acquiring superfast connections from Cogent Communications and WilTel, among others, between East Coast cities including Atlanta, Miami, and New York. Such large-scale purchases are unprecedented for an Internet company, but Google's timing is impeccable."


Also there are rumores that Google is to buy Skype (my fav VoIP s/w).
Too much of google news in the past few days!

quotes

Home is where your heart is...
[via Keshi]

Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.
[via avik]

follow up on intelligent design vs evolution

I saw Larry King Live... and there was a discussion on intelligent design vs evolution. And ofcourse there were religious experts there too. And all of them amazed me by their strong conviction!!!!

One of the panalist Deepak Chopra has a blog called intentblog and he has some intresting discussion there abt this topic under the heading Intelligent Design without the Bible. There are a lot of comments but the one given by a person named chappy is intresting to read. chappy's recomendation is to read the 'Selfish Gene'. I have tried reading it twice but somehow I have never read it completely. Maybe I should try it once more.
I guess i will put something here after the followup blog by him.

Caution a lot of remarks are very provoking to the religiously sensitive.

New candiate for 'Love to Hate'

Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain rom NYTimes

"To place Google in context, Mr. Kraus offered a brief history lesson. In the 1990's, he said, I.B.M. was widely perceived in Silicon Valley as a "gentle giant" that was easy to partner with while Microsoft was perceived as an "extraordinarily fearsome, competitive company wanting to be in as many businesses as possible and with the engineering talent capable of implementing effectively anything."
...
""Google is doing more damage to innovation in the Valley right now than Microsoft ever did," said Reid Hoffman, the founder of two Internet ventures, including LinkedIn, a business networking Web site popular among Silicon Valley's digerati. "It's largely that they're hiring up so many talented people, and the fact they're working on so many different things. It's harder for start-ups to do interesting stuff right now.""
...
"Google recently announced that it would not talk to any reporter from CNETNews.com, a technology news Web site, until July 2006, after a reporter for the site wrote an article raising privacy questions about the information Google collects about individuals.
The company also provoked the ire of many within the blogging world - not to mention snarky comments in Silicon Valley from those thinking Google was behaving like an old-line company that doesn't get it - when earlier this year it fired a new employee who had joked online that the free meals, the on-site gym and all the other perks were a clever ploy to keep people at their desks longer. "
...
""I like and respect the Google guys," Mr. Lent said, "but let's just say that their ultimate aim seems to me to be, 'One Google under Google, for which it stands.' ""

:) feminisation

The myth of "feminisation" from Hindu

The ':)' in the subject line is there cause when I read this article I was smiling... No not because I thought anything written in the article was really good or funny. I was smiling because I fail to understand what difference does it make weather it is male or female or black or white or brown person who gets the job, as long as a deserving person is given the job.
Maybe they should devise a way to appoint people for jobs without knowing these things abt them, it might solve some of the problems that arise due to the prejudice people have.

another one creation vs evolution

Grasping the Depth of Time as a First Step in Understanding Evolution from NYTimes

"The universe is perhaps 14 billion years old. Earth is some 4.5 billion years old. The oldest hominid fossils are between 6 million and 7 million years old. The oldest distinctly modern human fossils are about 160,000 years old."
...
"Accepting the fact of evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God. But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a triumph of faith. It's a failure of education. "

hmmmmm... and after this?

Robertson: U.S. should assassinate Venezuela's Chavez from CNN

"Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him "a terrific danger" bent on exporting Communism and Islamic extremism across the Americas."

quotes

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.
-- Saint Augustine

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.
-- Saint Augustine

quotes

The earth laughs in flowers.
-- E. E. Cummings

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
-- E. E. Cummings

One more on creation n evolution

In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash from NYTimes

It is always intresting to read on this topic :)

thought

how much longer?

dance with google

Keeping enemies close at the Google Dance from CNN

""Being on the first page of Google's results is like gold," said Web site consultant Gordon Liametz"

looks like lot of people want to be on the first page of google by hook or crook. so google organizes dance party to keep the friends closes and enemies even closer :)

thought

time to give up dreams... and think abt life 'practically'

India and stem cell research

How India Reconciles Hindu Values and Biotech from NYtimes

"Just four years later, this seems to have occurred. According to Ernst & Young's Global Biotechnology Report in 2004, Indian biotechnology companies are expected to grow tenfold in the next five years, creating more than a million jobs. With more than 10,000 highly trained and cheaply available scientists, the country is one of the leading biotechnology powers along with Korea, Singapore, China, Japan, Sweden, Britain and Israel."
...
"Indeed, most evangelical Christians, who believe that the embryo is a person, may find more support in ancient Hindu texts than in the Bible. Many Hindus see the soul - the true Self (or atman) - as the spiritual and imperishable component of human personality. After death destroys the body, the soul soon finds a new temporal home. Thus, for Hindus as much as for Catholics, life begins at conception.
The ancient system of Indian medicine known as Ayurveda assumes that fetuses are alive and conscious when it prescribes a particular mental and spiritual regimen to pregnant women. This same assumption is implicit in "The Mahabharata," the Hindu epic about a fratricidal war apparently fought in the first millennium B.C. In one of its famous stories, the warrior Arjuna describes to his pregnant wife a seven-stage military strategy. His yet-to-born son Abhimanyu is listening, too. But as Arjuna describes the seventh and last stage, his wife falls asleep, presumably out of boredom. Years later, while fighting his father's cousins, the hundred Kaurava brothers, Abhimanyu uses well the military training he has learned in his mother's womb, until the seventh stage, where he falters and is killed.
But the religions and traditions we know as Hinduism are less monolithic and more diverse than Islam and Christianity; they can yield contradictory arguments. Early in "The Mahabharata," there is a story about how the hundred Kaurava brothers came into being. Their mother had produced a mass of flesh after two years of pregnancy. But then a sage divided the flesh into 100 parts, which were treated with herbs and ghee, and kept in pots for two years - from which the Kaurava brothers emerged.
Indian proponents of stem-cell research often offer this story as an early instance of human cloning through stem cells extracted from human embryos. They do not mention that "The Mahabharata" presents the birth of the hundred Kaurava brothers as an ominous event.
Other Asian scientists have also pressed myth and tradition into the service of modern science and nationalism. In South Korea, where a third of the population is Buddhist, a scientist who cloned human embryonic stem cell lines claimed that he was "recycling" life just as reincarnation does."

Accountability = Transfer

[via India Uncut ]

"Sessions judge Laxmi Rao was transferred from a sessions court to a civil court on Thursday. According to the notification dated August 17 issued by the registrar of the city civil and sessions courts, Rao has been transferred from court room number 32 to court room number 2 where she will deal with suits between private parties."

for handing out 'controversial'(i will call it insane) verdicts in various cases.

quote

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
-- Ernest Hemingway

colors colors... beautiful colors

now that is what i call realizing a dream

From America and Canada to India with a dream from hindu

" It is a story seemingly out of Bollywood. A group of non-resident Indians from America and Canada left their homes, careers and children to return to India with a dream to give back "a fraction" of what their country had given them. And what emerged out of this "dream" was a magical transformation of a decrepit, forgotten 150-year-old Jahangirabad Fort in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh into a world-class institute offering postgraduate courses in media and mass communication, bio-informatics, bio-technology, para-medicine, medicine and engineering.
The Jahangirabad Media Institute, now ready to admit its first batch of students from this coming October, has been conceived and built as a minority institute where 50 per cent of the seats in each discipline would be reserved for minorities and underprivileged sections of society. "

maybe one day some more of us can do that...

thought

sometimes even when we talk a lot, we are quiet.

i couldn't stop laughing!!!!

Now, tenders to rid Patna off pigs! from HT

"Bihar's pig saga continues. After first deciding to shoot pigs at sight, then overturning it and suggesting they be sent to forests instead, authorities here have now declared that tenders would be floated to catch them."

outsourcing!!!!!!!!!!

Editor Outsources Everyday Life to India abc news

"For one month, a team in Bangalore, India, paid Jacobs' bills, bought gifts for his family and even called his parents for their weekly chat.
When Jacobs got into a fight with his wife, Julie, he outsourced his complaint to his assistant, Asha.
Asha wrote in an e-mail to Julie: "Julie, do understand your anger that I forgot to pick up the cash at the ATM. I have been forgetful and I am sorry about that, but it does not change the fact that I love you very much."
Asha also sent Julie a card with hugging teddy bears.
"I thought it was totally pathetic," Julie Jacobs said. "AJ, who does not like confrontation whatsoever, was now using a woman 4,000 miles away to handle my confrontation skills.""

another fatwa

there goes another one....

Only veiled muslim women are allowed to stand in elections.

lets see how long before india becomes afganistan or pakistan. i wish there are some muslims(indians) who will stand up against these fatwas because if a non-muslim does it will invariablily become a fight against religion. and we know what people are capable of doing in the name of religion.

creation vs evolution (another view :))

A life with no purpose from hindu

"We lose far more than that. Darwinian evolution tells us that we are incipient compost: assemblages of complex molecules that - for no greater purpose than to secure sources of energy against competing claims - have developed the ability to speculate. After a few score years, the molecules disaggregate and return whence they came. Period.
As a gardener and ecologist, I find this oddly comforting. I like the idea of literal reincarnation: that the molecules of which I am composed will, once I have rotted, be incorporated into other organisms. Bits of me will be pushing through the growing tips of trees, will creep over them as caterpillars, will hunt those caterpillars as birds. When I die, I'd like to be buried in a fashion that ensures that no part of me is wasted. Then I can claim to have been of some use after all. "
...
"It seems to me that we are the happy ones. We, alone among organisms, who perceive eternity, and know that the world will carry on without us."

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

"Father, let my country awake!"
Rabindranath Tagore’s Prayer

Father, Let my Country awake!
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action
-Into the heaven of Freedom, My Father, Let my Country awake!

quote on india

If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India!
-- French scholar Romaine Rolland

serious instructions

i have serious instruction to change/modify the content of my blog :)

for every serious story that i post, i am supposed to post a feel good story. hope thoes who read my blog find this change for the better.................

no more to say

Another night, another nightmare of a gang-rape from hindu



these stats made me sick. our society is really so rotten!!!???

Stages of Friendship

In kindergarten your idea of a good friend
was the person who let you have the red crayon
when all that was left was the ugly black one.

In first grade your idea of a good friend
was the person who went to the bathroom with you
and held your hand as you walked through the scary halls.

In second grade your idea of a good friend
was the person who helped you stand up to the class bully.

In third grade your idea of a good friend
was the person who shared their lunch
with you when you forgot yours on the bus.

In fourth grade your idea of a good friend
was the person who was willing to switch square dancing
partners in gym so you wouldn't have to be
stuck do-si-do-ing with the dork of the class.

In fifth grade your idea of a friend
was the person who saved a seat on the back of the bus for you.

In sixth grade your idea of a friend
was the person who went up to your new crush,
and asked them to dance with you, so that if they said no
you wouldn't have to be embarrassed.

In seventh grade your idea of a friend was
the person who let you copy the social studies homework
from the night before that you had forgotten about.

In eighth grade your idea of a good friend
was the person who helped you pack up your
stuffed animals and old baseball cards
so that your room would be a "high schooler's" room,
but didn't laugh at you when you
finished and broke out into tears.

In ninth grade your idea of a good friend
was the person who went with you
to that "cool" party thrown by a senior
so you wouldn't wind up
being the only freshman there.

In tenth grade your idea of a good friend
was the person who changed their schedule so
you would have someone to sit with at lunch.

In eleventh grade your idea of a good friend
was the person who gave you rides in their new car,
convinced your parents that you shouldn't be grounded,
consoled you when you broke up with your significant other
and found you a date to the prom.

In twelfth grade your idea of a good friend
was the person who helped you pick out a college,
assured you that you would get into that college,
helped you deal with your parents who were having
a hard time adjusting to the idea of letting you go.

At graduation your idea of a good friend
was the person who was crying on the inside but
managed the biggest smile one could give as they congratulated you.

The summer after twelfth grade your idea of a good friend
was the person who helped you clean up from that party.
Helped you sneak out of the house when you just
couldn't deal with your parents.
Assured you that now that your
significant other were back together,
you could make it through anything.
Helped you pack up for college
and just silently hugged you as you looked
through blurry eyes at 18 years of memories
you were leaving behind.

And finally on those last days of childhood,
went out of their way to come overand send you off with a hug, alot of memories
and reassurance that you would make it in college
as well as you had these past 18 years.
But most importantly sent you off to college
knowing you were loved.

Now, your idea of a good friend is still the person
who gives you the better of the two choices.
Holds your hand when you're scared.
Helps you fight off those who try to take advantage of you.
Thinks of you at times when you are not there.
Reminds you of what you have forgotten.
Helps you put the past behind you but understands
when you need to hold on to it a little longer.
Stays with you so that you have confidence.
Goes out of their way to make time for you.
Helps you clear up your mistakes.
Helps you deal with pressure from others.
Smiles for you when they are sad.
Helps you become a better person.
However most importantly loves you!

--Author Unknown

quote

A Circle of Compassion
Albert Einstein

A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. And yet we experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical illusion of our consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.

higher education and sciences

Science policy: lacking a collective strategy from hindu

"Increasing the number of new Ph.D.s five-fold over 10 years, as recommended by the HRD Ministry's task force, is undoubtedly a laudable goal. But will there be a sufficient number of qualified students available to enter Ph.D. programmes without significant investment in upgrading undergraduate and post-graduate science education — investment that is not very much in view at the moment? More importantly, is there going to be a sufficient expansion of opportunities for high-quality research and corresponding development of research infrastructure to productively absorb this massive increase in numbers? These are questions that do not seem to have answers at the moment. "
...
"There is no systematic and continuing oversight of policy-making by the scientific community and no articulation of an independent vision of science building in this country. Thus proposals such as those formulated by the two SACs or the HRD Ministry's task force are not the result of any detailed and critical review undertaken independently by the scientific community based on a broad consultative process, which would at least have given them the status of desirable long-term goals. This unfortunate state of affairs, where national science policy-making is conducted by and large over the heads of the scientific community, is being exacerbated by the absence of any fresh initiatives from the younger sections of the scientific community to assert themselves and fashion an independent role in the formulation of science policy."
...
"Today, despite the creditable performance of individual sectors and individual institutions, there are serious problems that afflict basic scientific research in India. Overall, the picture of basic science in India is one of declining productivity. It is acknowledged that a career in science holds less and less attraction for the younger generation. Scientific institutions are significantly bureaucratised as noted by none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself. However judging by their performance so far, one of the key stakeholders in Indian science, the Indian scientific community, appears to have little to offer by way of a coherent strategy to face up to these issues."

quote

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.
-- Joseph Campbell

anonymuncule

sometimes there is so much to say but u say nothing.
because
you do not know where to begin,
what is important,
what matters

quote

Your challenge is not to find the right person to love;
It is to love the person you find.

thought

it is all a mess inside my head!

is reservation the way to go?

Centre seeks consensus on women's bill from NDTV

i donot believe reservation will solve anything.

Dr V Shanta

Chennai doctor wins Ramon Magsaysay award from NDTV

"In Chennai, there's a sense of quiet pride. The city has thrown up its fifth recipient of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award - Dr V Shanta, an institution herself within the Cancer Institute in Adyar.

A day after winning the Magsaysay award for Public Service, Dr Shanta has been performing surgeries from 8 in the morning with hardly any time for congratulatory telephone calls.

The 78-year-old cancer specialist, this year's only Indian recipient, considers it an honour, not for the individual, but for the 428-bed hi-tech institute of oncological research and treatment, once a 12-bed cottage in Chennai. "

looks and good looking people

Looks Do Matter [via indiauncut]

are we really that hard wired? i don't agree.
but the more i read abt genetics or the functioning of the brain, the more i tend to think that we r preprogramed, we do not make the decisions it is all set in our heads and just do not know how the logic works.

i guess i need to read abt nurture not just nature.

quotes

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
-- Isaac Asimov

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.
-- Lao-Tzu

in the top 50 - rank 47th

Sania breaks into top 50, ranked 47

where as our smart indian cricket team lost again to Sri Lanka :(

orwell's home in india

Makeover for Orwell's India home from bbc

i have read his work but never knew George Orwell was born in india that too in BIHAR... oops!

creation vs evolution (they r back at it)

Bush Remarks Roil Debate on Teaching of Evolution from NYtimes

"Intelligent design, advanced by a group of academics and intellectuals and some biblical creationists, disputes the idea that natural selection - the force Charles Darwin suggested drove evolution - fully explains the complexity of life. Instead, intelligent design proponents say that life is so intricate that only a powerful guiding force, or intelligent designer, could have created it."

it is one thing to not agree with the theory of evelotion as being able to explain all facts, but it is totally differnent matter to teach another theory just due to the imcompletness of the first.

religious policing in Pakistan too!!!!!!!!!!

Staunch Islam and Its Many Foes (Including Apathy) from NYtimes

in one sentence
i hate the idea of religious policing, irrespective of the religion.

is it one step forward?

S Korea unveils first dog clone from bbc

hmmm as usual i am not certain abt where genetic engineering is going to lead teh human race to. but i guess it is too late to change the course.

boss ho to aisa... if it is really true :)

Scientists at the Rocket launching station in Thumba were in the habit of working for nearly 12 to 18 hours a day. There were about seventy such Scientists working on a project. All the scientists were really frustrated due to the pressure of work and the demands of their boss but everyone was loyal to him and did not think of quitting the job.

One day, one scientist came to his boss and told him - Sir, I have promised to my children that I will take them to the exhibition going on in our township. So I want to leave the office at 5:30 p.m.

His boss replied - O K, You are permitted to leave the office early today.

The Scientist started working. He continued his work after lunch. As usual he got involved to such an extent that he looked at his watch when he felt he was close to completion. The time was 8:30 p.m

Suddenly he remembered of the promise he had given to his children. He looked for his boss, He was not there. Having told him in the morning itself, he closed everything and left for home.

Deep within himself, he was feeling guilty for having disappointed his children.

He reached home. Children were not there. His wife alone was sitting in the hall and reading magazines. The situation was explosive; any talk would boomerang on him.

His wife asked him - Would you like to have coffee or shall I straight away serve dinner if you are hungry.

The man replied - If you would like to have coffee, I too will have but what about Children???

Wife replied- You don't know - Your manager came at 5:15 p.m and has taken the children to the exhibition.

What had really happened was the boss who granted him permission was observing him working seriously at 5.00 p.m. He thought to himself, this person will not leave the work, but if he has promised his children they should enjoy the visit to exhibition. So he took the lead in taking them to exhibition.

The boss does not have to do it every time. But once it is done, loyalty is established.

That is why all the scientists at Thumba continued to work under their boss even though the stress was tremendous.

By the way, can you have a guess as to who the boss was????????

He was A P J Abdul Kalam.


[via Anitha]

The Argumentative Indian

this is a book by Amartya Sen. and i want to get a hold of it. actually i was reading U S visit instilled a deep sense of pride in me: PM from the hindu where there is a reference to this book. so i went and checked the reviews for it and it seems to be really interesting :)
some of the essays from the book r online:

Tagore and His India
History and the enterprise of knowledge
India through its calendars

[via The Middle Stage and saMvaad ]

what!!!

State mourning in AP in honour of Saudi ruler from hindu

i find this kind of strange...

"During the state mourning, the national flag will be flown at half mast and there will be no official entertainment, official sources said here."

to have the flag at half mast is something!!! do we have this when one of our leaders die?

on a click

some time back one of my friends forwarded me this site:
http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com

to feed an animal by a click. adn today i came accross the hunger site for human:
http://www.thehungersite.com/

don't know if they work or not but it is just a matter of a click to feed someone. really good projects if tehy actually work. i will continue to click n hope that they do :)