Saturday, August 27, 2011

India to Set Up an Agency to give out Foreign Aid of USD 11 bln in the next 5-7 years

Official development assistance

Aid 2.0

India is thinking about setting up its own aid agency. Why should others give aid to India?

EVERY so often something comes along which shows that almost everything you know about a subject is wrong. Such a development is happening in the world of foreign aid. It is a proposal by India to set up its own aid agency to distribute $11 billion over the next five to seven years. That's aid from India.

This would be a departure. For decades, India was the world's biggest aid recipient. Now, it is likely to join Brazil, Russia and China in using aid to win friends and influence people abroad. The rules of aid are being turned inside-out and long-standing donors—governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) alike—must change, too.


But India's proposal shows that donors, like generals, are still fighting the last war. The old binary division of the world—between rich countries which give aid and poor ones which get it—is gone. Fewer countries are poor and eligible for cheap loans. Two-thirds of the world's poorest people—those with less than $1.25 a day—live in middle-income countries, such as India, which increasingly are donors as well as recipients.

For the past decade Western donors have been campaigning to boost the amount of aid they give to poor countries and to try to make better use of it. These twin aims are embodied in the UN's millennium development goals and the Gleneagles agreement to double aid to Africa. They guided recent reforms to the aid budgets of America and Britain.

In this world Europeans and Americans no longer dominate aid. China is the biggest source of investment in Africa and the Gates Foundation is as important as many donor governments (and much more innovative). Private capital flows to Africa outstrip aid flows, contradicting an old justification that aid is necessary because investors hold back.

For the poorest, the new donors are more important because Western aid is shrivelling. Congress is proposing to chop American aid by a fifth. Brazil is giving more to the Somali famine than Germany, France and Italy combined. There are exceptions: Britain and Australia promise to boost aid spending. But they seem like a last hurrah of Western generosity.

As India also shows, middle-income countries no longer need financial transfers to help their own people. That was clear before: India has a space programme and $300 billion of foreign reserves. A new aid agency would ram the point home. Once, Westerners could say they needed to help India's poor because India's own government could not afford to. Not now.

So where does that leave aid?
In this new world the justification for aid and the behaviour of donors must change. For India and others, it is far from clear why the government should send aid abroad when it has so many poor people at home. No doubt, aid will be defended as a boost to global influence. The risk for India is that, just like the West did in the 1960s, it will pour money into grand projects which fail—and encourage bad government.

For Westerners, justifying aid will be harder. But there is a reason to give: like trade, aid benefits from specialisation and comparative advantage. Emerging countries, with recent experience to draw upon, might do a better job of infrastructure spending. The West should focus more on policies and good governance (something many poorer Indian states are crying out for). There is a new world of aid but over a billion people remain poor; they still need help, even if some of them live in countries that now give aid as well as get it.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Thursday, August 25, 2011

1984 Video: Steve Jobs Introduces The Mac

Collective Nouns and Congress !



The English language has some wonderfully anthropomorphic collective nouns for the various groups of animals.


We are all familiar with a Herd of cows,
 a Flock of chickens, 
a School of fish and 
a Gaggle of geese.

However, less widely known is 
a Pride of lions, 
a Murder of crows (as well as their cousins the rooks and ravens),
 an Exaltation of doves and, presumably because they look so wise, 
a Parliament of owls.

Now consider a group of Baboons. They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons?

Believe it or not ....... a Congress!


I guess that pretty much explains the things that come out of Washington  and New Delhi ???


Sir Collin Cowdrey Lecture 2011 : Kumar Sangakkara

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Smoking shisha: how bad is it for you?...experts say a single shisha session is the same as smoking 200 cigarettes


A shisha smoker in London
Jawad Rezavi: "It relaxes me." Photograph: Teri Pengilley for the Guardian

For Jawad Rezavi, 26, smoking shisha is the perfect way to unwind in an evening. "After a long day, I'll go to a shisha lounge. It relaxes me. In the same way that some people will enjoy a glass of red wine or need a cigarette to keep going while they're working, I like to enjoy my shisha. If I don't do it, it feels like I'm missing something."

Shisha, the origins of which are disputed (some say India, others Persia or Turkey) is a glass-bottomed water pipe in which fruit-flavoured tobacco is covered with foil and roasted with charcoal. The tobacco smoke passes through a water chamber and is inhaled deeply and slowly; the fruit-flavoured tobacco tastes smooth and smells sweet, enthusiasts say, making it an enjoyable and unrushed experience.

Rezavi, a student from London, tried his first shisha when he was 16. He began smoking regularly five years ago and helped his father establish a shisha cafe. The cafe closed down after the smoking ban came into effect in 2007, but Rezavi still smokes six times a week, either at home or at one of his favourite shisha bars with friends. "It's part of my routine. It's just nice to have it bubbling in the background when I'm studying."

And he's not alone. Usually shared between friends shisha is now associated with Middle Eastern cafe culture, but has become increasingly popular in the UK in recent years with cafes popping up in cities across the country. It's a phenomenon that has worried primary care trusts (PCTs) across the UK, which think that, unlike cigarette smokers, shisha users are unaware of the health risks.

Earlier this year, Leicester PCT's Stop Smoking service said it had seen an alarming rise in the number of teenagers in the city smoking shisha. And this summer, Birmingham's three PCTs will launch a city-wide tobacco control strategy, which includes increasing the awareness of shisha smoking. Meanwhile, the Niche Tobacco Advisory Group (NTAG) for North England recently introduced an educational campaign on shisha smoking.

Dr Khalid Anis, chairman of NTAG in Manchester, says: "There's a misconception that shisha is not as bad for you as cigarettes, because the tobacco is flavoured and passes through water first. But the carcinogens and nicotine are still there. So a regular shisha smoker can expect to be at risk to the similar health problems that cigarette smokers face, whether that's respiratory, heart disease or cancer. As with any other tobacco product, I expect regular shisha smokers will find it addictive, to the point that they may need it every day."

According to research carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the volume of smoke inhaled in an hour-long shisha session is estimated to be the equivalent of smoking between 100 and 200 cigarettes. The estimated findings go on to show that, on average, a smoker will inhale half a litre of smoke per cigarette, while a shisha smoker can take in anything from just under a sixth of a litre to a litre of smoke per inhale.

But a niche tobacco expert from a London local authority suggests the WHO findings are "alarmist", pointing out that there's not yet been enough research into the long-term effects of shisha smoking. Dr Kamal Chaouachi, a tobacco expert who teaches at Paris IX University and has researched shisha for 15 years, says comparing shisha with cigarettes "amounts to comparing oranges to apples".

According to Chaouachi, studies led by independent researchers at the Royal University of Saudi Arabia have shown that shisha smoke is 30 times less concentrated in chemicals than cigarette smoke, contradicting the WHO's warnings. "It is ludicrous and anti-scientific to claim that hookah or shisha smoke is 200 times more toxic than cigarette smoke," he says. "While about 5,000 chemicals have been identified so far in cigarette smoke, chemists and pharmacologists from Saudi Arabia only found 142 chemicals in shisha smoke. Also, a medical team in Pakistan found that shisha smoke can be much less carcinogenic and radioactive than cigarette smoke."

In March, the BBC published a news story claiming that GPs in Leicester "are seeing an increase in teenagers with health problems linked to shisha pipe smoking". But Leicester PCT now says the story was erroneous; while it maintains the number of teenagers in the city smoking shisha is on the rise, it says GPs have not confirmed an increase in treating patients with health problems caused directly by shisha.

So, with all the conflicting evidence, are the health concerns around shisha just a load of hot air? "The research on shisha is admittedly limited," concedes Anis. "But I have to concur with the WHO. If you watch the way people smoke shisha, they take deliberate, deep breaths before exhaling so there is a lot of smoke being inhaled."

Rezavi is unconvinced by the arguments. "Sure, inhaling tobacco smoke, whether it's from shisha or cigarettes, is never going to be good for you," he says. "I know that, but at the end of the day it's just something I enjoy."

Members of Standing Committee on Lokpal Bill : 20% members yet to be nominated !

1.  Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi,  Chairman (Rajya Sabha), Congress,  (Rajasthan)

2. Shri Parimal Nathwani  Member  (Rajya Sabha), Ind, (Jharkhand)

3. Shri Ram Vilas Paswan  Member (Rajya Sabha), L.J.S.P  (Bihar)

4. Shri Amar Singh  Member  (Rajya Sabha), Ind (Uttar Pradesh)

5. Shri Ram Jethmalani  Member  (Rajya Sabha) - Nominated

6. Shri Balavant alias Bal Apte Member (Rajya Sabha),  BJP (Maharashtra)

7. Shri O.T. Lepcha  Member (Rajya Sabha), SDF (Sikkim)

8.  Smt. Chandresh Kumari  Member  (Lok Sabha), Congress  
  
9.  Shri Lalu Prasad  Member  (Lok Sabha), RJD  

10.  Shri D.B. Chandre Gowda  Member (Lok Sabha), BJP 

11. Shri Shailendra Kumar Member  (Lok Sabha), SP (Uttar Pradesh)

12.  Dr. Kirodi Lal Meena  Member  (Lok Sabha), Ind 

13.  Shri Harin Pathak  Member  (Lok Sabha) BJP, (Gujarat)

14.  Shri N.S.V. Chitthan  Member  (Lok Sabha), Congress, (Tamil Nadu)

15.  Smt. Deepa Dashmunsi  Member  (Lok Sabha), Congress 

16.  Jyoti Dhurve  Member  (Lok Sabha), BJP 

17.  Dr. Monazir Hassan  Member  (Lok Sabha), JD (U) 

18.  Shri Devji M. Patel  Member  (Lok Sabha), BJP 

19.  Shri S. Semmalai  Member  (Lok Sabha) AIADMK 

20.  Shri Vijay Bahadur Singh  Member  (Lok Sabha), BSP 

21.  Dr. Prabha Kishore Taviad  Member  (Lok Sabha), Congress 

22.  Shri Manish Tewari  Member (Lok Sabha), Congress  

23.  Shri R. Thamaraiselvan  Member  (Lok Sabha), DMK 

24.  Shri P. T. Thomas (Idukki)  Member  (Lok Sabha), Congress 

25.  Kumari Meenakshi Natrajan  Member  (Lok Sabha), Congress 

26.  Vacant from  Rajya Sabha 
  
27.  Vacant  from Rajya Sabha 
  
28.  Vacant  from Rajya Sabha 
  
29.  Vacant  from Lok Sabha 
 
30  Vacant from  Lok Sabha 
  
31  Vacant from  Lok Sabha

Monday, August 22, 2011

Privately held Gold in India


A world Gold council report estimates that privately held Gold by Indians  18000 tons of Gold......    At today's Gold price of $ 1881 per ounce and today's exchange rate of 46.00, this would put the value of privately held gold in India at 5,004,000.00 crores or  at $ 1.11 trillion.

Value of Gold Reserves that Government of  India has is $ 33.73 billion. ( Quantum: about 557 tons).......The single highest Gold reserve held by a country is that of the US at 8120 tons- Value: $ 490.00 billion......Followed by Germany  at 3390 tons- Value : $ 205.00 billion...........Estimated sovereign held reserves total 30,695 tons- Value: $ 1.85 trillion.






Some simple mathematics to outwit Tendulkar


A mathematician's plan and modern technology have helped England keep Sachin Tendulkar's bat quiet in the ongoing Test series against the Indian cricket team, a report in London claimed.

England has relied on drawing Tendulkar outside his offstump in the early part of his innings rather than let him get his runs on the onside and this ploy is the result of a computer simulator plan, created by team analyst Nathan Leamon.

"We feed into the simulator information about pitches and the 22 players who might play,  and it plays the game a number of times and tells us likely outcomes." Leamon was quoted as saying in a British newspaper.

Run jam
England believe Tendulkar largely gets his runs on the onside until he has made 50 and they have denied him the advantage completely.

Of the 261 balls bowled to Tendulkar by England's fast bowlers till the Edgbaston Test,  254 have pitched outside his off-stump, six have been in the line of the stump and just one beyond leg-stump.

Leamon, nicknamed "Numbers" by England players, breaks down the target area of the pitch into 20 blocks, each 100cm x15cm, in his software and bowlers begin to get a better idea of where to aim against a particular opponent.

'No rocket science'
England might claim they have sorted out Tendulkar but Sunil Gavaskar sees no great science behind such a discovery.

"Every batsman has his style of batting. It emerges from his grip. One with a heavy top hand, like the one Sourav Ganguly used to have, would be better on the off-side than he would be on the on-side.

"Tendulkar, if you notice, has a round top grip. It gives him a natural advantage on the onside. So that becomes your preferred mode of run-making," said Gavaskar.

"So it's no rocket science. I'm glad it took the world to discover Tendulkar's style after he has nearly 15,000 Test runs under his belt."

Sar, I am very hard working......

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Swiss Agreement to hide black money





Ram Jethmalani mentioned in RS yesterday that in 2010, GOI has signed a treaty with the Swiss Govt agreeing with them that they will not disclose/take action against any black money in their country prior to 1/4/2011.....now why did GOI  sign it?



Gandhiji ka Danda


एक दिन सोनिया गांधी के सपने में महात्मा गांधीजी आकर बोले, "मैने मरते समय कॉंग्रेस को सादगी, ईमानदारी, टोपी, चश्मा और डंडा दिया था, कहॉं है वो?"

सोनिया ने अत्यंत विनम्रता से कहा, 

"टोपी तो राहुल लोगोंको पहना रहा है. 

सादगी मेरे और प्रियंका के पास है. 

चश्मा मनमोहन के पास है. 

ईमानदारी स्विस और ईटली के बैंक में सेफ है और

 डंडा आम आदमी की सेवा में लगा रखा है....
 
 
 
 
 
 


 


Life in every office/home?

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Net-Based Travel Planner ( India)


 
You can search for break journeys - Train + Flight , Multiple trains , multiple flights and search for train availability and the results are very fast. Very interesting idea and quite convenient for planning long journeys.

You just have to type say , " Bangalore to Trivandrum" and it will automatically understand your query. You don't have to select multiple drop downs, dates etc.Please click on the link below :
 
 



Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Join BOX OFFICE on youtube......

....to see the latest full- length  Indian films.....

Gifted in Maths...

            
You have to watch this guy. Gifted Maths Genius....  
 


15th August



"On this Independence Day, let us remember all those who struggled against the Brits  and perished--
Sachin, Sehwag,Gambhir, Harbhajan, Raina, Dhoni , Srisant, Ishant, Mishra, Zaheer, Laxman , Yuvraj etc."


Cherish the Pale Blue Dot

At Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990, as Voyager I left our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, engineers turned it around for one last look at its home planet. Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away, and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane, when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size.


Carl Sagan's famous words below.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.



Saturday, August 13, 2011

New Logo for 2012 Olympics : Post- Riot in London


Ancient India......

Play Music With PC Keyboard.......


 Please click on this link and 

                     Transform your keyboard in a musical instrument...instantly .

  I tried it and it's fantastic.  If you can play the piano -  you will be surprised 

                                 Very impressive...and it works. 

                                Now you can play the piano, organ, flute or guitar, etc.   

                                
                                 

                                http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/music/pi... 

Friday, August 12, 2011

In large crowd---Face Recognition



 
Face Recognition in a Crowd.


 

 
This is the crowd before a riot in Vancouver, Canada.   
 
Put your cursor anywhere in the crowd and double-click a couple of time and then use the scroll button in the centre of your mouse.
 
You can zero in on one single face.  The clarity is unbelievable.
 
This is actually scary.  You can see - perfectly - the faces of every single individual - and there were thousands!
 
Privacy?  With face-recognition software just think what the police have at their disposal.!  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 




1 to 33



Go to the site, then click on the start button. A group of numerals from 1 to 33 will appear in red boxes. You don't need to click on the numbers, just move your cursor over them in order from 1 to 33 and as you correctly do so that numeral will disappear. See how fast you can get the task completed. This is a good practice to keep your brain sharp and your eye/hand co-ordination crisp,  
http://www.chezmaya.com/jeux/game33.htm
--                                         






Thursday, August 11, 2011

Welcome to.....


1Divided By 0 = Infinity

From Cricinfo, Reader Comment:

"Just woke up here in California and saw the score: Sehwag 0, Sachin 1. This shows what I have believed all along : Sachin is an infinitely better batsman than Sehwag in English conditions.


Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Indore Says.....

Delhi says "Save Electricity",

Mumbai says "Save the beaches",

Chennai says "Save Nature", 

Hyderabad says "Save the heritage"

Indore  says 

" सेव परमल, सेव कचोरी, सेव समोसा....

(Courtesy Dev)

After 46 yrs, the healing touch: Pak pilot says sorry for mistake




New Delhi
 In September 1965, as the Indo-Pak war was drawing to a close, a Pakistani fighter jet shot down a civilian aircraft with the then chief minister of Gujarat, Balwantrai Mehta, on board. All eight people — Mehta and his wife, three aides, a journalist and the two pilots — were killed.

Forty-six years later, the Pakistani fighter pilot who shot down the Beechcraft has written to the daughter of the chief pilot of the downed Indian plane, expressing regret over the incident.

"If an opportunity ever arises that I could meet you face to face to condole the death of your father 46 years back I would grab it with both hands," Qais Hussain has written in an email to Farida Singh, the daughter of distinguished IAF pilot Jahangir Engineer.

Engineer's civilian plane was mistaken for a reconnaissance aircraft by Pakistani controllers, and he was ordered to shoot it down, Hussain has written. There was no intention to kill civilians, he has said.

Hussain told The Indian Express that he would like to write to the families of all those who were killed in the incident to explain that the plane was brought down only because he and his superiors were convinced that they were facing a military aircraft.

In his condolence email to Singh, Hussain, who was the only pilot in his plane, has explained that he carried out all possible checks, but all indications seemed to suggest that Engineer's aircraft was an enemy warplane.

"I did not play foul and went by the rules of business but the unfortunate loss of precious lives, no matter how it happens, hurts each human and I am no exception. I feel sorry for you, your family and the other seven families who lost their dearest ones," Hussain has said.

The pilot, who left service three years after the incident, told The Indian Express that he had decided to write to Singh to get his side of the story across. "I wanted to say that I was not a trigger-happy chap, and this happened in the confusion of war. It is a small gesture from my side to explain things to the family."

"I was highly elated after I landed following the shooting down of what I thought was an enemy reconnaissance aircraft," he said. "But in the evening when All India Radio announced the death of all the people, the mood was not as bright. We were all very sorry and dejected."

Hussain added that there was no possibility of expressing regret at the time because of the hostile atmosphere in the aftermath of the war.

Hussain wrote the letter after former PAF pilot and writer Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail wrote a detailed account of the incident after interviewing all Pakistani officers connected with it, including the radar controller and operations superviser.

The intention, Tufail told The Indian Express, was to give the factual position and remove any lingering ill will over the incident. "My idea was to bring out the correct picture as little has been written about the incident in Pakistan. The issue was not of proving who was right or wrong, the idea was to find out what happened," Tufail said.

In his detailed article, Tufail said Pakistani controllers mistook the civilian aircraft for a Packet C 119 aircraft that was being used at the time by the IAF for transport and reconnaissance missions. He also said that the Indian aircraft had strayed into Pakistani territory, and should not have been flying so close to the border during war.

In his letter to Singh, Hussain wrote that the incident was "as fresh in (his) mind as if it had happened yesterday".

"Your father spotted my presence... and he started climbing and waggling his wings seeking mercy. Instead of firing at him at first sight, I relayed to my controller that I had intercepted an eight seat transport aircraft and wanted further instructions.

"At the same time, I was hoping that I would be called back without firing a shot. There was a lapse of 3 to 4 long minutes before I was given clear orders to shoot the aircraft," Hussain wrote.

"Nonetheless, the unfortunate part in all this is that I had to execute the orders of my controller. Mrs Singh, I have chosen to go into this detail to tell you that it all happened in the line of duty and it was not governed by the concept that `everything is fair in love and war', the way it has been portrayed by the Indian media due to lack of information...

"I hope and pray that you and your family stay well."