For Love of water but not “Sick Water”:

Friends realize that we are just 1/4 but water is 3/4 of the world:

The United Nations reminded all countries on March 22, World Water Day, that humanity continues to impose a staggering burden on rivers, lakes, and deltas each year in the form of pollution. What the UN has highlighted in its report titled “Sick Water?” should stir the conscience of people everywhere. “Pollutants dumped in key water sources annually are estimated to weigh as much as the global population – which is close to seven billion people.”
“This disturbing truth should encourage everyone starting with national governments to do more to protect the broth of life.” The first step is to plug the sources of the millions of tonnes of sewage and industrial and agricultural waste that are pumped perennially into water ways and other fresh water reserves.











Action taken to improve water quality pays rich dividends – the UN Environment Programme and Habitat estimate the return to be between $3 and $34 for every dollar spent, depending upon the region and technology employed. Such investments are really important for India.

India’s response to pollution has been atrociously slow. In 2008, the country had the capacity to treat only about 18 percent of the sewage produced in cities and towns, and the increments since then have been insignificant. The rest of the sewage flows into water ways and lakes, contaminating ground water and spreading disease. The problem is linked to the national issue of insufficient of housing, sanitation, and sewage. The most infamous example of India’s failed attempts at river cleansing is that of the Ganga, which has over the millennia been revered as a holy water.






It is listed by the UN as severely polluted, with its basin receiving billions of liters of waste water every year. Clearly, governments are abdicating their responsibility towards citizens by allowing the positioning of meager and dwindling fresh water. Some are keen set up expensive desalination plans, without making a parallel affect to protect surface and ground water and recover waste water. The way forward is to enforce the well recognized “Polluted Pays” principle. Industries and municipal authorities should lead the clean up. When will rising India realize it must go all out to ensure clean water for its people?


The Bottom Line:
I am talking only about India because I knew it and it is my country. I think almost all the countries are suffering with the same problem. “Don’t be selfish friends, Please show some mercy towards water otherwise it will wipe you out of this beautiful world, because we are occupying just ¼ of the world, but it is covering 3/4 just realize it friends.”

Google and its digital future:

Do we need it or not:

Google’s hopes of creating the world’s largest digital library remain uncertain after New York district court declared it needed more time to rule on this controversial project. Announced in 2004, the $200 million projects began by scanning and digitalizing the entire libraries of four major universities, including “Harvard” and “Oxford”, and the New York public library.
In written for permission to digitize these works and make excerpts available through its search engine, the libraries were promised a digital copies of books and journals. The case, which has implications not only for authors and publishers but also for anti-trust practices and copyright law, has been snagged in the legal quagmire since 2005.

The author’s guild and the association of American publishers filed a class action suit against “Google Inc”. For resorting to what they regarded as a massive copyright in infringement for commercial use. Google claimed that use of “snippets” and “excerpts” of copyrighted works were exempted under the principle of “fair use.”

The case assumed a wholly new dimension when authors, publishers and libraries entered into an agreement with Google in 2008 to put in a place in a business model to compensate the former for use of copyrighted work through Google’s digital platform.















The agreement included out-of-print works and “orphan works” (where copyright is unknown) for free previews. A revised agreement was filed in court the following years after the U.S justice department held that original agreement could be violation of anti-trust laws.
It would benefit all the final ruling strikes an equitable and fine balance – one that protects the rights of authors and publishers that addresses concerned about Google acquiring a monopoly over a vast digital library, and that does not hinder a possible revolution in public access to knowledge.

Under the terms of revised settlement, millions out-of-print works will be available to reaches and readers in a searchable online database. There can be little doubt that Google’s digital project that vastly improves public access to books. Some countries claim that the settlement violates the “Berne Convention” for protection of literary and artistic works. “France” is even preparing its own rival to Google’s book.




















The Bottom Line:

Given such developments, the view that too much is to be decided by a settlement before a court has gained ground. What is really needed in a comprehensive legislative framework for book digitization. "I think it will be really useful to all of us and it is up to you, you can decide yours."

When hope is born anew:

"Good Friday" wishes to my friends all over the world, as a gift of "Good Friday" a small story for you:




Story Introduction:

When Samuel left his home that night, everything seemed to be going wrong. But a chance meeting on a hill far away and a story told, charges him with renewed hope. Read the story and understand what has happened on the hill.

Samuel was dejected. Everything he thought precious was gone. His parents were fighting again. Things were not too good at school. He seemed to be always in trouble. The thing was he just couldn’t think straight because all the time he was troubled.
He thought “May be I should just run away, and I can run away from all the problems. He packed few things and, in the dead of night, he crept out. It was a dark night, and Samuel was happy for that because he thought he could escape in the darkness. He walked and walked with no idea of where he was going.

He found himself climbing a hill. He was hungry, but he continued. Soon, he was on the top of the hill. He sat down and took out the bread he had packed. As he sat munching it and thinking about what he was to do, he heard a voice.

“What is the matter with you, son?”
The clouds had cleared and the moon was out. He saw an old man; his clothes were in tatters and seemed to be hanging on a rather thin frame. But his face was aglow with happiness. “What do you care?” answered Samuel rather uncharitably. “My troubles are aplenty and if you have a month’s time I can tell you all about it!”

The old man was not put out, but instead laughed. “I have seen many like you, my friend. They all find their way to this place. I don’t know how but they do. But a quite time spent here refreshes them. They always live with hope in their hearts.” “Hah! It’s easy for you to say this, old man. Look at you. You don’t have a care in the world. Do you wonder why?”

Samuel was getting interested now. He felt that the old man has some secret. “I live on this mountain. It is my mountain of hope. Do you know the history of this site?” Samuel could only shake his head in ignorance. “This is where my friend, my savior laid down his life for me.”
“I don’t understand. If he was your friend and savior, why would he have to die for you?” “He died so that I could live.” “Oh this is too confusing for me” shouted Samuel. “Be gone, you old man, with your stories and riddles.” But the old man refused to go. He sat there beside Samuel and started telling a story.




Story Begins:


“A long time ago, in a little town in Bethlehem was born a Messiah. He was Christ. He came into this world to save the people. But the people in authority could not accept his teachings. They found fault with his messages. They were threatened, you see. They decreed that he should die and one night with the help of one of his disciples called “Judas” they caught him. They beat him, whipped him, and spat upon him.”

“If he was your Messiah, your savior, why did he allow himself to be subjected to such treatment?”

“It was written that the son of God would come down to earth and suffer for our sins. He did this because he loved us. His only crime was that he loved his people. They made him carry the cross up this mountain and they crucified him.”
“A cross? But I thought only criminals were crucified!”
“Yes! They turned him like a criminal, but though he died on the cross he rose again.”

“How did that happen?”

“They hung him on the crass to die. And in the afternoon, a sudden darkness fell upon the land. And his spirit was taken. Later, one Joseph of Arimathea claimed his body and took it away to be buried. It was laid in a tomb and guards were placed there, so that the disciples would not take away the body. But on the third day, when Mary came to his grave she found that the stone that blocked the entrance had been moved and there was no one in the tomb. She felt a presence beside her, and thinking that it was the gardener asked him where their lord was. The answer they received was startling. They were told that their savior had risen. He was the risen lord.”

Thus he fell asleep after listening to the story and woke up in the morning with new hope. Then he remembered the previous night. He remembered the old man. He remembered the story. He looked around and there was no sign of anyone. Could it have been a dream? He shrugged and walked off. Whatever it was, it was good and that the story he had heard had given him reason to continue.

The Bottom Line:

How pity that he was punished and suffered on behalf of us. We are committing sins and he is being punished because of us. Imagine how beautiful the world would be if "Jesus" is still there and taking care of us.

Yet “India” has reached another milestone:

As a citizen of “India” I am very happy today. Today i.e. April 1, 2010 we have reached a historic milestone in our country’s struggle for children’s “right to education.” The constitution (86th Amendment) act, 2002, making elementary education a “Fundamental Right”, and its consequential legislation, the right of children to free and compulsory education (RTE) act, 2009, comes into force today. “The enforcement of this right represents a momentous step forward in our 100 year struggling for universalizing elementary education.


Over the years, the demand for children’s education has grown by leaps and bounds, everybody from the poorest of the poor to the well off, acknowledges the value of education in the overall development of children. The enforcement of the “Fundamental Right” to Education provides us a unique opportunity to mount a mission encompassing some unsolved discourses, to fulfill our goal of universal elementary education.






What is RTE Act?

The right to education goes beyond free and compulsory education to include Quality education for all. Quality is an integral part of the right to education. Making elementary education an entitlement for children in the 6-14 age group, the “Right of Children to free and compulsory education Act, 2009 will directly benefit close to one crore children who do not go to school at present. As per the Act, private educational institutions should reserve 25 percent seats for children from the weaker sections of the society.

The Centre and the States have agreed to share the financial burden in the ratio of 55:45, while the finance commission has given Rs.25,000 crore to the states for implementing the act. The centre has approved an outlay of Rs.15,000 crore for 2010-2011 for the purpose.












The Bottom Line:

The Act is not historic now; it will be historic when it is implemented perfectly. It is the duty of every citizen of “India” to enforce the Act. “Quality education comes only from Quality schools, infrastructure and “Trained Teachers”. As far as I concern only 50 percent of the teachers are well qualified “Mr. Kapil Sibal”. So it is our duty to take qualified teachers. “Mr. Sibal” you also said that it is a major task to bring some of the children to schools and retain them. “You know there are some children and parents who don’t even know what “Education” is and what is the purpose of it, we should take the initiative to bring awareness in them and it should become one of the clauses in the Act. I am ready for doing any kind of work to enforce this act in a proper manner and I request all the citizen of “India” to play an active role in this Act. Then we can see a prosperous “India”. Make sure that the funds to this educational rights is not misutilized.

Where is God?

A Beautiful short story:

Disciple: Where is God?

Guru: “Everywhere, in everyone and everything God is there.

Later, as the Disciple was going home, he saw an elephant charging towards him. “Get out of the way, get out of the way”, shouted the mahout, “he has gone mad!”

But the Disciple thought: “God is everywhere. He is in the elephant and he is in me. Would God attack God? No, therefore the elephant will not attack me.” He stood where he was. The elephant picked him up in his trunk and flung him aside. Fortunately, he landed in a haystack and was not too badly hurt. But he was terribly shaken and confused.

When the Guru and the other disciples came to help him and take him home, he said, “You said
God is in everything, but see what the elephant did to me?”




“It is true that God is in everything,” said his Guru. “He is in the elephant, but he is also in the mahout who kept telling you to get out of the way. Why didn’t you listen to him?”

The Bottom Line:

I read the story and liked this and that is the reason I am posting this, but one thing I learnt from this story is “Every observation should be keen and properly justified.”

The Shouting Men of Finland:

Creating a new art:

Take a group of men from the northern Finnish town of Oulu population 100,000 dresses them in dark suits with black ties made from the inner tubes of car tyres. “Mieskuoro Huutajat”, which literally means “Shouting Men Choir”, comprises a group of 30 men led by conductor “Petri Sirtio”, whose unique performance involves shouting out the words of a song in chorus instead of singing them. Long cardboards tubes are the only equipment used to provide special vocal effects.















“The Shouting Men of Finland” as the choir is popularly called, was founded in 1987 and has a large repertoire comprising not only Finnish patriotic songs but also foreign compositions like “The Star Spangled Banner” and the national anthems of various countries.




From the beginning, this new concept was recognized as a major breakthrough and an art form in its own right. Traditional singing choirs have given this choir their outer appearance and a basis for their expression. But this is as far as the analogy goes. When the choir find a song that pleases their temperament and warped sense of humour, the conductor starts dismantling it: the melody goes first and usually the text is also heavily trimmed. The remains are then cast into a completely new form; the complex rhytmic structure emphasises the essence of the text, or simply reflects the voices inside the human brain provoked by the language itself, music, urban or rural noise, or the blood circulation system.




The Bottom Line:

That is what I call as passion. Their unique musical performance, which is now recognized as a distinct art form, has captivated audiences across the globe. “Whatever we create it should be unique and should be admired by the world.”

Its all the mind game:

The mental potential is limitless. There is really nothing to stop you from doing or being what you want. To begin with, it is really not a secret. The mind plays a vital role in shaping us, the way we are, the jobs we perform and allocate our time to. “Successful” people seem to have their time prioritized and somehow their schedules fit in every single thing they want to do. We need to give a complete 100 percent to what we want or to become.



Who’s a Winner?


A winner is someone who has put in the little bit extra. All of us have it to go 80 percent of the way. It is that last 20 percent that makes the difference between those who win and those who do not. That last 20 percent is really the toughest part, something like the tip of the pyramid.

Awareness is growing slowly. Slowly, the world is looking seriously at the “Vedas” for inspiration, where we find mind work works. Dan Brown’s latest book, “The lost symbol” resolves around thoughts and mind. Examples are quoted by masters of how diseases like cancer have been completely cured with only mind work. Problems that seemed insurmountable are resolved by sending the right message to your mind. Something that seemed loftier than the “Mount Everest” turns into a mere speed bump on the road of life. The mental imagery, meditation, and mind strategies can work wonders.


I will tell you an example, A physical test on athletes preparing to participate in the Olympics had them all wired up to machines. They were instructed to feel like they were in a practice session. The machine they were wired to record their muscle responses. Guess what the machine reported? That when the athletes imagine they were in a practice session, the muscle they would engage was actually fired up. It is without them doing a thing physically.

The Bottom Line:

The mental potential is limitless. There really is nothing to stop you from doing or being what you want by knowing deep within you that you can do it. “Friends not everybody wants to win Mr. Universe or Miss. Universe, so why to feel sad everybody is a winner.