ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Friends, At the outset, this is wishing all our patrons, readers, friends and well wishers a great 2010. Hope and pray that it brings peace to terrorists' troubled India in particular and world in general. The month of December began with the nation getting worked up by the report of Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan on the demolition of Babri Masjid. It is true that it took 17 long years. There can be no justification for this excruciatingly inordinate delay in reporting to the nation what really went wrong on 6th Dec. 1992. It had a mind bogling 48 extentions. Different people dubbed it differently, from being a joke to waste of time and money. But lets face it, a report is a report. You simply cannot dismiss it because it took time. We have to take it in its face value. But what is sad is, in India everything is politicised. Some even suggested that the senior partner in UPA, the Congress, wanted an escape route with the Congress supported former Jharkhand CM: Koda, having been ar...

Copenhagen Fiasco "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! In the beauty of the world, how like a paragon of all animals!" Man failed to live up to these words at Copenhagen. As a journalist puts it, "Petty politics, self serving negotiators and the lack of flexibility bred mistrust and suspicion turning "Hopenhagen into Hopelessshagen" – not, of course, without contribution by the media. Although Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General, called the closing statement ‘meaningful’ and an ‘essential beginning’, most people termed the Copenhagen Accord as a "monumental failure". However the truth lies between these two distinctly different versions of the conference. Copenhagen or Kobenhavn in Danish, which means ‘merchants’ harbour’, is a Scandinavian hotspot. It is the capital of the world’s happiest country, and was a fishing village in the days of the yore...

Nutrition – What is meant? An apple a day keeps the doctor away! How often we’re heard this phrase and how little we think about its real meaning. Beyond drawing attention to the goodness of the humble apple, its real insight lies in the knowledge that nutritious foods make a healthy body. Simply put, Nutrition is about the relationship between food and good health. We require Nutrients-the various components that make up food for normal growth and development. Nutrients give us energy, help build/heal tissues, fight infections and enable our bodies to execute daily tasks with ease. There are innumerable nutrients contained in food and each contributes to our overall health and well-being. Evidence of interest in nutrition dates back several thousand years. However, the importance of "eating right" and "healthy living" has never been more relevant than now. Research increasingly shows a close connection between what we eat and the risk of developing several health p...

Credit card PIN a must for online shopping One more number to remember Effective from 1 August 2009, those desirous of online shopping through their credit or debit cards are required to punch their Personal Identification Number (PIN) into the given slot on the purchase site, said an RBI circular. This is in addition to name, credit card number, expiry date and card verification value number. The circular came in line with the earlier requirement for a secure code by VISA and Master Card provides as ‘additional authentication pass code’ for online shopping. The customer has to apply to his/her bank and branch seeking online registration. The bank would then allot him a password for online transactions. Considering the huge number of applications received by the bank for such PINs/passwords, some banks have made Internet transaction password as the PIN for credit card transaction. This new procedure is expected to reduce online frauds. Playing safe Display of Airfares to be more transp...

EDUCATIONAL SCENARIO IN INDIA TODAY "The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power." William Shakespeare. Prof. B. M. Hegde, hegdebm@gmail.com Professor James Tooley of the Newcastle University has been studying the educational pattern in India for some time. He has an advice for his countrymen that India could teach a thing or two to Britons about educating their people in England. He also feels that the Indian experience could be very useful for many other developing countries. This might sound preposterous when most Indians would want to believe that Indian educational system needs to borrow ideas from the West. I was sorry to read a write up by an Indian writer in The Statesman the other day, wherein the person was pontificating on the virtues of govt. schools and colleges and was very critical of private initiative in education in this country. I did reply to the editor explaining the other side of the coin. How I wish our writers really worked hard to ge...

Don’t talk rubbish. Recycle it :- Vaidehi Iyer ‘Garbage’ ‘Rubbish’, ‘Trash’, ‘Waste’ or even ‘Junk’- these have not just become improper nouns but derogatory adjectives as well. All that smelly stuff usually has us turning our noses up and our eyes away. Instead, let’s look towards solid waste management which tells us that the garbage we are disposing off, piling up in our landfills, leaving to leach into our water supply and subsoil ecosystem, burning and polluting is actually encashable wealth. If that sounds unbelievable we only have to look at what a committed band of volunteers have accomplished to realise that there is only thing we really need to throw away-our apathy. Across India, transfer stations, which collect waste from small collection vehicles, subsequently bulk it up for cost effective transport to dumpsites or the so called ‘landfill’- basically any stretch of no man’s land where garbage is thrown officially or unofficially. No country has the space for the huge volum...

Three Class 1 kids punished brutally Hadn’t Pinned ID cards To Uniform Bangalore: Corporal punishment raised its ugly head once again in Bangalore. Three 6-year-old girls in Class 1 of a school on Kanakapura road were made to run 10 times around the school play ground (which measures around 60 m x 60 m ) and do 50 sit-ups- all because they forgot to pin their identity cards to their uniform. What’s worse, it was the school principal and vise-principal who supervised the punishment that morning. As it happens, one girl had her ID card in her bag. Her repeated pleas not to be punished fell on deaf ears. When she returned home in the afternoon, she complained of ear pain. Her mother said the girl had complained of breathlessness after finishing 10 rounds. "In spite of that, she was not given water. Though she refused to run, the principal insisted. We took her to a doctor who confirmed that the pain in the external ear was due to holding it during the sit-ups. She is now complaining ...

Iranian couple fined for having ‘a go’ on beach Bangkok: Thai police fined an Iranian couple about USD 15 for having drunken sex on a popular tourist beach in front of excited onlookers, officials said. The 28-year-old man and the woman, 25, from the strict Islamic republic were caught in the act just before dawn by a policeman in the coastal resort of Pattaya. "While I was on a motorcycle patrol I saw some 20 people including tourists gathered at the beach. I went to examine and found the two Iranians were naked and having sex," said Captain Jamras Thongjinda of Pattaya city police station. Police charged the pair with committing an indecent act in a public place and in front of the public. The couple said they were drunk after finishing a bottle of vodka between them and police fined them 500 baht(14.7 dollars) before freeing them, Jamras said. Pattaya has a reputation for drunken excess, sleazy bars and explicit sex shows. Texas Couple say hen laid egg with cross A Fort Wo...

Age no bar-BTech@51 Jaipur: Domestic problems may have prevented him from completing his BTech way back in 1982, but 51-year old English teacher Alan Ali Khan has finally managed to get his degree after 27years. Khan, who got admission on merit in BITS, Pilani in 1977 had to discontinue his studies after seven semesters and joined as an English teacher in government service. But yearning for completing the engineering degree, Khan, in 2007, made a request to the university to re-admit him as a student. He completed his degree in Electronics Engineering by attending four semesters with the present students. Jail, caning for attacks A full-time national serviceman who assaulted two strangers with a metal stick, was jailed for 24 months and ordered to be given six strokes of the cane. Daniel Tan Xiao Long, 21 pleaded guilty to striking Mr Tony Budianto Bee, 24, and Mr Kikushima Kenji, 19, in separate incidents. Tan could have been jailed for up to 15 years, and fined or caned for the grie...