Srinivas Padma: Personal Musings on Life, Growth, and Connections

The Bachchans are a religious lot as has been proven time and again. First it was the temple trail before the wedding and then the newlyweds - Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan - along with dad Amitabh Bachchan, mom Jaya Bachchan and close friend Anil Ambani were visiting the Tirupati temple seeking blessings of Lord Balaji. The two were flown to Tirupati in Anil Ambani's private jet , with the tycoon's wife and former actress, Tina Ambani in attendance. The newlyweds visited the temple on April 22, two days after their wedding. The VIP group spent nearly 20 minutes at the Ranganayaka Mandapam. Devotees at the Tirupati Balaji temple had to wait for almost one-and-a-half h ours before they got admission into the temple last Sunday as VIP treatment was given out to Bollywood's first family during their visit. Almost a kilometer of the walk was cordoned off for the Bachchans when the norm is to cordon off simply a few meters when the President or the Prime Minister are vi...

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It's the company's first desktop media player. Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service Adobe Systems has developed its first desktop media player and plans to give the industry an early peek at it at the National Association of Broadcasters trade show in Las Vegas this week. The company is already a major player in the exploding market for online video with its ubiquitous Flash player and accompanying authoring and streaming products. Adobe hopes to extends its presence with Adobe Media Player: a desktop application that will let content owners embed ads in clips that users can play back offline. The ability to let consumers "download and carry" ad-supported videos and play them back offline makes the product an important one for media companies, which already use Flash to distribute 80 percent to 90 percent of their content, an analyst said. "It provides a way to share media and make money, which until now has been a scary proposition for most media companies,"...

In a bid to capitalize on the burgeoning online video market, the tech titan(Microsoft) is launching Silverlight, its new video-player software. The explosion of Web video has opened a new front in the battle between Adobe Systems (ADBE) and Microsoft (MSFT), each shooting for a bigger share of software that can create and serve up clips. For companies that publish online videos—and the advertisers who sponsor them—the result could be new technology that squelches piracy, cuts download times, and lets consumers watch programs even when they're offline. Microsoft and Adobe will both unveil new video-playing software at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas on Apr. 16. Both companies are aiming to capitalize on a growing market for Internet video ads, expected to grow from $1.5 billion market in 2007 to $4.2 billion in 2011, according to market researcher Yankee Group. Dueling Debuts Adobe's Flash Player, installed on more than 700 million PCs, has beco...

Hermaphrodites, commonly known as eunuchs, can now choose a gender of their liking and some can even give birth to babies — thanks to a special procedure developed at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here. After proper diagnosis, some 1,100 patients have already given proper gender identities as males or females and all of them are leading a normal life, doctors at the premier research and referral institute said. “Treatment is available in select centres. At least 18 of the treated patients have also given birth to babies,” said Dr D.K. Gupta, head of the department of paediatric surgeries.“After diagnosing physical attributes present inside the body and demands of the family, we conduct surgeries to reconstruct the vagina, uterus and even the male genitals,” Gupta said. He said some time he and his team had to conduct as many as six-seven operations on one patient to put everything in order and said early diagnosis was the best way to treat such complications.“The ...

Have you ever thought about how the names of the days of the week came about? The days of the week were named by the Romans and by other ancient civilisations, after the sun, moon and planets, which were considered Gods. Sunday: The first day of the week was, in the past, Sunday and was traditionally viewed by the ancient Hebrews as a day of rest and worship. Sunday is named after the sun: the Sun’s day. Legend has it that babies born on Sunday were considered lucky. Monday was viewed as the second day of the week and was dedicated to the moon: Moon’s day. It was believed that three Mondays during the year were considered unlucky: the first Monday in April, second in August and the last in December. Tuesday viewed as the third day of the week was named after the Roman God of war: Mars. In Hindi Tuesday is known as Mangalvar also named after Mars as Mangal is Mars in Hindi. Wednesday is dedicated to Mercury. Mercury, messenger to the Gods, was the Roman god of commerce and trave...

Of the 10 recognised incarnations of Lord Vishnu , legend has it that nine have already appeared before us. Let us have a look at these various avatars. The first one of these takes the form of Matsya or fish . Hindu mythology believes that the world is subject to a cycle of periodical destruction. It was during one such cycle that the four Vedas were submerged beneath the water. In order for Brahma to carry on with his work of creation, the Vedas were a must as they were manuals of instruction. Vishnu was commanded to recover these books and to do so, he took the form of a fish. In his next incarnation, Vishnu takes the form of a tortoise, Kachyup or Kurma that took the newly created, trembling earth upon its back to give it some form of stability. The third incarnation is that of Varaha or boar . Taking this form, Vishnu is supposed to have descended into the water and drawn up the earth with the help of his huge tusks. Narasimha is Vishnu’s fourth incarnation. This form of a hal...

Princes William and Harry want Sir Paul McCartney, Beyoncé Knowles and Justin Timberlake to join the line-up for their Diana tribute concert. The princes are desperate to convince the world’s biggest music stars to take part in the event to mark the 10th anniversary of their mother’s death. They are keen for The Beatles’ legend to lead a supergroup who would perform the Fab Four’s greatest hits. A source told Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper, “The princes know they need to get artistes who are loved around the world, but particularly in America, to ensure it’s a truly worldwide event no one will forget. They would love it to be the biggest since Live 8 or Live Aid. They really want Justin and Beyoncé to ensure there’s massive coverage in the US. Paul would be the icing on the cake, he met Diana many times and is a living legend. He has been approached and is in talks. He could do something special, like lead a supergroup, just as he did with Bono to kick off Live 8.” The princes have a...

San Francisco: Google has expanded its popular mapping technology to allow users to create their own personalised maps complete with their own pictures and locations. The new features launched on Thursday allow creators to share maps, giving them the possibility of creating localised maps of points of interest in specific neighbourhoods. Users can choose whether to make their maps public or private. Maps can be further customised by specify ing the scale of the map, the order the landmarks appear in the sidebar, and even the design of the landmark icons on the map. They can also be toggled between map and satellite views. The Silicon Valley company is hoping the simplicity of the new features will generate millions of highly specialised maps to be stored in its search index. Google Maps is currently the thirdmost popular map site, after AOL’s Mapquest and Yahoo Maps.

The central and major deity of the Hindu Trinity, Vishnu the Preserver , is said to be all-powerful, all knowing and all pervading. The two most commonly seen representations of Vishnu show him either sleeping comfortably in the coils of Shesh Nag , the king of the serpents , as he floats on the waves of the ocean or as standing on the waves. In his four hands he holds his chief attributes: The conch , symbolic of the five elements; the discus; the lotus and the mace which is a symbol of primeval knowledge. Now let us take a closer look at what exactly these four attributes really symbolise. As mentioned above the conch is a sign of the five elements which are water, fire, air, earth and sky. The discus or wheel, which is called the Sudarshan Chakra has six spokes and represents the limitless control the God has over all the seasons. It is also a weapon that dismembers evil. The lotus referred to as Padma is a symbol of purity and represents the birth of creation while the mace is rep...

LONDON: A life-size wax statue of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan was inaugurated at the world-famous Madame Tussauds museum here on Tuesday. Shah Rukh Khan, also called “King Khan” by his admirers, is the third celebrity from Bollywood to have his replica in the museum. He joins Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan and beauty queen Aishwarya Rai who made their wax presence in the Museum earlier. Amitabh Bachchan’s wax statue is reportedly watched by 25 lakh visitors to the museum every year. Among the Indian leaders figuring in the Museum are former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Madame Tussauds was set up by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud. One of the major attractions at the museum is the Chamber of Horrors. This features statues of several victims and murderers of the French Revolution. Madame Tussauds is a major tourist attraction in London. It has branches in Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Las Vegas.

Let’s learn about Thomas Alva Edison who patented 1093 inventions in his lifetime Undoubtedly one of the greatest inventors of all time, many of Thomas Alva Edison’s inventions changed man’s lifestyle. The electric bulb, sound recording and a crude form of movies were just a few of them. Born in 1847, in Ohio, USA , Edison had little formal schooling. Yet, he was fascinated by science. He spent his young adulthood working extremely hard, and would often spend days experimenting, just to make something work. In 1869, Edison moved to New York City, where he improved upon a machine called the ‘ticker’ that was used to relay information about the stock market. With the money he earned from this, Edison built what he called an ‘ invention factory ’ at Menlo Park, near New York. This was, in fact, the world’s first research laboratory. His next major contribution was in 1877, when he invented the phonograph , a device used to record and playback sounds. What is interesting is that although ...

The capital city has a distinction. New Delhi has been declared as the best city to live in among the metropolitan cities of the country. The Mercer Human Resource Consulting survey says that the capital has the highest standard of living in the country. The Mercer Human Resource Consulting that is surveying the worldwide quality of living had select ed 215 cities around the globe. New Delhi has been ranked at 148, two places up from 2006 position. The other cities of the country that featured in the list include Chennai and Mumbai. In fact, Chennai has been put at 177 ahead of the financial capital Mumbai (209). The Mercer’s analysis of world cities was based on evaluation of 39 criteria that include political, social, economic and environmental factors.

Contextual advertising took an interesting turn with online creative agency Media2win creating a dynamic search campaign for MSN India, touted as the first of its kind in India. The campaign is currently running on Google search. When one searches for keywords like Cricket, Cricket Score or Champions Trophy on Google, then on a match day the sponsored ad of MSN India shows the Live score of the match. When clicked, it lands on the Cricket score page of MSN India. As against the static contextual advertisements, the ad campaign of MSN India gets dynamically created and hosted on Google the moment content on the site gets updated. This provides an instant answer to the search query of the user. “The challenge in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is to ensure that the searched keyword delivers a compelling creative and points to the right page that provides an answer to the user’s query. We translated this requirement by developing a tool that automatically generates keywords, writes and publ...