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

Durban school lands in controversy over religious remarks Durban 29 Oct: A high school here, which created a row in recent past over an Indian-origin girl wearing a nose ring, has now been plunged into a fresh controversy after a teacher of the school said that Hindus will "go to hell" , while Christians will "go to heaven" . The incident took place at the Durban Girls' high school during a discussion on religion. When one of the pupils told the teacher that she was Hindu, the teacher responded by saying that because they prayed to idols they would go to hell. She also told the pupil that she would pray for her. "I am shocked by these remarks. They are propagating Christianity and attacking other religions, which is unacceptable," said a parent. The chairman of the Human Rights Commission, Jody Kollapen, said the incident proved that certain people had not yet woken up to the fact that South Africa was a multireligious society. "School is a...

Sunny Deol will be directing Shilpa Shetty in his home production, The Man . This is the first film Shilpa has signed after the success of Celebrity Big Brother . Her publicist Dale Bhagwagar confirmed the news saying, "Yes, Shilpa will indeed be directed by Sunny and Neeraj Pathak in The Man. It will be fun for her as Sunny has been her co-star in more than three films and she admires him too." Her last release Apne was with the Deols too, though it was completed before her CBB participation. When we probed further on Shilpa's other projects, Bhagwagar said, "I can't reveal the names of makers who have approached Shilpa, but I can tell you that there are many. There are offers from the UK, the US and Bollywood. Shilpa is going through a dozen scripts at the moment and you will hear some very interesting announcements soon. Apart from The Man, she has also given the nod to Uru Patel's international venture Hanuman (where she would be playing the role of ...

Good rest and sound sleep is very important. If you don’t sleep well, the toxic in your body will accumulate, affecting your health and your mood. The main causes of liver damage are: 1. Sleeping too late and waking up too late are the main cause. 2. Not urinating in the morning. 3. Too much eating. 4. Skipping breakfast. 5. Consuming too much medication. 6. Consuming too much preservatives, additives, food coloring, and artificial sweetener. 7. Consuming unhealthy cooking oil. As much as possible, reduce cooking oil use, even the best cooking oil like olive oil when frying. Do not consume fried foods when you are tired. 8. Consuming overly done foods also add to the burden of liver. Vegetables should be eaten raw or cooked 3 - 5 parts. Fried vegetables should be finished in one sitting, do not store. We just have to adopt a good daily lifestyle and eating habits. Maintaining good eating habits and time condition are very important for our body to absorb and get rid of unnecessary chem...

London: A new study has revealed that school kids who play computer games are scoring more in exams. Children of St Columbia's Primary School in Scotland , who played educational games in the beginning of the day, improved their performance in mathematics by over 10 per cent. The experiment was conducted on 30 school kids who played games on the Nintendo console for about 20 minutes every morning. They included puzzles and problem-solving games meant to activate the brain. After 10 weeks of playing such games, the kids not only got good marks in Maths, but also improved their concentration and behavior. Needless to say, they also became better at playing the game. So next time you find your kid cracking a puzzle on your personal computer, leave him alone.

London: A 10 year old British Indian boy has learnt to speak 10 languages apart from English mostly on his own. Arpan Sharma, from Oldbury in the West Midlands, learned Hindi at a very young age as it is his mother tongue. The primary school student has taught himself French, Spanish, German, Italian, Swahili, Mandarin, Polish, Thai and the Lugandan language of Uganda either by lessons in school or by using CD-ROMs. Arpan speaks French with flair, rattles off German with ease and can hold a lengthy conversation in Swahili. His Spanish is impressive as is his Italian; he has more than a grasp of Mandarin, Thai, Swahili and Polish and is currently studying the difficult Lugandan language of Uganda, according to the Daily Mail. The 10 year old, who is a member of the National Children's Orchestra, learnt French, Spanish, German and Italian in school and picked up other languages by using interactive, multimedia CD-ROMs . He learnt Italian when he was seven, German when he was e...

Although smoking “moderate” doses of cannabis helps reduce pain in healthy research volunteers, pain is actually increased at high doses, a new study shows. The November issue of the journal Anesthesiology features a study showing that marijuana, or cannabis , reduces pain only within a smaller dose range. “Our study suggests that there is a therapeutic window for analgesia, with low doses being ineffective, medium doses resulting in pain relief and high doses increasing pain ,” said lead author Dr. Mark S. Wallace of University of California, San Diego, in a news release. Wallace and colleagues evaluated the effects of smoking marijuana on pain responses in 15 healthy volunteers. On different days, the research subjects smoked low, medium or high doses of cannabis (based on the content of 9-delta-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main active chemical in marijuana), or an inactive placebo. Pain was induced by injecting capsaicin, the “hot” chemical found in chili peppers, into the skin . Caps...

They are a part of our daily dialogue. The perfect line for the perfect situation. Rarely does the brain and the mouth collide with such poetic harmony. These days we use words like "cool" or "awesome" when we could be saying things like " frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. " But really, who would say something that retarded. #10 " Bond...James Bond " - You can pretty much say any name this way and it sounds cool. Especially if you're Sean Connery. #9 You Can't Handle The Truth - As we look back, it's really quite ironic that this line was delivered to Tom Cruise. #8 " Are You Talkin' To Me? " - A useful line for so many social situations. Especially when you're being propositioned by a homeless person for some spare change. #7 " Say Hello To My Little Friend " - The perfect line for any man to use in any sexual situation. #6 "Go Ahead...Make My Day" - The king of all bad ass movie l...

25th October 2007: The world's largest jetliner made aviation history Thursday, completing its first commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney with 455 passengers , some of them ensconced in luxury suites and double beds. The Airbus superjumbo lifted off from Singapore's Changi Airport and landed about seven hours later in Sydney. Also aboard Flight SQ380 was a crew of about 30, including four pilots. Flight attendants handed out champagne and certificates to passengers, some of whom paid tens of thousands of dollars in an online auction for seats. "I have never been in anything like this in the air before in my life," said Australian Tony Elwood, reclining with his wife, Julie, on the double bed in their private first-class suite. "It is going to make everything else after this simply awful," he said, sipping Dom Perignon champagne after a lunch of marinated lobster and double boiled chicken soup. He paid $50,000 for the two places. The double-decker A3...

The market, which has been on steroids through most of October, also saw Mukesh Ambani , the head of Reliance Industries Ltd, become the richest man in the world, edging out software giant Bill Gates of Microsoft and Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim and Warren Buffet . PTI reported that Mukesh Ambani's net worth rose to $63.2 billion (Rs 2,49,108 crores) on the back of Reliance Industries, Reliance Petroleum and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure Ltd. In comparison, the net worth of both Bill Gates and Carlos Slim is estimated to be slightly lower, at around $62.29 billion, with Slim leading among the two by a narrow margin. Investor czar Warren Buffett was pushed to fourth position, with a net worth of about $56 billion. Mr Ambani's wealth of about Rs 2,49,000 crores includes about Rs 2,10,000 crores from RIL (50.98 per cent stake), Rs 37,500 crores from RPL (37.5 per cent) and Rs 2,100 crores from RIIL (46.23 per cent). The Ambani family, whose wealth has always ridden on the f...

YOUNG COUPLES are increasingly announcing their break-ups over social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook. Having had enough of her boyfriend's "I have notime" ways, Tanuja (name changed) logged in and ended her two-year relationship by simply changing her personal details on Facebook. These networking sites with profiles have all personal and professional details with a friends' network. By changing her relationship status from "committed" to "single," and removing all pictures of the boyfriend from her page, Tanuja was sending out the mes- sage loud and clear The update was immediately sent to all her friends: and it was not long before one of them began to flirt with her Tanuja is not the only one. Social network users are becoming candid about their break-ups. "Teens adapt dating practices to the technologies they use. So it is not surprising that the intimate acts are made visible on these social networking sites. Online publicness...

Prince Harry nearly got into a right royal rumpus when he threatened to kill a reveller at a night club he visited with some of his pals and girlfriend Chelsy Davy. The 23-year-old Prince, an officer in the Blues and Royals, yelled, "I'll kill him, where is he?", when a unidentified reveller made a remark about Chelsy. "Harry was really smashed. When he came back from the toilet he was fuming. His bodyguards had to pull him away from some guy and guide him back to his table. The guy had made comments about Chelsy and he reacted pretty strongly." " Chelsy was looking really sexy in a black lowcut minidress which showed off her cleavage," the News of the World quoted an unnamed onlooker as saying.

INDORE 24 October 2007 : A court here on Tuesday issued a non-bailable warrant against actor Aamir Khan who failed to appear before the court in a case of alleged disrespect to the national flag. Judicial Magistrate First Class B S Muvel issued the warrant on the complaint filed by one Shailendra Sharma against Khan for violating Section 2 of the Prevention of Insult to the National Honour Act of 1971. The court had earlier issued bailable warrant against the actor and three others, but they failed to appear in the court on Tuesday. The complainant alleged that Khan disrespected the national tricolour during inauguration of a car showroom here on August 16 last. He accused that the flags atop the showroom remained hoisted even after the sunset and the showroom employees pulled the flags down in a derogatory manner. The court has fixed November 7 as the next date of hearing.

People search for all kinds of words on google. Here a list of the words that are searched for the most…… Internet users in Egypt, India and Turkey are the world’s most frequent searchers for websites using the keyword “sex” on Google search engines, according to statistics provided by Google Inc. Germany, Mexico and Austria were world’s top three searchers of the word “Hitler” while “Nazi” scored the most hits in Chile, Australia and the United Kingdom, data from 2004 to the present retrievable on the “Google Trends” Web site showed. Chile also came in first place searching for the word “gay,” followed by Mexico and Colombia. The top searchers for other keywords were as follows (in order from first to third place): “Jihad” — Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan “Terrorism” — Pakistan, Philippines, Australia “Hangover” — Ireland, United Kingdom, United States “Burrito” — United States, Argentina, Canada “Iraq” — United States, Australia, Canada “Taliban” — Pakistan, Australia, Canada “Tom Crui...

NDTV: Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan finally ended all speculation about his new romantic interest after he went public with confirmation of what has long been talked about. The Hum Tum star put all rumors to rest and finally owned up to his 'together' status with Kareena Kapoor. Saif confessed to the media that he was dating Kareena. The hot couple were seen together at the Manish Malhotra fashion show in Mumbai on Wednesday night. NDTV: Can we ask you one dangerous question? How about Kareena and you? Are you guys dating? Saif: We are here together, ya and that's about it and that is what I am all comfortable with...... There's been a little too much attention but I suppose that's fair enough. We are excatly not shouting from the rooftops but I mean yes really, we are together and we are happy.Reports of their romantic linkup first came up while the two were shooting for Yash Raj Films Tashan in Ladakh. After this Kareena and Saif have been repeatedly seen together...

October 19, 2007 (Karachi): Two massive blasts rocked former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's motorcade in Karachi early on Friday morning, killing at least 135 people and injuring over 545 others .The blasts, which reports indicate were suicide attacks, took place a few feet away from Bhutto's convoy.Witnesses said they heard an explosion that was followed by another one that occurred just to the left of Bhutto's armoured truck. Bhutto had left the unprotected, open-air perch of the truck and gone below just before the explosions took place. The first bomb exploded from the left side of the truck, causing party workers to fall on each other; then the second blast struck when people were trying to get up and many were injured as they leapt off the truck when it caught fire.Pakistan People's Party spokesperson Farhatullah Babar has confirmed that Bhutto is safe and has reached her home Bilawal House in a police car. However, Rehman Malik, one of Bhutto's adv...

Rahul Dravid being dropped from the Mumbai match is a clear signal that the former captain's place in the one day side is once again under scrutiny. Dravid is the first to admit that the shorter format of the game is not his forte, yet so far he has managed to adapt and create spaces for himself. Now time seems to be running out. He has scored 51 runs from five innings at an average of 10. Is that deemed as a big enough failure to drop a player like Rahul Dravid. Well certainly not, is what the cricketing fraternity has to say including the Australian captain Ricky Ponting. "I was quite surprised (at Rahul being dropped). He's done very well for India," Ponting said. "It's shocking you cannot treat a player like this," said Vinod Kambli, former India captain. Recent stats show that Dravid is in the worst slump of his one day career, and he stands alone amongst India's 'Big 3' in his failure to perform over the last 10 innings. He averages a m...

Sony Ericsson takes its design chops to the limit with this Portable Bluetooth Speaker MBS-100, a softball-sized orb that reminds us of something we saw in a microscope when we put some soap scum on the slide. With its rechargeable battery that's said to last five hours, it's just about small enough to take with you, and hooks up to any Bluetooth device via A2DP. Apparently the various positions of these speaker holes will spread that sound far and wide, but this design reminds us of the underwater mine, and it still has a scratching our heads. Sony Ericsson says the MBS-100 will ship in Q1 of '08. If it's cheap, it might be good for a few laughs Powerful Sound The Portable Bluetooth™ Speaker MBS-100 has been created for music lovers who want to enjoy and share their music anywhere. Your favourite music deserves crystal clear powerful sound, and the MBS-100 provides just that using the latest A2DP streaming technology to deliver the very best in sound quality....

Shashankasana (The Moon Pose) Method: Sit with legs folded backwards, heels apart, knees and toes together. Stretch your toes on the ground. Adjust your hips between the heels ( Vajrasana posture ). Slowly raise your arms over the head. While exhaling, slowly bend forward and stretch your palms on the floor with pulling in your abdomen and pressing it against the thighs. Then bring your face downwards and touch the floor with the fore head without raising the butt ocks. When you are in the pose, re member to continue breathing normally. Make sure that you are comfort able; otherwise you will be unable to relax properly. Be in position for at least 15 seconds. Inhale slowly, return to an upright position, reversing the process. Benefits : In Shashankasana, the head is bent downwards, it allows better circulation towards the brain. This has numerous benefits, such as improved concentration and memory. There are a numerous physical benefits of Shashankasana. For example, headaches and sin...

West Bengal's singing sensation Aneek Dhar emerged the winner of Zee TV'S popular talent hunt show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, beating Raja Hasan of Rajasthan and Amanat Ali from Pakistan at a star-studded event here. Aneek walked away with a Rs 5-million contract with Universal Music and a Chevrolet Spark car at the grand finale of the show Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge - Sangeet ka Pratham Vishwayudh on Saturday night. After his win, an overwhelmed Aneek hugged his mentor musician Himesh Reshammiya and said, "Sir I love you." Bollywood star Akshay Kumar announced the much-awaited results and General Motors' Ankush Arora handed over the car keys to Aneek, while Puneet Goenka of Zee TV gave him the trophy. Aneek received over 36 million votes from over 100 countries. The final show at the Andheri sports complex here was a starry affair as actors Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, singers Udit Narayan and Sudesh Bhosle along with the five judges Vishal-Shek...

If you’re in the market for a home but nothing seems to satisfy your taste, then perhaps the homes listed below will fire your creative urges. Or, maybe you’ll just be satisfied with an office space inside a building built like a basket. From small buildings to constructions shaped like flying saucers, you’ll be amazed at what some architects and builders have created. Many of the homes listed below are for rent or for sale, so you may have a chance to wow your friends with these Wonders. Click here for 25 real incredible abodes .

KUALA LUMPUR: Agencies that supply foreign maids in Malaysia on Wednesday welcomed a government plan to allow recruitment from India, Nepal, Laos and Vietnam to fill a shortage caused by low wages and reports of abuse. "We were waiting" for this decision, said Raja Zulkepley Dahalan, president of the Malaysian Association of Foreign Housemaids Agencies . "Of course we support this." He said Malaysia would need to hire at least 1,000 maids every month to alleviate the shortage. "We have a problem now, 94.8 per cent of the maids are from Indonesia. We cannot depend so much on one source," he said. He said fewer Indonesian maids are applying to work in Malaysia because salaries here are lower than in other countries, and also because many are scared away by media reports that maids are physically abused by Malaysian employers. Reports have highlighted several abuse cases in past months. In the most publicized case, a maid escaped her...

The Indian outsourcing industry is facing a steep rise in the attrition rate. A survey highlighted the fact that one of the main reasons for the high attrition rate is the " stress factor ". It also revealed that 83 per cent of employees have sleeping disorders. Moreover, 8.5 per cent are reported to have been suffering from ear problems, 14.9 per cent from digestive disorders and 10.6 per cent have been victims of eye-related problems . This survey came as a severe blow to the industry which is seen as one of the largest revenue generating industries in recent times. Rukmini Bora, manager, human resource, WNS says, "We are aware of the attrition rate due to health problems. Hence, we have designed a special criteria for recruitment where we focus more on the candidate's health and only after confirming that he would be able to handle the hectic shifts, we recruit him. However, most BPOs don't consider this an issue." Long working hours, high working ...

Millions of searches are conducted each day on popular search engines by people all around the world. What are they looking for? A number of major search engines provide a way to glimpse into the web's query stream to discover the most popular search keywords or topics. These are: AOL Hot Searches : Top current queries, or see those in the last hour, last day and within particular categories. Ask IQ : See top searches at Ask. Dogpile SearchSpy : Choose to see either a filtered or non-filtered sample of top, real-time search terms from this popular meta search service. Sister site MetaCrawler offers a similar MetaCrawler MetaSpy service. Google Trends : Allows you to tap into Google's database of searches, to determine what's popular. View the volume of queries over time, by city, regions, languages and so on. Compare multiple terms, as well. See our review: Google Trends: Peer Into Google's Database Of Searches . Google Zeitgeist : What people are searchi...

MSN : Another scion of the illustrious Kapoor clan is all set to debut in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 'Saawariya'. Even before the film's release, Ranbir Kapoor, son of Rishi and Neetu Kapoor, has won over a huge female fan following with his innocent looks and sweet smile. The industry has high expectations of him given his background. What needs to be seen is whether this star son would turn out to be as impressive with his acting skills as well. The youngster is quite confident he would. Q: Are you nervous about your Bollywood debut in 'Saawariya'? A: Honestly, I am not a bit nervous. I was anxious when the promos of the film started showing on television. I received a range of reactions from people I know and that made me both nervous and excited (laughs). I am happy that I am getting so much attention in my very first film. Q: Are you happy that you are being launched in 'Saawariya'? A: Absolutely, we all have worked very hard for this film. When we com...

Stockholm, Sweden: France's Albert Fert and German Peter Gruenberg won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their discovery of giant magneto resistance, a process used by billions of people on their computers and digital music players. The technique, also known as GMR, has allowed the computer industry to develop sensitive reading tools for information stored on computer hard drives from tiny laptops to feature rich personal music and video players. "Applications of this phenomenon have revolutionized techniques for retrieving data from hard disks," the prize citation said. "The discovery also plays a major role in various magnetic sensors as well as for the development of a new generation of electronics." It said the discovery can also be considered "one of the first real applications of the promising field of nano technology ," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. In 1988, Fert and Gruenberg each independently discovered a total...

All that speculation by bloggers about Google's GPhone has come to naught. There is no such phone coming our way. But all is not lost, as the poet said. It turns out that Google honchos have been secretly developing an operating system for mobile phone users . This OS will bunch together all of Google's offerings and will also have a brand new browser. It is likely to be unveiled in the beginning of 2008. Google will be persuading service providers and mobile manufacturers to install the OS in their instruments. At present, mobile phones use operating systems developed by Microsoft and London-based Symbian, which provides software for Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens.

MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) - A self-professed art lover stood trial on Tuesday accused of damaging a $2-million painting by kissing it while wearing red lipstick . The deputy prosecutor in the southern French city of Avignon accused the defendant, Sam Rindy, of " savagery " for having left a lipstick smear on the work by U.S. artist Cy Twombly, and demanded the court fine her 4,500 euros ($6,320). The picture's owner, Yvon Lambert, wants $2 million in damages and a further 33,400 euros that he says is needed to pay for the restoration work. Rindy, an artist of Cambodian origin, has said she was "overcome with passion" when she saw the painting hanging on a gallery wall in July 2007. "This woman is profoundly upset. She was overcome by an emotion that she could not tame," her lawyers, Patrick Gontard Jean-Michel Ambrosino, told the court, describing the kiss as an "act of love." Lambert's lawyer rejected this line of defense, saying...

LONDON (Reuters) - Supermarket shoppers may soon be cruising the aisles with "intelligent" shopping carts that warn them if they're buying too much junk food, technology experts say. While many would be happy enough if they could simply get their trolley to go in a straight line, the high-tech model will be fitted with a computer screen and barcode scanner. It will read each product's individual code to give customers information about calories, nutrition, ethical sourcing and the environment. U.S. technology services company EDS outlined the concept in a study paper published this week. It said the screens would reduce the need for lots of packaging for food, helping stores to tackle environmental concerns. "Shoppers want barcode readers on their trolleys ( shopping carts ) to calculate the nutritional content and tell them when they have blown their calorific budget," said EDS's Sion Roberts, director of consumer industries and retail. "It...

BOSTON (Reuters) - BitTorrent Inc., which was co-founded by the developer of a software program widely used to share pirated music and video over the Web, plans to start helping media companies stream videos over the Internet. The company unveiled the service on Tuesday, six years after its chief executive, Bram Cohen, created the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing technology . BitTorrent is one of two key technologies used for trading files over the Web. The other, Gnutella , works using software programs including Limewire and MP3 Rocket . While the BitTorrent software has been notorious as a tool for piracy, Cohen said he spent three years working to find ways to commercialize the technology. In February, the privately held company opened an online video store at www.bittorrent.com to sell videos licensed from Hollywood studios. Now it is offering that distribution technology to other companies. BitTorrent announced the new service on Tuesday, dubbed BitTorrent DNA , saying its...

A jury awarded $6.1 million today to a woman who said she was forced to strip in a McDonald's back office after someone called the restaurant posing as a police officer. Louise Ogborn, 21, had sued McDonald's Corp., claiming the fast-food giant failed to warn her and other employees about the caller who already struck other McDonald's stores and other fast-food restaurants across the country. Ogborn had been seeking $200 million. McDonald's Corp. attorneys argued the company was not responsible and contended the company was being sued because of its deep pockets.

I have been driving (legally) for over a decade. One would think I would have noticed the little secret on my dash that was staring me right in the face the whole time. I didn’t and I bet you probably haven’t either. Quick question, what side of your car is your gas tank? If you are anything like me, you probably can’t remember right away. My solution is to uncofortably stick my head out the window, strain my neck and look. If you don’t do this in your own car you definetly have done it in a borrowed or rental car. Well ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to share with you my little secret so you will no longer look like Ace Ventura on your way to the gas station or put your neck at risk of uncomfort or injury. If you look at your gas guage, you will see a small icon of a gas pump. The handle of the gas pump will extend out on either the left or right side of the pump. If your tank is on the left, the handle will be on the left. If your tank is on the right, the handle will be on the...

THE LAST MOMENTS SEEN ALIVE It proved a dramatic day in court yesterday as the coroner began his inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, by immediately appearing to demolish conspiracy theories surrounding the crash, and making public poignant pictures that show her final moments. Dramatic, previously unpublished photographs shown to the jury were released last night. Diana, sitting in the back, can be seen turning around and peering over her left shoulder to look out of the rear window at the pursuing photographers' vehicles. Her movement is unrestrained by a seatbelt. Beside her is Dodi, apparently hunched over, but facing forward. The pictures capture Diana and Dodi in the back of the black Mercedes shortly before the crash in the Pont d'Alma underpass in Paris, which took their lives more than ten years ago. Other images, later posted on the inquest's official website, also show the extent of the damage to the car caused by its collision inside the tunnel, S...