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...