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