What is Day Light Saving Time (DST)?

Daylight Saving Time (or summertime as it is called in many countries) is a way of getting more light out of the day by advancing clocks by one hour during the summer. During Daylight Saving Time, the sun appears to rise one hour later in the morning, when people are usually asleep anyway, and sets one hour later in the evening, seeming to stretch the day longer.

The reason DST works is because its saves energy due to less artificial light needed during the evening hours—clocks are set one hour ahead during the spring, and one hour back to standard time in the autumn. Many countries observe DST, and many do not.

Note: Between March–April through September–November, it is summer in the northern hemisphere, where many countries may observe DST, while in the southern hemisphere it is winter. During the rest of the year the opposite is true: it is winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the southern.

Benjamin Franklin first suggested Daylight Saving Time in 1784, but it was not until World War I, in 1916, when it was adopted by several counties in Europe that initially rejected the idea.

It is difficult to predict what will happen with Daylight Saving Time in the future. The daylight saving date in many countries may change from time to time due to special events or conditions.The United States, Canada and some other countries extended DST in 2007. The new start date is the second Sunday in March (previously the first Sunday in April) through to the first Sunday in November (previously the last Sunday in October).


In which direction does the clock move?
The clock moves ahead (thus, losing one hour) when DST starts, typically in the spring, and falls back one hour (thus, gaining one hour) when DST ends in the fall. To make it easier to remember which way the clock goes, keep in mind one of these sayings: “spring forward, fall back” or “spring ahead, fall behind.”

FingerNail Test - To check 2- Way Mirror

How to determine if a mirror is 2 way or not (Not a Joke!)?
Not to scare you, but to make sure that you aware. Many of the Hotels and Textile showrooms cheat the customers this way & watch privately.

HOW TO DETECT A 2-WAY MIRROR?
When we visit toilets, bathrooms, hotel rooms, changing rooms, etc.,
How many of you know for sure that the seemingly ordinary mirror hanging on the wall is a real mirror, or actually a 2-way mirror i.e., they can
see you, but you can't see them. There have been many cases of people installing 2-way mirrors in female changing rooms or bathroom or bedrooms.
It is very difficult to positively identify the surface by just looking at it. So, how do we determine with any amount of certainty what type of
mirror we are looking at?

CONDUCT THIS SIMPLE TEST:
Place the tip of your fingernail against the reflective surface and if there is a GAP between your fingernail and the image of the nail,
then it is a GENUINE mirror.

However, if your fingernail DIRECTLY TOUCHES the image of your nail, then BEWARE, IT IS A 2-WAY MIRROR! (There is someone seeing you from the
other side). So remember, every time you see a mirror, do the "fingernail test." It doesn't cost you anything. It is simple to do.

This is a really good thing to do. The reason there is a gap on a real mirror, is because the silver is on the back of the mirror UNDER the glass.
Whereas with a two-way mirror, the silver is on the surface. Keep it in mind! Make sure and check every time you enter in hotel rooms. May be someone is making a film on you.

Ladies: Share this with your friends.
Men: Share this with your sisters, wife, daughters, friends, colleagues, etc.

Most Indians Prefer for Profile than Pay slip: Study

More than 60 per cent of people in India are ready to accept cuts in salaries and job positions if they are given something more meaningful in terms of work profile, a new survey has found.

The international workforce survey conducted by human resources firm Kelly Services also showed that 94 per cent of Indian workers derive a "greater sense of pride" from their jobs than those in other countries.

The Kelly Global Workforce Index survey sought the views of nearly 1,00,000 people in 34 countries including 3,500 in India.

"Ninety four per cent of people in India say their work gives them a sense of pride and 92 per cent say it raises their self confidence. In addition, 62 per cent of people in India will forego income or status to do something more meaningful," Kelly Services said in a statement.

"A significant number of people are actually prepared to give up some of their salary and their position if they can do something that is important and (meaningful) to them and their organisation," said Dhirendra Shantilal, Senior Vice-President (APAC) at Kelly Services.

However, in India, 33 per cent of people in the age group of 30 to 47 years (Gen X) said that their career goals are not being advanced in their current jobs.

Fifteenth Lok-Sabha: Polling and Counting Schedule

World With 100 People

If we could shrink the earth's population to village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratio remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

There would be:
* 57 Asians
* 21 Europeans
* 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
* 8 Africans

* 52 would be female
* 48 would be male

* 70 would be non-white
* 30 would be white

* 70 would be non-Christian
* 30 would be Christian

* 89 would be heterosexual
* 11 would be homosexual

* 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.
* 80 would live in substandard housing
* 70 would be unable to read
* 50 would suffer from malnutrition

* 1 would be near death
* 1 would be near birth
* 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
* 1 would own a computer

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

The following is also something to ponder...

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than many others. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.

Someone once said: What goes around comes around.

Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

Author Unknown

Submerged Kumari Kandam / Continent, a continent swallowed by the Ocean

Kumari Kandam is the name of a legendary sunken landmass said to have been located to the south of present-day Kanyakumari District at the southern tip of India in the Indian Ocean. The legend assigns the continent and its final submergence an antiquity ranging in tens of thousands of years.

The Legend in Tamil Literature:There are scattered references in Sangam literature, such as Kalittokai 104, to how the sea took the land of the Pandiyan kings, upon which they conquered new lands to replace those they had lost.[5] There are also references to the rivers Pahruli and Kumari, that are said to have flowed in a now-submerged land.[6] The Silappadhikaram, a 5th century epic, stating that the "cruel sea" took the Pandiyan land that lay between the rivers Pahruli and the many-mountained banks of the Kumari, to replace which the Pandiyan king conquered lands belonging to the Chola and Chera kings (Maturaikkandam, verses 17-22). Adiyarkkunallar, a 12th century commentator on the epic, explains this reference by saying that there was once a land to the south of the present-day Kanyakumari , which stretched for 700 kavatams from the Pahruli river in the north to the Kumari river in the south.

This land was divided into 49 nadu, or territories, which he names as seven coconut territories (elutenga natu), seven Madurai territories (elumaturai natu), seven old sandy territories (elumunpalai natu), seven new sandy territories (elupinpalai natu), seven mountain territories (elukunra natu), seven eastern coastal territories (elukunakarai natu) and seven dwarf-palm territories (elukurumpanai natu). All these lands, he says, together with the many-mountained land that began with KumariKollam, with forests and habitations, were submerged by the sea.[6]. Two of these Nadus or territories were supposedly parts of present-day Kollam and Kanyakumari districts of Indian state Kerala and Tamil Nadu respectively..

In Tamil national mysticism:
"Lemuria" in Tamil nationalist mysticist literature, connecting Madagascar, South India and Australia (covering most of the Indian Ocean). The distance from Madagascar to Australia is about 4,200 miles.

In modern Dravidian ethnic nationalist literature, Kumari Kandam or "Lemuria" (a name made up in the 19th century to account for discontinuities in biogeography) was the "cradle of civilization", the origin of human languages in general and the Tamil language in particular. These ideas gained notability in Tamil academic literature over the first decades of the 20th century, and were popularized by the Tanittamil Iyakkam, notably by self-taught Dravidologist Devaneya Pavanar, who held that all languages on earth were merely corrupted Tamil dialects.

R. Mathivanan, then Chief Editor of the Tamil Etymological Dictionary Project of the Government of Tamilnadu, in 1991 claimed to have deciphered the Indus script as Tamil, presenting the following timeline (cited after Mahadevan 2002):

ca. 200,000 to 50,000 BC: evolution of "the Tamilian or Homo Dravida",
ca. 200,000 to 100,000 BC: beginnings of the Tamil language
50,000 BC: Kumari Kandam civilisation
20,000 BC: A lost Tamil culture of the Easter Island which had an advanced civilisation
16,000 BC: Lemuria submerged
6087 BC: Second Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king
3031 BC: A Chera prince in his wanderings in the Solomon Island saw wild sugarcane and started cultivation in Kumari Kandam.
1780 BC: The Third Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king
7th century BC: Tolkappiyam (the earliest extant Tamil grammar)

Case on Negative/ Neutral Voting Button In EVM, SC refers to Larger Bench

The Supreme Court today referred to a larger bench the question as to whether a voter should be permitted to cast a negative vote during elections.

A two judge bench of Justices B N Agrawal and G S Singhvi said the issue needs to be examined by a larger bench as the question involved interpretation of a citizen's fundamental right.The Bench requested the Chief Justice to refer the matter to an appropriate larger bench for further consideration.

People Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), an NGO, had approached the apex court seeking directions to the Centre to ensure amendment to the Representation of People's Act (RPA) so that a voter can mark "none of the above" in the electronic voting machine.

This is because presently a voter if he or she desires not to cast vote in favour of any candidate, he or she should mandatorily inform the presiding officer of the polling booth.

Such a pre-condition was violative of the citizens right under Article 19(2) (Freedom of Expression and Speech) and makes the voter vulnerable to threats and intimidation from political parties, the PUCL had stated.

3 Reasons for Traffic congestion in Indian Cities

There is much hue and cry among public on the nuisance they encounter while they drive their 2 wheeler or 4 wheelers, indeed undoubtedly most of us wants a peaceful drive to our workplace and back to our sweet home.

What are the factors fueling the increase in traffic congestion,

1. Poor road and supporting infrastructure
2. Indiscipline Driving and ignorance of Law
3. Poor planning on Public Transportation

Let us take a look at each these factors in brief,

Poor Road and Supporting Infrastructure: Here supporting infrastructure refers to Subways, over bridge and the like

Apart from few exceptions like National Highways, By-passes and ring roads, In general roads in Indian cities are not in good shape which is the main cause for most of the accident happening every minute/second in India. And government is aware of these pitfalls and they have already in the process of improving the existing condition.

Indiscipline Driving and Ignorance of Law:
Not many of us will disagree on the fact that most people are not following the law either with sheer ignorance of it existence, courtesy to the illiteracy rate, or cautiously ignoring the law by educated group of people. The example for this can start from buying cheaper helmet for the sake of law, drunken drive, over speed, signal jumping and the list will go on. As a responsible citizen we all should take a pledge on following the law and should realize that after all the laws are made by us to protect us and not to harm any body.

Poor Planning on Public Transportation

Unlike in other developed countries, Most of the Indian cities are by fact rely on the bus services, though it helps a lot in mass transportation, It also adds extra burden on the local traffic because of its

1. Condition and
2. The location of the bus stops.

Most of the buses are not in good shape, in the world when we are talking about over speed, we too have vehicles which even can’t travel in the permitted speed, and also the emission from these buses restrict other vehicles movement too and thus increase the traffic congestion.

Location of the bus stops

This is like a bacteria decease without being noticed it spreads and helps in piling up the traffic like any thing. In most of the Indian cities without much debate most of us will agree that the bus stops are generally located near to the Traffic signal or just after a “Turn on the road”. In both of these cases When a vehicle driver sees a bus ,stopping in middle of the road after the much waited green signal or after taking a “Turn” on a road, he will caught by surprise and are forced to either slow down or stop their vehicle thus getting annoyed which will have ripple affects on his further journey.

Believe that some people will not just read it but will also understand the prevalence and will act in a responsible manner.

Thanks,

i3

Deepest Penumbral lunar eclipse In India

Avid sky-gazers who had assembled at vantage positions across the country on Monday Night watched this year's first and "deepest" penumbral lunar eclipse.

Parts of western and southern India witnessed the eclipse when the moon was rising while the rest of the country saw the total duration of the eclipse, NGO Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators (S.P.A.C.E.) Director C B Devgun told agencies.

Eastern Canada and US, however, missed the eclipse, while people in Alaska, Hawaii, Australia and East Asia saw the entire eclipse, he said.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth is in a direct line between the sun and the moon and the shadow of the earth falls on the Moon, Devgun said, adding a penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when moon passes through penumbra, the lighter part of the earth's shadow.

The lighter part of Earth's shadow is called the "penumbra" and the totally dark part is called the "umbra".

Passports in India can be applied and tracked online

There is a big question on everyone’s mind, how to apply passport online and how to track our passport application status, here is the answer...

Now general public of India can apply for passport by just a click on their personal computer.

There are 37 regional passport offices in India where one can apply for passport online.
It allows you to apply for fresh passport as well as duplication of lost or damaged passport. All one need to do is fill the application form online, save and take a print out of it. The printed application will have your appointment time, there are some fields in the application which needs to be filled by hand for security reasons, be on the passport office on the appointment time with all other needed documents and required fees. Submit your document and walk away with a reference no, which can be used to track your passport application status online

How to Track my Passport Online:

We can track the status of our fresh or duplicate passport status through http://passport.gov.in/ , choose your regional passport office in the drop down list “Status Page” then enter your file reference no. That is all from your part now you can see your passport application status.

--Gopi

Top 10 Indian cities with highest no of Car Owners

With Google Earth Explore Occeans

Google has lifted the lid on its first major upgrade to its global mapping software, Google Earth.

Google Ocean expands this map to include large swathes of the ocean floor and abyssal plain.Users can dive beneath a dynamic water surface to explore the 3D sea floor terrain.

The map also includes 20 content layers, containing information from the world's leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers. Al Gore was at the launch event in San Francisco which, Google hopes, will take its mapping software a step closer to total coverage of the entire globe.

In a statement, Mr Gore said that the update would make Google Earth a "magical experience".

"You can not only zoom into whatever part of our planet's surface you wish to examine in closer detail, you can now dive into the world's ocean that covers almost three-quarters of the planet and discover new wonders that had not been accessible in previous versions."

Approximately 70% of the world's surface is covered by water, which contains nearly 80% of all life - yet less than 5% of it has actually been explored.

"With this, everybody can see the unbelievable beauty of our marine life and how incredibly threatened it is," said Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the global marine programme at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
"We hope this major technological innovation will get the public more involved in marine conservation and encourage governments and businesses to stop driving ocean species to extinction."

There are also updates on the terrestrial side, including GPS tracking, virtual time travel (where users can observe changes in satellite images, such as the 2006 World Cup stadium or the desertification of Africa's Lake Chad) and narrated tours of imagery and content in Google Earth.

There are also updates to the Mars 3D section, so if users have had enough of the blue planet, they can always look at the red one.

Ref: BBC

India, Growing Technology but not for Sewers

India may be spending millions and billions of dollars in their space research, technology, sports and the list can go long. You name a field, India would have been spending rather investing millions of rupees from it kitty, which is what an average Indian citizen can proudly about India.

In fact, it holds good for 99% because we generally opt to forget that sewer and drainage system too a field in which India should improve and thus should invest some money on this too.Activists ask why India spends so much on space and so little on sewers

A report says, in Delhi (Metro) manholes one can see half naked human’s struggling their heart out not beat to our enemies but to clean the blockage in the drainage.
Drainage contains a mixture of methane and hydrogen sulphide, both considered potentially fatal by the health experts.

Health experts working in the field told me “most of these workers would die before their retirement because of the poor health and safety conditions they work in. Their life expectancy is thought to be around 10 years less than the national average.And most of the workers suffer from chronic diseases, respiratory problems, skin disorders and allergies, and they are constantly troubled by headaches and eye infections”, Health experts says

Will India look into the suffering of people working under the ground for the good sake of environment and human beings and will it invest enough to introduce modern technologies not only to clean India but to wipe out many of suffering sewers worries??

--Gopi

Mumbai can dial 1298 for Emergency

Americans take 911 for granted, but in many developing nations a centralized emergency telephone number is unheard of. In Mumbai, four friends came togeter to start a private ambulance company that has stepped up to fill the void in emergency medical service. In a city where "ambulance" used to be synonymous with "hearse," Mumbai residents can now dial 1298 and receive emergency medical care priced on a sliding scale.

Galactic Spectacle : Cosmic Spin

The spiral galaxy NGC-4921 with a backdrop of more distant galaxies in an image from the Hubble Space Telescope, released on Thursday. It was created from 80 different pictures using yellow and near-infrared filters.

Water From Air

They are now making water from thin air, literally. Jalimudi village in East Godavari district will get 1,000 liters of potable water every day, produced from air. The water station, the first of its kind set up in any village in India, has begun trial runs.
“The water… has been sent for quality tests and it’s been certified fit for consumption,” Meher Bhandara, director of WaterMaker (India) which manufactures the units.
Projected as a boon to people in rural areas, especially in the coastal regions, the system runs on electricity and uses the refrigeration technique to condense water from air. Blower driven air is made to pass through filters and a refrigerant is circulated leading to condensation of water, which is collected in a holding tank.
The efficacy will depend on the relative humidity and temperature. “Each machine will produce water if the humidity is between 70 and 75 per cent and the temperature in the range of 25 C to 32 C,” Ms. Bhandara said. If these are high, there will be more water.
The machine, which costs about Rs. 3 lakh, was installed in Jalimudi by the company free of cost.

Ref: The Hindu

It's official: Eggs good for health

Here's a reason for egg lovers to savor their favorite food - a study has found that its key nutrients reduce the risk of neural tube birth defects and promote eye health.

There's been an ongoing debate over the health benefits of eggs, but the new study supports the beneficial role eggs play in a healthful diet.The study suggests that eggs provide high-quality protein for growth, muscle strength and energy and promote weight.Although the study has also found a link between egg intake and increased incidence of type 2 diabetes, further research is warranted to replicate the finding and to identify potential physiological mechanisms.

In the analysis, participants who reported frequent egg consumption also had higher BMIs, were older, more likely to smoke, reported greater consumption of alcohol, were more likely to have hypertension, and - for women - reported higher total calorie, saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol intakes.

Therefore, it is important to consider that for the population included in the analysis, egg intake could simply have been associated with less healthful lifestyle behaviors overall.

"Healthy adults can continue to enjoy eggs as part of a healthful diet," said registered dietitian Marcia Greenblum, Director of Nutrition and Food Safety Education at the Egg Nutrition Center. "Eggs provide many nutrients and make an important contribution to overall diet quality," she added


Ref: ZEENEWS