Easy to Ignore English, but Tough to Survive, says SC

The Chief Justice of Supreme Court observed during the hearing on medium of teaching in Karnataka that it is difficult to survive with the mother tongue only.

"It is easy to say mother tongue is important. How do we survive in this world? Parents do not want their children to be taught in their mother tongue. It is a question of survival. English medium students get through in entrance exams and get admitted in engineering and medical colleges. But students who have studied in their mother tongue as a medium fare poorly," he said.

Hinglish "Jai Ho" to English Dictionary, One Millionth English word-'SlumDog'

Come June 10 and English is likely to get its one millionth word. The frontrunner is ‘Hinglish’ term ‘jai ho,’ with the two other Indian entries of ‘slumdog’ and ‘cuddies.’

“The million-word milestone brings to notice the coming of age of English as the first truly global language,” president and chief word analyst of Global Language Monitor Paul J J Payack said.

‘Jai ho,’ a song composed by A.R. Rahman, and ‘slumdog’ achieved popularity through the multiple Academy Award Winner film ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’

‘Slumdog’ refers to those living in Indian slums, while ‘cuddies’ is used to refer to ladies’ underwear.

“There are three major trends involving the English language today: an explosion in word creation with words being added to the English language at the rate of some 14.7 words a day; a geographic explosion in which some 1.53 billion people now speak English around the globe as a primary, auxiliary, or business language; and English has become, in fact, the first truly global language,” Mr. Payack said.

According to the Global Language Monitor, owing to the global extent of the English language, the millionth word is as likely to appear from India or China as it is to emerge from Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s home town. The other words in the reckoning are ‘alchopops’ (sugary-flavoured mixed drinks in Australia) and ‘chengguan’ (‘Chinglish’ term for urban management officers, a cross between mayors, sheriff, and city managers )

Google Chrome Browser in All South Indian Languages

Google Chrome is now being offered in many Indian languages, with version 2 of the browser made available for download.The stable version 2 comes in Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya (on Windows Vista alone), Tamil, and Telugu. A Hindi version was available earlier.

What this means is that PC users who have Windows Vista as their operating system should be able to easily select the browser’s interface language by using the language-setting options. It should also be possible to switch from one language to another by changing the language option and re-launching the browser. The users can then see the browser menus and other associated content in one of the Indian languages (or any of the other available language options).

Google Chrome was “not just a browser but also a modern platform for web pages and applications.” The browser is based on open source software. It has been developed with Webkit, an open source browser engine, which was originally deployed for the Safari browser. The rendering of Javascript, a scripting language widely used in the Web environment, was also speeded up, Google said.

As for the release of the stable version 2 of the browser, Google itself said it did not give much weightage to version numbers, and these were “mainly a metric to help us keep track of changes internally.” For those already using older versions, the update ought to happen automatically.

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

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)

A R Rahman Standing Tall, True Inspiration from Oscar

Hats Off Rahman:

How many of us will ask, who is this short, stout and dark colored person.
Success is not determined by Physical Trait but by Inner Strength

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

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

IPL Auction Rocks: Flintoff & Pietersen gets Millions

England players Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff fetched $1.55 million each at the Indian Premier League player auction Friday, setting a record for the highest amount paid for a player in the Twenty20 competition.

Flintoff was snapped up by Chennai Super Kings, which last year set the previous record of 1.5 million for Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Bangalore's Royal Challengers secured Pietersen.

Bangalore's owner Vijay Mallya said he was prepared to pay more for Pietersen.
``It was a very worthwhile investment,'' Mallya told reporters after the first round of bidding.``Team balance was important and Kevin was certainly important in maintaining that balance.''

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

Colleges in TamilNadu will reopen on 9th Feburary

Professional colleges and hostels in Tamil Nadu, which remained closed since January 31 in the wake of the student unrest on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue, will be reopened on February 9, an official announcement here said.

The date of reopening of arts and science colleges would be announced later, Chief Secretary K S Sripathy said in a press release here.

Ref: NewsTodayNet

Related Story : TN Government orders Infinite Closure of Colleges

--Gopi

“No Honking Please “: Mumbai Traffic Police

After their successful drive against drunk and drive in Mumbai metro, now Mumbai traffic department geared itself to yet another battle to deal with. The traffic police decided to launch a 10-day 'No Honking Drive' from Thursday with an aim to prevent motorists honking unnecessarily and reduce noise pollution on the city streets.

"The drive is aimed at preventing the motorists from honking their horns without any genuine reason and creating awareness among the people about the problems caused by noise pollution," said Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Sanjay Barve.

Barve said adding, "Stickers promoting no honking will be distributed to school children. We will ask them to label the stickers on vehicles and tell them to ask their parents not to honk."

Ref : NDTV

--Gopi

" Calling cards " In India

With the Department of Telecommunications approving the sale of ‘calling cards’ by telecom companies, international and domestic tariffs are set to drop further. It will also give the subscribers the freedom to choose from a plethora of calling cards for making STD or ISD calls.

The Telecom Commission has approved the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)’s recommendations that were forwarded last year, which comprised the use of calling cards.

Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Jyotiraditya Scindia told journalists here: “It would offer flexibility to consumers to choose their carrier for making long-distance calls. A person who wants to call up a specific country and region can choose the cheapest tariffs available in the market.”

As in the West where an array of calling cards allows subscribers to pick and choose any operator as per his need, in India too operators would be allowed to introduce country-specific cards or region-specific cards for domestic calls, he said.

Ref: The Hindu

Google "Internet Bus" in Tamil Nadu

It’s big, bright and white with doodles all over — and it’s on wheels. Friendly lettering on its shiny body invites you to “Explore the world of the Internet.” Inside, the bus is stocked with the essentials — computers, a broadband connection and a grandfather telling you how easy clicking ‘send’ is.
The ‘Internet Bus,’ launched here on Tuesday, is Google India’s initiative to demystify the Internet. “Five billion users are not on the Internet,” said Prasad Ram, head of Google R&D, India. “Only 50 per cent of the world will be online by 2030.”
Seeking to attract more people on to the information superhighway, the bus will travel through 15 towns in Tamil Nadu for around six weeks, telling students, teachers, government and businesses of how they could use the Internet.
Why Tamil Nadu? “There is a deep interest among Tamilians to use the Net and access content,” he says. The extent of Net usage in Tamil is as high as in Hindi, despite the latter having a larger potential user base, he added, citing data from third-party sources.
The bus has four booths focussing on different uses of the Internet: information, communication, education and entertainment. There are also videos providing simple explanations on how to use the Internet.
Hopping through Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities will help Google India get a pulse on what products are of interest to non-metro users. Apart from limited awareness, Dr. Ram cited “lack of relevance and a failure to engage,” as reasons for many people choosing to remain offline. He hoped that the feedback would help the company create more meaningful products.
Updates of the bus trip are at www.google.co.in/

Ref : The Hindu

Computers for Rs 500

It is agreeable with out much debate that prices of computer has came down significantly since it time of entry to the commercial market to till today.
However Government of India is all set to make the computer to the least it can, to take it the every door step of Indian Home.

IIT Madras and IISC Bangalore are working on preparing a computer for $10 or Rs 500 with in six months; Technology for these small devices has been developed by IISC, Bangalore and IIT Madras. "But lot of testing has to be done to ensure that the technology works properly. Once the testing is over, the computers will be made available on commercial basis. The target is to make it available in six months time," Higher Education Secretary, Ministry of HRD, R P Agrawal said reporters.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has already approved the scheme; the scheme would cost Rs 4,612 crore in the 11th Plan.

Ref: IndianExpress

--Gopi