Current Affairs Magazine March 2009 Bench3

bench3 March 2009

bench3 News Letter

March 2009

http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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CONTENT

bench3 March 2009

1. Three Good Tips To Quit Smoking 2. Can Honey Really Cure A Cough? 3. Effective Ways To Quit Smoking 4. What You Mean By "DEFLATION" 5. Know About "Revenue Deficit" 6. What Do You Mean By "DEVALUATION" 7. Bail Out Package And Indian Economy 8. A Bundle Of Contradictions In Article 16 Of the Constitution Of India 9. Sit-Ups Exercise Is Not Useful For BELLY FAT Reduction 10. ByPassing Windows with a Quick Boot [Presto - Review] 11. Augmenting Farmers’ Income 12. Medium Is The Message 13. Secret Of Blogging! 14. The Tasks Of A Leader 15. An Upgrade For The Web [HTML 5] 16. Privatisation Affecting Human 17. How Twitter Could Bring Search Up To Speed 18. What is Twitter? And Why People Use Twitter 19. India Misleads On Inflation Figures 20. How To Overcome This Recession 21. How to Write With Confidence 22. Microsoft Reveals Details Of Gazelle Browser 23. Worst Movie Set Disasters (Part 1) | bench3 24. Worst Movie Set Disasters (Part 2) | bench3 25. Santa and Banta Story | Chilling Story | bench3 26. The Begging Cat | bench3 27. Why 1 Is One And 2 Is Two? | bench3 28. Worst Movie Set Disasters (Part 3) | bench3 29. All About "Presence of Mind" | bench3

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30. Importance Of Rural Economy In India - The New Mantra | bench3 31. Humours Nature Of Laloo Prasad Yadav | Laloo Makes Comedy 32. Why Are Some People More Successful Than Others? | bench3 33. An Artificial Heart For Rs 1 Lakh 34. Chennai Autos To Have Air Cooler - DVD Player | bench3 35. World's First Flying Car | bench3 36. Interim Budget 2009-10 Gives Importance To Rural Economy 37. Now Your Pets Can Fly First Class 38. What Is A Blog? [The Truth About Blogs] 39. Joshua Bell Playing Incognito In The Metro Station 40. Tips For Your First Date | bench3 41. No Impact Of Economic Slowdown On The Rural Economy | bench3 42. Do You Really Love Truth? | bench3 43. How To Detect A 2-Way Mirror ? | bench3 44. The Indian Premier League (IPL) | Re-Hyphenated 45. The $2000 Car | Not So Nano

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Three Good Tips To Quit Smoking

With a million different companies, ads, and campaigns put together to get you to quit smoking the overall journey and goal is lost, to quit smoking. For a few tips to quit smoking you should read on in this article and get a few of the true remarkable processes that help millions quit all the time. These tips to quit smoking won’t allow you to stop overnight or making you become an overnight celebrity to promote a certain product, but they could very well help save your life.

In the movie The Godfather there is a quote that could be one of the most important of the tips to quit smoking, “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.” The reason that this should be one of the tips to quit smoking is because it should be used in reverse for those looking to complete this lifestyle change. Keep your enemies, the cigarettes, close enough to remember the damage they caused, but keep your friends closer. In the end, your friends will remind you why you made this change in the long run, keep them in your circle during this difficult time, they will help you succeed.

Become part of a Community of people that have quit smoking or is attempting to quit smoking in order to learn the tricks of the trade from the real survivors. This is one of the tips to quit smoking that the cigarette companies and gimmick providers don’t want you to know. The fact that you can get help from ordinary people that are not looking to earn a dime from your success or failure is very powerful. Keep this tip at hand; it is one of the biggest tips to quit smoking.

Ignore the urge to become part of the crowd at work or in a social setting by making it an opportunity to get a leg up on the competition. If you are at work, use the time you previously spent smoking to do more research or get ahead on your work. If you are at a party use the time to brush up your makeup or talk to somebody you normally wouldn’t. Don’t just use this as an opportunity to quit something, use it as an opportunity to begin something anew! These are some very important tips to quit smoking for you to utilize and succeed in riding yourself of this filthy habit. Read more... Labels: Health

Can Honey Really Cure A Cough? I've heard that if you take a tablespoon of pure honey it's suppose to cure a cough? They say it's better than taking the medicine. The way it coats the throat is soathing. Plus it tastes great! But try this...

Cut half lemon into slices(or use lemon juice) and put it in a mug of hot water. with this add 1/2 teaspoons of honey(depending on how much you want). the honey and lemons are great if you have the symptoms of the http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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flu, such as coughing etc. the honey has anti bacteria properties that will decrease the frequency of coughing and is a great antioxidant. it has been used throughout history to cure bronchitis and other respiratory diseases the honey doesn't always have to be mixed with lemon, it can also be mixed with brandy or ginger.

Effective Ways To Quit Smoking Trying to quit smoking is certainly not a new concept. The problem comes from the fact that it really is much harder to quit smoking than most people ever anticipate. To help remedy this situation there are a few things that you can do to really improve the chances that the next time you try to quit you are able to do so successfully. Learning some of the secret tips that you can use is quite helpful to making sure that you really do quit, after all you are setting out on a very difficult adventure so having some help is going to be a huge asset in your quest.

You need to first really come to terms with the fact that stopping smoking is not easy. You may find that it takes some time to actually quit smoking for good. This is not uncommon, but is something that can serve as a huge disappointment if you are trying to quit in only a couple of weeks. If you are not able to quit when you really want, but you are showing signs of serious progress you should still take this as a good sign of progress. Any signs of progress should be celebrated no matter how small they are; of course, large signs of progress should have a larger celebration though in order to be truly successful.

One mistake that many smokers make is trying to pick out a single approach to quit smoking. You probably do not easily fit into a single category if you tried to describe yourself, so your smoking likely will not either. This means you probably need to spend a good amount of time considering different options and techniques to help you until you find the combination that works best. If something is not working you need to take advantage of the ability to change. There are enough products on the market that finding something that suits your needs really is possible, just be willing to look for something whenever necessary.

Always choose a non-stressful time to stop smoking. If you are already stressed out when you start trying to quit you will find that it is much harder to quit. One example, would be attempting to quit smoking right as you are bringing a new baby home. While this might seem like a fabulous idea so that your child is not exposed to the second hand smoke, it is also a very stressful time. You should instead try to quit before the baby is born, or wait a while after the birth for the best chances at success at quitting for good.

One of the biggest secrets that people will not tell you is the fact that you really can quit smoking. In addition, if you really are determined to quit you may not even need the expensive stop smoking aids that are on the http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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market. Just the mere desire to quit for good is often all that is needed, but you need a super strong support team in place to make this happen. What often happens is smokers become so determined that expensive stop smoking aids are needed and they convince themselves that without these gadgets and contraptions that they will not be able to quit. If you look beyond the attractive packaging, you are often left with nothing more than something which will keep your hands occupied or help distract you during periods of strong urges to smoke. Looking for alternatives can often be much cheaper, as well as just as effective in the end to your stop smoking effort. Read more... Labels: Health

What You Mean By "DEFLATION" Inflation is a situation of persistent rise in the prices in any economy. The percentage of inflation measures the relative increase in the price rise over the given period of time. Deflation, on the other hand, is a reverse situation under which the price levels actually fall over the previous time unit. While functional inflation of 3 to 5 per cent per annum is good for the economy, deflation in any form affects the economy adversely. Contrary to the belief that the dropping price levels should bring cheers to the people, the economists would never like the country to encounter a situation of deflation, where the fall in prices discourage the investors and the proposals for new investments are put on hold by investors, retarding the growth rate. Read more... Labels: Economy, Money Market

Know About "Revenue Deficit" Revenue deficit is a budgetary term which indicates a situation of deficit in the revenue budget. The budget expenditure and revenues are divided in two main heads—revenue and capital. The day to day expenditures which are recurring in nature, including the rent, rates and taxes as well as salaries and administrative expenses are covered under the definition of revenue expenditure. Similarly, all the revenues earned by the government, including the tax income, non-tax revenues, royalties, tolls and other incomes are called the revenue incomes. Generally, the revenue expenditure is higher than the revenue incomes of the State and the gap between the revenue expenditure and revenue income is known as ‘revenue deficit’. The quantum and percentage of revenue deficit is one of the economic measures to gauge the budgetary health of a government. Read more... Labels: Economy, Money Market

What Do You Mean By "DEVALUATION" Every nation’s currency has its relative value with relation to certain important currencies of the world. The relative value keeps varying a bit every now and then, depending on the strength of the economy concerned, which depends on various economic parameters. Devaluation of a currency makes the domestic currency http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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cheaper against the foreign currencies and exports of that country become more competitive in the global market. It turns out to be advantageous to the exporters and the imports under such a situation become more expensive in terms of domestic currency. Read more... Labels: Economy, General, Money Market

Bail Out Package And Indian Economy Global economic meltdown during the last over one year has been a matter of great concern for the entire world. Most of the economies of the world have been adversely affected by the crisis, which is likely to have longterm implications. Despite the initial reaction of the Indian government that the crisis would not impact the Indian economy much, there has been an admission of the seriousness of the problem when the government conceded that the economic growth rate during 2008-09 would be around 7 per cent. That was when the need for a bail out package was realized.

The economic problems of the global slowdown began to surface in India during the mid-2008 when a few major investment banks in the USA collapsed and the US economy began to feel the heat of the meltdown.

After a phase of bullish euphoria in the financial markets in 2007, the Indian stock markets began to suffer heavy setbacks after January 2008. While the markets were hoping to recover to some extent at the time of Diwali, in October 2008, it turned out to be the other way around as the markets suffered major reverses. To add to the woos of the common man, the inflation rate was hitting the roof. In addition to the exorbitant price level, there was liquidity crunch in the market and the interest rates were very high, discouraging the investors from making any investment. The grim market scenario forced the investors to put on hold even the most viable projects. The banks were also shying away from funding the projects on one pretext or the other. By October 2008, many companies, particularly in the IT and Aviation sectors, began to hand over pink slips to quite a few of their employees. New recruitments were stopped and in many cases the salaries of the existing staff were slashed. This was for the first time after the onset of the process of reforms that such a situation was encountered in the country. Despite the brave face put up by the government, the feeing of recession in the economy began to sink in. As the crisis loomed large over the world economy, the US government took the lead to save its investment banks through a bail-out package. The US government also considered the bailout package for its three major automobile manufacturers. On the national front also, many corporate entities began to announce salary cuts and reduction in the employee strength, forcing the government to announce a package of unemployment doles for such employees. This was the time when the Indian government also tightened its belt and came out with an economic package which was multi-faceted and encompassed areas like indirect taxation, interest rate cuts, monetary policy measures and duty cuts. Focus of the package announced http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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on December 6, 2008, was primarily on reducing the prime lending rates of the commercial banks. The aim was to revive the economic activity by reviving the housing, infrastructure and automobile sectors. The government tried to increase the availability of liquidity in the market by adopting various monetary policy measures to trigger the downward trends in lending rates of various banks, including the house building advances and car loans. The first bailout package was estimated to have pumped in additional funds to the tune of Rs 40,000 crores into the Indian economy.

The second bail out package, announced in the beginning of January, 2009, provided the system with additional liquidity to the extent of Rs 20,000 crore, taking the total additional fund availability to Rs 60,000 crores. As an automatic corollary to the above mentioned measures was the resultant easier credit at reduced rates. With the RBI announcing reduction in the Repo Rate and the Bank Rates, most of the commercial banks reacted positively and announced reduction in their prime lending rates, making it easier for the borrowers to borrow at reduced rates. Hence, not only the availability of credit was enhanced, its cost was also reduced considerably. Among the most important sectors is the automobile sector. During the last about one decade, this sector has been the backbone of India’s industrial growth rate.

Reduction in the excise duties for most of the vehicles has helped this sector to cut the prices of the vehicles significantly, pro- tecting it from further slide. Reduction in the petrol and diesel also helped the auto sector to tide over the difficult situation. The growth rate of the auto sector may not have improved greatly after these measures, but the measures have certainly helped this crucial sector to survive the global scare. Civil aviation is yet another important sector that had been fuelling the growth rate of the country in the recent years. But after the rise in fuel prices and global slowdown, this sector came under immense stress. The government cut the prices of the aviation fuel three times during the months of December and January, bringing down the costs in the aviation sector drastically. Effectiveness and Future The measures taken by the government in India were timely and apt. Any other government under such a situation would have reacted in the similar manner. Certain visible improvements have been observed in the Indian economy after the measures were initiated.

The capital markets have stabilized even though at a lower level. The inflation rate, which had touched the figure of 12 per cent, has come down to a comfortable level of less than 6 per cent. Despite the projection of 1 to 2 per cent growth rate of the global economy, the Indian economy hopes to post 7 per cent growth during 2008-09, which would be among the highest in the world. It is expected that after the first quarter 2009-10 things would begin to improve and the economy would again be back on the path of rapid development. One of the classical criticisms of the fiscal and monetary policy measures can be summed up in a proverbial expression that one can take the horse to water but cannot force it to drink. Government may provide a good http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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environment for the investors but the investors may wait for the recession to be over before taking major investment decisions. In other words, the government may provide the framework of revival but the revival may actually take longer than expected. Further, the improvements in the global situation, particularly in the USA, would certainly play a major role to bring the situation back to normal.

Many people feel that the attempts to add liquidity in the economy were too tentative and too less. Rs 40,000 crore is just about one per cent of the GDP of the country.

In a large and diverse economy like ours, this sum may have no significant meaning. It is also believed by many that the liquidity added by various measures was sucked in by the oil bond operations of the government and the net impact on the liquidity was virtually negligible. The government has made clear its intention to encourage the private investment and step up the public expenditure to keep the economy buoyant. Mere statement of the intention to invest is not sufficient and higher investment must happen quickly and effectively and the routine delays in the government expenditure must be curbed. Infrastructure and social sector are two such areas in which the government agencies can push up the investment rate significantly. Programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Bharat Nirman, and Sarv Siksha Abhiyan are some of the programmes having a lot of funds for investment in the rural areas and, if implemented properly, these would keep the economy vibrant despite the global economic blues. Housing is another important activity in India.

There are many countries in the world that had grown rapidly by supporting their housing activities. With about 4 per cent increase in population in the cities, half of which is due to large scale migration from the villages to the cities, housing is going to be a basic need of the people in India. Affordable housing must be encouraged by the government to counter the situation of economic slowdown. With a huge rural population base, the policy makers must ensure that the real incomes in the rural areas of the country continue to rise. With the economy offering a lot of scope for development and growth in the rural areas, increased income levels in the rural areas would generate demand on sustainable basis. Besides, a large chunk of the Indian population is still not adversely affected by negative growth of the Indian stock markets. In this way, India is different from rest of the world.

Mere statement of the intention to invest is not sufficient and higher investment must happen quickly and effectively and the routine delays in the government expenditure must be curbed. Read more... Labels: Economy, Money Market

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A Bundle Of Contradictions In Article 16 Of the Constitution Of India “Article 16 of the Constitution of India is a bundle of contradictions, as on the one hand it deals with equality of opportunity in matters of public employment, and, on the other, it enables the government to provide for reservation in public employment.”

Article 16 of the Constitution is part of the Fundamental Rights and provides for equality in the matters of employment in public employment. Many people feel that this Article, instead of equality in these matters, perpetuates the inequalities and offers a framework of contradiction. The Fundamental Rights should ideally provide the measures vide which the equality is ensured but the exceptions provided to this right overweigh the right provided. Article 16 provides that there shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in the matters of employment or appointment to any office under the State.

This Article also provides that no citizen shall be ineligible for any office or employment under the State on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth or any of them. After having stated the above, several exceptions are also provided for. Place of residence may be laid down by the legislature as a condition for particular classes of employment or appointment in any State or any local authority. Further, the State may reserve any post or appointment in favour of any backward class of citizens, who, in the opinion of the State, are not adequately represented in the services under that State.

In addition, the offices connected with the religious or denominated institutions may be reserved for the members practicing that particular religion. The most important and controversial exception pertains to the provisions of Article 16(4) relating to the claims of the members of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in the matters of appointment to the services and posts under the Union and the States, to be consistent with efficiency in administration as far as possible (Article 335). The Supreme Court has held that while the provisions of Article 16(4) are without any limitation upon the power of reservation, yet it has to be read with the provisions of Article 335 for maintenance of efficiency in administration. The Apex Court also held that the total reservation under Article 16(4) should not exceed 50 per cent.

Detailed study of the provisions of the Article 16 reveals that while originally this Article aimed at protecting the rights of common man with regard to equality of opportunity but gradually, due to the need felt by the government to extend the benefit of reservation to the other backward classes and also the political considerations, its focus has now shifted to providing the benefit of reservation to the backward classes and the SC/ST. But one thing has been confirmed that the extension of the benefit cannot be arbitrary. Various pronouncements of the Supreme Court of India during the past almost six decades have plugged the gaps in the http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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provisions of this Article and also provided a standard framework for extending the benefit of reservation in future to any other categories. The measures that looked to be controversial initially have also been settled by the judgments of the highest court of law in the country. Read more... Labels: General, Indian Constitution, Public Awarness

Sit-Ups Exercise Is Not Useful For BELLY FAT Reduction Many people who wants to burn BELLY FATS thinks that Sits-Ups exercise can work in fast away, but the truth is that, it is not a good exercise for the stomach fat reduction purpose. Any exercise can not burn fat from only a particular organ of human body, all exercise will cause reduction in fat from the whole body uniformly.

Belly fat reduction by exercise can be achieved slowly and uniformly with fat reduction from other area of body. It is useless to do only those exercises like Sits-Ups which causes much stress on stomach. This type of practice may cause harm.

To reduce Belly fat, following thing required. 1. Proper dieting (not to much). 2. Consume more than enough Water. 3. Exercise and yoga. (any exercise will have similar effect) Belly fat can not be reduced by any drug or medicine, and also it can not be achieved in days, it will take few months to years.Source : http://www.hellogiri.com/ Read more... Labels: Fat Reduction, Health

ByPassing Windows with a Quick Boot [Presto - Review] Presto is a compact operating system that can be launched instead of Windows when a computer is switched on. Presto loads a Web browser and other software in seconds. Thousands of hours are wasted every year waiting for computers to boot up. A Windows machine can take a couple of minutes to get going and to shut down again. In extreme cases, the entire process can take as long as 30 minutes, according to people who've filed lawsuits claiming that their employers should pay for this boot-up and shut-down time.

Software called Presto could provide an alternative to waiting. Demonstrated this week at Demo, a tech conference held in Palm Desert, CA, it joins a handful of products that have emerged recently in an effort to

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get people working on their computers faster. These products, offered by companies including Intel, HP, and DeviceVM, generally allow a person to boot up in less than 30 seconds, and in some cases less than 10.

When a computer running Presto is first switched on, the user is given the option to load the Windows operating system or Presto. If she chooses Presto, then the system launches within a few seconds, providing a task bar and icons for several applications, including a Web browser, an instant-messaging application, and the Internet phone system Skype. If the user wants to switch to Windows, she needs to log out of Presto and start up the machine as usual. Presto, which will be made available in beta on March 16 and as a product on April 13 for $19.95, is built by software company Xandros, located in New York, and it's based on a slimmed-down version of the open-source Linux operating system.

Presto differs from other instant-on products such as DeviceVM's Splashtop in that it doesn't need to be integrated into the computer's hardware: it can simply be downloaded and installed. This also means that PC owners can use Presto regardless of the hardware they have. Even old laptops and desktops can be turned into quick Internet-access points using the software. Xandros also offers an online application store through which people can download software for Presto, including games, media players, and other tools.

One of the main reasons why modern operating systems take so long to boot is that they are very bulky: a huge amount of code needs to be read when a computer is first turned on. Consisting of far fewer lines of code than Windows, Presto needs just a few hundred megabytes of memory, says Jordan Smith, product marketing manager at Xandros. Microsoft's Vista operating system, in contrast, recommends at least 15 gigabytes of free disk space to install.

Rahul Sood, chief technologist of HP's Voodoo brand, says that modern operating systems also spend time establishing connections between hardware and software to help the system run faster when it's being used. But there is hope that Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system will address this issue and "make a huge difference," he says.

As Presto is installed on a computer, explains Smith, it inspects the machine, identifying the DVD player and the network card for instance, to determine what type of hardware it has. "During installation, we figure out what you have and install only the software that you need," Smith says, instead of software drivers for lots of different devices. Since many applications now run over the Web, Smith argues that systems like Presto can perform lots of tasks simply via the browser. "Ninety-five percent of what [users] do is check the Web," he

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says. If a person needs to read a document in an e-mail, Smith adds, he or she can download Open Office, a free, open-source alternative to Microsoft Word. "You need the browser and you need a network connection," Smith says. "You don't need the resources for running a firstperson shooter game."

Read more... Labels: Softwares, Technology, Web Technology

Augmenting Farmers’ Income In what practical ways can the income of Indian farmers be augmented? Despite the fact that the country has made many successful strides in the fields of science and technology, agriculture still remains the backbone of Indian economy. Any neglect of agriculture, by design or default, can land us in serious trouble. If the advocates of agricultural economy plead for due attention and priority to this sector, it is both timely and tenable, to say the least. It is quite ironical to see that those who work day and night in the fields/farms to feed us, are forced to live in penury and debt.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), in its report-2007, brought out the startling figure that fortysix farmers commit suicide every day in the country, even as packages are being rolled out in a bid to bailout the debtridden community from crisis. Along with some right thinking and knowledgeable people and the Consortium of Indian Farmers Association (CIFA), some practical proposals have been worked out, and if they are implemented in letter and spirit, the lot of the Indian farmer could improve a good deal. Since augmentation of income of Indian farmers is the key to ameliorate his ‘hand to mouth’ existence, it is in the fitness of things that farm produce is given fair price by taking into account the hard labour put in by the farmer, high cost of inputs, uncertain weather conditions and so on. Enhancing of irrigation facilities and storing and marketing facilities are the other major issues that need to be addressed. Besides, providing opportunities for supplementary income by developing dairy, poultry, sheep rearing, piggery, etc, wherever possible, also needs immediate attention.

Experience, knowledge and ground realities give out a simple and straightforward message to planners and policy makers. Farmers’ livelihood is beset with umpteen problems and farming is the most risky profession. It is time for all those who sit in legislatures/Parliament to legislate policies and measures which will ensure that farmers get fair compensation for their toil and travails. India is predominantly an agriculture-dependent rural economy. Making plans focused on sitting in accommodating them only in industries is not possible. The best solution is to develop agriculture sustainability by providing huge resources in the years to come.

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Encouraging rural artisans, and the village and cottage industries as envisaged by Mahatma Gandhi is another way to help the rural masses to enhance their income. Read more... Labels: Economy

Medium Is The Message "role of the medium (like television) that becomes a strong for those who run the affairs of the State." When McLuhan posted famously, in the 1960s, that ‘the medium was the message’ he was reminding people that they often tend to focus on the obvious, missing out the more subtle changes wrought in society and culture by a new innovation. TV is certainly new to India, but one of the unintended consequences of the traumatic events in Mumbai (26/11) was that the medium of television indeed became the message, as it provided a handy vehicle for the public to vent its disappointment, anguish and outrage at the manner in which they felt the ‘powers-thatbe’ had let them down.

‘Enough is enough’ was the spontaneous outburst of their angst and anger as caught by the television cameras covering the horrendous happenings. The messages ‘deliver or disappear’ and ‘perform or perish’ were not lost on those who were at the helm of affairs, both at the State and Central levels. People may hold different opinions on the role of television sending out live pictures of the terrible time that both the hostages and people at large had to suffer, but one thing that came out very candidly was that the country was no longer in a mood to hear platitudes but was demanding action tangible and credible that could secure their lives anywhere in the country. The people were shocked to see a handful of terrorists holding the entire country hostage and those entrusted with the responsibility of keeping the perpetrators at bay, shamed at their utter failure to prevent the outrage. In such a trying and tormenting situation, like a diligent delivery boy, the medium of television, that is known more for its live performances, reality shows, soap operas, news and views et al, delivered the most meaningful message to the ‘corridors of power’. The message had its desired effect on the political class. Heads began to roll, though not too many. A new more stringent Anti-Terror Law was passed and the National Intelligence Agency created. Besides, Multi Agency Centre (MAC) was activated so that all loopholes and communication gaps between various intelligence gathering agencies could be removed. In the tragic events of 26/11 (Mumbai) people discovered the potential of the medium of television, both as a message and a messenger.

This new found power should be taken a little further. In TV (and to a lesser extent in news papers) the people of India now have a medium, not mean but monumental, which can not only carry messages far and wide but can also serve to unite the masses in a common cause. Since we live in a democracy, and know that politicians are indispensable to democracies, we should evolve an instrumentality to ensure that our politicians comply http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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with some minimum levels of propriety, and perform the functions for which they have been elected. Surely that instrumentality is the medium of TV, the carrier of message for now and future. Read more... Labels: Media, Politics, Technology

Secret Of Blogging! For any blog to be success, it needs content. “Content is the king of any blog.” Without content, there are no links. Content is the foundation of traffic. Everything starts with content. You have no content, you don’t have a blog. So let’s take a look how to make a creative content.A

Source Of Content There are many places and ways to get content. I write all the content for this blog myself and if you’re doing a blog then you should do most of the article like a blog with free articles on it. Many people have asked how to keep up the level of content generation? It’s really not that hard. This is how I go about it. The Blog Comments Much of my content ideas come from blog comments. This article is in answer to requests made in the comments of the blog. Producing content this way is really the best because you know this is the content your readers are looking for – you can’t get better targeting than giving the readers what they asked for. Chances are, this article will lead to future articles as readers comment on it.

If you don’t have a reader base yet, then your method of creating content will have to be based on what niche your blog covers. When I wake up in the afternoon, I really don’t have an idea on what I’m going to write about. The first thing I do is read the blog comments, as this is my best source for article ideas. After that, I surf the list of sites in my bookmarks. This is my second biggest source of article ideas. I also get article ideas from magazines and newspapers.

Surfing For Content : When surfing, I’m looking for stories which I think would interest my readers. The object is not to just repost the stories, which would be too easy. I want to put my own spin on it. If I were to just repost a story with a link, I haven’t added any value to it. Blogging is about adding your personal touch to a story. While sites like nytimes.com just report the story without emotion or opinions, bloggers are expected to get down and dirty with it. Make the content your content. Don’t be afraid to state your views or piss people off. We have the right to say our opinions. Read more... Labels: Blogging Tips, Internet, Money Market

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The Tasks Of A Leader

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There are several ways of defining a leader. The one who leads others is a simple and complete definition. But, then, what are the tasks of a leader? Leadership is a much sought after quality and every organisation needs good and effective leaders to lead the organisation to success and for achievement of its goals. Some persons are born leaders, for others leadership gets thrust upon. In a given organisation, the Head of the Organisation or the Chief Executive Officer is accepted as a leader irrespective of his or her possessing the quality of leadership. Management Gurus, more or less, agree on the following tasks for the leader of any organisation, irrespective of its nature and goals: A leader must be able to: 1. Impart vision and direction to her/his organisation 2. Affirm and articulate values that she/he cherishes for her/his organization 3. Set high standards of performance and raise the level of expectations 4. She/he must make herself/himself accountable 5. Must be able to motivate others within the organisation 6. Achieve unity in the organisation 7. Involve others in decisionmaking.

The leader’s most important task is to clarify the overall goals of the organisation. This is what transforms a mere crowd into a community, a directionless mob into a group with a purpose. A crowd in a fair, for instance, is joyous, free spirited but selfoccupied. In the same way, a gathering may have individually talented and even highly motivated people but they will achieve nothing if they lack vision or goal to achieve collectively. The success of leadership depends on personal characteristics that include experience, imagination, persuasiveness, farsightedness, and astuteness in interpersonal dealings. The leader will not be able take his/her organisation very far if he is not able to generate, manage and monitor the use of resources. Most organisations have resources available, but seldom are they sufficient for everything that everyone wants to do. Resources do not manage themselves; allocation and monitoring systems have to be established. Budget, timetables, staffing plans, policies, procedures and priorities need to be set and worked out.

Empowerment and delegation of authority demands astute handling because human material is not like machines or furniture that can be allocated in a fixed pattern. To select, develop, and share power with subordinates/associates is an art that is not easy to learn or acquire. Winning trust and loyalty of disparate persons can be demanding but is necessary for the task of assigning tasks to others. Decision-making and responsibility need to be dispersed for accomplishing current tasks and preparing others for future leadership.

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Relations within and outside an organisation play an important role and this is yet another essential task for a leader. Building relations and range of contacts require friendliness, wit, wisdom, negotiation skills, and the ability to entertain or at least to hold the attention of a wide range of people. A leader also has to be Enterprising because finding new opportunities and creating desirable change is also his/her task. Every organisation has certain momentum that imparts it continuity yet, obsolescence is a constant challenge for a leader. In large organisations this can require a massive refocusing of people and resources. Leaders are needed at all levels but most people would want to follow rather than lead. Finally, a great leader creates more leaders. Like Gandhi. Read more... Labels: Education, General, Management

An Upgrade For The Web [HTML 5] We've come a long way from the flat documents that made up the Web in its early years. As Internet access has expanded and bandwidth has increased, designers and programmers have figured out ways to build sophisticated, interactive applications that run through the browser. Nowadays, these include Web-based word processors, photo-editing software, money-management tools, and much more.

The next generation of HTML, the markup language that is used to build most Web content, promises to make Web applications work even better. Some proposed features of this new standard--HTML 5--are already being built into several popular browsers, offering a glimpse of an application-enabled Web.

As things stand, Web applications are hampered by the code used to build them because they were never designed to make fullfledged desktop-style programs run. For example, most browsers can only run one piece of JavaScript code--a scripting language that can run on top of HTML--at any one time, and this limits the functionality of a Web application. To make matters worse, different browsers react differently to existing Web standards, leaving developers to struggle to make sure that their application is compatible with different browsers.

"We started to see a migration to doing more and more stuff on the Web," says Christopher Blizzard, opensource evangelist for the Mozilla Foundation, which maintains the Firefox browser. Blizzard says that most browsers simply cannot access data stored offline, or perform complex graphical capabilities without the use of a plug-in such as Flash or Java. "We're trying to find ways for people to be able to take the live, programmable documents that make up the Web and start integrating them with all these other pieces outside the scope of the browser."

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But guided by HTML 5, browsers are finally being reengineered to address many of these problems. hat the most important part of the effort has been creating specifications to ensure that different browsers perform more tasks in the same way.

To help browsers handle intensive Web applications, HTML 5 includes a feature called worker threads. These allow a browser to deal with heavier computation by running JavaScript in the background, while a user goes on interacting with the application as usual. This part of HTML 5 will be supported in the next release of Firefox, and a similar technology is already part of the Google Chrome browser. Brian Rakowski, director of product management for Chrome, says that Google's browser will move toward the technology described in HTML 5.

HTML 5 will also bring new video and audio capabilities to Web pages. A feature called Canvas--now supported by every major browser except Internet Explorer--lets developers create HTML graphics that match those that they would build using Adobe's Flash software. Andreas Bovens, Web evangelist for Opera, says that "developers are still exploring the richness of Canvas," but he believes that the feature could be used to create sophisticated games and other graphical applications employing HTML and JavaScript alone.

The new standard also focuses on making Web applications work offline. Google Gears and Adobe AIR already allow a Web-based application to access local storage and processing on a user's computer, but HTML 5 aims to make offline capability even easier for a browser to use, without requiring additional plug-ins. Mozilla's Blizzard adds that it's not just about going offline: it's also about allowing a browser to access more of the user's hardware. For example, he says, standards are starting to emerge for defining how a browser running on a cell phone should access the location information stored on that device.

All the major browsers--Safari, Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer--have started adopting parts of HTML 5. But each browser has taken a slightly different approach. Apple's Safari, for example, has focused on performance, incorporating new features only when they do not harm the browser's overall speed. The latest version of the Opera browser includes many features of HTML 5, and an experimental version supports HTML 5's video capabilities. Both Google Chrome and the beta version of Safari support HTML 5's offline features.

For the features described in HTML 5 to become an official Web standard, they need to be incorporated into two different browsers. Since they are built on the same framework Safari and Chrome count as one browser in

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this respect. A Web page that uses the feature will then need to work just as well in both browsers. "There's no way to speed it up," As it may take some time to make progress, since there are so many independent browsers. Read more... Labels: HTML 5, Technology, Web Browsers, Web Technology

Privatisation Affecting Human It may sound harsh to some ears but the fact of the matter is that privatization and profiteering are the two sides of the same coin. It is quite ironic and disquieting that the advocates of ‘liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation’ are more concerned about ‘economic sustainability’ in the midst of global meltdown than about human sustainability. If some right thinking people are agitated over the possible dangers in the form of global warming, polluted rivers, excessive emission of carbon dioxide into the environment, it is time to sit back and introspect.

Along with a few islands of prosperity represented by multiplexes, malls, skyscrapers, and the like, the issues of under-nourishment of millions across the board and resource-depletion are some of the rigorous realities that pose serious problems. We have come to such a precarious pass of rapid economic development versus hunger malnutrition, rich-poor divide and so on as a result of our over-enthusiasm and over confidence on the socalled visible successes of privatisation.

The resilience and sustainability of the capitalistic economic development based on market-led forces is already facing a serious global recess, as a consequence of which millions of jobs are going to be lost across the world. This dismal scenario may further add to the already prevalent high degree of diversity and economic development process of the Asian societies, which requires revamping of the policy processes to enhance the economic prosperity and overcome severe constraints in the light of increasing threats of food security and environmental

crisis.

Despite the highly publicized and propagated claims of privatisation having provided enough leverage to enterprising and innovative entrepreneurs, even now nearly one-fourth of world population has no access to safe drinking water. There has been a serious threat to agricultural land, air, water, forests and marine resources that form the basic inputs and resources than can thwart the positive effects of privatisation, adversely affecting human sustainability. Read more... Labels: Economy, Money Market

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How Twitter Could Bring Search Up To Speed

Some say that Twitter may be as important to real-time search as YouTube is to video. When Twitter was introduced in late 2006, asking users to post a 140-word answer to the question "What are you doing?," many criticized the results as nothing more than a collection of trivial thoughts and inane ramblings. Fast-forward three years, and the number of Twitter users has grown to millions, while the content of the many posts--better known as "tweets"--has shifted from banal to informative.

Twitter users now cover breaking news, posting links to reports, blog posts, and images. Twitter's search box also reveals what people think of the latest new gadget or movie, letting visitors eavesdrop on often spirited conversations and some insightful opinions.

Earlier this week, on The Charlie Rose Show, Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, was asked directly whether Google might be interested in acquiring Twitter. He responded, somewhat coyly, that his company was "unlikely to buy anything right now."

Nonetheless, as Twitter grows in size and substance, it's becoming clear that it offers a unique feed of real-time conversation and sentiment. Danny Sullivan, editor of the blog Search Engine Land, compares this to the unique real-time feed of new video content offered by YouTube, which Google acquired in 2006, and says that Twitter could help improve real-time search. Notably, says Sullivan, this is something that Google isn't particularly good at. Even by scouring news sites, Google simply can't match the speed and relevancy of social sites like Digg and Twitter, he says.

Twitter's ability to capture the latest fad is evident from its "trends" feature, which reveals the most talked about topics among Twitterers. At the time this article was written, Twitter users were discussing topics including National Napping Day, DST (daylight savings time), and the new movie Watchmen. A quick search also reveals that five people within the past half hour have posted tweets about last weekend's Saturday Night Live skit called "The Rock Obama." The most recent tweet includes a link to the video and was posted just three minutes ago. Bruce Croft, a professor of computer science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, says that Twitter search could perhaps help make news alerts more relevant. "If you could search or track large numbers of conversations, then there would be the possibility of developing alerts when something starts happening," he says. "And, of course, it's yet another opportunity to do massive data mining on people's activities to learn even more about what they are doing and when they are doing it."

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An upswing in the number of marketers and companies that have joined Twitter over the past year also reflects big interest in using Twitter to tap into the online trends. Sullivan admits that right now the average Twitter user isn't turning to the service for the majority of its searches, but he says that marketers who want to track the sentiment of their brands and products are finding it an indispensable tool. "Is it essential to search Twitter because you're a brand manager?" asks Sullivan. "Yeah, it's becoming very important." He notes that outside search engines, such as Google, cannot easily go through Twitter's data because it is not releasing it. "If I were over at Google, I'd definitely be concerned about that," he says.

Meanwhile, Twitter is clearly thinking about ways to better mine its users' tweets. When you search Twitter, its search engine looks for keywords in the most recent tweets, explains Biz Stone, one of the company's cofounders. The results are then ranked based on the time when they were posted; for some popular topics, this can mean just seconds ago. The search technology used for this was developed at a startup called Summize, which Twitter acquired last July. Until recently, Twitter users needed to go to the address search.twitter.com to use the technology: a link was buried at the bottom of a user's homepage. Twitter is now testing a "more integrated" search box at the top of the page for a small number of users, says Stone.

As simple as it sounds, dealing with the volume of messages posted on Twitter in real time poses a big challenge, according to Stone. "Our biggest technical challenge right now is not that exciting: it's just scaling from an operations and engineering standpoint," he says. In other words, engineers have to make sure that the system doesn't crash under the weight of all the messages that Twitter handles.

Summize was given access to a higher volume of tweets than most third-party developers. In the early days of Twitter, it wasn't a problem to let developers use such a large volume of tweets, but as the service has grown, the application programming interface (API) that allows for such access "requires special design and attention," Stone says. Engineers at Twitter have also been working on a new, more scalable solution. "We'll need to be thoughtful about how, when, and who we partner with to test this technology when it's ready," he adds.

When asked whether Twitter and Google could work together to build a real-time search engine, Stone is a bit more optimistic. "We're huge fans of Google," he says. "And we'd be delighted to partner or work with them in the future." Read more... Labels: SEO, Web Technology

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What is Twitter? And Why People Use Twitter

“Twitter is instant messaging made available to the public,” stated talk show host and author Hugh Hewitt. I think that’s a fair starting point. I’ve heard others call Twitter a micro-blogging platform. Here’s what you need to know. According to the State of the Twittersphere report, each day 5 to 10 thousand new people join Twitter. Current estimates of total users top out around 5 million. That’s a lot of opportunity. Twitter allows you to post updates (called Tweets) as often as you want (and limited to 140 characters). When you follow other people on Twitter, you see their tweets. When they follow you, they see your tweets. It’s a constant stream of communication. The good news is you can turn it on or off as often as you like. Twitter also keeps a public record of all updates, which can be mined with Twitter Search.

Why High-Profile People Use Twitter Twitter is not just a fad. When very high profile folks begin evangelizing Twitter, it’s worth closer examination. Here’s what some of those gurus told me: Duct Tape Marketing founder John Jantsch identified three big advantages of Twitter,

1. I get great insight when I ask questions, 2. let’s face it, I get traffic and 3. people on Twitter spread my thoughts to new places.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com said, “We’ve found that Twitter has been a great way for us to connect on a more personal level with our employees and customers. We use it to help build our brand, not drive direct sales. It’d be like asking how does providing a telephone number for customer service translate into new business when they are mostly non-sales-related calls. In the long term, Twitter helps drive repeat customers and word of mouth, but we’re not looking to it as a way of driving immediate sales.” Bestselling author David Meerman Scottsaid, “I have personally connected with hundreds of people I otherwise wouldn’t have, and I booked an interview on NPR and a big daily newspaper using Twitter.” Read more... Labels: Blogging Tips, Technology, Twitter

India Misleads On Inflation Figures A very big fraud has been happening right under our nose in India and we were all taking False Claims of Indian authorities all this while.

Almost every Friday for the last 7 months we are cheering up that Indian inflation is coming down. Is it really true? Prices are going up like anything. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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India calculates its official inflation based on Wholesale Price Index (WPI) rather than Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation. WPI is never an indication of the inflation simply because the consumers do not buy from wholesale markets. They buy at retail level. Most economies like US, UK, Japan, France, Singapore, and China etc. have selected CPI as its official barometer to weigh its inflation. And hold your breath even Pakistan follows CPI. (And all that while you laughed at high inflation in that country).

But our country, India, is amongst rare countries of the world, which uses WPI as its official scale to measure the inflation in the economy. Simply because WPI is always lower than CPI, thereby painting a false picture to the electorate that prices have fallen. So figures of 2.63% as claimed by Indian authorities are untrue. As per CPI our inflation figures stand at 10.5% in January up from 9.7% in December. Now you can make out the huge difference between WPI and CPI, 6.5%!

If that is the reason why CPI is being used by Indian authorities? I see two main reasons. Since WPI figures are always lower than CPI, the innocent public is fooled into believing that prices are coming down and hide the actual price rise on the pocket of consumer.

WPI index tells us about commodity producers, manufacturers, bulk sellers and market owners. A low WPI is an indication to them that their selling prices rate is decreasing and gives them all good reasons to raise the wholesale prices. After all money for elections come from these rich people.

If we see Academically also the WPI calculation in India is flawed.

1st Flaw - At least 1,918 quotations should be received for assessing changes in WPI but Indian authorities invite not more than 1200 quotations. So price information is not even.

2nd Flaw – From 435 commodities in WPI , more than 100 are no more important from consumer point of view so the price fall in these 100 commodities does not really affect the Indian consumers.

3rd Flaw - There is a huge difference between the provisional and final index figure!! Once in April 12, 2008, the provisional figure of inflation was 7.33, which were revised as final inflation figure of 7.95 what a healthy error!! 4th Flaw - WPI measures the general level of price changes at the level of either the wholesaler or at the producer and does not take into account retail margins. WPI does not reflect the actual price hike, which the consumer is paying. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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5th Flaw - Service sectors are not duly accounted in WPI. Service sector like health and education are important as consumers are increasingly spending more money on these items. So if education fee goes up or Doctor fees goes up, it doesn’t matter to Indian government.

6th Flaw - WPI measures the price changes from the production side and never from the consumption side It is surely a lop sided viewpoint of consumers.

Besides all these Frauds Indian Authorities will thump their chests at bringing down the Inflation. That’s what I call 'Shamelessness' Read more... Labels: Economy, Money Market, Politics, Recession

How To Overcome This Recession So, how’s the economic meltdown treating you? Excited about the opportunities, or sick to your stomach worrying about how your bills will get paid? Exhilarated or freaked out? Maybe a little of both? It’s impossible to really see massive change when we’re still in the middle of it. But there are a handful of things you can bank on. One of them is that human nature doesn’t fundamentally change, even though the environment can change radically.

And if you look back over most of the time we human beings have been on the planet, you realize that it’s in our nature to be entrepreneurs. In most times, most people created something valuable, then arranged to exchange that for something else.

The Industrial Revolution came along and we started to think it made sense for most people to work for somebody else. Just a few people knew how to do very complicated things like run factories.or to run a website etc., Most of us had to settle for being the faceless masses who could be trained to work in those factories or for someone else. The shake-up we’re in now could change our lives as profoundly as the Industrial Revolution did. Every week, thousands of employees are becoming entrepreneurs, whether they wanted to be or not. A job, once seen as a necessity, might be a pretty scarce resource for awhile. So it might be time to think about the ancient traits that have helped entrepreneurs since the dawn of history, and how they relate to the emerging 21st-century economy.

1. Self-Reliance Back when we moved from farms to factories (and later, to cubicles), once we got a few things like child labor and worker safety straightened out, a lot of us got into the habit of letting a company take care of us. An 18thhttp://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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century farmer and a prehistoric cave dweller had one thing in common: if they didn’t hustle their asses off, they starved. There was no benevolent employer who would make sure things turned out OK. Often, things didn’t turn out OK at all. But you worked hard and you kept your eyes open and you made your own luck.

Today’s version of self-reliance is unimaginable luxury in comparison. You’re highly unlikely to get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, if you get appendicitis it probably won’t kill you, and if you need to figure out how to do something, you can tap into the better part of human knowledge at any public library. Enjoy the incredible benefits of the 21st century, but don’t lose that ancient human drive to make our own fates. Keep hustling.

2. Great Ideas Jonas Ridderstrale and Kjell Nordstrom (two wild and crazy guys) argued in Funky Business that Karl Marx was right. The workers now control the means of production. Because in the emerging economy, the means of production are between your ears.

Being an entrepreneur isn’t (necessarily) about making physical things any more. The value you can create now comes from your own wisdom, perceptiveness, style, intelligence, flexibility, and creativity. Even if you’re making an object, it’s the design and intelligence you put into that object that make it valuable, not the physical molecules.

In every market, you win by offering people what they want and need. The winners in the new marketplace will sell information, road maps, digital tools, education, and entertainment—often, all contained within one product.

These aren’t capital-intensive projects. They don’t require armies of workers to build physical infrastructure, or legions of slaves to dig plantations or build pyramids. Every entrepreneur is the product of a specific cultural environment, and the environment we’re in now is information overload. The normal human brain was never meant to process this much data. Most people are completely overwhelmed by the endless tangle of information, and it just gets more complex every day. As an information entrepreneur, you can navigate that roaring river and pluck out just what your customers need, then wrap it in the package that makes it exactly what they want.

Pay attention, keep learning, and keep evolving. Entrepreneurs have always prevailed by solving problems in smart new ways. There are more ways to do that today than there have ever been before. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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3. The Village (Your Neighbors) Is Your Customer

Once upon a time, the bread baker and his village were stuck with one another. If he baked lousy bread, he had to look his neighbors in the eye and face their scorn. The fact that his customers were his neighbors kept him on the straight and narrow. There was no difference between his professional reputation and his personal one. Huge 20th-century industrialism made that seem irrelevant and quaint. We had no idea what kind of person made the toy or car or loaf of bread we just bought, and we forgot to even wonder.

Now the village is back. If we blow it, customers publicly rap on our window (with social media, blogs or Twitter) and give us a piece of their mind. Once again, our reputation and our products are one and the same. What we create doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to show that we give a damn. The inconvenient part is that the village isn’t stuck with you. If your baguette isn’t great, your customer can FedEx something from an artisanal bakery.

The cool part, though, is that if you make something handmade (even if it’s delivered in pixels), personal, and/or magnificently useful, your village can and will find you. Whether you make homespun yarn or an interactive course on how to start a dog-walking business, your product can find its own profitable village of happy customers.

4. It’s in your DNA The human being is an inherently creative, flexible, resilient creature.You are an inherently creative, flexible, resilient creature.The times may well get worse before they get better. But compared with a lot of history’s darker moments, this one’s pretty comfortable.And the opportunities that have opened up because of technology and communication are nothing short of breathtaking. No, not everyone’s going to become an information entrepreneur.

But you can! Embrace the entrepreneurship that’s in your DNA. Keep your eyes open for problems to solve and markets to serve. And buckle up. Like every exciting ride, this one’s got a few hairpin curves. Read more... Labels: Economy, Money Market, Recession

How to Write With Confidence Confidence isn’t knowing how things will turn out, it’s trusting yourself to do what you’re best at. Trust yourself to make those leaps and you’ll not only be a more confident writer, but you’ll be writing some of your best work. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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Writing sounds easy enough, right? Just slap some words onto a page, spell-check, sense-check, job done. Piece of cake. Or at least it would be if you didn’t start second guessing yourself. “What was the point I was trying to make here anyway?” “Is this article working?” “Will anyone read this, or will it slip into spectacular insignificance?”

And then there’s the big question. Is it good enough? Do you think that Stephen King doesn’t have a bad day of writing? Does Stephanie Meyer (http://www.stepheniemeyer.com) think every word she writes is peachy first time round? How about McEwan, Rowling or Kawasaki? Irving, Huffington or Coelho?

Every writer writes rubbish, because writing requires it. It’s part of the process of great writing. The trick then, is to find ways to keep your confidence going during the times when you can see that you’re in a writing funk.

1. Don’t take it personally. Got a crappy comment on your blog saying what you’ve written stinks more than a dozen dead frogs in a bag of over-ripe stilton? Got a bad review that highlights the fatal flaw in your oh-so carefully constructed and carefully worded argument? What are you gonna do? Invite them over for a glass of wine to apologize? Send them a basket of muffins and a sincere letter of apology? No. Of course not. There will always be people who disagree with you and there will always be someone out there who doesn’t like what you’ve written. Writing to please everyone who reads your work is writing for the wrong reasons, and it’s something that’s never going to happen. It’s all too easy to start doubting whether your words are any good, and to extrapolate those doubts as personal failings. I’ve done this myself in the past – I write a crappy article, realize that it’s pretty crappy, and then conclude that I’m a crappy writer.Wrong. One thing does not equal the other.

2. You’ve gotta go from 0% to 100%. To finish a writing project you’ve got to start with nothing and go all the way through until it’s finished. That sounds obvious (and I do have a remarkable grasp of the obvious), but it’s significant for one important reason. It means that you need to go through the process in order to end up with some great writing. It means that along the way some of what you’ll write will be good and some won’t be good – that’s just how it goes. You need to trust yourself to go from 0% to 100%, from nothing to everything.

You might hit writers block at 24%, you might write some killer copy at 68% that you’re insanely proud of, and you might write a super-stinky paragraph at 82% that you’ll never speak of again. Every word and every sentence adds to the whole, whether it’s good or not. You need to trust that you can spot the gold along the way. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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3. Be ready to push yourself.

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Sometimes great writing requires you to go to places in your head or your heart that you don’t normally go. There are times when great writing requires you to put your experience on the page and times when it requires you to make leaps of faith that make you feel vulnerable or scare you half to death. Which is why, even though you need to consider your audience, you should write like nobody’s reading. The content might be the same, but the style will be more natural. Confidence isn’t knowing how things will turn out, it’s trusting yourself to do what you’re best at. Trust yourself to make those leaps and you’ll not only be a more confident writer, but you’ll be writing some of your best work. Read more... Labels: Blogging Tips, Education

Microsoft Reveals Details Of Gazelle Browser Microsoft researchers are working on a new browser called Gazelle which it promises will have some impressive new features and capabilities. The firm released a research paper (PDF) late last week, saying that the new browser would offer significant security improvements compared to other browsers, including Internet Explorer. "No existing browsers, including new architectures like Internet Explorer 8, Google Chrome and OP, have a multi-principal operating system construction that gives a browser-based operating system the exclusive control to manage the protection of all system resources among web site principals," Microsoft said in the report. The browser will change this tradition by being built on its own kernel, in effect allowing it to operate as an operating system. This means that Gazelle could intelligently identify traffic, and react to anything malicious. "Our prototype implementation and evaluation experience indicates that it is realistic to turn an existing browser into a multi-principal operating system that yields significantly stronger security and robustness with acceptable performance and backward compatibility," the researchers wrote. The browser is only open for discussion at this stage, and there are no current plans for a release in any form. "The implementation and evaluation of our IE-based prototype shows promise of a practical multi-principal operating system-based browser in the real world," the researchers concluded.

And this is something that google and rest have been vehemently opposed to. because if this project becomes a success, then google search engine could take a big hit. If (Gazelle) browser can be run like a explorer too, then people would not have to go anywhere outside the browser... see pics from there, listen to music from there, watch videos there and surf web pages from there. Reference: Microsoft R&D Read more... Labels: Microsoft, Technology, Web Browsers

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Worst Movie Set Disasters (Part 1) | bench3

The Conqueror (1956) : The Radioactive Set That Caused Cancer To John Wayne And 90 more Of the 220 persons who worked on The conqueror on its location near Utah in 1955, 91 had contracted cancer as of the early 1980s and 46 died of it, including stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward,Afnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. Experts say under ordinary circumstances only 30 people out of a group of that size should have gotten cancer.

The cause? No one can say for sure, but many attribute the cancers to radioactive fallout from U.S. atom bomb tests in nearby Nevada.Produced by Hower Hughes, he thought the movie was so bad that he bought up every copy (which cost him about $12 million) and refused to distribute the film. For years thereafter, the only person who saw it was Hughes himself, who screened it night after night during his paranoid last years, this until 1974 when Paramount reached a deal with him. This would be the last film that Hughes would produce.

The Twilight Zone - The Movie (1983): A Helicopter Decapitated Three Actors During the filming of a segment of the 1983 movie The twilight zone producted by Steven Spielberg, actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le (age 7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6) died in an accident involving a helicopter being used on the set. The helicopter was flying at an altitude of only 25 feet (8 meters), too low to avoid the explosions of the pyrotechnics used on set. When the blasts severed the tail rotor, it spun out of control and crashed, decapitating Morrow and Le with its blades. Chen was crushed to death as the helicopter crashed. Everyone inside the helicopter survived sustaining minor injuries.

The accident led to legal action against the filmmakers which lasted nearly a decade, and changed the regulations involving children working on movie sets at night and during special effects-heavy scenes. The incident also ended the friendship between director Landis and producer Spielberg, who was already angered before the accident that Landis had violated many codes, including using live ammunition on the set.

The Crow (1994) : Brandon Lee, Killed By A Prop. 44 Magnum As one of the scenes of The crow was being filmed, Brandon Lee --Bruce Lee's son-- was shot and killed by a prop .44 Magnum. The scene involved the firing of a full-powder blank (full charge of gunpowder, but no bullet) at Brandon's character; however, unknown to the film crew/firearms technician, a bullet was already lodged in the barrel and hit Lee in the abdomen.

But that wasn't the only accident; the set was plagued by numerous accidents even before Lee's death. On the first day of shooting, February 1, 1993, a carpenter was severely shocked and received serious burns when the http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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scissor lift he was driving came into contact with high-voltage power lines. On March 13 heavy storms destroyed some of the elaborate sets causing delays. Later a prop master discovered a live round in one of the prop guns and an enraged carpenter drove his car into the studio's plaster shop. Also a worker was injured when a screwdriver was accidentally driven through his own hand and a stuntman fell through the roof of one of the sets.

After Lee’s death, a stunt double, Chad Stahelski replaced Lee in some scenes to complete the film. Special effects were used for digitally compositing Lee’s face onto the double. The original footage featuring Lee’s actual death is the source of some controversy. Some accounts claim it was destroyed immediately, without even being developed while others suggest it was later given to Lee’s family. Brandon Lee was buried beside his father. Read more... Labels: Disaster, Entertainment, Movie

Worst Movie Set Disasters (Part 2) | bench3 XXX (2002) : Vin Diesel's Stuntman Smashed Into A Bridge And Died Harry L. O'Connor, Diesel's stunt double on the xxx action movie, was killed on a scene in which he was supposed to rappel down a parasailing line and land on a submarine. When O'Connor failed to rappel down the line fast enough, he hit a bridge at high speed and was killed instantly. His death was caught on camera Director Rob Cohen decided to include the footage of the scene, with the final moments edited out, as a matter of respect for the stuntman's final act.

NOTE: our reader Chris comments: "I think it is notable for the list that Diesel's stuntman had already done the stunt successfully before he was killed. He felt that it wasn't good enough, that he hadn't got close enough to the bridge(for suspense purposes) and asked the director if he could do it again. It was during this second take that he was killed. I believe, as a side note, that his family had arrived in Prague just before the accident to watch his stunt and were present during his death."

Top Gun (1986) : An Aerobatic Pilot Crashed After His Scene Tom Cruise's worldwide most famous movie Top Gun was dedicated to the memory of Art Scholl. A renowned aerobatic pilot, the 53 year-old was hired to do in-flight camera work for the film and was engaged to fly the difficult "flat spin" scene. When he climbed into his Pitts S-2 camera-plane on the set of Top Gun – as he had so many times before - he had no idea of the dark fate that awaited him. During this scene, Scholl reported a problem with the plane; he was unable to recover from it and crashed his Pitts S-2 into the Pacific http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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Ocean, off the southern California coast near Carlsbad on September 16, 1985. Neither Scholl nor his aircraft were recovered, leaving the official cause of the accident unknown.

The Final Season (2007) A Camera Man, Killed On A Helicopter Crash While filming the baseball movie The final season, released on October, 2007, camera man Roland Schlotzhauer was killed while filming some parade sequences. Roland was well-known for his ability to capture shots from helicopters and he was filming from a Bell 206 when it hit power lines. The helicopter then crashed into a field seriously injuring the pilot and a producer on board, while ending Roland's life. Read more... Labels: Disaster, Entertainment, Movie

Santa and Banta Story | Chilling Story | bench3 True Horror, which took place last month. This happened about a month ago near Lonavala. A guy was driving from Mumbai to Pune and decided not to take the new expressway as he wanted to see the scenery.. The inevitable happens and when he reached the ghats his car breaks down. He's stranded miles from nowhere Having no choice he started walking on the side of the road, hoping to get a lift to the nearest town It was dark and pretty soon he got wet and shivering. The night rolled on and no car passed by.

Suddenly, he saw a car coming towards him. It slowed and then stops next to him. Without thinking the guy opened the door and jumps in. Seated in the back, he leaned forward to thank the person who had saved him. He realizes there is nobody behind the wheel!

Even though there's no one in the front seat and no sound of any engine, the car starts moving slowly. The guy looks at the road ahead and sees a curve coming. Scared almost to death he starts to pray, begging the Lord for his life. He hasn't come out of shock, when just before he hits the curve, a hand appears through the window and moves the wheel! The car makes the curve safely and continues on the road to the next bend. The guy, now paralyzed in terror, watches how the hand appears every time they are before a curve and moves the steering wheel just enough to get the car around each bend.

Finally, the guy sees lights ahead. Gathering his courage he wrenches open the door of the silent, slowly moving car, scrambles out and runs as hard as he can towards the lights. It's a small town. He stumbles into a

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dhaba, and asks for a drink, and breaks down. Then he starts talking about the horrible experience he's just been through.

There is dead silence in the dhaba when he stops talking And that's when Santa and Banta Singh walk into the dhaba, Santa points and says, "Look Banta, that's the weird guy who got into our car when we were pushing it" Read more... Labels: Fun Zone, Story

The Begging Cat | bench3 This cat begging money was spotted in one of the cities of Belarus. He stays on one place with a note that reads “need money for meat and fish, bless you”. He doesn’t leave his place and protects the money just with his sight. His owner was found nearby. It was an old lady. She told the story that she had rescued the cat from the slaughters, but at that time she had already owned some pets and couldn’t feed them all, so he decided to let the pets earn the money for themselves. Read more... Labels: General, Photography

Why 1 Is One And 2 Is Two? | bench3 The Numbers The numbers we write are made up of algorithms, (1, 2, 3, 4, etc) called arabic algorithms, to distinguish them from the roman algorithms (I; II; III; IV; etc.). The arabs popularise these algorithms, but their origin goes back to the phenecian merchants that used them to count and do their commercial contability. Have you ever asked the question why 1 is “one”, 2 is “two”, 3 is “three”…..? What is the logic that exist in the arabic algorithms? Look at these algorithms written in their primitive form and check it up. Read more... Labels: General, Numbers

Worst Movie Set Disasters (Part 3) | bench3 The Return of the Musketeers (1989): actor Roy Kinnear felt from his horse and died During the filming of the 1989 movie The Return Of the Musketeers, actor Roy Kinnear fell from a horse in Toledo, Spain, sustaining a broken pelvis. He was taken to hospital in Madrid, and died from a heart attack the following day. The film's director, Richard Lester, quit his own film career as a direct result of Kinnear's death.

Jumper (2008): set dresser fatally struck by frozen debris While dismantling an outdoor set in wintry conditions for Jumper, a sci-fi thriller starring Samuel Jackson, set dresser David Ritchie was fatally struck by frozen debris. Investigators later found that the sand and earth http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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frozen to the wall for exterior design came unstuck as the set was being torn down, falling and crushing Ritchie. The film kept going, eventually receiving widespread criticism and poor reviews from critics.

Troy (2004): hurricanes, a broken leg, and ironically, Brad Pitt's achilles tendon What could go wrong in a gazillion-dollar epic production starring Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Diane Kruger? Ironically, during the filming of Troy, Brad Pitt who played Achilles had a mishap during the production and tore his left achilles tendon. But the worst was yet to come when George Camilleri, a keen bodybuilder, broke his leg while filming an action sequence at Ghajn Tuffieha. He was operated on the following day but suffered complications and died 2 weeks later. In addition to that, while filming in Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico, the production had to deal with two hurricanes in less than a month; the last hurricane came the last week of production, when everything was pretty much wrapped. Despite all of that, the movie kept going and was finally a box-office hit. Read more... Labels: Disaster, Entertainment, Movie

All About "Presence of Mind" | bench3 In a shop a man asked for 1/2 kg of butter. The salesperson, a young boy, said that only 1 kg packs were available in the shop, but the man insisted on buying only 1/2 kg. So the boy went inside to the manager's room and said 'An idiot outside wants to buy only 1/2 kg of butter'. To his surprise, the customer was standing behind him. So the boy added immediately, 'And this gentleman wants to buy the other half!'

After the customer left, the manager said 'You have saved your position by being clever enough at the right time. Where do you come from?' To this the boy said, 'I come from Mexico. The place consists of only prostitutes and football players!'

The manager replied coldly, 'My wife is also from Mexico'. To this the boy asked excitedly, 'Oh yeah? Which team does she play for?' Presence of mind helps, never panic! Read more... Labels: General Tips, Story

Importance Of Rural Economy In India - The New Mantra | bench3 Global recession is no longer a farfetched nightmare. It has turned into a tangible reality facing the whole world. Rather than looking into the causes of recession, the policy makers are turning to the strategies to combat the difficult economic situation. Rural option remains very high on the agenda.

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As per the latest estimates of the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), the growth rate of the Indian economy during 2008-09 is expected to be around 7.1 per cent, as against the earlier expectations of 8 per cent. Not only this, it has now been estimated that India’s growth rate during the financial year ending March 2010 would moderate further to 5.5 per cent, which would be lowest during the past several years.

As direct fallout of the ongoing global recession, rapidly increasing unemployment rate has been a major cause of concern. In USA, the unemployment rate has gone up to 8.7 per cent and the same in Japan has also been the highest in the recent times. China has reported 20 million job losses. In India this figure is officially estimated to be about 5 lakh during the quarter ending December 2008. Loss of jobs in the unorganized sector due to reduced economic activity is going to be much higher and beyond estimation.

International Labour Organisation (ILO) maintains that the employment rate in India and other South Asian nations may by lower than the world average, due to their lesser exposure to the Ameri-can economy and the financial markets. Further, relatively larger rural base in India is a positive and strong factor in combating the ill effects of global recession. It is perhaps for the first time after the onset of the process of reforms that the Indian government has realized the importance of the rural economy to tide over the difficult economic situation. Read more... Labels: Economy, Recession, Rural Economy

Humours Nature Of Laloo Prasad Yadav | Laloo Makes Comedy Union railways minister Lalu Prasad is to rule the roost on Youtube. A clip showing Lalu translating a Hindi poem into English while presenting the railway budget in February has become a huge hit on YouTube. The clip is about Lalu reciteing a Hindi poem during the speech, in which he seeks to convey his achievements in the ministry of railways. The clip dated February 26, 2008 has attracted over 3.5 lakh hits from across the globe. While reciting the poem, he is interrupted by MPs, demanding him to translate it into English. Yadav stops, and says in English, "I will try to translate myself in English here."

He then goes on to recite the complete poem in Hindi, and to peals of laughter, tries to translate it in English. The Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, is seen covering his mouth as he tries to suppress his laughter at Yadav's inimitable attempts to translate the poem into English. Yadav says, "Everybody is appreciating, ki I have done a tremendous work. Each and every year, I have earned crores and crores every day. And they are saying, Lalu has planted a fruit tree, and every year, it is duty of my, to grow fruit tree." To much mirth in the House, Chatterjee quips, "After this, the railways will not face any problems."

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He is great for having termendous power to put their view in simpler way to make people undestand. What ever happened in past is now history. Mr.Lalu Prasad Yadav has shown his calibre and his abilities and worth by doing what no other RAILWAYS MINISTER could not even think of doing in the past. And on top of that, his style and approach has attracted people across the globe. Hats off to him.... Read more... Labels: Fun Zone

Why Are Some People More Successful Than Others? | bench3 Why are some people more successful than others? Why do some people live happier lives and accomplish more in the same number of years than the great majority? If I had to pick one answer to these questions, I wouldn't hesitate ... My answer would be self discipline.

Albert Gray said it best, "The common denominator of success - the secret of success of every person who has been successful - lies in the fact that they formed the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do." Gray "nailed" it! Why?

Because self discipline affects so many facets of your life. It affects your ability to reach your goals; it affects your personal health, your time management, your ability to manage your finances and even your character.

Brian Tracy is one of America's leading authorities on the development of human potential. He speaks to over 250,000 people a year, and is also a best-selling author who has written 25 books. I'm honored that Brian has written a book for Simple Truths titled: The Power of Discipline.. .7 Ways It Can Change Your Life. Today, I'd like to share a brief excerpt from Brian's chapter on Self Discipline and Goals.

An excerpt from The Power of Discipline By Brian Tracy Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals, and then to work toward them everyday, will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor. You've heard it said that, "You can't hit a target you can't see." "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." Wayne Gretsky said, "You miss every shot you don't take."

It seems that only 3% of adults have written goals and plans, and they earn more than the other 97% put together. Why is this? The simplest answer is that, if you have a clear goal and a plan to achieve it, your focus is fixed on a set course of action. Instead of becoming sidetracked by distractions and diversions, your time is focused on a straight line from start to finish. This is why people with goals accomplish so much more than people without them. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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The tragedy is that everyone thinks they already have goals. But what they really have are hopes and wishes. A wish has been defined as a "goal with no energy behind it." Hope is not a strategy. Goals that are not written down and developed into plans are like bullets without powder in the cartridge. People with unwritten goals go through life shooting blanks. Because they think they already have goals, they never engage in the hard, disciplined effort of goal setting, the master skill of success.

USA Today reported on a study a couple of years ago. First, researchers selected people who made New Year's resolutions. Then they divided these people into two categories: those who made New Year's resolutions and wrote them down, and those who made New Year's resolutions, but neglected to write them down.

Twelve months later, they followed up on the respondents in this study. What they found was astonishing! Of the people who made New Year's resolutions but neglected to write them down, only 4% actually followed through on their resolutions.

However, among the group that took a few minutes to record their New Year's resolutions, 44% followed through on them. This difference of more than 1100% proves the simple act of crystallizing resolutions or goals on paper increases likelihood of success.

In my experience of moving with several million people over the past few years, the disciplined act of setting goals, making plans for their accomplishments, and then working on them daily, increases the likelihood of achieving your goals by ten times, or 1000%.

This does not mean that goal setting guarantees success, only that it increases the probabilities of success by ten times. These are very good odds to have working in your favor. Read more... Labels: General Tips, Health

An Artificial Heart For Rs 1 Lakh It'll be to coronary care what Nano is to cars, say scientists at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, who have devised anartificial heart that could save lives for just Rs 1 lakh.

The research team says trials of the prototype lab—constructed heart have been successful on small animals and the gadget is being perfected on goats. The institute has applied for permission to conduct human trials. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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The Total Artificial Heart (TAH) — said to be the first such in the country — has been developed by a team of scientists at IIT-Kgp's school of medical science and technology.

After four years of painstaking research, the scientists say their creation is better and far more affordable than the first artificial heart developed in the US, which showed a ``high rate failure'' and at Rs 30 lakh, beyond the reach of the common man.

The inventors hope to fit the heart into an ailing patient within a few months, once permissions from the Indian Council of Medical Research come through. The unique 13—chamber heart is working fine in small animals, said a member of the team. Human tests are to be conducted at Medical College and Hospital (MCH), Kolkata.

Senior cardiac surgeons — Madhusudan Pal, Bhaskar Ukil, Tarun Saha and Kalishankar Das from MCH and Rajiv Narang of AIIMS, Delhi — will conduct the human trials.

``We are also in touch with P Venugopal, former AIIMS director and one of the leading cardiac surgeons of the country. We expect him to be part of the team as well,'' said Sujoy Guha, IIT-Kgp faculty member and biomedical engineering expert, who is leading the artificial-heart team.

``The TAH will be of great help to patients whose heart muscles have become so weak that they need immediate transplantation. Angioplasty, stents and even bypass surgery are of no use for such patients because they cannot strengthen muscles. It is difficult to find donor organs and even if transplantation is done, the body develops auto rejection and severe medication is required to suppress immune reactions," said Guha. ``TAH will be a life-saver, for the price of a Tata Nano,'' said one of the scientists. ``Bengal may have lost the Nano, but the world cannot miss this Rs 1-lakh invention.'' Source Labels: Health, Technology

Chennai Autos To Have Air Cooler - DVD Player | bench3 They are no limousines but a new fleet of autorickshaws with air cooler, DVD player and tinted windshield here offering a luxurious ride that few could resist. The luxury autorickshaw, an innovative idea of 27-year old mechanic-cum-driver Abu Backer, has become an instant hit as many are approaching him to get their threewheelers modified. The autorickshaw fitted with a DVD player, a drop down screen providing privacy, a 750 watt amplifier and an air-cooler also brings a refreshing change to the image of the city autorickshaw drivers, often facing charges of fleecing and rudely behaving with the passengers. Fully operated by a remote, the suspension system has been overhauled and exhaust muffled with a modified silencer. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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bench3 March 2009 To give it a cool interior, the autorickshaw has tinted windshield. Some other cosmetic changes include changing the shape of the mudguard. A neon bulb has been fitted under the chasis to give variegated feel during movement.

"The paint job was difficult because I changed it thrice to get the 'gold computer metallic' colour, I spent more than a Rs one lakh for the modifications which include Rs 30,000 for video and amplifier, Rs 20,000 for special cushion, Rs 10,000 for nickel plating and painting. The rest I spent for special MRF tyres, a Sumo battery and fluorescent stickers,"*

Interestingly, Abu had installed an automatic device in his vehicle, which can be operated to open the petrol tank at the back eliminating the need for the driver to get down and go back. Abu's autorickshaw forms part of the fleet at the Annai Therasa Auto Stand at Shanthi Colony in Ashok Nagar locality.What more, Abu does not charge any extra fare from the passengers for the ride. The passengers could ask for any movie or a song of their choice during their journey.

"I play only original CDs to my passengers," he said adding "I always take minimum 50 CDs, which include movies and songs from different Tamil cinemas", he said adding "To satisfy non-locals, I carry some of Hindi and English songs too. I drive the auto only in the evenings and most of my customers call me to their door steps."*

Abu, who had already modified three vehicles, is busy attending to new customers, not the passengers, but those who want to modify there autos in similar fashion. His creativity has not gone unnoticed with Abu being flooded with enquiries to churn up more luxury autrickshaws. "It is painstaking job. It takes minimum three to four months to do the modification job,"* Abu is planning to set up a big unit in future to undertake such modification works. *Backer told PTI. Read more... Labels: Chennai, Creativity, Technology

World's First Flying Car | bench3 The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month. If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months’ time. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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Its manufacturer says it is easy to keep and run since it uses normal unleaded fuel and will fit into a garage. Carl Dietrich, who runs the Massachusetts-based Terrafugia, said: “This is the first really integrated design where the wings fold up automatically and all the parts are in one vehicle.”

The Transition, developed by former Nasa engineers, is powered by the same 100bhp engine on the ground and in the air. Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank of petrol at a cruising speed of 115mph. Up to now, however, it has been tested only on roads at up to 90mph.

Dietrich said he had already received 40 orders, despite an expected retail price of $200,000 (£132,000). “For an airplane that’s very reasonable, but for a car that’s very much at the high end,” he conceded.

There are still one or two drawbacks. Getting insurance may be a little tricky and finding somewhere to take off may not be straightforward: the only place in the US in which it is legal to take off from a road is Alaska. Dietrich is optimistic. He said: “In the long term we have the potential to make air travel practical for individuals at a price that would meet or beat driving, with huge time savings. Read more... Labels: New Launch, Technology

Interim Budget 2009-10 Gives Importance To Rural Economy Interim Budget 2009 The Interim Budget for the year 2009-10, also had its focus on the rural economy. Under the NREGS during the year 2008-09, about 3.51 crore rural households were benefited, generating 138.76 crore mandays. For the year 2009-10, a massive allocation of Rs 30,100 crore has been made for the said scheme. In other words, this huge sum would be distributed as wages to the rural households during the said year.

Bharat Nirman Another gigantic rural development programme is Bharat Nirman, which aims at huge public expenditure in the rural infrastructure. It has six components, including rural roads, rural telecommunication, irrigation, drinking water supply, rural housing and rural electrification. As per the Finance Minister, the allocation to this programme was increased by 261 per cent during the period between 2005-09. A provision of Rs 40,900 crore has been kept in the interim budget, 2009 for this programme. I

Other Allocations To Rural India In addition to stiff doses of funds proposed through the above two flagship programmes, the Finance Minister also made significant allocations to various other programmes and schemes having rural focus. A sum of Rs http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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13,100 crore has been allocated for Sarv Siksha Abhiyan, most of which is to be spent in the rural areas. Midday meal programme, which is also termed as the largest school feeding programme of the world, has been allocated a sum of Rs 8,000 crore. To further supplement the efforts of nutrition to the rural students, another provision of Rs 6,705 crore has been made under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), under which the pre-school children and the lactating mothers are provided nutrition and healthcare under Anganwaris. Another important scheme with rural focus is Rajiv Gandhi Rural Drinking Water Mission, which aims at providing drinking water supply to the villages not covered by tap water supply. A sum of Rs 7,400 crore has been provided for this scheme for the financial year 2009- 10. Rural sanitation is also an ongoing programme for which Rs 1,200 crore provision has been kept. NRHM, which is a healthcare programme for the rural areas, has been provided with a hefty provision of Rs 12,070 crore.

Rural Areas Hold The Key For Future Development: It is apparent from the above that the direction of the Interim Budget 2009-10 has been towards the rural areas. Whether it is the growth of FMCG or consumer durables, or the telecommunication growth, rural areas of the country hold the key for future development. Enormous amounts of funds being pumped into the rural economy by the government would greatly supplement the natural growth of these areas. The trickle down effect, though delayed, has begun to actually show. If the trend continues, the socalled ‘digital divide’ may start experiencing imminent and rapid bridging. Rural markets in the country have arrived in a big way. The hereto ignored rural areas have now revealed their true potential. The policy makers have realized that as soon as the cities and the industrial centres start becoming saturated with growth potential, it is the rural market of the country which holds the key for future. Even at the present times of crisis, it is the rural economy and its hidden capabilities that may ultimately bail the economy out. It is for sure that the rural emphasis in the India’s economic policy is going to stay for quite some time in future. The rural areas had remained, by and large, neglected after independence. But now, with improved focus on rural wage employment, rural infrastructure, rural healthcare, telecommunications, irrigation, rural housing, drinking water supply, nutrition and rural electrification in a big way by the government, the purchasing power of the people in these areas is on the rise and, if the current trends continue, the day is not far when the history of rapid growth of the economy for the next two decades would be scripted by the smart growth of rural economy in the country.

More than 72 million Kisan Credit Cards are in use in the rural areas of the country, which number almost matches the number of Credit Cards under use in the urban areas.Read more... Labels: Economy, Interim Budget, Recession, Rural Economy

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Now Your Pets Can Fly First Class

Pet Airways is the 1st Pet Only airline where pets fly in the Main Cabin, Not in Cargo. Pet Airways flies across the country with all pets flying safely in the main cabin with a pet attendant taking care of them at all times. Flying your pets isn’t fun. A few airlines allow small pets on airplanes if they fit under the seat. But most of the time they’re stuck in the cargo hold and come with the rest of the baggage.

If you are rich enough you can bring them on your own private jet. Another trick is to have your animal certified

as

a

“service

animal,”

(you

can

even

do

this

online

http://www.goldstar-

germanshepherds.com/certification_licensing.html) and I hear you can then take them just about anywhere. It’s a loophole that is sure to be plugged once too many people take advantage of it.

Enter Pet Airwayshttp://www.petairways.com/, a new startup launching next month that flies pets and only pets: “With Pet Airways your pet will be safe and comfortable, flying in the main cabin, not in cargo. From check-in at our Pet Lounge, and throughout the flight, our Pet Attendants will be caring and catering to all your pet’s needs. You can even monitor how your pet is doing.” Fees start at $150. Sadly, only your pet can fly, not you (they won’t even put you in the cargo area of the plane).

Flights will be limited to starthttp://www.petairways.com/content/where-we-fly, basically from Los Angeles to the East coast with stops in Denver and Chicago. The company says they’re funded but aren’t giving details yet. Each flight has a pet attendant on board at all times, and the airline will start with a fleet of twenty planes, ranging from twin props to 727s. I have no idea if this airline is going to be a commercial success. Website:

PetAirways.com

Location:

Delray Beach, Florida, United States

Founded:

November 18, 2008

Read more... Labels: New Launch, Pet Care, Travell

What Is A Blog? [The Truth About Blogs] Many people, even those who think they know all about blogging, are astonished to learn what a wide-ranging subject it is, laden with possibilities. New bloggers have innumerable choices. No single person can illuminate all the blogging techniques and programs, Weblog services, and feed aggregators, as well as the wide assortment of related technologies. In narrowing the choices offered in this blog, my criteria were quality and popularity, with an emphasis (perhaps surprisingly) on the latter. Most new bloggers get their feet wet in one of the popular social networks or one of the big-name hosting services. People follow the advice of friends and http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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acquaintances, so to some extent I follow along those paths. Naturally, the popular services are usually popular for good reasons. Regretfully, I could not find space to describe some great resources, programs, and services that have not yet gained widespread usage. I left out one blog program that I use and love, because I concluded that its features would not serve readers enough to justify many posts of description.

As for creating a blog, despite the millions who have already started one, millions more don’t know where to begin. They hear that it’s easy, but nothing is easy without a nudge in the right direction.

The Truth about Blogs “What the heck is a blog, anyway?” First and foremost, don’t be confused by my interchangeable use of Weblog and blog. Blog is simply a contraction of Weblog. However, people who write blogs are called bloggers — never Webloggers. Blogging is a verb; Weblogging is the utterance of an ill-informed person. Technically, a blog is a Web site. Don’t let anybody tell you that Web sites and Weblogs are different creatures. To be clear, though, a Weblog is a type of Web site. It follows, then, that all Weblogs are Web sites, but not all Web sites are Weblogs.

Note that a blog is a Web site, not an entry on that Web site. Some new bloggers say, “I wrote five blogs today.” Actually they wrote five entries in their blog. So, what distinguishes a Weblog from other sites? Weblogs have a certain type of software running in the background. This answer might seem obscure, but that software is the hidden key to blogs. In fact, blog software is so useful that it has spawned the blogging revolution with its millions of new sites. So what is this powerhouse that lies behind blogs, and how does it make blogs different from other sites? Here is the crucial power of blogs: They make it easy to frequently add content to a Web site. Blog programs and ready-to-use blogging services cut out the laborious and technical traditional process of building a Web site and adding pages to it. Consider what a site owner needed to do before blogs were available:

1. To create a single Web page, a site owner had to gain some familiarity with HTML (hypertext markup language, the underlying code of all Web sites). The choice was to write out the code by hand (fairly difficult) or use software that made page-creation a little more intuitive. Design skills were needed and the software could be expensive. Ready-made templates eased the pain somewhat, but building a single page the old way was never as easy as blogging. 2. After creating a single-page, old-style site, the owner had to get it up on the Web. Usually, this meant using an internet system called FTP (file transfer protocol), which is somewhat like the My Computer program in Windows but operates across the space between two computers. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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Please Note: I am using the past tense here. But the fact remains that most sites today are not blogs, and their owners still go through the old pagecreation and FTP processes to update them. I don’t want to imply that those methods are obsolete. But I do want to emphasize that the HTML and FTP system is like lifting weights compared to the ease of blogging, which can be likened to lying in a hammock. Escaping the arduous manual update system is one major reason blogging has taken off.

Thus, creating a nonblog Web site is hard, and the difficulties discourage frequent updates. Blogging is easy, and blogging software encourages frequent site updates. Creating a blog page doesn’t need to be any harder than writing and sending an e-mail or posting a message to an online discussion forum. In fact, these three tasks — blogging, e-mailing, and posting a message — follow the same basic three steps:

1. Go to a Compose screen. 2. Type something brilliant (or not). 3. Click a Send (or Post) button. So far what ever i said is what a blog is technically, but on a more practical way, How do people use a blog? This is where you find a definition of blogs and blogging that you can talk about with friends or at a party, without appearing geekish. Of course, if you are a geek, there’s nothing wrong with appearing so. Blogging software encourages frequent updating of the Web site. And frequent, easy updates result in the following typical blog characteristics:

Fresh content on the site: Many bloggers update their content every day or several times during the day. Even weekly updates result in a fresher Web site than most nonblog personal sites.

Personal content: When given the opportunity to self-publish on a daily basis, most people reach into their own lives for content (like how i am writing about my college, friends, my outings, etc.,). Many blogs are like personal, public diaries.

Newsy content: Other bloggers take a less personal approach, keying their updated content to news items or pages on other sites. These blogs can still have a personal slant, especially if the blogger offers comments on the news or outside pages. These commentary blogs typically use lots of links to those other pages so visitors can see the source material as well as the commentary.

Many types of blogs have been created, with many unimagined types to come. Weblogs have no official categories or designations. And you might think that blogs are always solo efforts. They usually are, but there http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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are notable group blogs, such as the famous BoingBoing (www.boing boing.net) and The Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com). Teamwork can ease the grind of frequently updating the blog. But blogging lends itself to individual publication and self-expression. Most blogs are run by individuals (bench3) and, to some extent, are about their owners.

Blogging is throwing the Internet forward and backward at the same time. Forward into a new era of consumer empowerment, and backward to the grass-roots spirit of the early Web. Read more... Labels: Blogging Tips, Web Design

Related Topic: How To Write A Blog In 20 Min Choosing The Best Keywords For Your Website Blogging Tips

Joshua Bell Playing Incognito In The Metro Station A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

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In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Few days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100. This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing? Think ALL of You. Because most of the time WE DO NOT even listen to the music in our heart and the HARMONY in others Souls. Read more... Labels: Entertainment, General, United States

Tips For Your First Date | bench3 1. Plan ahead You need to know exactly where you will be going for your first date and what you will be doing once there.This is much more attractive to a woman than directly or indirectly asking her to decide.

2. Change your mindset to kill nerves One of most important dating tips for first dates, is to realise this: The woman is meeting up with you because she has an interest in you! With that in mind, there's no need to be nervous. Choose to believe in yourself and enjoy your time together, rather than worrying about whether she likes you or not.

3. Be familiar with your venue choice Choose somewhere that you've been to before and know will help set the right mood. The wrong venue could completely ruin the date (e.g. too noisy, bad seating). You could even consider going to a local golf driving range for your first date - it always gets a few laughs and is relaxing!

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4. Dress well

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Even if you're going for a drive down by the beach to get some coffee, make sure that you wear something attractive. Most importantly however, ensure that you dress comfortably. The last thing you want to be doing is fidgeting.

5. Inspire relaxed, open and fun conversations Get to know her by listening, asking questions and making comments on things that come to mind. This is one of the most important dating tips for your first date. If you can't vibe and make good conversation, you might be stuck experiencing the awkardness of uncomfortable silences. To learn the mechanics of conversation, I recommend reading The Flow which has been written by Dan, our CEO and lead dating coach.

6. Don't take the first date too seriously Focus on having a relaxed, enjoyable time together. Rather than constantly wondering if she will be your new girlfriend.

7. Demonstrate your interest Let her know what you like about her and jokingly tell her what you don’t like. Women love it when a man is confident enough to say what he really feels. Ensure you balance out the compliments with a bit of playful teasing.

8. Share stories Share stories about what you've been up to for the past few years. Remember: If you don't sound very interested in what you're saying, most people will probably feel the same way. Speak with conviction and passion!

9. Use humor She's not going on a date with you to get all serious like it's a job interview. However, if you steer the first date that way, she will likely follow and not enjoy herself.

10. Go in for the kiss You will need to build enough tension in order to pull off a successful first date kiss. Some women don't like kissing in public places, so kissing in a car or in secluded areas is the most rejection-proof approach. Read more... Labels: Dating, General Tips http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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No Impact Of Economic Slowdown On The Rural Economy | bench3 Rural Orientation Indian economy is peculiar to the extent that it has a lot more rural orientation than most economies of the world. Majority of the countries in the world are dependent on their industrial centres and rapidly growing cities for maintaining their growth rate. In India, though industries and the services sectors are centred around the industrial and urban areas, yet over 60 per cent of the work force is directly or indirectly dependent on the primary sector. This sector contributes about one fourth of the total GDP and offers tremendous potential for growth in the near future. Being a low income segment, this also does not get influenced easily by extraordinary economic situations. As per the views of the Rural Marketing Association of India, there has been no impact of economic slowdown on the rural economy of India. A nation-wide study carried out in the rural markets of the country found out that the rural markets in the country actually offer an opportunity to the marketers to come out of current economic crisis.

Main reasons for such immunity are stated to be higher percentage of total expenditure on food items and the fact that majority of the population is involved in self-employment occupations, having no fear of loss of jobs. The telecom sector has witnessed a rapid growth in the villages and small towns. The total telecom subscriber base for India grew from 70.83 million in the first quarter of 2008 to 90.98 million in the second quarter. Out of this growth 71 per cent rise in this sector came from the rural India, while the urban areas accounted for the remaining 29 per cent growth. The study also brings out that more than 72 million Kisan Credit Cards are in use in the rural areas of the country, which number almost matches the number of Credit Cards under use in the urban areas. During 2008, larger part of growth of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) came from rural and sub-urban markets. Majority of the people in the rural areas do not invest in stock markets and park their savings in low risk portfolios like post office/bank savings or fixed deposits. The government of India was quick to realize this and immediately after the recession began to show its impact began to direct its economic policies towards the rural sector. Fortunately for the country, at the critical juncture when the great recession knocked at the doors of Indian economy, several government sponsored programmers involving huge public expenditure in the rural areas were already being implemented. Labels: Economy, Recession, Rural Economy

Do You Really Love Truth? | bench3 The truth hurts most of the time, but its what we need and deep down always what we want if we’re willing to admit it. Everyone wants the truth, right? Ask anyone… they’ll tell you all they want is the truth. But that’s a lie. We hate the truth. Our reaction to real truth is hostility and fear. Do we really want to hear the truth about why we’re fat, or why we’re broke, or why we under-perform? Tough stuff to process for most.And yet telling the simple raw truth is one of the most effective attention and persuasion tactics available. It’s true how we hate to http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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hear the truth even if we know what the truth is. It’s so hard to hear it like it is from even the doctor or the lawyer. But strangely, I’ve found that it is easier to tell children the truth - they take it so much more in good spirit that adults dont... Especially these days, with people sick to death of being lied to and betrayed. But if people reject what you say, truth or not, you’re back where you started. Nobody likes the truth no matter how you try to gently give it to them. But then if you lie they get just as mad so you can;t really win. It is best to be truthful, if you start by telling lies, then you have more lies to cover up the initial lie and before you know it you are so confused you forget what you are lying about. I would prefer it if people told the truth to me, then I know where I stand and we would be on equal footing. Unfortunatly the world doesn’t work like that and it is down to us to work out what is the truth and what are lies. Some people though would deny the truth until they are blue in the face. I don’t know what you could do in that situation. At the damnedest times, Truth will rear up... If we’re smart, we love it. If we’re brave, we embrace it. If we’re wise, we own it. Now, who you are? Read more... Labels: General

How To Detect A 2-Way Mirror ? | bench3 How to determine if a mirror is 2 way or not. Not to scare you, but to make sure that you aware. Many of the hotels cheat the customers this way...

How many of you know for sure that the seemingly ordinary mirror ( in bathrooms, hotel rooms, changing rooms) 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 and 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?

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 two-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. http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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Keep it in mind! Make sure and check every time you enter in hotel rooms. May be someone is making a film on you. Read more... Labels: General Tips, Public Awarness

The Indian Premier League (IPL) | Re-Hyphenated The decision to shift its favourite cricket tournament looks bad for India IT IS fashionable in India to say that the country has been “dehyphenated” from its crisis-stricken rival, Pakistan. An announcement this week that the Indian Premier League, a dazzling cricket tournament due to be held in India next month, will be shifted to South Africa because of security concerns, is therefore hugely embarrassing. Pakistan is also newly out-of-bounds to foreign cricketers—after Sri Lanka’s national team was ambushed there by terrorists last month. The comparison is imprecise: no such atrocity aimed at sportsmen has occurred in India. But the upheaval is particularly painful, for two reasons.

First, the IPL, in which eight city-based “franchises” play a shortened and fast-paced form of cricket, is an emblem of Indian aspirations. Its franchises are owned by some of the country’s best-known billionaires. Several are co-owned by Bollywood stars. With huge salaries on offer, foreign cricketers have flocked to the IPL. Second blow is that this marvel is being taken away from India because of its democratic system—which Indians should feel proud of but often do not. The IPL, which is spread over six weeks, would have coincided with India’s general election, and, after long debates with state governments and the cricket board, the central government decided it could not be adequately policed.

To make matters worse, there is a suspicion that electoral politics played a part. The Congress party, whose home minister made the decision, has less influence on India’s rich and powerful cricket board than some of its rivals. The franchise owners are said to be livid. Having mostly lost money in the inaugural season, they were expecting profits this year. The extra cost of sending teams abroad makes this less likely. The damage to the IPL brand, could be costlier. Read more... I wish we’d outsourced the election to South Africa and kept the IPL. - Suhel Seth, a branding guru. Labels: Cricket, Politics, Sports

The $2000 Car | Not So Nano The financial crisis may have strengthened the hand of the developing world’s emerging giants... THE world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano—launched this week in Mumbai in a burst of flashbulbs and national pride—has turned the spotlight once again on the developing world’s emerging multinationals. From ArcelorMittal in steel to ZTE in telecoms, ambitious companies from India, China and other developing http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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nations have marched onto the global stage in recent years, spooking the rich world’s established multinationals with innovative products and bold acquisitions. The Nano is a symbol of the ambition of these emerging giants. But much has changed since Tata Motors first took the wraps off the tiny car in January 2008. The financial crisis, collapsing stockmarkets and plunging commodity prices have hit companies in rich and poor countries alike. Tata Motors, which bought Jaguar Land Rover, a British premium carmaker, from Ford last year for $2.3 billion, now faces the difficulty of refinancing its debt, and was downgraded this week by Standard & Poor’s. Does this mean that the threat to established giants from emerging-market giants has receded? Far from it. The crisis has strengthened the relative position of the emerging giants, for several reasons.

1. First, as companies and consumers around the world cut costs and trade down, the emerging giants’ lowcost production models, based on cheap local labour, provide even more of an advantage. 2. Even though growth in developing countries has slowed, it has not vanished altogether, so the emerging giants can fall back on their domestic markets. Car sales have collapsed in the rich world, for example, but are still growing in many developing countries: they are expected to increase by 10% this year in China, for instance. 3. Many rich-country multinationals have become much more inward-looking as they struggle to cope with the recession, and are less able to invest to defend their market positions, providing opportunities for disruptive new entrants. Again, a good example is that of carmaking, where the convulsions of the established giants, and the switch to greener technologies, give newcomers an opening. Ratan Tata, the boss of the Tata Group, spoke this week of his ambitions to sell the Nano not just in Europe, starting in 2011, but eventually in America, too.

There are, of course, weak points among emerging-market giants. Some, including Tata Motors, overextended themselves when commodity prices were high and credit was easy to come by. Cemex, the world’s thirdlargest cement firm, is selling assets around the world as it struggles to meet its debt repayments. ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, which grew into a global giant from its roots in Indonesia, Trinidad and Mexico, launched a $1.5 billion convertible-bond issue this week to refinance some of its debt. But plenty of rich-world multinationals made the same mistakes and face similar problems, or worse.

The emerging giants of the developing world are still a rising force during the good times. The launch of the Nano serves to remind rich-world bosses that they still need to keep an eye on their rear-view mirrors. Read more... Also Read: An Artificial Heart For $2000 (Rs 1 Lakh) Labels: Automobile, New Launch, Technology http://www.bench3.blogspot.com

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