Women need Happy Marriages for Healthy Life; for Men any marriage will do!

Last updated on: January 2, 2008 at 5:25 pm By Desh Kapoor

Marriage is an important sponge for stress. It helps people to lower their stress levels if they are in a happy marriage. The way it affects men and women is different but for both marriage helps. In two studies, one reported by Houston Chronicle and another on American Psychology Association (complete report of this study in the attachment to this post), it seems that Women who are in an unhappy relationship do not have it good. Only women in a satisfying (romatically) marriage have lower stress level and health indicators related to that. Results indicate that women in marriages characterized by high levels of satisfaction showed a health advantage when compared with participants in marriages characterized by low levels of satisfaction and with unmarried participants (single, widowed or divorced). Read more

Truth is not an "opposite" of falsehood!

Last updated on: January 2, 2008 at 5:06 pm By Desh Kapoor

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. Read more

The "C-tribe" wants ST status!

Last updated on: January 2, 2008 at 4:28 pm By Desh Kapoor

Ok, as distressful as it is for the tribe itself, but the reading of the news is really hillarious! The C-word is an unprintable slang in Hindi and it is quite a coincidence that an entire came to be named so. It would definitely be hard to figure out when someone calls a member of this tribe by his last name if he meant to insult or to actually be friendly! Nevertheless, they should have gotten the access to being a VERY Scheduled Tribe, if anything.. by the sheer weight of their misfortune - or deeds of their ancestors! The All Chutiya Jati Sanmilan, Assam, today declared it would undertaken intensive agitation to press for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status the tribe, along with five other tribes, a demand rejected by the Union Ministry on August 14 last. They also maintained that accord of such status would also help check the massive illegal immigration to a great extent. The Chutiya tribe, along with Ahom, Muttock, Moran, Koch Rajbongshis and tea labourers, had been demanding ST (plains) status. Union Tribal Affairs Minister P R Kyndiah said on August 14 that the government had no proposal for according such status to the tribes. Read more

Billion SMS messages exchanges in India in last 2 days!

Last updated on: January 2, 2008 at 3:42 pm By Desh Kapoor

The size of the Indian telecom market has been attracting a lot of companies. And there is a reason why! Some 200 million customers exchanged SMS messages in the last 2 days of 2007 to wish friends and family and sent a combined SMS messages totalling a whopping Billion! Now, there are only a few countries where in just two days a billion messages can be exchanged over the phone.... just two I guess - India and China! THAT is the strength of the middle class now. Giving a New Year gift to the mobile operators, past 2 days witnessed an exchange of more than a billion short messages, thanks to the high traffic of New Year wishes via SMS by 200 million mobile subscribers. The reports of the high traffic of SMS seem to offset the latest data from TRAI which shows a decline in mobile phone usage, reported The Economic Times. Read more

Online Social networks and customers needs

Last updated on: January 2, 2008 at 12:52 pm By Desh Kapoor

There are lots of Online Social Networks. What makes them tick? There could be many factors! Communispace did some research while drawing upon the social needs framework of Maslows Needs Hierarchy. They mapped Social Needs to the tools used by the social networks: They came up with these observations which the Online Social network businesses can use: 1. Online social networks provide people with the ultimate tool for defining and redefining themselves, as evidenced in profile pages on Facebook and MySpace. 2. The need for autonomy, recognition and achievement are essential to our sense of self-worth and are fulfilled in online communities, blogs, and social networks that provide a way to develop and manage a virtual reputation. 3. People have a need to both seek and provide help to others. Mutual assistance between strangers is a phenomenon that has been uniquely enabled by the Internet. Read more

If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinion for or against.

Last updated on: January 2, 2008 at 7:38 am By Desh Kapoor

If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinion for or against. Read more

Voices from Pakistan on Benazir's Death

Last updated on: January 2, 2008 at 5:09 am By jessicafick

Pakistan is in serious turmoil! A blogger friend - Rubab Saleem, who runs "Pak Times" has compiled reactions from Pakistanis from different walks of life on her blog. Drishtikone is grateful that she is sharing the article with our readers. AMBER KHAN, LAHORE The personality and the politics of Benazir Bhutto evoked various responses from various people. There are very few people who were so contradictory in their personality and popularity; she was revered as a politician nationally and internationally yet many didn't approve of her political strategies and gimmicks; she was often considered a leader with a vision and a symbol of democracy yet her government was twice suspended on corruption charges; she was a western-educated, modern woman living a luxurious lifestyle but her home town of Larkana was strewn with poverty. The contradiction list may go on and on. But the truth lies beyond the obvious. Her absence clearly has left a vacuum that can NEVER be filled. With the demise of BB and the legacy of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the form of his beloved daughter gone, Pakistani politics will never be the same again. In her life, many accused her of further dividing the already tattering political and social fabric of Pakistan but her death has revealed that she was the only epicenter around whom the divisive Pakistani voters could agree to rally. Her self imposed exile had matured her into a seasoned politician who had become a ray of hope for the oppressed majority of our country. She wanted to conquer not just Sindh but the entire federation of Pakistan. The positivity of BB's politics was that she had firmed her party's roots amongst the poor and the lower middle class of our country. PPP's followers were and still are one of the most ardent and die-hard supporters of true political principles symbolizing democratic values, rule of law and an open, progressive society. Read more

Not a New Year, Let us create new Moments!

Last updated on: January 1, 2008 at 7:58 pm By Desh Kapoor

The New Year has begun with new hopes and new beginnings. It is but another day. The beginnings and the hopes associated with its "new-ness" are all in the mind! This mind of ours has created this "new-ness" and the associated freshness! Unless it seeps into our soul, it will remain as fleeting and temporary as our smile and happiness... and sorrows. The thought is not to create more associations in order to get away from the older ones.. but to get beyond associations itself, so every second and moment becomes "fresh" and new. It is easy to trick your mind, difficult to make it still. This year will be another year for me to meditate on this one thing. People want to "Change the world for the better"... I would want to "Change myself for the better". We are sum total of the world we have created - the world we then live in. For, what we call the world is an aggregation of our perceptions. No more. Let's look through the veneer of these perceptions and look at the world as it changes and moves on. Let's witness it. Read more

American War Paar Da

Last updated on: January 1, 2008 at 4:43 pm By Desh Kapoor

This is a very interesting and hillarious video of a "Surangani"-type take on America and the obsession with war that the Government has had since last 8 years. Surangani was a popular college time bon-fire song that almost every kid must have participated in growing up! For those who want to listen to Surangani, here it is: Read more

Drishtikone RSS Subscribers are FAR more than I thought!

Last updated on: January 1, 2008 at 1:59 am By Desh Kapoor

I had been thinking that the total RSS subscribers to my blog were in the vicinty of 1300 or so. Today I happened to go to SocialScan - a site that scans a few bookmarking sites to check on the links there. One of them was also Bloglines! And that is where I got my surprise! Just Bloglines has 1800 links - which means that in just one RSS reader that is the count for RSS Subscribers. Although I know that Bloglines is the place where most subscribers track Drishtikone but I think there is a substantial number which tracks through My Yahoo and Google as well, besides some "Java based readers". Are you subscribed to Drishtikone yet? If not, please do! Read more