When your Desire becomes your Devotion!

Last updated on: December 11, 2007 at 8:29 pm By Desh Kapoor

Om Shanti Om had a dialog that was quintessential SRK - Kitni shiddat se tumhe paane ki koshish ki hai.. Ki har zarre ne mujhe tumse milane ki saazish ki hai.. and then he goes on to give an entire speech! Kehte hain agar kisi cheez ko agar dil se chaho to saari kayanath tumhe usse milane ki koshish me lag jaati hai.. Aaj aap sabne milke mujhe meri chahat se milaya.. Thank you very much.. and I feel like I am the king of the world... Aaj mujhe yakin hogaya dosto, ki hamari zindagi bhi hamare hindi filmon ke jaisa hi hai.. jaha pe end mein sab kuch theek ho jaata hai.. "Happies Endings".. Lekin agar End mein sab kuch theek na ho to woh the end nahi hain dosto.. Picture abhi baaki hai.. But that one line remains so important to me because it explains the secret of success. Read more

Chasing Females can take years off your life!

Last updated on: December 11, 2007 at 6:49 pm By Desh Kapoor

Women live longer than men. Why has it been so is a question of debate. Whether it is because the nature makes men more aggressive and so more prone to disease and destruction may be one cause. Or is it because of the attention males pay to the females and fight to stay in the "limelight" or the competition for their attention? Well, here are two researchers who tried to test this idea. The result: Chasing Females can take years off your life! To test that idea, Tim Clutton-Brock of Cambridge University and Kavita Isvaran of the Indian Institute of Science in Bengalooru decided to compare monogamous and polygynous species (in the latter, a male monopolises a number of females). They wanted to find out whether polygynous males had lower survival rates and aged faster than those of monogamous species. To do so, they collected the relevant data for 35 species of long-lived birds and mammals. As they report this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, the pattern was much as they expected. In 16 of the 19 polygynous species in their sample, males of all ages were much more likely to die during any given period than were females. Furthermore, the older they got, the bigger the mortality gap became. In other words, they aged faster. Males from monogamous species did not show these patterns. Read more

A simple Toothpick and its innovation!

Last updated on: December 11, 2007 at 6:44 pm By Desh Kapoor

Sometimes the most harmless and simple things take a lot of innovation from people to create. Who would have thought that a simple toothpick requires a lot of effort on design and technique from best minds to make it work and improve. From the medieval times to the modern times, it has had an interesting journey! The plain wooden toothpick is among the simplest of manufactured things. It consists of a single part, made of a single material, and is intended for a single purpose, from which it takes its name. But simple things do not necessarily come easily, and the story of the mass-produced toothpick is one of preparation, inspiration, invention, marketing, competition, success and failure in a global economy, and changing social customs and cultural values. In short, the story of the toothpick is a paradigm for American manufacturing. Read more

Adlabs to buy Cinema Houses in the US

Last updated on: December 11, 2007 at 5:27 pm By Desh Kapoor

As the Indian movie industry starts to assert itself, the culture exports from India get some new boosters. Adlabs, Ambani's movie company is set to buy Cinema halls in the US to screen Hollywood and Indian movies. It is a venture that was long overdue! The strengthening Rupee helps as well! Adlabs Films, which owns a chain of multiplexes across the country, on Monday said it has entered into agreements with several existing cinema properties in the US and will be operating a 200-screen cinema exhibition chain in that country. Read more

Increasing Alcohol consumption amongst Muslims in Pakistan – specially youth!

Last updated on: December 10, 2007 at 11:53 pm By Desh Kapoor

This is a rather intriguing news byte that I came across. The incidence in the consumption of liquor amongst Muslim men, women and children in Pakistan is very high - higher than the other communities. Specifically interesting is that more and more youth and women are consuming increasing quantities of alcohol! In an Islamic nation this is indeed an amazing statistic! These numbers are reflective of urban population. Which in some ways shows how removed the Urban population is from the ultra-Islamic posturing of the mullahs and Islamic parties. Yet, they do accept them tacitly in the jingoism. On the other hand, is this reflective of the high change and churn/tensions in the society coupled with increased prosperity for some? The stock exchange has done well in the last few years in Pakistan and I am sure many have made enough fortunes. Through data collected over five years, Waseem Haider, a surgeon at the Medico-Legal Punjab office in Lahore, found that addiction to alcohol is far higher among Muslim men and women in urban areas than members of the Christian, Hindu and other minority communities. Of the 1,560 intoxication cases detected by police and reported to the medico-legal office in the past five years, Muslims accounted for 92.89 per cent while people from other religions comprise 7.11 per cent, said a report in The Nation newspaper on M. Nearly two per cent of the reported cases were of women. However, only 15 per cent of the alcoholics showed up for treatment at the medico-legal office. Read more

Blogging Mental Block

Last updated on: December 10, 2007 at 8:10 pm By Desh Kapoor

I have been hit with this sudden bout of mental block for blogging. I have not been able to blog recently. One of the reasons is that my blog site has been evolving and another, that I was in India for a little over 2 weeks, where the connection was not there with me. Read more

Lowest of the Lowest corporates: WALMART sues its own employee for her medical money!

Last updated on: December 7, 2007 at 1:58 pm By Desh Kapoor

This is the lowest any employer can possibly get to! And who do you expect but WALMART! Walmart is the lowest of the lowest in human principles... it just looks at its profits. PERIOD! This one company is so much responsible for totally upstaging US with China as the major economy that the coming generation will wonder why didn't anyone ever question this company? Just as East India Company was so directly responsible for colonization of India, Walmart will get that honor for destroying the US economy in the final analysis. Just read this story carefully: Read more

Reverse "Imported" Stuff: Why I bought my new Cell Phone from India?

Last updated on: December 7, 2007 at 1:03 pm By Desh Kapoor

I was in school, when our neighbor sold us a tape recorder for Rs 1000, which I am sure was a great deal for them.. and us sitting in India. After all it was an American tape recorder! Whenever someone goes to India from the other countries, specially the US, the expectation is that one would take something "Imported". Things outside are always better and cheaper. Arent they? Read more

World loses USD 30 billion from Smoking habit!

Last updated on: December 7, 2007 at 12:29 am By Desh Kapoor

Here is one of the world's richest country - Nauru. Small Island that has lots of wealth. Here are its smoking stats: Pct. who smoke: 54% Population: 13,528 Gross National Income: $67.6 million Smokers cost in total national income: $5.1 million Pct. of total: 7.5% Read more

Even Buffett Copy Cats would have prospered in the last 30 years!

Last updated on: December 7, 2007 at 12:06 am By Desh Kapoor

It is amazing how the Mutual Fund managers and others in the investment world dont even care about the one guy who has had the best track record in investing over the last 30 years. Well, one would say you need his intelligence to do what he did - right? Hmm Not quite if this study is to be believed. The study has taken "Reverse Engineering" - the Indian word for innovation - to a new level! Read more