Bill Gates wanted to visit Nigeria. But he has a problem. The Immigration and Visa services in Nigeria are worried if Bill Gates will be able to support himself and not be a burden on the remarkable social services of the African nation. So, his visa is denied. His lawyers appeal again with the bank statements of this guy who is worth over USD 50 billion - which is just over 25% of the entire GDP of Nigeria ($191 billion) Read more
A very interesting blog from Global Politician, Islam, the Greeks and the Scientific Revolution, part 1, by Norwegian blogger Fjordman. Here he argues that Islam and the Arabs may have transferred knowledge, but they didn't contribute much of their own to the knowledge base of science. For example, Fjordman says that it is possible an Arab deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphic writing before Jean-François Champollion in 1822, but even if a 9th century Arab alchemist did decipher hieroglyphs, the discovery wasn't followed up. Even what the world calls the Arabic numerals are really Indian (as we in India always knew), but passed to the West by the Arabs. Read more
I had discussed about Sa re ga ma pa - the music competition show a few days back. Somehow, this one show gives a hope to you - that things are still good with the people in whose hands the Indian music is in. Why? because it is quite different from Indian Idol or the earlier Fame Gurukul in one BIG way - the judges respect each other. There are arguments sometimes... but there is still respect. A lot of respect. It is not like Indian Idol, where Anu Malik used to treat Udit Narayana with contempt (which I found nauseating!)! Read more
Interesting! read the verse translation - it seems as if it was lifted off from Gita! Gita is a treatise on Vedas and Upanishads. Krishna does not just come up with stuff on his own. He clarifies it for the people. And that is Gita's strength! The all-knowing Self was never born,Nor will it die. Beyond cause and effect,This Self is eternal and immutable.When the body dies, the Self does not die.If the slayer believes that he can slayOr the slain believes that he can be slain,Neither knows the truth. The eternal SelfSlays not, nor is ever slain.-Katha Upanishad Read more
This is incredible progress. Synthesizing a few proteins will create a new life form. Now, this will also tell us how important consciousness is in the life of an organism. It will not be determined by the creation of the life form - but the life it takes on.even if the construct of the DNA is the same as any natural one - does the synthetic life form behave the same way? It will be interesting to follow this news... Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth. Read more
Sa re ga ma pa - a music reality show and the original music competition in India has been the gold standard as far as such shows are concerned. Every year the BEST voices are seen there. This year has been the world championship - where singers from Pakistan, Middle East, UK, US, and India are participating. The standards are very high indeed! The last three are left. Aneek Dhar from Bengal, Raja Hasan from Rajasthan, and Amanat Ali from Pakistan. To say who is the best is IMPOSSIBLE! All are very very good. In fact I am sure all the top 10 finalists of this show will make a name for themselves in the years to come - specifically Junaid, Harpreet (my personal favorite), Sumedha (complete package - the BEST looking female singer with a top class voice!), Poonam (GREAT voice), and Mussarat (he is a great singer in the Sufi genre). Now of these three who are left - I feel Aneek is the most versatile. All three are great but Aneek beats the rest when it comes to technique - flawless technique! His first song was a shocker in the way he sung it - a rap and pop kind. I will try and post that song from youTube as well. But for now, I wanted to post this classical great song of Manna Dey (see in the complete post below) that he sang in front of two of the greatest doyens of Indian music - Pandit Jasraj and Jagjit Singh. Just listen to this kid - Aneek is just 18 years! This was the most defining performance for me in this series and this particular episode will remain the BEST one and a half hour of music I have EVER heard in my life! It was as if there was a competition between Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey on one platform for 2 hours judged by Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Sahib! This ONE episode was truly in that league! Read more
What if your closest friends run your country - whom you feel are the best suited to do so.... and they screw like no other team ever before? Well that is an interesting scenario. Here is a guy who actually happened to articulate such a wish and then lived to regret it! “I used to say to my father,” he says, “ ‘If my class at Yale ran this country, we would have no problems.’ And the irony of my life is that they did.” He pauses before invoking a 20th-century American foreign-policy who’s who: “There was Cy Vance, Bill Scranton, Ted Beale, both Bundys, Bill and McGeorge – they all got behind that war in Vietnam and they pushed it as far as they could. And we lost a quarter of a million men. They were all idealistic, good, virtuous,” says Auchincloss, “the finest men you could find. It was the most disillusioning thing that happened in my life.” Read more
While many deny the existence of global warming, there are some who are interested in it. And they will use any which way to get better at predicting what we humans face in future. Now, some scientists are using an unconventional way to understand the effect of warming and pollution on the atmosphere. The team, at the National Observatory of Athens, is using the works of old masters to work out the amount of natural pollution spewed into the skies by eruptions such as Mount Krakatoa in 1883. Reports from the time describe stunning sunsets for several years afterwards, as the retreating light was scattered by reflective particles thrown high into the atmosphere. By studying the colour of sunsets painted before and after such eruptions, the researchers say they can calculate the amount of material in the sky at the time. Read more
This is strange, tragic and humorous - all at the same time. Incredible story of a runaway boy! A Russian teenager has accomplished an unprecedented feat in the history of world aviation. He flew a distance of 1,300 kilometres in a wheel well of a Boeing 737 and lived. The fifteen year old Andrey Scherbakov spent two hours in the wheel well of the airplane at extreme temperature of −50° centigrade. The rear wheels do not go all the way into the plane; the wheel merely retracts into an opening and remains exposed. The boy managed to bypass security at the Perm city airport to hide in the plane as it took off. Airport workers found the boy after the plane had landed at Moscow. He had collapsed on the tarmac. Read more
After reading many things on Netaji (Subhash Chandra Bose) and Swami Vivekananda - the two intellectual giants of their own field (and many other!), I constantly wonder at the society which bred such minds! Bengal has been an eventful place to say the least. Bengalis have the distinction of the highest number of Nobel prizes within India - two. There could have been many others but unfortunately they did not happen - JB Bose and Satyen Bose would be my two candidates. In any case, Bengal had been the hotbed of intellectuals who acted! If one goes to the Bengal of today - one cannot believe what I am saying would be true. Act part is gone. Only pseudo-intellectual curiosities are left and utter decline in life is clearly visible! Once the most industrial state in India, Bengal has been shunned by the Industry in the last two decades. There was a time when Bengal was great. That created a pride in the superiority in the inhabitants. Now the greatness is all but absent - at least in the scenes on the ground. The pride remains. And that is ever more damning. What is responsible for the decline of Bengal? What has changed the Bengali youth from the first row kid in the Indian theater to the last row loser of the new vibrant and economically upcoming India? Anyone wants to share their thoughts? Read more
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