Bikram Yoga Studio is closed in LA due to Violations

Last updated on: July 6, 2006 at 6:30 pm By Desh Kapoor

This guy Bikram had done - what in my view was a sacrilegious in the Indian viewpoint.. that of patenting Yoga. Yoga is remnant of that great generation of Rishis who were the pioneers in "Open Source" movement in Spirituality. To then take a few moves add some heat and patent it is inherent facetious! I really dont have much empathy for this Choudhary guy. On the other hand, I would say that there seems to be - behind the scenes maybe - a move to target the Indian Yogis in the US.. specially the ones who become a bit high profile and famous. The city attorney's office charged yoga magnate Bikram Choudhury with 10 criminal safety violations at one of his studios. Read more

Zoundry is my blogging client from here on!

Last updated on: July 6, 2006 at 6:03 pm By Desh Kapoor

Ok.. Just when I thought that I had done my evaluations on the blogging clients, I get an email from Zoundry's team to join in their beta program. I had written to them earlier but hadnt gotten any response. Now, what this does is - it includes not only Amazon links as easily as it is done with Elicit.. but also gazillion others from buy.com, brookstone etc. The only catch is that we share the revenues with Zoundry. No probs for me. As for the Chitika ads? Well I have copied the code for it in my Google notebook link at the bottom of my firefox browser - which allows me to just click there and copy+paste it in Zoundry's html area. Simple. Read more

I am Pissed with India's Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh

Last updated on: July 6, 2006 at 5:41 pm By Desh Kapoor

To say I am pissed with Dr. Manmohan Singh is an understatement!! He and his Government will be remembered for singularly destroying the quality and longevity of the education system in this country. These bunch of jokers are on a crusade to mess every Government-backed education institute worth any name. First the IIMs, then the IITs, and now AIIMS. One after another - each minister in this cabinet has tried their best to create havoc with a system that was running fine.. and Dr. Singh.. he just keeps looking benignly at all with a nice smile. The very system that was helpful in making him what he is today is being taken apart by his cronies day after day after day and he just keeps sitting with a smile!!??? The Centre on Thursday toughened its stand on the dismissal of Dr P Venugopal, saying the decision to dismiss him as Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences was ' purely legal'. The Government was responding to a petition filed by Dr Venugopal challenging the Government order dismissing him from service. The High Court has adjourned the hearing in the case till Friday. The Centre told the High Court that Venugopal's sacking was purely legal and even offered to withdraw the dismissal order if the latter decides to resign on his own. Read more

RSS Subscribers cross 400!

Last updated on: July 6, 2006 at 7:18 am By Desh Kapoor

Just a little message. Today the RSS Subscribers crossed 400! For me its a big figure. All those of you guys and gals out there who get Drishtikone feed on RSS.. THANKS! Read more

Blogging Client Reviews

Last updated on: July 6, 2006 at 6:10 am By Desh Kapoor

I had bought this new blogging client called Elicit. It does a lo of stuff but somehow it is having a lot of issues while posting. For some reason, the coders did not put a simple functionality of a posting button!! What happens is that the when you click on "Save and Publish" it places the post on a calendar to post at a certain time. And the logic is that when that time occurs, the post will be published. The problem is that it works sometimes and doesn't at other times! All of my posts today - except for the Bikini Birthday (which I had written last night and scheduled for this morning to be published and it DID!) - none of my posts got published! The time on the calendar would come and go and nothing would happen! I would shift it again. Again the same result. Finally I used the Qumana to do the needful! Another major negative - I use Drupal as my blogging platform and Elicit does not support it. I use the MetaWeblog API which does publish the post but does not support the categories. I have used the following blogging clients at one time or the other: wbloggar: Great light-weight basic kinda client - but does not support categories for Drupal. Zoundry: Great one - no ads Qumana: Great one again - has ads but they are adgenta ads. Deepest Sender (extension of Firefox): Simple ones - no support for categories or any ads. Read more

Write English as We Speak it?

Last updated on: July 6, 2006 at 5:13 am By Desh Kapoor

Isnt it time we spelt the English words as we spoke them? So "To" and "Go" could rhyme? The question that Dharmendra - the Indian Cine Actor - asked in that famous dialog in the movie "Chupke Chupke" is indeed a relevant one! Imajin it Hapening? When “say,” “they” and “weigh” rhyme, but “bomb,” “comb” and “tomb” don’t, wuudn’t it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound? Those in favor of simplified spelling say children would learn faster and illiteracy rates would drop. Opponents say a new system would make spelling even more confusing. Read more

War of the Smiley

Last updated on: July 6, 2006 at 5:10 am By Desh Kapoor

There is a war of smiley going on between "SmileyWorld" and Walmart! Before we get to the news, here is a little discussion on this ubiquitous Smiley from Wikipedia An early known instance of using two points and a semicircle to represent a smiling (and frowning) face is in a newspaper advertisement in the New York Herald Tribune, March 10, 1953, on page 20, columns 4–6. Promoting the film Lili, starring Leslie Caron, the ad read as follows: Today You'll laugh ☺ You'll cry ☹ You'll love ♥ Lili The film opened nationwide, so the ad may have run in many newspapers.[1] The smiley face, a yellow button with a smile and two dots representing eyes, was invented by Harvey Ball in 1963 for a Worcester, Massachusetts based insurance firm State Mutual Life Assurance. Though there was an attempt to trademark the image, it fell into the public domain before that could be accomplished.[2] However, Franklin Loufrani of London based company SmileyWorld says he came up with the image in 1968 and is trademarked across 80 countries. As with David Stern of David Stern Inc., a Seattle-based advertising agency also claims to have invented the smiley. Stern reportedly developed his version in 1967 as part of an ad campaign for Washington Mutual, but says he did not think to trademark it. Read more

China's Macros vs India's Micros

Last updated on: July 6, 2006 at 5:05 am By Desh Kapoor

The question of India vs. China - who will win the race has become a commonplace one now. Everyone has an argument. Until a few years back it was a no-brainer. Who could even say that China could be overtaken. But over the last few years Indian elephant seems to be catching some steam. The Macros and the Infrastructure is still very shaky compared to China. But the Micro-level indicators reflect a completely different story!! And that is India's strength. Here, Huang - MIT Sloan School Prof - argues along the same lines. To me nothing brought out this comparison as starkly as the Forbes List of Billionaires. The list had 28 Indian citizens and China had 8! Read more

Unbelievable Basketball Shot

Last updated on: July 5, 2006 at 12:39 pm By Desh Kapoor

Ok, here is a basket ball shot now. It is by far the most amazing basketball shot ever seen!!! Needless to say that the team won by just this shot! Read more

Amazing Soccer Goals

Last updated on: July 5, 2006 at 12:32 pm By Desh Kapoor

Here are some awesome soccer goals! It includes my favorite one from Argentina vs England match scored by Diego Maradona. Solo goal he scored by dodging the entire England team! <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/073605 Read more

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does the Bible say about "bearing each other's burdens"?

Select your answer to see how you score.