Saturday, August 28, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Camphor- The effective & healthy mosquito repellent
Malaria and Dengue are on a steep rise in major Metros in India. We all must be using liquid or the old blue tablet type of mosquito repellents sold under various names. Despite their use, it is common to see mosquitoes hovering around with the best of repellents in action. Secondly, we cannot use these mosquito repellents whole day – be they be of any brand. Thirdly, many people land up with allergies due to them.
In the past, man would light diyas and burn camphor on a regular basis as a part of daily puja. These helped to purify the air and keep harmful bacteria, viruses and mosquitoes away! We can definitely have a better and healthy environment with the use of camphor.
Camphor or Kapur is a waxy, white or transparent substance extracted from the wood of the Camphor Laurel tree found in Asia. Camphor has many known medicinal uses-It relieves nasal congestion and cough when rubbed on the chest as an oil. Camphor is used as an ingredient in throat lozenges and cough syrups and in Vicks. Camphor is also used in some anti-itch ointments, creams and cooling gels because it is can be absorbed through skin and is effective at treating pain locally. It has an analgesic effect which makes it a favorite oil to be used in pain relieving massage blends for sore muscles and arthritic pain. Camphor is known to improve the quality of air making it a better for our lungs and heart.
Many people are not aware of the Mosquito repellent power of Camphor - a simple solution without side effects and very cost effective. CAMPHOR IS A NATURAL MOSQUITO REPELLENT With effect round the clock! You do not need to burn it for that. There are three easier ways to do it:
1. Put 2 tablets of commercially available camphor on any warm surface- the device shown in the picture serves the purpose well. Plug it for an hour and see the results! You can do it twice a day- morning and in the night as well!
2. Place 2 tablets of camphor on different corners of the room or at places where mosquitoes seem to love to stay! Leave them there and they will evaporate in a day or so keeping the air purer and mosquito free.
3. Take a wide opened cup or plate with water. Drop 2 tablets of Camphor into the water. Keep the cup with water and camphor in your sleeping room. The quantity of water and camphor may differ from room size. Water evaporate at normal temperature. Camphor slowly started dissolving in water. The water evaporates with Camphor smell. Adding little bit hot water gives instant action.
You will be amazed at the results! Do experience it and help spread these healthy tips!
In the past, man would light diyas and burn camphor on a regular basis as a part of daily puja. These helped to purify the air and keep harmful bacteria, viruses and mosquitoes away! We can definitely have a better and healthy environment with the use of camphor.
Camphor or Kapur is a waxy, white or transparent substance extracted from the wood of the Camphor Laurel tree found in Asia. Camphor has many known medicinal uses-It relieves nasal congestion and cough when rubbed on the chest as an oil. Camphor is used as an ingredient in throat lozenges and cough syrups and in Vicks. Camphor is also used in some anti-itch ointments, creams and cooling gels because it is can be absorbed through skin and is effective at treating pain locally. It has an analgesic effect which makes it a favorite oil to be used in pain relieving massage blends for sore muscles and arthritic pain. Camphor is known to improve the quality of air making it a better for our lungs and heart.
Many people are not aware of the Mosquito repellent power of Camphor - a simple solution without side effects and very cost effective. CAMPHOR IS A NATURAL MOSQUITO REPELLENT With effect round the clock! You do not need to burn it for that. There are three easier ways to do it:
1. Put 2 tablets of commercially available camphor on any warm surface- the device shown in the picture serves the purpose well. Plug it for an hour and see the results! You can do it twice a day- morning and in the night as well!
2. Place 2 tablets of camphor on different corners of the room or at places where mosquitoes seem to love to stay! Leave them there and they will evaporate in a day or so keeping the air purer and mosquito free.
3. Take a wide opened cup or plate with water. Drop 2 tablets of Camphor into the water. Keep the cup with water and camphor in your sleeping room. The quantity of water and camphor may differ from room size. Water evaporate at normal temperature. Camphor slowly started dissolving in water. The water evaporates with Camphor smell. Adding little bit hot water gives instant action.
You will be amazed at the results! Do experience it and help spread these healthy tips!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
A High-Tech Titan Plagued by Potholes
Despite this nation’s rise as a technology titan with some of the world’s best engineering minds, India’s full economic potential is stifled by potholed roadways, collapsing bridges, rickety railroads and a power grid so unreliable that many modern office buildings run their own diesel generators to make sure the lights and computers stay on.
It is not for want of money. The Indian government aims to spend $500 billion on infrastructure by 2012 and twice that amount in the following five years.
The problem is a dearth of engineers — or at least the civil engineers with the skill and expertise to make sure those ambitious projects are done on time and up to specifications.
Civil engineering was once an elite occupation in India, not only during the British colonial era of carving roads and laying train tracks, but also long after independence as part of the civil service. These days, though, India’s best and brightest know there is more money and prestige in writing software for foreign customers than in building roadways for their nation.
And so it is that 26-year-old Vishal Mandvekar, despite his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, now writes software code for a Japanese automaker.
Mr. Mandvekar works in an air-conditioned building with Silicon Valley amenities here in Pune, a boomtown about 100 miles east of Mumbai. But getting to and from work requires him to spend a vexing hour on his motorcycle, navigating the crowded, cratered roads between home and his office a mere nine miles away.
During the monsoon season, the many potholes “are filled with water and you can’t tell how deep they are until you hit one,” he said.
Fixing all that, though, will remain some other engineer’s problem.
Mr. Mandvekar earns a salary of about $765 a month. That is more than three times what he made during his short stint for a commercial contractor, supervising construction of lodging for a Sikh religious group, after he earned his degree in 2006.
“It was fun doing that,” he said of the construction job. “My only dissatisfaction was the pay package.”
Young Indians’ preference for software over steel and concrete poses an economic conundrum for India. Its much-envied information technology industry generates tens of thousands of relatively well-paying jobs every year. But that lure also continues the exodus of people qualified to build the infrastructure it desperately needs to improve living conditions for the rest of its one billion people — and to bolster the sort of industries that require good highways and railroads more than high-speed Internet links to the West.
In 1990, civil engineering programs had the capacity to enroll 13,500 students, while computer science and information technology departments could accept but 12,100. Yet by 2007, after a period of incredible growth in India’s software outsourcing business, computer science and other information technology programs ballooned to 193,500; civil engineering climbed to only 22,700. Often, those admitted to civil engineering programs were applicants passed over for highly competitive computer science tracks.
There are various other reasons that India has struggled to build a modern infrastructure, including poor planning, political meddling and outright corruption. But the shortage of civil engineers is an important factor. In 2008, the World Bank estimated that India would need to train three times as many civil engineers as it does now to meet its infrastructure needs.
The government has “kick-started a massive infrastructure development program without checking on the manpower supply,” said Atul Bhobe, managing director of S. N. Bhobe & Associates, a civil engineering design company. “The government is willing to spend $1 trillion,” he said, “but you don’t have the wherewithal to spend that kind of money.”
Sujay Kalele, an executive with Kolte-Patil, a Pune-based developer of residential and commercial buildings, said the company’s projects could be completed as much as three months faster if it could find enough skilled engineers.
“If we need 10 good-quality civil engineers, we may get four or five,” Mr. Kalele said.
Beyond construction delays and potholes, experts say, the engineering shortfall poses outright dangers. Last year, for example, an elevated span that was part of New Delhi’s much-lauded metro rail system collapsed, killing six people and injuring more than a dozen workers. A government report partly blamed faulty design for the accident; metro officials said they would now require an additional review of all designs by independent engineers.
Acknowledging India’s chronic shortage of civil engineers and other specialists, the national government is building 30 universities and considering letting foreign institutions set up campuses in the country.
“India has embarked on its largest education expansion program since independence,” the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said in a speech last year in Washington.
But the government may have only so much influence on what students study. And while the Indian government runs or finances some of the country’s most prestigious universities, like the Indian Institutes of Technology, fast-growing private institutions now train more students. About three-quarters of engineering students study at private colleges.
Moreover, many civil engineers who earn degrees in the discipline never work in the profession or — like Mr. Mandvekar — leave it soon after they graduate to take better-paying jobs in information technology, management consulting or financial services.
Industry experts say a big obstacle to attracting more civil engineers is the paltry entry-level pay. The field was considered relatively lucrative until the 1990s, when it was eclipsed by the pay in commercial software engineering.
Ravi Sinha, a civil engineering professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, says professionals in his field with five years of experience make about as much as their counterparts at information technology companies. But those starting can make as little as half the pay of their technology peers.
That is partly because of the lead set by government departments, where salaries for civil engineers are often fixed according to nearly immutable civil service formulas.
And in the private sector, developers and construction companies have often been reluctant to pay more and invest in the training of young engineers, because executives believe that new graduates do not contribute enough to merit more money or that they will leave for other jobs anyway.
“If companies take a holistic view,” Mr. Sinha said, “they have the opportunity to develop the next generation’s leaders.”
In fact, a construction boom in recent years has led to higher salaries in private industry. Kolte-Patil now pays junior engineers $425 a month, nearly twice the level of five years ago.
Larsen & Toubro, a Mumbai-based engineering company that builds airports, power projects and other infrastructure, offers Build India Scholarships for students who want to pursue a master’s degree in construction technology and management. The program produces 50 to 60 graduates a year, who are hired by the company.
“You don’t get the best quality in civil engineers, because today the first choice for students is other branches” of engineering, said K. P. Raghavan, an executive vice president in L.& T.’s construction division. “We are compensating with lots of training.”
By VIKAS BAJAJ (NYT)
It is not for want of money. The Indian government aims to spend $500 billion on infrastructure by 2012 and twice that amount in the following five years.
The problem is a dearth of engineers — or at least the civil engineers with the skill and expertise to make sure those ambitious projects are done on time and up to specifications.
Civil engineering was once an elite occupation in India, not only during the British colonial era of carving roads and laying train tracks, but also long after independence as part of the civil service. These days, though, India’s best and brightest know there is more money and prestige in writing software for foreign customers than in building roadways for their nation.
And so it is that 26-year-old Vishal Mandvekar, despite his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, now writes software code for a Japanese automaker.
Mr. Mandvekar works in an air-conditioned building with Silicon Valley amenities here in Pune, a boomtown about 100 miles east of Mumbai. But getting to and from work requires him to spend a vexing hour on his motorcycle, navigating the crowded, cratered roads between home and his office a mere nine miles away.
During the monsoon season, the many potholes “are filled with water and you can’t tell how deep they are until you hit one,” he said.
Fixing all that, though, will remain some other engineer’s problem.
Mr. Mandvekar earns a salary of about $765 a month. That is more than three times what he made during his short stint for a commercial contractor, supervising construction of lodging for a Sikh religious group, after he earned his degree in 2006.
“It was fun doing that,” he said of the construction job. “My only dissatisfaction was the pay package.”
Young Indians’ preference for software over steel and concrete poses an economic conundrum for India. Its much-envied information technology industry generates tens of thousands of relatively well-paying jobs every year. But that lure also continues the exodus of people qualified to build the infrastructure it desperately needs to improve living conditions for the rest of its one billion people — and to bolster the sort of industries that require good highways and railroads more than high-speed Internet links to the West.
In 1990, civil engineering programs had the capacity to enroll 13,500 students, while computer science and information technology departments could accept but 12,100. Yet by 2007, after a period of incredible growth in India’s software outsourcing business, computer science and other information technology programs ballooned to 193,500; civil engineering climbed to only 22,700. Often, those admitted to civil engineering programs were applicants passed over for highly competitive computer science tracks.
There are various other reasons that India has struggled to build a modern infrastructure, including poor planning, political meddling and outright corruption. But the shortage of civil engineers is an important factor. In 2008, the World Bank estimated that India would need to train three times as many civil engineers as it does now to meet its infrastructure needs.
The government has “kick-started a massive infrastructure development program without checking on the manpower supply,” said Atul Bhobe, managing director of S. N. Bhobe & Associates, a civil engineering design company. “The government is willing to spend $1 trillion,” he said, “but you don’t have the wherewithal to spend that kind of money.”
Sujay Kalele, an executive with Kolte-Patil, a Pune-based developer of residential and commercial buildings, said the company’s projects could be completed as much as three months faster if it could find enough skilled engineers.
“If we need 10 good-quality civil engineers, we may get four or five,” Mr. Kalele said.
Beyond construction delays and potholes, experts say, the engineering shortfall poses outright dangers. Last year, for example, an elevated span that was part of New Delhi’s much-lauded metro rail system collapsed, killing six people and injuring more than a dozen workers. A government report partly blamed faulty design for the accident; metro officials said they would now require an additional review of all designs by independent engineers.
Acknowledging India’s chronic shortage of civil engineers and other specialists, the national government is building 30 universities and considering letting foreign institutions set up campuses in the country.
“India has embarked on its largest education expansion program since independence,” the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said in a speech last year in Washington.
But the government may have only so much influence on what students study. And while the Indian government runs or finances some of the country’s most prestigious universities, like the Indian Institutes of Technology, fast-growing private institutions now train more students. About three-quarters of engineering students study at private colleges.
Moreover, many civil engineers who earn degrees in the discipline never work in the profession or — like Mr. Mandvekar — leave it soon after they graduate to take better-paying jobs in information technology, management consulting or financial services.
Industry experts say a big obstacle to attracting more civil engineers is the paltry entry-level pay. The field was considered relatively lucrative until the 1990s, when it was eclipsed by the pay in commercial software engineering.
Ravi Sinha, a civil engineering professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, says professionals in his field with five years of experience make about as much as their counterparts at information technology companies. But those starting can make as little as half the pay of their technology peers.
That is partly because of the lead set by government departments, where salaries for civil engineers are often fixed according to nearly immutable civil service formulas.
And in the private sector, developers and construction companies have often been reluctant to pay more and invest in the training of young engineers, because executives believe that new graduates do not contribute enough to merit more money or that they will leave for other jobs anyway.
“If companies take a holistic view,” Mr. Sinha said, “they have the opportunity to develop the next generation’s leaders.”
In fact, a construction boom in recent years has led to higher salaries in private industry. Kolte-Patil now pays junior engineers $425 a month, nearly twice the level of five years ago.
Larsen & Toubro, a Mumbai-based engineering company that builds airports, power projects and other infrastructure, offers Build India Scholarships for students who want to pursue a master’s degree in construction technology and management. The program produces 50 to 60 graduates a year, who are hired by the company.
“You don’t get the best quality in civil engineers, because today the first choice for students is other branches” of engineering, said K. P. Raghavan, an executive vice president in L.& T.’s construction division. “We are compensating with lots of training.”
By VIKAS BAJAJ (NYT)
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Indian Generals of Character
After getting freedom, a meeting was organized to select the first General of the Indian Army. Jawahar Lal Nehru was heading that meeting. Leaders and Army officers were discussing to whom this responsibility should be given. In between the discussion Nehru said, "I think we should appoint a British officer as a General of Indian Army as we don't have enough experience to lead the same."
Everybody supported Nehru because if the PM was suggesting something, how could they not agree.
But one of the army officers abruptly said, "I have a point, sir."
Nehru said, "Yes, gentleman. You are free to speak."
He said, "You see, sir, we don't have enough experience to lead a nation too, so shouldn't we appoint a British person as first PM of India?"
The meeting hall suddenly went quiet.
Then, Nehru said, "Are you ready to be the first General of the Indian Army." He got a golden chance to accept the offer but he refused the same and said, "Sir, we have a very talented army officer, my senior, Lt Gen Cariappa, who is the most deserving among us".
The army officer who raised his voice against the PM was Lt Gen Nathu Singh Rathore, the 1st Lt Gen of the Indian Army.
That is the professionalism and character the Indian Military "was" made of...
Monday, August 23, 2010
Rich Beggars of Mumbai
Name : Massu or Malana, 60 yrs
Massu's Assets:
Rs.30,00000 in properties alone
Day's earnings Rs.1,000 to Rs.1,500
Begs at : Lokhandwala. Mostly outside high-end restaurants visited by TV and film stars.
Working hours : 8.00 p.m. to 3.00 a.m.
Home is : A duplex flat at Amboli in Andheri (west). He owns another 1 BHK nearby.
Family : Wife, two sons and a daughter-in-law share the apartment with him.
Day's earnings : Rs 1000 to 1500.
Assets : Rs 30 lakh in just properties. One son makes and sells brooms, while the other hawks knick-knacks near Andheri station. He has substantial savings, but would not reveal details.
Cool quotient : Massu is dressed in spotless clothes when he takes an auto-rickshaw to Lokhandwala every evening. He changes into his beggar attire near Ad Labs. During his working hours, he has a complete sway over the area. You will never find another beggar in his vicinity. He takes an auto on his way home too. Stops at Yashraj Studios for a change of clothes.
Name: Krishna Kumar Gite, 42 yrs
Krishna 's Assets:
Rs50 lakh in properties alone
Day's earnings: Rs 1500 to 2000
Begs at: CP Tank, Charni Road
Working hours: Early morning to late evening
Home is : I BHK apartment at Nallasopara, which he shares with his brother.
Family : Brother, sister-in-law and their children.
Day's earnings : Rs 1500 to 2000.
His worth : The Nallasopara apartment is worth nearly Rs 5 lakh. Krishna claimed he has substantial savings but would not put a figure to it. 'My brother manages everything,' he said.
Cool quotient : Claims he can't be bothered with money matters. He retires every evening to his Nallasopara home and hands over the day's earnings to his brother. 'My bhabhi and brother know best what to do with the money.'
Name : Bharat Jain, 45 yrs
Bharat'sAssets:
Rs70 lakh in properties alone
Day's earnings Rs 2000 to 2500
Begs at : Azad Maidan and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.
Working hours : Early morning to late evening.
Home is : Two adjacent 1 BHK apartments in Parel, where his family stays. Bharat, however, visits home only once in a week. His family, which deals in school notebooks and other study material, has tried on many occasions to get Bharat to give up begging and join the family business. The Bhandup shop the family has rented out to a juice centre.
Family : Wife, two sons -- one studying in class X and the other in class XII -- father and brother.
Day's earnings : Rs 2000 to 2500.
His worth : The family apartments are worth close to Rs 60 lakh. The family also has rented out a shop in Bhandup to a juice centre and gets Rs 7,000-a-month in rent. The rent is collected every month by Bharat's wife.
Cool quotient : Bharat speaks impeccable English. He is soft spoken and you will never find him harassing people for alms.
Name : Doesn't matter, A Software Engineer (Double Graduate :D)
S/W Enggr 's Assets : Some old C++, Java, Cryptography Books worth 10,000 INR. Rest of all his Assets are based on EMI's (Easy Monthly Installment). So it's the bank that owns it and not him.
Day's earning : Peanuts :)
Working Hours : Day and Night
Family : 1 intel Pentium 4, 3.8 GHz Notebook.
His worth : Depends on the Tester. If tester files several critical bugs @ a time then he's useless :)
Cool Quotient : Whenever he opens his mouth he knows to speak only C, C++ and Java. Never fires anyone, only he gets fired everywhere. The only time he stays cool is when he gulps down two large shots of JD (Jack Daniels. Obvious someone else is paying for those shots :D)...
Sunday, August 22, 2010
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