Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Akbar birbal

Nice thought from history:

Akbar said to Birbal:
"Tell me a sentence that if read in happy mood will make us sad and if read in sad mood will make us happy."
Birbal replied:
"This time will pass away soon!!!"

read this on a blog this evening.

Now what will pakistan use to search ???

Pak court banned Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, Amazon... So what will they use to search over net?. All search engines are banned!

The news reads as follows....

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani court has reportedly ordered a ban on nine leading websites, including Google and Hotmail, for allegedly posting blasphemous material though officials today said they had not received any instruction to block the sites.

Media reports said the Bahawalpur bench of the Lahore High Court yesterday directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to immediately block nine websites, including Google, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, YouTube, Bing and Amazon, for publishing and promoting sacrilegious and blasphemous material.

Justice Mazher Iqbal Sidhu issued the order while hearing a petition filed by a man named Muhammad Sidiq who claimed these websites were publishing sacrilegious material.

The judge also ordered the PTA chairman to appear in court on June 28 with relevant materials.

Sidiq, in his petition, sought a ban on the websites for publishing blasphemous materials and twisting facts about the Quran.

Aslam Dhakkar, head of a local bar association, was quoted as saying that the court had given a historic decision.

He said the legal fraternity in Bahawalpur would observe a strike today to protest the publication of blasphemous material by the websites.

However, officials of the PTA said that they had received no instructions to block the websites.

They said they had only seen media reports about the court's order.

Wahaj-us-Siraj, a spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, said his organisation had not received any directions from the PTA to block websites.

Pakistani authorities had blocked popular social networking website Facebook in May over the holding of a competition on blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammed.

The access to the website was later restored on the orders of the court.


Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Burned Biscuits :)


When I was a kid, my mom liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. And I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at work. On that evening so long ago, my mom placed a plate of eggs, sausage and extremely burned biscuits in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my dad did was reach for his biscuit, smile at my mom and ask me how my day was at school. I don't remember what I told him that night, but I do remember watching him smear butter and jelly on that biscuit and eat every bite!

When I got up from the table that evening, I remember hearing my mom apologize to my dad for burning the biscuits. And I'll never forget what he said: "Honey, I love burned biscuits."

Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy good night and I asked him if he really liked his biscuits burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, "Your Momma put in a hard day at work today and she's real tired. And besides - a little burned biscuit never hurt anyone!"

You know, life is full of imperfect things.....and imperfect people. I'm not the best at hardly anything, and I forget birthdays and anniversaries just like everyone else.

What I've learned over the years is that learning to accept each other’s faults - and choosing to celebrate each other’s differences - is one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship.

We could extend this to any relationship. In fact, understanding is the base of any relationship, be it a husband-wife or parent-child or friendship!

"Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket - keep it in your own."

God Bless You..... Now, and Always....

Monday, June 7, 2010

Bhopal Union Carbide accident and punishment !!!


Few minutes back i read this on an online news paper:

"A local court on Monday afternoon sentenced all the eight accused in the Bhopal gas disaster case to two years' imprisonment and Rs one lakh fine each under section 304(a) amid tension around the court premises where prohibitory

order is in force to prevent the survivors of the world's worst industrial disaster from holding demonstration.

The maximum punishment under the section 304 (a) is two years jail.

However, the accused were immediately released on Rs 25,000 personal bond. The verdict has come nearly 25 years and six months after poisonous fumes of methyl-iso-cyanite gas leaked from the now-defunct Union Carbide factory. It killed over 15,000 and affected nearly five lakh people over the years. The disaster had occured on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984.

The convicts include Union Carbide former top brass Keshav Mahindra, Vijay Gokhle, SP Raichoudhary, Kishor Kamdar, J Mukund, KV Shetty and SI Qureshi.

The court has also imposed Rs five lakh fine each on three companies Union Carbide Corporation, Union Carbide of India Limited and Union Carbide Eastern (Hong Kong).

The court premises is heavily guarded and atmosphere is tense.

NGOs working for the gas victims have already said they would move higher court against the verdict for trial of the convicts under more stringent section 3049 (B) which provides for maximum 10 years jail sentence.

The CBI had filed chalan in this case in December 1987 and recording of witnesses statementbegan in 97. A total 178
witnesses deposed and 3000 documents produced in the court of the Chief Judician Magistrate. the incumbent CJM Tiwari is the 15th CJM since the case came up before the court."

...
I remember a saying from  my child hood: Justice delayed is justice denied. I think this apts to this situation. Added, after 25 years of struggle... now the Court levies 1lakh rupees fine??? is this a comedy show or some kind of practical joke? Now let me add one more point.. this is the judgement by the local court... the local court which is within the vicinity of the affected area itself takes 25 years to say who is wrong... and who should be punished... imagine the time it takes for the supreme court to give the verdict!!!!


For cases like Kasab where some 100 pple of mumbai are affected.. the govt does hungama.. puts a special court.. special high security prison.. spends abt 10 crores.. makes some 1000/ 10000 pages of verdict.... How abt the case of this bhopal gas disaster??? why isnt it handled so carefully? I remember reading in TOI: " immediately after the gas explosion, the CEO was led to USA in one of the indian goveernment's official aircraft". What is this?

There is no surprise if i see the supreme court's verdict... after some 75 years/ 100 years when i m nearing my death.. like it happened with boforce/ any such case.

pple dont elect a proper government.... they go for a biryani packet and 250 Rs of money to vote or elect... the learned fellow who knows what is correct and what is wrong .. doesn't vote... and finally we curse the govt for being so bad.... If a biryani packet is ruling the state.. then this is what we are eligible for.. No offence.. !!!

its so bad to make such comments... but what do i say.. in my own cubicle.. last time.. only 3 voted out of 6.




Saturday, June 5, 2010

Foot ball





Levis commercial








:)

Guatemala Sinkhole Created by Humans, Not Nature


30-story-deep chasm not a true sinkhole, but a "piping feature."

A sinkhole in Guatemala City The sinkhole appeared Sunday in downtown Guatemala City, swallowing a three-story building

Human activity, not nature, was the likely cause of the gaping sinkhole that opened up in the streets of Guatemala City on Sunday, a geologist says.
A burst sewer pipe or storm drain probably hollowed out the underground cavity that allowed the chasm to form, according to Sam Bonis, a geologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, who is currently living in Guatemala City (map).
The Guatemala City sinkhole, estimated to be 60 feet (18 meters) wide and 300 feet (100 meters) deep, appears to have been triggered by the deluge from tropical storm Agatha.
But the cavity formed in the first place because the city—and its underground infrastructure—were built in a region where the first few hundred meters of ground are mostly made up of a material called pumice fill, deposited during past volcanic eruptions.
"Lots of times, volcanic pumice originates as a flow [of loose, gravel-like particles], and because of the heat and the weight, it becomes welded into solid rock," Bonis said.
"In Guatemala City [the pumice is] unconsolidated, it's loose," he said. "It hasn't been hardened into a rock yet, so it's easily eroded, especially by swift running water."
In general, the zoning regulations and building codes in Guatemala City are poor, Bonis said, and the few regulations that exist are often ignored. That means leaking pipes could have gone unfixed long enough to create the right conditions for the sinkhole. (Related pictures: "How Humans Can Trigger Earthquakes.")
In fact, Bonis thinks calling the Guatemala City chasm a sinkhole is a misnomer—a true sinkhole is an entirely natural phenomenon. There is no scientific term for what happened in Guatemala, he said, adding that he recommends the pit be dubbed a piping feature.
Guatemala Sinkhole Not a Sinkhole
Natural sinkholes generally form when heavy, water-saturated soil causes the roof of an underground limestone cavity to collapse, or when water widens a natural fracture in limestone bedrock.
But there is no limestone beneath the section of Guatemala City where the new sinkhole appeared, at least not at the depth at which the hole formed, Bonis said.
"There may be limestone thousands of meters beneath the city, but not hundreds of meters," he said.
Instead, nature likely sped up a process set in motion by human actions. (Related: "'Mud Volcano' in Indonesia Caused by Gas Exploration, Study Says.")
Recent eruptions of several volcanoes in Guatemala covered the city in a fresh layer of volcanic ash. If this material got into the city's pipes and drains, it may have clogged the passageways, making ruptures more likely, Bonis said.
Heavy rains from tropical storm Agatha may also have overloaded underground sewage or drainage pipes, leading to a growing cavity that eventually collapsed, Bonis speculated.
The geologist added that the new sinkhole shares remarkable similarities with a sinkhole that formed in Guatemala City in 2007.
"Both of these things occurred in the same general part of town. They look the same," he said. "It's more than a coincidence, especially if they trace" any faulty pipes associated with the 2010 sinkhole to pipes near the 2007 sinkhole.





Guatemala City Sewer Inspections a Must
The danger should not have been news to officials in Guatemala City, noted Bonis, who used to work for the Guatemalan government's national geology institute.
As part of a volunteer team that investigated the 2007 sinkhole, Bonis co-authored a report warning the Guatemalan government that similar holes will very likely keep appearing unless action is taken to inspect the city's sewer system for weaknesses. (Watch video of sewer divers in Mexico City.)
The government never replied, Bonis said—possibly due to a lack of funds.
"There's a minimum of regulation, because that's money that the government doesn't have," he said.
But, he added, "there's got to be ways of inspecting the sewer system. ... These are things that have to be done."