Happy New Year 2009

Year 2008 has been marked as one of the worst in the history. It all started with sub-prime crisis followed by world-markets crash. We saw oil prices climbing above $ 150 per barrel and witnessed wiping off some of BIG MNC banks like Lehman Brothers, Wachovia and saw companies like Citibank and GM tremor to the economic tunes.

US had to bail out Citibank and GM, preventing a big financial fall. This was followed by job cuts in US. Is it over or are we going to see some more of it in the Year 2009? There are mixed feelings among the economists. Some say there is more to come whereas some are of the opinion that, the worst is over. We also saw terror attacks here in India with Mumbai twice falling victim to terrorism, claiming hundreds of lives.

Surprisingly, it proved to be a best year for the Indian sports arena. Indian cricket won T20 as well as shooter Abhinav Bindra claimed gold medal at Olympics 2008. There were some outstanding performances by Sania Mirza (ranked 32nd in the tennis world) and Saina Nehwal (foraying into the top 10 badminton world rankings).

Hopefully, all of us would like to see Year 2009 bring peace and cheers to the people. This would become possible with controlled inflation, lower loan rates, affordable oil, etc.

Though, oil prices have fallen significantly, but more changes and reforms are required to bring back HAPPY OLD DAYS and normalize the situation. Wish Goodbye to year 2008 and welcome Year 2009.

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year 2009 !!

Serious security flaw found in IE7

A week back a serious security flaw was found in Internet Explorer and everybody is been advised by 'MICROSOFT' not to use Internet Explorer for any confidential banking transactions until the new patch is released.

The new patch would be released at the earliest and Microsoft advices everybody to use the browser from their rivals until the patch is released. As many as 10,000 websites have been compromised since the vulnerability was discovered.

Other browsers, such as Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, are not vulnerable to the flaw Microsoft has identified. PC Pro magazine's security editor, Darien Graham-Smith, said that there was a virtual arms race going on, with hackers always on the look out for new vulnerabilities. "The message needs to get out that this malicious code can be planted on any web site, so simple careful browsing isn't enough."

"Every browser is susceptible to vulnerabilities from time to time. It's fine to say 'don't use Internet Explorer' for now, but other browsers may well find themselves in a similar situation," he added.

Scientoons

Scientoons are the cartoons, based on science. They not only make you smile and laugh but also provide information about new researches subjects, data & concepts in a simple, understandable and interesting thought provoking way.

Pradeep Kumar Srivastava, Senior Scientist (Chemical Technology Division) at the Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, India coined a new name for such cartoons - SCIENTOOONS.

If you find science dull, dour and boring? If words like ozone hole, glycobiology, nanotechnology or mass spectrometry sound like mumbo-jumbo? You know whom to contact next time.

On December 5, 2007 in South African Science Communication Conference which was held at Port Elizabeth and was attended by experts from all over the world, Pradeep thought to announce his concept as a new science called scientoonics.

“SCIENTOONICS IS A NEW BRANCH OF SCIENCE THAT DEALS WITH EFFECTIVE SCIENCE COMMUNICATION BY USING A NOVEL CLASS OF SCIENCE CARTOONS CALLED SCIENTOONS.”

Scientoons have also been included as a subject in the syllabus of M.Sc. (Mass Communication in Science and Technology) in Lucknow University, Lucknow (India), Devi Ahilya Bai University, Indore, India, Makhan Lal Chaturevdi University, Bhopal India, B.Ed. course of Mohan Lal Sukhadia University, Udaipur and more. Many other countries are also planning to introduce scientoons for science education and science communication.

Mumbai Local Trains

Only local train passengers in Mumbai will know how helpful commuters try to be......

Last week, a hapless victim fell prey to the over enthusiastic Bombay's local train commuters.

Our hero, a man from Pune, wanted to go to Matunga, but as luck and trains would have it, boarded a fast train not halting at his destination. He panicked on realizing his mistake but by then the local had started moving.

On seeing his plight, a sympathetic co-passenger decided to come to his rescue. It seemed that he had been commuting by that particular train (6:03pm Kasara Fast) for the past 6 years and had noticed that the train always slowed down just before Matunga station and crawled at a snail's pace while passing through it. He told the man to jump out of the running train as it slowed down and that with a little bit of fleet-footedness, he would make it safely on terra firma. However, knowing the man's inexperience, he added some words of caution:

"Keep running the moment you jump or you'll fall. Just keep running." He stressed the word "running" lest the man not know the laws of motion. The train did slow down just before Matunga station and at the prompting of his mentor, our hero jumped out of the train and started running as if all hell had broken loose.

What he didn't realise, of course, was that he was running parallel to the train instead of running away from it. Meanwhile, the train slowed down further, so that the man was running faster than the train. In the process, he reached the door of the next compartment and the footboard commuters there pulled him in thinking he was trying to board the train! To his agony, the train picked up speed and sped past Matunga and his new co-passengers started to congratulate him on how lucky he had been, until he told them that they had actually undone what he had done with great difficulty.

Those standing at the door of his "ex-compartment" had witnessed the whole drama and just couldn't stop laughing at the poor man's situation, while he grinned sheepishly!!!

Ae dil, hai mushkil, jeena yahaan...., zara hatke, zara bachke, yeh hai Bombay meri jaan......................

Silence

"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute"

- MK Gandhi

That sounds true but not when communication is need of the hour. Study says 95% of the life problems arise either due to the lack of communication or improper communication. Communication plays a very important role in the life of any individual. It could be at home, office or at social events. Communication can bring two individual/groups/countries together as well as separate them.

It is not the materialistic needs that deter the quality of life, but good communication techniques. Even the most fierce enemies can be brought together, if they are ready to solve the issue through open dialogue. However, in most cases individuals misinterpret the actions of others according to their own will and wields enmity without communicating what they interpreted. They refrain from allowing a second thought to strike their mind, refuse to understand the act of others. Resultantly, start acting against the will of other individual and thus creating conflicts.

Cumulatively, this grows into a bigger battle and starts heading towards a point of no return and thus hurling heavy and irrepairable losses to both.

"Nothing great can be achieved through silence"

Thought of the day !!

It's really worth thinking on the below thought :

"What a shame and disgrace to every citizen of India that the elite NSG Force was transported into ordinary BEST buses, whereas our cricketers are transported into state of the art luxury buses, these Jawans lay down their lives to protect every Indian and these cricketers get paid even if they lose a match, we worship these cricketers and forget the martyrdom of these brave Jawans. The Jawans should be paid the salaries of the cricketers and the cricketers should be paid the salaries of the Jawans.

An ace shooter shoots and gets gold medal, govt gives 1cr, another shooter dies while shooting terrorist, govt gives 5 lakh. WHO DESERVES MORE?"