One answer

Is being polite more important than being truthful?
Is lying to yourself less important than lying to others?
Is a friend's request more important than being truthful?
Is any price too much to pay for being and doing the right thing?

India in Isolation

The largest democracy in the World, surrounded by chaos. How long can we live in isolation as our neighbours continue to suffer?

Afghanistan, continues to reel under Talibanisation years after the Talibans were driven out of most of their land by the Americans. The Americans are fighting those they armed to drive out the Soviets.
Pakistan has spent more years under military rule than in Democracy, a heavy price to pay for maintaining a huge army to match India. Wouldn't peace between brothers have done a lot more good?
Nepal in Transition... Democracy without elections. Maoists in power. A king without a Kingdom.
Tibet where's that? Can China's importance and might make us forget the aspirations of this forgotten country and it's people?
Bhutan, peaceful, yet a blast from the past.
Burma under Military rule for Decades. How long will India take the side of the Military rulers? If peace loving monks can protest and die for democracy, can't India lift a finger to help?
Sri Lanka, the war wages on. Once bitten twice shy but can't we mediate peace?
Bangladesh, the only place where Military rule is probably doing some good... rooting out corrupt politicians. Why aren't we more friendly with these people? Why do they provide haven for terrorists who harm us?

Does a country of a Billion that ignores it's neighbours deserves a Permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council by right of it's size alone?
Is the American way of 'fighting' for Democracy wrong?
Is the Indian way of remaining a mute spectator right?

TR the Tiger!

TR talks about his abilities, guiness Records etc :P


In Veerasamy he was like a 20 yr old Hero he ssys!

If you can't laugh out for this...

The Concise Adventures of the Man with the Electric Sword

It was 1 Am, (Is that Morning or Night?) He walked in with his his suit of armour, electric sword in hand. Within a few minutes he had chopped down several enemies. The shrieking enemies brought the friend who stood watching with a question...
I was sleepy, he said. I must have killed at least forty, he continued, still seeking out the enemies from every corner. Definitely fifty said the friend...
They both smiled and went back to their books throwing the Mosquito Bat in a corner.

I'm a Believer

+I thought love was only true in fairy tales
Meant for someone else but not for me
Love was out to get me
Thats the way it seemed
Disappointment haunted all my dreams

Then I saw her face
Now Im a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
Im in love
Im a believer
I coundnt leave her if I tried

I thought love was more or less a giving thing
Seems the more I gave the less I got
Whats the use in trying
All you get is pain
When I needed sunshine I got rain

Then I saw her face
Now Im a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
Im in love
Im a believer
I coundnt leave her if I tried

Written by: Neil Diamond

PS: Read Paragraphs 1 and 3 alone, I'm yet to see 'her' face :P

Google Lunar X Prize: A race to the Moon!

The X PRIZE Foundation and Google Inc. (One more reaso to love Google!) today announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable $30 million prize purse. Private companies from around the world will compete to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives, including roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth.

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that will challenge and inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The X PRIZE Foundation, best known for the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private suborbital spaceflight, is an educational nonprofit prize organization whose goal is to bring about radical breakthroughs to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the world today.

“The Google Lunar X PRIZE calls on entrepreneurs, engineers and visionaries from around the world to return us to the lunar surface and explore this environment for the benefit of all humanity,” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation. “We are confident that teams from around the world will help develop new robotic and virtual presence technology, which will dramatically reduce the cost of space exploration.”

“Having Google fund the purse and title the competition punctuates our desire for breakthrough approaches and global participation,” continued Diamandis. “By working with the Google team, we look forward to bringing this historic private space race into every home and classroom. We hope to ignite the imagination of children around the world.”

About Lunar Exploration:

In the 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a historic superpower Moon race, which culminated in 12 men exploring the surface of the Moon. The first era of lunar exploration reached a dramatic conclusion in December of 1972 as Apollo 17 Astronauts Captain Gene Cernan and Dr. Harrison Schmitt became the last men on the Moon.

Moon 2.0, the second era of lunar exploration, will not be a quest for “flags and footprints.” This time we will go to the Moon to stay. The Moon is a stepping stone to the rest of the solar system and a source of solutions to some of the most pressing environmental problems that we face on Earth – energy independence and climate change. Already, governments from around the world recognize the importance of lunar exploration, and national space agencies from the United States, Russia, China, India, Japan, and the nations of Europe plan to send probes to the Moon in the coming decade.

Today, the frontier of private enterprise is the halo of communications satellites in geostationary orbit 24,000 miles above our planet. The Google Lunar X PRIZE now challenges private enterprise to reach 10 times beyond its present limits to participate in this great exploration adventure.

About the Prize Purse:

• The $30 million prize purse is segmented into a $20 million Grand Prize, a $5 million Second Prize and $5 million in bonus prizes. To win the Grand Prize, a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth.

Why the Moon?

In a recent Gallup poll, more than two-thirds of Americans (68%) support a return to the Moon, and further missions to points beyond. Some practical benefits to lunar exploration include:

• Enabling exploration of the solar system and beyond. Space exploration is expensive because every ounce of propellant and spacecraft must be launched out of the Earth’s strong gravity field. A natural storehouse of materials, lunar soil is more than 40% oxygen by weight and oxygen makes up most of the mass of rocket propellant. Because of its shallower gravity well, the Moon is the stepping stone to the universe.

• The Moon can help save the Earth. For more than 30 years, NASA and the US Department of Energy have experimented with ways to capture abundant clean solar energy in space for use on Earth. Although the technology for doing this is well understood, the high cost of launching materials out of the Earth’s deep gravity well has prevented the implementation of these systems. However, if lunar material is used for space construction, clean energy could be supplied on a 24-hour basis without carbon dioxide or other hazards to the biosphere.

• We can learn about the Earth’s geologic past. Thanks to the Moon rocks and other information returned by Apollo astronauts, scientists now believe that the Moon was created by a collision between a planet-sized object and the early Earth. By exploring our nearest neighbor we are also exploring a remnant of ancient Earth.

• We can see more deeply into space. The Moon provides a large stable platform for astronomical observation unhindered by atmosphere. The far side of the Moon is the one “quiet” place in the Solar System that is shielded from the Earth’s cacophony of radio, television and data broadcasts. The body of the Moon itself provides this shielding, and a radio telescope on the lunar far side can detect energy from the beginning of the universe.

• Driving new technologies and devices. The Moon may be the most hostile environment we face in the near future. Surviving and exploring will require major advances in technology. Many of those technologies will also have practical use back home.

www.googlelunarxprize.org

If you had only 'Four Hours In Chennai'

Newsweek, the second largest weekly in the USA, in it's International Edition has a section '4 hours in' featuring what not to miss in a city when a traveller is in Transit and has only a few hours to spare. The issue dated June 18 features, namma Chennai. Read through this interesting piece reproduced from the Newsweek which tells what a traveller can do to get the essence of Chennai. Do you think something important has been missed out? Do leave your comments.


Four Hours In Chennai - Jason Overdorf
Once known as Madras, India's fourth largest city is known as the unofficial capital of the jasmine-and-sandalwood-scented south.

VISIT the ancient Kapa-leeswarar temple, devoted to the Hindu god Shiva (Kutchery Road, Mylapore; 4 a.m.-noon and 4-8 p.m.).

EAT tiffin, the all-purpose south Indian meal of idlis (fluffy steamed rice cakes), dosas (slightly sour pancakes made from fermented rice and lentil flour) and vadas (tiny, spicy doughnuts) at Saravana Bhavan (77 Usman Road, T. Nagar; saravanabhavan.com).

STROLL through the botanical gardens of the Theosophical Society, which include a 400-year-old banyan tree once thought to be the largest in the world (Adyar Bridge Road; 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 2-4 p.m., Monday-Saturday).

SHOP for silk saris at Sri Kumaran Stores (45 Usman Road, T. Nagar; srikumaransilk.com) or Nalli (100 Usman Road, T. Nagar; nallisilk.com).

Source NewsWeek
Photo: The Kapaleeshwar temple with it's pond in all it's splendor thanks to the recent spell of Rains and Rain-Water Harevsting!

Sivaji (சிவாஜி): Movie Review

The Movie opens with a masked man being taken through thousands of chest beating men and women and locked up in the central prison, when a co-prisoner asks him what crime he had committed, Super-Star turns around to say 'I tried to do good for the Country' and then Sivaji turns into flash back mode. Not a typical opening scene for a Rajnikanth film, but then this one's a Shankar film!

Without giving anything away, Sivaji, is about Software Engineer returning from the USA with 200 Crore Rupees to realise his dream of building engineering and medical colleges that provide free education on merit and how he has to endure bureaucratic red-tapism and corruption like the rest of us have to, when we go to any government office. Then there's the baddie Suman, who plays the quintessential businessman trying to undermine a potential competitor to his own engineering & medical college 'business' with every crooked method possible. In the meanwhile Sivaji manages to find a typical Tamil girl, Shriya, to fall in love with, woo her and dance around. When the twists and turns of the movie leave him penniless, how our Superstar fights back is the Second half. If you'll find Rajni as Sivaji rocking, just wait for climax when Rajni as MGR simply blows you away! MGR? Yup! that's suspense ;)

Rajni as Sivaji looks a good 25 years younger and pulls of another stellar performance in typical Rajni style, the chewing gum replaces Cigarette but the rest is pure Rajni formula. Shriya as the typical Tamil girl performs as much as her role allows her to, but is nothing more than a glam doll as in most Tamil movies. Vivek as Sivaji's side-kick seems a tad under utilised but then that's the way you feel about everyone else except Rajni in the film.

There are no mannerisms or punch lines to imitate, when Sivaji wants to deliver a punch line Vivek stops him and takes a dig at the rising stars of Cinema and walks away with all the claps! The Camera work and the sets deserve a mention, the music by A.R. Rahman are already topping the charts all around. The fight sequences give you a sense of déjà vu, there's nothing new but they're highly stylised. Like in any Shankar movie there's an over dose of computer generated effects and the songs are well shot in grand style, when you watch those you'll realise what went into the making of Indian Cinema's most expensive film ever.

The film delivers a social message against 'Black Money' and exhorts movie goers to 'realise the dream' of a developed India, but, falls terribly short on story and logic. Not a typical Shankar film, but then, this one's a Rajni film! Am I contradicting myself? No I'm not! There's something for the Rajni fan and something for those expecting another classy one from Shankar the perfectionist but if you go to the theatre looking for either alone you'll end up a bit disappointed after all the hype. Go watch the film for 3 hours of pure entertainment alone.

Release of a Rajni film is festve time for some people in Tamil Nadu: Images from the Sivaji Film Festival :P (from an EMail Forward)