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As we rush through life!

In Washington, DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.  During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. About 3 minutes: The violinist received his first dollar.  A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. At 6 minutes: A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again. At 45 minutes: The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while.  About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32.  After 1 hour: He finished playing and silence took over.  No one noticed and no one applauded.  There was no recognition at all. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world.  He played one of the most intricate pieces eve

India is on Reverse Gear !!!

In the advent of current millennium 2000; on the Republic Day i.e 26th January 2000, during Presidential address to the nation, the then President K R Narayanan foretold “ ………….. the first track of globalization is impeding the pedestrians to cross the road;………………. this may lead to civil wars…………………”; and now we find that he was true. Though he did not get second tenure to continue as President of India, what is presumed that he offended the Government by making such statement that revealed the bitter truths. During the past nine years after we entered into this millennium, lots of incidents have taken place like Iraq war, global depression and obviously further increase of terrorists insurgencies all over the world; specially this part of the planet. With the growing population in India, the greater part of Indian population appears to roll on back gear, furthering themselves from the improvements that were promised by the global community while advocating of globalization. The param

Live humbly, there are great people around us

A short while ago, I received a mail containing this story from one of my friend. Well; way back in 70s, while serving Indian Air Force as an Airman and volunteering for Air Force Commando's duty I too had similar experience. Only difference none got Vir or Param Vir Chakra; it reminded ' many a flowers born in desert; remain unseen forever...........; anyway here goes the story Vivek Pradhan was not a happy man. Even the plush comfort of the air-conditioned chair car of the Shatabdi express could not cool his frayed nerves. He was the Project Manager and still not entitled to air travel. It was not the prestige he sought; he had tried to reason with the admin person, it was the savings in time. As PM, he had so many things to do !! He opened his case and took out the laptop, determined to put the time to some good use. "Are you from the software industry sir," the man beside him was staring appreciatively at the laptop. Vivek glanced briefly and mumbled in affirmati

Elder's Day !!

1st October is observed as 'Elder's Day ' off late; I became aware of this sooner I opened my morning news paper. An advertisement given by government's social welfare department urging to observe the day as 'Elder's Day' caught my attention. We are used to see of such dedicated 'Days' are reminded by the retailers or companies dealing in consumer's goods, jewelers et el. Then it crossed my mind that they don't expect much from this segment of our society, they remain neglected by their immediate family members or wards; so who would buy gifts for them! Remaining in the twilight zone of my life, the thoughts are painful! Is not it ?

Pollutions by 'DAL MILLS' in KOLKATA

I took note of a surprising news on pollutions, that too in one of the great metro city in India, Kolkata. It appears that ' Dal Mill " owners have taken a holiday from any directive of pollution control. In India, there is nothing that does not go in connivance with the enforcing authority. Because in that case both the parties benefit. Of course at the cost of public in general, and in this case the public health is put under hazards; not to say about those labors who work in those mills. Just log into the story published in this blog Opinions & Views .

Spam Mails

Spam Mails These days most of us find our mail boxes are filled with spam mails. Thank Google; as it started offering 2GB capacity of individual free mail box and the suit was sooner followed by all like yahoo, hotmail and other service providers. Earlier, it used to be common experience for many of us finding the mail box packed upto the brim with spam mails. It was a nasty way to jam anyone’s mail box. The spammers and the spam mails are similar in nature and subjects, most of them are originated from West African countries pleading to retrieve million of dollars from some unscrupulous financial companies who need your personal details to deliver the funds. Many complaints of cheating have been pouring in from naïve internet users for fraudulent use of their bank accounts or personal details. Off late, there is some awakening due to wide publicity by specially in print media. But still lots to be done to curtail such mails as many of them are cocktailed with virus and spy wares. He

Global Warming

Many of my readers must be quite younger than me. I am heading fast to strike the golden age of 60. Sixty years, after all, are sufficient and supposed to have offered me ample scope to watch the, if not the world, but the environment where I do live. In this part of planet where I live ( India, South Asia)the climate has changed remarkably. This time it should be the rainy season but this year it is without rain. It is not drought; but irregular rain, at least not what it used to be earlier. So, the same is being experienced by my friend Paulo in Sau Paulo in Brazil, he is of my age. So, the same phenomena is reported from most of the part of the globe. We all are agreed on one point, it is due to Global Warming. So, my young readers what you find to-day, when you reach our age it may be different if you don't preserve this world in a better way. No emission no pollution, is the key word, keep this in your mind, if you with to leave a better world to live in.

IT Industries - The Savior

The social sites or dating sites are gaining more and more popularity by every passing days. People with access to internet mostly engaged themselves with these sites when they are free. In fact movies or TVs became popular as they offered a space in day to day life that is monotonous. The world of fantasy or depicting realty helps escape viewers for some time cutting down their stress level. Not that they are not popular any more, they still are firm in their place albeit with little intensity. Now the new entrant internet has replaced the movies or TVs at least with those having easy access to it. In fact internet overtook the movie or TV shows in terms popularity because it offers to interact. This interaction has drawn the vast internet users to dating or social sites like Google’s Orkut or Tagged, Persoft and many more. These sites truly opened new vistas for millions of internet users all over the world. Now it is quite usual that a person sitting right in a .remote villag

Your Cell Phone

5 Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do For all the folks with cell phones. (This should be printed and kept in your vehicle, purse, and wallet. Good information to have with you.) There are a few things that can be done in times of severe emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or a crisis tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it: FIRST Emergency The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find Yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an Emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to Establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly, this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. Try it out. SECOND Have you locked your keys in the vehicle? Does your vehicle have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys In the vehicle and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cel

Yamaha Rhino Rollovers Vicitms

The much hyped all terrain vehicle Yamaha Rhino ATV has failed to meet expectations of the users and belied what the company claimed at the time of its launch. Many of its users had bitter experience using it as it is defectively designed. It is reported that many death and injuries are associated with this particular ATV. Yamaha Rhino ATV seems to have less stability during manoeuvre and it rollovers causing accidents to its riders, injuring them; specially breaking their legs. It is considered that the vehicle’s lack of wideness causes its instability. It is a top heavy vehicle, so it has a high center of gravity; making it more susceptible for rollovers. It’s small tyres is another cause of accidents; is felt. If you are unfortunate victim Yamaha Rhino Rollover you have all the right for compensation. The company though did not admit their faulty design but offered free doors and handholds for safer rides. This is being given to the owners of 2004-2007 ATV models. This despite of

How the Life is amidst of these surroundings?

Imagine the life amidst of these surroundings. I have been browsing the web idle, by chance I came upon a site with these free photographs. They truly captivated me, so I prefer to share them with you. Hope you will appreciate.

A Story with message

Once a king called upon all of his wise men and asked them, ” Is there a mantra or suggestion which works in every situation, in every circumstances, in every place and in every time. In every joy, every sorrow, every defeat and every victory? One answer for all questions? Something which can help me when none of you is available to advise me? Tell me is there any mantra?” All the wise men were puzzled by the King’s question. They thought and thought. After a lengthy discussion, an old man suggested something which appealed to all of them. They went to the king and gave him something written on paper, with a condition that the king was not to see it out of curiosity. Only in extreme danger, when the King finds himself alone and there seems to be no way, only then he can see it. The King put the papers under his Diamond ring. Some time later, the neighbors attacked the Kingdom. King and his army fought bravely but lost the battle. The King had to flee on his horse. The enemies were foll

Think over it

In Pharmacology, all drugs have two names, a trade name and generic name. For example, the trade name of Tylenol also has a generic name of Acetaminophen. Aleve is also called Naproxen. Amoxil is also called Amoxicillin and Advil is also called Ibuprofen The FDA has been looking for a generic name for Viagra. After careful consideration by a team of government experts, it recently announced that it has settled on the generic name of Mycoxafloppin. Also considered were Mycoxafailin, Mydixadrupin, Mydixarizin, Dixafix, and of course, Ibepokin. Pfizer Corporation announced today that Viagra will soon be available in liquid form, and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage suitable for use as a mixer. It will now be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one. Obviously we can no longer call this a soft drink, and it gives new meaning to the names of 'cocktails', 'highballs' and just a good old-fashioned 'stiff drink'. Pepsi will market

Bangalore - The Information Technology city

We all have heard of brain drain. It is the phenomenon of meritorious students from third world countries like India migrating to developed countries especially like United States. Of course this helps propel India in global stage in terms of its contribution in running world class corporate like Microsoft or Pepsi and several other organizations with some Indians sitting at the top of these companies. This clan of immigrants also feeds Indian coffer with their remittance in foreign exchange. Though, time and again there are many so-called nationalists are found bemoaning, shedding crocodile’s tears, for the brain drain. That is had they been here, they could contribute for the advancement of their own country. None better than them know it is next to impossible, since nothing thrives better than corupptons, casts and reservations here. But there is change in wind direction. Since 2003, between 50000 to 60000 Indian information technology professionals have returned to India for better

Blood Transfusion and Hepatitis B....Concluded

The articles related to blood transfusion and hepatitis B infection have been published in three installments earlier and now being concluded. Any one interested to get any such article written as this may write to kamalkali1962@yahoo.com . A critical evaluation the laboratory tests that are available for testing blood donations for the presence of anti-HBc. Among anti-HBc assays there are nine assays which are used by the laboratories across the world. These nine assays are divided into two groups; competitive and non-competitive. The competitive assays are Murex, AxSYM, PRISM® HBcore, PRISM® HBc, COBAS Immulite and the non-competitive assays are ADVIA and Ortho. The choice of assays depend upon the suitability of its use varies from one medical community to other and the cost factors matter too. However, in case blood transfusion, with its social objectives in mind, most of the developed and developing nations opt for those assays which are cost effective and dependab

Blood transfusion and Hepatitis B part -III

Continued from Part - I & II .......... In transfusion medicine safety of blood products is a major concern. The hepatitis B virus getting transmitted through blood transfusion is far more than the hepatitis C virus it is around 1:60000 vs 1:103000 (Schreiber, Busch, Kleinman, Korelitz. 1996). This is despite of availability of assay for screening quite sensitive to detect hepatitis B virus surface antigen or HBsAg. It is very common incidence of hepatitis B infection in post-transfusion cases (Saraswat, Banerjee, Chaudhury, Mahant,Khandekar, Gupta, et al.1996). Common explanations what offered for incorrect negative findings or results with the common assays are due to circulation of viral protein in low level. This can escape detection and screening of HBsAg mutant`s infection by assays in blood donors. Obviously this cause hazards in post blood transfusion (Jongerius, Wester, Cuypers, van Oostendorp,Lelie, van der Poel, et al.1998). Besides this other reason is cited

Blood transfusion and Hepatitis B part -II

The studies observed that more than 300 million people all over the world are infected by hepatitis B virus. This virus belongs to Hepadnaviridae family, a non-cytopathic hepatotropic DNA virus. Though there is a prophylactic vaccine deemed to be effective still the high prevalence of this virus is found in continents like Africa and Asia (Lok,. & McMahon, 2001). Hepatitis B virus induces the liver ailments, the degree of which varies from person to person ((Ganem & Prince, 2004). The effects of infections by hepatitis B virus are controlled efficiently and cleared from the blood without any symptom or clinical evidence of liver disease by some persons. They may have inflammation severely in the liver i.e. acute hepatitis but after being resolved leave no long term squeal. There are others who cannot clear the virus and likely to develop a chronic infection but most of them may remain without any symptom and any acute liver disease, around 10 to 30 per cent of them con

BLOOD TRANSFUSION - 1

Blood transfusion is not always safe for the recipients. In most of the countries , standard tests those are conducted to detect any infection in donor's blood are not full proof. I wrote an article on this for someone but the article remained with me for some reason. I would like to share the information it has with you. Since the article is long enough , I am going to publish it in few installments. INTRODUCTION Hepatitis B is the dreaded disease, especially when it is transmitted through blood received from donation. The detection of hepatitis B in blood became easy when hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) was discovered. This helped decrease the occurrence of hepatitis in post-transfusion scenario. As such this has been a major breakthrough to arrest the spread of hepatitis B through blood transfusion. This helped the detection of hepatitis B ‘e’ antigen, hepatitis B core antigen (anit-HBc) and HBsAg as well. The common method of detecting hepatitis B infection is scr

A "Bullet proof" of our trueself !

The recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai has raised another question. It is not from the public in general;in India public,s voice is not suppressed but simply ignored. Our great politicians with their hide that could put Rhinos ashamed have learnt the best art of governing in a way that can match a dictator but unfortunately with democracy! This time it is no lesser than a cabinet minister Anatuley; who raised the question about those bullet proof jackets , what mocked its name presenting us the bullet ridden bodies of it's wearers. That too, a man like Karkare, a man of principal and unearthed the skeletons of Malegaon massacre masterminds, digging the moral grave of our politicians. The other question is who the man was to order all the three of them together, who were shoveling the Malegaon episode! That too, they were sent to a comparatively far less hazardous terror spot. Who killed them? It reminds me inscriptions on the back of highway trucks "My India is great"