Sedhusamudhram project a threat to nation’s security?

One of the most controversial projects in India is the Sedhusamudhram project. Till now only Hindus were opposing the project due to the presence of an unknown Ramar bridge. But now a new problem has come to the list, that’s nothing but security problem. Coast guard chief said that the project will lead to both natural and man made attacks. Since this is a narrow canal, there are chances that the ships passing the area can be attacked by active terrorists in that area. But some are telling that a security ring can be made like panama and Suez Canal. In addition to these two problems, it is said that out of all the ships in this world, only 5% of the ships can use this canal as the remaining 95% of the ships are weighing more than 60000 tonnes. No idea whether Tamilnadu’s dream project, the Sedhu will be completed.

Very Interesting and Informative things Part-I

1. If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on yourright side. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food onyour left side
2. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
3. Your tongue is germ free only if it is pink. If it is white thereisa thin film of bacteria on it.
4. The Mercedes-Benz motto is 'Das Beste oder Nichts' meaning 'thebestor nothing'.
5. The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal.
6. The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a personlooks at something pleasing.
7. The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleepanight.
8. Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immunesystem. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.
9. The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear isnotthe ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.
10. If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. Forwhen ahuman body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.

Will be continued...........

Mere escape

Observe the girl crossing the railway track. The train on the track is Sathapthi express.

Cricinfo's top performers of 2007

Cricinfo has announced the best performers of 2007. Three Indians, two Sri Lankans and an Australian are named as winners. The winners are as follows:-

List of winners:-
Test batting - Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka)

Test bowling - Zaheer Khan (India)

ODI batting - Adam Gilchrist (Australia)

ODI bowling - Lasith Malinga (Sri Lanka)

Twenty20 batting - Yuvraj Singh (India)

Twenty20 bowling - RP Singh (India)

My visit to Lotus Temple

Baha’i House of worship popularly known as The Lotus Temple is located in New Delhi. Its construction was completed in 1986. There are nine doors for this temple capable of holding 2500 people. This is one of the centers of attraction in Delhi whose number of visitors surpasses many other tourist spots on holy days including taj mahal. This temple has found a place in Guinness record.

This is a nice place to do meditation as a pin drop silence will be maintained inside the temple. The ceiling of the temple will be fantastic inside the temple. A must visit place if you go to delhi.

Following are some of the snaps that I took in my digital camera Olympus FE 270.

The Lotus temple

Inside lotus temple

My Visit to Golden temple

Golden Temple officially called Harmandhir Sahib or Dardar Sahib is located in Amritsar(Punjab). Golden temple was constructed by Guru Arjun Dev in 1604 using Sikh architecture. It took nearly 14 years to complete the construction.

There are four entrances to this temple. The temple is surrounded by a large lake of water which is considered as holy water. People visiting golden temple can drink the lake water which will be given by the temple officials in a bowl. There is a museum inside the temple which describes the history of golden temple. Beautiful designs of flowers can be seen on the temple (see the photographs). It will be very nice to see a golden gigantic temple standing in the center of a lake. Please do visit this place if you go to amritsar.

Following are some of the snaps that I took in my digital camera Olympus FE 270.

The Golden temple

Designs on the wall

More designs on the walls

My visit to Taj mahal

Hi everybody, recently I went for a tour to north India. I want to share some of the photos and details about the places I visited.

Taj mahal a beautiful place I have never seen in my life. Taj mahal is constructed by Shah Jahan and is located in Agra. Taj mahal is considered as a symbol of love and it is one among the Seven Wonders of the World. Shah Jahan constructed taj mahal for his wife mumtaz in 17^th century. It is considered as one amongst the finest architecture of mughal emperor.

Taj mahal has four entrances in four directions. It might have taken a longtime even for the construction of a single entrance as it looked like another taj mahal. The view of taj mahal from the entrance was excellent. You wont feel the same if you go near it. But it will be very pleasant to see the taj from the entrance.

Inside of the taj mahal consists of lots and lots of beautiful marble works. Nobody in this world can beat the marble works in Taj.

Following are some of the snaps that I took in my digital camera Olympus FE 270.

Beautiful view of the Taj from entrance

Marble works inside the Taj

Beautiful flower carved on the marble

More flowers

View of Taj from the Akbar's fort

Yamuna river behind the Taj

My visit to Manali

Manali is a beautiful hill station in the Himalayan Mountains of Himachal Pradhesh. It is located in an altitude of around 1950m. The places in and around Manali are of great significance to our Indian culture and heritage. If you stand at a place in Manali and turn around and see, it will be completely covered by mountain ranges with snow. Lots of apple trees can be seen around.

One of the important places to visit in Manali is Rohtang pass which is at an altitude of 2600m. This is considered as the peak in Manali. It is the area of interest of adventurers. This place will be cold during summer also. It will be fully covered with snow. Roads to Rohtang Pass will be closed during winter season due to heavy snow fall. Some other tourist spot in Manali are Vashist (a small village, 3 km from Manali), Hadimba temple and Sollang Valley. Manali is a place which we should visit at least once in our life.

Rohtang pass

The Himalayas



Beas river

The Himalayas


The Himalayas

My visit to Qutub Minar

Qutub Minar an example of Indo-Islamic Architecture is the tallest brick minaret in the world. Qutub minar is listed as world heritage site. This was built from 1193 to 1368. The Qutub minar is 72.5 meters high. Long back visitors were allowed to go to the top using 399 steps. But since our dirty Indians started using this as a suicide point, visitors are not allowed to the top these days. The monument is surrounded by some writings (see the photograph). The reason for construction of such a beautiful monument is still a mystery.

There is an iron pillar near Qutub Minar. Any one who can encircle the pillar with their arms, with their back towards it, can have their wish granted. Visitors are no longer allowed to perform this act due to corrosive nature of sweat.

The Qutub Minar

Writings on the Qutub Minar

Closer view of the Qutub minar

My visit to India Gate

India gate, originally called as The All India War Memorial is a monument built in memory of more than 90000 Indian soldiers who lost their lives during Afghan wars and World War I. The construction of India gate started in 1921 and was completed in 1931. Amar Jawan Jyothi is burning under it since 1971. The names of soldiers who died in Afghan wars and World War I are inscribed on the walls of The India Gate.

The India gate will not be of much attraction during day time. But during night time, the whole building will be illuminated and so it will be looking like a golden building. I visited this place in the night time and I have taken a snap of it.

The India Gate

Sony Ericson's AM/FM phones

Sony Ericsson introduces two other new mobile phones with built in AM/FM radios and speakers. Sony calls these mobiles as the R300 Radio and R306 Radio. These two Sony Ericsson cell phones let us listen to AM/FM radio. Preset buttons on the front let you switch between favorite stations. The built-in speakers work best when the phone is set on its side. Upgraded sound from these speakers can be obtained by a volume boost and also a 3D sound enhancement.

Other features of the R300 Radio and R306 Radio are the ability to record a clip to make it your ringtone, supports polyphonic, mp3 and aac ringtones, Bluetooth and a built-in VGA camera, 128 x 160 pixels display and a lithium battery. No word of these phones can be seen in USA.

Bhajji cleared of Racial abuse

Finally all the problems of racism that were prevailing in the India-Australia tour have come to an end. Harbhajan is cleared of racial abuse. The India spinner was found guilty of calling Symonds, a "monkey" during the second Test in Sydney. ICC banned him for three tests. But an appeal was made by BCCI. The appeal came to hearing on 29th January and the three-match ban was lifted. But he is fined half of his match fee for offensive behavior. As bhajji’s ban has been lifted, Indian officials lifted the threat to the ODI tri series between India, Sri lanka and Australia. Cricket fans have a nice cricket treat in the month of February.

Vaaranam Aayiram trailer

Sania reaches number one in Asia

Beating all controversies, injuries and inconsistent form, Sania Mirza has reached a highest point now. She is Asia’s number one women tennis player now. After appearing for the third round in Australian open tennis, Sania moved to 29th in international WTA rankings. 21-year-old Sania has reached a milestone in her international tennis career. Hope this year works well for Sania.

Strange finals

Generally I am a cricket fan. I never watch tennis. Because all the tournament’s final will be Federer vs. Nadal or at least one out of those two will appear in the finals. But something attracted me to the world of tennis this time. It’s nothing but the defeat of Federer and Nadal in the semi finals in Australian open. Two young bloods Novak Djokovic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga came to finals this time. Finally Djokovic who defeated the number one in semi finals opened his Grand slam account. The 20 year old Djokovic is the first player from his sporting nation Serbia to claim a Grand Slam title. Hope all the finals will be interesting like this.

Windows XP hacks continued...

Please refer to my previous post “Windows XP hacks” dated 22nd January, 2008 before doing the following changes in registry. You won’t be able to understand these hacks unless you read the above mentioned post:-

Applications not responding during shutdown:-
If an application does not respond during shutdown, XP will normally wait for a while to see if open applications shut down safely. To shutdown straightaway,
navigate to
HCU\Control Panel\Desktop
and to
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
In both these locations, change the string value called AutoEndTasks to 1 to kill applications immediately. WaitTo KillAppTimeout controls the default time in milliseconds, before killing the application. Reduce this spped to further speed up the process.

Start menu: Scrolling or Columns:-
By default, Start menu items are cascaded as columns across the screen. To switch the default start menu display mode to scrolling menu,
navigate to,
HCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
and to,
HLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Change the value of StartMenuScrollPrograms to “Yes”. Reboot the pc for the change to take effect.

Save RAM by turning off windows animation:-
In order to save your RAM, you can turn off unnecessary windows animation.
Navigate to,
HCU\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetricsChange the value of MinAnimate to 0 to disable Windows animation. A restart required.

Gilchrist announces his retirement

Australian vice captain Adam Glichrist has announced his retirement from all international cricket. The 36 year old Gilchrist holds the record of most test dismissals in international test matches. The Adelaide test and the series against India will be the last match for him. Gilchrist played 95 tests and 277 ODIs for Australia. He made his test debut against Pakistan in 1999 and ODI debut against South Africa in 1996.

Windows XP hacks continued....

Please refer to my previous post “Windows XP hacks” dated 22^nd January, 2008 before doing the following changes in registry. You won’t be able to understand these hacks unless you read the above mentioned post:-

Faster Shut down:-

Navigate to

HLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Check whether ClearPageFileAtShutdown value is set to zero. You should proceed to next step only after checking this. If its not set to zero, better don’t do the following steps.

Navigate to

HLM\System\CurrentControlSet\control

Double click on Wait to kill Service timeout entry. Overwrite the value 20000 with 5000 and click ok.

To terminate crashed applications immediately:-

Navigate to

HCU\Control panel\Desktop

Double click on AutoEndTasks and type the value 1. Click ok.

To load applications faster:-

Navigate to

HLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\MemoryManagement\Prefetch parameters

The default value for the EnablePrefetcher setting is 3. Change this value to 5 or 9. To see the improvement, reboot the system after the change.

Sachin tendulkar hits his 39th ton in Adelaide

Our Indian little master did it again. Sachin reached his 39^th ton in Adelaide as the whole ground was roaring “sachin!sachin!sachin!”. Sachin’s ton is always something special for Indians. The 34 year old master blaster, probably making his last appearance on Australian soil reached an unbeaten 124 to notch up his 39^th ton.

South Africa vs India in Chennai

South Africa is going to play three tests in India during March and April 2008. Smith’s team will arrive from Bangladesh on 18^th March. On 20^th March, they will play a warm up match with India A in Mumbai. Then three test matches will be played Chennai, Ahmedabad and Kanpur 26^th March to 15^th April. Chennai people are delighted as a test match is going to be played in Chennai after a long gap. South Africa’s last tour to India was in November 2004 in which India won the series by 1-0. Hope they will fight back this time.

Schedule

March 18 Arrival in Mumbai
March 20-22 South Africa vs. India A, Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai
March 26-30 First Test, Chennai
April 3-7 Second Test, Ahmedabad
April 11-15 Third Test, Kanpur

Heath Ledger passes away

Heath Ledger, the Australian-born actor was found dead on 22nd January, 2008 in an apartment in Manhattan with sleeping pills near his body. The 28 year old was found naked on the floor near the bed in an apartment in SoHo that he had been renting. A bottle of prescription sleeping pills was found on a nearby night table. It seems that there is no indication of suicide as there were no evidence like a note was found in the bedroom.

Heath Ledger moved to Los Angeles in 1999 and his first Hollywood film was the teenage romantic comedy “10 Things I Hate About You,” a send-up of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” in which he appeared opposite Julia Stiles. The entire Hollywood has conveyed its shock and condolence to his family and fans, which also include the cancellation of a function by George W Bush which he planned to attend.

Aishwarya Rai replaces Deepika in Robot

Aishwarya Rai has signed the prestigious Shankar's film with Rajinikanth, tentatively called Robot. The deal was officially signed on 22nd of january afternoon, around 3.30 pm. The contract was sent to Bachchan's bungalow in Mumbai for the Bachchans' approval, and it was duly signed. Aishwarya Rai is charging Rs 1.5 crore for the film, which was initially meant to be a SRK and Deepika Padukone. The amount will be some sort of a landmark as no Rajini heroine has ever commanded such an astronomical fee so far. Shriya was allegedly paid Rs 30 lakh for Sivaji.

Meanwhile, there seems to be some controversy around the title of this film. It seems that Shankar is planning to change the title of the movie to get tax relaxation. Robot is Shankar’s dream project.

Windows XP hacks

Following are some of the ways using which we can change the default options in Windows XP. But PLEASE BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY before doing these changes. I checked these techniques in my pc and I am sharing these with everybody.

Accessing Registry:-

In order to explore Windows XP, one must access the registry. This is done by following technique:-

1. Go to Start---->Run

2. Type regedit and press enter.

3. Registry editor will open up

I have used the following abbreviations:-

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT : HCR

HKEY_CURRENT_USER : HCU

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE : HLM

To disable Error reporting in Windows XP:-

Windows XP annoys us by showing a Error reporting dialog box. You can disable this by navigating to

HLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting

Here edit the DoReport value. Set it to 0 to disable the error reporting dialog once and for all.

Removing uninstalled programs from Add\Remove programs:-

Sometimes you might have deleted certain folders in your program files folder. But the application will be still available in the Add\Remove programs. In order to remove them, navigate to

HLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Look for the program name there and delete the key.

Speeding up the internet (Only for dial up users):-

Navigate to

HLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\ports

Modify the default string value of the port. For example, if you use COM1, its value will be “9600,n,8,1” by default, you can modify it to “921600,n,1,p”.

There will be some improvement in your internet speed.

To be continued…………..

Cold waves in North India

North India is shivering. The entire north India including the capital Delhi is in grip of severe cold wave. It was a relatively warmer beginning in this year. But now it is back to the typical winter shivers, as large parts of the plains of North and West India is attacked by a severe cold wave. Minimum temperature in Punjab goes down to minus three degrees. Further North, Srinagar is freezing at minus five degrees. And Jammu is virtually completely paralyzed. Many roads were blocked after a severe snowfall. The plains from Kolkata to Kutch were also caught in the grip of the cold with temperatures around one degree.

Kyocera K122 multimode mobile phone

When cell phones were introduced, it came with a sim card alone. Then it came with a memory card to support entertainment in cellphones. Then it came with internet. Now it’s the world of dual phones. Cell phones come with two sim cards. India’s galloping cellphone statistics says nearly 230 million mobile handsets are in use today. This is a nation of dual cellphone standards: the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). Many Indians were found to be using two phones one with CDMA and the other with GSM.

Engineers at the Bangalore Engineering Development centre of Kyocera Wireless (India), have helped to design a dual mode mobile phone which uses a single number to make both CDMA-based cellular calls and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls using the nearest WiFi network or hot spot, so that one can enjoy the features of both CDMA and GSM using a single

Specifications

General

Cellular technology-----CDMA2000 1X

Band / mode------------CDMA2000 1X 800

Weight------------------2.8 oz

Standby time------------Up to 250 h

Memory

Phone Book Capacity---150 names & numbers

Phone

Vibrating Alert-----------Yes

Polyphonic Ringer--------Yes

Alarm Clock-------------Yes

Calendar-----------------Yes

Messaging / Data Services

Voice Mail Capability----Yes

Short Messaging Service (SMS)-----Yes

Display

Display Type-------------LCD display

Display Resolution--------96 x 64 pixels

Color Support------------Monochrome

Power

Battery installed ---------1Lithium ion

Talk time ---------------Up to 240 min

Audible Battery Alert ----Yes

Cellular

Phone style---------------Candy bar

Caller ID-----------------Yes

Call Waiting--------------Yes

Volume Control ----------Yes

Ringer Control -----------Yes

Physical Characteristics

Width ----------------1.8 in

Depth ----------------0.6 in

Height ----------------4.1 in

Antenna---------------Integrated

NDTV announces Indian of the year awards

NDTV presented Indian of year awards to the Indian heroes in Taj Palace hotel in Delhi. Following are the details of the award winners.

Mukesh Ambani was named NDTV’s Businessman of the Year.

Rajnikath was named NDTV'S Entertainer of the Year.

Vishwanathan Anand was named NDTV's Sportsman of the Year.

A R Rehman, was given NDTV's Music Award.

The unsung hero, an award that was accepted jointly by the three Chiefs in Indian soldiers.

Global Indian award was given to Dr R K Pachauri

Leader of the year award was given to Dr.Manmohan Singh.

Shahrukh Khan won a special NDTV award.

World's thinnest notebook pc

Apple makes the breakthrough again. It has introduced the world’s thinnest notebook pc. It is 4 millimeters at its thinnest part and 19 millimeters at its thickest part. Its named as MacBook Air.

Specifications:-

13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display with 1280x800 resolution;

1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache;

800 MHz front-side bus;

2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM;

80GB hard disk drive with Sudden Motion Sensor;

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100;

Micro-DVI port (includes Micro-DVI to VGA and Micro-DVI to DVI Adapters);

built-in iSight video camera;

built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;

one USB 2.0 port;

one headphone port;

multi-touch TrackPad with support for advanced multi-touch gestures including tap, scroll, pinch, rotate and swipe; and

45 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

A big blow for Australians

India celebrated their first ever win at the WACA in Perth, also the first by an Asian team

Australia must wonder why they always run into India when in full flow. The same opponents had halted them in 2001 by conjuring a miracle in Kolkata; now they have done one better by overwhelming them at the bastion of Australian supremacy. Perth didn't quite live up to the hype, but it was still the paciest, bounciest track the Indians have experienced this summer and it is likely to remain so.

Since India's disastrous tour in 1991-92, the teams have met 21 times in Test cricket; the numbers now stand at 10-8 in Australia's favour. In the corresponding period Australia's record stands at 27-9 against England, 12-2 against Pakistan, 15-4 against South Africa and 9-1 against Sri Lanka. And India were the last team to humble Australia in a home Test.

Kumble had no hesitation in ranking this win the greatest of his career and he is hardly off the mark. The good thing about this Indian side is that the wins have been getting better and better. Adelaide in 2003 was special because no one had given them a chance of competing against Australia before the series and, more so, because they were 85 for 4 in the first innings chasing 550. Like Kolkata, it had a touch of the miraculous to it. And of course, Australia had contributed to their defeat by some reckless batting.

The result in Perth was also a victory for world cricket and there were few Australian journalists in the press box who were not alive to the fact; they were even prepared to rejoice over it. Australia's dominance has been boring and unhealthy and, even though this is not a sign of a decline, to see them challenged itself is uplifting.

The Australian season began in misery with Sri Lanka belying their promise. Now, Test cricket is alive again. The trophy has been won but there is a series that can be shared. Adelaide is a salivating prospect.

Bird flu in India

Bird flu spread to a third district in West Bengal while new areas in another three districts reported large-scale deaths of birds. In Birbhum and South Dinajpur, where the outbreak of bird flu was confirmed, culling continued for the third day today to curb the spread of the disease. The Centre confirmed that the samples from these two districts were the deadliest H5N1, which can mutate and infect Human Beings. Poultry deaths in these two districts and Murshidabad touched 85,000. The districts of Burdwan, Bankura, Cooch Behar,Nadia and Purulia and 24 South Paragans reported several cases of bird deaths. But central officials said tests of samples in Purulia, Cooch Behar and Nadia proved negative for bird flu.

What is bird flu?

A contagious disease caused by viruses that normally infect only birds. However, on rare occasions, these viruses have crossed the species barrier to infect humans. Since 1997, more than 100 confirmed cases of human infection with avian influenza viruses have been reported.

How is avian influenza(bird flu) detected in humans?

Avian influenza cannot be diagnosed by symptoms alone, so a laboratory test is required. Avian influenza is usually diagnosed by collecting a swab from the nose or throat during the first few days of illness. This swab is then sent to a laboratory, where they will either look for avian influenza virus using a molecular test, or they will try to grow the virus. Growing avian influenza viruses should only be done in laboratories with high levels of protection. If it is late in the illness, it may be difficult to find an avian influenza virus directly using these methods. If this is the case, it may still be possible to diagnose avian influenza by looking for evidence of the body's response to the virus. This is not always an option because it requires two blood specimens (one taken during the first few days of illness and another taken some weeks later), and it can take several weeks to verify the results.

Protecting yourself from Bird flu

So to stay safe, the advice is the same for protecting against any infection from poultry:

• Wash your hands with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds before and after handling raw poultry and eggs.
• Clean cutting boards and other utensils with soap and hot water to keep raw poultry from contaminating other foods.
• Use a food thermometer to make sure you cook poultry to a temperature of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit Consumers may wish to cook poultry to a higher temperature for personal preference.
• Cook eggs until whites and yolks are firm.

Kumble reaches 600

Kumble reached the milestone of 600 Test wickets in the third Test in Perth, getting rid of Andrew Symonds

Indian captain Anil Kumble became the third bowler in Test history to take 600 wickets on the second day of the third Test at Perth. Kumble’s 600th victim is Andrew Symonds. Kumble who is playing his 124th Test, joined the 600 wicket list with Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan after the dismissal of Symonds. After taking the wicket, he took the ball and raised it to the crowd with a smile on his face. Kumble’s 400th and 500th wicket came at home, in Bangalore and Mohali respectively, his 600th came in Perth. Creating confusion in batsmen’s mind is the key for Kumble’s success. Let’s hope his 700th wicket comes before his retirement.