May 2009
39 posts
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Brahmins and the Brahminical system in modern...
In a recent interview, N. R. Narayana Murthy, chief mentor and chairman of the board of Infosys Technologies Ltd., and belonging to the Kannada speaking brahmin caste had this to say about brahmins and the brahminical system in India’s caste-based society.
The Indian society is a society of ideas. It is a society that has revered talk. In this society, articulation is mistaken for...
April 2009
209 posts
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Real dumb laws enacted around the world
While musing on the eccentricities of our fellow human beings in other parts of the world, it might be interesting to read some of the dumb laws enacted around the world.
In the Philippines, cars whose license plates end with a 1 or 2 are not allowed on the roads on Monday, 3 or 4 on Tuesday, 5 or 6 on Wednesday, 7 or 8 on Thursday, and 9 or 0 on Friday, after 7 a.m.
Read more funny items,...
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The Swine Flu Theories - Where did it come from?
Dead pigs in China, evil factory farms in Mexico and an Al Qaeda plot involving Mexican drug cartels are a few wild theories seeking to explain a deadly swine flu outbreak.
Read more…
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Mexico swine flu masks with humour and creativity
See rest of the photos in this picture stream :)
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Diseases Without Borders
We heard of organizations like Doctors Without Borders, Reporters Without Borders, etc., now we are dealing with Diseases Without Borders, as in the Swine Influenza outbreak of strain H5N1. The Word Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the swine flu has the potential of a pandemic, and all of humanity is under threat. We live in a global village, and the flu virus does not know of borders...
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Prices Crash in India Real Estate Market
As in the rest of the world, the real estate market in India is trapped in a vicious cycle of plunging prices. With the bottom nowhere in sight, potential buyers do not want to try and catch a falling knife.
Fear has killed the herd mentality for now, give some time for greed to creep back in?
Read more…
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Walt Disney to plant millions of trees from...
Walt Disney Studios is turning box-office cash from its nature documentary Earth into seed money to plant trees in the rain forest. Now that is a commendable corporate act…
Read more…
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Social capital the next big industry?
Call it social capital or social venture or social entrepreneurism, but simply put, it is making money from doing good. Even though the returns promised by social venture funds are much lower than traditional venture fund investments, more and more investors want to be part of the social capital emerging trend.
A refreshing trend that departs from the norm of equating success with profit. The...
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Mukesh Ambani's Antilia on Altamount Road, Mumbai
India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, ranked #7 on 2009 Forbes Rich list, has nearly completed his new home named Antilia, located on Altamount Road in downtown Mumbai, India. The 27 storey tower house is reported as the most expensive residence in the world, costing in excess of $1 billion, with Mr. Ambani floating a company - Antilia Commercial Pvt Ltd - to handle the construction.
Atop...
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Who is going to bell the Wall Street fat cats?
Real financial reform would require a political class that was independent from Wall Street. In America, both are intertwined closely, and has been this way for generations. So the proverbial question is: Who is going to bell the cat?
Read more…
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Comparison of Indian and Chinese Insurance Markets
India and China are the top players in emerging markets for insurance. A comparison in the business in the two countries shows that while India spends a greater proportion of its gross domestic product (GDP) on life insurance, China spends relatively more on general insurance.
Read more…
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Water is the new gold in the world
Water is the new gold, and a few savvy countries and companies are already banking on it. Some 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawn for human use goes into agriculture, and it is getting scarce, suggesting another food crisis might not be too far away.
Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink?
Read more here…and this blog article too.
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America still remains the next big thing
After the global financial crisis dust settles, the United States will continue to benefit from the inward flow of foreign money, talent, and labor. Others may grumble about the creditworthiness of Uncle Sam in light of current emergency-driven deficits, but in the foreseeable future, it will still be the desired safe place for global investments.
Read more…
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City of London Melts in the Global Financial...
Economist predicts that Britain will soon have the highest budget deficit in the developed world, as the financial services industry in the city of London wanes.
Read more…
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The New Gold Rush in California
Not since the Great Depression have so many hard-luck people been lured by prospecting, hoping to find their fortune tumbling down a mountain stream. The recession and high gold prices are helping to fuel the latest California gold rush, especially among workers who have lost jobs.
Remember the movie Mackenna’s Gold?
Read more…
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“To give up friendship with fools and quit their company,
Such loss is said to...”
– Tiruvalluvar, Verse 797 of Tirukural
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“The worst poverty of worthy men is far better,
Than wealth amassed by improper...”
– Tiruvalluvar, Verse 657 of Tirukural
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Internet Users in Developing Countries are too...
The New York Times explores the problem: Free websites like MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook easily find followings overseas, but advertisers don’t want those users. About half the world’s Internet users are too poor to draw commercial interest.
Read more…
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Shigeaki Hinohara: Living Long, Living Good
At the age of 97 years and 4 months, Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world’s longest-serving physicians and educators. Hinohara’s magic touch is legendary: Since 1941 he has been healing patients at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke’s College of Nursing. After World War II, he envisioned a world-class hospital and college springing from...
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The I-Me-My Generation in America
In their new book - The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement - psychologists Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell explore the rise of narcissism in American culture and explain how this can lead to aggression, materialism and shallow values.
Read more in this review, and an another review here.
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GM kills the Pontiac brand, the poor mans Cadillac
The Pontiac brand, credited with originating the muscle car, will no longer be part of General Motors future lineup of automobile brands.
Read more…
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Globalization and the risk of catastrophe
As the world grapples with the worst global economic crisis in decades and the possibility of a flu pandemic, a growing body of research suggests globalization and the complexity of the modern global economy may make us more vulnerable than ever to catastrophe.
Read more…
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Brand Dalai Lama cannot be valued
While the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, marks his fiftieth year as a Tibetan refugee in India, Anand Sankar from Business Standard does some number crunching to determine how much is he worth? This is totally futile exercise, however detailed it may be, as the Dalai Lama is not out in this world to make a profit, and his brand image has a very high intangible goodwill that you cannot put a...
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Warnings of exodus from UK due to high taxes
Andrew Lloyd Webber writes in The Mail on Britain’s new 50 per cent top rate of income tax:
Here’s the truth. The proposed top rate of income tax is not 50 per cent. It is 50 per cent plus 1.5 per cent national insurance paid by employees plus 13.3 per cent paid by employers. That’s not 50 per cent. Two years from now, Britain will have the highest tax rate on earned income...
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“How can he practice true compassion,
Who eats the flesh of an animal to fatten...”
– Tiruvalluvar, Verse 251 of Tirukural
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“Of all a man’s blessings we know of none greater than,
The begetting of...”
– Tiruvalluvar, Verse 61 of Tirukural
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“To win once, a gambler loses a hundred times.
Is that the way to win either...”
– Tiruvalluvar, Verse 932 of Tirukural
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Confucius and happiness in 21st century
Yu Dan in a book - Confucius from the Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World - reinvents Confucius’s 2,500-year-old ideas for the 21st century.
Confucius, the old chinese sage may even help us to unravel one of modernity’s central paradoxes, she adds.
“In modern China, our lives are visibly improving in a material sense, yet many people are growing more dissatisfied. Because we have a highly...
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Is materialism losing its allure?
A Pew Research Center survey released recently finds that the recession has changed Americans’ minds about many items that not long ago used to seen as necessities, which now can be classified as luxuary items, and also a culture of materialism.
Read more…also this blog…
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Mahatma Gandhi's thoughts on humility...
“The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth.”
Exerted from Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography - My Experiments with Truth.
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China doubles its gold reserves - Return of Gold?
China has quietly almost doubled its gold reserves to become the world’s fifth-biggest holder of the precious metal, it emerged in a move that signals the revival of bullion after years of fading importance.
Read more…
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What do Mona Lisa and Bernard Madoff have in...
A billion dollar smile :) …look at the similarity…all we need is some artist to paint Bernie on canvas!
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Swine Flu is New Risk of Pandemic...
The World Health Organization (WHO) said genetic tests of the strain of virus (H5N1) in 12 of the Mexican victims had the same genetic structure as swine flu, a new strain of designated H1N1, seen in seven people in California and Texas.
Read more … and the risk …
More References:
Statement by WHO Director-General, Dr Margaret Chan
CDC Swine Flu website
CDC video of symptoms of...
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How Madoff Made Off With America
Ready or not, a movie of the life and times of Bernard L. Madoff is apparently already in the works. The Insider reports that “Madoff: Made Off With America” had been in production for over three weeks. The film, The Insider said, will span Mr. Madoff’s life beginning with his childhood and will include locations like New York, Aspen, London and Dubai.
Moral of the story? Notoriety...
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Hedge funds set sight on next bubble
Hedge funds are evil. We all know that without being told. They’re secretive clubs of filthy-rich guys whose only goal is to make each other richer so they can buy overpriced art and palatial estates. But can they bring us out of this economic mess with their horded money? Sure they can, but they will only set us up for the next bubble. And then they will be the ones to prick that bubble...
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Profit Alone Not Enough For Being In Business
One of the most profound statements of our time was made by the President of The World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Bjorn Stigson - “Business cannot survive in societies that fail.”
Read more …
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WatchPicture perfect and naughty eyes prerequiste for candidates standing in Indian Election? What a marketing sham, where is the cadidates track-record and trust-worthiness in all this…I guess politicians are of the same feather anywhere in the world?
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Grameen America is Banking for the Unbanked
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, known as the “banker to the poor” for making small loans in impoverished countries, also known as micro-credit, is now doing business through Grameen America in the center of capitalism - New York City.
Read more…
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Census says fewer Americans are moving
The American Moving and Storage Association said the number of people changing residences had been dropping for four years and fell 17.7 percent from 2007 to 2008. The first quarter of 2009 is likely to be even worse, the trade group said.
Read more …
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US economy headed for a long slog?
For a decade after its stock market and real-estate bubble burst in 1990, Japan bumped along at an annual growth of just 0.5%. It was dubbed the Lost Decade, and it could happen to the US. The recession ends but the economy plods along, growing too slowly to bring down unemployment for years.
Read more …
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Earth Day Initiative - Buy Recycling Container and...
Today is Earth Day and how can you take a very small step to save our planet? For starters, if you don’t already recycle, buy a blue recycle bin and start recycling. The Rubbermaid Commercial - 18 Gallon Recycling Bin as shown in above picture is an investment for saving our planet.
Buy online in USA at this link or just any other merchant…
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Global economic crisis resetting capitalism?
The top executive of General Electric Co. (GE) Jeff Immelt said that he couldn’t predict when the recession would end or how bad it will be, but said the global economic crisis has “fundamentally reset” the way companies do business and capitalism itself. Could there be weight is his statement on capitalism, given the GE corporate slogan is - imagination at work.
Read more...
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Egypt: 3,000-year-old temples discovered
Archaeologists have unearthed four new temples amidst the 3,000-year-old remains of an ancient fortified city near Sinai in Egypt.
Read this story and checkout the pictures.
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Highest-End Real Estate Markets Around the World
In 2008, with falling prices, sluggish sales and currency fluctuations, the credit crunch and global financial crisis have hurt real estate in places that have traditionally been the most expensive markets in the world. Check out the world’s most expensive high-end real estate markets!
View the slide-show…
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The Blogger Profession is Growing
In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions in blogs.
Read more…
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World Digital Library: A Treasure for Learning
The World Digital Library will make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and more. The objectives of the World Digital Library are to promote international and inter-cultural...
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India Calling: An Indian American Returns to India
India did not export brains; it invested them. It sent millions away. In the freedom of new soil, they flowered. They seeded a new generation that, having blossomed, did what humans have always done: chase the frontier of the future.
Read more … Columnist Anand Giridharadas tells us what coming back to your homeland is all about in this podcast.
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