Challenges are needed to bring out the best

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the water close to Japan has not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fisher men went, the longer it took to bring the fish. If the return trip took more time, the fish were not fresh.

To solve this problem, fish companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer.

However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen fish. And they did not like the taste of frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price. So, fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, they were tired, dull, and lost their fresh-fish taste.

The fishing industry faced an impending crisis! But today, they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan. How did they manage? To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks but with a small shark. The fish are challenged and hence are constantly on the move. The challenge they face keeps them alive and fresh!

This learning can be applied anywhere and everywhere in all spheres of our lives. The sharks à challenges are much needed to bring out the best in us.

Perfect Life partner : A must read for all unmarried!​!!

FINDING AND KEEPING A LIFE PARTNER
Golden rules for finding your life partner by Dov Heller, M.A.

When it comes to making the decision about choosing a life partner, no one wants to make a mistake. Yet, with a divorce rate of close to 50%, it appears that many are making serious mistakes in their approach to finding Mr./Miss. Right!

If you ask most couples who are engaged why they're getting married, they'll say: "We're in love"; I believe this is the .. 1 mistake people make when they date.

Choosing a life partner should never be based on love
Though this may sound "not politically correct", there's a profound truth here. Love is not the basis for getting married. Rather, love is the result of a good marriage. When the other ingredients are right, then the love will come. Let me say it again: "You can't build a lifetime relationship on love alone"; You need a lot more!!!

Here are five questions you must ask yourself if you're serious about finding and keeping a life partner.

QUESTION 1: Do we share a common life purpose?

Why is this so important? Let me put it this way: If you're married for 20 or 30 years, that's a long time to live with someone. What do you plan to do with each other all that time? Travel, eat and jog together? You need to share something deeper and more meaningful. You need a common life purpose. Two things can happen in a marriage: (1) You can grow together, or (2)you can grow apart. 50% of the people out there are growing apart. To make a marriage work, you need to know what you want out of life! Bottom line; marry someone who wants the same thing.

QUESTION 2: Do I feel safe expressing my feelings and thoughts with this person?

This question goes to the core of the quality of your relationship. Feeling safe means you can communicate openly with this person. The basis of having good communication is trust - i.e. trust that I won't get punished"; or hurt for expressing my honest thoughts and feelings. A colleague of mine defines an abusive person as someone with whom you feel afraid to express your thoughts and feelings. Be honest with yourself on this one. Make sure you feel emotionally safe with the person you plan to marry.

QUESTION 3: Is he/she a mensch?

A mensch is someone who is a refined and sensitive person. How can you test? Here are some suggestions. Do they work on personal growth on a regular basis? Are they serious about improving themselves? A teacher of mine defines a good person as "someone who is always striving to be good and do the right ";. So ask about your significant other: What do they do with their time? Is this person materialistic? Usually a materialistic person is not someone whose top priority is character refinement.
 
There are essentially two types of people in the world: (1) People who are dedicated to personal growth and 2) people who are dedicated to seeking comfort. Someone whose goal in life is to be comfortable will put personal comfort ahead of doing the right thing. You need to know that before walking down the aisle.

QUESTION 4: How does he/she treat other people?

The one most important thing that makes any relationship work is the ability to give. By giving, we mean the ability to give another person pleasure.

 
Ask: Is this someone who enjoys giving pleasure to others or are they wrapped up in themselves and self- absorbed?
 
To measure this, think about the following: How do they treat people whom they do not have to be nice to, such as waiters, bus boys, taxi drivers, etc.. How do they treat their parents and siblings? Do they have gratitude and appreciation?
 
If they don't have gratitude for the people who have given them everything; can you do nearly as much for them? You can be sure that someone, who treats others poorly, will eventually treat you poorly as well.

QUESTION 5: Is there anything I'm hoping to change about this person after we're married?

Too many people make the mistake of marrying someone with the intention of trying to "improve"; them after they're married. As a colleague of mine puts it: "You can probably expect someone to change after marriage for the worse" If you cannot fully accept this person the way they are now, then you are not ready to marry them.

In conclusion, dating doesn't have to be difficult and treacherous. The key is to try leading a little more with your head and less with your heart. It pays to be as objective as possible when you are dating; to be sure to ask questions that will help you get to the key issues. Falling in love is a great feeling, but when you wake up with a ring on your finger, you don't want to find yourself trouble because you didn't do your homework.

Another perspective... There are some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance..

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you let go of or at least minimize your time with draining, negative, incompatible, not-going anywhere relationships. Observe the relationships around you.

Pay attention...

Which ones lift and which ones lean?
Which ones encourage and which ones discourage?
Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are going downhill?
When you leave certain people do you feel better or feel worse?
Which ones always have drama or don't really understand, know, or appreciate you?

The more you seek quality, respect, growth, peace of mind, love and truth around you...the easier it will become for you to decide who gets to sit in the front row and who should be moved to the balcony of your life.

An African proverb states, "Before you get married, keep both eyes open, and after you marry, close one eye"; Before you get involved and make a commitment to someone, don't let lust, desperation, immaturity, ignorance, pressure from others or a low self-esteem make you blind to warning signs. Keep your eyes open, and don't fool yourself that you can change someone or that what you see as faults aren't really that important.

Do you bring out the best in each other?

Do you compliment and compromise with each other, or do you compete, compare and control?

What do you bring to the relationship?

Do you bring past relationships, past hurt, past mistrust, past pain? You can't take someone to the altar to alter them. You can't make someone love you or make someone stay.

If you develop self-esteem, spiritual discernment, and "a life"; you won't find yourself making someone else responsible for your happiness or responsible for your pain. Seeking status, sex, and security are the wrong

reasons to be in a relationship.

10 Important thing those keep a relationship strong-

1. TRUST
2. COMMUNICATION
3. INTIMACY
4. A SENSE OF HUMOR
5. SHARING TASKS
6. SOME GETAWAY TIME WITHOUT BUSINESS OR CHILDREN
7. DAILY EXCHANGES (meal, shared activity, hug, call, touch, notes, etc.)
8. SHARING COMMON GOALS AND INTERESTS
9. GIVING EACH OTHER SPACE TO GROW WITHOUT FEELING INSECURE
10. GIVING EACH OTHER A SENSE OF BELONGING AND ASSURANCES OF COMMITMENT

If these qualities are missing, the relationship will erode as resentment withdrawal, abuse, neglect, and dishonesty; and pain will replace.

Very Interesting . . . Yet True

• Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
• The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
• Our eyes remain the same size from birth onward, but our noses and ears never stop growing.
• You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching TV.
• A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation.
• Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
• The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.
• When the moon is directly overhead, you weigh slightly less.
• Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never telephoned his wife or mother because they were both deaf.
• "I Am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
• Colgate faced big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries because Colgate translates into the command "go hang yourself."
• The smallest unit of time is the yoctosecond.
• Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
• "Bookkeeper" is the only word in English language with three consecutive double letters.
• Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do.
• The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language. (Sentences containing every letter of the alphabet are called "Pangrams” or “holalphabetic sentences”)
• If the population of China walked past you in single line, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
• China has more English speakers than the United States.
• Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.
• Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of blood vessels.
• An average person uses the bathroom 6 times per day.
• Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies.
• Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.
• According to Genesis 1:20-22, the chicken came before the egg.
• The longest place name still in use is: Taumatawhakatangihangaoauauotameteaturipukakpikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu - a New Zealand hill.
• If you leave Tokyo by plane at 7:00am, you will arrive in Honolulu at approximately 4:30pm the previous day.
• Scientists in Australia's Parkes Observatory thought they had positive proof of alien life, when they began picking up radio-waves from space. However, after investigation, the radio emissions were traced to a microwave in the building.
• Strange-but-true the average four year-old child asks over four hundred questions a day.
• The average person presses the snooze button on their alarm clock three times each morning.
• The three wealthiest families in the world have more assets than the combined wealth of the forty-eight poorest nations.
• The first owner of the Marlboro cigarette Company died of lung cancer.

"Namaskar" - Meaning and Benefits

The word 'Namaskar' is derived from the root 'namaha', which means paying obeisance (Namaskar) or salutation. From Science of Justice - 'Namaha' is a physical action expressing that 'you are superior  to me in all qualities and in every way'..


Worldly Benefits - By doing Namaskar to a deity or a Saint, unknowingly their virtues and capabilities are impressed upon our minds. Consequently we start emulating them, thus changing ourselves for the better.


Spiritual Benefits - Increase in humility and reduction of ego / Enhancement in the spiritual emotion of surrender and gratitude / Gaining the Sattva component and faster spiritual progress. We receive the highest amount of Sattva component from the posture (mudra) of Namaskar. By  doing Namaskar to Deities or Saints we receive subtle frequencies emitted by them, e.g. Frequencies of Sattva or Bliss.


How does one do Namaskar to an individual of the same age group?

When meeting someone of the same age-group do Namaskar by joining the fingers and placing tips of the thumbs on the Anahat chakra (at the centre of the chest). This type of Namaskarincreases the spiritual emotion of humility in the embodied soul. Sattva frequencies from the universe are attracted by the fingers (which act as an antenna) and are then transmitted to the entire body through the thumbs which have awakened the Anahat chakra. This activates the soul energy of the embodied soul. In addition, by doing Namaskar in this manner to each other, frequencies of blessings are also transmitted.

What is correct method & science of doing Namaskar to God?

A. 'While paying obeisance to God, bring the palms together.
1. The fingers should be held loose (not straight and rigid) while joining the hands or palms.
2. The fingers should be kept close to each other without leaving any space between them.
3. The fingers should be kept away from the thumbs.
4. The inner portion of the palms should not touch each other & there should be some space between them.
Note: The stage of awakening of spiritual emotion (Bhav) is important to the seeker at the primary level. Hence, for awakening spiritual emotion (Bhav), he should keep space in between the joined hands, whereas a seeker who is at the advanced level should refrain from leaving such space in between the palms to awaken the unexpressed spiritual emotion (Bhav).

B. After joining the hands one should bow and bring the head forward..

C. While tilting the headforward, one should place the thumbs at the mid-brow region, I.e. At the point between the eyebrows and try to concentrate on the feet of the Deity.

D. After that, instead of bringing the folded hands down immediately, they should be placed on the mid-chest region for a minute in such way that the wrists touch the chest; then only  should the hands be brought down.

Underlying Science in this action

A. The fingers should not be stiff while bringing the palms together because this will lead to a decrease in Sattva component from the vital and mental sheaths and thus increase the raja component in them. By keeping the fingers relaxed, the subtlest Sattva component will get activated. With the strength of this energy, embodied souls are able to fight powerful distressing energies.

B. In the Namaskar posture, the joined fingers act as an antenna to assimilate the Chaitanya (Divine consciousness) or the Energy transmitted by a Deity. While joining the palms, the fingers must touch each other because leaving space between the fingers will result in accumulation of energy in that space. This energy will be immediately transmitted in various directions;  therefore the seeker's body will lose the benefit of this potent energy.

C. About the space to be maintained between the palms: For a seeker at the primary level, it is advisable to leave space between the palms; it is not necessary for a seeker at an advanced level to leave space between the palms.

D. After joining the palms, bow a little. This posture puts pressure on the navel and activates the five vital energies situated there. Activation of these vital energies in the body makes it sensitive to accepting sattvik frequencies. This later awakens the 'Atma shakti'  (I.e. Soul energy of an embodied soul). And later, Bhav is awakened. This enables the body to accept in large measures the Chaitanya emitted by the Deity.

E. Touch the thumbs to the mid-brow region. (Please see images above..) This posture awakens the Bhav of surrender in an embodied soul, and  in turn activates the appropriate subtle frequencies of Deities from the Universe. They enter through the ’Adnya chakra’ (Sixth of the 7 chakras in the Kundalini) of the embodied soul and settle in the space parallel to it at the back interior of the head. In this space the openings to all the three channels converge; namely, the Moon, the Central and the Sun channels. Due to the movement of these subtler frequencies in this space, the Central Channel is activated. Consequently it facilitates the speedy transmission of these frequencies throughout the body, leading to purification of both the gross and subtle bodies at the same time.

F. After doing Namaskar, to completely imbibe the Chaitanya of the Deity (that has entered the hands by now), instead of bringing the folded hands down immediately, place them on the mid-chest region in such a way that the wrists touch the chest.
The 'Anahat chakra' is located at the centre of the chest. Akin to the Adnya chakra, the activity of the Anahat chakra is also to absorb the Sattva frequencies. By touching the wrists to the chest, the Anahat chakra is activated and it helps in absorbing more of the Sattva component.

Effect of this Posture

By doing Namaskar in this manner, the Deity's Chaitanya is absorbed to a greater extent by the body, as compared to other methods of doing Namaskar. This gives maximum distress to negative energies. The negative energies that have manifested in a person are unable to touch their thumbs at the mid-brow region in Namaskar. (The negative energies are subtle. But at times they enter an individual's body and manifest it. - Editor)'

Q. What is the reason for not wrapping a cloth around the neck while performing circumambulation, doing Namaskar, ritualistic worship, sacrificial fires, chanting and while visiting Guru and deities?
A. When a cloth is wrapped around the neck, it does not activate the Vishuddha chakra (in the throat region) and hence an individual gets less benefit of the Sattva component.

Why should one always do Namaskar to elders?

Meaning: When an elderly person arrives, the vital energy of the young person starts rising and when he gets up and does Namaskar, it returns to normal. - Manusmruti 2.120; Mahabharat, Udhyog, Chapter (Section) 38.1, Sr. no. 104, 64-65

Explanation: 'As the sojourn of the elderly person is gradually towards the southern direction, that is, towards the region of Lord Yama (towards death), his body starts emitting raja and tama frequencies on a high scale. When such an elderly person comes in the vicinity of any younger individual, these frequencies start affecting the younger person. A subtle magnetic field is created between the two. Consequently, the vital energy of the younger person is pulled upward. This way the younger person can suffer due to sudden momentum to his vital energy. When this younger person doesNamaskar to the elderly person, some amount of the Central channel of his Kundalini system is activated and the Sattva component in it starts increasing. Consequently the raja and tama components in him are influenced by the Sattva component and the vital energy comes back to normal state. Hence on arrival of an elderly person, it is customary for the younger individuals to do Namaskar to them.'

Doing Namaskar to Elders..
When travelling, prior to the commencement of a journey and upon returning, why should one do Namaskar to elders in the family?

'Namaskar to the elders in the family is one way of surrendering to the God principle in them. When an embodied soul bows in Namaskar to an elder by surrendering to the God principle in him, at that time a sense of compassion is created in his body. This compassion percolates right upto his subtle body. At that time, energy of his mind is activated and in turn activates the five vital energies, which are located at the seat of the Manipur chakra (situated in the Naval region). Transmission of these five vital energies all over the body then awakens the soul energy. With the strength of the soul energy, the Central channel gets activated and converts the expressed energy of spiritual emotion to the unexpressed energy of spiritual emotion. With the help of this unexpressed energy of spiritual emotion, the embodied soul, through the medium of elders, gains the required Deity's principle from the Universe. For this purpose, while leaving the house on a
Journey, the embodied soul should do Namaskar to elders and with the strength of Sattva frequencies has to protect himself from distressing frequencies in the atmosphere. Similarly, returning from a journey, one should immediately do Namaskar to elders and awaken the God principle in them, which would disintegrate the raja-tama particles from the air around him, which might have been brought along.

What is the correct method of doing Namaskar to Saints?

1. The portion of head, which should be placed at the feet :
We can imbibe maximum Chaitanya through the Brahmarandhra (the seventh chakra of the Kundalini system located in the crown of our head). Since it (Brahmarandhra) cannot be placed at a Saints's feet, the part of head beginning above the forehead is to be placed at the feet of Saints. Due to this, maximum Chaitanya emanating from Their feet can enter into the one doing Namaskar.

2.. The exact spot to place one's head on a Saint's feet:
The big toes of Saints emit maximum Chaitanya; hence we should place our head on the big toe, than on their foot. If we are in a position to touch both the toes, then place the head on the right big toe.

3. The position of hands when placing the head on a Saint's feet:

A. Some interlock their hands behind their backs at the waist and do Namaskar. If we are in a position to touch both their toes, then we should place the hands one on each foot and the head should be placed on the big toe of the right foot. If we are in a position to touch one of Their toes, then place both the hands on it and keep the head on the big toe.

B. Some do Namaskar by placing hands on the ground. This is also wrong because if the hands are placed on the ground then the Chaitanya emanating from the Saint's feet are absorbed by one and then returns to the earth through the hands of the one doing Namaskar. Thus the person does not benefit from it.
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C. Some cross their hands and place them on the feet of Saints, that is, their right hand on the right foot of the Saint and their left hand on the left foot of the Saint while doingNamaskar. This is a crude imitation of the manner in which Christians place their crossed hands on their chest.. Instead, our right hand should be placed on the left foot of the Saint and our left hand on the right foot of the Saint. This is convenient also. However, if a Guru has started some procedure in a particular sect, then the hands are to be placed in that manner only.

D. The hands are to be positioned in such a way that the palms are placed on the feet..

How to do Namaskar to the wooden footwear (paduka) of Saints?

Namaskar to the wooden footwear (paduka) of Saints

'The left paduka symbolises Lord Shiva and the right symbolises Divine Energy. The left paduka is the unmanifest saviour energy and the right is the unmanifest destroyer energy of the Supreme God. The saviour or destroyer energy of the Supreme God emanates from the 'pegs' of the paduka as per the need. When we do Namaskar by placing our head on the 'pegs' of the paduka, some may experience distress due to the inability to tolerate the manifest energy emitting from it. Hence, while doing Namaskar to the paduka, instead of the pegs, place the head on the foremost part i.e. The place where the Saints place their toes.'

Should one do Namaskar to a dead body?

Q. If this be so, should we do Namaskar to the dead bodies in Kaliyuga only as a custom? If it is a custom, can we discontinue it?A. One can maintain respect for the dead person by doing Namaskar and in addition set an ideal with regards to respecting elders. In Kaliyuga, from this one will benefit at an emotional level and not at a spiritual level. However, one should not discontinue this custom; instead one could learn how to get spiritual benefit from it. Due to the deterioration of the Sattva component in embodied souls, this practice has become a mere custom in Kaliyuga. However, as per the saying, 'God exists where there is spiritual emotion', while doing Namaskar to a dead body if we have a spiritual emotion that we are doing Namaskar  to the God principle in it, then the God principle in the dead body awakens and we receive God's blessings. This happens because the God principle is immortal and has no limitations that a physical body has.

Q. It is said that one should not do Namaskar to a sleeping person. In Kaliyuga if one does Namaskar by touching the dead body, then are the chances of getting distress from negative energies not higher?A. Yes it is; but while doing Namaskar it is important that the action be performed with correct spiritual emotion. Since Namaskar is done to the God principle in the dead body instead of activating raja, tama components, it activates the Godly principle in the dead body and bestows Sattva corresponding to the degree of spiritual emotion.'

'One hand' touch to the Temple Steps
Action: Touch step with fingers of right hand & move same hand over  head.

Science: 'The area around the temple is charged with frequencies of Deities which leads to an increase in the Sattva component. The presence of Divine consciousness in the area charges even the stairs in a temple. 'Climbing' steps is one of the activities, which increases the raja component in the body. Hence, the raja component is already activated in the body of an embodied soul so by touching the steps with the fingers of the right hand, the Sattva component and peace from the charged premise, get transmitted to the body through the right hand. In addition, from this action, the activated raja component in the body can be controlled through the medium of the surya nadi (Sun channel). This means that, for a moment, the activities of the Sun channel can be stopped. From this process, the embodied soul learns to enhance the Sattva component through raja dominant actions. Therefore, it is very essential to perform the appropriate sattvik actions at each corresponding level, hence the method of touching the steps with fingers of the right hand and then moving the fingers or palm over the head. Even the dust present on the steps is charged with Chaitanya and so we must respect it and derive spiritual benefit from it.. If the embodied soul harbours the spiritual emotion that 'the Chaitanya from the steps be transmitted all over my body from the dust on my hand', then it will give increasing benefit to the embodied soul. In addition if the ego of the embodied soul is less at that time then it gives even more benefit. When any action is performed devoid of ego or 'I'ness it is treated as a 'non-action' (akarma-karma).'

Do's and Dont's while doing Namaskar

Q. Why should the eyes be closed while doing Namaskar?

'Joining hands while bowing the head amounts to saluting God or the divinity in the person in front. The eyes are closed while doing Namaskar to God or any respected person, to enable one to have the vision of God within us.'

Q. Why should the footwear be taken off while doing Namaskar?

While sitting, partaking meals, sleeping, wishing and doing Namaskar to Gurus and other elderly people, footwear should not be worn. - Gautamsmruti 9.

1. Footwear increases the raja-tama components in a person.

2. Paying obeisance (Namaskar) with high raja-tama components will not help in activating the Kundalini (centre in the spiritual energy system).

3. The ability to absorb the sattva component too is reduced, due to an increase in the raja-tama components, leading to little benefit from a Namaskar.

4. Doing Namaskar to a Deity, with footwear on, may also invite the wrath of the Deity.’

Q. Why is it not advisable to hold any object while doing Namaskar?

1. While doing Namaskar if an object is held in the hands, usually the fingers and their tips are in a curled position and not straight. As a result, the sattva component received is unable to enter the tips of the fingers.

2.. The sattva component emitted towards the seeker, strikes the object held and bounces back. Also, at times, instead of the person absorbing the sattva component, the object may absorb it.

3. If the object in the hand is raja or tama predominant, and if it is touched to the forehead or chest while doing Namaskar, then the raja-tama components from it mayenter the body of the one who is doing Namaskar.

Q. While doing Namaskar, why are men not supposed to cover their head, whereas women are advised to cover their head? One should not do Namaskar with footwear on, covering the head or holding any objects. (But women should cover their head with their saris and only then do Namaskar) - Apastamb Dharmasutra 1.4.14.19

While doing Namaskar the Kundalini gets activated at the chakra which is touched by the folded hands. This leads to the absorption of the Sattva component in greater proportion in the body. Sometimes due to the activation of the Kundalini, Sattva component starts entering the body through the head. But at times the distressing energies try to take advantage of this and mix black energy with the Sattva component. The potential to activate the Kundalini is higher in men as compared to women. Hence they are hardly affected by this negative energy. Contrary to this, as women are more vulnerable, they get affected by distressing energies to a greater extent and thus they can experience distress. That is why, when doing Namaskar, women are advised to cover their head with the ends of their sari. This creates a barrier between the head and the distressing energies and prevents themfrom penetrating the body of the woman. However, to some extent this also blocks benevolent frequencies from entering the women. (Benevolent frequencies are subtler than negative frequencies; hence they enter a woman to some extent even though the sari covers her head.) However, the proper posture of Namaskar gives maximum Sattva component to an individual and hence women too get required benefits. This shows how God takes care of every devotee. Doing Namaskar without these restrictions is equally effective if the devotee does it with spiritual emotion.

Yoga Diet: Know Sattvic, Rajasic and Tamasic Food

Yoga is so much more than a workout. Yoga is about toning and stretching exercises that are great for the entire body; it is about pranayama breathing techniques; meditation; and correct diet for the body. In fact yogic diet is one of the five main principles of yoga. Eating healthy and according to the principles of yoga, will make you feel healthy and clean, and look after your complete well being. Sages believed in a philosophy, which is that energy has three basic qualities –

• Guna – this energy maintains equilibrium
• Sattva means purity; Rajas means passion
• Tamas means darkness

Food and diet can be categorized into three groups:

 

Sattvic Food: The following are the characteristics of Sattvic diet.

1. It is the purest form of food.
2. This is the best food for yoga practitioners.
3. It brings peace to the mind and is nourishing for the body.
4. Sattvic food is great for overall fitness and for a balanced energy flow.
5. Sattvic food includes cereals, honey, herbs, sprouts, seeds, nuts, legumes, butter, milk, fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh juices, and whole meal bread.

Rajasic Food: The following are the characteristics of Rajasic diet.

1. This food is salty, dry, sour, hot and bitter.
2. It is not good for the mind-body balance.
3. It tends to excite and over-stimulate the body, and makes the mind restless.
4. Rajasic food includes chocolate, salt, eggs, fish, tea and coffee, sharp spices.

Tamasic Food: The following are the characteristics of Tamasic diet.

1. This food is not good for the body or the mind.
2. It brings in a sense of inertia, clouds the power of reasoning, and sucks out the energy.
3. It destroys the body’s resistance to diseases.
4. It also invokes feelings of anger, jealousy and greed in people.
5. Overeating is a Tamasic behavior.
6. Tamastic food includes meat, alcohol, tobacco, onions, garlic, fermented foods and over ripe foods.

Yoga and diet:

According to yoga, one must eat the right kind of food to achieve a balance between the soul, mind and body. Sattvic diet is best for yoga practitioners. But Tamasic and Rajasic foods are not good for the body and mind, and are best avoided.Sattvic diet is nourishing, energizing and easy to digest. If you consume Sattivic foods that are mentioned above, then you will feel more energetic, alert, active, calm and spiritual. Yogic food generally comprises of lacto-vegetarian ingredients, which include cheese, milk, curd, honey as well as fresh fruits and vegetables.

You must also cut down on meat products as the proteins in meat take too much time to digest and aren’t good for the liver and kidneys. You can gradually stop eating poultry products and fish. You must include whole grains and fresh vegetables and fruits in your diet. You must also drink two liters of water in a day, and include fluids like milk, soya, fresh juices in your diet.

 
- source -
 

How Economic Reforms Transformed India

This is how economic reforms have transformed India 

December 3, 2010 

Jagdish Bhagwati, University Professor, Economics and Law, Columbia University, delivered the Third Hiren Mukerjee Memorial Annual Parliamentary Lecture in the Central Hall of Parliament House on December 2, 2010. Here are the edited excerpts of his excellent analysis of how the economic reforms have benefited India:

Perhaps the most appropriate tribute to the memory of the illustrious parliamentarian, Professor Hiren Mukerjee, would consist in the celebration of Indian democracy of which the Lok Sabha itself is the chief symbol.

India was for decades unique in her democracy among the post-colonial countries that had gained Independence. Today that uniqueness has thankfully disappeared as several countries around the world have followed in India’s footsteps.

But our embrace of democracy from the outset does set us apart from, and puts us in a higher pecking order relative to China whose egregious denial of democratic and other human rights detracts hugely from admiration for its stellar economic performance.

India has not just the Lok Sabha and elections; it also has all the elements of what we now call a ’liberal democracy’. I must add that our democracy has been a source of immense gratification, not just to elites, but also to the common man.

It is easy to slip into the fallacy that the masses yearn for economic gains, not for political rights. I have long argued that economic betterment, in a country with an immense backlog of poverty, inevitably takes time.

Even bitter critics praise India’s boom

But let me to turn now to the central question that I wish to address today: the question of economic reforms, what they have accomplished, and where we are and should be headed.

On what we have accomplished so far, what I call the ’Reforms Yesterday’, there are two conflicting ’narratives’that we find currently, one adoringly celebratory and the other hypercritical and condemning.
Perhaps the most dramatic, optimistic view of India has come from the once sceptical magazine, The Economist, which famously wrote nearly twenty years ago that India was a tiger that was crouched for long but unable to leap; the danger was that rigor mortis had set in.

But the magazine wrote a raving cover page story on September 10th, 2010, abandoning its reservations and arguing that India’s steadily accelerating growth rate since the 1991 pro-market, liberal (or ’neoliberal’if you wish to make them sound sinister) reforms was not a flash in the pan.

Apparently throwing caution to the wind, it speculated that India’s growth rate ’could overtake China’s by 2013, if not before’.

Some ’non-fiction’on India’s growth

But then, the naysayers, among them the socialists in the currently ruling Congress Party, have rejected the ’miracle’produced by the reforms by asserting darkly that the growth ’lacks a human face’, that it is not ’inclusive’, that the gains have accrued to the rich while the poor have been immiserized, that inequality has increased, and that India stands condemned before the world.

Perhaps the most articulate critics are the ’progressive’novelists of India, chief among them Pankaj Mishra whom the op-ed page editors of The New York Times regularly and almost exclusively invite to write about the Indian economy, a privilege they do not seem to extend symmetrically to American novelists to give us their profound thoughts on the US economy!

Mishra’s latest Times op-ed on October 2, 2010, writes of the ’alarmingly deep and growing inequalities of income and resources in India’, ’the waves of suicides of tens of thousands of overburdened farmers over the last two decades’, ’a full-blown insurgency . . . in central India’to defend tribals against depredations by multinationals, ’the pitiless exploitations of the new business-minded India’, and much else that is allegedly wrong with India!

While economic analysis can often produce a yawning indifference, and Mishra’s narrative is by contrast eloquent and captivating, the latter is really fiction masquerading as non-fiction.

The fact is that several analyses show that the enhanced growth rate has been good for reducing poverty while it has not increased inequality measured meaningfully, and that large majorities of virtually all underprivileged groups polled say that their financial situation has not worsened and significant numbers say that it has improved.

Abysmal growth prior to reforms

The enhanced, and increasing, growth rate since the reforms follow a period of abysmal growth rates in the range of 3.5 to 4.00 per cent annually for over a quarter of a century, starting in the 1960s. The cause had to do, not with our efforts at raising our investment rate, but with the fact that we got very little out of the investment we undertook.

The reason was that we had a counterproductive policy framework whose principal elements were:

1. Knee-jerk intervention by the government through a maze of Kafkaesque licensing and regulations concerning investment, production and imports, prompting the witticism that Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand was nowhere to be seen;

2. Massive expansion of the public sector into many areas other than utilities , with occasional monopoly granted to public enterprises by excluding entry by the private sector, with predictable inefficiencies that multiplied through the economy; and

3. Autarky in trade and inflow of equity investment which was so extreme that the Indian share of trade to GNP had fallen while it had increased in most countries whereas the inward flow of equity investment had been reduced to minuscule levels.

Policy changes not imposed by US

This policy framework had been questioned, and its total overhaul advocated, by me and Padma Desai in writings through the late 1960s which culminated in our book, India: Planning for Industrialization (Oxford University Press: 1970) with a huge blowback at the time from virtually all the other leading economists and policymakers who were unable to think outside the box.

In the end, our views prevailed and the changes which would transform the economy began, after an external payments crisis in 1991, under the forceful leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who was the finance minister at the time.

It is often suggested that the Indian policy changes were imposed from outside, reflecting what has come to be known by ill-informed observers as the Washington Consensus in favour of liberal reforms at the Bretton Woods institutions.

But that is no more true than to argue that the Soviet perestroika under President Gorbachev and the Chinese economic reforms starting in the late 1970s were imposed by Washington.

Why the transformation came about

In all three cases, the driving force was endogenous, a realization by the leadership that the old, counterproductive policy model had run their economies into the ground and that a change of course had to be undertaken.

The early reforms were primarily focused on dismantling the licensing regime (known popularly as the ’permit Raj’) which freed up the animal spirits of the private sector.

The economy was also steadily opened up: the average import tariff on manufactures, at virtually 113 per cent in 1990-91, was reduced steadily, avoiding the folly of ’shock therapy’, and now stands at 12 per cent.

While privatization would prove politically difficult, its intended effects in terms of efficiency of management were often achieved by opening up entry by private firms into sectors hitherto reserved for public sector enterprises: the entry of these firms, plus unwillingness to provide ever more subsidies to absorb losses, was like a pincer movement that meant: shape up or ship out.

Competition mattered

I remember how, on a flight of Indian Airlines from Mumbai to Delhi, the stewardess had brought breakfast with the tea already made Indian-style: one part tea, four parts milk, and spoonfuls of sugar. When I complained, she answered: that is the way we serve tea (and, under her breath: if you do not like it, lump it).

After the growth of splendid new private-sector airlines such as Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines, Indian Airlines changed: competition mattered.

The old policy architecture could not be demolished in one fell swoop. The leadership had to negotiate minefields of ideological opposition, bureaucratic intransigence, and the lobbies (called ’interests’by political scientists) that had fattened on the rents (i.e. monopoly profits) attending sheltered markets that they were earning.

The three I’s --- ideas, institutions and interests --- of the old regime had to be confronted. Then, again, the post-1991 reformers felt that their task was akin to cleaning up after a tsunami. Hastening slowly was their only choice.

Substantially enhanced growth after the reforms

Still, as the reforms gathered steam, the effects on the growth rate were palpable. The growth rate, rising to roughly 6 per cent, nearly doubled in the 1990s and increased still further in the next decade and has recently been close to 9 per cent.

The sense that India was now an ’emerging superpower’was a heady experience for Indian elites who had seen their country marginalized by policies that had become a laughing stock in the world while smaller nations in the Far East had emerged as the much-admired star performers.

The poor and the underprivileged have also benefited. But are the opponents of the reforms right to complain that the reformers have been focused on growth to the neglect of the underprivileged; and that the latter have been bypassed or immiserized?

It has become fashionable to say that this must be so because the Human Development Index, produced by the UNDP, puts India at the bottom, at 135th rank, in 1994.

But this is a nonsensical index which reduces, without scientifically plausible weights, several non-commensurate elements like literacy and health measures to a single number.

Media helps bad science gain traction

It is a fine example of how bad science gains traction because of endless repetition by the media: it must be dismissed as rubbish.

There is no substitute for hard, scientific answers to the questions concerning what has happened, during the period of reforms and enhanced growth, to the poor and the underprivileged: and these answers, as I will presently sketch, are more benign.

To begin with, however, let me remind you that the common criticism that Indian policy was interested in growth for itself is not even true if we go back to the early 1950s when planning took formal shape.

In fact, my first job in the Indian Planning Commission half a century ago was to devise a strategy to bring the bottom 30 per cent of India’s poor above the poverty line so they would enjoy a ’minimum standard of living’; and we came to the view, often expressed by the leaders of the Independence movement, that we had to grow the pie to do so: redistributing wealth in a country with ’many exploited and few exploiters’as the visiting Marxist economist Kalecki put it graphically in 1962, was not a strategy that could produce sustained impact on poverty.

Growth was therefore regarded as a principal ’instrument’, a strategy, for pulling the poor out of poverty through gainful employment, not as an end in itself.

Growth was seen as what I have called an activist, radical ’pull up’strategy, not as a passive, conservative ’trickle down’strategy, to reduce poverty.

The growth strategy to pull the poor up from poverty, however, did not work because growth itself did not materialize because of the counterproductive policy framework that I sketched above.

But now that growth has actually been produced by the post-1991 reforms, what can we say about the wisdom of the growth strategy? Let me sketch some of the studies that suggest an affirmative answer.

After a considerable debate, it is now generally accepted that the enhanced growth over nearly 25 years year was associated with lifting nearly 200 million of the extreme poor above the poverty line.

By contrast, consistent with commonsense, the preceding quarter century with abysmal growth rate witnessed no perceptible, beneficial impact on poverty.

Then again, at a narrower level, the political scientist Devesh Kapur and associates have studied the fortune of the Dalits (untouchables) in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, between 1990 and 2008, to find that 61 per cent of those surveyed in the east and 38 per cent in the west said that their food and clothing situation was ’much better’.

Most striking is the finding of the political scientists Al Stepan and Yogendra Yadav, drawing on polling data produced by the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, that for every disadvantaged group including women, the response to the question ’Has your financial situation improved, worsened, or has remained the same’posed in 1996 and again in 2004, shows that every group has overwhelmingly remained the same or improved: those who claim to have worsened are invariably less than 25 per cent of the respondents.

As for the relative economic outcomes of the disadvantaged groups, the economist Amartya Lahiri and associates have studied India’s ’scheduled castes’and ’scheduled tribes’, two particularly disadvantaged categories, and conclude that the last twenty years of major reforms ’have seen a sharp improvement in [their] relative economic fortunes’.

Then again, using household expenditure data for 1988 and 2004, the Johns Hopkins economists Pravin Krishna and Guru Sethupathy conclude that inequality, using a well-known measure invented by the Dutch econometrician Henri Theil, while showing initial rise, had fallen by 2004 back to the 1988 levels: a straight rise in inequality cannot be asserted.

I should also add that many reforms help the poor more than the rich because the rich can cope with the results of inefficient policies better than the poor.

If the public sector generation and distribution of electricity is inefficient, and the electricity goes off in the middle of the night in Delhi’s summer, the rich turn on their private generators and their air-conditioners continue working.

But the poor man on his charpoy swelters as his small Usha fan is not working. Those who object to letting in Coke and Pepsi forget that the common man derives his caffeine from these drinks while the well-off critics get theirs from the Espresso and Cappuccino coffee in the cafes.

The most interesting political implication of the success in finally denting poverty significantly, though nowhere enough, is that poverty is now seen by India’s poor and underprivileged to be removable.

India is witness finally to what I have called the Revolution of Perceived Possibilities. Aroused economic aspirations for betterment have led to political demands for the politicians to deliver yet more.

This suggests, as my Columbia University colleague Arvind Panagariya and I have hypothesized, that voters will look to vote for the politicians who can deliver growth, so that we would expect growth before the vote to be correlated with vote now.

In an important paper, Poonam Gupta and Panagariya have recently tested for this hypothesis and indeed found that it works. So, this implies that politicians should be looking to augment reforms, not reverse them as misguided anti-reform critics urge.

So, politicians would do well to strengthen the conventional reforms, which I call Stage 1 reforms, by extending them to the unfinished reform agenda of the early 1990s.

In particular, further liberalization of trade in all sectors, substantial freeing up of the retail sector and virtually all labour market reforms are still pending. Such intensification and broadening of Stage 1 reforms can only add to the good that these reforms do for the poor and the underprivileged.

But these conventional reforms have also generated revenues which can finally be spent on targeted health and education so as to additionally improve the well-being of the poor: these are what I call Stage 2 reforms.

When ’progressive’critics argue that Stage 2 reforms must replace Stage 1 reforms, because they appear superficially to be more pro-poor, they forget that Stage 2 reforms have been made possible only because Stage 1 reforms have been undertaken.

How to get the most bang for the buck from programmes under Stage 2 reforms is where we have to turning our attention as well. As it happens, Stage 2 reforms involve ’social engineering’and are inherently more difficult than Stage 1 reforms.

Thus, except for political difficulties, it is easy to reduce trade barriers: you just slash them. But if you want to improve education, for example, you have to worry about the best classroom size, the issue of teacher absenteeism, the question of how to get poor children to the school when their parents might want to have them work instead, whether you want to use school vouchers, and so on.

There is little doubt however that, once we have put our minds to work and our shoulders to the wheel, we will move ahead on both Stage 1 and Stage 2 reforms.

Many of the reforms require good governance and indeed necessitate a role for the government in some areas (in the appropriate provision of health, for instance) even as they require withdrawal of the government from others (as with inappropriate labour laws). Can we do this?

It is easy to get despondent today about the deterioration in governance because many seem to surrender much too easily to the notion that we have become hugely corrupt and that this is irretrievably so.

Thus, Transparency International’s index of corruption ranks us high on corruption. However, this index is wholly arbitrary, depending on subjective evaluation of the chosen respondents.

But in India, public figures are considered to be corrupt unless they prove to you otherwise. A blind man will tell you how he saw ’with his own eyes’a bribe being given and accepted!

A most distinguished Indian bureaucrat once told me that his mother said to him: ’I believe you are not corrupt only because you are my son’.

Equally, it is wrong to think that we cannot think of institutional reforms that can reduce the corruption we do have. The abolition of the permit raj, of course, eliminated that important source of corruption.

But that also means that we have removed from our system the way in which politicians could raise money for their campaigns which, while not as expensive as in America, are still large enough to matter.

This means that other forms of corrupt ways of raising political funds have proliferated. We need therefore legal ways to raise campaign finance. Americans have done this; we need to do so as well.

Then again, we can use science to get at corruption in several areas. Thus, Nandan Nilekani is engaged in arguably the most important innovative reform in recent years by creating a national database of identity details of Indian citizens.

This should take the political corruption out of the Public Distribution System and in the Employment Guarantee Scheme, for instance, and will also reduce bureaucratic corruption by bypassing the low-level bureaucrats who refuse to give you what you need unless you grease their palms.

In fact, what Nilekani is doing additionally is demonstrating anew how science is integral to our assault on poverty and other ills in our society. The enormous potential of science is variously manifested.

To take just three examples:

1. The invention of the cheap laptop by Media Lab at MIT and later by Intel, has almost made it possible financially to put a laptop into every lap;

2. The latest invention of Embrace baby warmers for the millions of premature and low-birth-weight babies born each year; these are slated to sell at a price that is 1% of the traditional incubator; and

3. The invention of BT Brinjal and other GM crops makes it possible to have a second round of the Green Revolution that we need so badly if we are to increase productivity in agriculture; but the government has to deploy scientific evidence and argumentation against the naysayers who have objected to these as Frankenstein foods and instead have been allowed to halt their use on flimsy, virtually unscientific grounds including assertions of ’agricultural suicides’that have been exposed often as unrelated deaths.

Perhaps we need to recall what Prime Minister Nehru said eloquently: ’It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening of custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving poor. Who indeed can afford to ignore science today? At every turn, we have to seek its aid. The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.’

Reflection on what I have said today should provide the agenda that the impressive young Members of the Lok Sabha, who clearly seek new perspectives and aim to accept fresh challenges, can embrace to take India to what Jawaharlal Nehru called our ’tryst with destiny’.

After sixty years of Independence, surely it is high time for his vision to turn into reality...

Jai Hind

7 Tips for Successful Telephonic Interview

Interview questions are tough - the phone interview makes them tougher

In some cases, telephone interviews are a way for employers to “pre-screen” possible job candidates before they are granted an in-person interview. In other cases, employers will conduct the full interview over the phone. Whether you are required to go through a pre-screening or have already been given the interview, you must be more prepared than you would be for an in-person interview, even if you are allowed to interview in your PJ’s. Below are some telephone interview tips to keep in mind so your next phone interview is a success.

Telephone Interview Tips

1. Use a landline. You don’t want to risk having problems with cell phone service. It is irritating for employers to conduct interviews if the call breaks up frequently or is dropped completely. If you don’t have a land line at home, just make sure you are in an area with as much cell phone service as possible. Do what you can so the process runs as smooth as possible.
2. Keep your materials handy. In fact, lay everything out in front of you. This includes your resume, notes about your career objective (even if it isn’t included in your original cover letter it’s a good idea to have this out depending on the questions he will ask you), a pen and pad of paper for note-taking and anything else you think may be helpful during your interview. Because you won’t have to schlep into an office, you can have anything out in front of you to aid with your success.
3. Steer clear of distractions. Find a quiet place to interview and stay there! There shouldn’t be any noise in the background to distract you or your potential employer. However, it is understandable that this can be tricky if you have young children at home who need your attention. When you set up your interview appointment, try to schedule it for as precise a time or window as possible. That way, you are able to avoid possible distractions (ex.: your phone interview is between 4 and 4:30, so no one can have company over during that time, the kids are fed and occupied or a sitter will watch them, if need be.)
4. Speak slowly and clearly. When you speak to people face-to-face, you are able to understand what they are saying more clearly because you can see their mouth move. So in a way, you are reading their lips! Neither you nor your potential employer will be able to do this over the phone of course, so speak clearly and a little bit more slowly than you would if you were talking to this person in person. If you can’t hear him, drop hints that he isn’t speaking clearly or loud enough by politely asking him to repeat himself. If this makes you uncomfortable at all you can always blame it on your phone: “I’m really sorry, it’s hard to hear you, the volume on my phone just won’t go up!”
5. Remember – you can’t be seen. That means that anything you say cannot be interpreted by your body language. Beware of jokes or sarcastic remarks that would have been harmless had he seen your facial expression. Maintain your professionalism; stay on target with the interview topics and focus on the key information about you that will get you hired.
6. No eating, drinking or chewing gum! This is self-explanatory. But, we humans are creatures of habit and might pop a potato chip in our mouths at just the wrong moment. However, when I say no eating or drinking I mean during the phone interview. You should eat beforehand to get your brain going so you can focus.
7. Prepare questions ahead of time. Just like in a personal interview, prepare a few questions to ask your potential employer at the end of your phone interview. Some examples are: “What does a typical day look like for an employee with this job?” “What are some skills I would need to develop in order to excel in the position I’m applying for?” “What software/equipment would I be using?” Remember – do not ask about salary or benefits until the employer has brought it up. Fortunately, it can be less intimidating interviewing over the phone with these telephone interview tips and you may even feel more confident that you’ll do well. Great! As long as you are fully prepared and take the necessary precautions, there is no reason why you shouldn’t have a successful phone interview.

15 Greatest Failed Prediction​s

"It will be years --not in my time-- before a woman will become Prime Minister."
-- Margaret Thatcher, October 26th, 1969.

She became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom only 10 years after saying that, holding her chair from 1979 to 1990. But she wasn’t all that wrong since she is the only woman to have held this post. Maybe she should have added the word “again.”

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“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

It may sound ridiculous now, but the prediction was actually true for about ten years after it was made. Almost every forecaster would settle for a ten year limit on the testing of their forecasts. Of course, by the 1980s and the advent of the PC, such a statement looked plain daft.

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“That virus [HIV] is a pussycat.”
-- Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, 1988,

By 2006, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization estimated that AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized on December 1, 1981.

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"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy."
-- Associates of Edwin L. Drake refusing his suggestion to drill for oil in 1859.

Only one hundred fifty years passed by since the first attempt to dig out oil from the ground met such contempt, and now the whole world is trying to look for unimaginable places to satiate the thirst for money that is propelled and sustained on this black gold.

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“A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.”
-- New York Times, 1936.

10 years later, in 1946, the first American-built rocket to leave the earth's atmosphere was launched from White Sands, attaining 50 miles of altitude.
NOTE: according to our readers "the first rocket to leave the Earth's atmosphere was actually the German V2."

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"Reagan doesn’t have that presidential look."
-- United Artists Executive, rejecting Reagan as lead in 1964 film The Best Man

Before becoming the 40th President of the United States in 1981, Ronald Reagan pursued an acting career, but spent the majority of his Hollywood career in the "B film" division. In 1964 he was rejected for a part in a movie with presidential candidate theme due to "not having the presidential look".

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"The singer [Mick Jagger] will have to go; the BBC won’t like him."
-- First Rolling Stones manager Eric Easton to his partner after watching them perform.

We can only wonder what Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger, Golden Globe, Grammy Award-winning English singer-songwriter, rock musician and occasional actor, has to say about it now.

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“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.”
-- Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859)

It may sound impossible to Dr Larder, professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at the University College London back in the 1800, but in 1939 the first high speed train went from Milan to Florence at 165 km/h (102.5 mph). Thankfully no one died. Nowadays these trains go at 200 km/h (125 mph) and faster.

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“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
-- Lord Kelvin, 1895.

This was said by Lord Kelvin (British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society) only eight years before brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright took their home-built flyer to the sandy dunes of Kitty Hawk, cranked up the engine, and took off into the history books.

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"There will never be a bigger plane built."
-- A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.

What would this engineer say if he saw the current largest passenger plane on earth, the Airbus A380? The Airbus A380 has 50% more floor space than arch rival Boeing's 747 Jumbo, with room for duty-free shops, restaurants and even a sauna, and can provide site for up to 853 people.

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"Taking the best left-handed pitcher in baseball and converting him into a right fielder is one of the dumbest things I ever heard."
-- Tris Speaker, baseball hall of famer, talking about Babe Ruth, 1919.

Ruth has been named the greatest baseball player in history in various surveys and rankings, and his home run hitting prowess made him a larger than life figure in the "Roaring Twenties". He became the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season (1927), a record which stood for 34 years until broken by Roger Maris in 1961. Ruth's lifetime total of 714 home runs at his retirement in 1935 was a record for 39 years, until broken by Hank Aaron in 1974.

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"Ours has been the first [expedition], and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality."
-- Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.

More than a century later, five million people annually visit this "profitless locality," by car, foot, air, and on the Colorado River itself.

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"If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one."
-- W.C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954.

In 1964 the United States Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health began suggesting the relationship between smoking and cancer, which confirmed its suggestions 20 years later in the 1980s. Nowadays, it’s well known that long-term exposure to tobacco smoke is the most common causes of lung cancer.

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"You better get secretarial work or get married."
-- Emmeline Snively, advising would-be model Marilyn Monroe in 1944.

In 1944, Marilyn Monroe was discovered by a photographer who encouraged her to apply to The Blue Book modeling agency. She was told by Snively, director of the Modelling Agency that she should became a secretary, besides they were looking for models with lighter hair. So Marilyn dyed her brunette hair to a golden blonde. She finally signed a contract with the agency. And of course, became Blue Book's most successful model.

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"Read my lips: No new taxes."
-- George Bush, 1988.

That pledge was the centerpiece of Bush's acceptance address, written by speechwriter Peggy Noonan, for his party's nomination at the 1988 Republican National Convention. It was a strong, decisive, bold statement, and you don't need a history degree to see where this is going. As presidents sometimes must, Bush raised taxes. His words were used against him by then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in a devastating attack ad during the 1992 presidential campaign.

Very Useful Shortcut Keys

Self Appraisal

A little boy went into a drug store, reached for a soda carton and pulled it over to the telephone. He climbed onto the carton so that he could reach the buttons on the phone and proceeded to punch in seven digits.

The store-owner observed and listened to the conversation: The boy asked, "Lady, Can you give me the job of cutting your lawn? The woman replied, "I already have someone to cut my lawn."

"Lady, I will cut your lawn for half the price of the person who cuts your lawn now." replied boy. The woman responded that she was very satisfied with the person who was presently cutting her lawn.

The little boy found more perseverance and offered, "Lady, I'll even sweep your curb and your sidewalk, so on Sunday you will have the prettiest lawn in all of Palm beach, Florida." Again the woman answered in the negative.

With a smile on his face, the little boy replaced the receiver. The store-owner, who was listening to all, walked over to the boy and said, "Son... I like your attitude; I like that positive spirit and would like to offer you a job."

The little boy replied, "No thanks, I was just checking my performance with the job I already have. I am the one who is working for that lady, I was talking to!"

Fundamenta​l Rights and Duties

May be we would have forgot what we studied when we were kids... This is just a reminder on "what you have" and "what you have to"

Fundamental Rights

The Constitution offers all citizens, individually and collectively, some basic freedoms. These are guaranteed in the Constitution in the form of six broad categories of Fundamental Rights, which are justiciable. Article 12 to 35 contained in Part III of the Constitution deal with Fundamental Rights. These are:

1. Right to equality, including equality before law, prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, and equality of opportunity in matters of employment;
2. Right to freedom of speech and expression, assembly, association or union, movement, residence, and right to practice any profession or occupation (some of these rights are subject to security of the State, friendly relations with foreign countries, public order, decency or morality);
3. Right against exploitation, prohibiting all forms of forced labour, child labour and traffic in human beings;
4. Right to freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion;
5. Right of any section of citizens to conserve their culture, language or script, and right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice; and
6. Right to constitutional remedies for enforcement of Fundamental Rights.

Fundamental Duties

 
The following are the Fundamental Duties prescribed by the Constitution of the nation under PART [IV-A] to its every citizen:

1. To abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem.
2. To cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle for freedom.
3. To uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.
4. To defend the country and render national service when called upon to do so.
5. To promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women.
6. To value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture.
7. To protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures.
8. To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.
9. To safeguard public property and to abjure violence.
10. To strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour and achievement.

Spot a Desi

No offences, just for fun...

1. Everything you eat is savoured with garlic, onions and chillies.
2. You try and re-use gift wrappers, gift boxes, and of course aluminium foil.
3. You are standing next to the two largest size suitcases at the airport.
4. You arrive one or two hours late to a party, and think it's normal.
5. You peel the stamps off letters that the Postal Service missed to stamp.
6. All your children have pet names, which sound nowhere close to their real names.
7. Your toilet has a plastic bowl next to the commode.
8. You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
9. You load up the family car with as many people as possible.
10. You use plastic to cover anything new in your house whether it's the remote control, VCR, carpet or new couch.
11. You live with your parents even if you are 40 years old. (And they like it that way).
12. If she is NOT your daughter, you always take interest in knowing whose daughter has run with whose son and feel it's your duty to spread the word.
13. You only make long distance calls after 11pm.
14. If you don't live at home, when your parents call, they ask if you've eaten, even if it's midnight.
15. When your parents meet Indian for the first time and talk for a few minutes, you soon discover they are your relatives.
16. Your parents don't realize phone connections to foreign countries have improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their lungs while talking.
17. You have bed sheets on your sofas so as to keep them from getting dirty.
18. It's embarrassing if your wedding has less than 600 people.
19. You list your daughter as "fair and slim" in the matrimonial no matter what she looks like.
20. You're always interested to know/interfere in others' personal matters, what they are doing, where they are going, etc.
21. You have really enjoyed reading this mail because you know some, or most of them, applies to you!

Interestin​g to Know

• Scientists say the higher your IQ the more you dream
• The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm.
• You use 200 muscles to take one step.
• The average woman is 5 inches shorter than the average man.
• Your big toes have two bones each while the rest have three.
• A pair of human feet contains 250,000 sweat glands.
• A full bladder is roughly the size of a soft ball.
• The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razor blades.
• The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannica.
• It takes the food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.
• The average human dream lasts 2-3 seconds.
• Men without hair on their chests are more likely to get cirrhosis of the liver than men with hair.
• At the moment of conception, you spent about half an hour as a single cell.
• There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.
• Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil.
• The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body.
• Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born.
• When you are looking at someone you love, your pupils dilate, and they do the same when you are looking at someone you hate.
• Your thumb is the same length of your nose.

At this very moment I know well you are putting this last fact to the test...

Now remove your thumb from your nose and pass this on to the friends you think might be interested in comparing their thumbs to their noses as well. :-)

FAQs on EPF and Pension Fund

Dear reader please note that this FAQs are applicable to India only...

Q1) What is the Contribution for Provident Fund both by the Employer & Employee ?
Ans : The Employee contributes 12% of his /her Basic Salary & the same amount is contributed by the Employer.

Q2) Is it Compulsory for all the employees to contribute to the Provident Fund ?
Ans : Employees drawing basic salary upto Rs 6500/- have to compulsory contribute to the Provident fund and employees drawing above Rs 6501/- have an option to become member of the Provident Fund.

Q3) Is it beneficial for employees who draw salary above Rs 6501/- to become member of Provident Fund ?
Ans Yes because provident fund contribution by the employer & employee is not a taxable income for Income Tax purpose.

Q4) What if an employee while joining establishment has a basic salary of Rs 4200 and after some period of time his basic salary increases above Rs 6501/-, does he have an option to terminate his member ship form the Provident fund act ?
Ans : Employee who while joining the organisation has a basic salary above Rs 6501/- have an option to either become or avoid becoming member of Provident fund but employees whose basic salary while joining the organisation is less then Rs 6501/- but after some period of time their basic increases above Rs 6501/- have to compulsorily continue to be member of provident Fund.

Q5) What is the contribution percentage to the Provident fund and Pension Scheme ?
Ans : Employers contribution of 12% of basic salary is totally deposited in provident fund account Whereas out of Employees contribution of 12% , 3.67% is contributed to Provident fund and 8.33% is deposited in Pension scheme.

Q6) Which form has to be filled while becoming member of provident fund ?
Ans : Nomination Form No 2 has to be filled to become a member of the Provident fund, form is available with HR department.

Q7 ) Which form has to be filled while transferring provident fund deposit ?
Ans : You just have to fill form no 13 to transfer your P.F amount.

Q8 ) What is the provision of the scheme in the matter of nomination by a member ?
Ans : Each member has to make a nomination to receive the amount standing to his credit in the fund in the event of his death. If he has a family, he has to nominate one or more person belonging to his family and none other. If he has no family he can nominate any person or persons of his choice but if he subsequently acquires family, such nomination becomes invalid and he will have to make a fresh nomination of one or more persons belonging to his family. You cannot make your brother your nominee as per the Acts.

Q9 ) When is an employee eligible to enjoy pension scheme ?
Ans : For an employee to become eligible for Pension fund, he has to complete membership of the Fund for 10 Years.

Q10 ) What does it mean by continuous service of ten years ?
Ans : When we say continuous service of 10 years in Employee Pension Fund, we mean to say that during services, for e.g., an employee who has worked with X company for say 3 years, then he resigned from that organisation and joined Y company, wherein he worked for 2 years, then resigned from there to join establishment for 5 years but during these 10 years of service he has not withdrawn but transferred his Employee pension fund, then we say continuous service of ten years.

Q11 ) When can an employee avail the benefit of Employee pension fund scheme which he has contributed during his ten years of continues service ?
Ans : An employee can avail the benefit after completion of 58 years of service.

Q12 ) What happens to the provident fund & Employee Pension fund if an employee who wants to resign from the service before completion of ten years of continues service ?
Ans : Employee can withdraw the PF accumulations by filling Forms 19 & 10 C which is available with the HR department.

Q13 ) What is this 19 & 10C form ?
Ans : Form No 19 is for Provident fund withdrawal & Form No. 10 C is for Pension scheme withdrawal.

Q14 ) Do we get any interest on the amount which is deposited in the Provident Fund account ?
Ans : Compound interest as declared by the Govt. is given for every year of service.

Q15 ) What is the accounting year for Provident fund account ?
Ans : Accounting year is from March to February.

Q16 ) What are the benefits provided under Employee Provident Fund Scheme ?
Ans : Two kinds of benefits are provided under the scheme-
a) Withdrawal benefit
b) Benefit of non -Refundable advances

Q17 ) What is the interest on the PF accumulations ?
Ans : Compound interest as declared by Central Govt. is paid on the amount standing to the credit of an employee as on 1st April every year.

Q18 ) What is the purpose of the Employee’s Pension Scheme ?
Ans : The purpose of the scheme is to provide for
1) Superannuation pension.
2) Retiring Pension.
3) Permanent Total disablement Pension
Superannuation Pension: Member who has rendered eligible service of 20 years and retires on attaining the age of 58 years.
Retirement Pension: member who has rendered eligible service of 20 years and retires or otherwise ceases to be in employment before attaining the age of 58 years.
Short service Pension: Member has to render eligible service of 10 years and more but less than 20 years. 

Q19 ) How much time does it take to receive P.F & pension money if an employee resigns from the Service?
Ans : Normally the procedure for receiving P.F & Pension money is , the employee has to fill 19 & 10 c Form and submit the same to PF Desk , which is then submitted to the P.F office after two months, this two months is nothing but a waiting period as the rules are that an employee should not be in employment for two months after resigning if he has to withdraw his P.F amount. After completion of two months the form is submitted to the regional provident fund Commissioner office after which the employee receives his amount along with interest within a period of 90 days.

Q20 ) Do we receive money through postal order ?
Ans Previously there was a procedure wherein member use to get P.F through Postal order but now While submitting the P.F form withdrawal form you have to mention your saving Bank account No. & the complete address of the Bank where you hold the account.

Q21 ) How would I know the amount of accumulations in my PF account ?
Ans : PF office sends an annual statement through the employer which gives details about the PF accumulations. The statement contains details like, Opening balance, amount contributed during the year, withdrawal during the year, interest earned and the closing balance in the PF account. This statement is sent by the PF department on completion of the financial year.

Q22 ) Which establishments are covered by the Act ?
Ans : Any establishment which employs 20 or more employees. Except apprentice and casual laborers, every Employee including contract labour who is in receipt of basic salary up to Rs. 6500 p.m. is covered by the Act.

Q23 ) In case after registering the establishment at any point in time, the number of employees working in it becomes less than 20 then will the Act apply ?
Ans : Any establishment which has been covered under the Act once shall continue to be governed by the Act even if the number of persons employed therein at any time falls below 20.

Q24 ) Is the Act applicable to a factory which is closed down but is employing a few employees to look after the assets of the establishment ?
Ans : No, Where the establishment is closed down and only four security men are employed for keeping a watch over the assets and properties of the establishments, the Act would not be applicable.

Q25 ) Is a trainee an employee under the Act ?
Ans : Yes, a trainee would be considered as an employee as per the Act but in case the trainee is an apprentice under the Apprentice’s Act then he/ she will not be considered as an employee under this Act.

Q26) Is it possible to appeal the orders of the Central Government or the Central Provident Fund Commissioner ?
Ans : Yes, there is a body called as Provident Fund Appellate Tribunal where an employer can appeal.

Q27 ) Who is the authority to decide regarding the disputes if any ?
Ans : In case there is a dispute regarding the applicability of the Act or the quantum of money to be deducted etc. the authority to decide are the
i)Centrala Provident Fund Commissioner,
ii)any Additional Provident Fund Commissioner,
iii)any Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner
iv)any Deputy Provident Fund Commissioner
v)any Regional Provident Fund Commissioner or
vi)any Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner

Q28 ) What in case there are workers involved as Contract labour ?
Ans : It is the responsibility of the Contractor to deduct the PF and submit a statement to the Principal Employer in the prescribed format by 7th of every month. The Company becomes the Principal Employer would be responsible for the PF deduction of the workers employed on contract basis.

Q29 ) Are the persons employed by or through a contractor covered under the Scheme ?
Ans : Persons employed by or through a contractor are included in the definition of “ employee ” under the Employee’s Provident Finds Act, 1952, and as such, they are covered under the Scheme.

Q30 ) In case the Contractor fails to deduct and submit the PF amount from the contract workers then what is to be done ?
Ans : The Company being the Principal employer is responsible for the PF to be deducted from the Contract workers as well. In case the Contractors fails to deduct and submit the PF dues then the Company has to pay the amount and can later on recover the amount from the Contractor.

Q31 ) Could the employer be punished in case the remittance of contribution by him is delayed in a Bank or post office ?
Ans : Employer cannot be punished or penalized in case there is a delay in the remittance of the contribution on account of delay in Bank or post office.

Q32 ) What happens in case there is a salary revision and a raise in the basic salary of the employee and arrears need to be paid, Do we need to deduct PF from the arrears as well ?
Ans : Arrears are considered to be emoluments earned by the employee and PF is to be deducted from such arrears.

Q33 ) Is it possible for an employee to contribute at a higher rate of interest than 12 % ?
Ans : Yes, if an employee desires to contribute an amount at a higher rate of interest than 12 % of basic salary then they can do so but it does not become obligatory for the employer to pay anything above than 12 %.This is called voluntary contribution and a Joint Declaration Form needs to be filled up where the employer and the employee both have to give a declaration as to the rate at which PF would be deducted.


Source: TaxGuru.in