JEWELS OF BHARAT

Bharat Ratna Medal

Recently, Govt. of India conferred "Bharat Ratna' to former Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya (posthumously), the founder of the prestigious Benaras Hindu University.

It became a trend to confer Bharat Ratna posthumously to some great personalities  of Pre-Independence days.  There is no wrong in honouring them as they are already jewels of India and we need not break our heads for their contention.   

The other day I read a news item  that Agra demands Bharat Ratna to Mirza Ghalib on his birthday.  No doubt that Ghalib deserves Bharat Ratna more than anybody else.  He is a 'Heart's Poet'.  I read his poetry and even visited his Haveli in Old Delhi and wrote an article about him                        (click here to read ).

Apart from Ghalib, there are equally other deserving  giants who need  to be honoured with the Country's Highest Civilian Award posthumously.  To set the curtains down on the controversy of who needs to be conferred Bharat Ratna, it is time for the country to prepare a shortlist of  all contenders and bring consensus among the political class and civil society and confer the Bharat Ratna with a single stroke as hanging the issue for prolonged time will only create more ripples and heartburn among certain sections of the society.

When such exercise is started, no doubt that Ghalib is front runner for this covetous award !

MOON WITH MY MOBILE

COW LESSONS

Phto courtesy : Eenadu - Telugu Newspaper dt 25.12.2014

There was a time when water  is freely available everywhere for domestic use. But the scenario has changed dramatically now.   The water tables are now fast drying up due to uncontrollable urbanization. The other reason is bad management of water resources and also not being able to properly manage the rain water.

Inspite of scarcity of potable water in major pockets of urban and rural India, still the water is being wasted due to bad management  of  supply systems/taps.  In my office, where I am working, the overhead tank always overflows  thereby the drinking water silently goes to sewage.   If you audit the washroom taps in public places, many of them have loose knobs thereby water is being leaked uncontrollably. The same is the case with railway coaches.

It is simply not the mechanical fault of taps, but a behavioural deficiency. At countless instances, myself closed the flowing taps.

When, we as humans don't act with responsibility, it is the turn of animals to teach us  lessons.

The image you are seeing above is taken by a prominent Telugu Daily : Eenadu's Cuttack reporter and published  today (25.12.2014).

As per the news item, at Cuttack's Mission Road, one cow has acted so strangely  by approaching the opened tap on the road side, drank water from it, and after that turned off its knob with its horns.  A man being amused by its act, again opened the tap, but the cow diligently  went to the tap and turned off the tap again to his utter bewilderment. 

When an animal shows this much wisdom while using the precious water, it is time for us to learn lessons from this holy cow ! 

OLDEST BLOGGER : RANDALL BUTISINGH

A blog post need not necessarily give a message all times.  It may be to share some best experience you got or some times, remember a giant and some others to propagate to the world some snippets of information.

Here is a grand old man who lived 100 years and peacefully left his mortal body on 9th December, 2012.  When you open his blog  http://randallbutisingh.wordpress.com/  it says the following :

  " Teacher Randall 100 years old, passed on to the great beyond on December 9, 2012. May his soul Rest In Peace.

Teacher Randall attained his 100th birthday on December 1, 2012. There was a wonderful party for the occasion held at the Nursing Home in Florida, where he resided. He had always looked forward to his 100th Birthday and he attained that goal, like the many other goals he achieved over his long life.

If you search Google, the search giant retrieves with search results linking to his blog, his Facebook links sufficiently trigger you to embrace technology to propagate your ideas.

His blog is minefield of his lifetime insights on every facet of human life.  The archives of his blog indicate that he wrote his first blog post on 28th October, 2007 at the age of   95 which many of us may not be lucky to live up.     

I don't have enough words to praise this old man and now it is time for us to visit his blog and digest his wisdom !

Click here to go to his blog   http://randallbutisingh.wordpress.com/

PIRACY WORLD

The other day night, when I was returning home after shopping with  family, our auto stopped at a signal post and a boy pierced through the clogged vehicles and approached us with a bunch of books for sale which include Chetan Bhagat's latest novel "Half GirlFriend".  Though, I am not fond of fictions, I casually asked the boy what was the  price of Chetan's best seller.  His answer was crisp Rs.150/-  I bargained him to give it for Rs.100/- which he readily accepted and put the book on my lap.

We reached  home and I scanned the book randomly and found the book pirated. My amusement evaporated in a fraction of second.  The book's low-quality paper and ink stains ached my heart.

Welcome to the world of pirated products.  You get pirated versions in all categories of products.   It is very easy to find branded products at a throwaway  prices in all the markets in India. You can deceive others by using pirated branded products but what to say to your  heart ?    It is an open secret that  Ray Ban sunglasses are sold  at Rs.250/- only  in any market in Delhi.  Majority of folks don't feel offended with such pirated products and they purchase and give a false pomp and show. 

Pirated movie business is another big mess in front of us.  A group of people were caught recently in Andhra Pradesh  when they were  found producing pirated copies of  latest Tamil movie 'Linga'.   Most of the VCDs/ DVDs are pirated versions which are being sold fearlessly on the roads in all places  and it is a thriving business. 

The problem is more serious in software world.   I think, only 10 -20 % might be using  licensed version of Windows on their computers and around 80% bank upon pirated versions. Microsoft already recognized this fact and it is time for them  to offer licensed verion at affordable price  so that the end-customer would be adequately convinced of  taking it with added layers of protection online. 

The revolution should  first come in people.  When they discourage such substandard products/pirated versions, the people who indulge in such wrongdoing  stop doing that.  Let us swear not to purchase any pirated products and  my experience of  purchasing  a pirated version of Chetan's book  rebooted my whole perspective  and now I am a transformed soul !